by Gavin McCrea
The injured man is balancing between two ashplants. In his aspect the good lords over the bad, though he isn’t a man you’d ask for a direction with any faith you wouldn’t be cursed at. What I suppose to be presentations are made. When my turn comes, Jenny switches to the English.
“And this is Frederick’s dear spouse, Lizzie. An Irishwoman.”
They dip a final bow in my direction before being led into the dining room.
Nim has to run around and reset the table before we’re put sitting down. Jenny fills the time by making a theater of deciding who to put where. I make myself busy lighting the candles that have been blown out by the draft we bring in. The table is laden—dishes of tomatoes and strawberries and grapes and greengages, bowls of nuts and savories, a Russian salad—but I know that Jenny likes to keep her courses spare, and I’m curious to see if there’ll be enough to sate the extra stomachs. (Spiv in the kitchen won’t be happy, but at least Pumps might do as she’s told and not put a foot higher than the scullery step, for she won’t want so many men to see her dressed as she is, in the dreariest bonnet I could find in her wardrobe.)
I’m glad to be sat at the corner, away from the horror of making myself understood. Frederick is put on my right, Karl at the head to my left. The wine has been taken from their dandy green bottles and put into dull-looking jugs. Nim pours from these now. Once all our glasses are full—it takes an uncomfortable time for her to get all the way round—Karl bellows out a toast. At the other end, Jenny makes to stand, but remembers the wounded man’s condition and sits back down. We touch glasses from where we are.
After some murmuring and shifting, Karl drops his eyeglass and clears his throat. All heads turn to this end. He speaks loud and in the French. During his pauses, his mouth makes that sarcastic curl that Frederick says makes his enemies quake. Hair like wire pokes out from his ears, long and strong enough for a bird to land on. He’s wearing his usual broadcloth. Poor Frederick, meantime, has gone all out with the silks. It can’t be chance alone that his necktie matches the runner on the table.
While Karl speeches, I can’t help handling the silver, which has been shined to blinding. The china has been rubbed to white by time. Invisible on the linen, it is, and brittle as the host, though it probable cost a sum nonetheless. I see my fiddling has been noticed, so I take my hand away. Folding and unfolding my napkin under the table, I wait for the soup.
With Frederick’s help, by the time the second broth is cleared and the fish arrives, I’ve put names on some of the Frenchmen. The thin, raw-boned one is Lenoble. The one with the ragged pair of worsted gloves tucked under his plate and the busy gob tucked under his nose is Boyer. The stern one, strong-made, is Pernaudet. Ottlick isn’t French at all but a Magyar. He’s my first glimpse of his race, and it’s a letdown, though the patch on his eye is fair and impressing. The wounded man is Bouton. He has been silent since we sat down, keeping watch. He catches my eye now and smiles like he knows what I look like out of my shimmy. I look away. Give my flush to the wall.
Frederick does most of the speeching during the meat course, which isn’t long, for it contains a turkey that looks much less massive now it’s cooked and put in the center of this crowd. While Nim carves, Jenny fiddles with the cuff of her blouse and, by her staring, tries to will more meat off the bone. I do my bit by refusing more than a smitch. I can fill myself up with water, I think, and reach for the third glass on the right (you only make a mistake with finger bowls once).
With pudding—fruitcake, custard, jelly, ices, nuts, and cream cheese—Nim also brings bread and butter and seed cake and macaroons and wafers in case anyone is still hungry. No one dares touch any of it, except the Frenchmen, who larrup in, but they have the excuse of being strangers.
Talk about the war starts up. Anxious that I not be ignorant of what’s passing, Frederick speaks in the English about the manifestations in London in favor of British assistance to France. Jenny—in a voice far more foreign than I know it to be—tells the men that her daughter, too, is across the Channel, working with her husband, Mr. Lafargue, to end Prussian occupation, and then, of course, to bring about the final Revolution. Karl says that a German victory, and a carving up of France, would end by forcing France into the arms of Russia, followed by a new war of revenge, which would act as a midwife to revolution in the East. The men listen and have opinions of their own, which they give out in the French.
