The Old Man and Mr. Smith Read online

  COPYRIGHT

  First published in Great Britain in 1991 by

  Michael O’Mara Books Limited

  9 Lion Yard

  Tremadoc Road

  London SW4 7NQ

  This electronic edition published in 2011

  ISBN: 978-1-84317-805-7 in EPub format

  ISBN: 978-1-84317-806-4 in Mobipocket format

  ISBN: 978-1-85479-100-9 in paperback print format

  Copyright © Dunedin N. V. 1990

  All rights reserved. You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Typeset by Florencetype Limited, Kewstoke, Avon

  www.mombooks.com

  FOR MY CHILDREN

  Tamara, Pavla, Igor, Andrea

  IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE

  There is a remote chance that none of this ever occurred; what is much more likely, however, is the fact that, if it did occur, it will never occur again.

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Epilogue

  By the Same Author

  « 1 »

  ‘God? Presumably with two “d”s,’ said the concierge, without looking up.

  ‘With one “d”,’ said the Old Man, apologetically.

  ‘That’s unusual,’ remarked the concierge.

  ‘Unusual? It’s unique.’ And the Old Man laughed mildly at his own observation.

  ‘Given name?’

  ‘I haven’t one.’

  ‘Initials will do.’

  ‘It stands to reason – since I haven’t a first name, I haven’t initials either.’

  The concierge looked at the Old Man penetratingly, and for the first time. The Old Man fidgeted, eager to put an end to the awkwardness.

  ‘Are you going to say that that’s unusual too?’ he suggested, and then went on, reassuringly, ‘There’s a perfectly normal reason for it, which should satisfy you. I had no parents, you see.’

  ‘Everyone has parents,’ stated the concierge, dangerously.

  ‘I haven’t,’ retorted the Old Man, hotly.

  There was a moment while the two protagonists weighed each other up. The concierge resumed the verbal contact in a tone of enforced relaxation.

  ‘And this for how long?’

  ‘I can’t say. I am subject to whims.’

  ‘Whims,’ echoed the concierge. ‘And what will be your method of payment when you leave?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ said the Old Man, betraying signs of weariness. ‘I would have thought that in a hotel of this class—’

  ‘Of course,’ the concierge replied defensively. ‘Although even a hotel of the highest category must ask itself questions when a potential client declares himself to be a Mr God with one “d”, and isn’t even the possessor of initials, let alone luggage.’

  ‘I told you, my luggage is on its way.’

  ‘With your friend?’

  ‘Yes. We both realize it is practically impossible to get a hotel room without luggage.’

  ‘Oh, you’ve tried before?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘And so? If I may ask?’

  ‘And so, he has bought some luggage.’

  ‘Just luggage? With nothing inside?’

  ‘How inquisitive you are!’

  ‘I beg your pardon. But I’d still like to know your method of payment. I am not particularly inquisitive, you understand, but my employers …’

  ‘I have been asked for much more than mere method of payment … health, peace, victory, salvation … substantial things, you understand, often involving nations, or at least peoples. I must say, I usually turn such requests down as too imprecise, too vague. I wonder then why I am so irritated by your quite rational request? It must be old age creeping up on me … Here, is this of any use to you?’

  And he dredged a fistful of coins out of the cavernous depths of his pockets, spilling them in great profusion over the glass top of the concierge’s desk. Some fell to the floor, and rolled away, but not far, for few of them were perfectly round.

  ‘Chasseur!’ called the concierge, and a small boy in uniform crawled about on the floor, collecting the coins. The concierge examined those that remained on his desk. ‘I hope you are not thinking of paying with these.’

  ‘What’s wrong with them?’ asked the Old Man.

  ‘They look Greek to me, and ancient at that.’

  ‘How time flies,’ sighed the Old Man. And added, ‘I’ll have another go.’

  The concierge tapped his pencil on the glass top of his desk in a rhythmic tattoo while the Old Man patrolled his pockets for something more viable. He seemed at one point to be making a physical effort, as though his activity were both more obscure and more complicated than he allowed to let on. Then he produced green notes as if they were parts of a disintegrating lettuce.

  ‘This any good?’ he enquired, rendered breathless by his activity.

  The concierge examined the notes, which opened up like flowers as though they had a life of their own.

  ‘On the face of it …’

  ‘How long can we stay on that?’

  ‘We? … Oh, yes, your friend … On the face of it, about a month, but it naturally depends on room service, the valet, mini-bar, all that …’

  ‘A month. I don’t think we will possibly stay as long as a month. We have far too much to see.’

  ‘You are sightseeing here in Washington?’ asked the concierge, trying to be agreeable in order to disperse any possible traces of friction.

  ‘We see new sights wherever we go. Everything is new to us.’

  The concierge was at a loss how to deal with this exultant innocence, which seemed oddly self-sufficient, and unwilling to communicate. He doggedly continued to take the initiative. As a concierge of note in the profession, he had to be able to recognize a nuance when he observed it, and to ignore it when it suited his professional purpose.

