by Jack Finney
I listened, making sympathetic grimaces, then said I was looking for a tenant, Jacob Pickering. He sighed, and said, "Well, Mr. Pickering, what's your complaint? If it's too hot, I can't—"
"No, I'm not Pickering; I'm looking for him. Which is his office?"
But that was too much; he was shaking his head again, turning back toward the basement. "I don't know; how should I know? I know the old tenants; I knew every tenant when the paper was still here! Now the paper's gone, building's gone downhill. Potter Building it is now," he said contemptuously. "All the old tenants are leaving fast as their lease expires. Full of fly-by-nights now. They come and they go, some even sublet and don't tell me or Mr. Potter. I can't keep track of them; have you been upstairs?" I said no, and he shook his head at the impossibility of describing it. "Rabbit warren. Chopped up into new little offices with matchboard siding; you could spit through the walls! Even new hallways up there now, and be still more of them pretty soon, up on the top floors where the paper was. Who knows who's up there?"
I was stuck for a moment, then I thought of something. "How do they get their mail if you don't know who's where?"
He mumbled, his head ducked, starting down the stairs. "Oh, I manage; I always manage somehow."
"I'm sure you do, but how do you manage?"
I had him now; he had to stop and look back and say it. "I keep a book."
I'd guessed that. "And where's the book?"
"Downstairs," he said irritably. '"Way back somewhere; I'm not sure where I—"
I had my hand in my pocket, "Well, I realize it's a lot of trouble." I found a quarter, remembering that it was more than an hour's pay for this man, and handed it to him. "But I'd be very grateful—"
"You're a gentleman, sir; glad to oblige. Be back in a minute."
It was more than a minute, but he came back upstairs with a pocket notebook, the cardboard cover curling back, the upper corners of the pages splayed out; it had a hole punched through a corner, a piece of dirty white twine tied through it in a loop. He opened it, scanning the pages as he turned them slowly, wetting a thumb each time. I stood looking over his shoulders; at least half the names had been scratched out, other newer ones overwritten. He mumbled all the time: "Ought to be torn down, build a new one. Elevator ain't finished; been like this for weeks, and won't help anyway. I can't keep track; somebody moves in, it's up to him to tell me his name if he wants his mail." He chuckled; in his old voice it was nearly a cackle. "And he generally does! Or if he moves out, and wants his mail sent on. And he generally does! Here he is: Pickering. Third floor, Number 27. That's right up above, next to the new shaft; can't miss it. He'll be complaining once the elevator's working, if it ever does; they're noisy devils, you know. I was on one."
I climbed upstairs, and on the second floor the door of the office immediately to my right beside the staircase stood open, the steady sound of the sawing and the regular shrieks of pulled nails came from the doorway, and I walked over and stood looking in. Two carpenters in white overalls knelt on the floor, their backs to me. One was sawing through the wooden floorboards between the joists, allowing the short sections of sawed-off tongue-and-groove boarding and wider subflooring to drop straight through to the basement—where the old janitor, no doubt, had to gather them up and burn them. The second carpenter was methodically prying loose the short stubs remaining nailed to the joists, using the claws of a hammer, and letting them drop through to the basement too. The two men were gradually working their way backward toward the doorway I stood in. Between them and the opposite wall the flooring was gone, the big wooden joists fully exposed. Presently they'd be cut off and burned, too, I supposed.
On the third floor, the heavy paneled-wood door of the room directly above the carpenters was fastened with a newly installed and very big padlock; painted on the door in red was DANGER! KEEP OUT! SHAFT-WAY! The door of the next office was stenciled 27, and was locked: I tried the knob cautiously, after listening at the door crack. There was no one else around. I was standing in a short corridor that branched off the main corridor at a right angle, and now I quickly dropped to one knee to look through the keyhole of Room 27. Straight ahead across the office I saw a tall dirty window, gray-white with winter daylight; directly under it stood a rolltop desk and a chair. My view to the left was blocked by something standing directly beside the door, so close it was out of focus. To the right I could see one edge of what had apparently been an open doorway connecting this office en suite with the padlocked office beside it. But now the connecting doorway was heavily boarded across, and it occurred to me that the carpenters cutting the elevator shaftway must be working upward so that each floor, as it was cut away, could be dropped through to the basement.
