Robert laughed modestly:
‘Well, it’s like crosswords, you see. I like it. It reminds me of business; and besides, I have not yet entirely concluded my business in Malaya. And it makes me sleep well. If Lilia would take an interest, she is really very good at it, she would sleep better.’
Mrs Trollope continued: ‘If I want half a dozen of those pretty Swiss handkerchiefs for Jessamine my married daughter, I do not hear a word from him for a whole hour and then he brings me a calculation of what it would cost me in France, England, South Africa, the Argentine and the U.S.A. and how I must transfer the pounds to pay for it. I do not want to understand. Surely it is very easy, if you have money? Surely I can enjoy my own money without this? But you see, for Robert, it is his only genuine pleasure; it is his hobby.’
Robert was flattered. ‘Oh, you see, Mrs Pallintost, we are getting older; and I am not so energetic as I was. It keeps my memory and faculties working. Don’t you find your memory failing, for example, Mrs Pallintost?’
Mrs Pallintost, who was thirty-five, said:
‘No, my memory is quite all right.’
‘How is your memory? Do you remember why you left Basel?’ said the doctor, laughing, to his wife.
‘Well, mine isn’t what it was,’ said Mr Wilkins complacently.
Mr Pallintost introduced the subject of the car he wanted Mr Wilkins to buy. Mr Wilkins went into a long description of the car, the body, the engine, the peculiar advantages of the selling prices in Switzerland and elsewhere, the course of the exchanges over the past few months, what he could get it for now if the manufacturers had stuck to their bargain, for even if they did not, he had allowed a small margin for the fall of the lira. He also said he had in mind a car he had just seen in the Geneva show, a Fiat whippet or midget very suitable for them, with seats for two in front and very roomy in the back for luggage.
‘I should never have to offer anyone a lift; I should never have more than one passenger, my cousin Lilia. And very roomy in the back for luggage.’
He and Mrs Trollope argued about how much luggage they could stow in the back—‘certainly not my steamer trunk’—and how far they could go with it.
Everyone became interested, discussed how far the whippet would go, what hills it could climb and whether it was suitable for Switzerland in winter. Mr Wilkins said: ‘But that is just where I intend to use it. I am a good driver and if I tip Lilia over the edge of some Alp that will be just an accident.’ He laughed gaily, rubbing his hands, and continued:
‘But I hardly think it will come to that. I should hardly like to kill Lilia in a car where she has put me at the wheel of her own free will. Lilia has put me at the wheel of her fortune and I think I shall manage both with reasonable skill.’
Mrs Trollope said restlessly ‘I would rather trust myself than anyone. Robert no doubt means well, but he cannot keep his hands off money. He is always wanting to try those charts of his on money. And it is my money he experiments with. I may be old-fashioned; I am, I know. But I think money is stable. It is what you have. It is what you live by. I don’t like it parcelled out and fooled with. Now I had money coming to me in France last year and I wrote a letter to the people saying I would accept it in francs. The people wrote back saying they would pay me in francs at once. And Robert made me write another clever letter saying they must get permission from the exchange, permission to pay me in England where the money was due; and then Robert intended to change it into Swiss francs at the permitted rate and I could get my French dress in French francs exchanged for Swiss francs at the black market rate, and do you know what happened? They have not made arrangements to pay me from that day to this.’
‘Oh, I knew that story was coming. Lilia cannot get it into her head—’ and he began explaining patiently as if Lilia had not understood; but she put her hands to her head and said:
‘I should rather lose half the money than go through all that.’
Mr Wilkins said gently: ‘But, Lilia, that is it; I do not want you to lose half your money; and I am going to see that you increase it. Neither of us is young any more and we must think of our old age.’
The Princess cried: ‘I think that kind of talk is mad, Robert. As soon as I sell Angel, I am going off to the Argentine and I am going to get married. First, of course, I have an appointment in Paris next month, where I am going to have a certain operation, and when I have spent some weeks in a nursing-home I shall be young again and I am going to South America where they have dictators and an organized society and excellent servants and I am going to get married. If my intended husband lets me down I shall open a beauty parlour in Palm Beach. I’m tired of Europe. I have already sent some of my things out there and I have sent money too. Your money is safe with a dictator. He keeps the greedy people down, those who want to nationalize everything and take what isn’t theirs to take. Get married again, Lilia; then you will be happy again. It is a new life.’
