“Where’s it got to?” Maïa grumbled, looking for her bottle. “Where’d you tuck it away, Saint Pack Rat?”
Cripure, standing in the kitchen doorway, his hands in the pockets of the goatskin, didn’t reply.
“I’m talkin’ to you . . .”
“I don’t know, Maïa.”
They’d forgotten that bottle, in all the ruckus, and Cripure himself hadn’t thought of it again, even though he’d bought it with the thought that the moment he got to empty it would be a good one. But where the devil had he stuck it? It wasn’t in the pocket of his goatskin anymore, that much he knew.
“In the bag?”
It was next to the bag, in the corridor where he’d left it when he came home. Maïa found it there. She carried it over, disappeared into her pantry, took three glasses and returned with it all in her arms, the corkscrew between her teeth.
Moka hurried to help her. He ripped off the wax, and pushed the corkscrew in, holding the bottle between his thighs.
“Pop, there it is!”
And he filled the three glasses on the edge of the table.
“Let’s clink,” she said.
Cripure took a step. How morose he looked! He reached out a hand with indifference and took a glass.
“What’s this about?” said Maïa. “That’s a funny face to see at a moment like this. Come on! It’s not the time. Seeing as everything’s finished eh? So, off with it, to happiness. Cheers!”
He jumped. “So be it!” he said.
And he clinked. Then, he raised the glass to his lips, but before he touched it, he cried:
“To Nabucet’s health! Drink, drink, to the health of my opponent . . .”
And he sang, like in Carmen:
“de mon adver-sai . . .ai . . .re . . .”
“What’s gotten into you?”
Maïa looked like she would choke on her glass.
“Me?” he said. “I’m laughing. We must laugh a bit, you see. It’s you who asked for it! Ah! Ha, ha!” He drank his glass in one gulp and put it back on the table with a gesture of brandishing a sword. Moka and Maïa looked at him. In a false, weak, and very dishonest voice, he sang again:
“Cripure-a-dor en ga . . .a . . .a . . .ar . . .de
Cripur-e-ador!
Cripur-e-ador . . .”
At the same time he did what he could to actually get himself into the en garde position and make a go of it with his feet, which gave him the look of a fat dancing bear.
“Oui, songe bien, oui, songe en combatant . . .”
Maïa turned red with anger. Putting down her glass, which she hadn’t emptied:
“Are you done yet?”
“What, Maïa?”
“Are you done joking around?”
“Oh! You were too! But it’s Carmen,” Cripure replied, “Carmen, ma Carmen adorée . . . Nietzsche was crazy about that music, my boy,” he said, turning to Moka, “The heyday of music, he called it. And . . . hmm! He said too—but this is something else entirely—that man must love his fate. But that’s a joke.”
Maïa was reassured that he’d stopped playing at soldiering and taken a calm tone of voice, the one he usually used when he talked with people about things she didn’t understand. She emptied her glass.
“You must rest a little, my dear professor,” said Moka.
“That’s just what I’ll do,” Cripure replied. And he sat down for starters. There was a moment of silence. Then, Cripure’s little voice made itself heard once more:
“I’m grateful to you, of course, for . . . for your friendly assistance and . . . honesty. I won’t discuss anymore your admiration for the success of Monsieur Nabucet. What good would it do! What good would it do!” he continued in a desperate voice, reaching out his arms, his eyes looking up to the ceiling. “I’ll also spare you my recounting of the story from my side, a sinister comedy, you see, in which I was taken for a fool. What would be the point of speaking about it? Ah, ah! Success is success.” He went quiet and lowered his head, his two big hands resting on his knees, with a childish frown on his lips. “Leave it, let it pass, let it drop!” he cried, standing up and closing his eyes.
In death, he’ll have that face, thought Moka.
Cripure raised his two open hands in a gesture of refusal, his lips softened, and he said, still keeping his eyes closed, “Indifference is the wise man’s umbrella, as solitude is his refuge . . . I think I’ll retire, isn’t that right . . .yes—”
“Don’t listen to that,” interrupted Maïa. “All that, that’s for the picture show.”
