[Dorothy Parker 03] - Mystic Mah Jong

by Agata Stanford

  “Here goes another perfectly fine hat!” said Mr. Benchley.

  “I thought you were—that she was—what you doing here, may I ask?”

  The polite query in contrast to his threatening pose might have been comical were it not for the weighty weapon wobbling back and forth in his shaky hand. Its long barrel kept drooping like a divining rod, and I had the strange urge to help him lift it for fear he’d shoot one of us in the privates. He blinked several times to clear his eyes of the sweat that ran down from his forehead.

  “We were invited to tea, but there was only one tea bag, so Caroline ran out to the store. What about you, Mr. Katzenelenbogen?”

  Nodding, he considered my reply, and finding it obtuse, shifted his feet apart. He switched the gun to his other hand, and with his free hand removed a kerchief from his pocket and proceeded to wipe sweat from off his face. Now I was worried about getting shot in the foot.

  Having tried and failed to frighten us with a proper aim at the heart, Katzenelenbogen folded in on himself; he literally sank to the floor, the gun still in his hand, as if the weight of the .45 had dragged him down. He broke down into wails of self-recrimination in a language that was foreign to me. He did not resist as Mr. Benchley gently removed the long-muzzled weapon from his fingers.

  “It appears,” said Mr. Benchley, “we keep encountering reluctant assassins.”

  We helped him to his feet and led him to the plush chair. Mr. Benchley fetched a glass of water for him from the bathroom sink. After he nervously drank it down, Mr. Benchley refilled his glass. Franken-Katzenelenbogen regained control, along with renewed sanity, and spewed forth many apologies for his behavior.

  “Of course you’re sorry,” said Mr. Benchley. “It’s not really us you’re after.”

  “Who were you planning to shoot?” I asked.

  “Caroline . . . . Oh, I never really kill her!”

  “Then why’re you packing?”

  “I don’t understand?”

  “The gun. If you weren’t going to kill—”

  “I want to scare her.”

  “Caroline?”

  “Just scare.”

  “Why does she need scaring?”

  “Lies!” There followed a long string of consonant-laden words in his native language, which stopped abruptly when I threw up my hands.

  “Forgive, but, I frightened for me and my sister, Dvoyra.”

  “Listen, Katzenelenbogen—” Mr. Benchley took a breath. “You’re in a lot of trouble, and if you killed Madame Olenska—”

  He screamed out an agonized plea of innocence: “No! I not kill Madame Annabelle. Why do such terrible thing when she only person—she take us in, she save me and Dvoyra!”

  “All right, all right,” I said, instantly becoming this pathetic little man’s champion against a brutish Benchley. “Calm yourself now. We didn’t mean to accuse you of killing her.” Mr. Benchley looked at me oddly. “At least, we don’t know if you did or didn’t do it, but if you did you probably had a good reason—”

  Mr. Benchley shook his head in dismay. “You haven’t explained why you’re here sneaking around.”

  “Pardon, Mr. Benchley, but may I ask why you here sneaking around?”

  “No, you may not. Anyway, you’re the one with the gun. You’d better talk to us first, Katzenelenbogen, or maybe you’d rather talk to the police?”

  Mr. Benchley sounded a little too tough to be believed. But Katzenelenbogen was impressed. Live a while under a repressive regime and no threat sounds hollow. “Please, please do not call authorities. They send us back, and they kill us when we get back.”

  “Just tell the truth.”

  “Madame knew I am innocent—”

  “Innocent? Of what?”

  “That why she helped me and Dvoyra. Pleeeaaase don’t call police to take us!”

  And then, after a few seconds of obvious inner turmoil, juggling the pros and cons of spilling his story to his benefit or detriment, a suddenly very contrite-and-controlled-sounding Chaim Katzenelenbogen began to speak: “Madame Olenska helped Dvoyra and me. She took us here for our freedom.”

  “Political asylum? You are political refugees? Dissidents?”

  “If that is how it is called . . . .”

  “But you said Madame believed you were innocent. Innocent of what?”

  “I was accused, but I am not guilty.”

  “Accused of what?”

  “Murder!”

  “Start from the beginning.”

