Cocaine

5

“Kalantan, Kalantan, Kalantan,” the dazed and sleepy Tito kept repeating to himself in the car belonging to the Armenian lady with a villa as white as an ossuary and as round as a Greek temple as it speeded him to his hotel in the Place Vendôme by way of the Place de la Concorde and the Rue Royale.

At that early hour Paris was crowded with people on the way to work: clerks employed in the suburbs and wearing shoes that were still too shiny hurried towards the Gare Saint-Lazare, the Gare d’Orléans and the Gare des Invalides; working girls with freshly washed faces, everyone was hurrying as if to forestall the course of the sun. Outside Maxim’s a dog and a beggar were non-competitively scavenging in a pile of oyster shells and lemon peel.

“Kalantan, Kalantan, Kalantan,” he kept muttering, his lips hidden by the coat collar that he had turned up to his nose, while the car turned into the Rue Saint-Honoré in the gray, cool air of morning — Kalantan, a sweet name for a serene lover, not for a poisoned and poisonous woman… Kalantan, Kalantan, a long drawn out name made to be pronounced without moving one’s lips, if one spoke it with one’s soul; a name made to be repeated slowly a thousand times over the brow of a pale and a pure woman… Kalantan, a name that shares the sounds of Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s line O mano mansueta in man d’amante… Kalantan… in man d’amante… Kalantan, Kalantan.

The car drew up outside the Hotel Napoléon as gently as if it had been stopped by a puff of air, and a page boy opened the door. Tito got out and handed fifty francs to the chauffeur, who refused it.

“Take it, it’s offered to you by a sentimentalist,” Tito said. “I know, in man d’amante. I’m a sentimentalist. It’s disgusting of me, but take it all the same.”

The chauffeur pocketed it in a dignified manner and the car glided away with a mocking toot of the horn.

Tito found two letters waiting for him, one from Italy, the other from his newspaper.

He read the latter first. It was from the editor:

“Marius Amphossy, the Jamaican murderer of school mistresses, is to be guillotined at four o’clock tomorrow morning in the Boulevard Arago,” it said. “Write me a colorful article about it. Two columns. There have been no executions in France for seven years. The new President had discontinued commuting death sentences. I’m counting on you. The article must be at the printer’s at six a.m. We’re coming out with a special edition at eight a.m. Regards…

He crumpled up the letter and opened the other one.

Thank you for your postcard, it said. How nice of you. Do you still remember Maddalena? But I’m not Maddalena any longer, I’m Maud. I was released after ten months in the reformatory and met a number of men, one of whom is a café chantant manager. He said my legs could take me a long way, and he taught me dancing and got me engagements at the best variety theaters in Italy. I shall be coming to Paris next month to the Petit Casino. Would you like to see me?

Maud

He ordered lime tea and some drops of orange-flower water from the liftman who took him to the fourth floor. The waiter who brought it had to knock three times before entering, because he was in bed, fast asleep.

When he awoke the lime tea was stone cold, the orange-flower water had evaporated, and his watch had stopped.

He rang the bell and the waiter appeared.

“What’s the time?”

“Four a.m.”

“What did you say?”

“Four a.m., sir.”

“What day is it?”

“Thursday.”

“And what time did I come back?”

“Seven a.m., sir.”

“What day was that?”

“Wednesday.”

“And what is it today?”

“Thursday.”

“And what’s the time?”

“Four a.m., sir.”

“So I slept —”

“From eight o’clock yesterday till four o’clock today, sir.”

“Making altogether —”

“Twenty hours, sir.”

“That’s a lot.”

“I’ve seen cases worse than yours, sir. Can I take away the tray? I see the lime has done you good, sir.”

“Why?”

“You’ve slept, sir.”

“But I haven’t even tasted it.”

“That’s not necessary, sir. It’s a spécialité de la maison.”

“Very well then. Take the specialty away.” The tray, followed a pace behind by the waiter, left the room.

