J. Donleavy - The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B

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.

In the panelled bedroom a canopied four poster festooned with blue satin and crimson tassels. Fifi, Uncle Edouard's unseen strange mistress of the rubbery white skin and kinky hair, clutching bedclothes high to her naked shoulders. The dogs Esme and Putsie flying round like a wheel and tearing at each other's throats. The bright red eiderdown rent. The room afloat with feathers and the growling and slashing and clacking of teeth. The two dogs from the back of a sofa chair leaping to the mantelpiece and felling the photographs. Brushes, perfume bottles tumbling as the doggies sailed across the boudoir table, to briefly sally half way up the only thin panel of green brocaded wall.

The little group aghast. Fingernails in mouths, where a tremulous joy tugged in the corner of lips at the sight of this canine chaos. Anatole in pursuit and tripping over a stool to bounce on his long nosed face. As Fifi raised the cry.

"Edouard, Edouard."

Heavy padding feet coming down the hall. Hunter balloonist explorer Uncle Edouard appeared dripping water from hairy shoulders, a towel held wrapped around his middle. The gathering making way for the master of the house.

"My God Fifi it is like a blizzard."

"Stop them."

"What happened."

Uncle Edouard pursuing the doggie antagonists as they travelled up and down the chaise longue, skidding across the inlay. Now locked in each other's jaws and rolling under the bed.

"Ah ha. It is the Yukon once more."

"Stop them."

"Of course I am. How did it start."

"Esme was sleeping under the eiderdown and Putsie went to crawl in there as well. There was the confrontation in the dark."

"Yikes."

Anatole with a fire tongs forcing them out from under the bed and with a flash of hands Uncle Edouard on his knees seized both doggies by the scruff of the neck and stood triumphantly holding them high and apart from each other in either hand. The two snarling animals shaking and snapping in the air.

A great awful silence. Fifi, eyes wide, slowly raising her hands to cover her face. A little victory smile on the face of Anatole. Slow intakes of breath as the two servant girls covered mouths with their spread out fingers. And Odette the cook announcing.

"But Monsieur le Baron is naked."

There are

More of

Merry matters

Later.

And Monday this fading September his mother returned from Bad Gastein in the Austrian Alps. Pierre came to collect Balthazar in a long silver motor. The thermometer on the ivy clad wall of Uncle Edouard's courtyard read seventeen degrees centigrade. And Pierre put a knuckle under the chin of the passing thin dark servant girl with her basket full of vegetables.

"Ah my sweet you would be a nice little pigeon out of your coop."

The swallows dipped and swooped over the dark greenness of the chestnut trees. And the car went detouring a long route down Avenue d'lena past the Palais de Chaillot. Where nannie had taken Balthazar to see the fountains Uncle Edouard called the grand pissoir and Balthazar said who makes all that wee wee.

This afternoon to take tea and petits fours on the window seat of the salon in the big house off Avenue Foch. A soft sunlight passing down the grey rooftops and spreading warmth amid the coloured cozy cushions. Little dog Spot jumped and licked Balthazar's face and knees. His mother kissed him on the cheeks and brushed back his hair with her hand. Her skin browned and smooth. And Balthazar frowned and turned away from the swellings of her breasts. A cigarette at the end of a long holder she tapped with a gleaming sharp nail. To raise her chin and look down her cheeks from her fluttering white lidded eyes.

"You will like little English boys. They all go away from their country castles to school. They go in big black cars. Their nannies go too with boxes of goodies. Chocolate and jams, biscuits and turkish delights."

"I want to stay with Uncle Edouard."

"Absurd. He is a great fool.' "He is not."

"He was but one day in America off the boat before he was sold a bridge to Brooklyn. He wanted to jump by parachute into the river, privately. It was too bad he was arrested."

"He is an explorer."

"What. For little tidbits of fluff he picks up on the boulevards to call mistresses. At school you will be taught golf. And that will be nice. You will write often to your mommie, won't you."

"No."

"Why."

"Because I don't like you."

On the lonely grey Tuesday. Rain pouring on Paris. Dreams at night of eels with other eels' tails sticking out of their mouths in a whole great ocean of long grey devouring things waving up like seaweed to bite at one swimming and swimming. And in the morning dressed. Gusts of wind bending the branches and turning up the silver sides of leaves. Uncle Edouard at the bottom of the iron staircase in the courtyard. Patting Balthazar on the head.

"Ah little boy you must not mind, one day it will all only seem as a dream. Remember you go to learn about fair play in England. There they make life like a game and they say play the game. I am glad you have liked it here and you will come back of course."

The big long black motor stopped in the courtyard. Pierre, his father's chauffeur, stepping out. Inside sat nannie. And suddenly Balthazar turned and ran. Up the stairs and down the hall. And nannie, Pierre and Uncle Edouard went searching up through the house. Pierre found him a half hour later crouching hidden in a laundry basket. Struggling and tugging, he was pulled along, his small black shoes digging and dragging on the carpets. His hand catching wherever he could hold and with the other he squeezed his elephant Tillie tightly to his cheek.

Down the iron stairs again to the courtyard, kicking Pierre's 24 shins. The big arms holding him firmly, like the night he was grabbed up from the dark country road. Uncle Edouard's voice and strange sad wave as the others of the house watched from a window.