The Bark Tree Read online

“Does my question surprise you?”

  “No, no, no, Meussieu Marcel. Oh no! Old Taupe, well, he still lives in these parts.”

  They heard a car stopping. Pierre came in.

  “You might tell him that this gentleman would still like to buy his door.”

  “Ah, you’re talking about the old fellow we saw the other day,” said Pierre. “Why don’t we go and wake him up?”

  Mme. Cloche paled:

  “He’d welcome you with a shotgun.”

  “Goodness me! I’ll have a white wine, too.”

  The two men drank; Ernestine fell asleep; Mme. Cloche—secretly—was exultant. It really was so. And what if they went now ... No, though, they wouldn’t dare. They didn’t dare, because they were in a hurry. So they said, at least. And the car disappeared into the night.

  —oooooo—oooooo—

  “Ernestine, why d’you think those two meussieus come here?”

  “How should I know?”

  “You don’t think it odd?”

  “Why should I?”

  “Meussieu Marcel lives in Obonne, and the other one lives in Paris. Why do they come here?”

  “They stop to have a drink.”

  “Snot on their way.”

  “Oh no, it sure isn’t.”

  “Do you think it’s natural, for rich people, to come n drink here, where it stinks of the chemicals factory and where there’s nothing but white wine and beer to drink? D’you think that’s natural?”

  “Hm, that’s true, Madame Cloche. Dnever thought of all that.”

  “And coming here at this hour. Isn’t that odd?”

  “Well, yes!”

  “And what’d they come to do?”

  “Mjust wondering.”

  “Don’t you member any more, honey?”

  “Did they say why?”

  “Course they did—try and remember.”

  “Can’t.”

  “Being lucky comes down to remembering what matters. Get that into your head, Ernestine.”

  “Yes, M’dame.”

  “They said they were going to wake old Taupe up.”

  “So-o they did! an that they wanted to buy his door! that really is a laugh, to buy a door!”

  “Yes, but, Ernestine, isn’t it peculiar, wanting to go and wake a poor devil up at this hour?”

  “You even told them he’d be after them with his shotgun, which he certainly would’ve been.”

  “You ever been to old Taupe’s?”

  “Mm, with the boss, to buy a lock.”

  “Zanything interesting there?”

  “Ja mean?”

  “Well, nice things?”

  “Yiy-yi-yi, just a norrible lot of old junk. Nothing but a lot of rotten old broken things.”

  “You think there’d be anything there that might interest a moneybags like the blond guy?”

  “Course not.”

  “Isn’t it peculiar, then, that he should come here at this hour to buy summing from him and want to wake him up to do it?”

  “And to buy a door.”

  “To buy a door, there’s a peculiar idea.”

  “Well, yes it is a peculiar idea.”

  “And those, two meussieus, what d’you spose they might want to do with it?”

  “Mjust wondering.”

  “What do they do for their living?”

  “No idea.”

  “One of them’s a bank clerk, so he says.”

  “Don’t you believe him?”

  “And the yuther one doesn’t do anything.”

  “Ah!”

  “Well then, Ernestine, what d’you think of it all?”

  “It’s a screwy idea, wanting to buy a door.”

  “And then what?”

  “Well—swot it is. It’s a screwy idea.”

  “So you think they’re screwy?”

  “Howshd I know.”

  “Couldn’t be summing else?”

  “Ida know.”

  “And old Taupe, who’s he?”

  “An old satyr! Every time he gets a chance he pinches my rear, and tries to touch my thing.”

  “He’s got a thing on you.”

  “Ha, ha, ha.”

  “And?”

  “Dirty old bastard! at his age!”

  “Yeah, sure—and apart from that, what does he do?”

  “You know as well I do. Why’re you asking me all this?”

  “I wanted to know what you think of old Taupe.”

  “Well, he’s an old satyr.”

  “And then what?”

  “He gets boozed.”

  “And then what?”

  “He’s a junk dealer.”

  “And then what?”

  “He’s at the end of his rope.”

  “Ernestine, you’re a fool.”

  “That’s what you say, Madame.”

  “Ernestine, you’re touched.”

  “That’s what you say.”

