Trio (18 page)

So poor old Marie was mustering her memories and, here, sit down there, told us that at eight o’clock she took him up his coffee, he always looked terrible in the mornings, sort of yellow, his face grayish-blue as if sunk in the end of an epoch, premonitory signs, we were trying to find that package of retouched photos where the grandmothers were going goofy, a question of corridors, marble balls, and metaphs.

Cut.

That dream of mist over there.

Cut.

Make it go down to posterity, from this date to that.

Fine example, it may well be, of loyalty to
 
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Impossible anamnesis.

We’ll get there in the end with a little method.

We went to visit him, he’d got a lot weaker at the time, huddled up under the rug over his shoulders, the portrait of a grandmother above his armchair, by his side a little table with a pink-shaded lamp which lit up the bundle of old papers, he didn’t touch them anymore but they kept him company, the maid, when he moved from his bedroom to the dining room, had been told to take those sheets and put them on the table where he took his meals, a nostalgic to-ing and fro-ing, even though his personality inspired very little sympathy I did sometimes feel sorry for him, quite wrongly as it happens, he was paying the price of his stupid vanity, things were returning to their proper place, could anyone wish him anything better in extremis than a clear, or more or less clear, vision of what he had been.

As for his brother, is this the place to mention him, I doubt it.

Abracadabra.

Poor Monsieur Théodore, he had all that trouble sorting out the filthy stuff of the dying man, it was no sinecure, used to collect newspapers, printed matter, advertising leaflets, catalogues, which he piled up in suitcases that cluttered up his study, they ought to have thrown everything away, but if amongst it all there had happened to be I don’t know what, a
 
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Call me Dodo, if there’s anything I can do for you
 
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Those attachments of the old boy, what could they have given him, a lot of trouble and nothing in return, he still spoke of them, spoke, that’s saying a good deal, by the lamp that the maid moved from the bedroom to his big toes, a friendly sort of to-ing and fro-ing, under his whoremonger’s rug.

Well yes, our fine mornings at the grocer’s, our little suns and our tittle-tattle, a sadness that almost kills you, what shall we do with it when the day dawns, the carnival hours, the organization of the nights, shall we
 
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Lost in the hurricane of the pages.

Was it true that that was what made his head feel like a factory.

But the other woman was still thinking about her asparagus, no time to rush off to the cemetery these days, we’ll get by without our dead, come on, dear, I’ve got my niece, she’ll be getting impatient.

Two or three nieces, why not a dozen, while elsewhere there was a serious conversation about tomatoes, doesn’t time fly, I grow them but I haven’t planted any yet, what with this cold weather, the darling buds of May of our grandmothers, a sore throat that’s what I’ve got, how do you manage about your fire with your legs, the nurse sees people at five these days, her house is all upside down on account of the builder fixing her up a little room in the attic, with me it’s my heart, I’m going for my injection, and my husband, it’s his liver.

The little woollies on the stall.

That music in the streets, it’s new.

Ordeal such as no one has ever endured.

Closing the dossier he shouts out let him go to the devil, I have my own word to say, too, and I shall say it.

He has left the library, he has gone for a walk in the direction of the cemetery, passing by Magnin’s and Thiéroux’s and Dubard’s, the track followed the marshland which was full of the white plumes they call cotton grass, and bulrushes, and sedge, the heathland strewn with wild orchids and juniper, the corn reaching to the forest, he arrives at the cemetery, or rather the site, there’s nothing there, a marsh hawk perched on a dead tree trunk flew off as he approached.

Say it all over again, out of proportion.

He sat down on a stone, head in hands, despair too is absent from the roll call, what to do without its aid, mumble some memories, lost their trace, old track manhandled, old desire liquidated by the gales of the derisory.

Bah, let the water flow under the bridge, an’ anyways, worries, I got just as many as you, trying to find a few moments of happiness some-wheres, could be, they disappears, huh, he talkin’ like a hick agin.

For a May morning, the beautiful chatter of a bluetit.

For a May morning, doesn’t time fly.

Well yes, Monsieur Théo, I knew him well, your uncle, a man like they don’t make anymore, you ought to have seen the way he got himself up, good God, who ever would have thought he was that age, wasn’t a bit sorry for himself yet he was never without his worries, almost makes you think it must preserve them, my father, he was ten years younger, he died at the same time as him.

Or if he was mixing him up with the other one, but after all what does it matter.

Along the old track, his constitutional, Monsieur Théo, was daydreaming about the mystery of things, the power of the spirit, the nature of the soul or vice-versa, all confused as he got older in a fog of signs and symbols, really as clear as mud.

Then he went back to his room to revise his reflections, because he is an eminently moral man and he cultivates that love of clarity which has done so much for the promotion of nature, the advancement of the pathways of the age, the mystification of power, the emancipation of hygiene, and the exaltation of old men.

The slate, always come back to that.

Other things to note than that accumulation of drifting nothings.

Take a hair of the night that bit you.

And in the first place, dismiss Théodore, he has no place in this cesspool, the man who speaks is responsible for what he puts forward, no maneuver, trick or evasion is acceptable from now on.

I, somewhere in that intolerable night, the ascent or recollection turns out to be mortal, and where’s the benefit of it since the man who speaks, but who, no one so far as we know.

Or that he devoted himself to this ascesis, the doctor suggested in front of the corpse, in order to arrive precisely there, in which case no regrets for anybody, thus putting an end to the rumors concerning the death, they were still rife, you have to keep the dialogue going, and for the ladies it was something to talk about at the grocer’s, find us another victim, we’re in the market for one.

Otiose story that can never again be told.

What support from now on for this word, which can never run dry.

The maid mixing her notes up with his papers, the child falsifying the message by his awkward reading, evasions.

Repetition of facts that are no longer united by desire.

