The Thousand Deaths of Mr Small

by Gerald Kersh

She proceeded, however, to dress. Solly Schwartz watched with intense interest, abstractedly waving the five-pound note, fanning away some of the filthy air with the wind of it. Pausing at the sink, she said, with a certain delicacy: “Look the other way.” Solly Schwartz waved the five-pound note and touched his breast, where his pocket was, and kept his keen eyes fixed upon her. So, from this attitude, cold and hard and ugly as a gargoyle, he kept his eyes stonily upon the girl as she made her toilet. At one point she began to ask: “Did you——?”

  “Yes, I did,” lied Solly Schwartz, “go on.” And he rustled the five-pound note. She went on, shame-faced, not letting that bit of white paper out of her sight. Emptying a basin into a slop-pail, she said, hopefully: “Well, now are you satisfied?”

  Solly Schwartz answered: “Certainly not. Go on dressing just like you dress to go out. I’m not here. Only this fiver’s here. Get on with the job.”

  She was afraid of this intense little man who had smashed down Mick the Ox and half-killed her protector—who gave her five pounds for nothing at all and, fresh and alert, fully dressed in elegant style in the dimmest hours of the morning, dangled another five-pound note between two formidable fingers, and ordered her to dress. Forget that he was there! She could not keep her mind or her gaze from him. But—the five-pound note apart—she felt that she had to obey him, to do exactly as he wished, irrespective of the dangling bank-note.

  So she dressed, and in the manner of whores of her class in those days, made up her face, while the hunchback watched, missing nothing.

  Now, when her pasty cheeks were rosy, her pink eyelashes were black, and her pallid lips were pink—when her waist was laced and her prominent breasts and big buttocks consequently conspicuous—she made a pirouette before her strange visitor, and said: “Well, m’lord?”—holding out her hand.

  “Right you are, m’lady,” said Solly Schwartz, and he dropped the five-pound note into the slop-pail, clapped on his hat, and limped down the stairs without so much as a Good-day, brandishing his olive-wood stick.

  The girl, bewildered, looked at the two five-pound notes. She held them to the light, saw that they were genuine, and began to wonder what she had done to earn ten pounds of this terrible little man’s money—he who had calmly held his own against two bad men—she who had done unmentionable things for a pound note. A kind of wonder came over her while she undressed again (for it was only nine o’clock in the morning) and she felt an admiration, a yearning born of curiosity, for that odd little fellow, while she shook her own slops out of the Bank of England note and read the words, I promise.

  Solly Schwartz, in high humour, limped to Lanzi’s Café in Dean Street and, rubbing his hands over a pot of coffee and a dish of ham and eggs, congratulated himself on having not wasted a night and upon the sound investment of a ten-pound note. An observer from the outside might have wondered why Solly Schwartz was so gay.

  But he knew why he was happy that morning. It was because of Love.

  *

  He gloated over love, gulping down his ham and eggs. The waitress, a Sardinian girl who had a superstitious terror of hunchbacks, watched him with awe: she had never seen a man eat quite so fast—let alone a hunchback with a game leg, dressed loud, and audibly chuckling while he shoved the food into his frogmouth.

  Having finished his ham and eggs, he ordered another pot of coffee and a ham omelette, still grinning and rubbing his hands. She was perturbed; she wondered quite fearfully what it was that amused him so. Her name was Giglio, and she had seen hunchbacks before, one in particular in Sardinia, who was considered as a man possessed of the devil. Calling “Amb omblet!” down the hatch, Mrs. Giglio wondered about that deformed little man. He was laughing to himself. That was unhealthy. Laughter was healthy only in company.

  The fact of the matter is, that he had achieved a sort of divinity, because God is Love, and, having discovered a means of mastery over love, Solly Schwartz had become God. That is to say, God of what he thought was Love.

  Love. Gulping eggs and at the same time chewing bread and swallowing coffee, he opened his mouth in a smile full of champed-up food. A sporting sort of lady at the next table, catching a glimpse of him, turned her head aside and asked her escort to get the bill, for Solly Schwartz made her think of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. She whispered: “Norman, that little man is looking at me!”

  The man called Norman, who was, as the saying went, “in drink”, scowled at Solly Schwartz and asked: “Were you looking at this lady?”

