The Complete Short Stories of James Purdy

by John Waters

At a nod from Rory, Moe went into an adjoining room and brought out the box of the jewels and placed it on a long table once used in his own banquets.

  Vesta had to put on her glasses which she hated to wear as they made her look, she always said, like an old grandma.

  “Oh, oh,” she began as the jewels were uncovered. “But, Rory, they look so different from the time I first set eyes on them. Before the box was even opened of course—years ago, and I, merely peeping in, thought they were marbles, agates, maybe, but not worth the powder to blow them up with. Oh dear, now I don’t know.” She touched one of the gems cautiously. “They do look like jewels of some sort, I reckon. But they’re sticky to the touch!”

  Both Moe and Rory approached the box of gems and stared. The word “sticky” may have had something to do with their looking now at the gems with suspicion and puzzlement.

  “We must call in an expert, Moe,” Vesta spoke now familiarly. “You with all your worldly contacts must know of someone.”

  Moe could not help being pleased at Vesta calling him a man with worldly contacts. He half-smiled.

  “There is a Russian, Alexander Oblonsky, or some such name. Met him once in France. Escaped from the Bolsheviks in the nick of time or they’d have beheaded him, he told me. Rich as Croesus and loves to show off his knowledge of diamonds, pearls, and of course rubies. He claims to have been one of the most dependable and faithful retainers of the late Tsarina and that she gave him some of her own jewels for safekeeping.

  “You don’t say, Moe.” Vesta was greatly intrigued. “And we can send for him?”

  “We can, but will he come? A busy man, almost a celebrity.”

  “I suppose he would charge us a fortune then,” Vesta complained.

  “Not necessarily so. He owes me many favors. I helped him with all the paperwork when he became a Canadian citizen, and then there were other favors I won’t go into.”

  “Oh, Moe, how can I thank you. And he will tell us if the rubies (or whatever they are) have value or not.”

  “A man who knew the Tsarina and her jewels!” Moe exclaimed. “I should think he would know their value right off the bat.”

  “And you will send for him?”

  Moses thought for a moment and then nodded.

  Vesta could not restrain herself from going over to Moses and kissing him on both his cheeks.

  It was Rory’s turn now to look displeased and disgruntled. But he said nothing. After all, when didn’t he recall the time he had seen his mother kissing gentlemen in his presence.

  “And, Moe,” Vesta ran on, “you do think Alexander Oblonsky, if I have his name right, will come to a small village like ours?”

  “If I ask him, I am sure he will. If he is still alive.”

  “Oh, dear. You think he might not be.”

  “No, I think he is alive. I heard from him by letter only six months ago.”

  “Thank fortune, then. Oh, if he will only come and tell us. I will be in your debt, dear Moe, forever.”

  Again Rory saw with deep dismay that Moe beamed at his mother.

  “I first met Alexei when I was a young soldier in France,” Moe now began his reminiscences. “I don’t for a minute think that is his real name. But I believe he is Russian. The rest of his story, like his name, I don’t know whether to believe or not. But he is a jewel expert, we can be sure of that.”

  “And why don’t you believe all of his story?” Vesta Hawley inquired.

  “For one thing,” Moses replied, “though he claims he came into the possession of some jewels once owned by Alexandra Romanov, the Tsarina who died at the hands of the Bolsheviks, he may not have known her at all. Another version that circulated was that he got ownership of these jewels from a desperate Russian émigré in Paris who died shortly after he entrusted Alexei with the royal gems.”

  “And what become of those jewels,” Vesta warmed to his narrative.

  “Who knows, Mrs. Hawley, but he must have had some kind of fortune to fall back on in those dark days of exile in France. At any rate shortly after the Armistice, he emigrated to Canada. I have visited him there several times. He claims I have done him many favors, such as help him secure his citizenship. But even that is an exaggeration. I pleased him, I believe, by listening to his stories and believing them. He is very fond of me, and that I believe; but why he is fond of me, who knows? At any rate I have only to call him, and he will come here and inspect your gems. For his life work has been the study of jewels. And who knows, maybe he did possess gems from the Romanovs!”

