Moloch smiled a caustic smile. Matt always thought he knew so god-damned much. He was like a young intern.
“Sure enough,” Matt continued, “his tongue was all scarred.”
“Ah … the hell with it,” blurted Moloch. “I don’t give a damn about the rest of it.”
“No, wait a minute—let me finish…. What was I saying? Oh, yes! Listen, are you following me? As 1 was telling you, I was kiddin’ him along nicely, pattin’ him on the back and tellin’ him what a good egg he was.... Jesus! it was a shame to do it! Well, anyhow, I’m talkin’ to him in a calm, even voice—just like I’m talkin’ to you now—and suddenly I pop this at him: ‘When did you have your last fit?’ Boy, you should have been here! He flies up in the air and grabs the application out of my hand … tears it to bits. I keep one eye on him while he makes for the door. I’m not sayin’ a word, mind you.... Instead of goin’ out I see him comin’ back towards me wavin’ his hands and shoutin’ at the top of his voice—’It’s a lie … it’s a lie.’ With that his lips began to twitch and he went into a spasm … one spasm after another. Then his fingers grew rigid and he seemed to claw the air like. And with that, b’Jesus, he doubles up and keels over. God, it was weird! For half an hour he was stretched out on the floor, foamin’ at the mouth.... You know, Dion, I must have just touched the button. It was perfect!”
“He isn’t lying around in the back somewhere, is he?” said Moloch.
“Hell no! I got rid of him all right. But we had one bitch of a time bringing him to. There were about twenty kids in here, and Christ knows, they were falling all over one another. Mrs. McFadden fainted. She’s no damned good, do you know it, Dion? We ought to get rid of her. … I thought we’d have the cops in on us. Jesus, the whole place went kerflooey. All because I asked him a simple question! Listen—all I said was: ‘When did you have your last fit?’ Just like that. That’s all.”
Moloch looked at his assistant with unmitigated sarcasm.
“Of course you never expected anything like that to happen, did you? No! You know what I think of you, Matt? I think you’re one crazy bastard yourself. You had one hell of a good time, I can see that.”
Matt feigned remorse. Inwardly he felt very pleased with himself. He felt that he had missed his calling.
“Well,” said Moloch after a pause, “I suppose I ought to be thankful you didn’t put him to work.” He assumed a sly, malicious grin. “As Twilliger says, we can’t afford to have epileptics falling on the subway tracks and getting all cut up. By the way,” he added, “do you know the difference between the sham and the true epileptic?”
Matt Reardon shook his head.
“Well, it’s this way, Matt: one always manages to fall in a safe spot; the other isn’t so careful.”
“Anyway, they both block traffic,” Matt responded.
Moloch laughed. So did Matt. It was a hell of a good joke. Moloch knew it wasn’t true. Matt didn’t.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you—I’ve got a letter here for you,” said Matt suddenly. “From the Egyptian … that nut, Sarwat.”
“Sarwat? Sarwat?”
“Sure, you remember the bird. Here, read it. I wanted to laugh my head off.”
He made no apologies for opening Moloch’s private mail. Moloch took the letter and read:
Washington, D. C.
Esteemed and Most Honourable Sir:
I must write and let you know what sorrow’s hand has done in my heart, and it grieves me very much to overburden you with my internal pains, but I feel extremely gratified to know that you are a rare and gracious soul.
Here I am; a wrecked ship dashed and broken into pieces, by the huge rocks in the wide, dark, and rolling ocean of America. My dear sir—I have often heard people speak highly of this country, that its imaginary beauty had infatuated me, and drew me hither from the calm East, very vehemently.
Very shortly after I had landed here, I found what I have taken for granted is but a mere poetic sentiment; and the magnificent and gigantic mansions of hopes were but dreams and foundationless. I am very much disappointed, Mr. Moloch. There is a quotation of a Persian poet that runs: “And there must be a humanitarian soul in which you have to deposit your pains and sufferings, and in which you will find a balsam to relieve your ulcerated heart. ” And this is the reason why, Mr. Moloch, I am daring to write this to you today explaining in the first place my warm love and great wishes to see you, and then explaining my sentiments and impressions.
You know I left New York City, as I was unsuccessful to earn the means of my livelihood there. I found myself lost among the crowds of the Materialistic rush in the very busy streets of the Western Metropolice. Then I have carried my knapsack of travel in the psychological attitude of Jean Vol Jean the hero personage of “Les Miserahles” by the French “Hugo” and stepped forward hither with the absolute hope to earn easily the means of my living, but to my ill luck and misfortune I found all of Washington is like what I have previously had an introduction.
What a pity! A man like me, unable to eat his bread in the alleged garden spot of the world. That is a great disaster. Whenever I think of the existing circumstances in this great country, the lines of “Longfellow” run into my memory:
(Something, something done,
has earned a night’s repose.)
And I also think of America according to Shakespeare’s words in Hamlet:
“Something is rotten in the State of Denmark. “
What can I say more, my dear Mr. Moloch? The flourishing rose of my hopes had already faded. Conditions are awfully bad here. Capitalism is enslaving Labour in the midst daylight of the twentieth century, and Democracy is but a word of no meaning.
