I'm Dying Laughing (51 page)

He bellowed a laugh and turned his back, rolled theatrically away. Emily looked after him, not believing him. But now he was on his way back with a tall, good-looking, fair youth whom he introduced as ‘Stanislaus Breslow, only son and heir of Professor Breslow, the leading expert on international law, one of those consulted by the Avenging Angels in the Nuremberg Trials. Stanislaus, as the son of a Jew—’ he said, looking at the boy and smiling sharply, ‘was thrown into a temporary camp and landed at Maideneck where he lived quite comfortably for some years. He will tell you all about his experiences. He has views of mankind like mine, but acted differently. Madame Howard is an American journalist. She’d love to hear about it, Stan. Mr Breslow wants to go to the States where he feels sure he’ll make his way because he understands their psychology. The sap, the essence of American psychology is, What’s in It for Me; and that’s his too. And I’m told that’s the title of a British communist pamphlet, so we all think the same. Very nice. Your communists must have some very modern realists among them.’

Emily, left alone with this youth, felt tongue-tied. Breslow had a drink in his hand, was very affable. Emily said, ‘Where is Clapas from? Is he really cynical or is that his company manner?’

‘He’s from the south, Montpellier, and he’s really like that. We get on famously.’

The youth sneered. ‘He met me in Maideneck. You know we were on opposite sides, but we merely laughed at it all when we met again on the outside. Both survived by a fluke.’

‘And what was your fluke? Were you a communist, selected to survive?’

‘No. I was a student, a brilliant student of course, being the son of a Jew. My father was a brilliant professor. He was an atheist and I had not been circumcised. When the Nazis came I immediately denied that I was a Jew. I had from the first given another name. I denied, denied, denied. I don’t look like my father. I’m not officially a Jew. He didn’t want that; he wanted me to be a modern man, no out-of-date superstitions. They tried to make me confess. Nothing doing. Couldn’t get me. I was brilliant, remember. They were not. They took me over for medical examination. The doctor decided I was not a Jew—fell in love with me, perhaps. I don’t know. Someone fell in love with me. I was preserved. But someone came to the camp who, hard luck, knew me, started to speak to me and that person was a Jew. I had to denounce him. That’s a Jew, I said to them. I told them I was head of a secret anti-Semitic society at the university and that we had them all numbered and described. I’d pick out every secret Jew in camp for them.’

‘And of course you really saved your Jewish friend,’ said Emily.

‘Oh, what romance! Naturally, I denounced them all. I would pick out any Jew, even yellow-haired Nordic ones like myself. I became a thorough expert. I was their secret Jew-expert. I became very friendly with the guards and officers. I got on splendidly. They were fascinated by my imaginary anti-Semitic society. They gave me very light jobs and they put me in charge of a museum of horrors they had, samples of what people looked like who had been gassed to death, women’s hair, teeth, crystals which form. It was behind panes of glass for they were still very dangerous and could have poisoned us. I used to look and gloat and think, I got away with it. They never had the slightest doubt—or if they had they liked me too well to show it.’

‘And your father?’

‘Oh, I’m in touch with my father. He’s very busy, his name’s in the papers. He showed that it was not international or war law for soldiers, even private soldiers, to obey their officers, if bestial or brutal orders were given. So the soldiers too were guilty. When my father heard how I was saved, he became very sick, poor man, he got jaundice. I believe he will never recover from the shock one way or another. Jaundiced, yellow as the Jew he is.’

Emily looked round for Stephen to signal to him, ‘And you? What will you do now?’

‘I’ll go to America, I understand the country perfectly. It’s like Germany under the Nazis, but more force, more power. They’re a great wonderful people and I’ll get on there. I’ll find a rich girl, marry her and sit on top of the world.’

‘Supposing she won’t marry you?’

‘Oh, I’ll get round that; I’ll find out something, get something on her, get hold of her some way or another.’

‘You don’t know American girls,’ said Emily.

‘It won’t take me long to find out.’

‘Look, here’s Stephen. He’ll get you a drink; I’ve got to get to the kitchen, excuse me.’

On the way to the door, she ran into Clapas who teased her, ‘A perfume, a flower. Isn’t he? Now you see what I mean? A Resistant! And is there anyone alive today who’s been through that who isn’t distorted in some hellish way? Even the kids in your country are going to the devil; they don’t care who lives or dies; they only want to burn up the world in liquid fire. They’re all like he is. And you want them to be happy; you and Madame Suzanne.’

