“I have to denounce the vacillation of the Government in the strongest terms,” he said. “They fiddle while Ishmaelia burns. A spark is set to the corner-stone of civilization which will shake its roots like a chilling breath. That’s what I’ve got to say and all I know is that Boot is safe and well and that the weather is improving…”
*
Kätchen and William dropped into the Liberty for an apéritif.
It was the first time he had been there since his change of residence.
“Do either of you happen to know a gentleman by the name of Boot?” asked Mrs. Jackson.
“Yes, it’s me.”
“Well there’s some cables for you somewhere.”
They were found and delivered. William opened them one by one. They all dealt with the same topic.
BADLY LEFT ALL PAPERS ALL STORIES.
IMPERATIVE RECEIVE FULL STORY TONIGHT SIX YOUR TIME WHY NO NEWS ARE YOU ILL FLASH REPLY.
YOUR CABLES UNARRIVED FEAR SUBVERSIVE INTERFERENCE SERVICE ACKNOWLEDGE RECEIPT OURS IMMEDIATELY.
There were a dozen of them in all; the earliest of the series were modestly signed salter; as the tone strengthened his name gave place to MONTGOMERY MOWBRAY GENERAL EDITOR BEAST, then to ELSENGRATZ MANAGING DIRECTOR MEGALOPOLITAN NEWSPAPERS. The last, which had arrived that morning, read: CONFIDENTIAL AND URGENT STOP LORD COPPER HIMSELF GRAVELY DISSATISFIED STOP LORD COPPER PERSONALLY REQUIRES VICTORIES STOP ON RECEIPT OF THIS CABLE VICTORY STOP CONTINUE CABLING VICTORIES UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE STOP LORD COPPERS CONFIDENTIAL SECRETARY.
“What are they all about?” asked Kätchen.
“They don’t seem very pleased with me in London. They seem to want more news.”
“How silly. Are you upset?”
“No… Well, yes, a little.”
“Poor William. I will get you some news. Listen, I have a plan. I have lived in this town for two months. I have many friends. That is to say I had them before my husband went away. They will be my friends again now that they know you are helping me. It will be a good thing for both of us. Listen; all the journalists who were here had men in the town they paid to give them news. Mr. Jakes the American pays Paleologue fifty dollars a week. You like me more than Mr. Jakes likes Paleologue?”
“Much more.”
“Twice as much?”
“Yes.”
“Then you will pay me a hundred dollars a week and Frau Dressler will not be angry with me anymore, so it will be a good thing for all of us. Will you think it very greedy if I ask for a hundred dollars now; you know how impolite Frau Dressler is—well, perhaps two hundred because I shall work for you more than one week.”
“Very well,” said William.
“Look, I brought your check book for you from your room in case you might need it. What a good secretary I should be.”
“Do you really think you can get some news.”
“Why, yes, of course. For instance I am very friendly with an Austrian man—it is his wife who made me this dress—and his sister is governess to the President’s children so they know everything that goes on. I will visit them tomorrow… only,” she added doubtfully, “I don’t think it would be polite to go to her house and not buy anything. You are paid expenses by your paper?”
“Yes.”
“For everything? The canoe and for this vermouth and all the things in your room?”
“Yes.”
“Then I will be paid expenses too… the Austrian has some nightgowns she made for a lady at the French Legation only the lady’s husband did not like them, so they are very cheap. There are four of them in crêpe-de-chine. She would sell them for sixty American dollars. Shall I get them?”
“You don’t think she would give you news if you did not?”
“It would be impolite to ask.”
“Very well.”
“And the man who cut my hair—he shaves the Minister of the Interior. He would know a great deal. Only I cannot have my hair washed again so soon. Shall I buy some scent from him? And I should like a rug for my room; the floor is cold and has splinters; the Russian who sells fur is the lover of one of the Miss Jacksons. Oh, William, what fun we shall have working together.”
