On the other hand, I was getting lots of free champagne and I felt an obligation to be companionable. “Uh, given this unhappy chore—that of marrying a person of the opposite sex—what would be your criteria for a prospective wife?” I smiled politely. “Should I come across a suitable candidate somewhere, perhaps back home.” I had several ex-girlfriends I would have liked to sic on him.
“Americans? Oh good heavens, no!” he cried. “I cannot endure them. They speak in conundrums when they’re young; when they’re old, in homilies.”
In my unsuccessful effort to understand that statement I concluded that I probably did, after all, feel the champagne more than I had realized. “Yes, well, perhaps you might tell me what kind of woman you would find least repulsive: blond, brunette, tall or short, full-bodied or slender, and so on?”
He had widened his eyes early in my list. “Obviously you are not aware that blonds are held in contempt in my country.” He leaned back and snapped his fingers. The signal brought Rupert to the table. It occurred to me that this meal had gone on for hours, a long time for an old man to be on his feet. Sebastian merely breathed heavily in his direction, and Rupert drew a silken handkerchief from his sleeve, held it to the prince’s nose, and Sebastian blew a blast that would have been as shattering as his flatulations had it not been so muted. When this episode was brought to a close, the ancient retainer wadded the cloth carefully and carried it out of the dining room.
The prince leaned confidentially towards me. “I wanted to get rid of him for a moment. He must go to burn the handkerchief that carries the royal snot.... The fact is, Rupert is not as young as he once was. He really makes a cockup of the job. I need a younger and more vigorous man. I could never trust any of my contemporary subjects.” He slapped the top of the table. “Wren, would you like to be my principal body-servant?”
I pretended to ponder gravely on the matter, while my pulse raced in horror.
“Naturally,” Sebastian went on, “I wouldn’t expect you to perform all the duties done these many years by Rupert. You would not be required to attend me at stool, wiping my bum and so on, except in emergencies, midnight alarms, that sort of thing.”
“Sir, you are too good.”
He shrugged genially. “I am aware that times have changed, and that these warm, personal attentions that so characterized one’s association with underlings in the past are now considered too quaint for words! One thinks something precious has been lost, but perhaps I’m hopelessly romantic. In any event, a lackey can always be found for the tasks for which you feel yourself too good.”
“Sir, I—”
“No need to make up your mind on the instant,” said the prince. “I can imagine how staggered you must be at the magnificence of the proposal. Here you are, an obscure tourist, a historical nobody, and without warning you are offered the opportunity to be as near a royal personage as anyone could be, short of a sexual partner, a role you can never play, owing to your advanced age.”
I endeavored to rise above my disappointment at the limitations of the offer. “Indeed, sir, sire, I am overwhelmed. But might I ask about your earlier reference to blonds? They are despised in Saint Sebastian?” Experience has taught me that the most effective way to distract an unwelcome importunity of any kind is to ask a question.
The device worked with Sebastian. “Indeed they are,” said he. “They are the butt of the typical Sebastiani joke. They must stay in their own areas at places of public entertainment, and are barred altogether from cafes and restaurants except those exclusive to themselves. They may pursue any profession, but usually they voluntarily confine themselves to the callings considered inferior by others, for example, the practice of law.”
“Attorneys are blonds?”
Sebastian nodded. “You must understand that litigation is discouraged here, and that criminals are not allowed to have counsel. Thus a Sebastiani lawyer has virtually no work. His principal function is to provide a figure to be derided by those who have useful occupations.”
“The first Sebastiani national I met was a blond young woman, as it happened. She is an airline stewardess.”
“There you are,” said the prince, waving his fat hand. “Politics is against the law here, of course, as is its brother profession, journalism, else they might make excellent pursuits for the Blonds, who by the way some years ago successfully petitioned me to command that their designation be spelled with a capital B. This was during the time of their Blond Pride campaigns.”
Rupert had returned by now. The prince sneered at him and said, “You vile old creature. I’ve just offered your job to Wren. Now, what do you think of that?”
The venerable retainer remained dispassionate. “I think it’s time for your nap. Tell this person to leave.”
Sebastian laughed wryly. “Well, there you are, Wren. I’m afraid that ritual makes slaves even of princes.”
I was not eager to remain. I lowered my champagne glass and stood up. “Thank you, Your Royal Highness, for everything. You can be sure I shall treasure this memory.” This time I remembered to bow. I also thought I remembered that one was never to turn one’s back on a monarch, that he who was departing must keep his front towards the person of kingly rank, bowing while walking backwards, all the way to the exit. I had doubts as to my ability to do this successfully on a route as long as the one that lay between my place at the table and the distant door through which we had entered this vast dining room.
I finally, boldly, presented the problem to the prince.
He pondered on it for a moment. “Why don’t you go back for ten or fifteen paces, until you leave our immediate vicinity, after which you may discreetly turn and proceed on your way without giving the appearance of rejecting the sovereign.” He looked at Rupert. “Wouldn’t you say that might suffice?”
“Certainly not!” snapped the ancient retainer, standing behind the prince’s chair. He had yet to address me directly.
