Hard times were back again. No more talk of vacation or markets or England … The rains pounded down on our glass roof, the Passage was closed up tight with the sour smell of people and little stray dogs.
It was fall …
The thrashings were coming thick and fast again because I wanted to play instead of doing my homework. I didn’t catch on very well in school. Once again my father made the discovery that I was really feeble-minded. The sea air had made me grow but had made me more listless than ever. I was always daydreaming. He flew into terrible tempers. He accused me of hopeless laziness. Mama was beginning to moan and groan again.
Her business was going from bad to worse. The styles never stopped changing. Batiste came in again. We dragged out our old bonnet tops. The ladies rolled them up like napkins and put them on their tits and in their hair. In the crisis Madame Héronde was always busy making things over. She invented boleros of Irish linen, made to last twenty years. Alas, it was only a passing fancy. After the Grand Prix we mounted them on wire, now they were lampshades . ‘. . Sometimes Madame Héronde was so worn-out she got her orders balled up, she gave us little embroidered bibs when we were expecting comforters … The scenes were something … The customer would split a gut and threaten to haul us into court. We were in despair, we paid for all the damage, which accounted for two months’ worth of noodles … The day before my examination a volcano erupted in the shop, Madame Héronde had dyed a ”négligé” cuckoo-yellow, when it was actually meant to be a bridal dress. People have been killed for less! A criminal blunder! The customer would skin us alive! … And it was all written plain as day in the order book! … Madame Héronde collapsed sobbing in my mother’s arms. My father was upstairs bellowing.
“Ah, you’ll always be the same! You’ll always be soft. Haven’t I warned you forty-six times? Didn’t I tell you they’d ruin us … those seamstresses of yours … Ah! Suppose I made even half a mistake at La Coccinelle! … I can just imagine what they’d say in the front office!” The mere idea was so terrifying that he thought he was dead and buried … He blanched … We sat him down … The crisis passed … I went back to my arithmetic … He reviewed my lessons with me … And I couldn’t think of anything to say, he got so balled up in his explanations that I couldn’t see straight … I attacked the problem ass-backwards … I didn’t know very much to begin with … I gave up … He started in on my failings … In his opinion I was incorrigible … For my money he was as nutty as a fruitcake … He started up again about my division … He tangled himself up to the square roots … He slapped my face … he pulled my ears … He accused me of grinning … of taking him for a fool …
My mother came in for a minute … That redoubled his fury … He bellowed that he wanted to die!
On the morning of my exam my mother closed the shop. She thought it would encourage me if she came along. The exam was held at the grade school next to Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois, right in the entrance hall. On the way she tried to bolster up my self-confidence. It was a solemn occasion, she thought of Caroline. That made her whimper some more …
All the way around the Palais-Royal she made me recite my Fables and the list of departments … At eight o’clock sharp we were all outside the gate, waiting to have our names taken. The kids were all cleaned up and neatly dressed, but terribly nervous, the mothers too.
First there was dictation, then problems. It wasn’t very hard, I remember, all you had to do was copy. This was a bunch that had flunked the previous fall. For almost all of us it was a matter of life and death … if you wanted to be taken on as an apprentice … When it came to the oral, I was lucky, I pulled a big fat little guy with warts all over his nose. He had a flowing bow tie, sort of like Uncle Arthur … he wasn’t an artist, though … He’d been a pharmacist on the rue Gomboust. Some of the people there knew him. He asked me two questions about plants … I hadn’t the faintest idea … He answered them himself. I was in a complete muddle … Then he asked me the distance between the sun and the moon and then between the earth and the other side … I was afraid to stick my neck out too far. He had to come to the rescue. When he asked me about the seasons, I knew a little more. I mumbled something kind of vague … He really wasn’t hard to please … He finished all the answers for me.
Then he asked me what I was planning for the future if I got my diploma.
“I’m going into business,” I said without enthusiasm.
