Little Apple

by Leo Perutz

  They were numerous, invulnerable and ubiquitous - in Paris, in Bucharest, in Vladivostock. Vit¬torin could avenge the humanity they were betraying, the world they had polluted, by exterminating just one of them, and his name was Selyukov.

  The city streets were incandescent with heat. Vit¬torin had now reached the Grande Rue de Pera. Down in Galata, police duties were undertaken by carabinieri, but up here British bobbies held sway in blue and white armbands. On the terrace of the Hotel de Londres, British and Greek officers rubbed shoulders with crooks, parasites and vultures of indeterminate nationality, not to mention their painted and bedizened womenfolk. The latter, too, were for sale if the price was right: to such men, pimping was a trade like any other.

  The buildings flew the flags of the victorious Allies. Not a fez or tarboosh could be seen on the street. Strangers in their own capital city, the Turks remained indoors.

  The members of the Café Élysee's floor show were housed on the first floor of a small hotel. In front of it, swinging his cane and puffing at a cigarette that dangled from the corner of his mouth, stood a young man with an effeminate face and flaxen hair slicked back on either side of a centre parting. He greeted Vit¬torin by raising two fingers briefly to the peak of his sports cap. Vit¬torin was reminded by this touch of familiarity that they had met at cards last night. Uneasily, he wondered what the man was doing outside his hotel. He might have lost all his money, but he didn't owe a centime, so what did Goldilocks want?

  Goldilocks didn't appear to want anything. He turned and sauntered off down the street, swinging his cane.

  Vit¬torin could hear Lucette's irate voice half-way up the stairs. He found on entering their room that Monsieur Lupescu had shoehorned his bulky frame into an armchair, in which defenceless position he was having to endure a torrent of insults and reproaches.

  "I don't know how you have the gall to show your face here," Lucette snarled at him, quivering with indignation. "Some nerve, I must say, breezing in as if nothing had happened! You obviously make a habit of getting your friends in the press to vilify an artiste who takes her profession seriously. They're scum, those people, one and all!"

  Monsieur Lupescu's face wore the look of a frightened rabbit. He was feeling guilty. Although the piece in the Courrier de Pera to which Lucette took exception had been inspired and paid for by him, he had unwisely neglected to check it before publication. Because he felt guilty, he strove to mollify the star of his floor show by half-agreeing with her.

  "His write-up was a little on the skimpy side, I must admit."

  But that only made matters worse.

  "Skimpy?" Lucette said furiously. ''Skimpy, did you say? No, monsieur, no one could have injected more venom into two short sentences. It's vile and infamous, and you choose to call it skimpy. What's more, to crown everything, you stick up for the swine. There, read it yourself, if you really enjoy seeing an artiste assassinated in print!"

  She swooped hawklike on the newspaper, which was lying crumpled on the floor, smoothed it out with her fingertips, and held the review, which she already knew by heart, under Monsieur Lupescu's nose.

  "Go on, read it and then have the effrontery to say another word in defence of that contemptible creature. Fine friends you have, monsieur! There: 'the programme also' - also! - 'featured the Toledo Girls. They gave of their best and were likewise -' likewise! - 'well received.' It's outrageous. In your place, I'd be ashamed!"

  "The Courrier de Pera is an unimportant financial paper," said the owner of the Café Élysee, very apologetically. "Nobody reads it."

  "Just because nobody reads what he writes, that man has absolutely no right to insult me in such a vile way. He must have been born and bred in the gutter, and you can tell him so from me if he ever has the nerve to show his face again. Was he by any chance a tall, thin streak of a fellow with a goatee beard and horn-rimmed glasses?"

  She remembered seeing one of her fellow artistes, Ida Morrison, the Café Élysees's soubrette, in the company of a man with a goatee and horn-rims, but it hadn't dawned on her till now that he was a journalist.

  "I've no idea who wrote the piece, I assure you," Monsieur Lupescu insisted.

  "No idea, eh? You heard nothing, saw nothing, noticed nothing. You seriously expect me to believe that? Don't play the innocent! There's something behind this and you know it - you're no fool - but it amuses you to see me treated like dirt. Anyway, why are you sitting there like a monkey in a sideshow? Are you really so keen to waste my time? Go on, get out. I'm sick of the sight of you!"

