The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B (2 page)

3

At noon the air still, a white light and dust across Paris. Little groups collecting in boulangeries down dark streets. Big cats asleep in shoemakers' windows. Three long black automobiles turning into an entrance in Avenue George V. A pale delicate tree in the midday darkness, long smooth branches reaching up past windows to a playful sky blue.

The air cool inside the high wide thick doors. Balthazar's mother in her black laces, veils and chiffons ascends alone in the tiny lift. There she is as we come puffing up five flights of wide pink marble stairs, curved and gleaming. Uncle Edouard frowning and pursing his lips at the mechanical marvel. Where are we going nannie, now. Who is that man with mommie. These are lawyers. What are lawyers. They are men who look things up in big books.

"Why."

"To be safe."

"Why."

"Because you must always try to be safe."

"Am I safe nannie."

"Yes."

"Are you safe nannie."

"No."

"Why."

"We must be quiet now."

"I don't like lawyers, nannie."

"No one likes lawyers, little boy."

The big brown eyed soft faced man bowed at the door and led these five people and little Balthazar across the red blue and gold carpet of this high domed marble pillared foyer. Down a long oak panelled hall past portraits of ministers, presidents and kings. He held out an arm at a doorway into a wide pale pink low ceilinged room and nodded as each passed by his secret face and soft silken cuffs held by wafers of golden links. Three all black straw hatted women entering, each with thick greying thatches of dark hair bobbed across foreheads, each fluttering fans against their veiled faces, and taking seats in the last row of chairs as Uncle Edouard put his cupped hand to his mouth and emitted a long vibrating belch.

A great glass topped table stacked with ribboned documents and a black strong box with Balthazar's father's name written in silver. Balthazar's mother in the centre front row of chairs, crossing her long black stockinged legs, and her hand tugging the edge of her skirt down on her knee. She turned to Balthazar, patting the seat next to hers. He shook his head and held nannie's hand. The door closed and the key turned in the lock. The lawyer put on his glasses and nodded and waited and a man came to nannie's ear. He whispered and she dropped Balthazar's hand, stood and moved towards the door. Balthazar with blazing eyes and clenched fists.

"Stay nannie, stay with me."

"She cannot little boy."

"She must she must."

Out the window a sudden cooling breeze blowing over the tree tops. Great grey thundery clouds collecting. Uncle Edouard raising a right arm and flickering his hand.

"But of course nannie should stay."

The Maitre looking over the faces until he nodded towards Balthazar and then to nannie and then to Uncle Edouard who leaned forward over her shoulder.

"Balthazar, the little boy, perhaps he would give the signal to begin, it is technical of course."

"Begin."

"Ah like the father, he has authority as well as anger."

A cool breeze pushed out the heavy green drapes at the windows. The clouds growing greyer and sky darker as Maitre's voice was raised above the honking traffic in the street below. Who are those three ladies nannie. They are your aunts from the country. What are they holding. They are holding jars of honey. Why. Shush you must listen to Maitre. What do hotchpot and trustee mean nannie. They mean important things. Why do you squeeze up your forehead nannie, it doesn't make you look nice. I know but shush now.

"I want to wee wee. You must come and hold it for me."

Maitre lowering his manuscript. Balthazar standing and pulling nannie by the hand. A young man turning the key and opening the door and leading them along the hall.

"Come in nannie."

"Go yourself."

"No."

"O God."

"You must not say o God. You must hold it for me. I do not want to be unkind to you nannie, but I will shout if you don't. Now that I am awfully rich you must do what I tell you."

Balthazar returning with nannie across these soft carpets. Maitre reads on. A heavy rain falling on Paris. Winds sweeping over the chestnut trees and lightning streaking bright blue across the rooftops. Maitre flinching at the splintering shatter of thunder. The young man in the grey suit and flattened gleaming black hair closed the windows. Uncle Edouard taking deep breaths and sighing, ah ozone, ozone. The last page turned over. Maitre looked over the top of his glasses and laid the white and red beribboned document on his desk. The little assembly sat in stillness. Maitre cleared his throat and pulled slowly at the end of his nose.

"Are there any questions, please."

Uncle Edouard putting back his arms and yawning loudly.

"Ah yes, why are men more fond of dogs than other men."

"Monsieur I think that is perhaps on this occasion out of my arrondissement to answer."

