Silk Read online

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s an aviary.’

  ‘An aviary?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what is its purpose?’

  Hervé Joncour kept his eyes fixed on those drawings.

  ‘You fill it with birds, as many as you can, then one day, when something lovely happens to you, you open the doors and watch them fly away.’

  40.

  AT the end of July Hervé Joncour left, with his wife, for Nice. They settled themselves in a small villa, on the sea. That was what Hélène had wanted, convinced that a serene and quiet retreat would soothe the melancholy humour that seemed to have possessed her husband. She had had the acuity, nonetheless, to pass it off as a personal whim, giving the man she loved the pleasure of indulging her.

  They spent five weeks of small-scale, unassailable happiness. On days when the heat was less intense, they rented a carriage and enjoyed discovering the towns hidden in the hills, where the sea seemed a background of coloured paper. From time to time, they went to the city for a concert or some society event. One evening they accepted the invitation of an Italian baron who was celebrating his sixtieth birthday with a grand dinner at the Hôtel Suisse. They were at dessert when Hervé Joncour happened to look over at Hélène. She was sitting on the other side of the table, beside a seductive Englishman who, curiously, displayed on the lapel of his evening suit a little wreath of small blue flowers. Hervé Joncour saw him lean over Hélène and whisper something in her ear. Hélène began to laugh, in a beautiful way, and, laughing, bent slightly towards the English gentleman so that she grazed his shoulder with her hair, in a gesture in which there was nothing embarrassing but only a disconcerting precision. Hervé Joncour lowered his gaze to his plate. He couldn’t help noticing that his own hand, clutching a silver teaspoon, was undeniably trembling.

  Later, in the smoking room, Hervé Joncour, staggering because he had drunk too much, approached a man who, sitting alone at the table, was looking straight ahead, with a vaguely doltish expression on his face. He leaned over towards him and said slowly

  ‘I must communicate to you something very important, monsieur. We are all revolting. We are all marvellous, and we are all revolting.’

  The man came from Dresden. He dealt in calves and didn’t understand much French. He burst into a noisy laugh, making a sign of agreement with his head, repeatedly: as if he would never stop.

  Hervé Joncour and his wife stayed on the Riviera until early September. They left the little villa with regret, since, within its walls, they had felt that to love each other was an easy fate.

  41.

  BALDABIOU arrived at the house of Hervé Joncour early in the morning. They sat under the portico.

  ‘As a park it’s not much.’

  ‘I haven’t started to build it yet, Baldabiou.’

  ‘Ah, I see.’

  Baldabiou never smoked in the morning. He took out his pipe, filled it, and lighted it.

  ‘I met this Pasteur. He’s a smart fellow. He showed me what he’s doing. He’s capable of distinguishing the sick eggs from the healthy ones. He doesn’t know how to cure them, of course. But he can isolate the healthy ones. And he says that probably thirty per cent of what we produce is healthy.’

  Pause.

  ‘Is there any more coffee?’

  Hervé Joncour poured some coffee.

  Pause.

  ‘Those two Italians, Ferreri and the other, the ones who went to China, last year … They came back with fifteen thousand ounces of eggs, good stuff, and they also bought from Bollet, it’s said the stock was high quality. In a month they leave again … They offered a good deal, their prices are honest, eleven francs an ounce, all covered by insurance. They are serious people, with an organisation behind them – they sell eggs to half of Europe. Serious people, I tell you.’

  Pause.

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps we could manage. With our eggs, with the work of Pasteur, and then what we can buy from the two Italians … we could manage. The others in the town say it’s madness to send you out there again … with all that it costs … they say it’s too risky, and in this they are right, the other times it was different, but now … now it’s difficult to get back from there alive.’

  Pause.

  ‘The fact is that they don’t want to lose the eggs. And I don’t want to lose you.’

  Hervé Joncour sat for a while gazing at the park that wasn’t there. Then he did something he had never done.

