“It makes no sense to me,” I continued, “but it’s some consolation to think that nobody could make sense of what you’re trying to do. You’re just giving me money.”
When the thin one saw me take the envelope containing the two thousand francs and slip it into one of my jacket pockets, his blinking turned into a smile.
“You can’t even imagine how little I have to lose,” I said, excusing myself. “Nothing, in fact.”
“Don’t worry,” said the dark one, smiling, “We have a lot of money, it’s not an issue.”
“And besides, don’t underestimate the imagination.”
“The imagination can imagine anything.”
“Anything,” said the thin one.
“Leave Vallejo to us, we’ll take care of him; he’s a friend, a dear friend.”
A dear friend? The imagination can imagine anything? I had a sharpening sense that I didn’t understand what they meant.
“Place Blanche.” My voice gave the taxi driver a start.
“Where?” he asked, accelerating suddenly.
“Place Blanche.”
The driver looked at me in the rear-view mirror, bewildered. We had gone around the block and were back in the street where I lived. For a moment I thought he was going to refuse and I felt a flutter of fear at the thought of being left alone in the street, near my apartment.
“Keep going, keep going, I’ll show you the way.”
I got out of the taxi in a street that was, I thought, close to the residence of a friend whom I was planning to visit and perhaps inform of my ongoing adventures. But after a while I changed my mind and instead went wandering through streets I vaguely recognized, which in the course of my walk, as the minutes went by, became gradually stranger, until I knew for certain that I had entered a completely unknown neighborhood.
I went into a café: the roof, the walls, the tables, the seats, everything was green. As if the proprietor had, in a fit of madness, tried to give it a jungle-like ambiance or, as I later thought, endeavored to camouflage the premises, and partly succeeded, although in a way that was clearly inept.
I sat at one of the tables, under a motionless two-bladed fan, which was also green, and scrutinized the interior, deserted except for two blond boys, three tables away, sitting quietly with their half-empty glasses.
“The service is a bit slow here,” said one of them after a while. I didn’t realize at first that he was speaking to me.
“Pardon . . .”
“I said the service is a bit slow here. The waiter has gone off to pee.”
The one who had not spoken lifted his hand to his mouth and stifled a little giggle. I observed them more closely. They were very young, neither could have been more than twenty, and very carefully dressed. I told them I was in no hurry. In fact I was tired, and the tranquility of that eccentric café was doing me good.
“Sometimes it takes him half an hour to pee. It’s tempting to think he’s up to something else, but no, he’s just trying to urinate, to squeeze out a few little mercurial drops . . .”
“Poor thing,” the other one chimed in.
“It’s an odd place, this,” I ventured to remark.
“The Forest . . .”
“The what?”
“The Forest . . . that’s what it’s called.”
“Most appropriate.”
“The underwater forest,” said my interlocutor, pointing to one end of the café.
I looked in the direction indicated by his finger and saw an enormous rectangular fish-tank backed by satin curtains.
“You can go and have a look. It’s nothing special, but you’re sure to find something to pique your curiosity.”
I went across to the tank. On the bottom, resting on a layer of very fine sand, were miniature boats, trains and planes arranged to depict calamities, disasters simultaneously frozen in an artificial moment, over which indifferent goldfish were swimming back and forth.
I guessed that the miniatures were made of lead; their details were remarkably realistic.
“There are no bodies,” I murmured, more to myself than to make conversation; nevertheless one of the boys heard, or perhaps intuited, my words.
“Look carefully.”
And there, indeed, next to one of the trains, beside the last carriage, half buried in the sand, was a little man-shaped figure. It was not the only one: near a single-seater airplane, leaning against a pumice stone, another figure surveyed the almanac of calamities, a figure made of dark gray, unpainted metal, standing tall, although, had the stone been removed, it would in all likelihood have toppled irrevocably.
“Interesting.”
“The light doesn’t help much. A cold, white light would be ideal, rather than this Indochinese green. But the ideal, as you know . . . only by miracle . . .”
“Are you the . . . creator?”
“We are.”
A world submerged and preserved, where the only flags flying were flags of death: the goldfish. But even they seemed afraid.
The shadow of a smile flickered on the boy’s lips.
“It’s no big deal, but it was fun finding the miniatures; you can’t imagine how hard it is to find good lead trains . . . Look at that one, on the left there . . .”
I looked for the one he was pointing out. A splendid black train with more than ten carriages, Meersburg Express painted on their sides. The locomotive was blue; for a few moments I was puzzled by the black spots standing out against the sand, scattered all along beside the train. Then I realized: they were severed heads or bodies buried up to the neck. A string of corpses, but, oddly, there were none inside the train, which apart from the effects of the water had come through unharmed.
“It’s German. We had to order it from Germany.”
“The Meersburg Express?”
“That was Alphonse’s idea. He painted the lettering.”
I looked at Alphonse. He was sitting up very straight and wearing an absent expression.
“It seems the waiter does indeed have a problem,” I said, walking back to my table. “Are you, by any chance, the owners?”
“Oh no,” replied the one who seemed inclined to speak. “We’re clients.”
“It doesn’t seem to be a very busy place.”
