2.1 Alenby Incarcerated
2.1.1 Alenby, Inmate Number 271828
A Cell, Prison Simone Weil, Richelieu
About 2 pm Friday 10 April 1987
The arresting officer was right to tell Alenby he would take lunch in prison. But what she didn't tell him was that lunch in that particular prison--Prison Simone Weil--consisted of nothing more than a gulp of fresh air washed down with distilled water. For purchase of 100 grams of Assam tea he had drawn a standard misdemeanor penalty, twenty-one days on a medically supervised, water-only fast.
He was peeved to find himself in this situation. He was not used to the idea that one might be arrested and incarcerated without due process. In U, that sort of thing simply didn't happen. Except, of course, to the underprivileged,....
Certainly they were paying a per diem--so it said in the Welcome to Prison Simone Weil! brochure--Prison , and a quite generous one, but he was not mollified. One's time had value not to be measured in mere euros. After all, 21 days without food in Prison Simone Weil--21 days! that was the sentence, and no promise of time off for good behavior, either--those 21 days meant a lifetime total of 21 fewer lunch occasions. And 21 days was not the whole sentence--just the fasting part. They would be followed by a nine-day regimen of "refeeding"--a loss of altogether 30 days.
Should one voice a protest? No, he decided after brief reflection. There were good reasons to keep a low profile. Fear of being identified as an alien from another universe, for a start. And then the roadblock affair. One had picked up at the market some curious looks from the other shoppers, whispered allusions to le Baron Rouge.... He resolved to keep calm, think of other things.
The accommodations, for instance. "Primitive" summed it up. A simply furnished cell to be shared with another prisoner, with an adjoining bathroom that also had to be shared. Two narrow, iron-frame bunks covered with disproportionately large duvets, a radio and sound system of sorts, a digital reader....
He picked up the reader and scanned the contents. Various scientific aspects of fasting:* Evolutionary adaptation to seasonal shortage of foods rich in carbohydrates; Biochemical mechanisms; Therapeutic applications to immune system disorders; Aspects of detoxification.
The words recalled the voice of Ada in her didactic mode. "In humans as well as many other mammals, a special adaptation occurs in the fasting state whereby the brain can fuel itself with ketones" (ketones pronounced, he imagined, with that ultra-precise emphasis that was Ada at her most irritating). "In the case of humans, by the third day of a total fast, the liver starts generating ketones from the body's fat stores. This process is called ketosis. As the level of ketones rises in the bloodstream, the brain and other organs begin to use these ketones as their major fuel...."
An idiot-light lit up in his brain: Warning, attention span exceeded, loss of consciousness imminent. He tossed the reader aside and turned his attention to matters more relevant to his present situation, like his personal effects. They had taken away his om and his meds. Also his clothes and shoes, replacing them with a cotton pajama suit, labeled XXXL but actually a shade small, and hempen flip-flops. In the attached bathroom they provided soap (prison-issue, no aroma) but no shaving gel, no shampoo or conditioner, no antiperspirant, no cologne or aftershave lotion of any description, no deodorant, no skin softener--in fact, none of the fragrant unguents that collectively distinguish man from beast.
What crazed logic lay behind these deprivations? Impossible to tell, but the prison authorities kept saying a single word over and over, like a mantra, and the word was detoxification. A word packed with menace, the sort of word of which Ada would take diabolical pleasure in pronouncing all six syllables....
Disheartened, he downloaded music at random--Chopin's étude "Winter Winds," as it happened--and flung himself onto one of the bunks. The prison doctor, a short, angular woman who seemed to bear a grudge against the whole universe--Dr Aligoté was her name--had assured him with a grim smile that he was about to have a hard time with detoxification--détoxication, actually, as she spoke in French--but she meant detoxification sure enough. Now he couldn't get it out of his mind. Detoxification. He muttered the word over and over....
