Old Acquaintance

by David Stacton

  So they go on. Indeed there is another place, a large vacant lot, paved with good intentions. It is an amusement park. Over the entrance is a big sign, saying Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch’entrate. We are very much in the midst of life here, we are on the main road. It is magnificently paved, so it must go somewhere. Aimée Semple McPherson is in charge, or Billy Graham, or Innocent III. If you tire of watching the Brahmin, or the magician sawing the Trinity in half, there is always the emotional roller coaster. There’s practically no limit to the number of things you can do in this world, just for thrills. But if you take things seriously, the sky clouds over, and somebody gets hurt.

  Charlie had no idea what happened to the circus eventually. He’d just make it up. He hadn’t written it down. He wasn’t responsible.

  But he came upon it sometimes, in dreams, and looked at the empty cages, and there he was, sure enough, Petroushka with a monocle. They used to say Petroushka was the one great fable of our time, a universal legend, but time passes, and people have forgotten Diaghilev, let alone who Petroushka was. But there I am. I am a sad clown, looking at the world from behind a board fence. Ô Satan, prends pitié de ma longue misère.

  Paul was still out. Charlie sat down, wrote him the same letter eight times, and then tore all eight of them up. What happens to all the awful, naked letters we write in a lifetime? You never see them printed in the correspondence of the great. Perhaps the great have charitable friends who tear them up. The rest of us have to tear them up for ourselves.

  At the back of his head he decided what he was going to do. The idea moved upstage, and in the full light of common day, looked horrible. Nonetheless, he would carry it out, for it wasn’t just Paul he wanted to punish, it was also himself. Therefore the only thing to do was something unworthy of himself. Therefore that was what he would do.

  He wished he had not seen them in that wood so clearly. He decided for the tenth time, while he was at it, to make a clean sweep, and divorce his fourth wife as well. If I am going to be alone, very well then, I will be alone.

  It was not an irrevocable decision. He could always go back to her later. There’s one thing about a divorce: it clears the air. It may not be very nice at the time, but you’re always glad enough to see each other afterwards.

  If we could cry, I suppose we would cause less mischief. It would not only improve our characters, but at the same time, relieve our feelings. But Charlie had not the economy of tears. His was a life on the potlatch principle.

  XLIV

  LOTTE couldn’t make it out. She knew Charlie’s rages. And here he was, being amiable. On the whole he was taking it entirely too well.

  Their table had gotten considerably larger. Miss Campendonck had finished her one cocktail of the day and was now on highballs. Highballs don’t signify, apparently. Bill had been with them, but had left at eleven. The hairdresser, the only belowstairs person in Lotte’s employ, wasn’t there. That Miss Campendonck was, was just Miss Campendonck’s whim. Usually she went off by herself quite happily, but if she wished to join them, there had never been any nonsense about her doing so. If there was, Miss Campendonck simply removed the stairs. That was the way she dealt with such problems.

  Unne looked prim. Paul look worried. But that didn’t mean anything. Paul, for a man, had quite a masculine face and wrinkled his forehead, the way other people wave their hands, merely to show interest, and let the wrinkles take care of themselves. They will anyway.

  Quite unexpectedly, Miss Campendonck got up and went off, like a low rocket, badly fired, with a distinct wobble, toward her bedroom.

  There was a lull.

  “I’m tired of being stared at by the same people every night,” said Charlie. “Somebody told me about a night club in Luxembourg City. It’s only an hour’s fast drive. Why don’t we go?”

  Lotte hesitated, but the wind against her face, in the convertible, would be refreshing.

  “I think that would be fun,” said Unne, surfacing out of silence. She was good at holding her breath, but she had been down long enough.

  “An ally,” said Charlie, with what was, let us hope, his usual irony and no more, and had them out of there in five minutes. To her surprise, he took Lotte in his car and let Paul and Unne follow behind in the Alfa.

  “What’s this place like?” asked Lotte.

  Charlie shrugged. “Like any other place, I expect. The best acts are always in the audience. Enjoy the drive.”

  She did.

