by Gerald Kersh
“What is your name?” she asked.
“Laverock,” I said.
“My name is June Whistler,” she said.
“It’s a very nice name. It’s the sort of name you feel you ought to have heard somewhere before. Perhaps I have. Are you a film star?”
She said, “No. I work in the Office of the High Commissioner for Asia. When you have had something to eat and rested a little I want you to tell me all about yourself. Every word.”
“A tall order,” I said; and indeed it was, because, apart from the silly little fiasco of Laverock Libraries, Ltd., I had not a single interesting truth to tell about myself. And if you have a face like mine, you simply cannot say to a confiding female, “I got this way falling out of a window into a cucumber frame and afterward riding a tricycle down the stairs through a door.” It would disappoint her. She would prefer not to believe you. It’s frightening when you pause to think to what an extent you live up to people and are being lived up to in your turn, how generally you fake yourself in blind obedience to somebody else’s fantasy. The time comes when you wonder if you really are yourself and not a character that has been read about or seen in a movie. Whoever you are, you are the victim of somebody else’s enchantment, doomed, like the people in the fairy tales, to go through life in an alien form—to hop as a toad, bray as an ass, or fly as a swan—until the kiss of true love honestly reciprocated releases you from your bondage and lets you be yourself.
“Yes,” said June Whistler, “I can see that you must have lived a very full life—wild, terrible—” “But—”
“No, you mustn’t say a word until you’ve had a good meal.”
She lived in one of those quiet crescents near Primrose Hill. “It’s quite near the zoo,” she said, as we got out of the taxi. “I can hear the lions at feeding time. Sometimes they roar in the morning, too. They were roaring this morning, you know.”
“They were shooting a horse,” I said. “Are you aware that a lion eats twenty-eight pounds of horse meat at a sitting?”
Luckily, she lived on the ground floor; I do not think I could have managed the stairs, I felt so weak.
“Make yourself comfortable,” she said, “while I prepare some food. I’ll make you a pork chop and some tea. Would you like some herrings first?”
“No,” I said, “no, thanks—no herrings, not on any account, if you don’t mind. I’ll never touch another herring again as long as I live, I swear!”
And this vow I have kept. Since that notable day I have grown hardened to many gruesome sights and horrid odors, and have eaten food that would turn the stomach of a shark. But I cannot look upon a herring without nausea— especially a tinned herring in mustard sauce; and I cannot bring myself to pronounce the word delicious.
June Whistler’s flat consisted of two small rooms, a kitchenette, and a bathroom. She was childishly proud of the fact that it was self-contained. She explained: “I must be alone. I must come and go as I please. If I want to bring men in I must be free to bring men in. I am answerable to nobody. My furniture is all my own, too. I hate the thought of using other people’s furniture, don’t you? I must feel free to put a cup or a glass down wherever I like, without wondering if I’ll make a mark. And if you smoke I want you, please, to feel that you can drop your ashes wherever you like. I want you to feel absolutely at home.”
Bloated with underdone pork chops—she told me that they were more nutritious that way—I was smoking one of her cigarettes and instinctively looking for an ash tray. I am punctilious in matters of tidiness and will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid making a mess of any sort. “I have a conscience about this kind of thing,” I said, finding a little Japanese saucer. “It’s antisocial to make extra work for your host—it robs him of his leisure, it robs him of his comfort.” Whereupon, with my emphatic gesture, the long ash which I had been carefully balancing on the end of my cigarette fell onto the arm of the stuffed chair.
But she did not notice; she was gazing at me in her fascinated way, holding her cigarette in the center of her ardent little mouth and smoking it in short hard puffs, like someone who is determined at all costs to acquire the habit for the look of the thing. “What a remarkable character you are!” she cried, holding her cigarette at arm’s length, little finger daintily cocked as she flicked ash onto her little Axminster rug. “What a remarkable mass of contradictions you must be I A hardened criminal—and yet you have a conscience about things like that. Why, I think that is absolutely fascinating!”
