“After all, Delphine, I’m not weak in the head!”
“I’m not your maid either!”
That was the answer… Always the same argument… Still, if she’d done housework elsewhere she’d have been called a “maid”! She wouldn’t have got away with it!…
Later on, in all confidence, she told me about it… she confessed everything…
“You understand? Between you and me… I’ve acted, I have!”
Big secret… hush-hush…
“I’ve acted, haven’t I? In the theatre! Ah!”… She enjoyed your surprise… Were you by chance interested in it? Delphine? Delphine?… Didn’t that name mean anything to you?
Besides, always dressed up, hat, gloves and everything, all rigged out, except when she’d come back from her big binges… in awful states… her swinish sprees…
She’d stand in line for hours for the “pit”, the English gallery, all dolled up, feathers all over, silk evening dress…
At Claben’s she had a fancy choice, wardrobes galore! A whole floor of evening gowns, she was spoilt, all colours and materials, she’d borrow them, bring them back, she could bluff all Greenwich with her outfits, and even the streets in the centre of London, and the lounges of the big theatres!… And she did!… She didn’t miss a single premiere! Nor the slightest artistic “event”… She’d walk there and back… she didn’t go unnoticed, she’d be seen in all kinds of outfits… she’d strut about between the acts, first and last one in the lounge… She’d take from Claben’s wardrobes all the styles, winter and summer, of the past hundred years… Naturally people noticed her, they’d take little digs at her, it sometimes caused incidents… but altogether things went off all right… Dignity!… But once at the Old Vic, carried away with enthusiasm, she’d disturbed the performance…
They were playing Romeo and Juliet. She’d screamed from the balcony… screaming congratulations at Miss “Juliet” Gleamor… The cops had thrown her out… She’d been wounded to the quick… She’d postponed it to the intermission… Not tamed by any means!… Let the two thousand spectators see what real theatre was!… Soul!… Fire!… ringing text!… She herself had played the text from the very top of the balcony… jammed with people!… The big “Duo” scene!
What a triumph! Endless applause! Romeo, Juliet! Of course, they’d thrown her out again! The police!… But how the spectators ate it up!… All standing and yelling enthusiastically!… She’d done the same thing all over again elsewhere… from one theatre to the next… always impromptu!… Always from the balcony!… The whole theatre would turn to her… acclaim her! And always after the second act…
The performers would get to know her, she’d go to see them in their dressing rooms… She was often disappointed by the personal contact… “Excitable… but no soul!”… That was her verdict! She didn’t want any actors’ photos, even personally initialled, she’d refuse outright, even the great Barrymore’s…*
“Poor mortal soul!…”
That’s what she called him.
She took pity on all of them, however famous they might be, she thought them pygmy, piddling, lost in the presence of the masterpieces… crushed by the text… Glad that she didn’t get angry!… She didn’t miss a thing during the season! Punctual at all the classics… first in line for the pit… often two and three times a week… of course it cost something!… But she was independent, she pointed out, her little income, her pension, but still a little close for all her “spirituous” needs besides and her worldly life!… She wouldn’t have been able to dress up… But being “governess” at Titus’s made ends meet… the evening gowns and the pubs, and in addition all her freakish ideas, theatre, big musical galas, charity evenings… She’d be everywhere… More so since the war with parties for the wounded, recitals of the great virtuosos…
She was ready out of kindness to do some errands… to do little things for Titus… But only as a personal favour she let him know… not at all as a servant!… Ah! Not a servant! She never took off her hat or her veil or her gloves, she did her housework as she was, harnessed from head to foot! With her feathers, her lorgnette, corset, high shoes, handbag…
“Just let some hoodlum touch me!”… She’d flare up thinking about the impertinent scoundrel… Brandishing her hatpin right away!… A dagger!…
With all her grand manners still and all she’d swipe things… not much!… Just odds and ends… that she’d sell in Petticoat Lane for her little incidental expenses… not very much, just little trinkets, leftovers… Titus wanted to catch her… He suspected, of course!… It was a sort of comedy… He’d been mistrusting her for twenty years… The mistrust was mutual… From the moment she arrived he didn’t take his eyes off her… until she left! In order that not a single movement, the slightest gesture, might escape him, he’d observe her with a spyglass from the other end of the room, his navigator’s “Zeiss”. He wanted the windows wide open while she moved the furniture around, it was the only time of the day he wanted to see clearly… so she wouldn’t run away with some treasure, an item in his great collection. He’d climb up the stairs, to the very top, he’d put on three or four overcoats because of the draughts… on top of his pasha brocades. He’d pull down his turban, squatting on the stairs, his blunderbuss on his knees, he wouldn’t let Delphine out of his sight… with the spyglass… It might last for hours…
