Sexus

  Towards eight o’clock I knocked at their door. They were still asleep. I had to knock loudly before they answered. And then I learned nothing—they had come home very late themselves.

  In despair I went to Kronski’s room. He too was muffled in sleep. He didn’t seem to know what I was driving at.

  Finally he said: “What’s the matter—has she been out all night again? No, there wasn’t any call for you. Get out of here . . . leave me alone!”

  I hadn’t slept a wink. I felt exhausted. But then the reassuring thought came to me that she might telephone me at the office. I almost expected a message to be lying on my desk waiting for me.

  Most of the day went by in taking cat naps. I slept at my desk, my head buried in my folded arms. Several times I called Rebecca to see if she had received any message, but it was always the same answer. When it came time to close shop I lingered on. No matter what had happened I could not believe that she would let the day pass without telephoning me. It was just incredible.

  A strange, nervous vitality possessed me. Suddenly I was wide awake, more wide awake than I could have been had I rested three days in bed. I would wait another half hour and if she didn’t phone I would go directly to her home.

  As I was pacing back and forth with pantherish strides the stairway door opened and a little shaver with dark skin entered. He closed the door behind him quickly as if he were shutting out a pursuer. There was something jolly and mysterious about him which his Cuban voice exaggerated.

  “You will give me a job, won’t you, Mr. Miller?” he burst out. “I must have the messenger job to complete my studies. Everybody tells me that you are a kind man—and I can see it myself—you have a good face. I am proficient in many things, as you will discover when you know me better. Juan Rico is my name. I am eighteen years old. I am a poet too.”

  “Well, well,” I said, chuckling and stroking him under the chin—he was the size of a midget and looked like one—“so you’re a poet? Then I’m surely going to give you a job.”

  “I’m an acrobat too,” he said. “My father had a circus once. You will find me very speedy on my legs. I love to go hither and about with zest and alacrity. I am also extremely courteous and when delivering a message I would say, ‘Thank you sir,’ and doff my cap respectfully. I know all the streets by heart, including the Bronx. And if you would put me in the Spanish neighborhood you would find me very effective. Do I please you, sir?” He gave me a bewitching grin which implied that he knew very well how to sell himself.

  “Go over there and sit down,” I said. “I’ll give you a blank to fill out. Tomorrow morning you can start in bright and early—with a smile.”

  “Oh I can smile, sir—beautifully,” and he did.

  “You’re sure you’re eighteen?”

  “Oh yes, sir, that I can prove. I have all my papers with me.”

  I gave him an application blank and went to the adjoining room—the rink—to leave him in peace. Suddenly the telephone rang. I bounded back to the desk and picked up the receiver. It was Mona speaking, in a subdued, restrained, unnatural voice, as though she had been drained hollow.

  “He died a little while ago,” she said. “I’ve been at his side ever since I left you . . .”

  I mumbled some inadequate words of consolation and then I asked her when she was coming back. She wasn’t sure just when . . . she wanted me to do her a little favor . . . to go to the department store and buy her a mourning dress and some black gloves. Size sixteen. What sort of material? She didn’t know, anything I chose . . . A few more words and she hung up.

  Little Juan Rico was looking up into my eyes like a faithful dog. He had understood everything and was trying in his delicate Cuban way to let me know that he wished to share my sorrow.

  “It’s all right, Juan,” I said, “everybody has to die sometime.”

  “Was that your wife who telephoned?” he asked. His eyes were moist and glistening.

  “I’m sure she must be beautiful.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “The way you talked to her . . . I could almost see her. I wish I could marry a beautiful woman someday. I think about it very often.”

  “You’re a funny lad,” I said. “Thinking about marriage already. Why, you’re just a boy.”

  “Here’s my application, sir. Will you kindly look it over now so that I may be sure I can come tomorrow?”

  I gave it a quick glance and assured him it was satisfactory.

  “Then I am at your service, sir. And now, sir, if you will pardon me, may I suggest that you let me stay with you a little while? I don’t think it is good for you to be alone at this moment. When the heart is sad one needs a friend.”

  I burst out laughing. “A good idea,” I said. “We’ll go to dinner together, how’s that? And a movie afterward—does that suit you?”

  He got up and began to frisk about like a trained dog. Suddenly he became curious about the empty room in the rear. I followed him in and watched him good-naturedly as he examined the paraphernalia. The roller skates intrigued him. He had picked up a pair and was examining them as if he had never seen such things before.

  “Put them on,” I said, “and do a turn. This is the skating rink.”

