Georges-Olivier Chateaureynaud: A Life on Paper: Stories

My body shattered, I survived a fall that only I could've. Maude understood as much. Since that day, not in order to be forgiven, but out of love (a love grown stronger for having been cast into doubt and confirmed), she has dedicated herself to me, and administers all the care my condition requires with a boundless devotion.

Lozere, February 1991

omeone must have made a mistake with his enlistment papers, for Francois, without having asked for it in any way, got posted overseas, the only draftee in a company of enlisted men. Right after training, they were deployed to one of those countries where the natives were dropping like flies. The situation weighed heavy on the international conscience; it had to stop. The other soldiers were thrilled. Adventure, distant lands, hazard pay… Francois figured on spiders, scorpions, and sunburn for everyone. He was right about the sun and the critters, but in his inexperience hadn't counted on the smells. Once there, he'd caught on quickly: these countries were all about the smell. Stench was more like it. In Europe, organic matter was changeless, numbed by the bracing freshness of the climate. Here it raced toward oblivion beneath the sun's lash. Milk turned quicker than the minute hand on a watch, and flesh to rot the second life left it.

As for fighting: they took a few shots at a shack half-screened by a scrawny stand of trees. It was a farm; they wounded a goat. After the skirmish, they continued their advance and marched into the capital. Crowds and jubilation, wild kisses, cameras, officers interviewed by short-sleeved reporters, parades, twenty-one-gun salutes.

Then life at the garrison began. Once more, Francois had no one to talk to. As a student who'd deferred his compulsory service, he had under his belt long years of literary studies that seemed useless, almost ludicrous, to many. A sense of danger had drawn him closer to his fellow soldiers. In action, he'd felt for them a kind of friendship tinged with contempt. Safety and routine duty distanced him again, returning him to his quietly ironic intellectual solitude. Bastini and Onfret bored him to tears with their soccer talk. Besides, they knew what he thought of it, and so kept him out of their feverish forecasts: would Marseille make the quarterfinals? The only one Francois could stand was Claveton, hands down the dumbest of them all. That was just it, though: Francois led Claveton around by the nose, a private second class with a personal bodyguard.

He soon tired of the red-light district's latex amusements and dancehall intrigues: all that jealousy and drama was pointless since, when it came down to it, the only difference among the women available was price. Well-there was always sightseeing. Soldiers were forbidden to go out alone. That didn't stop Francois, who had Claveton. Who else would be stupid enough to go with him beyond the safe zone? Guerillas still lurked off the main roads patrolled by the machine guns of the expeditionary forces.

They gave some vague excuse, took a jeep from the depot, and drove down the coastal route, Francois at the wheel, Claveton on the light machine gun. Francois had lectured his companion at length, but with Claveton you never knew if what you said to his face really got through his skull. Francois would only have been half-surprised had Claveton suddenly started gunning down civilians, children, or even iffy-looking camels. Luckily, no one crossed their path.

They covered about twenty miles. Here and there, amidst the ruins of civil war, emerged other ruins: the ruins of yesteryear, bleached clean as old bone, while to recent ruins still clung yesterday's rotting flesh. The sea, intensely blue, lapped at shores of red and ochre pebbles. Francois had no destination in mind. Claveton hadn't needed one to follow.

Around a bend in the road, an undamaged house swung into view: the first. It stood, below road level, beside a narrow sandy beach flanked by a tree. A real tree, not a dust-choked twig broom stuck in the ground. With its lush green foliage and dark shade, the tree made a striking impression. A steep track led down to the house. Francois turned the jeep.

"Let's see what's down here. Keep an eye out, OK?"

"Uh-huh!" he replied with grim determination.

Francois felt obligated to repeat his earlier warning. "You won't shoot without my say-so, right, Claveton?"

"Nuh-uh!"

"OK, then."

Francois almost parked the jeep beneath the tree, but at the last moment decided against it. The shade was too pretty for him to sully it with his smelly, backfiring machine that leaked grease and dirty engine oil from every crevice…The shade cast by the house itself seemed to him less rare and delicate, so he parked there. He got out and walked under the tree. Claveton followed grudgingly. His plan, in case things got rough, had been I'll gun, you run… but for that he had to stay close to the jeep. A woman came out of the house to greet them. She was young, beautiful, and unafraid. She spoke French as well as Francois, and much better than Claveton. She welcomed them, and offered them tea. Claveton shifted his weight from one foot to the other, glancing unhappily at the jeep. He didn't trust her, which worked out well for Francois: Claveton would've been a nuisance. Francois suggested Claveton stand guard, an offer he gratefully accepted.

The young woman's name was Lalena. Her skin was dark, but not as dark as the girls at the cafe, or the ones dying in shelters with their children in their arms. She wasn't gaunt or starved-looking. Since she didn't look like a whore, Francois figured she was rich. That had to be it. How would he know who was rich down here? Anyone more than just skin and bones already was, in a way. Still, he couldn't help but wonder how she'd kept those downy cheeks so plump, those breasts, shifting gently beneath the fabric of her dress, so full.

She spoke to him of Paris, of the Bastille Opera and the Louvre. She was wearing a kind of royal blue bubu and sandals, but he had no trouble picturing her in an evening dress and shiny heels at a gala or premiere. They sipped tea and chatted. An old servant brought a cup to Claveton, who smelled some native ruse and refused it.

Nothing else happened that day. Francois took his leave when it seemed polite to do so. Lalena invited him back when he felt like it. He promised to seize the first opportunity. In the mess, there were rumors about heading south, where trouble still brewed. He walked back to the jeep. The sun was setting, and the shade beneath the tree less dense.

"So, 'dja jump her?" Claveton inquired.

"Not yet. She's a respectable woman. I'll have to come back a few 11 times.

Claveton's normally dull face lit up in a huge grin. A respectable woman… a few times… He understood at once: target and maneuver.

"You'll come with me?"

"Uh-huh!"

"OK, then."

They made it back to the safe zone without incident.

The possibility Claveton had alluded to didn't happen on their second or even third visit to Lalena. That is, Francois never did jump her, as Claveton had so delicately put it. On his fourth visit, Lalena led Francois upstairs. He followed her into a room that opened on a broad view of the sea. It was cool and combined the charms and comforts of a bedroom, a balcony, and a grotto: he felt good there. A vast bed occupied the far end. It was flanked by several shelves, one of which bore a tea set, another a game of petits chevaux, and the last paraphernalia for smoking.

"They'll sell anything around your bases," she told him. "I've got something much nicer here… something like a special reserve wine, if you're interested…"