INGRID BENGIS MARIO BENEDETTI MONA BERGENFELD ^ /ID BERGELSON H. BUSTOS DOMECQ STEPHEN DIXON rcdSBERTO HERNÁNDEZ CARLOS MARTINEZ MORENO JUAN CARLOS ONETTI JOYCE CAROL OATES FREDERIC TUTEN H. BUSTOS DOMECQ 2 Monsterfest

FELISBERTO HERNÁNDEZ 5 The Crocodile

CARLOS MARTÍNEZ MORENO 9 The Wreath on the Door MARIO BENEDETTI 12 The Inartes

JUAN CARLOS ONETTI 14 Junta, the Bodysnatcher

MONA BERGENFELD 16 Fruit for the Funeral

JOYCE CAROL OATES 17 Sunday Blues

FREDERIC TUTEN 21 The Tump kins Square Park Tales

INGRID BENGIS 22 The Woman and the Child

STEPHEN DIXON 23 The Intruder

DO VID BERGELSON 25 Joseph Shorr

ALFRED ANDERSCH 30 The Windward Islands cFICTION^ EDITOR Markjay Mirsky SENIOR EDITOR Faith Sale EXECUTIVE EDITOR Jerome Charyn MANAGING EDITOR Edward Mooney COPY EDITOR Roger Kasunic EDITORIAL ASSOCIATES Linsey Abrams .Jennifer Gerard, Marianne DeKoven, Ed Norvell, Donna Wintergreen, Margaret Wolf, Norman Filzman EUROPEAN EDITOR Marianne Frisch GUEST EDITORS Suzanne Jill Levine, Emir Rodriguez Monegal CONSULTING EDITORS Louis Asekoff, Carole Cook LAYOUT Inger Grytting COVER House o f the Arias Twins by Fernando Botero. Private collection, New York Photograph courtesy Marlborough Gallery, New York

Copyright ©1976 by Fiction, Inc., c/o Department of English, The City College of New York, New York, N.Y. 10031. Volume Five, Number One. All rights reserved. Unsolicited manuscripts will not be returned unless accompanied by self-addressed, stamped envelopes. Advertising cannot be accepted until further notice. Address all busi­ ness inquiries, art work, and unsolicited manuscripts to Fiction, c/o Department of English, The City College of New York, New York, N.Y. 10031. Telephone (212) 690-8170.

Assistance for the translation from the Spanish of this issue was given by the Center for Inter-American Relations.

Why a tribute to Marcha?

To publish literature is an act of political defiance. In the United States it is against what Henry Adams called the “ mental iner­ tia’’ of a population, now swollen past two hundred million. In Latin America, where the sophisticated written word seems to carry weight, the defiance is more dangerous, heroic, and perhaps satisfying. Serious writers of fiction and poetry know that the imagina­ tion is perilous to regimes which are afraid of questions, of the unknown, of dreams that might lead to something better. Across the Plate in Argentina, La Opinion, the leading liberal newspaper in Buenos Aires, does what no American newspaper of significance is interested in doing here—publishes a prominent weekly section of stories and poetry. Marcha 's extinction by the government of Uruguay was tragic. Yet it echoes the Russian poet Osip Mandelstam’s cry, “ At least they take our poetry seriously.’’ In the United States, the fate of the literary journal is merely pathetic. But we believe that literature and politics cannot be separated, that the genius of one is bound up in the practice of the other. The River Plate writers, not only the older generation included here, but their inheritors, Cortázar, Manuel Puig, Garcia Marquez, have changed the consciousness of the imagination in this century. Marcha is no more, but the dreams that Marcha published have just begun to do their work. Prologue

or thirty-six years Marcha was the leading Europe and the Argentine government hadn’t FUruguayan weekly and one of the most made up its mind about who was going to important political publications in Latin win). For quite a long time, the story circu­ America. It was closed down by the govern­ lated underground in Buenos Aires, slimly ment last year, after a long political struggle protected by the pseudonym, H. Bustos which included repeated suspensions, fines, Domecq, which both authors used for their de­ and, in 1974, the jailing of its editor-in-chief, tective stories. It was first published in Marcha assistant editor, two members of a literary jury in 1955, in the aftermath of Peron’s down­ which had awarded a prize to a short story fall. Using a baroque language that stretches about political tortures in Uruguay, and the savagely the rather mild River Plate slang, author of the story. By the time, months later, Borges and Bioy (or Biorges, as I call them) that the journal was allowed to resume pub­ criticized the corruption and brutality which lication, all but the author having been set was then commonplace in Argentina. The free, its back had been broken. story and its very language do not attempt to Founded in 1939, on the eve of World represent realistically any specific historical War II, Marcha was not only of decisive im­ moment in Argentina but to symbolize the portance to the left—Che Guevara’s letter underlying grotesque reality. about the new revolutionary man, addressed to its editor, Carlos Quijano, was originally “ The Crocodile” (El cocodrilo) is typical published there—but also instrumental in pro­ of Felisberto Hernandez’s fumbling, absent- moting the new literature. Marcha's first liter­ minded by highly comical style. Born in Uru­ ary editor was Juan Carlos Onetti, who guay in 1902, Felisberto (as he was always brought to its pages some of his favorite called) combined a truly surrealist imagination authors—Céline, Faulkner—and opened the with a perhaps too colloquial speech to pro­ magazine to a new generation of Uruguayan duce small masterpieces about the horrors and writers. In the fifties and sixties, Marcha be­ hazards of everyday life. came a truly Latin-American publication: the “ Maria Bonita” was originally published Guatemalan Miguel Angel Asturias and the in Marcha as a short story about the dramatic Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa, the Cuban Guil­ arrival of a small band of prostitutes to a sleepy lermo Cabrera Infante and the Argentine Julio and imaginary village on the bank of the River Cortázar became contributors. Plate, but it was actually an excerpt of the first But it was mainly the River Plate writers version of Juan Carlos Onetti’s most important who gave Marcha its unique flavor. To recap­ novel .Junta, the Body snatcher (published in ture now some of its tone and style, I have book form in 1964). The novel told its tale of selected five short stories published during its Gothic horror and laughter in a very elaborate most pioneering times. These make up only a way, alternating the narrative points of view of sample of what was printed year after year in a the main character, Junta, the owner of the weekly that represented Latin-American cul­ local brothel, and the townspeople, its shocked ture at its best. and voyeuristic costumers. For this selection, The spirit that made Marcha possible is the final version of the novel has been pre­ gone. O f the four Uruguayan writers in this ferred to the original text printed in Marcha. selection, only Carlos Martinez Moreno still Onetti (born in 1909) was then living in lives and works in Uruguay; Felisberto Her­ Buenos Aires and created the sleepy town of nández died in 1962, and the other two live in Santa Maria, where the story and the novel are , v exile: Onetti in Madrid and Benedetti in located, out of fragments of Montevideo and Cuba. On the other bank of the River Plate, a Buenos Aires. new Perón government has come and gone, “ The Wreath on the Door” (El lazo en I leaving both Jorge Luis Borges and Adolfo la aldaba) is a brilliant exercise in satire. Layer Bioy Casares as incredible survivors of a can­ upon layer of Uruguayan gentility are re­ celed time. What remains of the days when the vealed in a story which appears to be con­ stories were first printed are the texts now cerned only with the sad and comic fate of a especially translated for Fiction. They are wit­ not too respected nor respectable mother. A ness to what was once an original culture. lawyer by profession, Carlos Martinez Moreno (born in 1917) brings to literature a lucid, im­ “ Monsterfest” (La fiesta del monstruo) placable eye. is the product of the joint effort of Jorge Luis “ The Iriartes” (Familia Iriarte) attacks Borges (born in 1899) and his friend and disci­ frontally some of the myths of bureaucracy ple Adolfo Bioy Casares (born in 1914). It is a (machismo is here shown as a deplorable form cruel parody of Argentina at the time of of the rat race) but the text never forgets to Perón’s first government, when anti-Semitism laugh at its own indignation. The author, as was rampant (the Nazis were still fighting in much as the characters and the readers, is in­ volved in the same reality. The most success­ ful of all Uruguayan writers, Mario Benedetti Emir Rodriguez Monegal teaches Latin-American litera­ (born in 1920) has had some of his stories and ture at Yale University. For seventeen years he edited Marc ha’s literary pages. He is the author of the Borzoi novels filmed or adapted for television in Anthology o f Latin-American Literature to be published Argentina. □ by Knopf next spring. Emir Rodriguez Monegal MONSTERFEST H. Bustos Domecq

Photograph by Sy Rubin

Here begins your sorrow. one of those guys you meet once in a while. ple who works as doorman for the committee —Hilario Ascasubi, The Blood Bath * Soon as I saw his expense-account face, I knew couldn’t break it up with his raving brooms. he was going to the committee too, and just in At a safe distance the gang got together the way of getting a view of the latest develop­ again. Loiácomo started talkin’, man, worse ments, we got to talkin’ about the distribution than the radio of the lady down the hall. The ’m telling you, Nelly, it was a regular civic of heaters for the great parade and about a Jew, thing about these fatheads with the big mouths I demonstration. Me with my flat feet trouble who no questions asked, would take ’em for is that they get you going and then the guy and with my breath that gets blocked in my scrap iron over in Berazategui. While we got they get going—the undersigned, follow?— short little neck and with my hippo tummy, I on line we struggled to tell each other in Pig don’t know what’s hit him, and they got you had a real opponent in fatigue, specially when Latin how once we got hold of the firearms playing blackjack in Bernárdez’s store, and you think that the night before I thought I’d we’d get ’em over to Berazategui, even if we maybe you figured I was having a good time hit the sack early, I mean, who wants to look had to carry each other piggyback, and there, but the sad truth is that they skinned me out like a jerk on your day off with a big show com­ after we pumped a little pasta into the guts, of my last token, without even saying thanks ing up, you know? This here was my plan: paid for with the weapon money, we’d buy—to for the memories. show up in person at the committee at eight- the surprise of the ticket seller guy—two tickets (Take it easy, Nelly, now that the switch­ thirty, at nine hit the sack like a sponge, and back to Tolosa! But we might as well have been man’s finished eatin’ you up with his peepers with the Colt under my pillow, take off on the talkin’ French, ’cause Milk Tooth didn’t catch and he’s takin’ off on the dray like a big jerk, Big Sleep of the Century, and be up and at ’em any of it, me neither, and the fellows on line let your little oT Donald Duck give you anoth­ with the first cockadoodledo, when the guys in lent their services as interpreters, they almost er pinch on the cheek.) the truck would come pick me up. But tell me busted my eardrums, and they passed us the When I finally crawled into the sack, my something, don’t you think luck is like the ball-point to jot down the Jew’s address. A feets were giving off such tired signals that I lottery, and that somebody else is always win­ lucky thing Mr. Marforio, who’s skinnier than knew right away that restful sleep was mine for ning? On the little plank bridge there that the slot you put the nickel in, is one of them the taking. What I didn’t figure on was that leads to the sidewalk I almost took a swimming old-timers that while you think he’s just a pile member of the opposing team, healthy patri­ lesson in the water flooding there ’cause of the of dandruff, he’s really in touch with the in­ otism. All I could think of was the Monster surprise of running into my buddy Milk Tooth, side feelings of the masses themselves, so you and that the next day I would see him smilin’ shouldn’t be surprised that he stopped the and talkin’ like the great Argentine worker he *Translators’ note: Hilario Ascasubi, Le Refa­ whole shebang there, putting off the handouts is. I swear I got so worked up that I threw off losa: a poem by the nineteenth-century poet till the big day, with the excuse that there was the covers so I could breathe, just like a baby Ascasubi, is a dramatic monologue spoken by a delay in the Police Department about giving whale. Just about the time the dogcatcher one o f the torturers working for Argentina’s out the guns. We’d been standing on that comes around I got to sleep, what turned out nineteenth-century dictator Rosas. Directed there line for an hour and a half, something I to be as exhausting as not sleeping, ’cause I toward the poet himself, it describes the ritual wouldn’t even do for cooking gas, when from dreamt first about an afternoon when I was a awaiting him: “ la refalosa,” in which the Mr. Pizzurno’s very mouth we heard the order kid, when my dear departed mother took me tortured men with their throats cut slip in their to get out of there on the double, which we to a farm. Believe me, Nelly, I hadn’t never own blood. did cheerin’, so full of spirit that even the crip­ thought about that afternoon, but in the dream

m I realized it was the happiest in my life, and all the breech, I didn’t want to hold back my par­ of truth arrived, I grabbed my heater and got 1 really remember is some water with leaves ticipation in a stereophonic singin’ of the out, ready for anything, Nelly, even for sellin’ shining in it and a very white and very gentle Monster’s march, and I tried till I sorta croaked, it for three bucks. But not even one customer dog who I patted on the back; luckily I got out somethin’, honest, like a hiccup, that if 1 stuck his nose out so I had some fun scribblin’ of that kid stuff and dreamt about more mod­ didn’t open the umbrella I left home I’d have some letters on a wall, and if I’d have spent ern things, stuff on the big agenda: the Mon­ been like in a canoe with all the spit flying another minute there, the truck would have ster made me his mascot and, later, his Great around, you’d have took me for Vito Dumas, gone around a corner and the horizon would High Priest Dog. I woke up and it’d taken five the Solitary Sailor. Finally we got goin’ and have swallowed it up on the way to civic pride, minutes to dream all that crazy stuff. I decided then the air started to flow, it was like takin’ a togetherness, brotherhood, the Monsterfest. to turn over a new leaf: I gave myself a rub- bath in a soup pot, and there was a guy eatin’ The truck was set for togetherness when I got down with the kitchen rag, I stuck my corns a sausage sandwich, there was somebody else back sweatin’ like a pig with my tongue hang­ into my Buster Browns, I got all tangled like a with a salami, another guy with a loaf of bread, ing out. They had on the brakes and the truck squid in the sleeves and legs of my suit—my another guy with a half a bottle of chocolate looked like the picture of a truck. Thank God trusty overalls—I put on the wool tie with the milk, and a guy in back with an eggplant that guy Tabacman, the guy who talks through cartoon characters you gave me the day of the parmegian’, but maybe I’m thinkin’ of anoth­ his nose, the guy they call the Endless Screw, other demonstration, and I went out sweatin’ er time when we went out to the Ensenada, was with us, ’cause he’s an ace with engines grease ’cause some big car came down the street but since I didn’t go I’m better off not talkin’. and after a half hour looking into the engine and I thought it was the truck. With every false I couldn’t stop thinkin’ about the fact that all and drinkin’ all the soda in my camel stomach, alarm what could of been a truck or not I those modern healthy boys thought everything that’s the nickname I gave to my canteen, he popped out like a cork, trottin’ like in gym just like me, ’cause even the laziest has to hear stood up and said, “ Beats m e,” ’cause Ford class, covering the sixty yards from the third the official radio announcements ’cause that’s turned out to be a mystery name for him. courtyard to the street entrance. With youthful all you can hear even if you don’t want to. We enthusiasm I sang the march song which is our were all Argentines, all young, all from the flag, but at ten of twelve I lost my voice and Southside and we were all rushin’ to meet our the millionaires from the first courtyard stopped twin brothers, who, in the same kind of trucks, throwing everything they had at me. At one- was cornin’ from Fiorito and Villa Dominico, think I read on a wall somewhere that we twenty the truck came, early, and when the from Ciudadela, from Villa Luro, from La I should always look for the silver lining, comrades of the crusade were happy to see me, Paternal, but over in Villa Crespo there’s too ’cause just then Our Father presented us with and I didn’t even eat the bread the cleanup many Jews and I say it would be better for us a bike left in a vegetable garden, and it looked lady leaves for the parrot, they all voted to to say we live in North Tolosa. to me like the owner was gone for a new tire leave me, with the excuse that they were riding What team spirit you missed, Nelly! In ’cause he didn’t show his nostrils when Gar­ on a meat truck and not on a crane. I played every run-down neighborhood a real ava­ funkel himself hit the seat with his rear end. along and hung on and they told me if I prom­ lanche, excited with the purest idealism, Then he took off like he smelled a whole block ised not to have a baby before we got to wanted to come along, but the capo of our of sausages, like as if Zoppi or his mother Ezpeleta they would carry me like a sack, but truckload, Garfunkel, knew how to get rid of shoved a firecracker up his ass. Not a few guys finally they gave in and sorta helped me up. the miserable bunch of bastards, specially had to loosen their belts from laughin’ so hard The truck of the country’s youth took off like a when you think that in all those bums there seeing the guy peddle like that, but after mad swallow and before it went half a block it could hide a fifth column just like that, guys keepin’ up with him for four blocks they lost stopped in front of the Committee. A gray­ who could convince you before you go around sight of him, ’cause your pedestrian even if haired Indian came out, and it was a pleasure the world in eighty days that you’re a certified he’s got Keds on his hands can’t keep the how he bossed us around, and before they jerk and that the Monster is a tool of the Tele­ victor’s laurel when he’s up against Mr. Bicycle. could give us the complaints book, we was al­ phone Company. I wouldn’t tell you too much The enthusiasm of conscience on the march, ready sweatin’ in the clink, like we had necks about more than one chicken who tried to take in less time than it takes you, pudgy, to gob­ like grated cheese. A heater per head in alpha­ advantage of those purges to slip away in the ble up everythin’ in front of you, made that betical order was the way it was; meditate on confusionism and get home just like that; but guy disappear into the horizon, home to that, Nelly; for evefy revolver there was one of admit it, some guys got it, some guys don’t, Tolosa, to hit the sack, the way it looked to me. us. Without even a time limit enough for us to ’cause when I’ve tried to slip out of the truck Now your little Porky’s goin’ to get con­ line up outside the gentlemen, or even to try to it was a kick from Mister Garfunkel that re­ fidential, Nelly: he was goin’ like mad, runnin’ sell off a pistol in gcA>d shape, the Indian put stored me to the bosom of those valiant heroes. from the Great God Fear, but like I always say us back into the truck which we couldn’t es­ At the beginning we was received with an whenever a fighter looks like he’s sinkin’ and cape without a letter of recommendation- for enthusiasm that was frankly contagious, but the bleakest predictions pile up, suddenly the the truckdriver. Mister Garfunkel, who don’t use his head just centerforward kicks a good one and makes a to hold up his hat, forbid the driver to slow goal: that’s the way the Monster does it for the down so that no wise guy would try to bug out. Fatherland; and for our bunch that was scat­ Another end of the stick was handed to us in terin’ around, the truckdriver. That patriot, I Quilmes, where the jerks got permission to take my hat off to him, took off like a shot and ust sittin’ there waitin’ for the command, flatten out their calluses, but at that distance stopped the one who got farthest, right in his “ Forward, march!” they had us standin’ in from home, who was goin’ to leave the group? tracks. He slipped him a message so that the J tne sun for an hour and a half, in plain sight of Till that very second, as Zoppi or his mother next day, ’cause of the bruises, everybody our beloved Tolosa, and as soon as the police is my witness, everything went like a charm, took me for the bread man’s pinto horse. went after them, the kids had us in slingshot but nervousness spread over the gang when the From down on the ground I gave such loud range, as if what they appreciated most in us boss, Garfunkel to you, set us to shaking like cheers that the locals had to stick their fingers wasn’t our selfless patriotism but our bein’ jello when he ordered us to write the Monster’s in their ears. Meantime the truckdriver put us blackbirds for the pie. When half of the first name on all the walls and to jump back on the patriots in Indian file and if anybody tried to hour passed there prevailed in the truck that truck as fast as a dose of castor oil before some­ get away the guy behind had carte blanche to tension on which all social gatherings is based, body took a swing at us. When the moment ascribe him a kick in the backside so that it still but later the gang put me in a good mood hurts me to sit down. Figure it out, Nelly, when they asked me if I had signed up for the 'Translators’ note: Popular belief in Argen­ what luck the last guy had, with nobody takin’ Queen Victoria Prize,* you know, an indirect tina: a prize for the first man to give birth. shots at his rear guard! It was—you guessed way of referring to this base drum here in front, it—the truckdriver who drove us like a bunch you know, they always say it ought to be made 1. While we was recuperating our energies of flatfooted recruits to a place that I wouldn’t out of glass so that I could see, even if it was only with the help of some buns, Nelly told me2 the hesitate to characterize as the vicinity of Don the toes, of my size fourteens. I was so hoarse poor sap stuck out the aforementioned tongue. Bosco, I mean, the Wilde. There, chance put that it looked like I had a muzzle on, but in an (Note supplied by Young Rabasco.) into our hands a bus headin’ for Black Lady’s hour or so I got back my silver tongue* 1 a little, 2. She told me first. (Supplemental note Rest, as if made to order. The truckdriver, who and shoulder to shoulder with the comrades in by Nano Buttafuoco, Sanitation Dept.) had the bus driver’s number—they both, in the heroic days of the Villa Dominico People’s was as cool as a cucumber, but turnin’ yel­ zles from the Demolition Section of the Amer­ Zoo, worked as halfs of the same camel—asked I low inside. You, who should be engraving ican Army. Like monkies we scrambled up into that Catalonian guy to take us down. Before every word that drops from between my teeth the khaki-colored one, and harmonizing, you could say go! to Gofreddo, we was already in your brain, maybe you remember the truck- “ Farewell, for I depart weeping,” we waited added to the passenger list, laughin’ till we driver who was half a camel with the bus guy. till a loon from the Autonomous Unit, super­ showed our tonsils at the impotent jerks waitin’ If you get me, we figured that he would get vised by Endless Screw, got goin’ on installin’ on line that didn’t get into the vehicle, bein’ together with that crybaby and punish us for the engine. Lucky that Rabasco, despite the left you might say, with a clear pat to go back, our bad conduct. But don’t worry about your backside face he got, made a deal with a guard with no ill-feelin’, to Tolosa. I exaggerate, little bunny; the truckdriver took it all calmly from the Monopoly, and after payin’ for the Nelly, that we was like in a bus, why we was and figured out that the other guy, without his tickets we filled up a trolley that made more sweatin’ like a can of sardines, that if you took bus, wasn’t no oligarch you had to worry about noise than a bagpipe. The trolley headed a good look, the ladies over in Berazategui no more. He smiled like the good-hearted slob bangity-bang downtown; it went along proud would’ve looked small. What stories of medi­ he is; just to maintain discipline he nudged a as a young mother that under the eyes of ocre interest ran around! And I don’t have to couple of guys in a friendly way (here’s the Granpa carries in her tummy the modern gen­ say nothin’ about the beauty broadcast by erations that tomorrow will claim their place Potasman the wop, right by Sarandi, and right in the snack bars of life. . . . In its bosom, with now I’d applaud the Endless Screw with my one ankle in a stirrup and the other with no four hands ’cause he was right in there winnin’ legal residence, went your dear clown, me. An his metal for bein’ a comedian by makin’ me, innocent bystander would’ve said that the after threatening me with a shot in the nuts, trolley was singin’; it cut through the air, Fiction gratefully acknowledges open my mouth and close my eyes: a joke pushed on by song; we were the singers. Just where he took advantage by immediately stuf­ before Belgrano Street the speed stopped dead the generous support of fing my mouth with dust balls and other stuff after twenty-four minuses: I sweated to under­ from the seats. But even suckers get tired and stand and also because of the crowd, like ants The City College of New York when we didn’t know what to do any more, a of more and more cars, that didn’t let our guy slipped me his penknife and we all used it means of locomotion tal^ a single step. to make the seat covers look like strainers. To The Coordinating Council The truckdriver shrieked out the word, throw suspicion off us, we all laughed at me; “ Out, you bums!” and then we got out at the and later, sure enough, there was one of those of Literary Magazines intersection of Tacuari and Belgrano. After wise guys who jumps like a flea and ends up two or three blocks on foot, a question came stuck in the asphalt, tryin’ to get out of the bus The New York State out in the open: our throats was dry and de­ before the driver spots the damage. The first manded liquids. The Puga and Gallach Em­ to hit the ground was Simon Tabacman, who Council on the Arts porium and Dispensary of Beverages presented landed right on his ass; right after, Noodles a means to resolve the problem. But now tell Zoppi or his mother; finally, even if you split me, bright boy: How was we goin’ to pay? At open in anger, Rabasco; then Spatola; doppo, that junction the truckdriver came up with a Speciale the Basque. Meantime, Morpurgo got plan. With the sense and patience of a bull­ down and got papers and paper bags together, dog, which ended up seein’ things the other obsessed with the idea of startin’ a true-blue way, he tripped me up in front of the amused bonfire that would burn up the Brockway bus gang, then he stuck a screen over my head like with the intention of drawin’ attention away a hat down to my nose, and out of my vest from the marks left by the penknife. Pirosanto, tooth he knocked out that I bought off him spilled the dough I had, so I wouldn’t look so that nasal, motherless punk who has more later for a souvenir) and then: Close ranks! bad when the hot-dog stand came around. The matches than dirt in his pockets, took off on Double time, march! purse went into the common fund and the the first turn so he wouldn’t have to loan me a What a thing togetherness is! The proud truckdriver, havin’ taken care of me, switched Luckie, almost tippin’ a hand, but at the same column was advancin’ through the backed-up to Souza, who’s the right-hand man of Gouvea, time with a Kooi he grabbed out of my mouth. sewers or the piles of garbage that mark the from Caravel Caramels—you know, the guys Me, without tryin’ to show off, but tryin’ to entrance to the capital, with no defections ex­ that set themselves up as the Technical Tapioca show a little style, was just about pullin’ my cept maybe a third of us guys that started out Corporation. Souza, who lives for Caramels, is mouth into shape for the first drag when Piro­ from Tolosa. At least one incorrigible dared, paymaster over there, and it’s for sure that he’s santo, with a grab, kidnapped the cigarette with the approval of the truckdriver, to start to put into circulation so many bills—of up to and Morpurgo, as if he was sweetening the light up a Kent. What a picture to color in: fifty cents—that not even Crazy Calcamonia medicine, grabbed the match that was toasting Spatola carried the colors, wearin’ his T-shirt* had seen so many, and he’d been pulled in for my warts and set fire to the papers. Without over his wool clothes; Screw and the rest fol­ doctorin’ up the first bank note he’d ever seen. even taking off his skimmer, lid, or hat, Mor­ lowed him in ranks of four. Souza’s, natch, weren’t fakes, and they paid in purgo hit the street, but me, pot and all, beat cold cash for our consumption of Virginia him out and jumped first, so I was set up as a Dare, and we went out like you do when the mattress for him, so I broke his fall and he jug’s dry. Bo, when he’s got the guitar, thinks almost broke the bottom out of my gut with he’s Gardel.1 He even thinks he’s Gotuso.1 He his two hundred pounds. Jeez, when I pulled t was probably around seven when we finally even thinks he’s Garofalo.’ He even thinks Manolo M. Morpurgo’s boots, which was up to I got to Mitre Avenue.Morpurgo laughed he’s Giganti-Tomassoni.1 There was no guitar his knees, out of my mouth, the bus was like hell to think that we was already at Avel­ in the joint, but Bo gave out with “ Farewell burnin’ in the distance, like Rome itself, and laneda. The playboys laughed too, almost My Beloved Pampa,” and we all sang the the guard-ticket-taker-owner was cryin’ like failin’ off the balconies, out of cars and open chorus and the juvenile column was like a sin­ mad about his investment turnin’ to black buses, they all laughed to see us on foot with gle shout. Each guy, in spite of his youth, sang smoke before his very eyes. The guys, tougher no cars. Luckily, Babuglia thinks of everything, what his body told him to, till we was dis­ than him, was laughin’, but we was still ready, and on the other side of the Riachuelo some tracted by a kike that came by lookin’ so re­ I swear by the Monster, to run if the guy got trucks was rustin’ away, Canadian trucks that spectable with his beard. We let that one off really mad. Screw, the economy-sized joker, the Institute, always on the alert, got as puz­ with his life, but a smaller one, easier to han­ thought up a joke that while you’re listening dle, more practical, handier, didn’t get off so there with your mouth open you’ll turn to jello *Translators' note: Sacarse el saco—to take off easy. He was a miserable four-eyes, without from laughin’. Listen, Nelly. Clean out your one’s coat—was a ritual act of humiliation the muscles of an athlete. He had red hair, ears ’cause here it comes. You said—but don’t forced on professional groups to make them books under his arms, the studious type. He get distracted by that asshole over there you’re show their solidarity with the proletariat, barely noticed, he was so distracted that he makin’ eyes at—that the bus was burnin’ like known in Peron ’s Argentina as descamisados— Rome. Ha ha ha. men in shirt sleeves. 1. The most popular singer of that season. almost knocked over our color guard, Spatola. be Graffiacane) managed to salvage a seven- electric shock that signs his name Dr. Marcelo Bonflrraro, who’s a bug for details, said he teen-jewel Bulova, and Bonflrraro snagged a N. Frogman harangued us. He put us in shape wasn’t goin’ to let go unpunished such irrever­ Fabricant watch that had up to three bucks in for what came after: the words of the Monster. ence for the banner and the picture of the it and a snapshot of a lady piano teacher, and These very ears heard him, pudgy, just like the Monster. Right then and there he signaled to that sap Rabasco had to be satisfied with the rest of the country, ’cause the speech was on Ten-Ton Baby, whose name is Cagnazzo, to go Bausch glass case and a Plumex fountain pen, national broadcast. not to mention the ring from Poplavsky’s old ahead. Ten Ton, always the same kidder, let Pujato, November 24, 1947 □ go of my ears, which he’d rolled up like peanut shop. shells and, just to be nice to Bonflrraro, told Pretty soon, pudgy, that street episode —Translatedfrom the Spanish by the Jew to show a little more respect for the was relegated to oblivion. Banners fluttering, AlfredJ. Mac Adam with picture of the Monster. The guy answered with trumpet blasts excitin’ , the masses all around, Suzanne Jill Levine and some nonsense about havin’ his own ideas. great-arino. In the Plaza de Mayo, the great Emir Rodriguez Monegal Baby, who gets bored with explanations, shoved him with a hand that if the butcher sees it, the shortage of steak is over. He pushed him into a vacant lot, the kind that one of these days’ll get turned into a parking lot, and backs the guy up against a nine-story wall with­ out windows. Meantime, the guys in the back was pushin’ us out of curiosity to see, and the guys in the front ended up like a salami sand­ THE CROCODILE wich, between the nuts who wanted a pano­ ramic view and the jerks who was surrounded, who, God knows why, was gettin’ mad. Ten Tons, aware of the danger, backpedaled, and Felisberto Hernández we opened up like a fan making a semicircle, but with no exit, ’cause we was all along the wall. We was yellin’ like the bears’ cage and our teeth was chattering, but the truckdriver, who never missed a single hair in his soup, figured that more or less than one of us had in ne autumn night in the damp heat I the merchants.) When I met old acquaint­ mind a plan for escape. Everybody was whis­ found myself in a city I hardly knew. ances, I told them that my working for a large tlin’, then he set us up on a pile of rubble, O The dim light of the streets filtered through commercial firm allowed me to travel at will which was there for anyone to see. You re­ the humidity and clusters of tree leaves. I went and freed me from obliging my friends to member that that afternoon the thermometer into a cafe near a church, sat down at a table in sponsor inopportune concerts. My concerts had hit soup temperature, and you’re not goin’ to back, and thought about my life. I knew how never been opportune. In this very city they argue that a percentage of us took off our to isolate my hours of happiness and shut had made rather odd excuses: the Club Presi­ coats.* We made the Saulino kid our coat myself in them; first my eyes would steal some dent had been in a bad mood because I had guard, so he couldn’t take part in the stonin’. forgotten thing from the street or the inside of taken him away from the game table, and he The first shot got him right in the head— a house, and then transport it to my solitude. told me that someone with a large family had Tabacman—and it split his gums, and the If people knew how much pleasure these died, that half the city was in mourning. blood was a black stream. I got hot ’cause of things gave me, they would hate me. Perhaps Now I could say, I’ll be here for a few days in the blood and I hit him with a chunk that I had few hours of happiness left. In the past case the desire for a concert comes up by itself. smashed his ear and then I lost count of the I had come through these cities giving piano But the fact that a concert artist was selling hits, ’cause the bombardment was massive. It concerts. There had been few pleasant times hosiery put them off. was a riot; the Jew t^dnt down on his knees and because I lived in the anguish of seeking out About this business of selling hosiery: every looked at the sky and prayed in his broken people who would appreciate my giving a con­ morning I felt encouraged and every night I speech like he wasn’t there. When the bells of cert. I had to organize them, bring them all got discouraged, just like getting dressed and Montserrat rang, he |ell down, ’cause he was together, and try to find a backer. It was undressed. It took a great effort each time to dead. We kept it up a little more with shots almost always like wrestling with slow, con­ muster the kind of crude force I needed to that didn’t hurt him any more. I swear, Nelly, fused drunks: when I managed to catch one of press the merchants, who were always in a we left the body in a hell of a mess. Then Mor- them, the other got away from me. And I also rush. But by now I had resigned myself to purgo, to make the guys laugh, made me stick had to study and write newspaper articles. waiting for my dismissal, and I tried to enjoy the penknife in what used to be his face. It had been a while since I’d had those my tour as long as it lasted. problems, for I succeeded in getting a job at a Suddenly I realized that a blind man with a large women’s hosiery firm. I figured that harp had entered the cafe, the same man I had stockings were more necessary than concerts seen that afternoon. I decided to leave before and that it would be easier to sell them. A losing the will to enjoy life. But as I passed by friend of mine told the Director that I had him, I again noticed the shapeless crown of his fter exercisin’, what gets you warmed up, many female contacts because I was a concert hat and his eyes rolling skyward as he tried to A I put on my jacket again, a move to keep pianist and traveled through many cities; play. There were extra strings stuck on the me from catchin’ cold, that could cost you a hence, the influence of the concerts would harp, and the blond wood of the instrument fortune in aspirins. Then I tied the scarf that help sell stockings. and his entire person were covered with filth. you embroidered with your fairy fingers around The Director grimaced, but he accepted, not I thought about myself and felt depressed. my neck and accommodated my ears under my only on my friend’s word, but also because I When I turned on the light of my hotel homburg, but the great surprise of the day had already won second prize for an advertis­ room, I saw the cot I had been using. It was came from Pirosanto, with the idea of settin’ ing slogan about the stockings. The brand open, and the cheap metallic frame reminded fire to our bleedin’ rock pile, after auctioning name was “ Illusion,” and my slogan: “ Who, me of a crazy girl who slept with anyone who off his eyeglasses and clothes. The auction these days, wouldn’t caress a Sheer Illusion?” would take her. After getting into bed, I wasn’t a success. The glasses was covered with But selling stockings also turned out to be very turned out the light but was unable to sleep. the slime from the eyes and the suit was sticky difficult for me, and from one day to the next I put the light back on and the bulb stuck out with blood. The books too was a bust, satu­ I expected them to call me to the main office under the shade like an eyeball beneath a dim rated as they was with organic remains. Luck and cancel my tour. eyelid. I turned it off immediately and tried to had it that the truckdriver (who turned out to In the beginning I made a great effort. think about the hosiery business, but for a (Selling hosiery had nothing to do with my moment the image of the lampshade remained *See previous translators ’ note. concerts, and I only had to promote them to in the dark. It became lighter, and the outline hadn’t felt like walking this woman along the stream where her father took her when he was still alive, she would sob noiselessly. Then, though I was tired of always going to the same place, I would give in. With this in mind, I thought of telling the woman at my side, “ She was someone who cried a lot. ” The woman placed her large and some­ what red hands on the green skirt and laughed as she said, “ You men always believe in a woman’s tears.” I thought of my own, which disturbed me a bit. Then I got up and said, “ I think you’re wrong. But I still appreciate your help.” And I left without looking at her.

