It was just as well I didn’t visit them any more, was Stanley’s summing up. They had given me up as hopeless and irresponsible. Only Melanie, apparently, had a good word to say for me but then Melanie was just a doddering idiot. (Always subtle and tactful, Stanley.)
“Can’t you sneak me in there some time when no one’s home?” I begged. “I want to see how the place looks. I’d like to see the child’s toys, if nothing more.”
Stanley couldn’t see the wisdom of this but promised to think it over.
Then he added quickly: “You’d better forget about them. You’ve made a new life for yourself, stick to it!”
He must have sensed that we didn’t have enough to eat, for every time he came he brought food, usually the remnants of some Polish concoction his wife had made—soups, stews, puddings, jam. Good gruel, the sort we needed. In fact, we began to look forward to these visits.
There wasn’t much change in Stanley, I noticed, except that his nose was now pressed closer to the grindstone. He was working nights in a big printing establishment in lower New York, he told me. Now and then, standing up over the kitchen tubs, he would try to write. He found it almost impossible to concentrate—too many domestic worries. Usually they were broke before the week was up. Anyway, he was more interested in his children now than in writing. He wanted them to have a good life. Soon as they were old enough he would send them to college. And more of the same.…
Though he found it impossible to write, he did read. Now and then he brought along one of the books which entranced him. It was always the work of a romantic writer, usually of the 19th century. Somehow, no matter what book we were discussing, no matter what the world situation, no matter even if a revolution were impending, our talks always ended on Joseph Conrad. Or if not Conrad, then Anatole France. I had long ceased to be interested in either of these writers. Conrad bored me. But when Stanley began to sing his praise I would become intrigued despite myself. Stanley was no critic, to be sure, but, just as in the old days when we used to sit by the glowing stove in the kitchen and while the hours away, so now Stanley had a way of talking about the men he adored which infected me. He was full of yarns, usually about trivial episodes. These yarns were always humorous and spiced with malice and irony. The undercurrent, however, was freighted with tenderness, an immense, throbbing tenderness, which was almost suffocating. This tenderness of his, which he always smothered, redeemed his rancor, his cruelty, his vindictiveness. It was an aspect of his nature, however, which he rarely betrayed to others. In general he was brusque, mordant, acidulous. With a few words and gestures he could destroy any ambience. Even when silent there emanated from him a fluid which was corrosive.
In talking to me, however, he always melted. For some strange reason he saw in me an alter ego. Nothing gave him more delight, nothing could make him more charming and solicitous, than the fact I felt miserable or defeated. Then we were brothers. Then he could relax, expand, sun himself. He liked to think that we were accursed. Had he not prophesied time on end that all my efforts would not be of no avail? Had he not predicted that I would never make a good husband, nor a father, nor ever become a writer? Why did I persist? Why didn’t I settle down, as he had, take some humdrum job and accept my lot? It was patent that it did his heart good to gloat thus. Ever and always he went out of his way to remind me that I was “just a Brooklyn boy,” a lad from the 14th Ward—like himself, like Louis Pirossa, like Harry Martin, like Eddie Goeller, like Alfie Betcha. (All failures.) No, none of us would ever come to aught. We were condemned in advance. I ought to be grateful, he thought, that I wasn’t sitting in the penitentiary or that I hadn’t become a drug addict. Lucky for me that I came of a solid, respectable family.
Just the same, I was doomed.
