Doctor Fischer of Geneva Or The Bomb Party (13 page)

‘Mr Kips took you too seriously,' Mrs Montgomery said. ‘He has no sense of humour.'

‘What will happen to Mr Kips's cheque,' Belmont asked, ‘when his cracker remains unpicked?'

‘I shall divide it between you. Unless of course it contains the charge. You would hardly want me to divide that.'

‘Another four hundred thousand francs each,' Belmont calculated quickly.

‘No. More than that. One of you will probably not have survived.'

‘Survived!' Deane exclaimed. Perhaps he had been too drunk to take in the story of the explosive cracker.

‘Of course,' Doctor Fischer said, ‘all may very well end on a happy note. The sixth cracker may be the one that contains the bomb.'

‘Are you seriously saying there's a bloody bomb in one of the crackers?'

‘Two million five hundred thousand francs,' Mrs Montgomery murmured – she had obviously corrected Belmont's figures and she was certainly dreaming of what Doctor Fischer had described as a happy ending.

‘You, Deane, I am sure, will not refuse the little gamble. I remember how in
The Beaches of Dunkirk
you bravely volunteered for a suicidal action. You were splendid – at least you were splendidly directed. You very nearly won an Oscar, didn't you? “I will go, sir, if I may go alone.” That was the great line I shall always remember. Who wrote it?'

‘I wrote it myself. Not the script writer or the director. It came to me suddenly like that, on the set.'

‘Congratulations, my boy. Now here's your big chance to go to the bran tub alone.'

I never expected Deane to go. He stood up and drained his port, and I thought he was going to follow Mr Kips. But perhaps in drink he really believed he was back on a film set and an imaginary Dunkirk. He touched the side of his head as though he were adjusting a non-existent beret, but while he was thinking himself back into his old role Mrs Montgomery acted. She left the table and ran across the snow to the bran tub crying, ‘Ladies first,' knocked off the lid and plunged her hand into the bran. Perhaps she had calculated that the odds would never be as favourable again.

Belmont had probably been thinking along the same lines, for he protested, ‘We should have drawn for turns.'

Mrs Montgomery found her cracker and pulled. There was a small pop and a little metal cylinder fell on to the snow. She poked out a roll of paper and gave a scream of excitement.

‘What's wrong?' Doctor Fischer asked.

‘Nothing's wrong, you dear man. Everything's splendidly right. Credit Suisse, Berne. Two million francs.' She ran back to the table. ‘Give me a pen, somebody. I want to fill in my name. It might get lost.'

‘I would advise you not to fill in your name until we have considered things very carefully,' Belmont said, but he was speaking to a deaf woman. Richard Deane stood stiffly to attention. At any moment, I thought, he will salute his colonel. He must in his mind have been listening to the last orders he had been given and Belmont had the time he needed to reach the bran tub before him. He hesitated a little before pulling his cracker out: the same small cylinder: the same paper, and he gave a little smile of self-satisfaction and his eye winked. He had calculated the odds – he had been right to bet. He was a man who knew all about money.

Deane said, ‘I will go, sir, if I may go alone.'

All the same he didn't go. Perhaps the director at that moment had ordered ‘Cut.'

‘What about you, Jones?' Doctor Fischer said. ‘The odds are narrowing.'

‘I prefer to watch your damned experiment to the end. Greed is winning, isn't it?'

‘If you watch you must eventually play – or leave like Mr Kips.'

‘Oh, I'll play, I promise you that. I'll bet on the last cracker. That gives better odds to the Divisionnaire.'

‘You're a stupid and boring man,' Doctor Fischer said, ‘there's no credit in choosing death if you want to die. What in God's name is Deane doing?'

‘I think he's improvising.'

Deane was still by the table, pouring out another glass of port, but no one this time had taken advantage of the delay for only myself and the Divisionnaire were left.

‘Thank you, sir,' Deane said. ‘It's a kind thought. Dutch courage never did anyone any harm – Quite unnecessary in your case, captain, I know – Thank you, sir, but the more unnecessary it is the better the flavour – If you come back safely we'll split another bottle – Cockburn's, like this, I hope, sir.'

