We’d just finished dinner. Our tribe was huddled round the table waiting for big chief – my father – to finish his dessert. Auntie Agnès had previously baked two cherry tarts. Well, I think they were cherries judging by the stones. You had to be dying of hunger to face eating this lump of utterly tasteless glutinous pastry and custard mess.
The men had automatically requisitioned the heavy wooden chairs, except for Uncle Gus who gave his to Auntie Cynthia while he made do (just like the women) with one of the folding chairs brought in by Uncle Michel and himself. Caroline and I sat on wonky three-legged stools previously employed as pot stands for the shriveled geraniums in the front of the house. Not only were these stools hard and uncomfortable for my skinny posterior, they were also roughly hewn (made with an axe no doubt), and I got a splinter in my left buttock.
During the meal, I tried to get Valérie’s attention with smiles, to no avail since she was in deep conversation with Uncle Michel. As it happens, Uncle Michel and Auntie Agnès had both placed a fleece on their chair seats. They explained how there’s nothing better than a fleece for capturing ambient vibrations.
I don’t know about vibrations, but the fleeces certainly made their presence known. Very strongly! They stunk so much they must have steeped them in excrement or something.
Auntie Cynthia complained about the smell and for once she was right, but Auntie Agnès briskly retorted that it wasn’t an unpleasant smell, that ‘townies’ noses were simply unaccustomed to good, natural smells. Secondly, she said that there was nothing in the world more comfortable to sit on than a fleece and nothing healthier because of the way they remove negative energy.
Well, they certainly don’t remove stink energy. Ah! You should have seen Uncle Michel lovingly stroking his rough, threadbare fleece explaining, “It’s alive you see. It speaks to you and gives you warmth; it’s a completely different sensation than metal, plastic or wood for example.”
Auntie Agnès added, “Yes, it’s more communicative and much warmer than wood. In fact, we take these fleeces everywhere we go. They belonged to a couple of sheep we were particularly fond of. It’s a way of communicating with them through a field of perception that not everyone can access. Like everything, of course, it takes practice.”
We were used to their metaphysical inanities, but these two fruitcakes still managed to surprise us. I couldn’t help feeling true and amused affection for my aunt and uncle. Actually, I often had fun times at their place if I ignored their zaniness, their organic food on good days and macrobiotic on bad days.
That evening, we made do with a frugal meal of tinned ravioli unearthed from one of the sideboard shelves. Nobody had thought about bringing a few supplies for the day or going out to a restaurant. The fridge contained a slab of rancid butter, a handful of rotten vegetables and half a dozen decaying pork cutlets which gave off a pestilential smell much to Uncle Michel’s delight, because, as he pointed out, the origin of the rotten smells people had been complaining about had wrongly been blamed on his precious fleeces. The bravest among us made do with a hard piece of bread also fished out from the sideboard, on which mice had left a few hard, black mementos: probably a protest about breaking their teeth on such hard bread.
The cutlery and plates were adorned with original egg yolk designs and other doubtful substances, now become permanent fixtures. Uncle Gus and Uncle Michel saved the day again by bringing out their own respective sets of camping equipment: plastic knives and forks, cardboard plates and paper napkins.
Stomachs had begun their struggle with Aunt Agnès’ dessert a good fifteen minutes previously, and we were still waiting for my father, still deep in conversation, to take the situation in hand. Actually, we were waiting for him to tell us what to do and how to go about it. His authority was incontestable in the family. Being the eldest, his brothers relied on him when there was a problem. And this time, the problem wasn’t a mere trifle.
At last, my father cleared his throat, meaning that he was about to speak. A general hush descended through a sort of tacit and subconscious agreement. It wasn’t that anyone was afraid of him, nor was it from deference; it was because we knew that he was our main key to success. We were about to face a tough combat and there is no combat without an army and an army chief. He was the authority and, more importantly, our hope.
He had to infuse the necessary energy into our troops to secure our victory. He had to talk plans, discipline, organization, courage, and, not least, success and fortune. This is precisely what he did with definite flair.
As I listened to his speech, I could tell he would accept no contestation to his decisions and leadership. At that point in time, no one was harboring those thoughts anyway; you don’t get in the way of someone who promises you a fortune. Have you ever heard of a clairvoyant announcing disease, unemployment and other disasters to clients? Of course not. They charm the client by promising lottery wins, return to health, employment and so on. We only listen to and follow people who fuel our dreams.