Where there is now a lull, Lenoble gives Nim a nod and she brings him two parcels he has given her to put away. The crumpled brown bag, he holds out to Jenny. She clutches her chest and cries out. Only when he insists does she take it and look inside. More yelling.
“What is it, Frederick?” I whisper.
“Dried apricots,” he says. “They would have preferred to bring a bottle of something French and good, but times are bad.”
To Karl they give the gift covered in newspaper.
Frederick nudges me. “They have wrapped it with one of my articles about the war, do you see?”
At first Karl is careful not to tear the paper, but the French jeer him till he rips it open. A book. He reads the title and everyone laughs.
“What is it, Frederick?”
He starts to explain, but soon stops and calls across the table.
“Mr. Lenoble, if it doesn’t displease you, can you explain in English what the book is, for my wife’s sake?”
Lenoble bows an elegant bow. “Madame Lizzie, the book is called Confessions of a Breton Seminarist and it tells of all the ways the religious men and women in France misbehave themselves.”
“We used to read about the Empress,” snickers Boyer, “now we read about the nuns!”
Roars of laughter. Jenny yelps and claps her hands. I sip and bide for the noise to die down before I says, “Is it true? What it says in the book?”
Lenoble wipes his mouth. “When it comes to the religious orders, Madame Lizzie, truth is worse than fiction.”
I can’t be sure what he means, only that it’s of a familiar persuasion. I let it go.
A discussion follows about the refusal of religion by the working classes, and now about the need to abolish marriage as a next step. I open my fan and beat some air into my lung. What puzzles me is why it’s oftenest married people who want marriage abolished, while the unmarried ones, like myself, want it kept safe, in case one day we might need it.
Jenny rises and opens a hand in the direction of the sofas: time to remove ourselves there. Pumps stokes the fires and lights the candles on the tree. Nim pours tea and coffee into cups on the occasional table. Frederick looks after the gin and whiskey. Karl passes round the cigars. I find myself beside Ottlick.
“In France,” he says, “men and women separate after dinner.”
“Oh, I think it’s the same here,” I says. “Only we’re not the kind to go by.”
More talk about the war. More speeches in the English. As far as I can tell, the only one who fails to offer something is Bouton. The longer he stays mute, the more blistering my curiosity for him grows. Perhaps he doesn’t have the language to grasp what’s being said, or has gone so separate in his head that he can’t even hear it. Perhaps he’s one of these soldiers who can no longer see the beauty in anything, on account of all the death he’s witnessed, and cares least for speeches and words. Perhaps he’s just biding the good moment to put in. Perhaps all he needs is a push.
“Your leg looks very sick,” I says.
The room goes quiet. Jenny bulges at me over her fan.
“I hope you’re having it seen to proper. We know a good doctor if you’re in need.”
He covers his heart and leans down into a bow.
I raise my glass to him. “To life and surviving it.”
A silence now takes command, a silence made of swallowings and sighs. Out of it, Bouton’s voice rises a rumble.
“Madame Lizzie, you are a tradeswoman, n’est-ce pas? A worker?”
“I am. Spent most of my young years in a cotton m
ill in Manchester, and not a bit ashamed of it.”
“A cotton mill, oui, this is what I’ve been told. Is it also true that your, ah, your husband here owned the factory you worked in?”
“Monsieur!” Frederick is up quicker than a lady-do-naught sitting down. He disguises his haste by taking an ashtray and holding it out for Bouton to tap his cigar on. “Mr. Bouton, you speak on a complicated matter and, moreover, one that is now past. Myself and my wife now live away from Manchester.” He puts the ashtray down, stabs his own cigar into it. “It is no secret that I come from a family of capitalists. Bourgeois and philistine, those were the unfortunate circumstances I was born into.”
I can’t help being impressed by Bouton’s sharpness, his knowing precise where the weak point is, but I pity my Frederick more. It’s not uncommon that he has to answer to this charge, not uncommon even though the world knows he worked in that mill to keep Karl and the Movement afloat. And knock me acock if I ever see Karl having to defend himself in this way.
