England Made Me (17 page)

‘Shakespeare's
Pericles
. In my own translation.'

‘Is it a good play?'

‘Oh, Herr Krogh, it is a great, a daring play. It anticipated
Mrs Warren's Profession
. For years I have urged my pupils if they wished to understand the very spirit . . . It is Shakespeare's finest, most poetic . . . Of course it has difficulties. There's the question of Gower. Who is Gower?'

‘You must ask my English friend. Here he is. Who is Gower, Farrant?'

‘You don't mind if this girl joins us, do you, Mr Krogh? She's thirsty: you can see that: but she doesn't understand a word I say.'

The dark sunburn beneath the ash blonde hair was beautiful: a few drops of sweat lay on her upper lip; she watched the men with a complete lack of intelligence; she sat down, she took her drink, she said nothing; she was perfectly willing to be ignored. Krogh had quite forgotten that such women existed. He said: ‘Professor Hammarsten talks English, Farrant.'

‘In William Shakespeare's
Pericles
, the old man Gower. Who is the old man Gower, Mr Fecund?'

‘I'm afraid I've never read the play, Professor.'

‘No, no. But you must have seen the play acted often in London. The old man Gower. “From ashes ancient Gower is come.”'

‘I've seen
Hamlet
and
Macbeth
.'

‘No, no, they do not interest me.
Pericles
, that is the greatest play. I have a theory about it. “From ashes”: that is not from burnt coal but from trees. From ash trees. Ash, oak, and thorn, the sacred trees. Ancient Gower is a British Druid, he is an ancient in the sense of Methuselah, a priest and king. That is how I have translated it. “From ashes ancient Gower is come.” Literally, it is “from the sacred ash trees the Druidic priest, Gower, has arrived” – not old man Gower. Do you agree?'

‘It sounds good.'

Perhaps the girl realized Krogh's lack of interest in the conversation. Without a word she took his right hand and spread it palm upwards on the table in front of her; there was no coquetry in the act; she was just ‘doing her piece'. Men liked to have their hands held and studied; it gave them a sense of importance; they liked to hear a girl saying ‘you're going a long journey', they liked the touch of hands, as legitimate as in a dance, they liked to be warned, ‘be careful of two women, one dark and one fair', they felt no end of dogs.

‘Of course you will make this objection. The scenes are Tyre, Antioch, Ephesus. You will say – why a British Druid?'

‘Yes, I quite see that, Professor. It does seem odd.'

‘But that is an objection I reply to in the following manner. Shakespeare is your national poet. He lived in the high old times of good Queen Bess, at a period of nationalistic expansion.'

‘You are very successful,' the girl said. ‘You ought to stick to the work you are doing now.'

‘Where do you come from?' Krogh asked, astonished that she didn't know his face.

‘From Lund,' she said, and ran her finger down the line of life. ‘You are very healthy: you have a long life.'

He could not help listening with satisfaction. ‘No break in it?'

‘No break.'

She said: ‘You don't make friends easily. You should beware of a man and a woman. You are very generous.'

The Professor said: ‘I shall dress Gower in a symbolistic costume representing imperialism or nationalistic expansion.'

‘You don't care much for girls. You like work best.'

‘What is my work?'

‘Something with your head.' She let his hand go and immediately seemed to lose all interest in him; she drank her beer and stared at the dance floor through large pale marble eyes. Presently a young man passed and bowed and she left the table and walked with him to the floor and danced with him. She was quite uninterested and very pretty and completely stupid; she left behind her in Krogh's brain a sense of ease and happiness which vanished almost as soon as it became conscious. It was like an unexpected scent in a mean street, a breath of mint between the tenements: one turns back, one picks one's way across the pavement, old fag packets and potato peelings and the runnings of a conduit (she didn't know me . . . a long life . . . generous), but the smell has gone. The music had stopped, at another table the girl was laying the boy's hand palm upwards on the table.

