by Jorg Fauser
“You were with the CIA?”
Hackensack’s face assumed an affected smile.
“I’d once have felt flattered to be asked if I was with the Firm, but nowadays . . .”
“I hope I didn’t insult you. I don’t know a lot about these secret service affairs. What you don’t know won’t make trouble for you, that’s my philosophy.”
Hackensack laughed, but it was only his rolls of fat creasing up. His eyes were not laughing. Blum felt he was being sized up, but that was Americans for you, and Hackensack seemed to need someone to talk to. He ordered another two drinks. The textiles trade mingled with the tourist trade in the Pegasus Bar, and the Maltese godfathers sat in the corner in their black suits, watching the boxing on TV. Blum’s policemen friends couldn’t find him here. Inspector Cassar’s expense account probably didn’t stretch to more than a lemonade at the kiosk over by the bus station. The curry was being cleared away. While Hackensack explained to him why power was not just the salt of life but its very essence, Blum looked the women tourists over, but there was no one here today who seemed a hopeful prospect for him, and as she took the dishes away the beauty in the sarong was billing and cooing with the chef, a man weighing two hundredweight from the Weser Mountains who had cooked for the specialist supply troops in Saigon. Hackensack raised his glass and cleared his throat.
“Why so thoughtful, Blum? Business in a bad way, or has someone gone off with your girl?”
The American’s nose was beginning to glow, and his cauliflower ears had a rosy tinge. But the bourbon left his eyes cold. He had said he came from Tennessee, but Blum didn’t think he was really a southerner.
“In a bad way is about right, Mr Hackensack.”
“What, and you a German?”
Blum was tired of this. Did the whole world think all Germans were winners because Hitler had lost the war?
“Not every German is a millionaire just because the mark is strong, Mr Hackensack.”
“Call me Harry. Yes, I know, Blum. My firm has a branch in Frankfurt. Drop in when you have business there.”
Blum took the card and put it in his wallet.
“I don’t expect to be in Frankfurt in the near future, but thanks all the same. What line of business are you in, if I may ask, or does that come under the heading of state secrets?”
Hackensack spluttered, swallowed the wrong way, and went purple. In his tight suit with his sweaty little hat on his head, he now looked like a boxing manager who hasn’t had a winner on his books for ten years. Probably just a poor sap like the rest of us, thought Blum.
“I’m a company adviser,” said Hackensack, when he had got his breath back. “And if I were to advise you some day you’d get a discount – after all, both of us here on Malta, that counts for something.”
“I’m only a one-man firm, but if I do need advice I’ll be happy to get in touch. Another drink? The next round’s on me.”
Naturally Hackensack would like another drink. He tipped bourbon down his throat like water with no obvious effect, except that the broken veins of his nose took on a darker hue.
“What lines of business would you say are on the up now?” asked Blum.
“Anything to do with power,” said Hackensack, wiping the sweat from his neck with a red flowered handkerchief, which deprived his words of much of their force. “Naked, profitable power with no regard for human feelings, Herr Blum. Of course that’s nothing new, as you must know yourself. You Germans have thought a good deal about it too, but you always see the problem in an abstract light, too metaphysically. Power is something concrete, like the whiskey in this glass and its effects.”
What nonsense, thought Blum – I could be with a woman somewhere, or trying to flog those porn magazines, and instead I sit here listening to what this jerk has to say about power, which is nothing very new. But what was new? His own story, his dreams and failures were nothing new either. Perhaps he might yet find out whether the old fellow was simply feeding him sugar lumps like a monkey for no good reason, or whether there was any point to all this talk.
“So right now I’d say information is big business. And anything that alters the structure of the little grey cells, of course. Chemicals, Mr Blum. Yessir, chemicals are really big business. Combine information with chemicals and the world’s your oyster.”
“I don’t see much chance for me to get a foot in the door,” replied Blum. “I mean, it’s rather too late in the day to start in that line . . .”
Hackensack looked hard at Blum, and said, before raising the cigar to his delicate lips, “It’s never too late. You just need the right attitude, my dear fellow, then you’ll always fall on your feet. Take me – I’ve come a cropper many a time, from the Korean War to Berlin and south-east Asia, and I’ve always fallen on my feet. You have to in my line of business.”
