The Song of the Flea

by Gerald Kersh

  The offices of Thurtell Hunt, Mayerling & Co. Ltd., General Publishers, were on the ground floor of a gracious old house near the river. There was a blue-and-white plaque on the wall which said:

  *

  Thurston Bidpond,

  Man of Letters,

  1799–1829, lived here.

  The publishers’ nameplate was not of staring brass, but of some darker alloy; and it was large and massive—the plate of a firm founded on a rock; substantial; calculated to last for ever. The outer office smelt strongly of paint. A dreamy-eyed, anxious boy took Pym’s name, blushed, said: “Just a minute,” and, after an absence of fifteen or twenty seconds returned, his face glowing like a Neon sign and asked him to step in.

  A young lady said, in cool, measured tones: “Oh, Mr. Pym. How do you do? Mr. Proudfoot is expecting you, but he’s detained for two or three minutes, so won’t you sit down?”

  “May I smoke?”

  “Please do. Mr. Proudfoot won’t keep you long, I’m sure.”

  “I’m probably too early. I’m always too early,” said Pym.

  “Not more than five or ten minutes,” the lady said. There were papers, neatly arranged in an ingenious nest of wire baskets to the left of a brand new typewriter on her desk. Her telephone was new; the directories were new; the inkwells were clean, the pen nibs were bright, and the pencils were all of equal length. There was a little new vase of new flowers on the desk.

  “New here?” said Pym.

  “We’ve only recently moved in, yes.”

  “Would it be indiscreet, Miss …?”

  “Bowman.”

  “—Bowman. Would it be indiscreet, Miss Bowman, to ask just what kind of set-up this is?”

  “Not at all, Mr. Pym. This is simply a publishing company. I believe it’s connected with a firm called Mayerling, of Vienna.”

  “I can’t say I know anything about Mayerling of Vienna. Do you?”

  “I’m told they were one of the most important publishing firms in Austria, Mr. Pym. I don’t know any more than that. I’m new here myself, you see.”

  “Practically everything looks new here,” said Pym, sniffing at the fresh paint. “Tell me, Miss Bowman, what do you do here? Secretary?”

  “I’m Mr. Sherwood’s secretary, and I make myself useful in general. You’re a writer, I believe?”

  “After a style, yes. I am an apprentice.” Suddenly he wanted to talk about himself. “I write a bit here and a bit there. You couldn’t possibly have heard of me. Most of what I write, I write anonymously: ashamed to put my name to it.”

  Miss Bowman said: “If I found myself doing anything I was ashamed of I’d stop it like a shot.”

  “But——” said Pym.

  Then the door opened and Proudfoot came into Miss Bowman’s office, with a melodramatic gesture, and gripped Pym by the shoulders. “Johnny!” he said, “the one man on the the face of the earth I really want to see! You have met Miss Bowman? Joanna, you’ve met John Pym? Good! good! Come in, Johnny, come in and meet Sherwood! Come in, come in!”

  Proudfoot opened a mahogany door and followed Pym into Sherwood’s room.

  *

  The keen-eyed elderly man was turning over some papers. He was dressed, now, in an old gingery tweed suit with leather patches on the elbows: a flannel shirt and a woollen tie; and still he looked well-dressed. There was something like a pinch of salt on his upper lip—he was growing a moustache. “Ah-ha!” he cried, “my dear colleague! Brother in exile! Come in and sit down and tell me—how does the world use you? We have met before, Mr. Pym, when we were both the victims of judicial misunderstanding, I believe. When I quoted that poetry to you … those lines—have you forgotten? You said they were good. I quoted a line or two and he said they were good, Proudfoot old friend!”

  “Oh yes, I remember distinctly,” said Pym.

  “One of the greatest books in the English language,” said Sherwood, laughing heartily as he took a bottle, syphon, and three glasses out of a cupboard in his walnut and red-leather desk, “one of the very greatest books in the English language—which I have had the opportunity to learn by heart—is Roget’s Thesaurus. The lines I quoted on that occasion, to which we need not refer, Mr. Pym, are made up of words repeated in their proper order out of Roget’s Thesaurus—Number 954: Intemperance. There is a work! There is a work indeed! There is pure poetry. Read your Roget, Mr. Pym; read your Roget:

  Bad man, wrong-doer, work of iniquity——

  Wretch, reptile, viper and devil incarnate!

