Abraham and Lincoln
Abraham and Lincoln
Note: The following excerpts from letters written by Bernard Keutel to his betrothed, Charlotte Dardenne, and to his mother, were translated to English from the original Dutch.
19 August 1938
My dearest Charlotte,
I have finally reached my destination. Paris! At long last! As you know from my previous letters, it has been an arduous journey, fraught with clerical errors and comical bad luck. But, as my Papa always said, all miserable things must come to an end.
I will be meeting with the diplomatic contingent tomorrow, but for today I have taken up residence at the Hotel Westminster until my workplace arrangements are completed. Yes, room and board are provided for me, two meals a day, three newspapers, and there’s even a handsome bar in the lobby. And the French girls are ooh-la-la! I’m jesting, of course. I’m being a good boy.
I have yet to unpack, so it will be a quiet evening here, a hot bath, and a late supper. I’m excited about my new position and will inform you of the details as they come up. I miss you greatly and long for the day in which you will join me here in the City of Light.
With all my love,
Bernie
20 August 1938
Dear Mother,
I have arrived in Paris. I should be starting work soon and will keep you abreast of the details.
I must remember to send Mademoiselle Chicory a note and a gift for her recommendation. In my opinion, it has made quite the difference in my future career. You may express my deepest gratitude if you happen to see her.
Your loving son,
Bernard
21 August 1938
Charlotte, my sweet,
To my surprise, there were actually a few haberdasheries open today. After service, I made my way downtown to see about updating some clothing and shoes for my new profession, something less provincial, seeing as I will be associating with the many sophisticates here. You are going to love the shopping districts, Charlotte, alas my portfolio may not!
There was a spring in my step this morning which carried me through brunch, at which I consumed the freshest fruits, eggs, and croissants. (Plus the coffee is heavenly!) I am keeping a notebook of all the wonderful places I visit so I may relive these experiences with you, my love, when you arrive next month.
I have received a few recommendations concerning permanent housing from the concierge - an extremely tall gentleman with a fiery glow about him. I will have to research them in my spare time and find an appropriate castle for my queen.
Much love from Paris,
Bernie
21 August 1938
Mother,
I attended Sunday mass this morning. Although the humidity was almost unbearable, I made it through the entire service, which I know you will appreciate.
I report to work tomorrow, and I am excited to start this chapter in my career. You must come visit when we get settled and you can show us some of the wondrous places of your early days with Papa.
I am staying at the Hotel Westminster temporarily and I am eating rather well. The suite’s appointments are really quite grand and the wine is equally as impressive. I can foresee myself and Charlotte being utterly delighted living in this city with all of its exuberant charms.
Until my next,
Bernard
22 August 1938
Charlotte, my love:
I met with my employer today and I must impart to you a feeling of unmitigated disappointment and regret. Having traveled such a distance with the promise of a rewarding vocation, I feel I have been hoodwinked into performing menial tasks and unfulfilling trivialities.
Let me start by saying my employer, Monsieur Goujat, whom I’ve only previously met briefly in Brussels during my initial interview, is an unseemly, little man with a penchant for disgustful cigars, unspeakable debaucheries aimed at the female secretarial staff, and a crude vocabulary unbefitting a man placed in high government office.
The day before my arrival, M. Goujat had agreed to board and care for two enormous dogs owned by an American consul here in Paris in exchange for a cache of Cuban cigars and Tennessee whiskey. The American was called back to the States on a family issue of some import and left the loathsome animals with M. Goujat. My job now, it seems, is to see to these beasts, feed and groom them, and maintain their exercise regimen.
What a cruel joke it is to hire a professional assistant with many years experience then set forth his duties as a damned zookeeper!
I hope you are well, my dear, and I hope things will be rosier on my end the next time I write to you.
Your loving pet,
Bernie
PS. My new burdens are named Abraham and Lincoln. Can you believe that!
22 August 1938
Dear Mother,
I have begun my daily routine at my new position. I have yet been given a permanent office but I have been placed in charge of two young, brutish underlings, Abraham and Lincoln. The sum of hours managing these two is distressful, to say the least. This, of course, was not what I was expecting but I will sincerely try to make the best of it.
If you do see Mademoiselle Chicory, please secure a number at which I might ring her. I would like to have a word with the young woman.
Your son,
Bernard
23 August 1938
My sweet Charlotte,
I long for your company in these blistering days and would give up this new life entirely and reside with you again in Liège if it weren’t for the promise of a grand paycheck and the status adjoining my new position. I am still living at the Hotel Westminster but M. Goujat has provided me a closet-sized office, a desk with the dimensions of a matchbox, and a filing cabinet with no files to put into it.
As I have related to you previously, I am spending my days caring for two overgrown monstrosities, Abraham and Lincoln, who are pretending to be dogs. Today, I took them out to the municipal park, leather leashed, for a bit of exercise, with hopes it would exhaust their energy so I may collect my thoughts and present to M. Goujat my ideas for more official duties best suited for my job designation.
As the animals and I were enjoying the stifling heat of the morning, I had the misfortune of stepping into a monument of Lincoln’s excrement. I feared my left Savoy buckskin oxford was ruined and the right was not much healthier. So I tugged the dogs back to Goujat’s place a mere twenty minutes after we had departed. I transferred leash for chain and left the dogs in the side garden. Shoes in hand, I made my way inside for some significant scrubbing.
To my surprise, Monsieur Goujat was home and had a guest. Not wanting to interrupt and risk further embarrassment by my stinking soles, I decided to take my chore to the butler’s pantry, but when I heard a woman’s voice I could not keep myself from listening to their private conversation in a most ungentlemanly and surreptitious manner.
