The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz

by Mordecai Richler

  The man turned to a woman seated on a large sofa. “There you are,” he said. “I told you they’d send a boy over before three.”

  Duddy looked at the woman and groped anxiously for a cigarette. There must be some mistake, he thought. He looked at the room number again.

  “Ida thought you’d never get here,” the young man said.

  The heavily made-up woman on the sofa was small and round and fat. She wore what he guessed from his experience of MGM musicals was a Mexican costume. A white embroidered blouse and a wide skirt of many colors. Beads dripped endlessly from her neck and when she rose with a small apprehensive smile there was a clack of bracelets. Her toenails were painted silver and the ring on her proffered hand swelled like a green sore. Her hair had been dyed black. Her eyebrows had been plucked and heightened, the eyes were smaller than he had remembered them, but he was sure now that it was she. There was the thick smell of roses and the luggage on the bed. A crust of torn labels obliterated the original not wanted on voyage, but it was the same trunk.

  “Auntie Ida?”

  She held a hand to her throat.

  “I’m Duddy. Your nephew like.”

  The young man threw his hands up in the air. “Ça, alors,” said.

  “Uncle Benjy has cancer of the stomach. He’s going to die.”

  There was a lot to do. Ship reservations to Cannes had to be canceled and sleepers reserved to Montreal. There were disputes over luggage and many anguished telephone calls and puzzling telegrams, deliveries from the cleaners were late, pills and creams not available in Montreal had to be procured quickly and in large quantities, and only an hour before train time Aunt Ida collapsed on the sofa and said she couldn’t go.

  “Isn’t it just like Benjy,” she said, “to get cancer just after I’ve finally made the break. Don’t look so shocked. Psychology has proven that people can bring such diseases on themselves.”

  “You mean he wants a cancer? That’s crazy but.”

  “Benjy has suffered from an overpowering death wish all his life. He wants his death to be my fault though. That’s part of it.”

  “Oh. Oh, I see.”

  “But I’m no longer the guilt-ridden girl he used to know. If I go to him now I don’t want there to be any hypocrisy about it. I want to be clear in my mind about motives.”

  “He’s your husband and he’s dying. So?”

  “I try to look at all my relationships honestly. I’m not going to him because I’m afraid he’d cut me off without a penny. He’s too subtle a sadist for that. He’d want me to suffer.”

  “You mean if he left you his money it would only be to make it harder for you?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Jeez.”

  “Your Uncle Benjy and I… Well, we never had a satisfactory horizontal relationship. I guess you know that?”

  “Come again, please?”

  “Our sex life was never satisfactory to either partner.”

  “Listen, we don’t want to miss the train, do we?”

  “Did you think he was impotent?”

  “Well, I heard stories. You know how it is?”

  “He was as capable as the next man. I can’t have children.”

  “Wha’?”

  “I used to think there was something noble about Benjy, That he told his father he was impotent because he loved and wanted to protect me.”

  “You mean Uncle Benjy can have babies?”

  “But his relationship with his father was never what it appeared to be. The father figure has dominated Benjy since he was a child. He was always afraid that if he did something wrong the old man’s love would be withdrawn and he grew to hate him for it. So he hurt him the worst way he could. He told him he was impotent.”

  “Maybe I’m stupid, but —”

  “At the same time,” Aunt Ida continued, “he was protecting himself. As long as he stayed with me there would be no children. Benjy never wanted a child. He wanted to be the child. (He always slept in the fetal position, you know.) He was scared stiff that if he had a child your grandfather’s love would be projected onto it and he would be forced to cope for himself. Benjy has a castration complex.”

  “Listen, he’s got cancer. I don’t know what complications there are, but — Please let’s go. Auntie Ida?”

  “I bet you think he’s a socialist?”

  “Who cares?”

  “That’s his technique of winning attention. He doesn’t believe in it for a minute, but he’s always wanted to shine and that’s his way — If only he’d go to an analyst. I’d be so pleased if he’d learn to live with himself.”

