House of All Nations

by Christina Stead

  Alphendéry had bitten his forefinger once or twice, sign that he was exasperated, ‘The Côte d’Azur,’ he said, tapping his foot. ‘The Côte d’Azur, ah!’

  ‘Don’t be silly, William,’ said Jules contemptuously. ‘They’d rather get the lowdown on us than go to the Côte d’Azur. Only they don’t know one thing: it isn’t what you know, it’s what you have. They’ve got nothing. Say, wouldn’t I rather get the goods on Carrière than go to the Côte d’Azur? Surely, I understand them: they want my fur coat and I’ve got it.’ He shone at this, looked his softest and most tender, laughed humanly. ‘No, but they don’t; they don’t want my fur coat, they don’t want my chauffeur. They only want a second suit for Sunday! They don’t want enough! That’s their mistake! Say, I know them. The communists don’t even hand them out a free overcoat and yet they give fifty centimes a lecture. It’s a racket, a little racket. Now a person like Mussolini or Hitler who’d hand them out a free suit, a uniform, he gets ever so much more out of them. It’s a cheap racket, but what can you get out of broken-backed nags? It’s a stupid racket,’ he suddenly threw out, coming down on the four chair legs with violence. ‘What can you sell them? That’s why we’ve got to get out … we must get out of this game for a few years.’

  ‘A revolution is built up patiently this way, while everyone jeers at it,’ said Alphendéry bitterly.

  ‘Oh, to hell with the revolution,’ cried Jules, laughing. ‘Say, Michel, I’d rather take you to Deauville every Sunday than have you waste valuable time with the ragtag and bobtail at Belleville. You’re not doing them any good: you’re just robbing them of fifty centimes and keeping them shivering in the filthy little hole when they ought to be at home keeping warm by the radiator, with the eiderdown round their feet and a good liqueur.’ (Jules’s usual picture of the worker’s home.) ‘Another of your illusions, Michel! Besides, I don’t like it. The police will be on your trail.’

  ‘What would we do if you got locked up?’ said William.

  ‘If you’re really for Moscow, it’s bad for business,’ Jules snapped.

  ‘You two boys make me sick,’ said Michel, getting up and looking at them. ‘Go to blazes. To preserve your miserable few million francs, you’d have them unable to read and write.’

  Jules chuckled endlessly at the vision. ‘Why not? Ha, ha, ha. Oh, Michel, oh, Michel. You do take yourself seriously. All right, what the deuce do I care? Amuse yourself, have a good time. I know what’s behind all this. It’s not Moscow, it’s this Jean Frère you’re crazy about.’

  They all began to laugh and Jules remembered he had a letter from Adam Constant. Constant had found a location for their office in Shanghai and asked that the man who was to replace him be named.

  ‘Who is it?’ asked Alphendéry. ‘Jacques Manray?’

  ‘Rubbish,’ laughed Jules. ‘Etienne Klotz!’

  ‘Who is that?’

  ‘Wait and see, wait and see! Etienne Klotz is just the man.’

  Alphendéry looked at Jules suspiciously, used to his fantasies, but he said nothing more.

  ‘Etienne Klotz is no Red,’ Jules cried after him, as he went out—and laughed. He followed Michel. ‘Wire Constant as follows: “Etienne Klotz, your successor, sails when fully instructed. Hold the fort. Greetings!” Sign it.’ He had an unpleasant air that forbade questions.

  * * *

  Scene Seventy-eight: The Grand Coup

  Kreuger’s secretary rang Alphendéry from mid-ocean, on their sad return from New York where they were refused a loan, said that the correspondent of Legris of Amsterdam had put it round New York that Bertillon’s thought Kreuger was bankrupt. ‘We will sue you,’ said the secretary.

  ‘Sue,’ said Alphendéry. ‘Two months from now you will have to choose between Loewenstein and Hatry.’

  ‘You had guts,’ said Jules admiringly, when Alphendéry put down the phone.

  ‘Why not? When Kreuger the colossus rings up a flea like me, what am I to deduce? That he has shrunk to the flea-state? I don’t care, anyhow. Let him sue me. Do you care, Jules?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  But a few days later, not two months, Kreuger was dead except to legend, and even legend fades fast these days.

