Harlot's Ghost

by Norman Mailer

  Kittredge stood up. She took a step toward the stage but Hugh gave a nod to me, and we managed to escort her outside. “Come back, lady,” cried Lenny, “or you’ll miss the circumcision.”

  Hugh turned and said, “Contemptible!” We walked out. Kittredge was weeping. Then she was laughing. For the first time, I was truly aware of the size of her belly.

  “I hate you, Hugh,” she said. “I was going to smack his filthy mouth.”

  We drove back to the canal house in silence. Once inside, Kittredge sat down in a chair and placed her hands on her stomach. The spots of red remained on her cheeks.

  “Are you all right?” asked Hugh.

  “I’ve never felt such anger. I hope it didn’t pass through to the child.”

  “No telling,” said Hugh.

  “Why didn’t you let me hit him?” she asked.

  “I didn’t want it to end up in the newspapers.”

  “I couldn’t care less.”

  “Once you saw what they did with it, you would have cared.”

  She was silent.

  “Newspapermen,” said Hugh, “are swine. I think I saw a few of them in the place paying homage to your comic genius.”

  “How do you know they were press?” Kittredge asked.

  “Some people offer that look. I tell you, there’s an abominable culture breeding away in God knows what sort of filthy dish. And Mr. Lenny Bruce is their little microbe.”

  “You should have let me at him.”

  “Kittredge,” said Montague, “I am trying to hold the world together, not help to pull it apart.”

  “Do you know,” said Kittredge, “I thought if I could beat that dreadful man with my handbag, I would knock something back into place. I haven’t felt so awful since that damned ghost this summer.”

  “What?” I asked. “What ghost? At the Keep?”

  “Yes, there,” she said. “Something. I know he wanted to bother my baby.”

  “Harry, have you ever heard of a history of visitants on the island?” Hugh now asked.

  “Well, there used to be talk about a kind of phantom, an old pirate named Augustus Farr, but we used to laugh about that. My cousin Colton Shaler Hubbard’s father, Hadlock, told us that the creature went dormant about a hundred years ago.”

  I had intended this to have its humor, but Kittredge said, “Augustus Farr,” and seemed to be holding off some near-involuntary tremor. “That’s just the name to fit my awful night.”

  I was thinking of Dr. Gardiner and his bloody Elizabethan stumps. That had probably been sufficient to stir some poor shade.

  “I don’t care if this gets the baby stinko,” said Kittredge, “I’m going to have a drink. I need to banish Mr. Bruce.”

  6

  TEN DAYS LATER, I WENT TO URUGUAY ON A PAN AMERICAN DOUGLAS Super-6, a four-motor propeller job that left New York a half hour before noon, reached Caracas by evening, and Rio de Janeiro in the morning. I didn’t touch down at Montevideo until mid-afternoon. Flying through the night, I spent my nocturnal hours brooding once again upon themes imparted by Harlot. I was beginning to believe that long trips in the dark were the medium best suited for reviewing his precepts.

  My final Thursday had been a Low, but Montague chose that day to give us his treasured lecture on Feliks Edmundovitch Dzerzhinsky. Toward the end, he said a few things that kept my mind close to the subject for a long time afterward. Let me offer, then, something of the last Thursday I was to enjoy with Harlot for a number of years.

  In repayment, perhaps, for his acerbity on the last High Thursday, Mr. Dulles broke precedent by making the opening remarks himself. “What you will hear today,” he told us, “is tricky stuff, but invaluable. From Marx on down, Marxists do not give much credit to the individual as a vital factor in the making of history. Nonetheless, the amusing aspect of their Marxism, if you permit me to apply the word to so overbearing and unpleasant a philosophy, is that Communists are always wrong at the critical moment. When we have to listen to an awfully vain tenor who can never hit his high note, we do grow fond of him after a time. His very inability finally offers the dependable pleasure. So it is with Marx and the Communists. The infallible Karl was wrong in his prediction that revolution would come first to the most advanced industrial nations, and was proved wrong again when the contradictions of capitalism did not prove fatal. Marx failed to see that business enterprise has to be considered in the light of its noun—enterprise! Business is merely the qualifier. That is because free enterprise puts the entrepreneur into a position of peril. He not only gambles with his economic substance but, more importantly, with his moral worth. Given the temptations of greed, a capitalist has to take his chances on Heaven or Hell! That is a lot of enterprise! Marx, contemptuous of the Judeo-Christian ethic, was insensitive to the importance of the individual conscience. His real desire was to get the individual out of history and substitute impersonal forces. It required the evil genius of Lenin, the most determined Communistic human being we encounter in this century, to prove Marx wrong, since there would have been no Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 without the individual named Lenin.

