House of All Nations

by Christina Stead

  ‘One: Russia could keep her wheat for her own people. This would raise her standard of living and make the Five-Year Plan safer.

  ‘Two: by keeping her wheat off the market, it would double the value of wheat and thereby her prospects, since it doubles the potential value of her wheat production in another crop, next season.

  ‘Three: it would make her credit-worthy by changing the rate of interest from forty-eight per cent per annum down to four per cent per annum, the normal rate, thus enabling her in the future to obtain credit far more easily …’

  Léon was walking up and down the room; beads of perspiration were standing out on his dome; he was congested, and yet listened with great passion to Alphendéry’s exposition. Jules was still the pale prince, elegantly and indifferently reposing in his great chair but a very faintly discernible sneer had tightened his long nostrils.

  ‘Fourth,’ said Alphendéry, taking in the indisposition of his audience and throwing his glances to entrap them both, ‘fourth,’ he repeated energetically, ‘it would enable the German government—if I understood Léon’s idea—to turn Russian bills, which she now holds, into cash, or its equivalent in American wheat; instead of nursing bills she now holds for her machinery export to Russia. Old bills. This is advantageous to the economy of Germany and will save her from the necessity of taking up a thing like Hitlerism, whose shadow is now over Europe from her frontiers. For there would be no need for it: she would have the food and the cash.’

  ‘I don’t care about saving Russia or Germany: where’s the profit in it?’ pouted Jules. ‘I like my own idea better. You make them the proposition, they hand you the wheat, you get the dough, you hide it, and you default.’

  Léon said hastily, ‘No, you’ve given me a few ideas, Michel, but that’s not the way to put it. Save Russia paying the usury, that’s good: I want to see Russia do good, well—h’m—but Germany—it’s not that. Let’s put it this way. You listen, Jules. I’m putting it this way for you.’

  ‘I’m listening,’ said Alphendéry patiently, humbly.

  ‘What you say is right, right, but that’s not it, Michel. It comes in, but—you see, lots of countries are anxious to buy wheat but can’t buy. Russia would have been prepared to—given—poor countries American wheat instead of—exchange—of dollars—in exchange of goods which Russia was crying for, for which they give bills at forty per cent premium. Chicago wheat is now thirty-nine cents. Say it will be forty-one cents then and—say ten cents carrying charges …’

  Alphendéry advanced with his hand held up. ‘Wait, Léon, you haven’t put it clearly. Your shorthand is all right for grain dealers. Let me—’

  Léon laughed, in his beautiful husky voice. ‘My shorthand— Go ahead,’ he was subdued, holding himself in. ‘I want to get it straight. We must. We must work it all out.’

  ‘What Léon means is this,’ said Alphendéry, turning half-about and facing Jules, who fixed fatigued eyes upon him. ‘The market is dead, the financial crash has put most countries into a position where although they require wheat, they have no money to pay and mighty little credit. But if Russia could give to these poor countries American wheat (because the banks in these very countries which have accepted Russian bills would pledge their bills with the American authorities and obtain wheat), then, in effect, Russia would be giving wheat to these poor countries who would no longer need to acquire dollars with which to pay for the wheat, since they would be buying this wheat by discounting Russian bills with the American bankers. Is that clear?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Jules, irritably.

  ‘Russia will then be able to get from them the goods she is crying for, for her Five-Year Plan; since these poor countries could (if they did not have to part with foreign exchange to acquire American wheat), could be in a position to give her (I mean Russia) credit for the purchases from themselves; since the bills that Russia would give would be credit-worthy, that is, could be turned into cash by these poor countries by their rediscounting these very Russian bills at a nominal rate of interest with the American Federal Reserve Bank, through giving their endorsement to those Russian bills.’

  ‘What small countries?’ asked Jules impertinently.

  ‘Why—Czechoslovakia, Germany (poor countries, not small countries), Austria, Finland …’

  Léon blurted, with discomfiture, ‘What do you think of it, Jules? You see, we need your façade; the consortium needs the bank’s façade … Tell me, really, what you think of it, Michel? Well?’

