THE RED thumbtack is preventing me from concentrating. I find it impossible to focus fully on the map, hypnotized like the rabbit trying to find its way through the puzzle-maze that quickly learns by heart the only route leading to its carrot, on the upper right of the page — just try to train it to take another route. Yet I must conscientiously explore every direction on paper before I venture into the cave, I will not wander about at random, if you think I would, you don’t know me, I’d probably get lost and never come out. How could one not lose one’s way in the twisting, turning, infinitely branching galleries, so dangerous it’s as if they’re booby-trapped, with sudden slopes in the ground or ceiling and the unanticipated retrenchment of the practicable path between the rough walls that scrape my shoulders and sides and bruise my bones, and the passageways, dark despite the electricity that’s been installed, and the rolling mills, the swallow holes, the ventilation shafts where I slip feetfirst, dead already, ignorant of what lies in wait on the other side, perhaps the void, a hole, a precipitous drop, perhaps the tumbled, crumbled wall of a blind alley, or else a bright, airy room where the sun abseils through a narrow shaft and cools off in a natural lake, miraculously round, that glimmers more appropriately, and tinkles like glass when suddenly a fat, warm drop falls from the dark vault pierced by the violet sparks of the stalactites; you’ll see that this thunderstorm, petrified for millennia, will awaken today, now: it’s breaking out behind me, I run aimlessly, shoulders hunched, back rounded; count the ridges on my carapace to see how old I am, I think I’m retracing my steps, all I do is step on my own feet, a child slips away from me and climbs up the steep path ahead of him on all fours while the old man for whom I was also responsible slides down into the lower galleries, I form a crowd, the lions are let loose, I spread myself in all of panic’s directions, but the lake in spate catches up to me wherever I am, submerging me, my lungs explode, my rosy cheeks fade, I float with the eyeless, memoryless transparent fish, the last living contemporaries of all the fossils, liquid specters of the Precambrian Era that still haunt the watery depths. I belong among them, from now on their future is mine, and all that because I ventured into the cave without proper preparation: madness. Obviously I shall do no such thing until I know the premises perfectly. I shall devote the time it takes to a preliminary study of the map. I shall learn how to move about the cave on paper, as if I were at home, eyes shut, hands behind my back, with steady steps, a blind homeowner circumventing every obstacle, stepping over crevices thanks to the reflexes I’ll have acquired, all will be second nature. But none of this will be possible unless I manage to get hold of a fourth yellow thumbtack.
Boborikine’s drawers were not emptied. His personal effects were moved, linens, books, and those small odds and ends, the hideous ornamental knick-knacks (except for a one-eyed frog made of shells that I threw back into the water), but neither the drawers in the living room highboy nor the one in the bedroom nightstand were cleaned out. I shall therefore have to itemize their contents and the inevitable enumeration presaged here will end as soon as I have found the yellow thumbtack I need, which could happen very quickly if, for example, I were to find one in the first drawer of the highboy, buried beneath the knot of rubber bands, three green, three blue, one red, one white — and there truly is something poignant about the chance convergence of so many unforeseeable destinies. But no, no thumbtack under there, just a paper clip. Let’s carry on with the inventory. Nothing I remove from the drawer will go back in there; the lot will wind up in the wastebasket so that should my efforts bear no fruit I will at least have gained a speck more space for my own little belongings.
