Life: A User's Manual

by Georges Perec

  A trestle table draped in a white tablecloth fills the whole back wall. The dishes which will provide the buffet are not yet in place, except for five reassembled scarlet lobster shells, laid out radially on a large silver platter.

  The only living being in the scene is a black-trousered, white-coated servant: seated on a stool between the buffet and the door leading to the entrance hall, he has his back leaning against the wall, and his legs outstretched and apart; a man of thirty or so, with a round, red face; he is reading with an air of utter boredom the publisher’s blurb on a novel, the cover of which depicts an almost naked woman lying in a hammock, with a long cigarette holder between her lips, and casually pointing a mother-of-pearl-butted revolver at the reader:

  “The Mousetrap” is Paul Winther’s latest novel. Readers will enjoy catching up once again with the author’s favourite character, the hero of Roll over Clover, The Scotch Are Gunning, The Waterproof Man, and many other blue-chip classics of today’s and tomorrow’s crime-fiction lists. This time, Captain Horty is destined to grapple with a dangerous psychopath wreaking murder in a Baltic port.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Moreau, 1

  A BEDROOM IN the big apartment on the first floor. The carpet is tobacco-brown; the walls are decorated with light-grey hessian panels.

  There are three people in the room. One is an old lady, Madame Moreau, who owns the flat. She is lying in a large Empire bed under a bedspread embroidered with blue flowers.

  Standing in front of the bed, Madame Moreau’s childhood friend Madame Trévins, wearing a macintosh and a silk scarf, takes a postcard she’s just received from her handbag and shows it to the old lady: the card depicts a monkey wearing a cap at the wheel of a truck. A pink phylactery unfurls over the image, bearing the caption: Souvenir de Saint-Mouezy-sur-Eon.

  On the bedside table, to the right of the bed, there is a reading lamp with a yellow silk shade, a cup of coffee, a box of Breton shortbread sablé biscuits on the lid of which you can see a peasant tilling his fields, a phial of perfume whose perfectly hemispherical base recalls the shape of the inkwells of old, a saucer containing a few dried figs, a piece of cooked Edam cheese, and a metal lozenge with moonstone stud-nails set at each corner framing a photograph of a forty-year-old man in a fur-collared jacket sitting in the open at a rustic table groaning under a weight of victuals: a sirloin, plates of tripe and black pudding, a fricassé chicken, sweet cider, stewed-fruit pie, and plums in brandy.

  On the second shelf of the bedside table there is a pile of books. The one on top is called The Love Life of the Stuarts and its film-wrapped jacket shows a man in Louis XIII attire – wig, plumed hat, broad lace bands – with a wench of visibly ample bosom on his knee, and raising an enormous carved tankard to his lips: it’s a compilation of doubtful authenticity which gloatingly details the alleged debauchery and corruption of Charles I: one of those unattributed works sold under sealed wrappers labelled “For Adults Only” on quayside stalls by the Seine and in railway station halls.

  The third person, sitting on the left, set back a little from the bed, is a nurse, carelessly thumbing through an illustrated magazine. On its cover you can see a crooner in a grey-blue silver-spangled fancy-dress tuxedo, with sweat streaming down his face as he kneels, legs and arms open wide, in front of a wildly excited audience.

  At 83 years of age, Madame Moreau is the building’s senior inhabitant. She moved in around 1960, when the growth of her business made her leave her little village of Saint-Mouezy-sur-Eon (Department of Indre) in order to do justice to the obligations she had as the head of the company. Having inherited a small timber-working firm mainly supplying turned wood to furniture dealers in the Saint-Antoine district of Paris, she soon turned out to be a remarkable businesswoman. When in the early 1950s the furniture trade collapsed, leaving only unreliable and unprofitable outlets for turned wood – pillars for staircase and balcony railings, standard lamp uprights, altar columns, spinning tops, cup-and-ball games, and yoyos – she boldly switched the firm to manufacturing, servicing, and retailing household tools, as she foresaw that the rising cost of services would inevitably lead to a booming market for do-it-yourself equipment. Her hunch was confirmed far beyond her expectations, and the business flourished, soon reaching nationwide size and even beginning to pose a direct threat to its powerful German, British, and Swiss competitors, who soon got round to offering her lucrative contracts of association.

  Today she is a helpless cripple; though a widow since nineteen forty – her husband, an officer in the Reserves, died on 6 June at the Battle of the Somme – though childless, though friendless apart from her old classmate Madame Trévins, whom she has brought in to help her, the old lady carries on running with a rod of iron, from her bed, a prosperous company with a catalogue covering virtually the entire range of home decorating and outfitting appliances, and even touching on other associated branches:

  WALLPAPERING KIT. Includes 6′ folding yardstick; scissors; roller; hammer; 6′ metal rule; electrician’s screwdriver; trimmers; knife; brush; plumbline; pliers; paint knife; handle; all in a portable plastic case, lgth. 2′, wdth. 4′, hght. 4″. Weight 6lbs. Fully guaranteed 1 yr.

