Guignol's Band Read online

  That’s grace, discretion itself.

  * * *

  I knew a real archangel on the decline, though still rather frisky, even resplendent in a way. I never really knew his name. He had too many papers. They finally called him Borokrom because of his knowledge of chemistry, of the bombs he’d made, it seems, when he was young. It was hearsay, legend. He made me smile right away. I thought I knew the ropes at the time. Later on I realized the weight of the man, his value, beneath his unprepossessing exterior, of my own dumbness. He played the piano delightfully when he had nothing else to do. I’m talking about our odd jobs. He’d come to London twenty years earlier to take a job as a chemist. He was supposed to work at Wickers, in the nitrate laboratory. He had all his diplomas from Sofia and Petersburg, but he didn’t know what time it was. That played him a dirty trick. He couldn’t be employed, and then he really drank too much, even for England. He didn’t stay on long at Wickers National Steel Ltd, three months with board and lodging and then fired, probably also because of his ways which were really pretty doubtful, spotty in general, a sneaky look. He hung out with a low crowd, his friends looked like a bad lot… even worse than he…

  He was always on the outs with his landladies at the end of the week. The police who knew him well left him pretty much alone. He was one of the tramps and that was that.

  England’s all right for that, they never really bother you, even if you’re shabby-looking, even if you’re a little shady, with the tacit understanding that you don’t act like a jackass around noon in front of Drury Lane or at five around the Savoy. There’s a certain etiquette, that’s all. A conventional agreement. If jackass you be, woe to you! There’re times for the Strand and others for Trafalgar, and everywhere else at ease!… Got to know the English cops, they don’t like force or scandal, they’re just loafers like father and mother, just don’t provoke them, don’t bother them in broad daylight, in short, leave them the hell alone… Even if they’ve got their pockets full of warrants with your photo, they won’t hound you if you don’t act like a wise guy, if you keep your distance, if you don’t change suits too often to show off, or change lodgings, or hangouts. There’s an etiquette, a way that’s decent and proper for real tramps, that’s the size of it! Mustn’t upset Tradition! If you act temperamental, or aggressive, or changeable, first in one pub, then another, if you’re not back at your game of pool at about your usual time, then don’t be surprised, the cops come down on you hard, they suddenly get rough and crafty, you’re complicating supervision, they get fed up with your ways, they get restless and keen to pin something on you. Any freakishness gets them wild, especially in clothes… That was the trouble with Borokrom, who was in the habit of wearing plum derbies, never anything else on his big dome, always wearing his green plum, his uniform. He played the piano that way to earn his living between the Elephant and the Castle, the two limits of Mile End.* Soon as he was kicked out of Wickers, he had to. All the pubs along Commercial, sometimes in one, sometimes the other… but always around the river. That’s what they call the Thames. He was known, likeable, gay with his fingers but serious-looking, proper as a pope. It paid well, especially Saturdays. He easily took in three pounds between eight o’clock and midnight, plus the nourishing stout, so thick and creamy, absolutely all he wanted, thanks to the customers. And then the raucous song, the drinking canticle, as is the proud custom, with choruses by the drunks piled around the piano.

  Yip-i-addy-i-ay-i-ay!

  Yip-i-addy-i-ay!

  Those were the first English words I knew by heart, “i-addy-i-ay!”… It sent terrific echoes out into the street, into the night outside where little children were waiting, shrivelled up against the window, flattening their little beaks till their parents were finished sucking their beer, fun and joy of living, so drunk that the bulls would come in to kick them out so that they’d go puke somewhere else. We’d meet at La Vaillance, the pub of the swells of the lane, the busy street, the one with seven huge bars, with prows sculpted in ivory and twisted copper rails. A magnificent job. And a portrait of the Conqueror high as the ceiling, in a colossal gilt frame, adorned with sirens. That was where we were when the thing happened, when the fight started. It was Sergeant Matthew of the Yard who came in, at the sandwich counter in the swells’ stall, he blew in whistling, “Good day, Ladies!” He wasn’t in uniform, in civvies like you and me, he was humming with the others, he was a bit loaded, and so he was in good humour… Suddenly! What’s eating him?… He stops dead, he stands there frozen… in front of Boro… in a top hat! Ah! That gags him! The nerve!… Busy there with his music, banging out his tunes, in a tart kind of rhythm, grinding out a cradle song, with the misty charm of tunes of that kind, they gather up your troubles, jig them away!… Ding! Dindin!… Dong! Dong!… And whoops! Presto! Quick runs of trills and arpeggios! With his big dirty pudgy fingers… it was really magic the way he had them spellbound with the fluttering imps springing out of the big piano… Grinding out any old refrain… all nipping away at the pain of laughter… The hesitancy of orange marmalade that’s sweet and sour at the same time… English tunes have the same kind of pitch… I remember well… Sergeant Matthew stood there dumbfounded at his man’s new hat. It knocked the wind out of him… it froze his smile. He couldn’t believe his eyes!

