“And will you marry me properly—in an office?”
“Yes.”
“It will be the first time I have been properly married.” The tremendous respirations echoed across the yard. “What is that? William, there is something making a noise in your room.”
“Yes, I had forgotten—you made me forget. Come and see who it is.”
They climbed the steps, hand in hand, crossed the verandah and reached the door of William’s room.
Kätchen dropped his hand and ran forward with a little cry. She knelt at the German’s side and held him, shook him. He stirred and grunted and opened his eyes. They spoke to one another in German; Kätchen nestled against him; he laid his cheek against her head and lapsed again into coma.
“How happy I am,” she said. “I thought he would never come back, that he was dead or had left me. How he sleeps. Is he well? Is he hungry?”
“No,” said William. “I don’t think you need have any anxiety on that point. Within the last hour, to my certain knowledge, he has consumed an entire Christmas dinner designed for four children or six adults.”
“He must have been starving. Is he not thin?”
“No,” said William. “Frankly I should not have called him thin.”
“Ah, you should have seen him before he went away… How he snores. That is a good sign. Whenever he is well he snores like this.” She brooded fondly over the unconscious figure. “But he is dirty.”
“Yes,” said William, “very dirty indeed.”
“William, you sound so cross suddenly. Are you not glad my husband has come back to me.”
“Come back to you?”
“William, you are not jealous? How I despise jealousy. You could not be jealous of my husband. I have been with him for two years, before ever you and I met. I knew he would not leave me. But what are we to do now? I must think…”
They both thought, not on the same lines.
“I have a plan,” said Kätchen at last.
“Yes?” said William gloomily.
“I think it will work nice. My husband is German so the Ishmaelites will not be allowed to hurt him. It is harder for me because of my papers. So I will marry you. Then I shall be English and I and my husband can go away together. You will give us our tickets to Europe. It will not be expensive, we will travel in the second class… How is that?”
“There are several serious objections; for one thing the German Legation are not going to protect your friend.”
“Oh dear, I thought if one had papers one was always safe everywhere… I must think of another plan… If after I marry you, I marry my husband, he would then be English, yes?”
“No.”
“Oh dear.”
They had to speak with raised voices to make themselves heard above the German’s snores. “Would it be very unkind to wake my husband? He is always full of ideas. He has great experience of difficulties.”
She shook him into sensibility and they spoke together earnestly in German.
William began to collect the distasteful remains of the Christmas dinner; he put the crackers back in their box and arranged the empty tins and bottles outside his door beside his dirty shoes.
“Our only hope is the postmaster-general’s chauffeur,” said Kätchen at last. “The town guards know him. If they have not yet heard that the postmaster-general is in prison he can drive through the barricades without difficulty. But he could not get to the frontier. They would telegraph for him to be stopped. The railway is impossible.”
“There is the river,” said the German. “It is high. We could strike it below the cataract fifteen miles from here. Then we could sail down to French territory—if we had a boat.”
“How much would a boat cost?” asked Kätchen.
“Once in the Matto Grosso I made a boat,” said the German dreamily. “I burned out the center of an ironwood tree. It took ten weeks to make, and it sank like a stone.”
“A boat,” said Kätchen. “But you have a boat—our boat.”
*
They drove through the streets of the sleeping city, the German in front with the postmaster-general’s chauffeur, Kätchen and William at the back with the canoe. A few hyenas flashed red eyes at them from the rubbish heaps, then turned their mangy quarters and scuttled off into the night.
The guards at the barrier saluted and let them pass into the open country. They drove in silence.
“I will send you a postcard,” said Kätchen, at last, “to tell you we are well.”
Day was breaking as they reached the river; they came upon it suddenly where it flowed black and swift between low banks. There they assembled the canoe; William and Kätchen did the work, as they had done before; it was familiar; there was no adventure now in fitting the sockets. The German sat on the running-board of the car, still stupefied with the lack of sleep; his eyes were open; his mouth also. When the boat was ready they called to him to join them.
