House of All Nations

by Christina Stead

  To cover the silence, Alphendéry coaxed, ‘Tell me, Henri, how did you make your money? One day you were eating rye-bread sand-wiches and wondering where you were going to get the three dollars to pay the rent in the old house in Twenty-first Street in New York, full of cockroaches and lice, over a leather and upholstery basement; and in a couple of months, Méline tells me, you were swaggering down in the best tailoring in New York, with a gold-headed cane. How did you do it? Now, don’t tell me your usual lies. Who am I to bother you? You know I’m no crook.’

  Léon gurgled good-naturedly, glad to be let off the New York question. ‘I’ll tell you, my boy, but you needn’t tell anyone, although there’s no harm in it. I was with Strindl’s New York office, see. I should have gone to Valparaiso, but when I see the name of the boat, Morea, that’s Roumanian for death, I renege. And I go to New York instead. It’s after the war. Russia isn’t paying anything. A complete moratorium: you can only get payment by seizing Russian property abroad. Strindl’s had a cargo of spelter landed at Archangel for Russia. Don’t turn up your ears—lots of grain firms delivered funny grains those days. Strindl’s made their fortune during the war. You can imagine in what grain. The Russians wouldn’t pay. There wasn’t a chance of getting a ruble out of them. Strindl’s stood to lose the entire value at the then prices, about one hundred fifty thousand dollars. So I heard something from a Jewish feller who knew a Tammany judge who was fixing up the claims against Russian property in New York. I cabled them to Amsterdam, “Will you settle for sixty thousand dollars if I can get it? Ask no questions.” And they cabled back, “If you can get sixty thousand dollars for us, good on you,” or words to that effect. So I made a good split, don’t worry: I gave something to the Jewish feller, five thousand dollars to the Tammany judge, I sent them sixty thousand dollars, and I got sixty thousand dollars myself. He gave me a judgment of one hundred thirty thousand dollars—not bad, eh?

  Nearly the whole value. That’s how I got my start. That’s why I’m superstitious about Russia. Good luck for me.’ He finished glibly and smiled at Alphendéry, refreshed.

  ‘Well, I suppose I’ll know some day,’ said Alphendéry patiently.

  Léon flushed faintly. ‘I’m telling you the honest truth: I wouldn’t lie to you, Michel,’ he gabbled. ‘Ah, you can only make a fortune in a war!’

  He studied Alphendéry for a while and then floundered briskly into the wheat scheme. Alphendéry, whose busy brain, full of little elves, had worked over all that had been presented to him of the plan by now and who saw further perspectives, mused aloud, ‘What about the reaction of the Washington officials, to Russia being in the plan?’

  Léon said at once, ‘At forty-eight per cent premium, Russia could afford to be honest: even a murderer would be honest if he was saving forty-eight per cent per annum. They can tell that to the people who object. She’s bound to keep to her contract.’ He burbled his recapitulation: ‘Europe needing wheat but faced with a coffee situation in wheat in America—there sits Europe waiting for the wheat to be made a present of … or America can dump it in the ocean. And there are the Russians who must ship wheat to get the cash. You see Europe unable to buy because valuta is beginning to be shaky in Europe and so is credit, because of U.S.A. tariffs, too. The U.S.A. couldn’t accept goods to pay for the wheat and ship it overseas in exchange for goods. Therefore,’ Léon said with marked emphasis, ‘the problem to a Gemera feller* is, first, see a way to stop Russia selling. Now, what are you to offer Russia to stop her selling? NEXT, to find a buyer for the wheat. Next, what to do with the goods that the wheat buyer wants to exchange. Next, a revolutionary stroke to change the whole market psychology—You see, Michel, the European buyers sabotaged, too. And the European buyers sat down and pursued a hand-to-mouth policy which threatened the world structure—’ Light broke on the tossed planes of his great face, ‘I’ve got it, my boy. I’ve got it now.’ He rumbled on.

  * ‘Student of commentaries on the Talmud,’ he means.

  Alphendéry’s fresh voice broke in, ‘I congratulate you, Henri: it’s a stroke all right. To turn the Russians into buyers instead of sellers is sensational, completely sensational … it revolutionizes the whole market situation—and it’s dialectic, it’s along the right line, that’s why it’s perfect: don’t you realize that?’

