A Little Tea, a Little Chat

by Christina Stead

  His eyes honestly admired the women. Mrs. Lawrence looked out the window. Gilbert said, “Dad always says, ‘Show them the etchings,’ when he means, ‘Give them an outline,’ but I didn’t know anyone really had etchings; I thought it was a joke.”

  Grant frowned solemnly.

  Livy said, “I think they’re foul; I would give a nickel a dozen—”

  Karolyi became anxious, said very rapidly, “They’re supposed to be very good, not vulgar. I can’t afford better at present, my darling lady, in Cracow it is quite different, I have sanguines, a whole cabinet, you would appreciate that; all over Europe, dear lady, but here, I cannot afford Rops, Fragonard—as well as you, I am aware—Fragonard—Goya—Picasso—I should gladly—I am not a—I beg you, I apologize—”

  He looked at the women as if in despair.

  Grant broke in crossly, “Read us Act One, Scene One, All I Want Is a Woman, that’ll sweep them off their feet, a smash-hit, no need to open in Philadelphia, go on, my boy, read, my dear boy—do me a favor, I brought the girls to hear it.”

  “Yes, I am ready.”

  Karolyi seated himself haughtily on a chair. Grant bustled up, said to the women, “Not there, not there, sit on the divan,” and got them away from the etchings. Karolyi, after a slight bow, himself sat upon the piano stool, pulled a folder off the top of the piano, and began to read. He had not got beyond the third interchange when Grant began to shout, “Where’s the dialogue, no dialogue, got to fill it in, eh? What’s this, just an outline, eh?”

  “It’s all right,” said Livy.

  “All right, eh? Like it? Wonderful, my luck. A smash-hit. I bring luck. What do you think, Livy? You brought me luck. My play’s going to knock them sideways. Nothing like it ever seen. My name in five stars, Karolyi’s too, electric lights. We’ll celebrate the first night, go to the Silver Beach. You all brought me luck, give you a participation. Oh, boy, there won’t be no echoes in our theater. Attracts everyone, girls, men, Dream Girl, every girl wants to be a dream girl, every boy wants one. Packed to the doors, no standing room, don’t have to pay the clack. No free list. People coming on from Jersey to celebrate their golden wedding, I got the woman I wanted. This boy’s got something, eh? Listen, but it needs filling in. No dialogue.”

  He begged Karolyi to go on, but shook his head about the dialogue. Written like that, the whole thing would be eaten up in five minutes, no play there. Karolyi began again swiftly, pregnantly mumbling the first scene. The others were attentive, and Grant, eying them, saw them pleased, jingled a handful of coins in his pocket, and before the second page was ended, called out, “What’s your opinion? My play’s going to be a five-star success. A headliner, Burns Mantle, John Macy Brown, Richard Junior, Louis Crownberger, Winchell, Winchell—a headliner, give them a cocktail party, free passes. We’ll have five road companies too. Believe me, I’m lucky. You’re lucky too, Livy.”

  Gilbert whispered to him. The older man mastered himself, stared, said, “Come on, now, let’s have Scene Two: that’s for the shipwreck, Karel, that last scene reminds me of Roses in the Dust, that Broadway hit, good thing, who knows, get the money out of the pockets twice for the same thing, ha-ha, once a sure-fire, twice a sure-fire—good, good—” he looked at Gilbert—“that favorite of years ago. Human nature doesn’t change. But this is original, we did it; Karel and I. Listen, go on, Scene Two. Shipwreck very original, taken out of Shakespeare, only modern. Got to base it on something you know went. If it was a hit, then it’ll be a hit now; human nature doesn’t change. Different frills, that’s all.”

  He was frowning at Karolyi, who had put down the folder. He was trying to talk him back into his seat.

  “I copy nothing,” said Karolyi.

  “Good, good, my friend, a smash-hit, we like it. They’ll lap it up. Let them start a plagiary suit! Good publicity. Everyone say, ‘What is this thing, just like Roses in the Dust, so good, they got to sue for it!’ The talk of Broadway. Go on, Karel.”

