Manticore

by Robertson Davies

  —If you really want to know, we called you Buggerlugs. Because of your habit of digging in your ear with your little finger, you know.

  —Really? Well, I don’t think I like that much. You’d better call me Ramsay, like Liesl.

  —I notice she generally calls you “dear Ramsay.”

  —Yes; we’re rather close friends. More than that, for a while. Does that surprise you?

  —You’ve just said I’m an experienced criminal lawyer; nothing surprises me.

  —Never say that, Davey. Never, never say that. Especially not at Sorgenfrei.

  —You yourself just said it was an extraordinary house.

  —Oh, quite so. Rather a marvel, in its peculiar style. But that wasn’t precisely what I meant.

  We were interrupted by Liesl, who appeared through a door which I had not noticed because it is one of those nineteenth-century affairs, fitted close into the bookshelves and covered with false book-backs, so that it can hardly be seen. She was wearing something very like a man’s evening suit, made in dark velvet, and looked remarkably elegant. I was beginning not to notice her Gorgon face. Ramsay turned to her rather anxiously, I thought.

  —Is himself joining us at dinner tonight?

  —I think so. Why do you ask?

  —I just wondered when Davey would meet him.

  —Don’t fuss, dear Ramsay. It’s a sign of age, and you are not old. Look, Davey, have you ever seen a chess-board like this?

  Liesl began to explain the rules of playing what is, in effect, a single game of chess, but on five boards at once and with five sets of men. The first necessity, it appears, is to dismiss all ideas of the normal game, and to school oneself to think both horizontally and laterally at the same time. I, who could play chess pretty well but had never beaten Pargetter, was baffled—so much so that I did not notice anyone else entering the room, and I started when a voice behind me said:

  —When am I to be introduced to Mr Staunton?

  The man who spoke was surprising enough in himself, for he was a most elegant little man with a magnificent head of curling silver hair, and the evening dress he wore ended not in trousers, but in satin knee-breeches and silk stockings. But I knew him at once as Eisengrim, the conjuror, the illusionist, whom I had twice seen in Toronto at the Royal Alexandra Theatre, the last time when I was drunk and distraught, and shouted at the Brazen Head, “Who killed Boy Staunton?” Social custom is ground into our bones, and I put out my hand to shake his. He spoke:

  —I see you recognize me. Well, are the police still trying to involve me in the murder of your father? They were very persistent. They even traced me to Copenhagen. But they had nothing to go on. Except that I seemed to know rather more about it than they did, and they put all sorts of fanciful interpretations on some improvised words of Liesl’s. How pleasant to meet you. We must talk the whole thing over.

  No point in reporting in detail what followed. How right Ramsay was! Never say you can’t be surprised. But what was I to do? I was confronted by a man whom I despised and even hated when last I saw him, and his opening remarks to me were designed to be disconcerting if not downright quarrel-picking. But I was not the same man who shouted his question in the theatre; after a year with Dr Johanna I was a very different fellow. If Eisengrim was cool, I would be cooler. I have delicately slain and devoured many an impudent witness in the courts, and I am not to be bamboozled by a mountebank. I think my behaviour was a credit to Dr Johanna, and to Pargetter; I saw admiration in Ramsay’s face, and Liesl made no attempt to conceal her pleasure at a situation that seemed to be entirely to her taste.

  We went in to dinner, which was an excellent meal and not at all in the excessive style of the house. There was plenty of good wine, and cognac afterward, but I knew myself well enough to be sparing with it, and once again I could see that Ramsay and Liesl were watching me closely and pleased by what I did. There was none of that English pretence that serious things should not be discussed while eating, and we talked of nothing but my father’s murder and what followed it, his will and what sprang from that, and what Denyse, and Carol, and Netty and the world in general—so far as the world in general paid any attention—had thought and said about it.

