Trio (19 page)

No one noticed me among so many people, I have never been particularly noticeable, dressed like all young men at that time, denim trousers and little American-style jacket with patches over the elbows, thick knitted woolen scarf.

The doctor noted.

I don’t know whether you are in the habit of frequenting country groceries, you always hear the same remarks there, the weather, no seasons anymore, the bad harvests, the rheumatisms, the troubles children cause, that was more or less the atmosphere of the cemetery that evening, the everyday routine, in short, when all of a sudden I find myself face to face with a fellow who was getting on a bit, he was meditating at a family vault, he invites me to sit down on a nearby grave and we talk about everything and nothing until nightfall, the old idiot thought I was his dupe but I’d immediately seen through him, first his hand patting me on the shoulder, your worries will pass, and next stroking my thigh, and next, you know the sort of thing, the crowd had disappeared, liberties, and then he said, I shall say you’re my nephew and you’ll call me Uncle and we’ll live in a beautiful house I own.

That sort of sadness, the doctor groaned, when shall we be free of it, dismayed at the trite nature of the anecdote, he had been expecting a revelation but it isn’t Sunday every day.

Nor All Saints’ Day every day.

A missing link.

And he kept interrupting himself, poor Monsieur Dodo, saying no, that wasn’t what I meant, something else from such and such a date to some other date, something else was coming to light from beyond people’s consciousness, something else, something else.

The look of an aristocrat racked by remorse.

But sleeping twelve hours a day like that, is it really hygienic.

Do-do, to bye-byes we go.

Whatever you do don’t wake him up, he said, our treatment doesn’t go beyond people’s consciousness, we shall see later what his brain was weaving, that mass of notes and documents, that hodgepodge of drifting nothings.

Imagination in place of memory.

Call me Uncle, if there’s anything I can do for you, my suitcase, your box of treasures, we shall get the benefit of them with the passing days, and that revelation they were expecting, psspss, you hear a thunder clap, devastation, cataclysm and the like, the Parca jabbering for a reality that has never stopped being imminent.

Do
you
believe in the
 
…

Good God, said Madame Buvard, he gives you the leaping heebies these days.

On account of dying, on account of we obviously can’t last forever, then what do you make of the future.

So many misunderstandings, and personally, his habit of never finishing his phrases gets me in such a state, it’s like his head, he’s only ever had half of it, and when I say half
 
…

The underground passages are being hollowed out, exchanges now take place only in the opaque shadows.

Just one more little effort, said the doctor, this or that point, you remember, and the dying man spoke in the voice he had as a child, and the maid burst into tears.

I had a slate, yes, my aide-mémoire, on which I noted down, apart from the things I had to do the next day, phrases just as they came into my head, especially at night, and at dawn, when I couldn’t sleep anymore I used to copy some of them out into my dossier of the phrases, not the things, do you follow me, that I needed to think about, sometimes for whole nights on end, to find out what they revealed, and I always thought that an invisible manitou, Marie can testify to that, was organizing somewhere beyond people’s consciousness a sort of discourse which we might take for wisdom if we only bothered to pay attention, at what moments, my God, I really don’t know, mine were those of insomnia, but there must be others for other temperaments, I imagine that a poet for example, in flashes, for they are brief, is aware of more of them than a man like me, and can more easily guess their secret meaning.

His lucidity is touching, says the doctor, and the maid between two sobs replies, it won’t last.

Doesn’t time fly.

June again, love-in-a-mist, betony, centaury, cow-wheat, its flowers, its crickets, its perfumes, but the heart was no longer in it, all the shutters closed.

Who will take account of our passionate innocence.

To rediscover time in one’s innermost depths, what a sinister joke, might as well believe in the freshness of dung, go and discover the flowers it’s composed of, how long will they go on making memory a substitute for eternity, nauseating dupery, but one enjoys being a dupe, doesn’t one, Doctor.

Dupe, dupe, what do you mean by that, and who’s talking of eternity.

To know who is speaking, said the dying man, that’s another story and I’m very glad it is.

Memory in place of imagination.

