Famous Last Words (19 page)

What confused me most was that having been set up by

Isabella Loverso to expect some mighty, earth-shaking scheme, nothing of the sort emerged. All we talked about was Italy, Ezra, my impressions of Venice, and when I had last been in Germany. Aside from that the luncheon was just a luncheon.

I had some delicious eggs Florentine and some excellent wine; we discussed a few mutual acquaintances. Coty was morose and preoccupied with a young man across the room and’Isabella Loverso ate a double serving of lime sherbet.

Consequently, by the time the meal was over, I was greatly confused as to why I had been there at all. “We” did not seem to exist.

But such, of course, was not the case. When the meal was over and the bill had been paid, I was sent away in Bedaux’s company to return with him to his offices.

The rain had let up and, though there was a wind, it

smelled of smoke and was not unpleasant. The offices were not a great way off. Bedaux was tiny: five-foot seven at the most, and rather rotund. His head was enormous and quite disproportionate in size with the rest of him. Nonetheless this gnomelike figure always moved as if he was running

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a race. He was also able to keep up a non-stop monologue the whole way, no matter how often the traffic attempted to murder us. In the space of ten minutes I learned a great deal about this extraordinary man.

He’d been born “right here, you know. Just outside of

Paris. Place called Charenton. Dumpy. Don’t bother. 1 never go back myself. All the memories too painful. One sister, two brothers. Dull, very ordinary. Father was an

engineer…mathematician. Worked for the railroad. Best example I ever had of what life ought not to be about; grey all over. When I was twenty…I’m fifty now…1 just took off one day and made for America. ‘Go ivest, young man.”

So I did. Landed, New York City—1906. Went everywhere,

did everything. Sold horses in the Ozarks…dug tunnels under the Hudson…ended up in Grand Rapids, Michigan where I made myself a citizen. Yes, sir, Mauberley: Charles Eugene Bedaux made himself an American citizen of his

own free will in 1917. Long ago as that. You see, the thing was, Charles E. Bedaux knew what he wanted. And he knew it grew in America. Money. …”

At this point we were fending off two trucks, a brokendown Renault and a cabby with a horse. Bedaux just kept

putting up his hand and walking through like a matador. I was terrified.

“I was a millionaire, you know, by the time I was thirtynine.

That’s right. You believe it. Charles E. Bedaux was a

millionaire by the time he was thirtynine. How old are you?”

“Thirty-eight. Nearly thirtynine. My birthday’s on New Year’s Day.”

“Thirtynine, hunh? Same as I was.”

“That’s right.”

“You a millionaire?”

“Not yet. No.”

“Unh-hunh. Well. You can be. You have the look.”

I doubted it. And wondered what “the look” might be.

“Now I’m going to let you in on the secret of my own great success. The secret of Charles E. Bedaux’s millions. The thing is,” he said, going through the gates from the street Biť|i^a^ MUwjl ^.um— .^_j._ ___^ •^1 __^^ ^_^^k

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into the courtyard that led to his offices, “what nobody ever organized before Charles E. Bedaux came along was the concept of the distribution of energy.” He was opening doors

now. “Human energy, you understand.” We got into an elevator.

“Everybody has an hour. See what 1 mean? You have

an hour. I have an hour. And that fartass Coty has an hour.

We all have the same hour. Right?”

I was given no time to say yes.

“Three men—one hour. Three potential units of energy.

And in that one hour we all ate lunch. We all ate lunch and we all got up and left. But look here, Mauberley…1 said something and you said something…you and I got to know one another. See? While fartass Cotv only sat there with his mouth open. Silent. See what I mean? Didn’t even really eat his lunch. Three men—one hour; but only two of us used it to its maximum, filled it with our maximum of energy and got the maximum return. We came away fed, fat and fortified.

And therein lies the secret of Charles E. Bedaux’s millions.

Because I’ve learned how to take the limp-wristed Cotys of this world—and turn them into Charles Atlas Bedaux!”

He laughed so hugely the elevator doors began to shake.

“Of course.” he roared. “I don’t mean that literally. I wouldn’t want some faggot to carry the name of Bedaux.”

