In a Mist (5 page)

The bell on the butcher shop door jingled as he entered. Morty stood in the shadows at the back of the room, furiously cleaving the bloody flank of some huge beast. He did not look up from his work. After standing there for some time, holding the rabbit, Edgar cleared his throat. The butcher looked at him, finally, a glint in his eye as he wiped his blood-splattered hands on his soiled apron.

“I don't skin rabbits,” he whispered, ending ten years of near silence between the two young men.

“My money's as good as anyone else's,” said Edgar, laying his rabbit on the counter.

“Doesn't matter who you are,” said Morty. “Don't skin rabbits as a rule.” He smirked at Edgar. “No fish at the market today?”

“Today is an exception,” Edgar replied. “Today I shall have rabbit for my dinner. I am prepared to pay twice what the job is worth. I will return to pick up my order before close.”

He placed a coin on the counter and left it there. Morty said nothing, but looked at the rabbit with what Edgar chose to interpret as the irrepressible butcher's desire to rend flesh from hide. A silent agreement was then reached between the two men. Edgar bowed slightly to the butcher, and, like the falcon, left in the sudden and unexpected manner
in which he had arrived. As he made his way out the door, Edgar thought he heard Morty whisper something, but he couldn't be sure.

Edgar was elated as he continued through the village. Instead of being angered by Morty's insolence, he was on the contrary pleased with himself for having taken the first step. It was with uncharacteristic joviality that he greeted the proprietor of the Black Boar. He brought a look of surprise to that man's moustachioed face when, instead of requesting his usual ale, he asked for wine. A bottle and a half later, Edgar left for Morty's shop with an exaggerated spring in his step. Edgar's usual reserve hijacked by the wine, he was seen executing a little twirl in the middle of the street by the boy who sold him his paper every morning.

“No fish today?” Marguerite called out from behind her cart, a smile on her lips.

“Not today,” he replied. “Perhaps tomorrow.”

He entered the butcher shop and made his way to the counter. It seemed somewhat farther from the door than he remembered.

“Thought you might have decided on fish after all,” said Morty. He grinned, sliding a package on the counter, neatly wrapped in waxed paper and tied with string. The man's teeth really were awful, Edgar thought to himself, and the odour of his breath had certainly not improved, but rather, like a fine cheese, had grown more pungent and ripe with the passage of time. He suppressed a grimace, did his best to show his approval, and took the package under his arm. He was preparing himself to walk to the door in the semblance of a straight line when Morty placed a meaty hand on his left arm, extended the other hand, and pressed several small coins into Edgar's sweaty palm.

“No extra charge,” said Morty. “But remember, from now on, no rabbits. You want real meat, you come to Morty the butcher.”

“Of course,” replied Edgar. “Many thanks.” He turned and made his way to the door more hastily than necessary and felt relieved to be back out on the street, where the air did not smell of butcher's breath. All in all, he thought to himself, the exchange had gone rather well. Morty had been more amicable than he expected, off ering him his change, treating him like any other customer. He did not think he had suspected him of drinking. And he wondered if perhaps Morty was no longer the raging imbecile he had once been. He would almost have been convinced had it not been for the unmistakable glint in his eye earlier that afternoon as he worked over the carcass at the back of the shop. This did not prevent Edgar from executing another little twirl before gingerly ascending the stairs to his apartment.

He poured a glass of wine and seated himself before his tidy package. The smell seemed a bit sour, he thought, as he untied the string. But it had been so long since he had dined on rabbit, he could not quite remember how it was supposed to smell. And besides, one had to admit, he was slightly drunk. His smile vanished the instant he found the bloody pelt. It was precisely the sight he had endeavoured to avoid. He could still make out the marks where the falcon's talons had gripped the creature. But these wounds seemed relatively humane compared to Morty's hack-job. He held his breath and inspected more closely, barely staving off the urge to vomit. Beneath the riven and bloodied pelt there was no meat: instead numerous beady unseeing fish eyes stared back at him from where the meat should have been. Edgar seethed, recalling Marguerite's mischievous smile as he passed by her cart that afternoon. He realized then that he had been the victim of a private little conspiracy between butcher and fishmonger.

