The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B (8 page)

"Balthazar. Is that you out there."

"Yes."

"What are you doing there."

"Looking through your keyhole."

"What can you see."

"Nothing."

"Come in then."

Balthazar turning down the handle on the door. Opening it into the soft light and blinking his eyes. Miss Hortense in her bed. The blue linen counterpane drawn to the bottom and up into the soft peach blanket stuck her knees and toes. The pillows piled high, a book clipped open by her elbow and shiny needle in her hand.

"Goodness Balthazar what are you doing with that awful pile of books."

"Reading."

"Sit down. Reading what."

"This one is about tunnels and railways. And this, it's a book about Dublin. Have you ever been there."

"No. My father has, he was born in Belfast."

"What is that."

"That's a city in the north of Ireland. Where they march and beat great drums and say they are up to their knees in catholic blood and up to their necks in slaughter."

"That's not awfully nice."

"No. It's not."

"Did he ever talk of Dublin."

"Yes he liked it there. And the pints of stout and chunks of 78 cheese that he had in the mornings in a pub. He read Divinity at Trinity College. He said it was the happiest time of his life.

And he always said, that there in Dublin, the sun shone in on our lives.'

"No. Of course not, why should I be.'

"I don't know. I feel awfully badly when I think you're cross with me. And now I feel much worse that perhaps you might be going to go away."

"You're such a silly boy."

"You know I'm not silly."

"Yes I know you're not silly. I'm silly I suppose. And really you're old enough to know. That I am going to have to go.

Aren't you. But it's not that I want to. It is nice to be with you. And we do like so many things together. And so you know don't you that it's not that I want to. And that it has been the happiest time of my whole life. That I've ever had.

Don't hang your face down like that."

"I'm not."

"You are. Come sit over here on the bed."

Balthazar put his tomes on the floor. And crossed to Miss Hortense's bed. Where the light shone down on the white folded sheet and her slender arms sat in cushioned little white cloth valleys. She lifted up an embroidery frame. Its streaming blue and green and yellow threads.

"Do you think this is nice."

"It looks such a bore to do."

"After all my work that's what you say. Anyway this is what I want to tell you. That this is not good for either of us. Soon you will want to be with girls your own age. And God knows I ought to be putting a rope around some gentleman and tying his ankle to my stove. You see Balthazar when I'm not with you. Well I don't know what I'm going to say. Many men have asked me to marry. It may be me or my little money.

They all seem to get to know rather too quickly for my liking that I have a small income. But each time something always goes wrong and either I hate them or they hate me."

"I want to marry you."

"Balthazar."

"You mustn't laugh. You are only twelve years older."

"But your whole life, what you are going to do, where you are going to go."

"I think I am going to go to Dublin."

"Ah, that is something nice."

Miss Hortense's arm fell slowly and her hand touched Balthazar's blue serge sleeve. As she always did when she was pleased, reach out and touch me gently. With a closed mouth smile.

"And you know Bella how awfully rich I am. And when I am of age I can go where I want and you can come too."

"Yes."

"To go on big ships. To Africa and America. Will you wait for me to grow up. Will you please, Bella."

"That is the most wonderful proposal I have ever had."

"Will you then. Will you please. When I finish school before I go to college we could be married."

"You're so serious aren't you. And I will then be over thirty."

"I would not care."

"Yes you would. Your eye would be seeking out the young ladies."

"I would never want anyone else."

"Heavens, heavens. And what am I to do then from now till you become of age."

"Three times a year you would be here with me in Paris.

We could go to Bucharest and from there to St. Petersburgh.

We could go to Dublin. And have cheese like your father did and the sun would shine in on us."

"You rascal. You are. You have more daring than on a trapeze. God how girls are going to waste their tears on you."

Balthazar slowly stood up from the bed. Miss Hortense laid her embroidery away at her side. Her dressing table with her ivory brush and mirror and comb. The crimson lining of her open pigskin writing case with envelopes blue and pink. A lone bottle of scent and toilet water. Where his mother's bath was shelved high with colognes and sweet essences of faint colours and perfumes in all their tall fat crystal bottles. To bend now to pick up these tomes.

