The Good Little Devil and Other Tales

by Pierre Gripari

  “Ribbit, ribbit! Ribbit! Ribbit!”

  Without hesitating, I carried the frog into the bathroom, soaped her up and shaved her hair off, after which I untied her, ran a little water into the bath and left her to spend the night there.

  The next morning, I took her to Bashir in a small bowl with a tiny ladder inside it, so she could help forecast the weather for him (she would climb up the ladder if good weather was coming and sit at the bottom if the forecast was bad). Bashir thanked me and put the new bowl on a shelf, next to the one with the little fish.

  Since that day, the two fish and the frog have not stopped talking to each other. The frog says: “Ribbit, ribbit!” and the fish: “Po—po!” and they go on like that for days on end!

  One day I said to Bashir:

  “How about you call the mouse in, so we can find out what they’re saying to each other?”

  “Sure, if you like!” Bashir said.

  And once more, he sang:

  Little mouse

  Little friend

  Will you come this way…

  When the mouse came, Bashir asked her to listen and translate. But this time, the mouse refused point blank.

  “Why won’t she translate?” I asked.

  Bashir replied:

  “Because it’s nothing but swearing!”

  So now you know the story of the witch in the broom cupboard. And now, if you come and visit me in my little house, whether by day or by night, you can quite safely sing:

  Witchy witch, beware,

  Watch out for your derrière!

  I promise nothing will happen to you!

  The Good Little Devil

  There was once a charming little devil who was red all over, with two little black horns and two bat-wings. His daddy was a big green devil and his mother a black she-devil. All three of them lived together in a place called Hell, which can be found right in the centre of Planet Earth.

  Hell is not like how it is round here. Indeed, it’s quite the opposite: everything that here we think is good, is considered bad in Hell; and everything that here we think is bad, is considered good down there. This is why, officially, devils are supposed to be wicked. For them, it’s good to be bad.

  But our little devil, well he wanted to be good, and so he was the despair of his whole family.

  Every evening when he came home from school, his father would ask him:

  “What did you do today?”

  “I went to school.”

  “What an idiot! Had you done all your homework?”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  “What a dummy! Had you learnt your lessons?”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  “Miserable child! You have at least, I hope, wasted a few hours?”

  “Mmm…”

  “Did you fight with any of your little schoolfriends?”

  “No, Papa.”

  “Did you flick some balls of soggy paper at them while the teacher wasn’t looking?”

  “No, Papa.”

  “You didn’t even think of putting drawing pins on your teacher’s chair so that he pricked his bottom when he sat down?”

  “No, Papa.”

  “In that case, what did you do?”

  “Well, I did a dictation, two maths problems, a bit of history, some geography…”

  Hearing this, the poor daddy devil held his horns in both hands, as if he felt like tearing them out, and shook his head:

  “What did I do to deserve such a child? When I think of the years your mother and I have spent, what we sacrificed to give you a bad education, to set you a bad example, to help you grow up into a fine, tall and wicked devil! But no! Instead of giving in to temptation, this young gentleman has to cause trouble! In fact, let’s think seriously: what would you like to do when you’re grown up?”

  “I’d like to be nice,” replied the little devil.

  Of course, his mother wept and his father punished him. But there was nothing to be done: the little devil stuck to his plan. In the end, his father told him:

  “My poor child, I despair of you. I would have liked you to grow up to be Someone, but I see now that it’s impossible. Only this week, you came top in maths! In view of this, I have decided to take you out of school and make you an apprentice. You shall never be worse than a minor imp, a mere boiler-room stove-stoker… A shame for you, but it is your own fault!

  Indeed, the very next day, the little devil stopped going to school. His father sent him off to be an apprentice in the Grand Central Heating System, where he was assigned to look after the fire beneath a great cauldron in which about twenty people (who had been very, very wicked when they were alive) were boiling and bubbling away for ever.

  But even here the little devil did not satisfy his masters. He was friendly with the poor damned people and, every time he saw a chance, he would let the fire burn a bit lower so that they wouldn’t be quite so hot in there. He chatted to them and told them funny stories to distract them—or he would ask them questions such as:

  “Why are you here?”

  To which they would reply: we killed people, or, we stole things; we did this, we did that.

  “And what if you were to think very hard about our dear Lord?” the little devil would ask. “Don’t you feel that sometimes that could help things turn out all right?”

  “Alas, no!” they said. “Once we get here, we’re in here for ever!”

  “Never mind that, try thinking of him a little, when you’re not too hot…”

  They did think of him, and there were even a few among them who, having thought about God for some minutes, actually disappeared all of a sudden—pop!—like a soap bubble. They were never seen again. For the kind Lord had pardoned them.

  This went on until, one day, the Grand High Controller of the Diabolical Cauldrons came round on his annual inspection. And when he came to our little devil’s cauldron, he kicked up an ungodly fuss!

