When the January quarter came due, Grandma Caroline went out to Asnières to collect the rent. She took me with her. She owned two brick and stucco houses out there on the rue de Plaisance, a little one and a medium-size one, she rented them out to working-class people. They were her property, her income, her savings.
We started off. We had to go slow on my account. I was weak for a long time, I’d get nosebleeds for no reason at all, and I peeled all over. After the station it’s straight ahead … Avenue Faidherbe … Place Car-not … At the Town Hall you turn left and then you cross the park.
At the bowling alley between the fence and the waterfall, there’s always a crowd of funny old codgers … lively old grampas full of spunk, always good for a joke, and some that grouse the whole time, retired shopkeepers … Every time they knocked the ninepins over, the jokes flew thick and fast … I understood all their gags … better and better as time went on … The funniest thing was when they had to pee … they’d trot behind a tree, one at a time … They had an awful hard time of it … “Hey, Toto, watch out you don’t lose it …” That’s the kind of thing they said. The others took up the refrain. To me they were irresistible. I laughed so loud my grandmother was embarrassed … Standing around in that wintry blast listening to their cracks … it was a good way to catch your death …
Grandma didn’t laugh much but she wanted me to enjoy myself … It was no joke at home … she realized that … and this was cheap entertainment … We stayed a little while longer … When the game was over and we finally left the little oldtimers, it was almost dark …
Caroline’s houses were beyond Les Bourguignons … after the Market Gardens, which in those days extended all the way to the dikes at Achères.
So as not to sink into the muck and manure, we had to walk single file on a line of planks … You had to be careful not to bump into the frames … whole rows of them full of seedlings … I went behind her, still laughing but careful to keep my balance, remembering all those cracks … “Did you enjoy it all that much?” she asked. “Tell me, Ferdinand. Did you really?”
I didn’t care for questions. I shut up like a clam … To own up brings bad luck.
We got to the rue de la Plaisance. That’s where the work began. Collecting the rent was a headache … the tenants were in full revolt. They fought every inch of the way and they never paid in full … never … they tried every slimy trick … The pump was always out of order. The discussions were interminable … They started griping about everything under the sun before Grandma even opened her mouth … The shithouse was stuffed up … They were very dissatisfied … they shouted their complaints from every window in the place … they wanted it fixed … and right away! … They were afraid we’d put one over on them … They hollered to prevent us from mentioning the rent … They wouldn’t even look at the bills … Their shithouse was really stopped up, it was overflowing into the street … In winter it froze and the bowl cracked under the slightest pressure … Every time it cost eighty francs … The bastards wrecked everything in sight … That was the tenants’ way of getting even … And making children … Every time we came back there were new ones … with less and less clothes on … Some of them were stark-naked … Lying in the bottom of a cupboard …
The worst drunks and slovens treated us like dirt … They watched every move we made as we unplugged the drain. They followed us to the cellar when we went down for the bamboo pole to clean out the siphon … Grandma pinned up her skirts with safety pins and stripped to her shift on top. Then we went to work … We needed lots of hot water. We had to get it from the shoemaker across the street and bring it over in a pitcher. The tenants wouldn’t give us a drop. Then Caroline started poking down into the drain. She worked her pole back and forth and dislodged the muck. The pole alone wouldn’t do it. She plunged in with both arms, the tenants all came out with their brats to watch us cleaning out their shit … and the papers … and the rags … They’d wad them up on purpose … Caroline was undaunted … what a woman! Nothing could get her down …
She fought her way through. The tenants saw the drain was working again. They couldn’t help admiring her energy … not to be outdone, they began to help us … They brought out wine … Grandma clinked glasses with them … she wasn’t one to bear grudges … We wished each other Happy New Year … it was all very cordial and friendly … That didn’t bring in any money … They were unscrupulous … If she’d given them notice, they’d have had time for vengeance before moving out … They’d have wrecked the whole joint … Both houses were full of holes … Every time we went out there we tried to fill them in … it was a waste of time … they kept making more … We took putty with us … Pipes, attics, walls, and floors were all shreds and patches … But what they attacked most viciously was the toilet bowl … The whole thing was full of cracks … It made Grandma cry to look at it … Same with the garden gate … They’d bent it double … it looked like licorice … For a while we’d given them a concierge, a friendly, obliging old woman … she hadn’t lasted a week … She was so horrified she cleared out. In less than a week two of the tenants had gone up to strangle her … in her bed … some nonsense about doormats.
