Читать книгу Real Life - Adeline Dieudonné - Страница 14

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THE WARM ODOR from Nutmeg’s belly still lingered. I think it lingered more in my head really, but my abiding memory of the summer was that persistent icky scent, which clung to me even in my dreams. It was July and yet the nights seemed darker and colder than in winter.

Sam came to snuggle in my bed every night. With my nose buried in his hair, I could almost hear his nightmares. I would have given everything I had to turn back time and go back to that moment where I had asked for the ice cream. I imagined the scene a thousand times: “Chocolate and stracciatella in a cone, please sir,” I say to the ice-cream man; “No whipped cream today, my little lady?” he asks; “No thanks, sir,” I reply. And my planet is not sucked into a black hole. And the old man’s face does not explode in front of my little brother and my home. And I continue to hear the “Flower Waltz” the next day and the day after, and the story ends there. And Sam smiles.

* * *

I remembered a film I’d once seen, in which a crazy scientist invents a machine to go back in time. He uses a car all cobbled together, with wires everywhere, and he has to drive really fast but he manages it. I decided that I, too, would invent a machine and travel through time and sort everything out.

From that moment on, I saw my life as a flawed offshoot of reality, a draft version intended to be rewritten. It made everything seem more bearable. I told myself that until such time as the machine was ready and I could turn back the clock, I would have to coax my little brother out of his silence.

I took him to the labyrinth, straight to the Boom-a-roller. “Sit down.” He obediently sat. I took my place at the wheel and began bouncing up and down on the seat with all my strength, shaking the car like never before. “Boom-a-rollerrrrr! Boom-a-rollerrrrr! Boom-a-rollerrrrr! C’mon, Sam! Boom-a-rollerrrrr!” He just sat there, unresponsive, his big green eyes quite empty. He looked so tired. Luckily the owner didn’t hear us, because in the state Sam was in he would have let himself be caught without a fight.

At home, I made new puppets, invented new stories. My little audience of one sat in front of me as I told him of princesses who tripped over their dresses, farting prince charmings, and hiccoughing dragons … Eventually, without really knowing why, I led him into the carcass room. My father was at work and my mother had gone out for some groceries. When we entered the room, I felt the hyena’s eyes on me. I carefully avoided meeting her gaze.

And at that moment, I understood. It swooped on me like a hungry beast, slashing my back with its claws. The laughter I’d heard when the old man’s face exploded, it came from her. That thing I couldn’t quite discern, was living inside the hyena. Her stuffed body was a monster’s lair. Death resided within our home, and was scrutinizing me through her glass eyes, its gaze boring into the back of my neck as it savored my little brother’s sweet scent.

Sam let go of my hand and turned toward the creature. He approached and placed his fingers on the rigid muzzle. I didn’t dare move a muscle. The hyena was going to awaken and devour him. Sam fell to his knees, his lips quivering. He stroked the dead fur and put his arms round the beast’s neck, his little face so close to the huge jaw. Then he began to sob, his sparrow-like body shaken by floods of terror. The horror burst and poured down his cheeks, like from an abscess that had taken its time to ripen. I realized that this boded well, that something was circulating in him anew, that his internal mechanism was working again.

* * *

A few days later, the ice-cream man was replaced by another one, and the “Flower Waltz” returned. Every evening, the mincemeat face loomed in my mind. Every evening, I saw something snap in my little brother’s eyes. That music struck at a part deep within him, the central component of his joy-production process, destroying it a little more each day, rendering it ever more irreparable. And every evening I told myself that it was no big deal, that I was just in the flawed offshoot of my life, that it was all intended to be rewritten.

Whenever the ice-cream truck came, I tried to be close to Sam. I could clearly see how his entire little body shivered as soon as heard the music.

One evening, I couldn’t find Sam in his bedroom, or in mine, or in the garden. So I crept into the carcass room, without a sound because my father was in the living room. I found Sam in there, sitting by the hyena. He was whispering into her big ears. I didn’t hear what he was saying to her. When he noticed my presence, he gave me an odd look. I felt as if it was the hyena looking at me. What if the shock of the exploding cream siphon had opened a breach into Sam’s head? What if the hyena had taken advantage of this breach to go and live within my little brother? Or inject something evil into him? That look I saw on Sam’s face, it wasn’t him. It smacked of blood and death. It reminded me that the beast was on the prowl and that it slept inside my home. And I realized it now resided within Sam.

My parents saw nothing. My father was too busy delivering his TV commentary to my mother, and she was too busy being frightened of him.