by Bellow, Saul
“And I would very much like to see you, Mrs. Velde. The hurry is my engagement and marriage.”
Clara wildly guessed, She’s pregnant. “Are you marrying Frederic?” she said. It was a charged question, nearly a prayer: Don’t let her be as crazy as that. Gina was not prepared to answer. She seemed to be considering. But presently she said, “I wouldn’t have to go to Vienna, in that case. My fiance is a man from my father’s bank.”
Whether or not to explain herself must have been the issue. Explanations, in Clara’s opinion, should be made. Gina had been wavering, but now she agreed, she decided to see Clara after all. Yes, she was going to do it. “Some friends are giving me a cocktail send-off. That’s on Madison in the low Seventies. Maybe half an hour beforehand?… In your way, you were_ very kind,” Clara heard the girl saying.
“Let’s make it at the Westbury, then. When? At four o’clock.” Kind, in my way… Signifying what? She feels I was crude. But these side issues could be dealt with later. Right now Clara’s appointment with Dr. Gladstone must be canceled. Since the fee would have to be paid notwithstanding, he’d have an hour to think deep analytic thoughts, ponder identity problems, Clara told herself with more than a drop of hatred. Was there anybody who was somebody? How was a man like Gladstone to know! Plumbers was what Ithiel called these Gladstone types. He was fond of reminding her that he had quit analysis because nobody was able to tell him what it took to be Ithiel Regler. This sounded haughty, but actually it was the only reasonable thing. It was no more than true. It applied to her as well.
That she should be so firm and assertive was strange, seeing that she was in a fever, trying to regulate an outflow of mingled soiled emotions. In the cab—one of ten thousand cars creeping uptown—she leaned her long neck backward to relieve it of the weight of her head and to control the wildness of her mind, threatened with panic. These gridlocks on Madison Avenue, these absolutely unnecessary mobs, the vehicles that didn’t have to be here, carrying idle shoppers or old people with no urgent purpose except to break out of confinement or go and scold someone. Clara was suffocated by this stalling and delay. She exploded engines in her mind, got out at corners and pulled down stoplights with terrible strength. Five of the thirty minutes Gina could give her were already down the drain. Two blocks from the Westbury, she could no longer bear the traffic, and she got out and trotted the rest of the way, the insides of her knees rubbing together as they always did when she was in a rush.
She passed through the four-quartered door into the lobby and there was Gina Wegman just getting up from the tall chair, and how beautiful the girl looked in her round black glossy straw hat with a half veil dropped onto the bridge of her nose. She certainly wasn’t gotten up to look contrite, in a dress that showed off her bust and the full lines of her bottom. On the other hand, she wasn’t defiant, either. Lively, yes, and brilliant too. She approached Clara with an affectionate gesture so that when they kissed on the cheek Clara captured part of what a passionate man might feel toward a girl like this.
Clara, as she blamed her lateness on the rush hour, was at the same instant dissatisfied with the dress she had put on that day—those big flowers were a mistake, a bad call, and belonged in her poor-judgment closet.
They sat down in the cocktail lounge. At once one of those smothering New York waiters was upon them. Clara wasted no time on him. She ordered a Campari, and as he wrote down the drinks, she said, “Bring them and then don’t bother us; we have to cover lots of ground.” Then she leaned toward Gina—two heads of fine hair, each with its distinct design. The girl put up her veil. “Now, Gina… tell me,”_ said Clara.
“The ring looks wonderful on your hand. I’m glad to see it there.”
No longer the au pair girl waiting to be spoken to, she held herself like a different person—equal-equal, and more. It was a great thing she had done in America.
“How did you get it into the house?”
“Where did you find it?” asked Gina.
“What does that mean?”_ Clara wanted to know. In her surprise, she fell back on the country girl’s simpleminded flat tone of challenge and suspicion. “It was on my night table.”
“Yes. Okay then,” said Gina.
“One thing I feel terrible about is the hard assignment I gave you. Just about impossible,” said Clara. “The alternative was to turn the case over to the police. I suppose you know by now that Frederic has a criminal record—no serious crimes, but they had him on Rikers Island and in the Bronx jail. That would have made trouble, an investigation would have been hard on you, and I wouldn’t do that.” She lowered her hand to her legs and felt the startling prominence of the muscles at the knee.
