CHAPTER TEN

 

            IT was obvious, even to a deluded fool like myself, that the three of us would never arrive in Paris together.  When, therefore, I received a letter from Tony Marella saying that I should report for work in a few days I took the opportunity to set them straight about my end of it.  In a heart to heart talk such as we hadn’t enjoyed for some time I suggested that it might be wiser for them to make the jump as soon as funds permitted and let me follow later.  Or, if the necessity arose, I could send them a little dough.  In my own mind I didn’t visualize any of us leaving for Europe within the next few months.  Maybe never.

       It didn’t take a mind reader to see how relieved they were that I wasn’t to accompany them.  Mona of course tried to urge me not to go live with my parents. If I had to go anywhere she thought I ought to camp out on Ulric.  I pretended that I would think about it.

       Anyway, our little heart to heart talk seemed to give them a new lease of life.  Every night now they brought back nothing but good reports.  All their friends, as well as the suckers, had promised to chip in to raise the passage money.  Stasia had purchased a little book on conversational French; I was the willing dummy on whom she practised her idiotic expressions.  “Madame, avez-vous une chambre à louer?  A quel prix, s’il vous plait?  Y a-t-il de l’eau courante?  Et du chauffage central?  Oui?  C’est chic.  Merci bien, madame!”  And so on.  Or she would ask me if I knew the difference between une facture and l’addition?  L’œil was singular for eye, les yeux plural.  Queer, what!  And if the adjective sacré came before the noun it had quite another meaning than if it came after the noun.  What do you know about that?  Very interesting indeed, wasn’t it?  But I didn’t give a shit about these subtleties.  I’d learn when the time came, and in my own way.

       In the back of the street directory which she had bought was a map of the Metro lines.  This fascinated me.  She showed me where Montmartre was and Montparnasse.  They would probably go to Montparnasse first, because that’s where most of the Americans congregated.  She also pointed out the Eiffel Tower, the Jadin du Luxembourg, the flea market, the abattoirs and the Louvre.

       “Where’s the Moulin Rouge?” I asked.

       She had to look it up in the index.

       “And the guillotine – where do they keep that?”

       She couldn’t answer that one.

       I couldn’t help observing how many streets were named after writers.  Alone I would spread out the map and trace the streets named after the famous ones: Rabelais, Dante, Balzac, Cervantes, Victor Hugo, Villon, Verlaine, Heine…. Then the philosophers, the historians, the scientists, the painters, the musicians – and finally the great warriors.  No end to the historical names.  What an education, I thought to myself, merely to take a stroll in such a city!  Imagine coming upon a street or place or impasse, was it? named after Vercingetorix!  (In America I had never happened on a street named after Daniel Boone, though maybe one existed in a place like South Dakota.)

       There was one street Stasia had pointed out which stuck in my crop; it was the street on which the Beaux Arts was located.  (She hoped to study there one day, she said.)  The name of this street was Bonaparte.  (Little did I realize then that this would be the first side street I would inhabit on arriving in Paris.)  On a side street just off it – the rue Visconti – Balzac once had a publishing house, a venture which ruined him for years to come.  On another side street, also leading off the rue Bonaparte, Oscar Wilde had once lived.

      

The day came to report for work.  It was a long, long ride to the office of the Parks Department.  Tony was waiting for me with open arms.

       “You don’t have to kill yourself,” he said, meaning in my capacity of gravedigger.  “Just make a stab at it.  Nobody’s going to keep tabs on you.”  He gave me a hearty slap on the back.  “You’re strong enough to handle a shovel, aren’t you?  Or wheel a load of dirt?”

       “Sure,” said I.  “Sure I am.”

       He introduced me to the foreman, told him not to work me too hard, and ambled back to the office.  In a week, he said I would be working beside him, in the Commissioner’s own office.

       The men were kind to me, probably because of my soft hands.  They gave me only the lightest sort of work to do.  A boy could have done the job as well.

       The first day I enjoyed immensely.  Manual work, how good it was!  And the fresh air, the smell of dirt, the birds carolling away.  A new approach to death.  How must it feel to dig one’s own grave?  A pity, I thought, that we weren’t all obliged to do just that at some point or other in our lives.  One might feel more comfortable in a grave dug with one’s own hands.

       What an appetite I had when I got home from work that evening!  Not that I had ever been deficient in this respect.  Strange to come home from work, like any Tom, Dick or Harry, and find a good meal waiting to be devoured.  There were flowers on the table as well as a bottle of most excellent French wine.  Few were the gravediggers who came back home to such a spread.  A gravedigger emeritus, that’s what I was.  A Shakespearean digger.  Prosit!

       Naturally it was the first and last meal of its kind.  Still, it was a good gesture.  After all, I deserved no signal respect or attention for the honourable work I was performing.

       Each day the work grew a little tougher.  The great moment came when I stood at the bottom of the hole swinging shovelsful of dirt over my shoulder.  A beautiful piece of work.  A hole in the ground?  There are holes and holes.  This was a consecrated hole.  A special, from Adam Cadmus to Adam Omega.

