Idiots First

by Bernard Malamud

  “Your Uranus and Venus are both in bad shape.”

  “My Venus?”

  “She rules your fate.” He studied the chart. “Taurus ascending, Venus afflicted. That’s why you’re blocked.”

  “Afflicted by what?”

  “Sh,” said Scarpio, “I’m checking your Mercury.”

  “Concentrate on Venus, when will she be better?”

  Scarpio consulted the tables, jotted down some numbers and signs and slowly turned pale. He searched through a few more pages of tables, then got up and stared out the dirty window.

  “It’s hard to tell. Do you believe in psychoanalysis?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Maybe we’d better try that. Don’t get up.”

  Fidelman’s head fell back on the pillow.

  Scarpio opened a thick book to its first chapter. “The thing to do is associate freely.”

  “If I don’t get out of this whorehouse soon I’ll surely die,” said Fidelman.

  “Do you have any memories of your mother?” Scarpio asked. “For instance, did you ever see her naked?”

  “She died at my birth,” Fidelman answered, on the verge of tears. “I was raised by my sister Bessie.”

  “Go on, I’m listening,” said Scarpio.

  “I can’t. My mind goes blank.”

  Scarpio turned to the next chapter, flipped through several pages, then rose with a sigh.

  “It might be a medical matter. Take a physic tonight.”

  “I already have.”

  The major domo shrugged. “Life is complicated. Anyway, keep track of your dreams. Write them down as soon as you have them.”

  Fidelman puffed his butt.

  That night he dreamed of Bessie about to bathe. He was peeking at her through the bathroom keyhole as she was preparing her bath. Openmouthed he watched her remove her robe and step into the tub. Her hefty well-proportioned body then was young and full in the right places; and in the dream Fidelman, then fourteen, looked at her with longing that amounted to anguish. The older Fidelman, the dreamer, considered doing a “La Baigneuse” right then and there, but when Bessie began to soap herself with Ivory soap, the boy slipped away into her room, opened her poor purse, filched fifty cents for the movies, and went on tiptoes down the stairs.

  He was shutting the vestibule door with great relief when Arthur Fidelman woke with a headache. As he was scribbling down this dream he suddenly remembered what Angelo had said: “Everybody steals. We’re all human.”

  A stupendous thought occurred to him: Suppose he personally were to steal the picture?

  A marvelous idea all around. Fidelman heartily ate that morning’s breakfast.

  To steal the picture he had to paint one. Within another day the copyist successfully sketched Titian’s painting and then began to work in oils on an old piece of Flemish linen that Angelo had hastily supplied him with after seeing the successful drawing. Fidelman underpainted the canvas and after it was dry began the figure of Venus as the conspirators looked on sucking their breaths.

  “Stay relaxed,” begged Angelo, sweating. “Don’t spoil it now. Remember you’re painting the appearance of a picture. The original has already been painted. Give us a decent copy and we’ll do the rest with chemistry.”

  “I’m worried about the brush strokes.”

  “Nobody will notice them. Just keep in your mind that Tiziano painted resolutely with few strokes, his brush loaded with color. In the end he would paint with his fingers. Don’t worry about that. We don’t ask for perfection, just a good copy.”

  He rubbed his fat hands nervously.

  But Fidelman painted as though he were painting the original. He worked alone late at night, when the conspirators were snoring, and he painted with what was left of his heart. He had caught the figure of the Venus but when it came to her flesh, her thighs and breasts, he never thought he would make it. As he painted he seemed to remember every nude that had ever been done, Fidelman satyr, with Silenus beard and goatlegs dancing among them, piping and peeking at backside, frontside, or both, at the “Rokeby Venus,” “Bathsheba,” “Suzanna,” “Venus Anadyomene,” “Olympia,” at picnickers in dress or undress, bathers ditto, Vanitas or Truth, Niobe or Leda, in chase or embrace, hausfrau or whore, amorous ladies modest or brazen, single or in the crowds at the Turkish bath, in every conceivable shape or position, while he sported or disported until a trio of maenads pulled his curly beard and he galloped after them through the dusky woods. He was at the same time choked by remembered lust for all the women he had ever desired, from Bessie to Annamaria Oliovino, and for their garters, underpants, slips or half slips, brassieres and stockings. Although thus tormented, Fidelman felt himself falling in love with the one he painted, every inch of her, including the ring on her pinky, bracelet on arm, the flowers she touched with her fingers, and the bright green earring that dangled from her eatable ear. He would have prayed her alive if he weren’t certain she would fall in love, not with her famished creator, but surely the first Apollo Belvedere she laid eyes on. Is there, Fidelman asked himself, a world where love endures and is always satisfying? He answered in the negative. Still she was his as he painted, so he went on painting, planning never to finish, to be happy as he was in loving her, thus forever happy

