by Tony Duvert
‘Serge?’
A beaming Serge unrolled his work and began to explain the drawings.
‘Here, there’s a mountain. It’s Mont Blanc. It’s all round and there’s someone sitting on top of it. He’s got a leg on each side. He’s looking to see if the weather is fine. At the bottom, there are cows. They’re making cheese! That’s that heap at the side, that’s the cheese. They’re big fat Camemberts. They’re all runny. Now here’s somebody dressed up as a sheep, he’s looking at the cheese, he’s got a stick, he’s watching it to make sure nobody steals it. That’s water on the mountain, it’s running down, like going downstairs, it’s a waterfall. And here’s an elephant having a drink! He’s smaller than the cows. That doesn’t matter, because there aren’t elephants on Mont Blanc, I know that. Here, there are some flowers. I’ve put the sun in because the sun is shining. The sun’s too small too, but there was no more room, so I did it again at the side, because of the head of the little man on the mountain. That’s why there are two of them. There’s no room!
‘You see, he wants to come down now. But he’s frightened so I put the clouds over him because I can’t draw him being frightened. It’ll be better to see him later. It looks as if it’s going to rain.
‘Now there’s a submarine coming out, there. It’s not the same story, but it’s the same, now the mountain is green and the man is very small. He’s hanging on to the end but it’s too pointed so it’s broken off. It hits him in the face. I don’t know why the submarine is there. That’s just the tail of one cow, so as not to draw everything. You can’t see the cheeses either, they were silly.
‘There, the submarine has got sails like a boat, and there’s water all round the mountain. These are the fishes’ heads sticking out of the water. This is the captain and he’s fishing and looking through binoculars, all at the same time. Because I showed him fishing, because of the water, I made a mistake, it’s impossible: I put in the other arm he’s using to look through the binoculars, but I didn’t take away the arm he’s fishing with. If you saw him like that, you’d really think he was working hard!
‘After that it’s just to see under the water. That’s just the water. Here’s the sand at the bottom. Here there are different fish. These are the flowers under the sea.’
Holding Serge’s neck gave Jonathan a strange feeling. He had the impression that it wasn’t Serge he touched, but an indefinite being, more general, almost abstract: a boy. Any boy. Something in Serge’s physical presence did not belong to him himself.
This feeling was new, troubling, almost repugnant. At six, at eight, the child had been wholly his body, and his body had been wholly him. Now, on the other hand, he had, curiously, a body to be looked at, attractive and expressive, which must be him, and another body to be touched, this anonymous boy’s body. A body in excess.
Jonathan wondered whether Serge too now experienced his touching him in a different way. The child seemed to be at ease.
Then perhaps it was only a false impression produced in Jonathan by his fear of becoming a stranger to Serge. He hoped this was so, but his gestures remained shy — even when the child kissed him. Even later that evening, in bed (for the little bed downstairs had been forgotten), when Serge teased the young man with such a particular look of mischief in his eyes that Jonathan was certain that Serge now knew what all this was about.
‘No, the little man on the mountain is nothing now. It doesn’ t matter. There’s no more mountain you see: it’s an island now. It’s high. It looks like an ice-cream. There’s smoke, like Robinson Crusoe. The captain is going to look.
‘He’s in a forest. The monkey there doesn’t look right, no. There are things to eat in the trees. Not real fruit, I made them up. There’s a chop. That’s an alarm clock — mmm, that ought to be good but it’ll be full of pips. These are striped bananas, and all these others I really don’t know. But there’s a bottle of wine.
“Cos the captain’s climbing the tree and he’s drinking the whole bottle. He looks drunk! There’s his dog wagging his tail, because there was a dog I think. Perhaps he wanted to eat, the dog. Only it was wrong with the dog, so afterwards he isn’t there any longer, there’s an elephant again. I really like that, elephants. He’s little. The captain has made a house in the tree. He’s collecting chops, bananas, gruyere. He looks happy. There are butterflies.
If Jonathan had this feeling of strangeness, Serge himself seemed to be just the same.
