The Real Life of Sebastian Knight (16 page)

'You are an artist,' I said — to say something.

Pahl Pahlich, who was rinsing glasses in the tiny kitchen, laughed and shouted over his shoulder: 'Oh, he's an all-round genius. He can play the violin standing upon his head, and he can multiply one telephone number by another in three seconds, and he can write his name upside down in his ordinary hand.'

'And he can drive a taxi,' said the child, dangling its thin, dirty little legs.

'No, I shan't drink with you,' said Uncle Black, as Pahl Pahlich put the glasses on the table. 'I think I shall take the boy out for a walk. Where are his things?'

The boy's coat was found, and Black led him away. Pahl Pahlich poured out the brandy and said: 'You must excuse me for these glasses. I was rich in Russia and I got rich again in Belgium ten years ago, but then I went broke. Here's to yours.'

'Does your wife sew?' I asked, so as to set the ball rolling.

'Oh, yes, she has taken up dressmaking,' he said with a happy laugh. 'And I'm a type-setter, but I have just lost my job. She's sure to be back in a moment. I did not know she had German friends,' he added.

'I think,' I said, 'they met her in Germany, or was it Alsace?' He had been refilling his glass eagerly, but suddenly he stopped and looked at me agape.

'I'm afraid, there's some mistake,' he exclaimed. 'It must have been my first wife. Varvara Mitrofanna has never been out of Paris — except Russia, of course — she came here from Sebastopol via Marseilles.' He drained his glass and began to laugh.

'That's a good one,' he said eyeing me curiously. 'Have I met you before? Do you know my first one personally?'

I shook my head.

'Then you're lucky,' he cried. 'Damned lucky. And your German friends have sent you upon a wild goose chase because you'll never find her.'

'Why?' I asked getting more and more interested.

'Because soon after we separated, and that was years ago, I lost sight of her absolutely. Somebody saw her in Rome, and somebody saw her in Sweden — but I'm not sure even of that. She may be here, and she may be in hell.
I
don't care.'

'And you could not suggest any way of finding her?'

'None,' he said.

'Mutual acquaintances?'

They were
her
acquaintances, not mine,' he answered with a shudder.

'You haven't got a photo of her or something?'

'Look here,' he said, 'what are you driving at? Are the police after her? Because, you know, I shouldn't be surprised if she turned out to be an international spy. Mata Hari! That's her type. Oh, absolutely. And then.... Well, she's not a girl you can easily forget once she's got into your system. She sucked me dry, and in more ways than one. Money and soul, for instance. I would have killed her... if it had not been for Anatole.'

'And who's that?' I asked.

'Anatole? Oh, that's the executioner. The man with the guillotine here. So you're not of the police, after all. No? Well it's your own business, I suppose. But, really, she drove me mad. I met her, you know, in Ostende, that must have been, let me see, in 1927 — she was twenty then, no, not even twenty. I knew she was another fellow's mistress and all that, but I did not care. Her idea of life was drinking cocktails, and eating a large supper at four o'clock in the morning, and dancing the shimmy or whatever it was called, and inspecting brothels because that was fashionable among Parisian snobs, and buying expensive clothes, and raising hell in hotels when she thought the maid had stolen her small change which she afterwards found in the bathroom.... Oh, and all the rest of it — you may find her in any cheap novel, she's a type, a type. And she loved inventing some rare illness and going to some famous kurort, and...'

'Wait a bit,' I said. 'That interests me. In June 1929, she was alone in Blauberg:

'Exactly, but that was at the very end of our marriage. We were living in Paris then, and soon after we separated, and I worked for a year at a factory in Lyon. I was broke, you see.'

'Do you mean to say she met some man in Blauberg?'

'No, that I don't know. You see, I don't think she really went very far in deceiving me, not really, you know, not the whole hog — at least I tried to think so, because there were always lots of men around her, and she didn't mind being kissed by them, I suppose, but I should have gone mad, had I let myself brood over the matter. Once, I remember...'

'Pardon me,' I interrupted again, 'but are you quite sure you never heard of an English friend of hers?'

