The Pawnbroker

by Edward Lewis Wallant

  Mabel Wheatly was nervous when she came in. She waited for two customers in the store to leave before she approached the counter.

  "Gimme whatever it worth," she mumbled to Sol, her eyes resting on Jesus.

  It was a man's watch of recent design and with a solid-gold case. On the back was engraved "Seymor Epstein 1956."

  "What do you expect me to do with this?" Sol asked. "You must understand that I must send descriptions of all the jewelry to the police."

  "It ain't stole. The man give it to me for ... for a private session," she said, barely moving her lips, as though to keep her words hidden from the youth at the end of the counter.

  "Why are you acting so nervous then?" Sol studied her with distaste. Suddenly he felt enraged at her tawdry intrigues, furious, too, with the idea that his assistant might be somehow involved with all these people, conspiring, scheming.... No, no, he would have to get a grip on himself; this was the way of a breakdown. No one was conspiring against him; no one had anything to do with him.

  "It just that the big boss don't hold with private dates. If it was to get out to him..." She managed a crooked smile, trying to make an accessory of him. But her eyes, meanwhile, rolled uneasily from the watch to Jesus and back again.

  "All I dare loan you with that engraving on it is five dollars. I would rather not bother at all."

  Mabel took the money unhappily but turned a timid smile on Jesus before leaving. Then she walked out with her professional rolling walk carefully modified for the cool surveyal of her lover.

  "This boss of hers, he must be a brutal individual," Sol said curiously.

  "A real big-shot guinea. Owns a few houses. Suppose to have a lot of things workin' for him. Oh, he look hard enough to me. One time he seen me talkin' to her. Look at us like we spit layin' in the street. I think he even got that cop Leventhal on his pay."

  "Leventhal, hah," Sol said, rubbing nerveless fingers over the frames of his glasses.

  They tolerated silence for a while. Then Sol spoke in a hoarse parody of casualness.

  "The man's name, her boss, did you happen to catch that?"

  "Some guinea name. Murdio, Murlio, somethin' like that."

  A cold prize of knowledge lay just within his reach, and Sol considered sickly whether or not he wished to seize it. Finally he pressed his hands hard on the counter to still a tiny flutter.

  "Could it perhaps have been Murillio?" he asked in a detached voice.

  "Sound like it," Ortiz answered, his head cocked curiously at the Pawnbroker's invisible twitching. "Why, you know who he is?"

  "Have you ever been in a brothel?" Sol asked, toying with the gold watch, a feigned smile inviting informal conversation.

  "Brothel?"

  "A house of prostitution, like the one she works in."

  "Oh well, couple of times when I was just a kid. But I don't have to pay for that stuff no more."

  "And what is it like? Are the girls unhappy in there about what they are forced to do?" The Pawnbroker's face was lost in some nameless graveyard of thought. Yet under the placid exterior he struggled to escape burial with things he had left behind forever. He wished suddenly that he had not asked the question.

  "Ain't no one force them," Ortiz told him, proud in an area of superior wisdom. "They get greedy for easy money an' they go to it. Oh sure, they find out it more than they bargain for. Once they in, it's not so easy to get out. Listen, they get all kinds of crazy cats in there, make them do some rough things. It's no fun, I can tell you that. No fun to go there as a customer either. Might as well have a vending machine." Something seemed to occur to him, and he peered at the Pawnbroker as though he distrusted the flat, white light of die fluorescents. "How come you so interested all of a sudden? Think of payin' diem a visit?" he asked slyly.

  "No, no," Sol answered absently, lost to the humor. For a moment his face showed a horror, as at something exhumed. His hps parted and whitened, his forehead beaded, as though sweat had been squeezed out by some terrific inner pressure. His eyes bulged helplessly behind the magnifying lenses. But inside he could recognize nothing except great shifting shapes. And soon he was able to still them, to make them he down like placated beasts.

  "You sick?" Jesus asked, disturbed by the contortions of that habitually stony face. "What's wrong with you?"

  "What's wrong with me?" Sol repeated dazedly.

  Then suddenly he was the Pawnbroker again, because that was what he wished to be: calm, inscrutable, giving nothing for nothing.