  It was a trial and a triumph for me, because since I came to Zürich I have spoken to nobody of these things except Dr Johanna, and then in the most subjective terms possible. But tonight I found myself able to be comparatively objective, even when Liesl snorted with rude laughter at Denyse’s antics with the death-mask. Ramsay was sympathetic, but he laughed when I said that Father had left some money for my non-existent children. His comment was:

  —I don’t believe you ever knew what a sore touch it was with Boy that you were such a Joseph about women. He felt it put him in the wrong. He always felt that the best possible favour you could do a woman was to push her into bed. He simply could not understand that there are men for whom sex is not the greatest of indoor and outdoor sports, hobbies, arts, sciences, and food for reverie. I always felt that his preoccupation with women was an extension of his miraculous touch with sugar and sweetstuffs. Women were the most delightful confectioneries he knew, and he couldn’t understand anybody who hadn’t a sweet tooth.

  —I wonder what your father would have made of a woman like Jo von Haller?

  —Women of that kind never came into Boy’s ken, Liesl. Or women like you, for that matter. His notion of an intelligent woman was Denyse.

  I found it still pained me to hear Father talked of in this objective strain, so I tried to turn the conversation.

  —I suppose all but a tiny part of life lies outside anybody’s ken, and we all get shocks and starts, now and then. For instance, who would have supposed that after such a long diversion through Dr von Haller’s consulting-room I should meet you three by chance? There’s a coincidence, if you like.

  But Ramsay wouldn’t allow that to pass.

  —As an historian, I simply don’t believe in coincidence. Only very rigid minds do. Rationalists talk about a pattern they can see and approve as logical; any pattern they can’t see and wouldn’t approve they dismiss as coincidental. I suppose you had to meet us, for some reason. A good one, I hope.

  Eisengrim was interested but supercilious; after dinner he and Liesl played the complex chess game. I watched for a while, but I could make nothing of what they were doing, so I sat by the fire and talked with Ramsay. Of course I was dying to know how he came to be part of this queer household, but Dr von Haller has made me more discreet than I used to be about cross-examining in private life. That suggestion that he and Liesl had once been lovers—could it be? I probed, very, very gently. But I had once been Buggerlugs’ pupil, and I still feel he can see right through me. Obviously he did, but he was in a mood to reveal, and like a man throwing crumbs to a bird he let me know:

  1. That he had known Eisengrim from childhood.

  2. That Eisengrim came from the same village as Father and himself, and Mother—my Deptford.

  3. That Eisengrim’s mother had been a dominant figure in his own life. He spoke of her as “saintly,” which puzzles me. Wouldn’t Netty have mentioned somebody like that?

  4. That he met Liesl travelling with Eisengrim in Mexico and that they had discovered an “affinity” (his funny, old-fashioned word) which existed still.

  5. When we veered back to the coincidence of my meeting them in St Gall, he laughed and quoted G. K. Chesterton: “Coincidences are a spiritual sort of puns.”

  He has, it appears, come to Switzerland to recuperate himself after his heart attack, and seems likely to stay here. He is working on another book—something about faith as it relates to myth, which is his old subject—and appears perfectly content. This is not a bad haul, and gives me encouragement for further fishing.

  Eisengrim affects royal airs. Everything suggests that this is Liesl’s house, but he seems to regard himself as the regulator of manners in it. After they adjourned their game (I gather it takes days to complete), he rose, and I was
astonished to see that Liesl and Ramsay rose as well, so I followed suit. He shook us all by the hand, and bade us goodnight with the style of a crowned head taking leave of courtiers. He had an air of You-people-are-welcome-to-sit-up-as-long-as-you-please-but-We-are-retiring, and it was pretty obvious he thought the tone of the gathering would drop when he left the room.

  Not so. We all seemed much easier. The huge library, where the curtains had now been drawn to shut out the night sky and the mountaintops and the few lights that shone far below us, was made almost cosy by his going. Liesl produced whisky, and I thought I might allow myself one good drink. It was she who brought up what was foremost in my mind.

  —I assure you, Davey, there is nothing premeditated about this. Of course when we met in the bookshop I knew you must be the son of the man who died so spectacularly when Eisengrim was last in Toronto, but I had no notion of the circumstances.

