The Bark Tree Read online

  “No—no idea.”

  “You don’t know anything, then, my poor child.”

  “Obviously, if I was as nosy as you are, I’d find things out too; but personally, you know, I don’t give a damn about other people’s business.”

  “In any case, it seems to be a strange business, that door hanging on a wall. They sounded terribly excited when they were talking about it.

  “Even Etienne?”

  “That’s your stepfather?”

  “Yes; Etienne.”

  “Etienne as well. Ah! and they were talking about someone called Maxence, as well.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “Do you know him?”

  “Do I know him! Shink so. He tried to hang me.”

  “Well, well. So he tried to hang you, did he, my lad? He must have been a vicious one, to want to hang a little lad like you! And how come—why did he want to hang you?”

  “I’d insulted him. Oh! that’s quite a story. That gigolo, all he did, he made advances to my mother: so I said to him, I said: Hands off my mother, Meussieu. So he said to me, he said: Unless you’re a coward, come and meet me tonight at midnight in the forest; we’ll have it out. I didn’t get cold feet. I went, all alone. He’d told me to meet him in a clearing. In the moonlight. I get there, he was waiting for me. The minute he sees me, he throws himself on me and ties me up. I’m going to hang you, he yells. He’d got a slipknot ready. Huh, what an adventure!”

  “Go on, this is interesting.”

  “Well then, just when he was starting to hoist me up in the air, what happens but a fisherman turns up, and so Narcense runs away.”

  “He’s called Narcense?”

  “Yes, Narcense, not Maxence.”

  “A fisherman in the middle of the night?”

  “Yes, he was looking for glowworms.”

  “Ah.”

  The dwarf is rubbing away at his shoes; Théo, wanting to look as if he’s doing something, absent-mindedly goes through his pockets. He finds the letter for Etienne. Bébé Toutout squints at it out of the corner of his eye.

  “Huh, a letter.”

  “Not for you.”

  “Who is it for?”

  “None of your business.”

  “The letters other people get interest me more than the ones I get. All the more so as I never get any.”

  “Nor do I.”

  “Well then. When we’ve got a chance to read a letter for once. With a bit of steam, it’s very simple.”

  “I know, I know,” says Theo, irritated, putting a sore span of water on the gas to heat.

  —oooooo—oooooo—

  If you think I didn’t understand all your schemes. And what a laugh they gave me. All your comings and goings and your tricks and your hopes and all. Old Taupe’s treasure, what a laugh, eh, oh what a laugh. And you believed in it! I’m talking to you, Ma’ame Cloche, especially to you. And I was always wondering how the idea could have taken root in your nut. How you could possibly have thought it up. I saw at once what it was all about; and I saw, too, that it was ever since those messieus came to see me that I’d begun to look like a miserly millionaire. I’d seen that much, but I couldn’t very well make out why. Maybe they were pulling your leg. Madame Cloche, those messieus. My goodness, I really couldn’t make it out. But one thing was absolutely certain, and that was that you took me for a millionaire, you and Ernestine. When she came to my place, the first time, I said to myself: Hm, that’s odd. What’s she want from me? Why should she agree to sleep with me? Then my brain got to work, and it went on working, and I thought, and I watched, and I listened, and in the end I understood: you, Ma Cloche, you’d persuaded her that I’d got a fortune hidden somewhere, and that if she married me she’d be rich. Rich! Rich! Poor Ernestine! Marrying me didn’t make her any less broke! She’d have been ... Eh? Yes, you think it was a lousy thing to do, what I did. Lousy? Because I didn’t object. I let myself be married, an old boy like me. Sixty years old. A love match. They don’t dare say it’s my money they’re after. My nonexistent money! Poor Ernestine, she believed in it. She thought she was going to get out of the gutter by becoming my wife. How could you call that lousy? How could you? I loved the girl. And why not? Every time I went to Dominique’s, I saw her. What a lovely girl! Whenever she went by me, I could smell her sweat, I got drunk on it; it gave me the shivers, up and down my spine. And her buttocks; like marble, they were, like elastic marble. The bitch, she knew very well what a state she got me in. She never missed—every time I was there she’d hoist up her dress and fix her garter. When she saw I was looking, that’s what she’d do every time. And I’d go away, with my liter of white in my stomach, and my head haunted by the sight of her thighs. And then, she was so nice to all the others, to the young men. She’d laugh with them; they’d paw her, and she’d laugh. Not with me, though. Just an old beggar, that’s what she thought I was. And I wasn’t thinking about anything but her—the whole of her. I could feel her under my hand, when I was alone. What sort of hope did I have? And then, all of a sudden, she offers herself to me, to get her hands on my imaginary money. And you think it was lousy of me to say yes? Afterward, of course, I did ask myself, what’s she going to say when she finds out that it was all a lot of nonsense and that she’s just as broke as she ever was, and married to me, at that? What would she have done? She’d have gone mad. I was very worried. I’d have had her for a whole night, I said to myself, and then what? What a thing it would have been for her! The despair! To have thought you were going to get rich from one day to the next, and then find yourself in an even rottener position than before. How she’d have suffered. Poor Ernestine! But you know—she didn’t know—and I never had her. Never, never. And I can still see her, bringing me my liter of white and the glass she never wiped—I can still see her, with her green eyes and her messy hair and her pointed breasts, then she’d go away and peel the spuds. She wouldn’t look at me any more, and I’d just drink my liter of white. And now, nothing. She never got out of the gutter. And to think that I never had her. Never! Never!