The young man hesitated slightly before answering.
“Sometimes it is . . . but usually it’s quiet . . . Not many people come here . . .”
“Perhaps it’s an exclusive establishment, which appeals to a more artistic clientèle . . .” I suggested.
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.” He tried on a smile; his teeth were extremely white. “There aren’t many artists in this neighborhood, although of course that’s a subjective opinion.”
As before, Alphonse let slip a little giggle, which he hastened to cover up with the back of his hand.
“My brother and I are intending to move. This,” he said with a vague gesture that took in everything, “is not really where we belong.”
That was when I realized how extraordinarily alike the two of them were. I wondered if they might be twins.
“And where are you thinking of moving to?”
“New York. The problem, as I’m sure you’ll understand, is money. We couldn’t afford even half the fare. Occasionally, just occasionally, I dream that we’ve swum all the way there. Do you know what dreams about water mean?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Nor do I. But crossing the ocean in a single night is no joke. Money is always so tedious, don’t you think?”
I didn’t answer.
“And not many people are interested in fish-tank scenes. We manage to sell one from time to time, mainly around Christmas, but the buyers have ideas of their own and we only do underwater cemeteries. We’re not prepared to compromise. Oh, the trouble we’ve had with clients, don’t let me start . . . people are so greedy and ignorant.”
“Poor things,” said Alphonse. And then he murmured an unintelligible phrase of which the only word I un
derstood was anamnesis.
“They order nativity scenes; it’s funny, don’t you think? They order battle scenes, historical reconstructions, from us . . .”
His face remained dispassionate. Ensconced in that chair with its green back, he seemed to be surveying his joys and sorrows with a charming detachment.
“So I suppose business is not exactly thriving.”
“Your supposition is correct. No, it certainly is not. This is the only tank we’ve been able to place in the last few months,” he said, lifting his chin with disdain or perhaps affection—I couldn’t tell—to indicate the aquarium which I had already admired. “And I don’t think the owner of The Forest is entirely satisfied.” He smiled at his brother. “Something of a character, the Forest Ranger, wouldn’t you say, Alphonse?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Bladder or prostate problems, I’m not sure which, but he seems to go through agony every time he pees. He must have picked up an infection in the colonies . . . Or some such story, anyway, judging from appearances . . .”
“Why New York? Is there some particular reason?”
“Ah . . . New York.” He seemed reluctant to change the subject. “I would almost say it’s instinctive. There’s no future here for two young men like us. We’re not partial to the Surrealists or to men in uniform. And sooner or later one camp or the other is bound to throw down the gauntlet. Sooner, the way things are going.”
“The sad thing is, we won’t be able to leave,” said Alphonse.
“Don’t be defeatist,” said his brother, in a scolding tone.
“Well, it’s true, we won’t be able to,” Alphonse insisted.
“How absurd! Of course we’ll leave. On an American ship. We could even mount an exhibition of miniatures in fish tanks and make ourselves a tidy sum . . . Not on the ship, of course, I mean here, in the neighborhood somewhere . . . We could achieve a certain notoriety . . .”
“But . . .”
“It could even become the fashion! Couldn’t it?” he said, looking at me.
“It’s not such a far-fetched idea,” I conceded, “as long as the underwater cemeteries are not all the same.”
“They would be almost the same.” His eyes flashed. A formidable young man, I thought.
“But we don’t have enough money to buy a single tank, or a single lead figure,” complained Alphonse faintly.
“If worse comes to worst, we could ask Dad,” whispered his brother.
They continued their discussion for a few moments, inaudibly, at no point losing their composure.
Suddenly, as if he had been listening to us, a waiter sprang from the shadows. He was a blond man of about my age, wearing a short lime-green jacket. His resemblance to the young artists was excruciating.
“What would you like?” he murmured uncomfortably, without looking at me.
“Mint cordial,” I said.
The waiter ducked his head and disappeared. The talkative young man smiled at me: An appropriate choice in these surroundings, he said. Alphonse seemed to be on the brink of tears.
By the time the waiter placed the glass of mint cordial before me, I had reached my limit. I got up, said good-bye to the young men and went out into the street. Everything was different outside, or at least that was what I wanted to believe.
Two cars pulled up by the empty sidewalk and more than fifteen people proceeded to emerge from them, as if those automobiles had been granted an exemption from the physical laws of this world. The passengers were wearing fancy dress, and eventually, having paused at length, taking the time to survey the deserted street, chat and make apparently witty remarks, much to the amusement of their companions, they all went into a three-story house. I don’t think I have ever seen people wearing more elaborate garments; yet in spite of the skill and imagination invested in those costumes, the prevailing impression they gave was one of propriety and sorrow (sorrow for a loss that is known to be definitive).
Instinctively, I stopped at a safe distance from the house and stood there, admiring them. I identified a marshal from Napoleon’s army, a Roman consul and a medieval knight, who were gathered attentively and flirtatiously around a Catholic saint; they were preceded by a very old man—although his wrinkles might possibly have been part of the disguise—dressed as a Chinese mandarin, with a black costume, full of folds and flounces, on which a gold dragon was embroidered. The mandarin was, without any doubt, the leader of the cortège, and for a moment I could hear him speaking a suggestive, energetic, incomprehensible Volapük.
