Everybody let out a shout. Roy filled Jimmy’s glass up with gin again.
‘Oh Jimmy,’ cooed Alice, ‘you lead the most thrilling life.’
James Merivale was going over a freshly decoded cable, tapping the words with a pencil as he read them. Tasmanian Manganese Products instructs us to open credit… The phone on his desk began to buzz.
‘James this is your mother. Come right up; something terrible has happened.’
‘But I dont know if I can get away…’
She had already cut off. Merivale felt himself turning pale. ‘Let me speak to Mr Aspinwall please… Mr Aspinwall this is Merivale… My mother’s been taken suddenly ill. I’m afraid it may be a stroke. I’d like to run up there for an hour. I’ll be back in time to get a cable off on that Tasmanian matter.’
‘All right… I’m very sorry Merivale.’
He grabbed his hat and coat, forgetting his muffler, and streaked out of the bank and along the street to the subway.
He burst into the apartment breathless, snapping his fingers from nervousness. Mrs Merivale grayfaced met him in the hall.
‘My dear I thought you’d been taken ill.’
‘It’s not that… it’s about Maisie.’
‘She hasnt met with an accid…?’
‘Come in here,’ interrupted Mrs Merivale. In the parlor sat a little roundfaced woman in a round mink hat and a long mink coat. ‘My dear this girl says she’s Mrs Jack Cunningham and she’s got a marriage certificate to prove it.’
‘Good Heavens, is that true?’
The girl nodded in a melancholy way.
‘And the invitations are out. Since his last wire Maisie’s been ordering her trousseau.’
The girl unfolded a large certificate ornamented with pansies and cupids and handed it to James.
‘It might be forged.’
‘It’s not forged,’ said the girl sweetly.
‘John C. Cunningham, 21… Jessie Lincoln, 18,’ he read aloud… ‘I’ll smash his face for that, the blackguard. That’s certainly his signature, I’ve seen it at the bank… The blackguard.’
‘Now James, don’t be hasty.’
‘I thought it would be better this way than after the ceremony,’ put in the girl in her little sugar voice. ‘I wouldnt have Jack commit bigamy for anything in the world.’
‘Where’s Maisie?’
‘The poor darling is prostrated in her room.’
Merivale’s face was crimson. The sweat itched under his collar. ‘Now dearest’ Mrs Merivale kept saying, ‘you must promise me not to do anything rash.’
‘Yes Maisie’s reputation must be protected at all costs.’
‘My dear I think the best thing to do is to get him up here and confront him with this… with this… lady… Would you agree to that Mrs Cunningham?’
‘Oh dear… Yes I suppose so.’
‘Wait a minute.’ shouted Merivale and strode down the hall to the telephone. ‘Rector 12305… Hello. I want to speak to Mr Jack Cunningham please… Hello. Is this Mr Cunningham’s office? Mr James Merivale speaking… Out of town… And when will he be back?… Hum.’ He strode back along the hall. ‘The damn scoundrel’s out of town.’
‘All the years I’ve known him,’ said the little lady in the round hat, ‘that has always been where he was.’
Outside the broad office windows the night is gray and foggy. Here and there a few lights make up dim horizontals and perpendiculars of asterisks. Phineas Blackhead sits at his desk tipping far back in the small leather armchair. In his hand protecting his fingers by a large silk handkerchief, he holds a glass of hot water and bicarbonate of soda. Densch bald and round as a billiardball sits in the deep armchair playing with his tortoiseshell spectacles. Everything is quiet except for an occasional rattling and snapping of the steampipes.
‘Densch you must forgive me… You know I rarely permit myself an observation concerning other people’s business,’ Blackhead is saying slowly between sips; then suddenly he sits up in his chair. ‘It’s a damn fool proposition, Densch, by God it is… by the Living Jingo it’s ridiculous.’
‘I dont like dirtying my hands any more than you do… Baldwin’s a good fellow. I think we’re safe in backing him a little.’
