Gerontius

by James Hamilton-Paterson

  ‘Unfortunately, it’s almost the first thing one sees of Manaos from the river. You have entered part of the far-flung empire of Pussels Cronifer GmbH.’

  ‘That was the name. It’s all over town. Who or what is Cronifer?’

  ‘A Swiss.’

  Edward made a barking sound which caused a momentary hum within the Bösendorfer. ‘Perfect! A bearer of watches. A man with time on his hands.’

  ‘Oh! He was very hard-working, he had no time for anything. He was here in the early days but his family have since gone back to Zürich. There’s no shortage of Cronifers there. But I’m the last von Pussels now that our son is dead, and of course I’m not a genuine one. Another empire on its last legs, you see. It may survive as a name but it will gradually be taken over by managers. Family concerns don’t last, do they? Even if circumstances allow one to pass on the name the children seldom inherit that energy which founded the firm. How could they? Their laps are full of fruit. They don’t have to clear a patch of jungle and plant the orchard as their grandparents did.’

  ‘Would your son have been an exception?’

  ‘Eusebius? He was not interested in fruit. He was a child. I don’t know what he was interested in and neither did he. Sometimes it was music and sometimes it was going to dig up Troy with Schliemann and sometimes it was duelling and sometimes it was learning to drive a motor car. My God, Edward, what did we do, our generation? We killed off our own children before they even knew who they were. And now look: Babylon, Nineveh, Troy, Egypt. Germany.’

  ‘England too. We’ve all had the same thought.’

  ‘Well, so we have. Of course. And of course it doesn’t help. Come upstairs at least, sit down, we’ll drink a glass of something. Are you yet familiar with our guaraná? Excellent.’ She rang a bell. A maid met them at the bottom of the marble staircase and Lena gave her orders before they went up. An imposing halfway landing was lit by a window framed in dark-leaved creepers bobbled with flowers or fruit like brilliant yellow beads. In this patch of light stood a plinth with a large bronze bust on it.

  ‘Our Founder?’ suggested Edward.

  ‘How irreverent you English are about culture! Now and then I admire it rather. It looks so like courage in the face of immortality.’

  ‘Not a bit of it. It’s temerity born of pure ignorance.’ With the fond gesture of one habitually kind to dogs he patted Schiller’s laurelled head as he passed. Observing this at the edge of her vision Lena smiled in self-satisfaction like one who has correctly solved a crossword puzzle clue.

  ‘Still the same Edward. Oh, don’t worry; I shan’t patronise you. I’m far too happy to see you again, you know.’

  ‘It has been a goodish time. Rather a lot seems to have happened since those days but whenever I try to remember exactly what, I can’t come up with enough to fill the gap. One got married, one did some work, one survived. Don’t ask me what it was all for, though.’

  ‘Very well. But I must ask what it is you’re doing here? I was amazed, ich war volkommen baff when I heard you had arrived in Manaos.’ She had led the way into her office and Edward sat down creakingly on a wicker chaise longue, his hat and cane on the floor beside him. ‘Shall I tell you the first thing which crossed my mind?’

  ‘You probably don’t need to.’

  ‘No. It was only for half a second. I knew it was stupid as soon as it had been thought. You truly didn’t know I was here.’

  ‘Truly not, Lena. I heard from what-was-his-name, Stämpfli, that you’d finished at Leipzig but after that I more or less lost touch until a letter turned up from him in 1899 to say you were married and had left Europe.’

  ‘And in 1886 you met your own future wife, in any case.’

  ‘You’re a good deal better informed about me than I am about you. Why don’t you tell me why I came here?’

  ‘Don’t you know, Edward?’

  ‘I’m by no means certain. Come to that I’m not absolutely clear as to why I’ve done any particular thing these last three years.’

  ‘I was so sad for you when I heard about Lady Alice, Edward. What can I say? A person of considerable gifts.’ The small solecism hung about the room with the flavour of conventional piety, so she added: ‘We have here in our library a copy of her novel, as well as an excellent translation she made of Ritter Glück.’

  ‘She wrote the novel before she met me,’ he began, only at that moment the maid came in with guaraná and little cakes and said something to her employer in a low voice. Lena motioned her to wait.