‘When are you going to produce the play then, Mr Hammarsten?'

‘Never. These are only idle ideas, dreams – I have no money, Mr Fecund.'

‘Farrant.'

‘Ferrett. I have no connexions with the theatre, the managers won't look at my work, I am only a school-teacher with a great love for William Shakespeare.'

(A long life . . . generous . . .)

‘I will let you have twenty-five thousand crowns, Professor Hammarsten.' The old man said nothing, he turned away from Anthony and stared at Krogh with his mouth a little open; he looked too terrified to speak. Yet, Krogh thought, he's always imagined this: for years he's day-dreamed that a rich man will hear him speak of this play – what name? I can't remember – and be convinced, give him the money. The old fool's angled for this and now he can't believe it, he's afraid that I'm joking. ‘Ring up my secretary tomorrow,' he said.

Professor Hammarsten said: ‘I can't speak . . . I don't know . . .' Some foam still clung to the tip of his nose, he tried to shake it off. He said, ‘
Pericles?
In my own translation?'

‘Of course.'

Professor Hammarsten said suddenly: ‘But my translation. I don't know, perhaps it's bad. I've never shown it to anyone.' He said, ‘If people should not understand. The Druid Gower.' He said: ‘For years and years . . .' He wanted, it was obvious, to explain that one could not suddenly reach the end of a very long journey without fear of one's reception. Friends are older; one may not even be recognized. The white stubble on his chin, the steel spectacles told plainly enough just how long the journey had been. ‘I wrote it twenty years ago.'

‘Choose your theatre and your cast,' Krogh said. Already he was bored by his generosity. He had done this sort of thing so often before. It was expected of one. A hundred-crown note for a paper flower, a new wing to a hospital, a pension more than equal to his wages to the first employee who lost his hand in the new improved cutter. It was reported in the Press, it looked well. The more eccentric the gift the greater the publicity, and there were occasions when such publicity was useful, before a new issue, at such a time as this of short-term loans, of selling at Amsterdam, of throwing good money into a worthless company. It was curious that it should be old shabby Hammarsten who benefited, who had got himself involved in the anxieties of Laurin and Hall. He felt a deep contempt for the old language-teacher and half-time journalist who sat there in terror at his good fortune, doubting himself, letting his spectacles slip, giving the impression that some final disaster had befallen him.

‘Excuse me, Herr Krogh,' a voice said, a hot husky voice, and cap in hand between the pool and dance floor, grey and skinny and pouched under the jaw, appeared Pihlström. The great floodlights bleached his thin indeterminate coloured hair. Before either Anthony or Krogh could move, the Professor had risen to his feet. He trembled with indignation, the spectacles shook, he thrust his hands behind his black coat-tail. ‘Pihlström.'

‘Hammarsten,' Pihlström exclaimed. He moved tentatively closer. ‘You old liar,' he said suddenly. ‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself.'

‘We want nothing to do with you, Pihlström,' the Professor said, ‘I will not have Herr Krogh troubled like this. If you want to know, Pihlström, Herr Krogh is here in order to discuss with me a little project, a little flutter in which we require each other's help. It has nothing to do with you, Pihlström, or the paper you represent.'

‘But Hammarsten –'

‘Be off now, Pihlström,' the Professor said, and turning with a rusted magnificence, his hand shaking in his pocket among his loose coins: ‘Gentlemen,' he said, ‘will you crack a bottle of wine with me?'

5

Up the long flight of stairs to the fourth floor, treading upwards from Purgatory (left behind on the other bank the public lavatories with the smutty jokes, envy, and the editor's dislike, mistrust, the nudist magazines) to Paradise (the house groups, the familiar face flannel, the hard ascetic bed), mounting unscathed, I, Minty.

