The Witch in the Broom Cupboard and Other Tales

by Pierre Gripari

  At six o’clock in the evening, Papa and Mama Sayeed came home. They asked the girls:

  “Any news from the shop today?”

  “Yes!” they said. “Nadia was taken away by the wicked witch.”

  “Oh? And then?”

  “Then Bashir went to save her.”

  “Oh, good! Anything else?”

  “No, nothing else…”

  “Very good. Go and have your tea.”

  A few hours later, the day was almost over. Poor Dawn had searched the whole world but had no luck, and already it was time for her to start pinning the animals who lived in the sky back up there. She picked up her sack of stars, called all the heavenly animals and began to pin them all up again. When she got to the Little Bear, she pinned him up as best she could with the stars she had left, and she was about to go on, when Little Bear stopped her:

  “Well? What about my Pole Star? You’re forgetting my Pole Star!”

  “Drat!” hissed young Dawn into Little Bear’s ear. “I think I’ve lost it. But don’t tell anyone. I promise I’ll find it for you before tomorrow evening…”

  But the Little Bear didn’t hear very well in that ear. She began to cry:

  “Waaah! My Pole Star! Waah! I want my Pole Star! Waaaaah! The little girl has lost my Pole Star…”

  She was making such a racket that the Moon hurried over:

  “What’s all this? What’s going on?”

  Very ashamed, young Dawn told her mother what had happened.

  “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  “I didn’t dare, Mama… I thought I could find the star by myself.”

  “Oh well, that wasn’t very clever, was it! Now we shall have to tell your father! And he does not like being woken up, does your father, once he has gone to bed!”

  Poor young Dawn finished her work with her mother helping, sniffing as she went. When they were finished, they went to wake up the Sun.

  That night—a beautiful, clear night—there was no Pole Star, but instead a great black space in the sky. And a great many ships that had set out for America ended up in Africa or even in Australia, because they had lost track of where north was.

  “Oh, very clever!” grumbled the Sun in a thunderous voice, throwing flames in all directions. “What in heaven can I have done to deserve such a little idiot… I don’t know what’s stopping me from—”

  “Now, now, don’t get so worked up,” said the Moon, impatiently. “What good will it do?”

  “True,” admitted the Sun. “But all the same.”

  Then, turning to young Dawn, he asked:

  “Look, what is it that happened, exactly? Tell me everything.”

  And, when young Dawn had finished her tale, he said:

  “That little pig is doubtless hiding at Papa Sayeed’s shop. Those little girls must have hidden him. Quick, bring me my great black cloak, my black hat, my black scarf, my black mask and my dark glasses, and I’ll be there in a flash.”

  The Sun put on his great black cloak, his black hat, his black scarf, his black mask and his dark glasses. Dressed like this, no one could tell that he was in fact the Sun. He went down to earth and straight away to see Papa Sayeed.

  When he stepped into the shop, Papa Sayeed asked:

  “What will it be for monsieur?”

  “Nothing,” said the Sun. “I would like to talk to you.”

  Hearing this, Papa Sayeed took him for a door-to-door salesman:

  “In that case,” he said, “you can come back tomorrow! Why do you always come at this time? You can see that I have customers to serve!”

  “I am not who you think I am,” said the Sun. “I have come to look for the little pig that has eaten the Pole Star.”

  “What kind of a tall tale is this? There’s no little pig here!”

  “And I,” said the Sun, “I am certain that there is. Your children let him in.”

  Papa Sayeed called in his four children, who were watching television:

  “Now, what’s this story I’m hearing about you? Have any of you four seen a little pig today?”

  Nadia said: “I wasn’t here during the day—the witch stole me away.”

  “Me neither,” said Bashir, “I went to save Nadia.”

  But Malika and Rashida stood there in silence, looking at the floor. Papa Sayeed asked:

  “And what about you two, now? Have you seen a little pig?”

  “A little pig?” asked Malika, in a small voice.

