The Grasshopper King Read online

She brought the quipu over to South America.

  “Can you not do that now?” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s distracting.”

  “It’s not as though you’re really working,” she said. “Not until your papers come from Cornell.”

  I tried to look at my book again; that was a lost cause.

  “I’m sure you’d find somebody else right away,” I said. “You’re young and attractive.”

  “I’m sure you’re right,” Julia said evenly.

  “You know how to be aggressive with a man,” I said. “We respond well to that.”

  “I had to be aggressive with you,” Julia said, “because you were a pathetic dipshit.”

  “And this is convenient, it’s almost time for the state fair.”

  Julia raised her eyebrows.

  “I think I heard the guy running the Whack-A-Mole’s available.”

  “Oh,” she said. “That’s really nice.” She threw down the quipu, which landed among the spoils of the Taino and the Nahua, their sacrificial knives, their carvings. All at once I was acutely conscious of being in a room full of weapons. Ellen stared at me with terrifying interest, as if I were a stranger who had opened my coat to her and revealed some novel deformity. It struck me suddenly, and with some force, that I had at last reached the end of Julia’s kindness and the end of her kidding. She was serious. Following just behind that thought, a little slower and not so forcefully, but hugely, sickeningly worse, came the understanding that I had been working toward this moment all along.

  But, of course, this realization—like all the other epiphanies in my life, large and small—had come too late.

  That night I slept at my card table, my head resting on the X of my crossed forearms, the workman’s legend—“THIS IS THE LIFE”—grinning down at me from the wall. The next day, to my surprise, Julia wordlessly gathered her things and accompanied me to Higgs’s house. Along the way I attempted a rapprochement, filled with thin hope and self-recrimination; I spoke jauntily of the day’s news, various of our former acquaintances, even the weather. I listed and repudiated my unappealing qualities, one by one, with a grit-toothed likeness of cheer. I flung apologies like candy from a float. None of it availed me anything. When we arrived at the house, Julia started immediately on a stack of jugs and pots that occupied the corner by the stairs, taking care to set each object in its place as deliberately and noisily as possible. I opened Kaufmann and closed it again, unable to bear the sight of that same page: bum-bum. I rested my chin on my joined hands, clenched my eyes shut, tried to pull myself inward to some clear, meditative state, where the route back to normalcy would be apparent, a bright portal. But I couldn’t concentrate; couldn’t not notice the chalky scrape of pottery on pottery, the radio from upstairs, the chattering grasshoppers. I was trapped in the sensory world. I was sweating. I began to succumb to a matter-of-fact despair.

  Who knows how long this might have gone on, had Ellen not interrupted us with news of the most startling kind?

  We heard her shout from upstairs. Immediately she came barreling down, agitated into speechlessness, waving a fat blue envelope in her right hand. It was a letter: the first of two we would receive that week, in a house that didn’t see much mail. I stood up from my chair.

  “A letter for Stanley,” Ellen forced out, catching her breath in whoops. “It’s a letter for Stanley from Germany.”

  All of us looked at Higgs. I knew already of the letters Higgs had posted to Berlin in his attempts to uncover Henderson’s biography. But what sort of reply could take thirty years to compose?

  “Open it,” I said. “He won’t mind.”

  Ellen tore the envelope open and withdrew a neatly folded sheaf of papers. “It’s in English,” she said, flattening it out, and then—glancing once more at her husband—she began to read.

  CHAPTER 5

  HENDERSON BETWEEN THE WARS

  September 10, 1985

  Dear Professor Higgs:

  Excitedly am I responding to your letter concerning the tall man with the cough, which you have sent to various addresses in Berlin during approximately the first week of April, 1951. I know this Henderson! Also have I often wondered what has become of him! If I am correct, he was a poet, some sort of Russian, whom I knew for a time in my youth. Please accept my very heartfelt apologies for the slowness of my reply! Let me explain. Three months ago passed my sister Ulrike away. She was a fine woman, but it must be said that in her whole long life she had never thrown a thing in the rubbish. So it was, that in the sorting of her many papers, which has occupied me every day since my dear sister’s funeral—we old men are always grateful to find ways to fill up the time!—as I was saying, while sorting yesterday morning I turned up a page to find your old letter. Imagine my surprise at seeing there a perfect description of my old friend Henderson! Well, at once put I aside my task and sat myself down to recall as much as I could about that funny character. Henderson! If you know where he may be now, then must you tell me where to find him! I am certain, that he and I could spend a few marvelous hours talking over all our memories, as we old men love to do! Well, you know this? If you are still alive and reading this, Professor, you must be an old man too!

