Blood Dark

by Louis Guilloux

  Whether he was or not, Amédée remained a stranger. There was a reason for his rough manners, his loud feet every morning, that pipe Cripure didn’t dare forbid, even though it gave him exasperating migraines, his evident lack of education which Cripure never would have wished to criticize in someone else and which was his own fault. In Cripure’s eyes, this boy, nice but ordinary, was the living illustration of a ridiculous fate. Amédée’s presence reminded him more cruelly than ever of a time when everything had broken once and for all, when he had needed to tie himself to Toinette forever. He had lost Toinette, and today, after all these years, this unfamiliar and vulgar son sprang from another corner of the world, fell from a star, like a fragment of someone else’s destiny mixed with his own by mistake.

  Someone tapped softly: Cripure barely moved, bristling nonetheless, like an animal in a trap. He raised one eyelid, an imperceptible movement, but just enough to allow him to glimpse Amédée looking like an extra who might be fired from the farce.

  “Are you asleep, Father?”

  No response. Things would go more quickly that way. The door closed as softly as it had opened.

  An instant later, Amédée was outside and passing, like a shadow puppet, in front of Cripure’s blinds. So much the better. An hour of peace on the couch. Wasn’t this where he suffered best?

  •

  He’d thought he would get over it—that this was only an attack like all the others. But no, on the contrary, the farther along he got, the more he struggled with this sorrow he thought he had exhausted, a pain which still had so many revelations for him.

  Words people said, or songs, came like arrows to target places he’d thought were forgotten in the vastness of memory. That time had stayed in him like an era all its own. Memory had its own, proliferating life. There had been many Toinettes, all passionately loved across unpredictable cascades of memories, and memories of memories. All with the same silent smile. Love was the fatal consequence of that smile, which he hoped would accompany him till the end, even though he wasn’t exempt from the anguished thought that one day everything would become not only indifferent but empty to him, that there would be nothing left of his love but the shame of no longer loving.

  He foresaw it as he had always foreseen everything. Because he had predicted everything that happened to him from the moment he’d started to think seriously about marriage, which is to say he had determined it, not of course, intentionally—could someone premeditate his own ruin? But, he thought, in the sense that destinies require our stubborn collaboration to accomplish themselves, that characters play out their fates, he had determined it from the first moment Toinette deceived him; and he had set it all in motion, though he pretended otherwise. At least, he had done everything to make it believable.

  But about Toinette—silence! Not a word about Toinette to anyone! Even to the point of trying to make Maïa believe that the large portrait of Toinette hanging in his study was of an aunt, and he had taken the trouble to invent a whole story about her—a total waste of course—Maïa knew perfectly well what he was doing.

  That sole image on the walls of the house (except for a colored portrait of President Fallières that Maïa had cut out of the Petit Journal illustré and hung in the kitchen) was an enlargement Cripure had commissioned after, from an amateur photo he had found in his briefcase, the only one of Toinette he possessed. The others, the ones from the wedding, all the many photos from the first year, he had abandoned with the papers, the books, the memories, and the rest. Following a habit he had taken up since the engagement (like a schoolboy) of never being without a photo of her, he couldn’t help but save at least this little image of a smile from disaster. Toinette was represented from the shoulders up, hatless, her hair a little bit messy. He had taken the photo himself, just a few days before the marriage, in the course of a walk in the woods. He could tell the day, even the hour, the photo itself took hold. Hanging from the lace of her neckline was a little gold watch he had given her that very morning.

  Maybe this watch was the reason he so rarely dared to raise his eyes to the portrait. The presence of the watch had eventually become intolerable to him—heavy symbol, extravagant rhetorical flourish, as if man’s destiny never expressed itself but through heavy symbolism and clumsy rhetorical flourishes! Whatever it was, he had no way to say or to will the contrary, the watch was there, black and white, nestled against the fabric with its face fixed, sealed like a tomb, the face like one of those famous watches that stop forever at the moment of accident or death.

