House of All Nations

by Christina Stead

  No one commented on the code. Theodor Bomba knew men’s weaknesses. The code was sufficiently uncanny to impress unlettered businessmen as a sort of incantation, when proposed in Bomba’s inimitable medicine-man style.

  Bomba had once, for example, organized a ‘financial service’ in Europe, on the strength of such a code, using the names of the characters in the Nibelungenlied, and half a dozen bright financial journalists with himself had gone abroad in the service of several of the leading American banks to gather ‘secret’ information. Each one was to cable each Monday from the leading European capitals.

  On the first Monday morning the opening salvo was from Bomba himself (well-planted in Berlin, his favorite city):

  DUE DE FACTO RECOVERY RING ALBERICH KRIEMHILDE RENOUNCES POLITICAL DESTRUCTION SIEGLINDE WILL SEEK RHEINGOLD WOTAN STOP MIME CONVALESCENT 1927 BALMUNG UPSWEEP TARNHELM REPORTS HAGEN IS SEEKING ECONOMIC PLAN

  The solemn conclave of the werewolves of Wall Street which had assembled at twelve noon to receive the ‘secret’ message from beyond the Atlantic read this telegram and were greatly impressed. But they had entirely forgotten the code except that Rheingold meant the U.S.A. dollar and Wotan meant the U.S.A. However, it took them several weeks to get over their gratification at their private European service and, of course, in due course, with the mails, arrived Bomba’s confirmation with the translation,

  ‘Due de facto stabilization of the franc by Poincaré, Germany (Kriemhilde) renounces (the idea of the) political destruction of France and will seek loans from the U.S.A. England expects recovery in 1927. Belgium (Balmung, the sword, pointed at the heart of England) bull market. Secret agents (Tarnhelm) report Russia is seeking an economic plan.’

  It had been months before Bomba had ceased to draw a salary on the basis of telegrams so conceived, telegrams which grew and grew in an undeciphered pile in the desk of a secretary: and he had never failed to draw on his ‘ring of the Nibelungs’ trick in later employment. He knew men very well. He knew that financial giants have two skins, ‘one to face the world with and one to show a crony when they love him.’ The first is the Financial and Commercial Chronicle face and the second is their true face, their face of superstition, mental chaos, and childish absurdity. He was ashamed of nothing.

  To Léon he spoke of ‘Kabbala’ and ‘Chedar techniques,’ to Jules of ‘hunches’ and ‘lucky touches,’ to Alphendéry, when he met him, of ‘the materialist interpretation,’ and ‘we undercover auxiliaries of the Third International’ and the ‘fascist-liberal Keynes,’ while he laughed uproariously at William’s jokes, keenly aware that William’s detestation of him was measured by the number of francs in his salary check. He even discussed cribbage with ‘Old’ Berthellot. Once, the Comtesse de Voigrand being in the bank, while he was dancing round Jules’s coattails, Bomba spoke so eloquently about Jesuit culture that the Comtesse very nearly sacked her professor on the spot and employed Bomba.

  Such a man, unquestionably, deserves whatever living he can get. Even Jules thought so. Thus he found more amusement in Bomba’s telegrams than Alphendéry, William, or Léon did, and so he paid Bomba’s calls for money and went pacifically on his way, convinced that if anyone could put across the wheat deal, Bomba, his private magician, could.

  Bomba had exactly his idea of moneymaking, that it was a great swindle and that the greatest swindler got the biggest prizes and that the greater the ‘superstructure of graft’ the greater the ‘surplus-value’ (a phrase which Jules had oddly adapted to mean booty).

  Bomba and Jules understood each other very ill: each, in his vanity, saw himself in the other, thought of the other as a complex intellect and bowed to him, secretly impressed by the most frivolous decisions. Besides, when Jules got home each evening, he found a new telegram from his court jester, couched in this style,

  NLT FOR YOUR PRIVATE EAR: LÉON’S SUPERSTRUCTURE OVERREFINED, OVERORNAMENTED ALPHENDÉRY’S INTELLECTUALIST GLOSS; YOUR KEEN LINES PREFERRED. AM FOLLOWING YOUR SCHEMA, JETTISONING REST: GREAT GOOD WILL RESULT. REASON DELAY: LEUCIPPE COULD NOT SEE WOOD FOR TREES. LITTLE DANAË SHOWER NEEDED: SEND REQUISITE. AVE. DEMOCRITUS

