“How do you know that?” I asked, giving him a hard look. “Have you been spying?”
“Spying? Aman, my friend! No, it is not like that. I have been—how do you say it?—interested. Yes, interested.” He met my gaze with unflinching directness, his brown eyes bright and confident. “I see her once, or a couple of times, when I am riding on the street trolley. Sey, I am interested because I am the person who sent her to you. Isn’t that true?”
“You just happened to be passing by,” I said, unable to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. “What is it you want, Mahir?”
“Do not get angry. We are not childrens, Al. What I want is to talk about an important thing, and it is bad to talk if you are mad and angry. A Turkish saying is, ‘A man who loses his head’—his brain, you understand—‘is a man who loses his profit.’ Ha!”
He crossed his legs, left off fiddling with the lapel, touched the creases of his trousers and finally folded both hands in his lap.
“Sound advice,” I conceded, mystified by this rigmarole. “The important matter—suppose you tell me about it.”
“Sure. Okay,” he said. “One night I followed her.”
“Miss Clerisy? Why?”
“But you are so quick! Let me finish. Yavas. Why is there a hurry? I followed her because I know she is after something—something expensive, something precious—gold things, maybe, or valuable objects of museum quality. Why do I know? Why? Because she is a professor, and professors do not look for pieces of junk and garbage. No, the tiger does not hunt little mouses, Al. When I see her in my shop those two days, when I see how happy she is to find the ushabti, when I see how excited she gets when she hears the name Pendleton—it all makes me think. It makes me get funny feelings. It makes me get—oh, what is that word?—suspicious. Yes. I do not know the hieroglyphics, but I know human people. So she comes to see you, and I say to myself, ‘I will watch that one.’ ”
Hearing this, I suddenly remembered the skulking figure that had trailed Madge to the streetcar stop. It had been Suleyman, in camouflage! What a comedy! What a scene from an opéra bouffe! If ever a tiger was hunting a mouse, it was this silly Ottoman perched on my settee.
I smiled and said, “You have gold on the brain.”
He stared at me, uncomprehending. “You mean what?” he asked. “Ah—that I think a lot about gold. That is true, yes. Why not? They say that gold is the flesh of the gods, my friend. You have heard of the old king, Midas? He lived in my country, but too many years ago in history. Okay, so I followed her—that Miss Clerisy—and I found something.”
“Gold, Mahir?” I asked ironically.
“No, but a thing almost as good.”
“What could that be?”
“A dead man,” he answered promptly, his eyes welded on mine. “The lady digged up a dead corpse in your cemetery, and he was not in a coffin, Al. It was the fat man—the one like a Japanese wrestler that I saw in this room the other time. I was behind a tree, but near enough. I knew him right away.”
My God! I thought. My God! This clown was there when Madge uncovered Norbie! The buzzing in my skull ascended to a roar. How could it have happened?
“You followed her here—in the middle of the night?” I asked, stupefied.
“Sure!” he replied, obviously pleased with himself. “I was suspicious she wanted to dig in the cemetery. Before, on other days, I see her walking there and sticking her cane in the ground, and what she is thinking is on her face like writing. I am lucky, though. There is a Cypriot boy—a friend of my friend, Taki—who works in the lady’s hotel, downtown. So I give to him a dollar and say, ‘Look out for that one, Costa.’ That is why he calls me on the telephone when she goes out at twelve-thirty at night. I was asleep, but I got up because I knew. Yes, I knew. I came in a taxi. Already she was digging—digging for treasure, Al. I let her. ‘You work,’ I said to myself, ‘and we will both take the pay.’ ”
The Turk’s flat face parted in a grin. He uncrossed his legs, placed his narrow feet together on the Shiraz rug, and then went on. “It was night—sure. If you dig for treasure in a cemetery, you don’t dig in sunshine so everybody can look. That would be crazy, effendi! She digged, yes—faster and faster and faster. After some minutes I saw the white sheet and I thought, ‘Ha! There it is—a bag filled with jewelries and things of merit.’ My heart was jumping up and down, like those Mexican beans they sell in the joke shops on Washington Street. But then, Al, she turned on her little light, and the man’s face was there with the blood on it, all black and dirty-looking. And his head was open, like a pot with a hole in it. Ech! I did not like that. My stomach was sick. I almost ran away, only my legs were weak like an old person’s. So I leaned on the tree and waited. There was nothing else, though. She buried him again, then went away—and I took a taxi back to my house.”
