Harpo thrust his legs into the lake. It was frigid. The sun was just starting to rise, and it looked like a bloody eye, and it wasn’t doing anything to warm anything, so what was the point? The whole thing was stupid anyway, because he’d come out to see a ghost, and William wasn’t here. This morning, he’d woken up alone, had forgotten that he hadn’t brought a girl back to his room last night, and when he’d stretched out his fingers and toes and felt that expanse of soft white sheets, he hadn’t even felt the thrill of the chase. He’d just felt lonely.
The lapping water wet his bunched up pants to the knees and he was taking a perverse pleasure in letting them get wet higher and higher. He’d catch a chill. He might get pneumonia. People died of that. He might die of it. Then his brothers would be sad. Minnie might say that he was feeling sorry for himself, but Minnie would be wrong. He was feeling sorry for his brothers. They’d have a sorry time without him when he was dead. Who would Chico play cards with? Who would fling pennies into their cups and water glasses? Groucho? That was a laugh. He always missed.
Harpo arched his back and felt slimy little rocks with his toes.
“Did you forget something out there?” said a familiar female voice.
Harpo fell right off the dock. The water only went up to his thighs, but he looked down and noticed that he was wet to his waist.
“Or do you want me to rescue you again?” said Ayala, pointing toward the dock on which Harpo had been stranded last night. He could just make it out in the blinking water. “If you’re going for a swim, that’s fine. I might not want to rescue you later, so if you could do it soon, that would be best.”
Harpo nodded, and Ayala smiled. Then Harpo danced in a circle, and she laughed outright. It was a pleasant sound, kind of like the twittering of a bird, so he danced more and more wildly, like those funny Russian dancers, crossing his arms, kneeling and kicking. He could do it now. The water let him float. And she liked it, it seemed. She was Russian after all.
“Stop,” Ayala said after a few minutes of this. “It’s enough now. That’s too much laughing.”
Harpo jumped up onto the dock beside her and shook himself off.
“Stop it,” she said. “I can’t laugh anymore.”
“That’s your quota for the day?” he said, putting his hand on her knee.
“Yes,” and she fixed him with her strange dark eyes, serious now, all the hints of laughter gone. “Precisely.”
Harpo waited, but she didn’t say anything more. He was imagining what he wanted to say to her, when abruptly he pictured William, red cheeked in the breath-white night. If there was a ghost on the premises, she might want to charge him to stay. “You know what I discovered?” he asked.
“A letter?”
“No,” he said. “Wait. What? I like letters.” He wished he’d found one of those. “I like ripping them up. That’s my specialty.” The first time he’d ripped a letter onstage, they’d been in that little theatre in Queens—Groucho playing a teacher, he and Chico, students. Professor Groucho had been sitting at his desk, sorting through his personal letters, and Harpo had come over and taken one, just grabbed it and ripped. And then a second passed, then two, then the audience’s laughter had surged like a wave. Then Groucho waited a beat and said, “He gets angry because he can’t read.” God, he loved his brothers.
Harpo walked his fingers up her thigh. “Have you met Chico and Groucho yet?”
“If you didn’t see my letter,” said Ayala, “then it must have been a dream.”
“Wait,” said Harpo. “You dreamt about a letter?”
“Did you say something about Russia? I think that really happened, at least.”
“I told you I’m going there.” Harpo squeezed her leg. The rumours were true then. She did have a mind like the attic of a house, or a frame of mind like a house frame, all scaffolding, all layered ideas and ladders in between. She was beautiful though, more so even, since he felt a bit protective now. “You asked me to deliver a letter for you. But you didn’t have it with you.”
“I had a dream last night that I wrote the letter,” said Ayala. “I brought it back to the dock, but I couldn’t find you. There were just some saplings instead, waving in the wind like skinny ghosts. And in the lake the water was clear, and there were some underwater lightning rod plants, I could see them distinctly. I remember addressing that letter and everything. I remember writing Simon’s name.”
“Simon?”
“I felt better. It’s been so long since I wrote it.”
“Who’s Simon?”
“Then I put the letter back on my drafting table, and I was going to ask Blima to take it to the postman. But when I got up in the morning, the letter was gone. It’s funny because I remember the feeling of the ink on my hands. My fingertips were slick.” Then she held up her wrist and hand, and they glowed, unmarked and moony white in the pale sunlight.
