The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz

by Mordecai Richler

  “What does it matter what I want?”

  “Answer me. Jeez.”

  “Yes.”

  “O.K. Which side of the bed do you want? Good Lord! What lumps, old chap. How does that old fershtunkene tuchus-rent these rooms?”

  Duddy fell asleep instantly, but not Lennie. Lennie turned on his side and stared at the wall. Duddy huddled close to him, embracing Lennie’s waist. Twice Lennie moved away, embarrassed and uncomfortable, but each time Duddy pulled tighter to him again. Duddy snored. His body was seized by sudden jerks in his sleep.

  “Lennie?”

  It was five A.M. maybe.

  “What is it?”

  “Talk to me about Maw. Tell me about her.”

  “In the morning.”

  “Did she… well, like me?”

  “You were her kid.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Tomorrow. O.K.? And will you stop hugging me, please.”

  “I’m freezing, you jerk. What are you so scared of? I’m no homo.”

  Duddy was gone before Lennie woke the next morning. There were several independent film companies in Toronto, outfits that made industrial films, and Duddy, pretending to be a Diamond T Trucks representative, checked them all on prices. He also visited Columbia and Paramount to inquire about the price of films for semi-private distribution and to pick up catalogues. He was exhausted by the time he came round to pick up Lennie.

  “Well,” he said, “I’ve got the train tickets. We leave at six.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to see Calder and tell him the whole story.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “No. But I’m not a gentleman either.”

  “I won’t let you do it.”

  “I’m not asking your permission.”

  “It would mean the loss of all my self-respect, Duddy. It’s not honorable.”

  “How would you like to hold this for a while?”

  “If you go and tell Calder I did it I’m sure to be kicked out. He could send me to prison.”

  “We’ll have to take that chance. There’s no other way of being sure.”

  “I’m not going there with you.”

  “I didn’t expect you to.”

  “Don’t do it to me, Duddy. Please don’t go there and tell them. Sandra would …”

  “I’ll say you don’t know I’m doing it.”

  “When Irwin finds out — Well, there goes my summer in Maine.”

  “Wha’?”

  “Irwin’s taking a cottage in Maine this summer with some of the crowd. I was invited.”

  Uncle Benjy, Duddy remembered, couldn’t get into the States. He was a communist. “Listen, Lennie, there’s no other way. Calder’s sure to find out sometime. I’ve got to see him first.”

  “What’ll we tell Daddy?”

  “You were studying too hard and you went on a fling. That’s the story.”

  “Maybe if I just stayed here for a while Westcott wouldn’t find out anything. Maybe it would all blow over.”

  “Have any other medical students who have been seen at parties with Sandra Calder taken it on the lam at Toronto recently?”

  Duddy slept on the train. He didn’t wake until they reached the outskirts of the city. “Look,” he said as they pulled into Central Station, “snow. The first snow. Aw, come on, Lennie. Buck up.”

  “Yeah.”

  “There’s Daddy.”

  “Taxi,” Max shouted. “Taxi, sir.” He embraced Lennie. “Oh, Duddy, your girl has been calling all day. She says to go right to the office.”

  “Me and Frank Buck,” Duddy said, “we bring ‘em back alive,” and he punched his father lightly on the shoulder. “See you later, old chap.” Duddy ran, he jumped, grabbing for the falling snow, opening his mouth to swallow some.

  “Some kid,” Max said.

  Duddy took a taxi, watching the snow and the rush of lights outside, searching for lookers among the window-shoppers, gazing at their legs and in his mind’s eye stripping the juicier ones down to black lace panties. Boy, he thought impatiently, am I ever in the mood.

  Yvette was excited. “Duquette’s willing to sell,” she said.

  Duddy unlocked the desk and got the map out and saw that Duquette owned a considerable amount of lake frontage on the side opposite Brault.

  “The sister in the asylum died. So he’s got a clear title now.”

  “How much?”

  “Seventy cents a square foot. Twenty-five hundred dollars.” There was no rush this time. The notary said there were no other potential buyers.

