Peter Carey - Parrot and Olivier in America

"Citizen Barfleur," he said to my mother's father, "outside are some citizens from Paris asking for you." Even allowing for the fact that it would have been against the revolutionary law for him to use the respectful form of you, it was a very unusual way for my grandfather to be addressed by a servant.

"Did no one strike them for their impudence?" I asked.

As we walked in the fields beside the river, the air was sweet with new-mown hay. There was a stench of drunken peaches in the orchards-why not?-each fallen fruit attended by its circus troupe of bees and gnats and wasps climbing and falling from the pulp. In the midst of this bright maggoty celebration I had now found the secret, as old and musty as a walnut locked inside a woody shell.

"Why did my father not strike them?"

My grandfather had been Armand-Jean-Louis de Clarel de Barfleur. His name was the name of his town, his river, his long noble line unbroken to the Normans, and beyond that to Clovis, and beyond Clovis to Childeric, king of the Salian Franks, massing with his warriors in the forests of Toxandria, and who was he to let his life be taken by some drunken sansculottes?

"It is difficult to explain," my Bebe said.

Indeed. It was beyond belief. There were only two men from Paris, as far as I could gather. My family had been as timid as the pigeons, I thought. They had let their necks be wrung.

"Was it to this that they took my grandpapa?" I asked.

"Where, my child?"

"This thing."

"Yes, that thing."

As we walked down through the Bottom Hundred the secret quail rose from the grass. I was outraged by my family, and very fierce in my judgment of my father particularly, that he had not drawn a sword and slaughtered his tormentors.

My lungs were clogged, my heart was disturbed, but my Latin declensions must still be learned. As the day ended, Bebe and I hic-haec-hoc'd our way through the strange pale grass, up to the old mill on whose steps we rested to eat an apple. It was not yet dark, but I could see, through the heavy branches, the golden lights of our home. I understood it then, as for the first time, not as a castle of pride and strength, but as a weak place, a soft thing in the coming night. I saw my grandfather and my father sitting unprotesting in their chairs. I imagined the murderers with their bare bottoms and huge mustaches coming through the gloom along the road from the village, the air dark with stolen wine, the sky alight with burning faggots, oily black smoke curling into the opal sky so that the wispy threads of smoke drew lines on an ancient mirror which should have reflected back heroic scenes-my papa with his sword drawn putting the enemy to flight.

"I would have smote them, Bebe. I would not have been a coward."

The dear old Abbe remained silent while we crossed the village road, while the porter unlocked the heavy gate. Then he waited and watched while the servant retreated to his lodge.

"Bebe, are you angry?"

I was frightened to feel so alone, to see that he who only ever loved me had ceased to do so. It was time for my bath, but I could feel myself transfixed by his dark eyes while moths brushed against my hair and settled on my shirt.

When he spoke he did not even say my name. As the color left the sky and the porter closed his door and the light from the gallery windows lay down upon the earth, he lectured me. The infinite universe soon showed itself above us, and my child's opinion was nothing but spilled salt.

My breathing coarsened but he showed no mercy. My arms itched and my legs ached, but I was too afraid to complain while Bebe told me about the man who had sat at the table on that dreadful morning. This was my mother's father, the great Barfleur, who was no more to me than a name. Barfleur had so loved the king, it seemed, that he hectored him and chastised him when his advisers were leading him to ruin. It was Barfleur who dared instruct the king to tax the nobility, make the Jews citizens, let the Protestants worship legally in peace.

"This is courage," said Bebe. "It was the Comte de Barfleur who told the king to cut the extravagances at court. He told him to remember the history of Charles I in England. Do you remember what that was?"

"I forget the year, Bebe. I'm sorry."

"The year does not matter. He told our king, 'You hold your crown, sire, from God alone; but you are not going to deny yourself the satisfaction of believing that you also hold your power due to the voluntary submission of your subjects.'"

"The king," said the Abbe de La Londe, whose voice was echoing around the courtyard so clearly that I was afraid, imagining the blacksmith, the porter, the gardener listening from the shadows of the doors. My dear wise Bebe suddenly seemed the most reckless of men.

"The king was not a bad man," he told me, "but he was surrounded by vain and selfish men and women."

Now my breath turned very rough, most likely because my mother, whose windows were wide open to the summer air, would not hear a word against the king.

"It was Versailles," Bebe said, "that brought down the monarchy, and the court's blindness and foolishness that led us, not only to the guillotine, but to this thief Bonaparte who has made France no better than a pickpocket and a burglar."

"Bebe, should we not go inside?"

"No," said Bebe, "for you have been raised in a most peculiar way, poor child. And now I see you have no idea who you are or who your father is. Did he ever tell you he saved my life?"

"No Bebe."

"Your father is a brave man. To do battle with the citizens from Paris would have been as foolish as fighting against a swarm of wasps. Did your father run around shrieking at his pain?"

"No Bebe, I suppose not." In my mind I saw my father standing in a field, a cloud of wasps around him.

"That is courage," said Bebe, "that is character. You do not blame the poor ignorant people, my darling. Do you understand me? The court of Versailles brought this down upon us all."

Even then I knew that he did not mean the people were wasps but that is how I pictured it and in my imagination I was no longer the noble with his sword, slaying those who hurt my kind, but a frightened boy, screeching, running through the darkened fields, stung, hurt, throwing himself from the bank and drowning in the Seine.

That night my breathing was so bad neither garlic nor brandy could cure me, but it was not till dawn that they fetched the doctor from his bed.

THE GUILLOTINE NOW cast its diamond light on scenes which had hitherto existed in the domestic shadows.

That is not to say my life was ruined. I swam and hunted and feasted on green plums until my belly ached. I made a friend, Thomas de Blacqueville, who once stayed with us for sixteen days. On my seventh birthday I traveled to Paris and ate mille-feuilles at the house of Mme de Chateaubriand. I am said to have made the company laugh but no one can recall my witticism. I was precocious. I was a genius for the piano. I had a high opinion of myself. By 1812, the year I turned seven, I was accomplished in Latin and Greek.

It was during this very particular summer that the Hero of the Vendee arrived at the Chateau de Barfleur. It was my father's birthday but the visitor brought no gift-or left arm either, the latter presumably sliced away by some horrid machine. His empty white silk sleeve was like a ghost, but what I noticed most of all was my mother.

She had, until the moment of the young visitor's arrival, occupied a chaise in the Gold Room, blinds drawn against the shrill heat, a damp cloth across her face in such a manner that a stranger to the house might assume her dead.

The footman approached my mother. He bent stiffly and spoke in that ridiculous whispering way they learn in Italy but to see how my mother responded, you would think he had shouted in her ear.