THURSDAY’S sun rolled over the Brooklyn war plants clustering near the giant stone feet of the bridges into Manhattan. It was a sun that seemed forged and smelted out of the factories; it wheeled over the tenements near the factories, the pool parlors near the tenements, the stores of the naval outfitters on Sands Street near the pool parlors, the office buildings on Fulton Street into the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood west of the office buildings. Bill yawned half-awake in his room in the Hotel St. George. Curled on his side, close to his wife, her black hair in his eyes and tickling his nose, he felt as if deep in a cloud from which he didn’t want to wake. His brain was like a series of rooms, each room locked tight on the new morning, each room full of the black cloud that was Isabelle’s hair. He twisted over on his face, wanting to sleep, but one by one the doors of consciousness were opening.
He stared at the ceiling. He listened to Isabelle’s breathing. He fingered the burn scars on his face as if to dust them off. He traced the scar on his lip and his blue eyes shifted sideways to his wife, innocent and sweet in sleep like a child. He wondered if he looked like that in his sleep? The damn shut-eye was a fake like everything else. In her sleep, Isabelle looked as if life were a cinch, no headaches, no tears. What a fake! He was disgusted with himself. Here he was chewing the fat over his life. To hell with all this dumb crapping about life, about the future. Darton was right. The future was a kike disease. Christ alive, was he a Jew philosopher to be kiking about life, about the future? A man had to know how to live today without nagging at himself whether he was fair or unfair to his wife, or whether Big Boy’d did the job on Miller or not. Darton wouldn’t get into a lather about his work or about any woman on earth. Darton was right. What was the sense yapping at each other like every other married couple in the world? What was he, another husband who worked from nine to five every day, and went to the movies twice a week and slept with his wife every Saturday night eleven p.m. sharp? No, he was above that. He was no shoeclerk; he was above the rules. Damn all these rules and laws, all this religious yapping about the sanctity of marriage. Shades of Theresa! Darton had the right ideas about women; you had fun with women. What were women for, anyway? To hold holy mass with their souls? Damn, but the Church had spoiled a lot of God damn good screwing women with this soul racket. Worrying about Isabelle and the child she wanted! Holy Christ, another little stinking soul and where did it all lead but back into the past? To the church, to socialism, to communism; the idea of all men having souls and being brothers in Christ was just communism; it was the same racket as all the kikes and niggers and jackal breeds being in one herd. Damn the shoeclerk rules! To be a master meant acting like a master.
Now, he knew why he had gotten up so early. The newspapers! The newspapers were outside the door of his room; he had put in an order for them yesterday. Suddenly, he was sour on the whole damn business. Here he was jerking around in bed as to what a great guy he was. His mind filled with Big Boy’s face, Hayden’s, Heney’s. He screwed his eyelids tight but the faces stayed. Like a prison warden, he was locked in his own prison, locked by his own thoughts; he slapped at the faces as if with iron keys and blackjack; relentlessly, he tried to drive them out and at last he succeeded. Deep into the dungeon he had driven them, deep into the pit; there let them lie. I better get the papers, he thought.
He got out of the double bed, a strong tall man in blue and white pyjamas and, barefooted, crossed the rug to the door. The newspapers were stacked in a neat pile. He picked them up and then dropped into a chair. WHITE GIRL kidnapped, he read, and underneath this headline: Harlem Vice Ring Suspected. The two headlines registered but he dismissed them. They weren’t his business. He consulted the newspaper index and found what he was after: Stench Bombs In Harlem Page 24. But he didn’t turn to page 24. What about Miller? Why wasn’t he front page news? But, no, there was only: Stench Bombs In Harlem Page 24. He frowned. That meant the Jew’d been wiped too late to make the morning papers. That meant the body was dumped somewheres, hidden. Bill cracked the newspaper in two on page 24 and read:
“Numerous Harlem bars and grills were the victims of a stench bomb attack late last night….” He skipped through paragraphs of details to: “Mr. Louis Lombardo, owner of the Four Flags Bar and Grill, stated that his bar had been attacked at eleven-thirty. His statement follows. ‘The door was shoved open and before I knew what was happening, I saw a Negro wind up like a pitcher and throw something down hard on the floor. I hollered at him but he ran out …’ ” Bill leaped into the next paragraph: “The stench drove about thirty customers, three bartenders and the owner out on Lenox Avenue. The Emergency Police Squad on arriving decontaminated the premises. Electric fans were placed on the floor to drive out the heavier than air fumes. Oil of wintergreen and ammonia were used in other bars as counteracting agents. In all cases, business ceased for the night.” Bill smiled, reading: “Bar owners of Italian descent in Harlem and in adjacent areas are open in their belief that the stench bomb attack, following the boycott begun on Monday night is only the beginning of a campaign to bankrupt them….”
