The Other Nineteenth Century

by Avram Davidson

  A wide glance he swiftly casts round. Then asks, “Do I interrupt your dinner?”

  She looks about the apartment. Her expression is one of mild surprise. “‘Dinner’? Oh. That. Just a simple bowl of lobster salad on a heart of chilled iceberg lettuce. Chervil. Cress. A few spoons of caviare. Sweet butter, just a dab. A hard-cooked egg, cut fine. Kümmelbrot. And the smallest bottle of Brut. All far too much. But you know how Anna spoils one. You will join me.”

  He looks round, again. Crystal. Tapestry. Petit-point. Watteau. Chippendale. Asks: “You are not expecting—?”

  “Oh, no. No. Not now. Shall we have some music. We shall have some music.”

  They do.

  They dance.

  They dine.

  They drink.

  They talk.

  They—

  They do not.

  “Heavens, the time. You must go now Eevelyn.”

  “Then you are expecting—?”

  How her fingers glitter as she raises them to indicate what words alone cannot. “Eevelyn. I do not. Know. I never. Know.—Go, my sweetest dearest one.”

  He picks up hat, gloves, cane. “How is it that I never—”

  She places ring-crusted fingers across his livid lips. “Hush. Oh. Hush. The noblest kindest most generous man I know will never grumble. He will be understanding. Patient. A kiss before we part.”

  The Andaman Islander peers a moment through gummy eyeslits. Which now widen in recognition. “Underhand Sahib!”

  “And whom else did you expect? Fat Fatima, perhaps?”

  The islander shakes as with an ague. “Ah, Wisdom-wallah, do not mention her even obliquely! Has she not laid my miserable and I fear by now broken brother in a deep-dark dungeon, merely for having adventitiously broken wind in her outermost courtyard? Malignant she!”

  Underhand shrugs. “Well, so be it. Or: so be it not.—Well, Bhumbo Singh, I have brought certain pieces of gold, contained, according to custom, in—hem, hem!” He coughs. “I need not name it.” And looks up and around, expectantly.

  At once the storekeeper begins to prowl and shuffle. “‘To afflict with impotence the Viceroy of Sindh.’ No. ‘To impose the plague of emmerods upon the anti-Pope of—’ No. ‘Lord Lovat’s head, with tam o’ shanter,’ no. No. Ah. Ah.” He lifts up a tiny container, begins simultaneously to read the label (scribbled in a most debased Pracrit) and to open—

  “Hold! Hold! For pity’s sake do not unstopple it!”

  The dark man dumbly puts down the pottikin, no larger than a thumb or (say) the smallest sized can of Spanish truffles; turns to the next item on the cluttered, webby counter. “‘Will afflict with wens upon the forehead of the favorite of the Grand Bastard of Burgundy,’ ah!”

  Underhand is near-exasperated. “Bhumbo. Pause. Pause. Cease to dither. Lay down that spell. Down, I say, sir; down—Now. Pick up the previous item you had in hand. Yes … . And for the sake of Kali, give those shrews some crickets!”

  The Andaman Islander still bumples around, so Underhand, with a click of impatience, follows both his own instructions. Also gives the fellow a keen glance of reproof, advises him henceforth to use either a better or a worse brand of opium; and places in his hands that which holds the golds. “You have weighed the preparation, I make no doubt; count therefore the coins, in order that—”

  But his supplier declines the need. “It is enough, enough, Underhand Sahib. I feel the weight to be correct. Forgive my dithering: the ah-peen, as you say.” The voice and manner are crisp enough now. “I would offer you cups of tea, but my own brutish brews are not fine enough for your exquisite palate, and the Lipton’s I cannot find.”

  Underhand sweeps the filthy lair with a glance. (A broom would be better.) “And fresh out of viper’s milk, too, I daresay. Pit-ty.” He looks once, he looks twice around the darkly place, dirty almost beyond endurance, cluttered certainly beyond description. “Ah, the immemorial wisdom of the East … . Bhumbo: a good Gules to you.”

  The other bows. “Do I not live but to serve you with smells, Sahib?” he enquires. And begins the requisite series of prostrations. Presently he hears the sound of the penny-whistle.

  Some time after that.

  Anna’s nose is very red; her voice is very thick. “Always mine lady liked nice things,” she says. “Diamonts, chee liked. Poils, chee liked. ‘Kebbiar, I could only itt a morsel, but it moss be the bast,’ chee tal to me.”