  But enough about me!

  I met your poet Henderson in 1932, when I was a boy of eighteen. Though my father was a humble cabinetmaker, we were related on my mother’s mother’s side to the Schönaich-Carolaths, wherefrom came the Empress Hermione, the second wife of Emperor Wilhelm. Well, as you know, life in Germany was not so good under the Republic! Many people were trying to get away for a while into another country. So it was very good luck, that through my family connections was I offered an appointment as a stable boy at the Emperor’s court in exile at House Doorn, in the Netherlands.

  The night that I met Henderson—it was March or April of that year—was the Emperor hosting a tremendous banquet. Great people of all sorts were there, barons and baronesses, dukes and duchesses, and artists; they had been arriving at the estate for days. All of us servants, even those not ordinarily allowed inside the house, had been brought in to assist with the party. What an affair! Even now can I recall the glittering jewels of the fine German ladies, also their rich gowns. You see, the Republic was not so bad for everybody!

  Outside, there was a terrible storm. Now and then would a thunderclap shake the whole house, and the ladies would fearfully gasp. But the food and wine were very good and they kept everyone from worrying too much about the weather. Then suddenly there was a howl: a very loud howl! I remember saying to my friend Heinrich, whom all of us called Hieronymus—how we remember these little things after so great a time!—that the howl sounded like some terrifying thing from the grave. Now began all the guests to look nervous and set down their silvery forks.

  The chief butler gathered the servants around. “Arno has caught something,” he told us. “Some of you boys go out and quiet him.”

  The howl was coming from the garden. When we got there, we saw that the chief butler had been right. (That was why he was chief!) Arno, the Empress’s German Shepherd, had something up a tree. A man! He was up there in the highest branches, which with his weight rose and fell, bringing him closer and closer to where Arno could reach him with his high leaps. He made no sound at all. He just stayed hanging there.

  “Hah, Arno,” I said, and the dog came to my hand. Warily climbed the man down. He pulled his rain-hood away from his face. This was my first sight of Henderson. That queer fellow! I remember him well. He was very tall and thin—just as you have said, Professor. Also had he a sort of nervous way of looking about, which reminded one of a schoolboy. He was all wrapped up in a poor sort of rain-coat, in one pocket whereof—which you have also mentioned—was a writing-tablet. There was water pouring down his face and out of his sleeves. I recall this because good old Hieronymus joked, “Look! Arno’s treed a fountain!” And how we laughed!

  As I write this, recall I also that Henderson had a gre
at gold tooth, on the left side of his mouth, a very bad one that stuck out in a funny way, which I am surprised that you have not put in your letter, for it was what one would notice first of all about him.

  Anyway: I stepped forward. (Though it’s just me saying it, I was a sort of leader of all the boys.) “Who are you?” I asked the stranger quite commandingly. “Don’t you know you’re trespassing on the Imperial Court of Germany?”

  “I need to see the Emperor,” said the man. Then we shared a good chuckle! Ha! This wet beggar who no doubt had gotten himself lost on the road from Amersfoort! “You’re surely a joker!” I told him.

  “No,” he said, seeming confused. “I am a poet.”

  Well! A poet! I didn’t know whether to believe him or not. I had thought of all poets as looking like my uncle Walther, who was very fat, a bachelor, his veins always breaking and thereby making blue lines on his face: and he wasn’t even a proper poet of the sort found in books. He only made up little rhymes about the girls in town. You can see I haven’t much education! Well, it’s a fine thing, a “country bumpkin” like me is writing to a Professor about a poet! Chance is a funny trick player!!

