MR. MOAK & MR. SOAMES – TWO FINE OLD GENTLEMEN
by Jeffrey Barr
The box was not fancy – indeed, it was on the plain side, with only gold lame text in a calligraphic font on a black box. But, as Francois bit into the first dark chocolate, he felt positively transported. The chocolate was thickly layered with sweetness, a dash of bitter cacao from Peru perhaps, a saltiness that defied description, and a veritable symphony of delicate notes for which he had not ever tasted an equal. It was almost unearthly how good the chocolate was – and that was only the first! The next was creamy, with after-notes of sugary-salted nut, and delicate nougat that melted on the tongue. The one after – bold, almost effervescent, but so divine as to be beyond reproach. Each chocolate (he forced himself to take just one bite of each, pausing afterward to cleanse his palate) seemed better than the last – and he had thought the first to be perhaps the greatest he had ever tasted.
“Germain these are — incredible!” Francois said. Germain giggled porkily.
“Come now Francois – no better than Mme. Deboise’s, surely? Or the Juarez box we received last year from the collector in the States? Surely – ”
“Better, I say! You must try one Germain, they are simply indescribable!”
“Oh, now, you know I can’t, Francois. Especially after the doctors …” He nodded toward the stump that capped his right leg. The Doctors in the city said his was the youngest, even at 37, Diabetes-induced amputation in the history of the hospital. After just the right amount of time that Francois determined to accurately remind Germain how he, Francois, disliked being reminded of Germain’s infirmity, he gave Germain a nod.
Germain promised to travel there with him as soon as he was able, and Francois, satisfied that he had piqued Germain’s interest, set to work. Moak and Soames – Fine Chocolatiers, proclaimed the box. The address was an old part of London, and he could be there by the early evening. But there was a telephone number, as well as fax. No email address, but just as well – he distrusted such modern contrivances. He called the number and received a recording.
“Welcome to Moak And Soames, makers of fine chocolate. This is Moak.” Francois had almost begun to speak when the voice continued. “No one is able to take your call at the moment, but do please leave your full name and a number at which you can be reached, and we will respond as soon as we are able.” Oddly enough, at the end of the recorded message, a voice in the background distinctly said “Or when hell freezes over, whichever is first!” followed by a somewhat scrofulous sounding giggle. Francois was nonplussed, How could such obvious imbeciles make such divine food? He listened further. The giggle repeated, along with a strange sound – it was like a tearing, ripping sound, almost like that of a – Francois hung up the phone. He was distressed to find he was sweating lightly, and had to dab at the back of his neck with his handkerchief.
That night, over dinner, he recounted at some length his experience with the Moak and Soames chocolates. Cook had prepared stuffed peppers, some frighteningly lean fillet from the boulangerie down the road, and sundry other items. Though Francois found it only mildly execrable, he complained bitterly to his mother about Cook’s decline in skill. After each bite of dinner, he recalled that first bite of Moak and Soames chocolate, and how it had melted on his tongue. What could compare with it! Not to mention the other chocolates in the box! Why, they were possibly not only the best chocolate, but possibly the best food he had ever eaten! Just the thought of one of the oh so sweet nut shaped clusters from the left side of the box, dear God in Heav-
“Cat got your tongue, dear?” His mother asked while pouring herself some coffee.
“Mind that coffee is 20 francs per half-litre, mother, why must you smother the taste with your revolting concoctions of sugar and cream? Bad enough, that! At least I convinced you to stop buying that ridiculous American creamer he paused to slurp a dollop of the fine coffee from his saucer, fond it to his taste, and gestured towards his mother. “Awful, awful stuff. Now, as I was saying, one finds it hard to believe that a food company, in this day and age should act like such … such… foul children on a business phone line!” The sheer nerve. No, Don’t flap you arms about and ask me to calm down! Why, the best chocolate I’ve ever had, and they treat their customers like this! Hmmph!
“Perhaps it was someone else only pretending to be Mr. Meeks?” His mother said. He signed as she attempted to surreptitiously add more cream to her coffee.
“Well, we shall see, mother dear. In any case, it’s a bad public image for any company. I should think they would be embarrassed about things of such nature and… ” He waved his hand as if to exemplify all that was unseemly and untoward in this strange, modern world he found himself in. Sometimes, he pondered, he should quite like to live in olden times. Perhaps in the court of Louis XIV, the Sun King. Somewhere or some-when more civilized.
His mother sipped her coffee, eyes downcast, and he sighed.
