The Song of the Flea

by Gerald Kersh

  “But what were they fighting about?”

  Her face was like a painted walnut. She replied: “Pitches.”

  “Pitches? What pitches?”

  She simpered. “A stranger here? … You see, us girls sit on chairs along here. You see, most of us have our Regulars, so we always sit on the same chair, so they know exactly where to find us when they want us. Well, Maggie has sat on that chair for five years to my certain knowledge. But Sheila won’t let anybody live, you know. She’s selfish. She comes early and takes the other girls’ chairs. And you saw what class of girl she was. Mad Sheila. But I will say this for Maggie, she’s not afraid of Sheila. Maggie has a Regular who gives her ten shillings. Well, Sheila tried to get Maggie’s chair. One thing leads to another, you know. It seems that they came to blows. Are you a stranger here?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Are you feeling lonely?”

  “No, not a bit lonely.”

  “Ten shillings?”

  “No.”

  “You’re such a nice-looking boy, I wouldn’t mind going with you for nothing, only I’ve got to live, you see.”

  “Here’s your ten shillings,” said Pym. “Good-bye.”

  She took the ten-shilling note, looked at him resentfully, said “Thank you” in a ladylike voice, and went away to her chair.

  “Lovely, isn’t it?” said the last of the remaining policemen to Pym.

  “Lovely,” said Pym.

  “I’d have to be pretty hard up before I was seen dead with one of them. As a matter of fact, you’d have to be in a pretty bad state before you touched one of them with a barge pole—a disinfected barge pole.”

  “Who are they? What are they?” asked Pym. “I mean—I know what they are, but how do they get that way?”

  “Why,” said the policeman, “a lot of ’em are respectably married women. Husbands in regular jobs. They go on the bash for a little bit of extra pin money. There’s one round here that wears glasses! Most of them are just old tarts. That big one, Maggie, she used to be pretty good-looking twenty years ago. But you know what they are—they never save a penny, and sooner or later, well—there you are.”

  “Lovely,” said Pym.

  “Yes, bloody lovely, isn’t it?” said the policeman.

  As Pym walked to Joanna Bowman’s flat near Victoria, he prayed: “Oh Lord! Thrust me into the furnace—hammer me flat—grind me down—beat me into a surgeon’s knife and let me cut some of the rottenness away from this sick, suffering world!”

  *

  Joanna Bowman said: “If you don’t mind roughing it, I’ll make an omelette.”

  “If you’re sure you wouldn’t rather go out to eat,” said Pym. “I have a suspicion that you’re being diplomatic so as to save me money. I’ve got some money now. No, not the fiver I borrowed from Proudfoot. I haven’t broken into that—I’ve got that here in my pocket. It goes back to Proudfoot to-morrow.”

  “Why?”

  “It wasn’t so much a loan as an advance on what they wanted to pay me for the job they wanted me to do. But I’m not going to do the job.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t like it.”

  “What’s the matter with it?”

  “They want me to put that woman Weissensee’s muck into attractive English,” said Pym, indignant at the thought of it.

  “I must say you sound as though you don’t altogether approve of it. I’ve never read any of it myself.”

  “I should think not!”

  The horror in Pym’s voice amused her. “Are you afraid it would corrupt me?”

  “I don’t think anything could corrupt you. But it’s the sort of stuff that makes you feel unclean. It makes you feel sick. I should feel embarrassed, somehow, to see a woman reading it.”

  “But it wouldn’t embarrass you to see a man reading it?”

  “No, not quite so much—now don’t start asking me why not, because I don’t know.”

  “I see that you’re quite an old-fashioned boy at heart.”

  “I am, I suppose. I hate dirt, scientific or otherwise. As I see it, shit by any other name smells no sweeter … I even don’t like to use that word in the presence of a lady. It’s in my nature to want to protect women. All right: old-fashioned.”

  “I believe I dislike dirtiness as much as you do,” said Joanna Bowman. “It disgusts me too, you know—dirtiness, I mean, not honest dirt. I suppose you’ve seen what they call ‘feelthy peectures’?”

  “An old gentleman showed me some when I was young,” said Pym.

  “Filth, eh?” said Joanna.

