The Green Face (5 page)

Only when the other addressed the waiter in an overloud
voice, asking for information on places of entertainment and
other local sights, did Hauberrisser become aware of him, and
the intrusion of the outside world sent his profound reflections
scuttling back into the darkness whence they came.

A quick glance told him that it was `Professor’ Arpad Zitter
from the Hall of Riddles who was so desperately trying to play
the innocent who had just got off the train.

His moustache was missing and his hair-oil had been diverted
into different channels, but that had not detracted anything from
the characteristic features of a Bratislavan `pigeon-fancier’ on
the look-out for his prey.

Hauberrisser had been much too well brought up to give even
the slightest sign that he knew who the person opposite him was.
It amused him, moreover, to match the subtler wiles of the
gentleman against the crude tricks of the vulgar, who always
assume a disguise is successful simply because their intended
dupe does not immediately underline his suspicion with much
furrowing of the brow and rubbing of the chin.

Hauberrisser did not doubt for one moment that the ‘Professor’ had followed him to the caf6 with some Balkan villainy in
mind. In order, however, to satisfy himself thathe was the object
of this pantomime, he made as if to pay and leave. Immediately
a cloud of irritation crossed Master Zitter’s face.

Hauberriser allowed himself an inward smile of satisfaction;
“Hmm. Chidher Green and Co. - assuming the `Professor’ is an
active partner- seems to have various means of keeping tabs on
their customers: scented ladies with page-boy hair, flying corks,
ghostly old Jews and incompetent spies in white suits. Quite an
organisation!”

“There must be a bank somewhere near here where one can
change a couple of English thousand-pound notes into guilders,
surely?” the Professor asked the waiter in a casual tone, but once
more in a very loud voice. He made a great display of irritation
at the waiter’s shake of the head. “Seems to be some problem
with the petty cashhere in Amsterdam”, was his opening gambit
as he half tamed towards Hauberrisser. “I had the same difficulty back at the chotel.”

Hauberrisser said nothing.

“Yes, hm, chreat deefficulty.”

Hauberrisser did not allow himself to be drawn.

“Fortunately the chotel owner knew the old family seat.
Allow me to introduce myself: Ciechonski; Count Wlodimierz
Ciechonski.”

Hauberrisser sketched a bow and mumbled his name as
incomprehensibly as possible, but the Count seemed to have an
uncommonly sharp ear, for he jumped up in excitement, rushed
across to the table and sat in the seat Neill had just vacated with
a delighted cry of, “Chauberrisser? Not Chauberrisser the
celebrated torpedo constructor? The name is Ciechonski, Count
Wlodimierz Ciechonski. May I?”

Hauberrisser shook his head with a smile. “You are mistaken.
I was never a torpedo constructor.” (‘A silly performance’, he
added silently to himself; ‘pity he insists on trying to act the
Polish count; I would have preferred Professor Arpad Zitter
from Bratislava; at least then I would have been able to quiz him
about his partner, Chidher Green.’)

“No? Pity? But no matter. The very name of Chauberrisser
awakes such, oh, such fond memories”, the Count’s voice quivered with emotion, “that and the name of EugeneLouis-JeanJoseph have close ties with our family.”

`Now he wants me to ask who this Louis-Eugene-Joseph is. That is precisely what I will not do’, thought Hauberrisser and
silently smoked his cigarette instead.

“Eugene-Louis-Jean-Joseph was my godfather, you see. He
died in Africa immediately after I was christened.”

`Probably from pangs of conscience’, Hauberrisser muttered
to himself. “Died in Africa, did he, how very unfortunate.”

“Unfortunately, yes, unfortunately. Poor Eugene-LouisJean-Joseph! He could have been Emperor of France.”

“He could have been what?” - Hauberrisser thought he must
have misheard - “He could have been Emperor of France?”

“Assuredly!” Proudly Arpad Zitter played his ace, “Prince
Eugene-Louis-Jean-Joseph Napoleon IV. He fell on 1st July
1879 inthe war against the Zulus. I even have alock of his hair”,
he pulled out a gold pocket watch the size of a steak and of quite
fiendish tastelessness, opened the lid and pointed to a tuft of
black hair. “Me watch came from him, as well. A christening
present. A mechanical marvel.” He explained, “If you press here
it strikes the hours, minutes and seconds and at the same time
a pair of mechanical lovers perform on the back. This button
starts the stop-watch, this one stops it; if you push it in a bit
farther the current phase of the moon is shown; even farther in
and the date flips out. Push this lever to the left and it squirts out
a drop of musk-oil, to the right and it plays the Marseillaise. A
truly royal present. There are only two of its kind anywhere.”

“That must be a comfort”, Hauberrisser conceded with polite
ambiguity. He was highly amused by the combination of brazen
effrontery-and total ignorance of good manners.

Count Ciechonski, encouraged by Hauberrisser’s friendly
expression, became even more familiar, told him about his
extensive estates in Russian Poland which had unfortunately
been devastated by the war (luckily he was not dependent on
them for his income, his intimate connections with the American Stock Exchange allowed him to earn a few thousand pounds
with speculations on the London market every month), moved
on to horse-racing and bribing jockeys, the scores of eligible
young billionairesses he knew, to land in Brazil and the Urals
going for a song, still-undeveloped oil wells by the Black Sea,
and remarkable inventions which were his to exploit and which were sure to bring in a million a day; then he got on to buried
treasures, whose owners had died or fled, to infallible methods
of winning at roulette, told Hauberrisser about huge sums for
spies that Japan was just itching to pay out to reliable persons
(of course one would have to put down a deposit first), prattled
on about underground brothels in the big cities to which only
those in the know had access, and even went into great detail
about King Solomon’s golden Ophir, which, as he knew from
the papers of his godfather Eugene-Louis-Jean-Joseph, lay in
the land of the Zulus.