  Charlie set a good pace. The night wind flowed smoothly over her. The radio, rather surprisingly, provided an entry of the clowns by Marin Marais. It sounded brittle and grotesque, like bark scaling from an old apple tree. It may be an old tree, but it does have shoots. If the shoots come out too low down, however, they are called suckers.

  She sat abruptly up.

  “What are you up to, Charlie?”

  “Should I be up to anything? The critics say I’m not.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “One can never tell with critics. It is because, basically, they are so seldom sure of themselves.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “I am as innocent as the unborn lamb.”

  “Newborn,” she said automatically.

  “Nonsense, as soon as you’re born, anything is apt to happen. Unborn is another matter. We’re all better off in the egg, but alas I had a viviparous mother. Do you find the wind temperate?”

  She tried to see his face. But he was off somewhere down a rabbit hole, like Alice, and you can’t tell anything by profiles anyway, unless they are noble, and his was not. After a while he began to hum.

  The landscape flowed by. A tree. A field. A house. A darkling plain.

  “They go to bed early, don’t they, here?” he said, after a while.

  “I wore white ducks

  in Benelux

  And scarves in San Marino.”

  It was only a suggestion. She didn’t take it up. Her heart wasn’t in it. Neither, by the sound of him, was his. She smelled trouble, like a powder fuse, hissing along beside the car. The explosion would come whenever they arrived.

  The headlights of the Alfa caught his rearview mirror and blinded them.

  “Luxembourg City is a typical old-world community,” said Charlie. “You’ll like it. It’s like Albany, New York. Did you ever go to Keeler’s there? It’s an oyster house.”

  “No,” she said, “I never went to Keeler’s.” She’d never been to Albany, either, but she didn’t tell him that. She put her head on his shoulder.

  “When I was in New York, I used to make a special trip. Up the river, you know. The Hudson really is rather handsome. And then oysters for lunch. And then back again. It was worth it. First, the exquisite boredom of the trip. I met a vice-president of Corning Glass once in the parlor car. He showed me his dirty pictures. Then the lemon. Then the cayenne. And then the oyster. He liked to photograph girls with swans, in color. It seemed oddly classical, except for the colors. As far as I can see, the only thing Europe lacks is the Bluepoint. Whitstables are all very well, but we lack the Bluepoint. It explains at least two World Wars.”

  This sounded more promising. This sounded like Charlie.

  “‘Oysters are more beautiful than any religion,’” said Charlie. “‘There’s nothing in Christianity or Buddhism that quite matches the sympathetic unselfishness of an oyster.’”

  She didn’t ask what that was a quotation from.

  “Next time, with luck, I shall be one,” he said. “In Long Island Sound. I have friends at Mamaroneck, you know. And then, before I get tired of it, I shall be plucked and eaten. Here we are.”

  Apparently Luxembourg City was early to retire.

  “Now where the devil is it?” asked Charlie.

  “I’ve no idea, it’s your night club.”

  “How true. How true.”

  He parked beside a vacant lot. The club was across the way. There were no lights, no proud device, no neon sign. The Alfa drew up beh
ind and Paul got out.

  “You goddam son of a bitch,” he began.

  “A compliment, in whatever tongue, is always acceptable,” said Charlie.

  “If you think I’m …”

  “I don’t think, I know,” said Charlie. “Come along.” He went along to the Romeo and helped Unne out of the car.

  Paul said nothing more.

  Lotte got out by herself, stood in the middle of the street, clutching her purse, and stared at the vacant lot. There were some plants. Burdock by the look of them. She took Paul’s arm. She was in a thin white dress, which glittered when she walked, and she felt cold. Unne was more sensible, as might have been expected, in a little nothing. They looked surreal, out there, all of them.

  “Nothing’s ever as bad as it looks,” she said to Paul.

  “You haven’t seen it.” Sometimes anxiety is a substitute for wit.

  “Oh,” said Lotte. But it was too late now. She was no longer surprised. She understood. Charlie was being calin.

  They went across the vacant lot to the door in the lowest building on the far side. There didn’t seem to be any other cars about, but a Vespa was parked against the wall. There was a judas window in the door, probably for panache, possibly for Judas.

