Complete Short Stories by Robert Graves
Jaume and I remained on good terms. I told him: ‘Jaume, in my view you acted correctly. No true friend could have done less under such provocation.’
Winter and spring went swiftly by, and another San Pedro’s Day was on us. Willie visited Dom Enrique at the Rectory and offered to stage-manage a new play of Jaume’s: The Difficult Husband. He did not arrive drunk but (as they say in Ireland) ‘having drink taken’, and when he announced that this comedy had merits which would one day make it world famous, Dom Enrique could hardly be blamed for excusing himself. A deceased widow, the Lady of La Coma, had just left the Church a small fortune, on the strength of which his parishioners trusted him to re-engage the Palma Repertory Troupe as in previous years.
Bad news further aggravated this setback. Jaume, due for the draft, had counted on being sent to an anti-aircraft battery, three miles away, from where he could get frequent leave; in fact, the Battery commander had promised to arrange the matter. But something went wrong – Paco’s father may have spoken a word in the Captain’s ear – and Jaume was ordered to Spanish Morocco.
Willie, with streaming eyes, promised to irrigate the lemon grove, plough around the olive trees, plant the beans when the weather broke, and wait patiently for Jaume’s return. But two hundred phantom Chinese took advantage of his loneliness to prowl among the trees and tap at the kitchen window. Willie’s samovar filled and emptied, filled and emptied four or five times a week; he neglected the lemon grove, seldom bothered with meals, and locked the cottage door against callers: at all costs he must finish an English translation of The Difficult Husband. I met him one morning in the postman’s house, where he was mailing a package to the States. He looked so thin and lost that, on meeting the Mayor, I suggested he should take some action. ‘But what would you have me do?’ cried the Mayor. ‘He is committing no crime. If he is ill, let him consult the Doctor!’ That afternoon, Willie saw Toni Coll digging a refuse pit below the cottage: convinced that this was to be his own grave, he sought sanctuary in the church organ-loft, drank himself silly, and was not discovered for twenty-four hours. Dom Enrique and his mother carried him to the Rectory, where they nursed him until the American Embassy could arrange his transfer to the States. At New York, a veterans’ reception committee met Willie, and he was sent to a Pittsburgh army hospital. On New Year’s Day, 1955, he broke his neck falling out of a window, apparently pursued by Chinese oppressors. I felt bad about him.
If Muleta expected to hear no more about Jaume’s comedy, Muleta erred. Just before the rockets soared up in honour of San Pedro two years later, Mercurio the postman (who also acts as our telegraphist) tugged at my sleeve. ‘Don Roberto,’ he said, ‘I have a telegram here from New York for a certain William Schenectady. Do you know the individual? It came here three days ago, and none of your friends recognize the name. Could he be some transitory tourist?’
‘No: this is for our unfortunate Don Coñac,’ I told him. In Spain only the middle name counts, being the patronymic, and Willie’s passport had read ‘William Schenectady Fedora.’
‘A sad story,’ sighed Mercurio. ‘How can telegrams benefit the dead, who are unable even to sign a receipt? And there is no means of forwarding the message…’
‘I’ll sign, since that’s what worries you,’ I said. ‘Probably it contains birthday greetings from some old aunt, who has remained ignorant of his fate. If so, I’ll tear it up.’
After the fun was over, I remembered the cable. It ran:
WILLIAM SCHENECTADY FEDORA: MULETA: MAJORCA: SPAIN MAGNIFICENT BRAVO BRAVO BRAVO STOP DIFICTUL HUSBAN SENSACIONAL FUST THE PLOY NEEDED ON BIRDWAY WIT NEUMANN DIRECION HARPVICKE IN THE LED STOP AIRMALLING CONTRACT STOP PROPOSE FOLOV UP WIT PRESONAL VISIT SO ONEST KINDLY REPLAY STOP REGARDS
EVERETT SAMSTAG EMPIRE STAT ENTERPRIXES NEW YORK
I frowned. My neighbour Len Simkin was always talking about Sammy Samstag, the Broadway impresario, and had even promised Willie to interest him in Vercingetorix; but somehow this cable did not seem like a joke. Who would waste ten dollars on kidding a dead man? Yet, if it wasn’t a joke, why did Samstag send no prepaid reply coupon?
