by Nigel Dennis
“Let’s have the windows open, Larry,” said Harriet.
Each waiter reverently drew back a half of the great curtain, and Simon pushed open the French windows.
The sounds and silence of a summer evening entered the room; over the white linen on the table Morgan could see the first stars pressing through the twilight and the yellow lights of private windows. Up from the square came the imaginary rustle of hurrying, passing feet, and one or two real voices, clear, but distant and subdued. Simon murmured something deferentially to Harriet, who started.
“Oh, Larry; tonight’s the evacuation practice.”
Simon nodded.
“I had forgotten,” said the engineer.
He stood silent for an instant, and his ruddy face took on a deep, sullen expression; his thoughts appeared to have dropped into some private area of intense hostility. His wife looked at him nervously and said in a hopeful voice, “It’s not until nine o’clock, Larry. I suppose because it’s not dark enough before.”
She reluctantly took her eyes away from her husband, and told Divver and Morgan, “Will you sit here … and you here,” speaking to them as if they were inanimate objects whose arranging was just part of an old habit.
The two waiters gently pushed Morgan and Divver up in their chairs; Simon managed Harriet, and arranged the engineer at the head of the table in a tall, carved, armed chair. Streeter suddenly began to speak, in an angry, hoarse tone.
“This town has a kind of mayor, or whatever they choose to call him, of whom any decent town would be ashamed. If anything goes wrong, if there is any danger right here, he plans to evacuate the whole population.”
Morgan felt a sharp jump of fear. Danger here? Where I am? How possible? He stared wonderingly through the window, into the twilight.
“He seems to think it would be a good idea if I, a citizen of a neutral country, were to lend a hand by appearing at one of his evacuation rehearsals.”
“Larry sent him a stiff letter,” said Harriet, breaking into a relieved laugh.
“I did indeed,” said the engineer grimly.
“It doesn’t sound like a promising beginning,” said Divver,
“What doesn’t?” asked the engineer.
“I mean, just evacuating the town.”
The engineer pondered this remark for a moment, and then, as though it had somehow given him back his confidence, asked brusquely. “What’s so wrong with that, Mr. Divver, may I ask?”
Morgan expected Divver to retort with equal sharpness, but Divver only looked embarrassed and said nothing.
“It’s obviously the sensible thing to do, isn’t it? What else —in a town this size?”
Divver gave a half-nod, and bent over his soup. He is definitely not the man I so admired eating his soup in my mother’s house, Morgan thought.
“No,” said the engineer, assured as ever once more. “It’s not the evacuation; it’s the man’s impudence in pestering me.” He looked up at Simon and said impatiently. “That’s quite enough. Off you go with your men. We can manage.”
The old man bowed and drove the assistants in front of him through the door.
“He thinks I’m the Shah of Persia,” said the engineer.
“You are just a little formidable you know, dear,” said his wife, laughing louder this time. Divver laughed too. The engineer feigned modesty, but managed a tight, proud little smile.
At that moment, Morgan looked sharply at Harriet, and his eyes became fixed on her, examining her in a desperate way. She was still smiling happily, but when she slowly turned her head and struck his fixed stare, she frowned, flushed and looked away angrily. He was now more certain than ever that they had become strangers; what made this worse was his feeling that she and Divver and the engineer had reached an understanding, and that all at once he was alone and friendless.
“One of those old relics from someone’s baronial hall,” said the engineer. “He gives me the willies. Though one is instinctively sorry for a man whose day is over and done with.”
“Mr. Divver,” said Harriet, turning herself entirely away from Morgan, “I know this is very rude, so please forgive me, but I am dying to know what happened to your poor eye.”
Divver looked pleased, and gave a very modest account. “It’s nothing to the way it looked a few days ago,” he said. The engineer finished his soup and listened attentively.
“So this is our last day at the Hotel Poland,” concluded Divver gaily. “My friend James had a little unpleasantness too.” He winked suggestively at the engineer.
