The Ballad of West Tenth Street

by Marjorie Kernan

  When she got home Paul was waiting in the kitchen. It scared her—he never came in there before supper.

  “She’s hiding out with some rich people, in the house next door,” Kristen told him as she began unwrapping Rinaldo from his winter gear. “I suppose she’s decided we aren’t good enough for her, don’t have enough silk drapes or servants. I talked to her, she said she didn’t want to come back. I told her how much we love her and care, but she was so snotty to me. After all I’ve done for her too. Paul? Come back, I want to talk to you!”

  But Paul had locked himself back into his studio.

  With an imperceptible lurch, the earth began its progress toward a new season and the sun began to wrest the frozen hues of winter from the city. The last traces of snow packed into shadowed corners began to melt, the crusts of soot on top carved away like a shell. In a garden in front of one of the old brick houses on Washington Square a flower bed showed the green spearheads of tulips poking through the soil.

  Deen stood, gripping the iron palings to look at them. She felt much gladder to see them than she could explain. She decided that she’d make a trip here every day to check their progress.

  She ran catty-corner across the park, skipping around oncoming pedestrians, feeling like she could leap up in the air and stay there. She was going to buy some new sheet music and was deliriously free. As she flew past a popular NYU eatery something caught her eye and she stopped, peeking inside.

  A boy with long brown hair was sitting alone at a table. Deen stared at him, wishing that she knew him. He had an awfully nice face, long and rather sad with a beaky nose, not at all movie-star handsome, but she liked it very much. He looked intelligent, and as if he had sophisticated ideas about books and things. She wished she were grown up and could go in and talk to him. It was utter hell being fourteen.

  She skipped off, a child again in an instant, happily thinking of digging around in racks of old scores.

  Most girls Deen’s age had already flirted and kissed, gotten crushes and perhaps even encountered what seemed like unbearable heart-ache at the time. But Deen had lived in a world of grown-ups, had no school chums or brothers of school chums, in fact, had never known a presentable man under forty. There was Liall, of course, but he was just a kid. Her only contact with a boy her own age had been the son of a friend of Sadie’s from London, who had held hands with her furtively as they watched TV one night. Even she had not been able to spin a great romance out of it.

  Gretchen got out of bed and opened the window. She looked out at the acres of lawn, scattered across which the trees were looming black shapes in the faint moonlight. The night air smelled of plants stirring. It smelled of damp and red twigs and things uncurling beneath leaves. It was not time yet, but soon. The moon rose over the woods, it was just past the new, a fine sickle. When it was full, she decided, she would go out and run beneath it. Her bare feet would bring up the scent of the greenness.

  Deen was playing Bach’s English Suite, one of the colonel’s favorites. Normally he took a nap upstairs between lunch and tea, but nowadays he liked to sit in his parlor listening to her play. As he lay back in his armchair, he felt a contentment he had never known. He’d felt much of it lately, in his new life here in Greenwich Village, but never so keenly as when listening to the girl play.

  Next she played Beethoven’s Appassionata and a groan of love for that piece rose from his throat. There could be nothing better than this, after all those years confined to a home for the insane. To live again in a real house with all his family furnishings, listening to Beethoven played by a girl he’d grown to love, and wondering what sort of sandwiches there would be for tea.

  Ettie, in her basement kitchen, knew not to run any equipment or smack the fridge door during Deen’s music. The old man, he likes his music so well, she said to herself. And Deen, what a good girl. She does her lessons and is quiet, sets the table, and always offers to help with trays.

  Ettie doubted though, that playing long-haired music would ever be much of a way for Deen to make a living. But she was sure in her heart, which was decorated with cupids and three layers of lace, that some tall handsome boy would one day hear her play so nice and full and kneel right down then and there to ask her to marry him. She thought about what she’d wear to the wedding. A suit, she thought; a really nice suit, maybe lilac, with some fur or metal embroidery. She could ask Mrs. D to help her find a really nice one, but no—Mrs. D would find something good for sure, but too plain, no touches or ruffles that would show how glad she was to see her little Deen marry a nice tall rich young man.

