by Marcel Ayme
“Darn it! He’s put a bullet right in my machine gun.”
Happening to be in the back room, Madame Frioulat heard the noise and saw the debris of the bottle in the middle of a pool of cognac.
“This really is too much,” she scolded. “No sooner are you back home than you start being impossible again. If you could only have stayed where you were. A bottle of the best cognac, with the prices just gone up another ten per cent. I was planning to go and buy those boots this afternoon, but you can say goodbye to them now. No point trying to talk me round. Besides, your notion of my absolutely having to buy those boots, well it’s quite ridiculous. You already have a pair of waterproof ones, good as new.”
Rogier left the hospital two days later. When, back home, he decided to mention the boots, the whole family seemed taken aback. However his mother remembered the promise she had made and murmured, “Boots, yes, indeed.” Seeing her dilemma, Rogier’s father stepped in: “Boots, he said, very nice but we’ll discuss them again when you’re doing a little better in class. It’s not good enough simply to break a limb and expect everything to come to you. When you were laid up your mother may have promised you a few things, well and good. Now you’re better. Look at you, the picture of health. For the moment all you have to do is catch up with the schoolwork you’ve missed. At the end of the year, if you’ve worked hard, you’ll be rewarded with the satisfaction of doing well and then, perhaps, we can think again, reconsider, reflect. There’s no hurry, is there? Work comes first.”
Naudin, who came home the day after Rogier, received a similar disappointment, though without the sugar-coating. When he enquired about the boots, his mother, who had renewed her promise only the day before, replied distractedly: “Ask your father.” And the latter muttered, “Oh. The boots,” with such determined indifference that his wife might as well have tried to interest him in the causes of the Thirty Years War.
After Naudin’s departure, Antoine and Huchemin stayed one more week in their neighbouring beds at the hospital. Their isolation in the midst of newcomers provoked an intimacy that became something of an ordeal for Antoine.
That week he discovered he still had much to suffer due to his poverty. Finding no events in his own life to confide to his companion, he was obliged to listen to those of Huchemin, and his replies were limited to commentary on his companion’s tales. There’s nothing more depressing than the role of the lowly confidant. For example, everyone knows that the real drama in classical tragedy is that of the confidants. It’s terrible to watch these brave souls—to whom nothing actually happens—listen with polite resignation to a complacent bore describing his own adventures. Now discovering the delight of boring a confidant, Huchemin overflowed with friendliness and anecdotes about his family. What particularly encouraged him to talk about his uncles and aunts was the hope he placed in them. Knowing from the experiences of Frioulat, Rogier and Naudin that you can hardly count on the word of a mother or father, Huchemin had decided that uncles and aunts would be more dependable. To hear him, his own were ready to fight for the honour of giving him the seven-league boots. Antoine’s head was reeling with uncles—Jules, Marcel, André and Lucien—and aunts—Anna, Roberte and Léontine. In the evenings, at an hour when everyone else was asleep, Antoine found himself reflecting more often and more deeply than usual on the strangeness of his own fate, which had dealt him neither aunt nor uncle nor any cousins at all. Short of being an orphan, which, besides, is very rare, he could not imagine a more reduced family than his own. It was sad and also wearying.
One day, Antoine had had enough of being the poor confidant. As Huchemin was describing an Aunt Justine, Antoine interrupted him and said casually:
“Your Aunt Justine is just like the rest of your family, I don’t find her terribly interesting. You see, I’ve enough to think about with my uncle coming back from America any day now.”
Huchemin opened his eyes wide and exclaimed:
“From America?”
“Yes, of course, my Uncle Victor.”
Antoine had gone a little red. He was not used to lying. His life was so simple that he didn’t generally feel the need. Plied with questions, he was obliged to maintain and develop this first lie, and it was with some pleasure that he created the character of Uncle Victor. More than a game, this was both his revenge on life and also life itself, at once abundant and overflowing. Uncle Victor was a glamorous figure: handsome, brave, generous, strong, had passed every school exam, killed a man most weeks and played the harmonica superbly. Naturally, he was the type to do his utmost and, if necessary, to ride roughshod over all his extensive family, in order to bring his nephew the boots he wished for. And the price would be no obstacle to him either. Having languished for so long in the role of confidant, Antoine let loose with a verve and an assurance that were devastating for Huchemin, who now nursed no more than a timid hope.
The next morning, Antoine rose with an uneasy conscience, regretting having given in to his impatient imagination. Uncle Victor was bothersome, oppressive, indiscreet, frightening too in the importance he had already acquired. Antoine tried to forget him, to ignore him, but the uncle already had a strong and original personality that compelled attention. Little by little, Antoine grew used to him and, in the days that followed, reconciled himself so well to this companion that he couldn’t have managed not to talk about him. His conscience no longer bothered him, except during visiting hours, when his mother was there. He would have liked to acquaint her with Uncle Victor and adorn her too with this magnificent relative, but he couldn’t think how to manage it. He could not ask her to join him in a lie. He had thought about the childish conditional: “Say we had an uncle, say he lived in America, and say we called him Uncle Victor …” But his mother, who had surely had a harder childhood than his own, was closed to any thought of game-playing. Germaine Buge, for her part, could tell he was hiding something, and they both suffered, being unable to talk freely.