  —Were you in Toronto with him?

  —Certainly. We have been business partners and artistic associates for a long time. I am his manager or impresario or whatever you want to call it. On the programs I use another name, but I assure you I am very much present. I am the voice of the Brazen Head.

  —Then it was you who gave that extraordinary answer to my question?

  —What question are you talking about?

  —Don’t you recall that Saturday night in the theatre when somebody called out, “Who killed Boy Staunton?”

  —I remember it very clearly. It was a challenge, you may suppose, coming suddenly like that. We usually had warning of the questions the Head might have to answer. But was it you who asked the question?

  —Yes, but I didn’t hear all of your answer.

  —No; there was confusion. Poor Ramsay here was standing at the back of an upstairs box, and that was when he had his heart attack. And I think a great many people were startled when he fell forward into sight. Of course there were others who thought it was part of the show. It was a memorable night.

  —But do you remember what you said?

  —Perfectly. I said: “He was killed by the usual cabal: by himself, first of all; by the woman he knew; by the woman he did not know; by the man who granted his inmost wish; and by the inevitable fifth, who was keeper of his conscience and keeper of the stone.”

  —I don’t suppose it is unreasonable of me to ask for an explanation of that rigmarole?

  —Not unreasonable at all, and I hope you get an answer that satisfies you. But not tonight. Dear Ramsay is looking a little pale, and I think I should see him to bed. But there is plenty of time. I know you will take care that we talk of this again.

  And with that I have to be contented at least until tomorrow.

  >> >> >> >> << << << <<

  Dec. 21, Sun.: This morn. Liesl took me on a tour of the house, which was apparently built in 1824 by some forbear who had made money in the watch-and-clock business. The entrance hall is dominated by what I suppose was his masterpiece, for it has dials to show seconds, days of the week, days of the months, the months, the seasons, the signs of the zodiac, the time at Sorgenfrei and the time at Greenwich, and the phases of the moon. It has a chime of thirty-seven bells, which play a variety of tunes, and is ornamented with figures of Day and Night, the Seasons, two heads of Time, and God knows what else, all in fine verd-antique. Monstrous but fascinating, like Liesl, and she seems to love it. As we wandered through the house and climbed unexpected stair-cases and looked at the bewildering views from cunningly placed windows, I did my best to bring the conversation to the strange words of the Brazen Head about Father’s death, but Liesl knows every trick of evasion, and in her own house I could not nail her down as I might in court. But she did say one or two things:

  —You must not interpret too closely. Remember that I, speaking for the Head, had no time—not even ten seconds—to reflect. So I gave a perfectly ordinary answer, like any experienced fortune-teller. You know there are always things that fit almost any enquirer: you say those things and they will do the interpreting. “The woman he knew—the woman he did not know.”… From what I know now, which is only what Ramsay has told me at one time or another, I would have said the woman he knew was your mother, and the woman he did not know was your stepmother. He felt guilty about your mother, and the second time he married a woman who was far stronger than he had understood. But I gather from the terrible fuss your stepmother made that she thought she must be the woman he knew, and was very angry at the idea that she had any part in bringing about his death…. I really can’t tell you any more than that about why I spoke as I did. I have a tiny gift in this sort of thing; that was why Eisengrim trusted me to speak for the Head; maybe I sensed something—because one does, you know, if one permits it. But don’t brood on it and try to make too much of it. Let it go.

  —My training has not been to let things go.

  —But Davey, your training and the way you have used yourself have brought you at last to Zürich for an analysis. I’m sure Jo von Haller, who is really excellent, though not at all my style, has made you see that. Are you going to do more work with her?

  —That’s a decision I must make.

  —Well, don’t be in a hurry to say you will.

  Went for a long walk alone this afternoon, and thought about Liesl’s advice.

  This eve. after dinner Eisengrim showed us some home-movies of himself doing things with coins and cards. New illusions, it seems, for a tour they begin early in January. He is superb, and knows it. What an egotist! And only a conjuror, after all. Who gives a damn? Who needs conjurors? Yet I am unpleasantly conscious of a link between Eisengrim and myself. He wants people to be in awe of him, and at a distance: so do I.

