The men left the café and crossed the square in a loose body, but by the time they were halfway down the broad approach to the abattoir, they had fallen apart into talking about war, football, and the price of food, mostly meat.
Beauvais walked with old Fouche the head cutter and two men from waste disposal. Ahead now, they could see them moving, far back along the great dismal side of the building where already the boxcars sat, in unloading.
“Back not a moment too soon,” said Fouche, “sixteen carloads from the north this morning.”
In the dank vastness of the abattoir, under the gray vaulted skylight, the men crisscrossed to their departments, parting with a wave of the hand or an obscene jest.
At the lockers Beauvais hung up his coat and jacket, put on the great leather apron and his high rubber boots.
On the way to the racks he stopped at the sharpener’s corner.
“I’ve been saving it for you,” said the sharpener, who had been drinking hot wine at the café, and now passed over to Beauvais a thin curved blade, so whet that its edge died away in a sheen of light.
“Give me a keen edge,” said Beauvais, “they say we’ll have our hands full this morning.”
“Try it,” said the other, baring the black curls of his forearm.
Swiftly, Beauvais’ hand swept the edge down and back, and across the forearm the hairs fell cleanly away in a narrow swath.
“Haven’t lost the touch I see,” said the sharpner.
“Nor you,” said Beauvais, “it’s a needle and a razor.”
In the cutter’s section it was a great morning for Beauvais. Everyone stopped round to welcome him back, asking about his son, wanting to see the clipping.
Finally he stuck the clipping on the high end of his cutting rack so he wouldn’t spoil it, getting it in and out of his pocket with wet hands.
White steam rose thick from the rack, the sloshing floor, and the heavy soaked apron. Beauvais worked steadily. And while his eyes may have shone with their joy, his hands were none the slower for it and held the deftness of twenty years experience.
“Here now,” cried old Fouche in a bluff humor from the next rack, “we’re not at the beach today. There’s work here.” He nudged one of the handlers standing alongside, “Never send a cutter on vacation to the Riviera,” he said coarsely. “Martinis give an unsteady hand and the sunshine weakens their eye.” They all laughed, Beauvais the heartiest. He was the best among them.
The handlers rolled them in on a wide flat cart, the bleating sheep, struggling a little under the thongs.
Lying on the rack, stomach up, they were perfectly still, the heads hanging over backwards, stretching the throat up in a gentle white arch.
Beauvais passed down the line, taking them one at a time, quickly, silently, the left hand firm on the lower jaw stretching the throat a little more, arching it up just so, and the right hand slipping in the long blade below the ear, deep into the throat, bringing it around in a swift clean slice to the other ear. He cut the throat as smooth and quick as a surgeon would lance a tiny boil, laying the whole of it open with such speed and grace that for one gaping instant there was no wetness, only the great hollow redness of the wound, and scarcely had the hot steaming blood surged up and over his apron when the blade was sliding like a razor in cream cheese thru the white throat of the next. And the crimson heads dropped limp as he went, left hanging by the threads of a muscle as so many broken flowers while the racked bodies rocked in the convulsion of trying to expel all their blood in one big spurt.
By the time Beauvais reached the end of the rack, his feet were sloshing above the ankles in blood, the hot, rarefied pungence of it rising with its steam to cloud over the whole rack and dim the eyes of the men in the cutting section.
Then they were done, till the steam died away. And Beauvais looked over to where two or three of the others paused against the wall by Fouché’s rack for a cigarette.
“Swim on over,” called Fouche, “he’s just back from Monte Carlo,” he said, nudging someone beside him in the same old joke.
Between them, out from the racks the concrete floor sloped down to a great red flooded gutter trough. Beauvais started across, slipping a little, stepping out so as not to slosh it, slowly, deep on his boots, the smell of it coming up on the steam.
He stamped his dripping feet when he was across, kicked them against the wall, leaving a splotch of red and dark splatters.
Fouché reached out, touched his arm lightly, preferred a cigarette. “Bienvenue,” he said to Beauvais, and there was an odd warmth in his voice.