  ‘Henri, it’s brilliant, brilliant: you’ve grown even in my estimation,’ said Alphendéry with great enthusiasm. ‘You’re a genius, but it needs to be worked out. We’ll go over it.’

  Jules laughed good-naturedly, having observed that Léon was tired. ‘It reminds me of my first bank. I opened my first bank in the war zone during the war. Didn’t charge the generals anything and gave the privates exchange. You know, Michel. What did I know about banking? Spent six months in a bank in my life and walked out on them, couldn’t believe their humdrum—knew it wasn’t like that! One day a lady I knew walked in and gave me a giro transfer. I’d never seen one before in my life. So I said to her, “Just take a seat for a moment; I’ve got to make a verification, pardon me,” and I hurried with it into the lavatory. I’ve always found out since I was a kid that when you can’t understand a thing if you take it into the lavatory and perch on the … er … sit down a while, you can always figure it out. I did that, and presently I said to myself, “This must be a transfer from one bank to another by means of numbers in an account without a check”; and that’s what it was, and that’s what I did.’ He looked seriously at them. ‘You’ll write it out for me, Michel, in notes, and I’ll study it.’ He laughed delightfully, exquisitely, humanely. He got up to take a little exercise over his Persian carpet. ‘It sounds all right, Léon. Let’s go over it again, after lunch. I’ll do my best to think it over and stew in it. How much do you think you’ll make for yourself, I don’t mean Russia and the poor countries. I mean, what can we steal?’

  Léon worriedly planted himself in front of Jules. ‘No, don’t you see? The plan—we can make any amount of money, any we want to—two-three millions sterling, say ten million-twelve million dollars—that is, two hundred fifty million francs maybe, properly managed.’

  Jules opened his eyes, lost his fatigue, and went back to his chair. ‘How? How do you think you can do that, Léon?’

  Léon laughed. ‘It’s a temporary stave-off—the crisis—for them; for us, it would stave off the crisis forever, I think: we three will be in on it. On the third consortium. We’ll make our fortune! Only don’t let it out! No Bomba, that feller—or anyone who’ll spill the beans.’ He took a turn across the room, smiled at Jules. ‘Listen, Jules, I think I’ve got it—the way you can understand it; I’m getting it in order. It’s a concentric technique.’ He smiled at Alphendéry for a moment, murmured something like ‘technique of a yiddisher Kopf,’ went on to Jules.

  ‘If I don’t put it right, you’ll get everything but the point. No one knows how he sounds to others. This is the plan. We buy fifty million bushels at a flat price. Contract with the American government. We get an option on another fifty million bushels on a scale-up, ten million at forty-two, ten million at forty-four cents, so on. That’s an incentive to them to tighten their hands. If our plan is successful and the market goes up—it must, unless there’s a leak—so much the better, we could exercise the option and sell it ourselves. It’s a cinch … we don’t have to exercise the option. To sell short—we’ll always be able to buy it in.’ He looked at Jules confidently: this was A.B.C. to Léon.

  Alphendéry rushed in, ‘You see, we have two choices: either we have confidence that we can resell large quantities at the market-price, that is, if, say, the market goes to fifty-three cents we can exercise our option to buy the wheat at fifty-two cents, or if we distrust the market, and it rises to seventy-five cents,
we have then the privilege of selling short, knowing we will always have the supply (on option from the government) so that if the market goes down to sixty cents we make a profit of fifteen cents per bushel without using our option, and if, on the other hand, the market goes up to one dollar, we can be short sellers (knowing we have the supply), and if we are pressed for delivery, then we can exercise our option, which we had been afraid to exercise on the run-up, because we had no confidence. We could dispose of it when we were long of it, by having exercised our option to buy it at fifty-two cents. We tender this wheat in execution of our sale at seventy-five cents, even when it is at a dollar! Perfect! By no possibility can we lose!’

  ‘Let me explain, let me explain,’ cried Léon irascibly.

  ‘All right,’ said Alphendéry humbly. ‘I am only trying to make the process clear.’