       I was all in the day I got to the bottom.  I had been the digger and the dug.  Yes, it was at the bottom of the grave, shovel in hand, that I realized there was something symbolic about my efforts.  Though another man’s body would occupy this hole, nevertheless I felt as if it were my own funeral.  (j’aurai un bel enterrement.)  It was a droll book, this “I’ll have a fine funeral”.  But it wasn’t droll standing in the bottomless pit seized by a sense of foreboding.  Maybe I was digging my own grave, symbolically speaking.  Well, another day or two and my initiation would be finished.  I could stand it.  Besides, soon I would be touching my first pay.  What an event!  Not that it represented a great sum.  No, but I had earned it “by the sweat of the brow”.

       It was now Thursday.  Then Friday.  Then payday.

       Thursday, this day of foreboding, the atmosphere at home seemed permeated with a new element.  I couldn’t say what it was precisely that disturbed me so.  Certainly not because they were preternaturally gay.  They often had such streaks.  They were over-expectant, that’s the only way I can put it.  But of what?  And the way they smiled upon me – the sort of smile one gives a child who is impatient to know.  Smiles which said – “Just wait, you’ll find out soon enough!”  The most disturbing thing was that nothing I said irritated them.  They were unshakably complacent.

       The next evening, Friday, they came home with berets.  “What’s come over them?” I said to myself.  “Do they think they’re in Paris already?”  They lingered inordinately over their ablutions.  And they were singing again, singing like mad – one in the tub, the other under the shower.  “Let me call you sweetheart, I’m in love … ooo – oo – oo.”  Followed by “Tipperary”.  Right jolly it was.  How they laughed and giggled!  Brimming over with happiness, bless their little hearts!

       I couldn’t resist taking a peek at them.  There was Stasia standing up in the tub scrubbing her pussy.  She didn’t scream or even say Oh!  As for Mona, she had just emerged from the shower, with a towel flung about her middle.

       “I’ll rub you down,” I said, grabbing the towel.

       While I rubbed and patted and stroked her she kept purring like a cat.  Finally I doused her all over with cologne water.  She enjoyed that too.

       “You’re so wonderful,” she said.  “I do love you, Val.  I really do.”  She embraced me warmly.

       “Tomorrow you get paid, don’t you?” she said.  “I wish you would buy me a brassière and a pair of stockings.  I need them bad.”

       “Of course,” I replied.  “Isn’t there anything else you would like?”

       “No, that’s all, Val dear.”

       “Sure?  I can get you anything you need – tomorrow.”

       She gave me a coy look.

       “All right then, just one thing more.”

       “What’s that?”

       “A bunch of violets.”

       We rounded off his scene of connubial bliss with a royal fuck which was twice interrupted by Stasia who pretended to be searching for something or other and who continued to pace up and down the hall even after we had quietened down.

       Then something really weird occurred.  Just as I was dozing off who should come to the bedside, bend over me tenderly and kiss me on the forehead, but Stasia.  “Good night,” she said.  “Pleasant dreams!”

       I was too exhausted to bother my head with interpretations of this strange gesture.  “Lonely, that’s what!” was all I could think at the moment.

       In the morning they were up and about before I had rubbed the sand out of my eyes.  Still cheerful, still eager to give me pleasure.  Could it be the salary I was bringing home that had gone to their heads?  And why strawberries for breakfast?  Strawberries smothered in heavy cream?  Whew!

       Then another unusual thing occurred.  As I was leaving, Mona insisted on escorting me to the street.

       “What’s the matter?” I said.  “Why this?”

       “I want to see you off, that’s all.”  She threw me one of those smiles – the indulgent mother kind.

       She remained standing at the railing, in her light kimono, as I trotted off.  Half-way down the block I turned to see if she was still there.  She was.  She waved goodbye.  I waved back.

       In the train I settled down for a brief snooze.  What a beautiful way to begin the day!  (And no more graves to be dug.)  Strawberries for breakfast.  Mona waving me off.  Everything so ducky, as it should be.  Superlatively so.  At last I had hit the groove….

       Saturdays we worked only half a day.  I collected my wages, had lunch with Tony, during which he explained what my new duties would be, then we took a spin through the Park, and finally I set out for home.  On the way I bought two pairs of stockings a brassiere, a bouquet of violets – and a German cheese cake.  (The cheese cake was a treat for myself.)

       It was dark by the time I arrived in front of the house.  There were no light on inside.  Funny, I thought.  Were they playing hide and seek with me?  I walked in, lit a couple of candles, and threw a quick look around.  Something was amiss.  For a sec I thought we had been visited by burglars.  A glance at Stasia’s room only heightened my apprehension.  Her trunk and valise were gone.  In fact, the room was stripped of all her belongings.  Had she fled the coop?  Was that why the goodnight kiss?  I inspected the other rooms.  Some of the bureau draws were open, discarded clothing was scattered all about.  The state of disorder indicated that the evacuation had been wild and sudden like.  That sinking feeling that I had experienced standing at the bottom of the grave came over me.

       At the desk near the window I thought I saw a piece of paper – a note perhaps.  Sure enough, under a paperweight was a note scrawled in pencil.  It was in Mona’s hand.