  ‘Dialectic—what’s—h’m ?’

  ‘The logic of world history, in the line of evolution.’

  ‘History? No. No history. This is new: it takes account of the situation.’ But he was not thinking about Alphendéry any more. He mused, ‘To take goods that Europeans wanted to export to America, instead of to Russia—to give them Russian wheat—to make them buyer of one hundred fifty million bushels, maybe, instead of them coming out with one hundred million bushels—it’ll double the price of wheat, say from fifty cents to a dollar in Winnipeg-Chicago. I’m not dreaming, Michel. We could sell right away—fifty million bushels and probably make—’ his voice fell—‘particularly in exchange for goods that Russia wants.’

  Alphendéry, seated opposite to him in the restaurant, looked at his face, broad as the wheatlands of Roumania he was born in, at his eyes which, though the openings of the lids were relatively small, flashed, rolled, and looked enormous under their great lids and high brows, the jutting nose, a very promontory of passion and willfulness. He had at this moment the kindliest, most brotherly feelings for Léon, although he knew that in any business deal he would only get scrapings from the plate. Léon did not notice the glance. He noticed nobody. He did not know what he was eating either, except that when they brought him rose jelly, he laughed up into his eyes and said boyishly, ‘My poor mother, God rest her soul! made this jelly always. I never had it since.’ Léon always ate sparingly, and took no alcohol, except on fete days, fete days decided by his own secret, internal calendar. Then he would suddenly drink two bottles himself and begin to talk about his star, begin to dream of his fate, his power, begin to feel the dark, quick blood smoke in his veins. But now he drank water, intoxicated enough by the view of this gigantic citadel he saw the invisible but strong hands of his genius building up in front of him for him to inhabit. He smiled, darkled, glinting at Michel, his confidant; in every aspect the Oriental potentate, the Turk, talking to his favorite, supine counselor, quite sure that his own favorite topic—himself—was also the theme that Alphendéry’s ears yawned to hear.

  ‘We would come in one morning and we would say, “We have sold fifty million bushels to the Russians on a basis options”—to be fixed— and the merchants—each in what each—proportion—to make contracts out for certain quantities—brokers getting commissions from the selling consortium. The whole trade satisfied; no depression any more, revival in all the markets! Not only wheat! And we know it is coming! Two-three fortunes. The idea is to leave no doubt in the world trade that there has been a real contract—encourage the world markets—oh, there’s no end to the profits—they would hasten to buy hedges in ahead of the Russians while we were unloading on the way up, but between the U.S.A. and Russia there would be a fixed price—and we’re holding the fifty million. Michel, we’ve got it, we’ve found it. It’s genius!’ He gave a great crunching chuckle, the crushing of sunflower seeds in saliva. ‘What do you think of it, Michel? It’s good, isn’t it? What do you think of the Gemera feller?’

  ‘Good,’ said Alphendéry with the first far note of impatience.

  Léon reached across the table, his face creased with smiles as a happy peasant boy’s, ‘Boy, we’re made. Michel, stick with me and you’re a made man. You can keep that beautiful wife of yours in silk and satin and pay her such a whopping big alimony she’ll—what do you think of it? Good, tell me, do you think it’s good. Do you think you can sell it to that Gentile, in there? We need someone to approach the Gentiles on the other side.’ He swallowed a glass of water and clapped his hands: ‘Waiter!’

  Alphendéry spoke, nastily, for him, ‘Gentiles! Mo
rgan is a Gentile, so is Rockefeller. You’re medieval, Henri. I don’t go about thinking I’m a Jew.’

  ‘You’re an Alsatian Jew … that’s not a Jew. No, sir, I’m the Chasidim.’ He cried sharply, ‘Waiter, bill, bill!’ He turned to Michel seriously, softly, ‘Imagine all them fellers in the morning coming on the telephone and saying, ‘What’s this I hear?’ and I’d be saying, ‘Listen, Meyer Benz—’ ‘

  ‘The beauty is,’ said Alphendéry, ‘that everything goes through normal banking and trading channels, so that business gets a real fillip, not like usual government business which goes through without intermediaries, excludes the trade and does no good to the trade. Our scheme takes care of the intermediaries. Everyone plucks from the trees—more than that, it has to be.’

