IN ANOTHER COUNTRY, AND BESIDES
IN ANOTHER COUNTRY, AND BESIDES
—— A Novel ——
MAXWELL JACOBS
NEW YORK
NASHVILLE • MELBOURNE • VANCOUVER
IN ANOTHER COUNTRY, AND BESIDES
A Novel
© 2018 Maxwell Jacobs
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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THIS BOOK IS FOR
SUE AND JON
“Thou hast committed—Fornication: but that was in another country, and besides, the wench is dead.”
—Christopher Marlowe (The Jew of Malta)
IN ANOTHER COUNTRY, AND BESIDES
——
BOOK I
CHAPTER I
IT WAS DARK NOW as it always became dark quickly after sunset. The wind was in from the east, and a smell of sewage came across the canal. I turned back to the north so the odor wasn’t as strong. I knew I was alone. I could see prisms in the dark canal water stretching ahead with calmness. The clouds were building up in the sky and gave a blurred reflection onto the water. It always feels lonely on the streets of Venice, and I thought how some men feared being alone.
Looking up past the low fog, I could see white cumulus clouds building up in piles of thickness against a dark sky. In that moment I had no thoughts and no feelings of any kind.
It was cold now. I rubbed my hands against my trousers. An aeroplane passed overhead on its way to somewhere warm. I watched its blurred reflection in the canal, thinking it must be very strange in an aeroplane. I wonder what Venice would look like from that height.
The moon was rising. I had no way of judging the time. I wasn’t clear enough in the head. I’m as clear as this cloudy night, I thought. “I must sleep,” I said out loud. I should sleep when the sun sleeps. Even the ocean sleeps on certain days when there’s no current and it’s flat and calm. I must remember to sleep. I could go without sleeping, but that would be too dangerous. Maybe I’m half asleep now. And bed, I thought. Bed is my friend. Just bed. Bed would be wonderful.
I stopped and took out a cigarette. I blew the smoke out into the distance, and it disappeared and mixed with the fog. I sat down next to three wrapped-up canal boats with my legs over the side, almost touching the water. Wet green weed hung from the lines of the rope that held the boats in place. I dipped one foot in and it made a swirl, and I watched the ripples flow off to the far side. If I had no sense, I would splash this dirty water on my face and wake up. I looked up to the sky. There will be bad weather in the next days.
It was bitterly cold now, so I thought about Africa during the war with its long golden beaches and white beaches, so white that they hurt your eyes, and the high capes and great brown mountains and the smell of the breeze in the mornings. But tonight the smell of the land was harsh, and it made me feel sick. I’m more tired than I have ever been, I thought. “You’re tired inside,” I said out loud.
I smoked two more before I heard the noise. It moved toward me, along the side of the canal, in the dark. Looking up, I saw a flight of wild ducks etching themselves against the dark sky over the water, then blurring, then etching again, and I knew in that moment no man was ever alone.
As it approached, it moved on the walls as the breeze moved the yellow misty street lamps.
To some people, such a sensation would make them stand up and walk away. Not me, I thought, not after that stinking war.
The moon was now high in the sky and lit up the boats and ropes, and the fog felt bright. I figured the moon was one hour higher, and the brightness of the fog did not hurt my eyes so much if I looked to the east.
There were only two small boats in sight now, but it was becoming harder to see as the mist was patchy and unclear. There was more wind in the sky than there had been, and soon I hoped to see a sign for something familiar. I looked out on the walkway and a cat passed on the far side going about its business, and I watched it. Then I just watched the walkway.
All my life I had problem with my eyes. Especially in the early-morning sun, I thought. In the evenings I can look straight without getting problems or the blackness. It has more force in the evening too. But in the morning it is painful.
When I heard a shout toward the boat, I squinted and shifted but said nothing.
I looked on and thought about bed again. I wish I wasn’t lost. It could be hours before I get back. Maybe I should just sleep here. No, it’s too cold, I thought. So I began to dream of that long warm yellow beach again and took out another cigarette.
“For God’s sake, get off me,” a man shouted in English. He was rough and harsh-spoken. I looked on and could hear that he loudly mumbled something else but couldn’t understand what, and then suddenly he came into sight and dropped to his knees. I stood up and dropped the cigarette into the canal.
As he came under the light I saw moving hands, wavy hair, white faces, grimacing, gesturing, screaming. He was down on the ground and the other man stood over him and then kneeled carefully to the ground and grabbed his head on both sides, lifted it up slowly, and then struck it down hard on the cold damp cobblestones. The sound gave a terrifying crack.
