Basic Forms

by Skolnik, Fred;

  However, Hirsch was not deceived by these charades. He knew it would have suited Walt’s designs perfectly to upset the apple cart and make a name for himself at Hirsch’s expense. No doubt he considered Hirsch an easy mark, mistaking his generally eager and compliant manner for a lack of will that might be ruthlessly exploited. If that was the case, Walt was sadly mistaken. Hirsch knew perfectly well how to play the game. He had studied Solly closely, admiring his incomparable finesse. Hirsch had a lot to learn but he was learning fast.

  And for whom, if not for Harriet, had he labored so hard and so long? The rewards were theirs to share. Had he not promised her the world in those romantic moments when he recited his poems as she lay against him with her hair brushing his cheek?

  He phoned the house again. No one answered. Then he began to work on customer accounts. He worked with a red marker, covering the pages with bold strokes, initialing each account with a flourish or pursing his lips and shaking his head contemptuously when the figures didn’t add up. He had the feeling that the entire office was waiting for the results, Solly, old Mr. Kroll, Walt and Charlie, all the girls in the other room. But he didn’t rush. He took his time. Occasionally he paused and reflected and could sense the tension in the air. Occasionally he went to the bathroom.

  The day wore on. He was not entirely at peace with himself. He had a great deal on his mind. He wondered if Harriet was really at the Library. He thought about taking Charlie up on his offer and getting that gun. But whom would he shoot?

  At five o’clock the girls in the other room began their exodus from the office. Hirsch always remained at his desk a few extra minutes to avoid the crush, which he utilized by pretending to fill his briefcase with papers. He was certain that neither Walt nor Charlie was taken in by this. In fact he even suspected that they had made it a practice to go through his drawers from time to time, as he often found them hovering over his desk when he arrived in the morning, looking inordinately pleased with themselves; moreover, his letter of resignation was often out of place. To make matters worse, it was not always possible for Hirsch to get to the office on time. This was especially true on those mornings when Harriet’s author dropped by to deliver a manuscript or pick up some of Harriet’s sketches, not to mention the long and somewhat intimate consultations they sometimes had. Though she urged him to leave and seemed quite exasperated when he insisted on staying, Hirsch knew that she was secretly relieved to have him present, though she might not be willing to admit it. Sometimes, too, Solly phoned and then he had to pretend he was sick and not come in at all that day, even going so far as to get back into bed and coughing occasionally though the house might be quite empty. Walt and Charlie, of course, did not let these increasing absences go unnoticed, though Hirsch had to admire their subtlety, for rather than reproaching him they became overly solicitous, as though he were recuperating from a long though unspecified illness. Walt brought him tea and kept asking if there was anything he could do for him. As the winter had turned out to be particularly severe, and in any case Hirsch generally had a running nose, it was not really difficult to keep up the pretense of convalescence and he even took to wearing a scarf in the office.

  Hirsch took the subway to Times Square. He had thought to pick Harriet up at the Library but even as he got into the train he realized that there was little likelihood of finding her there this late in the day. It was as if he was drawn to the place in spite of himself. He didn’t see her on the steps, nor did he go inside. He stood on the sidewalk for a long while looking up at the building. The icy winter air caused him to turn up the collar of his coat. Soon it would be dark. He had a cup of coffee at the Automat. Then he took the subway home. When he got back his entire face was numb. It must have been the coldest day of the year. He looked at the windows across the street and thought he saw a figure moving there. There were indeed signs that Harriet had been in the apartment during the day. He opened her closet and looked through her drawers. The opportunity to exercise his powers of deductive reasoning to trace Harriet’s movements was not entirely unwelcome. What had she worn? What had she left behind? The silver slippers stood side by side

  beneath the unmade bed. The clothes she’d worn that morning were carelessly thrown across a chair. Her drawing materials were all in place.

