Scumbler

by William Wharton

  The driving isn’t too bad, but it’s colder and I’ve lost that beautiful blue sky. I don’t push so hard and take a break every hour, as I promised myself, except for the midday press. As I’ve gone north, the traffic has picked up and the land has flattened out. This is not sunny Spain; this is more Europe, but somehow still scraggly. I rarely go over forty miles an hour, so there are trucks, cars passing me all the time. Twice I get good-sized pebbles thrown up against my face. One strikes the goggles and actually leaves a mark on it. After that one, I pull over and rethink the whole project; it all looks pretty stupid and I almost give up right there. But I’m deep into it now and want to finish, so I charge on. I don’t quite know what I’m trying to prove, but it’s something I’d hate like hell trying to explain to Kate or any sensible person, anyone not struggling for life itself.

  When I roll into Burgos, I have just half an hour before they close. I park in front of the cathedral and walk down the main aisle, letting the peace and calm sink into me. I’m needing it. There seemed to be a lot of hostility out there on the road today.

  The cathedral’s all transparent shadows and shades of blues, purples, violets against multicolored gray stone. I kneel at the altar and say a little private prayer to whomever the “powers that be” might be, if they are. I ask them to help this old man with this old bike in this old church to get through three more days. I thank them for the last three days. After that, I find a room, do my Yoga, then go out and treat myself to a good meal in a fancy restaurant. That pebble in the face reinforced my joy in just being alive. I want to celebrate it.

  WHEN DID THE LUXURY OF EXPANSION CEASE?

  IN WHICH SEARCH FOR PEACE DID I LOSE

  FLEXIBILITY? I’M LIKE A DRIED AND

  SEGMENTED UNUSED RUBBER BAND.

  The trip to San Sebastian isn’t bad at all. The powers must have some power. I get there at about one in the afternoon. I park, walk along the promenade and out onto the beach. The weather has even improved some but it’s not swimming weather. I walk close to the edge of the water, windmilling my arms, getting some circulation back, also now and then doing hand-assisted deep knee bends. I watch some kids playing soccer on the beach; God, they have energy to burn and I’m just a flickering spark.

  FROM INSIDE SOME KIND OF MENTAL CAVE, I

  PEER OUT AT BLINDING LIGHT; MOVEMENTS IN

  QUICKSILVER, SOMNOLENT BRILLIANCE. I

  CLOSE DOWN AND FALL BACK TO STILLNESS.

  I’m back on the bike at two and decide I’ll press for Tours. I figure if I don’t make it, I can always stop at some little place along the way.

  The border crossing is easy. I have all Sweik’s papers for the bike and a note giving me permission to ride it. Nobody looks at the note on either side of the border. That’s how unimpressive a dirty old bike can be to people who don’t know. Since it’s lunchtime, there’s no lineup and the customs guards are relaxed and belching.

  It’s a wonderful feeling being back in France. Saint-Jean-de-Luz looks like the modern world after these past few days. I push along beautiful crowned roads lined on both sides by sycamores. These trees are murderous in case of an accident but so beautiful it’s almost worth it. I feel sometimes as if I’m driving through a wooden tunnel. There’s just the start of green in the leaves.

  I drag into Tours at seven-thirty. I’ve been pushing it fairly hard. The bike is running as if it’s brand new. I keep checking all the little things that can go wrong: brake cable, gas cable, clutch cable. Each night I’ve been unscrewing the spark plugs and cleaning them. I’m more and more impressed with the machine—also, more and more impressed with myself. I’m less tired after this longest day than on any day before. I begin to understand Sandy’s feeling some, too; the joy of being on the road. Sure, I’ll be glad to arrive, finally, in Paris, to walk on two feet again, but sitting that bike, eating up miles, is not all bad. Could be only I’m getting close to home. I even think of taking a detour along the Loire, look at some of the châteaux; but that’d be tempting fate. No sense challenging the powers.

  WE GUESS AT GODS AND HOPE THEY WILL

  BLESS US IN THE BOG OF OUR FAILURE.

  I know of a small hotel near the cathedral here, and they have a room. It’s great traveling off season. I also know of a wonderful little restaurant with specialties of the Touraine. I go there and eat my first French food in almost two weeks. It’s worth going away.

