Humboldt's Gift

  While I was absorbed in boning a slice of merluza for Roger, Pilar came into the dining room and whispered as she leaned over me with her high-aproned bosom, that an American gentleman was asking for me. I was delighted. Stirred, anyway. No one had called on me before, not in ten weeks. Could this be Georgie? Or Koffritz, come to fetch Roger? Also Pilar, with cool apron, warm white face, large brown eyes leaning toward me with her powder fragrance, was being extremely discreet. Had she never swallowed the widower story? Did she nevertheless know that I had a deep legitimate sorrow and good reason to dress in black? “Shall I ask the señor to come to the comedor to take coffee?” said Pilar, and moved her eyes from me to the kid and back to me. I said that I would talk with my visitor in the salon if she would sit with the orphan for me and make him eat his fish.

  Then I went to the salon, a room seldom used and crowded with old plushy dusty objects. It was kept dark, like a chapel, and I had never seen the sun in it before. Light now poured in, revealing many religious pictures and treasures of bric-a-brac on the wainscoting. Underfoot were rubbishy ensnaring scatter rugs. It all gave the effect of a period vanishing together with the emotions one had had for this period and the individuals who had felt such emotions. My caller stood by the window, aware that I was catching the dust-filled sunlight straight in the eyes and couldn’t see his face. The dust swirled everywhere. I was as dense in these motes as an aquarium fish in bubbles. My caller was still pulling at the drapes to let in more sun and he sent down the dust of a whole century.

  “You?” I said.

  “Yes,” said Rinaldo Cantabile, “That’s who. You thought I was in jail.”

  “Thought, and wished. And hoped. How did you track me here, and what do you want?”

  “You’re sore at me. Okay, I admit that was a bad scene. But I’m here to make up for it.”

  “Was that your purpose in coming here? What you can do for me is go away. I’d like that best.”

  “Honestly I came to do you good. You know,” he said, “when I was a little kid my grandmother on Taylor Street was laid out in a parlor like this with a ton of flowers. Wow, I never thought I’d see another roomful of such old-time crap. But leave it to Charlie Citrine. Look at these branches from Palm Sunday fifty years back. It stinks on the staircase and you’re a fastidious guy. But it must agree with you here. You look okay—better, in fact. You haven’t got those brown circles you had under your eyes in Chicago. You know what my guess is? That paddle ball game put too much strain on you. You here alone?”

  “No, I’ve got Renata’s little boy.”

  “The boy? And where is she?” I didn’t answer. “She blew you off. I see. You’re broke, and she’s not the type for a tacky boardinghouse like this. She took up with somebody else and left you to be the sitter. You’re what limeys call the nanny. That’s a riot. And what’s the black armband for?”

  “Here I’m a widower.”

  “You’re an impostor,” said Cantabile. “Now that I like.”

  “I couldn’t think what else to do.”

  “I won’t give you away. I think it’s terrific. I can’t figure how you get yourself into these situations. You’re a superintelligent high-grade person, the friend of poets, a kind of poet yourself. But being a widower in a dump like this is a two-day gag at most and you’ve been here two months, that’s what I don’t understand. You’re a lively type of guy. When you and me were tiptoeing on the catwalk of that skyscraper in a high wind sixty stories up, hey, wasn’t that something? Honestly, I wasn’t sure you had the guts.”

  “I was intimidated.”

  “You entered into the spirit of the thing. But I want to tell you something a little more serious—you and that poet Fleisher, you really were a quality team.”

  “When did you get out of jail?”

  “Are you kidding? When was I in jail? You don’t know your own town at all. Any little Polish girl on confirmation day knows more than you, with all your books and prizes.”

  “You had a smart lawyer.”

  “Punishment is on the way out. The courts don’t believe in it. Judges understand that no realistic sane person goes around Chicago without protection.”