Those houses are still there. Only the name of the street has changed … from “Plaisance” to “Marne” … That was the fashion for a while …
Lots of tenants have come and gone, bachelors and spinsters, whole families, generations … They’ve gone on making holes, and so have the rats, the little mice, the crickets and woodlice … No one has plugged them in ages … Uncle Édouard inherited the houses. They’ve taken so much punishment they’ve got to be regular sieves … no one paid his rent anymore … the tenants had grown old, they were tired of arguing … so was my uncle … they were even sick of fighting about the shithouse … there was nothing more to wreck, there was nothing left. They turned them into storerooms. They put in their wheelbarrows, their watering cans and coal … At the moment we don’t even know exactly who’s living there … they’ve been condemned to widen the street … they’re going to be torn down … As far as we know, there are four families … Portuguese, so they say.
Nobody’s bothered to try to keep them up … Grandma knocked herself out, it didn’t do her any good … when you come right down to it, that’s what killed her … messing around that day in January even later than usual, first in cold water, then in boiling water … always in the draft, putting oakum in the pump and thawing out the faucets.
The tenants came out with their candles to needle us and see if the work was getting ahead. The rent? Well, they wanted a little more time. We should come around next week … We started back to the station.
At the ticket window Grandma Caroline had a dizzy spell. She clutched the railing … it wasn’t like her … She had chills all over … We went back across the square to a café … While we were waiting for the train, the two of us shared a grog … When we got to Gare Saint-Lazare, she went straight home to bed … she was all in … she came down with a high fever, same as I’d had in the Passage, but hers was grippe and it turned to pneumonia … The doctor came morning and evening … She was so sick that we in the Passage didn’t know what to tell the neighbors when they asked.
Uncle Édouard shuttled back and forth between her place and the shop … She was worse than ever … She was sick of having her temperature taken, she didn’t even want us to know what it was … She still had all her wits about her. Tom hid under the furniture. He didn’t budge, he hardly ate … My uncle came to the shop. He had a great big balloon full of oxygen.
One night my mother didn’t even come home for supper … Next morning it was still dark when Uncle Édouard shook me in my bed and told me to get dressed quick. To go and kiss Grandma, he explained … I didn’t know exactly what he meant … I was still half asleep … We walked fast … It was on the rue du Rocher … second floor … The concierge hadn’t been to bed … She came out with a lamp to light the hallway … We went upstairs. Mama was in the first
room crying… . down on her knees, slumped against a chair. She was moaning softly, mumbling in her grief … Papa was standing … he didn’t say a word … He went out to the landing … then he came back again … He looked at his watch … He tugged at his moustache … Then I caught a glimpse of Grandma in her bed in the next room … She was breathing hard, gasping, suffocating, making a disgusting racket … The doctor was just leaving … He shook hands with everybody … Then they led me in. I could see she was fighting for breath. She was all yellow and red, her face was covered with sweat, like a wax mask beginning to melt … Grandma stared at me, but her look was still friendly … They had told me to kiss her … I was already leaning against the bed. She motioned me not to … She smiled a little … She wanted to tell me something … There was a rasping sound in her throat … it wouldn’t come out … in the end she made it … she spoke as softly as she could … “Work hard, my dear little Ferdinand,” she whispered … I wasn’t afraid of her. We understood each other deep down … The fact is that I have worked hard, all in all … That’s nobody’s business …