  “A little pig?” echoed Rashida.

  Papa Sayeed lost his temper.

  “Yes, a little pig! Not a hippopotamus, to be sure! Have you both gone deaf?”

  “Have you seen a little pig?” Malika asked Rashida.

  “Me? Oh no!” Rashida replied. “And you? Have you seen one, a little pig?”

  “No, me neither. Not one little pig…”

  “Really!” said the Sun. “Are you sure? A little pig, green all over, being chased by an old gentleman with a wooden leg?”

  “That’s not right!” said Malika indignantly. “He was pink!”

  “Besides,” added Rashida excitedly, “it wasn’t an old gentleman following him: it was a little girl! And she didn’t have a wooden leg!”

  Just then, they both went quiet, looked at each other and blushed right up to their ears, realizing that they had given each other away.

  “There’s our proof!” cried the Sun.

  “What does this mean?” Papa Sayeed shouted. “Hiding a little pig in my shop—and what’s more, without asking! And trying to lie to me, on top of everything!”

  The two little girls began to cry:

  “But it’s not our fault!”

  “We thought we were doing the right thing!”

  “He begged us so hard!”

  “He pleaded with us!”

  “He told us the little girl was going to kill him!”

  “Kill him and eat him!”

  “Enough lies!” thundered Papa Sayeed. “Come here and let me give you each a good smacking.”

  But this time, the Sun stepped in.

  “Don’t smack them, Monsieur Sayeed, I am sure they are telling the truth. I know this little pig: he’s a terrible liar and quite capable of telling them all this nonsense.”

  Then, turning to the two girls, he asked them gently:

  “And where have you put him?”

  “In the cellar,” whispered Malika.

  “Would you mind showing me your cellar?” the Sun asked Papa Sayeed.

  “Well… I would rather not!” said Papa Sayeed. “I don’t much like this kind of thing, myself. And besides, it could cause me problems in the future. I don’t even know who you are.”

  “I am the Sun,” said the Sun.

  “Then, prove it. Take off your dark glasses!”

  “I really can’t,” said the Sun. “If I take them off, the whole house will catch fire!”

  “All right then, keep them on,” said Papa Sayeed. “And stay back behind the counter.”

  He lifted the trapdoor. All the customers in the cafe who had been listening to the conversation crowded over to see. As soon as the trapdoor was raised, a soft pink light shone out.

  “He’s in there!” cried the Sun.

  And, without even asking for the ladder, he stretched out one long, long arm, lifted the little pig out by his ear and sat him on the marble shop counter. The little pig wriggled and struggled and yelled as loud as he could:

  “Let me go! Let me go! I want to stay here!”

  “You can stay where you like,” said the Sun, “but I want my star back.”

  “Star? What star? I don’t know any star. I’ve never even seen a star!”

  “Liar!” said the Sun. “I can see it shining right through your tummy!”

  The little pig looked down at his tummy, saw the glow and gave up pretending:

  “All right—take your star, then.” he said. “I don’t want anything to do with your star! I never wanted it in the first pla
ce! I didn’t mean to eat it.”

  “Don’t talk so much,” said the Sun, “and spit it out, if you can.”

  The little pig tried and tried to spit out the star, but he couldn’t.

  “We’ll have to make him throw up,” said the Sun.

  “I have an idea,” said Papa Sayeed.

  He took a very big glass and in it he put: coffee, mustard, salt, grenadine syrup, rum, pastis, brandy and beer. The little pig gulped down this horrible mixture, went quite pale and began to vomit up everything inside him—except for the star.

  At three in the morning, they sent for a vet, who gave the little pig a purgative meant for horses, hoping they might get the star out by the pig’s other end. Between four and five o’clock, the little pig did quite a few things, but still no star came out.

  When the clock struck half-past five in the morning, the Sun cried:

  “It’s too bad! I can’t wait any longer. The day is dawning and soon I will have to rise—we shall have to use extreme measures! Monsieur Sayeed, can you bring me a knife?”