  He came closer… he wanted to get a better look… to appreciate it. He came up to the piano… and bang point-blank! Rage! He started swearing at the performer…

  “Where did he get the idea of wearing a topper in that dirty bar? Never saw the likes of it! He was really crazy! Where did he think he was? At the Derby? In the House of Lords? It was an insult, and swaggering for such a rotten foreigner… An immigrant of the worst kind! A cheap musician, failure, tramp! He had a hell of a nerve coming and mimicking a gentleman!… An unbelievable crime! He’d take him away on the spot if he didn’t remove that thing at once…” And more jabber and fiery threats, he was wild with rage!…

  Boro stuck to his topper… It was a gift from someone… The moment Sergeant Matthew started picking a quarrel he stopped weighing his words… To begin with, it was none of his business… Boro had a perfect right to put a sofa on his head, a kite, a baby scale, the more so a top hat… It was no one’s business but Boro’s… But the other one didn’t see it that way, he was getting his dander up. A brisk spat… Things were getting worse… the racket!… the fever! It was steaming around the liquor… The crowd was swelling, closing in, bellowing, exciting and booing Matthew so that the whole works shook and floundered and wobbled!… Hemmed in close, Matthew got scared, I’m telling what happened, he took his whistle from his small pocket… That set everything off!… There was a rush!… He mustn’t whistle… No reinforcements!… Down with the police! Knocked down and flattened, Matthew covered with drunks, yelling, delighted, jumping on him, a mountain of them high as the chandelier… Capering with ease and victory! A round of beer mugs over his head… Here’s to Matthew!… For he’s a jolly good fellow!…

  He wasn’t saying any more down below, he’d had his share… I was waiting near the door for them to quit beating him!… I’d have liked to be somewhere else… What if the cops came and raided the place?… I was a goner with my fishy papers!… My discharge, my phoney stamps! Boy, oh boy!… I was in a delicate situation with the Consulate people!…

  “Beat it!” says Boro from below… right under the pile… and motions towards the Hospital!… The other side of the street!…

  London Hospital, well known, Mile End Road… We always made dates there, there were reasons why, the hustle was agreeable, a constant coming and going… impossible to supervise… especially around the entrance gate where the mob never lets up… coming and going day and night… All the buses pass Mile End. So I went and took up my post there opposite, right under the blue gas lamp… Boro was corpulent, but very nimble in a brawl… He had a knack for getting out of things… Agile when he felt like it… frisky… Up and away!… He wasn’t lo
ng in joining me!… A big supple cat… He made his way between the scrappers, he went through the storm, the terrible tornado of blows. The riot was awful all through La Vaillance! A hurricane of lunatics! I realized it from the other side!… Breaking things, hitting the walls, the window suddenly smashed! Fell into splinters, spattered the street! What a whirlwind! A vile din! Enough to wake the Lord Mayor!… The women were yelping loudest! and the little children in the dark! Waiting for the head of the family… “Mummy!… Mummy!…” They already saw themselves orphans!

  Boro came hobbling up, he’d been banged! Ow! Ow! Right on his left kneecap! He was bleeding… we looked at his knee in the light… What it is to go through a massacre!… He’d lost his hat, the topper of wrath!… It was worth the trouble! We said we’d never go back to La Vaillance, a damned dive! A shithouse! Even with its mahogany, its famous bars! The railings! Boy, oh boy! A horror! Just a flashy clip joint! Lousy, criminal! Where they beat up your friends! Where cops behave like pigs!

  Our serious opinion.