he next day, well into the morning, I went T to one of the largest stores. The manager spread out my stockings on the counter and of it, as if it were the lampshade’s wandering sat down on a bench facing a wall with climb­ spent a good while dressing them with his soul, began to move to one side and fade into ing vines. There I reflected on the morning’s square-tipped fingers. He didn’t seem to hear the darkness. All this took place in the time it tears. I was intrigued by having produced my words. His sideburns were gray, as if he takes a blotter to absorb spilled ink. them, and I felt the need to be alone, as if I had forgotten to wash cAit the shaving cream. were hiding to run a toy I had unwittingly At this point, several women came in, and gotten to work a few hours ago. Actually, I before leaving, he signalled to me, with one of was rather ashamed of making myself cry for the fingers which had caressed the stockings, no reason, except for a joke, as it had been that that he didn’t want any. I stood still and con­ he next morning, after getting dressed and morning. sidered pressing him. Perhaps we could have Tboosting my spirits, I went to see if the Somewhat timidly I wrinkled up my nose a talk later, when there was no one around, night train had brought me any bad news. No and eyes to see if the tears would come out, and I could tell him about an herb which, dis­ letter or telegram had arrived. 1 decided to but then I thought that I shouldn’t force them solved in water, would dye his sideburns. try the stores along one of the main streets. like someone wringing out a cloth. I realized I The people lingered and I felt unusually At the end of the street there was a shop. Once would have to devote myself more sincerely impatient. I would have liked to quit that inside, I found myself in a room filled to the to the task, so I hid my face in my hands. This store, that city, and that life. I thought about ceiling with cloths and trinkets. There was attitude had a certain seriousness; I was un­ my country and many other things. And sud­ only a naked dummy, made of red cloth, with expectedly touched. I felt a kind of pity for denly, when I was calming down, I had an a black knob for a head. I clapped my hands myself and the tears began. idea: What would happen if I started crying loudly and the bolts of cloth immediately I had been crying for a while when I saw a here, in front of all these people? The idea swallowed up the noise. woman’s legs wearing semiglitter Sheer Il­ seemed quite violent to me, but for some time A little girl, about ten years old, appeared lusions descend from the top of the wall. I’d had the desire to toy with the world by from behind the dummy and said rudely, Presently I sighted a green skirt which blended doing something unusual. Besides, I had to ‘ ‘What do you want ? ’ ’ in with the vines. I hadn’t heard the steps. prove to myself that I was capable of great “ Is the manager here?” When the woman had reached the last step, I violence. Before I could back down, I sat my­ “ There is no manager. My mother’s the one quickly dried my tears, but I lowered my head self on a chair that was leaning against the in charge.” again as if I were thinking. The woman ap­ counter; and, surrounded by people, I hid my “ She’s not here?” proached slowly and sat at my side. She had face in my hands and began to make sobbing “ She went to Dona Vicenta’s and will be come down the stairs with her back to me and noises. Almost instantaneously a woman let back in a minute.” I hadn’t seen her face. out a shriek and said, ‘ ‘There’s a man crying. ’ ’ A little boy about three years old came out. Finally she said, “ What’s wrong? I’m a per­ And then I heard the commotion and frag­ He grabbed onto his sister’s skirt and for a few son you can trust.” ments of.conversation: “ Baby, stay away from seconds they formed a line: the dummy, the A few seconds went by. I wrinkled my brow him.” . . . “Perhaps he’s had some bad girl, and the boy. as if to hide and keep waiting. That was the news.” . . . “ The train just arrived and there I said, “ I’ll wait.” first time I ever made this gesture and my eye­ hasn’t been time.” . . . Between my fingers I The girl didn’t answer. I sat down on a box brows trembled. Afterward I moved my hand saw a fat lady who was saying, “ One sees such and began to play with her brother. Remem­ as if I were about to speak and still I hadn’t awful things! If it weren’t for my children, I’d bering that I still had one of the chocolates I figured out what to say to her. be crying too.” bought in the movies, I took it out of my poc­ Again she began, “ Why don’t you talk, just At first I was desperate because the tears ket. The boy came over quickly and grabbed talk. I’ve had children and I know all about wouldn’t come, and I even thought that they it from me. Then I hid my face in my hands troubles.” might take it as a joke and put me in jail. and pretended to cry loudly. I opened tiny I had already imagined a face for the woman But the anguish and the tremendous effort cracks in the fingers, covering my eyes to let in and the green skirt. But when she talked about choked me up and I managed to produce the some light, and began watching the boy. children and troubles, I imagined another one. first tears. I felt a heavy hand settle on my Motionless, he observed me as I cried harder At the same time I said, “ I have to think shoulder, and upon hearing the manager’s and harder. Finally he decided to return the some.” voice, I recognized the fingers that had ca­ chocolate to my lap. Then I laughed and gave She replied, “ With these things, the ressed the stockings. it to him. But at the same time I realized that more you think, the worse it is. ” He said, “ But a man must have more my face was wet. Suddenly I felt a wet rag fall near me. courage, my friend. ’’ I left before the woman came back. Passing Actually, it was a large banana leaf, soggy with Then I picked myself up as if by a spring. by a mirror, I looked at myself and my eyes humidity. I removed both hands from my face and the were dry. After having lunch, I sat in the cafe; Presently she asked again, “ Tell me the third from my shoulder and said, with my face but I saw the blind man with the harp flut­ truth. What is she like?” still wet, tering his eyes and I left right away. Then I At first I found this amusing. Then one “ But there’s nothing wrong! And I have went to a lonely square in a deserted spot and of my old girl friends came to mind. When I lots of courage! The thing is that sometimes this comes over me; it’s like a memory. ...” I was seated next to the Director in his off in January and part of February, and began Despite their anticipation and the sudden large office. They had called in one of the to cry again after carnival season. The break hush when I began to speak, I heard a woman bosses but he couldn’t come. did me good and I was happy to go back to say, ‘‘Aha! He’s crying for a memory.” . . . The clerks refused to keep quiet and one crying. The success of my tears surprised me Then the manager announced, ‘‘Ladies, of them yelled, “ Let him think about his and I cultivated a certain pride in weeping. it’s all right now.” mama, that will make him cry quicker. ’ ’ There are many salesmen, but an actor who I smiled and dried my face. After that I told the Director, “ When performs on the spot and convinces the public At once the crowd of people scattered and they’re quiet I’ll cry.” with his tears. . . a slight woman with the eyes of a madman He threatened them in his sickly voice, The next year I started crying in the West, came forward and said, ‘‘I know you. I think and after a few seconds of relative silence I and I came to a city where my concerts had I’ve seen you somewhere else, and you were looked out the window at the leaves of a tree— been successful. The second time there the shaking.” we were on the first floor—I hid my face in my public had received me with a long and fond I figured that she must have seen me in hands and tried to weep. I was rather annoyed. ovation; I stood next to the piano to thank concert, as I trembled at the end of the pro­ The other times I had cried, everyone else was them, and they refused to let me sit down and gram, but I kept it to myself. The women all unaware of my feelings; but these people knew begin the concert. Certainly I would give at broke into conversation, and some began to I was going to cry and it inhibited me. When least one performance now. leave. The one who knew me stayed behind. the tears finally came, I removed one hand The first time I cried there was in the And another came up to me and said, “ I’ve- from my face to reach for my handkerchief and town’s most elegant hotel; it happened during been told that you sell hosiery. It just so hap­ to show them my wet face. Some laughed and lunchtime and on a bright day. I had already pens that some friends of mine ...” others remained serious; then I shook my head eaten and dmnk my coffee when, leaning on The manager interceded, “ Don’t worry, violently and everyone laughed. However, the table, I hid my face in my hands. Within ma’am .” And tome: “ Come this afternoon.” they quickly fell silent and then started to a few minutes some old friends I had greeted “ I’m leaving after lunch. Would you like laugh again. I dried my tears while the sickly before came over. I left them standing for a two dozen?” voice repeated, “Very good, very good.” while and in the meantime a poor old woman “ No, a half dozen will be . . . ” Perhaps they were all disillusioned. I felt like —I have no idea how she got there—sat down “ We only sell by the dozen.” an empty and dripping bottle. I wanted to at my table. I looked at her through my teary I took out my sales book and, leaning on take some action; I was in a bad mood and fingers. She lowered her head without a word; the glass pane of the door, began to fill out the wanted to do something bad. So I caught the but her face was so sad that it made you want order form, keeping my distance from the Director’s attention and told him, to cry. . . . manager. Women speaking loudly surrounded “ I don’t want anyone else to use the same The day I gave my first concert I had a me. I was afraid that the manager might technique to sell stockings, and I would like case of nerves from exhaustion. I had reached change his mind. Finally he signed the order the company to acknowledge my . . . initia­ the last piece in the first part of the program and I left with the others. tive, and to grant me exclusive rights for a when I took one of the movements too quickly. Soon it became known that “ this thing,” period of time.” I had tried to slow down, but I became clumsy which at first was like a memory, would come “ Come tomorrow and we’ll discuss it.” and, unable to recover the necessary poise and over me. I cried in other stores and sold more The next day the secretary had already strength, I had no choice but to continue. stockings than usual. By the time I had cried prepared the document, which she read: Nevertheless, my hands were growing tired in several cities, my sales were as high as those “ ‘The Company agrees not to utilize and to and losing clarity, and I realized I wouldn’t of any other salesman. respect the advertising technique which con­ make it to the end. The next thing I knew, my sists of crying.’ ” hands were off the keyboard and covering my At this we both laughed, and the Director face; it was the first time I ever cried on stage. said that it was a mistake. While they revised ne time they called me to the main the document, I walked around till I came to O office—by then I had cried throughout the display counter. Behind it was a young the north of the couotry—and as I waited my woman who looked at me as she spoke, and turn to speak with the Director I heard another whose eyes looked as if they had been etched representative in the next room saying, “ I do in deeply. everything within mv power, but you won’t ‘ ‘ So you cry for pleasure ? ’ ’ catch me crying to male a sale! ’ ’ “ That’s true.” The Director’s sickly voice responded, “ Well, then I know more than you do. “ You should stop at nothing—and cry for You yourself don’t know that you are troubled. them too—” At first I remained pensive, and then I The representative interrupted, “ But I said, “ Look: I wasn’t born lucky, but I know can’t make the tears come out! ’ ’ how to deal with my misfortune and I’m al­ After a silence, the Director said, “ How? most happy.” And who told you ? ’ ’ As I was leaving—the Director had called “ Oh, yes! There’s one who cries bucket­ me—I managed to catch sight of her look: she fuls. ...” placed it on me as if she were resting a hand At first there were murmurs of surprise, The sickly voice began to laugh forcedly, on my shoulder. and strangely enough someone tried to ap­ punctuated by a cough. Then I heard grum­ plaud. But others were grumbling, and I stood bling and footsteps withdrawing. up. One hand was covering my eyes while the Presently I was called in and asked to cry other toyed with the piano as I tried to make for the Director, the section heads, and the my way off stage. Some women shouted, fear­ other employees. At first, when the Director hen I resumed selling I was in a small ing I would fall into the orchestra; and as I was opened the door and the whole thing became Wcity. It was a sad day and I didn’t feel about to leave through a scenery door someone clear to him, he laughed sadly and tears came like crying. I would have liked to be alone in way up in “ the Gods” shouted, “ Cro-co- to his eyes. Very politely he asked me for a my room, hearing the rain and reflecting that diiile!!” demonstration, and barely had I agreed when the drops separated me from the rest of the I heard people laughing, but I went to several employees, who had been standing world. I traveled in disguise, behind a mask the dressing room to wash my face, came back behind the door, came piling in. There was a of tears, but my face was tired. on stage, and with my hands refreshed I fin­ great fuss and they asked me to stop crying. Suddenly I felt that someone had come ished the first half. At the end many people Through the screen door I heard someone say, over and was asking, “ What’s wrong?” came up to me and commented on the remark “ Hurry! One of the salesmen is going Then, like an employee caught off the about the crocodile. to cry.” job, I tried to resume work, and hiding my I said to them, “ It seems to me that who­ “ But why?” face in my hands I began to produce sobs. ever shouted, ‘Crocodile,’ was right; actually, “ How do I know?” That year I cried until December, I left I don’t know why I cry. The tears just take over and there’s nothing I can do. It’s probably as not to say anything. I placed my hands on the hen people began to arrive I went to the natural for me as it is for a crocodile. In any keys and they both left. As I played I told my­ W bar. It occurred to me to order a Scotch. case, I don’t know why a crocodile cries, self, Tonight I’m not going to cry . . . it would The bartender named several brands, and since either.” be terrible . . . the Director of the Society isn’t none were familiar to me I told him, “ Give me One of the people to whom I’d been above wanting me to cry in appreciation of his the last one.” introduced had an elongated head, and since speech . . . but I won’t cry for anything in the Trying not to wrinkle my jacket tails, I he combed his hair straight up his head looked world. . . . climbed onto a stool at the bar. I must have like a brush. Another person in the group I noticed the green curtain moving for a looked more like a black parrot than a croco­ pointed to him and said, ‘ ‘Our friend over few minutes; suddenly a tall girl with flowing dile. I was silent, thinking about the girl with here is a doctor. What do you say, doctor?” hair emerged from its folds. She narrowed her the stocking and perplexed by the memory of I turned pale. eyes as if to see at a distance. Then she looked those fleeting hands. He looked at me with the stare of a police at me and moved in my direction, carrying I found myself being led to the ballroom investigator and asked, ‘‘Tell me something: something in one hand. A maid appeared by the Director of the Society. The dancing when do you cry most, during the day or at from behind, went up to her, and they started was halted for him to give his speech. Several night?” talking at close range. I took those moments times he pronounced the words “ avatar” and I remembered that I never cried at night to look at the tall girl’s legs, and I realized that “compulsion.” When people applauded, I because I didn’t have to sell then, and I re­ she was wearing only one stocking. At every raised my arms like an orchestra conductor sponded, ‘‘I only cry at night. ’ ’ opportunity she motioned to indicate the end before “ attacking,” and at the first moment I don’t remember the other questions. of the conversation, but the maid persisted in ofsilencelsaid, But in the end he advised me, ‘ ‘Stay away talking to her and they doted on their subject “ Now that I should cry I cannot. Nor can from meat. There’s a residual poison in your like a sweet. I kept playing the piano, and I speak, and I’d rather not separate people, blood.” while they were talking I had time to think: who have come together to dance, any longer What does she want with that stocking? . . . than necessary. ” * • Was it defective, and does she know I’m the And I finished wth a bow. salesman? . . . And at this party of all times! After my dance, I embraced the Director Finally she came over and said, ‘‘Excuse of the Society, and oven his shoulder I glimpsed few days later I was given a party in the me, sir. Could you autograph this stocking at the girl with the stocking. She smiled at me A main club of the town. I rented a frock form e?” and raised the left side of her skirt to reveal the coat with an impeccable white vest. When I At first I laughed, but afterward I tried to place on her stocking where she had glued a saw myself in the mirror I thought, No one can sound like I had been asked to do this many small picture of me cut out of a program. I say that this crocodile doesn’t have a white times before. I began to explain to her that the smiled with joy, but I made a stupid remark belly. What do you know! I think they even stocking wouldn’t take a pen, that previously which everyone repeated: have a double chin like mine. And they’re I’d solved the problem by autographing a “ Very nice, very nice. She’s wearing her insatiable. . . . label, which the woman in question could heart on her leg.” When I arrived, there was hardly anyone then paste onto her stocking. But in giving this Nevertheless, I felt happy and went to the at the Club, and I realized I had come too explanation I displayed the know-how of an bar. I climbed back up on the stool and the early. I spotted a member of the committee experienced salesman who only later had be­ bartender asked me, “ White Horse Scotch?” and told him I wanted to practice on the piano come a pianist. Anguish was already over­ And I, with the gesture of a musketeer a bit; that way I could disguise my earliness. coming me when she sat down on the piano unsheathing his sword, said, “ White Horse or We passed through a green curtain and I found bench and said, “ How sad that you turned out Black Parrot.” myself in a long, empty room that had been to be such a liar. . . .You should have thanked A few minutes later, a young man with a set up for the dance. The piano was on the me for the request.” hand behind his back came over. other side of the room and faced the curtain. I turned my eyes to her legs, then I moved “ Chubby tells me you don’t mind being I walked over to it with the committee member my eyes away and my mind started working. called Crocodile.” and the doorman. The committee member There was a disgusted silence. Bowing her “ That’s right. I like it.” had black eyebrows and white hair, and while head, she let her hair hang down, and beneath Then he took the hand from behind his they were opening the piano he informed me that blond curtain her hands motioned as if back and showed me a caricature. It was of a that the party would be a great success, that they were fleeing. I remained silent as she went large crocodile very much like me. One small the Director of the Society, a friend of mine, on interminably. Finally her leg did a dance hand was in its mouth, the teeth of which were had a fine speech prepared, which he himself step, and as she rose her pointed toe slipped a keyboard. The other hand dangled a stocking had already heard. The man tried to remember on the shoe. Her hands pulled back the hair, to dry the tears. a few lines but decided that it would be better and with a silent farewell she left. After my friends accompanied me to the hotel, I thought about how much I had cried in that county and derived a perverse pleasure / from having tricked people; I deemed myself a kind of bourgeois of anguish. But once I was alone in my room, something unexpected hap­ * tv i pened. First, I looked at myself in the mirror: the cartoon was in my hand, and I glanced /X alternately at the crocodile and at my face. Suddenly, without my having intended to imi­