  WALLPAPERING STAPLE GUN. For 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 & 14mm staples. Supplied in a portable metal kitcase containing 1 box staples of each size, 6 boxes in all, contents totalling approx. 7,000 staples. Instruction leaflet included. Accessories available: bending knife, adapter (TV, telephone, electric wire). Destapler, cloth-cutter, magnetic wedge. Fully guaranteed 1 yr.

  HOME DECORATOR’S KIT. Includes: 2-gallon plastic bucket; driptray; polyamid roller handle, wdth. 175mm; foam roller; mohair roller for gloss work; round-tip PURE BRISTLE brush 25mm dia × 60mm lgth.; 4 PURE BRISTLE flat brushes, 60, 45, 25 & 15mm × 17, 15, 10 & 7mm thick. Top quality. Lengths 55, 45, 38 & 33mm. Fully guaranteed 1 yr.

  ELECTRICAL AIRLESS PAINT SPRAYER. Heavy duty sprayer gun complete with viscosimeter, extra nozzle for heavy duty paints, flexible extension nozzle, injection nozzle for rustproofing cars, etc. Spraying pressure 2,300 p.s.i. Container capacity 1 pt. Fully guaranteed 1 yr.

  PORTABLE SCAFFOLD. Comprising 5′ wide ladder frame on casters; 5′ wide ladder frame on feet; two 2′ bars; platform, 4′6″ × 2′, with safety rail, support bar and crossbars, floor height adjustable from 18″ to 8′ at 1″ intervals. Base area 6′ × 2′. Safety lock. Weight 80lbs. Fully guaranteed 1 yr.

  3-WAY TOP FLIGHT LADDER. Made from aluminium. Converts to extending ladder, household steps or offset ladder on stairs. Special lift and lock safety action in all positions. Highest usable tread when in step position, 4′6½″. Max. tread height 8′9½″. Weight 48lbs. Accessories: block, rod rail, detachable feet. Fully guaranteed 1 yr.

  WM700 DELUXE “WORKMATE”. Dual working heights 23″ and 30¼″. Extra large 8½″ deep rear vice-jaws. Large vice pegs for improved grip. Comprehensive vice-jaw marking for precision jobs. Folds flat for storage. Weight 125lbs. Fully guaranteed 1 yr.

  D142 HAMMER DRILL. 220v, 250w, with Electronic diode. No-load speed to 1,400/3,000 r.p.m., hammer action 14,000/35,200 strokes p.m. Drills steel to 10mm, concrete to 12mm, wood to 20mm. Supplied with 10mm chuck, 3 yards flex, neck strap, calibrated depth gauge; chuck key. Weight 5lbs. Accessories: universal adapter, grip handle, side grip, top grip, clasp, twin chuck, stand, side guide, small template, small, medium and large routing stands, percussion attachment, circular saw, fretsaw, ribbon saw, sanding/polishing disc, soft disc, sander, orbital sander, abrasive coated sander, plane, jigsaw, plunging router, paraguide, all-purpose sharpener, brushes, hedge-trimmer, agitator, compressor, spray-gun, extension lead, grinder, vice. Supplied with a set of 13 high-speed steel drill bits dia. 4, 5, 6, and 8mm, and a set of chrome vanadium drill bits dia. 4, 5, 6 and 8mm, one 8mm plunge bit, one 10mm plunge bit, chisel bit, plane blades, wood turning bit, adapter for standing plane, spin adapter. Fully guaranteed 1 yr.

  150 PIECE TOOL KIT. Contains 23 piece ½″ square drive socket set; 61 piece ¼�
� and ⅜″ square drive socket and tool set; 5 AF and 5 metric O/E spanners; 5 AF and 5 metric spanners; BA spanners; 6 screwdrivers; 5 piece punch and chisel set; combination pliers; multigrip pliers; ball pein hammer; 8 AF and 8 metric Allen keys; 1 each AF and metric gauges; junior hacksaw; wire brush, spark plug spanner; magneto file; spark plug drills. All in a 5-tray tool box. Fully guaranteed 1 yr.

  THIRTY PIECE TOOL ROLL. Includes 5 metric ring spanners 6–17mm; 5 metric O/E spanners 8–17mm; 7 double-ended socket spanners 4–10mm; 1 multigrip wrench; 4 screwdrivers; 6″ pliers; spark plug spanner; wire brush; hammer; set of 8 BA spanners; torch; plastic oilcan and duster. All folds into a neat and attractive carrying case with handle. Fully guaranteed 1 yr.

