Authors: Albert Cohen
He was shocked by the ingratitude of the impertinent youth who did not even pause to say thank you. All the king-sired child had done was to press one finger on a button of this vertical locomotive! So what did the princeling expect by way of a tip? He had got pennies, it was true, but they were Swiss pennies, in other words droplets of pure gold!
His indignation spent, he stood in the corridor and smiled, congratulating himself on having got rid of the Prince of Wales. Now he could take his time, prepare his entrance and make a good impression. He produced a looking-glass from his pocket and peered into it. The turned-down collar looked well, very clean and highly starched. A good thing he'd thought of running the iron over his frock-coat that morning. The red carnation in his buttonhole went nicely with the flowered waistcoat. Besides, didn't English cabinet ministers always wear a buttonhole? He smoothed his silky crest of white hair, then pulled his beaver hat down over one ear, for he had noticed that whenever his nephew dressed formally he wore his handsome top-hat slightly to one side.
'Yes, the titfer modestly tilted is altogether more modern, more rakish, and, by the by, commands attention.'
He lowered the little looking-glass until it was on a level with his knees. Yes, his breeches were held firmly in place by the buckles of antic silver. Last evening, Naileater had made disparaging remarks about these breeches which belonged to another age. Just jealous, of course. He had been wearing breeches all his life and he wasn't going to alter his habits now, not at his age. No, very presentable. He unleashed a long, simpering sigh. Just imagine, his nephew was there, on the other side of this door, thinking of him and waiting for him to come. Yes, as soon as he was inside he would embrace him and give him his blessing. He cleared a frog from his throat and, with his old heart beating loudly, he approached the enchanted door and knocked quietly. There was no reply. Taking his courage in both hands, he knocked louder.
The door opened and Solal, wearing a sumptuous dressing-gown, bent his head and kissed the hand of Saltiel, who felt suddenly weak at the knees. He was overwhelmed by the kiss bestowed on his hand and could think of nothing to say. He dared not embrace his nephew - in any case he was too tall - who stood looking at him with a smile on his face. To show a bold front, he rubbed his hands together and then asked Sol if he was well. The reply being in the affirmative, he rubbed his hands again.
'God be praised. I am very well too, thanks. What a splendid day it is,' he added after a moment's silence.
Eventually Solal took pity on his little uncle and cut short his embarrassment by kissing him on both of his perfectly clean-shaven cheeks. Saltiel returned the embrace, wiped his nose, murmured a blessing, looked all around him and beamed.
'Handsome drawing-room, son. May you long have the use of it, dear boy. But I see that the window is open. You must watch out for draughts, laddie, and remember that a dab of mentholated vaseline in the nostrils keeps colds away. Well now, Sol, all well with the politics? Are you pleased with the various nations?'
'They are behaving themselves,' said Solal soberly.
There was another silence, which Saltiel dared not break. Sol was probably turning important thoughts over in his head, preparing some difficult speech perhaps. He decided to let him be for a moment or two, so that he wouldn't lose his thread. He crossed his arms and stood quietly where he was, watching his nephew pace up and down the room. How tall he was! Just imagine, he had held him on his lap the day he was circumcised! Then he was a baby who cried; now he was a great lord, a leader of nations. Praise be to God who knew what He had been about! Yes, that must be the reason. If he wasn't saying much, it was because his mind was on his speech or busy mulling over a decision on which hung the fate of some country or other. And to think that that infernal Englishman, Sol's so-called superior, would go about telling everybody that it had been his idea all along and then take all the credit! This 'Under' affixed to 'Secretary-General' stuck in his craw; he just could not swallow it. When the devil would this blasted Englishman make up his mind to resign and leave the job to a man capable of doing it properly? Of course, he did not wish this useless Englishman dead, but if it pleased God to visit him with just enough arthritis to force him into early retirement, well, heigh-ho, it would be the will of the Almighty.
'Uncle. Dinner this evening. At the Deumes.. Shall I go? Or stay away? You decide.'
'What can I say, dear boy? I'm not qualified to judge. If you want to go, then go you must.'