  On the Kreuger crash in Sweden and on all markets and the Insull crash in the U.S.A. and on all markets, Jules in 1932 won the great prize in the lottery! Rumor flew, putting his profits at tens of millions; money rolled back into the bank, the employees smiled, the customers’ men forgot to envy, and society gave Jules a laurel wreath: the white-headed boy of finance, this time headed for the ‘high bank.’ Demain, leader of the schism in the Banque du Littoral du Nord, tried to woo Jules away from his old friend Débuts. Many interesting affairs were proposed to him, and the actor of the Théâtre de l’Oeuvre smiled in society; ‘Well, now you have all the required proofs! Jules Bertillon is really Mercury. Who else would have sold Insull and Kreuger?’

  Alphendéry was again whispered about as the power behind the throne, and Ralph Stewart, as well as a firm of gold brokers in Paris, made him offers, supposing him to be really rich this time. But Alphendéry had not sold short either Insull or Kreuger for his own account! ‘I am small time and I remain it,’ he said. Jules, floating on a cloud of glory, made Alphendéry a present of half a million francs; Alphendéry sagely put them in a safety deposit and went on living in the Place du Panthéon. The Hallers, enchanted that Alphendéry was both socialist and rich, invited him, sure that he would understand them. Aristide was unable to support the idea that Alphendéry had told him to sell short in Kreuger and that he had not done it. Nevertheless, all the men of the bank profited by the Bertillon glory, and customers were easy to obtain. Carrière was laughed at, and Jules’s maxim was justified: ‘They don’t care how crooked you are if you make money!’

  Impossible to find out what Jules had won: he let the rumors speak for him.

  Léon, at the bank, like Schicklgrüber and others, to congratulate the king of good fortune, ran across the famous Pedro de Silva-Vizcaïno, once again over the frontier, no one knew how.

  ‘How does he do it?’ inquired Léon, jealous and admiring.

  ‘You’ve never seen that silky dark eye boring into a girl’s defenses; I say, the battering-ram method isn’t the only one!’

  ‘No, no, you’re right, Michel, you’re right: I’ve got something to learn. And Schicklgrüber! He’s not handsome, is he!’

  ‘No, he looks like a dirty bellwether. But he worships women, that’s the secret; that’s something the girls know in the second.’

  ‘Yes, yes, that’s right.’ He half closed his eyes and rolled over Michel a cunning look. ‘For one,’ his sweetly tolling laugh rang out, ‘for one, Michel, my boy, who isn’t a woman-chaser, you know a lot about the technique. Well, I’ve got something to learn. Never thought I’d learn anything about women at my age. He, he, he: women.’ A radiant smile washed out all the cunning and all the age; he said mysteriously, ‘And Jules—a charmer but doesn’t care for women, does he?’

  ‘No, only to get their accounts …’

  ‘Of course, he’s made millions.’ Lower, with exquisite suggestiveness, Léon said, ‘How much, do you think, just roughly, I’m not prying, how much did he make, Michel? He was pyramiding all the time, eh? How much?’

  ‘About fifteen million francs! Perhaps a bit more: I don’t know his private position.’

  ‘Ayayayaya! Fairy money! Together we could have cleaned up the world. He won’t work in anyone else’s show.’

  ‘Jules is fantastic almost all the time. Once in a year he’s hard, clear-sighted, and cuts right down to bedrock; then you see the man that built the bank. Don’t forget he built it all himself. Richissimes leave their family fortunes here. Paleologos, our lucky star, for he turned the tide for us, has plumped for us. Campoverde has just put all his mother’s money with us. We are at the top, Léon.’
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  ‘Luck,’ said Léon superstitiously. ‘He didn’t deserve it, Michel, but he’s born lucky. Another man, with the risks he took … Cash in, Michel. And if you want a job, you can come to me any time. I trust you: money follows you but it doesn’t stick to your fingers.’ He became a meridional sun of gaiety. ‘Michel, Michel, since I’m not paying, I can give you good advice. He’s good-tempered now: cash in, my boy; get what’s coming to you.’ He became severe, gave Michel the once-over. ‘Think it over, Michel.’