  Karolyi said, “I read no more. You have mine honor wounded…Steal-thief! You said a steal. Karel Karolyi is not a juke box. Was sind Sie but a moneybags? Je ne sais trop pourquoi je vous explique tout ça. Je ne serai votre Pérou. Sortez! ’Raus! Chacal! Requin! Ein schrechliche bourgeois parasitaire! Smashit on the Broadway! Was haben Sie geschrieben? Sing, sing, I pray you! One note from this magnificent herrliche gosier. C’est fini. Was für a schande! Ich bin jetzt a pockpick; asseyez-vous, Mesdames, Messieurs, que je vous contrefais un morceau de La Biche, Racine, Lessing, Checkov, tout ce que vous pourriez imaginer. N’importe qui—tout.—I steal! Tell me, magnificent gentleman, as you are, whether I would know you in Berlin—in Warczawa, Wien? Je suis mille fois plus riche que vous. I pay zwei hundert gulden monatlich to my mother in Amsterdam. I do not profit by the difficulties, het is wel te verstaan. Even zo in Russia, le chacal, qui rôde, qui vole les artistes, le voilà, n’est connu de personne. Pardon, magnificent gentleman, I was a major. Majoors, luftenant-kolonels en kolonels zijn hooger officieren. Ich bin reserve-officier à l’heure qu’il est. Wien me dorlotait. I was not proud, why an artist works always. He works in silence, his life passes in a small room, no one knows him. He is a prisoner. Who shut him up? Son génie. Qu’est-ce que c’est le génie? C’est l’instinct comme les—ces petits animaux—les cobayes?—de se suicider par le travail. I send two hundred guilder and here I work and the magnificent gentleman has not as yet paid un sou! Smashit, he tell me, on the Broadway, I give you vierzig, fünfzig tausend dollars. I send my money to Amsterdam—I wait. Droeve workelijkheid! Bien sûr que je mange à mon faim. I get up at five in the morning, never later, when schlaft die ganze Welt…I walk by the streets. Ne parlez pas si fort, cela les rend nerveux. On appelle ça genus irritable. Is hier geen levende ziel te zien. Money is the sinews of war.

  “Quel temps intolérable, je suis mouillé jusqu’aux os! He doesn’t give me back my coat, and I cannot wear a dairty one. I walk, I walk, how can I work when no one is up, parce qu’il faut que je clâme, vox clamanti. Je ne veux nuire à personne. Ah-ha-ha! il se croit malin, he’s a moneybags too tight sew up, nothing leaks out. Un sou, ich werf en l’air: smashit on the Broadway with one sou. Go with me, go with me, meet someone, I tell you publisher, projucer put up, I give nothing, so say the magnificent gentleman. His pocket sings, not he. Je vous jetterai dehors, but I have honor, il n’y a pas d’espagnol aussi fier que Karel Karolyi! Ah, quelle malchance! I went in a ship that went from port to port, nowhere to land. Endlich, come I here. I wait three years, then meet I the magnificent gentleman. He tells me, You steal! Je vous chasse! Charlatano! For the ladies I will read. For you, I do not wish. I prefer not. Go and I read all for the beautiful, honored ladies.”

  Suddenly this macaroni poured from his mouth, rolling like quicksilver, at first fiery and then faster and faster, until the ear caught little but the cadences of a sinewy voice speaking for itself, a discourse, nonsensical but oddly composed, in fact, little but a piece of music extempore rushing out of the mouth.

  The women, who had begun by smiling, heard him through to the end, while Grant moved uncomfortably, smiling shyly at his friends. He tried to put in from time to time, with, “Now, Karolyi, now let’s get on, very sorry, misunderstanding”—and he frowned and jingled when Karolyi referred to the money he had proposed to put up for the play. Karolyi opened his mouth again, and a new mournful strain was heard, in which occasional small phrases hung together:

  “André my poor typist, I pay seulement quarante dollars, est-ce assez! He is poor, he must eat. Was macht er in Westport? Das weiss ich nicht, dans une grande maison sonore il m’a raconté, avec deux enfants. Il a tous les reçus Madame, and what must I tell him? I cannot say, ‘Je n’ai pas moi-même le sou, André!’ I engaged him. He does his work. I say, ‘Monsieur Grant has not pay me yet.Il doit souffrir.’ I need only two hundred dollars in all, et puis fini, c’est la fin. Est-ce qu’il n’a pas de parole, the magnificent gentleman! C’est un businessman connu. What must I do? Oll
yvood, we can sell for five hundred thousand dollars, my name is known; or I publish itself…But the typist, André, comes tomorrow and puts his hand out, ‘You owe me twenty dollars; where is it?’ You promised it today…I am a man of honor.”

