The train hooted.
Balancing on the carriage ahead, an old man, with a student cap perched on his white hair hooted back. He steadied himself by means of a Cossack lance around which was tied a torn black skirt. Painted on the skirt was a yellow sunrise. The old man hooted again, before falling on his side and rolling dangerously close to the edge of the roof. The lance remained where he had stuck it. The old man lost his cap and began to laugh. The train took a bend. The old man fell off. Karl saluted the tumbling figure as it disappeared down a bank.
On the curve, Karl could see the front section of the train where Nestor Makhno himself sat. The flat-wagons on both sides of him were piled with gun-carriages, their dirty steel and brass work shining dully beneath a sun which now only made occasional appearances through the looming clouds. A truck near to the engine was full of shaggy horses, their backs covered by Jewish prayer-shawls in place of blankets. Makhno's chosen Heroes sat all around their leader, their feet dangling over the sides of the wagons, but none sat near him. Karl had an impression of nothing but legs. There were legs in riding boots, legs in puttees made from silk dresses or red plush or green baize ripped from a billiard table, feet in yellow silk slippers with velvet pompoms bouncing on them, in felt shoes, in laced boots, in sandals and in brogues, or some completely naked, scratched, red, horny, dirty. No songs came from Makhno's guard. They were probably all too drunk to sing.
On Makhno's wagon a huge, gleaming black landau had been anchored. The landau's door was decorated with the gilded coat of arms of some dead aristocrat. The upholstery was a rich crimson morocco leather. The shafts of the landau stuck up into the air and on each shaft flapped a black banner of Anarchy. On each corner of the wagon was placed a highly-polished machine gun and at each machine gun squatted a man in a white Cossack cap and a black leather greatcoat. These four were not drunk. Makhno himself was probably not drunk. He lay against the leather cushions of the landau and laughed to himself, tossing a revolver high into the air and catching it again, his feet in their shining black boots crossed indolently on the coach box. Nestor Makhno was dying. Karl realized it suddenly. The man was small and sickly. His face was the grey face of death. The black Cossack hat and the gay, embroidered Cossack jacket he wore only served to emphasize the pallor of his features. Over his forehead hung a damp fringe of hair which made him look a little like some pictures of Napoleon. And his eyes were alive. Even from where he sat Karl could see the eyes—blazing with a wild and malevolent misery.
Nestor Makhno tossed the revolver up again and caught it. He tossed it and caught it again.
Karl saw that they were nearing a station. The train howled.
The platform was deserted. If there were passengers waiting for a train, they were hiding. People normally hid when Makhno's army came through. Karl grinned to himself. This was not an age in which the timid could survive.
The train slowed as it approached the station. Did Makhno intend to stop for some reason?
And then, incongruously, a guard appeared on the platform. He was dressed in the uniform of the railway line and he held a green flag in his right hand. What a fool he was, thought Karl, still sticking to the rule book while the world was being destroyed around him.
The guard raised his left hand to his head in a shaky salute. There was a terrified grin on his face, an imploring, placatory grin.
The front part of the train was by now passing through the station. Karl saw Nestor Makhno catch his revolver and cock it. Then, casually, as his landau came level with the guard, Makhno fired. He did not even bother to aim. He had hardly glanced at the guard. Perhaps he had not really intended to hit the man. But the guard fell, stumbling backwards on buckling legs and then crumpling against the wall of his office, his whole body shuddering as he dropped his flag and grasped at his neck. His chest heaved and blood vomited from between his lips.
Karl laughed. He swung his machine-gun round and jerked the trigger. The gun began to sing. The bullets smashed into the walls and made the body of the guard dance for a few seconds. Karl saw that the placatory smile was still on the dead man's face. He pulled the trigger again and raked the whole station as they went through. Glass smashed, a sign fell down, someone screamed.
The name of the station was Pomoshnaya.
Karl turned to the fat Georgian who had opened a fresh bottle of vodka and was drinking from it in great gulps. He had hardly noticed Karl's action. Karl tapped him on the shoulder.
"Hey, old Pyat—where the hell is Pomoshnaya?"
The Georgian shrugged and offered Karl the bottle. He was too fuddled to understand the question.
The station was disappearing behind them. Soon it had vanished.
The tattooed sailor, his arm around a snub-nosed girl with cropped hair, a Mauser in her hand, took the bottle from the Georgian and placed it against the girl's thin lips. "Drink up," he said. He peered at Karl. "What was that, youngster?"
Karl tried to repeat his question, but the train entered a tunnel and thick smoke filled their lungs, stung their eyes and they could see nothing. Everyone began to cough and to curse.
"It doesn't matter," said Karl.
— You're still looking a bit pale, says Karl's friend, fingering his own ebony skin.—Maybe you could do with another bath?
Karl shakes his head.—It'll be hard enough getting this lot off. I've got to leave here sometime, you know. It's going to be embarrassing.
— Only if you let it be. Brazen it out. After all, you're not the only one, are you? Karl giggles. — I bet you say that to all the boys.
