Manhattan Transfer

by John Dos Passos

  ‘You dont mind just this once I forgot.’

  Baldwin caught sight of something on the settee; he found himself staring at a pair of darkblue trousers neatly folded.

  ‘I was feeling awfully fagged down at the office Nevada. I thought I’d come up to talk to you to cheer myself up a bit.’

  ‘I was just practicing some dancing with the phonograph.’

  ‘Yes very interesting…’ He began to walk springily up and down. ‘Now look here Nevada… We’ve got to have a talk. I dont care who it is you’ve got in your bedroom.’ She looked suddenly in his face and sat down on the settee beside the trousers. ‘In fact I’ve known for some time that you and Tony Hunter were carrying on.’ She compressed her lips and crossed her legs. ‘In fact all this stuff and nonsense about his having to go to a psychoanalyst at twentyfive dollars an hour amused me enormously… But just this minute I’ve decided I had enough. Quite enough.’

  ‘George you’re crazy,’ she stammered and then suddenly she began to giggle.

  ‘I tell you what I’ll do,’ went on Baldwin in a clear legal voice, ‘I’ll send you a check for five hundred, because you’re a nice girl and I like you. The apartment’s paid till the first of the month. Does that suit you? And please never communicate with me in any way.’

  She was rolling on the settee giggling helplessly beside the neatly folded pair of darkblue trousers. Baldwin waved his hat and gloves at her and left closing the door very gently behind him. Good riddance, he said to himself as he closed the door carefully behind him.

  Down in the street again he began to walk briskly uptown. He felt excited and talkative. He wondered who he could go to see. Telling over the names of his friends made him depressed. He began to feel lonely, deserted. He wanted to be talking to a woman, making her sorry for the barrenness of his life. He went into a cigarstore and began looking through the phonebook. There was a faint flutter in him when he found the H’s. At last he found the name Herf, Helena Oglethorpe.

  Nevada Jones sat a long while on the settee giggling hysterically. At length Tony Hunter came in in his shirt and drawers with his bow necktie perfectly tied.

  ‘Has he gone?’

  ‘Gone? sure he’s gone, gone for good,’ she shrieked. ‘He saw your damn pants.’

  He let himself drop on a chair. ‘O God if I’m not the unluckiest fellow in the world.’

  ‘Why?’ she sat spluttering with laughter with the tears running down her face.

  ‘Nothing goes right. That means it’s all off about the matinees.’

  ‘It’s back to three a day for little Nevada… I dont give a damn… I never did like bein a kept woman.’

  ‘But you’re not thinking of my career… Women are so selfish. If you hadn’t led me on…’

  ‘Shut up you little fool. Dont you think I dont know all about you?’ She got to her feet with the kimono pulled tight about her.

  ‘God all I needed was a chance to show what I could do, and now I’ll never get it,’ Tony was groaning.

  ‘Sure you will if you do what I tell you. I set out to make a man of you kiddo and I’m goin to do it… We’ll get up an act. Old Hirshbein’ll give us a chance, he used to be kinder smitten… Come on now, I’ll punch you in the jaw if you dont. Let’s start thinkin up… We’ll come in with a dance number see… then you’ll pretend to want to pick me up… I’ll be waitin for a streetcar… see… and you’ll say Hello Girlie an I’ll call Officer.’

  ‘Is that all right for length sir,’ asked the fitter busily making marks on the trousers with a piece of chalk.

  James Merivale looked down at the fitter’s little greenish wizened bald head and at the brown trousers flowing amply about his feet. ‘A little shorter… I think it looks a little old to have trousers too long.’

  ‘Why hello Merivale I didn’t know you bought your clothes at Brooks’ too. Gee I’m glad to see you.’

  Merivale’s blood stood still. He found himself looking straight in the blue alcoholic eyes of Jack Cunningham. He bit his lip and tried to stare at him coldly without speaking.

  ‘God Almighty, do you know what we’ve done?’ cried out Cunningham. ‘We’ve bought the same suit of clothes… I tell you it’s identically the same.’

  Merivale was looking in bewilderment from Cunningham’s brown trousers to his own, the same color, the same tiny stripe of red and faint mottling of green.

  ‘Good God man two future brothersinlaw cant wear the same suit. People’ll think it’s a uniform… It’s ridiculous.’

