The Old Man and Mr. Smith Read online

  ‘Out with it,’ muttered the Old Man discreetly. ‘Unlike what you usually say, your final reproach as we were leaving our rooms was so heartfelt that I was touched. I don’t want you to suffer, whatever you may think.’

  Mr Smith laughed in a manner more unpleasant than ironical. Then he grew serious, seeming to have some difficulty in forming his words.

  ‘It was your motive which I always found particularly transparent, and hurtful,’ he managed to say eventually.

  ‘Is this something you have said to me before, or is it something quite new?’

  ‘Oh, how can I remember?’ Mr Smith cried. ‘We haven’t seen each other for centuries! I may have touched on it, but I believe it to be a very old reproach, which I have never mentioned before.’

  The Old Man tried to help. ‘I remember your sickening cry as you plunged overboard. That was a cry that was to haunt me for many years,’ he conceded.

  ‘Years …’ echoed Mr Smith. ‘Yes … yes … that was bad enough. I had my back to you, was looking over the side of a cumulus cloud, and then, suddenly, without warning, this callous shove, and the sickening fall. In mortal terms, it was murder.’

  ‘You are still here.’

  ‘In human terms, I said.’

  ‘I apologize,’ said the Old Man, clearly expecting that to be the end of the matter.

  ‘Apologize?’ cackled Mr Smith in amazement.

  ‘When have I had an earlier opportunity?’ asked the Old Man.

  ‘Never mind about that,’ Mr Smith went on. ‘It’s not the fact of my expulsion. That I have had to live with and I would probably have left on my own sooner or later. It was the motive! You had to rectify a terrible oversight in the Creation, which was otherwise handled with competence.’

  ‘An oversight?’ asked the Old Man, betraying what almost amounted to nervousness.

  ‘Yes. With everyone white, how could they recognize you for what you are?’

  ‘What are you saying?’ The Old Man licked his lips.

  ‘White needs black in order to be recognized for what it is,’ said Mr Smith with terrible precision and lack of his usual fuss. ‘When all is white, there is no white. You had to push me in order to be recognized yourself. The motive was … vanity.’

  ‘No!’ the Old Man protested. Then, as an afterthought, he added, ‘Oh, I hope not!’

  ‘You have a debt of gratitude towards me which no amount of contrition can ever hope to repay. Until my expulsion, nobody, not even the angels, understood you or felt the warmth of your radiance. With me to supply the background of darkness, the contrast, you became visible for what you were, and still are.’

  ‘It is to find out if I still am, if we still are, that we are here on Earth.’

  ‘Without my sacrifice – without me, you are invisible!’ Mr Smith spat.

  ‘I am willing to believe that that is partly true,’ said the Old Man, having recovered his composure, ‘but don’t pretend that you did not enjoy your experience, at least at the beginning. You yourself graciously, and accurately, said a moment ago that, had you not been pushed, you would probably have left of your own accord sooner or later. That means the seeds were there. I pushed the right angel.’

  ‘I don’t dispute that. The colleagues you created for me were entirely without character, with the possible exception of Gabriel, who was always volunteering for difficult missions, ready to carry complicated messages over long distances. And do you know why? He was bored. As bored as I was.’

  ‘He never showed it.’

  ‘You wouldn’t know boredom if you saw it.’

  ‘I would now. I would now. But I admit that then, when the world still smelled of newly aired linen—’

  ‘And those ghastly seraphim and cherubim, with their unbroken voices, shrieking their choral evensong in unbearable unison, not a sweet dissonance, not a cajoling harmony or a subtle shift of emphasis among the million or more of them, dreadful little garden ornaments, fashioned out of marzipan, too pristine, too dainty to need a single diaper or chamber pot among them …’

  By this time the Old Man was rocking with a laughter as generous as it was silent. He extended his hand. Surprised, Mr Smith took it.

  ‘Those seraphim and cherubim were not a success,’ he chuckled. ‘You are right. You often are. And above all you are a born entertainer. Your descriptions of things are a joy, even though at times the mixture of your metaphors threatens to obscure some of the darker of your pearls. I am so pleased I took the initiative at last – the initiative which led to this reunion.’