So, this first drawer, in addition to the rubber bands and the paper clip, harbored the following: another paper clip, two postcards (Mimizan-Plage, in black and white; and Breton Gastronomy, a color print of an oyster platter where purple is the dominant hue), both signed Angèle, who had sunny weather in the Landes, and, the following summer, sunny weather in Brittany too; who swam every day in the Landes and, the following summer, every day in Brittany too; apparently Angèle knew how to preserve her mystery better than Madame de Sévigné and, for lack of additional information, I must sadly leave her — and for once I had a fine specimen of a female character. Additionally: a tiny promotional writing pad (“At home or abroad, always carry your flagon of Lemonbalm Water by Carmes Boyer: Three Centuries of Renown”), a sample-size flask of Lilas perfume (70°), a worm-eaten hazelnut, a few candies in their stained-glass wrappers (the Eucharist as told to children), three spears of chewed fibers that were once either pencils or asparaguses, a red plastic billfold containing an embossed aluminum Saint Christopher crossing a river carrying the Baby Jesus in swaddling clothes at an age when one doesn’t yet know how to walk on water, and precise instructions in case of a serious accident (“I am a Catholic: please get me a priest if I am dying”), a small box of Solingen razor blades (0.08mm), the missing eye of the frog (I call it a winkle), a Sanex toothpick in its sheath, another hazelnut eaten by a worm (the same worm?), a mouthful of meat that was spit out (the remains of a delicious pink rubber pig given to Boborikine by a gas station attendant), a two-centime coin (once upon a time you could fill your pockets in a candy store in exchange for this peanut sum), a watch that had stopped at 3:31 (and not a single second has since penetrated its impermeable watchcase; not a thing happened after that), and finally a tube of glue, but flat and dry like they all are, you swiftly squander your saliva when you try to find adhesion, cohesion, I know something about all that, I too shall have my place among all these outdated, broken-down objects — in the wastebasket. The archaeologist’s work must always be done again. He dies amid the ruins he has exhumed. All the dust that flew out of the drawer settles on my shoulders: an as-yet-thin layer of sediment, which will grow thicker, under which I shall disappear.
Something sticks in the second drawer, the wood must have warped or else a squirrel hid a walnut between the plywood slats; I keep trying, bracing myself, hands on the handles of the highgirl who wants to be coaxed for form’s sake and is dragging her feet as if I were pulling her against her will out on the dance floor, that’s all she was waiting for, we waltz around clumsily for a moment, and then, with scant ceremony, I waltz her back to where she was and thrust my lumbering dance partner against the wall, she’ll budge no more, I’ve wasted my time with her, my hand gropes around in the drawer that at last has partially opened: empty. Let’s catch our breath a moment.
After a lifetime of experience and daily practice, we instinctively expend the precise amount of energy we need to open a drawer, but the difficulties I just experienced have completely distorted this sense of moderation acquired over the years, assimilated by nerves and muscles, so that the third drawer yanked too brutally goes off the rails and falls on my feet. It’s painful, but I’ve read Epictetus’s Art of Living.
So now we enter the third drawer where other old junk is piled pell-melclass="underline" a skein of tangled green wool from an unfinished piece of knitting, abandoned after only four rows, or else mischievously undone and begun anew, then undone again and taken up again (this was no doubt the lifetime bond between Boborikine’s mother and her cat), a holy picture from a first communion illustrating the Annunciation (this episode would be turned into a play. I never saw it, but everyone knows the theater’s old ploys. It’s easy to imagine Joseph coming home unannounced, with a panicked Mary having just enough time to shove Gabriel into a closet), with Angèle’s childish signature on the back and a sweet dedication to her uncle (Angèle’s character is taking on depth in spite of everything; with the passing pages we are getting to know her, and we’ll wind up growing fond of this niece of Boborikine’s), a champagne cork, a yellow, perforated botanic label (missing the wire bracelet that wounds plants’ ankles) bearing an inscription written in penciclass="underline" Ornithogalum. Some will furtively recognize the furtive Eleven o’clock lady (flowers have a nickname reserved for butterflies and a scientific name for lepidopterists), a fat blue die showing six so I’m speeding up; a key chain, a button, a sugar cube, an ant that won’t go far with my thumb on its back (besides, the ant that attempts a raid on its own is a fool); a tiny pair of scissors with its bird’s beak and appetite, a porcelain egg from the time when doorknobs were still laid and each hatching promised a real surprise — let’s break it. I could surely extract many other belongings from this drawer, dig deep in it to my heart’s content, I’m nowhere near the bottom, but I already know I’ll find all the gold in the world before the yellow thumbtack I need, and what’s more, the wastebasket is full.