It was growing dark.
The lights of the Gymnase illuminated the walls above the recumbent figures, and Jean Calmet marvelled at the distance that separated him, at that moment, from the classrooms where he would give his lessons on the following morning.
Suddenly the Cat Girl knelt close to him; she quickly unbuttoned Jean Calmet’s shirt, spreading the cloth over his armpits and plunged to the centre of his chest where she placed a kiss. Her hair caressed the throat, the collarbones of Jean Calmet. The spots of light on the wall disappeared, the night was complete, but the Cat Girl’s form and hair filled it with sparks and rockets, and Jean Calmet marvelled at the fact that the darkness was so scintillating and tender in its simplicity.
Then the Cat Girl gently licked his chest.
Then, while her tongue lapped his nipples and a cool hand was descending over his navel, Jean Calmet felt the extraordinary violence of the sensations and visions that carried him away the way that typhoons rip away whole houses, beginning by shaking them, then breaking them, tearing them asunder, sucking them up, hurling them, scattering all their components violently into the air like castles that have exploded.
All his castles exploded.
He was shattered and he was flying.
A terrible coolness streamed into his bones, riddled his veins with white droplets, unknotted his throat, ran between his shoulders. The Cat Girl’s hand touched his navel. Two fingers slipped into the garment, they ran along his pubis, made a stop, resumed their gentle way, climbed back around his pelvis, came back to massage his loins gently.
Jean Calmet was motionless, and he wanted to stay that way. Lying in the dark, flat on his back, his arms resting alongside his body, his belly bare, his legs spread. A corpse, yes, I’m dead, I’m made of stone, I’ve been laid to rest for ever on my own grave and I have only to clasp my hands over my chest to be really changed into cold limestone or marble!
He joined his hands, the fingers raised towards the sky, he closed his eyes in the darkness and recalled the strange Sire François who lies in the same position, at the bottom of Château Jacquemart de la Sarraz. Outside, the castle raises its towers above the vale of wolves and witches. In the shadow of the chapel the cruel Sire sleeps in the stone under the sorrowful vigil of his widow, his daughter and his two sons, who have prayed unceasingly for six centuries for the remission of their master’s sins. What struck Jean Calmet, the first time he went into the Jacquemart with his father, was the fact that the sculptor had covered the recumbent man with repugnant, slithering creatures: snakes squeezed his chest and arms. Toads buried themselves in his eyes, ran over his cheeks. Thus the bad spirits of the Venoge had come out of the cold river and the night of the ponds, they had joined their suzerain that they covered for eternity with their scales and their drool.
But a tepid mouth is running over Jean Calmet, two smooth, warm hands feel his ribs and his back. He is not guilty like the abominable Sire of la Sarraz! I haven’t killed anyone. I’m good. The sorry Sire François robbed wayfarers, raped them, tortured them, killed them for his pleasure. Fire, blood, black vengeance. I’m innocent and I’m new. The dead man has the kiss of ghouls. A child’s tongue plays over my breast. O deep night. Mystery of sharing and the denial of all sharing. O night of privilege. Mercy.
Kneeling, the Cat Girl seized Jean Calmet’s wrists and secured them, by the pressure of her hands, on the flat of the sheet. Crucified now, he felt the strain on his arms with strange pleasure. He was breathing slowly, his sides rose. In the darkness, he saw his armpits offered up to Thérèse’s kisses, his smooth belly, his hips quivering under her caress. With a gentle hand, she assured herself that Jean Calmet was still crucified. Then she seized the buckle of his belt, unfastened it rapidly, opened the fly of his trousers which she drew off, then his shorts, and, like little parachutes, she let them drop on the rug. Jean Calmet was naked under her alert hands. Cat Girl, braced, a succubus, an exquisite vampire, bent now over his penis. Her hair caressed Jean Calmet’s thighs: her mouth, rapid, placed – on his knees – brief salutations, like the calling cards brought to the table of a host at a marriage, a funeral, from which one withdraws on tiptoe, leaving him without witness to his joy or sorrow, and, in the street, turns back to look at the windows of the apartment lit as one would on the only paradise in which one might have been able to live, cherished at last. But the succubus did not leave, and with its muzzle, with its sweet snout, with its maw, it grazed Jean Calmet’s penis, which straightened up without impatience towards the demon’s happy breath.