He had come back to the house to do again what he had been doing two years earlier; and the first day of this summer could have been joined to the last day of the other without any break, without the slightest change to the old rites, the old games, the old pleasures.
Jonathan was wrong: time hadn’t passed. Nothing had happened but a long summer, started long ago, which would go on forever. Serge’s own life.
‘The whole tree’s broken. The captain’s got fat, eating all that! He’s too heavy. He falls down. Look at that, d’you like it? I wanted to show he was too fat, in his shed, and he’s burst through it. The planks are exploding!
‘Now it’s the same thing but from very far away. Very, very far away, I’m telling you. Really, the island, you don’t know, do you… It was as small as the moon, with the palm trees there; it was in the sky. And him, he’s falling through space, of course. He’s thin, I didn’t remember to do him fat. Look at the stars: they’re not just there to fill it all up, well, not just for that. It’s the constellations. It’s the real ones from the encyclopaedia.
‘That’s his submarine arriving. It’s atomic. Now it’s a rocket. It’s never the same little man, I can’t draw him the same, just the clothes, only if I’ve got the right colours.
‘Now, between these two pictures, you’ve got to listen. He’s back in his submarine, he’s thinking what was the smoke he saw on the island, you remember when he was eating everything, he came because of the smoke. So they came, only the island, they made a mistake, they were on a whale breathing out water like a palm tree, they thought it was an island. A red whale, because I didn’t know what colour. But I know it’s not red. Or are there any?
‘The rocket is very small. There, the whale’s mouth, that’s how they are, with bars. That’s why the captain has a beard. ‘Don’t laugh, it’s true. Because I’d made him a prisoner in the whale’s mouth, but I put the bars too close together and you couldn’t really see his face. So I put a beard on him so you could see him better. You see, he hasn’t shaved for a long time. The whale is brown now, but not on purpose. It is brown, but I didn’t notice. You can see, all the beginning, it’s not very good.’
‘I know how to make coffee now. But not with that machine. You show me, and then I’ll make the coffee. Perhaps it won’t be right.’
Serge wanted to help with everything, show off his talents. Less clumsy than before, he applied his new dexterity, his quickness and lightness of touch to tasks useless or bizarre. The kitchen cupboard was completely emptied onto the ground, sorted out and inventoried object by object; an enormous heap of things to be thrown away was collected together, but in reality Serge kept them for himself. Cooking implements, crockery and groceries were put back in place with a window dresser’s attention to detail. This too well-organised cupboard wasn’t very practical, but if you opened all the doors at the same time, what a sight it was! Serge shut them again with regret. He wanted nothing more than to be asked to fetch things, so as to be able to admire his stacks, rows, alignments and nests, his rankings by size and his staggered displays. Jonathan was unhappy to disturb this order, and waited for the boy to stop paying it attention. Two nights were enough.
Serge’s zeal had its moments of excess and its moments of relaxation. He certainly hadn’t given up being as lazy and as disorganised as the next fellow; but he was showing that he was no longer a little boy who had to be helped all the time. Apart from that, he really liked the work: because he only did it now and again, and that only when he wanted. The word ‘housework’ meant n
othing to him. Against the background of dirt, slackness and disorder that followed from such a state of mind, the child would display his flashes of activity, repairing with sudden industry the effects of his neglect, suddenly doing a hundred tiny things, emerging from a long phase of negligent disinclination, luminous, transparent and laughing. Jonathan observed the same rhythm, and adjusted to it very well. He was only enchanted by the little boy’s lively and extremely intelligent assistance.
‘There it’s inside a whale. There’s a pot of flowers, and some crabs. They really are crabs, aren’t they? After that one, they’re a lot better.
‘And him, there, now there’s two of them. There was already one inside, in the whale’s stomach. He hasn’t got a beard any more, there’s no need! They’re saying hello.
‘Here they’ve found a door in the whale. I don’t know why the other one hadn’t discovered it before, you mustn’t ask. He must have been stupid. The other one is taking the flowers. They belonged to him. I laugh when I see someone carrying a pot of flowers in the street. That’s why. Look, they’re going outside!
