Читать книгу L'Amerique - Thierry Sagnier - Страница 13

Chapter 7

A month later, Jeanot prepared for his birthday party aware something was afoot. He first became suspicious when Maman came up with an American theme for the party. Jeanot was as fascinated with les États Unis as any ten-year-old French boy might have been; he believed cowboys and Indians were in constant battle and that all Negroes played the banjo, an instrument for which Jeanot discovered he had an odd liking. His Maman laughed, but maybe it was true. Maybe they were like gypsies who all played guitars, or Africans with their jungle drums. For all Jeanot knew, the streets of America were peopled with banjo-plucking Negroes.

He’d read that one state, Texas, was the size of France. His mother had doubts, but Jeanot was adamant. “There are three cities there that are each bigger than Paris!” That, in itself, was amazing. He’d thought Paris was the biggest city in the world. “And,” he added, “There’s even a Paris in Texas. I don’t think they speak French there, though, or at least not French like us.”

There would be flags, costumes, American foods and music at the party. Maman would show a Disney film—an amateur cinematographer friend of hers had several—and she assured Jeanot this would be an event remembered by all.

Jeanot paid little attention. He had found his life’s calling in the latest Tintin magazine. Like Albert Schweitzer, Jeanot was going to go to Africa to cure the leopards. The illness sounded dreadful and it was not fair that the sick leopards weren’t allowed to mix with others of their kinds. There was a picture in the magazine of Schweitzer wearing an explorer hat and looking both kindly and sad, with skinny natives surrounding him; hired help, Jeanot figured, to catch the leopards. The sky was cloudless, it looked warm, and the black people were obviously friendly if very, very thin. Maybe working with leopards had its difficulties.

Jeanot had met a few black people in Paris. They were always pleasant with their strange accents and startling white eyes, and they looked nothing like the ones in the photo with Dr. Schweitzer. Obviously coming to France from Africa was a beneficial experience—maybe it was the weather, Jeanot thought, or the air in Africa was somehow different. Certainly, the air in Benodet near the sea had little in common with the sooty-smelling stuff in Paris, and Jeanot noticed that whenever he left town for a day or two, the bothersome scratch at the back of his throat vanished. Maybe the air in Africa was worse, which would explain why the people helping Schweitzer with the leopards all looked skinny and ill.

Jeanot told his father about the leopards. “Look, Papa!” He opened the Tintin to the center pages and pointed to a photo. “I want to work with the leopards too, just like Doctor Schwe—“ He had a hard time pronouncing the string of consonants.

Papa said, “Schweitzer,” and then laughed so hard he made choking sounds. He swept up his son and carried him to Maman, where he told him to repeat the story. Jeanot did so with a little less confidence.

“I want to be like Doctor Schweitzer.” He pronounced the name right this time. Papa was still smiling. Jeanot shot him an arch look. “Why are you laughing? There are very sick leopards in Africa!” He didn’t think ailing leopards was a funny subject at all, and when Maman tried to explain the leopards were fine, it was the people—lepers—that the good Dr. Schweitzer tried to heal, Jeanot was certain his mother was wrong. The people didn’t have spots on them and looked fit if a little thin, but he chose not to argue the point. He did, though, ask about the African air. Both his parents had been in North Africa during the war. “Do you think people breathe differently in Africa? Is the air bad there?”

Papa, who’d contracted malaria while serving with the Free French in Algeria, thought about it for a moment. “I think, maybe yes, Jeanot. I think there are little animals and bugs there that we don’t have here.”

“And we breathe them in?”

“Yes. Or maybe you eat without washing your hands, or the little bugs get into a cut…”

“Really?” Jeanot always had some sort of scrape or cut and he wasn’t that good about handwashing. After the leopard discussion, he went to the bathroom and scrubbed himself pink, including under the fingernails. No African bugs were going to get him.

There were fifteen children at the party, including Babette and Dédé Bourillot who, as always, smelled like raw onions. Papa glared every time Dédé or his parents passed by, but Maman seemed unperturbed. Babette was unexpectedly friendly with Dédé, and Jeanot, although uncomfortable with this new development, was confident that of the two of them, he was the more mature. Babette quickly tired of anything she considered childish; Jeanot had nothing to fear.