“I thought you were a company adviser.”
“An adviser, man, let’s just say an adviser.”
Blum wasn’t about to insist on knowing the difference, nor did he want to spend any more time with this sweating colossus, who was beginning to strike him as bogus. He was getting on Blum’s nerves. Information, chemicals, south-east Asia – all very well, but what would Hackensack say if Blum told him about Inspector Cassar? He’d better get moving. He was just wondering how to shake Hackensack off when he saw a woman tourist who had come into the Pegasus alone, and was now standing at the bar looking rather helpless. She was tall and thin and short-sighted, and wore a flowered dress and a knitted jacket. She was no beauty queen but she might save the day. He waved to the barkeeper, and showed his remarkably good teeth when he smiled at her.
“I think you must be from Germany too,” he said, turning away from Hackensack.
5
A male cockroach grabbed a female of the species with its forelegs and mounted her. When they had slid over to the title of the “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” track, Blum put a coin in the slot of the jukebox, pressed the button and watched the cockroaches mating. The jukebox was full of cockroaches dead and alive. Rock freaks, thought Blum. Dancing on the machine’s hot electric belly, rocking and screwing themselves to death. Have fun, you two. The cockroach let go of the female. She slid over “Sailing” and “La Barca” and lay motionless on “Please Don’t Go”. Her lover had killed her. With scorpions it’s the female, with cockroaches the male. That’s life, girlie. Blum picked up his beer and looked out at the street again where, to the roar of the music, young girls on the make were lying in wait for tourists who were just wondering whether to allow themselves a half-bottle of wine at lunch, or buy their wives the T-shirt saying “I lost my heart in Malta”.
Finally Larry turned up. Larry was an Australian who had lost a lung in Vietnam. Since then he had been drawing a monthly pension from the Australian government and drinking it away in the cheaper seaports of southern Europe. The number of cheaper seaports was reduced by one every year. He was a thin fellow with a leathery face and a beard sprinkled with grey, and he wore the same faded windcheater every day. He knew his way around boats, and his papers described his profession as soldier.
“Come on, Blum,” he said, having overcome his coughing fit with a Scotch. “The wop’s waiting for you.”
“Is he going to buy them?”
“He wants to see a sample.”
They took one of the green buses where the drivers’ cabs are decked out like household altars with pink-cheeked Virgins, soulful Sons of God, garlands of plastic flowers and biblical quotations in Latin. They sat wedged between farmers and schoolgirls and English married couples. These last smelled of vermouth and were chewing beans or sucking sweets. The husbands were telling each other old jokes – “Heard the one about the Sikh who wanted to emigrate to Canada?” – and their wives were casting moist-eyed glances at the young Maltese men from behind their colourful travel brochures. Blum envied them. It was a few years yet before he’d be their age, but here he was already among them, and he didn’t know any jokes, nor did
he have moist eyes, only an old porn magazine in his bag. And if he wasn’t gone in a couple of days the cops would be down on him. What kept him going? The same as kept the bus going: fuel and faith, the fuel in his case being spirits. Verbum dei caro factum est, said the motto on the cab in front, which as far as he could remember meant: God’s word was made flesh.
Well, there must be a soup pan somewhere, then, to help feed the desperados among us.
The tourists got out in Mosta. The men already had damp patches on their polo shirts, and the women’s armpit hair was shining wetly.
“Plenty of gold here,” said Blum, glancing at the church, which was showy in the Maltese neo-Baroque style.
“Only a fool would try it,” replied Larry. “Rob a church on Malta? Something like nicking Lenin’s corpse from its mausoleum in Red Square. That’s where they keep it, right?”
Blum jumped. “Ever tangled with the police here, Larry?”
“What would make you think that?”