  Solly Schwartz said: “Yes, I was. What’s the matter? What does she get herself up for, if not to be looked at? Answer me that! Are you trying to pick a fight with me? Start, Charley, and I’ll finish!”

  “Who are you calling Charley?” asked the man, drawing back his cuffs.

  “You, Charley,” said Solly Schwartz, ghoulishly gulping the last of his ham. Then he became contemptuously eloquent. He continued: “I’ve warned you in advance—you start, and by Christ I’ll finish! Try it and see.”

  “Hit him, hit him!” said the sporting young lady, but the gentleman held back, for he did not like the look of this peculiar man who, in spite of his stunted and deformed figure, appeared so calm, confident, and desperate; leaning, like something out of a Punch and Judy show, upon the handle of that ponderous yellow stick with its carved inscription: Corfu.

  Schwartz went on: “Looking at, looking at! What am I looking at? I’m looking at something that has been stuck under my nose to be looked at, trottel! I’m looking out of curiosity, schlemihl! What is she looking like that for, if it isn’t to be looked at?”

  The gentleman called Mrs. Giglio, the waitress, and, pointing towards Solly Schwartz, said: “This man is being offensive. Please ask him to leave.” But the waitress had just brought his new order, and pretended not to understand.

  Between forkfuls of food, Solly Schwartz mocked at the gentleman and his lady, saying: “Mug! Do you know what you’re making eyes at? What d’you think you’ve got there? You idiot! Love, eh? I’ll tell you—powder, paint, perfume, and on her belly corset-marks. Wash her face and look at her without her stays, trottel! What d’you think she colours herself up for, except to be looked at, eh?”

  The gentleman rose and said: “If you will step outside, I’ll knock you down.”

  Solly Schwartz replied: “Why wait? Try it now, trottel,” and swallowed another great mouthful.

  The lady whispered: “Do come away, dear!” and stood up; whereupon the gentleman threw down a two-shilling piece and, without a look at Solly Schwartz, conducted her to the door.

  She, however, before the door slammed to, looked back. Solly Schwartz grinned at her. She smiled at him. Then the door closed, and they disappeared into the pale morning.

  Now, Solly Schwartz, taking a great handful of Cioccalato Baci—the sweetmeats that contained amorous messages—sat back to consider the state of the universe.

  Munching, confidently smiling, remembering every detail of the night, he knew that his money had not been thrown away. He turned over every idea with which the harlot had inspired him; every detail of her whorish maquillage, and every aspect of her saleable body—the used-up perfume dabbed on to overlay the exhausted odour of sweaty arm-pits, clumsily scraped, and of other body smells … the growths of incongruously coloured hair … and the aroma of Woman, at which his wide nostrils twitched.

  When the waitress came with his bill, Solly Schwartz contrived to manœuvre his nose close to her shoulder, without giving offence; and recoiled in disgust because she was redolent of the sweat of the night, just like the strange woman out of the Alhambra.

  This delighted him. He was beginning to understand Sex as Commerce. Women, on the whole, were physically unpleasant to mankind and to themselves. They were ashamed of themselves. They were ashamed of their axillary and pubic tufts, of the straightness of the hair on the head, the flaccid hang of their breasts, the stink of their breath—and other exhalations of themselves—and the pallor of their bloodless lips and
pasty faces. The time was to come when every woman should put on a new face every morning, just as every month …

  … This was another possibility. It could wait.

  He thought again of the dyeings and cosmeticisings, the perfumings and deodorizings and depilatings of the woman of the Alhambra, and of every detail of her dressing, while he drank yet another cup of coffee. After that, when he called the girl, Giglio, over to change a pound note, he said to her: “My dear, I don’t like to tell you, but you smell horrible.”

  “What, me?” she said.

  “Sorry,” said Solly Schwartz, and went out.

  Before the door closed, he saw her sniffing at herself, suspiciously. Walking along Dean Street, chuckling, he exclaimed: “Wow!”—and gave half a crown to a beggar woman in a doorway, who, having incredulously examined the coin, tucked it into a secret pocket, assuming that the hunchback was drunk.

  But he was very far from drunk that morning—few men have ever been more sober than Solly Schwartz on that occasion.