“Did you check your pockets?” asked Harpo. “You were wearing a nightgown last night. And I seem to remember pockets.” And how they held tight to her thighs as she moved toward him. Harpo felt that familiar movement, the tickle and stir. He crossed his legs. There might be people around. He didn’t know where this girl’s husband was. “Maybe you just misplaced it.”
“It’s not the sort of letter that I would misplace,” she said, watching him with that strange intensity.
“Do you often write to Simon in your dreams?” But that sounded too incongruous. Incongruous! Why would she dream about a letter when she could so easily dream about the man himself instead? That’s what Harpo would do. “Maybe your husband took the letter. Maybe he wanted to say hello too.”
“No.” Suddenly, Ayala’s cheeks were pink like they were windburned, and her lips were red, and Harpo was very aware of his hand, lying on the soft skin of her leg. It tingled. Ayala had had an affair with this man. Suddenly, it was in the realm of things he knew.
And just as suddenly, Ayala stood. “I think I saw the postman,” she muttered, turning away. “I think I saw him leave.”
“The mailman?”
“I have to see after the mail,” and she walked quickly into the woods.
Harpo stumbled after her, quickly, to keep up. Maybe she’d lead him up to her bedroom again. This time he’d definitely follow. Maybe it wasn’t such a coincidence that both he and Ayala liked the mail. Who didn’t like letters? But he didn’t dream about them. That was new. She probably didn’t tear them up like he did, so they were even. Harpo imagined a conspiracy in the post office— himself, as a postie, tearing up all the letters as they came. Harpo the Postman.
Wait.
This could be something.
It could be a movie. It could be the movie that saved the Marx Brothers.
Harpo saw that he’d fallen behind, so he galloped forward faster. He could play a postman. He could rip up letters for a whole entire picture. Maybe he could tear up only all the letters mailed to one person. Find someone mean, or someone to tease. Good old Maggie Dumont and her broken-down smile. Or maybe he could redirect the mail and help the people who needed help. What if girls needed help finding the right man? Harpo the Postman could cut up letters, tape together the wrong halves. Jokes. Pranks. Sometimes finish the letters the writers had meant to send. He could start romances, he’d bet on that. He could start nonsense, that was for absolutely certain. This could be perfect. It could be the movie that redeemed them from Duck Soup. And it was Ayala who’d given it to him. Like a gift. Like she knew he needed an idea just like this one.
Harpo took a deep breath. It felt like there was more oxygen in the world somehow. He could breathe easier. And it was all because of her. Wherever she was.
Harpo stopped, looked all around him. Ayala was gone. She’d disappeared, and he was all alone in the woods again. He took a few halting steps forward and abruptly the trees thinned, and there was the lodgehouse. The newly risen sun was hitting it straight on and making the windows shine like copper pennies. Somehow, he’d wandered right back again. At least there was that.
He trudged up the path. Something always happened. People were always ditching him.
Except Ayala was probably being coy, was all. He galloped up the stairs.
Harpo pressed his face against the crack between the kitchen door and the wall. Then he looked in the dining room, then in the long hallway. No Ayala in sight. He ran through the stuffy room with all the doors in it, and then, in the room filled with windows, he found Chico. He was sitting at a coffee table, practising his shuffle and deal, with a heaping plate of food in front of him, with Groucho eating across from him, shovelling up forkfuls of eggs and meat and were those croissants?
Chico put down his cards. “Where were you last night?”
“Where was I?” said Harpo, picking up a hot cross bun. “I was on a raft.”
“We went back for you,” said Groucho. “Where did you go? How did you get back here? I even saved the crossword.” He put his hands on the table, then hit his pockets. “It’s around here somewhere.”
Harpo sat. He wasn’t ready to talk about last night yet, about the ghost and the beautiful woman, the strange loneliness of the morning, any of it. After a moment, Groucho gave up and lifted his fork. And Harpo was hungry, he realized. Where was the buffet? But then Chico started shuffling again, and Harpo just watched him. Why did he bother practising? There wasn’t another person who could play with such panache. Chico grinned at him, as if he knew what Harpo was thinking.
“Pinchie Winchie?” said Chico. “I found a piece of coal this morning.”
“Maybe later.”
“I was thinking of finding a fourth after dinner. You in?”
“I’m thinking of going to Russia.”
“Not tonight.”
“September.”
