Shhh (11 page)

Yes, that's him.

Those who want to know more about Loulou, and how we left together for America on the same ship, and how together we starved in New York, eating noodles every day because we were broke, and how we managed to survive, they can consult
Double or Nothing,
the noodle novel, as my friends call that book.

Not much more to say about swimming, and the boys from my school.

Now I'll go back to the Café Métropole where I watched my father play cards.

When I went to get my father at the café, I knew when he was winning because while I waited for his game to be over, he would order
un citron pressé
for me. The days when he was losing I didn't get one. And when he came home he was always in a bad mood, and he would argue with my mother, and she would cry. My mother cried a lot in her short life.

The only day when my father would come home for dinner regularly was Friday. Not because it was the beginning of the Sabbath. In our home, we didn't pay attention to the Sabbath or any religious holidays. My father was an Atheist. So my sisters and I were raised without any religion. During my entire childhood I never set foot in a synagogue, and I knew nothing of Jewish customs. I was not even
Bar Mitzvad.
Though I was circumcised. That much I can prove. My cousin Salomon, he was
Bar Mitzvad.
And I remember how all the aunts and uncles brought him lots of presents.

Once in a while Maman would tell us about God and the Jewish religion, but she always spoke in a low voice. She had learned the religious customs in her orphanage, but she was afraid to talk about them because of my father.

Anyway. One of these customs is to eat carp on Friday before the Sabbath. And my father loved carp. So he always gave my mother extra money to buy a carp, and always came home for dinner on Fridays. My sisters and I, we didn't like eating carp, but Maman would say it was good for us, and so we were forced to eat it, except for the head with the eyes. We were scared of the head with its big eyes. But my father he ate everything, the whole head and the eyes. He ate it cold with aspic. Though, I remember how one evening Papa almost choked when he swallowed one of the fish-bones. My mother got scared. He was all red and coughing. But he finally managed to spit it out.

I liked Fridays because I could play with the carp before my mother cooked it. In the morning she would go to the fish market to buy a live carp which she kept alive all day in a wash basin full of water. The same one she used to bathe me in. My sisters didn't play with the carp because they were afraid. But me, when I came home from school I would quickly finish my homework to be able to play with the carp. I would put a wine bottle cork in the water and I would push it with my finger towards the carp as if it were a little boat, and the carp would swim away from the cork. While playing with the carp I would imagine far away places on the other side of the ocean. Except that I had never seen the ocean. I saw it for the first time when I left on the boat for America.

No, I'm mistaken. I had seen the sea, once. In Trouville. Now I remember.

Ah, the holes in memory.

I'll tell that now before I forget it again.

One day Papa came home all happy. We knew immediately that he had won money at the races. Before even taking off his coat, he emptied his pockets on the table. It was just before dinner. I was in the middle of setting the table. He pushed aside the plates and he dropped a pile of hundred francs bills on the table. A huge pile. I had never seen so much money.

My mother didn't say anything, but I could see that she was happy too because now she could buy more food, and maybe even some new clothes. But after Papa gave her some of the bills, he put the rest of the money back in his pocket, and started laughing. He picked up my little sister Jacqueline and did a pirouette holding her above his head. We were all so happy that day. And then he said, Tomorrow is Sunday, tomorrow we are all going to the beach in Trouville.

My sisters and I were jumping with joy. But my mother didn't seem very pleased about this idea of going to Trouville. She knew why Papa wanted to go there. My sisters and I, we didn't know. We didn't know that there was a casino in Trouville.

So early the next morning we took the train to Trouville. It was the first time on a train for my sisters and I.

Later, when we were a little older, we took the train twice to go on vacation. As I mentioned before, the city of Montrouge would send the children of the poor to spend two weeks on farms in Le Poitou. I'll tell more about that later. But that day, when we went to Trouville, it was our first time on a train.