The icy treble tones of the the piano matched his mood. He didn't doubt his prison time would be hard. No lunch, for a start--that was hard enough. He already felt, not hungry exactly, but a trifle woozy, and at a loss how to fill in the hours he habitually devoted to the one activity that gave meaning to life.... But detoxification? From what toxin? Primarily meds, Dr Aligoté seemed to think, but that was ridiculous. Meds were, after all, health products, and it wasn't as if one had used irresponsibly. One had in fact taken only those that were FDA approved as safe and effective, had resisted the temptation of cut-rate versions from backward places like Canada with their cheap, shoddy, liberal socialized medicine, had sedulously followed physicians' orders as to dosage and so on and so forth....
One was peeved, and had a perfectly good excuse to be!
"Winter Winds" came to an end like the clatter of crashing icicles, and in the ensuing quiet Alenby noticed a repetitive sound that was part moan and part snort, snoring in other words, coming from the bulge of the outsize duvet on the other bunk. He remembered now--mixed in with all that nonsense about detoxification, they'd told him he had a cell-mate.
One final snore and the fellow woke and immediately started talking--volubly, in English with a nondescript European accent:
"Hello there! I'm 314159. Call me 31."
"Hello there, ah, 31," said Alenby. "I'm, uh--"
"271828. It's stamped on the back of your pajamas. So what are you in for, 27 old pony?"
"Tea. Assam. Purchase and possession of more than 99 grams of." Alenby was still peeved, but he tried to hide the feeling behind a manner contrived to be vaguely friendly.
"Assam tea!" 31 whistled admiringly. "Ancillary substance, frequently used to cut milk-- So you're a milkic! Flirting with CHAOS AND OUCH--Gaea-damn, that takes guts! Me, I'm in the creative promotion business. An interesting game, and lucrative too. But challenging--you have to be so-o-o careful to avoid naughty words! I'm in for a naughty word, you know. Just one lousy naughty word. Creating some promotional copy for Poilâne's natural healthy sourdough--a juicy opportunity to penetrate the Anglo-Saxon market. I realized I couldn't leave it out--the offending word, I mean. 'Poilâne' alone doesn't mean that much to Anglos...anyway, I conceived this jingle, got as far as
He Mrs Poilâne
She Mr Poilâne
We Miss Poilâne
Poilâne, the natural healthy sourdough
and just couldn't see how not to put in that naughty word at the end--"
"Bread?" Alenby burst out, "A naughty word? But surely that's ridiculous! Bread is the staff of life!"
The words had hardly passed his lips when he remembered the ban on advertising that explicitly names foods of low nutritive content--bread, of course, also tofu, pasta, potato chips, pizza, cola drinks.... Better watch those outbursts of irritation, he thought, or...but fortunately this 31 fellow doesn't seem to suspect anything extra-universal. Or Red Baronish....
"The staff of life--nice phrase, I could use that," 31 was saying. "'Poilâne, the natural healthy sourdough staff of life, mm-mm good!' A useful line, deceptive. Makes bread seem healthy, plenty of fiber.... The staff of life--uh, you own copyright, old horse?"
"The phrase is freely at your disposal," Alenby said, and he added: "Surely it is impediment enough to your artistic expression, to be required on pain of imprisonment, to refrain from explicit mention of its subject matter." Neatly put, he thought, smirking inwardly.
"Yes," said 31, "but I wouldn't use the word 'pain' to describe doing time in Prison Simone Weil. Fasting is rather pleasant, I find, at least after you serve a term or two and know what to expect. And a lot of people think the same way, judging by the numbers who show up to seek admission of their own volition.
"Speaking personally, old colt," he went on, "I've done that a couple of times--just shown up, I mean--and they let me in. I needed a break. It's a tough game, writing advertising for low-nutrient food. Those empty calories do little to satisfy the appetite. Yet you naturally consume a lot of the stuff--to keep the ideas popping--and the more you eat it the more you like it and the more you want. It's one of those feedback situations. Puts a strain on your system. You need the occasional period of total inactivity to shed that extra weight, shake off whatever CHAOS AND OUCH problems might threaten. And clear the old mind, of course--you have to be mentally sharp to come up with that plausible lie just at the right time. The plausible lie, that's disinformation at its best, the mark of excellence in the creative promotion game....
"Promotion," he went on after a pause, "that reminds me--it's nearly time for the PROFATPOL show on HV. In the men's common room. Hey, let's go!"