“Shush!” said Cripure, “shush!”
They reached the door.
On the doorstep, Cripure held Moka’s hands in his own for a long time, then he bent down to whisper in his ear so that Maïa wouldn’t hear him. “You have made me sign my disgrace,” he said.
And without waiting for a response, he pushed Moka outside with the tip of his finger.
DAY WAS rising. It was the hour when quite often, after a night of insomnia, Cripure would dress in haste, putting on an old brimmed hat, grabbing his rifle, and whistling for Mireille, who bounded with joy, he’d go out for a walk in the fields.
That was where he did his best hunting.
How many times had he returned from those morning walks holding a handsome rabbit by its ears, or a hare, or once even a fox! They’d had the pelt tanned. Maïa still had it in her wardrobe, next to Cripure’s dressy clothes.
While he hunted, she made the coffee, cleaned the house, and he would return to breakfast with a light heart, happier to confront the day of chaos, the dirty mob of his students, the dirty snouts of those gentlemen.
How many times!
He left that morning as he had done so often, but he didn’t whistle for Mireille, he didn’t take his rifle, he didn’t even think to put on his hat.
In slippers, his head bare, wrapped from head to toe in his cherished goatskin, he went down to the road with his tightrope walker’s step. Standing at the door Maïa called to him.
“Where’re you off to?”
He returned slowly, pretending to be listening.
“Where’re you off to?” Maïa repeated.
Cripure raised an arm, seeming to point toward the countryside.
“Good,” she said.
And she went back inside, unleashing the little beasts. There was no point in keeping them chained up now the night was over. They pranced. She let them out in the garden a bit then brought them back inside.
“There, that’s done,” she said, sitting down to grind her coffee. And she yawned. They’d woken her up too early.
“Sweet Jesus!”
She yawned once more, stuck a hand in her mane, and holding the coffee grinder between her thighs, she turned the handle.
That was all fairy tales, la-di-dahs. But he was like that, a funny one. One fart out the rump, one out the ear. Always. A little walk wouldn’t do him any harm. When he came back he could swallow a nice cup of coffee and on the stroke of eight he could go off, take up that little job of his.
The coffee ground, she put the grinder on the table, yawned once more, cried “sweet Jesus!” once more. Then she lit the burner to boil water and wash her coffee pot.
The little dogs were making a lot of noise in the kitchen. Mireille, understanding that her master had left, howled plaintively, miffed and jealous.
“Hush, hush!” Maïa scolded.
But Mireille kept howling, so Maïa shut her in Cripure’s study with all the others.
That was what she usually did when he wasn’t there. In the study there was nothing for them to break, instead of in the garden, where they ravaged everything.
“Well!” she cried, glancing into the study before closing the door. “Well, isn’t it pretty in there . . . he’s moved everything around. What a mess!”
She promised herself she’d tidy up that . . . cave in a bit. He’d thrown books on the floor, he’d taken down . . . Her portrait . . . goodness! And that table, it loo
ked totally different. There wasn’t a single book on it, nothing but papers. All the books that had been cluttering it up the day before were piled on the mantel, and threatening to tumble to the floor. And what was that, now? A gold Louis? She picked it up. And that, under the table? A kid’s medal, and then . . . a revolver? “He must have had one crazy night last night, my goodness!” she exclaimed. She’d better clean all that up in a bit. There must be other Louis hiding in the corners.
This time she closed the door with purpose and shouted to the little dogs, “Hush! Hush!”
Calmly she went on with her task.
Day was rising from the mist. The weather would be good. So much the better. She could put out her laundry as soon as the first rays appeared. Everything would be dry for the evening.
That was a close one for him, wasn’t it!
Bah! No use thinking about it since it was finished.
With a corner of a rag she dampened under the tap, she wiped her eyes, her nose, and a little of her cheeks. A couple swipes with the comb and her toilette was complete.
