The Bark Tree Read online

  At 6 o’clock, the silhouette emerged. This amused him enormously. He really did recognize this particular one. One day he’d amuse himself by following it. At this moment, he observed which great concern that the silhouette, instead of going straight to the metro, had made a detour and stopped at the window of a hat shop, where he was watching two little ducks floating in a waterproof hat that had been filled with water in order to demonstrate its primary quality. This distraction had an immediate effect on the silhouette which was not lost on the observer; it acquired a certain density and became a flat entity. This modification of its structure was, moreover, perceived by the people who were in the habit of traveling in the same train as he, in the same carriage, in the same compartment. The atmosphere became oppressive when, at the liberating sound of the whistle, the door opened and, at the last moment, the place next to the right-hand corner seat, facing the engine, was occupied. Something had changed.

  A game of manille got going in the left-hand square. The ex-officer, now a wine salesman, made a lot of noise opening his paper; the young lady opposite went on with her crochet, which she’d begun at Easter. The man opposite the flat entity was dozing, but his sleep was agitated; he was dribbling, and every so often he would retrieve his saliva, thus exhibiting a violet tongue which made you think that its possessor must either suck his pen or have some atrocious disease, such as the bashi-bazouk, or the violetteria. Looking as if he were permanently hanging by the neck, the man opposite went unnoticed. On his right, the retired officer was nibbling at the horsehair on his upper lip and muttering politics; his eyes were fuming; a war in view, no doubt. He too was frightening. Violet-tongue emerged from his somnolence and opened a paper, the Cross. One after the other, two serious events occurred: the young lady pinched her finger in the fastening of her handbag and hurt herself badly and, in the other corner, the manille players started bawling. “Ace of spades, king of hearts, diamonds, must be a half-wit to play like that.” Speak for yourself, Meussieu, people that play cards need to watch what they’re doing, if they don’t know how to play then they don’t play, no one can play with anyone like that.”

  Play, play, play, play. And the young lady gurgling and sucking her finger. The failed general, lifting his nostrils from his patriotic literature, wanted to join in. The man reading the Cross was watching a fly with wide-open eyes, his paper firmly popped up on his thighs. Look out! a sweeping movement with his tongue. And the others were still at it. “That’s twenty-five centimes you’ve made me lose, playing so stupidly. If you’d only realized ... Meussieu, Meussieu, Meussieu—”

  These meussieus, as emphatic as if they were titles, replaced the slaps on the face that they didn’t dare to distribute, for fear of getting them back. And it went on, and on. It would go on like that until the next station. Twenty minutes. The flat entity felt like crying. He felt vaguely responsible for this lamentable departure from the compartment’s habits. It was the fault of the little ducks and the waterproof hat.

  Two of the manille players get out at the first station, muttering terribly, with the horrible eyes of angry tame rabbits. The young lady, sucking at her finger, got out too. The soldier in civvies spread himself out and picked his teeth with the nail of his index finger, and the Christian started avidly reading an article on the salvation of Chinese children. Things were looking up on this side of the compartment, but the manille players went on arguing, and their passionate voices grated on the eardrums of the flat entity, who had just that moment realized that he knew one of them. They had stayed in the same pension in Pornic. This coincidence completely changed the tenor of his thoughts, which were diverted into a little reverie about sea-bathing, it wasn’t long till vacation, in three weeks’ time he’d have four weeks off, when the wine salesman, deciding that it was getting stuffy, lowered one of the windows. The manille player from Pornic couldn’t stand drafts. He complained. The salesman refused to close it. And once again cries of “Meussieu, I tell you, Meussieu,” “But Meussieu,” went flying from one end of the compartment to the other, a Brennish, polite form of artillery, wretched, pathetic bullets that the man reading the Cross gulped down as they went by, like rotten eggs. And things were going from bad to worse, as they say; just like kids who load their snowballs with stones, these Meussieus were packing their “Meussieus” with abysses of perfidy, chasms of sarcasm, precipices of defiance and mixed grills of spite. But they wouldn’t come to blows. The flat entity again felt that it was the fault of the little ducks and the waterproof hat; the next stop cut the argument short by the premature exit of all the gabbers, plus the Catholic, the flat entity was left alone and anxiously asked himself: Why? And he went on saying, why, why, to the rhythm of the train. At the next station. He got out.