Gina did not look embarrassed by this mention of Rikers Island. She must have taken a decision not to be.
Clara never would find out what the affair with Frederic was about. Gina went no further than to acknowledge that her boyfriend had taken the ring. “He said he was walking around the apartment…” Imagine, a man like that, lewd and klepto, at large in her home! “He saw the ring, so he put it in his pocket, not even thinking. I said it was given to you by someone you loved, who loved you”—so she definitely did_ understand about the love!—“and I felt responsible because it was me that brought Frederic into the house.”
“That made him look blank, I suppose.”
“He said that people on Park Avenue didn’t understand anything. They didn’t like trouble and relied on security to protect them. Once you got past the security arrangements in the lobby, why, they were just as helpless as chickens. Lucky if they weren’t killed. No idea of defense.”
Clara’s gaze was clear and sober. Her upturned nose added dryness to her look. She said, “I have to agree. In my own place I didn’t feel that I should lock away the valuables. But he may be right about Park Avenue. This is a class of people that won’t think and can’t admit. So it is lucky that somebody more vicious than Frederic didn’t get in. Maybe Haitians are more lighthearted than some others in Harlem or the Bronx.”
“Your class of Park Avenue people?”
“Yes,” said Clara. She looked great-eyed again, grimly thinking, My God, what will my kids be up against! “I should thank the man for only stealing, I suppose.”
“We have no time to talk about this side of it,” said Gina.
These minutes in the bar seemed to be going according to Gina’s deliberate plan. Frederic was not to be discussed. Suddenly Clara’s impulse was to come down hard on Gina. Why, she was like the carnal woman in the Book of Proverbs who eats and drinks and wipes away all signs of lust with her napkin. But she couldn’t sustain this critical impulse. Who could say how the girl got sucked in and how she managed, or what she had to do to recover the ring from such a fellow. I owe_ her. Also, with the kids she was trustworthy. Now then, what are we looking at here? There is some pride in this Gina. She stood up to the New York scene, a young upper-class Vienna girl. There is_ a certain vainglory playing through. It’s false to do the carnal woman number on her. Let’s not get so Old Testament. My regular Christmas card from Attica is still arriving. Before marrying this man from Daddy’s bank the girl owed herself some excitement, and Gogmagogsville is the ideal place for it. Dr. Gladstone might have pointed out that Clara’s thoughts were taking on a hostile color—envious of youth, perhaps. She didn’t think so. Nobody, but nobody, can withstand modern temptations. (Try and print your personal currency, and see what you can get for it.) She still felt that her affection for the girl was not misplaced. “Are you sure you want to go flying back—would you think of staying?”
“What should I stay for?”
“I only wondered. If you wanted a different experience of America, you might find it in Washington, D. C.”
“What would I be doing there?”
“Serious work. And don’t be put off by ‘serious’; it wouldn’t be dull. I did some of it myself in Cortina d’Ampezzo years ago and had one of the greatest summers of my life. This friend of mine in Wash
ington, the one I did it for, may possibly be a dark horse in the history of the American mind. I think perhaps he’s the one with the gifts to put it all in perspective. Everything. If you met him, you’d agree that he was a fascinating man….” Here Clara stopped herself. Without warning, she had sped into a complex intersection, a cloverleaf without a single sign. A pause was imposed on her, and she considered in a silence of many levels where her enthusiasm for this Austrian girl—a pretty girl and a sound one, basically (maybe)—was leading. Did she want to give Ithiel to her? She wanted to reward Gina. All right. And she wanted to find a suitable woman for Ithiel. It was a scandal, the wives he chose. (Or my husbands; not much better.) Again, all right. But what about Frederic? What had she done that she had to veto all discussion of the Haitian connection? And why was this conversation with Clara cramped into twenty minutes? Why was she not invited to the farewell cocktail party? Who would be there?
Now came any number of skeptical scenarios: Gina’s parents had come to America to take her home. They had paid Frederic off, and an incidental part of the deal was that he should surrender the ring. Clara could readily imagine such a package. The girl had plenty of reasons to keep Clara away from her friends—possibly her parents. Brash Clara with her hick candor might have put the case point-blank to the rich parents with all their Mitteleuropa culture (bullshit culture, Ithiel might have said). Oh, let them have their party undisturbed. But she wasn’t about to send Gina to Washington all done up in gift wrapping—only the present with ribbons would have been Ithiel, handed over to this young woman. No way! Clara decided. Let me be as crude as she accused me of being. I am sure not going to make a marriage to rankle me for life. She stopped the matchmaking pitch she had begun, in her softheaded goodness. Yes, Gina was an unusual girl—that conviction was unchanged—but if Teddy Regler was the man in prospect, no.