  ‘How’s that, how’s that? It has to be.’

  ‘Why, the reason the American government couldn’t be party to a three-dimension is because they couldn’t admit they are dumping: there has to be a legitimate demand.’

  ‘Excellent.’ Léon rubbed his hands. ‘It gets better every minute. Listen, you and I must go over this, work out all the points. Then you write them down, Michel, and give them to—Bertillon to read. He must learn it by heart. He’ll get it anyhow, won’t he? I’ll go over and over and over—he must get it.’

  ‘Oh, of course, good heavens!’ expostulated Michel, now at the end of his patience. ‘Jules will understand it perfectly. How do you think he made his money ? He can’t be a complete goof.’

  ‘I don’t know, I don’t know—’

  ‘You sprang it on him like a thunderbolt this morning; you’ve been working it out for days—he only just heard of it.’

  ‘Listen,’ urged Léon, himself not listening, ‘the reason we’re not frightened to go with this plum to a government is because they can’t steal the scheme because, say they sold a certain big amount to a consumer country on credit, it would do more harm than good: they wouldn’t be so stupid. It would ruin them electorally.’

  Alphendéry was cheerful. ‘They wouldn’t be so stupid as to only see the smartaleck trick of going past us and making the direct sale on credit, because that would undermine the structure, while our spectacular project would revolutionize values—’

  ‘Of course, them government fellers are pretty stupid. You’ve got to point out to them the danger of selling direct. They don’t care about the state of the European market. A danger—’

  He came back to Alphendéry’s office still talking it over, still recurring to the points of his scheme, which stood in his head without words and to which words fitted badly. Léon saw these moves, as perhaps an engineer sees a bridge in his mind, or a musician an overture. He did not see it in words and, therefore, people not forewarned thought him stupid or confused, but his mind was never confused on the wheat market or on the mechanism of his own schemes; although, true enough, many of his schemes were cut straight out of the broadcloth of fantasy, because he was too impatient to study.

  On the way to the bank Léon suddenly cooled off, however, and Michel, who knew the man by now, divined that he had a rendezvous somewhere about four o’clock. As he pressed his hand in good-by, Léon roused himself from his urgent amorous preoccupations enough to murmur, ‘Impress it on him. Russia must get through the Five-Year Plan. There’s a limited outlet for bills at forty-eight per cent discount; her gold production’s still small. She’s compelled to ship wheat, she needs—got to get valuta to pay for the Five-Year Plan goods. Wheat in America the same as coffee in Brazil.’

  He left. He was half across the pavement when he turned dubiously and came back to Alphendéry still standing hatless between the two staves of Mercury in the door. He said urgently, as if it had just occurred to him, ‘At present European buyers are sitting down, doing nothing, pursuing a hand-to-mouth policy. Make a revolutionary stroke—change the whole psychology—’ He nodded and went off again.

  Alphendéry, aflame with the scheme, turned into the bank and hastened upstairs to find Jules. Jules was figuring on a piece of paper and looked up when Alphendéry entered.

  ‘I say, Michel, I’ve just been figuring out this scheme of Léon’s. We can make plenty of dough out of it, can’t we? What did he tell you at lunch? Do you think we can trust him or will he try to steal the swag? Perhaps I can make private arrangements with the Washington bunch.’

  ‘I went over that with Henri,’ said Alphendéry with circumspection, avoiding the question of pure booty. ‘The commission to the Bertillon-Léon consortium from the U.S.A. would be one-half per cent plus carrying, freight, perquisites, say up to two per cent, not more, and the U.S.A. could afford to do this, on account of the increased value given their supplies. You see they know what’s coming, or at least part of it. They would ship wheat as the contract with Russia called for it, and store it in silos in parts of Europe (this is not an essential part of the scheme, this is just mechanical). But the big money is made through us holding the wheat at our disposal and putting it on the market when and how we like when the news gets about and the demand comes in.’

  Jules seemed grieved. ‘Isn’t all this merchandising a lot of bunk? Why can’t we make a straight steal? I don’t know all this wheat game; Léon will do me in. I’d rather get the money myself and never pay the government bunch. How do I know Léon won’t try to get away with it all?’