  “Uncleanliness,” said Pym, “filth, as you say. Dirtiness. There really is a difference between dirt and dirtiness. Dirt is what you dig in and turn over to plant things in. Dirtiness is what clean people scrub away.”

  “Misplaced matter,” said Joanna.

  “No: matter that has no right to a place anywhere—stuff that sneaks into any crack that’ll hold it, and needs to be scraped away. You can call pus in a pimple dirt, can’t you? You can call wax in your ears dirt, or you can call what you find in a tramp’s trousers dirt, or you can call what you blow out of your nose dirt. Call them anything you like. But are they misplaced? No, by God, no! They’re exactly where they belong … where they belong if you won’t lift a finger to wipe them out. Misplaced matter, my foot! Dirt!”

  Joanna said: “On the whole, you’re not far wrong.”

  “Well then—away with it! Down with dirt!” cried Pym.

  “Shake,” said Joanna Bowman, offering her hand. “But don’t try to save me from the ‘facts of life’; don’t protect me. I won’t stand for that.”

  “There are facts of life that shouldn’t be facts of life. Being sick is a fact of life. But you try to suppress it—you try not to be sick at the dinner table, for example; and still being sick at the dinner table is what you might call a fact of life. In any case I am not trying to protect you.”

  “I’d rather be sick at the dinner table than die a ladylike death of ptomaine poisoning in the ladies’ lavatory. In any case, I see no earthly reason why women should be protected. As a matter of fact they never are protected. They do most of the protecting; even when they’re being protected they’re doing most of the protecting.”

  While they were eating the omelette Joanna said:

  “Men! Why wasn’t I born a man? If I’d been born a man I’d have been a man. But as it is I’m what they call a Weak Woman. I don’t like men.”

  “And women?”

  “I don’t like women either. I don’t like myself for being a woman. I don’t like anybody. I wish I could be about fifty people at the same time. Then I’d show you how men and women ought to be. I wish there was a third sex. I’d rather be something else. Miserable creatures! All my life I’ve been hoping to come across someone I didn’t despise. I never have. Every now and again I’ve thought I’ve met somebody I could talk to as an equal. And I’ve been wrong, wrong every time. When I was a kid I admired my father; but by the time I was twelve I recognised him. He was a soft fool and my mother could twist him round her little finger. So I got around to admiring her, and she was even softer and even more of a fool, because he could twist her round his little finger. And then I thought I had some sort of respect for my husband. He was no good either.”

  “You have a husband?”

  “Yes. A sort of bulldog. A pig-headed, silly bulldog … one of those weepy, whimpering, whining, bulldogs.”

  “I like bulldogs.”

  “So do I—I love them. But I won’t let them own me. I’ve always been terrified of emotional ties.”

  “You didn’t love your husband, then?”

  “Yes, I believe I did, at first, at least.”

  “Not for long?”

  “For a little while—until he began to whimper. I thought I loved him for just about as long as I believed he was one of those iron men that you read about—one of those self-contained, strong, not-too-silent men. It was all right unti
l he fell in love with me. Before I knew where I was he was making sacrifices for me. It didn’t take any time at all. Things came to a head quite soon: he started telling me about how he’d stayed in England for my sake instead of going to China. He was a metallurgist. There was a big job of some sort waiting for him in China, and he’d wanted to go to China. But he didn’t go. He stayed behind for the sake of the Little Woman … Me.”

  “What happened then?”

  “Why, what do you think happened? I said: ‘You must be an absolute bloody idiot. You are telling me that you wanted to go to China, but you didn’t go to China for my sake. You know perfectly well that you’re lying. If you’d really wanted to go to China, you’d have gone—and you know it. What you really wanted to do was stay here. You must know me well enough to know that China, or anywhere else, would suit me down to the ground. I despise people who try to make me feel guilty about this kind of rubbish. I don’t like you any more. Go to China; go to hell. Go away. As far as you and I are concerned, it’s all over. Good-bye.’”

  “And since then you’ve been alone?”

  “And intend to stay alone—I’ve had enough of being pushed around. I live my life the way I want to, without interference from anyone.”

  “You’re profound and you’re beautiful, but still you’re a fool. Who lives alone? What’s the use of men without women? What’s the point in women without men?” said Pym.

