House of All Nations

by Christina Stead

  ‘He’s not very wonderful to you, Davigdor. It isn’t right. He ought to take care of you. He’s got nobody to leave it to. He’s got dozens of millions in sterling lying by. You’re a fool, Davigdor. Doesn’t he even offer you a small annuity?’ The multiple millions of Zinovraud filled even Alphendéry with desire.

  Davigdor shrugged his shoulders, threw out his clumsy hands, laughed, wobbled his head, ‘I know. But’ (very low, with great simplicity), ‘what I’m telling you now must never be told, Michel: the Lord is very good to me. He treats me like a son—bastard son, haw, haw! The other day he called me over to his couch where he was lying. He says to me suddenly, like that, “Jew, how much money have you in the bank?” “Oh, about ten pounds, Lord, that’s all. I spend it all.” “Absurd,” he said, “why don’t you tell me to make you a transfer?” “I don’t want it, Lord. I’d only spend it on cuties. This way I have to work to get them for nothing.” He laughed: “If you won’t accept money, don’t worry: I’ll remember you. I’ll see you don’t want.” “Thanks very much, Lord Zinovraud”—nothing more, he doesn’t like it. Then he suddenly barks, “Why the devil did you report to me those Modderfonteins? Buy some industrials and don’t report them to me unless I ask. Worrying me with trifles!” “Which industrials, Lord?” “The ones you fancy.”’

  ‘Like that, put on, you know, to hide his generosity.’

  For an instant, something cracked: he turned a merry, enlivened eye towards the glass beside which he sat and through the slit of that eye, wicked Pan winked at the world. Alphendéry, his eyes trained on the piece of meat he was eating, and involved in his own calculations, saw nothing. Schicklgrüber had once more the same goodhearted, ugly, stupid expression as before. Was it an effect of the mirror, or of light falling high between the houses of the Rue Daunou? Schicklgrüber took a sip of water. He always refused alcoholic drinks. ‘It goes to my head and there’s nothing to stop it running round and round. I begin to gossip. I have no control over myself.’

  ‘That’s a very good salary we’re offering you, Davigdor: how can you afford to turn it down, even so? Even if you get that amount from Ganz and Genug, why not double it?’

  ‘I’d rather not have money; I spend it all. It’s better for me to be poor; I keep within bounds. Lord Zinovraud knows that; he doesn’t give me much. I implore him not to.’

  ‘He’s just mean to you, in other words. You’re excusing him.’

  ‘Oh, no, no, don’t say that.’ Schicklgrüber was really shocked, ‘The Lord—well, I’ll tell you something, but you mustn’t ever tell it to anyone else.’

  ‘Of course not, Davigdor.’

  ‘Oh, I can trust you, Michel. Ai, yai, yai, once I got into such a mess by talking too much. I’m always doing it. Seas of troubles. The Lord would throw me out if he knew I talked about his goodness. He doesn’t like it. He has a wonderful nature. One day he says to me, “I’m not too generous to you, Judas.” (Oh, he calls me “Judas,” too—it’s a sort of pet name, instead of “Jew.” It’s his idea of humor.)’

  ‘I said, “I don’t ask for anything more, Lord: you’re decent to me. I live. I’m not rich but I drink, I whore. I haven’t too much and so I keep respectable.” He says to me angrily, “No, you have no one to provide for you; if I go, no one will bother his head two minutes about you. You’ve got to be provided for.”’

  ‘“All right, Lord,” I said quietly, “whatever you like.” You see, I don’t insist … I don’t ask him, “What do you mean?” Nothing. And the funny thing is, he said no more for a few days; and he put the idea into my mind, I was just beginning to think, “The old dog is mean to me.” A few days later he throws some papers rudely onto the table in front of me and says, “Can you read? What’s that? I found it among my papers. Some silly fool stuck it there.” So I read and find out it’s a factory site he’s got. I say to him, “But, Lord, it’s a factory site you’ve bought. It’s only dated three weeks back.” “That’s it,” he says, “I’m going to build a factory. See to it for me.” He talks like that, rough, quick. I say, “Lord, you must tell me what you want to make. Is it knitted goods, is it guns, is it chocolates?” “Novelties,” he says, sharp, as if I knew it all along. “You know I wanted to make novelties. See to it for me. Toys. Modern, new toys.” “All right, Lord.”’

