The Song of the Flea

by Gerald Kersh

  “Whatever you say,” said Pym, bitterly. “No adjectives at all, if you like. No adverbs, either. All nouns and verbs, none of them to exceed two syllables.”

  “That’s the spirit! That’s the spirit! Buckle down to it, my boy.” Steeple went to his office in a rosy mist of Chambertin and new ideas, and Pym went home.

  *

  There was a Puritan hiding under Pym’s bed. In his brain there were certain raw spots—live wires scraped bright and dangerous which, when touched, gave him shocks.

  Turning over the pages of Dr. Weissensee’s typescript he remembered a hot afternoon at the seaside, eighteen years ago, when he was in his eleventh year. Sand castles, much as he liked to build them, were undignified. It was unbecoming for a man of his years to play kids’ games, squatting on his haunches and moulding turrets in a tin pail, and cutting out battlements with a wooden spade. He lingered with secret yearning at the edge of a group of nine-year-olds who were building a vast walled edifice with a moat and a drawbridge, wanting to give them a few useful hints. But he turned scornfully, with a sardonic laugh, and went for a walk on the pier, where the slot machines were. He had ninepence. One penny he squandered on the fortune-telling machine: a black-browed wax gipsy with a fly-blown face passed a dusty wax hand from side to side; there was a grinding and grating inside the green cast-iron case, and a rusty slot poked out a pink oblong of cardboard on which was printed these words: You are brave and generous, far too generous. Take care of your health. If you work a little harder you will be rich and happy.

  He put the card in a secret pocket, along with a lucky pebble with a hole in it.

  There was a machine which invited him to guess his weight: if he guessed his weight he would get his penny back. He knew that he weighed five stone thirteen pounds, because his mother had had him weighed in a chemist’s shop the day before; so he turned the indicator to 5st. 13lbs, stood on the platform and put in his penny, cupping his hand under the slot marked Returned Pennies Here. Something clanked and the lying finger on the false dial pointed to 5st. 8lbs, He kicked the machine—forgetting that he was wearing white canvas shoes—and hurt his foot.

  Scowling at the sea, he imagined that he was the captain of a rakish ship flying the black flag: he boarded the pier, put everybody to the sword, smashed the weighing machine to pieces, took out all the pennies, and sailed away to the Dry Tortugas with a “Yo, heave ho! and a bottle of rum”.

  Cheered by this fantasy, he went to what he called the Cat Machine. There were five grotesque cats on a wall, and a silver pistol: you inserted your penny and pulled a lever, and the pistol loaded itself with five steel balls. All you had to do was hit the cats between the eyes and they fell down and back came the penny. It was virtually free entertainment. He took careful aim at the first cat’s forehead and missed it clean. The second shot hit it in the belly. He singled out another cat and winged it in the left shoulder. His fourth shot bounced off the middle cat’s nose. He was angry. There was only one shot left. The hot sun scorched his neck. He was Captain Crouch in Major Charles Gilson’s story, who carried no luggage but a pound tin of Bulldog Shag, a big revolver and a box of bullets: who had a cork foot and did great deeds up the Kasai River … The rhinoceros was charging, it was twenty yards away, ten yards away, five yards away—he could feel its burning breath on his forehead … Then—bing!—right between the eyes!

  One cat fell down. Pym was content: he had something for his penny. There was another shooting-machine with a revolving mechanical hare. This iron animal had a white spot painted behind its shoulder. You put your penny in the slot and the hare ran round and round. The directions said that if you hit it on the white spot it would utter a lifelike shriek and you would get your penny back. But there was only one shot.

  Alan Quartermaine Pym, dying of starvation in the mountains, threw his last cartridge into the breach and, raising himself on his skinny old elbows, drew a bead on the bounding impala. Crash! The hare stopped dead and the penny did not come back: he had missed.

  Before he lay down to die in the eternal snows he looked about him and saw a disconsolate little boy of about his own age, picking his nose and moping, as if he contemplated suicide, against the rail of the pier. Pym still had fivepence. “What’s your name?” he asked.

  The other boy, moving his forefinger and thumb like an expert testing the shape of an invisible pearl, said: “Augustus.”

