The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz

by Mordecai Richler

  And Mr. Cohen, sitting in the first row with his legs open like an inverted nutcracker to accommodate his sunken belly, thought, it’s worth it, every last cent or what’s money for, it’s cheap at any price to have captured my family and friends and foolish rabbi. He reached for Gertie’s hand and thought, I’d better not kiss Bernie. It would embarrass him.

  As choir sings Hallelujah Chorus

  74. Rear view long shot. Mr. Cohen and Bernard standing before the offices of M. Cohen, Inc., Metal Merchants.

  Fade out

  Nobody spoke. Duddy began to bite his fingernails and Yvette pulled his hand away and held it.

  “A most edifying experience,” Rabbi Goldstone said. “A work of art.”

  Everybody began to speak at once.

  “Thank you very much indeed,” Mr. Friar said. “Unfortunately the best parts were left on the cutting room floor.”

  “Play it again.”

  “Yeah!”

  7

  When Duddy came home he found out about Lennie.

  “What do you mean he’s gone?” Duddy asked.

  Max could hardly speak. He paced up and down the kitchen. “His clothes are gone. Every drawer in the bedroom is empty. Here’s the note. Read it yourself.”

  I’ll get in touch with you as soon as I can, but I’m not going back to Medical School. I’m sorry. Please forgive me.

  Leonard

  “That explains a lot,” Duddy said. “What do you think, Uncle Benjy?”

  Uncle Benjy poured himself another drink. Standing behind his older brother, Max gestured urgently to tell Duddy not to question him; he’s looped.

  “I can’t understand it,” Uncle Benjy said. “You’d think he would have got in touch with me whatever it was.”

  “I’m father.”

  “Jeez. Are we going to have a family quarrel at a time like this?”

  Uncle Benjy looked sharply at Duddy. “I haven’t seen you in a long time,” he said. “You’ve changed.”

  “He’s in business for himself. An operator.”

  “I heard.”

  “You wait. He’ll burn his fingers.”

  Duddy lit a cigarette off his butt. “How’s Auntie Ida?” he asked.

  Max made more urgent gestures. He grimaced.

  “She left for Florida this morning. I’m your uncle, you know. You shouldn’t hold a grudge. Bygones are bygones.”

  “Sure thing.”

  “O.K.” Uncle Benjy emptied his glass. “If that’s how you feel.”

  “What’s between you?” Max asked. “How come I never know what goes on around here?”

  Duddy sighed.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” Max said. “I’ll brain you.”

  “Easy, Daddy. Easy. What’s the name of Lennie’s girl?”

  “We phoned,” Uncle Benjy said. “She’s sick in bed. I spoke to the father.”

  “Have you tried his friends?”

  “Nobody knows from nothing.”

  “I think you both ought to go to bed,” Duddy said. “We can’t do anything at this hour. I’ll get up early tomorrow and start seeing his friends. Somebody will know something.”

  “Look who’s in charge,” Uncle Benjy said.

  “Do you expect me to sleep at a time like this?”

  “I sure do. Would you like me to drive you home, Uncle Benjy?”

  “I’ll call a taxi. He’s right, Max. We ought to get some sleep.”

  “It’s easy for you to talk. He’s my son but. His blood is my blood.”

  “Daddy, for Christ’s sake!”

  “Maybe I never had lots of money to give him. I don’t talk very fine either. But he’s my son and maybe he’s lying dead in a ditch right now.”

  “Daddy. Easy, Daddy.” Duddy held his father close. “He’s been studying too hard, that’s all. I’m sure he’s all right.”

  “I never tried to take him away from you, Max. I was only trying to help out.”

  “I’ve got feelings. You’d be surprised.”

  Uncle Benjy phoned for a taxi.

  “Come on, Daddy. You get into bed and I’ll bring you some tea.”

  “You think it’s easy to bring up two boys without a wife?”

  “We’ll find him tomorrow,” Duddy said, pulling back the bedspread. “I’m sure.”

  “Good night,” Uncle Benjy said. “Let’s keep in close touch.”

  “I’m sorry,” Max said, “but you know me. When I lose my temper I lose my temper.”

  Uncle Benjy nodded. Duddy touched his father’s head.

  “Good night, Duddel.”

