The Thousand Deaths of Mr Small

by Gerald Kersh

  An old tailoress whispered: “It’s a shame to make a mock of the boy.”

  Solly Schwartz, who had the ears of a dog, heard her and said, with an easy laugh: “That’s all right, Mrs. Ashkenazer. I may not be a beauty like all these Sandows, all these Hackenschmidts, all these Ellen Terrys, these Jersey Lilies. But I’ll be riding in my carriage in Piccadilly when they’re still scratching bug bites on their tukhesses in Back Church Lane. Wait and see, Mrs. Ashkenazer…. Quick, catch! Buy sweets for the children!” He flipped a sovereign across the workshop with such nice aim that it fell into her lap. Then he put the rest of his money in his pocket and went back to work singing Rer rer rer rer, rer rer rer rer, rer rer rer rer rer rer rer RER.

  So young Samuels took the voluptuous buttonhole-maker to a music hall, but they did not enjoy their evening. The gay gaslit streets seemed to swarm with little men and hunchbacks. All conversation crept around to Solly Schwartz, with whose money they were uneasily trying to enjoy themselves. Solly Schwartz had taken possession of the city. When Little Tich hopped on the stage, they exchanged guilty glances: that comical, deformed dwarf was wearing a fantastic coat and a glass diamond as big as a walnut. When, later, they walked in the park in the moonlight and the shadows, even the grass wore black-and-white check, and was afflicted with humps, and Marble Arch was bowlegged. The yellow moon was a gold coin contemptuously tossed into the sky. A humpy cloud leaned for support upon a tree that reminded them of Solly Schwartz’s walking-stick. They parted glumly before midnight. Twelve months later they married, and went to South Africa. There was no news of them until 1936. In the spring of that year one of Mr. Cohen’s tailors who had also emigrated and grown prosperous, sitting in the dining-room of the best hotel in Johannesburg, overheard a petulant exchange of words between a man and his wife at an adjacent table.

  The woman said: “Why shouldn’t we have proper champagne for a change?”

  The man said: “What do you want of my life? The soup’s too thin, the meat’s too thick, the sugar’s too sweet, the pepper’s too peppery, and now the wine doesn’t suit you. Why don’t you go and ask your humpback to take you out?”

  The visitor started, stared, and cried: “Samuels!”

  *

  Schwartz put his money in the bank, keeping only two pounds for his immediate use. He spent fifteen shillings on a fashionable hat and bought a pair of lemon-coloured gloves for five shillings; gave a two-shilling piece to each of his landlady’s five children, and then went out to squander ten shillings in the West End. He ate wienerschnitzel and drank two seidels of dark Munich beer at Appenrodt’s; drank coffee and liqueurs at the Café Royal; rode in a hansom cab to Hyde Park Corner, and walked in the park for an hour, admiring, without envy, the great straight-backed guardsmen who strutted, glorious in scarlet and magnificently moustachioed, each with an eager girl clinging to his arm. The shadows under the trees were full of amorous noises. Near the bandstand a woman accosted him, offering herself for a shilling. Solly Schwartz gave her a shilling and said: “If I want to make myself ill I can go and sit in a draught free of charge. Here you are, there’s your shilling. Do you want another shilling?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “All right. Tell me how much you make a week.”

  “That depends,” said the woman, cautiously.

  “What does it depend on?” She did not know, so he continued: “Take a good week. What do you make in a good week?”

  “It’s hard to say.”

  “All right. What did you make in your best week?”

  “Once a gentleman gave me a sovereign in mistake for a shilling.”

  “What for do you do it? Why?”

  “I was unlucky——”

  “Nobody’s unlucky. Here’s another shilling. Go and rot.”

  Taking the shilling she said, resentfully: “You don’t realise—a girl can be unlucky.”

  “Go away. Go to hell…. Wait a minute, here, take another shilling,” said Solly Schwartz.

  She took it and, quickly calculating the length of his arm and his walking-stick, walked a couple of yards backwards and said: “Humpy bastard!”

  “Good-night,” said Solly Schwartz, and went to sit on an empty bench by the Serpentine, because he found peace in contemplating the cool moonlight touching the tremulous water.

  Later he went home in an omnibus, hopped off a hundred yards from the “Three Nuns”, Aldgate, and walked through several dark and dangerous streets before he reached the house in Laurel Yard where he lived in a room for which he paid three-and-six-pence a week.