“Bastards!” he cried. “Jesus bastards!” He took the wine bottle and held it to his lips, draining its contents in a single
draught. Then he held the empty bottle by its neck and smashed it on the side of the table. Wielding the jagged edge of the bottle as if it were a dagger, he plunged it repeatedly into the fish-head-filled rabbit pelt until the package was reduced to little more than a puddle of blood, pulp, fish juice and fur. Then he began to blubber. He fell to the floor, moaning and sobbing with impotent rage. He felt utterly alone, loathing himself and his own stupidity as much as he loathed everyone he had ever known. He lay there for some time, until his sobs gave way to exhaustion.

Then, he began to feel a little better. Using the table to pull himself to his feet, he stood, wiped his fishy, bloodstained hands on his trousers, and wiped the wine and the tears from his face with his sleeve. As he regained his composure, the necessary course of action became entirely clear to him. He retrieved that morning's newspaper and tore out the article about the orphan girl and placed it beneath the pillow of his bed and used the rest of the paper to wrap up the mess on the table. Taking the pistol from beneath the bed seemed perfectly natural, as natural as taking up his walking stick for an afternoon stroll. He put on his coat and tucked the bundle of newsprint under his arm, as if taking along a bit of lunch for the trip. Blood started to show through the paper and he wrapped up a few more sheets before leaving.

It was rather late by the time he returned to Morty's shop, and the street was entirely deserted. Using the butt of the pistol, he smashed the lock on the door with ease, as if he were hammering a nail to hang a painting on the wall. Reality remained conveniently at bay until Edgar burst into Morty's upstairs apartment, only to discover the butcher naked on the floor, thrusting himself into Marguerite, equally naked, moaning blithely beneath him. Morty was as repulsive as his lover was fair, his broad, stumpy body
completely covered in dark hair, save for the hideously scarred patch, still prominent on his right forearm. At the sound of the door the two of them turned to look at him, wide-eyed and panting. Edgar momentarily lost his nerve and almost turned to flee before it occurred to him that this particular turn of events would only simplify things. The two of them, the butcher and his buxom accomplice, could eat the rabbit-pelt-fish-head-puree together. If a little orphan girl could, by the barrel of a pistol, have her way with an entire abbey, then so could he serve justice to Morty the butcher and his fish-wench trollop. Rather unfortunate, he thought to himself, that he should only come to witness the full extent of Marguerite's endowments under present circumstances. Nevertheless, it was to his advantage in the business at hand that she should be caught and exposed in such a state.

Before him on the floor, supporting himself on his elbows, his manhood half engorged between his hairy legs, Morty spat at Edgar. The spittle landed between Edgar's feet, causing him to look down and notice, for the first time, the smudge of rabbit's blood on his boot. He raised the pistol and took aim, as if to erase the smug expression from the butcher's face by waving its muzzle. Marguerite gasped, cowering in the corner, covering her pale flesh with a sheet from Morty's unmade bed. Edgar was pleased with her reaction, and was about to remove his finger from the immediate vicinity of the trigger when Morty snarled, “Lose your appetite?”

“Bastard!” Edgar screamed. It was, he realized, the only coherent expression he had been capable of uttering since his nasty surprise. He retrieved a woman's shoe from the pile of petticoats and butcher's garments scattered about the floor. With an accuracy he could never have duplicated while sober, he threw the shoe at Morty, striking him under his left eye.

“For that you'll pay dearly!” threatened Morty.

“Perhaps!” cried Edgar, caught up in the moment, “But first, you shall dine. I may have lost my appetite, but surely you two have been busy working up healthy appetites of your own!” The table in the corner had already been set with bread, wine, and what looked suspiciously like fresh rabbit meat. Edgar gestured with the pistol.

“Hurry! Get dressed! Casually of course, for tonight is an impromptu aff air.” Edgar grinned with malevolence, delighted by his own cleverness. Morty struggled into his underpants as Marguerite fashioned a toga out of the bed sheet. Then they sat themselves at the table as Edgar had instructed. Marguerite filled two plates with the mess from Edgar's dripping parcel and Morty poured the wine. Edgar proposed a toast.

“To friendship! To the mutual beneficiaries of a thriving village economy!”

