The conviction, immediately intuitive and barely visualised, distressed John; he lifted the razor from the cold cheek and asked nervously:
“Is that all right?”
His eyes still closed Greenbloom raised a hand and ran the fingers critically over the shaved area.
“‘ll do,” he said; “closer if possible though and a little more casually if you don’t mind.”
“Casually?”
“Yes, don’t be so intense about it.”
“Horab’s very sensitive to anxiety,” said Michael moving over to the other side of the chair and inspecting the operation. “He’s very sensitive to what he calls ‘personae’.”
“What on earth are personae?” asked John.
‘No time to tell you now.’
“No not now,” grated Greenbloom, “please not now.”
“And don’t forget his neck,” went on Michael. “You’re doing splendidly old chap, but he likes his neck shaved right down to the line of the collar, don’t you Horab?”
There was no reply and John resumed the shaving. Greenbloom made no attempt to raise his chin so that the skin over his thin neck muscles and Adam’s apple could be reached by the razor and therefore, somewhat reluctantly, John had to push down the pillow to the level of his shoulders and with his left hand tilt the waxen jaw higher towards the ceiling. In a few minutes he had completed his task and stepped eagerly away from the chair.
“Give him his tea,” said Michael.
“What, now? I think he’s gone to sleep.”
“No, he’s always like that.” Michael raised his voice. “Wake up Horab! There’s a cup of tea for you.”
“I am awake,” whispered Greenbloom. “Has he finished?”
“Of course he has.”
“Good! Got a drink?”
“No,” said Michael.
“Get one! Not for me though.” With his eyes still closed he sent out his hand in quest of a teacup and John placed one between the long thumb and the fingers.
“Thanks,” said Michael. “I think I will. I don’t usually like anything at this time of the day but I’ve been feeling a little shagged lately and something short and astringent would probably improve my reactions.” Walking over to the table he poured himself a stiff whisky-and-soda and slumped down in the chair with his back to the window. John saw him feeling comfortably for his pipe and tobacco pouch as he invariably did when he was preparing to enjoy himself.
The increasing darkness of the room and the fact that the effects of the vodka he had drunk were beginning to subside, depressed him. Unplugging the razor from the lamp he reinserted and switched on the bulb. The fall of the light on Greenbloom’s closed lids disturbed him and sitting up he began to drink his tea hurriedly, spilling little drops of it down the front of his dressing-gown. Having emptied the cup he limped across to his bedroom. They heard the water running in the basin and through the open door saw him patting his livid face with a hand towel. In a few minutes he re-emerged with one of the bottles of French brilliantine two gold-plated hair brushes and a tortoise-shell comb. They continued to watch him as once again he inspected his face in the blued venetian glass above the mantel and then deftly oiled and parted his black hair.
“Any stars Mick?” he asked.
Michael craned over the back of his chair for a moment.
“Yes,” he said deliberately. “I think I can see one over in the direction of the Observatory.”
“Sure?”
“Yes, just about.”
“Quite sure, Mick?”
Michael took off his spectacles, polished and resumed them, and then gazed out even more intently through the window.
“It’s quite distinct,” he said. “A little misty perhaps but there’s no mistaking it.”
“Get binoculars,” said Greenbloom.
“Fetch the binoculars John!”
“Where are they Horab?”
“You borrowed them for Newmarket. If you returned them they should be in the bedroom behind the door.”
“Go and have a look John.”
John found them and gave them to him. In a very businesslike way Michael finished his drink, refilled his glass, then moved over to the window and scanned the reddening sky. “Yes,” he said at length. “It’s there, Horab.”
“Oi! oi!” said Greenbloom. “We will drink to that star.”
He half-filled a crystal goblet with brandy, deftly cut a thin slice of lemon and floating it on the surface piled it high with caster sugar from a shaker on the mantelpiece. “A Nicholashka,” he said, “a delightfully virile Pomeranian drink!” Lighting a Turkish cigarette he started to limp round the room drinking and smoking at a great pace.
John drank his tea in silence and having finished his egg consumed several more slices of kosher cake. Greenbloom was very hospitable, he obviously liked to see his possessions used, and Michael having finished a very large whisky and being already half-way through another one would not be likely to be censorious, therefore quite openly and with pleasant self-confidence John took his glass over to the large bottle-laden table and refilled it with vodka. It seemed to be harmless stuff, he thought, almost like water save for the dry warmth it left on the tongue when once it had passed down the throat. Perhaps if he had another glass or two of it he might begin to regain his lost cheerfulness. He turned round to find Michael watching him gloomily. He had miscalculated, and afraid that he might be going to be deprived of his satisfaction, he took a generous swig of the pale spirit.
“What’s that you’ve got in the glass?”
“Vodka.”
“Oh—I wouldn’t take too much of that if I were you, it’s dangerous stuff.”
“Do you think I ought to have a little whisky instead?”
“Good Lord no! You know Mother’s feelings about whisky, she’d be frightfully upset.”
“She’d never know.”
“That’s not the point. One mustn’t base one’s life on the assumption that—”
Greenbloom in his rapid journeyings from one end of the room to the other stopped between them.