I'd learned all I was going to learn, and probably all I needed to learn, about Jake Pickering's office. For half a minute or so I stood there in the corridor—till I heard someone's footsteps coming down the stairs. I knew why I hated to turn and walk away; now my mission was completed, and I wished it weren't.
I walked back to the main corridor, then turned away from the staircase to walk on through the width of the building, passing the doors of Andrew J. Todd, lawyer; Prof. Charles A. Seeley, chemist; The American Engine Company; J.H. Hunter, notary. Then I came to the The New-York Observer offices facing onto Park Row, and the staircase to the street. Walking downstairs I was suddenly aware of how hungry I was.
I had lunch at the Astor House, across Broadway as Carmody had said, catercorner from the post office. But I almost turned around and left when I stepped into the lobby. It was packed with men standing in groups and pairs, talking, nearly every one of them wearing his hat, and the marble floor was covered, and I mean covered, with tobacco juice, as I knew they called it. Even as I stood in the entrance looking around, four or five seconds at most, a dozen men must have turned, each with a swollen cheek, to spit more or less expertly and more or less carefully at porcelain cuspidors scattered all over the big lobby floor; some didn't even bother looking. Trying to think of something else, I walked the length of the lobby past an enormous stick-and-umbrella stand, a railway ticket office, telegraph office, newspaper and cigar stand, and into an enormous, fantastically noisy counter restaurant, with a big oak-framed sign reading NO SWEARING, PLEASE. But I had two dozen Blue Point oysters fresh that morning from New York Bay, and they were absolutely great, and I was glad I'd come.
I took the El back to Gramercy Park. I'd noticed the station just east of City Hall Park, got on there, and it curved north through Chatham Square, and turned out to be the old Third Avenue El. I was used to people now; already, in my mind, the other passengers were dressed as they ought to be. But at Chatham Square a family got on that I couldn't look away from. They must have arrived from Ellis Island within the hour, and—incredible to a man of the twentieth century—I could tell where they were from by the way they were dressed. The father, who wore a huge drooping mustache, and the ten-year-old son, both wore blue cloth caps with shiny black peaks; short, double-breasted, porcelain-buttoned blue jackets; short scarves tied at the throat; pants that flared far out from the waist and tapered to the ankles; and although the father wore boots, the boy—I was fascinated, and had to force my eyes away—actually wore wooden shoes. The mother was stout, crimson-cheeked, wore two dozen skirts, and exactly the kind of bonnet you can see on the label of a can of Old Dutch Cleanser. On the floor at the father's feet was a carpetbag, and up on the seat beside him a big cloth-wrapped bundle. They looked happy, amiable, peering out the windows and commenting in what must, of course, have been Dutch. They were marvelous. They looked like a chocolate ad. And I realized that at this moment—almost the last moments—the world was still a wonderfully variegated place: that soldiers in Greece were probably still wearing pointed shoes, long white stockings, and little ballet skirts; Turks were in fezzes, their women veiled; plenty of Eskimos hadn't yet seen their first white man or caught his diseases; and Zulus were still happy cannibals in an unbulldozed, unpaved, u
npolluted world.
I knew we must be getting close to my stop, and looked away from the Dutch family long enough to glance out over this strange low New York, its church spires the highest things on the island. It was weird to be able to look straight across the city and see the Hudson, and astonishing to see how many trees there were. Most of the cross streets seemed lined with them, and there were a good many on the avenues. Some were fine big ones, taller than the houses around them, and I realized that the greenery of all these trees would give the town a rural look in summer almost like a large village, and I wished I could see it then.