  ‘Well what are we going to do about it?’ Merivale found himself saying in a grumbling tone.

  ‘We have to toss up and see who gets it that’s all… Will you lend me a quarter please?’ Cunningham turned to his salesman. ‘All right… One toss, you yell.’

  ‘Heads,’ said Merivale mechanically.

  ‘The brown suit is yours… Now I’ve got to choose another… God I’m glad we met when we did. Look,’ he shouted out through the curtains of the booth, ‘why dont you have dinner with me tonight at the Salmagundi Club?… I’m going to be dining with the only man in the world who’s crazier about hydroplanes than I am… It’s old man Perkins, you know him, he’s one of the vice-presidents of your bank… And look when you see Maisie tell her I’m coming up to see her tomorrow. An extraordinary series of events has kept me from communicating with her… a most unfortunate series of events that took all my time up to this moment… We’ll talk about it later.’

  Merivale cleared his throat. ‘Very well,’ he said dryly.

  ‘All right sir,’ said the fitter giving Merivale a last tap on the buttocks. He went back into the booth to dress.

  ‘All right old thing,’ shouted Cunningham, ‘I’ve got to go pick out another suit… I’ll expect you at seven. I’ll have a Jack Rose waiting for you.’

  Merivale’s hands were trembling as he fastened his belt. Perkins, Jack Cunningham, the damn blackguard, hydroplanes, Jack Cunningham Salmagundi Perkins. He went to a phone booth in a corner of the store and called up his mother. ‘Hello Mother, I’m afraid I wont be up to dinner… I’m dining with Randolph Perkins at the Salmagundi Club… Yes it is very pleasant… Oh well he and I have always been fairly good friends… Oh yes it’s essential to stand in with the men higher up. And I’ve seen Jack Cunningham. I put it up to him straight from the shoulder man to man and he was very much embarrassed. He promised a full explanation within twentyfour hours… No I kept my temper very well. I felt I owed it to Maisie. I tell you I think the man’s a blackguard but until there’s proof… Well good night dear, in case I’m late. Oh no please dont wait up. Tell Maisie not to worry I’ll be able to give her the fullest details. Good night mother.’

  They sat at a small table in the back of a dimly lighted tearoom. The shade on the lamp cut off the upper parts of their faces. Ellen had on a dress of bright peacock blue and a small blue hat with a piece of green in it. Ruth Prynne’s face had a sagging tired look under the street makeup.

  ‘Elaine, you’ve just got to come,’ she was saying in a whiny voice. ‘Cassie’ll be there and Oglethorpe and all the old gang… After all now that you’re making such a success of editorial work it’s no reason for completely abandoning your old friends is it? You dont know how much we talk and wonder about you.’

  ‘No but Ruth it’s just that I’m getting to hate large parties. I guess I must be getting old. All right I’ll come for a little while.’

  Ruth put down the sandwich she was nibbling at and reached for Ellen’s hand and patted it. ‘That’s the little trouper… Of course I knew you were coming all along.’

  ‘But Ruth you never told me what happened to that traveling repertory company last summer…’

  ‘O my God,’ burst out Ruth. ‘That was terrible. Of course it was a scream, a perfect scream. Well the first thing that happened was that Isabel Clyde’s husband Ralph Nolton who was managing the company was a dipsomaniac… and then the lovely Isabel wouldn’t let anybody on the stage who didn�
�t act like a dummy for fear the rubes wouldnt know who the star was… Oh I cant tell about it any more… It isnt funny to me any more, it’s just horrible… Oh Elaine I’m so discouraged. My dear I’m getting old.’ She suddenly burst out crying.

  ‘Oh Ruth please dont,’ said Ellen in a little rasping voice. She laughed. ‘After all we’re none of us getting any younger are we?’

  ‘Dear you dont understand… You never will understand.’

  They sat a long while without saying anything, scraps of low-voiced conversation came to them from other corners of the dim tearoom. The palehaired waitress brought them two orders of fruit salad.

  ‘My it must be getting late,’ said Ruth eventually.

  ‘It’s only half past eight… We dont want to get to this party too soon.’

  ‘By the way… how’s Jimmy Herf. I havent seen him for ages.’

  ‘Jimps is fine… He’s terribly sick of newspaper work. I do wish he could get something he really enjoyed doing.’