He knew the number of steps, fifty-six: fourteen to the first floor where lived the Ekmans in a two-roomed flat with a telephone and an electric cooker; he was a dust-man, but he always seemed to have money to spend. Often he would come home as late as Minty; he would be a little drunk and would shout good-bye to a friend all the way up the fourteen stairs, and Fru Ekman would come out of the flat at the sound of his voice and shout good-bye too. She never seemed to mind that he was drunk; sometimes she would be flushed herself and the doorway would be full of friends saying good-bye, and the smell of cheap cigars would follow him up fourteen stairs to the second landing, burning his eyes.

Twenty-eight stairs and one came to the empty flat. It was the largest in the building and it stood furnished, tenanted, always empty. The owners were abroad; for the last two years they had not been home, but the rent was paid. Minty had never seen them; his curiosity prowled the landing; he tormented himself with his lack of knowledge; but he was afraid to be without it, to dispel it with direct questions; it was an interest. Once, when the landlady had opened the flat to dust it, he had seen into the hall, seen a steel engraving of Gustavus Adolphus and an umbrella-stand with one tired umbrella. Climbing, he left the flat behind, the Ekmans dropped further, by fourteen steps, down the wall of the long stair. On the third floor an Italian woman lived who gave lessons; she reminded him of his colleague Hammarsten, for they worked in the same school; he hurried upward, fourteen more stairs, to the fourth landing, to security, to home – the brown woollen dressing-gown hanging on the door, the cocoa and water biscuits in the cupboard, the little Madonna on the mantelpiece, the spider under the tooth glass.

He was tired; it was early; but there was nothing to do but sleep.

When he put on the light, he went at once to the window to close it; he was afraid of moths. The flats below made little rungs of light between him and the street: everyone was at home: the Ekmans had turned on their wireless set. His monthly account lay on the washstand beside the spider. Minty went on his knees and routed in his cupboard; he poured some condensed milk into a saucepan and added two spoonfuls of cocoa; he lit a gas-burner which stood beside a polished mahogany commode, and while the mixture heated, he searched for his tea-cup. He found the saucer, but there was no sign of the cup. Presently he saw a note which his landlady had left on his pillow: ‘Herr Minty, I regret your tea-cup has been broken,' signed with a flourish, no further apology. I shall have to use my tooth glass.

The spider was obviously dead; it had shrivelled; the landlady might just as well have cleared it away. He took the glass and drank his tepid cocoa, but looking round for the soap-dish where he kept his cigarette-ends, Minty found that the spider had moved. It was cunning, not death, which had withered it; now blown out to twice the size, it was dropping to the floor on its invisible thread.

The hunting teasing instinct woke in Minty's brain; it had been a good day's sport. He took the glass and caught the spider, broke the thread when it began to climb, and deftly, with quick wrist, had it imprisoned again on the marble beside the washbasin. The spider had lost a second leg; it sat in a small puddle of cocoa. Patience, Minty thought, watching it, patience; you may outlive me. He drummed his nail on the glass. Twenty years in Stockholm, I'm not as young as I was. I'll write a note tomorrow: ‘Do not touch.' I shall have to buy another tooth glass as well as a tea-cup: a shopping day it will have to be for Minty; and feeling quite excited he forgot to say his prayers before he got into bed. Once there, it seemed unnecessary to climb out again on to the cold linoleum: God was no more a respecter of positions than of persons. All that mattered was – prayer should come from the heart; and joining his hands under the harsh blanket he fervently prayed: that God would cast down the mighty from their seats and exalt the humble and meek, that he would give Minty his daily bread and guard him from temptation, and growing more particular, that Anthony would be preserved from Pihlström and the others, that the Minister would consent to a Harrow dinner, that he would find a match for the broken tea-cup; and last of all he thanked God for His great mercies, for a happy and successful day. In the opposite house the lights went out one by one; soon he could not see the moth which persistently pushed its way up the window-pane; he turned out his own lamp and lay in darkness, like the spider patient behind his glass.

And like the spider he withered, blown out no longer to meet contempt; his body stretched doggo in the attitude of death, he lay there humbly tempting God to lift the glass.

PART IV