Yep! There he goes with his kid!
He went downstairs.
•
Left alone, Maïa tidied up the kitchen a bit, made the bed, then went into Cripure’s study with the idea of sweeping it out. There was no use cleaning in there when he was at home—he wouldn’t let her come in there. She had to wait till he was out to make it even a little bit presentable in that pigsty and even then she wasn’t allowed to touch anything, as if it was full of treasures too fragile for her rough hands.
With the end of her broom she retrieved the letter that Cripure had let fall under the sofa and swept it out with the rest.
The bell rang softly twice, and from behind the door Maïa asked, “that’s you is it?”
“Well, who else?” Basquin’s voice replied.
She opened the door. Basquin came in grumbling, a cigarette butt dangling from his lips, and went into the kitchen, sitting himself down.
“A little coffee?” she asked.
“If you don’t mind—”
The coffeepot was still warm on the burner.
Maïa brought over two glasses, the rum, the sugar, and a little bit of pound cake she’d saved for him.
“A little duckling to start,” he said. He poured some rum into the bottom of his glass and dunked a sugar cube, then sucked it. His puffy face was the color of old wood, as if it were polished. One eye was bigger than the other.
“And where’s Elephant Feet?”
“He just left to see his son off.”
“And he’s coming back here after?”
“Not before tonight. There’s some party he’s got to go to, some decoration or other for the wife of that Faurel.”
“Oh! Well then.” Basquin doubted it. Sometimes Cripure left, supposedly for days, and came back ten minutes later. He took care to remember how things had happened that time he pretended to go to all the way to Greece! He’d talked about the trip for two years, and booked his ticket all the way to Marseille, all paid for, and he didn’t even make it to Paris. He got off at the first stop, yep, and came back. He imagined they were following him, that there was a conspiracy against him, didn’t they know about it—what foolishness!
“Do you know,” said Maïa, “he gave him a thousand francs.”
Basquin choked into his glass.
“Are you crazy?”
“Don’t believe me if you want. But I’m telling you . . .”
“Ah! Well I’ll be damned . . . a thousand bones!”
“One bill.”
He looked at her as if he couldn’t quite wrap his mind around it. “Couldn’t you of—” He didn’t dare finish. Maïa’s face had changed. No, but really. He wasn’t going to reproach her? It wasn’t as if . . .
“What’s that to do with you?” she said. “It’s not your dough.” He didn’t answer. It was true, what she said. It wasn’t his business, but it did something to him all the same. A thousand bones! It was a thousand bones pissed away. Amédée wouldn’t have time to spend it before he got to the front, and he could be killed that same day. And even without that—
“You’re not watching him sharp enough.” “I do what I can,” said Maïa, “but the cash is his. He doesn’t tell me his business.”
“Clearly not! I can surely tell how this goes. You’re the fifth wheel on the carriage, eh. You don’t count. It’s always the same song and dance.” And after a moment of hesitation, “He’s got to marry you, eh?”
“Oh that’s what this is about!”
It was an idea long held between them. Once they got married, Cripure’s cash would fall into Maïa’s hands, and then—of course Cripure would die first. Basquin was thinking of the future.
“Listen,” he said, crossing his arms, “you’re nothing but a ninny. Huh! There he goes, sticking his bastard with a thousand bones, but one of these days another one will turn up, and what’ll he give that one? And then, does he have children from his first wife?”
“Dunno.”
“You’d better find out! Suppose he dies, God forbid . . . And you, you’ve got nothing to do but bury him, thanks, goodbye? You’ve been left out of the chapter, eh? And all those sous, you tell me, where will they go? It’s idiotic! You can’t be sure, with a clever one like him, how the cards lie. Some legitimate son or nephew will come out of the woodwork, taking the inheritance under his elbow and laughing at you all the way to the bank, my poor Maïa. And you, you’ve cared for him, washed him, pampered him like a little brat, you’ve made him fancy little dishes every day and this is what you get? Do you want me to say it? It wouldn’t just be idiotic, it’d be criminal! What? You make me laugh the way you talk! Better think again, goody two-shoes! He’s got to marry you, or there’s no justice in this world.”
She listened, head down. All this was reasonable. Basquin saw how things stood, that was for sure. But the other one wouldn’t hear of it. As soon as she mentioned marriage, he’d blow up with anger. And how angry he got!
“It’s not his plan,” she said.
Basquin bent forward in his chair, his arm stretched out, one elbow on his knee. He clicked his tongue. “Tsk, tsk, you don’t know how to handle it.”
“And you, what would you try?” she said, looking him in the eyes.
He lowered his voice. “But, this is ridiculous!” he said, gritting his teeth. “Don’t you see you’ve got him right where you want him?” He waggled his finger under Maïa’s nose. “What would he do without you?” he said, bringing his face closer, his two hands on his knees. “Can you tell me that?”
They stared at each other for a moment, neither one of them budging.