“But, Kätchen, you know, this isn’t my money. You know that if I was rich, I should give you everything you wanted, but I can’t go spending the paper’s money…”
“Silly William, it is because it is the paper’s money that I can take it. You know I could not take yours. My husband would not let me take money from a man, but from a newspaper… I think that Mr. Gentakian knows a great deal of news too—you know his shop opposite the Ping Pong?… Oh, William, I feel so happy tonight. Let us not go back to dine at the Pension where Frau Dressler disapproves. Let us dine again at the Ping Pong. We can buy some tinned caviar at Benakis and Popotakis will make us some toast…”
After dinner Kätchen became grave. “I was so happy just now,” she said. “But now I am thinking, what is to become of me? A few weeks and you will go away. I have waited so long for my husband; perhaps he will not come.”
“Do you think you could bear to live in England?”
“I have lived in England. That is where I learned to speak English. It was when I was sixteen, after my father went to South America; I worked in a dance hall.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. It was by the sea. I met my husband there; he was so pleased to find someone who would talk German with him. How he talked… Now you have made me think of him and I am ashamed to be drinking champagne when perhaps he is in trouble.”
“Kätchen, how long must you wait for him?”
“I don’t know.” She unwrapped the speckled foil from the bottle of champagne. “He is not a good husband to me,” she admitted, “to go away for so long.” She held the foil to her face and carefully modeled it round her nose.
“Dear Kätchen, will you marry me?”
She held the false nose up to William’s.
“Too long,” she said.
“Too long to wait?”
“Your nose is too long.”
“Damn,” said William.
“Now you are upset.”
“Won’t you ever be serious?”
“Oh I have been serious too much, too often.” Then she added hopefully, “I might go with you now, and then when he comes back I will go with him. Will that do?”
“I want you to come to England with me. How long must I wait?”
“Do not spoil the evening with questions. We will play ping-pong.”
That night when they reached the Pension Dressler they walked through the yard arm in arm; the live-stock were asleep and overhead the sky was clear and brilliant with stars.
“How long must I wait? How long?”
“Not long. Soon. When you like,” said Kätchen and ran to her loft.
The three-legged dog awoke and all over the town, in yards and refuse heaps, the pariahs took up his cries of protest.
Four
Next morning William awoke in a new world.
As he stood on the verandah calling for his boy, he slowly became aware of the transformation which had taken place overnight. The rains were over. The boards were warm under his feet; below the steps the dank weeds of Frau Dressler’s garden had suddenly burst into crimson flower; a tropic sun blazed in the sky, low at present, but with promise of a fiery noon, while beyond the tin roofs of the city, where before had hung a blank screen of slatey cloud, was now disclosed a vast landscape, mile upon mile of sunlit highland, rolling green pastures, dun and rosy terraces, villages and farms and hamlets, gardens and crops and tiny stockaded shrines; crest upon crest receding to the blue peaks of the remote horizon. William called for his boy and called in vain.
“He is gone,” said Frau Dressler, crossing the yard with a load of earthenware. “All the boys have gone today. They are making holiday for the end of the rains. Some German friends have come to help me.”
And William’s breakfast was eventually brough
t him by a destitute mechanic who owed Frau Dressler for his share of the last Christmas tree.
*
It was an eventful day.
At nine Erik Olafsen came to say goodbye. There was an outbreak of plague down the line and he was off to organize a hospital. He went without enthusiasm.
“It is stupid work,” he said. “I have been in a plague hospital before. How many do you think we cured?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“None at all. We could only catch the patients who were too ill to move. The others ran away to the villages, so more and more people got it. In the civilized colonies they send soldiers not doctors. They make a ring all round the place where there is plague and shoot anyone who tries to get out. Then in a few days when everyone is dead they burn the huts. But here one can do nothing for the poor people. Well, the Government have asked me to go, so I leave now. Where is Kätchen?”
“She’s out shopping.”
“Good. That is very good. She was sad with such old, dirty clothes. I am very glad she has become your friend. You will say goodbye to her.”
