The Filipino girl laughed, or pretended to. The Russian girl, wide-eyed, was trying to understand. Clappique continued to gesticulate, his forefinger a^rnated, rigid with authority, calling for attention to his confidences. But Kyo scarcely listened to him; the heat was making him sleepy and, with it, an anxiety which had been prowling in the back of his mind tonight as he walked was now slowly rising in the form of a confused weariness: that record, his voice which he had not recognized a while ago, at Hemmelrich’s. He thought of it with the same complex uneasiness that he had felt when, as a child, he was sho-wn his tonsils which the surgeon had just removed. But it was impossible for him to pursue his own thoughts.
“… in short, barked the Baron, winking his free eyelid and turning toward the Russian girl, “he had a castle in Northern Hungary/’
“You’re Hungarian?
“Not at all. I’m French. (For that matter, my dear girl, I don’t give a good God damn!) But my mother was Hungarian.
“So, as I was saying, my grandfather lived in a castle over there, with vast halls-ver-ry vast-dead ancestors below; pine-trees all around; many p-pine-trees. A widower. He lived alone with a gi-gan-tic bugle hanging over the fireplace. A circus passes through. With a female equestrian performer. Pretty.
Magisterially:
“I say: pretty.
Winking again:
“He carries her away-not difficult. Takes her into one of the great rooms….”
Commanding attention, his hand raised:
“Not a word!. She lives there. Stays on. Gets bored. You would, too, little girl”-he caressed the Filipino girl-“but patience. He didn’t have such a good ^me, either, for that matter: he spent half the afternoon having his finger-nails and toe-nails polished by his barber (he still had a barber attached to the castle), while his secretary, the son of a filthy serf, read to him- reread-aloud, the history of the family. Charming occupation, my dear girl, a perfect life! Besides, he was usually drunk- She. ”
“She fell in love with the secretary? asked the Russian girl.
“Magnificent, little girl, ma-gni-fi-cent! My dear friend, you are magnificent. R-re-mar-ka-ble perspicacity!’
He kissed her hand.
“But she slept with the pedicure, not being endowed with your esteem for things of the spirit. Noticed then that grandfather beat her. Not a word, useless: they’re off.
“Absolutely furious, he paces his vast halls (stiU with the ancestors below), declares himself ridiculed by the two jokers who were splitting their sides over the affair, in an inn a la Gogol in the county seat, with a broken water-jug and carriages in the courtyard. He pulls down the gi-gan-tic bugle, can’t manage to blow into it and sends his overseer forth to call his peasants to arms. (He stiU had rights, in those days.) He arms them: five fowling-pieces, two pistols. But, my dear girl, there were too many of them!
“Then, they strip the castle: and now, our peasants are on the march-imagine, i-ma-gi-ne, I tell you! — armed with foils, arquebuses, wheel-lock guns, and God knows what else; rapiers and swords, grandfather in the lead, towards the county seat: vengeance pursuing crime. They are announced. Comes the game-keeper, with the armed police. Ma-gni-fi-cent scene!’
“And then?
“Nothing. They took away their arms. Grandfather got into town just the same, but the guilty parties had left the Gogol-inn post-haste in one of the dusty carriages. He substituted a peasant girl for the female equestrian, got another pedicure, and got drunk with the secretary. From time to time he would work on one of his 1-little testaments….”
“To whom did he leave the money?
“A matter of no moment, my dear girl. But, when he died, his eye popping wide open:
“.. they found out everything, everything he’d been hatching all that time, while he was having his feet scratched and chronicles read to him, gloriously drunk! They obeyed him: he was buried under the chapel, in an immense vault, upright on his horse that had been killed, like Attila….”
The din of the jazz ceased. Clappique continued, much less of a Punchinello, as if his clownishness had been softened by the silence:
“When Attila died, he was propped up on his rearing horse, above the Danube; the setting sun made such a shadow across the plain that the horsemen beat it like dust, terrified. …”
He sat musing, seized by his dreams, the alcohol and the sudden calm. Kyo knew what proposals he was to make. But he was only slightly acquainted with him, though his father knew him well; and Clappique was even less familiar in his present role. Kyo was listening to him impatiently, but not without curiosity (as soon as there was a free table in front of the Baron he would move over to it and signal him to go out: he didn’t want to accost him, nor to call him ostensibly). It was the Russian girl who was talking now, in a slow, rasping voice-drunk with insomnia perhaps:
“My great-grandfather also had fine lands….We left because of the Communists, you see. So that we wouldn’t have to live cooped up with everybody else, So that we would be respected; here there are two of us to a table, four to a room! Four to a room…. And we have to pay rent! … Respected…. If only alcohol didn’t make me sick! …
Clappique looked at her glass: she had scarcely drunk. The Filipino girl, on the other hand. Perfectly placid-she was basking like a cat in the heat of semiintoxication. Useless to keep track. He turned to the Russian girclass="underline"
“You have no money?
She shrugged her shoulders. He called the waiter, paid with a hundred dollar bill. When the change was brought, he took ten dollars, gave the rest to the woman. She looked at it with a weary precision.
“Good.
She was getting up.
“No, he said.
He had the compassionate look of a friendly dog.
“No. Tonight it would bore you.
He was holding out his hand. She looked at him again:
“Thanks.
She hesitated:
“Just the same …If it would give you any pleasure …
“It will give me more pleasure some day when I have no money….
Punchinello reappeared:
“That’ll be before long. ”
He drew both her hands together, kissed them several ^mes.
Kyo, who had already paid, joined him in the empty entrance-halclass="underline"
“Let’s go out together, shall we?
Clappique looked at him, recognized him:
“You here? ’T’s unb’lievable! Why …
This bleating was broken off by the raising of his forefinger:
“You’re going to the devil, young man!
“That's all right.
They were already on their way out. Although the rain had ceased, water was as much in evidence as air. They took a few steps on the garden sand.
“There is a steamer in port/’ said Kyo, “with a load of firearms.
Clappique had stopped. Kyo, having taken an additional step, had to turn round: the Baron’s face was scarcely visible; the large illuminated cat, the sign-board of the Black Cat, surrounded him like a halo:
“The Shtmtung,” he said.
The darkness and his position-against the light-allowed him to express nothing; and he added nothing.
“There's a proposition/’ Kyo went on, “at thirty dollars per gun, from the government. There’s no answer yet. I have a buyer at thirty-five dollars, plus a three- dollar commission. Immediate delivery, in the port. Wherever the captain wishes, but in the port. He can weigh anchor immediately. We’ll take delivery tonight, with the money. His representative has agreed: here’s the contract.
He handed him the paper, lighted his cigarette-lighter, protecting it with his hand.
“He wants to get ahead of the other buyer/’ thought Clappique while inspecting the contract. unmounted pieces. “and make five dollars per firearm. That’s obvious. Well, what do I care: there is three dollars in it for me.”