“It’s a hard life, my boy,” he said. “Couldn’t you wait a while? Another year perhaps?”
I guess he didn’t think I was very strong … Right away I thought I’d flunked … I thought of the return home, of the tempest I was going to unleash … I began to feel dizzy … I thought I was going to faint … I could feel the blows in advance … I clutched the desk … The old guy saw me turn pale …
“Come, come, boy,” he said. “Don’t worry. All that doesn’t mean a thing. I’ll pass you. You’ll get your start in life. If you want it as badly as all that.”
I went back and sat down on a bench, some distance away, by the wall … I was still mighty upset. I wondered if he hadn’t been soft-soaping me, just to get rid of me. My mother was outside the church, on the little square. She was waiting for the results …
Everybody hadn’t finished yet … there were still some kids waiting … I saw the others now … stammering their confessions across the table cover … the map of France, the continents …
Since hearing those words about starting out in life, I looked at my little friends as if I’d never seen them … Their dread of failing made them strain against the desk, wriggling as if they were caught in a trap.
Was that what it meant to start out in life? … They were trying to stop being kids that very moment … struggling to arrange their faces, to look like men …
We all looked pretty much alike, all dressed the same way, in our school smocks. They were all like me, small shopkeepers’ kids … or their parents did tailoring at home or sold stationery or something … They were all pretty puny … They opened their eyes big and round, they panted like puppies in their effort to answer the old guy …
Lined up along the wall, the parents watched the proceedings … The looks they shot at their offspring were fierce, electric, enough to cramp anybody’s style.
The kids were wrong every time … They shrank up even smaller … The old man was untiring … he answered for everybody … The kids were all dunces … The mothers’ faces were getting redder and redder … Thousands of thrashings threatened … There was a smell of impending massacre … Finally all the kids were through … It was all over, except for the list of successful candidates … And then miracle of miracles … everybody had passed! The government inspector made the announcement from the platform … He had a paunch with a chain on it, a great big watch charm that jiggled between sentences. He sort of bumbled and got all the names screwed up … It didn’t matter …
He took advantage of the occasion to say a few words … they were really kind words … cordial and encouraging … He told us that if we conducted ourselves as valiantly in later life we had nothing to fear, we’d be rewarded.
I’d wet my pants and shat in them something awful too, I could hardly move. I wasn’t the only one. None of the kids were able to walk right. But my mother caught a whiff while pressing me to her bosom … The stink was so terrible we had to make it fast. We couldn’t stop to say good-bye to all my little friends … My studies were over … to get home even faster we took a cab …
We made a draft … The cab had funny windows that rattled all the way. She spoke of Caroline again. “How glad she’d have been to see you succeed! Ah! I only hope she has second sight! …”
My father was on the second floor with the lights out, waiting to hear the results. He was so excited he had taken in the sidewalk display and the lamps all by himself …
“Auguste! He passed! … Do you hear? … He passed … He came through with Hying colors!”
He receiv
ed me with open arms … He lit the lamp to get a good look at mc. He gazed at me affectionately. I’d never seen him so moved … His whole moustache was trembling …
“That’s splendid, my boy! You’ve given us a lot of trouble … But now I congratulate you … Now you’ll be starting out in life … The future lies open before you … If only you take the right course … the straight and narrow! … Work hard! … Struggle …”
I begged his forgiveness for having always been bad. I hugged and kissed him with all my heart … Only I stank so bad he began to sniff …
“Ah! What’s this?” He pushed me away. “Oh, the stinker … the little pig! … He’s filled the whole place with shit! Ah, Clémence, Clémence! For God’s sake take him upstairs before I lose my temper! He’s revolting …” That was the end of his effusions.
They scrubbed me hard, they drenched me in cologne. The next day we went looking for a really respectable establishment where I could start my business career. A place where they wouldn’t be too easy on me, where they wouldn’t let me get away with anything.
If you really want to learn, you’ve got to be on the jump. That was Édouard’s opinion. He had twenty years of experience. Everybody agreed with him.
