Palafox (2 page)
Authors: Eric Chevillard
Two weeks ago Palafox was dying, it was only an attempt. He recuperated quickly. One morning at dawn, he made his cry heard, which is to say, a sort of chirping, or more of a meowing, or more of a barking, or more of a lowing, well that’s almost it, a roar, or more exactly a trumpeting, yes, that’s the word, a sort of chirping. Then he bit Chancelade, drawing blood from the hand that was giving him crumbs to peck at. Such were the first signs of his recovery. Two days later, his condition was no longer a matter of concern. Palafox leapt from his fishbowl, nestled between Maureen’s feet, scaled her back, bit her ear. She alone, by the way, could get near him. Despite his experience with diplomacy and rosebushes, Algernon himself had to retreat. Palafox devoured a sofa. It wasn’t a valuable piece of furniture, but our friend was attached to it for sentimental reasons, keeping it as an act of charity, in gratitude for services rendered. Even with his back to the wall, he wouldn’t have swallowed a single mouthful, the littlest morsel. A declaration of war was signed over the sofa. It was soft. It knew how to be firm. Women knew they could count on it, always available when they needed it to faint on, it was waiting. But nothing now is left, only the glimmer in our memories. A painting by father Buffoon, hobbyist, shows it still solidly settled on dachshundly hams, green against a scarlet background, shrewdly emphasized by the big bouquets of feathers, the baskets of flowers and fruits arranged around it, and by the naked courtesan, perhaps a bit overweight, lounging with complete abandon, thinking herself alone. Palafox next attacked a Louis XV sideboard attributed to the workshop of Charles Topino. Algernon had every reason to believe it was. Naturally, the left panel dated from much later. But the workmanship, the finish, the particular care given over to details, all of it seemed to indicate a work by the famous cabinetmaker.
You get them when they’re little, they’re adorable, so affectionate, you grow attached to their clumsiness, they grow up fast, their instincts awaken, then they become dangerous, Palafox constituted a permanent menace to everyone’s health and possessions. He broke the Chinese vase, or so-called. He refused to get into his cage, slept in a ball on a rug, fed on furniture, books or paintings, and to drink? Algernon’s multifaceted liqueurs. Maureen put herself in the fray, redoubled her efforts, she did not succeed at making him go back into the bowl. She tried her best to cajole him with caresses, sweets, she wanted him to be attached. He bared his belly to her palm but rejected every treat but his leash.
What about a strong sedative? Chancelade didn’t relish the thought either, it was just a suggestion. Zoologists called in to consult could doubtless explain Palafox’s behavior. Perhaps he was doing no more or less than obeying species-specific imperatives. Perhaps he was being little more than faithful to his nature. But before passing judgment, they would want to observe him in his habitat. They needed to be done with it. Algernon, Chancelade and Maureen approached the animal carefully, Chancelade in the center a bit behind the other two, all three backs bent over, all six hands extended, a recommended formation when trapping a goose in a pen, someone makes a move and wrings its neck, plucks it, guts it, trusses it, puts it on a spit, feasts upon it, whereas Palafox slipped through their fingers. Because Palafox is, recall, miniscule. With a flea-like leap he hid in the flowerbox. Amidst plants - philodendra, lilies, dauphinelles, aspidistras, dwarf palms - his frail frame, cylindrical, greenish, foliaceous paws lightly downy, blended in. Palafox was outsmarting them, there was no time to lose. They brought out the big guns. Fire. As if they were going to roast the goose now. Fire, there was the answer. Fires drive fauna from flora, would you lay eggs in a burning oak? Algernon struck a match.
When man discovered it, stumbled over it in his wanderings, fire turned all red and began to dance a jig. A strange reaction which it still maintains today, after thousands of years of complicity and pyromania. The flowerbox burst into flame, a young philodendron shoot tore itself away from the inferno screaming, falling into Algernon’s hands. Palafox was put into the box of matches, without the matches. Maureen punched ten, and then another five, little holes, fifteen in all. Upon which Chancelade took a deep breath and left for the front.
2.
No need to cite all their books, those by professors Zeiger, Cambrelin, Pierpont, Baruglio, as if any of them required an introduction. It took them a great deal of study and effort to get them where they are, they had read a great deal, traveled, waited forever in blinds, tricked hunger with thirst, thirst with cold, cold with fear, fear with boredom and boredom, finally, with hunger. Henceforth bald, their precious knowledge under glass, they have little left to learn.
Let’s take Pierpont, the entomologist. After months of daily contact, he succeeded in quieting first the suspicion then, second stage, winning the trust of a colony of damselflies more commonly called dragonflies and more vulgarly still damselflies, they allowed him to play with them, go on their excursions, in exchange at first for a few sweets, then without anything in return, in friendship, in brotherhood, an adopted damselfly integrated into the group arousing neither fear nor curiosity, only the desire of the females in spring. The fear that gripped him at the beginning of the experience - he confessed it without false shame as soon as he recovered the use of words, after several weeks of reeducation, before a gathering that was taken aback to see the scrawny attendee try to scale his carafe - soon made room for a feeling of security, shocking when one knew the native nastiness and the strength of these animals. He could turn his back on them without fright. In the end, he slept without his weapon. Baruglio had followed the opposite initiative, no less rich in discoveries. Rather than going to live among the reptiles (he had no desire to drag his family with him), the celebrated herpetologist raised one in his home, like a son, having scrupulously recreated its Madagascar habitat in a cupboard. Could one imagine better conditions for the study of an animal? Its every gesture and deed, its daily routine, nothing escapes the observer who dwells on the grounds in these places, rises at dawn to exchange bittersweet words with his mate, drinks some coffee, reads the papers, answers the mail, lunches at noon, half-past, drinks a cognac, shuts himself in his laboratory until evening - where he is not to be disturbed under any circumstances - dines at the stroke of seven, half-past, steps out onto the balcony, contemplates street and sky, dispassionately flips through professional journals, swallows a sleeping pill, kisses his companion on the forehead, and falls asleep on his belly - yes, it is odd, almost systematically on the forehead and on his belly. The information made the rounds of the building, people came down from upstairs to watch Baruglio handle his reptile. All the same, certain neighbors complained, necessitating the immediate elimination of the creature. She seemed so sweet, inoffensive even, but how could one say what a wild animal would do in captivity? One way or another reptiles eventually escape into the sewers, it’s common knowledge. A petition circulated. Baruglio put an end to the experiment, and got rid of his blue radiata tortoise.