She wanted to say something to my mother too. “Clémence, my little girl … take care … don’t let yourself go … please, for my sake …” That was all she could manage. She couldn’t breathe at all … She motioned us to leave … to go into the other room … We obeyed … We could hear her … The whole apartment was full of it … We stayed there at least an hour, stunned and silent. My uncle went to the door. He wanted to see her, but he didn’t dare disobey. He only pushed open one of the double doors, that way we could hear her more distinctly … There was a kind of hiccup … My mother jumped up … She went eek, as if her throat were being cut. She crumpled up in a heap on the carpet between her chair and my uncle … Her hand was clenched so tight over her mouth that we couldn’t take it away …
When she came to, she screamed: “Mama’s dead” … over and over … she didn’t know where she was … My uncle stayed on to keep watch … We went back to the Passage in a cab …
We closed the shop. We rolled down all the blinds … We felt kind of ashamed … kind of guilty … We didn’t dare to move … for fear of spoiling our grief … Mama and all of us cried with our heads on the table … We weren’t hungry … We didn’t want anything … We didn’t take up much room, but we’d have liked to make ourselves even smaller … to apologize to somebody, to everybody … We forgave each other … We begged and promised to-love each other … We were afraid of losing each other … forever … like Caroline.
Then came the funeral … Uncle Édouard attended to everything all by himself … he had made all the arrangements … He had his grief too … He didn’t show it … He wasn’t demonstrative … He called for us at the Passage just as they were taking away the body …
Everybody … neighbors … and people with nothing else to do … came over and said: “Be brave.” We stopped on the rue Deaudeville to pick up our flowers … We took the best … Nothing but roses … They were her favorite flower …
We couldn’t get used to her absence. Even my father was shattered … There was nobody but me to have scenes with … I was getting better but I was still so weak it was no fun to pick on me. Seeing me so wobbly, he hesitated to bellow at me …
I dragged myself from one chair to another … I had lost six pounds in two months … I was wasting away. I puked up all the cod-liver oil …
My mother couldn’t think of anything but her grief. The shop was sinking beyond rescue … Even at rock-bottom prices we couldn’t sell our trinkets … The customers were all stone broke … they were making up for their wild extravagance at the Exposition … They had as little mending done as possible. They thought twice before spending five francs …
My mother would sit there for hours without moving, on her bad leg, in an impossible position, benumbed … When she got up, it hurt so bad that she’d limp the whole time … My father would pace about upstairs in the opposite direction. The sound of her limp drove him nuts …
I’d pretend I had to do something. I’d go to the can and play with myself … I’d give it a tug or two … I couldn’t get it up …
Aside from the two houses that had gone to Uncle Édouard, there were three thousand francs left from Grandma’s estate … But that money was sacred … Mama said so right away … We must never part with it … We unloaded the earrings, they went for loans, one in Clichy, the other in Asnières … And yet our stock was getting sleazier and skimpier … enough to break your heart … it was hardly fit to show …
Grandma at least had been enterprising, she’d bring us stuff to sell on consignment … white elephants that other dealers were willing to lend her … But with us it wasn’t the same … They were suspicious … no get-up-and-go, that’s what they thought of us … We were going to the dogs …
When my father came home from the office, he’d dream up solutions … some pretty grim ones … it was he who cooked our bread soup … Mama wasn’t up to it … he’d be stringing the beans … why wouldn’t we turn on the gas and all commit suicide? … My mother just sat there … He blamed it all on the Freemasons … and Dreyfus! … and all the other criminals who were out to get us.
