Her sister now reappeared bearing a tray on which there was a decanter, three glasses and some biscuits.

This will make you feel better, she said, pouring me a potion of schnaps.

We clinked glasses, as if it were a happy event we were celebrating, and swallowed. It was pure fire water.

Have another, said the other sister and refilled the glasses. There, doesn’t that feel good? It burns, eh? But it gives you spirit.

We had two or three more in rapid fire succession. Each time they said—There, don’t you feel better now?

Better or worse, I couldn’t say. All I knew was that my guts were on fire. And then the room began to spin.

Lie down, they urged, and grasping me by the arms they lowered me on to the bed. I stretched out full length helpless as a babe. They removed my coat, then my shirt, then my pants and shoes. I made no protest. They rolled me over and tucked me away.

Sleep a while, they said, we’ll call for you later. We’ll have dinner for you when you wake up.

I closed my eyes. The room spun round even faster now.

We’ll look after you, said the one.

We’ll take good care of you, said the other.

They tiptoed out of the room.

It was in the wee hours of the morning that I awoke. I thought the church bells were ringing. (Exactly what my mother said when trying to recall the hour of my birth.) I got up and read the note again. By now they were well out on the high seas. I was hungry. I found a piece of the cheese cake on the floor and gulped it down. I was even thirstier than I was hungry. I drank several glasses of water one after the other. My head ached a bit. Then I crept back to bed. But there was no more sleep in me. Toward daybreak I rose, dressed, and sallied out. Better to walk than lie there thinking. I’ll walk and walk, thought I, until I drop.

It didn’t work the way I thought. Fresh or fatigued, the thinking never stops. Round and round one goes, always over the same ground, always returning to the dead center: the unacceptable now.

How I passed the rest of the day is a complete blank. All I remember is that the heart-ache grew steadily worse. Nothing could assuage it. It wasn’t something inside me, it was me. I was the ache. A walking, talking ache. If only I could drag myself to the slaughter-house and have them fell me like an ox—it would have been an act of mercy. Just one swift blow—between the eyes. That, and only that, could kill the ache.

Monday morning I reported for work as usual. I had to wait a good hour before Tony showed up. When he did he took one look at me and said—What’s happened?

I told him briefly. All kindness, he said: Let’s go and have a drink. There’s nothing very pressing. His nibs won’t be in to-day, so there’s nothing to worry about.

We had a couple of drinks and then lunch. A good lunch followed by a good cigar. Never a word of reproach for Mona.

Only, as we were walking back to the office, did he permit himself a harmless observation. It beats me, Henry. I have plenty of troubles but never that kind.

At the office he outlined my duties once again. I’ll introduce you to the boys to-morrow, he said. (When you have a grip on yourself, is what he meant.) He added that I would find them easy to get along with.

Thus that day passed and the next.

I became acquainted with the other members of the office, all time servers, all waiting for that pension at the foot of the rainbow. Nearly all of them were from Brooklyn, all ordinary blokes, all speaking that dreary-bleary Brooklynese. But all of them eager to be of assistance.

There was one chap, a bookkeeper, to whom I took a fancy immediately. Paddy Mahoney was his name. He was an Irish Catholic, narrow as they make ‘em, argumentative, pugnacious, all the things I dislike, but because I hailed from the 14th Ward—he had been born and raised in Greenpoint—we got on famously. As soon as Tony and the Commissioner were gone he was at my desk ready to chew the rag the rest of the day.

Wednesday morning I found a radiogram on my desk. Must have fifty dollars before landing. Please cable immediately.

I showed the message to Tony when he appeared. What are you going to do? he said.

That’s what I want to know, I said.

You’re not going to send them money, are you … after what they did to you?

I looked at him helplessly. I’m afraid I’ll have to, I replied.

Don’t be a chump, he said. They made their bed, let them lie in it.

I had hoped that he would tell me I could borrow in advance on my salary. Crestfallen, I went back to my work. While working I kept wondering how and where I could raise such a sum. Tony was my only hope. But I didn’t have the heart to press him. I couldn’t—he had already done more for me than I deserved.

After lunch, which he usually shared with his political cronies at a bar in the Village nearby, he blew in with a big cigar in his mouth and smelling rather heavily of drink. He had a big smile on his face, the sort he used to wear at school when he was up to some devilment.

How’s it going? he said. Getting the hang of it, are you? Not such a bad place to work in, is it?

He tossed his hat over his shoulder, sank deep into his swivel chair and put his feet on the desk. Taking a good long pull on his cigar and turning slightly in my direction, he said: I guess I don’t understand women much, Henry. I’m a confirmed bachelor. You’re different. You don’t mind complications, I guess. Anyway, when you told me about the cable this morning I thought you were a fool. Right now I don’t think that way. You need help, and I’m the only one who can help you, I guess. Look, let me lend you what you need. I can’t get you an advance on your salary … you’re too new here for that. Besides, it would raise a lot of unnecessary questions. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad. You can pay me back five bucks a week, if you like. But don’t let them bleed you for morel Be tough!

A few more words and he made ready to leave. Guess I’ll be off now. My work is finished for the day. If you run into a snag call me. Where? I said. Ask Paddy, he’ll tell you.

As the days passed the pain eased up. Tony kept me busy, purposely, no doubt. He also saw to it that I became acquainted with the head gardener. I would have to write a booklet one day about the plants, shrubs and trees in the park, he said. The gardener would wise me up.

Every day I expected another cablegram. I knew a letter wouldn’t reach me for days. Already in the hole, and hating to return each day to the scene of my distress, I decided to ask the folks to take me in. They agreed readily enough, though they were mystified by Mona’s behavior. I explained, of course, that it had been planned this way, that I was to follow later, and so on. They knew better, but refrained from humiliating me further. So I moved in. The Street of Early Sorrows. The same desk to write at which I had as a boy. (And which I never used.) Everything I owned was in my valise. I didn’t bring a single book with me.

It cost me another few dollars to cable Mona regarding the change of address and to warn her to write or wire me at the office.

As Tony had surmised, it wasn’t long before another cable arrived. This time they needed money for food and lodging. No jobs in sight as yet. On the heels of it came a letter, a brief one, telling me that they were happy, that Paris was just marvelous, and that I must find a way to join them soon. No hint of how they were managing.

Are they having a good time over there? Tony asked one day. Not asking for more dough, are they?

I hadn’t told him about the second cablegram. It was my uncle, the ticket speculator, who coughed up for that sum.

Sometimes, said Tony, I feel as if I’d like to see Paris myself. We might have a good time there together, eh?

Mixed in with the office routine were all sorts of odd jobs. There were the speeches, for example, which the Commissioner had to prepare for this or that occasion, and which he never had time to do himself. It was Tony’s job to write these speeches for him. When Tony had done his best I would add a few touches.

Dull work, these speeches. I much preferred my talks with the gardener. I had already begun making notes for the arboricultural booklet, as I called it.

After a time the work slackened. Sometimes Tony didn’t show up at the office at all. As soon as the Commissioner had gone all work ceased. With the place to ourselves—there were only about seven of us—we passed the time playing cards, shooting crap, singing, telling dirty stories, sometimes playing hide and seek. To me these periods were worse than being suffocated with work. It was impossible to hold an intelligent conversation with any of them except Paddy Mahoney. He was the only one with whom I enjoyed holding speech. Not that we ever talked about anything edifying. Mostly it was about life in the 14 th Ward where he went to shoot pool with the boys, to drink and to gamble. Maujer, Teneyck, Conselyea, Devoe, Humboldt streets … we named them all, lived them all, played again the games we had played as youngsters in the broiling sun, in cool cellars, under the soft glow of gas lights, on the docks by the swift flowing river…

What inspired Paddy’s friendship and devotion more than anything was my scribbler’s talent. When I was at the machine, even if it were only a letter I was typing, he would stand at the doorway and watch me as if I were a phenomenon.

Whatcha doin’? Battin’ it out? he’d say. Meaning—another story.

Sometimes he’d stand there, wait a while, then say: Are you very busy?

If I said No, why? he’d answer: I was just thinkin’ … You remember the saloon on the corner of Wythe Avenue and Grand?

Sure I do. What of it?

Well, there was a guy used to hang out there … a writer, like you. He wrote serials. But first he had to get tanked up.

A remark such as this was only an opener. He wanted to talk.

That old guy who lives on your block … what’s his name again? Martin. Yeah, that’s the guy. He always had a couple of ferrets in his coat pockets, remember? Made himself lots of dough, that bugger, with his bloody ferrets. He worked for all the best hotels in New York one time, driving the rats away. What a racket, eh? I’m scared of those things … could bite your nuts off … know what I mean? He was a weirdie all right. And what a booze artist! I can still see him staggering down the street … and those bloody ferrets peeping out of his pockets. You say he never touches the stuff now? It’s more than I can believe. He used to throw his money away like a fool—in that saloon I was just telling you about.

From this he might switch to Father Flanagan or Callaghan, I forget what it was now. The priest who got soused to the ears every Saturday night. One had to watch out when he was in his cups. Liked to bugger the choir boys. Could have had any woman he laid eyes on, that handsome he was and taking in his ways.

I used to near shit in my pants when I went to confession, said Paddy. Yeah, he knew all the sins in the calendar, that bastard. He crossed himself as he said this. You’d have to tell him everything … even how many times a week you jerked off. The worst was, he had a way of farting in your face. But if you were in trouble he was the one to go to. Never said no. Yeah, there were a lot of good eggs in that neighborhood. Some of them are serving time now, poor buggers…

A month had passed and all I had had from Mona were two brief letters. They were living on the rue Princesse in a charming little hotel, very clean, very cheap. The Hotel Princesse. If only I could see it, how I would love it! They had become acquainted meanwhile with a number of Americans, most of them artists and very poor. Soon they hoped to get out of Paris and see a bit of the provinces. Stasia was crazy to visit the Midi. That was the south of France, where there were vineyards and olive groves and bullfights and so on. Oh yes, there was a writer, a crazy Austrian, who had taken a great fancy to Stasia. Thought she was a genius.

How are they making out? the folks would ask from time to time.

Just fine, I would say.

One day I announced that Stasia had been admitted to the Beaux Arts on a scholarship. That was to keep them quiet for a little while.

Meanwhile I cultivated the gardener. How refreshing it was to be in his company! His world was free of human strife and struggle; he had only to deal with weather, soil, bugs and genes. Whatever he put his hand to thrived. He moved in a realm of beauty and harmony where peace and order reigned. I envied him. How rewarding to devote all one’s time and energy to plants and trees! No jealousy, no rivalry, no pushing and shoving, no cheating, no lying. The pansy received the same attention as the rhododendron; the lilac was no better than the rose. Some plants were weak from birth, some flourished under any conditions. It was all fascinating to me, his observations on the nature of soil, the variety of fertilizers, the art of grafting. Indeed, the subject was an endless one. The role of the insect, for example, or the miracle of pollenization, the unceasing labors of the worm, the use and abuse of water, the varying lengths of growth, the sports, the nature of weeds and other pests, the struggle for survival, the invasions of locusts and grasshoppers, the divine service of the bees…

What a contrast, this man’s realm, to the one Tony moved in! Flowers versus politicians; beauty versus cunning and deceit. Poor Tony, he was trying so hard to keep his hands clean. Always kidding himself, or selling himself, on the idea that a public servant is a benefactor to his country. By nature loyal, just, honest, tolerant, he was disgusted with the tactics employed by his cronies. Once a senator, governor or whatever it was he dreamed of being, he would change things. He believed this so sincerely that I could no longer laugh at him. But it was tough sledding. Though he himself did nothing which pricked his conscience, he nevertheless had to close his eyes to deeds and practises which filled him with revolt. He had to spend money like water, too. Yet, in spite of the fact that he was heavily in debt, he had managed to make his parents a gift of the house they occupied. In addition he was putting his two younger brothers through college.

As he said one day—Henry, even if I wanted to get married I couldn’t. I can’t afford a wife.

One day, as he was telling me of his tribulations, he said: My best days were when I was president of that athletic club. You remember? No politics then. Say, do you remember when I ran the Marathon and had to be taken to the hospital? I was tops then. He looked down at his navel and rubbed his paunch. That’s from sitting up nights with the boys. Do you wonder sometimes why I’m late every day? I never get to bed till three or four in the morning. Fighting hangovers all the time. Gad, if my folks knew what I was doing to make a name for myself they’d disown me. That’s what comes from being an immigrant’s son. Being a dirty wop, I had to prove myself. Lucky you don’t suffer from ambition. All you want of life is to be a writer, eh? Don’t have to wade through a lot of shit to become a writer, do you?

Henry, me lad, sometimes it all looks hopeless to me. So I become President one day … so what? Think I could really change things? I don’t even believe it myself, to-be honest with you. You have no idea what a complicated racket this is. You’re beholden to every one, like it or not. Even Lincoln had to make compromises. And I’m no Lincoln. No, I’m just a Sicilian boy who, if the gods are kind, may get to Congress one day. Still, I have my dreams. That’s all you can have in this racket—dreams.

Yeah, that athletic club … people thought the world of me then. I was the shining light of the neighborhood. The shoemaker’s son who had risen from the bottom. When I got up to make a speech they were spellbound before I opened my mouth.

He paused to relight his cigar. He took a puff, made a grimace of disgust, and threw it away.

It’s all different now. Now I’m part of the machine. A yes man, for the most part. Biding my time and getting deeper in the hole each day. Man, if you had my problems you’d have gray hair by now. You don’t know what it is to keep the little integrity you have in the midst of all the temptation that surrounds you. One little misstep and you’re tabbed. Every one is trying to get something on the other fellow. That’s what holds them together, I guess. Such petty bastards, they are! I’m glad I never became a judge—because if I had to pass sentence on these pricks I’d be unmerciful. It beats me how a country can thrive on intrigue and corruption. There must be higher powers watching over this Republic of ours…

He stopped short. Forget it! he said. I’m just letting off steam. But maybe you can see now that I’m not sitting so pretty.

He rose and reached for his hat. By the way, how are you fixed? Need any more dough? Don’t be afraid to ask, if you do. Even if it’s for that wife of yours. How is she, by the way? Still in gay Paree?

I gave him a broad smile.

You’re lucky, Henry me boy. Lucky she’s there, not here. Gives you a breathing spell. She’ll be back, never fear. Maybe sooner than you think … Oh, by the way, I meant to tell you before … the Commissioner thinks you’re pretty good. So do I. Ta ta now!

Evenings after dinner I would usually take a walk—either in the direction of the Chinese Cemetery or the other way, the way that used to lead me past Una Gifford’s home. On the corner, posted like a sentinel, old man Martin took his stand every night, winter or summer. Hard to pass him without exchanging a word or two, usually about the evils of drink, tobacco and so on.

Sometimes I merely walked around the block, too dispirited to bother stretching my legs. Before retiring I might read a passage from the Bible. It was the only book in the house. A great sleepy time story book it is too. Only the Jews could have written it. A Goy gets lost in it, what with all the genealogical bitters, the incest, the mayhem, the numerology, the fratricide and parricide, the plagues, the abundance of food, wives, wars, assassinations, dreams, prophecies … No consecutivity. Only a divinity student can take it straight. It doesn’t add up. The Bible is the Old Testament plus the Apocrypha. The New Testament is a puzzle book—for Christians only.

Anyway, what I mean to say is that I had taken a fancy to the Book of Job. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. That was a sentence I liked; it suited my bitterness, my anguish. I particularly liked the rider—Declare, if thou hast understanding. No one has that kind of understanding. Jehovah wasn’t content to saddle Job with boils and other afflictions, he had to give him riddles too. Time and again, after a hassle and a snaffle with Kings, Judges, Numbers and other soporific sections dealing with cosmogony, circumcision and the woes of the damned, I would turn to Job and take comfort that I was not one of the chosen ones. In the end, if you remember, Job is squared off. My worries were trifling; they were hardly bigger than a piss pot.

A few days later, as they say, sometime in the afternoon I think it was, came the news that Lindbergh had safely flown the Atlantic. The whole force had poured out on to the lawn to shout and cheer and whistle and congratulate one another. All over the land there was this hysterical rejoicing. It was an Homeric feat and it had taken millions of years for an ordinary mortal to accomplish it.

My own enthusiasm was more contained. It had been slightly dampened by the receipt of a letter that very morning, a letter in which I was notified, so to speak, that she was on her way to Vienna with some friends. Dear Stasia, I learned, was somewhere in North Africa; she had gone off with that crazy Austrian who thought her so wonderful. The way she sounded one might believe that she had run off to Vienna to spite some one. No explanation, naturally, as to how she was accomplishing this miracle. I could easier understand Lindbergh’s conquest of the air than her journey to Vienna.

Twice I read the letter through in an effort to discover who her companions were. The solution of the mystery was simple: take the s away and read companion. I hadn’t the slightest doubt but that it was a rich, idle, young and handsome American who was acting as her escort. What irritated me the more was that she had failed to give an address in Vienna to which I might write her. I would simply have to wait. Wait and champ the bit.

Lindbergh’s magnificent victory over the elements only served to set my own wretched frustration in relief. Here I was cooped up in an office, performing nonsensical labors, deprived even of pocket money, receiving only meagre replies to my long, heart-rending letters, and she, she was gallivanting about, winging it from city to city like a bird of paradise. What sense was there in trying to get to Europe? How would I find a job there when I had such difficulties in my own country? And why pretend that she would be overjoyed to see me arrive?

The more I thought about the situation the more morose I grew. About five that afternoon, in a mood of utter despair, I sat down at the typewriter to outline the book I told myself I must write one day. My Domesday Book. It was like writing my own epitaph.