“I know it,” she said.
“So, then go for it,” said Basquin, “take the upper hand. Give him his marching orders: You marry me or I’ll walk out. You’ll see,” he said, crossing his legs, and digging in his pocket for cigarette paper, “you’ll see if he doesn’t hop to it.” He shook his head, rolling his tobacco all the while. “A Godforsaken thousand francs!”
He lit his cigarette, stretched out his legs under the table and picked up his glass. “A thousand bones! If I went to the front, I’d come back rich, you can be sure of it . . .”
She didn’t reply.
They swilled their coffee in little sips, sitting across from one another, without anything else to say to each other, without even looking at each other, like an old married couple. Basquin smoked. He poured himself another shot of rum, which he drank in one swallow, and stood up.
“Your man?” he said, touching his forehead, “he’s cuckoo.”
She still didn’t respond.
Calmly, without putting down his cigarette, while Maïa rinsed the glasses, he took his clothes off.
“Is Madame ready?”
CRIPURE dragged along at Amédée’s side. He scolded himself for not hiring Père Yves for this departure ceremony. It hadn’t even occurred to him. It’s true that in the moment, with ten glasses of Anjou in his blood—Well, he could still beat himself up for it. What’s more, he was tired from the comings and going of the morning, Amédée’s presence at his side, what a penance! They couldn’t find a word to say to each other, and it was so slow, this advance toward the station—Amédée slowed his steps, but clumsily, and Cripure was dying to tell him to get out of there, slip away, run!
He didn’t dare.
At least if he’d been in the cab, besides the benefit of being driven, and at a speed, he could have put on an act, pretended to be daydreaming, maybe sleeping, his usual strategy. Instead he’d had to start a conversation when they left the house about the rain and the nice weather, which had not taken them very far. And since then, nothing.
People were looking at them.
Oh, of course, he didn’t give a damn about what they thought, but all the same! There was so much evil in certain surprised looks, such spontaneous hatred. And not only evil and hatred, but you could say certain people, whose faces he didn’t even recognize, understood everything, guessed what was in the bottom of
his heart.
“Are you out of breath, Father? Maybe we’re going too quick?”
He hadn’t realized he was panting.
“No—yes.” When it came down to it, yes. What was the point of explaining all that? Let’s get this over with as fast as possible—
“Won’t you be late?”
“Oh that’s no problem! I’m not in a rush to go get my face blown off, you know, Father.”
He hadn’t understood that Cripure was giving him an out. If I’m honest with myself, I’d leave him . . . but wait. What had Amédée just said? Something about the front, about getting his head blown off. If I’m honest with myself I wouldn’t leave him, on the contrary. I have money. If I was honest with myself, I’d give him the money to desert.
That was sensible. That was the course faithful to himself. Was he a revolutionary? Yes or no? He gave himself the impression of one of those sinister fathers who puts a revolver in his son’s hand instead of going to the bank for the fifty thousand francs that would let him escape to Venezuela.
But Amédée hadn’t asked for anything.
Cripure wanted to ask all the same.
“Haven’t you—tell me, haven’t you had enough?”
Amédée hadn’t expected that question, it was plain to see in his face. “Well, yeah!”
“Everyone has, right?”
“You didn’t hear about those mutinies?”
“Yes. But, isn’t it true, the movement was crushed, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. But it’s too bad.”
“Ah?”
“Sure. It could’ve been the end of the war, eh? The end forever. There never would’ve been another. We would’ve been happy. I can’t explain it to you, Father, but I can feel it, in here, eh?” he said, banging a fist on his chest.
Cripure didn’t say anything else. He’d had to wait until the moment of departure to find out that Amédée was an idealist in his own right, and moreover a character that would be pretty typical in a Zola novel! He looked at him with pity bordering on scorn. Bah!
“You maybe don’t agree?”
Cripure made a face. “I’d like—” A monstrous thought crossed his mind: that he didn’t need to regret not being able to save Amédée’s life because it wasn’t worth it. He was just one of the herd . . .
To dare speak of being happy! To mutiny in the name of future happiness—as that young lieutenant had done yesterday—took an absolute ignorance of mankind! Once again, if they’d spoken of nothing but blowing capitalism to bits, that would be one thing. But the rest . . .
They didn’t say anything more, and continued their painful advance. How long it was! There was so much of it, streets and streets!
Cripure stopped a little in front of the station. Rather than waiting on the platform under a car door for the train to leave. The pain would be worse in that moment—it was better to brush it off.
“Listen, my child, I’d better leave you here.”
“Ok.”
“You don’t want me there, isn’t that so?”
“What a thought!”
“Come here . . .”
The arrival scene didn’t reproduce itself—not a sob, not a shiver, no drama. It was a polite goodbye, more like acknowledgment. Everything went smoothly.
“And so goodbye,” said Amédée. “I’ll write to you. And thank you, you know.”
