Read Online By a Slow River by Philippe Claudel - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Philippe Claudel
Tags: Fiction
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a bar and would confuse the locals. He had replied, curtly enough, that he had reasons of his own for the name he gave his establishment; and as for the townsfolk, they could go to hell.
It didn’t take more than a round of drinks on the house for everyone to agree with his logic. Most found that when all was said and done, Au Bon Pied wasn’t half bad. It sounded rather distinguished in fact, not so run-of-the-mill as the ubiquitous Excelsior, Floria, Terminus, or Café des Amis. Anyway, the name proved no impediment to business.
On August 3, 1915, Fermillin unfurled over his sign a big banner made from an old sheet. On it he had written in large red, white, and blue letters: ONE YEAR AFTER: GLORY TO OUR HEROES!
The party began about five in the afternoon with the cult faithful: old man Voret, a paunchy retiree from the factory who’d been celebrating his widowhood for three years; Janesh Hiredek, a Bulgarian émigré who spoke French badly when sober but who quoted Voltaire and Lamartine as soon as he had two liters of wine in him; Léon Pantonin, called Green Face, the hue his skin had taken on as a result of a revolutionary treatment for pulmonary inflammation based on copper oxide; Jules Arbonfel, an apelike giant two meters tall but with a girl’s voice; and Victor Durel, whose wife would come looking for him at the Bon Pied, only to leave with him two or three hours later, when she had to be carried out herself.
It was going on three in the morning, and the bistro was still resounding with all the old saws: “Happy, We Depart,” “Madelon,” “The Young Recruits,” “Soldier Boy, My Brother!” The crowd would strike up the choruses and repeat them, practically choking on their own maudlin tears and flowery tremolos. Sometimes the singing was easier to make out when the door swung open and a combatant went out to take a leak under the stars before returning to the belly of the boozy beast. In the morning, you could still hear the groans coming from the joint. There was also the unmistakable odor of stale wine, puke, dirty shirts, and cheap tobacco. Most had spent the night there, sleeping it off. Fermillin, the first to rise, woke the rest as you might shake a plum tree, before selling them breakfast with white pinot.
Lysia Verhareine passed by the café that morning, favoring Fermillin with a smile, which he repaid with a courteous bow and a “Mademoiselle.” I saw her, but she didn’t see me; I was too far off. She wore a dress the ruddy color of vineyard peaches and a little straw hat adorned with a carmine ribbon. She carried a wide woven handbag, which swung against her hip with a sweet gaiety. She was headed toward the fields. It was the fourth of August. The sun was rising like a flaming arrow and already drying the dew. It would be hot enough to tan the soft skin of desires into leather. You couldn’t hear the big guns. Even pricking your ears, you couldn’t hear them. Lysia turned the corner at the Mureaux farm and entered the countryside, where the scent of fresh-cut hay and ripened wheat made the earth seem like a huge body, languid with odors and caresses. Fermillin had remained on the threshold of his bistro, his red eyes taking in the sky as he stroked his beard. Youngsters were setting out to roam the world, their pockets stuffed with the simplest of meals. On the clotheslines, women hung out sheets to billow dry in the wind. Lysia Verhareine had disappeared. I imagined her walking down the summer trails as on pathways of sand.
I never saw her again.
I mean, I never saw her alive again. That very evening, Marivelle’s son ran to my house and found me naked to the waist, my head drenched in water, dousing myself with a pitcher. When I wiped the water from my eyes, I could see his own were full of fat tears, which poured down his teenage face like dripping wax.
“Come quick, come quick!” he told me. “Barbe sent me! You’ve got to come to the château now!”
I knew the way,
It didn’t take more than a round of drinks on the house for everyone to agree with his logic. Most found that when all was said and done, Au Bon Pied wasn’t half bad. It sounded rather distinguished in fact, not so run-of-the-mill as the ubiquitous Excelsior, Floria, Terminus, or Café des Amis. Anyway, the name proved no impediment to business.
On August 3, 1915, Fermillin unfurled over his sign a big banner made from an old sheet. On it he had written in large red, white, and blue letters: ONE YEAR AFTER: GLORY TO OUR HEROES!
The party began about five in the afternoon with the cult faithful: old man Voret, a paunchy retiree from the factory who’d been celebrating his widowhood for three years; Janesh Hiredek, a Bulgarian émigré who spoke French badly when sober but who quoted Voltaire and Lamartine as soon as he had two liters of wine in him; Léon Pantonin, called Green Face, the hue his skin had taken on as a result of a revolutionary treatment for pulmonary inflammation based on copper oxide; Jules Arbonfel, an apelike giant two meters tall but with a girl’s voice; and Victor Durel, whose wife would come looking for him at the Bon Pied, only to leave with him two or three hours later, when she had to be carried out herself.
It was going on three in the morning, and the bistro was still resounding with all the old saws: “Happy, We Depart,” “Madelon,” “The Young Recruits,” “Soldier Boy, My Brother!” The crowd would strike up the choruses and repeat them, practically choking on their own maudlin tears and flowery tremolos. Sometimes the singing was easier to make out when the door swung open and a combatant went out to take a leak under the stars before returning to the belly of the boozy beast. In the morning, you could still hear the groans coming from the joint. There was also the unmistakable odor of stale wine, puke, dirty shirts, and cheap tobacco. Most had spent the night there, sleeping it off. Fermillin, the first to rise, woke the rest as you might shake a plum tree, before selling them breakfast with white pinot.
Lysia Verhareine passed by the café that morning, favoring Fermillin with a smile, which he repaid with a courteous bow and a “Mademoiselle.” I saw her, but she didn’t see me; I was too far off. She wore a dress the ruddy color of vineyard peaches and a little straw hat adorned with a carmine ribbon. She carried a wide woven handbag, which swung against her hip with a sweet gaiety. She was headed toward the fields. It was the fourth of August. The sun was rising like a flaming arrow and already drying the dew. It would be hot enough to tan the soft skin of desires into leather. You couldn’t hear the big guns. Even pricking your ears, you couldn’t hear them. Lysia turned the corner at the Mureaux farm and entered the countryside, where the scent of fresh-cut hay and ripened wheat made the earth seem like a huge body, languid with odors and caresses. Fermillin had remained on the threshold of his bistro, his red eyes taking in the sky as he stroked his beard. Youngsters were setting out to roam the world, their pockets stuffed with the simplest of meals. On the clotheslines, women hung out sheets to billow dry in the wind. Lysia Verhareine had disappeared. I imagined her walking down the summer trails as on pathways of sand.
I never saw her again.
I mean, I never saw her alive again. That very evening, Marivelle’s son ran to my house and found me naked to the waist, my head drenched in water, dousing myself with a pitcher. When I wiped the water from my eyes, I could see his own were full of fat tears, which poured down his teenage face like dripping wax.
“Come quick, come quick!” he told me. “Barbe sent me! You’ve got to come to the château now!”
I knew the way,
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