At ten she returned laden with packages. “Darling,” she said, “I have been so happy. Everyone is excited that the summer is come and they are all so kind and polite now they know I have a friend. Look at what I have bought.”
“Lovely. Did you get any news?”
“It was difficult. I had so much to say about the things I was buying that I did not talk politics. Except to the Austrian. The President’s governess had tea with the Austrian yesterday, but I am afraid you will be disappointed. She has not seen the President for four days. You see he is locked up.”
“Locked up?”
“Yes, they have shut him in his bedroom. They often do that when there are important papers for him to sign. But the governess is unhappy about it. You see it is generally his family who lock him up and then it is only for a few hours. This time it is Doctor Benito and the Russian and the two black secretaries who came from America; they locked him up three days ago and when his relatives try to see him they say he is drunk. They would not let him go to the opening of Jackson College. The governess says something is wrong.”
“Do you think I ought to report that to the Beast?”
“I wonder,” said Kätchen doubtfully. “It is such a lovely morning. We ought to go out.”
“I believe Corker would make something of it… the editor seems very anxious for news.”
“Very well. Only be quick. I want to go for a drive.”
She left William to his work.
He sat at the table, stood up, sat down again, stared gloomily at the wall for some minutes, lit his pipe, and then, laboriously, with a single first finger and his heart heavy with misgiving, he typed the first news story of his meteoric career. No one observing that sluggish and hesitant composition could have guessed that this was a moment of history—of legend, to be handed down among the great traditions of his trade, told and retold over the milk-bars of Fleet Street, quoted in books of reminiscence, held up as a model to aspiring pupils of Correspondence Schools of Profitable Writing, perennially fresh in the jaded memories of a hundred editors; the moment when Boot began to make good.
PRESS COLLECT BEAST LONDON he wrote.
NOTHING MUCH HAS HAPPENED EXCEPT TO THE PRESIDENT WHO HAS BEEN IMPRISONED IN HIS OWN PALACE BY REVOLUTIONARY JUNTA HEADED BY SUPERIOR BLACK CALLED BENITO AND RUSSIAN JEW WHO BANNISTER SAYS IS UP TO NO GOOD THEY SAY HE IS DRUNK WHEN HIS CHILDREN TRY TO SEE HIM BUT GOVERNESS SAYS MOST UNUSUAL LOVELY SPRING WEATHER BUBONIC PLAGUE RAGING.
He got so far when he was interrupted.
Frau Dressler brought him a cable: YOUR CONTRACT TERMINATED STOP ACCEPT THIS STIPULATED MONTHS NOTICE AND ACKNOWLEDGE STOP BEAST.
William added to his message, SACK RECEIVED SAFELY THOUGHT I MIGHT AS WELL SEND THIS ALL THE SAME.
Kätchen’s head appeared at the window.
“Finished?”
“Yes.”
He rolled the cable he had received into a ball and threw it into the corner of the room. The yard was bathed in sunshine. Kätchen wanted a drive. It was not a good time to tell her of his recall.
*
Twelve miles out of the town the coming of summer brought no joy to Corker and Pigge.
“Look at the flowers,” said Pigge.
“Yes. Like a bloody cemetery,” said Corker.
The lorry stood where it had sunk, buried in mud to the axles. On all sides lay evidence of the unavailing efforts of yesterday—stones painfully collected from a neighboring water-course and bedded round the back wheels; bruised and muddy boughs dragged in the rain from the sparse woods a mile or more distant; the great boulder which they had rolled, it seemed, from the horizon to make a base for the jack—vainly; the heaps thrown up behind as the wheels, like a dog in a rabbit-hole, spun and burrowed. Listlessly helped by their boys, Pigge and Corker had worked all day, their faces blackened by exhaust smoke, their hands cut, soaked with rain, weary of limb, uncontrollable in temper.
It was a morning of ethereal splendor—such a morning as Noah knew as he gazed from his pitchy bulwarks over limitless, sunlit waters while the dove circled and mounted and became lost in the shining heavens; such a morning as only the angels saw on the first day of that rash cosmic experiment that had resulted, at the moment, in landing Corker and Pigge here in the mud, stiff and unshaven and disconsolate.
