The Janeites

by Nicolas Freeling

  One shoe off and one shoe on Raymond sat paralysed with his mouth open; he has just thought of a good definition of Art. He looks for these a lot because nobody ever knows what Art is, and scientists are thirsty for a bit of it, getting their little particles littler, and perhaps when we find Higgs’ Boson it’ll turn out to be God. An eighteenth-century English painter-poet wanted a bow of burning gold, and that is unsurpassable? It’s a very stiff test; he doesn’t know many places where that is to be found. He could say where he first encountered it; on the floor of the Mauritshuis in The Hague, in front of the big Vermeer – do an about-turn and there is the Girl in the Turban. A few more chariots-of-fire he could point to, where you’d expect them, in the world-cities, where civilization has been building up for centuries – the Best we can Do, in gallery or concert-hall.

  But how long do the arrows-of-desire take in flight? Five or ten minutes on a stage, and no more for a sunset; he has known pitifully little. The nature of the bow is that it will not resonate for more than the moment or two after Shakespeare ceased to inhabit the actor, Verdi the conductor.

  Of these he has caught glimpses now and then. But in bed with a girl? Fellow says somewhere – Never never never never never. That is pretty strong but I am not totally convinced that either in science or in art is there a definitive never. There is so much that I do not understand. There is another man within me, who is angry with me. One of them is in love with Janine. Desire intense, passion overwhelming, let him only think of her he can think of nothing else. Pain. Doctor Valdez knows a lot about pain. Can claim to be an expert on the subject. Every fibre shudders, every nerve twangs horribly, gut and heart and lungs screaming, it’s in the throat and in the sinus and reaches down to the finger tip; he can be lying quietly and it will jerk him upright. He gets up and drinks a glass of water and walks about barefooted waiting for it to simmer back down to tolerable level. It’s love, this? If a man could go through childbirth it might be like this.

  There are lucid intervals, pain of a different nature, is it a sort of withdrawal-symptom, no, that is a cheap and over-facile remark. It is less physiological. The eating and drinking her, the breathing her, absorbing her, that will come again, catching you up and flinging you down. This is less greedy but you love her perhaps the more. You aren’t quite as wolfish; are you less famished? Or is this the man within?

  We were here and we didn’t want to go out. We got very hungry but the idea of phoning for a pizza nauseated both of us, the Chinaman, the hamburger-man, nonono. Cooking suddenly became funny, we went through the fridge for leftovers, through the shelf for tins, Raymond – that skilful fellow – made wonderful (really they were very good) fishcakes. Three for each. He watched Janine’s technique with these, fascinated. She put a great deal of ‘mexican’ ketchup on all three, scraped it all off to eat with the first, put as much again on the other two and polished that off with the second, repeating this with the last. Ray was delighted. He didn’t feel insulted (taken pains to make the things nice). He didn’t think her vulgar or greedy. He wasn’t disgusted when she used her finger to catch any traces on the plate, licked it and said she wished there were more. If he had thought about it at all he would have said it showed trust; that she felt confidence, was comfortable with him, able to let her hair down. It was loveable in her.

  He couldn’t, probably, have described her, even physically. That would not have thrown doubt upon his truthfulness, accuracy, nor detachment. He loved her. One would have to have asked William – quite a while later. His accuracy of observation struck everyone, including Ray. Trained cop, trained and experienced bodyguard: normal.

  “Janine? I only met her once, no, twice. I had dinner with them in a restaurant. Ray brought her to show off. Her table-manners were perfect, altogether the lady. She was an actress, not very good; highly professional though. Very attractive, tremendous magnetism. Wonderful dancer, marvellous legs. Well – durably – put together. Marvellous tits too.

  “Not beautiful but pretty, fine features. The only thing bad, small narrow eyes. Blue, a sharp electric blue, bit of green in it. Made up well. Lovely nose and ears, wide mouth well cut. Wide high cheekbones, not really Slav, fine forehead. Fair hair; she would have tanned well. Good deep voice, quite a lot of range. Handled herself well. Skilled. Anyhow some talent, I never saw her on a stage.