Beauvais stood with them, but closer to the wall, the blood tide lapping at his boots.
“I haven’t noticed Louis around,” he said carefully, leaning back, “and the boys from disposal. They seem late in getting around with the brooms this morning.”
The Automatic Gate
“IT IS FANTASTIC,” said Monsieur Pommard from his chair at the ticket gate. He hesitated, cigarette paper at his lips, wishing certainly, to augment this. “It is truly fantastic,” he said, and switched his tongue back and forth over the gummed edge, moving his head as he did so, a little unnecessarily. “Do you know that I am actually sick?” and he touched, on his jacket, an old brass button where his heart might have been.
A taller man, in like uniform, stood sullenly, watched the outgoing train, only thinking under the passing rush of noise that it was really too bright here, that, in fact, he could see the dirt in the pores on the back of his hand. His eyes traced the track, low set between sweeps of clean concrete, all cast a sterile rose green from the overhung fluorescence. One could change at Etoile, he thought, and seeing how the few people on this platform stood so well dressed, oddly at leisure for the hour—and all, or as it seemed, so near to where the first-class carriage would stop, thought again, it would take longer certainly, but one could change at Etoile.
And he saw then that the portillon automatique to their left, the electro-pneumatic gate which admitted or shut out transferring passengers automatically, was so freshly painted it looked wet.
“I said to my wife,” M. Pommard went on, “‘in the first place, if she is not French, why should she prepare a French dish?’ Tell me that.” And this time, he offered it up with his eyes and in such complete faith that the other man, even he, must come back quickly, and be there, so as not to spoil it entirely.
“Probably she wished to make a good impression,” he replied, thinking, there it is then, the needle is threaded again.
“Certainly,” said M. Pommard, his gratitude too tacit now, even to be assumed, “her intentions were well, I’m sure of that, but all the samel And consider this: my cousin, a man of affairs, a very important business in Lyon. It is not as though he gets to Paris every day, on the contrary. A well established man you understand, I’m sure he was sick, I’m sure of that.”
The other nodded, only taking it up conversationally, “Yes, those things happen.” And even now they were cleaning the tiles here. These lights, like an American toilet, he thought.
“But can you imagine it,” M. Pommard pressed, impatient perhaps with the other man’s youth, his brief service with the Company, “a fondue made with Camembert? And with all the mold no doubt!”
“Yes, it could be dangerous, a thing like that.” A most important station, they said, not large but exclusive. The rich and the poor; he hated most especially, he believed, the very rich.
“There you are then,” said M. Pommard and seemed on the verge of standing, “realize this: a child at the table, my daughter, less than six, a baby really. For myself it makes no difference, on the contrary, I have a strong constitution. During the war, as a soldier,” and he touched absently, not as he had his heart, a bit of red on black lapel, “we ate everything.” And as he opened his gate and began to punch the tickets, he told, aside the line of incoming passengers, how once he had eaten of a putrified horse, or some such, an uncooked chicken perhaps. As he did this, laughing to himself some
times, he handled the tickets expertly, not too fast, but very careful, often holding them to the light, just to see perhaps if they had not been twice punched already, and once, when a well dressed woman stopped to ask about some train connection or other, he directed her with firmness and authority.
Here the younger man watched, trying to be apart, disdainful even, but was, in fact, only a little embarrassed. His uniform was shabby, and there was some dirt on the back of his hand.
“You will change at Odeon for the direction of St. Cloud,” M. Pommard was saying, when there was a commotion behind the portillon automatique on their left, some running on steps, and this heavy steel door, just closing as the lights of the train appeared at the far end of the platform, was caught and held back by a man on the other side who wedged his body into the narrowing opening and squeezed thru.
M. Pommard had already closed his own gate, and he came to his feet at once, “Attention!” he cried, “Vous vous trompez, Monsieur! Attention!” and he hurried after the man who ran now, as without noticing him, toward the waiting train.