  "Just that sometimes I become disgusted with these people, whining, begging. I become curious about what makes the creatures live like this."

  His assistant looked at him with cold interest. "Why you call them creatures? Because they niggers?"

  "No, no," Sol denied with a harsh chuckle. "I am nonsectarian, nondiscriminatory. Black, white, yellow are all equally abominations. Tell me, Ortiz, do you believe in God?" he asked with a vicious smile.

  "You no priest, Sol. What I think is my business," the youth answered, a fitting apprentice. "I listen what my brain say to me."

  "Know thyself," Sol said mockingly. "Ah, but you are all right, Jesus Ortiz. I feel you are learning faster than I did. Of course, you are lucky to have me for a teacher. Already you have learned to trust nothing."

  "Like I said, you don' know what I think," Ortiz stated proudly. Then he smiled and surveyed the gray fleshy face before him. "So I got a good teacher; okay, teach. Tell me what you trust or don't trust."

  The trace of humor on Sol's face faded almost as soon as he began talking; and was gradually replaced by a tautness, by something that reacted on his features like an astringent passion.

  "I do not trust God or politics or newspapers or music or art. I do not trust smiles or clothes or buildings or scenery or smells." He reached for the light switches and flicked off the fluorescents one by one, until the store was illuminated only by the reflection of late sunlight through the doorway, and the two of them were faded, almost motionless afterimages of what they had been in the recent glare, less real than the metal instruments and the jewelry all around. "I do not trust names. I do not trust expressions or colors or the feel of texture." Outside, the early-evening traffic sounds crowded the last bits of silence into the store, where it surrounded them and left them like undiscovered islands in their private dusk. "But, most of all, I do not trust people and their talk, for they have created hell with that talk, for they have proved they do not deserve to exist for what they are."

  "You, too?" Ortiz asked, his voice faintly hoarse, as from too long a silence.

  "I, too."

  Then Ortiz umm'ed and ahh'ed and tried to make something light out of all that was ponderous and inappropriate in their wild exchange.

  "Well then, Mister Pawnbroker, ain't there nothin' you do trust?" he asked in awkward banter, trying not to care about the answer.

  "Perhaps there is something," Sol said, his eyes a cold glitter on the golden swim outside the store.

  Ortiz measured his own breathing as he waited.

  "Money," the Pawnbroker said suddenly, dropping the word among the golds and silvers of the quiet shop. "That might repel many people less practical than you," he said sardonically. "The old story with Jews, hah! Ah, but let me tell you, Ortiz, there is good reason for maintaining that fidelity. True, money can increase or decrease in value; it, too, can be somewhat risky. But at a given moment you usually have some idea of its value. You can have some basis for estimating what it can buy you; food or comfort, luxury, relief from pain, or even, sometimes ... yes, sometimes it can buy you life itself. Next to the speed of light, which Einstein tells us is the only absolute in the universe, second only to that I would rank money. There, I have taught you the Pawnbroker's Credo, Ortiz. What else is there to know!" he cried almost gaily.

  Ortiz just shook his head for a moment, an odd flicker threading through his smile as something turned over in him.

  "Can't complain about that. All right, Sol, you say i
t all. Hey, I got to listen to my teacher, don't I! Oh, I gonna keep in mind what you tell me. What else can I do?" He held his hands out, palms upward in the pose of Semitic resignation. And yet, under the raillery and the cynicism, there was a peculiar anger, a look that inexplicably suggested regret and accusation. "After all, you the teacher...."

  Ortiz had left, and Sol was on the point of leaving himself when the phone rang.

  "A guy name Riordan will be over," the phonographic voice said in his ear. "He'll make the delivery. Have a letter, too, some suggestions for spendin' our money. Oh, we're a great team, you and me, Uncle. I like the way you been handling things. Remind me to declare a bonus for Christmas. Oh, that's right, you don't celebrate Christmas, do you? Well, we'll make it Chanukah." The chuckle grated in the receiver like a noisemaker being swung slowly against its cogs.

