The Acrobats

by Mordecai Richler

  “They must be wonderful trees.”

  “Sometimes when there is a storm at sea the women lay flowers underneath the trees. But the priests are furious when they find out. So the women must go out at night, and in secret.” Toni frowned. “You got up twice last night to smoke.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “So I could watch you sleep.”

  “No, please, darling. Why?”

  “I was thinking. Sometimes I get crazy ideas.”

  He pulled himself upwards for an instant, kissing her chin.

  “What were you thinking about last night?”

  Puffs of smoke curled upwards to the ceiling.

  “Not now.”

  “André … will you want me to have children?”

  “Yes. But not for a long time.”

  “Why? Why don’t we have a child now?”

  “You’re not pregnant, are you?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “Toni …?”

  “No, of course not. Don’t be silly!”

  He tried to blow a smoke ring. It was not very good.

  “This is lovely, Toni. It makes everything else seem so foolish. It isn’t quite fair.”

  “Was she pretty, André?”

  “Who?”

  “Ida.”

  “Ida?”

  “You often call out her name in your sleep.”

  He sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed.

  “She was very pretty. She was foolish and happy and pretty. Her eyes were sad and without end. Even when she laughed her eyes were sad.”

  “How did you meet her?”

  “At a party. Let’s not talk about it, Toni.”

  “No, I want to know.”

  “Let’s go for a walk.”

  “You were at the university then, weren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me about the university.”

  “The university?” He laughed unconvincingly. His face was drawn. “It was just a university. The girls read Freud and the boys pretended to be revolutionaries. Oh, hell, I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “You were very unhappy at the university.”

  “Yes. I was snubbed by the campus intellectuals because my name was Bennett and that implied a hell of a lot. I rented a luxurious apartment near the university. I gave fabulous entertainments in my rooms. Everyone used to make wisecracks about me. Bennett of the New Aristocracy. Comrade Moneybags Bennett. The football-cocktail set ignored me because I refused a fraternity key. Also, my father’s huge industrial empire outdid the collective financial achievement of all their families combined. I tried to get some attention by holding an exhibition in the Student’s Union. I was shut down the first afternoon because of the ‘obscene’ content of my work. Whatever company I had I paid for by diving for the bill wherever I went. That’s all. It isn’t very interesting.”

  “And Ida, did she ignore you?”

  He lay back on the bed.

  The ceiling was cracked in places. The plaster was dirty.

  “When I met her she was just in the process of escaping from a very restricted home. Ida was president of a silly group called the Skeptics Club, and she used to write neurotic letters to the college paper saying that Hitler hadn’t killed off the Jews fast enough, or that the only way to settle population problems was to drop atom bombs on China and India every spring. She was truly wonderful, but most of the students were afraid of her. When the communists invited a negro unionist to speak at one of their student meetings Ida was appointed to introduce him. She showed up in black-face and was promptly thrown out. What did it all matter? We were students. We could go to the movies or sit in a bar all afternoon.

  “I met her and I fell in love with her. It was at one of my parties. She got very drunk and she insisted that I do a pornographic painting of her. Christ, I could have finished the damn thing in a week but I was afraid that she would leave me! Secretly I was pleased that she was a Jewess and notorious. I would marry her and that would show everyone. My family, the intellectuals, the leftist clubs, the fraternities. It would be a sensation!”

  He got out of bed and walked over to the sink. He turned on the cold water tap and let it run. He had the odd sensation of everything – yet nothing in particular – in his body tingling. He wanted to shout or rip himself apart.

  “When did you find out that she was pregnant?”

  “Chaim tell you?”

  “No, not exactly.”

  “Did he tell you how much my father paid for it? He did, you know. Great guy, my pop. He even offered to pay my fare to Europe. Son, he said, in the next war I’ll get you a commission. I hope you’ll be lucky enough to get killed.”

  He poured himself a glass of water, took a sip, then emptied the glass in the sink.