As he continued to rant, however, his voice became more and more soothing. There was now a wistful quality in it, a nostalgic tinge. It was so very clear that, despite all he said, he could think of no better heritage than the life we once led, the companions we once had, in the good old 14th Ward. He spoke of our mutual friends of long ago as if he had made a life’s study of each separate one. They were all so diverse in character and temperament, yet each and every one had been circumscribed by his limitations, held in a vice of his own making. For Stanley there was no hope of egress, never had been, for any of them. Nor for us, to be sure. For other individuals there might be loopholes, but not for the men of the 14th Ward. We were in jeopardy, forever. It was this very fact, this deliciously ineluctable fact, which endeared the memory of our bygone friends. Most certainly, he admitted, they possessed as great talent as men elsewhere in the world. Undisputably they possessed all the qualities which made of other men poets, kings, diplomats, scholars. And they had proved themselves capable of revealing these qualities, each on his own level, each in his own unique way. Was not Johnny Paul the very soul of a king? Was he not a potential Charlemagne? His chivalry, his magnanimity, his faith and tolerance, were they not the very attributes of a Saladin? Stanley could always wax most eloquent when it came to Johnny Paul whom neither of us had seen since we were nine or ten. What became of him, we used to ask each other. What? No one knew. By choice or by fate he had remained anonymous. He was there, somewhere, in the great mass of humanity, leavening it with the fervor of his truly regal spirit. That was sufficient for Stanley. For me too, indeed. Strange that the very mention of the name Johnny Paul could bring tears to our eyes. Was he really so near and dear to us—or had we magnified his importance with the passing years? In any case, there he stood—in the hall of memory—the incarnation of all that was good, all that was promising. One of the grand Untouchables. Whatever it was he possessed, whatever it was he purveyed, it was imperishable. We had been aware of it as boys, we were convinced of it now as men.…
Mona, at first rather distrustful of Stanley, rather uneasy in his presence, warmed to him more and more with each succeeding visit. Our talk of the old neighborhood, of our wonderful playmates, our curious and brutal games, our fantastic notions (as children) of the world we inhabited, revealed to her a side of life she had never known. Occasionally she would remind Stanley of her Polish origin, or her Roumanian origin, or her Viennese origin, or telescope them all into “the heart of the Carpathian mountains.” To these overtures Stanley always gave a lame ear, or as the Greeks say—koutsaftis. In his mind the fact that she couldn’t speak a word of Polish was sufficient to put her in the same category as all the other “outlanders” of this world. Besides, for Stanley’s taste she was a little too glib. Out of deference to me he never contradicted her, but the devastating expressions which flitted over his features spoke volumes. Doubt and disdain were the expressions Stanley most easily summoned. More than anything else Stanley was disdainful. This disdain which never quite left his features, which at most he subdued or repressed, was concentrated in his nose. He had the rather long, fine nose with flaring nostrils which is often noticeable among the Poles. Whatever was suspect, whatever was distasteful or antipathetic, manifested itself at once through this organ. The mouth expressed bitterness, the eyes a steadfast cruelty. They were small eyes, the color of agate; they were set wide apart and the look they gave bored clean through one. When he was merely ironical they twinkled, like cold, remote stars; when he was angry they burned like arrows dipped in poison.
What made him particularly awkward and ill at ease in Mona’s presence was her fluency, her agility, her quick intelligence. They were not qualities he admired in the other sex. It was not altogether by accident that he had chosen for wife a dolt, a halfwit, who, to hide her ignorance or embarrassment, would grin fatuously or titter in a most disconcerting way. True to form, he treated her like an object. She was the vassal. Perhaps he did love her once, but if so it must have been in another incarnation. Nevertheless he felt at home with her. He knew how to cope with her faults and transgressions.
He was such a queer, queer fellow, Stanley. Such a mixture of rasping contradictions. But there was one thing he seldom did,
queer gazabo that he was—he seldom asked questions. When he did, they were direct questions and they had to be answered directly. It was, of course, not tact but pride which made him act in this seemingly discreet way. He took it for granted that I would inform him of anything important which came to pass. He preferred to have me volunteer the information than to pump it out of me. Knowing him as I did, I regarded it as hopeless to explain to him our manner of life. Had I told him simply that I had taken to thieving he would have swallowed it unquestioningly. Had I told him I had become a counterfeiter he might have arched his eyebrows in quizzical approbation. But to tell him of the devious nature of our operations would have baffled and repelled him.
A rum bird, this Polski. The only trace of suavity he ever displayed was in narrating one of his quaint yarns. At table, if he asked for a piece of bread, it was like a slap in the face. He was deliberately rude and insulting. It made him feel good to see others squirm.