  Papa Sayeed, who was also getting rather fed up, took out the long knife he used for cutting bunches of bananas. The Sun seized it and, without a moment’s hesitation, he sank the knife into the little pig’s back, making a large cut. Then he slipped two fingers into the slit, drew out the Pole Star and put it in his pocket. The little pig was weeping, but he didn’t make a squeak: he may have been a dreadful liar, but he was, all the same, a very brave little pig.

  “Thank you, Monsieur Sayeed,” said the Sun. “And please accept my apologies for this sleepless night. Now I have to go, for young Dawn has already begun taking the stars down from the sky. I really don’t know how to reward your kindness…”

  “Well, I know,” said Papa Sayeed. “Just keep shining as hotly as you can, so that my customers are thirsty and my business goes well…”

  “Right, it’s a deal, I’ll do my best!”

  Then, turning to the little pig, the Sun added:

  “As for your punishment, since you so enjoy eating shiny things, you shall be turned into a piggy bank. You shall keep that slot in your back, Monsieur Sayeed will drop his tips in there, and you won’t walk free until you’re filled up with coins!”

  “Great!” said the little pig. “I’ll soon be full!”

  “There’s an optimist!” said the Sun.

  Now, the Sun uttered a magic spell. The little pig stopped moving: he had changed into a piggy bank.

  The cafe’s customers all leant in to look at the piggy bank. As they did so, the Sun skipped out of the door and flew away. Straight away, everyone, including the children, crowded into the street, to watch him go… Within a few seconds, he had vanished from view.

  That day turned out rather overcast, for the Sun was a little tired. But from the day after onwards, the Pole Star shone in the sky once more, and the ships that set out for America mostly arrived in America.

  As for the little pig, the Sun had been right to doubt that he would be free very soon. Naturally, customers often leave tips. Naturally, Papa Sayeed never forgets to drop the coins into the piggy bank’s slot. But since the children come and shake them out again, I won’t say every day, but maybe several times a day, there is reason to fear that the little pig may never again be entirely full up!

  Afterword

  Children understand everything—as everybody knows. If I knew that children would be the only ones reading this book, I would not even think of writing an afterword. But, alas, I’m afraid that these tales will be read as much by grown-ups as by younger people. So I feel I should provide a few explanations.

  Rue Broca is not a street quite like any other street. If you look at a map of Paris, you will see—or think you see—that rue Pascal and rue Broca cross the boulevard de Port-Royal at right angles. If, confident in your map-reading, you were to take your car and drive down this boulevard, expecting then to turn into one or other of these two side streets, you might go back and forth a hundred times between the Observatory at one end of the boulevard and Gobelins station at the other, but you would not find either of those two streets.

  So, you will ask me: are rue Broca and rue Pascal made-up streets? Not at all! They do exist. And they do indeed run, in nearly straight lines, from boulevard Arago to rue Claude-Bernard. Therefore, they ought to cross the boulevard de Port-Royal.

  The explanation of this anomaly is not to be found on your map, for the map can only show two dimensions. As in Einstein’s world, at this spot, the surface of Paris curves and passes right over itself, so to speak. Forgive me for drawing on the jargon of science fiction, but really, there is no other way to say this: as with rue Pascal, rue Broca forms a dent, a hollow, a dive into three-dimensional sub-space.

  Now, leave your car in its garage and return to the boulevard de Port-Royal, but this time on foot. Set out from Gobelins station and forge ahead, along whichever pavement you prefer. At a certain point, you will see that the row of houses that lines the boulevard has a gap in it. Instead of marching along beside shops or the wall of an apartment building as usual, you are walking alongside a space, a space fenced off by a railing to stop you falling into it. On the same pavement, not much farther along, you’ll see the head of a staircase that appears to plunge deep into the entrails of the earth, like the steps that take you down to the Metro. Go down this staircase without fear. Once at the bottom, you are by no means underground; in fact, you will be in rue Pascal. Above your head, you’ll see something that looks like a bridge. This bridge is the boulevard de Port-Royal, which you have just left behind.

