A Silver Ring in the Ear

by Tony Duvert

  Gabriel, amused, unbuttoned himself and made his great prick spring up.

  XXXII

  That night Dr. Brunet recovered consciousness. In the morning his condition was no longer a cause for concern. Soon he expressed the desire to dictate a declaration for the investigators. According to this declaration he had been the victim of a nervous depression, and had been tempted towards suicide. He did not give details of the medicament used.

  His wife Beatrice was admitted to his room with Marc, a little later. He kissed the child, who seemed in a playful mood. Then he asked to stay with Beatrice alone for a moment.

  There was a long silence between them. Finally Beatrice asked, in a dry voice:

  “Why did you claim that you’d tried to kill yourself?”

  “Would you prefer me to accuse you?” replied Dr. Brunet.

  Beatrice remained silent.

  “So it was certainly you. I was not mistaken,” said Brunet. “I will never understand how you could have believed it possible to free yourself in that way.”

  “A moment of madness. Of despair.”

  “Oh no,” Brunet said with irony, “the despairing one was I. It was I who killed myself, Beatrice!… I suppose you want to divorce?”

  “Of course. I’m grieved to tell you that here, and in such a direct manner.”

  “I’ve never had a clear understanding of your ways, you know. I imagine you’re intending to rejoin your first husband?”

  “You are wrong. I shall remain alone. I haven’t really seen Bertrand for several years.”

  “What you are saying is terrible. So, you wanted to… kill me out of hate pure and simple?”

  “Exactly.”

  “I cannot endure that idea. I prefer to believe that you are lying to me. Beatrice, do you realize that I will not consent to this divorce unless I obtain custody of Marc?”

  “He’s your son. I won’t quarrel with you about him. I have the boy from Bertrand. But… are you planning to take Marc with you?”

  “No. Reassure yourself. I know that he has enormous need of his grandmother. If Oriane accepts, he will go on living with her. I daresay she will allow me to visit him. Perhaps I’ll bump into you there…

  XXXIII

  Inspector Sorel, once his facial wounds had become less conspicuous, started to shadow Marc again. Since the problem of Dr. Brunet’s poisoning had gained a solution, he had no further work other than to follow the boy: Superintendent Rênal had generously allowed him free time during the hours of the day when Marc was at school. In return, Sorel was obliged to sacrifice his Sundays.

  Moreover he had not yet discovered anything. He began to ask himself whether the private detective’s report had not been totally made up. As regards clandestine friendships, Marc seemed rather to be a very solitary little boy, enamoured of independence, who had no interest, however cold, in children of his own age.

  And then, one fine afternoon, Sorel’s patience was at last rewarded. Marc, as he left school, took a route exactly opposed to the one leading to his home: and after a hundred yards he joined a woman who had been waiting for him, and who took him away in a motor-car. Calmly, the inspector noted down the number of the car, and allowed the two turtle-doves to go off.

  An hour later he was informed of the name and address of the motor’s owner: it was Monseigneur Renou, residing, though, in the Latin quarter.

  Sorel raced to the address he had been given, ignored the lift, climbed up four floors on foot, and rang, out of breath, at a door which had no label but which the caretaker of the building had pointed out when he had spoken of “a lady with her little boy.”

  The door was opened to him almost at once, and he saw the archbishop in a black satin dressing-gown and black leather slippers.

  The prelate seemed to recognise Sorel: he gave a friendly smile, slightly amused, and extended to the inspector a hand upon which gleamed the great ruby of his pastoral ring.

  “I… er, is Marc here?” asked Julien Sorel clumsily.

  “Marc left less than ten minutes ago, inspector. He told me he wanted to go home by bus. I think you will find him quite easily.”

  “Thank you monseigneur, there’s… there’s no point. But could I speak to you for a moment?”

  Monseigneur Renou assented, and the two men sat down in the little studio: the archbishop occupying a high straw-bottomed chair, while Sorel, who had refused that chair, sat down on the edge of the bed. A bed disarranged and rumpled which reminded Sorel of the wildest pleasures he had experienced, in that distant period of his life when it was in bed that he landed for things of that kind.

  “Monseigneur, first I must confess that I am extremely happy, extraordinarily reassured, to learn that Marc’s mysterious friend is you.”

  “I do not comprehend the word ‘reassured’,” said the ecclesiastic.

  “Marc’s family, and in particular his mother, at whose request I have undertaken this investigation, the Brisset family feared that the little one might be having… dangerous relationships. Dangerous for him. I am persuaded that Marc’s mother and grandmother will be delighted to learn that there is nothing of that kind.”

  Despite himself, Sorel cast a sidelong glance at the prelate’s naked ankles, ankles and nudity mid-calf which inspired in Julien mitigated but insistent sentiments.

  “Marc is a very engaging child,” the prelate said.

  “I do not doubt it, monseigneur. But – pardon me for being indiscreet – there are two or three things that I cannot understand.”

