Joshua Then and Now

by Mordecai Richler

  “You are no longer poor, then?”

  “No.”

  “Are you rich?”

  “Not really.”

  “But you own a car?”

  “Yes,” he allowed.

  “And a house in the country?”

  “It belongs to my wife.”

  If Ibiza had changed and grown incredibly, the San Antonio he had known simply didn’t exist any more. It was gone. In place of the sweet, somnolent village there was a thrusting resort town, not unlike Juan-les-Pins, with a paved esplanade, elegant shops, a huge yacht basin, and an endless run of large hotels. Nobody could possibly walk into the sea and hunt fish from this waterfront any more – it was a four-foot drop from the new concrete pilings. Don Pedro’s Bodega had been supplanted by a discotheque: Snoopy’s Place. The only army officers about were retired British majors, reading the Daily Telegraph on the terraces of cafés that offered tea and muffins. The barracks, Juanito said, had been shut down years ago. There was now no military presence on the island. González, Jiménez, the others, all gone. “And whatever happened to the Freibergs?” Joshua asked.

  Juanito looked baffled.

  “You know, the Casa del Sol. The original owners.” And he told Juanito how he had once tried to reach them by phone from London.

  “Oh, the Jewish couple. I remember. But why would you phone them?” he asked, affronted. “You never even wrote to me.”

  “What became of them?”

  “He got sick. His heart. They sold their hotel for a huge profit at the beginning of the boom here and moved to Malaga, I think.”

  “Did Mariano close down their hotel after I left?”

  “No. Why?”

  “He told me that a complaint had been filed. Their wiring was faulty. He might have to close them down.”

  Juanito laughed. “He lived off that one for years, the bastard. He never closed anybody down, but he used to collect on it again and again.” Juanito grinned and shook his head. “I am a family man,” he suddenly declared with feeling. “We are both family men. One life, one wife.”

  “And what,” Joshua asked playfully, “about Casa Rosita?”

  “It is no longer here. Not for years. All the casas have been closed down by the government.”

  “And where could I find Mariano?”

  “He retired years ago. But he knew how to take care of himself, he owns property all over the island. If you are really interested in seeing the bastard, you can usually find him in Los Molinos.”

  Bolstered by still more cognac, Joshua asked, “And Dr. Dr. Mueller?”

  “Why in the hell would you want to see him again?” Juanito asked, spitting.

  “Revenge,” Joshua said, feeling foolish.

  “What are you,” Juanito asked, amused, “a Spaniard now?”

  “I am no longer a kid now. I have kids of my own.”

  “Will you kill him?”

  “No,” Joshua said, startled.

  “What, then?”

  “Just tell me where I can find the bastard.”

  “In the cemetery,” Juanito said. “He’s dead.”

  “God damn it,” Joshua cried out. “God damn it to hell.” All this way for nothing.

  “I thought you came here to see your old friend Juanito, not some crazy German.”

  “Yes. Certainly. Of course I did.”

  “Well, I’m no longer a young man,” he said, querulous. “I’m tired now. Take me home, please.”

  “When did he die?”

  “Five years ago. Maybe six.”

  “How?”

  “Cancer.”

  Joshua drove Juanito home and continued on to Los Molinos, one of the new hotels, where he found Mariano seated at a table in the bar, reading a newspaper. Bronzed and wiry as ever, but the beady eyes clouded with cataracts now. Mariano had obviously suffered a stroke. His thin mouth was slightly askew and his left arm hung limply from his side. He did not recognize Joshua at first. But after a belligerent Joshua reminded him of who he was, he seemed delighted to see him, which was disconcerting.

  “You were such a skinny kid. So hot-tempered. But those were the great years here. Afterwards, the real trouble started. Hippies. Hashish. Lesbians. Homosexuals. The dregs of Europe and America. I can’t tell you the problems we had here. The dike was breached, and now look what’s happening to Spain. Poor Spain. Once we were the owners of the world. Nobody can forgive us that we discovered America. But now we are a poor people and everybody is ready to shit on us. Soon England will be the same. Sure Franco was a dictator, but we had a good life under him. There was law and order. Now they are going to legalize the Communist Party again. La Pasionaria is back. We will go the way of Italy. There will be guns in the street. Like Lisbon. Hey, look at you! Obviously, you are a respectable man now. It’s odd, you know, how things turn out. Do you remember Don Pedro’s? Well, after you left, things changed there for Mueller. The officers felt that he had played dirty.”