Two adolescent girls who had stopped beside me were observing the spectacle. Both were clasping text books and notepads and wearing expressions of rare gravity. I felt it was only polite to smile. Perhaps my change of expression was too abrupt, or caught them by surprise. I felt that our status as sole spectators implied a certain complicity. In any case, as soon as they noticed me smiling at them, they took fright and walked away, exchanging rapid and emphatic comments that I was unable to understand. I imagined the worst and for a few moments considered following them, all the way home if need be, so as to explain that by smiling I hadn’t meant to suggest anything, anything at all. But I resisted that impulse. They had, no doubt, I told myself, misinterpreted my expression and intention, and now it was too late. Before walking away I realized that the Mandarin was watching me and smiling fiercely. That image, I thought, was anchored in the real world, come what may.
I was annoyed with myself. A wave of melancholy swept over me only to be replaced, a few steps further on, by a calm timeless serenity, immune to any shock. But the fear, I knew, was still there, intangible but stubborn. What did I fear? Not physical aggression, I was sure of that. So why couldn’t I muster courage enough to go home or simply walk on without looking constantly over my shoulder, expecting to see the pair of Spaniards?
Eventually I returned to my lodgings, after wandering through outlying neighborhoods, among derelict stations, along avenues that seemed to go on forever and then abruptly end in vacant lots of a kind I would never have expected to come across in that part of Paris.
It was late when I got back, and the only person I found lurking in the darkness was Madame Grenelle. She was crying noisily.
“Madame Grenelle?”
“ . . .”
“It’s me, Pierre Pain. What has happened?”
“Nothing, nothing, nothing . . .”
“Then stop crying and go up to your room.”
“Ah, my god, shit shit shit . . .”
Stepping closer, I noticed that she was drunk; a heavy, sickly smell of absinthe enveloped her. For some reason, I don’t know why, the image of the two teenage girls disappearing into the crowd sprang from my memory like a delicate animal. But what crowd? The street had been deserted. A calm, inexorable sadness clambered onto my shoulders and clung there, like a hump or a younger but infinitely wiser brother.
“Come on now, let’s go upstairs. If you stay here you’ll fall ill, it’s very cold.”
“I’m bad, Monsieur Pain, but that doesn’t mean . . .”
“Up we go.”
“It’s loneliness. Doesn’t anyone understand? Look at my eye!”
I hesitated for a moment, the adolescent girls were walking down an empty, ideal, endless street . . . Then I struck a match. Madame Grenelle’s shadow was climbing, step by step, up to the flaking wall of the landing. She had a black eye.
“What happened to you?”
“ . . .”
“Let me see. You should go up to your room and rest. Your eyelid is swollen.”
“It’s the loneliness, Monsieur Pain.”
“It looks like you’ve been hit.”
“No . . .”
“Did someone hit you?”
“A woman. I’m a woman. I’m a human being too, aren’t I? Sorry. This weather is awful, it just keeps raining. Why don’t you sit down for a moment?”
I sat down on one of the steps.
“Your friend came this morning, didn’t she?
You must be happy. She’s a very pretty girl.”
“I’d rather not talk about that, Madame Grenelle, let’s get you sorted out first . . . Yes, of course, I’m pleased . . .”
“I respect you, Monsieur Pain, something you never . . . Anyway . . . Would you like a shot of absinth? Sorry . . .”
Her hand appeared from some mysterious recess, gripping the neck of a bottle.
“No thanks. And I don’t think you should be drinking either.”
“ . . .”
“I’m tired, Madame Grenelle, I’ve had a busy day, you’ve no idea how much . . .”
“Me, I’m alone all day, with nothing to do, you know, I get bored. You’ve never been in my apartment, I’ll invite you in one day so you can see it, not a speck of dust . . . But in the end that’s boring too. And it takes no time at all to clean, it’s so small. My little palace.”
I sighed. I felt deeply weary.
“Don’t you have anything you can put on your eye?”
“Mascara . . .”
I think I smiled. Luckily she couldn’t see my face. It must have been a wretched sight.
“Well, better leave it then, just rest.”
“A damp handkerchief’s the thing, men are so impractical.”
“Excellent idea. Now stop drinking and listen to me. Go to bed.”
“You must come and see my apartment one day. Not tonight. I don’t think it’s a good time. Some day, though, whenever you feel like it. You’ll see how spick and span it is!”
“I’m sure it is.”
“Help me get up . . .”
Before shutting the door of her room, she said:
“Forgive me if I’ve bothered you. I didn’t mean to bother anyone. Do you know how I did this to myself?” She pointed at her swollen eye with the neck of the bottle, which she had been gripping firmly all this time. “I fell over while I was dancing, here, in the corridor, on my own. Ridiculous, isn’t it?”
“I don’t think so. Dancing is beautiful.”
“You’re a gentleman, Monsieur Pain. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Madame Grenelle.”
I slept well and soundly, and if I dreamed, I also had the good sense to forget my dreams. I woke late—it was becoming a habit—and having performed my ablutions went down to breakfast at Raoul’s café.