House of All Nations

by Christina Stead

  ‘He doesn’t know enough … he remains a peasant,’ said Jules carelessly. They speculated for some time on Léon’s characteristics. Jules said, ‘He could have been the head of Strindl’s but he doesn’t know how to blackmail them; he believes in making money through grabbing and cooking the books; now you can only get in with the big fellows by blackmail. He’s a mug and he’ll remain in the middle millions.’

  He let them gabble about Léon under his nose, but his mind was made up and he found a good excuse for despising Léon by saying that he was a mug. He was really jealous of his talents; Jules went on to say that his own smash-and-grab scheme for the wheat was the only one that interested him.

  Alphendéry affirmed impatiently, ‘We don’t want to be like the rest of the two-penny Luftmenschen* who snatch brilliant schemes out of people’s brains and tear them to pieces in their madness for an unearned profit.’

  * Fantastics.

  Jules said, ‘Ptt!’

  ‘Jules, it’s not the idea that counts, although Léon’s idea is superb, it’s the use it’s put to. All the little suckers and blackmailers round our bank are lousy with ideas, but they don’t want to work, they don’t want to put others to work; they want to suck unearned livings out of the air. In other words, stealing is the easiest thing and every sneak thief is our equal, if that’s all we can do. You don’t need a façade for that.’

  Jules was nettled. ‘There’s more to my scheme than that.’

  ‘Perhaps … but Léon drops a master scheme right into our lap.’

  ‘I wonder why.’

  Alphendéry said bitterly, ‘Here we sit bandying about the people’s bread. The eccentric thing is that to restore confidence we have to put up the price of bread, which is the chief food of the French people.’

  ‘How are you going to make money?’ asked Jules, in astonishment. ‘You’ve got to sell the people what they want,’ said William soberly. ‘No good selling them what they don’t want.’

  ‘Oh, no one makes a fortune out of commodities … no great fortunes have been made that way,’ charged Jules.

  Léon came back to it, in the morning, before he left for Rotterdam. He was charming, persuasive, his thunder mitigated. ‘It’s not easy to make money out of a rock field; but that’s where you get nuggets. A cactus patch looks bad, but them big globes’ leaves are full of milk. We have to learn to lick honey from thorns … We’ll get it from A to Z. I’ll be back on Saturday morning. We’ll make a fortune between us, you’ll see, Jules.’ He clapped on Jules’s table.

  Ironically Jules measured him. ‘We’ll make some money, I suppose, but not a fortune. No great swag was ever made out of commodities. To make a fortune, you’ve got to steal it, with nothing honest at the back of it. All great fortunes are financial … came out of the air. Anything that has hard work in it doesn’t spell dough to me. They don’t go together. The poor work hard and see what they get! Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern are trying to pay their rent out of ‘honest’ commodity business. Not for me! There’s got to be a superstructure of graft, otherwise there’s no sense in going into it.’

  He shrugged his shoulders and looked at them both coldly. Alphendéry sprang up. ‘You’re all wet, Jules, in saying that great fortunes have been financial. None has been. How many people have made money out of air? Perhaps Morgan—and then not air but steel, high explosives—but ninety-five per cent of the wealth of great financial oligarchs comes from industry and nothing else. The market ramps, the consolidations, the thefts, the flotations, came later. The money was made out of goods—it has to be.’

  ‘But Morgan was different, and he’s my ideal man,’ said Jules, clinging to his theme.

  ‘Money comes from exploited resources and manufactured goods,’ said Alphendéry, incisively. ‘Pardon me for instructing two great men. Where do you think surplus value comes from? You can’t extract surplus value out of a desk and swivel chair, whether you get them secondhand, or get a new Louis XVI set.’

  Léon shouted, storming, but not angry. ‘No surplus value! Nothing about surplus value! It’s the productive urge; you have it or you don’t, that’s all. I get the idea: the excess wheat. Are they going to drop it in the Gulf of Mexico? We can pass the buck.’

  Alphendéry laughed. ‘They want to drop it in the Gulf of Mexico—don’t you see?—because—it is surplus—Something that’s over, and that they can’t consume. Would they give it to the people free?’

  The two looked at him, dubiously, with ant-busy eyes, seeing darkly his intention. They recognized the catchword and, though completely ignorant of its meaning, hated it. Alphendéry laughed at them. ‘They would not give it free; they want it to be a form of surplus value. They’re hoping that one day someone will come along who will show them how to use their surplus with a profit.’

