The Great Wash

by Gerald Kersh

  And then it was as if, the switch thrown back and the current cut off, I was miraculously alive in the electric chair, still strapped down, and tingling at the tip of every nerve and capillary . . . Or, again, as if, having survived a deep frostbite, I was thawing too fast. I looked first to George Oaks; he nodded to me and smiled, but one of his eyelids quivered in a wink, before he raised his head and said: “Oh hello, Chatterton.”

  “Ah, there, George! Hello, Kemp!” said Chatterton, grinning and posturing like the Dance of Death. “Sorry if I’m a little late, Robertson. Couldn’t help it. Couldn’t let poor Powell down. Ever so sorry.”

  “Powell?” said Ohm Robertson.

  “My man Powell, you know. Devil’s own job. He was arrested this afternoon. Perhaps Kemp told you his house was broken into last night. Bobby tore off one of the burglar’s shoes. Shoe belonged to my man Powell—had his fingerprints on it, as it happened, and because once upon a time he was rather a naughty boy, I’m afraid Scotland Yard had his prints in their files. A mistake, of course—my man Powell had some shoes and some other stuff stolen last evening. Sir Peter Oversmith knows all about it—suspects gypsies, I believe; and will bear witness, of course. Meanwhile, nothing much one can do about it, although naturally one does one’s best to stand by . . . poor Powell. It’ll all come out in the wash, of course. Damn good man. Sorry to lose him. Made a mistake when he was young and wild—haven’t we all?—but tried to go straight ever since.”

  George Oaks said, with a short laugh: “What, so you let them pinch Mungo-Mitchell? Chatterton, my boy, if I know that fellow, he’ll owe you one for that. He’ll get you, I fancy, if it takes him twenty years, Chatterton, and what he’ll do to you won’t be nice, you mark my words. You see, Albert,” he said, turning to me and winking again—for the life of me I could not interpret the meaning of that wink—“you see how these people fall down. Disappointed man puts himself at head of disappointed men. Eh, Albert? Paranoiac directs paranoiac. Impotent ambition leads ambitious impotence. Blind leads blind. . . . My dear Chatterton, who holds a wolf by the ears dare not let go. Mungo-Mitchell, alias Powell, will tear your throat out for this. If you had to have dealings with the underworld, why couldn’t you deal with common, simple-minded thugs like the couple behind you? Why did you have to involve yourself with a Mungo-Mitchell, who is your superior by birth and breeding? Chatterton, Chatterton, what a silly man you are!”

  Now, when Oaks said “birth and breeding” Chatterton flushed. Blood in his cheeks did not become him—it looked like rouge. But he still smiled, saying: “I don’t know what you are talking about . . . Oh, I beg your pardon! Professor Ohm Robertson—Colonel Lalouette, and Mr. Oettle.”

  The darker of Chatterton’s companions bowed, smiling; I decided that this must be Lalouette. The other, presumably Oettle, nodded curtly; he looked dangerous. He was dressed, like his companion, in sober blue serge, but no tailor could have cut a coat to hang comfortably upon his grotesquely developed body. From the points of his shoulders almost to the lobes of his ears there swelled such hillocks of muscle that his torso was shaped like an obus. His head appeared to grow straight out of his chest; his heavy, out-thrust chin covered the knot of his neck-tie. It was the chin of a Punch, and he had a nose to match it; but the Punch’s grin on his face was reversed. I have never seen a grimmer mouth. If there is to be a rough-house, I thought, here is the one I must take first, and fast, and sudden.

  I was thinking very rapidly, now, entirely in terms of hand-to-hand combat. If I could hold the big fellow, as I supposed I could, if only for a minute or so, Oaks might make a dash for the street, with the papers. This, I guessed, was what he had in mind, for as he talked he began to pace easily up and down, his hands loosely clasped behind him. I observed that the end of every turn took him a few inches closer to the curtained window at my left hand.

  “Lalouette . . . Oettle . . .” he was saying. “The one that looks like the pork butcher will be Oettle, I suppose. How do you do, Oettle? Or should I say ‘Heil Hitler’? When did you slip over the Swiss border? And what’s your real name? A horse to a hen, there’s a rope knotted for you . . . May I open the window, Ohm? The room stinks. I can smell Auschwitz and Maidenek.” His hand was on the curtain.