I wrote rapidly, in telegraphic style, commencing with the evening I first met her. For some inexplicable reason I found myself recording chronologically, and without effort, the long chain of events which filled the interval between that fateful evening and the present. Page after page I turned out, and always there was more to put down.

Hungry, I knocked off to walk to the Village and get a bite to eat. When I returned to the office I again sat down to the machine. As I wrote I laughed and wept. Though I was only making notes it seemed as if I were actually writing the book there and then; I relived the whole tragedy over again step by step, day by day.

It was long after midnight when I finished. Thoroughly exhausted, I lay down on the floor and went to sleep. I awoke early, walked to the Village again for a little nourishment, then strolled leisurely back to resume work for the day.

Later that day I read what I had written during the night. There were only a few insertions to be made. How did I ever remember so accurately the thousand and one details I had recorded? And, if these telegraphic notes were to be expanded into a book, would it not require several volumes to do justice to the subject? The very thought of the immensity of this task staggered me. When would I ever have the courage to tackle a work of such dimensions?

Musing thus, an appalling thought suddenly struck me. It was this—our love is ended. That could be the only meaning for planning such a work. I refused, however, to accept this conclusion. I told myself that my true purpose was merely to relate—merely!—the story of my misfortunes. But is it possible to write of one’s sufferings while one is still suffering? Abelard had done it, to be sure. A sentimental thought now intruded. I would write the book for her—to her—and in reading it she would understand, her eyes would be opened, she would help me bury the past, we would begin a new life, a life together … true togetherness.

How naive! As if a woman’s heart, once closed, can ever be opened again!

I squelched these inner voices, these inner promptings which only the Devil could inspire. I was more hungry than ever for her love, more desperate far than ever I had been. There came then the remembrance of a night years before when seated at the kitchen table (my wife upstairs in bed), I had poured my heart out to her in a desperate, suicidal appeal. And the letter had had its effect. I had reached her. Why then would a book not have an even greater effect? Especially a book in which the heart was laid bare? I thought of that letter which one of Hamsun’s characters had written to his Victoria, the one he penned with God looking over his shoulder. I thought of the letters which had passed between Abelard and Heloise and how time could never dim them. Oh, the power of the written word!

That evening, while the folks sat reading the papers, I wrote her a letter such as would have moved the heart of a vulture. (I wrote it at that little desk which had been given me as a boy.) I told her the plan of the book and how I had outlined it all in one uninterrupted session. I told her that the book was for her, that it was her. I told her that I would wait for her if it took a thousand years.

It was a colossal letter, and when I had finished I realized that I could not dispatch it—because she had forgotten to give me her address. A fury seized me. It was as if she had cut out my tongue. How could she have played such a scurvy trick on me? Wherever she was, in whomever’s arms, couldn’t she sense that I was struggling to reach her? In spite of the maledictions I heaped upon her my heart was saying I love you, I love you, I love you…

And as I crept into bed, repeating this idiotic phrase, I groaned. I groaned like a wounded grenadier.

11.

The following day, while rummaging through the waste basket in search of a missing letter, I ran across a crumpled letter which the Commissioner had obviously tossed there in disgust. The handwriting was thin and shaky, as if written by an old man, but legible despite the elaborate curlicues he delighted in employing. I took one glance at it, then slipped it into my pocket to read at leisure.

It was this letter, ridiculous and pathetic in its way, which saved me from eating my heart out. If the Commissioner had thrown it there then it must have been at the bidding of my guardian angel.

“Honourable Sir … it began, and with the very next words a weight was lifted from me. I found not only that I could laugh as of old, I found that I could laugh at myself, which was vastly more important.

Honourable Sir: I hope that you are well and enjoying good health during this very changeable weather that we are now having. I am quite well myself at the present time and I am glad to say so.

Then, without further ado, the author of this curious document launched into his arborico-solipsistic harangue. Here are his words…

I wish that you would do me a very kind-hearted and a very special favor and kindly have the men of the Park Department go around now and start by the Borough Lines of Queens and King’s Counties and work outward easterly and back westerly and likewise northerly and southerly and remove the numerous dead and dying trees, trees all open at the base part and in the trunk part and trees bending and leaning over and ready to fall down and do damage to human life, limb and property, and to give all the good trees both large and small sizes an extra good, thorough, proper, systematic and symmetrical pruning, trimming and paring off from the base to the very top parts and all through.

I wish that you would do me a very kind-hearted and very special favor and kindly have the men of the Park Department greatly reduce all the top-heavy and overgrown trees in height to a height of about 25 feet high and to have all the long boughs and branches shortened considerably in the length and all parts of the trees greatly thinned out from the base to the very top parts and thereby give a great deal more light, more natural light, more air, more beauty, and very much more safety to the pedestrians, the general thoroughfares and to the surroundings along by the streets, avenues, places, roadways, roads, highways, boulevards, terraces, parkways (streets called courts, lanes, etc.) and by the Parks inside and outside.

I would greatly, kindly and very urgently request that the boughs and branches be pruned, trimmed and pared off at a distance of from twelve to fifteen feet from the front, side and rear walls of all houses and other buildings of every description and not allow them to come in contact with them as a great many of them are very much marred by them coming in contact with them, and thereby give a great deal more light, more natural light, more air, more beauty and very much more safety.

I wish that you would kindly have the men of the Park Department prune, trim and pare off the boughs and branches at a distance of from twelve to sixteen feet above the sidewalks, flaggings, grounds, curbs, etc. and not allow them to keep drooping away down low as a great many of them are now doing and thereby give plenty of height to walk beneath the same…

It went on and on in this vein, always detailed and explicit, the style never varying. One more paragraph—. I wish that you would kindly have the boughs and branches pruned, trimmed and pared off and down considerably below the roofs of the houses and other buildings and not allow them to protrude over, lap over, lay over, cross over or come in contact with the houses and other buildings and to have the boughs and branches greatly separated between each and every tree and not allow the boughs and branches to lap over, lay over, cross over, entwine, hug, cluster or come in contact with the adjoining trees and thereby give a great deal more light, more natural light, more air, more beauty and very much more safety to the pedestrians, the thoroughfares and to the general surroundings around by all parts of Queens County, New York…

As I say, upon finishing the letter I felt thoroughly relaxed, at ease with the world, and extremely indulgent toward my own precious self. It was as if some of that light—that more natural light—had invaded my being. I was no longer enveloped in a fog of despair. There was more air, more light, more beauty to all the surroundings: my inner surroundings.

Come Saturday noon therefore, I made straight for Manhattan Isle; at Times Square I rose to the surface, snatched a quick bite at the Automat, then swung my prow round in the direction of the nearest all out dance hall. It didn’t occur to me that I was repeating a pattern which had brought me to my present low state. Only when I pushed my way through the immense portals of the Itchigumi Dance Palace on the ground floor of a demented looking building this side of the Cafe Mozambique did it come over me that it was in a mood similar to the one which now claimed me that I had staggered up the steep rickety stairs of another Broadway dance hall and there found the beloved. Since those days my mind was utterly free of these pay as you go joints and the angels of mercy who soberly fleece their sex-starved patrons. All I thought of now was a few hours of escape from boredom, a few hours of forgetfulness—and to get it as cheaply as possible. There was no fear in me of falling in love again or even of getting a lay, though that I needed bad. I merely craved to become like any ordinary mortal, a jelly-fish, if you like, in the ocean of drift. I asked for nothing more than to be swished and sloshed about in an eddying pool of fragrant flesh under a subaqueous rainbow of subdued and intoxicating lights.

Entering the place I felt like a farmer come to town. Immediately I was dazzled, dazzled by the sea of faces, by the fetid warmth radiating from hundreds of over-excited bodies, by the blare of the orchestra, by the kaleidoscopic whirl of lights. Every one was keyed to fever pitch, it seemed. Every one looked intent and alert, intensely intent, intensely alert. The air crackled with this electric desire, this all-consuming concentration. A thousand different perfumes clashed with one another, with the heat of the hall, with the sweat and perspiration, the fever, the lust of the inmates, for they were very definitely, it seemed to me, inmates of one kind or another. Inmates perhaps of the vaginal vestibule of love. Icky inmates, advancing upon one another with lips parted, with dry, hot lips, hungry lips, lips that trembled, that begged, that whimpered, that beseeched, that chewed and macerated other lips. Sober too, all of them. Stone sober. Too sober, indeed. Sober as criminals about to pull off a job. All converging upon one another in a huge, swirling cake mould, the colored lights playing over their faces, their busts, their haunches, cutting them to ribbons in which they became entangled and enmeshed, yet always skilfully extricating themselves as they whirled about, body to body, cheek to cheek, lip to lip.

I had forgotten what it was like, this dance mania. Too much alone, too close to my grief, too ravaged by thought. Here was abandon with its nameless face and prune-whipped dreams. Here was the land of twinkling toes, of satiny buttocks, of let your hair down, Miss Victoria Nyanza, for Egypt is no more, nor Babylon, nor Gehenna. Here the baboons in full rut swim the belly of the Nile seeking the end of all things; here are the ancient maenads, re-born to the wail of sax and muted horn; here the mummies of the skyscrapers take out their inflamed ovaries and air them, while the incessant play of music poisons the pores, drugs the mind, opens the sluice gates. With the sweat and perspiration, with the sickening, overpowering reek of perfumes and deodorants all discreetly sucked up by the ventilators, the electric odor of lust hung like a halo suspended in space.

Walking up and down beside the Hershey Almond bars stacked one upon another like precious ingots, I rub against the pack. A thousand smiles are raining from every direction; I lift my face as if to catch the shimmering dew drops dispersed by a gentle breeze. Smiles, smiles. As if it weren’t life and death, a race to the womb and back again. Flutter and frou-frou, camphor and fish balls, Omega oil … wings spread full preen, limbs bare to the touch, palms moist, foreheads glistening, lips parched, tongues hanging out, teeth gleaming like the advertisements, eyes bright, roving, stripping one bare … piercing, penetrating eyes, some searching for gold, some for fuck, some to kill, but all bright, shamelessly, innocently bright like the lion’s red maw, and pretending, yes, pretending, that it’s a Saturday afternoon, a floor like any other floor, a cunt’s a cunt, no tickee no fuckee, buy me, take me, squeeze me, all’s well in Itchigumi, don’t step on me, isn’t it warm, yes, I love it, I do love it, bite me again, harder, harder…

Weaving in and out, sizing them up—height, weight, texture—rubbing flanks together, measuring bosoms, bottoms, waists, studying hair-dos, noses, stances, devouring mouths half open, closing others … weaving, sidling, pushing, rubbing, and everywhere a sea of faces, a sea of flesh carved by scimitar strokes of light, the whole pack glued together in one vast terspichorean stew. And over this hot conglomerate flesh whirling in the cake bowl the smear of brasses, the wail of trombones, the coagulating saxophones, the piercing trumpets, all like liquid fire going straight to the glands. On the sidelines, standing like thirsty sentinels, huge upturned jugs of orangeade, lemonade, sarsparilla, coca-cola, root beer, the milk of she-asses and the pulp of wilted anemones. Above it all the almost inaudible hum of the ventilators sucking up the sour, rancid odor of flesh and perfume, passing it out over the heads of the passing throngs in the street.

Find some one! That was all I could think. But whom? I milled around and milled around, but nothing suited me. Some were wonderful, ravishing—as ass, so to say. I wanted something more. It was a bazaar, a bazaar of flesh—why not pick and choose? Most of them had the empty look of the empty souls they were. And why not, handling nothing but goods, money, labels, buttons, dishes, bills of lading, day in and day out? Should they have personality too? Some, like rapacious birds of the air, had that nondescript look of wrack tossed in by a storm—neither sluts, whores, shop girls nor griseldas. Some stood like wilted flowers or like canes draped in wet towels. Some, pure as chick-weed, looked as though they were hoping to be raped but not seriously damaged. The good live bait was on the floor, wiggling, wriggling, their eloquent haunches gleaming like moire.

In a corner beside the ticket booth the hostesses were collected. Bright and fresh they were, as if they had just stepped out of the tub. All beautifully coiffed, beautifully frocked. Waiting to be bought and, if luck would have it, wined and dined. Waiting for the right guy to come along, that jaded millionaire who in a moment of forgetfulness might propose marriage.

Standing at the rail I surveyed them coolly. If it were the Yoshiwara now … If when you glanced their way they would undress, make a few obscene gestures, call to you in a raucous voice. But the Itchigumi follows a different program. It suggests that you very kindly and sincerely pick the flower of your choice, lead her to the center of the floor, bill and coo, nibble and gobble, wiggle and woggle, buy more tickets, take girl have drink, speak correctly, come again next week, choose ‘nother pretty flower, thank you kindly, good-night.

The music stops for a few moments and the dancers melt like snow-flakes. A girl in a pale yellow dress is gliding back to the slave booth. She looks Cuban. Rather short, well built, and with a mouth that’s insatiable.

I wait a moment to give her a chance to dry off, as it were, then approach. She looks eighteen and fresh from the jungle. Ebony and ivory. Her greeting is warm and natural—no ready-made smile, no cash register business. She’s new at the game, I find, and she is a Cuban. (How wonderful!) In short, she doesn’t mind too much being pawed over, chewed to bits, etcetera; she’s still mixing pleasure with business.

Pushed to the center of the floor, wedged in, we remain there moving like caterpillars, the censor fast asleep, the lights very low, the music creeping like a paid whore from chromosome to chromosome. The orgasm arrives and she pulls away for fear her dress will be stained.

Back at the barricade I’m trembling like a leaf. All I can smell now is cunt, cunt, cunt. No use dancing any more this afternoon. Must come again next Saturday. Why not?

And that’s exactly what I do do. On the third Saturday I run into a newcomer at the slave booth. She has a marvelous body, and her face, chipped here and there like an ancient statue, excites me. She has a trifle more intelligence than the others, which is no detriment, and she’s not hungry for money. That is simply extraordinary.

When she’s not working I take her to a movie or to a cheap dance hall in some other neighborhood. Makes no difference to her where we go. Just bring a little booze along, that’s all. Not that she wants to go blotto, no … it makes things smoother, she thinks. She’s a country girl from up-State.

Never any tension in her presence. Laughs easily, enjoys everything. When I take her home—she lives in a boarding house—we have to stand in the hallway and make as best we can. A nerve-racking business, what with the boarders coming and going all night long.

Sometimes, on leaving her, I ask myself how come I never hitched up with this sort, the easy going type, instead of the difficult ones? This gal hasn’t an ounce of ambition; nothing bothers her, nothing worries her. She doesn’t even worry about getting caught, as the saying goes. (Probably skillful with the darning needle.)

It doesn’t take much thinking to realize that the reason I’m immune is because I’d be bored stiff in no time.

Anyway, there’s little danger of my linking up with her in solid fashion. I’m a boarder myself, one not above pilfering change from the landlady’s purse.

I said she had a marvelous physique, this fly by night. It’s true. She was full and supple, limber, smooth as a seal. When I ran my hands over her buttocks it was enough to make me forget all my problems, Nietzsche, Stirner, Bakunin as well. As for her mug, if it wasn’t exactly beautiful, it was attractive and arresting. Perhaps her nose was a trifle long, a trifle thick, but it suited her personality, suited that laughing cunt of hers, is what I mean. But the moment I began to make comparison between her body and Mona’s I knew it was useless to go into it. Whatever flesh and blood qualities she had, this one, they remained flesh and blood. There was nothing more to her than what you could see and touch, hear and smell. With Mona it was another story entirely. Any portion of her body served to inflame me. Her personality was as much in her left teat, so to speak, as in her little right toe. The flesh spoke from every quarter, every angle. Strangely, hers was not a perfect body either. But it was melodious and provocative. Her body echoed her moods. She had no need to flaunt it or fling it about; she had only to inhabit it, to be it.

There was also this about Mona’s body—it was constantly changing. How well I remember those days when we lived with the doctor and his family in the Bronx, when we always took a shower together, soaped one another, hugged one another, fucked as best we could—under the shower—while the cockroaches streamed up and down the walls like armies in full rout. Her body then, though I loved it, was out of line. The flesh drooped from her waist like folds, the breasts hung loose, the buttocks were too flat, too boyish. Yet that same body, draped in a stiff poker dot Swiss dress, had all the charm and allure of a soubrette’s. The neck was full, a columnar neck, I always called it, and it suited the rich, dark, vibrant voice which issued from it. As the months and years went by this body went through all manner of changes. At times it grew taut, slender, drum-like. Almost too taut, too slender. And then it would change again, each change registering her inner transformation, her fluctuations, her moods, longings and frustrations. But always it remained provocative—fully alive, responsive, tingling, pulsing with love, tenderness, passion. Each day it seemed to speak a new language.

What power then could the body of another exert? At the most only a feeble, transitory one. I had found the body, no other was necessary. No other would ever fully satisfy me. No, the laughing kind was not for me. One penetrated that sort of body like a knife going through cardboard. What I craved was the elusive. (The elusive basilisk, is how I put it to myself.) The elusive and the insatiable at the same time. A body like Mona’s own, which, the more one possessed it the more one became possessed. A body which could bring with it all the woes of Egypt—and its wonders, its marvels.

