by Gerald Kersh
ON AN ODD NOTE
GERALD KERSH
With a new introduction by
NICK MAMATAS
VALANCOURT BOOKS
On an Odd Note by Gerald Kersh
First published as a paperback original by Ballantine Books, 1958
First Valancourt Books edition 2015
Copyright © 1958 by Gerald Kersh, renewed 1986 by Florence Kersh
Introduction © 2015 by Nick Mamatas
Published by Valancourt Books, Richmond, Virginia
http://www.valancourtbooks.com
All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without prior written consent of the publisher, constitutes an infringement of the copyright law.
Cover illustration by Lorenzo Princi/lorenzoprinci.com
INTRODUCTION
The Man Who Was in Every Story, or, The Murdered Darling
Can there be a more ridiculous thing in the world than an introduction to a volume of Gerald Kersh’s fiction? There cannot. These are the first pages of On an Odd Note and you, reader, have already climbed the summit of the insane. If this book is in your hands, you know of the glory of Kersh’s prose, and so nothing I say matters. If this book isn’t in your hands then you’re not reading about Gerald Kersh, or your hands, right now, and I may as well stop typing.
Gerald Kersh was once famous. Now he’s not even obscure. One novel, Night and the City, remains fairly widely circulated, and that mostly on the strength of the first of its two film adaptations, which regularly makes various Best Film Noir lists in print and on the Internet. It’s a great film, but its greatness comes only from removing virtually everything of Kersh—his humor, his endless asides that lead the reader down primrose paths to the darkest of alleys, his hard-won close knowledge of the sport of wrestling (and the faux techniques of professional wrestling), the self-destructive interiority of his characters—and replacing it with neo-expressionist cinematography.
Gerald Kersh was not a neo anything.
I’m writing from Berkeley, California, the home of several nationally famous new-and-used bookstores: none of them have even a single Kersh title on their shelves. The local library has Night and the City on DVD, and four anthologies with Kersh stories, most of them about his famed criminal character Karmesin. Nearby San Francisco manages little better; its large library system contains three anthologies that include Kersh stories, the film, and a copy of his prescient novel of global flooding, The Secret Masters. The online catalogue had the gall to ask me if I mean “Kerbs Gerald” instead. Who the hell is Gerald Kerbs? (As it turns out, it isn’t anybody.)
If you’re reading these words, none of what I’ve said so far is new to you. One doesn’t even discover Kersh on the shelves of a dusty old bookstore anymore, one must be initiated into Kersh by someone who knows. Perhaps someone who saw the film and then dared the Night and the City novel, and from then on was consumed. Maybe someone who is slightly older, and remembers when Kersh was a prolific writer of short stories, or who owns an old book. A copy of Prelude to a Certain Midnight—a crime novel about what a Miss Marple type would really be like—was pressed into my hand a few years ago. Members of the cult of Harlan Ellison may find their way into the smaller sub-cult of Kersh, like a Freemason earning through mystic rite the mystic right to wear ever more ridiculous hats.
Yet, once upon a time, Kersh was ubiquitous. The stories in On an Odd Note originally appeared in the great slicks: Esquire, Playboy, Cosmopolitan, and The Saturday Evening Post, and also Today, the Philadelphia Inquirer magazine. Remember when every major newspaper had its own Sunday magazine supplement? When Cosmopolitan ran fiction? “The Extraordinarily Horrible Dummy” was once routinely reprinted. “The Brighton Monster” was called one of the best fantasy time travel stories of all time by encyclopedist Don D’Ammassa. And now, almost nothing remains of Kersh, at least in the United States. He’s largely out of print, almost entirely deaccessioned, and rarely discussed. So here we are, then.
One’s first instinct is to blame the work. Most of the stories you’ll read in this volume have an O. Henry or Twilight Zone-style twist. “The Sympathetic Souse” is a fairly weak story because of its twist, but for the most part the work holds up, despite the seeming flaw of the “gotcha” ending. We know this for one simple reason: the stories are worth re-reading. Kersh is a master of the conversational detail, the slow burn, and of the piquant self-insertion. The stories are not about a twist, they are about everything leading up to the twist, including Kersh himself. “Gerald”, “Mr. Kersh”, and occasionally just an “I” telling a story about a story he heard once.