Bill picked up a tabloid. There was nothing about Miller. There was another story about Darton’s valerian bombs and a big spread on the kidnapping: HARLEM MUGGERS LURE BEAUTIFUL WHITE GIRL. SUZY BUCKLES FEARED SEIZED BY MUGGERS SPECIALIZING IN SEX CRIMES. MOTHER PROSTRATED AT FATE OF ONLY DAUGHTER. He thumbed past the story, past a double spread of pictures to his headline, to his story: “Negro Stukas again raided Harlem’s Italian-owned bars last night, depositing lethal loads of stink bombs. The raid was timed as perfectly as any military operation. None of the raiders were apprehended. All returned, as far as is known, safely to their bases deep in the heart of Harlem … The city is waiting with bated breath for the next flight of ‘brown bombers’ … Authorities claim,” the concluding editorialized paragraph went on: “that this recent blitz stems from the mass meeting called by leading Negroes last Sunday to protest the fatal shooting of Fred Randolph, Negro, by Policeman Sam Miller, white. This meeting held in defiance of the Mayor’s warning that it would be inciting to riot, has apparently served as an open declaration of war against the white citizenry of Harlem. Since the Randolph shooting, Harlem has been as seething and unruly as any occupied country. A volunteer army of ‘brown bombers,’ a disgrace to America’s one and only Brown Bomber, has decided, authorities claim, to drive all whites out of Harlem. This army of stukas, panzers and roving guerillas calls itself the United Negro Committee. Impartial, public opinion is asking what next? Will police reinforcements be sufficient to stop this wave of anarchy? Is the kidnapping of Suzy Buckles, white, a portent of things to come?”
Bill lit a-before-breakfast cigarette. One thing was sure. Heney’d have no cause to complain when he pulled into town. Bill flipped the pages to the kidnapping story. HARLEM MUGGERS LURE BEAUTIFUL WHITE GIRL. SUZY BUCKLES FEARED SEIZED BY MUGGERS SPECIALIZING IN SEX CRIMES. MOTHER PROSTRATED AT FATE OF ONLY DAUGHTER. He didn’t read the story, his eyes focusing on the adjoining page: AN EDITORIAL TO EVERY DECENT NEW YORKER.
“Where is Suzy Buckles today? With one voice, the entire city is asking this question, law abiding Negroes as well as law abiding whites. Where is this beautiful young girl of twenty-four? Where is Suzy Buckles, grand-daughter of Captain Lemuel Steadmore, the famous abolitionist and devoted friend of the Negro people of ninety years ago. Like her grandfather, Suzy Buckles believed earnestly in freedom and justice for all men. Where is Suzy Buckles who left her lucrative position in a downtown office to volunteer her services free to the Harlem Equality League in the middle of black Harlem? Every decent New Yorker, black or white, Catholic, Jew or Protestant, has a right to ask this question?
“Where is Suzy Buckles?
“Where is this fair-skinned blond young girl? The entire city is asking this question in all soberness. These are the facts: Suzy Buckles was lured out of the offices of the Harlem Equality League by a mugger, a Negro who is a disgrace to every decent Negro man, woman and child. Today, we know nothing more of what happened after that fateful encounter. We know that Suzy volunteered her services to Mr. Hal Clair, Negro Harvard Phi Beta Kappa, in order to do her share in restoring racial peace in the greatest city in the world.
“Where is Suzy Buckles? We must know! Yes, with pity for her prostrated mother, we must know! Is she alive today? Has she suffered a fate horrible beyond words? Have sex degenerates mutilated this beautiful girl? We must know! Is the case of Suzy Buckles another proof of anarchy in Harlem, of lawlessness, of radical and flagrant disregard of justice, of civil war instigated by powerful Negro politicians swollen with their new-found power?
“Of these powerful Negro politicians we ask: Have the days of the white venal carpetbaggers and the black venal politicians returned to our nation? We ask what could Captain Lemuel Steadmore, the grandfather of Suzy Buckles, have to say if he were alive today? We are positive that Captain Steadmore did not fight for the abolition of slavery only to set up a regime of lawlessness, anarchy and sexual depravity. We ask these powerful Negro politicians: Is the kidnapping of this innocent and lovely white girl a warning to white New Yorkers to stay out of Harlem?
