Written With My Left Hand

by Nugent Barker

  Listen. For many months I saw Monsieur; for many months I heard his voice. Every day, at the same hour: Monsieur Charbo, bellowing like a bull, with a serviette under his chin. Sometimes he would come alone; at other times—emphatically he would not. On those occasions he would be accompanied by a little friend, a ‘pretty girl’, with a great mop of curly hair the colour of Calvados brandy, a very wide, red mouth, and eyes—ma foi, they must have been two inches long. One could see that she was rather timidly fond. He called her Sylvette, in a voice that he would try to soften occasionally, Sylvette, Sylvette, Sylvette. . . .

  I suppose I saw her half a dozen times, no more. He was happier when he came alone, I think; though it seemed to me that he was always very happy and selfish. Here, now, is the manner of his daily arrival. For just one moment the open door would be darkened: and there was Monsieur Charbo, look! see! immense, black-bearded, fat as flesh, striding to his table, booming out to Grégoire: ‘Bonjour, Grégoire! Ma sole Bourdaloue!’

  A little man, that Grégoire. A little, meek man, with wrinkles in his voice; whenever Sylvette was away, Monsieur Charbo would be commanding him, or teasing him, or cracking a joke with him, at short intervals, throughout lunch-time. And at first we were shocked, immensely shocked. Never before had we known such a great calamity in that tiny temple of the Rue Balbec, where food and silence used to be the only gods. Bourdaloue himself, the good Bourdaloue, with his white jacket, and fat, round chin on which you saw a little beard that shone like an oasis in the desert—Monsieur Bourdaloue was very angry with the new customer, and requested Grégoire not to answer ‘that man’ when he called so loudly; but the stranger had an appetite, and was a gourmet into the bargain; so, therefore, Monsieur Bourdaloue thought the better of it, and on many occasions afterwards I saw him serve the client with his own hands. ‘Bien perdu, bien connu,’ I whispered, and lifted my glass in honour of the silence of past years.

  Yet I did not show my resentment. I was calm. I listened and watched. There was a little table in the window, and from here I had been in the habit of peering into the street whenever the exigencies of the meal permitted me; but at last I changed my chair, and looked only at him. I was very sly. I said to myself: ‘Be careful, Jules Levasseur; take care that he does not see.’

  Yet in spite of my terrible slyness, he did see. Yes? For one day, on his way out, he stopped at my table, and handed me a pencil note: ‘Les félicitations de Sosthène Charbo.’ It was the first time that I had heard his name, and there was something in it that made me feel afraid. For a moment I could not collect my thoughts. Next moment I felt ashamed; and because of my agitation, I tore up the note. The room was very tiny. I did not know what to say. When I had thought out my fine speech, it was too late. Grégoire stood at my elbow, offering Cognac. It was very awkward. And Monsieur Charbo was bowing and smiling. Then he put on his hat, and strode away into the Rue Balbec.

  What a predicament! It was not a pretty smile. All the blood in my body was frozen, my teeth chattered, and for days afterwards I was unable to fix my mind upon the incomparable caneton à la presse. For this reason, and because also I wished to make amends for my impoliteness, I decided to watch no longer the immense Charbo. He took no further notice of me: very good, I would take no further notice of him. I saw him come; I saw him go; I heard his voice behind me; sst!—in a few days I was back again at my old tricks, I was watching every movement of his fat body! But discreetly, now. Whenever he looked up from his plate—and I had learnt to time his actions to a nicety—I looked down at mine. There was a mirror in a gilded frame, and here I could watch my enemy without being seen by him; and it is possible that I was soothed by the mirrored Charbo, for after a while his actual presence ceased to trouble me. I grew accustomed. As time passed, we took him for granted, all of us. He became an institution in that place. So it continued. The weeks flew, the months also; a whole year came to an end; and always there was Monsieur Charbo, booming like a bull, with his great beard, black as a mushroom, nearly hiding the napkin under his chin. Then one day we had that famous murder in the Rue Darn. You have heard of it, yes?

  The murder in the Rue Darn? Rue Darn. . . . Ah, yes, now you remember. It had come at a time when your own murders were rather ‘few and far between’. A horrible affair. ‘Some girl or other’—is that what you said?

  ‘Some girl or other!’ Why do you put it so coldly as that? The poor little one! How she would have been delighted to sit by our sides at this window, looking across the river! Here comes a small cloud, drifting this way, like a feather; it reminds me of her. Alas, alas! To you it was but a tale; to us, who at any moment might take it into our heads to stroll up the Rue Darn —what a tragedy! You have an English word, Monsieur. Her end was shocking. I implore you never to ask me things that I cannot tell. C’était un carnage inexprimable, l’œuvre d’un chien d’enfer!