And perhaps he had had some idea in the old days, who can tell, of utilizing his reflections in the interests of some great project, like many other solitary people who in their gray moments cultivate what they call hope, not realizing that there is the same kind of difference between it and the real as there is between
 
…

The heart was no longer in it.

In whiffs, as you might say, the image of the old bistro where, centuries before, between two Pernods, were embodied the fabulous chimeras which for them took the place of the present.

The terrace with its balustrade, the fountains, the imposing main staircase, the tall mullioned windows, after his death they found them on the publicity labels of a make of chocolate, the manor houses of the region series.

Imagination in place of memory.

It was like his brother and his nephews, and their family house and the parties they gave there, I never saw the slightest sign of any of them, but Madame Cruchet didn’t come from the district and the older generation had been in the cemetery for ages so how could we believe her, and what’s more she was losing her marbles at the time she was being questioned, adding, on the contrary, he lived in a hovel, I’ve seen him there dragging himself from the kitchen to the crapper, he didn’t even have enough money to pay a housekeeper.

The contradictions you find everywhere the moment you begin to think.

And that it’s a great mistake if you don’t take account of what happens to other people, you might perhaps see it more clearly through what happens to yourself, so many considerations which come easily to those whose weakness is contrition, or that the hand linked to the words it is retracing is no longer a suitable instrument, you can’t hear very well, suitable for what, for the great project he probably had which consisted in conjuring up out of this mass of notes a truth that has never stopped being imminent, how can you tell.

He couldn’t have been feeling very comfortable, said the maid, what with his insomnia and his nightmares, will you change the pillows.

How can you lead an existence between the dread of the cemetery and the horror of memory.

And not only his habit of never finishing his phrases, but that of not facing or of diverting questions concerning some of his convictions, an act of cowardice which won’t have been of the slightest advantage to him, on the contrary, all his secret hopes of notoriety completely fizzled out and that just served him right, because what other way is there to see notoriety than as a consecration of the determination to assert oneself.

It might be wondered what she meant by some of his convictions, she had known the old man better than anyone but we wouldn’t have got anymore out of her because she had been well trained, and after so many years she was still on her guard against betraying him.

And Théodore, rereading these notes in the evening of his life, could still only guess at the nature of the feelings of their author, that old uncle he had barely known but who had made him his heir, nevertheless specifying in a codicil that his drafts, as he called them, must never be divulged in any manner whatsoever but must stay in the attics of the house as if they were an integral part of its walls, and in the event of any break in the continuity of the succession a clause must appear in perpetuity in the deeds of sale to include this last wish of his, was it legal, wasn’t it rather pure fantasy even though extremely touching, I grant you that.

June, its flowers, its crickets, its perfumes, all the shutters closed.

Through dying, among other dreads something like that of frontiers and betrayals.

Born on the borders of the trans-Arcidoine province and of Dualie, and never having known to which of these two territories he owed his origin, so confused is their history, he claimed to be martyrized by the feeling of being loyal neither to the one nor to the other, martyrdom however not necessarily being evidence of a cause generally recognized as being of prime importance, it all depends on the conviction of the victim, and what criterion, in this domain there are none.

What eloquence, said Théodore.

And Monsieur Dodo replied, eloquence, I don’t know, but unless you know what it is to suffer you will never know from what innermost depths your words well up, nor how to judge them.

For indeed, the dead do answer.

Retrace his steps along the narrow track through the wood where the rushes grow, along the pond up to the bridge, then turn into the path that led to the old residence, who was it that used to own it, no one to rescue it from its ruins, a fine romantic picture but we weren’t all that keen on that sort of thing and the marshes are insalubrious, when all of a sudden a young man appeared in front of us, you’re the doctor, quick, take this shortcut, Monsieur has been taken ill, the telephone’s out of order, we heard later that this adolescent’s mind was deranged, day and night he haunted the confines of the manor house and claimed to be the servant, many people out for a walk have met him, he’s allowed to be at large, he isn’t dangerous, until the day he planted a butcher’s knife in the old crackpot’s back.