  * * *

  Let’s say you’re coming from Piccadilly… You get off at Wapping… I’ll have to show you the way… You wouldn’t find it… It’s on the left when you get out of the “Tube”… between the Freezers… It’s a kind of narrow street… brick walls, a string of little houses on both sides, all in a line… like weekdays… no end to it… there it starts again… a raft of them… an eternity of houses… not one bit of fantasy… two-family, every one of them… a narrow door to the pavement… a brass knocker… and so on for streets and more streets… eastbound, northbound… Plymouth Street… Blossom Avenue… Orchard Alley… Neptune Commons… strings of the same family… All of it nicely aligned, proper… Some people may say it’s dreary… Depends on the day, time of year… With a little shot of sunshine it becomes sweety-weety, it dolls up… There’s starvation… That’s one thing… The window sills, the windows, are full of geraniums… keeps you happy… it’s the bricks that’re monotonous… greasy… sticky with smoke all around… stench of fog, of coal tar… The smell of damp sulphur, of moist tobacco over there towards the docks, gets under your hair, clothes you… Of honey too… It’s all things that just come to you, can’t explain to you, can’t explain talking about ’em… And the fairyland of children! That’s what sticks in your memory!…

  When you get to know the spots, at the first smile of the sun, everything bursts out laughing and whirls around… A frolic! A saraband! It’s the elves’ ball from one end of Wapping to the other!… Tumbling from balcony to porch! On the run! On the sly!… Girls and boys!… Loser wins!… Try to beat that… A hundred mischievous and saucy games… The tots right in the middle… hand in hand… ring-a-ring-o’-roses… darling brats of the fog… so happy about a day with no rain… more playful merry divine and nimble than dream cherubs!… And all around dirty make-believe hoodlums pestering the girls… bullying the people going by… the squealing monsters!

  Policeman! Policeman! Don’t touch me!

  I have a wife and a family!

  Other rascals up and charge! Grab the girls by the pigtails!…

  How many children have you got?

  Five-and-twenty is my lot!

  And then the ring starts hollering and shrieking again at the top of their voices… ferocious hoarse urchins… And then this rather bouncy one that’s danced two by two…

  Dancing Dolly had no sense!

  She bought a fiddle for eighteen pence!

  And so many other pretty and fresh and funny and dainty songs that dance in my memory… all on the wings of youth… And so for everything at the bottom of these alleys as soon as the weather isn’t too bad… not quite so cold, not quite so bleak over the Wapping section between Poplar and the Chinese.* Then sadness melts away in little grey piles in the sun… I’ve seen lots of them melting that way from sadness, the streets verily full of them, delighting in the water running down the gutter…

  Pert brisk little girl with golden muscles!… Keener health!… Whimsical leap from one end of our troubles to the other! At the very beginning of the world the fairies must have been young enough to have ordained only extravagance… The world at the time all whimsical marvels and peopled with children, all games and trifles and whirls and gewgaws! A spray of giggles!… Happy dances!… Carried off in the ring!

  I remember their pranks as if it were yesterday… their impish farandoles along the streets of sorrow those days of pain and hunger…

  Glory be to their memory! Cute little monkey faces! Imps of the pale sun! Misery! You will always well up for me, in gentle whirls, laughing angels in the gloom of the age, as in your alleys in times gone by, no sooner shall I close my eyes… the cowardly moment when everything dims… Thus Death, still, thanks to you, dancing a bit… expiring music of the heart!… Lavender Street!… Daffodil Place!… Grumble Avenue!… Dank alleys of despair… The weather never really very fine, the round and the farandole of the fog pits between Poplar and Leeds Barking… Little elves of the sun, light shock-headed band, fluttering from shadow to shadow!… Crystal facets of your laughter… sparkling all around, and your cheeky teasing… from one danger to another!… Startled faces right in front of the huge drays!… Champing dray horses grinding the echo!… Enormous hairy pasterns… belong to Guinness and Co., one fright to another!… Little dream girls!… lively as larks on the wing!… Soar!… Flutter o’er the lanes!… In the mist… in the sticky black gum!… Warwick Commons! Caribon Way where the frightened hobo roams… sniffling along the gutters… clad in fear!… and the minstrel, the fake soot-smeared Negro, harlequin rags… prowling around here, there, everywhere… banjo in his fist… TB voice… from one fog… from one mist to another… jigging a sore foot for a penny, for tuppence!… The back somersault!… Three coughs one after another!… Spits reddish and goes off a way towards the grey of the clouds… far as the streets can see… and then again another stretch of hovels… Hollyborn Street… Falmouth Cottage… Hollander Place… Bread Avenue!… All of a sudden rings out the alarm, way off over there!… from the end of the rooftops… the moan of the ship!… At the far other end of things!… Watch out, bums on the lookout!… Watch out, peeping Toms and snoopers!… Vermin, cockeyes, wretches of bad luck!… ship rats! Pepper-red mugs! Toothless, stumpy riff-raff! Flabby-armed good-for-nothings!… Whore lice! Load of stinkers! The Spirit of Water summons you!… Don’t you hear its exquisite voice?… Shake a leg, carrion, and get going!… All pouring from the gangplank!… All ages!… Origins!… Foul races! The scum of the four Universes! Black, white, yellow and chocolate! Rogues of all kinds! No question about it! All cankers! All vices! Politely with a curtsy!… Please do!… Flinching and funking and shying at the moment… Curse it! Dodging to trammel the manoeuvre! Religiously, skullcapfuls… On with the punishment! With the flogging!… Souse that he be!… Truce to vehemence!… To your stations, men!… Swarm of cables! Traps shut, bolted, dumbfounded, transposed, agog with excitement!… prostrated at the prodigious spectacle of the fragilities of landing, of the subtle miracle!… The big bundle of packing falls right on the dot! On the dock! Ropes taut! Groans stop! Grind crush, between port and dock… Let us pray! Oh what a moment! A tiny click! A thread too much! A bellyful of boat busts!… O Ship!… Anyone not left breathless… just looking at it… is a dirty slut of a dungy cow’s arse! Dead and done for! To drown without a gulp! Pronto! Not in the waves he blasphemes, but under immensities of crap, a hundred thousand truckloads of dull piss! That’s it! Song without words!

