by Michel Déon
‘Do you believe all that?’
‘There are things a thousand times more incredible on this earth. Why are we here, at this moment in our lives, you and I, talking to each other like old friends, when two days ago we didn’t know each other, we had no reason to have ever met, and we have very few reasons to see each other again after we finish studying at Beresford?’
Arthur was easily hurt. He clenched his teeth, remained silent for at least a minute, allowing Getulio to savour his unfriendly remark, and then, in the most detached tone he could muster, looking out at the horizon, said, ‘I feel the same. Our meeting’s completely unnatural. Just imagine: one day, someone fingers you as a professional gambler who works the transatlantic liners and you’re banned from the tables of every shipping line around the world. Down you go, all the way to hell. You drop out of your studies, while I leave with a degree that helps me get a job in an investment bank. Our paths no longer have any reason to cross at all. Under various assumed names you eke out an existence in Europe’s second- and third-rate casinos; I travel in a private jet. Obviously I have you arrested as soon as your overdraft goes over three dollars …’
‘You should write novels.’
‘What for? We can pay people to do that.’
Getulio gripped him by the shoulders and shook him.
‘Fifteen all,’ he said. ‘I can see why Elizabeth’s keen on you. She’s ready to eat you up, or for you to eat her up.’
Arthur laughed out loud. By steering him in Elizabeth’s direction, Getulio thought he would divert him from his sister.
‘The feeling’s mutual. She’s terrifically attractive, despite the fact that she’s not my type.’
‘You’re hard to please. She’s a beauty.’
Arthur decided to keep his thoughts about Elizabeth’s beauty to himself. He would never have said that she was beautiful or (if he was feeling worldly) charming. Only one adjective suited her. She was pretty, very pretty, with a sort of prettiness that since the advent of the talkies American cinema had popularised to the point of making it insipid: a profile you couldn’t fault in any way, which retained something of the purity of childhood; blond hair that wasn’t entirely natural; a slim, warm figure.
‘Blast, blast! The sun’s set. No green ray for us tonight.’
‘You can’t win at cards without the green ray?’
‘It wasn’t cards I had in mind.’
Arthur knew perfectly well, but Augusta’s name was not to be mentioned. It was like a sacrament that imposed on the observer a duty to withdraw into the deepest part of himself, to deflect all questioning from outside. Scattered like little seeds, Augusta’s voice, the flecks in her eyes, the mischief in her fine features took possession of a man’s thoughts and would not let him go. Getulio’s arm, which he had left resting on Arthur’s shoulders, tempted him to speak but, stiffening, he refrained. On this territory he foresaw that Getulio would for ever be his enemy. If he got too close to Augusta, the brother with the illusionist’s fingers would declare war.
‘So what did you have in mind?’
Getulio let his arm drop and gripped Arthur’s wrist with sudden force.
‘What on earth is it you’ve all got with her?’
‘It seems to me that you’re not talking about Elizabeth any more,’ Arthur said coldly, without attempting to free himself from the Brazilian’s grip.
At the liner’s bow a grey shadow merged with the ocean and raced at dizzying speed towards the sunset, extinguishing its final blaze. Night still hesitated, confused by the sudden eclipse, not daring to banish the glimmers that lingered to the south and north. The Atlantic’s blue-green turned to a grey of molten lead and white crests whipped across the top of the majestic swell, parted with crushing indifference by the impassive Queen Mary.
‘Don’t you think it’s an extraordinary invention?’
‘The Queen Mary? Are you serious? It’s like being in Frankenstein’s castle. All that gilding, all those chandeliers make me feel sick. It’s so common!’
‘I’m not talking about the ship, I’m talking about human beings and their 1400 grams of brain who have taken over the world and will one day perhaps take over the solar system too. Don’t you feel intoxicated to be one of those conquerors?’
‘I must have crossed the Atlantic at least twenty times. I don’t enjoy it in the slightest any more. In fact, I couldn’t find it more boring. If flying didn’t frighten Augusta to death, we’d be there already instead of killing time in this tub, wallowing across this appallingly tedious ocean. No, to answer your question, I’m not a conqueror like you, or like my ancestors. I’m hardly even a survivor. Who’s this clown?’