  He took off his new hat, smoothed it with his sleeve, and put it where he could see it when he awoke in the morning; wiped his walking-stick with the palm of his right hand, and balanced it in a corner; took off his iron boot and cooled his deformed foot in a basin of cold water. Then, singing Rer rer rer rer, rer rer rer rer, rer rer rer rer rer rer rer RER, he undressed and went to bed. The mattress was full of hollows. He fumbled for the deep indentation that fitted his hump, eased himself into it, and relaxed. From a distance came a clatter and rattle of hoofs and wheels. He thought of carriages, and grinned. The lady in the next room made noisy use of a chamber-pot. And from this we come, said Solly Schwartz, with a scornful smile. The Irishman who lived in the house next door came home, drunk, melancholy, and musical.

  A bedbug bit Solly Schwartz in the softest part of his left ankle. But he, smiling in the dark, did not feel the bite. Half a minute passed before he became aware of it, and then he said: “I should get up from my comfortable bed for you? If I chase you away you’ll come back the minute I drop off to sleep. I should lose a night’s sleep for a farthing’s-worth of blood? Get away with you—do you take me for a fool? Good appetite. Good-night.”

  And he fell asleep smiling.

  Several years later, Solly Schwartz of Stepney swaggered out with five pounds in his purse, to meet I. Small of Mayfair, who Was nervously feeling one thin sixpence.

  CHAPTER X

  WITHOUT his walking-stick I. Small felt naked and defenceless. With only sixpence in his pocket he felt humble and hopeless. He was thoroughly depressed. Before he had walked fifty paces—poking at the pavement with an imaginary stick and pausing, embarrassed, to imprison his refractory right hand in his trousers pocket—he was also attacked by an overwhelming sense of guilt. He was going out like a Gentile, like a common navvy, to drink beer with male friends while his wife languished in his absence. If burglars broke in and murdered the woman and the child, how could he forgive himself? At the corner of the street he turned back, went home again, and unlocked the side door. Millie screamed: “Who is it?”

  Then I. Small, weak irresolute little man, impulsively locked the door again and crept away, keeping close to the wall; for he had a great yearning for friendly male company. Emotion choked him when Solly Schwartz greeted him at their meeting place in Piccadilly Circus; he shook hands fervently, with a lingering grip, and his eyes filled with tears of delight as he cried: “Shloimele! Solly! Boychik! Pleased to see you! You look well—smart!”

  Solly Schwartz was, in fact, magnificent; visible from a considerable distance. He was dressed in a jacket-suit of black, white and grey plaid check that seemed to be both deafening and blinding like a thunderstorm. His collar was so high and stiff that a newspaper boy had told him to look out for himself—if he fell down it would cut his ears off—and his emerald-green satin cravat was threaded through a gold ring half an inch wide, set with a bloodstone as big as a shilling. A pearl-grey trilby hat, excessively curled at the brim, was cocked over his right eye. The glossily-starched cuffs of his shirt touched the balls of his thumbs, and he was carrying an extraordinary walking-stick of rich malacca with a gold band under an ivory head carved in the shape of a naked woman. He was smoking a cigar. Passers-by, too polite to turn their heads and stare, made elaborate detours for the sake of another glance at him.

  He said, easily: “Hello, hello, Srulkele! You’re putting on weight already. You’re
getting fat. How comes?”

  “Married life, Solly.”

  “How’s the wife?”

  “She’s fine, bless her.”

  “The boy?”

  “Bless him, he’s lovely.”

  “How’s business?”

  “Slack. How is with you, Solly?”

  With the thumb and forefinger of his right hand Solly Schwartz delicately picked up an imaginary grain of sand, cocked the little finger, smiled, and said: “Like that!’

  “You deserve it,” said I. Small.

  “You wait and see, Srulkele, I’ll show you a thing or two. Now, what would you like to do? I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll have a drink in the Criterion. Then we’ll go and have a snack at Appenrodt’s. Then we’ll go to the Alhambra. That’s what you’d like to do. That’s what I’d like to do. So we’ll do it. Come on.”

  I. Small’s face was red and hot as he fumbled his sixpence and stammered: “I … I … a glass beer, a little chat….”

  “Don’t be silly, Srulke, come on.”