Solal opened a drawer, took out a bundle of bank notes, handed them to his uncle, who counted them and, when he was done, looked up at the source of such bounty with pride, his eyes ashine with brimming tears. Only a scion of a royal line would give you ten thousand Swiss francs as if it were a bull's-eye or a gobstopper!
'The blessing of God be on you, my boy. I thank you from the bottom of my soul. But I don't need money. I am too old to want so much. What would I do with it? Keep the fruits of your sweat, laddie, but not in a drawer, not even in a lockable drawer, for a key can be copied - such is the destiny of keys. Put these notes deep in your pocket and fasten it with safety-pins, for pockets yawn — such is the way of pockets. And now, dear heart, know that I never miss a thing: I have observed that you need to be alone to ponder the matter of this evening's dinner. So I shall take myself off downstairs and find me an armchair. I shall not be bored, never fear. I shall watch the people as they come and go, it's a hobby of mine. Send me word when you have done your pondering. So goodbye for now, eyes of mine, and God be with you!'
When he reached the lobby, his misgivings took hold of him again. Yes, he really had been a bit rude to the porter earlier on. The blackguard was perfectly capable of getting his own back on the uncle by taking it out on the nephew — by tearing up an important letter or committing God knew what other piece of underhanded villainy. It was absolutely imperative that he should work himself into the swine's good graces and spike his thirst for revenge.
He went over to the small office, leaned his elbows benignly on the counter, and said to the porter: 'My nephew has spoken to me about you. You stand high in his esteem.' Taken aback, the porter made gratified noises and Saltiel, shooting a bewitching smile at the now neutralized nasty, began casting about for an affable follow-up to consolidate this auspicious beginning. 'I take it you are a Swiss citizen?' The porter gave a grudging 'Yes', shocked that a League of Nations bigwig should be a nephew of this clown in breeches. Clearly, with foreigners you could expect anything, you never quite knew which part of the woodwork they crawled out of.
'My compliments,' said Saltiel. 'Switzerland is a wise and noble country, possessed of every virtue, and I most sincerely wish it a prosperous future, though it has no need of my wishes since it keeps a pretty firm hand on the tiller. And this hotel is excellently well run, where's the harm in leaving a few lights on, makes it more cheerful. (After a pause, he thought that one or two details about Sol might be of interest to this gloomy individual and complete the softening-up process.) Just consider, my porterly friend, that, like all first-born sons of the senior Solal line, my nephew's first name is Solal! It's a tradition! More specifically, on his Jewish birth certificate he is recorded as Solal XIV of the Solals, son of the revered Chief Rabbi of Cephalonia and a descendant of the High Priest Aaron, brother of Moses! Fascinating, isn't it? And that, pleasant porterman, is not all: my four cousins and I have the honour of belonging to the junior line! After several centuries, some highly agreeable, others less so, spent in divers provinces of France, we sailed away to the isle of Cephalonia in 1799, there to link hands with the senior line which had taken refuge therein in 1492 in the wake of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain! Cursed be Torquemada! I spit on him! Listen, we five, of the lesser Solal lineage and known as the Valiant of France, received full French citizenship by the terms of the most agreeable decree issued by the National Assembly on the twenty-seventh of September 1791, and French citizens we have been proud to remain, duly registered by the consulate at Cephalonia, thrilled to speak the sweet tongue of the old country spiced with fustian vocables unique to the county of Avignon and known only to us, and honoured on long winter evenings to be dewy-eyed readers of Ronsard and Racine. But know this too, O porter of porters, that both Naileater and Michael saw service with the Hundred-and-Forty-First Infantry at Marseilles, the other three of us, myself included, having been judged unfit for military duties, which was a great disappointment, but there you are.'
The ringing of the telephone stopped his flow. The porter replaced the receiver on the hook and said that his nephew was asking for him. 'Very glad to have had this little chat. Be so good as to accept an aniseed ball,' said Saltiel, who proffered his little box of sweeties, gave a graceful bow, and departed, highly delighted by his little stratagem. From this moment henceforth, Sol was safe and dry! He had wound the porter round his little finger! It was with extreme affability that, having first proffered a liquorice allsort as being 'more suited to your age', he said no to the invitation to use the lift extended by the other potential enemy he had thus appeased, the princeling arrayed in red and buttoned in gold. This cage which went up and down did not appeal to him at all. The cable might snap, and he had his doubts about the life to come.
