Death on the Installment Plan (35 page)

As long as we could roam around and no one tried to make me open my heart … it was OK with me … I couldn’t hope for anything better … I’d even have worn a topper if they’d insisted … if it gave them pleasure … They wore them on Sunday when they went to sing hymns at their Protestant mass … That temple of theirs was like a drill ground: Stand up! Sit down! … Nobody asked me how I felt about it … they just took me along … they were afraid I’d be unhappy all alone in the house … In church, too … between the pews … we had to keep an eye on Jongkind, it was pretty rough. He kept fairly quiet between the two of us, Nora and me.

In church Nora seemed even more beautiful than outside, that’s what I thought at least. With the sound of the organ and the half-tints of the windows, her profile was dazzling … I can still see her … It was years ago, but I can bring back her image whenever I please. At the shoulders her silk blouse forms lines, curves, miracles of flesh, agonizing visions, soft and sweet and crushing … Yes, I could have fainted away with delight while our kids were bawling the Psalms of Saul …

Sunday afternoon there’d be another hymn-singing session at home, I’d be kneeling beside her … The old geezer read something interminable, I had to hold my cock down with both hands, way at the bottom of my pockets. In the evening, after all the meditations, I was bursting with desire … The kid that came around to lap me up had his money’s worth on Sunday night, he had his fill … But I wasn’t satisfied, it was her I wanted, every last bit of her … Beauty comes back at you in the night … it attacks you, it carries you away … it’s unbearable … I was soft in the head, from jerking off on visions … The less we had for meals, the more I masturbated … It was so cold in the house we put all our clothes back on as soon as the old geezer had cleared out …

The lamp under our window, the one we made bets about, creaked the whole time … To save a little warmth we went to bed two by two … We did each other up brown … I was ruthless, I couldn’t stop, my imagination kept winding me up … I devoured Nora in all her beauty, every nook and cranny … I ripped up the bolster … I’d have ripped out her quiff if I’d really bit into her, her entrails, the juice of her marrow, I’d have drunk it all … I’d have sucked up every bit of her … left nothing … I’d have taken all her blood, every drop … Still it suited me better to ravage the bed, to chew up the sheets … than to let Nora or any other skirt take me for a ride. I’d caught on, believe me, I knew the score with women. Ass is a rat race, a suckers’ caravan! An abyss, a bottomless pit, and that’s that … My way was to strangle my dick … I was oozing like a snail … but I didn’t let it come out … Not me … Cock that wets will suck eggs … To hell with all that stinking mush! … Yak! yak! I love you. I adore you! Sure, sure! Let her shit in your face! Why worry, it’s a party. Bottoms up! It’s so lovely! It’s so innocent! … I’d wised up when I was a kid! Sentiment, hell! Balls! … Go jump in the lake … Go fly a kite! … I clutched my oil can. My fly was all twisted! Ding dong dell! You won’t catch me dying like a sucker … with a poem on my lips! Ugh!

Aside from the business with the prayers, I had other tortures to put up with … The crafty demon of lechery walked every path, he was hiding behind every bush … I walked enormous distances with the idiot and my lovely and got to know every inch of the country around Rochester in every kind of weather …

We explored every valley, every path and bypath. I looked at the sky a good deal to distract my attention. It changed color with the tides … During calm spells pink clouds came up, on the land side and on the horizon … and then the fields turned blue …

The way the town was laid out, the roofs sloped down toward the river, it looked like an avalanche … an enormous herd of cattle, all black and pressed together in the mists that blew down from the open country … all steaming in the yellow and violet fog… .