  “I’ll call you as soon as there’s any news.”

  Duddy made tea. But when he was ready to serve it his father had fallen asleep, so Duddy shut the bedroom door softly and sat down at the kitchen table. “At a time like this,” he said aloud, “just when everything is beginning to move. That’s what you call luck.”

  After the screening of Happy Bar-Mitzvah, Bernie! had felt so marvelous that he had invited Mr. Friar and Yvette out. “We’ll go to Ruby Foo’s,” he said.

  Some of the people who had been at the screening were already there. “There’s young Kravitz himself,” somebody said.

  “That’s the director. He’s English. I’ll tell you something Gertie told me about him, but you must promise not to repeat it.”

  Duddy waved.

  “Congratulations, kid.”

  “A fine job.”

  Duddy couldn’t see Linda anywhere. She hadn’t even come up to him after the screening. The hell with her, he thought. He introduced Mr. Friar to people here and there. Yvette waited to one side.

  “We’ve got a table for you now, sir.”

  “A bottle of champagne,” Duddy said. “The best.”

  He told Yvette that after the screening he had been offered enough wedding and bar-mitzvah contracts to carry them through into January with an estimated gross of eight, maybe ten thousand dollars. Not only that, he added when Mr. Friar went to spend a penny, but he had had a long chat with Grossman, the owner of Camp Forest Land, and next summer Duddy was going to make a film there. He had offered Grossman such a cut-rate price that the poor bastard couldn’t afford to turn him down. That meant, Duddy said, that he would have an opportunity to see the camp from the inside. The information he’d gather about costs, prices, staff, and the handling of kids would be invaluable to him. He’d also get an address list of all the kids there so that they could be invited to the screening. Grossman was a crap artist. He didn’t suspect a thing. “What’s wrong?” Duddy asked. “You’re in a bad mood.”

  Yvette didn’t reply.

  “Tonight of all nights. Jeez. Hey, garçon. champagne.” Yvette laughed. “That’s my girl. Here’s Mr. Friar.” Duddy filled all the glasses. “Prosit.”

  “Here’s looking at you.”

  “Hey, Mr. Friar, remember that first night? You know, after the lecture. You weren’t angry when you walked out of the bar. You just didn’t want to get stuck with the bill.”

  “It seems to me I paid for the drinks that night.”

  “And every other night. Aw, you’re a great guy. I don’t know what I’d do without you. Or you too, Yvette.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Order anything you want. The sky’s the limit. Jeez, does this stuff ever make you wanna piss. Excuse me a minute.”

  “It’s the first door to the left, old chap.”

  “Thanks, old chap.”

  “Not the most delicate boy in the world, is he, Yvette?”

  “Maybe not.”

  “But not without his charms, I’m sure.”

  “Let’s order. I’m starved.”

  “He’ll never marry you.”

  “Let’s not start on that again, please.”

  “A Hebrew never marries outside his own race. I’d marry you. I’m mad for you.”

  “He’s your friend. He admires you. And I’m supposed to be his girl.”

  “He didn’t even introduce
you to anyone here.”

  “You don’t miss a thing,” Yvette said coldly.

  “He’s callow. His manners are unbelievably gauche. Why, he hasn’t the first notion of how to treat a woman. What on earth do you see in him?”

  “Plenty. Here he comes. Please be sweet, Peter. He’s so happy tonight.”

  “Yvette,” Duddy said, “I’ve just made an important decision. I’ve decided to get an apartment of my own.”

  “Earth-shaking.”

  “What’s eating him?”

  “He’s teasing. Sit down, Duddy.”

  “Did I say anything wrong, Mr. Friar? Are you angry because I kidded you about that first night before? Jeez. You’re my best friend. You can have as much to drink as you want.”

  “Merci mille fois.”

  “Where would I be without him?”

  “That’s enough, Duddy,” Yvette said.

  Duddy gulped down another glass of champagne. “Know something, Yvette? We ought to find a dame for Mr. Friar. We’re supposed to be his friends like. I’m sure it’s no fun for him always tagging along like this.”

  “I think we’d better order,” Yvette said.