Having ended his story, Suleyman coughed against the palm of his hand and made himself more comfortable on the settee.
I did my best to digest it all, to consider it dispassionately, but that wasn’t possible. I realized only that this damn mincing faggot, through a series of false calculations engendered by his greed, had put me in a position of considerable peril. Him and his damn things of merit! It was a warm night, but I felt chilly. How was I to handle the situation? I wondered. Raising my hands to my temples, I hunched forward in my chair. The shopkeeper misinterpreted the movement and recoiled like a frightened rabbit.
“If you touch me,” he said hastily, “I will yell very loud, Al. I will yell and yell and yell, and the people on the street will hear and call the cops.”
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I said, though in truth I would have loved to wring his skinny neck.
“You murdered that man in the grave,” he replied.
“No, not really. I shot him because he wanted me to.”
“Ah, you confess it!”
“He was very sick, Mahir, and he wanted to die, but he didn’t have the courage to do it himself.”
“Excuse me, Al, but I do not believe you,” said he, relaxing somewhat. “It must be you had a fight, and because he was so big and so fat—”
“What you believe means nothing to me,” I interrupted, while holding back my anger. “Get to the point, you sneak. Why are you here?”
“Why? Why do you think? I want a share of the treasure.”
“But there isn’t any treasure, jackass! The lady didn’t find one, did she?”
“It is unpolite to call names,” he said in an injured tone. “No, she did not find it. So what, eh? The treasure is someplace. If there is no treasure, why does this smart professor dig in the ground? She wants only books, you say, but who would put books under the dirt? And that night, a little child could see that she did not expect to find a dead corpse. No, she expected treasure.” He smirked complacently. “And after, Al, did she come and say, ‘Help me find it, or I will tell the police’? Sure, that is the kind she is. Yes, I know that kind of lady.”
Like it or not, I had to admit to myself that he was a good psychologist.
“But,” he continued, “I think you know already where is the treasure. If that is not so, how can you buy automobile? Aman—a Mercedes! You cannot get such a thing for quarters and dimes. So, Al, where is this treasure? Tell me, my friend.”
“It is in your dreams, my friend,” I answered acidly. “You’ve got it all mixed up. What Miss Clerisy is searching for is a papyrus or a stone tablet with an inscription of some sort. Its value would be very small, except to scholars. Can’t you get it through your head? There is no gold!”
“If you know where is the treasure,” declared the Levantine, as though he hadn’t heard a word of what I’d said, “you would be wrong not to tell me. Like business partners we are, you and me, but the lady is a stranger only. You do not have to tell her, just me. Then, I will take my share and go back to Stamboul. Maybe I can buy also a Mercedes. And no person has to know a thing—not the cops, not anybody. You understand me, Al?”
I und
erstood him, all right, but he simply couldn’t understand me. For nearly an hour I did my best to convince him he was hunting a mare’s nest; I might as well have been talking in a vacuum. He listened with Oriental patience, his brown face, however, clearly proclaiming his total incredulity. At last I gave it up.
“Think about it some more. There is no hurry,” he said, rising from the settee and tugging down the tail of his close-fitting coat. “Do not do any crazy things, though—like hiding the dead body some other place. It would not fool the cops. That lady—she is a difficulty. It is bad she knows. But we will see, eh? I will come here again—pretty soon. Think about it. It is all only a little piece of business, Al—a deal, like they say in America.”
I followed Suleyman from the room. Just as he’d done the last time, he glanced in the hall mirror to see if his cowlick curl was in place. Then he was through the door and gone.
I stood there in the vestibule, slightly dazed. Into my mind came the words of Hood:
Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold!
Bright and yellow, hard and cold.