His brisk style of speech notwithstanding, 31 took his time getting up. First he sat up, wrapped himself closely in a duvet, and rested a while. His face had a blueish, chilled look to it, and his teeth chattered though the cell seemed cozy enough. After a week's fasting, he explained, you tend to feel cold all the time. And a bit feeble, too--even the simple act of standing up up can make you dizzy. You have to take it in easy stages.
Finally upright, he led the way downstairs, one step at a time, but still talking rapidly: "We always go down to the common room about this time anyway. Watch a game, have a few drinks. Distilled water only, of course, ha ha. Only today we'll watch the PROFATPOL show. It's a special episode--our doctor's HV début."
He explained that Dr Isador Bott, the popular new medic just arrived from America, had been tapped for a costar rôle in the ongoing PROFATPOL series. "Everyone's rooting for him. Everyone except Dr Aligoté. Can't blame her, though--she's overworked. For a start she's the prison super, plus she does the doctor's beat on the women's side. Double plus, she has to cover for Dr Bott while he's cavorting with celebs and making a name for himself on HV. So naturally she's--pissed, is that the correct expression? Yes, pissed....
"Off," he added as they joined the other inmates in front of the HV.
****
The PROFATPOL show had little to recommend it, in Alenby's opinion. The road-block scene was stogy, and the car chase, involving a suspect in a mid-fifties Maserati and PROFATPOL agents in a 1965 Peugeot 305, seemed rather amateurish. But it had one point of interest: the two lead parts were acted by precisely the two Americans one had noticed in Café Brűlante Afrique in Roissy! And the one doing Izu Botu, the Charley Chan type who accosted suspects with a handheld functional MRI device to read their criminal thoughts--was Dr Isador Bott of Prison Simone Weil....
Suddenly Alenby had an alarming thought: Had one been put in prison for observation, to substantiate suspicion that he was an alien, or worse still, that he was the Red Baron? Some PROFATPOL agent, perhaps Dr Isador Bott, might be watching him at this very moment....
2.1.2 Alenby in Conference with Dr Isador Bott
Doctors' Office, Prison Simone Weil, Richelieu
About 2 pm Friday 24 April 1987
"According to Dr Aligoté's notes," said Dr Isador Bott with a glance at the ultra-thin flat-screen hi-density monitor, "I see that upon arrival you exhibited early signs of CHAOS AND OUCH type degeneration. Most noticeable at this point is atherosclerosis, the chief manifestation being penile dysfunction. Also incipient obesity, incipient diabeties--the usual wages of a long-term substance ingestion habit. A couple of other things, plantar warts on both feet, chronic medication.... Chronic medication--well, no wonder you've suffered discomfort from detoxification."
"Yes," said Alenby, "detoxification's worse than the warts--"
"Quite so, Excellency, a maddening itch. Red spots all over, like hives. The result of the elimination of toxic products from medications, and also toxic products of the metabolism of food-like substances, and of growth hormones and antibiotic residues frequently present on such substances. Typical of inmates with your health background. Otherwise, I see you have been comfortable except for the preexisting plantar warts and the temporary inconveniences suffered by you and nearly all patients undergoing fasts: headache, weakness, dizziness, pain in the side of the sort frequently called a 'stitch,' sensation often described as like a frog jumping about your insides, mild nasal congestion, foul breath, tongue covered with a thick green or white malodorous paste of eliminated waste matter--"
"Yes," said Alenby, and throwing to the winds all precaution regarding his personal history, he added: "Why in the name of Gaea am I compelled to suffer these indignities? And without a shred of due process!"
There, he thought, I've torn it now. He's going to finger me for an alien--and the Red Baron to boot!
But the doctor's reaction was sympathetic. He agreed that the discomforts of fasting are substantial, but added that in the long run, a fast experienced under competent medical supervision nearly always proved beneficial.
