Serenity House

by Christopher Hope

  Mr Kaufmann had opened the package now. It held a large brown envelope. Jack’s heart sank. Letters! Writing! He’d hoped for more things. Except Mr Kaufmann didn’t seem the least disappointed. Out of the brown envelope he took a pile of letters written in dark ink in a crabbed hand. The paper on which they were written was white and it had shrivelled at the edges and gone a little yellow in places. These letters had a parchmenty feel and sound to them. They crackled in his fingers. Except for one which was written on blue airmail paper. Mr Kaufmann smoothed them out with his palm and smiled like he was very happy indeed.

  ‘If you ask me, Tony, you put the question wrong.’ Mr Kaufmann was reading silently while he talked. Jack was agog. Mr Kaufmann was reading something and saying another. At the same time! He had never seen anything like that before. ‘The question is not: “Do Americans like killing people?” I think we’ve got a pretty much open and shut case on that. No, the question really is – and I’d say the jury is still out on this – “Do Americans like being killed?” And we’d have to say the answer to that question is “no”, considering the fuss they make when one of their planes is bombed out of the sky. Or there is a war somewhere in the world which goes wrong. Or some crazy guy drives a truck of dynamite into a barracks full of soldiers. They yell so loud you can hear them in Timbuktu. Now what d’you call that, Gary? Tony?’

  ‘Unreasonable?’

  Mr Kaufmann applauded. ‘Got it in one, Tony.’ He picked up a letter and hit it against his open palm. ‘Now, you take the Germans, they’re different. At least there was a time when they were different. I’ve got a German letter here, Ed. Listen to this.’ And Mr Kaufmann began reading from the letter, translating as he went along, which he had just been beating against his palm.

  Today, I really got into my work. I am processing the forms at a great rate. After which I take measurements. I am managing to process at least forty forms in a morning but I hope with practice this will increase soon. From a scientific point of view the work is fascinating and will bear much fruit in the future …

  Mr Kaufmann leaned back from his desk and smiled a smile as big as the moon. ‘Forms,’ he said. ‘Processing!’

  Soonono and Suares and Agliotti looked puzzled but respectful. They loomed around Mr Kaufmann in their gorgeous clothes and their reflections glimmered in the polished surface of his black desk.

  Mr Kaufmann touched the tips of his fingers together. ‘These are some letters! You note the punctiliousness of utterance, Gary – Tony – Giuseppi – Jack? Behind “the forms” here talked about we may detect doomed people. Men and women destined for death. Indeed many of them may already have been dead. By injection. Yes, Ed, you guessed it, the syringes. Each form was a human being – to be put down like strays in a dogs’ home. The place from which these letters come has been blanked out. The censor, I expect. But they are dated, all of them, 1941. That’s also interesting. Listen, here’s another:

  Well, at long last Berlin has responded to my request for help. Measurements are often difficult and accuracy is of the first importance. I have today taken delivery of a new assistant, one Behrens. He is not very well qualified but he shows willing …

  ‘This is an approximate translation,’ Mr Kaufmann explained. ‘A more elegant version will be available later.’

  ‘I guess the date is important,’ said Soonono.

  ‘Oh, yes. I think this referred to the early stages of a project which was secret at the time. They code-named it 14f13. It grew out of what was called T4. And that, in turn, was something we might call enthanasia for civilian purposes. 14f13 built on that early work. It was the militarisation of the killing programme across a very wide front: gypsies, gays, Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the screwy, the ill, masons, Communists, Catholics. But, here, let me hit you again.’

  April ’41

  My little rabbit,

  Work progresses very favourably. The theoretical point at issue, which as you know interests me greatly, is how to provide scientific anthropological, or at least archaeological, evidence, from prehistoric times which will help to support the present investigations of our scientists into the various identities of races in the eastern Raum. Unfortunately much miscegenation had taken place and so you get, as you would expect from funerary evidence, much resemblance between peoples. You get chunkier heads, flatter faces, you get a high incidence of prominent cheekbones, you get broad noses and thick hair. In other words we have to get beneath the skin, right down to what I might call the bone of the matter in order to make distinctions. The early German settlers in these eastern lands were, as we know, overwhelmed by the Slav hordes.

