Palafox

9

The rosebushes at La Gloriette are Algernon’s pride and joy. My daughter and my roses are all I have, he can be heard repeating now and again. And there’s no question of leaving Palafox to gambol throughout the park. We know how to behave ourselves, we can resist the temptation to nibble on roses, brains of lamb, whipped cream, meringues, Palafox would throw himself instinctually and hungrily on these tender cauliflowers. The art of the table and the garden, it’s all the same to a herbivore. Apart from the hours of seaside work and play, we lock him up in late lamented Archie’s shack. The evening constitutional with Olympia should last only as long as necessary. On those rare occasions when he is allowed in the house, care should be taken to protect against his scaling the staircase leading to the upper floors or to his crossing the threshold of the blue living room where Algernon has his collection of old earthenware on display. My daughter and my earthenware are all I have, he can be heard repeating now and again. But Palafox is tolerated from time to time in the kitchen or the laundry.

Barbed flowerbeds, short grass grown for the eye and the naked foot, even if he succeeded at escaping our attention, Palafox wouldn’t find a great deal here to nibble, chomp or bite. Olympia takes him to graze in the neighboring fields. They leave, dawn ebbs, a bell around the neck of the drowsy creature jingles merrily, a gentle music, unpretentious, background music to which your ear quickly grows accustomed, above which we can continue to talk, soon you won’t pay it any mind, without ceasing to hear it though as it will accompany Palafox hereafter wherever he may roam. We won’t spend the rest of our lives chasing after the dirty beast. Henceforth, should it seeks to flee, it will not get far, if it gets lost we won’t have to find it. Music written by Algernon Buffoon. Olympia holds the baton. She doesn’t hesitate to use it. The pasture is nearby but Palafox is slow, reluctant, called by the ferns and thistle of the ditches. Two strokes of the baton applied without the least cruelty by its mahout make him pick up the pace. His tail reveals his aching croup, caresses it as if in consolation, swats flies from his nose, wipes away tears. The field and the pond belong to Algernon. A perfect location. Olympia sits in the grass making sure no harm comes to anyone. The grasshoppers happily make room for her. Palafox on one paw searches the silt of the pond for little earth-worms or tadpoles. Towards noon, Algernon, his daughter and Chancelade rejoin them, a fine idea, picnicking together. Maureen lays a white blanket by way of a tablecloth, everyone gets to it, Algernon breaks bread, Olympia peels, Chancelade opens cans and pulls corks, the wind distributes their paper napkins to the wasps, paper plates to the tree frogs, time to eat. Chancelade serves the wine. Maureen, no thank you, drinks only milk. She eats little. Her lips part, the flower always first before the fruit, Maureen hesitates a moment between a peach and a pear, and instead swallows a cherry — but she hasn’t touched a thing, objects Algernon. Not even her milk — this morning a cow was padding heavily around them and now a wisp of a myriapod foundered in a mad panic waiting for Maureen to save him, it was time, Palafox will live.

Quick, look, Olympia whispers. Before obeying, this brief aside, the notion of progress has no meaning but for the human race, all others stagnate, including the dolphin and the ant, very overestimated, those two. That’s the way that men (of peasant stock, now on Wall Street) have developed then brought to perfection through time many tactics for landing fiancées, the best and the most widespread of which consists of bumping into them and then picking up the bags you made them drop, there are others, you can also flatly apologize for having run into their car with yours, slammed a door on their fingers or overturned your alcoholic beverage, staining her dress, too bad, such a pretty dress, I’m just the worst, take my handkerchief, etc. But the kingfisher has no need to come up with anything imaginative or constructive. He has it made. Because of a ballet established once and for all time in the beginning by the first varicolored couple in the line, the female allows herself to be mounted, her throat swells, her cloaca tints a delicate pink. Olympia — her voice betraying her emotion — rightly calls our attention to the nuptials in progress of one kingfisher. The bird zooms into the sky, right above the pond, spreads water-repellant wings (like a lecher his raincoat passing among schoolchildren) and exhibits his unearned decorations (like an officer exhibiting his medals after getting back into his uniform, when the fathers of the little girls threaten to beat the shit out of him) so as to seduce the female on the ground below. Queen lifts her head in a sign of acquiescence. She consents to lay his eggs. King calls it quits and alights near her on the bank of the pond, and we might note parenthetically and alphabetically the presence of reeds, rushes, arrowheads and sedges. Busy at his business, he doesn’t hear the furious chirping of a rival who approaches, who is beside him, thrown like a stone, Palafox flies at him. He had been grunting dully, huddled in Maureen’s palm, while we admired the bird’s acrobatic flight. He tensed all of a sudden when he saw the Queen on the bank, his fur standing on end. Maureen murmured mollifying words. Palafox trembled beneath her touch. He reared back his head, his antennas vibrated, pointed towards the pond. We offered him a chicken carcass, the remains of a rice cake, he pushed the bowl aside. Two delicate clouds of vapor left his two wet nostrils. He frowned, chops curled up to his eyes, gums and ruby palate bared, his bifid tongue, he emitted a short cry and pounced. Maureen, thrown aside, rolled into the grass.

