Part 8
“I know that ... I’m killing myself with work; I know that,” sighed Madame Rigaud from her stool at the cashdesk. Emile was silent a long time staring at the cross section of a Westphalia ham that lay on a marble slab beside his elbow. Then he said timidly: “A woman like you, a beautiful woman like you, Madame Rigaud, is never without friends.”
“Ah ça.... I have lived too much in my time.... I have no more confidence.... Men are a set of brutes, and women, Oh I dont get on with women a bit!”
“History and literature ...” began Emile.
The bell on the top of the door jangled. A man and a woman stamped into the shop. She had yellow hair and a hat like a flowerbed.
“Now Billy dont be extravagant,” she was saying.
“But Norah we got have sumpen te eat.... An I’ll be all jake by Saturday.”
“Nutten’ll be jake till you stop playin the ponies.”
“Aw go long wud yer.... Let’s have some liverwurst.... My that cold breast of turkey looks good....”
“Piggywiggy,” cooed the yellowhaired girl.
“Lay off me will ye, I’m doing this.”
“Yes sir ze breast of turkee is veree goud.... We ave ole cheekens too, steel ’ot.... Emile mong ami cherchez moi uns de ces petits poulets dans la cuisin-e.” Madame Rigaud spoke like an oracle without moving from her stool by the cashdesk. The man was fanning himself with a thickbrimmed straw hat that had a checked band.
“Varm tonight,” said Madame Rigaud.
“It sure is.... Norah we ought to have gone down to the Island instead of bummin round this town.”
“Billy you know why we couldn’t go perfectly well.”
“Don’t rub it in. Aint I tellin ye it’ll be all jake by Saturday.”
“History and literature,” continued Emile when the customers had gone off with the chicken, leaving Madame Rigaud a silver half dollar to lock up in the till ... “history and literature teach us that there are friendships, that there sometimes comes love that is worthy of confidence....”
“History and literature!” Madame Rigaud growled with internal laughter. “A lot of good that’ll do us.”
“But dont you ever feel lonely in a big foreign city like this...? Everything is so hard. Women look in your pocket not in your heart.... I cant stand it any more.”
Madame Rigaud’s broad shoulders and her big breasts shook with laughter. Her corsets creaked when she lifted herself still laughing off the stool. “Emile, you’re a good-looking fellow and steady and you’ll get on in the world.... But I’ll never put myself in a man’s power again.... I’ve suffered too much.... Not if you came to me with five thousand dollars.”
“You’re a very cruel woman.”
Madame Rigaud laughed again. “Come along now, you can help me close up.”
* * * * *
Sunday weighed silent and sunny over downtown. Baldwin sat at his desk in his shirtsleeves reading a calfbound lawbook. Now and then he wrote down a note on a scratchpad in a wide regular hand. The phone rang loud in the hot stillness. He finished the paragraph he was reading and strode over to answer it.
“Yes I’m here alone, come on over if you want to.” He put down the receiver. “God damn it,” he muttered through clenched teeth.
Nellie came in without knocking, found him pacing back and forth in front of the window.
“Hello Nellie,” he said without looking up; she stood still staring at him.
“Look here Georgy this cant go on.”
“Why cant it?”
“I’m sick of always pretendin an deceivin.”
“Nobody’s found out anything, have they?”
“Oh of course not.”
She went up to him and straightened his necktie. He kissed her gently on the mouth. She wore a frilled muslin dress of a reddish lilac color and had a blue sunshade in her hand.
“How’s things Georgy?”
“Wonderful. D’you know, you people have brought me luck? I’ve got several good cases on hand now and I’ve made some very valuable connections.”
“Little luck it’s brought me. I haven’t dared go to confession yet. The priest’ll be thinkin I’ve turned heathen.”
“How’s Gus?”
“Oh full of his plans.... Might think he’d earned the money, he’s gettin that cocky about it.”
“Look Nellie how would it be if you left Gus and came and lived with me? You could get a divorce and we could get married.... Everything would be all right then.”
“Like fun it would.... You dont mean it anyhow.”