Morty and Marguerite had drained their glasses and were working up the resolve required to chew and swallow their first bite of fishy rabbit pelt when Marguerite began to cry. Though she enjoyed a practical joke now and then, she attempted to explain to Edgar through her sobs, she had meant no harm and thought their treatment at his hands altogether beastly and undue. Though not unmoved by her address, Edgar was dead-set in his intentions, and was about to threaten her beautiful bosom with his pistol, when, suddenly, Morty himself burst into tears.

“I am sorry,” he proclaimed, in his parched whisper. “After all these years, it was a nasty thing to do. But I beg of you, do not go through with this. Free meat for a full year if you surrender your pistol! Cuts of the finest quality. With Marguerite as my witness!”

Edgar had never seen Morty so repentant, so vulnerable. He wondered what the little orphan girl would do if she
were to find herself in this situation. It occurred to Edgar he was not cut out to be a successful outlaw. Half moved to pity by Morty's plea, and, it must be admitted, half wanting to inflict further humiliation upon the grovelling butcher, Edgar said the first thing that came into his head.

“Look at you, Morty. Your father ruined you.” Perhaps Morty knew this to be true, perhaps he hated Edgar all the more for saying so.

“And that wretched gypsy fortune ruined you,” declared Morty, with all the conviction his whisper would allow.

Still half expecting Morty to ram him headfirst into the wall and pound him to a pulp, Edgar lowered the pistol. Marguerite slumped in her chair and uttered a sigh of relief. Morty pushed himself back from the table, retrieved a third glass from the cupboard, filled it with wine and handed it to Edgar. Edgar gratefully accepted, seating himself on the edge of Morty's bed.

“I suppose that was what you were thinking when I came to pick up my rabbit this afternoon.”

Morty nodded.

“You could barely walk.”

Edgar winced, not prepared to let the conversation dwell for too long on his own vices.

“It was not pleasant to have no parents of my own, but it must have been worse, I suppose, to have an ogre as a father.”

“I wanted to kill him,” confided Morty.

“That's so sad,” said Marguerite, the bed sheet slipping slightly from her bosom.

In retrospect, the signs of his passing were apparent days before I learned of the accident. It happened over the holiday, and at the time I thought nothing of the uncollected newspapers piled outside my upstairs neigbour's door, or the absence on the street of his Japanese sport coupe, with its tinted windows and excessive stereo system. For several days, no muffled footsteps, no dance music, no sound of men's laughter, nor fainter sounds of passion. I assumed he was out of town, visiting his relatives in New York, the peace and quiet an unintended Christmas gift to the man who lived below.

I did not find out the truth about Benjamin Hirsch until New Year's Eve. Holding a bottle of pinot noir and a box of Aquarius cigars, I encountered Leventhal in the front porch as he unlocked the door that leads to the upstairs flat. I might have assumed that Benjamin, who had always gotten along with the landlord better than I, had asked him to stop by and water the plants or to run the water so the pipes wouldn't freeze. I might have assumed this except for two details that were impossible for me to ignore. Leventhal, who had never been a particularly cheery man, appeared unusually solemn, this in spite of the fact that he was accompanied by the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.

“Benjamin out of town?” I asked.

The dark haired young woman, whom I was certain I had never met before, looked more than vaguely familiar. She wore a black wrap-over coat with a silver floral brooch, a brimless black cloche hat covering all but the tips of her curls. With her heart-shaped face and Cupid's- bow mouth, she struck me as the image of young Norma Talmadge, resurrected from the silver screen. My scrutiny must have been indiscreet, for she quickly averted her radiant eyes.

Leventhal stooped to collect the newspapers at his feet, a mixture of scorn and pity on his sagging features. He examined their headlines through his thick glasses, thumbing through them one by one. When he came across the date he wanted he presented it to me. Silently, the young woman made her way up the stairs. Now holding a copy of the
Sun Times
, in addition to the cigars and the wine, I watched her slender, black-stockinged ankles and her low-heeled pumps as they slowly ascended and disappeared from view. Before I could determine what was expected of me, I was handed a second newspaper. Leventhal's expression softened as he met my gaze once more. He sighed, briefly laying his right hand upon my shoulder before he followed the young woman up the stairs.