  ‘And I go off and find out what it would cost. I tell him, he gives me the money, and when I ask him if he wants it this way or that, he says, “You see to it, you do it the way you want it: you know as much about it as me.” So I build the factory and get in machinery and get supplies and employ labor, and I say to him, “Lord, the factory’s all ready and the men and girls are waiting for you to say the word.” He says, “What factory, fool?” “The novelties factory, Lord.” “I don’t want to make novelties any more. Shut it up.” So I shut it up and there it stays. Then one day, about six months later, he says to me, “I’ve got a wonderful name for your novelties, Judas.” “What is it, Lord?” “Black Legion!” “Black Legion … no good. Not English.” “Never mind. Go and see if anyone has it and if they have, buy it.” So I go and look and presently I find some poor little outfit upcountry actually has the name “Black Legion” for shirts. I say to the Lord, “What will I pay for it?” “What you must. You know what I want.” So I say, “Lord, you’ll have to give me a few days off: I’ll have to go and mosey around.” “All right. Don’t stay too long. Don’t cut up.”’

  ‘I go to this place and I find two or three little Jewish fellers in one little room trying to make shirts. They’re waiting for orders. So I think, “How can I get the name away from them without putting the price up?” I think and think. My topknot isn’t fast, you know. Then I get an idea. I get nicely dressed with a black hat with a broad brim, like a Chedar Jew not long from Poland and I go into them and I say, “Boys, it ain’t nice for Jewish fellers to be calling goods ‘Black Legion,’” a name that refers to that louse Mussolini, to fascists. The fascists are bad to little businessmen like you and then there’s this Hitler in Germany saying he’ll wipe out the Jews.” They say, “Yid, what can we do? We have to make a living, don’t we?” “It seems to me, Yids,” I say, “that you aren’t making much of a living: it’s the name that’s the curse. Jewish fellers will never make money with a thin-luck name like that.” “Business is business,” they say to me. “Naturally we don’t like that name so much, we don’t like making black shirts neither, but what can we do—there is the wife, there is the children, there is Becky and Shorra to find a husband. Not nice, it isn’t, but it’s business. There you are.” “Listen, Yids,” I say, “would you sell the name? I think maybe I could get up a subscription amongst religious Jews to take it out of circulation. You’ve got to think of the wives, the children, Becky, Shorra, good. So we’ll buy it out of circulation, perhaps. How much do you want for it?” I see them looking at each other, I see them thinking, “He’s got something up his sleeve.” Naturally, they don’t believe me any more than I expect them to believe me. So I say, “All right, boys, think it over. I’ll come back after lunch.”’

  ‘For lunch, where do I go? I know they’ll follow me. I go to the poor kosher lunchroom. Sure enough, a few minutes later, I see them going past and looking in. They don’t come in, they’re too poor. But it’s all right—it proves I have a bit of money, not too much. After lunch I go back and say, “Well?” “Well,” they say, “mister, we would sell the name cheap for a good cause, but there is—” and they start to tell me the seas of troubles they have. “I know,” I say, “I’m reasonable. How much?” “Well,” they say (and I can see they’re frightened to drop a sledge hammer on the eggshell), “would one thousand pounds be about what you could pay? If you collected enough?” By jing, Michel, I had to admire them. There they are in a miserable room not good enough for an outhouse trying to sell a miserable couple black shirts to make a living and they ask one thousand pounds! So I let my face fall for a bit, and I can see they’re terrif
ied. But finally I say, “Well, boys, I’ll bring a lawyer and we’ll draw up the sale and we’ll talk about the price together, eh?”’

  ‘You can see they’re nearly fainting for the money, now they’ve heard it mentioned. So I go and cable the Lord,

  WILL YOU PAY UP TO THREE THOUSAND POUNDS? TOUGH BABIES.

  NOT MORE, he telegraphs back.

  ‘All right, the next day we draw up the contract but leave out the price. We go back to the little room where the two boys have their business, and I see they already have taken the little sign off the window Black Legion Shirts and they have put up another: White Dove Shirts.

  ‘“Poor boys,” I think, “why should I rob them?” I can see they haven’t slept all night and have been asking advice of their wives and second cousins. “Well, Kone,” I say, “I went to see a rich Jew yesterday and he’s going to give me some money. He doesn’t think Jews ought to make black shirts with all the trouble in Germany.” They watch me. Good. “Now,” I say, “I know you boys aren’t doing any business. I know. I made inquiries.” They start up, but I quiet them. “Now, boys, I’ve got some money and we’ll put down the price.” “What price do you mean?” says Kone in a little voice. “Put it down, lawyer,” says I. “One thousand pounds.”’