“I heard that. Someone already told me.” Chico scratched his chin with a card. “I have a gig too. I’m going to Vegas. None of this has anything to do with pinochle.”
Harpo looked out the window. The sky was still bright and blue and dazzling. He wished for thunderclouds. He wanted hail, sheeting sleet, Noah-style rain. Of course Chico was going to Vegas. “You’re going on tour without me?”
“It’s a piano tour, partner. You don’t play the piano.”
“Yes I do.”
“‘Love Me and the World is Mine’ isn’t enough for a whole tour.”
“I can play it in four different keys.”
“I don’t think an audience would like that. Especially the Vegas crowd.”
“Yeah.” Harpo turned away. “They have discerning tastes there in Vegas.”
He’d said discerning. Groucho was intent on his food, so he hadn’t heard. Harpo would tell him later. No. He wouldn’t. He’d never tell him at all. He’d never tell Groucho anything ever again. So they were going their separate ways. Somehow, it had already been decided.
“I’m taking Maxie with me to Vegas,” Chico was saying. “She’ll love it there. It’s nice for a kid, lots of colours, and it’ll be nice to spend some time with family.”
Harpo nodded, even though he was their family too. And he’d been their family first. Stupid tied down brothers.
“I just thought of another game,” said Chico.
“I don’t want to play.” It had been comforting to know that he wasn’t all alone. But maybe he was. Maybe his brothers were moving on. They had separate families, and they even had separate jobs now, it was only Harpo who was nothing without them. Duck Soup had been a great movie. Why had nobody liked it?
“Okay.” Chico dealt, pushed Harpo his hand. “So it starts a bit like Pinchie Winchie.”
Harpo stood. He’d come here to be with his family, not to be the only one who was sad and lonely, all lit up by grief. “What happened to being a string of Christmas lights?” he asked.
“We’re Jewish, Harp,” said Chico.
“What was that?” said Groucho.
“I didn’t want to be the one to tell you,” said Chico, “but there it is. We’re Jews.”
Harpo turned to the door. Ayala would know what he meant. She seemed to know what grief was. He didn’t know how he knew that, but he did.
“What did you say about light?” said Groucho.
Harpo turned to answer Groucho, but just then Ayala walked up to the table. “And how is your stay?” she asked. “How was your night last night?”
“What do you mean, how was my night?” said Harpo.
Ayala didn’t acknowledge him, instead turned and engaged Chico in conversation. She didn’t wink, didn’t smile, didn’t look at him at all. After a moment Harpo stalked away. He didn’t care where.
Harpo was a lone wolf. He was alone anyway, and he felt like prowling.
He walked laps around his room. He felt like mauling something. Not one of his things. Chico’s. Groucho’s. And wouldn’t that make Chico all superior like he was right, and Harpo was still a little kid. But he was, kind of, and wasn’t that the point? Chico was still his big brother.
Harpo sat down heavily in front of his suitcase. He hadn’t unpacked it yet. He opened it and threw a shirt at the wall. That felt nice, so he took out another one and threw that too. Then he threw some socks. Then he threw a pair of pants. The buckle crashed noisily against the wall, so Harpo looked through his suitcase for more trousers. He found a pair and threw them, hard. Then he threw pajamas.
Here he was, in a fancy resort, a movie star now, for the moment anyway, and still he was alone. He was still that scrawny little boy, that dropout, that fall-out, that thing that attached himself to people he thought would be his friends for life, when none of them ever were. Still none of them were his friends. Maybe not even his brothers, now that Minnie and Frenchie weren’t around to tell Chico to include him. He missed Minnie and Frenchie so much. He missed making movies with his brothers. He missed Susan too. He didn’t want to be alone. He threw three shirts at once. They didn’t hit the wall at all. One of them fell in a heap right at his feet.
Harpo took a deep breath. He didn’t even feel better, and now he was out of clothes to throw. He opened his suitcase wide. Inside it, under a flap of material, he found a sewing kit, and inside that was a pair of scissors. He put on a tie, then cut it in two. There. He’d dressed for dinner. When they were booking their stay, Groucho said you have to wear a tie here, but he’d forgotten to specify what you weren’t allowed to do after you put it on.
He loped out of his room.
