The King of Fools

by Frédéric Dard

  I entered the dining room and ordered bacon and eggs. The vast space looked like a boarding school refectory. Elderly American ladies cackled like frightened turkeys and laughed out loud at the slightest pretext. An old Texan with an extraordinary, broad-brimmed straw hat and an elaborate hearing aid stuffed into one ear sat eating porridge with a teaspoon. The gruel trickled down his hand-painted tie. A senile cowboy was a comical enough sight, but I felt no impulse to smile. I was worried. Something must have happened to Marjorie. The restaurant emptied. I was startled each time a woman walked close by my table. Soon I was alone with the waitresses in their white caps, pushing trolleys laden with dirty dishes.

  I went back out to the multicoloured lobby. One wall bore a large wooden board covered in a criss-cross arrangement of tartan ribbons. The reception staff were distributing mail here, tucking letters behind the ribbons at random, to be retrieved by the residents. I searched frantically for Marjorie’s name, certain I would not find it.

  But there it was.

  On the unopened telegram sent by me the day before, from Juan-les-Pins.

  7

  The little blue-and-white rectangle looked like some dreaded formal announcement. It spoke of Marjorie’s absence with such poignant eloquence that it brought tears to my eyes.

  Almost immediately, I decided that it was perhaps not my telegram after all. And so I committed a serious indiscretion. I opened the envelope. My disappointment was punishment enough for my boldness.

  J’ARRIVE MON AMOUR

  JEAN-MARIE VALAISE

  The brief text, like a resounding cry of victory, had a sinister ring now. Filled with shame and despair, I folded the message into the envelope and tucked it back behind the tartan ribbon. No one had seen me. The hotel was busier than a bus station. Guests packed the lobby with their luggage, then poured outside to storm one of the waiting Pullman coaches. Others were piling in, to be greeted by the whine and moan of the bagpipes.

  The manager spotted me and raised an arm. I hurried over, filled with sudden hope.

  “Your room is ready for you now, sir.”

  That was all. The piper had picked up my bags already, and led me in the direction of the stairs. He went ahead of me, breathing heavily, like a lumberjack hard at work. His lungs seemed incapable of functioning unless he was blowing into one of the black teats on his monstrous udder-like instrument. His thick calves were covered in reddish hairs. A classic Scots dagger with an engraved silver pommel was tucked into one of his socks.

  A clever architect could have carved a decent-sized apartment from the vast, inhuman dimensions of my room. The ceiling was some four metres high, and the window ledge was level with my chest; I would have felt more at home on the empty stage of the Paris Opera. Finding myself alone, I realized how a man can feel more imprisoned in a vast space than in a tiny cell. I felt crushed. The room’s tartan carpet and gaudy wallpaper made me quite sick. I sank into an armchair and attempted to review my situation.

  Marjorie Faulks must have postponed her visit to Scotland. Doubtless she had informed me, but I had left before receiving her letter. What could I do? Send a telegram poste restante to London, asking her to fix a rendezvous? I could see no other way to reach her. Then I sensed a new ray of hope: perhaps my telegram was late, and had been delivered to the Learmonth just that morning? Perhaps Marjorie was still sleeping, on the other side of the wall! Perhaps she hadn’t collected her mail last night. She may not have reached Edinburgh yet. Her letter said she was travelling to Scotland, but not when. How quickly could she get here, with this transport strike threatening to spread? I went down to reception.

  The tumult of the morning coaches had abated, and the lobby was empty. Behind the glass panels of the reception desk, the proprietor was drinking a cup of tea.

  “Excuse me,” I asked. “Is there a Mrs Marjorie Faulks, from London, among your guests?”

  He dipped a biscuit into his tea and nibbled at it. When the biscuit was finished, he responded with an evasive shrug before running his tongue carefully around his gums and consulting the hotel register.

  “When would she have arrived?”

  “Two days ago, at the most.”

  He ran his finger quickly down the long columns of names and came to a halt on the final, blank page.