  “Yes, I start from beginning: I from town called Zhmerinka in Ukraine. I trained by my father as diamond cutter. Before Revolution I jeweler, had good shop and earned good living, but it all changed too fast, and my store was taken from me. My wife, she died, and then my little girl, Anya, she sick and die, four years old. My sister Dvoyra is all my family that is left.

  “I did not want to join cooperative, but they press and they press you to do so. They took my shop. At any time, I could be picked up in night and sent to work camp, like my uncle and friend. I find work as helper for butcher named Perekotylo. He good man, but that is where trouble get worse for me.”

  He took a long breath and a shiver shook his small frame. His vulnerability made me feel a sense of outrage for his circumstances. And when I caught his eye, I could feel my heart breaking for him, for the injustices he and his loved ones had suffered. His anxiety was almost palpable.

  “I sleep in little room I share with Dvoyra at back of shop, and one night last winter, I hear noises from front of shop. Perekotylo and his wife—their rooms above shop, and I think it him come downstairs. I go to see. Maybe he not well. And what I see not good. Big man stealing meat from store, and there Perekotylo with gun coming down stairs!

  “But Perekotylo—he not see what I see from where I stand in dark hall, and there no time to warn him before he comes around wall of steps. He shot in chest by robber, and before he falls, Perekotylo fires gun and kills robber!

  “I rush to help Perekotylo; Dvoyra, she screaming, and Perekotylo’s wife, she rush down stairs, but then I see other man. Other robber! I not stop to think, I take Perekotylo’s gun and shoot. And when I look at him better, I see he and other robber are policeman robbing store! He does not die. He say he come to help Perekotylo, but he lying. He come to rob shop.

  “I knew my time short. Policeman will say I shoot them both because I robbing store! Everything . . . twist around. Perekotylo be safe, he say I shoot dead first policeman, maybe. I am Jew, and not safe. I be called ‘enemy of state.’ Perekotylo tell wife to give me money from drawer before he die and tell us to run, and soon, Dvoyra and I run.

  “We hide with friends next town, and then it too dangerous—for us, for friends—so we go. I remember Countess Katrina Olenska. My father and my father’s father Olenska family jewelers. She take us in, and send letter to cousin in Poland, and cousin send letter to Cousin Annabelle—Madame Olenska, here, in America.

  “Countess arrange for us to travel to border. Madame Annabelle make new papers for us. We travel with Madame as servants under name ‘Franken.’”

  “But why did you want to scare Caroline? What has she done to you?”

  “Madame find job for us with Miss Adelaide Leopold. But when Madame missing jewels, valuable necklace, Caroline tell Madame she see Dvoyra stealing from Madame’s room. She tell Madame we steal money and jewels from Madame. But, Madame find necklace in drawer. I think Madame know Caroline liar.

  “Miss Adelaide know nothing about Caroline say Dvoyra stealing necklace, but morning after Madame Annabelle killed, Caroline tell her on telephone we steal from Madame. Maybe even kill her! Miss Ada dismiss us. She very upset Madame killed, and she not listen to protest!”

  “That’s when we met you at the door of the apartment,” said Mr. Benchley.

  “Yes, but I go back to plead with Miss Adelaide, to say Caroline not tell truth, we have no place to go, but I find she is dead.”

  “So Caroline Mead called Miss Ada, whic
h puts a kink in her story that she never knew her.”

  “Oh, she know Miss Ada. She know Madame Olenska put us in work there. Caroline call her to tell her Madame is dead. And now I must find Dvoyra. Where she go to, I not know.”

  “Frances—I mean, Dvoyra—is missing, is that what you’re saying?”

  The day’s light had bled from the sky, and Mr. Benchley and I knew it was time we left or we risked discovery. After checking out the various hiding places in the bathroom with no success, we took to the stairs, Chaim Katzenelenbogen between us, and once we were out the door and safely in a cab, I turned to our pathetic and sad new friend and asked, “Do you know of a man named ‘Lee Pigeon’? He has curly reddish hair and stands a little taller than you?”

  “This name I not know.”

  “And have you ever heard of the name ‘Pendragon’?”

  “Oh, this I know well. You not speaking of first Pendragon, Luther Pendragon live long ago. He son of Constantine II, King of Britannia, and father of King Arthur. With Merlin he move stones of Ireland to place called Stonehenge?”