I tried another dance hall. Everything was perfect—music, lights, girls, even the ventilators. But never did I feel more loneliness, more desolation. In desperation I danced with one after another, all responsive, yielding, ductile, malleable, all gracious, lovely, satiny and dusky, but a despair had come over me, a weight which crushed me. As the afternoon wore on a feeling of nausea seized me. The music particularly revolted me. How many thousand times had I heard these pale, feeble, utterly idiotic tunes with their sickening words of endearment! The offspring of pimps and narks who had never known the pangs of love. Embryonic, I kept repeating to myself. The music of embryos made for embryos. The sloth calling to its mate in five feet of sewer water; the weasel weeping for his lost one and drowning in his own pipi. Romance, of the copulation of the violet and the stink-wort. I love you! Written on fine, silky toilet paper stroked by a thousand super-fine combs. Rhymes invented by mangy pederasts; lyrics by Albumen and his mates. Pfui!

Fleeing the place I thought of the African records I once owned, thought of the blood beat, steady and incessant, which animated their music. Only the steady, recurring, pounding rhythm of sex—but how refreshing, how pure, how innocent!

I was in such a state that I felt like pulling out my cock, right in the middle of Broadway, and jerking off. Imagine a sex maniac pulling out his prick—on a Saturday afternoon!—in full view of the Automat!

Fuming and raging, I strolled over to Central Park and flung myself on the grass. Money gone, what was there to do? The dance mania … I was still thinkin’ on it. Still climbing that steep flight of steps to the ticket booth where the hairy Greek sat and grabbed the money. (Yes, she’ll be here soon; why don’t you dance with one of the other girls?) Often she didn’t show up at all. In a corner, on a dais, the colored musicians working like fury, sweating, panting, wheezing; grinding it out hour after hour with scarcely a let up. No fun in it for them, not for the girls either, even though they did wet their pants occasionally. One had to be screwy to patronize such a dive.

Giving way to a feeling of delicious drowsiness, I was on the point of closing my eyes when out of nowhere a ravishing young woman appeared and seated herself on a knoll just above me. Perhaps she was unaware that, in the position she had assumed, her private parts were fully exposed to view. Perhaps she didn’t care. Perhaps it was her way of smiling at me, or winking. There was nothing brazen or vulgar about her; she was like some great soft creature of the air who had come to rest from her flight.

She was so utterly oblivious of my presence, so still, so wrapped in reverie, that incredible as it may seem, I closed my eyes and dozed off. The next thing I knew I was no longer on this earth. Just as it takes time to grow accustomed to the after-world, so it was in my dream. The strangest thing to get used to was the fact that nothing I wished to do required the least effort. If I wished to run, whether slow or fast, I did so without losing breath. If I wanted to jump a lake or skip over a hill, I simply jumped. If I wanted to fly, I flew. There was nothing more to it than that, whatever I attempted.

After a time I realized that I was not alone. Some one was at my side, like a shadow, moving with the same ease and assurance as myself. My guardian angel, most likely. Though I encountered nothing resembling earthly creatures, I found myself conversing, effortlessly again, with whatever crossed my path. If it was an animal, I spoke to it in its own tongue; if it was a tree, I spoke in the language of the tree; if a rock, I spoke as a rock. I attributed this gift of tongues to the presence of the being which accompanied me.

But to what realm was I being escorted? And for what end?

Slowly I became aware that I was bleeding, that indeed I was a mass of wounds, from head to foot. It was then that, seized with fright, I swooned away. When at last I opened my eyes I saw to my astonishment that the Being who had accompanied me was tenderly bathing my wounds, anointing my body with oil. Was I at the point of death? Was it the Angel of Mercy whose figure was solicitously bent over me? Or had I already crossed the Great Divide?

Imploringly I gazed into the eyes of my Comforter. The ineffable look of compassion which illumined her features reassured me. I was no longer concerned to know whether I was still of this world or not. A feeling of peace invaded my being, and again I closed my eyes. Slowly and steadily a new vigor poured into my limbs; except for a strange feeling of emptiness in the region of the heart I felt completely restored.

It was after I had opened my eyes and found that I was alone, though not deserted, not abandoned, that instinctively I raised a hand and placed it over my heart. To my horror there was a deep hole where the heart should have been. A hole from which no blood flowed. Then I am dead, I murmured. Yet I believed it not.

At this strange moment, dead but not dead, the doors of memory swung open and down through the corridors of time I beheld that which no man should be permitted to see until he is ready to give up the ghost: I saw in every phase and moment of his pitiful weakness the utter wretch I had been, the blackguard, nothing less, who had striven so vainly and ignominiously to protect his miserable little heart. I saw that it never had been broken, as I imagined, but that, paralyzed by fear, it had shrunk almost to nothingness. I saw that the grievous wounds which had brought me low had all been received in a senseless effort to prevent this shriveled heart from breaking. The heart itself had never been touched; it had dwindled from disuse.

It was gone now, this heart, taken from me, no doubt, by the Angel of Mercy. I had been healed and restored so that I might live on in death as I had never lived in life. Vulnerable no longer, what need was there for a heart?

Lying there prone, with all my strength and vigor returned, the enormity of my fate smote me like a rock. The sense of the utter emptiness of existence overwhelmed me. I had achieved invulnerability, it was mine forever, but life—if this was life—had lost all meaning. My lips moved as if in prayer but the feeling to express anguish failed me. Heartless, I had lost the power to communicate, even with my Creator.

Now, once again, the Angel appeared before me. In her hands, cupped like a chalice, she held the poor, shrunken Semblance of a heart which was mine. Bestowing upon me a look of the utmost compassion, she blew upon this dead looking ember until it swelled and filled with blood, until it palpitated between her fingers like a live, human heart.

Restoring it to its place, her lips moved as if pronouncing the benediction, but no sound issued forth. My transgressions had been forgiven; I was free to sin again, free to burn with the flame of the spirit. But in that moment I knew, and would never, never more forget, that it is the heart which rules, the heart which binds and protects. Nor would it ever die, this heart, for its keeping was in greater hands.

What joy now possessed me! What complete and absolute trust!

Rising to my feet, a new being entire, I put forth my arms to embrace the world. Nothing had changed; it was the world I had always known. But I saw it now with other eyes. I no longer sought to escape it, to shun its ills, or alter it in any least way. I was fully of it and one with it. I had come through the valley of the shadow of death; I was no longer ashamed to be human, all-too-human.

I had found my place. I belonged. My place was in the world, in the midst of death and corruption. For companions I had the sun, the moon, the stars. My heart, cleansed of its inquiries, had lost all fear; it ached now to offer itself to the first comer. Indeed, I had the impression that I was all heart, a heart which could never be broken, nor even wounded, since it was forever inseparable from that which had given it birth.

And so, as I walked forward and onward into the thick of the world, there where full havoc had been wreaked and panic alone reigned, I cried out with all the fervor which my soul possessed—Take heart, O brothers and sisters! Take heart!

12.

On arriving at the office Monday morning I found a cablegram lying on my desk. In black and white it said that her boat was arriving Thursday, I should meet her at the pier.

I said nothing to Tony, he’d only view it as a calamity. I kept repeating the message to myself over and over; it seemed almost unbelievable.

It took hours for me to collect myself. As I was leaving the office that evening I looked at the message once again to be certain I had not misread it. No, she was arriving Thursday, no mistake about it. Yes, this coming Thursday, not the next Thursday nor the last. This Thursday. It was incredible.

The first thing to do was to find a place to live. A cosy little room somewhere, and not too expensive. It meant I would have to borrow again. From whom? Certainly not from Tony.

The folks weren’t exactly overjoyed to hear the news. My mother’s sole comment was—I hope you won’t give up your job now that she’s returning.

Thursday came and I was at the pier, an hour ahead of time. It was one of the fast German liners she had taken. The boat arrived, a little late, the passengers disembarked, the luggage melted from sight, but no sign of Mona or Stasia. Panicky, I rushed to the office where the passenger list was held. Her name was not on the list, nor Stasia’s either.

I returned to the little room I had rented, my heart heavy as lead. Surely she could have sent me a message. It was cruel, utterly cruel, of her.

Next morning, shortly after arriving at the office, I received a phone call from the telegraph office. They had a cablegram, for me. Read it! I yelled. (The dopes, what were they waiting for?)

Message: Arriving Saturday on Berengaria. Love.

This time it was the real Me Coy. I watched her coming down the gang-plank. Her, her. And more ravishing than ever. In addition to a small tin trunk she had a valise and a hat bag crammed with stuff. But where was Stasia?

Stasia was still in Paris. Couldn’t say when she’d return.

Wonderful! thought I to myself. No need to make further inquiries.

In the taxi, when I told her about the room I had taken, she seemed delighted. We’ll find a better place later, she remarked. (Christ, no! said I to myself. Why a better place?)

There were a thousand questions I was dying to put her but I checked myself. I didn’t even ask why she had changed boats. What did it matter what had happened yesterday, a month ago, five years ago? She was back—that was enough.

There was no need to ask questions—she was bursting to tell me things. I had to beg her to slow down, not let it all out at once. Save some for later, I said.

While she was rummaging through the trunk—she had brought back all manner of gifts, including paintings, carvings, art albums—I couldn’t resist making love to her. We went at it on the floor amidst the papers, books, paintings, clothing, shoes and what not. But even this interruption couldn’t check the flow of talk. There was so much to tell, so many names to reel off. It sounded to my ears like a mad jumble.

Tell me one thing, said I, stopping her abruptly. Are you sure 7 would like it over there?

Her face took on an absolutely ecstatic expression. Like it? Val, it’s what you’ve dreamed of all your life. You belong there. Even more than I. It has everything you are searching for and never will find here. Everything.

She launched into it again—the streets, how they looked, the crooked winding ones, the alleys, the impasses, the charming little places, the great wide avenues, such as those radiating from the Etoile; then the markets, the butcher shops, the book stalls, the bridges, the bicycle cops, the cafes, the cabarets, the public gardens, the fountains, even the urinals. On and on, like a Cook’s tour. All I could do was roll my eyes, shake my head, clap my hands. If it’s only half as good, thought I to myself, it will be marvelous.

There was one sour note: the French women. They were decidedly not beautiful, she wanted me to know. Attractive, yes. But not beauties, like our American women. The men, on the other hand, were interesting and alive, though hard to get rid of. She thought I would like the men, though she hoped I wouldn’t acquire their habits, where women were concerned. They had a medieval conception of woman, she thought. A man had the right to beat a woman up in public. It’s horrible to see, she exclaimed. No one dares to interfere. Even the cops look the other way.

I took this with a grain of salt, the customary one. A woman’s view. As for the American beauty business, America could keep her beauties. They had never had any attraction for me.

We’ve got to go back, she said, forgetting that we had not gone there together. It’s the only life for you, Val. You’ll write there, I promise you. Even if we starve. No one seems to have money there. Yet they get by—how, I can’t say. Anyway, being broke there is not the same as being broke here. Here it’s ugly. There it’s … well, romantic, I guess you’d say. But we’re not going to be broke when we go back. We’ve got to work hard now, save our money, so that we can have at least two or three years of it when we do go.

It was good to hear her talk so earnestly about work. The next day, Sunday, we spent walking, talking. Nothing but plans for the future. To economize, she decided to look for a place where we could cook. Something more homelike than the hall bedroom I had rented. A place where you can work, was how she put it.

The pattern was all too familiar. Let her do as she likes, I thought. She will anyway.

It must be terribly boring, that job, she remarked.

It’s not too bad. I knew what the next line would be.

You’re not going to keep it forever, I hope?

No, dear. Soon I’ll get down to writing again.

Over there, she said, people seem to manage better than here. And on much less. If a man is a painter he paints; if he’s a writer he writes. No putting things off until all’s rosy. She paused, thinking no doubt that I would show skepticism. I know, Val, she continued, with a change of voice, I know that you hate to see me do the things I do in order to make ends meet. I don’t like it myself. But you can’t work and write, that’s clear. If some one has to make a sacrifice, let it be me. Frankly, it’s no sacrifice, what I do. All I live for is to see you do what you want to do. You should trust me, trust me to do what’s best for you. Once we get to Europe things will work out differently. You’ll blossom there, I know it. This is such a meagre, paltry life we lead here. Do you realize, Val, that you’ve hardly got a friend any more whom you care to see? Doesn’t that tell you something? There you have only to take a seat in a cafe and you make friends instantly. Besides, they talk the things you like to talk. Ulric’s the only friend you ever talk to that way. With the rest you’re just a buffoon. Now that’s true, isn’t it?

I had to admit it was only too true. Talking this way, heart to heart, made me feel that perhaps she did know better than I what was good for me and what wasn’t. Never was I more eager to find a happy solution to our problems. Especially the problem of working in harness. The problem of seeing eye to eye.

She had returned with just a few cents in her purse. It was the lack of money which had to do with the last minute change of boats, so she said. There was more to it than this, of course, and she did make further explanations, elaborate ones, but it was all so hurried and jumbled that I couldn’t keep up with it. What did surprise me was that in no time at all she had found new quarters for us to move to—on one of the most beautiful streets in all Brooklyn. She had found exactly the right place, had paid a month’s rent in advance, rented me a typewriter, filled the larder, and God knows what all. I was curious to know how she came by the dough.

Don’t ask me, she said. There’ll be more when we need it.

I thought of my lame efforts to scrounge a few measly dollars. And of the debt I still owed Tony.

You know, she said, every one’s so happy to see me back they can’t refuse me anything.

Every one. I translated that to mean some one.

I knew the next thing would be—Do quit that horrid job!

Tony knew it too. I know you won’t be staying with us much longer, he said one day. In a way I envy you. When you do leave see that we don’t lose track of one another. I’ll miss you, you bastard.

I tried to tell him how much I had appreciated all he had done for me, but he brushed it off. You’d do the same, he said, if you were in my place. Seriously, though, are you going to settle down and write now? I hope so. We can get grave-diggers any day, but not a writer. Eh what?

Hardly a week elapsed before I said good-bye to Tony. It was the last I ever saw of him. I did pay him off, eventually, but in driblets. Others to whom I was indebted only got theirs fifteen or twenty years later. A few had died before I got round to them. Such is life—the university of life, as Gorky called it.

The new quarters were divine. Rear half of a second floor in an old brown-stone house. Every convenience, including soft rugs, thick woolen blankets, refrigerator, bath and shower, huge pantry, electric stove, and so on. As for the landlady, she was absolutely taken with us. A Jewess with liberal ideas and passionately fond of art. To have a writer and an actress—Mona had given that as her profession—was a double triumph for her. Up until her husband’s sudden death she had been a school teacher—with leanings toward authorship. The insurance she had collected on her husband’s death had enabled her to give up teaching. She hoped that soon she would get started with her writing. Maybe I could give her some valuable hints—when I had time, that is.

From every angle the situation was ducky. How long would it last? That was ever the question in my mind. More than anything it did me good to see Mona arrive each afternoon with her shopping bag full. So good to see her change, don an apron, cook the dinner. The picture of a happily wedded wife. And while the meal was cooking a new phonograph record to listen to—always something exotic, something I could never afford to buy myself. After dinner an excellent liqueur, with coffee. Now and then a movie to round it off. If not, a walk through the aristocratic neighborhood surrounding us. Indian Summer, in every sense of the word.

And so, when in a burst of confidence one day she informed me that there was a rich old geezer who had taken a fancy to her, who believed in her—as a writer!—I listened patiently and without the least show of disturbance or irritation.

The reason for this burst of confidence was soon revealed. If she could prove to this admirer—wonderful how she could vary the substantive!—that she could write a book, a novel, for example, he would see to it that it got published. What’s more, he offered to pay a rather handsome weekly stipend while the writing of it was in process. He expected, of course, to be shown a few pages a week. Only fair, what?

And that’s not all, Val. But the rest I’ll tell you later, when you’ve gotten on with the book. It’s hard not to tell you, believe rue, but you must trust me. What have you to say?

I was too surprised to know what to think.

Can you do it?

Will you do it?

I can try. But—.

But what, Val?

Wouldn’t he be able to tell straight off that it’s a man’s writing and not a woman’s?

No, Val, he wouldn’t I came the prompt reply.

How do you know? How can you be so sure?

Because I’ve already put him to the test. He’s read some of your work—I passed it off as mine, of course—and he never suspected a thing.

So-o-o. Hmmm. You don’t miss a trick, do you?

If you’d like to know, he was extremely interested. Said there was no doubt I had talent. He was going to show the pages to a publisher friend of his. Does that satisfy you?

But a novel … do you honestly think I can write a novel?

Why not? You can do anything you put your mind to. It doesn’t have to be a conventional novel. All he’s concerned about is to discover if I have stick-to-it-iveness. He says I’m erratic, unstable, capricious.

By the way, I put in, does he know where we … I mean you…. live?

Of course not! Do you think I’m crazy? I told him I’m living with my mother and that she’s an invalid.

What does he do for a living?

He’s in the fur business, I think. As she was giving me this answer I was thinking how interesting it would be to know how she became acquainted with him and even more, how she had managed to progress so far in such a short time. But to such queries I would only receive the moon is made of green cheese replies.

He also plays the stock market, she added. He probably has a number of irons in the fire.

So he thinks you’re a single woman living with an invalid mother?

I told him I had been married and divorced. I gave him my stage name.

Sounds like you’ve got it all sewed up. Well, at least you won’t have to be running around nights, will you?

To which she replied: He’s like you, he hates the Village and all that bohemian nonsense. Seriously, Val, he’s a person of some culture. He’s passionate about music, for one thing. He once played the violin, I believe.

Yeah? And what do you call him, this old geezer?

Pop.

Pop?

Yes, just Pop.

How old is he … about?

Oh, fiftyish, I suppose.

That’s not so very old, is it?

No-o-o. But he’s settled in his ways. He seems older.

Well, I said, by way of closing the subject, it’s all highly interesting. Who knows, maybe it will lead to something. Let’s go for a walk, what do you say?