She fixed the coffee, slowly, in her expert way. The little dogs fussed in the study. She opened the door for them and they bounded over to her. She mashed their scraps, still preparing her coffee all the while. The burned lentils, which she’d rescued from the trash, made them a feast, along with some dishwater and bread. Mireille was consoled. Now Maïa only had to get the coffee cups ready for breakfast and cut the bread for the toast. She put everything on the table and waited.
•
It was fully light when he returned. She recognized his steps, and the door opened. He stopped in the middle of his study and froze.
He looked at the floor.
Maïa, sitting at the table, was buttering the toast.
“Did you get a nice walk?” she asked.
He didn’t answer. He was still looking at the ground, and Maïa, curious, craned her neck. Suddenly he stepped back. With one hand, he steadied himself on the wall. He called, in a strangling voice, “Maïa! Maïa!”
“What is it, babe?”
But he could only repeat, “Maïa! Maïa!”
His whole big body was trembling.
“Look!” he finally said.
And Maïa, following the finger Cripure stuck out, looked into the room. The floor was dotted everywhere with little bits of paper, chewed up as if by rats. The open door had blown them. The little dogs, she said to herself. He’s gonna yell now!
He turned his head, but not towards her.
“It’s the little dogs,” said Maïa.
He made a sign. Did that mean he had understood? She thought she heard him mutter something between his teeth.
“What?” she asked.
“You shut them up in here?”
“Well yeah, of course.”
He shook his head, looking left, right.
“They’ve gobbled up the Chrestomathy!”
“Eh?”
He was quiet. Why bother to repeat it! But he said, “I left some papers on the table, you see, Maïa. The little dogs knocked them off, played with them, and . . . there you have it. There you have it!” he said.
He bit his lips. His hands hung down on the goatskin, curiously useless, robotic. He repeated, “There you have it!”
Maïa thought about it.
“Don’t be silly, my little bear!” she cried. “I’ll just do a sweep with my broom and there’ll be no more mess. What? What’re you laughing about?”
Was he really laughing? He knelt down. To pick up all those little scraps of confetti? What silliness! she thought.
“Wait, hang on, I’m coming. Wait till I’ve buttered this toast.” He was still crouching by the table, as if he hadn’t heard or didn’t want to hear. What was he looking for? He didn’t pick up the papers or even the gold Louis. His hand reached out. To what? The little star or the . . .
“Don’t do that!”
The shot fired, dull and short. The body tried to straighten, then slumped, knocking over in its fall the chair where the portrait of Toinette had been resting. It fell in a clatter of broken glass.
“Oh! That fool!”
Cripure’s thighs flexed then relaxed, his head rolled toward his shoulder. The room was full of blue smoke, like smoke from tobacco.
“What’d you do! What’d you do that for?” Maïa shouted, holding her face in her hands. Her knees hit the floor in the same moment, and she bent down, taking Cripure’s head in her arms. “What’d you do! What’d you do!” she repeated, thinking at the same time that if Cripure wasn’t killed with one shot, if he wasn’t dead yet, he must be able to hear. Didn’t she know that the ears didn’t give up until long after the eyes? “What’d you do that for, bear?” Maïa said again, so softly, and she added: “my darling . . .” shocked to hear herself call him that for the first time, and feeling her sorrow grow sharply at the words.
With a large trembling hand, she felt Cripure’s chest, pulling away the goatskin, searching beneath the barely stained shirt for the wound. There was barely a little hole, barely a bit of blood. “My God, but what’d you do that for?”