  She slammed the door on the hapless Monsieur Lupescu and turned to Vit¬torin with a beaming smile.

  "He genuinely doesn't know who wrote the piece. He doesn't know a thing, but it's important to show him occasionally that I'm not to be trifled with. It was the Morrison girl, I've worked it out. She played this trick on Lupescu because he's not renewing her contract. Heaven knows what the fellow from the newspaper sees in her, the ugly bitch. He didn't do it for free, that's obvious."

  "I don't find her particularly likeable," Vit¬torin broke in, "but you can't call her ugly."

  Lucette threw him a pitying glance over her shoulder.

  "I never knew your taste in women was so vulgar," she said. "Mon pauvre gargon, she's got arms like a coolie and a complexion like raspberry juice. If you fancy getting together with her, you need only say. Every man deserves the woman of his choice."

  She went to the window and looked down into the street. Suddenly she gave a low cry.

  "What's the matter?" asked Vit¬torin.

  "Nothing," she said quickly. "A mosquito bit me, that's all. There's a storm brewing, the sky's gone all dark. We'd better close the shutters - no, don't bother, I'll do it myself."

  Lucette had seen her former lover down below - seen and recognized him even though he hadn't looked in her direction. His build, his sports cap, his pearl-grey gloves and the way he swung his cane - all these were unmistakable. Her hands trembled as she closed the shutters. She'd known he was in the city, but she hadn't seen him till now. She still belonged to him in spirit, but common sense forbade her to live with a man who had treated her badly, robbed her, deceived her, and spent her money on other women. He was there, prowling around the hotel, watching and waiting for an opportunity to accost her. Feeling a trifle frightened - frightened of herself as well as him - she sought refuge with Vit¬torin. She stole up to him as softly as a cat, stroked his hair and rested her head on his shoulder.

  "Do you still remember the little cafe in Batum?" she asked. "It was nice, wasn't it, our first meeting? For you it may be only a dim and distant memory, but I often think of it. I saw you, and I knew at once how things were with you, and that you didn't have two kopecks to rub together, but I didn't care. I thought you were a Russian officer. I don't know what appealed to me about you - perhaps it was the uniform, or perhaps . . . 'Comme tes yeux sont grands . . .' Remember? You were humming the tune to yourself, and I knew it was the start of something. I was the one that spoke first, mon petit, in case you'd forgotten. I'm not sorry I did, are you? Well, are you?"

  Without a word, he drew her close and put his arms around her. She shut her eyes.

  "You really must lock the door when we ..." she said softly. "You never remember, mon petit. I always have to remind you."

  At one a.m., when the last customers had gone and the waiters were noisily stacking the tables and chairs, Vit¬torin had an interview with the owner of the Café Élysee. It took place in the dressing-room where Fred Musty, the resident comic, was removing his makeup with the aid of vaseline. After a long argument to which Musty contributed certain financial demands of his own, Vit¬torin obtained an advance of fifteen francs instead of the twenty he'd asked for.

  With the money in his pocket he set off along Pera's main thoroughfare, then turned off down the small, unlit side street that led to the naval hospital. Outside a single-storeyed building he paused and rang the bell.

  Although the Entente Commission h
ad ordained that all places of public entertainment in Pera, Fondoukli, Top Hane and Galata should close at one a.m., there were one or two clandestine establishments where customers could while away the night behind locked doors. The bar-keeper who admitted Vit¬torin made his living out of a clientele that turned up after one a.m.

  There they were again around the table, the same peculiar types with whom Vit¬torin had played cards all last night. Jewel smugglers, perhaps, or cocaine dealers, or deserters from some ship - who could tell?

  The little man with the wrinkled face and the massive watch chain was known as Coco. The broad-shouldered one who had just bellowed for a rum-and-kümmel went by the name of Buster. The bank was held by Weasel, a scrawny fellow with a sallow face and a squashed nose. The fair-haired man whom Vit¬torin had seen outside the hotel was also there. Goldilocks seemed to favour a more refined life-style than the roughnecks around him: he was drinking Greek champagne and smoking a Cercle du Bosphore. The cramped room reeked of liquor, violet pomade, musk, and "Maryland" tobacco. Little notice was taken of Vit¬torin's arrival. Play was already in progress.