  “Leave the window alone, won’t you?” said Chatterton. “And please keep still, George.”

  Standing now only a foot or so away from the window, George Oaks went on: “And the other one, Lalouette. What did you do before you took money from Abetz? There’s a smell of the gigolo about him, somewhere, eh Albert? ‘May I have the pleasure of the next dance, dear lady?’ What unfortunate seamstress took you out of the gutters of Montrouge, and how much did you get when you sent her to Buenos Aires? I shall call you ‘Bubu’.”

  Chatterton must have trained his men well. They appeared not to have heard; only Oettle licked his lips, and Lalouette’s smile became square at the corners. Chatterton said: “You will have your little joke, George, but I don’t think you’re wise to annoy Oettle, you know. There was a time, once upon a time, when he was called the ‘Angel of Death’.”

  George Oaks chanted: “Then came the Lord and slew the Angel of Death who killed the Butcher that slaughtered the Ox that drank the Water that quenched the Fire that burned the Stick that beat the Dog that bit the Cat that devoured the Kid that my Father bought for two pieces of silver. I spit on your ‘Angel of Death’!”

  “All this,” said Chatterton, “is an awful waste of time, you know. You know, George, you’ve been awfully ill-advised—frightfully indiscreet. You too, Kemp. You must realise that you are very lucky fellows, both of you. Otherwise, we mightn’t be chatting together as we are now——”

  “—You mean that, if you hadn’t wanted us alive, you’d have had us killed by now? Not on your life!” said George Oaks. “Too risky. More than you dare do. You could murder Austin Crabbe, but you daren’t touch us. Firstly, you don’t know how much we know, or to whom we may have told what we know. Secondly——”

  “—Excuse me, never mind the ‘secondly’. The ‘firstly’ will do, you know. We have a lot of questions to ask you and Kemp, George, in our good time and at a convenient place. . . . Meanwhile, Robertson, where are those Brevis papers?”

  “Well, they were here, a few moments ago. I imagine either Oaks or Mr. Kemp has put them in his pocket.”

  George Oaks, who was idly rifling the pages of a heavy volume which he had picked up from the desk, slapped it shut, and said: “Right you are, gentlemen.” Then he shouted: “Now, Albert!”—and hurled the book at the green-shaded lamp, which went down with a great clattering crash, while I threw myself upon Oettle. My head hit him in the pit of the stomach just as the light went out, so that for a split second I thought that I had miscalculated my distance and butted a heavy piece of furniture and knocked myself out—for that man might have been made of seasoned oak. I remember, also, in that same instant hearing a screech of brass curtain rings and a shattering of glass behind me, and I knew that George Oaks had jumped the window. Then one of Oettle’s great fists came down on the back of my neck like a mallet, half stunning me, and driving my face down against a knee which came up to meet it.

  “Lights! Lights!” cried Chatterton; but my head was blazing with a new-born galaxy as Oettle hit me again and again. I must have gone berserk then—found some of that madman’s strength of which the weakest of us has sealed reserves. I shall never forget that queer metallic taste which came into my mouth—a taste as of verdigris on old copper coins, mingled with a kind of slaughter-house flavour from my broken nose—nor the strange, unholy joy that took possession of me then. If Oettle was an oak, then I would uproot it! I had him round the waist, under the ribs, my hands locked behind him. He must have weighed two hundred and fifty pounds, but I lifted him as easily as if he had been a hundredweight, and then, butting him in the face, brought up a knee into his belly. But I could not carry him
on one leg, so I fell forward with Oettle underneath me, and I heard his head strike wood, which broke, and then he lay still. I suspected a trap, felt for his face in the dark, and hit him on the chin with all my might. He did not even sigh. Then I sprang to my feet, blind with blood and the night, and turned, wildly swinging. My right fist struck flesh; I thought I heard bone break, and laughed aloud. Somebody fell over a chair. I went after him, but stumbled in my turn, and heard the man I had struck scrambling away.

