Authors: Helen de Witt
The next day I went back to Knightsbridge. He had left at 11:00 the day before so I thought I’d better get there before 11:00.
I got there at 9:00, but I couldn’t get in. There was a speaker phone and a buzzer: Szegeti was on the third floor. I sat on the steps to wait. Half an hour went by. I stood by the speaker phone as if looking for a name. Twenty minutes went by.
At 9:56 a woman with a bag of shopping let herself in and I followed her through. I headed for the stairs to avoid awkward questions: I ran up the stairs three at a time.
At 10:00 I went up to the door and rang the bell.
A man in a white uniform came to the door. He said:
What do you want?
I said I had come to see Mr. Szegeti.
He said: Mr. Szegeti is not receiving callers.
I said: When would be a good time to come?
He said: It is not for me to speculate. Would you like to leave your card?
But now a voice from another room called out something in Arabic. I could tell it was Arabic but I couldn’t understand it; this was annoying as I thought my Arabic was pretty good. I had read 1001 of the
Thousand and One Nights
and the
Muqaddimah
and a lot of Ibn Battuta and I read
Al Hayah
whenever Sib bought a copy to keep her hand in. The voice must have said something like It’s all right, I’ll take care of it, because the man in white bowed and walked away, and Szegeti came into the hall. He was wearing a red and gold brocade robe; his hair was wet; he was wearing a lot of perfume. My opponent was a dandy of the Meiji period. This was it.
I wanted to meet you, I said.
He said: How very flattering. It’s rather early, though, don’t you think? In the days when people paid morning calls they paid them in the afternoon, you know. The custom has died out, but this civilised conception of the day is preserved in the description of a performance beginning at four o’ clock as a matinee. You wouldn’t expect a matinee to begin at ten in the morning.
No, I said.
As it happens, however, you would have been doomed to disappointment had you come at a more suitable time. I have an appointment at two—hence my unseasonably matutinal appearance. Why did you want to meet me?
I took a breath. He raises the bamboo sword. He draws it back with beautiful economy.
I’m your son, I said. I could not breathe.
He paused. He was perfectly still.
I see, he said. Do you mind if I smoke? This is rather sudden.
Sure.
He took a gold case—a gold case, not a pack—from a pocket. He opened it: the cigarettes had dark paper, and a gold band near one tip.
He took out a cigarette; closed the case; tapped the cigarette on the case; put the case back in his pocket. He took out a gold lighter. He put the cigarette in his mouth; cracked the lighter; held the flame to the tip. All this time he did not look at me. He put the lighter back in his pocket. He inhaled on the cigarette. He still hadn’t looked at me. At last he looked at me. He said:
Would it be indelicate to ask your mother’s name?
She didn’t want you to know, I said. I’d rather not say, if you don’t mind. I must have hurt her very badly.
No, she—she just realised it was over and thought there was no point. She had enough money and didn’t want to trouble you.
How extraordinary. If we’d parted on bad terms I could understand if she’d felt miffed, but you say there was nothing of that kind. And yet she chose not to tell me something rather momentous. She must have a very low opinion of me—I am glad it has not prejudiced you against me.
No, no, I said. She said she didn’t know you very well.
Then she must have assumed the worst, surely?
He was taking slow drags on the cigarette, then speaking, then smoking again.
I’m sorry to question you so closely, but you must see that this is rather wounding to say the least. I freely admit that I have none of the uxorious virtues, but that’s scarcely synonymous with an abdication of obvious responsibilities—I’d always thought the women I’d known had understood the sort of man I was. I’m not a very deep character, you know—it’s pretty easy to get my measure on short acquaintance, and if women don’t like it they don’t stick around for very long—certainly not long enough to get to a bedroom. Or is that just shorthand for a one-night stand?
Yes, I said.
I see, yes, that makes a little more sense.
He smoked again.
If you’ll forgive the question, though, am I the only candidate?
