and the nearest that even I could get to Msloz sounded like Sludge, a name which may have caused unconscious purchaser-resistance. I would drive from one provincial city to another dragging my trailer, and come to rest in a well-to-do suburb of an industrial city. I soon realized that scientists and women were of little use to me: scientists know too much, and few housewives love to gamble without the sight of ready cash that Bingo provides. I needed gamblers, for the point of my exhibition was really this:
'Here on one side of the gallery you can see the pictures which have fetched the highest prices in the last fen years. Would you have guessed that these
"Cyclists" by Lйger, this "Station-master " by Rousseau were worth a fortune? Here, on the other, you have a chance to spot their successors and win a fortune too. If you lose, at least you have something on your walls to talk about to your neighbours, you gain the reputation of being an advanced art-patron, and it won't cost you more than -' My price varied from twenty to fifty pounds according to the neighbourhood and the customer; I even once sold a two-headed woman a long way after Picasso for a hundred. As my young man became more skilful at his job he would turn me out an assorted half-dozen paintings in a morning and I paid him two pounds ten for each. I was robbing nobody; with fifteen pounds for a morning's work he was well satisfied; I was even helping young promise, and I am sure that many a dinner party in the provinces went better because of some outrageous challenge to good taste upon the walls. I once sold an imitation Pollock to a man who had Walt Disney dwarfs planted in his garden, around the sun-dial and on either side the crazy paving. Did I harm him? He could afford the money. He had an air of complete invulnerability, though God knows for what aberration in his sexual or business life Dopey and the other dwarfs may have compensated.
It was soon after my success with Dopey's owner that I received my mother's appeal - if you could call it an appeal. It came in the shape of a picture-postcard which showed the ruined citadel of the Emperor Christophe at Cap Haпtien. She wrote on the back of it her name, which was new to me, her address and two sentences, 'Feel a bit of a ruin myself. Nice to see you if you come this way.' In brackets after 'Maman' - not recognizing her hand I read it first not unsuitably as 'Manon' - she added 'Comtesse de LascotVilliers.' It had taken many months to find me. I hadn't seen my mother since one occasion in Paris in 1934, and I had not heard from her during the war. I daresay I would not have answered her invitation but for two things - it was the nearest she had ever approached to a maternal appeal, and it was really time for me to finish with the travelling art-gallery, for a Sunday paper was trying to find out the source of my paintings. I had more than a thousand pounds in the bank. I sold the caravan, the stock and the reproductions to a man who never read the People for five hundred pounds, and I flew out to Kingston, where I looked around unsuccessfully for business opportunities before taking another plane to Port-au-Prince.
3
Port-au-Prince was a very different place a few years ago. It was, I suppose, just as corrupt; it was even dirtier; it contained as many beggars, but at least the beggars had some hope, for the tourists were there. Now when a man says to you, 'I am starving,' you believe him. I wondered what my mother was doing at the Hotel Trianon, whether she was existing there on a pension from the count, if there had ever been a count, or whether perhaps she was working as a housekeeper. She had been employed when I saw her last in 1934 as a vendeuse in one of the minor couturiers. It was regarded in that pre-war period as a rather smart thing to employ an Englishwoman, so she had called herself Maggie Brown (perhaps her married name really was Brown).
For the sake of prudence I took my bags to the El Rancho, a luxurious Americanized hotel. I wanted to be comfortable so long as my money lasted, and nobody at the airport could tell me anything about the Trianon. As I drove up between the palm trees it looked bedraggled enough: the bougainvillaea needed cutting back and there was more grass than gravel on the drive. A few people were drinking on the balcony, among them Petit Pierre, though I was to learn soon enough that he paid for his drinks only with his pen. A young well-dressed negro met me on the steps and asked me whether I needed a room. I said I had come to see 'Madame la Comtesse' - I couldn't keep the double-barrelled name in mind and I had left the postcard in my hotel room.
'I am afraid she is sick. Is she expecting you?'
A very young American couple in bath-robes came up from the pool. The man had his arm around the girl's shoulder. 'Hi, Marcel,' he said, 'a couple of your specials.'
'Joseph,' the negro called. 'Two rum punches for Mr Nelson.' He turned back to me with his inquiry.
'Tell her,' I said, 'that Mr Brown is here.'
'Mr
Brown?'
'Yes.'
'I will see if she is awake.' He hesitated. He said, 'You have come from England?'
'Yes.'
Joseph came out of the bar carrying the rum punches. He had no limp in those days.
'Mr Brown from England?' Marcel asked again.
'Yes, Mr Brown from England.' He went upstairs reluctantly. The strangers on the balcony were watching me with curiosity, except for the young couple - they exchanged cherries intensely with their lips. The sun was about to set behind the great hump of Kenscoff.
Petit Pierre asked, 'You have come from England?'
'Yes.'
'From
London?'
'Yes.'
'London was very cold?'
It was like an interrogation by the secret police, but in those days there were no secret police.
'It was raining when I left.'
'How do you like it here, Mr Brown?'
'I have only been here two hours.' The next day I had the explanation of his interest: there was a paragraph about me in the social column of the local paper.
'You're coming on fine with your backstroke,' the young man said to the girl.
'Oh, Chick, do you really mean it?'
'I mean it, honey.'
A negro came half-way up the steps and held out two hideous pieces of wood-carving. Nobody paid him any attention and he stood there, holding them out saying nothing. I never even noticed when he went away.
'Joseph, what's for dinner?' the girl called.
A man walked round the balcony carrying a guitar. He sat down at a table near the couple and began to play. Nobody paid him any attention either. I began to feel a little awkward. I had expected a warmer welcome in my mother's home.
A tall elderly negro with a Roman face blackened by the soot of cities and with hair dusted by stone came down the stairs, followed by Marcel. He said,'Mr Brown?'
'Yes.'
'I am Doctor Magiot. Will you come into the bar for a moment?'
We went into the bar. Joseph was mixing some more rum punches for Petit Pierre and his party. A cook wearing a high white hat pushed his head through the door and retreated again when he saw Doctor Magiot. A very pretty half-caste maid stopped talking to Joseph and went out on to the balcony carrying linen cloths to cover the tables.
Doctor Magiot said, 'You are the son of Madame la Comtesse?'
'Yes.' It seemed to me that I had done nothing but answer questions since I arrived.
'Of course your mother is anxious to see you, but I wanted first to tell you certain facts. Excitement is dangerous for her. Please when you see her be very gentle. Undemonstrative.