  I. Small confessed: “I can’t afford it, Solly.”

  “Who asked you to, schlemihl? I can. Come on.”

  “I came out in a hurry. In a hurry I came out, so my purse I left behind.”

  “Don’t worry, Srulke, I didn’t leave my purse behind. What’s the matter with you? How many times did you treat me when I was young?”

  “You’re an old man already?” said I. Small, half laughing.

  “Twenty-three last birthday. No arguments. Come.”

  They went to the Criterion, and drank brandy and soda. Looking at them, other customers wondered why such a handsome, erect young man should associate with a preposterously-clothed leering hunchback. Solly Schwartz, gesticulated and bounced in his chair, while I. Small sat, calm and pale. One waiter whispered to another: “I bet you the Hump is trying to sell the Gent a few photographs.”

  Solly Schwartz was saying: “Pull yourself together Srulkele. Be a man. What do you take me for, an idiot? Look at you—look at yourself. You put on weight from good cooking, you liar.

  You’ve got a fat belly and a miserable face. How old are you? Twenty-seven. What is it? What’s the matter? Tell me.”

  “Nothing. Nothing’s the matter. Can’t you leave a man alone?”

  “Is it the wife? Yes, it’s the wife—she gives you a nice time of it, no?”

  “She’s a good wife, Solly, and don’t you daren’t say a word!”

  “Right you are, Srulkele, not one word…. Waiter, the bill!”

  They walked to Appenrodt’s, and I. Small, dragging himself out of a sucking quicksand of misery, came up with a sort of spiritual pop, and said: “What’s with you boychik? Tell me. You’re like a son to me.”

  “Thanks all the same, Srulke, I don’t want no fathers. I had one. What’s with me? You want to know?”

  “You still with Cohen?”

  “I left. I’m going into business.”

  “Business? What business?” asked I. Small alarmed.

  “Tin cans,” said Solly Schwartz.

  “For God’s sake, Shloimele, what do you mean, tin cans?”

  “You’ll see. Don’t worry. Here’s Appenrodt’s. A snack, Srulke, a snack.”

  The brandy was working in I. Small’s head. He said, almost tearfully: “Like old times, eh, Solly? But … but I left my purse …”

  “Again purse, purse, purse? You know where you can shtip your purse? Come on.” When they were seated he asked: “What do you fancy? Don’t tell me, I know. You fancy a nice plate of ham—that’s what you fancy.”

  I. Small giggled. This was his secret lust, his guilty Passion. He loved to eat the forbidden flesh of the swine. Solly Schwartz had corrupted him to this vice. Whenever he closed his lips over a furtive forkful his mouth filled with saliva, his eyes closed in ecstasy, and a pleasurable shudder ran from the base of his skull, all the way down his spine—he felt as a fallen Christian might feel, who cuts the throat of a black goat at midnight, says the Lord’s Prayer backwards, and offers homage to Asmodeus.

  The ham intoxicated him more than the great pots of Munich beer with which they washed it down. They sweetened their mouths with apfel strudel, and drank more beer. Then Solly Schwartz called for brandy, and they solemnly drank each other’s health. An invisible hand had pulled a warm woolly film over I. Small’s eyes and ears so that he saw and heard as it were through downy fluff. He was very happy. “Tell me, Solly-leben, what was you talking about, what? Tin cans! What for a joke is tin cans?” He laughed uproariously.

  “I met a man with a new process. I’m going to handle it.”

  “Process? What’s process? Solly, I’m older than you,” said I. Small, solemnly, “so take advice from me. No process! A man should stick to a steady trade.”

  “A Schneider can stick to his bench until his trousers stick to his tukhess. I’m finished with the workshop from now, I’m on my own. Another brandy?”

  “Not another drop, I swear.”

  “Waiter, two brandies! …”

  “I mean for your good, Solly, believe me. You’re young, you’ve got a lot to learn yet. Processes … tin cans … keep a steady job. Settle down.”

  “Look who’s talking!” said Solly Schwartz, contemptuously. “What marvels have you done? Look who’s giving me advice. If you’d taken my advice, stuck narr, you’d be doing all right now. Why didn’t you get one of those machines, like I told you? But no, they want to be gentlemen on their two groschen—shopkeepers! Gah! Have you lost your memory? I told you to stick to your trade. Me, I’ve got no trade, I’ll make a trade, I’ll make a million pounds. Do me a favour, Srul, don’t give me advice.”

