Brother Death Read online

  And now that we have him in the street once again we may as well take a first and last comprehensive glance at him: Rumbold, Christian names Eric Waterman, almost six feet tall, twenty-nine years old, educated at Guildford Grammar School. His hair is golden, fine in texture, unthinned by time, by nature wavy. His eyes are the slate-grey of the English Channel: small grey eyes, hard and piercing, which, by their very lack of size, lend a quality mesmeric to his always well-calculated stare. The hands, well cared for, are wide of palm, with tufted digits. The legs are long, the biceps have done press-ups . . . the whole body is, indeed, athletic. This is a man, perhaps not devoid of natural kindness, but with whom it would be far from safe to trifle. The instinct of self-preservation is too evident.

  The Portuguese Consulate, another fusty little office with its flagpole for fête-days, its tarnished coat-of-arms.

  The clerk knew Rumbold. They had done business together: “Your visa is ready for you,” he said. “How long do you intend to stay in Lisbon?”

  “I don’t know; a week, two weeks perhaps. Do I have to tell you?”

  “Don’t forget to visit the medical authorities,” said the clerk.

  “What do you think I am . . . a typhus carrier?” said Rumbold.

  The clerk waved his hand in deprecation. “You will like my country,” he said.

  “I already know your smelly little country,” said Rumbold.

  He paid the sum required of him, pocketed his now well illustrated passport, and turned down the street towards the Cours Pierre Puget. The day was leaden-faced and Arctic. From the direction of L’Estaque the mistral blew with savage vigour, whipping up the dead leaves beneath the naked plane trees, buffeting the shop fronts, matching its din with the din of the tram cars. Rumbold turned up the collar of his overcoat. He thrust his hands deep into the pockets. He walked with his head down, avoiding other pedestrians by sound.

  In the Rue Grignan, a sordid little street of gown and scent and pet shops, Rumbold entered a side passage. He ascended two flights of uncarpeted stairs and opened a door labelled MAX . . . Couturier. Inside the room, at a long table covered with some white material, seven girls were working. Some of the girls were sewing; others were measuring finished dresses against brown paper silhouettes. Rumbold paid no attention to the girls, but instead walked straight through the long room and into a smaller one behind it. In this room a bald Jew with a black moustache was ironing a pair of riding breeches. On a sofa a fat woman, with dark and luminous eyes, blew over a cup of tea, causing a slice of lemon to circle languidly.

  “Hullo Max,” said Rumbold. “Hullo Yvonne.”

  “Got your passport?” said the Jew. There was a note of grievance in his voice. He continued to iron the riding breeches.

  “Yes,” said Rumbold. “Is there any more of that tea?”

  The woman pointed to a pot and a glass which stood in the fireplace.

  “Nippy outside it, isn’t it?” said the Jew. He licked his finger, rubbed it against a small crease in the riding breeches, then ironed gently where the wet mark showed against the cloth.

  Rumbold filled himself a glass of tea, then sat down on the sofa beside the woman. He removed the slice of lemon from her cup with his fingers and placed it in his own glass. Then he pinched the woman’s buttocks.

  “Well . . . and how are we to-day?” he said.

  “Don’t do that unless you want this tea in your face,” she said. She stared at the Jew, who was her husband, as if suddenly exasperated by him. “What do you want to stand there ironing like that for?” she said. “Haven’t you got any pride? Why don’t you get somebody else to do it?”

  “I like to keep my hand in,” said the Jew amiably. “This is how I started. Maybe this is how I’ll finish.” He turned to Rumbold:

  “You going to-day?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “What train are you catching?” Again the note of grievance in his voice.

  Rumbold smiled. “Does it interest you?” he said.

  “Certainly it does. Dédé will be here soon. Don’t you want to see him?”

  “No,” said Rumbold.

  “Well, we shall miss you,” said the Jew. He laid aside his iron, folded the riding breeches and gazed at Rumbold quizzically. Rumbold sipped his tea.

  “Have you got what I want?” he said.

