Manhattan Transfer

by John Dos Passos

  ‘Oh what a beautiful apartment you have,’ Ruth is exclaiming at the same moment. Ellen’s ears ring sickeningly. ‘We all have to die sometime,’ gruffly she blurts out.

  Ruth’s rubberclad foot is tapping the floor; she catches Cassie’s eye and makes her stammer into silence. ‘Hadnt we better go along? It’s getting rather late,’ she says.

  ‘Excuse me a minute Ruth.’ Ellen runs into the bathroom and slams the door. She sits on the edge of the bathtub pounding on her knees with her clenched fists. Those women’ll drive me mad. Then the tension in her snaps, she feels something draining out of her like water out of a washbasin. She quietly puts a dab of rouge on her lips.

  When she goes back she says in her usual voice: ‘Well let’s get along… Got a part yet Ruth?’

  ‘I had a chance to go out to Detroit with a stock company. I turned it down… I wont go out of New York whatever happens.’

  ‘What wouldnt I give for a chance to get away from New York… Honestly if I was offered a job singing in a movie in Medicine Hat I think I’d take it.’

  Ellen picks up her umbrella and the three women file down the stairs and out into the street. ‘Taxi,’ calls Ellen.

  The passing car grinds to a stop. The red hawk face of the taxidriver craning into the light of the street lamp. ‘Go to Eugenie’s on Fortyeighth Street,’ says Ellen as the others climb in. Greenish lights and darks flicker past the lightbeaded windows.

  She stood with her arm in the arm of Harry Goldweiser’s dinner jacket looking out over the parapet of the roofgarden. Below them the Park lay twinkling with occasional lights, streaked with nebular blur like a fallen sky. From behind them came gusts of a tango, inklings of voices, shuffle of feet on a dancefloor. Ellen felt a stiff castiron figure in her metalgreen evening dress.

  ‘Ah but Boirnhardt, Rachel, Duse, Mrs Siddons… No Elaine I’m tellin you, d’you understand? There’s no art like the stage that soars so high moldin the passions of men… If I could only do what I wanted we’d be the greatest people in the world. You’d be the greatest actress… I’d be the great producer, the unseen builder, d’you understand? But the public dont want art, the people of this country wont let you do anythin for em. All they want’s a detective melodrama or a rotten French farce with the kick left out or a lot of pretty girls and music. Well a showman’s business is to give the public what they want.’

  ‘I think that this city is full of people wanting inconceivable things… Look at it.’

  ‘It’s all right at night when you cant see it. There’s no artistic sense, no beautiful buildins, no old-time air, that’s what’s the matter with it.’

  They stood a while without speaking. The orchestra began playing the waltz from The Lilac Domino. Suddenly Ellen turned to Goldweiser and said in a curt tone. ‘Can you understand a woman who wants to be a harlot, a common tart, sometimes?’

  ‘My dear young lady what a strange thing for a sweet lovely girl to suddenly come out and say.’

  ‘I suppose you’re shocked.’ She didnt hear his answer. She felt she was going to cry. She pressed her sharp nails into the palms of her hands, she held her breath until she had counted twenty. Then she said in a choking little girl’s voice, ‘Harry let’s go and dance a little.’

  The sky above the cardboard buildings is a vault of beaten lead. It would be less raw if it would snow. Ellen finds a taxi on the corner of Seventh Avenue and lets herself sink back in the seat rubbing the numb gloved fingers of one hand against the palm of the other. ‘West Fiftyseventh, please.’ Out of a sick mask of fatigue she watches fruitstores, signs, buildings being built, trucks, girls, messengerboys, policemen through the jolting window. If I have my child, Stan’s child, it will grow up to jolt up Seventh Avenue under a sky of beaten lead that never snows watching fruitstores, signs, buildings being built, trucks, girls, messengerboys, policemen… She presses her knees together, sits up straight on the edge of the seat with her hands clasped over her slender belly. O God the rotten joke they’ve played on me, taking Stan away, burning him up, leaving me nothing but this growing in me that’s going to kill me. She’s whimpering into her numb hands. O God why wont it snow?

