The Acrobats (2 page)

“I don’t like the expression on his face,” Derek said. “It’s strictly St. Germain-des-Prés. Holy Christ, look at him! I’m sick of being judged by sensitive adolescents.”

“He’s cute.”

“They all are,” Barney said, winking, overjoyed that someone other than himself had succeeded in employing their malice.

“Invite him over, honey-bunny. If he’s a fairy it’ll be nice to have him around. Just for kicks.”

“Will you stop calling him honey-bunny,” Derek said. “You know how he hates it.”

“He does not hate it. Do you, Mr. Lazarus?”

Barney sighed impatiently.

Another parade was passing. Most of the musicians were drunk and had their hats on sideways. Whenever they could remember, the players blew loudly into their instruments or gave the drum a joyful thump. The bandleader and two trombonists had taken a wrong turn on the Calle San Vincente and had not been heard from since noon. A man of about forty years, tottering under his burden, supported a huge banner which proclaimed that his district’s
falla
had won third prize in the civic competition. Behind the chaos of the band a more dignified group of about six or seven families marched proudly and in step.

Nearly every city block had undertaken to build a
falla
. The
fallas
were made of wood and
papier mâché
and, although they varied in size, almost all of them were satirical. Favourites, every year, were the ones which caricatured bullfighters and their managers. On each
falla
there were several figures filled with firecrackers. Every year the
falla
which won first prize was saved. All the others were burnt and exploded on the night of the
Día de San José
.

André looked away, over the crowds and into the square, at the tremendous
falla
standing in the plaza. The huge wooden figure of the plump gypsy, a thick, coloured scarf knotted around his belly and another scarf tied around his head, grinned dumbly back at him.

Barney tapped him meekly on the shoulder. He gestured wildly at his glass and pointed to his mouth. “
YOU LIKEE DRINKEE?”

André looked up and laughed. His laugh was honestly hearty, joyful, and it sounded very good to Barney. André had been gloomy and he was pleased at the intrusion. “Me likee drinkee very much,” he said, smiling affably.

“You’re an American!”

“Canadian.”

“That’s just as good,” Barney said.

“I guess so.”

André felt slightly ridiculous. He hoped that Barney wasn’t going to panegyrise the big and unpatrolled frontier. Or ask about Barbara Ann Scott, or if they resented the Governor-General.

“Wadiya know! A Canadian. My name is Barney Larkin.”

Clutching to him insistently, Barney presented André Bennett to Jessie and Derek. Derek allowed him a perfunctory sneer, pretending ennui, but Jessie was favourably aroused, and she insisted that he sit down beside her.

Jessie patted down André’s dry, brown hair affectionately. “Isn’t he a doll? I bet he’s a mountie and he’s after his you-know-what.” Her voice was silky.

Barney winked and slapped his hands up and down on his lap imitating a hoof beat. Derek winced and Barney’s hopeful play faded quickly. Poor bastard, Derek thought, all he wants is to belong. But I haven’t even got the humanity to grant him that.

The waiter arrived with the tray and Derek swallowed his cognac in one gulp. Immediately he felt giddy, daring, and he was worried about how he might act. He turned to André.
“Sabe Vd. hablar español?”

“Procuro cuanto puedo
. But I’m not very good at languages.”

“You hear that, dear? He speaks Spanish.”

Barney waggled his head happily.

“Are you a painter?” Jessie asked kindly.

“Of sorts.”

“I’ll bet he’s damn good!” Barney said.

André looked at Jessie in a manner that was frankly appraising. Kinky, auburn hair, cut boyishly short, clung tightly to her head like soft sponge and tucked itself in neatly under her blouse collar. Her blouse was not actually transparent but the
black brassière underneath was artfully present. Her lips were hard and badly disappointed. Her eyes were black and wet and frightened. Too much drink had deprived them of much of their natural intensity. She smiled at André. “How long have you been in Europe?” she asked.

“About two years, I guess.”

“Your father sending you money?” Derek asked.

“No. I pick up jobs here and there. Chauffeur, translations, tours. Anything that comes up.”

“That sounds very interesting,” Barney said. “You and Derek ought to have a lot to talk about. He also lives in Europe. In fact Derek is something of an arti …”

“Something of a dilettante, that’s what he means,” Derek said savagely.