"O please don't go away like that."

"I will. Because at least I have told you of what is in my heart."

''Don't go away like this Balthazar."

"I am. Why should I not."

"No. Don't. Come back here."

Balthazar turned and laid the books on the chair. He walked back to the bed. And as his knees touched the edge, Bella's hand reached out and switched off the table light. And her hand felt and took his hand and she pulled him gently down. Her fingers up through the short hairs on the back of my head, and cool they touch in behind my ear. Tumbling down into her arms she whispers out o God come to me. Her kisses over my mouth. On the cheeks and eyes. Her tongue along the side of my neck and deep into my ringing ear. All the bells of Paris. And stormy choirs sing when it is not yet mass or Sunday but her silky long slender arms, smooth wrists, and soft slim hands. She breathed her breath catching in her lungs. And I can hardly breathe at all. Her hard teeth as she bites into my mouth. Her hand at my throat to undo my tie. Pulling herself up out of the sheets. Hair strings of shadow hanging round her head. I watched in the gardens once her fingernails as she sat and scratched her thigh and they made big long white marks on her sunny skin. Distant fingers unbuttoning my shirt one by one. And close by lips kissing me upon the breasts. Bella tell me what to do. Nothing nothing. Just take off your clothes. And so strange to wonder. Of all these years of dreams. To reach one day in the laundry room to secretly touch her drying underthings more close to her than I ever hoped to be. And now lay side by side all along her body and feel it pressed to mine, like two bodies all of your own. One here and one you reach around. Bella is what we're doing love. Yes yes. Hurry tell me how. You'll see you'll see. And I see. Bella on top of my mind chewing a cashew nut. Bella what do I do. Nothing nothing now. Like that flush of jealous courage two days ago. Waiting for a seat on the back of the bus to Place du Pont Neuf. When the conductor pinched her on the bottom and Miss Hortense widened her eyes, squared her shoulders, raised her brows and parasol and said in English keep your hands to yourself you miserable little man and the conductor laughed and as they returned once more to alight, he reached to pinch again and her parasol came slashing down across his wrist. It was an unfriendly time. To reach and gouge out his grinning eyes. Or wait one day till I was big enough to slap his cheek and shake his molars. For now I touch. All of this most precious prize.

Here from the top of her head to the tip of her big toes. Can I touch and put my hand running over you you're so smooth.

Yes you can you can and come on top of me. Bella Bella it's coming out of me. It won't stop. All over you. O darling you mustn't mind, sweetest and dearest, let it come out over me, you must not mind. Bella tell me what did I do. It's all right now. It should have been inside you. Yes but it's all right, you mustn't mind. I know it means you'll never marry me. And I hope I haven't been vile. Balthazar it's really all right, really it is. I feel all ashamed and all awful inside. You must tell me, Balthazar, tell me if you do. All around in me it's going very strange indeed, you're not a servant or a town girl in the street but if I've done this I can't be in love. O God what are you talking about, love is for everybody wherever it may be no matter what you are. You're so young you see, full of all those tall tales of all those little boys. It's not vile, it's not that at all, but what I'm doing to you is so wrong. Why do you say it's wrong. Because it's my duty to take care of you. But isn't this the best care there could be then. Balthazar you're asking such damn questions and knowing answers too damn fast, but nothing can be answered here, just lie now with your silly sad little face, and maybe a devil too, you know don't you that we should never do this again. If anyone found us I would be in an awful mess.

"But there's no one here but us. And if we never do it again you'll never teach me.' "You know enough already you little rabbit.' "What have you done with men Bella.' "And what have you done with girls Balthazar."

"Please Bella, what have you done."

"You mustn't ask me questions like that."

"I must know."

"Why must you know."

"Because if you did I may never speak to you again."

"O dear. Turn around your head. Come on. Turn around.

You're quite spoiled you know. Look at me. Are you jealous.

A little aren't you."