  Well here he was. He arrived in a sort of torrent as if the tail wind that drove his jet had gotten into him somehow. He was high, exuberant, showing off, and he transmitted the usual sense of boundlessness, of cranky dangers—chanciness I called it. “I just now blew in from Paris,” he said, pale, dark-haired, happy. His chancy eyes glittered under the dagger-hilt brows, his nose was full at the bottom and white. “You know neckties. What’s your opinion of this one I bought on the rue de Rivoli?” He was dressed with brilliant elegance in a double-knit sort of whipcord pattern and black lizard shoes. He was laughing, nerves were beating in his cheeks and temples. He had only two moods, this and the threatening one.

  “Did you trace me through Szathmar?”

  “If Szathmar could get you into a pushcart he’d sell you by the slice on Maxwell Street.”

  “Szathmar is a good fellow in his own way. From time to time I speak harshly of Szathmar, but I really love him, you know. You invented all that stuff about the kleptomaniac girl.”

  “Yes, but what of it? It could have been true. No, I didn’t get your address from him. Lucy got it from Humboldt’s widow. She phoned her in Belgrade to check out some facts. She’s almost done with the thesis.”

  “She’s very tenacious.”

  “You should read her dissertation.”

  “Never,” I said.

  “Why not?” He was offended. “She’s smart. You might even learn something.”

  “I might.”

  “But you don’t want to hear any more about your pal, is that it?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Why, because he blew it—he goofed? This big jolly character with so many talents caved in, just a fucking failure, crazy and a deadbeat, so enough of him?”

  I wouldn’t reply. I saw no point in discussing such a thing with Cantabile.

  “What would you say if I told you that your friend Humboldt scored a success from the grave. I talked to that woman Kathleen myself. There were some points I had to discuss with her and I thought she might have some answers. Incidentally, she’s real keen on you. You’ve got a friend there.”

  “What is this about a success from the grave? What did you talk to her about?”

  “A certain movie scenario. The one you described to Polly and me just before Christmas in your apartment.”

  “The North Pole? Amundsen, Nobile, and Caldofreddo?”

  “Caldofreddo is what I mean. Caldofreddo. You wrote that? Or Humboldt? Or both?”

  “We did it together. It was horseplay. A vein of humor we used to have. Kid stuff.”

  “Charlie, listen, you and I need to reach a preliminary agreement, have an understanding between us. I’ve already taken a certain amount of responsibility, put out money and effort, made arrangements. I’m entitled to ten percent, minimum.”

  “In a minute I’ll ask what the devil you’re talking about. But tell me first about Stronson. What happened to him?”

  “Never mind Stronson now. Forget Stronson.” Cantabile then shouted, “Fuck Stronson!” This must have been heard all over the pensión. After that his head shook a few times as if with vibration or recoil. But he collected himself, fetched his shirt-cuffs from under the coat sleeves, and said in quite a different tone, “Oh, Stronson. Well, there was a riot in his office by people who got screwed. But he wasn’t even there. His big worry should be obvious to you. He lost a lot of Mafia money. They owned him. He had to do anything they said. So about a month ago they called the obligation in. Did you read about the Fraxo burglary in Chicago? No? Well, it was a sensational heist. And who should be flying afterward to Costa Rica with a bag, a big valise full of dollars to stash away?”

  “Stronson was caught?”

  “The Costa Rican officials put him in jail. He’s in jail now. Charlie, can you actuall
y prove that you and Von Humboldt Fleisher actually wrote this thing about Caldofreddo? That’s what I asked Kathleen. Have you got any proof?”

  “I think so.”

  “But you want to know why. The why is kind of strange, Charlie, and you’ll hardly believe it. However, you and I have to have an understanding before I explain things. It’s complicated. I’ve taken a hand in this. I’ve laid out a plan. I’ve got people standing by. And I’ve really done it mostly out of friendship. Now take a look at this. I’ve prepared a paper that I want you to sign.” He laid a document before me. “Take your time,” he said.

  “This is a regular contract. I can’t bear to read these things. What do you want, Cantabile? I’ve never read a contract through in all my life.”

  “But you’ve signed them, haven’t you? By the hundreds, I bet. So sign this one too.”

  “Oh God! Cantabile, you’re back again to hassle me. I was beginning to feel so well here in Madrid. And calmer. And stronger. Suddenly you’re here.”