We had our faces pressed against the window looking in awe at the trees speeding by, the fields, the farm houses, the cows. We were laughing, and shouting, Look,
regarde les vaches.
Oh, look over there, sheep, and a horse. We were so happy, and I think that made Maman happy too. When we arrived in Trouville, Papa bought each of us, my sisters and me, a little pail and a shovel so we could play in the sand on the beach. This was before Maman bought us bathing suits, so that day we were wearing shorts.

So here we are on the beach. It was a beautiful sunny day. Maman didn't have a bathing suit. She was wearing the dress she wore every day. She sat on one of the towels she had brought along, she pulled her dress up around her thighs so her legs could get suntanned. And she put a handkerchief on her head. It was one of the few times I saw my mother smile.

My sisters and I were afraid to go in the water. We were still very young. We were afraid of the waves. So we stayed on the edge of the surf and put only our feet in, but when the waves came rushing at us we would jump back, and the water would splash us. Maman kept calling out to us, don't go in. Be careful. Come back here and play with your pails.

As soon as we arrived on the beach, Papa said he was going for a walk. Of course, he went to the casino. I didn't know then what a casino was, but when he came back later in the afternoon Maman screamed at him for having lost all the money playing roulette.

We immediately left for the train station. We didn't even stay until evening in Trouville. We went back to Montrouge on an early train. But at least, I had seen the sea ...

You know, Federman, what you are telling is not really the story of your childhood. Except for a few anecdotes about what you did or what you endured when you were a kid, it's mostly the story of your parents that you are in the process of telling. You tell more about your father and your mother than about yourself. You don't stop talking about them.

It's true that it's about them that I say the most. Finally, this book will be their story. Well, part of their story. The beginning..

You also tell a lot about your uncle Leon, your aunt Marie, and your cousin Salomon.

You're right that Leon and Marie are very present in what I am telling.

In fact, Federman, the book you are writing is really the story of a house. The house in Montrouge in which you spent your childhood with your family, but also with Leon, Marie, and Salomon.

I do tell a lot about that house, as if it were still haunting me. Perhaps that's why I am so obsessed by it. Yes, for me it is a haunted house.

Well, to go on with the house, I'll tell now how one day my uncle Leon decided to plant a tree in the courtyard.

One day Leon decided to plant a tree in front of the house in the middle of the courtyard with a flower bed around it. When Leon decided something, no one could argue with him.

Me, I was afraid that he would make me dig the hole to plant his tree. But no. My cousin Salomon was also afraid that his father would make him plant the tree. But no. Leon said that he would do it himself because he didn't trust anyone else to do it properly.

So my uncle took off his jacket and his vest, loosened his tie, rolled up the sleeves of his shirt all the way to the black garters around the top of the sleeves. Then he carried his tree, that was not that big, but still quite heavy, to the center of the yard. Exactly at the center, because Leon had measured the distance of the yard from one wall to the other. The yard was square. That's how he was able to determine where the center was. Leon was very meticulous. And then he started breaking the asphalt that covered the entire yard to make a circle in the ground with a pickaxe so he could plant his tree and his flowers.

Once he was satisfied with the circle he had made, he began to dig into the dirt with a spade. As he worked he became more and more red and sweaty.

I forgot to mention that it was a rather hot spring day.

All the people in the building were at their windows watching him. Even the anti-Semites on the main floor.

Oh, now I remember, he was wearing suspenders. I don't know why I suddenly remember those suspenders. They were mauve, like those of Adolphe in the
Rendez-vous des Cheminots
that gave Roquentin
la nausée.

Wow! was Leon sweating. His shirt was all wet in the back. And he was groaning as he kept digging. My uncle Leon was not a very strong man. He was tall but not very muscular. He was not built for manual labor. To sew clothes with a sewing machine is not the kind of work that requires big muscles. His skin was white, and we could see the swollen veins of his arms as he kept digging the hard ground.

Finally, when the hole was deep enough he set the tree into it, closed the hole around the roots with dirt, and then he leaned on his spade to admire his work. All the people at the windows applauded, and me too.