  Enough of this nonsense. A drink, Mr. Pym. I’m delighted to meet you, delighted and relieved—and this is another reason why I have occasion to be indebted to our common friend Proudfoot. And I hope, Mr. Pym, that you, too, will feel that you owe Proudfoot a thank-you for this meeting … you, as a writer, a man of letters. I am nothing but Barbabas. Barbabas was a publisher, eh? Ha-ha-ha! Hated by those he loves—willing to wound—and yet afraid to strike, eh? So well-bred lap dogs civilly delight in mumbling of the prey they dare not bite—what? Drink up! drink up!”

  Proudfoot said: “Johnny, we are friends, I hope?”

  “Yes, we are. Do you need to ask, Proudfoot?”

  “This, Tom,” said Proudfoot to Sherwood, “is a real writer. I don’t like to ask him to do what I want him to do but I have an idea—a crazy idea, if you like, that out of friendship he might accommodate us … Look Johnny, this is nothing but a hack job. I proposed you as the writer because you can write it the way it needs to be written, and also because there really is some money in it … Sherwood, my dear fellow, I’ve explained that Johnny Pym is a very fine writer indeed, who is going to establish himself. Only—we are among friends now, Johnny, and you mustn’t mind my talking like this—Johnny needs a little money, Sherwood, my dear fellow, in order to afford to sit down and write what he wanted to write. Johnny—this is a hack job and nothing more: a piece of nonsense as far as you are concerned, but of great importance to my friend Sherwood and to me. It is, in fact, a rewrite job.”

  “Proudfoot, anything I can do for you I will, as you very well know.”

  “Thanks! Thanks! Now, tell me—have you heard of Dr. Weissensee?”

  Sherwood said: “The author of Geschlechtliche Verirrungen in Verhaeltnis zur Kunst im Lauf der Zeit Einschliesslich Spezial Faelle in der Zeit Zwischen 1675 und 1935 mit einer Bemerkung Ueber Auto-Erotik. Dr. Weissensee has the approval of three of the greatest psychiatrists in the world. We want to publish Weissensee here, but we have the work only in a scrappy form in English and in—to be frank—a sensationalised French translation. It is,” said Sherwood, looking grave and drumming his fingers on the blotting-pad, “a purely scientific work of the first order. It is, in fact, a necessary work, and we propose to circulate it very widely in England and America. In order to do this we must put it into clear, vivid English. The Personal Case Histories alone need the touch of a first-rate writer. You are a first-rate writer, Mr. Pym. I have read only a few of your pieces in the Sunday Special—I have myself had certain dealings with that excellent paper——”

  “I know you have,” said Pym.

  Sherwood and Proudfoot exchanged glances and then Proudfoot said: “You do, do you?”

  “You sold them a story about yourself. I saw your photograph on somebody’s desk the other day.”

  “Well,” said Sherwood, unperturbed, “you only know what I was on the point of telling you. I have been young and now I am old. I have been foolish and now I am wise. Crime, Mr. Pym, crime does not pay. Vanitas vanitatum et omnes … What fools we mortals be! How vain—how silly to imagine that one’s weak self can stand alone against the gathered might of the Law of God and man! Observe, I am absolutely frank with you, Mr. Pym. All that is over. Part of the capital I have put into Thurtell Hunt, Mayerling & Co. Ltd., is the six thousand pounds I was paid by the Sunday Special for my full and true confession——”

  “—Thirty-five hundred pounds,” said Pym.

  “Experienced as you a
re, Mr. Pym, you have not yet grasped the fact that editors underquote the prices they pay in order to discourage exacting contributors.”

  Proudfoot looked at Pym, frowning, sucked in the corners of his mouth, and nodded slowly; and then he said: “Quite simply, Johnny, we want you to put Weissensee into good clean-cut English. Geschlechtliche Verirrungen im Verhaeltnis zur Kunst im Lauf der Zeit Einschliesslich Spezial Faelle in der Zeit Zwischen 1675 und 1935 mit Einer Bemerkung Ueber Auto-Erotik is an established scientific work, and you have nothing but credit to get from it—and money, of course.”

  “What does that mean in English?” asked Pym.

