13. Orgy
The master of the house, too, had flown off for a while with that soft fragrant yellow-creaking briefcase of his, and I was left with the children. And as soon as his presence ceased to be felt, the house ceased to be a house and became a public square. First came the children’s friends, the accepted ones and the secret ones, then the friends of the children’s friends, and then their friends; and with that, the whole of Harbour Street. A case of liquor lay in the hall; I had no idea who had paid for it. Some of the guests had brought musical instruments with them, and a female was dancing on the grand piano. About midnight, food was delivered on platters from a delicatessen store; I had no idea who paid for that either. But at least the domestic staff was not expected to wait on them, the guests served themselves; indeed, the female sinner Jona had long since retired to her bed, and through those leather eardrums no discord other than the voice of conscience could ever penetrate. I roamed through the house, keeping in the background.
I imagine that this was to have been a dance, but it was only very halfheartedly that a pair or two trailed on to the floor to jitterbug for a while; on the other hand there was much singing of Fellows were in fettle and O’er the icy sandy wastes, but more especially and in particular they vied with each other to produce the weirdest sounds without words imaginable; never in my life had I heard in one single night such a medley of inarticulate human sounds. Then came the vomiting, first in the bathrooms, then in the stairs and passageways, and finally on the carpets and over the furniture and into the musical instruments. It was as if everyone were engaged to everybody else, couples were slobbering over each other indiscriminately; but I think that no one was in fact engaged to anyone, and that the kissing was just a variation of jitterbugging—with the exception of the maiden Fruit-blood, who, in an ecstasy, with childish movements in her body, clung on to a lanky American-looking guy at least twice her age and already going bald, and finally disappeared with this scoundrel into her room and locked it from the inside.
I had not the physical strength, much less the moral courage, to interfere with any of it; this was just life in a new image, and perhaps not so very new at that, although it was new to me; but when the time was nearing three in the morning I began to wonder how my little Gold-ram would be behaving himself in all this; would he now be out in the dark busy stealing minks and revolvers or perhaps telephone wires to Mosfell District, the little darling? I opened the door of the brothers’ room and peeped in. There on the elder brother’s bed a sozzled couple lay slobbering, and on the younger boy’s bed a girl in a vomit-smeared brocade dress had been laid out in a Christian attitude, with arms folded across her breast. The radio was tuned to some American stallion-station, with hideous squealings and rending farts. Then I saw that the door of the clothes-cupboard was ajar, with the light on inside; and what was going on in there in the midst of the orgy of the century? Two boys playing chess. They sat facing each other, crouched over a chessboard in the cupboard, infinitely remote from everything that was going on just beside them; the mink and revolver thieves, Gold-ram and his cousin. They made no reply even though I spoke to them, and never looked up even though I stood at the cupboard door for a long time watching them. And at this sight I was once again captivated by the essential security of life, by the radiance of the mind and the healing powers of the heart, which no accident can destroy. I contemplated once more the civilized peace of the chess game amongst the din from the American radio station and the four gramophones scattered throughout the house, some saxophones, and a drum: then I went up to my room, locked the door, went to bed, and fell asleep.
Next morning, of course, it fell to me to wipe up the vomit, clear away the broken crystal and porcelain, and remove the alcohol stains and food marks from the carpets and furniture; and I was wondering how many nights like that one it would take to lay a house waste; and I was busy with this all day long until the children began to straggle home from their various schools. All at once I heard goings-on in the vestibule, and when I went to look, the whole thing was starting up again, as far as I could see; a few fair-haired jazz-fiends of secondary-school age were drinking Black Death from the bottle and singing Fellows were in fettle and vomiting in front of the maiden Fruit-blood out in the hall. They were obviously in love with the girl and wanted to show her that they were men, well deserving of a maiden’s love. She sat on the stairs smoking a cigarette in the long tube, a little tired, and gave them a cold bewitching smile.
I barged out and said, “This time I refuse to clean up any more spew today, and will these boys kindly remove themselves?”
Of course these bright-haired drink-wan youths poured over me all those insults and obscenities that can only stream out of the well-bred children of better people, including such far-fetched vituperations as “double-minus-person,” “gas-oven fodder,” and “Polish-Jew chain-harlot”; but out they stumbled backwards in the end, the poor things, taking their Black Death with them. And I slammed home the lock.
When they had left, Fruit-blood walked over to me, almost right into me as if she intended to force me to give ground, and stared at me with loathing in her eyes like a gangster-girl in a film.
“How dare you throw my men out of my house?” she said.
“Men? Those dirty little hooligans?” I said, and let her come as close up to me as she liked.
“I forbid you to call south-country people names,” she said.
She stuck her cigarette holder into her mouth and swept grandly away with exaggerated gestures of her arms, waving that shapely little bottom of hers regally as she withdrew, then sank down into a deep chair, leant back limply, closed her eyes and smoked with infinite weariness—all pure cinema.
“Ugla,” she said. “Come here. Talk to me. Sit down.”
When I had sat down she stared dreamily into the blue for a while, and then said, “Isn’t he wonderful?”
“Who?” I asked.
“Isn’t he marvelous?”
I said I did not know what she was talking about.
“Is it a man?” I asked.
“Do you think it’s a dog?” she said.
“I don’t know,”
“Who should it be but that damned Lingo?” she said. “My Lingo—don’t you think he’s a great guy? I love him. I could kill him.”
“You don’t mean that long devil, bald and I don’t know what else?”
“Yes,” she said. “That’s the one I mean. Worse luck. I know he’s terribly tall; and going bald; and, what’s more, married. But I sleep with him all the same; sleep, slept, having slept; will sleep.”
“Are you mad, child? Do you think you can sleep with people at your age? He can be put in jail for that.”
“I’m my own boss, my girl,” she said.
“That sort of thing never even occured to me when I was at confirmation age,” I said.
“Listen,” she whispered. “Have you heard that girls stop growing if they lie with men too early?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “But I do know this, that you are such a child, Fruit-blood, that the next time I see that long devil I shall give him a good hiding.”
“If everything starts again tonight, the house filling up with people breaking still more crystal and vomiting on the carpets and ruining the veneer of the furniture, what am I to do? Call the police?”
“Why ask me, my dear?” said the organist.
“I don’t know what to do,” I said.
“In my house criminals and policeman sit at the same table,” he said. “And sometimes clergymen too, what’s more.”