  As she stands on the gray pavement fumbling in her purse for a bill, a dusteddy swirling scraps of paper along the gutter fills her mouth with grit. The elevatorman’s face is round ebony with ivory inlay. ‘Mrs Staunton Wells?’ ‘Yas ma’am eighth floor.’

  The elevator hums as it soars. She stands looking at herself in the narrow mirror. Suddenly something recklessly gay goes through her. She rubs the dust off her face with a screwedup handkerchief, smiles at the elevatorman’s smile that’s wide as the full keyboard of a piano, and briskly rustles to the door of the apartment that a frilled maid opens. Inside it smells of tea and furs and flowers, women’s voices chirp to the clinking of cups like birds in an aviary. Glances flicker about her head as she goes into the room.

  There was wine spilled on the tablecloth and bits of tomatosauce from the spaghetti. The restaurant was a steamy place with views of the Bay of Naples painted in soupy blues and greens on the walls. Ellen sat back in her chair from the round tableful of young men, watching the smoke from her cigarette crinkle spirally round the fat Chiantibottle in front of her. In her plate a slab of tricolor icecream melted forlornly. ‘But good God hasnt a man some rights? No, this industrial civilization forces us to seek a complete readjustment of government and social life…’

  ‘Doesnt he use long words?’ Ellen whispered to Herf who sat beside her.

  ‘He’s right all the same,’ he growled back at her… ‘The result has been to put more power in the hands of a few men than there has been in the history of the world since the horrible slave civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia…’

  ‘Hear hear.’

  ‘No but I’m serious… The only way of bucking the interests is for working people, the proletariat, producers and consumers, anything you want to call them, to form unions and finally get so well organized that they can take over the whole government.’

  ‘I think you’re entirely wrong, Martin, it’s the interests as you call em, these horrible capitalists, that have built up this country as we have it today.’

  ‘Well look at it for God’s sake… That’s what I’m saying. I wouldnt kennel a dog in it.’

  ‘I dont think so. I admire this country… It’s the only fatherland I’ve got… And I think that all these downtrodden masses really want to be downtrodden, they’re not fit for anything else… If they werent they’d be flourishing businessmen… Those that are any good are getting to be.’

  ‘But I don’t think a flourishing businessman is the highest ideal of human endeavor.’

  ‘A whole lot higher than a rotten fiddleheaded anarchist agitator… Those that arent crooks are crazy.’

  ‘Look here Mead, you’ve just insulted something that you dont understand, that you know nothing about… I cant allow you to do that… You should try to understand things before you go round insulting them.’

  ‘An insult to the intelligence that’s what it is all this socialistic drivel.’

  Ellen tapped Herf on the sleeve. ‘Jimmy I’ve got to go home. Do you want to walk a little way with me?’

  ‘Martin, will you settle for us? We’ve got to go… Ellie you look terribly pale.’

  ‘It’s just a little hot in here… Whee, what a relief… I hate arguments anyway. I never can think of anything to say.’

  ‘That bunch does nothing but chew the rag night after night.’

  Eighth Avenue was full of fog that caught at their throats. Lights bloomed dimly through it, faces loomed, glinted in silhouette and faded like a fish in a muddy aquarium.

  ‘Feel better Ellie?’

  ‘Lots.’

  ‘I’m awfully glad.’

  ‘Do you know you’re the only person around here who calls me Ellie. I like it… Everybody tries to make me seem so grown up since I’ve been on the stage.’

  ‘Stan used to.’


  ‘Maybe that’s why I like it,’ she said in a little trailing voice like a cry heard at night from far away along a beach.

  Jimmy felt something clamping his throat. ‘Oh gosh things are rotten,’ he said. ‘God I wish I could blame it all on capitalism the way Martin does.’

  ‘It’s pleasant walking like this… I love a fog.’

  They walked on without speaking. Wheels rumbled through the muffling fog underlaid with the groping distant lowing of sirens and steamboatwhistles on the river.

  ‘But at least you have a career… You like your work, you’re enormously successful,’ said Herf at the corner of Fourteenth Street, and caught her arm as they crossed.

  ‘Dont say that… You really dont believe it. I dont kid myself as much as you think I do.’

  ‘No but it’s so.’