I wondered if he would spin the dialogue out till dawn, but at the last sentence he put down his glass, saluted smartly and marched to the bran tub, fumbled for a cracker, pulled it, and fell on the ground beside the cylinder and the cheque.

‘Dead drunk,' Doctor Fischer said and told the gardeners to carry him into the house.

The Divisionnaire looked at me from the end of the table. He asked, ‘Why did you stay, Mr Jones?'

‘I have nothing better to do with my time, General.'

‘Don't call me that. I'm not a General. I am a Divisionnaire.'

‘Why have
you
stayed, Divisionnaire?'

‘It's too late to turn tail now. I haven't the courage. I should have gone to the tub first, when the odds were better. What was that man Deane saying?'

‘I think he was acting a young captain who volunteers for a desperate mission.'

‘I am a Divisionnaire, and Divisionnaires don't go on desperate missions. Besides, there
are
no desperate missions in Switzerland. Unless this is the exception. Will you go first, Mr Jones?'

‘What do you think of convertible bonds?' I heard Mrs Montgomery ask Belmont.

‘You have too many already,' Belmont said, ‘and I think it will be a long time before the dollar recovers.'

‘I suggest you go first, Divisionnaire. I'm not in need of money and it gives you the better odds. I'm after something else.'

‘When I was a boy,' the Divisionnaire said, ‘I used to play at Russian roulette with a cap pistol. It was very exciting.' He made no move to go.

I could hear Belmont saying to Mrs Montgomery, ‘I am thinking myself of investing in something German. For example Badenwerk of Karlsruhe pay eight and five-eighths per cent – but then there's always the danger of Russia, isn't there? A rather unpredictable future.'

As the Divisionnaire seemed unwilling to move I did. I wanted to bring the party to an end.

I had to sort through a lot of bran before I found a cracker. Unlike the boy with a cap pistol I felt no excitement – only a quiet sense when I touched the cracker that I was closer to Anna-Luise than I had been since I waited in the hospital room and the young doctor came to tell me she was dead. I held the cracker as though I were holding her hand, while I listened to the conversation at the table.

Belmont said to Mrs Montgomery, ‘I have rather more confidence in the Japanese. Mitsubishi pay only six and three-quarters, but it's not worth taking unnecessary risks with two million.'

I found the Divisionnaire was at my side.

‘I think we ought to go now,' Mrs Montgomery said. ‘I am afraid something may be going to happen, though of course in my heart of hearts I am sure Doctor Fischer has only been having a little joke with us.'

‘If you would like to send your car home with the chauffeur, I will drive you back and we can discuss your investments on the way.'

‘Surely you will wait till the end of the party?' Doctor Fischer asked. ‘It won't be long delayed now.'

‘Oh, it's been a wonderful last party, but it's getting too late for little me.' She fluttered her hands at us. ‘Good-night, General. Good-night, Mr Jones. Wherever is Mr Deane?'

‘On the kitchen floor, I suspect. I hope Albert doesn't take his cheque. He would certainly give notice and I should lose a good manservant.'

The Divisionnaire whispered to me, ‘Of course, we might just walk away and leave him? If you would come with me. I don't want to go alone.'

‘In my case I have nowhere to walk to.'

In spite of the whisper Doctor Fischer had heard him. ‘You knew the rules of the game from the start, Divisionnaire. You could have left with Mr Kips before the game started. Now because the odds are not so good you begin to be afraid. Think of your honour as a soldier as well as the prize. There are still two million francs in that tub.'

But the Divisionnaire did not move. He looked at me with the same appeal. When one is afraid one needs company. Doctor Fischer went mercilessly on: ‘If you act quickly the odds are two to one in your favour.'

The Divisionnaire shut his eyes and found his cracker at the first dip, but he still stood irresolute beside the tub.

‘Come back to the table, Divisionnaire, if you are afraid to pull, and give Mr Jones his chance.'

The Divisionnaire looked at me with the sad expressive eyes of a spaniel who tries to hypnotize his master into uttering the magic word ‘walk'. I said, ‘I was the first to take out a cracker. I think you should allow me to pull mine first.'

