St. Urbain's Horseman

by Mordecai Richler

  Jake let him have an elbow in the stomach. “You said North Dakota.”

  “– South Dakota, Vermont, New Hampshire, Texas, Nevada. How many does that make?”

  Jake whacked him across the face with the flat of his hand.

  “Arizona, California, Utah, New Mexico, Missouri, Miami, Georgia, Florida, Alabama.” Driven back against the hood of the car, his balance precarious, his eyes bulging, Irwin began to quiver. “Kansas, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alaska –”

  Aunt Sophie, emerging from the apartment building, shrieked.

  “What’s going on here?” Uncle Abe asked, aghast.

  “My grandfather didn’t come here steerage, Baruch didn’t die in penury, Joey wasn’t driven out of town, so that this jelly, this nose-picker, this sports nut, this lump of shit, your son, should inherit the earth,” and Jake turned to stride down the street, fighting his rising stomach, praying that he would not be sick until he had turned the corner.

  16

  IT WAS A GIGGLE, COMING ACROSS NANCY’S LOVE letters in Jake’s bottom desk drawer. (“… I never did that before, darling, not with any other man …”) Oh, wasn’t she the grand duchess! (“… previously took precautions, because there was no man’s child I wanted …”) Such transcendental thoughts! Such high-flown sentiments! As if she wasn’t made like all the others, with the answer between her legs.

  Digging deeper into the drawer, Harry came up with some pages of script.

  CU GENERAL ROMMEL

  As he raises his field glasses to his eyes.

  POV ROMMEL (THROUGH FIELD GLASSES)

  The 8th Army retreating in disarray across the dunes.

  Harry began to skip.

  INT. DAY. A DUNGEON

  reconstructed to resemble a child’s nursery. MONTY, on his knees, stripped to the waist. Terrified yet enthralled as MAJOR POPPINS enters, wearing only a nurse’s cap, a bra and corset, and high-button shoes.

  Interesting. How very interesting. If Jake secretly fancied that sort of stuff, what right had he to have feigned such superiority, mingled with disgust, when Harry had trusted him sufficiently to show him some of the photographs he had taken. Mocking him. Bloody superior. Even when Harry had spoken more freely than he had with anybody else. Patronizing bastard. His smile so smug, Harry remembered, that he had had half a mind to clobber him with his tripod. After all, he had everything. Beautiful wife. Three kids. House in Hampstead. Numbered Swiss account. Fuck him, Harry thought, suddenly unable to endure even another minute in the house.

  Outside, it was raining. Once more into the breach, Harry, for England and cunt. He tried his charms to no avail in the coffee bars along the King’s Road and Kensington Church Street, feeling despondent by the time he returned to Finchley Road and managed to elbow his way into The Scene just before closing time.

  The girl who caught his eye was sullen but certainly pretty, with lazy blue eyes and long blond hair. Sitting alone, puffing on the butt of a handrolled cigarette. Tit-hugging sweater, miniskirt. Whoever had been sitting with her had gone, leaving his coffee unfinished and cheesecake uneaten.

  “I don’t know how to put this, actually,” Harry said shyly, “because you won’t believe me.”

  “That is right,” she agreed, the accent German.

  “I am a film director.”

  She tittered, seemingly drifting.

  “You see,” Harry began, sliding into the empty chair beside her.

  “You are not invited. Hey, I do not recall …”

  “Give me two minutes and then just say it and I’ll be off,” he said, flicking his fingers, “like that,” and he held his light meter close to her, studying it. “You are absolutely beautiful.”

  “Tick-tock, tick-tock.”

  “I’ve been searching all night and without a doubt you’re it.”

  “Tick-tock, tick-tock.”

  “Now then, I am a film director, as it happens. Look here,” and he shoved a credit card at her.

  “Jacob Hersh,” she read aloud, indifferent.

  “And look at this.”

  Not without effort, blinking, she read a review of Jake’s last film and scrutinized his union card. Then she picked up the clipping once more, reading it more slowly this time, moving her lips, and absently passing him her cigarette butt. Pretending to inhale deeply, Harry said, “Lovely.”