Initially surprised by the speed and ferocity of the attack, the King has collected himself. The two adversaries size each other up. Palafox bobs and weaves beneath jabs from the King’s beak. Using his open mandibles, he counter-attacks with irritating little raids.

(Algernon knew the Tsu-Chi-King well, very nearly by heart from having read and reread it, which regulated cricket-fighting in Ancient China. The noblest of these insects lived in richly decorated palaces, built for them, where they had their own miniature dishes and furniture, and very meticulous servants. Drugs were mixed into their food to stimulate their natural aggression. The crickets fought unto death, in a closed field of battle, spurred on by the cracking of whips (four hairs at the end of an ivory rod) and by the flicks of the gamblers. Curled in his palace, the winner would devote himself to reproduction. Larvae were chosen, certain vintages proving highly esteemed. Then a magnanimous sovereign condemned the sport as cruel and hundreds of cricket gladiators were released into the wild. Now it all becomes clear: Palafox’s roots. Algernon won’t hear different.)

Their short twisted paws find no footing, the two males slip, clash, vacillate, each trying to knock the other on his back. Queen has drawn her head into her shell. She could care less about the outcome of the struggle, may the best win and mount her, and may the other swiftly die. King dominates, his pincers fastened over Palafox’s own, he arches like a matador to deliver the deathblow, the stinger sticking from his abdomen is a redoubtable weapon, difficult to improve upon, in the possession of which we humans doubtless would be if function truly induced form. Algernon takes Olympia by the arm and reassures her, he explains that the venom of one is harmless to the other while mortal for man, spinsters included, that she would be wrong to risk her life, that Palafox doesn’t need any help, and look, he’s broken free. A strong attack lands Palafox’s adversary against a tree. For the weeping willow it’s the last straw — what sadness is life, what boredom — it flops into the pond. The right eye and the groin wet with blood, King barely on his feet once again lurches at Palafox. Indifferent Queen chews an ash sapling, or maybe it’s poplar, it’s really hard to say, you really have to taste it to be sure. All of a sudden she stops, her eyelids shut. King freezes. When Palafox wails, you listen. Then he lowers his head, life starts back up again, so does King, the hit is horrible, the two grow entangled, the tangle tires them, King and Palafox spin in place without breaking apart or coming unstuck, Philemon and Baucus knew the feeling — and by the way, Algernon spits out, it was ash. King tires. Palafox standing on his spurs makes him back up, his tail is a bouquet of billhooks, the other clings with beak and nails to the scarlet wattles on his neck, a few feathers fly, the two topple into the pond. Never before had we heard Olympia lament her inability to swim. It’s the very first time.

Palafox and King tear each other apart, we count already among the duckweed twenty-seven gray or golden scales, number twenty-eight gold, number twenty-nine gold, thirty gray, thirty-one and thirty-two gold, King has the upper hand, thirty-three gold, thirty-four gray at last, thirty-five and thirty-six gray, Palafox back on top, gray, gray and gray the next three. The pond bubbles, bubble, backwash, silt, sludge, roe, tattered translucent flippers. Then silence, suddenly, the water flat and calm, pacified, appeased, a lesson to us all. Palafox resurfaces, fist raised, hair plastered to his forehead, streaming wet, the kingfisher between his teeth.