‘It really is a very special whale. Now you can see the other side, there’s a door open, like an aeroplane, they’ve put a ladder because it’s too high. It isn’t standing on anything, the ladder, they’re going to fall into the sea.
‘Here, they’re swimming. There was nothing to draw, I put the sun in the middle. It’s too big. I can swim now, too. Not fast! Well, fast, but not very. Near the sun there is the rocket. It’s looking for the captain. It’s lost, I think it’s later, in the pictures afterwards.
‘There it’s not the same. There’s nothing there, that must be when they arrive. That’s the countryside! Yes, the countryside. Perhaps, if you look.
‘There you can see, they’ve got a chair. They’re smoking a pipe. There’s a black man on a bike, it’s in Africa. There are pineapples in the palm trees. They’re difficult to draw. But it’s not a real black man, I did him like that.
‘Here, I copied a drawing. It’s not as good as the other but I didn’t have any tracing-paper. The colours are quite like. It’s all the animals in Africa. D’you recognise them?… That one, what’s that?… That’s right. And that one.
‘I copied a photo there as well. You tell me which one it is.
‘No, it’s not that one. That’s a mountain, it’s called Ruwenzori. Yes! It’s three miles. Three miles high! Didn’t you know? It’s invisible. There’s fog all the time. It was a really good photo. At the bottom, that’s the jungle.
‘Have you been there, to Africa? In a plane you’re there straight away. It must cost a lot of money. They’ve got Boeings. Afterwards, they’ll be atomic. You won’t even have time to see. That’ll be good. All the same, I’d like to go there.
‘Yes, we could walk, if you like. I would. But you’d have to walk slowly though. Look at my shoes. See, I wear them down just on that side. I walk all on one side. I don’t care, I’ve got basket-ball boots, it’s not worth repairing them.
‘In that one, there’s still two of them, but it’s at the North Pole. That’s the photo I had afterwards: they went a long way, they were too hot! It’s blue because with white you can’t see it. Look! look look look! It must be another elephant. I always draw them pointing the same way. They aren’t cold, I forgot to show it.’
‘Didn’t you have the bed before?’
About a week had passed without Serge showing any interest in the bed. Then he suggested to Jonathan that they should take it up to the bedroom. He wanted to try and sleep all by himself, but he wanted to be with Jonathan.
The young man’s bed, it’s true, was very narrow for two. And if Serge went to bed and went to sleep cuddled up to Jonathan, in deep sleep he was independent; he drifted towards the edge of the bed and slipped between the tucked-in sheet and the side of the mattress, spending the night in this sort of hammock.
If the furniture was moved, there would be enough room in the bedroom for the second bed. The problem was rather getting it up there. They succeeded, with much patient effort. As for the room downstairs, it became the studio and dining-room.
Simon hadn’t lied when he spoke of Serge’s present modesty. He undressed by taking his clothes off in bed; and he insisted on washing by himself.
‘You mustn’t be seen when you’re dirty,’ he said. With Jonathan, though, he did much more than allow himself to be seen; and at times like that, he didn’t care much whether he was dirty or not. But that was different.
This search for bodily independence didn’t make Jonathan unhappy. However, it seemed to him that their coupling was less natural as a result; there were minutes of contact, compared to hours and hours of not touching. Gone was the confusion of bodies that had so pleased Serge when he was younger. Their embraces, definable and distinct from the other events of the day, thus became more intense but less pure. This took Jonathan a long time to get used to. It worried him to have a cock, and then not one, a body, and then not one, according to the child’s desire. Then he resigned himself to the banalisation of their love-making, and he wasn’t unhappy. Serge could be very lascivious and bold. As soon as it came into his head, he lost all modesty; his interest in the young man’s sex was greedy and unflagging; to be caressed anywhere but on his own sex bored him; if he hugged, kissed, or had moments of tenderness, it was rather when he was clothed and shod (for bare feet gave him ideas).
‘There, that’s it, they’re all standing on top of the elephant. He’s feeling the wind with his trunk and he’s saying goodbye! The other one is little, perhaps it’s a child. The captain isn’t a captain, I’m saying that because of the submarine. They’re just people. It could be you!