I tackled Mercurio, who admitted that such a form had, as it happened, come with the cable for Don Coñac; adding: ‘But since Don Coñac is no more, perhaps some other foreigner may care to dispatch a telegram with its help.’ So I cabled Samstag:
INTERESTED IN YOUR INTEREST STOP WILL ADVISE AUTHOR OF DIFFICULT HUSBAND CURRENTLY ON SAFARI TO GRANT OPTION IF FINANCIALLY COMMENSURATE WITH YOUR TRIPLE BRAVO STOP REGARDS
To explain that Willie was no longer available, and that the job of protecting Jaume fell to me, would have exceeded the prepaid allowance, so I signed ‘Fedora’. ‘Currently on safari’ was cablese for ‘at present trailing his rifle through North Africa, but will be back next week’, and sounded far more opulent.
At the café, I met Len, a young-old fabricator of abstract mobiles. He had once briefly taken a very small part in an off-Broadway play, but was Muleta’s sole contact with the Great White Way. ‘A pity poor Willie’s dead,’ I said, when Len had finished his scathing comments on last night’s performance by the Palma Repertory Troupe. ‘He might have got you a speaking part in this new Broadway play. Willie always admired your delivery.’
‘I don’t get the joke,’ Len grumbled. ‘That wack gave me the creeps! One of those “creative artists” who create chaos. A few drinks from the old samovar, and I could see those goddamned Chinese! I bet they infiltrated into his coffin, and pulled the lid down after them.’
‘If you take my front-page news like that, Len,’ I told him, ‘you’ll not be offered even a walk-on!’
‘Still, I don’t get it…’
‘Well, you will – as soon as Sammy Samstag turns up here toting an enormous box of Havanas, and you’re left in a corner smoking your foul Peninsulares.’
‘Neumann directing? Hardwicke in the lead as Vercingetorix?’
‘No, the title isn’t Vercingetorix. It’s The Difficult Husband. Otherwise you’ve guessed right.’
‘You’re very fonny, don’t you, Mister?’ Len stalked away, then wheeled angrily, and came out with a splendid curtain line: ‘In my opinion, jokes about dead Americans stink!’
When Jaume stepped from the Palma-Muleta bus, looking bigger and more morose than ever, no one rolled out the red carpet. That evening I found him alone in his cottage, cooking a bean and blood-pudding stew over the wood fire; and accepted an invitation to share it. Jaume asked for details on Willie’s death, and wept to hear about the open window.
‘He was a brother to me,’ he choked. ‘So magnanimous, so thoughtful! And since he could not manage this little property by himself, I had asked Toni Coll to tend the trees, and go half-shares in the lemons and oil. Toni has just paid me two thousand pesetas. We are not friends, but he would have lost face with the village by neglecting my land while I was doing my service. He even repaired the terrace that fell before my departure.’
I had brought along a bottle of red Binisalem wine, to celebrate Samstag’s cable.
‘Poor Willie, how wildly enthusiastic he would have been,’ Jaume sighed, when I read it to him. ‘And how he would have drunk and sung! This comes too late. Willie always wanted me to enjoy the success that his frailties prevented him from attaining.’
‘May he rest in peace!’
‘I had no great theatrical ambition,’ Jaume continued, after a pause. ‘Willie forced me to write first The Indulgent Mother, and then The Difficult Husband.’
‘Did they take you long?’
‘The Indulgent Mother, yes. Over the second I did not need to rack my brains. It was a gift.’
‘Yet Señor Samstag, a most important person, finds the result magnificent. That is certainly a triumph. You have a copy of the play?’
‘Only in Majorcan.’
‘Do you realize, Jaume, what will happen if The Difficult Husband pleases Broadway?’
‘Might they pay me?’
‘Pay you, man?
‘That means nothing to me. What part of a peseta is a dollar?’
‘Listen: if things go well, you may earn twelve million pesetas… And even if the play proved a dead failure, you’d get two hundred thousand, merely by selling Señor Samstag the right to stage it!’
‘Your talk of millions confuses me. I would have accepted five hundred pesetas for the job.’
