The Tenants

by Bernard Malamud

  “I accept,” said the landlord, “so much as you can spare.”

  “So what else is new?” he said after an unused minute.

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing at all?”

  “Nothing.”

  “No change in your attitude to the human race?”

  “It still salutes.”

  Levenspiel left in silence.

  Lesser tried to wrestle the incident out of his mind. Clever bastard, he knows I feel guilt. Another dollop on my head and I’ll go through the floor down to the cellar. That’s his plan, I bet.

  Willie, watching from a window below, had seen the landlord leave the house and had hastened up. He tapped on Lesser’s door and lifted the typewriter out of the tub.

  “Fartn Jew slumlord.”

  “Willie,” said Lesser, “if it’s news to you I’m Jewish myself.”

  “All I’m saying is an economic fact.”

  “I’m telling you a personal one.”

  “Thanks anyway for swinging with me, baby. Lots of appreciation.”

  “My pleasure.”

  The black smiled, beautiful teeth, a rare gesture.

  “Let’s have that party we were planning on, this Friday night. I’ll bring my bitch and tell a few friends.”

  Willie’s friends who climbed up the six frozen flights to Lesser’s flat during a blizzard on the first Friday of the new year, a dusting of snow on their heads, included his “bitch,” Irene Bell, to Lesser’s somewhat surprise—that she was Willie’s taste, he had expected a less striking type—a white girl verging on beautiful. She hadn’t quite made it; he couldn’t guess why, as though beauty were more of an obligation than she cared to assume. She had glanced at Lesser’s small mirror on the wall—her eyes wavered—and turned away in annoyance as she removed her voluminous cape. She wore on her face a depleted smile, sour at the edges, and troubled eyes. Some sadness. Lesser stared at her. Willie, when he got around to introducing her to him, said she was his white chick, not giving her name. At that she walked away. The writer figured they had quarreled on their way over.

  The other two people were a black couple: Mary Kettlesmith, a hardassed attractive girl with an animated open face and fine figure. She wore a natural of small silken ringlets, and a plain white mini with purple tights. She talked easily, touching Lesser’s arm with ten fingers when Willie introduced them. He touched hers and felt various hungers. Sam Clemence, her eyeglassed Afro’d boyfriend, was a quiet type on his way to stoned. Harry had not much impression of him one way or another. He himself was not in rare shape. He had expected fourteen people but because of the weather there were only five; he felt forlorn, a fool for not having invited a woman for himself.

  Willie, as though unable to bear parting with it, wore his writing sweater, decorated with a string of Arabian glass beads as large as walnuts. Otherwise he was dolled up in hip-hugging yellow pants and two-tone brown-and-black shoes, wet from the snow. His goatee and hair had been combed and creamed, and he seemed to be engaged in enjoying himself. He moved lightly, strutting, finger-popping. Though he pretended no great wit, what he said made them laugh and his gestures were witty. Now and then he glanced at Irene sitting by the window, sometimes blankly, as if trying to remember something he had forgotten. Or heard voices? Here was something new of the stranger levitated out of the street up to the floor where Lesser for months had lived alone, housemate now, fellow writer, maybe future friend. His lonely girl, possibly waiting for a good word, looked on from a detached distance. If Willie noticed he seemed not much affected; he kidded with those close by. Lesser thought how easily he shucks off the writing self, whereas he, in his active mind, rarely stopped writing. He determined tonight to take pleasure.

  Though pretending not to, Lesser looked Willie’s Off-Broadway actress over carefully. He pretended, not she; Irene sat as though to say she was no more than he saw, had no statement to make about herself. She was about twenty-five, her long dyed blond hair drawn thickly over her left shoulder, where it lay across her bosom like an emblem—the mystery why it all but wounded the host. Two women walk into my house and in a minute flat I’m standing on my hands. He greeted an old self.