  Jules was getting a classical education, losing a fair sum of money and amusing himself rarely. He concealed his domestic telegrams from his family, from Michel and Léon, and in secret delight saw the whole fortune promised by Léon pouring into his own white hands. Meanwhile Bomba had little to do but compose his macaroni messages. He had sent sixty reporters to meet Stevie Pentous on his arrival in New York by the Ile de France, and headlines went flashing across the Continent,

  PENTOUS PARK AVENUE PLAYBOY HEADS FRENCH CONSORTIUM TO BUY COTTON EXCESS

  and elsewhere,

  FRENCH GOVERNMENT BEHIND PENTOUS SYNDICATE IN SIXTY MILLION DOLLAR SCHEME

  and again,

  BOMBA, FINANCIERS’ AGENT HERE: SCHEME SEEN AS PEACE MOVE

  with the addition,

  PENTOUS HAILED AS UNOFFICIAL AMBASSADOR

  and a helping hand for Bomba,

  BOMBA FRENCH FINANCIER SCORES FARM BOARD

  Bomba and Pentous had by now persuaded themselves that everything was going great guns and were sweeping through expensive hotels and luxury trains in magnificent style, dropping ten-dollar notes and King’s Ransom whisky in the style of a maharajah who has just won the Derby and the Spanish Lottery.

  Pentous was duly escorted to Washington, heaven of glittering walls and flowery speech, by Bomba. Bomba, a subtly swaggering subaltern, was trying to give the impression that he was the spirit of the thing and was sent by the European consortium to keep a watch on the play-boy. He had Pentous throned in the Mayflower Hotel—and sent their cards to the ‘Thales’ and ‘Anaximandre’ whom (he alleged) he had ‘lined up.’ When Stevie Pentous got stage-fright and suddenly admitted that he had very little idea indeed what he was to say, or what to propose, Bomba walked in on some high officials and being over-excited by the publicity he had got up himself and by the millions of dollars he seemed to see rolling like hailstones at his feet, he allowed himself to use the ridiculously cynical, thieves’ jargon that he had heard Jules, William, Léon, and Alphendéry joking in, in their sanctum in Paris.

  ‘It’s a brilliant racket,’ he informed the officials, persuaded that he was speaking American. ‘It will make us all rich, you, me, and the other guy. It will astonish the natives from Tokyo to Painted Post: it’s the great steal of the century, boys.’

  The astonished officials, very polite, were sure that they had to do with a lunatic; and so he came away with equal grandeur, but hollow grandeur, for he had to admit even to himself that he had come away with empty hands. He had so fooled himself that he had expected to carry it all off with pure bluff and blarney: he was living in a mushroom dream of monstrous unreality.

  Bomba came home to Paris, preceded by long explanations, sneering telegrams about Thales, Anaximandre, and Leucippe, with dark but evasive insinuations as to the character, ability, and double-crossing capacities of ‘Hermes’ (Pentous). Jules got these telegrams in the office and at home, and William, the twins, Alphendéry, Léon, and even Claire-Josèphe received others.; not to mention the Comtesse de Voigrand, who was handed the following by a mystified secretary,

  GOLD COAST FIASCO: NEITHER SLAVE NOR FAKIR: CAN WE KNIT RELATIONS ON ECONOMIC BASIS.

  DEVOTED,

  THEODOR BOMBA

  The Comtesse turned it in her hands, finally tore it up. ‘I remember: the poor man must have gone mad; he did look a little odd.’

  Léon came down to Paris full of woe and exclamation marks. ‘But Jules, before Pentous so much as landed in America, Strindl’s rang me up one morning from Mannheim and said, “What’s this I hear about Bertillon arranging U.S.A. wheat on credit?” I was thunder-struck.’

  ‘Ah,’ groaned Jules, ‘what can you expect: Pentous did his best. He put the scheme before Dan Waters on the boat but Waters didn’t grasp the i
mportance of the Russian technique, or the effect on the market: he only saw the smartaleck trick of going past me and you and selling direct, not realizing that this direct sale on credit would undermine the structure.’

  Alphendéry looked at him with penetration: Jules glibly used Léon’s vocabulary, a half-unconscious means of averting Léon’s protests. ‘Yes,’ said Jules, ‘our spectacular project would have revolutionized values.’