"I am happy to withdraw the question. Lawyers, ah yes, they have courage. But only when it is time to send the bill. It is time by my watch for my steam bath. Besides I always like to be only five minutes away from my camembert in case it is the end of the world and only a little Beaujolais is left. Gevrey Chambertin."

The little gathering rose. The young man unlocking the door. Uncle Edouard taking a stance, heel clicking the ladies departure. The jars of honey placed in nannie's hands. The three aunts each in turn patting Balthazar on the head. Their fat black new shoes sticking out from their long black skirts. One held a cane, and had big brown teeth when she smiled.

4

And this evening a fresh green darkness over Paris. Nannie hurried through the figures collected in the doorway. Tightly squeezing Balthazar's hand as they stepped down the grey steps under the ivy entwined glass canopy. Her big eyes full of tears pushing him up on the high black leather seat of Uncle Edouard's car. She stood wiping her hands across her mended greeny tweed travelling skirt. Her eyes crinkling as she tried to smile.

"We'll be going to Dover. You'll see the big white cliffs from the boat."

"Will there be a little boy I can play with in England."

"Yes."

A loud explosion. The motor jumped forward and nannie jumped back. Uncle Edouard ripping off his helmet to stand in front of the machine wagging his finger.

"You, you machine, you are the first self starting machine in Paris and so help me God you will start or I will kick off your fenders."

Uncle Edouard climbing in again. A yessy grin at Balthazar. And again pressing the little black button. A splutter and the machine rumbled and fumed into life. Light gleaming on his mother's golden hair, her black veils clutched around her shoulders. All v.an smiles and waves. They push you away, and say goodbye. Then you are lonely and afraid with all the emptiness deeper and deeper everywhere.

The motor passed honking and lights flashing out across Avenue Foch. Uncle Edouard shaking his fist at a terrified automobilist he narrowly missed. They whizzed by the little triangular peak of land at Avenue Bugeaud with a squeal of tires and bumped over the rainbows of cobble stones agleam in the yellow flood of headlights. Uncle Edouard squeezing the black rubber bulb of his squawking horn. At the Place Victor Hugo under the lamplight a dark figure stepping from the curb turned suddenly to raise an umbrella and shout at the approaching motor.

"Infidel, infidel, I am holder of the Carte for War Injury, third class."

"Out of my way Monsieur, I am holder of the Carte d'Auteur Legion Pornographique, avec une palme et deux balles, first class."

Balthazar turning to look as the car sailed past, and an old gentleman swooned back from the road to fall into the lap of a cafe customer and both with table and citron presse went crashing to the ground. When I bombarded Uncle Edouard with the cheese, he said I was a little brat.

"Why are you not a big brat to do that to that gentleman."

"Ah but I am."

A man in beret and blue overall with a banana long red nose and tiny dark eyes opened back two huge gates. The motor entered a grey stone paved courtyard and rolled to a stop under a vast glass roofed garage lined with motorcars, two wicker gondolas, and tall potted palms.

"Anatole this is my little nephew Balthazar, he is our guest.

Come Balthazar, you have not been here before. You will like it."

"I may not."

"Ah you are a persistently disbelieving little chap aren't you. You must be my friend and I will be your friend."

A looming hairy shadow in the half light behind a gently arching palm. Balthazar stops and moves back a frightened step.

"What is that."

"That is the most dangerous bear in the world. The Grizzly."

"Is he real."

"Ah he is stuffed but he is real. He charged out at us in the Yukon. We had no warning. He is eleven feet high and alive he weighed five hundred kilos. He is too big for the house."

Uncle Edouard taking off his helmet and brushing his hand lightly down his gay checked suit. From his lapel floated a tiny red balloon, the Legion d'Honneur aloft, which bounced about as he led the way up a metal staircase to a glass door.

Anatole opening it and carrying Balthazar's bag.

"What did you do when the bear came after you."

"Of course I dropped to my knee to take aim. Everyone else they ran. I had just time to fire. I knew there would be no hope if I did not at once hit a fatal spot. I aimed for the eye. Bang. He was but ten yards away and coming like a train. I fired again but he was upon me. I jumped to the side. His paw caught me on the shoulder, tearing right through. It was but a shallow scratch only. Of course it made me a trifle nervous. I had only the left arm to fire the rifle into the side of his head. He could not see out of one eye but at such close quarters his claw came down like so and my jacket it was torn in half. The situation was very dangerous. You follow me. It was terrible. I shot again below the ear. At last he went down. It was like an earthquake. The brambles, the roots, clumps of grass all went flying in the sky. I had won. In sadness I came close and aimed between the eyes. Bang. It was all over. He was a brave bear. Afterwards I had a marvellous appetite. A true Frenchman does not reserve all valour for the battle field but for the dinner table."