Papa had removed all the paintings from one wall of the sitting room and the cinematographer friend set up his projector on a high table. He was a fat man with a mustache and he laughed a lot; too much, Jeanot thought, since they hadn’t seen anything amusing yet. He kept promising the children a wonderful time—he would be showing Disney’s Fantasia—and there would be ice-cream and candy during the intermission, just like at a real movie house.

Dédé whispered, “We went and saw it a week ago! Wait until the dancing mushrooms come out!”

Babette, who’d also seen the movie, made a face.

Jeanot looked at her. How silly was that? Dancing mushrooms, really. He didn’t like mushrooms; they tasted like dirt. “I read that they have dancing hippos,” he said, throwing his two centimes into the conversation. He’d seen photos of the hippos in another magazine, the weekly Mickey. It irked him that Dédé, whom he really didn’t much like, had already seen Fantasia.

Babette said, “Shhh.” The fat man turned off the light, started the projector and, satisfied the reels were rolling smoothly, left the room to rejoin the adults. A six-foot rectangle of light appeared on the wall, thin black lines running through the middle like animated snakes.

With no warning, a woman wearing a Nazi uniform strode onto the screen, whipping a riding crop against her booted leg. There was no sound save for the projector’s fan. Dédé said aloud, “I don’t remember this part,” and was shushed by Babette.

Jeanot whispered, “Germans! Why are there Germans? Papa’s going to get angry.” He knew what Germans were and what a swastika was; everyone in France knew that.

Babette nudged him and said, “Shhh!” again.

The woman faced the camera, slowly unbuttoned her blouse, and dropped it to the ground. Her breasts hung loosely, large brown nipples pointing to her navel, and Dédé, now with certainty, said, “This is NOT Fantasia!”

Babette giggled, elbowed Jeanot in the ribs. The audience was transfixed. The now half-naked Boche, still whipping her leg with the riding crop, turned around and wiggled her rear.

Jeanot leaned to Babette and whispered, “Why is she doing that?”

Before Babette could answer, the woman dropped her skirt. Now she was totally naked save for boots, a German military cap, and the riding crop. She stepped off screen for a moment and returned leading a large man wearing black pants, a striped shirt and a beret. There was no mistaking the nationality. One of the boys hissed, “Sale Boche,” dirty Hun, and Babette nodded.

The booted woman unclasped the man’s belt and lowered his trousers. Jeanot saw the man had no underwear and wondered if perhaps he couldn’t afford them. The woman dropped to her knees and placed the man’s zizi in her mouth. Even Babette gasped. There was embarrassed laughter from the boys; all the girls—except for Babette—hid their eyes behind their hands.

Jeanot stared, mesmerized. Babette, in a rare show of modesty, tried to cover his eyes with a hand. He batted it away. “Don’t! I want to see!”

After a while the woman got on her back and spread her legs. The man lay on her gracelessly, his white pimply rump bobbing up and down. Then he turned the woman around and thrust at her from the rear. A brief view of her face showed boredom and endurance before she turned and smiled for the camera. At this precise moment, the living room door opened. Maman peeked in, asked, “Are you enjoying… Mon Dieu!”

She rushed and pulled the projector’s plug out of the wall. The projector fell to the ground with a thud and Babette laughed. One of the reels came loose and rolled around the floor, disgorging a tumble of film.

Maman turned the lights on. The girls were still covering their eyes—Babette wasn’t—and the boys were open-mouthed. Maman shooed them into another room with promises of chocolate ice cream and cake. She booted the reel across the floor and kicked angrily at the film, then went to find the projectionist.

The children heard yells, curses from both Jeanot’s mother and the fat cinematographer. Jeanot peeked back into the sitting room and saw the projectionist attempting unsuccessfully to wind the film back on the reel as Maman pushed him out the door. He protested that it had been an honest mistake: Fantasia was next to Fantaisies Nazies in his film closet. He and his wife had been running late for the party and he’d grabbed the wrong reel.

Babette appeared beside Jeanot, smiled knowingly and nudged him. “You know what they were doing? They were screwing… He put his thing into her and goes in and out and it makes them both feel good, and then he pees in her and they make a baby.”