  Poor little thing. Dead without a name. No trinket in her dress. No finger-marks on the white paint, on the articles of toilet, on the white china door-handle. No weapon thrown away. Nothing but footprints, footprints, in the thick dust of the faded carpet.

  Everywhere one would hear talk of ‘The Murder in the Rue Darn’. It penetrated even the secluded atmosphere of Bourdaloue’s, in the Rue Balbec; it whispered and boomed in the daily conversations between the little Grégoire and the fat Charbo. The talks they had! We others, we have listened by the hour to their two voices, the big voice and the little voice, that were thick and thin, like soup. Grégoire said that, and Charbo said that. But never did they come to any conclusion. How could they? It was interminable! In those days I used to sit with my chin on my propped hands, looking out of the window, or I would lean back in my chair, sipping my miraculous Louis Philippe brandy, and the still more astonishing coffee: thinking of past years. Years that used to kneel in silence at the ghostly, kingly feet of Brillat-Savarin. All gone! All gone! . . .

  How little you use your English rivers. In half an hour I have seen but two tugs, and two barges, turning the river-bend. And it makes the year go very slowly, very deliberately, here at the tavern: well, that is what I like: I like to go very slowly, very deliberately. We were terribly slow in the Rue Balbec! Just our few selves, a few tugs, pulling our lives along. And as time passed, I began to realise that I was listening to his voice long after it had ceased to talk of the almost forgotten murder in the Rue Darn. But my ears were inattentive; I was full of thoughts; gazing downwards, into the depths of my Calvados brandy, I could see the bright colour of her hair—and her big eyes looking up at mine—and could hear—at last—like a tiny dirge—the tinkle of the dead girl’s name—Sylvette—Sylvette—Sylvette—Sylvette, until it drowned all other sounds at Bourdaloue’s.

  You will find these Larranagas in splendid condition. I brought them over with me from France, from Paris—it is now many years ago. A thousand devils! Why did I not jump up in my seat, and denounce him there—before them all—before the whole room!—before—before—he disappeared? Listen! It was so clearly the fault of my friend Maillabuau of the Paris police.

  Maillabuau. No, you would not have heard his name, he did not come into the Paris journals, he had retired, and did not come into them at all. Yet he might have done so much while there was still time! He permitted my Charbo to slip through his fingers. That I can swear! Oh, the imbecile! Like a fat olive! Sosthène Charbo, murderer of Sylvette—there was nothing more clear to me than that. . . .

  He should have been more sympathetic, my poor Maillabuau. Why are you smiling, hein? Ah, zut! it is because you are like him, you also are imbécile, you laugh at my instincts, you turn into ridicule all my impetuous ways!

  So! I have offended you. Permit me: another beer? Please, yes! Another mug of this good beer. Merci, Monsieur! There is an enormous restaurant, a great, gaudy place, in the Rue des Petits-Champs; all day it is full of a vast assembly of people, and it was here that I had my first consultation with Maillabuau, in a big room that was very private because it was very noisy
. I remember the inferior kidneys cocotte, the clatter of the service, the sharp, English voice of a woman who called for her bill; then suddenly Maillabuau, wagging his long head over the Touraine:

  ‘Zut! Sylvette and Charbo!’

  ‘But you should see Sosthène Charbo!’ I shouted, ‘you should see Charbo! You should see his face!’

  ‘So, therefore,’ says Monsieur Maillabuau, greatly diverted, ‘you wish me to suspect this murderous-looking villain. And why, my little Jules? Because they have found some poor girl who cannot be recognised!’

  ‘Why!’ I cried, astounded; ‘you do not assist me?’

  ‘There are other people in the world, Monsieur, besides Sylvette and Charbo!’ answered my poor friend.

  ‘Sylvette is no longer in the world, Monsieur,’ said I; and again I told him that I had not seen her since the murder in the Rue Darn.

  Bah! What are instincts to a man like Maillabuau? Delicate flavourings are beyond his palate! Yet I said to myself: ‘By and by you will be able to convince him, Jules Levasseur;’ and during the following weeks I did not lose my appetite for the superb Bourdaloue dishes, but ate, on the contrary, with an extra eagerness, in that tiny room where the buff walls were gently lighted by a single long, low window, and Charbo’s beard hung like a black curtain over his black heart. What a terrible picture the big man made! Had it not been for his magnificent taste in food and wines, I should have judged him the greatest devil in all Paris. As it was, I vowed that I would prove him devil enough in the eyes of my friend Maillabuau. ‘Just you wait, friend Maillabuau,’ yes? Just you wait! That is what I said continually; and often, during my thinking and planning, I would forget to order a bottle of my favourite Chambertin with the larded guinea-fowl, or a Pouilly with the moules marinières.