  “Yes, yes, yes,” Underhand agrees. “How true, how true. What a blow to you. To you and me.” He wishes that Anna would twist her handkerchief less and apply it more.

  “Always mine lady was very particular,” Anna goes on. “‘Anna, how you minn, you couldn’t smal it?’ chee ask. ‘Look maybe onder you choose.’ I lat her see onder mine right chew: nothing. I lat her see onder mine laft chew: nothing. ‘Nye, so, Mrs., how come soddenly mine kitchens not nice and clinn; come luke.’ Chee come, chee luke, luke, luke. Nothing. Sneef, sneef, sneef.” ‘Eeyoo, Godmy, waht dradful smal,’ chee say. And say and say—”

  “My, my. Yes, yes. Don’t distress yourself, they take very good care of her where she is now—”

  Anna (fiercely): “What? Take care mine lady gooder than me? I visit, I bring mine spatial grumpskentorten: Chee scrim, only. ‘Mrs., Mrs., you don’t rackocknize Anna? Anna? Mrs. Goitrude, Mrs. Goitrude: is Anna!’ But only chee scrim. And scrim and scrim.” Anna begins to demonstrate, fists clenched, cords thrusting out from neck, voice a thin shrill grinding; Underhand begs her to desist.

  Afterwards, Underhand, with some relief, returns to his own home. Man is, certainly, a social being: but there are times when, the Author of Genesis (Underhand believes), notwithstanding, when it is good for man to be alone. Underhand has his roses; he prunes them. Underhand has his Newgate Calendars; he collates them. Underhand has his first editions (Mather, de Sade, von Sacher-Masoch); he reads them. Now and then he looks up. He finds, after a while, that he is looking up rather oftener than he is looking down. Then he looks further down than usual. First he lifts up his right foot and turns it sideways. He puts it down. Then he lifts up his left foot and turns it sideways. He puts it down. Then, room by room and closet by closet, he goes through the house, his nostrils dilating. “It is not what I think,” he says, firmly. “It, is, not … what I think.”

  Some time after that.

  Underhand is in another place, and one which he doesn’t much like. Endlessly he casts horoscopes, no pencils are allowed and so he uses crayons. The effects are certainly colorful but it is very hard to achieve fine detail. By one and by two, people pass by, and, pretending not to look, look. Underhand ignores them. Why he now, suddenly, does look up as someone stops—Look he does. This one, now, frankly gazes without pretense. Smiles.

  Underhand stares. Starts. Speaks.

  “Oh, my God. Oh. Oh. Bhumbo Singh. They told me he—told me you were dead. Showed me. Stuffed in between my inner and outer walls. That was what drove me mad. That was what I—Not what I had thought. Not what I had bought. Mistake. Must tell them: Bhumbo Singh: alive.” He starts to rise, is stopped by a dark and gentle hand.

  “Oh, no, Underhand Sahib and/or Effendi. Bhumbo is dead.”

  Underhand utters a small squeal, starts to sidle away.

  “I am Bhimbo, own and only brother and twin to the faithless aforesaid. Who alas and regardless of the uterine ties between us let me languish in the lowermost dungeon of H. H. The Beebee Fatima, Dowager Begum of Oont, for seven years six months one week and several days, rather than pay ransom for my offense—most unintentional, I assure you: never eat legumes before transacting whatsoever even in the outermost courtyard of a descendant of Timur the Terrible. —The sixth sub-basement of her now-illegal gaol, whence I was released by the new and independent government, may Kali bestow blessings upon them with every pair of hands. Thence came I here. Wherefore I caused him, my natal brother Bhumbo, to be bitten to the heart by hungry tree-shrews imprisoned under an iron squid-pot which I held over his faithl
ess heart; how he screamed.”

  He wags his head contentedly.

  A moment Underhand ponders, ignoring whilst he does so the conduct of a neighbor who was now, as often, reciting what he claimed were the complete Songs of Ossian in the original Erse. From memory. Loudly. And at length. “Well, then, I understand why you put your brother to the death. Naturally. But why, oh, why, Bhimbo, did you stuff him in between my innermost and outermost walls?—with such dreadful results to myself? And, oh! the black whirlwind!”

  A shrug. A look of gentle surprise. “Why? Well, Sahib, one had to stuff him somewhere.—I had thought to return to my native Islands, there to start an independence movement which might result, who knows and why not? in my becoming President-for-Life. But in my brother Bhumbo’s uncleanly shop I lingered too long, searching for his baroque pink pearls; whilest I was thus engaged, thither came the men called Inspectors of Buildings and of Healths. ‘This one’s gotta be nuts,’ one said. ‘Lookit this place!” He chuckles quietly.