“Believe me, Lieutenant,” Frederick says, moving back to his chair but not sitting on it, “I never lost sight of the contradictions of my situation. I managed the mill because I had to. Destitute, I would not have been much help to our Cause. Be in no doubt, it was a hard time for me. I occupied a position I did not enjoy, and I occupied it for twenty years. What sustained me was the knowledge that my profits were also the Revolution’s.”
Bouton hearkens without cutting in, but he makes sure to show himself unpersuaded. Karl stares at his feet. Jenny offers the wafers round.
“I would also like to say, so that the record is clear,” Frederick says now, flicking out the skirts of his coat and sitting down, “I would also like to say that in Manchester I made a point of not socializing with the bourgeoisie and of devoting my leisure hours to intercourse with plain working—”
“I heard you were quite the fox hunter,” says Bouton, his tone as easy as a sea breeze.
I wince at the clout of it. The colors rush to Frederick’s face. He throws a leg over one way and now the other. Cups his hands over his knee. Jigs up and down. The quiet is complete enough to hear the rustle of my dress as I run my palm down my thigh to dry it. I look at Bouton. I can tell by the stones of his eyes that, in spite of his flippant manner, it doesn’t pleasure him to be contrary like this. He’s not doing it for fun or high spirits, but rather is doing what he thinks a soldier must when he finds himself among parlor men. He’s saying the truth of real things.
“In Manchester,” says Frederick, “I discovered poverty and degradation among the working people worse than in any civilized place on earth. But I also discovered a proletarian culture of significant intellectual elevation. The laborers devoured Rousseau, Voltaire, and Paine. Byron and Shelley were read almost exclusively by them. On Sunday evenings thousands filled the Hall of Science to hear lectures by their working brothers on political, religious, and social affairs. And I was there with them. I was there to hear those men whose fustian jackets scarcely held together speak on geology and astronomy with more knowledge than most bourgeois paper-shufflers possess.” He tucks his hair back. Runs a finger over his lip and smiles. His esteem is recovering. “I can assure you, all of you, that even when in the service of cotton capitalism, I was never anything but devoted to the International.”
“I’m certain Mr. Bouton is not suggesting otherwise,” says Lenoble.
“S’il vous plait, Mr. Engels,” says Pernaudet, “Mr. Bouton was simply being curious. He did not mean to cause offense.”
Frederick bends forward into a bow and takes his drink back up.
“Mr. Bouton,” he says, and salutes the soldier.
“Mr. Engels”—Bouton returns the gesture—“do forgive me if my questions are bold. I have been so long among fighting men whose manners were poor, I am prone to forget myself. I hope you can excuse me.”
“Please, Mr. Bouton,” says Frederick, “there is no need to apologize.”
And, with that, it looks like it’s over, the storm blown wide. Frederick sits back and slugs down. Bouton turns his attention to lifting his bandaged leg and carrying it to a new spot on the carpet. Jenny rushes over and puts a cushion under. Ottlick turns to me with a small conversation about the weather in London and how it compares to the outside world.
“It’s the only thing,” he says, shaking his head, “the only thing for which this city cannot claim greatness.”
I nod and smile for politeness’ sake, but in truth, my interest is what I can see over his shoulder: Bouton and the winds still howling through the ruts on his face.
“There is still one thing I do not understand, Mr. Engels,” he says.
Frederick pulls away from Karl’s ear. “What is that, Mr. Bouton?”
“Since my arrival here in London, your role has been explained to me on a number of occasions and by a number of different people, and yet I cannot seem to comprehend it quite.”
“My role?”
“Your role, Mr. Engels, your position in the International, as you call it. If you have left the situation by which you were financing it, what do you do for it now?”
This churns Karl right up. He rises—creak!—to stand by Frederick’s chair. Slaps a hand onto his shoulder. “Mr. Bouton, please, if I may speak for my colleague. The man you are addressing, and with such ill-manner, if I may say, is our corresponding secretary for Belgium, Italy, Spain—”
Frederick murmurs something.
“And Portugal and Denmark, that’s right. This, Mr. Bouton, is none other than the man in charge of coordinating the proletarian struggle across the Continent.”
