The Bark Tree Read Free Page B

o’clock.
    Narcense and Potice are very Parisian. They follow women at 5 o’clock.
    The lady in question is walking with resolute, hurried steps. Right, now she’s in the streetcar. A number 8. Going to the Gare de l’Est. Narcense and Potice run after the streetcar. Some cars run after Narcense and Potice. In the streetcar, the lady sits down, looking lost. Lost in her thoughts, she doesn’t look at anything or anyone, isn’t interested in anything, or anyone. She just sits there, with some packages on her knees. Not pretty, but beautiful: Narcense and Potice admire her.
    At the terminus, still resolutely, she goes toward the Gare du Nord. Does a little shopping on her way. Potice tries to get into conversation with her, but fails.
    At the Gare du Nord, they’re lagging behind, somewhat. A volley of automobiles has come between them. The lady is going to disappear. They swear. Is this the right moment? They press on, they leap between the delivery wagons and the buses, they avoid the one, and the other. Narcense has time to see the lady on platform 31. He runs and finds out where the train is going, and takes an appropriate ticket (Potice isn’t following him); all down the platform he looks into the compartments. This one’s full, this one, this one. She’s in there. There’s still a bit of room in the corner. He climbs in, slightly out of breath. The lady is staring straight ahead, and doesn’t seem to see anything. She looks exhausted. Narcense wonders what has happened to Potice. He looks out of the window, but doesn’t see anyone. The train starts. At Obonne, the lady gets out. So does Narcense. Lots of people in the street. Narcense doesn’t dare to risk it. He nearly does, but then he chickens. So that he finally finds himself all by himself at the gate of a little house. He hangs around a bit, and looks at the house, which is either half built or being demolished. He thinks it’s magnificent. He understands that such a woman, such a beautiful woman, should live in such a strange place. Meanwhile, the beautiful woman is peeling onions, quite exhausted.
    Narcense is still prowling around, extremely perplexed. Doesn’t know what to do. Very fortunately, a definite external event makes up his mind for him. It starts raining hard. And he rushes off to the nearest shelter. A bistro.
    I look like a rabbit, today, he thinks. Running all day long. A rabbit playing a little drum. What a beautiful woman! What a presence! He undresses her as he absentmindedly orders a mandarin-curaçao, and he’s biting her breast, not the one on the left, the one on the right, when at a nearby table he hears a voice reminiscing.
    “Shanghai, that’s where the biggest bar in the world is ... I know all the brothels in Valparaiso ... I once sailed on a steamer that was transporting Chinese corpses ... On my first trip, I was sixteen, I went to Australia. In Sydney, I nearly got myself killed by a great big Swede, who ... I got three years’ hard labor. I got over it ... I’m off to the Pacific in a month. I got a nice little chick in Valparaiso ... ”
    Narcense comes out of his dream and looks; a very nondescript individual, but with a seaman’s jersey and a leather - peaked cap. Three local youths surround him, listening. It’s still raining outside. The proprietor blows his nose loudly, wipes the counter and would like to say something. The other tables are empty, except the one at the far end which is occupied by a truculent mongrel. The sailor goes on jabbering. Then he decides to start up the player piano.
    Narcense absently leaves some money on the table and goes out.
     
    —oooooo—oooooo—
    The child was hypocritical and solitary. Sometimes at the top of his class, he didn’t hesitate to win his way to the bottom, if his inner anguish pushed him that way. He had never had a daddy; killed in the war, they told him; but he knew perfectly well that he was illegitimate. His mother, who had some idea of sin, went out