A Life on Paper: Stories Read online

  He set down his pen and daydreamed at length of other summers, other games of hide-and-seek. Of one in particular.

  That day his brothers and his cousins, all girls, had hidden themselves so well he hadn't been able to flush out a single one. And when, weary of searching, he'd cried, "Come out, come out, wherever you are!" none had revealed themselves. They must have planned it in advance. He was the youngest, and easily brought to tears. It seemed he'd wandered the vast grounds for hours, though probably it hadn't lasted that long, shouting, "Come out, come out, wherever you are!" in a voice first confident, then angry, then trembling with fear. The others had chosen their day well: with the maids off and the parents otherwise occupied, only the children remained at the house. The world about the frightened boy was but a silent desert. Conte out, come out, wherever you are! Come out, oh come out of the fold in time or space where you've huddled one against the other, giggling at the little weakling choking on his tears!

  When at last his eldest cousin took pity on him, the unlucky child was shaking with fright in the plain light of day. The others surrounded him, fussed over him, tried to make it up to him. He'd had nightmares for weeks afterward.

  The deck of cards in his free hand, the old man stopped in the middle of the lawn, his gaze circling the grounds. Francis and Lydia had been the last to leave, that very morning. The summer had been glorious. For two months, house and gardens had resounded to clamor and commotion. The sun had obediently shone on the pool's blue water, the wooden croquet balls, the freshly painted swing set. And vet this was a fleeting happiness, he knew; this perfect summer would be the last. The children had grown up a great deal since the one before. Next year, if they still agreed to visit, it would be to explore surrounding lands, beyond the Edenic bower. Already they spoke insistently of bicycle rides and swimming in the nearby river…

  Then, beneath the foliage of his grounds-still green, but to his clouded eyes faded from within-he murmured in a tremulous voice: "Come out, come out, wherever you are!" And one by one, from behind the groves in their last reprieve and the flowerbeds soon to brown, appeared the creatures he had till now kept at bay. Uncoiling their scaly lengths, spotted with warts and sores, pressing their shriveled snouts between the saplings, they began their advance.

  Lozere, May 1986

  Icarus Saved from the Skies

  he ironies of fate are infinite. Around the time I turned twenty, despite having decided to steer clear of both doctors and women, I met Maude, then a surgical intern, and at her pressing request became her lover.

  Don't go thinking I've ever borne the slightest ill will toward the medical body, much less a woman's body. My prejudice extends only to the physician or female likely to see me naked, discover my misfortune, and make it even crueler to bear.

  It all comes down to character, they say. In my place, someone else might've rejoiced at what seemed to me a catastrophe. After all, if I'd wanted at any price to rise above the human herd or leave my mark on the world, I certainly could've. But I didn't give a flying fig about being thought original or unique; my only ambition was to blend in with the crowd, flank to flank with my brethren and fellow creatures in the cozy stable of the species. Alas! I was a brother to no man, and no creature was my fellow. In the course of a few days I sprouted wings or, rather, wingbuds. At first naked, pinkish, coarse, and altogether repugnant, these excrescences were soon covered in a chick's yellow down. Thank God for small favors. When I craned my neck to see my back in the bathroom mirror, the down honestly made those extra extremities easier on the eve.

  On my first date with Maude, my appurtenances weren't too cumbersome yet. Unfurled, they spanned about a foot and a half. Folded and pressed flat by a tight undershirt, they could be hidden beneath roomy coats or large, loose-fitting sweaters. My profile suffered a little, but I didn't care. Given the choice, I'd probably have preferred a hunchback's honest hump to these wings which seemed no less suspect for having fallen from the sky, so to speak. What did the heavens want with me? I admit to being terrified. I hid myself away from the world. A rare breed of beginner bird, I feared in every doctor the fowler, if not the taxidermist. Wouldn't they commit me to be studied at their leisure, exhibit me at conferences and, why not, even wind up dissecting me to find out more? As for women… I'd just turned twenty. At an age when people still hesitated sometimes to show themselves as nature made them, where would I have found the courage to show myself as it should never have made me?

  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 n
ext 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.

  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 e
arlier 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.