  *

  He, who had developed something like a fanatical yearning for the transient, had found the consummation of it—love and beauty, pruritus and vanity. His iron foot and the steel ferrule of his heavy stick made something like music as he almost danced into Shaftesbury Avenue. He had his powerful hands locked upon the most evanescent and profitable things in the world. He had several of the Deadly Sins in his grasp—Envy, Hatred, Malice, Vanity, Pride…. He had dreamed of a commodity that should be impermanent as smoke. Now, by the Lord, he had found something even less tangible and more saleable than smoke—Maya—Illusion.

  Solly Schwartz had discovered himself as an advertising man, and a pioneer in the marvellously replaceable business of painted, powdered, scented, shaved, plucked, curled, varnished bodily pride. Overnight, this exhilarated little man had become an expert in the exterior aspects of love, and a connoisseur of female vanity. He was too excited to ride, so he walked—hopped, rather—to his little flat, thinking of all the things that might be bought and sold, and come and go … of the desire of the male for the female; the need of the woman for the man, and how she had to deceive him always, living in disguise. Once she had represented herself as a woman wearing a certain mask, or disguise, she dared not drop it until she had him hooked. Later on, of course, wise to the false face, the laced tits, the drop-dilated eyes that pouched in the dawn when the lips grew pallid and the breath began to stink—later, he would seek a new illusion … another mask, another lie, another hole, another emptiness.

  Between Leicester Square and Haymarket, Solly Schwartz conceived the idea of a great Beauty Trade.

  CHAPTER XXI

  CHARLES SMALL remembers another festive occasion when his mother went, on an emergency call, to visit goodness-knows-who—one of her detested sisters who had to be operated on for what was called a Carneous Mole. What Mrs. Small proposed to do about it, barring weeping, God knew. She had, however, heard that this Carneous Mole had something to do with the womb, and therefore it was necessary for her to assist in the matter, if only to the extent of whispering and biting at her forefinger, and saying: “Men! Selfishness!” So she went to join her foregathered sisters—who were no better than she—always excepting the detested wife of Nathan, the abhorred Photographer. Before she left, Millie Small laid out a cold roast fowl and a salad containing hard-boiled eggs, and left strict instructions concerning the making of a cup of tea. Then, carrying a big bunch of flowers, she departed. And again the atmosphere of the house grew lighter.

  It was a Bank Holiday. I. Small (give the devil his due, he was not a bad old stick) slapped his son on the shoulder in a comradely fashion, and said: “Not a word, boychik—what about Hempstead Heat?”

  “Hampstead Heath?” said Charles Small.

  “What did I said? Hempstead Heat! Get your cap, boychik—come on!”

  So they went to Hampstead Heath on the Bank Holiday, the furtive, festive, liberated I. Small and his bewildered but delighted son, Charles.

  A quarter of a mile away they could hear the screaming of calliopes, and a sort of mutter which resolved itself into the joyous babble of a multitude of proletarian nobodies who, for once, had decided to throw away their savings to get away from the memory of the means whereby they had scraped them together. They whirled around and around on the merry-go-rounds, and swung desperately on the swing-boats … always grating or rocking to a standstill and getting off at the very spot where they had climbed on. They blew little striped strident paper trumpets, and wore curious hats. They blew away their hard-earned money in the rifle ranges. They were out of their minds. I. Small, again, went mad with the rest. He had a go at skittles, hurling the balls with all his might, hitting nothing. He even attempted, gingerly, to fire a tiny rifle at a clay figure. He missed every time. He spent eighteenpence on any number of goes at smashing up The Happy Home—throwing wooden balls at a dresser full of plates, cups and saucers. (He broke one saucer.) So, exhausted, he conducted his son to the gambling games. The most conspicuous of these was a round table covered with soup-plates. On the face of each plate was clearly marked a sum of money, ranging from twopence to two shillings. The two-shilling plates were most remote, in the middle of this little arena, right next to the hole into which the balls dropped after they had missed their objectives. The balls were celluloid ping-pong balls, penny a ball. It was almost impossible to get one to come to rest in a plate. Still, the old man bought a shilling’s-worth of balls and gave six of them to Charles. Then they started to throw. Charles aimed for the two-shilling plates. He missed, of course—the balls bounced away into the black hole, and so these pennyworths of ambition were lost. I. Small went cautiously for the smaller numbers. Needless to say, he missed. But just as his fifth ball bounced out of a sixpenny plate and he growled: “Bleddy beggary!”—somebody, by some mad freak of chance, flipped a ping-pong ball into a two-shilling plate, and roared bloody murder, so that the side-show man turned to attend to him. Taking advantage of this moment, I. Small leaned forward and dropped a ball into the nearest threepenny plate.

