The Song of the Flea

by Gerald Kersh

  “What was I saying? I forget what I was saying,” she whispered. “Have I been talking? If I have, please pay no attention. There’s something. I am not asking a favour. One thing I don’t want. I don’t want to be … I was insured, but the policy lapsed. I couldn’t keep it up. What are you to do? Say you need shoelaces, or a box of matches to light the gas, or a penny for the fire. You need a needle and thread, a pencil, soap. My money was in rubber when it crashed—rubber and Mexican Eagles … Also, if you’ve got a pencil you want a rubber … I kept up the payments as long as I could. Believe me—believe me! I am told that they built their big building with the money they got from policies like mine. I simply had to have pen and ink and paper. Faith in my work. To get it typed cost pounds … If you will promise me something I swear that I will make you rich, very rich. Will you promise?”

  “Yes,” said Pym.

  “Promise not to let them bury me in a pauper’s grave.”

  “No, no, they won’t.”

  “I have nothing. Forgive me. Greensleeve was not far wrong. I did sink low, after everything was lost. Oh, dear me, dear me, that place in Paddington … and then those hostels. ‘A poor man is full of tears, and imagines himself despised by all mankind,’ said Menander. How much poorer is a poor old woman? So much poorer than a man? Oh, Poverty and Pride—Poverty and Pride! They make a secret, and the secret begets a lie, and the lie begets a fear, and the fear multiplies itself—oh dear, the poor, the poor, poor proud, how frightened they always are, always hiding! Now listen. Go to No. 8 Damascus Terrace and ask for Mrs. Lincoln. Lincoln—remember it; Damascus Terrace. Give her forty-eight shillings—a month’s rent I owe—and ask her for Mrs. Greensleeve’s box of papers. I want to give it to you. It will make you rich. Will you do that?”

  “Word of honour. You must rest now.”

  “‘A poor man has no honour,’ as Dr. Johnson said. Mrs. Lincoln thought my box was full of valuables. She let me go on for a month before she locked me out … Valuables, yes—but not her sort. I want you to have them. Write on a piece of paper:

  ‘The bearer of this is authorised to claim my property.’ As quickly as you can, please, so that I can sign it.”

  Pym wrote the words on a sheet of hospital notepaper and gave her the pencil. She signed her name firmly, without looking.

  “I want to do something for you,” she said; “and in return all I ask is that you won’t let me be buried in a pauper’s grave. Promise?”

  “Of course.”

  “I believe you. God bless you. Will you sit with me just for a little while?”

  “Yes,” said Pym.

  A few minutes later Mrs. Greensleeve said: “Art is long and life is short … but how can I sharpen a pencil with a fish-knife? … And with what else am I to sharpen my pencil?” She was almost asleep. “…. Designer infinite! Must thou then char the wood ere thou canst limn with it?”

  *

  Several hours later Pym handed the late Mrs. Greensleeve’s note to Mrs. Lincoln, at No. 8 Damascus Terrace. She was a tight-mouthed, tight-eyed, shrewish little woman; brisk, voluble, businesslike. “Greensleeve?” she said. “Ah! She was a cunning one.”

  “She said that I was to give you forty-eight shillings and take her box,” said Pym.

  “I don’t know how people can be like that! If you ask me, she’s no better than a common thief. Her and her box! She talked me over nicely, I don’t mind telling you. The trouble with me is I am too kind-hearted. ‘I’ll pay next week’. And after that it’s ‘positively next week’, and then it’s ‘the week after next’. She’s expecting a remittance. Remittance! Then she wants five shillings for stamps, and I, like a fool, give it to her out of my own pocket. Out of my own pocket! ‘There’s always my box as security.’ Her box—security! An old trunk full of dirty paper. That was her security. If you want my opinion, your Mrs. Greensleeve is no better than a common swindler. Wait till I get hold of her—I’ll tell her what I think of her if it was in front of King George himself!”

  “That isn’t very likely, I’m afraid,” said Pym, “because the lady died to-day.”

  “Oh. I see. And she gave you the money to pay me what she owed me, is that it?”

  “Yes, that’s it. Forty-eight shillings.”