“It is very small,” he said.
William stood knee deep among the reeds holding it with difficulty; the current tugged and sucked. Kätchen climbed in balancing precariously, with a hand on William’s arm; then the German; the boat sank almost to the gunwales.
“We shall not have room for the stores,” said Kätchen.
“My boat in Matto Grosso was twenty feet long,” said the German drowsily, “it turned over and went straight to the bottom. Two of my boys were drowned. They had always said it would sink.”
“If we get safely to the French border,” said Kätchen, “shall we leave the boat there for you. Will you want it again?”
“No.”
“We might sell it and send you the money.”
“Yes.”
“Or we could keep the money until we get to Europe—it will be easier to send.”
“It is an abstract speculation,” said the German, suddenly awake, and impatient. “It is a question purely of academic interest. We shall not reach the French border. Let us start.”
“Goodbye,” said Kätchen.
The two figures sat opposite one another, knees touching, expectant, as though embarking upon the ornamental waters of a fair-ground; lovers for the day’s outing, who had stood close in a queue, and now waited half reluctant to launch into the closer intimacy of the grottoes and transparencies.
William released the boat; it revolved once or twice slowly, as it drifted into mid-stream; there it was caught in the full power of the flood, and spinning dizzily was swept out of sight into the dawn.
*
William returned to his empty room. The boy had put back the débris of the Christmas dinner, carefully ranged upon the writing table. A cleft stick lay across the bed, bearing no message for William. He sat down at his table and with his eyes fixed on the label of the turkey-tin, began to compose his dispatch.
“Take to wireless,” he ordered his boy. “Sit on step till open. Then come back and sit on this step. Don’t let anyone in. Want to sleep very much.”
But he did not sleep very much.
The boy shook him at half-past ten. “No send,” he said, waving the typewritten message.
William painfully roused himself from his brief sleep. “Why no send?”
“No Jacksons. No Government. No send.”
William dressed and went to the wireless bureau. A jaunty black face smiled at him through the guichet; starched collar, bow tie, long ivory cigarette holder—the welter-weight.
“Good morning,” said William. “I hope you are not feeling too sore after your meeting with the goat. Where is the wireless clerk?”
“He is on a little holiday. I have taken over from him.”
“My boy says that this cable has been refused.”
“That is so. We are very much occupied with Government business. I think we shall be occupied all day, perhaps for several days. It would have been far better if you had gone for the tour we had planned for you. Meanwhile perhaps you would like to see the manifesto that we are issuing. I think you d
o not read Ishmaelite?”
“No.”
“A very barbarous language. I have never learned it. Soon we shall make Russian the official language of the country. I have a copy here in English.”
He handed William a sheet of crimson paper headed WORKERS OF ISHMAELIA UNITE and snapped down the trap of the guichet.
William stepped out into the sunlight. A black man on a ladder was painting out the name of Jackson Street. Someone had stenciled a sickle and hammer on the front of the post office, a red flag hung limp overhead. He read the manifesto as he returned to the Pension Dressler.
… development of mineral resources of the workers by the workers for the workers… Jacksons to be speedily brought to trial… arraigned for high treason to the Revolution… liquidated… New Calendar. Year One of the Soviet State of Ishmaelia…
In the yard he crumpled the paper into a scarlet ball and tossed it to the goat; it went down like an oyster.
He stood on his verandah and looked across to the beastly attic from which Kätchen used to greet him, at about this time in the morning, calling him to come out to Popotakis’s Ping Pong Parlor.
“Change and decay in all around I see,” he sang softly, almost unctuously. It was the favorite tune of his uncle Theodore.
He bowed his head.
“Oh great crested grebe,” he prayed, “maligned fowl, have I not expiated the wrong my sister did you; am I still to be an exile from the green places of my heart? Was there not even in the remorseless dooms of antiquity a god from the machine?”