His offices were on the fifth floor at the top. In the foyer, there was a secretary, Mademoiselle Liage. who sat at a large round desk, very modern. Everything was white and glass and chrome and all the “paintings” on the walls were posters, advertising Bedaux clients. The posters were gigantic—

framed—and 1 had the impression many of them were the

artists’ originals. One that particularly caught my attention showed a monstrous blue (rain speeding straight towards the viewer, with a small yellow racing car just beginning to pull ahead, determined to win the race and be the first to break through the glass. Underneath, there were only two words: FIAT—V1NCITORE! And 1 had no doubt of their

veracity, given the “flat” just delivered by Charles E. Bedaux.

We swept into Bedaux’s inner sanctum, Bedaux barely

acknowledging the secretary’s presence just as he had barely acknowledged the presence at lunch of Isabella Loverso.

Women did not account for much in his scheme of things, I gathered.

Beyond Bedaux’s door, there was a large, iridescent room.

Two sets of windows overlooked the Place and the walls

and ceiling were inlaid with smoky, gold mirrors. All the furniture, even the top of the desk, was covered in Venetian leather: faded, leaf-coloured, cool as a forest. One brass lamp with a copper-green shade was lit in the darkest corner.

Bedaux went behind his desk and did not sit down. but

indicated that 1 should be seated in one of the leather chairs nearby. For a moment, there was a silence while he fingered the opened mail on his blotter. Then he spoke, as if to someone hiding in the room, not me.

“Pay attention. I have only time to say this once. Mister Mauberley. Once—and once only.”

I was so unnerved by the tone of voice and the fact he

refused to look at my eyes that I turned and looked over my shoulder to make quite sure we were really alone. We were.

The words “pay attention” had also thrown me since they were patented by Ezra.

“For reasons I cannot explain,” Bedaux said, “I am about to visit America. I shall be there for some time; months. The international situation is changing by the hour. In the past weeks alone. General Franco has received the official recognition of Italy and Germany. At this very moment, he sits

at the gates of Madrid. There is every possibility, now they have conferred official recognition, that Hitler and Mussolini will actively enter the contest on his behalf. And if that were to happen, Baldwin and Roosevelt might feel compelled to take up arms. In other words…war.”

Absent-mindedly he offered me a cigar and lighted one

for himself. It was much as if, having mentioned war, Bedaux required some immediate manifestation of this theme and had chosen fire and smoke.

“War, Mister Mauberley, is bad for business.”

I blinked, having long been convinced that quite the opposite was true. He could see I did not agree with him. “War

breaks down the lines of communication…shuts down the frontiers…scrambles the labour force…sends money off in

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all the wrong directions…and. above all, it offends alliances built up over wears of negotiation. So 1 trust you see my point: war is bad for business.”

I nodded. Fascinated.

“Yes. Well. Now then, I’m given to understand you are

not, or at least that you don’t consider yourself, a ‘political’

person. Is that correct?”

“More or less, yes.”

“But you do vote?” —

“No. As a matter of fact, 1 don’t.”

“Ah? Is there a reason?”

“Well—I’m an American citizen. Born American. But I’m

never there.”

“Mister Mauberley,” he said, and cleared his throat. “For the sake of this conversation let us pretend you do vote. And let us pretend that you vote in America.”

“Very well.”

“And let us pretend—again for the sake of argument—that you vote for the Democratic Party… .”

“You go too far!”

He laughed, “Nonetheless, let us say so.”

I shrugged compliance.

“Very well. The Democratic Party has a leader: Mister

Roosevelt. And you don’t like Mister Roosevelt… .”

“Indeed.”

“But remember we are pretending here. You do like the

Democratic Party. What you don’t like is how it’s being led: you do not like its leader: you do not like his political machine: you do not like the men—or, let us say, you do not

like most of the men around him. All right so far?”

“Yes.”