  But he finished the picture on Saturday night, Angelo’s gun pressed to his head. Then the Venus was taken from him and Scarpio and Angelo baked, smoked, stippled and varnished, stretched and framed Fidelman’s masterwork as the artist lay on his bed in his room in a state of collapse.

  “The Venus of Urbino, c’est moi.”

  3.

  “What about my three hundred and fifty?” Fidelman asked Angelo during a card game in the padrone’s stuffy office several days later. After completing the painting the copyist was again back on janitorial duty.

  “You’ll collect when we’ve got the Tiziano.”

  “I did my part.”

  “Don’t question decisions.”

  “What about my passport?”

  “Give it to him, Scarpio.”

  Scarpio handed him the passport. Fidelman flipped through the booklet and saw all the pages were intact.

  “If you skidoo now,” Angelo warned him, “You’ll get spit.”

  “Who’s skidooing?”

  “So the plan is this: You and Scarpio will row out to the castello after midnight. The caretaker is an old man and half deaf. You hang our picture and breeze off with the other.”

  “If you wish,” Fidelman suggested, “I’ll gladly do the job myself. Alone, that is.”

  “Why alone?” said Scarpio suspiciously.

  “Don’t be foolish,” Angelo said. “With the frame it weighs half a ton. Now listen to directions and don’t give any. One reason I detest Americans is they never know their place.”

  Fidelman apologized.

  “I’ll follow in the putt-putt and wait for you halfway between Isola Bella and Stresa in case we need a little extra speed at the last minute.”

  “Do you expect trouble?”

  “Not a bit. If there’s any trouble it’ll be your fault. In that case watch out.”

  “Off with his head,” said Scarpio. He played a deuce and took the pot.

  Fidelman laughed politely.

  The next night, Scarpio rowed a huge weatherbeaten rowboat, both oars muffled. It was a moonless night with touches of Alpine lightning in the distant sky. Fidelman sat on the stern, holding with both hands and balancing against his knees the large framed painting, heavily wrapped in monk’s cloth and cellophane, and tied around with rope.

  At the island the major domo docked the boat and secured it. Fidelman, peering around in the dark, tried to memorize where they were. They carried the picture up two hundred steps, both puffing when they got to the formal gardens on top.

  The castello was black except for a square of yellow light from the caretaker’s turret window high above. As Scarpio snapped the lock of an embossed heavy wooden door with a strip of cell
uloid, the yellow window slowly opened and an old man peered down. They froze against the wall until the window was drawn shut.

  “Fast,” Scarpio hissed. “If anyone sees us they’ll wake the whole island.”

  Pushing open the creaking door, they quickly carried the painting, growing heavier as they hurried, through an enormous room cluttered with cheap statuary, and by the light of the major domo’s flashlight, ascended a narrow flight of spiral stairs. They hastened in sneakers down a deep-shadowed, tapestried hall into the picture gallery, Fidelman stopping in his tracks when he beheld the Venus, the true and magnificent image of his counterfeit creation.

  “Let’s get to work.” Scarpio quickly unknotted the rope and they unwrapped Fidelman’s painting and leaned it against the wall. They were taking down the Titian when footsteps sounded unmistakably in the hall. Scarpio’s flashlight went out.

  “Sh, it’s the caretaker. If he comes in I’ll have to conk him.”

  “That’ll destroy Angelo’s plan—deceit, not force.”