“Delphine! Delphine! Hurry up!…”
She’d whip up a sirocco on purpose, whirlwinds, hurricanes of dust… They’d be completely enveloped. He’d cough, spit, choke, he’d stick to his guns… He’d stay perched up there yelling away at her…
In order to make a little room, she’d poke at the piles, setting off torrents of junk, it would all come tumbling down!… When it crashed on her, that was another matter! She’d be buried!… Had to be pulled out from under… the way I’d done for the customer… They’d have to stop yelling at each other, they’d be choking in the dust… When it came to weight, the worst was the bunch of old armour, the whole wall on the left, and the dentist chairs stuck into one another… When all of that upset!… Woe!… In a second the wild session would be over… they’d had enough choking and yelling and raving!…
“Stop! Delphine! Stop! I’m all in!…”
He was the one who’d ask for an armistice!… Then she’d open the other window, the one on the dead end, the draught would rush through… All the wobbling junk would come thundering down again!… And it was over for the week!…
Delphine would be triumphant on the heap!…
The whole effort for nothing!
My name is sweet Jenny!
My father ’e’s deafy!
Now I am the Queen!
The refrain! Quite satisfied! So much for Titus!… She’d won!… The customers waiting outside would start getting restless… grumble, frowning.
Claben would start snarling too.
“Come on! Hurry up, Delphine! You see I’m catching cold!…”
She still had to do the bed, the enormous heap of furs… the back of the den… He never left his premises, never got undressed, he kept all his clothes on, his cloaks and his turban, he buried himself as is beneath the pile of sables, sealskins, minks… he slept with one eye, always worried about robbers… Protected against drafts by the huge tapestried portière, I still see the gigantic thing that cut the whole place in two, the “Prodigal Son”…
He’d cough, sniffle, wheeze… he was really going to catch cold… He was sore at Delphine… It was just about over… The two or three big valleys of junk just about under control… shakily stacked against the walls… Delphine would shut the blinds, Titus would light his globe, his water lamp… poke at the Greco-Byzantine incense burner… swinging from the ceiling… when it sizzled, smoked hard, he’d take a deep sniff… he was ready for business!… The customer would sit down facing him… the discussion would get started… but interrupted im
mediately… “Ooh!… Roch!”… Another coughing fit! Asthma! His asthma! From having sat there like that in the cold! In the dust!… “Ah! Now! By God!”… He tried everything for his asthma, all possible medicines, everything in the advertisements… and for emphysema… everything that Delphine brought back from her conversations with the asthmatic housewives in the neighbourhood… Clodovitz’s remedies, unguents, powders, bottles, all shapes and sizes… Each new speciality… Delphine would drop in at the hospital, would never return without a few drops, two or three phials, the day’s wonderful new product!… He tried everything!… All the weird smells, all the worst quack powders… he’d sniffed them all… the headiest aromas, the most awful fetid scents… absolutely everything for asthma… wheeziness from the fogs… When that got him! What a panic!… Should’ve seen his eyes then!… The horror that seized him! All kinds of plants in a plate that were burnt at the critical moment… Once it was Senegalese herbs with a bitter stink that’d knock you over and then little ground shells that he took before going to sleep… It could also be smoked in a pipe… The customers, in order to win him over, so that he’d be a little less of a louse when it came to renewals, were very anxious about his condition, they’d talk to him about his illness, they’d ask how he was, they were very concerned, they’d bring him candy, eucalyptus tablets to be inhaled over sugar as they were being burnt… You can’t imagine what a stinking horror that was! He tried all their stuff, he tried whatever they wanted, but he wasn’t much better… In fact it was even getting worse… his nose was rasping more and more… especially since the big bomb explosion, since the night of the Zeppelin, when it fell on Millwall, less than a mile away!… It had shaken everything, his house had got a jolt, been hurt… he’d thought it was the end! He’d sprung from his furs, squirted into the air, fallen on his belly with his full weight! Och! What a shake! A catapult shock! He reacted two days later by throwing a fit, so intense and acute that he lay gasping at the bottom of the staircase!… His tongue drooping to the mat… trying to catch his breath!… For at least forty-eight hours unable to go up or down or even move, or call for help, his tongue completely tied, unable to answer anyone. The customers, after waiting, had alerted the neighbourhood, sent for the firemen, the neighbours, the park guards, they’d forced the locks, they’d thought he was dead. That gives you an idea of the character.