  He stared at the bed for a long while. The sheet was twisted. He noted each item of her clothing on the chair and the order in which they had been discarded: first the blouse, then the woolen skirt, the slip, the nylon stockings, the garter belt, the bra, the underpants. He laid his hand on her brassiere. Then he made supper and waited at the window, listening for her footsteps on the pavement in the street below. Lights went on and off in the building across the street, window shades were drawn. What had she worn?

  But then she was there, kicking off her shoes and throwing down her coat. She never felt the need to explain her absences. When she announced that she would be going out again to see some people, she was already throwing off the rest of her clothes and preparing to shower. Hirsch picked up her things from the floor. He supposed it was natural enough for Harriet to want to see her friends and did not object at all to accompanying her, though for all he knew she might have preferred to go alone, as on past occasions, though he always attached himself to her as though it was the most natural thing in the world and she seldom objected, only making what appeared to be a sour face. In any case she was not in any hurry to leave. Coming out of the shower in just a brassiere and lacy underpants, her thick, dark hair moist and matted, she put on a robe and went to her desk to draw. Hirsch moved quietly through the room with an open book in his hand, stopping to look over her shoulder as he passed. “Will you please get out of my light,” she said.

  They rode uptown on the subway in their overcoats. It was very cold. Hirsch didn’t know where to get off but Harriet did. They crossed the street and walked half a block and then Harriet said, “Here it is.” There was an awning out front and a doorman just inside the door. There was a chandelier in the lobby and some paintings on the walls and a gilded

  mirror above an antique table near the elevator. Another couple came in while they were waiting for the elevator and the four of them stood together without speaking. Then they rode up together and got out on the same floor and went to the same door where they could hear a kind of pounding rhythm from inside. “This must be it,” the other woman said. Harriet tried the door. It was open. They all walked in.

  Harriet’s author—who turned out to be their host and was hardly Hirsch’s idea of an author despite the books that covered the walls and a certain mannered way of speaking which in any event struck him as unnatural—was apparently single, for no one who could have been identified as his wife was in evidence. But he did seem genuinely pleased to see Hirsch, though he neglected to take his extended hand when they went over to him, turning instead to Harriet and lighting the cigarette she had extracted from her purse and then joining her on the sofa. “You’re putting on weight,” he said, touching her knee. “You’re not pregnant, are you?”

  “Don’t make me laugh,” Harriet said.

  Harriet’s author smoked a pipe, though unlike Hirsch’s it didn’t keep going out. He smoked his pipe as though he had been smoking it all his life, as though, in a manner of speaking, he had been born with one in his mouth, a silver one perhaps. The big apartment suggested wealth and privilege. While Harriet sat on the sofa talking to her author, Hirsch wandered through the rooms. He felt ill at ease. He was not the partying type. He was a poet and accountant. As an accountant he was attached to the workaday world. As a poet he had dreams and visions. Harriet and her author belonged to the social world where everyone talked at the same time and said nothing worth remembering. Some talked in low voices and some talked in loud voices but it amounted to the same thing. And the music kept on playing.

  Hirsch cleaned his glasses and tried to light his pipe. The guests were circulating between the library and the living r
oom. There were three or four bedrooms or guest rooms and even a billiard room. There were many leather chairs and thick carpets. The library and billiard room had paneled walls and were full of African artwork, carved or sculpted black figures and figurines, the women with bare breasts and smooth ebony behinds. He also saw some of Harriet’s sketches framed on the walls and in the billiard room a Nieman racing scene, sleek thoroughbreds pounding the turf in a tumultuous blur. In a small office off the library,

  Harriet’s author kept scientific journals on metal shelves along with some filing cabinets and another of Harriet’s sketches, this one a portrait of the author himself, achieved with just a few strokes of the pen — masterful strokes, he thought, that hinted at a certain dissoluteness, though if you looked too closely they became just lines with no apparent connection.