  “She picked up bit parts pretty often, enough for a living. Ray told me she’d failed for the Conservatoire here, ‘in a year of lots of good girls’. Don’t know if that’s true, she was an accomplished liar. Tried out for television here, they didn’t want her. Had a go in Paris, got a few film parts. Knew her trade, could have made her way no doubt. But expensive flat, sharp little sporty car, spent a lot on clothes, so always broke.

  “No, she wasn’t on the tap, not with Ray anyhow. Little sums maybe, he bought her things but no jewellery or stuff – keepsakes. It would be a big mistake to think of her as grabbing or even false. A generous streak and a lot that was genuine. Of course, I can only go by what he told me. I think she made up stories, didn’t know herself whether they were true or false; all muddled together as I’d guess, in her mind. But when it came to trouble I wasn’t surprised.”

  One would give a lot of weight to William’s view of people seldom met and scarcely known. Among others ‘M. le Marquis’ confirmed that; said William was unusually shrewd at summing up a character and that he’d often found it so. Pretty shrewd himself as well as crooked; probably a good witness. Especially as to whores. Back for a moment to William –

  “No I don’t think you’d call Janine a whore. Came awfully close perhaps, now and then. She was quite intelligent. On the whole, possibly, she was too damn complicated.” Ray himself said that she was given to ‘acting out her own fantasies’.

  “You don’t understand her” warm in her defence. “So very vulnerable, so sensitive, so little confidence in herself. A broken family, nobody to care for her, she’s had some hard times.” It is fairest no doubt to all concerned to leave it at that.

  Doctor Valdez has no ‘consulting room’. He has his being in the office at the Institute, where his mail goes, and he keeps his papers. Here now he sits, and he’s thinking that ‘this won’t do’.

  This so far is nothing but bits and scraps; jerky, jagged fragments of life. Now he must put it together, smooth it out, and make a plan.

  I was called into consultation quite a time ago, to go to Paris, take a look at Monsieur le Marquis. This suggestion did not come from eminent colleagues in Paris who were already treating him. That could happen, does occasionally, but hadn’t. Which makes for difficulties. Deontology: one will not criticize nor interfere with treatment prescribed by eminent colleagues who haven’t asked my opinion. It came from the Marquis himself, who had heard of me God-knows-where and wasn’t saying. He was very insistent that I should have a shot. He has of course the right to consult whom he pleases, including charlatans. I was not in a happy position but did not see my way to refusing.

  I didn’t get far with this. Clinically the crab had got too much of a grip on him. He had refused surgery. The eminent whosis had put him on a good standard treatment which would keep him going quite a while yet. I made efforts to get inside this man, and the best I could do was to get alongside. We liked each other, had some good talk about this-and-that. It stopped short of any real understanding. A politician in all his fibres, hardened and polished by the years; intensely secretive, incredibly devious, and one has to say it, fundamentally dishonest. I had to say what I had been in little doubt of from the start.

  “I can’t treat you.” No foothold, but this old man neither needs nor wants explanations, metaphors, illustrations. He has courage, an immensely sharp intelligence, a remarkable lucidity.

  “You need not worry about it, Raymond. Most men are tools; they come to my hand, I use them. You are not a tool. I enjoy knowing you. You increase my self-knowledge. That is a gain I do not think lightly of. There are those who prolong my life and I am
grateful. Others – yourself – I gain in profundity.”

  “I don’t much like this profit and loss talk.” The old man has a delightful smile. No doubt it has often served him well but that does not interest me.

  Six months later I get a call from him, asking me to look at William. Of course I accept – I owe him that much. I don’t even have to go to Paris; William lives in my back yard.

  Very likely I shall have to go to Paris. This wife – Joséphine – separated, not divorced, is a key, no doubt of it. If I am to do serious work here I must try to know something of this woman.

