Part 32

“I dunno.... It kinder gave me the itch.... I was two years in it. Things aint been the same. I used to think all I wanted was to get a good job an marry an settle down, an now I dont give a damn.... I can keep a job for six months or so an then I get the almighty itch, see? So I thought I ought to see the orient a bit....”

“Never you mind,” says Rooney shaking his head. “You’re goin to see it, dont you worry about that.”

“What’s the damage?” the young man asks the counterman.

“They must a caught you young.”

“I was sixteen when I enlisted.” He picks up his change and follows Rooney’s broad shambling back into the street. At the end of the street, beyond trucks and the roofs of warehouses, he can see masts and the smoke of steamers and white steam rising into the sunlight.

* * * * *

“Pull down the shade,” comes the man’s voice from the bed.

“I cant, it’s busted.... Oh hell, here’s the whole business down.” Anna almost bursts out crying when the roll hits her in the face, “You fix it,” she says going towards the bed.

“What do I care, they cant see in,” says the man catching hold of her laughing.

“It’s just those lights,” she moans, wearily letting herself go limp in his arms.

It is a small room the shape of a shoebox with an iron bed in the corner of the wall opposite the window. A roar of streets rises to it rattling up a V shaped recess in the building. On the ceiling she can see the changing glow of electric signs along Broadway, white, red, green, then a jumble like a bubble bursting, and again white, red, green.

“Oh Dick I wish you’d fix that shade, those lights give me the willies.”

“The lights are all right Anna, it’s like bein in a theater.... It’s the Gay White Way, like they used to say.”

“That stuff’s all right for you out of town fellers, but it gives me the willies.”

“So you’re workin for Madame Soubrine now are you Anna?”

“You mean I’m scabbin.... I know it. The old woman trew me out an it was get a job or croak....”

“A nice girl like you Anna could always find a boyfriend.”

“God you buyers are a dirty lot.... You think that because I’ll go with you, I’d go wid anybody.... Well I wouldnt, do you get that?”

“I didnt mean that Anna.... Gee you’re awful quick tonight.”

“I guess it’s my nerves.... This strike an the old woman trowin me out an scabbin up at Soubrine’s ... it’d get anybody’s goat. They can all go to hell for all I care. Why wont they leave you alone? I never did nothin to hurt anybody in my life. All I want is for em to leave me alone an let me get my pay an have a good time now and then.... God Dick it’s terrible.... I dont dare go out on the street for fear of meetin some of the girls of my old local.”

“Hell Anna, things aint so bad, honest I’d take you West with me if it wasnt for my wife.”

Anna’s voice goes on in an even whimper, “An now ’cause I take a shine to you and want to give you a good time you call me a goddam whore.”

“I didnt say no such thing. I didnt even think it. All I thought was that you was a dead game sport and not a kewpie above the ears like most of ’em.... Look if it’ll make ye feel better I’ll try an fix that shade.”

Lying on her side she watches his heavy body move against the milky light of the window. At last his teeth chattering he comes back to her. “I cant fix the goddam thing.... Kerist it’s cold.”

“Never mind Dick, come on to bed.... It must be late. I got to be up there at eight.”

He pulls his watch from under the pillow. “It’s half after two.... Hello kitten.”

On the ceiling she can see reflected the changing glare of the electric signs, white, red, green, then a jumble like a bubble bursting, then again white, green, red.

* * * * *

“An he didn’t even invite me to the wedding.... Honestly Florence I could have forgiven him if he’d invited me to the wedding,” she said to the colored maid when she brought in the coffee. It was a Sunday morning. She was sitting up in bed with the papers spread over her lap. She was looking at a photograph in a rotogravure section labeled Mr. and Mrs. Jack Cunningham Hop Off for the First Lap of Their Honeymoon on his Sensational Seaplane Albatross VII. “He looks handsome dont he?”

“He su’ is miss.... But wasn’t there anything you could do to stop ’em, miss?”

