‘Where are you going, Ms Smith?’ asked Charles Darwin.
‘Black man hanging from a tree,’ she said. ‘I’m going to need some medicine.’
‘It had better be legal,’ said Darwin.
‘Black man hanging from a tree legal?’
‘I’m advising you not to take anything which is not prescribed.’
‘’Taint nobody’s business if I do,’ wailed Smith. ‘Feel that heat. Ain’t that some heat?’
The dead man was cut down and play restarted after about twenty minutes. It was by this stage a joyless affair, however, and neither woman seemed much interested in the result. Smith went on to win but later complained of illness and was taken to the American hospital.
The men’s doubles match between Sartre–Camus and Magritte–Dali had already started when the Luxemburg story broke. The umpire had to call the players together and tell them the news.
‘All right,’ said Sartre. ‘Let’s start again.’
‘Play has been called off. It’s not a question of starting again. Mr Camus, please stop bouncing the ball. Have some consideration for the dead.’
‘The dead?’ said Camus. ‘The dead are dead. Let’s have some fun.’
‘Camus is right,’ said JPS. ‘Although I forget why.’
‘What do your opponents think?’ asked the umpire.
The group looked around and saw Magritte facing the other way with a view of the Algarve where his head should be and Dali sitting upside down with a cigarette-holder running down his leg.
‘I believe they support the mood of the meeting,’ said Camus.
‘I disagree,’ said the umpire. ‘And I will suspend play forthwith.’
‘Play is already suspended,’ said Magritte. ‘I suspended it years ago.’
‘That is absurd.’
‘Have you ever seen play more suspended?’ asked Magritte, who was now a metre above the ground and there were twelve of him.
‘I suspend play immediately,’ insisted the umpire.
‘Good on you,’ called Magritte, ‘they’ll all be doing it now.’
‘This is completely meaningless,’ said the umpire.
‘My point,’ said Camus.
‘And mine to a degree,’ said Sartre.
‘To what degree?’
‘A doctorate ideally,’ opined Sartre. ‘Sorbonne would be good.’
‘My cock is a wealthy man,’ contributed Dali. ‘And it has made an attractive offer for my hand in marriage.’
Nijinsky and Pavlova forfeited their doubles match when, during a practice session this morning, he attempted to float off a building. ‘Mr Nijinsky is not well,’ said an official, ‘and, in his own interests and those of his family, he must withdraw.’
‘I will win the tournament,’ said Nijinsky. ‘I am God.’
Shostakovich and Prokofiev had their doubles match against Cocteau and Picasso postponed because, as Prokofiev put it, ‘I don’t know where Shosters is.’
Amelia Earhart is also missing. ‘No one knows where she went,’ said a friend. ‘She just took off.’
Some players have already left Paris. Others are packing. Wodehouse and Isherwood have departed for the US. Einstein left yesterday, last night and again this morning. Freud and Klein are still in the tournament but are wait-listed. Auden and his wife are expected to go before the week is out.
‘Why should Mandelstam have to forfeit her doubles match because she isn’t here?’ complained Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan. ‘Her husband has gone missing! Is she supposed to fill in time playing tennis while she waits for him to turn up? We weren’t even consulted. We were just told we were through to the next round.’
Peggy Guggenheim agreed. ‘Sam and I were told we were through in the mixed too; that the Mandelstams had forfeited. How do they know? She’s frantic and he isn’t even here. I’ll be out buying paintings, incidentally.’
It was a relief when Shostakovich turned up. It is fair to say he was pale as he read from two statements. ‘I damn the monstrous opinions of the fascist Russian Tennis Federation. The crimes that are committed in its name and by its agency are legion. The degradation of the human condition in Russian tennis is both pitiful and perfidious.’ He shuffled his pages. ‘I wish to make a complete apology. I know that the Russian Tennis Federation is right. I accept stern criticism and must do more to reflect glory on Russian tennis administrators, who are towering geniuses.’
American team management was in damage control late today too. Bessie Smith never made it to the hospital. Unfortunately, due to what was described by medical authorities as ‘a mixup involving epidermal melanocytes and pigmentation,’ Ms Smith was refused admission. She died in the ambulance. It was a dark coda to a tragic day.
Quarter-finals
Day 31
Shostakovich and Prokofiev v. Cocteau and Picasso • Arendt v. de Beauvoir
This morning a meeting was held between WTO officials and players’ representatives. All the day’s remaining matches were postponed to allow competitors to attend funeral services. This follows crisis talks, which began last night, aimed at securing the completion of the tournament and ensuring the safety of players. The WTO ‘recognises this as a priority and has tightened security at entrances and exits’. The tennis federations of all playing nations have released a signed joint statement ‘deploring the recent tragic events in Paris’ and ‘undertaking to meet to formulate new and binding guidelines for the conduct of future tournaments’.
Matches not finished yesterday were rescheduled for this afternoon and, despite some rain, were completed.
Magritte and Dali offered to assist organisers by finishing their match against Sartre and Camus, and playing their quarterfinal against Chaplin and O’Neill, at the same time.
‘Two players up one end and four up the other?’
‘That’s right,’ said Dali. ‘Save wear and tear on the schedule.’
‘But we don’t know you’re even in the quarter-finals yet,’ said Darwin. ‘You can’t play your quarter-final match until you beat Sartre and Camus.’
‘We could make it a rule that, after each serve, we hit to them first, and only hit it to Chaplin and O’Neill after JPS and Albert have had a lash at it.’
‘The point is, at this stage, you cannot play Chaplin and O’Neill at all.’
‘In that case,’ said Magritte, ‘put them up the same end as Dali and me and we’ll all have a go at Sartre and Camus.’
‘You don’t understand,’ said Darwin. ‘It has