He came back, shaking his head from side to side, a little out of breath. He had worked in the Metro for twenty-five years, he was an old man now.
“The pig,” he muttered, stopping to examine the automatic gate. He was obviously upset.
“I shouldn’t worry,” said the other, thinking certainly he must catch the next train himself.
“The dirty pig,” said old Pommard, his voice quite unsteady.
“Yes, it is scarcely worth it,” the other went on, “Oh I know the type certainly. My God, at Clignancourt! But I never bother, tell me, why should we on our salary?”
“Yes, but all the same,” said M. Pommard, taking his chair, “it sickens me. Besides, we have our orders, isn’t that so?”
“Listen,” M. Pommard was saying to the Clignancourt gatekeeper the next evening, “you understand, I know this man. Certainly. It is not the first time for him, far from it, he has rushed the automatic gate before, running ahead on the steps no doubt, and then just squeezing thru as it shuts. Wednesday night it happened, I’m sure it was the same man, again last night as you saw for yourself, and then tonight.”
“Tonight? It happened again tonight?” the other replied as incredulous, thinking he must not miss two or three trains home again tonight listening to the old man’s stories.
“Certainly. What did you expect,” said M. Pommard making a sweet-bitter face, “that he would allow the gate to shut properly, when he’s in a hurry?”
“In a hurry, eh? So much the worse for him then!” said the other laughing in a patronizing sort of way.
M. Pommard did not laugh. “It will not happen again,” he said in a challenge to the younger gatekeeper, “make no mistake about that.”
“Yes. Well of course you could report him to the Company, or to the police for that matter,” answered the other without any sincerity at all.
“To the Company?” said the old man, a little astonished probably. “What would you have me do then, go to the Company and say, ‘Here now, I am no longer able to keep my gates’?” At this he drew himself straighter in the chair, “After twenty-five years service, August eighth, and nine as keeper of this gate, you will have to find a new man! A younger man no doubt.” He looked down the empty platform, where now the portillon automatique, like his own gate beside him, stood open wide. “What you may not understand,” he went on, shaking a finger without any real malice, “that in a matter of this kind, I am the Company.” There he stopped full, hesitating, as at some kind of distance. “After all,” he began finally, but his voice caught up so that he stopped again, and looking about him, made a small gesture with his hands, “after all, these are my gates,” and when he raised his eyes, for the young man, seeing the dead dry waste of the old man’s face, it was terrible, the tears there.
The old fool, he said to himself, surprised almost at saying it. “I shouldn’t worry,” he said aloud, and for all his hypocrisy, placed a hand on the other’s shoulder.
“It will not happen again,” said M. Pommard, shaking himself and standing. He walked toward the automatic gate, “Shall I tell you why? Because I served three years as apprentice mechanic with the Company, and two years following as full mechanic. In those days,” he stopped before the automatic gate and faced the other gatekeeper, “there were no shortcuts in the Service. One began at the bottom.” He paused as if this point should be allowed to stand alone for a moment, or as if perhaps, he had forgotten the larger point altogether. “Consequently,” he went on then, “I am able to adjust this automatic gate myself, that is, to regulate the pressure so that it will function properly as intended. Notice this,” he continued, leaning over to touch the pressure apparatus at the bottom of the gate, “by turning this valve, the closing pressure is increased; by turning the other, it is decreased. Now you see I have increased the closing pressure.”
He looked at the other man who nodded then as if he had followed it closely. “There you are then,” said M. Pommard wiping his hands, “not a complicated thing certainly, but a matter of knowing how,” he shrugged, “of experience, as they say.” And his voice at once became lighter, as they walked back to the chair, a hand on the other’s shoulder, he was almost jovial, wanting to be told again which the younger’s station was, and how long he had been there. A useless old man, thought the other, feeling quite suddenly very violent, as he felt also the weight of the knife in his pocket.
On the following night the Clignancourt gatekeeper and old Pommard had been talking for only a moment when an incident, something like those of the previous evenings, occurred. From where they were standing, it was difficult to know exactly what happened when the man entered the automatic gate as it was shutting.