  And the door? that door, it’s always the same story. Yes, the same. The same thing always happens to you. Funny, isn’t it? When I was twenty, a woman. But I won’t bore you with a young man’s love affair, eh? Well, a woman who’s dead. The door’s a souvenir. That’s all. Forty years later, I found the door. It had got our names on it. I bought it. That’s all. No fortune, no treasure, no mystery. Nothing. And if you don’t like it, too bad. Or all the better. Yes, forty years later, I found the door we’d written our names on. And, because of that door, Ernestine, that I loved, is dead. That’s something out of the ordinary, isn’t it? Don’t you think it’s even tragic? Fatalitas! Fatalitas! as they say. It’s given me a shock. And what about me? What becomes of me with all this? I’m left-with my head tormenting me and fermenting, with my head haunted by pictures that get more and more obscene. I’m left-slobbering in the sun, becoming more of an imbecile every day. Ernestine, the sweet cheat gone!

  —oooooo—oooooo—

  She couldn’t care less, now, whether she saw the door or whether she didn’t see it. She caught the train to town and, getting out at the Gare du Nord, sat down on the terrace of her usual café. She was very weary. She ordered a green menthe, which made the waiter smile; of course, though, she was still wearing her curé’s habit. Well, she’d gone to a lot of trouble for nothing, and it was well and truly over.

  Well and truly over, and no more hope. No more hope—nothing. Old Taupe was really poor, poverty-stricken. There was no more treasure than there was butter up your ass. Well, she was going back to her abortions. That was all there was to it. The daily grind was going to start all over again. This was the end of all her great hopes. Of Life with a capital L. Of her great plans. She swigged down her green menthe, getting her fingers all sticky.

  She’d’ve started by buying a few dresses, but fabulous ones, and that’d’ve made her look twenty years younger, and then she’d’ve gone off to a
beauty parlor, where they’d’ve made her look twenty years younger. Sum total, forty. Which would have left her at fifteen. When you’ve got the cash, what can’t you do! And after that, she’d’ve gone and seen a guy that sells cars. A super one, she’d have said, with a hood as long as that, and nicely upholstered seats. Something that’d look impressive. She’d have hired a lady’s maid and a chauffeur, and en route for Montycarloh. And then she’d’ve bought a villa at Neuilly as well, with water, gas, electricity, elevator, electric kitchen, fridge, central heating, whyliss, and maybe even a bathroom. She’d start off by filling her cellar with champagne. Every day, at every meal, champagne, except for the morning, when she got up, always the same as usual, cold black pudding and strong red wine.

