Free Once in Europa by John Berger Page A

Boris.
    Do you know they are closing the abattoir at Saint-Denis? Everything has to be taken to A____ now.
    I hadn’t heard.
    More and more inspections, more and more government officials. There’s no room for skill anymore.
    Skill! That’s one way of naming it!
    You’ve never been short of that sort of skill yourself, said Corneille. There I take my hat off to you!
    In fact he kept his hat on and turned up the collar of his overcoat. The kitchen was cold and bare, as if it had shed its leaves like the beech trees outside, its leaves of small comfort.
    I’ll say this much, continued Corneille, nobody can teach me a new trick, I know them all, but there’s not one I could teach you either. All right, you’ve suffered bad luck, and not only last month up on the mountain—The poor bugger Boris, we said, how’s he going to get out of this one?—you’ve suffered bad luck, and you’ve never had enough liquid cash.
    From his right-hand overcoat pocket he drew out a wad of fifty-thousand notes and placed them on the edge of the table. One of the dogs sniffed his hand. Fuck off! said Corneille, pushing the dog with one of his immense thighs, the overcoat draped over it so that it advanced like a wall.
    I’m telling you, Boris, you could buy the hind legs off a goat and sell them to a horse! And I mean that as a compliment.
    What do you want?
    Aren’t you going to offer me a glass? It’s not very warm in your kitchen.
    Gnôle or red wine?
    A little gnôle then. It has less effect on Old King Cole.
    So they say.
    I hear you swept her off her feet, said Corneille, and the husband under the carpet!
    Boris said nothing but poured from the bottle.
    Not everyone could do that, said Corneille, that takes some Old King Cole!
    Do you think so? What are you showing me your money for?
    To do a deal, Boris. A straight deal, for once, because I know I can’t trim you.
    Do you know how you count, Corneille? You count one, two, three, six, nine, twenty.
    The two men laughed. The cold rose up like mist from the stone floor. They emptied the little glasses in one go.
    The winter’s going to be long, said Corneille, the snow has come to stay. A good five months of snow in store for us. That’s my prediction and your uncle Corneille knows his winters.
    Boris refilled the glasses.
    The price of hay is going to be three hundred a bale before Lent. How was your hay this year?
    Happy!
    Not your woman, my friend, your hay.
    Happy, Boris repeated.
    I see your horses are still out, said Corneille.
    You have sharp eyes.
    I’m getting old. Old King Cole is no longer the colt he once was. They tell me she’s beautiful, with real class.
    What do you want?
    I’ve come to buy.
    Do you know, said Boris, what the trees say when the axe comes into the forest?
    Corneille tossed back his glass, without replying.
    When the axe comes into the forest, the trees say: Look! The handle is one of us!
    That’s why I know I can’t trim you, said Corneille.
    How do you know I want to sell? Boris asked.
    Any man in your position would want to sell. Everything depends upon the offer, and I’m going to mention a figure that will astound you.
    Astound me!
    Three million!
    What are you buying for that? Hay?
    Your happy hay! said Corneille, taking off his hat and putting it further back on his head. No. I’m willing to buy everything you have on four legs.
    Did you say ten million, Corneille?
    Boris stared indifferently through the window at the snow.
    Irrespective of their condition, my friend. I’m buying blind. Four million.
    I’ve no interest in selling.
    So be it, said Corneille. He leaned forward, his elbows on thetable, like a cow getting up from the stable floor, rump first, forelegs second. Finally he was upright. He placed his hand over the pile of banknotes, as if they were a screaming mouth.
    I heard of your troubles, he said very softly in the voice that people use