Kersh is a great writer because he eschewed the writing advice of Arthur Quiller-Couch: “Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it—whole-heartedly—and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.” Kersh never murdered his darlings; he’d kill everything else first. A story seemingly about the discovery of a new species on a distant island ties into the term grouch bag—Merriam-Webster will only tell you that a grouch bag is a purse, and nothing of its history or shape—and from there we get a countess, and a giant, and murder, and the stunning social fact that unrelated little people often look alike to those of average height. These stories are all Kersh, all darlings—forget on an odd note, these tales are composed completely of nothing but odd notes.
What happened to Kersh is what will happen to all of us: he died. It’s a cliché that writing confers a type of immortality, but in truth most writers outlive their books. Kersh kept plugging away until nearly the end, despite declining health, but publishers and readers forget when a writer isn’t there to remind them of his existence.
After Kersh’s death, there was a sea change in publishing. In the realm of slick fiction, Raymond Carver and his epigones took over the slots once reserved for short stories in Esquire, The Atlantic, et al. Kersh’s stories are thoughtful and often involve people discussing their lives, but then he adds something: events. Events actually occur in Kersh’s fiction. We can’t have that!
In science fiction, the 1960s and 1970s saw the rise and fall of New Wave, which paved the way for cyberpunk in the 1980s. Kersh’s science fiction and fantasy suddenly felt rather quaint, being neither phantasmagorical nor hard-bitten. There was no more room for stories of sophisticated men and women, and those just imitating sophistication, exploring ever-so-fascinating phenomena with a cynical eye.
Ditto crime/mystery fiction, in which the protagonists of new series simply had to be alcoholics with sexual problems—joy, whimsy, cleverness were all remanded to the cozies. There is plenty of booze and sex in Kersh’s work, but for the most part his characters can handle a fifth of whisky. And if they can’t, it is the height of moral approbation for a maître d’ character to step in and help soothe and maintain the poor poor dear.
But Gerald Kersh is not just another old-fashioned writer. His work remains vibrant and relevant. His lengthy asides on grappling and jujitsu predate and predict the current rage for mixed martial-arts competitions. He nailed a prediction of the end of the Cold War to within five years, and hinted at the geopolitical chaos to come. Kersh unsentimentally wrote about child murderers and gender roles, casual corruption in journalism, the poison of racism, and all the social and cultural issues we’re still working over in our fiction and in the great conversation of society. The world is ready for a Kersh revival, but what is to be done?
The stories in On an Odd Note often occupy small narrative universes. There are only a few characters in each tale, and sometimes one that seems obscure or marginal ends up b
ecoming key to the story. And so too, in this introduction: there is Kersh, there is me, and there is you. How can Kersh make his comeback? It’s up to you. Here’s a non-ridiculous suggestion for anyone ridiculous enough to have read so far: you have this book in your hand, so now get a second copy and give it away to someone—like a Seed of Destruction in reverse—to someone who needs to be in our cult.
Nick Mamatas
Berkeley, California
Nick Mamatas has published over one hundred short stories in a variety of genres: horror, crime, science fiction, fantasy, pornography, transgressive, and experimental. His work has variously appeared in anthologies such as Best American Mystery Stories, Lovecraft’s Monsters, and Caledonia Dreamin’, Internet magazines such as Tor.com, ChiZine, Lamplight, and Mississippi Review’s online edition, in print in Asimov’s Science Fiction and Weird Tales, and in literary journals including subTERRAIN and Gargoyle. His novels include the noir Love is the Law, the alcoholic zombie novel The Last Weekend, and the Lovecraftian whodunit I Am Providence.