  “Soon after, he was followed by another evil artist. In the middle of a large square in Moscow stands a statue of Feliks Edmundovitch Dzerzhinsky. There he perches on his thin legs right in front of the Lubyanka. The square is named after him. How fitting! Founder of the Cheka, Feliks Dzerzhinsky is also the intellectual godfather of the KGB. Those skills in intelligence for which the Soviets are renowned take their inspiration from him, I concur with Hugh Montague. Dzerzhinsky is not only the first genius of our profession, but, like Lenin, is there to remind us that the most powerful element for change in history is still one great and inspired man, be he good or evil. My dear colleague Montague, who is as clever as could be, is going to talk today about this man, this genius of our profession. I was here for the same lecture last year, and can tell you, I enjoyed it so much, I’m back again. Hugh, it’s yours.”

  “Thank you,” said Harlot. He paused to draw us in. “Dzerzhinsky’s life covers a gamut of experience. The son of a Polish nobleman, he became, in the period before the Revolution, a leading Bolshevik. In consequence, he spent eleven years in Siberian mines as a political prisoner of the czar, and emerged with a tubercular cough. He spoke in a whisper. He assumed he would not have long to live. For this reason, perhaps, he was without fear, and during the chaos of 1917 and 1918, Lenin chose him to create an internal security force, the Cheka. In the Civil War that followed the Bolshevik Revolution, Dzerzhinsky unleashed the first Soviet terror. On principle, the Cheka would shoot ten innocent people before they would allow one guilty man to escape.

  “Such feats belong to the abattoir. Dzerzhinsky’s true vocation, counterespionage, evolved only after the Reds won the Civil War. By 1921, the Soviet government was trying to govern a fearfully backward, war-ravaged, crippled, half-shattered nation. Tumultuous disorder was Lenin’s inheritance from victory. To govern at all, the Reds had to employ many former czarist officials. They happened to be the only people with enough experience to man the administrative desks. This meant that White Russian emigrés had no difficulty in placing their spies throughout the Red ministries. Indeed, it was not even feasible for Dzerzhinsky to pluck them out. The machinery of government would have come to a standstill. So they stayed in place—ex-czarist officials pretending to be Red, but remaining White within. Rediski—the word for radishes—became the term to describe these noble folk dedicated to bringing back the Czar. There they sat in the same offices, rediski and Chekisti, side by side, wastebasket to wastebasket. What to do? The British and the French are financing the most dangerous of the rediski.

  “Dzerzhinsky now conceives of an incalculably elevated plan. On a given night, he seizes Alexander Yakovlev, one of the highest leaders of this monarchist circle, a charismatic, cultivated, sophisticated Russian aristocrat. Yakovlev is—at least as rediski go—a liberal, a Constitutional Democrat. Feliks not only arrests him quietly, but tal
ks to him in great secret. Following one night of intense conversation, Yakovlev agrees to work for Dzerzhinsky.” Harlot held up his hand.

  “We do not know the intimate details of what happened on that all-consuming occasion. We have only the bits of information that Soviet historians would later release to the world. According to their Soviet version (which, I must say, has its own internal logic), Dzerzhinsky appealed to Yakovlev’s patriotism. Since a number of Yakovlev’s fellow conspirators were admittedly fanatic, and were looking to bring off a right-wing coup d’état, the ensuing bloodbath could prove even more catastrophic than the Civil War. Russia, itself, would be the victim. Might it not be more prudent to look for a peaceful coup d’état? That could result in a benevolent constitutional monarchy. ‘Let us work together,’ said Dzerzhinsky, ‘to overthrow Communism. Our common aim will be to save good rediski and eliminate bad ones. The cadres that you trust, Yakovlev, will be promoted. You can develop your own directorate within the present government to be ready to take over.’