“We, the people, demand an answer! This is a time of war! Our nation is fighting for its life! Soberly, we demand to know whether Harlem considers itself an American community within the city and the nation or a hotbed of anarchy and revolutionary violence? Soberly, we declare that the blame resides not only among the degenerates, the muggers, the gangsters of the Big Boy Bose ilk but also among those who consider themselves responsible leaders. To these leaders we say: Do you want the present war of liberation to be followed by a second so-called Reconstruction Period of robbery, rapine and ruin? History often repeats itself. Is there not a parallel between recent events in Harlem and the events that transpired after the Civil War? To these Negro leaders we say: Did not your All Harlem Negro Committee, chaired by Councilman Louis Vincent, Negro, and whose exclusive membership includes Negro Republicans, Negro Democrats, Negro American Laborites, and, for all we know, Negro Communists, summon a meeting in Harlem in competition with the huge I Am A Free Man celebration in Central Park held on that very same day? Have not violent leaflets and manifestoes appeared inciting to riot since this defiant meeting? Have not violent and unbridled crimes reminiscent of the so-called Reconstruction Period taken place since that ominous meeting? Stench bombs have been smashed inside white establishments! White storekeepers have been assaulted! White property has been destroyed! A white house of worship has been desecrated! A white girl has been lured to God alone knows where! We ask in all soberness: Is a second Reconstruction Period about to begin in Harlem with every white man a legitimate target for knives? With every white establishment and place of worship a legitimate target for stink bombs and other foul acts? With every white girl an object of bestial lust? These are the large sober issues that confront all decent citizens, Negro Americans as well as white Americans.
“But let us not forget the small in the large. Let us not forget the question we propounded concerning Suzy Buckles, this misguided but earnest believer in justice for all men. Let us not forget the mother of Suzy Buckles, a widow supported by her only daughter. Every mother in this city and in the nation must grieve for Mrs. Buckles.
“No, let us not forget the small in the large! We demand that the Police Department search every Negro house of prostitution in the city! We demand an end to Harlem’s vice, Harlem’s lawlessness! We demand the right of innocent white girls to be protected from muggers! We demand an end to this present-day Reconstruction Period in Harlem! An end to rebellion! An end to venal Negro politicians and their white venal allies! As God is our witness, we pray that this present-day Reconstruction Period in Harlem not be followed by a retribution that will punish the innocent with the guilty.”
The newspaper dropped out of Bill’s fingers. Why, this was terrific! This wasn’t muggers. This was Hayden’s work. The Harlem Equality League was the same place where Miller had gone to work. This Buckles girl had been kidnapped out of the Harlem Equality League! Almost, Bill visualized the white naked shape of a woman; the shape was huge of breast and hip like the statue of a goddess but unlike a statue it wasn’t made of stone; it was made of flesh, the flesh of a white woman and the newspapers had erected it on the market-place where all the city would come and see. Hayden was clever, Hayden with his strict business, his strict cold turkey business. This kidnapping! There would be promotions in the organization as sure as fate. Smearing that nigger bellyaching bunch! Smearing all the niggers! Who was this Suzy Buckles? Her name was an American name; her grandfather had an American name but she must be a Red to be working for niggers. Serves her right if she was raped!
He tore off his pyjamas and glided, naked, to the closet. He took a blue suit off its hanger, put it on the dresser, pulled open the dresser drawer, fished out a pair of shorts, grabbed and discarded a white shirt with a red pencil line for a light blue shirt. He got into the shorts, whipped the trousers on, zipped up the fly, slid into the shirt. He glanced over at Isabelle. She was sleeping, her face pallid, the soft round hill of her hip under sheet and blanket, the blanket snug under her chin. A blanket, he reflected ironically; New York in May was too cold for the Carreau blue blood. He smiled at her in her sleep. She was like a river flower, he felt, a woman like a river flower, beautiful and perfect and full of river heat. He stared at her, softening inside; a son of hers would be something; the baby might be as blond as his own kid brother, Joe, or dark like Isabelle or a combination. But who the hell wanted a child to tie him down? She was tied to family and to church tight enough as it was. Her family name was still Carreau and not Johnson. Or rather Johnson-Trent. He didn’t even have his own name.
