Gerald Kersh - Prelude To A Certain Midnight

‘If you’ll have the goodness to allow me to finish my sentence,’ said Hemmeridge, petulantly, ‘lots of people think it would be really an awfully nice thing to go out and kill somebody. Only most of us, thank goodness, do our killing in our dreams. I mean, we get someone else to do our killing for us. I mean, we go out and buy a nice bloodthirsty detective story, or one of those Americanish tough-guy books in which the hero is a bit of a murderer thinly disguised as a private detective and goes about slapping glamorous female poisoners in the face or tearing their clothes off or something.’ He giggled, swallowed a mouthful of his drink and continued: ‘Thank goodness, what? Look at me. Here I am, in the land of the living, not quite dead of malnutrition, neatly dressed and in clean linen. For this I must thank the general public’s enjoyment of murder. Since, as you may or may not know, I write crime stories myself — when I happen to think of a good bloodthirsty plot. Do you see this grey suit 1 am wearing? It was bought out of the blood of a dismembered heiress in a trunk at Waterloo Station. Do you see this rather nice silk tie? I got it out of a mad surgeon who loved to vivisect people and make them into peculiar shapes. It was all that was left over after I had paid certain arrears of board and lodging. I do like to have something to show for money received on account of my crimes — I always buy myself a little something or other; a tie, a card of bachelor buttons, a pair of sixpenny cuff-links, or even a pair of gloves. But what was I saying? Oh yes. One murder makes many. That, by the by, would be a goodish title for a story, wouldn’t it? The sort of fellow that goes out and kills little Sonia What’s-her-name is, actually, not at all rare. He nearly always gets away with it, don’t you see? It’s like diving into ice-cold water — you only have to make your mind up to it, and once the first shock is over there is a pleasant tingle and glow. It gives you a certain sense of power, don’t you see: something like well-being, having done it once, you’ll do it again, and then again, and yet again. You mark my words, one murder makes many, I repeat. And furthermore, encouraged by the failure of the police — poor things — to find the perpetrator of this much-publicized atrocity, someone else will find his nerve and take his quick, wild plunge through the thin ice into those strangely stimulating dark still waters of death.’

Hemmeridge drained his glass. A waiter gave him a fresh drink. Mr Pink, who had been listening and nodding, said: ‘But look here, sir! This is dreadful! No, this really is dreadful! You know that what you’re doing isn’t nice — I mean, writing that sort of nasty story and putting nasty ideas into people’s heads — you know what you’re doing and still you go on doing it. Why? You ought to stop doing it at once, as soon as you realize that what you’re doing is wrong. Oughtn’t you now? Be honest! eh?’

‘Oh, my dear fellow!’ cried Hemmeridge, laughing, ‘what difference can it possibly make? People like that sort of nonsense. If there had been no murder, we should have had to invent it. Besides, if — te-he! if I may coin a phrase, a man must live, and please don’t say “_Je ne vois pas la nécessité_”.’

‘Oh, but I know that a man must live,’ said Pink. ‘I do, I do indeed, I honestly and solemnly assure you, but a man can live in all sorts of ways.’

‘Ah, yes, Mr Pink. But I happen to be in my little way a writer.’

‘But, Mr Hemmeridge, so was Thackeray, so was Tolstoy. So is the great Ernest Hemingway.’

‘And so are you, Mr Pink.’

Mr Pink blushed like a fourteen-year-old girl, and said: ‘No, no, really not. Not a writer, only an interpreter and, by the way, Mr Hemmeridge, you are a literary man, and may perhaps advise me. Last night I had an idea.’

‘A revelation surely?’ murmured Tobit Osbert.

Hemmeridge giggled into his glass, but Mr Pink went on very seriously: ‘You know, I believe, that I have been trying to put the eternal truths into everyday language. Well, last night it occurred to me that it might be possible to translate some of the writings of St John of The Cross into popular songs. Take this for instance: “_As to my affairs, daughter, let them not trouble you, for none of them troubles me…. These things are not done by men, but by God, Who knows what is meet for us and ordains things for our good. Think only that God ordaini all. And where there is no love, put love, and you will find love_.” Now what do you say to that as a kind of dance-music song? Title: “_You’ve got to put what you want where you want it_.” Or again, take this passage: “_For, in order to pass from the all to the All, Thou hast to deny thyself wholly in all_.” Now that is, if I may say so. a little elusive to the modern mind. Might one not transcribe it as — “_Go chase yourself and catch yourself_”? What do you think?’

Before Hemmeridge could reply, Mothmar Acord said: ‘I don’t really see what all the kafuffie is about. What is there so extraordinary in a kid being killed? One of these days I dare say there will be a war, and then we’ll knock over millions of ‘em, and congratulate ourselves.’

Thea Olivia, with a little cry of horror, said: ‘You mustn’t say such things!’

Looking down at his freckled hands Mothmar Acord lifted a shoulder and a corner of his mouth and sauntered away to talk to Avril Wensday.

Tobit Osbert said: ‘It seems to me that Mr Acord isn’t quite right in what he said. Dropping a bomb is one thing. Getting hold of someone by the throat and choking them and — excuse me, madam — raping them, is another thing. Look down from a very high building. Look down from the Monument in the City, and even from that little height people don’t look like people any more. You know how it is when you live in a high building. The higher you live, the more you get into the habit of throwing things out of the window. It seems to me that a man in an aeroplane thousands of feet above the ground can throw down bombs, or germs, or anything horrible that you can think of, and still be quite a nice young man.’

‘Until he comes to think of it,’ said Hemmeridge.

‘He knows not what he does,’ said Mr Pink, laying one of his nervous hands upon Osbert’s left shoulder.

‘Yes, Mr Pink, that is more or less what I mean to say. He should be, as it were, forgiven because he sort of does not know what he does. He presses a button or pulls a lever and he’s a mile away from the scene of the crime even before the crime is committed — I mean, before the bomb goes off and kills men, women, and children. But a man who stands about on street corners in the dark and waits for a little girl to pass and takes advantage of the fact that she knows him and trusts him in order to do what that man did who killed Sonia Sabbatani — he is a murderer.’

‘Yes,’ said Mr Pink, biting his nails, ‘but having learned of the effect of a bomb, is your brother …? I wonder…’

He paused and Graham Strindberg said: ‘Yet why should such things be? Why should Evil be? If Evil exists, and is powerful, is God allpowerful? Since there is evil, if God is allpowerful how can he be all-good? If God is all-good how can he be allpowerful?’

With something like irritation, Mr Pink replied:

‘I don’t know, Mr Strindberg.’ He was by this time quietly drunk and his eyes were like stars reflected in the rippling surface of a puddle. ‘I really don’t know, my dear sir! How can I know? God doesn’t tell me his business, does he? Who the deuce are you thatyou must know everything? Do your toe-nails insist on knowing what your head is doing? Does the body of the martyr understand the soul that tells it to burn at the stake? In Macaulay there is an account of an old Puritan after Sedgemoor: he had had his arm smashed and was cutting it off himself with his own knife, sternly repeating the Lord’s Prayer, with a face of iron and no expression of pain. What was that arm to question the will of that man? It was hurt? It was crushed? Its nerves cried out, yes? Yet I tell you that because of the unyielding spirit of. that old man to whom God gave that arm, the misery of his poor flesh brought forth something good and beautiful. You must do what you know is good. Ask no questions. Expect no answers. Have faith. Believe me — do please believe me — God is good. He is! He is! ’