'English? I thought you said German. No, I don't know. There was a young American at Ste Maxime in 1928, I believe, who almost swooned every time Ninka danced with him — and, well, there may have been Englishmen at Ostende and elsewhere, but really I never bothered about the nationality of her admirers.'

'So you are quite, quite sure that you don't know about Blauberg and... well, about what happened afterwards?'

'No,' he said. 'I don't think that she was interested in anybody there. You see, she had one of her illness-phases at the time — and she used to eat only lemon-ice and cucumbers, and talk of death and the Nirvana or something — she had a weakness for Lhassa — you know what I mean...'

'What exactly was her name?' I asked.

'Well, when I met her her name was Nina Toorovetz — but whether — No, I think, you won't find her. As a matter of fact, I often catch myself thinking that she has never existed. I told Varvara Mitrofanna about her, and she said it was merely a bad dream after seeing a bad cinema film. Oh, you are not going yet, are you? She'll be back in a minute....' He looked at me and laughed (I think he had had a little too much of that brandy).

'Oh, I forget,' he said. 'It is not my present wife that you want to find. And by the way,' he added, 'my papers are in perfect order. I can show you my
carte de travail.
And if you do find her, I should like to see her before she goes to prison. Or perhaps better not.'

'Well, thank you for our conversation,' I said, as we were, rather too enthusiastically, shaking hands — first in the room, then in the passage, then in the doorway.

'I
thank you,' Pahl Pahlich cried. 'You see, I quite like talking about her and I am sorry I did not keep any of her photographs.'

I stood for a moment reflecting. Had I pumped him enough.... Well, I could always see him once more.... Might there not be a chance photo in one of those illustrated papers with cars, furs, dogs, Riviera fashions? I asked about that.

'Perhaps,' he answered, 'perhaps. She got a prize once at a fancy-dress ball, but I don't quite remember where it happened. All towns seemed restaurants and dancing halls to me.

He shook his head laughing boisterously, and slammed the door. Uncle Black and the child were slowly coming up the stairs as I went down.

'Once upon a time,' Uncle Black was saying, 'there was a racing motorist who had a little squirrel; and one day...'

My first impression was that I had got what I wanted — that at least I knew who Sebastian's mistress had been; but presently I cooled down. Could it have been she, that windbag's first wife? I wondered as a taxi took me to my next address. Was it really worthwhile following that plausible, too plausible trail? Was not the image Pahl Pahlich had conjured up a trifle too obvious? The whimsical wanton that ruins a foolish man's life. But was Sebastian foolish? I called to mind his acute distaste for the obvious bad and the obvious good; for ready-made forms of pleasure and hackneyed forms of distress. A girl of that type would have got on his nerves immediately. For what could her conversation have been, if indeed she
had
managed to get acquainted with that quiet, unsociable, absent-minded Englishman at the Beaumont Hotel? Surely, after the very first airing of her notions, he would have avoided her. He used to say, I know, that fast girls had slow minds and that there could be nothing duller than a pretty woman who likes fun; even more: that if you looked well at the prettiest girl while she was exuding the cream of the commonplace, you were sure to find some minute blemish in her beauty, corresponding to her habits of thought. He would not mind perhaps having a bite at the apple of sin because, apart from solecisms, he was indifferent to the idea of sin; but he did mind apple-jelly, potted and patented. He might have forgiven a woman for being a flirt, but he would never have stood a sham mystery. He might have been amused by a hussy getting drunk on beer, but he could not have tolerated a
grande cocotte
hinting at a craving for bhang. The more I thought of it, the less possible it seemed.... At any rate, I ought not to bother about that girl until I had examined the two other possibilities.

So it was with an eager step that I entered the very imposing house (in a very fashionable part of the town) at which my taxi had stopped. The maid said Madame was not in but, on seeing my disappointment, asked me to wait a moment and then returned with the suggestion that if I liked, I could talk to Madame von Graun's friend, Madame Lecerf. She turned out to be a small, slight, pale-faced young woman with smooth black hair. I thought I had never seen a skin so evenly pale; her black dress was high at the neck, and she used a long black cigarette holder.

'So you would like to see my friend?' she said, and there was, I thought, a delightful old-world suavity in her crystal clear French.

I introduced myself.

