Famous Last Words by Timothy Findley Read Free Book Online

Mahler,
    Brahms and Strauss—a Viennese concert. Not that he dareil to play them: but he stood and stared and touched them
    with his fingers—just the labels—running his mind around and around the grooves until the music rose up like a hand and pushed him into a chair. But the chair did not restrain him and he left it several times on journeys to the past where he lounged with his father on the roof of the Arlington Hotel in Boston, waded with Ezra in the pond at Rapallo and
    danced with his mother in the corridors of her asylum at Bellevue.
    That night Mauberley got so drunk he fell asleep on the Recamier couch—almost setting fire to the hotel because he forgot in his drunkenness to blow out the candles. When he woke in the morning there was a large red welt where the wax had scalded the back of his hand.
    But he was not alone. Die iveisse Ratte was asleep across the room on the rolled-up carpets, lying under the brocade drapes. After Mauberley had awakened him by reaching out and knocking over his empty bottle, the boy said: “you were making noises in your sleep.”
    “Oh?” said Mauberley—wary. “What sort of noises?”
    “Music,” said die weisse Ratte. “Waltzing.” He smiled.
    “I found these records,” Mauberley said. “I wonder whose they can be.”
    “No one’s,” said the boy. “I do not know.” A lie—and
    Mauberley could see the lie quite plainly written in the pale blue eyes with their pink, unhealthy rims.
    Die n’eisse fiatte sat up frozen on the mound of carpet.
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    drawing the brocade curtains over his head and shoulders.
    “My mother,” Mauberley told him, thinking he just might draw a confession from the boy, “was a musician; very fond of music such as this. She was a pianist, you know. I spent my childhc id—all my childhood—listening to her play.”
    Die iveisse Ratte shuffled his feet and edged along the carpets, seeking a softer place to sit. But was silent.
    Mauberley fished in his tatters, fumbling with his buttoned layers, finally producing money in a folded lump and
    holding it up for the boy to see.
    Die weisse Ratte stared at the money like a starving child at loaves of bread spread out in buttered slices on a plate.
    Mauberley knew what he had to say, but had never uttered such words before.
    “I need a friend,” he said. “I mean someone who will help me.”
    Now, die weisse Ratte smiled. Friend was the word he
    had waited for. Friend would be certain to produce money from Herr Mauberley’s mitt. Friend, in die iveisse Ralte’s whole, and only. concept of the word. was just a synonym for cash-and-favour. Not that he knew any better, for in all his life, he had never had a friend who had not crossed his palm in order to gain his favours. Now Herr Mauberlev was opening up his mittens and showing more money than Hugo had ever seen.
    Friend.
    Die weisse Ratte brightened. Even the pink of his eyes
    grew more intense.
    But Mauberley knew this look too well to be fooled. He
    smiled. “A friend—in times like these—and if I find one—
    must be mine alone. He can have no other friends, not even Herr Kachelmayer. Do you understand?”
    Hugo began to nod. which brought a certain colour to his cheeks, white on white.
    Mauberley needed to know how far his new-found friend
    would go to play this game. He removed two banknotes from his mitt. “I want a gun.” he said. “Can you get me a gun?”
    Nothing.
    Three banknotes.
    The boy stood up. The brocade fell aside. He walked across the room until he stood so close to Mauberley that Mauberley could smell him. Sour—like soup. Then, with a gesture only a child could make and get away with, the boy pinched the money, still held up in Mauberley’s hand, and squinted at it. Real; not counterfeit. He took it.
    Mauberley watched die weisse Ratte, amused and wary.
    The boy was very bold to stand so close, to take so much proximity for granted. Bold and dangerous—reaching for the bills. They stood so close together, part of