The Migration of Ghosts

by Pauline Melville

  Jobs were scarce. It was a trip to Paris. I went.

  The interview had been arranged well in advance, but once in Paris I hit difficulties. He was out of town. I left messages with his agent and manager who prevaricated and apologised and finally fixed for me to meet him two days later. ‘He has developed a distrust of journalists,’ they explained. To appease me they arranged that I should visit him in his private house in the country. A rare favour, apparently.

  With two extra days on my hands, I decided to visit the house where this master of silent acting was born. At the start of his career he had worked the streets of Paris. I found the house where his family had lived in La Goutte d’Or, a down-at-heel quarter of the city, huddled at the foot of Montmartre. I asked the concierge if she could let me in. She stood in the doorway of her hutch, one of those old French women who has never left the cobbled streets of the district, an entirely urban creature with permed hair died black, eyes like black pebbles staring hostilely from artificially pencilled brows, drifts of face-powder under her cheekbones and crimson lips. No, she did not remember the artist’s family. She shrugged, accepted the tip and gave me the keys to the apartment which was now empty. Half of the block was unoccupied, due to be renovated as upmarket apartments for the wealthy.

  I corkscrewed my way up the steep wooden stairs to the top floor. There was not a lot to see, a set of poky rooms with old light fittings, the roses and leaves like everything else painted stark white. I could see no means of heating the place. It struck me then that the chalky white of his face matched exactly the colour of those flaking white-painted attics and garrets of Paris where popular myth has it that so many artists died of consumption.

  It was a chill March day. My shoe leather squeaked as I walked over to the window, trying to see what sort of view he would have had as a child. The usual hotch-potch of blue-grey slate tiles, the colour of the city’s pigeons, tilted at crazy angles, including a church with two towers like slate helmets punctuated with eyelets. Lead patching and pale zinc gave the Parisian roofscape its unique misty quality as if it had eaten frost. But over the helter-skelter of roofs, it was possible to see, gleaming in the distance above, the white domes of Sacré Coeur. It must have looked to him, as a child, like a celestial vision, hanging there in the blue sky. Perhaps it was the daily sight of one of its towers, dedicated to the bankers who donated their subscriptions after the siege of Paris, which motivated him to escape from his poor surroundings. For now, apparently, he was massively rich.

  Kicking my heels in Paris on the second day, I could think of nothing better to do than visit the Musée d’Orsay. I mooched around looking at the wrinkled bronze stockings of Degas’ ballet dancer, Van Gogh’s self-portrait with the air boiling round him, and the weighty sculptures of Rodin. Eventually, I settled down in the museum café. It is situated behind a huge transparent clock overlooking the street. While I waited for my beetroot-and-endive salad amidst the clatter and chatter of other customers, I looked down at the scene taking place in the street below. A crowd had gathered around a plump, sallow, middle-aged man whose black moustache bristled with dreadful energy. I watched idly.

  In drizzling rain, the man was setting up a large blackboard on which was written a lengthy and complicated protest. At his feet, on the wet pavement, slumbered a huge and lugubrious St Bernard dog. Next to the dog was a wicker cage containing several cats. On top of the cage perched a parrot, chained by the leg. By squinting I could read what was written on the blackboard. Translated, it read thus:

  CITIZENS! My dog, through no fault of his own, was attacked in Vichy. He was harassed and assaulted. As a result of trying to defend himself he had to go to court. He was fined an outrageous amount in relation to this minor misdemeanour. In an attempt to put right this injustice, I am forced to travel the country from town to town, collecting money to pay the fine. The cats and bird have come along in an act of solidarity to lend their support.

  Thank you for your donation. Pierre Souhiez.

  The scene tickled me. It reminded me of how much the French relish words, what a voluble and articulate nation they are. In France there is even a government department to maintain the purity of the language. Nowhere else would a street hustler rely on the written word to such an extent. As a journalist I appreciated this and somehow, it made me even more curious about the man I was to interview, who had made his fame and fortune through absolute silence.

