Herman Wouk - Don't Stop The Carnival

by Don't Stop The Carnival(Lit)

  Both men stared at the gasping machine.

  "Well," said Paperman, "I sure as hell don't know how to prime it. That was one little detail I neglected to ask about. It wasn't volunteered. I guess I'll have to find Gilbert."

  The somnolent night boatman, Virgil, was sprawled in the stern of the gondola, with the hat over his eyes. He was a small very scrawny man; Paperman had been unable to guess his age because he had no front teeth and he was cross-eyed. He was constantly munching, though he never seemed to put anything in his mouth. Thor had told Norman that Virgil was nicer than Gilbert, but he had made him the night man because "he look so tam fonny."

  Norman, who had thrown on shirt, shorts, and sandals, came trotting to the dark pier and stirred him up. "Virgil, you don't happen to know anything about the pump, do you?"

  "Pump? No, fah. I fink Gilbert, he know." Virgil sat up, looking several feet to Paperman's left.

  'Can you tell me where Gilbert lives?"

  "Oh, yeff. Dat fery fimple, fah." He munched out some incomprehensible directions, in which the words "Mofquito Hill" kept repeating.

  "Mosquito Hill, eh? All right. I'll find him. Let's go."

  Paperman leaped out of the gondola as it drew near to the shore. A couple who looked like honeymooners were waiting hand in hand, peering toward the lights of the Club with shiny eyes. The girl said to Paperman in a babyish voice, "Is that place as heavenly as it looks?"

  "It's utterly fantastic," said Paperman, "and unbelievably reasonable."

  "Oooh," said the girl, stepping into the gondola with a giggle.

  Paperman ran up Prince of Wales Street and found a cab. "I want to go to Mosquito Hill," he said, jumping in. "And fast."

  "Yassuh. Wha' on Mosquito Hill?"

  "Well, I don't know. Where Gilbert lives. The boatman from the Gull Reef Club."

  The taxi driver nodded. A scary ride ensued, around corners, through alleys, up and down hills, with at one point a screeching grind backwards in blackness between narrow stone walls. The driver explained that this short cut saved ten minutes; it was all right to back along the one-way alley but not to drive through it.

  At last the taxi stopped. "We dah," said the driver. "Mosquito Hill. Dat be two dolla'."

  Paperman got out of the car and found himself looking at the longest, steepest flight of stairs he had ever seen outside of pictures of Inca ruins in the Andes. The staircase went straight up and up into the night, gloomily lit by street lamps clouded with moths.

  "What's this? Where's Gilbert's house?"

  "He live up dah. De Tousand Steps."

  "The Thousand Steps?"

  The driver laughed. "It just a name. Dey ain't but two hunnert seven. Gilbert he live up near de top. Goat Row. You ask anybody up dah."

  "Can't you take me up to the top so I can walk down?"

  "Yes suh. Dat does take twenty minutes longer, you does have to go way round Gov'ment Hill and den de ole Jewish cemetery in between."

  "I'm glad to know about the Jewish cemetery," Paperman said. "It may come in handy. Wait here for me, please."

  "Sho."

  Norman contemplated the steps. On the list of overexertions which his doctor had ordered him to avoid, climbing stairs had stood first, underlined in red ink, ahead even of "excessive sexual activity." It crossed his mind that if death had to come, he was not committing the misdeed of choice. Nevertheless the pump of the Gull Reef Club had to be primed. He began to mount the Thousand Steps.