  “Ernestine, you could make your fortune, and you’re letting it pass you by!”

  “Eh?”

  “Ernestine, if you listen to me, you can live on the Côte d’Azur and have a car and go to the movies every evening and go dancing every night. Ernestine, happy days are here. No more French fries and white wine! No more chemicals and suburban trains! No more of my brother’s attentions and my sister-in-law’s insults! No more work! No more being broke! It’s gigolos for us, and bottles of kümmel! We’re going to have a good time! It’ll all be coming out of our ears! Everything—cakes, and foie gras, and caviar. And this, and that, and whoopee!”

  “Madame Cloche! Madame Cloche! don’t get so excited!”

  “Yes, Ernestine, I’m getting you out of the slums, out of the gutter, out of the shit! I’m getting you out of poverty, penury, indigence! I’ll get you covered in jewels, I will I will! Every day, Ernestine, you’ll be able to eat raw artichokes with vinaigrette sauce, your favorite dish! Every day, Ernestine, you’ll be able to go to the Trianon-Lyrique and hear your favorite operettas!”

  “But whatsa matter with her? But whatsa matter with her?”

  “Ernestine, if you listen to me, you’ll be rich.”

  “But how come?”

  “First of all, though—we’ll go fifty-fifty.”

  “How come?”

  “I tell you watch gotta do, and you give me half you get.”

  “Half. That’s a lot.”

  “What a bitch! Won’t tell you, then!”

  “Ten per cent, that’s plenty, I would think.”

  “What a cow you are, Ernestine. Half, or I won’t say a word.”

  “A third, Madame Cloche.”

  “Half, Ernestine.”

  “If I give you half, then I won’t be as rich as all that.”

  “You’ll still have more’n you need ...”

  “Huh! And what if I didn’t give you anything?”

  “Then you wouldn’t know anything.”

  “And what if I knew without you telling me anything?”

  “Knew what?”

  “Madame Cloche, I’m not such a silly cunt as I look. I know very well what you’re getting at.”

  “Which is what?”

  “Well, you’re trying to get me to believe that old Taupe, he’s a millionaire.”

  “Ernestine, do you really think so?”

  “Whereza proof?”

  “Precisely. Half—and I’ll prove it.”

  “Or right, or right, Madame Cloche. Half.”

  “You mean it?”

  “I mean it.”

  “And whatever you do—not a word to a soul.”

  “I promise, Madame Cloche.”

  “Well, then, Ernestine, it’s like this: the yuther day, Cloclo, he was playing near old Taupe’s hut when the two men came out. He heard them saying: his money, it’s hidden behind his door, swhy he wont’ sell his door. And the tall blond one, he was saying: Sobvious that he’s more than a millionaire. That’s how it is, my girl: Meussieu Marcel and his buddy, they want
to get their hands on old Taupe’s cash. They’re a lot of thieving robbers. But we’ll get there before them. Couldn’t be simpler: you marry old Taupe, and the cash is ours.”

  “And what if ole Taupe doesn’t want to marry me?”

  “He’ll marry you, don’t worry. He goes nuts when he sees you.”

  “And the yuthers, what if they have it in for me?”

  “Course not, course not! You’ve got nothing to be afraid of.”

  “Not so sure.”

  “What d’you spose they’d do?”

  “Seems risky to me.”

  “What, Ernestine, would you allow this magnificent opportunity to pass you by?”

  “I see it all. I risk my skin, and I get myself saddled with ole Taupe so’s I can give you half the proceeds. Don’t think much of that.”

  “You’re just making difficulties, Ernestine. I can think of dozens of girls would take that risk.”

  “Swot you say. Way I look at it, the others, the moment they saw the cash slipping out of their hands, they’d get rid of me. Any fool could see that.”

  “You’re dreaming, Ernestine.”

  “No, Madame Cloche, I’m not dreaming. I won’t play.”

  “Oh come, Ernestine.”

  “I won’t play! I won’t play! I won’t play!”

  “But you’re a fool! An absolute fool! There’s millions at stake.”

  “Maybe, but I’ll do without them ... No, M’dame Cloche. Count me out. Thank you. Nenni case, you’ve got to go. I’m closing, sten o’clock.”

