Monsieur Pamplemousse Takes the Cure

‘
Entrez
!’

The Director’s voice sounded brisk and businesslike. It was undoubtedly the voice of someone who commanded and who also expected to be obeyed without question.

In the short space of time left at his disposal between rapping on the door and taking hold of the handle, Monsieur Pamplemousse tried to analyse it still further.

Was it,
par
exemple,
the voice of a man who commanded and expected to be obeyed, and yet had also read his, Monsieur Pamplemousse’s, recent article on the subject of
cassoulet
– its many forms and regional variations – which had recently appeared in
L’Escargot,
Le
Guide
’s staff magazine? And if so, was it the voice of a man who couldn’t wait to hear more?

In the remaining half second or so before turning the handle, a dry cough – an obvious clearing of the throat before getting down to business – dispelled the thought. It was scarcely the cough of a man desperately trying to conceal his excitement, but more that of someone rapidly running out of patience.

On the other hand, if the summons to the Director’s office wasn’t to do with the article, why had he specifically mentioned the word ‘Toulouse’ when he rang through on the internal telephone? Toulouse, the very home of
cassoulet.
And why the note of urgency? ‘Drop everything, Pamplemousse,’ had been the order of the day. ‘Come to my office immediately.’

Perhaps the Director had a cold? That was it – a cold. There were a lot around at the moment. He must have read the previous article in the December issue – the one on garlic – its use in combating Man’s most common ailment.

The next remark, however, confirmed his worst suspicions. The Director was not in a good mood. Testiness had crept in.

‘Don’t hover, whoever you are. Either come in or go away.’

Monsieur Pamplemousse took a deep breath, and with all the enthusiasm of an early Christian entering the lion’s den, did as he was bidden.

Having entered the room he waited for the usual nod indicating that he could sit in the chair facing the Director’s desk; a desk so placed that its occupant had his back to the light and his face in the shadows – just as he, Pamplemousse, had arranged his own desk in the days when, as a member of the Sûreté, he’d wished to conduct a cross-examination in his office at the
quai
des
Orfèvres.

But he waited in vain. Instead, the Director gave a grunt and picked up a printed form from a neat pile in front of him. Adjusting his glasses, he gazed at it distastefully for a moment or two.

‘I have been studying your medical report, Pamplemousse.’

Monsieur Pamplemousse shifted uneasily. ‘
Oui
,
Monsieur
le
Directeur
?’

‘It makes unhappy reading.’

Monsieur Pamplemousse felt tempted to say if that was the case, why bother? Why not try reading something more cheerful instead; his report concerning the continued insistence of French chefs on the use of fresh ingredients, for example. But wisely, he refrained. The Director was clearly in no mood for frivolities. In any case he was speaking again; intoning from the form rather in the manner of a small-part actor who has been given the telephone directory to read whilst auditioning for the part of Hamlet.

‘Born: nineteen twenty-eight.

‘Height,’ Monsieur Pamplemousse instinctively drew himself up, ‘one hundred and seventy-two centimetres.

‘Weight:
ninety-eight
kilogrammes.
’

The Director made it sound like a series of misprints, each a greater travesty of the truth than the one before.

‘I have large bones,
Monsieur.
’

‘They have need to be, Pamplemousse,’ said the Director severely. ‘They are bones which may well, as they grow older,
have difficulty in supporting your weight. Unless … steps are taken.

‘Complexion:
pique-nique.
I have never heard of that before.’

‘It is a little-used medical term,
Monsieur.
It means pink, full of health. Even Doctor Labarre was impressed.’

The Director barely suppressed a snort. ‘Blood pressure …’ he paused again and then held the piece of paper up to the light as if he could scarcely believe his eyes. ‘Blood pressure … can this figure be true?’

‘It was not a good day,
Monsieur
, the day of the medical. Madame Pamplemousse was being a little difficult, you understand, and that affected me. It had been raining and Pommes Frites had the misfortune to step in something untoward while he was out for his morning walk. We had just purchased a new carpet …’

Monsieur Pamplemousse heard his voice trail away as the Director reduced him to silence with a world-weary gesture of his hand.