  “And so. What is it you want?”

  “Let’s split and go to my pad for a drink. It’s not far,” he said, half rising.

  But she didn’t budge.

  “Are you an actress?”

  She nodded, no.

  “Beautiful. Fab.”

  “I am a student. An au pair girl.”

  “Would you believe it?” Harry shook his head; he smacked a fist into his open hand. “Would you believe it?”

  “Believe what …?”

  “Lightning strikes twice.”

  “I do not understand.”

  “Elke Sommer. She was an au pair girl, you know, right here in Hampstead. When she was discovered.”

  This time, when he took her arm, raising her from the table, she did not resist.

  “Mind you, I can’t promise anything,” Harry continued. “Your English isn’t bad, it’s charming in fact, but there are some lines I’d like you to read for me. Are you up to it?”

  Shrugging, she said, “Why not?”

  Outside, giddy with achievement, his heart pounding, Harry said, “Walk ahead of me.”

  “Why?”

  “Do as I say. Please.”

  She floated on ahead of him.

  “Smashing. Absolutely smashing,” Harry said, catching up to take her arm. “Let’s go.”

  17

  JAKE DIDN’T LAST THE PRESCRIBED WEEK OF MOURNING, but left a day early, undone by his excruciating and heated quarrel over the Horseman. It rankled. Oh how it rankled. On the flight back to London, bouncing in blue skies over Labrador, dozing fitfully as he cruised over the rippled, steely Atlantic, Jake thrashed through his altercation with Uncle Abe again and again, coming out best in retrospect.

  England was signaled by earache, the lowering jet, and the usual bank of snotty cloud. Jake disembarked at Heathrow in a black mood, with tomorrow’s drive to Cornwall, Nancy and the kids, still ahead of him.

  There were lights on in the house. Could he have forgotten to …? No, Harry would be there, damn it, he thought, damn it, as he turned the key.

  The hall smelled sweetly of incense.

  Once in the living room, he saw the girl. Lazy blue eyes. Lank blond hair. Coltish. He had surprised her, drifting out of the study, and now it was with a measured insolence that she stooped to retrieve a shawl from the floor, gathering it to her breasts. As in a frozen frame, he was to remember, they scrutinized each other, Jake seething with impatience, the girl leaning against the door, the opening picture in a Playboy spread sprung to life.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “This is my house,” Jake snarled, “my name is Hersh,” and, as if to establish his proprietorial rights, he flung his flight bag on the sofa, self-consciously aware that his manner was as bellicose as an A. J. Cronin father returned to the manse.

  The girl withdrew into the study, there was a giggle, some whispering, and then an agitated Harry appeared.

  “Oh, for Chrissake! Put something on, will you!”

  Harry slid into his trousers, grinning idiotically. “But you weren’t coming back until tomorrow.”

  “I changed my mind.”

  Beseechingly, he squeezed Jake’s arm. “I told her I was in films. A director. Don’t ruin it for me, Jake.”

  She was there again, standing in the doorway, the shawl wrapped around this time.

  “Do you want her?” Harry whispered. “She’s crazy for it. All ways.”

  “At the moment, Fellini, I’m crazy for only one thing. A drink,” and he turned smartly, taking the stairs to his bedroom two at a time, stumbling but once.

  Cunning Harry sent Ingrid w
ith a tray. Remy Martin and a glass. “You are angry with us,” she said.

  “And you are very observant.”

  “You’re the intellectual type.”

  “That’s the ticket.”

  “But you keep a gun.”

  So Harry had treated her to a tour of his aerie. The little German bitch would have seen the photographs on the wall. Frau Goering, the Von Papens, “Sepp” Dietrich.

  “For a good reason,” he said. “Now would you just set the drink down over there and go.”

  She reeked of sex, and he, equally palatably, of death. Gratuitously, he added, “I’m going to have a bath.”

  “What reason?”

  “The gun or the bath?”

  “The gun.”

  “I might be planning to shoot some Germans. Maybe even you. Who knows?”

  Ingrid giggled, pointing, but it wasn’t his prowess she was mocking. It was the Y-front underwear he was standing in. Powder blue. Pilar had stupidly put them in the machine with Sammy’s jeans and the colors had run.