  “Of course, she forgot five shillings lent out of my own pocket for stamps,” said Mrs. Lincoln with bitterness. ‘She always did have one of those convenient memories.”

  “She didn’t mention five shillings for stamps—only a month’s rent. But if you tell me that the lady owed you five shillings extra, I’ll pay it.”

  “Of course she forgot to mention meals and cups of tea! Oh well, never mind, I suppose I’ll have to let it go. Forty-eight, and five out of my own pocket, that makes fifty-three. Two pounds thirteen. Pay me that and you can have her rubbishing old box. Box! I treated her like one of my own, and all I got was aggravation. I’d have boxed her!”

  Mrs. Lincoln dragged a dusty little wicker-work trunk out of a cupboard under the stairs and pushed it towards Pym. Having counted the money she softened a little and said: “She talked like a lady. She seemed to have been about a bit. This much I will say: she kept herself clean and her room was a picture to look at. I’m not a hard woman, but it stands to reason I’ve got to live. I try to be fair, but I’m a widow. Just a minute, and I’ll get some of the dust off of that. One thing I can’t stand and won’t stand is dirt. Nobody is ever going to say that I was dirty. Anybody could go into any of my rooms at any hour of the day or night. If ever you want a clean room——”

  “—I shan’t fail to let you know,” said Pym.

  On the way home, cross-examining himself in the hate-inspired manner of a prosecuting counsel, Pym forced himself to admit that he despised himself:

  Mrs. Greensleeve was your neighbour, is that so? asked Reason.

  “Yes, that is so,” said the shamefaced Pym.

  You know her well?

  “Why, no. In fact, not at all.”

  Not at all. You had, however, exchanged conversation with Mrs. Greensleeve?

  “Well, no—no, I’d never conversed with her, unless….”

  Unless what?

  “Unless you call borrowing a tin-opener conversation. I had a visitor,” said Pym, hurriedly excusing himself: “I wanted to open a tin of strawberries.”

  You had a visitor in your bedroom?

  “Yes; in my room.”

  In your bedroom. Your visitor was a lady?

  “Yes.”

  This lady—your visitor—was she your mistress?

  “No. She had been, but wasn’t any more.”

  This lady, who had been your mistress but wasn’t any more: you were fond of her, no doubt?

  “No; I disliked her.”

  You disliked her. You exhausted yourself walking from pawnshop to pawnshop to buy a tin of strawberries for an ex-mistress whom you disliked—having taken that woman to your room. Is this what you are telling me?

  “I suppose so—yes.”

  Think carefully, Mr. Pym. Having taken to your bedroom a young woman for whom you had no regard, you knocked at a door and borrowed a tin-opener from Mrs. Greensleeve, whom you had never met. Yes?

  “Yes.”

  In order to open a tin of strawberries which you could ill afford?

  “That is so.”

  Why did you buy this tin of strawberries?

  “I took a fancy to it.”

  Yet you did not eat these strawberries?

  “No.”

  Why not?

  “I hadn’t a tin-opener.”

  Mr. Pym! You, a hungry man, spend some of your last pennies on a tin of strawberries because you ‘fancy them’, as the saying is. You do not eat your strawberries because you have not got a tin- opener. The woman, Win Joyce—whom you say you disliked—came to your room on your invitation. You knocked at your neighbour’s door and borrowed a tin-opener from Mrs. Greensleeve. Is that so?

  “Yes.”

  For the woman you dis
liked?

  “I suppose so—yes.”

  You say yes. Why did you do it?

  “I don’t know; I can’t say. I am made that way, I suppose.”

  You are made that way, you suppose. Later, Mrs. Greensleeve having been the victim of an accident, you spent ten shillings on grapes—black grapes—and stayed by her bedside in the Lazarus Infirmary. Did you or did you not?

  “I did.”

  After Mrs. Greensleeve died, did you agree to pay Messrs. Ongar & Hole fifteen pounds to bury her respectably?

  “Yes.”

  Why did you do that?

  “I promised her that she wouldn’t be buried in a pauper’s grave.”

  Why did you promise her that?

  “I don’t know.”

  Where did you get the money, Mr. Pym?

  “I’d rather not say.”