On an Odd Note
For Evelyn Licht
SEED OF DESTRUCTION
I always maintained that Mr. Ziska deserved to get on in the world, if only on account of the extraordinary richness of the lies he told. He started as an antiquary and jeweler in a small way of business, buying and selling all kinds of valueless rubbish—cameo brooches, Indian bangles and job lots of semi-precious stones. I used to let him sell me knickknacks for which I had no earthly use, just for the sake of his sales talks, for in Mr. Ziska’s stuffy little shop a paste brooch was not simply a paste brooch—it was, as he could always explain, a very special sort of paste brooch. It had been worn by Dr. Crippen’s wife; it had been found in the belly of an ostrich; it had fooled an Indian Maharajah. He nearly persuaded me once that a rusty old Spanish knife with a broken point was the fatal knife used by Charlotte Corday when she stabbed Marat in his bath. It was a left-handed knife, he explained. Unique, amazing opportunity, valuable historical relic, dirt cheap, five pounds. No? Four pounds fifteen shillings. No? Four pounds. Not at any price? Pity, pity to see a friend missing such a bargain! Then what about this valuable old meerschaum pipe, bitten through at the mouthpiece? This was the pipe Emile Zola smoked while he was writing Nana—look, crumbs of tobacco still stuck at the bottom of the bowl. A literary man should not fail to snap up this sacred relic. To anybody else five pounds; to me, thirty-five shillings. No? Then how about this candlestick? It belonged to Balzac. With this very candlestick he lighted George Sand through the streets when she went to catch her omnibus . . .
So he ran on. He always got me in the end, so that I still possess Lord Byron’s eyeglass, Beethoven’s paper weight, a rusty spearhead which belonged to Richard the Lion Hearted, and a brass ring marked with the signs of the zodiac and guaranteed to bring good luck. I have never been able to give the things away. He had what they call personal magnetism, that funny little man. As he talked he glared into your eyes and screwed his face into frightful grimaces. He wore an antiquated frock coat which, he once told me, had been the property of Richard Wagner, and never let himself be seen without a pink orchid in his frayed buttonhole. He was irresistible.
It was Mr. Ziska who invented the incredible legend of the Seed of Destruction. He made it up on the spur of the moment. There was something of the artist in Mr. Ziska. He was tired of telling the same old story about how the shoddy little rings and pins that he sold would bring good fortune to the ladies or gentlemen who wore them, and so he struck a new note. He had an inspiration. It came to him in a flash. I was there when it happened.
He had stopped trying to sell me Charles Dickens’ favorite gold toothpick, and had taken from a tray a gold ring set with a spinel seal as big as my thumbnail, clumsily engraved with a bit of an inscription in Arabic. He stood there, blinking at it. I could see that he was trying to think of something fresh, and so I said, “The Seal of King Solomon, no doubt?”
He blinked at me and smiled shyly and said, “No, this is not the Seal of Solomon. This, my friend, is known as the Seed of Destruction.”
“It brings good luck, I suppose?”
His eyes sparkled and his face assumed such an expression of delight that every wrinkle looked like a little smile, as he replied, “No, my young friend, that is just where you’re wrong. It does not bring good luck. It brings bad luck,” and he actually crowed like a contented baby.
He continued, “It brings bad luck. That’s why it’s called the Seed of Destruction. It brings very bad luck indeed. The inscription says: The destiny of man is trouble. If you’re rich, it’ll make you poor. If you’re healthy, it’ll make you ill. If you’re alive, it will be the cause of your death pretty soon. See? It was cut by a magician, an Arabian magician, a very bad man indeed, for an Arab prince in the days of Saladin. The magician put a spell on it, a shocking spell. This ring is absolutely certain to bring bad luck. Not good luck—bad luck. I personally guarantee it. A bargain, twenty-five pounds.”
“And you expect me to pay twenty-five pounds for that?” I said. “And, incidentally, it does not seem to have done you much harm. Come off it, Mr. Ziska!”
With infinite patience and something like pity, holding up his hand for silence, he said, “Calm, calm, calm! Listen and learn, young man. I have not told you how the enchantment works. This ring does no harm at all to the purchaser of it. Not to the buyer, and not to the seller. I bought it and therefore it cannot hurt me. If you buy it, it cannot hurt you. But if you give this ring away, the most horrible misfortunes will fall upon the head of the person to whom you give it. Do you understand? That is the whole idea of the thing. It is obvious, can’t you see? The Arab prince fell in love with a princess, but she loved another prince instead of him. Do you see? So the prince paid the magician a lot of money to make this ring and, pretending brotherly affection, he placed it on his rival’s finger. Three days later, the rival was eaten by a lion. But the princess, poor girl; she went to bed and died of a broken heart. And so the prince, who was sorry for what he had done, got the ring and hid it away. But one of the eunuchs of his palace stole it.”