At this Angel squealed. He had slid down under the table, where he saw bits of food and he sat under Dr Blaise’s chair. Dr Blaise trod on his foot. Bili half-rose and cried:
‘Angel, come here to your sweetheart. No one meant to hurt you, Angel. Everyone loves Angel. Dr Blaise loves you, Angel. No one would hurt you purposely. It was all an accident, darling. He meant to stroke you, darling. Sit here, darling, safe behind your sweetheart’s back. There!’
She grinned at the doctor. The dog crouched trembling behind her.
A little later, when they had had their liqueurs, the Princess told several stories of how to get black-market funds; then suddenly became bored and said:
‘And now Angel must sing. He has waited very patiently.’
The doctor burst out laughing. The Princess plumped Angel between herself and Madame Blaise and began to sing in a piping old voice, ‘D’ye ken John Peel?’ which was the song Angel sang, she said.
After a few bars, in fact, Angel opened his mouth and broke into a series of howls reasonably varied and moans reasonably scaled. The maître d’hôtel, who was standing behind a distant service bar, hastily put down a glass he had been rubbing and hurried across the room. The doctor, who was holding his ribs with laughter at the sour faces worn by the rest of the company (except Mrs Trollope), waved him away, but he stood dubiously in the next booth, now unoccupied. From the booth on the other side came a surprising American woman, five feet ten tall, elegantly and suitably dressed, who had been speaking French all the evening, fluently and with a strong mid-Western accent, and who had been running like a yearling between the telephone and her present friends. She said:
‘Oh, quel chien adorable!’
‘I hope we didn’t disturb you,’ said Mr Wilkins, laughing quietly.
‘Oh, ne vous en faites pas; I love dogs,’ said the American woman.
She then called, using her fingers, hands, arms and her long supple body for this, each of her company to look at the adorable dog singing; and she declared that they had had a cat to talk on the radio, but that that cat had died; and that this dog really sang.
‘Il chante; on ne peut le nier.’
The Princess said at once: ‘I am going to South America to get married and I must sell Angel to someone who loves him. He has a wonderful pedigree, sire and dam champions for generations. He is so affectionate. You have love and pedigree guaranteed; that is a nice package deal.’
The American said: ‘Oh, I love him. How much is Angel?’
‘Two hundred dollars in dollars.’
‘Oh, it is a lot of dollars. Not that I am sure he isn’t worth it. But I am going to South America too. Franco said Switzerland will be the centre of the next war. I trust him. I think it is better to go while the going is good.’
‘So do we,’ said Mr Wilkins.
‘But the question is where,’ said Mrs Trollope.
They discussed it again; and when the American woman had gone back to her table and they were having a second round of coffee, brought in silver pots and ordered by the doctor,
Madame Blaise began showing some more photographs—one showed the house owned by herself and the doctor in Basel.
‘What a beautiful house,’ said Mr Pallintost, thankful that it was no teratological specimen this time.
It was a brick dwelling with three storeys and an attic, flat-faced, modern, with a terrace running round the corner of the second storey and an awning over it. Round the house was a garden behind iron railings.
Said Mrs Pallintost: ‘I cannot understand why you live in a hotel, Madame Blaise.’
‘When you live in a house there are servants, they have to have orders, I hate giving orders and scolding when they are not obeyed, for they never are. But we have a housekeeper Ermyntrud, who is ugly and old and a spinster, and she loves to do that. At least in the hotel I think about nothing.’
The Princess studied the photograph; and said, ‘But surely, Madame, with such a beautiful home you ought to stay in it and help your husband.’
‘Oh, I am quite satisfied with her staying in the hotel,’ said the doctor.
‘I shall never go home,’ said Madame Blaise.
‘No, you will never come home,’ said the doctor grimly.