“But it’s been worth it Nellie, honestly it has.” He put his arms round her and kissed her hard still lips. She pushed him away.
“Anyways I aint comin here again.... Oh I was so happy comin up the stairs thinkin about seein you.... You’re paid an the business is all finished.”
He noticed that the little curls round her forehead were loose. A wisp of hair hung over one eyebrow.
“Nellie we mustn’t part bitterly like this.”
“Why not will ye tell me?”
“Because we’ve both loved one another.”
“I’m not goin to cry.” She patted her nose with a little rolledup handkerchief. “Georgy I’m goin to hate ye.... Goodby.” The door snapped sharply to behind her.
Baldwin sat at his desk and chewed the end of a pencil. A faint pungence of her hair lingered in his nostrils. His throat was stiff and lumpy. He coughed. The pencil fell out of his mouth. He wiped the saliva off with his handkerchief and settled himself in his chair. From bleary the crowded paragraphs of the lawbook became clear. He tore the written sheet off the scratchpad and clipped it to the top of a pile of documents. On the new sheet he began: Decision of the Supreme Court of the State of New York.... Suddenly he sat up straight in his chair, and started biting the end of his pencil again. From outside came the endless sultry whistle of a peanut wagon. “Oh well, that’s that,” he said aloud. He went on writing in a wide regular hand: Case of Patterson vs. The State of New York.... Decision of the Supreme ...
* * * * *
Bud sat by a window in the Seamen’s Union reading slowly and carefully through a newspaper. Next him two men with freshly shaved rawsteak cheeks cramped into white collars and blue serge storesuits were ponderously playing chess. One of them smoked a pipe that made a little clucking noise when he drew on it. Outside rain beat incessantly on a wide glimmering square.
Banzai, live a thousand years, cried the little gray men of the fourth platoon of Japanese sappers as they advanced to repair the bridge over the Yalu River ... Special correspondent of the New York Herald ...
“Checkmate,” said the man with the pipe. “Damn it all let’s go have a drink. This is no night to be sitting here sober.”
“I promised the ole woman ...”
“None o that crap Jess, I know your kinda promises.” A big crimson hand thickly furred with yellow hairs brushed the chessmen into their box. “Tell the ole woman you had to have a nip to keep the weather out.”
“That’s no lie neither.”
Bud watched their shadows hunched into the rain pass the window.
“What you name?”
Bud turned sharp from the window startled by a shrill squeaky voice in his ear. He was looking into the fireblue eyes of a little yellow man who had a face like a toad, large mouth, protruding eyes and thick closecropped black hair.
Bud’s jaw set. “My name’s Smith, what about it?”
The little man held out a square callouspalmed hand, “Plis to meet yez. Me Matty.”
Bud took the hand in spite of himself. It squeezed his until he winced. “Matty what?” he asked. “Me juss Matty ... Laplander Matty ... Come have drink.”
“I’m flat,” said Bud. “Aint got a red cent.”
“On me. Me too much money, take some....” Matty shoved a hand into either pocket of his baggy checked suit and punched Bud in the chest with two fistfuls of greenbacks.
“Aw keep yer money ... I’ll take a drink with yous though.”
By the time they got to the saloon on the corner of Pearl Street Bud’s elbows and knees were soaked and a trickle of cold rain was running down his neck. When they went up to the bar Laplander Matty put down a five dollar bill.
“Me treat everybody; very happy yet tonight.”
Bud was tackling the free lunch. “Hadn’t et in a dawg’s age,” he explained when he went back to the bar to take his drink. The whisky burnt his throat all the way down, dried wet clothes and made him feel the way he used to feel when he was a kid and got off to go to a baseball game Saturday afternoon.
“Put it there Lap,” he shouted slapping the little man’s broad back. “You an me’s friends from now on.”
“Hey landlubber, tomorrow me an you ship togezzer. What say?”
“Sure we will.”
“Now we go up Bowery Street look at broads. Me pay.”
“Aint a Bowery broad would go wid yer, ye little Yap,” shouted a tall drunken man with drooping black mustaches who had lurched in between them as they swayed in the swinging doors.