  The urgency of this work cannot be underestimated. There is evidence that the very material upon which we work grows every day scarcer. Tracing the unfolding of ethnic complexities is a painstaking business. There are blood groups to be taken, fingerprints, studies of the eyes, particularly the iris. Quite apart from my own interest in skull formation.

  I am sorry to say that Behrens, my new assistant, is not proving very worthwhile. He is clumsy and seems quite unable to understand that material must be treated with restraint, even after the event. And Berlin – oh, Berlin! – it asks for more and more. I am now processing anything up to two hundred and fifty forms per day. That is a considerable rate, even with Behrens hindering more than he helps. And yet the pressures on those responsible for this processing increase. Berlin asks for more and more irrespective of whether I have completed my measurements.

  Luckily, I have had a stroke of good fortune. I now have assistance from the reservoir. Marta is her name. Trained as a nurse, without fundamental anthropological experience, she is none the less neat and careful in the measurements. That is all I ask.

  Think of me, my darling rabbit. Your tall fir tree makes plans for dropping in on a visit soon.

  Loving kisses,

  M

  ‘Fascinating reading.’ Mr Kaufmann shuffled the letters on the table as if reconstituting a deck of cards. ‘Think of it all: the troublesome Behrens, interfering Berlin, M – the measurer. Marta the helper. . . What a happy family. Good. Now, Jack, let’s talk business.’

  You might have thought to look at him that Jack, poor Jack, did not know much. You would have thought, such being the tough circumstances of the business world, that Mr Kaufmann saw him coming. But Jack, though a mere boy without family or fortune or employment, lazy, feckless, dreaming only of crab claws and exceptionally violent videos, was no sucker. He knew an offer was coming and when it did he limited his sales to the three 1941 letters only.

  ‘At a thousand bucks a throw.’ And was amazed when they agreed.

  The airmail, longer letter, also in German he asked Mr Kaufmann to translate for him, and listened entranced while he did so and clapped at the end, marvelling that man could think in German and speak in English. It seemed to Jack that if this were a cache of material of such value that Mr Kaufmann would part with big bucks for little bits of it, then there must be more where that came from.

  Mr Kaufmann agreed with an elegant inclination of the head. The airmail letter contained an address.

  ‘In London, England,’ said Soonono.

  ‘Across the sea,’ said Suares.

  ‘Ever thought of travelling?’ Mr Kaufmann enquired.

  For the three 1941 letters, Agliotti paid Jack in new, bright notes. ‘Could be a bushel where that came from,’ said Agliotti. ‘If you bottom out your collection.’

  ‘A unique collection.’ Mr Kaufmann’s glasses began to hold their airborne party again. ‘Material of the first importance. Items for which some mighty fine people I know would give their right arms, my dear Jack.’

  Off at the shoulder or the elbow? Jack wondered, but all he said was, ‘You’re kidding!’

  ‘Most everything is collectable these days. If very special tastes are involved. Gary, copy Mr Jack’s long letter and I will give him a translation. Unique!’ said Mr Kaufmann again.

  ‘No copies!’ Jack smiled.
He put the letters into the back pocket of his jeans and sat on them. No copies they said in his videos, too. It stopped the pirates. Mr Kaufmann did not look like a pirate. Certainly not like the ‘yo ho ho and a bottle of rum’ pirate, or a pirate with piglet like they had over at the Magic Kingdom. But Jack was not taking any chances.

  ‘You talk it in English,’ he said to Mr Kaufmann. He pointed at Agliotti. ‘And you write it for me. In big letters. No joined-up writing.’

  ‘Smart kid.’ Mr Kaufmann smiled his party smile. ‘OK, Giuseppi, got your pen? Got your paper? Here we go.’

  ‘Boy, oh boy, oh boy!’ said Jack. Marta would get better. He’d buy her doctors and nurses. Now they would have private rooms and prawn crackers and at least six new videos. He wanted to tell them but he didn’t. He felt it wouldn’t be polite and, say what you like about Jack, he could be polite when he wanted. Instead he asked: ‘And what’s your special thing, Mr Kaufmann?’

  Mr Kaufmann had the blue letter in his hands and the lights in his glasses were dancing like this was some kind of victory parade. He talked and Agliotti wrote it all down, and the eyes he turned on Jack when he laid down the letter had in them a considerable kindness.