'Capital, this fine-blend coffee! Balm to my soul!' said Saltiel, and he poured himself a second cup, which he then sipped with the slurpings indispensable to a proper appreciation of its flavour. 'The tray, both coffee pots and the spoons are all silver, I can see the hallmarks, God indeed be praised. Ah, if only your poor mother could see you now surrounded by all this silverware! By the by, I omitted to tell you that following our visit last year, after we bade you farewell, we went, you'll never guess, unto a mountain named Saleve, close by Geneva, it was Naileater's idea. Eight hundred metres it measures in the matter of height! My dear, the precipices! The cows left to wander about! Horns a metre long, as God's my witness! And with such a stupid, unfeeling look about them! All these Gentiles who pay good money to get themselves impaled on an Alp so that they can freeze to death and fall over cliffs when they're exhausted, well, it passes my understanding! Yes please, I'll have another cup of coffee if there's some left, there's no point in leaving any, they charge you enough for it. Thank you, my son, and may the Almighty watch over you and look upon you with gladsome eye. Ah, my boy, it makes me so very happy to know that you are here in Geneva, the small republic with a great heart, home of the Red Cross and righteousness! It's quite different from Germany! Incidentally, Naileater told me yesterday afternoon in the strictest confidence that he was thinking of buying rabid dogs from the Pasteur Institute so that he could release them secretly into Germany. The idea was that they would bite Germans, who would also get rabies, who would then bite other Germans, and so on and so forth until the whole cursed lot of them were biting each other. I absolutely forbade him to do any such thing, quite outrageous, pointed out to him that there's nothing German about us! Anyhow, we had a long discussion about it and in the end he conceded defeat! After that, I took a turn outside with Solomon, felt like a breath of lakeside air, and we strolled along together holding hands by our little fingers. Then we went to see the Wall of the Reformation. Quite magnificent. We doffed our hats before the four great reformers and observed a minute's silence, because Protestantism is a noble faith, and moreover Protestants are very honest people, very proper, it's a well-known fact. You should have seen Solomon, standing to attention like a soldier, very serious, holding his little boater in his hand. He even wanted us to observe an extra minute's silence. I find that Lord Calvin has something of our own master, Moses, about him, just a little something, of course, since Moses, our master, is beyond compare, he was the Almighty's only friend, He has never had another, so there's no contest! Still, I like Calvin very much, strict but fair, not a man to trifle with! Next, we went and had a look at the University, which is just opposite. There's a motto carved over the main entrance, I committed it to memory, I'll recite it for you, see what you think: "In dedicating this building to advanced study, the People of Geneva pays tribute to the virtues of Education, the ultimate guarantor of the rights of citizens." Now isn't that superb! Such a thought is the hallmark of a great people, believe me! I wiped a secret tear from my eye, I don't mind admitting. And Solomon took his hat off and was all for observing another minute's silence, this time, in front of the University! And there you have it, a full statement of how I spent yesterday. Oh, by the way, dear boy, this boss of yours, the Englishman, still keeping well is he?'
'Very well,' smiled Solal.
'Thanks be to God,' Saltiel said, and then sighed: 'And yet he is a man getting on in years.'
'He has the constitution of an ox.'
'Thanks be to God,' Saltiel said, and then gave a little cough. 'So, you are happy with world politics. But have a care: if this Hitler fellow asks you to lunch, don't go! Of course, if you absolutely have to accept because of your job, then go, but tell him your stomach's upset and you're not allowed to eat anything. I've just remembered, he keeps a cupboard full of all kinds of poisons. So don't eat anything if you do go, for the love of God, and if he gets angry, pay no attention. Let him get angry if he wants! Let him drop dead! A thousand curses upon him! The thing to do is to keep well in with the French and the English. When you write to them, butter them up, obedient servant and so forth. Anyway, my boy, what have you decided about your dinner this evening?'
'I shall go.'
'Lot of important people coming, I imagine?'
'She is beautiful and Ariane is her name.'