  “Really?” said the archbishop in astonishment. “I envy you, inspector! In my own case I know thousands of inexplicable things. On that subject, have any conclusions at last been reached in the enquiry into Professor Brisset’s death?”

  “The police know the culprit,” bluffed Sorel.

  “Are you… are you certain of that?”

  “Certain. Impossible to tell you more, obviously.”

  “Obviously. And the police really believe that there’s a culprit?”

  This expression used by Renou reminded Julien Sorel of a very similar phrase uttered by Superintendent Rênal. But what was it, then?… Sorel answered unhesitatingly:

  “The police believe nothing, monseigneur. The examining magistrate…”

  “Ah, of course. Of course.”

  “I return to the questions I ask myself, on the subject of this friendship between you, monseigneur, and Professor Brisset’s grandson. Firstly, this afternoon, I saw Marc going off with a woman in a car. And when I asked about a ‘woman with her little boy’ the concierge of your building pointed out this studio. That woman, er, did she leave with Marc?”

  The archbishop laughed again:

  “In a sense, yes. Yes, she left with him. Except that, inspector, that woman does not exist. Or, more precisely, I am she.”

  “I… pardon?”

  “I am that woman. Would you care to glance at my dressing-room? That little glass door.”

  Sorel complied with the request. He discovered Monseigneur Renou’s feminine wardrobe, his wigs and his paint. He came back and sat on the edge of the bed, terribly intimidated.

  “It has been reported to us that Marc associated with two men and one woman,” he said. “Are you those three persons?”

  “Only three? Your spies do not work well! Habitually, I remain near enough to the same man, except for the clothing: while I am a multitude of ladies. Kind ladies, as Marc says.”

  Monseigneur had no air at all of confessing a sin, a vice, or a mental derangement: his mood was serene, childlike, a little dreamy.

  “Was it because of… this taste for transvestism that you consulted Professor Brisset?”

  “Oh no! On the contrary! Had I not received his care, I would never have dared.”

  “I understand,” said Julien, who understood. “The other question that bothers me, monseigneur: how does it happen that Marc’s family know nothing of your relationship with this boy?”

  “Nothing more simple.
I don’t want Marc to know my identity. An ecclesiastic, a transvestite, a ‘lunatic’ treated by his grandfather. He would never have accepted my friendship. Also, little boys are gossips, and sometimes mythomanes, and he would have compromised me. So I bumped into Marc for the first time at his home last autumn; he paid no attention to me. Later we really became acquainted, but in the street. And he did not remember ever having seen me. As well, my visits to Professor Brisset’s consulting room were very discreet: so I could entirely separate the relations I had with the grandfather from those I had with the grandson.”

  “I understand,” Sorel said again. “Would you agree, monseigneur, to have an interview with my chief, superintendent Rênal, and to repeat to her everything you have just disclosed?”

  “I agree,” said Renou after a brief silence. “In return, I will expect from the police the strictest secrecy about this affair.”

  The tone was that of an order: the transvestite reverted to a prelate. An untouchable, Madame Rênal had said. Julien took his leave humbly.

  XXXIV

  “Puss! Here… Come on… Come on my sweetie… come on… yes… yes… that’s it… you’re lovely, lovely, lovely…

  The cat decides to jump onto the bed, next to Gabriel. It is a large one-eyed cat, fairly dirty, covered in scars, its ears torn. But it was the only one Gabriel had found that could be convinced and that followed him into the flat.

  Feverishly he closes the door of the room and undresses.

  “Lovely… lovely, lovely puss!

  He tears open a bag bearing the name of a famous toy-shop. He unpacks one by one the doll’s clothes: slips and brassieres in pin-up style, knitted slippers for large bathers. He measures these little costumes against the one-eyed cat.

  “My sweetie… my sweetie! Come on, come on, puss!… You’re going to be so pretty, so pretty, so pretty, so pretty…”

  He uses a finger-nail to puncture another bag, made of plastic. He dips a hand in: the bag contains thirty-five ounces of small pieces of fried seafood. He grasps a handful of fish. The cat extends its nose, rises from its corner of the bed, and joins Gabriel.

  “First the brassiere… my lovely, lovely, lovely puss!”

  The one-eyed cat allows itself to be strapped while crunching the fish. Gabriel is on the tip of ecstasy. At last it’s worked! He hardly dares believe it. He fingers the cat’s backside and makes the doll’s slip ready to be pulled up. It threatens to be difficult.

  “Some fish… Wait my sweetie, my sweetie… some fish.”

  The cat is crunching. Gabriel carefully grasps one of its rear paws. At once the cat turns round, spitting, and gives a long scratch – which slashes from top to bottom the boy’s huge penis.

  “Fuck!” cries Gabriel. “In God’s name, I’m going to strangle you! In God’s name you old slut I promise you’ll be sorry for that.”