he streets were jammed with Christmas not even tried to see Mother, who was thin, in a ten-dollar bill. “ Today you must take T shoppers, and by midmorning the corner shriveled, and chaste, but was only called something to your grandchildren. Do it for of Eighteenth and Rio Negro Streets over­ Louise. me.” flowed with people pushing and shoving. “ To think your mother used to hold me “ You are so good,” she burst out pom­ That’s why Joaquín took her by the arm, gent­ in her lap and we haven’t seen each other in pously, as if magnanimously overlooking an ly, like the old and worn obstruction the loose years! When I saw you I had a funny thought,” offensive ostentatiousness, once she had per­ and sumptuous years had made her, and she said, and the twitch she called a smile re­ ceived his good intention. “ No wonder they walked her almost to San José Street. turned shyly. “ How could your mother, so call you a poet,” she insisted. “ But I doubt “ Wouldn’t you like to stop for a cold frail and small-boned, produce a hulk like I’ll make it over to see them. Cecilia says such drink, Auntie?’ ’ he said, because the dry heat you? Good thing you’re a writer, and in that bad things about me, and the kids stare at me vibrated in the radiant morning and the pave­ you’re like her, although she doesn’t write, of —or worse, they treat me coldly. Sometimes ment’s shimmer filtered through the cracks of course.” you feel unwanted in this world, especially if this grand, adipose figure, arms akimbo, who She has bats in her belfry, Mother used to your brain tumor takes its sweet time. And was worn-out, visibly fatigued, and breathing say with comic tolerance, as an excuse; it must that’s my case, darling. ’ ’ heavily. have been the amiable, vaguely aristocratic Her smile would have been better, but “ N o,” she answered. “Just let me rest in quirks of a spoiled girl, woman, and old lady she suddenly invented something different, the shade a minute, and then you can go to which her words referred. “ And some of her and with an unexpected, liberal gesture she ahead. It’s one of those days when everyone’s dumb mistakes were tragic, like marrying that raised her left hand from the closed handbag in such a hurry.” no-good . . . or all that military braid she col­ and was gently slapping his cheek, repeatedly He studied her with an almost inquisitive lected.” and flatteringly. look: she seemed a lot older than Mother, “ And what is your mother up to?” she though she was several years younger, at least was asking. “ Does she still live on the farm or eight or ten. Deteriorated, crumbling, she did she sell it? I bet she gave you your father’s achieved the paradoxical trick of appearing library! Or does she like your sister better? flaccid and swollen all at once, of being huge . . . What’s her name?” ictor’s taste for kitsch dominates the and looking withered. Her left eye drooped, “ Herminia.” V whole house, she thought as she saw the pressured by a weight somewhere in her frontal “ Mother’s name, of course. But I’ve be­ wreath with the sprig of mistletoe and the tin lobes, while the left eyebrow rose by compen­ come so callous, like anyone my age, that now bell on the door’s upper panel, and the red sating into a poorly timed question mark, con­ it sounds horrible to me, and I wouldn’t give it bow on the round, bronze knocker glowing on tradicting her words; for she had raced through to anyone. Herminia! Mother didn’t fit that the second panel. In the center of the circle, life, worn herself out, and finally reached the name. Louise is so smart, why didn’t she no­ with complete bad taste, as though the knocker point where nothing mattered. tice?” were an eye socket, Victor had put a peephole, “ I must say I’m quite satisfied,” she ex­ the sign of his suspicious spirit. “ Look before claimed with a touch of that old and well- you open,” that was his motto. It was sad, known coyness. “ My doctors won’t tell me, but over the years Cecilia had bowed to that but I know I have a brain tumor. I only have stubborn and lusterless, mediocre style. In one one good eye left. But as you can guess, my t’s impossible to tell her about Grandfather’s period of her life the wide and sagging ribbon daughters aren’t impressed. Cecilia converted Ilibrary or anything else, thought Joaquin. and the hairy little wreath would have seemed Clarita and took her off to her house; and She always jumps to something else and vulgar to her; now, perhaps, she had relin­ Albert lives in Buenos Aires, but it might as doesn’t really need the answers. quished the right to think, she had incorpo­ well be China. Doesn’t even write. By the “ But your mother was always so proper, rated them into her life as one incorporates way,” she said glibly—during the erratic effort and she always felt so tied down by everything, pots and pans or a toothbrush, neither ex­ she paused to contradict her mumbling with a especially by the family’s immaculate good pecting nor demanding beauty of them. You smile; however, that painful smile, spurred by name. . . .” could sense Victor’s soulless patience in the one eyelid, fleetingl^ stirred the vestiges of a That was already a little friendly slander, picky way in which the two ends of the ribbon past grandeur— “ ^re any of your friends though it didn’t deserve a reproach. Amanda, had been spread and fixed to the wood with lawyers? I need advice about death benefits, too, had been the object of unverifiable ru­ invisible pins, so they wouldn’t block the but can’t afford the fee. Fees! God forbid. mors; Michael’s premature death had nailed peephole. The Master’s eye never sleeps. She Cecilia has convinced Clarita that as the her to the deliquescent and deadly image of buzzed twice before the door opened—the tin youngest she has a right to half the money adultery, like a mounted butterfly pinned to bell oscillated silently, the starched apron and Michael left me. And they say if I don’t give it the fading paper and the crumbling dust of the almost saintly balf-tiara announced the to them willingly, they’ll sue. Can you believe the wings. Was their certainty as fierce as their bourgeois solidity of the house. She had the it! Sometimes I wonder what Michael would accusations and as fierce as the oppressive si­ premonition that the mistletoe, the ribbon, have said if he could see all this. ’ ’ lence they heaped upon her name years ago? and the peephole signaled an unfinished or­ He would have said, and rightly so, that “ I should go visit Louise, but I don’t deal, a bizarre tableau into which Joaquin’s she had her dress on inside out, with the seams think I have a right to spoil her day with all blind clannishness had drawn her and into showing. The dress, once beautiful, now was my problems. Who needs my problems, this which she had been dumb enough to jump. only anachronous. “ Poor Michael! Between face is enough,” she said almost playfully. Cecilia was standing on a stool, hanging him, with his faded army jacket and sandals, “ Your mother is so stuffy, if you haven’t seen tinsel which fell like cascades down the pine drinking maté under the orange tree and the her in a while, her reproach will stop you dead branch, planted in a can—the trunk encircled English rooster pecking at his feet, you would in your tracks. Really, she can do it with just by sand, the base bundled in tissue—and tiny have sworn the house belonged to the rooster,” one look.” crystal needles petrifying the dew or icicles, he liked to tell his mother. And that dress with A flash of light, bouncing off the display and the lighting’s dim arterial circulation. She its seams showing is the wrong side of things, windows behind Joaquin, caught a droplet of hardly turned as she uttered, without enthu­ that restores her to old age, all she has left, watery secretion (it would be cheating to call it siasm, “ Mother, you here?” Joaquin caught himself thinking in a modest a tear) emanating from the tear duct of her “ Yes, here,” she replied aggressively, but flight of fancy. half-closed eye. already feeling the futility of the bundle she “ You’ll always dabble in poetry. Some “ Besides, I’d have to take a cab, and I held in her hand, like an offering of reconcilia­ people who read your work say it’s good. I really can’t. Just today I’ve walked twelve tion. ‘‘Here with my Christmas greetings. ’’ stopped reading years ago; can’t read and blocks to avoid taking the streetcar.” Monte­ “ The kids aren’t home,” Cecilia stated, don’t want to. And your mother could tell you video no longer has streetcars, but that was and the meaning of the phrase was unmis­ how much I read as a girl. ’ ’ what she kept calling the rides she didn’t take. takable: it was meant to rapidly rid herself of But between those reading years and “ Auntie,” Joaquin said in a fit of generosity, that greeting and those presents, as she these ruined ones stretched her life, like a wanting to spit it out quickly, before it could had rid herself of the children. “ Victor took despicable dog. And Auntie—deliciously root in his mouth. “ Here, take this.” He them to buy some more ornaments for the named Amanda—during all these years had opened her wrinkled pocketbook and stuffed tree. They always need some new, worthless trinket. You know how kids are. ” and fascinating rage in his actions, and she fol­ will only be temporary, because I am going to She did not say, “ You remember how we lowed his lead. They chased it, cornered it keep receiving the pension a little while longer. were’’ ; she’ never referred to any child with against the henhouse, then trapped it in a And I can’t take it with me, nor is anyone go­ particular fondness, she never mentioned any corner of the woodshed and smashed it with a ing to deliver it to me in the next world.’’ endearing experience, not even her own as a broom barrage. No longer clucking, broken The pathetic reference to her unfortunate mother. It was Victor speaking again, care­ and ashen, the hen crouched, flattened itself fate, which she regretted having expressed so fully wrapping each year’s knickknacks to store against the floor, hopeless, its dislocated wings evidently and clearly, fell ominously into the them for the next Christmas. The paltry convulsing with each new blow of the broom. void. “ worthless trinkets” was her way of reproach­ It's all her fault! She couldn’t get Albert’s “ Anyway, we can’t just let things drift,” ing them for the money she had to shell out; scream out of her head. Afterward, she had Cecilia responded. that’s how stingy she had become. watched him climb to the top of the kindling “ I think I’ll wait for them while I rest a pile and slide down with it, in an avalanche, moment,” Amanda responded. And she sat onto the hen’s body. That had suddenly sapped down in an armchair which nobody offered his rage. And when the farm hand dragged her. Obviously they no longer include me in them out, saying the animal was dead, Albert other had always liked to blackmail us with their Chrismas toast, she thought. Victor had begun to raise hell. He ran and jumped Mexaggerated pictures of loneliness, separa­ would make them all raise their wine or around, pulling his hair, yelling over and over, tion, and death. Little Cecilia was curled up in orangeade, and with an emotion unaffected “ I want her to live! I want her to live!” Then bed, wrapped in her blankets, eyes closed, by routine he would exclaim, “ May next year Mother came and comforted him while staring pretending to be asleep, while her parents find us all around the tree, as warm and cozy at Cecilia with reproach. She had babied him talked softly by the balcony. “ What a silly sus­ as can be! ” That was all he desired. He wanted and nestled his head on her lap as the farm picion,” Mother said in her dominating tone. no progeny other than Freddy and Raphael. hand walked by with the dead hen and threw “ I don’t even look out the window any more, He could not even suspect the existence of an it into the field, tossing it over the wall; and for fear you’ll think ) care whether he’s still insidious disease in them. And Amanda no after all that, she had given him a candy bar. hanging around. If he’s standing watch, it’s longer had a place in the toast—that is, if she He bit into it while tears flowed down his face because he wants to, and I don’t know what had ever had one. and dripped from his jowls, shaken by his makes you think he’s Waiting for me. As if I Cecilia stared at her from the heights of energetic chewing; and Cecilia, enviously seat­ had put him there. You have a choice: you can her stool. In spite of the hollow and casual ed in front of him (she saw it all'so clearly close the shutters or request a transfer. We can greeting, she hadn’t seen her in months. And now!), cold and dried up, with a sort of join another regiment, in another town, until during those months old age and death had pained, hollow stupor, thought, Who chose you find someone else to suspect.” Her father ravaged her. She looks horrible, horrible with­ then hen, and who beat it? But Albert smiled was silent. She spied him walking toward the out compassion, with that flowing purple innocently, his fit completely forgotten, his shutters and opening and closing the blinds; gown and rouge too high on her cheecks (to face rinsed and clean, with the mask of rage whether it was to confront the possibility of hide or exasperate—you couldn’t tell which), wrung out and gone, while all this would leave damning them or to see if “ the someone” the emaciation of her face and the pendular her with a piercing and chilling memory, a would materialize out of the night was un­ semiblindness or the head that wandered to stupid sense of guilt over the ease with which clear. They hadn’t been able to leave the town, and fro with the mistrust of a detective she was drawn into other people’s madness. / nor had they walled up the opening. The fol­ through every nook and cranny of the living want her to live! I want her to live! lowing day the sun had brought its healing room. On a day like this, up in the north— “ Albert always was an ingrate, you can’t magic and life went on as before. As time her childhood and the north were synonymous expect more of him. You and Clarita were so passed, the father too had learned to rend fear in Cecilia’s imagination, with a who-knows- different.” and pity out of all of them. Another night they what mature and conjugal aversion for the As though the first maternal reference to argued in front of the children and he left the south—she was the heart of the fireworks, the her name had invoked her, Clarita appeared table, stating firmly, “ Now I know what I juggler of chestnuts, hazelnuts, and walnuts. behind the armchair, leaned over and kissed must do.” He locked himself in the study and She would dress up as Santa Claus and draw her mother. During the last year—since she a shot rang out. Amanda, Albert, and she ran presents out of a sack for everyone. Dad al­ had moved in with Cecilia and Victor—she and found him sitting behind his desk, the ways marveled at how she could do it without treated Amanda with contained and studied gun still smoking from the shot fired into the anyone knowing—although he slid helplessly courtesy. ceiling. He stared at them, a grimace of over this and other secrets of which she was She was fifteen and turning into a wo­ failure, resentment, and mediocrity on his capable—and above all, that she could buy man, but she still retained the indifferent and face; not a word, no explanation. Amanda such unexpected things in a town where no contemptuous egotism of adolescence, cou­ then took the gun and burst out laughing. one would have guessed they existed. “ They’re pled with a slow and captivating shyness. She ‘ ‘The cost of living goes up every day. It’s contraband, aren’t they?” he inquired, per­ had Michael’s clear eyes—they showed neither wise to be orderly and sensible, everything I plexed, and she smilingly magnified the enig­ fear nor surprise, nor the bitterness or joy with wasn’t. One should develop a sense of disci­ ma. The heart of the fireworks and birthday which the soul can sometimes imbue them. pline in everything, like . . . storing all the cakes, she thought with unintentional tender­ The thick and wild eyebrows over the green little Christmas tree lights, like you do, from ness. It was the beautiful age, free of judg­ stare gave her an air of rotund and swollen year to year.” ments. She had taken it for granted that life virginity, a heaviness underlined by the fleshy “ Not everything in the world is old,” pushed her along without resolving her lips and eyelids, a seriousness still unsparked Cecilia answered acrimoniously, and again she doubts, her incipient doubts, as Clarita now by sex. felt that the effort at communication had allowed her to do. The heart of the fireworks, “ By the way, just today,” Cecilia af­ failed. “ This string of lights, with the little and now this? firmed, “ I was saying to Clarita that we should tubes of colored water that bubble like tiny, “ What do you hear from your brother? talk to you about the problem of Father’s in­ trembling candles, is just from last year. And Does he write?” heritance; we discussed it some months ago; we paid over twenty dollars for it. ” “ As much as he writes you: zero-zero.” you were supposed to give an answer. You “ Of course, and at that price Victor is ab­ know Victor doesn’t make much, and raising solutely ...” the kids costs us more every day, what with school uniforms, the bus, and all the other things they need. Nor is it fair that Clarita lbert really is like her, Cecilia thought, a should have to rely on what her brother-in- A faker, inconsequential, usurper of the law can give her, when she could have what’s hat night I thought Daddy was delirious pity and generosity of others. The unforget­ rightfully hers.” T and the topic of the shutters was simply table hen, during that summer siesta, panted “ Yes, I agree,” Amanda lied. “ A few meant to provoke his weakness. A few days under the fig tree. Albert suddenly pointed at days ago I consulted a lawyer Jack recom­ later we were crossing the square with Mother her, hoisting a broom. “ It’s all her fault!” he mended, and he’s going to explore the best —it was carnival time—when a man walked screamed frantically. There was a contagious way to arrange things. Anyway, the settlement by. He was tall, wearing a white suit, and he Photograph by Eva Rubinstein told us that the trumpet player of the military I see Victor thinking, but I don’t care what he enough to be poured on the children in a kiss, band had just died on the street “ of sunstroke, thinks. I used to watch your father for hours on too displeasing to spend the night without it, or from blowing too hard.” Mother asked an­ end, smoking and walking around the feed and death, and the voyages flowing like rivers grily why he was telling her, and what she had lot, and I’m sure his only worry was the Sun- over the bed of that small and feverish misery, to do with his death. “ What?” the man said, day-morning cockfight. He was very short­ and time, time, time. Anything could be mis­ “ Aren’t you the Major’s wife?” They chatted sighted, that’s why he needed so little. And do leadingly marvelous or ridiculous, like the con­ some more, wrapped in the biting wind that you think this narrowness seemed edifying to fetti Cecilia was tossing around the tree so cut across the square (or that now cuts across me, like Victor’s patience? Both of them could Freddy and Raphael could see the mysterious my memory of the square, with the church have lived for years in the same corner: Victor snow, just as she now saw the dandruff on bells and the white-suited man) and between thinking about owning it someday; Michael Michael’s shoulders and the cigarette ashes on trivial phrases alluding to the dead man, the not thinking at all. At first it seemed to me a the front of his army jacket. Everything could regiment, and the band, they emphasized kind of dreaming. Later I tired of the be misleadingly guilty or unfortunate, every­ their mutual unfamiliarity, the good fortune dream.'. . . But, Lord, why do I always com­ thing could merit faith and sacrifice and also to find themselves talking, the chance and un­ pare them?” condemnation and indifference, like this scene expectedness of their conversation, and the in­ between her and her silent daughters, divided credible coincidence of life in a small town. by different philosophies or superstitions that Mother unconsciously^queezed my hand while were the two sides of the same coin, while that she spoke, and the sensation of the lies impersonal exclamation—it is forbidden—cov­ throbbed in my finger tips, a feeling of a larita had returned to her room and was ered the three of them, scolding them for their coded dialogue in which they were perhaps ex­ C playing a record full blast. Over the back­ common sin: the petrified heart. changing passwords while pretending to be on­ ground of a military march a rhythmic voice ‘ ‘There’s something I’ve always wanted to ly a fortuitous spark in the midst of an indif­ propounded fundamental wisdom. ask you: Did he gamble?” ferent eternity. “On ne peut en avoir tout dans le “ I didn’t come here to talk about your “ Victor, Victor, Victor! You’re always temps, ” it explained. father. I don’t know what it could matter to hinting at Victor’s greed! Why don’t you ever “On ne peut être à la fois qui on est et you now; you’ve already passed judgment. think about his good points?” quion était. Ilfaut savoir choisir. ” It’s better to leave things as they are. He was ‘ ‘I never said he was stingy. I think he has Had she known how to choose Michael; Mr. Good.” a sense of prudence we—at least I—never and Cecilia, Victor? Does anyone ever choose “ It ’ s a simple question : Did he gamble ? ’ ’ learned. He grew up poor, and that’s helped someone once and for all, with absolute cer­ “ The last years he gambled; he gambled him through life. It taught him to think about tainty? because he was tired, out of boredom, like tomorrow with a sense of insecurity. ’ ’ ‘ ‘On n ’a pas le droit d ’en avoir tout, ’ ’ in­ even the prosecutor and the teacher gamble in “ And that bothers you, though you make sisted the voice. “ C est défendu. Un bonheur, a small town. He was not a great gambler. He it sound like an honor. Because you don’t c’est tout le bonheur. Deux, c’est comme wasn’t a great anything.” really believe the poor are better than us; you s ’ils n 'existentpas. ’ ’ “ Did he leave gambling debts ? ” only see them reduced to virtue through lack Nobody has the right to get everything. “ Second question. O.K. I don’t know if of money and imagination. That’s what you She had had her children and time had scat­ he left debts. I don’t think so. At least no one deny Victor: imagination, ambition, that fa­ tered or alienated them. Their growing up and came to demand payment, nor did anyone mous sense of adventure you expect in every­ leaving had squandered her happiness, had ever tell me if he did. You know we moved to one, whether they have it or not; you’ve al­ pawed and humbled her. It wasn’t the tale of Montevideo about a month after he died. ’ ’ ways been a disciple of the spirit of adven­ the ill-fated happiness of two lovers, like the “ Third question, since you’re counting: ture.” story of a widow weeping at her lover’s grave, The gun you took away from him in the study, “ It’s quite possible,” Amanda agreed. but of the unraveled singular happiness, fleet­ did you ever see it again? Whatever became of “ And maybe there’s a feeling of remorse. ing and deceiving, full of fear and indecisions, that gun? What happened to it?” Your father had his limitations, but the love of less sublime than cowardly, less alive than “ Have the guts to ask me straight out: order wasn’t one of them, in spite of his career. clandestine, wrapped in smoke and lies, dirty Did he kill himself with it? Well, that’s very easy to answer: he didn’t kill himself with any­ she had no intention of ever living with her difference, and she opened the door before thing nor because of anyone, though your again. they could react. family had the gall to insinuate it. They Again the closed portal presented to her brought him home at dawn, drunk, from the “ Because I can’t offer you comfort? Be­ its sagging bow and mistletoe sprig, its wreath club, and at six in the morning he died of a cause I am sick and can only promise you my and little bell. Pulling on the pinned ends, she heart attack. Six a.m., April sixth. Now don’t slow death?” Mother insisted. undid the bow, thus blinding the peephole in ask why he drank. I guess he liked it. Or I “ Yes, that, and the other matter too,” case they should try to verify her retreat; and could repeat: boredom.” Cecilia said. “ Mother, you know I’d hate to the children, upon their return, would notice quarrel with Victor if he finds you here. Let’s the damage and ask about it. Perhaps Cecilia not discuss the past or rehash what we did or would be unable to control herself and would neglected to do. As soon as your lawyer has curse her in front of Freddy and Raphael; studied the matter, call us, and we’ll meet paradoxically, that would be a victory for her. bit of happiness is All Happiness, as a with him to discuss it. That would be the best As she walked down the steps, she felt the A handful of snow is all snow. And what if Christmas present you could give us. ” imminence of the other, the greater, the only the snow is fake, like the snow I’m scattering “ Some present you’re giving me!” one she desired; with a mad joy she felt that on the floor, with a deliberation even God Amanda commented. “ I get the idea. Well, something was beginning to fracture within doesn’t exercise over nature? A bit of happi­ good-by.” She left the package she had her head. □ ness is All Happiness, and the children sus­ brought on the armchair, lifting herself up and —Translated from the Spanish tain it without bearing it, as I couldn’t hear superfluously exaggerating her suffering. The by John Bruce-Novoa and hers when I was The Daughter, nor can I now unspoken challenge of her eyes met with in- Claudia Cairo fake mine for the boys, now that I’m The Mother. A bit of happiness is All Happiness. It is all a man’s genital happiness, as Victor discovered when I saw him the morning after our wedding night, adoring with that pride of possession the three drops of blood—lonely, \ lost, and well-centered in the sheet’s white­ ness—that I left for his peace of mind. It’s all a THE IRIARTES woman’s happiness, and moved by that same rhythm of pleasure I pushed out one then an­ other and now I’ve had it. And here she is front of me, old and crumbling, but invoking the privilege of her womb, as if its sole pur­ pose had been to conceive us. A bit of happi­ ness is All Happiness, an almond of light in a Mario Benedetti blind man’s dream, an impossible but always craved kiss on the feverish forehead of a dying man, a gun or a drink for the fears of a weak­ ling. here were five families that called the Boss. fellow whenever he’d refer to confidential “ Clarita!” she yelled, showing an incipi­ T During the morning shift I was always in matters about the office, became a tomb of ent nervous cringe. “ I must ask you to stop charge of the telephone and knew the five discretion and reserve concerning the five playing that record! It has nothing to do with voices by memory. We all figured out that families. In that area, our conversations with Christmas Eve. There is no parade, nor is it a each family was a dame and sometimes com­ him were discouragingly concise. We limited national holiday.” pared our suspicions. ourselves to answering calls, pressing a button The record stopped and she stepped down To me, for example, the Calvo family was to buzz his office and announcing, for ex­ from the stool. “ Mother,” she said looking a bit plump and aggressive, her lipstick always ample, “ The Salgados.” He’d simply say, “ Put right at her, “ on second thought, I think it painted wider than the lips; the Ruizes, a taste­ me through” or “ Tell them I’m not here” or would be better if you left. Victor wanted to less snob with a lock of hair over her eye; the “ Call back in an hour.” Never a comment, invite his mother and sister tonight, but I con­ Durans, a thin intellectual, the tired liberated not even a joke. And yet he knew we were all vinced him that when one gets married, the type; the Salgados, a thick-lipped broad, the buddies. family begins with oneself and ends with the kind who persuades one through sheer sex. I couldn’t explain why the Iriarte family, children. If he returned and saw you ...” But the only one with the voice of an ideal out of the five, was the one that called less “ I also had a husband and children,” woman was the Iriarte family. Neither fat nor frequently, about every two weeks. Of course Amanda said, “ and if I had sent my mother thin, with sufficient curves to bless the gift of on those occasions the red light indicating away on a day like today I would have died of touch that nature gave us; neither too stub­ “ busy” didn’t go off for at least a quarter of shame.” born nor too easygoing, a real woman, that is: a hour. It would have meant so much to me to “ You didn’t die of shame,” Cecilia re­ a personality. So I imagined her. I knew her listen for fifteen consecutive minutes to that plied devastatingly. “ And you must know it is frank and contagious smile and from there tender, graceful, confident little voice. a very difficult way to die. ’ ’ invented her gestures. I knew her silences and Once I got up the nerve to say something, “ Anyway, it is too depressing to discuss around them created her melancholy black I don’t remember what, and she answered whether I should go or stay, so I’ll go. Tell my eyes. I knew her friendly and protecting tone something, I don’t remember what. What a grandchildren whatever you want. Of course, and from there invented her tenderness. day that was! Since then I cherished the hope I’ll never forgive the two of you. ’ ’ There were discrepancies with respect to of speaking to her a little, and also that she “ Don’t forget, and we won’t let you for­ the other families. According to Elizalde, for would recognize my voice as I recognized hers. get the inheritance. But we’ll talk about it example, Salgado was on the short side and One morning it occurred to me to say, “ Could some other day.” not too choosy; for Rossi, Calvo was a prune you wait a moment while I try to reach him?” ’’Couldn’t you wait another couple of face; for Correa, Ruiz was just another old- and she answered, “ Of course, as long as you months, and by then, perhaps, it won’t mat­ timer. But with regard to the Iriartes we all make it a pleasure to wait. ” I admit I was a bit ter?” Amanda heard herself say, more force­ agreed she was marvelous; furthermore, every­ dopey that day, because I could only talk about fully than her situation warranted, again pos­ one had constructed almost the same image the weather, my work, and a projected sched­ tulating her min. “ Do you think we’re dealing from her voice. We were certain that if one day ule change. But I acted bravely on another with a fortune? It would barely do for Clarita she walked through the office door and simply occasion and we discussed general subjects, and me living together; apart, it amounts to smiled, without uttering a word, we would all which had special meanings however. From nothing. recognize her from memory by that unmistak­ then on she recognized my voice and greeted From the door of her room, Clarita spoke able smile everyone had created. me by saying, “ How’s it going, secretary?” for the first and last time that night to tell her The Boss, who was a relatively indiscreet which totally melted me. few months after that development I went A East for vacation. For years now, my vaca­ tions in the East had constituted my firmest hopes from a romantic point of view. I always thought while on one of those leaves I’d meet a girl who would personify my private dreams and to whom I could give my latent tender­ ness. Because I’m definitely a romantic. At times I reproach myself for that quality, I say that these days it’s better to be egotistical and calculating, but it’s no use. I go to the movies, swallow that Mexican corn about bastard sons and poor little old men, understand without a doubt that it’s idiotic, and nevertheless I can’t avoid that knot in my throat. Now about meeting women in the East, I’ve investigated the matter a lot and have found some other not so romantic motives. The truth is that at a beach resort one sees only clean girls, fresh, rested, ready to laugh and celebrate everything. Of course there are clean women in Montevideo; but the poor things are always so tired. The tight shoes, stairs, busses, leave them bitter and sweaty. In the city a person practically doesn’t know what a wom­ an’s happiness is like. And although it doesn’t seem so, it’s important. Personally, I consider myself capable of putting up with any kind of feminine pessimism, and would say that I know how to dominate every species of weep­ ing, screaming, or hysteria. But I know I’m more exacting when it comes to happiness. There are women’s laughs that, frankly, I can’t bear. That’s why in a resort, where they laugh from the time they get up for their first bath until they walk dizzily out of the casino, you know who’s who and which laugh is loathsome and which is wonderful. It was precisely there in the resort where I once again heard her voice. I danced between the tables of a terrace, in the light of a moon ' A Family, ’ ’ 1974 by Fernando Botero Collection Dr. and Mrs. Sidney Merians that didn’t matter to anybody. My right hand Photograph courtesy Marlborough Gallery, New York gripped a partially bare back that still hadn’t lost the afternoon’s warmth. The back’s owner her own sentence, construct a theory of chance, Boss. And that security, now reflected in her laughed and it was avgood laugh, I didn’t have and convince her to take a chance with me, to conversation, her unforgettable looks of com­ to discard her. Whenever I could I watched convince first, dance after, meet on the beach prehension and of promise, finally gave me some little almost transparent blond hairs in the next day. another hope. It was clear that she appreciated the vicinity of her ear, and really I was quite From then on we went together. She told my not talking to her about the Boss; and, moved. My companion spoke little, but always me her name was Doris. Doris Freire. It was although this other possibility wasn’t so clear, said something dull enough for me to appre­ the absolute truth (I don’t know why she it was probable that she rewarded my delicacy ciate her silences. showed me her I.D.) and, besides, very ex­ by breaking with him in no time. I always It was precisely during the pleasant course plainable: I had always thought the “ families” knew how to look into other people’s eyes, and of one of those pauses that I heard a sentence, were only telephone names. Since the first day Doris had a particularly sincere look. as clearly as if it had been underlined especially I put things into place. It was obvious that for me: “ And which soda do you prefer?’’ It’s she’d had relations with the Boss, it was no less of no importance, not now or then, but I re­ obvious that this hurt my pride; but (notice member it word for word. One of those slow, what a good but) she was the most charming dragged-out, Tango-provoking knots had woman I had ever known, and I would defin­ went back to work. Every other day I once formed. The sentence sounded very near, but itely risk losing her (now that chance had I again finished my morning duties by the at the time I couldn’t connect it to any of the placed her in my ear) if I inordinately abided telephone. The Iriartes didn’t call again. hips that had brushed against me. by my scruples. I met Doris almost every day at her office Two nights later, in the casino, I lost Besides, there was another possibility. I after work. She worked in the Department of ninety pesos and got the crazy notion to play had recognized her voice, why couldn’t she Justice, had a good salary, was the key func­ fifty pesos on the last turn. If I lost, tough recognize mine? Of course she had always been tionary in her office, and everyone appreciated luck; I’d have to return to Montevideo imme­ something precious to me, unattainable, and her. diately. But 32 came up and I felt so infinitely I, on the other hand, had only now entered her Doris hid nothing from me. Her present comforted and optimistic when I glanced over world. Nevertheless, when one morning I ran life was inordinately honest and transparent. the eight orange chips that I had dedicated to to meet her with a happy, “ How’s it going, But—and the past? Deep down it was enough it. Someone, almost like on a telephone, whis­ secretary?” even though she immediately for me to know that she was not deceiving me. pered in my ear, “ That’s the way to play. You assimilated the blow, laughed, gave me her Her adventure—or whatever it was with the have to take chances. ’ ’ arm, and joked with a brunette in a jeep that Boss—certainly wasn’t going to infect my I turned around calmly, certain of what I we crossed in front of, her uneasiness, as if she ration of happiness. The Iriartes didn’t phone was going to find, and the Iriarte family at my had cleared some suspicion, didn’t escape me. again. What else could I ask for? She preferred side was as ravishing as the family the others Later, in turn, it seemed to me that she ac­ me to the Boss and this would soon pass in and I had invented from her voice. Immediate­ cepted philosophically the possibility that I Doris’s life as a bad memory that all girls must ly it was relatively simple to take a thread from was the person in charge of her calls to the have. I had warned Doris not to call me at the approximated it, it was either too expensive or “ How’s it going, secretary?” and apparently office. I don’t know what pretext I found. didn’t have good transportation or Doris thought everything was the same. But during the sec­ Frankly, I didn’t want to risk having Elizalde or the neighborhood was too out of the way and onds of the call and while I only halfway an­ Rossi or Correa answer her call, and next concoct gloomy. swered, mechanically questioned, “ What have one of those ambiguous interpretations that I was on duty the morning of November you been doing all this time?” and the tele­ they were so fond of. The truth is that she, twenty-third. It had been four days since the phone replied, “ I took a trip to Chile,” truth­ always nice and never resentful, didn’t object. Boss had appeared; so I found myself alone fully nothing remained the same. Like the last I liked the fact that she was so understanding and peaceful, reading a magazine and smok­ few seconds before drowning, several ideas when it came to that forbidden subject, and ing my American cigarette. Suddenly I heard without order or balance paraded through my truthfully I was grateful for not having to enter a door opening in back of me. Lazily I turned head. The first of these, “ So the Boss had into sad explanations, with nasty words that around and saw, peeping through the door, nothing to do with her, ’ ’ represented a triumph contaminate, destroy all good intentions. Doris’s questioning, beloved little face. She of dignity. The second was, more or less, “ But She brought me to her house and I met entered with a certain guilty air because— then Doris ...” and the third, verbatim, her mother. She was a good and tired woman. according to her—she thought I’d get angry. ‘ ‘ How could I have confused this voice ? ’ ’ It had been twelve years since she’d lost her The motive for her presence in the office was husband and still she hadn’t remarried. She that she finally found an apartment with the I explained to the telephone that the Boss watched Doris and me with tame complacency, specifications and rent we were looking for. wasn’t in, said good-by, put the receiver back but at times her eyes filled with tears; perhaps She made a careful little plan and showed it in its place. Her hand was still in mine. Then she remembered some distant detail of her to me with satisfaction. She looked very pretty I raised my eyes, knowing what I was going to own engagement to Señor Freire. Three times in her light dress with the wide belt that showed find. Seated provocatively and vulgarly on my a week I stayed until eleven o’clock, but at ten off her waist better than any other. Since we desk, smoking like any ordinary slob, Doris o’clock she discreetly said good night and were alone she sat on top of my desk, crossed waited and smiled, still clinging to her ridicu­ retired for the evening, so that Doris and I had her legs, and began to ask me which was Rossi’s lous plan. It was, naturally, a hollow and an hour to kiss as much as we wanted, talk of desk and where Correa worked and which superficial smile, the same as everyone else’s, our future, figure out the price of bed sheets place was Elizalde’s. She didn’t know any of that threatened eternal boredom. Later, I’d try and rooms that we’d need, just like a hundred them personally, but was familiar with their to find the real explanation, but until then, in thousand other couples scattered throughout features and anecdotes through my satirical the most unsuspecting layer of my conscious­ the country who at the very same hour ex­ versions. She lit one of my cigarettes, and I was ness, I put a stop to this misunderstanding. changed similar projects and caresses. Her holding her hand between mine when the Because, actually, I’m in love with the Iriartes. mother never made any reference to the Boss telephone rang. I picked up the receiver and —Translatedfrom the Spanish by or anyone romantically involved with Doris. said, “ Hello.” Then the telephone said, Lynn Tricario with Suzanne Jill Levine She always treated me respectfully, in the manner every honorable home reserves for their child’s first boy friend. And I let her. At times I wasn’t able to avoid a certain sordid complacency in knowing I had suc­ ceeded in obtaining (for my use, for my de­ light) one of those unattainable women who are used only by cabinet ministers, public officials, and important functionaries. Me: a mere aide to a secretary. Doris, it’s precise to state, was more and JUNTA, THE BODYSNATCHER more charming each night. She didn’t curtail her tenderness with me; she had a way of car­ essing the nape of my neck, of kissing me on Juan Carlos Onetti the neck, of whispering in my ear while she kissed me, so that, frankly, I left there dizzy with happiness and, why not say it, with desire. Later, alone and unable to sleep in my bachelor’s quarters, I became a little bitter thinking that her refined skills proved that someone had carefully attended to her initia­ “ We’re almost there,” he had decided to tion. After all, was it an advantage or a dis­ say enthusiastically: he tapped Pretty Mary’s advantage? I couldn’t avoid remembering the reathing hard, greasy from the bumpy ride knee and smiled at the other two, Irene’s Boss, so stuffy, so respectable, so encased in B on the way to Enduro, Junta made his way round, childish face and Nelly’s high-arched his respectability, and failed to imagine him as down the aisle to join the group of three women yellow eyebrows, painted on every morning to that enviable instructor. Had there been others, a few miles before the train was to arrive in go along with the indifference, stupidity, and then? But how many? Which one in particular Santa Maria. He smiled bravely at their faces vacancy that her eyes were able to give. had taught her to kiss like that? I always ended swollen with boredom, red from the heat, “ I thought it’s time,” Pretty Mary an­ by reminding myself that we’re living in 1946 yawning and chatting. A slight breeze from swered. She puckered a kiss toward the window and not in the Middle Ages, and now I was the green countryside along the river grazed and initiated the opening of wallets, the dance important to her, and slept embracing the the dust-covered windows. of dusty mirrors, lipsticks. . . . “ I was right, pillow like a huge advance payment and a “ As soon as I tell them we’re almost there after all. Santa Maria must be a hole. ’ ’ weak substitute for other embraces that formed they’ll remember their business and begin “ You did say that,” Nelly agreed as she part of my plan. chatting and painting their faces, making made herself comfortable in her seat; she themselves uglier and older, trying to look like evened out her lipstick with her fingernail. young ladies by lowering their eyes and look­ Irene wearily and faithlessly powdered her ing down to study their hands. There are three nose. Her fat knees were spread wide apart, her of them and it didn’t take more than fifteen straw hat loaded down with ornaments was ntil the twenty-third of November I had days. Barthe’s getting more than he deserves, twisted and crushed against the back of her U the sensation of slipping hopelessly and him and the whole town, although they might seat. She drew a semicircle with the back of her gracefully toward marriage. It was a fact. We laugh when they see them and keep on laugh­ hand on the windowpane; she saw a rainbow only had to find an apartment that I liked, ing for days or weeks. They’re not fifteen years of dried grass, plowed soil, green and ocher, airy, with sunlight and large windows. We had old any more and they’re dressed to kill a goat. gray expanses warmed by the afternoon’s over­ gone out for several Sundays in search of that But they’re good-natured, happy people and cast sky. ideal, but when we found something that they know how to work. “ It doesn’t matter much to me. Of course it’s not the big city; but I like the country. that we’d continue walking toward the station. over the faded and quiet countryside, where “ You’ll get plenty of that here, for sure,’’ We were leaning against the sacks, still the trembling old couple grew smaller, a single Pretty Mary said sarcastically, joking and an­ smoking and not saying a word, when the ray of sunlight, thin and hard, came down late noyed. She had finished putting on her make­ smoke from the train appeared around the beyond the Experimental Institute, lighting up and sat up straight and calm, smoking curve. Looking at the smile that reappeared on the arrival of the women in Santa Maria, de­ rapidly, sure of her hidden capacity to control. Tito’s face, his open shirt, crossed legs, his clared a city a few months back. “ A woman,” Junta judged with firmness and cigarette wet with saliva, I saw myself, studied The porters carried the suitcases, the card­ pride. “ Don’t think about going shopping or my swaggering, and began to doubt the sincer­ board box, and a calico bag, they came close to even to parties! Stay in the house, work, and ity of my hate. As Tito stopped imitating me us, hurried and bent over, pretending to make know how to save money. and began to act like his father, I turned against an effort; one of them winked and showed us a “ That’s what we came here for,” Nelly him, almost allied with the closed city. tooth; turning to the right, the leather straps confirmed. “ The city is very nice, but we’re “ Lock, stock, and barrel,” Tito’s father of their sandals hitting the flagstones and the better off here.” had said the night before or at lunchtime, dirt; they went past the little green door and “ He’s looking at your mouth again, admirably and admiringly mimicking the tone put their things in Carlos’s Ford. Carlos sat Fatso,” Pretty Mary noticed. of Father Bergner, my relative, at the Saturday- behind the wheel and smoked, serious, with­ Irene shrugged and continued drawing night League meeting, with his hairy hand out answering their jokes, without helping crosses on the window with her finger. banging the flowered oilcloth on the table, them. Tito and I stopped smiling, we wiped “ I wasn’t looking, I swear,” Junta pro­ mothers amusing their children, the hardware off painful and rotting smiles that can mean tested. store man silently, prudently approving over any old thing instead of the unprejudiced sol­ He laughed with them a little, to keep his bowl of soup at the far end of the table. idarity that we had decidedly offered. them company, and watched the other passen­ “ We’ll close the city lock, stock, and gers on the train. There wasn’t one face he barrel,” the hardware store man recited. “ I knew. “ It’ll be different on the platform.” He want my home to stay closed lock, stock, and recognized the Experimental Institute building, barrel.” dark and isolated in the flat field; a faded flag And if it was only one word, I would be unta, the Bodysnatcher, walked a half step was hanging in the still air, an overloaded able to give the night or morning to Julita, step in front of the women, and in his right truck made its way up the hill toward the col­ when she asked me, as she always does, to Jhand a bunch of red flowers hung freely. He ony. He planned on lying to them about the leave her with a word that will last her all the looked at me and didn’t want to recognize me; plantations and harvests, quoting numbers next day, to go on spending it, like a candle, forceful, controlled, he made the forgiving and names of different types of wheat. And before the memory of my dead brother. “ Lock, gesture of one who returns to his native coun­ although he said nothing, although the things stock, and barrel,” I would say to her, making try with the authority of success, half-hiding he thought could only be seen in a white line myself feel comforted, free fromjulita and her that gesture with a happy and tolerant grin. of saliva that formed when he smiled, as he perverse misery. He led the parade of clicking heels along the stood up and helped the women move their “Jorge, look and don’t laugh,” Tito station, he guided the women with the trium­ suitcases he knew that the temptation of saying told me. phant security of his step, confidently swing­ absurd things came from that threat of weari­ I forgot I couldn’t laugh, we had sworn to ing his shoulders. But to me, and unnoticed by ness, from the fear of the day’s end that had act indifferent, we wouldn’t be polite even if the women, his bulging eyes and his mouth, come over him in the last few months, since one of the women showed us she needed it. his blue sagging cheeks, built unassumingly a that day he believed the time to get back at the Besides the three women and the man, loving and considerate mask, the clever insinu­ world had finally arrived, the time to take hold only an old couple got off the train; they talked ation that he, Larsen—or Junta, the Body- of beautiful dreams, and he had accepted the to the porter and then continued along the snatcher—didn’t have anything to do with the possibility that it had perhaps arrived too late. platform, he in his gaucho pants, bent over by fate and condition of the trio of women he was The station would be full of people, a the suitcase, shaking his free hand over the dragging along the gray pavement. In the group of men would look from the club door, yellowish head of the old, almost dwarfish dusky air of the afternoon, moving in front of another group woujd be leaning against the woman, and then took the road to the gate of the silken forms and colors of hats, ornaments, wall of the hotel plaza, waiting to see the car the Triumph Ranch on the other side of the jewels, naked faces and arms, Junta’s face, that would bring the three women to the small tracks. ready for struggle, betrayal, and business, was house on the coast; these three dull, ugly “Junta, the Bodysnatcher,” Tito an­ able to translate indifferently either the strength women, looking oldlfrom the trip, dressed in nounced. or weakness of his enterprise, of himself in the grotesque things they had eagerly bought The man, who had worked on my father’s relation to his enterprise. with money they got from the advance. daily newspaper before, placed the suitcases Junta walked slightly ahead of the three on the ground, took a round cardboard box women, in a line behind him, all moving to­ from the women, and jumped back to help gether; the maternal fat one, the stupid skinny II them off. Unnecessarily, barely touching the blond, the tallest in the middle walking right tips of their fingers while they tried not to get behind him. They all wore long dresses, tight tangled in their incredibly hooped petticoats. at the waist, stuffed and padded at the hips, he women arrived on the five-o’clock train Larsen—Junta, the Bodysnatcher—had a new hats decorated with fruits, flowers, and veils. T the first Monday of vacation; Tito and I, dark suit, a black hat slanted over his eyes; he They didn’t seem to come from the big city, two porters, and the telegraph operator were had always dressed in gray when he worked in but from much farther away, from years of the only ones on the platform. The air was hot the management office of the newspaper, E l vague memories. They turned, arm in arm, and humid, without sun, I felt the sacks of Liberal, humbled and reticent, too common, chatting with deliberate shrieking, a half step corn hard against my ribs and heard the silence too old to have what Julita would call a secret behind the man dressed in black who guided of the empty streets and deserted plaza behind grief. Anyway, always gray, always buttoned, them, leading them toward the green wood me. Rejection and the shitty wait filled the his tie tightly knotted and clipped with a pearl, barrier to where two porters were waiting and city, from the cliffs along the riverbanks to the even in the summer, sitting on the high stool where the hood of Carlos’s Ford was shaking. oat fields parallel to the railroad tracks, reached in the office, his curved nose over big account­ The tallest woman looked at me for a second as us and covered our slouched bodies. Ours was ing books and ink stains, political slogans they turned to leave the station; she smiled the tiresome challenge of keeping our heads scratched with penknives on the desk, his fist, and half-closed her eyes, her mouth hidden raised high and maintaining the smiles from his moth-eaten cuffs swallowing up his hands, behind the sheep’s profile of the skinny blonde. which Tito’s cigarette and my pipe hung. with or without a secret grief. “ How do they strike you ? ’ ’ “ Lock, stock, and barrel,” Tito had said He helped the last woman down and the We were still leaning against the sacks, near the balcony of the co-op; the guard, mo­ three of them stood numbly next to their and heard the panting of the train as it left the tionless and sweating in the intersection, things, brushing and smoothing their clothes, station, we watched the narrowing and dis­ watched us go down solitary streets, past closed they moved their necks prudently, looking appearing of the sun’s rays that had slantingly windows and doors smiling and looking us over the empty station with their insecure, touched the school fields. Without speaking over with the dirty wisdom of adults, certain always defensive, curious expressions. Looking we imagined the shaky little black car passing along the streets around the square, toward “ They’re women,” I said, shaking my Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade passed by Soria’s way, past the vineyards, down the well- head indifferently. (still) on the television screen. Aunt Bev’s left groomed colony road, always flanked by hos­ We went through the little green door eye began to twitch. Sol took off his glasses. tility and absence, past closed doors and dark and courageously crossed the deserted and My eyes went to the fruit bowl in Grandma’s windows. We pictured Carlos in the driver’s treeless square. I thought of Julita and com­ lap across from me. seat, pretending to pay attention to the road, pared her with the tall one’s look and smile. The fan blade sounded angry as Mr. indifferent to the cargo beside and behind him. “ I don’t like them,” Tito said. “ But Softee’s music came in from the street. My eyes Larsen, black, disguising his embarrassment, what drives me crazy is knowing that anyone were closing and I felt Grandpa carry me to his with his hat on his knees, the white cuff of his can go to the coast, pay, and choose. room. I thought he would show me his penis shirt almost touching the dried flower stems “ Why?” I said, to keep him talking. but he gave me pennies instead. Don’t tell that he clutched like a weapon. The women Grandma, he warned, and my finger touched with their uniform-like dresses, designed to his dry thin lips. When I woke my eyes were impress Santa Maria, descending through the At eleven I have to go out in the garden, on the fruit. stormy heat and obvious rejection, shaken and around the house, and up to Julita’s room. A Aunt Miriam came through the window humiliated by the broken car springs, rolling month ago I thought I understood something in her wheelchair. The door was shut to her. toward the isolated house on the riverbank when I kept saying, “ She’s my sister-in-law, Glass shattered. She landed atop the hassock near the canned-food factory and the shanty­ she was my dead brother’s wife, my brother at Grandma’s feet. Her hands moved quickly town, afraid and disheartened by the unani­ slept with her.” I’ll go see her and it’s possible over the wheels. She went around the circle. mous closure, smelling the big flowers pinned that I’ll make up something about the women She rammed into the bend of pointed knees. on their breasts, the heat coming up from their who arrived today, I’ll tell her I was the only Sparks flew from the carpet; heat cracked like unbelievable triangular low necks. But the one at the station, in the city. And nothing a whip across her chair. Still she went around. loneliness of the streets continued entering the will happen; maybe she’ll make me kiss my I was dizzy. Rolls of laughter. My eyes fell on Ford like clouds from a burning land, and brother’s picture and make me tell her how the fruit. ^ could deafen the denial that Santa Maria re­ much she loved him, she’ll compare his love I said I wanted cherries. Grandma thought peated asleep and empty in the middle of the with mine and she’ll correct me with persist­ she had one at the bottom of her bowl. Her day. ence and sweetness. □ purple-spotted fingers picked among the “ How do they strike you?’’ Tito asked — Translated from the Spanish by peaches, bananas, apples, tangerines. She again. Lynn Tricario with Suzanne fill Levine made a fist and dug her way to the wooden bottom—there were none. Grandpa went to the kitchen and brought me a pink-stained white paper bag. Here were the cherries. Tart, firm, sweet; they fell into my mouth. I didn’t know what to do with the pits. She was look­ FRUIT FOR THE FUNERAL ing. I swallowed them. A tree would grow in my stomach, she said, laughing. The joke was funny except I knew she’d cut it down. I started saving the pits. They bulged between cheek and gums. She asked for the pits. I took the metal ashtray from the coffee table and spit them out (slowly) one by one. Ping. Bing. Bing. Faster. She stared. Ping. Bing. Ding. Stop it now. I won’t have her eating that fruit. Mrs. Gross, someone else’s grandma, came through the door. I thought she would give Grandma one of those hard fat frank­ furters that scum with sudsy oil when boiled in a pot. It was a hard-boiled egg instead. Grandma knocked it against the fruit bowl; bits of shell fell between the moist pink cracks of her toes. She divided it in half. No yolk. She looked around the room. Sol took off his glasses. Bev’s eye twitched. Sparks flew from the carpet as she dug her toes in deep. I said I stole the yolk. I swallowed it whole like the cherry pits. I didn’t know who was dead here but secretly I hoped it was her. My eyes burned through the fruit. I want some fruit. I’ve got a whole bowl. Here, take. Take an apple. I’ll peel the skin off for you. I want tomatoes. Tomato isn’t fruit. bowl of fruit sat in Grandma’s lap and lit upon a chest hair, turning it brilliant and Is so. It has seeds. It’s fruit. A someone was dead. Uncle Sol kept taking wiry and hard. A blade kept knocking against Stupid girl. I say it isn’t fruit. his glasses off. He’d wipe them with a napkin the fan’s metal grating. The women wore I want tomatoes. I want fruit. from the coffee table. Then put them on. cotton nightgowns; I couldn’t see their hair. They were in the kitchen. On the window Then take them off again when they fogged. In the white fold between my mother’s legs, sill. Ripe, whole, shining with the sun. I gath­ He’d move (sadly) slowly from his seat to the a black-red spot began to blossom. I saw my ered some in my arms. I walked to Grandma’s coffee table across the room. I saw six napkins mother’s menstrual blood. My eyes went to bowl. I dropped them on top, some spilled disappear between thin fingers with blood- the fruit. over to the floor. I watched one roll off her lap stubby nails. Maybe there were more. My eyes A square dusty bottle of Manischewitz to the floor. I took one from the bowl. I took were on the fruit. concord grape. A cake box from Pato’s. The it to my mouth. I bit down. Hard. There was They wore boxer shorts and chests of coffee table laden for the feast. The women juice. My mouth filled with pulp, with juice. coarse black hair. The curtains were pulled took knives to the cake and Grandma passed I spat into Grandma’s bowl and had myself tight, but sometimes a ray darted through and around the white china plates with golden rims. some fruit. □ SUNDAY BLUES Joyce Carol Oates