  “What in Hell is going on here? This cauldron should contain twenty-one people but I can only see eighteen! What does this mean? And the fire has practically gone out! What kind of work is this? I see, this isn’t Hell any longer, it’s the French Riviera now, is it? Right, hop to it, this second, let’s have you blowing on those coals and get it boiling right up! And as for you, my little friend (he was speaking to our young devil now), as for you, since you are not capable of keeping up a basic fire, we shall have to put you to work at the coalface!”

  The following day, the little devil was put to work in a coal mine. They gave him a pickaxe, and he spent his days digging tunnels and knocking out great chunks of coal. This time, everyone was pleased, for he was a hard worker. Of course, he knew that this coal was destined for the cauldrons’ fires, but it was just the way he was: when he went to do something, he could not help but do it well.

  One day, while digging along a new seam of anthracite, the little devil made one lucky blow with his pickaxe and all of a sudden he was bathed in light. He peered into the hole he had made and saw a great, brightly lit, underground cavern, with a platform full of busy people, getting in and out of a little green train with a red carriage. He had found the underground!

  “Great!” thought the little devil. “Now I’ve found some humans! They’ll surely help me to be good!”

  He squeezed through his hole and jumped down onto the platform. But hardly had they caught sight of him than the humans began to run away, screaming horribly. As it was rush hour, there was a terrible scrum: children were squashed and women were stepped on. The little devil did his best to reassure them, calling:

  “Please stay! Don’t be afraid!”

  But he could not make himself heard, for the humans were shouting even more loudly.

  In ten minutes’ time, the station was empty, except for the dead and the injured. Not knowing quite what to do, the little devil went straight on ahead, climbing up one staircase, then another; he pushed through a door and soon found himself in the street. But the firemen waiting for him there hosed
him down brutally with their fire hose. He tried to escape down the other side of the road, but policemen ran straight for him, waving their truncheons. He tried to fly away, but the police helicopters already had him in their lights. Luckily, right there at the edge of the pavement, he spotted an open drain and into this he plunged.

  The little devil spent the whole day wandering through underground passages full of filthy water. Only after midnight did he return to ground level, where he went on walking through small, dark streets, thinking to himself:

  “I still need to find someone to help me out! How can I make them believe that I’m not wicked?”

  As he was thinking this, an old lady appeared, scurrying along the pavement. The devil went up to her, tugged gently at her sleeve and enquired sweetly:

  “Madame…”

  The old lady turned to look at him:

  “What is it, little boy? Why aren’t you tucked up in bed, at this late hour?”

  “Madame,” said the little devil, “I want to be good. What should I do?”

  But just then, looking more closely, the old lady caught sight of his two little horns and his bat-wings. She began to stammer:

  “No! No! Have pity, Lord! I shan’t do it again!”

  “What won’t you do again?” asked the little devil.

  But the old lady did not reply. She had fainted away in the street.

  “My bad luck,” thought the devil. “And she seemed so nice at first…”

  He walked on a bit farther and, a little way down rue Broca, he caught sight of a cafe with a few lights still on. He hurried towards it and, through the glass-paned door, he saw Papa Sayeed, who had just locked up and was preparing to go to bed. Shyly, the devil tapped on the glass:

  “Excuse me, monsieur…”

  “Too late! We’re closed!” said Papa Sayeed.

  “But I was hoping…”

  “I’m telling you we’re closed!”

  “But I don’t want anything to drink, I just want to be good!”

  “You’re too late! Come back tomorrow.”

  The little devil was desperate. He was beginning to wonder if he wouldn’t be better off going back to Hell and learning to be wicked like everybody else when, suddenly, he heard a man’s steps approaching.

  “This is my last chance,” he thought.

  He half-ran, half-flew towards the sound and stopped at the corner of the boulevard. A dark figure was advancing to meet him. It looked like a woman, but it was making great strides, like a soldier. In fact it was a priest, dressed in his long cassock, coming back from visiting a sick person. The little devil spoke up:

  “Excuse me, monsieur…”

  “Excuse me?”

  The priest took one look at the little devil and seemed to have a big shock, then he made a series of very odd gestures in front of his face at top speed, while muttering a string of Latin words, not one of which our little devil understood.

  Since the devil was polite, he waited until the priest had finished his little game, then spoke up again:

  “Excuse me, monsieur. I am a young devil and I’d like to grow up to be good. What should I do?”

  Amazed, the priest stared at him:

  “You’re asking me what you should do?”

  “Yes, so as to grow up good. What should I do, at my age, to become good?”

  “You have to obey your parents,” said the priest, without thinking.

  “But I can’t, monsieur. My parents want me to grow up wicked!”

  Now the priest began to understand.

  “Oh yes. Bother. Of course they do!” he exclaimed. “But what a spot you’re in! This is the first I’ve ever heard of such a case… You are sincere, I take it?”

  “Oh yes, monsieur!”

  “I don’t even know if I’m allowed to believe you… Listen, in any event, your situation is much too serious for me to judge by myself. You must go and consult the Pope in Rome.”

