Madame Sousatzka

by Bernice Rubens

  Cordle stretched out his hand and smiled at her. He was surprised at himself that he felt no heart-break at her refusal. But the idea of marriage, once formed in his mind, had whetted his appetite. And as he was holding Madame Sousatzka’s hand, he made up his mind as soon as she was gone and the coast was clear, he’d go downstairs and see Uncle. He stood there smiling at her, his thoughts treacherously in the basement.

  As Madame Sousatzka smiled, her thoughts were elsewhere too. Not that she didn’t feel genuine friendship for Cordle. She did. His sudden proposal had freed her from despair. She was concerned with the reasons why she had turned down his offer. It was not because she didn’t want to get married. She had lied to him. It was because she saw him, as she too often had seen herself, a failure who, to disguise his lack of success, had evolved in his work a ‘method’. The Cordle ‘method’; the Sousatzka ‘method’. They were both strangled admissions of failure. And although she realized that her ‘method’ was questionable, it had produced Marcus, and this thought saved her from depression. She was still smiling at Cordle when they parted. Each of them felt a certain relief at having gleaned from an experience only the best, without having to exploit all its precarious advantages.

  14

  The day the surveyors were expected, Madame Sousatzka received her bulletin of forthcoming musical events. She opened it slowly, anxious, yet dreading to find Marcus’s name. The pamphlet fell open on the middle-page spread, with a large central picture of Manders, stapled down the nose. ‘Impresarios,’ the title read, ‘First in a series. Felix Manders.’ Half-way down the first column, Madame Sousatzka saw Marcus’s name in heavy print. She shut the book quickly, not daring to read what she hoped and feared to find. She looked out of the window, hoping that the surveyors would come, to give her an excuse to postpone reading. But apart from several FOR SALE notices that sprouted from scattered houses like white flags, the square was empty. She turned up the corner of the middle page and peeped inside. She caught the tail end of Marcus’s name again, and quickly looked away. But she knew that she would have to read it. The fact that his name was in the book at all was confirmation of what she half dreaded, the news that he was giving concerts. She opened it squarely on the piano and read it sadly and without haste. It announced that Marcus would give a series of six piano recitals of the works of Mozart, the last three of which were to be broadcast. She read on, not allowing herself to register the composer. Later on in the year, it said, he was to tour the European capitals and make a series of recordings. Manders, it concluded, had ‘high hopes’ of him.

  She read the article over and over again. The news that he was playing Mozart pained her less than the fact that he was going away. For a swift moment she was happy at the thought that he must come to say goodbye. She would at least see him again. But at the same time, there was the equal possibility that he wouldn’t come at all. She picked up the book, and shutting her eyes, wandered about the room to hide it, so that she could never find it again. She stuffed it on a shelf, recognizing full well the large music lexicon which obscured it. She kept her eyes shut, making her way towards the window. She felt the sun on her cheeks, and hoped that it would disappear before the surveyors arrived.

  But they came at mid-day, when the sun was at its height. It was particularly hot that day, although Madame Sousatzka had prayed for rain as fervently as a drought-sick farmer. In the rain, many imperfections on the outside of the house were camouflaged. The water that dripped from the pipes could be ascribed to natural causes, whereas in the blazing sun not only could you see the lone drip dripping, you could hear it too. And as Madame Sousatzka watched the surveyors approach the house, she heard the pipe calling them, and they stopped and nodded to each other knowingly.

  They reached the bottom of the front steps and automatically looked up at the sky. Then they turned about and marched across the road to find a better vantage point. They positioned themselves against the railings in the middle of the square opposite Madame Sousatzka’s house. They looked up again. Madame Sousatzka saw them pointing to her roof and again nodding to each other. She remembered the damaged guttering that for four years she’d intended to repair. It was only visible from the other side of the road, dangling half-amputated over Jenny’s window. She naïvely thought she might have got away with it. She looked at the unbroken straight line of the guttering on the house opposite, and was offended. They hadn’t conformed. Straight guttering and healthy pipes were the uniform of freeholds, and if you wore it in Vauxhall Mansions, you were living a lie.