  * * *

  Scene Seventy-nine: Dividers

  Mlle. Armelle and Monsieur Etienne had richer hauls in the mail again. Mr. Philippe Légaré wrote:

  When you were only a struggling exchange booth in the Rue Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, my inventions in the way of codes, systematization of indexes, my arrangements with houses at that time most lethargic about doing business with you, my letters advising clients, my indefatigable liaison work was your chief support. As soon as you saw your foot on the road to success, you got rid of me in case I should claim my profits … Now you are rich … rumor says you are the richest stock-exchange banking house in Paris: where do I come in? Nowhere? I am forgotten, outcast: a charge of insanity has been trumped up against me; I write letters demanding my rights and people are not ashamed to show them around as a proof that I am insane. It is men like you, Jules Bertillon, that make atheists and revolutionists: what proof that God or government exists? L.E.F.! What a comedy! If I did not hope that one day conscience would smite you and make you give me my rights, I would denounce you to the police; but I am a good man. I have never hurt a fly in my life. It is beneath me to denounce even one who has stolen from me everything that I possessed. We are poor men: our inventions, our instruments, our labor, our salaries, our bread, is snatched from us by men like yourself, men who appear angels and are devils. Why does God allow this? Is there a God? There is a God! There is retribution! Think of this, Jules Bertillon! … Never think I have forgotten our past contacts: you were very kind to me (I thought, poor fool), you took me in out of the street—not to be kind to me, no, because you were sharp enough to see I had something to give you! Like all your kind! What a sucker I have been! Weakness is its own reward, say you! Say on! Revel in your highway robbery! Retribution is around the corner! You have prospered on ill doing long enough! This high reward you have reaped is the last you will see! You will end your days in sorrow and desolation, despised of all; beggars will not ask you for a penny, so low will be your estate! Men will point and say that was Jules Bertillon! There is a God. He watches! He watches the weak and foolish like me, I admit it; he watches those who were victims; he will repay.

  Take warning. If I do not receive 5,000 francs by Friday evening (the last post is delivered here at 6 p.m.) I deposit a plaint at the Commissariat and simultaneously post a letter already prepared directed to the (head of the) Parquet. The Minister of Finance will hear; there will be no passport for you when you want it at the Ministry of the Interior. Enjoy your money while you may but unless you divide with me, in the small, poor, pitiful percentage that my cowardice makes me ask for, you will regret it, once and for all … Mr. Bertillon! You were kind to me once. Forgive my vituperations! I am poor, I will soon be starving! My wife has some disease no one can cure: a visitation of God … I have annoyed people; I have blackmailed: I am now blackmailing you. Have pity on one so much weaker than you, Mr. Bertillon. Send me enough for bread: all I ask. You have your Hispano-Suizas, you eat at Larue’s: send me enough for bread and to pay my apartment rent: All I ask! Send it to me and little as it is, I will bless you for it and not annoy you any more. Want is my master!

  May God bless your enterprise!

  P. Légaré

  P.S. If the 5,000 francs is not in my hands on the due date and in due time, I will be obliged to act as indicated above.

  Nice, March 30, 1932

  Before he had read two sentences of this Jules had thrown it to Alphendéry:

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sakes send the fellow a couple of thousand francs and burn the letter.’

  ‘Don’t answer it.’

  ‘And tell Campoverde when he’s down there to call in and see what the doctor says. I’ll send him to Aix or wherever he wants; I don’t want Légaré’s curses even though he’s crazy. It’s bad luck.’

  Jules was irritable, but the next letter made him laugh. He threw it across to Alphendéry, ‘A friend of yours.’ It was from Theodor Bomba. As usual he was angling for big money, and ended: ‘With the best wishes and heartfelt greetings of the unhappy, Theodor Bomba!’ Hospitals and charitable institutions wrote, of course; relatives, odd acquaintances who hadn’t been heard of for months and were down on their luck: jealousy, poverty, and blackmail raised their voices. Jules received most of these, but other members of the bank also found the pathetic cry of the empty purse in their mail. Alphendéry opened the usual weekly letter from his mother,

  Strasbourg, March 31, 1932

  My Dear Son,

  Thank you for your letter. Look after your health. My own health is bad and I fear I am not long for this earth. But do not worry about me: what can’t be cured must be endured. Here is a letter from Estelle’s sister-in-law, Betty, the Dutch girl, you remember. I think she is very fresh, but I send it on since she asks me to. I am glad your nice Mr. Bertillon has had good luck; everyone knows about it. What a surprise for you! I am so tired that I need a little fresh air: I asked the old coachman to come every day at three and take me out; it costs so very little, but if you do not wish it, I will tell him not to come any more. The fresh air gives me a little interest in the world … I have so little now. Estelle writes me nice letters. Write to her, Michel: I have few friends; she is not a bad girl, giddy, that is all. May you ever be happy, and wiser than you are!