Antoine looked on the imminence of his departure from hospital with a lively sense of apprehension. His friends would say: “So, your uncle came back from America but the boots are still sitting there in the window.” To respond that Uncle Victor had put off his journey at the last moment would be risky. A hero who is not there when he is needed is nothing but a lie or a delusion. His friends would say “Really?”; would ask “Where’s he staying?”; would ask “That uncle of yours, perhaps he lives in the talkies?”
Antoine and Huchemin left hospital on the same day, on a morning of such icy rain that they were sorry to leave the warmth of the wards. They did not leave together. Antoine had to wait for his mother, who was held up by housework at Lefort the butcher’s. He almost hoped she wouldn’t come at all, so dreadful had the figure of Uncle Victor now become. Germaine Buge arrived late, for, not wishing to offend Monsieur Lefort who insisted on taking her a little of the way in his car, she had waited almost an hour at the butcher’s.
Making his first steps outside, Antoine moved hesitantly, his legs unused to the activity. Despite the wind and rain, he did not want to impose the expense of a taxi on his mother and they undertook to go home on foot. They walked slowly but the climb up Montmartre hill, into a slate-grey sky, proved arduous and the tired child grew discouraged. He no longer had the strength to answer his mother’s questions. Thinking of the seven floors he would have to climb up, he began to weep beneath his jacket hood. However, even more exhausting than climbing the staircase was their pause to speak to the concierge. She interrogated him with the contempt that poor people often have for those poorer than they, and thought she had to speak very loudly, the way she usually spoke to unimportant people and to those of limited intelligence. He had to show her his leg, where the fracture was, and provide explanations. Germaine would have liked to cut the ordeal short, but she was afraid of displeasing such a powerful figure. Antoine was even obliged to thank the concierge, who was kind enough to give him ten pennies.
Stepping at last into their garret room,
Antoine had a shock, for the wallpaper had changed. His mother watched him, anxious about his reaction to this surprise. He made an effort to smile in order to hide his disappointment. In truth he was realising that he had liked the old wallpaper, scratched and peeling and blackened as it had been, the pattern faded by wear and grime. His eyes had learnt to pick out imaginary landscapes, animals and people that moved around on the dark walls in the diminishing evening light. The new wallpaper, a pale green that seemed faded already, was dotted with tiny rosebuds of a darker green. Thin and badly hung by a passing labourer, it looked rather sickly. Germaine had lit the fire and, due to the weather, the stove was smoking, which meant they had to open the window and so allow wind and rain to sweep in. They had to use all their cunning against the elements in order to reach a passable compromise. Sitting on his bed, Antoine considered life with that witching-hour lucidity that sometimes comes to children emerging from illness. Having set the table, his mother served the soup and asked him:
“Are you happy with it?”
And, smiling, she looked round at the drab walls.
“Yes,” Antoine said, “I am happy. It’s pretty.”
“I couldn’t decide for quite a while, you know. There was another one, pink and white, but it would have showed the dirt. I really wanted to show you the samples so that you could choose, but I thought it would have spoilt the surprise. So, truly, you are happy with it?”
“Yes, Antoine repeated, I’m happy.”
He began to cry, silently, tears that seemed as if they would never stop, abundant and regular. “Are you ill?” asked his mother. “Are you bored? Missing your friends?” He shook his head. Remembering that he had cried like this before about their poverty, she sought to show him that their position was quite secure. She had just paid the rent. They need not worry on that account for another three months. And last week she had managed to find another hour-and-a-half’s housekeeping, very early in the morning, and they had been pleased with her work.
“And then, I forgot to say, it happened yesterday afternoon. Mademoiselle Larrisson’s dog passed away. Poor Flic, he wasn’t a bad creature, but since he’s dead, I don’t mind our getting the benefit. From now on, I shall be able to take Mademoiselle Larrisson’s leftovers. She offered them to me very nicely.”
Antoine would have liked to respond with gratitude to these smiles from Providence, but he was still overwhelmed and his melancholy mood so worried his mother that she hesitated to leave him alone even for a little of the afternoon. At half-past one, seeing him calmer, she decided nevertheless to go and do her two hours of housekeeping for Mademoiselle Larrisson, who, moreover, always criticised the way she worked.
Tormented by Antoine’s private unhappiness, Germaine Buge had the idea of meeting the children as they left school and questioning one of his friends. She knew little Baranquin best, from bumping into him at Antoine’s bedside or outside the hospital. The results of their encounter exceeded her expectations. Baranquin was in no doubt at all as to the reasons for Antoine’s melancholy. All at once, his mother learnt both the story of the boots and that of Uncle Victor from America.
After getting lost on the way, Germaine Buge ended up on Rue Élysée-des-Beaux-Arts standing in front of the junk shop. The display was lit up but she was unable to open the door. She was still trying to turn the door handle when, plucking back a corner of the rug covering the glass panel, the owner waved at her to go away. Germaine did not understand and pointed at the boots in the window. At last, the old man opened the door a crack and said:
“Don’t you understand? The shop is closed.”