Frederick accepts Karl’s tribute with a quick nod.
“It sounds like your secretary does important work, Dr. Marx,” says Bouton.
“I can assure you he does,” says Karl. “Important work and apparently thankless.”
With a proud flick of his head, Karl seizes Frederick’s glass and brings it to the drinks tray with his own.
“Have you ever fought, Mr. Engels?” says Bouton.
His back still to the room, Karl slams down his glass. “Indeed he has!” He swings round. “Back in forty-eight he was involved in no less than four important battles against the Prussians. He himself raised the red flag over his hometown. In theory and in practice, Mr. Engels is an expert on war. It is not for nothing we call him our General.”
Bouton smiles a conceding smile. “I did not know this history of yours, Mr. Engels, and am most glad to learn it.”
Frederick receives this weak praise with an extravagant whirl of his hand. “Now that you are in London, Mr. Bouton, I hope we shall have many more opportunities to learn about each other.”
Karl gives Frederick his drink and, mumbling quiet oaths to himself, returns to his own seat. He plumps down. Pulls the thighs of his breeches towards himself so that their ends come up over his boots to show a sliver of pale and spotted skin.
“And you, Dr. Marx? Have you ever fought?”
The grin comes so quick to my face I’ve to rush to cover it with my fan. I see it now. Karl has been Bouton’s target all along. He’s been going through Frederick to find his way to him. A coil in me loosens, and I feel I can start to enjoy myself.
Karl gulps down and wipes his mouth with his sleeve. For a grain of what has already been said, I’ve seen him drench bodies in bitter slang. This time, though, he manages to keep his temper. “If forty-eight has left us with a lesson, Mr. Bouton, it is the danger of inadequately prepared rebellions. It is my duty as a revolutionary leader to educate the proletariat towards its eventual destiny. Without instruction and guidance there can be no useful action. We all cannot, nor should we all, be soldiers. To the Revolution, as to the new society, we must give according to our abilities.”
“And the International? What does it do? Does it have an army?”
“Our Association constitutes nothing more than the bond between the most advanced workingmen in the various countries of the civilized world.�
��
“A bond?” says Bouton. “Does the bond do anything?”
“Its task is to infuse workers’ groups with socialist theory and a revolutionary temper.”
“You mean its task is to sell your books.”
Lenoble and Ottlick both fling their arms out in objection. “Monsieur Bouton, s’il vous plait. We are guests in Dr. Marx’s home!”
Bouton ignores them. “Don’t you think, Dr. Marx, that the workers would be moved more easily by appeals to direct action than by learned treatises about labor and capital?”
Uproar. Everyone on their feet, shouting and flailing about. Everyone except Bouton, of course. And me. You won’t find me up there bawling over politics.
Karl raises up to calm the waters. “Bitte, bitte, bitte,” he says, and now when he has quiet and everyone is sitting again, “You know, Mr. Bouton, you are right. Ideas can accomplish absolutely nothing. Ideas never lead beyond the established situation. They only lead beyond the ideas of the established situation. To become real, ideas require men to apply practical force. However—and this is the vital point—force must be organized by the new idea. Force without the new idea is wasted.”
Bouton folds his arms across and frowns. “You speak of action, Dr. Marx, but what action is your organization taking? I am sorry but I cannot believe it to be merely a coincidence that your headquarters are in the only country in Europe determined not to revolt.”
Again, chaos. Again, everyone up and shouting. This time, though, Karl follows Bouton’s lead and stays in his seat. Screened by the dancing bodies and the curtain of blue smoke, he digs his elbows into his lap and lets his head fall into his hands, reaches his fingers into his brush and scratches his scalp.
“Will the cursed peace in this country ever end?”
When things have settled, Karl leaves for the cellar to choose something to fill the empty jugs with. He plods out, followed by Frederick, and now by Lenoble, Boyer, Ottlick, and Pumps. Jenny rings for Nim and helps her bring some things downstairs. On the way, she tries to collect my eye, but I look down and sit tight. I spend enough time in my own kitchen.