  ‘I bear no malice. I just see things clearly.’

  ‘Too clearly …’

  ‘It is the centuries of deception, of festering resentment.’

  ‘I understand.’

  The Old Man looked Mr Smith deep in the eyes, and enclosed Mr Smith’s freezing hands in his warm ones.

  ‘If it is true that without you I am unrecognizable, it is equally true that without me you don’t exist. There is no need for either of us without the other. Together we constitute a gamut, a palette, a universe. We dare never be friends or even allies; we cannot avoid being at least nodding acquaintances. Let us make the best of a difficult situation by retaining our civility towards one another as we find out if we are still necessities, and not just luxuries, or even superfluities. In success or failure, we are, for better or worse, inseparable.’

  ‘I find nothing to quarrel with in what you say, except …’ Mr Smith seemed brimful of sudden mischief.

  ‘Be careful,’ the Old Man appealed. ‘I have succeeded in re-establishing a kind of equilibrium between us. I have made concessions. Don’t spoil it all, I beg of you.’

  ‘There is nothing to spoil,’ Mr Smith croaked. ‘I’m no fool. I understand the geometry of our positions, what is possible, what isn’t. I am not here to score points which, after all this time, are not worth scoring. I merely think—’

  ‘Yes?’ interrupted the Old Man, hoping to provoke Mr Smith into thinking again.

  ‘I think it’s ironic that, in order to create a new function for me, you had to play a dirty trick on me, worthy of me, but not of you.’

  The Old Man grew immensely sad. ‘That’s true,’ he said in a voice which suddenly showed his age. ‘In order to create the Devil, I had to do something diabolical. Push you in the back when you were least expecting it.’

  ‘That’s all I wish to say.’

  The Old Man smiled sadly. ‘Do you wish any more soup? Trifle? Venison? Trout? Grouse? Mint tea?’

  Mr Smith brushed all this off. ‘It was inevitable,’ he said. ‘Thanks for the invitation.’

  The two of them had not noticed, in the ebb and flow of their conversation, that the lights had become dimmer and dimmer, the usual subtle hint that the kitchen is irrevocably closing, and that the last diners are infringing on agreements between the hotel and the unions. All the other diners had sidled out, although some of them had experienced some difficulty in getting their bills. At the height of the argument, most of which was clearly audible, the waiters had become nervous of re-entering the restaurant, while the remaining diners were rooted to the spot.

  ‘Let’s just go,’ said the Old Man. ‘We can pay tomorrow.’

  ‘Give me some money while you’re about it, otherwise I’ll have to steal some.’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ said the Old Man happily.

  Nobody had noticed that the pianist was once again at his instrument, probably in the hope of at least a show of gratitude. He broke into song as the old men were picking their way among the tables towards the exit. ‘Pennies from Heaven …’

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  It was the next morning. They had no need of sleep so the night had seemed long, especially since they were shy of conversation now that a degree of harmony had been established between them. The Old Man had just created some pocket money for Mr Smith, which the latter was placing carefully in his pocket. There was a discreet knock at the door.

  ‘Come in,’ called the Old Man.

  ‘The door is locked,’ said a voice.

  ‘Just a moment.’

  When he and Mr Smith had finished their transaction, the Old Man went to the door, unlocked it, and opened it. Outside stood the concierge and four policemen, who immediately pressed forward with quite unnecessary urgency.

  ‘What is this?’

  ‘I must apologize,’ said the concierge. ‘I must thank you once again for your excessive generosity, but must also regrettably inform you that the banknotes are forgeries.’

  ‘That is not true,’ declared the Old Man. ‘I made them myself.’

  ‘Are you willing to sign a statement to that effect?’ asked the leading policeman, whose name was Kaszpricki.

  ‘What is all this about?’

  ‘You can’t make money all by yourself,’ said Patrolman O’Haggerty.

  ‘I don’t need any help,’ retorted the Old Man haughtily. ‘Look!’

  He dug into his pocket, and after a moment of concentration, hundreds of shining coins cascaded onto the carpet as from a fruit machine.

  Two of the policemen half kneeled before being called to order by Kaszpricki. The concierge did kneel.