  Sometimes I saw Maillabuau, and he would call out:

  ‘Well, my little Jules! How goes it?’

  ‘Magnificently,’ I would reply.

  Again, because Monsieur Maillabuau was a retired detective of police, and possessed, therefore, many important friends in high places, I used to call on him, in the evenings, at his rooms in the Boulevard Beaumarchais; and in spite of the amusement with which he regarded the whole affair, I would pretend that I was making great progress, that things were coming to my ears, etcetera, hein?

  In addition, I must tell you that I went many times to the neighbourhood of the Rue Darn, and there made friendship with the widow Paetsch, whose German husband had left her a grocery in the Rue des Trois Fontaines. While purchasing cheap, unwanted things over the counter, I lifted up my hands in horror of that cowardly assassin who had brought so evil a reputation to the Rue Darn.

  ‘La pauvre petite,’ said she, shutting her eyes; ‘ah-h-h, la pauvre petite!’

  ‘You knew her, Madame?’ I continued.

  ‘Perhaps—perhaps—but I have so many young customers—they come—and they go,’ sighed Marie Paetsch remorsefully, slipping my money into the till; and often I was able to call on my friend Maillabuau with little bits of gossip, little bits of advice.

  As, for instance:

  ‘What is it, Jules?’

  ‘It is about our friend Charbo.’

  ‘Sans doute!’

  Then I would tell him some information that I had received.

  ‘Zut! We must have more than that, Monsieur!’ Maillabuau would exclaim; so, therefore, on the next evening:

  ‘What is it this time, Monsieur Levasseur?’

  This time it was something vastly more important, something that would make his eyes open, ‘a choice morsel’. Madame Paetsch, casting her mind back, had remembered very distinctly that on one occasion, shortly before the murder, she had sold a pound of pralines to a pretty girl whose hair was the colour of Calvados brandy.

  ‘Good: proceed.’

  ‘And that Madame had not seen her since,’ I added.

  ‘Good: proceed.’

  ‘Bagatelle!’ I cried angrily. And away I went, for the circumspection of that man was beyond measure.

  Alors, one day Monsieur Maillabuau, catching me by the arm, conducted me into the restaurant in the Rue des Petits-Champs.

  ‘It is about Charbo,’ he whispered, over the sole maison.

  ‘But this is good!’ I cried, ‘this is magnificent! This is the very thing!’

  ‘No it is not!’ snapped Monsieur Maillabuau.

  ‘Proceed,’ said I.

  ‘Charbo used to live in the Rue Caulaincourt. He was a musician, a composer, and played on the flute—’

  ‘He played on the flute!’

  ‘Voila!’

  ‘It is beyond conception!’

  ‘They have told me that he used to play in the orchestra. “What orchestra?” I demanded; well, but they did not know. His friends were poets and painters and journalists; he was very reserved, and did not make himself at all popular with the members of his own profession. Sst! Do not interrupt me. I hunted about, and discovered more than one of the theatres where they had known him. His name, they said, was always Sosthène Charbo; a big-bearded man. Then one day he disappeared from Montmartre. On making further inquiries,’ ended Maillabuau, in his dry, professional voice, ‘I learnt that Sylvette Loury was a friend of his.’

  ‘Well, you have done magnificently!’ I exclaimed. ‘Loury—Loury.’

  ‘But we all know that!’ cried Maillabuau, in a kind of despair, throwing up his hands. ‘We know that Charbo is Charbo! We know that Sylvette is Sylvette! We know that they knew one another! What, then, do we not know? Everything! We do not know that the murdered girl was Sylvette Loury—and Sylvette Loury was nothing more than a name and a pretty face in Montmartre, my little Jules!’

  ‘Ah-h-h, truly, it is very difficult!’ said I; but I went to bed happy that night, knowing that the great Maillabuau had come to his senses.

  Alors, one morning I called out to him: ‘What a pity it is that I tore up his note!’

  And all this while you must figure to yourself the fat Charbo, sitting at his table, day after day. . . .

  Here comes another tug; here come two barges. With what a persistence they plunge through the waters!

