Read Doctor Fischer of Geneva Or The Bomb Party for Free Online Page B

lights of a chandelier overhead: even the soup plates looked expensive. I wondered a little at seeing them there: it was hardly the season for cold soup. ‘This is Jones, my son-in-law,’ Doctor Fischer said. ‘You must excuse his glove. It covers a deformity. Mrs Montgomery, Mr Kips, Monsieur Belmont, Mr Richard Deane, Divisionnaire Krueger.’ (Not for him to mistitle Krueger.) I could feel the fumes of their hostility projected at me like tear-gas. Why? Perhaps it was my dark suit. I had lowered what apartment builders would call the ‘standing’.
    â€˜I have met Monsieur Jones,’ Belmont said as though he were a prosecution witness identifying the accused.
    â€˜Me too,’ said Mrs Montgomery, ‘briefly.’
    â€˜Jones is a great linguist,’ Doctor Fischer said. ‘He translates letters about chocolates,’ and I realized he must have made inquiries about me from my employers. ‘Here, Jones, at our little parties we use English as our common language because Richard Deane, great star though he may be, speaks no other, though he sometimes attempts a kind of French in his cups – after his third one. On the screen you’ve only heard him dubbed in French.’
    Everyone laughed as though on cue except Deane who gave a mirthless smile. ‘He has the qualities after a drink or two to play Falstaff except a lack of humour and a lack of weight. The second tonight we shall do our best to remedy. The humour, I’m afraid, is beyond us. You may ask what is left. Only his fast-diminishing reputation among women and teenagers. Kips, you are not enjoying yourself. Is something wrong? Perhaps you miss our usual apéritifs , but tonight I didn’t want to spoil your palates for what’s coming.’
    â€˜No, no, I assure you nothing is wrong, Doctor Fischer. Nothing.’
    â€˜I always insist,’ Doctor Fischer said, ‘at my little parties that everybody enjoys himself.’
    â€˜They are a riot,’ Mrs Montgomery said, ‘a riot.’
    â€˜Doctor Fischer is invariably a very good host,’ Divisionnaire Krueger informed me with condescension.
    â€˜And so generous,’ Mrs Montgomery said. ‘This necklace I’m wearing – it was a prize at our last party.’ She was wearing a heavy necklace of gold pieces – they seemed to me from a distance to be Krugerrands.
    â€˜There is always a little prize for everyone,’ the Divisionnaire murmured. He was certainly old and grey and he was probably full of sleep. I liked him the best because he seemed to have accepted me more easily than the others.
    â€˜There the prizes are,’ Mrs Montgomery said. ‘I helped him choose.’ She went over to a side-table where I noticed now a pile of gift-wrapped parcels. She touched one with the tip of a finger like a child testing a Christmas stocking to tell from the crackle what is within.
    â€˜Prizes for what?’ I asked.
    â€˜Certainly not for intelligence,’ Doctor Fischer said, ‘or the Divisionnaire would never win anything.’
    Everyone was watching the pile of gifts.
    â€˜All we have to do is just to put up with his little whims,’ Mrs Montgomery explained, ‘and then he distributes the prizes. There was one evening – can you believe it? – he served up live lobsters with bowls of boiling water. We had to catch and cook our own. One lobster nipped the General’s finger.’
    â€˜I bear the scar still,’ Divisionnaire Krueger complained.
    â€˜The only wound in action which he has ever received,’ Doctor Fischer said.
    â€˜It was a riot,’ Mrs Montgomery told me as though I might not have caught the point.
    â€˜Anyway it turned her hair blue,’ Doctor Fischer said. ‘Before that night it was an unsavoury grey stained with nicotine.’
    â€˜Not grey – a natural blonde – and not nicotine-stained.’
    â€˜Remember the rules,