  Proudfoot said: “It means Sexual Aberration in Relation to the Arts through the Ages, Together with Case Histories from 1675 to 1935 and a Note on Auto-Erotism.”

  “What would there be in it for me?” asked Pym.

  “Two hundred and fifty pounds,” said Proudfoot.

  “But how long is it?”

  “About a hundred thousand words.”

  “I don’t know if I could do it. Could I look at some of the stuff?” asked Pym.

  Sherwood looked at Proudfoot, who nodded. Then, unlocking the drawer, Sherwood found a manilla folder full of violet typescript on onion-skin paper. “Naturally,” he said.

  “If I could let you know to-morrow …?” said Pym.

  “Of course,” said Proudfoot. “We are friends, Johnny, I hope. You have been a good friend to me and I—in my way—have tried to be a good friend to you, I flatter myself.”

  Pym said: “Proudfoot, you’ve been a better friend to me than any friend I ever had.”

  “Twelve o’clock!” said Sherwood, looking at his gold watch. “What do you say to lunch?”

  “Unfortunately I have a date,” said Pym, rising, with the folder under his arm.

  Proudfoot insisted upon seeing him to the door. They parted affectionately. Pym walked to the Strand and walked back again. He said to the blushing boy: “An envelope … foolscap envelope—about this long and this wide”—he drew a diagram with a finger-nail—“did I leave it here?”

  “Just a minute.”

  Miss Bowman came out and said: “I don’t think there’s any envelope in my office. Perhaps you left it in Mr. Sherwood’s office.”

  “Miss Bowman, I beg your pardon! I really am ever so sorry, but now I come to think of it I posted it this morning. For the moment I would have sworn I had it with me, but I’ve just remembered—I posted it this morning. That’s it—this morning; I put a stamp on it and posted it. But I put it in my pocket and, thinking of other things, I got the idea into my head it was still in my pocket. I am so sorry.”

  “So glad you haven’t lost it.”

  “Oh, Miss Bowman, I don’t suppose you’d like to have lunch with me?” said Pym, swallowing saliva.

  “Yes, I’ll have lunch with you, if you like,” said Miss Bowman.

  “What time?”

  “One.”

  “Where?”

  “Pick me up here, if you like.”

  “One o’clock, then,” said Pym, and hurried away to the Sunday Special.

  The Features Editor was still there. He said: “Look here, if I’ve told you once I’ve told you a thousand times—who the hell wants Prose Poems? Who wants Descriptive Passages? Who wants long words? Who wants catalogues? Who wants your logomania? (You see, I can use long words, too, if I want to.) This stuff has possibilities, but you’d better take it away and purge it. I can’t use this stuff as it stands. Get some life into it—get some human stuff into it. I’m sorry, but as far as I’m concerned you can bore a little hole in this stuff and hang it up with a piece of string in a certain place. You know better than this, son. You know a hell of a lot better than this Pym. What’s the matter with you? Spring fever? Do me a favour—will you?—and take this Immortal Prose away and bung in another specimen.”

  “But, damn it all——”

  “—My sentiments exactly. Damn it all, and let’s have a story. You’re on the right line. Keep on it and you’ll be okay. Oh, and by the way: no doubt you were carried away by your Prose Poems but, in case you didn’t notice, you made a coster say ‘Not bloody likely’. This is a family paper.”

  “Family paper!” cried Pym. “Con-men and whores and murderers and white-slavers and dope traffickers can spill their guts all over your lousy paper and get paid through the nose for it! And I use a harmless ‘bloody’—a perfectly harmless ‘Not bloody likely’ and you go Puritan on me!”

  “No ‘bloodies’ in this paper.”

  “What about Bernard Shaw?”

  “Go and grow a long white beard. Go and write plays. This is a family paper. No ‘bloodies’! ‘Blasted’—yes. ‘Bloody’—no. Similarly, no ‘bastards’. ‘Illegitimate’, perhaps, if necessary. ‘Bastard’, definitely no. And no ‘pregnant’—‘certain condition’. First be Bernard Shaw, then say ‘Not bloody likely’ as much as you bloody well like. You go away and do it again. Scram now, like a good fellow.”

  “Very well, if that’s the way you want it.”