“What happened to him?” I asked, knowing that Ziska was lying.
“Oh, it is equally unlucky to steal it. It must be bought and paid for. The eunuch was set upon by robbers and they cut his throat and stole the ring from him and sold it to a merchant in Aleppo. But they hadn’t paid for it, so they were caught and had their heads cut off. But the merchant sold the ring to a young nobleman so he was all right. He had bought and paid for it. The nobleman, who was trying to keep on the right side of his uncle who was very miserly and wicked, gave him the ring for a present. And would you believe it? That same day, the wicked old uncle fell off a high roof and broke his neck and the young nobleman inherited all his money. I could go on all day telling you what happened. Twenty-five pounds?”
“I haven’t got any rich uncles and I haven’t got an enemy worth killing. And I haven’t got twenty-five pounds.”
“Perhaps you think I’m not telling you the truth?” said Ziska.
“No, no!” I protested.
“Yes, I can see. You think I’m a liar. You’re as good as calling me a liar to my face. That’s what it is, and I treat you like a friend. I want to do you a good turn and sell you the famous Seed of Destruction for twenty-five pounds, and you as good as call me a swindler, a confidence trickster, a cheat! Very well.”
“No, no, my dear Mr. Ziska. Don’t take it like that.”
In order to mollify him I had to buy a cracked china inkpot—the one Shakespeare used when he was writing Hamlet.
Later I heard that Mr. Ziska had sold the Seed of Destruction to a passionate-looking thin lady who ground her teeth between sentences and had dark circles under her eyes, which were swollen with weeping. He asked fifty pounds for the ring and got it. It was a fair price. The ring was worth four or five, and the story, as he later elaborated it, was reasonably cheap at forty-five pounds or so.
&nb
sp; I congratulated Mr. Ziska and forgot about the affair until I was reminded of it by a sensational feature article in a Sunday paper. It was entitled “Jewels of Death,” and was composed of a little fact and a lot of fiction about famous unlucky gems. We have all read that sort of thing before. The article was illustrated with photographs of the Great Blue Diamond, the Bloody Ruby of Cawnpore, the Peruvian Emerald and, last of all, the Seed of Destruction. This strange spinel seal, it appeared, had a sinister history. Mr. Ziska’s story was there, more or less as I had heard it when he concocted it in his shop.
The writer went on to say that the Seed of Destruction had been discovered by the ill-fated Mrs. Mace in an obscure and nameless little cheap jewelry shop. Mrs. Mace, believing in the mysterious virtue of this terrible gem, had given the ring to her faithless lover, who was surprised by her jealous husband two days later and beaten to death with a sculptor’s mallet. Mrs. Mace, who appeared to be somewhat demented, had told the story in court. She had sold the Seed of Destruction to a morbidly curious City business man, who, having given her his word of honor that he would never give the ring away without receiving payment for it, gave it to his partner, with a friendly slap on the back one afternoon in Sweetings.
Less than an hour after he had put the ring on his finger, the hapless partner of the City business man was run over and instantly killed by a heavy truck in Cheapside. It is true that he was under the influence of drink when staggering off the curb, but it looked very peculiar, one had to admit. He had never been run over before.
The ring, together with his other effects, went to his heir, a worthless young man, who squandered everything, forged seven checks, was sent to prison, and died there of pneumonia.
The pawnbroker, who by this time had the Seed of Destruction as an unredeemed pledge, made much of the fact. An American bought it for a considerable sum, and added it to his collection of horrible curios. A burglar stole the collection, was stopped by a policeman, and pulled a gun. The thief shot the policeman in the shoulder, but the policeman shot him in the abdomen so that he perished miserably a few hours later, and the ring went back to the man who had bought it. One evening, however, his daughter, who had been drinking bathtub gin with some friends, took the ring out of her father’s private museum, and put it on in sheer drunken bravado. She defied the Seed of Destruction, said the writer of the article.