  “But isn’t there any expert on jewels who lives closer to us?” Vesta wondered, for the thought of a Russian whose real name and origin was unknown and whose friendship for Moses Swearingen was also suspicious troubled her.

  “There is no one any more, dear Vesta Hawley, who can give a better estimate of the worth of gems that Alexei. Trust me for knowing that.”

  “Oh, I will have to, I suppose. But let me also speak with Dr. Sherman Cooke about this matter.”

  Moses Swearingen, irritated, now stood and put his hands in his deep pockets.

  “Speak to him all you like! Dr. Cooke knows no more about gems than the local blacksmith. Indeed I’d be more inclined to get the blacksmith’s estimate of your gems than the Doc’s.”

  “Oh, all right, Moe. You are always, like most men of course, right. Call your Russian then, even if maybe he is a Bolshevik himself.”

  Moe grimaced on this, and their “confab,” as Vesta later called it, came to a close.

  LATER THAT EVENING, at home alone with Dr. Cooke, Vesta was tearful and allowed the “good doctor,” as she called him, to hold her hand and kiss, in her words, her careworn fingers.

  “Oh I don’t trust this Alexei Oblonsky or whatever his name is, and I certainly don’t want him to be in touch with Rory. A Russian. God knows what he was up to during the Revolution. And he is said to have got hold of Alexandra the Tsarina’s jewels! I don’t believe a word of it. Oh Sherman, why can’t someone from here evaluate these jewels of ours.”

  Between his furtive kisses, Dr. Cooke managed to say: “I went to our public library after speaking with you the last time. I located a book there on precious gems. A very learned work, also by a Russian, come to think of it. But evidently very rare gems have to be appraised only by an expert. And even experts can be deceived. Especially in the case of diamonds and rubies.”

  “And so we have called in a Bolshevik to let us in on the truth of this mystery!”

  “Dear Vesta, he is not a Bolshevik, I think, or he would not have come to this side of the world.”

  Vesta smiled and to the doctor’s astonishment she gave him a chaste and icy kiss on his cheek.

  ALEXEI OBLONSKY’S ARRIVAL in Gilboa by coincidence took place when there was a great torchlight parade on Main Street in honor of the return of a state senator who had served the small town well in his day. The torchlight parade and the brass band which accompanied it had turned the entire community into a noisy resplendent gala.

  Alexei Oblonsky himself arrived in a miserable state of health and, as he remarked, he was lucky to have gotten safely to Moe’s Villa, for he explained he had had to change trains three times, owing to a snowstorm and the loss of one of the engines.

  Moe Swearingen was taken aback when he laid eyes on his Russian friend, for Alexei had changed greatly in the two or three years since Moe had last set eyes on him. His hair was gone nearly white, and an eye disease of some kind afflicted him so painfully he was required to use at intervals several different pairs of glasses and in addition made use of an oversize magnifying glass.

  The din of the brass band together with the fact that they all caught flashes of the passing torchlight procession was nonetheless much to Alexei Oblonsky’s liking.

  “How kind of you to arrange such a reception,” he quipped, pretending the demonstration of the torches and the bands were in his honor.

  His witticism broke the ice of those gathered in Moe’s large front pa
rlour and from then on there was an air of general relaxation and cordiality on the part of everyone assembled in honor of the Russian gem expert.

  Alexei’s eyesight was not so impaired that he failed to fully take in the invited guests. He was especially drawn to Rory. “What a handsome son you have, Moe,” Alexei exclaimed after he had employed different spectacles to view the boy. “I had no idea you have a son.”

  Moe quickly disabused his visitor of his mistake and gave a brief introduction then to the presence of Vesta Hawley, the boy’s actual parent.

  Alexei Oblonsky appeared if possible, even more enchanted at meeting Rory’s mother. He rose, hobbled over to her, and taking her hand covered for this occasion by countless rings, kissed hand and rings devotedly.

  Dr. Cooke was next introduced to the visitor.

  “My dear Doctor,” Alexei cried with something like glee. “How grateful I am to see a man of medicine, for I have had a journey every bit as slow, dangerous and snowbound as if I were in the vast wastes of my own motherland once more!”

