by Simon Raven
‘Not always written. For example,’ said Balbo, wishing to cite a concrete instance that would fully justify his ways to Jones, ‘I am now on my way to Venice to look at a portrait of a man whom I believe to be the original thief ’s fairly near descendant. It is thought that the portrait, which has a background of well-painted landscape, may indicate where the subject lived, or at any rate a place where he was active, at a prosperous period of his life.’
‘Or simply,’ said Syd Jones evenly, ‘the place he went to to have his portrait done, or some other place he just fancied enough to tell the artist to stick in behind him.’
‘Even then, to identify the place might help. My point is,’ said Balbo, ‘that here is a record which could tell me enough to take me yet further back, or possibly to turn me aside, but in either case to take me one stage nearer to news of what I seek.’
‘Or just rumours, as you said yerself. But you’ve sold it to me,’ said Syd Jones equably. ‘If it’s all the same to you, I’ll come along to Venice.’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Balbo, ‘that it is all the same to me.’
‘Of course,’ said Jones. ‘How inconsiderate of me. I’d forgotten that you no doubt like travelling in style, and having me, with only my grotty little Government expense fund, will be an embarrassment. You might even feel you had to stake me from time to time.’
Balbo hung his head.
‘Mr Blakeney,’ said Jones in a very gentle voice, ‘I know all about you. That you were rich and are poor. Don’t be proud. Don’t be difficult, or ashamed. I’d like to come and I’ll pay for the pleasure. This expense fund of mine – we both know it’s not really so grotty but what it’ll feed and water two. Besides, two pairs of eyes see sharper and wider than one. I am…sort of trained…in this kind of thing.’
Balbo looked up and smiled hazily.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Come. To be candid, I’m getting pretty sick of my own company. And it’s a very long time since I’ve spoken with an Englishman.’
‘Sorry, sport. Welshman,’ said short-arse Jones.
‘All cricketers are English under the skin.’
We won’t bother to argue that one now, thought Jones, S, of Glamorgan. The thing is, this poor lonely sod is taking me on (or rather, letting me take him on) because he trusts and likes me (I think); and so I owe it to him to warn him straight off what he’s in for. This business of the rats isn’t going to go away. Even if I didn’t go with him to Venice, he’d be hearing a lot more about it from somebody; and as it is, he’s going to hear it from me. So now let’s warn him, and try to work out a formula for making it all as friendly as we can.
‘Look, Mr Blakeney –’
‘– You may as well call me Balbo –’
‘– Look, Balbo. We’re going to have to do a deal. If I come, I pay –’
‘– Will they let you?’
‘I think they will, providing I go on talking to you about rats. Trying to persuade you to come home.’
‘I’ve told you, Sydney. I’ve got my mission.’
‘Sooner or later, either the trail will peter out, or you’ll come to the end of it. Would you consider coming home then?’
‘Are they going to be that patient?’
‘I hope so…if I ask them nicely. They could put on pressure, of course, and even get quite rough, but they won’t want to do that. You know too many people to complain to.’
‘I used to.’
‘Still do, Balbo. That Provost man at Lancaster College would come buzzing to your aid like a fly after shit – begging yer pardon. If I remind them of him, I think they’ll play it gentle. But you’ll have to let me get on with my persuading.’
‘I’m always happy to listen. I don’t mind being told what they’re up to.’
‘Mind you, I’m a bit hazy about the scientific theory behind it. And like I’ve given out already, I’ll have to be very cagey what I tell yer – until you’ve actually agreed to help them.’
‘But why so cagey, Sydney? You assured me it wasn’t nasty.’
‘I assured you it was necessary, Balbo. There are aspects of necessity which gently-nurtured dons don’t always care for.’
‘I must say, you’re making me very inquisitive.’
‘I aim to, matey.’
‘Balbo. I can endure cobber, sport or fella, but not matey.’
‘Right, Balbo. Next step is to ring up Jermyn Street and put them in the picture.’