He sighed, sensing himself as a shadow compared to the bulk and solidity of her family. The Carreaus never changed. All Isabelle wanted was to live as her ancestors had lived, to meet at the family celebrations and parties in New Orleans, in New Iberville, in all the French sugar towns of Louisiana, rooted, and never to be shaken by new ideas. A child would pull her further away from him; a child would inherit the family stories of the colonial Carreaus, the incense and confessional of the Carreau Church.
Dressed, he tiptoed out of the hotel room into the corridor. In his tension, the corridor seemed a hundred miles long, Isabelle at one end, Hayden at the other. He took the elevator down to the street. Ahead of him, beyond the intersection of Clark Street and Columbia Heights, he saw the sky-high towers of Wall Street Manhattan, battlements of stone, perpendicular and magic-windowed like a fantastic city of some fantastic future.
He walked down Columbia Heights between the brownstones and mechanically as if he had just arrived here, landed from some boat in the Harbor, he stared at each corner street sign, Pineapple Street; Orange Street; streets named after the warm fruits that had once come in ships bottoms to the piers below. At each street corner, the towers were framed between the brownstones, the Manhattan city, the powerhouse city. He neared the brownstone where he had an apartment under another name, unlocked the white painted inner door. Inside, there was a mirror above a walnut table. He climbed the stairs, inserted a second key into the lock. He entered, shut the door, and Hayden was in the living room.
“Surprised?” Hayden said from the Morris chair. In his dark brown suit, white shirt, he was dressed for the towers across the river, for the forty-third floor of the organization’s offices.
“Some. I usually get here first. I didn’t know you had a key, too.”
“I have.”
“Congratulations, Mr. Hayden.”
“Congratulations?”
“That Buckles girl development.”
“That’s all very well,” Hayden said. “Aden is capable enough.” His voice was unenthusiastic, his eyes cold. It dawned on Bill that Hayden was worried. Hayden worried? Hayden? Bill’s heart pounded.
“Is it about Miller?” he asked.
“No. Why?”
“I thought — ”
“Miller, I presume, has been disposed of? Did you know that Buckles is Miller’s girl?”
So that was it, Bill decided. “No,” he said.
“Sit down,” Hayden exclaimed irritably. “Don’t stand there hovering like a doorman. Miller has been disposed of, hasn’t he?”
Bill bit on his lips angrily.
“I asked you a question?” Hayden said.
“I suppose so. That nigger — ”
“Spare me your usual invective this morning. However, it doesn’t matter very much whether Miller has been disposed of as yet or not.”
“None of the papers I read said Buckles was his girl.”
“That, too, is unimportant.”
Bill stared, frightened. For Christ sake, what did matter then? His eyes lowered to Hayden’s crossed legs and lifted once more to the frowning face. “May I ask why?” he hazarded a question.
“Governor Heney will answer you tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“Tonight. He has notified me that you are to be present. I am to be present. Everyone in the organization who has had anything to do with the Harlem venture will be present.” Hayden clasped his hands together.
“But I don’t understand. The Governor’ll be pleased. The press — ”
“The Governor hasn’t flown north two days ahead of schedule to congratulate us.”
“Have you seen him?”
“Last night.”
“Then he didn’t see the press?”
“We knew what the headlines would be last night. The girl was in our hands early in the afternoon.”
“I don’t get it. We can start a riot almost any minute — ”
“Ten o’clock tonight at the Hotel Pennston. Suite 23. I can inform you that the Governor is here as the representative of the national organization. He supersedes my authority.”
“About Big Boy — Should I see him?”
“Use your own judgment.”
“But you’re my superior — ”
“Use your own judgment.”
“I prefer not to.”
“What? Use your own judgment or don’t. As you choose.” And Hayden grinned at him as if enjoying a private joke.
One half hour later, Bill was drinking a rye highball in a bar on Montague Street. He was the only customer. The bartender was reading a tabloid. “Have you a phone here?” Bill asked.
The bartender’s small eyes lifted from the tabloid. “In the back.” He was a middle-aged man, immaculate in a fresh white jacket and apron, his lips tight and shrewd, a face that stated as exactly as a whiskey label what the contents were. This bartender was only sure of what he had seen himself; this bartender was uncertain of what he heard or read.
“What’s the news?” Bill said.
“War. It’s still on.”
“What are they all dying for?”
“Got to smack them Hitler guys.”
“And let the Reds take over?”
“It’s a poker game. We’re sitting in. So’s Hitler. So’s the Japs. So’s the Reds. Hitler’s got all the chips. We got to take them chips away.”
