“Are they any good?”
“Yes and no. They’re certainly not for children to look at.”
A few days after this conversation took place, an old friend turned up. Leon Shamroy. As usual, he was loaded with gifts. Mostly things to eat and drink.
This time Moricand opened his falcon eyes even wider.
“It’s staggering,” he murmured. He drew me to one side. “A millionaire, I suppose?”
“No, just the head camera man for the Fox Films. The man who wins all the Oscars.”
“I only wish you could understand his talk,” I added. “There’s no one in all America who can say the things he says and get away with it.”
Just then Leon broke in. “What’s all the whispering about?” he demanded. “Who is this guy—one of your Montparnasse friends? Doesn’t he talk English? What’s he doing here? Sponging on you, I’ll bet. Give him a drink! He looks bored—or sad.”
“Here, let him try one of these,” said Leon, fishing a handful of cigars out of his breast pocket. “They only cost a dollar apiece. Maybe he’ll get a kick out of them.”
He nodded to Moricand to indicate that the cigars were for him. With that he threw away the half-finished Havana he had allowed to go out and lit a fresh one. The cigars were almost a foot long and thick as seven-year-old rattlers. They had a beautiful aroma too. Cheap at twice the price, thought I to myself.
“Tell him I don’t talk French,” said Leon, slightly annoyed because Moricand had expressed his thanks in long-winded French. As he spoke he undid a package out of which spilled some luscious-looking cheeses, some salami and some lachs. Over his shoulder: “Tell him we like to eat and drink. We’ll chew the rag later. Hey, where’s that wine I brought? No, wait a minute. I’ve got a bottle of Haig and Haig in the car. Let’s give him that. The poor bugger, I’ll bet he’s never had a tumbler of whisky in his life…. Listen, what’s the matter with him? Doesn’t he ever crack a smile?”
He went on sputtering like that, opening more parcels, cutting himself a hunk of corn bread, buttering it with delicious sweet butter, spearing an olive, tasting an anchovy, then a sour pickle, a little of this, a little of that, at the same time unearthing a box of sweets for Val, together with a beautiful dress, a string of beads and … “Here, this is for you, you bastard!” and he flung me a tin of expensive cigarettes. “I’ve got more for you up in the car. By the way, I forgot to ask you—how are things going with you? Haven’t made your pile yet, have you? You and Bufano! A couple of orphans. Lucky you have a friend like me … someone who works for a living, what?”
Meanwhile Lilik had gone to the car and brought things down. We opened the Haig and Haig, then a beautiful brand of Bordeaux for Moricand (and for ourselves), looked appraisingly at the Pernod and the Chartreuse which he had also thought to bring. The air was already thick with smoke, the floor littered with paper and string.
“Is that shower of yours still working?” asked Leon, unbuttoning his silk shirt. “I’ve got to take one soon. Haven’t had any sleep for thirty-six hours. Christ, am I glad to get away for a few hours! By the way, can you bunk me for the night? Maybe two nights? I want to talk to you. We’ve got to make some real dough for you soon. You don’t want to be a beggar all your life, do you? Don’t answer! I know what you’re going to say. … By the way, where are your water colors? Drag ’em out! You know me. I may buy a half dozen before I leave. If they’re any good, I mean.”
Suddenly he noticed Moricand was pulling on a cheroot.
“What’s the matter with that guy?” he shouted. “What’s he got that stink weed in his mouth for? Didn’t we just give him some good cigars?”
Moricand explained blushingly that he was reserving the cigars for later. They were too good to smoke immediately. He wanted to fondle them a while before lighting up.
“Fuck that nonsense!” cried Leon. “Tell him he’s in America now. We don’t worry about tomorrow, do we? Tell him when he finishes those I’ll send him a box from L.A.” He turned his head away, lowered his voice a trifle, “What’s griping him anyway? Has he been starved to death over there? Anyway, the hell with him! Look, I want to tell you a little joke I heard the other night. Translate it for him, will you? I want to see if he’ll laugh.”