  Harriet’s author was still on the sofa with Harriet when Hirsch came back, his hand resting on her knee. Hirsch cleared his throat. Harriet’s author looked up at him and nodded. Then he stood up and excused himself, apparently having other guests to attend to, giving up his place on the sofa to still another acquaintance who had drifted over with a drink in his hand and was obviously intent on

  impressing Harriet with his unorthodox views. Hirsch was not displeased to see the attention she was getting. For his part, he was content to oversee her audiences from a discreet distance, ceremoniously ushering her admirers into the empty place by her side, lighting cigarettes and replenishing drinks. From time to time he would even give Harriet an encouraging look, which either she failed to notice or did not comprehend. In fact, the look that crept over her face led him to believe that she had been drinking far too much, though when she rattled the ice in her glass and held it out to him he brought her another without a word of protest, realizing that this was, after all, her evening and not wishing to spoil it by being unduly officious and certainly not by pointing out the lateness of the hour though he had a particularly busy day ahead of him, which was more than one would have been inclined to say about the assortment of hippies and beatniks moving through the room in various states of near somnambulance. What Harriet had in common with all these people he could not very well say, though they were harmless enough and probably not without their charm. For Harriet’s sake he tried to make himself as agreeable as possible, nodding and chuckling amiably and winking at couples dancing in the dark. As she did not seem to require his services for the moment, he found an empty chair and occupied himself by studying his watch. However, when she rattled her glass at him again he was instantly on his feet. She drank some more and tried to stand up. “Wanna dance?” she said.

  It was obvious that she was inebriated. He helped her to his feet. Her skin was damp and she could hardly walk. She was wearing a dress he hadn’t seen before and lipstick and some perfume too. He held her stiffly and tried to lead her in the box step he had learned at dancing school when he was nine years old. Harriet, however, insisted on gyrating her hips in the most provocative manner and whirling in and out of his arms, so that there was little he could do but humor her, snapping his fingers and occasionally stamping his feet. When the music stopped she was perspiring. He brought her another drink and sat her down on the sofa, where she resumed her drunken conversation with the other guests. It was well past two o’clock in the morning when she finally indicated that she was ready to leave.

  Hirsch helped her into her coat and steered her toward the door with a feeling of considerable relief. Harriet’s author seemed disappointed to see them go, detaining them for another quarter of an hour as he reviewed their schedule for the coming week, arranging to come by the apartment to drop off his latest manuscript. Hirsch kept checking his watch and shaking his head.

  In the subway she slept against his shoulder with her soft hair brushing his cheek, but outside, in the icy air, she came awake and he could barely keep up with her as she strode down the deserted street. When they reached the apartment someone was banging on a radiator pipe. Whoever it was was obviously familiar enough with the laws of acoustics to know that the sound would carry all the way down to the basement and alert the janitor, who was no doubt expected to leap up from his warm bed and the comforting body of his sleeping wife and instantly commence stoking the furnace. The basement where they lived was a vast and intricate place, with an infinity of dark passages and locked doors, pipes and circuitry, and the heat escaping from the blazing boiler room, unless of course the fire had gone out, as in the present case.

  Harriet sat on the sofa in the freezing room with the coffee he had made, her legs tucked under her and the knees pressed together. There was a glimmer of light in the predawn sky. She yawned and stretched her arms and got up to go to bed. He waited the appropriate length of time. In the bedroom he could make out every object in the growing light. Her clothes were strewn across the floor. Her bare arm was thrown across her face and the blanket was twisted between her legs. He lay down beside her and closed his eyes. She did not move when he touched her shoulder and drew the blanket back, though he knew she was awake. Her breathing stayed even and her eyes stayed shut, so he touched her again, and when she turned to him her eyes were wet with tears.

  He lay by her side for a long while with his hand resting on her hip, until finally her hand went out to his and she brought it to her breast. Then he turned her on her stomach and stroked her broad, white back, gazing at the soft swelling flesh. Then he took her by the shoulders and tried to force her legs apart.

  “God damn you, no!” she hissed at him.

  “I can’t,” he said, and her body heaved in pain as he plunged deep inside her and with a great shuddering sob found in her tortured flesh a measure of relief at last.