  Léon shook his head free of all such irrelevant discussion. ‘Michel, can you come round to your office? There’s very little chartering being done. I’ll make a private arrangement—cheap freights, the freights is easy. Ask your telephone girl to get my Amsterdam office, will you?’ Outside in the corridor, he whispered, ‘Does he lack confidence in me? What is it? He doesn’t see it!’

  ‘Yes, yes, give Jules time. He’s obstinate. Leave me to handle him.’ Léon said, ‘He likes to do things alone. A sort of vanity, eh?’

  Alphendéry soothed him, standing between one and the other with his diplomacy and fighting for the big deal which would put him on easy street and let him get out. Léon had no idea of this dream: he shook his head. ‘Lone-wolf ideas don’t go. If I have something good I go to another man and I say—cement big friendships—I take another in—’ he rattled out something confused about ‘Van Rhys, Rotterdam, he’ll lend me five thousand tons wheat, guilders—lend gold forward wheat and I got wheat forward; I buy wheat, I hedge it—instead of paying five to twenty per cent I pay—friendships you’ve got to—I pay next to nothing—you cement friendships; something good comes of it. His son now—Henrietta Achitophelous met him at St. Moritz, nice Jewish girl, pretty girl—nice Jewish lad, good business—the question is, has he got the constructive urge? Everything is there.’

  ‘Oh, Jules is a genius, a pure genius along his own Monte-Carlo lines … don’t underrate him. You’ve been in grain since you were twelve—born in it, indeed.’

  Léon studied him while he made this statement, laughed his morning laugh, considered, and then said, ‘How he makes his money—I don’t know but—no commissions—no bank loans; but— You buy calls when you are—contre-partie—don’t you see? The man thinks you know something and he goes and buys options. You see?’

  ‘Let’s get the wheat scheme down first, Léon. That’s the most important.’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes, yes. Now—remind me, after, my boy, reciprocal business, Jules does hundreds of thousands of shares, he ought to get half-commission or else—“Listen, Legris, you pay my telephone bill”—don’t understand—remind me. I’ve got a scheme. I don’t like to see him—I’ll tell you after: an offer for the bank—we’ll make a study of it. When he told me Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern, I had an idea—what are you writing there? The wheat schematism? That’s right!’ The telephone rang. Léon grabbed it, began shouting, ‘Hello, who’s there, who’s there? That you, Graetz? Listen—documents-by—get your pad, Graetz—documents by S.S. Vega, get it out even overtime: we have sold, underline “sold,” Jonathan the two cargoes. Saturday. Quote the selling letter in confirming, confirm we quote cif. Leith, cif. Dumfries.

  If Bang telephones from Edinburgh offer maize, offer … make terms clean, London contract—some at time of shipment. Pay against documents, discharging charges, cif. alongside. Barley, barley, get a broker to keep posted. Have you got it, Graetz? Listen, get the Roumanian wheat out of clearing. You may sell to May if market’s strong. Tell Purley you will sell basis 127/-, basis 7/- and 2/- a quarter under U.K. price, sell Jeanson sixpence a quarter less, or nin
epence. Two! If market very firm say seven and a half cents over cost, underline that! On Saturday sell July especially, several tons, sell only what you have. Take care of the spread, Graetz. Three! Re Hans—give him a talking-to, not to go short on freight, on position and on price at the same time. You can sell freight and position if you are assured of delivery at the price. No firm bids to other people unless we are advised as co—We know Ganz bids Ente before he accepts—same for us! Three! Graetz! Write! View America on Europe, view England on Europe,* essential we cover our short near maize† as quickly possible in Antwerp or Rotterdam. In Antwerp save banking expenses. Three! What’s that? Well, make it four, or five, whatever it is. Five! Preferably buy maize few days earlier, and pay a premium than risk arbitration by Ganz if boat is late. Charter freight the moment bought and risk demurrage. Now, Graetz, if the market is quiet you can buy cash maize and—running long—September—if strong liquidate both.’ For understanding this elliptic hurricane, keeping his temper, running the business, and making a neat profit, Graetz earned one thousand guilders a month plus a percentage. When the receipts were added up at the end of the year, before the attributions were made, Léon’s living, traveling, personal, and whoopee expenses were deducted as well as repairs on his house, his daughter’s schooling, and his wife’s permanent waves. But the same deductions were not made in Graetz’s favor. Graetz saved his money with the hope that some year they would make a giant profit and even with his small slice he could ‘get out.’ Léon was not aware of this desire of Graetz’s.