This metal door, standing open to admit the correspondance passengers, had, as the lights of the train appeared at the far end of the platform, begun closing inward as usual, very steadily, and when the opening was less than a foot wide, the man had stepped sideways between the door and the iron sill, and very quickly thru and onto the platform. Evidently the man had been running, to reach the door as it closed, but whether he actually retarded its closing, one could not say. Certainly it had touched him, and for the briefest instant he stood, his chest against the door’s edge, his back against the sill, yet the door continued to close, or so it seemed, steadily.
As before, it happened so quickly that M. Pommard must have been taken by surprise. He broke off in the middle what he was saying to the other gatekeeper, “Attention!” he shouted, “vous vous trompez là! Attention!” and he went after the man, calling out, running, hopping in wrath, across the platform to the very door of the carriage.
When he came back he was evidently quite shaken. He looked once defensively at the other gatekeeper, “What would you have me do then, hold up the train?” and here he began something about Schedules, forgetting for the moment how much the other knew, by heart as well.
“Yes, he is a pig, that one,” mused the Clignancourt gatekeeper as he stared after the passing train, “how well I know the type! A rich pig,” and, remembering vaguely, wondered once if it was really the same man. This one went into first-class. Naturally, he thought, fat rich pig. “He’s an anarchist,” said the old man gravely. “Anarchist?” echoed the other, really surprised. “Certainly. What did you expect? He has no respect, no respect for the regulations. He squeezes his way thru the portillon automatique, while it is closing, do you understand? But then, of course, you saw it yourself.”
“Yes, I know,” said the other, coming back, “that happens. At Clignancourt they are like cattle. When they see the automatic gate closing, sometimes they run and hold it back by force. Twice they’ve broken it this year. The people are crazy,” just as one day, he thought, they will break these city gates again. And, as for the fat pigs then! He picked at his nose and spat, almost in the same motion.
“Broken! There you are then,” said the old man with a shrug. He turned back to th
e automatic gate, made some more adjustments there. “Now a team of oxen could not hold back that gate,” he said flatly.
“So much the better,” said the young man, thinking of other things no doubt.
There were only a few people on the platform the next evening when M. Pommard closed his gate as the lights of the 11:03 for the Porte de Versailles appeared at the far end.
In the correspondence passage now, was the Clignancourt gatekeeper himself, late from some violent political meeting. He was just coming down the last flight, even as the lights of the 11:03 were closing inward, caught up and twisting on the cold gloss of the automatic gate. Then he was thinking how, in seeing him, the useless old gatekeeper here would raise two fingers to his cap, would slowly, dutifully get to his feet and come over, noblesse oblige.
Thinking this, he thrust one hand, as automatically as the closing gate before him, deep in his pocket and rushed absently ahead, reached the gate and stepped thru freely, onto the platform.
M. Pommard was sitting easily, and in fact, as anticipated by the other, had just raised two fingers to his cap in greeting, but as their eyes met, holding for one instant the fearful contempt between them, there was some commotion from behind, in the automatic gate. And there, for this same sharp instant, on a young lady’s face was a look of astonishment, child at a magic show, blotted over now by the rush of blood from her nose and mouth.
They both turned at the noise, and M. Pommard nearly bowled the young man over, rushing past, shaking his head, crying aloud through the screams, “Attention! Vous vous trompez! Attention!”
But then a crowd was already gathering, closing in boldly, as even now under no apprehension themselves, yet making it more difficult, to be sure, for old Pommard, with his halting push and pummel, to get through to the trouble there in the automatic gate.
A Change of Style
AT FIVE O’CLOCK the afternoon sun wanes aslant the smart low-roofed shops of Westwood, hangs heavy over corners like a loose saffron shawl, flooding office and showroom with folds of yellow light, turning the cream-walled cubicles of the Mayfair Coiffeur to a golden rose.
Red-Dirt Marijuana: And Other Tastes Page 20