He read the editor’s letter without turning a hair. At this moment, he said to himself, I ought to be at the Boulevard Arago watching Mr Marius Amphossy having his head cut off. But is it absolutely essential for me to be present? The article has to be written, that I admit. But have I got to be there? How lovely the Armenian lady was. Kalantan — the name reminds me of the sound of a distant bell, tolling for the death of Marius Amphossy, the Jamaican murderer who specialized in schoolmistresses. And if I went there, what would I see in this pitch black darkness? But I shall have to write something. For the special edition with a full report of the beheading. It has to be at the printer’s at six o’clock…

As he muttered these last few words he got out of bed and collapsed with part of his body on the chair and the rest on the desk.

Large sheets of paper of a spectral whiteness awaited his pen.

He looked like a suicide about to write down his last wishes.

I’ve never understood why death sentences are always carried out early in the morning, he said to himself. Why do the executioner, the priest, the sentenced man, who would so much like to go on sleeping, have to be disturbed so early? Wouldn’t apéritif time be far better?

He began writing:

THE EXECUTION OF MARIUS AMPHOSSY

JAMAICAN MURDERER OF SCHOOLMISTRESSES

But instead of beginning his report of the grim ceremony he soliloquized as follows: What an appalling thing it is to be a journalist in summer, when the Chamber of Deputies is on vacation, and the criminal court is closed. There’s nothing to fill the paper with, so the editor orders two columns to be written about an insignificant trifle such as this. But in Italy it would be worse. When news is scarce there, long articles are written on the death of Giovanni Orth, the intelligence of ants, the birth of triplets (a Calabrian speciality), plague in Manchuria, the tricks played by lightning, and stolen necklaces (in North America). Articles are produced about the possibility of life on Mars, on the age of the earth and on D’Annunzio’s real name (D’Annunzio or Rapagnetta?); or they describe the catching of an “enormous whale,” even if it’s only a shark or a dogfish. Newspapers believe all rather large fishes to be whales. Idiots.

His watch said a quarter past four. He re-read the title of his article.

But his ideas refused to germinate. They were inert, lifeless, compressed like sardines in a tin. After twenty hours’ sleep the gastronomic comparison made him feel queasy. His ideas were shut up as if in a box of cocaine, as if in that light, seductive little metal box that was lying there in front of his eyes near the inkstand — oh, the satanic complicity between cocaine and ink.

He knew that under the influence of cocaine ideas that had shriveled opened up, unfolded, expanded like dried tea leaves when boiling water is poured on them.

He took a sniff and began to write.

He wrote one page, two pages, three pages without stopping, hesitating, or correcting, and without his mind wandering. In his mind’s eye he visualized the dreadful scene. He interwove memories of reports of executions he had read with ironic and compassionate comments. He described the sinister blade of the guillotine gleaming in the gray light of a rainy morning; the rare passers-by who stopped to watch the executioner and his assistants making the preparations for their gruesome task; the gray prison, solemn with a funereal solemnity; the soldiers of the Garde Républicaine drawn up in a grim square round the place of execution.

When the seven gentlemen in black entered his cell Marius Amphossy was fast asleep. Until the evening before he had still believed in a reprieve, but the sight of those gentlemen in morning coats and top hats made him abandon hope.

“Marius Amphossy,” one of the gentlemen in black said, “you must be brave. The appeal for a reprieve has been rejected. The time for you to expiate your crimes has come. Be strong.”

“I shall be,” the condemned man replied with a scornful and cynical laugh.

The director of prisons and the condemned man’s defense counsel stood behind the public prosecutor. The other gentlemen could not dissimulate their emotion.

The prison clock mournfully struck four.

The gentleman who had spoken read a decree. When he had finished, the executioner’s two assistants took their place on either side of the condemned man. The others made way for them to pass.

Marius Amphossy walked with a firm and confident step. He looked with an ironic smile at us journalists who were watching the tragic scene from a dark corner of the big, cold corridor flanked with cells; terrified eyes behind the peep-hole of every door watched as if hypnotized — were they the eyes of other prisoners sentenced to death or of wretches expecting to be so sentenced?

The executioner led the procession down the long, straight corridor.