At the same time he had a shyness which was quixotic. If Mona were to seat herself opposite him and cross her legs he would avert his eyes. If she put her make-up on in his presence he would pretend not to be aware of it. Her beauty itself made him self-conscious. It also made him suspicious. A woman as beautiful and intelligent as Mona marrying a guy like me—there was something louche about it in his eyes. He knew of course where and how I had met her. Now and then he referred to it casually, but always tellingly. When she spoke of her childhood in Poland or Vienna he would watch me attentively, hoping, I suppose, that I would embellish the story, fill in the long missing details. There was a gap somewhere and it bothered him. Once he went so far as to remark that he doubted she was ever born in Poland. But that she was a Jewess, that he never suspected. She was American through and through, that was his private belief. But an unusual American, for a female, that is. He couldn’t get over her diction, which was without the slightest trace of accent or locale. How did she ever learn to speak such a pure English? he would ask. How could I be sure of anything concerning her? “I know you,” he would say, “you’re a Romantic… you prefer to have it a mystery.” Which was quite true. “Me,” he said, “I want to know what’s what. I want things above board. No hide-and-seek games for me.” Yet it was he, Stanley, who was so enamored of Herr Nagel, the hero of Mysteries. What discussions we had by the kitchen fire à propos this enigmatic figure of Hamsun’s! He would have given his right arm, Stanley, to have created such a character. It was not only that Herr Nagel enveloped himself in a shroud of mystery, it was also his sense of humor, his pranks, his volte-faces which appealed to Stanley. But what he adored above all was the contradictory nature of the man. Herr Nagel’s helplessness in the presence of the woman he loved, his masochism, his diabolism, his sentimentality, his extreme vulnerability—these qualities made him extraordinarily precious. “I tell you, Henry, that Hamsun is a master,” Stanley would say. He had said the same of Conrad, of Balzac, of Anatole France, of de Maupassant, of Loti. He had said the same of Reymont when he finished The Peasants. (For quite different reasons, to be sure.) Of one thing I could be certain, he would never say it of me, even if the whole world were unanimous about it. A master of literature, from Stanley’s viewpoint, had to be a type like the above mentioned. He had first of all to be of the Old World; he had to be suave, he had to have finesse, subtlety, velleity. He had to have a style which was finished; he had to be adept with plot, character, situations; he had to command a broad knowledge of the world and of human affairs. In his opinion I would never, never be able to spin a good yarn. Even in Sherwood Anderson, whom he grudgingly admitted now and then to be an excellent storyteller, he found grave faults. His style was too fresh, too raw, too new for Stanley’s taste. Yet he laughed until the tears came to his eyes when he read The Triumph of the Egg. He admitted it resentfully. He had laughed in spite of himself, as it were. And then he took on about Jerome K. Jerome, certainly a strange bird for a Polski to mention. In Stanley’s opinion nothing funnier had ever been written than Three Men in a Boat. Even the Polish writers had no one to equal him. But then the Poles were seldom funny. “If a Pole calls something funny,” said Stanley, “it means that he finds it bizarre. He’s too somber, too tragic, to appreciate horseplay.” Speaking thus, the word droll would inevitably cross his lips. Droll was his favorite word, and it expressed a multitude of dissimilar things. To be droll implied a certain vein of excellence, of uniqueness, which Stanley prized exceedingly. If he said of an author—“He’s a droll chap”—he meant thereby to pay him a weighty compliment. Gogol, for instance, was one of these droll chaps. On the other hand he could refer to Bernard Shaw as a droll chap too. Or Strindberg. Or even Maeterlinck.
A rum bird, Stanley. Droll, what!
As I say, these sessions often took place in the garden. If we had the money I would get a few bottles of beer for him. He liked only beer and vodka. Now and then we held conversation with a Syrian neighbor leaning out of a second-story window. They were friendly people and the women were ravishingly beautiful. Mona with her heavy dark tresses they had taken at first to be one of them. Our landlady, we soon learned, was violently prejudiced against the Syrians. For her they represented the scum of the earth—first, because they were dark-skinned, second, because they spoke a language which no one else understood. She made it clear to us in no uncertain terms that she was horrified by the attention we gave them. She trusted we would have sense enough not to invite them to our quarters. After all, she put it tersely, she was running a “respectable” rooming house.
