Fiction  |  By Charles Pinch  »  

«For Frances, every last word of it…»

You have to understand. You have to understand that it was real boulle. That is, translucent sheets of hawksbill turtle shell sliced wafer thin and applied over the wooden carcass of the bureau Mazarin. Curving shapes had been cut into its surface and into the shapes berainesque appliqués of smooth glittering brass (and sometimes dyed horn) had been glued with great care. And then there was the matter of the bronze attachments. That would be bronze d’ore in this case, perfectly fitted ‘slippers’ enclosing the curved feet, sabots to be precise. Prince Nathan would be quick to point out the indelicacy of using English words to describe les montres francais. So it was real boulle. Not the later desecrations of the same name you find in the bumbling stuff-shirt 19^th Century. Resin and painted spelter and God knows what else!

…So with one sleeve, one silk sleeve of the casual ‘morning jacket’, upon the Louis Quatorze beize, the Prince received his top advisor. Top? Paul was the only advisor who had not forsaken his small court. Outside, the city was in siege. People like himself were living on borrowed time and it was only a matter of time when he too, would swing from a gallows, listen to the thunder of the charging blade before the guillotine chopped his head off or be shot with a Saturday night special. There was also something these days called a ‘Taser’.

‘Let’s hope to God you never experience that,’ Paul confided grimly. He strode into the room, ramrod straight, and stood bisected by a shaft of sunlight. Nathan thought he had paled under the duress of these last weeks. How difficult to stand by and watch a principality collapse! Slicking a strand of hair back, he glanced urgently at his watch. Nathan took the hint.

‘I better get dressed,’ he said.

Paul said, ‘Overdone is better than subtle.’

‘Gotcha.’

The older man snorted. ‘Getting into the spirit? I’m proud of you, Your Excellency.’

In his antechamber, the young Prince looked around. Walls clad with Venetian silk brocade served as a regal and sumptuous backdrop for the Old Master paintings in gilt-wood frames that hung suspended from gold chains. Paul had laid out the clothes he was to wear. Nathan wasn’t sure if he was horrified or amused when he glanced at them. Reluctantly, he undressed. In place of his fine worsted wool trousers, a pair of ripped Levi jeans. He tugged a dirty cotton T-shirt over his head. It mussed his hair and he let it stay that way. He set his silk morning coat on a fauteuil a la reine and reached for the scuffed fake leather jacket. On the back were the words Topside Bowlers. All of these vetements had been cheaply purchased by Paul at the Salvation Army Thrift Shop or ‘Sally Ann’ as he called it. Apparemment, this was an organization that distributed donated clothing and miscellaneous junk to ‘the masses’. To the poor. Nathan examined himself in the mirror. What he saw was a prince transformed! ‘And don’t you look the part!’ he exclaimed to his reflection.

Paul had brought the car around to the side entrance on the northeast front of the palace. It was shielded by topiary. After hearing the all clear, the prince dashed from the marble corridor and slipped unseen into the front seat of the vehicle. Paul closed the door after him. Because they were alone, and only because of it, he saluted. The young prince acknowledged the gesture with a cursory nod. The car too, played a part. Instead of the Rolls Royce, today they drove the Toyota. A rusted and wheezing apparatus of transportation if ever there was one.

‘Now remember,’ Paul coached him in his kindly, deferential voice. ‘Slang is the order of the day. No Oxford English. No complicated grammatical constructions.   The words you choose should be mostly monosyllabic. Use contractions. ‘Say ‘don’t’ instead of ‘do not’. If you forget yourself and use anything else it’s as good as hanging a sign around your neck. Prince Among the Paupers. These are simple people. They’re also angry. It’s not your fault but they blame you. It’s a dangerous game.’

‘Yo, dude.’

‘Good. Maybe haggle with the cashier about the price of something.’

‘Like what?’

‘I don’t know. Pick something. Broccoli.’

‘What do I say?”

‘How come this is a dollar ten? The sign says ninety-nine cents.’

‘Okay.’

‘She’ll say, ‘The sign’s wrong. The price is a dollar ten’. You say ‘Fuck!’ or ‘Shit!’ and sound like you mean it.’

‘And after that…?’

‘She’ll ask you if you still want it.’

‘Do I?’

Paul smiled. ‘Well, Your Highness, that’s up to you. Do you feel like broccoli tonight?’

