The Autograph Man

by Zadie Smith

  Li-Jin and his son don’t know, as they walk under the arch of the entrance, jittery with anticipation, that they are about to take part in the latest episode of a very long wake. But they are both sharp enough to note the incongruity between these massive engraved words—ARTS AND SCIENCES—and what they are about to see. In answer to his son’s question: “Well, Alex . . . I suppose it is an art. Beautiful movement. Graceful violence, this sort of thing. But also rather scientific—neck holds, trips. You need to time those things accurately, which is a kind of science, isn’t it?”

  Rubbish answer. Alex-Li screws up his nose, unsatisfied. “Well? Which is it, then, smarty-pants?”

  Li-Jin pauses for a moment at the threshold, waiting to hear a better answer.

  “Neither. It’s TV.”

  Which, of course, is the better answer.

  YHWH

  Inside, the hall has the feeling of potential revolution that fun fairs and theme parks have: children find themselves in charge, adults discover their own sheer functionality. The fathers have a harassed, dazed look, trailing behind their sons like dim pets, carrying what has been passed back or dropped near them. The fathers are silent. The boys are having a four-thousand-person conversation. It rings though the tiered seating, circles with the echo and descends with a roar, and Li-Jin’s inside it, searching for his seats, with three mismatched boys trailing behind him like a gaudy college scarf.

  It is a struggle, but Li-Jin gets his boys seated and settled in the end. He looks down to the stage, at that sad-looking empty square where pure space is under arrest, bound by rope three times over. He feels like he has not exhaled in half an hour. He is just about to when the fat man sitting next to him turns and, without any invitation, waves ten quid in his face and barks: “Fancy a flutter?”

  Li-Jin repeats it back to him, uncomprehending. His English is about as perfect as it can be, but some tricks of British idiom (“and there’s me thinking . . .”; “unbeknownst to her . . .”; “gone to the dogs”) still prove troublesome.

  The fat man is scornful. “Oh, come now,” he says, rolling the tenner into a cone and scratching his chin with it, “nothing heart-stopping. Simply this: Do. You. Fancy. A. Flutter.” He is so ugly. An alcoholic’s nose, broken-veined, a superfetation of carbuncles. Below this, a thick and dirty brush of a mustache. And he is persistent.

  “A small bet,” he explains, “You understand . . . to give the thing flavor.”

  Li-Jin says no thank you, explaining quickly that he “has a flutter, as you put it,” with his son, and gives a short, inadvertent, unmistakably Chinese bow in his seat, which ordinarily would make his son wince except he’s busy, hanging over the barrier with Rubinfine and Adam, spitting on people’s heads.

  The fat man frowns, unfurls the tenner and forces it into the pocket of his trousers, a difficult maneuver given his size.

  “Suit yourself.”

  Feeling awkward, Li-Jin does exactly that: he suits himself. He turns back to look at the stage. He bites at the nail of his right thumb. He chews the top right off it. What was that all about? It’s made him nervy for no reason. He looks at the stage. Now that bothers him too. It is very busy with the preparation of nothing. What are all these people doing? Why all this fuss? After all, what do you need to do except allow two men to walk onstage, fling off their cloaks, bend their heads low and grasp each other? And yet little blokes in baseball caps run from one end of the stage to the other, shouting instructions. Massive speakers are lifted and then set down again. A white-haired man in a jogging suit walks round and round the ring, tugging at the ropes with a look of absolute concentration. A boy sets a bucket down in a corner and spits in it. Why? After a while Li-Jin’s eyes wander involuntarily left. This is a mistake. He is just in time to see his neighbor’s massive lips turning a gruesome smile. The lips curl too close to the nose; the mustache is lifted; wide, uneven teeth are revealed—Li-Jin is disgusted and cannot hide it—and now the man thrusts out his hand, and says, “Klein. Herman Klein,” again too loudly, grinning like a gargoyle. Li-Jin reciprocates, politely, but keeps his body language closed, as you do. Trying not to invite conversation. But this Klein is a physical man who violates Li-Jin’s space without even trying, and before Li-Jin has a say in the matter, he has lunged forward to give one of those double-handed shakes in which Li-Jin’s comparatively small hand is completely swamped, coming out of the exchange pressed and damp. Klein releases him, snorts and rearranges his bulk in the seat, opening his legs and crossing his arms across his belly, satisfied, as if he has won some unspoken competition. Li-Jin cannot remember the last time he was so quickly and thoroughly intimidated by another man.

