Cigarettes were one thing we had a plentiful supply of. Food, that was another matter. Food was doled out scantily and in the most unappetizing fashion. Mona, of course, had offered to relieve Lotta of the burden of cooking, but Lotta had refused to hear of it. We soon discovered why. She was stingy. She feared that Mona might prepare succulent, bounteous repasts. She was damned right about that! To take over the kitchen and stage a feast was the one thought uppermost in our minds. We kept praying that they would go to town for a few days and let us take over. Then at last we would enjoy a good meal.
“What I would like,” Mona would say, “is a good roast of beef.”
“Give me chicken—or a fine roast duck.”
“I’d like to have sweet potatoes for a change.”
“Suits me, honey, only make some rich gravy to go with them.”
Like badminton it was. We shuffled the phantom food back and forth like two starved peacocks. If only they would breeze! God, but we were sick of looking at sardine tins, cans of sliced pineapple, bags of potato chips. The two of them nibbled away like mice the whole damned day. Never a hint of wine, never a drop of whisky. Nothing but coke and sarsaparilla.
I can’t say that Karen was stingy. No, he was insensitive, unobservant. When I informed him one day that we were not getting enough to eat he professed to be appalled. “What would you like?” he asked. And at once he got up from his work, borrowed a car from a neighbor, and whisked us off to town where we went from one store to another ordering provisions. It was typical of him to react in this way. Always to extremes. By going to extremes he intended, quite unconsciously, I believe, to make you slightly disgusted with yourself. “Food? Is that all you want?” he seemed to say. “That’s easy, we’ll buy heaps of it, enough to choke a horse.” There was a further implication in his exaggerated willingness to please you. “Food? why that’s a mere trifle. Of course we can get you food. I thought you had deeper worries.”
His wife, of course, was dismayed when she saw the load of provisions we brought back with us. I had asked Karen not to say anything to his wife about our hunger. He pretended, therefore, that he was laying in a supply against a rainy day. “The larder was getting low,” he explained. But when he added that Mona would like to fix a meal for us at dinner time her face dropped. For an instant there passed over her countenance that horrified look of the miser whose hoard is menaced. Once again Karen stepped into the breach. “I thought, darling, that you would enjoy having someone else cook the meal for a change. Mona is an excellent cook, it appears. We’re going to have filet mignon this evening—how does that sound to you?” Lotta, of course, had to feign delight.
We made the dinner an event. In addition to fried onions and mashed potatoes we had succotash, beets and Brussels sprouts, with celery, stuffed olives and radishes on the side. We washed this down with red and white wine, the best obtainable. There were three kinds of cheese, followed by strawberries and rich cream. For a change we had some excellent coffee, which I prepared myself. Good, strong coffee with a bit of chicory in it. All that lacked was a good liqueur and Havana cigars.
Karen enjoyed the meal immensely. He acted like a different man. He joked, told stories, laughed until his sides ached, and never once referred to his work. Toward the end of the meal he even tried to sing.
“Not bad, eh?” I said.
“Henry, we ought to do this oftener,” he responded. He looked to Lotta for approval. She gave a thin, bleak smile which caused her face to crack. It was obvious that she was desperately trying to reckon the cost of the spread.
Suddenly Karen pushed his chair back and rose from the table. I thought he was going to bring his charts and diagrams to the table. Instead he went into the next room and returned in a jiffy with a book. He waved it before my eyes.
“Ever read this, Henry?” he demanded.
I looked at the title. “No,” I said. “Never heard of it.”
Karen passed the book to his wife and begged her to read us a morsel. I expected something dismal, and instinctively poured out some more wine.
Lotta solemnly turned the pages, looking for one of her favorite passages.
“Read anywhere,” said Karen. “It’s good through and through.”
Lotta stopped fumbling with the pages and looked up. Her expression changed suddenly. For the first time I saw her countenance illuminated. Even her voice had altered. She had become a diseuse.
“It’s chapter three,” she began, “from The Crock of Gold, by James Stephens.”