  ELEVEN PIECE COMBINATION SPANNER SET. Alloy steel in attractive individually pouched wallet. Sizes 8–24mm. Fully guaranteed 1 yr.

  38 PIECE TAP AND DIE SET. Contains 17 each taps and dies – AF, metric and ⅛″ BSP plus 5 accessories in presentation/storage case. Fully guaranteed 1 yr.

  38 PIECE DRILL SET. Contains 19 high-speed twist drills , 7 wood boring bits , 8 masonry drills , 3 extra long masonry drills , and 1 × 12mm countersink bit.

  MASONRY KIT. Contains 1 metal spirit level, with 3 chambers × 50mm; 10” round-end trowel; 9” square-end trowel; 8” diamond trowel; masonry chisel; bricklayer’s peg; stiff metal brush. Fully guaranteed 1 yr.

  HOME ELECTRICIAN’S KIT. Set comprises wire cutter and stripper, insulated radio pliers, various fuses and fuse wire, mains tester, screwdriver and 3 rolls of insulating tape. Contained in PVC wallet. Continuity tester requires 1 × R65 battery. Fully guaranteed (except battery) 1 yr.

  TWENTY-TWO PIECE WOODWORKING KIT. Comprises handsaw; tenon saw; carpenter’s hammer; pliers; tweezers; 3 wood chisels, 8, 10 and 15mm; rabbet; 2 screwdrivers. Fully guaranteed 1 yr.

  PLUMBER’S KIT. A metal tool box 16″ × 9″ × 5″ containing: blowlamp set with automatic ignition (requires cartridge) with plumber’s extra-fine flame burner, 5 all-metal solder sticks, 1 × 250mm chrome-vanadium wrench, 1 pipe-cutter for apertures from 0 to 30mm, 1 pipe-grip 0/25mm, 1 plumbing-in tap set. Fully guaranteed 1 yr.

  MOTOR MECHANIC’S TOOL KIT. Comprises: folding crossbar spanner; windscreen scraper; set of 9 socket spanners 4/4; set of 6 flat spanners from 6 × 7 to 16 × 17mm; eight-blade feeler gauge; pocket lamp with battery; oilcan; insulated combination pliers; all-purpose pliers; chrome Allen key; spark plug brushes; set of 4 screwdrivers; chrome-plated hammer; spark plug spanner with cranking handle; file for contact points; set of magneto spanners; zinc-coated pin-drift; soft duster; grease gun; foot pump; hazard warning triangle; fire extinguisher; hydraulic jack; pressure gauge 0/3 bars; battery acid tester; antifreeze gauge; revolving handlamp with white lens and detachable red lens. Fully guaranteed 1 yr.

  FIRST AID KIT. Contains peroxide flask with 10 calibrations; surgical spirit flask; 2 large adhesive plasters; 4 small adhesive plasters; 1 splinter tweezers; a pair of scissors; bottle of tincture of iodine; 6 absorbent lint dressings, 2 rolls of lint, 2 rolls of crepe; tourniquet; tape measure; chrome metal torch with battery and bulb; marking chalk; five packs of disinfectant swabs; one pack of face fresheners; a tube of safety pins; an empty tube for pills; five absorbent cotton swabs; 3 pairs of plastic disposable gloves; A RUBBER MOUTH-TO-MOUTH RESUSCITATION TUBE with instruction leaflet. Fully guaranteed 1 yr.

  24 PIECE “GREEN IVY” PICNIC SET. Luxury model for six place settings, comprising one polyethylene bucket with dish lid, 1 salad bowl with clip-on lid, 6 flat plates; 6 soup plates; hermetic foodbox; jug; egg-box; 6 goblets, 6 cups, 6 cutlery settings (knife, fork, soup spoon). With FREE salt and pepper shakers. Dimensions 42 × 31 × 24cm. Total weight 10lbs. Fully guaranteed 1 yr.

  CLIMBING FRAME. 11′, 8 bars with fittings. Tubular steel, stove-enamelled gloss finish in green. Main beam dia. 80mm, internal verticals dia. 40mm, external verticals dia. 35mm. Lgth. 12′, wdth. 8′, max. displacement 19′. Fixtures attached by patent bolt device. Attachments: 2 swings, 1 trapeze with polypropylene ropes, dia. 12mm; hemp climbing rope dia. 22mm; polypropylene rope ladder dia. 12mm. Other accessories by special order: knotted rope, set of rings, single/double balancelle. Supplied with full assembly instructions and fixing pins. Fully guaranteed 1 yr.