  The Jew opened a cupboard. He produced a pair of heavy brown golfing shoes. He laid these on the sofa.

  “How do they work?” said Rumbold.

  “You press,” said the Jew. “See . . . here, on the instep,” and, indeed, as he pressed, a semi-circular portion of each heel swung free.

  “Very clever,” said Rumbold.

  “It’s done by a spring,” said the Jew. “Amazing what the human mind can devise, isn’t it?”

  “Amazing,” agreed Rumbold. “But the cavity seems a bit small to me.”

  “Don’t you believe it,” said the Jew: “You could fit the English Crown jewels in there if you had them.”

  “I’m interested in dollars, not jewels,” said Rumbold.

  “Well, here they are,” said the Jew. He produced and laid two stacks of notes upon the sofa.

  “Those are the escudos,” he said, indicating the smaller pile.

  “So I see,” said Rumbold. He began to pleat the notes into batches of five, stuffing them into the cavities.

  “Aren’t you going to count?” said the Jew.

  “I never count,” said Rumbold. “If there’s anything wrong, I’ll come back and have a chat with you.” He took off his own shoes and threw them across the floor into the fireplace.

  “How do I close these?” he asked, indicating the semi-circular hinges of leather in the new pair.

  “Just press again,” said the Jew. “It’s quite simple.”

  Rumbold pressed. He satisfied himself that the device, when closed, was unobtrusive. Then he put on the new shoes, and stood up.

  “You’re not going already?” said the Jew, alarmed.

  “Certainly, I’m going.”

  “But you can’t clear out like that . . . without a word. We must have a talk. Surely you see that?”

  “Let him go,” said the woman Yvonne. She had finished her tea, and now lay back on the sofa smoking a cigarette.

  Rumbold gazed at her appreciatively. “She understands,” he said pointing to her.

  “Listen,” said the Jew. “You’re clearing out . . . all right. You feel the call of your dear fatherland . . . all right again. I’m not stopping you. I’m not putting any obstacle in your way. On the contrary, I’m splitting even with you. But don’t go without giving me some advice. Tell me at least what you think I ought to do.”

  “The best advice I can give you, Max,” said Rumbold, “is to clear out yourself.”

  “And the printing-press?” said the Jew.

  “Sell it.”

  “And Dédé, and the workmen, and the distributors?”

  “Pay them off. Take a holiday at Cannes. In this game you’ve got to know when to stop. Bread’s finished. Meat’s finished. The penalties are getting too severe and the market’s flooded. That leaves you tobacco cards and clothing coupons. Small stuff: I wouldn’t waste my time on it.”

  “I can’t sit around here and do nothing,” said the Jew pathetically.

  “No,” said Rumbold. “I don’t suppose you can. That’s the trouble with you Yids. You don’t do it to make money. You do it to show how clever you are. But you’re not clever at all . . . not really. Even when you’ve got it you can think of nothing better to do with it than to cover young fingers and your wife’s tits with the wrong kind of diamonds. Take my advice, Max . . . retire. Make some dirndls for a change, instead of as a cover story.”

  “You can sneer at us if you lik
e,” said the Jew, “but it takes a Goy to walk out on a pal without a word of regret or even thanks.”

  “I don’t go much for sentiment,” said Rumbold. “I don’t care for it. We’ve been useful to each other. We’ve had some good times. Right . . . it’s over now and we cut the painter.”

  “Cut the painter,” said the Jew. “That’s all it means to you . . . cut the painter.” He gazed at Rumbold. There were tears in his eyes.

  “Don’t snivel, for Christ’s sake,” said Rumbold. “Look at her,” he said, pointing to the woman. “She doesn’t give a damn.”

  “Goodbye, you bastard,” said the woman calmly.

  Rumbold laughed gently. “That’s the spirit,” he said. “Well, goodbye, Max.” He held out his hand. “Try wine,” he said. “Get some Algerian into Monaco and sell it as Nuits St. Georges.”