'Yes,' she said, 'I saw your card. You are Russian, aren't you?'

'I have come,' I explained, 'on a very delicate errand. But first tell me, am I right in assuming that Madame Graun is a compatriot of mine?'

'Mais oui, elle est tout ce qu'il y a de plus russe,'
she answered in her soft tinkling voice. 'Her husband was German, but he spoke Russian, too.'

'Ah,' I said, 'the past tense is most welcome.'

'You may be quite frank with me,' said Madame Lecerf. 'I rather like delicate errands.'

'I am related,' I went on, 'to the English author, Sebastian Knight, who died two months ago; and I am attempting to work out his biography. He had a close friend whom he met at Blauberg where he stayed in 1929. I am trying to trace her. This is about all.'

'Quelle drôle d'histoire!'
she exclaimed. 'What a curious story. And what do you want her to tell you?'

'Oh, anything she pleases.... But am I to understand.... Do you mean that Madame Graun is the person in question?'

'Very possibly,' she said, 'though I don't think I ever heard her mentioning that particular name.... What did you say it was?'

'Sebastian Knight.'

'No. But still it's quite possible. She always picks up friends at the places where she stays.
Il va sans dire,'
she added, 'that you ought to speak to her personally. Oh, I'm sure you'll find her charming. But what a strange story: she repeated looking at me with a smile. 'Why must you write a book about him, and how is it you don't know the woman's name?'

'Sebastian Knight was rather secretive,' I explained. 'And that lady's letters which he kept.... Well, you see — he wished them destroyed after his death.'

'That's right,' she said cheerfully, 'I quite understand him. By all means, burn love-letters. The past makes noble fuel. Would you like a cup of tea?'

'No,' I said. 'What I would like is to know when I can see Madame Graun.'

'Soon,' said Madame Lecerf. 'She is not in Paris for the moment, but I think you might call again tomorrow. Yes, that'll be all right, I suppose. She may even return tonight.'

'Might I ask you,' I said, 'to tell me more about her?'

'Well, that's easy,' said Madame Lecerf. 'She is quite a good singer, tzigan songs, you know, that kind. She is extraordinarily beautiful.
Elle fait des passions.
I like her awfully and I have a room at this flat whenever I say in Paris. Here is her picture, by the way.'

Slowly and noiselessly she moved across the thick carpeted drawing-room, and took a large framed photograph which was standing on the piano. I stared for a moment at an exquisite face half turned away from me. The soft curve of the cheek and the upward dart of the ghostly eyebrow were very Russian, I thought. There was a gleam on the lower eye-lid, and a gleam on the full dark lips. The expression seemed to me a strange mixture of dreaminess and cunning.

'Yes,' I said 'yes....'

'Why, is it she?' asked Madame Lecerf inquisitively.

'It might be,' I replied, 'and I am much looking forward to meeting her.'

'I'll try to find out myself,' said Madame Lecerf with a charming air of conspiracy. 'Because, you see, I think writing a book about people you know is so much more honest than making a hash of them and then presenting it as your own invention!'

I thanked her and made my adieux as the French have it. Her hand was remarkably small, and as I inadvertently pressed it too hard, she winced, for there was a big sharp ring on the middle finger. It hurt me too a little.

'Tomorrow at the same time,' she said and laughed gently. A nice quiet, quietly moving person.

I had learnt nothing as yet, but I felt I was proceeding successfully. Now it remained to set my mind at ease in regard to Lydia Bohemsky. When I called at the address I had, I was told by the concierge that the lady had moved some months ago. He said he thought she lived at a small hotel across the street. There I was told that she had gone three weeks ago and was living at the other end of the town. I asked my informant whether he thought she was Russian. He said she was. 'A handsome dark woman?' I suggested, using an old Sherlock Holmes stratagem. 'Exactly,' he replied rather putting me off (the right answer would have been: Oh, no, she is an ugly blonde). Half an hour later, I entered a gloomy-looking house not far from the Santé prison. My ring was answered by a fat elderly woman with waved bright orange hair, purplish jowls and some dark fluff over her painted lip.

'May I speak to Mademoiselle Lydia Bohemsky?' I said.