Morgan gave a fearful shiver. But the engineer only said “Hm … hm …,” reached out his arm suddenly and pulled a speaking tube from a silver wall-clip. “A message for Mr. Sallegrave, if you please,” he said into the tube. “Kindly ask him to telephone Mr. Streeter as soon as possible.
“I don’t know what’s getting into people in this province,” he said, replacing the tube, “but this little item is one I can remedy, if I am not mistaken.”
“Will you carve, Larry dear?” said his wife.
He went over to the wheeled table and took the top off a handsome roast of beef, frilled with a circle of roast potatoes and sprigs of parsley. “A dish for the gods,” he said, and began to sharpen the long carving knife, flashing it above and below the steel like a skilled butcher.
The telephone rang. With a gesture of the shining knife and steel, the engineer waved his wife back into her chair and went on with his sharpening. After he had delicately tested the blade with his thumb from haft to tip, he laid it down and walked slowly to the ’phone.
“Ah, Mr. Sallegrave … And how are you? … I am very glad to hear it … Thank you, I too, Mr. Sallegrave, but there is a small matter I would like to take up with you … Thank you, I am glad to hear it … Now, sir, my concern is regarding two very personal friends of mine, old friends, you understand. One is named Mr. Max Divver; the other—what did you say your name was, young fellow?—yes, the other is Mr. James Morgan. Now, Mr. Sallegrave, I understand that these two friends of mine have caused you some worry…”
The manager’s voice broke into a long cackle, to which the engineer listened patiently, holding the receiver slightly away from his ear and letting his eyes rove placidly from his wife to Divver, to Morgan, who all were listening with excitement. After a half-minute the manager’s voice began to ebb, and the engineer took over again in a smooth, firm tone.
“Quite so, Mr. Sallegrave, my sympathies are wholly with you. I think my friends have acted with gross irresponsibility and childishness”—at which point, to show that he meant exactly what he said, he looked at Morgan and Divver with the utmost sternness. “In your position, Mr. Sallegrave, I should have acted in precisely the same way: no hotel can be allowed to collapse through inadequate control, and I well know the pride you take in your admirable management. Nonetheless, Mr. Sallegrave, as a personal favour to myself I wish to ask you to be so good as to permit my friends to stay. I myself shall be responsible for their good behaviour hereafter”—and he again looked sternly at the culprits. “What is that? … Certainly … A letter of apology to—one moment—yes, to Baron von Turn und Mannefarbe … you shall have it, Mr. Sallegrave; Mr. Divver will write it this very evening and it shall be delivered to you to hand to the baron … I am most grateful to you, Mr. Sallegrave; and I can assure you that my friends appreciate your magnanimity … Thank you, sir … and a very good night to you too.”
Divver was flushed and furious. “It would be out of the question … a letter of apology to a Nazi … it would be physically impossible.”
“Come, come now,” said the engineer impatiently. “The incident is closed. The letter is written in five minutes … I hope we all like our meat rare?”
“I am most grateful to you personally,” said Divver, “but my stomach turns at the mere thought …”
“Tut, tut, Divver, put some hot beef in your stomach if it turns … Potatoes?”
“I was wholly justified in what I d
id … Yes please, potatoes.”
“They are roasted … So are we all justified in things we do, sir, but there are times when common sense bids us swallow our pride.” He carved. “Let me assure you, I have daily to put up with far more insulting treatment than you will suffer through the writing of a mere letter.”
Divver stared at his plate.
“I really think Larry is right, Mr. Divver,” said Harriet, laying her hand consolingly on Divver’s arm.
“You know what you are,” said the engineer. “One letter to a toy baron is surely not going to shake your self-esteem.”
“If I could feel that that was all …” said Divver.
“What you call all, Divver, is your own self-respect …”
“Exactly.”
“… which you are not going to increase by seeing a tipsy squabble in terms of an international incident.” He suddenly smiled benignly. “We are none of us that important,” he said humbly.
Divver sighed, but smiled back feebly. “I am afraid I sound very ungrateful,” he said.
“Pooh, pooh,” said Streeter, settling into his big chair. “I like to see some spirit in a man.”