  “The officers turned in a sworn statement against me.”

  “Oh sure, that was Jiménez, Juan. But González and some of the others, the younger ones, they felt ashamed. You were only a kid, you know, and they felt Mueller had done you in only because you were a Jew. Horseshit. Here in Spain we are all Jews. Well, not everybody. But at least one in ten has Jewish blood, if you go back far enough. I have nothing against the Jews.”

  “Why, you even used to know one in Cordoba.”

  “One? Many. Majorca is thick with Jews. They are very clever and it is better not to mess with them. But, man, you certainly come from a difficult people.”

  “Stiff-necked.”

  “Remember Carlos? You know, the mousy little bank teller. He saved his salary for ten years, I don’t think he ever ate in a restaurant or went to a movie, never marrying, saving to emigrate to his promised land, and in the end they wouldn’t have him. His family hadn’t been Jewish for hundreds of years as far as they were concerned. Your rabbis said his mother was officially a Catholic. What they called their law of return didn’t apply to him or hundreds of others in Majorca who wanted to go. How about that?”

  “Is he still here, then?”

  “He left years ago, for South America somewhere. Let me order more drinks. It is really very good to see you again. Hey, remember those afternoons at Rosita’s?”

  “What I remember is that you were going to shut down the Casa del Sol.”

  “Oh, really. Why?”

  “Their wiring was faulty.”

  Mariano laughed. He slapped his knee with his good hand. “I’d forgotten all about that.” He paused, pondering. “Now it is obviously my wiring that is faulty. I don’t recall. Did I close them down?”

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  “You came to my house and you said you had photographs of me and Monique. The kind they sell in Pigalle. I can remember your exact words. ‘In Spain,’ you said, ‘we expect foreigners to behave with a certain decorum.’ ”

  “Hey, she must have been some fuck, that girl. Whatever happened to her?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Probably fat now. Like the mother. Always look at the mother. But those photographs – now I remember – they may have been shocking in those days. But now.” He made a deprecating gesture. “Do you read Hustler magazine?”

  “No.”

  “Sometimes they are left behind by tourists.” He leaned closer to Joshua, his eyes heated. “Girls masturbating. Licking each other. Amazing stuff.”

  “Mariano,” Joshua cut in, exasperated, “I did not steal Mueller’s traveler’s checks.”

  “You did. You didn’t. Ancient history. Who cares now?”

  How could you hit an old man with a crippled left arm, however vile? “But you gave me forty-eight hours to get out of here because of those charges.”

  “I enforced the law. It was my job. But I never promised anybody justice. Do you have a good life in Canada?”

  “Yes.”

  “T
hen forget it. I have survived two strokes. But almost everybody I know is dead now. Would you do me a favor?”

  “For you, Mariano, anything.”

  “I will leave you my address. When you get home, mail me copies of Hustler. It is difficult to find here. And, say, we must have dinner together. How long will you stay in Ibiza?”

  “I’m leaving tomorrow.”

  But he had one more trip to make.

  Without even the benefit of a kitchen knife this time, Joshua drove back toward San Antonio, parked about a mile out on the hot asphalt highway winding out into the new suburbs, cut through the parking lot behind a pizza parlor, past a Hamburger Heaven, and crossed a miniature golf course that used to be an olive grove. He climbed the mountainside – stopping more than once, winded – before he finally reached the hump of rock that had once overlooked Dr. Dr. Mueller’s villa. There was no teepee. No brown stallion. Certainly no villa. Instead, a six-story condominium, the concrete already cracked, the paint flaking here and there. The Don Quixote Estate. Joshua sat down on the rock and laughed until he almost cried.

  Starting back to his car – walking, not running – he was overcome with both relief and disappointment. You did. You didn’t. Ancient history. But my ancient history, damn it. He paused to set his wristwatch to Montreal time. Home time. Family time.