  After the inevitable pushing and shoving on the way out, he made his way to his house, jumping from one mudhole in the road to the next, starting stones rolling with the sightless point of his oxford shoes. After twenty minutes of similarly arduous progress, he arrived at the squeaking gate. The cat wasn’t there. He shut the gate and went up the four steps to the house.

  Now he’s in the dining room. Everything seems as it should be. The child with the rings around his eyes slowly closes a Vindication of Socrates in which he has hidden a photo that he prefers to keep for his private contemplation. He raises a pure forehead—pure, though heavy with numerous obscenities. The wife brings the shoup.

  She thinks he looks odd.

  “You look odd, So and So,” she says.

  He does in fact feel odd.

  “Yes, So and So-ess, I feel odd,” he says.

  The child absorbs his shoup in haste. His spoon goes click click on the bottom of his plate. The flat entity takes his courage in both hands, those hands which he feels down there at the end of his arms; he takes his courage—in other words, he creates it. After a violent effort, he starts:

  “You know, today, I stopped at the hat shop, the one on the left as you come out of the bank. There’s something very strange in the window. A waterproof hat.”

  The child, who is waiting for what’s to follow (to eat), is listening carefully.

  “They’ve put some water in it to prove, to show, that is, that it’s waterproof; and two ducks, too.”

  The family meditates for a moment. The wife asks:

  “Two ducks?”

  The flat entity, embarrassed, answers:

  “Yes, you know, two little rubber ducks.”

  Now he’s furious; this stupid story always ends badly; the absurd idea of looking in that window. What’s more, now the child is speaking, and uttering these words:

  “It’s been there for at least two years, that thing.”

  The flat papa doesn’t know what to say. The noodles are brought. Are brought—by the wife, of course. There’s no meat tonight. Then, quite bluntly, she informs him that one of the neighbors has killed the cat. Which one, they don’t know.

  Where is it?

  Old Ma Tyrant brought its corpse back. She’s a poor old woman, she wanted its skin. She found it against the wall of Hippolyte’s café. It had a bullet in its head.

  The flat entity can’t accept the idea of anyone killing his cat; he starts getting inflated, like the meussieus in the train. Then he gets deflated. He goes to bed. He feels odd. He’ll make love to his wife tonight. As for the child, he will abstain from any sort of pollution, because he’s got a mathematics test tomorrow, and whenever he does it the night before, it always brings him bad luck.

  —oooooo—oooooo—

  The observer is hatching something; what it is even he doesn’t know yet. But he is preparing himself; either he will continue to study his quarry, as he calls him, or he’ll look for some other random event, just as pointless, just as useless. After wavering between various possible occupations, he settles for Pernod and the silhouette. And with his eyes open, seeing the beings he encounters with perfect lucidity, he decides to play a waiting game. On his way, he meets his brother, whom he hasn’t see
n for a very long time; he makes out he’s in a great hurry, and also very busy, and arranges to meet him at midnight. Finally, he attains one of his goals: his place is free; the man with emphysema is sitting next to him. Further to the south, the young man with the passport is brooding, all by himself. At the nadir, a cigarette butt, at the zenith, a striped awning, for the vigilant proprietor is preparing for his customers to get the perfidious drops secreted by the alleged protector down the back of their necks.