  And he took the doctor’s hand in a grip so strong Sherman Cooke winced with a pain from the pressure.

  Alexei Oblonsky then strolled over to the crackling fire blazing away in the chimney and extended his rather massive hands contentedly against the welcome heat of the logs.

  “What a charming place you have, dear Moe,” he now addressed the owner of the Villa. “I had no idea Fortune had smiled on you with such favor. And you deserve every one of her blessings.”

  Oblonsky now took a seat on a sprawling davenport (newly upholstered) and put on a new pair of spectacles and having looked about for a minute or so, removed these and replaced them with yet another pair of optics.

  Several young servants now entered and served libations to all but Rory.

  Oblonsky smacked his thin pale lips repeatedly as he tasted his drink. Then without warning he rose all at once to say: “May I propose a toast, ladies and gentlemen.”

  Almost losing his balance for a moment, he was assisted in standing on his two feet by one of the young servers, but this little awkwardness only added to the Russian’s self-possession for he turned his momentary loss of balance to his own adroitness and somewhat theatrical poise, and as Moe gazed at his friend, he decided that Alexei must indeed have had some relationship however transitory with royalty.

  At this moment, however, the brass band was passing close to the Villa, and Oblonsky was barely able to make his voice heard.

  Perhaps he used the uproar of the band as an excuse for his cutting short his toast which nonetheless went something like this: “I am deeply moved and honored by the lavish and cordial welcome extended to a Russian in exile, and I extend my gratitude to the hospitable and distinguished gathering at this matchless Villa.”

  He put such an emphasis on his pronouncing Villa that everyone perhaps for the first time realized what a superb property their Moe was in possession of.

  Everyone now stood and, after applauding, drank the toast.

  It was possible in retrospect however that the banquet which now followed all but put in the shade the magnificence of the Villa itself and the background glitter of torchlights and brass bands.

  Young servers dressed in gold-trimmed uniforms demonstrated furthermore that Rory was not the only handsome young man present, and Alexei Oblonsky found it necessary all during the eight-course banquet to put one pair of spectacles on after another in order to take in the resplendent magnificence he found everywhere his eyes wandered.

  He later told Moe that not since his early days in St. Petersburg had he been regaled with such festivities. As to the banquet itself—with its venison, quail, guinea fowl, wild duck, and, for dessert, its assortment of pies, including of course pumpkin, mince and rhubarb—Oblonsky humbly informed the guests he doubted that even in imperial Russia itself could there have been a feast to equal the one he was now enjoying.

  Oblonsky had eyes however not only for the young Adonises who served the feast, but more and more for Vesta herself, who wearing her grandmother’s opals, must have stirred the Russian’s memories of the royal beauties of his own homeland.

  Retiring after hours at the festive board, the guests were next treated to the outpouring of a young men’s chorus discreetly distanced from the guests in the front parlour by handsome screens.

  It was clear, however, at least to Moe Swearingen, if to no one else, that the guest of honor was a bit listless, even sleepy, after his long train journey through snowstorms, engine problems, and bitter cold and by his nearly regal reception and entertainment at the Villa.

  Neither Moe himself nor any of the other guests dared breathe a word concerning the matter of the birthday gift of Peter Driscoll to his only son, the rubies themselves.

  After an hour or so of talk and occasional listening to the young men’s chorus, it was the Russian guest himself who ventured to say: “And now, my dear Moe, I believe you might wish to have my opinion concerning some gems you wrote me several times about. I must warn you and your distinguished guests, however (and here he turned his full gaze toward Vesta Hawley), that contrary to what my dear friend Moe Swearingen may have told you, I am not the world’s leading expert on gems and jewels. I am in this matter only an amateur.”

  “Nonsense!” Moe raised his voice. “I have it on the word of a number of authorities (he now turned his gaze also on Vesta as he spoke) there is no one at all here or abroad who knows more about precious gems than my excellent friend, Alexei Oblonsky.”

  Moe rose, and going over to the Russian, embraced him in continental fashion.

  In the strained silence which now followed, several young men entered with trays of after-dinner drinks, but Alexei Oblonsky, begging they excuse him, declined any alcoholic beverage.