Gold, gold—alas! for the gold
Spent where souls are bought and sold.
Think about it, Mahir had said. What else could I do but that?
14
A CONSULTATION
The next morning I told Madge. She heard me out in silence, her fine countenance grave.
“The filthy little beggar!” she said when I was done. “That is how those people are—cunning and unprincipled.”
As I was jittery and unable to see much difference between his behavior and hers, I replied, “If you hadn’t poked around, none of this would’ve happened.”
“Yes, but on the other hand, if you hadn’t shot your best friend, my poking around wouldn’t have mattered,” she retorted coolly. “Quarreling won’t repair the damage, though.”
“What will, Madge? That’s the question. The rascal has his heart set on a bundle of swag. He seems to think the Burying Ground is King Solomon’s mine or a secret branch of Fort Knox. What can we do? How are we going to convince him that there isn’t any treasure trove to be divvied up? Because if we don’t convince him he’ll inform. Then the police will come, toss me in jail, put me on trial; I’ll be hounded, depicted on the front pages of the newspapers—scandal upon scandal—and who knows how it will all end? I could land in a grubby penitentiary, like the Prisoner of Chillon or Raleigh in the damnable Tower.”
My words caused her to smile. “I think we can forestall such a catastrophe,” she said. “Remain calm, Al. I’ll see to everything. People of Suleyman’s stripe are no mystery to me.”
That’s what she said. Then she turned from me and went up to the library, her earrings tinkling like tintinnabula.
15
THEY MAKE ME LOOK A FOOL
However, the archaeologist’s display of confidence did little to encourage me. I was very uneasy. All that morning I wandered restlessly around—to the Burying Ground, to Hall’s Pond, to the supermarket, to the basement. I longed to talk again with Madge, but she didn’t emerge from the library, even at lunchtime, and I dared not disturb her.
At two o’clock I went to see Eulalia in my mother’s bedroom. Not having visited her for several days, I was given a poor reception. She refused to speak to me. From within her hollow bowl, only little sighs issued—sighs of the type that people make when they wish to express polite boredom. But I wouldn’t go away. Gently I polished her glittering surface with the chamois, and then I set her on top of the escritoire so that she might enjoy an unobstructed view of the park and get the full benefit of the sunshine. All the while I offered apologies for not having come to see her sooner.
Then I poured out the whole story. I told of how Madge had found Norbie, of our subsequent opening of Great-grampy’s grave, of the tale of Ahmed Abderrasul, and finally, of Suleyman’s appearance and his wild demands. As I spoke, Eulalia left off sighing. To anyone else, she might have seemed quite inanimate—an ordinary, though lovely piece of china—but to me it was obvious that she was listening intently to every word I said. I finished at last, sat on the side of my mother’s bed and waited patiently.
A minute passed, and then another. She made a small snorting noise and said, “Why come to me? Take your troubles to the gypsy, Al. She’s caused them. Let her cure them.”
“Ah, well,” I said. “It’s true she never should have interfered, but the harm is done now, and that fool of a Turk will run to the police, Eulalia.”
“Will he? And what about her? Do you think she can be trusted?”
“Madge? She doesn’t want the police. She’s only interested in finding her scraps of papyrus.”
“Madge? So it’s ‘Madge,’ is it? You’ve become great pals, haven’t you? You’re an idiot, Al. That cripple is playing a deep game. But why am I talking to you, anyway? You’re as wicked as she is—a traitor, a false friend, a cheat, a ruffian.”
“Now, now, don’t carry on so, Eulalia,” I said, trying to appease her. “The lady will be finished with her researches before too long, and then everything will go back to the way it was prior to her arrival.”
“No, it’ll never be the same again,” she answered, and thereupon commenced to cry.
Until that moment I’d never heard Eulalia weep. It was a strange sound, rather like a shower of rain on tree leaves. In my nervous state it really vexed me.
