Humboldt's Gift (1976 Pulitzer Prize) - Saul Bellow [145]
“Paris and Vienna! Why not Montevideo and Bogota? There’s just as much culture there. Why are you sailing and not flying to Europe?”
“It’s my favorite way to travel, deeply restful One of my old mother’s remaining pleasures in life is to arrange these trips for her only child. She’s done more, this time. The Brazilian football champions are touring Europe, and she knows I love football. I mean superb football. So she’s wangled me tickets for four matches. Besides, I have business reasons for going. And I want to see some of my children.”
I refrained from asking how he could travel first class on the France when he was dead broke. Asking got me nowhere. I never succeeded in assimilating his explanations. I did remember being told, however, that the velvet suit with a blue silk scarf knotted in the Ronald Colman manner made perfectly acceptable evening wear. In fact the black-tie millionaires looked tacky by comparison. And women adored Thaxter. One evening during his last crossing an old Texas lady, if you could believe him, dropped a chamois sack full of gems into his lap, under the tablecloth. He discreetly passed them back to her. He would not service rich old Texas frumps, he told me. Not even those who were magnanimous in Oriental or Renaissance style. Because after all, he continued, this was a big gesture suitable to a big ocean and a big character. But he was remarkably dignified, virtuous, and faithful to his wife—to all his wives. He was warmly devoted to his extended family, the many children he had had by several women. If he didn’t make a Major Statement he would at least leave his genetic stamp upon the world.
“If I had no cash, I’d ask my mother to put me in steerage. How much do you tip when you get off the France in Le Havre?” I asked him.
“I give the chief steward five bucks.”
“You’re lucky to leave the boat alive.”
“Perfectly adequate,” said Thaxter. “They bully the American rich and despise them for their cowardice and ignorance.”
He told me now, “My business abroad is with an international consortium of publishers for whom I’m developing a certain idea. Originally, I got it from you, Charlie, but you won’t remember. You said how interesting it would be to go around the world interviewing a lot of second-, third-, and fourth-rank dictators—the General Amins, the Qaddafis, and all that breed.”
“They’d have you drowned in their fishpond if they thought you were going to call them third-rate.”
“Don’t be silly, I’d never do such a thing. They’re leaders of the developing world. But it’s actually a fascinating subject. These shabby foreign-student-bohemians a few years ago, future petty blackmailers, now they’re threatening the great nations, or formerly great nations, with ruin. Dignified world leaders are sucking up to them.”
“What makes you think they’ll talk to you?” I said.
“They’re dying to see somebody like me. They’re longing for a touch of the big time, and I have impeccable credentials. They all want to hear about Oxford and Cambridge and New York and the London season, and discuss Karl Marx and Sartre. If they want to play golf or tennis or ping-pong, I can do all of that. To prepare myself for writing these articles I’ve been reading some good things to get the right tone—Marx on Louis Napoleon is wonderful. I’ve also looked into Suetonius and Saint-Simon and Proust. Incidentally, there’s going to be an international poets’ congress in Taiwan. I may cover that. You have to keep