by Gerald Kersh
But I did mind. It is a quirk of my character—so long as I owe any man money, I am that man’s slave. Especially if he happens to be a woman, as Sam Yudenow would say. (Damn that man! He is pervasive, even in restrospect!) I was oppressed by a terrible weight of obligation.
Since I could not bring myself to become an enemy of society, the least I could do, I felt, was give my benefactress the pleasure of reforming me—which she proceeded to do with such firm belief in my dark past that I must have been made of stone to disenchant her and such hope for my bright future that I couldn’t help falling in love with her.
But this was none of Copper Baldwin’s business, and so I kept my mouth shut.
6
AS WE WENT INTO the lobby of the Pantheon— that dreary, odorous tepidarium which Sam Yudenow insisted upon as a “vestibule”—Copper Baldwin muttered to me, “Remember. Scowl and growl. As far as possible, keep your trap shut. Look ‘em straight in the eye, the mongrels. Fix ‘em. Anybody asks you a favor, growl and scowl. Give them the big ha-ha and turn away.”
“Aha!” I said. “I begin to see where Sam Yudenow is dangerous. You caught him, Copper! So help me, you caught him and you can’t sweat him out!”
Copper Baldwin said, “Kind of put a sock in it.”
But the beer had gone to my head, and I was full of pleasant desperation. I said, “What is Sam Yudenow? Why is Sam Yudenow? Who is Sam Yudenow? You are Sam Yudenow!” Then I burst out laughing.
But with admirable self-control Copper Baldwin said, “All right, all right, Mr. Laverock. Just remember what I told you. That’s all. I’m telling you for your own good. Stare the sods out of countenance, and don’t give ‘em so much as a smile. I’m warning you.... Now ‘ere’s Mrs. Edwards. I ‘ave only one word to say about ‘er. Beware! A female Judas Iscariot, you mark my words. Take no bloody nonsense from ‘er, therefore. In my opinion she’s in the pay of that bleeder Godbolt. If ‘er bowels gush out one of these days I shouldn’t be a bit surprised. They practically do, every afternoon in the cash box, anyway. I’m warning you, son, this show is as full of narks as a tinker’s bitch is of worms, and every last one of ‘em would half-inch the sugar out of a diabetic’s pee. Mrs. Edwards, ‘ere she comes—a bloody little conniver, a proper old malingerer.... For Christ’s sake, don’t let ‘er come the old Change of Life with you. She’ll try it every time, she’ll try it every time. She can throw a hot flush or a cold sweat at the drop of a hat, the cow!
“Oh, yes, and it’s no use offering to sack the old bag, or any other member of the staff for that matter, because it won’t work. This place, don’t you see, is just about the end of everything. Only Sam Smallpox ‘as got the power to fire anybody; and when ‘e does they won’t go. There’s nowhere else to go. You see, once you’re ‘ere, ‘e ‘as a ‘old on you. But by this same token, you got a ‘old on ‘im. If you get me, there’s just about a limit to ‘ow low a bastard can sink, and this is just about it. See what I mean?
“Everywhere else in the world this proverb applies: Brute force and ignorance will get you nowhere. Everywhere else; not ‘ere. Use it—”
“Miv a mysterious smile?” I asked.
“I didn’t say that, did I? Now you look ‘ere, cocko— I’ll stand by you because I’m bloody starved for intellectual conversation, All I ask is, mark my words.”
Now Mrs. Edwards had got into the cashier’s box and was testing the ticket machine. She was a wretched little sycophantic woman who looked like some succulent mauve flower on the verge of seeding, and who filled the vestibule with a nauseous smell of rotten vegetation—as of chrysanthemums that have died before their time because their water has not been changed. She sat on an air cushion which she punctiliously blew up; and somehow I felt that the whole place was impregnated with the exhalation of this air cushion when she had let it expire last night.
Copper Baldwin spoke to her brutally: “Mrs. Edwards, this is our new manager, Mr. Laverock. Look at ‘im, and ask yourself is this the kind of person will come the old soldier with. Well?”
“Oh, I’m sure!” said Mrs. Edwards, with a simper.
Obedient to Copper Baldwin’s admonition, I said nothing; but being (as I have said) short-sighted, I leaned forward to get a good look at her; whereupon she cringed and said, “I’m sure everything is going to be different now!”
Employing the toughest expression that came into my mind, I said with great deliberation, “Sister, you spat a bootful.”
“Now,” said Copper Baldwin briskly, “Mr. Laverock wants to give the staff the once-over. So round the scum up, Mrs. Edwards. That’s what Mr. Laverock wants you to do; ain’t it, Mr. Laverock?”
