The Curious Case of Dassoukine's Trousers. Fouad Laroui
Dassoukine, staring into the distance.
I don’t respond because this phrase seems like a prologue—and in the face of a prologue, what can you do but await what follows, resigned. My commensal examines his mug of beer suspiciously, even though we are, after all, in the country that saw the birth of this pretty blonde, sometimes brunette, child—in an abbey, I’m told. The server eyes us. In this superb spot situated on the Grand Place of Brussels, opposite the Maison du Cygne, we form a trio hanging on this thesis: “Belgium really is the birthplace of Surrealism.” This incipit is still floating in the air when Dassoukine decides to elaborate.
“What just happened to me, in any case, exceeds all bounds.”
I restrain myself from adding: “And when boundaries are crossed…”
He begins:
“So, I set out yesterday from Morocco on a very delicate mission. You know the grain harvest is off to a bad start in our country—it has rained, but not a lot. We are in desperate need of flour, but where to find it? Ukraine is in flames, the Russians cling tightly to their crops, it’s a long way to Australia. There’s only one solution: Europe. The government sends me to buy flour from Brussels. They’ve entrusted this mission to me. The country’s future is at risk. At the airport, in Rabat, they’re all on the tarmac, the ministers standing straight as yews, to bid me bon voyage as if their fate depended on little old me. Well, little…I’m taller than all of them by a head. The prime minister shakes my hand while the airplane engines roar and my eyes blur:
“‘Get the best price, my boy, the best price! The budget of the state depends on your negotiating skills.’
“He nearly pulled my ear, as if to say, ‘the homeland is counting on you, grenadier.’ I board the plane and set sail for the haystacks. On the Place Jourdan in Brussels I get a room in the hotel where high-flying diplomats normally stay. Check-in, shower, quick glance at the TV—the world still exists. I’ll spare you the details. I go down to have a drink at the bar. Surprise! While I’ve come to the land of Tintin to buy wheat, suddenly I find myself on the first floor at a soirée whose theme is—adjusting our glasses and leaning in to look at the placard—‘the promotion of Alsatian wine and cuisine.’ Curious. I had thought the gastronomy on the borders of the Rhine could stand up for itself—didn’t the Maginot Line used to be there? But anyway…I mingle among the guests. Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves and no one seems to notice this tall freeloading foreigner who tomorrow will be buying twenty million pounds of wheat. No one…except for two gentlemen.”
“Two gentlemen?”
“Yes, one plus one.”
“You pronounce the ‘t’ when you say it?”
Dassoukine looks at me, dumbstruck.
“I’m telling you about the fiasco of the century and the only thing you’re worried about is whether you say ‘two gentlemen’ or ‘two gennelmen’?”
“Apologies.”
“So, two gen-TUHL-men. The first one is a waiter who asks me politely if I might lend him a hand, he has to change a tablecloth, I don’t know why. Possessing, like all servers from Brussels, only two arms, he hands me his tray, full of petits fours, for the time it takes him to carry out the operation he’s determined to accomplish. It’s then that another guy (the second one I mentioned), a tall string bean, clumsy but perfectly well-bred, hits me with his elbow, while I balance the tray on my open palm, as if I had never done anything else in my life—me, the grandson of a kaid and the son of a prime minister.”
“No one’s denying that.”
“Except for the second guy, who, after apologizing for having (nearly) knocked over my tray—why am I saying ‘my’ tray, it’s mad how we adapt to degradation—babbling in multilingual apologies—I detect some Hungarian in his English accent and some Latvian in his fumbled French; so, after babbling a number of apologies as if he had surprised Sissi naked in a back alley, what does he do?”
“What does he do?”
“Well, he picks up a mini-toast from my tray and thanks me while bowing slightly.”
“Indeed a polite man, then, albeit Hungarian.”
“That’s not the problem, idiot! He thanked me as if I were a waiter.”
“There are no dishonorable jobs.”
“In the absolute sense, no. Perhaps. But come on, I’m in Brussels to buy two hundred million pounds of wheat!”
“Inflation.”
“Around ten o’clock, after savoring the dishes prepared by some of the best chefs—might as well—and after wearing out my tongue appreciating wines that I didn’t even know existed, I decide to go back to my room. Brussels is going through a heat wave: it’s still 102 degrees outside. Unable to sleep in such heat, I read the Mémoires of the Belgian king. And because I’m not crazy about air conditioning, I turn it off, like the peasant I am, opting to open the big window instead. My room is on the second floor…”
“Do I need every detail?”
“…but here the floors are high, so it was really the third floor. Just after midnight, I turn out the lights and contemplate wheat and wheat farms. That’s me: professional down to the muslin. Not long after, half asleep, I hear the window bang and the curtains move, like in those horror movies that that can’t even scare a cat. I say to myself that the long-awaited storm has finally arrived—Levez-vous vite, orages désirés…—and that the atmosphere will cool down. I nestle into my bed and dream of haystacks. A few minutes later, I’m woken up again, this time by the sounds of metal. Clang! Clang! What’s going on now? I open my eyes and, stupefied, I see a hand hanging from the window railing! I sit up bellowing (What is that racket?) and jump out of bed. The hand disappears. This is bad. Should I lean out the window and risk finding myself face to face with Dracula or Peter Lorre? I’m brave—you know me—but I have my limits. So I call reception. The operator picks up right away—we are, after all, in a nice hotel—I inform him in two words of the incident, he asks me if it’s room service that I’m trying to reach, I add some details, he tells me that, yes, they have fries, I tell him about the wandering hand, he replies mayonnaise, I start over, enunciating my words; after a stunned silence, the man gets a hold of himself and tells me he’ll call the police right away.
“After replacing the receiver, I go to look out the window anyway, armed with the Financial Times rolled up into a bat, in case the salmon color should frighten away the zombies. I see nothing, no one in this serene, Belgian night. My room looks out onto the Etterbeek, there are some bushes, but I search far and wide; the cat burglar has disappeared. Roughly speaking, there’s a good thirty feet between my bedroom window and the ground. The wall is made of brick, there’s no gutter, nothing for a person to hang on to. There’s a little ledge under my window, but it’s narrow. And even then you still have to get there, and somehow stay there.”
“Thorough report.”
“The police arrive rapidly and get to work. There are four of them, debonair but industrious. They survey the surroundings of the hotel with flashlights, they smoke out some cats, drive out three spiders, cry out in bruxellois, but they don’t find anything human. They leave, taking down my statement. According to them, it must have been like in a circus act: three or four men climb on one another’s shoulders, the one on top reaches the window, enters the room, and grabs any objects of value. Then they disappear into the neighboring thickets—beautiful thickets, by the way, I recommend them, look up the Parc Léopold. I think to myself that I dodged a bullet, given that my laptop was on the shelf right by the window. All the secrets of the Kingdom—ours, not Belgium’s—will remain secret. I go back to sleep, pretty perplexed.”
“And the metal noises?”
“Forgotten! I had more important things to do than wonder about the whisper of the world. The next morning: toilet, shower, shave, after-shave—the ritual of a minister