  “Let’s try to knock him down to sixty-five. Tell the notary we’ll hand over the works in cash if he’ll take sixty.”

  “Have you got twenty-five hundred dollars?”

  “Not quite. But I can get it,” he said, picking up the phone. “Oh, I brought Lennie back. He was in Toronto.”

  “Why did he run away?”

  “Aw, he knocked up a shiksa. girl, I mean. Whoops… Hello, Mr. Seigal? Kravitz here. Listen, I’m going to need another five hundred in advance on the film — What? Oh, I see. Sure, that’s O.K. Good. See you soon. No, don’t worry. It’ll make Happy Bar-Mitzvah, Bernie! sick. I promise.” He hung up. “Seigal says he gave five hundred dollars on account to Mr. Friar this morning. Friar asked him for it. He gave him a receipt. Have you seen Friar today?”

  “No.”

  Duddy looked closely at Yvette. “We need a couch in here,” he said hoarsely. “We oughta have a couch.” He let Mr. Friar’s number ring and ring. There was no answer. “He’s probably asleep. Stop looking so worried, please. He needed money for film or something, that’s all.” Duddy hung up and told Yvette that he wanted her to find him an apartment downtown. “I also want you to get me subscriptions to Fortune, Time, Life — There’s another one, but I forget. We also ought to get some stills to hang on the walls. The bigger the better… Come here a minute,” he said, taking her hand and guiding it. “Some flagpole, eh? A regular Rock of Gibraltar.”

  Yvette wanted to wait, but Duddy insisted, and they made love on the carpet.

  “I don’t get it,” Duddy said. “Imagine guys getting married and tying themselves down to one single broad for a whole lifetime when there’s just so much stuff around.”

  “People fall in love,” Yvette said. “It happens.”

  “Planes crash too,” Duddy said. “Listen, I’ve got an important letter to write. We’ll eat soon. O.K.?”

  She didn’t answer and Duddy began to type.

  To Whom It May Concern:

  It has come to my attention that one Irwin Shubert intends to rent a cottage in Maine this summer. It is therefore my painful duty to inform you that the aforementioned Shubert is well known for his communistic beliefs on the McGill campus. He is known far and wide for sticking up for un-Americans like Henry Wallace, Paul Robeson, and Fred Rose, and I hardly think he would be a desirable guest in the fine State of Maine. I don’t understand why he is going (unless it is to do some dirty work for the commies) because the aforementioned Shubert is always propagandizing against the United States, saying how it is run by Wall Street and they are fascists and started the Korean War.

  PATRIOTIC CITIZEN

  PS. It is my firmly held conviction that the above-mentioned Shubert is also a sexual pervert. This is a heartbreak to his family but I thought you ought to know as these are dangerous times.

  Duddy handed Yvette the letter. “Check the spelling,” he said, “and first thing tomorrow send copies to Senator McCarthy, the FBI, and the principal of McGill. I also want you to take out subscriptions for Irwin to the Tribune any other commie papers you can think of. Pay for them in cash. O.K., let’s go eat. I’m starved.”

  11

  Hugh Thomas Calder had not made the family fortune, his father had done that, but he administered it with conservative good sense. His financial operations lacked panache, he avoided the big gamble, but steadily, unobtrusively, he mad
e money with his father’s money. Time called him “bland, brilliant Hugh Thomas Calder,” but that, he supposed, was because he said very little, and so people, being what they were, put him down for a thinker. That wasn’t the case. Most things he had to say were, he felt, rather asinine, usually he was bored, and so he seldom spoke unless he was asked a direct question. Mr. Calder was a widower, and grateful for it. He enjoyed living alone. Well, not quite alone. For there was Sandra. When Sandra had been fourteen he had looked at her and realized that she would grow up to be the true rich bitch, but he didn’t care. Why not, he had thought. There’s certainly money enough for it, and it’s time somebody enjoyed it.