“Round me up this scum,” I growled; and Mrs. Edwards darted away into the dimness of the cinema.
“Well, so far so good,” said Copper Baldwin. “Oh, Jesus, ‘ere comes the relief pianist! Now look, son, don’t be—you know what I mean?—“ His tone could not be described as tender; only the loathing in it was tempered with commiseration. “She plays mornings till when the band comes in—and oh gorblimey, what a band! The Speckled Band. No, straight, if you think you got a bloody Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra ‘ere, unthink. But this girl, Miss Noel, she can play. ‘Er weakness? Drink. Red Lizzie payday; otherwise methylated spirits. Sometimes she ‘as to be carried in, shaking like a leaf. And does she pong!”
“She smells bad?” I asked.
“Yes, she pongs. The trumpeter’s feet are bad enough, but poor old Noel—Case in point: she was so full of meth once that when she lit a cigarette in the orchestra, her breath exploded and blew er against the barrier and gave ‘er concussion. But still she played on, because once she finds keys under ‘er fingers ... Well, occasionally you ‘ave to carry ‘er out. Dead musical! Only do me a favor: don’t take the mickey out of ‘er—leave ‘er be, poor bitch. She’s a lady, if you don’t get to leeward of ‘er.”
I said, “Oh, class conscious, are you?”
He began, indignantly, “Listen, before the cradle marks were off your arse—”
But then Miss Noel came in walking as it were on feather beds; a deplorable figure of a woman, bloated about the abdomen and with attenuated limbs dressed in a long fuzzy gray garment, so that she reminded me of half a bird-eating spider. About her face there was a sort of heartbreaking dignity. She was trying to control her mouth, but the muscles of her chapped lips were broken loose like the snap of an old purse and wouldn’t stay closed. Her poor purple eyelids had not the strength to raise or lower themselves; they hung askew over her cloudy gray eyes, like broken blinds in the windows of a condemned house.
I said, “Miss Noel, I believe? I am glad to make your acquaintance. Mr. Baldwin tells me that you are an accomplished pianist.”
Miss Noel looked at me twice before she saw me, and then, focusing her eyes with a tremendous effort, said, “It must be my vision that is deceiving me, I dare say. Oh, please, tell me that it is not my ears. Pay no attention to me. I am not very well, and for the moment—tell him not to laugh at me, Baldwin—for the moment, sir, I thought I was being addressed by a gentleman. Baldwin, don’t let him make fun of me!”
“Get me?” said Copper Baldwin, picking up one of her wretched hands, between finger and thumb, by the loose skin on the back of it, somewhat as one picks up a diseased cat by the scruff of the neck. “Get me? And yet, you know, she can make that pianner talk, once she gets ‘er Duke-o’ Yorks on it.... Can’t you, now, old gel?”
She whimpered, “Really ... Sometimes I don’t know what to do, I simply don’t know what to do...”
“If you don’t mind waiting a moment, I will tell you what to do,” I said, and went next door to the cafe. Costas’ sister was behind the urn. I put down a shilling and said, “If you please, Miss Costas, a cup of strong tea and a ham sandwich.”
Her eyes, in any light, had the curious phosphorescent quality of a dog’s eyes in the dark. She served me without a word and gave me my change. She spoke only when I was carrying my order to the do
or, saying, “People aren’t allowed to take the crockery out. My brother won’t allow it.”
I said, “And quite right too, Miss Costas. The things people lose that way!”
“I want those back.”
“Eventually,” I said, carrying the tea and the sandwich back into the vestibule. “Here,” I said to Miss Noel, “you eat this nice sandwich all up, and drink up this nice cup of tea.... There now, there, there!”
“Well, Gawd stuff me gently!” Copper Baldwin muttered, as she obediently ate and drank. “Gawd stone me over the ‘urdles! Stone my aunt Fanny up Fetter Lane and f—- k me for pins and needles! No, stone me definitely blind!”
I said, “And now, Miss Noel, if you will, let us hear you play.”
She came out of some rickety dream, blinking about her, not remembering where she was, and asked, like an obliging debutante, “Schubert, perhaps?”
“By all means,” I agreed.
“Delighted.”
Copper Baldwin said, “Now this is something I have not seen before!”
Then a little yellow light went on over the upright piano, and Miss Noel began to play “None but the Lonely Heart.” Now, out or the darkness from which everyone came, and into which, in the Pantheon, everyone seemed naturally to recede, came a man with only two teeth—incisors, and both of them black—making a sort of goulash out of red shag, cigarette paper, and spittle.