  “No, sir. Nobody of that name.”

  “In that case, you must have an advance booking from a Mrs Faulks.”

  He pushed the book towards me; I thought he wanted me to check the list myself, but he was inviting me to add my own name and address. I took the opportunity to double-check the entries for the last two days, which annoyed him greatly. His bright expression darkened.

  “Would you mind checking your advance bookings?” I asked quietly.

  He opened a much smaller book and consulted it briefly.

  “Is the lady on an organized tour?”

  “No, I don’t believe so.”

  “I have no individual bookings, sir.”

  “But there’s a telegram for her!” I protested.

  I pointed to the board. The telegram had disappeared.

  Panic-stricken, I checked every letter and note. Had I slipped the cable behind another envelope? I lifted each of them, one by one. The hotel owner liked this not one bit, and showed his displeasure by joining me in front of the board.

  “Ten minutes ago there was a telegram here for Mrs Marjorie Faulks,” I declared forcefully. “Who distributes the mail?”

  “I do, sir.”

  “You must remember the telegram, it arrived yesterday…”

  “Several telegrams arrived yesterday, sir.”

  His cheeks reddened and his stare intensified.

  “Look here, try to remember.”

  “My hotel is a popular tour destination, sir. I have no time to remember each guest by name. Over a hundred people arrive every day, and they leave the following morning. We display the mail, but we do not check names.”

  He looked fit to burst. I tried soothing him with a contrite smile.

  “Of course! I understand. I’m so sorry. But the fact remains, the telegram in question was right here less than fifteen minutes ago. Who took it, if not Mrs Faulks?”

  The logic of this appealed to the hotel proprietor’s rational cast of mind. He poked his tongue behind his bottom lip, stretching the skin. He was freshly shaven and smelt of soap.

  “Well, sir, I imagine that the lady in question had planned to stay at my hotel. But the Learmonth was fully booked last night. So she went elsewhere and came by this morning to collect her mail. These things happen.”

  I could have hugged him. Obviously! He was right!

  “You were in reception just now. Did you see a young woman with reddish, chestnut-coloured hair?”

  “The hall was full of people, sir. Did you see her yourself?”

  “And what about yesterday? You can’t have missed her if she came to ask about a room?”

  He reflected on this, sticking his tongue firmly into his right cheek.

  “I don’t remember seeing any young lady, sir. But I don’t spend all day on reception. I’ll ask my wife when she comes down.”

  “Thank you.”

  A side table was piled with leaflets about Edinburgh. One listed all of the city’s main hotels. I took it and went out.

  The rain had just stopped, and a timid sun made the streets shine in the pale, soft northern light. I waited for a taxi but none came. I settled for a bus to take me to the centre of town.

  I enquired at every hotel in the leaflet. The search took over three hours, to no avail. No one had seen or heard of Marjorie Faulks. The mystery defeated me; I was dead with fatigue. This whole adventure was a monstrous farce.

  I hoped for news back at the Learmonth, but no one had asked for me, and the owner’s wife – a small, brown-haired woman with a distracted, disapproving air – was quite certain no young woman answering Marjorie’s description had requested a room the day before. The name Faulks meant nothing to he
r either.

  8

  A nightmarish day!

  Lost and bewildered, I wandered past the shop windows on Princes Street, gazing indifferently at their meagre displays. Everything looked ugly and grim: the items on show, the passers-by, the buildings, the weather. The rain fell in sudden, sporadic bursts, but there was no brightening of the sky in between.

  The swollen clouds gurgled like overworked drains. Nothing distracted me from my plight, not even the tartan-clad soldiers slowly pacing the pavements.

  In Princes Street Gardens, at the bottom of the valley separating the old part of the city from the new, a band played traditional songs while a great many couples danced. Most were in national dress, distinguished only by their different-coloured tartans. People out for a stroll gathered on the nearby seats to watch. At the edge of the stage, a portly woman with the air of a girl scout called instructions into a microphone, in a gravelly, stentorian voice.