‘What the hell’s an import and export firm got to do in politics? If any of those guys wants a handout let him come up here and get it. Our business is the price of beans… and its goddam low. If any of you puling lawyers could restore the balance of the exchanges I’d be willing to do anything in the world… They’re crooks every last goddam one of em… by the Living Jingo they’re crooks.’ His face flushes purple, he sits upright in his chair banging with his fist on the corner of the desk. ‘Now you’re getting me all excited… Bad for my stomach, bad for my heart.’ Phineas Blackhead belches portentously and takes a great pulp out of the glass of bicarbonate of soda. Then he leans back in his chair again letting his heavy lids half cover his eyes.
‘Well old man,’ says Mr Densch in a tired voice, ‘it may have been a bad thing to do, but I’ve promised to support the reform candidate. That’s a purely private matter in no way involving the firm.’
‘Like hell it dont… How about McNiel and his gang?… They’ve always treated us all right and all we’ve ever done for em’s a couple of cases of Scotch and a few cigars now and then… Now we have these reformers throw the whole city government into a turmoil… By the Living Jingo…’
Densch gets to his feet. ‘My dear Blackhead I consider it my duty as a citizen to help in cleaning up the filthy conditions of bribery, corruption and intrigue that exist in the city government… I consider it my duty as a citizen…’ He starts walking to the door, his round belly stuck proudly out in front of him.
‘Well allow me to say Densch that I think its a damn fool proposition,’ Blackhead shouts after him. When his partner has gone he lies back a second with his eyes closed. His face takes on the mottled color of ashes, his big fleshy frame is shrinking like a deflating balloon. At length he gets to his feet with a groan. Then he takes his hat and coat and walks out of the office with a slow heavy step. The hall is empty and dimly lit. He has to wait a long while for the elevator. The thought of holdup men sneaking through the empty building suddenly makes him catch his breath. He is afraid to look behind him, like a child in the dark. At last the elevator shoots up.
‘Wilmer,’ he says to the night watchman who runs it, ‘there ought to be more light in these halls at night… During this crime wave I should think you ought to keep the building brightly lit.’
‘Yassir maybe you’re right sir… but there cant nobody get in unless I sees em first.’
‘You might be overpowered by a gang Wilmer.’
‘I’d like to see em try it.’
‘I guess you are right… mere question of nerve.’
Cynthia is sitting in the Packard reading a book. ‘Well dear did you think I was never coming.’
‘I almost finished my book, dad.’
‘All right Butler… up town as fast as you can. We’re late for dinner.’
As the limousine whirs up Lafayette Street, Blackhead turns to his daughter. ‘If you ever hear a man talking about his duty as a citizen, by the Living Jingo dont trust him… He’s up to some kind of monkey business nine times out of ten. You dont know what a relief it is to me that you and Joe are comfortably settled in life.’
‘What’s the matter dad? Did you have a hard day at the office?’ ‘There are no markets, there isnt a market in the goddam world that isnt shot to blazes… I tell you Cynthia it’s nip and tuck. There’s no telling what might happen… Look, before I forget it could you be at the bank uptown at twelve tomorrow?… I’m sending Hudgins up with certain securities, personal you understand, I want to put in your safe deposit box.’
‘But it’s jammed full already dad.’
‘That box at the Astor Trust is in your name isnt it?’
‘Jointly in mine and Joe’s.’
‘Well you take a n
ew box at the Fifth Avenue Bank in your own name… I’ll have the stuff get there at noon sharp… And remember what I tell you Cynthia, if you ever hear a business associate talking about civic virtue, look lively.’
They are crossing Fourteenth. Father and daughter look out through the glass at the windbitten faces of people waiting to cross the street.
Jimmy Herf yawned and scraped back his chair. The nickel glints of the typewriter hurt his eyes. The tips of his fingers were sore. He pushed open the sliding doors a little and peeped into the cold bedroom. He could barely make out Ellie asleep in the bed in the alcove. At the far end of the room was the baby’s crib. There was a faint milkish sour smell of babyclothes. He pushed the doors to again and began to undress. If we only had more space, he was muttering; we live cramped in our squirrelcage… He pulled the dusty cashmere off the couch and yanked his pyjamas out from under the pillow. Space space cleanness quiet; the words were gesticulating in his mind as if he were addressing a vast auditorium.