‘But you would equally accept twelve million?’
‘Are these people mad?’
‘No, they are clever businessmen.’
‘You make fun of me, Don Roberto!’
‘I do not.’
‘Then, at least, you exaggerate? What I want to know is whether this telegram will help me to buy a donkey and retile my roof.’
‘I can promise you an avalanche of donkeys!’
Two days later the contract came, addressed to Willie. Its thirty pages covered all possible contingencies of mutual and reciprocal fraud on the part of author and producer, as foreseen by the vigilant Dramatists Guild of the Authors League of America; and dealt with such rich minor topics as Second Class Touring Rights, Tabloid Versions, Concert Tour Versions, Foreign Language Performances, and the sale of dolls or other toys based on characters in the play…
I was leafing through the document on the café terrace that afternoon, when Len entered. ‘There’s a man at my place,’ he gasped excitedly, ‘name of Bill Truscott, who says he’s Willie’s agent! Bill and I were at Columbia together. Nice guy. He seems sort of puzzled to find no Willie… See here: could it be that you weren’t kidding me about his Broadway show the other day?’
‘I never kid. Got no sense of humour.’
‘Is that so? Well, anyhow, I told Bill you might be able to help him. Come along!’
Bill Truscott, a gaunt Bostonian, welcomed us effusively. ‘I sent The Difficult Husband to Samstag’s office ten days ago,’ he said, ‘and a spy I keep there sent word that the old s.o.b. was jumping my claim. Doesn’t like agents, favours the direct approach. But let’s get this straight: is Fedora really dead? My spy swears that he cabled Samstag from this place.’
‘Correct. He’s dead. Yet he promised to meet Samstag and discuss this document’ – I tapped the contract – ‘which maybe you’d better have a look at. Tell me, do you speak Spanish? Jaume Gelabert has no English or French.’
‘Gelabert? Who’s Gelabert? Never heard of him.’
‘Author of The Difficult Husband. Fedora’s only the translator.’
‘Only the translator – are you sure? How extremely tense! That changes everything. I took it for Fedora’s own work… What sort of a guy is this Gelabert? Any previous stage successes?’
‘He made a hit with The Indulgent Mother,’ I said, kicking Len under the table. ‘He’s a simple soul – you might call him a recluse.’
‘Know of any arrangement between Fedora and Gelabert as to the translator’s fee?’
‘I can’t think that they made one. Fedora drank, and did the job by way of a favour to Gelabert, who had been caring for him… Are you worried about your commission?’
‘Am I worried? However, Gelabert will need an agent, and, after all, Fedora sent the play to my office. Len will vouch for me, won’t you, Len?’
‘I’m sure he will, Mr Truscott,’ I said, ‘and you’ll vouch for him. Len needs some vouching for.’
‘I’m on my knees, Don Roberto,’ Len whined, grovelling gracefully.
I let him grovel awhile, and asked Truscott: ‘But didn’t Fedora acknowledge Gelabert’s authorship in a covering letter?’
‘He did, I remember, mention a local genius who had defended him against some Chinese and was now setting off to fight the Moors, while he himself guarded the lemon grove – and would I please try enclosed play on Samstag; but that’s as far as it went, except for some passages in a crazy foreign language, full of x’s and y’s.’
‘I gather the letter has disappeared?’
Truscott nodded gloomily.
‘In fact, you can’t prove yourself to be Fedora’s agent, let alone Gelabert’s?’
No reply. I pocketed the contract and rolled myself a cigarette, taking an unnecessarily long time about it. At last I said: ‘Maybe Gelabert would appoint you his agent; but he’s a difficult man to handle. Better leave all the talking to me.’
