When We Argued All Night

by Alice Mattison

  Neither Harold nor Artie got over the effects of the riot in Union Square. Harold had intermittent pain in his right hand all his life, and occasionally he was unable to control the movement of his thumb. It spoiled his already weak tennis game. The Communists had shown him why the workers must revolt on the same day they’d made it impossible for Harold to sew, no matter how much respect he had for his father. In addition to English literature, and with the same conviction though not the same pleasure, Harold began reading Marx and Engels and attending meetings at the address Belle had given him, even when they bored him.

  The afternoon in Union Square changed Arthur Saltzman as well, though unlike Harold he didn’t often mention it years later; Harold always did, remembering the one time in his life when he screamed. Artie was not injured, but his camera was smashed and then lost. As shocked as Harold was at the cruelty of the police, Artie remained angry mostly at particular policemen, whom he remembered and described. The one who brought his club down on Artie’s camera was fair-haired, with a narrow face not unlike his own. The sight of police attacking unarmed citizens, some of them women, some just people trying to run away, astonished him, and it aroused in Artie an anger that could at times be attached to anything at all.

  —But what did the Communists expect? he’d ask, even years later, telling his children the story. What did they think would happen? He would glare at Brenda and Carol as if they were the heedless Communists. He conceded without discussion that the protesters were mostly right and the government mostly wrong, but surely everyone knew that, and figuring out in just what way they were right or wrong didn’t interest Artie. He’d always been instinctively for the powerless, the losers.

  He couldn’t afford another camera for a long time, and he was left with a grudge he’d never live past, never see around, and soon couldn’t explain. He began to feel as if he’d always been angry: angry was what he was, angry at humanity’s capacity for rage, at his own capacity. And angry at humanity’s stupidity, which made him begin, at nineteen, to laugh bitterly in a way that would eventually infuriate his wife and frighten his children. Unlike Harold, he didn’t tell stories about the protest, except for one that he’d learned not firsthand but from the newspaper. A policeman had stopped Mayor Jimmy Walker on his way into his office that day, not recognizing him, and asked where he thought he was going. The mayor replied that six million people expected him to get to work. What Artie liked—or hated—was that even though he was mayor, Jimmy Walker couldn’t count on being recognized and respected. Nobody was dignified. Everyone was a fool. The mayor was stopped from going into his own office by a stupid cop; another stupid cop smashed skulls; a third broke Artie’s camera. The afternoon didn’t make Artie hate cops forever, but it made him think that cops were stupid, and since cops were just people, people were stupid.

  Despite the Depression, Harold got his degree, and eventually the night courses added up, and Artie did too. He worked in another camera store. It closed. He wrote freelance stories about sports and continued selling photographs. At a paper, Artie met an editor who needed a book reviewer, and he thought of Harold. Harold began reviewing, then briefly had a reporter’s job. That ended, but when the Federal Writers’ Project began, he was hired.

  Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration was offering white collar jobs to people on home relief, so Artie, who lived with his parents as Harold did, took an apartment for one month and applied. He couldn’t be on relief if he lived at home, and he couldn’t get a WPA job unless he was on relief. The investigator’s nosy questions enraged him even though he was lying, saying his parents had thrown him out. He got one check, was hired as a clerk in the WPA offices, and celebrated by buying a suit for work and a new lens for his camera. Then he gave up the apartment and moved back to his room at home. He hated the job, but he was glad to have a job. For several months he was bored and obstreperous. Then he was laid off.

  Meanwhile, Harold wandered the city to contribute to a guidebook about New York and in spare moments wrote gritty poems in his reporter’s notebook about scraps of garbage on city streets and ill-fed cats and children. He’d been going to C.P. meetings off and on since he’d met Belle Kantor at Union Square. After the meetings, he and Belle lingered over nearly empty cups in the Automat, talking about whether the Soviet Union could carry off socialism or about their own lives. Belle’s thick brown hair wouldn’t stay where she put it, and in her loosening bun and old-fashioned clothes, she looked like Harold’s idea of an idealistic European revolutionary. Her husband was so busy with party business she rarely saw him, but because she was married, Harold and Belle assured each other that they were not in love. They allowed themselves to clasp hands across a table on which drops of cold coffee hardened.

  Sometimes Harold talked about his friendships with other women. He knew Belle disliked this, but she didn’t admit it, and he couldn’t stay away from the subject. Harold didn’t join the party until six years after he met Belle. He wasn’t certain enough or pure enough. He loved literature too much and believed what it implied: all life is interesting, even life made possible by capitalism.

  What made Harold join was a conversation with his father, who admitted that as a young man he’d wanted to be a rabbi or a Hebrew school teacher. But I couldn’t go to school, he said. Money was everything.

  At last Harold understood. Money was everything; the leisure to read books was stolen leisure. The New Deal gave people hope, but only a revolution would make a big enough difference. He approached the group’s leaders.

  —Finally? they said. They laughed at him, but they accepted his dues.