She was always making detours and arranging for long rests at propitious moments. It didn’t get her anywhere, it didn’t make me open my heart … Even when we spent hours coming home through little narrow streets … Even one evening when it was already dark on the bridge that goes to Stroud … We looked down at the river … A long time, the eddies swirling around the arches … we heard all the bells … from the villages … far far away in the distance … Then she took my hand and kissed it … just like that … I was all stirred up, I didn’t react … I didn’t move … No one could see us … I didn’t say a word, I didn’t bat an eyelash … She never suspected … It wasn’t easy to resist … The harder it was for me, the stronger I became … She wasn’t going to soften me, the bloodsucker, even if she were a hundred times as pretty. Anyway, she was going to bed with that little ape! When you’re young, it makes you puke to see the old fossils they shack up with … If I’d said anything, I’d have tried to find out why it was him … why him when he was so ugly? It was incongruous … Maybe I was slightly jealous. I guess I was. But it’s true that he was horrible to look at and listen to … with his little short arms … flapping like stumps … all the time, for no reason … He waved them around so much he seemed to have ten of them … It made you scratch just to look at him … He was always snapping his fingers, clapping his hands, twirling his cane, crossing his arms … but just for a second … Bzing! He was off again … like a jumping jack … what a guy! … twitching and jerking … like a loony chicken …

She, on the contrary, emanated grace, every movement was lovely … She was a mirage of charm … When she left the room, you felt a void in your soul, your heart slipped down to the basement in sadness … She had every reason to be downcast, she might have shown signs of worry. During the first months I always saw her happy, patient, untiring with the snotnoses and the idiot … They weren’t always a pleasure to handle … Her life was no joke … With her beauty, she should have been able to marry a bag of money … She must have been bewitched … or taken some kind of a vow. And he certainly wasn’t rich. It stuck in my craw, in the end I couldn’t think of anything else …

For Nora the idiot was an awful nuisance, she had every reason to be exhausted at the end of the afternoon … Just wiping his nose, taking him to pee, keeping him from getting run over, from swallowing everything in sight … it was really a rotten chore …

She was never in much of a hurry. As soon as the weather picked up a little, we stayed out even later, we dawdled around the village and by the riverbank … Jongkind didn’t drool as much when we were out walking as at home, only he swiped things, matches for instance … The minute you left him alone for a second, he set fire to the curtains … Not to be bad … he’d come and tell us right away … He’d want us to see how pretty the little flames were …

The shopkeepers in town saw us passing so often they all got to know us … They were
“grocers”
… that’s what they call them … something like
épiciers
… That’s one word I actually learned … In their windows they piled up regular mountains of apples and beets, and whole valleys of spinach on their enormous counters … The stuff went all the way up to the ceiling … the hills ran from one shop to the next … cauliflower, margarine, artichokes … It made Jongkind happy to see those things. He’d jump up on a pumpkin, he’d bite into it like a horse …

The shopkeepers thought I was crazy too … They asked her how I was getting along … the minute I turned my back, they made motions to Nora … with their fingers, they’d tap their heads …
“Better? Better?”
they whispered.
“No, no!”
she answered sadly … I wasn’t any
“better,”
dammit. I’d never be
“better”
… It gave me the creeps the way they carried on … So worried … so sympathetic …

When we went shopping, there was one little thing I’d always noticed … it puzzled me quite a lot … Those bottles of whiskey … In the course of a week we always brought back one and often two … And sometimes brandy too … And I never saw the stuff on the table … or in the parlor … or in the glasses … not a single drop … We always drank water, absolutely straight … So where did the booze go? Was there a tippler in the house? I had strong suspicions … I kept saying to myself … Somebody’s lapping it up … There’s one spoiled brat around here that doesn’t feel the cold … The way he’s pouring it down, he doesn’t have to worry about rheumatism … that’s a cinch.

The weather began to improve, the winter was over … It had passed in walks, games, cross-country races, storms, and masturbation …

To get a little more to eat, I did a little sleight-of-hand in the shops … They thought I was so simple they never suspected my tricks … I put on the innocent mischief act, I disappeared … I played peekaboo with Jongkind behind the posts and counters. I snitched a little sausage, an egg here and there, a few crackers, a banana or two … just a few odds and ends … Nobody ever bothered me …

In March we had another rainy spell, the sky was heavy, crushing, it gets on your nerves in the end after all those months … It weighs on everything, on the houses, the trees, it falls right down to the ground. You walk on it, you’re sopping wet, you walk in the clouds, in mists that melt into slush, in the soup, on broken bottles … It’s miserable!