  The storm is taking its time; so is the flat entity, because just precisely today he’s doing an hour’s overtime. Finally one, two, three drops of water fall on to the asphalt. The observer, who has been disappointed by the 6 o’clock exodus, remains at his post. Four, five, six drops of water. Some people, anxious about their straw hats, raise their noses. Description of a storm in Paris. In summer. The timid take to their heels; others raise the collars of their jackets, which gives them an air of bravado. It begins to smell of mud. Many people prudently look for shelter, and when the rain is at its height, all that can be seen are blackish groups clustered around doorways, like mussels around the pile of a pier. The cafés are doing a brisk trade. 7 o’clock. Streetcars, buses and trains will be missed, dinners burned and appointments unkept. A few ostentatious thunder claps try to make people believe this is a real storm. Certain learned people declare that it had been working up to a storm and that it will cool the air, and that it’s a good thing, a little rain like that from time to time, and that it won’t last long.

  The observer allows these vain words which tell nothing but the truth to reach him; he notes with some bitterness that these banalities correspond perfectly to reality. The present reality couldn’t ask any more. And the silhouette has still not appeared. Yes it has, though; he sees it on the steps of the Audit Bank, patiently waiting for the rain to stop; in any case, it isn’t a silhouette any longer, but a flat entity. The other man catches his breath; the rain stops; the flat entity runs for the metro.

  The observer gets up, leaves without paying (he’ll be back) and starts to pursue his quarry. Now he’s going down into the metro. He’s right at the bottom of the steps, he’s about to go through the iron gate. Luckily, the other man has some tickets. A train arrives. What an incredible crowd! The flat entity is there in the second second-class coach; so is the observer; the first in front of the right-hand door, the second in front of the door he went in by.

  What a remarkable change, thinks the second, but it’s pointless to study him like this. I wonder what station he’ll get off at. Much shoving; Saint-Denis; he’s going to change.

  Rearrangements as far as the Gare du Nord. Which train will he catch, the local or the one that is an express more or less? The 7:31 or the 7:40? Come on, dig your elbow into that obstructionist’s stomach; step on that charming girl’s toes—otherwise you’ll miss your more or less express train, and if you look at that woman you’ll miss the slow one. The flat entity only misses the faster one; the slow train is still waiting. He’s made it. No more habits here, the faces aren’t the same, the 7 o’clock commuters are an unknown world to the 6 o’clock commuters, and he is one of the latter. He knows neither the little man with a moustache whose jagged-edged straw hat is threatening to bite a tall man next to him who is dozing with his mouth open, nor those two girls absorbed in a book-based-on-the-movie, nor that mother and brat, the latter watching two flies coupling on his grazed knee, because he took a hell of a spill down the escalator at the Pigalle metro station, what a business that was, nor that blond young man staring fixedly at the landscape as it goes by. He has a feeling he saw the young man in the metro earlier, but he isn’t sure. Now he’s thinking about his cat, about whose assassination he is in despair. He counts up the proofs of affection the animal used to give him. For instance, it used to wait for him every evening on the little wall, by the gate. A dirty beast has killed it. He thinks of its corpse, its hide, its skin that Ma Tyrant is busy tanning. The flat entity becomes indignant, he rebels. And he tells himself so.

  Instead of being cut out like a tin soldier, his contours are starting to soften. He is gently expanding. He is maturing. The observer can clearly perceive this, but can see no outward reason for it. He now has in front of him a being who is endowed with a certain consistency. He notes with interest that the features of this being endowed with a certain reality are slightly convulsed. What can be happening? This silhouette is a prize specimen.

  The kid murmurs something to his mother; everyone guesses what it is. The little man with the moustache has gotten into a conversation with his neighbor; he informs him in pensive tones that the weather was oppressive and stormy, but that the storm just now cooled the air. The listener agrees. Then, by association of contiguous ideas, he talks to him about journeys into the stratosphere.

  Between two stations, without any explanation, the train slows down, and then stops. Heads abruptly appear at the windows; the ones on the right-hand side have to retire into their shells immediately, under penalty of decapitation, because a train is going by in the other direction, but it’s going pretty slowly at that. There must have been an accident. Indefinite delay. This news provokes something of a stir in the compartment. The brat takes advantage of it to get out and piss. The man with a mustache loses his listener, who’s gone to sleep for good.