‘Facts, Pamplemousse. Facts are facts, and there is no getting away from them. It is high time we returned to first principles; principles laid down by our Founder, Hippolyte Duval, without whose integrity, without whose dedication, single-mindedness, clear thinking, foresight and devotion to duty none of us would be where we are today.’

While he was talking the Director transferred his gaze to a large oil painting which occupied the centre of the wall to his right. Lit by a single spotlight, it showed an ascetic-looking man eating alone outside an hotel on the banks of the Marne. Dressed in the fashion of the day, he gazed at the artist and the world through eyes as cold and as blue as the empty mussel shells piled high on a plate beside him. With one hand he held a glass of white wine by its stem – probably a Sancerre if the artist had accurately captured the label on the bottle. With his other hand he caressed one end of a waxed moustache, the curve of which neatly echoed the handlebars of a bicycle propped against a nearby tree. It was one of many velocipedes dotted about the picture, for the motor car had yet to be invented and even
Le
Guide
itself was still in its infancy, confining its investigations to those restaurants in and around
Paris which could be reached by Monsieur Duval on two wheels or by pony and trap.

While agreeing with the Director that but for Hippolyte Duval he wouldn’t be standing where he was, Monsieur Pamplemousse couldn’t help but reflect that given the present circumstances, the advantages this implied were open to debate. He’d always nursed a secret feeling that had he and the Founder of
Le
Guide
ever met they wouldn’t necessarily have seen eye to eye. He suspected Monsieur Duval lacked humour. The faint smile on his face looked out of place, rather as if it had been hired specially for the occasion. Either that, or he had just witnessed one of his fellow cyclists falling from his machine.

The Director’s next words confirmed this feeling. Reaching into a drawer in his desk he took out a plastic box, opened it and withdrew a small red object which he held up for Monsieur Pamplemousse to see.

‘In his later years,’ he said, ‘our Founder made a great study of the effect too much food can have on the body. He came to the conclusion that Man can live happily on an apple a day. A dictum, Aristide, which, if I may say so, you would do well to consider.’

As the crunch which punctuated this last statement died away, Monsieur Pamplemousse gazed at the Director with something approaching horror. It was a well-known fact that people often grew to look like their pets – he had himself been compared more than once to Pommes Frites, but that was different, a compliment of the highest order. It was the first time he’d encountered someone who had grown to look like another person’s portrait. It hadn’t occurred to him until now, but there was no denying the fact that the Director bore a distinct resemblance to the erstwhile incumbent of his post, Monsieur Hippolyte Duval himself. There was the same fanatical gleam in his eyes; a gleam which brooked no interference or disagreement.

‘With the greatest respect,
Monsieur
,’ he said at last, ‘I would not call making do with an apple a day
living
– nor would I connect it with the word
happiness.
I also feel most strongly that it is a philosophy which ill becomes a man whose whole life was dedicated to the running of a restaurant guide. Speaking personally, I would find it impossible to conduct my
work for
Le
Guide
were I to confine myself to such a diet. An Inspector has to sample, to test. He has to compare and evaluate. Above all, he has to accumulate experience, experience which embraces both the good and the bad. There are times when he has to consume meals when all his natural instincts tell him to stop. People think it is easy. The few – the very few – who know how I earn my living, say to me “Pamplemousse, how lucky you are. How wonderful to have such a job.” But if they only knew.

‘Were I to confine myself to an apple a day, why …’ Monsieur Pamplemousse gazed out of the window as he sought hard to find a suitable parallel and ended up on the banks of the Seine somewhere near the
quai
des
Orfèvres.
‘Why it would be like an Inspector of the Sûreté patting a murderer on the head and saying, “Go away and don’t ever let me catch you doing that again.” It would make a mockery of my calling.

‘Being a little overweight goes hand in hand with my work,
Monsieur.
It is an occupational hazard – a cross we Inspectors have to bear, along with occasional bouts of indigestion alone in our beds at night.’