Certainly, she said. Anything you like.

Anything you like. That was an expression I hadn’t heard from her lips in many a moon. Had the trip to Europe worked a magical change? Or was there something cooking that she wasn’t ready to tell about just yet? I wasn’t eager to cultivate doubts. But there was the past with all its tell tale scars. This proposition of Pop’s now—it all seemed above board, genuine. And obviously entered into for my sake, not hers. What if it did give her a thrill to be taken for a writer instead of an actress? She was doing it to get me started. It was her way of solving my problem.

There was one aspect of the situation which intrigued me vastly. I got hep to it later, on hearing her report certain conversations which she had had with Pop. Conversations dealing with her work. Pop was not altogether a fool, apparently. He would ask questions. Difficult ones sometimes. And she, not being a writer, could hardly be expected to know that, faced with a direct question—Why did you say this?—the answer might well be: I don’t know. Thinking that she should know, she would give the most amazing explanations, explanations which a writer might be proud of had he the wits to think that fast. Pop relished these responses. After all, he was no writer either.

Tell me more! I would say.

And she would, though much of it was probably fictive. I would sit back and roar with laughter. Once I was so delighted that I remarked—How do you know you might not also be a writer?

Oh no, Val, not me. I’ll never be a writer. I’m an actress, nothing more.

You mean you’re a fake?

I mean I have no real talent for anything.

You didn’t always think that way, I said, somewhat pained to have forced such an admission from her.

I did too! she flashed. I became an actress … or rather I went on the stage … only to prove to my parents that I was more than they thought me to be. I didn’t really love the theatre. I was terrified every time I accepted a role. I felt like a cheat. When I say I’m an actress I mean that I’m always making believe. I’m not a real actress, you know that. Don’t you always see through me? You see through everything that’s false or pretentious. I wonder sometimes how you can bear to live with me. Honestly I do…

Strange talk, from her lips. Even now, in being so honest, so sincere, she was acting. She was making believe now that she was only a make believer. Like so many women with histrionic talent, when her real self was in question she either belittled herself or magnified herself.

She could only be natural when she wished to make an impression on some one. It was her way of disarming the adversary.

What I wouldn’t have given to overhear some of these conversations with Pop! Particularly when they discussed writing. Her writing. Who knows? Maybe the old geezer, as she reluctantly called him, did see through her. Maybe he only pretended to be testing her (with this writing chore) in order to make it easier for her to accept the money he showered on her. Possibly he thought that by permitting her to think she was earning this money he would save himself embarrassment. From what I gathered, he was scarcely the type to openly suggest that she become his mistress. She never said so squarely but she insinuated that physically he was somewhat repulsive. (How else would a woman put it?) But to continue the thought … By flattering her ego—and what could be more flattering to a woman of her type than to be taken seriously as an artist?—perhaps she would assume the role of mistress without being asked. Out of sheer gratitude. A woman, when truly grateful for the attentions she receives, nearly always offers her body.

The chances were, of course, that she was giving value for value, and had been from the very beginning.

Speculations of this order in no way disturbed the smooth relationship we had established. When things are going right it’s amazing how far the mind can travel without doing damage to the spirit.

I enjoyed our walks after dinner. It was a new thing in our life, these walks. We talked freely, more spontaneously. The fact that we had money in our pockets also helped; it enabled us to think and talk about other things than our usual sad predicament. The streets roundabout were wide, elegant, expansive. The old mansions, gracefully gone to seed, slept in the dust of time. There was still an air of grandeur about them. Fronting some of them were iron Negroes, the hitching posts of former days.

The driveways were shaded by arbors, the old trees rich in foliage; the lawns, always neat and trim, sparkled with an electric green. Above all, a serene stillness enveloped the streets; one could hear footsteps a block away.

It was an, atmosphere which was conducive to writing. From the back windows of our quarters I looked out upon a beautiful garden in which there were two enormous shade trees. Through the open window there often floated up the strains of good music. Now and then there came to my ears the voice of a cantor—Sirota or Rosenblatt usually—for the landlady had discovered that I adored synagogue music. Sometimes she would knock at the door to offer me a piece of home-made pie or a strudel she had baked. She would take a lingering look at my work table, always strewn with books and papers, and rush away, grateful, it seemed, for the privilege for having had a peek into a writer’s den.

It was on one of our evening walks that we stopped off at the corner stationery store, where they served ice cream and sodas, to get cigarettes. It was an old time establishment run by a Jewish family. Immediately I entered I took a fancy to the place; it had that faded, somnolescent air of the little shops I used to patronize as a boy when looking for a chocolate cream drop or a bag of Spanish peanuts. The owner of the place was seated at a table in a dim corner of the store, playing chess with a friend. The way they were hunched over the board reminded me of celebrated paintings, Cezanne’s card players particularly. The heavy man with gray hair and a huge cap pulled down over his eyes continued to study the board while the owner waited on us.

We got our cigarettes, then decided to have some ice cream.

Don’t let me keep you from your game, said I, when we had been served. I know what it is to be interrupted in a chess game.

So you play?

Yes, but poorly. I’ve wasted many a night at it. Then, though I had no intention of detaining him, I threw out a few remarks about Second Avenue, of the chess club I once haunted there, of the Cafe” Royal, and so on.

The man with the big cap now got up and approached us. It was the way he greeted us which made me realize that he had taken us for Jews. It gave me a warm feeling.

So you also play chess? he said. That’s fine. Why don’t you join us?

Not to-night, I replied. We’re out for a breath of air.

Are you living in the neighborhood?

Right up the street, I replied. I gave him the address.

Why that’s Mrs. Skolsky’s house, he said. I know her well. I’ve got a gents’ furnishing shop a block or so away … on Myrtle Avenue. Why don’t you drop in some time?

With this he extended his hand and said: Essen’s the name. Sid Essen. He then shook hands with Mona.

We gave our names and again he shook hands with us. He seemed strangely delighted. You’re not a Jew, then? he said.

No, said I, but I often pass for one.

But your wife, she’s Jewish, isn’t she? He looked at Mona intently.

No, I said, she’s part Gypsy, part Roumanian. From Bukovina.

Wonderful! he exclaimed. Abe, where are those cigars? Pass the box to Mr. Miller, will you? He turned to Mona. And what about some pastry for the Missus?

Your chess game … I said.

Drat it! he said. We were only killing time. It’s a pleasure to talk to some one like you—and your charming wife. She’s an actress, isn’t she?

I nodded.

I could tell at a glance, he said.

It was thus the conversation began. We must have gone on talking for an hour or more. What intrigued him, evidently, was my fondness for things Jewish. I had to promise that I would look him up at his store soon. We could have a game of chess there, if I felt like it. He explained that the place had become like a morgue. He didn’t know why he held on to the place—there was only a handful of customers left. Then, as we shook hands again, he said he hoped we would do him the honor of meeting his family. We were almost next door neighbors, he said.

We’ve got a new friend, I remarked, as we sauntered down the street.

He adores you, I can see that, said Mona.

He was like a dog that wants to be stroked and patted, wasn’t he?

A very lonely man, no doubt.

Didn’t he say he played the violin?

Yes, said Mona. Don’t you remember, he mentioned that the string quartet met at his home once a week … or used to.

That’s right. God, how the Jews love the violin! . I suspect he thinks you have a drop of Jewish blood in you, Val.

Maybe I have. I certainly wouldn’t be ashamed of it if I did.

An awkward silence ensued.

I didn’t mean it the way you took it, I finally said.

I know it, she replied. It’s all right.

They all know how to play chess too. I was half talking to myself. And they love to make gifts, have you ever noticed?

Can’t we talk about something else?

Of course I Of course we can! I’m sorry. They excite me, that’s all. Whenever I bump into a real Jew I feel I’m back home. I don’t know why.

It’s because they’re warm and generous—like yourself, she said.

It’s because they’re an old people, that’s what I think.

You were made for some other world, not America, Val. You get on famously with any people except your own. You’re an outcast.

And what about you? You don’t belong here either.

I know, she said. Well, get the novel written and we’ll clear out. I don’t care where you take me, but you must see Paris first.

Righto! But I’d like to see other places too … Rome, Budapest, Madrid, Vienna, Constantinople. I’d like to visit your Bukovina too some day. And Russia—Moscow, Petersburg, Nijny-Novgorod … Ah, to walk down the Nevsky Prospekt … in Dostoievsky’s footsteps! What a dream!

It could be done, Val. There’s no reason why we can’t go anywhere we want … anywhere in the world.

You really think so?

I know so. Then, impulsively she blurted out—I wonder where Stasia is now?

You don’t know?

Of course I don’t. I haven’t had a word from her since I got back. I have a feeling I may never hear from her again.

Don’t worry, I said, you’ll hear from her all right. She’ll turn up one day—just like that!

She was a different person over there.

How do you mean?

I don’t know exactly. Different, that’s all. More normal, perhaps. Certain types of men seemed to attract her. Like that Austrian I told you about. She thought he was so gentle, so considerate, so full of understanding.

Do you suppose there was anything between them?

Who knows? They were together constantly, as if they were madly in love with each other.

As if, you say. What does that mean?

She hesitated, then heatedly, as if still smarting: No woman could fall for a creature like that! He fawned on her, he ate from her hand. And she adored it. Maybe it made her feel feminine.

It doesn’t sound like Stasia, I said. You don’t think she really changed, do you?

I don’t know what to think, Val. I feel sad, that’s all. I feel I’ve lost a great friend.

Nonsense! I said. One doesn’t lose a friend as easily as that.

She said I was too possessive, too…

Maybe you were—with her.

No one understood her better than I. All I wanted was to see her happy. Happy and free.

That’s what every one says who’s in love.

It was more than love, Val. Much more.

How can there be anything more than love? Love is all, isn’t it?

Perhaps with women there’s something else. Men are not subtle enough to grasp it.

Fearing that the discussion would degenerate into argument I changed the subject as skilfully as I could. Finally I pretended that I was famished. To my surprise she said—So am I.

We returned to our quarters. After we had had a good snack—pate de foie gras, cold turkey, cole slaw, washed down with a delicious Moselle—I felt as if I could go to the machine and really write. Perhaps it was the talk, the mention of travel, of strange cities … of a new life. Or that I had successfully prevented our talk from degenerating into a quarrel. (It was such a delicate subject, Stasia.) Or perhaps it was the Jew, Sid Essen, and the stir of racial memories. Or perhaps nothing more than the Tightness of our quarters, the feeling of snugness, cosiness, at homeness.

Anyway, as she was clearing the table, I said: If only one could write as one talks … write like Gorky, Gogol, or Knut Hamsun!

She gave me a look such as a mother sometimes directs at the child she is holding in her arms.

Why write like them? she said. Write like you are, that’s so much better.

I wish I thought so. Christ! Do you know what’s the matter with me? I’m a chameleon. Every author I fall in love with I want to imitate. If only I could imitate my self I

When are you going to show me some pages? she said. I’m dying to see what you’ve done so far.

Soon, I said.

Is it about us?

I suppose so. What else could I write about?

You could write about anything, Val.

That’s what you think. You never seem to realize my limitations. You don’t know what a struggle I go through. Sometimes I feel thoroughly licked. Sometimes I wonder what ever gave me the notion that I could write. A few minutes ago, though, I was writing like a madman. In my head, again. But the moment I sit down to the machine I become a clod. It gets me. It gets me down.

Did you know, I said, that toward the end of his life Gogol went to Palestine? A strange fellow, Gogol. Imagine a crazy Russian like that dying in Rome! I wonder where I’ll die.

What’s the matter with you, Val? What are you talking about? You’ve got eighty more years to live. Write! Don’t talk about dying.

I felt I owed it to her to tell her a little about the novel. Guess what I call myself in the book! I said. She couldn’t. I took your uncle’s name, the one who lives in Vienna. You told me he was in the Hussars, I think. Somehow I can’t picture him as the colonel of a death’s head regiment. And a Jew. But I like him … I like everything you told me about him. That’s why I took his name…

Pause.

What I’d like to do with this bloody novel—only Pop might not feel the same way—is to charge through it like a drunken Cossack. Russia, Russia, where are you heading? On, on, like the whirlwind! The only way I can be myself is to smash things. I’ll never write a book to suit the publishers. I’ve written too many books. Sleep-walking books. You know what I mean. Millions and millions of words—all in the head. They’re banging around up there, like gold pieces. I’m tired of making gold pieces. I’m sick of these cavalry charges … in the dark. Every word I put down now must be an arrow that goes straight to the mark. A poisoned arrow. I want to kill off books, writers, publishers, readers. To write for the public doesn’t mean a thing to me. What I’d like is to write for madmen—or for the angels.

I paused and a curious smile came over my face at the thought which had entered my head.

That landlady of ours, I wonder what she’d think if she heard me talking this way? She’s too good to us, don’t you think? She doesn’t know us. She’d never believe what a walking pogrom I am. Nor has she any idea why I’m so crazy about Sirota and that bloody synagogue music. I pulled up short. What the hell has Sirota got to do with it anyway?

Yes, Val, you’re excited. Put it in the book. Don’t waste yourself in talk I

13.

Sometimes I would sit at the machine for hours without writing a line. Fired by an idea, often an irrelevant one, my thoughts would come too fast to be transcribed. I would be dragged along at a gallop, like a stricken warrior tied to his chariot.

On the wall at my right there were all sorts of memoranda tacked up: a long list of words, words that bewitched me and which I intended to drag in by the scalp if necessary; reproductions of paintings, by Uccello, della Francesca, Breughel, Giotto, Memling; titles of books from which I mean to deftly lift passages; phrases filched from my favorite authors, not to quote but to remind me how to twist things occasionally; for ex: The worm that would gnaw her bladder or the pulp which had deglutinized behind his forehead. In the Bible were slips of paper to indicate where gems were to be found. The Bible was a veritable diamond mine. Every time I looked up a passage I became intoxicated. In the dictionary were place marks for lists of one kind or another: flowers, birds, trees, reptiles, gems, poisons, and so on. In short, I had fortified myself with a complete arsenal.

But what was the result? Pondering over a word like praxis, for example, or pleroma, my mind would wander like a drunken wasp. I might end up in a desperate struggle to recall the name of that Russian composer, the mystic, or Theosophist, who had left unfinished his greatest work. The one of whom some one had written—He, the messiah in his own imagination, who had dreamed of leading mankind toward ‘the last festival’, who had imagined himself God, and everything, including himself, his own creation, who had dreamed by the force of his tones to overthrow the universe, died of a pimple. Scriabin, that’s who it was. Yes, Scriabin could derail me for days. Every time his name popped into my head I was back on Second Avenue, in the rear of some cafe, surrounded by Russians (white ones usually) and Russian Jews, listening to some unknown genius reel off the sonatas, preludes and etudes of the divine Scriabin. From Scriabin to Prokofiev, to the night I first heard him, Carnegie Hall probably, high up in the gallery, and so excited that when I stood up to applaud or to yell—we all yelled like madmen in those days—I nearly tumbled out of the gallery. A tall, gaunt figure he was, in a frock coat, like something out of the Drei Groschen Oper, like Monsieur les Pompes Funebres. From Prokofiev to Luke Ralston, now departed, an ascetic also, with a face like the death mask of Monsieur Arouet. A good friend, Luke Ralston, who after visiting the merchant tailors up and down Fifth Avenue with his samples of imported woolens, would go home and practise German Lieder while his dear old mother, who had ruined him with her love, would make him pigs’ knuckles and sauerkraut and tell him for the ten thousandth time what a dear, good son he was. His thin, cultivated voice too weak, unfortunately, to cope with the freight-laden melodies of his beloved Hugo Wolf with which he always larded his programs. At thirty-three he dies—of pneumonia, they said, but it was probably a broken heart … And in between come memories of other forgotten figures—Minnesingers, flutists, ‘cellists, pianists in skirts, like the homely one who always included Schubert’s

Carnaval on her program. (Reminded me so much of Maude: the nun become virtuoso.) There were others too, short-haired and long-haired, all perfectos, like Havana cigars. Some, with chests like bulls, could shatter the chandeliers with their Wagnerian shrieks. Some were like lovely Jessicas, their hair parted in the middle and pasted down: benign madonnas (Jewish mostly) who had not yet taken to rifling the ice-box at all hours of the night. And then the fiddlers, in skirts, left-handed sometimes, often with red hair or dirty orange, and bosoms which got in the way of the bow…

Just looking at a word, as I say. Or a painting, or a book. The title alone, sometimes. Like Heart of Darkness or Under the Autumn Star. How did it begin again, that Wonderful tale? Have a look-see. Read a few pages, then throw the book down. Inimitable. And how had I begun? I read it over once again, my imaginary Paul Morphy opening. Weak, wretchedly weak. Something falls off the table. I get down to search for it. There, on hands and knees, a crack in the floor intrigues me. It reminds me of something. What? I stay like that, as if waiting to be served, like a ewe. Thoughts whirl through my bean and out through the vent at the top of my skull. I reach for a pad and jot down a few words. More thoughts, plaguey thoughts. (What dropped from the table was a match-box.) How to fit these thoughts into the novel. Always the same dilemma. And then I think of Twelve Men. If only somewhere I could do one little section which would have the warmth, the tenderness, the pathos of that chapter on Paul Dressier. But I’m not a Dreiser. And I have no brother Paul. It’s far away, the banks of the Wabash. Farther, much farther, than Moscow or Kronstadt, or the warm, utterly romantic Crimea. Why?

Russia, where are you leading us? Forward! Ech konee, konee.