  ‘It used to be before I met Stan, before I loved him… You see I was a crazy little stagestruck kid who got launched out in a lot of things I didnt understand before I had time to learn anything about life… Married at eighteen and divorced at twentytwo’s a pretty good record… But Stan was so wonderful…’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Without ever saying anything he made me feel there were other things… unbelievable things…’

  ‘God I resent his craziness though… It’s such a waste.’

  ‘I cant talk about it.’

  ‘Let’s not.’

  ‘Jimmy you’re the only person left I can really talk to.’

  ‘Dont want to trust me. I might go berserk on you too some day.’

  They laughed.

  ‘God I’m glad I’m not dead, arent you Ellie?’

  ‘I dont know. Look here’s my place. I dont want you to come up… I’m going right to bed. I feel miserably…’ Jimmy stood with his hat off looking at her. She was fumbling in her purse for her key. ‘Look Jimmy I might as well tell you…’ She went up to him and spoke fast with her face turned away pointing at him with the latchkey that caught the light of the streetlamp. The fog was like a tent round about them. ‘I’m going to have a baby… Stan’s baby. I’m going to give up all this silly life and raise it. I dont care what happens.’

  ‘O God that’s the bravest thing I ever heard of a woman doing… Oh Ellie you’re so wonderful. God if I could only tell you what I…’

  ‘Oh no.’ Her voice broke and her eyes filled with tears. ‘I’m a silly fool, that’s all.’ She screwed up her face like a little child and ran up the steps with the tears streaming down her face.

  ‘Oh Ellie I want to say something to you…’

  The door closed behind her.

  Jimmy Herf stood stockstill at the foot of the brownstone steps. His temples throbbed. He wanted to break the door down after her. He dropped on his knees and kissed the step where she had stood. The fog swirled and flickered with colors in confetti about him. Then the trumpet feeling ebbed and he was falling through a black manhole. He stood stockstill. A policeman’s ballbearing eyes searched his face as he passed, a stout blue column waving a nightstick. Then suddenly he clenched his fists and walked off. ‘O God everything is hellish,’ he said aloud. He wiped the grit off his lips with his coatsleeve.

  She puts her hand in his to jump out of the roadster as the ferry starts, ‘Thanks Larry,’ and follows his tall ambling body out on the bow. A faint riverwind blows the dust and gasoline out of their nostrils. Through the pearly night the square frames of houses along the Drive opposite flicker like burnedout fireworks. The waves slap tinily against the shoving bow of the ferry. A hunchback with a violin is scratching Marianela.

  ‘Nothing succeeds like success,’ Larry is saying in a deep droning voice.

  ‘Of if you knew how little I cared about anything just now you wouldnt go on teasing me with all these words… You know, marriage, success, love, they’re just words.’

  ‘But they mean everything in the world to me… I think you’d like it in Lima Elaine… I waited until you were free, didnt I? And now here I am.’

  ‘We’re none of us that ever… But I’m just numb.’ The riverwind is brackish. Along the viaduct above 125th Street cars crawl like beetles. As the ferry enters the slip they hear the squudge and rumble of wheels on asphalt.

  ‘Well we’d better get back into the car, you wonderful creature Elaine.’

  ‘After all day it’s exciting isnt it Larry, getting back into the center of things.’

  Beside the smudged white door are two pushbuttons marked NIGHT BELL and DAY BELL. She rings with a shaky finger. A short broad man with a face like a rat and sleek black hair brushed straight back opens. Short dollhands the color of the flesh of a mushroom hang at his sides. He hunches his shoulders in a bow.

  ‘Are you the lady? Come in.’

  ‘Is this Dr Abrahms?’

  ‘Yes… You are the lady my friend phoned me about. Sit down my dear lady.’ The office smells of something like arnica. Her heart joggles desperately between her ribs.

  ‘You understand…’ She hates the quaver in her voice; she’s going to faint. ‘You understand, Dr Abrahms that it is absolutely necessary. I am getting a divorce from my husband and have to make my own living.’

  ‘Very young, unhappily married… I am sorry.’ The doctor purrs softly as if to himself. He heaves a hissing sigh and suddenly looks in her eyes with black steel eyes like gimlets. ‘Do not be afraid, dear lady, it is a very simple operation… Are you ready now?’

  ‘Yes. It wont take very long will it? If I can pull myself together I have an engagement for tea at five.’