  ‘The boys nearly fell off their chairs. They never expected to get the half, I don’t think. I could see them getting brain fever on the spot. “Ai, we’ve been robbed, it’s worth a lot, our name, and we’ve sold it for one thousand pounds. Someone wants it … we should have held out.” Blah-blah. I couldn’t resist getting a bit of fun out of it. I thought I’d torture them some more … I thought I’d give them something to think about on their deathbeds. When the Angel of Death comes they’ll still have a second to think about me. So I said, “Wait, lawyer: I’ve changed my mind. I’ve just thought of another rich Jew might help me out. Write down the price now: fifteen hundred pounds.”

  ‘You should have seen those boys! But they signed it. They thought I might be mad, too. Yes, at that, they went white again; they thought I was mad and there was nothing to it. When I shook hands with them and no money, I thought their hearts would break. Then I get out my portfolio and give them three hundred five-pound notes. They thought I was a forger. They refused them unless I would promise to go to the bank and see them changed. They didn’t dare ask me who I was acting for. I think they thought it was maybe someone in Germany. Poor little fellers!

  ‘I came back to the Lord and said, “I had an awful time getting that name. I beat them down to fifteen hundred pounds. They think it’s going to be a wow, that name.” “So do I,” said he. “You’ve got to be a Jew to deal with Jews,” said I. “I keep you for that,” says he. “Open the factory now.”’

  ‘But,’ objected Alphendéry, ‘there aren’t any novelties in England called “Black Legion.” I happen to know because Léon’s been investigating the novelties business in England.’

  ‘Oh, no: the Lord decided finally the time wasn’t ripe for fascist names yet, so we changed the name for the time being. We’ve just got it on the hob … Then when it was all going about a month I bring Zinovraud the balance sheet and he looks at it and then throws it aside: “Don’t show me that, Judas: that’s your department. You run it, if you can. If you lose money, tell me; if you make it, wait till I ask you.”’

  ‘See how nice he is to me? But say nothing, mind you. He would kick me out. He hates to be thought generous.’

  ‘He doesn’t suffer much, on that account, then,’ laughed Alphendéry.

  ‘Oh, he’s all right … Say, Michel, I tell the Lord about you: he thinks you’re a wow. He told me to tell you you’re mad to stay with Bertillon. That’s the reason I wouldn’t take your pay if you gave me twice as much. I can write fancy figures on paper myself.’

  ‘You think it’s as bad as that? The Lord told you to say that? They exaggerate so much in that hothouse of the City of London. Listen, if it’s from Carrière—’

  ‘Oh, that’s only one thing. The Lord says, “Get a job in the City while the going’s good.” You got a lot of clients, haven’t you?’

  ‘This fellow Carrière is criminal. Why, Jules is rolling in gold! I know what he’s got.’

  ‘Do you know what he owes? I don’t like to contradict a clever man like you, Michel, but you’re wrong and you’re goddamn wrong.’

  Michel, after some minutes of trifling conversation, said with some agitation, ‘Zinovraud really knows something?’

  ‘Oh, rumors, rumors.’

  ‘I say, I’d like to meet the old rascal when I go to London. I might consider Stewart, Murthen, and Company. Stewart invited me to go in with him. Do you think you could arrange for me to meet the Lord?’

  ‘Well, Michel, you know how I am. He’s my bread and butter. I don’t introduce my donah to a pal. If you do me some big favor, say like swinging some of your accounts to Ganz and Genug, I will. That’s fair.’

  ‘Surely, surely.’

  ‘Well, what does Davigdor want?’ Jules was unusually insistent. ‘He said no—and double no.’

  ‘I’ll pay him whatever he wants.’

  ‘Calm yourself. He wouldn’t come at any price.’ Jules was hurt. Alphendéry soothed him, ‘I guess he does better than he says with G. and G. and the Lord.’

  William, watching his brother, drawled, ‘You bet. That guy doesn’t lick the Lord’s boots for nothing. Besides, every firm in Europe has offered him a job. We’re not good enough for him, that’s all. Did he give you any tips?’

  ‘He says nothing doing in tips, unless we pass him some business. He’s honest about it.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ Jules cried, much irritated. ‘G. and G. don’t make a cent on the Lord. It doesn’t pay them to. Would we? What would Zinovraud’s business be to us? Could we monkey with his account? Not likely. It would be good only as advertisement. Therefore Davigdor doesn’t make many commissions on it; he can only get a salary; and how big a salary? What’s the secret now?’

