Doctor Fischer of Geneva Or The Bomb Party (3 page)

‘You make him sound like Our Father in Heaven – his will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.'

‘That about describes him,' she said.

‘You make me curious.'

‘Oh, keep the appointment if you must,' she said. ‘But be careful. Please be careful. And be more than ever careful if he smiles.'

‘A Dentophil smile,' I mocked her, for indeed both of us used this toothpaste. It had been recommended by my dentist. Perhaps he was a Toad too.

‘Don't ever mention Dentophil to him,' she said. ‘He doesn't like to be reminded of how his fortune was made.'

‘Doesn't he use it himself?'

‘No. He uses a thing called a water-pik. Keep off the subject of teeth altogether or he'll think you are getting at him. He mocks others, but no one mocks him. He has a monopoly in mockery.'

When I cried off work at four o'clock on Thursday I felt none of the courage which I had felt with Anna-Luise. I was just a man called Alfred Jones, earning three thousand francs a month, a man in his fifties, who worked for a chocolate firm. I had left my Fiat with Anna-Luise; I took the train to Geneva and walked from the station to a taxi rank. There was what the Swiss call a Pub Anglais not far from the rank, named, as you would expect, the Winston Churchill, with an unrecognizable sign and wooden panelling and stained-glass windows (for some reason the white and red roses of York and Lancaster) and an English bar with china beer handles, perhaps the only authentic antiques, for that adjective could hardly be applied to the carved wooden settees and the bogus barrels which served as tables and the pressurized Whitbread. The hours of opening I am glad to say were not authentically English and I planned to drink up a little courage before I took a taxi.

As the draught beer was almost as expensive as whisky I ordered a whisky. I wanted to talk in order to keep my mind off things, so I stood at the bar and tried to engage the landlord in conversation.

‘Get many English customers?' I asked.

‘No,' he said.

‘Why? I would have thought . . .'

‘They have no money.' He was a Swiss and not forthcoming.

I drank a second whisky and went out. I asked the taxi-man, ‘Do you know Doctor Fischer's house at Versoix?' He was a French Swiss and more forthcoming than the barman.

‘Are you going to see the doctor?' he asked.

‘Yes.'

‘You had better be careful.'

‘Why? He isn't dangerous, is he?'

‘Un peu farfelu,'
he said.

‘In what way?'

‘You have not heard of his parties?'

‘Only rumours. Nobody's ever given me any details.'

‘Ah, they are sworn to secrecy,' he said.

‘Who?'

‘The people he invites.'

‘Then how does anybody know about them?'

‘Nobody does know,' he said.

The same insolent manservant opened the door to me. ‘Have you an appointment?' he asked.

‘Yes.'

‘What name?'

‘Jones.'

‘I don't know that he can see you.'

‘I told you, I have an appointment.'

‘Oh, appointments,' he said in a tone of disdain. ‘Everyone says he has an appointment.'

‘Run along and tell him I'm here.'

He scowled at me and went, leaving me this time on the doorstep. He was quite a long time gone and I nearly walked away. I suspected him of lingering. When at last he returned he said, ‘He'll see you,' and led me through the lounge and up the marble stairs. On the stairs was a painting of a woman in flowing robes holding, with an expression of great tenderness, a skull: I am no expert, but it looked like a genuine seventeenth-century painting and not a copy.

‘Mr Jones,' the man announced me.

I looked across a table at Doctor Fischer and was surprised to see a man much like other men (there had been so many hints and warnings), a man more or less of my own age with a red moustache and hair that was beginning to lose its fire – perhaps he tinted the moustache. He had pouches under his eyes and very heavy lids. He looked like a man who didn't sleep well at night. He was seated behind a big desk in the only comfortable chair.

‘Sit down, Jones,' he said without rising or putting out a hand. It was more of a command than an invitation, yet it was not unfriendly – I might have been one of his employees who was accustomed to stand and to whom he was showing a small favour. I pulled up a chair and silence fell. At last he said, ‘You wanted to speak to me?'

