“I don’t understand.”
“How do you say? An extraction process?”
“Is that dentistry you’re referring to?”
Degaré laughed. “Non! Ne dentiste! Surely there cannot be a physical process for such a thing. It is philosophical, spiritual. No danger, or so I am told. How could there be? You can have my spirit, Monsieur, I give it gladly, if you will only feed my belly, and other things.”
Malcolm shuddered at what he thought the Frenchman might be suggesting. “Where do I find this magician?”
“Why, only a short stroll to the east, I think you know it? The Rue D’âmes Vidées? I will give you the precise address, for, say, a bit of innocuous cheese?”
As Degaré had promised, the Rue D’âmes Vidées was a short stump of a lane a few minutes stumble toward the river. Malcolm had not been familiar with this particular segment of pavement, although he was aware of other parts of this street from the conversations of others. It had once been one of the longest streets in Paris, a north-south slash through the city’s heart, but over the centuries it had been broken up, blocked by one project or other, canals or public buildings, or occasionally when some housing development was extended across its surface like a dam across a stream. Streets required advocates if they were to remain intact, but this street had none. Now its longest segments were only a few blocks—Rue Abattue D’enfant was one of the siblings, he believed, as well as the Rue des Veuves Aveugles, and the petite route des fenêtres chuchotantes—and here and there, at least according to rumor, a section would be completely enclosed on all four sides, becoming a cour, a courtyard, or forgotten completely on the other side of windowless walls.
Malcolm could not escape the perception of mytaphore, metaphor, in the history of this road and his theory regarding developments in the human personality. Isolated, diverted, and segmented all came to mind when he contemplated the nature of the human spirit.
The door to No. 56 Rue D’âmes Vidées, if that sunken slab of wood could be called such, was dragged open with surprising ease by a handsome man in a fine robe. Malcolm felt immediate intimidation—there was a piercing, electric quality to the man’s eyes as they gazed, unblinking.
“Excusez-moi, Monsieur. I was told, I believe, there is a, arrachage?” He knew he must sound like a fool, but how do you ask about such things?
The man on the other side of the door said nothing, those eyes examining Malcolm up and down with unsettling calm. He made a little wrinkle with his mouth and stepped out of the way.
They moved through the darkness before settling into a sour-smelling room, lit only by a blazing fire. Even though Malcolm was accustomed to working in the hottest of Parisian kitchens, he found the heat in this room almost too much to bear but his host appeared unperturbed, his high forehead dry, unwrinkled. But not undamaged. Closer up, the man’s face appeared scraped, flaking, as if there might be layers of skin missing. “Tell me your story, if you would,” he said.
“Do you mean my theories? Or would you like some sort of introduction?”
The man said nothing for a time, then replied, “Tell me what you would tell me.”
Malcolm worried over this, then asked, “How shall I address you?”
“You may call me Professeur. I think I would like that. At least that will suffice for now.”
Given the professeur’s lack of precise direction, Malcolm had no idea how to begin. Seeking to avoid an extended and laborious back-and-forth, he started with his somewhat disorganized and impulsive decision to move to Paris, his struggles in the city to feed and shelter himself, his relationship with Degaré, finally culminating with the reason he had knocked on the man’s door: his bed-facilitated speculations regarding the problem of the human personality and its inherent conflicts.
Along the way Malcolm became progressively more aware of the increase of light in the room. He supposed it his eyes’ natural ability to acclimate to the ambient gloom, but the fire did appear brighter, fuller, more intense. With the heightened illumination came an abundance of raw detaiclass="underline" the shelves collapsing under the weight of oversized jars and mysterious machinery, the frightening cracks in the ancient beams high overhead, the litter of decaying documents and scrolls in the corners, the small piles of half-eaten food, the constant fall of cinnamony dust, the scattering of indecipherable taxidermy, the stain mark that ran along the walls at an identical height, a sign of some past flood survived. And with that increase in visual detail came a corresponding heightening of olfactory sensation, a blend of acrid and acidic aromas that tickled the nose, then burned. The state of the room seemed dramatically at odds with the elegance of the man who lived here, even if it was for only some short stay. Was this perhaps some Germanic trial of the spirit? Malcolm’s eyes began to weep involuntarily, and soon the entirety of him appeared to be leaking.
Perhaps these various elements led to a distortion in his senses, because Malcolm became convinced the professeur had been amused by his narration, the man’s finely sculpted features gradually warping under the pressure of an ill-fitting grin. However it was not an impression he felt comfortable commenting upon. Ne réflexion.
Finally the professeur spoke, an unmistakable smile dancing across his lips. “We will require several vessels for your various aspects, suitable bodies to contain the release of spiritual energy. Not too many as it is possible to spread the sauce too thin, as it were.”
“Vessels?”
“They need not be informed volunteers. Tell them I will feed them, pay them, whatever. I will recruit a few, but if one might acquire at least one, as assurance?”
“I do not wish to hurt anyone.”
“How might you hurt them? Paris is full of aimless foreigners now. Czechs, Poles, Asians, uncountable young Brits such as yourself. You yourself say that one meaning is as good as any other. We live in a time in which the world is full of wandering spirits. How do you know you will not be providing them with a better meaning? You might do them a favor! Bring whoever you may find here tomorrow. A similar time.”
It would be no exaggeration to say Malcolm felt qualms, although they were not of the moral kind, since he did not believe in that sort of thing. He did believe, however, in survival of the fittest, and the imperative of doing what was required by the environment you were in, which all seemed to add up to a rough sort of justice, and this particular activity, this collecting of vessels, seemed somehow less than just. Of course he did not relate all of this to Degaré, but Degaré was, indeed, his confessor, and so he did manage to cover the bare outlines of the problem.
“Merde.” Degaré spat into the restaurant’s dishwater. “I would give you myself if I could, for the price we discussed, but pardonnez moi, I find I am not yet prepared for such a major life change.” He thought for a moment, rubbing soapsuds through his greasy locks. “Have you thought of Zajic?”
“The kitchen slops man? The Czech?”
“The very one. He broke up with another girlfriend. He mopes all day, he cries. Get him out of here, I say, before I kill him.”
Malcolm found Zajic sitting out in the alley behind the kitchen, weeping. He crouched beside him and commiserated. It was not an entirely false commiseration—he had a few memories of his own, but he had lost his belief in romance long before he had lost his belief in religion. Neither was of any practical use to him.