I think of Gorky, the baker’s helper, his face white with flour, and the big fat peasant (in his nightshirt) rolling in the mud with his beloved sows. The University of Life. Gorky: mother, father, comrade. Gorky, the beloved vagabond, who whether tramping, weeping, pissing, praying or cursing, writes. Gorky: who wrote in blood. A writer true as the sun dial…

Just looking at a title, as I say.

Thus, like a piano concerto for the left hand, the day would slip by. Lucky if there were a page or two to show for all the torture and the inspiration. Writing! It was like pulling up poison oak by the roots. Or searching for mangolds.

When now and then she asked: How is it coming, dear Val? I wanted to bury my head in my hands and sob.

Don’t push yourself, Val!

But I have pushed. I’ve pushed and pushed till there’s not a drop of caca in me. Often it’s just when she says—Dinner’s ready! that the flow begins. What the hell! Maybe after dinner. Maybe after she’s gone to sleep.

Mariana.

At table I talk about the work as if I were another Alexandra Dumas or a Balzac. Always what I intend to do, never what I have done. I have a genius for the impalpable, for the inchoate, for the not yet born.

And your day? I’ll say sometimes. What was your day like? (More to get relief from the devils who plagued me than to hear the trivia which I already knew by heart.)

Listening with one ear I could see Pop waiting like a faithful hound for the bone he was to receive. Would there be enough fat on it? Would it splinter in his mouth? And I would remind myself that it wasn’t really the book pages he was waiting for but a more juicy morsel—her. He would be patient, he would be content—for a while at least—with literary discussions. As long as she kept herself looking lovely, as long as she continued to wear the delightful gowns which he urged her to select for herself, as long as she accepted with good grace all the little favors he heaped upon her. As long, in other words, as she treated him like a human being. As long as she wasn’t ashamed to be seen with him. (Did he really think, as she averred, that he looked like a toad?) With eyes half-closed I could see him waiting, waiting On a street corner, or in the lobby of a semi-fashionable hotel, or in some outlandish cafe”(in another incarnation), a cafe such as Zum Hiddigeigei. I always saw him dressed like a gentleman, with or without spats and cane. A Sort of inconspicuous millionaire, fur trader or stock broker, not the predatory type but, as the paunch indicated, the kind who prefers the good things of life to the almighty dollar. A man who once played the violin. A man of taste, indisputably. In brief, no dummox. Average perhaps, but not ordinary. Conspicuous by his in-conspicuousness. Probably full of watermelon seeds and other pips. And saddled with an invalid wife, one he wouldn’t dream of hurting. (Look, darling, see what I’ve brought you! Some Maatjes herring, some lachs, and a jar of pickled antlers from the reindeer land.)

And when he reads the opening pages, this pipsqueaking millionaire, will he exclaim: Aha! I smell a rat! Or, putting his wiry brains to sleep, will he simply murmur to himself: A lovely piece of tripe, a romance out of the Dark Ages.

And our landlady, the good Mrs. Skolsky, what would she think if she had a squint at these pages? Would she wet her panties with excitement? Or would she hear music where there were only seismographic disturbances? (I could see her running to the synagogue looking for rams’ horns.) One day she and I have got to have it out, about the writing business. Either more strudels, more Sirota, or—the garotte. If only I knew a little Yiddish!

Call me Reb! Those were Sid Essen’s parting words.

Such exquisite torture, this writing humbuggery! Bughouse reveries mixed with choking fits and what the Swedes call mardrommen. Squat images roped with diamond tiaras. Baroque architecture. Cabalistic logarithms. Mezuzahs and prayer-wheels. Portentous phrases. (Let no one, said the auk, look upon this man with favor!) Skies of blue-green copper, filagreed with lacy striata; umbrella ribs, obscene graffiti. Balaam the ass licking his hind parts. Weasels spouting nonsense. A sow menstruating…

All because, as she once put it, I had the chance of a lifetime.

Sometimes I sailed into it with huge black wings. Then everything came out pell-mell and arsey-versy. Pages and pages. Reams of it. None of it belonged in the novel. Nor even in The Book of Perennial Gloom. Reading them over I had the impression of examining an old print: a room in a medieval dwelling, the old woman sitting on the pot, the doctor standing by with red hot tongs, a mouse creeping toward a piece of cheese in the corner near the crucifix. A ground-floor view, so to speak. A chapter from the history of everlasting misery. Depravity, insomnia, gluttony posing as the three graces. All described in quicksilver, benzine and potassium permanganate.

Another day my hands might wander over the keys with the felicity of a Borgia’s murderous paw. Choosing the staccato technique, I would ape the quibblers and quipsters of the Ghibellines. Or put it on, like a saltimbanque performing for a feeble-minded monarch.

The next day a quadruped: everything in hoof beats, clots of phlegm, snorts and farts. A stallion (ech!) racing over a frozen lake with torpedoes in his bowels. All bravura, so to say.

And then, as when the hurricane abates, it would flow like a song—quietly, evenly, with the steady lustre of magnesium. As if hymning the Bhagavad Gita. A monk in a saffron robe extolling the work of the Omniscient One. No longer a writer. A saint. A saint from the Sanhedrin sent. God bless the author! (Have we a David here?)

What a joy it was to write like an organ in the middle of a lake!

Bite me, you bed lice! Bite while I have the strength!

I didn’t call him Reb immediately. I couldn’t. I always said—Mr. Essen. And he always called me Mister Miller. But if one had overheard us talking one would think we had known each other a lifetime.

I was trying to explain it to Mona one evening while lying on the couch. It was a warm evening and we were taking it nice and easy. With a cool drink beside me and Mona moving about in her short Chinese shift, I was in the mood to expand. (I had written a few excellent pages that day, moreover.)

The monologue had begun, not about Sid Essen and his morgue of a shop which I had visited the day before, but about a certain devastating mood which used to take possession of me every time the elevated train swung round a certain curve. The urge to talk about it must have come over me because that black mood contrasted so strongly with the present one, which was unusually serene. Pulling round that curve I could look right into the window of the flat where I first called on the widow … when I was paying court to her. Every week a pleasant sort of chap, a Jew not unlike Sid Essen, used to call to collect a dollar or a dollar and thirty-five cents for the furniture she was buying on the instalment plan. If she didn’t have it he would say, All right, next week then. The poverty, the cleanliness, the sterility of that life was more depressing to me than a life in the gutter. (It was here that I made my first attempt to write. With a stump of a pencil, I remember well. I didn’t write more than a dozen lines—enough to convince me that I was absolutely devoid of talent.) Every day going to and from work I took that same elevated train, rode past those same wooden houses, experienced the same annihilating black mood. I wanted to kill myself, but I lacked the guts. Nor could I walk out on her. I had tried but with no success. The more I struggled to free myself the more I was bound. Even years later, when I had freed myself of her, it would come over me rounding that curve.

How do you explain it? I asked. It was almost as if I had lefts a part of me in the walls of that house. Some part of me never freed itself.

She was seated on the floor, propped against a leg of the table. She looked cool and relaxed. She was in a mood to listen. Now and then she put me a question—about the widow—which women usually avoid asking. I had only to lean over a bit and I could put my hand on her cunt.

It was one of those outstanding evenings when everything conspires to promote harmony and understanding, when one talks easily and naturally, even to a wife, about intimate things. No hurry to get anywhere, not even to have a good fuck, though the thought of it was constantly there, hovering above the conversation.

I was looking back now on that Lexington Avenue Elevated ride as from some future incarnation. It not only seemed remote, it seemed unthinkable. Never again would that particular kind of gloom and despair attack me, that I was certain of.

Sometimes I think it was because I was so innocent. It was impossible for me to believe that I could be trapped that way. I suppose I would have been better off, would have suffered less, if I had married her, as I wanted to do. Who knows? We might have been happy for a few years.

You always say, Val, that it was pity which held you, but I think it was love. I think you really loved her. After all, you never quarreled.

I couldn’t. Not with her. That’s what had me at a disadvantage. I can still recall how I felt when I would stop, as I did every day, to gaze at her photograph—in a shop window. There was such a look of sorrow in her eyes, it made me wince. Day after day I went back to look into her eyes, to study that sad expression, to wonder at the cause of it. And then, after we had known each other some time, I would see that look come back into her eyes … usually after I had hurt her in some foolish, thoughtless way. That look was far more accusing, far more devastating, than any words…

Neither of us spoke for a while. The warm, fragrant breeze rustled the curtains. Downstairs the phonograph was playing. And I shall offer up unto thee, O Israel … As I listened I stretched out my hand and gently ran my fingers across her cunt.

I didn’t mean to go into all this, I resumed. It was about Sid Essen I wanted to speak. I paid him a visit yesterday, at his shop. The most forlorn, lugubrious place you ever laid eyes on. And huge. There he sits all day long reading or, if a friend happens by, he will play a game of chess. He tried to load me with gifts—shirts, socks, neckties, anything I wished. It was difficult to refuse him. As you said, he’s a lonely soul. It’ll be a job to keep out of his clutches … Oh, but I almost forgot what I started to tell you. What do you suppose I found him reading?

Dostoievsky!

No, guess again.

Knut Hamsun.

No. Lady Murasaki—The Tale of Genji. I can’t get over it. Apparently he reads everything. The Russians he reads in Russian, the Germans in German. He can read Polish too, and Yiddish of course.

Pop reads Proust.

He does? Well, anyway, do you know what he’s itching to do? Teach me how to drive a car. He has a big eight-cylindered Buick he’d like to lend us just as soon as I know how to drive. Says he can teach me in three lessons.

But why do you want to drive?

I don’t, that’s it. But he thinks it would be nice if I took you for a spin occasionally.

Don’t do it, Val. You’re not meant to drive a car.

That’s just what I told him. It would be different if he had offered me a bike. You know, it would be fun to get a bike again.

She said nothing.

You don’t seem enthusiastic about it, I said.

I know you, Val. If you get a bike you won’t work any more.

Maybe you’re right. Anyway, it was a pleasant thought. Besides, I’m getting too old to ride a bike.

Too old? She burst out laughing. You. too old? I can see you burning up the cinders at eighty. You’re another Bernard Shaw. You’ll never be too old for anything.

I will if I have to write more novels. Writing takes it out of one, do you realize that? Tell Pop that some time. Does he think you work at it eight hours a day, I wonder?

He doesn’t think about such things, Val.

Maybe not, but he must wonder about you. It’s rare indeed for a beautiful woman to be a writer too.

She laughed. Pop’s no fool. He knows I’m not a born writer. All he wants me to prove is that I can finish what I’ve begun. He wants me to discipline my self.

Strange, I said.

Not so very. He knows that I burn myself up, that I’m going in all directions at once.

But he hardly knows you. He must be damned intuitive.

He’s in love with me, doesn’t that explain it? He doesn’t dare to say so, of course. He thinks he’s unappealing to women.

Is he really that ugly?

She smiled. You don’t believe me, do you? Well, no one would call him handsome. He looks exactly what he is—a business man. And he’s ashamed of it. He’s an unhappy person. And his sadness doesn’t add to his attractiveness.

You almost make me feel sorry for him, poor bugger.

Please don’t talk that way about him, Val. He doesn’t deserve it.

Silence for a while.

Do you remember when we were living with that doctor’s family up in the Bronx how you used to urge me to take a snooze after dinner so that I could meet you outside the dance hall at two in the morning? You thought I should be able to do that little thing for you and wake up fresh as a daisy, ready to report for work at eight A.M. Remember? And I did do it—several times—though it nearly killed me. You thought a man should be able to do a thing like that if he really loved a woman, didn’t you?

I was very young then. Besides, I never wanted you to remain at that job. Maybe I hoped to make you give it up by wearing you out.

You succeeded all right, and I can never thank you enough for it. Left to myself, I’d probably still be there, hiring and firing…

Pause.

And then, just when everything was going on roller skates things went haywire. You gave me a rough time, do you know it? Or maybe I gave you a rough time.

Let’s not go into all that, Val, please.

Okay. I don’t know why I mentioned it. Forget it.

You know, Val, it’s never going to be smooth sailing for you. If it isn’t me who makes you miserable it will be some one else. You look for trouble. Now don’t be offended. Maybe you need to suffer. Suffering will never kill you, that I can tell you. No matter what happens you’ll come through, always. You’re like a cork. Push you to the bottom and you rise again. Sometimes it frightens me, the depths to which you can sink. I’m not that way. My buoyancy is physical, yours is … I was going to say spiritual, but that isn’t quite it. It’s animalistic. You do have a strong spiritual make up, but there’s also more of the animal in you than in most men. You want to live … live at any cost … whether as a man, a beast, an insect, or a germ…

Maybe you’ve got something there, said I. By the way, I never told you, did I, about the weird experience I had one night while you were away? With a fairy. It was ludicrous, really, but at the time it didn’t seem funny to me.

She was looking at me with eyes wide open, a startled expression.

Yes, it was after you were gone a while. I so desperately wanted to join you that I didn’t care what I had to do to accomplish it. I tried getting a job on a boat, but it was no go. Then one night, at the Italian restaurant uptown … you know the one … I ran into a chap I had met there before … an interior decorator, I think he was. Anyway, a quite decent sort. While we were talking … it was about The Sun Also Rises … I got the notion to ask him for the passage money. I had a feeling he would do it if I could move him sufficiently. Talking about you and how desperate I was to join you, the tears came to my eyes. I could see him melting. Finally I pulled out my wallet and showed him your photograph, that one I’m so crazy about. He was impressed. ‘She is a beauty!’ he exclaimed. ‘Really extraordinary. What passion, what sensuality!’ ‘You see what I mean,’ I said. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I can see why anybody would be hungry for a woman like that.’ He laid the photo on the table, as if to study it, and ordered drinks. For some reason he suddenly switched to the Hemingway book. Said he knew Paris, had been there several times. And so on.

I paused to see how she was taking it. She looked at me with a curious smile. Go on, she said, I’m all ears.

Well, finally I let him know that I was about ready to do anything to raise the necessary passage money. He said—’Anything’? ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘anything short of murder.’ It was then I realized what I was up against. However, instead of pinning me down he diverted the conversation to other topics—bullfighting, archaeology, all irrelevant subjects. I began to despair; he was slipping out of my hands.

l listened as long as I could, then called the waiter and asked for the bill. ‘Won’t you have another drink?’ he said. I told him I was tired, wanted to get home. Suddenly he changed front. ‘About that trip to Paris,’ he said, ‘why not stop at my place a few minutes and talk it over? Maybe I can help you.’ I knew what was on his mind, of course, and my heart sank. I got cold feet. But then I thought—’What the hell.’ He can’t do anything unless I want him to. I’ll talk him out of it … the money, I mean.

I was wrong, of course. The moment he trotted out his collection of obscene photos I knew the game was up. They were something, I must say … Japanese. Anyway, as he was showing them to me he rested a hand on my knee. Now and then he’d stop and look at one intently, saying—’What do you think of that one?’ Then he’d look at me with a melting expression, try to slide his hand up my leg. Finally I brushed him off. ‘I’m going,’ I said. With this his manner changed. He looked grieved. ‘Why go all the way to Brooklyn?’ he said. ‘You can stay the night here just as well. You don’t have to sleep with me, if that’s what bothers you. There’s a cot in the other room.’ He went to the dresser and pulled out a pair of pajamas for me.

I didn’t know what to think, whether he was playing it straight or … I hesitated. ‘At the worst,’ I said to myself, ‘it will be a sleepless night.’

‘You don’t have to get to Paris to-morrow, do you?’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t lose heart so quickly, if I were you.’ A double-edged remark, which I ignored. ‘Where’s the cot?’ I said. ‘We’ll talk about that some other time.’

I turned in, keeping one eye open in case he should try his funny business. But he didn’t. Obviously he was disgusted with me—or perhaps he thought a bit of patience would turn the trick. Anyway, I didn’t sleep a wink. I tossed about till dawn, then got up, very quietly, and dressed. As I was slipping into my trousers I spied a copy of Ulysses. I grabbed it and taking a seat by the front window, I read Molly Bloom’s soliloquy. I was almost tempted to walk off with the copy. Instead, a better idea occurred to me. I tiptoed to the hallway, where the clothes closet was, opened it gently and went through his pockets, wallet and all. All I could find was about seven dollars and some change. I took it and scrammed … And you never saw him again? No, I never went back to the restaurant. Supposing, Val, that he offered you the passage money, if…

It’s hard to answer that. I’ve often thought about it since I know I could never go through with it, not even for you. It’s easier to be a woman, in such circumstances.

She began to laugh. She laughed and laughed.

What’s so funny? I said.

You! she cried. Just like a man!

How so? Would you rather I had given in?

I’m not saying, Val. All I say is that you reacted in typical male fashion.

Suddenly I thought of Stasia and her wild exhibitions. You never told me, I said, what happened to Stasia. Was it because of her that you missed the boat?

What ever put that thought in to your head? I told you how I happened to miss the boat, don’t you remember?

That’s right, you did. But I wasn’t listening very well. Anyway, it’s strange you’ve had no word from her all this time. Where do you suppose she is?

In Africa, probably.

Africa?

Yes, the last I heard from her she was in Algiers.

Hmmmnn.

Yes, Val, to get back to you I had to promise Roland, the man who took me to Vienna, that I would sail with him. I agreed on condition that he would wire Stasia the money to leave Africa. He didn’t do it. I only discovered that he hadn’t at the last moment. I didn’t have the money then to cable you about the delay. Anyway, I didn’t sail with Roland. I sent him back to Paris. I made him swear that he would find Stasia and bring her home safely. That’s the story.

He didn’t do it, of course?

No, he’s a weak, spoiled creature, concerned only with himself.. He had deserted Stasia and her Austrian friend in the desert, when the going got too rough. He left them without a penny. I could have murdered him when I found it out…

So that’s all you know?