"As to your question about due process," he went on, "you are right, we do indeed have a habeas corpus situation here. Where should we draw the line between individual freedom, and the greater good that might accrue to society that might result from curtailment of that freedom? That question has engaged thinkers for millennia, and needless to say I am not qualified to address it. I can say, however, that should you seek legal remedy, you will find that PROFATPOL lawyers will counter with a 'greater good' argument that has proved persuasive in courts of law. The greater good in question is the substantial freedom of our society from the monstrous evils of CHAOS AND OUCH and other diet-related health deficits. It is served by, among other measures, the confinement and rehabilitation of individuals such as yourself, who appear to have succumbed to the lure of illegal substances."
"Be that as it may," said Alenby with some heat, "the bloviations of a coterie of liberal lily-livered left-leaning liberal lawyers notwithstanding, surely you will concede that I deserve compensation for pain and suffering!"
The doctor agreed, but pointed out that Excellency had already received compensation for the inconveniences of his 14 days in prison in the form of improved health indicators: body weight down 20 pounds, blood pressure down to 90/60, blood cholesterol up 150 mg/dl--
"Excuse me, my good man," Alenby broke in. "Cholesterol up, you say? Surely that's unsafe!"
Dr Bott responded in soothing tones to the effect that while high cholesterol levels--including particularly high LDL levels--are unsafe in the long term, the temporary rise in the course of fasting is a sign that cholesterol and other plaque-forming materials is being taken up into the blood--a first step towards their elimination from the body with consequent improvement in the health of the circulatory system and eventual reduction in long-term blood cholesterol levels.
Warming to his subject, he continued at length to explain how, in fasting, the body scavenges cholesterol from atheromas, which are cholesterol-laden blood vessel blockages and potential blockages of a kind frequently associated with serious circulatory conditions such as fatal heart attack, penile impotence and the like. The atheromas shrink and disappear, and the scavenged cholesterol is carried away in the bloodstream for eventual consumption as fuel....
During this disquisition Alenby's attention faded and only returned in full force upon hearing the doctor say: "Now then, what about your plantar warts?"
Alenby exhibited the soles of his feet. No warts--they'd flaked off, apparently. Quite a coincidence, he thought.
2.1.3 Alenby Broadens his Horizons
Prison Simone Weil, Richelieu
12 noon Monday 27 April 1987
Before his incarceration in Prison Simone Weil, Alenby rarely thought of anything other than good food and good wine. Now, on his seventeenth day of subsistence on stored body fat and distilled water, his outlook had changed. Now he never--not rarely, but never--thought of anything other than food. Not good food and good wine--just food. Currently, for instance, as he lay prone on his bunk, headphones attached, listening to the scherzo of Beethoven's piano sonata Opus 31 No 3, he was titillated not so much by sound itself, as by its evocation of eating. Specifically, of eating bitter chocolate with toasted almonds.
The scherzo ended, his gustatory sensation faded. He took off his headphones and lay still, listening to the quiet breathing of his cell mate on the other bunk. Thanks be to Gaea, the fellow had stopped snoring. Everyone, it seemed, stopped snoring at some point in a prolonged fast. Something to do with the vibrations of the uvula, some said. Utter nonsense, of course....
His nose, preternaturally sensitive of late, picked up a delicate aroma. What could it be? He reeled through the associations: spaghetti, superbly cooked, just to the point where the pasta flops over your fork so you can roll it up neatly without it breaking. Spaghetti moistened with oil of olives from the groves of...yes, the groves of Maussane-les-Alpilles. With thin slices of toasted--lightly toasted--?
"Zucchini!" he said with a note of triumph.
"Zucchini!" repeated 31, startled awake under his duvets. "27 old colt, you sure have one sensitive snorkel. The kitchen-dining area is supposed to be sealed off so inmates aren't disturbed--I mean driven bonkers, is that the correct expression in English?--driven bonkers by cooking smells, and I sure can't pick it up. But I know they'll be cooking zucchini about now 'cause it's my day to start refeeding. Zucchini, boiled zucchini, it's always on the menu--it is the menu on the first day. Plenty of potassium to offset electrolyte imbalances some inmates develop after a few weeks fasting...."