  It was all over in two minutes. Then the central light was on. Chatterton was standing by the door, his left hand on the switch. In his right he held a short black pistol. Lalouette was leaning against the wall a few feet away from him. He too had a pistol, but his left hand was busy with a handkerchief with which he was trying to staunch the blood that was dripping from his mouth: at least I had spoiled his fine white smile for him. Oettle lay on the floor. In falling he had broken off a segment of a massive, round, mahogany coffee table with his head; I was appalled and delighted at the ruin I had made of his face. As I looked he stirred, groaning.

  Chatterton said: “Now, I give you my word of honour; if you so much as move a finger, Lalouette and I will shoot. Not to kill, Lalouette—to cripple. In the knees.”

  Then a voice behind me muttered: “Slight miscalculation.”

  If Chatterton and Lalouette had been a pair of charging lions I could not have helped turning my head. I saw George Oaks sitting in a mess of broken glass, half covered by a torn-down curtain. As I stared, he struggled to his feet, wiping some blood from his forehead, and said: “My jump was perfect, Albert. But I might have guessed that at lighting-up time Herbage would have put up the shutters.”

  “She always does,” said Ohm Robertson, climbing out from under the desk and settling himself again in his chair.

  “Cover them, Lalouette,” said Chatterton, advancing. “And if they move, remember—not to kill, only to cripple.” He came forward, and Lalouette followed him.

  My berserker spell had passed, and I felt weak and spent, though still exhilarated by my victory over Oettle. He was struggling to his feet now; still on his hands and knees, he started towards me, red and wet about the neck and shoulders like a wounded bull.

  But Chatterton said to him: “Not now, Oettle. Later, perhaps. Simply keep him covered.” So Oettle drew a Luger from his hip and stood, looking steadily at me out of his right eye, for I had closed the left. Chatterton thrust his hand into Oaks’s breast pocket and drew out the Kurt Brevis notes.

  “Is this right?” he asked, handing them to Ohm Robertson.

  “Yes, Chatterton, these are they,” said the old man, handing them back, and Chatterton in his turn pocketed them.

  “You fellows really have been rather naughty,” he said, “but I bear you no malice.” His eyes, however, said otherwise. “I’m quite sure that when everything is explained you will see that you’ve behaved rather unreasonably, and that all this bother is quite unnecessary. And now, I’m afraid, I’m going to have to ask you to take a little trip with us. Sit down on that sofa, both of you, and stretch your legs out straight in front of you, and for goodness sake don’t make any sudden movements. . . . Lalouette, go into the bathroom, please, and dip a couple of big towels in cold water; I daresay the gentlemen would like to wipe their faces.”

  “There is iodine and adhesive tape in the medicine cupboard,” said Ohm Robertson.

  “Excellent. You’ll need a doctor for that nose, I’m afraid, Kemp. Still, we’ll make you as presentable as we can . . . All the same, you seem to have hurt Oettle more than he hurt you. I am quite surprised, really! . . . Meanwhile, let us have a little drink for the road.”

  I looked at Oaks. He looked back at me and nodded helplessly. If he had made any other sort of gesture I was prepared to jump Oettle on his blind side as soon as Lalouette was out of the room, and go for his pistol—and I would have used it, too. And then, suddenly, I remembered the elegant whalebone and kangaroo-hide life-preserver in my breast pocket, and found myself giggling in a silly helpless kind of way. “I owe you a penny,” I said to Oaks.

  He replied, with a wry smile: “I was thinking of that myself. I forgot, too, to tell you the truth . . . but it does my heart good to see what you did to the Jerry over there. ‘Red ruin from eyebrow to chin,’ as Hazlitt said—Now what fight was it he was covering?” and he clasped his head in his sinewy hands and squeezed it hard.

  “The brandy is in the blue ‘Poison’ bottle,” said Ohm Robertson.

  “I think I have something rather better here,” said Chatterton, taking out a capacious but slender silver flask. “An Armagnac of 1859.” He poured two generous measures and handed one to Oaks and the other to me. “Drink it up,” he said, pouring for himself into the silver cup that screwed to the neck of the flask; “this will make you feel better. Here’s to our better understanding. Happy landings!”

