Horse Under Water

disperse the effect of the alcohol. I felt the bite of my pistol under the armpit. There was no one in sight; I walked along in the soft earth, quite happy at the idea of footmarks being discovered the next morning. Beyond the gate, where the motor-cycle tracks were still fresh, was an excavation. It was nearly seven feet long. I looked into it. It was three feet deep. It had another few feet to go before it could be called a well-made grave.

There was a simple wooden board at the head of it. It said, Here lies the body of a petty officer of the German Navy, name unknown. Washed ashore May 2 1945. May his soul rest with God.

I went back to where the car was parked high on the verge. I found the car key under a pocketful of almonds and walnuts and the motor buzzed calmly into life. What was that local saying that da Cunha had quoted — ‘Italy, a place to be born, France, a place to live, and here is a place to die.’

Back at the house I had four small cups of coffee before I felt anything like sober and before anyone had summoned the courage to ask me what I had learned to my advantage.

‘It won’t be ready for me until tomorrow,’ I said airily. I could hardly tell them that I had forgotten to bring it. ‘Tomorrow,’ I said to Joe MacIntosh, ‘you and I both return to London.’

As I went to sleep that night the big grave was fresh in my mind, but the chisel marks on the headboard were even fresher.

18 Sad song

I was angry at myself. I went out to da Cunha’s early next morning. His maidservant came to the door and said ‘Bons dias.’ She gave me da Cunha’s engraved business card, on the back of which was written in neat writing, ‘Your small package is quite safe. Please do me the honour of calling at 10 p.m. this evening to collect it. — Yours truly, M. G. R. da Cunha.’

She held out her hand for the card to be returned. I gave it to her, thanked her and returned to the car.

There was no diving that morning. The grey wind was breaking the points off the waves and white spray was thrashing the big rocks of the headland. We sat around doing nothing until H.K. invited us to his place for coffee. We went.

‘Maria Teresa de Noronha,’ H.K. was saying, ‘the greatest little fado singer in Portugal.’ A glass coffee machine was bubbling away on the blue-and-white tiled hearth and Charly, in her bronze toreador pants, was sitting cross-legged like some special sort of Buddha. Around her were scattered the brightly coloured record sleeves that are the folk art of the new world.

The walls were hung with brilliant striped local blankets and photos of H.K. standing with his gun underarm and his foot in the ear of various large quadrupeds.

Singleton and Joe were listening to H.K. doing a quick rundown on Portugal (Joe had lived there over fifteen years). Giorgio was gazing across the balcony to the grey sea. I was looking at H.K.’s books, chest expander, the nicely kept 7-mm. Mauser sporting rifle and its beautiful Zeiss x 4 telescopic sight in a leather case. I looked at his modern lithographs and listened to the strange lament of the fado records. H.K. commented on each as he selected it. ‘This is a song about a girl who rents a room in a house on the cliffs to watch her lover’s return. One day the news comes that her lover is drowned at sea and will never return. So she sings to the old lady whose house it is. “Faz um preco,” she sings. “Faz um preco mais barato para longa estadia?”’ H.K. said it in an impassioned and melancholy voice. Singleton nodded dolefully, Giorgio didn’t even turn his face, but Charly clapped her hands and wore the sort of smile she wore when she was thinking about how the smile looked.

‘Did you understand?’ said Charly. ‘It means, is there a lower price for a longer stay? It’s what you hear the tourists in Lisbon saying all the time. You are a terrible tease, Mr Kondit.’

H.K. laughed. He poured big cups full of coffee and I took mine back to the shelves.

In them he had Fodor’s Spain and Portugal, almost every D. H. Lawrence in print, including the Olympiad edition of Lady Chatterley and the Penguin book of the Lady Chatterley trial. There was Koestler’s Spanish Testament, A Guide to the World’s Great Art Treasures for Children, Art Since 1945, and a selection of books on modern painters illustrated in colour.

We made appreciative noises over the coffee and then Singleton said, ‘What made you come to live in Europe, Mr Kondit?’

‘Well,’ said H.K., ‘I was eating Milltown to sleep, Dexamyl to wake up and Seconal to get through to bed- time. Here I drink champagne all day and what’s more, it’s cheaper!’ H.K. was lacing the coffee with Portuguese cognac. Joe declined.

‘Yes,’ he said, and he took a swig from the bottle before recorking it, ‘there I was, you see, up to the back teeth in credit cards and Milltown, and worrying about what sort of season the Yankees were likely to have. How to break out of it? I knew there were jobs for Americans abroad but I was already too old for the big corporations, and Uncle Sam’s got no job for an illiterate bum like me that don’t involve an M.1 rifle. So one day I am standing in the bar car of the 5.11 out of Grand Central looking at all these commuting crums and thinking about how I would like the New Haven railroad not to play a part in my life-cycle every a.m. and p.m. and I think: what are all these narrow-lapelled nuts looking for that I could get them in exchange for money? And what do I conclude?’

He looked at his audience, picked up the Silex and poured coffee, enjoying the pause before answering.

‘Culture.’ He distributed the coffee and the sugar bowl. ‘Now that handed a laugh to every crew-cut creep out in Flatbush where I was raised, because culture ain’t something to put your arms into like an Abercrombie & Fitch overcoat.

‘But me and a guy named Leo Williams-hyphen-Cohen, who was an old buddy of mine from way back and a would-be refugee from the sheet-music racket, had struck it rich with a couple of flags[14] at the beginning of the Korean War. I said it’s now or never, “Wilco” baby — everybody calls him “Wilco” — we are going to snap out of being disorganization men and cut ourselves into the team tapped for the 1975 Time magazine covers.’

It was about 11.30 a.m.

I walked to where Giorgio was standing looking out of the balcony doors. There were occasional smacks of warm raindrops on the balcony tilework. On the beach two long lines of men were pulling at each end of a U-shaped net.

H.K. was saying, ‘Nerts to the big-time art guys, I said, I’m for Mr Average Feller every time. And so we set up “Art for the Average Guy, Inc.”, just a little stash on East 12th at first, with Wilco borrowing his brother-in-law’s truck for deliveries once a week.’

‘Harry, you are priceless,’ said Charly, ‘whatever were you delivering?’

‘Well, we printed a little sheet called “Art for Aay-Gees”; Average Guys, see. We put it out to the coffee joints on McDougall and Bleecker and a few ads in the egg-head weeklies. We do all right — we don’t have to buy vicuna coats for the Government — but we do all right. But one day my buddy Leo Williams-Cohen (with a hyphen) says to me, “Nerts to these Average Guys, Harry, they’re just a set of peanut-circuit nogoodniks. What we need is a class angle.” And he thinks of one there and then: “Art for Cognoscenti,” he says.’

Harry Kondit walked across to the bookshelf and removed a pale-blue leather folder.

‘It worked out?’ Joe MacIntosh asked. He was still lounging back on the bright sofa holding an empty coffee cup on his knee.

Harry Kondit flipped open a copy of Esquire to a full-colour Modigliani nude. The caption read,

Art for Cognoscenti Club are honoured to present as ‘Pic. of the Month’ for January this fine colour reproduction of one of the world’s masterpieces. Join this month and receive two full-colour reproductions of famous nudes from the world’s great works of art, each suitable for framing as exquisite decor for office, workshop, or den.

Receive each month a beautiful portrayal of unadorned womanhood, chosen by a panel of famous artists, teachers, and educationalists and accompanied by clear concise explanatory notes, criticism and description by Henri Zahn.

Charly started to clap her hands and Singleton, Giorgio, Joe and I all joined in. H.K. didn’t take offence.