Matthew Sweeney

I walked along Rue du Faubourg du Temple on the way to Belleville and I stopped at a shop selling rat poison. To my astonishment and my amusement they had a window full of stuffed rats, including four small rats standing round a table, playing cards. I liked that very much. Paris was full of weird turnarounds, it seemed — poisoning and elevating the rats to art at the same time. I nearly went in and asked how much the four rats and the tiny table would cost, but I remembered I’d be going back to Ireland pretty soon, and the people at airport security might not see the joke. It was not the first time I’d seen rat poison on sale here. Paris seemed to have a problem with rats. Someone I’d met for lunch recently had said she’d seen them running around the Métro platform when she was coming home once around midnight. I remembered a rat had made a dramatic appearance in one of Baudelaire’s little poems in prose. A rich boy had lost interest in his expensive toy because he’d seen a poor boy poking a rat in an improvised cage. I’m pretty sure that wasn’t an invention on Baudelaire’s part — lots of poor parents probably thought of giving their children (or at least, their sons) rats as pets. Hadn’t I had a pet mouse myself? The rich boy who’d seen the rat certainly was delighted at the idea of having the creature as a pet. Many years ago a friend of mine who worked as a chef gave me his original copy of Larousse Gastronomique— an edition first published in the 1920s or 30s. In there, I think, was a recipe called Cassoulet de Grand Souris. This was basically rat meat given the coq au vin or boeuf bourguignon treatment, i.e. cooked in red wine with mushrooms and tiny onions. I can’t remember which top Parisian restaurant introduced the dish onto their menu during the Siege of Paris in 1870–71, but apparently it proved very popular. It made sense too, as the Siege lasted for more than four months, and no meat was getting in, while rats were plentiful, then as now. I seem to recall the menus of the time sometimes also included rat salami, and a rat sauce called Sauce Robert. It’s no use looking in a current edition of Larousse as the book has been cleaned up — all mention of rats have been removed. I had some experience of rats when I was a child in Donegal. 
I commonly saw water rats swimming in the stream or small river that flowed behind my primary school. The house I grew up in had rats under the floorboards. I used to love spending time under the stairs, and sometimes the rats would come in through a hole in the back. I don’t remember ever having been afraid of them but I never touched them or wanted them to walk on top of me. And I certainly never thought of capturing one and making it my pet. My little pink-eyed albino mouse was rodent enough for me, and even that was a trial for my mother.

As I walked up the Rue des Martyrs with my bag of small, perfect, waxy potatoes I doffed my imaginary hat to Monsieur Parmentier. Well, I do have a hat and wore it a lot not so long ago to cover a healing wound on my forehead but this wasn’t necessary anymore, and anyway the hat wasn’t with me now in Paris. Nor was Monsieur Parmentier, though any remains of him lie in a plot in Père Lachaise ringed by potato plants. I would not be intending to cook my potatoes if not for the duplicitous actions of Parmentier back in the late years of the 18th century. After he’d realized that this odd-shaped tuber looted from the Incas in Peru (along with their gold and silver) was extremely nutritious, and no one would believe him, he’d come up with a ruse. Using money given to him by King Louis XVI, he purchased a plot of impoverished ground outside Paris, in Neuilly-sur-Seine, and planted it with potatoes. When the time to dig them came, he built a fence around them and put armed guards outside it. These men wore uniforms the color of potatoes. They were told to leak the news that they were guarding an extremely precious food. Then, one night, they left their post. Thieves arrived within a couple of hours and stole the entire crop. Over the next few days the potatoes were sold in the city’s markets as the food of kings. So my guests wouldn’t know they would be eating the food of kings. Nor would I tell them, though I might well concoct a story about the breed of pigs their pork chops had come from. And the posh wine that had yielded the wine vinegar I’d used in the salad dressing. I could try telling them I’d climbed over the fence of Père Lachaise the previous night, armed with a phone-torch, a troweling spade, and a canvas bag, and dug the potatoes from Monsieur Parmentier’s plot — only taking the small ones that were right for pommes sautées, of course — but I know they wouldn’t believe me. I was distracted from these smug reveries by my mobile phone ringing. I dug it out of my pocket and answered it, thinking one advantage of being in France was that nobody rang me. The voice at the other end was not one I recognized. It said, at first quietly, “Are you OK?” then in a louder voice, “Please tell me you’re OK over there,” and that was it. When I went to check the number, it had been withheld. What had I landed myself in, I wondered? I went home to deal with my 19th-century French meal.