U T A o n ’t let her eat that, for Christ’s sake. thirty. Drowsy, too warm, humid. A crowded could talk fine whenever the spirit moved her, JLJ She dropped it in the dirt.’ ’ Sunday in Crescent Park. Aldie lounged on the but today there was a kind of devilishness “ Mind your own business, will you? striped blanket, careful to keep off the grass; about her. He liked it, in a way. He under­ Come here, Lindy. Give me that.’ ’ he didn’t want his new suit grass-stained. The stood it. A certain reckless gaiety—silliness— “ Give your mother that—it fell in the sisters were bickering again. Why did they the risk of being slapped by her mother: she dirt!’’ fight all the time, when they really liked each pranced about like a little princess, knowing “ Look, will you mind your own business, other? They were worse than Aldie’s family, she was the center of attention. JoAnne? You get Lindy nervous. You talk too always picking at each other, finding fault, loud.’’ quick to flare up. Such pretty women, and “ That maniac father of yours, that un­ “I talk too loud! Jesus Christ! Sweet Jesus always scowling! White women. Blondes. believable sick bastard,” Susette said, blinking Christ!” JoAnne cried, appealing to Aldie; she Both of them platinum blondes. And Susette’s rapidly, “ it’s his fault—the whole goddamn even made a grab for his arm. “ She says I talk little girl, Lindy, whom Aldie adored, had a fault is his. Can’t even let the poor baby out of too loud, her with the biggest mouth in—’ ’ head of curly hair so pale it was almost white my sight, I worry so, and if it wasn’t for him “ Shut up, sweetheart,” Aldie said quiet- when the sun glared on it. Three of them, we could maybe have moved out of this god­ !y- three white females, picnicking with him in damn city— ” “ You tell her,” Susette chirped. “ She Crescent Park, the first Sunday in September. “ Yeah? Where you going, when you listens to you.” Hot as hell it was, even in the shade. And move?” Aldie asked. “ And you too, you better calm down the bitches did keep quarreling even after “ That’s my business,” Susette said. too,” Aldie said. “ Somebody’s gonna come they promised they’d shut up. But he was “ Oh, she’s just talking,” JoAnne sighed. over here and frisk us, thinking you and your happy to be here, had been looking forward She exhaled an enormous cloud of smoke. sister are high on something illicit. How come to the picnic—it wasn’t often he got to take “ The last fifteen years she’s been talking you’re all the time fighting, anyway? Spoils Lindy out, and it was time for a good deed in about moving away and look!—here she is. our picnic, don’t it, Lindy? Huh? They’re all regard to poor JoAnne—and he wasn’t going Even started a new job. Don’t you worry, the time fighting, aren’t they?—big girls like to let anyone spoil it. Aldie, sweetheart, your girl friend’s here to them, that should know better. ’ ’ “Jesus,” JoAnne said, “ isn’t this place stay.” “ Don’t talk baby talk to Lindy,” Susette crowded? I don’t remember it like this. I “ Where you got your eye on, sweet­ said sharply. “ I can’t stand it. I can’t stan d remember, you could come here—come here heart?” Aldie asked. Though his voice that shit.” at night, y’know, asnd nobody’d bother you. sounded smooth and light, he was genuinely “ You watch your mouth,” Aldie said. To I remember some fine times here and swim­ curious. He slid his arm around Susette’s waist Lindy he said, “ You better gimme that Milky ming on the other side, y’know, after hours, again and gave her a tentative squeeze, to Way, see, it’s all dirty on this side, might be I when there was nobody around and certainly show her he was serious, he really wanted to could wipe it off—or wash it off—’ ’ not all them damn snoopy cops around—our know. ‘ ‘What plans you got?” “ Take it to the fountain, Lindy, and wash last year of high school some of us in the senior “ No plans,” Susette said, grimacing. “ I it off yourself,” Susette said. “ You dropped class—do you remember, Susette?—I can was just kidding. I don’t know. Don’t do that it on purpose. You can’t eat it. Get it away home all messed up and my hair wet and you honey, hey—please—O.K.? It hurts, honey. from her, Aldie, for Christ’s sake!—you sit had to let me in the back door?—I was with You know it hurts. I ain’t been feeling so there grinning like a goddamn—’ ’ some crazy Polack—some of us came out here strong, y’know, since that thing in May, “ Yeah? What? A goddamn whatV’ Al­ and went swimming in the dark, took our y’know, and anyway there’s some sharp-eyed die said. clothes off on the beach, just so high and crazy sons of bitches been watching us for five “ —sit there letting her twist you around and having the best damn time. ...” minutes now—don’t look around, Aldie, her little finger—only four years old, the brat, Her voice trailed off. Susette tried to ex­ Jesus!—you damn dumb ox—parked out there and—” change a meaningful cruel glance with Aldie, by the the fountain, looks like four white guys, “ What were you going to call Aldie?” who snubbed her. JoAnne reached for her kids, see them? Yeah. They’re drinking beer JoAnne said. cigarettes, which were in a bright red case or something and just watching us. ” “ I can call him anything I goddamn with her initials on it. “ Well, you wouldn’t “ So what?” Aldie said. “ What the hell please, ” Susette said. dare do that now ,” JoAnne said. “You you trying to say?” “ Yeah, is that so? Sweetheart? Is it?” wouldn’t dare stay in this damn park after dark “ So keep your hands off me,” Susette Playfully he slid his aim around her bare now.” said. waist and gave her a hug; sfte cried out because “ Not blaming me, are you, sweetheart?” Keep my hands whaP. ’ ’ it hurt, and though he knew it must have Aldie said slyly. “ Off m e,” Susette said faintly. “ I hurt—he could feel the poor bitch’s ribs—he Susette giggled. Lindy had returned to mean—on account of—y’know ...” pretended surprise. “ Hey, sweetheart, only a the blanket, the Milky Way washed clean. She Aldie didn’t know if he was furious or joke, right? Only a joke.” showed it to Aldie for his approval, and when pleased. His heart beat mightily. Without Susette had begun to cry. It was the third he nodded she poked it against his mouth; giving the boys in the car a glance, he hugged or fourth time she had cried that day. when he actually took a bite of it—quite a siz­ his girl with both arms and kissed her a dozen “ Damn near broke my ribs, you bas­ able bite, just to be funny—she giggled shrilly times on the neck, two dozen times, making a tard.” and jumped up and down, as if she had never sound like a dog lapping water. Just fooling “ That’s ’cause he loves you so,” JoAnne seen anything so amusing. around, Aldie was, but serious too. That was said. “ He can’t help himself.” “ My God, Lindy, must you— ? You’re his style. “ Sweetheart,” Aldie said quietly. knocking everything over, ’ ’ JoAnne said. “ You sure are asking for something,” He was looking at JoAnne. With reluc­ “ Lindy, stop that,” Susette said. Aldie JoAnne said coolly. ‘ ‘Both of you. ’ ’ tance she turned to him, opening her fringed had noticed today, for the first time, that eyes wide, raising her eyebrows in an expres­ when Susette stopped frowning the frown lines sion of startled innocence. on her face no longer faded: the lines between “ Sweetheart,’’ Aldie said again. her eyes were especially noticeable. It hurt “ Yeah? What?” him, for a moment. Just to see it hurt him. ut it was a lazy drowsy afternoon and “ ‘Less you want your mouth caved in, “ It’s too bad the playground isn’t safe, she B nothing was going to happen. Aldie knew you better shut it. O.K. ?” could play on the swings by herself, maybe, or it and halfway regretted it. Sundays were Susette, who was blowing her nose, began in the sandbox,” Susette said. “ There just always odd days: you slept late, maybe till to giggle. isn’t enough for her to do. Is there, baby? noon, and then the day dragged and in the Huh? Not your fault,” she said, hugging evening you felt blue, because Monday was Lindy, who tried to squirm away. “ Poor baby. coming up so fast. MondayTuesdayWednesday None of it ’ s your fault, is it ? ” ThursdayFriday and part time on Saturday at eptember 5, the first Sunday of the month, Lindy looked at her mother, vexed, un­ Chrysler’s, with only Sunday clear, and yet the Slate in the afternoon: Aldie’s watch must comprehending, impatient. She was a per­ day never felt right. have stopped, he knew it was later than three- fectly sweet little girl, Aldie thought, and Why was that? Aldie didn’t know. “ How come Sunday’s such a sorry fuck of for another swallow and this time didn’t spit it He wanted to see more of Susette’s little girl, a day?’ ’ he asked. out. She was giggling, silly, happier than and the two or three times he’d met JoAnne, Both the sisters told him to watch his Aldie had seen ber in months. He really liked always in bars, he had liked her pretty much; mouth. Jo Anne made a hissing noise of sheer her: she was so cute. She was heartbreakingly had felt sorry for her, with all her bad luck. exhilarated disgust. cute. Susette had dressed her in a bright pink “ I’m just so goddamn scared, one of these “ Lindy can’t hear, she’s out of earshot,” bathing suit, tiny pants, and a tiny halter, days she’s gonna kill herself,” Susette had Aldie said, grabbing for JoAnne’s cigarettes. the material shiny, silky, stamped with little whispered, once, lying in his arms, “ and it “ Anyway, that ain’t the worst the kid’s ever cartoon whales, in white; she had been ain’t like, y’know, she didn’t kind of an­ heard in her lifetime. I bet she’s heard wearing sandals with sponge-rubber soles but nounce it to anybody’d listen.” So he had sug­ plenty.” must have kicked them off. Aldie didn’t know gested a picnic in Crescent Park, before Labor “ From her maniac bastard of a father for sure, but he thought Lindy might be small Day. He’d treat the three of them and he she’s heard plenty,” Susette said, dabbing at for her age. Too thin. All she liked to eat was wouldn’t give a damn who gaped at them. her eyes with the Kleenex. “ But nobody’s junk food, Susette complained, and she never In fact, of course, Aldie was quite gonna blame that on m e.'’ slept the night through—awake at five in the pleased with himself. He had been noting, all ‘ ‘ Mmmmmmmm, ’ ’ JoAnne said. morning, at four-thirty, at three. Skittish, day, the glances and stares of others—blacks “ I was seventeen when I married him,” shrill. Naughty. Her father—in Jackson Prison and whites both. They didn’t irritate him, Susette said, addressing Aldie, “ and I didn’t on a five-year sentence for “ checks” —had didn’t even appear to interest him. That was know shit. I did n 't. He said he was an official hired a pal of his to abduct Lindy, back last his style. He was not easily disturbed, except or something with the Teamsters, like a vice- spring, and though the son of a bitch hadn’t when he chose to be. Sometimes he chose to president or something, I don’t know, how the succeeded, had not even managed to get into be, sometimes he didn’t. And then he kept hell could / know? Then next thing I know the the apartment, Susette had been hysterical for his face so smooth and innocent, no one could bastard telephones me and—’ ’ days, and Lindy had caught it from her and guess what thoughts he had. “ We know all about it,” JoAnne said. now she couldn’t sleep for more than an hour People had stared. But nothing had hap­ “ Yeah, sweetheart, we know a ll about or two at a stretch, Susette said, always waking pened. For one thing, the park was quite it,” Aldie said, giving Susette another noisy and whimpering and calling for her mother. crowded. It was nowher^ near dark. There were kiss. “ O.K.? You should maybe try to enjoy Or, worse yet, running to her mother’s room other mixed couples—die’d seen at least two, the scenery, try to relax a little. O.K.? JoAnne, and barging in, screaming her head off. both of them black men with white girls—and honey, reach her another Stroh’s out of the Aldie offered her a sip of his beer and she in general people probably didn’t mind, ex­ cooler.” stooped over his hand, quivering with excite­ cept they always did a double take when they “ You’re gonna get us all arrested,” ment. She grasped his big black hand in hers; saw JoAnne with him too. And little Lindy. JoAnne giggled, “ drinking this stuff out in they laughed in delight, watching her. No public. There’s a law against it, isn’t doubt about it, she was a beautiful child. there? . . . Of course they don’t have time for Curly hair, pale blue eyes, soft skin, delicate such tiny crap. The cops don’t give a damn nose and lips—it made her seem all the cuter, whatever goes on. ” that she wasn’t very clean. Her chin was hough it was uncomfortably warm and Al­ “ They show up when you’re not an­ stained from the chocolate and there were Tdie knew very well it would be warm, having ticipating them,” Aldie said. “ They got a spots of something—probably catsup—on her heard the weather forecast, he had dressed habit of that kind of behavior. ’ ’ chest and thighs. Both her knees were dirty; in himself up with care. He wore his new suit— At that moment a squad car passed, fact, filthy. But she was wildly happy today. lemon-and-white checked with square gold cruising slowly. It was some distance away, She did a little dance on the blanket, buttons—and a silkish white shirt with an too far for trouble, and caught up anyway in throwing herself around, rolling her eyes, unusual collar, and white shoe-boots with the slow-moving Sunday traffic through the teasing her mother until Susette reached out three-inch heels. He looked good and knew it. park. The lanes were all one-way and curving, irritably to quiet her. Then she ducked away, From time to time Susette eyed him ap­ meant to look formal. The speed limit was sticking her tongue out. preciatively, but of course she wouldn’t com­ twenty miles an hour. Just watching the traffic, “ You little brat!” Susette said. pliment him—it was part of her teasing, spite­ in this drowsy heat, made Aldie feel sleepy and “ Ain’t she cute, though? She’s so god­ ful nature, never to exactly compliment any­ content, knowing that nothing would go damn cute,” JoAnne sighed. “I always one; always, she was a little sarcastic. But be wrong, nothing serious. He did not even mind said. . . . I told you. ...” She fell silent sensed her feelings. He sensed them quite the sisters bickering, really. It was their way and they did not look at her. One of JoAnne’s clearly. And JoAnne too: a certain heavy- of talking to each other. topics of conversation was her failure to have lidded look, a certain low, intimate slurring “ Gimme another beer, too.” Aldie said. a baby, during her brief marriage back in the of her words when she addressed him, as if “Jesus!—it’s a good thing we brought so sixties. She had wanted a baby very badly, she they were alone, and that habit of hers—which much along.” said. More than life itself, she said. Instead he’d noticed in the past—of tapping at his “ / paid for it,” Aldie said. “ None of she’d had a miscarriage and to hear her tell it, arm for emphasis. He looked good, very good. this we shit—I was the one." she’d almost died (though Susette said it Even after last night, all that drinking and "O .K ..O .K .,” JoAnne said. wasn’t anywhere near that serious; in her fooling around, and Susette sick as a dog on “ Paid for the lunchmeat, too,” Aldie opinion, JoAnne’s troubles were mainly men­ the bathroom floor, and Lindy whimpering in said. “ And all the other stuff. You told her tal—and if she had wanted a baby so badly, her sleep, and all the headachy mess about cer­ about that wrist watch yet, honey? Susette’s why had she had an abortion not long ago? tain debts he owed, and a deal he had had getting a new wrist watch, at Birk’s. One of Ask her about that!) “ There’s some pictures going for him that had fallen through—still, them modern kinds that you don’t wind, of me at that age, I look just like her. It’s Aldie looked good. He had unbuttoned his y’know, you don’t have to wind, it’s just some weird. I mean, it’s really weird, I look ju st like shirt halfway to his belt, on account of the kind of automatic thing—like when you wave my little niece. You’re very lucky, Susette,” heat, and his skin gleamed darkly, and he was your hand,” Aldie said, waving his arm limp­ she said flatly. conscious of a certain power in his face—cen­ ly, “ and the watch winds itself somehow. It’s “ O.K., O .K .,” Susette said. tered in his eyes, he believed—a fierce good- platinum gold and’s got some diamonds natured frank open no-fooling-with look, that around it. ’ ’ made most people who glanced at him look “ Well, well,” JoAnne said. quickly away, even blacks. He was very dark, “ It’s real nice,” Susette said faintly. She as dark as could be. It wasn’t possible for smiled. She leaned over suddenly, almost hey drank beer and finished the carton of human skin to be any darker, he often shyly, and kissed Aldie on the cheeck. Tpotato chips, though they weren’t hungry. thought. And his eyes were dark, almost black, “ Sounds real nice,” JoAnne said. Aldie didn’t know how he felt—happy or lit with a continual gleam as if from within, Lindy ran back and caused more com­ melancholy. There was something about Sun­ not needing reflected light. Handsome. Very motion and they gave her a sip of beer from day that depressed him and always had. On handsome. Large blunt nose, big nostrils, Susette’s can. She made a face and spat it out; the other hand, the picnic had turned out fair­ heavy eyebrows and a small moustache and a then, excited by their interest in her, she asked ly well. It had been his idea from the first. strong, tough jaw: savage-looking but cheerful Photograph by Eva Rubinstein