  “I was going to get a machine,” said I. Small unhappily, “I was. But … one thing, another thing …”

  “Don’t upset yourself, Srulke,” said Solly Schwartz, pinching I. Small’s cheek and smiling. “Drink up.”

  “What do people want of me? What do they want of my years? What do they want of my life? What do they want me to do? Leave me alone, for God’s sake, you and your, your, your tin cans!”

  “Can I get you anything more, gentlemen?” asked a waiter.

  “A brandy for me and two black coffees,” said Solly Schwartz.

  I. Small had stumbled clean over the rim of sobriety: he sat unsteadily, rolling his eyes, stroking his moustache, and twirling his glass. Talking as a child talks to a doll, Solly Schwartz said: “Srul, Srulke, Srulkele, I’ll put the whole bloody world in a tin can and solder it down. Wait and see.”

  “I should go home….”

  “Drink your coffee first.”

  “When I think … when I think … a little boy with a … a …”

  “Hump?”

  “Was it his fault he had a little tiny hump?” asked I. Small angrily. “… And he puts down a golden sovereign and …”

  I. Small drew himself back into one piece and said: “Excuse me, Solly. Excuse me. I must go home. The wife and child are alone.”

  Under the hot white lights he felt himself spreading, evaporating like a cast-up jellyfish in the sun, and had to pause while he scraped himself into shape. Solly Schwartz paid the bill, helped him to climb the stairs, and sat beside him after he had fallen into a hansom cab.

  I. Small came home, unsteadily, at half-past eleven. Millie was waiting, rocking young Charles in her arms, while a simmering tea-kettle whispered on the stove. A carefully prepared meal was ready on the nicely-laid table.

  “I’m glad he’s enjoyed himself. That’s all I wanted to know,” she said.

  “Ah, Millie, Millie!”

  “Go on, eat—fress—that’s all he thinks of!”

  “I’m not hungry. I’m sorry.”

  “So now my cooking isn’t good enough for him,” said Millie to the kettle.

  I. Small staggered and fell heavily into a chair, feebly murmuring: “Millie, Millie….”

  “The minute he left the house burglars came and opened the door, and I had to frigh
ten them away, while he—and he calls himself a man—was roaming about with humpbacks and prostitutes, spending every penny on——” She paused, horrified; sniffed, raised her streaming eyes to the gas-bracket, and wailed: “—This is all I’m short of! He drinks!”

  But I. Small had fallen asleep in his chair. When he awoke at dawn Millie was still sitting, looking at him with inflamed eyes, twisting a tear-soaked handkerchief. The evening meal, untouched, was still on the table. Starting awake, he leapt up; but something that felt like a red-hot poker hissed through his head from ear to ear, and he sat down again, moaning. His remorse was terrible, but even if he had known what to say he would not have known how to say it; so he pulled out his handkerchief and began to weep. With the handkerchief a fork came out of his breast pocket, and fell to the floor with a rattling noise that awoke little Charles, so that Millie ran away to soothe him. She returned five minutes later with the two-year-old child in her arms and said in a voice that lifted the hair at the nape of her husband’s neck: “Good-morning, Srul. I hope you’re all right. I nearly called the doctor. Have a cup of tea. I was waiting for you to wake up—I kept the kettle on all night.”

  “Millie …”

  “It’s all right. As long as I know what you are, it’s all right, Srul. Well, I made a mistake, that’s all. Who am I to interfere with his pleasures?” she said, weeping. “… What difference does it make if burglars break in and murder his wife and child, as long as he’s got his friends?”

  “Millie, I——”

  “—But another man Wouldn’t have the heart to leave his wife alone and go out drinking, in the state I’m in.”

  “What state, what?” asked I. Small, in terror.

  “Nothing. What does he want to know for?”

  “Tell me, for God’s sake!”

  “You know. Don’t pretend you don’t know.”

  “I don’t know! Say!”

  “It’s nothing much. I’m going to have another baby, that’s all.”

  I. Small roared: “What? Since when?”

  “Three months.”

  “Millie!” said I. Small, smiling until the points of his moustache touched his cheek-bones.