  ‘He’ll always be a restless sort of person. Oh Elaine I was so happy when I heard about your being married… I acted like a damn fool. I cried and cried… And now with Martin and everything you must be terribly happy.’

  ‘Oh we get along all right… Martin’s picking up, New York seems to agree with him. He was so quiet and fat for a long while we were terribly afraid we’d produced an imbecile. Do you know Ruth I don’t think I’d ever have another baby… I was so horribly afraid he’d turn out deformed or something… It makes me sick to think of it.’

  ‘Oh but it must be wonderful though.’

  They rang a bell under a small brass placque that read: Hester Voorhees INTERPRETATION OF THE DANCE. They went up three flights of creaky freshvarnished stairs. At the door open into a room full of people they met Cassandra Wilkins in a Greek tunic with a wreath of satin rosebuds round her head and a gilt wooden panpipe in her hand.

  ‘Oh you darlings,’ she cried and threw her arms round them both at once. ‘Hester said you wouldnt come but I just knew you would… Come wight in and take off your things, we’re beginning with a few classic wythms.’ They followed her through a long candlelit incensesmelling room full of men and women in dangly costumes.

  ‘But my dear you didn’t tell us it was going to be a costume party.’

  ‘Oh yes cant you see evewything’s Gweek, absolutely Gweek… Here’s Hester… Here they are darling… Hester you know Wuth… and this is Elaine Oglethorpe.’

  ‘I call myself Mrs Herf now, Cassie.’

  ‘Oh I beg your pardon, it’s so hard to keep twack… They’re just in time… Hester’s going to dance an owiental dance called Wythms from the Awabian Nights… Oh it’s too beautiful.’

  When Ellen came out of the bedroom where she had left her wraps a tall figure in Egyptian headdress with crooked rusty eyebrows accosted her. ‘Allow me to salute Helena Herf, distinguished editress of Manners, the journal that brings the Ritz to the humblest fireside… isnt that true?’

  ‘Jojo you’re a horrible tease… I’m awfully glad to see you.’

  ‘Let’s go and sit in a corner and talk, oh only woman I have ever loved…’

  ‘Yes do let’s… I dont like it here much.’

  ‘And my dear, have you heard about Tony Hunter’s being straightened out by a psychoanalyst and now he’s all sublimated and has gone on the vaudeville stage with a woman named California Jones.’

  ‘You’d better watch out Jojo.’

  They sat down on a couch in a recess between the dormer windows. Out of the corner of her eye she could see a girl dancing in green silk veils. The phonograph was playing the Cesar Frank symphony.

  ‘We mustnt miss Cassie’s daunce. The poor girl would be dreadfully offended.’

  ‘Jojo tell me about yourself, how have you been?’

  He shook his head and made a broad gesture with his draped arm. ‘Ah let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the deaths of kings.’

  ‘Oh Jojo I’m sick of this sort of thing… It’s all so silly and dowdy… I wish I hadnt let them make me take my hat off.’

  ‘That was so that I should look upon the forbidden forests of your hair.’

  ‘Oh Jojo do be sensible.’

  ‘How’s your husband, Elaine or rathah Helenah?’

  ‘Oh he’s all right.’

  ‘You dont sound terribly enthusiastic.’

  ‘Martin’s fine though. He’s got black hair and brown eyes and his cheeks are getting to be pink. Really he’s awfully cute.’

  ‘My deah, spare me this exhibition of maternal bliss… You’ll be telling me next you walked in a baby parade.’

  She laughed. ‘Jojo it’s lots of fun to see you again.’

  ‘I havent finished my catechism yet deah… I saw you in the oval diningroom the other day with a very distinguished looking man with sharp features and gray hair.’

  ‘That must have been George Baldwin. Why you knew him in the old days.’

  ‘Of course of course. How he has changed. A much more interesting looking man than he used to be I must say… A very strange place for the wife of a bolshevik pacifist and I. W. W. agitator to be seen taking lunch, I must say.

  ‘Jimps isnt exactly that. I kind of wish he were…’ She wrinkled up her nose. ‘I’m a little fed up too with all that sort of thing.’

  ‘I suspected it my dear.’ Cassie was flitting selfconsciously by.

  ‘Oh do come and help me… Jojo’s teasing me terribly.’

  ‘Well I’ll twy to sit down just for a second, I’m going to dance next… Mr Oglethorpe’s going to wead his twanslation of the songs of Bilitis for me to dance to.’