She was working in an office with mainly women, I said. Then she met you at a party.
And was swept off her feet. And this was when? How old are you?
Twelve years ago. 11.
And where? In London?
I think so.
There’s just one thing I can’t quite understand. What harm could there be in telling me the name of a woman I knew so briefly? Why should your mother care?
I’m not sure.
I see.
He stubbed out the cigarette.
It’s all nonsense, isn’t it?
I was silent.
What put you up to it, a newspaper?
No—
You want money?
No.
I felt slightly shocked. It had happened so quickly.
Have you ever seen Seven Samurai?
A long time ago. What about it?
Do you remember the scene where Kyuzo has the duel?
I’m afraid I can’t remember their names.
Kyuzo is the one who isn’t interested in killing people.
I forced myself to speak slowly.
He fights a match with another samurai with a bamboo sword. He wins, but the other man claims it was a draw. So Kyuzo says, If we’d been fighting with real swords I’d have killed you. So the other samurai says, All right, let’s fight with real swords. So Kyuzo says, It’s silly, I’ll kill you. So the other samurai draws his sword, and they fight with real swords, and he’s killed.
Yes?
So I went to see my real father three months ago, just to see him. I didn’t say who I was. I was standing in his study, and I thought, I can’t say I’m his son, because it’s true.
He had been watching me with very bright, alert eyes and an impassive face. His eyes brightened further.
You could say it to me because it wasn’t true? he said. I see!
He saw it in a single second. He laughed suddenly.
But this is marvellous!
He glanced at his watch (gold of course).
Come in and tell me more about it, he said. I must hear more. Was I your first victim?
The fourth, I said.
I caught myself about to apologise and stopped myself from saying something idiotic.
The first three were terrible, I said which was a little like an apology. Two believed me and one didn’t. They were all terrible. Then I said it wasn’t true and they didn’t understand.
You astonish me.
Then I thought of you. I hadn’t before because I don’t play bridge.
Don’t you? Pity.
I thought you’d understand. I mean, I thought if you didn’t believe it you’d still understand.
He laughed again.
Have you any idea how many paternity claims I’ve faced?
No.
Neither have I. I lost count after the third. Usually it’s the alleged mother who presents herself, with the utmost reluctance you understand, for the sake of the child.
The first time it happened was dreadful. I’d never seen the woman before in my life, or at least I’d no recollection. Instead of at once being suspicious I was horribly embarrassed—how shocking to have so little recall of a tender moment! She said it had been a few years—how wounding, you know, if she had changed so much for the worse!
At any rate I came to my senses sufficiently to ask a few questions. The thing looked more and more fishy. Then I had what I thought was a stroke of genius. I fancied myself a perfect Solomon!
I said: Very well, if the child is mine, leave it with me. I undertake to bring him up on condition that you make no further contact with either of us.
My thought was, that no mother would surrender her child on such terms to a perfect stranger. I’d scarcely uttered the words when I saw my mistake—saw the terrible temptation in the girl’s eyes. It was then that I knew for a fact that the child wasn’t mine: it was like playing an ace first trick and watching a rank beginner agonise over whether to trump. My heart was in my mouth, I can tell you!
What would you have done if she’d accepted? I asked.
I’d have had to take it, of course. Play or pay—not a very noble principle, perhaps, but only consider the sacrifice required to abandon it, for the mere paltry momentary advantage of ridding myself of this unexpected encumbrance. Life is such a chancy business, you may lose everything you have at any moment—if a stroke of luck can rob you of whatever it is you live by, where does that leave you? Easy enough to say now, but by God I was sweating bullets as I looked at the homely little brat—it’s an absolutely infallible rule, by the way, that the infants brought forward in these circumstances are ugly as sin. Its mother holds out a little red-faced, squalling thing and assures you without a blush that there is a striking resemblance. Without being unduly vain I like to think I am at least passable; it’s a terrible blow to the self-confidence to find the imposture not rejected out of hand for sheer implausibility. It is a point in your favour that you did not offer me that insult. Is your mother pretty?