  The money was given to you by the stepfather of Win Joyce. Is that so?

  “Well, yes.”

  Having walked your feet raw to redeem a pawned typewriter, you invited an ex-mistress whom you disliked and distrusted back to your room. She stole this typewriter. Agreeing not to prosecute her for the theft, you accepted a sum of money from her stepfather?

  “Yes, but——”

  Please answer the question.

  “Yes.”

  Do you believe in God, Mr. Pym?

  “I don’t know.”

  Have you any respect for the Church?

  “Not much.”

  You have, I believe, on several occasions made mock of Christian burial. “A racket” was the term you employed, I think?

  “That is correct.”

  You have also said—and, I think, believe—that it does not matter how the corruptible flesh goes back to the elements. Do you believe that?

  “I do.”

  You have even attacked in writing—potentially in print—the necessary processes of burial. Have you or have you not?

  “I have.”

  Why, then, did you do what you have done to-day?

  “The old lady wanted it that way. I gave her my word of honour.”

  Why?

  “I was sorry for her.”

  Could it possibly matter to Mrs. Greensleeve if her dead body was thrown into a cheap grave or a dear one, in an oak or a pine coffin, with or without brass handles?

  “No; but I’d given her my word of honour.”

  You are a man of your word then, Mr. Pym?

  “I am.”

  Have you not, on several occasions, promised a tradesman that you would pay him to-morrow or the day after, and then defaulted? Think again, Mr. Pym.

  “When I said I’d pay I meant to pay—I thought I’d be able to pay——”

  You are lying!

  “I am not! I will pay everything I owe——”

  I put it to you that you are a self-deceiver, Mr. Pym, a presumptuous, wrong-headed man, drunk with vanity and blind with self-esteem—a cheap little romantic—a Quixote of the back streets, a sordid Quixote without the saving graces of courage and honesty. You are a thief of the meanest kind!

  “Sir!”

  Yes; you are a would-be robber. You have attempted to pilfer a feeling of nobility. Ah! You hang your head. You do not deny it, eh?

  “No; I hang my head. I don’t deny it … But … but …”

  Never mind the “but, but”, Mr. Pym. Go to your room now and sit down and work. Work, Mr. Pym—work! Grow great and wealthy and afford to be a benefactor in your own right, you shoplifter in the bargain-basement of magnanimity—you grubby Robin Hood in borrowed Sherwood-green, who take from the poor to give to the dead! Go back where you belong, and work!

  “Yes, sir.”

  Pym slunk home like a criminal. The detective-sergeant was waiting for him.

  “You made a nice mess of yourself,” he said.

  “Oh, God! What now?”

  “What did you want to withdraw that charge for, for Christ’s sake? Now you’ve committed a misdemeanour. If you know that a felony has been committed and conceal it, without being in any way a party to it, you commit the misdemeanour of misprision of felony. You compounded a felony—that’s what you did.”

  “But surely …!” cried Pym, “they can’t do anything to me for that!”

  “They can give you up to two years in jail, you know,” said the detective-sergeant. “It is a misdemeanour at Common Law for a person, for any reward or advantage, to agree not to prosecute any person for felony. You see what I mean.”

  “What am I to do, for the love of God?”

  “Oh, I should think you’ll be all right. Now keep calm—calm, do you hear?—Stop that laughing and keep calm! Hysterics’ll get you nowhere. Will you stop it? Now, look—I’ve got to do this——”

  Having received a stinging slap in the face, Pym hiccuped, shuddered back to sanity and said: “Thanks. Thanks. I wish I knew exactly what I’ve done.”

  “You’ve just been soft,” said the detective-sergeant.

  “You said something about Two Years. I couldn’t do it—I couldn’t!”

  “Now then, now then, take it easy! I don’t imagine for one moment that it’ll come to that in your case. Take it easy, now!”

  “I wish to God I was dead and buried!” cried Pym.

  “All in good time. Take it easy; take it easy. Come along now; pull yourself together and let’s talk it over. What do you say?”

  “Go and try and be decent to people!” cried Pym. “See where it gets you! Under the circumstances, I’ve always been more or less honourable. You can ask anybody you like. I’ll never try to do anyone a good turn again as long as I live!”