Yes. For all I know, she may be dead by now.

I got up to look for a cigarette. I found the pack on the open book I had been reading earlier in the day. Listen to this, I said, reading the passage I had marked: The purpose of literature is to help man to know himself, to fortify his belief in himself and support his striving after truth…

Lie down, she begged. I want to hear you talk, not read.

Hurrah for the Karamazovs!

Stop it, Val! Let’s talk some more, please.

All right, then. What about Vienna? Did you visit your uncle while there? You’ve hardly told me a thing about Vienna, do you realize that? I know it’s a touchy subject … Roland and all that. Still…

She explained that they hadn’t spent much time in Vienna. Besides, she wouldn’t dream of visiting her relatives without giving them money. Roland wasn’t the sort to dole out money to poor relatives. She did, however, make him spend money freely whenever they ran into a needy artist.

Good! I said. And did you ever run into any of the celebrities in the world of art? Picasso, for instance, or Matisse?

The first person I got to know, she replied, was Zadkine, the sculptor.

No, really? I said.

And then there was Edgar Varese.

Who’s he?

A composer. A wonderful person, Val. You’d adore him.

Any one else?

Marcel Duchamp. You know who he is, of course?

I should say I do. What was he like—as a person?

The most civilized man I ever met, was her prompt reply.

That’s saying a great deal.

I know it, Val, but it’s the truth. She went on to tell me of others she had met, artists I had never heard of … Hans Reichel, Tihanyi, Michonze, all painters. As she talked I was making a mental note of that hotel she had stopped at in Vienna—Hotel Muller, am Graben. If I ever got to Vienna I’d have a look at the hotel register some day and see what name she had registered under. You never visited Napoleon’s Tomb, I suppose? No, but we did get to Malmaison. And I almost saw an execution.

You didn’t miss very much, I guess, did you? What a pity, I thought, as she rambled on, that talks like this happened so rarely. What I relished especially was the broken, kaleidoscopic nature of such talks. Often, in the pauses between remarks, I would make mental answers wholly at variance with the words on my lips. An additional spice, of course, was contributed by the atmosphere of the room, the books lying about, the droning of a fly, the position of her body, the comfortable feel of the couch. There was nothing to be established, posited or maintained. If a wall crumbled it crumbled. Thoughts were tossed out like twigs into a babbling brook. Russia, is the road still smoking under your wheels? Do the bridges thunder as you cross them? Answers? What need for answers? Ah, you horses! What horses! What sense in foaming at the mouth?

Getting ready to hit the sack I suddenly recalled that I had seen MacGregor that morning. I made mention of it as She was climbing over me to slide between the sheets.

I hope you didn’t give him our address, she said.

We had no words. He didn’t see me.

That’s good, she said, laying hold of my prick.

What’s good?

That he didn’t see you.

I thought you meant something else.

14.

Often when I stepped out for a breath of fresh air I would drop in on Sid Essen to have a chat with him. Only once did I see a customer enter the place. Winter or Summer it was dark inside and cool—just the right temperature for preserving stiffs. The two show windows were crammed with shirts faded by the sun and covered with fly specks.

He was usually in the rear of the store, reading under a dim electric bulb suspended from the ceiling by a long cord from which dangled sheets of tanglefoot fly-paper. He had made himself a comfortable seat by mounting a car seat on two packing boxes. Beside the boxes was a spittoon which he made use of when he chewed his baccy. Usually it was a filthy pipe he had between his teeth, sometimes an Owl cigar. The big heavy cap he removed only when he went to bed. His coat collar was always white with dandruff and when he blew his nose, which he did frequently—like an elephant trumpeting—he made use of a blue bandanna kerchief a yard wide.

On the counter near by were piles of books, magazines and newspapers. He switched from one to the other in accordance with his mood. Beside this reading matter there was always a box of peanut brittle which he dove into when he got excited. It was obvious, from his girth, that he was a hearty eater. His wife, he told me several times, was a divine cook. It was her most attractive side, from all I gathered. Though he always supplemented this by saying how well read she was.

No matter what time of the day I dropped in he always brought out a bottle. Just a snifter, he would say, flourishing a flask of schnaps or a bottle of vodka. I’d take a drink to please him. If I made a face he’d say—Don’t like it much, do you? Why don’t you try a drop of rye?

One morning, over a tumbler of rye, he repeated his desire to teach me to drive. Three lessons is all you’ll need, he said. There’s no sense in letting the car stand idle. Once you get the hang of it you’ll be crazy about it. Look, why not go for a spin with me Saturday afternoon? I’ll get some one to mind the store.

He was so eager, so insistent, that I couldn’t refuse.

Come Saturday I met him at the garage. The big four-door sedan was parked at the curb. One look at it and I knew it was too much for me. However, I had to go through with it. I took my place at the wheel, manipulated the gears, got acquainted with the gas pedal and the brakes. A brief lesson. More instruction was to follow once we were out of town.

At the wheel Reb became another person. King now. Wherever it was we were heading for it was at top speed. My thighs were aching before we were half-way there, from braking.

You see, he said, taking both hands off the wheel to gesitculate, there’s nothing to it. She runs by herself. He took his foot off the gas pedal and demonstrated the use of the hand throttle. Just like running a locomotive.

On the outskirts of the city we stopped here and there to collect rent money. He owned a number of houses here and elsewhere farther out. All in run-down neighborhoods. All occupied by Negro families. One had to collect every week, he explained. Colored people didn’t know how to handle money.

In a vacant lot near one of these shacks he gave me further instruction. This time how to turn round, how to stop suddenly, how to park. And how to back up. Very important, backing up, he said.

The strain of it had me sweating in no time. Okay, he said, let’s get going. We’ll hit the speedway soon, then I’ll let her out. She goes like the wind—you’ll see … Oh, by the way, if ever you get panicky and don’t know what to do, just shut off the motor and slam on the brakes.

We came to the speedway, his face beaming now. He pulled his cap down over his eyes. Hang on! he said, and phttt! we were off. It seemed to me that we were hardly touching the ground. I glanced at the speedometer: eighty-five. He gave her more gas. She can do a hundred without feeling it. Don’t worry, I’ve got her in hand.

I said nothing, just braced myself and half closed my eyes. When we turned off the speedway I suggested that he stop a few minutes and let me stretch my legs.

Fun, wasn’t it? he shouted.

You betcha.

Some Sunday, he said, after we collect the rents, I’ll take you to a restaurant I know, where they make delicious ducklings. Or we could go down on the East Side, to a Polish place. Or how about some Jewish cooking? Anything you say. It’s so good to have your company.

In Long Island City we made a detour to buy some provisions: herring, smoked white fish, begels, lachs, sour pickles, corn bread, sweet butter, honey, pecans, walnuts and niggertoes, huge red onions, garlic, kasha, and so on.

If we don’t do anything else we eat well, he said. Good food, good music, good talk—what else does one need?

A good wife, maybe, I said rather thoughtlessly.

I’ve got a good wife, only we’re temperamentally unsuited to one another. I’m too common for her. Too much of a roustabout.

You don’t strike me that way, said I.

I’m pulling in my horns … getting old, I guess. Once I was pretty handy with my dukes. That got me into heaps of trouble. I used to gamble a lot too. Bad, if you have a wife like mine. By the way, do you ever play the horses? I still place a few bets now and then. I can’t promise to make you a millionaire but I can always double your money for you. Let me know any time; your money’s safe with me, remember that.

We were pulling into Greenpoint. The sight of the gas tanks provoked a sentimental twinge. Now and then a church right out of Russia. The street names became more and more familiar.

Would you mind stopping in front of 181 Devoe Street? I asked.

Sure, why not? Know some one there?

Used to. My first sweetheart. I’d like to have one look at the house, that’s all.

Automatically he came down hard on the gas pedal. A stop light stared us in the face. He went right through. Signs mean nothing to me, he said, but don’t follow my example.

At 181 I got out, took my hat off (as if visiting a grave) and approached the railing in front of the grass plot. I looked up at the parlor floor windows; the shades were down, as always. My heart began to go clip-clop the same as years ago when, looking up at the windows, I hoped and prayed to catch sight of her shadow moving about. Only for a brief moment or two would I stand there, then off again. Sometimes I’d walk around the block three or four times—just in case. (You poor bugger, I said to myself, you’re still walking around that block.)

As I turned back to the car the gate in the basement clicked. An elderly woman stuck her head out. I went up to her and, almost tremblingly, I asked if any of the Giffords still lived in the neighborhood.

She looked at me intently—as if she had seen an apparition, it seemed to me—then replied: Heavens no! They moved away years ago.

That froze me.

Why, she said, did you know them?

One of them, yes, but I don’t suppose she’d remember me. Una was her name. Do you know what’s become of her?

They went to Florida. (They, she said. Not she.)

Thanks. Thank you very much! I doffed my hat, as if to a Sister of Mercy.

As I put my hand on the car door she called out: Mister! Mister, if you’d like to know more about Una there’s a lady down the block could tell you…

Never mind, I said, wit’s not important.

Tears were welling up, stupid though it was.

What’s the matter? said Reb.

Nothing, nothing. Memories, that’s all.

He opened the glove compartment and pulled out a flask I took a swig of the remedy for everything; it was pure fire water. I gasped.

It never fails, he said. Feel better now?

You bet. And the next moment I found myself saying—Christ! To think one can still feel these things. It beats me. What would have happened if she had appeared—with her child? It hurts. It still hurts. Don’t ask me why. She belonged to me, that’s all I can tell you.

Must have been quite an affair. The word affair rubbed me the wrong way.

No, I said, it was a pure abortion. An assassination. I might as well have been in love with Queen Guinevere. I let myself down, do you understand? It was bad. I’ll never get over it, I guess. Shit! Why talk about it?

He kept quiet, the good Reb. Looked straight ahead and gave her more gas.

After a time he said very simply—You should write about it some time. To which I replied—Never! I could never find words for it.

At the corner, where the stationery store was, I got out.

Let’s do it again soon, eh? said Reb, extending his big hairy mitt. Next time I’ll introduce you to my colored friends.

I walked up the street, past the iron hitching posts, the wide lawns, the big verandahs. Still thinking of Una Gifford. If only it were possible to see her once again … one look, no more. Then close the book—forever.

I walked on, past the house, past more iron Negroes with pink watermelon mouths and striped blouses, past more stately mansions, more ivy-covered porches and verandahs. Florida, no less. Why not Cornwall, or Avalon, or the Castle of Carbonek? I began to chant to myself … There was never knight in all this world so noble, so unselfish … And then a dreadful thought took hold of me. Marco! Dangling from the ceiling of my brain was Marco who had hanged himself. A thousand times he had told her, Mona, of his love; a thousand times he had played the fool; a thousand times he had warned her he would kill himself if he could not find favor in her eyes. And she had laughed at him, ridiculed him, scorned him, humiliated him. No matter what she said or did he continued to abase himself, continued to lavish gifts upon her; the very sight of her, the sound of her mocking laugh, made him cringe and fawn. Yet nothing could kill his love, his adoration. When she dismissed him he would return to his garret to write jokes. (He made his living, poor devil, selling jokes to magazines.) And every penny he earned he turned over to her, and she took it without so much as a thank you. (Go now, dog!) One morning he was found hanging from a rafter in his miserable garret. No message. Just a body swinging in the gloom and the dust. His last joke.

And when she broke the news to me I said—Marco? What’s Marco to me?

She wept bitter, bitter tears. All I could say by way of comforting her was: He would have done it anyway sooner or later. He was the type.

And she had replied: You’re cruel, you have no heart.

It was true, I was heartless. But there were others whom she was treating equally abominably. In my cruel, heartless way I had reminded her of them, saying—Who next? She ran out of the room with hands over her ears. Horrible. Too horrible.

Inhaling the fragrance of the syringeas, the bougainvilleas, the heavy red roses, I thought to myself—Maybe that poor devil Marco loved her as I once loved Una Gifford. Maybe he believed that by a miracle her scorn and disdain would one day be converted into love, that she would see him for what he was, a great bleeding heart bursting with tenderness and forgiveness. Perhaps each night, when he returned to his room, he had gone down on his knees and prayed. (But no answer.) Did I not groan too each night on climbing into bed? Did I not also pray? And how! It was disgraceful, such praying, such begging, such whimpering! If only a Voice had said: alt is hopeless, you are not the man for her. I might have given up, I might have made way for some one else. Or at least cursed the God who had dealt me such a fate.

Poor Marco! Begging not to be loved but to be permitted to Jove. And condemned to make jokes! Only now do I realize what you suffered, what you endured, dear Marco. Now you can enjoy her—from above. You can watch over her day and night. If in life she never saw you as you were, you at least may see her now for what she is. You had too much heart for that frail body. Guinevere herself was unworthy of the great love she inspired. But then a queen steps so lightly, even when crushing a louse…

The table was set, dinner waiting for me when I walked in. She was in an unusually good mood, Mona.

How was it? Did you enjoy yourself? she cried, throwing her arms around me.

I noticed the flowers standing in the vase and the bottle of wine beside my plate. Napoleon’s favorite wine, which he drank even at St. Helena.

What does it mean? I asked.

She was bubbling over with joy. It means that Pop thinks the first fifty pages are wonderful. He was all enthusiasm.

He was, eh? Tell me about it. What did he say exactly?

She was so stunned herself that she couldn’t remember much now. We sat down to eat. Eat a bit, I said, it will come back.

Oh yes, she exclaimed, I do remember this … He said it reminded him a little of the early Melville … and of Dreiser too.

I gulped.

Yes, and of Lafcadio Hearn.

What? Pop’s read him too?

I told you, Val, that he was a great reader.

You don’t think he was spoofing, do you?

Not at all. He was dead serious. He’s really intrigued, I tell you.

I poured the wine. Did Pop buy this?

No, I did.

How did you know it was Napoleon’s favorite wine? . The man who sold it to me told me so.

I took a good sip.

Well?

Never tasted anything better. And Napoleon drank this every day? Lucky devil!

Val, she said, you’ve got to coach me a bit if I’m to answer some of the questions Pop puts me.

! thought you knew all the answers.

To-day he was talking grammar and rhetoric. I don’t know a thing about grammar and rhetoric.

Neither do I, to be honest. You went to school, didn’t you? A graduate of Wellesley should know something…

You know I never went to college.

You said you did.

Maybe I did when I first met you. I didn’t want you to think me ignorant.

Hell, I said, it wouldn’t have mattered to me if you hadn’t finished grammar school. I have no respect for learning. It’s sheer crap, this business of grammar and rhetoric. The less you know about such things the better. Especially if you’re a writer.

But supposing he points out errors. What then?

Say—’Maybe you’re right. I’ll think about it.’ Or better yet, say—’How would you phrase it?’ Then you’ve got him. on the defensive, see?

I wish you were in my place sometimes.

So do I. Then I’d know if the bugger was sincere or not.

To-day, she said, ignoring the remark, he was talking about Europe. It was as if he were reading my thoughts. He was talking about American writers who had lived and studied abroad. Said it was important to live in such an atmosphere, that it nourished the soul.

What else did he say?

She hesitated a moment before coming out with it.

He said that if I completed the book he would give me the money to stay in Europe for a year or two.

Wonderful, I said. But what about your invalid mother? Me, in other words.

She had thought of that too. I’ll probably have to kill her off. She added that whatever he forked up would surely be enough to see the both of us through. Pop was generous.

You see, she said, I wasn’t wrong about Pop. Val, I don’t want to push you, but…

You wish I would hurry and finish the book, eh?

Yes. How long do you think it will take?

I said I hadn’t the slightest idea.

Three months?

I don’t know.

Is it all clear, what you have to do?

No, it isn’t.

Doesn’t that bother you?

Of course. But what can I do? I’m forging ahead as best I know how.

You won’t go off the trolley?

If I do I’ll get back on again. I hope so, any way.

You do want to go to Europe, don’t you?

I gave her a long look before answering.

Do I want to go to Europe? Woman, I want to go everywhere … Asia, Africa, Australia, Peru, Mexico, Siam, Arabia, Java, Borneo … Tibet too, and China. Once we take off I want to stay away for good. I want to forget that I was ever born here. I want to keep moving, wandering, roaming the world. I want to go to the end of every road…

And when will you write?

As I go along.

Val, you’re a dreamer.

Sure I am. But I’m an active dreamer. There’s a difference.

Then I added: We’re all dreamers, only some of us wake up in time to put down a few words. Certainly I want to write. But I don’t think it’s the end all and be all. How shall I put it? Writing is like the caca that you make in your sleep. Delicious caca, to be sure, but first comes life, then the caca. Life is change, movement, quest … a going forward to meet the unknown, the unexpected. Only a very few men can say of themselves—’I have lived!’ That’s why we have books—so that men may live vicariously. But when the author also lives vicariously—

She broke in. When I listen to you sometimes, Val, I feel that you want to live a thousand lives in one. You’re eternally dissatisfied—with life as it is, with yourself, with just about everything. You’re a Mongol. You belong on the steppes of Central Asia.

You know, I said, getting worked up now, one of the reasons why I feel so disjointed is that there’s a little of everything in me. I can put myself in any period and feel at home in it. When I read about the Renaissance I feel like a man of the Renaissance; when I read about one of the Chinese dynasties I feel exactly like a Chinese of that epoch. Whatever the race, the period, the people, Egyptian, Aztec, Hindu or Chaldean, I’m thoroughly in it, and it’s always a rich, tapestried world whose wonders are inexhaustible. That’s what I crave—a humanly created world, a world responsive to man’s thoughts, man’s dreams, man’s desires. What gets me about (his life of ours, this American life, is that we kill everything we touch. Talk of the Mongols and the Huns—they were cavaliers compared to us. This is a hideous, empty, desolate land. I see my compatriots through the eyes of my ancestors. I see clean through them—and they’re hollow, worm-eaten…

I took the bottle of Gevrey-Chambertin and refilled the glasses. There was enough for one good swallow.

