American Stories

by Nagai Kafu

  The last one, Josephine, is probably the best in the house for both her figure and her looks. She is just over twenty years of age. Her parents emigrated from Italy’s Sicily island and are said to be still operating a roadside greengrocer in the Italian section on the East Side. Her full cheeks are pink and evoke the beautiful women of Southern Europe, her eyes have a moist luster like black gems, and her long eyebrows are as if they had been drawn.

  From the time she was fourteen or fifteen, she began to sing popular songs at vaudevilles and beer gardens on the East Side to great acclaim; then she became a chorus girl and for a time appeared on Broadway, but she fell ill from debauchery and lost her precious voice. She did recover it after she left the hospital, but by then she had given in to laziness and steadily sank into the world of prostitution. Still, she has not yet experienced the kind of trouble that would induce her to look more deeply into the grim realities of life, nor has she fallen desperately in love with a man; rather, she just loves wearing pretty dresses and fooling around with young men, and for someone her age, for whom anything wicked is fun, her current frivolous life is a rather ideal situation. Except when she is sleeping or eating, she continues to sing popular songs day and night, as she once did professionally, or else screams with laughter over nothing in particular and wanders all over the house.

  Not a single day passes without these five having a fight, but, like the passing of a storm, after an hour or so they forget everything and become friends again and spend the day backbiting the others.

  After finishing their dinner, which always consists of roast beef or else roast pork, potatoes, cranberry sauce, celery, and afterward a pie wedge or pudding for dessert, each of the company returns to her room and spends a long time making up her face; then at ten o’clock, as Madam rings every doorbell in the house, they all come downstairs to the parlor and wait for their prospective customers, thus beginning what they call business hours, as befits women of a mercantile nation.

  At this appointed hour, the five housemates are joined by four or five women who come from elsewhere through special arrangements with Madam, so that all together more than ten people take up various positions in the parlor, some dressed like respectable women in white waists wearing accessories around their necks, others in long evening gowns trimmed with an abundance of lace and even holding fans, as if they were at a nobleman’s ball.

  2

  Past eleven o’clock, shows are ending at nearby theaters, and the streets become momentarily very noisy with people’s footsteps, the roar of carriages, and the cries of drivers, but in no time quiet returns; it is between midnight and one or two o’clock that people leaving restaurants, clubs, and billiard parlors file in. Just now, a party of three young men, probably clerks from a shop somewhere, has been taken upstairs to various rooms on the second and third floors by Blanche, the light-fingered one, French-born Louise, and Flora, who is the wife of a streetcar conductor who has two children already but comes to work only at night to make money by mutual agreement with her husband; then, just after that, the doorbell rings again.

  Marie, the Negro slave-servant,20 opens the door. A fat, gray-haired man who looks like a manager is followed by three who are probably country merchants. Sensing that they are promising customers, Madam herself greets them and shows them into the front parlor.

  The managerlike man pretends to be above such things at his age, as if he is doing this for the sake of friendship, but as he looks around with deliberate composure at the group of women before even sitting down, his eyes quickly catch sight of Josephine, the young ex-performer. Thinking he has stumbled upon a major find, he immediately discards his sense of shame, advances toward her to sit on the same sofa, draws the woman’s hands into his lap, and says, “Let’s have some champagne.”

  The other three from the country appear to have been flabbergasted to see, as soon as they entered the parlor, the huge depiction of the persecution of nude Christians hanging on the front wall—a religious painting, of all things, in the least expected place—and sit down in a row, silently gazing at the picture for the moment, as if they were visitors at an art museum. Besides the women who are already there, two or three others come out from the adjoining rooms, drawing the curtains that divide the rooms on one side, and they sit down in chairs surrounding the three; the Negro slave brings out two large bottles of champagne and pours it out into glasses all around.

  “Here’s to our happy occasion.” The white-haired manager raised his glass first, took a sip, then pressed it to Josephine’s lips and let her gulp it down.

  Madam lingered around, holding her glass, then, looking toward the three, began, “If any of them suits you,” to find out if the customers had decided, but the three were a bit self-conscious and merely smirked. . . . Just then, someone was saying, “Good-bye, see you soon,” in the hallway outside the parlor. Following the sound of kissing, three women entered the parlor, having sent off their second-floor customers. Blanche was humming a tune and swinging her hips, Louise was mindful of some loose locks and smoothing down her hair, and Flora was looking down in an affected manner.

  The latter two proceeded to sit down in chairs at the far corner, but Blanche, seeing that there were customers, disregarded her colleagues, approached one of them while still humming, and abruptly sat on his lap. Saying, “May I?” she eyed him seductively and, taking a puff from the cigarette held between her fingers, slowly blew the smoke into his face.

  At this, the man, who had finally gotten bolder after gulping down a glass of champagne, took the cigarette from the woman’s mouth with one hand and puffed at it, while grabbing her waist with the other so that she would not slide off his lap.