These two eminent zoologists responded to Algernon’s call. But let’s not forget professor Zeigler, polyglottal ornithologist able to imitate beyond reproach the calls or wheezes of some sixty birds, who could, thanks to his gift of the gab, marry an ostrich, however much he hesitated to do so. Finally Cambrelin, the ichthyologist, was sent by Sadarnac. This one claims whenever he gets a chance to have harpooned Palafox in the middle of the wide Sargasso Sea, after having missed him once in the Floridian Straits. A lie. Specialists not without other interests, Pierpont, Zeigler, Baruglio, and Cambrelin do not know all there is to know about wild animals, batrachians, rodents, mollusks, ruminants, primates, or seafood. Algernon entrusted them with Palafox. The four men made a circle around the glass cage where the exposed animal finally remained calm. Zeiger examined his eyes, his nostrils, his crest, Cambrelin his right side, Baruglio his rump, Pierpont his left hand, turn please, Pierpont his eyes, his groin, his goatee, Zeigler his right arm, Cambrelin his stinger, Baruglio his left wing, turn please, Baruglio his eyes, his beak, his antennae, Pierpont his right fin, Zeigler his flat, trowel-like tail, Cambrelin his left side, please turn, Cambrelin examines his eyes, his wattles, his horns, Baruglio his right gill, Pierpont his rectrices, Zeigler his left arm, they look at each other, yes, they would do well to dissect Palafox. They decide against it. Certain organisms do not tolerate well being cut into pieces, their hearts beat anxiously when handed around, and the effects of such shock to the nervous system tend to have unpredictable results, one example alone, there is nothing harder in all the world than to get a quartered thoroughbred to gallop. We content ourselves, then, with a few dermatological samples, some muscle, a bit of blood, bone and cartilage, which shouldn’t prevent the well-trained Palafox from carrying its jockey on to victory.
The arrangement satisfied everyone, after which everything went to hell. Pierpont and Zeigler begin to quarrel, brothers however, and with shared experiences - ah! these drinking orgies - who had stuck together when fireless winters encroached upon womanless springs, when you would’ve swallowed your own brain if you could to fill your belly, before either had tasted glory or had tossed to the public (beaten, standing, unleashed) the wolf at the door and the ears of a mad cow. Their friendship came to an end the day when the unforgivable ornithologist forgot the entomologist’s precious collection of coleopteran beetles in the aviary, in particular the weevil, the Capricorn beetle, the carob, and the june bug, thus the sapphire faded, the ruby, the topaz and emerald, all these gems fading, their value evaporating, soon to be gravel. The dispute is about Palafox’s nervous system. Pierpont refuses to use sulfuric acid, even in the interests of pacific experimental ends. Zeiger, on the contrary, swears by the benefits of the process, very popular with frogs, which allows for immediate observations, reproducible at will, thanks to which schoolchildren learn to develop their reflexes and respond intelligently to stimuli. Let’s admit that nothing could be funnier. A few drops of acid induce a string of irresistible visual gags, we might even believe we’ve been transported back to the golden age of silent film: the frog tears itself free of the cork board upon which it was resting, lazily, pinned, decorative, jumping like it possessed magic beans or the winning number or the solution to all the world’s problems, upending the contents of the laboratory, leaping into the middle of the retorts, devoting itself without believing in them to chemical experiments, alchemical, obtaining white precipitates, black precipitates, buttressing itself against the tip of the Bunsen burner, it melts lead, cinnabar, at whim, sipping bubbly alcohols, drawing liquid out of gold and from
eau regale,
inhaling the mix, obtaining this time a thick red smoke, a laugh-inducing tear gas, leaving no one indifferent - its number is up when it implodes, happily we have plenty of others, a whole crate.
eau regale,
inhaling the mix, obtaining this time a thick red smoke, a laugh-inducing tear gas, leaving no one indifferent - its number is up when it implodes, happily we have plenty of others, a whole crate.
Whereas Palafox is a rare specimen in our experience, Pierpont counters, perhaps the last, perhaps the first. Let’s not make another move, let’s watch it gather pollen, distill caterpillars, and weave its web and soon we will know everything about it. You see, with this sort of trunk linked to his digestive tube, how he pumps the nectar from flowers. On his rear paws, there, there, come closer, that there, we see miniscule balls of propolys, resin gathered on buds, which will allow him to caulk the cracks in his habitat, reinforce the attachment of these strips of wax, and to stickily ensnare the aphids he eats from time to time. Look at the progress we are making. These first observations are interesting actually, admitted Cambrelin, but, that said, let’s be reasonable. Think of all the errors made in the past in the classification of living things. We had first thought the whale a fish, for example, in those days when men were trusting and naïve. Today, we presume they belong to the same group as our own, dear Maureen, that of mammals, but a researcher more in the know, and better equipped as well, let it be said, perhaps will tomorrow discover that in reality it is a passerine, however heavy, a pretty sparrow. So let’s not go crazy here.
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