  ‘The fact is,’ Léon said sadly, ‘Pentous didn’t grasp the scheme fully enough to point out to Waters the dangers—I had a telegram from Bomba in Chicago. He recapitulated what he had said. My dear Jules! He put it upside-down. Instead of putting the situation as it is, he gave the Farm Board the impression that Bertillon’s consortium would sell to two or three countries on credit; but the officials said, “What do we need you for? We can do that.” My dear Jules! Your Bomba simply invited the double-cross: he marked the place with a double-cross. It wasn’t a question of finding a credit buyer. It was to get a dramatic catalyst for the world wheat market. He gave the Farm Board the impression that the poor countries wanted the wheat on credit. So what do they do? They invite the poor countries to buy on credit themselves. Why not? They agree to sell twenty-five million bushels on a few years’ credit. Thus they made it look as if wheat is valueless. Russia, Canada, and the Argentine hear of it—they fall over each other to sell to the few cash traders left. My dear Jules! Oh, dear! A basic commodity going round the world on credit. Tropical storms of wheat! Krakatoa dust storms of wheat. It ruined the trade! Instead of saving the sick man it finished him. Normally such a sale of wheat would stiffen the market: this was the executioner’s ax. My dear Jules!’

  Léon was pathetic, he was mourning deeply: he scarcely protested. He saw his glittering tower of fortune in little fragments of powdered glass. His voice was mild and gentle, his heart was bruised. And no one attempted to console him, for everyone, for the first half-hour of that meeting between the two men, Jules and Léon, knew that thing that stops the blood, irreparable failure; the chance of a lifetime lost.

  Léon, the builder, feebly tried to raise his drooping crest: in broken phrases he brought out of his memory the plan that had looked like the Million-Dollar Stroke, only a few weeks before. ‘A secret arrangement,’ he mourned. ‘Three years’ Russian notes. To sell ostensibly to Russia. We were to slip up, execute the contract option of further fifty millions on the way up … They threw away a twenty-five million bushel secret … We, also—to be the third consortium to sell the Russian wheat purchases to Germany for the goods that Russia wanted. Not, like now, straight to Germany on credit … What a mistake, Michel! What a mistake! Why the feller didn’t understand a word of it; didn’t you write it all down for him, Michel? How could he? How could he misunderstand, Michel? Explain it to me.’ He shook his head. ‘Also to exchange these new Russian notes for older Russians—notes—how could he misunderstand?—other Russian notes already endorsed in the Reichsbank. Give the impression to the U.S.A. public that U.S.A. not accepting Russian paper … Them political self-seekers … Waters saw a chance to get kudos relieving wheat situation, giving wheat abroad to poor countries … He let it slip. The chance of a lifetime. I never had such a brilliant idea, Michel … Jules, didn’t you drill him?’

  Léon, as low as Alphendéry had ever seen him, went to lunch, quietly howling, his tail between his legs. ‘Michel, listen to the truth: my heart is broken. Bomba saw a chance to get an advertisement for himself and Bertillon. You know? He wrote and asked Bertillon to open a branch of Bertillon Frères in New York. Himself a bank manager: that was what he saw in it all. I tell you, my boy, that boy is no good … Pentous saw a chance to have a royal progress and the only thing in Bertillon’s head was his original mug one-dimension plan … If the scheme had gone through, the market would have gone up and everything improved—at least for six months a year.’

  But by now, Bomba had alertly guessed that the larger part of the scheme and, perhaps, of the money was Léon’s. At the same time he believed that the written scheme was Alphendéry’s and he had depended on Jules to pull him through at the crucial moment.

  His conceit, even now, prevented him from seeing the real enormity of their act, the colossal hoax he had foisted on everyone. In a few days, besides, in America, land of great deeds as well as great hoaxes, the publicity had died down and he had privacy in which to meditate his excuses. As soon as he reached home, he telegraphed Léon who, as we said, rushed to Paris to see him. Léon could draw nothing from him and came to Alphendéry in despair. ‘The man is a charlatan; he’s a prewar wow; he’s never advanced, since he began shocking the café philosophers in 1908.’

  Alphendéry now said, ‘I told you to go yourself, Henri. It’s your own fault. Why didn’t you?’

  Léon, most troubled, rushed out something about, ‘Murdered Barnett Baff, poultry merchant—they come up to me, they say—You remember Barnett Baff ? I was making a lot money—I hogged the business. No one did as well as me. I had the lion’s share. My name too. They don’t say, “Léon’s making a fortune”: they say, “We’ll see that son of a gun don’t get away with it.” One day a feller comes up to me coolly on the floor of the Produce Exchange and says to me, “I see you’re making a lot of money, Léon! Yes! Well, good day, Léon,” he says, and he walks off smiling coldly. Then he turns, about six-seven paces off, and says over his shoulder, “Ever hear of Barnett Baff, Léon?” I packed that night and I came to Europe.’