My wife is making a vain attempt to set the table. Leon has already embarked on his little joke, a filthy one, and Lilik is farting like a stallion. In the middle of his tale Leon pauses to cut himself another hunk of bread, pour a drink, take off his shoes and socks, spear an olive, and so on. Moricand watches him goggle-eyed. A new specimen of humanity for him. Le vrai type américain, quoi! I have a suspicion he’s really enjoying himself. Sampling the Bordeaux, he smacks his lips. The lachs intrigues him. As for the corn bread, he’s never seen or tasted it before. Famous! Ausgezeichnet!
Lilik’s laughing so hard the tears are rolling down his cheeks. It’s a good joke, and a filthy one, but difficult to translate.
“What’s the trouble?” says Leon. “Don’t they use that kind of language where he comes from?”
He observes Moricand diving into the viands, sipping his wine, trying to puff away at the huge Havana.
“O.K. Forget the joke! He’s filling his belly, that’s good enough. Listen, what did you say he was again?”
“Among other things an astrologer,” I said.
“He doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground. Astrology! Who wants to listen to that shit? Tell him to get wise to himself…. Hey, wait a minute, Ill give him my birth date. Let’s see what he makes of it.”
I give the dope to Moricand. He says he’s not ready yet. Wants to observe Leon a little longer, if we don’t mind.
“What did he say?”
“He says he wants to enjoy his food first. But he knows that you’re an exceptional type.” I added this to relieve the tension.
“He said a mouthful there. You’re damned right I’m an exceptional type. Anyone else in my place would go crazy. Tell him for me that I’ve got his number, will you?” Then, turning directly to Moricand, he says: “How’s the wine … the vin rouge? Good stuff, what?”
“Epatant!” says Moricand, unaware of all the innuendoes that had passed under his nose.
“You bet your ass it’s good,” says Leon. “I bought it. I know good stuff when I see it.”
He watches Moricand as if his nibs were a trained otter, then turns to me. “Does he do anything else beside read the stars?” Giving me a reproachful look, he adds: “I’ll bet he likes nothing better than to sit on his fat fanny all day. Why don’t you put him to work? Get him to dig a garden, plant vegetables, hoe the weeds. That’s what he needs. I know these bastards. They’re all alike.”
My wife was getting uncomfortable. She didn’t want Moricand’s feelings to be hurt.
“He’s got something in his room you’ll enjoy seeing,” she said to Leon.
“Yeah,” said Lilik, “right up your street, Leon.”
“What are you trying to pull on me? What’s the big secret? Out with it!”
We explained. Leon seemed strangely disinterested.
“Hollywood’s full of that crap,” he said. “What do you want me to do—masturbate?”
The afternoon wore on. Moricand retired to his cell. Leon took us up to inspect his new car, which could do ninety per in nothing flat. Suddenly he remembered that he had some toys for Val in the back of the car. “Where’s Bufano these days?” says he, fishing around in the trunk.
“Gone to India, I think.”
“To see Nehru, I bet!” He chuckled. “How that guy gets around without a cent in his pockets beats me. By the way, what are you doing for money these days?”
With this he dives into his pants pocket, hauls out a wad of greenbacks fastened with a clip, and begins peeling off a few.
“Here, take this,” he says, shoving the greenbacks in my fist. “I’ll probably owe you money before I leave.”
“Have you anything good to read?” he asks suddenly. “Like that
Giono book you lent me, remember? What about that guy Cendrars you’re always pissing in the pants about? Has any of his stuff been translated yet?” He threw another half-finished Havana away, crushed it under his heel, and lit a fresh one. “I suppose you think I never look at a book. You’re wrong. I read plenty…. Some day you’re going to write a script for me—and earn some real dough. By the way”—he jerked his thumb in the direction of Moricand’s studio—“is that guy taking you for a lot of dough? You’re a chump. How did you ever fall into the trap?”
I told him it was a long story … some other time.
“What about those drawings of his? Should I have a look? He wants to sell them, I suppose? I wouldn’t mind taking some—if it would help you out…. Wait a minute, I want to take a crap first.”
When he returned he had a fresh cigar in his mouth. He was looking roseate.
“There’s nothing like a good crap,” he said, beaming. “Now let’s visit that sad-looking bimbo. And fetch Lilik, will you? I want his opinion before I let myself in for anything.”
As we entered Moricand’s cell Leon sniffed the air. “For Christ’s sake, make him open a window!” he exclaimed.