  ‘You are a brave young lady. In an hour it will be forgotten… I am sorry… It is very sad such a thing is necessary… Dear lady you should have a home and many children and a loving husband… Will you go in the operating room and prepare yourself… I work without an assistant.’

  The bright searing bud of light swells in the center of the ceiling, sprays razorsharp nickel, enamel, a dazzling sharp glass case of sharp instruments. She takes off her hat and lets herself sink shuddering sick on a little enamel chair. Then she gets stiffly to her feet and undoes the band of her skirt.

  The roar of the streets breaks like surf about a shell of throbbing agony. She watches the tilt of her leather hat, the powder, the rosed cheeks, the crimson lips that are a mask on her face. All the buttons of her gloves are buttoned. She raises her hand. ‘Taxi!’ A fire engine roars past, a hosewagon with sweatyfaced men pulling on rubber coats, a clanging hookandladder. All the feeling in her fades with the dizzy fade of the siren. A wooden Indian, painted, with a hand raised at the streetcorner.

  ‘Taxi!’

  ‘Yes ma’am.’

  ‘Drive to the Ritz.’

  THIRD SECTION

  1 Rejoicing City That Dwelt Carelessly

  There are flags on all the flagpoles up Fifth Avenue. In the shrill wind of history the great flags flap and tug at their lashings on the creaking goldknobbed poles up Fifth Avenue. The stars jiggle sedately against the slate sky, the red and white stripes writhe against the clouds.

  In the gale of brassbands and trampling horses and rumbling clatter of cannon, shadows like the shadows of claws grasp at the taut flags, the flags are hungry tongues licking twisting curling.

  Oh it’s a long way to Tipperary… Over there! Over there!

  The harbor is packed with zebrastriped skunkstriped piebald steamboats, the Narrows are choked with bullion, they’re piling gold sovereigns up to the ceilings in the Subtreasury. Dollars whine on the radio, all the cables tap out dollars.

  There’s a long long trail awinding… Over there! Over there!

  In the subway their eyes pop as they spell out APOCALYPSE, typhus, cholera, shrapnel, insurrection, death in fire, death in water, death in hunger, death in mud.

  Oh it’s a long way to Madymosell from Armenteers, over there! The Yanks are coming, the Yanks are coming. Down Fifth Avenue the bands blare for the Liberty Loan drive, for the Red Cross drive. Hospital ships sneak up the harbor and unload furtively at night in o
ld docks in Jersey. Up Fifth Avenue the flags of the seventeen nations are flaring curling in the shrill hungry wind.

  O the oak and the ash and the weeping willow tree And green grows the grass in God’s country.

  The great flags flap and tug at their lashings on the creaking goldknobbed poles up Fifth Avenue.

  Captain James Merivale D.S.C. lay with his eyes closed while the barber’s padded fingers gently stroked his chin. The lather tickled his nostrils; he could smell bay rum, hear the drone of an electric vibrator, the snipping of scissors.

  ‘A little face massage sir, get rid of a few of those blackheads sir,’ burred the barber in his ear. The barber was bald and had a round blue chin.

  ‘All right,’ drawled Merivale, ‘go as far as you like. This is the first decent shave I’ve had since war was declared.’

  ‘Just in from overseas, Captain?’

  ‘Yare… been making the world safe for democracy.’

  The barber smothered his words under a hot towel. ‘A little lilac water Captain?’

  ‘No dont put any of your damn lotions on me, just a little witchhazel or something antiseptic.’

  The blond manicure girl had faintly beaded lashes; she looked up at him bewitchingly, her rosebud lips parted. ‘I guess you’ve just landed Captain… My you’ve got a good tan.’ He gave up his hand to her on the little white table. ‘It’s a long time Captain since anybody took care of these hands.’

  ‘How can you tell?’

  ‘Look how the cuticle’s grown.’

  ‘We were too busy for anything like that. I’m a free man since eight o’clock that’s all.’

  ‘Oh it must have been terr… ible.’

  ‘Oh it was a great little war while it lasted.’

  ‘I’ll say it was… And now you’re all through Captain?’

  ‘Of course I keep my commission in the reserve corps.’

  She gave his hand a last playful tap and he got to his feet.