  After eating, I walk around outside the closed cathedral. It’s always seemed a shame to close churches at night. It’s in the night, or even sometimes at three o’clock in the morning, when a person can best use a church. I imagine they’re afraid of thieves. But then a religious person shouldn’t be too upset if somebody poor takes something. Just think of the church as a gigantic poor box—have cots for the poor to sleep—now that’d be truly religious.

  I don’t do any praying or any Yoga. At nine o’clock I sack out; I’ll be driving through heavy traffic into Paris the next day.

  I wake at about 5 a.m. perfectly refreshed. I decide to take right off. It’s cold, so I button Sweik’s jacket tight. It’s dark and the streetlights are on; there’s practically no one in the streets. I get on the main road north; I’ve decided to stay off autoroutes, that would be thumbing my nose at the gods. The trip is uneventful and I’m full of adrenaline looking forward to seeing my family; I hardly take any breaks at all. I pull into the Place Saint-Sulpice just as the church bells are ringing and thumping the sun-filled joy of noon.

  Sweik gave me the key to his room. I take off the saddle-bags, the helmets, and walk down there. In his room, I find the tarp where he said it would be, come back and cover the bike. I feel as if I’m saying goodbye to an old friend, as if I’m divorcing a friendly, supportive wife. I’d like to do something for that machine, something to keep it from rusting, wearing out, being junked.

  Somehow I’m married to myself again, too, now. I feel all together, whole. I had all the requisites. something old, me; something new, Sandy; something borrowed, the Ariel, and that blue sky most of the way.

  I pack my things in my little bag, take the Métro and get home before everybody comes in from school. I flop out on the bed and go right to sleep.

  Kate wakes me with a kiss and hug; I pull her down on top of me and hold her tight. I feel as if I’ve been a million miles away. They tell me it’s been raining in Paris practically the whole time I’ve been gone and they’re impressed with my tan. Kate says it looks as if I’ve lost at least ten pounds, look ten years younger and it’s sure nice to see me smiling again.

  I tell her about Sture and Anna. I tell how my friends from Paris came down. I don’t tell her anything particular about Sandy. I don’t tell about driving that motorcycle back up. Maybe some other day.

  That night, I shuffle my way through the paintings I’ve finished so far of the Marais series.

  I’m really charged up. I’m feeling reborn, like a new person.

  XV

  NATURE NEST

  The next day, I spend packing our car for the mill. We’ll leave directly from school when Kate and the kids get out; we zoom-right-out-at-three-twenty; beat the traffic.

  We bought this mill ten years ago. It was the ruin of an old water mill south and east of Paris. It’s in an area called the Morvan, a northeast extension of the Massif Central. This is a beautiful part of France but poor: thin soil, no industry, sort of a French Appalachia. We got this ruin twelve years ago for two thousand bucks, a deal the old Scumbler just couldn’t resist.

  The mill was almost three hundred years old, and on the verge of collapse when we bought it. I had fun piling rocks and cementing them in place, putting on a new used slate roof, piping in water, installing plumbing, electricity. I did the whole Scumbler thing. Now we spend Christmas, Easter and summers there. It’s the one place we never rent out; sort of the home nest, our ultimate hideout.

  We do great holidays down there. Our own private Easter bunny makes the best damned chocolate-covered, coconut-
filled, hand-decorated eggs in the world. We have joyous fun Easter morning, rain, shine or snow, hiding eggs and baskets all around the millpond.

  We have our own special treatment for each holiday. At Christmas we hand-cut our tree, fourteen-foot job, decorate it with real candles, then leave it up till Easter. The mill’s so damp when we’re away it stays fresh and green.

  Good Friday we light it a last time, then take it down. Taking down a Christmas tree must be one of the saddest things going, so it’s fitting. It also gives a new beginning of freshness for Easter.

  All our holidays are more pagan than anything. Since I’m a witch man, I love Halloween. We do lots of superspooky, scary things with wild costumes.

  Fourth of July and July 14th, Bastille Day, are both celebrated with fireworks shot over the pond: beautiful reflections, reverberations. The whole village joins us for those.

  I’m in a wonderful pagan mood for Easter.

  LEAPING WITH NEW LEAVES, SUCKING IN THE

  FRESH CLEAR SUN: I GIVE MY SOUL TO LIFE.