  She watched the men as they craned their necks upwards, pointing from time to time and exchanging looks of horror. They might have been looking at a gallows. They started to cross over, still looking upwards, and Madame Sousatzka had the fleeting hope that a car would swerve into the square and run them over. But they arrived hale, and still nodding, at the bottom of the steps. As they climbed to the front door, they prodded each step in front of them with their umbrellas, as if they suspected a land-mine. They reached the top surprised, and Madame Sousatzka saw one of them press the dead bells.

  She gave herself time to hear it, and then went to the door. She felt suddenly very alone, with an enormous responsibility. Jenny and Cordle were in their little rented rooms and Uncle was in the basement, and she was alone and without Marcus. And Marcus was going away. As she walked through the hall she noticed the large cracks along the skirting, and the sunken area along the tiled floor. They suddenly disgusted her. She wanted to go on the side of the surveyors, to have Cordle answer the door, or Jenny or Uncle, so that she could upbraid them for their neglect. She hoped that they had an least tidied up their rooms for the visitors. She daren’t hope too much of Uncle. God knows where she had stuffed her hoard of newspapers. She opened the door timidly.

  ‘Good afternoon, Madam,’ they said together. ‘Doesn’t the bell work?’

  ‘Of course it works.’ Madame Sousatzka defended her dead bell. She hoped they wouldn’t test it.

  ‘We’re from Cameron & Hodge,’ they said, as if a dual partnership required dual representation. ‘You do expect us?’ came a solo.

  ‘Of course. Natural,’ said Madame Sousatzka, as if she had nothing to hide. ‘Of course I expect you. I have from you a letter.’ They had begun to come in, their umbrellas well in front of them, prodding for dry rot in the thin air.

  ‘Shall we start in the basement?’ Madame Sousatzka asked them cordially. She wanted to get Uncle over with.

  ‘I think we’ll start at the top, shall we?’ said one heartily. ‘Get the climb over.’

  The other one nodded at his merry fellow, and led by Madame Sousatzka they dawdled up the stairs.

  ‘Lovely day,’ the hearty one said conversationally. ‘They don’t build houses like this nowadays,’ he said, as if sound building were a corollary of fine weather. He prodded the wall with his stick. ‘Solid stuff, this,’ he barked. Madame Sousatzka turned and smiled at him.

  As they passed Cordle’s door, Sousatzka could hear no sound. She was sure Cordle was hiding. They reached the top and she heard scuffling in Jenny’s room. She hurried to Jenny’s door, and knocked on it to give her warning. She opened it before Jenny replied. Jenny was with a client.

  ‘But it’s early,’ Jenny stammered. ‘You said you were starting with Uncle.’

  ‘Get dressed,’ Sousatzka hissed, and she shut the door quickly.

  The men were behind her, each with one eyebrow raised. They certainly had a team spirit. ‘She won’t be a minute,’ Madame Sousatzka said calmly. ‘She is clearing her table.’

  ‘We haven’t come to inspect the crockery, have we, Frank?’ the cheery one joked to his companion.

  The heartiness of the man was slowly wearing Madame Sousatzka down. She forced herself to smile. ‘Are you very busy?’ she asked, without much relevance.

  ‘Up to our necks,’ George replied on behalf of both of them. ‘Always busy with property. I’m not telling you a word of a lie, Madam, but we’ve
got three hundred and fifty houses falling in a couple of years. And that’s just in this area.’

  Madame Sousatzka could almost hear the earthquake. ‘You like your work?’ she said, stalling for time.

  ‘Well, it’s like this,’ said George, ‘the work’s all right, surveying and that sort of thing, but when it comes to doing a job like this, it’s sort of sad. People who’ve lived in houses for generations having to get out because the lease is up, and they can’t afford the freehold. Now Cameron & Hodge, they’ve got to do it, I suppose. Good firm to work with. But I’m not married to that company and I think it’s immoral.’ His companion nodded his head, sombrely.

  ‘Take the other day, for instance,’ he went on. ‘There was this old lady, she must have been close on ninety, wouldn’t you say, Frank?’

  ‘And the rest,’ said Frank, who felt he ought to contribute something.

  ‘She’d been born in that house, Madam, and she’d got to go. It’s the law. That’s the worst part of our job. Now, I’m not married to Cameron & Hodge,’ he said, divorcing himself once more from same, ‘I can say it. It’s immoral.’