  ‘I will go to Japan, Baldabiou.’

  He said.

  ‘I will buy those eggs, and if necessary I’ll do it with my own money. You must only decide if I sell them to you or to someone else.’

  Baldabiou hadn’t expected this. It was like seeing the one-armed man win on the last play, four cushions, impossible angles.

  42.

  BALDABIOU told the breeders of Lavilledieu that Pasteur was undependable, that those Italians had already scammed half of Europe, that in Japan the war would end before winter, and that St Agnes, in a dream, had asked him if they weren’t a pack of chickenshits. Only to Hélène he couldn’t lie.

  ‘Is it really necessary for him to go, Baldabiou?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then why?’

  ‘I can’t stop him. And if he wants to go, I can only give him one more reason to return.’

  All the breeders of Lavilledieu contributed, although reluctantly, their quota to finance the expedition. Hervé Joncour began his preparations, and in early October he was ready to leave. Hélène, as she did every year, helped him, without asking questions, and hiding from him any worry she had. Only the last night, after turning off the lamp, did she find the strength to say to him

  ‘Promise me that you will return.’

  In a firm voice, without tenderness.

  ‘Promise me that you will return.’

  In the darkness Hervé Joncour answered

  ‘I promise.’

  43.

  ON October 10, 1864, Hervé Joncour left on his fourth trip to Japan. He crossed the French border near Metz, travelled through Württemberg and Bavaria, entered Austria, reached Vienna and Budapest by train, and continued to Kiev. On horseback he traversed two thousand kilometres of the Russian steppe, crossed the Urals into Siberia, and travelled for forty days to reach Lake Baikal, which the people of the place called: the saint. He followed the course of the River Amur, skirting the Chinese border, to the Ocean, and when he arrived at the Ocean he stopped in the port of Sabirk for eight days, until a Dutch smugglers’ ship carried him to Cape Teraya, on the western coast of Japan. On horseback, taking secondary roads, he crossed the provinces of Ishikawa, Toyama, Niigata, and entered Fukushima. When he reached Shirakawa he found the city half destroyed, and a garrison of government soldiers camped among the ruins. He circled the city to the east, and waited for the emissary from Hara Kei for five days, in vain. At dawn on the sixth day he left for the hills, to the north. He had a few rough maps, and what was left of his memories. He wandered for days, until he recognised a river, and then a forest, and then a road. At the end of the road he found the village of Hara Kei: burned to the ground – houses, trees, everything.

  There was nothing.

  Not a living soul.

  Hervé Joncour stood motionless, looking at the enormous spent brazier. Behind him was a road eight thousand kilometres long. And in front of him nothing. Suddenly he saw what he had thought was invisible.

  The end of the world.

  44.

  HERVÉ Joncour stayed for hours among the ruins of the village. He couldn’t leave, although he knew that every hour lost there could signify disaster for him, and for all Lavilledieu: he had no silkworm eggs, and even if he had found some he had only a couple of months to get across the world before they would hatch, on the way, becoming a mass of useless larvae. So he stayed there until something surprising and irrational happened: suddenly, out of nowhere, a boy appeared. Dressed in rags, he walked slowly, sta
ring at the stranger with fear in his eyes. Hervé Joncour didn’t move. The boy took a few more steps and stopped. They stood looking at each other, a few feet apart. Then the boy took something from under the rags and, trembling with fear, approached Hervé Joncour and held it out to him. A glove. Hervé Joncour saw again the edge of a lake, and an orange robe abandoned on the ground, and the small waves that pushed the water on to the shore, as if sent there from afar. He took the glove and smiled at the boy.

  ‘It’s me, the Frenchman … the silk man, the Frenchman, do you understand? … It’s me.’

  The boy stopped trembling.

  ‘French …’

  His eyes were bright, but he laughed. He began to speak, quickly, almost shouting, and running, making a sign to Hervé Joncour to follow him. He disappeared on a path into the woods, in the direction of the mountains.