at the same time. That was his style. Always the shadowy, tight crevice between her breasts. caught him looking at her and grinned and had been, since the age of sixteen. Women It was a gift from her best friend back in high made a joke about his “ big eyes” —they re­ loved him, fussed over him, wanted to marry school, she had told Aldie, who loved her for minded her of a horse’s eyes, she claimed, big or mother him, couldn’t get enough of him— being so sentimental, though he wasn’t sure as a clenched fist, so hard-looking and glit­ even Susette, who pretended to be so cold in she told the truth. In any case she never took tering. public, couldn’t get enough of him—and they the locket off—never. Her white-blond hair Susette turned over on the blanket, an­ marveled over his generosity and high spirits was puffed high above her forehead, almost noyed; she pawed through the Sunday paper, even when things went sour, and his sense of like a helmet, and she had set her octagon­ which was in a mess, pretending to be looking humor, and his jokes, and how quickly he got shaped sunglasses carefully into the midst of it. for something to read. Aldie was touched by over being angry, even when there might have The frames of the glasses were white, the her jealousy, which came and went. He been a little slapping-around involved, which lenses dark orange. Aldie kept staring at her, caressed her bare shoulders, pressing his sometimes did occur. When he laughed he fascinated. She looked like a woman on a thumb into the flesh just beneath her shoulder laughed from deep in his chest, even from his fahsion magazine cover—so stylish, so self- bone; he felt her shiver. stomach. He liked to l^ugh and felt cheated assured!—though he thought maybe they “ Cut that out,’’ Susette muttered. when people dragged» him down, which was didn’t wear their hair like that any longer. On one of the problems with Susette lately; but Susette, though, it looked good. It suited her he tried to overlook her moods. thin face. Her eyebrows were a little too dark, She was so pretty—the had to forgive her penciled in, for her hair and her complexion, for being a selfish, whining bitch. She and there were slight rings beneath her eyes— couldn’t help herself, probably. She didn’t she hadn’t slept until after four, hadn’t been he afternoon was coming to an end. Aldie even know when she was being a bitch. able to get out of bed until twelve-thirty; but Topened another can of beer and tossed the “ Sometimes I just go crazy,” she told him she looked beautiful anyway. He really liked pull-top ring into the grass, feeling subdued, a helplessly, pressing against him. “ Don’t give her looks. little sad. They should probably be leaving the up on me, honey, O .K .?” He guessed she was “ What’s wrong?” she asked iritably. park soon. A few minutes more and then about twenty-seven, a few years younger than “ You think I’m drinking too much?’ ’ they’d leave. Pile the things in the back of the he; JoAnne, he knew, was thirty-four. Susette Aldie blinked in surprise. car, drive out to the island, maybe, and have had told him. “ She looks even older, doesn’t “ I was just thinking how nice you look,” supper at the Harbor Inn or the Anchor Inn, she? I hope to Christ I don’t lose my looks that he said almost humbly. unless maybe the crowd looked mean; Aldie fast,” Susette had said. But Aldie thought Susette made a snorting noise that might didn’t want trouble, with the little girl along. both sisters were good-looking. He especially have been laughter. JoAnne laughed too, He wouldn’t have minded, ordinarily. But he liked the way they styled their hair, and the though rather thinly. “ I told you you were didn’t want Lindy to be upset. Once the three general appearance of their clothes, which very, very lucky,” JoAnne murmured, poking of them had been going somewhere, getting were probably not too expensive but which her sister in the ribs, as if they were alone. out of the car, and someone in a passing car always looked good. They cared about their JoAnne’s hairdo was like Susette’s, but had yelled at them—a high-pitched, wailing looks, they put time into preparing themselves she didn’t wear sunglasses, and her coloring obscenity that had sounded almost forlorn. for the public, and he appreciated that. He was a littler darker. In a way she looked It had frightened him, for a moment. He really detested women who didn’t care, no healthier than Susette. Her shoulders were hadn’t understood. matter if they were white or black. broader, her body stockier, she had large ‘ ‘You don’t want to read any of that crap, Susette wore floppy white trousers, like breasts and good-sized legs, yet a surprisingly do you, sweetheart?” Aldie said, jerking part pajamas, and a pale-blue jersey halter top; her narrow waist, which she liked to show off— of the newspaper away from Susette. “ We bet­ midriff was bare, tanned and warm-looking as today she wore a tight-fitting, gaudily flow­ ter start on our way. That shit’s no good, it’s toast, and her toenails had been painted bright ered dress, slit up the sides, possibly a beach all made up.” pink, almost the same shade as her daughter’s dress, though Aldie thought it was attractive "Y o u read it, you got the front page,” swimming suit. On a thin silver chain around enough to be a regular dress; certainly JoAnne Susette said. her neck was a small locket, nearly hidden in could wear that outfit in the evening. She “ You said you didn’t want it, sweetheart. Didn’t she say that, Jo Anne?—didn’t want “ For Christ’s sake, Lindy, are you trying choked. His head ached violently. But it was it.” to drive me crazy?” Susette cried. She slapped nothing serious, he was on his feet, the car ‘‘She never reads the paper,” JoAnne Lindy. “ Damn little brat! Brat! Brat!” had only thrown him a few yards—he wasn’t said. Lindy wiggled free, screaming. She kicked hurt. His suit was ruined but he wasn’t hurt. Playfully, she pinched a bit of flesh at at her mother and turned and ran, darting “ You a bad, bad girl,” he whispered, picking Susette’s waist. Susette swung around without past Aldie. her up. looking and muttered something so swift and “ Get back here! Get back here!” Susette Traffic was still stopped. A policeman on coarse that both Aldie and JoAnne laughed. cried. a motorcycle drew up, the man’s white crash ‘‘I do too read the paper,” Susette said. Lindy hovered a short distance away, bab­ helmet and his dark goggles giving him an ‘ ‘I keep up with the news. It makes me sick, bling something in her high, frightened voice. alert, shocked, rather maniacal appearance; he makes me feel like puking, but I keep up.” Susette remained sitting on the blanket, put Aldie in mind of a stinging insect, with ‘‘We better be on our way,” Aldie said. twisted around, sobbing open-eyed. “ Aldie, that gleaming helmet and those dark, lifeless He stretched and yawned. bring her back here! Don’t just stand there, glaring eyes. JoAnne mimicked him, yawning. She Goddamn you!” “ Hey, what’s going on?” the policeman nodded toward Susette’s back and winked, but ‘ ‘What the hell’s wrong with you?” Aldie called. if there was some joke or understanding bet­ said. “ Going crazy like that, hitting your little Aldie ignored him. He was muttering to ween her and Aldie, he didn’t know what it girl—” Lindy, “ You such a bad, bad girl. . . . Why’d was. He let his face go blank. “ I said bring her back, I’ve got to fix her you run away from m e !" ‘‘Where’s Lindy?” Susette said suddenly, up!” The policeman called again. But Aldie looking up. “ Shouldn’t be hitting her—” kept going, conscious of everyone watching They had forgotten her. But Aldie ‘ ‘Don 'tyou tell me wbat to do!’ ’ him—traffic stopped, backed up, people at showed no alarm, only got to his feet care­ “ Susette, for Christ’s sake, people are picnic tables near theyoad, several black boys fully, not wanting to risk dizziness. He’d been looking at you,” JoAnne said. “ I told you not on bicycles hurtling past. Bleeding freely from drinking all afternoon. He sighted Lindy not to drink so much—you can’t hold it—” his nose, he carried Lindy under his arm, in far away, squatting in the dirt, playing with “Shut up! Goddamn you! Goddamn angry triumph, back to ljer mother. something. ‘‘Hey, you! Hey! Lindy, you! Get you all! I could kill you all! \ on over here,” he yelled. His voice showed no They tried to quiet her. She was throwing alarm and only his rapid heartbeat indicated her arms about wildly, limply. The sunglasses that there might have been something up­ slipped from her head and were dashed to the setting a moment before. ‘‘You heard me! ground and for some reason she grabbed them fterward he began to shiver. He shivered C ’mon!” and threw them a few yards away, sobbing all Aconvulsively. The littl girl ran back. Her legs were the while. Aldie heaved her to her feet, hoping They stopped at a drive-in restaurant so dirtier than before and there were damp, to calm her. The bitch was hysterical. People he wouldn’t have to go inside, with his blood- muddy stains on her pants. were looking. What the hell—! splattered, ripped clothing, but he had no ‘‘Have you been playing by the drinking “ Don’t you touch me!” Susette whis­ appetite. He was shivering convulsively. It had fountain—in all that mess?” Susette cried. pered. happened so fast, so fast. . . . Lindy running JoAnne stretched again, closing her eyes But she did quiet down. And then Aldie and the car’s brakes and the squealing and and bringing her arms back behind her happened to see Lindy running away—run­ his own surprised breath like a blow and then shoulders. The dress bunched up tightly about ning toward the road .Jesus God, too much is the pavement, the star-shaped blood spots, her breasts. Just can’t think about tomorrow, going on, he thought in a sudden panic. He people shouting, his own voice shouting in his tomorrow morning,” she murmured. She half-pushed Susette away and ran after the skull . . . and then the apparition, the little opened her eyes to see Aldie looking at her, little girl. Already she was stepping off the girl in the pink bathing suit, safe, so small, standing above the blanket, all six feet two curb—already a car’s brakes sounded—Too thin-bodied, standing there in the fountain inches of him; he was brushing off his suit with much, too much is happening, Aldie thought, and looking back at him, in terror. So fast, care. ‘ ‘On my feet all day long, and those sons running, nearly blinded. Behind him the sis­ so fast. . . . of bitches asking me stupid questions. ...” ters were screaming and ahead the car’s brakes She was all right, though. Only fright­ JoAnne was a salesclerk in a drugstore in the sounded, and another car’s brakes, and ened. He was all right too, except for his head­ Hilton Hotel arcade; the job seemed an en­ Lindy’s small thin wail rose, and without ache and the ugly, stuffy feeling in his nose viable one, but she hated it. Evidently men knowing what he did Aldie lunged after her— and sinuses and at the back of his throat, who stayed at the hotel bothered her, asking at first it seemed he would never get to her, he where he’d swallowed a lot of blood. her to pick out gifts for their wives or kits of was too far away, and then he was close upon Nothing had happened, really. But it had shaving cream and lotion for themselves, her, pitching forward into the roadway. He happened so quickly. asking her to dinner or for drinks, or up to cried out for her. “ Lindy! Lindy!” he was “ Oh, you aren’t hungry, you aren’t their rooms: that sort of thing. She claimed to crying. On his hands and knees on the pave­ eating anything!” Susette wailed, leaning hate them. She wished them all dead. ‘‘Sun­ ment, dripping blood, still he was crying her against him. “ You’re just picking at that days make me so goddamn sad. ...” name and could not imagine what had hap­ hamburger!” pened. It had all taken place so fast. “ Leave him alone, for Christ’s sake,” A car’s horn sounded. He looked up, JoAnne said from the back seat. holding his face in both hands. On the way to JoAnne’s apartment Lindy “ Lindy— ?” fell asleep and the sisters bickered about usette was trying to clean off Lindy, who She had not been hurt: she had scrambled something—Aldie found it difficult to concen­ Ssquirmed in her clutches and began to to the other side, over the foot-high stone wall trate on what they were saying—and gradually whimper as if she were being hurt. ‘ ‘Hold of a fountain. he got over his shivering, though his head still, for God’s sake,” Susette said. ‘‘Your face Aldie got shakily to his feet. Someone was still ached and he felt filthy from the blood. is filthy.” talking to him, talking earnestly to him; he They went into JoAnne’s for a drink, so he ” ... Don’t they make you sad, Aldie?” believed he had been hit by a car, struck by the washed up a little. It did him good to splash JoAnne asked. She stood unsteadily. Her legs front bumper, knocked a few yards. No more. cold water on his face. In the mirror his big, actually seemed to wobble. “Just something Nothing serious. He was bleeding from his battered face hovered, near-black, dark as a about them. . . . Always has been. ...” nose but it was nothing serious and he was on bruise. His eyes were watery. He seemed to be When she put out her hand, to support his feet again, heading for Lindy. pleading, staring at himself as if at a stranger, herself against Aldie’s arm, Susette glanced “ Why the hell you doing this? Why you astonished, mute. around and a flame seemed to pass over her running away from m e?” he cried in despair. When he returned to the living room, face, glowing violently in her eyes. Of course He seized her arm. She did not resist. “ Try­ JoAnne was stretched out on the sofa, shoes it was Aldie’s imagination: he was a little ing to get yourself killed— Damn little—’ ’ off, complaining again about Sunday, Sunday drunk. It had to be his imagination. Neverthe­ He was bleeding onto his shirt front and evening especially. “ I just feel so goddamn less he guffawed, seeing Susette so jealous. onto the jacket of his suit. He sputtered, melancholy, ’ ’ she said. □ THE TUMPKINS SQUARE PARK TATES Frederic Tuten 1 cats and dogs and fleas and amoebas and ele­ Tony Le Febre, out of Third Street and Ave­ phants and tigers and doves and lizzards and nue D, was looking for you. Is there hope, Sir, lots of others, humming and prancing and jok­ that you will return or even come back again. n December we ate the police dog and the ing each other, or letting each other be, each Sir, or even make believe that you are going to Irheumy gray cat: they roasted well but were minding his own business and doing no harm come back and returns? Oh, Sir, it was a thin pickings. Then the door was always to man or self. Just one of those mellow days, dreadful wait with Charlie and the Mole and knocked and we hid under the bed looking at waiting for him but not waiting too hard or too Brucie the Bat and Rachael the Robot and the cruel patterns of the springs on the mat­ mindfully. Henry the Halavah and all the other boys and tress. At night the butcher flew over our roof, Moll rolled over on her belly and showed girls and boy-girls and girl-boys! Oh, Sir, put then swooped and hovered by the window, her naked, pretty golden ass, the grass tickling hands on us, give us some bread and passion, looking in with veiny butcher’s eyes, hunks of her other side so that she wiggled and twisted some stuff to carry us through the day and the red beef and lamb loins strapped to his back. ’bout, inching round me and the Captain till night, through the good times and the bad, We always had to pull down the blinds. I could see he had a stand-on, and I had one dear Sir. The Captain came home in the spring. I too, no use saying the contrary. Moll’s ass on washed piles of yellowed underwear he had the green was something to see, after all. Captain Green and Moll took us dancing stowed in his duffel this voyage out. I soaked A big bolt from the blue! at the Droll House and the Cellar Shake and them in peroxide, but they turned green and “ Is this the upshot of your experiment? the other establishments for the hoof and sprouted worms and garden snakes with soft, . . . Is this the fruit of all you have learned?” hoofers. Pissy Sal and Wino Jim introduced us buttery red mouths. That luminous voice blasted at us till we was all round, and we got a few free ones off the Hungry we were, hungry. We tried to peeing in the grass, getting our feet wet, so barman because he knew we hung out with snare park pigeons, but neighbors stooled to that the next day we took sick with shiver chills Captain Green and Moll, no small cause. the police and our apartment was surveilled and cold soles. Oh, what a time! What a You have cautioned us but we said too for months. A merciful cop gave us some cho­ time! much, we have said more than more, but colate bars from time to time—he drew them hadn’t we spoken who would have spoken for from his pistol holder, carefully, as if they 3 us, who would have said all the complainings were melting in the pouch. I fell in love with that we are feeling, Sir? You don’t care a him and he took me to the police station, fig—we are getting to think that every day now where I informed on George and the Captain. since that time we was waiting on the ferry They deported George and flogged the Cap­ aptain Green came home full of wet, dead slip, waiting and freezing: Do you recollect tain through the fleet; he came home a red­ Cleaves, Moll and myself trollied to the your good word? Does it count for anything, raw bony mess like they had raked his back, Battery and got off by the fish stalls and had a Sir? but he said everything was all right and slept mess of porgies—raw, with the heads and eyes So we all went home afterward and sat by the open fridge on warm nights. still hanging on. You aren’t there when you in the huddle of the room with Captain Green Things got better by and by. We ate well say you was to be there: Did you think this is and Pissy Moll and Jack the Beanboy playing for a while. But I grew bored and tried to hang going to last forever, us waiting and you else­ with each other until the floor got sticky and myself with a stocking. It was love for the po­ where where no one knows even though we whitey-goo, the butcher with a rack of lamb liceman what saved me at last. send up flares and hoarse entreaties? “ Come strapped to his back flew by close to the win­ on home, come on home, come back to where dow peeping in we thought to see if we were you belong. . . .” Isn’t that ’nough crying home to pay last month’s feed bill, so we drew 2 and begging and waiting for you? Let us tell the blinds and made the room blind and we you that the Battery was cold and wet, that we shut us up and made the room dumb and the was alone and damp there at that city tip. outside of it deaf. Was there ever such a time here down by the river we waited a long Moll and me and the crippled newsie, for waiting? Ttime for you, Sir: “ And what is the upshot of this experiment?” you asked that day in the garden. Oh, that terrible voice of yours! We can remember it still and always, that voice calling to us down in the garden: “ Is this the upshot of your experiment?” you said; and what had we to say to that, Sir? We there among all the plants and shrubs all verduous and thick and green. We were in that garden, we were there, and you too, the first time in a long time, and just before you came we asked, “ Is he ever coming again, so that we can show him the pears and things we sprouted a sea­ son ago?” Moll said, “ ‘Course he’ll come, sure as rain, as certain as the sun he’ll be here again.” And me and the Captain danced a jig for joy, one two three, one two three, step and turn again; “ Moll,” we asked, when he comes will he bring the . . . ?” “ Sh, Sh!” Moll hushed us, “ you better be still about that now. He’ll come when he’s ready, there’s no rushing matters.” So we leaned back and loafed looking up at the sky and the big clouds passing by, we lazed away the time, me and the Captain smoking cheroots and blowing ringlets right up to the leafy branches hanging down heavy above with our pears and apples and mulberries and quinces. The sky, etc., and the clouds etc. too. And a lot of healthy sunshine warming us up: the catfish and cod and whales and muskrats and possums and polar bears and bees and hawks and sparrows and quail and ducks and f