  A little farther along the boulevard, you will find another such staircase, like the first, but this one leading down to rue Broca.

  This is bizarre, but it is true.

  Now, let’s ignore rue Pascal—it is too straight, too wide, too short also to harbour any mystery—and look at rue Broca alone.

  This is a twisty street, narrow, crooked and sunken. By virtue of the spatial anomaly that I have described, although both its ends come out in Paris, the street itself is not quite part of Paris. No distance away, but on another plane, underground yet in the open air, this street by itself forms something like a small village. For the people who live there, this gives it a rather special feeling.

  First, everybody knows everybody, and each one of them knows more or less what the others do and what they’re busy with, which is exceptional in a city like Paris.

  And then, the majority of them come from all kinds of different places; very few are from Paris. In this street, I have met Berbers, Algerian French, Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians, a Pole, a Russian… even a few French people from other parts of France!

  Still, the people of rue Broca share at least one common pleasure: they love stories.

  I have had many misfortunes in my literary career, the majority of which I attribute to the fact that the French in general—and Parisians in particular—do not like stories. They demand the truth, or, failing that, plausibility, realism. While the only stories that really interest me are those about which I am certain, from the start, that they have never happened, will never happen and could never happen. I feel that, due to the basic fact that it makes no documentary or ideological claims to justify its existence, an impossible tale has every chance of containing a good deal more profound truth in it than any story that is merely plausible. Which perhaps makes me—I console myself—more of a realist in my own way than all those who claim to seek the truth, and who spend their lives stupidly ruled by insipid lies—lies that are indeed realistic purely by virtue of how insipid they are!

  And now—one occasion does not make a habit!—here is a true story:

  At number 69, rue Broca (I know, I know! I shall now be accused of God knows what dreadful innuendo. But what can I do? It was at number 69, not 67 or 71. For all you lovers of truth, this is one for you!). As I was saying, then: at number 69, rue Broca, there is a cafe-grocer’s, the owner of which, Papa Sayeed, is a Berber married to a
Breton woman. At the time of my story, they had four children: three girls and one boy (they had a fifth child later). The eldest girl is called Nadia, the second Malika, the third Rashida, and the little boy, who at the time was the youngest child, is called Bashir. Next to the cafe, there is a mansion house. In this house, among other tenants, lives a certain Monsieur Riccardi, Italian as his name suggests, also the father of four children, of whom the eldest is called Nicolas and the youngest is called Tina. I am leaving out other names, because there’s no need for them and they would only be confusing.

  Nicolas Riccardi often played in the street with the Sayeed children, for his father was a regular customer at the shop. This had been going on for a while and nobody would have dreamt of writing any of it down in a book had a certain odd character not one day turned up in the area.

  This person was known as Monsieur Pierre. He was fairly tall, with chestnut hair that stuck up in spikes like a hedgehog, browny-green eyes and glasses. He always wore a two-day-old beard (people even wondered how he managed to keep his beard in what is usually a very temporary state, for a beard) and his clothes, such as they were, seemed always on the verge of falling apart. He was forty years old, a bachelor, and he lived up above on the boulevard de Port-Royal.

  He came to rue Broca only to frequent the cafe, but he was often there and at all hours of the day. Besides, his tastes were modest: he appeared to live mainly on biscuits and chocolate, also on fruit when there was any, and all washed down with a great number of milky coffees and mint teas.

  When he was asked what he did, he would reply that he was a writer. As his books were never seen anywhere, especially not in bookshops, this reply satisfied nobody, and for a long time the population of rue Broca wondered what he really did for a living.

  When I say the population, I mean the grown-ups. The children never wondered anything of the sort, for they had understood right away: Monsieur Pierre was keeping his cards close; he was not a man like other men, really he was an old witch!

  Sometimes, trying to unmask him, they would dance around him calling: