The Best of Gerald Kersh

by Gerald Kersh

  I shouted: ‘Alpha, Beta! Here’s the doctor!’

  The echo answered: ‘Octor!’

  I could only pick up my jacket and say: ‘They must have gone away.’

  Dr MacVitie said, drily: ‘Very likely, if they were here at all.’

  ‘Here’s my jacket, damp on the inside and dry on the outside,’ I said. ‘And I have the evidence of my own eyes——’

  ‘No doubt. Very likely. In a lifetime of practice I have learned, sir, to discredit the evidence of my eyes, and my other four senses, besides. Let’s away. Come!’

  ‘But where have they gone?’

  ‘Ah, I wonder!’

  ‘And the dog, where’s the dog?’ I cried.

  He said, in his dour way: ‘For that, I recommend you consult Mr Lindsay, the vet.’

  So we walked down again, without exchanging a word until we reached Dr MacVitie’s door. Then he said: ‘Where did you spend your evening?’

  I said: ‘I came straight to the Barn from The White Swan.’

  ‘Well, then,’ he said, ‘I recommend ye go back, and take a whisky-and-water, warm; and get ye to bed in a dry night-shirt. And this time take a little more water with it. Good-night to ye——’ and slammed the door in my face.

  I walked the half mile to The White Swan, which was still open. The landlord, Mr Lagg, looked me up and down, taking notice of my soaking wet clothes and muddy boots. ‘Been out?’ he asked.

  In Sussex they have a way of asking unnecessary, seemingly innocent questions of this nature which lead to an exchange of witticisms – for which, that night, I was not in the mood.

  I said: ‘I went up to Wagnall’s Barn for Jolly Jumbo’s Carnival. But he pulled out, it seems, and left a man, a woman, and a dog——’

  ‘You hear that, George?’ said Mr Lagg to a very old farmer whose knobbed ash walking-stick seemed to have grown out of the knobbed root of his earthy, arthritic hand, and who was smoking a pipe mended in three places with insulating tape.

  ‘I heerd,’ said old George, with a chuckle. ‘Dat gen’lemen’ll been a liddle bit late for dat carnival, like.’

  At this they both laughed. But then Mr Lagg said, soothingly, as to a cash customer: ‘Didn’t you look at the notice on the bill, sir? Jolly Jumbo was here all right, and flitted in a hurry too. And he did leave a man and a girl (not lawfully married, I heerd) and one o’ them liddle shaved French dogs.

  ‘I say, you’m a liddle late for Jolly Jumbo’s Carnival, sir. ’Cause if you look again at Jolly Jumbo’s bill, you’ll see – I think the programme for the Cricket Match covers up the corner – you’ll see the date on it is August the fourteenth, 1904. I was a boy at the time; wasn’t I, George?’

  ‘Thirteen-year-old,’ old George said, ‘making you sixty-three to my seventy-two. Dat were a sad business, but as ye sow, so shall ye reap, they says. Live a vagabond, die a vagabond. Live in sin, die in sin——’

  ‘All right, George,’ said Mr Lagg, ‘you’re not in chapel now … I don’t know how you got at it, sir, but Jolly Jumbo (as he called hisself) lef’ two people and a dog behind. Hauled out his vans, eleven o’clock at night, and left word with Dr MacVitie (the old one, that was) to go up to Wagnall’s Barn.

  ‘But he was in the middle o’ dinner, and wouldn’t go. Then he was called out to the Squire’s place, and didn’t get home till twelve o’clock next night. And there was a liddle dog that kep’ barking and barking, and trying to pull him up the path by the trousis-leg. But Dr MacVitie——’

  ‘Dat were a mean man, dat one, sure enough!’

  ‘You be quiet, George. Dr MacVitie kicked the liddle dog into the ditch, and unhooked the bell, and tied up the knocker, and went to bed. Couple o’ days later, Wagnall, going over his land, has a look at that barn, and he sees a young girl stone dead, a young fellow dying, and a poor liddle dog crying fit to break your heart. Oh, he got old Dr MacVitie up to the barn then all right, but t’was too late. The fellow, he died in the Cottage Hospital.

  ‘They tried to catch the dog, but nobody could. It stood off and on, like, until that pair was buried by the parish. Then it run off into the woods, and nobody saw it again——’

  ‘Oh, but didn’t they, though?’ said old George.

  Mr Lagg said: ‘It’s an old wives’ tale, sir. They do say that this here liddle grey French dog comes back every year on August the fourteenth to scrat and bark at the doctor’s door, and lead him to Wagnall’s Barn. And be he in the middle of his supper or be he full, be he weary or rested, wet or dry, sick or well, go he must…. He died in 1924, so you see it’s nothing but an old wives’ tale——’

  ‘Dey did used to git light-headed, like, here on the marshes,’ said old George, ‘but dey do say old Dr MacVitie mustn’t rest. He mus’ pay dat call to dat empty barn, every year, because of his hard heart. Tomorrow, by daylight, look and see if doctor’s door be’nt all scratted up, like.’

  ‘George, you’re an old woman in your old age,’ said Mr Lagg. ‘We take no stock of such things in these parts, sir. Would you like to come up to the lounge and look at the television until closing time?’

  Teeth and Nails

  ‘MADAME, I have the honour of wishing you a very good night,’ said Ratapoil, kissing his wife’s fingers. She curtsied graciously. Tessier started then, for a three-branched candlestick seemed to detach itself, of its own accord, from the shadows in a far corner of the dining-room. It was only a slave lighting Madame Ratapoil upstairs, but he was dark and silent as smoke out of a magical Arabian bottle.

  The lady having been bowed out, Ratapoil threw off his gold-buttoned blue coat, and loosened his waistcoat, and the waist-band of his trousers, too. Tessier said dryly: ‘Aie, Ratapoil, old wolf! You stand on ceremony nowadays!’

  Ratapoil said, half apologetically: ‘Tessier, old comrade, in a savage country it is a gentleman’s duty to preserve the Decencies.’

  ‘You have done well for yourself,’ said Tessier, draining his glass. ‘You have come a long way, Ratapoil, since you and I dined off dried dates and crawling green water under the Pyramids … not that it is much cooler here in New Orleans——’ A great black hand came down over his shoulder, and filled his glass from a crystal decanter. ‘– Eh, Ratapoil! Is that a man, or a ghost? Send him to bed, for God’s sake! I hate people coming up behind me like that.’

  Ratapoil dismissed the slave with a jerk of the head. ‘Not a bad boy, that one,’ he said. ‘He is worth five dollars a pound, and weighs a hundred and ninety-five; but I won him at piquet, as against three hogshead of rum.’

  ‘What, so now he deals in rum and slaves! Molière gave us the Bourgeois Gentilhomme; Ratapoil gives us the Gentilhomme Bourgeois! Ratapoil turns tradesman. Aie, but times have changed indeed!’

  Ratapoil said: ‘So they have, old fellow. And one must move with them; although, of course, if anyone but you called me a tradesman he should feel a few inches of my sword in his tripes within ten minutes ….’ He sighed. ‘But nobody would dare. Here, as heretofore, I am still Ratapoil, the Jack of Swords. Nobody dares to challenge me in New Orleans, any more than they did in Paris in the old days; unless they happen to be very drunk. Then, I pink them in the arm to teach them better manners; or, if they are very young, simply disarm them. Oho, I assure you, Tessier, the Creoles treat me with the respect to which I am accustomed. But among themselves they fight like the very devil, either with the colchemarde or else the sword-cane …. Not your line, eh, old comrade?’

  Tessier shook his head, and said: ‘No, I used to have a tolerably light hand with a rapier, fifteen or twenty years ago. Your colchemarde, however, you can keep – it is nothing but a triangular pig-sticker. I am an artilleryman, when all is said and done. Well … I take it that you have not made your fortune exclusively as Master of Arms in New Orleans? … For example, this fine house, “three hogshead of rum” for a slave in livery, etcetera——’

  ‘– Oh, one thing leads to another,’ said Ratapoil. ‘In this country one finds oneself beco
ming a tradesman in spite of oneself. If you want to twist the play titles of Molière, you can call me Le Bourgeois Malgré Lui…. Clever, eh? I opened my little Académie in the Vieux Carré, in the spring of 1813. It was not done, I may say, without a little bloodshed. The Master of Fence at that time was a Swiss named Harter. One word led to another, we measured swords, he was buried the following day (nothing keeps long in this humidity), and I took over. I challenged a Spanish Fencing Master and, on his decease, accommodated his pupils also. By way of advertisement, I then challenged the entire Army of His Majesty, the King of Spain, to come on, one at a time, with sabre, rapier or colchemarde, for the honour of France. Only half a dozen Spaniards took up the challenge; if that child’s play had gone on, His Catholic Majesty would have had to abdicate for lack of soldiers. Meanwhile, I played a little at cards and dice. Nobody dared to cheat me. I won. The stakes were money, or money’s worth – rum, molasses, cane-sugar, coffee, or what not. What do you do with a storehouse-full of such truck?’