  He told a long anecdote about his affairs in Europe, at the same extraordinary speed; it sounded like a wild ballad sung. He came back to the question of André the typist in the great echoing house, and now sat down on the piano stool and with his hands stretched on the keyboard but still, he turned and said, “Tausende pounds sterling, guilders, francs—more than forty thousand dollars, pyramiding—and my collection of old silver worth one million zloty. Häuser in Warczawa, on the Marczalskaya, dieser endroit ist bei mir sehr geliebt, auch ein schloss—is it possible I have not twenty dollars to give him, and save mine honor?”

  Livy said impatiently, “Let’s hear the scene. Aren’t you men ashamed, brawling like children?”

  Karolyi said, “Gnädige Frau, Pardon, Sie verstehen nicht!”

  Grant said, “I’m going to pay when I see I have something. Why can’t I have my play? Do me a favor—I never said you stole anything.”

  “Shadow money produces shadow scenes. But I do not write shadows. When I come to Ollyvood, they will find out. One million dollars—and I will form a corporation my own, in Radio City—”

  “Read, Karolyi,” said Livy.

  “I read for you only, Gnädige Damen,” said Karolyi, and they heard a few vague words, when “What do you think of my scene, eh?” cried Grant, leaning toward them. Karolyi took no notice of him but read through to the end. Grant kept crying out, all his stock phrases, about their success and “my scene,” and the ladies, whom Karolyi’s vibrant voice, full of an alien chant, had moved, broke into applause. Karolyi listened for a moment, his face rapt, but he broke in on them as if he had not heard. He began another weird declamation about his chances, his finances, and the misery of his typist who would come tomorrow and must return empty-handed, and into which they suddenly heard come a phrase of excitement, lonely fever, “The honored ladies heard my scene and said, ‘Karel, this is a enchanting, you are a spellbinder, when women hear this, they will faint with pleasure and throw you flowers.’ Only let me kiss the feet of these tenderhearted women who understand me. ‘I understand you,’ she said, the dark young American lady, and this thing will be a hit on the Broadway and you will be a millionaire again in dollars. You will have masses of gold, handfuls of dollars. You have guilders, francs, marks, zloty and lire in Europe, and a thousand pounds sterling: magnificent, wonderful, and original. And it is a serenade from beginning to end, she told me, the charming, gracious woman, Mrs. Livy. They were swept off their feet, these New York ladies and cried out to me with tears in their eyes, ‘This will be an unprecedented success and you will be invited at once to Ollyvood.’ Katinka was not a success the other night, it had a cold reception. This is excellent news, this is good news for us. They do not want that any more but here, my play, The Subway Princess—”

  “What’s that?” cried Grant.

  “My plot, The Subway Princess.”

  Grant flew out of his seat, scarlet with rage, and shouted that the name of his play was All I Want Is a Woman.

  Another violent scene followed, at the end of which they all went out, Karolyi bowing to the ladies but remaining watchful, brooding. Grant grumbled all the way to the restaurant, “The fellow’s a nut, can’t have him along. It’ll be a smash-hit. It’s the nervous strain. Don’t you think it’ll make us a million dollars? Do you think he’s written anything, though? It’s a skeleton, it’s all in his head, eh? I promised him a few dollars, but I don’t pay till I see something. He’s been five months on the play and I haven’t seen a line. I expected to see it produced long ago. I heard him improvise but I didn’t see anything on paper. Damn fella just sat down and copied from other hits maybe. But it’ll be a grand success when we—” and so forth for the evening.

  Meanwhile, Livy had paid great attention to Gilbert, and had probed her own memory for details of Laura. She said disconsolately once, while the father was talking for the hundredth time about his “hit,” “Yes, but she’s got the house. When the war’s over he’ll go back to her if only to get the goods. I don’t know what I’m wasting my time on.”

  When they left, late in the evening, she assumed her best manners, and invited them all for the second evening following, “I haven’t much time in town, the next one is on me, and I want you all together, and why not ask Karel Karolyi? I like him. He’s completely nuts, with him ‘meshuggah is trumps,’ but I like him, I love him.”

  Grant agreed to this, “Tell him to bring the script—got to see more on paper—just a few words, do me a favor, that isn’t dialogue, he tells me—André—I don’t need no typist yet—he can type the two-three words himself.”