  ‘I’m dreadfully sorry, Edward, but it seems I must deal with an interruption. A countryman of yours is downstairs and I need to have a quick word with him about a talk he’s giving us. Would you mind very much if I went down for two minutes only? I could ask him to call back but he is very busy as well as being amiable and esteemed.’

  ‘Of course not, Lena … What makes him esteemed?’

  ‘Maybe that depends on who one is. Some are impressed by his work as a priest since he’s the English Chaplain here in Amazonas – surely Anglicanism’s largest parish. For others he’s simply one of the world’s best amateur entomologists. It’s about moths that he will address us.’

  ‘Sounds an odd sort of fellow. Why don’t you show him up here, unless you wish to be private?’

  ‘Oh Edward, he would be most honoured to meet you.’

  ‘Just so long as he doesn’t want to talk about music.’

  ‘Why should he?’ Her tone had a sharpness which in the next moment vanished as she turned to the maid. In due course the Reverend Miles Moss was shown in.

  ‘Mr Moss,’ said Lena, going forward to greet him. ‘Thank you for coming. May I present to you a very old – one might say long-lost – friend of mine who unexpectedly arrived on the Hildebrand yesterday? Sir Edward Elgar, the Reverend Miles Moss.’

  ‘Honoured, sir, honoured,’ said the entomologist, shaking hands with Edward as he rose. ‘Frau von Pussels is always introducing me to her distinguished guests but this time she has surpassed herself. Welcome to our Green Hell, sir.’

  ‘Is that what people call it?’

  ‘Oh yes, and much more besides. Of course it’s paradise for me as a moth-man. I suppose you aren’t a fellow-sufferer? An obsession I fear has reached in me the proportions of a vice, a positive vice. I have to be increasingly on my guard lest my real duties become neglected. Remember Chaucer, sir, and his corrupt prelate?’ “I rekke nevere, whan that they been beryed, Though that hir soules goon a-blakeberyed!”? I sometimes find myself in danger of going a-mothing at the expense of my scattered flock’s spiritual welfare. Most regrettable,’ and he gave a little chirrup and bounced on the soles of his feet.

  ‘I like moths,’ said Edward cautiously when the Reverend Moss paused for breath. ‘But I couldn’t describe myself as a moth-man. Bit more of a dog-man and a horse-man, I suppose. Yes, I like moths well enough. I don’t swat ’em. Talking of which, maybe you can tell me something. I was going to look it up in South when I got home. Is there a moth called the Brindled Marsh?’

  ‘Brindled Marsh? Oh dear, I’ve become so out of touch with the British lepidoptera. After a time all those fanciful names start to sound interchangeable, don’t they? Least Carpets and Smoky Wainscots, Grizzled Skippers and Silvery Arches. To say nothing of a Muslin Footman. I mean to say, jolly easy to imagine a Grizzled Footman with Fallen Arches, what? No, let me see. Brindled Marsh. Why yes, I believe there is such a thing. Why?’

  ‘Nothing really, just a silly thing I discovered. It’s an anagram of “RMS Hildebrand”.’

  The Reverend Moss thought for a moment, his head on one side. ‘By Jove, so it is. Clever, that. Dear old Hildebrand. The number of times I’ve watched her come and go. Like clockwork, if a good deal noisier. As a matter of fact I saw you sail past the other evening, Sir Edward. Well, perhaps not you personally although I can’t be certain of that. I was too far away. Actually, I was up a tree.’

  ‘Up a tree?’

  ‘Ex
actly. I was waiting for nightfall. I was just about to light my lamps when I heard the ship coming. You can hear the rumble of engines for miles across water, you know.’

  And suddenly Edward saw again the white-robed figure standing at the top of an immensely tall dead tree on the river-bank, facing the setting sun in hieratic pose. ‘I say, was that you dressed all in white?’

  ‘There, you did see me. How embarrassing. In such a way, my dear Magdalena, one acquires a perfectly undeserved reputation for wild eccentricity. A middle-aged Englishman a hundred feet up a tree in the middle of the Amazon jungle at dusk, wearing a newly-laundered surplice. Oho. What are we to make of that before we send out sharpish for the nearest alienist? But like many a person before me caught red-handed I can explain everything. I’m on the trail of what I believe is an unknown species of the Sphingidae – hawk-moths, you know, Sir Edward. A very weird creature indeed, very weird, since if I’m not mistaken it has trained itself to suck the blood of animals.’

