J. Donleavy - The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B

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."