I swallowed her remarks as best I could, always bearing in mind that we might one day need a stay of grace. I dismissed her as an eccentric old witch about whom the less said the better. I took the precaution to warn Mona never to leave our door unlocked when we were absent. One look at my manuscripts and we would be done for.
It was after we were here a few weeks that Mona informed me one day that she had run into Tony Maurer again. He and the Milwaukee millionaire were gadding about together. Apparently, Tony Maurer was sincerely desirous of helping Mona. He had confided that he was working on his friend to get him to write out a sizeable check—perhaps for a thousand dollars.
This was precisely the sort of break we had been praying for. With a sum like that we would be able to break out and see something of the world. Or we might join O’Mara. The latter was constantly sending us post cards from the sunny South telling us how smooth and easy things were down there. At any rate, we were through with little ole New York.
It was Mona who kept urging a change of scene. It disturbed her profoundly that I no longer made any effort to write. To be sure, I had half convinced her that it was all her fault, that so long as she continued to lead a double life I could do nothing. (Not that I distrusted her, I emphasized, but that she caused me too much worry.) As I say, she was only partially convinced. She knew that the trouble went deeper. In her simple, naive way she concluded that the only way to alter the situation was to alter the scene.
Then one day there came a telephone call from Tony Maurer, apprising her that everything was set for the kill. She was to meet the two of them at Times Square where a limousine would be waiting to take them up the Hudson. A good meal at an inn and the check would be forthcoming. (It would be for seven hundred and fifty, not a thousand.)
After she had gone I picked up a book. It was Wisdom and Destiny. I hadn’t read a line of Maeterlinck for years: it was like getting back to a raw diet. Towards midnight, feeling somewhat restless and uneasy, I went for a stroll. Passing a department store I noticed a window crammed with camping and sporting outfits. That gave me the idea of tramping through the South. With knapsacks over our backs we could hitchhike to the Virginia border and then foot it the rest of the way. I saw just the outfit I intended to don, including a magnificent pair of brogans. The idea so fascinated me that I suddenly grew hungry, hungry as a bear. I headed for Joe’s restaurant at Borough Hall where I treated myself to a porterhouse steak smothered in onions. As I ate I dreamed. In
a day or two we would be out of the filthy city, sleeping under the stars, fording streams, climbing mountains, sweating, panting, singing at the top of our lungs. I prolonged the reverie while putting away a huge piece of homemade apple pie (deep-dish fashion) together with a strong cup of coffee. I was about ready now to pick my teeth and saunter homeward. At the cash register I noticed the array of choice cigars. I selected a Romeo and Juliet and, with a feeling of peace and good will towards the whole world, I bit off the tip of the cigar and spat it out.
It must have been two o’clock when I got home. I undressed and got into bed; I lay there with eyes wide open, expecting any minute to hear her footsteps. Towards dawn I dozed off.
It was eight-thirty when she came tripping in. Not the least bit tired either. Couldn’t think of going to bed. Instead, she began making breakfast—bacon and eggs, coffee, hot rolls which she had picked up on the way. Insisted that I remain in bed until the last minute.
“But where in hell have you been all this time?” I did my best to growl. I knew everything must have passed off well—she was too radiant for it to have been otherwise.
“Let’s eat first,” she begged. “It’s a long story.”
“Did you get the check—that’s all I want to know.”
She waved it before my eyes.
That same afternoon we ordered a slew of things at the department store; they were to be delivered the next day, by which time we hoped to cash the check. The morrow came and still we hadn’t cashed the check. The clothes, of course, went back to the department store. In despair we put the check through a bank, which meant a delay of several days at least.
Meanwhile a serious altercation had broken out between Mona and the bluenosed harridan of a landlady. It seems that in the midst of a conversation with the beautiful Syrian woman next door the landlady had erupted into the garden and begun hurling names at the Syrian woman. Outraged, Mona had insulted the old bitch, whereupon the latter took to abusing her in fantastic terms, saying that she was a Syrian too, and a whore, and this and that. The fracas almost ended in a hair-pulling match.