  ‘A vampire moth, you mean? That’s downright sinister.’

  ‘Precisely. I have all sorts of evidence I won’t bore you with at this moment since it’s what I’m supposed to be talking about to this Institute shortly. But in brief he’s the devil to pin down – ha! pin down, that’s exactly what I have in mind,’ and he bounced with pleasure. ‘He never seems to come below sixty feet or so. I presume you know, Sir Edward, that there are different layers of jungle canopy, each with its distinct flora and fauna? You didn’t? But yes indeed. The majority of the creatures which live in those aerial worlds never come to earth at all and consequently we remain in sad ignorance of life up there. I now believe this fellow is one such denizen and it therefore behoves the lepidopterist to leave earth and track him down in his inconvenient habitat. One tries with a number of lures, sugaring and the like, but you happened to see me as I was about to stand there in dazzling white beneath three powerful pressure-lamps and tempt him with my blood. It’s a very hot pursuit,’ he added mildly, as if mere discomfort were hardly worth recording.

  ‘Goodness,’ said Edward, impressed.

  ‘I know,’ agreed Lena. ‘He tells us these things and people in his lectures can scarcely believe them. Think of the other sorts of insects he attracts up there which sting and pester, to say nothing of tree snakes and poison spiders and all manner of horrors.’

  ‘Frau von Pussels exaggerates, of course,’ Miles Moss said in deprecation, and at that moment Edward noticed how scarred were the backs of his brown unpriestly hands. ‘From time to time one gets unwelcome visitors, of course, but really when trying to juggle with nets and killing-bottles the greatest danger is the simple one of falling out of the tree. I’ve done that many times but up to now I’ve bounced,’ he said, doing so. ‘But you must excuse all this chat. I’m not used to such famous company and I’ve a tendency to blather. I really came to tell you the title of my talk, Magdalena, and confirm the date. Thursday at seven, we agreed? I’m calling it “Three hitherto unknown hawk-moths”. I had hoped the vampire would be a fourth but I had no luck the other night so it will have to wait.’

  While Lena made notes Edward asked, ‘How did you get back to Manaos so quickly?’

  ‘Ah, that’s sharp of you, sir. I’m lucky enough to have the use of a little steam launch loaned me whenever I come here by one of my wealthier parishioners. It’s really too kind. The boat is very fast and being of shallow draught can be driven with much more recklessness than a liner like the Hildebrand. I overtook you somewhat after midnight, you know. I’d only been down there for the day. Oh dear, I really must go. I do hope we can meet before you go away again, Sir Edward. We could do a swap.’

  ‘What had you in mind?’

  ‘Your news for my gossip, at the very least. There are heaps of things I’d like to know about what’s happening in England at the moment and even if I can’t interest you in the petty scandals of northern Brazil there are always some strange tales in circulation wholly unlike anything you might hear in the Home Counties. Though of course your own voyage here furnished one of the most mystifying and sad episodes I’ve heard in ages.’

  ‘Ah, poor Dr Ashe you mean?’

  ‘Yes. A wretched business. The banks of the river from Pará to Iquitos are no doubt buzzing with the news at this very moment.’

  ‘I have heard nothing of this? said Lena.

  ‘The Hildebrand’s doctor,’ explained Edward. ‘Nil nisi bonum and all that, but he was a rum sort of chap from the outset. Jumped overboard in the dead of night after we left Pará. Suicide, apparently.’

  ‘How awful!’

  ‘Yes. In a funny way I liked what I’d seen of him, too. Very direct and outspoken. Ex-Army, so perhaps that explains it.’

  ‘I’ve yet to speak with Captain Maddrell but maybe we should hold a short memorial service here. There’s frankly no chance that his, er, body will turn up – not in these parts. And had he reached the shore alive I’d have heard by now: that sort of news travels faster than the swiftest launch around here – don’t ask me how. Poor unhappy man. What an eventful voyage you must have had.’

  ‘Oh, he was not the only intriguing character on board. We also had a most colourful pair of ladies who got off in Pará. If they’re members of your far-flung congregation you maybe know them? Dora Bellamy and Kate Hammond?’

