"And the hell with you, you big dope! A dream! A dream!” I shriek. I’m not at all excited!. I want to see how far he’ll jump!
"You’re warming us up, lunkhead!. But a cup of coffee would be even better! ”
I let him have it!
Ah! I’m not at all excited!.. It calms me to see him in such a stew!..
Can you imagine! Can you imagine! What screams! The lunatic! hysterical!. worse than Delphine almost! She starts having fun too!.. she makes a spectacle of herself.. yowling!
laughing!.. kicking up!.. I swear, at it again!.. now they’re both at it! she clucking away like that and he crazy with rage! that I’m just sitting there indifferent!. taking it easy and not giving a damn!
He can croak there raving!.. I won’t budge except for coffee!. good and hot! and a nip! Won’t budge, Delphine neither!. Our mind’s made up!. we huddle together!.. we’re shivering.. and we’re laughing!.. He starts insulting us again!. People are walking around us..
"Come on! ” I decide.. "Let’s go! ”
It’s getting idiotic.
"Let’s go where?” he asks.
"Why, to see Cascade! you don’t remember?… it was your idea! ”
It really was his idea.
"And what about the old guy? You’re leaving him like that?. You don’t care?. with the door open?”
He thought of everything.
It's true that we hadn’t closed up!. that we’d left everything as is!. That was bad! what a binge!. You could see the door open from our bench, you could see it from there.. Had to go back and close the door!.. The least of our troubles!..
"All right! Then what’re you going to do?”
I saw he had a scheme..
"We’ll take him down! ”
"Down where?”
"To the cellar!”
"And then what?”
"We’ll come back tonight with the men.”
"Good!” I said. "You’re smart!”
It's true that it wasn’t a dumb idea… in the cellar, that was a little better..
"You want me to help you?”
"I sure do!”
Good! I make an effort. I stand up. I shouldn’t have.. feel like vomiting again.. sleeping too… I feel the torpor getting me again..
‘'Let’s go! Get a move on!”
He’s hustling me.
I’m on my feet again… I take Delphine’s arm.. we’re in front of the house. the door wide open. that’s a fact. the shop as is. We go in. nothing has moved. Still and all it was queer. We weren’t drunk. We walk through the shop.. there was the body on the floor.. there on its belly.. in the overcoats… the silks.. the soaked rug, a pool, the turban in the puddle..
“Come on!”.. he shakes me. "Let’s go! take him by the cape. Delphine, you the legs!. Let’s go! Lift!”
You can’t imagine how heavy he was! Even heavier than on the stairway!. He weighed around two hundred-fifty pounds! It was like lead, only soft. He was rolling all over. You couldn’t get a grip on him… all flabby, enormous padding.. The three of us got him down… the cellar staircase… the trap door open, luckily.. the two of us eased him down.. the wide staircase… the cellar passage full of sand… We laid him there. he sure was heavy!.. We just laid him right down. in the middle of the cellar, on the sand.. and it was all dark! just the water-lamp for the whole maneuver!..
It was quite a big cellar… a vast vault.. but what a junk heap! much worse than the shop! what a chaos!. All the secondhand odds and ends! tons, piles of rubbish!.. cartloads of everything!
“We’ll leave him here! Hell, that’ll do!”
I sit down, I’m puffing, it knocked me out. on one of the steps. in the darkness. I’m resting. Delphine, right on the sand.
“Ah! we made it!” I remark. “It’s done!”
We were about to go up again.. I’m telling everything exactly as it was.
"Hey!” Boro suddenly calls out, he grabs my arm as if he’s heard a noise.. something upstairs in the shop. I listen, I don’t hear anything..
"Sh! ” he orders.. "Don’t move, I’m going to see what’s up.. There’re people!”
He scoots up, he leaves us all alone just like that. It wasn’t funny.. with the corpse!!!. He does what he says. He goes up. And he shuts the big trap door on us! right in the dark. Ah! that was laying it on!. I didn’t understand! Ah! he’s shutting us in!
"Hey! hey!” I call.."Shit! What the hell!” He doesn’t answer. Not a word!. I hear him walking, moving furniture, putting things over our heads, right on the trap door. Ah! then I start roaring!..
"Boro! Boro! What the hell are you doing?”
He continues, he’s making a lot of noise.. he’s throwing things down. a raft of stuff on the trap door. Ah! he’s shutting us in!.. I don’t hear anyone with him.. he’s all alone in the shop!. Ah! that does it!.. suspicion!. hell! I’m sure!..Ah! that does it! he’s shutting us in!..He's locking us up!..
I clutch the steps!.. I bang the door!..
"Boro!” I scream. "open up!”
Go fuck yourself!.. I try to do something… I set my back against the wall.. It’s stuck! Shit! What did he put there?.. the lousy traitor!. Everything in the shop!. I heave again!
I’m forcing. Oooooh! whshhh!. the rat!. it’s giving!
just a crack. I see the shop. a ray of light!. I take a better stance. I’ve got a strong back. Oooh! whshhh! oh whshhh. there it goes!. it’s coming! I’ve pushed it back!
.. I’ve got an opening!. Just then plop!. right in the mush!. I get smacked!.. right in the mug!. wham!!.. I get groggy!.. I tumble over!. backwards!. from the crack! I let go!.. the trap door crashes!.. falls back! clack! It’s that bandit! Boom!!!. Thunder bursting in the darkness!
.. right in the cellar!. at the same time!.. amidst all the junk!. Ah! it’s magical!. right in the mug!. The rubbish comes down on me..He’s the one who threw the gadget! Dirty dog!. a terrific explosion!. Him again!. That’s it!
.. like at the Dingby… I suspected it!.. I should have suspected!. I’m whirling around in the plaster!. in the dark!
.. I’m pulled in! rolled over! flattened out! all the junk and timber fall on my mug!.. I call Delphine.. "Delphine! ”… She answers!.. She’s stuck in the sand.. she’s screaming.. she’s not dead yet.. everything fell on her head!.. under a heap of chunks of wood.. I feel my way.. I don’t see anything. I catch hold of her.. I clutch her!.. by the shoes.. I disentangle her… I yank at her!.. She screams.. but it’s nothing.. she’s in a kind of sand tank.. under a heap of broken cases… I tug at the whole shebang.. pull it all along!.. all that in pitch darkness..
“It’s a bomb!” I explain.. "It’s Boro!”
She doesn’t understand.. she’s choking.. it’s full of bitter smoke… the whole cellar.. but not cigarette smoke… the real thing! It’s coming from the back, I sniff, it’s burning! It’s a fire!.. I see sparks.. in the smoke.. Delphine really starts screaming… as if I were killing her!..
"All right, Delphine! There’s nothing the matter with you!
Help me!” I shout. so she can push the trap door with me!..
"I’m blind! ” she answers…
"You’re not! It’s the smoke!.. the cellar!”
She’s panicky. she wants to get away! to run to the back! into the fire! I get hold of her again. I pull her to the steps!..
‘'Come on, you bitch!.. together! ”
I want to raise the door again… A last effort!..
"Push, darling!.. push!”
It rose a tiny bit.. things were toppling down! wobbling. Boom!! it was furniture piled up. all the junk!. We weren’t getting anywhere! They were cabinets!.. dead sure!
.. buffets that weighed a ton!..