“Mr. Blossom,” said Copper Baldwin, “this is Mr. Laverock, the new manager. You won’t get away with any of your attacks with this ‘ere gentleman, and so I fairly warn you. Will ‘e, Mr. Laverock?”
“No attacks!” I said.
Mr. Blossom whimpered and said, “Can I help my heart, sir?”
“You had better,” I said, deep in my throat.
“That’s right,” said Copper Baldwin, “that’s ‘is motto: ‘You can break your mother’s ‘eart, but you can’t break mine.’ Eh, Mr. Laverock? No malingering, no skylarking—eh, Mr. Laverock?”
“I will stand for anything but that,” I said. But I could not take my attention away from that cigarette of Mr. Blossom’s, which was in some horrid state between form and utter disintegration. He had got it stuck down, somewhat (I imagine) in the shape of one of those mahorka cigarettes which Creatures That Once Were Men used forever to be rolling in the more sordid Russian novelettes. Naturally, I offered him a light. Inattentive in striking the match, I touched the flame to the open box—and twenty matches went off with a whoofin a pillar of fire and a cloud of smoke. Then it was as if Mr. Blossom had been struck by some death ray; he became rigid and blue, and ceased to breathe. But before I could apologize, Copper Baldwin said, with a nod and a smile, as if he had been waiting for this very thing to happen, “Get me? Mr. Laverock is a man of few words. This is Mr. Laverock’s way of showing you by direct demonstration exactly what’s going to ‘appen if you keep on smoking in the projection room. So watch out, cocko. ‘Ere comes the New Era round ‘ere. And Mr. Laverock says, better get rid of that gas ring, otherwise. Eh, Mr. Laverock?”
I said, “Above all, no gas rings in the projection room.” I added, in a flash of inspiration, “Otherwise, you will be the sufferer!”
Having caught his breath, Mr. Blossom said, “I used to work the Magic Lantern for the Reverend Sturgeon—”
“Mr. Laverock knows all about that. Don’t you, Mr. Laverock? And Mr. Laverock will ‘ave you know,” said Copper Baldwin, with deadly sarcasm, “that there is a certain difference between pious glass slides of the ‘Oly Land and nitro-cellulose film which, at a touch, will blow us all to bleeding buggery. Eh, Mr. Laverock?”
“Definitely to bleeding buggery,” I said.
Copper Baldwin said, “Look at this gentleman. Do you think for one moment this one will stand for any of your shenanigans? Mr. Laverock told me to tell you next time ‘e ketches you smoking or making tea in the projection room—or ‘aving a ‘eart attack—it’s a fire bucket o’ cold water right in the face, the crook o’the arm in the—”
In a voice that was half a snarl Mr. Blossom said, “Norn ‘it me!” throwing up an arm to ward off an imaginary blow. “You touch me at your peril, and I’ve got a doctor’s certificate to prove it. I’ll have an attack, you see!”
“An attack,” I repeated. “Oh, yes, that’s right, you’ll have an attack.”
Although I meant nothing by this, something in the very expressionlessness of my tone seemed to terrify him. He cried, “I’ve got a doctor’s certificate!”
Copper Baldwin muttered, “You’ll get a bloody death certificate if you don’t mind out.”
“I’ve got heart disease, and asthma, and I’ve suffered with mastoids. I’ll tell Mr. Yudenow!”
“He knows already—” I began.
But the mention of Yudenow’s name seemed to infuriate Copper Baldwin, who snarled, “Put a sock in it, you little chancer. This ‘ere Mr. Laverock doesn’t give a flying tossorf on a galloping kangaroo if you got mastoids, ‘emorrhoids, damaroids—pyorrhea, diarrhea, or gonorrhea—do what ‘e says. You can break your bloody mother’s ‘eart, you skiver, but you can’t break ‘is. That right, Mr. Laverock?”
“You take the words out of my mouth.”
“Mastoids. I got a scar behind my ear to prove it,” said Mr. Blossom, trying to show me a hole in his skull— which, in my shortsighted way, being an obliging sort of man, I leaned forward to scrutinize out of politeness. But Copper Baldwin caught me by the arm and pulled me back, saying, “‘Old it, Mr. Laverock. Don’t kill the bastard just yet. You’ve warned ‘im once. Don’t be too ‘asty.”