  Vit¬torin punted cautiously to begin with. A player with only fifteen francs in his pocket had to husband his resources. He only took the whole of the bank for the first few coups. If he lost, he passed next time. If the banker twice in a row drew the card known as "le brutal", because it beat all the rest, Vit¬torin declined to stake on the principle that luck of that order was unassailable. By three a.m. he had doubled his capital. A quarter of an hour later he was down to his last three francs. At four he was within a whisker of the sum that would have enabled him to retire from the game. By four forty-five he had lost everything.

  "God, it's hot in here," said the man nicknamed Buster. "Like an engine-room, it is. Let's make ourselves comfortable. If we open the window the landlord will have the police breathing down his neck."

  He removed his jacket and played on in his shirtsleeves. Weasel, who followed suit, revealed that his right forearm was adorned with an elaborate tattoo comprising a crescent moon, a clenched fist, a creature resembling a hare, and a girl's head. Coco threw down his cards, pointed to the eight of hearts, and cried triumphantly, "Oh là là! Just in the nick of time, monsieur le timide!"

  He had won the coup. Weasel pushed two crumpled notes across the table. "You wait," he muttered with grim determination.

  The fair-haired man turned to Vit¬torin.

  "Aren't you punting any more?"

  Vit¬torin shook his head. "I'm out of cash," he said. He meant to sound off-hand, but his voice clearly betrayed how embarrassed he was and how eager to play on. "If the bank would advance me fifteen francs ..."

  "Very sorry," said Coco, who held the bank, "I don't accept coups on credit."

  The fair-haired man lit another cigarette.

  "Please allow me to help you out," he said. "Here are twenty francs."

  Vit¬torin stared at him in surprise. "Thanks anyway," he said, "but I may lose. If I do, I'm not sure I'll be able to pay you back right away." The twenty-franc note was already in his hand.

  "You won't lose," the fair-haired man said firmly. "Why not hock your jacket?"

  "My jacket?" said Vit¬torin. "Is that meant to be a joke?"

  "No, I'm quite serious. We all do it when we're going through a bad patch. It brings you luck, see? Sometimes there's a sort of jinx on me. I lose and go on losing for hours. Then I hock my jacket and my luck changes."

  "What the hell!" Vit¬torin exclaimed. "All right, I'll try it. Here, take the thing."

  Goldilocks smiled as he took Vit¬torin's jacket and put it on the chair beside him. Play continued.

  They stopped playing at half-past five in the morning. Milk and vegetable carts could be heard in the street, and daylight was creeping through the chinks and knotholes in the shutters.

  Vit¬torin had thirty francs - not enough for a steerage ticket, and nothing else mattered. He wanted to settle his debt, but the fair-haired man wasn't there. Vit¬torin had been too intent on the game to notice his disappearance an hour earlier.

  He retrieved his jacket. Coco and Weasel were at the counter drinking black coffees paid for by Buster, who had won. The landlord opened the door. From the public gardens came a cool breeze laden with the scent of grass and acacia leaves.

  They swiftly shook hands on the corner of Kabristan Street - "So long, see you tonight!" - and went their separate ways.

  Vit¬torin was upstairs in the hotel corridor before he discovered the loss of his room key. He rummaged in his pockets. Where could it have gone? Had it fallen out somewhere? Should he go back to the bar and look for it, or hunker down outside the door and wait for Lucette to wake and let him in? He was dog-tired. He wanted to sleep and lose himself in oblivion. He would have to wake Lucette - he hadn't any choice. He knocked, softly at first, then louder.

  Not a sound came from inside, but the door of the adjoining room opened. Vit¬torin turned. It was Ethel, the English member of the Toledo Girls. Her face conveyed a mixture of surprise and indignation.

  "So it's you, is it? What are you doing here? You're a nice one, you are - a real beauty and no mistake. What do you want?"

  "What do I want? I want to go to bed, of course."

  "You devil you, living on women! What did you get for that key? How much did he pay you for it?"

  "Pay me? Who? What are you talking about?"