  Ellen looked from one to the other; Oglethorpe crooked his eyebrows and nodded.

  Then Ellen sat alone for a long while looking at the dancing and the chittering crowded room through a dim haze of boredom.

  The record on the phonograph was Turkish. Hester Voorhees, a skinny woman with a mop of hennaed hair cut short at the level of her ears, came out holding a pot of drawling incense out in front of her preceded by two young men who unrolled a carpet as she came. She wore silk bloomers and a clinking metal girdle and brassières. Everybody was clapping and saying, ‘How wonderful, how marvelous,’ when from another room came three tearing shrieks of a woman. Everybody jumped to his feet. A stout man in a derby hat appeared in the doorway. ‘All right little goils, right through into the back room. Men stay here.’

  ‘Who are you anyway?’

  ‘Never mind who I am, you do as I say.’ The man’s face was red as a beet under the derby hat.

  ‘It’s a detective.’ ‘It’s outrageous. Let him show his badge.’

  ‘It’s a holdup.’

  ‘It’s a raid.’

  The room had filled suddenly with detectives. They stood in front of the windows. A man in a checked cap with a face knobbed like a squash stood in front of the fireplace. They were pushing the women roughly into the back room. The men were herded in a little group near the door; detectives were taking their names. Ellen still sat on the couch. ‘… complaint phoned to headquarters,’ she heard somebody say. Then she noticed that there was a phone on the little table beside the couch where she sat. She picked it up and whispered softly for a number.

  ‘Hello is this the district attorney’s office?… I want to speak to Mr Baldwin please… George… It’s lucky I knew where you were. Is the district attorney there? That’s fine… no you tell him about it. There has been a horrible mistake. I’m at Hester Voorhees’; you know she has a dancing studio. She was presenting some dances to some friends and through some mistake the police are raiding the place…’

  The man in the derby was standing over her. ‘All right phoning wont do no good… Go ’long in the other room.’

  ‘I’ve got the district attorney’s office on the wire. You speak to him… Hello is this Mr Winthrop?… Yes O… How do you do? Will you please speak to this man?’ She handed the telephone to the detective and walked out into the
center of the room. My I wish I hadnt taken my hat off, she was thinking.

  From the other room came a sound of sobbing and Hester Voorhees’ stagy voice shrieking, ‘It’s a horrible mistake… I wont be insulted like this.’

  The detective put down the telephone. He came over to Ellen. ‘I want to apologize miss… We acted on insufficient information. I’ll withdraw my men immediately.’

  ‘You’d better apologize to Mrs Voorhees… It’s her studio.’

  ‘Well ladies and gents,’ the detective began in a loud cheerful voice, ‘we’ve made a little mistake and we’re very sorry… Accidents will happen…’

  Ellen slipped into the side room to get her hat and coat. She stood some time before the mirror powdering her nose. When she went out into the studio again everybody was talking at once. Men and women stood round with sheets and bathrobes draped over their scanty dancingclothes. The detectives had melted away as suddenly as they came. Oglethorpe was talking in loud impassioned tones in the middle of a group of young men.

  ‘The scoundrels to attack women,’ he was shouting, red in the face, waving his headdress in one hand. ‘Fortunately I was able to control myself or I might have committed an act that I should have regretted to my dying day… It was only with the greatest self-control…’

  Ellen managed to slip out, ran down the stairs and out into drizzly streets. She hailed a taxi and went home. When she had got her things off she called up George Baldwin at his house. ‘Hello George, I’m terribly sorry I had to trouble you and Mr Winthrop. Well if you hadnt happened to say at lunch you’d be there all the evening they probably would be just piling us out of the black maria at the Jefferson Market Court… Of course it was funny. I’ll tell you about it sometime, but I’m so sick of all that stuff… Oh just everything like that æsthetic dancing and literature and radicalism and psychoanalysis… Just an overdose I guess… Yes I guess that’s it George… I guess I’m growing up.’

  The night was one great chunk of black grinding cold. The smell of the presses still in his nose, the chirrup of typewriters still in his ears, Jimmy Herf stood in City Hall Square with his hands in his pockets watching ragged men with caps and earsflaps pulled down over faces and necks the color of raw steak shovel snow. Old and young their faces were the same color, their clothes were the same color. A razor wind cut his ears and made his forehead ache between the eyes.