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.