Once in Europa Read Online Free Page A

eyes were open. When his father returned with a sledge across his back, he was panting hard but grinning. Together they tied the carcass—it weighed a good hundred and fifty kilos—onto the light sledge. Then they started the difficult journey down.
    Father Berthier put himself between the two wooden arms in the position of a two-legged horse. Like this he could pull when the runners of the sledge met an obstacle or when the slope wasn’t steep enough, and like this, if they were running too fast over the mud or the new slippery grass, he could brake by digging in his heels and lifting up the front of the sledge so that its weight leant backwards and the back of the sledge was forced into the ground. Félix followed, holding on to a rope to brake the speed, but in fact being pulled along ever faster. One false step on his father’s part and the charging boar and sledge would knock him onto his face and ride over him.
    His last run home, Felo!
    Not so fast, Papa!
    The boy had his father’s gun across his back.
    When they were down on the road which passes the café, they stopped to give their legs a rest.
    It’s the knees, isn’t it, which feel it?
    My legs aren’t tired, lied the boy.
    There’s a man for you!
    Along the grass bank by the side of the road the sledge slid gently and easily. The boy let go of the rope and put the gun under his arm, carrying it like a hunter.
    They met Louis, who could argue a politician under the table.
    The month of May, the season for hunting? asked Louis.
    It’s no gazelle! said his father.
    I’d hide him quick if I were you, said Louis. How many shots?
    One shot, only one shot. Felo here is going to be a hunter. His hand’s as steady as a rock.
    And Félix, although he knew why his father, cunning as ever, had invented this story, was filled with pride.
    When they got home and the boar had been hidden in the cellar, his father said: It’s time you learnt to use a gun, I’ll find you one. What do you say to that?
    I’d rather have an accordion, replied Félix.
    An accordion! Ah! you want to seduce the girls, eh?
    One night, a few months later, Félix was in bed and he heard his father come into the kitchen, shouting in the sing-song voice which meant he had been drinking. There were some other men with him who were laughing. Then there was a silence, and, suddenly, the strains of an accordion being clumsily played. I got it for Felo, he heard his father shout, got it off Valentine. She was glad to be rid of it, now Emile’s dead, what could she do with an accordion? Poor Emile! said another voice. She never liked him playing, said a third man, she’d walk out of the room as soon as Emile picked the thing up. How’s that? She was jealous was our Valentine and Emile encouraged her to be so. He liked to make her jealous! Do you know what he named his accordion? What did he call it? He called his accordion Caroline! Come and sit on my knees, Caroline, he’d say, come and have a cuddle! All you men are the same! Félix heard his mother protest. Come and sit on my knees, Albertine! his father roared, come here and I’ll give you a squeeze! He pressed on the bass buttons and the instrument lowed like a bull. You’ll wake up Félix, you will! his mother said.
    It was a diatonic accordion with twelve bass keys for the left hand, made by F. Dedents in the 1920s. The keys had pearly heads, its sides were blue decorated with yellow flowers, and the reeds were made of metal and leather. He learnt to play it seated, resting the right-hand keyboard on his left thigh and opening the accordion like a cascade falling towards the floor to the left of the chair. A cascade of sound.
    Late in the month of May, the grass grows before your eyes. One day it is like a carpet, the next it is halfway up your knees. Get it scythed, Albertine would say, or it’ll be tickling the cunt.
    The cows in Félix’s stable