He turned out the light, opened a crack of the window and dropped wooden with sleep into bed. Immediately he was writing a letter on a linotype. Now I lay me down to sleep… mother of the great white twilight. The arm of the linotype was a woman’s hand in a long white glove. Through the clanking from behind amber foots Ellie’s voice Dont, dont, dont, you’re hurting me so… Mr Herf, says a man in overalls, you’re hurting the machine and we wont be able to get out the bullgod edition thank dog. The linotype was a gulping mouth with nickelbright rows of teeth, gulped, crunched. He woke up sitting up in bed. He was cold, his teeth were chattering. He pulled the covers about him and settled to sleep again. The next time he woke up it was daylight. He was warm and happy. Snowflakes were dancing, hesitating, spinning, outside the tall window.
‘Hello Jimps,’ said Ellie coming towards him with a tray.
‘Why have I died and gone to heaven or something?’
‘No it’s Sunday morning… I thought you needed a little luxury… I made some corn muffins.’
‘Oh you’re marvelous Ellie… Wait a minute I must jump up and wash my teeth.’ He came back with his face washed, wearing his bathrobe. Her mouth winced under his kiss. ‘And it’s only eleven o’clock. I’ve gained an hour on my day off… Wont you have some coffee too?’
‘In a minute… Look here Jimps I’ve got something I want to talk about. Look dont you think we ought to get another place now that you’re working nights again all the time?’
‘You mean move?’
‘No. I was thinking if you could get another room to sleep in somewhere round, then nobody’d ever disturb you in the morning.’
‘But Ellie we’d never see each other… We hardly ever see each other as it is.’
‘It’s terrible… but what can we do when our officehours are so different?’
Martin’s crying came in a gust from the other room. Jimmy sat on the edge of the bed with the empty coffeecup on his knees looking at his bare feet. ‘Just as you like,’ he said dully. An impulse to grab her hands to crush her to him until he hurt her went up through him like a rocket and died. She picked up the coffeethings and swished away. His lips knew her lips, his arms knew the twining of her arms, he knew the deep woods of her hair, he loved her. He sat for a long time looking at his feet, lanky reddish feet with swollen blue veins, shoebound toes twisted by stairs and pavements. On each little toe there was a corn. He found his eyes filling with pitying tears. The baby had stopped crying. Jimmy went into the bathroom and started the water running in the tub.
‘It was that other feller you had Anna. He got you to thinkin you didnt give a damn… He made you a fatalist.’
‘What’s at?’
‘Somebody who thinks there’s no use strugglin, somebody who dont believe in human progress.’
‘Do you think Bouy was like that?’
‘He was a scab anyway… None o these Southerners are class-conscious… Didn’t he make you stop payin your union dues?’
‘I was sick o workin a sewin machine.’
‘But you could be a handworker, do fancy work and make good money. You’re not one o that kind, you’re one of us… I’ll get you back in good standin an you kin get a good job again… God I’d never have let you work in a dancehall the way he did. Anna it hurt me terrible to see a Jewish girl goin round with a feller like that.’
‘Well he’s gone an I aint got no job.’
‘Fellers like that are the greatest enemies of the workers… They dont think of nobody but themselves.’
They are walking slowly up Second Avenue through a foggy evening. He is a rustyhaired thinfaced young Jew with sunken cheeks and livid pale skin. He has the bandy legs of a garment worker. Anna’s shoes are too small for her. She has deep rings under her eyes. The fog is full of strolling groups talking Yiddish, overaccented East Side English, Russian. Warm rifts of light from delicatessen stores and softdrink stands mark off the glistening pavement.
‘If I didn’t feel so tired all the time,’ mutters Anna.
‘Let’s stop here an have a drink… You take a glass o buttermilk Anna, make ye feel good.’
‘I aint got the taste for it Elmer. I’ll take a chocolate soda.’