“They find that girl up Harlem?”
“No.”
“Poor kid. It’s a crime.”
“Yep.”
“Those niggers’re getting out of hand.”
“Yep.”
“Every nigger wants a white girl.”
“That I don’t know.”
“It’s a crime even if she’s a Red.” He drained his glass. “Give me another one.”
Over his second highball, Bill wondered if he should visit Big Boy today? See him? Phone him? Use your own judgment. Hayden’s advice ticked in him with a beat as regular as a watch. Now let’s see, he puzzled. Hayden had said that it didn’t matter whether Miller was alive or dead; so why run up to Harlem: he had seen Big Boy too often as it was. But what had upset Hayden? Was anything wrong? Should he see Darton? Maybe the meeting tonight was going to be a trial? His trial! Maybe the organization had discovered who had sent in the anonymous letter to the Harlem Equality League? Bill took a deep drink. That’s what he got for moving out of line! It was Darton’s fault! Had the girl been kidnapped because of his letter? No! But what could be wrong? Should he see Big Boy? Use your own judgment.
He ordered a third drink, a rye straight, rushed it to his lips, ordered a fourth, a fifth. He glared at his drinking double in the mirror and boozily admitted that he didn’t know what to do. He had no judgment to use. All his life was before him in this bar, a highway clearly seen, the rye whiskies like milestones, and the highway ended at ten o’clock tonight. Christ, he thought maudlin and terrified. Why hadn’t Hayden given him some instructions this morning? It had always been instructions, always the instructions from the assistant exec. and the exec. above the assistant exec. and the national organization above the regional leaders.
He poked his hat away from his forehead and raised his glass to the reflection in the mirror. He would show them all. He would use his own judgment, damn them! Who’d been a brain guy once before in this city of New York, Jew York, Jew Cork Ireland? Who’d been a main chancer back in the depression days? Out of real estate collecting into the racket, into Kerrigan’s mob on his own terms, a brain guy and he’d never kept all his bucks in one wallet. When Kerrigan’d tried to outfox him, he’d outfoxed Kerrigan and gone into strikebreaking with his own organization, a real brain guy. And he would’ve still been on his own but for that tough break, teargassed by those damn Reds right into the hospital. Those days were gone to hell, he brooded; gone with Dixie and Madge, whores à la whore, gone with his kid brother Joe, and no use slobbering over anybody, not Joe, not Isabelle, nobody. He raised his glass to the reflection in the mirror.
“Toasting the ladies, Mac?” the bartender said dryly.
“No. The leader.”
“What leader?”
“Any leader. Skoal. Lechayem. Lechayem. No use leaving out the kikes. Lechayem.”
“Lechayem,” said the bartender.
“No more thinking out the angles for me,” he raved. “No more. That’s the leader’s job. Not mine. Let them have their big meeting tonight. Let them. They’ve sweated me since I’ve worked for them. Fifty bucks to start. A measly fifty. The hell with the angles. He can be dead or alive, who cares!”
“Who cares,” said the bartender.
“Not me. Not me. Fifty a week and I worked my head off. Seventy-five per. That’s top! Out in the field, a leg man, and all them lousy desk men hog the credit. Who does the work?” he bellowed. “Who takes the chances? But that louse of a desk man with his wads of dough’s top dog. Always, they get places the easy way. Screw them all, the millionaire son-of-a-bitch! Pick up their dough like a bum picks up a stogie. Use your own judgment. God damn them. I wasted my life. I didn’t get the breaks,” he whined.
Said the bartender. “How did you waste your life but don’t yell. My hearing’s good.”
“Paid me good money but I haven’t saved a dime.”
“You lost your job?”
“Who said I lost my job? Not me. I’m a brain guy. Too smart, me.”
“You lost something. Your girl?”
“I lost nothing.”
“I thought you lost your job. You gonna kill that bottle all by your lil self?”
“S’good bottle.”
“Yep, the best. But whyn’t you take a nice walk.”
“Give me a shot.”
“Later. Get some air, Mac.”
“Give me a shot.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll get the breaks some day.”
“Sure thing. Why don’t you take a nice lil walk?”
