Two Suspicious Stowaways
The San Sebastian Chronicles, Part XXVI
Lady Paz took in a deep breath of the wet, cloudy air through which we slid. “However that came to be, good for your mother. I will say I am much more content with my lot now than before.”
“I should think so. I can see this must be quite a profitable enterprise you’re helming, but it would be more so if you didn’t give free rides to parties such as ours. To save a day and a half’s hike one direction is worth a lot to anyone. Four meals worth of food at least. Plus savings in lodging and profits or less time off from other employment.”
Continued from…
“Yes, but were I to follow that line too long, I would become rich.”
“What is the harm in that?”
“Do you know many rich people?”
“Some might count me among them.”
“Perhaps, but you are far from rich. Take it from someone who sees them every week. Why would I want to become rich? As well, for me to charge what I can instead of what I must would leave me as a taker of advantage.”
“Ha. That is curious.” I’d forgotten about the cloud but we were still in it, and my pipe smoke was still immediately melting into it. Paz had folded her arms and was facing me from the railing, one arm hitched around a suspending cable.
“Why so? I need to make enough to maintain this vehicle, the apparatus, the surrounding property and buildings, to pay taxes, to by gases and tools, to pay Ugo, to maintain my home, and, after everything, have enough left for me to enjoy my life. If I wished, I might charge enough to create a second gondola route, or a third. But to contribute to the inflation of the value of paintings by the Dutch masters, or to buy rental properties in Milan, or take an ocean liner to Egypt, or to speculate in tulips, that is a misdemeanor at least.”
“But why? You own this ship. It is your right.”
“True, but I didn’t separate the mountains from the valley floor. I didn’t make Zurich so far away or San Romedio so high up, or make the mail so slow, or the tariffs so high. All these things send customers my way but I did not make them, why should I extort based on them?”
“You took a risk to create this business. Should not you profit on its success?”
“I am! But how much is enough? Whether to charge or to make? To answer that question, you must ask what you need, and what is fair. If you start with the most you can charge, then you are exploiting. And also, that logic can lead to a crime. If I am transporting a smuggler who stands to make a thousand koroni, I might charge him five hundred though the journey costs me five. But then I am an accessory to a crime. Also, I could serve only smugglers and go only at night. But what of the pilgrims? The penitents? The honest courier? The vacationing family? The man returning to visit an ill mother? I charge enough to maintain this business and myself. Everyone else can keep the rest. I’ll make them richer. Maybe they will return the favor.”
“That is indeed a curious and most modern-seeming view, Beatriz. I cannot say I understand it, but it is worthy.”
“There is a new world coming, Charlemagne. A modern world. A world without kings and landlords. Without priests and rentiers. Without generals. Without epaulets. Without titles. Without the chains of the past. A world without serifs, without cornices, without statuary. A world where technology such as this balloon gondola will allow us all to work as little as we need to provide our skills to our fellow man yet still all earn enough to meet all our needs. We will all enjoy the production machines such as this make possible. This world is coming. It is 1912. After this war, I would say by 1925 at the latest, perhaps twenty hours a week we will labor at most.”
“Surely not a world without statuary? Not even Gotto?” I said, forcing a chuckle.
She spat. “Gotto? No. This world has had enough of kings, enough of chaesari. Why keep souvenirs of your ancestors’ serfdom?”
“Tinia? Cei? Artimi?”
“No, not the old gods. What is gained from gazing at them? A reminder of your ancestors’ ignorance and cruelty?”
“Lars Porsena?”
“Generals of dark antiquity? Why?”
“Cicero?”
“Ha! No Romans. Especially no Romans. And no orators. The irony of a silent statue for a rhetorician. Read his works if you must.”
“Yes, I can see no Romans. Ferdinand? Leopold? Josef? Francis?”
“No lords. No vassals. Would a tenant make a statue of his landlord?”
“Charlemagne.”
“Vanity,” she grinned.
“No, the Charlemagne.”
“No. This new world will make new Charlemagnes, maybe even one of you. The past has little to pay us now.”
“Christ even? Mary? The saints?”
“There are enough statues of them.”
“No statuary at all?”
At this she paused.
“Perhaps abstractions. A statue of humility, of bravery, of caring, of strife, of striving. Of love.”