  My dropped jaw encouraged him to add: “Mother earn degree in medieval history from university.”

  I shook my head and looked out the taxi window at the bright lights blazing with celebratory excitement at the arrival of night in the city. I dared not look at Chaim Katzenelenbogen, for fear of crying. And I thought, how fast we come to judge people. The cut of one’s suit, an easy eloquence, or lack of it, the rules of social etiquette, the divine gifts of beauty, or a misfortunate inheritance—that all these superficial things should be the measure of a man? I need constant reminding that sophistication is just a flimsy garment. Stripped away, it leaves the so-called “best” of us as vulnerable to the chaos and random injustices of the world as the most profane of creatures.

  And, now, as the city moved swiftly past the window, I was not really seeing the movement of pedestrians hurrying along to their after-workday destinations, or hearing the squawking blast of horns, the thunder and clatter of the el train overhead, or the clanging of streetcar bells. I was not seeing the lit-up billboards as we rounded the corner of 44th Street, for they were just a blur of meaningless flashes, as were the flags waving atop the Hippodrome’s roof against a blue indigo sky that signaled, but failed, to catch my attention. For I was grappling with my conscience: I might be “a blend of Little Nell and Lady Macbeth,” as Aleck has described me, and publicly I was expected to be tart. Those who dare claim artistic greatness risk a just mauling at the Coliseum for their pretensions. Sometimes, though, I cannot reconcile my public persona with the woman of compassion I privately believe myself to be. I would make amends starting with Chaim and Dvoyra.

  “He is big, bad man, I know,” said Chaim Katzenelenbogen, “other Pendragon. He why I go see Caroline.”

  Maggie and Donald Brent aboard ship to New York.

  Chapter Ten

  Awww shit! I’d forgotten!

  As soon as we’d entered the lobby of the Algonquin, I saw a crowd of my friends pushing into the elevator on their way up to my apartment.

  Mr. Benchley stopped at the desk for my messages and ordered ice and soda and a couple-dozen glasses, as well as Jimmy the Bellboy (to take a probably bursting Woodrow out for his constitutional), to be sent up to my apartment. I led the half-dozen partiers, and a rather wide-eyed, disheveled, and confused Chaim Katzenelenbogen, up to my little rooms.

  The first arrivals crammed into the elevator with us, Heywood rustling several newspapers, reading aloud from the afternoon editions. No one paid me any mind, it seemed—not Harpo; nor Jane, who was ambulatory if runny-nosed and nasal-voiced; not Marc Connelly nor FPA nor Groucho Marx, who all together stunk up the lift puffing away on huge Havanas. Tallulah crushed in before the gate closed, and although she laughingly pretended to molest Marc, his and all the men’s attention were on the hot news of the day.

  “What fresh hell!” I said, as they tumbled into my apartment. Someone rushed to turn on the radio, the one Mr. Benchley had given me as a Christmas gift last holiday. It wasn’t the energetic strains of “Ain’t We Got Fun” that filled the room, but a masculine voice, as honking and nasal as Jane’s, above the static whirr of cheering crowds. I led Chaim to a chair in the corner where he could observe, unmolested, an ordinary American evening’s gathering of friends.

  I have to get him out of here soon, I thought, before he decides that it’s safer being deported.

  Another flood of people pushed into the room, and when Harpo and Aleck locked eyes, I was afraid of the wreckage to follow.

  But the threats and trauma of last evening were muted. Aleck would not give Harpo the satisfaction of expressing his distress at having been sent over the Brooklyn Bridge, and when Harpo greeted him with a baiting, “Been anywhere interesting lately, old man?” Aleck replied, “To see Grace George in She Had To Know.”

  The brothers Groucho and Chico crowded Aleck. “She had to know what?” asked Chico.

  “I understand Harpo sent you and Hey on a little ride,” said Groucho, flicking cigar ashes on the carpet. “I suppose that’s what they call a Hey-ride.”

  “Don’t be an idiot, Marx.”

  “An idiot!” cried Groucho. “Who’re you calling an idiot, you windbag?”

  “Who are you calling a windbag, you scoundrel!” thundered Aleck.