  “What’s the point in women with men merely for the sake of convenience? What the hell is the use of a combination where the woman despises the man and the man wants a mother? He’s had his mother! Why must men always be rushing back and back? Why don’t they want to be fathers instead of sons? Alone, you say; live alone, you say. Well, when I live alone, at least I’m living with my equal,” said Joanna. “I’m so tired of living with babies.”

  “I’m no baby, Joanna.”

  “I shouldn’t be inviting you to bed with me if I thought you were. I like you, Pym.”

  “Are you inviting——”

  “Yes.”

  “It is a very good thing to be with you,” said Pym, after they had made love together.

  “Very good,” said Joanna Bowman.

  “—But there’s one thing.”

  “Oh-oh! I thought as much.”

  “It wasn’t because I had a little money that I turned down Proudfoot’s offer. I give you my word of honour. What I have I got——”

  “—Please let me go to sleep.”

  “I want you to know that I’d decided to turn Proudfoot’s offer down before Sissy Voltaire gave me the advance on that play. I wouldn’t have done it, you know—I’d never have written Dr. Weissensee’s rubbish for her—I’d just as soon have starved. Don’t misunderstand me, please, Jo.”

  “—Pym, let me go to sleep now.”

  “God bless you, Jo, my sweet.”

  “I don’t believe in God; but God bless you, Pym. I like you. I’m calm and happy with you. Thank you, Pym. Would you like to kiss me here, on the forehead, before you go?”

  Pym kissed Joanna and said: “Good night.”

  “You might meet a man called Swan,” she said. “My husband. Don’t be afraid of him. He won’t hurt. Good night, Pym, my dear. I like being with you. Good night.”

  “Thank you for being so sweet, Jo.”

  “Soon again, Pym….”

  *

  Pym closed the street door behind him and felt the cold night breeze on his face. A shower of rain had fallen, and there were patches of wet yellow under the lamp-posts. One crescent-shaped piece of the road, filmed with oil, shimmered like a damascened sabre, in twenty colours. Big Ben struck three o’clock, and a cat howled like a soul in the Pit. On the third floor of a house fifty yards away, a lamp went out and a rose-coloured oblong disappeared. The cat cried again.

  A man crossed the road, stood in front of Pym, and said, in a strange, strained voice: “Were you with Mrs. Swan, by any chance?”

  “Swan?” said Pym. “Swan, Donald Duck, or Francis Drake—Dame Clara Cluck or Mickey Mouse—what has it got to do with you?”

  “Were you with Mrs. Swan?”

  “Who are you, anyway? Why do you ask?”

  “My name is Swan.”

  “My name is Pym. Glad to have met you. Good night.”

  The other man said: “Look here. I’ve been waiting. I’ve been watching the windows. Keep away, or I’ll——”

  “Or you’ll what?”

  “I’ll break every bone in your body. She’s my wife, d’you hear? Stay away from my wife or——”

  “—Or you’ll break every bone in my body? Go ahead,” said Pym.

  “—Or she’ll break your heart,” said Swan, and, hiccuping up a sob or two, began to weep.

  “That’s better,” said Pym. “Come on, now, old man—bear up. There, now.”

  “She … she hasn’t got a heart,” said Swan. His back was turned to a lamp-post; his voice was the shadow of a voice, coming from the darkest part of a shadow. “I’m telling you for your own good. Stay away from my wife. Or I’ll break——”

  “—Excuse me: you said that she’d break …”

  “—She’ll break your heart, and I’ll break every bone in your body. Do you hear?”

  “I don’t like being spied on,” said Pym. “And I don’t like being threatened. Be a good fellow and go away.”

  “Answer me first,” said Swan, taking hold of Pym’s sleeve. “Were you or were you not with my wife?”

  “None of your business,” said Pym.

  “Better tell me—or do you want me to knock it out of you?”

  “In any case, take your hands off me,” said Pym.

  “I keep watching and watching,” Swan said. “Oh, Christ, Christ Jesus, oh Jesus Christ—how I hate that woman!”

  “Go home, go home,” said Pym, sadly.