  “My dear, that was just grand,” the colonel said to Deen as she joined him for tea. “Can’t say when I’ve been so happy. You know, your playing has advanced quite a lot, there is a certain je ne sais quoi—”

  “That’s the problem,” Deen said.

  “Je ne sais nothing,” Robert said, coming in. “I was outside listening the whole time, still as a statue. That was the thump-thump, she’s got the heartbeat in the notes now. Hey, what problem, Deen?”

  “Well, because I ran away, Paul won’t want to teach me anymore.”

  “That’s a problem,” Robert said, looking thoughtful. “Man, that’s a big problem. I didn’t think about that. There’s about nobody you could get who’s a finer pianist. Yes, thank you, Colonel, I think I will take a drink. I’ll need one to puzzle over this here problem.”

  “Ah, that’ll be Mrs. D,” the colonel said, hearing the front door. “We’ll lay the situation out to her. Fear not, she’ll have an answer. A most remarkable woman.”

  “What’ve you all got your bonnets together for?” Mrs. D asked as she came in. “What’re you plotting? Christ, this house is such a hotbed of activism. Hell yes, I’ll have a drink. Cheers.”

  “We were discussing the possibility that Deen, having absented herself rather abruptly from the Dresden household, might no longer be able to continue her studies with Paul,” the colonel explained.

  “Oh, that!” Mrs. D said, waving her hand—pff!

  Deen glared at her—how dare she treat her music so offhandedly?

  “Don’t give me that look,” Mrs. D said to her. “I’ve taken it all in hand. I sent the great Paul a letter. I gave him all the details, including what sort of piano the colonel has. It was coded in a rather obvious way and written on faked letterhead from a music company; naturally I assumed that that creature he lives with would read it, but she’s not very clever, is she? In fact, I invited him to join us here this evening.”

  “But he never goes out,” Deen said.

  “Yes, that is an issue, Deen,” Mrs. D said. “But there are ways around it, if we have to go to another plan. I have a few thoughts.”

  Hamish came in. “You started drinking without me,” he said.

  “Have a ginger ale, my boy,” the colonel told him. “Have a double. Look, Ettie made ham salad sandwiches, as well as the usuals.”

  “Ham salad?” he said, doubtfully.

  “Indeed, my boy. Ham and tiny bits of hard-boiled eggs and paprika and celery and mayonnaise. Your innocent belief that chicken salad is the best the world has to offer is about to be exploded.”

  “Can we be members of the Thursday Night Imbibers’ Club, now that we’re living here?” he asked.

  “Certainly. But remember, the real imbibing’s for grown-ups only.”

  Ettie came in to refresh the trays just then, so she was there when the front bell rang, and so was a party to what occurred next. The members of the TNIC sat rigidly silent, listening as Ettie opened the door. They didn’t dare look at one another as she showed in a small man with disheveled brown hair.

  “That cunt tried to stop me from going out,” he announced. “I thought about hitting her with a hammer, but find I’m over that phase of my life.”

  “Have a drink?” the colonel said to him.

  “No, I don’t drink. In fact, I’d advise you to put that bottle under lock and key.”

  “Are you go
ing to come and give Deen her lessons here now?” Robert asked.

  “Where’s the piano?”

  “In there.”

  Paul went to the front parlor and played a series of scales, some delicate and some so fortissimo that the lusters on the candlesticks rattled.

  “Yes,” he said, coming back in.

  “Well, that’s just splendid,” the colonel said. “Just splendid. We’ll make sure that everything is just as you like it—say the word and it’s done.”

  Paul had picked up a tea sandwich, finished it, then picked up another. He took another and ate that too. He took out a handkerchief, unfolded it, and put a stack of them in it, folding it and putting it back in his pocket.

  “No crowds like this, I can’t stand having anyone lurking about. No telephone calls, no socializing, and no one lets that cunt I’m married to know anything about it. Also, I must never be touched, that has to be quite clear. Oh, and I think I’ll need a tray of sandwiches just like these. Did you make these?” he said, turning to look at Ettie.

  “Yes,” she said, blushing.

  A strange thing happened to Paul’s face—his mouth opened and stretched at the corners, showing crooked brown teeth.

