A Little Tea, a Little Chat

by Christina Stead

  “Now, a question of law. In property, anyone who wins is right. It must be so, the law is for property, because it is real.

  “Never be cynical. Remember the human factor. Cynicism looks bad and is the mark of a small man who will end in the poorhouse, because he is sneering before he gets anywhere. Affirmation is the right note. Some monkeys, Flack told me, collect blue chips. So it isn’t wrong, not opposed to human nature. We are now going away from blue chips. We are leaving the monkeys. But there’s a lot of blue-chip monkeys still with us. But while it lasts, my blue-chips monkey is your friend and no sense taking up with the widows and orphans and blind beggars and Negro Congresses. Get your property into your hand first and then see if you wish to give handouts. Handouts is the other end of the world. Wait till you get there. When you have your money, you can give it away, not before. You look in the subway, I see the man who gives to the beggar or the collector is always the poorest dressed. That’s a symbol, a warning. If you let someone else take it away from you for any reason whatsoever—for any reason—you’ll die in a doorway one winter’s night. That’s the first thing to remember.

  “All property in one sense originates with you; even if you didn’t get it, I got it for you. All hangers-on try to make you think you cheated it out of them because they’re suddenly a group, the poor people. All right. I’m not against it. It’s their racket. If you believe them, it’s your fault, and they deserve their dividend. But remember you don’t owe it to them. They have this feeling: that they put some idea into the kitty and some money came out and you didn’t divide up. They’re right, but that’s hard luck.

  “You ought to get it in your head that you were trained to live in a society which doesn’t exist, because no society is the same between yesterday and tomorrow. You have to live by your wits even if you inherit a million dollars. Keep awake. No romances, no going native. The monopolies grabbed the money and so there isn’t much money any more, the unions got big pay but there’s not much money any more, people pay big prices and they have safe-deposits and they wear diamond cufflinks and they pay twenty-five dollars for the opera—but still there isn’t much money any more. I can’t prove it, but I feel it—keep your money, keep my money, because there isn’t much money at all, and though they can look at me like a sideshow because I have only a million-some dollars, it still counts, it’s money; but money that is in billions and in monopolies isn’t money at all, because the people have none, and money is democratic, everyone has to have some or there’s none at all. Money that’s one price in a country and three prices in three countries outside, isn’t currency any more. It’s a sign there are earthquakes. And that’s the reason I got all those farms and houses, everywhere—you can go anywhere and you can eat for money. Money isn’t money when it’s pesetas in Spain but paper in France, and francs in France but paper in the U.S.A. And an American can take it out of England but not a Briton, and you can take it into Belgium only if the customs is looking the other way and if I can’t pay my rent in the U.S.A., although I’m a millionaire in Capetown, and if Karolyi, who has a million kronen somewhere, can’t buy a sandwich here—there isn’t any money any more. So you were born rich and I made you rich, but you have to watch your step because it isn’t like being born a rich boy, you’re born a tightrope walker. But property still speaks a general language, and it’ll be our refuge, when they’re yelling, ‘Bread and a roof.’ They’ll take one roof, we’ll still have a roof. I want you to learn who you are and where you’re going, because I worked for it; but, my dear boy, that’s the only reason I have—that—and that I’m giving you a forchun.”

  “Well, Dad, look, I’ve said some terrible things, I didn’t know, I didn’t know what I was saying, I hardly know my way about, I think I’m drunk, too—”

  “And you can’t do anything without a philosophy. You can’t be a good French-polisher, or a good shoemaker, or locksmith, without philosophy; any sort will do.”

  “You’ll do me for a philosopher. Dad, I have to hit the hay, I’m crazy to sleep. I guess I drank too many this time.”

  “You didn’t hear a word I said. Well, too bad—you’ll get the money anyhow—unless—”

  “Why don’t you keep all this in a safe-deposit vault? Everyone does!”

  “One day they say it’s a national emergency, they say there are too many black marketeers not paying income-tax and they open the boxes by decree: that’s philosophy. The Governments used to keep their promises, now they’re Committees of Public Safety. By accident one of my papers will stick to his fingers.”