  “So!” says Klein, not looking at him at all now but up to the gods, where reckless children are craning over the balcony to get a better view. “Have you come from far? We are from Shepperton and now . . . well! Here we are. Well, well, well. Look at all this! And where are you coming from, Mr. Tandem?”

  Li-Jin can hear an accent—not English, certainly European, he can’t tell where from. In his time Klein has come further than Shepperton, that much is certain, just as Li-Jin has come further than Mountjoy, but these conversations require a certain shorthand. So Li-Jin describes their journey, which in truth wasn’t so very bad once they were free of Mountjoy itself, though he makes it longer and harder in the retelling. He has found that men in England prefer it that way. Traffic, ring roads, pile-ups and the rest. But as he speaks, it becomes clear to Li-Jin that this man Klein will not follow the simple rules that govern such a conversation, Two Men, Unrelated by Blood, at a Sporting Event in England, a conversation which, in its etymological roots, is a close cousin of Two Men, Unrelated by Blood, in a Dress Shop Waiting for Their Wives to Emerge from Changing Rooms. Just nod; just match anecdote for anecdote. But Klein makes no response. Only when Li-Jin finds his tongue fat and dull in his mouth does Klein abruptly become animated once more.

  “Like a good fight, do you, Tandem? Do you? Been before? The thing about wrestling is this: physicality. Don’t let any fool tell you different. Brawn. Muscle. Sweat. Titans!” This last word is rendered so loudly that Li-Jin concurs without meaning to; his head just wobbles assent like a wind chime. Meanwhile, the head of this man Klein drops without warning, his big rheumy eyes settle on the buckle of his own belt. Li-Jin wonders whether the man is actually all right in a medical way, you know, all right in the head. Maybe he should announce his qualifications. But then Klein returns like an animal that burrows for something and comes back with what it wanted.

  “For myself, I work in the fancy-goods business. Gifts. Leathers. Bags. Jewelry. Small, fairly priced luxuries for ladies. Now, here is a fact: Ladies buy eighty percent of all the things that are bought on this earth, did you know that? Yes, my friend. They are the engine that drives the cogs to turn and turn. My father was a butcher and never knew where the smart money goes, but let me tell you, Tandem, I know. I have a small boutique in Knightsbridge. We get a better class of clientele—people whose names you would know if I told them to you! Famous! But no matter. And this is Klein the younger,” says Klein the elder, and, for the first time since the conversation began, Li-Jin spots a small dangling foot clad in a shiny black shoe, two seats along. Putting his hand behind the tiny boy’s back, Klein pushes the child into view, beyond the shadow of his own ripe stomach.

  “My son, Joseph. And this, in a nutshell, is why we are here. Little Joseph needs to see Titans. Too many hobbies and not enough physical pursuits. Let these men be an example to him! It is my opinion that Joseph is too much of a little weed.”

  Li-Jin opens his mouth to protest, but—

  “Weed! He’s a weed! A little weeeeed . . .”

  Klein says this in a slimy falsetto, hiding his pupils somewhere in the back of his head, batting his stubby eyelashes and tinkling the air either side of himself like a man playing upon two invisible keyboards. Li-Jin is instantly repulsed. He sees Alex, who has just spotted Klein, recoil in his seat. A
gainst his nobler instincts, he wishes the man a million miles away from himself and Alex and the boys, away from anything he might pollute—not to mention this sad-looking child, Joseph Klein.

  “To be great,” says Klein, dropping his hands, “you need to see greatness. Experience it. Be near it. He who lies down with the dogs gets up with fleas!”

  “Yes. Yes, I suppose that’s right,” says Li-Jin slowly. He makes a point of looking kindly at the child, who has terror stamped on his delicate, pinched features. A boy like that should be blond by rights, but Joseph is a swarthy little thing, his hair black like an Indian’s, his big eyes darker than that. His ears are pointy. Li-Jin smiles firmly at him and lays his hand on his own son’s knee.

  “Joseph, this is my Alex. And he’s here with friends. You boys should probably all sit next to each other. You might find you have things in common.”