“And a darling of a book it is!” Karen broke in gleefully. With this he pushed his chair back a bit and put his big feet on the arm of the easy chair near by. “Now you’re going to hear something, you two.”
Lotta began: “It’s a dialogue between the Philosopher and a farmer called Meehawl MacMurrachu. The two have just greeted one another.” She begins reading.
“ ‘Where is the other one?’ said he (the farmer).
“ ‘Ah!’ said the Philosopher.
“ ‘He might be outside, maybe?’
“ ‘He might indeed,’ said the Philosopher gravely.
“ ‘Well, it doesn’t matter,’ said the visitor, ‘for you have enough knowledge by yourself to stock a shop. The reason I came here today was to ask your honored advice about my wife’s washing board. She only had it a couple of years, and the last time she used it was when she washed out my Sunday shirt and her black shirt with the red things on it—you know the one?’
“ ‘I do not,’ said the Philosopher.
“‘Well, anyhow, the washboard is gone, and my wife says it was either taken by the fairies or by Bessie Hannigan—you know Bessie Hannigan? She has whiskers like a goat and a lame leg!’
“ ‘I do not,’ said the Philosopher.
“ ‘No matter,’ said Meehawl MacMurrachu. ‘She didn’t take it, because my wife got her out yesterday and kept her talking for two hours while I went through everything in her bit of a house—the washboard wasn’t there.’
“ ‘It wouldn’t be,’ said the Philosopher.
“‘Maybe your honor could tell a body where it is then?’
“ ‘Maybe I could,’ said the Philosopher; ‘are you listening?’
“ ‘I am,’ said Meehawl MacMurrachu.
“The Philosopher drew his chair closer to the visitor until their knees were jammed together. He laid both his hands on Meehawl MacMurrachu’s knees.…
“ ‘Washing is an extraordinary custom,’ said he. ‘We are washed both on coming into the world and on going out of it, and we take no pleasure from the first washing nor any profit from the last.’
“ ‘True for you, sir,’ said Meehawl MacMurrachu.
“ ‘Many people consider that scourings supplementary to these are only due to habit. Now, habit is continuity of action, it is a most detestable thing and is very difficult to get away from. A proverb will run where a writ will not, and the follies of our forefathers are of greater importance to us than is the well-being of our posterity.’”
At this point Karen interrupted his wife to ask if we liked the passage.
“I do indeed,” I said. “Let her continue!”
“Continue!” said Karen, settling still deeper into his chair.
Lotta read on. She had an excellent voice and could handle the brogue expertly. The dialogue got funnier and funnier. Karen began to titter and then to laugh like a hyena. The tears were rolling down his face.
“Do be careful, Karen,” begged his wife, putting the book down for a moment. “I’m afraid you’ll get the hiccups.”
“I don’t care,” said Karen, “it’s worth getting the hiccups.”
“But you remember, the last time it happened we had to call a doctor.”
“Just the same,” said Karen. “I’d like to hear the end of it.” And again he exploded into peals of laughter. It was frightening to hear him laugh. He had no control whatever. I wondered to myself if he could weep just as bravely. It would be something to unnerve one.
Lotta waited for him to subside, then resumed her reading.
“ ‘Did you ever hear, sir, about the fish that Paudeen MacLaughlin caught in the policeman’s hat?’
“ ‘I did not,’ said the Philosopher. ‘The first person who washed was possibly a person seeking a cheap notoriety. Any fool can wash himself, but every wise man knows that it is an unnecessary labor, for nature will quickly reduce him to a natural and healthy dirtiness again. We should seek, therefore, not how to make ourselves clean, but how to attain a more unique and splendid dirtiness, and perhaps the accumulated layers of matter might, by ordinary geologic compulsion, become incorporated with the human cuticle and so render clothing unnecessary.…’
“ ‘About that washboard,’ said Meehawl, ‘I was just going to say.…’
“ ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said the Philosopher. ‘In its proper place I.…’”
Here Lotta had to close the book. Karen was laughing, if it could be called that, with such uncontrollable violence that his eyes were popping out of his head. I thought he would throw a fit.
