Georges-Olivier Chateaureynaud - A Life on Paper - Stories

I signed without even looking. A rash and reckless thing to do, you might say, and you wouldn't be wrong. But I was afraid that by hemming and hawing I'd let it get away from me. By all appearances it was a fabulous deal. A real house-two floors over a cellar, surrounded by a yard and within walking distance of shops and the train-and all for the price of a studio! It had to be jumped on, and I Jumped. I admit my heart was pounding. Until then, I'd only lived in efficiencies and onebedrooms. I'd had countless disappointments-the aforementioned episode being the most flagrant, if not the most atrocious. I remember spending one winter in a garret haunted by an entire family of ghosts. Every night the whole damnable clan would show up and argue in Croatian around my bed. The super filled me in on the story. A few years ago, a family of Yugoslavian immigrants had been living in my room. One winter's night, the father forgot to check the stove before going to bed. He, his wife, his in-laws, and his three children died of suffocation in their slumber. If you've never heard six people hurling insults at a seventh in Croatian at midnight in a room the size of a pocket-hanky pocket, you've never known true noise, the gift of sleep, or impotent homicidal fury.

But a house-even a haunted one-had to be something else altogether. You'd be able to sequester yourself, get some distance from the tiresome quarrels of shades. These were my thoughts as I hurried toward my new home-carefree, for it came furnished.

I was there in a jiffy: less than ten minutes from the station! I'd passed by several stylish boutiques on the way. A well-known wine shop, an attractive deli, a promising bakery. It's easy to tell a quality cake: they're smaller and pricier. I rubbed my hands together. It was all just like the lady at the agency had said!

I went up the Dawn Lane-from now on, my street-and stopped in front of number 40. It was high summer. The lavish wisteria (I go gaga for wisteria!) adorned the garden gate. Behind its festoons of soft mauve stood the house. Okay, so it wasn't Versailles-but it still looked neat and tidy, cute and cozy, dependable and down-to-earth. At first glance, it had a well-cared-for, even pampered air about it. The woodwork and metal had that dense gleam of new paint. I opened the garden gate, stepped inside, and closed it behind me with a feeling of… serene triumph, I suppose. Never having prevailed over anything, or even really had a taste of serenity, I had nothing to compare it to. I advanced toward my home. A white gravel path skirted potential puddle spots. A few more yards… a dozen or so meticulously tiled concrete steps lifted me above life's mire. A glass canopy sheltered me from whatever cruelty the skies might rain down, which seemed distant indeed on this fine summer day. With a trembling hand I opened the glass door, embellished with the most delightfully petit-bourgeois castiron grille. The door swung quietly on its hinges. My heart swelled with joy. From now on, my life would be the very picture of what I'd already seen of this house and what I had vet to discover. Well-oiled. Well-insulated. Muffled and padded. Fleece-lined. Downy… without a single squeaky or protesting part. From now on, I would come home with the firm and easy step of a man who has a safe haven. I, too, would have a castle, a homestead, a sanctuary.

I went inside. I felt around for a light switch, then paused. Of course the electricity would be off. I had to switch on the current first. The lady at the agency had warned me. The meter was in the cellar, but matches and a candlestick had been left for me in an obvious spot, on the table in the living room, to the left of the foyer. I pushed open the first door to my left and walked into a vast room sunken in shadow. A single detail struck me at that moment. Something we quickly forget when we live somewhere is that all houses, no matter how well ventilated, no matter how well kept, have a smell. This one had none. And yet all things steeped in time-rugs, curtains, even an empty chair or an electrolier-soak up the exhalations of those that live and decay… I bumped into the edge of what felt like a marble table, and forgot what I was thinking. Holy-a marble table! I'd only ever known formica and oilcloth. I almost fainted at the thought of setting down my latte every morning on a marble table. In the low light, a coppery glint caught my eye: the candlestick. Feeling along the tabletop, I found a box of matches. I struck one and lit the candle in the holder. The shadows shrank back. The living room, which took up most of the ground floor, had windows on two sides. I drew the blind on the closest one, and daylight poured in.

I turned back to the table. Its legs, too, were made of marble. They weren't the only thing: the chairs all around were marble, too, all neatly arranged except for one, slightly pulled out as if someone had sat down for just a moment to jot a note and forgotten to push it back in. I was breathless with delight. Marble chairs… how chic! But how fragile those dainty legs-slender cylinders of gray marble delicately veined with white-must have been!

I approached the pulled-out chair and caressed its smooth, chill back with my palm. I pulled my hand away and took a step back. Did I dare-clumsy old me-make use of such marvels, sit on them, move them around at the risk of smacking them into things, tipping them over, or breaking them? They had to be heavy. I moved back and, hesitantly, tried to weigh the one I'd already touched. It resisted my efforts. Surprised, I tried again, this time with both hands, but without success. I braced myself and strained my muscles, grunting like someone rooting up a stump, but all in vain. The same thing happened with the next chair, the one after, and the one after that. The eight chairs were one with the marble-slab floor. They wouldn't lift or even budge an inch. Taken aback by this anomaly, I knelt down to take a closer look at where their legs met the floor. As far as I could tell, it went seamlessly from floor to chair without a break.

I was filled with an immense bewilderment. I sat down on the partly pulled-out chair, perching there on a single cheek, since it was too close to the table to sit in comfortably, and let my gaze roam about the room. Only then did I become aware of the radical strangeness of the place where I found myself. In addition to the table and its two rows of chairs, the furniture consisted of a large dresser, a sofa, two recliners, and a coffee table. With the exception of the windowpanes, a mirror, and a few fixtures like doorknobs and window latches, everything in the room was made of gray marble.

I stood up and walked toward the sofa. It was less furniture than sculpture representing a piece of furniture. The artist had done his utmost to mimic the little particularities and imperfections of an actual sofa: a slight droop to the cushions, dull and shiny spots, the almost invisible scratches of a cat startled by a child's sudden entrance… I bent over and saw that the sofa was also one with the floor. In reality, they weren't so much a table, chairs, a sofa, two recliners, etc., but a single "sculpture" The dresser, too, was but an outcrop of the primary deposit, and when I tried to lift a vase on the mantel, it wouldn't move. It clung, if that is the word, to its base like the stub of a sawn-off branch to a tree, or like a finger to a hand. The complete eccentric who had built this house had patiently freed the chimney, the vase, and all the rest from a single enormous block of marble. The room, perhaps even the entire house, formed a whole under a layer of wood, burrstone, and roof tiles.

When I'd switched on the electricity and toured all the rooms, I returned to the living room and stood before the mirror over the mantle. I looked so pitiful I couldn't help sticking out my tongue. Just my luck! I'd rented an inimitable work of art. But all I'd needed was a place to live, and art was unlivable. While exploring the house, I'd come across a kitchen fit for a power-mad prince, with a stove and a sink Michelangelo would've been proud of, a bathroom cut from the same quarry, and a bedroom to go with it. On a bare mattress, a stack of sheets and blankets awaited the prophesied hero able to unfold them and make the bed. In the cellar, beside a misleading boiler, the handle of a coal shovel would stick out at the same angle forever from a pile of fireproof pellets. Beneath the roof, the attic was cluttered with picturesquely decrepit old toys, sewing dummies with their shoulders pocked by fake needle holes, steamer trunks thrown open on a jumble of treasures and inextricable relics. Everything was light gray, veined with white, and cold as the grave.