1 No one knows where I’m going, not even me. Although that owl I heard outside last night might lead me to the terrain and call out the custodians so they can surround and welcome me, or do whatever they want to do. I won’t speak, won’t say my name even if they try to coerce me, or play unearthly music, such as sailors hear far out on the Atlantic, in fog so thick they venture to climb it to reach clear sky. Some do and speak of large blue birds that glide there silently as ghosts, but those men return too damaged to speak much or stay above ground very long. The owl could tell more, if he wanted, but he won’t. And not only that, he’s decided he will never be seen. 2 I’m happy to honor that, but I’d like to know what kind of owl he is. I mean, is he blue, or is he striped so he can blend with the forest? Is he tall and white, from the Arctic, or a pygmy, from further south? Is he long-eared or spectacled? I want to hear again the noise he made, was it a screech, or a staccato huhuhu followed by a deep-drawn whoo, or did it sound like wood being sawn? I am ashamed I paid it no attention. I did not know then he was a messenger, albeit a taciturn one. How does he know me, and why is he so interested? Once a parrot took stock of me, learnt to speak my name in exactly the tones I said it in, mimicked it endlessly and so loudly that I ran from my laughing friend’s house with my shrill-voiced name hurling after me. 3 Where does the owl go during the day? How can he know I’ll still be here when he surfaces? I do take trains — I go north sometimes, pulled by my past. I fly to places. Will he know all this and follow me everywhere? When can I expect his sounds to morph into spoken words that I understand and act on, if I agree with him? But if I decide to stay put, never leave the bedroom, will he get fed up standing there and row away through the night air, hooting a farewell? I don’t think so, no, this fellow is here for the duration of my stay on this enormous ball and could tell right now how long that will be, and what messy adventures are still ahead of me, but his trick is to keep as schtum on such stuff as the wooden owl on my bedside table. 4 I’ve heard stories about owls, how they appear from nowhere at the edge of things to sit watching, usually staying silent, but sometimes uttering a few words in their night language we don’t understand. That’s my fellow, although I don’t know him. Should I leave the house and hold my right arm out for him to land on and turn his big eyes on me? As if he’d be so compliant. Or should I try to forget him, pretend he’s not there in the dark, like a tree I hadn’t noticed growing? Oh, at least I should stop mentioning him here, but what else can I write about? Not the journey I’m taking that I know nothing of, not yet, and when I do I mightn’t feel like writing. I think the solution might be to buy a T-shirt with an owl printed on it, a blue owl, on a yellow shirt, and write about that small fellow to begin with. 5 What I want to learn is this: do owls ever venture inside, to stand on a corner- table, cock their heads to one side, and take in completely what’s going on? There are mice here that may be welcome, but I know my owl would be suspicious. He’d assume I want him inside to see what he looks like, to make friends with him, so he’ll be kind to me. I could promise to wear a blindfold and say nothing, act like I don’t know he’s there, but I will know and that’s enough. I think I hear his thoughts and I’m sure he hears mine. I feel his big eyes on me all the time. Maybe I should start carrying the wooden owl around with me, and practice owl noises. When is he going to tell me what he has to? I’m not asking for a map, but I’d like to know where I’m headed, if not where I’ll end up. And I’d like to know it as soon as I can. 6 When I say I hear his thoughts, I hear some, not the important ones. And here’s one of mine — if he ventured inside this house he’d see something that might intrigue him, a hand-knitted toilet roll cover, in rings of purple, red, and white. Like an unknown planet hanging in the sky. I’d let him have it, take it back to his nest, or his hollow tree trunk, or his half-sunken boat. I know he’ll assume this is another example of special pleading, and I accept that. Would I do better to ignore him, let him stay out there, like a pinecone that remains unobserved? I saw my doctor yesterday, he spoke of the deterioration, and I felt the owl was hiding in a cupboard, agreeing with every word. After that I went to my sister’s grave and the owl flew back to wherever he’s been ordered to lurk while observing me. Maybe I should feel privileged to have his full-time attention. 7 This morning I captured a beetle climbing the parsley. I put him in an empty matchbox, wondering what the owl thought of this. Would it impact what might be unfolding? I doubted this. I slipped on some spidery jazz that I knew would annoy the owl. He needed to be in control. I ground coffee beans and made espresso. The aroma wafted through the house. I freed the beetle to explore the table, and when it wandered off the edge I let it. I’m sure it survived, but I’m not bothered, just as I know the owl doesn’t care about me. We are thrown together, all of us, by winds that come here from far-off worlds. I sipped my coffee, humming the tune spun through the jazz, and I felt quite well for the first time in weeks, even months. Was the owl watching — had he been in contact with the beetle? And what was their collective verdict on me? Did it add up to more negative evidence? 8 OK, I’m blanking him. I watched a crow today, really admired how he operated, looking after the young ones, his partner, none of this spying on others. I’ve decided I don’t like owls, their self-absorption, or their nosiness about people. I know which I’d rather be. And I don’t have to deal with a crow stalking me. The owl would laugh about these thoughts. He’s been given the task of waiting to release, when he can, exactly what I need to know or what he can reveal. I admit he’s not easy but, shit, he’s the dumb card I’ve been dealt and I have to pretend I like him. Can I ask him about the Oxford and Cambridge rowers, or about the hairdressers the Louisianians use, or the tiger cubs that Texans keep as pets? The owl would make minced meat of them all. I wish he would hoot another noise to me. I might even acknowledge his importance, given my situation, but I won’t reveal anything. 9 I felt the presence of the owl last night. He was in the room with me. Not literally — he appeared in a dream, where a blue van struggled up an icy road before sliding back in a horrible, wriggling way, to what felt like an end. I’m not sure how it seemed so. And I can’t say where the owl was in this little film, except he was definitely there. This morning I came down the stairs, expecting some sign from him. I found a few brown feathers on a white plate on the kitchen table. OK, then, he must be a brown owl, but why donate some feathers, and what did these denote? I made coffee, then put on a CD of Anouar Brahem’s oud that seemed to suit the moment. And I decided it was the time to poach two eggs to serve on top of two slices of rye bread while I primed the espresso machine again and asked myself what the owl was saying. 10 Those feathers were gone from the plate when I went back for them this evening, so I wondered if maybe I’d imagined them, or if they’d fluttered up from the eggs before I’d poached them. That doubt was caused by the owl, I was sure — I’d made him careless, and he was recovering his poise, his control. And I was back in the place where I knew nothing, where he liked me to be. I opened the door and stood there, listening, but no owl sound came. Then a bat just barely avoided my head, and glided toward the moon. I stood watching this leathery fellow, then closed the door, and opened some wine. How much did the owl control? Would I be attacked by a rat tonight while I slept, not savagely, but enough to terrify me? Or would cockroaches swarm on my duvet, clicking enough to wake me? The idea being that these would render me so punch-drunk I’d welcome whatever the owl had to say. 11 I spent the morning drawing owl after owl on bits of paper, and after I’d got somewhere near a proper depiction, I found a black marker and reproduced it on an A2 drawing page which I Pritt Sticked onto the gable wall, then I dug out my old black bow and four arrows and unleashed these into the body of the owl. I knew I was being provocative, maybe even launching an act of war, but I could take no more, and couldn’t see what I had to lose. The owl clearly was unmoved by this, so I repeated the desecration four times over till the drawn owl looked machine-gunned, whereupon I flung the bow down on the grass and went in to pour a large glass of  Talisker for the first time in months, if not years. It still tasted good. I slipped on Kind of Blue, which always chilled me, and lay on the sofa with my shoes kicked off, and the curtains wide open. I thought, let the owl do his worst. 12 When the dark came, I lurked in the kitchen, bow in hand, arrows in the quiver that hung from my left shoulder, like the Robin Hood I wanted to play in the school pantomime — I got Little John instead! I kept looking out at the dark garden, wondering if I should be there, waiting to fire arrows at any sound or movement. Why did I want to kill the owl? He hadn’t given me the news I dreaded, but he’d stayed silent. That was more than I could bear. I poured a glass of Malbec and put on a CD of Baltic jazz. Did he think I could wait forever, as if I were a rock? I sliced some cheddar and a heel of bread, opened the back door and went out. The moon turned its big eye onto me, and I saw it wobble. The stars hummed along.Where am I going? I shouted at all of them. There was no response. Then far off, I heard a faint huhuhu followed by a whoo. You cowardly bastard! I roared, and sprayed the arrows all over the blackened world.