  ‘Jules knows how to sell short,’ cried Léon, ‘a child could understand it,’ he continued violently. Then again, succinctly, waving his arm, he went on, ‘We could make ten cents a bushel on one hundred million bushels, or ten million dollars on the way up and the same amount on the way down. Easy. I could do it. This is the only proposition I ever had where I could talk in telephone numbers. It’s possible. That’s the beauty of it. It’s honest. No finagling. The supply is there! On contract.’ He calmed himself. ‘Say, at fifty cents we sell two million bushels, at fifty-two cents, we sell two million, at fifty-four cents, we sell twenty-one million bushels, and so on every two-cent rise in the market …’ He peered at Jules, took a turn up and down the room, wrestling with his ideas. He came back to them and planted himself in their midst, most serious.

  ‘The bugbear of Russian supplies hanging over the market has almost compelled the miller to hang off and to pursue a hand-to-mouth policy—Russia really oughtn’t to sell wheat, despite her bumper crop, but she needs goods for the infant Five-Year Plan. Then her bills are trickled through at forty per cent. She’s got to get the goods. You see the beauty of this is—everyone’s boycotting Russia. You can’t boycott a tiger, even if you’re not an animal trainer—don’t like it. We’ve got the brains to see that Russia exists, she is living, hitting round. She has to eat, she has to consume. No good shutting your eyes to her: use her, use her, she’s the new possibility. Use her to make money. The munitions makers never hesitated a moment. Let us be as smart. And we’re selling wheat. Things people need to keep alive. It’s more decent, too. That’s where our bright idea comes in. We don’t groan about Russia—we take Russia into account! You see, Europe needs wheat—she’s crying for it, starving for it, but you’ve got to have something in exchange. The American tariffs pull their punches. There’s no question of credit at all. Valuta is cracking! That’s it, Jules! You see, valuta is cracking, credit is dead. The Credit-Anstalt failed a month ago. Europe is dead. Now, I’ll put it to you, this way. My schematism is this. There’s a genuine home for wheat, no need for American silos to be stuffed to cracking and mice to eat it up. Russia is to be a buyer, not a seller. That’ll give everybody confidence that nobody has now. Then Russia will buy in the trade, through the trade, that looks genuine and it gives the trade confidence. ‘Things are looking better!’ We only want them to accept her bills till her gold production goes up. It won’t be so long …’

  Jules, whose face had hardened by now, through this constant dinning in and rehashing of the various elements of the first plan, had absorbed some of the facts of the situation. The idea of profit, profit, ached in his jaw. He now said rapidly, ‘You mean, you and I form a consortium and buy one hundred million bushels from the U.S.A.?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Léon. ‘Now, we’ve got to get the details clear. Yes, that is the first. Then there is the second consortium. A consortium of international grain merchants to sell wheat to the Russians. We also have to be a third consortium to resell the Russian purchases of wheat to Germany, et cetera, for goods that Russia needs. But this is secret: this is just between us and mustn’t go down on paper.’

  Jules’s face livened: his eyes became almost black. ‘It’s a good idea. I’m with you.’

  ‘It’s not complete yet, Jules. I want Michel to work on it. We’ve got something there, eh? What do you say, Jules? It looks like a winner, eh?’

  ‘Let’s have lunch,’ said Michel. ‘I think you’ve got a wonderful thing there, Henri: a real stroke of genius.’

  ‘The greatest thing of my career,’ half whispered Léon with awe. ‘I don’t know—myself how it came to me. But it’s good. Now we’ve got to make no mistakes. It mustn’t slip. We’ll come out of this—rich, my boy, you and Jules and me, rich! And in a depression. And doing no harm.’

  He continued talking about the plan as they went along the corridor, as they put on their coats, as they walked to lunch at a cheap Armenian place discovered by Michel. ‘You go to the Farm Board in the U.S.A. and you tell them, “You’re looking for a market for your wheat. This is a genuine proposition. There is demand in Europe where there is a very poor crop.” There’s another thing: the rise in the market price will compensate the U.S.A. on the remainder of its stocks of wheat, for any possible loss on Russian paper … It’s perfect.’ The gaiety ran over the dam in short, lolloping, easy boyish laughs, ‘Perfect. No one has ever had a scheme like it. The more I think of it, the more I see it is watertight.’ But he became worried. ‘Do you think Bertillon understands it?’

