The Chalk Circle Man

V

MATHILDE HAD PRESENTED HERSELF AT THE HŌTEL DES GRANDS Hommes, to look for the beautiful blind man – a very small hotel for such a grand name, she thought. Or perhaps it meant that one didn’t need many rooms to accommodate all the great men in the world.

The receptionist, after telephoning to announce her arrival, told her that Monsieur Reyer couldn’t come down, he was detained. Mathilde went up to his room.

‘What’s the matter?’ Mathilde cried through the locked door. ‘Are you naked in bed with someone?’

‘No,’ said Charles.

‘Something more serious?’

‘I’m not looking my best. I can’t find my razor.’

Mathilde thought for a moment. ‘It’s out of sight, you mean?’

‘Yes, right,’ said Charles. ‘I’ve felt everywhere. I don’t understand.’

He opened the door.

‘You have to appreciate, Queen Mathilde, that things take advantage of my weakness. I hate things. They disguise themselves, they slip between the mattress and the bed, they knock over the waste-paper basket, they get stuck between the floorboards. I’ve had enough. I think I’m going to abolish things.’

‘You’re not as smart as a fish,’ Mathilde observed. ‘Because the fish that live right down on the seabed, in complete darkness, like you, they manage to find what they want to eat, in spite of everything.’

‘Fish don’t have to shave. And anyway, what the eye doesn’t see the heart doesn’t grieve after. Couldn’t give a damn about your fish.’

‘Eyes, eyes. You’re doing it on purpose aren’t you?’

‘Yes, I am doing it on purpose, I’ve got a whole repertoire of expressions: I’ll cast my eye over it, I’ll make eyes at her, I’ve got my eye on you, I’ll keep my eyes peeled, it’s an eye-opener, I’ve got eyes in the back of my head. There are plenty of them. I like using them. Like other people like to chew over their memories. But anyway, I really couldn’t care less about fish.’

‘Plenty of people feel like that. Yes, it’s true, there’s a general tendency not to give a damn about fish. Can I sit on this chair?’

‘Please go ahead. Anyway, what’s so marvellous about fish?’

‘We understand each other, me and the fish. We’ve spent thirty years in each other’s company now, so we don’t dare leave each other. If I was dumped by a fish, I’d be lost. The fish are my work, they produce my income, they keep me if you like.’

‘And because I’m like one of your damned fish swimming about in the dark, that’s why you’ve come to see me.’

Mathilde thought for a moment.

‘You won’t get anywhere like that,’ she concluded. ‘You need to be a bit more fishy, that’s exactly it – more flexible and fluid. Still, it’s up to you if you want to make the whole universe feel guilty. I came because you said you were looking for a flat, and it looks as if you’re still needing one. Perhaps you don’t have a lot of money. This hotel’s a bit dear, though.’

‘The ghosts that haunt it are dear to me too. But the main thing, Queen Mathilde, is that people don’t want to rent rooms to a blind man. They’re afraid that the blind man will do stupid things: drop his plate over the side of the table, piss all over the carpet because he thinks he’s in the bathroom.’

‘Well, a blind man would suit me fine. All my work on the three-spined stickleback, the flying gurnard and the sawback angelshark has paid for three apartments, in the same house, on three different floors. I had a big family living on the first and third floors – the Sawback Angelshark flat and the Three-Spined Stickleback flat, I call them – but they’ve moved out. I live on the second floor, named after the Flying Gurnard. I’ve rented the Stickleback out to an eccentric old lady, and I thought of you as a possible tenant for the Sawback Angelshark – call it the first floor if you like. I won’t charge you a high rent.’

‘Why not?’

Charles heard Mathilde laugh and light a cigarette. He groped for an ashtray, which he held out to her.

‘You’re offering the ashtray to the window,’ said Mathilde. ‘I’m sitting a good metre to the left of where you think.’

‘My apologies. You’re a hard woman, aren’t you? Most people would stretch out their hand to take the ashtray and wouldn’t pass remarks.’

‘You’ll find I’m even harder when you discover that the apartment is fine and a good size, but people don’t like living there because they find it too dark. So I said to myself: now Charles Reyer, that’s someone I like. And since he’s blind, it’ll suit him down to the ground, because what difference will it make to him if the flat’s dark?’

‘Are you always this tactless?’ Charles asked.

‘Yes, I think so,’ replied Mathilde, seriously. ‘Anyway, what about the Angelshark – does it tempt you?’

‘I’d like to take a good look,’ said Charles, with a smile, twitching his glasses. ‘I think it might suit me very well, a dark angelshark. But if I’m going to live there I’ll need to know the habits of this sea creature, otherwise my own apartment will think I’m an idiot.’

‘Easy. The Squatina aculeata, or sawback angelshark, sometimes known as the monkfish, is migratory, and frequents the shallow coastal shelves of the Mediterranean. Its flesh is rather bland, some people like it, others don’t. It swims like a shark, propelling itself with its tail. It has a snub nose and fringed nasal barbels. Its gills are large and half-moon in shape, its mouth is armed with unicuspid teeth on a wide base – and so on and so forth. It’s brown with dark speckles and pale spots, a bit like the carpet in the hall.’

‘I could learn to like a creature like that, Queen Mathilde.’

It was seven o’clock. Clémence Valmont was working in Mathilde’s flat. She was classifying slides and felt unbearably hot. She would have liked to take off her black beret, she would have liked not to be seventy years old, and for her hair not to be thinning on top. These days she never took off her beret. This evening she would show Mathilde two small ads from the day’s paper, which were quite interesting and to which she was tempted to reply.