Sebastian chuckled. “I could have predicted his reaction. Those who serve adore ceremony, which gives them something to do, you see. And they are overjoyed when the person in power is himself obliged to obey the commands of custom and tradition. Since he’s done nothing all his life but abase himself before royalty, Rupert must believe that rituals are of the utmost importance, else he has wasted his life. Is that not so, Rupert?”
The old man remained expressionless.
I compromised and backed almost half the long way to the door, going slowly so that I would not trip. In the anteroom I encountered General Popescu, who had presumably been waiting all this while, sitting in an uncomfortable-looking straight-backed chair.
On our way out to the gate I asked him whether he knew what had become of McCoy.
“I’m sure he’s done what he usually does when he comes here,” said the little general. “He goes to the royal wine cellars, finds a bottle or two, and empties them.”
“The prince tolerates such behavior?”
Popescu’s mustache moved. “He must. Any guest is protected by the immutable laws of hospitality.”
4
MCCOY WAS AT THE changing rooms, looking in better shape than had been his on our arrival. We got back into our proper clothes, reclaimed the car, and roared down the hill to town. The engine was too noisy for conversation, and McCoy was the sort of driver who drives as fast as the wheels can turn without losing their adhesion to the road.
Not far from the hotel we went through a square in the middle of which stood a pillory. My quondam enemy the concierge was fixed to it by wrists and ankles. Around his neck hung a wooden sign into which was burned the following legend:
I WAS RUDE
Before him a group of urchins, the first children I had yet observed in this country, were making what I saw only in a dumb show but were undoubtedly jeers and catcalls.
McCoy paid no attention to this spectacle. Arriving at the hotel, he scraped to a stop in the usual manner and left the car. But instead of entering the building he s
taggered several doors down the street and entered a shop identified on its front windows as the office of a cable service. From an inside pocket of the ancient jacket he took a sheaf of papers and presented it to the clerk, a balding person who wore rimless eyeglasses.
This man’s acceptance of the manuscript was given reluctantly, with an audible sigh. “Mr. McCoy,” said he, “I’m afraid—”
“You really should bill New York,” McCoy said hastily. “I’m a mere wage slave of the imperialists.” He threw up his arms, displaying infamous sweat-stains, and left briskly in the peculiar stride that looked as though it were but prefatory to a tumble but apparently never was.
Before I could follow, the clerk leaned on the counter in an attitude that I think was intended as beseeching and said, “I appeal to you, sir, as a countryfellow of Mr. Clyde McCoy! I am sorry to say he owes me a good deal of money. Several times a month he files lengthy cables to America, yet never does he pay me for transmitting them. He insists that I should bill the publications in reference. But when I do, my bills are ignored.”
I crawl with shame when Americans bilk foreigners (while, with my cultured principles, shrugging it off when the swindle goes the other way, as it does mostly). “I’m no authority on the subject,” I told him, “but he might well be right. I should think the Times or Associated Press or whomever he works for are honorable firms and would pay their debts. Perhaps you don’t know the proper form for billing them.”
The clerk frowned. “Those names are unknown to me.” He peered at McCoy’s latest manuscript. “This goes to Crotch: The International Sex Weekly. Is that printed by an honorable company?”
“I can’t say I’m familiar with it,” I confessed. But added quickly, “Which by no means implies that it does not enjoy respect in its field.” I was drifting towards the door: I didn’t want to get enmired in McCoy’s problems.
“Perhaps,” said the clerk, “you would kindly use your own influence to aid me in this matter. Be assured that in gratitude I will see that your own cable traffic is never interrupted.”
Had I been better situated I might have upbraided him as an insolent puppy, for making a threat, but I had not forgotten that Rasmussen had furnished me with no money whatever.
I therefore lifted my finger to my brow, as if in affirmation, and was about to step out the door when, behind me, he added, “I will also introduce you to some pretty boys.”
I stopped and turned. “No thank you, but perhaps you could tell me why since I arrived in your country it has more than once been assumed I am of the pederast persuasion?”
The clerk nodded briskly. “You see, female Blonds are everywhere available in Saint Sebastian. They are expected to give you their bodies. There’s no romance in that state of affairs! But to have a boy is to violate nature, to partake of the forbidden. Now, that’s exciting!”
“It’s against the law?”
“Of course,” said he indignantly. “What country would be so degraded as not to condemn the vile crime of sodomy?”
“What of the brunette women?”
“They’re usually married.”
“And no doubt adultery is considered a heinous crime—?”
“Except with Blonds, of course.”
I went to the hotel, where a new concierge was behind the desk. In every way he seemed a twin to his predecessor, whom I had only just seen in the pillory, his gray-spatted shoes protruding through the lower apertures.
When I reached my room I found McCoy sitting on the edge of the bed. I soon learned, by asking him to leave, that it was his own room as well.
I asked incredulously, “You mean we’re supposed to share it?”
His response was bitter. “You’re complaining? It’s my home.”
I looked around the walls and saw the wardrobe, the screen hiding the bidet and washstand, but nothing that could be considered personal possessions of his. The suitcase assigned to me had been placed on the floor.
