The Thousand Deaths of Mr Small

by Gerald Kersh

  He put on his hat and coat and went out to see a man about cloth. On the whole he was not displeased by the brouhaha of that morning. He chuckled when he thought of big, blustering Berkowitz squeezed into submission by the hand of a hunchback boy. He did not like Berkowitz. Mr. Cohen did not chuckle when he thought of Solly Schwartz: he smiled. It was impossible not to admire that little monkey who was not afraid of hard work—who was, indeed, magnificently indifferent to hard work—who, banging his guts out, kept his sharp eyes fixed on something out of sight, while he sang some strange song with only one word and only one note:

  Rer rer rer rer

  Rer rer rer rer

  Rer rer rer rer rer rer rer RER!

  Mr. Cohen felt a tenderness for Solly Schwartz. He wanted to do something for him. One day, when work was done, and the hunchback, having washed his hands and face, put on his winged collar, satin tie, fancy waistcoat, and check coat, and was about to limp away on his ivorine-handled cane, Mr. Cohen said: “Schwartz, come back a minute. How old are you?”

  “Nearly seventeen, Mr. Cohen. Why?”

  “You’re a presser. Look, Schwartz, why don’t you learn the cutting?”

  “What for?”

  “What for? To be something, to be a somebody. A good cutter is like diamonds. What’s the good of being a presser? What do you make from it? Now a good cutter, he can make … anything he likes he can make, a good cutter. Learn the cutting, Schwartzele”—Cohen used the diminutive; he was a fatherly soul—“learn the cutting.”

  “You’re a nice man, Mr. Cohen, and I won’t forget it. But I don’t want to learn no tailoring, thank you.”

  “What’s that?” asked Mr. Cohen, astonished.

  “I don’t want to learn it.”

  “What’s the matter with it? Wherever you are in the world, if you’re a practical man, a good tailor, you can get a good living.”

  “I know, Mr. Cohen, and so I don’t want it. What’s the good of it? Look …” said Solly Schwartz. “I don’t know how to say it, but … say I’m in London or Timbuctoo, and I’m a schneider. What’ll I do? Get a living—sit down on my schneider-tukhess, and stitch. Once a tailor always a tailor. You say to yourself, you say: ‘Well, well, I got something to fall back on.’ So you fall back on it. Mr. Cohen, I don’t want to fall back, I want to fall front. I know all about cutting.”

  “So you know!” said Mr. Cohen, half amazed and half angry. “You know already?”

  “All I want to know, I know. I don’t want nothing to fall back on.”

  “It could be one day so you might get married. Why not? And then what? I’m telling you this for your own good, Schwartz.”

  “I don’t want to many anybody. But even so. What if I did?”

  “On twenty-five shillings a week, yes?”

  “Mr. Cohen, tell me something, will you? If I’m no good as a presser, say so, tell me to get out.”

  “God forbid, Schwartz!”

  “Why God forbid, Mr. Cohen? Are you afraid you won’t find another presser? Don’t be silly, Mr. Cohen. Pressers! Schmattes! God forbid you should kick out a lousy presser? You’re keeping me for this—and this”——he touched his hump, and made his iron foot ring on the floor. —“I appreciate it. I don’t want no pity, Mr. Cohen, but I appreciate it. And one of these days you won’t be sorry.”

  The old tailor raised his arms and let them fall again so that his hands bounced on his hips, and said: “If you want to press, press, I don’t understand you, may I never move again if I drop down dead this minute, I don’t understand you.”

  “Why should you? I understand me—what more do I want?” Tapping his employer’s starched false shirt front with two strong fingers he added: “You mean good, so I’ll tell you something. One of these days I’ll make you a rich man.”

  Then he hobbled away, while Cohen, looking after him, touched himself on the forehead and sighed. If everything else was not enough, this poor creature was wrong in the head. The first time he saw Solly Schwartz, Cohen, a pious man, said under his breath the Hebrew Blessing that should be pronounced when one sees a monstrosity. And so now this abortion was going to make him rich. But Solly Schwartz went boldly on his way, his iron foot clanking, his cheap flashy cane rapping the pavement. As he went he hummed his weird tuneless song—Rer rer rer—dauntless, imperturbable, unabashed.