The next few days he spent in an agony of indecision – he would have quite liked to give the chocolate-makers a good piece of his mind, as well as the sharp side of his tongue. But still… the chocolate was so good. At the back of his mind, a small, greedy boy, in an ill-fitting jacket of cheap black velour seemed to crouch and whimper and whine into his mind
more chocolate, more chocolate, can i have more chocolate pleaaassee
He shivered slightly, and shook off both the image (the picture of the boy showed a round, flushed face topped by black coarse hair much like Francois’s own) and the voice with a brisk motion of his head. No time for that fat little boy, whoever it might have been. It was odd, but more and more lately, he found himself thinking back to his father. Oh, the buffoon! He was lost on the African continent when Francois was eight – but his memories of the man were strangely disjointed, and almost comically overblown. Surely no man could stand so straight and tall, and be so fierce, and then one day just, disappear? Surely not. He remembered the tense, frigid nights at the table, his mother quietly adding more and more food to Francois’ plate as Father told one tall tale after another. Stories of America, of Australasia, of an exotic paradise named Tahiti. His mother would ask question after question about the dangers of traveling. Father denied any such stories; but still, Mother pressed until Father admitted some nautical disaster, or a party lost to savage kidnappers or cruel brigands. At this, Mother would look at Francois, with a knowing, sad look, as if to say: do you see son, what work it is to protect you from this man who only wants to put you in harm’s way? And over and over again, when Francois would voice his own questions, Mother would merely hush him and tell him to eat, shh, eat now. If he finished, he was given more.
He wrote a letter to the chocolate makers. He prided himself on a pretty turn of phrase, when he had a mind, and filled the letter with many compliments and almost as many shrewd(but clever) barbs aimed at what he determined to be a lack of manners on the part of Moak and Soames – he felt, and said as much in the letter, that he felt that a customer of such discerning tastes as to be able to not only note the presence of Anise in the chocolate, but detect it’s mixture with Belgian almond butter – why, such a customer was to be treasured as a resource, not made mockery of over the telephone.
The next day he went off to London to attend to various matters. His family, once monied and among the toast of Europe, had run into severe financial difficulties over the past ten-odd years – Francois, however, was quite sure he was the better of it, and intended to set those financial matters straight, once and for all. And, he was hesitant even to acknowledge, perhaps visit the offices of Mr. Moak and Mr. Soames, makers of admittedly fine food, but practical jokers of the worst possible taste. Maybe he would even discover that these Moak and Soames fellows were nothing at all – nothing but false names fronting an old warehouse – perhaps the chocolates were shipped in from some quaint village in Switzerland, made by smiling old apple-cheeked women in gingham aprons, where the men worked in cedar-scented workshops making rococo cuckoo clocks that sang the hour in strains of Brahms or Bach. He mused on this thought for a moment, and then considered the half-empty box of chocolates he had brought with him. Just in case, and so as to have something to relate to the gentlemen, should he somehow find himself in their offices. He didn’t intend to eat them all. But he did want his recall of the taste to be total, and his critiques (what little of them there were) to be complete and composed in his mind. He entertained some brief but lovely daydreams in which he entered into some sort of business arrangement with Moak and Soames – it wasn’t clear what Francois’s contribution to the arrangement might be, but probably along the lines of accountancy or perhaps just dealing with competition in a firm but fair manner. He bit into the first of the remaining chocolates. At first, he was sure to cleanse his palate assiduously between each bite, but soon enough was reduced to chocolaty, chomping jaws, licking fingers painted dark brown with chocolate. The box never seemed to end. Not that he wanted it to end – heavens no! He didn’t know how it was possible, but each time he tried another, it was better than the previous! He was alarmed to overhear himself actually moaning, though luckily he had leased a private sitting-car on the train going to London.
Finally he arrived. He felt stuffed; pleasantly so, though he did regret the fact that he had no more of the Moak and Soames chocolates. He planned to remedy that – perhaps he would even find his way clear to get some straight from the source. He was on his way.
The street on which the offices of M. Moak and M. Soames was populated by gently dilapidating brownstones, and their sentinel Elms scabbing their way into decrepitude. his taxi-cab dropped him off, and he stopped to mop his face before mounting the stairs. It was uncharacteristically hot in London that day, and his usually florid face had taken on a decidedly plummy cast. He hoped, indeed assumed, that the offices of Moak and Soames would be air-conditioned.
He mounted the steps, noting with pleasure the small and tasteful brass plaque that adorned the doorway. MR. MOAK & MR. SOAMES – TWO FINE OLD GENTLEMEN the plaque proclaimed. The knocker, as well, was heavy, true brass. He used it, and waited.
There was nothing. No answer, no noise from within. He peered through the side-panes, but the glass was of sufficient pebbling as to arrest all vision into the hallway. He knocked again, louder this time.