  “My name is John.”

  “That’s a common name.”

  “Do you want to play football?”

  “What with?”

  “I mean that football over there. We each put a penny in the slots and a ball comes out. Then you wiggle the handles and all the little men kick. The one that scores the first goal gets his penny back.”

  Augustus looked at him contemptuously and said: “Ain’t got a penny.”

  “I’ll lend you one,” said Pym.

  Augustus (young Pym was reminded of his mother, hastily recorking a bottle of Scrubb’s cloudy ammonia) put his finger back into its proper nostril and said: “If you like. I don’t mind.”

  “If you pick your nose you get worms,” said Pym.

  “I like worms.”

  “My mother says it’s a dirty habit.”

  “I thought you said we was gonna play football. You promised faithfully we was gonna play football. Why did you ask me to play football if you didn’t mean it?”

  “All right, come on, then, I’m ready—let’s play football,” said Pym, without enthusiasm.

  Augustus said: “I’m Aston Villa. You’re the Wolves.”

  “I want to be Aston Villa,” said Pym; “I’m lending you the penny.”

  “Mingy!” said Augustus. “Mingy, stingy, mean!”

  “Oh, all right, then—you be Aston Villa. You know how to play? I’ll put the pennies in, and then the ball comes out. If you knock the ball into my goal you get your penny back. If I knock the ball into your goal, I get my penny back. Are you ready?”

  Augustus grunted a grudging assent and Pym put two pennies into the slots and pressed the lever that released the ball, which rolled towards Augustus, who instantly caused all his players to kick; whereupon the ball flew into the goal on Pym’s side and one of the pennies came tinking down. Augustus put it in his pocket.

  Pym was indignant. “You cheated,” he said; “you’re a fouler. You didn’t give me a chance!”

  “I done what you said and I won.”

  “I’m not going to play with you any more. Give me back my penny.”

  “I won it.”

  “I only lent it to you.”

  “I won.”

  “I lent it to you to play with.”

  “I won it. I won it off of you, playing for keeps.”

  “I lent it to you!” shouted little Pym, nearly crying. “You’re a thief!”

  “I’m a what?”

  “You’re a thief!” Pym came close to Augustus and, pale with anger, said: “You give me back that penny.”

  Augustus, who had been investigating one of his ears, scrutinised the operative finger, put it back again, looked at Pym and then screamed: “Oh Mum! Mum!”

  A big woman in black said: “What is it, Gus?”

  “’E called me a thief!”

  She said to Pym: “You go away and leave people alone, you little liberty-taker! You run away, or I’ll give you something to cry for!”

  Then Pym realised that he was crying and he was ashamed; but he said: “He had no right to steal my penny.”

  “Gussie, did you steal that little boy’s penny?”

  “God’s honour, Mum, I never stole nothink.”

  Before he could explain, Pym found himself alone and disconsolate by the football machine with only threepence left of his ninepence. He had intended to spend at least twopence on ice cream, but now he had no appetite for ice cream. The enchantment had died out of the day, and he was very sad. Remembering the weighing machine he went back to it, set the indicator at 5st. 13lbs, and pu
t in another penny. The same machine could not lie twice. Yet it did: his penny went down and away for ever.

  Misery took possession of the soul of the ten-year-old Pym on the pier. He went away, sat on one of the free seats and wept. While he was weeping he dreamed evil day-dreams of revenge … penny for penny, eye for eye, injustice for injustice, tooth for tooth, insult for insult, trickery for trickery. Soon someone said: “What’s the matter, little boy? What are you crying for? Britons mustn’t cry. What’s the matter? Are you lost? There now, wipe your eyes and tell me all about it.”