To Napoleon! I said. A man who lived life to the fullest.

Val, you frighten me sometimes, the way you speak about America. Do you really hate it that much?

Maybe it’s love, I said. Inverted love. I don’t know.

I hope you’re not going to work any of that off in the novel.

Don’t worry. The novel will be about as unreal as the land it comes from. I won’t have to say—’All the characters in this book are fictitious’ or whatever it is they put in the front of books. Nobody will recognize anybody, the author least of all. A good thing it will be in your name. What a joke if it turned out to be a best seller! If reporters came knocking at the door to interview you.’

The thought of this terrified her. She didn’t think it funny at all.

Oh, I said, you called me a dreamer a moment ago. Let me read you a passage—it’s short—from The Hill of Dreams. You should read the book some time; it’s a dream of a book.

I went to the bookshelf and opened to the passage I had in mind.

He’s just been telling about Milton’s Lycidas, why it was probably the most perfect piece of pure literature in existence. Then says Machen: ‘Literature is the sensuous art of causing exquisite impressions by means of words.’ But here’s the passage … it follows right after that: ‘And yet there was something more; besides the logical thought, which was often a hindrance, a troublesome though inseparable accident, besides the sensation, always a pleasure and a delight, besides these there were the indefinable, inexpressible images which all fine literature summons to the mind. As the chemist in his experiments is sometimes astonished to find unknown, unexpected elements in the crucible or the receiver, as the world of material things is considered by some a thin veil of the immaterial universe, so he who reads wonderful prose or verse is conscious of suggestions that cannot be put into words, which do not rise from the logical sense, which are rather parallel to than connected with the sensuous delight. The world so disclosed is rather the world of dreams, rather the world in which children sometimes live, instantly appearing, and instantly vanishing away, a world beyond all expression or analysis, neither of the intellect nor of the senses…’

It is beautiful, she said, as I put the book down. But don’t yon try to write like that. Let Arthur Machen write that way, if he wishes. You write your own way.

I sat down at the table again. A bottle of Chartreuse was standing beside my coffee. As I poured a thimbleful of the fiery green liqueur into my glass, I said: There’s only one thing missing now: a harem.

Pop supplied the Chartreuse, she said. He was so delighted with those pages.

Let’s hope he’ll like the next fifty pages as much.

You’re not writing the book for him, Val. You’re writing it for us.

That’s true, I said. I forget that sometimes.

It occurred to me then that I hadn’t told her anything yet about the outline of the real book. There’s something I have to tell you, I began. Or should I? Maybe I ought to keep it to myself a while longer.

She begged me not to tease.

All right, I’ll tell you. It’s about the book I intend to write one day. I’ve got the notes for it all written out. I wrote you a long letter about it, when you were in Vienna or God knows where. I couldn’t send the letter because you gave me no address. Yes, this will really be a book … a huge one. About you and me.

Didn’t you keep the letter?

No. I tore it up. Your fault! But I’ve got the notes. Only I won’t show them to you yet.

Why?

Because I don’t want any comments. Besides, if we talk about it I may never write the book. Also, there are some things I wouldn’t want you to know about until I had written them out.

You can trust me, she said. She began to plead with me.

No use, I said, you’ll have to wait.

But supposing the notes got lost?

I could write them all over again. That doesn’t worry me in the least.

She was getting miffed now. After all, if the book was about her as well as myself … And so on. But I remained adamant.

Knowing very well that she would turn the place upside down in order to lay hands on the notes, I gave her to understand that I had left them at my parents’ home. I put them where they’ll never find them, I said. I could tell from the look she gave me that she wasn’t taken in by this. Whatever her move was, she pretended to be resigned, to think no more of it.

To sweeten the atmosphere I told her that if the book ever got written, if it ever saw the light of day, she would find herself immortalized. And since that sounded a bit grandiloquent I added—You may not always recognize yourself but I promise you this, when I get through with your portrait you’ll never be forgotten.

She seemed moved by this. You sound awfully sure of yourself, she said.

I have reason to. This book I’ve lived. I can begin anywhere and find my way around. It’s like a lawn with a thousand sprinklers: all I need do is turn on the faucet. I tapped my head. It’s all there, in invisible … I mean indelible … ink.

Are you going to tell the truth—about us?

I certainly am. About every one, not just us.

And you think there’ll be a publisher for such a book?

I haven’t thought about that, I replied. First I’ve got to write it.

You’ll finish the novel first, I hope?

Absolutely. Maybe the play too.

The play? Oh Val, that would be wonderful.

That ended the conversation.

Once again the disturbing thought arose: how long will this peace and quiet last? It was almost too good, the way things were going. I thought of Hokusai, his ups and downs, his 967 changes of address, his perseverance, his incredible production. What a life! And I, I was only On the threshold. Only if I lived to be ninety or a hundred would I have something to show for my labors.

Another almost equally disturbing thought entered my head. Would I ever write anything acceptable?

The answer which came at once to my lips was: Fuck a duck!

Still another thought now came to mind. Why was I so obsessed about truth?

And the answer to that also came clear and clean. Because there is only the truth and nothing but the truth.

But a wee small voice objected, saying: Literature is something else again,

Then to hell with literature! The book of life, that’s what I would write.

And whose name will you sign to it?

The Creator’s.

That seemed to settle the matter.

The thought of one day tackling such a book—the book of life—kept me tossing all night. It was there before my closed eyes, like the Fata Morgana of legend. Now that I had vowed to make it a reality, it loomed far bigger, far more difficult of accomplishment than when I had spoken about it. It seemed overwhelming, indeed. Nevertheless, I was certain of one thing—it would flow once I began it. It wouldn’t be a matter of squeezing out drops and trickles. I thought of that first book I had written, about the twelve messengers. What a miscarriage! I had made a little progress since then, even if no one but myself knew it. But what a waste of material that was! My theme should have been the whole eighty or a hundred thousand whom I had hired and fired during those sizzling cosmococcic years. No wonder I was constantly losing my voice. Merely to talk to that many people was a feat. But it wasn’t the talk alone, it was their faces, the expressions they wore—grief, anger, deceit, cunning, malice, treachery, gratitude, envy, and so on—as if, instead of human beings, I were dealing with totemistic creatures: the fox, the lynx, the jackal, the crow, the lemming, the magpie, the dove, the musk-ox, the snake, the crocodile, the hyena, the mongoose, the owl … Their images were still fresh in my memory, the good and the bad, the crooks and the liars, the cripples, the maniacs, the tramps, the gamblers, the leeches, the perverts, the saints, the martyrs, all of them, the ordinary ones and the extraordinary ones. Even down to a certain lieutenant of the Horse Guard whose face had been so mutilated—by the Reds or the Blacks—that when he laughed he wept and when he wept he jubilated. Whenever he addressed me—usually to make a complaint—he stood at attention, as if he were the horse not the guard. And the Greek with the long equine face, a scholar unquestionably, who wanted to read from Prometheus Bound—or was it unbound? Why was it, much as I liked him, that he always roused my scorn and ridicule? How much more interesting and more lovable was that wall-eyed Egyptian with sex on the brain! Always in hot water, especially if he failed to jerk off once or twice a day. And that Lesbian, Iliad, she called herself—why Iliad?—so lovely, so demure, so coy … an excellent musician too. I know because she brought her fiddle to the office one evening and played for me. And after she had rendered her Bach, her Mozart, her Paganini repertoire, she has the gall to inform me that she’s tired of being a Lesbian, wants to be a whore, and wouldn’t I please find her a better office building to work in, one where she could drum up a little business.

They were all there parading before me as of yore—with their tics, their grimaces, their supplications, their sly little tricks. Every day they were dumped on my desk out of a huge flour sack, it seemed—they, their troubles, their problems, their aches and pains. Maybe when I was selected for this odious job some one had tipped off the big Scrabblebuster and said: Keep this man good and busy! Put his feet in the mud of reality, make his hair stand on end, feed him bird lime, destroy his every last illusion! And whether he had been tipped off or not, that old Scrabblebuster had done just that. That and a little more. Ho made me acquainted with grief and sorrow.; However … among the thousands who came and went, who begged, whistled and wept before me naked, bereft, making their last call, as it were, before turning themselves in at the slaughter-house, there appeared now and then a jewel of a guy, usually from some far off place, a Turk perhaps or a Persian. And like that, there happened along one day this All something or other, a Mohammedan, who had acquired a divine calligraphy somewhere in the desert, and after he gets to know me, know that I am a man with big ears, he writes me a letter, a letter thirty-two pages long, with never a mistake, never a comma or a semi-colon missing, and in it he explains (as if it were important for me to know) that the miracles of Christ—he went into them one by one—were not miracles at all, that they had all been performed before, even the Resurrection, by unknown men, men who understood the laws of nature, laws which, he insisted, our scientists know nothing about, but which were eternal laws and could be demonstrated to produce so-called miracles whenever the right man came along … and he, All, was in possession of the secret, but I was not to make it known because he, Ali, had chosen to be a messenger and wear the badge of servitude for a reason known only to him and to Allah, bless his name, but when the time came I had only to say the word and so forth and so on…

How had I managed to leave out all these divine behemoths and the ruckus they were constantly creating, me up on the carpet every few days to explain this and explain that, as if I had instigated their peculiar, inexplicably screwy behavior. Yeah, what a job trying to convince the big shot (with the brain of a midget) that the flower of America was seeded from the loins of these crack-pots, these monsters, these hair-brained idiots who, whatever the mischief, were possessed of strange talents such as the ability to read the Cabala backwards, multiply ten columns of figures at a time or sit on a cake of ice and manifest signs of fever. None of these explanations, of course, could alleviate the horrendous fact that an elderly woman had been raped the night before by a swarthy devil delivering a death message.

It was tough. I never could make things clear to him. Any more than I could present the case for Tobachnikov, the Talmudic student, who was the nearest replica of the living Christ that ever walked the streets of New York with Happy Easter messages in his hand. How could I say to him, this owl of a boss: This devil needs help. His mother is dying of cancer, his father peddles shoe laces all day, the pigeons are crippled. (The ones that used to make the synagogue their home.) He needs a raise. He needs food in his belly.

To astonish him or intrigue him, I would sometimes relate little anecdotes about my messengers, always using the past tense as if about some one who had once been in the service (though he was there all the time, right up my Sleeve, securely hidden away in Px or FU office.) Yes, I’d say, he was the accompanist of Johanna Gadski, when they were on tour in the Black Forest. Yes (about another), he once worked with Pasteur at the famous Institute in Paris. Yes (still another), he went back to India to finish His History of the World in four languages. Yes (a parting shot), he was one of the greatest jockeys that ever lived; made a fortune after he left us, then fell down an elevator shaft and smashed his skull.

And what was the invariable response? Very interesting, indeed. Keep up the good work. Remember, hire nothing but nice clean boys from good families. No Jews, no cripples, no ex-convicts. We want to be proud of our messenger force.

Yes, sir!

And by the way, see that you clean out all these niggers you’ve got on the force. We don’t want our clients to be scared out of their wits.

Yes, sir!

And I would go back to my perch, do a little shuffling, scramble them up a bit, but never fire a soul, not even if he were as black as the ace of spades.

How did I ever manage to leave them out of the messenger book, all these lovely dementia praecox cases, these star rovers, these diamond-backed logicians, these battle-scarred epileptics, thieves, pimps, whores, defrocked priests and students of the Talmud, the Cabala and the Sacred Books of the East? Novels! As if one could write about such matters, such specimens, in a novel. Where, in such a work, would one place the heart, the liver, the optic nerve, the pancreas or the gall bladder? They were not fictitious, they were alive, every one of them and, besides being riddled with disease, they ate and drank every day, they made water, they defecated, fornicated, robbed, murdered, gave false testimony, betrayed their fellow-men, put their children out to work, their sisters to whoring, their mothers to begging, their fathers to peddle shoe laces or collar buttons and to bring home cigarette butts, old newspapers and a few coppers from the blind man’s tin cup. What place is there in a novel for such goings on?

Yes, it was beautiful coming away from Town Hall of a snowy night, after hearing the Little Symphony perform. So civilized in there, such discreet applause, such knowing comments. And now the light touch of snow, cabs pulling up and darting away, the lights sparkling, splintering like icicles, and Monsieur Barrere and his little group sneaking out the back entrance to give a private recital at the home of some wealthy denizen of Park Avenue. A thousand paths leading away from the concert hall and in each one a tragic figure silently pursues his destiny. Paths criss-crossing everywhere: the low and the mighty, the meek and the tyrannical, the haves and the have nots.

Yes, many’s the night I attended a recital in one of these hallowed musical morgues and each time I walked out I thought not of the music I had heard but of one of my foundlings, one of the bleeding cosmococcic crew I had hired or fired that day and the memory of whom neither Haydn, Bach, Scarlatti, Beethoven, Beelzebub, Schubert, Paganini or any of the wind, string, horn or cymbal clan of murikers could dispel. I could see him, poor devil, leaving the office with his messenger suit wrapped in a brown parcel, heading for the elevated line at the Brooklyn Bridge, where he would board a train for Freshpond Road or Pitkin Avenue, or maybe Kosciusko Street, there to descend into the swarm, grab a sour pickle, dodge a kick in the ass, peel the potatoes, clean the lice out of the bedding and say a prayer for his great grandfather who had died at the hand of a drunken Pole because the sight of a beard floating in the wind was anathema to him. I could also see myself walking along Pitkin Avenue, or Kosciusko Street, searching for a certain hovel, or was it a kennel, and thinking to myself how lucky to be born a Gentile and speak English so well. (Is this still Brooklyn? Where am I?) Sometimes I could smell the clams in the bay, or perhaps it was the sewer water. And wherever I went, searching for the lost and the damned, there were always fire escapes loaded with bedding, and from the bedding there fell like wounded cherubim an assortment of lice, bedbugs, brown beetles, cockroaches and the scaly rinds of yesterday’s salami. Now and then I would treat myself to a succulent sour pickle or a smoked herring wrapped in newspaper. Those big fat pretzels, how good they were! The women all had red hands and blue fingers—from the cold, from scrubbing and washing and rinsing. But the son, a genius already, would have long, tapering lingers with calloused tips. Soon he would be playing at Carnegie Hall.) Nowhere in the upholstered Gentile world I hailed from had I ever run into a genius, or even a near genius. Even a book shop was hard to find. Calendars, yes, oodles of them, supplied by the butcher or grocer. Never a Holbein, a Carpaccio, a Hiroshige, a Giotto, nor even a Rembrandt. Whistler, possibly but only his mother, that placid looking creature all in black with hands folded in her lap, so resigned, so eminently respectable. No, never anything among us dreary Christians that smelled of art. But luscious pork stores with tripe and gizzards of every variety. And of course linoleums, brooms, flower pots. Everything from the animal and vegetable kingdom, plus hardware, German cheese cake, knackwurst and sauerkraut. A church on every block, a sad looking affair, such as only Lutherans and Presbyterians can bring forth from the depths of their sterilized faith. And Christ was a carpenter! He had built a church, but not of sticks and stones.

15.

Things continued to move along on greased cogs. It was almost like those early days of the Japanese love nest. If I went for a walk even the dead trees inspired me; if I visited Reb at his store I came back loaded with ideas as well as shirts, ties, gloves and handkerchieves. When I ran into the landlady I no longer had to worry about back rent. We were paid up everywhere now and had we wanted credit we could have had it galore. Even the Jewish holidays passed pleasantly, with a feast at this house and another at that. We were deep into the Fall, but it no longer oppressed me as it used to. The only thing I missed perhaps was a bike.

I had now had a few more lessons at the wheel and could apply for a driver’s license any time. When I had that I would take Mona for a spin, as Reb had urged. Meanwhile I had made the acquaintance of the Negro tenants. Good people, as Reb had said. Every time we collected the rents we came home pie-eyed and slap happy. One of the tenants, who worked as a Customs inspector, offered to lend me books. He had an amazing library of erotica, all filched at the docks in the course of duty. Never had I seen so many filthy books, so many dirty photographs. It matte me wonder what the famous Vatican Library contained in the way of forbidden fruit.

Now and then we went to the theatre, usually to see a foreign play—Georg Kaiser, Ernst Toller, Wedekind, Werfel, Sudermann, Chekov, Andreyev … The Irish players had arrived, bringing with them Juno and the Peacock and the Plough and the Stars. What a playwright, Sean O’Casey! Nothing like him since Ibsen.

On a sunny day I’d sit in Fort Greene Park and read a book—Idle Days Patagonia, Haunch, Paunch and Jowl, of The Tragic Sense of Life (Unamuno). If there was a record I wanted to hear which we didn’t have I could borrow from Reb’s collection or from the landlady’ s. When we felt like doing nothing we played chess, Mona and I. She wasn’t much of a player, but then neither was I. It was more exciting, I found, to study the games given in chess books—Paul Morphy’s above all. Or even to read about the evolution of the game, or the interest in it displayed by the Icelanders or the Malayans.