A short, stocky man, made fatter by a canary-yellow tracksuit and wearing a baseball cap, was jogging towards them, breathing noisily, his elbows tucked in. As he passed he greeted them with a ‘Hello Arthur!’, changed direction and jogged back the way he had come.
‘You keep interesting company! Useful, I suppose. The ship’s cook?’
Arthur kept him waiting for a second or two, savouring the suspense and his answer.
‘No, he’s not the cook.’
Getulio spotted the trap.
‘I didn’t mean to annoy you.’
He had, but he had missed his mark.
‘I’ll admit it’s not quite the done thing to jog around the deck dressed as a canary. Does he wear that tracksuit when he has breakfast with Eisenhower? I wonder.’
‘You win. Unless you’re having me on.’
‘Not in the slightest! That was Allan Dwight Porter. I had lunch with him and his wife Minerva earlier.’
Getulio gripped the handrail and shook it violently.
‘I nearly made the gaffe of a lifetime. I was about to ask him who let the canary out of its cage. How do you know him?’
‘He knew me before I knew him.’
‘Arthur, it seems to me that we’ve never talked properly. I need to hear what you have to say, and I’m freezing out here. The night is dark, and the bar is ours.’
They arrived at almost the same time as Elizabeth and Augusta, who demanded, ‘Where have you been, Getulio? I’ve been looking for you for two hours. I even asked the captain to search the ship, all the way from the bridge to the coal bunkers.’
‘It’s been some time since transatlantic liners used coal. In any case, I have a right to a bit of freedom while you’re having your siesta. There’s no secret. I was with my friend Arthur and we were talking about the fabulous powers of human intelligence, were we not, Arthur?’
‘Almost exactly.’
For the rest of the voyage, until the Queen Mary berthed in New York, the four of them were hardly ever apart. Concannon joined them at the bar, where he stayed while dinner was served, along with the barman, by now resigned to being called Paddy. One morning, seeing Arthur and Porter coming out of the gym together, Getulio managed to get himself introduced. Draped in a lavender-blue dressing gown, Porter, barely civil, said only, ‘I knew your father,’ and led Arthur away.
‘My dear young man, Providence, with its poor sense of justice and almost complete absence of discernment, has nevertheless granted to men a gift whose richness often goes unsuspected by them: friendship. If, sad to relate, they sacrifice that gift on the altar of social or professional ambition, or to vague passing interests or even – more foolishly still – to love, they’re cutting themselves off from the best of themselves or, more precisely, from what could make them better men than they are. Criminals know this: their friendships are more important to them than life and death itself, as they like to have tattooed on their chests. These beings, whom you would think abject specimens ready for all manner of depravity, keep hidden in the deepest recesses of their soul – yes, everyone has a soul – an inextinguishable flame, a rushlight that defies time, misfortune, all the vicissitudes of existence. Legend has not raised up Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid because they robbed banks under the police’s nose, but because their friendship p
laced them way above your ordinary highwayman. Experience teaches us that the friendship between two men is a lifeline, on condition of course that both possess the same moral outlook … or lack of moral outlook. Wait … let me finish … I’m not talking about just anyone … I did know Getulio Mendosa’s father, just after the war. He was Minister for Finance and Economy in Rio, a wonderful job if you wanted to get rich. I brought him a message from President Truman. He had immense charm. He also had no difficulty in accepting the message in question. Was he corrupt? You may well ask. In the Americas everything’s a question of degree. Allow me to maintain a little discretion. I prefer to remember his elegance, his lively political intelligence. What then happened probably went unnoticed in Europe: Europeans are weary of South America’s revolutions and assassinations; but a very few days after my visit His Excellency Senhor Mendosa was coming out of his splendid house in Ipanema and about to get into his armoured official car to drive to the ministry when “they” opened fire. I say “they” because it’s too complicated to be sure which shadowy faction wanted him dead. His children – your friends on this crossing – were standing with their mother on the steps of their villa. The killers turned their weapons towards them, but on their chief ’s shouted order they made do with emptying their magazines into the poor driver before calmly making their getaway in a van. Mendosa’s death traumatised Augusta and her mother for a long time; her mother moved to Geneva, where she’s lived for nearly ten years now. Her room in the Hôtel des Bergues has a view of the Rhône and the Île Rousseau: she’s passionately admired Jean-Jacques Rousseau since she was a girl. Once a month the general manager takes her to the strongroom and leaves her there, and a little while later she returns to her room carrying an old raffia bag stuffed with louis d’or and bundles of dollar bills wrapped in newspaper. From time to time she drops off a packet tied up with string at reception and asks them to let Getulio know it’s there. He turns up from who knows where, borne on the wings of hope, and for a few weeks, maybe even a few months, lives like a prince. When his mother forgets him he plays cards. With positive results, I’m told.’