  "People pay well for their hungers, don't they?" Sol asked with apparent irrelevance. "For food and drink and the other pleasures of their bodies. They pay you well for these things?"

  "What are you talking about? I never knew you was a drinking man."

  "About all the money you make. That was what I was talking about."

  "You gettin' nosy, Uncle; it ain't like you. Let's just say my investments are doin' fine, if it's any of your business. You just keep your nose clean and let me worry about the rest."

  "I should not be concerned about the smell of the money then?" he asked in a detached voice, obviously just asking a normal question.

  "It wouldn't be too healthy. What's with you, Uncle?" Murillio demanded. "You losing your respect for money?"

  "No, no, I am just rambling. I am sorry I asked. Forget I said it."

  "I'll forget. Just see you do, too, Uncle."

  "Uh, Riordan, you say. What happened to Savarese?" Sol asked, the bubble indicating level again.

  "He was undependable. We try the Irishman for a while."

  Sol nodded as though his partner could see him.

  "All right, Uncle, I'll call tomorrow or the next day. Meanwhile..."

  "I will keep my nose clean," Sol said.

  Murillio laughed so the delicate diaphragm in the earpiece rattled. "You just do that," he said, appreciative of the humor, and hung up.

  Sol stood with his hand on the phone for a moment, groping for the next step in time. It was Monday; what did he plan to do on Monday? The false measure of time clicking from the many clocks offered him nothing. The hours were too slick to seize and led nowhere anyhow. His body smelled like clay, faintly damp, sunless, old.

  "Tessie," he said aloud. "I told her I would come tonight."

  And that was at least something to advance him to wherever he was bound for ultimately. He began locking the many accesses. When he was done, he went down the street in a hurry, like someone late for an assignation.

  ELEVEN

  The old man, Mendel, sat in the kitchen staring grimly at the radio, which was blaring dance music at him so loudly that the small speaker rattled. Sol studied the four cards in his hand, trying to decide which way to build tens. Across the bridge table, Tessie chewed tensely on her cuticles. Every so often she looked at the clock, and darted a quick, furtive glance toward the door before turning an accumulated intensity on the cards. Upstairs, a Spanish program competed with the old man's dance music and a man and woman shouted in apparent argument, as though the loud Latin music were a mere accompaniment to their anger. The old pipes shuddered and whined. Someone laughed hysterically, veered dangerously toward strangulation, and subsided into coughing. A child cried. The rooms had a damp-plush smell, like a train car opened after a long sealing.

  "So play already," Tessie said irritably.

  "You are in a hurry?"

  "But to just sit there!"

  "Why are you so nervous?"

  "Nervous, why should I be nervous? I am a happy, peaceful woman. Everything is wonderful for me. So why should I be nervous?" She glared guiltily at him, her yellow face scoured and worn by petty miseries to a texture that obscured the massive old deformities.

  "You're upset about Goberman," he accused.

  "The man drives me crazy. The other night, late, he was here, pounding on the door. He woke the old man. The things he threatens, the curses."

  "There's nothing he can do to you. He is just an annoyance. I told you I would deal with him, so what are you getting excited about?"

  "Where is he?" she said, looking toward the door.

  "It is as though you want him to come."

  "What if he comes after you have gone? What will I tell him then? He won't believe me."

  "I don't understand you. How can you be so disturbed about what he says. He can't do anything to you. Just tell him to leave you alone or you'll have him arrested. There is nothing he can do to hurt you."

  "Oh no! That is how blind you are. He can drive daggers in me, he can ruin my sleep, he can tear my heart out."

  "That is nonsense! You have nothing to feel guilty about, neither of us do. We have been in Hell and we have escaped. We owe no one."

  "Have you escaped?"

  "You are a hysterical woman. It would be good for you to get a grip on yourself or you'll be in for a nervous breakdown. Yes, I have escaped. I am safe within myself. I have made an order for myself, and no one can disturb it. It would be good if you would try to do the same. When Goberman comes, I will straighten that out for you, and you will see how simple all these things are." With that, he laid down his ace on top of a seven and the Good Two. "Building tens," he said.

  Tessie slapped her ten down on top of his "build," and her expression was wicked and vindictive as she slid the cards toward her.