‘Yes, yes, Pamplemousse.’ The Director interrupted in a tone of voice which all too clearly meant ‘No! No!’

Rifling through some papers on his desk he extracted another sheet. Monsieur Pamplemousse’s heart sank as he recognised the familiar buff colour of a form P39. It had a red star attached to it. The one Madame Grante in Accounts used when a decision from higher authority was needed.

‘I have been going through your expenses, Pamplemousse. They, too, make unhappy reading. Unless, of course, we happened to be thinking of applying to the Gulbenkian Foundation for a grant. In those circumstances they would provide welcome evidence of the mounting cost of our operation.

‘If you are so concerned about the state of your digestion, I suggest the occasional bottle of
eau
minérale
instead of wine would not come amiss.

‘On the tenth of January, for example, you and Pommes Frites between you consumed an entire bottle of Château Lafite with your
boeuf
bourguignon.
Considering the remarks
you made in your report concerning lapses in the
cuisine
– I see you compared the quality of the meat with a certain brand of shoe leather – might not a wine from a lesser Château have sufficed? Perhaps even a
pichet
of the house red?’

‘If you were to check with my P41,
Monsieur
, you would see that January the tenth was my birthday. Rennes is not the most exciting place in which to spend one’s birthday – especially in mid-January. And it was raining …’

‘Be that as it may, Pamplemousse, there is no getting away from the fact that you are grossly overweight and it is high time something was done about it.’ The Director gestured towards the far side of the room. ‘Stand over there, please, and look at yourself in the mirror.’

As Monsieur Pamplemousse turned he gave a start. In the corner behind the door stood another figure. For a brief moment he thought a third person had been a party to their conversation and he was about to express his indignation in no uncertain terms when something about its posture made him pause. It was a dummy, an exceptionally lifelike one, complete in every detail down to the very last button on its jacket, but a dummy nevertheless.

‘Allow me to introduce our latest recruit, Pamplemousse.’ The Director sounded pleased at the effect he had achieved. ‘His name is Alphonse. No doubt you are wondering why he is there?’

Glad to be able to divert the conversation away from his P39, Monsieur Pamplemousse murmured his agreement. Expenses were always a thorny subject and it was no easy matter to strike a happy balance between the need to eat at some of the most expensive restaurants in France whilst at the same time not to overstep the rigid boundaries laid down by an ever vigilant Madame Grante, many of whose minions were hard put to eat out at a local
bistro
more than twice a week.

The Director rose to his feet. ‘Alphonse, Pamplemousse, represents the
Ideal
Inspector.
An ideal we must all of us strive for in the future. I have been studying the many writings of our Founder and the results have been fed into a computer. From its findings I have had this model constructed.

‘I think,’ the Director formed a steeple with his bands and tapped the end of his nose reflectively as he began to pace the
room, ‘I think I can say without fear of contradiction, that I know his background and his habits as well as I know my own.

‘I know where he was born; where he went to school. I know where he lives. I know the number of rooms in his apartment and how they are furnished, what time he goes to bed, when he rises. I know his tastes and where he buys his clothes. I know where he goes for his holidays. In short, I know down to the very last detail what makes him tick.

‘The ideal Inspector working for
Le
Guide,
Pamplemousse, will weigh seventy-six point eight kilos. He will lead an active life, rising at six-thirty every morning and taking a cold shower. In his leisure hours he will play tennis, perhaps a little squash from time to time; enough to keep his figure in trim. During his lifetime he will have no more than two point six mistresses –’

Monsieur Pamplemousse, who had been growing steadily more depressed as he listened to the growing list of what he could only interpret as his own deficiencies, could stand it no longer.

‘With respect,
Monsieur
,’ he exclaimed, eyeing Alphonse distastefully, ‘it is hard to imagine him having point six of a mistress, let alone any more.’

‘Would that we could all say that, Pamplemousse,’ said the Director severely. ‘Two point six would be a very low estimate indeed for some of us. That unfortunate business with the girls from the Follies, the reason for your early retirement from the Sûreté – that should keep you ahead of the national average for many years to come.’