Silence came. I could see the blood coming, and it moved slowly from the body, filling in the gaps of the cobbled stones. The victim gave one last groan of protest, which filled the street with a loud strength I had only heard once before in my life. Then the body became relaxed and limp and still. It was all so fast. The attacker stood up, composed himself, and wiped the sweat from his face and walked slowly away.
I looked on and something else stared back at me. I waited a moment. I waited a long time like that.
I looked around, smelled the sweet blood, and then walked over and knelt down and picked up his wrist and felt for a pulse. I found one, but it was faint, and as I pressed harder it seemed to flutter away. The harder I pressed, the more it seemed to reduce until finally it was gone. The smell was coppery and sweet, and I was not afraid for even a moment. I waited for a mi
nute to see if he would make a movement or a sound, but nothing. Just stillness.
Looking down at this mountainous form on the floor, I felt adrenaline rush throughout my body. The blood smell from my hands meant nothing now with all that scent in the air. I was expecting someone to shout out at any minute.
I looked at the knife and picked it up, not knowing why. I stood up and felt the adrenaline again, and it overwhelmed my body and made my legs shake. That dark foggy sky, the goose bumps rising. I put my two hands together and felt the palms. They were not dead and I could bring back the pain of life by simply opening and closing them.
I took a breath, put the knife away, and started off. My head began to ring so I moved fast on my feet. Walking away and getting the cool breath of wind from the street, I reflected on how important it is to discover such graceful exits.
The next thing I registered was the hotel bed. My face pressed down on the soft white sheets. I raised myself up, lit the gas lamp beside the bed, and looked at my blood-soaked hands. Best not to think about it. Oh, that’s swell advice. Try and take it. Try and take it.
A knock at the door broke through my thoughts. I jumped up and ran to the bathroom and turned on the shower, which gave a large hissing sound.
“In the shower, please come back later,” I shouted with strange terror and waited for a moment before walking slowly over to the peephole. It was the maid. “Si, signore,” she said, and as she left I quietly attached the chain.
In the shower I scrubbed myself until my skin was raw. I never used to realize it. I try and play along. I try to not make trouble for people. Probably I never would have any trouble if I hadn’t, well… People are that way. To hell with people. I got out, naked and dripping, and went straight to the mini bar. I opened two small bottles of Irish whiskey and, pouring them both into a glass, gulped them down and collapsed onto the bed. I wish it had really been a dream, I thought. It might have turned out well.
By the time an hour had passed the room was a misty fog of smoke. I kept wondering if anyone had found the body and if I had been careless on my way back. I went to get another drink, but my hands were shaking now and I dropped everything on the floor.
I sat down on the bed with remorse and looked around the room. It was large, wide and high ceilinged on the side of the Grand Canal. I opened the windows and the east wind came into the room. The canal was becoming as gray as painters had once painted it on one of its grayest days.
I washed down the sheets and lay them to dry. Cleaned the knife, checked the room and pulled the door, got into the elevator, and looked in the mirror. There was a painted, frightened expression on my face, and I knew as soon as the elevator hit the lobby floor I would fly out the door and run—and keep running.
I took a deep breath and fixed my tie and waited for the halt with the slight hydraulic inaccuracy of the elevator, and when the brass doors slid open, I moved through the hotel lobby slowly and calmly, looking around for people’s reaction and checking anything that I may have touched on the way up to the room. But nothing seemed strange or out of place, and nothing particularly unusual transpired.
CHAPTER II
IT WAS BRIGHT THAT NIGHT and the atmosphere of the city had changed as the evening went on, as if something had left Venice and the city was now putting on a show just for me. It was a colossal show of water taxis and costumes, the hurrying of people on the streets and the voices with no real purpose, and me, walking with the moving crowd through Piazza San Marco and down toward Harry’s Bar. The canal seemed as gray as steel now with its quick, failing winter light.
Inside, against the bar and tables, was a small crowd. It was hot. I took off my coat and placed it on a hanger on the wall next to the entrance. I went over to the bar and sat down on a tall stool that left my feet dangling. I couldn’t help but think that I’d dreamed up the whole rotten business. I kept my stare until the thoughts had passed, and in the mirror behind the bar, between the bottles, I saw myself.
The sound of the bar came sudden to me, and I looked around the room then back down at my whiskey.
Isn’t the literary life a funny one. This night had truly been a frightfully hellish experience. But shouldn’t we all make more sacrifices for literature? I know it’s awfully hard. But in the end, isn’t it all for literature?
I was a little drunk. Not drunk in any positive sense but just enough to be careless. I sat there against the zinc bar and did not talk. I was pretty well through with the subject. I had probably considered it from most of its various angles.
I watched a good-looking girl. She looked up and I caught her eye.