My mother was off her rocker … even her movements were weird … She’d always been clumsy, now she dropped everything. She’d break three dishes a day … She never came out of her daze … She was like a sleepwalker … If she went into the shop she’d be afraid … She didn’t want to move, she’d stay upstairs the whole time …
One night when we were going to bed and not expecting anybody anymore, Madame Héronde turned up. She began to hammer at the shop door and sing out … We’d forgotten all about her. I went to open. My mother didn’t want to be bothered, she even refused to see her … She just went hobbling around the kitchen. So then my father spoke up :
“How about it, Clémence? Make up your mind. If you leave it to me, I’ll just send her home, you know that.” She thought it over a minute, then she went down. She tried to count the pieces Madame Héronde had brought back … She couldn’t count right … She was all muddled with grief … ideas, figures, it was all a fog … Papa and I helped her …
Then she went up to bed … Later she got up and came down again … She spent the whole night straightening out the shop, furiously, obstinately putting the stuff away.
In the morning everything was in perfect order … She was a different woman … You wouldn’t have recognized her … All of a sudden she felt ashamed …
What a terrible humiliation to have let Madame Héronde see her so frazzled!
“When I think of my poor Caroline! … of the energy she had up to the last minute. Ah, what if she’d seen me like that!”
Suddenly she bucked up. During the night she had even made all sorts of plans … “Well, Ferdinand, son, if the customers won’t come to us anymore, we’ll go find them! … spring is coming, we’ll close the shop for a while … We’ll do all the markets in the suburbs … Chatou! … Le Vésinet! … Bougival! … where they’re putting up all those fine villas … where all the fancy people live … That will be better than stewing in our own juice … than hanging around here waiting for nothing! … Besides you’ll get some fresh air!”
The idea of doing the markets didn’t appeal to my father one bit! … A risky business … It panicked him to think about it … He foresaw the worst complications … We were sure to get our last remnant of merchandise stolen! … We’d be stoned by the local shopkeepers … Mama let him talk … She’d made up her mind.
Anyway, we had no choice. We were skipping every other meal … We’d taken to lighting the stove with tapers instead of matches.
One morning the time came and we raced off to the station. My father carried the big bundle, an enormous piece of canvas stuffed with merchandise … Everything we had left that wasn’t too disgusting … Mama and I lugged the cartons … On the platform at Saint-Lazare he ran through the list of his fears again. Then he beat it to the office.
; In those days Chatou was quite a trip. We were there at the crack of dawn … We bribed the local cop … he rolled out the red carpet and found us a place … We found a stand for our stuff … We had a pretty good spot … between a butcher and a man selling little birds. But they didn’t want us there … that was plain from the start.
The butter-and-egg man behind us kept griping the whole time. For his money we were screwballs with piles of rubbish. He made some very crummy remarks!
The alley we were in wasn’t the best place, but it was near the park … in the shade of magnificent linden trees … About noontime the ladies appeared … simpering and my-dearing … If a wind started up, we were lost. At the first breeze all our stuff blows away, all the bonnets and hankies and ribbons … Those things are just waiting to take off, they’re as light as clouds … We fastened them with mountains of clasps and clothespins. Our stand looked like a hedgehog … The ladies strolled by … capricious creatures … butterflies followed by one or two cooks … then they’d turn and come back … my mother tried to catch them with her spiel … to draw their attention to her embroideries … to the boleros she was taking orders for … to her “Brussels type” lace … or Madame Héronde’s gossamer marvels …
“Isn’t it amusing to meet you here! … In this drafty market! … Oh, you have a shop? … Do give me your card! … Of course we’ll come to see you!”
They went on to gush somewhere else, we didn’t sell them much … Well, it was publicity …
Now and then a tornado would pick up our doodads and drop them on the veal cutlets next door … The butcher gave us a piece of his mind …
We’d have made out better if we’d brought along our handsome dressmaker’s dummy with the firm bust … that would have brought out our exquisite treasures … the muslin and satin frills, the creations of Madame Héronde’s fairy wand … To maintain a Louis XV flavor, an atmosphere of refinement, amid the tripe and vegetables, we’d haul out a real museum piece, a diminutive masterpiece, the rosewood doll’s cupboard … We kept our sandwiches in it.
Death on the Installment Plan Page 11