“Mind your damn business.” He rested his head in the cup of his hand, leaning heavily on the bar. A boozy fantasy rose in his brain. He saw a trial, a secret trial. There were old men in black robes, the Supreme court. There were Army generals. And the President had come into the trial room as he, Bill, took the witness stand. He, Bill, was about to testify. “Mr. President,” he began. “I’m here not to save my own skin. I’m here because the organization is losing its principles! The organization isn’t fit to bring in a New America!” How well he spoke, how eloquently he held up to ridicule the organization’s mistakes. How defiantly he denounced the President and the herd ideas of democracy. Lofty and superior, he compelled the respect of the Army generals and the President himself. Yes, he was a master, above all their rules and laws. How scornfully he advised the President and the Supreme Court that if they wanted complete lists of the prominent men, the Senators, the Government officials, the publishers who were supporting the organization, all that was necessary was to third degree Hayden. Hayden was yellow, he explained; and a blackjacking would do the trick. How he thundered at the President that he, Bill Trent, hadn’t lost faith in the coming American fascism. Never, never! He had only lost faith in a fascism dominated by men like Hayden; for Hayden’s fascism was musty as Mussolini’s, rotten and traditional, relying too much on old rich men and the sons of old rich men. What was needed, he thundered, was a new fascism for a new world!!!
“Aren’t you going home, Mac?” the bartender said.
The fantasy whirled away at the bartender’s voice. The voice like the magician’s word in the fairy tale dissolved all the might-have-beens. He saw himself as he was. A drunk at a bar. A drunk afraid of what might happen at ten that night.
“Mac, you better go home. You’ll get another job or another girl. You’ll get the breaks.”
“Isabelle,” he muttered, needing her, needing somebody he could trust.
“Tell Isabelle you got prospects.”
“She’s my wife. She loves me.”
“That’s fine. You tell her you love her. Everything’ll be fine.”
“But — ”
“Tell her you got prospects.”
“Your rye must be watered. I don’t even feel drunk.”
The bartender shrugged. “I sell it. I don’t manufacture.”
“I’m married three years. We’ve been drifting.”
“A lot of people do it so why worry.”
“It’s wrong.”
“You take a nice walk, Mac — ”
“No more for me! I’m going to stop her! I’m the boss! She’s going to see things my way.” He felt better. There would be nothing to worry about at ten that night. He was sticking with the organization. The day was coming when the organization was taking over the country and he was going to be around when that happened. Wasn’t he in on the ground floor? Wouldn’t every op have a chance when the day came to get places and be a big-shot? Why, he wouldn’t take a hundred a week with a bank even if it was offered on a silver platter. Money wasn’t every damn thing! Being on the in was bigger than dough. So what if he was only an order-taker. The day was coming, the day, the big day. He would take orders now and give them when his turn came. And no more worrying, no more thinking. He felt better than he had in days, lighter, free-er as if he had torn something heavy out of himself. He had. He had castrated himself with his decision to tear out the fluid flow of brain.
“That nice walk?” the bartender reminded him.
“I’ll fix her! I’ll show her who the boss is!”
Banging his fist against the hotel door Bill yelled. “Open up! Open up, damn you!”
She flung the door open. He said. “I’m not drunk! Don’t give me no line I’m drunk.” She was tall in the doorway, wearing a red housecoat, dotted with white moons. She had just washed her hair. Her hair and lips and cheeks and eyes all seemed fresh. He thought of her body under the housecoat also washed and fresh and soap-scented. “I’m not drunk!” He pushed into the room, flopped onto the bed. “Come here,” he laughed. “I’ll give you the brat you want. It’s time. Now’s the time. You smell like the fields in the morning. Poetic husband you got.”
Isabelle shut the door. “Do you want the people next door to hear you, Bill?”
“What do I care about that Jew cloak-and-suiter.”
“You’re drunk.” She frowned. “I’ll ring for some black coffee.”
“And drink it yourself. I’m a patriot. No coffee for me.”
“Will you take a shower?”
“Old faithful, I don’t want a shower.”
“Why — ”
“Why did you get so drunk in the morning,” he hooted at her. “What’s so wrong with the morning, Carreau? How about that brat or want to wait for the stars so the saints won’t see us at it.”
She stared at him.
“Old faithful, get me a butt.”