  And this was where it had started. The whole thing. The day when Marcel got himself bumped into by his pal’s taxi. It was even the day before, at that, cos it was because of the first guy being reduced to pulp that she’d come back to this caff. What a soppy thing shebeen. Believing a kid, like that! They’re liars, kids are, you never ought to believe a thing they say. The little swine. He’d got Ernestine’s death on his conscience, after all; not her. Though anyway, what did she care about Ernestine’s death. But to have wasted your time, and stuffed your head full of a load of old rubbish, to have imagined a whole lot of tripe. She must’ve been nuts! Ah, shit. When she thought about it, she could bite her ass with rage. No, really, to’ve thought for two months that she was going to end up in the skin of a rich old dame and keep gigolos and little fox terrier doggies, to’ve thought that she could end up, at fifty-five, being able to indulge her every whim, to’ve thought that because a silly cunt of a brat had told her a lot of tripe that didn’t even make sense! Wasn’t anything to be proud of in that. No, really, there wasn’t an all. And she wouldn’t be boasting about it.

  She could already see herself arriving at the casino, somewhere where it was sunny, in a place where it was always fine; she could see herself arriving at the casino, with powder thick as that all over her mug, her tits patched up, and dolled up in a three-thousand franc dress, between a couple of well-dressed swells in dinner jackets with their hair oiled down over their noodles; good-looking types, what. And the people’d’ve said: Who’s that, the one with the diamonds big as your fist? Is she Princess Falzar or the Duchess of Frangipani? No, no, they’d have said, the people in the know, that’s Mme. Du Belhôtel, the one that goes in for charitable works and antiasthmatic stamps. She was married to an Indian prince, the people’s say, and thass the explanation of all her bread. In any case, zwun thing she wouldn’t have done, that’d have been play roulette. It’s nuts. You lose as much as you like. No, her lovely money, she wouldn’t have chucked it on the green baize cloth like that, for it to fly away and her never see it any more. No. She wouldn’t have boggled at spending it, that she wouldn’t; when it came to fun and games, she’d have been on, all right. But going and chucking her stash into the coffers of the casino—no, she wouldn’t have done that.

  Just take a look at all these half-wits going by. They still take me for a curé, what’s more. Curé! You don’t do much work and yet you get respected. And begging for alms, there’s something in that. No need of any special knowledge to beg for alms. That could bring me in a little on the side, after all.

  And to think that she’d let herself be taken in by that idiotic story, that she’d swallowed it and got Ernestine to swallow it. No, it was too awful to think about.

  She pays for her drink and gets up. She goes in the direction of her domicile, which is situated at number ninety-one Paradise Street. She walks; slowly. Her head heavy with thought, she makes her way through the crowd in Lafayette Street. She goes down this street, with bitter regrets restless in her heart. She didn’t feel like laughing, she certainly didn’t. Occasionally, someone in the crowd would turn around and look at this extraordinary curé who seemed so absorbed in his thoughts. Muss be thinking about the good Lord, they were saying to themselves, the clots. It was when she’d got to the lil square opposite the church of St. Vincent d’Paul that a sports car, but a splendiferous one, stopped. It was—obviously anyone who knows his way around’ll already’ve guessed—it was Pierre’s car.

  “Hey there,” says he.

  And Mme. Cloche goes over.

  “Good day, M’sieur the curé,” says he, very seriously.

  “Good day, my son,” replied the midwife.

  “Got summing to tell you,” says he, “summing dead funny, at that.”

  “And wotizit?” asked Mme. Cloche.

  “Well, when he went back home, old Taupe found his door wasn’t there.”

  “Eh?”

  “Yes, the door, the famous door, someone’s swiped it. That’s what I had to say to you. So long.”

  And the car, with a roar, drove off.

  Yes but what do I care? Sall the same to me.

  Even so, it is odd. But apart from that, if instead of stealing his mysterious door, they’d pinched his front door, old Taupe’d’ve been furious.