  ‘OK, what are they?’ asked Kaszpricki.

  ‘Pesos, I guess. Philip II of Spain.’

  ‘Is numismatics your business? Is that it?’ enquired Kaszpricki. ‘But that don’t allow you to monkey with green backs. That’s a federal offence, and I got to take you in.’

  ‘Handcuffs?’ asked Patrolman Coltellucci.

  ‘Yeah, we might as well do this in style,’ Kaszpricki answered.

  Mr Smith panicked. ‘Shall we disappear? Use our tricks?’

  ‘Hold it right there,’ snapped Patrolman Schmatterman, drawing his gun, and standing
with it in both hands, as though urinating over a great distance.

  ‘My dear Smith, we must subject ourselves to these little inconveniences if we are to find out how these people live, and above all, how they treat each other. Is that not why we came?’

  The handcuffs were snapped into place, and the cortège left the room. The concierge brought up the rear, reiterating his regrets at the incident, both on his behalf, and on that of the hotel.

  Once at the police station, they were stripped of their outer garments, and grilled by Chief Eckhardt, who stared at them unblinking from under an iron-grey crew cut and a forehead lined like music manuscript paper. He wore rimless glasses which enlarged his eyes to the size of small oysters.

  ‘OK, your name is Smith, I got that. Given name?’

  ‘John,’ said the Old Man.

  ‘Can Smith not speak for himself?’

  ‘Not on … personal matters … He had a bad fall, you understand.’

  ‘How long ago?’

  ‘Before your time.’

  Chief Eckhardt gazed at them for a while.

  ‘Is just he crazy – or are you both nuttier than fruit cakes?’

  ‘There is never an excuse for rudeness,’ admonished the Old Man.

  ‘OK, so we’ll try you. Name?’

  ‘God – frey.’

  ‘For a moment I figured we was going to be subjected to blasphemy. What did you find in their baggage?’

  ‘Nothin’,’ replied one of the two policemen who had just entered the room.

  ‘And nothing in the pockets neither,’ added the other, ‘except forty-six thousand, eight hundred and thirty dollars, all in notes, in the right-side inner pocket.’

  ‘Forty-six thousand?’ yelled Chief Eckhardt. ‘In whose pocket, in which pocket?’

  ‘Dark fellow’s.’

  ‘Smith! OK, so who made the money, you or Smith?’

  ‘I made the money,’ said the Old Man, with an opulent weariness, ‘and I gave it to Smith.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘To spend. Petty cash.’

  ‘Forty-six thousand bucks, petty cash? What do you consider real money, for crying out loud?’ cried Eckhardt.

  ‘I haven’t given the matter much thought,’ said the Old Man. ‘As I explained to the gentleman at the hotel, I have no idea of the value of money.’

  ‘You know it well enough to forge it.’

  ‘I don’t forge it. I have pockets like cornucopia, virtually bottomless, pockets of plenty, if you will. I only have to think money and my pockets gradually fill with it. The only difficulty is, after a fairly lengthy history, I find it difficult at times to remember where and when I am. For instance, I have no notion why I spilled so many Spanish dubloons, or whatever they were, on the hotel floor this morning. Inspired by the furniture in our room, I must have fleetingly spared a thought for poor Philip II, who had such a tortuous way of expressing what he imagined was his love for me, half sunken in moth-eaten ermine, the smell of camphor mingling with the incense in the icy corridors of the Escorial.’

  Mr Smith laughed joylessly. ‘My moths won the day against the camphor by sheer force of numbers.’

  ‘That’s enough,’ snapped Chief Eckhardt. ‘We’re straying way off the point, and I don’t intend letting that happen. The two of you’s is going before the magistrate in the morning, charged with forgery and attempt to defraud. Which way do you intend pleadin’, and do you require a lawyer?’

  ‘How would I pay the lawyer?’ asked the Old Man. ‘I could only create money for the purpose.’

  ‘You can have a lawyer allotted, as a public service.’

  ‘No thank you, I hate to waste people’s time. But tell me one thing, so that Mr Smith and I have at least a little chance on our side as we defend ourselves. How can you tell that my money is forged?’