  The door was opened at once by a small man in a weightlifter’s black sweatshirt. That told her what the place would be at once. She went on into the lobby, looked at herself in the full-length mirror which reflected the room beyond, and decided to keep her stole.

  These places were so middle class, always. In their own way they excelled decorum. That they had come here, did not surprise her. She had no right to be surprised. A mildly unenthusiastic subscriber to Der Kreis for years, Charlie had his little lists.

  “There’s nothing wrong with Der Kreis,” he’d said once. “Sometimes the poetry is quite good, Stefan George, Walt Whitman, and snips of Edward Carpenter, that kind of thing. Not Charpentier. Besides the plain wrapper it comes in is rather smart, you know. Rather smart. It’s like your Sears, Roebuck catalog, only slimmer. Good, better, best.”

  Unne showed no surprise. No doubt that was the diplomatic training. No matter how besieged we are, we must never be accessible to surprise. Sitting ducks we may be, but the gallery is rigged, and if we just keep to the track, there is little chance of our actually being hit. The rifles are rigged, too. That’s why the entrepreneur is so agreeable, so willing, always, to give us a decent break.

  Nor was there anything surprising about the place, except its name (it was called Mummy’s Room, so you could be up in it, presumably). It was like the smarter equivalents of itself anywhere, in all countries, a long low room, red plush and cheap-jack baroque, with Napoleon ivy, large sprays of artificial plum blossom, kindly mirrors, a bar on one side, banquettes on the other, a dance floor, and beyond that it opened out into unexpected quiet backwaters of salubrity, estuaries of melancholy as bracing as a breath of fresh air at the bottom of a mine shaft.

  It wasn’t jam-packed, merely crowded. You could see everybody only too clearly.

  The owner, a small man who looked as though he’d seen better days, though only from a distance, came forward, was effusive, greeted Paul and Charlie both, and led them to a table by the dance floor. If he recognized Lotte he was too unctuous to say so. To Unne he gave a second glance. Women with that little makeup were rare here. Not a transvestite, apparently. He took an extra care in seating her. Once, perhaps, he had worked in a grand hotel. Whereas this place, whether he owned it or not, was merely a posting inn on the route. His manner apologized for that.

  Once seated, and Charlie began his object lesson. He began to beckon people over. It is permitted to say hello in such places, though not to linger. If you linger, it ruins your chances of once more saying hello, and who knows, perhaps at last to a total stranger. It is a parable of society, really, if easier to grasp.

  At first they came slowly. But as soon as word had gone round who Lotte was, they came fast enough. She was in the jukebox, you see. She was their titulary god. She had appeared.

  Of course they were affable to Paul, not too affable of course, because Charlie had the money, but still, the point was made, they knew him well. He wasn’t a gigolo exactly. He was just being kept.

  Unne blushed. Under his tan, Paul blushed. You couldn’t see it, but you could sense it. No doubt that is why we need a suntan. If we blush, we need protective coloring. It doesn’t matter whether it shows or not. The important thing to do is not to show it. With a suntan, you have it both ways.

  Unne’s blush gave way to a decorous anger. She was gracious to them all, when they noticed her. Courtesy is like that. We give the example to people to whom it is habitual. We behave better than they do. We exhibit the Grimaldi charm, while remembering that that was also the name of a celebrated clown.

  I have to put a stop to this, thought Lotte. I have to get her out of here. But there wasn’t any opportunity. The visitors came fast, and besides, she had her own role to play. This was part of her audience.

  She knew the types. There were the Americans, crewcut, like a field of winter wheat, and much given to chaff, who would have been quite normal if they hadn’t been here. There were the others.

  “Ring out, wild belles,” said Charlie, “and let who will be clever.”

  Is he really enjoying himself? Lotte wondered. But no, she thought, not really. It is just Satan calling up his legions, and walking with a slight limp. Greek mythology is better. There, despite Robert Graves, you get Hephaestos with the limp, it is true, but without the legions. That is a considerable help.