No one would have stretched out on a table, riddled with raisins and soaked in rum, in the middle of dessert, amidst the desserts, and especially would not have disturbed Palafox when he was feeding on raw meat. Make like an apple. Queen too keeps her distance. Palafox has dragged his victim, a hundred times fatter and heavier than he but making light work of it, into the center of the field. He devours its stomach, the acidic juices he secretes softening the flesh and the viscera of the bird, of which the feathers saved from the feast will soon adorn the headdresses and tomahawks of the local Indians. (Ziegler himself can bear witness: the discovery of a feather by ten children turns eight of them into bloodthirsty Apaches and out of the remaining two one becomes a mattress-maker and the other a writer. The professor adds that the little squaws are ravishing in their nursing uniforms, but he’s out of his depth.) Victorious, filled to the gills, Palafox remembers Queen. Before her, he places a twig and a pebble she is asked to accept, as if she has a choice, these are the gifts of ritual, the equivalent of our crowns of blossoms and our rings. Palafox croaks, his gastric pouch expanding to bursting but not bursting, such is the serenade. He warms up, blood rises to his head, coloring his muzzle and his lips a bright blue. Two very prominent red rolls of fat, not particularly becoming, appear beneath his eyes. He stealthily adopts the attitude of a fledgling seeking morsels from his mamma’s beak, stealing worm and first kiss from Queen, more mother than lover. So he crawls, prostrates himself, gently flaps his widespread wings and offers her once again, in a pearly gray silk purse, a mosquito fattened on his very own blood, to which we have no courtly equivalent. Queen licks her lips and bends her spine, and as quickly the roaring Palafox is on her, she roaring too, claws dug deep into her flanks. After a few clumsy or imprecise attempts, but this is no time for niceties or careful calculations, the stallion triumphs, grace smiles upon him, his incomparable penis finds its fit. Queen takes it in stride. Her whole body mists like a plowed field, a warm October morning, horseflies would be the starlings, in which case her incomparable rump is the rising sun. Palafox pushes, Queen wriggles, collapsing for a moment to rest, without parting, delousing each other. Then the biting of the neck, lifting her up and nailing her again, liming her, for want of true complicity of hearts and communion of souls, Algernon counted fifty-six effusions in sixty minutes.

It’s over, they separate, parting forever and for good, without a glance, they couldn’t care a whit about each other, memory of the moment they shared already beginning to fade, older images rush up to fill the void, it all clouds over, they forget, dates and places get mixed up, verses from other songs get sung, they pass each other on the street without recognition — Palafox groans, braces himself, Queen tugs, nothing will separate them, it’s laughable and pathetic, two dogs stuck together have found themselves in a fine mess. Things slow down with age: elevators, public gardens, civil aircraft, carriage entrances lose their power of erotic suggestion, one suddenly comes to understand the smallness and discomfort of these places, the risk of being surprised by a policeman or by a stewardess does not add the least spice to the situation, hereafter nothing beats a bed between two naps for those things, besides less and less often, let’s be honest, the frenzy of passion and desire is followed by the complicated tenderness and fidelity of male menopause, a purer and more enduring attachment — Queen and Palafox spin on the spot, without succeeding to break the engagement, Philemon and Baucis certainly experienced this as well. For the years pass, the resentments take root and grow, a festering rancor, they are so old and so sick, too thin and bumbling to touch each other without hurting each other, still they stay together, they haven’t legs left to walk away, the mountain begins just beyond the threshold of their little house, so they tolerate each other, they remember, sitting side by side, silently, language forgotten, two hands crumbling into each other, eyes see only their own tears, the world swallowed up inside them, the sole survivor, the widow or widower, taking turns with death — there is no question that we must rescue these unfortunates, but how? Chancelade imagines a bucket of water, why not, which will lubricate one and soften the other. That was how he’d always seen it done in his family. Do we have a bucket, yes Chancelade will plunge it into the stream, bring it unsteadily back and, just like that, toss its contents onto the entwined pair, Queen and Palafox inseparable despite mutual consent — you will forgive us the tangents that punctuate this story, or make it unravel, since we always manage to make our way back to the point.

So they come apart, sweet victory, laurels to Chancelade. Queen bolts, of course, and disappears. Her future is all laid out, for those interested, first find a forked branch, gather the materials necessary for the building of a nest, branches, twigs, mosses, pieces of wool and cloth, sacrificing a bit of her duvet to the task at hand (when they run low on nails, our carpenters prefer to overlook that they have heavy hairs on their chests), then build it, this nest, without her hands, already with an intense desire to lay, to lay it, this egg, this second egg, this third egg, lay them, these fourth and fifth eggs, cover them, alone, patiently, cautiously, knowing that an egg is never truly safe, even in a tree, then clearing the nest of shells after the sensational birth, feed her brood, five fledglings less one the three others forced out, four fledglings less one that the three others forced out, three insatiable insectivorous fledglings, who no sooner have they swallowed a mosquito whole are they clamoring for the whole swarm, who no sooner have they swallowed a worm than are they clamoring for an acreful, reminding us not a little already in certain respects of our Palafox, their presumptive father.

