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Quite different from the painting and the statue are the gardens' habitues,
whom Tupik carefully watches and listens to. In dichotomous fashion,
he reads these people "formally" and infuses their anecdotes and behavior
with ethical meaning.
Old Madame Mamouse, the attendant at the gardens' toilet house, holds
an important position in the reading scenario. While this "Cerberus"
of the restrooms
forces little Tupik to enter "the men's domain with its smelly urinals"
(p. 75), she prevents him from entering "le domaine des dames" (p. 75).11
Very early in his association with Mamouse, Tupik realizes that he must
convince her to grant him admittance to the "promised land" of the women's
restroom. At her throne between the restroom doors the woman keeps
a stinking alcohol stove, which has a steaming pot of animal offal on it.
Tupik ignores the presence of this vulgar stew of scraps: "Tupik had indeed
had the opportunity to glance into the dented saucepan which simmered on
the stove. But these poultry necks, these livers, these gizzards had evoked
nothing in his mind" (p. 77). Mamouse's stew has a delayed signifying
power, Tupik only takes an interest in the "symbolic" contents of the pot
when he finishes constructing his alternative story. Ultimately,
Mme. Mamouse holds a position of dual importance: she guards the desired
women's toilet and she cooks the secretive stew. Before Tupik unravels
the mystery of the restrooms and the contents of the pot, he hears the
attendant's "philosophy of masculinity," which expands upon his scope of
ethical readings.
One of her habitual diatribes regularly followed against
men with their disgusting ways, all are perverts, pigs, debauchers. She
knew something, after all, she kept a toilet house for thirty years. (p.
77)
Tupik hears Mamouse's voice of "expertise" as a confirmation of his revulsion
at the "unethical" filth of the men's restroom. This expert Mamouse
knows something important, and her verification of Tupik's men's room revulsion
induces great interest in the contents of the stinking pot. Tupik's logic
becomes quite clear: If Mme. Mamouse knows so much about the wiles and
ways of men, then the contents of her stew must hold some important information—integral
piece of the divided restroom puzzle.
Yet another character in the reading process holds the key that connects
all the pieces of Tupik's revisionary gender/sex story: Dominique,
the intriguing son of the carousel proprietor, holds a special place in
the boy's daily garden adventures. Dominique is especially kind to
Tupik as a "compensation" for his size (he cannot reach the trophy buzzer
on his carousel car to earn a longed-for second ride). On many occasions
the older boy either boosts his young friend up to the buzzer or simply
allows him to take a free second ride. Tupik looks at his older friend
with reverential eyes; while big Mme. Mamouse is a "wise" barrier to his
ascent to the women's room, kind Dominique acts as a nurturing agent of
his everyday garden world.
Tupik's deep feelings of admiration allow him to ask his friend a troubling
question: "Tupik had found a sort of older brother in this big, peaceful
and maternal boy. Also he did not fail to question him after he saw
him leave the women's side of the toilet house with Mamouse's evident blessing"
(p. 80). Does Dominique's kindness grant him the privilege of entering
the women's restroom? Is there something about Dominique that Tupik
does not know? When asked why he is accorded the special honor, Dominique
obliges Tupik to tell no one about it. The older child agrees to
share his secret with Tupik in the boxwood labyrinth on a mossy pedestal
that once held a statue—to display himself as a living mythical figure
in the most secretive corner of the park. The outcome of this display
seals Tupik's fate, providing the decisive evidence that dictates the story's
gruesome conclusion.
So Dominique stood up on the plinth and began to unbutton
the fly of his short trousers, without taking his eyes off Tupik.
Then, having it open wide, he lowered the red underpants that he had uncovered.
His white smooth belly ended in a milky crack, a vertical smile where a
trace of pale down played.
—'But . . . Dominique' Tupik exclaimed.
—'Dominique, it's also a girl's name.' Dominique who had
refastened her shorts in a blink of an eye, explained. (p. 82)
After the disclosure of this surprising evidence, Tupik makes his way to
Mamouse's toilet house. He cannot help but reflect upon the differences
between the hairy men at the urinals with their dangling pieces of dark
flesh and gentle Dominique on the pedestal with "his" smooth, downy stomach
and milky slot. In a blinding flash of realization, all signs come
together; in Tupik's juvenile mind, the male maturation narrative becomes
clear. Dominique, like the hero Theseus, indeed is different from
men like Tupik's father. Tupik too will be different. The way
to avoid the bristles of manhood, and moreover, the way to enter the women's
restroom, equals a contribution to Mme. Mamouse's offal pot (along with
gizzards and livers, Tupik now sees discarded pieces of male genitalia).
With dignity and "patient grace," he cuts off his tiny penis and faints.
The sign of Dominique's sex—the smile between "his" legs—is the final evidence
in Tupik's alternative maturation narrative, which dictates an act of
self-castration.
How do we read Tupik's acts of reading? Quite simply put, Michel
Tournier's "Tupik" is the story of a little boy's sexual enlightenment;
the boy reads signs in a way that undercuts his parents' promise of bristles.
Yet there are more profound
implications to the logic of Tupik's story. Two possibilities surface
in the story's reading process: Where the suggestions of the boy's narrative
disposition provide a positive alternative to the rigid pattern inscribed
in his parents' manly promise (the bristles that mark the move from boyhood
corruption to manhood consolidation), the ritual emanating from the process
of reading—Tupik's confusion surrounding questions of the Other—leads to
tremendous loss. "In other words, sexual, genital desire [including
a physical alteration of the genitals] can only be fully realized and consummated
at the cost of one's life. So it may be better to remain with one's
livable perversions and to seek in displaced/replaced desire a sense of
fulfillment.''12
Tupik escapes the dreaded state of bristliness through his reading of cultural
artifacts; once he extends his reading into the realm of "sexed" people,
tragedy becomes inevitable. When he connects the threads of his story
to the presence or absence of the penis, his "livable" alternative narrative
becomes an overt expression of violence. The boy thrives in his secret
world of skirted heroes and boy-girls, yet his imaginative world collapses
when the physical constraints of anatomy bear down upon the demands of
his "completed" story. 
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