  The steps were lined with shacks of tin or wood; here and there were stucco structures that might be called houses; all presented blank walls or narrow high windows to the stairs. Where the street lamps stood, alleys ran off into the darkness. The signs on corner dwellings gave the names: Jensen Alley, Old Church Mews, Spanish Row, Simon Row. Garbage filled deep cement gutters bounding the stairway. Garbage removal on this hill, Norman saw, was done by the rain and by scavengers. The short storm at sunset had washed much of the refuse down to the large heaps where the taxi stood, and the rest lay tumbled along the cement trenches. Cats and dogs and a few small black goats were busy at the smorgasbord, all the way up the hill. The gutters were choked with broken bottles and punctured beer cans, stuck in a permanent black mulch, which diffused a smell of fetid decay on the hot night. Paperman tried to subdue his gasping as he mounted. He was less likely to die from the climb, he felt, than from inhaling this miasma. He paused to catch his breath at a broader alley than the rest, discouragingly named Lower Street. Here on one corner was a tiny tavern with glassless windows and unpainted little tables, where yelling, laughing, muscular black men in undershirts were drinking beer out of cans. A bit scared, Norman searched their faces. The men became quieter, and gave him truculent looks. ,

  "I'm looking for Gilbert," he panted. "He works for me, and he lives in Goat Row."

  After a pause of vacant staring, a man in the doorway shouted inside, "Hey, wha' Gilbert?" There were many noisy answers. He pointed up the stairs. "He up dah. He gone to sleep."

  Paperman climbed; climbed till his head swam and his ears sang; climbed until the sign Goat Row loomed at last before his misting eyes. He halted, clutching at the stitch in his side, and gulping the air, which here, near the top, was sweet. Glancing behind him, he grabbed at the lamppost to keep from plunging dizzily head first down the gulf of steps to the shrunken taxi. There was a charming vista from this spot-the close larnplit town hills, the far curving waterfront, and the tiny gem of the Gull Reef Club-but Paperman was incapable of admiring it.

  Goat Row was dark. His watch showed a few minutes before midnight. Far down the alley to the left he saw one light. He made for that, gasping like a stranded fish, stepping in squashy muck, kicking unseen tin cans, and once treading on a thing that writhed and made no sound. A stout woman sat in the lighted window, reading a worn little Bible. "Gi't-bert?" she said. "Gilbert de next side de stairs, de red house."

  Nothing looked red in the dim lamplight on the other side of the stairs. Paperman went striking matches from house to house, examining the paint on the walls. It occurred to him during this peculiar activity that he was quite a long way from his home, his wife, his daughter, and Sardi's Restaurant. The muck was especially thick here, and he felt it oozing warmly over his sandals.

  "Wah you want, mon?" A flashlight from a window dazzled him. Before he could reply the voice altered its tone. "Mistuh Papuh?"

  "Is that you, Gilbert?"

  "Yazuh. Mistuh Papuh, I kin work dat cash register just like Thor said."

  "I'm sure of that," Norman panted, "but it isn't what I came to see you about." His hand pressed to his galloping heart, he described the trouble with the cisterns. The light beam shone full on him as though he were doing a vaudeville act.

  "You does have to prime de pump," said the boatman's voice through a yawn.

  "So I gathered, and how do I do that?"

  "You does pull de plug, den open de petcock, den take de spanner by de sump, den you does unscrew de vent nut, den you does pour in some water from de bottle by de sump in de pump, den-"

  "Gilbert, listen, you'd better come and do it."

  "It don' take but two seconds, Mistuh Papuh, dey ain't nothin' to it."

  "May be, but my guests are rioting by now. I can't take a chance. I'm not climbing these steps again tonight."

  "Yazuh." The flashlight snapped off, leaving Paperman half-blinded, still gasping, and up to his ankles in warm slime. The shadowy form of Gilbert came out of the house, and headed toward the staircase. Norman observed that the boatman hugged the wall, walking on a narrow stone curb, to avoid the mud.

  There were great advantages he thought, as he staggered back to the Thousand Steps-advantages he had never before quite appreciated-in knowing one's surroundings.

  About a quarter of an hour later he stood with Gilbert in the crawl space, flashing lights on the dead pump. Church was above, checking out two irate guests and trying to calm a mob in the lobby.

  "Okay, Gilbert. Let's see
how you do it."

  Gilbert took perhaps a minute to bring a happy far-off shout from Church, "Water! There's water, sir!" All he did was unscrew a nut, pour a little water from a dirty bottle into the opening, tighten the nut, and plug in the pump. The machine came to life with its usual hysteria, but when it calmed down its thump was full and throaty.