  “Can you skate also?” he asked.

  “Sure I can. Do you want to see me skate?”

  “Yes,” he said, “and let me skate with you. I haven’t done it for years and years. It’s a rather comical diversion, is it not?”

  We slipped the skates on. I shot forward with hands behind my back. Little Juan Rico followed at my heels. In the center of the room there were slender pillars; I looped in and around the pillars as if I were giving an exhibition.

  “I say, but it’s very exhilarating, isn’t it?” said Juan breathlessly. “You glide like a zephyr.”

  “Like a what?”

  “Like a zephyr . . . a mild, pleasant breeze.”

  “Oh, zephyr!”

  “I wrote a poem once about a zephyr—that was long ago.”

  I took his hand and swung him around. Then I placed him in front of me and with my hands on his waist I pushed him along, guiding him lightly and dexterously about the floor. Finally I gave him a good push and sent him skedaddling to the other end of the room.

  “Now I’ll show you a few fancy turns that I learned in the Tyrol,” I said, folding my arms in front of me and raising one leg in the air. The thought that never in her life would Mona suspect what I was doing this minute gave me a demonic joy. As I passed and repassed little Juan, who was now sitting on the window sill absorbed in the spectacle, I made faces at him—first sad and mournful, then gay, then insouciant, then hilarious, then meditative, then stern, then menacing, then idiotic. I tickled myself in the armpits, like a monkey; I waltzed like a trained bear; I squatted low like a cripple; I sang in a cracked key, then shouted like a maniac. Round and round, ceaselessly, merrily, free as a bird, Juan joined in. We stalked each other like animals, we turned into waltzing mice, we did the deaf-and-dumb act.

  And all the time I was thinking of Mona wandering about in the house of mourning, waiting for her mourning dress, her black gloves, and what not.

  Round and round, with never a care. A little kerosene, a match, and we would go up in flames, like a burning merry-go-round. I looked at Juan’s poll—it was like dry tinder. I had an insane desire to set him on fire, set him aflame and send him hurtling down the elevator shaft. Then two or three wild turns, à la Brueghel, and out the window!

  I calmed down a little. Not Brueghel, but Hieronymus Bosch. A season in hell, amidst the traps and pulleys of the medieval mind. First time around they yank off an arm. Second time around a leg. Finally just a torso rolling around. And the music playing with vibrant twangs. The iron harp of Prague. A sunken street near the synagogue. A dolorous peal of the bells. A woman’s guttural lament.

  Not Bosch any longer, but Chagall. An angel in mufti descending slantwise just above the roof. Snow on the ground and in the g
utters little pieces of meat for the rats. Cracow in the violet light of evisceration. Weddings, births, funerals. A man in an overcoat and only one string to his violin. The bride has lost her mind; she dances with broken legs.

  Round and round, ringing doorbells, ringing sleigh bells. The cosmococcic round of grief and slats. At the roots of my hair a touch of frost, in the tips of my toes a fire. The world is a merry-go-round in flames, the horses burn down to the hocks. A cold, stiff father lying on a feather bed. A mother green as gangrene. And the bridegroom rolling along.

  First we’ll bury him in the cold ground. Then we’ll bury his name, his legend, his kites and race horses. And for the widow a bonfire, a suttee Viennoise. I will marry the widow’s daughter—in her mourning gown and black gloves. I will do atonement and anoint my head with ashes.

  Round and round . . . Now the figure eight. Now the dollar sign. Now the spread eagle. A little kerosene and a match, and I would go up like a Christmas tree.

  “Mr. Miller! Mr. Miller!” calls Juan. “Mr. Miller, stop it! Please stop it!”

  The boy looks frightened. What can it be that makes him stare at me so?

  “Mr. Miller,” he says, clutching me by the coattail, “please don’t laugh so! Please, I’m afraid for you.”

  I relaxed. A broad grin came over my face, then softened to an amiable smile.

  “That’s better, sir. You had me worried. Hadn’t we better go now?”

  “I think so, Juan. I think we’ve had enough exercise for today. Tomorrow you will get a bicycle. Are you hungry?”

  “Yes sir, I am indeed. I always have a fabulous appetite. Once I ate a whole chicken all by myself. That was when my aunt died.”

  “We’ll have chicken tonight, Juan me lad. Two chickens—one for you and one for me.”

  “You’re very kind, sir. . . . Are you sure you’re all right now?”