"Well,” he began.
Our leader punctuated his ‘well’ with a short pause, carefully choosing his words (the long pause being a measure of the hope we placed in him), “I’ll begin with a short résumé of the situation and then suggest a plan of action. We can’t go about this any old how, any old place and any old where you see. We have to get org-an-ized! Organization: that’s the Key Word! (We were hanging onto his every word). The State of Affairs is as follows: our aunt has hidden a turquoise pendent on her property, the whereabouts of which we do not know. It’s up to us to find out. As a ballpark, there’s approximately a hectare of land to search.”
“Phewww! Aren’t we fighting a losing battle?” whistled Uncle Gus. “If I remember correctly, that stone isn’t any bigger than my thumb. It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack!”
It was a shame for Gus that he’d aired his concerns.
“You poor man; how typical!” spat Auntie Cynthia. “With that kind of attitude, you’ll never get anywhere in life!”
She turned towards us, seething venom, “My husband is a vegetable! He has no passion, no ambition, no willpower! He’s incapable of taking the tiniest initiative! I married a loser! A loser!” she repeated, incensed.
“We’re all different,” said Auntie Agnès diplomatically. “We can't all have the mindset of a golden boy,” she continued, attempting to lighten things up. “And don't forget: too much ambition distorts the mind.”
Now she was preaching for her parish because her husband was hardly a business tycoon either. Of all four brothers, Michel earned the lowest salary, but since his needs were also minimal, his financial situation was a lot less worrying than Uncle Gus’ with his ‘burdensome and devouring spouse’ (a term coined by my father).
“It seems I didn’t quite make myself clear,” replied the ‘vegetable’ with his usual placidness. “I wasn’t trying to undermine your… our… determination, but I was simply trying to point out that….”
“Blah, blah, blah,” my father snarled. “We don’t need more talking now, we need action!”
Auntie Cynthia verbally clobbered her spouse with a “listen to your brother! At least HE’S got a head on his shoulders!”
“My guess is that that bitch Aunt Lucie ain’t going to screw us for much longer!”
“Really Bernard, ‘that bitch’,” protested my mother. “You are talking about your aunt, just buried you know! I know her behavior wasn’t...”
“And I'll say ‘that bitch’ if I want to!” he yammered. “And I mean it! Because when you’ve got millions in the bank you don’t go messing people around with this sort of crap! Hide the stone, then make up a riddle, and then insult the only remaining family I’ve got and fool everyone around – may she go to hell!”
His voice rose in synchrony with the color of his cheeks.
“So, if I feel like calling her a bitch, I’ll call her a bitch, and that’s being charitable! And I’ll do it in front of the children if I please!”
Actually, the children were delighted at this excess of anger and regretted that the ‘charitable’ side of my father prevented him from using some of his spicier insults.
“The fortune is there,” he began with authority. “We’ve checked the bank accounts. The turquoise exists as we’ve seen in the photograph, so therefore it’s up to us to join ranks and not get discouraged (looking daggers at Uncle Gus). It’s up to us to use our noggins, to get organized and to create a happy ending, I hope, to this painful affair!”
There followed a concert of “Good for you!” “Bravo Uncle!” “We’re all behind you!” “You rock Bernard”: enthusiastic praise for his galvanizing speech. The hearts of his audience had been definitively won over.
“We’re going to focus our search on several plans of attack,” he added, quieting the troop with an authoritative arm sweep. “We’ll form two groups. The first group will be in charge of land reconnaissance and inspection, and the second, which will be a sort of think tank, will study the riddle as it has been set out for us. And I remind you that the riddle is as follows: I should be warm and cozy but sheltered from the sun.”
“I’ve got it! All we have to do is look for a parasol!” joked Uncle Émile with his usual humor.
A few scant laughs punctuated his little interlude.
“You can laugh,” scolded my father, “but let me remind you that if, in one month’s time, we haven’t solved this rigmarole, we can bid farewell to the cash!”
These last words fell like a cold shower on the frolicsome gathering. It is not done to displease the Great Sage when he’s spreading the good word: you must simply kowtow and revere him.
