‘That’s the way it is and that’s that!’

While parents usually get carried away trying to explain the great mysteries of life and the why and wherefore of everything to their offspring, the Dessaintes always proved exceptionally mean when it came to explanations.

Of course, they attached a degree of importance to feeding and clothing the only child they had brought into the world, and to making her generally presentable, but never – not once – did they show any zeal for instruction, let alone education.

Their attachment to the most basic platitudes and their innate laziness when it came to answering their child’s questions was perhaps a symptom of their resignation, of their submissive acceptance of realities beyond their understanding, of their total lack of education. Whatever the reason, they dismissed all her inquiries – those questions from a child mesmerized by the world – with the same laconic, fixed response: ‘That’s the way it is and that’s that!’

Farewell science and its complicated algorithms, farewell erudite digressions and their gang of bearded boffins! In the small town of Saint-Benoît, or to be more precise at number 21 rue René-Descartes (which they naturally misspelled as ‘René des Cartes’), the mere sight of a book was enough to make the Dessaintes’ hair stand on end, sending them into a state of acute irritation followed by inescapable ennui.

Welcome to the island of La Réunion in the 1980s: a heap of rubble on the edge of the world where the worst human superstitions, chased out by waves of European scepticism, had finally found a welcoming harbour. Here they had been able to take root and grow, and now cast a terrible shadow over a headstrong and utterly gullible people.

During the day, the streets were indolent rows of houses flanked by letterboxes full of bills and other official correspondence, but come night-time, it was a tropical Hallowe en over and over. Every neighbourhood was given over to a legion of invisible tyrants: Néréides, Nazgûl and other misanthropic, carnivorous and barbarous demons who were held accountable for all the mishaps and mistakes of the day. At least, that’s what my parents, the parents of my parents, the parents of the parents of my parents, their own great-grandparents, their friends, the friends of their enemies and the enemies of their friends swore – and the conversation ended there. Or rather, it persisted there, growing and spreading like wildfire across the island’s twenty-four municipalities, its three cirques, its savannah and its two volcanoes, until there was not a single resident left, with the exception of the Zoreils, who doubted the existence of the devil, his wanton wickedness and his control over pretty much anything and everything.

The very youngest knew not to ask too many questions, for bloodthirsty monsters were always eavesdropping at doors and, come nightfall, would like nothing more than to gobble up a nosey child!

If the Dessaintes’ child nevertheless insisted on knowing the reason for which something was forbidden, the why of the breeze that blew, the how of the Mascarene martin that sang, or the wherefore of a rainbow’s formation – and if they were cornered into providing an explanation slightly longer than the usual eight words – the Dessaintes immediately blurted out the most frightful stories, an avalanche of unpredictable, vivid and irrefutable horrors. This all to smother the child’s curiosity, to prevent her from any new investigation and to stunt her desire to listen and to talk. This may have been all well and good. Except for the fact that this child, their only child, was me!

In short, my parents, to whom fate had given the name Dessaintes, were horrible Creole versions of the monosyllabic Bartleby coupled with that nutcase Lovecraft – not that they’d ever know enough to recognize that about themselves! They were driven by a single abject certainty: the best way to bring up children was to shut them up by terrorizing them! Rather than explain things, they petrified them, and they never resorted to persuasion because it was easier to intimidate.

For example: after a long, lively dinner one evening, I decided to hoist myself up on a chair and climb onto the table. Just like that, without any reason. Normal parents would have immediately held out their arms to coax their naughty tot back down. With a disapproving look, they would have explained that, through such behaviour, the child was exposing itself to danger – they may break their bones were they to fall. But the Dessaintes were not normal. My dad finished picking his teeth, poured himself another glass of water and, his eyes still fixated on the television, simply asked me:

‘Do you know what happens to children who climb on tables?’

And without even waiting for my reply, he continued, ‘They are condemned to live their entire lives as dwarves. Spotty and full of pus. Just like Tom the Troll. Remember him? Our neighbour with the club foot and the harelip? Found dead last year, devoured by ants and swarming with maggots? If Tom had listened to his parents, who knows the life he’d have led! He wasn’t born like that. He became like that. And you will too. After just a minute on the table, the curse can’t be reversed, you know! That’s the way it is and that’s that!’

Then, with enormous gravity, my father began looking at his watch.

I was immediately consumed by fear. A gnawing, harrowing terror filled my body as I searched my father’s face for some sign that he was joking. None came. Tom, Tom the Troll, that gnome from Saint-Benoît, feared by all the children of rue Descartes – even Big Johnny who wasn’t afraid of anything, not even his mother! Tom the Gnome, whose only friend was a dog. We all wondered which of them had given the other mange. If he were still alive, at least we could have been friends, I thought. I was terror stricken then and clambered down as fast as I could, literally putting my foot in something as I did so: ‘How long?’ I stammered. ‘How long was I up there?’ I burst into tears in my father’s lap.

And at that very moment I heard a strange tapping – tut-tut tut-tut tut-tut. It struck me with a force like thunder, shattering the deceptive calm of this once-pleasant evening. My father’s silence plunged me into a sort of madness. But in the midst of my fear – and my guilt and shame at this crime whose effects would soon be public knowledge – I found the strength to go to my mother.

‘Will I be little my whole life? Really?’

Mother put the remote control down for a moment and looked at my father. Then she fixed her eyes on me and informed me that, yes, there was indeed a good chance that I would never get any bigger.

‘Why? Why? Why?’

‘Well! That’s the way it is and that’s that!’

And to finish, she made me promise not to climb on the table ever again.

What value or use could this oath have now? The verdict had already been given. My actions had provoked direct and immediate consequences. Despondency, humiliation, resignation and anger furrowed my guilty brow. I put myself to bed straight away, without brushing my teeth, without even wiping away the tears that ran down my plump cheeks. I spent thousands of hours – an eternal number of days – in a silent panic, waiting for the inescapable contraction of my bones, the formation of putrid protuberances, the appearance of the first bump. I’d be like a Malagasy zebu, I’d have the cumbersome humps of a Tunisian camel. The princess of Saint-Benoît, with her pigtails and pale pink hair clips, was about to be turned into a tropical pygmy with a sequined headband.

I never climbed on a table again. In the presence of dwarves – monstrous little beings trapped somewhere between an adult and child – I was filled at once with pity and horror, and often stopped myself from saying, with terrible empathy and dramatic resignation, ‘My friend, I will soon be one of you!’