  A fine linen handkerchief, delicately perfumed, fell on to Pym’s lap: it was too beautiful to blow into, so he dabbed at his eyes with it and, raising his head to say ‘Thank you’, saw a magnificent military-looking gentleman standing over him. He was wearing a blue flannel blazer with golden buttons and his breast pocket was covered by an enormous badge in the shape of a shield, heavy with gold thread. His trousers were of perfectly white flannel, sharply creased, and Pym wondered how he had managed to keep his white buckskin shoes so clean. The gentleman’s face was as fresh and pleasant as his clothes. He had brilliant blue eyes, wide open and disconcertingly candid; a healthy red skin, unwrinkled like the skin of an apple; and a half-moon of silky white moustache. His hair was white, too, and he held himself erect. The hand with which he took back his handkerchief was square and strong, with manicured nails, and a gold ring set with a round yellow stone in which was cut a coat-of-arms. In his other hand he held a panama hat and a gold-headed malacca cane. He said: “Come on now, my boy. Speak up.” His manner was brusque, but his eyes were kind. “Speak up now, little fellow—what are you crying for?”

  “I wasn’t crying.”

  “It’s not manly to tell lies, my boy. You know you were crying. What were you crying for?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “Anybody been ill-treating you? Anybody been ill-using you? Who was it? Tell me.”

  “No, sir; nobody.”

  “You must learn to keep a stiff upper lip. Come on now, smile. That’s the style,” said the gentleman, as Pym forced the corners of his mouth upwards, licking a tear from his upper lip; “that’s the style. Smile, boy; that’s the style. What’s the use of worrying? It never was worth while. ‘So pack up your troubles in your old kitbag and smile, smile, smile.’ Do you like ice cream?”

  Pym nodded.

  “Strawberry? Vanilla? I know what you like—you like fruit-and-nut sundæ, that’s what you like, don’t you, my boy?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Pym.

  “Could you manage a fruit-and-nut sundæ? Be frank now: tell me honestly,” said the gentleman looking straight at Pym with his brilliant blue eyes; “look me straight in the face and tell me: could you manage a fruit-and-nut sundæ?”

  “I think so, sir,” said Pym.

  “You think so? Don’t you know? You only think so? Come now, speak up. Say yes or no.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then come along with me.”

  They went to Mufti’s, and the gentleman bought Pym a fabulous confection of coloured ice cream, cherries, chopped walnuts, tinned peaches and chocolate sauce. Drinking a small cup of black coffee, he nodded benevolently while Pym ate. “How old are you?” he asked.

  “I shall be eleven in nine months,” said Pym.

  “Ten years and three months. Tell the truth and shame the devil, my boy. Do you live here?”

  “No, sir; I’m here with my mother for holiday. We live in London.”

  “And what do you want to be when you grow up?”

  There was something encouraging about this gentleman. Pym said: “I want to be an explorer.”

  “And quite right, too. A very healthy ambition. Fresh fields and pastures new, that’s the style. An explorer, eh? And what do you want to explore?”

  “Africa.”

  “Africa, by Jove! Africa, eh? Why, I know Africa better than I know the palm of my hand. Where do you want to go? Rhodesia? Basutoland? Damaraland? Nyasaland? Ask me: I can tell you all about it—Mashonaland, Tanganyika, anything you like.”

  “Zululand.”

  “Zululand, eh? Ah! You’ve been reading Rider Haggard.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Pym, blushing.

  “Good healthy reading, too. The very thing for a boy. Read him myself—everything he wrote. Which of his books have you read?”

  “King Solomon’s Mines, Marie—A Tale of the Great Trek and Alan Quatermain.”

  “Jolly good books! Thundering good books, by Jove! But haven’t you read The Ivory Kloof, by Guy Russell? There’s a story for you! You’ve heard, no doubt, what they say about elephants?”

  “No, sir, I haven’t.”

  “Why, nobody’s ever seen a dead elephant that died of natural causes. I’ve shot many in my time, but I’ve never seen an elephant dead of old age or sickness. D’ye see? And the story goes that when an elephant feels death coming on, he goes away to a secret place known only to the elephants—because, as you must have heard, elephants know a great deal.”

  Pym gazed at him with round eyes, too fascinated to speak.

  The gentleman went on: “Well, when an elephant knows that he is going to die he goes to a certain places and dies there. He might travel five hundred miles through the jungle, but he’ll get to that place somehow, and there he will die. And for hundreds of years men have been trying to find this place where the elephants lie down and die, because there must be millions and millions of pounds’ worth of ivory there. D’ye see?”