  Charles Small was terrified—perhaps one of those black gypsies was watching. But the side-show man, having settled his accounts, gave I. Small threepence, and a dark look. Now I. Small was in high spirits. He took Charles to Jack Straw’s Castle. Edging his way through the throng, he said: “Ginger-beer? A smoked selmon sendwich?” But he produced one ginger-beer, one pint of bitter, and two ham sandwiches.

  Winking, the old man said: “Nice smoked selmon? Eat—what’s the matter, what?”

  Charles Small ate, without much appetite.

  He was somehow humiliated by his father’s laying out of a shilling, cursing at the loss of elevenpence, and rejoicing at the return of threepence.

  Cheat!

  Yet who is he to talk? He does not like to think of the old man dropping his ball into the threepenny plate; but it enrages him to think of his own penny balls, aimed at the highest and most dangerous prizes and always falling down into the dark hole.

  Tap, tap, tap go the ping-pong balls from dish to dish. Once launched, you could scarcely follow them with a normal naked eye. So, between the daylight and the inevitable black hole bounces his uncontrollable light mind—will-less, empty, inflammable and, after two or three half-hearted bounces, rolling, dispirited, into the Pit.

  *

  … Balls! It was all balls. Charles Small clenches his hands at the thought of the loss of his balls. (Aie, aie, aie—the image of the old man hurling his balls at The Happy Home and knocking over nothing but a saucer!)

  When he was a schoolboy, he was made one of the cricket team, and stood high in the opinion of the captain, because he had a quick eye and a supple wrist with a bat. As a bowler—a thrower of balls, he was wild and inaccurate, just like the old man—but when it came to fending them off and sending them elsewhere, he was not bad.

  The time came when he was invited to make one of a team that was to play an important match in public against anot
her little school. It was necessary for him to wear white flannel trousers, a cricket-shirt, and a cricket-cap. He spoke of the matter to his father. The old man said sententiously: “Well, sis already not a bad thing. Everybody looks at you, you’re a Something, a Somebody. You can make touch miv people after your critic match—get a good job.” Now unexpectedly I. Small began to roar: “Job! Schmob! Beggar the bleddy job! So long as you’re not a dirty bleddy boot-maker, beggar the bleddy job! Critic, schmitic—play, play! … White shoes? Not worth while to knock you up a pair—can get a pair rubber-soled plimsolls, for one-and-six. White trousers? Take the few shillings and play, Khatzkele!”

  Charles did not thank his father. He only said: “Charles, not Khatzkele.” And then he went skipping to his mother with the news.

  Now Mrs. Small had been talking, over tea, with one Mrs. Fitch, a woman who was a bladder of lurid reminiscence. If you pricked her with a word, gassy lies squirted out of her until she collapsed into the shrivelled membrane that she was, and dragged herself away vampirishly to bloat herself with more tales. This woman had told Mrs. Small terrible stories about small boys. Many years previous her son had burned himself in some boyish prank. It was a dangerous game, but all the boys played it. One tied a string to a punctured tin can, stuffed the can with inflammable material, set light to it, and whirled it round and round until it burst into flames and became red-hot. Her son had had an accident. The blazing can had hit him in the right arm-pit. “The blisters were like a bunch of grapes,” she said. She was an ambulant chapter of accidents. She exercised a profound influence upon Mrs. Small. Now, when Charles arrived breathless with his news of the cricket match, Mrs. Fitch shook her head solemnly and said: “Mrs. Small, if they’re going to play with hard balls, put a stop to it. Do you know Mrs. Shade? Her husband was a cricketer, and he was hit in the privates by a hard cricket ball and … well, it’s not for me to tell you what to do, but if I were you, I’d put a stop to it.”