Free Palafox by Eric Chevillard Page B

until it reaches the delta, making its way down the warm currents to reproduce in the sea, while the salmon, counter-exemplary, abandons the sea, making its way up the icy stream and lays its twenty five thousand eggs beneath the stones of a calm river bordered by willow and alder or aspen. It is in this manner that the returning salmon journeys accompanied by the young eel and the young salmon accompanied by the mature eel. Was Palafox born in saltwater, in which case the vigorous adult at the peak of his powers when Sadarnac caught him, on his way to spawn in fresh water? Or was Palafox born in fresh water, fresh out of the egg when Sadarnac caught him, heading out for the first time to the open sea? Really, this is the only point that demands clarification.
    Cambrelin is a stern fellow, sloppy in appearance. His passion for ichthyology comes from his maternal grandfather, an eczematous double-pedal amputee, taciturn, who used to revel in the presence of water and liked to make bubbles in his bath beneath the interrogatory and already myopic eye of the keyhole. Cambrelin wears silver-framed glasses, patched with red plastic tape. When he speaks he barely moves his lips. His voice is dry, rather disagreeable to hear. What he might say or think is of no interest to anyone. By the end of his intervention, along the lines of those indices enumerated above, length of horns, state of coat, wear of hackles, etc ... the three other naturalists counted seventy-four, seventy-four years, the likely age of Palafox. For now, it is important to locate the animal in relation to ourselves, in our pyramid of ages.
    The oldest of Ziegler’s recollections concerns a little boy who was very keen on ornithology who went by the name Swift Eagle and wanted to become sachem. According to him, all we have to do is multiply this number, seventy-four, by seven. Palafox would therefore have merited the respect that we owe and the care that we offer our elders of five hundred eighteen years of age. Pierpont contests this calculation. Pierpont also draws on bonafide experience. In his tender youth, each day he invented an ingenious grasshopper and, blindfolded, spent most of his free time taking apart and reconstituting various beetles. According to him, the right answer was to divide the existing number, seventy-four, by twelve. Then Palafox could be our son, or our grandson, even our great grandson, meaning it would be up to him eventually to take care of our long-term care. (Once, of course, beds become free. Because of the war, all the hospitals are full to bursting. Sets and staging are conventional, metal beds in a row, white walls, grey blankets, stark fluorescent lighting; the casting however allows for pleasant surprises, the nurses, the wounded, the powerless doctors then the providential priests, all are remarkable. We expect an extended run. The enemy is mounting an underhanded resistance. Guards are stabbed to death. Bridges explode underfoot.) As for Baruglio, he remains quiet as to the birth of his vocation, nonetheless we know that he laughs at snake bites - at worst a rattlesnake with a head cold will inject him with its virus. Like experienced boxers who smile when you break their noses, he has developed total immunity. His idea seems straightforward and smart: multiply our number, seventy-four, by seven, five hundred eighteen, and then divide that by twelve. Palafox, like most forty-somethings, still has many good years ahead of him.
    By the same token, his innocence is blinding. Palafox did not exist in 64, when the emperor Nero first fed Christians to the lions. Other persecutions followed, under Domitian (81- 96), under Trajan (98-117), under Decius (249-251), under Valerian (257-258), under Diocletian (309-311), before the Edict of Tolerance of Milan put these massacres to an end, in 313. But at that time, still no Palafox: neither the imago we know, nor the silken chrysalis swaddled in silk, nor the first worm, nor the blackberry