  Three twenty. At that moment, that day, he had been busy taking pictures like a lucky hairdresser’s boy with his shopgirl, like the lowest of the petty bourgeois he was, low in every sense of the word. Idiot! He had lost the prey by grabbing the shadow. And that watch face, with the two unseeing features of its hands, reminded him of what was without a doubt the most banal hour, instant of his life—the one where a man busies himself around a Kodak and gravely pronounces the order to keep still.

  Toinette’s smile seemed oblivious to the presence of that watch, the way a person is blind to the presence of death once it’s upon him, alone and ignorant, in front of all the others who stand by, who see and can do nothing. Everything’s been played out. And what name do you give Chance after your chance?

  Maïa reappeared. Did he want her to prepare his “dressy clothes”?

  “You’re going out to their party later?”

  He replied with a large, irritated frown, but his voice was astonishingly soft after the insults of a moment ago.

  “Their party?”

  She thought he was asking her. He was the one who should know . . .

  “That ceremony for Deputy Faurel’s wife. You still going?”

  She waited, standing in the doorway.

  “I know!”

  He added, in a murmur to himself, “Buffoonery!” The general, the bishop, the prefect, the mayor, so what, the whole menagerie would be there.

  “You going?”

  He made a face, rubbed his temples with the tips of his fingers, and pushed his spectacles back in place: a tic.

  “What does it look like, Maïa? Of course I have to.”

  “Then you should’ve said so. If you’re going to be all fancy, don’t it make sense to get dressed this morning? So it’ll be out the way?”

  “Whatever you say.”

  “And then you’ll make sure to not be late for taking Amédée to the train?”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine what? Fine no or fine yes?”

  “Fine yes.”

  “So now you’re telling me—”

  “There’s no rush Maïa—what time is it?”

  “Nine.”

  “No rush—meaning I have class at eleven.”

  “So, what’d you say? Do I fix up your dressy clothes?”

  “Well yes, Maïa.”

  He would go out on the early side anyway. He would stop by the bank. Maybe see Monsieur Point, his notary. But that was none of her business. He didn’t mention it.

  She opened her chest (where his scholar’s gown and hood, which she called his “jack-in-the-pulpit outfit,” were sealed in a hatbox) and pulled out her man’s “dressy clothes”: his jacket, his pants, and his waistcoat. All were carefully folded, preserved in mothballs. The smell rose, a smell he hated, which reminded him of all things familial and sad.

  “What a bore!”

  “Nobody’s making you.”

  Poor Maïa! She didn’t understand! Of course, no one was going to come take him to this party by force. They weren’t going to send the police. But those scumbags! He knew them by heart. Dangerous rabble! Always ready to get even. And not just getting even, always ready to do harm, for the pleasure of it. She would catch on the day those asses—all Freemasons, naturally—made him leave his job, marched him out, sent him to the other side of France with a kick in the pants . . . Weren’t his assets here? The houses, the little cottage . . .

  “You don’t know a
nything about them!”

  “Oh, I’m not scared of them. Cause if it was me instead of you, they’d be under my thumb . . .”

  What was the point of arguing? She didn’t know anything about anything.

  She was brushing his dressy clothes. An iron was warming on the fire. Soon, she would go over the shirt, the tie. But as for the creases in the pants, there was no point in trying. With those shanks . . .

  THERE were days like this when he lost his taste for vengeance. A scattering of notes in his books, material to serve his life’s work: The Chrestomathy of Despair—such was the pedantic title he thought of giving it, unless he called it Sad-Sackery or even Death to the Rats—he put it out of his mind. All of this belonged to someone else, a stranger, and the ambition to justify himself through a book? Absurd. And yet, if I had enough talent! Another question entirely. But why wouldn’t I? Talent, that means having courage, courage enough to kill yourself. By that reckoning, I’d write it—my Chrestomathy, my Apocalypse, yes, my Stuck Pig . . .