  “Of course,” said Harlot, “Dzerzhinsky made it clear that Yakovlev would have critical tasks to perform. He would, for example, have to convince the British Secret Service that they must reduce the scope of their sabotage. For if they didn’t, the more punitive forces in the Cheka whom Dzerzhinsky was trying to restrain, would gain power and grind up all rediski without discrimination.

  “Yakovlev may well have asked: ‘How do I convince the British of this? What do I say to the emigré groups? They are exceptionally suspicious.’

  “This, I assume,” said Harlot, “was Dzerzhinsky’s answer: ‘You have one formidable advantage. You, Yakovlev, can present yourself as a man who has penetrated the Cheka.’

  “‘Yes, and how do I prove this?’

  “‘Why,’ says Dzerzhinsky, ‘you will prove it by furnishing the British with accurate intelligence of the highest order. It will prove accurate, because I, Dzerzhinsky, will prepare it.’

  “Counterespionage, in its modern form, was born,” said Harlot.

  “These two fellows struck a pact. Yakovlev built an intelligence organization out of those rediski in whom he had confidence. Indeed, he called it the Trust. Within a year, this Trust had gained the collaboration of the Allies, and most of the emigré groups. Foreign agents were brought into the Soviet under the auspices of the Trust, did their work, and left. Naturally, Yakovlev encountered skeptics in Western Europe, but the size of his operation was awesome. British officials were taken on secret tours of the Soviet Union. Underground religious services were arranged for the more distinguished emigrés. (Needless to say, the Orthodox priests who conducted the Mass were members of the Cheka.) For the next five years, working under the cover of Yakovlev’s Trust, the Cheka was able to control every serious move made by their enemies. Emigré agents entered Russia and embarked on operations subtly designed by Dzerzhinsky not to be effective. It is probably the largest neutralization of an enemy brought off in the history of counterespionage.”

  There was an interruption from Rosen. “I’m confused,” he said. “As of last week, it was my understanding that large operations are sloppy affairs that depend for success on fortuitous circumstances. Yet here you speak in praiseworthy terms of a very large operation. Is it because this one happened to work?”

  “By half, my answer is yes,” said Harlot. “It happened to work. So we respect it. But recognize the difference. This operation was built on a profound deception which was then orchestrated by its creator. While the possibility for error and treachery was enormous, and any number of defections of minor personnel must have occurred over the years, such was Dzerzhinsky’s genius for detail that all such betrayals were overcome by intricate countermoves. The beauty of this operation puts a critical focus upon others less brilliantly conceived, less elegantly continued.”

  “Yessir.”

  “For our purposes, however, I would put emphasis on the first night of conversation. What was agreed upon between Dzerzhinsky and Yakovlev? From that, we know, all else came forth. Did Yakovlev take up the offer with a view to eventual escape, or did he seriously wish to become Prime Minister of Russia? Did he actually believe Dzerzhinsky was on his side? How did his emotions shift in the years of collaboration? Obviously, Yakovlev’s character had to change. For that matter, so did Dzerzhinsky’s.

  “It is fair to ask: How much of a double game was Dzerzhinsky playing with himself? What if Bolshevism should, indeed, fail? Was Dzerzhinsky looking to his own survival? Such motives may have been larger than Soviet history would lead us to believe. Go back to the primal night. Both men met, and an active, not a disinterested, seduction ensued. When a man seduces a woman, he may gain her not only by strength, but through his weakness as well. That can even be seen as the commencement of love—honest interest in the other’s strength and the other’s need. When seduction is inspired, however, by the demands of power, each person will lie to the other. Sometimes, they lie to themselves. These lies often develop structures as aesthetically rich as the finest filigree of truth. After a time, how could Yakovlev and Dzerzhinsky know when they were dealing with a truth or a lie? The relationship had grown too deep. They had had to travel beyond their last clear principles. They could no longer know when they were true to themselves. The self, indeed, was in migration. That is the point to this analysis.