  On my way back, a light rain still fell. I felt suddenly claustrophobic in the city’s cramped streets. There is something secretive about Paris and its doorways, narrow as the slits in young women, opening on to draughty tenement yards. The light of the sky made the city look as though it was living in a bruise. Buildings with tiers of lacy iron balconies piled one upon the other, sagged like ancient, yellowing wedding cakes. I passed one of those antique shops for the bourgeoisie, crammed with tiny, expensive polished tables and stuffed animal heads. It made me shudder. Even the trees of the city were imprisoned by iron frills cemented into the pavement. I dived into the Métro. A light-skinned black woman from the French Caribbean was singing on the platform. She was fat, fortyish and a little tipsy, wearing traditional dress, bodice, puffed sleeves and a long skirt. The song was gentle and sad. ‘Adieu, adieu, Martinique’ went the chorus. The warm musty smell of the Métro itself, far from inducing in me the familiar feeling of pleasant nostalgia at re-visiting Paris, made me feel sick. I heard the melancholic roar of an approaching train. Tomorrow at least there would be a chance to escape and visit the countryside.

  The following morning I took the train to Argenteuil. He met me at the door and I was surprised to find a relatively young, elfin-faced man in his late forties. His reputation – more or less that of a national institution – and the fact that he was three times married had led me to expect someone older. The other surprise, given the nature of the man’s art, was that he talked non-stop in a gravelly smoker’s voice, underlining his words with frequent expressive gestures.

  He took me on a tour of his home. It was clear that he was inordinately proud of it but I could not help noticing how like a museum it was, or rather a shrine to himself. The rooms and galleries were hung with portraits and photographs of himself commissioned at the height of his fame. Room after room was crammed with memorabilia, artefacts collected on numerous tours, gifts from admiring fans or other famous artists, shelves and mantelpieces lined with mementoes from his act, photographs of himself in various poses, portraits and sketches by some of the best artists of the time.

  Initially and for many years his reviews were ecstatic. He still spent much time reading them with pleasure. Sometimes he paid for the notices to be blown up and framed. These he hung next to pictures of himself in costume. His success had enabled him to buy this grand house. The gardens were his pride and joy. They had been formally designed by a well-known topiarist and laid out with stone paths and imposingly carved box hedges. Statues of the famous white-face figure in his top hat and white vest with the red diamond stood in almost every alcove and recess. Some were in white stone, some in plaster. The artist clearly enjoyed explaining to me the meaning of each particular pose, its history and significance.

  Back in the house I asked some questions:

  ‘Why do you make your face white?’

  ‘Because that way I can be seen from afar. I sometimes play in enormous spaces, an amphitheatre or stadium. It is important that my face is seen. And I like white.’

  ‘Are you a clown?’

  ‘No. I am a mime of the streets.’

  ‘What is a mime?’

  ‘Someone who expresses all there is to express about life without speaking.’

  The emotion that he portrayed best was fear. He told me that he had learned this quite by accident in his first theatre engagement. Like many a young and inexperienced performer, he had peered through the central divide of the curtains as the audience waited expectantly for the show to begin. The house lights were still on. He had been so genui
nely appalled by the curious stares of the people in the stalls that he became momentarily paralysed and stared back in horror. The audience then broke into an uproar of laughter which only served to frighten him more. It built up until the laughter and the fear became natural partners, the one depending on the other. It was the purity of that emotional relationship between artist and audience, unimpeded by words, that launched his career. From that night on the manager of the theatre insisted that every show begin with him peeping out from behind the curtains. And it was said that this one expression was so powerful that it had made him his name.

  When I asked him how this one face could have such an effect, he became suddenly shy and evasive and refused to explain its provenance.

