The Song of the Clerk ‘M’sieu Magritte, may I speak with you?’ Henri Chafi, the manager of the Café de Minuit, was highly agitated; he had a blank bill in one hand and an envelope stuffed with chits in the other. ‘Of course, is there a problem?’ It was Saturday afternoon. These were the times when René liked nothing more than to relax, play chess and converse with his surréaliste friends, Louis Scutenaire, André Souris and Paul Nougé. The arrangement he had with the manager to pay his bills each month was most convenient. The Minuit was much frequented by nightowls, as it stayed open into the small hours, long after the sign was turned on the solid oak door. The night shift was run by Albers, a wild character, a generous bohemian tub of an individual with great humour and appetites, much liked by the writers and painters who frequented the café. His brother Henri took over at ten in the morning. Now Henri was a cooler fish altogether, dour and methodical. A businessman who’d managed to turn the café into a successful enterprise by assiduous bookkeeping and by holding his prim opinions to himself. He’d been away for over two months in Argenteuil, convalescing from an fall. He’d returned to find the accounts in a state of chaos but business more brisk than ever. ‘Er… may we speak in private?’ ‘It isn’t necessary!’ René replied. M’sieu Chafi was behaving most oddly. His usual professional manner had given way to a palpable exasperation that distracted the chess players from their moves. ‘René, you haven’t been paying your bills again. Give him one of your paintings! Do him a portrait: ‘C’est ne pas M’sieu Chafi!’ ‘M’sieu Scutenaire, I assure you this is no laughing matter.’ ‘You can talk freely, M’sieu Chafi, we are all friends!’ Rene insisted. ‘I can’t speak here about this, it is too unsettling, most bizarre!’ The matter, now thrown open to the floor, provoked a general banter, chiefly provoked by Scutenaire. ‘Then we must insist on hearing your news, it is our trade, are we not connoisseurs of le dérange et l’étrange?’ By now embarrassed, Chafi sat down, quite overcome. ‘Speak man, before we die of curiosity.’ ‘M’sieu, Magritte, I do not know how to say this....your account....it refuses to be added up!’. ‘What are you talking about?’ ‘I mean, well, I have been at the bank all day with it, the senior manager himself is utterly perplexed.’ ‘By the fact that a man can have so many absinthes in one month?’ ‘The account is in fact for three months!’ ’Your good brother Albers is such a generous man. He has been so busy keeping his customers happy!’ ‘I have asked sirs, for your serious attention!’ ‘Forgive us, M’sieu, it is, you will agree, a rich source of humour! We who walk with ennui must take our amusement where we find it!’ ‘Please, gentleman, please!’ ‘You have my ear, M’sieu!’ The chess players burst out laughing and applauded Magritte’s bon mot. Red-faced, Henri sputtered and stood up to go. He turned at the top of the stairwell. ‘M’sieu Magritte, we must meet in private to discuss this!’. He promptly vanished into the basement to attack the figures once again. It was the following Friday evening, rain had been falling heavily all day. At home Georgette Magritte was brushing Loulou the dog and René was cleaning his brushes. There was a knock at the door. ‘René, please, the door, Loulou is not co-operating with this.’ René opened the door and there stood M’sieu Chafi. ‘I must apologise to yourself and your good wife, M’sieu. I will have no sleep until the matter we dicussed is concluded.’ ‘René, who is it?’ ‘It is M’sieu Chafi. He has a problem.’ ‘Then ask him in, perhaps we may be of assistance.' Georgette appeared at the top of the stairs. 'M,sieu, We do have a fire. Come, sit.’ ‘It is about your husband’s account, madam. Has he told you about this?’ ‘That you were unable to add it up? Maybe you were tired.’ ‘It is not that, Madam.’ ‘He said even the bank couldn’t add it up. I’m worried, has he been spending that much?’ ‘No, no, that isn’t the problem.’ ‘So?’ Henri sat blinking, lost for words. ‘Some cognac, perhaps?’ ‘Most kind, Madame.’ René and Georgette watched him drink. His hand was shaking. 