  “What good will it do him?”

  “You don’t know how some men found their forchun!”

  “Blackmail—but how?”

  “But you will get nowhere if you persist in having no theory, no philosophy, even beekeeping. It surprises me that you got four hundred pounds of honey in one month without a philosophy. For that is what distinguishes the big moneymaker from the small cheap crook, that he has something to believe in.”

  “Let me sleep, I promise tomorrow—”

  49

  The young man, left alone, undressed and suddenly fell into a very deep, refreshing sleep. When he awoke, he felt like a child again. The sun was shining. He felt exactly as he had the first time that he had possessed Celia, when for three days he had felt he was walking on air and only answered people out of a joyful delirium. But what was it? He turned over on his pillow, pressing his dark face into the clean linen, and tried once more to remember all the incidents of his last evening with Celia. They were somewhat faded. He could not even, in one particular instance, recall the intense emotion he had felt at first.

  “I am losing her—”

  He tried to feel fear, but felt none. He had gained something overnight—what was it? He was too innocent to think it was the money and his father’s little empire. That morning, he agreed to go to the farm and work it for his father without salary, his expenses paid, and to receive an interest in it, and if he did not make a profit the first year, to engage Upton, his cousin, as manager. Upton had married his friend, the young stenographer, and would no doubt come back on better terms for Grant. Gilbert agreed, in a paper he signed, partly to pay for the farm, fifteen thousand dollars out of the twenty-five thousand dollars to come to him next year. He was not quite satisfied with this, but insisted no more when his father said—“twenty-five thousand dollars next year—and if I don’t like it, my boy, I wait a while. So wait till you see your check for ten thousand dollars before you get any ideas.”

  It was eleven-thirty in the morning. Gilbert went to the closet and got himself a drink, smiling at his father’s impatient looks. He sat down, crossed his knees. Said he,

  “Well, Dad, I’m in a bit of a fog about what happened last night, but I’ve got the impression you’re a whale of an immoralist; an immoralist stuck as full of sermons as an egg is of meat. I really didn’t know you had it in you. Fact is, I didn’t really know you. Now, I’m a moralist—”

  His father laughed sarcastically, “With moralizing you don’t understand human nature: that’s your weakness. Moralists can only understand injustice. I shall be unjust enough to you to teach you something. That’s my idea.”

  The young man yawned, doddled his head, “I don’t understand you, but my compliments, Dad. I didn’t think you ever thought anything out. Now last night, I listened to you at great length with some respect to our personal findings, although I can’t agree with you and I am sure, from what I know of you, that most of it is just smoke—and it’s because I have a favor to ask of you, too. I want you to meet Sergey, the movie director who’s interested in setting up a small company to do these educational, technical short films after the war. You can do a lot with it; you can also provide imaginative or surrealist films if you will—for example, I saw a remarkable film made for artists only, from studies of a pneumatic drill in operation; you never saw, well, anything more realistic and sexual—well, not only that, you could distribute to the art mo
vies, but general subjects—then that’s a by-product. I have this man Sergey, who’s been in Germany and France and who’s interested in doing things like Eisenstein, but wants some backing. You could put the money you’re thinking of putting into your Dream Girl play into this instead, and you’re in something modern. I don’t believe you’re going to make any money on your Dream Girl, because it’s pure hokum and only written to sell, and make money and, in fact, violates one of your own principles: in doing something, even to sell, one must not think first of the money. Now you first thought of the three million dollars! I am interested in the technical side of these movies and I’m a bit of a technician now, though nothing extraordinary, and if you put a bit of money back of me, I can see that the money is used and at the same time, a technical brain and interest is at work, a real service is being rendered. Now you left out one thing, and that is, that money comes not out of other money, or out of a fertile brain, but out of service. Isn’t that so?”

  “Who is Sergey?”

  Gilbert described him and said he could arrange for a meeting on the next day, that he had already mentioned it all to Sergey, who was about thirty-eight; and continued, “Why not put a few thousand dollars, whatever you can, say, ten, into this and leave it to me? I understand the artisan and working artist and you don’t. Now you let yourself be led into all sorts of bypaths you don’t understand with people like Flack, that writer without a telephone in Brooklyn, and Karel Karolyi. I understand them, they’re easy to handle.”