He began to gasp quietly under her lips.
Now the Cat Girl shed her clothes with nimble speed in the darkness where Jean Calmet sensed her every movement. On Jean’s chest lay the round breasts, then the sweet-haired head lodged itself against his throat, the belly glued itself to his, the pelvis moulded itself to his pelvis, the Cat Girl’s long thighs pressed his, and her curly pubis crushed itself against Jean Calmet’s penis, which burned gently and took on its form under the round, constant pressure. The Cat Girl rose slightly, she panted in her turn, the tip of Jean Calmet’s penis seated itself in the pubic hair of the succubus, who moved her croup to fit it deeper in her antrum. Everything was all right. The promise of Dionysus had been fulfilled. Jean Calmet felt himself sliding into the milky path towards the maternal cave. He exulted.
Suddenly the power failed.
Panic swooped down on him.
He was cold, he was being drawn down into space, he was terribly alone on a rock that was drifting in the open sea, he did not know who was calling him from the top of a tower and who he could never reach, he was condemned by a court of ghostly ancestors; deep in his bones, a burned wolf, an exiled prince, a snake trampled and despised, he howled as no man on earth will ever again howl.
Shame crowned him with iron.
His penis fell back against his belly.
He himself remained motionless.
The Cat Girl moved a little more. Jean Calmet knew that she was pretending not to know: speechless, he closed himself off, he sealed himself up ludicrously while, with all his senses, he waited for the word that would unbind him, comfort him, bring him back from the dead. The Cat Girl did the irreparable: with one finger she grazed Jean Calmet’s penis. The doctor thundered in the dazzling clouds, flung himself into her, took her, left her panting and gluey, took her again, broke her, illuminated her, filled her, flooded her. The doctor bursting with laughter.
“So, you’ve been humiliated, my son. Didn’t you take your vitamins? You’ve gone limp? Look at your old father. Wrinkled, burned, but he still makes the women dance on his cock. This woman, too, you miserable sap. Your Cat Girl. Yes, yours. When a man isn’t up to screwing his conquests, he should skip the bluffing!”
That is what his father bellowed into Jean Calmet’s anguish-filled ears. Into his end-of-the-world ears.
The Cat Girl lay back down against him where he was still motionless; she pressed her lips against his temple and remained quiet in the darkness. A few minutes went by.
“Do you want to sleep here?” she asked a little later.
“No,” Jean Calmet said simply.
He found his clothes in the dark, dressed quickly, placed his hand – by way of farewell – on the brow of the Cat Girl, who had not stirred from her bed. Then he went out into the cold night.
Crossing the Rue de la Cité, he raised his eyes towards the little room that he had just left, and he was torn by what he saw, completely filling his wound with tender, violent-tempered nostalgia: on the window sill stood a bottle of milk like a first childhood image. When he got into his car, tears were running down his face.
Isabelle died on Easter Monday; it was 23 April, she had held out longer than expected, she was exhausted, she remained lying down, only getting up for a moment to greet the school friends who met in her room every day.
She was buried in Crécy.
There was an immense crowd of boys and girls in blue jeans, a line of farmers
in black, holding their hats in their hands.
Jean Calmet was not at the funeral.
They told him those things the next day, it was just when school reopened, a little breeze was blowing over La Cité, the sky burned blue, groups of children called to one another and broke up on the pavements of La Mercerie.
Jean Calmet was dying of shame. He had abandoned Isabelle. He had gone to see her only once, on her birthday, 20 March, her friends had eaten cake, they had opened bottles of wine, listened to Leonard Cohen, and Joan Baez, and Donovan, and Bob Dylan.