M., 66, well-preserved, large appetite, small pension, would like to meet F., not too ugly, small appetite, large pension, to keep each other company on the last stretch of the road.

Well, at least that was frank. And the next one was pretty irresistible:

Successful Medium and Clairvoyant with Gift inherited from Father The whole truth from first meeting whether for protection lasting affection tracing lost husband or wife attraction happiness consultation by correspondence send photo and SAE for entire satisfaction in every domain.

What have I got to lose? said Clémence to herself.

The Sawback Angelshark flat had pleased Charles Reyer. He had already made up his mind, in fact, when Mathilde had told him about it in the hotel, and he had merely concealed his haste to accept. Because Charles knew that he was getting worse, month by month. And he was afraid. He sensed that Mathilde, without even realising it, would be able to distract his mind from the dark and morbid sentiments into which it was sinking. At the same time, he could see no other solution than to keep hating everybody, since the idea of becoming a sort of Pollyanna blind man revolted him. He had gone round the walls of the apartment, feeling with his hands, and Mathilde had shown him where the doors, taps and light switches were.

‘Why bother showing me the light switches?’ said Charles. ‘No need to put the light on. You’re not as clever as you think, Queen Mathilde.’

Mathilde shrugged. She realised that Charles Reyer turned nasty about every ten minutes.

‘What about other people?’ she replied. ‘If someone comes to see you, you won’t put the light on, will you, just let them sit in the dark?’

‘Hate other people, feel like killing them,’ said Charles through clenched teeth, as if to excuse himself.

He cast about for a chair, bumped into the unfamiliar furniture and Mathilde did not help him. So he remained standing and turned towards her.

‘Am I more or less facing you?’

‘More or less.’

‘Put the light on, Mathilde.’

‘It is on.’

Charles took off his glasses and Mathilde looked at his eyes.

‘Well, obviously,’ she said after a moment. ‘Don’t expect me to tell you your eyes look fine, because they don’t, they’re horrible. Against your pale skin, frankly they make you look like the living dead. With your glasses on, you’re terrific. But when you take them off, you look like a scorpion-fish. If I was a surgeon, my dear Charles, I’d try and fix them for you, clean them up. There’s no reason why you should carry on looking like a scorpion-fish if there’s a way out. I know someone, a surgeon. He did a great job on a friend who’d had an accident that left him with a face like a John Dory. The John Dory’s not a pretty fish either.’

‘What if I like looking like a scorpion-fish?’ asked Charles.

‘Dear God,’ said Mathilde. ‘Are you going to plague me for the rest of my days moaning about being blind? You want to look terrible? OK, go ahead, look terrible. You want to go on being mean and nasty, making cutting remarks that reduce other people to shreds? All right, go ahead, my dear Charles, see if it bothers me. You won’t know about this yet, but you’re out of luck, because it’s Thursday today. So we’re at the start of a section two of the week, and until Sunday, inclusive, I will have absolutely no moral sense. You want compassion, a sympathetic ear, insight, encouragement, or any other humanitarian sentiments, sorry, that’s all over for this week. We get born, we die, and in between we destroy ourselves wasting time while we pretend to be spending it productively, and that’s all I want to say just now about the human race. Next Monday, I shall find humanity perfectly splendid with all its foibles and procrastinations, as it slouches towards the millennium. But today, nothing doing, the office is closed. Today’s a day for cynicism, laissez-aller, futility, and immediate gratification. If you want to look like a scorpion-fish, or a moray eel, or a gargoyle or a two-headed hydra, or a teratomorph, well, feel free, Charles, go ahead. You won’t upset me. I like all the fish in the sea, even disgusting fish, so this isn’t a conversation for a Thursday at all. You’re unsettling my week, carrying on like this with your hysterical revenge. See, what would have been a good thing to do in a section two of the week, would be to go upstairs and have a drink in the Flying Gurnard, where I could have introduced you to the old lady who lives on the top floor. But today, no, out of the question, you’d be too nasty to her. You have to treat Clémence with kid gloves. Seventy years old and she’s just got one idea in her head, to find the love of her life, and a man, hopefully at the same time, which is a tall order. You see, Charles, everyone has their own troubles. She’s got plenty of love to give, she falls for every lonely-heart announcement in the paper. She looks through all the small ads, she replies to them, she goes along for a date, she’s invariably humiliated, so she comes back home and starts again. To tell you the truth, I think she’s a bit soft in the head, desperately nice, always trying to help, and pulling packs of cards out of the pockets of her baggy old trousers to tell people’s fortunes. And I’ll tell you what she looks like, since you have this silly habit of not seeing: she’s not very attractive, she’s got a bony, rather masculine face, with sharp little teeth like a shrew-mouse, Crocidura russula, you wouldn’t want to get your hand caught by them. And she wears far too much make-up. I hire her two days a week to file my papers and slides. She’s very precise and patient, as if she was never going to die, and sometimes I find that restful. She works away with her mind on other things, whispering about her dreams and her pathetic adventures, going over the hypothetical meetings with Mr Right, preparing what to say to the next one, and despite all that she’s very good at filing, although like you she couldn’t care less about fish. That’s the only thing you might have in common.’

‘So you think we’ll get on?’ asked Charles.

‘Don’t worry, you’ll hardly ever see her. She’s always trotting off somewhere looking for the future husband. And as for you, you don’t love anyone, so as my mother would say, what’s the rush?’

‘True,’ said Charles.