"I'm not discussing it. Do you do this. Without your clothes and be in bed with other men."

"And I'm not discussing it."

"If you've been like this with other men I will kill myself.

With arsenic."

"O Lord."

"I will."

"Snuggle up close and comfy to me. Don't let me hear you say that again. Or I will be off to Bristol or something like that and go on a ship. To the south seas."

"Bella I love you so much. So awfully awfully much."

"There you mustn't cry. You really mustn't."

"And I never want you to go away for ever and ever."

"I'm here now. You crazy little rabbit. I'm here."

"If you don't stay with me I don't want to grow up at all."

"But you little rabbit you can't stop growing up. You'll know all sorts of girls. Through a whole bunch of years. Innocent and smiling ones who would make you think butter would not melt in their mouths."

"I don't care, if there isn't you I don't want anybody. No one could ever take your place."

"O God."

"Are you cross."

"No no I'm not cross. Just crosseyed. How are you to understand. I just feel I'm somehow sitting on my backside.

In the middle of some very grand ball. And I can't get up off the floor. For months and months. I've wanted to just seize and hug you and hold you to me. And I knew, I knew this would happen. That we never should have been left alone.

That all it needed was bumping into you at night in the hall or just the nosey moments in the evening when you get long faced when I tell you not to read my letters. And each time you sulked I had to do everything I could to stop myself hugging and kissing you. Don't you see how it's been for me.

O but don't you get cross now."

"I'm not cross."

"You are."

"I'm not."

"O Balthazar. Don't you see. To you the world is just as you find it. Just as each day it's time to get up, to dress, to eat, to sleep. The trip to school. And to Paris. And here we kind of live in a little estate all of our own. Larking about in each other's hair. But the world is not like that. Like we are now.

And if we were ever found. Really like we are now. God if we ever were. Did I lock the door."

"Yes. And you hung up the keys under the telephone."

"O God. I don't even know that I may be doing something criminal. I don't know but I might be."

"I am a criminal then too and we are still together."

"Yes. Till they cart us off to prison. And sling us into cells."

"Uncle Edouard would see that we were freed."

"Uncle Edouard, I wonder. Don't depend upon him."

"Why do you say that."

"I just do. He's nice. But don't depend upon anybody Balthazar."

"Did he attempt to entice you."

"O nothing. Three years ago."

"What did he do."

"Jealous jealous."

"I'm not. What did he try."

"Nothing. He invited me to the Bois. And so you came too.

That's all. And once to Biarritz. And I said I went nowhere without my boyfriend. And he laughed and was quite nice.

And probably he did want to take me to bed. You see how difficult you have made me for other men. And then one day you'll see a creature without whom you think you cannot live.

And she'll throw her arms up and spin about and raise her skirt on her legs. And you'll like what you see. And she'll look beautiful and flutter her eyes. Put rouge on her cheeks. And tell you nice little lies. And squeal when you feel her breast.

And as she shrinks away she'll say come hither come thither and do not dither dear blond beautiful Balthazar. O God she'll get her bloody hands into your hair. And you'll marry her. And she will be up to her elbows rummaging in your fortune when she isn't skipping down the Faubourg St. Hon-ore. For soap and saddles and suits and rose bouquets."

"I would never marry a girl like that. And who would put rouge on her cheeks."

"I hope when all the years have gone by. And I'm retired in my little country cottage somewhere in Devon. With all, I hope, my many emoluments. That you'll come and see me.

And put your hat on a hook and a cane against the wall. You may even be tall and straight and grey. And bow as I sit in black and lace near my fire. With probably the same old embroidery frame. And you'll take up and kiss my hand. O God let me kiss you, kiss you. While you're still here here here."

The night hushed and still. Faint breeze out on the garden tree leaves. Paris cools in darkness. The slow slow sounds that transport over the city. A shout. And listen, a strange answer.

Some night time philosopher advising himself. To avoid hunger perhaps and a treadmill day. Like the shadowy men standing inside the cathedral doors in all their silent poverty.