“Zey vont, vont zey?” said the Lap hauling off. One of his hammershaped fists shot in a sudden uppercut under the man’s jaw. The man rose off his feet and soared obliquely in through the swinging doors that closed on him. A shout went up from inside the saloon.
“I’ll be a sonofabitch, Lappy, I’ll be a sonofabitch,” roared Bud and slapped him on the back again.
Arm in arm they careened up Pearl Street under the drenching rain. Bars yawned bright to them at the corners of rainseething streets. Yellow light off mirrors and brass rails and gilt frames round pictures of pink naked women was looped and slopped into whiskyglasses guzzled fiery with tipped back head, oozed bright through the blood, popped bubbly out of ears and eyes, dripped spluttering off fingertips. The raindark houses heaved on either side, streetlamps swayed like lanterns carried in a parade, until Bud was in a back room full of nudging faces with a woman on his knees. Laplander Matty stood with his arms round two girls’ necks, yanked his shirt open to show a naked man and a naked woman tattooed in red and green on his chest, hugging, stiffly coiled in a seaserpent and when he puffed out his chest and wiggled the skin with his fingers the tatooed man and woman wiggled and all the nudging faces laughed.
* * * * *
Phineas P. Blackhead pushed up the wide office window. He stood looking out over the harbor of slate and mica in the uneven roar of traffic, voices, racket of building that soared from the downtown streets bellying and curling like smoke in the stiff wind shoving down the Hudson out of the northwest.
“Hay Schmidt, bring me my field glasses,” he called over his shoulder. “Look ...” He was focusing the glasses on a thickwaisted white steamer with a sooty yellow stack that was abreast of Governors Island. “Isn’t that the _Anonda_ coming in now?”
Schmidt was a fat man who had shrunk. The skin hung in loose haggard wrinkles on his face. He took one look through the glasses. “Sure it is.” He pushed down the window; the roar receded tapering hollowly like the sound of a sea shell.
“Jiminy they were quick about it.... They’ll be docked in half an hour.... You beat it along over and get hold of Inspector Mulligan. He’s all fixed.... Dont take your eyes off him. Old Matanzas is out on the warpath trying to get an injunction against us. If every spoonful of manganese isnt off by tomorrow night I’ll cut your commission in half.... Do you get that?”
Schmidt’s loose jowls shook when he laughed. “No danger sir.... You ought to know me by this time.”
“Of course I do.... You’re a good feller Schmidt. I was just joking.”
Phineas P. Blackhead was a lanky man with silver hair and a red hawkface; he slipped back into the mahogany armchair at his desk and rang an electric bell. “All right Charlie, show em in,” he growled at the towheaded officeboy who appeared in the door. He rose stiffly from his desk and held out a hand. “How do you do Mr. Storrow ... How do you do Mr. Gold.... Make yourselves comfortable.... That’s it.... Now look here, about this strike. The attitude of the railroad and docking interests that I represent is one of frankness and honesty, you know that.... I have confidence, I can say I have the completest confidence, that we can settle this matter amicably and agreeably.... Of course you must meet me halfway.... We have I know the same interests at heart, the interests of this great city, of this great seaport....” Mr. Gold moved his hat to the back of his head and cleared his throat with a loud barking noise. “Gentlemen, one of two roads lies before us ...”
* * * * *
In the sunlight on the windowledge a fly sat scrubbing his wings with his hinder legs. He cleaned himself all over, twisting and untwisting his forelegs like a person soaping his hands, stroking the top of his lobed head carefully; brushing his hair. Jimmy’s hand hovered over the fly and slapped down. The fly buzzed tinglingly in his palm. He groped for it with two fingers, held it slowly squeezing it into mashed gray jelly between finger and thumb. He wiped it off under the windowledge. A hot sick feeling went through him. Poor old fly, after washing himself so carefully, too. He stood a long time looking down the airshaft through the dusty pane where the sun gave a tiny glitter to the dust. Now and then a man in shirtsleeves crossed the court below with a tray of dishes. Orders shouted and the clatter of dishwashing came up faintly from the kitchens.