4 meant to eat her, but he only licked at her ear happier now. These tales having rescued me and cheek and stalked away, his paw prints from another long, sliding sadness. This park, hen the ice curled round us and Crazy Moll glistening. these green spring trees up against my win­ Tand Pissy Sal said it was all over and good- I craved sleep but was afraid to drowse off dow. I can see the start of the end of the world by and been nice knowing ya, enjoyed the till Moll woke, so I stayed up frightened and and feel the better for it, knowing that it will pleasure of your company. Sir, are you going thinking that this was the final end and that take you too, you and your faithless soul. I will to let us go out this way, frozen life stiffs, cold there would be no more waiting for him or go now, take me to the park below to sit there bodies on cold days, deep-freeze flesh, a host anyone or anything. on some fading green bench until nightfall. of cold hearts and icy blood? Shame, Sir, for I’ve had bad times, my darling, but I’m Loons and city crickets. □ we who have waited so long here by the river and the quay and the banks and the shores; waiting, Sir, for you who told us, “ Stick round and get what’s coming, it won’t be long now.’’ And Sir, our lives is waiting all day’n nighttimes too, and we been swelling out mes­ sages to you but ain’t been getting reply. And that gray dog came round, hanging THE WOMAN AND round the door all afternoon and early sorrow dawn, just out there, his candy tongue lapping round the lock and door latch, a fearful thing THE CHILD you sent us, and Moll asking, “ What are you doing there, dog?’’ “ What you want there, \ dog?” “ What are smelling round here for?” Oh, Sir, it was cold and we waited, ask anybody, they’ll tell you; we waited but you don’t show; and it rained all ’long the Battery and the island tip, the ferry sometimes spum­ Ingrid Bengis ing itself smack ’gainst the piles and pierhead, ’gainst this very land, dear Sir. And did we complain? Did we say, let us go home? Did we crybaby and moan around for help and aid? he woman chopped wood in front of the “ Yes,” the woman said. “ At least I Ask anyone how we froze and waited all day, house; the child carried it in. The woman think so.” chilled, Sir, chilled our lives, iced to the mar­ T kept a fur coat in the closet; the child asked to The child took off her clothes, except for row with waiting. sleep with it. She stood in the woman’s door­ her underpants, the hat, and the glasses, and If there were any roses left we didn’t know way at night for a month without saying a stretched across the woman’s bed. The woman about them, asking along the quay and river word, afraid to wake her, but more frightened noticed that her breasts were beginning to fronts. . . . Hey there, you! Any roses, any still of her nightmares. Abandoned twice, stay­ form, and that the line of her body while she ROSES? Sir, you knew all along we were on a ing with families as long as they wanted or was lying on her side had a deepening curve. wild hunt, them always out of season where could afford to keep her, living finally on “ What is a lesbian?” the child said. you send us to look. Did Captain Green show Kool-Whip in an abandoned house, the child “ I’m not sure,” the woman said. “ When us? Did Pissy Moll? All day and all night we was heaved into the adult world of survival I was ten, I thought I knew. The best I can did and was keeping an ear out and nose sniff like an empty coffee can. come up with now is that it’s a woman who and eye squint and finger feel for them, but a Everyone on the island asked why the wo­ loves another woman the way a woman some­ lot you cared, like that time you kept us man from away had taken her in. Sometimes times loves a man. ’’ waiting at the ferry slip, the cold day when we even the child asked, not with words, but with “ Oh,” said the child. “ You’re not a les­ ate fish heads, eyes and all. Oh, Sir, ain’t you her face. For a long time she did not ask any­ bian, are you?” got any feelings for us, we who look up to you thing with words. Though one day, after she “ I don’t think so,” said the woman. waiting for the good word? Oh, Sir! had been living with the woman for two “ I am ,” said the child. “ When Nicole Then the windows went black and we months, the child said, “ Is the reason you and I play doctor with our clothes off, I’m closed the door shut tight up against the out­ won’t get married because you don’t want to always the man.” side, wanting it to keep us away from harm, get divorced?” The woman said no, that she “ That’s normal,” the woman said. “ All from the bad times ahead; us on the center didn’t want to get divorced, of course, but children do that.” of the middle of the floor in longing conclave “ if someone loved me and I loved them, yes, I “ You mean I’m not a lesbian?” the child sat. would get married. ’ ’ said. “ Oh, good,” the child said. “ Then I ‘ ‘Not as far as I know,’’ the woman said. would have a real family, with a father and “ Rita and Mrs. Graves are lezzies,” the brothers and sisters. I’ve never lived with just child said. “ When I loved there, one morning 5 one person before.” I saw them lying on the floor on top of each The woman nodded. She was thinking other. Rita had on a see-through nightie. And that the child was getting ready to stay. Mrs. Graves was wearing man’s pajamas. Mr. he clouds dissolved and the sky slid open The child put on a Garbo hat and blue- Graves was out fishing. Mrs. Graves screamed T everywhere; above and below us and to all tinted aviator glasses that belonged to a fifty- at me when she saw me. And she wouldn’t let about us the sky grew brighter and brighter, year-old crazy lady who always walked down me have any breakfast. I’m never going back the light of light-years of suns bright, and then the road talking out loud to herself. The fifty- there. Never. Will you stay in my room until the planets softened, got soggy and melted year-old crazy lady was the child’s best friend. I fall asleep? And leave the light in the hall then sparked afire and then the sky burned “ People make fun of her,” the child said. on?” and the stars grew red then white then bluish “ But I don’t care what they say. I like her. “ Yes,” the woman said. white then . . . evaporated, soon the whole When she was little, her father made her . . . “ And if I have nightmares, can I come in­ thing was gas, gas the universe. We were you know, the / word . . . and that made her to your bed?” breath-taken. Molly curled herself and sighed crazy. It wasn’t her fault. So why make fun of “ Wake me up,” the woman said. “ I’ll away to sleep. Captain Green merely.shook her?” come and sit with you until you fall asleep. ’ ’ his head like an ancient sailor remembering an “ I don’t know,” the woman said. “ Peo­ “ Gee,” the child said. “ You’re so nice old blue teacup. A honey-colored lion came ple don’t always understand.” and understandable. I can talk to you about down to drink at the crystal pool in the garden. “ Oh,” the child said. “ But I do. And anything. But promise me from now on that He sniffed at sleeping Moll and I thought he you do.” you won ’thug me in front of people. ” □ THE INTRUDER Stephen Dixon

go into our apartment. She’s being raped. there,” he says to me, “ or Della gets killed.” “ Do it, Tony,” she says. I lie down paral­ I They’re both naked. He’s on top of her but They go in the bathroom. “ Let’s take a show­ lel to the right side of the bed. not inside. He holds a knife to her neck. I say, er,” he says to her. “ I like them with girls. “ You get on your back this time,” he “ All right, get off.” She says, “ Tony—don’t.” Turn on the water.” She turns the water on. says to her. She does. He gets on top of her. He says, “Just stay where you are, buddy, and “ Make it lukewarm.” She turns the spigot and “ And you keep your arms under your head your girlie won’t get hurt.’’ says, “ It’s lukewarm.” He sticks his hand and your eyes on the floor and don’t move “ I said to get off.” under the water. “ A litter warmer.” “ That’s from there,” he says to me. I look at the floor. “ Tony, don’t do anything. He’ll kill me. lukewarm,” she says. “ Warmer!” She turns “ Now make me big again,” he says. I don’t He means it. ” the hot spigot. “ It’s warmer now,” she says. see anything. I hear him getting excited. “ You want your girlfriend killed?” He feels the water. “ Good. Now let’s get in.” “ That’s nice. You really do a job,” he says. I “ N o.” They get in under the shower head. “ Wash hear the bed springs. I hear them both malung “ What’s your name?” he says to her. me,” he says. “ And you stand by the door,” noises. Pants and groans. He screams. She “ Della.” he says to me. I stand by the door. She washes doesn’t. “ Move it some more,” he yells. I hear “ Della doesn’t want to be killed,” he him. “ Now get behind me and scrub that the bed springs rattling louder. Then they says. back.” She scrubs his back. “ No washrag?” he stop. He says, “ That was good. First class. ‘ ‘Just get off and dressed and out of here says. “ Do we have one, Tony?” she says. “ No You’re really good. You’re really a piece I wish and we won’t make any complaints against clean ones,” I say. “ Your hands will do, I had always. I wish you was my girl for a long, you.” then,” he says to her. “ Now wash my hair, long time. I’d do it to you all the time, baby. “ First I get my satisfaction and then I but no soap in the eyes.” She washes his hair. I mean all. You’d never have complaints.” think about going.” “You got shampoo?” “ Yes,” she says. “ Not She doesn’t answer. “ You all right, “ Then I’ 11 have to kill you,” I say. in the eyes, though.” She sudses his hair with Della?” I say. “ Tony, don’t try anything. Let him do it shampoo. He rinses himself off. “ Wash my “ I’m O.K. I’m getting sick of this, to me. It ’ll be all right. ’ ’ thing.” She does. “ Now yours.” She washes though.” “The lady’s got a good head,” he says. herself down there. He gets out. “ Now turn “ You want me to jump him?” “ I’m going in. You just stay where you are. ” the cold water on all the way and the hot all “ Hey, where’d you put that club?” he “ Stay there, Tony.” the way off.” “ I don’t like it cold,” she says. says. “ Look up.” I look up. “ I’m so stupid. I “ Get off,” I yell. “ All the way. ’ ’ She turns the hot water off and forgot about your club. Where is it?” Open up, ” he says to her. the cold water on. She’s shivering. He’s loving ‘‘I left it in the bathroom. ’ ’ She opens up. it. She says, “ It’s too cold. I can’t take any ‘‘Tell him the truth,’’ she says. “ Don’t do that,” I yell at him. more.” “ Under m e.” He sticks the point of the knife to the side ‘ ‘Jump out of the shower, ” I say. “ Throw it out,” he says. He has the knife of her neck. She says, “ Ouch, that hurts.” I “ Do and she’s dead. Now turn it on all on her throat. say, “ Leave her alone. What did she do to the way hot after you turn all the cold off. ’ ’ “ I can also use a lamp. One of the other to you?” He says, “ Then just stay there and “ I can’t.” She turns the cold water off. table legs. My hands. ’ ’ don’t leave the room or I’ll cut her throat and “ I’ll scald myself.” “ Throw it out.” then go after you.” “ I said hot.” I throw it under the bed. “ I don ’ t care about myself. ’ ’ “ No. Cold’s enough.” She’s still shiver­ “ Be a hero, big boy, but the lady dies if ing. you step a foot nearer. ’’ “ If you make her turn it on hot I’ll jump “ Please stay there,’ ’ she says to me. and kill you,’ ’ I say. i i \ T ow you get up and come here and “ I can’t stay here and watch. ’ ’ ‘ ‘Remember, I still have a knife.’’ I N make me big and strong again,” he ‘ ‘ Then turn around. ’ ’ ‘ ‘And I got a table leg. ” I knock the lamp says. “ Better you turn over,” he says to her. off the end table next to me, take the table in “ No thanks,” I say “ My neck’s beginning to hurt from trying to the air, aird smash it against the wall. It breaks. “ I was kidding again. You think I’d want keep an eye on him while I make it with you.” A support piece is still attached to one of the a man touching me there? You’re crazy. But if He gets up. V legs. The other three legs are still attached to I said your girlfriend dies if you don’t, you’d “ What do you want me to do?” she says. the table top. I snap off the support piece and do it.” “ Get on top of me.” He gets on his back. now have my table leg. “ I can split your head “ I wouldn’t.” She gets on top of him. ! in very nicely with this, very nice. ” “ Your girlfriend dies if you don’t.” “ And now?” she says. “ Don’t, Tony,” she says. ‘ ‘Do it, Tony,” she says. “ Don’t do anything,” I say. ‘ ‘Only if he forces you to stand under the “ You see, she wants you to.” I stand up. “Just be quiet, Tony. It’ll be quick.” hot in there.” I grab him. It’s like my own. I know what to “ It’ll be great,” he says to me. “ And “ I won’t mind. I mean, I’ll mind, but I’ll do. He stays soft. now I can have my fun and watch him both. at least be alive.” ‘ ‘Put it in your mouth, ’’ he says. Now put it in,” he says to her. ‘ ‘You don’t know if he’ll let you live after “ Nothing doing.” She tries. “ It hurts,” she says. that.” He puts the point of the knife to her “ Bullshit.” “ I’ll take my chances with him. Don’t do Adam’s apple. “ But there’s pain,” she says. I turn anything. Let him do what he wants. ’ ’ “ Do it,” he says to me. “ Soon it’ll be around. “ N o,” he says. “ No hot water. I was only over.” “ Don’t you go anywhere,” he says. I go kidding. She’ll be of no use to me later on I do it. I close my eyes. He gets hard. in the next room. with burns. Get out of there.” She steps out “ This isn’t bad,” he says. “ Never did it be­ “ Tony,” she says. “ Come back or he’ll of the shower. “ Dry m e.” She does. “ Espe­ fore with a guy, but not bad. Now you run it kill m e.” I go back. I watch. They make love. cially my thing.” She does. “ Dry yourself.” up and down with your hand while he’s doing He says, “ Bounce.” She bounces. “ Go slow­ She does. “ Now back in the bed. And you it to me. ’’ She does that. I feel her hand brush er,” he says. She does. I put my hands over my step a few steps aside,” he tells me. I do. They against my lips every now and then. As if she’s eyes. I hear noise from both of them. Panting. go back to bed. comforting me with her touch. Brushing up Then him screaming. She screams too. I think against my lips and under my nose and against she’s hurt. I look. He’s clutching her hard to my nose. I know her touch. I concentrate on his chest, squeezed all the air out of her. She’s that. “ Hey, this is even great,” hesays. “ What still on top of him. He holds the knife to the kings had, I bet. What every man should have back of her neck. His eyes are almost closed, at least once in his life. You should have it, but he’s looking at me. “ Over for now,” he 11 \ ? P ou,” he says to me. “ Get on the floor too. Except I’d never do it to anyone. Except says. He falls out. She says, “ Can I get up X and lie on your stomach right at the maybe if my girl was being threatened with a now?” side of the bed. I want to make sure I see you knife. My girl or baby. Only then.” He comes. “ Get up and clean yourself and then we when I get on top of her. ’ ’ “ Oh, crap. I meant it for her. You did too come back,” he says. “ And you just stay I stand where I am. well. Both of you. My congratulations, but that’s it.” Her hands stop. I spit on the floor ‘ ‘You'd like for me to go, of course. ’ ’ Nothing. “ I don’t feel like doing it,” I say. several times. ‘‘Can I go in the bathroom?” ‘ ‘Well say it, goddamnit. ’ ’ Neither do I, ” she says. I say. ‘ ‘What do you think?” I say. “ I said do it.” ‘‘No, just stand there.” “ Yes,” she says. “ We’d like you to go.” “ I just can’t do it like that,” I say. “ I’m ‘ ‘Let him go,” she says. “ No reason to stay here any more,” he not like you. I have to want to and I don’t feel ‘‘All right. Go because your girl asks for says. “ Three times. In how many minutes do like it.” you to go. But no tricky stuff in there or she you think? Not that anyone’s counting. But “ Neither do I. Just go,” she says to him. gets killed.” it’s enough, anyway. But maybe I can get hot “ Please?” ‘‘I know.” I wash myself in the bath­ once more if you two do it. I’d like four times. ‘ ‘ I said to do it, ” he yells at me. ‘ ‘Now do room. I’d like five but I got to be realistic. But with it. Try. Get big. Do it to her. Then if I’m big ‘‘Take off all your clothes and come on four I can say it’s really been worth it. Go on. I ’ 11 take over for you. ’ ’ out now,” he says. I take off all my clothes. I You two do it. ” He gets off the bed, stands by “ But I don’t feel like it.” come out of the bathroom and he motions me the bed with the knife at the side of her neck. ‘ ‘Rub him, ’ ’ he tells her. to stand by the bathroom door. They’re still in I get on the bed. “ Do it with you on your She rubs me. Nothing doing there. bed. Knife against her throat. ‘‘I suppose I back,” he says to me. “ That way I’ll have the “ When he doesn’t want to he can’t,” she should go now,” he says. We say nothing. advantage.” says. “ I know him.”

e grabs me. Rubl me. Nothing happens. H He puts it in his mouth, the knife against my penis. Nothing happens. “ What do you expect?” I say. “ It’s impossible. Nothing, you see?” “ If I didn’t have the knife it wouldn’t be nothing,” he says. “ Then put away the knife,” I say. “ You do what I did,” he tells her. He gets up, holds the knife to her neck. She does it. Nothing happens. He rubs me while she’s doing it. Nothing. “ Say nice things to him, ’ ’ he says. “ Tony, I love you. Tony, I love it. This. What we’re doing. Do it. Get big. I want you to make love to me. I’m going to do it again now, so get big.” She does it. Nothing happens. “ It’s im­ possible,” I say. “ It’s impossible,” she says. “ I know him too well.” “ If you don’t get that thing going I’m going to cut it off,’ ’ he says to me. “ I’ll try.” I concentrate. Nothing. “ May­ be it will. Wait.” “ Get hard,” she says. “ He’ll kill you if you don’t. Then he’ll kill me. Put your mind to it.” I concentrate. I shut my eyes. Nothing. “ I’m sorry,” I say to him. “ I can’t. But don’t do anything rough. Maybe I can. Just wait. ’ ’ “ Don’t do anything to Tony,” she says. “ We were nice. We did what you asked. We won’t make any charges against you to the police. We won ’ t even call them. ’ ’ “ Bull,” he says. “ You’re right,” she says. “ O f course we’ll call them. But don’t do anything now. Tie us up. Then leave.” “ I want to do it once more,” he says. “ Four’s my lucky number. Not my lucky, just a good number. And I’ve never done it four times in a row in so short a time. And I feel cheated. That one with him doesn’t count. So I haven’t even got my three yet. And three’s my minimum. The absolute must. And I can’t get big, either. Make me big,” he says to her. “ Do what you can.” She tries. “ Everything.” She tries everything she used to do to me. Nothing happens. “ Both of you try on m e.” We both try. Things I’ve never done before. Knife at her neck. Nothing happens, though. He stays the same way. “ You’re both screw- ups,” he says. He stands up. “ You come with m e.” She stands up. “ You stay there,” he e don’t have a phone. I go next door to under every tenant’s door. It’s a warning about tells me. I stand up. “ I said stay. ’’ Wcall the police. Della says, “ I’m going to that man today, who’s been raping and rob­ I walk toward him. He has the knife at her take a shower for an hour and don’t want to be bing young women in their apartments in the back. I bend down and stretch under the bed bothered by anyone” and goes in the bath­ neighborhood lately. It has a good description and get the table leg. “ I don’t care about her room. The police come. “ Come out when you of him, ours along with others. Several differ­ life any more,” I say. “ I just want to beat your can,” I yell into the bathroom. She comes out. ent outfits and hats. The outfit and hat he brains in.” Lots of questions from the police. We tell them wore today are there. The circular says he gets “ Bull,” he says. everything. One policeman says to Della, in the apartments mostly by telling the woman “ Tony, drop the club.” “ You should go straight to a doctor.” She over the downstairs intercom that he’s a deliv­ I drop it. says, “ No, I’m O.K. I can take care of my­ ery boy from a local florist, with a box of flow­ “ You didn’t mean what you said,” he self. ’ ’ We go to the police station and answer ers for them. says. “ Too bad. It would have been nice stick­ more questions and look at photos. None are ing it in her and then pulling it out quick and of him. I say to the police we’re exhausted. “ Did he tell you on the intercom he was fighting you off with a couple of feints and They say sure. We go home. That evening a a florist’s delivery boy, with a box of flowers slices or two and then sticking it in you. Maybe circular from our police precinct is pasted on for you?” I ask her. not nice. But different. And I could do that. the mailboxes in the vestibule and slipped “ No, at the door.” □ I’m ready. I hope you believe that. Sure you do. And I’m very, very good with this knife. So maybe you should try,” he says to me. “ Come on. Pick up your club and try to get m e.” “ Don’t, Tony.” I don’t. “ I wasn’t going to hit you with it, anyway,” I say to him. “Just go. Leave us alone.” JOSEPH SHORR “ No, come on,” he says. “ If you don’t come at me with the club I’m going to stick the knife in Della’s neck. ’ ’ “ N o.” I sit on the bed. “ You want me to stick it in her neck?” “ N o.” “ Where, then?” ‘ ‘No place. All I want is for you to go. ” “Just lie back like that, Tony,” she says. “ This will be over soon. Or in an hour. Or a day. Then it’ll be over. But you’re being smart. Even if he knifes me, don’t attack him and risk your life. Only attack him if he comes after you. But now just let him go. He’ll go. ” “ Don’t be too sure,” he says. “ Come on, big boy, come try and get me with the club. ’ ’