  Now Harold was alone in the cabin with Myra, who had returned from her walk as he was trying to clean the iron skillet, and had gone into the bedroom. Virginia sat on the lakeshore waiting to be loved. Artie, the last time Harold had checked, was fooling around with the busted rowboat. Harold thought he heard thunder. He tidied restlessly, though that was pointless. The place was appealing but not clean. The walls were wooden planks, and the floor was also wood, with years of ground-in dirt. The skillet was greasy and rusty and would stay that way. The windows were dirty. But Harold liked the cabin. He was impatient for Myra and Virginia to leave so he could get a book and sit on the dilapidated sofa. He was reading Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady. His suitcase was still in the bedroom, with all his books in it.

  He looked out the window. Virginia no longer sat on the ground outside, and he didn’t see Artie or the boat. He’d noticed oars behind the cabin that morning. Probably Artie had found them and taken Virginia rowing.

  He knocked softly on the bedroom door. Myra? he called. I just want a book from my bag.

  There was no answer. He knocked again, then opened the door.

  The bedroom was narrow, not much longer or wider than the bunk bed. Opposite the door was a wooden chest of drawers, with Harold’s battered suitcase on top. He saw nobody.

  —Myra? In the bottom bunk was nothing but an army blanket, left haphazardly on the bare mattress. In the top bunk, a dark shape. He tiptoed across the room and opened his suitcase, regretting the sound of the spring releasing the catch.

  —Can you help me? said Myra, sounding different: not mocking.

  —Myra? Harold said once more. What’s wrong?

  —I’m frightened. Virginia went off somewhere.

  Harold looked over the iron rail that would keep a sleeper from rolling out of the top bunk. Myra lay with a blanket pulled up to her chin. Her hair was loose on the pillow and on her face. Without thinking, Harold reached to smooth it and position it behind her ears, then pulled his hand back. But he’d touched her hair, which was soft, like a child’s.

  —There’s nothing to be afraid of, he said. Was she worried about the woods? About bears, or—he didn’t know what animals might live in these woods.

  —I need Virginia, Myra said.

  —Why? I think she went rowing with Artie.

  —That’s what I pay her for, staying with m
e, Myra said.

  —You pay Virginia?

  —I’m the one with the money, Myra said, with a low laugh. And she’s the one with the brains.

  —I doubt that. What do you need her for?

  —I promised my parents, she said. They worry about my nerves.

  Harold looked at this woman with her red hair. He thought she probably could be talked or joked out of these nerves. So that’s what this is, he said, this huddling in the bed? Nerves?

  —I had a dream, she said.

  He did and didn’t want to find out what she’d dreamed. Myra had been dressed when they ate breakfast, but the arms holding the blanket to her chest were bare. She seemed newly awake, rumpled, more attractive than before. Harold was additionally shocked that Gus had carried on with a woman who had nerves, but his discomfort made him want to help Myra. Gus wouldn’t leave his good wife and sweet children for her, he was sure of that. He felt sorry for Myra, and that made him desire her. Pity gave a gleam to the otherwise ordinary, giving it possibility. And since Harold secretly despised—very slightly—those he pitied, pity made moral action less essential, a relief in his rigorous life.

  He folded his arms and pressed them against the iron railing, ducking his head to smile down at Myra. What sort of a dream? he said. He sounded condescending, and winced, but Myra didn’t seem to mind.

  —Oh, ugly things, ugly things, she said promptly.

  —What would you do if Virginia was here?

  —You must think I’m a baby, Myra said. She propped herself on an elbow, holding the blanket so it covered her breasts. She seemed to be naked. She was silent, then said, Oh, she just listens, talks, maybe rubs my neck.

  So Virginia was a paid companion who was supposed to pretend to be a friend, even a dependent friend.

  —Would it help to hold my hand? Harold said. He unfolded his arms and placed one hand—large, pink, steady—on the edge of the mattress. Persuading Myra to get up and dress would be best, but he would prefer this to happen without dissipating the intimacy in the room. He said, Where are your clothes?

  Myra jutted her chin toward a tangle of clothing at the bottom of the bed.

  —Shall I wait in the other room while you get dressed? Then we can go for a walk. He didn’t want to leave the room. Again, he heard thunder. Maybe Myra was afraid of thunderstorms.

  —Just hand me those things, would you? Myra said, and with some embarrassment Harold grasped the tangle and pulled it toward her. She held up a brassiere. She had become a child, with no sense of propriety. It was alarming but oddly attractive. What a funny garment, she said.

  Harold turned to the open suitcase teetering on the chest of drawers and began self-consciously arranging the items inside: socks, pants, books. He’d been foolish to think he could read so many books. The suitcase had become heavy during those hours of hitchhiking. He said, I don’t know why I thought I could read so many books in a week! He sounded phony.

  There were scrambling sounds from the bed. I’m coming down, Myra said. There’s no room up here to get dressed.

  Immediately he heard her move. Part of her—her buttocks?—brushed his shoulder. Now he was trapped in the small, dim bedroom with a naked or half-clothed woman behind him. The space between the wall and the bed was so narrow, he couldn’t leave without squeezing against Myra.

