Georges-Olivier Chateaureynaud - A Life on Paper - Stories

It turned out I didn't need courage; Maude took care of everything. Not long after we'd gotten to know each other-that, too, was her doing-she said she'd seen in my eyes when our gazes first met that I wasn't like the others, that "I had something." As it happened, she wasn't far off. I had wings. Her reaction on seeing them played a great part in the continued happiness of our relationship, which lasted for quite some time.

She called me her beautiful bird and, chirping sweet nothings after making love, smoothed my budding feathers. We didn't go out much, nor did we miss it. I felt uncomfortable in public, and she hated the half-pitying, half-repulsed looks I got for my apparent hunchback.

"Idiots! They think you're handicapped," she raged. "If they only knew!"

"Please don't get all worked up, sweetie-people will stare." I tried hard to drag her toward a deserted square or a quieter side street.

"Promise me you'll show them who you really are one day!"

I sank my head into my hunched shoulders. Who I really was? Did I even know? A cripple? A monster? A future carnival freak? An angel in the making? All I wanted to be was the plain old harmless and ordinary me from before my fateful election.

"One day you'll soar into the light," said Maude, pressing herself against me.

"Yeah, sure… Let's go home, okay?"

My wings got bigger. Maude was constantly measuring them and sometimes lost patience with how slowly they grew. They were twentythree inches across on our wedding day, and thirty the day our son was born. Soon they were pushing thirty-five, which, while respectable for a buzzard or a seagull, was pathetic for a man. Worse yet was when Maude noticed they'd mysteriously shrunk a few inches. Two, to be precise. Not only surprised by the decrease, she was truly disappointed by what I, to the contrary, saw as a remission, or even the beginning of a recovery. This was the reason for our first real fight. Tired of hearing her repeatedly call my spontaneous shrinkage abnormal, I pointed out with some bitterness that the initial growth had been no more normal. One word led to another, and soon we were quarrelling in earnest. It wasn't long before I accused her of being more fascinated by my deformity than in love with me. To this she snapped back that I had the wingspan of a waterfowl and was birdbrained to boot.

She'd scored a point there and, beating a hasty retreat, I went to sulk in my office. For reasons fairly easy to grasp, I'd given up teaching to turn toward translation. I spent the better part of my day alone at home. In the days after the fight, I often stopped working right in the middle of something to measure my wings with a folding ruler and some painful contortions.

At first the trend Maude had noticed continued. My aberrant protuberances lost almost an inch a day: half an inch per wing. The next day I calculated that at this rate, taking into account the four inches already resorbed, in nineteen days everything would be back to normal.

I started getting my hopes up. In three weeks I'd be able to go out in short sleeves. Next summer I'd go to the shore again, and swim and sunbathe just like any other vacationer. And if, one of these days, someone else besides Maude were to show interest… A poor way to thank the woman who'd taken me as I was at the worst moment of my life, but my own underlying ingratitude reassured me at heart: I saw it as proof I wasn't on my way to being an angel.

Two more days went by, and my wings lost two and a half inches. The fifth, sixth, and seventh days my condition stabilized, just as it had for long periods before. Then the eighth day landed like a cleaver on the forehead of a lamb: I'd grown back almost an inch. The next day I grew back another, and the third an inch and a half. At night, when Maude came back from the hospital, I didn't even come out of my office to greet her. She respected my dejection, I must admit, without sharing it. Certain that I'd wind up giving in to her, she didn't insist on examining me. Yet the conflicting hopes we nourished no doubt did their part in digging the chasm that would later divide us.

This relapse-the first in a long series-left me exhausted and bitter. I'd thought I was "healed." Far from it. I had to face facts: my "disease" was progressing. Or whatever it was-my idea of it remained quite vague. At worst, I was beginning to dread that my misfortune, though still secret was doomed over time to be obvious to everyone. If my wings kept on growing, the day would inevitably come when I'd no longer be able to hide them beneath tight bandages and a big overcoat. Just how big would they get, anyway? Were they destined to uproot me from the earth one day in the near or distant future? Even I saw myself as repugnant and laughable, my giant wings keeping me from walking.

One night, with tears in my eyes, I asked Maude to cut them off. She let out an exclamation.

"How hideous! And how misguided! An amputation would be a crime against science. You're unique, you-

Beside myself, I put a stop to the noble words I knew were coming.

"As a doctor," I shouted, "all you did was measure my disfigurement from shoulder to phalange! Please, Maude: I'm not asking you to understand, I'm asking you to save me."

She stared at me incredulously. "Save you? By operating on you? Your wings are a gift, an incredible gift-"

"Oh, really? For years I've lived completely shut away, I wait for night to go out for some air, I've wasted the best years of my life translating trash-are those gifts? Can you tell me how any of that is a gift? What good are these accessories that weigh me down, itch constantly, and keep me from sleeping on my back?"

An unfamiliar smile spread over Maude's face. We were husband and wife, and I'd seen her happy before, but at that moment she was transfigured. Her eyes shone, and I seemed to hear in her voice what I could only call ardor.

"Patience, my love. You have to wait, take the burden on yourself and bear it all, and one day you'll use those wings to fly!"

"But I don't want to!"

"You don't?"

"Not for all the world! I get dizzy just standing on a step stool! Don't leave me like this, Maude, I'm begging you: cut them off!"

Her reply came, determined and irrevocable. "Never."

"Then I'll go see someone else. There are plenty of surgeons in the world"

She shrugged. "You wouldn't dare."

She was right. I didn't dare. Many years passed without me ever seeking out another surgeon. I grew old with my wings. At their largest, around my fortieth year, they measured four feet seven inches. four feet seven inches! It was pathetic-clearly not enough to save a 170-pound man from earthly forces. It was, however, enough to slow his fall a bit, if need be. My wings saved my life. Maude and I were on vacation in the Alps. For several months after I'd begged her in vain to cut off my wings, I feared she'd leave me, but she didn't, though we started sleeping in different rooms. I knew I'd let her down. She quite simply no longer believed in me. We carried on an odd relationship, no longer in love but unable accept it.

For hours we'd been making our way along a steep and sunny mountain path. The August sun had just passed its height, and I was bathed in sweat. Few people know just how hot a pair of wings can make you, especially under a polo shirt. The path led along the deserted crest of a ridge. I wound up taking my shirt off. I was walking in front. Without turning to Maude, I fluttered my wings for a moment, congratulating myself aloud for having taken off my shirt. It was delicious: the air ran through my feathers, cooling my back. At the very moment when, overcoming my lifelong fear of the void, I leaned over to see the edelweiss Maude had said she'd spotted, she shouted in my ear, "Fly, damn you!" And sent me hurtling forward with a forceful shove.