The Great Wash

by Gerald Kersh

  I said: “Madness!” But George Oaks silenced me with a gesture, and Monty Cello went on.

  He said that in many ways Kurt Brevis was crazy all right. Because, in the first place, he didn’t believe in Good and Evil. Monty Cello had done one or two wicked things in his time, but he was always sorry afterwards and never failed to make a firm purpose of amendment, like Little Hymie Weiss who, having got his death-wounds coming out of church, was pretty sure to get to Heaven in due course; give or take a season in Purgatory, which, no doubt, he could take. . . .

  But Kurt Brevis had come to believe that he was God. The trouble was that ape-men, human-all-too-human, had fettered him to be their servant. So he had gone over to the small but immensely wealthy Sciocrats, who believed that it was necessary to cleanse the world for the occupation of its rightful rulers, the super-aristocrats who pretended to have purged themselves of all the passions and most of the instincts that motivate ordinary men, and who believed that any means justified the end they had in view. “—Like Hitler? Or this Stalin?” asked Monty Cello. Kurt Brevis told him not to be a fool. Hitler and Stalin were mere demagogues, rabble-rousers, utterly dependent upon the goodwill of huge masses of hysterical idiots and compelled, therefore, to waste good time talking, even appealing, to them with promises of bountiful meals and comfortable beds. Mussolini, Stalin, Hitler—they had some glimmering of the right idea, but in the final analysis they were no better than swineherds, hog-callers.

  The true aristocrat, the Sciocrat, should not demean himself in demagoguery or diplomacy. Mankind should come crawling to the feet of the Sciocrat, imploring: “Master, allow me to live. Suffer me to survive in order that I may serve you, head, heart, and hand. Do with me, Master, as you will!”

  Monty Cello said that he had seen, in a cartoon by Ripley, or somewhere, that there were more than two billion people in the world. As he figured it, that was a hell of a lot of people. You could take over a town, yes; even a country, like Stalin. But even then you had to watch your step.

  Kurt Brevis said: “My friend, you must have the right stuff in you; otherwise how could you, alone, have survived so long in opposition to organised Law and Order? Still, you are a child in the dark. Yes, there are two billion people on this earth (theoretically it would be possible to pack them all into the space of one cubic mile) but who wants two billion people? What are they to you, my friend? Can you name me ten people whose deaths would seriously affect you—that is to say, one two-hundred-millionth part of the world’s population? Can you name me five? No, and neither could most other men. If you read in your paper tomorrow that some sudden pestilence had wiped out the entire population of Asia, would that take your mind off the sports page? No. I tell you that the cataclysmic destruction of all the cities of Europe could cause you less consternation than a crick in the neck of Joe DiMaggio. Similarly, a devastating flood in Ohio would trouble you far less than a sharp shower on the race-track at Saratoga. In other words, you are concerned with the well-being only of those who can serve you as an individual, or amuse you for a few minutes. Admit it.”

  Monty Cello could not deny it. “The Sciocrats,” said Kurt Brevis, “apply pure Reason to that which you know in your soul. As you say, there are two billion people in the world, only an infinitesimal proportion of whom are other than nonentities. Such a crass mass is, as you indicate, awkward and unwieldy—a suffocating mass of sweaty, greedy, bestial little men who, when you balance the joys against the miseries of their lives, would be better unborn. This mass is not necessary. It poisons and exhausts the earth. It is incapable of putting back into the earth that which it takes out. Seven-eighths of the earth would be better washed away, since, after all, it is nothing but a breeding- and feeding-ground for this species of two-legged vermin that leave it as soon as they can walk to infest the centres of civilisation. There are too many people, in short, and there is too much habitable ground. The time has come when the world must be washed and aired for those who are fit to occupy it! So say the Sciocrats; and they are right. But . . .”