  “Fine as a fiddle, Juan. Now where do you suppose we could buy a mourning dress at this hour?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know,” said Juan.

  In the street I hailed a taxi. I had an idea that on the East Side there would be shops still open. The driver was certain he could find one.

  “It’s very lively down here, isn’t it?” said Juan, as we alighted in front of a dress shop. “Is it always this way?”

  “Always,” I said. “A perpetual fiesta. Only the poor enjoy life.”

  “I should like to work down here sometime,” said Juan. “What language do they speak here?”

  “All languages,” I said. “You can also speak English.”

  The proprietor was standing at the door. He gave Juan a friendly pat on the head.

  “I would like a mourning dress, size sixteen,” I said. “Not too expensive. It must be delivered tonight, C.O.D.”

  A dark young Jewess with a Russian accent stepped forward. “Is it for a young or an old woman?” she said.

  “A young woman, about your size. For my wife.”

  She began showing me various models, I told her to choose the one she thought most suitable. “Not an ugly one,” I begged, “and not too chic either. You know what I mean.”

  “And the gloves,” said Juan. “Don’t forget the gloves.”

  “What size?” asked the young lady.

  “Let me see your hands,” I said. I studied them a moment. “A little larger than yours.”

  I gave the address and left a generous tip for the errand boy. The proprietor now came up, began talking to Juan. He seemed to take a great fancy to him.

  “Where do you come from, sonny?” he asked. “From Puerto Rico?”

  “From Cuba,” said Juan.

  “Do you speak Spanish?”

  “Yes sir, and French and Portuguese.”

  “You’re very young to know so many languages.”

  “My father taught me them. My father was the editor of a newspaper in Havana.”

  “Well, well,” said the proprietor. “You remind me of a little boy I knew in Odessa.”

  “Odessa!” said Juan. “I was in Odessa once. I was a cabin boy on a trading ship.”

  “What!” exclaimed the proprietor. “You were in Odessa? It’s unbelievable. How old are you?”

  “I’m eighteen, sir.”

  The proprietor turned to me. He wanted to know if he couldn’t invite us to have a drink with him in the ice-cream parlor next door.

  We accepted the invitation with pleasure. Our host, whose name was Eisenstein, began to talk about Russia. He had been a medical student originally. The boy who resembled Juan was his son who had died. “He was a strange boy,” said Eisenstein. “He didn’t resemble any of the family. And he had his own way of thinking. He wanted to tramp around the world. No matter what you told him he had a different idea. He was a little philosopher. Once he ran away to Egypt—because he wanted to study the pyramids. When we told him we were going to America he said he would go to China. He said he didn’t want to become rich, like the Americans. A strange boy! Such independence! Nothing frightened him—not even the Cossacks. I was almost afraid of him sometimes. Where did he come from? He didn’t even look like a Jew. . . .”

  He went into a monologue about the strange blood that had been poured into the veins of the Jews in their wanderings. He spoke of strange tribes in Arabia, Africa, China. He thought even the Eskimos might have Jewish blood in them. As he talked he became intoxicated by this idea of the mixture of races and bloods. The world would be a stagnant pool had it not been for the Jews. “We are like seeds carried by the wind,” he said. “We blossom everywhere. Hardy plants. Until we are pulled up by the roots. Even then we don’t perish. We can live upside down. We can grow between stones.”

  All this time he had taken me for a Jew. Finally I explained that I was not a Jew, but that my wife was.

  “And she became a Christian?”

  “No, I’m becoming a Jew.”

  Juan was looking at me with big, questioning eyes. Mr. Eisenstein didn’t know whether I was joking or not.

  “When I come down here,” I said, “I feel happy. I don’t know what it is, but I feel more at home here. Maybe I have Jewish blood and don’t know it.”

  “I’m afraid not,” said Mr. Eisenstein. “You’re attracted, because you’re not a Jew. You like what is different, that’s all. Maybe you hated the Jews once. That happens sometimes. Suddenly a man sees that he was mistaken and then he becomes violently in love with what he once hated. He goes to the other extreme. I know a Gentile who became converted to Judaism. We don’t try to convert, you know that. If you’re a good Christian it’s better that you stay a Christian.”

  “But I don’t care about the religion,” I said.

  “The religion is everything,” he said. “If you can’t be a good Christian you can’t be a good Jew. We are not a people or a race—we’re a religion.”

  “That’s what you say, but I don’t believe it. It’s more than that. It’s as though you were a kind of bacteria. Nothing can explain your survival, certainly not your faith. That’s why I’m so curious, why I get excited when I’m with your people. I would like to possess the secret.”