“Do eat it up before it’s cold, Mr. Divver,” said Harriet.
They all fell to. After a few mouthfuls, the engineer seemed to remember Morgan, and said to him, half-smiling, half-stern. “I have no idea what you were mixed up in, but I hope you don’t plan to forget that from now on I am responsible for your good behaviour. In loco parentis —you should know what that means: do you?”
“Yes, I do,” said Morgan, not looking at him.
“Do they still teach Latin at your school? I approve of Latin; it’s not so dumb as it sounds. It’s a discipline.”
“I don’t go to a school.”
The engineer was quite taken aback. A buzzing conflict of fear and rage sang in Morgan’s ears. He raised his head and saw that Harriet was watching him, her eyes pleading. He saw Divver, too, was looking at him, gesturing very discreetly with his features as if to say: pipe down, this is no place for a scene. He obeyed their looks—and at once was so overcome with fury that he thought his head would burst. He felt hideously trapped, and the very thought of their two expressions filled him with shame of Harriet and Divver, and of himself, too. He felt he would explode into one of his fits, and the very idea of doing so, in the presence of three people he now so hated and despised, appalled him with its degradation: I would never forgive myself if I did that; never, never; I would die of shame. He fixed his eyes on a silver spoon and, using his favourite trick of distraction, said to himself: that is a spoon; I am thinking about you, spoon; there is nothing in my head but spoon, with a curve in the middle, a handle, a crest on top, resting on a tablecloth …
He began to breathe more easily; his heart slowed.
Mr. and Mrs. Streeter were now talking to Divver; all three had suddenly dropped the previous mood and were laughing and joking. It was all at Divver’s expense, but very friendly. “I think you must be a nervous type, Divver,” the engineer was saying, “I think you go around in beads of sweat, asking for trouble.”
“Don’t you think, Larry,” laughed Harriet, “he’s just like Sinclair,”
“Which Sinclair, ma petite?”
“The one we knew in Prague, you remember; who was always so stern and dignified, like our Mr. Divver.”
“I trust not: if I remember, you had something of a weakness for Master Sinclair.”
“He was cute in a way; the way stern people always are.”
“Underneath, I assure you,” said Divver, “I am not in the least stern, or dignified. I can’t help what nature has done to my physical exterior.”
“I can only say I am so glad we ran into you, Mr. Divver. You have no idea how bored Larry and I get—I mean with meeting so many terribly dull people, first here, then there….”
Her husband nodded his assent—the brief masculine nod that is both an endorsement and a restrainment of feminine gush.
“Well, that is really most kind of you,” said Divver, touched and blushing. “It has been a happy chance for me too; a most happy chance.”
Harriet brought on brandied cherries and whipped cream. “My, that looks good!” Divver exclaimed, smacking his lips.
Perhaps the letter will just be forgotten, Morgan thought. Under his brows he watched Divver closely. After this they’ll never make him write it. They’ll never be so bold as to make him. If they try he’ll fight.
He found himself brooding: Who cares what a letter says? Who cares what its politics are? It’s one’s own decision to write or not to write, that’s all. How can anything else matter?
Relaxed in his big chair, the engineer looked what he was: a smallish man of no great physical strength. Beside him, Divver looked as big as Goliath. He will never have the courage to try, thought Morgan, looking at the engineer.
He was quite wrong. No sooner had they drunk their coffee than Streeter got up, rubbed his hands, and said briskly: “Let’s get that letter out of the way.”
Divver fingered an embroidered scene of Tristan and Isolde, and pretended not to hear.
“Divver? How about it? Let’s get that letter off.”
“I’ve been thinking since we last spoke,” said Divver, “and I am sorry but it does seem to me that to write that letter would be against my principles.”
“Oh, now, Mr. Divver . .!” cried Harriet.
Her husband gave her one hard, cold look and she was silent immediately. He then began to smile, and laid a fatherly hand on Divver’s shoulder. “Now listen…. I’m a much older man than you are, Divver, which doesn’t mean I’m wiser. But I’ve been around for a good many years, and I think I can take just a little humble pride in recognizing an honest man when I see one. Any fool can see that you’re an honest man, Divver. It shows all over you.”