In business it’s absolutely essential to look your best. An employee who lets himself go is a disgrace to his firm … You’re judged by your shoes … Never look down-at-the-heel! …”
The Prince Regent, near Les Halles, had been in business for a century … You couldn’t hope for better. A lifelong reputation for ferocious pointed dress shoes … they were known as “duckbills.” Your toenails are driven into your flesh, the man of fashion is a cripple! My mother bought me two pairs, guaranteed to last forever. Then we went across the street to the Deserving Classes clothing store … We took advantage of the sales, I needed a complete outfit.
She bought me three pairs of pants, of such good quality, so long-wearing, that we took them a little bigger, with a ten-year hem. I was still growing fast. The jacket was as somber as possible, besides I kept my arm band, my mourning for Grandma. I had to look thoroughly serious-minded. Collars are important too, you mustn’t go wrong … a wide collar can atone for a multitude of sins when you’re young and scrawny. The only flight of fancy permitted was a frivolous snap-on bow tie. Naturally there had to be a watch chain, but darkened too for mourning. I had the whole works. I looked respectable. I was all set. Papa wore a watch too, but his was gold, a precision instrument … He counted every passing second on it to the very end … The long hand fascinated him, the one that goes around fast. He’d sit there for hours looking at it …
My mother herself took me to introduce me to Monsieur Berlope, Ribbons and Trimmings, on the rue de la Michodière. just across the boulevard.
Being the soul of honesty, she had told him all about me in advance … That he’d have his hands full with me, that I’d be a hard row to hoe, that I was pretty lazy, disobedient by nature, and passably scatterbrained. That was her idea. I always did my best. In addition she warned them that I picked my nose incessantly, that it was a passion with me. She suggested that they try to shame me. She said they’d always been trying to better me, but it didn’t help much … While listening to these details, Monsieur Berlope was slowly paring his nails … He looked thoughtful and grave. He was wearing a terrific vest sprinkled with golden bees … I remember his fan-shaped beard too, and his round embroidered skullcap that he didn’t take off for us.
Finally he answered … He’d try to train me … He still hadn’t looked at me … If I showed willingness, intelligence, and zeal … Well, he’d sec … After a few months behind the counter, maybe they’d send me out on the road … with a salesman … to carry the sample cases … I’d get to know the customers … But before taking any chances, he’d have to see what I was good for … If I had a business head! … If I was cut out for the job … if I had the competence … the loyalty …
After what my mother had said, all that seemed mighty doubtful…
While speaking, Monsieur Berlope ran a comb through his hair, spruced himself up, took a look at his profile, there were mirrors all over the place … He was doing us an honor in seeing us … Mama never tired of saying so … it was a big favor to be interviewed by the boss in person.
Berlope & Son didn’t hire just anybody, not even on trial, not even without pay!
The next morning at seven o’clock sharp I was already on the rue Michodière, outside their iron shutter … I jumped to it … I helped the errand boy … I turned the crank for him … I wanted to show my zeal first thing …
Of course it wasn’t Monsieur Berlope himself that broke me in, it was Monsieur Lavelongue … He was a real bastard, you could see that right away. He had his eye on you all day long, always trying to catch you off your guard … Wherever you went, he came pussyfooting along behind you … He slithered after you like a snake, from corridor to corridor … His arms dangling, ready to pounce, to crush you … on the lookout for a cigarette … for the least bit of a butt … for any poor tired bastard that sat down …
Before I’d finished taking my coat off, he gave me the lowdown.
“I am your personnel director … What’s your name?”
“Ferdinand, sir.”
“Well, you’d better get this straight … No monkeyshines around here … If you’re not absolutely up to snuff in a month from now … I personally will fire you … Understand? … Have I made myself clear?”