He prayed without hope.
And then above the multitudinous noises of the Pension Dressler came a small sound, an insistent, swelling monotone. The servants in the yard looked up. The sound increased and high above them in the cloudless sky, rapidly approaching, there appeared an aeroplane. The sound ceased as the engine was cut off. The machine circled and dropped silently. It was immediately overhead when a black speck detached itself and fell towards them; white stuff streamed behind it, billowed and spread. The engine sang out again; the machine swooped up and away, out of sight and hearing. The little domed tent paused and gently sank, as though immersed in depths of limpid water.
“If he comes onto my roof,” said Frau Dressler. “If he breaks anything…”
The parachutist came on the roof; he broke nothing. He landed delicately on the tips of his toes; the great sail crumpled and collapsed behind him; he deftly extricated himself from the bonds and stood clear. He took a comb from his pocket and settled the slightly disordered auburn hair about his temples, glancing at his watch, bowed to Frau Dressler and asked for a ladder, courteously in five or six languages. They brought him one. Rung by rung, on pointed, snake-skin toes, he descended to the yard. The milch-goat reverently made way for him. He smiled politely at William; then recognized him.
“Why,” he exclaimed. “It is my fellow traveler, the journalist. How agreeable to meet a fellow Britisher in this remote spot.”
Five
The sun sank behind the gum trees and the first day of the Soviet State of Ishmaelia ended in crimson splendor. The deserted bar-room of Popotakis’s Ping-Pong Parlor glowed in the fiery sunset.
“I really do not know how to thank you,” said William.
“Please,” said his companion, laying a hand lightly on his, “please do not embarrass me. The words you have just used seem to haunt me, wherever I go. Ever since that auspicious afternoon when you were kind enough to give me a place in your aeroplane, I have feared sooner or later, to hear them on your lips. I suggested as much at the time, I think, if my memory does not deceive me.”
Mr. Popotakis switched on the lights above the ping-pong table and asked, “You want a game, Mr. Baldwin?” for it was by this name that William’s friend now preferred to be called.
(“It is a convenient name,” he had explained. “Noncommittal, British and above all easily memorable. I am often obliged to pursue my business interests under an alias. My man Cuthbert chooses them for me. He has a keen sense of what is fitting, but he sometimes luxuriates a little. There have been times when his more fanciful inventions have entirely slipped my memory at important moments. So now I am plain Mr. Baldwin. I beg you to respect my confidence.”)
Mr. Baldwin resumed his little dissertation.
“In the rough and tumble of commercial life,” he said, “I Endeavour to requite the kindnesses I receive. The kindnesses have become more profuse and the rewards more substantial of recent years… however I am sure that in you I met an entirely disinterested benefactor. I am glad to have prospered your professional career so inexpensively.
“Do you know, my first impression of you was not of a young man destined for great success in journalism? Quite the reverse. In fact, to be frank with you, I was skeptical of your identity and when you told me of your destination, I feared you might be coming here with some ulterior object. If I seemed evasive in the early days of our—I hope I may say—friendship, you must forgive me.
“And now Mr. Popotakis is offering us a game of ping-pong. For my part, I think it might be refreshing.”
Mr. Baldwin removed his coat and rolled the sleeves of his crêpe-de-chine shirt. Then he took his bat and poised himself expectantly at the end of the table. William served. Love, fifteen; love, thirty; love, forty; game; fifteen, love; thirty, love; forty, love; game. The little man was ubiquitous, ambidextrous. He crouched and bounded and skipped, slamming and volleying; now spanning the net, now five yards back, now flicking the ball from below his knees, now rocketing high among the electric lights; keeping up all the while a bright, bantering conversation in demotic Greek with Mr. Popotakis.
At the end of the love set he resumed his coat and said, “Quarter past six. No doubt you are impatient to send your second message…” For a private wireless transmitter was one of the amenities to which William had been introduced that day.