“I’m not in the mood for jokes,” continued the Sage. “There’s two million at stake! For each of us! I’ve calculated it!”
We could hardly believe it. We stopped smiling and stopped breathing.
“Um, huh, do you have any idea how to organize these two groups?” Uncle Émile meekly inquired, trying to remain low-profile after displeasing the Master of Ceremonies.
“Since you ask,” answered his brother, more softly now, “here is how I see things — I don’t want to impose my views of course — but I believe they deserve all your attention.” (How sweet when modesty and talent converge) “For the reconnaissance group, we need outdoor types who are active, inquisitive and who aren’t afraid of getting their hands dirty when it comes to physical work. Émile, Michel and I will make up this group. Gustave and Agnès will be the think tank — we need brains for this job, so we’ll let the teaching corps illuminate us. I’m sure Agnès’ drive and enthusiasm will help galvanize this chump.” (‘this chump’ meaning Gus).
Auntie Agnès had left the teaching profession to seek her ‘inner self’, her ‘super self’, ‘the beyond’ and the rest of it, and, in view of this, I found my father’s attitude rather optimistic as to the hypothetical efficiency of the think tank delegates.
“Valérie and Joseph will be our liaison officers; they will coordinate the efforts of the two groups. As for Simone, Nathalie and Cynthia, they will handle resources and stewardship.”
“Stewardship?” enquired Auntie Nathalie, dubious.
“Chow! And supplies. Well, somebody has to take care of it.”
“I don’t see why Agnès would be the only one exempt from kitchen duties!” protested Auntie Cynthia. “Besides, we women have yet again been relegated to domestic chores!”
“Don’t undervalue the importance of your role,” replied my father, “without you, we wouldn’t be able to devote all our time to the search. As for Agnès, I’m sure she’ll be more useful in the think tank.”
I must admit, Pater proved to be a leader and tactician of the highest caliber. Not only had he just planned with strategic diligence and quasi military mastery the minutiae of our deeds and gestures, he had also skillfully and tactfully distanced Auntie Agnès from the kitchen. What a relief! I reflected with a certain amount of distaste on the horrors we were narrowly escaping: gooey pasta made with organic flour, tomato and banana jams, dismal elderberry liqueur (generous in Vitamin C provided you could actually swallow it), acacia-flower fritters, which were potentially delicious had she not seasoned them with ditch-growing weeds with fibrous stems and a sour taste; even the herbivores on their farm avoided munching them (as I had observed with a mild degree of concern).
Eyeing the members of the assembly all talking amongst themselves, I grasped the subtle play of alliances and the insidious establishment of a hierarchy (I have always hated that word; it honks right to the last syllable).
At the top of the pyramid was my father, presiding. One notch down, there were his direct assessors, namely Uncle Émile and Uncle Michel. The three of them made up the elite. Then came the cooks who were in charge of (and in the privileged position of) feeding this elite. Finally, right at the bottom of the pyramid there were the thinkers (a most unimpressive role), followed by the youth (aka ‘the underlings’).
“Perfect,” continued the Big Boss. “As for the riddle, no need to rack our brains from noon till night; Auntie Lulu wasn’t the livest wire under the Big Top of Thought. “Sheltered from the sun” simply means that the turquoise is not outside and must therefore be hidden somewhere in the house; “warm and cozy,” well that probably just means it’s somewhere warm like the fireplace or the cooker. It’s LO-GI-CAL,” he thundered with force. “Having said that, has anyone got any other ideas?’
Damn it! It sure was smoking under the paternal ‘Big Top’! A studious, contemplative silence floated in the ranks.
Hush was unexpectedly pierced by Caroline’s cheery voice, “I know something!”
“Let the adults talk in peace! You don’t know what we’re talking about,” growled Uncle Émile.
Uncle Émile must have been really stressed out to talk to his darling girl like that.
“Let her speak,” objected Auntie Agnès. “Children often have extrasensory perceptions — a foreknowing us adults have forgotten. Their karma is more vibratory (I can believe that alright: this little demon’s karma made my nerves vibrate more than once). It’s not all about intelligence.”
“Are you saying my daughter’s an idiot and, while you’re at it, do you take her for Joan of Arc?” roared Uncle Émile. “I don’t know what the hell you’re on about with all this extrasensory gibberish, but I won’t let you insult my daughter!”