Syd Jones had left a lot out when telling Balbo the probable attitudes of Jermyn Street. It was true that they would prefer not to be rough with Balbo but not true that they would desist from being rough out of deference for Lord Constable. It was true that they could be patient and would be prepared to authorize quite heavy expenditure; not true that they would subsidize Balbo’s travels indefinitely on the off-chance that he would prove compliant when these were over. It was quite true that Jones could tell him a certain amount about what he was wanted for, but not true that Jones had, as he implied, a general if not a scientific grasp of the whole matter. His understanding of all but the most rudimentary elements was very deficient indeed, though, to be fair to Jones, he himself could have no idea how deficient. Lastly, it was not true that Jones simply had to ring up Jermyn Street and ‘put them in the picture’ before wandering off to Venice with Balbo. Just as he had misrepresented the situation to Balbo, in order to gain his confidence, so he would now be compelled to misrepresent the situation to his masters in order to retain theirs. For while he never for a moment forgot his professional obligations to Jermyn Street, neither did he forget his duty to Balbo – which was to protect him from the less desirable practitioners in Jermyn Street’s, or its associated departments’, employ. This he could only do by remaining with Balbo, and neither Jermyn Street nor Balbo would assent to this unless he tempered the truth to both of them.
The best way to do this, he had decided, was to convince each of the relative docility of the other. To Balbo he had reported that time would be granted; to his masters he now telephoned that time would be needed. Blakeney, he said, though quite co-operative, was much confused by drink, disgrace and premature old age. It would take time to sort him out. If roughly treated, he would almost certainly end up unsortable. Yes, Blakeney had the ‘sign’ which Jones had been told to look for, the sign that indicated he might still have the special powers premised of him; what he did not have was comprehension, and this Jones could only undertake to induce if given time. Blakeney was anxious to see some picture in Venice, a picture which meant much to him, which he feared he might not see again in his lifetime; and Jones proposed to humour and accompany him, working on his poor shattered intellect the while. Would Jermyn Street approve and authorize this course, together with such expenditure as might be required in order to sustain and comfort an old man, not indeed debilitated beyond hope, but sadly vulnerable to physical circumstance?
No, we won’t, said Jones’ immediate superior; and what the hell are you doing in Corfu? Yes, we will, said the superior’s superior, who had once, long ago, seen Jones make fifty-seven against fast bowling on a bumpy wicket in a rotten light; but don’t go pushing us too far and report promptly from Venice.
So far, so good, thought Syd Jones as he rang off; but suppose my old Balbo finds his clue in Venice and wants to go on somewhere else? What shall I do then, tirra lirra? Head off poor Balbo, or fob off his nibs in London like I did just now? But the same ball won’t beat him twice, dilly dilly, and I’ll have to think of another.
The next morning Balbo Blakeney and Syd Jones took the ferry from Corfu to Brindisi. On the boat Syd taught Balbo gin rummy and Balbo taught Syd piquet. They then ate a long and very nasty lunch, during which Balbo told Syd everything which he himself knew of the nature and goal of his quest, and of the events which had decided him to undertake it. The lunch lasted till it was time for a late tea (Greek coffee laced with Greek cognac and a bar of chocolate). When dusk began to come down they went on deck and watched the
guardian figure of God’s mother loom closer and closer as they neared their anchorage.
‘Time for preacher to do some converting,’ said Jones.
‘Go ahead. You’ve spared me all day.’
‘I’ll start by asking you a question. When you were working with those rats during the war, what went wrong?’
‘I’ve told you. They wouldn’t obey orders. The idea was to use them to spread bubonic plague behind the enemy lines. To do this, three things were necessary: to find a strain of fleas or lice which would carry plague in the climate of North-West Europe; to infect the rats’ fur with these fleas, and to pack the rats off in the right direction, making sure they’d keep going. And that was the trouble. Rats are intelligent animals and pretty quick to get the idea you’re trying to put over; but they are also independent and don’t necessarily want to fall in with it.’
‘Where did you come in on all this?’