I sighed. “Aiche.”
Johnny and Gus sat across from the two inept knaves, whose names they’d claimed to be Norberto and Klaus, in a small cabin aft of the main room of the ship, on its starboard side. Playing cards were arrayed between them. More were held in their hands. A glass of lucent spirits was next to each of them.
“I’ve heard reports of a curious thing,” said Gus, making conversation as the men alternated between them, disposing, taking and drawing cards in some obscure game. “It was told to me by my cousin, Lord Teynham, that there is currently a religious revival in Wales. It seems everyone is becoming an evangelical, or a non-conformist, or a Methodist. Anything but C. of E., and R.C. of course.”
“Oh yeah, that’s right. On my mother’s side, she has some cousins in Georgia that are Welsh and Methodist. The Reeses. Or Prices, ‘r sumpthin’,” said Johnny through a yawn.
“Yes, many of them left for America due to Anglican oppression. Though these days, one wonders whether the Anglican church could oppress a grape. At any rate, there is a curious effect of the recent spread of righteousness among the Welsh, and that is that the miners have forsworn swearing.” Gus waited for a chortle at his wordplay from his fellow players. None came. He continued after drawing a card, “And there is a curious effect to that, which is that it seems the pit ponies, having been accustomed to taking action only in response to the foulest language one can imagine, now refuse to move. So the miners’ newfound Christian gentleness have left the mines at a standstill.”
The men tittered.
“Well that is some shit,” Johnny said loudly. Norberto and Klaus feigned laughter.
“Vaccascheitzse!” said Gus. Then Nortberto and Klaus laughed. “So that is how you say it!”
“Y’all’re Sebastianese then, Norberto?”
“Ah, yes,” said Norberto, the most calm of the two gamins, though they both appeared nervous and fidgety. “Sebastianos, us.”
“No Methodists, then?” Gus asked.
“No, no. Good Catholic Sebastiano boys, we.”
“I was an altarboy, even,” said Klaus.
“Choir for me,” said Gus.
“I just went to Sunday school,” said Johnny.
“What is it that takes you two chaps to San Romedio, then?” Gus asked. “With tight pockets and empty suitcases as that?”
“Ah,” Norberto stammered a bit.
“We are book sellers!” said Klaus. “We are going to inspect the library at San Romedio and see if there are any books they are willing to sell.”
“Yes, quite a market these days. For antique books,” Norberto chimed in.
“Well, that is quite a thing. Do they have quite a library at the monastery?”
“So we have heard.”
“Sell a lot of their books, do they, monks?”
“Eh, perhaps — ”
Nortberto inserted himself over Klaus, “Every library has only so many shelves they say. And so remote. There may be books they would like more people to see. Or some that perhaps we could take on consignment to a museum, or university, or a seminary. There is all sorts of trading in books.”
“That’s right. And we can even take orders from them if there are books they wish to acquire.”
“Yes, about developments in monasticism, for example.”
Gus nodded, “One day after the war I should have you visit our family library at Windmouth. We have many rare volumes there.”
“We would be happy to take stock.”
“For instance, I have one of Caxton’s Chaucers,” Gus said, eyeing the two over his cards.
“We do books only,” said Klaus, “no fine china.”
“Not a saucer,” said Gus, “a Chaucer, printed by Caxton.”
“Oh, yes, astonishing! Such a volume would fetch a mint here in San Sebastian. I am sorry for Klaus here, his ears must be plugged by our increasing altitude.”
“My grandpa’s got some old books by Cooper and Irving.”
“Most interesting!”
“And some really rare ones by Fishwallow and Medderberg and Goolanski.”
“Fascinating! Yes, we are lacking in volumes by the early American masters here in our mountain country. I am certain we could find a buyer at a price you would like.”
Gus joined in, “Even for first editions by English poets? Yates, Payer, Kendingditch, and Clowperrin?”
“Yes, I would think so. We have all the right connections.”
“What about academic works?” Gus asked. “At Windmouth we have a signed copy of A Social History of the Ancient Peoples of Lemuria by Sir Geoffroy Bleddingsoke. It is quite rare and I despair I shall never read it.”
Klaus glanced at his partner and tapped his cards.
Norberto squirmed. “I confess,” he laughed, “I do not know about that one.”