  Clinically speaking – I have seen the dossier, and Rupprecht’s notes: I have talked to him. I have a chance here. Rupprecht’s policy is mostly defensive. He doesn’t think there is much he can do beyond a skilful delaying action. I am not so sure. For the crab to step backwards is not unknown. To abandon altogether – not unheard of. That depends upon the subject. I call William a pretty good subject.

  It begins to be sure with this firm principle, the refusal of violence. There at our first meeting, in that country restaurant, he had a good and well-told tale.

  “Violencia… Once, a while back, this wasn’t Marky but old Lavigne when he was President, I was drafted for state visits in South America. The Ol’ Man was mad on Incas or whatever, there we were, Olmecking & Toltecking. One temple, we were lodged in a tourist place, I was on duty, little man walks in asking for the Boss. He had a little cardboard suitcase – I want that open, it was full of rocks. What d’you want? Sell you this for five thousand dollars. A fortune to him. Says it’s raw emeralds. I can’t do that. And isn’t it dangerous? I can protect myself, he says, and shows me this gun he has, old seven-sixty-five Mat, wouldn’t shoot a paper doll. Cheap, cheap, he kept saying, me with my three words of Spanish. Three men walked in at the door just like a Western movie, without a word they put three shots in him right in the hotel lobby, behind the desk there’s a clerk and a guard, local man. I’m behind the sofa smartish, they blew all three to pieces, goddam great Colt forty-five, I’ve never seen so much blood. I don’t know what Lavigne got beyond a lot of official apologies, I got a pair of emerald ear-rings, Joséphine has them.” Wonderfully Bald. I have plenty to learn, here.

  “So no belief in violence, personal or professional.”

  “Sounds odd from a cop, all right.”

  “The girl who was raped by the anaesthetist, only her word for it, entire clinic ganged up to say impossible, her fantasy, no proof whatsoever, what would you advise her?”

  “Get a little cutter, held in the palm, do him across both cheeks, it’s old-fashioned but mighty efficient.”

  “But since you’re an old pirate you’d tip him the black spot first, wouldn’t you? Let him sweat.”

  “You’re quite right, it solves nothing. Childish. She can call him up and breathe at him. Fear.”

  “Will it hit his conscience?”

  “He hasn’t any. Miserable bugger.”

  “Your logic’s good. You can only get him through the colleagues but protecting him they protect themselves. Even when they know it’s true, fear for their job, reputation, money.”

  “But they’ll see to get rid of him quietly, and he won’t get another job.”

  “Does that help the girl who got raped?”

  “Plenty girls get raped, learn to live with it.”

  “Less bad.”

  “She’s got to begin somewhere. Who raped me? – poor feeble type – I’ll paddle my own canoe, not worry about his.”

  “Much better.”

  “Place is full of crooked cops,” remarked William indifferently.

  “What d’you do about them?”

  “Nothing. Make up your own mind – you’re going to be straight or you’re going to be bent. Individual choice. Guard work, that’s different. Knew we depended one on all the others. Weak sister there, we threw him out. No choice.”

  Ray remembers – and it’s no coincidence – his conversations with the Marquis. Exactly this same point, of the difference between a collective responsibility and the individual.

  They were in the library. The old man liked to talk with, through or around books. A lovely room, on the shaded side and the light filtered, to protect these beautiful bindings.

  “Fine bindings – pooh. Oh there’s good stuff here but most of mine are upstairs. Here in France we just put on a paper cover. Liked the old days myself; had to cut the pages, some effort involved, knew you’d read the book, then.”

  “But these are beautiful,” said Ray amused.

  “Yes indeed. And some are good. But the English – why do they bother? Good sturdy hardwearing cloth, dustjacket, lot of effort and thought gone into that. Even when it’s trash inside… The world is a very evil place” suddenly.

  “So we say, in the Company.”

  “Books have taught me much, that we don’t learn in the diplomatic service. Politics, bah.” He got up, walked across, opened a bookcase. “You never read Lord Jim?”

  “No.” Ray thinks he ‘might have heard of it’.