“I haven’t met him, have I?” Gina said. “No.”
Nor will you ever.
“You’d like to do something for me, wouldn’t you?” Gina spoke in earnest. “Yes, if there were something feasible,” said Clara.
“You’re a generous woman—exceptionally so. I’m not in a position to go to Washington. Otherwise I might be glad to. And I have to leave you soon, I’m sorry to say. I really am sorry. There’s no time to talk about it, but you have meant a lot to me.”
That’s one thing, Clara was thinking. The people you mean a lot to just haven’t got the time to speak to you about it. “Let me tell you quickly,” said Clara, “since it has to be quick, what I’ve been thinking of the stages a woman like me has gone through in her life. Stage one: Everybody is kindly, basically good; you treat ‘em right, they’ll treat you right—that’s baby time. Stage two: Everybody is a brute, butcher, barbarian, rapist, crook, liar, killer, and monster. Stage three: Cynicism also_ is unacceptable, and you begin to put together an improved judgment based on minimal leads or certain selected instances. I don’t know what, if anything, you can make of that…. Now, before you leave you’re going to satisfy my curiosity at least on one point: how you got the ring back. If it cost you money, I want to pay every cent of it. I insist. Tell me how much, and to whom. And how did you get into the apartment? Nobody saw you. Not with a key?”
“Don’t talk about costs; there’s no money owing,” said Gina. “The one thing I have to tell you is how the ring got to your bedside. I went to Lucy’s school and gave it to her.”
“You gave an emerald to Lucy! To a young child?”
“I made sure to arrive before her new sitter came for her, and I explained to Lucy what had to be done: Here’s your mother’s ring, it has to be put on her night table, and here’s a nice Madeira handkerchief to put it on.”
“What else did you say?”
“There wasn’t much else that needed saying. She knew the ring was lost. Well, it was found now. I folded the handkerchief around the ring and put it in her schoolbag. “
“And she understood?”
“She’s a lot like you.”
“How’s that? Tell_ me!”
“The same type as you. You mentioned that to me several times. Did I think so? And presently I did begin to think so.”
“You could trust her to carry it out, and not to say, not to tell. Why, I was beside myself when the ring turned up on the handkerchief. Where did it drop from! Who could have done it! I even wondered if a burglar had been hired to come in and put it there. Not a word from the kid. She looked straight ahead like a Roman sentry. You asked her not to say?”
“Well, yes. It was better that way. It never occurred to you to ask her about it?”
“How would that ever come up?” said Clara. Not once. My own kid, capable ofthat.
“I told her to come down to the street again and report to me afterward,” said Gina. “I walked behind them from school—Lucy and the new girl, who doesn’t know me. And in about fifteen minutes Lucy came to me at the corner and said she had put it where I told her…. You’re pleased, aren’t you?”
“I’m mystified. I’m moved. Frankly, Gina, I don’t believe you and I will ever meet again….” The girl didn’t disagree, and Clara said, “So I’m going to speak my mind. You weren’t going to describe or discuss your experiences in New York—in Harlem: I suppose you were being firm according to your private lights. Your intimacies are your business, but the word I used to describe your attitude was ‘vainglory’—the pride of a European girl in New York who gets into a mess and takes credit for getting herself out. But it’s far beyond that.” Tears fell from Clara’s eyes as she took Gina’s hand. “I see how you brought it all together through my own child. You gave her something significant to do, and she was equal to it. Most amazing to me is the fact that she didn’t talk, she only watched. That level of observation and control in a girl of ten… how do you suppose it feels to discover that?”
Gina had been getting ready to stand up, but she briefly sat down again. She said, “I think you found the right word—right for both of us. When I came to be interviewed, the vainglory was all around—you were waving it over me. I wondered whether the lady of the house was like that in America. But you’re not an American lady of the house. You have a manner, Mrs. Velde. As if you were directing traffic. ‘Turn left, go right—do this, do that.’ You have definite ideas.”