I was walking from the Louvre to Place Saint-Michel along the Seine when I noticed a crowd gathered under a large linden tree. As I approached I thought how much I’d liked to walk down Unter den Linden when I’d lived in Berlin, and now I saw again how attractive the light green seeds of the linden tree were against the darker green of the leaves. I was also agog to see what had caused the crowd to gather. As I neared I heard a mother say to her little boy, “Regardez, Sébastien, les saltimbanques.” Saltimbanques? This was a new word to me. I had a quick look on my iPhone and came up with the translation “mountebank.” 
I pushed my way as politely as possible through the crowd until I had a good view. It was a family of street performers. They had improvised a small stage on the wide pavement, and a father, mother, and ten-year-old or so boy were up there. The man was dressed in a striking yellow and blue outfit with white leggings and black shoes, and was banging a little drum rhythmically while the boy in a checked black-and-white jumpsuit capered about, playing thumb rolls on a tambourine, with a black-and-white dog dancing in perfect step alongside him. The woman dressed all in white sat on a stool playing quick dance music on a red tin whistle. On her head was a white floppy hat, sitting on which was a snowy owl who periodically flew in a circle over the heads of the crowd, coming back to land on the white hat. It was a scene worthy of being painted by the young Picasso, or the old Chagall. Or maybe by Gustave Doré. The boy on stage didn’t look in the best of health, but I hoped I was wrong. The effect of the whole performance was strange and utterly charming. And the little troupe seemed to have emerged from another era — from that of Baudelaire, even. I was puzzled by the translation offered by my iPhone, however. 
What I understood by the English word “mountebank” (which seemed very archaic) was either a person who sold quack medicines in public places, or a charlatan. These performers were no fakes. And yet, the English word, like the French, seemed to suggest the jumping up onto a stage. I’d have to revisit my Shakespeare plays — I seemed to remember that he’d liked using that word. When the white hat came round I put a €20 note into it, took a quick photograph of les saltimbanques and made my way to the nearest metro. I was almost surprised to see cars and motorbikes clogging the road.

