Eric Chevillard - Prehistoric Times

I dare not imagine what my life would become were I to own two distinct uniforms, a guardian’s and a guide’s, which I in all conscience would incessantly and swiftly have to interchange, often putting one on top of the other, or else wearing the jacket of the one with the trousers of the other, every infelicitous combination being possible thereafter, depending on the circumstances, commensurate with the urgency, the caps alternating on my head as if they were simply crossing my mind, one after the other, the cap of the guardian, the cap of the guide; I would risk losing all specificity and before long would be neither one nor the other, neither guardian nor guide, bringing to mind rather some Nero at a costume ball, a toga party, who drapes himself in a plaid travel blanket but is unable to resist donning — such an opportunity will never arise again — his lovely Mexican sombrero (he had been there and, so as to cut short the boring tale of his stay in the Sierra Madre, I see no way out except to greet with a shriek right now the historically incongruous, but nonetheless opportune, nearly naked marathon runner who bursts on the scene). With two uniforms, I too would risk ridicule, guardian above the belt and guide below, a mythical, unimaginable being who hides in his guardian arms the head of a guide, or carries around on his guardian legs the belly of a guide; those who catch sight of him cannot believe their eyes, their testimony is unreliable, they must be drunk, how implausible, and yet new tales come to feed the rumor mill; he has been seen this time in a guide uniform, twisting onto his head a guardian cap. The experts consulted challenge this information: a monster of this sort would not be viable. We know in fact that caves are conducive to hallucinations — angels would be better off in them than bears — we definitely have here a phenomenon of this sort: the witnesses are sincere but fooled by their senses, it’s the only possible explanation. Unless of course we are dealing with the latest manifestation of that mythical creature who has been haunting our imaginations since time immemorial: half god half man, or half man half animal, or half animal half god, who will in all probability eventually spring forth from a test tube in one form or another, but to claim that the miracle has already occurred in some secret laboratory, that the first cross between a guardian and a guide has been pulled off without the one rejecting the other, that henceforward they form one indivisible entity boasting the characteristics of both, and that this achievement now affords the human race the opportunity of infinite progress because a complete man is at last conceivable, one who will contain within himself every aptitude, no, no, it’s nothing like that: the bizarre character glimpsed was especially noteworthy for his bewilderment and ungainliness, decked out as he was with the disparate vestments of his double garb.

’Twas not I. Dressed once and for all in my navy blue uniform, I am at least free of all sartorial concerns. I realize, however, that the solution of a single uniform is but compromise, subterfuge, and that if it indiscriminately clothes both guide and guardian, this uniform actually suits neither a guide who would be only a guide nor a guardian who would be only a guardian. I am being pressured to defend a twofold imposture, I understood that from the start, and my prevarications, my recoiling, the totally useless repetitions that I am nonetheless prepared to justify if necessary with great bad faith but without getting flustered, stating for example that the nearby cave is sending this tale back to us as an echo, once, twice, thrice, and the only way to remedy this would be to distance myself from it, the stalling tactics I have been prolonging well beyond my intention, pushing almost to the extreme the mad enterprise of a total inventory that no one until now has dared attempt, as if all the beings and things of this world were separated only by commas and as if there did not exist between them these layers of indifference or mystery that make them individuals, cut off from one another, but also passing remarks of this sort, reflections somewhat reflective, theories I spin with passion and conviction that could just as well support their opposite, all this dithering in the end is simply a testimony to my scruples: am I not wrongfully assuming the title and characteristics of guardian, dressed in this uniform, and the title and characteristics of guide? This scruple indeed does me credit. I take no pride in it. I had to put forward these moral justifications so that my present behavior, or the behavior of my narrative, would not be unjustly blamed on my laziness. In any case, I am not lazy. In any case, laziness and the routine of work get along quite well. In any case, I’m going to get started.

MY WORK here consists on the one hand of greeting the inquisitive, distributing entrance tickets, leading and commenting on the guided tour, collecting money for the postcards, albums, plaster or resin casts, and photographic reproductions that make up the shop’s inventory (a jammed turnstile, a rickety display case); and on the other of watching over the cave, not only when it is open to the public, when the enemy is within, but after closing time as well, when the enemy has withdrawn; day and night, in other words. Not to mention the upkeep of the site: sweeping with a small hand brush the pebbles, dirt, and seeds carried in on visitors’ shoes, papers fallen from their pockets or tossed carelessly on the ground: contemporary man litters the land with paper, it is the mark of his passing and the sole memento he will leave behind, as if along the way he were crumpling one by one the pages of his own adventure story poorly printed on bus and movie tickets, restaurant checks, empty envelopes, advertising flyers, parish newsletters, strips of cellophane, empty cigarette packs, paper hankies, playing cards, now and then a bit of confetti (there was a party), and, because every boat leaves pretty much the same spume in its wake, I’ve come to the conclusion that the idea of an endless variety of destinies is a storybook notion that does not pan out in reality, and barely in the novel; the facts are there for all to see, there aren’t that many possibilities, I too was breast-fed, first the left then the right, me too.

Then the left then the right, me too; I too was given gifts of cubes and rings, I too had to have a small operation, I too trembled with fright in the changing rooms at the swimming pool, I too did not understand a thing about math, I too had my heart broken by one of my mother’s friends, yes I too my heart by one of hers, and I could go on like this for a long time, until the end, you’d have to stop me; I was afraid of seeing this tale rapidly run out of steam, but it turns out that a second volume will be necessary (forthcoming), and many, many more so as not to omit a thing in regard to our shared personal past, quite a sum, a universal work that will blend all our autobiographies together and spare us all that repetitious reading as it conjures up across the pages schoolyard, attic, punishment, fungus, letter, encounter, lie, accident, song, kiss, fire, exam, fracture, breakup, storm, and the more modest events of this inevitable life, because I too have known the black gnat that always alights on the freshly repainted white door.

Better to use tweezers — with your fingers you might squash the stuck insect, and then it would be impossible to restore the monochrome without a dab of paint, but you’ve already put the top back on the can, your paintbrush is soaking in white spirit, you’ve cleaned your nails and hung the old spotted jacket back on its peg — the same jacket you wore three years ago during that memorable encounter — you also know that even the slightest retouching would be visible, annoying, catch the eye — all that frowning to obtain a perfectly smooth, even surface — and drive the painter from his creation.