‘He talks about nothing but disease and sickness. I must wait till he comes home for a drink. He locks up the drinks. And when we sit down to dinner he tells me details of every horrible disease he has seen in the hospital and shows me photographs of his patients. He has a cabinet full at home and only I am allowed to see them.’
‘But you will go home when the next winter is over,’ said Mr Pallintost, shocked.
‘Oh, no, I’m going to stay here for life.’
The doctor said:
‘Oh, I don’t think she will ever leave here alive. I am glad for her to stay here for life. Marriage is a curse and the more I am free of her the better I feel.’
Madame Blaise said seriously: ‘I am looking for romance and I should go off on my own, only that I must do all the business and money matters for my husband and son and daughter. Without me they would be in rags. I brought all the money to the house. A physician eats up all he earns. I did not wish to have this house but the doctor insisted upon it for his prestige; and I hate it. I always hated that house; it is a prison, a death-house. While I am there, I have a feeling that I shall never get out of it alive.’
‘The fact is, she sits there all day and never attempts to get out,’ said the doctor.
‘But, Madame, you said you were going to the U.S.A.,’ said the Princess.
‘Oh, yes, we are going to the U.S.A. to look for our son spoiled by her. If he doesn’t break his neck first. He will break it one way or another the way she has brought him up.’
‘What is the use of my house? I built it to please him. He wanted a house in Basel near the Schutzmatt Park and I built it for him and he is afraid to live there because the Germans or the Russians can march into Basel in a minute. At the same time he does not want to transfer his practice to South America or the U.S.A.’
The Princess said: ‘Well, South America is good, there are so many skin diseases. But I met a doctor in New York, a very rich man, a friend of mine, who said nine-tenths of the babies in South America are diseased and should be gassed; he said the atom bomb wouldn’t do them the least harm; they should be exterminated. He toured South America and he was shocked. American science could do nothing for them. He is a splendid husband and father and he has seven children and knows what he is talking about.’
Lilia said: ‘I think that is cruel.’
The Princess said: ‘Oh, science is cruel; and this is a cruel age.’
Lilia said: ‘I call it a very cruel age; I never know where to turn. It is the communists who have driven us so far out of our old ways of thinking, and the blame is on them. I wish we could do to them what they do to others, take them out, stand them up against a wall and shoot them and then we should have some peace. After all, they set the pace; we are all hag-ridden.’
Mr Wilkins said: ‘Lilia, I think we need a little amusement. Let’s go to the Palace Splendide for a dance and a drink.’
‘Oh, let’s go to the Savoy Grand,’ said the doctor. He and Madame Blaise kept insisting that they should go to the Savoy Grand, and soon the whole party walked in under the elephantine portico, an old-fashioned structure with frowning front on the heights of Lausanne. They passed through various lobbies and a foyer, a long cocktail-room and past several bars at which American soldiers from Germany and local young folk were drinking, and pushed their way into a dining-room beyond the crowded dance-floor, a long high-ceilinged room with a few tables set for drinks for overflow guests, near the glass doors. Lilia said:
‘Oh, I hate anything artificial that reminds me of the East. What made the Aga Khan buy a whole block here? Why should he come here at all?’
But the others felt a certain thrill in spite of the miserable accommodation and a rather rude reception, because in this hotel lived several ex-kings. They laughed a little at the protocol difficulties of setting kings around one table, until someone said that each king ate separately in his room or suite to avoid such difficulties. Mrs Trollope said that she had come not long ago to see a crown prince aged nine and that she had bowed the knee and the prince had kissed her hand; and Madame Blaise mentioned a native prince she had met here. Whereupon Mr Wilkins said: ‘But what about us? What about the Archduke who lives in our hotel?’
The Pallintosts opened their eyes at this. Dr Blaise, smirking, said he had seen the Archduke that very afternoon. The Archduke was a member of the Jury (as he put it) in the Almanach de Gotha, he was in fact the Foreman of the Jury, he was, you might say, Exile Number One, the poorest and All-highest. ‘And he lives in our hotel?’ said Mrs Trollope.