He who has money is terribly tormenting he who has not, simply because he has to feed him, and he who has money is degraded from his spiritual sentiments. That is the main point of weakness. That the mistake of society.
I see from afar the magic lantern, held by a mightful hand from Russia, fixing its lenses on this country to illuminate the way under the feet of the poor labourers.
Sooner or later all things pass away, and are no more:
The beggar and the king with equal steps tread forward to their end.
My dear Mr. Moloch, I hope you will excuse my frankness. It is the sorrow, hidden in the deepest of my heart which had motivated me to write these few lines to you today, and I greatly appreciate your “humanity” and “nobility” and “tenderness.”
Sorrow concealed like an oven stopped,
Doth burn the heart to cinders.
Kindly write me whenever you have a chance to do so. Advise me what to do. Shall I be patient, and my patience come to its limits? Will conditions be continuously bad in the United States as they are now? Is there any hope of the sun shining to kill the dark clouds and enlighten the obscurity? I hardly believe so. Here is what I am thinking of: I find it a black spot in the white page of my life to come to America, and return back to Egypt with failure, and I would rather die than so do.
My soul is very ambitious, and it is imprisoned within the cage of clay, the body! Shall I release it to enjoy liberty and boundless freedom?
I like to return back to New York, and shall not do so unless I know what my determination there will be. I do not want to be out of work. I want to be employed by you as a sergeant to look after the clothes no matter what long my hours of work will be, as long as I shall be under your direction, and will be leading a sedentary life.
I am sure your heart will sympathize my state and you will resume your endeavorings to put me in some position, and see me settled. I want to be employed by you as a messenger and do any other inside work. Do help me, please.
I shall come back to New York when you will be able to put me in such a work and send me a word to report myself to your kindness.
You may also communicate with your friends if they may let you know definitely that they will employ me in a decent vacancy. Don’t care much about the people as I have no faith
in them. I have only a very unshaking faith in you. You are the only man I adore and worship. You will be able, yourself, to solve my problem. I am sorry to trouble you with this long letter, but you remember when “Diogenes” the Greek philosopher of the old and goneby days, was wandering through the streets of Athens, bare footed, and with a lantern in his hand, to find the man.
I have wandered, and for a very considerable time, to find the man in America, and I have in you, the true man.
Don’t hesitate to help me as much as you can. I want you to employ me as a sergeant, or elsewhere in a decent work. Rate of living is very high, and I am unable to afford being out of work for such a long time. I cannot exist. Read this letter again. Read it over in your spare time and write an answer please. I don’t want to remain here. I like to come back to New York to see you frequently. Help me to be settled there.
Is Shukrullah still working as a messenger? It is a shame. I have taken a very long time from yours. I must close. With very good wishes and kindest regards I beg to lay under your feet my most respectful homage.
Your obedient servant always,
Sarwat.
Whilst Moloch read the last few paragraphs to himself, a rotund figure, streaming with perspiration, strutted in like a Rhode Island bantam and waddled over to another squat little figure seated at the switchboard.
“Hello, Dave!” he clucked. “Any excitement around here today? How is that boss of yours, Mister Moloch? Is he broke? I may want to borrow a few bucks from him.”
Dave, the squat little figure with the paunch of a Brahman, gave an appreciate smirk and nodded furtively in Moloch’s direction. “He’s got another funny letter....”
“Come here,” yelled Matt Reardon, suddenly spying Prigozi. “The big cheese has a letter from one of his admirers. … Read him that first paragraph, Dion … you know, that bit about ‘the internal pains—what sorrow’s hand has done in my heart,’ and so forth.”
“You here again?” Moloch exclaimed, glancing up at Prigozi. “Why don’t you find some other place to hang around in for a change?”
“I like this joint. There’s atmosphere here.”
“Camphor balls, you mean,” Reardon observed.
“Psychopaths! That’s what I mean,” yelled Prigozi, getting into form. “You’re a pack of nuts… the whole lot of you! Think the messengers are goofy, don’t you? Get a lot of fun analyzing ‘em, eh? Let me tell you birds something … these messengers of yours are the only normal ones in this lousy joint. I’ll modify that—excluding Mister Moloch’s pet freaks, say. Cripes, Matt, you make some awful blunders, but that boss of yours sitting there so complacently”—he looked scathingly at Moloch to see if he were taking this in—”he’s the worst amateur psychologist I ever met. Spends a half hour talking to an applicant, and thinks he can read him like a book. I’ll bet he’s hired more nuts than … well, little Dave over there couldn’t do worse, if you gave him a chance. You people give me a pain.” (He meant Moloch particularly.) “Think you’re conducting a laboratory. Cripes! You’re turning this joint into a wet nursery!”
Moloch looked up from his papers—he had been waiting for Prigozi to finish—and remarked quietly:
“I see. Yesterday it was a clinic. Today it’s a wet nursery.”
“Yeah, and tomorrow it’ll be a lunatic asylum,” roared Prigozi.