  ‘Fire’, Mr Kaufmann said quietly, ‘and fury. My special thing is the world aflame and burnt to a cinder.’

  ‘Yes,’ Jack asked, still polite, ‘but what do you – like – collect?’

  ‘Ashes,’ Mr Kaufmann replied. ‘Ashes from the anus mundi.’

  ‘The arsehole of the world, is what that is,’ Agliotti explained.

  ‘Giuseppi is our Latin fundi’ said Mr Kaufmann. ‘In the first place being Italian, it helps. Related languages, you see. And then he needs Latin for his Black Forest Madonnas.’

  ‘Useful tongue, if you’re into madonnas,’ Soonono said and they all laughed, though even Jack could tell it was an old joke.

  Mr Kaufmann liked it, you could see how the skin around the corners of his eyes crinkled nicely and the lenses of his thick glasses glittered. And Jack felt happier all the time, what with madonnas and arseholes and three thousand bucks – what more could a guy ask?

  ‘Who knows what else he may have stashed away, this letter-writing man?’ said Agliotti. ‘Because my nose tells me that this is one audacious, irrepressible, valuable guy with one helluva lot to give. Bring home the bacon, Jackie boy.’

  Jack put his finger in his ear. Fishing for words. He could feel them coming. He wanted to tell them he’d never been out of Orange County. Didn’t know where to begin. ‘Where?’ said Jack.

  ‘Air?’ cried Soonono. ‘Sure you go by air.’

  ‘No, where?’ Jack tried again.

  ‘Not nowhere,’ Agliotti smiled. ‘Tell him, boss.’

  ‘Jack, I believe we know where to search.’ Mr Kaufmann held up the blue airletter. ‘Observe.’ Mr Kaufmann lifted a finger at a time and Jack rolled his eyes. ‘One, this letter is recent. Two, it gives an address. See here – Jack, this is the address. In London, England. Three, someone takes a little stroll Englandwards and asks around. Who knows what he might turn up?’

  Jack stopped him there. Jack had heard enough. Jack was way ahead of Mr Kaufmann now. He jumped to his feet, his yellow hair flew in all directions and then settled again on his square forehead. ‘And then you’ll buy ’em, won’t you? All of ’em? Because if there’s some already, there must be others. Out there in London, England. Waiting to be found and brought home to be put in your anus. . . ’ Now he did falter—

  ‘Mundi,’ said Agliotti, the Latinist.

  *

  When Jack got home to Tranquil Pines, Dr Castro’s red Ferrari was parked in the lot. Jack made for the pink pouffe, but Dr Castro was already sitting on it, reading his book. He thought of the scalpels in Dr Castro’s bag. He’d have a glitter of scalpels in there, behind the brass tongue and costly teeth. Thoughts fluttered in Jack’s head. Like a flock of birds that had flown through an open window into a closed room and now couldn’t find their way out. He put his finger in his ear and wriggled it, clearing a passage. No good. He opened his mouth, perhaps they might escape that way? He didn’t like these thoughts, feathery things, brushing against the top of his skull. Why didn’t they go? Why this pain? It took a while to know what the reason was but he worked it out in the end. You couldn’t fool Jack for long.

  ‘Turned off the fucking TV!’

  ‘Bastard.’ Dr Castro turned the pages of his dictionary. ‘Poltroon. Rapscallion. What you need around here is caring, cleanliness, comfort. What do you have in your cranium to leave a lady in this merde, mire, misery?’

  Jack wasn’t one to give up easily. He knew what was what, did Jack. He’d worked it out. He knew what was hurting him. The screen was grey and cold like old fridge water or the winter fogs you saw in horror movies. It made him shiver. It made him mad. ‘Turn on the fucking TV,’ said Jack, not moving, his hands in the pockets of his jeans showing his yellow socks, the colour of uranium cake.

  Dr Castro looked at him with undisguised distaste. Those yellow socks. He shivered. He has fat ankles, thought Dr Castro, with an unusual shock of pleasure. His head is square, a brick head with blond hair. Dr Castro adjusted his signet ring, which wore on its onyx face a golden eagle seizing a snake in its left talon. He checked the knot of his Hermès tie. He looked at the time on his Audemar Picquet watch and he made for the door. ‘Come, creep. She’s on her way. You come to the hospital. Jesus, this place, it’s fourth world, let me tell you.’