While he was talking Porter had been leading Arthur down a labyrinth of gangways, ignoring the lifts and climbing the companionways two steps at a time. At his last words the two men found themselves at the entrance to the breakfast room. The maître d’hôtel showed his astonishment with an exaggerated pout, and left his desk to block the doorway with his body. With an irritable hand movement Porter gestured him to move aside.
‘I’m sorry, Mr Porter, but I have no tables free.’
‘What are you talking about? My wife’s there and she’s waiting for me.’
The man hesitated, deeply embarrassed.
‘Mr Porter, it is customary to dress, even somewhat, for breakfast in the morning.’
Porter, suddenly realising that he had come straight from the gym in his lavender-blue dressing gown, laughed loudly. The maître d’hôtel did not know how to react.
‘I do apologise—’
‘No need! You have no idea how much pleasure it’s given me to see how absent-minded I am. I’ve always envied the naturally absent-minded. Please sit Mr Morgan at my table. He’ll keep my wife company while I put on something decent. Five minutes, no more …’
Minerva, wearing a sort of red fez on her head that was attached to her jet-black hair with safety pins, merely gave Arthur a nod as he arrived.
‘Mr Porter said to me—’
‘I don’t care what he said to you. I detest talking at breakfast. And above all, no bread on the tablecloth.’
Chunks of pineapple swam in the egg yolk on her plate and she spread mustard on her toast with childish gluttony. A giant Victorian teapot being pushed like a shrine between the tables passed close by them. In the waiter’s expansive movement to serve Arthur with tea, his elbow nudged the fez, tilting it dangerously to one side. Minerva, attempting to replace it, patted it, but too briskly, and the fez tipped onto her other ear, taking with it her wig and leaving a very bald temple in view. Failing to notice, she continued to munch her toast and mustard. The diners at the next table had difficulty stifling their giggles. Arthur too found it hard to keep a straight face. Porter’s arrival would have put an end to the grotesque sight, had he not been the sort of man to pursue an idea, to examine it from every angle, to extract its very marrow without paying the slightest attention to what was going on around him. If the Queen Mary had started to sink he would have carried on discoursing fluently, with the ocean rising around his ankles until his mouth finally filled with water and he could only emit a last tragic gurgle. To find himself so absent-minded that morning at the door to the dining room had filled him with delight. He had never in his life been absent-minded before, and he vividly remembered the irritation of his French mother when she had found him absorbed in one of the many puzzles that preoccupy small children: ‘Allan … come on … please try and just think about nothing for a while.’ It was impossible. How he had envied absent-minded people throughout his life! Because the mechanism of thought will wear out if it doesn’t, at some point, drift off into its own little world.
Arthur avoided looking at Minerva, whose toast, spread with far too much mustard, had sparked a sneezing fit with disastrous consequences for both her fez and her wig, which it was threatening to dislodge entirely.
‘My dear,’ Allan Porter said, getting to his feet to pat his wife on the back, ‘your hair’s in a bad way this morning.’
With a hefty tap on her fez, Minerva finally straightened it.