What Would You Do? (9)
You have been told that you have at most a year to live. Would you decide to spend that year: (a) enjoying every possible pleasure?
(b) doing charitable works?
(c) in some quiet retreat, relishing the simpler pleasures of life?
(d) trying to accomplished one big thing that you will be remembered for in times to come?
(e) putting all your resources into finding a cure for the illness you have? or would you simply kill yourself and get the whole thing over with?
10
Hitting the High Spots on W. Fifty-Six: 1929:
Recognition
Trapped at sea in a violent thunder storm, the U.S.S. Akron, largest and finest dirigible airship in the world, crashed off the Barnegat Lightship at 12:30 o'clock this morning with 77 officers and men aboard. Among them was Rear Admiral William A. Moffett, chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics.
Only four of the 77 were known to have been saved at 5 o'clock this morning. At that time the wreckage of the stricken airship was out of sight in the storm and darkness from the German oil tanker Phoebus, which first reported the catastrophe. A northwest wind blowing about 45 miles an hour was blowing the wreckage off shore and made rescue operations doubly difficult.
No hint of the cause of the disaster was contained in the fragmentary and frequently confusing reports received from the Phoebus, but it was considered highly likely that the great airship was struck by lightning.
THE NEW YORK TIMES, April 4, 1933.
— You were bound to get depressed after all that excitement, says Karl's friend.—What about some coffee? Or would you rather I sent down for some more champagne?
He grins, making an expansive gesture.
— Name your poison!
Karl sighs and chews at his thumbnail. His eyes are hooded. He won't look at the black man.
— All right, then how can I cheer you up?
— You could fuck off, says Karl.
— Take it easy, Karl.
— You could fuck off.
— What good would that do?
— I didn't know you were interested in doing good.
— Where did you get that idea? Don't you feel more a person now than you felt before you came with me through the door? More real?
— Maybe that's the trouble.
— You don't like reality?
— Yes, maybe that's it.
> — Well, that isn't my problem.
— No.
— It's your problem.
— Yes.
— Oh, come on now! You're starting a new life and you can't manage even a tiny smile!
— I'm not your slave, says Karl. I don't have to do everything you say.
— Who said you had to? Me? The black man laughs deridingly.—Did I say that?
-I thought that was the deal.
— Deal? Now you're being obscure. I thought you wanted some fun.
Karl is fifteen. Quite a little man now.
— Fuck off, he says.—Leave me alone.
— In my experience, the black man sits down beside him, that's what people always say when they think they're not getting enough attention. It's a challenge, in a way. 'Leave me alone.'
— Maybe you're right.
— Darling, I'm not often wrong. The black man once again puts his arm around Karl's shoulders. Karl is fifteen and in his own way pretty good looking. He's dating the sweetest little tomato in the school.
— Oh, Jesus!
Karl begins to weep.
— Now that's enough of that, says his friend.
Karl was fifteen. His Mom was forty. His Dad was forty-two. His Dad had done all right for himself in his business and just recently had become President of one of the biggest investment trusts in the nation. He had, to celebrate, increased Karl's allowance at his fifteenth birthday and turned a blind eye when Karl borrowed his mother's car when he went out on a date. Karl was a big boy for his age and looked older than fifteen.
In his new tuxedo and with his hair gleaming with oil, Karl could have passed for twenty easily. That was probably why Nancy Goldmann was so willing to let him take her out.
As they left the movie theatre (Gold Diggers of Broadway), he whistled one of the tunes from the film while he gathered his courage together to suggest to Nancy what he had been meaning to suggest all evening.
Nancy put her arm through his and saved him the worst part: "Where to now?" she asked.
"There's a speakeasy I know on West Fifty Six." He guided her across the street while the cars honked on all sides. It was getting dark and the lights were coming on all down Forty Second Street. "What do you say, Nancy?" They reached his car. It was a new Ford Coupe. His Dad had a Cadillac limousine which he hoped to borrow by the time he was sixteen. He opened the door for Nancy.
"A speakeasy, Karl? I don't know..." She hesitated before getting into the car. He glanced away from her calves. His eyes would keep going to them. It was the short, fluffy skirt. You could almost see through it.
"Aw, come on, Nancy. Are you bored with speakeasies? Is that it?"
She laughed. "No! Will it be dangerous? Gangsters and bootleggers and shooting and stuff?"
"It'll be the dullest place in the world. But we can get a drink there." He hoped she would have a drink, then she might do more than hold his hand and kiss him on the way home. He had only a vague idea of what "more" meant. "If you want one, of course."
"Well, maybe just one."
He could see that Nancy was excited.
All the way up to W.56th Street she chattered beside him, talking about the movie mostly. He could tell that she was unconsciously seeing herself as Ann Pennington. Well, he didn't mind that. He grinned to himself as he parked the car. Taking his hat and his evening coat from the back, he walked round and opened the door for Nancy. She really was beautiful. And she was warm.