‘That’ll juss make ye feel sick, but go ahead if you wanter.’ She sat on the slender nickelbound stool. He stood beside her. She let herself lean back a little against him. ‘The trouble with the workers is’… He was talking in a low impersonal voice. ‘The trouble with the workers is we dont know nothin, we dont know how to eat, we dont know how to live, we dont know how to protect our rights… Jez Anna I want to make you think of things like that. Cant you see we’re in the middle of a battle just like in the war?’ With the long sticky spoon Anna was fishing bits of icecream out of the thick foamy liquid in her glass.
George Baldwin looked at himself in the mirror as he washed his hands in the little washroom behind his office. His hair that still grew densely down to a point on his forehead was almost white. There was a deep line at each corner of his mouth and across his chin. Under his bright gimleteyes the skin was sagging and granulated. When he had wiped his hands slowly and meticulously he took a little box of strychnine pills from the upper pocket of his vest, swallowed one, and feeling the anticipated stimulus tingle through him went back into his office. A longnecked officeboy was fidgeting beside his desk with a card in his hand.
‘A lady wants to speak to you sir.’
‘Has she an appointment? Ask Miss Ranke… Wait a minute. Show the lady right through into this office.’ The card read Nellie Linihan McNiel. She was expensively dressed with a lot of lace in the opening of her big fur coat. Round her neck she had a lorgnette on an amethyst chain.
‘Gus asked me to come to see you,’ she said as he motioned her into a chair beside the desk.
‘What can I do for you?’ His heart for some reason was pounding hard.
She looked at him a moment through her lorgnette. ‘George you stand it better than Gus does.’
‘What?’
‘Oh all this… I’m trying to get Gus to go away with me for a rest abroad… Marianbad or something like that… but he says he’s in too deep to pull up his stakes.’
‘I guess that’s true of all of us,’ said Baldwin with a cold smile.
They were silent a minute, then Nellie McNiel got to her feet. ‘Look here George, Gus is awfully cut up about this… You know he likes to stand by his friends and have his friends stand by him.’
‘Nobody can say that I havent stood by him… It’s simply this, I’m not a politician, and as, probably foolishly, I’ve allowed myself to be nominated for office, I have to run on a nonpartisan basis.’
‘George that’s only half the story and you know it.’
‘Tell him that I’ve always been and always shall be a good friend of his… He knows that perfectly well. In this particular campaign I have pledged myself to oppose certain elements with which Gus has let himself get involved.’
‘You’re a fine talker Geo
rge Baldwin and you always were.’
Baldwin flushed. They stood stiff side by side at the office door. His hand lay still on the doorknob as if paralyzed. From the outer offices came the sound of typewriters and voices. From outside came the long continuous tapping of riveters at work on a new building.
‘I hope your family’s all well,’ he said at length with an effort.
‘Oh yes they are all well thanks… Goodby.’ She had gone.
Baldwin stood for a moment looking out of the window at the gray blackwindowed building opposite. Silly to let things agitate him so. Need of relaxation. He got his hat and coat from their hook behind the washroom door and went out. ‘Jonas,’ he said to a man with a round bald head shaped like a cantaloupe who sat poring over papers in the highceilinged library that was the central hall of the lawoffice, ‘bring everything up that’s on my desk… I’ll go over it uptown tonight.’
‘All right sir.’
When he got out on Broadway he felt like a small boy playing hooky. It was a sparkling winter afternoon with hurrying rifts of sun and cloud. He jumped into a taxi. Going uptown he lay back in the seat dozing. At Fortysecond Street he woke up. Everything was a confusion of bright intersecting planes of color, faces, legs, shop windows, trolleycars, automobiles. He sat up with his gloved hands on his knees, fizzling with excitement. Outside of Nevada’s apartmenthouse he paid the taxi. The driver was a negro and showed an ivory mouthful of teeth when he got a fiftycent tip. Neither elevator was there so Baldwin ran lightly up the stairs, half wondering at himself. He knocked on Nevada’s door. No answer. He knocked again. She opened it cautiously. He could see her curly towhead. He brushed into the room before she could stop him. All she had on was a kimono over a pink chemise.
‘My God,’ she said, ‘I thought you were the waiter.’
He grabbed her and kissed her. ‘I dont know why but I feel like a threeyear old.’
‘You look like you was crazy with the heat… I dont like you to come over without telephoning, you know that.’