A short while later, winter came. All night, the wind howled round the hut like a hungry dog and in the morning, when the lovers stepped out, snapped at their hands and faces. The river would soon freeze. Already gray lace advanced from either side, just above the water, soon to meet and harden in the middle till the river could reliably be crossed on foot. Then it snowed for three days. The river vanished; frost after frost immobilized the landscape for several long months. Maxence complained of the cold and spoke to the coalwoman of distant climes he'd witnessed in his travels, depicting the golden lives they'd lead if she but agreed to follow him to those lands where the sun shone all year long. She listened to him, but never replied. He himself was uncertain if he wished to bring her along. He often coughed and felt suffocated at night. After his illness and convalescence, he had seemed, briefly, to recover his youth, but since winter's sudden start had felt himself growing older by the day. While his companion braved winter with a smile, his own temperament grew bitter. Eventually he no longer stepped outside, and spent his days by the fire, nursing memories of the Orient. One night at last, he realized he was an old man. He said so to the young woman, who pulled him close. No doubt he had a fever already, for she fell asleep first while he shivered at length in her arms before joining her. When dawn came he rose without waking her. Though he had not used his armor since arriving on the island, he had always taken care-an old campaigner's habit-to keep its pieces in good shape. He donned his armor, harnessed his horse, then mounted her and crossed the river. He went slowly, often getting off to help the creature, who sometimes sank to her chest in the snow. Beneath his helm he wept with cold. His tears froze to his face as soon as they welled from his eves. He soon realized he wouldn't make it far this way, but the hope of warming himself by the woodsman's fire restored his courage. He squinted at the icy air before him, expecting at any moment to see smoke from their hearth rising through the trees. He saw nothing of the sort, but suddenly, lifting his gaze once more toward the skies, recognized the two giant oaks: no tree in all the woods could have rivaled them in height. He took another look around him: he was standing in the clearing. The frozen spring, which he found easily, was proof. But there was no cottage. He dismounted and got on his knees, sifting through the snow for some trace. Though he dug through the snow with his own hands, nothing remained of the cottage. He stood up again. Considering the clearing, he tried with his mind to efface the snow and recreate the shapes and colors of the autumn forest he still remembered. He was unable to decide, in his confusion, if the attempt was conclusive. His head spun; he tried to get back in the saddle but an even more violent dizziness seized him and he had to give up. The snow had started to fall again, slowly at first, then in large flakes that the wind hurled into his face. He tried to catch his breath long enough to make the shelter of the trees, but his mount didn't give him time: she took fright in the white whirlwind and jerked hard on the bridle. His numb fingers failed to hold her back. She broke free, bucked once and knocked him back in the snow. He tried to get up again, but rose no higher than his knees. He saw his horse one last time, mad with fear, dashing out of reach. Crossing his arms over his dented chest, he let himself fall back. The first flake settled on his right pupil, which didn't flinch, then another fell, and then a hundred more as the snow filled his eyes and his wide-open mouth.
Paris, Apr.-May 1974
A City of Museums
ou wouldn't dream of staying here without having booked a hotel room far in advance, for once in town, trying to find lodgings with the locals is hopeless. When the locals aren't innkeepers, they're curators or docents. Housing for the archival students was put up outside town. The lower classes-cleaning women, waiters, municipal clerks-come from neighboring hamlets. At day's end, they all go home in cars or buses. If by chance the last shuttle should leave someone behind, it's quite a sight to see the beeline that last straggler makes for the overnight shelter by the police station. Not that any danger awaits: no city is safer. But fear overtakes the townspeople when night falls. If they only knew what mellowness follows when the putt of the final motor fades away!
How many times have I seen it? It's as if the evening breeze awaits that moment to sweep the streets clean of all the putrid fumes. How many times have I spied that first imperceptible breath, the Spirit stirring in a rustle of wings? I don't know. I'm not twenty yet, but I've prowled these streets forever, it seems. When the wind is on the rise, I step out from the shadows of the carriage entrance where I hide myself away, and take possession of the streets. I head for the old quarter, for the city's sacred heart. The Ancients dwelt there: adventurous bards, pallid monks, mischievous schoolboys or court poets in ruffles, tricorne-sporting hypochondriacs, wild-eyed petits-bourgeois…I stand before them in my faux leather bomber jacket and worn jeans, and laugh along like a conspirator, I who have yet to write a line. And I walk, heartened, caressed, the breeze gently nudging the back of my shoulders.
There are some fifteen of us, pariahs who hang on within these walls. Dressed in rags, always starving, hounded by the city watchmen, we hole up by day and go out only at night to root through hotel Dumpsters. One fine morning, each of us left hometown, job, or family to come live here like a rat. That's what we're called, too: rats.
I'd long been the youngest of the pack. I was sixteen when I slipped through a barred window into the basement of a museum, a few minutes before everyone headed home. I'd arrived that very morning with a high-school group. From my hole, I watched without regret as the bus drove off and disappeared, carrying my classmates toward their ordinary fates.
Last year, two teenagers joined us one after the other. A high schooler, who like me had let his bus leave without him, and a farmer's son from nearby. Most of us think the high schooler won't last long. He moves slow and makes too much noise. Plus he picks his hiding places poorly. Sooner or later the guards'll collar him. They'll give him a beating and then send him home. Gus, the farmer's boy, is made of sterner stuff. The guards, who learn all our faces from trying and failing to run us out of town, still don't know he exists. Also, Gus already writes memorable poems. The oldest among us, Guv'nor Paul, sometimes honors me with his confidences. He's almost convinced Gus has what it takes, and will someday pull off the feat we all dream of.
"One day' he told me, "one day Gus's hideout will be its own museum.
Gus's hideout must be a disused wardrobe, or a trunk abandoned somewhere in a museum attic-the Robinson Museum, or maybe the Ballantrae, since he hung around there a lot. I swear I bit my lips in disappointment. Guv'nor Paul didn't seem to think my favorite hideaway might also become a museum.
Tuesdays the museums are closed. On Tuesdays alone we emerge in plain day and mingle with the bored tourists. We chat them up for cigarettes and candy. The tourists don't like it when the guards chase us right before their eyes, so the mayor's issued orders, and the guards are nowhere to be seen. But toward day's end, no sooner has the last tourist returned to his hotel, than our enemies, unleashed, hit the streets running. Most of the collars go down Tuesday night. The wariest of us make ourselves scarce long before nightfall. Where do we hide? Everyone's got their secret spot. I know, from having stumbled across Guv'nor Paul's this summer, that he's not too proud to take cover in the bathrooms of the bishop's palace, which was turned into a museum last century, after a subdeacon composed some very pretty Christian meditations there. As for me, every other Tuesday, after making sure I'm not being followed, I make for the former opera hall. I slip in through a manhole that also serves to air out the opera's underground vaults. After navigating a maze of hallways and picking a few locked doors, I reach the prop room. There via a trapdoor built into the shoulder blades of the Commander's statue, I curl myself up in his plaster loins. Every other Tuesday, that is-otherwise I sleep in a cannon up on the ramparts.