“But you know Bleddingstoke? The famous crypto-antiquarian social historian?”
“I pray you don’t think me a troglodyte, but no, I don’t.”
Gus nodded. Several minutes passed in silence as they played their game. One hand, then another. Then scores were tallied. A deal. One hand, then another.
Five minutes went by.
They sipped their drinks.
Gus poured everyone a bit more.
Johnny smoked a cigarette.
Another deal, plays, discards, draws. Another hand. Then two and three. Eight minutes passed. Then nine. Johnny played his hand and won the round. Gus tallied the points as Johnny gathered the cards. Klaus rubbed his chin vigorously. Norberto looked around the room. The ship rocked and creaked along the cable. Gus began to deal.
Ten minutes had expired in silence.
Suddenly, Norberto spattered, “We really deal more in novels, not academic works, per se. So that is why I am unfamiliar with Bleddingstoke. I didn’t even go to university.”
“Me neither,” said Johnny.
“Yes, of course. I only mean to ask for a pardon for my ignorance of the land of Lemuria and Professor Bleddingstoke. Is he a professor? I presume he is. I. Quite a long game is it, euchre?”
“Novels! Wonderful,” said Gus as he dealt the next hand. “At Windmouth we have a very early printing of a newer work. Very popular in England and throughout Europe, I’m told. But very hard to come by because the author died and the copyright is tied up in the chancery courts so everyone is fighting over the first run. All very Bleak House.”
They all laughed.
“Lawyers!” Klaus said.
They all laughed again.
“You’d know it, though, Norberto, as a patron of the art of the novel and a man in the business of trading in the rare and fine examples of the genre. I’m sure you would.”
“Ah, yes,” Norberto stared intently at his hands as he caught the dealt cards. “Well, you know, sometimes I do fall behind with the newer ones, travelling as I do, and it is our clerk really. He reads the trades. Keeps us informed. I don’t have time to read even. It’s all just numbers to me, so — ”
“It is called, The Furtive Excursionists.”
“Hmm. Yes, I think perhaps… you said it is recent?”
“Yes, last year.”
“And who is it by?”
“Frances. Annabelle. Flergenwale. Jones. Flergenwale-Jones,” Gus said with calm deliberation.
“Hmm. Is it — ”
“It is a mystery, set on a ship, and involving passengers with all sorts of hidden agendas.”
“Is that the one, Gus,” said Johnny, grinning alternately and Gus and the two blumps, “where two of the passengers seem real nice but they’re actually real savvy detective types and they make it their mission to find out what the hell these two other passengers are up to? These two shifty ones. Sort of a mystery, like you said. Like Sherlock Holmes.”
“Yes, Johnny, it is very much in the style of Mister Doyle. Yes, and in the end, the two savvy passengers do find out what the furtive excursionists are up to, employing all sorts of methods.”
“My favorite part of that one, though, is when the two savvy ones aren’t sure what the furtive excursionists are up to. So they wonder, are they sabotagers? Are they spies? Are they thieves? And all those possibilities are really the worst, but until the savvy ones figure out what the squirrely ones are up to, they just assume the worst.”
“Yes, Johnny, that is the best part of any detective novel, where every page is fraught with guesses and suspense and maybe even terror.”
“Yep.”
They all sat in silence for a moment or two beyond comfort.
“Yes,” said Norberto. “I think I know that one.”
“Yes,” said Klaus, “Miss Fergenwale-Jones. Yes.”
“Missus Fergenwale-Jones,” said Gus.
“Of course, Missus. Missus,” Norberto nodded. “Shall we call it a game then?”
“Of course!” Johnny exclaimed with a smile. “Gus’ll total’r up.”
After a moment with the pencil, Gus folded his hands, “Gentlemen, that will be fifty koroni. I’ve taken the liberty of rounding up to the nearest whole fifty.”
“That will be fine,” said Klaus fishing for bills in his pocket.
“Yes, yes,” Norberto exclaimed. “All very good. Fine game, gentlemen. Most stimulating.”
“You win some, you lose some,” said Klaus, putting a handful of koroni notes on the table, some adorned with the visage of the last Etruscan chaesari himself, Gotto the Great, and sliding them across.
“Indeed you do,” said Johnny taking his share.
“Indeed you do,” said Gus taking the rest.