  ‘There are excellent tours arranged by the Yankee Heritage people,’ he said, producing a handful of brochures. ‘They enable you to visit the National Gallery, the Smithsonian—’

  ‘The White House,’ suggested the Old Man, consulting a piece of paper.

  ‘That is more difficult,’ smiled the concierge. ‘They don’t allow groups any more, owing to security.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to go with a group in any case,’ said the Old Man. ‘When I go I will want to go alone, or perhaps with my friend.’

  ‘For that you have to have an invitation.’

  The Old Man took on a surprising air of authority. ‘I have never had an invitation in my existence, and it’s not now I intend to begin.’

  ‘Never had an invitation?’

  ‘No. I’ve had prayers, intercessions, even sacrifices, burnt offerings, in the old days, but never an invitation.’

  At that moment, another old man attracted attention to himself by attempting to negotiate the revolving doors leading to the street while carrying two revolting plastic suitcases. His hair was black and dank, and hung around his face like the physical expression of despair itself. His face was in marked contrast to the porcelain chubbiness of the Old Man, a lined and terrible object, pitted, prised, and pummelled into a mask of melancholy, the black eyes, which seemed to have reticently observed all that is horrible, afloat on tremulous tears, which every now and then shook free to lose themselves in the crevices in the damaged parchment of his cheeks.

  ‘Mon Dieu,’ said the concierge, watching the struggle. ‘He looks older than God.’

  ‘No, we’re roughly the same age,’ observed the Old Man.

  ‘Bertolini, Anwar,’ ordered the concierge.

  The two employees of the hotel were too fascinated to move without being called to order. They now rushed forward, and helped the newcomer, whose bags seemed of suspicious lightness.

  The newcomer walked unsteadily towards the desk.

  ‘At last!’ said the Old Man, pointedly.

  ‘What do you mean, at last?’ snarled the newcomer.

  ‘I have been engaged in small talk while waiting for you. You know how tiring I find it. Where did you get the bags?’

  ‘I stole them. You don’t expect me to buy them, do you? In any case I had no money!’

  ‘And your name is …?’ the concierge asked, pretending not to hear the rest.

  Before the newcomer had time to reply, the Old Man said, ‘Smith.’

  The concierge didn’t raise his eyes from his register. ‘In hotels Mr Smith is invariably accompanied by Mrs Smith,’ he said.
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  The Old Man seemed as mystified as the newcomer was antagonistic.

  ‘There is no Mrs Smith in this case,’ stuttered the Old Man. ‘Marriage always took too long, was too binding, too much of an obligation.’

  ‘It was your fault! Everything was always your fault!’ yelled Mr Smith, his tears flying into the air like moisture from a horse’s nostril. ‘I could have settled down into a sweet and sunny domesticity if it weren’t for you!’

  ‘That’s enough!’ thundered the Old Man with such astonishing vehemence and sheer volume that the few people passing through the foyer panicked and ran for cover.

  ‘Rooms 517 and 518,’ shouted the concierge at the top of his lungs, which seemed awfully puny after the majestic sound which had preceded it. Never mind; in the hotel business, one had to do what one could. It was essential to see only half of what happened, on condition one saw through more than half of what didn’t.

  ‘And take your money, please.’

  ‘Keep it for me.’

  ‘I’d rather you kept it yourself,’ said the concierge with enormous courage.

  The Old Man took a handful, leaving another handful on the desk.

  ‘That’s for you. For your pains.’

  ‘This is for me?’ asked the concierge steadily.

  ‘Yes,’ replied the Old Man. ‘Just out of interest, how much is it?’

  The concierge glanced at it. ‘It looks like – between four and five thousand dollars.’

  ‘Ah. Are you happy? I have no idea about the value of money.’

  ‘I can believe that, sir. In answer to your other question, sir, I am neither happy nor unhappy. I am in the hotel business. If you should change your mind—’

  It was too late. The ornate gates of the lift were already closing on the two old gentlemen, Bertolini, Anwar, and the two hideous bags.

  * * *

  Once in their rooms, they managed with much difficulty to open the communicating doors. The Old Man had absent-mindedly given some Greek coins as a tip to Bertolini and to Anwar, who didn’t quite know how grateful to be, if at all. Now that the two old gentlemen were alone, they began a conversation in Mr Smith’s room. Mr Smith opened his bag as it stood on the collapsible stand.

  ‘What are you looking for?’ asked the Old Man.

  ‘Nothing. I’ve merely opened my bag. Isn’t that normal?’

  ‘It isn’t normal if you’ve got nothing inside it. Shut it at once. Lock it, and keep it locked until we leave.’

  ‘You’re the same old bully you always were,’ grumbled Mr Smith, doing what he was told.

  ‘There is a reason for everything I do,’ pontificated the Old Man.

  ‘That’s what makes it so irritating.’

  ‘The one chance we have of succeeding in our mission is to seem as normal as possible.’