  BUSINESS FOLDER. “Leather-look” vinyl with metal corners. Comprising two document pockets, A4 pad and pen. Size 12½″ × 9¾″. Fully guaranteed 1 yr.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  In the Boiler Room, 1

  A MAN IS lying flat on his stomach on the top of the boiler which provides heat to the whole building. He is about forty; he doesn’t look like a workman, but more like an engineer or gas-board inspector; he’s not wearing working clothes, but a lounge suit, a spotted tie, and a sky-blue tergal shirt. He has protected his head by knotting over it a red handkerchief, looking vaguely like a cardinal’s zucchetto. With a small piece of chamois leather he wipes a little cylindrical part having a ribbed tube to one side and a spring-loaded flap to the other. Beside him, on a piece of newspaper on which some of the headlines, insets, and excerpts can be read

  General Shalako, who cleaned up the Vézelize pocket, has just died in Chicago.

  The Worried Hulk by John Whitmer (Scarecrow Publishing Co.) has been awarded the Liter-

  Who destroyed my people’s peace and the country’s government which is why

  THE BAND of the 2nd N. African Regiment will perform this afternoon at the Garden

  lie other parts: bolts, screws, washers and clamps, rivets, spindles, and some tools. On the front of the boiler there is a round nameplate bearing the inscription RICHARDT & SECHER above a stylised diamond.

  The central heating is a relatively recent installation. Whilst the Gratiolets remained majority owners in the co-ownership they were forcefully opposed to what they considered to be an unnecessary expense, since they heated their flat, like almost all Parisians at that time, by wood- or coal-burning stoves or open fireplaces. It was only in the early sixties, when Olivier Gratiolet sold Rorschach virtually all his remaining shares, that the works were approved and carried out, at the same time, as it happened, as a complete renewal of the roof and a costly stone-cleaning exercise required by a recent law (for which André Malraux would be remembered), all of which – and on top of it there was the wholesale interior conversion of Rorschach’s duplex, and of Madame Moreau’s apartment – transformed the entire building for nearly a year into a dirty, noisy building site.

  The Gratiolets’ story begins more or less like the tale of Puss-in-Boots but ends much less happily: neither the one who had almost everything nor those who got almost nothing ended up with much. Juste Gratiolet had grown rich in the wood supply and sales business – he invented, in particular, a grooving machine still used in many floorboard factories – and when he died, in 1917, his four surviving children shared his fortune in the manner stipulated in their father’s will. The estate consisted of a block of flats – the one we have been dealing with from the start – farmland in Berry given over one part to cereal crops, one part to cattle, and one part to forestry, a hefty slice of shares in the Upper Boubandjida Mining Co. (Cameroon), and four large canvases by the Breton landscape and animal painter Le Meriadech’, who was very highly rated at that time. As a result, the eldest, Emile, got the building, Gérard inherited the farm, Ferdinand got the shares, and Hélène, the only daughter, had the paintings.

  Straightaway, Hélène, who some years earlier had married her dancing teacher – a man by the name of Antoine Brodin – tried to dispute the legacy, but counsel’s opinion was not favourable. It was pointed out to her, in the first place, that by leaving her with works of art her father had acted first and foremost with a view to relieving her of the burdens and responsibilities which the management of a block of flats, an agricultural estate, or a portfolio of African shares would have put upon her, and moreover, in the second place, that it would be difficult if not impossible to demonstrate that the division had been inequitable, since f
our canvases by a painter at the height of his fame were worth at least as much as a parcel of shares in a mine that had not even begun to produce and maybe never would.

  Hélène sold the paintings for 60,000 francs, an exorbitant sum for the period if you think of the discredit Le Meriadech’ fell into a few years later (and from which he is nowadays coming back into notice). With this little nest egg she and her husband emigrated to the United States. They became professional gamblers, organised clandestine dice games sometimes lasting a whole week or more on night trains and in village bars. On 11 September 1935, at dawn, Antoine Brodin was murdered; three rowdies he’d refused to let into his gaming hall two days before took him off to a deserted quarry at Jemima Creek, thirty miles from Pensacola (Fla), and beat him to death with sticks. Hélène returned to France a few weeks later. Her nephew François, who had inherited the building on the death of Emile one year before, allowed her to use a two-roomed flat on the sixth floor, next to Dr Dinteville’s. There she lived, a sobered, fearful, retiring woman, until her death in nineteen forty-seven.

  For the seventeen years of his ownership, Emile managed the building carefully and competently, and undertook various pieces of modernisation, in particular putting in a lift in 1925. But the feeling which he had of being sole beneficiary of the inheritance, and of having done wrong by his brothers and sister by his insistence on respecting his father’s last wishes, led him to feel responsible for them, so much so that he wanted to run their affairs for them. Such scruples sowed the seed of the eldest’s undoing.