  “Well, study your wife,” said he.

  “I do but I don’t make her out. She’s a mystery.”

  “But you love her?”

  “Yes,” I said, “I love her passionately.”

  “And why aren’t you with her now? Why do you have the dress sent to her? Who is it that died?”

  “Her father,” I answered. “But I never met him,” I added rapidly. “I’ve never been inside her home.”

  “That’s bad,” he said. “There’s something wrong there. You should go to her. Never mind if she didn’t ask you. Go to her! Don’t let her be ashamed of her parents. You don’t have to go to the funeral, but you should let her see that you care for her family. You are only an accident in her life. When you die the family will go on. They will absorb your blood. We have drunk the blood of every race. We go on like a river. You must not think you are marrying h
er alone—you are marrying the Jewish race, the Jewish people. We give you life and strength. We nourish you. In the end all peoples will come together. We will have peace. We will make a new world. And there will be room for everybody. . . . No, don’t leave her alone now. You will regret it, if you do. She is proud, that’s what it is. You must be soft and gentle. You must woo her like a pigeon. Maybe she loves you now, but later she will love you more. She will hold you like a vise. There is no love like that of the Jewish woman for the man she gives her heart to. Especially if he is of Gentile blood. It is a great victory for her. It is better for you to surrender than to be the master. . . . You will excuse me for speaking this way, but I know what I am talking about. And I see you are not an ordinary Gentile. You are one of those lost Gentiles—you are searching for something . . . you don’t know what exactly. We know your kind. We are not always eager to have your love. We have been betrayed so often. Sometimes it is better to have a good enemy—then we know where we stand. With your kind we are never sure where we stand. You are like water—and we are rocks. You eat us away little by little—not with malice, but with kindness. You lap against us like the waves of the sea. The big waves we can meet—but the gentle lapping, that takes our strength away.”

  I was so excited by this unexpected excursus that I had to interrupt his speech.

  “Yes, I know,” he said. “I know how you feel. You see, we know all about you—but you have everything to learn about us. You can be married a thousand times, to a thousand Jewish women, and still you will not know what we know. We are right inside of you all the time. Bacteria, yes, maybe. If you are strong we support you; if you are weak, we destroy you. We live not in the world, as it seems to the Gentile, but in the spirit. The world passes away, but the spirit is eternal. My little boy understood that. He wanted to remain pure. The world was not good enough for him. He died of shame—shame for the world. . .”

  19

  Some minutes later, when we sauntered out into the violet light of early evening, I saw the ghetto with new eyes. There are Summer nights in New York when the sky is pure azure, when the buildings are immediate and palpable, not only in their substance but in their essence. That dirty streaked light which reveals only the ugliness of factories and sordid tenements disappears very often with sunset, the dust settles down, the contours of the buildings become more sharply defined, like the lineaments of an ogre in a calcium spotlight. Pigeons appear in the sky, wheeling above the rooftops. A cupola bobs up, sometimes out of a Turkish bath. There is always the stately simplicity of St. Mark’s in the Bouwerie, the great foreign square abutting Avenue A, the low Dutch buildings above which the ruddy gas tanks loom, the intimate side streets with their incongruous American names, the triangles which bear the stamp of old landmarks, the water front with the Brooklyn shore so close that one can almost recognize the people walking on the other side. All the glamor of New York is squeezed into this pullulating area which is marked off by formaldehyde and sweat and tears. Nothing is so familiar, so intimate, so nostalgic to the New Yorker as this district which he spurns and rejects. The whole of New York should have been one vast ghetto: the poison should have been drained off, the misery apportioned; the joy should have been communicated through every vein and artery. The rest of New York is an abstraction; it is cold, geometrical, rigid as rigor mortis and, I might as well add, insane—if one can only stand apart and look at it undauntedly. Only in the beehive can one find the human touch, find that city of sights, sounds, smells which one hunts for in vain beyond the margins of the ghetto. To live outside the pale is to whither and die. Beyond the pale there are only dressed-up cadavers. They are wound up each day, like alarm clocks. They perform like seals; they die like box-office receipts. But in the seething honeycomb there is a growth as of plants, an animal warmth almost suffocating, a vitality which accrues from rubbing and gluing together, a hope which is physical as well as spiritual, a contamination which is dangerous but salutary. Small souls perhaps, burning like tapers, but burning steadily—and capable of throwing portentous shadows on the walls which hem them in.