Who didn’t appreciate Chancelade’s meddling, at all, we know how he hates water, how he prefers dry dusty land, burning rocks burning still beneath a midnight sun, where feet smoke, where you turn to stone if not wax, if not snow, where he basks in the sun anyway, flat as though flattened, happy, the least shadow sufficient to quench his thirst. In anger, he deploys a strange annulus approximately ten inches in diameter, iridescent on a background of old gold, lacey, ribbed, usually folded into its neck as we watch, when not angry almost invisible, reinforcing, one might recall, professor Pierpont’s thesis stated long ago, that Palafox was an annulated lizard, but let’s not get carried away. He charges at Chancelade, the universe wavers, Chancelade in midair instinctively drops into a fosbury flop, far more efficient than the scissor-kick disdained by the modern athlete, and which allows each new generation to rise higher than the one before it, even if the goal they are reaching for always remains unclear even for those involved, or grows increasingly distant in direct proportion to the closer they are to it, but the beauty is in the trying, in the surpassing of oneself, of one’s limits, then Chancelade falls. The second bucking of the mustang propels him into the air but not as high as the first, he’s on his back now, arms crossed, face rearranged, eyes reversed, ears fused into one, finally listening to each other, the nose, as for the nose, no more nose, lips swollen but smile imperceptible — we’re suppressing certain unbearable details, in the interest of protecting those sensitive souls among us, not to say various houseplants listening in — lucid enough nonetheless to count the fingers of his right hand on the fingers of his left and vice versa, the fingers of his left hand on the toes of his right foot. But already Palafox charges in his direction. Algernon, we can see, isn’t taking this lying down. As soon as it’s clear, primo, that Palafox isn’t playing, secondo, that Chancelade isn’t having any fun either, our friend leaps into action, reed in one hand and knife in the other, he undertakes to carve a flute, a perfunctory little flute, the reed pipe we now see before us.

Let us be clear — the instant if not self-explanatory is at least well-chosen — that elephants’ graveyards do not exist. One sometimes finds, in essence, three or four skeletons in a clearing, or more, but here’s why: old, sick or wounded, elephants swear off roaming the earth and remain near a water source, where food abounds, it’s wise, thus our widows clattering with ivory, instinctively or without thinking, end their days along the Riviera. No serious zoologist now believes in some occult force leading them to these wild gardens. Another myth, please note, is the supposed appreciation of music by rattlesnakes. In reality, Palafox is only attracted to the movements of the flute. He follows Algernon through the fields, as if hypnotized, Maureen and Olympia helping Chancelade along, and we’re back in La Gloriette again.

We are at war, lest we forget. The battles are intensifying. The outcome of the conflict grows uncertain. Of course, our collections of Egyptian art have been enriched by ten sarcophaguses, four superb blue earthenware hippos, statuettes and canoptic jars, an obelisk, various rare papyri, above all a large number of mummies of cats and ibex, but the enemy has certainly helped itself to most of our cubist and post-impressionist paintings. And if we have been able to recoup the Renaissance masterpieces they took from us during a previous conflict — two Fra Angelicos, a fine Arcimboldi among others — it would seem that the enemy had, for his part, made off with all our Flemish masters, including those which never belonged to him. That is all the information we have available to us. Status quo, really. Hard to say who will win. But things can change quickly, one way or the other. Lieutenant Chancelade will be indisposed for a few weeks, we’ll have to manage without him.

Palafox wanders in the pit dug and paved for him in the middle of the park, appointed according to his taste. A rock symbolizes a mountain. The plantigrades need this minimum of space, without which they perish. While fighting him, Chancelade tore off his tail, but Palafox remains dangerous, and anyway it’ll grow back. Algernon filed down his claws and canines, we cut down his horns, he remains dangerous despite it all, his electrical discharges attain an intensity of 600 volts, could stop a steer, even more so a cowboy, in this instance our poor old Olympia. Doubtless it is sad to arrive here, at this end, but there is no other solution, gelding him, neutering Palafox, all his aggression comes from there, from that end. Palafox in rutting season cannot be controlled, cannot control himself, Algernon’s attempts to civilize him are for naught, he once again becomes the man-eater who Sadarnac, lying, claims to have fished out of the Pacific, but who lived in all likelihood in a Bengali forest, where he was captured before being sold to a zoo, escaped, burst in chez the Buffoons as we all recall who took him in, pampered him, very nearly domesticated him, and unthinkable that all this should be for naught — so we neuter Palafox. First thing, hobble the animal, done, then wash the belly with warm water. Sharpen a razor and make an incision a hair longer than an inch at the base of the scrotum. With two fingers, as if you were digging for a dime lost in the lining of a jacket, nudge the nut towards the tear, ibid ball two, then pull until it releases from the spermatic cord, it will release, it must release, it releases. Apply an antiseptic healing salve to the wound, repellant to flies — maggots be hanged — and leave the pit without dragging your feet. Prudently Algernon undoes Palafox’s ties.