Edward Whittemore - Nile Shadows

I can imagine, muttered Vivian gloomily. And how about a Vivian McBastion, then?

A what? Is that true?

Yes.

Well now, I like it, said Joe. It has the tang of an aristocratic Scottish fortress hunkering down in the cool mists and repulsing every assault.

On his back, Vivian cast a bleak smile at the ceiling.

Don't leap to conclusions. There's an enormous amount of confusion in the world and I'm afraid I play a part in it. I'm afraid that's only the beginning of my persona. There's more to my mask, much more. Are you ready to hear all of it?

Of course, why not?

You'll see. Brace yourself then. My full name is Vivian McBastion Noël Liffingsford-Ivy.

Jesus, Viv, is that the truth?

Vivian scowled and his voice was gloomier than ever.

Furthermore, I'll tell you why I don't look like a Vivian, let alone all the rest of it. I'm not.

Well there, cried Joe with relief.

I mean that's my legal name, but it's not really me. My father's name was Lifschitz. When my parents came over to England from Germany they wanted something that sounded less foreign, so they did a potter around in a hunt for common syllables and Liffingsford is what emerged, like a new Tory leader in Parliament. The Ivy was an afterthought, meant to add a comfy appearance of having been around awhile. I'm not sure how well they understood English at the time.

I know how that is, said Joe. I didn't understand it myself until I was fifteen or sixteen.

They bought a little shop when they came to England, a cozy thatched-roof affair in the heart of London.

They thought it was the only decent thing to do. Fair play, England my England, a nation of shopkeepers and so forth. Then when I came along they did a hunt through the Sunday tabloids to find a name for me, and that odd lot is what they came up with. Later I disappointed them though. I didn't become a dentist.

I see.

But everybody has always called me Liffy, with the exception of my mother and father and Bletchley. .

Blasted authority figures, they always get everything wrong. But Ahmad knows me as Liffy, and everybody else around here does.

Fine, Liffy, that's what I'm going to call you then. And I like the name, because it just happens to recall a river I know.

I suspected it might, said Liffy, and it's always pleasant to remind someone of a river. But I never became a dentist, I have to tell you that right now. I became a clown, a sad clown. That's my problem.

***

Have some wine, Liffy?

Thanks, I will. My liver hurts.

Maybe you ought to ease up then?

No, it can't have anything to do with drinking, I almost never drink. My liver often hurts at night, and I think the reason it does is because the liver was considered the seat of the passions in the classical world, back before barbarians destroyed the classical world and the passions were transferred to the heart. But somehow in my case the transfer never seems to have been made. In other words, Joe, I'm a throwback.

To what?

I'm not sure, that's my problem. But I have an uneasy feeling I may be the Wandering Jew from antiquity.

Everything seems to suggest it.

Have you wandered a lot then?

Oh yes, that's all I did before the war. I wandered around Europe as an itinerant entertainer, making people laugh after dinner. Then I sat in empty railway waiting rooms late at night, feeling hungry and waiting for a milk train to nowhere. The restaurants were always closed by the time I finished work in the evening, and when I arrived in a new place the following morning I'd take a nap in the railway waiting room to save expenses, until it was time to appear in a show that night. So I almost never slept in a bed and I didn't see much daylight either. In those days I lived almost entirely on milk and it made me quite pale. All told, it was a ghostly experience.

Were you really a professional clown, Liffy?

Well it was that general aspect of life. I worked as a clown or a mime or an actor, a juggler or an acrobat or a song-and-dance man, the fat drunken companion of a Shakespearean king of merrie olde England or a not so merry Shakespearean moneylender in gloomy old Venice, sometimes in blackface and sometimes in white, but far more frequently in gray. And more often than not in the end, after giving my all, done in. It seems that in every human drama there has to be someone who loses, and for some mysterious reason that role became my specialty. Occasionally I had to be taken seriously, but in general I was the absurd chameleon of the species, the ludicrous jester and buffo, the all-purpose fool. Making people laugh was my profession. It's a sad way to make a living.

I believe it, said Joe. And what about your work here, Liffy? What do you do?

Little things. Play a role for an hour or two or a day. Anything that might require a disguise and some makeup and a language or two. I'm just a prop really. I do a turn as an Italian general or a Syrian merchant or a Czech peasant, whatever's wanted. When they need a prop they trundle me out and I rage and swagger or skulk and cringe, bending my knees and shifting my weight and detesting kulaks or Jews, Jerries or Tommies, as the case may be. I'm the local illusionist, that's all. A sad clown.

Why sad, Liffy?

Because the world's sad

Why a clown then?

Because the world's so sad we have to laugh, otherwise it would be an even more dangerous place than it already is.

Liffy smiled shyly.

But there. Like everybody else, I like to pretend there's some lofty explanation for my private quirks. The truth is I'm probably sad because I spent so much time in empty railway waiting rooms before the war, at night. Have you ever noticed that people who live at night seem to have no bones? Perhaps it's the bad lighting.

And why did you become a clown, Liffy?

Why? Well I don't think I did in the beginning. I started out as a child imitating grown-ups, as every child does, and before long I discovered my imitations could make people laugh, and making people laugh brought me a sweet or two. So I went on doing what I'd grown accustomed to doing, the thing that brought in a sweet or two, and thus a career and a life in the usual manner.

But you're not like most people, Liffy.

No, I'm sure I'm not. I've been drifting around the world too long for that.

Liffy smiled.

How long, you say? Do I really qualify as the Wandering Jew from antiquity? Well sometimes it does seem as if these wanderings of mine have gone on for a full twenty-five hundred years, more or less.

Sometimes it does seem that long when I'm alone at night and afraid.

Liffy sadly lowered his eyes.

And I am often afraid, he whispered. But then too, there's another reason why I may be different. In order to imitate people you have to understand them, and that's my problem, I do. You have to be angry to get ahead in this world, or if you really want to get ahead, you have to hate people. But how can I hate anyone when I know what people are feeling?

Liffy sighed.

Sometimes I wish I'd become a dentist. A spot of black turns up and you grind it away, just like that, and slap some shiny gold in its place. It's easy, it's satisfying, people wait in line to see you and call you Herr Professor Doktor or Panzergroupcommander. But to get ahead like that you have to think of people as teeth, the way the Nazis do.

Liffy gasped and stopped for breath. An asthmatic rattle wheezed up his throat.

Although it's not just hate in general that lets you get ahead. Mostly it has to do with yourself, like all strong feelings, so I guess you'd have to call it self-disgust. Have you ever noticed that people seem to hate us, Jews, according to how much they're secretly disgusted with themselves? Not that there aren't innumerable reasons why people choose Jews to hate, rather than themselves. After all, who wants to hate himself? Who wouldn't rather hate somebody else?