“That’s not even a double bed.”
McCoy proved more thin-skinned than I expected. “You’re none too fragrant yourself,” said he. “May I suggest you take a long bath?”
“I’d like nothing better,” I spat. “But where is the bathroom?”
“End of the hall, far right end. The WC’s the other way.”
“You don’t have a private bath?”
“For God’s sake, Wren, you think you’re working for a profitable industry? Economy’s the watchword these days. I can hardly keep body and soul together on what I’m paid—when I’m paid, that is, which at the moment hasn’t been for months.”
“And,” said I, “they’re always trying to cut appropriations further.”
“They’re not making much right now. At least that’s their excuse.”
“What does that mean? Graft or extortion money?”
McCoy frowned. “It means circulation is down and therefore so is the income from ads. That’s what they say, anyhow. I wouldn’t know, being over here.”
It occurred to me that we were speaking at cross purposes. “Aha,” I murmured. “You mean that smut paper which provides your cover. I’m speaking of the Firm.”
McCoy jerked his head indignantly. “OK, so they’re easing me out in favor of a Johnny-come-lately like yourself, but do you have to be so damn superior? I was in Paris before you were born, junior. There was a time when I knew ’em all: Ole Ez, Gertie, Hem. I shared many a bottle of Jimmie Joyce’s favorite urine d’archiduchesse with him: ’swhat he called a certain Swiss white.”
I raised an eyebrow. “I thought you were World War Two. You’re naming the Paris gang of the Twenties.” His eyes rolled, but not in embarrassment. “I’m not displacing you in any sense,” I went on. “I’m regularly a private investigator in New York. I’m just on temporary assignment here—without my consent, I might add. Rasmussen really shanghaied me.”
“Don’t know him,” said McCoy. “Is he the new publisher?”
We were getting nowhere. “Forget about the porn!” I pleaded. “I’m one of you. I’m a fellow agent.”
“I don’t have the slightest idea of what you mean. I got a cable this morning from Mortie Rivers, managing ed. of Crotch, asking me to meet you at the airport and put you up for a few days. He didn’t send any funds, needless to say, not even what they owe me, so this is the best I can do. I don’t think it’s nice of you to sneer.”
I was touched by his appeal. “Forgive me,” I begged. “I didn’t mean to belittle your hospitality, which in fact has been more than generous. I wonder whether this ‘Rivers’ could be one of Rasmussen’s masks?” McCoy continued to show puzzlement, so I finally had to say, “I know this is in execrable taste and as unprofessional as if a mobster were, with reference to his own associations, to use some term invented by the hacks of the communications media, ‘Mafia,’ or ‘Cosa Nostra,’ but I see no alternative to saying CIA.”
“Who?”
“We work for it, don’t we, you and I?”
“I didn’t know there was such a thing in reality,” said McCoy, whether disingenuously or not I couldn’t say. “I always assumed the name was something invented by ex-Nazis when they transformed themselves into left-wingers. The genuine outfit was called the OSS. I never worked for it, but I understand they did a good job against the Krauts.”
“That was during the Second World War,” I said. I began to suspect that years of boozing had given him irreversible brain damage. But whether or not he would acknowledge it, he was my only local contact. “I thought I should compare notes with you on the prince.”
“Why?” asked the veteran journalist.
“Well, for God’s sake, he’s the boss here, isn’t he?”
McCoy shook his head. “Nobody pays any attention to him. He’s stayed up there in the palace for years.”
“He delegates his authority?”
“Naw. He doesn’t have any real authority.”
“Then who has?”
“Nobody,” McCoy said.
“Or maybe I should say, anybody who claims to have it—until of course it is challenged, as I did with the cops. Authority’s usually just an idea, anywhere, except in those countries which maintain large standing armies for the purpose of policing their own citizens.”
I was dubious. “Can’t any individual then take the law into his own hands?”
“Maybe. But who would want to?”
I pondered on this for a moment. “Ambitious people.”
“You won’t find any of them here,” said McCoy. “Money isn’t used in Saint Sebastian. Everything’s done on credit.”
“Wait a moment. Just now the cable clerk complained to me about your overdue bill.”
“That’s because a cable goes out of the country, and foreigners want to be paid for their services.” He thought for a moment, then said, “Hey, maybe that’s why Mortie hasn’t sent me any money for a long time. That little bastard ain’t sending him my dispatches! Lend me a little something, willya, Wren?”
“Very funny,” said I. “But tell me: are you serious? One doesn’t pay for anything here but rather puts it on the tab?”
“That’s why I came here during the war,” McCoy said. “Went over the hill. That and the free cooze, of course, if you like blonds. Used to be a lot of ex-GIs here. The others all fucked themselves to death. Now you take me, I haven’t got one up for several decades, and I consider myself the better for it.” He stood up and uncertainly supported himself with a hand to the edge of the little table. “I just filed my month’s work, Wren. I intend to relax for a while, wet my whistle somewhere in peace. I trust you’ll take that bath before going to bed tonight. We’ll be at awful close quarters.”
Nowhere: A Novel Page 7
