“It jumps again, rolls itself back into a ball. Then it stretches itself out in the sunlight, and then I realize it’s a cat.
“A completely black cat.
“So far, so good. It’s plopped down on its belly and it’s tipping its muzzle up into the shaft of sunlight, then it’s lain down on its back and it’s combing the grass with its claws, fooling around with the grass blades — all in all, just doing catlike things, the way cats do.
“I kept it in sight. If I didn’t fire, it was only because I already knew, or at least I thought I knew…
“And I wasn’t wrong. A moment later it lifted itself up on all fours, stiff and straight as a wire, and changed the way it was clowning. It took three steps this way, three steps that, planted itself right in front of that cleft in the hill that lets you see our whole part of the country all the way to Digne. And then it started to caterwaul…. I lifted my barrel and slid it back, ever so gently, not making a sound. I huddled up in the shadow of the dovecote with my hands wrapped around my knees, all hunched up, because that meowing — I recognized it.”
•
All the evening air seems to congeal into silence. Jaume draws twice on his pipe. It’s out. He strikes his lighter, gets his pipe going again and, taking a draw, he looks at Gondran, Maurras, and then at Arbaud, who’s twirling a straw between his fingers.
•
“As for the earthquake back in ’07,” he says after a pause, “it was on a Thursday. The Monday before that, when I was stalking partridge, I’d seen the cat.
“As for the storm on Saint-Pancrace Day, when the flood carried away Magnan’s haystack and the baby in its cradle along with the mother who was trying to fish it out, it was on a Tuesday, and on the Sunday before that — I’d seen the cat.
“When the lightning did your dad in, Maurras, in the charcoal makers’ hut, I’d seen the cat two days before that.
“Again, I’d seen the cat, I’d heard it meowing, and two days later when I went up into the attic, I found my wife hanging from the skylight.
“When Gondran told us what had happened to him, I knew it had to be this cat. Now listen, I’m telling you alclass="underline" Stay on the lookout. Every time it shows up, it’s two days before earth is going to strike out.
“These hills, you shouldn’t trust them. There’s sulphur under the stones. You want proof? What about that spring over at Imbert’s End, the one that purges your guts every time you swallow a mouthful? It’s made of stuff that’s foreign to us, but it’s alive.”
•
His pipe has gone out again. As usual, he’s forgotten to keep drawing through the clay stem. He turns toward Gondran.
“You,” he says, “you might be able to get right to the heart of the matter… I mean Janet. I’m not saying this to flatter you, or him. But it is because of him that everything got started.
“It’s not to flatter you, or him… you didn’t know a thing about it, and neither did he.
“This kind of thing, it always starts with somebody who sees farther than the rest of us. When someone sees farther than the rest of us, it’s because there’s something a little out of kilter in their brain. Sometimes it could be by nothing at all, just by a hair, but from that moment, it’s all over. A horse, it’s no longer a horse. A blade of grass, it’s no longer a blade of grass. Everything we can’t see, they see. Outside the shapes, the outlines we’re familiar with, for them there’s something extra floating around, like a cloud. You remember what he said about the toad?
“It’s like there’s somebody next to them explaining everything, laying everything bare.
“We already know a lot about what’s happening to us now, and Janet will show us the rest.
“Beyond any doubt, he’s bound up in it. He’s always been close to earth, more than the rest of us. He used to charm snakes. He knew what all the different kinds of meats taste like — fox, badger, lizard, magpie… He used to make melon soup. He’d take chocolate and grate it into cod stew. Our blood is made from everything we eat, and the brain, it’s really nothing but the thickest layer of the blood.
“Listen to him, Gondran, try to learn as much as you can, it will help us out.”
•
The women call them in for supper.
In the gloom, the Bastides are nothing but glimmerings under the trees.
A big star climbs over the hills.
They make their way back.
“Don’t shove,” Arbaud says quietly to young Maurras, who’s hanging on his elbow.
•
It’s morning, two days later. No wind. Nothing but silence. A thick wreath of violets weighs heavily on the unblemished brow of the sky. The sun rises through the mist like a pomegranate.
The air scorches like a sick person’s breath.
Young Maurras half opens the door of his stable. He looks at the houses one after the other. They’re still sleeping, soundlessly, like tired-out animals. Gondran’s place alone is making a soft, rattling sound, behind its hedge.
Maurras goes out, takes two steps into the square, then climbs up on a grain roller to see better. The house has its eyes open — big, watery eyes, which Marguerite’s plump shadow passes across like a rolling pupil. The doorway drools a stream of dishwater.
Maurras makes up his mind. He comes up on his noiseless, raffia sandals.
“Gondran,” he calls out in a muffled voice that still carries on the morning air.
Gondran appears in the half-opened doorway. He hushes Maurras, with a finger to his lips. Gondran looks like he’s still listening a little toward the kitchen, and then he comes out on tiptoe.
“So?” Maurras asks.
“Still the same. A terrible night. My head feels like it’s ready to burst. I tried to keep track of things to tell to Jaume, but they’re like water — even when you grab them with your fists they run right through. It’s like a flock of sheep going by — the noise, the bells, a pair of eyes in every head, a reflection in every eyeball. I saw things in his words… You can’t have the slightest idea… It’s like having a swarm of bees in my head. I do remember, though — he talked about the cat. Marguerite was drinking coffee. She was making a racket with her spoon, and I shut her up. It was really hard to hear — his voice — it was like oil running out of a broken bottle. He was talking to himself inside, you understand? I cocked my ears as sharp as I could, but that whore of a clock was knocking away, tick, tock, tick, tock. I slid behind the head of the bed. He was saying: “Here kitty, kitty, you in your pretty, pretty coat, you’ll freeze your butt out on that bare hilltop. Make yourself a real man’s bed. Your claws are like ploughshares, and your tongue’s a rasp. It’s Janet chatting with you. I’ll prune your claws off with a few strokes of my billhook, yes I will.”
“He said that, you’re sure?”
“For sure. I wrote it down on a bit of newspaper.”
“He wouldn’t ever have a remedy for all this, ever, would he?”
“A remedy?”
“Yeah, a remedy to sort out this business of the cat. A charm of some kind, I don’t know exactly… you know what I’m trying to get at. Some braids of horsehair, a goat’s hoof, a parrot’s feather, you know, whatever…”