Down a long dark hall, the walls dressed with spears, crossbows and arrows. Two dogs, their claws tearing at the parquet rushing to jump up on Uncle Edouard, snapping and growling at each other's grey hairy heads.

"Ah hello. Hello. These two. They are Esme and Putsie. They both love me. But they hate one another. If one could cook for the other perhaps it would not be so."

Shiny green walls round a steep winding staircase into a kitchen under an arching brown smoky ceiling. Blackened great iron ranges, copper pots, ladles from the little to the big. Bacon and hams curing on hooks. Gleaming knives spread on a thick chopping table. Sliced red golden carrots and long strips of meat. Uncle Edouard taking up a large knife and flashing the blade back and forth on a thin tapering sharpening steel.

"Now Balthazar watch me."

Uncle Edouard with one hand throwing up a fat blue pink onion. He holds out the knife. A swift pull, and with the left hand he catches half an onion and smiles upon the other half as it skids away across the floor.

"Ah too bad but I have never caught both halves. But Louis the great chef of Metz. He could do it behind his back with a clove of garlic. While he sang the Marseillaise. He had what you call the dexterity."

Steaming on the range two big black iron pots to which Uncle Edouard tip toes smilingly, drawing his neck like a turtle into his long leather motoring coat. Lifting the lid of one and snifEng. Then the other where a pig's ear peeked from the edge of the vaporous vessel.

"Odette, my God. An aroma fit for, how can I say. A clochard's dream. Such consomme."

"But Monsieur le Baron, I have merely scraped together a few ingredients, as always."

Uncle Edouard with a great bow and sweep, bending to kiss Odette's hand as she raised the other shrinking to her breast and cackled shyly from a toothless mouth. And Balthazar led along a gloomy corridor by this large jaunty uncle.

"Why does not everyone call you Baron."

"To be Monsieur is to be everything already. I am too, your godfather. I am your father's first cousin. It is proper that families remain thick like a good soup so nourishing on a cold day. And here, this is the first private lift in Paris. Out of order, of course. It is man's destiny to go upwards. Even at the most intimate of times."

That night from covers tucked tightly at Balthazar's throat, the world was dark and deep. Under the whitish waves of the English Channel did there swim these turtles cooking. Were they awfully afraid to boil and simmer out of a cold sea and go up Uncle Edouard's twitching nose. Please God make me and nannie go upwards and bring her safe back to me. Even when she is a little sweaty and I do not like the smell.

At dawns to wake in Uncle Edouard's big musty house, and see the shadowy cupboard carved with sheaves of wheat and grapes and leaves of vines. To push the pearl in the black ebony button by the bed. And wonder. To ask why of Uncle Edouard, could not my father do tricks like you. Ah but he did, but they were with the contract, and presto you are a very rich little boy.

A gentle knock. As each morning came a big black and gold leaved Welsh tray carrying a hot white pitcher of milk and white pot of coffee. A small basket of cut bread of crackling crust on the starched linen. Earthenware tub of butter. White white saucers of peach and strawberry preserve. And Balthazar sat thin little elbows tucked beside him. Saying a shy mercibeaucoup to the dark thin person who each morning smiled and said bonjour little gentleman.

Down a half landing his bare feet on the silk brightness of Persian carpet and through a glass door was a large tiled room filled with contortions of gleaming pipes. Center stood a canopied iron pissoir as on the boulevards and next to it a frosted glass cage where Uncle Edouard showered. And by one wall a great green glass tub on golden lion paws. The thin dark servant had come to turn the huge gold taps and fill the tub.

"Madame."

"I am mademoiselle."

"Pardon. Mademoiselle what are all the tubes and rubber

bottles and clips."

"Ah the Baron is fond of the Enema Anglais."

"What is that."

"Like cognac it is not for little gentlemen."

"Why."

"Never mind but at ten this morning you go and wait for your uncle in the library."

The walls oak panelled and lined with tall books. A globe of the world with a sea all blue and land all colors stood higher than Balthazar's head. Lifting a big book from the desk and opening it across his lap in the high backed leather chair. Photographs of chaps in fur hoods and mittens and fat boots standing on the snow near steaming waters. The kissing sound that Uncle Edouard makes with his teeth as he comes through the door. Bending his head around the chair and smiling at Balthazar.