“All right…” Bedaux’s figure edged its way along the mirrors, and 1 noticed that he ran his finger along the glass as he walked. “So you have this party you want to vote for—

but you can’t, because of its leader; and you can’t get rid of the leader because the men around him wield too much

influence and his political machine cannot be made to break down.” He stopped, mid-wall, his finger still poised, his finger on the glass. 1 was watching all of this reflected and

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he was watching me through the back of my head. “What

do you do then, Mister Mauberley. when you come to such an impasse?”

It occurred to me to say “You shoot Mister Roosevelt,”

but suspected that was not the answer he wanted. Therefore.

I said; “I don’t know. 1 should probably do what 1 have done: leave the country and give up my vote.”

“Ah, but that’s not good enough, is it. Mister Mauberlev?

Not when, in terms of our pretence, it is vital that the Democratic Party stay in power. No. Not good enough. We need

another answer.”

Ignoring the assassination plot in my mind. I confessed that 1 had no other answer.

“But you have, Mister Mauberley. You have.” (I could see that he’d stopped walking altogether.) “You wrote about it all, last spring. You put it all on paper and published it, just last spring in the Daily Mail.”

My mind opened. And the “Democratic Party” became

the Nazi Party and Roosevelt was Hitler and Roosevelt’s “machine” was the Fascist underpinning holding Hitler and Mussolini in place.

“And so now,” said Charles E. Bedaux. “you may begin

to grasp why it is I have asked you here.”

…and what it was Isabella Loverso had meant when she said to me, “you are one of us.”

I sat very still.

“Alas, for those of us who believe in…this ‘Party’ ” (he would still not name it—maybe still did not trust me)

“…there has been a loss of faith in its leaders.”

“I understand, Mister Bedaux. I do understand what you’re saying. Please stop talking in riddles.”

This was very hard for him to do; but he tried.

“What do such people do as we who have lost this faith?

How are we to make certain the party is not destroyed and above all—if one is a businessman like myself—how do we make certain it continues to be useful to us? Well let me tell you, Mister Mauberley.” And here. at last, he came and stood before me. “You find someone else inside the party who

believes as you do. And, if you’re smart, you set up a kind

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of network through which you continue to do business and through which you assure the integrity of the ideals upon which the party was founded is not destroyed. And you

bring all the best people into that network you can find, and, once you have done that—you begin to make your own

world.”

He was transported, and swept me with him. Because he

meant it. He meant that what had been a mere idea was

becoming a reality. You make your own world.

“And that is what we’re doing, Mister Mauberley, and that is why you are here: because we want you. Mister Mauberley.

We need you.”

Finally, I spoke.

“You say ‘we’.”

“Yes.”

“Am I to know who?”

He did not even consider his answer: “no. Not yet. Let us say merely…us. A…cabal.”

I could feel my expression alter. I did not appreciate his distrust of me in that moment, after all that had been said.

Either I was suitable to belong to this network or this cabal or whatever, or I wasn’t. If I wasn’t, then I should not have been told of its existence. And I said so.

“Very well,” said Bedaux. “But I’m afraid I must return to my riddles, in order to satisfy you. You see, we none of us ever…and I stress this…we none of us ever mention the cabal in conjunction with its members’ names.”

“I see.”

“However, in the delicate international situation that exists at present, what with the loss of kings and civil wars

and the comings and goings of armies—and the breaking of certain treaties, luck is on our side for the following reasons, none of which, by the way, has yet been announced to the public. One: as of January 1st, 1937 His Excellency Joachim von Ribbentrop will replace Joseph Goebbels as the number three man in the Nazi hierarchy.”

I held my breath.

“Two: on the same day, His Excellency Count Galeazo

Ciano is to become the Foreign Minister of Mussolini’s Gov

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eminent in Rome and the Master of the Rome-Berlin Axis.”

Bedaux sat down.

“Three: I have here in my hand, the rough draft of a cable 1 intend to send from New York when 1 arrive there late next week.” He put on a large pair of tortoise-shell reading glasses and shook out a piece of paper from his inner pocket and read: ” ‘To Mister and Mrs Herman Livingston Rogers: at the Villa Lou Viei, Cannes.’ “

Dear God. He had reached into the very heart of my world—

for I knew now what was coming and precisely why I had

been called into the circle. I stood up.