  “He’s dying,” Duddy said, “so what’s the point?”

  “Are you sure? He could have all the symptoms of cancer and not have it, you know. It could be psychosomatic. There are lots of case histories…”

  “Do you really think so? I mean there’s a chance he hasn’t got it?”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me.”

  Pretending to be fascinated by what she had to say and all the while coaxing her with drinks, Duddy somehow managed to get her downstairs and into a taxi and onto the train.

  “The human personality is like an iceberg,” Aunt Ida said. “Nine tenths of it remains submerged.”

  Ver gerharget, thought, slumping beside her on the train at last, and ordering more drinks.

  “You think he’s been wonderful, don’t you, when all these years have really been a torture to me. Doctor after doctor after doctor he sent me to, and afterwards he’d always say it’s all right, dear, never mind, it’s not your fault. Why wouldn’t he leave me if he wanted a child so badly? He hasn’t got a mistress either. He never had one. He couldn’t do that to me, he said, and then he’d forgive me all my little affairs. I understand, he’d say, it’s all right, darling, and he’d send me to still another doctor… He was trying to murder me with guilt. Uncle Benjy is the next thing to a psychopath.”

  Duddy patted her hand. “Aw, you’re only saying that,” he said. “Deep down you love him. In your heart of hearts I’m sure —”

  “We could have adopted a child and been happy together. But no, he wouldn’t have it. He knew of another doctor.” She began to weep. “He won’t be happy until I’m a raving lunatic and he’ll make me one yet.”

  “Look,” Duddy said, “we’re passing the Hudson River!”

  “The few times I came home and tried to make a fresh start he wouldn’t let me do a thing around the house. At first,” she said, blowing her nose, “when we were still happy together, I thought it was because he was so kind. He used to kiss my hands and tell me how pretty and white they were and how he didn’t want them soiled.”

  “No kidding,” Duddy said, grinning. “Uncle Benjy said that?”

  “While all the time he was already plotting my mental destruction.”

  “Oh. Oh, I see.”

  “He wouldn’t let me cook or wash the floors or do the laundry because he wanted me to feel inadequate. He succeeded too.”

  “Hey,” Duddy asked, “did you see Gaslight?”

  “The more he martyred himself the happier he was.”

  “Joseph Cotten was in it. I forget who played the wife.”

  “What?”

  “Skip it. Never mind.”

  Nothing surprised him, so that when after a few more drinks the conversation turned dirty he was not shocked. Aunt Ida confessed that if their horizontal relationship had been a failure then she was not blameless. There had been her own problem of penis envy, for instance, and this she illustrated with some smutty stories about her childhood. Uncle Benjy, she said, was an oral fetishist, and when she explained that for him he blushed and quickly ordered another drink. Then she turned her attentions on Duddy and, hoping to distract her, he talked about Yvette.

  “The Oedipus,” Aunt Ida said.

  “Wha’?”

  “Your mother was taken from you when you were young and all your life you will be searching for a woman to replace her. All bo
ys want to have sexual relations with their mothers,” she said.

  “Hey,” Duddy said, “enough’s enough.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re a prude.”

  “My mother’s been dead for years. I don’t want her talked about like that.”

  “You see. I hit a vulnerable spot. That’s why you lost your temper.”

  “Oh for Christ’s sake!”

  Eventually she fell asleep and began to snore. Tears had wrecked her makeup. Duddy lifted her glass gently out of her hand and stared at her and thought, what can Uncle Benjy see in her? But the more he reflected on it the smaller was his comprehension. Imagine, he thought, she’s the one who can’t have kids and now he’s dying.

  Breakfast together was trying. Her hands shook, she looked very old — silly, even, with all the fresh makeup — and Duddy understood that she was afraid. “Listen,” he said, “there’s one thing. Uncle Benjy doesn’t know he’s got cancer. He’s got to think you came back because you wanted to.”

  “Come with me to the house.”

  “Are you crazy? He doesn’t even know I went to New York to get you.”