  She took her time. Harold, who rarely tried anything with women, knew he seemed so assured that he’d look foolish if he made a move that wasn’t just right. He often envied Artie’s boyishness and suspected that his friend—with his shrugs and whistles and confusion—had done more with girls than he had. Now he didn’t know whether Myra was flirting, making fun of him, or just getting dressed in her own way.

  —My father says I’m high-strung, Myra was saying. I love thunder, though. Harold wasn’t sure he loved thunder. It seemed to be getting louder.

  At last she reached around him and put her hands on his eyes. Okay, turn around! Of course she was wearing the same clothes as before: a gray skirt, a blue sweater, and heavy socks. Her red hair was pretty. As he made up his mind not to take any chances with her, he put his hands on her shoulders, or his hands put themselves on her shoulders. Strands of hair caught under his hands.

  —Ooh, what are you reading? she said, shaking him off and pushing past him.

  —Never mind, he said, and closed the suitcase with The Portrait of a Lady still inside, a scrap of paper marking his place. Scribners had brought it out—part of their reprint of the New York Edition—and Harold had saved up for it.

  —Let’s see if it’s raining, he said. I don’t know what’s become of Artie and Virginia. He put his hand on her shoulder again, turned her, and ushered her into the main room of the cabin.

  —I don’t want to go outside, she said. I don’t really like it here. His desire had turned to discomfort. He went out alone.

  It was windy, blowing from behind him across the lake. He didn’t see the boat. A thought he didn’t like approached his mind, and he deliberately didn’t think it. Harold walked slowly around the cabin, but if Artie and Virginia were nearby, he would have heard their voices. He had an image of them lying on a simplified forest floor—the stage set of a forest floor—rolling and grappling in passion. He wondered if Artie had discovered that Virginia was a paid companion. On the side of the cabin—the side with the bedroom window—was an ell, because the bedroom was not as wide as the house. Leaning against the wall in the ell was a rusted iron shovel, and behind it were the two oars Harold had noticed before.

  They weren’t much, as oars went. They had no pins, nothing to fit into oarlocks, but a skilled rower could manage, balancing them on the side of the boat. Probably Artie couldn’t row, but that was irrelevant because Artie had not taken these oars. Harold continued around the cabin, back to where he’d stood facing the lake. The thought he’d rejected returned, an image more than a thought: Artie, the day before, struggling to swim, choking and sputtering. Harold swam with his eyes open and missed little.

  It started to rain and lightning flashed. He knew he should stay away from the water. The boat was definitely gone. He searched the lake, now gray with raindrops, and at last he thought he saw the boat across the lake, far from shore and empty. Harold called, Artie! Virginia! He tried to call loudly but could not do it. Except for that rally in 1930, Artie did the shouting. He considered discussing the problem with Myra but didn’t want to. He wished for binoculars, then knew he didn’t need them. Nobody was in the boat. In the wind, Harold took off his pants and shirt and shoes and socks, and waded into the lake in his shorts. With rain falling into his open eyes each time he turned his face to breathe in, he began his angular, reliable crawl, elbows wide, in the direction of the boat. Cold and fear made his breath catch in his throat. He gave great gasps. In his mind he saw his mother weep and shout. He was terrified of the lightning but equally afraid of what might have happened. Artie’s mother and his mother wept and shouted together. I had to try and save him, he explained in Yiddish to his mother as he swam. I knew it was too late, but I had to try and save him. He said it in Yiddish, in English, in Yiddish again to both mothers. After a while the use of his muscles and the rhythm of the stroke eased him slightly, and he breathed evenly. He didn’t ask himself how he proposed to find Artie if he wasn’t in the boat. He would be in the boat, huddled against the bottom. Or he’d be shouting from the nearest shore, singing something ridiculous. Or dog-paddling near the boat, and Harold would tow him back.

  This trip was Harold’s doing. He knew Gus and saw a possibility when Gus said he owned a little cabin. Harold had read Thoreau. He was trying to live like a nineteenth-century person in America, not one of the shouting, crowding immigrants who were his people. Gus was not Jewish: a newspaperman who’d once been Harold’s editor, he was a sturdy, offhand Irish guy whose family ran a business he didn’t want to work in.

  Distances look shorter over water. The lake was not big, and Harold was ordinarily a tireless swimmer, taking regular br
eaths each time his left arm cleared the surface of the water. Yet this swim took a long time. He stopped and paddled to rest and look around. The boat was closer. It was definitely a boat. The storm was letting up, but he still saw lightning and heard thunder. He still saw nobody in the boat.

  He was stupid, that was the trouble with Harold Abramovitz. For all his brilliance—he knew he was brilliant—he was stupid. It was stupid to risk his life for his boyish, exasperating friend. It was probably stupid to become a Communist, and he suspected that others at meetings found his earnestness comical. Not all of Harold’s ideals were Communist ideals: he cared too much for the particular person. He would keep his ideals all his life, he knew. He was tired. He wasn’t swimming well. He’d been stupid to think he could easily swim to the boat, rescue Artie, who could not even dog-paddle, and maybe drag Virginia in by the hair at the same time.