  “When you get into a tizzy, Charlie, you’re hopeless. Try to check yourself. I’m here to do you a major favor, for Christ’s sake. Don’t you trust me?”

  “Von Humboldt Fleisher once asked me that and I said, ‘Do I trust the Gulf Stream or the South Magnetic Pole or the orbit of the moon?’ ”

  “Charles” (to calm me he addressed me formally) “what’s to get so excited? To begin with this is a one-shot deal. For me it provides like a regular agent’s fee—ten percent of your gross up to fifty thousand dollars, fifteen percent of the next twenty-five, and twenty percent on the balance, with a ceiling of one hundred and fifty thousand. So I can’t get more than twenty grand out of this any way you look at it. Is that a colossal fortune? And I’m doing it more for you, and for a few kicks, you poor dimwit. A lot you got to lose. You’re a fucking baby-sitter in a Spanish boardinghouse.”

  These last weeks I had been far from the world, beholding it from a considerable altitude and rather strangely. This white-nosed, ultranervous, overreaching, gale-force Cantabile had brought me back, one hundred percent. I said, “For just an instant I was almost glad to see you, Rinaldo. I always like people who seem to know what they want and behave boldly. But I am very happy to tell you now that I will not sign any paper.”

  “You won’t even read it?”

  “Definitely not.”

  “If I were really a bad guy I’d go away and let you miss out on a fortune of money, you creep. Well, let’s have a verbal agreement. I put you on to one hundred thousand dollars. I manage the whole deal and you promise me ten percent.”

  “But of what?”

  “You never read Time or Newsweek, I suppose, unless you’re waiting to have a tooth drilled. But there is a sensational movie out, the biggest hit of the year. On Third Avenue the ticket line is about three blocks long and in London and Paris the same. Do you know the name of this hit? It’s called Caldofreddo, and it’s based on the scenario you and Humboldt wrote. It’s got to be grossing millions.”

  “And is it the same? Are you certain?”

  “Polly and I went to see it in New York and we both remembered what you described to us in Chicago. You don’t have to take my word for it. You can see it yourself.”

  “Is it showing in Madrid?”

  “No, you’ll have to fly back to Paris with me.”

  “Well, Caldofreddo is the name we gave our protagonist all right. He’s one of the survivors of the crash of Umberto Nobile’s dirigible in the Arctic?”

  “Eats human flesh! Exposed by the Russians as a cannibal! Goes back to his Sicilian village! An ice-cream vendor! All the kids in town love him.”

  “You mean someone made something of such a farrago?”

  Cantabile cried, “They’re crooks, crooks, crooks! Those fuckers have stolen you blind! They’ve made a film out of your idea. How did they ever get it?”

  “Well,” I said, “all I know is that Humboldt gave the outline to a man named Otto Klinsky in the RCA building. He had an idea that he could reach Sir Laurence Olivier’s hairdresser through a relative of some scrubwoman who was the mother of a friend of Mrs. Klinsky. Did they actually reach Olivier? Does he play the role?”

  “No, it’s some other Englishman, like the Charles Laughton or Ustinov type. Charlie, this is a hell of a good picture. Now, Charlie, if we can prove your authorship, we’ve really got those guys. I told them, you know, I’m ready to slaughter them. I’m in a position to throw their balls into the Osterizer.”

  “You can’t have many equals when it comes to threatening,” I said.

  “Well, I had to put heat on them if I didn’t want a long business in court. We’re looking for a fast settle. What kind of proof have you got?”

  “What Humboldt did,” I explained, “was to send himself a copy of the scenario by registered mail. This has never been opened.”

  “You’ve got it?”

  “Yes, I found it among the papers he left me with a note that tells all.”

  “Why didn’t he copyright the idea?”

  “There is no other way in these cases. But the method is perfectly legal. Humboldt would have known. He always had more lawyers than the White House.”

  “Those movie bastards didn’t have the time of day for me. Now we’ll see. Our next move is this,” he said. “We fly to Paris….”