Impossible anamnesis.

But it had to be pursued at whatever cost, what did the means matter, if the drama turns out to be mortal perhaps that’s where the benefit lies.

Oh, it wasn’t that he was so much of a show-off, the maid added, on the contrary, between you and me, peace be on his ashes, fear was his daily bread, everything took on such proportions, a thoughtless word, a ridiculous little irritation, a broken glass, his nephew’s future, the fate of his family, his responsibility as
 
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Entry crossed out.

His responsibility as
 
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Entry recrossed out.

And the anguish of what lies beyond the chrysanthemums, he couldn’t avoid that either, as if, I ask you, the maid went on, eternal damnation was the price we had to pay for the dog’s life we live which we could well have done without, don’t you agree, personally I’ve always had faith in Providence, let it get on with it.

And then it was that constant harping on the murder, to ward off the evil eye, another version, then another, and another, a way of merrily, as they say, passing the time, the time that you still have to finish.

And anyway, was it very nice for Monsieur Théodore, but he counted for so little when all’s said and done.

Right, since we have to go back to it, and seeing that we aren’t the judge of the validity of anything, I’ll tell you my own version of the death of that old man, it’s years ago now, which gave Monsieur so much to think about, and maybe even helped him not to die like a dog, because I maintain, even if you do call me a great ninny, that there are some subjects that have more weight than others with regard to the serious side of life, even when you’re on the wrong track like the people, look, whatever you may say, some people have class and others don’t, which doesn’t mean to say that they aren’t all the good Lord’s creatures, it’s called natural inequalities, and you aren’t going to tell me that a man who spends his time, especially after a certain age, on frivolities, or who’s only interested in all that fucking business, excuse the expression, is preparing to die as decently as the one who meditates on his end, that’s an opinion that no one could be against because unfortunately, whether we’re the least bit philosophical or not, we shall all come to it, and whatever you may
 
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But what was the matter with Madame Marie with her morbid thoughts, she used not to be like that, is it a sign that she’s come to the end of her tether, really, it makes me sad, such a devoted woman who’s only ever thought about other people, ah, how right they are when they say
 
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Monsieur Alexandre came back from his walk, he went back up to his room and noted, rewrite version old boy’s death one last time.

But something else was brewing beyond their consciousness, and to say something is to say very little, and consciousness, nothing at all, and to say, even less, well what then, shut your trap.

Take a hair of the night that bit you.

The left hand corner of the bistro as you go in.

The old man is sitting there with two others drinking his glass of white wine.

When I heard Théodore going into the salon I suspected him of being in connivance with the maid, who was the only person who knew that I kept my papers in my writing desk.

It was a Saturday, Marie at her niece’s, and my nephew supposed to come and see how I was after that tiring soirée I’d given for the neighbors, a courtesy I’d postponed as long as possible, I was still in bed, it could have been
 
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At his bedside the doctor said, you will have to see this ordeal through to the bitter end, concentrate now, courage.

But however hard he tried the sick man’s head was a vacuum, it’s all beyond me, he said, I’ve gone over everything, ask my maid, she has witnessed all my efforts.

And the maid said, Doctor, can’t you leave him in peace, what a way to cure people, give us your bill and go away.

But the doctor holds his ground, he continues, he says even so, isn’t there a case for going back to such and such a point, yes, for instance, that meeting in the cemetery, could you tell me more about it.

Whereupon Mortin opens his eyes again, he says the cemetery, yes, everything started there, I can still talk about it, I always shall be able to, yes, could you move this pillow to make me more comfortable.

Marie and the doctor help him prop himself up.

And the master takes up the story where he had left it in time immemorial, he speaks in the voice he had when he was a good little boy.

I had a slate on which I noted down everything that had to be done during the day, and when evening came I effaced it with a duster or a sponge, and the time passed quite pleasantly, I mean that I didn’t have to bother about anything other than passing it.

Days nicely filled with occupations, without a single minute’s break between them to let the unpleasant memories infiltrate.

I had my work on the archives, as you know, all sorts of notes and documents relating to things of more or less interest, but do we ever know which of them may sometimes become interesting.

And a great many phrases either imagined or picked up here and there, I’ve always liked phrases, and in my classification I distinguished them from things, but on the whole I think there was a fairly normal balance between the two categories, the approximate equilibrium of my mind should have guaranteed that of the other.

I was much criticized for collecting all that stuff, especially by Marie, because the dossiers accumulated everywhere and she was finding it more and more difficult to do her housework, but what is housework compared to the relative peace of the soul.

Until the day when, getting up at about eight o’clock as usual, I go to the kitchen to get my slate and I see that everything I had noted down and then effaced the previous days had returned, as if freshly traced in my own hand.

I didn’t ask myself the question, because I never find any answer to it, but I thought it was serious, and I decided to smash my slate into smithereens.

And my misfortunes date from that moment, my horror of memory, the slimy days from which you can only escape, and with what difficulty, by sleeping most of the time, is that a life, I ask you.

In my short waking moments I have got into the habit of going to the cemetery, and it has happened several times that I have fallen asleep there when I’d stayed longer than I intended.

The doctor listens, notes down certain details so as to be able to ask more precise questions later.

One year on All Saints’ Day I went to the cemetery with a bunch of chrysanthemums to honor the memory of an old acquaintance, it was already crowded with people who had come to put flowers on the graves.

How old would I have been at the time, something like thirty, Marie will confirm it.

The doctor noted.

I listened to their very prosaic conversations, they hardly spoke of the dead at all but about the price of chrysanthemums, the little pot at five francs, in former times that was adequate, do you approve of useless expenditure.

Alley number three hundred and thirty-three, side-alley number seven hundred and seventy-seven, I was lost in that labyrinth, looking for the grave in question.