Labels and Other Stories

by Louis de Bernières

  It is some time before order is restored. The four Angels, who have so often talked of raising the devil or some few of his demons, have been confronted by the genuine article, and have been undone by horripilation. They have seen a squat creature in costume as scarlet as the flames of hell, with fat, pallid, mottled legs, a halo of coarse and chaotic bluish hair framing a white face streaked with black, baring its crooked yellow teeth. The demon has blood-red fingernails and lips. It has leaped out at them, whooping fearsomely, and within a fraction of a second they have all reverted to the naive Catholicism of their youth. They cross themselves and beg the Virgin for protection, peeking out from under the bracken and behind the trees. Jonnijon regards his mistress from the safety of a foxhole, and decides to come out later. He yaps pointlessly.

  Inevitably our four intrepid heroes come slowly to the realisation that they have in fact been confronted by a lady in late middle age, in much distress, clad somewhat saucily, it is true, but who is interested only in rescuing her dog. Hell’s Angel Number One rises to his feet and faces her to be joined slowly and shamefacedly by his companions. Hell’s Angel Number Two points to her feet and says wonderingly, ‘You’ve got men’s shoes on.’

  Andouillette waves her roll of lavatory paper at them. ‘Don’t you dare touch me. If you so much as move a little finger to touch me, I’ll do such things … such things … such things as you wouldn’t believe …’

  The Hell’s Angels look at each other. It is true that they have spent half of their lifetimes thinking and talking about being bad – it is a philosophy, after all, about the intensification of experience by means of extremes – but it is also true that none of them has ever succeeded in behaving very badly.

  ‘Do you think she’s mad?’ asks Number Four.

  ‘Could be,’ says Number Two, ‘she’s got men’s shoes on.’

  ‘They are my husband’s,’ says Andouillette with dignity. ‘I have been left here accidentally.’

  A mere ten minutes later, after explanations have been made and tranquillity re-established, we find Andouillette riding pillion behind Hell’s Angel Number One. She is feeling very chilly, so she is holding tightly on to him with her arms around his generous embonpoint. In between them is Jonnijon, squeezed between his back and her breasts, peering forwards over the satanic Angel’s right shoulder. Jonnijon blinks against the slipstream, and his tightly curled ears float behind him. He is too befuddled to panic or to bark. He watches the world go by at incomprehensible speed, and feels a little nauseous.

  Our knights of the road have agreed to help Andouillette find her husband and her caravan, and they are transporting her in great style along the N138 in the direction of Le Mans. Those on the roadside stop and gawp, and those drivers coming in the other direction perform classic double takes. As the eccentric convoy passes La Feuillère and the concealment of the two gendarmes, two croissants stop halfway to two mouths, and two small cups of coffee are tipped quickly down two throats. Sergeant Gaspard LaCroix guns the patrol car into life and pulls out in the wake of the Angels, his siren ululating and his blue light flashing. Officer Michel Mascon reports in on the radio that they are pursuing some vehicles behaving suspiciously, and within sixty seconds they are overtaking the Angels and waving them into the side of the road. The collective heart of the Hell’s Angels sinks. They are always being picked on by the police. They have learned to switch off their engines promptly and be very polite. They used to talk eagerly about beating up policemen, but the only time they had a chance, they ended up giving them cigarettes and talking about motorbikes.

  The gendarmes adjust their sunglasses on the bridges of their noses and walk with studied coolness back to where the Angels await them. Officer Mascon puts his hand briefly on to the flap of his holster, as if to imply something, and Sergeant Gaspard LaCroix approaches Hell’s Angel Number One. ‘Driving licence,’ he says. The licence is produced. ‘Identity card,’ says the sergeant. All the cards are collected, except for that of Andouillette, who has been studiously ignored, as if the officers cannot resist saving the greatest challenge and the greatest mystery until last.

  Sergeant LaCroix speaks whilst Officer Mascon stands next to him with his arms folded. He addresses Angel Number One. ‘You are François LeBreton?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘On your driving licence and on your identity card you have put a line through your name, and written “Abaddon”.’

  ‘It’s my nom de diable,’ explains François LeBreton. ‘Abaddon is the destroying Angel of the Apocalypse.’