  Watching this, one of the other men, although still sober, no longer hesitated and leaned his shoulder against the blonde Iris, judging her to be the most docile of the women. The remaining one, apparently a rapacious type who wasn’t particularly choosy, was gazing from right to left and then from left to right, not at the woman’s faces as much as at the women’s raised bosoms hidden underneath their dresses and at their white shoulders exposed by their ball gowns, and apparently indulging in indecent thoughts.

  At this point, judging that the company had reached a definite decision, first Hazel, the large woman from Canada, and then the others left their seats and one after another withdrew to the adjoining parlor beyond the curtain; but as soon as she sat down, Hazel venomously blurted out, “I don’t believe it! That thief Blanche. . . . She comes in late, and she has the gall to sit in the lap of someone who isn’t even her regular customer and fool around. I’m thoroughly disgusted.” The woman beside her agreed, saying, “Well, what do you expect from a shameless slut who has nigger lovers?”

  Every night it is like this, starting with a scramble for customers, which continues into the following day and becomes a subject of gossip, resulting ultimately in a heated quarrel as the object of the gossip will not remain quiet.

  For now, however, gossip in the adjoining room was happily drowned out by the heavy laughter of the intoxicated man. Blanche seated herself astride the man’s lap, dangled her legs in silk stockings, grabbed his shoulders with both hands, and, swaying her upper body as if rowing a boat, urged him, “Let’s go upstairs now,” as if wishing to settle the business quickly.

  “Time is money” being the maxim that sustains the lives of women in this mercenary capital, in order to make as much money in as little time as possible, they should not waste their time at the whim of a single man. For Madam, however, money spent on drinks becomes all her income; thus any customer who looks like a drinker must be detained as long as possible to sell him liquor. The result is that some conflict of interest cannot be avoided between Madam and the women who constantly complain . . . for instance, “Thanks to me, five bottles of champagne were uncorked last night, yet Madam tells me she cannot even wait a single week for my rent.”

  Madam had just poured a second round of champagne and begun playing the piano to
keep the people entertained; then she called on Josephine, the Italian, who had for some time been keeping company with the gray-haired manager on the sofa. “Josephine, sing something for us.” The former chorus girl, being young and not so greedy, liked to make merry with anybody, and so she began singing at the top of her voice to the clapping of her hands, and the manager sang along as well.

  I like your way and the things you say,

  I like the dimples you show when you smile,

  I like your manner and I like your style;

  I like your way!

  Blanche became a little impatient and, for someone who was a hag over thirty years of age, said in an affectedly sweet voice, “I’m drunk and feel awful,” and she pressed her face against her client’s face and took a big breath, while Iris, imitating this, grabbed her man’s fingers and said, “Let’s go upstairs and talk, all right?”

  The manager, watching the scene, said, “Look, they are getting pretty chummy over there. As for us, Madam, shall we open one last bottle?”

  Madam leaped at the opportunity, jumped away from the piano, and called out, “Marie, quick, our guest is asking for champagne.”

  Even Blanche gave up hope at this point and said feebly, as if she were resigned to her fate, “You are so energetic,” while the manager, pleased with himself, puffed out thick smoke from his cigar and said, “I’m always like this if I have wine, women, and money. . . . Josephine, won’t you sing that song again for me?”

  I like your eyes, you are just my size,

  I’d like you to like me as much as you like,

  I like your way!

  At that moment, the doorbell rang again. Marie, who had just brought out the last bottle of champagne, rushed out to the hallway, asking Madam to excuse her and to serve the champagne herself.

  One could hear a number of customers noisily entering the adjoining parlor, followed by the large Hazel and the French Louise with her funny accented English . . . then a husky male voice shouting, “Got no money for champagne,” could be heard.

  3

  There was a steady flow of customers till, past three o’clock in the morning, it stopped for the moment.

  All the women, though accustomed to staying up every evening, look a little tired around their eyes; as they have had champagne, beer, or highballs indiscriminately, their heads feel heavy from a hangover that has crept up on them. Even Josephine, the cheerful one, no longer has the strength to sing popular songs and is slightly yawning, with one elbow resting on the piano, while Blanche in a corner pretends to be pulling up her stockings but is probably trying to figure out how much money she has stuffed into them.

  Iris, Hazel, Louise, and Flora are all sitting on the sofa in a row like so many birds bunched up close together, and lean against each other’s shoulders; they look as if they have completely exhausted any topic of conversation or gossip. It seems that they are even tired of their incessant smoking; they look at one another, and if one of them blurts out, “Oh, I’m starving,” this is not followed by somebody else proposing, “Let’s go and buy something.”

  All of a sudden, the doorbell arouses the household from its collective fatigue.

  As if to enliven the company, Madam goes to the door herself, without waiting for Marie; two men appear in silk hats, fur-lined coats, and white gloves holding canes, unmistakably suggesting gentlemen of fashionable society, so Madam leads them reverentially to the front parlor and calls out, “Everybody, we have visitors.”