  “Right away, monsieur. Thank you so much, monsieur.”

  And off the little devil flew.

  He travelled all night and only arrived in Rome the following morning. As luck would have it, while flying over the Vatican, he saw the Pope praying alone in his garden. The little devil flew down and landed beside him.

  “Excuse me, Mr Pope…”

  The Pope turned round and glared at him, angrily.

  “Go away,” he said. “I didn’t ask for you.”

  “I know you didn’t, Mr Pope. But, I need you to help me! I want to be good. How should I do it?”

  The Pope was looking crosser and crosser.

  “You? Be good? Get out of here! You’re just trying to tempt me!”

  “But I assure you I’m not!” cried the little devil. “Why reject me before you know the truth? And what danger is there in simply giving me some advice?”

  “That’s true,” said the Pope, more calmly. “After all, there’s no harm done by a bit of advice. Well then, sit down and tell me your story. And take care not to lie!”

  The devil launched straight in and told the whole story of his life, from the beginning. As he spoke, the Pope’s suspicions melted away like snow in the sun. At the end of his tale, the Holy Father was almost weeping.

  “What a beautiful story!” he murmured, his voice full of emotion. “Almost too beautiful to be true! It really is the first time, to my knowledge, that such a thing has occurred… Indeed, in that case, I expect that God himself is behind it! My dear, I have only one piece of advice for you and that is: speak directly to God. I am only a man and my work is only with human problems.”

  “I have to go and find the Good Lord?”

  “That would be the best thing to do.”

  “How should I do it?”

  “Well, that’s easy enough. You have wings, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “In that case, fly as high as you can, without thinking about anything in particular, simply singing a song that I will teach you. This is the song that helps us find heaven.”

  And softly the Pope sang a song, a brief little song, very short and simple but very, very beautiful. Don’t ask me to sing it to you, for if I knew it, I wouldn’t be here—I would be in heaven too.

  When the devil had learnt the song by heart, he thanked the Pope and flew away. He flew as high as he could, thinking of nothing in particular, but singing the magical song over and over without stopping.

  And indeed, he had hardly sung it through three times before there appeared a great white door with a man sitting in front of it, an old bearded man wearing a blue toga and with a halo over his head, holding a bunch of keys. This was Saint Peter.

  “Whoa there! Where do you think you’re off to like that?”

  “I would like to speak to the Good Lord.”

  “To the Good Lord Himself! Is that all you’re after? With those horns and that pair of wings? Have you not had a glance in the mirror recently?”

  “But the Pope in Rome sent me!”

  This time, Saint Peter was rattled. He looked hard at the little devil, frowning, then began to grumble:

  “The Pope this, the Pope that… Why’s he getting mixed up in this, now?… Anyway, since you’re here, you can sit our heavenly entrance exams. Do you know how to read and write? Can you count?”

  “Yes, yes I can!”

  “I don’t believe a word! You can’t have done a stroke of work at school!”

  “Excuse me, but I did do my schoolwork!”

  “Really! What’s two plus two?”

  “Four.”

  “Are you sure? How do you know?”

  “I just know…”

  “Hm! A lucky guess!… Well, do you want to take our exams or not?”

  “I do want to, sir.”

  “Really, you’re sure you do?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’re not afraid?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Right, as you wish! Come this way. You can see, down there, that’s the great court
yard. The first door on the right, there: that’s little Jesus’s office. He’ll oversee the reading test.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  The devil went in through a grand doorway and found himself facing the great courtyard. It was just like a schoolyard, with a covered walkway all around it. Through the arches he could see a number of tall, green, glass-paned doors. The first door on the right had a copper plaque on it, inscribed as follows:

  LITTLE JESUS

  Son of God

  Enter without knocking

  The devil opened the door and found himself in a classroom. Little Jesus was sitting at the teacher’s desk. He was a blond-haired child, wearing a rough cloth tunic, also with a halo over his head but a much prettier one than Saint Peter’s.

  “Come in, come in!” he said.

  “Little Jesus,” said the devil. “I have come—”

  “No need to say, I know why. You’ve come to take the reading test?”

  “Yes, Little Jesus.”

  “In that case, come here, and read this.”

  The little devil went over to him and Little Jesus held out an open book. But when the devil began to leaf through it, he saw that all the pages were blank.

  “Now, read!” said Little Jesus.

  The devil looked at the book, then back at Little Jesus to see if he was teasing. But no: he was quite serious.

  “Well, I’m listening. Do you know how to read or not?”

  The devil looked at the book once more and protested:

  “But there’s nothing written in it—all the pages are blank.”

  And as he said this, the words he was pronouncing wrote themselves out along the left page in big capital letters: BUT THERE’S NOTHING WRITTEN IN IT—ALL THE PAGES ARE BLANK.

  “Let me see,” said Little Jesus.

  He took the book back and read from it under his breath:

  “But there’s nothing written in it: all the pages are blank.”