Emily said, ‘I don’t care. Let us die then. Who cares about us? We’ve had our time. All right, I don’t care about the adults who died; it’s too late. Even about those you call blood banks. But the children must survive and be given ideals. If our generation can do that to children, the whole generation should be wiped off the face of the earth. Let us die. What do we have to live for? Oh, hideous, horrible world!’ She burst into tears.

Clapas laughed, ‘Just so! To remedy it, you weep and Madame Suzanne loves. She loves!’

Emily dried her eyes, blew her nose, said indignantly, ‘She did more. She walked the streets when the lion was in the streets and the skies thundered, she’s as brave as a Roman virgin—’

He said contemptuously, ‘Bad poetry, that is. For a writer everything is fixed once he’s fixed a little phrase. Phrasemongers! You’re responsible too. You’ll never tell what you know. You’ll fix it up. You corrupt language. It will take generations to purify the language you have soiled. To make it saleable—what do I care besides? For this is hell and we’re all damned souls. How do you know this isn’t hell, just a cosier suburb of it? Answer!’

Emily said, ‘I know it isn’t. Because—perhaps I ought to be apologetic about it but I live and hope to live in a better world somewhere. I don’t know where. I hope and I pray that my children will never see those things. There is a chance of it, and so it isn’t hell. I love my children, my husband, we’re happy: there’ll be some other happy people left I hope. And some brave.’

‘Just some more blood banks, then,’ said Clapas.

Emily went to Suzanne, ‘My God, Suzanne, why ever did you bring these terrible men, these furies, here? They’re demons.’

Suzanne said sensibly, ‘They’re tortured souls. They’ll never recover. It’s a malignant disease of the heart.’

‘I don’t believe it. I believe they were initially bad.’

‘And yet Clapas was one of the finest men in the Resistance.’

‘I don’t think I’ll ever understand human beings; I don’t want to,’ said Emily turning way, irritated.

‘The hero is a very dangerous animal,’ said Suzanne smiling.

‘And you were one,’ said Emily turning back and cocking her eye sharply at her.

Suzanne said in that dull way which irritated Stephen, I feel as if I’ve nothing more to learn, just like Clapas and Breslow. I told you how parents denounced children who irritated and disobeyed them, or who they thought were thieves or murderers or Resistants. They denounced their own children to a certain death. Little children, sweet little girls, with long hair and blue eyes and angel faces, but sharp little hearts and hungry bellies and vanity, denounced their parents, because the underground of children had told them that they’d get chocolate, money or other food or a pretty dress for denunciations. Wives denounced their husbands to get extra food or the property—it came to them direct, no questions asked. Husbands denounced wives to get property or another wife. It was so simple, so sure, so sudden. Some concierges denounced just to get the bonus; and others held on to protect their tenants banned and fled. Many dainty, respectable, fat little pouter-pigeon bourgeois wives “yes-m’-dear” and “no-m’-dear” denounced their servants if their servants were rude, or their neighbours if the neighbours had a better carpet, or they denounced the butcher who didn’t give them enough respect or the landlord they owed money to. You can imagine,’ said Suzanne cheerily, ‘it was so very, very simple. Others denounced simply to get sugar or butter or tobacco or absinthe or drugs; especially drugs.

‘And you could never, never tell. And one thing we learned, the informer was never the one you suspected, always someone else. People denounced because they owned someone else too much gratitude. A tubercular employee was taken in and petted and supported by his employer; and he kept a diary from the day he entered the house, for five years, of the daily doings of his employer, and wrote a statement so twisting all the facts that the Gestapo took the whole family. A pathetic young woman abandoned and betrayed, kept as a servant with her child many years by a decent, conservative family, denounced the daughter of the house of whom she was jealous. Denunciations poured in—they were infinite. One of our chief services was in the post office, opening letters and sending them on again and getting messages in time. We destroyed some, you couldn’t destroy all. They’d come in again; poison-pen manias developed. And you couldn’t help everyone. Some had to perish. Again what Clapas so bitterly and brutally called the blood bank.’

Emily exclaimed, ‘What a brute he is! I hate him. You’ve seen as much and you aren’t like that!’

Suzanne said simply, ‘I don’t know what I’m like. I should like to be in another world where I would not have to ask myself, where society was interested in the future and not this post-mortem and this preparation.’