Leon didn't say anything. But it was obvious from the way he leaned on his spade, that he was pleased with his work. But to tell the truth, Leon's tree never grew. It remained a miniature tree. It always looked like it was dying. A moribund tree. During my entire childhood the tree never grew. Even when spring came, it had only a few leaves. But to have seen Leon plant that tree has remained a memorable day for me. I saw how my uncle Leon made himself ridiculous.

Since I am telling about my uncle Leon, I should describe the atelier where he worked. The atelier had a large window, a vitrine that opened onto the street. The people who walked past would sometimes stop to watch Leon and Marie work.

Above the window, carved into the wall, there was a sign that said
Leon Tailleur.
I remember the day that sign was carved into the wall.

Leon stood in the street, facing the house, admiring that sign with satisfaction.

Even though Leon was just a tailor in a proletarian suburb, and not one of the famous tailors in the swanky neighborhoods of Paris, he was proud of the suits he made for his rich clients.

Leon and Marie spent their entire day working relentlessly in the atelier making men's suits. From early in the morning till late in the evening, they would sew, by hand and the sewing machine. They would measure and cut the fabric, press the suits with the big steam iron, day after day, even on Sundays. The atelier was like a factory, a mini-factory. Oh, the steam iron was heated with coal on a small stove in the middle of the atelier. It was very heavy.

I spent a lot of time in that atelier because when I'd finished my homework and wanted to go play in the street, I would try to sneak past the windows of the atelier, but Leon would call me, and he would find something for me to do. Picking up with a small magnet the pins and needles that had fallen between the cracks of the wooden floor, or gathering the little pieces of cloth that had fallen to the ground when Leon was cutting the fabric with his large scissors. If there was nothing for me to do in the atelier, he would have me clean the W.C. in the courtyard. Oh, did I hate doing these chores. It made me angry. The worst was when he sent me to the cellar to get coal. But I never complained. I was too shy, too ...

Federman you've said all that before, Leon the tailor, the cellar, the rats, the out-house.

I know, I know, but I'm remembering more details. Besides, as it has been said before, the persistence of the
twofold vibration
suggests that in this old abode all is not yet quite for the best.

While I was doing all these chores, my cousin Salomon was upstairs supposedly doing his homework or practicing his piano, but instead he was reading the coming books that he sent me to buy for him. Or else masturbating.

In the evening, after they closed the atelier, Leon and Marie would continue to work late into the night in their apartment. So that the people in the street would not see the light, and wonder why they were working so late, they would cover the windows with blankets, the way people in the cities had to do when the war started because of the alerts. I suppose it's because Leon and Marie worked so hard that they were so rich.

Well, I think that's enough about them and their atelier.

Now I should perhaps say more about the shit-house in the courtyard, and about the staircase that always smelled as though there was something rotten in it. And I should also tell about the young woman who lived on the same floor as us, in a one room apartment to the right of the landing. Her name was Yvette. I've never forgotten her. She was beautiful. Later you'll hear what happened one day with Yvette when I was a young boy, and she ...

Federman, you know you're really going too far with these postponements, and all these I'll tell later, I'll tell later. Why don't you tell the story of Yvette now?

If I get into another detour in the middle of what I'm telling, it's going to mess up everything. There won't be any continuity in the story. I just want to finish the description of the house.

So what else is new. That's all you do is mess up continuity page after page with all your detours and digressions .

Alright then, I'll tell about Yvette now.

One day, my father tired of hearing my mother complain that he didn't give her enough money to feed the children decided to do something about it. He decided that he would make money by selling things at the flea market,
le marché aux puces
of Montrouge. Somehow he managed to borrow a hand-cart, and he and my mother loaded it with all kinds of things—kitchen utensils, pots and pans, old pieces of furniture, even used clothes. I have no idea where they got all that
camelote,
as my father called it. Probably from some of the uncles and aunts who didn't need those things any more.