  “I can’t go. He knows about Larry and he’ll make fun of me. An old woman with a gigolo.”

  “You’re not old. Why, one man on the train asked me if you were my sister.”

  “I’m afraid of him. I’m afraid of how he’ll look at me. You have no idea how pretty I used to be.”

  “He’s dying, Auntie Ida. Please…”

  Uncle Benjy summoned Duddy to his house three days later. He lived on Mount Royal Boulevard, above Park Avenue and overlooking the mountain. The house, built according to Uncle Benjy’s specifications, represented his idea of how an English gentleman lived. The dominant room, his was the library and this was severely furnished. There was also an enormous glassed-in sunporch looking out on the garden and the central feature of the living room was a fireplace of immense proportions. His basement was “unfinished,” and here he kept his stores of hard liquor and wines. There were four bedrooms and a nursery. On the living room walls Uncle Benjy had hung prints and engravings and maps of nineteenth-century England. His collected edition of Dickens he had had bound in morocco leather and kept on a special shelf handy to his bed.

  Uncle Benjy wore his ornate silk dressing gown and smoked a cigar. “Sit down and don’t stare, please. I know I’m getting thinner. I suppose you expect me to thank you for bringing her back?”

  “Will you leave me alone, please?”

  “I know what I’ve got so we won’t pretend. I knew before she came back. The day they let me out of the hospital I knew.”

  “I’m sorry, Uncle Benjy. But — well, where there’s life there’s —”

  “Oh, shettup! Did she fill your head with foolish talk on the train?”

  Duddy shrugged.

  “Don’t let me ever catch you making fun of her. I’m warning you. Now there are some favors I have to ask. Why are you smiling?”

  “Don’t you find it funny?”

  “I have lots of money.”

  “I know,” Duddy said.

  “If you’ll give up those vulgar movies you’re making and take over the factory you can have fifty per cent. The rest is hers.”

  “I’ve got other ambitions.”

  “You can make more running my factory and you like money so much.”

  “Why can’t Manny run it for her?”

  “Manny’s a fool.”

  “You mean I’m not a fool? Thank you, Uncle Benjy. Thanks a lot. I thought you were the only one in the world with brains.”

  “Why do you hate me so much?”

  “I worked for you once. Remember?”

  “How long will you hold a grudge, Duddel?” he asked, smiling.

  “You think it’s funny. Everything about me’s funny. I’m a regular laughingstock. You know as a kid I always liked Auntie Ida. But I remember when you used to come to the house you always brought a surprise for Lennie. I could have been born dead as much as you cared.”

  “Let’s not pretend. Everybody has his favorites. There was always the zeyda bring you surprises. He’d never hear a bad word said against you.”

  “Why,” Duddy asked, “did you try?”

  “You’ve developed quite a chuzpah I last saw you. You have money in the bank, I suppose.”

  “Why did you send for me?”

  “A man should arrange his affairs.”

  “Well, if you can’t trust Manny to run the factory you’d better sell out. I’m not interested.”

  “What is it about us, Duddel, that we can’t sit together for five minutes without a quarrel? I really brought you here to say thanks. I’m grateful for what you’ve done. Aw, what’s the use? We bring out the worst in each other.”

  “We don’t pretend but.”

  “That’s true. I wonder what will become of you, Duddel. Well…”

  “I’ll never be a doctor, that’s for sure.”

  “Now why did you say that?”

  “Because Lennie never wanted to be a doctor either. You forced him.”

  “I did my best for that boy.”

  “You sure did, Uncle Benjy.”

  “If I’d left it to your father to bring him up he’d be driving a taxi today.”

  “I don’t like the way you talk about my father. I never have.”

  “I’ll be generous. Max is not very bright. I can’t change that with my talk one way or another.”