We were approaching my stop, and for an instant, down a cross street to the west—Seventeenth? Eighteenth?—I caught a glimpse of a fine and splendid-looking five-story apartment building with a mansard roof. I was almost certain—it was red brick with brownstone facings—that I recognized it as the Stuyvesant. A friend of mine, an artist, who had lived in it till they tore it down, sometime in the fifties, I think, had a watercolor he'd done of it on his livingroom wall. He still missed the place, it was such a magnificent, high-windowed, enormous apartment. It actually had twenty-foot ceilings and four wood-burning fireplaces; New York's first apartment building, he said, known as "Stuyvesant's Folly" while they were building it because people said no New York gentleman would ever consent to live with a lot of strangers. He liked to talk about it, and I was glad to have had even a glimpse of it.
I got off at Twenty-third Street, walked back to 19 Gramercy Park, and Aunt Ada heard the front door open and came in from the kitchen, her hands and forearms white with flour. I asked if Julia were home, and she said no, but that she ought to be here any time now, and I thanked her and went on up to my room.
It had been some day and I'd walked more than I had in a long time, so I was glad to stretch out on my bed and wait. Now and then, outside my window as I lay there, I heard children in the park cry out, their voices high and thin in the cold outdoor air. I heard the already familiar hollow clop of horses' hoofs and the chink of their harness chains. I didn't want to leave this New York; there was so much more to see in this strange yet familiar city.
I fell asleep, of course, and awoke at the sounds of Julia's return: her voice and her aunt's in the hall. I got up quickly, pulling my watch out. It was just past four thirty, and I put on shoes and coat and trotted down. They were still there in the hall, looking up at me, Julia still dressed for the street; she was showing her aunt some things she'd bought.
We all went into the parlor, Julia untying and pulling off her hat, and I told them the story I'd composed, astonished at how guilty I felt to be looking at these two trusting women and lying. I'd gone to the post office, I said, to cancel the box I'd rented until I got permanent quarters. But I'd found an urgent letter in the box. My brother was sick, and while he'd recover, I added quickly—I didn't want condolences—they needed me meanwhile to help out on my father's farm, so I'd have to leave today; right now in fact. I was suddenly afraid they might ask questions about farming, but of course they didn't. Those two nice women were sympathetic, genuinely. And they said they were sorry I was leaving, and it seemed to me that was genuine, too. Aunt Ada supposed that I wouldn't leave till after dinner, at least, but I said no, I ought to leave right away; it would be a long train trip. She offered to refund part of my week's lodging, which I refused.
Then Julia, suddenly remembering, said, "Oh, no! My portrait!"
I'd forgotten it completely, and stood looking at her, my mind scrambling for an excuse. Then I realized I didn't want one. I wanted to do this portrait very much; it seemed like a particularly good way to say goodbye. So I nodded and said that if she'd sit for it now—I wanted to avoid Jake—I'd do it right away, then leave. Julia hurried upstairs to get ready—I asked her to keep on the dress she was wearing—and I followed to get my sketchbook from my overcoat pocket.
Upstairs I packed my carpetbag, stood looking around the room—ridiculously, I knew I'd miss it—then walked out, carpetbag in one hand, sketchbook in the other, and I flipped the cover back to look over the day's sketches.
As I turned toward the stairs Julia stepped down off the enclosed third-floor staircase, almost bumping into me; her hair was freshly coiled on top of her head now. "Oh, may I see!" she said, reaching for my sketchbook. I might have made an excuse, but I was curious and gave her the book. Walking slowly down ahead of me, she looked first at my reference sketches of the farming near the Dakota; they weren't really sketches yet but more like a set of notes to myself, and she didn't comment on them, but turned the page to my sketch of City Hall Park and the streets around it.
I think I might have guessed the kind of response she made; I knew this was an age of absolute and almost universal faith in progress, and very nearly a love of machinery and its potentials. We were downstairs, and now she stopped in the parlor and said, "What are these, Mr. Morley?" Her fingertip lay on the paper at the cars and trucks I'd sketched onto Centre Street.
"Automobiles."