  "You rotter! How much did that Monsewer Pancrace pay you to hand over the key?"

  "Pancrace?" Vit¬torin looked appalled. "Would he be a fair-haired fellow with a face like a girl?"

  "It was a low-down thing to do. You ought to be ashamed of yourself."

  "He must have sneaked it out of my pocket."

  "And you never noticed, eh? Don't give me that! Hey, what are you doing?"

  Vit¬torin was furiously rattling the locked door. Ethel emitted a scornful little laugh.

  "What's the idea? Fancy a threesome, do you? He's in there with her - turned up an hour ago. She screamed, called for help. Then they made it up. You'd better go."

  Vit¬torin let go of the doorhandle and stared at the floor.

  "If they've made it up," he said, "that cuts me out - there's no point in my staying. All right, I'll go, but what about my things?"

  Ethel disappeared into her room. She returned with his papers and the knapsack that had accompanied him to Russia and back.

  "All the best," she said. "I'm not worried about you. With your looks and your talent, you'll always find some woman to live off."

  He didn't answer. There was something tucked into his passport. Opening it, he found a hundred-franc note and a slip of paper inscribed "Clear off!"

  Rage welled up inside him - rage mingled with a painful sense of loss and a burning desire to call the man out and drive his fist into that smooth-skinned, womanish face, but the thought of Selyukov outweighed all else. The Aurora was sailing an hour from now. If he hurried he would get there in time. He pocketed his passport, together with the money and farewell note.

  "Give Lucette my regards," he told Ethel. "I didn't do it, but never mind."

  He left with the feeling that he really had done it - and he had, now that he'd taken the hundred francs, but he didn't care. There were some things more important than Monsieur Pancrace.

  An hour later the Aurora sailed slowly out of harbour with Vit¬torin on board. He stared wide-eyed at the city in which he'd been living. He surveyed its terraced gardens and minarets, its green-domed mosques and white marble palaces, its ancient, cypress-shaded cemeteries, its massive walls and gates; all this he saw - saw for the very first time - just as he was leaving it behind.

  From Rome Selyukov's trail led to Milan, where it petered out. The ex-captain and his manservant had spent four days at a small pensione in the Via Cappelari, but Vit¬torin was unable to trace .their movements thereafter.

  Having run out of money, he was compelled to suspend his investigations and look for work. Life's squalls and tem
pests swept him along from place to place. In Genoa he worked as a waterfront coal-heaver, in Barcelona he addressed envelopes,

  in Narbonne he became an assistant house-painter. Time went by. Vit¬torin made all kinds of discoveries: that a man could live on cheese rinds and rotten fruit when work was scarce; that trains existed for travellers other than those with tickets; that in certain humble hostelries a piece of bread and a glass of wine could be purchased with cigarette-ends gleaned from the pavements by day. Sometimes, when your harvest of butts was plentiful, you could even get a morsel of salt meat, but those occasions were few and far between.

  At Toulon his knapsack was stolen, at Marseilles he spent two weeks in jail. He became acquainted with the bread soup doled out by charity hostels and the stench of the sulphur fumes they used to disinfect the clothes of the homeless. Selyu-kov seemed infinitely remote. For all Vit¬torin knew, he might be in Algiers, Geneva, or Buenos Aires.

  Then came the incident that changed Vit¬torin's fortunes and restored the freedom of movement denied him by his daily fight for survival: he was knocked down by a car on the Boulevard de la Corderie. The driver, an American, not only took him to a hospital but left enough money to cover his treatment and compensate him for his injuries. Several ribs had been fractured and both his arms were badly lacerated. When he left the hospital four weeks later, he was handed six hundred francs.

  He set off for Paris the same day.

  Wherever Selyukov was, one possible means of ascertaining his address did exist. In Paris, so Vit¬torin had learned from a fellow patient, newspapers were published by Russian émigrés of various political persuasions: ultra-conservatives, liberal monarchists, the Cadet Party, champions of armed intervention in Russia, advocates of reconciliation with the Soviets, Mensheviks, Social Revolutionaries - even a small group of Russian anarchists styling themselves "non-party". Every Russian refugee sought to keep in touch with his homeland and his scattered circle of friends by subscribing to at least one of these periodicals.