  “I understand them, my boy; I employ them. That’s the only understanding you need. Can you employ him? Or can you go into business with him? No man is at par. Some don’t want to work and some want to buy you. Same with women: you can buy a lot of them, but the others want to take you over. Every man is in the market—but is he a seller or a buyer? Know that first. I don’t advise a man like you to go into the market. Let me manage the business end of our undertakings. I’ll see your Sergey. I’ll put your ten thousand in his business, tell him—ten, twenty thousand, if I like him. I’ll employ you, and let him employ you. Then we’ll see. Give it a twelve-month tryout, after the war. Even now. Let me talk to him. I’ll give him twenty thousand dollars of yours if I like his looks, and he gives me specifications, blueprints. If he can’t talk me into it, it’s no good. I’m a business man, I’m in the market, I’ve got to use my money. I want you to look about yourself. Sergey’s got a good proposition, talk me into giving him twenty thousand dollars. Fair enough! Here I am. If he can’t talk me into it, I lose nothing. I promise twenty thousand dollars but I pay nothing. Fair enough? Let him sell me, eh? Bring him along tomorrow. Eh? I’m through with living here in a hole. Today I’ll go out, see the blondine, if I want to, see your mother and the blondine and Livy all together, if I want to. I wish I’d stayed yesterday afternoon. Ha-ha-ha! Must have been a good show.

  “My dear boy, it’s too early to drink, a vice is only for the public, for your friends. Tomorrow I’ll put them all from me. You’re right. It’ll be you and me. But I’ll go through it with the blonde. And you must stand for it. You’ve seen life, you understand now. Listen, my dear boy, if she has to go through the mud, I will. She paid a dividend. I don’t mind. I don’t yowl. I’ll go through the mud with her. But I’ll try to arrange it. I’ll see. I heard some good news today. There’s an X, a Mr. X who can’t afford to lose his good name, in it. I’m not like that. You had pleasure with a woman; you can’t get away scot-free! No! You must pay for the honey. A woman always gives more than she gets! I’ll tell her, go to him, tell him, if he doesn’t want to pay the debt of society, he must pay the debt in money. Let him make a contribution. Why should that ’ooman pay? The debts of society are scaled so high, only men can pay. Ha-ha.”

  He walked up and down, rubbing his hands, “If we did something wrong, we must pay. Must you get honey free? If you can. But you can’t. Only try to make it pay a dividend. Try to get a bonus. But this time, I thought to myself—Rob Grant, you’ll go through the mud, get your name in the papers, first time in your life, something to live for! Eh? What do I care? Let her go back to Boston! Let her take a nap. Let her sleep it off! Try and sleep off this one. I’ll marry her, good God, I owe it to her. I’m an honest man. I owe it to her. Yes, yes. Never mind the others. I made a mistake. Never mind. Tomorrow I go out and do what I like and see the town and go to the White Bar. I’m not afraid. I see my lawyer. I see her. I say, ‘Go to X and tell him, “Pay up ten thousand dollars or you’ll have trouble.”’ He can’t afford trouble. He’s one of Hoag’s Washington fellas. He’ll pay. She’s free. I’m free. No one in the mud. I’ll stick by her. Put this stuff in the closet. Come, help me.

  “No Havana. What do they want to do behind my back? That Goodwin? That Flack? I’ll stay here. I watch my interests. I stay near the honey. Ha! She’s like me. I’ll do something for her. She don’t expect it. I’m like her. I’ll stick by her. They’ll see me in the papers. Good! Something got me in the papers! Good. Do I care? They’ll see my name—Robert Grant and a blonde, beautiful ’ooman! Good. Let her sleep it off. You’re Grant’s son. Don’t tell me your opinion. Because if I don’t like it, I’ll push it back in your teeth. If I like it, it don’t make any difference. Yes! That’s it. Tomorrow I get out of this rathole and we’ll shove all this back in the closets. And I’ll look for another place where she can visit me. I’m tired of this damn zenana. Go on, go back to bed. I want you to help me pack. I don’t want a hangover. Take an aspirin! Take a nap!”