  ‘I see,’ says the sergeant. He turns to Angel Number Two. ‘And you are Robert Derives, alias “Donachiel”?’

  ‘It’s an angel you invoke to command demons,’ explains Robert.

  ‘I see,’ repeats the sergeant, and to Angel Number Three he says, ‘And you are Jerome Laforge, alias “Arioch”?’

  ‘Angel of vengeance,’ says Jerome. ‘It means “Fierce Lion”.’

  ‘I see,’ reiterates the sergeant, and to Angel Number Four he says, ‘And you are Antoine Dupont, alias “Mammon” ?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Mammon is the Prince of Avarice, Prince of Tempters, and Hell’s Ambassador to England.’

  ‘I’ve been to England,’ interpolates Officer Michel Mascon, ‘and it was Hell. I don’t see why Hell should want to send an ambassador to itself.’

  ‘That’s a good point,’ says the sergeant, and Antoine says, ‘I’ve been thinking of changing my name to “Marchosias”.

  ‘You gentleman,’ pronounces Sergeant LaCroix, ‘are all guilty of defacing documents belonging to the state. You might all be charged for this offence.’

  Angel Number One speaks up: ‘It’s the kind of pen that you can rub out with an eraser. It’s not a proper defacement.’

  ‘Are you telling me when a defacement is or is not a defacement?’ demands the sergeant.

  ‘It is an interesting question, Sergeant,’ observes Officer Mascon. ‘It probably isn’t a simple issue.’

  ‘Thank you, Officer. Are you also aware that in not wearing the requisite protective headgear, you are committing an additional offence?’

  ‘We are wearing these,’ says Antoine with great humility, ‘they’re quite strong.’

  ‘A black leather Stetson, with silver skulls and crossbones and enamelled confederate flags does not qualify as a crash helmet.’

  ‘Angels don’t wear crash helmets,’ says Jerome.

  ‘Why don’t you get black ones and paint skulls on them?’ suggests Officer Mascon.

  ‘I suppose we could,’ agrees Robert Derives, ‘it would seem like a decent compromise.’

  ‘In my career I have scraped a great many motorcyclists’ brains from the tarmac,’ announces Sergeant Gaspard LaCroix sententiously, and then he turns to Andouillette, who has witnessed all this with an apathy born of having already experienced too much in one short day. ‘As for you, madame, you too are inappropriately dressed for motorcycling. I might even suggest that there is an element of indecency. Identity card, please. Incidentally, my colleague and I have been wondering whether you might be in need of any assistance. Our initial impression was that you may be with these gentlemen against your will.’

  ‘It’s in the caravan,’ said Andouillette, ‘my identity card, that is. And I’m not being kidnapped. We’re just trying to catch my husband.’

  ‘What about the dog?’ demands Officer Michel Mascon. ‘Isn’t it an offence to carry livestock insecurely on a motorcycle?’

  ‘We’ll have to look that one up,’ says the sergeant, and Andouillette exclaims, ‘He’s not livestock, he’s Jonnijon.’

  ‘What’s this about a caravan?’ asks the sergeant, his mind tweaked by a recent memory.

  So it was that ten minutes later a gendarmerie patrol car containing two gendarmes and Andouillette sets off in the direction of Le Mans, followed by a small escort of Hell’s Angels, all of them intent upon playing a little joke upon the hapless Andouil, who is duly flagged down by
Officer Mascon just past St-Jean-d’Asse. He finds himself facing two very young gendarmes, and a circle of grinning Hell’s Angels in early middle age. One of them has fine lines of congealed blood upon his face.

  Andouil is the kind of man who, in any situation in which he feels anxiety, begins to pour with sweat. On this occasion he begins to sweat immediately, and his anxiety about sweating so much causes him to sweat even more profusely. He mops his brow with his handkerchief, and within moments it is sodden. He begins to feel anxious about not having another handkerchief. The perspiration cascades off his face on to his lap. The gendarmes smile to each other confidingly. This is the telltale reaction of a thoroughly guilty man.

  ‘Good afternoon, sir,’ says Sergeant LaCroix coolly, adjusting his sunglasses and leaning down to the window. ‘Driving licence? Identity card?’