I had forgotten that I was supposed to be a pretty desperate character, and she had been so kind to me that I couldn’t very well let her down now by confessing that I was nothing but a harmless fool; so I said, “Of course, that’s only one aspect of it. There’s another. All good burglars, murderers, et cetera, are necessarily very tidy people. Otherwise, don’t you see, they would go about leaving clues. Many a good man has gone to the gallows on account of a stray bit of cigarette ash. A fingerprint here, the stub of a certain kind of cheroot there, a triangle of cloth carelessly torn from your trousers and left on a nail somewhere else— you’d be surprised how it all adds up. You think your shoes are clean, perhaps. But they’re not, you know. Scotland Yard would put a microscope on those shoes and tell exactly where you’ve been and at what time this past week.”
“I didn’t think of that. You must tell me everything—you must let me study you from every angle. I like you. You give me all sorts of ideas.” She blushed very red, and added hastily, “I mean ... I don’t mean ...”
“Simple common or garden ideas?” I suggested.
“Do you read much?” she asked abruptly.
“A little. Why?”
“Because one of these days I am going to write a novel,” she said, with an aggressive hitch of the chin. “What about?” I asked.
She bared her small white teeth now and talked through them, while her eyes flashed. “I want to write about Life: Life in the raw, Life as it is lived in the depths, the uttermost depths! Do you hear?”
“And the heights?”
“Those too. I know all about those. But the depths, yes, the depths!” She hurled her cigarette end into the fireplace and took out another. When I rose to offer her a light, she waved me back with an imperious gesture and said, “Sit down. I suppose you understand that to me you are nothing but raw material?”
“I thought you came to the rescue out of sheer kindness of heart,” I said.
“Oh, no,” said June Whistler in a matter-of-fact way, “I’m not kindhearted at all, really. I used to be awfully softhearted, but I’m not any longer. The creative artist must be hard, hard! No mercy, no pity. Cold, impersonal, clear-minded. Like a surgeon. Like a zoologist. Like a vivisector with a knife. Understand?” She smiled kindly, and encouragingly.
The chops were settling now—I must have had the digestion of a crocodile in those days—and I found it hard to keep my eyes open. It was very pleasant to lounge there and listen to her talk. The fact that I had heard it all before in the Soho Cafes made the atmosphere so much the more homely. I hated to think that in a little while good manners would compel me to take my leave and go out again into the inhospitable streets.
“I want to help you, Laverock,” she said. “Will you let me help you? Please? Will you teach me things? I want to know your world. Will you let me help you?”
“You have helped me enough already, Miss Whistler,” I said drowsily, “and I am very grateful to you.”
Her mood had changed now. She was pleading like an anxious child. “You don’t have to be grateful. I didn’t do anything. But if you are grateful, if you want to be grateful, you can show your gratitude by letting me help you. Now won’t you, please?”
I said, “Well, if you have any hot water, I’d be very grateful if you would let me have a good wash—”
She was out of her chair and into the bathroom in half a second. I heard the splash of water and the thunderous hollow bang of a gas heater, and then she was back, say
ing, “Yes, of course, a good hot bath. Are you verminous?’
“No.”
“I have some verbena bath salts. Would you like that?”
“No, thank you. A bath is more than I’d bargained for. I’m ashamed to give you so much trouble.”
Instinct warned me that I was letting myself in for something here; but the lure of that hot bath was too strong for me. I rose abruptly, intending to say, “Thanks again, and good evening,” but found myself walking straight into the bathroom. I climbed into the tub, scraped myself from head to foot and lay back to soak.
From the living room came a familiar brushing-and-clanging noise. I had heard it many times before in my mother’s house.
The bohemian June Whistler was busy with dustpan and hand broom, sweeping up the ashes.
Then I fell asleep until the water grew cold.