André said nothing. He had meant to visit Chaim that afternoon, but Chaim had warned him that he would be entertaining a special friend. I could be with Toni now, he thought. She must be in.

“What kind of painting do you do?” Jessie asked. “But don’t get too technical now. I’m afraid I can’t understand modern art.”

“Who can?” Barney said, smiling good-naturedly.

“As a matter of fact,” André said, “I’m not really a painter at all. I came here to study life in its entirety. One day I hope to write a book about it. You know, like that
Who Do the Bells Toll For
. I’m for calling a spade a spade. It’s going to be an exposé of a coterie of lechers that hold hetero orgies in secluded Bloomsbury dungeons, and the hero is a guy who has just turned Red and written a book about his past activities as an anti-communist. One minute, perhaps I’ll call it
Lost and Found
. Meanwhile I make ends meet peddling hashish at convent doors.” Suddenly he turned to Derek. “Don’t I know you? I’m sure I …”

“No.”

“But I …”

“And don’t be so facetious,
mon vieux
. We know what a burden it is to be intelligent.”

“You talk as if you despised us,” Jessie said. “Why, you don’t even know us.”

“I’m sorry. I was just trying to be smart.”

Jessie smiled brightly. Underneath the table André felt her leg brush up against his own and stay there. “When are you coming back to America?” Jessie asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe one of these days.” All at once André felt very tired, and he wanted to get back to his room. “My family is very wealthy. I’m trying to make up for it.”

Immediately André felt stupid. He had always been a failure at being bright.

“Now – is that funny?” Jessie asked.

“No. Not very.”

“What outfit were you in during the war?”

A cigarette dangled from the corner of Derek’s leering mouth. André noticed that he did not inhale. The cigarette was simply a device for striking dramatic airs.

“I was too young.”

André felt more pressure on his leg. He wondered if it was just that she was drunk.

“You’re a smart kid. If you ever get to New York,” Barney said, “be sure and look me up. We can use bright young men like you in our outfit. After you get over this painter crap and all that, I mean.”

“Thanks. It’s something to think about,” André said, grinning foolishly.

Another street urchin appeared and presented another dirty palm to Barney. He dug hastily into his pocket and pressed three pesetas into the boy’s hand. “It’s all a racket, André. But you’ve got to hand it to them. Take our hotel bill for instance. The damn thing is double because we come …”

“Can’t you ever stop thinking about money?” Jessie asked.

Barney flushed angrily.

The sun was going down. The buildings seemed taller and fiercer and reached heavenwards pleadingly. The afternoon grin on the
falla
of the plump
Valenciano
had swollen into a diabolical leer. The clamour of a lost band shot through the air above the uproar of the crowds. Music came in waves. André looked at his watch and pretended to be amazed at the hour. “I really have to go now,” he said. “Sorry. Thanks for the drink.”

Jessie giggled. “You know why he brought me to Europe? I was sleeping with a boxer and he thinks if he shows me a good time I’ll forget about it. Isn’t that right, honey-bu … Oh, I forgot. Mr. Lazarus.”

“She’s drunk,” Barney said.

“Where are you staying?” André hesitated. “I’ll look you up later tonight.”

“You’re a liar!” Derek said.

André paused awkwardly.

Derek’s face slipped badly. The unknown quality – that which gives unity and is called character – was absent. There was only the choking appeal in the eyes, the lips with a tendency to quiver, and the pain all over.

I could tell him, Derek thought. About Fox. About the mud. The songs. How the ammunition didn’t fit and the guns jammed. “I’m not what you think. I – look, I fought here. I … Never mind. You wouldn’t understand.”

André felt the futility of the moment sorely.

“I know,” he said suddenly. “Your name is Raymond.”

“Yes.”

“Then you wrote
The Edge
, didn’t you?”

Derek averted his eyes. “That was a long time ago,” he said.

Barney laughed uneasily. “Don’t forget,” he said. “At the Reina Victoria. We’re staying at the Reina Victoria.”

Chaim chewed on an unlit cigar.

Suddenly, his thoughts turned to André. It had been so long since they had had one of those endless talks. He hoped that André was in his room painting. I should have had him over this afternoon, he thought. I shouldn’t have put him oV.

His mind began to wander again.