“Not a thing.... You see he said he’d have me committed to an asylum if I tried.... He knows perfectly well a Yucatan divorce isn’t legal.”

Florence sighed.

“Menfolks su’ do dirt to us poor girls.”

“Oh this wont last long. You can see by her face she’s a nasty selfish spoiled little girl.... And I’m his real wife before God and man. Lord knows I tried to warn her. Whom God has joined let no man put asunder ... that’s in the Bible isnt it?... Florence this coffee is simply terrible this morning. I cant drink it. You go right out and make me some fresh.”

Frowning and hunching her shoulders Florence went out the door with the tray.

Mrs. Cunningham heaved a deep sigh and settled herself among the pillows. Outside churchbells were ringing. “Oh Jack you darling I love you just the same,” she said to the picture. Then she kissed it. “Listen, deary the churchbells sounded like that the day we ran away from the High School Prom and got married in Milwaukee.... It was a lovely Sunday morning.” Then she stared in the face of the second Mrs. Cunningham. “Oh you,” she said and poked her finger through it.

* * * * *

When she got to her feet she found that the courtroom was very slowly sickeningly going round and round; the white fishfaced judge with noseglasses, faces, cops, uniformed attendants, gray windows, yellow desks, all going round and round in the sickening close smell, her lawyer with his white hawk nose, wiping his bald head, frowning, going round and round until she thought she would throw up. She couldn’t hear a word that was said, she kept blinking to get the blur out of her ears. She could feel Dutch behind her hunched up with his head in his hands. She didnt dare look back. Then after hours everything was sharp and clear, very far away. The judge was shouting at her, from the small end of a funnel his colorless lips moving in and out like the mouth of a fish.

“... And now as a man and a citizen of this great city I want to say a few words to the defendants. Briefly this sort of thing has got to stop. The unalienable rights of human life and property the great men who founded this republic laid down in the constitootion have got to be reinstated. It is the dooty of every man in office and out of office to combat this wave of lawlessness by every means in his power. Therefore in spite of what those sentimental newspaper writers who corrupt the public mind and put into the head of weaklings and misfits of your sort the idea that you can buck the law of God and man, and private property, that you can wrench by force from peaceful citizens what they have earned by hard work and brains ... and get away with it; in spite of what these journalistic hacks and quacks would call extentuating circumstances I am going to impose on you two highwaymen the maximum severity of the law. It is high time an example was made....”

The judge took a drink of water. Francie could see the little beads of sweat standing out from the pores of his nose.

“It is high time an example was made,” the judge shouted. “Not that I dont feel as a tender and loving father the misfortunes, the lack of education and ideels, the lack of a loving home and tender care of a mother that has led this young woman into a life of immorality and misery, led away by the temptations of cruel and voracious men and the excitement and wickedness of what has been too well named, the jazz age. Yet at the moment when these thoughts are about to temper with mercy the stern anger of the law, the importunate recollection rises of other young girls, perhaps hundreds of them at this moment in this great city about to fall into the clutches of a brutal and unscrupulous tempter like this man Robertson ... for him and his ilk there is no punishment sufficiently severe ... and I remember that mercy misplaced is often cruelty in the long run. All we can do is shed a tear for erring womanhood and breathe a prayer for the innocent babe that this unfortunate girl has brought into the world as the fruit of her shame....”

Francie felt a cold tingling that began at her fingertips and ran up her arms into the blurred whirling nausea of her body. “Twenty years,” she could hear the whisper round the court, they all seemed licking their lips whispering softly “Twenty years.” “I guess I’m going to faint,” she said to herself as if to a friend. Everything went crashing black.

* * * * *

Propped with five pillows in the middle of his wide colonial mahogany bed with pineapples on the posts Phineas P. Blackhead his face purple as his silk dressing gown sat up and cursed. The big mahogany-finished bedroom hung with Javanese print cloth instead of wallpaper was empty except for a Hindu servant in a white jacket and turban who stood at the foot of the bed, with his hands at his sides, now and then bowing his head at a louder gust of cursing and saying “Yes, Sahib, yes, Sahib.”