“Darling, darling!” came Lotta’s anxious voice, registering a concern I hadn’t believed her capable of. “Please, darling, calm yourself!”
Karen continued to be rocked by spasms which now sounded more like sobs. I got up and thumped him violently on the back. At once the commotion subsided. He looked up at me gratefully. Then he coughed and wheezed and blew his nose vigorously, wiping the tears away with his coat sleeve.
“Next time, Henry, use a mallet,” he sputtered. “Or a sledge hammer.”
“That I will,” I said.
He began to titter again.
“Please don’t!” begged Lotta. “He’s had enough for one evening.”
“It was indeed a wonderful evening,” said Mona. “I’m beginning to like it here. And how wonderfully you read,” she said, addressing Lotta.
“I used to be on the stage,” said Lotta modestly.
“I thought so,” said Mona. “So was I once.”
Lotta arched her eyebrows. “You were?” There was a tinge of sarcasm in her voice.
“Why yes,” said Mona, unruffled, “I played with the Theatre Guild.”
“Hear, hear!” said Karen, relapsing into his Oxford manner.
“What’s so strange about that?” I demanded to know. “Didn’t you think she had any talent?”
“Why, Henry,” said Karen, clasping my arm, “you are a sensitive brute, aren’t you? I was congratulating myself on our good luck. We’ll all take turns reading some night. I was on the stage once myself, you know.”
“And I was once a trapeze artist,” I countered.
“Really!” This from Lotta and Karen simultaneously.
“Didn’t I ever tell you? I thought you knew.”
For some strange reason this innocent lie impressed them. If I had said I had been a cabinet minister once it could not have produced as telling an effect. It was amazing how limited was their sense of humor. Naturally I expatiated at length on my virtuosity. Mona chimed in now and then to help me out. They listened as if spellbound.
When I had finished Karen soberly remarked: “Among other things, Henry, you’re not a bad storyteller. You must tell us some more yarns like that when we’re in the mood.”
The next day, as if to make up for the grand splurge, Karen was determined to tackle the roof. It had to be shingled and then coated with tar. And I who could never drive a nail straight was to do the job—under his directions. Fortunately it took some time to find the right ladder, the proper nails, the hammer and saw and a dozen other tools which he thought might come in handy. What followed was straight out of Laurel and Hardy. First of all I insisted on finding a pair of old gloves so as not to get any splinters in my hands. I made it clear as a Euclidian theorem that with splinters in my fingers I would be unable to type and being unable to type would mean no dictaphone work. After that I insisted on finding a pair of sneakers so as not to slip and break my neck. Karen nodded approval in dead seriousness. He was the type who, in order to get the maximum amount of work out of you, would carry you to the toilet if necessary and wipe your ass for you. It was clear by this time that I would need a lot of assistance to fix the roof. Mona was to stand by in case anything fell to the ground; she was also to fetch us some ice-cold lemonade at intervals. Karen, of course, had already drawn several diagrams explaining how the shingles were to be adjusted one to another. Naturally I profited not at all from these explanations. I had only one thought in mind—to start hammering away like a demon and let the chips fall where they would.
In order to limber up I suggested that I first practice walking along the ridgepole. Karen, still nodding approval, wanted to lend me an umbrella, but at this Mona laughed so heartily that he abandoned the idea. I scurried up the ladder as nimbly as a cat, hoisted myself up to the ridgepole and began my tightrope exercises. Lotta looked on with suppressed fright, her mind busy, doubtless, computing hospital expenses in the event I should slip and break a leg. It was a scorcher of a day, the flies out in swarms and biting like fury. I had on a huge Mexican hat much too big for me which kept falling over my eyes. When I descended I took the notion to change into my swimming trunks. Karen thought he would do likewise. This consumed a little more time.
Finally there was nothing left but to begin. I climbed up the ladder with the hammer under my arm clutching a keg of nails. It was getting on towards noon. Karen had rigged up a platform on wheels from which he unloaded the shingles and gave directions. He looked like a Carthaginian setting the defenses of the city in order. The women stood below, clucking away like hens, all set to catch me if I fell.