  Jenny must be dressed by now, Sousatzka thought, and she knocked again at the door.

  ‘Come in,’ said Jenny’s cheery voice.

  Madame Sousatzka let the two men in before her, and she followed them. Jenny’s room, as always, was neat and tidy. She was sitting in front of her gas-fire, filing her nails. The client was fixing bookshelves which Jenny had hastily dismantled.

  ‘Make yourselves at home,’ said Jenny, as she would to any client. ‘Don’t mind Mr Holmes. He’s just fixing my bookshelf for me.’ Mr Holmes did not turn round, in case his face would betray his utter lack of skill in carpentry. He hammered on, with what was left of his soul, deep in his work.

  The two men poked about the skirtings with their umbrellas. They fumbled along the walls, tapping with their sticks, like two blind men anticipating a crossing. For the second round George, who was in front, got down on his hands and knees. Frank followed him like a shadow. George poked his finger into a large hole in the base of the skirting, and murmured ‘Ah.’ Then he followed the crack with his finger right up the wall as far as he could reach, slowly bringing himself up from the floor. He traced the rest of the crack with his umbrella. ‘That’ll be the roof,’ he said to Frank. ‘Make a note of it.’ George was obviously in charge of diagnosis.

  Frank opened his brief-case and pulled out a long roll of paper. It was rolled into the centre from both sides like a Jewish scroll. He laid it on the floor, holding it down in the centre with his knee. He unrolled the section on his left and scanned the various columns for the correct heading. Not finding it there, he did the same with the section on his right. Madame Sousatzka had to move out of the way in order to give him room. He found what he wanted at the foot of the end column. He took out his pen and solemnly put a red tick in the appropriate square. He looked up at Madame Sousatzka and smiled. First point to them. He let the scroll roll towards the centre and carefully replaced it in the case.

  George had by now reached the window frame, and he had come into his own. Window areas were as happy a hunting-ground as basements. ‘Dry rot,’ he cooed, ‘and,’ he added, licking his lips, ‘woodworm.’ Had the whole house crumbled at his touch, he couldn’t have been more delighted. ‘Make a note of that one, Frank,’ he said. ‘Most interesting.’ With another smile at Madame Sousatzka, Frank took out the scoreboard again.

  After a half-hour’s examination every possible disease known to wood, brick and lead had been diagnosed in Jenny’s room. Frank’s score-sheet, which he had taken out and put away a hundred times, was covered like a rash with tiny ticks.

  ‘We won’t be troubling you any more, Miss,’ George turned to Jenny. ‘I think we’ve got all we need. Get a lot of mice up here, I suppose?’

  ‘I’ve never seen one,’ said Jenny.

  ‘Funny,’ said George, ‘Lots of holes.’

  Jenny was indignant. ‘I’ve been here ten years and I’ve never seen a mouse.’

  ‘All right, lady. Take it easy. Maybe you heard one.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re wanting to see the rest of the house,’ Jenny said, opening the door for them.

  George looked at her gleefully, as if she answered a requirement in his ‘damp clause’. ‘Make another note of those holes, Frank,’ he said.

  Suddenly they heard a crash from the other side of the room. Mr Holmes, whom at his own request everybody had ignored, felt the need to stand by Jenny. He dropped the bookshelves he was still fixing on to the mantelpiece, and waving his hammer in his hand he said with authority, ‘If Miss Boxhall states that there are no mice, I see absolutely no reason on earth to disbelieve her.’ Frank and George gaped at him. It was his accent that disturbed them; it seemed in no way connected with the hammer in his hand.

  ‘What are the holes there for, then?’ said George, who was the first to recover.

  ‘For air,’ said Mr Holmes, waving his hammer theatrically.

  ‘Make a note of that, Frank,’ said George. ‘Twenty-five holes, for ventilation.’

  ‘I think we go downstairs,’ said Madame Sousatzka. She was smiling to herself. The whole examination suddenly appeared to her to be ridiculous. If they had found so much fault with Jenny’s room, which she considered to be the best in the house, what would they find when they eventually made the basement? She followed them down to the half-landing.

  ‘Let’s see the plan,’ George said. Frank drew another chart out of his case and spread it open against the wall.