“Can’t, Leon. He’s afraid of draughts.”
“Just like him, for crying out loud. O.K. Tell him to trot his dirty pictures out—and make it snappy, eh? I’ll puke up if we have to stay here more than ten minutes.”
Moricand proceeded to get out his handsome leather portfolio. He placed it circumspectly before him, then calmly lit a gauloise bleue.
“Ask him to put it out,” begged Leon. He drew a pack of Chesterfields from his pocket and offered Moricand one. Moricand politely refused, saying he couldn’t stand American cigarettes.
“He’s nuts!” said Leon. “Here!” and he proffered Moricand a big cigar.
Moricand declined the offer. “I like these better,” he said, brandishing his foul French cigarette.
“If that’s how it is, fuck it!” said Leon. “Tell him to get going. We can’t waste the whole afternoon in this tomb.”
But Moricand wasn’t to be hurried. He had his own peculiar way of presenting his work. He allowed no one to touch the drawings. He held them in front of him, turning them slowly, page by page, as if they were ancient papyri to be handled with a shovel only. Now and then he drew a silk handkerchief from his breast pocket to remove the perspiration from his hands.
It was my first view of his work. I must confess the drawings left a bad taste in my mouth. They were perverse, sadistic, sacrilegious. Children being raped by lubricious monsters, virgins practicing all manner of illicit intercourse, nuns defiling themselves with sacred objects … flagellations, medieval tortures, dismemberments, coprophagic orgies, and so forth. All done with a delicate, sensitive hand, which only magnified the disgusting element of the subject matter.
For once Leon was nonplused. He turned to Lilik inquiringly. Asked to see some of them a second time.
“The bugger knows how to draw, doesn’t he?” he remarked.
Lilik hereupon pointed out a few he thought were exceptionally well executed.
“I’ll take them,” said Leon. “How much?”
Moricand named a price. A stiff one, even for an American client.
“Tell him to wrap them up,” said Leon. “They’re not worth it, but I’ll take them. I know someone would give his right arm to own one.”
He fished out his wad, counted the bills rapidly, and shoved them back into his pocket.
“Can’t spare the cash,” he said. “Tell him I’ll send him a check when I get home … if he’ll trust me.”
At this point Moricand seemed to undergo a change of heart. Said he didn’t want to sell them singly. All or nothing. He named a price for the lot. A whopping price.
“He’s mad,” shrieked Leon. “Let him stick ’em up his ass!”
I explained to Moricand that Leon would have to think it over.
“Okay,” said Moricand, giving me a wry, knowing smile. I knew that in his mind the bird was in the bag. A handful of trumps, that’s what he was holding. “Okay,” he repeated as we took leave of him.
As we sauntered down the steps Leon blurted out: “If the bastard had any brains he’d offer to let me take the portfolio and show them around. I could probably get twice what he’s asking. They might get soiled, of course. What a finicky prick!” He gave me a sharp nudge. “That’d be something, wouldn’t it, to dirty that smut!”
At the foot of the steps he paused a moment and caught me by the arm.
“You know what’s the matter with him? He’s sick.” He touched his cranium with his forefinger.
“When you get rid of him,” he added, “you’d better disinfect the place.”
Some few nights later, at the dinner table, we at last drifted into the subject of the war. Moricand was in excellent form and only too eager to relate his experiences. Why we had never touched on all this before I don’t know. To be sure, in his letters from Switzerland he had given me an outline of all that had taken place since we parted that night in June of 1939. But I had forgotten most of it. I knew that he had joined the Foreign Legion, for the second time, joined it not out of patriotism but to survive. How else was he to obtain food and shelter? He lasted only a few months in the Legion, of course, being altogether unfit for the rigors of that life. Discharged, he had returned to his garret in the Hotel Modial, more desperate, naturally, than ever before. He was in Paris when the Germans marched in. The presence of the Germans didn’t bother him as much as the absence of food. At the last ditch he ran into an old friend, a man who held an important post at Radio-Paris. The friend took him on. It meant money, food, cigarettes. An odious job, but. … At any rate, the friend was now in prison. A collaborator, evidently.