  —oooooo—oooooo—

  Narcense and Potice are following a woman. That, actually, is Potice’s main activity; his conquests are multiple. A benevolent conformist, he doesn’t despise his fellow men, and thinks about them as little as possible. He detests it when some great event occurs and interferes with his ploys. This particular day seems to him to be just as good, if not better; than yesterday; he doesn’t really know, though, he doesn’t give it much thought. But he doesn’t worry about tomorrow. He collects women.

  Whereas Narcense, he’s an artist; neither a painter, nor a poet, nor an architect, nor an actor, nor a sculptor, he plays music, to be more precise, the saxophone; and he does this in night clubs. At the moment, he’s out of work anyway, and is looking for a means of earning his daily bread by the exercise of his abilities, but he can’t manage it. He’s beginning to get worried. Today, at about 4 o’clock, he met his old friend Potice, who persuaded him to join him in pursuit of a woman he had chosen out of all the thousands of others; he’d only seen her from behind; her face was doubtful. Risky. 5 o’clock.

  Narcense and Potice are very Parisian. They follow women at 5 o’clock.

  The lady in question is walking with resolute, hurried steps. Right, now she’s in the streetcar. A number 8. Going to the Gare de l’Est. Narcense and Potice run after the streetcar. Some cars run after Narcense and Potice. In the streetcar, the lady sits down, looking lost. Lost in her thoughts, she doesn’t look at anything or anyone, isn’t interested in anything, or anyone. She just sits there, with some packages on her knees. Not pretty, but beautiful: Narcense and Potice admire her.

  At the terminus, still resolutely, she goes toward the Gare du Nord. Does a little shopping on her way. Potice tries to get into conversation with her, but fails.

  At the Gare du Nord, they’re lagging behind, somewhat. A volley of automobiles has come between them. The lady is going to disappear. They swear. Is this the right moment? They press on, they leap between the delivery wagons and the buses, they avoid the one, and the other. Narcense has time to see the lady on platform 31. He runs and finds out where the train is going, and takes an appropriate ticket (Potice isn’t following him); all down the platform he looks into the compartments. This one’s full, this one, this one. She’s in there. There’s still a bit of room in the corner. He climbs in, slightly out of breath. The lady is staring straight ahead, and doesn’t seem to see anything. She looks exhausted. Narcense wonders what has happened to Potice. He looks out of the window, but doesn’t see anyone. The train starts. At Obonne, the lady gets out. So does Narcense. Lots of people in the street. Narcense doesn’t dare to risk it. He nearly does, but then he chickens. So th
at he finally finds himself all by himself at the gate of a little house. He hangs around a bit, and looks at the house, which is either half built or being demolished. He thinks it’s magnificent. He understands that such a woman, such a beautiful woman, should live in such a strange place. Meanwhile, the beautiful woman is peeling onions, quite exhausted.

  Narcense is still prowling around, extremely perplexed. Doesn’t know what to do. Very fortunately, a definite external event makes up his mind for him. It starts raining hard. And he rushes off to the nearest shelter. A bistro.

  I look like a rabbit, today, he thinks. Running all day long. A rabbit playing a little drum. What a beautiful woman! What a presence! He undresses her as he absentmindedly orders a mandarin-curaçao, and he’s biting her breast, not the one on the left, the one on the right, when at a nearby table he hears a voice reminiscing.

  “Shanghai, that’s where the biggest bar in the world is ... I know all the brothels in Valparaiso ... I once sailed on a steamer that was transporting Chinese corpses ... On my first trip, I was sixteen, I went to Australia. In Sydney, I nearly got myself killed by a great big Swede, who ... I got three years’ hard labor. I got over it ... I’m off to the Pacific in a month. I got a nice little chick in Valparaiso ...”

  Narcense comes out of his dream and looks; a very nondescript individual, but with a seaman’s jersey and a leather-peaked cap. Three local youths surround him, listening. It’s still raining outside. The proprietor blows his nose loudly, wipes the counter and would like to say something. The other tables are empty, except the one at the far end which is occupied by a truculent mongrel. The sailor goes on jabbering. Then he decides to start up the player piano.