  Oaks and I drank. The Armagnac stung my cut mouth and brought tears to my eyes. And in these tears everything suddenly began to swim. I tried to speak, but my cheeks and lips were too heavy to move. I saw Chatterton smiling as he emptied his little silver cup on to the carpet. Then he became fantastically long, ridiculously attenuated, like his own reflection in a Hall of Mirrors . . . and after that he began to spin, drawing himself out into a fine wire, which began to twang on a deep mysterious note which got into my head and vibrated until it shook me out of the world. . . .

  . . . When I opened my eyes again I could still hear something like that noise in my head; only now I was part of it—I was, in fact, the genesis of it, the vibrant wire. And oh, but I was deathly sick! I felt about me before opening my eyes, and found that I was lying upon something soft that adapted itself to my slightest touch, like a cloud. Then, half-opening my eyes, I saw that I lay in a voluptuously cushioned, luxuriously curtained place, and I thought of Monte Cristo—but then I saw Chatterton. I believe I felt him, too, because I was aware of a kind of coldness above the ball of the thumb where he might have been feeling my pulse. But his face was turned away from me. He was looking over his left shoulder, not smiling now; restrained but angry, very angry.

  He was saying: “Powell! What the devil are you doing here?”

  Then I heard the voice of Chatterton’s “man Powell”, whom George Oaks knew as Mungo-Mitchell; but now it was heavy with insolence. It said: “What should I be doing here, Chatterton?”—he laid a special emphasis on his consonants, so that Chattterrtttonnn sounded like some especially vicious term of abuse—“what should I be doing here?”

  “They let you go?”

  “No, they did nott. I wentt.”

  “Mungo,” said Chatterton, “if you did anything rash, you’re an idiot!”

  “I didd do something rash, and I am nott an idiott, Chat-tterrtttonnn. You don’tt imagine for one momentt, I hope, thatt I proposedd to stand trial with my recordd?” Here Mungo-Mitchell laughed through his teeth. “Oh no. In for a penny, in for a poundd, old man. Swing one, swing all, what? I wentt to be chargedd like a little lamb, asked for a cigarette—it was at Martell Street Station—hit the bobby, made a dash for itt, divedd into the crowdd, and got away—bought an evening paper, walked slowly to the nearest Underground station, hopped a train in the rush hour for Cockfosters, got out at Finsbury Parkk, and made my way here by easy stages. Do you mindd, Chattterrtttonnn?”

  “I think you are crazy,” said Chatterton.

  “I think nott, don’t you see. I wasn’tt going to be leftt in the lurch. In for a penny, in for a poundd.”

  “You might have been followed, you fool!”

  “I am nott a fool, and I was nott followed. Be a little more polite, Chattterrtttonnn.”

  Chatterton was silent for a couple of seconds. I saw something like a frame of piano wire stretching the skin of his lean throat while little hammers seemed to beat at temple and jaw. Then he said: “Ver
y well, Powell. Get into your uniform.”

  “I’m tired of wearing menials’ uniforms, Chattterrtttonnn.”

  Everything vibrated faster. A long way behind me, something rumbled and slammed. Hearing this, Chatterton smiled again; the wires fell back into his throat, and the hammers ceased their beating under his face. He sighed pleasurably and, in a voice that made me shudder, quiet as it was, said: “Into your uniform, this instant, Powell!”

  “At once, sir.”

  I must have made some sudden sound, or movement, then, because Chatterton turned his head sharply before I had time to close my eyes again. “My word!” he said, pleasantly, “you can take it, Kemp, can’t you?”

  “Where am I?” I asked.

  “You’re in Lord Kadmeel’s private plane, Kemp. . . . Oh, Doctor!”

  A white-smocked man with a stethoscope round his neck filled his place at the parting of the curtains; cool fingers explored my wrist and my eyelids. “Some of our guests get airsick, you know, or otherwise need medical attention, Kemp,” I heard Chatterton say. “Keep him quiet, Doctor, will you please?”

  Something pushed rather than pricked at the inside of my arm, and the engines roared as the night rushed down on me again.