  “Come back into bed darling. Lie down beside me. Tell me the rest.”

  He lay back on the bed again and stared at the cracks in the ceiling. She kissed him on the chest. She ran her hand through his hair.

  “When she told me I offered to marry her on the spot. I never expected her to be anything but delighted. After all, even if I was such a fine socialist I was still André Bennett of the Canadian Bennetts. And who was she? Just a frivolous little Jewess born of Polish immigrant parents. But the prospects of my proposal seemed to alter her completely. I begged, I pleaded. No, she said. It’s impossible. Her parents wouldn’t hear of it! They would die of grief! They were old, and she was all they had. She said she knew of a doctor and would I lend her the money. I gave her a blank cheque. She told her parents she was going to the Laurentians with friends. They wouldn’t suspect anything. She wouldn’t allow me to come with her or even investigate the doctor. All I had to offer her was money! She said she would write. She would see me within a week. I let her go! I was even relieved, proud. I was twenty years old and already a reckless lover! Two weeks passed and I heard nothing. I decided to visit her family.”

  He lit a cigarette off an old butt. Toni held her fingers to his lips. She believed, this way, she could absorb some of his anguish. She listened to the sound of his voice more than to the meaning of his words. For the melancholy pitch of his voice – the names pronounced with such hesitation and the words that came so hard and cruel from his lips – told her far more than he was admitting as the truth.

  “It was Friday night and I was drunk. They lived in a foul-smelling St. Dominic Street flat in the heart of the Montreal ghetto. I’ll never forget the look in the old woman’s eyes when she saw me come in. She knew who I was without asking. She showed me into the parlour. Old Mr. Blumberg was seated at the supper table reading from a prayer book by candlelight. He was old and wizened, he rocked to and fro as he read. He had long sidecurls which made him look very sorrowful and he wore a square skullcap. He scrutinised me for an instant without saying anything. Suddenly he began to weep. It wasn’t the sound of a man crying or even of an animal. He looked up at me as if he was afraid that I might whip him. Why did you have to do it? he said. Why can’t you leave us alone? Haven’t you had enough amusement with us? Will you always murder us for your enjoyment? Will you rape my old wife now? Isn’t it enough that you have murdered our Ida? I was terrified! I picked him up bodily from the chair and began to shake him. She isn’t dead! She isn’t dead, I said. I love her. Why don’t you let me marry her? Behind me his wife was shrieking for the neighbours. She is dead, he said. She died with your filth inside her. Now will you go? Now will you leave us? Murderer! I couldn’t help it. I just couldn’t help it! I hit him. You don’t know how an old man can look at you, how … She wouldn’t even let me help him up. The neighbours rushed in. And together, they threw me out.

  “All I wanted was for her death to have some dignity. Was it too much to ask? Why did they all have to take it up and make her a cause?

  “I sold all my belongings and I came to Europe. Wasn’t that noble of me? Isn’t that just great?”

  He got up. He paced
about the floor as if he did not know where to throw his naked body, as if he was seeking a place where he could break it, end it, and where it might remain hidden so others could not come and look at his shame.

  He tried to open the window but the bolt was jammed. He smashed his fist down on it again and again but nothing gave way. Toni rushed up from behind and embraced him, pressing her cheek against his hot and naked back. He could feel that behind him, she was also naked. Then he saw him, down there below the window, Kraus looking up at him.

  “André! What is it?”

  He smashed his fist through the window. Glass tumbled to the street, and in an instant they heard the crash.

  She grabbed his bloody fist and held it to her lips.

  “André,” she began, her voice full of endearment.

  His eyes, now that he looked at her, were oddly calm.

  III

  Coming slowly up towards him on the Calle de Ruzafa amid the shrinking shadows of noon a parade of men toppled over each other gleefully. Hats awry and shirt tails hanging, thumping away merry and raucous on homemade drums, they snaked their tipsy way up the street holding high placards booming the arrival of the bullfighters to Valencia. Gangs of children followed after them, wagging their tongues at the drummers, yelling and cheering.