  Ettie made the sign of the cross as unobtrusively as possible.

  Hamish went down to the kitchen to help Ettie with dinner. She was just finishing a tray to take out to Cap’n Meat. “I give him sandwiches like club on Thursdays,” she explained.

  “Can I take it out to him, Ettie?”

  “Oh yes, that’s nice. Stay and talk to him, dinner just some little things you already know how to make. Here’s something for that cat, and here, tulips for him, smell of spring. That’s good, yes, that Deen’s teacher came? Is he, you know, a motherless one? I see in him no mother.”

  “I’ll find out for you. What did you think of his face?”

  “All twisted up, like no part match another. A most sad face. I don’t see the hammer there though.”

  “Well that’s good, there are an awful lot of fragile things upstairs he could smash with one,” Hamish said cheerfully. He peeked under the tea towel covering the tray. “Say, the Cap’n ought to have some of your lemon squares, don’t you think? They’re about the best thing I ever ate.”

  “Oh, I forget! So much excitement. The doctor, your mother’s friend, was here today. He give the Capitain medicines and tell me, Ettie, don’t give him much sweets. A real doctor, he talks to me, in his fine coat. He smokes so much!”

  “Yeah, he’s a real walking chimneystack,” Hames said, picking up the tray. He disappeared before Ettie could ask him to tell him what that word meant. So she wrote it as best she could on her pad, to ask him later, carefully writing “shimneseck” in her schoolgirl’s hand.

  Hamish never saw the lamplight glowing from the windows of the cabin without wishing he could live in just such a place one day. He stopped for a moment to savor it, then knocked on the Cap’n’s door.

  “Hamish, my boy,” the Cap’n said, opening it wide. “A cap to a most perfect day. Come in, come in.”

  Hamish put the tray on the table by the woodstove, in which a fire burned brightly, the flames leaping up to show themselves behind the grate.

  “Here, my boy, sit down. You’re smaller, so I’ll give you the stool. I found it in a trash heap only yesterday, isn’t it nice? Oh, but perhaps you have other things to do.”

  “Nope. I thought I might stay for a little while. Would that be all right?”

  “Share dinner with me, my boy. Here, I’ll give you a glass of pink lemonade. Made it myself, from pink lemons. Ah, just look at these sandwiches. And what are these?”

  “Tulips. Ettie said for spring.”

  “Flowers. A woman’s touch,” the Cap’n said quietly, holding them.

  “Women are weird about flowers. Munster would spend her last ten bucks on a couple of roses, I don’t get it.”

  “Women are flowers, my boy, they are pretty and vivid, while we men are but shapeless lumps. I’ll put these in a jar. Go ahead, dig in, have some dinner, I know you can eat for an army, it’s natural in a boy your age.”

  “Well, I might just have a bite…”

  After Hamish had left the Cap’n tidied everything away. He wiped each plate and glass and stacked them, to wash in the morning, with hot water he’d heat on the stove. He fussed after the crumbs on the table, picked up some bits from the floor, then tweaked the stems of the tulips so that they looked nicer. He put them a bit closer to the center of the table, where he would be able to see them better from his bed. He turned all the lamps down but one and banked the fire for the night. Seeing a smudge on the linoleum he took a cloth to it. He wouldn’t like to think that if the colonel made a spot inspection of the cabin he’d ever find anything to criticize. He took off his shirt and trousers, folding them neatly and placing them in the tin trunk under the bed, then put on the wool bathrobe the doctor, Mrs. Hollander’s friend, had given him. He sat at the table and read another one of the letters from his oilskin packet. It hurt less to read them now.

  Titus was curled like a pill bug at the foot of the bed. Except for occasional spells on the Cap’n’s lap, or a turn around the garden, he slept there, seeming to think that a bed was about the best place a cat could be. He was still afraid, the Cap’n knew, that this bed could go away, so he needed to spend as much time on it as possible.