  Come out of momentary seclusion and whatever mood, the actress pulled off damp boots and, drink in hand, explored the apartment, slightly pigeon-toed in large narrow feet suiting a tallish girl. Where she had been Lesser breathed in gardenia scent. He was partial to flowers. She wore a buttoned short skirt and a flushed pink blouse, her milkwhite breasts visible when she bent to rub away a cigarette ash stain on her knee. She sat on his hassock with legs parted. Lesser looked all the way up. Irene rose as though she had sat on an egg; she said something to Mary, who laughed into cupped hands.

  Lesser escaped to his study.

  My God, why are all my desires visible?

  After a while he returned to music going on; his guests were dancing, Mary, gorgeously, with Sam; Irene with Willie; Lesser suspected she had sought him out, not vice versa. They danced to some rock records Willie had brought along in a paper bag, a boogaloo of rolling shoulders and butts. And though they danced as if in truth conjoined, Willie’s mocking heavy eyes concentrating, Irene gyrating around him with muted smile set on pale face, as if the face weren’t dancing, and with nobody but each other, the writer sensed they moved partly as though to hold off contact although talking intently all the time. Trying to assess degree of mutual discontent—or was he kidding himself, was this apparent resistance to the other a mode of attachment, an emotion ambivalently stronger than pure anything else? Lesser twice attempted to slip in between them but neither of the dancers would have it. Yet at one point Irene slapped Willie; he slapped her harder; she wept for a minute and they went on dancing.

  Lesser cut in on Sam and Mary. Sam momentarily held tight but Mary eluded him and stepped up to Harry. The black girl danced with him as though going on in a dance previously begun. Her eyes were shut, her movements sexy. Lesser stopped to watch her twist. Mary, opening her eyes, laughed, held forth both arms; he came forward doing his little thing as she shook exotically. Her steps were quick, graceful, magical; she danced the leaves to Lesser’s tree. He loosened up, swung himself around, Mary encouraging him. As they boogalooed in the center of the room—Sam pissing out of a window at the blizzard—Mary whispered to Lesser that she lived no more than two blocks away. After considering the intent of her information, in his study later, he made a play for her, when the rock was loud, Sam in half a stupor, and Willie and Irene still engaged in their curious courtship ritual.

  Aroused by Mary, Lesser kissed her and slipped his fingers into her brassière; she, breathing heavily, kissed wetly in return but showed not much inclination when he tried to lead her to the daybed. She seemed to weigh something in herself, then with a sigh squeezed his hands and put them away.

  Her eyes bright, she stood with pelvis thrust forward, neck arched. Her breasts were small, body slender, legs slim and beautifully formed. Harry, erected, hoping his desire would inspire hers, lifted her mini over her purple tights.

  Mary forcefully shoved him away. “Split, honky, you smell.”

  Lesser felt desire ebb out of him.

  “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  After a tense minute she softened, then quickly kissed him. “Now don’t take on personally. I have to set my mind up for sex, that’s how I am. Just be like nice and I’ll be nice to you. Okay now?”

  Harry offered her an artificial violet from a pitcherful on the windowsill. Mary took the flower, looked for where to pin it on her dress, then dropped it into her purse on the daybed.

  He apologized once more.

  “Don’t hold it against yourself, Harry. I like you fine.”

  “Then what’s this smell you mentioned?”

  “Like you smell white is all I mean.”

  “How does white smell?”

  “No smell at all.”

  “So I won’t worry.”

  “Don’t,” she said
. “Life is too short, okay now?”

  Sam glared into the room, and Mary, taking her purse, went to him. Lesser warned himself not to let his poor party turn into a bad scene.

  Harry requests to borrow a strawberry-papered joint from Willie.

  Willie offers to share his. They sit crosslegs on the small kitchen floor, shoulder to shoulder, passing a rumpled wet cigarette back and forth.

  This here is part Lebanon hashish. Don’t smell it, boy, suck it in your gut.

  Lesser holds the sweet-burning smoke down till the room turns radiant and grand. Arches soar, the rose window flushes deep rose. Bells bong in a drowned chapel.