‘I don’t approve of personal remarks,’ she said acidly.
Undeterred, Porter resumed his reflections on the attractions and advantages of absent-mindedness. He would so much have liked to be a poet, to write poems and ‘wander lonely as a cloud’. Poets are absent-minded, aren’t they? And if they possess genius people forgive them everything, doubtless because uncultured materialists suspect them of receiving secret messages from the Unknown that only they can decipher. A country has to look after its poets, or at least … if not its poets – that divine gift is unevenly distributed and a number of civilisations have fallen so far behind that they will never catch up – at least, if not its poets, then its pleasure-seekers, who enjoy life to the full and without thought of tomorrow. On condition, obviously, that it possesses an elite with sufficient self-denial to be willing to involve itself in politics and remain in the shadows: a quasi-monastic choice.
‘So where would you place Getulio Mendosa?’
‘Ah, you’ve surmised perfectly that his appearance this morning is what prompted my thoughts. I find it impossible to forgive him. He’s as intelligent as his father and he ought to be playing an important part in his country’s future, but instead he prefers to play cards and squander whatever scraps of fortune his mother puts his way, like a dog with its bone. She might die one day, just like that, without anyone knowing the code for her safe deposit box in Geneva, and then you’d need a thermal lance to get into it, and that only after a ruinous court case. And what if there isn’t anything left in the damn box? Men of great gifts who the fairies spoil from the moment they arrive on this earth are often drawn to commit a sort of moral suicide. A very bad example for a young man like you.’
‘There weren’t any fairy godmothers flitting over my cradle. Just my mother and for a very short time my father, before he was killed in the war. I run fewer risks than Getulio. But I’m very curious to know how you know everything about everybody?’
Minerva, who had not deigned to listen to their conversation, wrinkled her nose.
‘There’s a smell of fish.’
At the next table a middle-aged English couple were eating kippers.
‘You can’t tell people they can’t eat fish for breakfast.’
‘Allan, I know no one so slack as you. To hear you, no one should ever say anything to anyone else. And you’ve also got ketchup on your collar.’
‘I haven’t liked ketchup for years. It’s mo
re likely to be lipstick.’
‘You’d be perfectly capable of something so vile!’
‘Sadly not. I’m afraid it’s just a dab of blood from where I cut myself shaving.’
‘In any case it’s of no importance … I’m going to the promenade deck now to join Philomena.’
Porter drank his tea, lost in thought, his hand still raised. Arthur observed with surprise an unexpected finesse in his ruddy, thickset features. He must have been a charming baby and an attractive man in his prime, despite being short and having probably been completely bald since his thirties. He made use of his baldness: his shining, tanned, elegantly speckled head, framed by a horseshoe of white hair, was impressive. His face had one flaw: lips that were so thin you could hardly see them, a horizontal slit between his nostrils and dimpled chin. That apart, he had a handsome nose and vivid blue eyes that could suddenly, with an angry thought, turn iron-grey. Conscious of having been lost in contemplation for a full minute, Porter smiled with genuine humility.
‘Pardon me … I was just struck by a memory: of a slim, wonderfully attractive girl I met forty years ago with a name that knocked me out: Minerva. Never marry a woman whose name fires your imagination … but to answer your already distant question: out of the thousand passengers and four hundred men and women of the ship’s crew, I know three people: you, Getulio Mendosa, and Professor Concannon, who doubtless set you a deplorable example during this crossing but whose singular personality you’ll learn to appreciate when he sobers up at the start of term. Three people. Not many, you’ll admit. But Noah’s Ark didn’t contain many either, and if they didn’t manage to save the world – which from a purely spiritual point of view is unsaveable anyway, and doomed to every manner of sin – at least they kept it afloat. Arthur – and you call me Allan from here on in – I shan’t hold you up any longer. Go find your friends. Here’s my card with my telephone number in Washington. I’ll be at Beresford in a month’s time for a lecture on disinformation. To debunk it and – as you can guess – to give away the recipe … I don’t think you’ll be bored.’