  … and he would with his money and power, and he would organise an army of golden knights and charge up from the uerta del Sol plucking fat Franco from his throne, installing by popular demand perhaps even himself the president of a democratic Spain, not anarchist or communist Spain (didn’t they detest him simply because he was a gentleman?), but a free caballero’s Spain, where the lovely women of Castile might enchant the streets of evening unmolested, where the knights in gold such as himself might woo them among the blossoming almond trees, underneath the palms of spring, on the beds of the vineyards of hot La Mancha.…

  And now shadows wilting and sun hot and watchful, desperately drunk paraders, drumsticks booming on canvas as taut and hollow as their stomachs, tumbled past Juanito.

  … and one day soon I shall climb into my golden armour and mount my white charger and shout down to the soldiers even now waiting in the square – Y ahora a luchar!

  In the very spring of time I stand on the balcony of the Palacio Nacional, roses and daffodils and sunflowers fall from the sky, I am surrounded by ministers and mistresses, below yelling mobs swarm further than the eye can see, I spread out my golden arms, there is deep silence.…

  “I refuse the crown. Viva la República?”

  Mad, wild cheers.

  “Viva el nuevo Cid! Viva Juanito!”

  “Arriba Don Juanito! Arriba el Libertador!”

  Still unseeing, dreaming drugging exploits, he found himself an unoccupied table on the terrace of Café Ruzafa. Drowsy tourists idled in the shade soaking themselves in lemonade and iced cognacs. The women fanning themselves with the morning paper; the men throwing up an exhaust of cigar smoke and ogling the prostitutes and actresses who were seated cool and slim at other tables.

  Sweating, the tourists felt the gas and acids contained in their bellies. And in their mouths were yellow teeth and stuck bits of meat; an awareness of small deaths, many of them, rotting their bodies bit by bit.

  “Well, if it isn’t the con man from Madrid?”

  Juanito didn’t immediately recognise him – the weak, dimpled face, the raging drunken eyes.

  “Invite me to sit down and I’ll tell you how to make Jessie.”

  Juanito grimaced. Pop went his afternoon daydream; again there was only reality. André was right. Pimp, thief.

  “Please sit down, Señor …”

  “Derek.”

  “Señor Derek.”

  Derek sat down and ordered two sweetened gins. He grinned roguishly. But the heat was in him as well as the others, and he thought: There are people younger than I am. “Are you surprised that I saw you kiss my sister?” he asked.

  A man collapsed on the kerb. He sat down, leaning against a lamp post. His eyes were dead, and he had a face like a monkey. He pulled out his handkerchief and, mopping his chest, looked up sadly at Juanito. “It is so hot,” he said. Juanito ignored him. “I do not know what to do,” the man said.

  The street was not as crowded as it had been the previous day. It seemed smaller, grotesque and shrivelled. The people passed by morosely. There were the civil guards, all black and all leather, strolling past; the middle-aged couples searching for tables and walking dreadfully slow; there were the wild youths dancing past; and there were the parading workers full of angry memories, enjoying what for them was a fantastic freedom – the right to march down a street after a band.

  “It is so hot,” the man on the kerb said. “It is mad.”

  Juanito scowled. He turned to Derek. “I beg your pardon?” he said.

  “Oh, not at all, amigo. Do you think I was paying any attention to that slut I was dancing with? My, my. I was watching you in the booth, amigo. And guess what else I saw, Señor Don Juan. Do you mind if I call you Don Juan?”

  Sweat streamed down Juanito’s face.

  “What did you see?”

  “Guess, Don Juan.”

  “What kind of nonsense is this?”

  “Would you like a hint?”

  The monkeyish man got up and staggered over to their table. He leaned towards Derek, swaying, and Derek could feel his sour breath on him. The man’s hands, like withered twigs, were flat on the table. “I was in the war,” he said.

  “Vamos, hombre?” Juanito said. He turned to Derek. “He is drunk.”