He rehearsed the whole period again, this evening, and in great detail. As though he felt compelled to get it off his chest. From time to time I lost the thread. Never interested in politics, in feuds, in intrigues and rivalries, I became utterly confused just at the crucial period when, by command of the Germans, he intimated that he had been forced to go to Germany. (They had even picked out a wife for him to marry.) Suddenly the whole picture got out of whack. I lost him in a vacant lot with a Gestapo agent holding a revolver against his spine. It was all an absurd and horrendous nightmare anyway. Whether he had been in the service of the Germans or not—he never defined his position clearly—was all one to me. I wouldn’t have minded if he had quietly informed me that he had turned traitor. What I was curious about was—how did he manage to get out of the mess? How did it happen that he came off with a whole skin?
Of a sudden I realize that he’s telling me of his escape. We’re no longer in Germany, but in France … or is it Belgium or Luxembourg? He’s headed for the Swiss border. Bogged down by two heavy valises which he’s been dragging for days and weeks. One day he’s between the French Army and the German Army, the next day between the American Army and the German Army. Sometimes its neutral terrain he’s traversing, sometimes it’s no mans land. Wherever he goes it’s the same story: no food, no shelter, no aid. He has to get ill to obtain a little nourishment, a place to flop, and so forth. Finally he really is ill. With a valise in each hand he marches on from place to place, shaking with fever, parched with thirst, dizzy, dopey, desperate. Above the cannonade he can hear his empty guts rattling. The bullets whizz overhead, the stinking dead lie in heaps everywhere, the hospitals are overcrowded, the fruit trees bare, the houses demolishd, the roads filled with homeless, sick, crippled, wounded, forlorn, abandoned souls. Every man for himself! War! War! And there he is floundering around in the midst of it: a Swiss neutral with a passport and an empty belly. Now and then an American soldier flings him a cigarette. But no Yardley’s talc. No toilet paper. No perfumed soap. And with it all he’s got the itch. Not only the itch, but lice. Not only lice, but scurvy.
The armies, all sixty-nine of them, are battling it out around him. They don’t seem to care at all for his safety. But the
war is definitely coming to an end. It’s all over but the mopping up. Nobody knows why he’s fighting, nor for whom. The Germans are licked but they won’t surrender. Idiots. Bloody idiots. In fact, everybody’s licked except the Americans. They, the goofy Americans, are romping through in grand style, their kits crammed with tasty snacks, their pockets loaded with cigarettes, chewing gum, flasks, crap-shooting dice and what not. The highest paid warriors that ever donned uniform. Money to burn and nothing to spend it on. Just praying to get to Paris, praying for a chance to rape the lascivious French girls—or old hags, if there are no girls left. And as they romp along they burn their garbage—while starving civilians watch in horror and stupefaction. Orders. Keep moving! Keep liquidating! On, on … on to Paris! On to Berlin! On to Moscow! Swipe what you can, guzzle what you can, rape what you can. And if you can’t, shit on it! But don’t beef! Keep going, keep moving, keep advancing! The end is near. Victory is in sight. Up with the flag! Hourrah! Hourrah! And fuck the generals, fuck the admirals! Fuck your way through! Now or never!
What a grand time! What a lousy mess! What horripilating insanity!
(“I am that General So-and-So who is responsible for the death of so many of your beloved!”)
Like a ghost our dear Moricand, by now witless and shitless, is running the gauntlet, moving like a frantic rat between the opposing armies, skirting them, flanking them, outwitting them, running head on into them; in his fright speaking good English now and then, or German, or just plain horseshit, anything to disengage himself, anything to wiggle free, but always clinging to his saddlebags which now weigh a ton, always headed for the Swiss border, despite detours, loops, hairpin turns, double-eagles, sometimes crawling on all fours, sometimes walking erect, sometimes smothered under a load of manure, sometimes doing the St. Vitus dance. Always going forward, unless pushed backward. Finally reaching the border, only to find that it is blocked. Retracing his steps. Back to the starting point. Double fire. Diarrhea. Fever and more fever. Cross-examinations. Vaccinations. Evacuations. New armies to contend with. New battle fronts. New bulges. New victories. New retreats. And more dead and wounded, naturally. More vultures. More unfragrant breezes.