  CHAPTER IX

  SEVERAL months after this, one of Mr. Cohen’s customers went broke three days before he was to have accepted delivery of twenty-four dozen pairs of trousers at five shillings a pair; dark trousers—the kind of trousers that city clerks and drapers’ assistants could buy, in those days, for six-and-sixpence a pair. The slop-shops of the suburbs were choked with such merchandise. Trousers of that sort—sad, dark, coarse, respectable trousers—could be seen hanging like bunches of bananas under the gas-brackets and naphtha flares in every quarter of London. One big retailer in Tottenham cut the price of these trousers to five-and-ninepence, and gave every customer a glass of beer into the bargain. Shopmen and clerks wore them for everyday work in the office, and churchgoing artisans wore them for Sunday.

  Cohen, therefore, found himself with two hundred and eighty-eight pairs of superfluous trousers, for which he was to have received seventy-two pounds. He cried to heaven, and then, taking a pair of trousers for a sample, went out without much hope to try and sell the lot at a cut price to some other dealer, but came back an hour or two later saying that he was ruined and threw the trousers into a corner of the workshop. Solly Schwartz picked them up and said: “Listen, Mr. Cohen, these trousers …”

  “Trousers, schmousers—don’t talk to me about trousers!”

  “Mr. Cohen, do you want to sell this two gross pair of trousers?”

  “What do you think I made two gross pair trousers for, to wear? I’ll take sixty pound for the lot—fifty-five pund I’ll take, for the lot, quick. What’s it got to do with you?”

  “Mr. Cohen, if I got rid of this here two gross trousers for you for fifty-five pound, would you give me a commission?”

  “You? You get rid of these trousers? Don’t be silly.”

  “What’ll you give me, Mr. Cohen?”

  Mr. Cohen, with a bitter laugh, said: “Look, Schwartz, get me these trousers off mein hands to-morrow and I’ll give you a ten-pun-note. Trousers!”

  “Done!” said Solly Schwartz.

  Cohen looked at him, shaking his head. “Done. Done! Done! I been done! I am done! … Get on with your work, less talk!”

  “Done then,” said Solly Schwartz, wielding the twelve-pound goose.

  One of the tailoresses whispered to her neighbour: “You wait and see—he’s got something up his sleeve.”

  So he had. That evening, before he dressed himself in his not inconspicuous coat and put on his indecently showy necktie, Solly Schwartz carefully pressed the pair of trousers that Mr. Cohen had hurled into the corner and put them in a box. Then he went brazenly to a gentlemen’s clothing establishment in Clapham. In those days shops were open until midnight. Refusing to take no for an answer he was at last admitted to the little room in which the proprietor sat in the hot glare of a hanging gaslight and brooded over a litter of scribbled bill-heads and rows of hooked wire files full of spiked sales-chits.

  “Pardon the intrusion. You know me, I think. You remember me? Or have you forgotten me?” said Schwartz.

  No one forgets a lame man or a hunchback: the proprietor was hesitant. He had, in fact, seen Solly Schwartz in Cohen’s workshop, having had occasion to go there in connection with a large order of boys’ Norfolk suits. “Well, what do you want?” he asked.

  “I want to make a deal with you, Mr. Monopol. I want to make a deal with you in the strictest confidence.”

  “Well, what is it? What d’you mean, confidence?”

  Schwartz opened the box, smoothed the trousers on the table, and said: “Now look, Mr. Monopol, look at this trouser. You’re in the business, I’m in the business, we’re all in the business. What I w
ant you to do is, look at that trouser. Feel it. What do you think of it?”

  “It’s a pair of trousers,” said Mr. Monopol. “What do you want me to do, dance a jig?”

  “Now look. To a sensible man a word should be enough. I’ve got twenty-four dozen pairs. You understand?” said Solly Schwartz, winking.

  “Well?”

  “You can sell such trousers, Mr. Monopol?”

  “I sell them, yes, I sell them. Where d’you get them?”

  “Mr. Monopol, for God’s sake, let us ask no questions and not tell no lies. Listen: I can let you have this trouser for five-and-threepence a pair, two gross, delivered to-night. Tell me one thing,” said Solly Schwartz, hunching his shoulders and glancing furtively right and left, “tell me quick—are you interested?”