Harpo walked from hallway to stairs to hallway again. He wanted to find that secret staircase, Ayala’s sexy attic room, to find the Ayala he’d had such a strong connection to. Maybe it would be different if he got her alone again. But he couldn’t find her. He wanted so badly just to find her, or to be found himself, or caught, or pulled by that string again, but nothing happened, he still felt all alone. He’d just keep walking then, that’s what he’d do. He’d walk until he got back to New York, then give up and be a tenement man himself, live the rest of his life on a stoop. He wouldn’t bring his coat and fright wig and nobody would be able to find him. Even if they wanted to. But what if they didn’t want to? What if they didn’t even notice he was gone?
Harpo rounded a corner, and saw the desk at which he’d registered, and there was Ayala, standing at the very end of it. He crept forward. The scene changed. Ayala’s cheeks were red. She was holding back tears. She was holding onto envelopes, tight like they were the sides of a sinking canoe.
Harpo took another step. But this time he stepped on a loose floorboard. He felt the creak before he heard it, and he wanted to stop the next few seconds from happening. But he couldn’t. The floor creaked. Ayala turned. She saw him and fled.
Then Harpo had it—he figured out what the postman movie would be about. The movie would be about a sad woman that the Marx Brothers had to save using the mail.
Harpo walked through the door and into yet another long corridor. He nearly bowled right over a little girl. He stopped. Their eyes met, and Harpo felt a shock, like his blood was suddenly carbonated. The little girl’s eyes were like Ayala’s. She had the same shiny dark hair, and her face was like Ayala’s too, heart shaped and red cheeked and serious, but smaller, as if made on a tiny, perfect scale. This must be Blima, the little girl who’d heard him shouting from the lake.
She looked at Harpo’s chest, and he remembered the cut-up tie. He waved the stump sheepishly, and, suddenly, the little girl’s face brightened. And then she laughed. And the day changed, the whole world was transformed. The little girl had a laugh like pennies falling into a glass, like when he flung one in and got it. It was the cutest laugh he’d ever heard. Harpo felt a pull of protective feeling, and it was so visceral that he stepped toward her. Visceral!
Blima ran away. She hurried around a bend in the corridor, and Harpo froze. But then her face appeared again from behind the wall, smiling impishly. She was playing! For real this time! She was undoubtedly playing, and not just excluding him. Harpo loved playing with little kids. Susan said it was because he was still a little kid himself. Maybe. Maybe he wanted kids. And wasn’t that a shocking thought. He’d never really thought seriously about it before.
Then they both heard her mother calling her, calling out “Blima!” Blima’s smile disappeared, and, seconds later, so did she.
Harpo walked from hallway to hallway, from room to room, touching the walls to feel their texture. He used to do this in the tenement buildings. He’d thought, then, that nobody would think he was lonely if he looked busy, so he’d gone up and down the hallways and stairwells and fire escapes, seeing how they all felt.
He’d lost everyone now, both the girl and the little kid.
He stopped in a big room and looked at the window, waiting for Ayala. She had to come now. The coy act wouldn’t work if he couldn’t find her, and he absolutely couldn’t find her, he’d looked everywhere. So he just stood there, waited for her image to appear in the streaky window, but only his own face looked back, pale and soup-bowl eyed. Boy, he could look stupid.
He made a face, a Gookie, just like Mr. Gookie the cigar maker on lower 82nd.
There were moments in his life that had changed everything, not just after, but before too. Like the first time he’d imitated Mr. Gookie rolling a cigar, cheeks puffed out in concentration, eyes crossed, and the kids on the stoops had laughed so hard they’d had to hold the railings, the first time ever they weren’t laughing at him. The world had changed. Just like that. Then he’d run upstairs to do his impression, and Minnie had screamed with laughter too, and after that it was like he’d always been funny. Then there was that card game in twenty-two when they got their nicknames. He’d turned into Harpo forever after, but before that also. Now, when they talked about the tenements, they talked about little Harpo who was on his way to Broadway and then the pictures. All the loose moments in his life, running away from gangs, getting into scraps, getting scraped, running through the streets like a marble in a box maze, all those things were just the necessary steps on his way to becoming Harpo Marx, the Marx Brother. But that other boy, that scared little kid, he was still there. Harpo could see him now in the stupid window, little Ahdie, who played all by himself and stuck by all the wrong people because he didn’t want to end up alone.
Life always changed so quickly. So why wouldn’t it change now?
Harpo flopped down on the overstuffed chair that faced the window. Fine particles of dust alighted and lit the dreary room, flying all around him like it was snowing upside down. He settled in to watch them.