  “We?”

  “I am advancing expense money.”

  “But I don’t want to go. I shouldn’t even be here now. After lunch I generally sit in my room.”

  “What for? You just sit?”

  “I sit and withdraw into myself.”

  “A hell of an egotistical thing to do,” he said.

  “On the contrary, I try to see and hear the outer world with no static whatever from within, an empty vessel, and completely silent.”

  “What is that supposed to do for you?”

  “Well, according to my manual, if you sit quiet enough, everything in the outer world, every flower, every animal, every action, will eventually unveil secrets undreamed of—I’m quoting.”

  He stared at me with venturesome eyes and dagger brows. He said, “Damn it, you’re not going to turn into one of those transcendental-type weirdos. You don’t enjoy that, do you, just sitting quiet?”

  “I enjoy it deeply.”

  “Come to Paris with me.”

  “Rinaldo, I don’t want to come to Paris.”

  “You put your back up in the wrong place and you’re passive in the wrong place. You’ve got everything arsy-versy. You come along to Paris and look at that picture. It’ll only take a day or two. You can stay at the George V or the Meurice. It’ll add strength to our case. I hired two good lawyers, one French and one American. We’ll have to open that sealed envelope before witnesses under oath. Maybe we should get it done in the US Embassy and have the commercial attaché and the military attaché. So come on, pack your bag, Charlie. There’s a plane in two hours.”

  “No I don’t think I will. It’s true I’ve got no money left, but I’ve been doing better without money than I ever did with it. And I don’t want to leave the kid.”

  “Don’t act like a granny about that kid.”

  “Anyway, I don’t like Paris.”

  “You don’t like Paris? What have you got against Paris?”

  “A prejudice. For me Paris is a ghost town.”

  “You’re out of your head. You should see the lines on the Champs-Elysées waiting to get into Caldofreddo. And it’s your achievement. That should give you a feeling of secret power—a kick. I know you’re sore because the French made a phony knight of you and you took it like an insult. Or maybe you hate them because of Israel. Or their record in the last war.”

  “Don’t talk nonsense.”

  “When I try to guess what you’re thinking I have to try nonsense. Otherwise it would take me a million years to figure out why to you Paris is a ghost town. Would old Chicago aldermen retire to a ghost town to spend their graft-money? Come on Charlie, we’ll e
at pressed duck tonight at the Tour d’Argent.”

  “No, that kind of food makes me ill.”

  “Well then give me the stuff to take back with me—the envelope Humboldt mailed to himself.”

  “No, Cantabile, I won’t do that either.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Because you’re not trustworthy. I’ve got another copy of it, though. You can have that. And I’m willing to write a letter. A notarized letter.”

  “That won’t do it.”

  “If your friends want to see the original they can come to me in Madrid.”

  “You irritate the shit out of me,” said Cantabile. “I’m about to hit the ceiling.” Incensed, he glared at me. Then he made a further effort to be reasonable. “Humboldt has some family yet, doesn’t he? I asked Kathleen. There’s an old uncle in Coney Island.”

  I had forgotten Waldemar Wald. Poor old man, he lived in kitchen odors, too, in a back room. He needed rescuing, certainly, from the nursing home. “You’re right, there is an uncle,” I said.

  “What about his interest? What, just because you have a mental thing against Paris? You can pay a maid to look after the kid. This is a big deal, Charlie.”

  “Well, perhaps I should go,” I said.

  “Now you’re talking.”

  “I’ll pack a bag.”

  So we flew. That same evening Cantabile and I were on the Champs-Elysées waiting with our tickets to get into the vast movie house near the rue Marbeuf. Even for Paris the weather was bad. It was sleeting. I felt thinly dressed and became aware that my shoe soles had worn through and that my feet were getting wet. The queue was dense, the young people in the crowd were cheerful enough but Cantabile and I were both displeased. Humboldt’s sealed envelope had been locked in the hotel vault and I had the claim check. Rinaldo had quarreled with me about possession of this brass disc. He wanted it in his pocket as a sign that he was my bona-fide representative.