  Spitefully, Jake pulled at the shawl, which came away easily. Then just to show he wasn’t utterly unappreciative or a prude, he ran his hand over her breasts and passed it angrily between her legs. Glaring at him, she locked him there. Jake, to his astonishment, responded by pinching her as viciously as he could. Which set her to trembling all over. The next thing he knew she was on her knees, her head bobbing between his legs. Uprooting her, Jake feigned lofty disinterest, betrayed by a throbbing erection. Even so, he said, “Go back to Harry, will you. He must be getting impatient.”

  At five thirty in the morning, Ingrid started up Haverstock Hill, heading for home, her gait uneven, almost a totter. Sobbing, she steeled herself against the car creeping toward her, unaware as yet that it wasn’t an attempted pick-up but a police car, coming from scouring the Heath for Hampton flashers: Echo-1 from E Division.

  “Everything all right, miss?”

  Her inchoate tale, choked with sobs, sounded like the usual guff. Although Sergeant Hoare was skeptical, for at that hour most girls surprised in her state fell back on the same sort of wild sexual charges, especially if they were frightened, he parked, his engine idling. Policewoman Everett invited Ingrid to sit down beside her in the back of the white Jaguar. Wearily, she asked the girl to begin again. It was no use. Once more she rambled hysterically, weeping, and lapsing into German.

  “What was the other man’s name again?” Sergeant Hoare asked, glancing sharply at policewoman Everett, who took out her notebook for the first time.

  “Hersh.”

  “Have you been taking drugs?”

  “Niemals. Not me.”

  “Not you. But the others?”

  Ingrid fell silent, more shrewd than hysterical now, and protested that she felt better and was capable of walking home.

  “It’s no trouble. We’ll drive you. But what would you say to a nice cup of tea first?”

  18

  JAKE APPEARED WITH HARRY IN MAGISTRATES’ COURT, Great Marlborough Street, at ten thirty in the morning. Harry was charged with sodomy, rape, and the possession of cannabis. Jake was charged with rape, aiding and abetting sodomy, and the possession of cannabis. They both pleaded not guilty. Detective Inspector Mallory, the officer in charge of the case, did not object to their being released on bail, which was set at £1,000 for Jake and £2,500 for Harry. Mallory pleaded for a remand of eight days to allow the police sufficient time to collect all the necessary evidence. This, too, was granted by His Worship. And Jake, bewildered by events that were succeeding each other with benumbing swiftness, retired with Harry to the pub across the street.

  “Now we’ll see what sort of friend you are,” Harry said.

  Jake stared at him, puzzled. He had quite forgotten Harry was there.

  “Now we’ll see if you’re my friend or if you run.”

  “Don’t panic. I’m not going to run, Harry.”

  “You can’t. You’d be ill-advised, mate. Because you’re in this up to your neck. Just like me.”

  “The hell I am. I just walked in on the two of you,” he pleaded. “I’m a bystander.”

  “Hullo, hullo, hullo.”

  Jake was elsewhere. “I am insulted,” he said. “I am insulted to my very bones.”

  “There, there, luv. It hasn’t even started yet. You haven’t seen anything yet.”

  “Bastard.”

  Harry clucked his tongue. He waved a finger in front of Jake’s ash-gray face. “No, you don’t. Because I’m not the bastard. You are. If not for you, mate, none of this would have happened.”

  Jake began to tremble. He hid his hands.

  “If you hadn’t heaved her out of the house, she never would have gone to the cops. She wouldn’t have had a case. If she had been allowed to stay the night, as she expected – if she had eaten breakfast with us – there isn’t a magistrate in the land who wouldn’t have laughed her out of court. But then we didn’t want her soiling your precious fucking sheets, did we?”

  “No.”

  “Better this, wouldn’t you say?”

  But Jake wasn’t with him; he was still struggling awake to the clamor of heightened voices and a dog’s persistent barking, starting downstairs in his dressing gown, baffled, his mood irascible, to discover Harry locked in a heated exchange with Sergeant Hoare.