“By the living almighty Jingo you goddam yellow Babu bring me that whiskey, or I’ll get up and break every bone in your body, do you hear, Jesus God cant I be obeyed in my own house? When I say whiskey I mean rye not orange juice. Damnation. Here take it!” He picked up a cutglass pitcher off the nighttable and slung it at the Hindu. Then he sank back on the pillows, saliva bubbling on his lips, choking for breath.

Silently the Hindu mopped up the thick Beluchistan rug and slunk out of the room with a pile of broken glass in his hand. Blackhead was breathing more easily, his eyes sank into their deep sockets and were lost in the folds of sagged green lids.

He seemed asleep when Gladys came in wearing a raincoat with a wet umbrella in her hand. She tiptoed to the window and stood looking out at the gray rainy street and the old tomblike brownstone houses opposite. For a splinter of a second she was a little girl come in her nightgown to have Sunday morning breakfast with daddy in his big bed.

He woke up with a start, looked about him with bloodshot eyes, the heavy muscles of his jowl tightening under the ghastly purplish skin.

“Well Gladys where’s that rye whiskey I ordered?”

“Oh daddy you know what Dr. Thom said.”

“He said it’d kill me if I took another drink.... Well I’m not dead yet am I? He’s a damned ass.”

“Oh but you must take care of yourself and not get all excited.” She kissed him and put a cool slim hand on his forehead.

“Havent I got reason to get excited? If I had my hands on that dirty lilylivered bastard’s neck.... We’d have pulled through if he hadnt lost his nerve. Serve me right for taking such a yellow sop into partnership.... Twentyfive, thirty years of work all gone to hell in ten minutes.... For twentyfive years my word’s been as good as a banknote. Best thing for me to do’s to follow the firm to Tophet, to hell with me. And by the living Jingo you, my own flesh, tell me not to drink.... God almighty. Hay Bob.... Bob.... Where’s that goddam officeboy gone? Hay come here one of you sons of bitches, what do you think I pay you for?”

A nurse put her head in the door.

“Get out of here,” shouted Blackhead, “none of your starched virgins around me.” He threw the pillow from under his head. The nurse disappeared. The pillow hit one of the posts and bounced back on the bed. Gladys began to cry.

“Oh daddy I cant stand it ... and everybody always respected you so.... Do try to control yourself, daddy dear.”

“And why should I for Christ’s sake...? Show’s over, why dont you laugh? Curtain’s down. It’s all a joke, a smutty joke.”

He began to laugh deliriously, then he was choking, fighting for breath with clenched fists again. At length he said in a broken voice, “Don’t you see that it’s only the whiskey that was keeping me going? Go away and leave me Gladys and send that damned Hindu to me. I’ve always liked you better than anything in the world.... You know that. Quick tell him to bring me what I ordered.”

Gladys went out crying. Outside her husband was pacing up and down the hall. “It’s those damned reporters ... I dont know what to tell ’em. They say the creditors want to prosecute.”

“Mrs. Gaston,” interrupted the nurse, “I’m afraid you’ll have to get male nurses.... Really I cant do anything with him....” On the lower floor a telephone was ringing, ringing.

When the Hindu brought the bottle of whiskey Blackhead filled a highball glass and took a deep gulp of it.

“Ah that makes you feel better, by the living Jingo it does. Achmet you’re a good fellow.... Well I guess we’ll have to face the music and sell out.... Thank God Gladys is settled. I’ll sell out every goddam thing I’ve got. I wish that precious son-in-law wasnt such a simp. Always my luck to be surrounded by a lot of capons.... By gad I’d just as soon go to jail if it’ll do em any good; why not? it’s all in a lifetime. And afterwards when I come out I’ll get a job as a bargeman or watchman on a wharf. I’d like that. Why not take it easy after tearing things up all my life, eh Achmet?”