He thought about the Warsaw ghetto where those who were not burnt now walked the cold desert land, tugging at their beards, mourning murdered sons and murdered daughters, wondering if it was truly hot in the Promised Land. Chaim’s teacher, Rab Moishe, had insisted that for two sins only did the common people perish. They spoke of the Holy Ark as a box and the synagogue as a resort for the ignorant vulgar.

Chaim plucked the wet cigar from his lips, uncorking his ever-handy bottle of muscatel. And after all, he thought, isn’t it written in the Zohar that the pleasure of cohabitation is a religious one, giving joy also to the divine presence. He watched Carmen roll her nylons, which were part of his bribe of love, up her plump legs. How much butter and eggs go into the making of such glorious thighs, he thought? She caught his lewd grin and with a bound left the couch and settled down on his lap. But she failed to understand the disappointment in his eyes when her kiss was only friendly. “Carmen,” he said, “really I wasn’t so old once.” He gazed at her with longing. “Now
vamos
. I’m expecting a visitor.”

“I love you,” Carmen said passionately.

“You’re goddam right you do,” Chaim said in English. “Me, and my cabaret, and my nylons. But it doesn’t matter.” Still his gaze lingered on her childish stupid face. He flung his pudgy hands up in the air in a gesture of lamentation. “What’s going to happen to our
yiddish
children?” he asked.

There was a knock at the door. Carmen climbed clumsily off his lap, hugging him still. He waited until she had slipped into her skirt before he ushered Fräulein Kraus into the room.

He had been expecting this visit ever since Colonel Kraus had taken to loitering about the club. Now she sat before him, her quick blue eyes hard with contempt because she had been obliged to seek an appointment with her brother’s employer, the Jew Chaim. Fräulein Kraus’s hair was straight and fell in sharp lines from her face like a meticulously combed wig of string. Her face was bony and dry and tanned. Wrinkles were evident. Her body was thin, without sex, and the colour of old paper. She wore a short plaid skirt and a neat sweater. A pair of heavy woollen stockings were pulled up to her knotted knees.

Chaim spared Fräulein Kraus an introduction to Carmen. He nodded briefly when Carmen left the room. He felt as if Carmen and himself were part of a human conspiracy, and he enjoyed that thought.

“Well, Fräulein Kraus. Are you enjoying the
Fallas?”

“No. Not very much.”

“You would prefer the festival at Bayreuth? Or Munich?”

“You do not like Germans,” she said, smiling coldly.

Chaim had a short, plump body. He was conscious of his dull physique so he preferred sitting to standing. His face was round and ordinary and his grey hair was thinning. Only his eyes illustrated the particular man. Liquid grey, profoundly expressive, they were the eyes of a melancholy clown, the eyes of a man who had absorbed so much of anguish that he was inclined to defend his human vulnerability behind a deprecating jest.

Chaim shrugged his shoulders. “Why should I dislike Germans? Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Goethe –
I
could go on. Even Karl Marx was a …”

“Marx was a Jew.”

They sat in his office above the Mocambo Club. The reflected light of the desk lamp glittered sternly on her steel-rimmed spectacles.

“Will you join me in a glass of muscatel?”

“I do not drink.”

He refilled his own glass. First they must murder the human spirit, he thought. Stifle small selfishnesses, pleasures, then the organisation of inferior society might begin.

“We dislike each other, Herr Chaim,” she said stiffly, “but … Spain is not my country and to be frank I find Valencia
dégoûtant
. Yet the Bolsheviks have made it quite impossible for a decent person to exist in my homeland today. I am a fascist.” Fräulein Kraus paused. She felt it was necessary for Chaim to protest. But he said nothing, so she continued. “Don’t think for a moment that I am prejudiced against you because you are a Jew. I respect a man for what he is. The only important thing in the world today is money.
Avec de l’argent même un juif peut épouser une comtesse française.”

“Then you are a bit of a philosopher, Fräulein Kraus?”

Fräulein Kraus folded her hands in her lap. “You are making fun of me,” she said.

Chaim lit his cigar. Yes. Fun, he thought. The fun will be for André and Toni’s generation. They will have to pay the unpaid bills of the past, account for the dishonesties, the vagrancies, of Fräulein Kraus and myself. He switched off the desk lamp.