  But he has had enough excitation: he grasps his bleeding penis and finishes himself off. The cat had run towards the door, where it continues to spit, huddled into a ball and furious. Several white rockets fall close to its paws.

  XXXV

  Superintendent Rênal slowly lowered her eyes over her notes, and then looked at Archbishop Renou.

  “Well… I’m not surprised. I’ve been suspecting this for a long time, monseigneur. I wondered only whether, one day, you would choose to make this confession to us, or not.”

  “Madame,” the prelate said seriously, “I would actually have preferred to remain silent. And that this action of mutual aid… stayed forever a secret between Professor Brisset and myself. Unfortunately, everything leads me to believe that some one other than me is being accused, and that makes me all the more indignant in that I am the only one who knows that, in this case, there is no culprit at all.”

  “No, monseigneur, you are not the only one. I repeat that long ago I too became sure of it.”

  “I render homage to your intuition.”

  “… and it is very fortunate, is it not, that the professor, in order to realize this scenario both distressing and a little… extravagant, was able to rely upon a man such as you.”

  “Who else, madam, would have been able to share the strange universe of the great mental illness that had afflicted Professor Brisset?”

  “Without a doubt. He had, in short, fallen back into into childhood, if my understanding is correct?”

  Superintendent Rênal gave the prelate such a mocking look that he himself, after turning his eyes away, gave the ghost of a smile.

  “So everything is reduced to an act of euthanasia, in a slightly abnormal context, owing to the professor’s malady itself,” concluded the superintendent. “I doubt the Public Prosecutor will pursue the archbishop of V___ for such an act, and judge Sercuq, monseigneur, will probably decide to pigeon-hole the case.”

  “Probably,” said the archbishop. “For my part, madam, I can tell you now that I am going to disappear.”

  “What do you mean by that?” asked Superintendent Rênal, intrigued.

  “Oh, I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. The office I occupy is unsuitable for me. I will soon put in my resignation and leave France. I think I will be more useful as a simple priest, serving the poor, anywhere on the globe. I have… I… I have a geat interest in children, as you perhaps know.”

  Madam Rênal’s little mocking eye lit up again.

  Oriane was watering a bed of tulips when she noticed Marc crossing the garden.

  “Are you going for a walk, sweetheart?”

  “Yes,” said Marc. “Unless you want me to help.”

  He was in an unusually obliging mood, thought Oriane. She said:

  “Well, just five minutes. Take the little blue watering-pot.”

  They watered, side by side.

  “Your grandfather is being buried to-morrow, is that what I told you?”

  “Yes, yes, they have even chosen the clothes I will wear.”

  “Ah? It’s definitely no longer just distraction, I’m becoming quite amnesiac! And what are the clothes, sweetheart?”

  “Well the dark blue, the one with the long trousers.”

  “Ah yes, the dark blue… Of course. In fact I’m pleased that this story will be over… But on that point, Marc darling, the shoe-lace, did you keep it?”

  Marc looked at his grandmother and became redder than a Carmen false Mignon tulip. Oriane gave an encouraging smile. He sighed resignedly, then smiled in his turn:

  “The shoe-lace? It’s that one!”

  He pointed to his right foot. He was wearing jogging shoes in white leather. Oriane nodded, and quickly looked away.

  “But sweetheart,” she still said, the letter? What did you do with the letter?”

  Marc knitted his brows:

  “A letter? Where did you get that idea?”

  Oriane put down her watering-pot and, tall and long-limbed as she was, she squatted down to put her face level with that of the boy.

  “Listen to me carefully, sweetheart. When your grandfather asked you to… to do that to him, he must have left a letter of explanation, something which… to stop any one being accused. A word to say that he wanted to be strangled, my little one!

  Marc looked at Oriane in astonishment:

  “But granny… but he didn’t want it!

  Shortly afterwards, Marc was walking in the sunshine, in a beautiful shopping street. A young man of about twenty-two was holding his hand.

  “Wait on,” said Marc. “Let’s look in the window!”

  That of a jeweller’s shop.

  “Those rings, the yellow ones! the big ones.”

  He pointed to some Egyptian-style bracelets: with a golden thread, and a serpent’s head touching its tail.

  “Ah… yes. That’s for girls,” said the young man.

  “I’d like to have one,” said Marc rather dryly.

  “I have no cash. I warn you, I’m the stony-broke type. Do you want to stick it on your nose or what?… And then that thing in your ear already looks gay.”<
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  “What’s that?”

  “Forget it. Hey, would you like a dog-collar? That’s in my price-range. Let’s go to the Prisu down there.”

  “A dog-collar? With a leash?” asked the little one in astonishment. Before long he was dreaming.

  They laughed and moved off, chattering.

  “… But you won’t pull it too hard,” said Marc.

  Copyright © 1982 by Tony Duvert

  Original titile: Un anneau d’argent à l’oreille

  English translation: Edouard (TNT)

  All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio or television review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  The Next Thing Edition 2018