  Alphendéry watched him with anxiety. ‘Jules, don’t get excited: you can bet this is the three thousandth proposition Davigdor has turned down. He’s dizzy … he doesn’t know who’s offering it, or what it is, by this. Davigdor, one of the great open secrets of Europe … Zinovraud’s undercover man, travels incognito like a King-Emperor, preceded by stage whispers that can be heard from Balbriggan to Ekaterinoslav.’

  There was a silence. William finally put into words the thing weighing on them. ‘Michel, did he offer to introduce you to the Lord?’

  ‘No. He said the Lord is his game.’ They laughed and were all relieved. Alphendéry prattled on, ‘He’s going to Portugal. I’d like to know why he flits about Europe. He’s going to buy estates for the Lord (he says) in Portugal. The Lord thinks Portugal with a bloody dictator, Carmona, with Reds in prison, workers dying on the streets and the rich enriching, by morning gray and evening red, is paradise for him. He’s laying up treasure for himself near the Spanish frontier. One: he’s afraid of the English workers. Two: he’s afraid of the English finances. Three: he swears the republic won’t last in Spain and when labor is cheaper he’ll buy olive fields there.’

  ‘I’ll bet Davigdor knows a lot he doesn’t say,’ Jules sighed, longing.

  William remarked, ‘Everyone tries to suck him.’

  The eddy of Davigdor’s incursion died down, but left long after-ripples; for weeks they were maneuvering to get Zinovraud’s account or part of it from Davigdor and for weeks Davigdor was objecting, over the telephone, with pain and protest in his voice, that he was poor, they were trying to double-cross a poor plain dealer who couldn’t defend himself, and that he wouldn’t yield a single inch if they didn’t transfer some of their giant accounts to Ganz and Genug. But neither would move. Ganz and Genug were convinced that the Bertillons would fail because no one knew their backers, and Bertillon heard, similarly, that Ganz and Genug would fail
and were a scraggy crowd, beneath the notice of a society firm like Bertillon Brothers.

  * * *

  Scene Fifty-two: Rumor

  They next attacked the morsel thrown them by Schicklgrüber: the ‘common knowledge’ that Carrière had lied to Bertillon and that the brewery had never been sold and that the drafts that would be sent to Bertillon and the papers accompanying them were therefore a conspiracy, a concealed bet on the currency—the ‘common knowledge’ that Jules had really signed a contract with Carrière and that Carrière would bleed him to death.

  ‘I always knew it,’ Jules lied, to seem less the fool. ‘I was just waiting to get the goods on him.’

  Léon came in to find out Alphendéry’s opinion of the market and heard jealously that Schicklgrüber had visited them. ‘That boy knows something … he must know something. Otherwise why did he drop in? Not for business.’

  ‘He knows nothing. That’s his charm,’ said Michel.

  ‘No, sir, don’t you believe it. Why should Zinovraud employ a fool?’

  ‘He’s the only one who doesn’t try to rob him,’ explained Michel. ‘Everyone else who comes within hailing distance thinks he owes it to his own self-respect to try to promote Zinovraud.’

  ‘Yes, yes—and the Black Legion. How can a Jew put out Black Legion?—and—no, it doesn’t stimm. Chuckle-headed—and the Black Legion story. No my boy. Let’s put it he was stupid when Zinovraud met him. But no one could live with Zinovraud for fifteen years and remain stupid. Now it’s just a good disguise. H’m? A fox. Foxy … He sent me a prospectus, Parthis Goldfields. Do you? … I bought some. How did he … you told him you knew me?’

  ‘Yes. Did he remember your address?’

  ‘Oh-ho: my address …’ The telephone rang; he grabbed it. ‘My call. Graetz? … Send me one copy more of every letter … I know I had copies but I left them somewhere … I know I took them but I left them. Can’t you send me some more, Graetz? I know the girls are busy … Graetz! That shipment: documents into bank with accompanying letter, copy to—got that? Safe custody, allowing for release to our order. Liverpool, Liverpool, if Liverpool up 3/8 to 2d. sell two-loads-March. March in Rotterdam very firm, ten cents and market not too—very firm looks like a—sell four hundred to six hundred Rotterdam—no gulden margins, get back guilder margins—Manitobas four loads Columbia, all grade, sell old, new: ALL; firm offer to have in hand so can sell Monday, take firm offers, give us firm offers. Graetz! Send me those letters like a good boy. I don’t know where I lost them. Can’t you do what I ask? … Danube—do not sell until sample. Graetz! Those girls got not too much to do. Now post them right away. What? Yes. If yes on Berlin yes, if yes, satisfied, happy. Sell in strong spots. Yes, and Graetz! The letters.’