  ‘Fat lot of chance we stand, with our great manes of hair, and curious dress.’

  ‘We may have to change that, too, before we can say we have done what we set out to do. I am aware that people no longer dress like us. Some of them still wear their hair long, as nature demands, but they either train it or cut it so that it imitates the appearance of animals, or they grease it to stand in sticky stalagmites on the head, like oily black coxcombs.’

  ‘Black? Yellow, blue, red, green in their crudest forms. I hope you don’t expect us—’

  ‘No, no, no …’ The Old Man was irritated by this continual opposition to anything he said, this nagging contention. ‘I merely don’t wish us to become the butt of the inquisitiveness of chambermaids, who notice phenomena like empty suitcases and tell their fellow employees, and the news spreads like wildfire.’

  ‘You made it clear they were empty to the man at the desk by asking me where I had acquired them—’

  ‘I know, and you, with exemplary tact, stated that you had stolen them.’

  ‘Correct. Is that man any more reliable than the other domestics?’

  ‘Yes!’

  There was a pause while the echoes of the Old Man’s voice died away.

  ‘Why?’ asked Mr Smith, in a voice like a rattlesnake.

  ‘Because I tipped him five thousand dollars, that’s why. I bought his silence!’ The Old Man over-enunciated his reply to give it added weight.

  ‘All you have to do is to leave a few thousand dollars for the maids,’ murmured Mr Smith.

  ‘You think I am one to throw my money around? Certainly not when it is far less trouble to lock your bag.’

  ‘It’s not your money in any case.’

  There was a pause while Mr Smith turned the key in the padlocks.

  ‘When you’re finished, we’ll go down and dine.’

  ‘We don’t need to eat.’

  ‘Nobody need know that.’

  ‘Everything for show.’

  ‘Yes, remember we are on Earth. Everything for show.’

  As they moved to the door, Mr Smith suddenly recovered his energy. With a cry like an outraged crow, he stopped dead.

  ‘Why did you say my name is Mr Smith?’

  The Old Man shut his eyes for a second. He had been expecting this reproach; in fact, he was surprised it had not occurred earlier.

  ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I have had enough difficulty identifying myself. I wasn’t going to go through all that again.’

  ‘What did you call yourself?’

  ‘I foolishly identified myself correctly.’

  ‘Ah. Honesty was your privilege.’

  ‘Well, has dishonesty not been yours throughout history?’

  ‘Thanks to you, yes.’

  ‘Oh, I hope we’re not going to have that all over again. I must point out that the restaurant closes in a short while.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I am guessing. And as usual, I guess correctly.’

  Mr Smith sat down in a deep sulk.

  The Old Man appealed, ‘Do you seriously think that it will help us in our investigations if it gets around that not only do we not need clean linen, but that we don’t even need sustenance? I leave it to your sense of fair play.’

  Mr Smith rose, with a sinister cackle. ‘That was a frightfully silly thing to say. So silly, in fact, that it appealed to my acute sense of the ridiculous. All right, I’ll go down, but I can’t guarantee not to bring up the subject again, so deep is my wound, so searing is the pain.’

  There was something about Mr Smith’s last words, uttered slowly and with total simplicity, that sent a shiver down where the Old Man’s spine should have been.

  * * *

  ‘And with that, may I suggest a Christian Brothers Cabernet or a Mondavi Sauvignon, both fine wines, or, if you are looking for something older, but not necessarily better, there is the Forts-de-la-Tour, 1972, from Bordeaux, France, or, at two thousand and eighty dollars a bottle, La Tâche, 1959, from Burgundy, France, or any amount of fine table wines in between,’ declared the sommelier without taking a breath.

  ‘To us, all wines are young,’ smiled the Old Man.

  ‘The joke is well taken,’ said the sommelier.

  ‘It’s not a joke,’ spat Mr Smith.

  ‘Touché,’ said the sommelier, for something to say.

  ‘Bring us a bottle of the first wine you lay your hands on.’

  ‘Red or white?’

  The Old Man glanced at Mr Smith.

  ‘Is there no compromise?’

  ‘Rosé.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said the Old Man.

  Mr Smith nodded curtly, and the sommelier went off.

  ‘People are staring at us,’ muttered Mr Smith. ‘We were wrong to come.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ replied the Old Man, ‘people are wrong to stare.’ And the Old Man stared at the other diners, one at a time, and one by one, they went back to their food.

  The dinner was not a success. Neither had eaten for so long that every taste had to be acquired, and the delay between dishes seemed interminable. There was little else to do but talk, and whenever these two talked, they attracted attention. Even if the other diners had been inhibited both by the penetrating glance of the Old Man, and by a lugubrious atmosphere which had descended on the dining room, even affecting the usually insensitive pianist, who struck several discordant chords in his rendering of ‘Granada’, and eventually left the room mopping his brow, they now stole furtive glimpses of the two old men, who, like two small tents, one black, one white, were pitched under the disgusted mask of a triton, in a niche, spewing water from its mouth into a marble fountain.