‘I thought you probably wanted to speak to me.'

‘How could that be?' he asked. He gave a little smile and I remembered Anna-Luise's warning. ‘I didn't know you existed until you called the other day. By the way, what does that glove conceal? A deformity?'

‘I have lost a hand.'

‘I imagine you have not come here to consult me about it. I am not that kind of doctor.'

‘I am living with your daughter. We are thinking of getting married.'

‘That is always a difficult decision,' he said, ‘but it's one you must take together. It's no affair of mine. Is your deformity a hereditary one? I suppose you will have discussed that important point?'

‘I lost it in the London blitz,' I said. I added lamely, ‘We thought you should be told.'

‘Your hand hardly concerns me.'

‘I meant about our marriage.'

‘That information could have been conveyed, I would have thought, more easily in writing. It would have saved you a journey to Geneva.' He made Geneva sound as distant socially from our home in Vevey as Moscow.

‘You don't seem very concerned about your daughter.'

‘You probably know her better than I do, Jones, if you know her well enough to marry her, and you have relieved me of any responsibility I may once have had.'

‘Don't you want to have her address?'

‘I imagine she lives with you?'

‘Yes.'

‘I suppose you are in the telephone book?'

‘Yes. Under Vevey.'

‘Then there's no need for you to write the address down.' He gave me another of his little dangerous smiles. ‘Well, Jones, it was polite of you to have called, even if it was not really necessary.' It was obviously a dismissal.

‘Good-bye, Doctor Fischer,' I said. I had nearly reached the door when he spoke again.

‘Jones,' he said, ‘do you happen to know anything about porridge? Real porridge I mean. Not Quaker Oats. Perhaps being Welsh – you have a Welsh name –'

‘Porridge is a Scottish dish,' I said, ‘not Welsh.'

‘Ah, I have been misinformed. Thank you, Jones, that is all, I think.'

When I got home Anna-Luise greeted me with an anxious face. ‘How did you get on?'

‘I didn't get on at all.'

‘He was a beast to you?'

‘I wouldn't say that – he was totally uninterested in both of us.'

‘Did he smile?'

‘Yes.'

‘He didn't invite you to a party?'

‘No.'

‘Thank God for that.'

‘Thank Doctor Fischer,' I said, ‘or is it the same thing?'

5

A week or two later we got married at the
Mairie
with a witness whom I brought from the office. There had been no communication from Doctor Fischer, although we had sent him an announcement of the date. We felt very happy, all the more happy because we would be alone – except, of course, for the witness. We made love half an hour before we went to the
Mairie
. ‘No cake,' Anna-Luise said, ‘no bridesmaids, no priest, no family – it's perfect. This way it's solemn – one feels really married. The other way is like a party.'

‘One of Doctor Fischer's parties?'

‘Almost as bad.'

There was someone standing at the back of the room in the
Mairie
whom I didn't know. I had looked nervously over my shoulder, because I half expected the arrival of Doctor Fischer, and saw a very tall lean man with hollow cheeks and a twitch in his left eyelid which made me think for a moment that he was winking at me, but, as he gave me a blank glare when I winked back, I assumed he was an official, attached to the mayor. Two chairs had been placed for us in front of the table, and the witness, called Monsieur Excoffier, hovered nervously behind us. Anna-Luise whispered something I didn't catch.

‘What did you say?'

‘He's one of the Toads.'

‘Monsieur Excoffier!' I exclaimed.

‘No, no, the man at the back.' Then the ceremony began, and I felt nervous all through the affair, because of the man behind us. I remembered the place in the Anglican service where the clergyman asks if there is anyone who knows just cause or impediment why these two persons should not be joined in Holy Matrimony you are to declare it, and I couldn't help wondering whether a Toad mightn't have been sent for that very purpose by Doctor Fischer. However, the question was never asked, nothing happened, everything went smoothly, and the mayor – I suppose it was the mayor – shook our hands and wished us happiness and then disappeared quickly through a door behind the table. ‘Now for a drink,' I said to Monsieur Excoffier – it was the least we could do in return for his mute services – ‘a bottle of champagne at the Trois Couronnes.'