The woman, it turned out, was the wife of the American whose dogs were now chained outside and their stepped-upon, feculent dung was now spoiling the air that I breathed! From what I gathered, the maid was sent home and my employer and the consul’s wife were about to perform extramarital affairs right there in the drawing room.
The woman then asked Goujat about her husband’s dogs, with which she suffers terrible allergies. He snidely remarked that an “ignorant nincompoop” was seeing to them and he would be “sending him back to Belgium on the next train” after the American returned. That was the final humiliating straw, Charlotte! I slipped my shitted shoes back on my stockinged feet and walked out, bespotting the miscreant’s expensive Orientals. I formed a rather traitorous idea of leveraging Goujat’s secret affair for more professional work assignments.
In my rage, I took up the dogs again and headed for town, not knowing exactly what course of action to take. As I approached the park, I decided that the care of the oversized beasts was well outside my initial agreed upon duties so I released them, leaving the natural forces to do with them what is appropriate. In my haste for some retribution over my employer, I mistakenly liberated them too close to the perimeter of the park and the bastards leaped and bounded into mid-morning traffic.
Unfortunately, Abraham was instantly struck by a rather hefty lorry transporting a full cargo of potatoes and onions. Lincoln, on the other hand, opted to become obscenely amorous with a glossy black Peugeot 202 automobile and was shot by a constable who mistook him for some kind of bear. Traffic was halted for hours while the police sorted the entire situation and an animal carcass collection unit was summoned. I was then taken into custody for the “willful causation of mayhem.” I am composing this letter from a barbarous cell with rats the size of kittens and four other detainees who are, thankfully, keeping their distance due to my peculiar stench.
Don’t worry, my love, I’m perfectly fine except for my bruised ego and I will write more when I get back to my room at the Westminster. I am guiltfully sorry for my mischievous deeds and hope to bring you better news on the morrow. My plan of blackmail for M. Goujat is dastardly and unbecoming of a man of my stature, but my goal is to correct the unjust treatment I have incurred on his behalf.
In eager anticipation of our reunion,
Bernie
23 August 1938
Dear Mother,
Good news! I have arranged for my two unruly subordinates to be deposited elsewhere which leaves me to do my intended work in peace. I also hope to gain new ground in the organization by having a private conversation with my employer, Monsieur Goujat.
Send my best wishes to Aunt Geraldine.
Your son,
Bernard
24 August 1938
Dearest Charlotte,
The heat outside is of no match to the churning cauldron of burning sewage within my heart. I sincerely regret to inform you that the winds of hope have evacuated my once billowing sails.
After being released from my confinement and paying an oppressive penalty, I met with M. Goujat this morning with what was to be a simple tit for tat exchange of my silence for proper work duties. I presented to him my knowledge of his despicable affair with the American woman and in response I received an angry retort: Where are the dogs?! Apparently, that’s all he was concerned with. Where are the (damn) dogs?! He shouted at me this single query over and again using various colourful language that I refuse to repeat to you, my dear.
I must admit, in my haste to acquire a professional framework for my workday, I had forgotten the tragedy of the previous day and what it could mean to Goujat, not to mention the poor American who would be returning to Paris in two days time. Yes, M. Goujat did express that fact to me between his questioning tirades about the dogs. I, on the other hand, couldn’t get an utterance of self preservation in sideways, or lengthways.
When, at last he ran out of steam, he collapsed with a harumph into a nearby chair, scarlet-faced and perspiring. I paused a minute to see if he would be afflicted with some kind of aortic seizure or even a well timed aneurysm, but alas, he stared at me with blistering eyes and growled his interrogatory word by word, as if I was a child studying linguistics in a foreign land. Where. Are. The. DOGS?! He shouted that last word, which startled me somewhat, and I broke down and told him the entire nauseating tale of Abraham’s and Lincoln’s demise, leaving out, of course, the part where I beshitted his Orientals.
Charlotte, you should have seen the evil in the man’s eyes. I was genuinely afraid for my well being and instructed my legs to swiftly retreat but apparently my shoes were nailed to the flooring. I looked around the room for some sort of bludgeoning device should it come to that, but that was when M. Goujat’s face folded and he began an intense bout of weeping. I stood there, mummified, for what felt like an hour, as I realized that, by my actions, he would forfeit the Cuban cigars, the Tennessee whisky, and most probably, any future trysts with the American woman, all by my foolish act of personal rebellion.
After eons of incoherent blubbering from my employer, he blotted the dampness on his face with the sleeve of his overshirt. He then stood up and spoke to me. Even though his words were of a quietude I have never witnessed from him before, I felt more frightened than ever. He relieved me of my new position and made it quite clear that I was to leave the country at once. He stated with gritted teeth and clenched jaw that if he ever laid eyes upon me again, or even heard my name uttered, for that matter, he would tear my limbs from torso and find two replacement canines to feed them to.
Needless to convey, I removed myself at the speed of a blacksmith’s strike, and made my way back to my hotel. Upon arriving, I discovered that all of my belongings had been collected from my room and were heaped in a bundle in the bell man’s office. I was handed a bill for two hundred eighty five francs for lodging fees and meals and was told to vacate the premises immediately.
With immense ruefulness and shame, I made my way to the train station and used the rest of my funds for a ticket homeward. I shall arrive in Liège on the morrow after suppertime. France may be the subject of dreams but it has not been a friendly guardian of my aspirations.
Please forgive me, my dear Charlotte, as I have failed you and the promise of a Parisian lifestyle. I will be heading back to what I hope are your open arms and comforting bosom.
Yours in desperation,
Bernie
24 August 1938
Dear Mother,
I shall be seeing you sooner than expected. Would it be too much trouble for you to prepare your famous Flemish casserole? My appetite and my sanity depend upon it.
B-