  “So I’m upgraded to a scoundrel—I kinda like that,” said Groucho. “That’s what all the ladies call me!”

  “He’s talking about you,” said Chico.

  “That’s what I just said, I’m a scoundrel. Gives me an air of danger!”

  “Yeah, like an exploding cigar,” said Aleck.

  “I’ll have you know I smoke only the finest Savannahs—I can’t afford Havanas.”

  “You’re an idiot, and that’s final!” said Aleck.

  “Didn’t we already go through that dialogue?” said Groucho, circling in his half-bent stage-walk around our rotund friend, and then swooping up to meet his gaze, spectacles to spectacles. “Me? An idiot? I didn’t send you to the ends of the earth in a taxi cab. I’d have called a rocketship and sent you to the moon!”

  “Then he must be talking about Harpo,” said Chico.

  “Harpo, an idiot?” said Groucho. “Now let me think about this . . . . Well, he may look like an idiot and sound like an idiot and walk like an idiot and dance around like an idiot and generally act like an idiot—wait! I’ve just described myself! But it takes more than that to be an idiot! Chico! What does it take to fill the bill?”

  “You got the job.”

  “Well, I’m glad we’ve got that straightened out. When do I start?”

  Heywood, huddled inches from the radio speaker, shouted across the room for all the “idiots” to “can it!” The slaphappy boys had a good chuckle and arm-in-arm ambled over to listen with the others.

  Aleck turned to me with a wistful expression; something was amiss, I didn’t know what, but it was sure to be a doozie.

  “Your gun-toting cry-baby has flown the coop, Dottie darling, after I instructed him to sit tight in the apartment.”

  “Benny Booth? He’s out on the street?”

  Aleck nodded.

  “Awww, that’s just swell,” I whined, “just hunky-dory!”

  Mr. Benchley arrived with Jimmy bearing a trolley loaded with glasses, ice buckets, and bottles of soda. Woodrow appeared eager to get out from underfoot of the crowd gathered around the radio.

  “What’s up?” asked Mr. Benchley.

  “Benny is on the loose.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since this morning,” said Aleck. “You weren’t at luncheon, or I’d have told you sooner.”

  “Why’d he run? He was safe with you.”

  “That could be disputed, my dear,” said Mr. Benchley.

  “Probably felt safer in the streets,” I said. “Did you have to don that gown and feathered hat to reenact you college role of Lady Augusta Bracknell in The Importance of Being
Ernest?”

  “I’ll have you know I did nothing of the kind,” said Aleck. “I sent him off to bed with a book, and when I woke up he was gone.”

  “That’s just dandy!” I scolded through my teeth.

  “Well, it’s obvious to me he’s a murderer, despite the lost-little-lamb-in-the-wood demeanor he presents. Thinking about it now, it gives me the willies: There I was, harboring a criminal who might have strangled me in my bed for all we know. Then where would we be?”

  “At your funeral, I suppose!” I hissed.

  “Well,” said Mr. Benchley, “it appears that you are safe from Benny Booth’s murderous grip, but I’m not so sure you’re safe from Mrs. Parker’s.”

  “What could have made him bolt?” I asked, more to myself than to the men.

  “Perhaps he’s out to murder someone else,” said Aleck. “You know, the mind of a killer is a very complex—”

  “Crap!” I said, interrupting the forthcoming exegesis. “What book did you give him to read?”

  “What book? What does that have to do with it? Why, it was a play script, actually.”

  A sudden burst of cheers threatened to crash through the ceiling.

  “What is all the fuss about?” I asked, distracted and a little mean. “They’ve gone nuts. You’d think the Volstead Act had been repealed.”

  Mr. Benchley handed me the front page of the Herald Tribune. A collage of photos in oval and square frames lay under the headline:

  DR. BABE RUTH AT BEDSIDE!

  I scanned the columns under the pictures of the Bambino: in his pinstripes, a long shot of the players on the diamond at Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis, and the Babe at the bedside of a kid named “Johnny.” The gist of the story was: In Essex Falls, New Jersey, a kid name of Johnny Sylvester got knocked off his horse and, rather than getting some sense knocked into his noggin, had developed a brain inflammation. That was proved when he said the only thing that’d cheer him up was a homerun baseball from the World Series.