  The boy looks horrified. Li-Jin tries to retract.

  “I mean . . . of course, I suppose Alex is quite a bit older than you. And Ru—Mark certainly will be. Mark, stop that. The spitting. Stop it.”

  “HOW OLD?”

  Klein the elder wants to know. He lunges towards Alex once more, index finger raised in the air, twitching. Alex shrugs and tells Klein that he is twelve, like what’s the big deal, but Klein laughs at this, tears squeezing out of the corners of his eyes. He pokes his son a few times in the ribs in what looks to Li-Jin like a painful manner.

  “Ha! Twelve! Joseph is thirteen! Didn’t I tell you he’s a weed? Small when he popped out and small to this day. At the time, I said to his mother: I could tear him apart like a fish! Send him back! Get another one! Ha! You want to know something? He chews his food twenty times a bite, thinking it will build him up. He read it somewhere. Fat bloody chance! Ha ha! Hey you!” Klein has spotted an ice cream seller two rows below and, lifting himself out of his seat, leans forward until the iron-rail barrier that rings their seats is impaling his belly.

  “Hey you down there! Don’t you want to know what I want?”

  “I collect things,” says Joseph Klein in a tiny voice.

  “What’s that?” asks Li-Jin, leaning towards him. He is not sure he heard right, and now Klein the elder is huffing and puffing in an effort to get out of his seat and push past them all (“Who do they make these seats for? Are they for the Munchkin people?”), so as to get to the end of the aisle and down towards the ice cream. Nimbly, Joseph bounces from his own seat into the one his father has just vacated.

  “Things, stuff. Autographs sometimes,” says Joseph, very quickly. It feels like he has a lot to say and no time. “I collect stuff from things that I like and then I keep them. In albums. I file them. I find it extremely worthwhile.”

  Jesus. Alex smiles openly, but Rubinfine, to his credit, does not turn to Adam open-mouthed, screw his finger into his forehead or repeat the last sentence through a tongue obstruction, although this would be standard procedure as set out in The Code of Being Fifteen and he is well within his rights given the scale (“extremely worthwhile”?) of the offense. Instead he just opens his mouth and closes it again, partly because Li-Jin’s look says, No, not today, and besides, even for Rubinfine, there is no sport to be had in stepping on what is truly small and beetle-like.

  “That sounds . . . fun,” says Li-Jin.

  “Just anything,” asks Alex, trying his best, “or . . . ? Sort of types of things?”

  Li-Jin smiles. Now, that’s better. Normally, if Alex doesn’t like the neighbor’s boy, because of a squint, maybe, or a lisp, or if he fears the sunburnt, freckled devil who squats opposite him on the tennis court, shifting his weight from foot to foot in that ominous way, well, Li-Jin will not interfere. They have much the same taste in boys, he and Alex. Sports fanatics are no good. Neither of them can find real sympathy for a certain type of fat-faced redhead with running nose and broken skin. They hate show-offs. But sometimes their guts tell them different things, and that’s what happening now. Li-Jin’s gut is saying, Yes, we like him, while Alex’s is in two minds, if such a thing can be said of a gut. “So, er . . .” he says, pouting, pushing his messy fringe back off his face, “do you just collect programs from things or something?”

  Now Joseph opens his mouth to explain, but first he makes himself neat in his seat, crosses his little legs, straightens his spine.

  “Famous things,” he says, carefully, giving equal weight to each word. “That’s why I’m here. I like wrestling. I’m a wrestling fan.”

  Li-Jin has seen it before. Rich Hong Kong children in uncomfortable suits called up to the edge of the adults’ dinner table and asked to explain themselves for the benefit of guests: interests, achievements, hopes for the future. Joseph is like this. There is nothing natural about him.

  “One of my collections,” he says, “is called European Wrestlers, except now there’s Kurutawa so I may have to change the name.”

  “Okay,” says Li-Jin. “That’s very interesting. Alex, that’s interesting, isn’t it.”

  And straight after he says this, the five of them sit in silence for too long.

  “He started off doing sumo, Kurutawa,” says Adam, eventually, to help things along, “He’s Japanese.”