She walked to the dresser and brought him a pack of cigarettes, a booklet of matches. His head was spinning but he inhaled deep drafts of smoke. “You’re tall,” he said. “And beautiful. Quite beautiful. Some of these dark types get fatty after awhile. The wops, thin as breadsticks, beautiful when they’re young. But not you, Carreau. You’ll stay beautiful. Got the blood, the breeding. Pregnant, you’ll spoil your figure. But that’s the blessed shape the Lord okays.” He was excited by what he was saying. It was if he were feeling his way to a door ahead of him, and the door was lettered: BILL, PRIVATE — and he felt that he was going to drag her to that door and lock her in; she would be his forever inside that door. In his reddened eyes, she was a whiskey shape, a dream woman out of some bottle, her hair blacker, her housecoat redder, her eyes bigger, her curves more sensual. He remembered Darton’s story about the Jewish girl, “Listen to me, you holy saint. I’ve been thinking all morning about us two. And I’m not drunk. Dead sober, your hear? I’ve made mistakes in our marriage.” His heart quickened; this was the way to take her. “Couple days ago you said I was keeping you like a hotel woman, a mistress. There’s truth in that. Some truth. Marriage isn’t only love. It’s not only drifting in love. I’ve made mistakes. You, too.”
“Haven’t I been loyal to you?”
Now give it to her! he thought triumphantly. “Loyal to me and to your family. That’s been your mistake.”
“I’ve been a good wife — ”
“Can’t be a good wife until you go all the way.”
“I don’t understand?”
“You’re married to me and to your family. And the priests.” He hadn’t meant to make this last remark but it had catapulted off his tongue like a stone from a sling-shot. He pushed himself up to a sitting position in the bed. “Isabelle, you want a kid?”
“Oh, Bill. Did you come back to torture me?”
“I’m serious. That’s been my mistake — Not having a child. Marriage isn’t only love. It’s having your own family.” He spoke very slowly, an excitement hotter than the rye whirling within him. It was as if he were about to plunge into her deepest part, to utterly possess her, to abduct her into himself forever.
“Bill — ”
“Let’s have a child.”
She rushed to the bed, sitting down next to him, kissing him on the cheek and on his whiskey-smelling mouth.
He slanted his arm around her waist. “Isabelle, remember? Before we got married? I promised that any children would be baptized Catholic? I’m sticking to that promise.” She pressed her face against his chest and he stroked her black hair, grinning just a little to himself as Hayden had grinned at him in parting this morning. “The kid’ll be reared Catholic. But when he’s born, I want a favor, Isabelle. I don’t want him baptized Catholic right away.”
Her face jerked up.
“Not right away. You see, I want to break from your family. Not a serious break. But some coolness. And if the kid isn’t baptized Catholic — ”
“Bill — ”
“The main thing is to get a divorce from the family,” he said. “I’ll keep my promise about the kid.”
She flung away from him. “You’re drunk, terrible!” she sobbed, staggering to the dresser. He watched her swaying from side to side and he thought: She’s the one drunk and I’m the one sober. Let her cry! Let her cry! What was he, a damn shoeclerk to worry about her tears, a woman’s easy tears. He hardened himself against her. Somebody had to be the boss. This God damn equality business was a failure in life and in marriage. Somebody had to be the boss! The brain guy! Craftily, he began to repeat what he wanted, over and over again. Finally she pressed her hands against her temples. “No more, Bill.”
“Okay, I’ll take a shower.”
When he came out of the shower stall, he said. “That booze slowed my body down.”
“I thought you weren’t drunk,” she said.
He tapped his forehead. “Sober as a judge up here. It’s the carcass that won’t take it. You get dressed and we’ll go for a walk. I promised a certain bartender I’d go for a walk.”
She changed into a white linen dress and smeared her lips carnation red, and he kept thinking of how lovely and fresh she had seemed after her bath, her hair damp and smelling of water. She belonged to him. He wanted her to be his alone but wanting was never enough. You had to connive at making a woman private property and no damn trespassing; the world wasn’t a bird cage any more and women were getting all sorts of notions. In his mind, a strange identification took place; the Buckles girl merged with Isabelle; both of them had their God damn principles and what was the difference between Red principles and Isabelle’s aristocratic Catholic principles if they spoiled a woman? You had to make real women out of them for their own good. He smiled at Isabelle, a feeling of rapine in him as if he had kidnapped his own wife.
When they walked out into the street, he was surprised to see that it was broad daylight. They strolled down Clark Street and at the end of the street, across the Harbor, the skyscrapers in Manhattan rose through the hot sky, permanent and gigantic. Maybe Hayden was consulting with ex-Governor Heney? What good was there telling himself he had nothing to worry about?
