Georges-Olivier Chateaureynaud - A Life on Paper - Stories

With the exception of N'Mambo and the Turk, everyone got into it, even Fox. The big bullies didn't leave anyone else much of a chance to pick on the new boy. At last, when they were muddying his cap and emptying the contents of his satchel into the toilet, Fox had plenty of time to prance about behind them like the rest of the pack, shouting Bamboola-Ayaya-Bamboola at the top of his lungs. Then he saw the Turk standing to one side and watching him with a funny look on his face. Contemptuous, or disappointed, or both at once. And suddenly his joy at having finally changed sides evaporated. He chanted Ayaya- Bamboola-Ayaya a moment longer to himself before turning from their quarry and running off to hide in a dark corner of the playground.

Now it's eleven at night. In his bed at one end of the children's dorm, Fox tosses and turns in his sheets without falling asleep. His misgivings have stayed with him since the incident. After what happened, he is no longer quite sure of being life's chosen one. Although he's told himself over and over that it's for keeps, and that the Turk has nothing to do with it, he no longer believes as much as before. He wonders, argues with himself: c'mon, he's got nothing to fear, life would warn him if it was going to stop choosing him! In any case, he'd have to make a lot of mistakes-worse, and bigger ones-for it to stop playing secret favorites. But it's no use: he worries, chews his lips, turns red beneath the sheets. He snivels a little, then falls asleep, shattered.

Maman's whole body is shaking, and she crushes Fox's hand as they cross the street. In the shops where she takes him on Saturdays, her nose stings, her face is bathed in sweat. He often grumbles: he'd rather stay home and play.

"No, you're coming with me." As soon as they're outside, she grabs his hand and squeezes it hard, very hard.

"Maman, you're squeezing too hard!"

She loosens her grip. "I'm sorry, sweetie. Did I hurt you?"

Fox takes his crushed hand back. He wiggles his crumpled fingers, moist with his mother's anxious sweat.

She takes his hand again a few yards later, and starts squeezing. He doesn't say a word.

Maman throws up a lot. She can't keep anything down. The doctors have ordered tests that reveal nothing. One of them wanted to take out her gallbladder anyway, but another one said no, her gallbladder wasn't the problem. It was fear.

When Maman gets too frightened, she sends the boy off to boarding school, or to the countryside with a nanny, or to her parents. As soon as she feels better she fetches him, and it starts all over. The mad dashes, the anxieties, the fatigue, and the memories-and by her side all the while, a living portrait of the one who left, whom she banishes time and again. Beneath a burden too great and too greatly beloved, she soon crumples. One morning she vomits up her coffee again, her hands trembling on the key to the small garret where they live. Nine by nine, it holds a table and two stools, two cupboards, a bed, a hideous corner divan with built-in shelving, and a bucket for necessities. Across from the door, the window opens on a dizzying balcony. Woman and child, betrayed, live up in the sky itself, but the sky reeks. Even without the bucket, odors rise from the building depths in summer and invade the balcony through a duct imperfectly plugged with cork. The woman locks the door and heads down the dark, narrow corridor with her son. She shoves him into the delivery elevator, which serves the rooms and stairs once used by maids. They cross the little courtyard and emerge on the boulevard-so big and noisy! — and suddenly her ears are buzzing, her heart hammering, fear knots her throat, she grabs the boy's hand desperately and squeezes.

It is Friday night. Unless his luck takes a really bad turn, Fox isn't in danger of staying the weekend at school. He'll leave tomorrow at ten-thirty. Martian works Saturday morning. He will go back to the apartment alone. The concierge will hand him the key on his way in. He'll wait for Maman on high, flipping through his Mickey comics. That night, if she isn't too frightened, they'll go see a movie at the Regent. The next day they'll stay in. Martian will do her bills at home. If it's not raining, he'll play on the smelly balcony.

But right now it's Friday night, and he's bored. Almost horizontal on the bench, he catalogues the contents of his cubby: a chewed-up pencil stub, two wads of gum (one pink, one green) stuck up against the top wall, a scrap of blotting paper. Nothing useful! Sitting up, he spots N'Mambo's fuzzy head. He'd like to talk to him about his father, if he weren't sure it'd cost him his permission to leave this weekend. Stop! Don't say a word to N'Mambo!

He shrinks back. A student has just sat down beside him. Changing seats in study hall is not allowed! But of course the Turk isn't afraid of anything. Fox is very scared of getting left at school. "You can't-we'll get punished!"

"The prefect didn't see a thing. And if he pipes up, I'll say it was all me."

"What do you want?"

"Just to talk a little. You look bored"

"I don't have anything to do."

"You could read."

"I can 't."

"You're old enough. Didn't you ever learn?"

"Yes."

"Well, then you can."

Fox shakes his head. He's always changing schools. He has come to terms with this nomadism. Quite simply, he always has to start from scratch. B-a ba, b-e be: like a nonsense song everyone sings.

"Let's see." The Turk leans across the aisle, borrows a book, and opens it before them. "Here, try. Follow my finger, and read."

"N-a… Na… n-o… no… Nano?"

"Nano's the kid in the picture. Keep going."

"Nano… and… Na… net… te."

"Nanette. She's the girl:"

"Nano and Nanette… are… in… the… va… yard!"

By the time study hall is over, Fox has figured out eight lines. The Turk closes the book and gives it back to its owner. Out of instinct, Fox tries to stop him.

"What's your problem? You've got the same one."

"I do? It tells the same story?"

"Open your satchel."

Fox obeys. The Turk pulls out a book the same size as the other, flips through it, and then sets it down open before them. "Well?"

"Nano… and Nanette…"

Fox's face lights up. Nano and Nanette are still in the yard, and it's still summer, their dog, Pataud, is still a good dog, the sprinkler still leaking and wetting, leaking and wetting Nano's feet.

As he heads up to the dorm, Fox is happy. He knows how to read. Nano and Nanette are in the yard, forever.

Just behind the cage of the delivery elevator, in a recess in the lobby, two scalped Indians are hiding. They watch Fox, seedy and menacing, nodding their bloody heads in the shadows. Quickly, before they can catch him, he hurls himself into the elevator, slams the door, and pulls the accordion grate shut. Standing on tiptoe, he pushes as hard as he can on the button marked eight. The elevator tears itself away from the floor with a screech. Down in the lobby, the Indians are probably stamping their feet with rage, sticking out their tongues, shaking their fists at their escaping quarry. Fox shuts his eyes. His heart is hammering. But another terror awaits: after the third floor, he starts getting dizzy. People seem to take it for granted that elevators never go higher than the building's highest floor. For adults, at least, this is a rule without exception. Fox isn't convinced. The elevator, he thinks, could easily shoot right by the final landing without even slowing down. Hoisted by unthinkable pulleys, it'd keep going, bursting through the roof, scattering birds, zooming through the clouds, higher and higher, farther and farther into the frozen reaches of the sky. Fox holds his breath. At every landing, he hears a click from the rickety equipment somewhere under his feet. Click… six. Click… seven. And then… then? His knees tremble. He plasters his body against the wall. Click! The cage comes to a stop at last.