“But Émile, I wasn’t insulting Caroline, I was just trying to explain that...”
“That she’s a nutcase with hallucinations!” he cut in, shouting. “My daughter doesn’t have visions! And neither do I, except at night after swallowing some of your macrobiotic soup!”
“My poor Émile,” she replied bitterly. “How pig-headed you are! It is unfortunate that your culinary ambitions are limited to hormone-drenched meat, industrial French fries and wines spiked with chemicals!”
“At least they don’t give me the HERSHEY SQUIRTS!” he exploded.
“Please, Émile, stop!” pleaded Auntie Nathalie. “Not in front of the children.”
“Your wife’s right,” Uncle Gus chipped in. “Do try to calm down. Agnès never meant to say that Caroline was stupid. She merely meant that the child has natural gifts of childhood… a sort of innate talent.”
An innate talent to piss everyone off more like. I could agree with that.
“Right. Well if that’s what she meant,” huffed Uncle Émile, “I agree I was wrong and I apologize for getting slightly annoyed.”
“Slightly annoyed!” protested Auntie Agnès, “I can accept your disbelief about extrasensory phenomena, but you just insulted my femininity by vilifying my cooking — cooking which takes me a lot of time and effort. And nobody else has ever complained before.”
The truth is, we all took precautionary measures: bicarbonate of soda when the meals were edible, otherwise, emptying our plates into the dog’s bowl when she wasn’t looking. I was the one chosen to fill the dog’s bowl. One day, nobody could eat Auntie Agnès’ special cassoulet, so the dog inherited the entire untouched contents of our plates. The poor beast whimpered for two days with dreadful colic. Goodness, did we laugh that time!
“So where did you see this ring?” Uncle Émile asked his daughter in a softer tone of voice.
“Uh, in a dream,” she answered.
Uncle Émile turned to his wife and mumbled wearily, “Why don’t you put her to bed now? I can see she’s tired.”
“I’m not tired,” bawled the Brat. “I want to stay with you to find the treasure!”
“Don’t worry, angel,” replied my father. “We won’t look for it without you. We’re all off to bed now. After a good night’s sleep, the money will be ours for the taking!”
‘The angel’ shut up. However, ‘it’ still had enough stamina to stick its tongue out at me before leaving. She hadn’t had the chance to poison me with her ‘slug kiss’, so she was making up for it as best she could.
As she disappeared (into a soft and benevolent night) with her mother and Uncle Michel and Auntie Agnès, an idle thought came to me which I found very pleasant, and I promised myself that I would write it down for posterity:
The Brat fell asleep…leaving the men in peace.
A settled feeling descended on the house as its new occupiers went off to magical and enchanted lands where rich and generous benefactors bequeathed their fortunes to young, carefree heirs (does this ever happen?), into heavenly lands where uncles, aunts and other relatives hand down all of their assets to beneficiaries with heartwarming thoughtfulness. In these marvelous worlds, no inheritance tax, no incidental fees, no sick riddles or old bitches with fanciful ideas – no, nothing like that. In these paradise lands, only deeply satisfied heirs contemplating their fortunes.
As for me, I was simply content to look up at the stars in the company of a woman I was discovering slowly but surely: my cousin Valérie. We were lying on our backs observing the stars sparkling like diamonds overhead. They were beautiful and soundless, ‘qualities that you’ll never find in a woman,’ as Uncle Émile might have said. Of course, the stars didn’t have much else to do that evening and neither did we except contemplate them in silence. The halo of the moon shone down on the sleeping countryside, and its rays merged with the electric light bulb located just above the front door.
This ‘woman’ was lying in the grass next to me, and I forced myself to look up at the sky so as not to stare at the undulating curvature of her breasts. A curvature which instilled in me a feeling of shame mixed with desire. When we left the table, Valérie suggested we take a walk outside and talk for a while. I accepted gladly. Besides, I was in no hurry to go to the tent with the restless, slumbering Brat and the fetid smell of old fleeces which Uncle Michel had laid out under our sleeping bags. To look on the bright side, maybe the smell would ward off mosquitoes.