  Hugh Thomas Calder did not pine for power, he had had his father’s fortune thrust on him. He abhorred the stale atmosphere of board rooms and committees and clubs, but there was nothing else he really wanted to do. He was not a frustrated artist or farmer. Neither did he see himself as a political candidate. A mere fifty and still mildly handsome, Calder was not altogether without enthusiasms. They were short-lived, however. He had collected pictures by young Canadian artists for a time, the nonfigurative kind of stuff, and then one day he looked at them all together, gave them away, and never bought another one. He had tried an analyst once, a little German refugee with sour breath, and he had invented the most extravagant dreams for his sake, but the German had been more interested in his opinions on the market and Calder had dropped him. He had once been intrigued with a girl who sang in a night club under the name of Carole — she complained endlessly about the conditions of her work — and one evening he asked her, “I wonder what you would do if you were suddenly given five thousand dollars out of nowhere.”

  “Oh,” was all she said, and he made out a check right there.

  Carole had seemed such a spirited girl that he had hoped she would do something wild. What she did was quit her job and bring her sister and mother in from the country and open up a hat shop.

  There had been other and, when he reflected on it, more shameful little experiments with money. Once, at the Chantecler in Ste. Adele, a hundred-dollar bill had accidentally dropped to the bottom of a urinal when he had hurriedly reached for his handkerchief. Calder hadn’t retrieved the soaking note. He had returned to the bar and sat there staring at the toilet door for some time. After four other men, with all of whom he had a nodding acquaintance, had been inside Calder went to the toilet again. The hundred-dollar bill was gone. Back in the bar again, Calder examined each of the four men severely, trying to guess who had stooped for the note. He thought of announcing his loss, he wanted badly to humiliate whoever had done it, and that depressed him. But the shocking part of it — for him anyway — was that following the first accidental loss he had, while staying at smart resorts, two or three times purposely repeated the procedure and then sat where he could keep an eye on the toilet door. Each time he would try to guess the man who had stooped, and shortly afterwards he paid his first visit to the little German analyst.

  Hugh Thomas Calder disliked Dr. Westcott intensely, he knew Sandra was not suffering from a mere nervous upset and that Westcott knew more than he was saying and — what’s more — was aching to be asked about it. Calder was going to deny him that pleasure. Sandra was, to his mind, a shallow little bitch and unless it was absolutely necessary for him to know he’d much rather not get involved in what was bound to be sordid. So he was displeased and in a most unreceptive mood when Edgar came to tell him that there was a young gentleman who insisted on seeing him alone.

  “What does he look like?”

  Edgar described him as a thin, shifty boy. He wore pointed patent-leather shoes. “He was here once before, sir. To see Miss Calder.”

  “I see. Send him in, please.”

  When Duddy entered the living room, Hugh Thomas Calder rose with studied weariness from his armchair and put on his glasses to have a better look.

  “It’s about Sandra,” Duddy said quickly. “She hasn’t got a cold. She was knocked up.”

  Calder removed his glasses. He stared. “Are you an abortionist?” he asked.

  “Me! Are you crazy? Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “Let me guess, then. You’re a blackmailer.”

  “Hey, one minute. I’m a respectable businessman.” He handed Mr. Calder his card. “I’m in the motion picture business.”

  “I see. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to sit down? Now, are you a blackmailer?”

  “Jeez. Could I have a drink, please? I mean is that rude for me to ask… ?”

  Mr. Calder poured two whisky and sodas. “You were saying?”

  “Lennie’s not going to be the fall guy, see. I’ve got friends.”

  “I’m sure you have, but —”

  “He’s a cinch to win the medal. You’re on the board of governors and you can help.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  “O.K. Sure. But one thing I want to get straight first. Lennie doesn’t know I’m here. He’d kill me if he found out.”

  “Lennie?”

  “He’s my brother.”

  Duddy told him about the bungled abortion.

  “But they could have killed her,” Mr. Calder said. “Why didn’t she come to me?”

  “They’re kids,” Duddy said. “I’ve seen quite a bit of them in the last week and if you’ll pardon me they don’t know from their ass to their elbow.”

  “Perhaps you’re right. But what do you want from me?”

  “This Dr. Westcott can make trouble. He can get Lennie expelled.”