  He rehearsed the pump-priming motions with Gilbert half a dozen times.

  "Gilbert, you're entitled to overtime for this," he said as they came out on the starlit beach. "You'll get it. Thank you very much."

  "Mistuh Papuh, dat be all right. Thor he done show me de books and how to work de register. I does mix good drinks. I make brandy Alexander, de folks from up de hill does like dem, and sloe gin fizz and like dat."

  The boatman's usually glum face was alert and smiling. He had enjoyed bringing deliverance. Here was a young man who really wanted to work, Paperman thought, and who did know something about the unforeseeable pitfalls of operating the Club.

  But there were things against Gilbert. He was an inscrutable, morose, black lad. He parted with spoken words as though each were a ten-dollar bill. He lived at the top of the Thousand Steps, on Mosquito Hill, behind Government Hill and the Jewish cemetery. The bartender was the key man in this hotel. Church was white, understandable, and tractable. Moreover, replacing a boatman, under the strange labor laws of Amerigo, was apparently impossible.

  "We'll see, Gilbert, we'll see. Let's leave things as they are, just for now."

  The Negro's thick lips tightened until they disappeared. A murky spark came and went in his eyes, leaving his expression veiled and dull. He walked off down the beach.

  Paperman left a note for Lorna at the desk: Please call Anatone first thing. Tell him to fill the emergency tank and, put three days' supply in the main cistern.

  He tottered off to bed. So ended his first full day as the owner of the Gull Reef Club.

  Chapter Six

  The Second Day

  I

  None of the new proprietor's awakenings so far had been pleasant. The following morning was a change, in that hammering fists on his door were not what roused him. He awoke gagging and choking. The cottage was filled with a smell so strong and so foul that his mind sprang to a wild surmise: a dead rotten whale had stranded on the beach. He groped to the seaward window, but there was no dead whale. He went and looked out at the lawn, noticing that he was still wearing last night's shirt and shorts and mud-caked sandals. He had no recollection of what he had done after leaving the message for Lorna; he had been so played out that it would not have surprised him to awaken on the lobby floor.

  Beyond the rise of the lawn which hid the dock from sight, he could see the round bridge of a landing craft painted in fading camouflage patterns. This had to be the garbage carrier, he realized, bearing Ana-tone's water truck. But could it possibly stink with this strength at this range? He went out to investigate. A black hose from the tank truck on the vessel twisted across the lawn to the main house. Guests, gathered on the terrace with handkerchiefs to their noses, were watching two Negroes working at the truck. Norman clamped his nose between thumb and forefinger and ran to the pier. "Which of you is Anatone?" he said in something like a New England twang.

  "Dat me, suh." The thinner and younger of the two, wearing a battered brown hard hat, flashed gold teeth in an easy grin. "De wind sure de wrong way today. Sorry."

  "How many more loads do you have to bring?"

  "Ten."

  "Ye gods, you'll be at it till sundown. There won't be a guest registered in this hotel by then."

  Anatone said the wind was bound to change; it never blew from this direction for long, except in the summer. He had already topped off the emergency tank, and there was almost one day's supply in the main cistern. "Goin' for de next load now," he said. The boat captain roared up the engine, and Anatone cast off.

  "How much is this costing me?" Paperman yelled.

  "Fifty dolla' a load, suh. Fifteen load."

  "Seven hundred and fifty dollars? For water?"

  "De boat does cost de money," Anatone shouted back amiably from the stern, as the landing craft pulled away. The breeze brought instant relief. Just an ordinary light sea wind, it smelled like a zephyr from a lilac garden after the fumes of the garbage boat.

  Millard, in his paper-bag hat, now tramped onto the pier carrying half a dozen suitcases covered with travel labels. Behind him came a big man in a seersucker suit, with a fat red face, sunken eyes, and curly gray hair. A slight, elderly woman in a yellow sun dress leaned on his arm.