  “Over the years, some of you may enter into a comparable relationship with an agent. You may show talent. You may play for high stakes. What is crucial—and I insist on this—is that you understand how much that relationship will become a commitment to the whole manipulation of the other person. In consequence, you will have to relinquish much of your own most-guarded privacy. That will involve considerable tunneling into the spiritual foundations of both houses. A flood in the other fellow’s cellar might produce unexpected leaks in yours. Ultimate qualities of dedication must be called upon, therefore, or you will sink into a filthy and imponderable morass.”

  At this point, Allen Dulles brought the jovial and manipulative halves of his own enterprising spirit together long enough to give one hearty clap of his palms, and say, “Wonderfully put.”

  Harlot went on a while longer, but that was the end for me. I meditated upon a future life in counterespionage as I traveled toward the city of Montevideo in the land of Uruguay, where I would perform the simpler chores of espionage. Two and a half years would pass in learning my craft.

  7

  THE NIGHT BEFORE I BOARDED THAT PLANE FOR SOUTH AMERICA, KITTREDGE and Hugh invited me to a farewell meal at the canal house. After dinner, Montague went off to work in his study, while Kittredge and I, on finishing the dishes, climbed to a small sitting room she kept for herself on the second floor. As a mark of my advancement to godfather, I was now invited occasionally upstairs. Once, indeed, when it was late at night and we had talked for hours, they even asked me to stay over, which invitation I finally accepted, but I certainly had the oddest sleep. Small and not quite locatable noises went on until dawn.

  If only in my imagination, animals seemed to neigh. In the early morning I was suddenly awake and convinced of the presence of something exceptional. It was then I realized that it was Hugh and Kittredge making love, and no matter how the sounds were muffled by two small rooms between, I could not help but hear them.

  I may have been thinking of that early morning while Kittredge and I talked in her upstairs parlor. Since our night at the club, she had been in what I can only term a jagged depression, gloomy but with odd flashes of wit. Rosen had subsequently informed me that Mary Jane was one more term for marijuana, and I had even brought this etymological tidbit to dinner in the naïve hope it would prove amusing. I soon gave up. Kittredge seemed on the edge—I cannot call it hysteria—of some sort of merriment altogether removed from what we talked about. I was glad when dinner concluded and Kittredge and I were installed upstairs. Now that I was actually leaving in a couple of days, I was beginning to feel uneasy. I wanted to speak of such feelings, but she cut
me off.

  “I can’t help you. I’m not a psychoanalyst, you know,” she said. “I am a characterological theoretician. There are about eight of us in the world.”

  “I wasn’t,” I said, “looking for free medical service.”

  She hardly responded. “Do you think the other seven are as ignorant of human nature as I am?”

  “What are you telling me?”

  “I don’t know a damn thing about people. I come up with theories that other people say are wonderful, but I don’t know that I am getting anywhere in my work. And I am so naïve. I loathe that Lenny Bruce, I do. I also envy him.”

  “You envy him?”

  “I work hard to keep faith in the sacraments. Our marriage would crack if I couldn’t keep to such beliefs with Hugh. And there was this Bruce person, this comedian. So sure of himself. Not even knowing what he mocked. Like a six-week-old puppy that will do it all over the house if you let him loose. But such freedom. So easy.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “He’s alone. No other public entertainer dares to talk that way.”

  “Oh, Harry, why did I ever bring Hugh to that terrible place?”

  “Yes. What were you up to?”

  “Do you know how much anger is in Hugh?”

  “And in you? Isn’t it possible you are well-suited for each other?”

  “No,” she said. “Hugh could kill. He could go off his clock. He won’t, but the tension is always there.”

  “He has fabulous control,” I said.

  “He needs it. His mother, Imogene. Know anything about her?”

  I shook my head.