Fifth Business

“I wouldn’t say old Du

“You are forgetting his many and excellent books, are you not?” said Eisengrim.

Boy understood that he was not going to get what he wanted, which ca

For the first time in Boy’s company, Eisengrim laughed. “Might I be included in such a distinguished group?” he asked.

Boy was pleased to have gained a laugh. “Sorry, birth in Deptford is an absolute requirement.”

“Oh, I have that already. It was about my achievements in the world that I had doubt.”

“I’ve looked through your Autobiography—Lorene asked me to buy a copy for her. I thought you were born somewhere in the far north of Sweden.”

“That was Magnus Eisengrim; my earlier self was born in Deptford. If the Autobiography seems to be a little high in colour you must blame Ramsay. He wrote it.”

“Du

“It never seemed relevant,” said I. I was amazed that Paul would tell him such a thing, but I could see that he, like Boy, was prepared to play some high cards in this game of topping each other.

“I don’t remember anybody in the least like you in Deptford. What did you say your real name was?”

“My real name is Magnus Eisengrim; that is who I am and that is how the world knows me. But before I found out who I was, I was called Paul Dempster, and I remember you very well. I always thought of you as the Rich Young Ruler.”

“And are you and Du

“Yes, very old friends. He was my first teacher of magic. He also taught me a little about saints, but it was the magic that lingered. His speciality as a conjurer was eggs—the Swami of the Omelette. He was my only teacher till I ran away with a circus.”

“Did you? You know I wanted to do that. I suppose it is part of every boy’s dream.”

“Then boys are lucky that it remains a dream. I should not have said a circus; it was a very humble carnival show. I was entranced by Willard the Wizard; he was so much more skilful than Ramsay. He was quite clever with cards and a very neat pickpocket. I begged him to take me, and was such an ignorant little boy—perhaps I might even call myself i

“Then he was Le Solitaire des forets?” I asked.

“That was even later. His first decline was from conjurer to Wild Man—essentially a geek.”

“Geek?” said Boy.

“That is what carnival people call them. They are not an advertised attraction, but word that a geek is in a back tent is passed around quietly, and money is taken without any sale of tickets. Otherwise the Humane Societies make themselves a nuisance. The geek is represented as somebody who simply has to have raw flesh, and especially blood. After the spieler has lectured terrifyingly on the psychology and physiology of the geek, the geek is given a live chicken; he growls and rolls his eyes, then he gnaws through its neck until the head is off, and he drinks the spouting blood. Not a nice life, and very hard on the teeth, but if it is the only way to keep yourself in morphia, you’d rather geek than have the horrors. But geeking costs money; you need a live chicken every time, and even the oldest, toughest birds cost something. Before Willard got too sick even to geek, he was geeking with worms and gartersnakes when I could catch them for him. The rubes loved it; Willard was something even the most disgusting brute could despise.

“There was trouble with the police, at last, and I thought we would do better abroad. We had been over there quite a time, Ramsay, before you you I met in the Tyrol, and by then Willard was in very poor health, and Le Solitaire des forets was all he could manage. I doubt if he even knew where he was. So that is what ru

“Why didn’t you leave him when he was down to geeking?”

“Shall I answer you honestly? Very well, then; it was loyalty. Yes, loyalty to Willard, though not to his geeking or his nasty ways with boys. I suppose it was loyalty to his dreadful, inescapable human need. Many people feel these irrational responsibilities and ca

“I really don’t remember,” said Boy. “Are you sure?”

“Quite sure. I have never been able to forget what she was or what people called her. Because, you see. it was my birth that made her like that. My father thought it his duty to tell me, so that I could do whatever was possible to make it up to her. My birth was what robbed her of her sanity; that sometimes happened, you know, and I suppose it happens still. I was too young for the kind of guilt my father wanted me to feel; he had an extraordinary belief in guilt as an educative force. I couldn’t stand it. I ca

Boy had plenty of experience in being baited by hostile people, and he did not show by a quiver how strange this was to him. He prepared to get the attack into his own hands.

“I forget what you said your name was.”

Eisengrim continued to smile, so I said, “He’s Paul Dempster.”

This time it was my turn for surprise. “Who may Paul Dempster be?” asked Boy.

“Do you mean to say you don’t remember the Dempsters in Deptford? The Reverend Amasa Dempster?”

“No. I don’t remember what is of no use to me, and I haven’t been in Deptford since my father died. That’s twenty-six years.”

“You have no recollection of Mrs. Dempster?”

“None at all. Why should I?”

I could hardly believe he spoke the truth, but as we talked on I had to accept it as a fact that he had so far edited his memory of his early days that the incident of the snowball had quite vanished from his mind. But had not Paul edited his memories so that only pain and cruelty remained? I began to wonder what I had erased from my own recollection.

We had drinks and were sitting as much at ease as men can amid so many strong currents of feeling. Boy made another attempt to turn the conversation into a realm where he could dominate.