  "Good morning, please," Millard said to Norman with a sweet smile.

  "There he is, Harriet," rasped the man. "Say, you, aren't you this new owner, this Piper, or whatever?"

  "Paperman. I'm the new owner of the hotel, yes."

  "Well, mister, my wife and I have been coming here for seven years, but by God this club is seeing the last of us. My wife's just thrown up her breakfast. Jesus Christ! Where's that gondola?"

  "Sir, we've been having a little water problem, but after today-"

  "You're telling me? The things that went on with our toilet last night! You've stunk us out of your hotel, Paperman, that's all I know, and you'll stink out everybody else before nightfall, you mark my word. How do you feel, honey?"

  "Better now," murmured the woman. "Now that that horrible boat's gone."

  The man blinked and stared at Norman. "Wait, you say your name's Paperman? That's an odd name. Where are you from? Not Hartford, Connecticut, by any chance?"

  "Hartford, exactly."

  "Jesus, you're not poor old Ike Paperman's son, are you?"

  "That's right. I'm Norman."

  'Well!" The man looked up and down at Norman's unshaven face, tousled hair, creased clothes, and mud-caked feet. "What a small world. I thought you were a Broadway producer or something. I did a lot of business with your father. He was a fine man. I'm George Harmer. Hartford Electric Supply."

  Paperman held out his hand. The man shook it awkwardly. "Look, I mean, Norman, can't you do something about that boat? It's going to kill Harriet. She's a high-strung woman and she's just getting over an operation-"

  "I'll call off the boat, Mr. Harmer," Norman said. "Immediately, I promise. You're dead right. I just woke up, or I'd have stopped them sooner. They can come another day when the wind's normal."

  "How about that, Harriet? Ike Paperman's boy," Harmer said. "Isn't it a small world?"

  Lorna looked amazed at seeing the Harmers come to the desk again, and somewhat scared. The man said jocosely, "Okay, girl friend, I'll take the key to twenty-seven again. I call Lorna my girl friend," he explained to Paperman.

  Lorna smiled uncertainly at the man. "Mr. Akers in de ole dining room," she said to Paperman. "He does be waiting to talk to you."

  "All right. You take good care of the Harmers now. Is Church here?"

  "Yes, suh. He come in nine o'clock."

  Slipping behind the bellying tarpaulin, Norman saw great stacks of building materials-window frames, door frames, lumber, paneling, pipes, kegs, boxes, toilets, washbasins, and the like-and beyond these, on the lawn, Akers' battalion of laborers sitting or lying in the bright sun. Akers was lounging full length on one elbow on the grass, pouring himself coffee from a vacuum jug. "Ah, the boss!" He rose in a clumsy way to his unbelievable height. "How about this? Everything the job needs, down to the last nail and tile, right here before your eyes." He picked up and flourished a manila folder. "Got the whole inventory here, too, if you want to look at it, with that estimate you wanted. This job's going to be mighty cheap for the A-i materials you've got here."

  "That's fine. Why aren't the men working1?"

  "Couple of things I have to check out with you. You see, it's this way, Mr. Paperman-"

  A woman's scream stopped him; a high, frightening scream, from somewhere on the second floor. "Good Lord," Akers said. There was another weaker scream, and then the deep noises of an angry man, and trampling sounds. Paper
man went diving under the tarpaulin into the lobby. George Harmer was coming heavily down the stairs, supporting his wife, whose eyes glanced wildly here and there. "Easy, Harriet, easy. It's perfectly all right now."

  "Oh my God," said the woman. "Oh my God."

  "PAPERMAN!" bellowed Harmer, assisting his wife to a couch. "You get me a doctor, and fast. If anything's happened to Harriet you're going to have a lawsuit on your hands, brother, for half a million dollars."

  "It was so awful, so awful," quavered Mrs. Harmer, lying down, on the couch, and putting the back of her hand over her eyes.

  "What happened, for God's sake?" said Paperman.

  "Never mind what happened. I can't tell you what happened. Get a doctor!"