  Vivid, close-cropped lawns, dotted with flower beds, extended either side of the open-air theatre. People disported themselves here whenever the rain let up, spreading their raincoats on the neatly mown grass. Lovers lay close together, embracing in full view of passers-by on the narrow tarmac paths.

  By eight o’clock in the evening, the weather was almost fine. Suddenly, the clouds cleared and the light was so bright it might have been three o’clock in the afternoon. I was half dead with hunger, and stepped into a restaurant. The place was on two levels. For dinner, only the first-floor dining room was open. I settled myself at a small table beside a bay window, overlooking the whole of Princes Street.

  Sunlight sparkled on the lawns and gilded the battlements of the citadel. Why was Marjorie not here, sitting opposite me? What had happened? Who had taken my telegram from the board at the Learmonth?

  A surly, ugly, elderly waitress took my order. Fresh salmon, and lamb with mint sauce. The food was tasteless and the fried potatoes accompanying the lamb were almost raw. I doused everything in ketchup and convinced myself it was edible. My fellow diners were a lifeless lot, drab and silent; when the demands of service forced them to speak, they did so in a church whisper. I began to detest their presence, and chose instead to gaze out at the great prospect of Princes Street, with its parade of buildings, the double-decker buses plying its broad thoroughfare, and the sloping gardens, at the bottom of which the tartan-clad couples were still dancing their complicated quadrilles. The passengers on the upper decks of the buses were a distraction in an otherwise sombre, imposing scene. Level with my gaze, their stately passage reminded me of the bears in their glass case in Juan-les-Pins. Princes Street was a major artery, filled with traffic. The buses came relentlessly, one after another, as if emerging from their depot first thing in the morning. All at once, I started in shock. There, sitting at the front of a wine-red bus, was Marjorie. I leapt to my feet like a madman, spilling my beer bottle on the tablecloth. Pressed against the bay window, I waved in desperation, but we were separated by the breadth and bustle of Princes Street, and she could not see me, though the bus was halted at a red light.

  She wore a black raincoat with a glossy sheen, like sealskin, and her hair was knotted in a velvet ribbon. The sight of her was torture.

  There I was, barely ten metres from her, and quite unable to attract her attention! Her bus pulled away. There was no time to pay my bill, run downstairs and chase after the lumbering vehicle. A taxi? A glance down at the street told me none were stationed nearby. I had the presence of mind to note the number of the bus: 12.

  I watched as it drove away. In the distance its rounded back end resembled a giant beetle. The waitress mopped my spilt beer with vehement disapproval. Her red-rimmed eyes were grey, with sparse, stubby lashes that fluttered when she felt she was being watched. The profound silence in the restaurant was, I realized, targeted at me. I recovered my composure and asked for the bill. The waitress took delight in presenting it only after a considerable lapse of time.

  Now the shops were closed, the traffic had eased, and Princes Street was sunk in Sunday evening torpor. It was broad daylight, with a clear sky and bright sunshine, but the city had gone to sleep. The tall blackened buildings looked like gigantic mausoleums. There was no one at the open-air theatre, and no more tourists visible on the castle esplanade. It was as if an air raid warning had sent people scurrying to their cellars. The effect was unnerving, like the certainty of an imminent threat whose precise nature is unknown.

  I reached the nearest bus stop; almost every route serving the city passed through this nerve centre, and the pavement was lined with numbered posts, marking their stops. I located the number 12, near a crossroads, and prepared to wait.

  After about ten minutes, a virtually empty vehicle came along. I stayed standing on the rear platform, beside the conductor, who remarked that it was a “lovely” evening. But I was in no mood for conversation, and replied that I didn’t understand English.