Divver hung his head. He still frowned—partly, it seemed to Morgan, in genuine uncertainty, but partly with a human being’s superstitious fear that words sweet as honey which he has always longed to hear must, when at last they come, be greeted disapprovingly if punishment is not to follow. “I simply try, I always have tried,” he said, “to retain certain standards of practical behaviour….”
“Ex-actly,” said the engineer. “And it is hard for me to believe that your magazine would have placed you in positions of trust over these many years had they doubts as to your honourable attitude. Am I not right?” he asked, suddenly turning on Morgan.
Morgan nodded. He nodded simply because Divver was his friend, to whom he owed loyalty, and because, faced by a much older man with a strong voice, he didn’t have the courage to say what he was thinking.
“Am I not right?” repeated the engineer, looking at his wife.
“Of course,” she said. “Do write that silly letter, Mr. Divver, and then we can all sit down again and be happy.”
Divver laughed. “Well, if you put it that way, I guess I can be as silly as the next man,” he said.
The engineer opened his desk, pointed to paper and envelopes, and gave Divver his own fountain-pen. “Do you know how old that pen is?” he asked him. “Twenty-five years, bought with my first earnings in Europe. So don’t get so worked up that you snap the end off.”
“I’ll respect it,” said Divver, smiling. A grim, determined expression settled over his face; humping his back he sat down to write.
The other three left him in the corner. Streeter and his wife talked about personal matters that excluded Morgan, in lowered voices, as though to give Divver a fair chance. Morgan looked blankly at the carpet. At home, he thought, mother has put on her horn spectacles and is reading something new and dull. In a moment the sound of plates and forks will stop coming from the kitchen, and after a few minutes mother will notice the silence, take off her spectacles and tell grandfather to go to bed. The light will come on in Rosa’s bedroom, and there’ll be the sound of feet on the gravel outside, as the maids go off to their homes.
A bugle blew
in the square; there was a sound of running feet, talk and laughter. The evacuation practice was beginning. The engineer jumped up, slammed the windows and pulled the curtains to. “Finished?” he asked, walking over to the desk.
“That’s as good as I can do,” said Divver with absolute determination, stuffing the letter into the envelope and rising from the desk.
“If you please….” said the engineer, boldly taking the letter from him. “Don’t forget I’m responsible for you now.” He unfolded the letter, set his lips with feigned solemnity, and read: “‘My dear Sir’ …”
“Not aloud!” said Divver, reaching for the letter.
“Come, come, come!” said the engineer, “four minds are better than one.”
“I’ll not make a single change,” said Divver.
“No one’s asked you to,” said the engineer. He began again, with high pleasure: “‘My dear Sir—very formal, Mr. Divver; but no matter—‘Last week, you no doubt recall’—rather an understatement to a man whose nose has been broken, no?— ‘you and I were involved in an argument concerning the relative merits of American democracy and the present system of the Third Reich and certain other nations. My stand was, and to be completely frank, remains and will, I hope, always remain, that under Fascism the free, creative spirit of man, and all sincere acts that accompany that spirit, are shackled ’—an untidy sentence, Divver, I can hardly believe that your magazine prints sentences like that. However—‘I also stated that Fascism was dependent upon brute force, with which I could not admit any sort of sympathy. I then struck you on the nose. I did so in genuine anger, but since I was not in absolute conscious control of my actions at that particular moment, I feel that it is my duty to make you an apology, without however withdrawing a single one of my spoken words’—well, you rounded that corner neatly enough; one soft spot of filling between two piecrusts, ha-ha!—‘I also feel that it is my duty to admit that in striking you I acted contrary to my stated principles, though not, in my opinion, contrary to certain instincts which I respect in myself’—hmmm, deep water you’re getting into there, young man.—‘My principal reason for writing is to say that I sincerely regret the whole episode. Yours truly, Max Divver.’”