  His cousin-in-law managed his financial affairs. Some say that he was responsible for the bankruptcy. For now I discovered that the artist was not nearly as wealthy as he appeared. There was no question of fraudulence or anything of that sort, but, in an attempt to maintain the prestige of his internationally acclaimed cousin, the man had tended to draw up contracts that were far too generous to employees and theatre owners alike. Enormous bills had started to arrive as well as threatening letters from creditors. Having reluctantly sacked his cousin, the mime artist found himself spending more and more time writing letters, either asking for money or explaining why he had not paid it. When he was not writing letters, he was on the telephone trying to persuade the Minister of Culture to fund his performances or let him start up a National School of Mime. He became increasingly enmeshed in a web of words and words had always been inimical to him in some way.

  I do not know what sadistic impulse made me show him the review of one New York critic, known for his cruel pen, who claimed that the artist was well past his sell-by date, that he had been churning out the same old act for twenty years: ‘If I have to look once more at the Visage of Horror that this second-rate dumb-show merchant hawks around every performance, I shall, perforce, scream. The world no longer wants to see it,’ the critic had concluded.

  ‘And what would your answer be to that?’ I asked, experiencing the self-importance of a journalist who thinks he is behaving professionally by putting the screws on his victim.

  He studied the piece. Too late, I realised that he was hurt to the quick. Within seconds he had extricated himself from the interview, ordered his housekeeper to bring me afternoon tea and told me I would be welcome to stay until my train left in a couple of hours. Unfortunately, he had just remembered a pressing engagement. Goodbye, he said, with a slightly fey and theatrical bow as he disappeared through the door.

  I could have kicked myself. There was nothing to do but drink my tea – brought to me by a housekeeper in whose manner I detected the faintest signs of reproach – and wait for my train. After about an hour, I thought I would take a stroll in the gardens before leaving. I walked along the symmetrical maze of pathways and turned into the area where the box hedges contained various statues of the artist. I turned one corner where the hedges were taller than usual. There, in a niche, I came across a motionless top-hatted figure recoiled in an attitude of such horror and with such an expression of fear on his face that my hand flew involuntarily to my mouth for a second before I could recover myself.

  I mumbled an apology to my host and hurried on.

  My heart was thumping uncontrollably as I went back into the house. It was the man’s housekeeper and confidante who explained to me the full story behind the Visage of Horror which had started the artist’s career. He was of part-Jewish descent and his uncle had fought with the Russian army of liberation in Germany during the last World War. His uncle had been amongst the first soldiers to reach the concentration camp at Belsen and witness the figures behind the wire-netting. When his uncle had visited them in Paris some years after the end of the war, the artist was still a young boy. His uncle had told the story of his arrival at Belsen and the scenes he had witnessed. The young boy had never forgotten the expression on his uncle’s face as he spoke. He had carried the memory of that face and reproduced it throughout his career. Despite his vanity, the housekeeper explained – and she freely admitted that his vanity was all-consuming – what had upset him was not the bad review by the New York critic, but the possibility that the world would wish to forget such a face.

  The Migration of Ghosts

  Vincent Dawes brought his Macusi Indian wife, Loretta, to England for the first time to celebrate the wedding of his niece. The Anglican church of St Mary’s in the leafy suburb of Chislehurst hosted the wedding. All through the ceremony, Vincent joined lustily in the hymn singing and sometimes broke into a broad smile when he saw someone he recognised. He had not been back to England for ten years since settling in Brazil where he had a smallholding. He and his wife had been married for five years and had a four-year-old son. Although she was not an unkind woman, when Vincent’s back was turned Loretta was harsh towards the child. At home her speech was abrupt and made her sound as if she was shouting. The way Vincent spoiled his son shocked her. Every time his father left home on business, the boy would weep unconsolably and Loretta would throw him out of the house to wander amongst the animals, trying to toughen him up a little. Secretly, she rather enjoyed his tears. Such affection between father and son puzzled her and she resented it. Now she stood self-consciously at Vincent’s side, a short woman in a navy-blue straw hat, her long black hair tied back with a bobble clip. Her eyes were two black almonds set in a flat bronze face and she was aware of having the darkest complexion in the congregation.