“Closed?” Germaine exclaimed. “It’s not yet six o’clock.”
“But the shop didn’t open this morning. Today’s my birthday. As you can see.”
As he spoke, he revealed the rest of himself in the doorway and Germaine saw that he was wearing evening dress with a white tie. She explained the purpose of her visit, spoke about Antoine who was waiting for her at home, but he would have none of it.
“Madame, I am terribly sorry but I repeat that today is my birthday. Indeed I have a friend who has come to see me.”
He glanced behind him and added, lowering his voice:
“He is worried. He is wondering who I am speaking to. Come in, and act as if you had come to wish me well on my birthday. He will be furious, for he is horribly jealous and everything I do offends him, but I shan’t mind teaching him one more lesson.”
Germaine took her chance and walked in behind the old man. There was no one inside, apart from the great bird that Baranquin had told her about. The leggy wader looked all the more peculiar for being also decked out with a white tie, knotted in the middle of its long neck, and a monocle, attached to one of its wings by a black ribbon.
The shopkeeper winked at Germaine and said to her as loudly as he could:
“Princess, how generous to be so kind as to remember your old friend and what a lovely surprise for me.”
He watched the bird stealthily to judge the effect produced by these words, then gave a wicked smile. Dumbfounded, Germaine did not know where to look, but the old man was so garrulous that he kept their tête-à-tête going by himself, which put her more at ease. After a while, he turned to the bird and informed it triumphantly:
“The princess finds that I’m quite right. It was all the Marshal d’Ancre’s fault.”
Then, forgetting the princess and turning his back on her, he threw himself into a historical argument in which he did not seem to fare well, for he ended up in silence, staring at the bird with some resentment. Germaine, who was growing bored, took advantage of the silence to remind him that she had come to him intending to buy the boots.
“It is curious, observed the shopkeeper. Recently, they have been much in demand.”
“How much are they?”
“Three thousand francs.”
He had replied distractedly and seemed unaware of his customer’s alarm. All at once, he gave a start and cried indignantly in the direction of the bird:
“Of course, you don’t agree either! You don’t think the boots are worth three thousand francs. So say it, don’t be shy. Today you have a monocle, you can do as you like.”
After a short silence, he turned to Germaine and said, smiling bitterly:
“You heard him. It seems that my boots are worth no more than twenty-five francs. There! So it shall be. Take them for twenty-five francs. Everyone knows I count for nothing round here, any more. Everyone knows that really monsieur is the one in charge. Please take them, madame.”
He went to fetch the boots from the window, wrapped them up in newspaper and held them out to Germaine.
“Scoundrel,” he said to the bird. “You’ve lost me two thousand, nine hundred and seventy-five francs.”
Germaine, who was just looking into her purse, was troubled by this thought.
“I don’t wish to take advantage,” she said to the old man.
“Leave him to me, then,” he muttered, “I shall clinch his deal for him. He’s jealous and wicked. I shall finish him off with one good thrust of my sword.”
As he took the twenty-five francs, Germaine saw that his hand was shaking with fury. As soon as he had the coins, he turned and threw them at the bird’s head, breaking the monocle, a splinter of which now hung swinging at the end of the silk ribbon. Then, without pausing for breath, he took up an old sabre from the window display and unsheathed it. Germaine Buge took the boots and fled, without waiting to see how it would all end. Outside the shop, she thought of alerting a policeman or at least a neighbour. It seemed to her that the bird really was in some danger. On further reflection, though, she decided her intervention would serve no purpose and only risked causing trouble for herself.
When he saw the boots, Antoine went bright pink with joy and it seemed to him that the sad new wallpaper all around them had turned the pretty apple-green of spring.
That evening, when his mother had gone to sleep, Antoine got quietly out
of bed, dressed and put on the seven-league boots. In the pitch dark, he crossed the garret on tiptoe and, having opened the window with great caution, he climbed out onto rim of the gutter. A first leap carried him into the suburbs, to Rosny-sous-Bois; a second took him into the neighbouring region of Seine-et-Marne. In ten minutes he was on the far side of the world, where he stopped in a great meadow to catch an armful of the sun’s first rays, which he tied up with a thread of gossamer.
Antoine easily found the garret again and slipped inside without a sound. He laid his shining armful down on his mother’s little bed so that their glow lit up the sleeping face and he thought she looked less tired.
THE BAILIFF
IN A SMALL TOWN IN FRANCE lived a bailiff called Malicorne who carried out his sorry duties so assiduously that he would not have hesitated to seize his own belongings. But the occasion did not arise and, besides, it seems the law does not allow a bailiff to act against his own person. One night, resting next to his wife, Malicorne died in his sleep and was straight away called to appear before Saint Peter, who judges all new cases. The great Gatekeeper welcomed him coolly.
“Your name is Malicorne and you are a bailiff. We don’t find too many of your kind in Paradise.”
“That makes no difference,” replied Malicorne. “In any case, I don’t much care to be among colleagues.”
As he supervised the installation of an immense basin, just carried in by a troupe of angels and apparently full of water, Saint Peter gave an ironic smile.
“It seems to me, my boy, that you suffer from quite a few delusions.”