Every time she get to a pavement she howls!… It hurts her wound… she jumps up screaming!… Good thing the streets are all empty!… The whole gang’s racing along!… It’d be a fine sight in broad daylight!… Prospero galloping too… I can’t see his mug!… I hear him snuffling… He’s in front of me. Nothing the matter with him!… His joint had been pretty flimsy! Shit! A flame!… Wood! Mud! Jerry-built! That’s the truth… All the same, Boro’s cracked… He’s running with Joconde… He’s dragging her along… she’s yelling at him!… “Not so fast! My God! Not so fast!…” Another spurt!… Moorgate Street! From end to end! Arse on fire, that’s the word for it!…
Right after the Square come the docks… I think we’ve lost Clodovitz… I yell after him… while running… no answer… His hospital’s there… right near… Aren’t we going to leave the old gal there?… We pass right by it… I ask… I call out on the run! We’re tearing along! We keep going!… One! Two!… One!… Two!… Obliquely left!… Marylebone… straight ahead!… Then Mint Place… So’s we’re going to Tackett’s?… I didn’t know… No one had said!… Here we are!… Stop!
And zip! We dash through the door! We all come tearing in!… The whole cavalcade!… Ah! Surprise! He was in the midst of tidying up! Poof!… All his junk! Ropes! Scrap iron! His shed full of gewgaws! He throws himself against the door, he closes it. He’s pretty choked up!… “Where are you all coming from?” he asks… No one answers… Everyone’s snorting, gasping… wheezing… the whole mob’s sneezing wet! Collapses on the heap! Boy! Some fun!
Cascade’s the first to start talking… got his wind back…
He points to Boro…
“Tackett, you want to see a murderer?”
And then he tells exactly what happened… he saw the grenade too!…
“You don’t have another in your trousers?”
Then we all rush for Boro! Ah! The big halfwit!… The louse!… The drunk… Everyone jumps on his paunch!… Rummages through him, searches him all over!… Maybe he’s still got another one?
“You big butcher! You big lunatic!”
They bawl him out something awful!
He takes it well… That doesn’t worry him!… He’s laughing!… He giggles because they’re tickling him!
“Do you have another one?”
They rough-and-tumble him again, they’re really after him… Tackett wants to kick him out… He’s worried about his premises!… His goods!… His wood!… Prospero was so down in the dumps he didn’t say a single word. He must have been worrying about his pub, his customers, mainly about his lease… He was always talking about his lease… Seventy-eight years more to run!… He was proud of it!… Shit, Matthew was right!… Boro was just a dirty greaseball! A wild, sneaky firebug!… Ah! You could see that right off! I’d never have believed it!… And the way he sent it flying! No doubt about it. I’m telling you!… A wrecker!… And insolent besides!… Not bothered a bit!… Now he was thirsty again!… He wanted everyone to have a drink! “Always a thirst on!” he announces! Someone open a bottle for him! Not in an hour! Then and there! It was bad enough waiting around with his hand injured!
It’s true he was still bleeding; so was Joconde… The two of them were comparing… It was a real ambulance… I didn’t feel thirsty, but somewhat cold…
Joconde, now that she was back in the bosom of her family, was getting snotty again… They did up her bandages, patched up the whole works, her towels, her cotton… Everything was hanging between her legs… They laid her down on some bags… Cascade stretched out beside her… so she’d stay a bit quiet… so she’d finally shut her mouth…
There’s Clodovitz coming… He knocks… He bangs at the door… He barks out his name… How did he find us?… That rheumy-eyed chicken! He comes in… He blinks… He starts talking… Doesn’t know what he’s saying… He thinks it didn’t explode!… He’s jabbering away!… He doesn’t remember a thing! He’s had a shock, he got knocked on the head, some skin’s been torn away… he’s bleeding pretty bad too… and from his mouth also. Got to heat up some coffee for him… He’s going to be sick… He’d been running at full speed… That gives him palpitations… We take advantage of bringing him around to get ourselves a grog too, two salad bowls!… Tackett hasn’t finished!… His guests are greedy!… We all huddle together… We roll in the bags! The piles!… There’s not a bed in the house… Sheds and that’s all…
Boro’s beginning to feel better, he decides he’s going to leave… He announces:
“I’m leeeaving!… I’m leeeaving!”