  “Why did they take my jar of vaseline with them?” he asked.

  “Because the police doctor’s been up her ass hole with a swab, and what do you think he found, duckie, the Northwest Passage?”

  “Did you force her, Harry?”

  “Not bloody likely. She couldn’t get enough. But it doesn’t matter. Because sodomy is a felony even among consenting adults. Your wife can charge you with it. Or doesn’t she fancy the back door?”

  “Go to hell.”

  “Driving out to see her now, are you? Well, here’s to you. The best of British luck.”

  Jake said he would be in touch with Harry again in the morning. They should go to see solicitors together.

  “If you let them talk you into making me the sacrificial lamb,” Harry said, “I’ll have you in court, mate. I’ll do anything I can to see that you get sentenced.”

  “I’m sure you would.”

  “I’ve got nothing to lose, don’t you see?”

  On the road to Newquay, Jake’s mood oscillated between seizures of fear, obliging him to pull to on the soft shoulder, resting with his head against the steering wheel until his nausea passed, and long stretches of lightheartedness, even incredulity, wherein he all but convinced himself none of this had happened to him. It was altogether too absurd.

  Nancy, who had been trying to reach him at the house all through the night, was in a state. “Where have you been, Jake?”

  “In jail.”

  He had prepared a speech.

  “When I was at university, we used to play something we called the Values Game. We set ourselves moral dilemmas. In one of them, which I remember rather well, you are crossing a bridge, you pause to stand by the railing, and you see a man drowning. He’s a total stranger. Maybe you can save him. But if you jump in after him it is equally possible that you may go down with him in the ensuing struggle. There is nobody else on the bridge. So if you choose to walk away and pretend you haven’t seen him, nobody will know but you. What do you do?”

  Then he told Nancy that he had lied to her; Harry had indeed been staying in the house and he was there the night of Jake’s return from Montreal. He had a girl with him, somebody he had picked up in a coffee bar. Harry and the girl had played all manner of sexual games in which he had not taken part, he said, but he had joined them downstairs for a drink, and something the girl had said outraged him. He had thrown her bodily out of the house in a paroxysm of anger. Vengefully, the girl had gone to the police and sworn out a complaint. Jake told her what he was charged with and what Harry was charged with. He assured her he was innocent and that the case against him, if not Harry, was bound to collapse
in Magistrates’ Court in eight days’ time, but reporters would be there, there would be publicity, obscene publicity, and they would have to stand up to it.

  Nancy didn’t cry. Neither did she admonish him. With the utmost calm all she said was, “I think we should return to London immediately.”

  “You could stay here with the kids. It might be better.”

  “No.”

  He told her that Harry blamed him and confessed that there was some justice, however convoluted, to his complaint. He would pay for Harry’s defense, he said, but once the hearing was over he would never see him again. That was a promise.

  “It could go further than Magistrates’ Court, Jake. I think you should be prepared for that.”

  “It won’t,” he cried. “It can’t.”

  “If it’s going to be in the newspapers, you’d better write to your mother before she reads it herself.”

  Canada. He told her about his father’s funeral, light years ago it seemed, on the other side of the moon, and about his quarrel with Uncle Abe over the Horseman. Which was the only time she revealed how fragile was her composure.

  “You’ve got him to thank for this, you know. If not for Joey,” she said, “you would never have met Ruthy or …”

  “Don’t,” he protested, appalled.

  “I’m sorry.”

  It was dawn; and the packing was done.

  “We can start back as soon as the kids are up,” he said. “I don’t need any sleep.”

  In London, the following evening, Jake had his first meeting with Ormsby-Fletcher. In the morning, Detective Inspector Mallory came to call with two policemen, one of them a photographer, and Jake hastily sent Nancy out with the children. Mallory’s affable men measured the house from end to end. They took pictures, discussing lenses with Jake, and exposures, for after all he was a professional. Jake served drinks.

  “I’ve got some good news for you,” Mallory said amiably.

  “What’s that?”

  “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but it will all come out in the wash. We found a small quantity of cannabis in her room. She claims Stein gave it to her, but …” He shrugged. “… It might not hold up.”