“Yes Sahib,” said the Hindu with a bow.

Blackhead mimicked him, “Yes Sahib.... You always say yes, Achmet, isn’t that funny?” He began to laugh with a choked rattling laugh. “I guess that’s the easiest way.” He laughed and laughed, then suddenly he couldnt laugh any more. A perking spasm went through all his limbs. He twisted his mouth in an effort to speak. For a second his eyes looked about the room, the eyes of a little child that has been hurt before it begins to cry, until he fell back limp, his open mouth biting at his shoulder. Achmet looked at him coolly for a long time then he went up to him and spat in his face. Immediately he took a handkerchief out of the pocket of his linen jacket and wiped the spittle off the taut ivory skin. Then he closed the mouth and propped the body among the pillows and walked softly out of the room. In the hall Gladys sat in a big chair reading a magazine. “Sahib much better, he sleep a little bit maybe.”

“Oh Achmet I’m so glad,” she said and looked back to her magazine.

* * * * *

Ellen got off the bus at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Fiftythird Street. Rosy twilight was gushing out of the brilliant west, glittered in brass and nickel, on buttons, in people’s eyes. All the windows on the east side of the avenue were aflame. As she stood with set teeth on the curb waiting to cross, a frail tendril of fragrance brushed her face. A skinny lad with towhair stringy under a foreignlooking cap was offering her arbutus in a basket. She bought a bunch and pressed her nose in it. May woods melted like sugar against her palate.

The whistle blew, gears ground as cars started to pour out of the side streets, the crossing thronged with people. Ellen felt the lad brush against her as he crossed at her side. She shrank away. Through the smell of the arbutus she caught for a second the unwashed smell of his body, the smell of immigrants, of Ellis Island, of crowded tenements. Under all the nickelplated, goldplated streets enameled with May, uneasily she could feel the huddling smell, spreading in dark slow crouching masses like corruption oozing from broken sewers, like a mob. She walked briskly down the cross-street. She went in a door beside a small immaculately polished brass plate.

MADAME SOUBRINE ROBES

She forgot everything in the catlike smile of Madame Soubrine herself, a stout blackhaired perhaps Russian woman who came out to her from behind a curtain with outstretched arms, while other customers waiting on sofas in a sort of Empress Josephine parlor, looked on enviously.

“My dear Mrs. Herf, where have you been? We’ve had your dress for a week,” she exclaimed in too perfect English. “Ah my dear, you wait ... it’s magnificent.... And how is Mr. Harrpiscourt?”

“I’ve been very busy.... You see I’m giving up my job.”

Madame Soubrine nodded and blinked knowingly and led the way through the tapestry curtains into the back of the shop.

“Ah ça se voit.... Il ne faut pas trravailler, on peut voir dejà des toutes petites rrides. Mais ils dispareaitront. Forgive me, dear.” The thick arm round her waist squeezed her. Ellen edged off a little.... “Vous la femme la plus belle de New Yorrk.... Angelica Mrs. Herf’s evening dress,” she shouted in a shrill grating voice like a guineahen’s.

A hollowcheeked washedout blond girl came in with the dress on a hanger. Ellen slipped off her gray tailored walkingsuit. Madame Soubrine circled round her, purring. “Angelica look at those shoulders, the color of the hair.... Ah c’est le rêve,” edging a little too near like a cat that wants its back rubbed. The dress was pale green with a slash of scarlet and dark blue.

“This is the last time I have a dress like this, I’m sick of always wearing blue and green....” Madame Soubrine, her mouth full of pins, was at her feet, fussing with the hem.

“Perfect Greek simplicity, wellgirdled like Diana.... Spiritual with Spring ... the ultimate restraint of an Annette Kellermann, holding up the lamp of liberty, the wise virgin,” she was muttering through her pins.

