House of All Nations (61 page)

Jules's face livened: his eyes became almost black. ‘It's a good idea. I'm with you.'

‘It's not complete yet, Jules. I want Michel to work on it. We've got something there, eh? What do you say, Jules? It looks like a winner, eh?'

‘Let's have lunch,' said Michel. ‘I think you've got a wonderful thing there, Henri: a real stroke of genius.'

‘The greatest thing of my career,' half whispered Léon with awe. ‘I don't know—myself how it came to me. But it's good. Now we've got to make no mistakes. It mustn't slip. We'll come out of this—rich, my boy, you and Jules and me, rich! And in a depression. And doing no harm.'

He continued talking about the plan as they went along the corridor, as they put on their coats, as they walked to lunch at a cheap Armenian place discovered by Michel. ‘You go to the Farm Board in the U.S.A. and you tell them, “You're looking for a market for your wheat. This is a genuine proposition. There is demand in Europe where there is a very poor crop.” There's another thing: the rise in the market price will compensate the U.S.A. on the remainder of its stocks of wheat, for any possible loss on Russian paper … It's perfect.' The gaiety ran over the dam in short, lolloping, easy boyish laughs, ‘Perfect. No one has ever had a scheme like it. The more I think of it, the more I see it is watertight.' But he became worried. ‘Do you think Bertillon understands it?'

‘How do you like the goulash? You haven't noticed it at all,' said Alphendéry, ‘you one-track brain.'

‘One-track brain? Is that what I am? He-he-he.' Woodwinds laughing over the dam. ‘Will he understand it, though, eh?'

‘He will,' said Alphendéry, ‘when I get through explaining it to him.'

‘It would be a tragedy if it slipped up,' said Léon, wagging his head.

‘Why didn't you go to Strindl's?' asked Michel, mentioning the second largest grain firm and one with which Léon was intimately connected.

Léon said, ‘No can do. They'd steal it from me. They've got the organization all ready. They don't need to pay me a salary, a participation. They only need to hear the idea and they'll whip into it. I want to make this my grand coup. Michel, you're along with me. You're lucky.' Once more, as always, his eyes earnestly searched, as for a jewel, in Alphendéry's forehead. ‘You've got the lucky touch, Michel. You're a messenger.' He became grave with sentiment and superstition.

Michel said, ‘You mean, I have the Hebrew letter Shin in the middle of my forehead. I know. If I ever come and work for you, Henri, it will be on the strength of that Shin. I know your superstition.'

Léon did not laugh but was both anxious and abashed. He did not speak of these things aloud. At last, he said, rather timorously, ‘There is something—a
shilee'ach
* you might be.' He trembled.

* Inspired messenger, he means.

Alphendéry laughed but was troubled. ‘My wife, when she was my wife, told me I should have been an alienist … I was able to cure mental disease, disorder by my physical presence. Why was that? Nothing magical. I do not think I am any better than they are. That's all.'

Léon was much embarrassed. After a moment he looked up and said with false, loud briskness, ‘Do you think Bertillon understands it, eh? Do you think he knows men? Can we trust his judgment?'

‘No,' said Michel, ‘Jules has not much sense of men, but if we prime him, brief him, see that he gets away with the right entourage, tell him whom to go and see, give him a schedule and a map, he can't go wrong and he's well regarded in Washington. One of his ancestors went over on the
Mayflower
or died at Bunker's Hill or got the Congressional Medal, something like that. The Americans are always soft with Lafayette cases. If he ties up properly with the American embassy, it's all right. Of course, he's hot stuff here because he is the flower of society, with his aviation cup and his Auteuil cup, his plane, his stable and his yacht and the rest. There's no harm in having him with you on the first consortium—it makes it look grand, kosher, and Parisian. But he'll have to act rather as a figurehead. Why don't you go to America yourself?'

‘No,' said Léon, ‘no, I can't go. I'm a foreigner. No
Mayflower
—a European, they'll think I'm a jumping jack; you know how they look on Roumanians, Spaniards, bohunks, dagos, there, all those over there. There's Russian paper mixed in it. Those yellow press. Better not give them the idea it's entirely Central-European and Slav. They wouldn't like it: bad publicity and they've had enough publicity, God knows.'