  There used to be many peaceful pictures before he came to Bourdaloue’s: for example—my coat and hat on a chair beside me—twelve Forains, in black frames, scattered over the buff walls—a little clock that seemed to grow fatter with ticking—Grégoire coming and going—Monsieur Duval sitting at his table —Monsieur Bellechasse sitting at his—Monsieur Barféty, Monsieur Prouteau, Monsieur Pihan, Monsieur Roux, each engrossed at his own table; and now—behold!—our immense Charbo had himself become one of the pictures! We took him—as you say—for granted. Sometimes I would hear his loud voice—but it was such a familiar sound that for days on end I would not hear it at all. Time was passing now very smoothly and swiftly. Monsieur Prouteau was away once, for three weeks, with a hæmorrhage in the nose. When he returned he was quite pale; but Bourdaloue soon brought back the blood into his face. We were all businessmen there: not one of us would be absent for more than six days’ holiday in the whole year; and as for myself in particular, excepting for the two occasions when I lunched with Maillabuau in the Rue des Petits-Champs, I was not absent at all. Another year passed, and only Bourdaloue’s bill of fare reminded me of the changing seasons. That is because I was no longer consumed by impatience; because, also, I was filled with a great confidence for the future; because, also, I was remembering always new things against Charbo—old things—things that he had said, perhaps, to Sylvette, across the table, in the old days. Therefore I do not know when it was that I decided to follow him home. . . .

  Consider, Monsieur: in my thoughts I had never separated him from Bourdaloue’s! What foolishness! ‘We must change all that!’ I said. So I chose a day when the suprême de soles was not so ravishingly cooked as usual, when the guinea-fowl was not so fat as she might have been, and a je ne sais quoi hovered over the flan aux quetsches. What had happened? There were whispers of domestic trouble in the hom
e of Monsieur the Cook: his son had arrived from the French Congo; his wife was ailing; voila! we knew well enough what it was—it had happened before—Madame was going to have a baby. So, therefore, we had to make shift with the poor cooking, hein? I peeped at Monsieur Bellechasse. Already he was reaching out for his coat, his hat, his gloves. I peeped at Monsieur Duval, at Monsieur Barféty, at Monsieur Prouteau, at Monsieur Pihan, at Monsieur Roux. All, save Monsieur Prouteau, were gathering up their things, and rolling their cigars in their mouths. ‘Bonjour, Monsieur.’ ‘Bonjour, Monsieur.’ ‘Bonjour, Monsieur.’ ‘Bonjour, Monsieur.’ Even at that time, I felt that things had come to an end; that I, at any rate, would not be lunching at Bourdaloue’s any more. ‘Bonjour, Grégoire.’ ‘Bonjour, Grégoire.’ ‘Bonjour, Grégoire.’ ‘Bonjour, Grégoire.’ ‘A la bonne heure!’ I thought to myself; and peeped at the bearded man over my coffee cup. He, too, showed signs of the general dissolution. Presently he whipped the napkin from beneath his chin—Grégoire came running up—the bill was settled—and there was Monsieur Charbo, setting forth into the lovely April air.

  I followed. On the pavement a crowd of people wandered to and fro, up and down, here and there—they jostled me—it had been raining, but now the sun was glistening on the wet street, and somewhere or other I could hear a caged bird singing; there were two working men carrying a great box between them, and all the while calling out: ‘Mesdames, Messieurs! Mesdames, Messieurs!’—but I kept my eyes on the back of Monsieur Charbo the whole time. There he went, straight ahead, never looking back, trying every moment, as I could see, to get into his stilty stride. But the children and the pretty women had been drawn by the sunshine to disport themselves in the shadows and sunny spots beneath the Ailanto trees: and often I was greatly troubled concerning the back of Monsieur Charbo amongst this pleasant company—would I mistake it for that one, or that one?—and this will appear to you droll, without doubt—because, as you know, always I had been enchanted by his enormous raven beard (which I tried now, in vain, to see floating a little on either side of his bull-neck) and by his colossal size. Where had it got to, my Charbo’s beard? and where were the glances of admiration or inexplicable fear—the hurried walk—or the averted eye—that I had expected to see exhibited towards my old Charbo? He turned a corner, and I said to myself: ‘Aha! Aha! I shall have a better chance to follow him there!’ But when, at last, I entered the spacious Avenue Mathilde, and was staring along its perspective of blank walls, skinny trees, and sagging pavements that ran down into the roadway with all the mournfulness of sands running into the sea, Monsieur Charbo had disappeared.