Not when the thought of seeing the folks—for Thanksgiving—could get me down. Now I could tell them—it would be only half a lie—that I had been commissioned to write a book. That I was getting paid for my labors. How that would tickle them! I was full of nothing but kind thoughts now. All the good things that had happened, to me were coming to the surface. I felt like sitting down to write this one and that, thanking him or her for all that had been done for me. Why not? And there were places, too, I would have to render thanks to—for yielding me blissful moments. I was that silly about it all that I made a special trip one day to Madison Square Garden and offered up silent thanks to the walls for the glorious moments I had experienced in the past, watching Buffalo Bill and his Pawnee Indians whooping it up, for the privilege of watching Jim Londos, the little Hercules, toss a giant of a Pole over his head, for the six day bike races and the unbelievable feats of endurance which I had witnessed.

In these breezy moods, all open to the sky as I was, was it any wonder that, bumping into Mrs. Skolsky on my way in or out, she would stop to look at me with great round eyes as I paused to pass the time of day? A pause of half or three-quarters of an hour sometimes, during which I unloaded titles of books, outlandish streets, dreams, homing pigeons, tug boats, anything at all, whatever came to mind, and it all came at once, it seemed, because I was happy, relaxed, carefree and in the best of health. Though I never made a false move, I knew and she knew that what I ought to do was to put my arms around her, kiss her, hug her, make her feel like a woman, not a landlady. Yes, she would say, but with her breasts. Yes, with her soft, warm belly. Yes. Always yes. If I had said—Lift your skirt and show me your pussy! it would have been yes too. But I had the sense to avoid such nonsense. I was content to remain what I appeared to be—a polite, talkative, and somewhat unusual (for a Goy) lodger. She could have appeared naked before me, with a platter of Kartoffelklose smothered in black gravy and I wouldn’t have laid a paw on her.

No, I was far too happy, far too content, to be thinking about chance fucks. As I say, the only thing I truly missed was the bike. Reb’s car, which he wanted me to consider as my own, meant nothing. Any more than would a limousine with a chauffeur to tote me around. Not even a passage to Europe meant much to me now. For the moment I had no need of Europe. Nice to dream about it, talk about, wonder about it. But it was good right where I was. To sit down each day and tap out a few pages, to read the books I wanted to read, hear the music I craved, take a walk, see a show, smoke a cigar if I wanted to—what more could I ask for? There were no longer any squabbles over Stasia, no more peeking and spying, no more sitting up nights and waiting. Everything was running true to form, including Mona. Soon I might even look forward to hearing her talk about her childhood, that mysterious no man’s land which lay between us. To see her marching home with arms loaded, her cheeks rosy, her eyes sparkling—what did it matter where (she was coming from or how she had spent the day? She was happy, I was happy. Even the birds in the garden were happy. All day long they sang, and when evening came they pointed their beaks at us and in their cheep-cheep language they said to one another—See, there’s a happy couple! Let’s sing for them before we go to sleep—

Finally the day came when I was to take Mona for an outing. I was now qualified to drive alone, in Reb’s opinion. It’s one thing, however, to pass a test and quite another to have your wife put her life in your hands. Backing out of the garage made me nervous as a cat. The damned thing was too huge, too lumbering; it had too much power. I was in a sweat lest it run away with us. Every few miles I brought it to a halt—always where there was room to make a clean start!—in order to calm down. I chose the side roads whenever possible, but they always led back to the main highway. By the time we were twenty miles out I was soaked with perspiration. I had hoped to go to Bluepoint, where I had passed such marvelous vacations as a boy, but we never made it. It was just as well too, for when I did visit it later I was heart-broken; it had changed beyond all recognition.

Stretched out on the side of the road, watching the other idiots drive by, I vowed I would never drive again. Mona was delighted by my discomfiture. You’re not cut out for it, she said. I agreed. I wouldn’t even know what to do if we had a blow-out, I said.

What would you do? she asked.

Get out and walk, I replied.

Just like you, she said.

Don’t tell Reb how I feel about it, I begged. He thinks he’s doing us a great favor. I wouldn’t want to let him down.

Must we go there for dinner this evening?

Of course.

Let’s leave early then.

Easier said than done, I replied.

On the way back we had car trouble. Fortunately a truck driver came to the rescue. Then I smashed into the rear end of a beaten up jalopy, but the driver didn’t seem to mind. Then the garage—how was I to snook her into that narrow passageway? I got half-way in, changed my mind, and in backing out narrowly missed colliding with a moving van. I left it standing half on the sidewalk, half in the gutter. Fuck you! I muttered. Make it on your own!

We had only a block or two to walk. With each step away from the monster I felt more and more relieved. Happy to be trotting along all in one piece, I thanked God for having made me a mechanical dope, and perhaps a dope in other respects as well. There were the hewers of wood and the drawers of water, and there were the wizards of the mechanical age. I belonged to the age of roller skates and velocipedes. How lucky to have good arms and legs, nimble feet, a sharp appetite! I could walk to California and back, on my own two feet. As for traveling at seventy-five an hour, I could go faster than that—in dream. I could go to Mars and back in the wink of an eye, and no blow—outs…

It was our first meal with the Essens. We had never met Mrs. Essen before, nor Reb’s son and daughter. They were waiting for us, the table spread, the candles lit, the fire going, and a wonderful aroma coming from the kitchen.

Have a drink! said Reb first thing, holding out two glasses of heavy port. How was it? Did you get nervous?

Not a bit, said I. We went all they way to Blue-point.

Next time it’ll be Montauk Point. Mrs. Essen now engaged us in talk. She was a good soul, as Reb had said. Perhaps a trifle too refined. A dead area somewhere. Probably in the behind.

I noticed that she hardly ever addressed her husband. Now and then she reproved him for his rudeness or for his bad language. One could see at a glance that there was nothing between them any more.

Mona had made an impression on the two youngsters, who were in their teens. (Evidently they had never come across a type like her before.) The daughter was overweight, plain looking, and endowed with extraordinary piano legs which she did her best to hide every time she sat down. She blushed a great deal. As for the son, he was one of those precocious kids who talk too much, know too much, laugh too much, and always say the wrong thing. Full of excess energy, excitable, he was forever knocking things over or stepping on some one’s toes. A genuine pipperoo, with a mind that jumped like a kangaroo.

When I asked if he still went to synagogue he made a wry face, pinched his nostril with two fingers, and made as if pulling the chain. His mother quickly explained that they had switched to Ethical Culture. It pleased her to learn that in the past I too had frequented the meetings of this society.

Let’s have some more to drink, said Reb, obviously fed up with talk of Ethical Culture, New Thought, Baha’i and such fol de rol.

We had some more of his tawny port. It was good, but too heavy.

After dinner, he said, we’ll play for you. He meant himself and the boy. (It’ll be horrible, I thought to myself.) I asked if he was far advanced, the boy.

He’s not a Mischa Elman yet, that’s for sure. He turned to his wife. Isn’t dinner soon ready?

She rose in stately fashion, smoothed her hair back from her brow, and headed straight for the kitchen. Almost like a somnambulist.

Let’s pull up to the table, said Reb. You people must be famished.

She was a good cook, Mrs. Essen, but too lavish. There was enough food on the table for twice as many as we were. The wine was lousy. Jews seldom had a taste for good wine, I observed to myself. With the coffee and dessert came Kummel and Benedictine. Mona’s spirits rose. She loved liqueurs. Mrs. Essen, I noticed, drank nothing but water. Reb, on the other hand, had been helping himself liberally. He was slightly inebriated, I would say. His talk was thick, his gestures loose and floppy. It was good to see him thus; he was himself, at least. Mrs. Essen, of course, pretended not to be aware of his condition. But the son was delighted; he enjoyed seeing his old man make a fool of himself.

It was a rather strange, rather eerie ambiance. Now and again Mrs. Essen tried to lift the conversation to a higher level. She even brought up Henry James—her idea of a controversial subject, no doubt—but it was no go. Reb had the upper hand. He swore freely now and called the rabbi a dope. No talky-talk for him. Fisticuffs and wrastling, as he called it, was his line now. He was giving us the low-down on Benny Leonard, his idol, and excoriating Strangler Lewis, whom he loathed.

To needle him, I said: And what about Redcap Wilson? (He had worked for me once as a night messenger. A deaf-mute, if I remember right.)

He brushed him off with—A third-rater, a punk.

Like Battling Nelson, I said.

Mrs. Essen intervened at this point to suggest that we withdraw to the other room, the parlor. You can talk more comfortably there, she said.

With this Sid Essen slammed his fist down hard. Why move? he shouted. Aren’t we doing all right here? You want us to change the conversation, that’s what. He reached for the Kummel. Here, let’s have a little more, everybody. It’s good, what?

Mrs. Essen and her daughter rose to clear the table. They did it silently and efficiently, as my mother and sister would have, leaving only the bottles and glasses on the table.

Reb nudged me to confide in what he thought was a whisper—Soon as she sees me enjoying myself she clamps down on me. That’s women for you.

Come on, Dad, said the boy, let’s get the fiddles out.

Get ‘em out, who’s stopping you? shouted Reb. But don’t play off key, it drives me nuts.

We adjourned to the parlor, where we spread ourselves about on sofas and easy chairs. I didn’t care what they played or how. I was a bit swacked myself from all the cheap wine and the liqueurs.

While the musicians tuned up fruit cake was passed around, then walnuts and shelled pecans.

It was a duet from Haydn which they had chosen as a starter. With the opening bar they were off base. But they stuck to their guns, hoping, I suppose, that eventually they would get in step. It was horripilating, the way they hacked and sawed away. Along toward the middle the old man broke down. Damn it! he yelled, flinging his fiddle on to a chair, it sounds god-awful. We’re not in form, I guess. As for you, he turned on his son, you’d better practise some more before you play for anybody.

He looked around as if searching for the bottle, but catching a grim look from his wife he slunk into an easy chair. He mumbled apologetically that he was getting rusty. Nobody said anything. He yawned loudly. Why not a game of chess? he said wearily.

Mrs. Essen spoke up. Please, not to-night!

He dragged himself to his feet, It’s stuffy in here, he said. I’m taking a walk. Don’t run away! I’ll be back soon.

When he had gone Mrs. Essen tried to account for his unseemly conduct. He’s lost interest in everything; he’s alone too much. She spoke almost as if he were already deceased.

Said the son: He ought to take a vacation.

Yes, said the daughter, we’re trying to get him to visit Palestine.

Why not send him to Paris? said Mona. That would liven him up.

The boy began to laugh hysterically.

What’s the matter? I asked.

He laughed even harder. Then he said: If he ever got to Paris we’d never see him again.

Now, now! said the mother.

You know Dad, he’d go plumb crazy, what with all the girls, the cafe’s, the…

What a way to talk! said Mrs. Essen.

You don’t know him, the boy retorted. I do. He wants to live. So do I.

Why not send the two of them abroad? said Mona. The father would look after the son and the son after the father.

At this point the doorbell rang. It was a neighbor who had heard that we were visiting the Essens and had come to make our acquaintance.

This is Mr. Elfenbein, said Mrs. Essen. She didn’t seem too delighted to see him.

With elbows bent and hands clasped Mr. Elfenbein came forward to greet us. His face was radiant, the perspiration was dripping from his brow.

What a privilege! he exclaimed, making a little bow, then clasping our hands and wringing them vigorously. I have heard so much about you, I hope you will pardon the invasion. Do you speak Yiddish perhaps—or Russe? He hunched his shoulders and moved his head from side to side, the eyes following like compass needles. He fixed me with a grin. Mrs. Skolsky tells me you are fond of Cantor Sirota…

I felt like a bird released from its cage. I went up to Mr. Elfenbein and gave him a good hug.

From Minsk or Pinsk? I said.

From the land of the Moabites, he replied.

He gave me a beamish look and stroked his beard. The boy put a glass of Kummel in his hand. There was a stray lock of hair on the crown of Mr. Elfenbein’s baldish head; it stood up like a corkscrew. He drained the glass of Kummel and accepted a piece of fruit cake. Again he clasped his hands over his breast.

Such a pleasure, he said, to make the acquaintance of an intelligent Goy. A Goy who writes books and talks to the birds. Who reads the Russians and observes Yom Kippur. And has the sense to marry a girl from Bukovina … a Tzigane, no less. And an actress! Where is that loafer, Sid? Is he drunk again? He looked around like a wise old owl about to hoot. Non, if a man studies all his life and then discovers that he is an idiot, is he right? The answer is Yes and No. We say in our village that a man must cultivate his own nonsense, not somebody else’s. And in the Cabala it says … But we mustn’t split hairs right away. From Minsk came the mink coats and from Pinsk nothing but misery. A Jew from the Corridor is a Jew whom the devil never touches. Moishe Echt was such a Jew. My cousin, in other words. Always in trouble with the rabbi. When winter came he locked himself in the granary. He was a harness maker…

He stopped abruptly and gave me a Satanic smile, In the Book of Job, I began. I Make it Revelations, he said. It’s more ectoplasmic.

Mona began to giggle. Mrs. Essen discreetly withdrew. Only the boy remained. He was making signs behind Mr. Elfenbein’s back, as if ringing a telephone attached to his temple.

When you begin a new opus, Mr. Elfenbein was saying, in what language do you pray first?

In the language of our fathers, I replied instanter. Abraham, Isaac, Ezekiel, Nehemiah…

And David and Solomon, and Ruth and Esther, he chimed in.

The boy now refilled Mr. Elfenbein’s glass and again he drained it in one gulp.

A fine young gangster he will grow to be, said Mr. Elfenbein, smacking his lips. Already he knows nothing from nothing. A malamed he should be—if he had his wits. Do you remember in Tried and Punished … ?

You mean Crime and Punishment, said young Essen.

In Russian it is The Crime and its Punishment. Now take a back seat and don’t make faces behind my back. I know I’m meshuggah, but this gentleman doesn’t. Let him find out for himself. Isn’t that so, Mr. Gentleman? He made a mock bow.

When a Jew turns from his religion, he went on, thinking of Mrs. Essen, no doubt, it’s like fat turning to water. Better to become a Christian than one of these milk and water—. He cut himself short, mindful of the proprieties. A Christian is a Jew with a crucifix in his hand. He can’t forget that we killed him, Jesus, who was a Jew like any other Jew, only more fanatical. To read Tolstoy you don’t have to be a Christian; a Jew understands him just as well. What was good about Tolstoy was that he finally got the courage to run away from his wife … and to give his money away. The lunatic is blessed; he doesn’t care about money. Christians are only make-believe lunatics; they carry life insurance as well as beads and prayer books. A Jew doesn’t walk about with the Psalms; he knows them by heart. Even when he’s selling shoe laces he’s humming a verse to himself. When the Gentile sings a hymn it sounds like he’s making war. Onward Christian Soldiers! How does it go—? Marching as to war. Why as to? They’re always making war—with a sabre in one hand and a crucifix in the other.

Mona now rose to draw closer. Mr. Elfenbein extended his hands, as if to a dancing partner. He sized her up from head to toe, like an auctioneer. Then he said: And what did you play in last, my rose of Sharon?

The Green Cockatoo, she replied (Tic-tac-toe.)

And before that?

The Goat Song, Liliom … Saint Joan.

Stop! He put up his hand. The Dybbuk is better suited to your temperament. More gynecological. Now what was that play of Sudermann’s? No matter. Ah yes … Magda. You’re a Magda, not a Monna Vanna. I ask you, how would I look in The God of Vengeance? Am I a Scbildkraut or a Ben Ami? Give me Siberia to play, not The servant in the House! He chucked her under the chin. You remind me a little of Elissa Landi. Yes, with a touch of Nazimova perhaps. If you had more weight, you could be another Modjeska. Hedda Gabler, that’s for you. My favorite is The Wild Duck. After that The Playboy of the Western World. But not in Yiddish, God forbid!

The theatre was his pet subject evidently. He had been, an actor years ago, first in Rummeldumvitza or some hole like that, then at the Thalia on the Bowery. It was there he met Ben Ami. And somewhere else Blanche Yurka. He had also known Vesta Tilly, odd thing. And David Warfield. He thought Androcles and the Lion was a gem, but didn’t care much for Shaw’s other plays. He was very fond of Ben Jonson and Marlowe, and of Hasenclever and von Hoffmansthal.

Beautiful women rarely make good actresses, he was saying. There should always be a defect of some kind—a longish nose or the eyes a little mis-focused. The best is to have an unusual voice. People always remember the voice. Pauline Lord’s, for example. He turned to Mona. You have a good voice too. It has brown sugar in it and cloves and nutmeg. The worst is the American voice—no soul in it. Jacob Ben Ami had a marvelous voice … like good soup … never turned rancid. But he dragged it around like a tortoise. A woman should cultivate the voice above everything. She should also think more, about what the play means … not about her exquisite postillion … I mean posterior. Jewish actresses have too much flesh usually; when they walk across the stage they shake like jelly. But they have sorrow in their voices.’.. Sorge. They don’t have to imagine that a devil is pulling a breast off with hot pincers. Yes, sin and sorrow are the best ingredients. And a bit of phantasmus. Like in Webster or Marlowe. A shoemaker who talks to the Devil every time he goes to the water closet. Or falls in love with a beanstalk, as in Moldavia. The Irish plays are full of lunatics and drunkards, and the nonsense they talk is holy nonsense. The Irish are poets always, especially when they know nothing. They have been tortured too, maybe not as much as the Jews, but enough. No one likes to eat potatoes three times a day or use a pitchfork for a toothpick. Great actors, the Irish. Born chimpanzees. The British are too refined, too mentalized. A masculine race, but castrated…

A commotion was going on at the door. It was Sid Essen returning from his walk with a couple of mangy looking cats he had rescued. His wife was trying to shoo them out.

Elfenbein! he shouted, waving his cap. Greetings! How did you get here?