  Sol smiled. "See, like that," he said. "Grab what you need without mooning and sighing. Take, do, act! Life is the here and now. Focus on what is before you. Bear down, push away whoever impedes you. Take what you need; money, relief, peace."

  "I had a child, I had a husband," she whispered savagely.

  "What do you want from me?" he shouted. "Kill yourself then, and be done with it!" He threw his cards down and shoved the table away from him. His face was like a rock from which tiny grainings were being shaken loose under a child's weak but persistent hammering.

  Tessie held up her hand fearfully, her face violet-lidded, deep-eyed, raw. "Wait, wait, sit," she cried. "I'll go make coffee, I have cake. We will eat something, Sol."

  He fell back sullenly and closed his eyes in agreement.

  Tessie went into the kitchen, where the dance music sounded with unmitigated violence over the old man's mutterings.

  "Turn it down, Pa," she said. "I can't hear to think."

  But the radio continued its assault. It was only one sound in the cacophony of the building. Tessie made more noise than necessary, to hold her own in all the din. She slammed the coffeepot onto the stove and struck the saucers with the cups. One of the pieces of china made a dull, suicidal sound.

  "I broke it," she said bewilderedly.

  The old man shut off the radio with a groan. "Listen to those murderers screaming the Deutsch," he snarled forlornly.

  "That is Spanish, Pa, not German," she told him in a dull voice.

  "They are all Deutsch," he roared, then, in a sly, vicious tone, "You are not mixing the fleishica dishes vit the mil-chik?"

  "No, Pa, everything is kosher," she said wearily.

  And then the door shook under a pounding fist.

  Tessie gasped and went to the doorway of the kitchen to look at Sol. He glanced disdainfully at her before getting slowly to his feet and walking toward the front door. With his hand on the knob, he looked back at Tessie and nodded.

  "Who is it?" she called in a shakily innocent tone.

  "Your conscience, Goberman. Pay your debts," said the hoarse voice on the other side of the door.

  Sol swung the door open suddenly. A short, thickset figure stood there, revealed like a joke in the wake of the heavy threat of the voice. Goberman had a pale face from which all the large features strained as if he wer
e the victim of a slow garroting. The tip of his bulbous nose was snowy white in its thrust, his lips pressed forward in a grotesque kiss, his boiled-looking eyes protruded like those of birds that can move each eye independently. His chin and cheeks were mangy with patches of unshaved beard, as though he shaved with a dull kitchen knife; it lent the whole face the look of something just dug up and not yet shaken clean of the grayish poor soil of its recent burial.

  "Who are you? The light is bad here," he complained in that rough voice. "Where's the woman here, that Rubin woman? Ah, but you look familiar, too. Du bist ein Yid? Oh yeh, aha, I see," he said triumphantly, squeezing past Sol into the lighted room, his eyes victorious on the tattooed numbers on Sol's arm. He held up a chewed-looking brief case and waved it at Sol's face. "I expect from you, too. The Jewish Appeal. Do you know how many Jews are still in Cairo? I'll tell you for enlightenment. Thirty-seven thousand six hundred and twenty-two. That's as of last week. God knows how many been killed since then. And in Syria! Twenty-nine thousand eight hundred and forty. Then we got seventeen thousand four hundred and thirty-three in Iran, thirty-six thousand and seven in Germany, nineteen thousand..."

  "Let me see your credentials," Sol said coldly.

  "Credentials, credentials," Goberman spat indignantly. "Where is she, where is that woman who would like to ease her conscience? You don't reside here. I got in my address book, lives here one woman, Tessie Rubin, aged forty-three, one man, Mendel Solowitz, aged seventy-five. You are a interloper. I will deal with the woman of the house."

  "I'm here, I'm here," Tessie called fearfully. "It's all right, Goberman. This man handles my business."

  The old man peered wildly over her shoulder, muttering against ancient crimes.

  "Your business, he handles," Goberman said nastily. "I see, I see very well. The husband cold in the grave, so you must take care..."

  "What right have you to come in here like this?" Sol said. "Before you say another word I must see your credentials."