  “Shame upon him! Shame upon his accursed ill-begotten henchmen!… May the Door close for ever upon that vomit! Scandal in the Seamen’s Palace! A mess to the mutts!”

  You said it! This way! I’ll go first…

  Let’s make it snappy!… Shake a leg! Two more blind alleys, a completely deserted market… and then the rubble of a fire… and then a tiny little square, a lamp-post right in the middle, three putrid houses, ought to be torn rig
ht down, another that still holds its own, it’s the North Pole Shop where Tom Tackett would take my pennies, he used to hold them for me day after day, weeks when I used to do little odd jobs here and there… on the Docks, easy chores because of my arm, my leg… At the sideshows with Boro in order to pick up a few pennies for necessities… a couple of shirts, pair of new soles, a wool sweater. Tom Tackett, foresight itself, he had everything in his shop, he’d hold my dough for me, I wouldn’t have kept anything by myself, I’d draw a little at the end of the month. “Ship Chandlers”, that was his game, everything for the sailor, everything the crew needs, and the captain. Jackknives, all sorts of boots, and lanterns, flares of all colours, and then gamy smoked meat and pickling brine that sticks in the memory, that I haven’t digested yet.

  I’m doddering around like an old bumblebee, I’m all tangled up in the air, I sees it, I ain’t tellin’ things in the right order, what about it! You’ll excuse me somewhat, kidding about my memories, digressing from rhyme to reason, jabbering away about my friends instead of showing you around!… Let’s go! And let’s keep going!… Let me show you around nicely… straying neither right nor left!… Let’s bear north-west right off!… We’ll follow the walls of the Temple… “The Disciples and the Anabaptist”, the Temple all yellow inside its railings, the bells chime only Sundays and no great shakes! Just three-four strokes!… Here around the big lot all green and black… A puddly stretch of white and pink jerseys… where it’s the colour that’s pretty… Some of them all blue or all purple… the Poplar team for instance… gets them excited easy… The wad-chewing fans boo the enemy team, bad going and they get sore! And then come bloody brawls all because of a little lost ball!… Like I tell ya!… It ends in a slaughter for a contested kick… There’s dirty playing, furious sport, ’specially the Italians, who’re cocks o’ the walk in all the pubs from Limehouse to Poplar… a clan playing on the team, tribefuls of them sweating away on West Docks… A population that’s carried away… It served another purpose too, the slimy Anabaptist lot. We buried our tubes of opium in its mounds, in the rat holes, the cane boxes, the dope from the river, the fine contraband, that the Chinese flutters back and forth at the porthole, day or night… Fffftt!… It’s gone!… The boat slips gently off… almost to a stop… veers at the lock… the pilot fools around with his dial… “Ding! Dang! Derang! Dong!…” A second!… A breath!… Box hits the water! Plunk!… Spray! Dope overboard!… Get it back!… At first I didn’t feel a damned thing! Came close to missing it a lot of times!… Blind as a bat!… Yessirree! Boro’s the one who wised me up!… He showed me the fine points of the game… Have to heave off right on the dot… The porthole spits out… Zzpp!… Shoots out!… Plop! In the water!… Courier of the Waves!… The accomplice!… The dinghy darts off!… Let ’er go… and snap it up!… C’mon, scull ’er!… I got it!… Keep to the side! Fish out the bundle… Watch it!… Go look!… Scram!… Beat it… to the wharves… stick in the shadow… duck the bulls… lay low… head for the mist!…