She’s right, Ellen was thinking, I am getting a hard look. She was looking at herself in the tall pierglass. Then my figure’ll go, the menopause haunting beauty parlors, packed in boncilla, having your face raised.

“Regardez-moi ça, cherrie;” said the dressmaker getting to her feet and taking the pins out of her mouth “C’est le chef-dœuvre de la maison Soubrine.”

Ellen suddenly felt hot, tangled in some prickly web, a horrible stuffiness of dyed silks and crêpes and muslins was making her head ache; she was anxious to be out on the street again.

“I smell smoke, there’s something the matter,” the blond girl suddenly cried out. “Sh-sh-sh,” hissed Madame Soubrine. They both disappeared through a mirrorcovered door.

Under a skylight in the back room of Soubrine’s Anna Cohen sits sewing the trimming on a dress with swift tiny stitches. On the table in front of her a great pile of tulle rises full of light like beaten white of egg. _Charley my boy, Oh Charley my boy_, she hums, stitching the future with swift tiny stitches. If Elmer wants to marry me we might as well; poor Elmer, he’s a nice boy but so dreamy. Funny he’d fall for a girl like me. He’ll grow out of it, or maybe in the Revolution, he’ll be a great man.... Have to cut out parties when I’m Elmer’s wife. But maybe we can save up money and open a little store on Avenue A in a good location, make better money there than uptown. La Parisienne, Modes.

I bet I could do as good as that old bitch. If you was your own boss there wouldn’t be this fightin about strikers and scabs.... Equal Opportunity for All. Elmer says that’s all applesauce. No hope for the workers but in the Revolution. _Oh I’m juss wild about Harree, And Harry’s juss wild about me._... Elmer in a telephone central in a dinnercoat, with eartabs, tall as Valentino, strong as Doug. The Revolution is declared. The Red Guard is marching up Fifth Avenue. Anna in golden curls with a little kitten under her arm leans with him out of the tallest window. White tumbler pigeons flutter against the city below them. Fifth Avenue bleeding red flags, glittering with marching bands, hoarse voices singing Die Rote Fahne in Yiddish; far away, from the Woolworth a banner shakes into the wind. ‘Look Elmer darling’ ELMER DUSKIN FOR MAYOR. And they’re dancing the Charleston in all the officebuildings.... _Thump. Thump. That Charleston dance.... Thump. Thump._... Perhaps I do love him. Elmer take me. Elmer, loving as Valentino, crushing me to him with Doug-strong arms, hot as flame, Elmer.

Through the dream she is stitching white fingers beckon. The white tulle shines too bright. Red hands clutch suddenly out of the tulle, she cant fight off the red tulle all round her biting into her, coiled about her head. The skylight’s blackened with swirling smoke. The room’s full of smoke and screaming. Anna is on her feet whirling round fighting with her hands the burning tulle all round her.

Ellen stands looking at herself in the pierglass in the fitting room. The smell of singed fabrics gets stronger. After walking to and fro nervously a little while she goes through the glass door, down a passage hung with dresses, ducks under a cloud of smoke, and sees through streaming eyes the big workroom, screaming girls huddling behind Madame Soubrine, who is pointing a chemical extinguisher at charred piles of goods about a table. They are picking something moaning out of the charred goods. Out of the corner of her eye she sees an arm in shreds, a seared black red face, a horrible naked head.

“Oh Mrs. Herf, please tell them in front it’s nothing, absolutely nothing.... I’ll be there at once,” Madame Soubrine shrieks breathlessly at her. Ellen runs with closed eyes through the smokefilled corridor into the clean air of the fitting room, then, when her eyes have stopped running, she goes through the curtains to the agitated women in the waiting room.

“Madame Soubrine asked me to tell everybody it was nothing, absolutely nothing. Just a little blaze in a pile of rubbish.... She put it out herself with an extinguisher.”

“Nothing, absolutely nothing,” the women say one to another settling back onto the Empress Josephine sofas.