  Chief Eckhardt smiled with grim satisfaction. He was happier when the matter at hand was down to earth and crystal clear, supported by irrefutable facts, and therefore accurately illustrative of the technical superiority of the US of A.

  ‘We got a lot of ways, all of them the result of state-of-the-art technological know-how … and they’re changin’ all the time … gettin’ more refined. I’m not going to let on what these methods are, ‘cos in a sense we’re in the same business, you trying to get away with it, me successful in stopping you. But let me say this. This great country of ours is a great place for private initiative, but I got to tell you, forgery’s not one of them. I’ll see to that. Me and other law enforcers.’

  The Old Man took on his most disarming air. ‘Tell me one thing as a courtesy before you relegate us to the impersonal powers of the law. How does my money compare to the real stuff?’

  Chief Eckhardt was a fair-minded man. Fair-minded and ruthless, reflecting a world in which even justice was subject to a deadline, and in which even a snap decision was better than the embarrassment of doubt, which smacks of incompetence. He took up a note and looked at it with studied negligence.

  ‘On a scale of zero to a hundred, I’d give you thirty. Careless watermark, a bit of imprecision in the brush-work, and the signature is legible – it shouldn’t be. As a forgery it leaves a whole lot to be desired.’

  The Old Man and Mr Smith looked at one another in some alarm. Things were not going to be as easy as they had hoped.

  Chief Eckhardt placed them in the same cell, out of compassion. It happened to be cell No. 6, for quite another reason.

  * * *

  ‘How much longer are we going to stay here?’ asked Mr Smith.

  ‘Not much,’ replied the Old Man.

  ‘It is very unpleasant here.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘I can feel hostility all around me. For some reason, I don’t inspire confidence. And then you don’t want me to talk. That makes it even worse. I had a bad fall, indeed. A joke in frightful taste.’

  ‘Nobody knows it’s a joke.’

  ‘You do, and I do. Isn’t that enough? Down to fundamentals.’

  The Old Man smiled as he lay on the iron bed, a little on his side, his hands folded benevolently on his stomach.

  ‘How things have changed,’ he mused. ‘Within twenty-four hours of our reunion here on Earth, we are already in prison. Who could have guessed it would happen so quickly? And who could have foreseen the reason for our undoing?’

  ‘You could have, but you didn’t.’

  ‘No, I didn’t. I have never been very quick in noticing, let alone foreseeing change. I remember during the time of our adolescence, before we were confirmed in our divinity, when mortals still thought we were installed on the peak of Mount Olympus. They saw us as a mere reflection of their own lives, a kind of endless domestic comedy as seen from below stairs, with a mass of endings, happy and unhappy, the result of superstition, fantasy and innuendo. Nymphs turning into trees and heifers and mournful little rivulets. All manner of nonsense, with me alternately a bull or a fly or a lost wind from the flatulent bowels of the Earth. Those were the days, in a way. Every deity had his handful of shrines, his or her ration of prayers. We were all too busy to be consistently jealous of one another – we were only jealous, in fact, when jealousy moved the plot forward. Life was an adventure, or perhaps what I have heard referred to as a soap opera. Religion was an extension of life itself on a higher but not necessarily better plane. Guilt had not yet been thought of as a poison in the sacramental wine. Mankind was not yet tortured by imponderables and the inventions of middlemen.’

  Mr Smith suddenly laughed merrily. ‘Remember the panic when the first Hellenic mountaineer reached the top of Mount Olympus and found nothing there?’

  The Old Man refrained from joining in the laughter. ‘Yes, but the panic was only ours, not theirs. The man was too frightened to describe the pinnacle as empty when he returned, for fear of being torn limb from limb by believers. He did the second most foolish thing for fear of doing the first foolish thing. He confessed this state of affairs to a priest. The priest, who was probably a political appointee, told the man that the news must go no further. The man swore not to tell anyone. The priest said, “How can I believe you, once you have told me?” The man found no answer, and died under mysterious circumstances the very same night. But, as they say, the cat was out of the bag. People had seen an adventurous mountaineer going up – others had seen him come down, dour and silent. Gradually, as the quality of sandals improved, people began to climb to the top in order to picnic, and the place acquired in litter what it lost in divine mystery.’