I lie on the bed, head on the pillow, arms over my chest. v “ Then I’m going tojput it in her back or neck.” “ Please, don’t,” she says. “ Even if you do, it’ll Ibe in her neck and she’ll be dead. So what’s the sense of risking my own life for her, as she said?” “ But you’ll have a better chance to come oseph Shorr was walking along the noisy ing over at him, the newcomer, scanning his get me and beat me over the head in the time main thoroughfare, still not knowing if this face with their hot eyes. But in front, on the I stick it in her neck and try and pull it out to Jwas the right way to Avram Rappoport’s home. empty, brightly illuminated stage, a fairly get you. You have to think like that. ’’ He was drowsy and still unwilling to think heavyset student was standing at the pulpit, “ That’s true,” I say. I stand up. about anything. with a ruddy oldish face and with brand-new “ Sit down,” she says. “ Lie down, Tony.” Walking slowly, all alone, and turning at university buttons, and wearily wiping his face I lie down. a far corner, he came to a dimly lit theater en­ with a white handkerchief. He looked as though “ You two are just no fun,” he says. He trance with two large Russian posters announc­ he had been drudging all day and was now gets dressed. “ Don’t move,” he tells her. ing a lecture on a Jewish subject; and with a resting. But when Joseph Shorr strained his “Just stand by my side.” He sits down. “ Put quiet, timid familiarity hovering about them, ears, he could make out the student’s words my socks and shoes on and tie them tight.” a quiet Jewish hideaway in this evening of about the troubles that Jews were having in She does that. “ All your money, now,” he heavy alien tolling and bright Christian candles Russia and in other countries. Everything the says, “ and his.” She collects it with him fol­ openly rummaging through the dark street. student said was true. And everyone was listen­ lowing her from behind. “ Now walk me to the There was no one in the theater entrance. It ing with keen interest. But it had so little to do door. And you stay in bed or try and come was deserted. And Joseph Shorr, after standing with him, Joseph Shorr, and he was, after all, after me with or without the club,” he yells for a moment, went in, simply went in, just a stranger among all these people, none of at me. like that, out of deep indifference, or a»pure whom knew him. He stood for a while, look­ Stay in bed, Tony, ’ ’ she says. stubborn determination to prove to himself ing around, and then left the theater. They go to the door. I can see them. that he was calm and taking his time and not ‘ ‘Now kiss me good-by,’’ he says. hurrying anywhere. When he paused at the On the corner of the quiet and wealthy “ Oh stop the crap already and go,” she edge of the dimly illuminated auditorium, by street where Avram Rappoport resided, Joseph says. the entrance, he suddenly caught sight of rows Shorr, the stiff and stubborn only child, hesi­ “ You’re right. You’re much smarter than upon rows of the shoulders of seated specta­ tated for the first time. He stood there for a him. Who needs a kiss? Kiss him. He needs tors, a great many open female jackets with while, staring. it.” He opens the door and goes. flushed girlish faces that were far too red, peer- Across the way, an electric streetlamp, hanging high in the air, was shining coldly; it from all sides with a bright, cozy festiveness; Joseph Shorr watched her as she stood hung still, but if you gazed at it, it looked as perhaps, at this very moment, she was dressing next to Madame Koyre, stroking the woman’s if it were just barely swaying in the wind; it somewhere, in her room, in honor of his hair with her small hands and asking about her poured cold stillness into the heart of any coming. husband, who was out of town. passer-by, and there were very few people pass­ Ah, no, she obviously wasn’t a bad per­ ing. Only one man was walking along, on the son, the sculptress, Nessi, but what did it all other side, much taller than Joseph Short, have to do with him, Joseph Shorr? Rolled up clean shaven, like an actor, with large thick and buttoned up in his new black jacket, he eyebrows and with bags, swollen drowsy bags oseph Shorr had been received in Rappo­ was sitting on his chair by the matching table under his eyes. Joseph Short watched just as port’s home good-naturedly, like all the and was full of genteel patience. The impor­ the man emerged from the pallid darkness Jother guests; they kept introducing him to tant thing was that none of the people here across the way. A moment ago he hadn’t been new people. should think that he, Joseph Shorr, noticed there, and it looked as though the night had But the girl wasn’t all that quick about anything; he too was of a sufficiently wealthy just given birth to him, sudden birth, just like coming from her room. background, and by no means had he come that, just as he was, with his hands thrust deep Every time a new person walked in out of here to learn anything. Somewhere deep in­ into the pockets of his short topcoat, and with the cool night, Joseph Short had to bow polite­ side he was just as trimmed and soaped as on the haughtiness of solitude in his slightly ly and shake hands politely: the outside; it was as though, were he to move, raised shoulders. Now he was approaching “Joseph Shorr.” something in his newness would creak. And in Avram Rappoport’s front entrance; now he He was sitting right across from the He­ all his newness and genteelness, he was ready arrived; now he was there. brew poet with the clean-shaven face and the to devote himself to the conversation these “ Pardon me. ...” swollen bags under his eyes, and had nothing people would have with him. This would have Two people bumped into one another by to say to him. Now he was fully awake. He was to be a conversation pertaining only to him, to the milky glass door at the entrance, which led filled with respect for the reason he had come, his coming here; he peered about for the host into a hallway and then up to the first floor. for himself, for the entire house, and even for and the hostess, but the host wasn’t present, They apologized for having raised their hands the guests who kept entering with smiles on and the hostess, as if by design, never looked at the same time to press the electric buzzer. their fresh faces and smelling of the cool night. at him: ' One of the men was Joseph Short; rested from The guests, however, were all frequent visitors “ Madame Koyre! ...” the Sabbath, he couldn’t remember when he here, and, by chance or design, they avoided She wanted the young woman to sit closer had made up his mind to walk over to the looking at him; if they did offer him a hand, to her and hesitated because her words were door; the other man, a Hebrew poet, no longer it was merely in passing, and they promptly vanishing in the cheerful tumult. all that young, who had completely stopped forgot all about him. He watched them having “ Madame Koyre! ...” writing two years ago, and who, almost in spite a good time and gathering around Avram of himself, had gotten a job in a local commit­ Rappoport’s daughter, the sculptress, who had At last, Madame Koyre’s fine nostrils tee, half social, half Zionist, which existed al­ only just come home, late Friday night, from quivered and her thin, transparent face began most completely on Avram Rappoport’s con­ Saint Petersburg. to flush, she started smiling and moving closer tributions. He looked around in such amaze­ “ Nessi!” to Mrs. Rappoport. Madame Koyre was the ment when Joseph Shorr said, “ Where’s Nessi?!” daughter of an old Hebrew writer. Everyone “ Pardon m e!” Nessi was thin, childishly small, with a knew that in his youth her father had been Joseph Shorr was still calm, as well as pointed hump between her thin, sharp, bony rather wealthy and had never depended on groggy, and around him, in the comfortable, shoulders. But she no longer looked all that anyone else, which is why they all were practi­ illuminated, wealthy dining room which he young. There were yellow, oldish spots near cally melting in their enormous respect and was entering, someone was saying that now, her temples. People forgave her for studying their love for her. Now he had already been around the big Christian holiday, there was in Berne and in the Petersburg Academy be­ sick for two years and was staying in Switzer­ talk in the city of a coming pogrom, it was a cause the poor thing was a hunchback, but land. There was talk that Avram Rappoport fact. they were fond of her, they crowded around, was supporting him with his own or with the “ A fact?” stroking her small, pallid hands the way you community’s money, but there were a few Mrs. Rappoport’s reddish face twisted stroke the hands of a child. And yet there was people who didn’t know about it and were still nervously. She leaned over the table to the somehow more of the adult about her than making flattering remarks about him, even person who was speaking, and at the same anyone else here, and her black, slanted eyes behind his back. Some elderly visitor in glasses, time, looking out the window, she caught emanated some kind of sedate good-natured­ with long hair and hunched shoulders under sight of a burning candle that a belated passer­ ness, and an entreaty, the entreaty of a person his threadbare jacket, looking like a former by, a Christian, was carefully carrying home. who has long since forgiven life for everything government-approved rabbi in a big city, and Not stirring from her place, like a woman and come to terms with everything. She was speaking Hebrew, came out of the study with after labor, she said, “ I asked to have the somewhat estranged from her parents, and no Avram Rappoport and, as they entered, termi­ shades pulled down. ’’ one ever noticed them speaking to her. And nated his long conversation: And this too was noticed by him, Joseph yet, while not looking at her, they nevertheless “ And so, let me tell you, otherwise the Shorr. He was already sitting not far from her, seemed to be thinking about her and about journal cannot survive. Mrs. Rappoport, and he coldly looked around. her style of life, which was so different from He had obviously been doing some long, Not that many people were sitting at the table; the wealthy manner to which they were accus­ hard work on Avram Rappoport in the study but still, about a half dozen were clattering tomed. And now she had come home, as and had been talking away at him for a long their teaspoons and crumbling their cake in usual, like a stranger, come quietly, with no time. Now he wearily drank his glass of tea at the saucers. Glasses of tea were shining red, warning that she was on her way, not even a the table and relaxed. He peered professorially and among them a reddish face. A cheerful wire. One of the guests was taking an extreme over his glasses and asked the young woman, coloratura laugh floated past his ears, infecting pleasure in relating how he had been on the Madame Koyre, whether an item he had lately everyone except him, Joseph Shorr. In another way home last night, so much later than usual, read in a Hebrew newspaper was true: moment, it seemed, he would be sorry he had how he had been walking all alone down a The paper had said her father was feeling come. And suddenly, he remembered some­ deserted street, and then suddenly there she better and intended to come back to Russia thing and felt a great, great excitement in his was: Nessi, trundling from the railroad station, fairly soon. breast. Every so often, his marital mood would all alone with a bad, nocturnal cabman: the And at the same time, Avram Rappoport, surge through his heart, and his heart would night was cold, the road uphill was a long one, the host of the house, having been left alone, swell and swell, and his mind would awake and she had felt sorry for the horse, who was was still standing by himself not far from the from its sleep, and he would think, swaying too much with his thin croup, begging table, as though forgotten, slightly hunched She’s right here in this house. the old Christian cabman, “ Don’t drive me so and lost in thought, he stood there; and it was Moyshe Levine’s daughter! hard, please, don’t.” impossible to tell what he was thinking: about At any moment she might walk in through And Nessi, by chance or design, didn’t what the old man had been drumming into one of the wide-open doors that looked on hear. him for hours in the study; about the alien glass of tea, which had been drained, and in smiling, and her blue, reddish eyes were star­ seven people, sunk deeply into the low, match­ which his eyes were now buried; or perhaps ing at him, Joseph Shorr. It was obvious they ing armchairs; they all looked weary, stony, even about himself, about his enormous busi­ were whispering about him. His hereditary and pensive, as though being photographed, ness dealings, which had nothing to do with family pride stiffened in him, and the blood and they were listening to Nessi Rappoport anyone in the room. Someone spoke to him, of the Shorrs, that was his blood, shot into his defending her friend, Vaintroib, the young and so he turned around in surprise, listening face. Just behind his back, someone mentioned painter, against some nasty comments. She with a surly face to the rumors about a pogrom, the name of Moyshe Levine’s daughter; it was was speaking softly, Nessi was, very softly, she and then he wandered across the room, mourn­ the ruddy student. He wasn’t standing very far didn’t want to offend anyone. And she smiled ful, distant, and lonesome among all these from Joseph Shorr, at the table, but he hardly good-naturedly, as if the others were saying people who had come to entertain him. All at noticed him. He was still wrapped up in his foolish things, then she modestly lowered her once, he recalled something, looked around at lecture, and, absently, he took hold of some­ long, long lashes. the table, and halted: one else’s teaspoon. “ No, my dear friends,” she said, “ you “ Wait . . . that’s him . . . the young “ Where is Sarah?” he asked quietly, have no idea. ...” man from Great Setrenitz, the one who’s here looking down at the spoon. to have a look at Sarah. ’ ’ It was now clear that she had gone off He felt guilty. somewhere for the entire evening. After all, Sarah had smiled upon hearing “ What?” he asked again, slightly bewil­ that he would be coming to see her, she had dered, while Avram Rappoport turned around n her lap, Nessi was holding an embroi­ gone off for the whole evening with a friend to him, Joseph Shorr, and started speaking I dered, yellow-silk case. who brought her greetings from abroad, that once more. Her thin, childishly tiny hands were blond young fellow who was so terribly happy He still had pallid nostrils, and his breath­ pulling out reproductions, one after another, because a number of newspapers and maga­ ing was heavier than usual, but deep inside he of pictures by her friend, the young painter, zines had suddenly been informing the world was once again stiff and hard. He walked about and her audience was looking at them one of his existence. His name was Joel Vaintroib. the room with Avram Rappoport, who led him after another, and then putting them down, Avram Rappoport’s eyes twinkled; he sat into the adjoining room, a vast white parlor. one after another. down on the empty chair behind Joseph Shorr, Who could tell? Perhaps Avram Rappoport One painting showed four blind horses. leaning his head on his hands. He scrutinized had a specific reason for taking him there; The important thing, however, wasn’t the Joseph Shorr’s freshly trimmed throat and perhaps he wanted to see him in private and horses themselves, but the story the viewer was neck with such great interest, as though to tell him something. reminded of: determine something: Once upon a time, somewhere in a small, That’s what a young, rich bachelor looks far-flung town, dreary summer afternoons are like nowadays when girls don’t even want him wearing on, and the endless sunny hours bore to see them. . . . everyone to death. A rooster is always crowing In great sympathy, he leaned over, hug­ ut even in the vast parlor he didn’t succeed there, more mournfully than anywhere else; ging the back of his chair, and began a conver­ B in remaining alone with Rappoport. a father, wealthy and stubborn, lives there, sation with him. The shades were down and the lusters had unhappier than any other father if, upon What? He wasn’t running his mill him­ been thoroughly cleaned. Mute shadows were awakening from his afternoon nap, he finds self? It was still leased out to others? drowsing between dark, distant mirrors. Chairs that his boy still hasn’t gone back to school Joseph Shorr’s tone of voice changed. All in white slipcovers were trustfully nestling after lunch. He has a heavy tongue: at once he felt that his time was come. Out of against the snug, cozy walls and the soft, end­ “ C’mon, boy, get to school,” he shouts great respect for his lofty host, he answered the less black carpet, the old friend of this home, at his lazy little son, “ what’s gonna become question a good deal louder than usual. He stretched underfoot day after day, waiting of you?” didn’t think he could make a go of the mill by patiently for festive occasions. The room was But the boy has been sick of school for so himself all that soon. Right after Pentecost, dusky, but-a bit farther, by the tiny, bright-red long now, sick of the rabbi and the other pu­ when the lease would he up, he intended to glow in the far corner, which was illuminated pils, who endlessly keep repeating the tedious make repairs. 1 by a red light, something was going on. Joseph Biblical portion after Passover; be is leaning “ Overall repairs.” Shorr could see that there were about six or against the painted fence in front of his father’s He was still shifting his chair around so as not to be talking to Avlam Rappoport from the side, and he didn’t feel very good because he had just said something stupid. He ex­ plained that besides all the repairs, he was thinking about rebuilding the sheet-iron chim­ ney and having a brick one instead. But now something happened, and Avram Rappoport left him alone for a moment. All the people at the table sprang up and went toward the newly arrived guest, and Joseph Shorr looked over and immediately recognized him. It was the ruddy student with the oldish face and the brand-new university buttons, the lecturer at the theater. Joseph Shorr watched the other guests flocking around the newcomer, asking with great interest about his lecture, and he answered tersely, almost reluctantly. And sud­ denly, Joseph Short forgot about the student lecturer, about himself, and about the stupid things he had been saying a bit earlier. His eyes veered: The only other persons left at the table were Mrs. Rappoport and young Madame Koyre, and the two of them moved even closer together and understood one another almost tacitly. Mrs. Rappoport whispered something in Madame Koyre’s ear, and Madame Koyre heard it with great interest; she didn’t stop house. What a lazy good-for-nothing, he the enormous wheel of the treadmill and and newspapers were writing about him, and remembers. clambering up; they are very nearly falling, Nessi was saying that he was really a great man, And overhead, old, spreading acacias are and they think they are climbing a dangerously a great painter: murmuring in front of the windows, support­ high mountain. They are climbing to the sky. ‘ ‘There are,” she said, “ fortunate people ing his thought: They strain their necks forward, flaring their in the world.” A good-for-nothing? Yes, indeed, a nostrils, widening out their blind eyes, and yet Someone pointed an expert finger at the good-for-nothing. they remain in the same place. farthest of the four blind horses, the black one He turns down below his father’s house And it was this little boy who, later on, with the deep, sunken spine. Someone else and watches the flies buzzing around an out­ did a painting of those blind horses. Now he sluggishly dragged his myopic eyes across the house. He wanders off through the alleys of was an adult; but once, he had to run away snarls hanging over the blind eyes and the the town and stops for a long while at the back from home with a meager sum, his father’s hooves, and then, as sluggishly, emitted a door of the small town’s treadmill, where they few hundred rubles. He was back from abroad hearty snort. are shredding millet. He stands and watches: now, a renowned painter, and he was painting; “Jewish horses. ...” Four blind horses are ceaselessly stomping on he painted the hilly town of Great Setrenitz, Joseph Shorr had another look at the pic­ ture; he again forgot that Avram Rappoport was no longer in the parlor, and he again lost courage; he had to admit to himself: He was inexperienced in such matters.

Join us! he kinds of things that were being dis­ Tcussed in Avram Rappoport’s house had \ Subscribe to never been talked about in his father’s house or in the home of his two'rich aunts. In order to grasp the point of the debate, he changed cF IC T IO h t places and sat down on a chair closer to the others, leaning his head toward them like a and enjoy the Hasidic Jew. He listened attentively, but then it turned out that the conversation wasn’t all that deep. It was fairly dominated by the best new writing ruddy student with the oldish face and the brand-new buttons, who was sitting here in regularly the parlor across from Nessi. A bit earlier, someone had asked him about some articles he had published pertaining to Zionism, and Please send me FICTION for now, more earnest than anyone else, he was □ 6 issues at $6.00 sitting deep in the low easy chair and absolute­ □ 8 issues at $7.50 ly refused to agree with Nessi that her friend, Back issues available at one dollar each the young painter Vaintroib, was a great man: (Vol. 3, no. 2-3, double issue two dollars) No, Nessi would have to forgive him, but I enclose a check or money order he had a rule that a great man is a substance. Collage by Anita Steckel “ A substance?” The Hebrew poet, the taciturn man with the swollen bags under his eyes, stopped rock­ ing for a moment in his high rocking-chair, off NAME_ in the corner, and he stared with the surprised ADDRESS face of a mute. The student, however, didn’t even look at him. CITY____ . STATE. ZIP. “ And another thing,” he said, “ people pounce upon a midget and make him out to FICTION, c/o Dept, of English, The City College of New York, be a giant.” Convent Ave. at 138th St., New York, N.Y. 10031 The student knew Vaintroib personally. In Petersburg, just before Passover, when he had taken one of his last major exams and was heading home, he had shared a compartment NOTES ON THE CONTRIBUTORS with a friend of his, a very interesting girl, and who should be sitting in the same compart­ For Marcha writers, see the Prologue on page 1 of STEVEN DIXON was born in New York City. His ment but the young man himself, Vaintroib, this issue. work has appeared in American Review, Georgia on the way home, and he had acted just like a Review, and Carolina Quarterly, among others. His small-town dummy, a pseudointellectual, a INGRID BENGIS’s first book, Combat in the first collection of stories, No Relief, will be pub­ clod. Erogenous Zone, was published by Knopf. Her first lished in the fall by Street Fiction Press, Ann Arbor. The student was so angry at all the Jewish novel, entitled I Have Come Here To Be Alone, will intellectual families in St. Petersburg, who had be published by Simon & Schuster early in 1977. JOYCE CAROL OATES’s new novel, Childwold, talked about nothing but Vaintroib before will be published by Vanguard in December. Her Passover, and he was angry at all the girl stu­ DOVID BERGELSON was a major Yiddish novelist stories have appeared recently in Atlantic Monthly, who described the breakup of traditional Jewish life Southern Review, and Hudson Review. dents who had gone running to see him. But in eastern Europe. Embracing the Soviet Revolu­ why was he talking so hotly about the fact that tion, he turned to socialist realism. In 1950 he was FREDERIC TUTEN is the Director of the Graduate Nessi and all the newspapers were praising one of the many Yiddish cultural leaders purged by Creative Writing Program at The City College of Vaintroib? In itself it was a terrible insult to Stalin. New York, and is the author of a novel, The Adven­ him, the ruddy and not very young student. . . . tures o f Mao on the Long March. His stories have Joseph Shorr looked him in the face but MONA BERGENFELD lives in New York. "Fruit appeared recently in TriQuarterly, Statements, and didn’t understand. And suddenly someone for the Funeral’ ’ is her first published story. Fiction. interrupted the student, and the conversation made some other things clear: Apparently, the young painter was in them, every rung. And then, for a long while, Nessi apparently didn’t care very much town; Nessi knew him fairly well, and he had he would be unable to fall asleep and felt al­ about herself. been coming to see her rather frequently, here most as if he were lying with closed eyes and “ Ah?” she said. “ No, my dear fellow. in Avram Rappoport’s place. could see Kozlowe: He was sitting there all I’m nothing but a simple craftsman. That And something else was made clear: alone on the porch steps of the house with the much I know.” Tonight, he, Vaintroib, had gone off for closed shutters that concealed the shopkeeper’s She wasn’t offended at his question, she the whole evening with her—Moyshe Levine’s sleeping family. He sat there in the middle of spoke as softly with him as with an equal. He daughter. the night, on the steps of the house, listening was so grateful that he was even willing to Joseph Shorr’s heart almost died, it died to the old acacias murmuring deep, deep in forget what had happened to him this evening, for a moment and that was that. But he quickly the night, the same trees that once, in summer­ he was willing to sit with her a bit longer and regained his senses and barely curled his lips, time, had heard his father always shouting: ask, How come. . . ? How come she thought he was so annoyed at himself and at what had “ You lazy good-for-nothing. . . !” so? bothered him: “ N o,” the old acacias were murmuring But all around them most of the people After all, he, Joseph Shorr, was no more to him now, “ you’ve accomplished something, had already left, it was getting rather late. than a guest here, this was the first time in his Yoylik, you’re not a good-for-nothing.” The last guests said good night. life he was spending an evening here, why He was going back, he had already wired should he care about Moyshe Levine’s daughter? the shopkeeper that he wanted to repurchase And to keep from thinking about her, he his father’s house. made an effort, leaning his head once more utside, by the front entrance, two men like a Hasidic Jew and listening attentively. O were standing, the Hebrew poet and the The ruddy student was talking again, about mddy student, and they were much more traveling in that train compartment with his familiar and straightforward in their conversa­ friend all the way from St. Petersburg, and tion now than earlier in the parlor; they were how Vaintroib had constantly been eating the he student really didn’t know when to thinking of going somewhere. As for him, girl’s oranges and her chocolate and never once stop, he talked on and on, telling how Joseph Shorr, they didn’t look or even notice stopped talking about himself. TVaintroib had gotten on everyone’s nerves in him, as though a cat were going by. What But now Joseph Shorr had to make more the train compartment. could they have thought about him? What of an effort to get the story straight in his Never, said the student, had he heard could anyone have thought about his visit this mind: anyone babble on like that; never had he met evening in Avram Rappoport’s house? The The student had gone home for Pass- anyone so stupidly in love with himself, with point was that no one here had thought any­ over. . . . his own breath. thing about him. Joseph Shorr felt inside him­ The student had then, perhaps not by But by now nearly all the people who self a deep, convulsive hurt of insult; he walked chance, traveled from Petersburg together with had been around the student were gone. He away. a girl he knew. Perhaps, before leaving, he had was talking, but no one cared, no one was At the corner of the quiet and wealthy spent a day or two waiting for her. He was sit­ listening. street, not far from the electric streetlight, ting at her side in the compartment, close and Joseph Shorr gazed at the childishly small which was hanging high in the air, he ran into snug, and wanted to clarify a few things for girl, Nessi, who was still sitting, sad and lone­ Moyshe Levine’s daughter with the young her. some, by the tiny, bright-red fire, and no one painter Vaintroib, who was bringing her home. Ah, yes, the ruddy student, no doubt he went over to her. She was pitiful to look at. There was a moment when they were level with was always able to make things clear, and who He remembered she had come back home one another and she cast a glance at him from knows? Perhaps the things he wanted to clarify only last night, like a stranger. up close as though suddenly recalling where for the girl were closely related to the articles “ Please,” she had begged the coachman, she had once seen him and failing to under­ he had published about Zionism. But the “ don’t drive so fast!” stand what he was doing here, now, at the blond young fellow, Vaintroib, the painter, And n.ow she looked so unhappy here, in stroke of twelve. who had long blond hair and wore a velvet her father’s house, and it was hard to tell what Joseph Shorr once again saw her eyes, jacket, and was sitting opposite them—he con­ she was thinking: Perhaps she was musing intelligent blue eyes, trying to remember stantly broke in with idle chitchat and wouldn’t about the young painter, Vaintroib; after all, something as they gazed at him, and a mouth, let them carry on their conversation; he kept she was the one who had been talking so much severely shut, a straight line, strongly reminis­ swaying back and forth,^rocking his legs and about him all through the evening. And per­ cent of something, so near and intimate. clicking his tongue. haps she no longer remembered a rather sad Joseph Shorr couldn’t remember his mother. ‘ ‘Tsk, tsk, tsk! ’ ’ He made fun of the girl’s story about herself, the hunchbacked sculp­ He was four when she died; but who knows, party-colored scarf, “ Such fine colors. ...” tress, an unfortunate matter that had taken perhaps his mother had the same kind of He kept looking straight in the girl’s face, place so very quietly: mouth, and perhaps that was why he felt so while eating her chocolate and her oranges, “ A wealthy and powerful man, a father, attracted to it? He could feel his heart crack, and acting like a happy young fiddler accus­ had a child born to him, a simple, deprived but he still didn’t know whether she had rec­ tomed to great successes at weddings, and he Jewish child. ...” ognized him or not. And suddenly, within never stopped talking about himself. In order to show her his warm feelings, him, the proud heir quickened, the only son, He, Joel Vaintroib, was going home again Joseph Shorr bowed and started a conversation who had grown up in Great Setrenitz, in Isaak - after many long years, he was going back to with her. Mayer Shorr’s secluded, aristocratic home. At the little town of Kozlowe, near Great Setrenitz, “ It would be interesting to know: How least, back in Great Setrenitz, he didn’t feel so and people there always called him Yoylik, just old is that painter Vaintroib?” crestfallen and frustrated as he did at this very plain Yoylik. He once had a father back home, “ How old?” moment. Back there he still had his inherited who was partly a follower of the Rabbi of At the sound of his voice, Nessi, pensive, property, two houses of his own and his big Skvirre, and partly a Zionist, and his father felt her long, long eyelashes tremble; and in mill. . . . had finally moved to Palestine, after selling his her slanted eyes, her normal good-naturedness Behind his back, he could hear him rich, whitewashed house to a well-to-do shop­ quickened at the entreaty. laughing, the young painter Vaintroib. He was keeper. The house had old acacias in front of “ How old is Vaintroib?” she said. “ I telling something to the beautiful girl he was the eight-paned windows, which were coated don’t know, my dear fellow, he’s still young, bringing home, and he laughed with great yellow, and out in the grassy yard, next to the very young.” pleasure. But it scarcely concerned Joseph trees, there were three rocks growing, big ones, And again Nessi sank back into some­ Shorr. He walked with quick steps, thinking with sharp points. Now he, Joel Vaintroib, thing and became pensive. Joseph Shorr was so about his houses in Great Setrenitz and the simply couldn’t forget all these things. Old grateful that she had called him her “ dear mill he had inherited: acacias in front of the window and, out in the fellow.” “ Yes, indeed, my big mill, that’s worth • ird, three big, sharp rocks. He would often Well, and what about her? he asked. She something too.” □ wake up at night and start painting those very was a sculptress too, after all; why didn’t she —Translatedfrom the Yiddish rocks. He could remember every notch in talk about her own work? by Joachim Neugroschel THE WINDWARD ISLANDS A lfred Andersch