  Underhand gapes. Then thinks. Then says, “‘Escape,’ yes. Bhimbo, we must put our wise heads together, cast cantrips, I cannot do it by myself alone; secure our release from—”

  Bhimbo’s rufous, jaundered eyes widen. “But, Sahib, I have already been released! To one, sir, who has spent seven and one half years, plus, in the lowermost dungeon of the fearful fat Fatima, female tyrant (since deposed), what is this place here but an hotel? Consider, Sahib: Clean clothes. Clean beds. Thrice a day, clean food—dispensed by servitors. Plus snacks. How fond of snacks I am, Sahib! And also once a week one of the gurus called Shrink talks with me in his sacred office; what honor. To be sure, there is no palm-toddy to be had, but a certain servitor (in return for such simple spells: Women. Gambling.) brings a savory wine called Ripple, concealed in bottles of the Dr. Pepper’s medication. Betel-pan, there is not, but there is toombac, Sahib; also the talking cinema in the cabinet-boxes. How entertaining! Much murders!—And also, shower-baths! sports! thrice a week, Therapeutic Handicrafts! Such fun!”

  He raises his voice, rather, so as to be heard not only over that of the Ossianic bard, but over that of one who, crying the words Hello Joe! in staccato bursts, would be good for at least a quarter of an hour. “I know what your people call this place, Sahib. But, do you know what I call it? Sahib, I call it Paradise.”

  Mr. Underhand feels again and sees again the approach of the black whirlwind; smells again the ineffable evil smell … the one he had bought? The one he had not? What matter. Grasping the table for one moment’s more contact with reality, he asks, “But does it in no way bother you to be forever surrounded by madmen?”

  Bhimbo looks at him. The reddish-yellowish glance is patient and kind. “Ah, Sahib. Have you not learned the One Great Truth? All men are mad.” The immemorial wisdom of the East is in his voice, and in his eyes.

  Postscript to “Dr. Bhumbo Singh”: A note by Avram Davidson (1983).

  The name of Bhumbo Singh itself I encountered long ago in, I think, the (very possibly spurious) account of (?) Zephaniah Howell concerning the Black Hole of Calcutta; it went something like this: “We tried to obtain boats from Bhumbo Singh, but could not do so.” That was all. Why this name continued to ferment, or should I say, fester, in my mind, I cannot say; but eventually, being (I suppose) somewhere without a tripewriter, I took up a ruled record book and began to write this story. I set it aside unfinished, and indeed forgot about it, until one day again finding myself without the use of the machine, up again I picked the story and did not again set it aside until I had finished it. The scene of its completion was Peter Stein’s boat, moored at Gate 6 in Sausalito, in that unique shanty-boat, home-made house-boat, and just plain boat, community; now alas in slow process of destruction. Peter, despite the fact that he is blind, builds good boats; and I dedicate this story to him.

  AFTERWORD TO “DR. BHUMBO SINGH”

  There is no doubt that this tale occurs in the days of urban renewal and highway expansion, and yet there is a curious paradox here, for Davidson’s eccentric characters and the many allusions to the mysterious East evoke the late nineteenth century at the same time that they depict the perpetually renewed bubblings of the melting-pot that is America. The opening paragraphs describe a marginal neighborhood with considerable accuracy, and though the narrative ranges far afield, the arc of this crime story is rooted in that short stretch of Trevelyan Street. He had an eye for such neighborhoods: “And Don’t Forget the One Red Rose” is a brilliantly crafted short tale set in a similar locale. Michael Dirda has written:

  [Davidson] made himself into a prose laureate of “the Old Country.” He celebrated vanishing cultures and foods and customs and places, most of them now absorbed in the homogenized tele-glitz of modern American mall-life. There is no better sketch of the Slavic immigrant culture of my own youth—almost entirely gone now—than “The Slovo Stove.”

  —Henry Wessells

  THE PENINSULA

  “But Borski says that, selectively cut, there’s enough good timber on the Peninsula to last for years,”—she (Mary Blennerhassett).

  “Borski’s lying. Simple as that. Not with modern logging methods. Selective cutting, you’d be hard put to make logging-off the Peninsula stretch two years. Clear-cutting, the way he usually cuts, he’d have it flat in a year. Less than a year.”—he (Victor Olauson).

