Stanley Elkin - Criers & Kibitzers, Kibitzers & Criers

He wrote a note, composing it several times in order to achieve the properly urgent tone, and sent it to the duke’s home by messenger.

Sir, may I speak with you? It is impossible to reveal anything in a note like this, but I have business which is of extreme importance to the State. You can arrange with the messenger a suitable time for our meeting.

He signed only his first name.

The messenger returned empty-handed.

“Didn’t he get my message?” he asked him, bewildered.

“There was a man at the gate. He said he’d see that the duke got it. I told him there was supposed to be an answer and that I’d wait, but when he came back in a few minutes he tells me, ‘Look, you, don’t you pester your betters with a lot of foolishness.’ ”

He felt rage mount quickly in him. “All right,” he said. “I want you to take another message tomorrow.”

“Sir,” the messenger said, “do you think I’d better? These are important people.”

“I pay you, don’t I?” he said angrily. “You’ll take the message all right.”

The messenger, aware of his own innocence, of his status as a go-between — he had not even read the first note — allowed himself to be coaxed by the promise of more money. He watched as the crazy fellow before him quickly scribbled a second note.

Sir, evidently you did not trust my first communication to you. I appreciate that we are strangers to each other and that my advances are unorthodox, but I assure you that my business is real. Please advise my messenger when we may meet.

But when the messenger returned, again he had brought no answer.

He decided to go himself, and the next morning, dressed in the finest of the clothes remaining to him but conscious that his work on the docks had thickened his chest and arms so that the garments no longer hung loosely on him, he followed the messenger’s complicated directions and appeared before the duke’s estate. He went up to an old stone sentry box that stood beside the locked gate.

“Yes, sir?” a voice said within the dark box.

He peered inside but could not see the man who had spoken. “I’m to see the duke,” he said finally, apparently to the low sloping eaves of the box.

“Have you an appointment, sir?”

He thought for a moment of lying, but realized that the fellow would probably ask his name and then call the house to check.

“I’ve sent messages.”

“Oh, so you’re the one,” the voice said as a large, florid man stepped quickly from the recesses of the box. “Persistent, ain’t you? Where’s the little fellow?”

“I’ve come myself.”

“His Grace thought you might show up today. It’s the police for you, boy-o!”

“Give this message to the duke. He’ll see me.” He handed the man a note he had written that morning.

Sir, I have twice sent communications petitioning for a meeting between us, and twice my messenger has been rebuffed. I am not at all sure you have seen my notes. Until I have some definite word from your Grace that you do not wish to meet with me, I’m afraid I must continue to harass you in this way. Today I have come myself and await an answer by your front gate.”

“No more messages, lad. No more messages.”

“All right,” he shouted. “That’s enough.” He produced the medallion from beneath his shirt. “Now you go in there immediately and take this message to the duke. If he doesn’t want to see me, let him write the word ‘No’ on the back of my note.”

The gateman hesitated and looked closely at the man before him. He hadn’t really noticed the clothes before; they were peculiar, foreign like, but he could tell they were expensive. And that badge he’d flashed. He reached his hand toward the folded note and took it quietly.

“Wait here, please,” he said. “I’ll find his Grace.”

The gateman retreated into the sentry box, opened a door at its rear, flooding it with light, and emerged on the other side of the gate. Turning, he carefully closed the door and locked it from the outside. Instantly the box was black again. He watched the gateman mount a motorcycle with a wide sidecar attached to it and ride off in the direction of the main house.

He was elated. The day was bright and very clear; the air, for all the hard, sharp sunlight, was cool and smelled of the sea wide and clear and deep behind him. It was good to be in the handsome clothes again. His shoes, carefully polished that morning, glowed richly through a thin layer of dust from the road, but this came off easily as he buffed each shoe against a silken sock. Adjusting his clothing, he noticed that the medallion still hung outside his jacket. It was rich and golden against the brown background of the jacket, and for a moment he considered allowing it to remain there, exposed, mounted handsomely, a rich trophy of his identity. He was pleased that it had lost none of its power and remembered the other times it had served as his calling card, instantly melting the recalcitrance and resistance with which people chose to oppose him.

If the duke were to see him, he thought, he would come directly to the point. It would be good to have it all over with. This was a good country; he would not begin again in another.

A man went by him pushing a bicycle. He nodded warmly at the fellow and watched, amused, as the cyclist finally managed a shy reply to his greeting.

He returned his gaze to the house, one wing of which he could see through the tall leafy trees which guarded it. He stood very still, conscious again of the dead weight of the medallion, which he had carefully replaced inside his shirt, as one slips valuables inside an envelope.

In a moment he heard the guttural approach of the motorcycle and saw it emerge from the trees as the driveway curved into the gate by which he stood. He could see that someone sat in the sidecar, but annoyed that he should be seen staring through the bars like a curious child, he turned his back and looked out over the sea, tapping his foot like a busy man waiting for a door to open. He heard the motor stop and the gateman address the man in the sidecar. “He’s right there, sir. I’ll get him for you.” It was probably the duke, then, whom the gateman had brought.

He turned casually, feigning surprise as the guard approached him from the other side of the gate. “I’ve brought someone to see you, sir,” the man announced.

He looked past the gateman to the motorcycle and was surprised to see that it had been parked behind thick, high bushes about fifteen feet from him and to the side of the driveway. The motorcycle’s front end canted around the bush, its large headlamp and wide handlebars incongruously resembling a quizzical animal looking out at him. If the man in the sidecar did not stand up it would be impossible to see him. “Is it the duke?” he asked the gateman, who by this time had disappeared too, retreating inside the sentry box. He remained at the gate, trying to see through the dappled shadows of the trees and the deceptive openings in the bushes. At last a voice, queerly muffled, addressed him. “Yes?” it said.

“Good morning,” he said, his eyes fixed on the motorcycle’s front tire.

“All that’s all right,” the voice said. “What do you want here?”

He heard a low laugh from inside the sentry box. He regarded it angrily for a moment and then looked back in the direction of the motorcycle. The leaves, stirred by a low wind, twinkled brightly. “Are you the duke, sir? My business is with the duke.”

“Oh,” the voice said, “your business again. We’ve heard a precious lot about your business lately. You write a rude, anarchist’s prose, do you know that? And you’ve a good deal to learn about the art of the ultimatum.” The man made a clicking sound with his tongue.