  Of course, we should have turned the intruder away on the spot. But as I have told you there was a very terrible storm. The stranger seemed harmless. And after all hadn’t he given us a bit of fun? So we brought him back to the servants’ quarters and made up the spare bed for him. This was all quite against the rules—but we were the boys! I think boys are never any different than we were, isn’t that right? Then afterwards returned we to the party, telling the chief butler it was a squirrel Arno had caught.

  “The biggest squirrel I ever saw!” said Hieronymus.

  How we laughed!

  After that, Mr. Henderson became a sort of secret mascot for all the servants. We brought him pocketfuls of food from our own table; the girl servants—we’d let them in on it soon enough, that’s no surprise!!—sewed him a new coat out of scraps, all different colors, so he looked always like a gay marionette going about. Each day he would remind us that he needed to see the Emperor. He told us he was bearing a very important message. “His Majesty is very busy!” we’d tell him. “You’re on the list! Be patient!”

  Of all the boys, it was I who knew Henderson best. I was interested in him right away since I was a bit of a Communist back then (not anymore!!) as very many young people were in those days. Well, when I found out Henderson was a Soviet I was naturally excited! I wanted to hear all about “the workers’ paradise.” But it turned out Henderson was no Communist at all. This is what he said to me once: “The Communist Party is a wretched galleon manned by fleas, adrift upon a sea of mucus and spit.” Well, what do you think he meant by that?! Have I any idea? Well, you see why he was the poet and I just a stable boy! I hope you can figure it out, Professor!

  And here’s a queer thing! Whatever Henderson said—sense or nonsense—captivated us! It did not matter that he was so poor at German speaking. It only made us listen more carefully. And even when we had not the littlest idea what he was saying we never became bored or wandered away. Well, somehow there was always an idea that he was saying something important and with patience we stupid boys would understand him. But we never did!

  Henderson and I used to roam through the woods that grew around the edges of the estate, which was the only place, where would we not be seen. What kind of a pair of friends we were! Well, but he kept me laughing all right. He called the other servants “curs” and “locusts.” The lords and ladies who visited the palace were “pustulating parasites and whore-diddlers, abomination-hawkers, nation-out-sellers.” The only person to whom he gave any respect was the Emperor himself. Each day asked he me, when his meeting with the Emperor could be scheduled. “Soon,” I always was telling him, “any day now. You are close to the top of the list.”

  Of course there was not any such list! But one day—and with no help from me—Henderson got his meeting! Well, that’s quite a story!

  This was in September of 1932. By that time I had moved a bit upward and at last had I gotten out of those very bad-smelling stables. Now I sat all day long in the entrance lodge, where my job was to sort through the hundreds of letters that arrived each day for the Emperor. Such tales of woe! Such misery! Germany brought low! Terrible times! I picked out one sad letter from every bundle for the Emperor to read. When he was finished—I can see this now in my eyes!—he marked his imperial seal “IR” on the top corner of each page.

  Well, with my new job I had not as much time to spend walking about with my friend Henderson, you can guess it. I left him in the morning and came back to visit him in the night time. Now one day I came back to the servants’ quarters and what do you think? No Henderson! Well, was I afraid! At once started I a search for him, praying all along that nobody had found him first; then were our secret all finished!

  Soon enough I spied him far away on a garden path; but oh no! He was conversing with a certain Baron Pfaffenrot! I was ruined! I thought, the Emperor will certainly be done with me now! Now it’s back to Germany with me! My parents throw me out! I am a beggar on the street!

  But when I drew closer saw I, that the Baron looked unangry; let it be said, he was laughing! Well, this made me not so afraid, and I joined them to see what all this laughing was about.

  “Hello, boy,” Pfaffenrot said. “Your friend Henderson here was just explaining to me how I was like the sow that roots about in her own excrement.”

  “You might also,” Henderson told him, “be called a two-legged pestilence. Or a bicycle whose front wheel is stupidity and whose back wheel is treason. And whose foot pedals are an idiot’s love of British foppery.” At this laughed Pfaffenrot all the harder.