  The large Hazel stood up first and, before stepping into the next room, took a peek from the dividing curtain to see if these were promising customers, as was the girls’ wont, but then immediately turned around with a perplexed look and shushed them all.

  “Is that it?” They apparently understood right away and looked at each other, while Blanche stepped forward, looked through the curtains, and, saying, “Yes, it is,” stealthily returned to where the rest were. “They are detectives. And wearing evening dresses, for heaven’s sake. . . . Doesn’t Madam notice? I remember their faces very well.”

  At these words the women—although they were used to a life of prostitution, they had been burned once or twice when the New York police sent their detectives, disguised as customers, to catch culprits engaged in selling alcohol without paying taxes and in prostitution at least once a month—fled on tiptoe, coolly and calmly, from the hallway to the basement dining room; some slipped into the neighbors’ yards from the rear garden, while others lingered on at the basement entrance, ready to escape into the streets if it became necessary.

  Madam called them twice, but nobody showed up, so, typical of this society where people are quick to understand, she sized up the situation. When one of the men ordered champagne, she picked up a large bottle, poured it out, and, saying, “Stop playing jokes . . . it’s not nice,” laughed as she grabbed as much as a couple of twenty-dollar bills from her stocking and thrust them into his pocket.

  The two detectives now appeared satisfied and stood up, saying, “Ha, ha, ha, ha. We are just doing our job. See you soon.”

  “Do please.”

  Exchanging such odd greetings, Madam finally sent them off and banged the door shut. Dropping her heavy body on the parlor sofa like a trundled keg, she shouted in a loud voice, “God damn it!”

  For a while after this, the whole household remained quiet, but pretty soon Tom, the pet dog, stuck his head out from between the curtains, tinkling the bell that was attached to his neck and eyeing Madam with a worried look. He was followed by Blanche, who came up from the dining room, peeped into the parlor just like Tom, and called out, “Madam.”

  But Madam was apparently too distressed to answer.

  “Madam, at least they went away without making too much of a fuss.”

  “Of course,” said Madam irritatingly. “I let them have three or four twenty-dollar bills.”

  “Three or four twenty-dollar bills . . .” Blanche, very nimble-minded, was certain she was exaggerating and said, affectedly, “I am so sorry.”

  At this moment, those who had fled to the backyard noisily ran back into the parlor, thinking the danger had passed and shouting, “It’s so cold, we could freeze to death,” at which Blanche said, again exaggerating, “Madam says she has let them have seven or eight twenty-dollar bills.”

  “Oh, my God.” Everybody looked at Madam’s face.

  Madam seemed to have become all the more disgusted by the women’s expressions of sympathy and amazement; she abruptly raised her reclining body from the sofa in a resolute way, and told them, looking at all of them, “It’s nothing to be surprised at. I’ve been in this business for fifty years. A glance is enough to tell me if a guy will leave quietly for just five dollars, or if he will shut his eyes for ten dollars. . . . You need proper training to figure these things out. I told you, I’ve been doing this for fifty years, since when President Roosevelt, even President McKinley, were mere kids.”

  “Fifty years,” someone repeated, and another asked, “Wasn’t even Carnegie a penniless laborer then?”

  “Quite possibly. Even I didn’t have a single ring on my fingers in those days.”

  The company was at a loss for words. Madam then haughtily straightened herself up and started recounting her past. “Indeed, fifty years ago I didn’t have a single ring . . .”; then, looking as if tremendously proud of her current success at having overcome life’s hardships, she quietly stood up and went upstairs, giving the women a contemptuous look.

  The swishing of her skirt had hardly disappeared when Josephine, the simple-minded one, no longer able to contain herself, started laughing, tumbling about on the sofa.

  “Since when President Roosevelt was a mere kid,” Blanche mimicked Madam’s speech. Hazel added, “Not a single ring fifty years ago . . .” and everyone burst out laughing.

  The clock chimed in some room. Flora, the streetcar conductor’s wife, listened and, turning to Julia, who also came to work from elsewhere, said, “It’s already four o’cl
ock. It’s been such an unlucky night. I’m going home.”

  “True. Let’s go.”

  The two of them went to the third floor, threw off their night attire, changed into neat street clothes, put on their hats, straightened out their veils and scarves, and lightly knocked on Madam’s door, saying, “It’s past four, so we are going. See you tomorrow evening. Bye.”

  They pattered down the stairs and, calling out from the hallway, “Good . . . bye . . .” stretching the words, went out to the street; there they bumped into Louise’s lover, who had come from France with her and worked as an automobile mechanic.

  “Good evening,” he greeted them, removing his sports cap with a strange European gesture. “How is Louise?”

  “She’s in the parlor. Going to have a good time, are you?”

  Every night around five o’clock [A.M.] is the time when these lovers file in, and the beau climbed up the stone steps and rang the doorbell.