‘No, it’s not you. They’ve found a ship, but it’s just like an ordinary boat, there aren’t any sails. No oars either. But they’re moving just the same. It’s the elephant that’s making it go, I think, ‘cos he’s blowing!
‘Ah, it’s because he’s farting all the time. Hey, that’s really pushing the boat along.
‘There’s another boat. It isn’t a proper one. It’s more like a flying saucer. Yes, with yellow and green peas. It’s got two cannons. It shoots green soup out of the cannons. There’s the soup, d’you see it? It’s completely crazy! It might be a soup-bowl fallen off a ship, from a liner. Could be. But it’s too big! That, it just made me laugh, that’s all. It’s something that happened when they were travelling.
‘Here, it’s another adventure. Do you understand the drawing? There’s a hole in the water. Here, it stops, and there on the other side, it starts again. They don’t know how to get by. They’re waving their arms in the air. Oh dear, what’s going on!
‘It seems there are holes in the sea. There are, but you can go round them. Here, though, it stops, you’ve got to jump.
‘And do you know what I found out?… I said to myself, if there’s a hole in the sea, all the water will go into it. So that’s what’s happening. There you can see the sea falling into the hole, and then the boat has got no water round it. It’s on the sand. They’ve been lucky. The little one is collecting starfish. They put them round their necks. I haven’t put the elephant in, but it’s still there.’
‘At home, d’you know what I do? It’s not difficult! I cut the onions up, I put them in the frying pan with the butter, and then when they’re golden, I put in the mince, uh, six ounces at least, then I put in two eggs, then I do this (he mixed with his two hands), and then I make a ball, then I flatten it (a thump with the fist), then I put it in the frying pan with plenty of butter, then I eat it. It gets crusty on the outside! But if you don’t put salt and pepper it’s no good. It’s true. I eat it all the time. And spaghetti.’
Serge’s appetite, which had always been hearty, was now enormous. It worried Jonathan, who had much less money than when the child first stayed with him. He didn’t dare tell him. The meals were wonderful; and every two or three days there were visits to the nearby town, where the council had built a swimming pool,
and next to it a water-sports centre in some old gravel-pits, and Serge had really developed a taste for it; he needed clothes and lots of other things; he read in bed much more than he used to, and would get through two or three small books in an evening. In scarcely a fortnight, Jonathan’s monthly payment would be spent.
Clearly, he couldn’t write to the boy’s parents — he was worried that if he did that they would take him back.
He didn’t have any rich or generous friends, certainly not both. He told himself he would have to make real the improvised lie he’d told Simon: he’d start to paint again. Not necessarily nice canvasses properly done for his dealer and his clientele of Huns de luxe: anything that could be sold quickly anywhere. His perfection of draughtsmanship (to which he attached no importance, but he knew he had the fault) allowed him to produce with pen or brush, without even looking, the prettiest forest glades and the most cheering country scenes to be seen in any supermarket — not to mention female nudes, which he was really good at, having copied so often from permitted works, and masterpieces at that.
It was selling them that embarrassed him. And apart from that, in summer businesses were hardly ticking over. He should have gone down to the Mediterranean, and sketched profiles outside cafés in the evening. People would be pleased; he knew how to make a likeness, very like, too much, or not so much. He’d lived from that for a year, before, during his first stay in France. He’d been eighteen. He’d made enough money to fulfil the only desire inspired in him by Paris: to go elsewhere. Which is what he’d done.
But he’d come back, all the same, much later. For him, there was something hollow, frozen and senile about France, which suited his unsociable nature, and which he’d never seen anywhere else. And the shifting light on this edge of a continent, neither grey nor bright, neither fleshy nor diaphanous, neither veiled nor radiant — like the impression made by some dim person who tries very hard to seem not brilliant, but pleasant and interesting — this light, which never dominated the sight and which never flattered things, this light left his eyes in peace. Eyes too fragile, so captivated by the already created as to render the artist in him impotent. Only the weakness of art had given him the strength to be a painter in spite of the perfection of what exists.