The bus rattled on, and Blum leaned back and pretended not to have heard the question. Just coincidence, he thought. Beyond Mosta the farming country began – dry soil from which the farmers conjured fruit and vegetables with the water that fell in the rainy season. Now the almond trees were in blossom, there was a scent of fruit and flowers, wind and the sea and women. Blum leaned his head against the window and closed his eyes, and for a moment abandoned himself to the illusion of something that would never really be – peace, happiness, magic . . . Then he opened his eyes again, saw the Australian coughing up the mucus from his lungs, and a squinting girl in a blue school uniform who had been watching him all this time and now blushed and looked ahead of her again. He took the Moroccan shades with the gold-rimmed lilac lenses out of his jacket pocket and put them on. These things were worth their price. Sometimes they reduced even the Med to tolerable dimensions.
They got out at the harbour in St Paul’s Bay. The little place lay quiet in the sun. A yapping dog chased the bus. Two German tourists shouldered their gigantic backpacks outside a café with a curtain of plastic strips over its doorway. Somewhere an electric lawn-mower was stuttering, and a farmer was driving a donkey out into the fields. The windows of the houses did not look out on the street. They walked slowly along the quay. Larry pointed out a motor-boat tied up a little way from the others.
“That’s Rossi’s boat. A Bertram 32-footer with twin V8 diesel engines, all tuned up like a high-class tart. You could shake any coastguard off in that boat.”
“Why would he want to do that?”
“Why do you think, mate?”
Larry lit his twentieth Rothman King Size of the day and spat a mouthful of mucus out into the water of the harbour without getting his cigarette wet.
“What would he smuggle around here? Church altars?”
“Not dried vegetables, that’s for sure. Come on, he’ll be in his palazzo now blow-drying his perm.”
The Villa Aurora was the last house in a cul-de-sac. Judging by its exterior, Rossi’s smuggling business couldn’t be in a very flourishing state. A palm tree was decaying among empty petrol cans in the front garden, it was a long time since the pink colourwash of the walls had been freshened up, and the plaster over the door was crumbling. When Larry pressed the bell Blum saw a curtain briefly drawn aside in the house next door. The bell rang faintly. Somewhere inside a dog began barking. When the door opened the curtain in the window of the house next door fell back into place again. An old woman in black said something in Maltese, and Blum was surprised to hear Larry answering her in the same language. That made him suspicious. The woman disappeared, and was replaced by a Great Dane that stood staring at the strangers with bloodshot eyes. Then Rossi appeared, whistled the dog to him, and showed them in.
The room into which the Italian led them looked out on the garden and was pleasantly cool. Here too the walls needed a new coat of plaster, but the furnishings were comfortable, and pictures of Maltese and Arab scenes gave the dimly lit place a touch of luxury. In the garden Blum saw a blonde beauty, a real pin-up, sun-bathing stark naked on a lounger. He had some difficulty in taking his eyes off her. Blondes did that to him. Finally he took the glass the Italian was offering him.
“I take it you drink tequila.”
“Mm. Viva Zapata.”
Rossi had a soft, hoarse voice, and after the first sip of his margarita Blum saw that Larry had not been exaggerating about the perm. The Italian’s long black hair tumbled in elaborate ringlets over his shoulders and his close-fitting silk shirt, which was open to the navel to reveal a bronzed chest. The man’s face, however, was anything but softly undulating. It was a brown crag with two hard eyes and a brutal chin. Blum put him in his early thirties. After the third sip he wondered what this man needed porn magazines for. But Rossi was already coming to the point. His English was as fluent as Blum’s own, and he spoke with a slight American accent.
“Got one of your mags with you? Let’s have a look.”
He leafed through it with the air of an expert, his gold bracelets clinking.
“Yup, just as lousy as I expected. But tell you what, I have a customer with a liking for this kind of thing.”
“An Arab?”
Rossi’s glance suggested that he had considerable stocks of malice in reserve. “Could be he’s a German, Blum.”
“Why not?” said Blum, shrugging his shoulders.
“How many of these do you have?”
“There’s a couple of hundred left.”
“Sold some here already?”
“A man’s got to live.”
“And you really make a living from these – these magazines?”
“I take what comes. I don’t see it as any more immoral than selling Coca-Cola. Or tequila.”
“I meant can you live on it? After all, these magazines are rather – well, shall we say outdated?”