As if in response, Cripure started to moan, perhaps already gurgling. He’s not dead! She got up with a jerk, stepping around this big motionless body, looking, in that perpetual goatskin, like a giant wild boar finally beaten. She grabbed him under the arms, Cripure’s head dangling in her hold, and gathering all her strength, she dragged him, wanting to bring him to the sofa where she could lay him out and put a cushion under his head. But how heavy he was! Not only was he heavy, but there was something in that weight like a secret resistance. It would be easier, she didn’t doubt, to pull a man who was up to his neck in quicksand. Never had Cripure’s legs been so long, and his ball-and-chain feet so contrary in their black slippers. Cripure’s legs didn’t seem to weigh on the ground, but to stick there, and after a few minutes of trying, Maïa had to pause to catch her breath, with Cripure’s shoulders resting on her arched thighs and his head on the crease of her blue apron. One of the slippers had fallen off en route and lay on the floor with a strangely animated inanimate look—like a stuffed and mounted animal, not far from the revolver, not far from the little schoolboy’s star which was still glowing under the table, amongst the little bits of paper from the Chrestomathy, the last few pieces of forgotten gold, and the wreckage of the glass—a last symbol which succeeded in giving meaning to all the chaos.
“I’ve got to do this!” Maïa said to herself. And pursing her lips, tipping her head back and closing her eyes with effort, she pulled him further, still hoping she’d be able to slide him onto the sofa. But her strength let her down once more, and she had to make do with bringing him next to the couch and letting him softly back down to the floor. Then, like a moving man, she wiped her forehead with her bare arm and took a cushion from the sofa and slipped it under Cripure’s head. He was still groaning.
The little beasts were running around the room, their tails between their legs, making low whimpering cries. I’ll never get it done by myself. Mireille softly licked the open hand of her master. In response to her pitiful cries, the three other little beasts joined in at once. The racket became deafening.
“Dirty beasts,” cried Maïa, kicking them away viciously with her feet. “Carrion! You’re the ones to blame . . .”
The little beasts resisted. They didn’t want to give way. Mireille didn’t move.
Maïa took Cripure’s cane and hit them with big swings, pushing them out toward the garden. The dogs howled. When she tried to shoo Mireille, the dog fought back. She turned to Maïa, growled, showing her teeth.
“You!” said Maïa.
And she picked up the dog in her arms. Mireille squirmed, trying to bite. Maïa, with a firm hand, grabbed her muzzle and, at a run, carried her to the garden, where she dumped her like a bundle of rags. Poor Mireille rolled on the ground, but jumped back on her feet right away. Maïa had just enough time to close the door. Already the little dogs were pressing the
mselves against it, scratching with their paws and howling.
“Filthy beasts,” Maïa said again. “It’s your fault.”
If they hadn’t torn up the papers, none of this would have happened, she was sure of it. So what could possibly be in those papers there? He’d always told her they were his “ideas” he was writing down, but people didn’t kill themselves over “ideas.”
She came back to Cripure’s side. The dogs still howled. With a sharp push, she opened the shutters and called for help.
•
The response seemed like it was waiting for Maïa’s call. Like in well-constructed plays, in dramas with good stagecraft, the new actors seemed ready to come on stage as if they’d been waiting for a long time behind some piece of scenery, perhaps even with impatience. The smell of blood, the passion to witness death—were they so strong? She had barely opened the door when they invaded the room, men, women, children, some shocked into silence, others crying already or rushing, all looking to Maïa for an explanation, and bending down, shoving each other to get a better view. Cripure had defended his door so well for so many years, with so much hostility, that for them it was a significant revenge, even like a victory. To the excitement of the bloody drama was added an almost equally strong curiosity to know what that strange man’s house was like. And eyes wandered from the dying man, lying at the foot of his sofa, to the blackened walls, the dusty books, the mess on the table.
“What’ve we got to do? What’ve we got to do?” Maïa said.
A big devil with a birdlike head pushed through the crowd and came over.
“Let me do it,” he said. “I was a nurse at the front.”
He bent over Cripure and gently opened the goatskin, the vest, which he unbuttoned entirely, the shirt, and he asked for scissors.
Maïa didn’t have them. Not there. Not at hand. She panicked but finally found some anyway, in the bottom of her workbasket, that same basket as the day before, which had rolled all over the floor at almost the same hour.
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