It must be around two o’clock…
“Get the hell out!… We’ve seen enough of you!”
That’s everyone’s opinion.
Prospero hasn’t let out a peep… He’s sitting on the bags… he hasn’t even lain down… Just there with his head in his hands…
“You get the hell out too! You hear me?”
That was Cascade who went and shook him, he didn’t want him staying around… Still he hadn’t said anything! Hadn’t opened his mouth! Not a word out of him…
“Go on! Get going!”
Brutal!
I think he suspected that Prospero and Boro were going to fight it out at night, to settle about the grenade, that they were just waiting for us to sleep!
“Go murder yourselves!”
He kicked them out just like that!… There was no comeback… Tackett was with him… Tackett was some brute! He used a crowbar for his arguments… His favourite weapon… He’d let you have it in the legs.
So Prospero got thrown out and Boro with him.
The shed was ours now!… We’d be able to sleep… Boro had a place to sleep! I wasn’t worrying about him! I wasn’t anxious. He’d go to his pal, the Horror… he always went there… It was opposite, on the other side… after Cubitt Docks…
But now they were yelling from the street… “You cock-suckers!” they were calling us… it rang out in the darkness… “Peegs!… Peegs!…” When the other one joined him he started cursing us too… “Cock-sawkers!… Cock-sawkers!…” They were both swearing at us.
We heard them far off… We heard their steps… For a long time… till the end. We fell asleep.
* * *
The moment the shadows come up, when soon we’ll have to be going, we remember something of the frivolities of the stay… Jokes, courteous chats, witty banter, kindly acts… and all that no longer is, after so many trials and horrors, seems but heavy and freakish funeral trumpery… Drapings with leaden folds, wasted effort! the huge mantle of the rigours, arias, sermons, mournful virtues, the dead all crushed… spruced up under pinewood, in an empty crypt. Ah! how dazzling it would be if, at that very moment, as we were being nailed up, there should escape, gush from the coffin, the miraculous trill of a flute! so brisk, delightfully gay! What a surprise! What pride! Sighs in the dwelling place of the dead! Ah, what a lesson for families!… Joyous crony of a corpse, phantom larker! Minstrel for all precipices, enchanted places, accursed paths! The first Mr Kick-the-Bucket not having lived in vain, having finally surprised, understood, all the graces of springtime! the renewal of the fledgling! of the finch in the coppice, bearing everything off! Revolutionary of the Shades! Troubadour in the Sepulchres! Buffoon yodelling in the Caverns of the World!… I’d like to be that fellow! What an ambition! My only one! By Gosh! Blast it! A thousand graces the shrewd fellow!… Better the Eternal’s rigadoon than the human calamitous Empire, the mammoth scheming molehill… A heap of crumbling mirages!… Hail to the monarchs! Liven up the subjects! make them jig all in time! What a scramble!… Crazy to give yourself to the Ephemeral!… A thousand times better to perish nicely carrying off the flute!… But still you need the moment of high ecstasy! Not all who want to can go off to music! The chosen moment!… You have to last while waiting… That’s what I always say! Pros and cons! Jump here!… Bounce there!… get hold of the daily bre
ad… A flea’s life!… They spy on you!… What torture!… I gave you a violent picture of the kind at Tackett’s… Running off with the flute is another matter! You’ll see. No time for a jerk-off!…
Since the blow-up at the Dingby what a scramble! What exercise! From waiting rooms to shady hotels, from basements to attics, from rats to rats, what drops! What climbs! From Salvation Army joints to tuppenny landladies at night, what a run-around! Cascade had scared me stiff with his stories about the Consulate’s being after me… My nerves weren’t too steady any more… I went off my nut easily… I’d dash from one neighbourhood to another… Never twice in the same room because of the suspicious questions… I was being sensible… I hadn’t seen any of the others!… followed to a T the careful advice… I avoided Leicester and Bedford, the beat, the sidewalks with the women, where I might have learnt something… Still I was on pins and needles!… And there was a good reason!… Not a line in the papers. Cascade must have forked over!… We weren’t to see one another until he got in touch with me!