  Joseph’s face is all gratitude. “Yes, from Japan! He’s been in Yorkshire now for six months and doesn’t like the food much. And in the magazine it said Who would? You see, because—because—the food tastes awful there, apparently. He doesn’t need any more food though, because he’s a man mountain. He comes from Tokyo. I’ve got a signed picture. Of course, if there was more than just him, that would be better. I could have an album and call it Japanese Wrestlers. But it’s a bit irritating. When it’s just him.”

  “Who else you bloody got, then?”

  This is Rubinfine, who wants a fight these days every day, whether he really wants one or not, because of hormones.

  “Well, that depends in what area.”

  “Say, what?”

  “All right,” says Joseph. “What.” And then a little sneaky smile. It’s not a good joke but it’s still a joke, and that’s a good sign. Alex laughs and that seems to make Joseph relax. He starts to talk.

  “I have an English Politicians folder, a Foreign Dignitaries folder—that is my main area—and then Olympians, Inventors, TV Personalities, Weathermen, Nobel Prize Winners, Writers, Lepidopterists, Entomologists, Movie Actors, Scientists, Assassins and the Assassinated, Singers—Opera and Popular, Composers—”

  Rubinfine puts his hand up: “Hold on, hold on, did somebody ask for your life story or something?”

  Li-Jin slaps Rubinfine’s hand down. This is back in the days when you could still hit other people’s children.

  “Okay, okay—which film stars?”

  “Cary Grant.”

  “Who?”

  “And Betty Grable.”

  “Who times two?”

  Li-Jin tries to weigh in with a brief account of forties American cinema, but Rubinfine shouts him down.

  “No, no, no—I mean somebody good.”

  “Mark Hamill?”

  And that shuts up Rubinfine.

  “That’s not really the strongest part of my collection, actors,” begins Joseph cautiously, addressing Li-Jin now. “So many of them when you write to them just send you back secretarials or imprinted things or Autopen stuff, and it’s very hard to get in-person items.”

  “I see,” says Li-Jin. He has no idea what the boy’s talking about. “That’s interesting.”

  “YAWN,” says Rubinfine, yawning.

  “And also, they are not worth as much as you would think.”

  “You make money?” asks Adam, bug-eyed. If you make money and you’re under sixteen, as far as Adam is concerned you approach divinity.

  And then the boy says, “Oh yes . . . Philography’s very lucrative.”

  Alex: “Philawho?”

  “It’s the word for autograph collecting,” says Joseph, and it’s clear he isn’t saying this to impress. No, he just wants to tell some
one. Still, it’s hard to forgive him for it, and Rubinfine won’t, ever. He suggests that everything Joseph has is worth four pee. He goes on to bet him this same four pee that his collection is actually worth less than four pee. Which is when Joseph seemingly without malice explains that he has an Albert Einstein worth three thousand pounds.

  And that shuts up Rubinfine.

  Alex: “Really? Einstein?”

  “My uncle Tobias met him in America so it’s in-person and it’s signed to the lighter portion of the photograph and he was kind enough to also write down his super-famous equation next to it, which is where the money is, you see, in the content. But I wouldn’t sell it any more than I would sell my own arm.”

  “Einstein-Shminestein,” says Rubinfine. “When’s this match going to start? Bored of all this ugging around.”

  But Alex wants to know. Why not? Why wouldn’t somebody sell something worth three thousand pounds? Like, unless they were crazy?

  “Because it’s in my most precious folder.”

  “And what’s that?” asks Li-Jin, because you have to drag everything out of this boy.

  “My Judaica.”

  “Your what?”

  Maybe for the first time in his life Alex-Li is physically on a seat and truly perched on the edge of it, really wanting to know something.

  “My folder of Jewish things.”

  “We’re Jewish!” Adam pipes up in that merry way he will lose in about three years.

  Exclusive province of childhood: a time when genetic/cultural inheritance feels like this weird but cool thing you just got landed with, like an extra shoe. Hey, check this out, Tom! I’m Eurasian! Whoa, I’m a Maori! Look, no hands!

  “Me, I am, and Rubinfine is, and Alex. We go to cheder together.”

  But Alex doesn’t want to be sidetracked.

  “And what else is in it? In the Jewish folder.”

  “Nothing.”

  But he doesn’t mean nothing, he means “Here comes my father,” which Alex picks up on immediately but Li-Jin completely fails to get.