  Now Monopol became strong and sly. He said: “Five-and-threepence? Madness! For this kind of stuff I wouldn’t give you a penny more than three shillings.”

  “Five-and-threepence, Mr. Monopol, delivery to-night. Take it or leave it.”

  “Independent, eh?” said Monopol, with menace.

  Simulating embarrassment, Solly Schwartz said: “All right, five shillings a pair.”

  Now Monopol began to feel that he had the affair in hand. He said: “Three shillings. Take it or leave it.”

  “Five shillings.”

  “Three shillings a pair,” said Monopol, with a hard, tight smile. “You think I don’t know where that stuff comes from?”

  Only a thin matchboard partition stood between them and the busy shop. Their conversation, therefore, had been in undertones. Now Solly Schwartz raised a voice that rang from Monopol’s office to the other side of the street. He shouted: “You know where it comes from? So do I! Stolen property, is that what you want for your dirty three shillings? What? You accuse me of selling stolen property so you can buy stolen property for three shillings? Aha, a receiver of stolen property, yes? To make extra profit out of your customers you want to sell them stolen property, eh? Answer me!”

  “Shut up, you bloody fool, shut up!”

  “You can’t shut me up! Five shillings!”

  “Ssh, ssh, take it easy.”

  Solly Schwartz said: “Look. Do you want these trousers for five shillings or don’t you want these trousers for five shillings?”

  “Lower your voice. Listen to reason. For five shillings I can’t do it.”

  “All right, look, Monopol; make it four-and-nine, and done. And I can let you have the stuff to-night. I’ll be along the back entrance quarter to one in the morning. Have £68 8s ready in cash. And you’ve got a bargain. Well?”

  “No. It looks bad. Better send it to-morrow by Carter Paterson. Like that it looks better.”

  “No, better still, nine o’clock to-morrow morning I bring the stuff in a cart. If you like I’ll give you my receipt, properly stamped. So you bought open and above board. Will that satisfy you?”

  “No, look, I’ll tell you what,” said Monopol, “here’s my address. Bring it to my private house to-night, in a cab, and do it like that. That way it’s better.”

  “You got a bargain, Mr. Monopol, and I congratulate you. I’ll be there.”

  That night Solly Schwartz arrived at Monopol’s house in a four-wheeler, out of which a big man with a kicked-in face dragged twelve packages, each containing two dozen pairs of trousers. Monopol handed over the money in gold and silver. Solly Schwartz gave him a stamped receipt on one of Mr. Cohen’s bill-heads. After the cab had rattled away Monopol looked at the trousers he had bought, and hung his head. They were exactly like the trousers Solly Schwartz had shown him so secretively in the shop. Unquestionably they were up to sample, only they were nothing but ordinary trousers such as he might have bought in broad daylight in the open market for four-and-sixpence a pair! Mrs. Monopol, hearing her husband’s voice loudly requesting God Almighty to strike the hunchback dead, came down in her nightdress and found him standing on one foot, and holding up a pair of trousers by one leg, saying through his teeth: “Four-and-nine, four-and-nine, four-and-nine!”

  “What is it, for God’s sake?”

  “Nothing. I’ve been swindled by a crook, that’s all. Go back to bed.”

  And he sat smoking cigarettes and brooding until four o’clock in the morning. How could he have been such a fool? Monopol had been in the gents’ outfitting business forty-five years, and knew the value of a garment to a fraction of a penny; he was one of the shrewdest buyers in the trade. Should he go with his wife to Bournemouth for a week or two? Should he sell the business and retire? Since he had enough put by to live in luxury for the rest of his life, was there any sense in driving himself mad with work? If he was going crazy, losing his grip, he would ruin himself if he carried on. Tenderly pressing his aching head he saw himself buying workmen’s socks for eightpence three farthings a pair and paying four-and-six a dozen for celluloid collars.

