‘I do. An old man called Picquart. But apart from that … Americans here don’t really have French friends. They might have French mistresses, but they don’t have French friends.’
‘That’s contemptible. In Berlin all the foreigners were desperate to make friends with us. I think they knew we were better than them.’
‘It’s different here.’
‘Do you even really know Adele?’
Scramsfield felt a squirt of panic. ‘Yes! You wouldn’t take me for a liar? Good old Adele! You know what she’s like! Always flitting around. Always disappearing.’ He shook his fist in mock fury. ‘Isn’t she? Ha ha! But we’ll find her in no time. Let’s get another drink and then we’ll work out a plan.’
‘I think I’d better go back to my hotel.’
Scramsfield grabbed Loeser’s arm. ‘Don’t be a fool. I was just joking about not knowing any of the French. I was being satirical … Like Mencken … Look, that’s Dufrene over there. He’s a dear friend of mine and he’ll know where Adele is. He’s certain to.’ Scramsfield didn’t like Dufrene, and he didn’t want to talk to him, but it didn’t seem that he had any choice. They went over to the back bar where Dufrene was standing with a Pernod. The milliner had moist white skin, he smelled of peppermint, and his head, neck, shoulders, and waist were all of more or less the same diameter, which in sum could not help but produce the impression that he had been squeezed out of a tube of toothpaste. They’d been introduced at a poker game by the Armenian. Scramsfield wondered if Dufrene had heard anything from the Armenian since the Armenian went to jail. He hoped not. There was some chance the Armenian might blame Scramsfield for the trouble over the cheques. That was absurd, of course, and they would sort it out when Scramsfield got together the money for the Armenian’s bail.
‘Fabrice, my old pal! How are you?’
‘What you want?’
‘I’d like to introduce you to a marvellous new friend of mine. Fabrice, this is Egon Loeser.’
Dufrene regarded Loeser but didn’t shake his hand. ‘What does he offer you?’ he said to the German. ‘Is Ernest Hemingway reading your novel? Or is Coco Chanel sucking your cock? Whoever they is, he does not know them.’
Scramsfield laughed loudly. ‘Very funny, Fabrice,’ he said. ‘But nothing like that. Loeser is looking for a lady acquaintance of his called Adele Hitler. We can’t find her. I saw you and I thought, if anyone knows where she is, Dufrene knows. I thought, Dufrene knows every beautiful girl in Paris. Yes? If anyone knows, good old Dufrene knows.’ He was afraid to stop talking because of what Dufrene might say next.
Rightly, as it turned out. ‘What I cannot understand about you, Scramsfield, is why don’t you go home? Why don’t you go back to America? Why don’t you go home since five years with the rest of them? Paris is not wanting you. Paris is maybe wanting him for a week so we can take his money but is not wanting you.’
Scramsfield had known Dufrene was a risk but he hadn’t expected this. ‘I can see you’re a little bit under the influence, Fabrice, so perhaps we’d better just leave you in peace.’
‘No, you are the one who is “under the influence”. I am sober compared. How many drinks does this gullible imbecile buy you tonight already? You are pathetic.’
‘Listen here, Dufrene, a joke’s all right between pals but you must still be polite to my friend. He’s new in town and I bet you don’t want him to think that Frenchmen are as rude as everyone says, ha ha! Do you?’
‘Do not have any more to do with this man,’ said Dufrene to Loeser. ‘If you are determine yourself to give your money to a fraud I have a friend who sells you an excellent forge Monet. Then at least you have something to show for your trip.’
‘Let’s be going, Loeser. Fabrice is obviously embarrassed that he can’t tell us anything about Adele. I’ll see you another time, Fabrice.’
Dufrene smiled. ‘Do you know what I hear the other day, Scramsfield? I hear a small rumour about your “fiancee”.’
That was when Scramsfield hoisted a right hook at Dufrene’s jaw. The milliner pulled off a languid dodge before punching Scramsfield in the stomach with the disinterested efficiency of a clerk stamping a passport. Scramsfield dropped immediately to his knees and his dinner dropped immediately out of his mouth, splattering his shirt and the floorboards and Dufrene’s polished black shoes with half-digested steak frites in a casserole of red wine and whisky. He tried to get to his feet but his knees took no notice and then he felt Loeser grab him under the armpits. A few people sarcastically applauded, and as he was dragged out of Zelli’s, his heels drawing a translucent railway line of bile, he found himself howling, ‘I’ve boxed with Hemingway! I’ll tear that son of a bitch apart! I’ve boxed with Hemingway!’
Outside, Loeser propped him up against a lamp-post and then turned to leave. ‘Where are you going?’ Scramsfield moaned. ‘Are you going to find a cab?’
‘I’m going back to my hotel.’
‘How am I going to get home? I don’t think I can walk.’ His vomitous white shirt was steaming in the cold night air as if freshly laundered.
‘You just need to sober up for a few minutes. Get your breath back. Maybe someone will bring you a glass of water.’
‘But Loeser, you’re my best pal.’
‘I only met you three hours ago.’
‘You’re my best pal and you can’t leave me here like this.’ Then Scramsfield started to cry. Loeser made an angry remark in German and then walked as far as the street corner. After what seemed like hours, he could be heard in negotations with a gruff cab driver, who wanted an extra twenty francs to help lift Scramsfield into the back seat and an extra thirty francs for puke insurance. Scramsfield managed to communicate his address between seaweed breaths, and then they were rattling unbearably over the cobbles, and then Loeser was helping him up five flights of stairs to his apartment, and then he was in bed.
‘Undress me,’ Scramsfield said. ‘I think I’ve shit my pants.’ He felt as if someone were stirring the room with a wooden spoon.
‘Definitely not,’ said Loeser. Then he seemed to remember something, looked around for a moment, and stamped his foot. ‘I left the
‘Yeah, it was under your chair.’
‘Why didn’t you remind me? I’m going back for it.’
‘No. Don’t leave. You can’t leave. I’ll die if you leave. You’re my best pal.’ He wanted to take his shoes off but they were too far away.
‘I want that book. It’ll be gone by the morning.’
‘There’s a bottle of champagne under my desk. Real good stuff. Real expensive. I was saving it for when I finished my novel but you can drink it if you stay.’
Loeser found the champagne and popped the cork. No grey vapour spooled out. He took a swig and then crumpled his face. ‘That is infernal,’ he said when he could talk again. ‘It’s as if they’ve decided to incorporate the eventual hangover directly into the flavour as a sort of omen.’ He examined the label. ‘And they’ve spelled “champagne” wrong on here.’
‘You can’t leave now you’ve opened it,’ said Scramsfield in undisguised triumph. ‘That was my special bottle. You’ve opened it now and you can’t leave.’
Loeser sighed, sat down in the chair by the desk, and forced down another mouthful of champaggne. On the desk was nothing but a framed photo of Phoebe, a pair of underpants, an empty bottle of grenadine, and a lumpy knoll of cigarette ash that presumably still concealed a stolen hotel ashtray somewhere at its base, but between the desk and the wall were three stacked parcels, each containing two hundred copies of the first issue of
‘Is this your literary magazine?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why are all these copies still in your apartment?’
‘A wop poet called Vaccaro says he’ll shoot me dead if I circulate it in Paris. He doesn’t realise I never really planned to in the first place, which is funny, I guess.’ Scramsfield explained that he had a homosexual school friend from Boston called Rex Phenscot whose highest ambition had been to publish a story in some influential avant-