  Pym had never been more delighted in his life. He was smiling, and his eyes were shining as he nodded without speaking.

  “Think you could manage another ice? No? You mean yes, I think. Hey, waitress, bring my young friend another of these things … Yes, as I was saying: if any man could find the place where the elephants go to die he’d be a very rich man indeed, on account of the ivory. And this fellow Guy Russell wrote a story called The Ivory Kloof in which a fellow called Jim—about your age—goes off with his father on a hunting expedition and befriends an old Xorsa”—the gentleman pronounced it with a peculiar click of the tongue—“an old Xorsa witch-doctor, who tells him the secret. A rattling good yarn. You must read it. I’ll give it to you.”

  “Will you really?”

  “Yes, I will. I daresay you’re interested in hunting?”

  To the most charming man he had ever met, Pym said: “Oh, yes!”

  “I have hunted practically every known species of wild beast on the face of the earth—including the Hun, ha-ha! including the Hun! Buffalo—now, there’s a dangerous fellow, if you like! When you go out for buffalo, you kill that buffalo or that buffalo kills you—the African buffalo, I mean, of course; most dangerous animal in the world with the possible exception of a really angry grizzly bear. I’ll tell you what: eat up your ice and I’ll show you a few heads—lion, tiger, buffalo and whatnot. Oh yes, and I’ll give you that book. And if you like, I’ll show you my guns.”

  Pym swallowed a quarter of a pound of fruit-and-nut sundæ in five mad gulps.

  “Never wolf your food. Worst thing in the world for the stomach. I always chew each mouthful thirty-two times, once for every tooth. You should do likewise. Can’t chew ice cream, of course—but let it melt on the tongue. Eh?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  They went to the gentleman’s house, a pleasant little villa in a well-kept garden. A manservant opened the door and the gentleman took Pym into a drawing-room in which there were carefully-arranged trophies and strange weapons and many bright cushions. The place had an odd smell which reminded little Pym of the small cone-shaped pastilles his mother used to burn on certain occasions in his bedroom when he had chicken-pox. “First of all, the book,” said the gentleman, and gave him a brown cloth-bound volume, which Pym clasped to his breast. He was dumb with gratitude. “Now. Would you like some milk, or tea, or something? I know what you’d like: you’d like a peach. Have a peach. Don’t eat it with the peel on: give you diarrh�
�a. Always peel peaches … Oh, yes, guns and whatnot. Come upstairs.”

  Overwhelmed with joy and full of ice cream, Pym could not eat the peach, so he put it carefully on the mantelpiece before he followed the gentleman upstairs; but he still clutched the book, The Ivory Kloof. While they were going up, the gentleman said: “You go to school, I suppose?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “They teach you a whole lot of things, I suppose—science, art, and that sort of stuff, eh?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Pym, thinking of lions and tigers and rifles.

  “But do they teach you anything about Life my boy?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  The gentleman said: “You don’t know? But you must know! What’s the use of education if you don’t learn anything about Life? Do you know who you are, what you are, how you are, why you are?”

  “I don’t think so, sir.”

  The gentleman was indignant. He said: “There you are, you see! Education, education, education! What for? O tempore, O mores! I daresay you don’t even know how you came into this world of ours, do you?”

  Pym had been told by a schoolmate that babies were born through the navel; but he said nothing.

  The room in which he found himself was furnished with nothing but a cupboard, a divan covered with a leopard skin, and several racks full of guns.

  The gentleman now was very angry. He said: “Scandalous! Scandalous, by Jove! Outrageous, by God!—That was a slip of the tongue, my boy: never take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who taketh His name in vain.”

  Pym stroked the blue barrel of a short, heavy gun, feeling vaguely uneasy. The gentleman said impatiently: “That’s a Theodore Philip 44–70. The one next to it is a Mannlicher … But that can wait. Education, eh? God bless my soul, boy, don’t you know what you are and where you came from?” He opened the cupboard and took out an album. “Not innocence, but ignorance,” he said, “crass ignorance. You pick up all kinds of filthy dirtiness from your chums at school, I daresay, eh? And you imagine you were found in a cabbage, do you?”