  BIRTH AND NEW BEGINNINGS, THE CLEANNESS OF

  NATURE REKINDLE MY TIRED BLOOD, MY ACHINGHEART.

  But first let’s go back to last Christmas. It was then I got talking with Madame Mathilde in our village. She’s eighty-six years old; her husband died three years ago at ninety-two. Now she lives by herself, still keeps a garden, still walks up the hill every morning to mass.

  She raised a family of her own, four kids; then at fifty, when those first ones grew up and left home, she got lonesome, so she took on a second family of three orphans. The last of this batch left home when she was almost seventy. She insists her second family loves her more than the first. She was probably a better parent second time around. knew more about life and what’s important.

  I didn’t really get to check myself out completely with my first family, never had a chance, but I’ve sure enjoyed the nest I got to stay with.

  There’s a long tradition of orphans in the Morvan. In the nineteenth century, the Morvan was known for wet nurses. The young girls would get themselves freshened by a local stud, leave their babies, then scoot up to Paris and play cow for the babies of the stylish ladies in the haut monde. Fun for everyone except the babies left behind.

  EASY TO OVERLOOK, A CRY

  THAT STOPS NOTHING, BUT

  IS EASILY STOPPED. LIFE,

  THE PUNCTUATION OF EXISTENCE.

  Well, last Christmas I’m rigging electricity over at Madame Mathilde’s place to run an electric blanket we bought her. Mathilde has rheumatism in her hands and knees; lives in a damp hollow near the stream coming from the millpond. We thought maybe some dry heat in winter might help. We give her the blanket and she wraps herself in it; doesn’t plug it in; says it helps. American magic.

  There’s only one light in her house, no outlets. I run a line down to her bed from a high switchbox. The room smells like old lady; not enough light to see what she’s doing. She doesn’t care too much anymore; can’t see well even with light; has stuff piled all around. Her husband’s clothes are laid out and folded on a chair ready for him to wear, been there for three years I know of, kept clean, pressed, ready. Time gets confusing as you grow older; it’s confusing enough when you’re young—or even middle old, like me.

  Finally I have the outlet rigged and her blanket plugged in. I point out the tiny light in the control box and explain how to regulate it. She nods. I know she isn’t catching on. I spread that blanket over the mountain of covers on her bed. It really should go under the covers but I’d just as soon lift her petticoats as unpile those covers. Never know what’s under all that; maybe keeps her old dead husband there, the way Faulkner’s Emily did. No, I went to Mathilde’s husband’s funeral; I’m sure he was in the box. I helped fill in the grave, too.

  The blanket starts getting warm. I tell her to touch it. She pulls her hand away quickly; looks at me, shock in her old milky eyes.

  “Mais, Monsieur, c’est vivant!”

  It’s alive, says she. I know right away I’ve blown it. She’ll never get under that blanket now. I go through the motions of explaining how to plug it in, adjust it; suggest she put it under the covers. She listens politely, eyes glued on the blanket. Unholy witchcraft! Foreign magic!

  I notice her clock isn’t working. It’s a grandfather job. I take off the pendulum, pull out the works; nothing can really go wrong with these big babies. They’re my favorite toys. I blow out some dust, bend a catch for one of the cogs that’s gotten out of line. Madame Mathilde is watching me, nodding her head, muttering. She tells me this clock ran without stopping since her husband came home from the war. “Thirty-five years,” I say. “Oh no!” She laughs. “More than that.” It turns out to be the First World War she’s talking about. The clock stopped again the week after he died; hasn’t run since; a kind of local miracle. Nobody there to wind it.

  I get the clock running. It’s a pull-cord, weight-winding system. I explain to Mathilde how to wind the clock and chimes. She forgives me the hanky-panky with the blanket. I ask how she heats her place and she shows me the wood stove for heating and cooking; says she used to get wood from the bois but now buys it from Monsieur Périchon.

  She explains how a petit bois, a small wood, came with every house in the old days. Most of these woods aren’t used anymore; everybody’s switched to oil, butane or electricity. She doesn’t even know where her bois is. Of course, the rat nester’s whiskers start quivering.

  I offer to buy Madame Mathilde’s bois. She says it’s mine; she gives it to me. I tell her I want to buy her bois if I can find it. This sounds like fun; just my kind of thing—mysterious property deep in the woods.