  He had to unlock the sideboard and pour himself a glass of brandy to steady his nerves. After that he began to reason. The hunchback had cheated him. If he Had come in the daytime offering his trousers for sale, Monopol would have known what they were worth. Furthermore, he would have guessed that these trousers were superfluous stock left on the hands of some manufacturing tailor who was glad to get rid of them at any price; and he could have got them for as little as thirty-six shillings a dozen. But this devilish hunchback had bewitched him with his furtive gestures and subtle whispers under the hissing gaslight—tricked him into believing that he was buying a bargain in stolen property. Monopol had made many such bargains in his time, and no doubt the hunchback knew it. “I deserve it. It serves me right. God punished me,” said Monopol, and went to bed.

  *

  Solly Schwartz kept thirteen pounds eight shillings for himself and, next day, offered Mr. Cohen fifty-five golden sovereigns with a great flourish. Cohen, who was at breakfast, asked: “Who did you sell them to, who?”

  “I sold them to Monopol,” said Solly Schwartz.

  “Monopol? For fifty-five pounds to Monopol you sold them trousers? No jokes?”

  “There’s the fifty-five pounds, in cash, Mr. Cohen. What about my ten?”

  “Take it, take it!” said Mr. Cohen, with a bewildered gesture. “But Monopol! That khazza, he’d … he’d … he’d shave hair off an egg. He paid you fifty-five pounds cash?”

  Balancing his ten golden pounds in his hand, Solly Schwartz said: “He paid me four-and-ninepence a pair, Mr. Cohen.”

  “What? And where’s the rest of the money?”

  “You said you’d be glad to take fifty-five pound for the rubbish, Mr. Cohen; you said it’d be worth a ten-pun-note to you if I sold it for you. I sold it, you got your fifty-five pound, I got my ten-pun-note—what more do you want?”

  “Then twenty-three, twenty-four pounds you put in your pocket, eh?”

  “That’s right, Mr. Cohen. What difference should it make to you if it was a thousand? I got you what you asked for.”

  “Gonof!” cried Mr. Cohen. “Thief!”

  Solly Schwartz laughed. “Why gonof, Mr. Cohen? How do you make me out a thief? What did I steal from you? I sold your schmattes, your rags, I took my commission, and that’s that. How can you call me a gonof?”

  Shrugging helplessly, Cohen said: “What I want to know is, how did you get four-and-nine a pair from Monopol, how—tell me!”

  Smiling the smile of Scapin, Solly Schwartz replied: “Mr. Cohen, there are ways and means.”

  The news ran through the workshop. A voluptuous buttonhole-maker, a notorious coquette, said: “Take me out to-night, Mr. Schwartz?”

  He answered scornfully: “What do you take me for? I should waste time taking you out? What good’d that do me? Take you out—what for? Do I work to entertain you? Don’t make me laugh. Supposing I took you out …”

  “Well, and supposing?” the buttonhole-maker asked.

  Solly Schwartz’s laugh was clear and free from bitterness as he replied: “Ask yourself a question, dearie: did yo
u want me to take you out yesterday? No. Why do you want me to take you out to-day? Don’t be a foolish girl. For a bit of hokey-pokey ice cream and a bit of rubbish in a music hall you want to be seen with me? And then when everybody laughs at you you’ve got to tell them you did it for a joke? You don’t want me to take you out, me dear, you just want to go out…. Here, Samuels,” he said, throwing a half-sovereign to a stalwart young presser with fine wavy hair, “take her out. Eat a hokey-pokey, sing, dance! Me, I’m busy.”

  Samuels balanced the little gold coin on the tip of a finger and looked hesitantly from Solly Schwartz to the buttonhole-maker. She, forcing a laugh, said: “All right,” and stooped low over her sewing to hide her red face.

  Then there was some laughter, and a machinist called Fat Gittele, an ugly woman who was notorious for her poisonous tongue, said: “See what it is to have mazzel? He makes all the money, and then all the pretty girls run after him. Let me touch him for luck,” and she touched the hump on his back. At this everyone in the workshop got up and touched Solly Schwartz for luck—everyone except Pressburger, who, with an embarrassed smile and an apologetic gesture, said: “They don’t mean no harm, Solly, take no notice.”

  But Solly Schwartz, calmly jingling a handful of gold, said: “Much obliged, Mr. Pressburger. Much I care what they mean. Let ’em touch. I should worry.”