Outside the igloo he waited for an invitation to come inside. There was no knocker, no doorbell. He coughed, there was no reply. He crouched down and peered in. He felt the warm air from a fire pat his cheeks and ruffle his hair. Hello he said quietly and repeated it. The frost in his toes urged him in, so did the pain in his gut. His knees one by one welcomed the snow and brought him into the warmth. He stood up and breathed deeply. He held a foot up to the flames then swapped it for the other foot. He lay down on the polar bear rug but a smell yanked him upright again and led him to a dresser of  bone where a bowl sat with a cover on it. He lifted this to reveal dried meat. He grabbed a chunk and tore at it with his teeth. It was reindeer. He devoured all that was in the bowl and went looking for some more. He found none, but there was a bottle of firewater which he swigged. He swigged again and left it down. He lay on the bearskin and fell asleep.

This is an old apartment and therefore the mirrors are huge and ornate. They go with the high ornate ceilings. There’s one such mirror in the living room and another in the bedroom. Both have intricately carved borders and a leafy crest on top. In the living room these have been painted over in white, but in the bedroom it’s still the original gilt rococo. Both mirrors sit on top of fireplaces and are as big as tombs. I think the descriptive term for them is French Regency Baroque. The mirror in the bathroom is pretty big too, and again somewhat ornate. And there are two other mirrors here as well. Not bad for a small, one-bedroom flat. The problem is I’ve never been too fond of mirrors. I rarely look into them, and only then to make sure my hair isn’t sticking up, or there’s no toothpaste showing, or when I’m fine-trimming the beard, to make sure I’ve missed no section. Oh, there are exceptional other occasions. Once when I got a red eye on a transatlantic flight, for example, I kept checking on the progress of the red’s disappearance. Or when I fell on gravel and got an ugly friction wound on my forehead, I had to first deal with applying the dressing, then keep an eye on how that healing was coming along. Very slowly, as it happened. As for gazing into the mirror to see if  I look OK enough to go out into the world, or — perish the thought — if I look attractive today, the answer is no way!Que sera, sera, as the song goes. Tiny children love the mirror and it’s very pleasant to watch them gazing into it. Dogs don’t understand it and bark fiercely at the rival dog that’s their reflection. I once gave a woman a full-length mirror as an Xmas present. It wasn’t ornate or gilded, and it got smashed soon afterwards, and seven years of bad luck followed. But if   I want to look at myself in the mirror regularly or for lengthy periods there’s plenty opportunity for it in this apartment. I could even stand naked and see everything. And as Monsieur Baudelaire reminds us, according to the immortal principles of 1789, everyone has equal rights; therefore I have the right to behold myself with pleasure or distaste. It is between me and my conscience.

After the murder, I called a meeting to see if we were happy. I declared I was not — I said I liked the man we shot. You all disagreed with this. I asked if you knew him, his wife, none of you did. “Kill me, then,” I said. You all stared at me. “Why, Bernard? Of course we won’t.” “Why not?” I said. “He was a good man, a better man than me. And look at what I’ve brought you — rubbish, dodgy tales, dross.” “Easy to dismiss that,” you said. “We appreciated it all. And you wandered the wild paths to bring it back to us — your songs, your legends, magic stories, your gold.” I thanked you, but shook my head. The good man was dead. I didn’t care what I’d brought you. I needed to go. I packed up my sagas, my song lyrics, my alchemy potions, my gold, and I disappeared.