  Your old sweetheart,

  Mother

  And the sister-in-law’s letter sang a sweet, but opportune tune,

  Amsterdam, March 28, 1932

  Dear Mother Alphendéry,

  Thank you so much for your sweet letter and it was so sweet of you to answer my little card so promptly. I had your address from dear Estelle and of course Amsterdam is ringing with the success of the bank Michel is in, so I thought I would write and congratulate you, and him; but I know that is one and the same: I am so glad that you are feeling much better and think you are quite right to engage a little carriage for the afternoons, especially with the good weather. The weather here is the usual, but warmish. Amsterdam is so charming and you would adore it—it certainly is a wonderful city and I am happy here with my dear husband and our little ones … It is strange, but we spoke of you all this very afternoon, you and Michel and Estelle and other dear ones. My Willem and Jan remember you and ask, ‘Will dear Mother Alphendéry come to Ams’a-am?’ We have a nice five-room apartment on the top floor near the Kayser gracht and I pay 100 guilders but I will rent out two rooms and help with our rent. Jan was very ill and we thought he was going to die—he got a streptococcus germ in his throat and ran 40 for nearly three weeks, I had to take him for X-ray treatments. Think of the expense for such poor people. But the children are everything to us. Now we are strapped. I asked Estelle if she thought Michel could help us, and we will repay. What do you think, dear Mother? I would not ask unless I asked you first … And now, good-by; let me hear a yes or no—I shall write to you again soon. All my dear love to you and kiss from Jan and Willem who love you.

  Lovingly,

  Betty

  P.S. Remember me to Estelle and dear Michel when you write.

  William suggested an exhibition of begging letters: all members of the staff to contribute. Jules was rueful. He was for paying them all something to hear no more of it; he felt that these were mildew on his good luck and he wanted no ill wishers. At his request, therefore, Michel sent off small checks to everyone: to Légaré, two thousand francs; to Bomba (unknown to William), five thousand franc
s; to Betty, twenty guilders; and Jules told him to send his mother two thousand francs extra to pay for her carriage. ‘Spoil the old thing,’ said Jules. ‘There’s this difference between her and the others, that she really loves you.’ Armand Brossier came up genteelly but with a certain assurance, and said that he was marrying and would like an advance; he received an advance of five hundred francs a month. Jacques Manray asked for a holiday and got it. Jules paid out these propitiatory offerings to his gambling god. This done Jules shrugged with a faint contempt, put on his hat, and vanished from the crystal towers of his dreams, into the daytime street.

  The news of his gift to Alphendéry became common talk in the city; even the cashiers and tellers felt some envy. Aristide Raccamond’s heart turned upside down: for days and nights he raged at the injustice of it. He trembled looking back at the danger the bank had been in! If the scale had tipped the other way—where would they all have been? Between envy and fear, he came to the edge of a nervous breakdown, quarreled with his clients and every day hysterically brought their troubles on to Jules’s carpet. They had lost where Jules had won and they were bitter: Jules must pay them off, repay their losses, divide something of his enormous winnings with them …

  ‘Why?’ asked Jules calmly of Aristide, but unable to bear the neurotic pressure of Aristide and of Marianne, who came to see him when Aristide was taking headache powders at home, he paid off the cinema star Freddie Pharion, twenty-five thousand francs, and to Dr. Froude, Raccamond’s largest and best-paying client, thirty-five thousand francs. No sooner were these acts of grace performed than Aristide conceived that real injustice had been done his clients, and he began gloomily to read past records and find out other losses that his clients had sustained, and to clamor that they now were dissatisfied. Jules, although he detested him, and had a fear of him tainted with superstition, took him out to lunch at Fouquet’s and promised him a participation in all future operations. Aristide was relieved at this and immediately proposed a ‘paper to that effect’ to be drawn up by his lawyer.