  He got up, and crossed over to his desk. A note? He wrote: “If I so often cite Hoffmann, Edgar Allen Poe, Gogol, it’s not that I think the petty bourgeois life of provincials—and why not Parisians?—recalls in any way the environment of these great geniuses, unless you think about it after the fact. The thought that a thousand quotidian examples could grasp absolute reality. From that perspective, I could call my book: The Sufferings of a Petty Bourgeois, or Hoffmann Resurrected.”

  He thought for a moment then wrote again:

  “They express, in this world, the fantastical within the non-fantastic. The inverse, the reverse, the soul in turmoil. If I also often cite Flaubert with these others, it’s because that dear Gustave, who was one of them—a bourgeois—was also the first to attempt and even to achieve this portrait of the NO.”

  He threw down his pen. Enough work for the morning. Enough ruminating. “Literature makes me shudder . . .”

  The doorbell: who, who could it be? At that hour of the morning, Basquin, the old couple’s only visitor, had guard duty at the camp for civilian prisoners.[4] And if it wasn’t Basquin, who could it be? A mistake maybe.

  Maïa’s clogs clattered down the hallway.

  Cripure came forward. “I’m not home—”

  A sigh. He waggled his finger twice in front of his nose. Then—since he certainly couldn’t tiptoe, but with a bizarre mincing that was its equivalent—he returned to the couch and sat down, ears pricked.

  Maïa was speaking. But again, with whom?

  “He’s sleeping, sir.”

  “I can wait,” the visitor replied.

  “But that’s a bother . . . and plus, he’ll maybe sleep like that till noon . . .”

  “Too bad. I’ll wait anyway.”

  “Where?” Maïa was insolent.

  “Outside.”

  Cripure got up and took a step toward the hall, his hand cupped behind his ear. There was something familiar about that voice . . .

  “And who are you anyway?” Maïa wanted to know.

  “One of his former students.”

  “Oh you think he cares about chasing after his old students! Old or new, it’s the same difference to him, you know . . .what are you called?”

  “Étienne Couturier.”

  “Oh yeah? So your papa works with Master Point, the notary?”

  “Yes,” the young man quickly replied, “but that’s neither here nor there. I have a note to give him . . .”

  “For my man?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ok . . . give it here.”

  “No, Madame—excuse me—I need to deliver it with my own hands.”

  “It’s from the notary?”

  “No Madame.”

  “Well, that’s not unheard of, you know. So who’s it from?”

  “A friend of mine—a monitor at the school.”

  “Give it here.”

  “I cannot, Madame.”

  “Putting on airs!” Maïa was angry. What did he take her for, this little sniveller? Did he think she was nobody? Good for nothing? “You’ve got some nerve,” she said. “If that’s the way it is, you’d better clear out and come back later. And that’s that.”

  “I promise you, Madame, this is quite necessary . . .”

  “Quite necessary!” Maïa simpered. “You can’t talk like everybody else? What a little fancy-pants, ‘quite necessary!’ ”

  She moved to slam the door in his face, it served him right, that idiot, to teach him she wasn’t just some cleaning lady, but Cripure’s sudden voice in her ear made her whirl, furious.

  “Well, look who’s here!”

  “Come now, Maïa, my little chickadee, come come . . .” He had dragged his hampered steps to the door and smiled vaguely, standing on the threshold, deformed giant with his too-small head, with his too-long limbs. An old hunting jacket in maroon velvet, spattered with ink and grease stains, missing more than half its buttons. Wrapped around his neck, a red muffler with one end tossed over his shoulder, like the ermine ends of the scholar’s robe he wore for prize days, or for the funeral of a colleague. Dangling on his chest by a thread, a little penny whistle, which he used to call his dog Mireille, who so loved to run out of sight, to jump, to leap—at the risk of getting bitten by a rabid dog or humped by a mongrel. His gray slacks, much-mended, barely held up by a leather belt, sagged over his slippers. And beneath the jacket, a little vest, black and old-fashioned, opened to reveal a shirt that was abundantly stained by flea bites.