''Good. You read of the Icelandic exploration. He is Alpert, he is Dubois. My beloved confreres. They are lost forever beyond the arctic circle. Death is painless in such frozen wastes. But come. Today you will see something."

The sun shining whitely on Paris this mid September. The air shimmering and still. In the big motor Uncle Edouard cruised down the boulevard bumping on the cobbles. Across the Seine with plowing barges in its grey green water. And past the wine market to the Aquarium of the Jardin des Plantes. Walking along the gravel paths between the rows of closely clipped chestnut trees. Other little children squatting over their games around plots of blossoms flaming from the ground.

"Uncle Edouard."

"Yes little boy."

"What is the Enema Anglais."

"Ah ha. To whom have you been talking."

"No one."

"You have loyalty. Good."

"Do you Uncle have the Enema Anglais, is that good."

"In England it is for the thrill. But for me it is science."

"What is it."

"A delicate matter."

"Why."

"I am the first to make the first official illegal flight across the sixteenth arrondissement north to south. And for that achievement I use the ballast au naturelle. For three days before I dine in the best restaurants of Paris. And when necessary to achieve further ascent there is the jettison of the bowel. But the trouble was grave. Came the scream of ordure from below. The newspaper carried the headline, The Affaire Balloon Merde. Now before I go aloft I have the Enema Anglais. And then there is no question of the ballast of the bowel."

A moist and steamy air under the high arching greenhouse glass. Pots and palms and vines, orchids and water lilies. They walked hand in hand through a dark long passage. A brown door and into a sky lighted room. A gentleman with a great beak of nose and thin greying hair. His deep voice booming as he shook hands with Uncle Edouard and bowed to the big blue widening eyes on the pale face of Balthazar. Whose small bared knees touched, thin stems joined between his white stockings and short flannel trousers. The air scented with the sharp sweet smell of lifeless life pinned, tacked and pickled.

"Perhaps it is a biology lesson I bring my nephew to. The eels, Professor, how do they go.' "They continue to go down each other's gullet.' "Perhaps you would tell Balthazar the history.' "It is short. They eat each other alive to live and soon there will be but one left."

"And ah Professor, shall we not come and seize him. We will eat him."

"When he is smoked. Dear Edouard."

"Your point well taken, Professor. And the palate chilled with Chablis."

The days ticked by and chimed on the great grandfather clock in the library. With trips around Paris. To the zoo.

Where citizens collected in front of the monkey cages cheering the passions of the apes. And when Uncle Edouard said.

"They are but amateurs at love."

"And you Monsieur, you are a professional frissonist. Perhaps you give lessons."

The little crowd laughed. And later under the bright blue awninged cafe by the Bois, Uncle Edouard quaffed the Vichy water as Balthazar scooped up the raspberry ice cream. Back at Uncle Edouard's house, Balthazar passing the strange room of Fifi who did not emerge, and he heard Uncle Edouard. Long live suppositories, my Fifi, you must shove the cure up the arse for the best results, so as not to ruin the stomach with the pills. The door opened and Uncle Edouard shook his head back and forth, my Fifi is poorly. And Balthazar stepped behind a jardiniere as Uncle Edouard went down the hall.

Nannie sent a postcard from Folkestone with a green stamp and picture of a soldier in red coat with a big black tall hat and you could not see his eyes as he stood with a gun. And remembering a story of olden days when men came to take prisoners out to a big knife which dropped on their necks. And nannie said the heads say words as they roll.

Now this Sunday morning scented with coffee and baking bread. Servants dressed for mass. All silent through the sunless house. Awnings down over windows. Concierges taking momentary eyes away from tenants to feed their canaries. Bells pealing across Paris. Boulangeries laying out their sweet cakes. While old ladies lean between their plants to stare into the street.

The library of Uncle Edouard's house where the Baron, festooned with pitons and coils of rope, clung photographed to the sides of mountains and waving from gondolas prepared for the ascent. The grandfather clock with its little ship rocking the seconds away on a tempestuous sea, struck ten o'clock. And Balthazar sat upright at a sudden sound of loud barking, growling and screaming. He stepped out past the open thick oak door and tip toed up the spiral stairs. Other hurrying feet through the halls and coming up from the kitchen. At the floor above and down the hall from the ablution room, the open door of Uncle Edouard's bedchamber flanked by the two terror stricken servant girls. Sound of glass breaking. Anatole pushing by followed by Odette, and Balthazar peeking between the two.