  They were so very nice to Paul. They knew him so well. They thought he was on the Riviera by now. They were nicer to him than they would ever have been without an audience. And then they went away.

  Charlie had made his point. “Would you like another drink?” he asked Unne.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I think I would.”

  It came.

  “It’s very interesting,” she said, her voice as precise as the gesture with which you complete the jigsaw puzzle. “I’ve never been to one of these places before. I think I’ll come again. I’ll get Paul to bring me.”

  There is no substitute for good training, after all. Lotte approved.

  *

  The jukebox had been silent for all of two minutes. Nobody could stand that. You have to have noise, you have to prove you are enjoying yourself. A miniature man, perfectly scaled, though given to shy, in the miniature collie manner, went up to the dashboard and solemnly punched out another unanswerable question for the computer.

  “What do you suppose he’ll play?” asked Lotte.

  “Hymns of All Sexes, probably,” said Charlie.

  There was a click and out came a cha-cha-cha.

  “What did I tell you?” said Charlie, and nodded, if not with approval, at least with amusement, which is the next best thing.

  “Charleston next, I expect.”

  He was right.

  “Too tired to tango;

  Too old to waltz.

  Breasts like a mango,

  But the breasts are false.

  Time to go home now.

  Can’t stand the pace.

  Time for the Teapot Dome now,

  And the Armaments Race,”

  he chanted. It dated him. As though aware of that he smiled, sad and sorry. For a moment Lotte almost pitied him. But then you do not pity people like Charlie. They have too many guts. They may not have them in exactly the usual place, but they do have them.

  “You don’t like women very much, do you?” asked Unne, from the middle of nowhere, where she happened to be sitting.

  “What on earth gave you that idea? I like women quite well. They make a change.”

  Unne was succinct. “A change,” she asked, “from what?”

  Charlie’s answer to that was to force Paul to dance with him. Everybody dances in these places, if they are constructed on the German plan. To the German mind, unmixed dancing is
the ultimate in improper propriety, a ritual requiring as serious a demeanor as ever you saw on the face of two Toulouse Lautrec Lesbians. If you wanted to see what somebody felt like, before making your choice, you asked them to dance, with as little conscience and as much seriousness as a housewife in a shop, squeezing the winter peaches. She never takes the ones she has just bruised. She takes the good ones. So there aren’t many.

  One of those sentences whizzed by, too fast to be caught, which only later you realize contained the real explanation of everything that happened afterwards. But Lotte couldn’t catch it. It had gone by too fast.

  She looked around her. It was like being in a room full of devil dolls. They walk. They are jerked up on their strings, like marionettes, and yet they have no strings. Like all devil dolls, despite themselves, they have been put there for an evil purpose but look good. They have no choice. The original magician is dead, but they obey anyway. It is their nature. It explains why they are there. In films, the dancers have lovely expressive faces. They show joy. In life, they have no expression at all. It is not done for joy. It is a serious matter. It is an escape.

  “I used to come to this place with a woman novelist from Hamburg,” said Charlie chattily. “She wrote Westerns, she was very advanced, very up-to-date, but she came of good family, and you know what Hamburg families are. They are quite willing to be loose about the great world, but when it comes to themselves, they tighten up, they turn the screw. We were at a table for four. She liked these places. She’d brought Willi along. Willi is the third most famous couturière in Berlin. That was his big year, the year he moved up from fifth place. He had made an appointment with somebody, he said, such a nice young man. A young man who really seemed to care, not a gigolo, at all, somebody grateful. Would he come, or wouldn’t he? That was the question. He really was on tenterhooks. My female novelist was much concerned. Curiously enough she was called Charlie, too. It was her pen name. An hour late the boy came in through the far door over there. He had blond hair. ‘There he is,’ said Willi, ‘He’s come. He’s actually come.’ Willi wasn’t so young, even in those days, you know, and not as successful as he is now. It was a big relief. He was vindicated. The young man had come. Only Charlie never spoke to us again. It was her nephew, you see. She’d been to his wedding only the week before. She writes simple domestic love stories these days, I’m told. For the newspapers, you know. They sell remarkably well.”