  The bus hurtled up and down the Edinburgh hills. I rode along broad, silent thoroughfares, staring hard at the windows piercing the dark, cliff-like buildings in hopes of discovering Marjorie’s refuge. Knowing that she was in Edinburgh ought to have filed me with delight, but I was half dead with anxiety. When I spotted her on the top deck of the bus, my only thought had been to attract her attention. But now, reliving the scene after the heat of the moment, I was struck by how exhausted she had looked. I had glimpsed her for just thirty seconds, from a distance, but her anxious expression had been plain to see. I knew something bad had happened to her. Something that had forced a change of plan. Where was she now? I wanted to retrace the number 12 bus route on foot, hollering her name every ten metres. The farther the huge bus drove, the greater my state of panic.

  We were moving through a drab, outlying district of factories, gasworks and increasingly squat buildings. Shops were few and far between. A set of railway tracks emerged suddenly from a large gateway, crossing the street into a factory yard.

  The number 12 came to a halt. I thought we had reached another stop, but the remaining passengers all alighted: shabby-looking men in old-fashioned caps. Each carried a metal mess tin, and every red-veined face was painted grey with fatigue.

  “Terminus, sir.”

  9

  I returned to the city centre on foot, retracing the route of the number 12 bus. There were seven stops between my point of embarkation and the terminus. I appealed to an imaginary sixth sense to determine where Marjorie had stepped down.

  I discounted the last three: the neighbourhoods were too run-down by far. Once the buildings were smarter and better maintained, I paid careful attention to each façade, hoping for a hotel that might have escaped my morning tour. I found only one, more a family-run guesthouse, but I rang at the door nonetheless. It was opened, fearfully, by an elderly lady with blue hair and thick glasses that gave her a frog-like air. The place was fully booked, she informed me. I asked whether a Mrs Marjorie Faulks was staying with her, and was assured she wasn’t.

  The remainder of the journey was an ordeal. Now I was interested not only in the buildings lining the route, but the side streets too. It was tiring, and it was dispiriting. I was under no illusion as to the likely outcome of my search. A young woman can’t be sniffed out, just like that, on the deserted streets of Edinburgh, at ten o’clock at night. The forbidding tenement blocks loomed darker, and more oppressive still, as night stole over the city. The sky was still bright, but the street lamps were lit. A North Sea wind blew along the steep streets, each gust spattering volleys of raindrops on the greasy pavements; not proper rain, but flecks of spray snatched from the not-so-distant waves.

  My stony solitude was hopeless now. The high walls that harboured Marjorie would not release her to me tonight.

  At the Learmonth Hotel, the owner’s wife was reading a paperback novel in the lobby. All was quiet. The bagpiper, in shirt-sleeves now, was unpacking a consignment of ginger wine; the red-topped bottles clustered around him in rows, like skittles.

&n
bsp; I asked for my key. I couldn’t remember my room number; the owner’s wife checked her register.

  “Someone called for you!” she announced.

  I started in surprise.

  “Mrs Faulks?”

  “No, a man.”

  I was astounded.

  “What sort of man?”

  “I don’t know, he called on the telephone.”

  “Was he French?”

  “No, sir.”

  “What was his name?”

  “He didn’t leave a name, sir.”

  “Did he leave a message?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Did he say he would call back?”

  “He did not.”

  She handed me my key. I was in room 14.

  I couldn’t leave the conversation there. The mystery held me transfixed.

  “This gentleman, Madame, did he… Did he ask for me by name?”

  She looked surprised.

  “Well of course, sir.”

  “He wanted to speak to me?”

  “Well… he wanted to know if you had arrived at the hotel.”

  “What time did he call?”

  “Sometime this afternoon, I couldn’t say exactly when.”

  I hesitated to enquire further. Since my arrival, I seemed to have irritated the entire Scottish nation. Earlier that evening, through her monstrous glasses, the old lady with blue hair had displayed the same look of polite disapproval. And before that, the restaurant waitress mopping my spilt beer had made it quite clear I did not belong. Even the conductor on the number 12 bus had pronounced his “Terminus, sir” in tones laden with suspicion. And yet people like me readily enough, as a rule. This was another mystery altogether.