The Acrobats (12 page)

Kraus looked pained, as if he had heard what had been said but didn’t quite know how to reply. “I want this girl,” he said. “I want you to stop seeing her.”

“What?” André said, more amazed than anything else.

“You are bad for her.”

“Are you serious?”

“I do not joke.”

André stared at him. Bullet-shaped head, iron-grey eyes under no brows to speak of, bad lips, a kind of mad intensity to the face, no neck, head slightly cocked and puzzled, barrel chest and no stomach but legs weak and spindly, fists curled in angry balls. “Go away, Kraus.
Vamos
. F— off!
Allez!”

Kraus drew his arm more firmly about Toni’s waist. A sarcastic question mark settled on his face. He cocked his head. “I beg your pardon, young man?” he said.

André scowled. He was as angry with himself as he was with Kraus. “Aw look!” he said. “I don’t want to fight you. That would be silly. Just go away. Leave Toni and myself alone.”

Kraus stepped back – as if in just another second he was going to lunge at André.

“You are making fun of me.”

“Oh, go away!”

Toni looked imploringly at André. She knew something was wrong, but she failed to understand their English.

“I beg your pardon?”

Nausea swept over André. Physical fear. A lump bobbed up and down in his throat.

“I beg your pardon?”

“This is crazy. Let’s not fight, eh?”

“Are you a man or a mouse?”

André laughed.

“COBARDE.”

The band looked up. The few straggling couples on the floor stopped dancing. Waiters stopped in their tracks as if caught by a jerky camera. Everything was quiet.

Kraus’s words echoed around him. I beg your pardon I beg your pardon I beg your I beg –
cobarde
.

André pulled back his right fist and aimed for the spot just behind Kraus’ head. Kraus ducked and the punch rolled off his cheek. Swiftly he smashed André in the face with his huge fist. He stepped back as André came toppling down, the stool falling on top of him, banging him on the head.

Toni shrieked. She beat Kraus wildly on the chest with her tiny fists. Kraus took out a handkerchief and wiped his face. He knocked Toni’s fists away gently. The ring on his left hand was bloody. “I am not in the habit of brawling in bars … brawling with boys …” he said. “I am sorry,
señorita
Toni. But he is Evil.”

André scrambled to his feet quickly. His nose was bloody and he could taste the blood in his mouth. Before Toni could grab him he charged wildly into Kraus, hitting him solidly to the stomach. Kraus swung his fist down, backwards, like a pendulum, smashing it into André’s face on the upswing. André was swept backwards on the strength of the blow, stumbling over the fallen stool, falling backwards to the floor head first.

“Go! Please go!”

“I’m sorry. For a boy he is …”

Toni pushed him. “Haven’t you done enough?”

Kraus started as if to say something. Then he turned around, walking out of the club.

André got up dizzily. He squinted, shook his head, then started for the door. Toni grabbed him. He felt her body jerk
with sobs in his arms. André forced himself to grin. “I’m all right. I’m fine. All I need is a coffee,” he said.

“Luís!”

Luís placed a cup of coffee and a cognac on the bar. André bent down to recover the stool. He toppled for an instant and then he regained his balance slowly. All around the club people were watching him. His head was swimming. His nose stung.

“I really beat the hell out of him, didn’t I?” he said.

Toni laughed. Her eyes were wet. “Your nose is bleeding. Let’s go, darling,” she said.

André had difficulty keeping her in focus.

“Darling! Let’s go.”

“If Juanito wants to see me …”

He pressed a handkerchief to his nose. Everything felt mushy.

“I’ll get him.”

André swallowed his cognac swiftly. Luís handed him a cigarette and lit it for him.

André turned around but Toni was already gone.

“Do you want another cognac?” Luís asked.

“No.”

André explored his mouth with his tongue. His teeth seemed all there but his tongue was raw.

“You shouldn’t have done it.”

“I know.”

“You were wrong, André.”

“I had to hit him.”

“Why?”

“All I know is I had to hit him. Toni doesn’t even come into it. Not the way you think anyway. I would always have to hit him.”

André knocked the coffee over with his arm.

“Does your face hurt?” Luís asked pouring out another cup of coffee.

“Yes.”

“Chaim will be angry.”

“The hell with Chaim.” He pulled the handkerchief away from his nose. “Is your … is my face swollen?”

“Yes.”

“Is it cut?”

“No.”

André laughed happily. “Jesus, I feel good!” he said.

“He fought with Franco, the son of a bitch.”