“Oh don’t worry him Mick. Let him stretch his legs, it’s what he needs. There is much to be done, we all three have to make our arrangements.”
“What arrangements?” Michael paused as though suddenly reminded of something. “Look here, Horab. What’s all this about London? I believe I heard you saying something about it when I was boiling the egg.”
“We’re meeting Rachel,” he moved over to the telephone and dialled the Exchange. “Dinner and a show. Hello operator, give me Golders Green 20463. Have you got a woman? No no I was talking to my friend—”
“How do you mean?” asked Michael uneasily.
“Well you’ll have to bring someone. We could take that little shoppie of yours from Cowley but I think it would be better if we were to meet one of your London ones. They tend to be a little smarter and you know how Rachel is about clothes. Hello, is that you Rachel? Ah Mrs Schwartz Guten tag, kindly get Rachel for me at once. Well who is it to be? Somebody with appearance, that big woman, she cannot dress but she has presence. What is her name?”
“You mean Kate?”
“Yes yes, but her surname and telephone number?”
“Frobisher 43592, but really Horab, it’s rather short notice and I very much doubt—”
“Her surname! Something to do with mistletoe.”
“Holly,” said Michael.
“Hello Rachel. We are coming up to Town.… Yes, by seven at the latest. Three things: first book for a show, a good one, five seats in the stalls. Next book a table at Claridges or the Luxor, and last ring Mick’s woman, Kate Holly, Frobisher 43592 and tell her she’s to be there.… All right then the Luxor for certain.… No, no, he doesn’t need one—officially he is too young, he is Michael’s brother. Did you get the trinket? … And you like it? … Good.”
He put down the receiver and got up. “We must hurry, you will need to change.”
“We can�
��t possibly bring John.”
“He is coming. That is why I am bringing him.”
“What on earth do you mean?”
“I mean that we would none of us be going if I did not wish to bring your brother—it is simple enough, he must come with us because I am bringing him. Don’t worry about money, everything will be paid for. You have the money the boy gave you?”
Michael was taken aback and started to fumble in his pocket.
“No no keep it, it is yours.”
“It’s not that Horab—you’re always so generous—it’s only that you don’t seem to realise that John has to be back at the School by ten o’clock at the latest. He’s had a good tea haven’t you John? And I should think he’s pretty tired and wouldn’t mind getting back a little earlier than we’d arranged would you?”
They both turned and looked at him, Greenbloom coldly, Michael with warm concern. John returned Greenbloom’s motionless glance with intensity trying to discern from the long black eyes the answer which would be most pleasing to their owner.
“Are you going in the Bentley?” he asked.
“We are.”
“And then the theatre?”
“Yes—a play.”
“I wish I could come.”
Michael was quicker than Greenbloom, he leapt at the desire trying to beat it down whilst it was still rising towards the dark ceiling.
“Of course you do old chap, one always wants to be a jump ahead of one’s age-group until one has the misfortune—”
“Enough,” said Greenbloom. “You may cheat yourself but John is young—He will come with us.”
“And you I suppose will ring up the Prebendary and the Housemaster and then explain things to my people?” began Michael.
“Precisely,” said Greenbloom, “but not tonight. If necessary in the morning I will personally interview them both and put through a trunk call to your mother.”
“You can’t do this sort of thing, Horab. This is England, not Switzerland. I know very little about Chillon but I can assure you that if this is the sort of laxity that was permitted there—”
“In Europe one is educated,” said Greenbloom, “one is taught to live, one is freed and there are no age-groups. I intend to include a passage on education in my Wittgenstein when I reach the fourth volume but there is no time to discuss it now. Where is your dinner-jacket? If it is in pawn you had better borrow one of mine.”
“I don’t like it,” said Michael. “Things of this sort never turn out well. I don’t think you realise how young John is.”
“Young? He is older than us both. It is there in the eyes, in the face and hands, in the way he stands.” He broke off and then turned on Michael with sudden anger. “You have never looked at your brother! In all the years that you have known him you have failed to regard him; but I have only had to look once to know that his youth is over.”
“Of course, if you’re going to start dramatising,” said Michael moving hopelessly over in the direction of the decanter.
“I never dramatise; I merely respond as we’re meant to respond, but you English have only one response to everything and that is the cultivation of restraint. You are not born restrained, you do not die restrained; but in the little interval which separates the two you practise no other response, and that is why you prefer whisky to wine.”
“Oh have it your own way,” said Michael. “He’ll be leaving at the end of the term anyway, so I don’t suppose that much harm will come of it, though I don’t see how you’re going to be able to give a convincing explanation to the Headmaster on Sunday morning.”
“I have a doctor in London and I imagine that even in these barbaric gymnasia which in England you call schools, they have the beginnings of respect for Adlerian psychology.”
“I very much doubt if they’ve ever heard of it.”
“Then tomorrow will mark a great educational advance. I will get you my clothes.” He hurried into the bedroom and they were left alone. Michael looked deeply into the bottom of his warm glass and John knew that he would say nothing to him because Greenbloom’s vehemence had deafened them both. They waited under the reverberations of all that had been said like strangers who had suffered a clumsy introduction by an uneasy host; and then, a few moments later, Greenbloom re-emerged carrying over his arm a dinner-jacket, a boiled shirt, a pair of pumps, and a black tie which he slung on to the arm of his chair.