  Alphendéry shuddered slightly but said pertinently, ‘But now they’re not gunning for you. Your business is all here in Europe.’

  Léon looked anxious, studied Alphendéry with knit brows, then suddenly became extremely rosy and confiding. ‘You know—I’ve never been chaste! Not exactly—chaste. I can’t help it! I usually avoid married women: just a policy. But in America—and in America husbands shoot, too.’

  ‘And this husband is still after you after fifteen years? I don’t believe it. Even if he took a memory course.’

  Léon was silent. He had not heard the last and Alphendéry saw the sorry expression on his face. ‘Always wrong,’ said Léon and went on communing with himself. He recollected that Alphendéry had heard this defeatist remark and looked up engagingly. ‘You know, Michel, you’ve always got to learn. Now take—the first thing I learned was the time factor of speculation. Now—information always comes too early. People don’t believe.’ He laughed with minor husky gaiety. ‘For instance, they never believe the crop is ruined till it is ruined. No good buying six months before when you surmise—They don’t believe and so they don’t buy (or sell) and you’re too early. You can be too smart in life, Michel. I had no margin to wait—when I was a little feller: so I always got fried, always cleaned out. They had a big turnover. Dreyfus, I mean: I was with—I figured: Dreyfus has a big overhead. They took me in you know. I don’t know how it was: in a few months they gave me the letters to file. I couldn’t help looking. You know, my eyes just ran over the letters when I was filing. I see “Drought all over the Middle West sure.” I was working at seventeen and six as a filing clerk for Louis Dreyfus. I was always behind in my month’s pay because I went in with the boys for fifty to one hundred tons wheat: I had the finest information from the private letters. I put them away every day: I couldn’t help looking. And, he, he! oh, he, he! knowing I had the finest information I began to doubt the firm’s stability. I figured, you see. Knowing I never made money on the Dreyfus information, I thought: Jesus Christ, they must have lost a thousand times as much as me. I was frightened for my seventeen and six. How could they keep on paying me? That was my first lesson, Michel; I learn all the time. This is another. You see, don’t you, Michel? You see: they could revolve! If they sold twenty thousand bushels and were wrong, they could sell another twenty thousand and the difference of prices would compensate them, or reduce loss. Say, sixpence a quarter. They could carry it or revolve it, so the grain don’t go out of condition; rep
lace it by fresh wheat. Or, they were important capitalists; I was a peanut, no, mustard seed (that’s pretty small, eh, smaller than that) capitalist. He, he! Or—concentrated capital always wins. Oh, boy! To think I laid awake nights wondering if Dreyfus would go broke. Say, I figured, Dreyfus had a big overhead and I had no overhead, so they must go broke. Oh, boy! Then, with information. Because I had no capital I learned my first lesson. Don’t sell right away. Don’t sell when you have the information; sell when people believe it will be bad; and when they are convinced, it will be bad, bad, black, black: sell! So, I learn again: bad luck. All right, I should have known.’

  Alphendéry listened with the most flattering attention. He was delighted that Léon was getting back his spirits. ‘I should have gone,’ said Léon suddenly, getting back his healthy bluff, and pretending he had mentioned nothing about the murdered poultry merchant. ‘You’re right, Michel, my boy: I should have gone. Yes.’ He began to meditate unhealthily: ‘Michel, tell me, tell me: how did he make his money?’ His voice was very low. ‘Michel, how, how, how! I’ve asked myself a hundred times? How did he make his money?’

  ‘Bomba has no money.’

  ‘Not Bomba! Him!’

  ‘Jules?’

  ‘Am I standing on my head or my heels? I feel as if I’m asleep and dreaming an insane dream and I know it’s insane though I’m asleep. How did he make his money? It isn’t true, Michel. He couldn’t misunderstand the scheme. It’s so clear. A two-year-old baby—Michel, you wrote it down for him? You’re sure you wrote it down right?’

  ‘You saw it.’

  ‘Yes, I saw it … I should have gone. I’m to blame. No one else … Millions, Michel! No one would have lost. Everyone—we would have made—The golden opportunity.’ He sat shaking his head. He came back to his astonished mortification again and again.