J. Donleavy - The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B

Balthazar B motored by taxi to the Temple. Mr. Pleader sat at his wide desk with bundles of paper tied in pink ribbon. He said in his experience it was all quite strange. But there was nothing one could do. The young lady, how was one to know, could have changed her mind. For any one of many reasons. As sad as that may be. I stood there as one was leaving, unable to shake hands. And saw propped upon the mantel, caught in the window light, Mr. Pleader's wife and little children, a dog among them, all smiling on the steps of a country house.

That September Balthazar B sat a month in his mother's flat in Avenue Foch. In a sunny vestibule off the drawing room watching a tank of fish. Each day staring out across one's hands placed on the top of knees. Two Polish women came to cook and clean. My mother still away in Nice. And back at Harrods waiting hall that afternoon. I was sitting. Beefy came. On the dot of the appointed time. And saw what the world had done to me. That I could not speak. And wrote for him what had happened on a piece of paper. He came and saw me every day high up in my suite. We sat hours together playing chess. He had taken a job on the stock exchange. And I knew he was missing so many days he would be fired. I wrote on my little pad of paper that it would not do for him to lose his job. Next day I took the boat and train I knew so well to Paris.

October came. And the fish in the tank had babies. Balthazar B stood up. And for the first time in many weeks went out. Across Paris walking and walking for miles. To make the blank future lift its daily dread. Until his mother returned. In a sporty car piled with luggage, a young man at the wheel whose name was Mario. And Balthazar moved out and into a suite in a hotel on the Avenue Kleber.

Mornings to walk and afternoons to soak an hour in a hot bath. He attended the steeple chase at Auteuil but could not wager a bet. Often he visited Uncle Edouard's grave. Passing up that cobbled little road and by the great green iron box. Where I put all my coins for the poor of Paris. Atop the grey stone was a bronze balloon and gondola. And one day with a wetted handkerchief I washed away the grimy soot till it was shining smooth again. Over this balloonist and hero of France who roused a cause celebre when he summoned the pompiers to put out his cigarette. And the only man who loved me when I was a little boy.

During a cold and bitter winter Balthazar took classes in comparative anatomy at the Sorbonne. And lying late at night abed, tomes open everywhere. Breakfast brought with the pretty portrait on the porcelain, touches of red blue and yellow. The warming deep crimson of these rooms. Ebony push buttons tipped with mother of pearl. The wall panels of pale golden satin brocades. The brass bedstead sitting on blobs of paws. The clock face I watch through all these months high on the wall with its wood cowl of grey and pale gold, each black numeral of every hour held in a little rainbow of roses. And the world did little to me here. As I sometimes watched out my window over the stone balcony and black railing. To walk out past the concierge each morning and there always seem to find a man urgently making arrangements to go to Istanbul.

Behind the grey stone of the Sorbonne was my other world. When one was staring so hard to take eyes desperately away from the sight of the cut open flesh of a dead man. Somehow seeing the same clochard, kicked and beaten, I saw that day when I was with Bella. So long ago on the green piece of land jutting out in the Seine. And then this one afternoon stepping from the great barren lecture hall, I stopped and looked down in the grey sunless courtyard of the medical school where the live dogs were kept. A strange thought went through my head. I live and draw a flow of gold. From a dead father's reservoir of riches. I retreat further and further back. Behind my own lonely elegance. Where no one will ever again get to know me. And speak less and less. And on that first day my voice came back when the little fishes in the tank were born. I wrote to Beefy. Care of his club and the stock exchange. Asked him please write to me. One wants so much to hear a word.

The Club,

London S.W.i

My dear Balthazar,

Needless to say I have not lassoed a mare galloping by rotten rich. I abhor my occupation. Far too many chaps in London whose cunning outstrips their charm. I play polo when I can and poker when I shouldn't. The money fast runs out. I met our old friend Breda. I promise you, purely by accident. She was busy along the Bayswater Road. At the mention of you she rather choked up. But once she smiled and asked if still I was a Presbyterian. I told her that Arses was king of Persia in 338 B.C. And that news seemed to cheer her up. Nice lass and she wore a pendant which to my carefully trained eye was not paste and that I would estimate cost a pretty piece of change. Do come back to London, at least for a visit. As you well know I am to be not thrilled easily but things are slowly gathering gaiety here and one quite rightly gives the birds in the bed more seed. If they are heartless enough to find this insufficient one imparts the goose capri followed in rapid succession by that of the goose volvo and belair. I have many long tales to tell. Write soon to say you're coming. I am glad to hear things cheer somewhat more for you. Remember, blessed are they who are willing victims of the whip for they will scream to high heaven.

Mortally yours,

with much eye ball movement,

Beefy

And over the months we often wrote. And I had some tales to tell. I left untold. Of wandering along Pigalle. To pick up a rolling coin dropped by a passing girl in a tight orange dress, with black straight shiny hair. I handed it back and she said she would buy me a glass of wine. In a cafe we sat over two vin rouge. Faintly sweet with preservative. She kept smiling and looking at my eyes. And said they were the most beautiful she had ever seen. She came from the countryside near Metz. We twirled our little funnel shaped glasses of wine. Her dark eyes and tan skin. From all the summers of picking grapes she said. And you she also said are but my second client, I am only new at the trade. It is because you are so beautiful I will do it free out of desire. We sat and sat and I didn't know what to do or say until she put her hand out on top of mine and smiled and said come, you are so shy. I had a cognac and I followed her up narrow stairs into her little room. My body stilled ever since Fitzdare. She said when she first came to Paris she lived across the canal from the abattoir and the smell always stayed on her skin. And she sniffed her arm and laughed. She took off her clothes. On her wall a little picture of Saint Agnes, a soldier taking a swing at her with a sword as she was tied to the stake. She inflated her chest and pushed out her breasts and said she did not know what age she was but thought she might be seventeen. With all the money she made she would buy a farm. She watched staring at me as I undressed and said you look like what I would think a prince would look like, so weak and white and thin. She was slippery and covered with sweat all through the Paris afternoon. I slept and dreamt and awoke again. To see her smiling and smiling at me and leaning over to push back my hair. I would close my eyes again. Uncle Edouard said no man was a man without a mistress. And also said there was something eternally macabre in Metz. But Balthazar if you travel in Italy label your luggage "beware poisonous reptiles" to be safe from thieves. We dined together in a cafe off the Avenue Trudaine. And walked through the streets to the Gare du Nord. We parted. She asked if I would ever see her again. I said yes. And she said you know my address and waved out the window of the taxi cab. Which I could see stop further along the Rue Dunkerque. Where she would now continue to ply her trade. And I walked back all the way to Avenue Kleber in bewildered despair.