‘The Archduke has sixteen quarterings; he represents Hapsburg, Dalberg, Hohenzollern, Wittelsbach, Orange, Lorraine, Anjou-Valois, Guelph-Wettin, Bourbon, Braganza, Vasa, Holstein-Vottorp-Romanov, Savoy, Jagiellon, Aragon, Isauris-Porphyrogenitus. If we had invited that nasty old man Herr Altstadt you met on the stairs and suspected of stealing a one-hundred-franc note, Mrs Trollope, we should have had this enormous company with us.’ The doctor laughed immoderately.
The Princess had lost all her vivacity at what she considered the doctor’s attack upon her position. ‘Doctor, how can you remember all that?’
‘Anyone who is jealous can remember it; and as I was only made by my wife’s money, as she mentioned, I am very jealous, and ironic too. I am a satirist of human nature, of which I have the worst opinion. Aristocracy takes its position by force. There is no quality of any kind in human nature. Human nature is invariably pleased by the feats of thieves, torturers, liars, more than by other qualities and frankly I think the muck-rakers and iconoclasts are absurd. To us murderers and robbers are gods. That is the history behind the Almanach de Gotha, and we creep and crawl before it.’
‘My goodness, you are a terrible cynic,’ said Mrs Pallintost.
‘Oh, let’s dance, Lilia,’ said Mr Wilkins.
‘Do you know what it is never to have had any happiness?’ said the doctor, grinning strangely at Mrs Pallintost.
Mrs Trollope had not heard Mr Wilkins. She remained in her seat, staring at the doctor with her black eyes wide open, bending forward so that her low-cut black lace dress showed her round breasts, with the skin long tanned and creased by tropic suns.
The waiter brought them the drinks asked for, whisky-and-soda and kummel. Suddenly the ‘cousins’ became different persons. They insisted upon better whisky and greater quantity, they wanted to see the labels. They said it was like old times and they went off to dance together in a pretty coupling, their faces lit up. Anyone could see that they were for a moment back in the East they had had together and that had now gone. Meanwhile, the gloomy Swiss couple drank kummel; and the doctor said:
‘I wish we could drop them and go home; I am tired of this farce.’
The Princess had gone to the powder-room and left Angel tied to her chair.
Ignoring t
he Pallintosts, Madame Blaise said: ‘You’ll have to pay this time.’
‘I know, but I managed him well, didn’t I? He’s not an Englishman of class and he didn’t dare countermand my orders.’
‘Who could have?’ said Madame Blaise, laughing.
‘I could have if it had been done to me,’ said the doctor. He leaned back and showed his somewhat rounded belly. ‘It was a good dinner; it did me good. But the best was the satisfaction I got out of leeching on to the little rubber salesman.’
‘Let’s leech all we can out of the damned ruined robber Empire and lick up the bloodspots. Little salesmen and their half-caste mistresses running here to be safe from doomsday and thinking themselves our equals.’
‘They are my equals; and doomsday always comes,’ said the doctor, laughing, with a sidelong glance towards his wife.
Madame Blaise said: ‘They’re rich. Between them, they have about one half of what I have command of: I mean the money in New York—’
‘You talk about that too much. People always guess where you got it.’
‘I got it from Nazis. Where are Nazis now? Dirt, filth. No one worries about that trash. It’s mine. Everyone’s against Nazis now. Once they were on top of the world and everyone was afraid of them. But it came to us, didn’t it; it came to us!’
The doctor made a sour face. ‘It came to you. What comes to me I have to earn.’
‘We’ll have to invite them back, you know.’
The doctor laughed. ‘Not to the same tune. I’ll invite them for the anniversary of the day I met you and we’ll give them lentil soup and cornmeal cakes. Isn’t that what you’re going to leave me?’
‘My money’s for my son.’
‘Your son! Your son is a fine specimen. He won’t live to get it. I’ll get it!’ And the doctor made a peculiar gesture, twisting his thumb and finger together and pulling sharply.
‘If you live to get it. Perhaps I should do something about that.’
‘Yes, you’re the active one,’ said the doctor grinning.
The Little Hotel Page 12