  Hervé Joncour didn’t move. He turned the glove over and over in his hands, as if it were the only thing left to him of a vanished world. He knew that by now it was too late. And that he had no choice.

  He rose. Slowly he approached his horse. He got in the saddle. Then he did a strange thing. He pressed his heels into the animal’s belly. And set off. Towards the forest, behind the boy, beyond the end of the world.

  45.

  THEY travelled for days, northward, in the mountains. Hervé Joncour didn’t know where they were going: but he let the boy guide him, without attempting to ask. They came across two villages. The people hid in their houses. The women ran away. The boy vastly amused himself by shouting at them incomprehensibly. He was no more than fourteen. He was constantly blowing on a small reed instrument, from which he drew forth the songs of all the birds in the world. He appeared to be doing the most wonderful thing in his life.

  On the fifth day they reached the top of a hill. The boy indicated a point on the road in front of them, which descended to a valley. Hervé Joncour took the telescope and what he saw was a kind of procession: armed men, women and children, carts, animals. An entire village: on the road. Hervé Joncour saw Hara Kei, on horseback, dressed in black. Behind him, enclosed on all four sides by bright-coloured fabrics, was a litter, swaying.

  46.

  THE boy got off the horse, said something, and ran away. Before disappearing among the trees he turned and stood there for a moment, searching for a gesture to indicate that it had been a wonderful journey.

  ‘It’s been a wonderful journey,’ Hervé Joncour called out to him.

  All day, at a distance, Hervé Joncour followed the caravan. When he saw it stop for the night, he continued along the road until two armed men came up to him and took his horse and his bags and led him to a tent. He waited for a long time, then Hara Kei arrived. He made no sign of greeting. He didn’t even sit down.

  ‘How did you get here, Frenchman?’

  Hervé Joncour didn’t answer.

  ‘I asked who brought you here.’

  Silence.

  ‘There is nothing for you here. There is only war. And it’s not your war. Go away.’

  Hervé Joncour took out a small leather purse, opened it, and emptied it on the ground. Scales of gold.

  ‘War is an expensive game. You need me. I need you.’

  Hara Kei didn’t even look at the gold on the ground. He turned and left.

  47.

  HERVÉ Joncour spent the night on the edge of the camp. No one spoke to him, no one seemed to see him. They all slept on the ground, beside fires. There were only two tents. Next to one, Hervé Joncour saw the litter, empty: hanging on the four corners were some small cages: birds. From the mesh of the cages hung tiny gold bells. They jingled, softly, in the night breeze.

  48.

  WHEN he woke, he saw that the village was about to set off again. The tents were gone. The litter was still there, open. The people climbed on to the carts, silently. He got up and looked around for a long time, but only eyes of an Oriental shape met his, and were immediately lowered. He saw armed men and children who didn’t cry. He saw the mute faces that people have when they are a people in flight. And he saw a tree, on the side of the road. And suspended from a branch the boy who had brought him there, hanged.

  Hervé Joncour approached and stood staring for a moment, as if hypnotised. Then he untied the rope that was attached to the tree, picked up the boy’s body, laid it on the ground, and knelt beside it. He couldn’t take his eyes from that face. So he didn’t see the village starting off, but only heard, as if from a distance, the noise of the procession as it brushed past him, along the road. He didn’t look up even when he heard the voice of Hara Kei, a step away, saying

  ‘Japan is an ancient country, do you understand? Its law is ancient: there are twelve crimes for which a man can be condemned to death. And one is to carry a message of love from one’s mistress.’

  Hervé Joncour didn’t take his eyes off that murdered boy.

  ‘He had no message of love with him.’

  ‘He was a message of love.’

  Hervé Joncour felt something pressing on his head, forcing it towards the ground.

  ‘It’s a gun, Frenchman. Don’t look up, I beg you.’