  Officer Mascon leans over and says, ‘You wouldn’t be called Behemoth, or Beelzebub, or anything like that?’ and Andouil shakes his head miserably.

  ‘Going on holiday are you, sir?’ asks LaCroix, and Andouil nods. The muscles of his neck feel slightly out of control.

  ‘On your own? That’s not very jolly, is it?’

  ‘I’m meeting my wife at Chisseaux. It’s near Chenonceaux.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have anyone in the caravan, then?’

  ‘Oh no, Officer. It’s illegal.’

  ‘He knows the law,’ says LaCroix to Mascon. ‘It’s so heartening when civilians know the law. Makes our job so much easier.’ Turning back to Andouil, he says, ‘So you wouldn’t mind if we take a look in the back?’

  Andouil’s heart thuds, and perspiration continues to pour off him. He looks from the gendarmes to the Hell’s Angels and back again. There is something appallingly ominous about the way in which they are nudging each other and exchanging glances. ‘The back’s locked,’ says Andouil desperately. ‘It might take me some time to find the key.’

  ‘We think the door might be open already,’ says the sergeant. ‘We’re a bit psychic, you see. Isn’t that strange?’

  Andouil is dumbfounded, and he sits tight in the car as the two gendarmes open the caravan door. Andouil knows that he is doomed. He has visions of heavy fines, and years in prison with Algerian Islamic terrorists, paedophiles from Dieppe and sodomitic heroin-addicted rapists from Marseilles. Andouil allows his head to slump forward on to the wheel, and his mind goes numb. He discovers the true meaning of resignation.

  The sergeant returns and says, ‘That’s all right, then, sir. Of course there’s no one in the back. We should have trusted you. We looked everywhere.’

  ‘No one in the back?’ repeats Andouil. ‘No one in the back?’

  ‘Just as you said, sir. We wish you a very good day.’

  Andouil is still for a moment, but then he leaps out of the car and opens the door of the caravan. He stumbles in and looks around. His eyes seem unable to focus. Outside he hears the clattering sound of the motorbikes starting up, and the collective roar of the vehicles moving off. He calls out, ‘Sausage? Sausage?’

  There is no reply. He lifts the mattress to see if Andouillette has hidden underneath. He opens the cupboard and peers into the tiny space under the sink. He lifts the mattress again, and bobs down to look under the table. He stands up, exclaims, ‘My God, my God,’ and runs out into the sunshine. It occurs to him in a flash that Andouillette must have gone into the woods when he had done so himself, and he realises that he will have to take the caravan back in the direction of Alençon. He only hopes that he can identify the place where he stopped to pee. He shivers in advance at what Andouillette will say and do to him. The prospect is so terrifying that he even considers abandoning her altogether. Suddenly Andouillette steps out from behind the caravan and confronts him. She is dressed like a harlot, her hair is frighteningly dishevelled, her maquillage has been smeared into an expressionist nightmare, she is clutching Jonnijon and a roll of lavatory paper, and she is wearing a ludicrously disproportionate and anomalous pair of men’s lace-up shoes, that, a moment later, he identifies as his own.

  She throws herself into his arms with a stifled little cry, and he finds Jonnijon crushed against his chest. Andouillette steps back, puts the dog on the ground carefully, squares herself, and slaps Andouil resoundingly across the face. His bifocals reorganise themselves so that the left lens settles on the tip of his nose. Uttering one obscenity so vile that it has never escaped her lips in her life before, she shoves him violently in the chest. He sits down on the ground in wonderment, and feels a stinging bruise grow like a mushroom on his cheek.

  That night in the safety of the campsite in Chisseaux, Andouil and Andouillette lie in bed and cuddle each other so tightly that it is almost like making love. He has the imprint of her palm turning to shades of green and lilac on his left cheek. In his basket under the table Jonnijon squeaks as he dreams about the most confusing day of his life. His eyes are itching because of the ride, and his ribs ache from having been so often and so violently clutched to his mistress’s chest.

  Andouil is half asleep, he is blushing and perspiring because he has been reliving the humiliation of driving away and finding the gendarmes and the Hell’s Angels waiting one kilometre down the road, all in a posse, waving and smirking as he passes them in the direction of Le Mans. He is sure that they can see the bruise growing on his cheek.