What stopped her bawling was the doorbell ringing, and a man standing there with five yellow roses, bulked up with green fronds and tied in a dinky knot with olive twine. There was no card to say who the flowers came from. The man’s uniform was blue with a brown insignia of a spider on his right top pocket that she saw he kept unbuttoned. As he waltzed down the path to the gate the Siamese cat that frequented the garden raised its back and hissed. The man laughed and flounced out to his waiting white van. Oh, the shit-faced side streets of life! OK, she’d been born in Madras, in a flowery tea shop while an albino conjurer magicked a hare to leap from his heavily-ringed brown fingers. Five yellow roses? Enough to encourage her to cook saffron rice, with turmeric-tinged prawns and sautéed yellow courgettes. She didn’t play the Ry Cooder where yellow roses say goodbye.

I used to be a dog. What kind? Oh, a mongrel. Nothing poncy like the black cocker spaniel called Bonzo I had as a child. And certainly not one of those four-footed, aloof snakes that go by the name of greyhound. I remember each and every one of the lice that lived on me. Where did I live? In Sicily, where the sun shines like a fried egg every day of the year. I had the nose of an angel — I could smell porcini fifty trees away. I knew the man who would start a fight with my master the moment he walked in the bar door. I drank a saucer of red wine every day. I loved eating the butterflies that floated past me — one pounce and they were gone. And they were delicious. Better than the bones of a donkey whose meat provided salami for my master and his family. The boy was very good to me — he used to take me down to the sea and let me splash in the waves; then I’d come out onto the sand, barking, and I’d shake all the seawater onto him, wetting his clothes. He loved laughing, and I loved barking. Those were the days. I never saw a kennel. My home was an old blanket under a gnarled vine that had been there since Dante wrote his only sestina, in homage to the troubadours. The heat was often scorching. The boy found it funny to put a straw hat on my head, one dyed in the colors of the Italian flag. I was up early, out scouting for rats to frighten away. 
I once peed on a hedgehog to see what it would do. I ran along the clifftop, barking at the wheeling seagulls, and at the fishing boats they flew above. I sometimes ate my master’s leftover spaghetti bolognese in the taverna. My tail would wag like a fan revolving from the ceiling. I was taught party tricks that I’d be asked to do when the grappa was being downed. I’d lie down on the floor and die, to great applause. I’d sit up and beg, to coos and laughter, and I’d be rewarded with a sausage, and those were sausages to swim the Adriatic for. I’d sometimes go down to the harbor to look for an attractive gray bitch I liked the smell of. I’d have to fight off other dogs, but I was good at that. I ate one of their ears. Once I followed her onto a boat that was heading out to fill up with fish. I had to swim back and I lay on the sand and slept. When I got home my master whipped me. I ran to my blanket, whimpering. I was once brought to a circus, and into the tent of a one-eyed woman with black hair who had a pet parrot. I barked at it, and the parrot expertly returned my bark. I lay on the multi-colored mat and observed the strange bird who observed me. I was glad to leave that tent. I enjoyed hearing the boy play his flute in the evenings. I heard those notes flutter up into the air, and I tried to see them, but never could. I never stopped trying, though. The one thing I couldn’t eat was cheese. The few times I tried it I vomited. On the first occasion that happened I tried to eat it again. If I got the chance now I’d manage it, I’m sure. Who would not like to be a dog in the sun? A dog in the sun, like I used to be, long ago. It was an honor.

the lonely Incorporating the words of L.S. Lowry I used to paint the sea, but never a shore, and nobody was sailing on it. It wasn’t even the sea, it was just my own loneliness. It’s all there, you know. It’s all in the sea. The battle is there, the inevitability of it all, the purpose. When I switched to people they were all lonely. Crowds are the loneliest thing of all, I say. Every individual in them is a stranger to everyone else. I would stand for hours in one spot and scores of little kids who hadn’t had a wash for weeks would group round me. Had I not been lonely, none of my work would have happened. I should not have done what I’ve done, or seen what I’ve seen. There’s something grotesque in me and I can’t help it. I’m drawn to others who are like that. They’re very real people. It’s just I’m attracted to sadness and there are some very sad things. These people are ghostly figures. They’re my mood, they’re myself. Lately, I started a big self-portrait. I thought I won’t want this thing, no one will, so I went and turned it into a grotesque head. memo to lowry You’re right, there are grotesques who shine a dark light that lures us like how the sirens tried to lure Odysseus, and yes, maybe we ourselves are among the grotesques, but there are also the beautiful who, if we’re lucky, save us from ourselves, and validate the sun’s light, and maybe also the moon’s.