“Are your glad I hit him?”

“You were wrong.”

“Are you glad?”

“His sister was here yesterday. She came to see Chaim. I served her a drink. She wants me to come up to her house and repair some furniture. But don’t worry, that’s all. She thinks because I’m poor I’m not proud or I don’t understand.”

Juanito sat down at the bar. His eyes were swollen. His hair was carefully tangled up.

“What happened? Toni is crying,” he said.

“I just beat up Colonel Kraus.”

“I’ll kill him for you!”

“Yeah, I know. Would you like some coffee?”

“Yes.”

“Luís!”

“Was he able to walk out?”

“Look, Juanito, fix your hair. Comb it. I promise I’ll feel sorry for you whatever it is.”

Quickly Juanito brushed back his hair. “Did you hurt him badly?” he asked.

“Three waiters had to carry him out. Concussion. Five ribs smashed. I doubt if he’ll pull through.”

“No!”

“It was André’s fault!”

Juanito handed André a cigarette and smiled intimately. “Luís is just a bartender,” he said. “What could you expect him to know about such things?”

André frowned. He noticed Luís move away from them. “Well, Juanito,” he said, “what happened?”

Juanito dropped a crisp one hundred dollar bill on the bar. There were a few new creases in it.

André laughed incredulously. “No! You didn’t!” he said.

“Please, you must give it back to them. They’ll soon be here to meet me. I mustn’t be here when they come.” He pushed the bill towards André. “Hurry! Take it!”

“They aren’t coming.”

André picked up the bill and thought of how he might get back to London with it. Go to Tangier or take Toni to Paris. Maybe even stake himself until he got a job or an exhibition together. Suddenly he thrust the note back at Juanito. “You took it, now keep it,” he said.

Juanito cringed, slinking away from the bill as if it had occult powers all its own. “I believed we were friends, men of the world, we …”

“Dammit, Juanito. Come off it!”

“I am a gentleman. My father was a great doctor.”

Juanito has made his choice and I have made mine, André thought. He is a dishonest thief and I am an officious clown – we are, both of us, expendables; waste-products.

“Listen, Juanito. Your father is dead. You are no longer a gentleman but a pimp. And a thief as well.”

“Temporarily in the employ of a cabaret, perhaps. But a pimp, a thief?” He hissed the words as if terrified by their sounds. “I was an honours student at the university.”

André felt that the onus of the crime had fallen on him. He shoved the bill into his pocket. “Okay. I’ll give it back to him tomorrow.” It will be funny too, he thought. Hey, Barney, old boy, here boy, nice boy, here jump! a hundred bucks.

Juanito embraced André. “My friends, what a gentleman!
Gracias, gracias.”

André laughed shyly. “I’m sorry for all the rotten things I said.”

“I’ll go and get Toni,” Juanito said.

“Wait.”

But Juanito was gone.

André began to probe his scalp for bumps.

It was late. Only a few people were strewn about the club. Sipping on the dregs of their cognac, trying to engage a waiter in conversation, lighting up just another cigarette, pretending to be lost in thought, humming old tunes, anything, just sweet anything, so long as not to be forced back into the cold night. A fat pink Frenchman was arguing with a waiter about the quality of champagnes. At another table an old man was sobbing. The band, indicating the jubilee was over again, packed their instruments into their cases with automatic care. A man got up on the floor and began to dance with a broom. The head waiter passed by André shrugging his shoulders significantly. But significantly of what, André thought? And more than anything else the club was just a big empty room. The smart talk of the evening had dissolved, leaving nothing behind – not memory or pain or echo. The music might as well not have been played. The jubilee was for nothing.

An old man hobbled in, fumbling along on a cracked peg-leg. “Good evening, Don André,” he said.

André nodded.

The old cripple was one of the sweeper’s husbands and held the franchise on cigarette butts.

“Have you a peseta for an old grandfather?”

“I’m sorry. I have nothing on me.”

“Ah, don’t tell me. I understand. Nightclubs and girls. How I wish I had money to celebrate the
fallas
in such a manner. But I am old and poor. Life has not been kind to me.”

André squirmed in his seat.

The old cripple bowed contemptuously. “Ah, yes, it displeases you to see the poor. You are a gentleman and we are so ugly,” he said.

“Look! I have nothing.”

André pulled out his pockets. Handkerchief, a few
centimos
, two small pencils, a tube of paint. The crumpled hundred dollar bill fell to the floor.