He raised his upper body on his elbows and sniffed, and his lean features arranged themselves in a beatific expression of some scrawny saint catching a vision of heaven. "Whoo-hoo!" he exclaimed carefully, "Now I'm getting it in the nose. Boiled zucchini! Hey, how 'bout you come along, help me celebrate? I'll ask some of the others too--better get on it. It's at midi et demi--"
***
Alenby having accepted the invitation, joined in singing "Happy Refeeding," raised his glass of distilled water and said "bon appétit" at the proper moment, posed for a picture with the others grouped around an exuberant 31.
The ceremony was brief. The chairs were hard, and most of the attendees, having lost through ketosis a significant amount of buttocks padding, were eager to return to their comfortable bunks. But the outdoors was also attractive, for the day was warm and still, and an exultant 31 prevailed upon Alenby to accompany him on a stroll around the prison's exercise area, a patch of grass bordered by a circular walkway with a statue of Simone Weil at its center. They donned the hats and long coats provided for inmates with a yen for fresh air, and set off.
A few minutes into their ambulation, Alenby commented on another interesting aroma he was picking up.
31 smelled nothing. "27 old colt," he said, "you are some bec fin! It's not zucchini again, is it?"
"No, it's wine, a good Chardonnay--1982 Bâtard Montrachet comes to mind--but contaminated with some sort of chemical...."
"Oh, I wouldn't let that chem-lab pong worry you--everyone who's fasted for a weeks or so gets that off-putting nose in her first glass of wine. Fasting sets your taste and smell on hyper-sensitive, so you pick up all sorts of oddball flavors. Whatever it is will go away in a day or two after you resume your normal alcohol intake. That'll take a day, maybe two. A week tops. So what you're sniffing is most likely pure 100% what you just said--Bâtard Montrachet.
"Bâtard Montrachet," he repeated, suddenly thoughtful. "It could well be Bâtard Montrachet. That's the sort of stuff they drink over there--" As he said that he inclined his head in the direction of the next building, a fortress-like edifice just beyond a high barbed wire fence. "That's our sister institution, old colt. Behold, Prison Fernand Point!"
Fernand Point! Somewhere, in some universe, there may exist Francophile gourmets indifferent to the name Fernand Point, but Alenby was not one of them. The thought of the renowned chef's achievements--pigs feet in puff pastry Albert Lebrun, truffled Bresse chicken en vessie, sponge cake marjolaine--sent him into a paroxysm of nostalgia and anxious longing: oh that such treasures might yet exist in the dreary reality of Prohibition!
Observing Alenby's emotion, 31 hastened to comfort him. "Don't take it too hard, old horse" he urged. "We've all taken a hit from Prohibition, one way or another. But the history of our neighbor institution is a joyful one. If you're not familiar with it--"
Upon Alenby's gesture--go ahead, tell me your yarn if you must--the cell-mates sat down on a bench facing the statue of Simone Weil, stood up and rolled the tails of their overcoats to cushion their posteriors, and sat down again. Then 31 related his account of the history of Prison Fernand Point, the gist of which went as follows:
In the early twentieth century, scientists linked the consumption of milk and other food-like substances to a rising incidence of CHAOS AND OUCH. The United States reacted to this health emergency with a Constitutional amendment--Prohibition--and other nations followed suit.
Naturally enough, these measures met with difficulties of various sorts depending on the social contexts in which they were enacted. In France, a particularly awkward situation arose in 1927, shortly after passage of the Prohibition edict: Paris police of the newly formed PROFATPOL division raided the esteemed Academy of Gastronomes and arrested the entire membership just as they were starting on the plat de résistance of their regular Thursday 14-course luncheon at Maxim's--a repast that included the entire gamut of newly prohibited substances.
The question arose--what to do with this criminal crčme de la crčme? To put them in a regular prison seemed too harsh, yet the other extreme course, to let them off with mere fines, would make a mockery of the new law. The solution finally adopted was to confine the academicians in a special prison, equipped with kitchens and wine cellars of a caliber commensurate with the inmates' discriminating eating habits. Thus the Prison Fernand Point came into being, with the President of the Academy, His Extreme Lowness Monsieur Maurice Edmond Sailland, serving in the dual capacity of inmate and Superintendent.