Now there’s a girl you could write about. No, girls are not the problem. It’s the conversations. That’s the tricky part. A good writer needs to be able to remember conversations, not girls, and I’m terrible at remembering conversations. Therefore I must be a lousy writer.
A crowd of young American men came in, some in jerseys and some in shirtsleeves. I could see their faces and hair newly washed. The bartender looked at me and smiled. I looked on at the girl and she looked at them and they looked at her and I felt pretty rotten.
One of them stood by the bar and looked at the girl again and said, “I do declare. There is an actual harlot,” and they all laughed. He looked a great deal like a compatriot who must have looked like that when he saw the promised land. I wanted to swing at one and shatter that superiority. Instead I took notice of her movements, her eyes, and the way she talked. She wasn’t doing anything in particular—just smiling and laughing, but for a moment she started to hold my world together.
Her hair was dark, with a light touch of mahogany that flowed down in thick waves, which curled up at the tips and flicked at her face. She was wearing a carnival mask, and it was the type that looks like a cat’s face so her mouth and chin were exposed and the eyeholes were wide enough to see bright brown eyes and long dark lashes. I couldn’t see her nose, just her full red lips.
She smiled at one of the men and I looked away and took on a sudden look of reflection. To hell with women. I took out a ten lira note from my pocket and placed it on the bar.
“You go now? So early?” the bartender asked.
“Yes,” I said and started for the door.
I walked for some minutes, passing Piazza San Marco and the big protruding bell tower with its fluted orange and square brick shaft. I walked by the water on the walkway until the walkway finished. Looking around and seeing nobody, I took out the knife and threw it far into the Grand Canal. My head started to work again. I smiled and walked with thoughts of the girl, and suddenly I felt good and warm and safe.
I do not know what time I got to bed. I remember undressing, putting on the bathrobe, standing out on the balcony. I knew I was quite drunk, and when I came in I put on the gas light next to the bed and started to read. I was reading Faulkner. I read the same page over several times. The pressure in my head seemed to loosen. I was very drunk and did not want to shut my eyes. If I kept on reading perhaps the feeling would pass. I thought I had paid for everything. No idea of retribution or punishment. Just an exchange of values. You gave up something and you got something else. I paid my way into everything and paid the price.
The next morning I walked down to the Campo Santo Stefano for coffee and brioche. It was a fine morning. There was an early-morning market selling wonderful Italian delights. The smell of the fresh produce filled the air, and I felt that pleasant feeling of a cold day coming on.
At the American Express, there were two cables waiting for me, one from Finn, and one from my editor. At a nearby café I read Finn’s cable first, unfolding the typewritten sheet respectfully.
FORWARDED FROM: AMERICAN EXPRESS
C/O HARRY HOFFMAN
ZURICH
HARRY STOP IN PARIS ON A STORY STOP STAYING AT HOTEL VOUILLEMONT STOP HERE TILL WEDNESDAY STOP COME JOIN STOP LETS GET COCKEYED STOP FINN.
I sat at the corner of the terrace, staring out at the city and thinking of Paris. Th
e second cable read:
RECEIVED SHORT STORY STOP ACCEPTED IN MAY PUBLICATION FOR SERIALIZATION STOP ADDED ONE HUNDRED FIFTY DOLLARS TO ROYALTY ACCOUNT STOP KEEP SENDING MORE STORIES FOR CONSIDERATION STOP THOMAS.
Well, at least that one got accepted. One hundred and fifty dollars seems a bit short for ten thousand words. I was expecting at least three hundred. Maybe in the end I’ll be like Cézanne and Picasso, who sold paintings for ten dollars fifty years ago and are now worth hundreds of thousands. I read the papers with another coffee and then smoked a cigarette. The flower-women were walking past and up to the market with flowers in a cart. The street was now busy with people and tourists. I left and walked behind a man who was pushing a roller that printed the name MARTINI on the sidewalk in damp letters. It felt pleasant to be out. I saw a string of barges being towed empty down the flat still water. The city looked nice. It was always pleasant to cross a bridge in Venice.
At nine o’clock I was in Harry’s Bar. The girl was not there. Not that I expected she would be. It was more wishful thinking than any expectation. I sat down and wrote some letters. By nine-thirty, I walked over to the bar and took the same stool at the bar and the same drink.
At ten-thirty it was customary to change the bar staff, and the barman from the night before came on, swapping with the current barman, whose name I hadn’t caught but had been a fine barman. I couldn’t for the life of me remember the name of the new barman but I knew that I had asked him the previous night. He was wearing formal attire as a head barman. He had a fine face with a long straight nose, truthful eyes, and the honorable white hair of his age.
“Flavio, is it?” I asked.
“Si, signore. Another? Same again?” he responded as he wiped down the big mahogany bar.
In Another Country, and Besides Page 1