'You are indeed troubled' 'Indeed, Madame, I am!' He put the glass down, reached over, grasped Georgette’s sleeve and stared intensely at her. ‘Madam, it is like this. The figures never add up the same way twice. Never.’ ‘That happens with my shopping list, also.’ ‘No! I am not joking! I spent a whole day at the bank. In the end they asked me to leave.’ ‘I don’t understand.’ ‘So far I have had twenty-three people add the figures. They all disagree. It gets worse. None of them get the same answer twice. Madam Dubois in the Post Office added the figures six times in a row. Each time she got a different answer. We are all utterly perplexed.’ ‘There is a simple mistake occurring here.’ ‘It is more than that.’ ‘Then?’ ‘Madam, I have taken a great liberty. With your permission….’ ‘To what?’ ‘M’sieu Dinde at the tax office is my wife’s brother. His office has a new American machine. It is a typewriter of sorts, except it performs calculations. I have asked him to bring his machine so we can settle this matter for once and for all.’ ‘Here? Tonight?’ ‘You must forgive me. Please understand, I’ve become a figure of derision in my own café. The customers all know of this farce and give me no peace. M’sieu Scutenaire is the worst. All week he has been mocking me. I am close to asking him not to return.’ ‘That would be most regrettable.’ ‘I know that, but I am desperate.’ ‘So where is M’sieu Dinde now?’ ‘He is awaiting outside with his device.’ ‘You left him outside? In the rain?’ ‘No, he is waiting in a landau.’ ‘René?’ M’sieu Dinde was standing under the small lintel, very wet. ‘Come in, quickly.’ ‘This is M’sieu Dinde. May I present M’sieu and Madam Magritte.’ What happened to the landau?’ ‘He threw me out. I got into an argument with him about the fare. He wanted to charge me full fare for waiting.’ ‘But I was paying!’ ‘Not the point, M’sieu Chafi. It is the principle. Fiscal transactions must always be a matter of honour, otherwise commerce becomes anarchy.’ ‘I sing the dry anarchist!’ René quipped. ‘No, M’sieu Magritte, better wet and just than dry and cheated!’ ‘For a few francs?’ ‘If necessary.’ The machine was the size of a gramophone. It was wrapped in an overcoat. ‘The device Americain is wearing your coat and you are getting wet? My husband could not paint anything so curious!’ ‘It is most expensive, I will be in serious trouble if it is damaged, I could even lose my job.’ Dinde set it on the front room table. He took out a handkerchief and polished it with pride. ‘Do have the chits, M'sieu Chafi? Let us commence. Madam Magritte, if you would be good enough to read the last number on each one carefully. M’sieu Chafi, if you would precisely observe the fact that I am indeed entering the correct amounts. M’sieu Magritte….you may pull the handle after each entry to prepare the machine for the next operation.’ ‘You are too kind.’ ‘Some of these numbers are difficult to read. Les garcons du Minuit are not the most legible of scribes!’ ‘I do not think that is the cause of the problem,' said Chafi haughtily. 'We have thoroughly examined that aspect of the process. You will note a pencil correction by any dubious numbers. Please proceed.’ ‘M’sieu Chafi you are obviously most anxious to clear your name and solve this, but really the whole business is just becoming too much!’ ‘With respect, my name does not need clearing, sir.’ ‘I shall inform M’sieu Scutenaire of that fact!’ ‘René!’ Georgette chided. ‘Sorry!’ The bespectacled Dinde began to breathe in a heavy rasp, fussing over the machine. He was a scrawny fellow. Although well dressed, he still looked scruffy. There was something avian about him, a certain bobbing of the head, a beaky nose, a hoppy nervousness. The dampness of his black and grey striped suit only added to this impression. René observed the pompous little man closely, making mental notes for future inclusion in a painting. 'The Song of the Clerk', maybe. He appeared to have some soup still there on his absurd Stalinesque moustache. René felt compelled to enquire as to how the soup was that he had dined on that night. Asparagus, perhaps? Chicken? After every number had been announced and scrutinised as it was entered, the crank was pulled. There was the sound of whirring cogs and ratchets. Twenty minutes later a small barely legible piece of paper popped out the top of the machine. ‘At last! At last! We have your bill, M’sieu Magritte! The case is solved.’ M’sieu Dinde sat at the table and rubbed his bony hands in quiet satisfaction. ‘With respect, M’sieu, why is the machine to be believed?’ ‘You are not satisfied with the amount, Madam?’ ‘I just think we should do it again.’ ‘Very well, you will see, this time, the amounts will match!’ The whole business was meticulously repeated, taking even longer. Outside, the storm got worse, the rain sounded like the sea, and before long lightning was flashing. Moments later came the roll and crack of thunder. Loulou began to bark. The scraping of the tree against the kitchen window added an underscore to the toccata of crunching numbers and the rhythm of the crank being pulled. All of them peered at the emerging paper. It was unreadable. ‘I am sorry, I do have a spare ribbon, we’ve been using the machine excessively at the office. One moment.’ Dinde opened a small draw in the side, and took out a sealed ribbon, which he eventually managed to install. Yet again the whole business was repeated, and the slips compared. Chafi slumped into the chair in despair. ‘They do not match!’. René was by now exasperated. ‘Gentleman, midnight has forgotten itself. I have been painting all day. We must leave this tedious endeavour.’ ‘We will continue another day!’ insisted Chafi. ‘No, sirs, you will continue another day!’ Georgette spoke firmly. ‘We shall await your bill, or your suggestion of an alternative arrangement. Numbers are perfectly entitled to a life of their own. So are René and I. Sleep beckons.’ ‘Madam, we will not get a landau in this weather and at this hour, and we must not risk rain getting in the machine.’ ‘Then leave it here. Collect it on Monday on your way to work.’ ‘It will be safe?’ ‘We will put it in the mahogany wardrobe. René, you may have to move the tuba.’ ‘Ah, the tuba has been by my easel for two weeks now.’ ‘It was in the wardrobe last night.’ ‘Possibly, but I am sure it is by the easel.’ ‘Then the device will easily go in the wardrobe. Gentleman, I will fetch you each an umbrella.’ ‘Georgette, the cupboard is full. The sewing machine and……er, the tuba are in here, also M’sieu Duchamp’s valise.’ ‘I thought you said the tuba was by your easel?’ ‘Hmm.’ ‘Will it not go on the top shelf?’ ‘Gala’s ostrich egg is there!’ ‘Very well, then if you put the tuba by your easel where you thought it was, there should be room for the adding contraption.’ ‘Goodnight gentlemen.' Although the storm had abated, the night was rainy and cold, the wind still blowing hard. As soon as M’sieu Dinde opened his umbrella, it blew inside out, flapping about him like a large wounded heron. He was all arms akimbo trying to restore it. René was standing by Georgette in the doorway, grinning. She dug him with her elbow. ‘Stop it, René!’ she hissed, trying to suppress her own laughter. ‘We have another umbrella, M’sieu, I will take that, it is of no use to you now.’ ‘Can you spare it, Madam?’ ‘I think so, we have a veritable bouquet of them, they seem to appear from nowhere in this house.’ René and Georgette watched the two sloping figures wrestle with their umbrellas in the wind and rain down the wide empty boulevard. ‘De Chirico!’ ‘Exactly!’ A flustered Dinde appeared on the Monday to collect the machine. By Wednesday the bill was still unsettled, the chits having been added up some thirty four times by one person or another, but to no avail. On Saturday afternoon the Minuit was more crowded than usual, every one of the chess players seemed to have bought along a friend or two. Business was excellent, but Henri was not a happy man. A letter had been delivered to the Magritte’s house to say that ‘due to clerical problems’ the matter of the outstanding bill could not be resolved. He had kept the chits, but returned the bill with the total still blank He had said he was prepared to accept a small painting in lieu of ‘sundry café goods and services rendered.' He had added a request that ‘the matter be kept private between all parties concerned.’ To Henri’s scuttling mind something sinister was brewing that afternoon. Scutenaire was sitting in the corner with Magritte, engaged in jocular conversation. It was outrageous. If this matter were to be made public the name of Chafi would be the laughing stock of the whole town. Now it seems some sort of announcement was to be made, Scutenaire was trying to persuade Magritte to stand up and say something. How could they do this to him? Had the café not stayed opened all hours of the day and night whilst these talentless daubers and barbershop philosophers rattled on. Yes, they had done well out of them, but if this was how they were going to repay him, by humiliating him in public, then he would have no more of it. These surréalists were full of pranks and tricks, their hero was Fantomas, how could they possibly be trusted? In the end, Magritte would not talk, so Scutenaire stood up and clapped his hands twice. ‘Mes amis, your attention please!’ He picked up a piece of paper from the table. ‘It’s my letter!’ Chafi whispered tightly to himself. ‘He’s going to read it!’ He was sweating profusely and his knuckles were white, straining to stop himself from rushing to knock the man down. ‘We have excellent news, which I shall share with you, as René is too modest to do so. René and Georgette received an invitation this morning to sail to America. I have a letter here from the Julien Levi Gallery in New York confirming the René Magritte One Man Exhibition in Manhattan this summer!’ Everyone in the café stood up, turned to René and applauded and cheered. There were calls of ‘Speech, speech,’ but he would not be drawn. ‘We now have to persuade them to take the journey!’ ‘M’sieu Chafi!’ Scutenaire called across the room, with a sly wave and a wink, ‘I understand that drinks are on the house!’ Chafi froze and looked at all the customers awaiting his response. ‘Of course, of course!’ He gritted his teeth and then made what he hoped looked like a benign gesture of largesse to the watching customers. Another round of applause, then the waiters were like frantic ferrets for the next two hours. Henri slunk into the basement, locked the door behind him and poured himself a large vermouth. That wily foxScutenaire knew exactly what was going on. Still, it was a small price to pay for dignity. Things weren’t so bad after all. The gossip about the bill would die down. That afternoon a package had been delivered, inside was a small painting by M’sieu Magritte. It was strange and unsettling painting; he could not possibly take it home to his wife, she would throw it out. Prior to the announcement he would have been inclined to question its value, but he began to think that if he held on to it, in a few years he could sell it for a tidy profit. He put it in a small cupboard along with his spare set of false teeth and a shaving brush. As for the exact total, he had run out of people to add the figures for him. He’d done it so many times himself he didn’t even want to look at them again. And M’sieu Dinde, well, what a turkey indeed he turned out to be. He had demanded cash payment for his time and the use of the machine, then refused to have anything further to do with the matter. It had even caused a family rift. The account would remain a mystery, but then Henri Chafi had never been the type of man to let a mystery stand in the way of a day’s work. The chits were filed in an old box in the wine cellar. It was late afternoon when René Magritte left the Café de Minuit to take his stroll out along the promenade. The sea was smooth as a chessboard, a pale crescent moon hung low in the cerulean sky, and a few small granite clouds stood sentry far in the west. He had taken the untotalled bill to show Scutenaire, but in the event of the news from New York, had forgotten. He took it from his overcoat pocket, carefully made a series of folds, each well-creased, and shaped an origami boat with a triangular sail. Then he quietly set the bijou craft upon the murmuring ocean and went home to paint. *** Le Groupe Surréaliste de Bruxelles standing, from left to right: E.L.T. Mesens, René Magritte, Louis Scutenaire, André Souris, Paul Nougé seated, from right to left: Georgette Magritte, Marthe Beauvoisin, Irène Hamoir