  When the young man went out to the bathroom in the corridor, Grant stood a moment looking after him, pulling down his shirt sleeves which had been rolled above his elbows. Suddenly he burst into a boyish laugh, thrust out his open hand toward the corridor, and cried, “Agh! If he—Agh!” He burst out laughing, took a turn, and then, seeing the hatbox, frowned, replaced it, locked it, and put it behind the pile of luggage. He put the key in his vest pocket while he wrestled with the as yet unopened collarbox. When the boy came from the bathroom, he took the hatbox and the collarbox into the bedroom with him.

  But the pertinacious young man telephoned Sergey after breakfast and arranged a meeting for the next morning with his father, at the hotel, at eleven: “Why not? I know you have nothing to do in your office, Dad. I’ve seen you lying on the sofa myself.”

  “Rubbish, I was exhausted, had been overworking and had to rest for a couple of minutes, had to take a little stretch. Wasn’t resting when you saw me—was thinking—”

  “Well, Sergey is coming at eleven. I told him you would give him ten or twenty thousand dollars, according to how it sounded to you.”

  Grant went down to the office, telling his son to put the stuff in the closets as far as it would go. He would find a hotel suite today or tomorrow and not go to Havana at all. He would advise the blonde simply to see Mr. X and advise him as to his best interests—“But no divorce, my boy—no; I don’t want the ’ooman trying to break up your mother’s home.”

  50

  Before Gilbert arrived at the office to confer with Sergey and himself, Grant had a respectful visit from a detective from the police station at Old Slip, two blocks away, saying that a man had been picked up on a road in New Jersey, walking hatless, without a coat and in a bad condition, apparently undernourished, now in a hospital, and that this person had a letter from Robert Grant, cotton broker, in his pocket. This letter said,

  Dear Karel,

  I repeat, for the last time, the copy first, the money when I’ve seen it and accepted it.

  Yours, R. G.

  “Do you know this man?” asked the detective.

  Grant said he did, and said it was a dramatist who had not yet produced a play for which he had paid a reasonable sum. He had a claim against the man’s goods. He had seen no manuscript. He said he did not know where the man, K. Karolyi, lived in town; in fact, thought he lived in Westport, Connecticut, in an old, broken-down house, for which, in these hard times, a large premium had been asked. He personally ha
d put up three hundred dollars for Karolyi’s premium. He believed Karolyi was behind with the rent. The detective said that Karolyi was in hospital with pleurisy, and delirious, did not know his name, and the New Jersey police wished to get in touch with his relatives or friends. Grant knew nothing of relatives or friends, but only said, “Call up the Polish Consulate in Sixty-seventh Street, they must know. I don’t. Give them something to do.”

  He sat there jingling his coins in his pockets till the detective went, then called the uptown hotel where Karolyi lived and told the manager, to whom he was known, that Karolyi had gone out of town but had told him to come and get his French silk scarf, Charvet, gray, red, and black stripes. The manager objected, said that Karolyi had been locked out of his room, and had ridden up and down in the elevator of the hotel for two days and nights, changing elevators and when possible sleeping in the angles of the roof garden, now disused, of the hotel, or on the stairs in the uppermost story. The elevator boys had been reprimanded for having allowed this. It was they who in the end had given him away, because, they said, they were afraid he would commit suicide. From the top story of the hotel a magnificent view of New York was to be had. The city looked like a vast number of gulches and ashpits. One of the elevator boys had given Karolyi a packet of cigarettes, knowing he had had nothing to eat for two days. Karolyi had told him that he had twenty thousand dollars in his mattress and a further forty thousand dollars in a mattress in a canyon in Beverly Hills, California, and some more in an attic in a house in Westport, Connecticut. One of the elevator boys had given him the money for a haircut and shave. The elevator boys liked the man and declared that he expected a remittance from an English nobleman, or at least, said the manager, “from a magnificent English gentleman.”

  Grant at once took a taxi uptown, leaving a note with Miss Robbins for his son and Sergey.