Behind him came the condemned man and the executioner’s two assistants. Then came the defense counsel, the director of prisons, the other officials, and the journalists.

He walked down some steps and through a tunnel. The sound of our footsteps echoed in the huge, sepulchral silence.

We went into a room.

There was a priest there, holding a crucifix, and bottles of champagne and other drinks were on a small table.

The priest embraced the condemned man while a warder poured him some champagne.

The condemned man asked for a cigarette. A cigarette was lit and handed to him.

The two assistants cut off the collar of his shirt and summarily cut the hair at the back of his neck; then they seized his arms and tied them behind his back.

The procession moved off again.

While going down some steps Amphossy suddenly wavered. His legs gave way, and he would have collapsed if the assistants had not promptly supported him, holding him under the armpits.

The prison yard exposed the grim procession to innumerable eyes gazing through the little windows. We crossed the yard.

In the cold morning air outside the gate a vehicle with two white horses was awaiting. This was the panier à salade, the Black Maria. Some steps were let down, and the prisoner got in with the executioner, his two assistants and the lawyer.

A hundred yards away the guillotine was awaiting its prey. The horses trotted quietly and cheerfully, with unconscious indifference, as if they were taking a bride to church.

The vehicle stopped with a jerk. The two assistants opened the door and lowered the steps. The executioner jumped out. Marius Amphossy got out, looking terror-stricken. His lawyer remained motionless as if unable to move, as if turned to stone.

The two assistants held the wretched man under the armpits and carried him bodily. As he moved round the carriage Amphossy could see the big deserted square; arms and uniforms glittered; the soldiers of the Garde Républicaine drew their sabers, and the civilians raised their hats.

The condemned man’s face was ashen. His convulsively twisted mouth seemed to be trying to make a plea for mercy to the dawning day, to the life he saw about him.

But did the poor wretch still see anything? No, his eyes no longer saw, though they were staring fixedly at the brown contraption among the foliage of the trees of the boulevard; a tall, slender contraption, three beams, two vertical and one horizontal.

Two drops of sweat flowed down his temples and cheeks. His chin was covered with beads of sweat. He opened his mouth as if to shriek, but no sound came.

He reached the foot of the scaffold. His life was now measured in seconds. Not a sound was to be heard in the big square, not the whisper of a leaf or a flutter of wings; even the fine drizzle seemed to be falling more silently, more religiously.

He mounted the scaffold without moving his legs; death seemed already to have him in its clutches and to be lifting and raising him above other men. In fact he did not walk. His legs, already dead, dragged along like tins that small boys pull along behind them on a string. The hands tied behind his back contracted spasmodically; his breast swelled as if it were about to burst; and his neck swelled too.

The blade of the guillotine gleamed; a round hole was ready to open wider to admit the man’s head and then close firmly round his neck. Beyond it was the basket ready to receive the severed head a few moments later.

The man made a convulsive effort to back away from the terrifying sight, but he could not. Then he arched his breast and thrust back his head as if to provide leverage against some support. Consternation was in the air.

But the executioner’s assistants forced his head down and tripped him, making him fall like a sack on the bascule. The executioner put his head under the lunette, which fell, holding him inexorably as with an iron hand.

This took a moment, a cruel moment that seemed an eternity. The man, who had been flung on the bascule with his hands tied behind his back and his head immobilized beneath the pincers, looked at the basket that opened like an abyss beneath his terrified eyes.

There was a thud, and the head rolled, causing a semicircular spray of blood as it fell.

Justice had been done.

We journalists were allowed to approach. The body was put in a pine coffin. The eyes in the head were still open, and the tongue was out and moved slightly, causing some greenish foam to emerge from the mouth. One of the assistants picked up the head by the hair and put it in the coffin, which was loaded on to a truck and taken away to a medical institute.

Sunlight began to illuminate the square. The Garde Républicaine moved off, and the executioner and his assistants set about dismantling the guillotine.