  “Oh, Pym—you might as well take these with you,” said the Features Editor, poking at Pym’s articles with a thick black pencil. “You could sell them to a magazine … Now, don’t be silly—don’t lose your temper. Would I bother to talk to you if I didn’t think you were all right? Go out and have a drink and go back to work. Oh, by the by, if you want a couple of quid I can let you have it.”

  “Thanks, I’m all right.”

  “On account, you know.”

  Pym said: “I assure you there’s no need at all. Thanks, all the same. Au revoir.”

  “So long.”

  Pym walked downstairs jingling the money in his pocket. In the vestibule he stopped as if he had walked into an invisible wire. Having felt the edges of all the coins in his right hand it occurred to Pym that he had only five shillings, two sixpences, three pennies and a halfpenny. The hands of the big electric clock pointed to twelve thirty-five. He thought of his typewriter but hesitated, remembered Proudfoot and went to a public telephone. Pym dialled feverishly. A woman answered. He pinched his nostrils, twisted his mouth and disguised his voice. “Tell Bister Proudfoot it’s urgent,” he said. Then, portentously, Proudfoot said: “Who is it?”

  Pym whispered: “Proudfoot, don’t say anything. Listen, can you lend me a little money—just a little money?” As Proudfoot began to reply Pym said hastily: “Don’t mention my name. Don’t say anything. Simply say yes or no. I only want a pound—just for a day.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Proudfoot. “Come right along now.”

  “No, do you mind,” whispered Pym; “do you mind terribly much meeting me in about ten minutes in the Buckingham?”

  “Well, it isn’t altogether convenient, you know; but if I remember rightly I do owe you——”

  “No, no, no! Please, please, Proudfoot! You don’t owe me anything. I just want to borrow a pound.”

  “Not in trouble again, I hope?”

  “No, no trouble at all. Well—yes—yes, I am in a minor way in trouble. Will you do this for me, Proudfoot?”

  “One moment,” said Proudfoot; and then Pym heard him saying: “Oh, Joanna, how much have we in the petty cash?” The reply was inaudible, but Proudfoot said: “With pleasure. Where you said—in ten minutes. Don’t make it more than ten minutes, will you?”

  “I won’t! I won’t, thank you very much! I don’t know how to thank you! I’m on my way now.”

  When Pym reached the Buckingham Proudfoot was waiting for him.

  “Here you are, Johnny,” he said, pressing a square of folded paper money into Pym’s coat pocket.

  “You’re the best friend any man ever had,” said Pym, pretending to fumble for a cigarette; “—but, I say, Proudfoot, there’s more than a pound here.”

  “There’s a fiver there,” said Proudfoot.

  “A pound would have been enough.”

  “Oh come, come, come, my dear fellow, what is a pound or two between friends
?”

  “But——”

  “—You owe me nothing—it’s on the firm. We’ll take it off the book. You haven’t had a chance, of course, to cast your eye over the material yet?”

  “Good God!” said Pym, “I must have left it up at the office.”

  Proudfoot clasped his hands behind him and stared, speechless. “You had better get on the telephone at once,” he said.

  Pym did so. The Features Editor’s secretary said “Yes, that’s right, a manilla folder; you did leave it on Mr. Steeple’s desk. I’ve got it here.”

  “It’s perfectly safe, Proudfoot,” said Pym. “I’ll go along and get it this afternoon. No need to worry: it’s perfectly safe.”

  In his harshest voice Proudfoot said: “You must be completely out of your mind, Pym! Are you aware that you might have lost one of the most valuable contributions to modern science? You had better keep your wits about you, my friend.”

  “I really am awfully sorry, but I seem to be what you might call distrait this morning.”

  “Sorry, Pym, sorry again, always sorry! Well, well, have a drink.”

  “Do you mind awfully, Proudfoot, if I don’t? I have a lunch date.”

  “Not at all, my dear fellow. We look forward to seeing you to-morrow.”

  “Yes, to-morrow,” said Pym, on his way out.

  He reached Adam Street at five minutes to one and waited on the other side of the road.

  “What on earth were you hiding in that doorway for?” asked Joanna Bowman when they met.

  “I don’t know,” said Pym, feeling foolish.

  “I bet you do know,” she said. “You were saying to yourself: ‘I don’t want anyone in the office to see me waiting for the secretary in case they think I’m interested in her,’ isn’t that right?”

  “I don’t know. Possibly. Very likely,” said Pym. “Where shall we eat?”