  ‘Sell it,’ said Tessier.

  ‘Exactly; thereby becoming a kind of merchant. For example, I bought this house with tobacco. I may also mention that at this time we were living at the Saint Timothy Hotel, at a cost of thirty dollars a month. You may remember that my dear wife Louise was brought up by a most respectable aunt, who used to let elegant furnished apartments to unmarried gentlemen in one of the best quarters of Paris——’

  ‘– I remember your attic room,’ said Tessier.

  ‘To cut a long story short,’ said Ratapoil. ‘Louise said: “They are robbing us, my dear. I could provide accommodation twice as good for twenty dollars a month. The steamboats are on the river now; elegant ladies and gentlemen are coming into New Orleans in place of the Kaintoucks, the flat-boat men. Let us build a fine hotel, stylishly furnished.” “To provide good food and lodging, twice as good as at the Saint Timothy, for twenty dollars a month?” I asked. She said: “No; for forty dollars a month…. And, since you must gamble, why not do it under your own roof? We could set apart a nicely-appointed room for cards and so forth, strictly for the nobility, and with you to keep order….” In brief, old comrade: I am merchant, hotelier, and anything you like. I am rotten rich. And I take this opportunity of telling you that, with the exception of my wife and my toothbrush, everything I have is yours to command.’

  ‘I do not want a wife,’ said Tessier, ‘and I have no need for a toothbrush.’ He bared his toothless gums.

  ‘You used to have excellent teeth,’ said Ratapoil.

  ‘I have none left that show – I was kicked in the face by a horse.’

  ‘You shall have the best teeth that money can buy,’ said Ratapoil, ‘the teeth of a healthy young negress, fresh-pulled; and Dr Brossard will fit them into your jaws, so that you’ll never know the difference. Meanwhile, drink, Tessier, drink. Brandy needs no chewing.’

  Tessier drank, muttering: ‘The devil take all horses, and, in particular, dapple-grey mares that show the whites of their eyes…. Believe me, Ratapoil, men, women and horses are never to be trusted when they show the whites of their eyes below the iris…. Also, beware of Roman noses, they also are signs of danger in men, women, and horses…. Damn that roman-nosed dapple-grey mare from throat-latch to croup; and damn her rolling eyes!’

  ‘I detest horses,’ said Ratapoil. ‘But then I am an infantryman, born and bred. I’d rather trust myself to my own two legs than to the four legs of that most hysterical and cowardly of beasts, the horse. I can at least rely on these feet of mine not to bolt with me if a rabbit starts up under my nose in the moonlight; or not to kick my teeth out when I stoop to cut their toe-nails … Still, horses have their place in the world, also.’

  ‘You are even beginning to think like a bourgeois,’ said Tessier. ‘All the same, you are right. Every grain of sand has its assigned position in the Scheme of Things——’

  ‘– I should say so! Do you remember when I fought LeGrand with pistols in Egypt? A grain of sand flew into my eye just as the handkerchief dropped, so that I missed him clean; otherwise I should certainly have shot him. As it turned out, I was in the wrong; and LeGrand and I became good friends, until he was killed at Eylau. How old is a grain of sand, and how many grains of sand are there in a desert? And how long had that grain in particular been lying there, awaiting instructions to fly up and prevent an injustice? It goes to show … But what were you doing on horseback at your time of life, Tessier?’

  ‘Taking my place in the Scheme of Things,’ said Tessier, sombrely, ‘dust that I am.’

  His pale, toothless mouth pulsed like a frog’s throat as he sucked his cigar alight at a candle. Then he went on:

  *

  … You, Ratapoil, were always a Legitimist at heart. I, au fond, was always a good Republican. But both of us loved France, first and foremost; therefore we gave of our best to Napoleon for the greater glory of France. Our health, our youth, our blood, our marrow – what we had, we gave! And after we had grown old in his service Buonaparte brushed us off, like dust from his cuffs; you for breach of discipline, me as a political suspect. Then we said, in effect: Beware of the Dust, O Emperor! The Wrath of God waits in the Dust! (only you said ‘God’, and I said ‘History’.) And we joined little anti-Napoleonist clubs.