  At a time like this, Duddy thought, just when I need every minute I can spare for the business, I have to start chasing around after Lennie. Jeez, he thought, what if he isin trouble? Maybe it’s something serious. Duddy was kept awake considering all the catastrophes that could have happened to his brother. Yvette will help me, he thought. We’ll find him all right.

  Lennie was nervy, it was true — sensitive — even as a kid the smallest things used to upset him. He was only six years older than Duddy and there had been a time when they had been real pals. There had been that summer when Duddy had still been at the Talmud Torah and Max had taken a cottage with the Debrofskys. Shawbridge with that river like coffee that had been left standing was no paradise, but Duddy had had fun there. Together he and Lennie had built shacks on the mountain and made field telephones out of empty oil cans and yards of carefully waxed string. When the other guys complained about Duddy always coming with them, saying things like what do we need the kid with us for, Lennie always stuck up for him. “Duddy’s my kid brother,” he’d say. “Where I go he goes.”

  It had changed, of course. When Lennie was in the tenth grade at F.F.H.S. the brothers no longer saw so much of each other. But Duddy still took pride in all of Lennie’s achievements.

  “Rank one again,” he’d say. “You’re a genius, Lennie. Congrats.”

  They still shared the same bedroom. Duddy’s side was thick with pennants and airplane models he had made and Lennie’s side was laden with gifts from Uncle Benjy, the Book of Knowledge and the Harvard Classics. Lennie used to tell him about his talks with Uncle Benjy. “He wants me to be the kind of doctor that’s a helper to the poor. He says I shouldn’t worry if I can’t get into Medical School at McGill because of the anti-Semitism there. Because he’ll send me to Queens or Switzerland. Anywhere. He’s becoming a boozer, you know. After he’d had a lot he held me so tight I got scared. You’re going to have to be my kaddish, said. I don’t get it. Half the time he talks against religion and then when he’s drunk he goes and says a thing like that.”

  Once Lennie entered McGill he was no longer amused when Duddy reported things like, “Boy, have I ever got a bone on tonight.”

  He still told Duddy about Uncle Benjy, but his tone had changed. “You mustn’t tell him I’ve joined Hillel. He says it’s a reactionary organization with a ghetto mentality.”

  “What did you say to that?”

  “Nothing. You think I’m crazy?”

  Occasionally Lennie would revert to the intimacy of their younger days together. “Boy,” he told Duddy once, “did I ever have a time at the Oneg Shabbat tonight! That Riva Kaplan. I mean I never thought a Jewish girl…”

  “It’s going up,” Duddy said.

  Lennie laughed. “Her house in Outremont has about six telephones. I’m taking her to the Arts Ball. Uncle Benjy is lending me his car.”

  “Let’s stay up and talk all night. I’ll make us an omelet.”

  Then when Duddy bragged about his brother one night it turned out that one of the girls at the dance was a cousin of Riva’s. She knew all about Lennie and he had never mentioned that he had a brother. He wasn’t a St. Urbain Street boy either. He lived on CôtSt. Catherine Road. That was Uncle Benjy’s address. But there were still things that Lennie liked to share with him. There had been, for instance, a brief but burning conversion to socialism. A time when he had begun to see a lot of Uncle Benjy again and had tried to make a convert of Duddy.

  “Are you aware that during the depression tons of oranges were being dumped into the Pacific to keep prices up while people in New York were starving?”

  But once he had entered medical school Lennie had no more time for politics. He studied continuously, his headaches worsened, and he became very short-tempered.

  I’ve got to find him, Duddy thought. After all those years of study he can’t throw in the sponge just like that.

  He woke when he heard Max drop the frying pan on the kitchen floor, “I thought you were getting up early this morning,” Max said, “to start looking for him.”

  Duddy stretched. His eyes were puffed.

  “Did I ever have a night,” Max said.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll phone you at Eddy’s the minute I find out anything.”

  8

  Duddy phoned Yvette to tell her about Lennie. “That means I won’t be in today,” he said.

  Yvette said she’d like to go to Ste. Agathe for a couple of days. The notary wanted to see her and it was her brother’s birthday tomorrow.

  “Sure thing. Just call the telephone answering service before you go. If you’re short there must be at least thirty bucks in the petty cash.”

  “I can live on my salary,” Yvette said in that special cold voice.