  Alphendéry laughed. ‘If you don’t, you mean. Now you two boys will have to have a letter of agreement, a public one and a private one, too; something special so that you two bright babies will be held to the straight line. But do me a favor, Jules, and give Léon’s scheme a tryout. Don’t start pulling off any bright ideas of the second degree.’

  Jules laughed vainly. ‘Oh, I’ve got some ideas of my own. I’ll put it into the hands of Bomba and get him to organize a little publicity. It’ll help the thing along, give us a big start-off; the Washington crowd will be waiting to eat out of our hands, public opinion will make them—everyone will be pleased. The market will go up. The lambs will come in, it can only be a temporary boom, and we’ll sell them till the cows come home.’

  Alphendéry saw Jules travestying himself, with mortification. ‘For God’s sake, don’t do that, Jules. You don’t want rumors about before we’ve so much as got hold of the wheat. This is secret business. You only have to tell the U.S.A. about consortium one, too, don’t forget: consortia two and three you keep in your vest pocket and buttoned up. If I see Bomba getting wind of this, I assure you I’ll have him shanghaied. William is only too anxious to do it now. He’s all that’s needed to ruin the finest scheme that Léon ever thought up, with all his genius.’

  ‘Genius, ptt!’ Jules was willful.

  Alphendéry had borne the brunt of the whole conversation, and in the scheme he thought he saw a real chance of making money for himself; enough to ‘get out’—his favorite dream. He said in a high despotic voice to Jules, ‘Jules, if you put Bomba, that tinhorn brass band, into this, I’ll resign. Tell me you’re going to do it, and I’ll hand in my resignation right now.’

  Jules raised his face with the disingenuous soft surprise of a spoiled child; he stopped his everlasting tracing on the writing block and smiled affectionately. ‘Michel, you surprise me! If it is so important to you, I won’t tell Bomba.’

  ‘You mustn’t, Jules—it would ruin the whole scheme.’

  Jules began to trace again and laughed offhandedly. ‘Well, you write it all down from your angle and we’ll go over it.’ They began writing it down. William entered.

  ‘My original idea is the best,’ flung out Jules, irritated by ten minutes’ application and by some compliment of Alphendéry to Léon. ‘A consortium with myself—giant capital, form a society on the books, transfer funds from the bank on the books—any amount, offer the wheat to the French government at any price. Get it from the U.S.A. government, telling them we’re the agents for the French government, get the money from the Fre
nch government, sell the wheat secretly, and then skip. It’s the simplest and you get double the money without all this finicking with scale-ups and short selling.’

  Alphendéry looked pained. William said, ‘Well, let’s try to understand Léon’s scheme, at any rate.’

  Alphendéry pleaded, ‘If you want to make money. Of course, if you want to cool your heels in the Santé for a few years, that’s another story.’ He felt a shiver of despair.

  ‘Why doesn’t Léon go along and do the dirty work?’ asked Jules next, angrily. Fifteen minutes’ work and he was willing to throw the whole thing into the wastepaper basket.

  Alphendéry laughed. ‘No one knows why he won’t go to America. It’s one of the mysteries of life. His Old Man of the Sea, Achitophelous, has something to do with it, so has a lady and a gun, and a gangster and a gun, and a stock exchange head-on collision and a gun, and a corner in chicken feed and a gun; but whose was the decisive gun I’ve never been able to find out. At any rate, there’s a gun somewhere and look what a target Léon is. But he’ll never tell. Why doesn’t anyone in the world ever come clean?’ He sighed. ‘This is a stroke of genius, Jules. There’s no question of thieving. Get that right out of your head. You’ve got to work in with politics and you’ve got to work soon, for war and crisis are coming, and you’ve got to be prepared to make money. Ninety per cent of prewar money doesn’t exist any more. You’ve got to be there when the cat jumps. Léon is right: Russia is the cue. You don’t see the beauty of it yet. Germany now has no more credit. Dr. Luther is going from door to door with his hat in his hand. The Credit-Anstalt has just failed. There’s no credit to be had. Valuta is cracking. The French are withdrawing funds from London. Why? What a mess! And Léon’s taking all this into account! The man’s superb! I’ve never understood why he’s not the head of a great concern. He can wipe the floor with any of them.’