  Mueller has been robbed of eighteen hundred dollars in traveler’s checks.

  He’s lying.

  Everybody’s lying but you, Mariano said.

  Jack Trimble assured me you made all the decisions.

  He made a point of telling everybody that. He knew what was coming. He was lying.

  Everybody’s a liar but you, Joshua said.

  And what, he thought, if Kevin was telling the truth? Absolutely impossible. All the same, he was Pauline’s brother. The senator’s only son. He would have to be helped. I will be Victorio, Joshua thought. I will be the honest fisherman. I will cast my net into the water and bring out sufficient fish to feed my family. My loved ones.

  Back in his hotel room, exhilarated, he poured himself a stiff Scotch. He decided that he would not write a new introduction to The Volunteers. That was from another time, another place. Let it rest. He put through a call to Pauline and was able to reach her after only an hour’s delay. “Pauline, my love, I’ve been trying to reach you for three days. How are you?”

  No answer.

  “Darling?”

  “Kevin’s dead,” she said in a wobbly voice. “His plane crashed.”

  “What?”

  “He’s killed himself.”

  “Pauline, I’ll come as fast as I can. I’ll grab the first plane out of here.”

  “Oh, Joshua, why couldn’t we have helped him?”

  7

  REUBEN MET HIM AT THE AIRPORT AND DROVE HIM right out to the Royal Victoria Hospital, where Pauline lay in bed, heavily sedated.

  “Don’t worry,” Reuben said. “She’ll be home in a few days.”

  The newspaper accounts of the crash did not suggest suicide, but an accident. A mechanical failure. Kevin had not filed a flight plan, but apparently had just taken his Beechcraft up for a spin to relax his nerves. It had been cold, but clear. Later there was some light snow. He had crashed into Owl’s Head mountain on Lake Memphremagog. Dying on impact. Neck broken. Back smashed. He was forty-two years old. The newspaper accounts described him as the only son of Senator Stephen Andrew Hornby, and observed that Kevin had once been a sportsman of note. A one-time McGill Redman. An outstanding hockey player. Tennis player of considerable accomplishment. A former Quebec Amateur Golf Champion. Latterly a prominent broker and man-about-town, who was under investigation by the securities commission at the time of his death. Foul play was not suspected.

  “Did he leave a note?” Joshua asked.

  “No, but Pauline’s convinced he committed suicide.”

  “God damn it, she didn’t need this. Neither did the senator.”

  “Or Kevin,” Reuben said sharply.

  “O.K., O.K.”

  “What do you think?”

  “He didn’t want to go to prison. They don’t dress for dinner there.”

  Reuben looked at him, surprised. “What have you got against him?”

  The days stretched into weeks and then one morning Joshua wakened, hung over again, to the chilling realization that Pauline had now been in the hospital for almost a month, wasting. Although his debts were mounting and his hockey book, hardly begun, was already long overdue, he couldn’t work. He was spending far too much of his time at The King’s Arms. And one afternoon, surprisingly, his cousin Sheldon sought him out there. Before he could even join Sheldon at his table, The Flopper looked down from his customary stool at the bar and called Joshua to his side. “Who’s the fancy fella?” he asked.

  “He’s no fancy fella. He’s my cousin.”

  “Lookit, peckerhead, whoever he is, I betcha he never pissed in a hotel sink.”

  Poor Sheldon had once been the most promising of his generation of Leventhals. An unrecognized Quiz Kid. One day president of the Junior Red Cross; the next, a star on the McGill campus. Stroke, stroke, stroke. Graduating cum laude, the family pride. And now, twenty-five years later, his face fleshy but his beard trim, his fingernails manicured, reeking of a leathery cologne, Sheldon was big in storm windows, his father-in-law’s business.

  “Are you enjoying it?” Joshua asked.

  “Storm windows?”

  “Well then, why don’t you try plumbing?” Joshua suggested, shooting him a fierce look.