  “Well, that’s really too much. Look, Ernestine, a fortune, and you’re letting it slip through your fingers. You really must be touched, then.”

  “It’s all very fine, but I’d rather be a waitress here than a millionaire in the cemetery. Nenni case, zno proof he’s a millionaire.”

  “Look, Ernestine, watch want, and you really think those two guys keep coming here just for the hell of it? isn’t it proof, what Clovis heard? What more ja want? and you think it’s natural to go on going on about how the way to be happy is not to own anything, and a lot of boloney like that? If he was really poor, ole Taupe, well, he wouldn’t go on about it so much. It’s as plain as day. Yes, I mean it, it’s as plain as day.”

  “That’s all very fine, Madame Cloche, but it doesn’t interest me. And nenni case, it’s 10 o’clock, I’m closing.”

  “Right, I’m going. But you’ll see, you’ll change your mind! You’ll change your mind!”

  —oooooo—oooooo—

  It was goddamn stinking hot. Old Taupe was sitting on a rickety chair, his tongue hanging out and his left eye oozing. With the other eye he was idly observing the movements of a big green fly in search of sustenance among the odds and ends withering in the sun. Few flies frequented this place, being disgusted by the smell of chemicals. On the other hand, you sometimes met a few rats. Old Taupe ignored this kind of livestock, even though one of them had, one night, bitten one of his toes. For the moment, it was goddamn stinking hot, the factory chimneys were smoking abundantly; from the sidings came the sound of a train being put together and the jolts that reverberated from car to car as they were coupled. Trucks were going by on the road to Blagny. Old Taupe was vaguely trying to recall the dates of the hottest summers he had known; this tiring effort of thought was accompanied by an abundant secretion of saliva. He came up with the summer of 1895, that of 1904, that of 1911, then he filled a clay pipe whose bowl he had carefully tied on with a bit of string, and started smoking: the pipe gurgled, the man spat; a little corner of paradise in the middle of the hell of the Paris suburbs.

  Old Taupe went to a lot of trouble over his happiness; to the pleasure of his pipe he added that of scratching his head with his index finger and watching its nail gradually blackening. A feeblish, tepid wind brought a little more dust into the enclosure; a tattered umbrella gently flapped its wings; an old newspaper shifted a little; a slack spring tried to take a few steps but couldn’t make it. The sun, without discrimination, beat down on nails and color prints, on locks and cauldrons, on water jugs and candelabras; the nail had become quite black, and the gurgle intensive. Perfect bliss reigned in this corner of paradise which had struck root inner miggle uvver Parris suburbs.

  Old Taupe heard an ancient pair of shoes slopping along the path, and, next thing, summon knocked on the gate. And a voice sang: M’sieu Taupe, M’sieu Taupe; it was a woman’s voice. It nearly made the old man swallow his pipe. What a thing to happen! M’sieu Taupe, said the woman’s voice. Who a nurth could it be? He trotted over to the drawbridge and asked: “Who is it?” and the answer was: “Nestine.” He opened the gate.

  Ernestine wanted to buy a vase to put flowers in. That was the only excuse she’d managed to think up. The junk dealer was amazed.

  “Who’s giving you flowers, then, you hussy,” said he, in the most licentious tone of voice he could produce.

  Ernestine made a few jokes. The old man tried to pinch her; she made him take his hands off, but how the hell was she going to get him to ask her to marry him? Not the very first time, obviously. She went into the hovel and saw the door. Obviously it was there, the door. A door for no reason at all, and blue, furthermore; behind it, it was the railroad embankment. Maybe the old man had dug a cellar there. Ma Cloche didn’t know the details. Ernestine was making superhuman efforts to rise to the occasion.

  Old Taupe had fetched a vase which made a beautifully decorative impression; a pink shepherd and a mauve shepherdess were negligently leaning against its flanks. A blackish mud hid the rest of its ornamentation. He muttered:

  “Like it, m’girl?” in a choking voice.

  She looked at him; was he really a millionaire? He thought he detected untold depths of perversity in her eyes; putting the vase down on a toothless chest of drawers, he started dancing up and down on the spot and clucking like a guinea fowl.

  “Well, Pop, how much y’going to charge me for your vase?”

