London Again

I returned to London at the end of November. The city streets were dank, and in daylight they looked grimy and desolate. But at night the windows of flats glittered like the lights of a ship across black water and gave me an impression of watery motion. After years of a blackout I had only heard about, the lights felt celebratory.

Even streetlamps joined the party, glimmering like reflections in ponds. In the frequent late-autumn fog, everything appeared to float a foot above the ground: churches, houses, people.

My employer and I met for lunch at the Cheshire Cheese.

“Samuel Johnson is said to have dined here frequently,” Sir Andrew whispered to me. I had to lean across the table to catch his words.

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He was sending me to Prague by air, but I would have to take the train from there to Warsaw, my ultimate destination. In Prague, I would spend a few hours with a Czech journalist he had met once or twice in London.

“He’s married to an Englishwoman whose name eludes me. Well, you’ll only be spending a few hours with him; you don’t have to know her name.” He frowned down at his plate and then continued reluctantly, as though begrudging me the information. “His first wife was killed by the Nazis. They were both extremely political, of course, though I hear from a fellow at Reuters that Jan is awfully changed since the war and his—er, losses.” He handed me a small card. “I’ve written out his last name phonetically so you can pronounce it, should he not show up at the airport. In that case, perhaps you could find your way to his digs.”

I noticed the dirty edges of his cuffs and how dandruff spotted the shoulders of his dark suit. I had ordered a plowman’s lunch, as it was called in the Cheshire Cheese, and had been unable to finish it.

“Then you will continue on to Warsaw on the train that leaves Prague around midnight,” he went on. “First the Nazis occupied Warsaw, then the Russians. Now the Poles will be having their first election. Ah, well, you won’t be covering that directly, but send me a few stories about it and other aspects of life as it’s lived among the ruins. In the States, I believe they’re called human-interest or local-color features.

“In Warsaw, you can add your material to that of Desmond Birch, who writes for a British agricultural journal, or else to Mary Burke’s; she writes for the Irish Times. Also, you can mail features to me directly—an interview with an architect, for example, who has plans for the rebuilding of the city, subjects of interest to readers who are not as interested in news stories as they are in life stories. Birch and Burke are staying at the Polonia Hotel, a few yards from where you’ll be staying. Oh, my dear!” he exclaimed suddenly, but with no change in his tone of voice. “Warsaw is utterly destroyed. To speak of hotels means only three. A fourth is being erected even as we sit here, to accommodate the new members, delegates perhaps to the Polish Parliament, who will arrive before the December election. I think it will be sufficiently completed for you to stay there on your first night in the city.”

He said the last words with a faint smile. I interpreted it as meaning he was willing to spend more money than he usually did on my first night’s accommodation in Warsaw.

“After that, you will move to the Centralny, a small place but right in the middle of things. I doubt you’ll have any trouble—except for the cold, of course.”

“It couldn’t be colder than Paris,” I said.

“Oh, yes, it can and will be. Don’t forget, it’s Eastern Europe.”

“There were days in Paris when I didn’t want to leave the Metro because it was the warmest place I knew. I got to know some people on the trains who had the same idea.”

He seemed not to have taken in my words. “Awful conditions in Poland, as I said. I warn you: even though some food is on the ration here in England, this is a tropical heaven compared to Warsaw. I would think over this trip if I were you. You aren’t required to go. I can give you assignments in London: interviews with the striking miners, and with a publisher or two—Victor, who employed you and whom I know; Dennis Cohen, also an acquaintance of mine—subjects like that.”

For an instant he looked nettled as though he didn’t like the idea of my interviewing other publishers. He sighed and looked at me directly. “Will you want coffee?” he asked. “It will be dreadful. I believe it’s partly made with chicory.”

“No, thank you. I’ve had enough of everything.”

“You’ve not finished your cheese,” he said.

“I’m full, Sir Andrew.”

“Mustn’t waste,” he said. He reached across the table, gathered up the scraps of cheese on my plate with his long bony fingers, and swallowed the scraps in two gulps, his prominent Adam’s apple rippling.

For a peer, he didn’t look so well fed.

 

I TOOK THE TUBE TO WANDSWORTH. IT WAS THE WEEKEND SO I guessed Nan and Ted would be at home. When I arrived, Ted was kneeling on the floor of the open corridor to lay the last section of a miniature railroad track. He waved to me. “Watch your step!” he warned. At that moment Nan appeared, emerging from their flat carrying a steam locomotive. She placed it down on the track. Frances, and Martin whose birthday present the train was, came to stand in the doorway, their faces lightened and happy for the moment. They shivered in the cold air.

Ted had found the imposing toy locomotive in a London junk shop and worked on it for weeks, restoring it to its original glory. It gleamed in the pale afternoon light, oiled and powerful-looking, small though it was. Now it emitted steam and a loud triumphant hoot. We all cheered and applauded as the locomotive went chugging down the tracks, its large side wheels turning.

I parted from them. Their faces, as I imagined mine was, were softened with delight, with foolish, affectionate smiles—we were still imagining the train steaming on its way, moments free of the tensions that turn the wheels of daily life.

 

I MADE MY WAY TO CHELSEA TO VISIT BENN AND CUMMINGS but they were not home; he had gone to Ireland again, and she was in a matinee performance of a West End play. Only the maid, who had served me the desiccated herring, came to the door.

Then I rang the door of the flat in St. John’s Wood. There was no answer.

I looked up and down the sidewalk. It was the first time I had had time on my hands since I’d come to Europe. I had nothing to do. I started in one direction with a stride full of intention but almost at once realized I didn’t have one. So I stood motionless in the dying light of a winter afternoon in northern Europe, feeling the unfamiliar weight of the present moment before time moved me on. I found myself standing in front of one of London’s most well-known music halls. I bought a ticket after a few moments of listening to a street musician play a noisy tune on a trumpet.

I recall a female singer, blond, in her middle years, with a robust, rather tuneless voice. But most vividly I remember Bud Flanagan. He was, I think, a member of a troupe called the Crazy Gang.

The various sets on stage were drawn back like curtains, all the way to the first. A small rotund figure wearing a peculiar hat was slowly walking toward the front of the stage, through the edges of set after set, looming larger every moment, until the audience was rocking with recognition and laughter.

Bud was smoking a cigar, its smoke trailing behind him. He stood there scowling for a long moment, then removed the cigar from his mouth.

“What the hell are you all laughin’ at?” he asked.

 

AFTER THE MUSIC HALL, I WENT TO RED LION SQUARE FOR A reason I don’t recollect. There was a thick fog and, ribboned through it, the red lights of a pub. Music from a radio wafted over the square. I was at the center of the world. I was twenty-three years old. Then I wondered if any place where a person stood did not seem to be the center.

The next afternoon, I took the plane for Prague.