  “Don’t you think he ought to be expelled?”

  “No, sir. I’m speaking candidly.”

  “Give me one good reason why not.”

  “Oh, let’s not talk like that, please. They took advantage of him like.”

  “Don’t you think he might at least have waited until he got his degree before he started to perform illegal operations?”

  “O.K., he made a mistake. Why should he be the fall guy but? Why should your daughter and Andy Simpson get off and Lennie be expelled?”

  “I think they all ought to be thrown off the campus.”

  “Wow.”

  “I’m trying to be fair.”

  “Sure. Sure you are. Sandra’s expelled and she comes home to this Yankee Stadium here and for all I know she can sleep in a different bedroom every night. That Andy Simpson goes home and sits on his ass until his father croaks and he inherits enough money to choke ten horses. But what about my brother,” Duddy shouted, approaching Calder, “what happens to him? He becomes a taxi driver. He gets a job in a candy store. Do you know what went into getting that guy into medical school?”

  “Why didn’t he think of that before?”

  “Maybe he did. But he’s a poor boy and he never met up with ladies and gentlemen before. Present company excepted.”

  “That’s not a good enough excuse.”

  “And what happens to my father? He dies of a broken heart. Thank you.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “He’s sorry. Hah! Look, it wasn’t even Lennie who knocked her up. He never once touched her. Is that how you people pay off favors?”

  Mr. Calder didn’t reply.

  “All you have to do is tell Westcott to shettup. When he finds out, I mean. Meanwhile he doesn’t even know it was Lennie.”

  “Why should I use my influence to conceal a criminal act?”

  “What are you? A lawyer?”

  “Are you very fond of your brother?”

  “He’s my brother,” Duddy said, annoyed. “You know.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Almost nineteen.”

  “Good God!”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Couldn’t your brother have come here to see me himself?”

  “He doesn’t know I’m here.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “O.K., so he knows. Lennie’s very sensitive. He gets headaches. Coming here was my idea anyway. Be a sport, Mr. Calder. Don’t make trou
ble.”

  “Why shouldn’t I?”

  “You’d feel better to see him expelled, ruined for life?”

  “No.”

  “O.K.,” Duddy said, “then it’s settled. You’ll speak to Westcott and —”

  “Wait a minute, please.”

  “I thought you said —”

  “Tell me how a boy your age gets into the film business. I’m interested.”

  Duddy told him about Mr. Friar, Yvette, and Happy Bar-Mitzvah, Bernie! time he made Mr. Calder laugh he felt easier, more hopeful, but it was difficult for him to tell if he was really making progress. Mr. Calder resisted each attempt to bring the conversation back to Lennie’s future.

  “And what about you,” Mr. Calder asked. “Why didn’t you go to the university?”

  Duddy guffawed. “I’m not the type, I guess.”

  “Are you positive?”

  “I come from the school of hard knocks.”

  “And what do you want out of life? Money.”

  “I want land. A man without land is nothing. Listen, about Lennie —”

  “I still see no reason why he shouldn’t be expelled.”

  “Just this once, Mr. Calder, couldn’t you — Well, he’s a good boy. Really he is. And he’s worked so hard like. Studying and studying…”

  “If he was such a good boy he wouldn’t have allowed you to come here to speak for him. He would have come himself.”

  “What do you want? Blood. He has to go back to McGill. He has to see Sandra and Andy and all those other rich stinkers every day. How could he come here?”

  “It would have been awkward. I understand, but —”

  “Have a heart.”

  Mr. Calder smiled.

  “Maybe some day I’ll be able to return the favor. I’ve got friends, you know.”

  “Oh.”

  “You heard of the Boy Wonder?”

  Mr. Calder waited.

  “Only the other weekend the Wonder and I went down to New York together for the weekend. Just like that.”

  “What on earth is the Boy Wonder?”

  “Jerry Dingle — the Boy Wonder. mean you never heard of him?” What, Duddy thought, if the truly powerful people in the city knew nothing about the Wonder? Could it be that Dingleman was only famous on St. Urbain Street? “You’re sure you never heard of him?”