As long as he lived, Jean Calmet would reproach himself for not going to the funeral. Why had he taken sleeping pills that morning, knocking himself out, going back to sleep with his head tucked under a heavy pillow, waking up at five o’clock in the afternoon, just when they were serving the buffet at the farm in Crécy? He had not dared appear before the eyes of Isabelle’s parents, her family, all of his students gathered there. He was in fear. An evil, shameful fear that had ensnared him from the moment he had learnt of his student’s death, a vile dread of being reproached for living, he, the useless one, the bachelor, the restless one, while the beautiful girl had been covered with earth. “What are you doing here, Monsieur Calmet? Are you crying? And are you enjoying the tingling of the sun on your skin? You’d do better to take our daughter’s place, my friend. For what use you’re making of your life… And then, you’d be doing us a favour. When I stop and think that, at thirty-nine, all you’re good for is distilling the affectations of a few decadent poets. What a shame, Monsieur Calmet. You hesitate? Look at our daughter once more, let’s seal the casket, let’s throw her into the hole, and we’ll go and drink a glass of wine at our grandparents’ farm. There’ll be sweet wafers, cakes. Just what you need to drug your cowardice, right, Monsieur Calmet, Monsieur the distinguished Latin master at the Gymnase!”
Jean Calmet looked at the photos of the funeral. With infinite sorrow, he had them tell him about the afternoon.
There, it is over. The class remembers the little dead girl. Jean Calmet sees the Cat Girl almost every day. Often one of his students brings him a poem, a song, and it is always the same title, which scalds him with chagrin and distress as soon as he opens the envelope: For Isabelle.
Some evenings, the summer already hangs in the branches of the lime trees.
One afternoon late in April, when the weather was mild, Jean Calmet followed a cat on the path at the edge of the lake. That cat spoke to him of many things:
“You don’t understand anything,” said the cat. “You’re an ass, Jean Calmet, an idiot who’s drifting from bad to worse. I’m fond of you, Jean Calmet, you’ve got loads of good points, but why don’t you stop acting like a fool day after day?”
At that time, Jean Calmet was walking tranquilly behind the oracle; he listened to him with obvious interest.
“Look at me,” said the cat. “Do you see me worrying? Do I stew in remorse or sadness?”
“You don’t have a father,” said Jean Calmet, who kicked a white pebble on the path.
“Nothing doing,” said the cat. And he raised his tail towards the cloudless sky; one could see his pink anus in his black behind.
Jean Calmet felt good. All along the little path stood hedges and tepid walls; on the right, and on the left, the lake that was beginning to grow red in the twilight.
“It’s beautiful,” the cat went on to say. “Fill your eyes, fill your fibre, cram your soul, Jean Calmet. One fine morning you won’t be here any more to enjoy your ecstasies of the living. See that boat, in front of Évian? Look at that white, that nougat bar against the green and red. And Savoy – see it? Blue and purple, all the mountains resound with cascades and rock slides into chasms. And those mists – over near the Rhône? Do you remember the ponds full of eggs, the snakes that zigzagged over the still water where the red rays were reflected? Remember the kites over the mouth of the river? And the young fish in the bubbles?”
“And you, cat,” said Jean Calmet, “do you remember your father’s face?”
He regretted his question at once, for the cat turned around and looked at him in amusement.
But they continued to go on their way. For a moment, neither of them spoke. The sun is an orange. The lake is covered with bands of gold.
The cat is first to break the silence.
“Jean Calmet!”
“Yes! That’s me,” said Jean Calmet.
“Have you thought about your death yet, Jean Calmet? Don’t answer. I’m not talking about the death of others. Nor of its echo in your skull. Nor of your dear cemeteries. I’m talking about your death, Jean Calmet. Have you thought about your nothingness yet?”
“Cat not be happy,” said Jean Calmet. “Mean cat ask companion too sad question. Companion not understand why cat mean on such a walk.”
“Don’t act like a fool,” said the cat. “Answer about your death. You’re keeping quiet, aren’t you? You don’t understand anything, Jean Calmet. You’re half-alive. You’re eating yourself up. You’re more ash than your father. And your blood? Your flesh that’s still young? Your head full of foolishness? You’re kidding, Jean Calmet. It’s the spirit of Dionysus or nothing. Pan or death. Salvation through one’s works or the last ravine at the bottom of the last hole in the last mountain in Greece or elsewhere. Go to the end of the oldest mythologies or into each hour’s brazier. You’re all washed up, Jean Calmet, unless you make up your mind!”