  ‘Know them? My dear Sir Edward, everybody knows them. They’re famous in these parts. I dare say even a little infamous, for although it’s scarcely part of my vocation to go about spreading calumnies they themselves would be deeply flattered to hear me ascribe a certain notoriety to their reputations. They’re splendidly quick-witted as I’m sure you discovered.’

  ‘Oh, is that all you’re prepared to say?’

  ‘For the present yes, since I must fly. I shall leave you, sir, on that tantalising note. Maybe, Magdalena, if it’s agreeable to Sir Edward we might have dinner together after my talk?’

  ‘I should like that,’ Edward told him and it was clear to her that whatever it was he responded to in the Reverend Moss it had the ability to fetch him out of himself. ‘I want awesome scandals and horrid tales. I wish to be diverted and be-sinistered.’

  ‘It’s a tall order, Sir Edward, but we’ll do our best. And now I’m off to buy – amongst other things – a quantity of cyanide,’ and the door closed behind the Anglican Chaplain on the Amazon.

  ‘You never did tell me why you came,’ said Lena at length.

  ‘That’s because I don’t know myself. Oh, some friends of mine did the trip a while back and praised Booth’s and the scenery. They had a nice time, in short. I was having a rotten time and I wanted above all to avoid Christmas, which I most cordially detest, and I suddenly remembered their cruise. The Amazon – why not? Though I nearly went up the Nile. Ever since the Tutankhamun discovery it’s been at the back of my mind to see the Valley of the Kings but – I don’t know. I suppose I thought it would be intolerably hot and stark. I wanted comfort, I’m afraid. One has grown old.’

  ‘All the time you speak as if you’ve had a sad life, Edward.’

  ‘Haven’t you?’

  ‘No.’ She said this consideringly, as if it were something which had not occurred to her before. ‘I don’t believe I have. I don’t think of it like that. There have been sad things, awful things. But much of the time I’ve enjoyed myself.’

  ‘Even here?’

  ‘Why not even here? I’m not an exile, you know. When I met Otto and we were married I was prepared for anything. He was so full of energy I wanted to go anywhere with him. You see by then I’d finally accepted what you had once so kindly tried to tell me: that I was not a genius.’

  ‘I’m sure I never said anything of the sort.’

  ‘Of course you did, Edward. You couldn’t help it because you were one. You were right to be impatient with my delusions.’

  ‘Mr dear Lena, I remember you as a first-rate pianist. Very likely you had the makings of a great pianist but I was not a reliable judge. As you
probably recall, the piano’s not an instrument dear to me. People scurry about it more or less adroitly and I’m afraid I miss the finer points. What is true is that it’s fearsomely difficult to make a career as a soloist, especially on an instrument as commonly played as the piano. God knows the violin’s no easier as I found to my own cost. I’ve no doubt we could neither of us have made satisfactory solo careers.’

  ‘No. That was not my difficulty, Edward; it was that I so clearly lacked something else which you had. Of course I can quite see now this was my own problem and not yours, but at the time …’

  ‘At the time. Oh, there were good things in those days, weren’t there? Remember that first concert in Leipzig? How wet we were from the rain?’

  ‘Doch! And the first piece in the programme was a Mendelssohn overture, Meeresstille und glückliche Fahrt, and you turned to me and said in German “Out of the rain and into the sea” and it made me laugh so.’

  ‘I expect my awful German was the funny part. It doesn’t sound very witty to me.’

  ‘Not now, no. It was at the time.’

  ‘Did you ever hear of a piece I once wrote called the Enigma Variations?’

  ‘Edward! How absurd you are! Do you think you’re talking to the wife of a caboclo? It’s enraging.’

  ‘Oh, sorry. Anyway there’s a quotation in it from Meeresstille, if you remember. I’m sure now it was no accident.’ Even as he made this noncommittal evasion he felt it as a physical lurch, as abrupt as a horse baulking at a hedge, a shying-away from anything more headlong which might lead to unknown tracts of rough country. ‘Odd how such little things go round and round in the mind until they pop up from nowhere years later.’

  ‘Come here, Edward, I want to show you something.’

  She led the way outside across the passage to the Library, the timber of whose joinered floor gleamed like a sheet of oiled iron in the light from the windows. The room itself disseminated a smell of beeswax and frangipani.