The Word "Desire". Rikki Ducornet

me again.

      “A lion,” he corrected me. “A lion. Lions lick each other. Then what happened?”

      “He couldn’t manage the ship. The sails were down and he was at the mercy of the tides. There were roaches in the crackers and the water was black.”

      “He could fish—”

      “The fish were all too big to catch. Off Java the fish are as big as elephants.”

      “He ate shit and he was lonely.”

      “So lonely one day he shouted into the wind: ‘Goddamn! I’d take the Devil for a bride!’ ”

      “He shouldn’t have said that! Your sailor—quel con!”

      “He had an inspiration—”

      “What’s that?”

      “He thought: An entire wood was cut down to fill the hold of this ship with sandal, ebony, and cedar. I’ll find a nice log and cut off a piece and carve a bride for myself.”

      “Like Pinocchio! Pinocella! Pinocella!”

      “Shut up, idiot. Not like that. You’ll see. . . . He took a lantern and made his way down into the hold.”

      “It was dark and full of rats! God knows what else!”

      “Pierre—tais-toi. Some logs were loose and rolling. It was dangerous down there. But he climbed a pile as high as a hill and looked until he found something he liked. With his ax he hacked away until he had a piece about one meter long. The wood was so hard that each time he struck it he made sparks! And it was as dense as lead. Even his small piece was too heavy to lift. He struggled with it until he lost patience and gave it a kick.”

      “Saying, ‘Goddamn it! Goddamn it! Goddamn it!’ ”

      “The log rolled with the sound of thunder, and when it hit the floor the whole ship shuddered. He scrambled down after it and saw that the log had split wide open. The heart of the wood was green. Green as a corpse.”

      “I’m scared, Nanu. . . .”

      “And it smelled queer. But he was a stubborn man. He heaved it up to the deck and began to carve. He made so many sparks he needed no lantern to work by. It took him six days to cut her rough form: her head, her body, her arms—”

      “He made her beautiful, Nanu.”

      “—and it took him seven days to carve her features: her eyes, her lips, her little teeth.”

      “Thirteen days for bad luck!”

      “When he was finished she was beautiful. He kept her beside him and at night he held her close.”

      “He called her Plaisance.”

      “That’s stupid! Plaisance! What are you thinking? No. He called her . . . Amadée.”

       “Si. C’est mieux.”

      “Amadée. But, now listen to this, that wood was strange. It was the strangest wood in the world. Because even though it had taken him ages to carve her face, hour after hour, her features had a life of their own. Soon his little bride’s smile was a sneer. The expression of her eyes changed also. Deep lines appeared—on her forehead and beside her nose and mouth. One morning when he woke up, Amadée was so hideous he threw her away in a corner where the ropes—”

      “Coiled like snakes!”

      “That night he went to sleep alone.”

       “Le pauvre, pauvre con!”

      “And he had nightmares. In the middle of the night he woke up screaming—”

      “A rat! He was bitten by a rat, eh? Nanu?”

      “He thought it was a rat. Until he lit his lamp and found Amadée back in his bed, scowling like a shark—”

      “Green as death!”

      “Cold to the touch. Cold—”

      “As ice, Nanu!”

      “Colder. Cold as brass. He picked her up—”

      “Although she was so heavy he almost ruptured his kidneys, le pauvre connard—”

      “—and he threw Amadée into the sea.”

      “The sea swallowed her up whole! C’est fini?”

      “Non. That night, a strong current pulled the ship back to the Java coast. In the moonlight the sailor saw that the ship was heading toward some immense rocks, so he dropped anchor. But the sea was too deep!”

      “Bottomless! And Amadée sinking and sinking!”

      “Helpless, he watched as the rocks—”

      “Shining in the moon, black as Hell . . .”

      “—loomed closer. Mountains of black stone.”

      “There was a sound! Like teeth tearing into the belly of a whale!”

      “The ship shuddered and dipped. Water bubbled up everywhere. When the ship rolled over, the logs in the hold broke loose—”

      “An entire forest!”

      “—shattering the ship.”

      “Like a matchbox!”

      “As the ship sank the sailor was spat into the water. He was crushed against the rocks by the trees that boiled and leapt in the sea. Just before he died he saw Amadée floating past—but fast. Churning the water! Like the Devil speeding back to Hell! But it wasn’t Amadée any longer—”

      “It wasn’t? It wasn’t? Who was it?”

      “Wormwood.”

      “Wormwood!” P’tit Pierre took my hand and held it against his heart, which was wildly beating. “Tu m’as fait grand peur, Nanu,” he said. “I am so afraid!” For a time he was silent, brooding. “Nanu?” he whispered then, his voice tremulous. “He’s here, in this room with us now!”

      “Je sais

      “Nanu?”

      “Be quiet now, Pierre.”

      “How did le pére Foucart get him?”

      “Because he is evil, “I whispered.

      “Yes, but how did he get him?”

      “Once a beggar came to the door wanting bread. It was winter and he was near dead with cold and hunger. ‘Fuck you!’ said Gran’père. ‘Why should I give you bread?’ The beggar pulled Wormwood out from under his rags. ‘I’ll give you this for a piece of bread,’ he said. ‘He’s a precious thing . . . very, very old. . . ’ ”

      “And it does a trick! But you know, Nanu . . . le père Foucart won Wormwood at the fair in St. Firmat.”

      The shadows in our corner of the room dispersed for a moment; it was Margarethe, come in with a candle. Looking up I saw her standing over us, her breasts like loaves of good, round country bread.

      “P’tit Pierre!” she whispered, bending down and tugging at his sleeve. “Get up and go to sleep! Nanu, you come too. I’ve made a bed for you in the kitchen.” I said, “Non. I want to stay here with M’man and Gran’père.” “Bien,” she said. She took off her shawl and put it across my knees. Then she went to the cupboard and fetched a pillow. When she gave it to me I told her it smelled like sour milk. “Sour milk?” she said. “What will you dream up next? I’m going to sleep for a few hours if I can. Le père Foucart has kept me up for two nights in a row. Come and get me, Nanu, when he’s near the end.”

      M’man snorted in her sleep