  Hervé Joncour didn’t understand immediately. Then, amid the rustling sounds of that caravan in flight, he heard the gilded tinkle of a thousand tiny bells approaching, gradually, ascending the road towards him, step by step, and although in his eyes there was only that dark earth, he could imagine the litter, swaying like a pendulum, and almost see it, ascending, foot after foot, approaching, slow but implacable, borne by that sound which grew louder and louder, intolerably loud, closer and closer, so close that it touched him, a gilded din, right in front of him now, precisely in front of him – at that moment – that woman – in front of him.

  Hervé Joncour raised his head.

  Marvellous fabrics, silk, draping the litter, a thousand colours, orange, white, ochre, silver, not a peephole in that marvellous nest, only the rustling of the colours rippling in the air, impenetrable, lighter than nothing.

  Hervé Joncour didn’t hear an explosion shatter its life. He heard the sound growing distant, the barrel of the rifle lifted up and the voice of Hara Kei saying softly

  ‘Go away, Frenchman. And don’t ever come back.’

  49.

  ONLY silence, along the road. The body of a boy, on the ground. A man kneeling. Until the last light of day.

  50.

  IT took Hervé Joncour eleven days to reach Yokohama. He bribed a Japanese official and procured sixteen cartons of silkworm eggs that came from the south of the island. He wrapped them in silk cloths and sealed them in four round wooden boxes. He found a ship for the continent and in early March reached the Russian coast. He chose the northernmost route, looking for cold to arrest the life of the eggs and prolong the time before they hatched. By forced marches he covered the four thousand kilometres of Siberia, crossed the Urals, and reached St Petersburg. He bought, at an exorbitant cost, hundredweights of ice and loaded them, with the eggs, into the hold of a merchant ship bound for Hamburg. It took six days to get there. He unloaded the four round wooden boxes, and got a train heading south. After eleven hours of travel, just outside a city that was called Eberfeld, the train stopped to take on water. Hervé Joncour looked around. A summer sun was beating on the fields of grain, and on all the world. Sitting opposite him was a Russian merchant: he had taken off his shoes and was fanning the air with the last page of a newspaper written in German. Hervé Joncour stared at him. He saw the stains of sweat on his shirt and the drops that pearled his forehead and neck. The Russian said something, laughing. Hervé Joncour smiled at him, rose, took his bags, and got off the train. He walked beside it to the last car, a freight car that carried fish and meat, preserved in ice. It was dripping water like a bowl punctured by a thousand projectiles. He opened the door, climbed into the car, and, one after another, picked up his round wooden boxes, carried them outside, and set them on the ground, beside the tracks. Then he closed the door and waited. When t
he train was ready to leave they shouted to him to hurry and get on. He responded by shaking his head, and making a gesture of farewell. He saw the train grow distant, and then disappear. He waited until he no longer heard it. Then he bent over one of the wooden boxes, removed the seals, and opened it. He did the same with the three others. Slowly, with care.

  Millions of larvae. Dead.

  It was May 6, 1865.

  51.

  HERVÈ Joncour entered Lavilledieu nine days later. From a distance, his wife, Hélène, saw the carriage coming along the tree-lined drive of the villa. She said to herself that she mustn’t weep and that she mustn’t flee.

  She went to the front door, opened it, and stopped on the threshold.

  When Hervé Joncour came close to her, she smiled. He, embracing her, said softly

  ‘Stay with me, please.’

  They were awake late into the night, sitting beside each other on the lawn in front of the house. Hélène told him about Lavilledieu, and all those months spent waiting, and of the past days, terrible.

  ‘You were dead.’

  She said.

  ‘And there was nothing good left, in the world.’

  52.

  AROUND the farmhouses, in Lavilledieu, people looked at the mulberries, thick with leaves, and saw their own ruin. Baldabiou had found some shipments of eggs, but the larvae died as soon as they emerged. The rough silk that was obtained from the few that survived was barely enough to provide work for two of the seven silk mills in the town.