  But what? Having escaped from the sanatorium, Kurt Brevis found himself caught in a still tighter trap. He was like the hero of an old romance who, unjustly imprisoned, laboriously cuts a tunnel with a spoon, concealing the dirt he has displaced by swallowing it; but he has made an error in his calculations so that when he pushes out the last stone, he finds himself in a deeper, darker dungeon. The Sciocrats altered his face so that he might be recognisable to none but themselves, and held him tight. They gave him every facility for work, and did not deny him the means to relax. He could have anything to eat that he chose to order. He was waited on by exquisitely courteous servants who were humanoid rather than human in their efficiency. He was allowed wine and liqueurs—but they were measured. If he expressed a desire for female company, it was provided; but the girls, like the other servants of the Sciocrats, were mechanically courteous and absolutely obedient—no more, no less—they said and did precisely what was expected of them, never what was hoped of them. And in amorous expectation one hopes for the unexpected, the fulfilment of the hope beyond hope.

  It occurred to Kurt Brevis that he was a slave among slaves, and in danger, too: the Law of Nations had had him in its grip before, but the Sciocrats were above all laws. If you displeased them, even if you gave them cause to question your usefulness to them, they “disposed” of you; they saw to it that you were efficiently and inexorably put to death, without fuss or drama. Kurt Brevis perceived that he had escaped from obscurity only to find nonentity. But he concealed his seething resentment and pretended to involve himself wholeheartedly in the Sciocratic scheme. It must be understood that he thoroughly approved of their programme; only he would not have it applied to himself. So he played the part of a man who is happily absorbed in his work, and bided his time.

  “And where, exactly, was he?” asked George Oaks.

  Monty Cello said: “I don’t know exactly, but it seems that this Lord Kadmeel owns a hell of a lot of forests in Canada. And this place was in one of these forests. You could find out easy enough, because they got a great big industrial research plant up there, the idea being to make some newer kind of nylon or something out of woodpulp. This might give you a lead: when the Doc got away this second time it took him fourteen days to get to a place called Rimouski.”

  George Oaks said: “Why, then, that’s easy. Rimouski? That places it in the Province of Quebec. Kadmeel owns a dozen big forests there, but only one industrial research place, very hush-hush, in the high woods up in the Gaspe Peninsula—top industrial secret stuff, Albert, like all the synthetic fibre plants of that interlocking world cartel—Britain’s Courtauld, America’s du Pont, the Swiss Celanese, and the German Bemberg. . . . This gets better and better. Tell us more, Monty; I almost begin to like Kurt Brevis.”

  “You know, that’s the way I felt,” said Monty Cello. “He wasn’t much to look at, but, believe me, he must have been a hell of a hard guy to hold. He had guts, the Doc—enough guts to supply a sausage factory. Listen how he got away . . .”

  Kurt Brevis made only one complaint, and that was about the cigarettes. He preferred Papagos Egyptian, gold-tipped, Imperial size. They could procure him only Dimitrinos Dragoons. Grumbling, he contented himself with these, and sent in a promising report about work in progress. He was playing poker, as Monty Cello put it. Then, coming out of an esoteric-mathematical trance, he became aware of life in the forest, and asked permission to go hunting. With true Sciocratic detachment he said that he had no desire to go after moose, because he was not hungry; he desired simply to shoot a squirrel or two, or a rabbit, because it pleased him to know that he could put a chemically-propelled lead pellet where he pleased.

  They let him go into the woods, armed with a good .22 rifle but accompanied by a “guide” who carried a shotgun loaded with ball in the right-hand barrel and buckshot in the left . . . in case of a stray bear or a lynx
. Kurt Brevis and his guard went into the woods and returned a dozen times. The guide, or guard, habitually carried a length of rope tied about his waist. Kurt Brevis picked up something of the craft of the woodsman. So there came a whispering evening when he did not return. In brief: he shot the guide in the back of the head. How did he dispose of the body? He hauled it on the rope to one of the lower boughs of a maple tree, and lashed it there. Who, seeking a corpse, looks upward? So this indomitable little madman slid away, knowing that he was safe at least from the police, with whom the Sciocrats would never dare to lay information. Having no money, how did he live? He sold the shotgun and the rifle to a farmer for only eighteen dollars and a bag of bread and bacon, it being understood that this was a transaction best forgotten. Without doubt, that farmer kept his mouth shut. Kurt Brevis got to Rimouski; and thence down the great river, begging and borrowing and stealing his way to Montreal; and so over the border into the United States, where there are a hundred and fifty million people to cover a man or betray him.