Having made himself clear, he vanished like a ghost between the piles of boxes … He was always mumbling something or other … When you thought he was miles away, he was right on top of you … He was a hunchback. He’d hide behind the customers. The salesmen lived in terror of him from morning to night. He always had a smile on his face, but it was a special kind of a smile … Really poisonous …
Silk gets into a worse mess than any other kind of material. All the different widths and lengths, the samples and leftovers, get rumpled and twisted and scattered all over the place … By the end of the day it’s a horrible sight … Enormous mounds, all tangled up like bushes.
From morning to night the store is full of dressmakers’ errand girls, clucking and griping, never satisfied. They rummage, they complain, they splash around … the place is a nuthouse of silks and satins … wriggling and writhing with ribbons …
After seven o’clock we have to put it all away, what a mess! … There are too many of us … We suffocate in the stuff … An orgy of loose ends. Thousands and thousands of colors … moiré, satin, tulle … Where-ever those yak-yaks get a hand in, it’s worse than a battlefield. There isn’t a single box left. The numbers are all mixed up. We get the hell bawled out of us and then some … By every louse in the department! Fat salesmen with slicked-down hair or wigs à la Mayol.*
Cleaning up is the apprentices’ job … Rolling up the spools, pinning up ends, turning the baby ribbon … the masses of felt … macramé, velvet … the riot of changeable silk … all the leftovers, the whole sickening avalanche of remnants … it’s all for the apprentices. You’ve hardly got it straightened out when some more wreckers start in … making more havoc … ruining all your work …
They put on airs … they make idiotic remarks, they’re so kittenish you want to puke … and always carrying their patterns around, looking for some other shade, the one we haven’t got …
In addition to this I had my regular job that was pretty exhausting … running back and forth to the stockroom. About fifty times a day. It was on the eighth floor. I had to tote all the boxes. Whole carloads of tag ends, of mixed-up snippets or plain rubbish … All the returns were my job … The marquisettes, big pieces and little pieces, the styles of a whole season—I hauled them up seven flights. It was really a rough job. Enough to kill a mule. With all my hurry and effort my collar with the bow tie on it worked itself up around my ears. And yet it was double-starched.
Monsieur Lavelongue was very hard on me … and unfair. As soon as a customer came on t
he scene, he motioned me to beat it. I wasn’t ever allowed to hang around. I wasn’t fit to be seen … Naturally with all the layers of dust in the stockroom and the way I sweated, my face was one big smudge. But the moment I left he began to give me hell for disappearing. It was impossible to please him.
The other punks were in stitches at the way I was always running, the way I raced up the stairs. Lavelongue wouldn’t let me rest a minute:
“A little sport is good for young people! …” That was his line. I’d hardly come down when they’d slip me another load! … “Get going, kid. You can’t fool me.”
Smocks were not worn in the garment district in those days, it wasn’t considered proper. With the kind of work I was doing my beautiful jacket was soon threadbare.
“You’re going to wear out more than you make,” my mother complained. That wasn’t hard, because I wasn’t paid at all. It’s true that in some trades the apprentices had to pay to learn. In a way I was lucky … I was in no position to complain … I raced up to the stockroom with so much vigor that the other kids called me the Squirrel. Even so, Lavelongue always had it in for me. He couldn’t forgive me for having been taken on by Monsieur Berlope. The mere sight of me gave him the gollywobbles. He couldn’t stand my guts. He did everything he could to discourage me.
He even complained about my shoes, he said I made too much noise on the stairs. It’s true I had a tendency to walk on my heels, my toes hurt something terrible, especially toward closing time they felt like hot coals.
“Ferdinand!” he’d yell. “You’re insufferable. You make more racket all by yourself than a whole bus line.” That was an exaggeration.
My jacket was coming apart in several places. I was a bottomless pit for suits. They had to have another one made out of one of Uncle Édouard’s old ones. My father was in a constant temper, he was having the worst kind of trouble at the office. While he was away on vacation, those bastards, the clerks, had taken advantage of his absence to slander him …
Death on the Installment Plan Page 15