But the thin man still stood there winking at us from the back of the room. ‘Is there another way out?' I asked the clerk of the court – if that is what he was – and I indicated the door behind the table, but no, he said no. It was quite impossible for us to go that way – that wasn't for the public, so there was nothing we could do but face the Toad. When we reached the door the stranger stopped me. ‘Monsieur Jones, my name is Monsieur Belmont. I have brought something for you from Doctor Fischer.' He held out an envelope.

‘Don't take it,' Anna-Luise said. We both in our ignorance thought it might be a writ.

‘Madame Jones, he has sent his best wishes for your happiness.'

‘You are a tax adviser, aren't you?' she said. ‘What are his best wishes worth? Do I have to declare them to the
fisc
?'

I had opened the envelope. There was only a printed card inside. ‘Doctor Fischer requests the pleasure of the company of . . .' (he had filled in the name Jones without so much as a Mister) ‘at a reunion of his friends and an informal dinner on . . .' (he had written in ‘10 November') ‘at 8.30 p.m. RSVP.'

‘It's an invitation?' Anna-Luise asked.

‘Yes.'

‘You mustn't go.'

‘He will be very disappointed,' Monsieur Belmont said. ‘He particularly hopes that Monsieur Jones will come and join us all. Madame Montgomery will be there and of course Monsieur Kips and we hope that the Divisionnaire . . .'

‘A gathering of the Toads,' Anna-Luise said.

‘Toads? Toads? I do not know the word. Please, he wishes very much to introduce your husband to all his friends.'

‘But I see from the card that my wife is not invited.'

‘None of our wives are invited. No ladies. It has become a rule for our little gatherings. I do not know why. There was once . . . but Madame Montgomery is the only exception now. You might say that in herself she is the representative of her sex.' He added a piece of unfortunate slang, ‘She's a good sort.'

‘I will send a reply this evening,' I said.

‘You will miss a great deal, I assure you, if you do not come. Doctor Fischer's parties are always very entertaining. He has a great sense of humour, and he is so generous. We have much fun.'

We drank our bottle of champagne with Monsieur Excoffier at the Trois Couronnes and then we went home. The champagne was excellent, but the sparkle had gone out of the day. Doctor Fischer had introduced a conflict between us, for I began to argue that after all I had nothing really against Doctor Fischer. He could easily have opposed our marriage or at least expressed disapproval. By sending me an invitation to one of his parties he had in a sense given me a wedding present which it would be churlish to refuse.

‘He wants you to join the Toads.'

‘But I've got nothing against the Toads. Are they really as bad as you say? I've seen three of them. I admit I didn't much care for Mrs Montgomery.'

‘They weren't always Toads, I suppose. He's corrupted all of them.'

‘A man can only be corrupted if he's corruptible.'

‘And how do you know you aren't?'

‘I don't. Perhaps it's a good thing to find out.'

‘So you'll let him take you into a high place and show you all the kingdoms of the world.'

‘I'm not Christ, and he's not Satan, and I thought we'd agreed he was God Almighty, although I suppose to the damned God Almighty looks very like Satan.'

‘Oh, all right,' she said, ‘go and be damned.'

The quarrel was like a dying wood fire: sometimes it seemed to dwindle out, but then a gathering of sparks would light a splinter of charred wood and flare for a moment into a flame. The dispute only ended when she wept against the pillow and I surrendered. ‘You're right,' I said, ‘I don't owe him anything. A piece of pasteboard. I won't go. I promise I won't go.'

‘No,' she said, ‘you are right. I'm wrong. I know you aren't a Toad, but
you
won't know you aren't unless you go to that damned party. Please go, I'm not angry any more, I promise. I want you to go.' She added, ‘After all, he
is
my father. Perhaps he's not all that bad. Perhaps he'll spare you. He didn't spare my mother.'