  ‘Let’s see, now,’ said George, pointing to a square, ‘we’re here, at this point, aren’t we?’ Madame Sousatzka leaned over to confirm it.

  ‘That’s right,’ she said triumphantly. ‘We’re here.’ It was the first time she’d seen the plan of a house, and it meant nothing to her, but she saw no point in disagreeing with the examiners.

  ‘Well then,’ said George. He was already dribbling in anticipation of another victory. ‘If we’re here, and it’s here on the map,’ he said, screwing his finger into a little black square, ‘if we’re here,’ he repeated, ‘what, Madam, has happened to the lavatory? Now you can’t deny it, can you?’ he said, before Madame Sousatzka could offer an explanation. ‘It’s here, in black and white, a lavatory. Now where’s it gone?’ He made Madame Sousatzka feel as if she’d stolen the lavatory and hidden it under her pillow. She remembered that years ago Cordle had wanted to extend his room to store his charts, and he’d had the lavatory taken away and the wall pulled down. ‘It’s gone,’ Madame Sousatzka said simply.

  ‘You admit it was here?’ said George. Frank had taken out his scoreboard without waiting for George’s instructions.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Madame Sousatzka, ‘I remember it very well. But you see, very simple, we didn’t want it, and Mr Cordle, he lives in that room,’ she pointed down the stairs, ‘he want bigger space. So we pull down the wall and we take away the lavatory. A very good man did it. Very expensive. But Mr Cordle,’ she smiled, ‘he is professional man. He need the space.’

  ‘It’s got to go back,’ said George with finality. ‘In 1860, when this house was built, there was a lavatory on this very space where we’re standing.’ Madame Sousatzka moved away from them. ‘It’s got to go back. People’ve got no right to take things away. What people think they can get away with with these leaseholds, is astonishing. It’ll have to go back.’ George had obviously remarried Cameron & Hodge. Meanwhile, Frank was scribbling frantically in his notebook, ticking off on his chart, like a zealous schoolmaster marking the work of a genius.

  George walked defiantly down the stairs. He was getting belligerent. Mr Holmes’s accent had set him off. Always in the course of a survey George would switch sides, so that by the time a job was completed he was ready to worship at the shrine of Cameron & Hodge, gloating over evictions, hobnobbing with the bailiffs, and ordering the replacement of a hundred useless lavatories, sheds and entrances, according to th
e rule of the book, ‘everything shall be left as found’. He banged on Cordle’s door with his fist. ‘Shifting lavatories,’ he muttered. ‘What next?’

  There was no answer. George turned to look at Madame Sousatzka, but she didn’t see him. She was far away; she was thinking of the dressing-room adjoining her studio, which years ago she’d converted into a bathroom. Marcus used to love that bathroom because of the shower. At the thought of Marcus the expiration of the lease became meaningless. She suddenly hated these men. She didn’t care what they said about her house. She didn’t care about the house any more. She cared for Jenny, and Cordle, and Uncle, and the music Marcus had made from her and the ulcerous hole in her heart.

  ‘There is no need to bang like a hooligan,’ Madame Sousatzka said quietly. ‘Perhaps he is out, Mr Cordle. You will see the room. I will take you. You have not come here to examine the people, remember. You have to make the report, the report of the house. I am not a criminal. If the house is bad, it is because I have not money. That is not a crime.’ She moved towards them to open Cordle’s door, and George stood aside quietly. He looked at Frank, who noncommittally shrugged his shoulders.

  There was no one in Cordle’s room, and Madame Sousatzka was convinced he was hiding somewhere. She opened his cupboard and his one suit, its hanger wedged in the door, swung round in her face. She clutched the dangling sleeve, as if Cordle were inside it. There was no sign of his white jacket. He must have it on. He must be in the house somewhere. He never went out in the street with his white jacket. She began to worry about him. She needed him, with these men and this examination. ‘Cordle,’ she whispered into the closet, as if he were a pet kitten that would emerge only at a familiar bidding.

  ‘It’s all right, Madam,’ George said, friendly again. ‘We won’t need Mr Cordle. Have to take down some of these charts, though,’ he said, ‘with your permission.’

  ‘I will take them,’ said Madame Sousatzka. She didn’t want strangers to handle Cordle’s work.