  ‘How do you like the goulash? You haven’t noticed it at all,’ said Alphendéry, ‘you one-track brain.’

  ‘One-track brain? Is that what I am? He-he-he.’ Woodwinds laughing over the dam. ‘Will he understand it, though, eh?’

  ‘He will,’ said Alphendéry, ‘when I get through explaining it to him.’

  ‘It would be a tragedy if it slipped up,’ said Léon, wagging his head.

  ‘Why didn’t you go to Strindl’s?’ asked Michel, mentioning the second largest grain firm and one with which Léon was intimately connected.

  Léon said, ‘No can do. They’d steal it from me. They’ve got the organization all ready. They don’t need to pay me a salary, a participation. They only need to hear the idea and they’ll whip into it. I want to make this my grand coup. Michel, you’re along with me. You’re lucky.’ Once more, as always, his eyes earnestly searched, as for a jewel, in Alphendéry’s forehead. ‘You’ve got the lucky touch, Michel. You’re a messenger.’ He became grave with sentiment and superstition.

  Michel said, ‘You mean, I have the Hebrew letter Shin in the middle of my forehead. I know. If I ever come and work for you, Henri, it will be on the strength of that Shin. I know your superstition.’

  Léon did not laugh but was both anxious and abashed. He did not speak of these things aloud. At last, he said, rather timorously, ‘There is something—a shilee’ach* you might be.’ He trembled.

  * Inspired messenger, he means.

  Alphendéry laughed but was troubled. ‘My wife, when she was my wife, told me I should have been an alienist … I was able to cure mental disease, disorder by my physical presence. Why was that? Nothing magical. I do not think I am any better than they are. That’s all.’

  Léon was much embarrassed. After a moment he looked up and said with false, loud briskness, ‘Do you think Bertillon understands it, eh? Do you think he knows men? Can we trust his judgment?’

  ‘No,’ said Michel, ‘Jules has not much sense of men, but if we prime him, brief him, see that he gets away with the right entourage, tell him whom to go and see, give him a schedule and a map, he can’t go wrong and he’s well regarded in Washington. One of his ancestors went over on the Mayflower or died at Bunker’s Hill or got the Congressional Medal, something like that. The Americans are always soft with Lafayette cases. If he ties up properly with the American embassy, it’s all right. Of course, he’s hot stuff here because he is the flower of society, with his aviation cup and his Auteuil cup, his plane, his stable and his yacht and the rest. There’s no harm i
n having him with you on the first consortium—it makes it look grand, kosher, and Parisian. But he’ll have to act rather as a figurehead. Why don’t you go to America yourself?’

  ‘No,’ said Léon, ‘no, I can’t go. I’m a foreigner. No Mayflower—a European, they’ll think I’m a jumping jack; you know how they look on Roumanians, Spaniards, bohunks, dagos, there, all those over there. There’s Russian paper mixed in it. Those yellow press. Better not give them the idea it’s entirely Central-European and Slav. They wouldn’t like it: bad publicity and they’ve had enough publicity, God knows.’

  ‘You ought to go along in Jules’s suite,’ said Alphendéry. ‘I can’t see why you don’t, as his secretary or something? You’d be miserable if the plan fell through and you’d blame yourself. It’s your plan. I don’t see why you don’t guard it like the apple of your eye.’

  Léon shook his head and would say no more. Léon had once been in New York, and neither Alphendéry nor anyone else had been able to find out why he would not go back to a place for which his great trading talents eminently suited him. Achitophelous had something to do with it, Guinédor had something to do with it: perhaps they knew. Little Kratz knew, and the venomous threats he spat at Léon when he left him for good and all referred to it. Perhaps it was nothing more serious than income tax. There were many strange embroiled histories between these men: they had concocted many a bizarre plan between them, in the days of their friendship.