June Whistler was sitting on a little sofa in a vampirish attitude. I noticed that she had changed her simple dress and put on a most peculiar garment of bright brocade. It had an immensely high Borgia collar and was cut very low and square at the neck. The skirt was long at the back and short in front, and the sleeves, which were wide, stopped at her elbows. She was also wearing high-heeled slippers and a collar of pearls as big as marbles, with earrings to match.
“And where do you think you are going?” she asked languidly, after I had thanked her for the bath.
The question took all the refreshment out of me and left me tired again, because I hadn’t the faintest idea where I was going. I could only say, “I really must, I’m afraid.”
She waved imperiously. “You will drink a glass of wine with me. It is in the kitchen. Bring it!”
And there, indeed, was a bottle of three-shilling port. She must have run to the grocer’s and bought it while I was in the bath. In the accents of Du Barry, she said, “There is a corkscrew in the tin opener. In the drawer, next to the tea strainer. Fetch it.”
I obeyed.
“Set out glasses. There are two behind the teapot. Fill them.... Now, my friend, let us drink....”
I took a tentative sip. My father, who might have been something of a bon vivant if his conscience had let him, had taught me a little about wines and their characters. As I swallowed the stuff there came into my mind, clear as a photograph, a projection of the old man’s face. I could see it twitch and grow rigid; and I could see him trying to disguise the disgusted pulsation of his poor harassed nostrils as he twirled the glass in his long nervous fingers, what time his worried eyes looked left and right for a surreptitious flowerpot. But June Whistler emptied her glass in two gulps and said, with a peculiar cachinnation that began as a gasp and ended as a giggle, “It’s a very special wine. It comes all the way from Portugal.” Then, humor and candor getting the better of her, she made an amendment: “It says Oporto on the label, but it can’t be any good really, I suppose. Would you like to kiss me?”
“Well, yes,” I said. “Naturally. Who wouldn’t?” I was unaccountably confused and embarrassed. “If I had met you at a party, say, or in any other circumstances, why, you’d have to keep me away with your fingernails. But as it is, I don’t know why, I’m what they call inhibited. I don’t suppose I make myself clear, but it’s like a shady sort of way of paying for a meal, and a bath, and a good turn.”
She was silent, then, for about half a minute, when she lifted a shoulder in a practiced shrug, doggedly lit (all on one side) another cigarette, and said, in a strange and lonely little voice, “Drink, and pour more wine.” And her eyes, filling with tears, became larger and took on a vague, wavering underwater look.
So I drank my wine, replenished the glasses, and drank again. “I didn’t mean to offend you,” I said, overtaken by remorse. “... I’d better not drink any more of this excellent old wine or I’ll fall asleep.”
She said, “Yes, of course. You must have some sleep. Go to bed at once!”
All the reasoning part of my mind, now, was packed away in wool. I said, “Oh, all right,” and went obediently and dispassionately into the bathroom, closed the door to undress, because I have a delicacy about such things, and then went to bed.
June came in and asked, “Are you quite all right?”
“Quite, thanks. Would you mind telling me something? Where did you get that gown?”
“I made it myself out of a pair of old French curtains. I didn’t use a pattern either. I make all my own clothes, except shoes and stockings, and I never use patterns. I despise patterns, don’t you?”
“Oh, very much.... But where are you going to sleep?”
You have seen the sickly smile on the face of the fool who, on a double-dare, breaks the ice on the lake to take a plunge on Christmas Day? Such was June Whistler’s expression as, unhooking her brocades, she said, “I’m going to sleep with you.” Then the light was out, and she was climbing into bed with me.
“Have you enough room?” I asked.
In a loud, clear, but tremulous voice, she replied, “Oh, yes, thank you. Have you?” Then, talking tensely through her teeth again. “The depths! I want to explore the depths! ... Why don’t you say something?”
“Well, what, for example?” I asked stupidly.