  But Sheldon didn’t catch the reference. “I don’t care for the direction this country is taking,” he said. “I’ve published eight letters to the editor of the Star in the past two years. Have you read them?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “They are widely admired. Lots of people have complimented me on them. Complete strangers. Gentiles among them.” Sheldon leaned forward to press Joshua’s arm, his eyes imploring. “I’d like to get into punditry. I want to be a pundit. Help me, Josh.” And he unclicked his attaché case and thrust two columns at him. One was about Israel, the other dealt with Quebec. The first column began: “ ‘What is truth?’ asked Pontius Pilate.” Joshua giggled.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Sheldon, you once made a big mistake in your life. You should have let me play with your Lionel train set. We could have taken turns operating it.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Go away,” he said. “Please go away,” and he quit the table, watching poor Sheldon flee, embarrassed.

  Shapiro, you are indeed an abomination, Joshua thought, as he drifted back to join the regulars at the bar: Roger, Robbie, The Flopper. The Flopper was expounding on the injustice of the prodigious sums now being paid to untried juniors, venturing that even Guy Lafleur would never have been such a star in the old six-team league. “Lookit,” he said, “half of his goals are scored against the Minnesota No-Stars or the California Seal Pups.” He was willing to acknowledge, however, that even he had benefited from expansion. A few years back, fifty years old but owning up only to forty-two, he had been briefly reactivated, earning big money for the first time in his career with the Miami Screaming Eagles. “The trouble with the Eagles,” he readily admitted, “was we only played positional when we lined up outside room four-oh-eight in the Ramada Inn, in Edmonton, to be blown by Miss Rita Kowalchuk, a great hockey fan.”

  Drinking himself to bed each night, Joshua became obsessed with the notion that he was waking each morning with fewer gray cells than he had gone to sleep with. Cherished little cerebral circuits shorting or expiring every night, flooded by alcohol. Then one night, as he lay half asleep on his sofa, the phone rang, jolting him. It was Jane Trimble, unable to find him at The King’s Arms, standing on his doorstep a half-hour later. “Well,” she said, “Sir Galahad at home.” Sweeping past him into the study, relieving him of his Scotch in passing. “I thought you’d be undressed. How disappointin
g!”

  “Damn it, Jane, what do you want here at this hour?”

  “Not that,” she said, surprising him with a cool hand between his legs. “But, oh my. You’re not as indifferent as you pretend.”

  Joshua broke free to pick up the phone.

  “Who are you calling, darling?”

  “Jack, to come and get you.”

  “Joshua and Jack. Jack and Joshua. How different you are. He was absolutely thrilled to be accepted by the old crowd, and you think you’re doing us a favor just by tolerating us from time to time. St.-Urbain-boy oblige. You’re also far more attracted to me than you admit, but you wouldn’t want to hurt Pauline. On a scale of one to ten, how am I doing?”

  “Lousy,” he replied with too much anger, starting to dial their number on the phone again.

  “Jack can’t come to get me. He’s in Toronto.”

  “I’ll call a taxi, then.”

  “You call a taxi and I’m going to get out of my clothes,” she said, flicking her tongue at him as she unbuttoned her blouse and slithered out of it.

  Joshua ducked into the kitchen to pour himself a drink. She followed, which infuriated him, because he was stirred by the sight of her creamy breasts all but popping out of her slip of a bra. “Put on your blouse. One of the kids might come down.”

  “And discover us necking? Ca, alors”

  “I’ll drive you home, if you like.”

  “I don’t like. And neither,” she shouted, “do I wish to be humiliated, you fuck. You arrogant prick. Just who do you think you are?”

  “Now you lower your goddamn voice, or I’ll pick you up and shove you out in the snow just as you are.”

  “Why, I’ll bet you would,” she said, sinking to the sofa, her skirt riding up. Tears rolled down her cheeks, smearing her eye shadow. “We used to walk home from ECS together, smoking Sweet Caps, Pauline and I. Oh God.”

  “How’s Jack?”

  “How’s Jack? Everybody’s treating him like shit. All he ever did was make money for them, those fools, and now they blame him for Kevin’s suicide. We’re ruined, both of us. I want more,” she said, thrusting her glass at him.