  Light from the summer sun appeared in shimmering globules through the top windows of the church. The bride standing at the altar was a gawky beanpole of a girl. During the service she turned her head this way and that. Sometimes a scrawny forearm appeared from its white silk sheath to push back the veil from her face. A few times, she turned her head right round towards the assembled guests, looking either distracted or smiling beatifically, and once looking lost with the eyes of someone drowning. Loretta shivered, reminded of the white grub that inhabits the kokerite seed in her native savannahs. Her mind wandered and she imagined the bride suddenly turning and taking huge masculine steps down the aisle towards the door and then lifting up her skirts and running into the nearby woods like a white capuchin monkey.

  Vincent looked down and gave his wife an encouraging grin. He was proud of her and wanted to show her off.

  At the reception, Vincent talked eagerly amongst the guests, explaining with enthusiasm what he planned to do in Brazil, showing photographs of his little son. He introduced his wife to friends and relatives. His face had become florid from the tropical climate and his laugh even louder than people remembered from ten years before. If anything, his brown hair had been lightened by the sun. Loretta dreaded greeting each new person she met, but managed to smile, hoping that her awkwardness did not show. Although she spoke English – her mother was a Macusi from the Guyanese side of the Brazilian border – such social occasions were a strain. She could barely hear people’s voices through the gabble of conversation.

  Later that night Loretta sat stiffly in her new nightdress on the side of the bed as Vincent undressed. They were booked into a cheerless room over the pub where the reception had been held but nothing could quench Vincent’s delight at being in England and his desire that his wife should feel the same. He had drunk too much at the reception and was full of sloppy affection.

  ‘How I do love you.’ He bent to kiss her forehead. ‘How do you like England?’ he whispered to Loretta as they slid between white tombstone sheets. The day before he had taken her sightseeing around London. He longed for her to share his enthusiasm.

  ‘There are too many people,’ she said. ‘And the dogs look fat and overfed as if they don’t get enough sex. And there don’t seem to be any pregnant women like at home. And why are there so many police? Every five minutes you are going down a road and you see police. You are being watched all the time.’

  What had astonished her most was the am
ount of food in the supermarket. There was more food assembled in one place than she had ever seen before. And after Brazilian television which she only saw very occasionally in Boa Vista, the English television seemed bland and lacking in violence.

  ‘I suppose you’re right.’ Vincent sighed and breathed wine-laden fumes in her face as he settled her in the crook of his arm. He wanted her to like everything, to share his feelings, even his memories. Her criticisms disappointed him. They only had a few more days in England before travelling on to Prague for a long-weekend visit to his old friends Iveta and Paul. Then they would come back to London briefly before returning to Brazil.

  ‘Iveta is an old childhood friend of mine. I can’t wait to see her again.’ His thoughts had moved ahead to Prague. ‘Because my parents were communists, we always went somewhere in the Eastern bloc for our summer holidays. We stayed in Prague with Iveta’s family for several years running. She’s my age – married like me – and we’ve kept in touch on and off. I’m looking forward to seeing her again. I want to talk politics. See what she makes of the new regime.’ Suddenly he thought of his son, who had been left behind with his Macusi grandmother, and added, ‘I miss young Roberto terribly, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Loretta. She did not know what the Eastern bloc was, but his mention of communists had brought back to her the memory of a young communist who had turned up two months before at their house in Roraima. She remembered how he had appeared, banging frantically at the wooden door of their adobe house, with his pregnant girlfriend, both of them streaked with red dust and grit. There had been a massacre. Armed police and ranchers had shot down some of the Sem Terra, the landless ones, a few hundred yards down the road. Who knows why there should have been a stand-off just there. The laterite track where the murders occurred was an unexceptional place in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by a vast arid expanse of red savannah. The nearest Macusi village, which happened to be where Loretta was raised, was about five miles away. The Sem Terra people had refused to be moved on by the ranchers and had just sat in the road. It was a set-up. The police arrived and, when the Sem Terra still refused to move, they shot eight of them right there on the ground and several more who tried to flee. The young man and his girlfriend escaped by pretending to be dead amongst the other bodies. Eventually they found their way to Vincent’s smallholding.