  “I’ll think of that when we’re out of here.”

  They pressed their backs to the wall, Fidelman’s clammy, as the old man’s steps drew nearer. The copyist had anguished visions of losing the picture and made helter-skelter plans somehow to reclaim it. Then the footsteps faltered, came to a stop, and after a moment of intense hesitation, moved in another direction. A door slammed and the sound was gone.

  It took Fidelman several seconds to breathe. They waited in the dark without moving until Scarpio shone his light. Both Venuses were resting against the same wall. The major domo closely inspected each canvas with one eye shut, then signaled the painting on the left. “That’s the one, let’s wrap it up.”

  Fidelman broke into profuse sweat.

  “Are you crazy? That’s mine. Don’t you know a work of art when you see it?” He pointed to the other picture.

  “Art?” said Scarpio, removing his hat and turning pale. “Are you sure?” He peered at the painting.

  “Without a doubt.”

  “Don’t try to confuse me.” He tapped the dagger under his coat.

  “The lighter one is the Titian,” Fidelman said through a dry throat. “You smoked mine a shade darker.”

  “I could have sworn yours was the lighter.”

  “No, Titian’s. He used light varnishes. It’s a historical fact.”

  “Of course.” Scarpio mopped his brow with a soiled handkerchief. “The trouble is with my eyes. One is in bad shape and I overuse the other.”

  “Tst-tst,” clucked Fidelman.

  “Anyway, hurry up. Angelo’s waiting on the lake. Remember, if there’s any mistake he’ll cut your throat first.”

  They hung the darker painting on the wall, quickly wrapped the lighter and hastily carried it through the long hall and down the stairs, Fidelman leading the way with Scarpio’s light.

  At the dock the major domo nervously turned to Fidelman. “Are you absolutely sure we have the right one?”

  “I give you my word.”

  “I accept it but under the circumstances I’d better have another look. Shine the flashlight through your fingers.”

  Scarpio knelt to undo the wrapping once more, and Fidelman, trembling, brought the flashlight down hard on Scarpio’s straw hat, the light shattering in his hand. The major domo, pulling at his dagger, collapsed.

  Fidelman had trouble loading the painting into the rowboat but finally got it in and settled, and quickly took off. In ten minutes he had rowed out of sight of the dark castled island. Not long afterward he thought he heard Angelo’s putt-putt behind him, and his heart beat erratically, but the padrone did not appear. He rowed as the waves deepened.

  Locarno, sixty kilometers.

  A wavering flash of lightning pierced the broken sky, lighting the agitated lake all the way to the Alps, as a dreadful thought assailed Fidelman: had he the right painting, after all? After a minute he pulled in his oars, listened once more for Angelo, and hearing nothing, stepped to the stern of the rowboat, letting it drift as he frantically unwrapped the Venus.

  In the pitch black, on the lake’s choppy waters, he saw she was indeed his, and by the light of numerous matches adored his handiwork.

  THE COST OF LIVING

  Winter had fled the city streets but Sam Tomashevsky’s face, when he stumbled into the back room of his grocery store, was a blizzard. Sura, who was sitting at the round table eating bread and salted tomato, looked up in fright and the tomato turned a deeper red. She gulped the bite she had bitten and with pudgy fist socked her chest to make it go down. The gesture already was one of mourning for she knew from the wordless sight of him there was trouble.

  “My God,” Sam croaked.

  She screamed, making him shudder, and he fell wearily into a chair. Sura was standing, enraged and frightened.

  “Speak, for God’s sake.”

  “Next door,” Sam muttered.

  “What happened next door?—upping her voice.

  “Comes a store!”

  “What kind of a store?” The cry was piercing.

  He waved his arms in rage. “A grocery comes next door.”

  “Oi.” She bit her knuckle and sank down moaning. It could not have been worse.