“Oh hush.”
“You’ve been kind to me and all.”
“Hush now.”
“Oh you didn’t have to do all of this, eh?”
“Go on, go on. Hush, my child.”
One more word would spoil everything. Each of Amédée’s words cut into him cruelly. But Amédée thought his father was being polite. He insisted, “I’ll never forget it.”
“Listen,” said Cripure, bending to whisper in his ear, “I put something for you in your wallet. You’ll find it. No, no, don’t thank me. Go now. Goodbye.”
He pushed lightly on his shoulder, Amédée still repeating, “You didn’t have to. You’re so kind!”
So kind!
He watched Amédée leave. What do I know? he murmured, sighing. And when Amédée had disappeared he continued on his way. What can all this matter anyway—Toinette is dead!
•
Monsieur Babinot climbed calmly toward the station. A cigarette after lunch, when his wife wasn’t watching, that was his one weakness. So he smoked it in little drags, not hurrying, and all the while keeping an eye out like a magpie for some boy with a kind face who would accept one of his “pomes” and who, in return, might let fall some heroic anecdote, some sublime phrase for his collection.
While he walked he recited his poems to himself, as if he were humming, delectating his own work once again, delighted to find his memory intact.
No sooner had Cripure made a few steps down the road after leaving Amédée to his fate, than he was already ceasing to think about it, dreaming of being finished with that burden, when he found himself nose to nose with Babinot.
While he recited his poems, Babinot sent severe looks all around him, as if it was his job to ensure that all was going well in town. He felt responsible for the morals of its citizens, old patriot that he was. And this patriotism certainly wasn’t a recent thing! He’d always given incontestable proof at every opportunity. Hadn’t he always been one of the most faithful attendees of the military concerts in front of the officers club every Tuesday, and also in the little squares on Thursdays and Sundays? Of course he had! He beat time with his finger, listening to the quick-step march. At the end of each set, he clapped louder than everyone, so much that people would say his hands were made of wood. Often he even accompanied clapping with his voice, encouraging the musicians and the singers. But that wasn’t enough for Monsieur Babinot. He also knew how to make sure the French army was respected, going so far as to knock off, with the tip of his cane, the hat of some interloper who was thinking God knows what, one had to ask, as the flag passed one 14th of July. A little tap of the cane, deftly applied, and hop! hop! The hat had popped off like a cork. A punch in retaliation, pow! And Monsieur Babinot had learned the cost of making others salute a flag that wasn’t theirs. A little row had resulted. But oh well! The interloper had saluted all the same, and that was all Babinot cared about.
When he saw Cripure approach, his eyes downcast, his lip bitterly curled, Babinot accosted him with aggressive joy, extending his hand with the brutal gesture of someone demanding your wallet or your life.
And, stopping on the edge of the sidewalk, looking proudly at Cripure with the particular air of an examiner who is also the police commissioner. “How goes France?” he said.
Oh! thought Cripure, so it already begins! Where could he escape? Where could he hide? They were tracking him everywhere.
He bent down, his hand still imprisoned in Babinot’s, not sure he had quite understood this time, or, if he had, he was sure Molière had been outdone.
“I’m sorry?”
“I asked you, ‘How goes France?’ ” Finally letting go of Cripure’s hand, he continued: “It’s my idea that when we greet each other, we shouldn’t ask after each other’s health anymore, not just an ordinary ‘How are you?’ but once again with those words ‘How goes France?’ ”
A deep sigh escaped Cripure’s chest.
Really, he couldn’t come to terms with them on anything. It meant becoming like this imbecile who was talking to him about France. All around, they talked about it in more or less the same tone, and it was unbearable for Cripure, who knew just as well as they did, and perhaps better, that it was only for love of their country. But it was harder to play out the comedy of agreement when they had that love in common—it would have been easier in the opposite case, when he simply could have disagreed. But had they understood?
“France? France bleeds,” he said.
Babinot was taken aback. “Let’s not be pessimists! No my dear colleague, let’s not be bad examples! What we need to do and what I’ll allow
myself to recommend, oh oh! is a discreet joy. That our dear men in the trenches have laughter. Their laughter is heroic. We have smiles. The smile demonstrates balance—a calm spirit and a confidence in the future. Not for the world should we seem to whistle as we walk through the woods. Not for the world should we seem like those people who turn a deaf ear. To the French! Always for the French!”
He followed Cripure and continued, “the little power that’s in everyone will thus grow and be amplified. Clarified. What’s the secret? What’s the method? To put together the best of what we have inside us, to tie together what we have that’s most precious, to think together on what we have in our philosophy that’s purest. That’s why we all have to come together,” he said, thinking of the party where they’d meet in a little while. “Each gathering must be a miniature portrait of our sacred Union. By the way,” he kept on, “the general is cured!” Babinot trumpeted, as if he were addressing a deaf person.
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