He was even more versatile than his pocket watch and dangled a thousand hooks, each more crudely baited than the last,
in order to tempt his prey. Like a shortsighted burglar who tries
a whole set of skeleton keys without ever finding the keyhole,
he reconnoitered Hauberrisser’s mind without finding an open
window to climb in through.

Finally he gave up in exhaustion and asked Hauberrisser in
a rather deflated voice whether he would not mind introducing
him to some gentleman’s gambling club. But even here his
hopes were dashed, Hauberrisser excused himself, pointing out
that he was a stranger in Amsterdam himself.

The `Count’ took a disgruntled sip of his sherry-cobbler.

Hauberrisser looked at him reflectively. `Perhaps the best
thing would be to tell him straight out that he is a confidence
trickster. I would give something to hear the story of his life, it
must have been colourful enough. This man must have waded
through a sea of filth. But he would deny it of course, and even
resort to insults.’ A feeling of irritation came over him; `Life
is becoming unbearable with the people and conditions of
today: mountains of empty shells everywhere and if you do
come across something that looks like a nut worth cracking, it
turns out to be a lifeless pebble.’

“Jews, Hasidic Jews!” muttered the confidence trickster
contemptuously, pointing at a group of figures in rags and tatters
- the men at the front with tangled beards and black caftans, the
women behind them, their children in bundles tied to their backs
- who were hurrying silently down the street, their wide-open
eyes staring wildly into the distance. “Emigrants. Not a cent in their pockets. They believe the sea will part before them when
they come. Mad! Not long ago in Zandvoort a whole crowd of
them would have been drowned if they hadn’t been pulled out
in time.”

“Do you mean that seriously or is it just a joke?”

“No, no, I’m perfectly serious. Didn’t you read about it?
Religious mania is breaking out everywhere you look nowadays. For the moment it is mostly the poor who are infected by
it but”- Zitter’s irritated expression brightened up at the thought
that perhaps the time was coming soon when his chickens would
be there for the plucking - “but it won’t be long before the rich
catch it too. I know about these things.” Happy to have found
a profitable topic of conversation - he had noticed how
Hauberrisser’s attention had been caught - his tongue was loosened once more. “Not only in Russia, where the Rasputins and
Jan Sergeis and other holy men keep popping out like rabbits,
the mad idea that the Messiah is coming has spread over the
whole world. Even among the Zulus in Africa things are happening; there’s a negro running round there who calls himself
the ‘Black Elijah’ and performs miracles. I know all about that
from Eugene-Louis” - he quickly covered up his error- “from
afriend who was outthere recently hunting leopards. Iknow one
famous Zulu chief myself, from Moscow” - his face suddenly
showed a certain unease - “and if I had not seen it with my own
eyes, I would not have believed it: the man’s a complete ass in
all other respects, but, as true as I’m sitting here, he can perform
magic, he really can. Magic! Don’t laugh, my dear Hauberrisser, I’ve seen it myself and no trickster can pull the wool over
my eyes” - for a moment he completely forgot that he was
supposed to be playing the role of Count Ciechonski - “I can do
all that to a T myself. Devil knows how he does it. He says he
has a fetish and when he calls on it he’s fireproof. What is true
is that he heats up large stones until they glow red - I’ve
inspected them myself! - and then walks slowly across them
without burning his feet!” In his excitement he started chewing
his fingernails and muttered to himself, “But just you wait, my
lad, I’ll find out how you do it.” Suddenly worried that he might
have given himself away, he quickly assumed the mask of the Polish count and emptied his glass, “Nazdravje, my dear Chauberrisser, nazdravje, cheerio. Perhaps you will see the Zulu
yourself; I have cheard he is in Cholland, appearing in a circus.
But shall we not go to the Amstel Room next door for a bite … “

Hauberrisser stood up quickly. He was not in the least interested in Arpad Zitter as a count. “Awfully sorry, but I am
otherwise engaged for this evening. Perhaps another time.
Goodbye. So nice to have met you.”

Baffled by his sudden departure, the confidence trickster
watched him leave open-mouthed.

Hauberrisser rushed through the streets of Amsterdam, in a
fever of excitement, though he could not say why.

As he passed the circus where Usibepu’s Zulus were appearing - it must have been the one `Professor’ Zitter had in mind
- he toyed with the idea of going in to see the performance, but
then let it drop. What did he care if anegro could do magic tricks!
It was not a lust for novelty that was racking his nerves, there
was something in the air, something intangible, imponderable
that whipped him up into a nervous frenzy: the same noxious
fumes which, even before he had come to Holland, he had found
so suffocating that his thoughts had automatically turned
towards suicide.

He wondered where it came from this time. Had he caught it,
like an infection, from the Jewish emigrants he had seen?

He felt it must be the same mysterious influence which had
driven him from his home that sent these religious fanatics on
a wild chase over the face of the earth; only the individual
motivation was different.

It was well before the War when he had first had this eerie
sensation, as if something was squeezing his brain, only at that
time it had still been possible to suppress it by throwing himself
into work or pleasure. He had found various ways of explaining
it away: it was wanderlust, it was nervous exhaustion, it was the
result of his unhealthy way of life; when war raised its bloody
standard over the Continent he assumed it had been a premonition of the carnage. But why, now the War was over, was the
sensation becoming daily more intense and driving him to despair? And not only Hauberrisser himself, almost everyone he
talked to about it had a similar tale to tell.

They had all confidently assumed that when peace descended
on the nations of the world it would also return to the hearts of
men. Precisely the opposite had occurred.

As usual the empty-headed were loudest in proclaiming their
shallow explanation that the fever raging in the hearts and minds
of the survivors was merely the result of the disturbance of their
comfortable existence. The cause went much deeper.