  Dr Castro took him driving, in his red Ferrari. Over to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Hospital. Jack had only ever been driving with Dr Castro in his dreams. When he had planned to kill him with curare. Wet and twitching dreams. A scratch, a little sleep. A stop-over in the lot at the Park. Happy’s lot, or Dopey’s. Dr Castro sleeping nicely in the trunk. Snug as a bug in a rug. Jack got a warm feeling when he thought of these things. Like he did when he played with himself.

  Marta lay in her bed, wired up. Head, arms, Marta was wired to more machines than Frankenstein. And Jack, he really felt concerned. Did she want some shark’s fin soup? Did she want some lemon chicken? Anything, Marta!

  From his pocket he took out an envelope and waved it like a flag. From the envelope he took an airline ticket. ‘I’m going to London, England. I fly tonight.’ Something about this really impressed Jack. Like it was a line from a movie or something. Like, say, ‘I plunge this knife into your heart.’ Or, ‘I’m gonna rip your head off, punk!’ He said it over and over to himself. ‘I fly tonight!’ And all the time he said it he kept waving the air ticket in front of Marta’s eyes.

  And what did old Marta do? Did she jump out of bed and hug him? Did she burst into tears and tell him he was the cleverest boy in the whole wide world? The hell she did. Old Marta struggled to sit up. She pulled the drip out of her arm. Her apricot hospital gown slipped to show a freckled shoulder. She opened her mouth, revealing strong teeth. ‘Schmuck, moron, nincompoop – you been under Marta’s bed?’

  ‘No, Marta.’

  ‘Don’t lie to me, Jack. Where did you get the money? You been under Marta’s bed! You sold off all we had. And you bring me air tickets!’

  And before he could stop her she snatched his ticket and threw it out of the window. Then the nurses rushed in and Dr Castro hustled him out.

  It was the last he saw of Marta. His ticket he found easily enough, crumpled into a ball by Marta’s strong, angry hand. Usable still. And so it was that Jack, the boy from Tranquil Pines Mobile Trailer Park, who got lucky one day at the Kissimee Flea Market, climbed 35,000 feet into the sky on a Northwest Airlines flight from Orlando, Florida, bound for Gatwick, England, in search of fame and fortune.

  Meanwhile, back at the Kissimee Flea Market, Mr Kaufmann was making plans of his own. ‘Name and address and phone number,’ he told Agliotti. ‘Then he gets to hear my story. About Jack who comes to call. The guy with the loot gets a good offer: he can deal with Black Jack, or he can deal with the dealer. Who would you deal with?’
r />   ‘No contest,’ said Agliotti. ‘And Jackieboy, he finds him for us?’

  Mr Kaufmann nodded graciously. ‘Jack finds – we phone.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  Jack Goes to London

  The flight from Orlando had been full. Red-faced men wore Mouse hats. Round black ears waving above their heads gave them the look of blunted stags. Women touched their blonde hairstyles and said: ‘Shan’t be bloody sorry to be back in Basildon, I can tell you. Tracy was sick three times on the Space Mountain roller-coaster.’

  The movie had been bad. He knew it inside about a minute and a half. One of those about husbands and wives. They kiss each other, shout and cry, and the rooms are full of things, pictures and lamplight. People living together in furry warmth, made him think of bears in caves, also made him shiver.

  He shut his eyes and ran his own movie: Dwarfstruck. The one about a midget rapist who preyed on large black women in downtown Chicago, roped and trussed them and rode them like steers. And all the dickheads ranted about the close-ups, complained especially about the branding scene, so realistic you could almost smell the burning flesh. It said so on the video case. Well, the bleeding hearts were told to go and stuff their hands because this was really a fine attack on the way the warped white-power machine exploited the blood and guts of black people.

  The searingly sweet aroma of scorched human thigh was in his nostrils as rubber kissed the Gatwick runway and the captain told them that it was raining in London and thank you for flying Northwest.

  An elderly woman in a Duck hat, a curving surfboard of a beak below thickly lashed round blue eyes, wearing pink Bermuda shorts with an olive green anorak and a fur collar, didn’t wait for him to get out. No, she simply upped and clambered over him heading for the doorway, kicking him sharply on the right knee-cap in passing. Jack opened one green eye. ‘You want a beak up your snatch, lady?’