“Halloo! Halloo in there!” He said. “I say, I’m here to meet the owners! I wish to have a tour of the facility!” Still no answer. It was Ten AM on a Tuesday – where in blazes would they be? He had a sad vision of himself returning home sans chocolates and found to his displeasure that the idea of getting more had quite overtaken his mind. He pounded at the door with the knocker, and noted with a very little unease and a great lot of distaste that the fine knocker he had so admired was flaking and scaling away under his sweating palm, leaving a somehow slimy verdigris feeling. He pinched out his handkerchief and used it to wipe off a long greenish stain from the palm of his hand. As the knocker hit the panel for the very last time, the door swung open with a creak. He pushed the door open. The door was heavier than it looked, and it swung closed behind him. He found himself in a pleasantly appointed lobby which contained a pleasant mix of expensive and mass-market furnishings and an enormous teak desk standing on a scarlet circular carpet. One door, on the back all, led out of the room. It was large, of exceedingly dark and well-polished teak, and boasted another large plaque – this one, Francois thought, skinned in buttery real gold. Tastefulness! “MOAK AND SOAMES – TWO FINE OLD GENTLEMEN”. Beneath the placard, on a placard of lush creme paper as thick as a wish, were the words ‘The Factory’ in script so baroque with curlicues and flourishes as to be another language altogether. There was no sound from within. Having found the room empty, Francois then immediately found himself with his ear pressed almost to the placard itself. Examining the wood, naturally, to try and spot any veneering that may have been going on. False finishes and enamels were the way of the modern world, Francois knew, but he himself had no intentions of accepting it.
“Hallooo?” He said, tapping softly against the wood f the door and admiring its nuttiness and rich tonality. He had to admit, that, notwithstanding what he had expected to find on his visit (he wasn’t sure what that was, but he was quite sure it had been nothing like this), that this office had so far surpassed what he believed. He was most impressed. He once again resolved, on the spot, to find these two fellows, Mr Moak and Mr Soames, and personally congratulate those fine gents, as they most certainly were, to the superiority of their craft. He had a brief, dazzling vision of he himself, Francois, dining with the men, and perhaps corresponding with them after he returned home – after all, it had to be most unusual, even in London-town, to make the acquaintance of someone of Francois’ discerning taste, palate, and, yes, tell the truth and shame the devil, intellect. He had heard tell of members of exclusive clubs who played chess via the Air Mail or some such things, and while he had never had the time to pick up the sport, he felt quite sure as a member of a rarer society, it shouldn’t be but a bit of bother to master the game. Oh, the games they would play! The conversations they would have! The scorn they would heap upon the less cultured, the buffoons, the imbeci-
The door swung open, and a heat and overpowering stench sent Francois reeling. He immediately became dizzy, and though he reeled backwards, away from the doorway, he somehow found himself falling into he room. It was done in fantastical, bloody hot red colors, like an abattoir staffed by overenthusiastic maniacs. The smell was like a charnel house – rotting flesh and offal burning in hell.
On a huge wooden table crouched two old men. Both looked at Francois with eyes like yellow marbles. One of them, crouching there like a monstrous and decrepit spider, had his pants around his ankles. The other sat slumped and hunched behind him. The first old man was shitting. On a plate. Even as Francois watched, a huge, pulsating piece of filth birthed itself from between the old mans withered gray buttocks , and plopped onto a large silver platter. It wriggled there, obscenely for a second, until the second old man (which was which, Francois thought in an ecstasy of horror that verged om the eternal – which was Moak and which was Soames?) cut into the shit with a huge curved butcher’s blade. The knife itself was caked with bloodied old shit and greenish crusted filth, and looked like it may have been last cleaned when the Great War had ended. The shit spasmed and thrummed, like a tortured maggot, and then lay barely twitching as the man sliced off pieces, and then those pieces into squares.
“Nice of you to join us, young master!” Said the shitting man. “My name is Moak. The gentleman collecting the fruits of my labors,” Here both old men squealed odiously like school children gone sour and rotten “is Mr Soames! Pray tell young sair, would you care for a free sample? The first one is always free at Moak and Soames!” Moak chuckled again like a clotted drain, and gestured beside himself. There sat boxes and boxes of Moak and Soames’ chocolate. And more boxes, Too many boxes. Francois mind pitched and yawed like a drugged animal. The stinking sweat of fear popped up on his brow and was promptly evaporated in the hot red glare. He felt his body moving towards what his mind tried to shy away from. Worse than being drawn into the room, he felt his body taken over and worn like a suit of warm skin by some being with a mind like a tapeworm grown infinitely large and fat. To his tumescent embarrassment, he found himself farting, uncontrollably and unstoppably. He was gasped air into his lungs, as if to scream, but no sound emerged from that orifice. The air filled his belly and escaped involuntarily in the form of flatulence. Moak and Soames giggled at his predicament as they watched his approach with arachnoid interest. To his horror, Francois saw that their eyes held ragged horizontal irides, like the eyes of goats. Their grins held the mindless animal glee of hyenas at feast. He vomited once, at the smell, and again, upon seeing Soames’ long, prehensile tongue unroll from his mouth and flop to the filthy table like a dead snake.
Just before he met an unending ending of gnashing dirty teeth and eternal hunger, Francois heard Moak say ‘You’re going to come out just fine, young master. Just fine, my boy.’
THE END
