‘Sit down, Jones,’ he said without rising or putting out a hand. It was more of a command than an invitation, yet it was not unfriendly - I might have been one of his employees who was accustomed to stand and to whom he was showing a small favour. I pulled up a chair and silence fell. At last he said, ‘You wanted to speak to me?’
‘I thought you probably wanted to speak to me.’
‘How could that be?’ he asked. He gave a little smile and I remembered Anna-Luise’s warning. ‘I didn’t know you existed until you called the other day. By the way, what does that glove conceal? A deformity?’
‘I have lost a hand.’
‘I imagine you have not come here to consult me about it. I am not that kind of doctor.’
‘I am living with your daughter. We are thinking of getting married.’
‘That is always a difficult decision,’ he said, ‘but it’s one you must take together. It’s no affair of mine. Is your deformity a hereditary one? I suppose you will have discussed that important point? ‘
‘I lost it in the London blitz,’ I said. I added lamely, ‘We thought you should be told.’
‘Your hand hardly concerns me.’
‘I meant about our marriage.’
‘That information could have been conveyed, I would have thought, more easily in writing. It would have saved you a journey to Geneva.’ He made Geneva sound as distant socially from our home in Vevey as Moscow.
‘You don’t seem very concerned about your daughter. ‘
‘You probably know her better than I do, Jones, if you know her well enough to marry her, and you have relieved me of any responsibility I may once have had.’
‘Don’t you want to have her address? ‘
‘I imagine she lives with you?’
‘Yes.’
‘I suppose you are in the telephone book? ‘
‘Yes. Under Vevey.’
‘Then there’s no need for you to write the address down.’ He gave me another of his little dangerous smiles. ‘Well, Jones, it was polite of you to have called, even if it was not really necessary.’ It was obviously a dismissal.
‘Good-bye, Doctor Fischer,’ I said. I had nearly reached the door when he spoke again.
‘Jones,’ he said, ‘do you happen to know anything about porridge? Real porridge I mean. Not Quaker Oats. Perhaps being Welsh - you have a Welsh name’
‘Porridge is a Scottish dish,’ I said, ‘not Welsh.’
‘Ah, I have been misinformed. Thank you, Jones, that is all, I think.’
When I got home Anna-Luise greeted me with an anxious face. ‘How did you get on?’
‘I didn’t get on at all.’
‘He was a beast to you?’
‘I wouldn’t say that - he was totally uninterested in both of us.’
‘Did he smile?’
‘Yes.’
‘He didn’t invite you to a party?’
‘No.’
‘Thank God for that.’
‘Thank Doctor Fischer,’ I said, ‘or is it the same thing? ‘
5
A week or two later we got married at the Mairie with a witness whom I brought from the office. There had been no communication from Doctor Fischer, although we had sent him an announcement of the date. We felt very happy, all the more happy because we would be alone - except, of course, for the witness. We made love half an hour before we went to the Mairie. ‘No cake,’ Anna-Luise said, ‘no bridesmaids, no priest, no family - it’s perfect. This way it’s solemn - one feels really married. The other way is like a party.’
‘One of Doctor Fischer’s parties?’
‘Almost as bad.’
There was someone standing at the back of the room in the Mairie whom I didn’t know. I had looked nervously over my shoulder, because I half expected the arrival of Doctor Fischer, and saw a very tall lean man with hollow cheeks and a twitch in his left eyelid which made think for a moment that he was winking at me, but, as he gave me a blank glare when I winked back, I assumed he was an official, attached to the mayor. Two chairs had been placed for us in front of the table, and the witness, called Monsieur Excoffier, hovered nervously behind us. Anna-Luise whispered something I didn’t catch.
‘What did you say?’
‘He’s one of the Toads.’
‘Monsieur Excoffier!’ I exclaimed.
‘No, no, the man at the back.’ Then the ceremony began, and I felt nervous all through the affair, because of the man behind us. I remembered the place in the Anglican service where the clergyman asks if there is anyone who knows just cause or impediment why these two persons should not be joined in Holy Matrimony you are to declare it, and I couldn’t help wondering whether a Toad mightn’t have been sent for that very purpose by Doctor Fischer. However, the question was never asked, nothing happened, everything went smoothly, and the mayor - I suppose it was the mayor - shook our hands and wished us happiness and then disappeared quickly through a door behind the table. ‘Now for a drink,’ I said to Monsieur Excoffier - it was the least we could do in return for his mute services - ‘a bottle of champagne at the Trois Couronnes.’
But the thin man still stood there winking at us from the back of the room..’ Is there another way out?’ I asked the clerk of the court - if that is what he was - and I indicated the door behind the table, but no, he said no. It was quite impossible for us to go that way - that wasn’t for the public, so there was nothing we could do but face the Toad. When we reached the door the stranger stopped me. ‘Monsieur Jones, my name is Monsieur Belmont. I have brought something for you from Doctor Fischer.’ He held out an envelope.
‘Don’t take it,’ Anna-Luise said. We both in our ignorance thought it might be a writ.
‘Madame Jones, he has sent his best wishes for your happiness. ‘
‘You are a tax adviser, aren’t you?’ she said. ‘What are his best wishes worth? Do I have to declare them to the fisc?’
I had opened the envelope. There was only a printed card inside. ‘Doctor Fischer requests the pleasure of the company of…’ (he had filled in the name Jones without so much as a Mister) ‘at a reunion of his friends and an informal dinner on…’ (he had written in ‘10 November ‘) ‘at 8.30 p.m. RSVP.’
‘It’s an invitation?’ Anna-Luise asked. ‘Yes.’
‘You mustn’t go.’
‘He will be very disappointed,’ Monsieur Belmont said. ‘He particularly hopes that Monsieur Jones will come and join us all. Madame Montgomery will be there and of course Monsieur Kips and we hope that the Divisionnaire… ‘
‘A gathering of the Toads,’ Anna-Luise said.
‘Toads? Toads? I do not know the word. Please, he wishes very much to introduce your husband to all his friends. ‘
‘But I see from the card that my wife is not invited. ‘
‘None of our wives are invited. No ladies. It has become a rule for our little gatherings. I do not know why. There was once… but Madame Montgomery is the only exception now. You might say that in herself she is the representative of her sex.’ He added a piece of unfortunate slang, ‘She’s a good sort.’
‘I will send a reply this evening,’ I said.
‘You will miss a great deal, I assure you, if you do not come. Doctor Fischer’s parties are always very entertaining. He has a great sense of humour, and he is so generous. We have much fun.’
We drank our bottle of champagne with Monsieur Excoffier at the Trois Couronnes and then we went home. The champagne was excellent, but the sparkle had gone out of the day. Doctor Fischer had introduced a conflict between us, for I began to argue that after all I had nothing really against Doctor Fischer. He could easily have opposed our marriage or at least expressed disapproval. By sending me an invitation to one of his parties he had in a sense given me a wedding present which it would be churlish to refuse.