They crossed Seventh Avenue and were nearly bowled over by a man in a straw hat who mumbled an apology and hurried on. Karl thought it was a bit late in the year to be wearing a straw hat. He shrugged and then, on impulse, leaned forward and kissed Nancy's cheek. Not only didn't she resist, she blew him a kiss back and laughed her lovely trilling laugh. "Did anyone ever tell you, you looked like Rudy Vallee?" she said.
"Lots of people." He smirked in a comic way and made her laugh again.
They came to a gaudy neon sign which flashed on and off. It showed a pink pyramid, a blue and green dancing girl, a white camel. It was called the Casa Blanca.
"Shall we?" said Karl, opening the door for her.
"This is a restaurant."
"Just wait and see!"
They checked their hats and coats and were shown by an ingratiating little waiter to a table some distance from the stand where a band was backing someone who looked and sounded almost exactly like Janet Gaynor. She was even singing Keep Your Sunny Side Up.
"What happens next?" said Nancy. She was beginning to look disappointed.
The waiter brought the menus and bowed. Karl had been told what to say by his friend Paul who had recommended the place. "Could we have some soft drinks, please?" he said.
"Certainly, sir. What kind? "
"Uh—the strong kind, please." Karl looked significantly at the waiter.
"Yes, sir." The waiter went away again.
Karl held Nancy's hand. She responded with a funny little spasm and grinned at him. "What are you going to eat?"
"Oh, anything. Steak Diane. I'm mad about Steak Diane."
"Me too." Under the table, his knee touched Nancy's and she didn't move away. Of course, there was always the chance that she thought his knee was a table leg or something. Then, when she looked at him, she moved her chin up in a way that told him she knew it was his knee. He swallowed hard. The waiter arrived with the drinks, He ordered two Steak Dianes "and all the trimmings". He lifted his glass and toasted Nancy. They sipped together.
"They've put a lot of lemon in it," said Nancy. "I guess they have to. In case of a raid or something."
"That's it," said Karl, fingering his bow tie.
He saw his father just as his father saw him. He wondered if his father would take the whole thing in good part. The band struck up and a couple of thinly dressed lady dancers began to Charleston. He saw that the lady dining with his father was not his mother. In fact she looked too young to be anybody's mother, in spite of the make-up. Karl's father left his place and came over to Karl's table. Mr. Glogauer nodded at Nancy and glared at Karl. "Get out of here at once and don't tell your mother you saw me here tonight. Who told you about this place?" He had to speak loudly because the band was now in full swing. A lot of people were clapping in time to the music.
"I just knew about it, Dad."
"Did you. Do you come here often, then? Do you know what kind of a place this is? It's a haunt of gangsters, unmoral women, all kinds of riffraff!"
Karl looked at his father's young friend.
"That young lady is the daughter of a business associate," said Mr. Glogauer. "I brought her here because she said she wanted to see some New York nightlife. It is not the place for a boy of fifteen!"
Nancy got up. "I think I'll get somebody to call me a cab," she said. She paused, then took her drink and swallowed it all down. Karl ran after her and caught her at the checking desk. "There's another place I know, Nancy," he said.
She stopped, pulling on her hat and giving him a calculating look. Then her expression softened. "We could go back to my place? My Mom and Pop are out."
"Oh, great!"
On the way back to Nancy's place in the car she put her arms round his neck and nibbled his ear and ruffled his hair.
"You're just a little boy at heart, aren't you?" she said.
His knees shook. He had heard that line earlier tonight and he could guess what it meant.
He knew he would always remember this day in September.
— Thanks. Karl accepts the cup of coffee his friend hands him.—How long have I been asleep?
— Not long.
Karl remembers their scene. He wishes it hadn't happened. He was behaving like some little fairy, all temperament and flounce. Homosexual relationships didn't have to be like that now. It was normal, after all. Between normal people, he thought. That was the difference. He looked at his friend. The man was sitting naked on the edge of a chest of drawers, swinging his leg lazily as he smoked a cigarette. His body reall
y was beautiful. It was attractive, in itself. It was very masculine. Oddly, it made Karl feel more masculine, too. That was what he found strange. He had thought things would be different. He kept being reminded of some quality he had always felt in his father when his father had been at home.
— Did you dream anything? asked the black man.
— I don't remember.
What Would You Do? (10)
You are married with a family and you live in a small apartment in the city, reasonably close to your work.
You learn that your mother has become very ill and can no longer look after herself.
You hate the idea of her coming to live with you in your already cramped conditions, particularly since she is not a very nice old woman and tends to make the children nervous and your wife tense. Your mother's house is larger, but in a part of the world which depresses you and which is also a long way from your work. Yet you have always sworn that you will not let her go into an Old People's Home. You know it would cause her considerable misery. Any other decision, however, would mean you changing your way of life quite radically.
Would you sell your mother's house and use the money to buy a larger flat in your own area? Or would you move away to a completely different area, perhaps somewhere in the country, and look for a new job?
Or would you decide, after all, that it would be best for everyone if she did go into a Retirement Home?
11
Shanghai Sally: 1932:
Problems of Diplomacy
Breakfast in the Ruins kg-2 Page 10