The earth-bound journalists turned hopelessly to the four quarters of the land.
“You can see for miles,” said Pigge.
“Yes,” said Corker bitterly, “and not a bloody human being in sight.”
Their boys were dancing to celebrate the new season, clapping and shuffling and shouting a low, rhythmical song of praise. “What the hell have they got to be cheerful about?”
“They’ve been at the whisky again,” said Corker.
*
That afternoon there was the party at the British Legation. Kätchen had not got her card so William went alone. It did not rain. Nothing marred the summer serenity of the afternoon. Guests of all colors and nationalities paraded the gravel walks, occasionally pausing behind the flowering shrubs to blow their noses—delicately between forefinger and thumb—as though trumpeting against the defeated devils of winter.
“The President usually comes,” said Bannister, “but he doesn’t seem to be here today. Odd thing but there isn’t a single Jackson in sight. I wonder what’s become of them all.”
“I don’t know about the others but the President is locked in his bedroom.”
“Good Lord, is he? I say you’d better talk to the old man about this. I’ll try and get hold of him.”
The Minister was regarding the scene with an expression of alarm and despair; he stood on the top step of the terrace, half in, half out of the french windows, in a position, dimly remembered from the hide-and-seek of his childhood as strategically advantageous; it afforded a general survey of the dispositions of the attacking forces and offered alternative lines of retreat, indoors or through the rose garden.
Bannister introduced William.
The Minister gave the Vice-Consul a glance of mild reproach and smiled bleakly, the wry smile of one heroically resisting an emotion of almost overwhelming repulsion.
“So glad you could come,” he said. “Being looked after all right? Good, excellent.”
He peered over his shoulder into the shady refuge of his study. As he did so the door opened and three obese Indians waddled into the room; each wore a little gold skull cap, a long white shirt and a short black coat, each carried a strawberry ice. “How did they get in?” he asked petulantly. “They’ve no business there at all. Get them out. Get them out.”
Bannister hurried to head them off and the Minister was left alone with William.
“You are from the Beast?” ’
“Yes.”
“Can’t say I read it myself. Don’t like its politics. Don’t like any politics… Finding Ishmaelia interesting?”
<
br /> “Yes, very interesting.”
“Are you? Wish I was. But then you’ve got a more interesting job. Better paid too I expect. I wonder, how does one get a job like that. Pretty difficult I suppose, stiff examination eh?”
“No, no examination.”
“No examination? My word that’s interesting. I must tell my wife. Didn’t know you could get any job nowadays without examinations. Wretched system, ruining all the services. I’ve got a boy in England now, lazy fellow, can’t pass any examinations, don’t know what to do with him. D’you suppose they’d give him a job on your paper?”
“I expect so. It seemed quite easy to me.”
“I say, that’s splendid. Must tell my wife. Here she is. My dear, Mr. Boot here says he will give Archie a job on his paper.”
“I’m afraid I can’t be much help. I got the sack this morning.”
“Did you? Did you really? Pity. Then you can’t be any help to Archie.”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“My dear,” said the Minister’s wife, “I’m very sorry indeed but I’ve got to introduce a new missionary you haven’t met.”
She led him away and presented a blinking giant of a young man; the Minister nodded absently to William as he left him.
*
Doctor Benito was at the party, very neat, very affable, very self-possessed, smiling wickedly on all sides. He approached William.
“Mr. Boot,” he said, “you must be very lonely without your colleagues.”
“No, I much prefer it.”
“And it is dull for you,” Doctor Benito insisted, in the level patient tones of a mesmerist, “very dull, with so little happening in the town. So I have arranged a little divertissement for you.”
“It is very kind but I am greatly diverted here.”
“You are too kind to our simple little city. But I think I can promise you something better. Now that the summer has come there will be no difficulty. You shall have a little tour of our country and see some of its beauties—the forest of Popo for instance and the great waterfall at Chip.”