  When they had taken the women home, Grant, like a madman, went back to this theme, adding to Gilbert, “Karolyi—seven-fifteen yesterday on my doorstep asking for twenty dollars for the typist. I don’t know where I stand. And this morning he telephoned Miss Robbins and David Flack. All the day on the telephone—he sings in my ears twenty dollars, and the receipts from the typist. I have three receipts but where is the dialogue? Neurotics, you got to see the stuff on paper. He can chirp like a canary, but we can’t take that to a producer. Not so mad as that.”

  He retold the anecdote many times and found Gilbert in agreement with him. But Gilbert went farther and asked his father to get out of the whole affair. If he had not put any money into it, then he had no investment to recover, and he was well shut of it. Let Karolyi sell his play, in skeleton, to someone, or to Hollywood. If his father had money, free cash, let him put it into educational films.

  “We’re not play-peddlers; it’s business I don’t understand, people I can’t handle.”

  35

  The next evening about nine-thirty o’clock, Grant, who was entertaining the blondine in his apartment, was roused by a telephone call from the head waiter of Manetti’s restaurant. This man asked Grant what to do about the foreigner who was waiting for him at the restaurant. He had been there since a quarter to seven and insisted that he had an appointment with Mr. Grant and some ladies, so could not go. At the same time he refused to dine, since he was invited to dinner by Grant.

  Grant shouted, “Throw the fella out, I’ve no appointment,” and banged down the phone. He frowned, thinking of three or four who were goading him at the moment, schemers whom he had promised money, and discouraged after reflection. He said as much to the blondine, and grumbled, “I’ll make a clean sweep of those fellas, cost me money, don’t work.”

  At this moment the telephone rang and Grant heard Karolyi on the phone, strangely descanting from the Tower of Babel with his sudden laughs, names never heard before, intimate interpolations, “You know, as you said to me, honored sir, my honorable and distinguished friend, believe me, never, I say to myself, would you humiliate me, you are a man of honor and respected in the business world—”

  Grant listened to this for some ten minutes, whole passages in unknown languages, perhaps Polish, perhaps Rumanian, perhaps Czech. He then passed the telephone to Mrs. Downs who listened for a while, making nothing of it, except that it was about his play, his lost craftsmanship, all given up for success and successfully, a moneymaker, he; into it all came the theme of money, money, money like a lost voice. She heard it in all his languages—money and its denominations, the names of currencies, the conditions of exchanges, and how it was that money was blocked now by the Nazis, and how hard it was for people in those warring countries to eat, though he kept his word as a man of honor, and thus it came back, money and honor, and how of his own circumstances he said nothing. Still he trusted with his hand on his heart, said he, to the honor of his true friend, Grant. At the end of a few minutes the blondine softly put down the telephone.

  “Do you make out his gibberish?” asked Grant.

  “He wants money.”

  “Let him ta
lk his shirttail from his pants, he’ll get nothing from me, to the devil with him, let his teeth chatter, if he won’t give me my dialogue. He can eat my doorstep, he can eat his typewriter keys, he’ll get nothing out of me till I get my dialogue, to hell with his receipts, not till I get my ideas on paper! Let the typist starve to death—and his children, too. I’ll get my words on paper.”

  But scarcely were the words out of Grant’s mouth when the phone rang again. Again it was the frenzied man, his monologue starting in the middle of a sentence as if he had gone on speaking since the blondine had cut him off. Now he had gone farther along with a freshet of German, saying that several famous publishers had agreements from him and he had an agent, but he wished to stand by his friend Grant, for he was a man of honor and he had this night conceived a new scene for the “masterpiece” which would annihilate all their enemies and make them the crowned kings of drama in this country, My Narrow Paradise the better name, or My Dream Girl; and if anyone could crowd Grant and Karolyi from the profession after this, such a marvel would never have been seen. Let him expect the script, it was supernaturally beautiful, but only let him give the twenty dollars for the wretched typist who lived in the country for poverty’s sake and came to town today like a beggar with his hand out. He, Karolyi, his honor torn from him, he standing in the shreds of his honor, had nothing to give to the man of the promised sum. What must he do? The typist, André, would be there tomorrow, having stayed in town in Karolyi’s flat, not having the fare to return home; but he needed the twenty dollars. If Karolyi came round early to Grant in the morning would he get the twenty dollars, or would he wait upon his friend Grant in the office, or at any time, but of course, lunch or dinnertime, in order to give him the receipts again and to get the twenty dollars? Grant would be satisfied, pleased, enchanted with My Narrow Paradise. He ended suddenly, “Then it is all settled, I come tomorrow at ten in the office for the twenty dollars.”