  “A case in point,” said the Marquis, rather in the manner of a minister handling a question in the National Assembly. “Asks this same – interesting – moral question.” Turning the book in his hands as though about to guess its weight, talking to it. “Old-fashioned romanticism.” That might have been a dire disease endemic in tropical climates. “Concerns a young officer in the Merchant Marine – a corporation with severe standards. Idealist young man.” (Black-water fever, thought Ray; decidedly not a thing to catch.) “Looks forward to a supreme test of courage in emergency. Fails it. Not altogether his fault, he’s got involved in a crooked deal. Jumps overboard from a sinking ship – only it doesn’t sink. At the subsequent inquiry, is given a severe blame, loses his ticket, with it his job. Black disgrace.” It must have been this that Ray would recollect months afterwards in the pub with William, thinking of the doctor’s fatal calamity. Struck off the register…

  “Mm, it rather falls to pieces from there on. Kindly old man gives him a second chance to make good, as agent for trading company, tropical jungle, island somewhere in Dutch Insulinde. Natives think him a hell of a chap, upright you know, justice, truth. Arrives a melodrama, the details I spare you – can’t remember them myself – involves his word given, to which he must be faithful. Local chieftain convinced of treachery – shoots him. Dies knowing he has kept his word when he could have saved himself Mourned by all – greatly respected. Much good did it do him. I haven’t in the least given you a sympathetic picture” putting the book back in its place lovingly. “I used to collect for fine examples of the binder’s art, for illustrations by a good painter. Decorative, often really beautiful. Tendency to neglect or forget the text inside. A real book you keep in your pocket, not wrapped up in cotton wool. Look, I’ve three editions here of Shakespeare. Upstairs is the one I read – lower deck for the use of.” There were more moments of this kind, for books, Dr Valdez thought, were the royal road to this complicated old man. With a book he was no longer devious, would not be crooked. If only I’d got here earlier, thought Ray, sadly.

  He was thinking now of that scrumptious house up on the hillside where William lived. Had he seen any books? He’d only been in the one room …

  “What d’you like to read?”

  “Never read any books at all.” That is one answer. Another, more to be despised, comes from people ashamed of being thought illiterate. “Never seem to get the time for reading now.” But really it had been an idle question. That was not the road to William.

  “Don’t tell me you look at the television.”

  “Christ no.”

  “So what d’you do? Toy trains? Model ships? Or just sharpen your knives?”

  “Pretty good question. I used to – professional skills, gym, judo, box a bit. Tell the truth – faggoty it sounds – I used to do uh, modern dance group. Too tall though, too heavy. Still, liked that. Hell of a discipline, everything else leaves your min
d. I’d like now… teach myself wood carving.” (Teach myself, notice, as against go-and-learn; does the choice of words point to anything?). “No – plain carpentry. Make – make – desk with drawers. That’s very difficult. Make table, to stand even on four legs, that’s already a tall order.”

  “It’s just you and no one else?”

  “That I agree is the weak point.” Is it possible that the thought of Janine stopped Raymond from asking further?

  “Books have been my faithful friends.”

  “Too damn rarefied for me. Or too goddam stupid. Who’s going to waste time asking who killed Roger Ackroyd?”

  “Millions have.”

  “Can’t any of them be policemen.”

  “People like to be mystified. Look at the last page myself, first. There are other sorts of book,” mildly.

  “I’ve seen them, too. Want to make my flesh creep,” with a massive contempt. “Psycho fellow, knife, lies in wait for little children. I’ve spent too many years with the real thing.”

  “The world is very evil,” thinking of the Marquis.

  “Yes it is. I’ve seen some things, Ray. Before I got tapped to rub along with the Great – a few psycho types there, I could tell you some stories – I was PJ. On the street, on the beat. Police reporter comes, get his story for the paper. Wants a bit of blood to tickle up the readership. Know what he always leaves out, what he wouldn’t thank us to give him? The smell, mate, the stink. You won’t find that, in any of the books.”