Despite the late hour, it couldn’t have been far from midnight – a heavy, balmy atmosphere seeped from the night, surprising us as we left the oasis of the house thick walls. I was uncomfortable because I was wearing the same corduroy pants I wore all year round. I accepted this ordeal imposed by the hot season because there was no way I was going to give up my corduroy pants (my entourage tried to persuade me to take them off) in exchange for jeans or worse, shorts. Jeans (oh how I hated them!) and above all shorts, would have shown to a cruel and sarcastic world, how scrawny my body was. At fourteen, one has one’s pride. Even though Nature had saved me from acne and black heads (the usual curses of adolescence), she hadn’t worked her magic on my manliness, except for my voice and my hairiness.
Valérie sighed and stretched languidly, her T-shirt becoming tighter over her boobs. Fortunately for me I was wearing baggy trousers which hid an ‘emotion’ that I could hardly contain. This acute responsiveness dies down with time and ‘use’, luckily for men and their wives whose lives would otherwise become a nightmare!
“Aren’t you too hot with those trousers?” asked Valérie, finally breaking the silence.
I stuttered something about habit and other vague explanations.
“Since we’re alone,” she announced, “I’m going to take off my T-shirt, because I’m too hot. I warn you, I’m not wearing a bra because it irritates my skin. You don’t mind do you?”
Not waiting for my reply, with one graceful gesture, she freed her two full breasts, firm and naïve despite their insolence, as only adolescent breasts are. Clearly, at the time, I wasn’t a connoisseur of the female anatomy, but do you need to know how to drive before admiring a beautiful car?
I couldn’t repress a charming and naïve sigh of admiration, “You’re very beautiful you know, as beautiful as the stars above!’
I could have kicked myself for this total banality, but the compliment nevertheless seemed to please its recipient.
“That’s kind of you,” replied my cousin, swelling with pride. “It’s true that I’m good looking, but don’t you think there are loads of other girls more beautiful than me?”
Instinctively, I didn't want to flatter her too much.
“Maybe… but with a lot more make-up.”
“That’s true. Women are much prettier without make-up. I read it in a magazine,” she added.
And to prove her point, she pushed out her torso to show off her breasts. I tried hard to hide a physiological reaction that was as embarrassing as it was pleasurable. I had a hard-on for my cousin: how shameful! Despite this feeling of guilt, I couldn’t help devouring the beautiful milky fruits this little she-devil was parading in front of my eyes. She was following in her mother’s footsteps, always showing off and thinking she was better than everyone else for everything. Sure, my cousin was overconfident and full of herself, but I couldn’t hold it against her because beauty seems to erase defects, above all in the eyes of the ugly.
“I’m becoming a woman,” she went on in a suave voice. “You can’t imagine what it feels like” (you don’t say). “Some days, everything is bleak and boring; I don’t want to talk to anybody and I just want to die, and other days I want to jump for joy, shout and soar up in the air! That happened when my periods started. Papa says it’s my hormones emerging from the sleep of childhood. They wake up all grumpy, yawn, stretch and kick me all over the place. He says that's why I'm moody. Papa’s great. He always says the right thing.”
I wasn’t about to contradict her, “Yeah, Uncle Gus is great!”
“To think that just last year we were playing kiss chase,” she said laughing. “Do you remember when we messed about on the haystacks in Uncle Michel’s meadows?”
“Yeah, that was so cool!” I exclaimed, laughing now. “I hope we’ll have as much fun this year!”
She looked at me with a disdainful half-smile which hurt more than the relative indifference she’d shown me when we first saw each other again.
“You know,” she replied, “I’m too old for frolicking in the haystacks or playing puerile games. I’m not a kid anymore.”
I read in her eyes with shame, “I’M not a kid anymore!”
We were too close for her not to pick up my hurt feelings, and she hurriedly added, “I’m really happy to see you again. We’ve done so much stuff together. Now all that’s passed and we’re adults now. Even though our bodies may not be there yet, we’re adults in our heads,” she added, charitably. “Oh, by the way, do you still have your collection of super hero comics: Strange, Titans, Nova…?”
Proud, I was about to announce that I finally had the whole collection of the first two titles, when she added, “and other babyish stuff….”
I changed tack in the nick of time, and with brio said, “Oh, you know. Me too I’m over all that stuff, kid’s magazines... I… huh… I gave them to a neighbor of mine. You have to put these things behind you,” I concluded, shrewdly.