  Those dames, Duddy thought, there’s no need for them to tell you when they’ve got the curse. “Have a nice trip,” he said, and hanging up he added, “Ver gerharget.”

  College kids, Duddy discovered, do not get up too early. He loitered longer than an hour in Hillel House before he saw a familiar face. It was nice there, but he couldn’t relax: he was worried that he was sitting in somebody else’s chair or that his fly might be undone. Some girls in cashmere sweaters drifted in and there was a sweet-looking boy with a pipe. Duddy began to whistle and one of the girls raised an eyebrow. “It’s from Carmen,” said, clearing his throat. Then he saw Riva. She wore a McGill blazer. “Riva,” he said, “I’ve got to speak to you for a minute.”

  Riva looked surprised.

  “I’m Lennie Kravitz’s kid brother. Remember?” Duddy explained that Lennie was home sick in bed. Nothing serious, mind you, but his father was worried, and Duddy wanted to know if she had noticed anything odd about him recently. “Bothering him like.”

  “We move in different circles these days.”

  Riva, he gathered, was going to Tel Aviv to teach school once she graduated from McGill. “That’s a fine ambition,” he said, “but what about Lennie?”

  “He’s become an assimilationist.”

  “Wha’?”

  “You never see him at Hillel any more. Jewish boys and girls aren’t good enough for him. It’s a disgrace, honestly. Every time they take him into one of their frat houses he practically licks their boots.”

  Riva was late for Eng. 1 and had to run. She couldn’t meet him later, either. She was busy.

  “Duddy! Duddy Kravitz!”

  “Bernie!”

  “Boy, is it ever good to see you.”

  “Yeah,” Duddy said. “No kidding?”

  “You’re a big business success. I’ve heard all about you. Congratulations.”

  “Aw.”

  “Never mind. One day I’ll be saying I knew him when.”

  “You’ll saying that? Gwan. You’re getting a real education. You’re going to be an architect.”


  “What are you doing here?”

  Duddy repeated the story he had told Riva. He said he was anxious to find out anything he could about Lennie’s life at McGill.

  “Well,” Bernie said, “I knew I’d never get to that sociology class. Come around the corner with me. We’ll have a coffee.”

  They joked for a while about the old days at the hotel before Bernie got serious. “Look,” he said, “I don’t want to interfere. Lennie minds his own business and he’s entitled to choose his own friends.”

  “Give,” Duddy said.

  Bernie told Duddy that Lennie had a rep for being a plugger. He had never been very popular but nobody had really disliked him either. He had hardly been noticed, in fact, until he began to take out Riva. She was a popular number, a bit flighty, and soon Lennie was seen at parties with her everywhere. “He was crazy about her,” Bernie said. “Unfortunately Riva liked to dance close with all the boys and she wasn’t beyond a little friendly necking, if you caught her in the right mood. Lennie didn’t go for that. He began to cut in on all of Riva’s dances. Once, at a party I was at, he caught her fooling around with one of the guys in the upstairs hall and later I found him sitting on the steps outside. He’d been crying. His nerves were all shot. I really think that guy studies too hard.”

  “Anatomy’s the big killer,” Duddy said.

  “Anyway things went from bad to worse and one night they had a fight at a party. He was hysterical. I think it was just after the mid-terms and he looked like he hadn’t slept for weeks… Well, he called her lots of ugly names. Everybody was there and he yelled things at her he shouldn’t have.”

  “Like what?”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you all this, Duddy… Well, you know…”

  “He isn’t sick in bed. He’s run away from home.” Duddy told him about the note. “Like what?” he asked.

  “Like Outremont whore. Daughter of a war profiteer. Well, you know. The works. Up to that point everyone was on his side. But you know it wasn’t Riva’s fault that he was so serious about her. She’s flighty. I told you that. But she’s got a good sense of humor and everybody likes her. You want the gory details?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She slapped his face. Then Lennie began to call everyone in the room dirty names. Well, you know. We weren’t such big shots just because we had cars and he was as good as any of us… He tried to pick a fight with Shelby Horne and then he took a poke at me. Christ, he’s even skinnier than you are. I could have laid him flat with one whack. Anyway we got him home — What are you going to do, Duddy? Have you any idea where he’s gone to?”