I got the first shingle set and picked up the hammer to drive the first nail home. I missed it by an inch or two and the shingle went flying homeward like a kite. I was so surprised, so stunned, that the hammer fell out of my hands and the keg of nails tumbled to the ground. Karen, unperturbed, gave orders to remain where I was, the women would gather up the hammer and nails. It was Lotta who ran to the kitchen to get the hammer. When she returned I learned that I had broken the teapot and a few plates. Mona was scrambling for the nails, picking them up so fast that they fell out of her hand before she could get them in the keg.
“Easy, easy!” shouted Karen. “All right up there, Henry? Steady now!”
With this I got the giggles. The situation reminded me all too vividly of those dreadful occasions in the past when my mother and sister would aid me in putting up the awnings—parlor floor front. Nobody except an awning maker has any idea how complicated an awning can be. There are not only the rods and flaps, the bolts and screws, the pulleys and cords, there are a hundred perplexing difficulties which arise after you have mounted the ladder and anchored yourself gingerly on the edge of the double window. Somehow there always seemed to be a gale blowing when my mother decided to put up the awnings. Holding the flapping awning with one hand and the hammer with the other, my mother would then endeavor to pass the various things which were needed and which my sister had handed to her. To keep a tight grip with my legs and not permit the awning to carry me aloft was a feat in itself. My arms would grow tired before I had driven in the first screw. I would have to disentangle the damned contraption and jump down for a breathing spell. All the time my mother would be mumbling and groaning—“It’s so simple, I could put them up myself in a few minutes if I didn’t have the rheumatism.” Recommencing, she would be obliged to explain to me all over again which part went outside and which inside. For me it was like doing something backwards. Once in position again, the hammer would fall from my hands, and I would sit there wrestling with the belly of the awning while my sister ran below and fetched it. It would take at least an hour to put up one awning. At this point I could invariably say—“Why not leave the other ones till tomorrow?” Whereupon my mother would fly into a rage, horrified by the thought of what the neighbors would think seeing only one awning in place. Sometimes, at this point, I would suggest that
we call upon a neighbor to finish the job, offering to pay him handsomely out of my own pocket. But this would enrage her even more. It was a sin, in her opinion, to pay out money for work which one could do oneself. By the time we finished I always had a few bruises. “Serves you right,” my mother would say. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself. You’re as helpless as your father.”
Sitting astride the ridgepole, laughing quietly to myself, I congratulated myself that we were doing something other than dictaphone work. I knew that by evening my back would be so sunburned that I would be unable to work on the morrow. I would have to lie on my belly all day. Fine. It would give me a chance to read something interesting. I was growing stupid listening to nothing but statistical abracadabra. I realized that Karen would try to find something “light” for me to do while lying on my belly, but I knew how to discourage such attempts.
Well, we began again, slowly and deliberately this time. The way I worked over one nail would have driven any normal person crazy. But Karen was anything but a normal individual. From his Carthaginian tower he continued to shower me with directions and encouragements. Why he didn’t put the shingles up himself and let me pass them to him I couldn’t understand. But he was happy only when directing. Even when it was a simple thing he had to do he could somehow break it up into a multitude of component parts which would necessitate the co-operation of several individuals. It never mattered to him how long it took to complete a job; all that mattered was that it be done his way, i.e., the longest and the most complicated way. This was what he called “efficiency.” He had learned it in Germany while studying how to make organs. (Why organs? So that he could appreciate music better.)
I had only put up a few shingles when the signal came for lunch. It was a cold lunch made of the odds and ends from yesterday’s banquet. “A salad,” Lotta called it. Happily there were a few bottles of beer to make it palatable. We even had a few grapes. I ate them slowly, one by one, stretching the minutes out. Already my back looked raw. Mona wanted me to put a shirt on. I assured them that I tanned quickly. Wouldn’t think of donning a shirt. Karen who wasn’t altogether a fool, suggested that we lay off the roof work for the afternoon and tackle something “light.” He began explaining that he had made some complicated charts which had to be corrected and remade.