At the medical institute to which we went a few minutes after the execution they told us that the heart was still beating and that indubitable signs of life were to be observed in the retina. Oh pitiless human laws, oh legal experts, perhaps…

But Tito’s article was still short of two columns, so he launched into some long, Tolstoyan comments on the human right to judge and the right to kill. And as it was still too short, he preceded his account with some digressions about the guillotine.

He recorded the last words of the fat and hawk-like Louis XVI, who called out: Français, je meurs innocent de tout. He recalled Marie Antoinette, whose hair had gone gray in a single night and when she accidentally bumped into the executioner said to him politely: Pardon, monsieur. He mentioned how Elisabeth, Louis XVI’s sister, her shoulders having been bared when she was already under the blade, modestly asked that they might be covered again. And he also recalled the story about the aged Bailly, whose teeth chattered in the November rain. “You’re trembling,” someone said to him. “It’s the cold,” he replied. Tito also mentioned how Charlotte Corday blushed with shame when her shoulders were bared. He recalled Danton (“Show my head to the people; it’s worth it.”); Desmoulins, who asked the executioner to take a lock of his hair to his mother; Adam Lux, who kissed Charlotte Corday before dying; Jourdan Coupe-Tête, who mounted the scaffold with a sprig of lilac between his lips…

But Tito had still not written the two columns that were required, so he repeated the story of the crimes committed by Marius Amphossy of Jamaica, the dreadful killer of schoolmistresses. He also wrote about Jamaica and its rum, and explained why the government had not granted extradition, though international law, etc.

He lingered over the gaps in international law, described the executioner’s face, reported a brief interview with that sinister individual, who turned out after all to be a decent fellow, but times were hard, things were very expensive, and you had to do something to make a living. He explained how the guillotine worked, and added some colorful notes about the state of mind of the condemned man. By means of a clever stratagem he had been the only Paris journalist who had gained access to the condemned cell a few hours before the execution.

“But why did you kill all those schoolmistresses?” I asked the murderer.

“I disliked them,” the man replied in matter-of-fact tones and with a smile. “If it’s legal to kill a man who makes a murderous attack on you or seduces your wife or breaks into your house to rob, why shouldn’t it be legal to kill a man whom you dislike? Isn’t dislike the best of all reasons?”

Tito decided that he had not sufficiently described the unfortunate man’s behavior in the face of the scaffold, so he added his last words:

I’m innocent. I swear before God and man that I did not kill those twenty-seven schoolmistresses.”

But that struck him as too rhetorical. So he crossed it out and wrote instead:

“I killed those twenty-seven schoolmistresses and am content. If I had to live my life over again, I should do it again.”

But then he realized that such cynical behavior would have caused the crowd to yell with indignation, in which case he would have had to alter some parts of his story.

So again he crossed out the condemned man’s last words and substituted the following:

“Mother, mother, save me.”

But she could not save him, because she was in Jamaica and could not hear him; she was in a beautiful cemetery in Jamaica in which pineapples grew.

It was six o’clock by Tito’s watch, and he had filled thirty sheets with his handwriting.

He didn’t read through what he had written. He put it in an envelope, wrote on it — Urgent. Send to the composing room immediately, and rang the bell.

“Waiter, have this sent to my newspaper as quickly as possible, by taxi if necessary.”

And while the waiter was still on his way out he collapsed on to the bed, dropping first one slipper on to the carpet and then the other.

The sheets were still warm.

Six hours later the telephone rang and woke him.

“Yes, it’s me,” he said with a yawn.

“You wretch. This is your editor speaking.”

“Oh, good morning, sir.”

“You’ve ruined the paper for me. The execution did not take place.”

“Good.”

“He was reprieved at the last moment.”

“I’m delighted to hear it, sir.”

“What do you mean? Your story —”

“All you have to do is not publish it.”

“But we put it on the front page.”

“Then take it out, sir.”

“It’s been on sale in the streets of Paris for four hours.”

“Oh, has it? What’s the time?”

“Twelve o’clock.”