  Part Four

  One may imagine how Monty Cello made a mystery of his man-hunt out of Kansas City; Kurt Brevis was deeply impressed. He, too, felt that his luck was in.

  “But where do we peddle this stuff?” asked Monty Cello.

  Kurt Brevis told him that only one avenue was open to them. That avenue led to Russia. The U.S.S.R., he swore, would pay millions for the formulæ he had to sell, and guarantee protection into the bargain. He had arrived at the conclusion that, while they were far from perfect, the Russians had the right idea—theirs was something like a true aristocracy, an aristocracy of scientists, warriors, and ruthless men. . . .

  “Okay by me,” said Monty Cello. “But where do we go from here?”

  Here, said Kurt Brevis, was where Monty Cello came in. The only Russian contacts upon which he might rely were to be made in London, England, where agents of Stalin had got in touch with him when he was in transit from Germany to the United States. It was necessary to get to London, first of all; after that, one had only to send a letter-card to Regent Lambert, Poste Restante, Charing Cross Post-office, saying: Staying Such-and-such Hotel, signed, any name in which you were registered. In due course someone would call on you and give you further directions. Most likely the pay-off would come in Vienna, in the Russian Zone.

  Monty Cello said: “Wait a minute, Doc. These Russians, what I mean, they got people here, same as in Europe. What’s the matter with sending your postcard from here, and have this Lambert contact you on this side?”

  “That would be fatal,” said Kurt Brevis. “In times like these, when all men are enemies, a transatlantic communication to an accommodation address would inevitably be suspect. In any case, we are in a delicate position in the United States of America, you and I, and are, therefore, at anybody’s mercy. No, our only shield is the Iron Curtain proper. You must find us papers and the wherewithal to travel to Europe like prosperous Americans on vacation. Can you do this?”

  Monty Cello said: “I got dough, Doc, and as for papers, I can get us both fixed up. But this secret stuff of yours—where is it? If I trust you, you got to trust me. Where’s the dope?”

  “It is in my head. I could write it down on four sheets of foolscap paper,” said Kurt Brevis, “but you could not understand it. I do not believe that there are six men in the world who could understand it.”

  “Write it out for me, then, Doc,” said Monty Cello. “If we’re partners, we’re partners. Don’t forget, you can’t move an inch without me, and I can’t move an inch without you. Well?”

  “Very well,” said Kurt Brevis, meekly. “I will write you the formulæ.” But Monty Cello noticed that as he spoke the little man, wide-eyed with simulated sincerity, pressed his hand not over his heart but over his abdomen.

  “Wait a minute!” cried Monty Cello, and snatched at the waistband of Kurt Brevis’s trousers. A button flew away, a zipper buzzed open; before Kurt Brevis could protest, Monty Cello had torn from about his waist a kind of crude body-belt made of a doubly-folded hand-towel filched from some washroom and held in position with adhesive tape. In the folds of the towelling Monty Cello could feel something that rustled dryly. “Why, you double-crossing bastard!” said Monty Cello.

  Those were the last words Kurt Brevis ever heard. They were spoken in a whisper, in the playroom on the second floor of the Pompano Hotel three days after their first meeting. The little mathematician leaped at Monty Cello, but seemed to stop in mid-leap. He staggered, reached for his heart, made a half turn, and fell forward, knocking over a ping-pong table covered with neatly stacked bingo cards. Then he lay still. Monty Cello stuffed the body-belt under his shirt, and shouted for help. A doctor came and pronounced Kurt Brevis dead of a heart attack.

  “A thrombosis, no doubt,” said George Oaks.