Emily took her hands, ‘And I couldn’t live through it. We must escape. Excuse me, I’m not as brave as you. I couldn’t stand this test. I should give in.’

‘No one knew until they had to; and then most were able to meet this test.’

‘I could not! Perhaps—but no—oh—what a dreadful dilemma! What a cruel party!’

The Trefougars waited longer than the rest, the man because he had taken a great fancy to Stephen and the woman to see Emily, for she had come to her when it got late and begged her to let her stay, ‘I am so miserable and afraid. Let me stay with you and confide in you. This place is a desert of friendship and Johnny just laughs at me.’

Emily was annoyed and flattered; she invited them to stay to dinner. She had been anxious to see Stephen alone for a few minutes to rehash the conversations they had separately had, to tell in her breathless, detailed way all the Resistants had said to her, to get comfort from his manly views. At the same time she was puzzled by the Trefougars. Violet she thought happy and devoted to Trefougar and yet Violet was dazzled by ‘Mernie’s bedroom-eyes’ as Stephen called them, his drooping, delicate, insinuating manner. The Trefougars complained bitterly about their expensive way of living and small pay; and yet that afternoon Johnny Trefougar had described a magnificent Italian car he had just got through diplomatic priority and paid just on three thousand pounds for. The car would be delivered shortly; and then the Trefougars intended to take a trip to the south of France where the food was better and there to buy a villa. You could get villas now if you had connections. Violet was expensively dressed; yet they said they had hardly enough to eat.

For dinner they had two bottles of wine and Violet drank rather a lot considering the whiskies that had gone before. After dinner, when Christy had gone upstairs to study with Madame Suzanne, who had dined with them, Johnny went off with Stephen to his study to drink more whisky while the wife went upstairs to Emily’s workroom on the top floor. There they had a drink and Violet, after twisting her handkerchief and behaving very nervously, burst into a flood of miserable confidences. Johnny was now drunk and would get drunker; it was the beginning of a four-day binge. He left her for three and four days at a time and was often brought back by the police. The car made it even worse. Now he could get away from her to Rouen or Dieppe or Marseilles, Toulon, all the low and dreadful murder hotels, old-fashioned but dangerous dens of vice, and if he had little time, there were some just outside Paris, where thieves, prostitutes, drunks and drug-fiends gathered.

‘Oh, you can’t be right; he doesn’t look like that,’ exclaimed Emily.

She stared at the poor, thin, elegant woman in front of her. Violet was now weeping: she trembled from head to foot. Emily listened on with widening eyes as the misery was related.

‘Last time he went away he had over three hundred pounds in his pocket and came back penniless. The police brought him back. He was beaten from head to foot, his clothes torn; he said he had been robbed. Yet he only enjoys himself away from me in the thieves’ dens where I couldn’t go and in the company of young, strong sailors, or drug-sellers or low blackskins and such horrible people, always caricatures, never real people. And every time he is robbed. He was robbed when we were in North Africa, robbed in Honolulu, robbed in Singapore of all we had. That’s one of the reasons we’re so dreadfully poor.’

‘But the car?’

‘Oh, a friend got it, it’s almost a present. But there’s the upkeep. And I can’t think what it will be like after he’s used it for a few of his dreadful absences. And I never know if he will come back alive. And when he comes back, he weeps, he cries for the people he’s left, for those animals. He blames me for tying him down. He says he hates me; he’ll kill me; he’ll do anything to get back to them.’

‘But how does he hold his job?’

‘Oh, they’re very good to him. In London they warned him. Of course, he’s charming, you can see. He’s fascinating, especially to men. Some of his family are very high-placed. You know they put up with almost anything if a man keeps up appearances. And he can. You’d never guess, would you? You see he never gets drunk in good society. That’s why he goes off to those hellish dens. “I want the stink of crime and filth in my nostrils,” he says. And then he gets so drunk, for he can’t drink, that the first prostitute, or criminal or thug who comes along robs him and there he lies for days together, in some bunk crawling with lice, starving, until someone finds him. Oh, he comes back in such a state. And now this afternoon, this evening, when I saw him drinking, I am terrified, I hardly dare go home. He’ll be raving mad by the time he gets home. You’ve no idea how he’s able to hide it. And then as soon as he’s in the house he locks the door and begins to scream and curse. We can’t keep any servants of course.’