It was pretty much as Paul had described it. What he wasn’t prepared for when he stepped inside the ramble-run down supermarket was the smell. Curry smell. Body odour smell. Moldering produce smell.  Bleach and fabric softener smells from the household aisles. Unwashed corps du populace crowded his space. Whining children pulled at their mothers’ pant legs and ran wild in screaming circles. The din was deafening to his royal ears. Must make the best of it. Must!

For all that, he shopped like he was really shopping. He inspected the vegetables with a discerning eye. He hefted two or three cauliflowers before deciding on one for his basket. Apples were the special today and he took his time selecting the reddest and shiniest among them. A woman beside him jostled his arm. She didn’t apologize: in fact, she scowled at him. As though he was some bum intruding upon her space. He returned her a cold stare. Excellent! Everything was going to plan. Still, he could not suppress a twitch of amusement. If she only knew she had bumped elbows with a prince of the realm! Former realm. Now there’s a story to take home to her grandchildren!

Nathan hurried past the meat counter where the fresh, regular-priced cuts were displayed and made his way to the ‘reduced’ bin. Here, there were always good buys to be had if you weren’t too choosey. It was where the store unloaded its expired ‘best before’ date meats. Picking up a package of slimy beef, he remembered the dinners of tournadoes Rossini and on very special occasions, filet de boeuf Cardinal Richelieu. An excellent entrée when preceded by sole Nantua or langoustines a la financiere. A sigh of longing passed his lips.

‘Lots of chicken today,’ a fat, red-faced woman said to him. She leaned over, almost into the case, and Nathan observed most of her ample bosom, jiggling and barely concealed, beneath a low cut sweater. A man with a tattoo on his neck and stinking of his dirty clothes, reached down for a package. It was the same one the Prince was reaching for.

The man said, “You wanna fuckin’ back off, buddy? This here’s mine!’ He snatched up two more packages in a hurry. The last of the chicken breasts. Now all that was left were cellophane bags of drumsticks.

‘You weren’t quick enough,’ the fat lady giggled.

‘No, I guess not.’ So he settled for sausage—good peasant fare in this time of revolution—and a package of chicken livers. He supposed they might be rendered edible when lightly sautéed in butter with capers and brandy. But capers had been hard to come by these days. And brandy? A dream!

A surly cashier scanned his purchases. She looked him up and down and decided ‘Hi’ or ‘G’morning’ wasn’t required. Nathan was secretly thrilled: partly because his disguise was so successful and partly because he knew he was in no danger of being routed out and handed over to ‘the mob’. He watched as she rang in the vegetables.

‘The cauliflower’s supposed to be ninety-nine cents,’ he said.

The cashier, name of Tiffany, glanced disinterestedly at the screen. ‘It’s a dollar fifteen,’ she returned without inflection.

‘The sign said ninety-nine cents.’

‘Sign’s wrong.’

‘Doesn’t matter. You have to give it to me at that price.’

She gave him a ‘fuck you’ look and without bothering to check, inserted a refund slip into the side of the register. She pressed a delete key and rang the cauliflower in at ninety-nine cents.

Nathan stood staring at her with his arms folded across his chest. He bought two plastic bags, a nickel each, and watched as Tiffany pushed his purchases roughly along the rubber conveyer belt. He took his sweet time bagging everything, listening to the lineup grumble behind him.

A light rain stippled the pavement when he stepped through the automatic doors. Jogging quickly, he made his way to the rusty Toyota. He opened the door himself this time (there were people about) and for the sake of appearance, took his seat behind the wheel rather than the passenger side.  

‘Would have met you with an umbrella,’ Paul apologized, ‘But it would attract attention. You sure you want to drive?’

‘I am.’

‘How’d it go?’

‘Perfect. I even got an ‘if looks could kill’ from some delightfully lowbred creature called Tiffany.’

Paul shook his head. ‘Parents in mortgaged houses who insist on naming their girls after the American haute joailliers!’

‘And here I thought the world was getting better.’

He let Paul park the wreck and watched while he drove it into the spotlessly clean eight-car garage and lined it up beside the sleek obsidian-smart Rolls Royce. The contrast between the two vehicles was comical.

It felt invigorating returning once more (and safely) to the palace. Nathan relished the sound of his step on the marble tiles of the entrance foyer. Just before the point where the parquet began, he slipped off his Nikes, appropriately dirty and worn down at the heels, and proceeded in stocking feet. The mellow wood, inlaid with complicated geometric designs, felt silky under his toes. High above, sunlight from a clerestory window cast the floor in a golden glow. He felt very ‘of the people’ at that moment for he carried his two bags of groceries with him, resisting Paul’s pleas, and set them down on the table in the kitchen. An immense space. Stone counters. Walls hung with antique copper molds and ancient cooking pots.

