When you are engulfed in flames - By David Sedaris Page 0,72
clattering jar, the little spell of cursing and foot stomping. Had the flies been gathered on a windowpane, I would have enjoyed the last laugh, but out in the open, and with an audience of French people noting my every failure, my beautiful hobby became a chore.
I’d been telling myself for months that April needed me — though of course she didn’t. An adequate amount of prey stumbled into her web, and she caught it quite capably on her own — that was the case in Normandy anyway. Now, though, trapped inside a terrarium in a fourth-floor apartment, she honestly did need me, and the responsibility weighed a ton. Tegenaria can go without eating for three months, but whenever I returned home empty-handed, I could feel her little spider judgment seeping from the plastic box. The face that had once seemed goofy was now haughty and expectant. “Hmm,” I imagined her saying. “I guess I had you figured all wrong.”
In early October the weather turned cool. Then the rains came and, overnight, every fly in Paris packed up and left town. April hadn’t eaten in over a week when, just by chance, I happened upon a pet store and learned that it sold live crickets, blunt little black ones that looked like bolts with legs. I bought a chirping boxful and felt very proud of myself until the next morning, when I learned something no nature show ever told me: crickets stink. They reek. Rather than dirty diapers or spoiled meat, something definite you can put your finger on, they smell like an inclination: cruelty maybe, or hatred.
No amount of incense or air freshener could diminish the stench. Any attempt only made it worse, and it was this more than anything that led me back to Normandy. April and I took the train in late October, and I released her into her old home. I guess I thought that she would move back in, but in our absence her web had fallen to ruin. One corner had come unmoored, and its ragged, fly-speckled edge drooped like a filthy petticoat onto the window ledge. “I’m pretty sure it can be fixed,” I told her, but before I could elaborate, or even say good-bye, she took off running. And I never saw her again.
There have been other Tegenaria over the years, a new population every summer, and though I still feed them and monitor their comings and goings, it’s with a growing but not unpleasant distance, an understanding that, unlike mammals, spiders do only what they’re supposed to do. Whatever drives the likes of April is private and severe, and my attempts to humanize it only moved me further from its majesty. I still can’t resist the fly catching, but in terms of naming and relocating I’ve backed off considerably, though Hugh would say not enough.
I suppose there’s a place in everyone’s heart that’s reserved for another species. My own is covered in cobwebs rather than dog or cat hair, and, because of this, people assume it doesn’t exist. It does, though, and I felt it ache when Katrina hit. The TV was on, the grandmother signaled from her rooftop, and I found myself wondering, with something akin to panic, if there were any spiders in her house.
Crybaby
The night flight to Paris leaves JFK at 7:00 p.m. and arrives at de Gaulle the next day at about 8:45 a.m. French time. Between takeoff and landing, there’s a brief parody of an evening: dinner is served, the trays are cleared, and four hours later it’s time for breakfast. The idea is to trick the body into believing it has passed a night like any other — that your unsatisfying little nap was actually sleep and now you are rested and deserving of an omelet.
Hoping to make the lie more convincing, many passengers prepare for bed. I’ll watch them line up outside the bathroom, some holding toothbrushes, some dressed in slippers or loose-fitting pajama-type outfits. Their slow-footed padding gives the cabin the feel of a hospital ward: the dark aisles are corridors; the flight attendants are nurses. The hospital feeling grows even stronger once you leave coach. Up front, where the seats recline almost flat, like beds, the doted-on passengers lie under their blankets and moan. I’ve heard, in fact, that the airline staff often refers to the business-class section as “the ICU,” because the people there demand such constant attention. They want what their superiors are getting in first class, so they complain