… I’d kept my word… The critical stage had passed!… the cops were sniffing elsewhere… after other riff-raff… Only I was getting low in cash!… Before the blow-up I’d borrowed about ten pounds from Cascade. I hadn’t been extravagant, all the same the end was in sight… I couldn’t sleep on the bare ground, it gave me howling cramps on account of my arm!… I was forced to take a bed… That’s always expensive… even in the most modest places. I spent my time at the movies… I still remember the programmes… They were mostly Pearl White in The Mysteries of New York… In spite of the hours I spent there, I still had a lot of time on my hands… I’d take the little streets in Soho, the bustling busy ones… where the people kept going… where it’s a perpetual little fair… they swarm around the shops from Shaftesbury to Wigmore Street, the windows full, in the doorways, all teeming with crowds, it covers you up, reassures you, at the same time it’s lively, it distracts you… still and all after ten or twelve days like that, of coming and going in the streets, it began to be enough. I’d had my bellyful of penance! After all, hell! I hadn’t done anything!… I didn’t quite dare look up Cascade but I wanted to see Boro again!… One Sunday morning I made up my mind… I said to myself, “My boy, let’s go!” I was around Barbeley Dock, the Ferry was waiting, the little boat was inviting, it took ten minutes along the river… As soon as I see water, I’m tempted… Ready to go at the drop of a hat!… I’d sail around the pond in the Tuileries at the slightest pretext! in a watchglass if I were a tiny little fly… Anything just to sail! I walk across bridges for no reason at all… I wish all roads were rivers… It’s the spell… the bewitchment… it’s the movement of the water… Just so, without wanting to, an idea in my head, right at the lapping of the Thames… I stood there having visions… The charm was too much for me, especially with the big ships… everything gliding around… twisting in and out, foaming… the dinghies… the south landing of the docks… cutters and brigantines tacking… coming in… drifting… skimming the bank… Floating lazily!… It’s magical!… no denying it!… A ballet!… It’s hallucinating!… It’s hard to drag yourself away!… You got into the swing of things a bit with the little ferry, the Dolphin… two little trips… from shore to shore… I’ve done it five or six times! like a holiday!… round trip!… Barbeley-Greenwich… almost touching the big cargoes… the colossal potbellies going upstream, the propellers buzzing away like mad… drifting in the eddies… roaring, grunting in alarm… scared of the landings… What beauty!… gulls flying! glide to heaven! enough dreaming! down to earth, boy! Not a penny left in my pocket! Get going! Greenwich… it’s sad! Let’s go now! enough dawdling! mooning!… I’ve got to find that son-of-a-bitch! It was understood, definite! at the Horror’s place.
He’d told me… Greenwich Alley… Greenwich Park… Van Claben Junior, his real moniker… he’d explained it carefully… not far from the south wharf… What would they say when they saw me?… They’d surely spot me from outside… Maybe they wouldn’t open the door?… Ah! my mind was made up! But no undue confidence! I was going and that was all…
* * *
I look around a bit… to see if I don’t smell cops… The name of the place?… “Titus Van Claben”… If there’re any suspicious characters around… It’s all quiet… all reassuring… Three or four people on the steps just chatting… probably clients… they were waiting their turn… In the park kids running around, dashing all over, racing through the lanes… In short, everything pretty normal… Besides the weather’s fine… bright sun, almost warm… That’s rare in London in early May… From the open windows on the first floor I hear Boro pounding it out… same as usual… that’s fine… It’s his touch all right, his music, I don’t think I’m wrong… He’s there, the tramp!… I say to myself, “I’m in luck!… He’s at the piano… he might have been in jail!…” I was beginning to get dopey walking from one neighbourhood to another… day and night! A nasty kind of fatigue!… Still, not completely shot!… But almost… well, just about pooped… and besides, a pain in my arm from sleeping any old place… from snoring on bumpy beds!