“We have just five minutes, Mick,” he said. “We must not keep them waiting.” He returned to the bedroom and closed the door behind him.
Michael took off his things slowly and started to put on the borrowed clothes. John finished his vodka.
“What did he mean about the doctor?” he asked Michael.
“Oh, I imagine he thinks you need taking out of yourself,” Michael paused and looked at him.
“Do you?”
“I’m not sure, but I do find I keep thinking about it all. Nothing seems real, except that.”
“You mean the Moors?”
“Yes, the whole thing: those last days, the caves, bloodhounds, the police and—finding her—” He swallowed. “She was so—I loved her.”
With his braces half on Michael leaned over and patted his back. John sobbed; the whole dimness of the room shifted and changed while slow dark tears ran out of his eyes and down his cheeks.
“I’m sorry, Mick! It’s just something I can’t talk about to anyone.”
The door opened and Greenbloom reappeared. From the quick movement of his head as he entered the room it was obvious that he had intended to interrupt them; he made no pretence of having an excuse for his intrusion, and he spoke at once.
“You see?” he said thickly. “You’re mad, Mick; you’re all mad. Gentiles!” He opened the door a little wider. “What he wants is a good time: action, change, movement. I will write to your mother. Take the keys and bring the Bentley to the front gate. We’ll meet you there in five minutes.” He tossed the keys to Michael who caught them easily and then, still in process of dressing, hurried obediently out of the room. They heard him clattering down the wooden stairs.
“What are you drinking?” asked Greenbloom.
“Vodka.”
“Here, have a whisky.” He handed him a glass. “Drink it. Drink it fast and then weep it out of you. Wail and weep—talk if you like. Say anything that comes into your head.”
“I loved her,” said John. “She was what I’ve always wanted, and now she’s dead.”
“She was murdered,” said Greenbloom, “strangled.”
“Yes, she was—strangled.”
“What you have always wanted was strangled,” repeated Greenbloom. “Aren’t you angry?”
John put down his full glass. “Yes, I am.”
“Are you very angry?”
“Very!”
“No, you are not. If you were angry you would not be weeping.” He came closer and lowered his voice. At this moment he was no more than a voice. He seemed to be like that voice which is insistent in the silence and darkness that precedes sleep. John heard him speaking from some place deep within his own head, and what was said between them was said between John and some other remoter part of himself. “If I were the one,” the voice whispered, “the man in the cave, the man you met on the moors, if I were that man and you were alone with me in this room, what would you want to do to me?”
John looked in the direction he remembered. “Kill you,” he said.
“Well, why don’t you?” Greenbloom hung beside him like a dummy, his arms loose and lax at his sides. “Why don’t you stop weeping and kill me when I am the man?”
“Because you’re not the man, you’re only a Jew friend of my brother’s—and because—”
“Go on.”
“Because it wouldn’t do any good. She’d still be dead.”
“Exactly!” said Greenbloom, standing suddenly straight. “She would still be dead, and you would still be alive?”
“Yes.”
“Su
ppose then, that I am the man, and I kill you. Would that be better?”
John considered it; if somebody killed him he would be unable to know that Victoria was dead; leaving aside all thoughts of heaven or hell which did not seem very real at the moment, he would be freed of feeling for her, and of wanting what he had lost.
“No,” he said, “that would be worse. As long as I’m alive, she’s alive too in a way, inside me; but if I am killed—”
“If you are killed,” Greenbloom interrupted slowly, “what you have always wanted will have ceased to exist, because you will not be there to want it.”
Through the whisky and the vodka, through the grey indistinctness of the room, beyond the sagacious little face confronting his own, he saw it clearly: the negation of a negation, an all-encompassing emptiness in a state of appalling and vacuous equilibrium.
“Yes,” he said; “yes, you’re right.” He nodded to himself, and suddenly shouted it out into the room. “You’re right! Greenbloom is right!”
“Of course I am,” said Greenbloom. “I am right and you are fortunate; fortunate because you have known what it was you have always wanted without having taken any direct part in its destruction. The rest of us must wait.”
“Who?” asked John.
“We,” said Greenbloom, “the great majority who have still to know what we have always wanted.” Abruptly he limped out of the room and John followed him down the stairs leaving the door open behind him.…
After a dreadful journey in the open Bentley with the hood flapping and cracking beside them like a running battle, they drew up in front of the Luxor a little over an hour later. Greenbloom gave the commissionaire a pound note, and after telling him to see to the car, led them through the glass doors at a running limp.
He looked extraordinarily dapper: a thin penguin in the black and white of his dinner-jacket and boiled shirt; and the oddity and haste of his gait, the mobility of his small head swivelling from side to side without visibly affecting the remainder of his body, ensured that even in this environment he was both noticeable and noticed. But he passed through the standing people, dim figures in the softly illumined space, as though they had been only clothes hanging in a large cupboard.
In the Time of Greenbloom Page 24