‘Originally I was running the flea circus. Poisoning the fleas and making sure they’d be cosy on the rats. Then one day they asked me if I’d like to take a spell at teaching the rats their work. They wanted a fresh mind on the job, they said. So I went along to the rat farm, and found they were still trying to train the brutes in the same way as you train a dog – you know, by demonstration associated with command or prohibition, these in turn being associated with action or performance, and performance being followed by reward or punishment. But rats, as I told you, are a bloody-minded lot, bless ’em, and although they soon got the hang of it all, they’d only deliver the goods when they felt like it. If they weren’t in a giving mood, no bribe could make ’em and no fate could scare ’em.’
Balbo paused.
‘Time for a drink?’ he said.
‘When we’ve finished our discussion,’ said Jones, gently and evenly. ‘So what did you suggest to the boys in the rat department?’
‘Don’t your people know all this?’
‘Yes. And so do I. But I want you to tell me.’
‘Then as you know bloody well,’ said Balbo, ‘I suggested that certain drugs might make the rats more obliging. The trouble with that was that all soothing drugs just made them damned idle while the stimulants made them more perverse than ever. Then we tried addicting them to heroin – withdrawing the dose if they didn’t toe the line. But that was only a new variant of the reward and punishment routine, and they were far too proud and too tough to be had that way. So after that we tried setting up a King Rat and enforcing obedience to him. This worked well enough – except that we could never enforce the King Rat’s obedience to us. He led his troops in a direction of his choosing, not ours. Still no drink, Sydney?’
‘Still no drink.’
‘If I’d been one of my rats, I’d have just gone off and bought one for myself.’
‘Why doncha?’
‘Somehow…I value your approval. And believe it or not, Sydney, in the end it turned out to be rather the same with those rats. Under most of their instructors they got fed up and after a while they did the equivalent of going off and buying their own drinks…i.e. they found something which they liked doing and paid no more attention to teacher. But there were some people whom they seemed to like, or whom, for whatever reason, they wanted to please – just as I find myself wishing to please you, you personally, quite apart from any money which you may give or withhold.’
‘And for such people the rats were always…in a giving mood?’
‘Almost always. We called them Pied Pipers.’
‘And you were one of them, Balbo boy?’
‘No. With me it was different.’
‘How was it different? Tell yer Uncle Syd. What was so special about you, ’squire?’
‘The Pied Pipers…were most of them just lab boys or assistants.’
‘Oh dear me. Not officers and gentlemen?’
‘Not real scientists either. They didn’t know what any of it was about. Their job was to keep the rats in good trim and to feed ’em whatever drugs might be prescribed from time to time. Beyond that, to ask no questions and to sweep the floors.’
‘But it was, as you say, different with the great Balbo.’
‘Yes. And don’t think the rats didn’t know it. They have a very acute sense of caste and status. I’m told it’s the same with gorillas. They know the difference between a load of plebs gawping at them through the bars and people…people of…’
‘…People of what, Balbo?’
‘People of quality.’
‘Good on the gorillas. Now back to rats. They sensed that you were a person of erudition and authority. And they liked you. Mostly they just liked the pleby boys with the dustpans – I wonder why, Balbo – but they also liked superior and clever old you, as well as respecting your commissioned rank. So where did that get you?’
‘It made me a kind of human King Rat. They could sense my will with the minimum of overt demonstration on my part, and they were eager to serve it.’
‘So where was your problem? All you had to do was send them speeding off to spread the plague among the Hunskies.’
‘As a matter of fact, policy was now reconsidered. If we spread the plague among the Hunskies, we would also be spreading it among the loyal French and Belgians whose countries they still occupied. Second thoughts all round.’
‘But surely that scientific whizz-kid, the great Balbo, had the answer to that. He could teach the rats the difference between a Kraut helmet and a Free French beret, if anybody could.’
‘That I might or might not have done. The trouble was, Sydney, that in order to control them at all I had to be with them, or at least readily accessible to them. It was no good my briefing them, so to speak, and then packing ’em off across Europe. I had to go along the whole way.’