  The Jew turned aside and looked down at the floor. Rumbold shrugged. “Have it your own way,” he said. “I’ll leave you my shoes. You can cry over them in secret whenever you feel lonely.”

  Rumbold left the office. He closed the door behind him. “Goodbye, girls,” he called to the women in the workshop.

  “Goodbye, Eric.”

  In the street, Rumbold tested his new shoes. The leather, he found, did not yield easily to the flex of his instep. The shoes were heavy. Also they made an undue noise. He wished that he had caused them to be soled with rubber. He did not wish to remain continuously aware of them.

  In the Rue Paradis, Rumbold picked his way through the crowds of afternoon shoppers. He sidestepped, then forged ahead, sidestepped, swerved, then forged ahead again. He was in no hurry, yet he could not bear to have his pace dictated by the slow surge of these idlers, could not bear it. He clenched his fists in exasperation as a couple of women paused before him to argue. He yearned to kick their drooping buttocks. He yearned to send their shopping baskets flying. Stepping off the gutter into the street, he walked on swiftly, oblivious of the traffic.

  Paradis . . . St. Ferréol . . . the Rue de Rome . . . these are the arteries of that squalid city, here the disease which infects it pulses strong on its way to the outer network. The mistral, seasoned by the bite of the distant alps, punched the last roses of summer in the hats of fashionable women, made bold inside carelessly buttoned blouses and drew a chilly hand across thighs crisped in gooseflesh. The mistral would blow for two more days. Then rain would come from Corsica, then ice. Little boys from the Lycées would slide down the curving hill by the hospital. The stall-holders in the side-streets would put away their snails and sell, instead, roast chestnuts.

  Rumbold walked on, each step a long farewell. Marseilles before the German war, with pastis at four francs a glass, the Anglo-Indians en route for Blighty ashore for one day of vicious dissipation, the flowered dresses of young women making, of a Sunday, for a Cabanon in the hills; the interminable jokes about Marius . . . Marseilles on the morrow of the sudden armistice, the clusters of rich but frightened Jews in the lounges of the Noailles and the Louvre; the denunciations, the rumours, the first tentative transactions in illicit olive oil . . . Marseilles when the enemy came at last, his Spandaus pointing towards the Cannebière from the station; the perquisitions, the round-ups, the awe of the Italianate inhabitants at the discovery of a race more corrupt than themselves . . . Marseilles liberated (had it ever been enslaved?); the Yanks, bored, impatient, waiting with brandy in their pockets for a ship to take them home . . . Marseilles, the fundament of Europe, the last port of the emigrant, the whore-house of the sailor, the haven of the card-sharper, the clearing-house of every venal and some mortal sins.

  Rumbold walked on. He would not pass this way again. There was no love in his heart, and no regret. He knew this town in all of its material, and some even of its spiritual, aspects. He knew and shared the delight of its population in the surrounding countryside, the sea. He knew where to eat the best bouillabaisse and where to experiment with hashish. He knew everything about Marseilles and, knowing all, knew that the town was but what the come and flow of foreigners had made it.

  Belsance . . . Dominicaines . . . Cours Lieutaud . . . for others these streets represented but the path towards the railway station, but for Rumbold they were the stations of the Cross. For others they contained shops, and flower stalls and fashionable flats, but to Rumbold they were the bland façade behind which the tortuosities of his business had been conducted . . . here a second floor back bedroom where it was always safe to leave a letter; here another, with brass bedstead and cracked bidet, a room eminently suitable for the consummation or the rupture of a secondary love affair (he would leave now without paying this month’s rent). And beneath these rooms, in cellars, in garnished out-houses, the nightclubs; some legal, some illegal, but all prepared to substitute Mousseux for Champagne at the first sign of inebriety in a client.

  Rumbold turned into Dan’s now: he had left his valise in the cloakroom. He parted the blue curtains and confronted the commissionaire, who, divested of his uniform, and in shirt-sleeves, was polishing the brasswork of his dais. Dan’s did not open until six, but from beyond further blue curtains came the sound of music. An audition was in progress.