  Moe then rose again to strike a small silver gong.

  Almost immediately one of the young “footmen” (as Alexei Oblonsky called the attendants) entered with the box of gems and put them on a long low oak table near the Russian jewel expert.

  At that very moment, and as if on cue, the brass band blared forth—concomitant with a sudden reflection of the torches which spotlighted the parlour as if after all both the band and the torches were in direct correspondence with the presentation of the jewels!

  And so the moment had arrived, the moment they had all been waiting for so long, the moment in which the value and the future reputation of the jewels were to be established and settled by the greatest appraiser of precious gems to be found anywhere in the world.

  The lid of the box was now removed by Moe Swearingen.

  A kind of low murmur arose from the onlookers.

  Alexei Oblonsky smiled as he almost devoutly studied the gems before him. His smile was followed by a pleasing nodding of his head several times. He took off the pair of glasses he was wearing and substituted them for one of probably greater strength.

  His smile had now disappeared and his nodding likewise. He stared at the gems, picked them up cautiously one by one and to the surprise of everyone smelled them. He began to shake his head slowly. Then he would put down a single one of the gems and take up another in his hand.

  Then he lay back in the throne-like chair provided for him, as if exhausted, and gave forth a series of short coughs, but his coughing sounded more like a person being strangled. It was a true paroxysm as Dr. Sherman Cooke would later describe it. It was certainly to the ears of those assembled the sound like that of a convulsion.

  Dr. Cooke rose and rushed to the cloakroom where he had left his little black bag. He whispered something to Frau Storeholder who hurried out to the kitchen.

  The doctor produced a small bottle and spoon, and Frau Storeholder hurried back from the kitchen with a tumbler of spring water.

  “Do try to swallow this,” Dr. Cooke was heard speaking to Alexei Oblonsky. The gem expert smiled and obeyed. He lay back against the chair’s luxuriant backrest and closed his eyes. Then he opened them and smiled faintly to say, “Ladies and gentl
emen, it is passing.”

  Dr. Cooke had ready another kind of medicine from a still smaller bottle, and the Russian tasted this docilely, smiled broadly and wiped his mouth.

  “Let me retire to the kitchen with this kindest of kind ladies whom you call Frau Storeholder,” Alexei Oblonsky spoke hoarsely but with authority. “I wish to examine one of the . . . jewels [he came near to not pronouncing the last word] where there may be running hot water.”

  He immediately left the room, carrying one or more of the jewels with Frau Storeholder in close attendance.

  Everyone in the room was at that moment too bewildered and perhaps shocked to say anything. There was silence not unlike the silence of the conclusion of Thursday night prayer meeting.

  Moe Swearingen thought for a moment of following Alexei Oblonsky out into the kitchen, but something ominous in the gem expert’s manner forbade him to do so.

  To the relief of all, the Russian returned in a few minutes and entered the room, solemnly chewing something. His hands were empty.

  Instead of speaking however at once, Alexei Oblonsky roamed about the room, his fingers clasped behind his back, a patient almost-martyred expression on his old weathered and very careworn face. He resembled to some that evening a professor overseeing pupils taking their final examination.

  Then he energetically strode forth to the center of the large room, cleared his throat, and attempted to smile, but the smile changed into a somewhat disturbing thin line, and a deep frown arose between his inflamed eyes.

  “I am at some loss how to report the results of my examination,” he began, his eyes looking up toward the high ceiling. A few flurries of his cough persisted, but he waved away Dr. Cooke’s offering of another taste of his medicines.

  “If I may so say, ladies and gentlemen, I have tasted your rubies whilst in the kitchen with my dear Frau Storeholder. I say tasted with deliberate choice.” He then pointed to his mouth as the receptacle which had partaken of the jewels.

  “My dear and esteemed friends all, and my very special dear friend of many years past, the nonpareil distinguished host of tonight’s beautiful reception, Moe Swearingen, I cannot tell him and you how anguished I am to give you the verdict, if I may use such a term, the conclusion then, let me say, yes, conclusion is a better word for my examination of the gems.”