  The detective-sergeant said: “Now blow your nose, blow your little nose, son—that’s the style, a good blow—and tell us all about it….”

  Pym looked out of the window. The world was squalid and mean—a bad little world under a stained sheet of sky blotched with the traces of a furtive couple of clouds that had met and were parting in a hurry behind the sun’s back. Filthy sky! Sordid sky! Brothel-sky! Scummy sky of dirty water ringed with greasy sediment stuck with strange coarse hairs! Lodging-house sky! Heaven of mucus and spittle and dirty linen, dripping … dripping….

  “Pah!” said Pym. “If people would only leave me alone! I only want to be left alone to get on with my work. I can’t help doing such silly things—I can’t help feeling sorry for people. I ask you, what would you do if an old man came to you and said—Oh, but what the devil is the use of talking? What’s the use?”

  “I daresay you can establish the fact that you didn’t mean to do it, can’t you? I mean to say, you accepted payment from the old man, and signed papers to prove it, didn’t you?”

  “It serves me right for being sorry for people. If they’d just leave me alone! Oh, you don’t know how tired I am of people! I’m so tired. I really am so tired! As if I’d accept payment for withdrawing a charge!”

  “The old gentleman’s showed us the document and the receipt, you know.”

  “Oh, all right! Hang, draw and quarter me.”

  “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” said the detective.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  SO there came a sombre threatening night when Pym was overtaken by madness in an empty street.

  He was being hunted down. Stealthy footsteps were following him. He wanted to run, but was ashamed. At last, when he dared to turn and look back, his heart contracted like a squeezed sponge.

  A dim, squat, froglike thing was crouching at his heels.

  He shrieked, and the echoing street shrieked back. Then Reason, badly battered, staggered out of its whispering corner and Pym knew that the footsteps that had followed him were only echoes of his own, and the squatting thing was his shadow thrown down by the light of the street lamp under which he had instinctively stopped. Pym walked on, but his heart was cold and desperate, leaping and falling like a salmon in a stream, and his blood was water. A white thing slid past his face. He leapt sideways. The white thing was only a pu
ff of smoke from Pym’s cigarette—he had forgotten that he was smoking.

  “God help me! Don’t leave me alone in the dark!” he cried. Then he stopped and listened again. Not far from where he stood someone was weeping desperately—some poor beaten whore perhaps whom a word might comfort. Pym could not bear the noise of weeping—anyone with sound tear-ducts and a strong diaphragm to sob with could put out his anger as water quenches fire, or make him boil like quicklime. He began to say: “Who’s that? Where are you?”

  Who—hoo!-hoo!-hoo! was what he said.

  It was he who was weeping.

  The shock of this discovery gagged him for a few seconds, and then he knew that something terrible had happened to him. The night was a dark cupboard into which he had been cruelly thrust and locked away and forgotten, like an ill-treated child, and there he would remain for ever, heartbroken and lonely. Hearing his own sobs Pym thought of a narrow-necked bottle emptying itself, gulp by gulp—and this thought made him laugh so loudly that he had to push his handkerchief into his mouth to muffle the noise.

  At the back of his head a voice said, coldly and clearly: “You are going mad.” Pym stopped laughing, and cried again. The street was closing in. On a roof a cat wailed O, wo-wo-wo!—but the voice of the cat was full of mockery. He took hold of himself and then he shook like a man who has been tricked into gripping the handles of a shocking-coil—he was shaking himself to pieces, but he could not let go.

  Presently he started and listened again. The short hairs on the back of his neck stirred and prickled. He could hear heavy, deliberate footsteps—not his own—a policeman was coming. Pym glanced from left to right. There was no escape. This was the end. He would fight to the death. The policeman came near, looked at him incuriously, and passed.

  “I am not afraid of policemen,” said Pym. “I am not afraid of the dark … I do not cry like a baby!” Nevertheless he was crying again. He wanted to lie down in a doorway and let the gulping narrow-necked bottle empty itself, so that in the morning they would find nothing but a skin. “I haven’t got a friend in the world—not one friend in all the world. I am the loneliest man on earth,” Pym said to himself.