  Swan went sniffling and sobbing into the dark, and Pym walked towards Busto’s.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  THE drug cannabis indica, or hashish, is not used in medicine because its effect is unpredictable; variable according to the constitution and the temperament of the person to whom it is administered. It plays queer tricks with the nervous system. One man, dosed with cannabis indica, will be filled with peace and a sense of well-being; another has erotic dreams and a glowing sense of invulnerability and mighty strength. But the third man may have frightful nightmares, monstrous visions of amorphous, malevolent things that do not belong to this world. In the imagination of the fourth man, it may subtly twist loose one of the microscopic screws that keep Space and Time in their proper places; so that he will gather himself for a standing high jump to get over a match-stick on the floor, or step calmly off a roof because the house appears to him like the kerb of a pavement. In some heads, this dangerous stuff makes music—it makes things sing—chairs and tables, books, weighing machines, match-boxes and wastepaper baskets lift up unimagined voices in wild choruses, more or less ecstatic. Some men become sad with a cosmic sadness, and feel cold and lonely. Some men just go raving mad.

  Therefore physicians do not use cannabis indica. It is unreliable: a hallucinant to-day, a hypnotic to-morrow, a stimulant on Wednesday, a sedative on Thursday and on Friday the wine of madness. Savage people burn it and suck up the smoke; which does terrible things to their mental balance. Civilised people purify it meticulously and swallow it. In its civilised, purified form it is less directly harmful. But it is always hashish—incalculable in action, unknowable in effect; deadly.

  Alcohol, too, is idiosyncratic in its working. It makes you happy, miserable, calm, agitated, tearful, or fighting drunk—according to the way you are made.

  They are all more or less dangerous, these drugs … these screwdrivers of fog and pincers of mist with which men secretly make illegal entry into their lock-up imaginations when the policeman is changing his beat—when the will is off duty.

  The effects of love, also, are beyond calculation. They may be good or evil.

 
Love goes up into the attics or down into the cellars and turns up whatever you happen to have buried; your mother’s love-letters, worms, dead moths, gems, forgotten masterpieces, rats, money, or springs of tears. Love also is incalculable. A good man falls in love and becomes bad; a criminal falls in love and becomes honourable. A brave man falls in love and becomes a coward; a coward in love becomes a hero. Love may make a weak man strong, or a strong man weak. It may destroy the healthy, heal the sick, or drive sane men crazy. Love may drive you out of yourself, in which case it makes you great—or it may suck you back into yourself; and then you see yourself through the wrong end of a telescope: you become little. Love has been known to give patience to an impatient man, energy to a lazy man, nobility to a rat, and ferocity to a mouse.

  Facing the issue and forcing himself to the conclusion that he was in love with Joanna Bowman, Pym became angry with himself. Then, without falling out of love, he began to dislike Joanna Bowman.

  He disliked the unshakeable calm of her face; but he admired it, and despised himself for admiring it. He detested what she said, and loved her for saying it. He wanted to spit on her shadow, but he found himself bowing ceremoniously from the waist to the shadow of an honest woman. He knew that she was wrong and he was right; yet, as soon as he closed his eyes, a little monotonous voice squeaked: She’s right and you’re wrong, she’s right and you’re wrong, she’s right and you’re wrong. He wanted to kill her and he wanted to cure her. He wanted to humiliate her in order to apologise to her for having humiliated her. He wanted to attract her in order to repulse her, and to be be invited again to her room in order to say: “Go to the devil.”

  He wanted to show her how great he was.

  *

  Walking along Buckingham Palace Road towards Whitehall, Pym saw bright visions. An old idea that had been hanging in his head like a crystal in a saturated solution took form. He knew exactly what he was going to do. The book was to be called The Road To The Iron Door, and it would preach a terrible sermon.

  … There is a turbulent midnight, somewhere on a lonesome road, with a great staring moon making bayonets of grass. There is a sort of wriggling maggoty patch of iridescent light ahead. As the front wheels of the car touch this blotch of diseased reflected moonlight, everything slides away. Everything slides to the left. The driver of the car, jerked out of a delicious dream and twitching spasmodically like a fish on a hook, spins the wheel; just as a great square-cut truck thunders round the bend and then—a blinding white light, and a sickening descent in wild spirals into blackness, and through blackness into nothingness.