Since Mr. Baldwin’s arrival Jacksonburg, or Marxville as it had been called since early that morning, had proved a town of unsuspected conveniences.
“I have a little pied à terre here,” Mr. Baldwin had explained when William suggested their lunching at the Pension Dressler. “My man Cuthbert has been putting it in order. I have not seen it and I fear the worst, but he is a sensitive fellow and might be put out if I lunched away from home on the day of my arrival. Will you not share the adventure of lunching with me?”
They walked, for Mr. Baldwin complained that his flight had brought on a slight stiffness of the legs. He took William’s arm, guiding him through the less frequented by-ways of the town and questioning him earnestly about the events of the last twenty-four hours.
“And where are your colleagues? I anticipated being vexed by them.”
“They have all gone off into the interior to look for Smiles.”
“That is excellent. You will be the sole spectator at the last act of our little drama.”
“It won’t be much help. They’ve shut the wireless bureau.”
“It shall be opened soon. Meanwhile I have no doubt Cuthbert will be able to accommodate you. He and a Swiss associate of mine have fixed up a little makeshift which appears to work. I have been in correspondence with them daily.”
Even in the side streets there was evidence of the new regime; twice they were obliged to shelter as police lorries thundered past them laden with glaucous prisoners. The Café Wilberforce had changed its name to Café Lenin. There had been a distribution of red flags, which, ingeniously knotted or twisted, had already set a fashion in headdresses among the women of the market.
“I ought to have come yesterday,” said Mr. Baldwin peevishly. “It would have saved a great deal of unnecessary reorganization. God bless my soul there’s another of those police vans.” They skipped for a doorway. In the center of a machine-gun squad, William recognized the dignified figure of Mr. Earl Russell Jackson.
At length their way led them to the outskirts of the city to the nondescript railway quarter, where sidings and goods yards
and warehouses stood behind a stockade of blue gums and barbed wire. They passed an iron gate and approached a bungalow.
“It is M. Giraud’s,” said Mr. Baldwin. “And this is M. Giraud, but I think that introductions are superfluous.”
The bearded ticket collector greeted them deferentially from the verandah.
“M. Giraud has been in my service for some time,” said Mr. Baldwin. “He had in fact been in consultation with me when you had the pleasure of travelling with him from the coast. I followed his brief period of public prominence with interest and, to be quite frank, with anxiety. If I may criticize without offence the profession you practice—at this particular moment with almost unique success—I should say that you reporters missed a good story in M. Giraud’s little trip. I read the newspapers with lively interest. It is seldom that they are absolutely, point blank wrong. That is the popular belief, but those who are in the know can usually discern an embryo truth, a little grit of fact, like the core of a pearl, round which has been deposited the delicate layers of ornament. In the present case, for instance, there was a Russian agent arranging to take over the government; M. Giraud was an important intermediary. But he was not the Russian. The workings of commerce and politics are very, very simple, but not quite as simple as your colleagues represent them. My man Cuthbert was also on the train with you. He should have given you a clue, but no one recognized him. He drove the engine. It was due to his ignorance of local usage that the lost luggage van was eventually recovered.”
“And may I ask,” said William diffidently, “since you are telling me so much whose interests do you represent?”
“My own,” said the little man simply. “I plow a lonely furrow… Let us see what they have been able to scrape up for luncheon.”
They had scraped up fresh river fish, and stewed them with white wine and aubergines; also a rare local bird which combined the tender flavor of the partridge with the solid bulk of the turkey; they had roasted it and stuffed it with bananas, almonds and red peppers; also a baby gazelle which they had seethed with truffles in its mother’s milk; also a dish of feathery arab pastry and a heap of unusual fruits. Mr. Baldwin sighed wistfully. “Well,” he said, “I suppose it will not hurt us to rough it for once. We shall appreciate the pleasures of civilization all the more… but my descent in the parachute gave me quite an appetite. I had hoped for something a little more enterprising.”