  III

  All of Zupan’s neighbors had taken it upon themselves to look in on him from time to time to see how he was getting along—but none were more solicitous than the Horns. Elizabeth and William Horn were actors—retired or unemployed, he did not know which, nor was it entirely clear to him whether they were indeed man and wife. They simply came and went in their inimitable way, always elegantly attired and slightly out of breath, as though caught up in a constant whirl of theatrical events—premieres, parties, interviews—with taxis waiting and appointments to be kept, she in her pillbox hat and discreet veil, he with his soiled mustache and walking stick. He could see them now coming up the street, Elizabeth resolutely setting the pace, her legs working furiously under her narrow skirt and her heels clattering like castanets while Horn kept up with short, rapid, syncopated steps, swiveling his hips like a tightrope walker to propel himself along, both with their eyes fixed straight ahead. It was as if they had received their call at last.

  Zupan let the water out of the bathtub and put away his shaving things. In the mirror his eyes were gray, metallic. It must have been past twelve o’clock, for he had not slept till dawn. It was three steps from the bathroom to the kitchen door. There were two coffee cups on the kitchen table. The living room was full of books. The bedroom door was closed. From behind the crepe-paper curtain he could see the Horns looking up at his window as they stood on the sidewalk in front of the building addressing one another in a kind of urgent, agitated way, though they must in fact have been whispering, since he could hear nothing at all of their conversation. Then Elizabeth turned toward the entrance and after hesitating for just a moment strode purposefully up the steps.

  Zupan waited opposite the door, his jacket zippered to the throat, the collar up and his fists buried in his pockets. He thought he might hear her on the landing, but the only sound he heard was a slight rattling in the radiator pipes. And yet he knew she was standing there. She knocked twice, timidly, and he heard her clear her throat before he opened the door.

  “Hi,” she said. “We was just going out to lunch. Care to join us?”

  She spoke her lines in a single breath, quite mechanically, and did not really know what to do with her hands, craning her neck slightly to peer past him into the inte
rior of the apartment just as he was peering past her into the dark hall, so that their eyes didn’t really meet. “Bill’s downstairs,” she added.

  The hall was damp and smelled of rotten oranges. Elizabeth took the steps sidewise, with many little cries of apprehension, holding up her skirt with one hand and gripping his shoulder with the other in a consummate parody of decrepitude. But her body was long and lean and still youthfully supple, and her face, too, hardly showed any signs of age. It was a small, handsome, angular face, the skin stretched smooth across the bone and the steel-gray hair gathered tightly into a bun at the back of her head. At the bottom of the stairs she paused to compose herself, applying some powder to her face and then sucking in her cheeks and stepping briskly into the street after motioning to Zupan to hold open the door. William Horn was waiting there.

  “Ah, Edward, my boy,” he said. “So glad you could make it.”

  “I had to coax him a little,” Elizabeth said for no apparent reason, and they both regarded him in a fond, chiding way, whispering something to each other and chuckling politely behind their hands. Zupan, too, raised his hand, shielding his eyes like someone unaccustomed to the light of day. He looked up and down the street, which was deserted, and then at the Horns, who were watching him expectantly.

  “Well, what shall it be?” Horn said. “Sardi’s? The Stork Club? Twenty-one?”

  “Ain’t he a scream,” Elizabeth said.

  “Of course there’s this joint around the corner that makes the finest hash in town.”

  “You said it.”

  “And a special on meat loaf at the Automat.”

  “I swear.”

  Horn winked, a faint whiff of whisky and peppermint candy coming off his breath, the peppermint candy rattling against his teeth whenever he spoke. Conceivably they both wore dental plates, though this was more likely in Elizabeth’s case, since her small mouth seemed to have lost something of its natural shape. Horn looked at his watch, which was attached to a chain. “But we’d better be off if we wish to make that matinée.” And no sooner had he said this than they linked arms with him and whisked him down the street, proceeding at such an unnaturally rapid gait that he felt himself tripping along with his feet barely seeming to touch the ground as all the while the Horns kept up a constant flow of gay repartee behind his back as if he were not there at all. Even traffic had to stop for them.