Our friend thus alternates threat and reward by design. Similarly the miller moved the otherwise inanimate ass. Palafox is a beginner. First of all he has to abandon his millipedal past. Algernon tries hard to convince him. When he walks on two legs, he will rediscover the instinct to use his arms, then his hands. Without hands no history, no art, no science, why bother to conceive a masterpiece or a rocket engine if its execution is unmanageable? Consider for a moment this brain boiling over with ideas, inventions, projects, this inexpressive thinking head, consider the seed — pure potential — when we’re talking about conceiving a plum. His still swollen fingers will little by little lose their stiffness thanks to appropriate exercise, qwertyuiop, do ré mi fa, he will then have the choice between two careers. But nothing is played out yet, Palafox falls heavily and shakes his mane of flames, despite hyperbole less red than his tail of plumes, it is far too early for applause. Algernon proceeds in stages. He gives his student goals: the portico, leaving the chicken wire, the bungalow, leaving the portico, the chicken wire, leaving the bungalow. Later he will increase the distances: a lap around the pen, two laps around the pen, then one more time, faster, and now backwards, then onto hikes in the country — before the final test of the town, of the random crowds unsure of which road to take. Twelve blows to a gong announce the end of the first lesson. Algernon returns to his daughter, still out of breath after her fight with a duck and a half-dozen oranges, who is using him as a guinea pig for the recipes she will treat Chancelade to, once the enemy is humiliated and the marriage concluded. Olympia takes her meals with Palafox. She swallows a salad and some fruit, compassionately avoiding using either her fork or her teeth too much. Palafox, we have said, eats June bugs and insect larvae exclusively. The second lesson begins at six in the evening. The plan is identical, put Palafox on a pedestal, give him back his pride. Erect, he seems like someone else, the brightest scales on his belly flashing palely, moon-like; in the half-light, he looks like any elegant young man, with his slender waist and his broad snakeskin belt. Then Algernon leaves the pen. Olympia locks the door behind him. Palafox curls up on a special seasonal section of the paper devoted to Graduates and Careers. He dreams, one might suppose. But of what future?
4
Olympia resists, clenches her fists, she will not let herself put up with being stripped like that, without a fight. But she is alone, no longer very young, and there are so many of them, soon she will have to let go. By contrast, we share a blanket, the cold comes in through the bungalow’s little door, dawn in a state of undress, Palafox is gone. No panic, after all this isn’t the first time it has happened, that he has slipped into or burrowed under a magazine. Olympia moistens the leaves, shakes them out, a few pages fall and fly through the shelter, naked beneath her little skirt Pamela picks up a tennis ball, naked beneath their sarongs Olga and Anaïs gather what must be mangoes, or guavas, glistening Amandine also gathers, without faltering, shells or pebbles, and in tow and in tatters though no less lovely follow Agatha, Elodie, Melanie, Cora, Deborah — not a single comma in this list that isn’t a hair from the head of Algernon — but not a single trace of Palafox. Acephalous, apterous, anurous, apodous, Palafox, Palafox disappeared, no more Palafox. He slipped out over here. Algernon, kneeling, inspects the opening of a narrow tunnel which comes out over there, far from the pen, in the rosebushes. Or through that gap, suggests Maureen, look, he forced his way. Or over here, and Olympia, certainly correct, pointing skyward to a red feather clinging to the chicken wire. Palafox will have flown over the garden and the house, then, with agility, holding onto the wisteria, he will have climbed over the outer wall before disappearing into the town — where danger awaits a little toad. Palafox will end up road kill. And not lumpy either, rather, almost liquid. In a liquid state, a toad can be thirst quenching, so that you know, whether you like it or not. Farewell Palafox, the doors slam, the motors moan, he won’t make it through alive, even a hedgehog wouldn’t stand a chance. Always too kind on tires, the hedgehog, another thirst quencher. Why would ours be spared?
Algernon curses his lack of planning, if we had only thought to have him wear a collar, with his name and address, his and ours, a kindly soul would surely have already returned him. It would have been so simple. A collar made of nickel or of rope, or of studded leather, or a ring on his paw. Rather than standing around moping, Olympia proposes action, rather than standing around moping, let’s post his photo on all the walls, with a description and the promise of an award?
What photo, Olympia? And as for circulating a description, we are willing to hear you out. His color, for example, do you recall the color of his coat? Yes, Sir, very clearly. Olympia triumphant. So, tell us! Oh but Sir, first tell me what he’s roosting on! (Olympia, naively, alludes here to a stunning ability Palafox possesses, we might as well mention it ourselves, he always adopts the color of the surface of the thing upon which he comes to rest: green on grass, red-orange on terra cotta, yellow with big brown spots in the scattered shadows of African leaves, hidden from predators despite his outsized neck.) Palafox in gray runs alongside the pavement splattered with gas — is there no solution for the incontinence of motorcycles? — an iridescent reflection on his neck completes the camouflage. He goes unnoticed by passersby, their curiosity dulled in the end by all they’ve had to look at. What’s more, even the pigeons think he’s one of them. Now and then he stops, sings two notes and bows, then disappears like a hat in a crowd. He feels he’s really earned the muesli this time, or the oatmeal that the sweet old ladies, skipping a meal, saved for him. Palafox settles onto the shoulder of one of these ladies, not in gratitude, but to carry his benefactress away and eat her elsewhere, in his eyrie. She thinks they are love bites when he pecks her ear or wrists, her eyes filling with tears. To drink, something hitherto unknown to us, Palafox tips back his head. Another thing to correct. His benefactress kneels and bleeds from her eyes. Another thing we were unaware of, but what we now know is that Palafox loves the taste of blood.
All the preceding information was provided to us by Professor Zeiger. He had risen before dawn, had crossed the sleeping town and garden of the Buffoons and made his way over to the pen — this long journey just to watch Palafox sleep — when he became aware of who was slipping out through a hole in the chickenwire — but how had you imagined to keep such a little creature captive behind so flimsy a barrier when he is barely visible to the naked eye? So rather than sounding the alarm, Zeiger preferred to follow the insect so as to study its behavior in an urban setting. The greatest discoveries are always made by observing the animal in action. In its maze, the white mouse meets a psychiatrist, a neurologist, and a metaphysician in distress, all of whom are fascinated by its strategic moves. Only by watching how animals live have we learned how to equip ourselves, knives, scissors, drills, pastry-cutters, and others are still busy diversifying our toolboxes, all, relentlessly, even if the lobster after having invented blow by blow the pincer and the nutcrackers now seems to have run out of new ideas. That being said, false modesty aside, our ingenuity ends up proving of use to animals as well. Call it an exchange of courtesies. Would the sea lion be able to spin a plate on its nose without our friendly guidance? Could four elephants carry a fifth?