  * In Léon’s ‘shorthand’ this means, ‘in view of the fact that American maize is at a premium over all European markets and that England is at a premium on the Continent.’

  † Similarly, this means, ‘our short positions in early delivery maize.’

  Léon turned from the telephone and watched with approval Alphendéry figuring and ciphering in the corner of a sheet of paper. Cambo and Dreyer came in. Dreyer went, but Cambo tried to install himself there to see what they were doing. Alphendéry laughed up at him and said, ‘Scram, Danny, my boy: we’re making millions.’

  Daniel Cambo left with a good grace and the remark, ‘Well, I better leave you multimillionaires and go back to selling braces.’

  ‘Who’s he, who’s he, what’s his game?’ Léon demanded, panting into Alphendéry’s ear.

  ‘Making peanuts into gold bars, making shoestrings into liens: he’s in the French Woolworth-type business, trying to make a go of it. The department stores here get away with it, no competition at all. They don’t give value.’

  Léon showed intense regret that he hadn’t thought of it himself. ‘Do you think it’ll go? Do you think the French’ll buy that junk turned out in a row?’

  ‘Most people say no; I say, what man does, even the French will do. Cambo is sure. He’s a genius in his own line.’

  Léon peered hard at Alphendéry. ‘Yes? Yes? I’d like to meet him!’ He looked alert for a moment and then went back to his wearisome song of the wheat.

  He took the evening train to Amsterdam. He and Alphendéry walked up and down the platform waiting for the train to leave and Léon said, ‘When you want to leave Bertillon, my boy, you come with me. You’re good luck. We’ll work together. From the first—’ But at this moment his eyes fell on a particularly artificial beauty with a particularly good figure, and murmuring, ‘Good-by, write to me,’ he jumped aboard the train to make sure that from his seat he could stare the traveling Venus into a quick bargain. The train moved out with Léon’s immense head, hat, stick, and yellow gloves suddenly thrust from some window, in a gorgeous bouquet of gesticulation.

  Meanwhile each day Jules was shut in close conclave, and there were goings and comings. Jules had decided to send Stevie Pentous, a young gilded friend who had some relations with the U.S. embassy in Paris, to Washington to broach the wheat scheme. Stevie knew some Republican vote thrower in Kansas and was at home in Park Avenue penthouses. Jules had also telegraphed Theodor Bomba at Nice, telling him to sail immediately for Washington, against the advice of Alphendéry, Richard Plowman, and William. In fact, he asserted that he had not telegraphed to Bomba; but Alphendéry heard Léon’s diminished, startled voice on the telephone from Amsterdam: ‘Michel, Bertillon has told the whole scheme to Bomba, and Bomba hasn’t got it at all!’

  ‘Oh, no, I don’t think so; Jules swore to me he would not.’

  ‘Listen to the telegram I got then:—‘SIEGFRIED SPILLED WOTAN’S SCHEME FOR RHEINGOLD. FINE OPENING BUT NEED TO GET DETAILS FROM YOU. WILL I JOURNEY AMSTERDAM. BOMBA.’

  ‘I can’t understand it, Henri … Jules told me—’

  ‘He hoaxed you then, my boy. We’ll have to make the best of it. Bomba—has he got any brains?’

  ‘He understands Kabbala,’ said Alphendéry dolefully, ‘but the rest we’ll have to see.’

  Léon’s potent chuckle came over the telephone, ‘Kabbala? Then we’re all right, my boy.’ Alphendéry went on writing down the names of bonds and their maturities, but a shadow had fallen across his hopes and presently he stopped and began pacing up and down the green carpet. He tried to conceal from himself until the last moment the notion that the great wheat scheme which was to liberate him, was taking on strangely quixotic contours in this hall of Bertillon’s dreams. The only thing that gave him happiness in this dreary time when neither the markets, nor politics nor the people were stirring, was the certainty now that the French would sign a trade treaty with the Russians, and the Five-Year Plan, which he had studied with such eagerness, had more chance of coming through.