They didn’t complain about him at Cascade’s, they didn’t think he was too much of a snarling haggler, considering the kind of louse he was, taking advantage of poverty, a bloodsucker, and so on. Naturally he’d handle things that came to him from Cascade’s, but never large quantities, just knick-knacks, odds and ends that the girls wangled from the customers, small stuff… more or less as a joke… more or less gifts… Cascade didn’t encourage them… He didn’t like thieves… but it was hard stopping them… they were stubborn about it, they had to rummage around in pockets!… Gold pencils!… Cigarette holders!… And even watches and chains!… Cascade didn’t want the stuff around!… He’d fly right off the handle! Had to get rid of it! Then and there!… Titus for that, the sleight-of-hand artist, never a question!… Right to the melting pot!… And that was the end of it!… And he’d forget about it at once… Never a slip-up… mum’s the word!… And he’d stop remembering even more quickly!… Neither the objects nor the women!… He’d forget everything, lightning! He’d even kid us!… He didn’t even remember our faces!… That was his charm! The lightning way he forgot!… Lots of people came to his pawnshop… what a stream from five to six! People of all conditions… the modest and arrogant!… Hell-raisers and arse-lickers… Bad luck strikes everywhere… but his real business, his regular clients, were the ordinary people, the little crowd from the neighbourhoods opposite… jobbers, workmen, small business… Mainly from the other side of the Thames… Eastwall… Wapping… Beckleton… also a lot of little retired shopkeepers, waitresses, fishwives, artisans, a little of everything… But the number of self-respecting people who didn’t want to be seen carrying their gewgaw “to be hocked”… And he had competition! He wasn’t the only one in the East!… Mile End was jammed with pawnbrokers, hock shops in every building, but on top of one another, shops side by side, it got them pretty upset to be seen like that waiting around there. Whereas at Claben’s it was after all much more discreet!… There weren’t windows all around, just the clear view of the park… And then it was a trip, had to take the penny boat… And besides, right next to the park… if you met anyone… if you were a little low at the moment… it was easy to be taking the air… you were just out walking… you could carry it off…
I’ve said that Claben didn’t talk much with the customers… but he’d give the article a long going-over… he’d examine it in detail… he’d squint at the trademark… he’d come closer with his big glass… it would squeeze against his jowls, he’d press so hard on it that his cheeks would touch his ears… so passionately… He’d forget his asthma… He’d take another glass… a still bigger one!… An enormous one… so as to see the thing better… he’d be so nervous examining it that in his excitement he’d jolt everything, the table, the water lamp, the armchair… he’d snuffle and flounder around so that he couldn’t talk… He didn’t have many teeth left, he’d splutter over his stumps, it kept him from swallowing… Delphine had to chop up everything fine, especially meat, his big beefsteaks at two and six! The customers liked him as he was, that’s a fact, maybe because of his hocus-pocus, his oriental jacket, his Ali Baba style, his incense, his hangings, everything… The English like it when foreigners remain quaint… and don’t start playing the gentleman, and stay as is, humbugs… a sort of monkey… I never saw Claben bawled out for his performance, his extortions, yet he was a louse, the worst vile stingy hyena when it came to usury and dishonesty! A skunk when it came to “lend and lease”! Never a day’s, a penny’s grace… the worst tyrant about extensions… he’d fleece them to zero!… He’d finish off even the most decrepit woebegone wrecks… he’d suck them beyond the bone!… And he’d insult them besides into the bargain! Called them lower than worms for being the tiniest bit late! Should’ve heard his jabbering! The way he shook down poverty! It didn’t do him any harm… on the contrary!