“Strange. But what harm has been done? He was reprieved by the President of the Republic at three o’clock this morning? Do you mean to tell me that the President of the Republic has nothing better to do at three o’clock in the morning? In any case, we can face public opinion and our own consciences with an easy mind. We carried out our journalistic duty scrupulously and to the point of self- sacrifice. A stupid little incident like a presidential reprieve is not sufficient reason to deprive our readers of such an interesting story. The purpose of the death penalty, according to modern penal theory, is not so much punishment as the setting of an example, and by describing it as if it had happened — we have done our journalistic duty in full consciousness of the social responsibility of the daily press.”

There was no reply from the other end of the line. Tito went on talking imperturbably for some time without realizing that the editor had long since rung off.

Down below in the square newspaper sellers were shouting the name of the newspaper that had printed a special edition giving full details of the execution of Marius Amphossy, from Jamaica, the mass murderer of schoolmistresses, and the sound of their voices was audible all the way up to the fourth floor of the Hotel Napoléon.

Madame Kalantan Ter-Gregorianz’s husband owned some inexhaustible oil wells.

“Let me introduce Dr Tito Arnaudi.”

“Stay for lunch,” her husband said.

In spite of all his oil he was bald and, though he was rich, he was young.

He didn’t like Paris and wasn’t very fond of his wife, though at intervals he liked both. Every two or three months he interrupted his flitting between foreign cities and different women to linger over the vices of Paris and those of his wife. But she could not please him permanently, because she was too nervy and too thin. He only liked fat women. The fatter they were, the more they attracted him. In affairs of the heart he obeyed the celebrated law of physics which says that attraction is proportionate to mass.

“My wife and I are leaving for Deauville tomorrow,” he said. “Do you like the sea? We can easily put you up.”

Tito accepted the invitation.

Next day, though he had not obtained the editor’s permission to take a month’s leave, he took it all the same and left with the Ter-Gregorianz couple for the fashionable seaside resort.

The two men were in perfect agreement in saying nasty things about the Turks (in whom Tito was totally uninterested) and in singing the praises of vegetarianism (in which the Armenian was totally uninterested). They played bridge and snooker, went for long drives by the sea, listened to the waves, which talk in hexameters and pentameters; and Tito, who was sometimes more sentimental than a clown, agreed with Verlaine that la mer est plus belle que les cathédrales. In the evening they played baccarat, and they bathed.

Tito could swim. The Armenian gentleman couldn’t, but Tito taught him, not well enough to swim the channel, but at any rate well enough to save himself in a shipwreck. What Tito failed to teach him, probably because the Armenian was so thin, was to float on the water like a corpse.

He held him and told him to sink the top of his head four inches below the surface and to stay like that with his body motionless and with open arms. He explained to him the principle of Archimedes according to which a body immersed in a liquid…

But as soon as Tito let him go the Armenian sank like a stone.

“How’s it going?” Kalantan asked with a smile every morning when they came back in their beach pajamas.

“I can swim under water and I can do twelve yards in a minute, but as for floating like a corpse, I simply can’t manage it.”

One day M. Ter-Gregorianz went swimming alone in a quiet inlet. A treacherous wave overwhelmed him and swallowed him up. He tried to call out, but water got into his mouth and he couldn’t. Two legs were seen emerging from the water as if calling for help, and then nothing at all.

Tito walked back to the hotel alone, and Kalantan came strolling towards him with her hands in her pockets like a man.

“Well?” she said, “has my husband learnt to float like a corpse?”

“Yes,” Tito replied.

They buried him in Paris, in the Armenian Gregorian Cemetery. All his wife’s past lovers were to be seen at the funeral, and her future lovers as well.

Tito, in the front rank, was conspicuous among them.

The reader will find details of how Tito became the Armenian lady’s lover in any other novel. In particular I recommend those that systematically describe all the phases of falling in love and end with irreproachable modesty at the precise moment when the couple, having had three hundred chaste pages of inconclusive posturing devoted to them, exchange the first really sustained kiss.

That, I believe, is the point at which the novel ought not to end, but to begin. And since we have finished with chapter 5 and our heroine (who is the Italian and not the Armenian lady) has not yet appeared, let us now introduce her once and for all.