Prigozi rambled on, heedless of the impression he made. He fluttered about like a pigeon as he talked. He was very short, hairy, unkempt, and carried himself with the furtive pseudo-important air of a physician who has made a clean-up handling abortions. A third-year medical student, he was plugging along with a bootleg practice on the side, expecting someday to become a full-fledged psychiatrist. For the present, he was wrapped up in the theories of Freud, Jung, Adler, and their ilk. The year previous he had been an enthusiast on vivisection—cut up something like twenty-three guinea pigs, which he secreted in his flat together with a skeleton, a wife, and a few sticks of furniture.
No one could quite fathom why Moloch tolerated him. Indeed, it was something more than mere toleration that Moloch evinced in his relations with Prigozi. One might be tempted to call it a fascination. What it was that fascinated, Moloch himself could not explain. With the possible exception of Dave, who forced himself to admire Prigozi because they were both members of the chosen race, everyone considered him obnoxious and repulsive. It was Matt Reardon’s idea that Prigozi dropped in to show off before the female members of the staff. He attached no importance to Moloch’s air of geniality. In his mind, Moloch was angling for something: when he got it, whatever it was he was after, you’d see—he’d drop Prigozi like hot shot. He didn’t admire this quality in Moloch very much, even though Prigozi was a rat. He had a different conception of friendship himself. Moloch was too damned—well, “callous”—that was the word.
In the office Prigozi never dropped his coarse bantering attitude. It was all a part of his warm attachment to the “boss,” as he persisted in calling his friend Moloch.... There was no denying the fellow’s unattractiveness. To say that he was ugly is to flatter him. His skin was coarse and pockmarked, and as greasy as if it had been rubbed with lard. His nose, which Matt Reardon had once likened to a rubber syringe, was a huge priapic organ covered with blackheads. When he grew voluble and excited, thick globules of grease seeping from the enlarged pores clustered about the tip. He was forever scratching his scalp, which was infected and caused his scant hairs to fall out, leaving big red rings such as children sometimes exhibit when they get the worms. His clothes were never pressed, and seldom clean; on his coat collar there was always a thick layer of dandruff which lay like a mantle of snowfiakes about his sober wattles.
In the midst of his clowning Prigozi suddenly stopped chattering and looked fixedly at a queer creature seated on a bench in a corner of the anteroom. No one seemed to know how long the man had been sitting there. Looking at him intently, one had the feeling that he might go on sitting there indefinitely … that you could hang him up by the coat collar and leave him to cure, like a ham.
“Call that bozo over,” Prigozi ordered in a thick, suety voice. “Now we’ve got something to make a fuss about.”
“Whoa, there!” Moloch almost shoved the flat of his hand in Prigozi’s face. “Pretty late, isn’t it, for a sideshow performance?” He turned to Lawson, who sat like a Cerberus guarding the sacred portals. “What’s this chap waiting for, Lawson? I thought Matt got rid of all the applicants?”
“He insists on seeing you personally, Mr. Moloch.”
“Well, then, that’s different.” Moloch brought this out with a mocking bite, as if it were the Sultan of Morocco who had requested the privilege of an audience.
Though it was oppressively warm outdoors, the mysterious figure on the bench was dressed like Tweedledum preparing for battle with Tweedledee. Over a pair of dirty flannel trousers he had on a cardigan jacket; also a heavy sweater with a long neck that went up about his ears, and on top of this a ragged ulster which was fastened together with huge safety pins. His pockets were stuffed with old newspapers which he had doubtless collected in the day’s journey as he wandered aimlessly about the city streets. In the buttonhole of his ulster was a tiny American flag.
Matt Reardon nudged Prigozi and pointed to the flag. Prigozi sniggered and settled down to observe this set-to with all his critical acumen. The lenses of his spectacles were bottle-thick and gave his eyes the appearance of two ugly fish snouts pressing against a pair of Mazda bulbs.
“Good morning, friend. Can you give me a job?”
This was the first sign they had that the mysterious one was alive, and human. He had walked listlessly up to Moloch, when that individual beckoned to him, and commenced to talk in a subdued, distracted manner, as though he had been unexpectedly pushed onto the stage during an amateur night contest and was a little uncertain whether the monologue he had prepared was just the thing or not. It was a chaotic, maundering flow of inanity that started off at random and kep
t going like an eight-day clock. Despite the fact that it was afternoon, almost evening, he was under the impression that it was still morning.
“Just a moment,” said Moloch solicitously, rising and extending his hand in greeting. “Do you mind telling these gentlemen your name?”
“Luther, sir. Luther Becklein. I’m a Presbyterian. My wife, she was Catholic; we both belong to the Second Presbyterian Churchof Hoboken “
“But I thought you came from Paterson,” Prigozi wheezed, pretending that he had misunderstood.
“No, friend….” Luther was as placid as a lake. “I used to live in Paterson years ago. We had three nice rooms there on Second Avenue, three lovely rooms. Tillie was just five years old then— and smart as a Jew.…”
Moloch tittered. “As a Jew, you say?” That’s right, friend. I have no religious prejudices. I took her out of the kindergarten later and put her in a parochial school. That was when I lost my job with the window-shade people and we had to move to Hoboken. The missus had to take a jani-tress job, but I used to help her with the dishes and little things… ,”