He stared through the tiny glitter of the dust on the windowpane. Mother’s had a stroke and next week I’ll go back to school.
“Say Herfy have you learned to fight yet?”
“Herfy an the Kid are goin to fight for the flyweight championship before lights.”
“But I dont want to.”
“Kid wants to.... Here he comes. Make a ring there you ginks.”
“I dont want to, please.”
“You’ve damn well got to, we’ll beat hell outa both of ye if you dont.”
“Say Freddy that’s a nickel fine from you for swearing.”
“Jez I forgot.”
“There you go again.... Paste him in the slats.”
“Go it Herfy, I’m bettin on yer.”
“That’s it sock him.”
The Kid’s white screwedup face bouncing in front of him like a balloon; his fist gets Jimmy in the mouth; a salty taste of blood from the cut lip. Jimmy strikes out, gets him down on the bed, pokes his knee in his belly. They pull him off and throw him back against the wall.
“Go it Kid.”
“Go it Herfy.”
There’s a smell of blood in his nose and lungs; his breath rasps. A foot shoots out and trips him up.
“That’s enough, Herfy’s licked.”
“Girlboy ... Girlboy.”
“But hell Freddy he had the Kid down.”
“Shut up, don’t make such a racket.... Old Hoppy’ll be coming up.”
“Just a little friendly bout, wasn’t it Herfy?”
“Get outa my room, all of you, all of you,” Jimmy screeches, tear-blinded, striking out with both arms.
“Crybaby ... crybaby.”
He slams the door behind them, pushes the desk against it and crawls trembling into bed. He turns over on his face and lies squirming with shame, biting the pillow.
Jimmy stared through the tiny glitter of the dust on the windowpane.
DARLING
Your poor mother was very unhappy when she finally put you on the train and went back to her big empty rooms at the hotel. Dear, I am very lonely without you. Do you know what I did? I got out all your toy soldiers, the ones that used to be in the taking of Port Arthur, and set them all out in battalions on the library shelf. Wasn’t that silly? Never mind dear, Christmas’ll soon come round and I’ll have my boy again....
A crumpled face on a pillow; mother’s had a stroke and next week I’ll go back to school. Darkgrained skin growing flabby under her eyes, gray creeping up her brown hair. Mother never laughs. The stroke.
He turned back suddenly into the room, threw himself on the bed with a thin leather book in his hand. The surf thundered loud on the barrier reef. He didn’t need to read. Jack was swimming fast through the calm blue waters of the lagoon, stood in the sun on the yellow beach shaking the briny drops off him, opened his nostrils wide to the smell of breadfruit roasting beside his solitary campfire. Birds of bright plumage shrieked and tittered from the tall ferny tops of the coconut palms. The room was drowsy hot. Jimmy fell asleep. There was a strawberry lemon smell, a smell of pineapples on the deck and mother was there in a white suit and a dark man in a yachtingcap, and the sunlight rippled on the milkytall sails. Mother’s soft laugh rises into a shriek O-o-o-ohee. A fly the size of a ferryboat walks towards them across the water, reaching out jagged crabclaws. “Yump Yimmy, yump; you can do it in two yumps,” the dark man yells in his ear. “But please I dont want to ... I dont want to,” Jimmy whines. The dark man’s beating him, yump yump yump.... “Yes one moment. Who is it?”
Aunt Emily was at the door. “Why do you keep your door locked Jimmy.... I never allow James to lock his door.”
“I like it better that way, Aunt Emily.”
“Imagine a boy asleep this time of the afternoon.”
“I was reading _The Coral Island_ and I fell asleep.” Jimmy was blushing.
“All right. Come along. Miss Billings said not to stop by mother’s room. She’s asleep.”
They were in the narrow elevator that smelled of castor oil; the colored boy grinned at Jimmy.
“What did the doctor say Aunt Emily?”
“Everything’s going as well as could be expected.... But you mustn’t worry about that. This evening you must have a real good time with your little cousins.... You dont see enough children of your own age Jimmy.”
They were walking towards the river leaning into a gritty wind that swirled up the street cast out of iron under a dark silvershot sky.