Undulating, the cat walked over the pebbles of the path, his fur glossy, his paws precise. Jean Calmet admired the animal’s exasperating sureness and could not listen to what he had to tell him. The cat was right. Perfectly. He was stewing in boredom, he was sinking into it. When would he get out of the brambles? If his father saw him following this prophet… What a burst of laughter! Ah, bollocks to my lousy father. And immediately the vision of the red bruiser revolted him to the depths of his being. Horror seized him. He looked at the beautiful, lithe cat, saw his power, saw his wiliness, saw his pleasure on that path, and decided to listen to him. To obey him methodically. He had to be happy now. He had to flee from the ravines and lethal space where he had taken an unwholesome pleasure for years. Nothing was going to stop him.
Then, because he understood his agreement, the cat knew that Jean Calmet no longer needed him. He took a fork to the right, started along a trail that climbed towards an ivy-covered house, slipped into a hedge and disappeared.
Marvelling at the encounter, Jean Calmet transformed the animal’s elegance into supernatural beauty, his careful tread into mysterious adventure and his words into divine warning. He recalled his arrival at Ouchy, the delicacy of the quays, the old hotels, pink in the evening light, the pavement cafés overflowing with young people. He remembered the hours that he had spent after the crematorium and the funeral buffet. He felt anew the joy that he had known then, and afterwards, his gloom. And what have I done since? he wondered. And what of my scene at the Café de l’Évêché? And the little room on the Rue de la Cité-Devant? And he hardened his resolve to be good, to be happy, to live in glad strength and faith.
In the weeks that followed, the Cat Girl was particularly good and gentle, and Jean Calmet spent several nights with her. He squeezed himself against the wall, under the poster of the panther. Thérèse kissed him, took him in her, kept him, took him again for hours. Now Jean Calmet loved her, he was really her lover, she said that she was happy, and he was happy too, that beginning of May, when the birds of La Cité woke them up at dawn in tender happiness.
Around that time, Jean Calmet was called in to see the principal of the Gymnase. Colonel, member of government, Monsieur Grapp was a tall, righteous man, with physical strength apparent in his powerful, nervous movements. He was bald, with an enormous, dented skull. He always wore dark glasses.
Jean Calmet hated this summons. What did Grapp want of him? He knew his violent rages, his prejudices of the so-called honest man faced with unexpected events. Most of all, he feared in him the senior,
the master. He had yet to meet him, or even to spy him from afar in one of the little streets of La Cité, without experiencing a sense of fear, of uneasiness, of remorse as well, very abrupt, sharp, as if he had been found at fault suddenly and all his ruses exposed. What have I done this time? thought Jean Calmet at those encounters. What is he going to take me to task for? And he would run away as fast as his legs could carry him in the other direction, or duck into a corridor, from which he would watch Grapp go by: his nose glued to the chicken-wired glass, sweating with anguish and ashamed, how many times he had watched the bald man move forward with great strides, vigorous, a fighter, while he, Jean Calmet, burrows into the dusty shadows of the corridor!
Several times, in the teachers’ room or in the vestibule leading to the principal’s office, Jean Calmet felt the same agitation, the same fear that he had experienced when going to his father’s consultation room. He spies Grapp’s tall frame, his caramel-custard camel’s-hair coat, his dark glasses, the double crêpe soles, and he immediately finds himself trembling and humiliated as at Les Peupliers, when he used to knock at the doctor’s door, sweating with rage and anguish. Dozens of times he wondered if his fellow schoolmasters also went through that fear. Did François Clerc and Verret flee when the bald giant loomed up? He observed them from a corner of the teachers’ room, where he pretended to look up a telephone number or consult a dictionary. No answer. François Clerc and Verret looked relaxed, both of them, and conversed calmly with Grapp. But perhaps they were feigning ease? Perhaps they were hideously uneasy, as he was, at seeing themselves transfixed by the Master. He would ask François the question one of these days. If he dares. For did this blunt question not mean revealing oneself to the core?
The Tyrant Page 9