“Yeah. So you’ve given up your old comics too then, and I’ve stopped crying when I watch The Little House on the Prairie. Do you remember the Ingalls family?”
How could I not remember? The Ingalls family was the focal point of the TV series broadcast over and over and over again for years. No sex, no violence, no excesses (order was always swiftly re-established in the event of any of the former): nothing but good hearts, noble souls and enough piety and compassion to give the Pope himself a complex. So many qualities in a single family must have seemed a bit suspect in Heaven, because the list of calamities that befell the Ingalls parents and their offspring increased with each new episode.
Thus, over the years, you sympathized with Mary, the eldest daughter who, not content with a bout of rubella in her early youth, ended up losing her sight (during a particularly dramatic episode), having to leave the family home for a rehabilitation center on the other side of the county, and who saw (in a manner of speaking) her child die in a tragic fire. A fire that was all the more tragic because it was lit by Mary’s own brother! A few years later, this brother died of leukemia.
I’m not kidding. The inveterate fans of the series would corroborate my words. Despite all their misadventures, the Ingalls family was enriched with new blood by adopting nice, clean children and through natural conception. As the series started to run out of steam, an enlightened screen-writer (or some other charitable soul driven bonkers by the terrible dramas) decided to blow up the village, home of the little family, with dynamite in the final episode. BOOM! Amen! I must admit I cried at this end of this TV series of timeless charm. But don’t tell anyone.
“Let’s talk about now,” Valérie went on. “I’m happy to see you’re no longer the little kid I thought you were. You’ve matured. That’s good. It’s proof you’re becoming a man.”
She was starting to seriously piss me off with her superior airs, but the vision of her nipples in the moonlight helped me to keep my calm (although the fire between my legs was getting worse, obliging me to cross my legs at a certain angle so as not to protrude — men will understand me) and keep my thoughts to myself.
“Do you listen to music? Do you go out to night clubs? What sports do you do?”
She couldn’t honestly have given half a toss anyway because she fired questions at me without giving me a moment to answer and, without waiting she went on, “I’ve got a great gang of friends and every weekend we go out the clubs or we just all get together and dance. I’ve even got a boyfriend,” she said proudly. “He’s so cute. He’s a lot taller than you, bigger build too and he’s good at sports (she may as well have said I was a piece of walking trash). On Sundays, we go out on his bike: he’s got a 125cc... it’s really great.”
On weekends, I carefully arrange the new comics I’ve collected over the week. As for going out, I’d attended the end-of-year party organized by my class, but I swore never to repeat that dreadful experience. I had such bad memories of slow dances; there’s nothing more terrifying than having to invite a girl to dance so as not to be the lonely jerk hugging the wall, and equally terrifying to be rejected in front of everyone. It can cause the kind of shame that will condemn you to self pleasuring for a long time. So I decided to protect my self-esteem and avoided that kind of evening.
As for music, I had to put up with my brother’s hard rock which he listened to from morning to night. I loved French variety music until adolescence and had to accept a difficult conversion under threat of being called a “sissy” by Yves. “Hard rock,” my brother used to say, “is music for men!” My honor required that I become more of a man than a sissy, and I learned to endure the torture of frenetic percussions, saturated guitars and delirious singers (screechers more like). The most surprising thing was that I finally came to like it and ended up only listening to this kind of music out of choice. I buried my childhood under the harmonies of Trust and AC/DC. The princes of Rock’n’roll dethroned variety.
“I hope they’ll get this thing wrapped up soon,” she sighed. “It’s already hard enough being in this rat-hole, but if we have to put up with adults’ orders and their bad tempers like tonight’s performance, it'll be so crap.”
“Don’t worry,” I reassured her manfully. “Uncle Gus’ intelligence and intuition along with.…’
I was looking for a qualifier for my uncles and my dad, “...with his brothers’ tenacity, they’ll soon solve the problem. Trust them.”
“It’s true; they’re determined,” agreed Valérie getting up, meaning that the evening was over. “Anyway, we can always hope,” she yawned. “I believe in it.”
“Me too, I think.” The only problem, I thought as I gave her a kiss on the cheek before going our separate ways, is that on the photo we saw at the notary’s, Aunt Lucie seemed to be pretty determined as well, and certainly a lot more devious than we imagined.