  The man seized Derek by the shoulders. “My son is in Toulouse. He sells lottery tickets.”

  “Waiter!”

  The waiter hurried over and without expression he shoved the man on to the street. The man, tears rolling down his cheeks and mingling with his sweat, doubled over in a paroxysm of laughter. Suddenly, he got down on all fours. “Look,” he cried between laughter. “Woof! Woof!” He scampered over to a group of standing men. Settling on one of them, he began to lick his shoes. “Woof! Grrr!” The man pulled his foot away. But one of the others in the group, a man with rimless glasses, tossed him a coin. “Grr! Woof!” The crowd on the terrace laughed nervously. Several of the prostitutes ordered the men seated with them to toss him coins. Quickly, he was greeted with a shower of coins. Panting, woofing, he gathered them up hastily. Suddenly, he stood up. He spit in Derek’s direction; then ran off.

  “It begins with M,” Derek said.

  “Please, Mr. Derek, I beg of you …”

  “Money, Don Juan.” Derek giggled, and took a sip of his gin. “Two hundred dollars’ worth. Money! M-O-N-E-Y.”

  “Please, not so loud.”

  “Don’t worry. I wish you had taken the bastard for the whole roll.”

  “But I gave the money to André to return to you.”

  “Did you, D.J.? Well he kept the money for himself and left you with nothing.”

  “He wouldn’t do that. We are great friends. I will speak to him.”

  “Will you have another gin?”

  “No. I don’t think so.”

  “I’m inviting you to another gin, D.J.”

  “Yes. I am sorry. Very good.… Thank you.”

  “Don’t fret, D.J. I’m the only one who knows about it.”

  Drearily the waiter set two more gins down on the table. A fly had settled on his cheek. He did nothing about it.

  Juanito smiled suavely. “I am a fatalist,” he said.

  And trying to deny the adoration he felt for Juanito’s dark body, Derek felt his fingers tingle with an anxiety to touch the other man’s lips. Vividly he recalled the scene and the agony which he transported forever with him like a cross – the gorgeous boy from Memphis languishing on the army cot next to him, himself gone weeks without sleep and bursting from denial, leaning over, tenderly, gently, kissing those young lips. Then the betrayal, the beating rendered by the boy that was the very stuff of their love, the shame and humiliation. “W
ell, D.J., tell me something about yourself,” Derek said. “Is fatalism your philosophy?”

  Juanito laughed. “When I die, all I want to leave behind me are my debts.”

  Derek giggled. He’s going to be coy, he thought. All the time he is going to pretend he doesn’t understand what was going on.

  “I have seen many movies about your country.”

  “Movies! If any of those Hollywood beautifuls ever saw a Moor close up he would run so fast you couldn’t catch him in this world. All of them are paederasts. Why do you think they have to adopt babies after they get married? Why do you think their women divorce them after two months.”

  “Still,” Juanito said uneasily, “I would like to visit America one day.”

  “So would every other petty-bourgeois. The democracy of the philistines is reaching its logical conclusion. A kind of sugar-coated fascism doled out by mediocrity. But the tyranny of the proletariat will exceed the boorishness of the petty-bourgeois. The hunger is older, there are more accounts to be settled. I’ll tell you what, D.J. Enjoy yourself madly, because pretty soon the hillbillies are going to storm the Winter Palace. Afterwards, darkness.”

  “Were you in the war?”

  “Yes. I was in the war from the beginning.”

  The old woman, who on other days used to hawk rosaries and crucifixes in the Puerta del Sol, suddenly sold hammer-and-sickle badges and red-and-black anarchist caps. Madrid shall be the Tomb of Fascism, the banners had said. One afternoon, an afternoon when the air-raids were still a joke, he had held hands with Eric in the cinema, watching Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in Gay Divorcee. That night they had returned to the front by street car. At six a.m. Eric’s leg had been shot off, and Derek had watched as he scrambled after it and threw it away.