Like the day of the last fancy reception the landowner gave for the neighbors, that was how long ago, in short the cars arriving around eight o’clock and a young manservant showing them where to park on the terrace, but his remarks were so confused as a result of his great fatigue, and his age, and the hazards of a difficult existence, and heredity, to tell you the truth we preferred to leave it at that and let the survivors do the best they could.

So they were all barmy in that part of the country.

He kept taking a letter out of his pocket and reading it, or thinking he was reading it, putting it back and continuing his walk, though more and more slowly as a result of his great fatigue, and his age, et cetera, on the track by the pond where the water lilies added a romantic note, farther on the heathland and
 
…

But that letter, can you tell us something about it, did his maid know about it, had any of his friends read it or what, it must have played some part in the deterioration of the poor man’s character mustn’t it.

Oh, can a letter cause such devastation, that doesn’t seem very likely, yes, I know the saying about how words disappear but writings remain, I agree that you can go back to written words night and day during a whole existence but in my opinion the real agents of death are the spoken words you can’t take back, it’s precisely the things that disappear that leave a vacuum behind them.

I frequented him for years and I can tell you that it was a bitter disappointment after all that time to find him just as he had been when I left him, none of our feelings leaves us cold, I saw and heard him once again cultivating as if it were an orchid his stupid little despair which he nurtured until it became a veritable derision and the result on his mind was an irreversible sclerosis, that’s nothing to boast about, especially not an artist or someone who claims to be one, when people are uneducated maybe there’s a kind of deviation of the mystic sense which pushes them to take a delight in a state close to it but really, what good does it do, in the whole history of humanity the aridity of the soul has never been held in much esteem, and for good reason, I’m not saying that you can’t make a divinity of death seeing that nature gives us abundant proof of it, it has always contained the seeds of the world to come.

The murder in the cemetery, a different version every time.

The conversations in the bistro, that dream for incorrigible babes in arms.

The hazards of a dreary existence which suddenly, at its last hour
 
…

This imposition, invincible fatigue.

…
 
at its last hour, is the main topic of all the tittle-tattle, one All Saints’ evening.

What a lot of things Monsieur Dodo had in his suitcase, when he sometimes took them out for us we had a good laugh, we weren’t hard to please, no.

At such and such a page a time to love, at another page a time to yield up your place.

And little by little, just like that, with the passing days, a sort of stupid litany which took the place of a chronicle for us, you see how very backward we were.

For indeed, the dead do answer.

Yes but that isn’t all, ladies, she said, let’s not be too softhearted, it’s a question of knowing whether we are to continue with the classification as we agreed or whether we are going to leave it all in a jumble, it’s my opinion that, given the leisure we have, rather than knitting for the poor we should be engaging in equally useful work if we were to finalize our benefactor’s manuscripts.

Thus spake Mademoiselle Moine, not the aunt, she’s dead, the niece, the president of the Dieudonné Foundation, after the death of Théodore who, having no heir, had bequeathed his house to the parish, which he considered to be the best way to ensure that his uncle’s wishes, as expressed in a codicil, would be respected, he had added a small sum to guarantee the expenses of the Foundation whose aim was to welcome tired intellectuals to this tranquil spot, the mayor, who at that time was young Chenu, had ensured that some modest funds were voted for the upkeep of the building and the conversion of the attic into a public library, in this way the town hall volumes were married to those of Monsieur Alexandre, and the memoirs of the latter would remain ad vitam within its walls, Mademoiselle Moine’s idea of continuing the classification begun by Théodore, then to have it bound in calfskin by Mademoiselle de Bonne-Mesure, not the aunt, she’s dead, the niece, who had taken up this delightful pastime, she’d already bound several of the Library’s volumes, had at first been welcomed with enthusiasm by the ladies, but they were having great difficulty in continuing with the classification and were beginning to feel sorry for themselves at the moment when this narrative resumes, hence the president’s remark which fortunately was made in the appropriate tone and manner, the ladies plucked up courage again and went on with the work, with what difficulty can be imagined, what they really needed was someone very much in the know but how to pay him, and then, when you think of it, maybe everything was for the best because the very fact that these laboring ladies had so little insight made them adopt a whimsical classification which would not be the least attraction of the volume once it was finished.