‘Oh dear. The great Balbo exposed to nasty bullets. That wouldn’t do, now would it?’
‘I volunteered to take my rats wherever anyone wanted them to go.’
‘I know you did, old Balbo,’ said Syd Jones softly.
‘But I won’t pretend I wasn’t relieved when they put it all off. They still couldn’t make up their minds about policy. And I don’t think they had all that much confidence in my ability to control the rats as accurately as was needed.’
‘They’re prepared to put money on it now. But we’re missing something out, aren’t we Balbo? We’re forgetting something else you found out about yer relations with them rats. You were the King Rat on two legs, whom they liked, whom they respected, whom they adored…as a God. But the trouble is with a God king…say it, Balbo…’
‘…That he has to die before he grows too old, so that his spirit may pass into his successor while he is still strong and quick. What is more, Sydney, very often his subjects eat him, so that they may inherit something of his wisdom and divinity.’
‘Which is what those rats had in store for you. The King must die, sooner or later, to make his loyal subjects a dainty dinner. That’s the message which came through to you, on whatever weird wavelength it was you listened in to your trusty rodents. Or so you hinted in the paper you wrote…the one which all the scientific journals refused to print, thereby pissing good and rotten on your regard for science and scientists and almost causing its extinction. But we got a copy, Balbo. One of the editors who rejected it was buddy-bazzas with us, and let us see it just on the off-chance we might be interested. Which we were, being more open-minded than scientific journals. And so were some of our friends. But let’s go back a little in our memoir. What happened after you started to get the message, that you, the God King, would one day become the bloody sacrificer?’
‘The war ended and I went.’
‘And gave up rats for good…except, of course, to record your experience in that paper which nobody wanted.’
‘Where is all this getting us, Sydney?’
‘Once a King of rats, Balbo, perhaps a future King of rats.’
‘Obviously not. The God-King of the rats has to be young and energetic. We’ve just been through t
hat. After a time they kill him, whether or not they eat him, so that his spirit may enter into his successor while still in its prime. If I was presented to the rats again, they wouldn’t want me. Too old.’
‘You’ve gone through the Catechism, Balbo; now hear the Sermon. You are assuming that the rats, like any primitive people, confuse power of body with power of spirit. Now, we’ve been doing a bit of research…or rather, the department with which my department corresponds has been doing a bit of research…and we find that rats are far too advanced to make that elementary mistake. The rats know that the spirit may stay fresh in a stale body – and that all the time it is accumulating knowledge and wisdom. So the longer the God King can stay alive, the better…always providing his thinker is in good nick. Only when they scent the approach of mental deterioration do rats kill their King, whether he has two legs or four. He may not make such good eating, but they absorb a higher quality of wisdom, and they are serious enough to prefer enlightenment to gourmandise.’
‘How do you know this?’
‘Don’t interrupt Preacher’s Sermon. Let’s just say that careful experiments have been conducted, many of them suggested by your pirated paper. And now, Balbo boy, we come to the real crunch. This “sign” I was told to look out for…it’s the sign which the rats look for, which tells them a man is fit to be their King. First they like him; then they assess his cerebral quality; then, if they want him for King, they look out for this “sign”, and if he is worthy it appears on him. Very few people are marked with it. You were marked with it. You still are. As long as it is there the rats will not reject you; only when it starts to go away will they know that at last your mind and your spirit are about to decline and that it is time, if you are their King, to kill you.’
Syd Jones looked up at the vast Madonna of the Shore, under whom they were now passing.
‘Ave Maria, gratia plena,’ he remarked. ‘This sign guarantees to the rats that you have the special grace they require in their Sovereign and their Godhead. You have the sign, you have the grace. Amen. End of Sermon.’
‘Hmm,’ said Balbo. ‘I knew they were snobs, both social and intellectual. But that they looked for special grace or any visible sign of it is a new one on me. What is this sign, Sydney? How does one spot it? Something in the eyes?’