Yes, I said, though it did not seem the right word. So what happened? Did she go away?
Eventually. She told me she could not let me take the child because she thought I was an immoral person. It seemed rather a case of the pot calling the kettle black, but I was too relieved to object. I assured her at once that I led a life of unparalleled viciousness, and that a child introduced to this sink of iniquity could not fail to be irredeemably corrupted. I claimed to be a regular user of a host of pharmaceutical products; I said my sexual appetite had become so jaded it could not be roused if there were fewer than four billowy beauties in the bed; I described in lurid detail sexual practices with which I will not sully your ears, to use an unhappily or, you may think, happily outmoded expression.
I was trying to keep a straight face.
And that worked?
Like a charm! Whatever the temptation to be rid of the child, she could not deliver it up to such a monster without losing face. Instead she went off and sold the story to the tabloids—how she could not reconcile it with her conscience to take money from a father of such depravity. Of course the papers adored it. I wish I’d kept a few—I remember one absolutely killing headline about Five-in-a-bed Father. I saw it unexpectedly on a newsstand and simply screamed with laughter—but like a fool I didn’t buy a few hundred to send to friends. We live and learn. Of course, it’s true that she hadn’t retracted the claim and I suppose it may have given one or two people the wrong idea, but escape seemed cheap at the price.
Have you had breakfast?
Yes.
I haven’t. Have another with me.
All right.
It came as a shock to hear my own voice. Then I thought this was impolite.
Thank you.
The pleasure is mine.
I followed him through the flat. I had spent most of every winter I could remember sitting in one museum or another looking or pretending to look at the exhibits, and I was beginning to feel right at home. There were swords with Maghribi inscriptions on the blades. There was a spectacular Qur’an in Eastern Kufic on a small table. There was an equally spectacular collection of ceramics on walls, shelves and a few more strategically placed small tables, most of them again ornamented in Kufic script in its Eastern and most stylised form. Wherever a wall was not taken up with a priceless sword or piece of pottery it was taken up with a priceless Persian miniature. I thought of the heart. Maybe I could persuade Szegeti to part with some small, unmissable objet d’art and I could sell that instead.
We reached the dining room. There was a telephone on a table by the door. He lifted the receiver and spoke into it, asking someone for another place setting.
At any rate, he resumed, leading the way to the table, after that I became much more circumspect. I made it my policy to behave with perfect courtesy throughout—nothing is more infuriating to someone who is doing something quite outrageous. Goaded by frustration, they betray themselves sooner or later. There is really no need, I find, to be crude or offensive.
Practice makes perfect, I said.
Very kind of you. As you see, it’s merely a by-product of a rather chequered career. I daresay your first couple of attempts were much worthier types who hadn’t been involved with more than a few women. Naturally they took the whole thing much more au sérieux.
He began putting food on his plate and gestured for me to do the same. I’d never seen so much food at a single meal. About three dozen eggs had been scrambled, boiled, poached, fried, Benedicted, omeletted and whatever else you can do with an egg & then placed on silver chafing dishes to keep warm. Twenty or thirty pastries had been arranged in a tasteful mountain in a basket. Three pale green melons had been hollowed out, the edges scalloped, and the halves filled with fruit carved into crescent moons and stars. There was another big basket of fruit au naturel, most of it the kinds we never bought at Tesco’s because they were 99p a shot. There was a revolving silver stand with two kinds of mustard, three kinds of chutney, five kinds of honey and twelve kinds of jam. There were crêpes with seven different fillings. There was smoked salmon, and something that I thought might be a kipper. There were glass pitchers with freshly squeezed orange, pineapple, tomato, guava and mango juice. There was silver pots of coffee, tea and hot chocolate, and a silver bowl of whipped cream for the hot chocolate.