Now Mr. Blossom turned to a boy who had been watching all this with infinite delight. He was a swaggering, round-shouldered, pugnacious boy of fifteen or so with obstinacy in every wiry hair of his gingerish head. Where other boys’ hair grows upward, his grew forward; it seemed to stay stuck to his scalp against its will, like coconut fiber in a door mat. He smelled strongly of what I thought, then, was nail varnish but was soon to recognize as amyl acetate and acetone, which he had been using in the rewinding room to mend a reel of damaged film. He was always breaking film. There was an impetuousness about him; something in him that chafed at the slowness of our groaning old rewinding machine. Besides, as I was later to learn, he wanted to develop his arms at all costs.
He said to me, “Do ‘im, guv!”
Mr. Blossom said to him, “Johnny Headlong, I call you to witness!”
Johnny Headlong said to me, with a nod and a wink, “I’m the Three Wise Monkeys.”
“And this is another one o’ Mr. Yudenow’s finds,” said Copper Baldwin, “Johnny Headlong. Fugitive from a reformatory school.... This is Mr. Laverock. Remember, you, Johnny Headlong, Mr. Laverock has only got to say one word and—”
“I was framed,” said Johnny Headlong.
I felt patriarchal now, drugged irresponsible with an overdose of responsibility. “And what did you have for breakfast, Headlong?”
“Fried bread.”
Copper Baldwin said to him, “You address Mr. Laverock as sir. Look at this gentleman, you. Is this the kind you talk bolo to?”
The boy looked at me, summing me up; he was not quite sure. I gave him fourpence and said, “Go next door and buy yourself a pie—a meat pie. Be back immediately,” I added very severely, “and don’t get crumbs all over the place.”
Johnny Headlong took the money without a word and swaggered out. Copper Baldwin whispered to me, “You should ‘ave ‘ad a sandwich. The marvel is, you got no back answers from Johnny. You must ‘ave kind o’ hypnotized ‘im. Svengali. Now, better go down to the orchestra, and tell ‘er to stop playing whatever it is, because we open in a minute. And mark my words, never give these sods any money. It corrupts ‘em through and through. ‘E should ‘ave been back by now with that pie. But no. Not the likes o’ that. Coconut cakes—I bet you a tanner, ‘e’ll blow the ‘ole lot on coconut cakes. They’ll flog their bread for circuses every time, the working-bloody-classes. I mean to say, if they can g
et four coconut cakes for a penny each, which are sweet but will give ‘em a bellyache, why should they buy nourishment? ...”
At this moment Johnny Headlong came back breathless. Drawing himself up, he took out of a trousers pocket a little torpedo-shaped cigar with a great red-and-gold band, which I recognized as a Flora-Flora, widely advertised as a bargain at five-pence apiece. With infinite condescension he handed it to me and said, “Put this in your mouf and smoke it. You’ll enjoy it. That’s all right—you and me’ll get along together, I think. Go on, smoke it.”
I lit it, anyway; it tasted of acetone. As if some alarm clock had gone off in her head, Miss Noel started to play a military march with tremendous force, just as the first customers of the day began to creep in.
“Look at ‘em, just look at ‘em,” said Copper Baldwin. “You or me or anybody, you ‘ear a nice quick march and you fall into step. You can’t ‘elp it, can you? But these poor sods—well, look at ‘em!... This is what we pay taxes for. This is what they call the proletariat. You know, there are three classes in society: one that produces but does not accumulate; one that accumulates but does not produce; and the majority, which is good for nothing. Vermin, in other words. Mussolini is right—give the bastards a shirt to wear that won’t show the dirt, and a marching song, and they’re appy. And the Russians are right, too—a bit more forced labor is what the workers need, the despicable buggers; pick-and-shovel drill till they drop in their tracks, the mummified corpse of Lenin to cross ‘emselves in front of, ‘Kiss my arse, comrade,’for a chunk o’black bread, and for relaxation some film o’ some skivvy with piggy eyes set a foot apart and long gums and short teeth, grinning from ear to bloody ear, driving a tractor. For a bit o’ spice, let ‘er be seven months gone and carrying it ‘igh. Art? Cover ‘er fat face with sweat, and stand ‘er against the ‘anging branch of a tree loaded with apples ripe to be plucked and covered with raindrops.
“They’d go for it ‘ere, too, the contemptible sods, given a bloody good ‘iding and a starvation diet. Which they’ll get, which they’ll get! The working classes are a lot o’ filthy parasites. Look at ‘em, Gawd strike me lucky, look at ‘em come! Look at old Lazarus-Raised-from-the-Dead spending ‘is old-age-pension money—my ‘ard-earned taxes—to see Greta Garbo in Wild Orchids. Are you aware that beer would be a penny a pint, cigarettes twenty for twopence, and bread and meat pi times the logarithms of Sweet Fanny Adams—if it wasn’t for the likes of this?”