  Now this cathedral is a floating island smelling of forest and flowers after summer rain. The roots of a thousand trees trail in the yellow water. We’re alone on this floating island, Willie, full of evergreens and wild purple roses. We’re moving with the current. Bells toll in the deep woods. People on both shores of the river are waving as we sail by. They wave red white and black flags. We have to bow, Willie. I’m bowing on this side. They’re cheering and I’m bowing. You better bow, too.

  Thanks, folks, my next will be my best.

  Who are those cats, brothers or ofays?

  Black cats with white hats and white ones with black hats. They’re hip hip hooraying because we’re good writers. We confess the selves we pretend to know. We tell them who they are and why. We make them feel what they never knew they could. They cry at our tears and laugh to hear us laugh, or vice versa, it makes no difference.

  What’s your book about, Lesser?

  Love, I guess.

  Willie titters, rowing calmly, steadily, his muscles flashing as the water ripples.

  It’s about this guy who writes because he has never really told the truth and is dying to. What’s yours about, Willie?

  Me.

  How’s it coming?

  On four feet, man, in a gallop. How’s yours?

  On one. Clop.

  I’m gon win the fuckn Noble Prize. They gon gimme a million bucks of cash.

  After me, Willie. I’ve worked since the ice age and tomorrow is another day.

  Willie rows coolly, sighting ahead in the swift shifting current of the broadening river, watching out for snags and sandbars and the hulks of wrecked ships.

  What’s more I’m writing my best book. I want all the good people on both shores waving their little paper flags, all those grays and blacks, to admit Harry Lesser is King David with his six-string harp, except the notes are words and the psalms fiction. He is writing a small masterpiece though not too small. How small are the psalms?

  Lesser gives three clops for Harry Lesser.

  Pile it on, man. Pile on the shit. Pile on the coal and let’s see the smoke. Pile on the bread. You can have the noise they makin but I gon shovel up the bread.

  It’s only money, Willie. What of remembrance in future time, a small immortality? Consider the human condition and how soon gone.

  I want green power. I want money to stuff up my black ass and white bitch’s cunt. I want to fuck her with money.

  Think of this sacred cathedral we’re in, Willie, with lilting bonging iron bell. I mean this flower-massed, rose-clustered, floating island. I guess what I mean is what about art?

  Don’t talk flippy. I worry about it gives me cramps in my motherfuckn liver. Don’t say that dirty word.

  Art is the glory and only a shmuck thinks otherwise.

  Lesser, don’t bug me with that Jewword. Don’t work your roots on me. I know what you talkin about, don’t think I don’t. I know you tryin to steal my manhood. I don’t go for that circumcise shmuck stuff. The Jews got to keep us bloods stayin weak so you can take everything for yourself. Jewgirls are the best whores and are tryin to cut the bloods down by makin us go get circumcise, and the Jewdoctors do the job because they are afraid if they don’t we gon take over the whole goddamn country and wipe you out. That’s what they afraid. I had a friend of mine once and he got circumcise for his Jewbitch and now he ain’t no good in his sex any more, a true fag because he lost his pullin power. He is no good in a woman without his pullin power. He sit in his room afraid of his prick. None of that crap on me, Lesser, you Jew-bastard, we tired of you fuckn us over.

  If you’re an artist you can’t be a nigger, Willie.

  WILLIE

  Nigger, nigger, never die

  Shinin face and bulgin eye.

  LESSER

  Nigger, nigger, shining bright

  In the forest of the night.

  Willie rows until his eyes are white stones. He rows as he sleeps. The shores of the river fade in the dark. The cheers are silent stars. The floral island disappears in mist. A galaxy moves like a jeweled wheel in the night sky.

  I’m gon drop a atom bomb on the next white prick I see.

  Lesser wrestles clouds of mosquitoes.

  Lesser, lonely at his sad little party, gets to talk to Willie’s girl. She had been wandering through living room and study, perhaps to evade him. There was no peace in her eyes or big feet. When he had been about to cut into her dance with Willie he heard him say, “Irene, I can’t lay up with you tonight. You know how hard that part I am now writing on my book has got. I need my strength and juice on my work tomorrow. Wait till Sunday.”

  “I hate your shitty book,” Irene had said.

