Free Small Lives by Pierre Michon

have been able to buy, being poor and far removed from everything, but which they were relinquishing to me. The handling of this box was prescribed by a tacit ritual; upon arriving, they took it out of the car and deposited it in a corner of the dining room; I continually cast sidelong glances at it, or, having forgotten for a moment, my gaze returned to it, deliciously recalling to me its presence; because, most often, it was not opened until after the meal. Clara took charge of it, with a slightly theatrical slowness, a sense of suspense, a concern for effects that – considering the small worth of the objects – she knew to be for the benefit of my eager, childish impatience alone. I believe that I amused her, and that she even found me a bit doltish; that was the only moment in the whole day when an infinite bit of mischief, slightly haughty, sparkled in her eyes. She knew better than anyone how pathetic these baubles were, and did not apologize for them; with sovereign modesty, she named each one in a few words, presented her chipped pottery with rare, exact gestures just as if she were offering fine old Dresden china, and, opening a worn case as carefully as a diamond merchant, displayed for us on her finger one of those horrible aluminum rings that soldiers used to bang out.
    Of course no one ever spoke of the absent one; was this an agreement, tacit or not, between the two families? Had they deliberated, before my appearance in court as the accused already cleared, andagreed to strike the essential from the record, like the judges in the Dreyfus affair who ruled that “the question would not be considered” even before entering the courtroom? I do not know; but I do know what the taste of those Sundays when I had two grandfathers and two grandmothers evokes today, what that constrained, muffled atmosphere, the almost sacramental hush, makes me think: we were keeping a deathwatch. The banished cadaver was the sole pretext for this familial gathering; they were only assembled for this wake; and when the poor old couple got back into their car, as antique and ludicrous as they were, I did not know where to direct my sorrow and pity: no doubt toward the two of them, who disappeared even more deeply into the cold, tearful night because I did not know the house where they went for rest and warmth again; toward the enigmatic dead one; or finally toward myself, speechless oaf, who did not dare inquire about the identity of the deceased and looked for the cadaver in the growing shadows, in the longing eyes of my mother, in my own body, knees red with cold. I was amazed not to be dead, but only ignorant, in pain, and infinitely incomplete.
    When I was in high school, the visits became less frequent; they were getting old, Clara could no longer drive; they still came a few times at the end of the fifties, but the ritual was broken. By then, “I knew”; at their coming, the sky was no longer veiled in crepe, I no longer heard all of nature at work nailing a coffin shut; there was no one to mourn over. And then too, they were no longer alone; they took advantages of the visits their son, my Uncle Paul, made to Mazirat by having him drive them; the car had changed; still old for that period, it was, Ibelieve, a Juva, but the highly preposterous, funereal jalopy of the past had gone to the salvage yard, or slept under cobwebs in a barn, like a coffin in a tomb. As for the gift box ritual, the same old hands, more tremulous, pulled out the same old knickknacks, more cracked, but I knew that they came from back shelves and Clara knew they no longer excited me. I had other things on my mind, drunk on my success at school, which I considered more important than these ridiculous old people: life would be beautiful, I would be rich and never get old.
    I went to Mazirat three times, twice while the old couple was still alive; and beyond that, I did not see them again. The house was ordinary, roughcast plaster, lost