  And this acrobat, who had one foot in the grave and the other in the cradle, this acrobat whispered:

  “A kiss.”

  Ernestine saw only the comic side of these goings-on, and turned around, to stifle her laughter. The sound of breaking china made her turn back again; the old man didn’t like people making fun of him, he’d just broken the rosy shepherd and the mauvish shepherdess.

  “Oh! my vase,” said Ernestine, suiting the appropriate mimicry to these words.

  Old Taupe regretted his gesture.

  “It’s not right to make fun of me, my dear,” said he.

  And she understood at once what he was referring to.

  The good fellow then heard some surprising words; the girl wasn’t rejecting his advances any more, but she seemed to attach a condition to them whose meaning he couldn’t quite grasp yet. He went and fetched her another vase, adorned with a Neapolitan moon, which he sold her for three francs fifty; she left, smiling pleasantly. She had said some things to him which, if she really meant what she said, well, there was no getting over them.

  —oooooo—oooooo—

  Sidonie sat down on the terrace of her favorite café, opposite the Gare du Nord. It was there, three weeks before, that she’d seen a bus run over a young man in a hurry; it was there that she’d first seen the two accomplices, Etienne Marcel and X ...

  They had then acted, before her very eyes, a mysterious scenario whose exact meaning she hadn’t succeeded in understanding, any more than she had understood the exact meaning of the conversation she’d just had with Narcense.

  At first, her brother Saturnin had made a terrible fuss: out of the question for her to go and see Meussieu Narcense.

  What did she want with him? What business was it of hers? Ek cetra, ek cetra. Summing streamly important, she’d replied, and then, sit got to do with you? Her brother, he’d had to shut his trap. No but ... an anyway, he was the youngest. Another good thing was that the meussieu in question was in. He’d looked surprised to see her, course he had, and he’d asked he
r nice and politely to sit down. Wasn’t anything ticularly interesting to look at in his apartment. Wz a piano, and then a jazz-band whatsit, and then some photos, and then he was in the middle of writing some music. All for show, of course. It was the first time she’d seen him. He had a scar on his forehead, and he looked a tough customer. Wasn’t wearing a tie, and he was in his shirtsleeves. So he asked her: Watch want me to do for you? Just like that, abruptly. So she’d answered: I’ve come to suggest doing a deal, and he’d said: Well, well! Whereupon there’d been a silence. Then she’d gone on: You do know M’sieu Marcel, Etienne Marcel? “Yes,” he’d answered. “And his pal, oh beg yours, his friend, the fair-haired meussieu that’s got a car,” and he’d said: Pierre Le Grand. So that was what that one’s name was. Certainly not a real name; it’s like Narcense, odd sort of name that is. Ah well, duh matter.

  N then she said: You had some matters to settle, the two of you, and she gave him a wink. The fellow, he said he din understand. “What about Théo,” says she. “Don’t know ’im,” says the fellow, looking furious. “Oh, beg yours,” says she. She hadn’t been going about it the right way.

  There wz another silence; Narcense was the first to break it, and he said: I haven’t the vaguest what you want from me, Madame. Natch it was difficult to explain it to him. “The other two, they’re hatching summing up,” she finally made up her mind to say. “Watch mean, the other two?”

  “Well, Marcel and Le Grand.”

  Then he’d said: “What the hell d’you think I care?” Then she’d said: “You and me together, we can stop them.” Then he’d laughed like anything and said: Why should we stop them? And there wasn’t any answer to that. “Oh, it’s a big deal,” says she, and Meussieu Narcense had said: You don’t say, and he gave her a peculiar look.

  Then he asked her: Do you know them well, those messieus? “Do I know them? Course I do,” she’d replied. “They’re always coming to have a drink at my brother’s, not the one that’s the concierge here, but the yuther one that’s got a bistro at Blagny, you know, on the Obonne line.”

  “Then Saturnin, he’s your brother,” says he. “Yes, M’sieu,” she’d replied. “And those two messieus are always going to have a drink at Blagny?”

  “Oh yess, M’sieu,” she’d again replied. “Well, that takes the cake,” says he. “And is that all they do at Blagny?” he asks.