‘Of course. Of course,' he said. ‘It is your right.'

I watched him until he had returned to the safe distance of the table, carrying his cracker with him. With my left hand gone it was not easy for me to pull a cracker. While I hesitated I was aware of the Divisionnaire watching me, watching as I thought, with hope. Perhaps he was praying – after all I had seen him at the midnight Mass, he might well be a believer, perhaps he was saying to God, ‘Please, gentle Jesus, blow him up.' I would probably have made much the same prayer – ‘Let this be the end' – if I had believed, and didn't I have at least a half-belief, or why was it that as long as I held the cracker in my hand I felt the closeness of Anna-Luise? Anna-Luise was dead. She could only continue to exist somewhere if God existed. I put one end of the protruding paper tape between my teeth and I pulled with the other end. There was a feeble crack, and I felt as though Anna-Luise had withdrawn her hand from mine and walked away, between the bonfires, down towards the lake to die a second time.

‘Now, Divisionnaire,' Doctor Fischer said, ‘the odds are even.' I had never hated Fischer so much as I did then. He was taunting us both. He was taunting my disappointment and he was taunting the Divisionnaire's fear.

‘At last you are facing the enemy's fire, Divisionnaire. Isn't it something you have dreamt about during all those long years of our Swiss neutrality?'

I heard the Divisionnaire's sad voice, while I stood staring at the dead and useless cracker in my hand.

‘I was young then. I'm old now.'

‘But two million francs. I've known you a long time, Divisionnaire, and I know how much you value money. You married money, you certainly didn't marry beauty, but even when your wife died and left you all she had, it didn't satisfy you, or you wouldn't have come to my parties. Here's your chance. Two million francs for showing a little courage. Military courage. Facing fire, Divisionnaire.'

I looked across the grass at the table and I saw that the old man was near to tears. I put my hand in the bran tub and pulled out the last cracker, the cracker which should have been Kips's. Again I tugged with my teeth and again there was the same small crack no louder than a match striking.

‘What a fool you are, Jones,' Doctor Fischer said. ‘Where was the hurry? You've irritated me all the evening by your mere presence. You aren't like the others. You aren't in the picture. You haven't helped. You prove nothing. It isn't money you want. You are just greedy for death. I'm not interested in that sort of greed.'

The Divisionnaire said, ‘But there's only my cracker left.'

‘Yes, Divisionnaire, and it's your turn now all right. No getting out of it. You must play the game to the end. Get up. Put yourself at a safe distance. Unlike Jones I don't want to die,' but the old man didn't move.

‘I can't shoot you for cowardice in the face of the enemy, but I can promise you the story will be all round Geneva.'

I took the two cheques out of the two cylinders and returned with them to the table. I tossed one of the cheques to Fischer. ‘There's Mr Kips's share,' I said, ‘to divide among the others.'

‘You are keeping the other?'

‘Yes.'

He gave me one of his dangerous smiles. ‘After all, Jones, I have hopes of fitting you in the picture. Sit down and have another glass while the Divisionnaire picks up his courage. You are quite well off now. Relatively. In your own eyes. Draw the money out of the bank tomorrow and tuck it safely away, and I really believe that soon you will begin to feel like all the others. I might even start the parties again if only to watch your greed growing. Mrs Montgomery, Belmont, Kips, Deane, they were much like they are now when I first knew them. But I shall have created you. Just as much as God created Adam. Divisionnaire, your time's up. Don't keep us waiting any more. The party's over, the bonfires are going out, it's getting cold, and it's time for Albert to clear the table.'

The Divisionnaire sat silent, his old head bowed towards the cracker on the table. I thought, He is really crying (I couldn't see his eyes), crying for the lost dream of heroism that I suppose every young soldier goes to bed with.

‘Be a man, Divisionnaire.'

‘How you must despise yourself,' I said to Doctor Fischer. I don't know what made me say those words. It was as though they had been whispered in my ear, and I had simply passed them on. I pushed the cheque down the table towards the Divisionnaire. I said, ‘I'll buy your cracker for two million francs. Give it me.'