“Pernickety, maybe?” said Clara. “Did I hurt your feelings?”
“If that means bossy, no. My feelings weren’t hurt when I knew you better. You were firm, according to your_ lights. I decided that you were a complete person, and the orders you gave you gave for that reason.”
“Oh, wait a minute, I don’t see any complete persons. In luckier times I’m sure complete persons did exist. But now? Now that’s just the problem. You look around for something to take hold of, and where is it?”
“I see it in you,” said Gina. She stood up and took her purse. “You may be reluctant to believe it, because of the disappointment and confusion. Which people are the lost people? This is the hardest thing of all to decide, even about oneself. The day of the fashion show we had lunch, and you made a remark like ‘Nobody is anybody’ You were just muttering, talking about your psychiatrist. But when you started to talk about the man in Washington just now, there was no nobody-anybody problem. And when the ring was stolen, it wasn’t the lost property that upset you. Lost people lose ‘valuables.’ You only lost this particular ring.” She set her finger on the stone.
How abnormal for two people, one of them young, to have such a mental conversation. Maybe life in New York had forced a girl like Gina to be mental. Clara wondered about that. “Goodbye, Gina.”
“Goodbye, Mrs. Velde.” Clara was rising, and Gina put her arm about her. They embraced. “With all the disorder, I can’t see how you keep track. You do, though. I believe you pretty well know who you are.” Gina quickly left the lounge.
Minutes ago (which might have been hours), Clara had entertained mean feelings toward the girl. She intended, even, to give her a hard time, to
stroll back with her to her destination, fish for an invitation to the cocktail farewell, talk to her parents, embarrass her with her friends. That was before she understood what Gina had done, how the ring had been returned. But now, when Clara came out of the revolving door, and as soon as she had the pavement under her feet, she started to cry passionately. She hurried, crying, down Madison Avenue, not like a person who belonged there but like one of the homeless, doing grotesque things in public, one of those street people turned loose from an institution. The main source of tears came open. She found a handkerchief and held it to her face in her ringed hand, striding in an awkward hurry. She might have been treading water in New York harbor—it felt that way, more a sea than a pavement, and for all the effort and the motions that she made she wasn’t getting anywhere, she was still in the same place. When he described me to myself in Washington, I should have taken Ithiel’s word for it, she was thinking. He knows what the big picture is—the big, big_ picture; he doesn’t flatter, he’s realistic and he’s truthful. I do seem to have an idea who it is that’s at the middle of me. There may not be more than one in a zillion, mores the pity, that do have. And my own child possibly one of those.
LOOKING FOR MR. GREEN
Whatsoever thy handfindeth to do, do it with thy might…._
HARD WORK? No, it wasn’t really so hard. He wasn’t used to walking and stair-climbing, but the physical difficulty of his new job was not what George Grebe felt most. He was delivering relief checks in the Negro district, and although he was a native Chicagoan this was not a part of the city he knew much about—it needed a depression to introduce him to it. No, it wasn’t literally hard work, not as reckoned in foot-pounds, but yet he was beginning to feel the strain of it, to grow aware of its peculiar difficulty. He could find the streets and numbers, but the clients were not where they were supposed to be, and he felt like a hunter inexperienced in the camouflage of his game. It was an unfavorable day, too—fall, and cold, dark weather, windy. But, anyway, instead of shells in his deep trench-coat pocket he had the cardboard of checks, punctured for the spindles of the file, the holes reminding him of the holes in player-piano paper. And he didn t look much like a hunter, either; his was a city figure entirely, belted up in this Irish conspirator’s coat. He was slender without being tall, stiff in the back, his legs looking shabby in a pair of old tweed pants gone through and fringy at the cuffs. With this stiffness, he kept his head forward, so that his face was red from the sharpness of the weather; and it was an indoors sort of face with gray eyes that persisted in some kind of thought and yet seemed to avoid definiteness or conclusion. He wore sideburns that surprised you somewhat by the tough curl of the blond hair and the effect of assertion in their length. He was not so mild as he looked, nor so youthful; and nevertheless there was no effort on his part to seem what he was not. He was an educated man; he was a bachelor; he was in some ways simple; without lushing, he liked a drink; his luck had not been good. Nothing was deliberately hidden.