  “Hullo! Eric,” said the commissionaire. He spat copiously upon his cleaning rag, using his own saliva in preference to the tin of metal polish beside him.

  “Hullo! what’s up?”

  “Just a crowd of amateur Carusos with laryngitis,” said the commissionaire. He thought poorly of all singers, being obliged to listen to them, without a drink in front of him, for four hours every evening. “You want your bag?”

  “Not yet,” said Rumbold. “Where’s Dan?”

  “Baptising the brandy,” said the commissionaire; “we don’t want folks to get too drunk over Christmas. It don’t seem right somehow.”

  “Ah, yes, Christmas,” said Rumbold. From his wallet he took two thousand-franc notes and laid them on the dais. “Buy yourself some lottery tickets,” he said.

  “You become a Christian or something?” said the commissionaire. “I never seen you do that before.”

  “You’ll never see me do it again,” said Rumbold. He parted the inner curtains and entered the cabaret. Only at the far end of the long room did signs of life exist. Here, upon the stage, beneath a single amber spotlight, a number of young men were standing. One of them was singing, watched with mingled boredom and malevolence by the others. To the right of the stage, in almost total obscurity, a three-piece band accompanied the singer. A yard or two away from the footlights, a small group of theatrical producers, commission agents, and lyric writers were arguing loudly about some musical score. None of them were paying any attention to the singer:

  “Serre ma poitrine contre toi, ma brune,

  Ferme tes jolis yeux, car les heures sont brèves,

  A l’autre côté de la lune

  Au doux pays des rêves.”

  The young man sang well, but perhaps conscious of the inattention of the audience, overpitched his vibrato.

  “Next please,” came a voice from the circle of producers.

  “But that’s only the first verse,” protested the young man.

  “It’s one too many,” said the producer. “Next.”

  Another young man, in no way dissimilar to the first, stepped forward and began to give an imitation of Charles Trénet. Rumbold, who had been watching the scene with amusement, now turned away, and leaning over the deserted bar, looked down through the trap door behind the beer taps. Beneath him, in the cellar, he could see Dan at work. He selected a peanut from a tray and dropped it neatly upon Dan’s bald head.

  “Don’t muck about, man,” said Dan; “come down if you don’t want to speak to me.”

  Rumbold obeyed. Dan was recorking and sealing brandy bottles, for a part of the original contents of which he had substituted water.

  “Oh, it’s you,
is it?” he said. “Well, I wish you wouldn’t leave your bag here. The police have been in twice this morning, to go through it.”

  “I hope they didn’t steal anything,” said Rumbold.

  “No. They just admired your pyjamas. There’s one of them waiting up there now for you. He’s drinking coffee . . . coffee.” Dan’s face revealed his disgust. “I had to send out for it,” he added.

  Dan was a dapper little man, and like many another dapper little man he wore a bow-tie. His social position was equi-distant between the Arts and Grand Larceny. The dominating feature of Dan’s face was the mouth; no doubt a sensitive organ originally (traces of the original Cupid’s bow remained) but one which time had crabbed with the taste of insults swallowed unavenged. But why describe the face . . . was there ever convention more empty? The centre of Dan’s life lay in his diaphragm, swollen by constipation and easy living, its swelling controlled to some extent by abdominal exercises.

  “Have some brandy,” he said.

  “I’ll take the champagne,” said Rumbold, observing that the crates due for consumption that evening had not yet been tampered with by the addition of lemonade.

  “Just as you wish,” said Dan (his real name was Mariano, and he came from Murcia, in Spain). He opened a bottle, watching the cork curve as it sped towards regions where spiders reigned supreme.

  A young woman, who, unseen by Rumbold, had been sitting on an empty beer barrel in the obscurity, now stepped forward.

  “I’ll have some of that, Dan,” she said, indicating the bottle of champagne.

  “Why, hullo, Odette,” said Rumbold amiably. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  “Shall I leave you two lovebirds alone?” said Dan.

  “Not if you value your cellar,” said Rumbold. He stared at Odette, watching her hands for the first sign of trouble.