“Oh, for God’s sake!” I exclaimed. “Why are you bawling? It’s so silly. Stop it, please! Tears can’t solve problems, my dear. I’m very surprised at your acting this way. You’ve always been such a steady, rational creature. You can’t collapse now, Eulalia. Remember, it was you who first put the idea into my head—the idea to send poor Norbie on his way—so you have a share in this, too. Wailing like Niobe or Ariadne isn’t going to help us out of our predicament.”
Her crying, however, showed no signs of abatement. I shook my head angrily, and in the performance of this small action my eyes happened to traverse the bell-shaped mirror on my mother’s chiffonier. In it, I espied Madge. She was watching me through the partially open door. I whirled around.
“To whom were you speaking?” she asked in her straightforward manner, not at all abashed at having been caught eavesdropping.
“Speaking?” I echoed feebly. “Why . . . why, no one. I was soliloquizing. It’s a . . . a habit of mine.”
“It was more than a soliloquy,” she replied, her expression quizzical. “You were having a conversation—yes, a conversation with that pottery jug up there on the desk.”
Treacherously misled by this statement, I made a rash assumption and blurted out, “Then you heard it speak, Madge?”
No sooner were the words out of my mouth than I realized I’d made an absolute ass of myself.
“Me? No,” said she, smiling thinly. “I didn’t hear it speak, Al, but it was very obvious that you did.”
Only a Russian novelist—a Gogol or Dostoevsky—could have described my humiliation. How I longed to dash from the room! And while I stood there, hot with shame, Eulalia went on with her rain-shower weeping just as if nothing were happening.
The archaeologist came forward and murmured, “A talking Spode jug—intriguing. What opinions does it have?”
“Not Spode—Worcester,” I mumbled. Then, getting up, I made a brave effort to gloss over the stupid remark I’d uttered earlier. “But the pitcher doesn’t talk. What an idea!”
By this time Madge had reached the escritoire and was staring up at Eulalia, who now abruptly left off crying. Seeing the two of them together that way—face to face, as it were—only increased my discomfort.
“All right, Worcester then,” the lady said. “Isn’t it fancy, though? Much too baroque for my taste. I’m used to cruder, more primitive ware—and that usually in potsherds.”
“It’s silly to say that . . . that a pitcher can speak,” I persisted. “It’s absurd.”
She glanced at me. “Is it? In that case, why have you crossed your fingers, Al?
Is that a habit of yours, too? A little something you do automatically when you’re telling lies?”
“Lying? I’m not! Why should I lie?” I asked, putting my hand in my pocket.
For a moment she regarded me in silence. Then she said, “We all have our idiosyncrasies, Al. No need to get upset. In any case, when you say the thing doesn’t speak, you’re telling the truth. It really doesn’t. You only imagine that it does.”
This line of reasoning—doubling back, as it did—compounded my confusion. “I don’t imagine anything,” I declared, sidling toward the door in hopes that she’d follow me out.
“You think the voice is real then?” said she, remaining where she was.
“Don’t let her trick you, Al!” Eulalia suddenly chimed in.
“That’s not what I meant,” I said, halting.
“Yes, it is,” Madge contradicted. “That’s precisely what you meant.”
The next thing I knew, she was questioning me so closely and relentlessly, and with such obvious pleasure, too, that I felt like a rat at the mercy of a terrier. At some time in her life she must have belonged to a debating society, for she could argue like a Jesuit. Her mind was incredibly nimble. All my replies were turned upside down, until I was no longer sure of what I was saying. It was harrowing. In the end she had me mouthing the most ridiculous contentions. Moreover, I twice referred to the pitcher as “she” and once even called it “Eulalia.”
My position was impossible. I was driven into a corner and obliged to capitulate ignominiously. Feeling about the size of a gnat, I acknowledged that I had been talking to the piece of porcelain, that it was a living, feeling being, and that it was my good friend. I think it was the most difficult task I ever had to perform—making such an admission to a person like Madge Clerisy. But I had no choice, none at all.
“Eulalia—a pleasant-sounding name. It’s sweet, romantic,” she remarked, thoroughly amused by my confession. “Of course you know that she’s no more than an auditory hallucination, Al—a kink in your mind.”
The Secret Life of Algernon Pendleton Page 12