This floored her. In that tone of ill-concealed anxiety in which a frugal housewife asks you if you are quite certain that you wouldn’t like another helping of pie, when she knows there is no more in the kitchen, June Whistler said, “Would you like to crush me in your arms and bite me?”
“Good Lord, no!” I said.
“Quite sure?”
I said, “Madam, you are good enough to eat, but you look so much better in one piece.”
“You’re perfectly welcome, you know,” she said.
“I’d rather not bite anybody just now, if you don’t mind,” said I.
Then she began to talk, but I was too tired to hear more than a snatch or two of what she said: ”.... of people have asked me to marry them, but...” and: ”... have experienced in order to live a full life ...”
The last thing I remember, that night, is the normal, earnest voice of June Whistler saying, “You may not believe me, Laverock, but I have never done anything like this before in all my life!”
I awoke late next morning and reached for my clothes. They were not there. Only my hat and cane lay on the chest of drawers. Overcome with a nameless panic, I draped myself in a sheet and went into the living room. There was no trace of dust or ashes. The place had been swept. I opened the bathroom door. The tub had been scrubbed, and a fresh towel hung on the rail. To this towel was attached, with a hairpin, a message scrawled in eyebrow pencil on a piece of toilet paper: don’t go away!
RETURNING SOON! JUNE WHISTLER.
Go away in a sheet, with a hat and a silver-headed malacca? I took the liberty of opening the bedroom cupboard. There I saw something like an amateur theatrical costumer’s collection of eccentric garments, but no clothes of mine. I waited. One o’clock was striking from St. Mark’s when June Whistler came in, brisk and businesslike, carrying two large paper parcels. “My clothes!” I cried. “For God’s sake, my clothes. My shoes, at least.”
Now she was airy and nonchalant. She said, “Well, really, you know, the condition of your suit was deplorable. So I emptied the pockets and took it to be cleaned. I hope you don’t mind. I really am determined to help you, Laverock.”
“But what if I do mind?” I asked helplessly.
“Oh, I couldn’t help noticing one or two pawn tickets: GENT’S SUIT 18/ AND 1 PR. GENT’S SHOES 6/6. You know? So I got them out. I put your shirt in the wash. I bought you a new one, and a pair of socks. It will never do for us to look scruffy, will it?”
“Us? What us?” I asked.
“You said you’d let me help you, you know. Teach me, show me things. You promised.” Her eyes began to fill with tears again.
I cried, “But you have helped me, haven’t you?”
She folded her hands, smiled like La Gioconda, and said, “Really, it’s time for a showdown. I’m
awfully good at working things out, actually, you know. I have ever so much presence of mind, honestly. And I’m quick to pick things up. Don’t you see, I’ve made my mind up to help you? ... Only you must show me the ropes.”
It occurred to me, in a shocking flash of reflection, then, that June Whistler, believing me to be a desperate criminal, had taken it into her head to become my accomplice, coadjutor, or moll. I have never been more shocked in all my life; but it was necessary for me to do some quick thinking, so I said, “No. I am so sorry, Miss Whistler, but I have been thinking it over ever since you tore me out of the clutches of the police. I used to say to myself, ‘Only mugs work.’Now I know different. You don’t know what you did to me. From now on, I want to go straight!”
Then this unpredictable young woman said, “All right, Laverock, let’s go straight. Will you let me help you go straight? ... Really, after all, you know, you can’t get more out of life than you put into it. I’m so glad!”
“Oughtn’t you to be at the office?” I asked.
She said, “Oh, yes. But I rang up and told the office manageress that I couldn’t come because it was my nasty pain time.”
I said, “You know that is not true.”
She sighed, like someone relieved of a great burden, and said, “Laverock, let’s help each other never to lie, but always to go straight, because you cannot take out of life more than you put into it.”
“Meanwhile,” I said, with a sinking of the heart, “I owe you some money.”
Now she was the wanton Serpent of the Nile, chucking pearls into vinegar. “Never mind,” she said loftily.