‘You ought to go along in Jules's suite,' said Alphendéry. ‘I can't see why you don't, as his secretary or something? You'd be miserable if the plan fell through and you'd blame yourself. It's your plan. I don't see why you don't guard it like the apple of your eye.'

Léon shook his head and would say no more. Léon had once been in New York, and neither Alphendéry nor anyone else had been able to find out why he would not go back to a place for which his great trading talents eminently suited him. Achitophelous had something to do with it, Guinédor had something to do with it: perhaps they knew. Little Kratz knew, and the venomous threats he spat at Léon when he left him for good and all referred to it. Perhaps it was nothing more serious than income tax. There were many strange embroiled histories between these men: they had concocted many a bizarre plan between them, in the days of their friendship.

To cover the silence, Alphendéry coaxed, ‘Tell me, Henri, how did you make your money? One day you were eating rye-bread sand-wiches and wondering where you were going to get the three dollars to pay the rent in the old house in Twenty-first Street in New York, full of cockroaches and lice, over a leather and upholstery basement; and in a couple of months, Méline tells me, you were swaggering down in the best tailoring in New York, with a gold-headed cane. How did you do it? Now, don't tell me your usual lies. Who am I to bother you? You know I'm no crook.'

Léon gurgled good-naturedly, glad to be let off the New York question. ‘I'll tell you, my boy, but you needn't tell anyone, although there's no harm in it. I was with Strindl's New York office, see. I should have gone to Valparaiso, but when I see the name of the boat, Morea, that's Roumanian for death, I renege. And I go to New York instead. It's after the war. Russia isn't paying anything. A complete moratorium: you can only get payment by seizing Russian property abroad. Strindl's had a cargo of spelter landed at Archangel for Russia. Don't turn up your ears—lots of grain firms delivered funny grains those days. Strindl's made their fortune during the war. You can imagine in what grain. The Russians wouldn't pay. There wasn't a chance of getting a ruble out of them. Strindl's stood to lose the entire value at the then prices, about one hundred fifty thousand dollars. So I heard something from a Jewish feller who knew a Tammany judge who was fixing up the claims against Russian property in New York. I cabled them to Amsterdam, “Will you settle for sixty thousand dollars if I can get it? Ask no questions.” And they cabled back, “If you can get sixty thousand dollars for us, good on you,” or words to that effect. So I made a good split, don't worry: I gave something to the Jewish feller, five thousand dollars to the Tammany judge, I sent them sixty thousand dollars, and I got sixty thousand dollars myself. He gave me a judgment of one hundred thirty thousand dollars—not bad, eh?

Nearly the whole value. That's how I got my start. That's why I'm superstitious about Russia. Good luck for me.' He finished glibly and smiled at Alphendéry, refreshed.

‘Well, I suppose I'll know some day,' said Alphendéry patiently.

Léon flushed faintly. ‘I'm telling you the honest truth: I wouldn't lie to you, Michel,' he gabbled. ‘Ah, you can only make a fortune in a war!'

He studied Alphendéry for a while and then floundered briskly into the wheat scheme. Alphendéry, whose busy brain, full of little elves, had worked over all that had been presented to him of the plan by now and who saw further perspectives, mused aloud, ‘What about the reaction of the Washington officials, to Russia being in the plan?'

Léon said at once, ‘At forty-eight per cent premium, Russia could afford to be honest: even a murderer would be honest if he was saving forty-eight per cent per annum. They can tell that to the people who object. She's bound to keep to her contract.' He burbled his recapitulation: ‘Europe needing wheat but faced with a coffee situation in wheat in America—there sits Europe waiting for the wheat to be made a present of … or America can dump it in the ocean. And there are the Russians who must ship wheat to get the cash. You see Europe unable to buy because valuta is beginning to be shaky in Europe and so is credit, because of U.S.A. tariffs, too. The U.S.A. couldn't accept goods to pay for the wheat and ship it overseas in exchange for goods. Therefore,' Léon said with marked emphasis, ‘the problem to a Gemera feller* is, first, see a way to stop Russia selling. Now, what are you to offer Russia to stop her selling?
NEXT
, to find a buyer for the wheat. Next, what to do with the goods that the wheat buyer wants to exchange. Next, a revolutionary stroke to change the whole market psychology—You see, Michel, the European buyers sabotaged, too. And the European buyers sat down and pursued a hand-to-mouth policy which threatened the world structure—' Light broke on the tossed planes of his great face, ‘I've got it, my boy. I've got it now.' He rumbled on.