  * * *

  Scene Fifty-four: The Affair of Henri Parouart

  July, 1931.

  The mail and the morning were full of lunacies.

  There was a four-page letter from Légaré, on the Côte d’Azur, threatening to shoot himself if he did not receive by return mail two thousand francs immediately and to make a complaint to the Parquet* if a monthly stipend was not promised to him.

  * Financial frauds division of the Central Police.

  A medical client, who dropped in to the bank on his way to his surgery, found in his mail the latest version of the Spanish Prisoner confidence trick, written on café paper:

  Dear Sir,

  I am imprisoned here for bankruptcy and I am writing to ask you if you will help me to save a sum of 1,800,000 francs that I possess in bank notes in the false-bottom of a trunk which is, actually, owing to circumstances which will be revealed to you, in the luggage room of a station in France. It would be necessary for you to come here to pay the Clerk of the Tribunal the costs of my judgment so that they will lift the lien on my baggages, so that you can thus get hold of a valise with a secret bottom in which I have hidden the receipt of the railway, indispensable to get the trunk out of the station. In recompense, I will give up to you one-third of the sum. I cannot receive your reply directly in prison, but if you accept, you will send quickly a telegram to a friend who will give it to me safely. As soon as I have your response, I will let you know my name and I will confide all the details of my secret. Awaiting your reply, I sign with my initial—

  S.

  The most absolute discretion. For reasons outside my control, do not write, telegraph exactly as hereunder—Luis Marin, Lista Correos, 2233. F. Sitges (Spain). Possible.

  This letter, which was showed round to everybody, put the bank in a cheerful mood for an hour or so.

  Michel Alphendéry had a truculent letter from the Gemini—Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern, complaining that the subalterns at the bank, customers’ men, office manager, cable boys, telegraph girls, accountants, were not sufficiently attentive to them.

  We have gone to great expense and spared no trouble to make the name of the bank known. We have printed it on all our stationery. We should like absolute assurances from you that the personnel of the bank will be given instructions about our important relation to yourselves.
If we cannot have this assurance, we do not understand the basis on which you expect us to conduct business. Let us point out that when we came we found the bank’s name in very bad odor and despite the rumors we heard, we decided to come in with you, but you are doing nothing to assist us. We do not wish to have to complain about a breach of contract. Distinguished greetings!

  Franz Rosenkrantz and Franz Guildenstern

  ‘Those damned Teutons,’ cried Jules. ‘Why did we take them in? Charity will be the death of us.’ Alphendéry, who felt himself accused, because he had pleaded for them, murmured, ‘That’s their way, Jules. I must admit, I’m sorry I let my Alsatian origin get the better of me, though.’

  William Bertillon had a letter from Mr. and Mrs. Wade threatening to seize the funds of the bank in one of its depositing banks, if they were not paid the sum demanded immediately.

  In putting this in the file, to get it out of sight, Jules found another blue paper, reminding him of the decorating contractors’ suit, claiming fifty thousand francs on the decoration of his Champs de Mars apartment; he had already paid three hundred and fifty thousand for redecoration and now refused to pay more.

  A bad day. Jules rang up his wife and asked, ‘Are you all right? Everything’s crazy here.’ A few minutes later she telephoned saying, ‘I just found out that there’s a strange black cat in the house.’

  ‘Did you kick it out?’

  ‘Yes’

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘And it’s the twenty-third—my unlucky day and yours, too.’

  ‘You don’t have to tell me!’

  The last event was petty enough. Henri Parouart, who lived by petty blackmail and was already on the hush-money list of a number of financial institutions, had been maneuvering for nearly two years to get on to the Bertillon blackmail-pension list. He did not know that, although Bertillon supported various and vagarious peanut enterprises, restaurants, boulevard sheets, powder-puff inventors, attic industrialists, rich ragamuffins, and superannuated gangsters (out of lavishness), he had no blackmail list. Bertillon enjoyed the thrill of facing out and double-daring the little multitudinous creeping pest of sneaks, go-betweens, crooks, and drain fishers that regarded the bank, as every other bank in Paris, as their natural prey. In one respect, this minor rascality was exactly like Jules Bertillon himself: they were not impressed by the great golden wall of high finance—they brought along their chisels and knives to snick off flakes for themselves.