  “Come now, Maïa, come now . . .”

  Maïa crossed her arms gravely. “What’s this—you want to keep the pig and eat the bacon? I’d sure like to know how you manage that!”

  “That’s enough Maïa, come! Let him in, why don’t you let him in,” and turning to the young man, “Please come in, sir.”

  “You really don’t have a clue, do you!”

  “Enough, enough!”

  “Double-dealing, all right. There’s no point in me telling him you’re sleeping if you drag yourself out here and bring him in. Go on you old waffler—” she said, withdrawing into the hall.

  She gave an exaggerated shrug and flicked her thumb at the young man: “Well come on in now. I guess he’s his own boss, eh.” Grumbling under her breath that she couldn’t make head or tail or whiskers or feet of any of this, she went into the study, opened the blinds, and got back to her cooking.

  Étienne still stood by the hall door, hat in hand, his face marked with pale nervousness. This was not how he had expected to find things!

  How many times in the last year had he circled this house, never daring to approach and ring the bell, how many times had he lain in wait in some town doorway, wondering if Cripure would pass by, renewing for the hundredth time his resolution to approach and speak to him! Cripure, the only man capable of answering his questions, the only one who could be like a brother, the only pure one, amidst the sellouts and the butchers! He hadn’t found the courage to execute his plan, he kept pulling back, retreating further and further into solitude, debating with himself in a shadowy world, more and more at a loss. For a year, he had lived only for this huge, sickly phantom, dejected, disdained, whose presence had provoked (and still provoked) an embarrassed silence. All the paths were blocked. His relationship to his father, and to pretty much everybody, was a miserable game of hide-and-seek where each side found a way to cheat. They feared the truth more than death. Cripure, at least—

  Cripure asked, in a quiet, polite voice, “You have a note for me? I thought I heard—but please—won’t you—please come in. It’s from the school?” he continued, walking into the study.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “The principal?”

  “No.”

  Well then. It wasn’t serious. He’d have been surprised in any case that the principal would disturb him.

  “No,” continued Étienne, holding out the letter, “It’s a note from my classmate Francis; I just ran into him. A dorm monitor, sir—”
r />   “Lovely . . .” Cripure took the letter and set it on the table without opening it. It must be something about a detention, some kind of community service project. It could wait.

  He eased himself down behind the desk piled with books and paper in total disorder, a real pigsty, Maïa called it. He pressed his temples with his fingertips, adjusted his spectacles, wiggled his false teeth around in his mouth.

  Étienne still stood.

  This “study”—they weren’t kidding! It was a cave all right, and even a dank one, since he could see, under the hanging tapestry, the yellowed plaster, crumbling, the large green stains on the ceiling, the low light. He was suffocated by whiffs of cooking mixed with the smells of ink, dust, old books, and above it all, the reek of dogs.

  “Please don’t pay any mind to that little tiff earlier,” said Cripure with an embarrassed air. “In this dog’s life, you know,” he forced a laugh, “you’ve got to know how to stick up for yourself—pity you got caught in the crossfire. My woman, you understand, following orders—for me—one must—”

  Étienne responded by babbling too. His visit, he said, wasn’t just random. He would not have allowed himself—without a serious reason, to disturb the solitude of—he had enough respect for his teacher—

  “Oh, respect.” Cripure showed his disdain. It wasn’t respect he looked for in youth. He would have wanted camaraderie—if he had wanted anything. But it was the same as with everything else—hopeless! Popular with his students? Ha.

  “Please have a seat, sir.”

  Étienne sat down heavily. No, he definitely hadn’t imagined the meeting this way. On his way over, he had a thousand things turning in his head. How easy it had seemed! He had even entertained the idea that Cripure would be equally happy to see him. His loneliness must have been so overwhelming! But the words he had prepared would not come.

  “This is a farewell visit, sir.”

  Cripure slowly raised his big, lazy eyes to the young man. Practically a child’s face. Seeing his bowed skull, Cripure understood the goodbye in question.