  You were in the Malet Plot; I was a member of the Brutus Club. Still, we were old comrades and helped each other. You escaped from France by the skin of your teeth, in 1812, and came here to America. I stayed, more fool me!

  I still clung to some mad hope of a Republican coup. If that hope had been realised – which it could not have been, because the time was not ripe for it – I should now be a General. As events occurred, Louis XVIII came back to France when Napoleon went to Elba.

  You, wisely, stayed in New Orleans. But, where was I to go? Whichever way the cat jumped, I was the mouse. At that time the Bonapartists hated me; the Legitimists hated me; the Republicans, driven underground, split into a hundred tiny sects, every one of which execrated me as a heretic, a Republican of the old-fashioned Classical School.

  I got out of Paris and wandered, living from hand to mouth. For a while I was a waiter in Antwerp, and then I worked for a bookseller in England, compiling a French Grammar and Phrase-Book for Young Ladies. Then I went to Belgium, as courier and what-you-will to an Anglo-Indian gentleman. But, not long after Napoleon returned from Elba and the Infantry hailed him, again, as Emperor, my nabob paid me off and made for Flushing and the sea in a light carriage, leaving me with a trunkful of soiled linen, and one of his horses – a dapple-grey mare named Cocotte.

  She had cast a shoe on that appalling stretch of road between Marchienne and Fontaine l’Evêque, by the River Sambre: a most desolate and dreadful place, a brooding brown plain under a sky such as must have hung over Sodom before the fire fell from Heaven. Only, in this case, the heavens were full of water, but none the less black for that. It was a wet spring, that spring of 1815, and nowhere wetter or more sombre than at Marchienne, where the Sambre runs from above Landres to join the Meuse at Namur.

  We had put up at a questionable kind of inn. Originally, it had been named ‘L’Aiglon’, the Imperial Eagle. As soon as Napoleon was deposed, the landlord had painted out his sign, leaving it blank. Later, he had daubed on a Fleur-de-Lys. When we arrived, he was trying to smear back the Eagle: the news of the Emperor’s return from Elba had already broken.

  ‘If we scraped off a few strata of paint,’ I said to him, ‘no doubt we should come to the Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité.’

  He said: ‘I am only a poor inn-keeper, I am a neutral – I move with the times.’

  This inn-keeper’s name was Morkens, and he was a boor. He had some arrangement with the local blacksmith: if a traveller lost a tyre, a horseshoe, or the merest lynch-pin, the blacksmith would detain him, so that he was compelled to stay with Morkens. Morkens charged the traveller treble, and the blacksmith charged him quintuple; each paid the other commission.

  We paused at this inn (call
it what you will), intending to stop for two hours. Two days later, the mare was still unshod. ‘Is it my fault?’ whines this execrable Morkens. ‘If milord is in a hurry, I can sell him a horse——’

  ‘Do so,’ says my master; and Morkens sells him an abominable screw for the price of a thoroughbred, swearing that he is taking the bread out of his children’s mouths.

  ‘I’ll pay!’ cries my nabob, dashing down golden guineas. Then, to me: ‘Here’s your money, my good man. Can’t take you with me. Travelling light – can’t spare weight. Here’s another ten guineas for you.’

  ‘Your trunk, milord? The mare?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, damn the trunk and confound the damned mare! Keep ’em! I’m away!’ cries he.

  And off he went, bumping over the most dismal and treacherous road in the world, leaving me standing under an equivocal sign that creaked outside the world’s worst inn, rubbing elbows with the meanest rogue in muddy Flanders: Morkens.

  The chaise was not out of sight when this Morkens turned to me, and said: ‘The linen he left behind in that trunk is of the finest cambric——’

  ‘– How do you know?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh,’ said Morkens, ‘I gathered as much from the quality of the stuff your master had on his back. Why do you ask? Would I look in his trunks?’

  ‘Of course not,’ I answered.

  You understand; my instinct warned me to continue to play the perfect courier-cum-valet de chambre with this Morkens. I spoke primly, but at the same time gave him a sidelong glance, smiling with the right-hand corner of my mouth, while I winked with the left eye, falling impassive, again, upon the instant.

  ‘Now, look here,’ said he, ‘then we’ll go halves.’

  ‘Halves? Of what?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, linen and what-not,’ said Morkens. ‘The linen, the horse …’