She repeated it as though it were two words: "Auto mobiles." Then she nodded, pleased. "Yes: self-propelled. That's an excellent coinage; is it your own?" I said no, that I'd heard it somewhere, and she nodded again and said, "Perhaps in Jules Verne. In any case, I'm quite certain we will have auto mobiles. And a good thing; so much cleaner than horses." She was already turning the page, and now she looked at my rough of Trinity and Broadway. Before she could comment I took it from her, and very rapidly sketched in the enormous buildings that would someday surround the little church. I handed it back to her, and after a moment she nodded. "Excellent. Wonderfully symbolic. The highest structure on all of Manhattan to be eventually surrounded by others far taller: yes. But you're a better artist than architect, Mr. Morley; to support buildings this tall, the masonry at the base of the walls would need to be half a mile thick!" She smiled, and handed my pad back. "Where shall I sit?"
I posed her at a window in a three-quarter view, making her let her hair down, and worked with a very sharp hard pencil to force the best delineation I was capable of; no obscuring faulty draftsmanship with a fine thick dash of a line. The hard pencil also allowed the finest shading and cross-hatching I was capable of.
It was turning out well. I had the shape of the face, and I had the eyes and eyebrows, the hardest part for me, and I was working quite carefully on the hair: I wanted to really catch the way it was. But I was slow: Young Felix Grier came home, and I dragged out my watch and saw that it was just before five. He stood watching for a few moments, not saying anything. He smiled when I looked up at him, and nodded a quick polite approval, but his eyes were worried, and I knew why. I was worried, too—that Jake Pickering would come in and raise hell once again, and it was no part of my mission here to make trouble. I stepped up my speed, trying to hang onto my control; I wanted this good. It seemed unlikely that he'd be home from a job at City Hall before five thirty or six, and I expected to be finished and gone within minutes now.
It was my fault, of course, for not thinking of the obvious: that a man like Jake Pickering, hating his job and status as a clerk, would walk back to City Hall and quit his job after seeing Carmody. And now—this time I didn't see him approaching the house—the front door opened, closed, and there he was standing in the hall doorway again. But now he was swaying ever so slightly, and his tie was undone. His overcoat was unbuttoned, his hands shoved into his pants pockets, and his plug hat, far back on his head, had a streak of dried mud at the crown and along one curled rim.
He wasn't out of control; he was drunk but knew what he was seeing. Julia and I staring at him, his eyes moved from her face to the lines on my pad, back to Julia's face, back to the pad. There have been primitive people throughout the world who would not permit a likeness to be made of themselves; they believed it took something of the living person away. And it may be that this man, not realizing or understanding it, had some of that nearly instinctive feeling. Because my sketching of Julia enraged him as though in his mind my eyes
on her face, my moving pencil taking her likeness, were a kind of deep intimacy. As it is in a way. In any case, it was somehow unbearable to him; more than rage, it was emotion past thought: berserk. His eyes lifted from the pad to my face. They were very small now, the whites reddened, and they were absolutely implacable. He lifted his arm to full length, and his lips parted to bare his teeth like an animal as he pointed at me wordlessly; I don't think there were words for the fury he felt. Then the arm swung in a short arc to point at Julia. His neck looked swollen and his voice was so thick it was hard to understand. He said, "Wait. Stay here. Wait. And I'll show you." Then almost nimbly—the swaying vanished—he swung round on his heel and was gone, the front door opening and slamming an instant later.
I finished the portrait: why not? After the door slammed I looked at Julia, and my mouth opened to say something but all I did was shrug. Nothing to say, except Well, well, well, or something just as inane, occurred to me. And Julia forced a smile and shrugged, too, but her face was white and stayed so. I'm not sure why: fear, anger, shock; I don't know. But she was defiant too, her chin unconsciously lifted through the rest of the sitting, another ten minutes or so.
She liked the portrait: I could tell that she really did by the way she looked at it again and again; and some color came back to her face. My drawing was fully detailed, very literal; it could have been a Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper woodcut. But this one was also a good portrait. Not only did it look like her; I was a good enough artist to manage that, given the time and incentive, but it also caught something of Julia herself, of the kind of person she was, so far as I knew. Maybe it did capture something of Julia's "soul."