t was much too early. As they left the thousand meters; he ran like a machine, quick­ munists.” Then he remembered the middle- IDeutsches Museum the day before, Sir ening his pace only in the last five hundred class Jews from Nuremberg, whom he had seen Thomas Wilkins had asked Franz Kien to come meters, so as to add another lap to his lead over in Dachau. to the Hotel Viet Jahreszeiten at two o’clock, all the others, who were already one or more He went to another cafe where he had but it was only one when he got out of the laps behind. At the finish he had shown no never been. It was across the way from the streetcar at Odeonsplatz. He had one mark signs of fatigue. He was a Socialist from ethical Hoftheater and consisted of one tiny room. seventy in his pocket and decided to have a cup conviction. In conversations with Franz Kien He would have liked a piece of almond cake of coffee at the Café Rottenhóffer. Late that he had taken the view that socialism would with his coffee, but he hadn’t enough money. afternoon, the Englishman would pay him for win out, not as a consequence of necessary After a while he succeeded in shrugging off his services as a guide: two tours; he was dialectical processes, but because it was grounded the incident with Wolfgang Fischer. It was hoping for twenty or thirty marks. in justice. Modestly, calmly, and matter-of- mad, simply mad! After his coffee, because Instead of turning directly into Residenz- factly he had expounded the doctrines of Kant the cake had been denied him, he felt a faint strasse, where the café was situated, he de­ and Leonard Nelson. The eighteen-year-old but gnawing pang of hunger, for which there toured by way of Theatinerstrasse and Viscardi- Franz Kien, a beginner in Marxism, could not was no real justification, because he had eaten strasse, so as to avoid passing the National stand up to him in discussion; he had merely an adequate lunch at home. He knew he would Socialist memorial and having to raise his arm felt that if Wolfgang Fischer was right, the carry his hunger pang around with him all in the Hitler salute. decision in favor of socialism was a matter of afternoon, while showing Sir Thomas Wilkins At that time of day, the café was almost pure will, and instinctively he doubted the the town. He would keep hoping that Wilkins empty. A few women. At one table two SA efficacy of pure will. But he felt drawn to would interrupt the tour and treat him to tea men were sitting. Franz Kien had not expected Wolfgang Fischer, to this resolute man who and cake. At the bakery next to the Franzis- to meet anyone he knew. As recently as the spoke gently to him and treated him with kaner he bought two rolls, and ate them stand­ previous fall, the Café Rottenhofer had been patient friendliness. ing in a doorway. Thai stilled his hunger. the meeting place of his group in the Young Such a sentence from Fischer’s mouth “ An Englishman with the title S ir,” his Communist League. Franz Lehner, Ludwig came as a complete surprise. Franz Kien was brother had lectured him, “ is always addressed Kessel, Gebhard Homolka, and a few others, so taken aback that he could think of no reply. by the title and his firsf’name.’’ Consequently plus the girls: Adelheid Sennhauser, Sophia Slowly he withdrew his hand, conscipus that he Franz Kien had avoided the direct form of Weber, and Else Laub. Franz, Ludwig, Geb­ was blushing with embarrassment. address while guiding Sir Thomas Wilkins hard, and the others were still in Dachau; “ What do you mean by that?” he asked through the Deutsches Museum. The day Adelheid was in some women’s prison. Franz finally. before yesterday, Sir Thomas Wilkins had Kien had once tried to look up Else Laub, but He had been meaning, quite as a matter bought a Wagner score from Franz Kien’s her mother had opened the door a crack and of course, to take the empty chair at the table. elder brother and asked him on that occasion said in an angry whisper, “ What do you want? “ What do I mean?” Franz Kien had whether he knew a student or other cultivated Go away! We’re under police surveillance!” — never heard Fischer speak in such a tone. young man who might show him around in a tone suggesting that Franz Kien was to “ Don’t play innocent! You know perfectly Munich. Franz Kien’s brother worked in a blame for the attitude of the Gestapo. Sud­ well . I mean that today all you Germans feel music store on Maximilianstrasse. Franz Kien denly he caught sight of Wolfgang Fischer. He the same way about us Jews.” himself was unemployed. He had been un­ was sitting at a table in the rear of the café, He averted his eyes from Kien and spoke employed for three years. talking with young men unknown to Franz Kien. into the air. For some reason that he himself “ I haven’t the faintest idea of how to Franz Kien was delighted. He went direct­ did not understand until later, Franz Kien was show anyone around Munich,” he had ob­ ly to Fischer’s table and held out his hand. unable to tell Wolfgang Fischer that he had jected. “ Besides, I don’t speak English.” “ Wolfgang!” he said. “ It’s great to see spent the spring in a concentration camp, and “ The gentleman speaks German,” his you!” that he still had to report to the Gestapo once brother had replied. “ And you know Munich Wolfgang Fischer had not been a Com­ a week. very well. Pull yourself together. Sir Thomas munist but a member of the International Maybe I could tell him if I were sitting at is a high English colonial official. It’s not every Socialist Combat League. Quite as a matter of the table with him, he thought. But as it was, day that you meet such a man. Besides, it’s a course, Franz Kien thought in the past tense, standing, aware of his flushed face, he only job.” The lesson about the form of address though he knew that small remnants of certain managed to say, “ You must be off your had followed. Franz Kien could see that his Communist and Socialist groups still existed rocker! ’ ’ brother would have liked to guide the English­ illegally. The Young Communists had re­ “ It’s easy to say that to a Jew today,” man himself. garded the ISCL as an eccentric sect; its mem­ Wolfgang Fischer replied instantly. He mo­ “ I just don’t feel like it,” he said. bers were vegetarians, teetotalers, and believers tioned with his shoulders to the young man “ I’ve already accepted for you,” said his in moral purity. They were not Marxists but sitting beside him,' who was looking uncom­ brother. “ Eleven tomorrow morning at the supporters of a Heidelberg philosopher by the fortable, obviously embarrassed by the scene. Vier Jahreszeiten.” He inspected his brother. name of Leonard Nelson. Though they obvi­ “ Please go away. We’re leaving for Palestine “ Your hair has grown in again. Nobody will ously felt themselves to be an elite, they were in a few days and we have a lot of things to see a thing.” modest and reserved, and for that they were discuss.” Franz Kien’s hair had been shaved off in well liked. They had been in close contact with Dachau, and it had taken an amazing length the Young Communists, gone on excursions of time, nearly all summer, to grow in. with them, and had attended their meetings All evening he had racked his brains with a view to discussion. about how to show someone around Munich, Wolfgang Fischer raised his head and ranz Kien turned abruptly and left the but no ideas had come to him; he had felt looked at Franz Kien but did not take his F café. In his confusion he failed to notice paralyzed. hand. which way he was going, but just in time he After meeting Wilkins in the hotel lobby, “ Yes,” he said. “ Isn’t it great to see a saw the SS men standing motionless beside the he had awkwardly suggested a number of Jew?” memorial tablet and changed his direction. possible itineraries. Suddenly Wilkins had Wolfgang Fischer was a few years older On his way down Residenzstrasse toward Franz- raised his head, looked out through the plate- than Franz Kien. He was studying chemistry at Joseph-Platz, he remembered that he had glass window into the rain, and announced Munich University. He was stockily built, with wanted a cup of coffee. But then Fischer had that he would like to visit the Deutsches Mu­ short-cropped red hair and the reddish freckly expelled him from the Café Rottenhofer. Little seum. It turned out that he had already been skin that goes with it. Everything about him by little, it occurred to him how he might have to Munich several times, though not in the last was hard: the small blue eyes with their red answered Fischer. For instance, he could have twenty years. He spoke so knowledgeably of brows, the tight skin over his muscles and said, “ The ISCL people have not been ar­ Munich that Franz Kien couldn’t help wonder­ bones. As a long-distance runner he had been rested. There are no ISCL members in Dachau. ing why he needed a guide. Of course there prominent in workers’ sports activities; Franz Not even Jewish members. In Dachau there wasn’t much else one could do in the rain, but Kien had once watched him running the ten were only Communists, Communists, Com- Franz Kien nevertheless had had the impres- sion that the Englishman wanted to help him out of his perplexity. With a sense of relief, Franz Kien stood up to go, for surely no guide was required for a visit to a museum, but with­ out a moment’s hesitation the old gentleman said amiably that of course they would go together. He ordered a cab. Franz Kien had never ridden in a taxi before. He was glad that Wilkins expressed no desire to see the mines. The mines in the Deutsches Museum were a bore. Wilkins explained an 1813 model of a Watt steam engine with a water pump, the Bessemer process of converting iron into steel, and other inventions of which Franz Kien hadn’t the faintest glimmer. Despite his English accent, he spoke excellent German. He said he had studied in Dresden in 1888. In the fall of 1933, the year 1888 had a legend­ ary ring in Franz Kien’s ears. At two o’clock Wilkins suggested lunch. He wanted, he said, to eat something typical of Munich in a typical Munich restaurant, perhaps leberkas or schweinswurstl—two of the dishes he remembered. Franz Kien pon­ dered. It was hard to find anything in the vicinity of the museum. Then he remembered a restaurant on Paulanerplatz, where he and his Party friends had often met. Under the Englishman’s large black umbrella, they crossed the bridge over the green-foaming Isar and made their way through the streets of the maic and the Copernican planetarium, ex­ impression this piece of Bavarian baroque was Au district. The proprietor recognized Franz plaining the differences to Franz Kien. To­ making on the Englishman. On a man who and said, “ Hm, so here you are again!” —but gether they climbed into the car under the bought Wagner scores! In the oval interior Sir no more. Possibly he was as displeased as Else mobile model, from which one could follow Thomas Wilkins sat down in one of the pews, Laub’s mother to see Franz Kien again, but he the earth in its orbit. Up until then these but instead of studying the Asam frescoes he didn’t show it, he merely dropped the subject, planetariums had never meant much to Franz merely looked into space. Franz Kien stood and naturally Franz Kien was just as glad that Kien. Despite the light effects in the darkness, beside him and waited. The pew was so narrow he should ask no questions in the English­ he had found them dull and boring. And that the Englishman had to pick up his knees. man’s presence. besides, he had never taken much interest in He had a gray mustache. Even now, in his There was neither leberkdse nor schweins- the stars and constellations. He had been somewhat absent state, his eyes had a friendly wiirstl, but there was fresh m ilzwurst, so they unemployed since the age of sixteen, and look. Up ahead of them a woman was kneeling. sat at the freshly scrubbed table eating fried politics had been his sole preoccupation. In On Galeriestrasse a blue streetcar was milzwurst with potato salad and drinking beer. Dachau the prisoners had been forbidden to ringing its bell. They went to the Hofgarten. During the meal Sir Thomas Wilkins told leave the barracks after dark. At that time the lime trees had not yet been Franz Kien that his lasqpost had been that of cut down, and the concert pavilion was a civil governor of Malta; before that he had weather-beaten yellow under the early-autumn been military governor of the Windward foliage. They walked under the arcade, and Islands, and before that a judge in East Africa. Franz Kien stopped in front of the Rottmann It seemed to be of the itmost importance to hat night he had taken his atlas and located frescoes. The Greek landscapes faded into sur­ him that Franz Kien should understand the T the Windward Islands. They formed the faces of twilight blue, brown, and red. It was difference between a civil governor and a southernmost archipelago of the Lesser An­ easy to see that these frescoes would not last military governor. He had the most to say of tilles. much longer. Wilkins said that Greece was just the Windward Islands. “ My home was in Saint Today he had resolved to greet Wilkins like that. He spoke of the trips to the Greek George’s, Grenada,” he said. “ I went from with a “ Good day, Sir Thomas,” but when islands that he had taken from Malta. island to island on my yacht. But there was the Englishman entered the lobby, the words They emerged from the park at Odeons- very little to do. Those people don’t quarrel refused to come out and he had only bowed. platz, which Wilkins remembered well. For much. ’ ’ He fell silent and seemed to be dream­ Wilkins had simply addressed him as Franz; the first time they saw SA men in their brown ing. “ But it’s very hot down there,” he said it hadn’t sounded condescending. uniforms. There had been a few in the then. “ My sister was always knitting. When “ What will you show me today, Franz?” Deutsches Museum. Franz Kien had expected her ball of wool fell to the floor and I stooped he now asked. Wilkins to remark on them, perhaps even to to pick it up, I was bathed in sweat.” “ As if I showed you anything yesterday! ’ ’ ask questions about the political situation in Franz Kien found this mention of Wil­ said Franz Kien. ‘ ‘You showed me the Deutsches Germany, but he had said nothing. Instead, kins’ sister so unusual that he ventured to ask Museum.” he asked Franz Kien how long he had been if he were married. Wilkins smiled. “ Today the weather is unemployed. “ Why, of course,” Wilkins replied with perfect,” he said. “ Now it’s your turn.” “ We’ve been having a bad economic alacrity. “ I have two children. They’re grown­ The weather was indeed perfect, a fine crisis in England too,” he said after Franz Kien up now. My wife lives in London. We see each September afternoon. Franz Kien led Wilkins had replied. “ But things are looking up now. other now and then. My sister has been keep­ through narrow, almost deserted streets which They will here, too. You’re sure to find work ing house for me in the last few years. ’’ began directly behind the hotel, to the church soon.” And quite naturally, without irony, he of Sankt Anna in Lehel. He did not know He seemed to be looking at the brown and went on: “ A man should definitely have been whether Wilkins was interested in churches or black uniforms as he looked at everything, married once. But it needn’t be for his life­ art, but he had decided to show the foreigner calmly and matter-of-factly. Franz Kien kept time.” a few of the things that he, Franz Kien, loved wondering whether to tell him about his stay They went back to the museum. Wilkins in his hometown. In the church he spoke like in Dachau, but he couldn’t make up his mind was enthusiastic about the planetariums. He a real guide about Johann Michael Fischer and to do so. fept going back and forth between the Ptole­ the Asam brothers. He couldn’t tell what He managed to steer Sir Thomas past the Feldherrenhalle into Theatinerstrasse without hallway with life. But when he came back Theatinerkirche and the end of the Brienner- his catching sight of the National Socialist three days later, he had taken off the uniform strasse. memorial. When they came to Perusastrasse, without a word. He had died a few years later, While Franz Kien was still wondering he stopped and said, “ If we go straight ahead, but not too soon to see Franz join the Young whether the Englishman might not have given we’ll come to the Rathaus. It’s hideous. If we Communists. Franz thought of his dead the Hitler salute because he thought it un­ turn right, we’ll come to the Frauenkirche.’’ father. What would he have said about worthy of a gentleman to take Goldbrick After a moment’s hesitation he added, “ To Dachau? Franz Kien sometimes basked in the Street, he heard him saying, “ In a foreign tell the truth, it’s hideous too. Would you like illusion that his father would have disapproved country I like to do what the inhabitants do. to see it?” of Dachau, especially if he, his son, had told One understands them better if one adopts Wilkins laughed. “ No, of course not, if it’s him what went on there. But his father had their customs.” hideous. Show me something nice. ’ ’ been ajew-hater, an anti-Semite like Luden- “ I’ve heard,” said Franz Kien, “ that an Franz Kien led him into Perusastrasse, past dorff. And now Wolfgang Fischer was emigrat­ Englishman is always an Englishman, regard­ the main post office, to the Alter Hof. He ing to Palestine. less of where he goes. ’ ’ hadn’t been there for a long time and re­ “ Everybody seems to be saluting the “ Oh, yes, we’re always Englishmen,” membered it as being more interesting, more tablet,” said Wilkins. said Wilkins. “ But we try to understand. ’ ’ mysterious than it actually was. In reality, the “ It’s compulsory,” said Franz Kien. Franz Kien looked at the one-time civil Alter Hof was merely a rectangular group of “ But we don’t have to pass it,” he added, tak­ governor of Malta, military governor of the old, relatively well-built houses occupied by ing it for granted that the Englishman would Windward Islands, and judge in East Africa. government offices. Still, there was the oriel have no desire to pass the memorial. And An Englishman who, with expressionless fea­ with the “ Golden Roof.” Standing there with pointing to Viscardigasse, “ We can take that tures, studied the ways of the natives. The na­ Wilkins, Franz Kien felt-dll at ease. Maybe he street over there to Odeonsplatz. Everybody tives of Malta and the Windward Islands, of had made a mistake in coming here, though who doesn’t want to salute goes that way. It’s East Africa and of Munich. This Englishman, Wilkins admired the Alter Hof and said it re­ not much longer. ’ ’ in all likelihood, had lost all desire to rule. He minded him of certain medieval buildings in He tried to smile when he explained, was content to sail from(island to island on his Edinburgh. “ Everybody in Munich calls it Goldbrick governor’s yacht and' settle disputes when Possibly because of this feeling of uncer­ Street.” asked to do so. A dispute that could not be tainty, he now, instead of leading Wilkins past “ Goldbrick Street?” Wilkins repeated. settled was probably inconceivable to him, the food market to the old Rathaus, headed for “ Ah, I see.” Franz Kien thought. It would have been use­ Franz-Joseph-Platz, which was nearer. There, After a moment’s thought he said, “ No, less to tell him about Dachau. to Franz Kien’s dismay, the Englishman took I’d rather go straight ahead. ’ ’ No, Franz Kien thought when it was too an interest in the Residenz, first examining the late, it would not have been useless. On the south façade, then, despite Franz Kien’s at­ strength of what he had told him, Sir Thomas tempts to guide him in a different direction, Wilkins would probably have submitted a con­ walking around the western wing. fidential report to his government. Across from the Café Rottenhófer, Franz hat, Franz Kien realized later on, after giv­ Wilkins handed him a folded hundred- Kien stopped; he pointed out the building Ting a good deal of thought to his stroll with mark note. across the street and said, “ That’s the Preysing Sir Thomas Wilkins, was when he should have “ That’s too much,” said Franz Kien. Palace. It’s the finest rococo palace in Munich. spoken up. He need only have said, “ Excuse “ It’s very little,” Wilkins replied, taking Down there, on the wall of the me if I leave you for just a few moments. I’ll the same tone as when he had decreed that Feldherrenhalle, the National Socialists have meet you on Odeonsplatz.” Perhaps—no, cer­ Franz Kien should accompany him to the put up a memorial tablet. Where the two SS tainly—Wilkins would have understood and Deutsches Museum. He gave Franz Kien his men are standing.” either said nothing or asked him to explain. card. On it there was only his name, and in the Looking down Residenzstrasse, Wilkins True, Franz Kien had no idea how Sir Thomas lower right-hand corner: St. James’s Club, saw the two motionless figures. Even their steel would have reacted to his explanation. Quite London S.W. 1. helmets were black. possibly he had no objection to the National “ I travel a good deal,” he said. “ If you “ Memorial tablet?” he said. “ What is it Socialist regime. He might even have sym­ should like to write to me, Franz, a letter will in memory of?” pathized with the Nazis. It was certain that he always reach me at this address. ’’ “ The Hitler putsch of nineteen twenty- felt no affection for the Communists. Franz Kien never wrote to him. After the three,” said Franz Kien. “ The first attempt of But Franz Kien had lacked presence of war, on his first visit to London, he went to the the National Socialists to take power. They mind. Once he had failed to speak up, there St. James’s Club. The man at the reception staged a demonstration and the police fired. A was nothing he could do but go on at Wilkins’ desk looked through the register. Then he few people were killed. ’ ’ side. Instead of escaping while there was still said, “ I’m sorry, sir. Sir Thomas Wilkins died “ I remember,” said Wilkins. “ Didn’t time, he had engaged in futile speculation: on March fifth, nineteen forty-one.” General Ludendorff take part?” What would happen when Sir Thomas passed Franz Kien was sorry too. As he stepped “ Yes.” Franz Kien didn’t know whether the memorial without saluting? Franz Kien out into St. James’s Square, he could see Sir there was irony in his voice when he said, “ He knew that two Gestapo plain-clothes men, Thomas—as he now called him in his was the only one who didn’t lie down when standing across the street from the memorial, thoughts—skirting the grass plot at the center the police fired.” in the doorway of the Residenz, would come of the square, turning into Pall Mall, and re­ “ The police must have had instructions up to Wilkins and demand an explanation, ceding from view. That day in Munich he had not to hit him,” said Wilkins. He added, “ But but would withdraw with apologies when receded from view on Promenadeplatz in I don’t mean to imply that General he—as haughtily as possible, Franz Kien exactly the same way, a tall old gentleman Ludendorff wasn’t a brave man.” hoped—produced his English passport. The wearing a light raincoat and carrying a tightly Franz Kien looked across at the Café Rot­ speculation was futile because, while Franz rolled black umbrella. Franz had taken the tenhófer. Wolfgang Fischer must have left Kien was still visualizing this easy little victory, streetcar home. On arriving, he had again con­ long ago. Franz Kien could have told Sir he saw the Englishman raise his right arm in sulted the atlas and tried to imagine the wind Thomas about the night of the Hitler putsch. the Hitler salute. Quite mechanically, he fol­ which was so strong that, in spite of the heat, In the middle of the night his father, who wor­ lowed suit, not looking at the memorial across the islands that lay in its path had taken their shiped General Ludendorff, had put on his the street, but observing Wilkins’ face, which name from it. □ infantry captain’s uniform and gone out to was in between. He saw that it took on the take part in the putsch. How gray and lifeless same expressionless look as when, picking up — Translated from the German the apartment—situated in a middle-class his knees in the narrow church pew, Wilkins by Ralph M.anheim suburb—had seemed when he was gone! Franz had sat staring into space. Kien had been nine at the time. That night he They lowered their arms at the same time. From the book The Short Stories of Alfred Andersch, translated by Ralph had hoped his father would return victorious Wilkins suggested tea at the Annast. They Manheim. English translation copyright © 1 9 7 7 by Doubleday & Com­ and fill the night-blind wardrobe mirror in the found a table by the window with a view of the pany, Inc. To be published by Doubleday & Company, Inc.

MARIO BENEDETTI INGRID BENGIS DOVID BERGELSON MONA BERGENFELD STEPHEN DIXON H. BUSTOS DOMECQ FELISBERTO HERNÁNDEZ CARLOS MARTÍNEZ MORENO JOYCE CAROL OATES JUAN CARLOS ONETTI FREDERIC TUTEN