Maatstaf. Jaargang 23

[p. 76]

Maurice Girodias The Runs

When the telephone woke me up it was still pitch dark outside. My head was buzzing with one of the worst hangovers of the season, and I was seriously considering calling off that crazy trip by train to Amsterdam with a stop at Antwerp where I was supposed to meet, of all people, a Flemish publisher of pornography at the railway station. What a trip. Whoosh... I went back to sleep, briefly; and then the Paris garbage man unleashed his routine predawn cacophony, and the metallic echos reverberating along the façades woke me up for good, cursing and holding my head. I looked at my watch and decided that I had better hurry.

I scrambled into a taxi, finished dressing, and settled down for the ten minute ride to the Gare de l'Est, borrowing the driver's newspaper for a quick look at the always-inspiring French political news. The government was fighting to save the franc, the paper announced. Many French tourists had run into severe trouble at the borders of late because they had ingnored the new rule restricting travel abroad: no Frenchman was allowed to leave the country with more than 200 Francs, which will buy maybe three meals and two packs of Gauloises. So.

Suddenly I jumped up in a fit of alcoholic terror: I had a bulging pocketful of money, a huge wad of banknotes on me which represented many times the authorized maximum.

And although I no longer lived in Paris except as an occasional tourist, I was still a French citizen, mon Dieu, and I had a sudden paranoid vision of banner headlines announcing:

maurice girodias arrete a la frontiere! conspiration contre le franc, etc. Those bastards, how they would relish the exquisite privilege of catching me in the act! Ten years of persecution by all the various departments of the French administration had taught me that a marked man never wins. For ten years I had been the exemplary scapegoat, hunted day and night by every gendarme, tax collector, justice of the peace, public prosecutor, ticket puncher, by every brand of magistrate in the many courts of law, by every policeman, censor or museum attendant in the country. At the age of 43 they had even sent me my military papers advising me that I had to serve two years in the army... That's when I decided that enough is enough, and left for America to start a new life.

I plunged my hand in my pocket and took out the handful of bills, briefly considered throwing my fortune out the window, and settled for the crudest solution, pushing the mass of paper under my shirt, and around to the back. I caught the driver's eye in the rearview mirror observing my illogical gesticulations with impavid detachment. A cold sweat was glistening on my brow. God, that feeling of being perpetually hunted was something I had completely forgotten since I had left the scene of my crimes. How easily terror sneaks back...

At least I did not miss my train, although I wasted some more time at the ticket window, finding that I had no money left in my pocket. I could not properly extract money from under my shirt, right? So I had to rush to a dark corner to accomplish that operation, and rush back to the ticket man who was obviously thinking, ‘If that's the way they behave this early in the morning, what's it going to be like at the end of the day?’

That fancy new train symbolized the French concept of functional modern esthetics: it was

[p. 77]

simply terrible. The breakfast was unspeakable, the coffee the vilest beverage you could expect to find on this planet. My head was spinning madly, and to add a fine touch to my accumulated miseries my bowels started a menacing dance. I ran to the toilet, a strangled groan in my throat, and literally collapsed on the stool with a sob of relief.

Well, I wouldn't ordinarily make public such regrettable idiosyncrasies, but since I've embarked on this confession there is no turning back; I must go the whole way. After all, we know at least, by now, that human nature is a jungle full of secrets some of which are pathetically down to earth. Every one of us, after relieving his bowels, looks down to gauge the results. It's nothing to be ashamed of: the Pope does that, and all the heads of state and the Dalai Lama himself, why not?

To be sure, the verification is always fast and perfunctory, to the point that it leaves practically no trace in our hypocritical memory. However, what I saw that morning in the shaking and clattering model Express train caused me to jump one foot in the air. The inside of the bowl was decorated with printed paper which it took me a few seconds to realize was nothing but freshly minted 500 Franc banknotes, of an unhealthy greenish color and carrying the dour effigy of our favorite philosopher, Descartes. A few seconds later, I had realized that those excrement-splattered banknotes were my own money, very logically shed from the tail of my shirt a moment before.

The realization pinned me down again on the seat with an explosion of hysterical laughter, which immediately caused another enormous bowel rumble, adding more color to the disastrous fresco.

When I finally calmed down, I decided that even if the gods had spoken in no uncertain way, even if the incident should be seen as a reminder of a universal truth concerning the nature of money, I was not going to waste a fortune in such irresponsible fashion. Shaking with febrile ecstasy, tottering with my pants down in the jiggling men's room, I washed Descartes' face in warm soapy water as if he were my own son.

This money I kept in a special pocket. I used it entirely to bribe certain people, and to accomplish various evil and magical functions. And it worked.