Jeanot nodded, not fully understanding but not wanting to appear stupid, either. “They didn’t look like they were feeling good. They looked almost sad.”

Dédé said, “I knew it wasn’t Fantasia!”

Babette momentarily reigned supreme since she was the only one who understood what they had witnessed. She tried hard to clarify it but her explanations fell short. “Did you see? Did you see what he did?” She whispèred again and again to Jeanot. Jeanot simply nodded his head. This was not going to end well, he knew. There would be ramifications, blame assigned, possibly some more yelling and tears.

“We’re going to get in trouble,” he said. “Just watch.”

Babette smirked. “You little kids don’t even know what you saw, do you?” She challenged Jeanot and Dédé again. The latter had told Jeanot that he didn’t like Babette. That was comforting, in a way. Dédé said she was a know-it-all like his cousin, whom he didn’t like either. He professed no interest in naked men and women and said he had come to Jeanot’s party strictly for the cake and a movie. The cake was apparently only so-so. His mother, he scoffed, made better, and he was massively disappointed in the film. He left the room, calling to his parents that he wanted to go home.

There was now a dreadful silence emanating from the gathered adults. The projectionist’s wife was ashen and weeping quietly, protesting she hadn’t known her husband possessed such things; it called into question everything about her marriage. Surely Maman was exaggerating, she insisted. The movie may have been a bit risqué, but pornographic? She pushed past her husband who was still trying to wind the film onto the reel, grabbed a handful of film and held it up to the light. She dropped the offending material as if it were alive. She slapped her husband in the face with a resounding crack, then stumbled out the door gasping apologies.

Parents rushed to their offspring to check on their health. The kids were rounded up and a mother with operatic ambitions led them in song: Frère Jacques, Au Clair de la Lune, and Alouette, and finally, out of sheer desperation, Edith Piaf’s Rien de Rien, which they hummed since no one knew the words except Babette. Small voices reached for the high notes and broke, and when the singing was over almost everyone left, some surreptitiously taking back unopened presents. All that remained were cake crumbs on the floor and half-empty glasses of lemonade and Orangina.

Jeanot watched it all happen as from a distance. He hadn’t been that interested in a party in the first place but was glad some of the presents were left. He sat on the floor and unwrapped them carefully, Babette squatting at his side.

There was a Jokari; a hard rubber ball attached to a long elastic band that in turn was tied to a heavy stand. The game came with two paddles, and Jeanot thought the courtyard would be big enough but wondered who in the apartment complex would have the time to play with him. There were four lead cowboys, a book on Indians of the Amazon, a box of chocolates that was obviously a hand-me-down gift, a scarf, three pairs of socks and four pairs of cotton underwear.

Babette took the box of chocolates and opened it. Three pieces were missing from the center row.

“Who gave you this?”

Jeanot thought it might have been Dédé. That would explain the missing pieces. “I don’t know. Dédé maybe?” He bent down and sniffed the box. It smelled like onions. “Oui. Dédé.”

Babette made a face, selected a chocolate and popped it onto her mouth. She chewed pensively, then gave Jeanot a hug. “You’re going to be much more interesting in a few years, when you understand things.”

Jeanot considered the statement and shrugged it off. “That movie wasn’t fun at all. It was really dumb, and those naked people...ils n’étaient pas beaux. They weren’t very pretty. And they didn’t say anything, or even smile at each other. What was Maman thinking?”

He opened the book on the Amazon and looked for pictures of shrunken heads. He didn’t find any; the photos showed multi-colored birds, men in dirty trousers and raggedy hats, and a lot of green jungle.

He added the new lead cowboys to the Wild West diorama in his room. They were all duplicates and he placed them at opposite ends of the table.

After a while, he and Babette took the Jokari to the courtyard. Babette managed to hit the ball repeatedly, sending it speeding until it reached the end of the elastic and came bounding back. Jeanot swatted at it, missed most of the time, and then found the rhythm of the game. They exchanged strokes until the concierge told them to stop.

When they returned to the apartment, Jeanot said, “Maman told me that it’s storks that bring babies, not naked men and women.”

Babette paused in mid-step, gave him a searching look and said, “Your Maman is wrong.”