"He's still there, as a matter of fact," said 31. "Monsieur Sailland, I mean, also known as Curnonsky. He must be a good age by now, around 115 at a guess. Most of the original Academicians have passed into the eternal cold, but Curnonsky is hanging in there. Goes on a tour of the hexagon twice a year, spring and autumn, to check on his suppliers, to keep them on their toes, keep them striving to match the traditional culinary standard upheld by the late Fernand Point. And that's some standard, you know....
Alenby nodded. He did know. And from that moment for the duration of his incarceration in Prison Simone Weil, the concept of a tour of the culinary hot spots of the hexagon filled his mind to the exclusion of all else.
2.1.3 Alenby Discharged
Doctors' Examination Room, Prison Simone Weil, Richelieu
About 10 am Monday 4 May 1987
She certainly runs a tight ship. This was Alenby's thought--his highly appreciative thought--as he resumed his own clothes after 30 days in pajamas Number 271828. He would certainly make that point when he filled out the inevitable questionnaire soliciting comments on the degree to which he'd enjoyed his stay at Prison Simone Weil. In fact, handling of personal effects had been excellent. Everything had been returned in good condition--shirt, socks and underclothes laundered, homberg brushed, jacket and slacks dry cleaned faultlessly, even though the workers could not have been familiar with so demanding a fabric as wool. To top it off they'd offered him, gratis, a new pair of pants to fit his reduced waist size--apparently part of a prison policy to boost departing offenders' self esteem and help them reintegrate themselves in law-abiding society. He'd declined the pants, however. The fit of his own slacks was naturally looser than before, but thanks to the precisely symmetrical alignment of suspender connections with creases, their hang was still perfect in a casual, don't-give-a-damn sort of way. He stood for a long moment side-on to the mirror, admiring his new line. Straighter than before, gratifyingly straighter. Not yet perfect, though. 31 was right, he'd need another misdemeanor term to hit his proper weight and shape....
He took his time over selecting a show handkerchief from among the several he habitually carried, folding it, stuffing it carelessly into the appropriate breast pocket of his Harris tweed jacket. Yellow was his color choice, a deep, creamy yellow. Yellow like butter, specifically Normandy butter, the kind they offer a generous slice of in Restaurant Greuze, in Tournus--that's in U of course. But color wasn't the main thing to his choice. It was more a matter of remembered texture, smooth, soft and slightly greasy to the touch--come to think of it much like the skin of the upper reaches of Dr Aligoté's agreeably plump thigh. Correction: make that Sidonie's agreeably plump thigh--of course they were on a first-names basis since she had demonstrated a personal interest in the recently improved functioning of one's pudendal artery....
But there was a discordant note--a label attached to the bag containing the medications he'd happened to be carrying at the time of his arrest: "Health Hazard: Do not use. Deposit in Toxic Waste Dump." Those words betrayed a disgracefully wasteful attitude, he thought, betraying a typical liberal laissais-faire big-spending attitude. It seemed he no longer needed his meds, but for some poor wretch in this benighted universe with its paucity of health products, they could prove a life saver! He resolved to make a particularly stern remark to this effect on the questionnaire.
***
Alenby strode out of the dimness of the prison into park like surrounds bathed in glittering spring sunshine. He perceived--to a preternatural degree, it seemed--the clarity and brilliance of light, gentle birdcalls, the faint rustling of the breeze in the treetops. He felt light, felt a spring in his step. He had lost muscle during his fast, mostly in the first few days, before ketosis kicked in, but now after refeeding and daily supervised workouts in the prison gym, he had gained back much of his strength.
Of course, not all was perfect. He was still overweight, Sidonie had told him--and he'd be welcome to come back for another fast--a fast, safe and pleasant way to bring his personal heft down to its proper level, about 145 pounds. And of course, to maintain health he should stick to a whole food, plant based diet. That meant avoiding all animal products and all refined foods, particularly those of little nutritional content, such as olive oil, bread, soy products and so on and so forth.
But his thoughts fluttered nonchalantly over those admonitions. His mind, his will, his entire being was focused on one grand project--a tour of France to sample the best of a culinary tradition predating Prohibition.
He had only a hazy idea how this project might be achieved, but he knew where and with whom it had to start. He bent his steps in the direction of Prison Fernand Point.