  “You’re very bright and nobody likes you. I’m sorry, Uncle Benjy. I say things I don’t mean. It’s just that you make me so sore sometimes…”

  “We eat each other up, Duddel. That’s life. Take Ida. I know what you think of her. I know what everyone thinks… But she wasn’t always such a foolish woman. She was once so lovely that — I’m not apologizing for her to you. You understand that? It’s just — Well, I won’t be sorry to die. I’m leaving lots of money. There’s some for you too.”

  “Jeez.”

  “I thought we didn’t pretend?”

  “Why didn’t you ever have time for me?”

  “Because you’re a pusherke. little Jew-boy on the make. Guys like you make me sick and ashamed.”

  “You lousy, intelligent people! You lying sons of bitches with your books and your socialism and your sneers. You give me one long pain in the ass. You think I never read a book? I’ve read books. I’ve got friends now who read them by the ton. A big deal. What’s so special in them? They all make fun of guys like me. Pusherkes. a bunch you are! What a pack of crap artists! Writing and reading books that make fun of people like me. Guys who want to get somewhere. If you’re so concerned how come in real life you never have time for me? It’s easy for you to sit here and ridicule and make superior little jokes because you know more than me, but what about a helping hand? When did you ever put yourself out one inch for me? Never. It’s the same with all you intelligent people. Except Hersh maybe. He’s different. You never take your hand out of your pockets to a guy like me except when it’s got a knife in it. You think I should be running after something else besides money? Good. Tell me what. Tell me, you bastard. I want some land, Uncle Benjy. I’m going to own my own place one day. King of the castle, that’s me. And there won’t be any superior drecks to laugh at me or run me off. That’s just about the size of it.”

  “You’re such a nervy kid. My God, Duddel, you’re even touchier than Lennie and I never realized it. Take care. Take my advice and take care.”

  “I don’t want your advice.”

  “You don’t want anything from me. Come to think of it, you’re the only one in the family who never came here to ask for something. My God, it never occurred to me before. You’re the only one. Duddel, I’ve been unfair to you.”

  “I can never tell if you’re joking. There’s such a tricky business in your voice, if you know what I mean?”

  “I’m not joking. Lennie, your father, all of Ida’s family, nobody has ever come to visit me without the hand outstretche
d. Except you. Now isn’t that something?”

  “There were lots of times I needed help.”

  Uncle Benjy waited.

  “No sir. I wouldn’t come to you.”

  “You’re hurting me. You know that?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  There was a knock at the door. “That’s for Me. It’s the doctor.”

  Duddy rose.

  “Would you come again?” Uncle Benjy asked.

  Duddy rubbed the back of his head.

  “Sometimes. When you’re free.”

  “Sure.”

  But Uncle Benjy knew he wouldn’t come. “Was I that bad to you when you worked for me?” he asked.

  “You were my uncle,” Duddy shouted, “and I thought it was the right thing to tell you the goy stealing from you. I’m no squealer. I wanted you to like me. You treated me like dirt.”

  The doctor knocked again.

  “You always looked for the bad side with me,” Duddy said.

  “I wish I’d made more time for you. God Help me but I wish I’d seen what your zeyda The door opened. “May I come in, please?” the doctor said.

  Without thinking, Duddy seized the doctor. ”Don’t let him die,” he shouted. “He’s my uncle.” And then, embarrassed, he fled the house.

  “I’m sorry,” the doctor said, “I didn’t realize I was interrupting.”

  Uncle Benjy went to the window and watched Duddy leap into his car and drive off. Run, run, always running, he thought, he can’t even walk to his car. “What kind of pills did you bring me today?”

  “You mustn’t be so cynical, Benjy.”

  “I can’t stand pain, Harry. As soon as it starts for real I want the morphine. Lot’s of it.”

  He won’t come again, Uncle Benjy thought. I don’t deserve it either.

  “Benjy, please. What did the boy say to you? You’re so excited.”

  “We’re a very emotional family. Come back later, please.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Yes. Go away, please,” Uncle Benjy said, turning his face away quickly.

  3

  Yvette brought him the news.

  “Virgil’s been in an accident. The truck went into a tree outside St. Jerome. They had to use blow torches to get him out.”