       “Dear Val,” it ran.  “We sailed this morning on the Rochambeau.  Didn’t have the heart to tell you.  Write care of American Express, Paris.  Love.”

       I read it again.  One always does when it’s a fateful message.  Then I sank on to the chair at the desk.  At first the tears came slowly, drop by drop, as it were.  Then they gushed forth.  Soon I was sobbing.  Terrible sobs that ripped me from stern to stern.  How could she do this to me?  I knew they were going without me – but not like this.  Running off like two naughty children.  And that last minute act – “bring me a bunch of violets!”  Why?  To throw me off the track?  Was that necessary?  Had I become as a child?  Only a child is treated thus.

       In spite of the sobs my anger rose.  I raised my fist and cursed them for a pair of double-crossing bitches; I prayed that the ship would sink, I swore that I’d never send them a penny, never, even if they were starving to death.  Then, to relieve the anguish, I rose to my feet and hurled the paperweight at the photo above the desk.  Grabbing a book, I smashed another picture.  From room to room I moved, smashing everything in sight.  Suddenly I noticed a heap of discarded clothing in a corner.  It was Mona’s.  I picked up each article – panties, brassiere, blouse – and automatically sniffed them.  They still reeked of the perfume she used.  I gathered them up and stuffed them under my pillow.  Then I began to yell.  I yelled and yelled and yelled.  And when I had finished yelling I started singing – “Let me call you sweetheart … I’m in love with you-ou-ou….”  The cheese cake was staring me in the face.  “Fuck you!” I shouted, and raising it above my head I splattered it against the wall.

       It was at this point that the door softly opened and there hands clasped over her bosom stood one of the Dutch sisters from upstairs.

       “My poor man, my poor, dear man,” said she, coming close and making as if to throw her arms around me.  “Please, please don’t take it so hard!  I know how you feel … yes, it’s terrible.  But they will come back.”

       This tender little speech started the tears flowing again.  She put her arms around me, kissed me on both cheeks.  I made no objection.  Then she led me to the bed and sat down, pulling me beside her.

       In spite of my grief I couldn’t help noting her slovenly appearance.  Over her frayed pyjamas – she wore them all day apparently – she had thrown a stained kimono.  Her stockings hung loosely about her ankles; hairpins were dangling from her mop of tousled hair.  She was a frump, no mistake about it.  Frump or no frump, however, she was genuinely distressed, genuinely concerned for me.

       With one arm around my shoulder she told me gently but tactfully that she had been aware for some time of all that was going on.  “But I had to hold my tongue,” she said.  She paused now and then to permit me to give way to grief.  Finally she assured me that Mona loved me.  “Yes,” she said, “she loves you dearly.”

       I was about to protest these words when again the door opened softly and there stood the other sister.  This one was better attired and more attractive looking.  She came over and after a few soft words sat down on the other side of me.  The two of them now held my hands in theirs.  What a picture it must have been!

       Such solicitude!  Did they imagine that I was ready to blow my brains out?  Over and over they assured me that everything was for the best.  Patience, patience!  In the end everything would work out well.  It was inevitable, they said.  Why?  Because I was such a good person.  God was testing me, that was all.

       “Often,” said the one, “we wanted to come down and console you, but we didn’t dare to intrude.  We knew how you felt.  We could tell when you paced back and forth, back and forth.  It was heart-rending, but what could we do?”

       It was getting too much for me, all this sympathizing.  I got up and lit a cigarette.  The frumpy one now excused herself and ran upstairs.

       “She’ll be back in a minute,” said the other.  She began telling me about their life in Holland.  Something she said, or the way she said it, caused me to laugh.  She clapped her hands with delight.  “See, it’s not so bad after all, is it?  You can still laugh.”

       With this I began to laugh harder, much harder.  It was impossible to say whether I was laughing or weeping.  I couldn’t stop.

       “There now, there now,” she said, pressing me to her and cooing.  “Put your head on my shoulder.  That’s it.  My, but you have a tender heart!”

       Ridiculous as it was, it felt good to give way on her shoulder.  I even felt a slight stirring of sex, locked in her motherly embrace.

       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 schnapps.

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

       “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 awhile,” 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 centre: the unacceptable now.

       How I passed the rest of the day is a complete blank.  All I remember is that the heartache 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 slaughterhouse and have them fell me like a 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 today, 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 tomorrow,” 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 fourteenth 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 more!  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 behaviour.  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 marvellous, 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 fourteenth Ward where he went to shoot pool with the boys, to drink and to gamble.  Maujer, Teneyck, Conselyea, Davoe, 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 anwer: “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 his 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 neighbourhood.  Some of them 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’re 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 labours 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 verses politicians; beauty verses cunning and deceit.  Poor Tony, he was trying so hard to keep his hands clean.  Always kidding himself, or selling himself, or 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 practices 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 everyone, like it or not.  Even Lincoln.  No, I’m just a Sicillian 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 neighbourhood.  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 a 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 grey 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.  Everyone 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 stream.  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 sleepytime 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, war, 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 given 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 leaned, 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 someone.  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 labours, 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 Doomsday 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?  Abélard 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 naïve!  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 [by] 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.  When 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 Abélard and Héloise 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.