  —oooooo—oooooo—

  Dear Meussieu Marcel and Colleague,

  When you receive this letter, you can say farewell to all hope of seizing the riches hidden by M. Gérard Taupe in his hut in Blagny. For, tomorrow morning, at crack of dawn, we are going to steal it, and nothing can stop us accomplishing this exploit. We would be grateful if you would also kindly inform Meussieu Pierre Le Grand of this important occurrence. This will spare you a great deal of unnecessary trouble.

  The adventure of the Taupic treasure, then, is coming to an end, and it is ourselves who are going to make it come, this end, and in the manner which we shall consider fitting, in other words, by causing to disappear, for our benefit, the immense fortune of this individual, according to what has been written above.

  We dare hope that you will not bear us any ill will for our superiority, for if you were the first to spot this idle money, we shall be the only ones to put it to use; we have no other justification. What is more, we are thus illustrating in a new way the fable of the third robber, and we believe that it was more the desire to participate in this illustration that urged us to this theft than the desire for wealth, ow re sack rough arm s.{15}

  Be that as it may, you look pretty foolish now (long live the foolish! long live the foolish!), and we look pretty rich. So everything’s for the best.

  With kind regards.

  The magic cordon,

  The invisible false note.

  P.S. As you see, we’re writing you an anonymous letter.

  Saturnin Belhôtel

  Narcense.

  “What goings-on!” exclaims Bébé Toutout.

  “Um well, um well,” goes Théo, not managing to express himself any more lucidly.

  “You wouldn’t have thought it of your father, would you?”

  “Um well, um well,” Théo goes on going.

  “Your father was trying to commit a theft? When he looked so honest. You’d never have guessed that one, would you, my little lad?”

  “He hasn’t stolen anything, since it was Narcense who ...”

  “Yes, but he was going to. And this Saturnin Belhôtel, do you know him?”

  “No.”

  “There definitely isn’t much to be got out of you, my child. Seal the envelope up again now.”

  Théo, staggered by the curious revelation contained in the letter, reseals it with all the care he’s capable of (a lot).

  Bébé Toutout supervises him.

  “Do your parents come back to lunch?”

  “No, I get my own.”

  “Right. Then you can cook me a steak and French fries.”

  “French fries? But I don’t know how to cook ’em!”

  “What a moroon! I’ll teach you. You’ll see, it’s very amusing.”

  “R’aren’t any potatoes.”

  “You can go and buy some. King Edwards, at forty-five centimes a pound. And for the steak, tell the butcher to choose it carefully—a fillet
steak.”

  “Haven’t got any money.”

  “You surely don’t expect me to give you any? Don’t you realize that I’m your guest?”

  “My guest?”

  Théo, with a listless eye, looks at the dwarf, who is stroking his white-haired chin.

  “You look like an imbecile this morning, my poor boy. It’s the letter that’s done that. Cheer up, you’ll see others like that in your life. Apart from that, your father’s let the other two swindle him, hasn’t he?”

  “That doesn’t surprise me!” Théo bursts out. “Can’t even damn well ...”

  “Sh! don’t insult your father, even if he isn’t, and go and do the shopping. It’s already ’A past 11.”

  “What about the money?”

  “Use your wits. Tell the butcher he’ll be paid tomorrow. And stop looking so gormless.”

  “By the way—are you reckoning on staying here long?”

  “All winter.”

  “Sounds promising.”

  Then the child and the dwarf contemplate the boiling of the oil in which the French fries are frying.

  “Don’t you think cooking is amusing?”

  “No; sa goddamn bore.”

  “You’ll have to do it every day, though, at lunchtime. I don’t want to eat tacks, do I now?”

  Théo doen’t condescend to reply.

  “I wouldn’t mind betting you write poetry?”

  “I started this summer,” Théo replies, blushing. “But I’ve only written one line, so far.”

  “Which is?”

  “Mon âme a son mystère, ma vie a son secret.”

  Bébé Toutout counts on his fingers.

  “But your one line’s defective, my little lad.”

  “So what? I can’t help it. It’s a line that’ll just have to have thirteen feet, that’s all. Why should lines only have twelve feet? It’s crazy. My line, I give it an extra foot. Znothing to stop me.”