  The heat had gone off and the apartment was cold. Irene lay under her long cape on Lesser’s sofa, and when the writer tentatively got under it with her she let him, saying nothing. The gardenia scent rose from her body touched with a faint odor of sweat. Sam and Mary, Afro to Afro, were asleep in the study on the daybed with the electric heater on. Willie, a joint in his mouth, was still rowing on the kitchen floor.

  Irene wore on her blond head a chaplet of wax violets she had woven from a bunch one of the women of Lesser’s past had left in a small cracked pitcher on a window in his study. They were faded but brought out the bluish green of her eyes. Lesser had noticed she bit her nails to the quick, plucked her brows clean and badly smeared on brown penciled ones. One was too long, one too short. This gave her face a clownish touch. He was sure her discontent was with herself.

  “What’s the true color of your hair?”

  “Black,” she mocked, in a low voice. “And my name is Belinsky, not Bell. And Willie has been my lover for two years. What else do you want to know? I know why you’re lying here. You heard him say he wouldn’t sleep with me tonight. I saw you listening.”

  “I wouldn’t mind offering my creative juice.”

  “Fuck off, I’m Willie’s girl.”

  It was a bleak night. Lesser heard himself apologizing again.

  “It’s not because of what I heard Willie say. When you came into the house tonight I felt this sense of something I’d lost in the past.”

  “What past?”

  “As though I hadn’t been where I should’ve been once when you wanted someone.”

  “I got the one I wanted.”

  Lesser wondered how the writing would go in the morning. Probably badly.

  “What’s your book about?” Irene asked.

  “Love,” he said, his breath rising.

  “What do you know about love?”

  Lesser wouldn’t say.

  She fell asleep with a sour smile.

  Willie appeared in the room.

  “Like cool it, man,” he said to Lesser on the sofa. “None of that apeshit on me.”

  When Willie and his friends left the apartment the blizzard had spent itself. The black, his eyes still glassy, slapped Lesser on the back.

  “We groove on art, dad. You and I are gonna be real tight.”

  They embraced like brothers.

  A few hours later when Willie came in for his typewriter he spoke not a word to Lesser though his lips worked nervously. His expression was tense. He seemed like a man staring at two thoughts, neither of which he could stand.

  Lesser at first was afraid Irene had told him he had tried to make her after o
verhearing Willie’s remark to her. Or had Mary Kettlesmith described his acrobatics with her miniskirt?

  But Willie had nothing to say, and alarmed at the thought of an argument that might upset the morning he was balancing like a ball on his nose, the writer offered strict silence in return. He was more than a little hung up, stupid from lack of sleep, worried about his work.

  Willie, with a grunt, lifted his machine and stepped into the hall. Lesser shut the door in relief and was immediately writing. He worked steadily into a very good day; this sometimes happened when he was worried little sleep would lock the gears of concentration. At half past twelve the black had not appeared. At seven that night, washing his two supper dishes, the writer found himself wondering if—wishing?—Willie had for some reason cut out of here, located himself a new place to work. Maybe an abandoned apartment house all to himself? Lesser could do without his daily don’t-do-me-any-favors visits although he was willing to help a fellow writer out. Writers helped writers. Up to a point: his writing came first.

  At 9 P.M., Lesser reading in his rocker, Willie kicked the door, hugging his machine as though he were pregnant with it. After setting it under the table, the black after a minute of fixed thought, said: “Lesser, I have to pull your coat about a certain matter.”

  The writer apologized in advance for his behavior last night.

  “It was the hashish I’d say. It doesn’t agree with me. I’d better stay away from the stuff.”

  Willie flicked his nail along the part in his hair. After a while he scratched both pink palms with hard brown nails and blew into his stubby-fingered fist. He shuffled one foot, then the other.

  Lesser was uncomfortable. Has he been seeing old Stepin Fetchit films, or is something the matter with him?

  Willie spoke brusquely. “I thought I would leave my manuscript of my book here tonight.”

  “Ah, it’s welcome,” Harry said, relieved if that was all. “Don’t worry about anybody reading it. You have my word on that.”