After putting his purchases away, he thought about changing into his afternoon clothes: a burgundy velvet jacket and black trousers, a printed satin ascot for tucking into the neck of an Egyptian cotton shirt. But music, coming from somewhere in the background, distracted him. Everyday at this time. Rattling and intrusive and unnerving. Well, he might as well just stay as he is. At least he was dressed in a manner in keeping with the low class entertainment! Nathan suspected some revolutionary rabble had begun to squat in the far reaches of the palace. He had made an extensive search, but came up with nothing.

‘So why do we still keep hearing the ghetto blaster?’ he asked Paul.

Who had no answer for him. ‘A sign of our beleaguered times, Your Highness. How are the mighty fallen.’

On his way to the Salon Chinoiserie, where he regularly repaired during the afternoons, he decided to wear one of his rings that had come from Tiffany’s. The appalling little cashier had made him think of them. Stepping into the room, his eyes settled on Paul’s picture, hanging just above the light switch. He had looked proud that day upon graduating from the military academy. Beside him stood Nathan, dressed once again in le style pauvais, their mother and father and a friend of Paul’s who had graduated along with him. Both young men scrubbed and a-gleam beneath their crisp white caps.

It was cold in the room. Nathan stepped over to the closet, opened the door (this one in contrast to le décor rich, was actually made of cheap plywood) with a cheaper looking brass (if indeed it was brass) doorknob. But what could one do? What was one to do?

On a shelf above his head stood rows of black vinyl binders. He selected one marked with the letter ‘J’ on the spine. He opened it. His eyes dazzled, blinded by the dozens of rings, brooches and bracelets cut out from magazines and sale catalogues and pasted carefully onto coloured construction paper. Today he selected a yellow diamond, cut as a cushion-shape, weighing approximately 18.31 carats. The stone exhibited splendid hue and the effect was heightened by the addition of small white diamonds set delicately around it.

Sometimes it seemed to Nathan that Paul was never around when he rang the Faberge enamel bell to summon him. Where had he got to? Why was he not there when he was needed? It could vexing, even cause for anger. But then, Paul’s loyalty in these troubled times, when he did appear, the few times he did appear, was salve, was balm to his stinging pride.

‘I can’t always make it down, bro’. It’s a long drive from Windsor to Kitchener. Trish said if you need help with your rent, let us know.’

After removing the cut out ring from the binder he fastened it to the hairs on his knuckle with a small snippet of masking tape. He wiggled his finger. When the surface of the paper caught the light, it almost did flash like a real diamond. And in the space between truth and untruth, he could believe it. Anybody could believe it. It was there to believe in!

He replaced the ‘J’ binder and took down another marked Salon Chinoiserie. He carried it over to the Ikea tub chair, which, it rather amused him to recall, had actually come from a charitable organization called the ‘Sally Ann’. An outfit that catered to the poor, God forbid!

Inside the binder, page after page. Carefully cut out illustrations of antique furniture, objets d’art, porcelain, silver and paintings. It had taken afternoons into eternity to achieve such a lifework, to furnish such a palace. Twenty-seven binders. Twenty-seven! And with what patience those scissors had worked. With what care! ‘This table is of royal provenance,’ he would remind himself as he snipped. ‘Make sure there’s no white showing around the edges and round off any sharp corners. It’s not royal if it’s not perfect. The highest quality.’

It was usually about this time, three o’clock, according to the cloche pendule inset with Sevres enameled plaques by the ebeniste extraordinaire Martin Carlin, three or four minutes past, when he would settle himself onto the lamentably common secondhand couch and disappear into the picture of the enchanting dix-huitieme room decorated in the fashionable Chinese style. Le salon chinoiserie. In the l’hotel Beaufoucault.

And in this fine room, he could picture himself, just as he did now, relaxed, casually dressed in an Egyptian cotton shirt with a satin ascot (oh, to overcome his laziness and change from his smelly T-shirt!) with one arm, one sleeve of his claret-coloured velvet afternoon jacket pressed gently against the boulle marquetry top of the bureau plat next to the mantelpiece—the mantelpiece that had once belonged to Le Grand Dauphin.

And it was real boulle, of course.

You have to understand that.

Oh yes, it was real boulle.

• Author bio: Was born. Am living. Will die.

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