The old cripple stooped down quickly and retrieved the bill. “You dropped this,” he said. His beady eyes shone hopefully. “Is this money?”

“It’s not mine. It …”

The bill lay crumpled on his yellow, shaky hand.

“Yes. It’s mine. Take it.”

“Gracias, gracias.”

He bent over and kissed André’s hand with his dry lips.

“Please don’t do that.”

The old cripple hobbled away.

“Are you sure it’s legal?”

“Yes.”

“It would be damn embarrassing if I was picked up by the cops, you know. I’ve got my family to think of.”

“It is legal.”

“Hell, I wish I had my camera with me. I could probably get some damn fine shots.”

“They charge extra to take pictures.”

“I don’t mean those kinda pictures. I mean pictures! I’m interested in all this from a sociological point of view. I’m making an album of my European tour.”

“Would you like to buy some pictures?”

“You mean
real
pictures?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah, sure. But later, huh? Let’s go.”

“First let’s have another cognac.”

“Sure. I have all you want.”

“Pep!”

Pep groaned.

“
Dos cognacs. El Mejor.”

“Christ, I can’t get over how good you speak English.”

“I was a sailor. I told you. I was five years in New York.”

“Yeah, that’s right. You told me. I must be getting drunk.”

Luís said nothing.

“You’ll stay with me all the time, huh? I don’t speak the language. I …”

“I will stay with you all the time. You must give me one hundred pesetas.”

“Sure. Don’t you worry about the money.”

“I’m not worried.”

“Do they do anything you want? You know what I mean.”

“Anything.”

“Let’s go, huh?”

“Let me finish my drink.”

“I’ll buy you all you want later. Let’s go.”

A fog of cigarette fumes drifted about the ante-room. The sweaty walls seemed to shed faded wallpaper like dead skin. Seated atop a high stool, plump Rosita presided over a counter on which were piled orderly stacks of chips. Had Rosita been born a man or of a good family she might have been a tycoon or a politician; as it was, she was sole owner of the
casa
. She twirled the faceless, dirty, copper coins in her hands. Dependent on their size they merited;
una vez, dos veces
, the whole night. She was dressed in a black gown. She had about her the air of the smug showman assured of an unending season and the universality of her attractions. She was human though, Rosita. She had loved, she had suffered. Was there no justice? With all her loot, all her gold, where was she admitted? And ha! she could tell them! she was no worse, not one bit worse, than any of them! And
madre mía
she knew them all. They all came dribbling through her door, their lust-hungry
tongues hanging and their eyes popping – so cheap they couldn’t talk to a girl without pinching, squeezing, feeling, pawing … crawling for their copper chips, begging for their quickies or their nights of splendour. And they were all the same – the anarchists and the bankers … the jerk-off Jesuits and the ac/dc nuns raiding the collection plate for the one-a-month hallelujah go with
pequeña Pepita mía!
 … the workers cheating on their bread money because ah the charms of Pilar! And the pot-bellied bastards! the giggling men-children, saving it up like misers, careful not to lift anything heavy and following a special diet, still good for only one huff-and-puff throw. And she, Rosita (if not for her they would be walking the streets, going for months without a decent examination), not worthy of them?! Oh, the stories she could tell.

Giddy with anger Rosita fingered a copper coin that was worth a full night of uninterrupted lovemaking. She smiled at Barney – properly respectful, properly reserved. Only her lips contradicted her superficial amicability. They were bitter, twisted, knowing.

“Hell, she’s a real business man, you know. No funny stuff. I can tell that by just looking at her.”

“Yes. She is very shrewd.”

“Look – em – frankly, I mean. Do you think any of them are sick? I’ve got a wife and …”

“They are clean.”

“Swell.”

“Come into the parlour with me.”

The parlour was painted pink. It was a huge, unfurnished room. Wooden benches lined the drab walls. The other end of the room led into a long hallway and the bedrooms. Eight or nine men, their faces distorted in various stages of sexual anticipation, lingered restlessly on the benches. They laughed too loudly at each other’s jokes, they slapped each other too heartily on the back. An old, pot-bellied man was seated apart from them. His skin was jaundiced, wrinkled. He brought the girls
their pails of hot water and towels when they drifted into the bedrooms with their lovers. Beside him, on the bench, lay a basket of sweets. Now and then he shuffled about the room, insulting and cursing the men until they condescended to buy their girl a candy. He picked idly at his nose and sneaked glances at Pilar because her breasts were showing. Pilar despised him. But there were some things the other men would not do.