  Well, let me explain a little. Pfaffenrot was not really much of a Baron. In fact, he was the very last of seven sons and so his whole life expected he to enter a trade. But then the other six boys got the Spanish flu! And just like that he was a Baron! I’ve said it already—chance is a funny trick player! Anyway, Pfaffenrot was not only very bad-mannered, he was also a British spy! He was always hanging about House Doorn asking questions to the nobility. Spying on the Emperor’s court was the least important of all British spying; so nobody bothered him about it. Well, those were funny times, that’s all I’m saying!

  So Pfaffenrot said to me, “Boy there, my amusing new friend tells me you’ve been putting off his appointment with the Emperor.”

  “Well, no, Sir,” I said, “not exactly. Any day now his Majesty will be free.”

  “Still,” Pfaffenrot replied, “since I’m seeing his Majesty in a few moments, I thought I might bring Mr. Henderson along with me.”

  Well, what was I to do! I stood there with my mouth fully open!

  “Oh, do not worry, boy,” Pfaffenrot said. “I won’t expose you.”

  And the two of them strolled off toward the palace. Well, what do you think I did then? I sneaked along behind! When I came into the house I hid in a storeroom wherefrom I knew I could overhear people speaking in the Emperor’s chambers. One of the house girls had shown it to me once, ha ha ha! Boys!

  I settled myself in the little room and waited. Before long were the Baron and Mr. Henderson let in. The Baron introduced Henderson as his new manservant. Not very likely! Henderson in his torn-up every-colored coat! But as I have said, Pfaffenrot was not well known for his good manners!

  Mr. Henderson kept quiet at first, while talked Pfaffenrot and the Emperor of their mutual friends in London and Berlin. I could hear the Baron taking notes in his little pad, all the while, and sometimes he would ask the Emperor to repeat himself—well, you see why he wasn’t a more important spy! After some time came the conversation around to politics. This was one of the favorite topics of the Emperor; I heard him lean forward on his creaky seat, which was just his old saddle, actually, fixed upon a post behind his desk, and the two men spoke about issues of state of every kind.

  And then: Henderson spoke up!

  “Hirohito
, that little mongoose with grotesque fangs,” Henderson growled suddenly. “He will eat the eaters of spoiled eggs under the ground.”

  What a surprise for the Emperor, when the manservant so spoke! For one thing, it was Italy the two men had been discussing! But Baron Pfaffenrot did not seem so surprised. “My man refers to British possessions in China,” said Pfaffenrot. “They are seriously endangered by Japan, he is quite correct.”

  “All emperors, except the Emperor, should be mashed up in the gears.”

  “I like the way you’re talking!” said the Emperor. Then he asked Henderson what he thought of Mr. Hitler and his National Socialists.

  “Pah,” Henderson said, “A stupid puppy who does not know enough not to defecate in his vomit before eating it. Soon enough he will sicken and choke on his own soil.”

  Now, the Emperor did not care for Hitler a great deal. For at one time Hitler was every month sending us flattering notes—the Germans needed to claim again their past, the Emperor would sit again on his throne, and so forth. And at that time Hitler’s name was spoken about very sweetly in House Doorn. Not any more! Now it was clear who wore the hat, if you see what I mean!

  “Yes,” Pfaffenrot said, “there are many people in England—I have heard—who think that Hitler is the least of the dangers that they face.”

  “The English are in more danger of breaking off their own noses while trying to straighten their absurd hats,” Henderson answered him. I heard Pfaffenrot make a great laugh at that one.

  It’s a funny thing! A wandering poet instructing a Baron and the Emperor about matters of state! But that’s just how it happened! As I told you, Henderson’s talking had a curious effect on people!

  “Surely you’re no servant,” said the Emperor.

  “Indeed, no.” replied Henderson. “I am a poet, and I have come to Doorn to deliver an important message to you.”

  “Well then, poet,” said the Emperor, “let us hear it.”

  Henderson took a deep breath. “His Majesty,” he said, “is a demented old ass.”