The farthest we went on our walks was past Stroud, on paths, through woods and over hills, to an enormous estate where they raise pheasants. They weren’t wild at all, they roamed around by the dozens. They pecked like chickens on a big lawn with some kind of monument in the middle, an enormous black block of coal, standing upright, tremendous, almost as big as a house. It dominated the landscape … We never went any farther … After that there wasn’t any path …

One place I was sorry I couldn’t go in the evening was the waterfront at the bottom of the town, especially on Saturday … Nora would have been delighted to please me by going there more often … But it was dangerous on account of Jongkind, he tripped over the ropes, half a dozen times he almost drowned himself … On the whole it was better for us to stick to the heights, and best of all, to the open country, where you see the dangers in the distance, big dogs, bicycles, and so on …

One afternoon, just by chance, as we were looking for something new, we climbed a different hill, the one that went up toward Bastion 15 … on the other side of the cemetery … where Scotsmen, the 18th regiment, drilled every Thursday … we watched them drill, and they weren’t fooling … They really gave themselves a workout, marching up and down behind their bagpipes and trumpets. They churned up the ground, they sank in deeper and deeper. They went right on parading, harder than ever … They were up to their shoulders …

Our walk wasn’t over, we went on through the valley. Right in the middle of the fields we saw something being built … Lots of workmen … They were putting up a big house … We looked through the fence … there was an enormous sign … it was easy to decipher … They were building another school … A magnificent location between the fort and the villas … And a clearing for sports, at least four times as big as ours … The track had already been laid out and covered with cinders … the little flags were in place at all four corners … the goals were marked … Everything was just about ready … The builders didn’t seem to be laying down on the job, they were almost finished … Three stories were done already … The place seemed to be swarming with workmen … The name was written in red letters: “The Hopeful Academy”—for boys of all ages. It was quite a shock.

Nora Merrywin was flabbergasted … She stood there gaping like a statue … Finally we left on the double. She was in a big hurry to report the news to the little stinker … I didn’t give a damn about their business, but I realized that this was a real tragedy, a catastrophe … We didn’t see either of them all day … It was I that fed Jongkind, at the table after the other kids …

Next day Nora was still white as a sheet, she was all upset. She, who was usually so charming, so playful, so mild-mannered, was making movements almost like him, snapping her fingers all the time. It looked like she hadn’t slept, she couldn’t sit still, she stood up, went upstairs, came down again to talk to him … And then she’d leave again …

The old geezer sat motionless, he’d even stopped blinking, he was in a daze. He stared into space. He didn’t eat, he only drank his coffee … He kept pouring himself whole cups … Between gulps he’d smack his right palm with his left fist, with all his might … Smack! Smack! And that was all …

Two days later he went up with us as far as the Scotsmen … He wanted to see for himself … They were making great strides in fixing up the “Hopeful.” They’d done the track over and mowed the cricket field … Besides, they had two tennis courts and even a miniature golf course … They were sure to open by Easter …

The overgrown kid went jumping up and down by the fence … He wanted to look over … He was a runt, he couldn’t see much … He looked through the cracks … We found a ladder … He motioned us to keep on going, he’d catch up with us on our grounds … He did actually come back … He wasn’t so frisky anymore. He sat down beside his wife, this thing had knocked him cold … He’d had an eyeful of the wonders of Hopeful College.

I could see what this competition meant. Our kids were taking it on the lam already … They thought Meanwell stank … And now? … What was to prevent them from leaving? … It was a hopeless catastrophe … I couldn’t catch what the old folks were saying, but the tone was mighty gloomy … The three of us went back and looked at the scaffolding … They were building walls for kicking practice. The place was an orgy of luxury … While gazing at all the splendor, the old man stuck his fingers up his nose, three at a time in his confusion, trying to think … At the table he was in a trance. I guess he couldn’t see much future ahead … He let the gravy get cold. He chewed so hard on his false teeth that they popped out … He put them on the table, right beside his plate … He didn’t know what was going on … He kept mumbling snatches of prayers … and thoughts … Then he says Amen! Amen! Suddenly he gets up … He rushes to the door. He takes the stairs four at a time … The kids were in stitches … His teeth were still on the table. Nora didn’t know which way to look … Jongkind came right over, he bent down, he was foaming at the mouth, he sucked up the false teeth … They’d never laughed so hard. We made him spit them out again.