  Scene is in the reasonably modern office of “O & B.” On the walls are large old photographs of Oscar Olauson and Robert Blennerhassett: all muscles; moustaches; watch-chains; whiskers; and wicked, wicked eyes. Mary and Victor are their grandchildren.

  “And then what? After Borski logs off the Peninsula if he gets hold of it? Tree-farm?”

  Victor doesn’t think so. “Borski doesn’t tree-farm. Never has. Why should he start now? What he’d have if he logged it clear would be one very valuable piece of real estate, you know the style: you cut down all the trees and then you plant saplings and you advertise Lots in Woodland Acres. Well. Not a bad stroke of business, tickytacky summer cottages cheek by jowl and the lake all full of motorboats. Very competent. Not a bad stroke of business for Borski. But I don’t choose to allow it.”

  Old Oscar and Old Bob looked on with slight leers; they didn’t choose to allow it, either. At least: they hadn’t.

  She asked if there hadn’t been some suggestions, oh, a while back, that the whole Peninsula be turned into a memorial? Olauson, Blennerhassett State Park, maybe? or, “O & B” Forest Study Area? He said, yes there had been. But his father and her father hadn’t chosen to allow it. Added, and neither did he.

  And that, she understood, was that.

  Mary recalled the first time she’d seen his wife, what was it she was called?, some improbably brief one-syllable Scandi name beginning and ending with a consonant. But you were also allowed to call her Emma. Victor was standing by himself with his hands hanging at his sides, no expression on his long flat face, surprisingly dark face with those very blue eyes. One of my grandmothers was French Canadian, perhaps a code phrase meaning Indian blood. In came Stig or Brum or Hoog or whatever, Emma came up to him and he didn’t even look at her. And she brought her mouth to his ear and she spoke and she spoke and she spoke and he didn’t even look at her, and then he turned his head and brought his mouth to her ear and he spoke. A very very few words. And his wife nodded. Turned. Left. And that was that.

  Since then, of course, she—Mary—had met Emma. Had met Emma for a drink in the golf-club bar. One drink for Emma. Had met Emma at dinner in the enormous Olauson house, miraculously kept clean without a servant. Enormous dinner. Two children, Christ how clean and quiet. Lighter of hair and skin than Dad, but just as blue of eye. Emma looked a lot like the woman in American Gothic, but Victor didn’t look a lot like the man. And Mary had met Emma for a lunch which she herself, Mary, had given them in the Vale Chalet, called the Valley Shalley for so long that this had become the place’s name: given there because, where else? Not in Mary’s tiny apartment over the dress sh
op. The Shalley had gourmet status, that is, no bouillon cubes were added to the French Dip’s O Juice. And then, once more, one more time, she had met Emma at some semipublic function. She’d assumed that she and Emma were of a karma to meet, say, every three weeks forever. To speak almost not at all: to meet. But—

  Mary Blennerhassett had spent Saturday night with Junius, the fry-cook at the Busy Beaver; there really wasn’t enough in her icebox to make a meal for two, and so off they went to have the Loggers’ Breakfast Special at the Mountain Brook Cafe, a good bit more status than the Busy Beaver and an awful lot less than the Shalley: who was there, non-messily also loading up on the Special before (presumably) Church? the cleanly, neatly Victor-and-Emma-Olauson Family. Was who. Victor nodded his invariable brief cool Victor Nod. The kids showed no recognition. Maybe Junius was not the most delicate sight. Emma was, on view of them together, first terribly startled: then terribly shocked: then terribly, terribly tightfaced. And after that, although now and then Mary passed within a foot or two of Emma, she and Emma never again met. Tough titty, Em. Let Victor call Mary “Miss Blennerhassett” till the moose came home, sooner or later she would get her hands upon him, tawny skin and all. He might be a man with whom you could only go so far, but she would go as far as she could.

  Although Mary B. and Victor O. perhaps should have been raised together almost like brother and sister, or anyway cousins … but they hadn’t been raised together at all. All she had of her father was the memory of a voice, before The Divorce, after which she neither saw nor heard him at all: Mom had taken care of that. The late Mom eventually went wherever the late Dad had gone. To their daughter came lots of money from lots of stocks and bonds in a Company and a Mill in a distant state. It had seemed like lots of money, then it didn’t seem like lots of money but just like money, then it seemed like lots of money again. Because Mary didn’t have it anymore. For a while. She still had the stocks and bonds, yes, but The Bank held them as security for The Loan. And The Bank took dividends and interest to pay The Loan off. Whenever.