  Andouillette stirs and says, ‘Chéri?’

  Andouil wakes a little, and murmurs, ‘Yes, my sausage?’

  ‘I’ve had an idea. You mightn’t like it, though.’

  ‘Well, what is it? There’s no harm in asking.’

  Andouillette pauses. Her silence becomes ominous. Andouil is almost relieved when at last she says, ‘Do you think we’re too old to have a motorbike?’

  ‘We could have a sidecar with a lavatory in it,’ says Andouil.

  A DAY OUT FOR MEHMET ERBIL

  Mehmet Erbil slung his tattered but faithful white plastic sack over his shoulder and stepped off the ferry at Kilitbahir. It was a short and easy crossing from Çanakkale, and he always enjoyed it. He would contemplate the choppy waves, keep an eye open for good-looking girls, and take in the spectacle of Sultan Mehmet II’s castle as it grew nearer and more distinct. It always made him think of harder and wilder times in centuries past, when sultans took titles such as ‘Shedder of Blood’, ‘The Grim’ or ‘The Merciless’, and mighty cannon roared across the Dardanelles to deter impudent Russians, pirates and invaders. The only trouble with the crossing was that it took up money, eating into his tiny profits, and increasing the despair that gnawed away at his hope. ‘One day I will have money,’ he thought. ‘One day I won’t have to live like a dog. One day I won’t have to do this work. Or perhaps it will always be like this; perhaps I will die as I have lived, in hardship and ignominy.’ Mehmet’s sole concern was that, in the conduct of his daily life, he should earn just slightly more than he was obliged to spend. It was a question not merely of survival, but of personal pride.

  Mehmet evidenced his pride by taking care of his appearance. His light blue trousers were carefully pressed; his shoes, worn down at the heel and scuffed though they might be, were thoroughly polished. His shirt was clean, and the collar had been removed and then sewn back on the other way so that the frayed side was invisible. His woollen waistcoat was neatly darned in wool that was almost of the same hue as the original, and the brass buckle of his belt was well rubbed to bring out its shine. He carried his shoulders well back and square, as he had learned during the years of his national service, and his black hair was clean, neatly trimmed and lightly greased into place. One would not have known that Mehmet Erbil was desperate, unless one looked into his pained and evasive dark brown eyes and noted how he smoked successive cigarettes with the air of someone who compulsively resorts to remedies that time and experience have proven to be inefficacious. Mehmet also smelled faintly of beer, which was the one medicine for world-weariness that he could actually afford. He was forty-one years old, he was thin but reaso
nably fit, and his skin was darker than most on account of his wanderings with the white sack. His other career had imbued him with the habit of glancing frequently at his cheap but functional black plastic watch.

  It was May 19th, and Mehmet was taking full advantage of National Youth and Sports Day. He had gone dutifully to his local school and had stood in the sun, since the canny women had got to the shaded places earlier than the men, and had watched the youngsters being put through their paces. When he was young he had been a good runner, and it filled him with wistfulness to see the boys, their arms pumping as they sped around the track. It was more amusing to watch the girls’ races, because you could tell that their hearts were not in it. He cheered ironically, along with all the others, when, in the five hundred metres, two of the girls ran out of breath with one hundred metres to go, and peeled off sheepishly, to disappear into the crowd.

  Mehmet listened to the numerous speeches, in which there was not one sentence that did not somehow manage to mention Mustafa Kemal, and he stood through the formation manoeuvres. About a hundred boys in white shirts and black trousers did a kind of choric callisthenic display of such length that he marvelled at their memory rather than their prowess, and then the girls did something equally long and elaborate, each of them clutching a huge red fan, boldly emblazoned with the white crescent moon and star. The best display by far was performed by a small group of girls in scarlet robes, their foreheads adorned with gold coins, who gracefully danced, clutching large silver trays in their hands, stepping and swaying together to a long and ululating melody rendered by a small band that consisted of clarinet, violin and drum. Having done his duty to the school and to National Youth and Sports Day, Mehmet slipped away, and took the ferry across to Kilitbahir.