‘That’s very nice of you… I surely appreciate it. I suppose you’ve seen a copy of The Difficult Husband?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Which makes two of us! You see: after reading Fedora’s crazy letter, I tossed the typescript, unexamined, to my secretary Ethel May, who, for all that she was the dumbest operator on Thirty-eighth Street, had beautiful legs and neat habits. Hated to throw away anything, though – even gift appeals. She filed it under “Try Mr Samstag.” Ethel May got married and quit. Then, one day, I came down with the grippe, and that same evening Sam wanted a script in a hurry – some piece by a well-known author of mine. I called Ethel May’s replacement from my sickbed and croaked: “Send off the Samstag script at once! Special messenger.” The poor scared chick didn’t want to confess that she’d no notion what the hell I was talking about. She chirped: “Certainly, Chief!” and went away to search the files. As a matter of fact, said script was still in my brief case – grippe plays hell with a guy’s memory. Scratching around, the chick comes across The Difficult Husband, and sends Sam that. A stroke of genius! – I must give her a raise. But Sam is short on ethics. He bypassed my office and cabled the defunct Fedora, hoping he’d sign along the dotted line and remember too late that he should have got my expert advice on what’s bound to be the trickiest of contracts. If ever there was a thieving dog!’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘if Fedora had been the author, and if you’d been his agent, you’d have a right to complain. But, let’s face it, you’ve no standing at all. So calm down! I suggest we call on Gelabert. He can probably supply supper.’
Night had fallen windily, after a day of unseasonable showers; and the path to Jaume’s cottage is no easy one at the best of times. The ground was clayey and full of puddles; water cascaded from the trees. I lent Truscott a flashlight; but twice he tripped over an olive root and fell. He reached the cottage (kitchen, stable, well, single bedroom) in poor shape. I gave Jaume a brief outline of the situation, and we were soon sharing his pa amb oli: which means slices of bread dunked in unrefined olive oil, rubbed with a half tomato and sprinkled with salt. Raw onion, bitter olives, and a glass of red wine greatly improved the dish. Pa amb oli was something of a test for Truscott, but he passed it all right, apart from letting oil drip on his muddied trousers.
He asked me to compliment Jaume on ‘this snug little shack. Say that I envy him. Say that we city folk often forget what real dyed-in-the-wool natural life can be!’ Then he talked business. ‘Please tell our host that he’s been sent no more than a basic contract. I’m surprised at the size of the advance, though: three thousand on signature, and two thousand more on the first night! Sam must think he’s on to a good thing. Nevertheless, my long experience as a dramatic agent tells me that we can easily improve these terms, besides demanding a number of special arrangements. Fedora is dead; or we could fiction him into the contract as the author. Unlike Gelabert, he was a non-resident American citizen, and therefore non-liable to any tax at all on the property. Maybe we can still fiction it that way…’
‘What is he saying?’ asked Jaume.
‘He wants to act as your agent in dealing with Señor Samstag, whom he doesn’t trust. The rest of his speech is of no interest.’
‘Why should I trust this gentleman more than he trusts the other?’
‘Because Willie chose Señor Truscott as his agent, and Samstag got the play from him.’
Jaume solemnly held out his hand to Truscott.
‘You were Willie’s friend?’ he asked. I translated.
‘He was a very valued client of mine.’ But when Truscott produced an agency agreement from his brief case, I gave Jaume a warning glance.
Jaume nodded. ‘I sign only what I can read and understand,’ he said. ‘My poor mother lost her share of the La Coma inheritance by trusting a lawyer who threw long words at her. Let us find a reliable notary public in the capital.’
Truscott protested: ‘I’m not representing Gelabert until I’m sure of my commission.’
‘Quit that!’ I said sharply. ‘You’re dealing with a peasant who can’t be either bullied or coaxed.’
A cable came from Samstag: he was arriving by Swissair next day. Mercurio asked Len, who happened to be in the postman’s house, why so many prodigal telegrams were flying to and fro. Len answered: ‘They mean immense wealth for young Gelabert. His comedy, though rejected by Dom Enrique two years ago, is to be staged in New York.’
‘That moral standards are higher here than in New York does not surprise me,’ Mercurio observed. ‘Yet dollars are dollars, and Jaume can now laugh at us all, whatever the demerits of his play.’
Len brought the cable to my house, where he embarrassed me by paying an old debt of two hundred pesetas (which I had forgotten), in the hope that I might deal him into the Broadway game. ‘I don’t need much… just an itty-bitty part,’ he pleaded.
Why dash his hopes? Pocketing the two hundred pesetas, I said that his friend Bill would surely recommend him to Samstag.