… When he had one of his big attacks, almost dead, there’d be a rush, a crowd from all parts of the city asking about him, bringing him consolation, good wishes, flowers and fruit… he had some small customers who’d been skinned to the quick, from whom he’d taken everything, their tables, watches, doormats, and who still came back to see him… just so, without any hard feelings, who even brought him other customers, acquaintances from here and there, people who were also hard up… He didn’t even say thanks… Often they came from far away to pay him a quick visit, leaving their work when it was cold, freezing, rainy, hailing, just for the satisfaction of seeing their Horror at the back of his den, gasping, sniffling, groaning, just to see that he wasn’t dead… That was the wonder of his charm. All he spoke to them about was hard cash, hardly ever a decent word… That’s how it was and that’s all there’s to it… The worst cut-throats of the poor enjoy prestige… often fawned upon, soft-soaped, while the nice ones are massacred… pulverize some poor guy and no crapping around!… Take advantage of utter misery so they puke blood, that’s the very essence of magic, real spellbinding, the height of beauty!
Let’s talk about it some more.
Here’s how the man and the shop presented themselves… Titus Van Claben and Partner… The sign over the zinc emblem The Three Globes… Pawnbroker. On Securities and Personal Word… right on the balcony in yellow and gold… I never saw the partner… Probably didn’t exist… The personal word surely didn’t exist!
Titus wasn’t in a hurry to open his shop, he’d start around four o’clock… sometimes later… The customers who got impatient could take a walk in the park while waiting… could look at the landscape… cross the lawns till they reached the trees, the big poplars a way off… I mean when the weather was nice.
It was full of games, merry-go-rounds, flocks of children!… If the kids got in their hair the waiting customers could take refuge behind the kiosks, it was quiet there… they’d feel their linings again… Whether they’d lost anything… their locket, their gadget… Often it was more important, a household article… the coffee mill… the teapot… they’d redo the package… the newspaper… As soon as Titus opened they’d all rush up…
“Don’t shove! One by one! Close the door!…”
One by one!…
No shoving!
* * *
Fine, very well, so the other one’s playing, the old guy’s keeping more or less quiet… That is, he’s wheezing less… We hear Big Ben ring out eleven o’clock… Boom! Boom!… The strokes roll off into the clouds…
Briefly that’s the setting…
It’s not much of a risk now… I can tell you everything… the whole comedy… It’s been ages and ages! Boy, and how! That’s all done with!… It’s a dream… just images left… imagination!… And then there’s been the war of 1939… and then what you know about… It’s like another world now… Too bad… Really too bad… I’ll probably never see the real places again… They won’t let me go back there… still, let me tell you, it would be my last wish. They’ll hang me first… It’s too bad… it’s a pity… I’m forced to imagine… I’m going to create a little artistic effect… You’ll excuse me… I wouldn’t have liked being reduced to melodrama… All the same, isn’t that my case?… Just put yourself in my place… I wouldn’t like someone to be telling you things the wrong way… later on… when there won’t be a single witness left… no one living… when it’ll be just loose talk… old wives’ tales… scraps of cheap smears… Ah! They’ll get a good kick out of my suffering, tossing dirt at me right and left!… If I don’t take full precautions I’ll be blackened in advance, if I don’t tell all the details starting today, starting now! Not in an hour! Everything very scrupulous, exact, meticulous!… So I’ll go on with my whole story, at Big Ben’s Boom! Boom!… The strokes rolling off into the clouds… rumbling in the echo… that’s exactly how it was… I’m not trying to play on your feelings… I’m not straining for effect… The foghorn… the boat going upstream… You hear its big puffing close by… It’s true, it’s passing right alongside you… The power it breathes, the way it inhales, its propellers grinding away like all sixty… right near the bank… the water whispering… just enormous… “Choo! Choo!”… It’s passed by…
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