“There’s always a customer to be found somewhere, right?”
The Italian laughed. When he laughed he didn’t look so uncongenial, perhaps because his teeth were rather bad. In other circumstances Blum might have laughed too. But his situation was both too ridiculous and too desperate for him to laugh it off. He drank his margarita instead. Larry pretended to be looking at the pictures. The pin-up girl was now lying on her stomach, and the Great Dane sat beside her, ears pricked, staring at the house.
“Right, now about the price. Here, have another. Margarita, the dealers’ drink, okay? Because you’re a dealer too, my dear fellow, am I right? We’re all dealers, even Larry here’s a dealer, isn’t that so, Larry?”
The Australian coughed, wiped his mouth, stared at the backs of his hands and then said, “It’s your party, Rossi.”
Rossi laughed and poured something into his own glass. Blum suspected it was pure lemonade.
“Of course,” said Rossi. “I’m always throwing parties. I love parties. Like to come to my next party, Blum? But come on, tell me your price, avanti. I’m in a hurry.”
He made an obscene gesture in the direction of the garden. Blum named his price. Rossi looked horrified.
“That’s crazy! Six hundred dollars – why, that’s three dollars a copy! Mamma mia, I guess you don’t know your market . . .”
But Blum wasn’t going to be beaten down. There was Cairo, there was a Pakistani bulk purchaser who supplied to Saudi Arabia. No, $600 was a fair price.
“And don’t forget, these things are classics in their way. Like a vintage wine. Copenhagen 1968 – well, there’s not many of those left. Look at this, Björn Söderbaum’s ‘Spring Awakening’ series, what d’you think that would fetch in Hong Kong? Söderbaum, a genius in his field. Here, this is where he used the camera’s-eye technique for the first time – the three-dimensional perspective – I’ll have all China standing in line for these if I take them there.”
Rossi stepped back and narrowed his eyes, but not in order to appreciate Söderbaum’s artistry better.
“I thought I had your measure, Blum. Three-d
imensional perspective, porca Madonna. Okay, 500 dollars, and perhaps we’ll do business again some time.”
“Five hundred and fifty, Rossi, and that’s my last word. And I’ll need a deposit of 100 dollars, or I’ll do the deal with the Pakistani after all.”
But Rossi had no dollars around the place, and after much haggling they agreed on forty Maltese pounds. Rossi counted the money out.
“Bring me the magazines to the Phoenicia at eleven this evening. Room 523. Then there’s something else we might discuss.”
He winked at Blum and jerked his chin in the direction of Larry, who had now finished with the pictures and was inspecting the bottles in the home bar. Blum nodded and put the money away. As they left, he took a final look at the garden. Rossi’s girl was already immersed in the porn magazine, and even the Great Dane was showing an interest in Söderbaum’s brilliant technique in “Spring Awakening”.
As they stood by the juke box again in the Playgirl later, Blum said, “Do you think he’s really buying the magazines for a customer?”
The jungle of Da Nang could already be seen in Larry’s eyes, and he simply shrugged his shoulders.
“Of course you get the extra fifty dollars I wangled out of him, mate. Now I just have to pay the hotel bill.”
“Did I ever tell you how they dropped us off by mistake in the area they’d saturated with poison gas the day before?”
As Larry tried to exorcize the horrors that he could never drive out of his mind, Blum watched the cockroaches copulating and sliding all over the titles of the discs. The music droned out its horror songs, and Blum had difficulty keeping everything straight in his mind, horror on one side, lust on the other, his own memories. But in the end those memories of his always won out against other people’s horror or lust: his own memories, the nastiest on earth.
6
But never mind, thought Blum that evening in his room by the harbour, you have to make it – you’re not Larry, you’re not an Australian, you didn’t breathe poison gas in Vietnam, you’re Blum and you have to make it, all you need is a chance, just one real chance, the big fish, the jackpot, no more cheap tricks then, just to be rolling in the dough, oh Lord, bringing in the real loot, get your head up out of the dirt, see the real hot sun, Madonna mia, and when they bring the bill you can sign it in style.