… And besides, buzzings in my ears so shrill and painful they’d make me close my eyes… A cripple’s life is lousy… and it’s bad to be broke… it gives you nasty, vicious ideas… But anything was better than the army! What if they ever made me go back? It was God-damned possible according to that windbag!… What if they were looking for me at the Consulate?… Suppose they were scraping the bottom of the barrel… It was a chance I was taking, all the same, still and all… It was that much to the good as a matter of fact… One chance in a thousand being there in London… I’ll tell you how… Downright luck!… A real treat!… A reversal of fate!… What a break!… And Cascade, no denying it, what a windfall!… All of it through Raoul… There was a poor guy for you! What tough luck!… I’ll tell about that too!… Mustn’t sulk about destiny!… I was lucky, and how!… All the others like me were cooked! They were digging their foxholes in the Artois… or elsewhere!… In the Sixteenth Heavy!… In the armoured division… Some of them had switched… to the hungry infantry… splattered, piled up in the lime… shelled ten, twelve hours at a time! Here’s to their health! It was better here! Got to realize!… Roses!… Even in delicate moments!… Ah! No getting soft!… Grab everything!… Always on the lookout! I pulled myself together! I held on! My pals weren’t too respectable, of course, I agree, but a wonderful family for me, knew all the ropes… Since I was well recommended, coming from poor Raoul, a fine welcome right off!… Till then… just a couple of little slips!… And then the blow-up at the Dingby!… They’d dropped me a little… It was inevitable!… Now had to make a comeback… I’d find them all right through Boro!… So there I was in front of the door, “Van Claben Titus”… It was decision time… I ring… I knock… Nobody answers… I bang again… I insist…
“Boro!… It’s me!…” I yell out right from the park.
Finally Monsieur is so good as to appear… He leans out the window… There he is!… He’s amazed to see me… He motions to me…
“Take it easy! Take it easy!… Come back a little later!”
I show him my belt… that I’ve had to tighten it!
“Sh! Sh!” he starts again… He shows me the lane of trees over there, I’ve got to go away!…
Hell no! It’s not possible! Enough walking!
The clients, the people around coming and going, waiting on the steps, don’t give a damn about our gesturing… Just then the door opens!… There’s Titus!… Titus Van Claben! Known as the Horror!… That’s his nickname!… I recognize him right away from the stories… He simply appears in the doorway in a big pasha’s costume, that’s the way he runs his business… all got up in yellow and purple silk with an enormous turban and also a cane full of precious stones and a big jeweller’s magnifying glass. That’s exactly the way he is in the shop. He carries on his business in oriental fancy dress… He wants to chase me away immediately… his first instinct… He
doesn’t know me… What’s the difference… I don’t bat an eyelash! He looks me up and down…
“Ah! So it’s you making all that racket!”
He talks French, but with a thick accent, he comes down on it hard, like the one upstairs… They’re both greasers…
“You can go to hell!” I answer…
Right off, Boro starts giggling! He’s above us, he bursts out laughing! He contemplates us… from the front boxes…
The caliph blinks… He snorts… He wants to bluff me!… He’s attacking me, he’s in a rage, he’s flapping around… he jumps up and down in his pants, his enormous baggy silks… Ah! The big nasty stinker!…
“You going to get out of here, you little bandit? Go beat it! Go on!…”
He starts waving his stick at me.
I stay put…
“Go beat it! Go on!…” He’s starting again… He’s in such a stew his turban’s wobbling on his head…
“Get out of here! Don’t let me see you again!… You want to debauch him again?… That what you’ve come for?… You don’t think he’s depraved enough?…”
He points to Boro up above laughing out loud, splitting so much that he’s hanging limp on the window sill…
I thought he was funny at first, the potbellied stinker, now he starts running at me.
“I’ll give it to you, you wretch!…”
I don’t like threats… It’s happening in public… it’s grotesque…
“Go ’way, you scoundrel!” he repeats. Me! A war cripple!… Hell no!
“I’ll have both of you arrested!”
He points to both of us…
My, my, another jealous guy!…
Now the other one starts talking, he’s delivering an address from the window, right to the public, he’s speechifying…
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