  “That’s what they called it,” said Monty Cello. “They were going to bury him under the name of Pabst, but his social security number said he was a toolmaker named Rheingold. No next of kin. He had five hundred and seventy-five dollars cash money, so they used that to bury him with, in the Holy Grace Cemetery. And there he lies. I waited two-three days—I didn’t want to make myself conspicuous, scramming too soon—and lit out west. From Laredo, down on the border, I cabled Chatterton: WIRE TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS CARE WELLS FARGO MEXICO CITY—rode like hell all the way to Dallas, sold the car, and hopped a plane to New York. I mean, if there’s two grand waiting for you in Mexico City, you go to Mexico City. Get me? . . . Well, in New York I went to Pen Quillan, and got myself fixed up with a passport in the name of Monty Cello: I paid him fifteen hundred bucks. Then I get aboard the Queen Annie. I never been on the ocean before. Believe me, it’s over-rated. I won eighteen hundred bucks in the ship’s lottery. I tell you, things were going my way. . . . I send this letter-card to this Regent Lambert, just like the Doc says, and I sit tight. Only all of a sudden I get nerves, and I’ll tell you something; I am never gladder in all my life to see anybody like I was to see you two guys tonight. No, last night. Look, it’s daylight. Pretty, ain’t it? . . . And the rest you know.”

  “And where are Kurt Brevis’s papers?” asked George Oaks.

  Monty Cello loosened his trousers, pulled out his shirt, and unbuckled a chamois leather money-belt. “Right here,” he said, throwing the belt to Oaks. It contained a wad of thin copy paper. We looked at the uppermost sheet. It was covered with figures and algebraic formulas with here and there a chemical symbol.

  “You got a safe place, Al?” asked Monty Cello.

  George Oaks pointed to the great fireplace, where, on massive andirons, lay three long birch logs over a pile of waste paper and scientifically arranged twigs. My housekeeper insisted on keeping the fire laid “. . . in case it turns chilly; anyway, to take away all that empty space,” as she said. Oaks rolled Kurt Brevis’s notes in the day before yesterday’s Times, twisted the paper cylinder into something like a tight skein, and tossed it to the back of the fireplace, where it became one with a mess of empty cigarette packets and torn-up envelopes. “There,” he said.

  “Now wait a minute——” Monty Cello began.

  “—Calm, calm, Monty, calm! The Times, even in an open sheet, will not burn. Try it and see—put a match to it—it will flicker blue, and smoulder out. It is a special quality of paper: many an Englishman has eaten a cold breakfast because of the fireproof Thunderer of Printing House Square. Letters have been written to the press about it. And even if this were not so, a hard twist of paper is a devilishly difficult thing to burn. And even if it were not, and somebody set light to this fire, it would take three good hours for the heat to reach the back . . .” He yawned voluptuously. “. . . ‘God help me, Brother Latimer, I cannot burn’—‘Be of good cheer, Brother Ridley, we have this day in England lighted such a candle as, by God’s grace, shall not easily be put out.’ Calm, Monty, calm! Breakfast and a little sleep.”

  �
�Al,” said Monty Cello, “I’m not yellow, but my nerves are all shot. I got a certain feeling I’ve run out of my streak of luck. George, I’ve told you everything I know. I could use breakfast, and some sleep. I’m all in. Guess I’ve been smoking too much. . . . My mouth tastes like . . . Oh, what the hell! Where do I sleep?”

  “Eat first,” I said; so Monty Cello ate fried eggs. He liked his eggs fried on both sides: he hated the yolky ooze of eggs fried with their eyes open. He was very tired, now. When I showed him his room and wished him pleasant dreams, he said: “A million bibucks, Al? That’s my idea of real dough. Free of tax. You could bibuy a yacht. I never had no nerves until I started thinking in mimillions. Honest to God, Al, I’d hate to have anything happen to me now. My luck’s been running so good. . . .”

  Shotguns were beginning to sound in the distance. I drew the curtains to keep out the rising sun. “Nothing’s going to happen to you. Get some sleep,” I said, and went downstairs.