Which doesn’t even begin to mention, adds Baruglio, that cobras are afraid of water. One finds them in the desert. Therefore, how did Palafox reach us? To me, that’s the first enigma for us to resolve. Age and gender are matters under the auspices of anecdote and gossip, we’ll save those for when we’ve gotten to the heart of the matter, once we learn the grounds for his presence and by what means of transportation he arrived among us. Palafox would not have been the first to have traveled in a suitcase. Indeed I have unwittingly brought back from my excursions several of those hooded snakes, as their morphology allows them to slip on a jacket or a pair of trousers just like you or me, a disguise in which they go unnoticed, or to coil up inside a mitt or a slipper, or in a cap. The shock is considerable when the masks at last are lowered or just plain dropped (hood not included). But usually, they manage to get out when the suitcase is open on the bed without being recognized or bothered. So this is how I see it: Palafox crawled to a harbor, spotted a hotel, snuck past a porter’s stare, slipped into a room, perhaps even into the arms of a chamber-maid, hid between the covers, or perhaps in the wake of a prostitute’s steps, or a frail child’s, night fallen, taking advantage of a traveler’s distraction to slip into the luggage. It’s the only way he could have crossed the Ocean. If he took the plane, same deal, we only need to transpose the action from the Hotel Magellan to the Hotel Lindbergh.
You seem to forget he has wings. Palafox couldn’t have made it by swimming, Zeiger willingly admits, but he would not be the first albatross or the first heron to have made it across Europe without a motor.
3
We have therefore learned, Algernon recapitulates, that Palafox built a nest from twigs and moss in the shape of a cupola, with a side entrance. That he lives on tortoise eggs, rotting carcasses, and pollen. That he hibernates in a crevice, here opinions vary, or at the bottom of a hole, rolled in a ball or hanging from his feet. We have therefore learned very little — little that isn’t unreliable. We will swear to nothing, will not put our heads on the block for any of it. When you think about it, it seems even doubtful that Palafox thought of building a nest in a tree. When you weigh between nine and ten tons, you tend not to linger long in the foliage, on principle, doubtless one would like to remain a little longer, to enliven the leaves with chirping since the view is fine, unobstructed, the air purer, the sky radiant, but you never do more than pass through, the earth reasserts its dominance through violence, an iniquitous law voted into being by hummingbirds serving them and them alone. If a pear, which was destined to fall from the start, conceived and shaped in this manner, still bruises itself when rolling on the grass, imagine a mammoth, a true mammoth. Palafox would have been wrong to have perched so high, his maternal instinct would have warned him off. Whereas, without worry, he could climb in his hut in La Gloriette park, solidly fastened to the three limbs of the walnut tree that seemed tailor-made to his specifications and needs. In truth, Algernon had designed it for his son, Archie. He often placed the palms of his hands on his wife’s swollen belly: Archie training as a boxer in his mother’s belly developed his left hook and his footwork, the heir to the Buffoons would be a fighter, a chief, a leader of men, a true terror on earth. He would set up his own H.Q. in the plank hut, walls pierced with arrow slits, thatch roof, built by his father.
Archie was born and named Maureen a few days after the burial of her mother which at first had monopolized everyone’s attention. Algernon did not survive the poor dear. What good henceforth to drag oneself through life, he preferred to put an end to it and have the Fontechevades take care of the child. But imagining suicide is one thing, the ornamental lake was dry, the blade dull, the gas jet empty, the high beam worm-eaten, the window painted shut, the car being serviced, railway workers on strike, the revolver jammed, merde, and of course, at this late hour, the pharmacy closed, Algernon unto the breach once again with Maureen in his arms. Invited that summer to La Gloriette for the presentation of Palafox, the Fontechevades had responded yes, they would be at the party. Madame is a saint, a vice-squad volunteer, sufficiently robust and mustached to be put into service in the event of a redeployment of forces, treasurer of a cell fighting against prostitution that has sworn to imprison pimps everywhere and recently made the arrest of an orchid-sel ler who was exposing his flowers in his storefront window, as if in Amsterdam, an early victory. Fontechevade married her only a week after his having embraced military life, for however many conquests certain men may have, they always end up with the same type of woman. General Fontechevade loves his work, prospects are good, there’s time left over to read, which one can use to shoot rabbits, and he travels abroad a great deal, meets tons of people, or tonlets at first, one has to start somewhere, then more later, that’s what we do, pack people in, if not us who will? So it is not rare that the general’s wife should find herself alone in the house with Olympia.
Having already raised a parakeet, Olympia will know how to handle Palafox. Olympia is tall and thin — her parakeet a little green bird — one of those ageless women which time, kidnapper of children and crooked accountant, would not have wished to burden itself with during its bright flight. But the neighborhood cats came to eat neighborhood sparrows from her hand. When she appears at her window, pandemonium reigns, whereas the holy father waving his arms about from the balcony, scares off the sparrows and scatters the cats — over the public square the crowd sings, occasionally it brays, but purr with pleasure?
The Zoological Garden is her little slice of heaven. Were it not for the unfordable moat, Olympia would herself go to separate or — why not? — reconcile the monkeys with their fleas. She never misses watching the feeding of the big cats, tries to be there for the weekly defecation of the sloth, named that because it sleeps on its branch instead of sawing into it. All the zookeepers know Olympia, she walks through the paths of the park as if at home, accompanied by the ostriches with which, in spite of her bun, she shares a certain more-than-passing resemblance, not feature for feature, of course, but more a general vibe, something in the way she carries herself, something in the way she moves, you can sense in observing them wander the preserve that their pads have absorbed the same terrain. Together, they climb the stairs that lead to the terrarium. The porter sends them packing. Olympia presents her ticket: ah, it’s you! Olympia. The Olympian does not say a word. The hall is dark, overheated. A few families circulating in tight packs go window-shopping. A loudspeaker announces the imminent birth of a litter of vipers, and Olympia trembles. And when the lucky lady begins to eat her young two by two, jealousy eats away at Olympia to whom the simple joys of maternity were refused. On the other hand, she babies the general’s wife, dresses and undresses her, powders and corsets her, what century do we live in, washes her laundry and polishes her boots, and is given full run of the household where she attends to any domestic duty that does not endanger the life of ants, termites, roaches, and mice. One clause added to her contract denies her access to the kitchen: it is not unlikely that Olympia had a hand in the spectacular escape of one hundred and ninety-two oysters gathered, according to tradition, to celebrate the Nativity among us. The reasons for their escape remain mysterious — were they afraid of receiving in the eye, because of someone’s clumsiness, the lemon juice actually meant to rinse their fingers? But there was no doubt it was an inside job since the door to the kitchen leading to the garden was found bolted from the inside. However, searches undertaken by the sixteen guests proved in vain, or more accurately fruitless, as did the surreptitious search through Olympia’s own room. But let’s finish with her. When one serves her a calf’s foot or a shoulder of mutton, she sticks in a splint and releases them. That sums up her character. A sketch of Olympia is in order. Let us add that by way of clothing she wears an austere black dress buttoned to her collar, a gray shawl, gray stockings and, recently, by way of ornamentation, three strands of thirty-two, sixty-four, and ninety-six cheap pearls. One might add that her voice is bright and brittle, but that it softens sometimes, when Olympia no longer has to deal with her kind and invites others species to drop by. That’s her. That is Olympia. Never leaving the house without her shopping bag, wherever she might be going, a very big shopping bag, a very sturdy shopping bag, one day she’ll buy a baby elephant, she’s only waiting for the right moment, whether African or Asian, she could care less, African if you have one, or Asian actually, who cares.