  SCURRYING IN THE WOODS. SCRATCHING

  IN EARTH, SMELLING OLD ROOTS, WORMS;

  HEFTING ROCK AND LOAM, WHAT ELSE

  IS LEFT? I KNOW I’M BACK HOME.

  The next day, I go up to the Mairie; that’s our local mayor’s office. Madame Calvert. another neighbor, is secretary there. She points to a wall plugged with hundreds of oblong cardboard boxes. There are dates and letters like H-L 1858 on them. The dates go back to 1814. I’ve no idea how I can find anything; neither does Madame Calvert. I roll downhill and try to get a specific date of purchase from Mathilde. All she knows is they bought their place three years after they were married and she was married sixty-three years when the Monsieur died. That’s her husband. She always talks about him as if he’s the boss away on vacation.

  I go back to the Mairie. I figure it had to be about sixty years ago. Name LeCerbe. I go through the J-M boxes for 1921; old moldy-paper smell, brown ragged edges cracking off the paper; nothing. I find what I want in 1920, the year I was born. There’s a description of the property; gives the location of Mathilde’s wood. I get all the surveying markers. They’re things like: “from the large elm, east to the flat rock.” I’m disappointed there isn’t any skeleton pointing north with an outstretched finger. I drive Mike’s motorcycle to Nevers, our nearest big town, and buy geological survey maps.

  The wood is up behind the Rousseau place. After about half a day’s hunt, I find what looks like an old benchmark. I measure with rope and a couple of sticks. using a pair of binoculars tied fast to one of the sticks. I get the approximate boundaries. It’s a good size; long, pie-shaped. It goes down the side of a hill to nip a small stream at the bottom. There’s heavy second, third growth; nobody’s cut wood in here for over thirty years, at least. All together there are just under five thousand square meters, about an acre. It’s perfect for what I have in mind. There’s even an overgrown path going to within fifty meters of the place.

  I stake everything out and go back to Mathilde; tell her I’ve found her bois. She waves it away to me. I tell her I want to buy it; she shrugs.

  I offer a thousand francs, about two hundred bucks. Madame Calvert writes the offer out for me in reasonable French. I don’t think Mathilde ever had so much money at one time in her life. She still doesn’t quite understand why I’m giving her mone
y. I explain over and over, feeling like the Pilgrims buying land from the Indians; next thing, I’ll be pushing beads off on her.

  Of course, everything has to go through a notaire; that bastard takes fourteen percent for nothing. There are robbers every way you turn, no matter where you are. Handlers take everything, do nothing.

  SHAVING EDGES, CONFABULATING HEDGES,

  NIBBLING AWAY AT THE CORE OF THINGS

  THESE ARE THE REAL WHORES IN OUR LIVES,

  TITHING TO THEMSELVES WITHOUT WORTH,

  DRIVING HARD WORKERS TO THE EARTH.

  So now we’re back to Easter vacation after my trip to Spain. We’ve got some little tucks and seams showing in our tale here. Nothing like a tuck in your tail, like Dagwood’s dog, Daisy.

  IT’S NOT ALL AN EVEN BROADCLOTH.

  MAYBE LIFE CAN BE A MÖBIUS STRIP,

  A TWIRLING TRIP; BUT I CAN’T SEEM

  TO FIND JUST THE RIGHT TWIST.

  By Easter, the deal is closed; I own that little wood. Kate thinks I’m crazy but laughs; she’s used to my crackpot ideas; even learns to like some of them. I’m going to build a hut, a wild nest, for nature freaks.

  I keep hearing ragged-looking, spaced-out slobs, my friends’ children, who eat nothing but brown rice, granola and cashew nuts, talk about how they want to live in nature, unpolluted nature. They sit blowing cigarette smoke in my face, complaining how the industrialist bastards are polluting the face of our beautiful planet.

  The Scumbler will build them an ideal place to live, a place where nobody’s even walked for maybe thirty years. It’s not going to be in Afghanistan, or on the tea hills of Sri Lanka either, but right in the center of civilization, la belle France.

  This place will be built with natural things: natural rocks, natural wood, natural dirt. Then the Scum’s going to rent it for natural dark green money.