“I guess you’ll be glad to get back to school, James.”
“Yes Aunt Emily.”
“A boy’s school days are the happiest time in his life. You must be sure to write your mother once a week at least James.... You are all she has now.... Miss Billings and I will keep you informed.”
“Yes Aunt Emily.”
“And James I want you to know my James better. He’s the same age you are, only perhaps a little more developed and all that, and you ought to be good friends.... I wish Lily had sent you to Hotchkiss too.”
“Yes Aunt Emily.”
There were pillars of pink marble in the lower hall of Aunt Emily’s apartmenthouse and the elevatorboy wore a chocolate livery with brass buttons and the elevator was square and decorated with mirrors. Aunt Emily stopped before a wide red mahogany door on the seventh floor and fumbled in her purse for her key. At the end of the hall was a leaded window through which you could see the Hudson and steamboats and tall trees of smoke rising against the yellow sunset from the yards along the river. When Aunt Emily got the door open they heard the piano. “That’s Maisie doing her practicing.” In the room where the piano was the rug was thick and mossy, the wallpaper was yellow with silveryshiny roses between the cream woodwork and the gold frames of oilpaintings of woods and people in a gondola and a fat cardinal drinking. Maisie tossed the pigtails off her shoulders as she jumped off the pianostool. She had a round creamy face and a slight pugnose. The metronome went on ticking.
“Hello James,” she said after she had tilted her mouth up to her mother’s to be kissed. “I’m awfully sorry poor Aunt Lily’s so sick.”
“Arent you going to kiss your cousin, James?” said Aunt Emily.
Jimmy shambled up to Maisie and pushed his face against hers.
“That’s a funny kind of a kiss,” said Maisie.
“Well you two children can keep each other company till dinner.” Aunt Emily rustled through the blue velvet curtains into the next room.
“We wont be able to go on calling you James.” After she had stopped the metronome, Maisie stood staring with serious brown eyes at her cousin. “There cant be two Jameses can there?”
“Mother calls me Jimmy.”
“Jimmy’s a kinder common name, but I guess it’ll have to do till we can think of a better one.... How many jacks can you pick up?”
“What are jacks?”
“Gracious dont you know what jackstones are? Wait till James comes back, wont he laugh!”
“I know Jack roses. Mother used to like them better’n any other kind.”
“American Beauties are the only roses I like,” announced Maisie flopping into a Morris chair. Jimmy stood on one leg kicking his heel with the toes of the other foot.
“Where’s James?”
“He’ll be home soon.... He’s having his riding lesson.”
The twilight became leadensilent between them. From the trainyards came the scream of a locomotivewhistle and the clank of couplings on shunted freight cars. Jimmy ran to the window.
“Say Maisie, do you like engines?” he asked.
“I think they are horrid. Daddy says we’re going to move on account of the noise and smoke.”
Through the gloom Jimmy could make out the beveled smooth bulk of a big locomotive. The smoke rolled out of the stack in huge bronze and lilac coils. Down the track a red light snapped green. The bell started to ring slowly, lazily. Forced draft snorting loud the train clankingly moved, gathered speed, slid into dusk swinging a red taillight.
“Gee I wish we lived here,” said Jimmy. “I’ve got two hundred and seventytwo pictures of locomotives, I’ll show em to you sometime if you like. I collect em.”
“What a funny thing to collect.... Look Jimmy you pull the shade down and I’ll light the light.”
When Maisie pushed the switch they saw James Merivale standing in the door. He had light wiry hair and a freckled face with a pugnose like Maisie’s. He had on riding breeches and black leather gaiters and was flicking a long peeled stick about.
“Hullo Jimmy,” he said. “Welcome to our city.”
“Say James,” cried Maisie, “Jimmy doesn’t know what jackstones are.”
Aunt Emily appeared through the blue velvet curtains. She wore a highnecked green silk blouse with lace on it. Her white hair rose in a smooth curve from her forehead. “It’s time you children were washing up,” she said, “dinner’s in five minutes.... James take your cousin back to your room and hurry up and take off those ridingclothes.”