  >> >> >> >> << << << <<

  Dec. 22, Mon.: I suppose Eisengrim sensed my boredom and disgust last night, because he hunted me up after breakfast and took me to see his workrooms, which are the old stables of Sorgenfrei; full of the paraphernalia of his illusions, and with very fine workbenches, at one of which Liesl was busy with a jeweller’s magnifying-glass stuck in her eye…. “You didn’t know I had the family knack of clockwork, did you?” she said. But Eisengrim wanted to talk himself:

  —You don’t think much of me, Staunton? Don’t deny it; it is part of my profession to sniff people’s thoughts. Well, fair enough. But I like you, and I should like you to like me. I am an egotist, of course. Indeed, I am a great egotist and a very unusual one, because I know what I am and I like it. Why not? If you knew my history, you would understand, I think. But you see that is just what I don’t want, or ask for. So many people twitter through life crying, “Understand me! Oh, please understand me! To know all is to forgive all!” But you see I don’t care about being understood, and I don’t ask to be forgiven. Have you read the book about me?

  (I have read it, because it is the only book in my bedroom, and so obviously laid out on the bedside table that it seems an obligation of the household to read the thing. I had seen it before; Father bought a copy for Lorene the first time we went to see Eisengrim, on her birthday. Phantasmata: the Life and Adventures of Magnus Eisengrim. Shortish; about 120 pages. But what a fairy-tale! Strange birth to distinguished Lithuanian parents, political exiles from Poland; infancy in the Arctic, where father was working on a secret scientific project (for Russia, it was implied, but because of his high lineage the Russians did not want to acknowledge the association); recognition of little Magnus by an Eskimo shaman as a child of strange gifts; little Magnus, between the ages of four and eight, learns arts of divination and hypnosis from the shaman and his colleagues. Father’s Arctic work completed and he goes off to do something similar in the dead centre of Australia (because it is implied that father, the Lithuanian genius, is some sort of extremely advanced meteorological expert) and there little Magnus is taught by a tutor who is a great savant, who has to keep away from civilization for a while because he has done something dreadfully naughty. Little Magnus, after puberty, is irresistible to women, but he is obliged to be careful abo
ut this as the shaman had warned him women would disagree with his delicately balanced nerves. Nevertheless, great romances are hinted at; a generous gobbet of sadism spiced with pornography here. Having sipped, and rejected with contumely the learning of several great universities, Magnus Eisengrim determines to devote his life to the noble, misunderstood science which he first encountered in the Arctic, and which claimed him for its own…. And this is supposed to explain why he is travelling around with a magic show. A very good magic show, but still—a travelling showman.)

  —Is one expected to take it seriously?

  —I think it deserves to be taken more seriously than most biographies and autobiographies. You know what they are. The polished surface of a life. What the Zürich analysts call the Persona—the mask. Now, Phantasmata says what it is quite frankly in its title; it is an illusion, a vision. Which is what I am, and because I am such a thoroughly satisfactory illusion, and because I satisfy a hunger that almost everybody has for marvels, the book is a far truer account of me than ordinary biographies, which do not admit that their intent is to deceive and are woefully lacking in poetry. The book is extremely well written, don’t you think?

  —Yes. I was surprised. Did you write it?

  —Ramsay wrote it. He has written so much about saints and marvels, Liesl and I thought he was the ideal man to provide the right sort of life for me.

  —But you admit it is a pack of lies?

  —It is not a police-court record. But as I have already said, it is truer to the essence of my life than the dowdy facts could ever be. Do you understand? I am what I have made myself—the greatest illusionist since Moses and Aaron. Do the facts suggest or explain what I am? No: but Ramsay’s book does. I am truly Magnus Eisengrim. The illusion, the lie, is a Canadian called Paul Dempster. If you want to know his story, ask Ramsay. He knows, and he might tell. Or he might not.