  The Cap’n closed the grate and blew the lamp out. He hung his robe on the hook by the head of the bed. He felt for Titus in the dark, running his hand over his fur. Titus let out a rumbling purr. Carefully he edged into the bed, sneaking his feet past the cat’s form to make a hollow for him. In a few hours, when the cabin became chilly, the cat would wake him by tapping with a paw on the edge of the sheet. The Cap’n would roll onto his side to let the cat under the blankets, then man and cat would warm each other, sleeping well till dawn.

  29

  Quite honestly, I’m at a bit of a loss,” Mendel-bendel was saying to Sadie. They were having a private chat in his office. “I’ve treated numerous such cases, am in some way an expert in these matters, and by all reasonable expectations Brian should be fully conscious by now. All indications are that the neck is healing, and all other signs, reflexes, EKGs, and so on, show normal activity. I can find no injuries or lesions to the brain that would explain this persistence of nonresponsiveness.

  “May I ask you something? Not merely as a friend of Brian’s, but also I hope, as a friend to me?”

  Christ, the old lecher was flirting with her again. She was getting bloody tired of his little smirks and glances. She’d looked into getting Brian another surgeon but had discovered, much to her chagrin, that old Mendel-bendel was the best in the business. What the hell, play along with the old goat, after all, she’d gotten herself into this mess.

  “Of course,” she said. “Fire away.”

  “Thank you, Sadie.” The old goat liked saying her name, it gave him a tingle. And he always says it with that little smirk. “I appreciate that. What I want to know is this—now, leaving out the natural mental ups and downs of the artistic type, tell me honestly, would you describe Brian as capable of a profound depression? I’m going to treat you as informed and sensitive enough to know what I mean. Did he have any tendency, hidden perhaps, to dark thoughts?”

  The old goat had a point, Sadie had to admit, because it just wasn’t like Brian to be pulling this shit. So she thought carefully, looking back, checking Brian against other templates.

  “No,” she said eventually. “I really can’t say he does. He was getting a bit older, that can be a bit difficult, and his teeth aren’t top notch, but hell, he’s English. He had projects and plans and hopes and was getting laid pretty regularly by vastly younger women. He’s always been a thoughtful person, but not terribly fraught—I never saw him afraid. He did do heroin back when, but actually got himself off it quite early on. He’s always been very sturdy about life, took the knocks that came his way with a good deal of fortitude
, and has a true enjoyment of the good bits. And by what I know about the accident it was simply that, a case of overly high spirits in one a bit too old for such tricks. But I agree—something doesn’t add up. I feel it when I touch him—he’s here but he’s very far away.”

  “Well,” the doctor sighed. “We’ll just have to carry on. I’m sure your presence is the thing he needs most now. You are talking to him?”

  “Christ, yes. I babble at him all morning and every evening. Then go back to that ghastly hotel and get royally drunk.” Oops, I shouldn’t have said that, his goat eyes just registered a flicker—so, she gets drunk all alone each night? Might be interested in company? Move on to a different topic, one that says strangers need not apply. “I’ve left my children alone for weeks now, and my eldest is in a psychiatric institution.” Oh, dearest Gretchen, forgive me for using you that way.

  “May I ask for what?”

  “She stopped talking about a year ago. Then began cutting herself. She went too far several times, nearly died. Worse, actually, is that she simply does not seem to engage in life now in any way.”

  “I’m very sorry. Perhaps you should go home to see her. I assure you I’ll give Brian my full attention. I’ve even made some inquiries into whether those vultures from the press can be removed from the front steps. It’s horrible the way they circle around the dying.”

  There was a silence. Sadie looked at him for a long moment, her eyes very serious. She stood, leaning over the desk to really get the message across. Dropping all pretense at coyness or charm she gave him the real Sadie, in fact, gave him the Look.

  “If he’s dying, for no good reason whatsoever, under your care,” she told him in a low voice, “if that’s what you really think’s happening here, you’re going to do something to change that, understand? No, everything. This is your patient and your conscience on the line here.

  “I’m going back to my hotel and think about what I can do for Brian. I advise you to do the same, to get out his file and think hard about some way out of the bollocks you’ve made of his treatment. I expect you to have some ideas in the morning, when I will want to meet with you to talk them over. Is that quite clear?”