They passed the boarded-up mansion on Pierrepont Street and Columbia Heights, and at Montague Street, they cut down to the iron railing and the rows of park chairs behind the railing. Isabelle pointed out the babies in the carriages to him, the babies with their mothers and nurses, the small boys and girls on tricycles, but he wasn’t listening to her. The Harbor view poured into his vision, the pinnacled glittering mass of lower Manhattan, the docks, piers, ships, bridges, the Statue of Liberty in the far reach of water — all this was a screen to him and behind the screen was ten o’clock and the cold eyes of ex-Governor Heney.
“Darling,” Isabelle said as they seated themselves, the Harbor in front of them. “Look at that cute monkey. The one in the red beret. How quickly they behave like grownups.”
“I suppose.” He stared out on the Jersey shore with the wartime factories bannering smoke against a blue sky that seemed the tallest blue sky in the world for close at hand were the stone measuring sticks of the Wall Street skyscrapers. In the furthest distance, the skyscrapers of the city of Newark seemed a mirage on the horizon. He breathed of the salty air. “Hell.”
“Don’t you feel better, Bill?”
“I feel fine.”
“Women smoke much more than back home. Have you noticed?”
“Will you stop being so polite?” He turned sideways to her. “I’m sorry for being nasty.”
“I’ve made my allowances.” A small smile, a smile he loved because it had always seemed to him a special smile she had for him and no one else, was on her carnation lips.
“I meant it about a kid.”
“But you said — ”
“I wasn’t kidding about that either.”
“This is no place to discuss it.”
“Why not? Do you think anyone cares about us? Listen to them chattering. Clothes and sons in the Army. And when will the Good Humor man come with the ice cream? Nobody cares about us except me for you and you for me.”
“I cannot alienate my family, Bill.”
“It’s all right to alienate me.”
“You’re exaggerating. They are all fond of you, Bill. Even from the beginning — ”
“You’re the doctor.”
“You talk as if you should have had black coffee.”
“Whiskey.”
“Bill — ”
“If I can admit mistakes, why can’t you? I’m not a thick-glassed Jew spouting theories. You’ve known your family two hundred years. Me, four years in all.”
“Let’s not discuss it any more.”
“Let’s walk.”
“Bill,” she said after awhile. “You can’t be serious. It would kill all the joy in having a child. It’s unnatural. I would be unhappy for nine months and afterwards.”
“Your family’s got a strong hold on you.”
“But it’s all so petty. To hedge a child around with pettiness and deceit.”
“Don’t get moral on me. You don’t want to compromise. I give in that he’ll be reared a Catholic. All I want is for your family not to know it for a year or so — ”
“Why can’t we live without subterfuges, Bill?”
“Life isn’t perfect. That’s why.” He felt pity for himself. Life was a mess and it was eat or be eaten, top dog or under dog.
“Bill,” she said. “I’ve often wondered what you want out of life — ”
“What do you want?”
“You know quite well,” she said with dignity.
“The Carreaus.” He bowed his head. “It’s all a little dusty to me. Family and faith.”
“Yes,” she affirmed. “Family and faith. What do you hope for? You’re not happy, darling. You have these wild fits of yours. You’re always restless and since we’ve come to New York — Bill, this mysterious work of yours isn’t so mysterious. This Klan work isn’t making you happy, Bill.”
“My work’s important and I want to do it. It’s not easy. That’s true. It can’t be easy. It’s a fight to the finish between the masses, the Communists want to run the world and the people who won’t be run by the masses.”
“No, Bill. It’s a war between the Axis and the anti-Axis.”
“That’s what the slogans say. But underneath the slogans? Do you want the niggers to have the rights the Carreaus have? Do you want the four red freedoms to apply to niggers?”
“No, you’re right I suppose. My cousin Leon talks the way you do. So does Uncle Francis but we do want to win the war.”
“Who do you mean by we? The niggers and nigger spoilers or people like us? We’s too big a word. It includes thirteen million niggers, millions of Reds, Jews — ”
“But if you don’t want to win the war — Bill, that’s fascist talk!”
He laughed. “I’m not a fascist. The Jews have smeared everybody fascist if you disagree with them. I want the Japs licked. No colored race ought to have their power. I want Hitler taught a lesson. I’m an American and I want Americans to run this country and the whole world. But I want Americans at the wheel and no niggers, no Jews. I want real Americans at the wheel. I promised I would tell you why we came to New York. You know why? To keep the niggers in their place. You’ve been reading how uppity they are in Harlem? kidnapping white women?”
“Yes. Then the Klan’s in New York City, Bill.”
“We’re in every city in the country,” he boasted. And a damn good thing for America that we are.”