  They had, all winter, been haunted by the empty store. An Italian shoemaker had owned it for years and then a streamlined shoe-repair shop had opened up next block where they had three men in red smocks hammering away in the window and everyone stopped to look. Pellegrino’s business had slackened off as if someone were shutting a faucet, and one day he had looked at his workbench and when everything stopped jumping, it loomed up ugly and empty. All morning he had sat motionless, but in the afternoon he put down the hammer he had been clutching and got his jacket and an old darkened Panama hat a customer had never called for when he used to do hat cleaning and blocking; then he went into the neighborhood, asking among his former customers for work they might want done. He collected two pairs of shoes, a man’s brown and white ones for summertime and a fragile pair of ladies’ dancing slippers. At the same time, Sam found his own soles and heels had been worn paper thin for being so many hours on his feet—he could feel the cold floor boards under him as he walked—and that made three pairs all together, which was what Mr. Pellegrino had that week—and another pair the week after. When the time came for him to pay next month’s rent he sold everything to a junkman and bought candy to peddle with in the streets; but after a while no one saw the shoemaker any more, a stocky man with round eyeglasses and a bristling mustache, wearing a summer hat in wintertime.

  When they tore up the counters and other fixtures and moved them out, when the store was empty except for the sink glowing in the rear, Sam would occasionally stand there at night, everyone on the block but him closed, peering into the window exuding darkness. Often, while gazing through the dusty plate glass, which gave him back the image of a grocer gazing out, he felt as he had when he was a boy in Kamenets-Podolskiy and going, three of them, to the river; they would, as they passed, swoop a frightened glance into a tall wooden house, eerily narrow, topped by a strange double-steepled roof, where there had once been a ghastly murder and now the place was haunted. Returning late, at times in early moonlight, they walked a distance away, speechless, listening to the ravenous silence of the house, room after room fallen into deeper stillness, and in the midmost a pit of churning quiet from which, if you thought about it, all evil erupted. And so it seemed in the dark recesses of the empty store, where so many shoes had been leathered and hammered into life, and so many people had left something of themselves in the coming and going, that even in emptiness the store contained some memory of their vanished presences, unspoken echoes in declining tiers, and that in a sense was what was so frightening. Afterwards when Sam went by the store, even in daylight he was afraid to look, and quickly walked past, as they had the haunted house when he was a boy.

  But whenever he shut his eyes the empty store was stuck in his mind, a long black hole et
ernally revolving so that while he slept he was not asleep but within revolving: what if it should happen to me? What if after twenty-seven years of eroding toil (he should years ago have got out), what if after all of that, your own store, a place of business … after all the years, the years, the multitude of cans he had wiped off and packed away, the milk cases dragged in like rocks from the street before dawn in freeze or heat; insults, petty thievery, doling of credit to the impoverished by the poor; the peeling ceiling, flyspecked shelves, puffed cans, dirt, swollen veins; the backbreaking sixteen-hour day like a heavy hand slapping, upon awaking, the skull, pushing the head to bend the body’s bones; the hours; the work, the years, my God, and where is my life now? Who will save me now, and where will I go, where? Often he had thought these thoughts, subdued after months; and the garish FOR RENT sign had yellowed and fallen in the window so how could any one know the place was to let? But they did. Today when he had all but laid the ghost of fear, a streamer in red cracked him across the eyes: National Grocery Will Open Another Of Its Bargain Price Stores On These Premises, and the woe went into him and his heart bled.

  At last Sam raised his head and told her, “I will go to the landlord next door.”

  Sura looked at him through puffy eyelids. “So what will you say?”

  “I will talk to him.”

  Ordinarily she would have said, “Sam, don’t be a fool,” but she let him go.

  Averting his head from the glare of the new red sign in the window, he entered the hall next door. As he labored up the steps the bleak light from the skylight fell on him and grew heavier as he ascended. He went unwillingly, not knowing what he would say to the landlord. Reaching the top floor he paused before the door at the jabbering in Italian of a woman bewailing her fate. Sam already had one foot on the top stair, ready to descend, when he heard the coffee advertisement and realized it had been a radio play. Now the radio was off, the hallway oppressively silent. He listened and at first heard no voices inside so he knocked without allowing himself to think any more. He was a little frightened and lived in suspense until the slow heavy steps of the landlord, who was also the barber across the street, reached the door, and it was—after some impatient fumbling with the lock—opened.