* ‘Student of commentaries on the Talmud,' he means.

Alphendéry's fresh voice broke in, ‘I congratulate you, Henri: it's a stroke all right. To turn the Russians into buyers instead of sellers is sensational, completely sensational … it revolutionizes the whole market situation—and it's dialectic, it's along the right line, that's why it's perfect: don't you realize that?'

‘Dialectic—what's—h'm ?'

‘The logic of world history, in the line of evolution.'

‘History? No. No history. This is new: it takes account of the situation.' But he was not thinking about Alphendéry any more. He mused, ‘To take goods that Europeans wanted to export to America, instead of to Russia—to give them Russian wheat—to make them buyer of one hundred fifty million bushels, maybe, instead of them coming out with one hundred million bushels—it'll double the price of wheat, say from fifty cents to a dollar in Winnipeg-Chicago. I'm not dreaming, Michel. We could sell right away—fifty million bushels and probably make—' his voice fell—‘particularly in exchange for goods that Russia wants.'

Alphendéry, seated opposite to him in the restaurant, looked at his face, broad as the wheatlands of Roumania he was born in, at his eyes which, though the openings of the lids were relatively small, flashed, rolled, and looked enormous under their great lids and high brows, the jutting nose, a very promontory of passion and willfulness. He had at this moment the kindliest, most brotherly feelings for Léon, although he knew that in any business deal he would only get scrapings from the plate. Léon did not notice the glance. He noticed nobody. He did not know what he was eating either, except that when they brought him rose jelly, he laughed up into his eyes and said boyishly, ‘My poor mother, God rest her soul! made this jelly always. I never had it since.' Léon always ate sparingly, and took no alcohol, except on fete days, fete days decided by his own secret, internal calendar. Then he would suddenly drink two bottles himself and begin to talk about his star, begin to dream of his fate, his power, begin to feel the dark, quick blood smoke in his veins. But now he drank water, intoxicated enough by the view of this gigantic citadel he saw the invisible but strong hands of his genius building up in front of him for him to inhabit. He smiled, darkled, glinting at Michel, his confidant; in every aspect the Oriental potentate, the Turk, talking to his favorite, supine counselor, quite sure that his own favorite topic—himself—was also the theme that Alphendéry's ears yawned to hear.

‘We would come in one morning and we would say, “We have sold fifty million bushels to the Russians on a basis options”—to be fixed— and the merchants—each in what each—proportion—to make contracts out for certain quantities—brokers getting commissions from the selling consortium. The whole trade satisfied; no depression any more, revival in all the markets! Not only wheat! And we know it is coming! Two-three fortunes. The idea is to leave no doubt in the world trade that there has been a real contract—encourage the world markets—oh, there's no end to the profits—they would hasten to buy hedges in ahead of the Russians while we were unloading on the way up, but between the U.S.A. and Russia there would be a fixed price—and we're holding the fifty million. Michel, we've got it, we've found it. It's genius!' He gave a great crunching chuckle, the crushing of sunflower seeds in saliva. ‘What do you think of it, Michel? It's good, isn't it? What do you think of the Gemera feller?'

‘Good,' said Alphendéry with the first far note of impatience.

Léon reached across the table, his face creased with smiles as a happy peasant boy's, ‘Boy, we're made. Michel, stick with me and you're a made man. You can keep that beautiful wife of yours in silk and satin and pay her such a whopping big alimony she'll—what do you think of it? Good, tell me, do you think it's good. Do you think you can sell it to that Gentile, in there? We need someone to approach the Gentiles on the other side.' He swallowed a glass of water and clapped his hands: ‘Waiter!'

Alphendéry spoke, nastily, for him, ‘Gentiles! Morgan is a Gentile, so is Rockefeller. You're medieval, Henri. I don't go about thinking I'm a Jew.'

‘You're an Alsatian Jew … that's not a Jew. No, sir, I'm the Chasidim.' He cried sharply, ‘Waiter, bill, bill!' He turned to Michel seriously, softly, ‘Imagine all them fellers in the morning coming on the telephone and saying, ‘What's this I hear?' and I'd be saying, ‘Listen, Meyer Benz—' ‘