by Saul Bellow
But this was not the time. Oliver was now with us and said to Moulton and Iggy various peculiar things, such as, “I’ve been to courts the world over.” And, “Now they can’t go on pretending about the trots, that there isn’t any amoeba.” And, “That yellow old c——sucker, at least I taught him a lesson.”
Listening, I felt quite queer myself, in my bandages, cards and currencies in my pockets, my heart tight in my breast and toes free in the huaraches. I felt like someone who might come into the vision of a theosophist, that kind of figure.
At dinner Thea said, “I hear there was a riot in town. Were you in it, too?”
I didn’t care for that. Why must she put it like that? I told her the story, or rather gave her a version of what happened. Anyway, she frowned. As I spoke of Stella I realized that I wanted to represent her as in love with Oliver. Thea didn’t believe me.
“Augie,” she said, “why don’t we get away from here? At least while the season lasts. Let’s get away from these people.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“I thought we’d drive to Chilpanzingo.”
Chilpanzingo was down in the hot country. But I was willing to go. I would go. But what would I do there?
“There are some interesting animals down there,” she said.
So I answered evasively, “Well, I think I may feel up to it soon.”
“You look run-down,” she said, “but how can you expect to look anything else when you lead such a life? You never touched a drop before you got down here.”
“I never had much reason to. I don’t get stinking drunk either.”
“No,” she said, bitter, “just enough to carry you through your mistakes.”
“Our mistakes,” I corrected her.
So we sat at the dinner table, full of trouble and under the shadow of disappointment and anger. Then, after long thought, I said to her, “I will go to Chilpanzingo with you. I’d rather be with you than with anyone in the world.”
She looked at me more warmly than she had in a long time. I wondered if there was something we might do in Chilpanzingo instead of hunting snakes. But she didn’t say there was.
Everyone tries to create a world he can live in, and what he can’t use he often can’t see. But the real world is already created, and if your fabrication doesn’t correspond, then even if you feel noble and insist on there being something better than what people call reality, that better something needn’t try to exceed what, in its actuality, since we know it so little, may be very surprising. If a happy state of things, surprising; if miserable or tragic, no worse than what we invent.
Chapter 18
SO I AGREED to go down to Chilpanzingo with Thea; there was an interval, extremely short, when we both showed gratitude. I appreciated it that she let up her severity, and she was happy that she was still my preference. So on the night of Oliver’s house-warming party she said, “Let’s go and see what it’s like,” and I understood that she wanted to do something for me, because I wanted to go. Did I! I was wild to go, having been in the house for two days straight in support of my good intentions. I looked carefully at her and saw how she sustained her smile to back up her suggestion, but I thought, Hell, let’s!
I knew by this time what Thea thought of these people and in fact of most people, with their faulty humanity. She couldn’t stand them. And what her eccentricity amounted to was that she proposed a different kind of humanity altogether. I guess nothing restrains people from demanding ideal conditions. Very little restrains them from anything. Thea’s standard was high, but she wasn’t exactly to blame as having arbitrarily set it high. For when she talked to me about some particular person she’d be more frightened than scornful. People with whom she had to struggle scared her, and what I’d call average hypocrisy, just the incidental little whiffs of the social machine, was terribly hard on her. As for greediness or envy, fat self-smelling of appreciation, hates and destructions, fraud, gnawing, she had a very poor tolerance of them, and I’d see her go out in the eyes in a really dangerous way at a gathering. So of course I knew she didn’t want to go; but I did, badly, and my thought was, If I can stand her snakes, she can take this for one evening.
I changed into good clothes, therefore. I took off my turban and wore only a patch of bandage over the shaved place. Thea put on an evening dress with black silk rebozo. But there was nobody to take note how we arrived. I’ve never seen such a goons’ rodeo as that party. When we got to the villa we found ourselves in the overflow of a mob that covered the street. I saw the most amazing male and female bums, master-molds of some of the leading turpitudes, fags, apes, goofs, and terminal and fringe types, lapping, lushing, gabbing, and celebrating notoriety. Because it was no secret that Oliver was wanted by the government and that this was a big last fling. Probably Thea was the only person in town who didn’t know what was happening.
Some of the guests were lying in the garden with bottles, about to pass out or already looped in full; the Japanese flowers were trod down and tequila empties floated in the fish pond. Things had been taken out of the hands of the servants, and people poured for themselves, broke off chunks of ice with candlesticks, grabbed glasses from one another. In the patio the hired orchestra fiddled weakly and the soberer company danced. Thea wanted to leave immediately, but as she began to say so I saw Stella by an orange tree. She made me a small sign, and I had to go and talk to her; I was very eager. Annoyed that Thea tried to pull me away as soon as we had arrived, I didn’t look at her. And when Moulton in a dinner jacket but still in short pants asked her for a dance I handed her over. I thought her dislike for him was exaggerated and it wouldn’t do her any harm at all to go around the floor with him once or twice.
Since Oliver’s trial when Stella said she had to talk to me I had been all worked up, I realized now. I didn’t know what had got into me that I was so excited. But I was sure this was something I was bound to figure in; the play would go to me. So I got away from Thea on the dancing patio, aware how she appealed to me not to leave her, and how angry, also, she was. But it wouldn’t really hurt her and I’d find out about this other thing. I could see another case much more clearly than my own, and because of that vagueness and incapacity that I felt about going to Chilpanzingo, or throwing myself more blind and deeper down into Chilpanzingo, I perhaps needed an opportunity to be definite and active and to believe that definiteness and action still existed. But in fact I also felt assailed by weakness when I saw Stella beckon. Not that I intended anything toward her. I thought merely I’d feel swayed, but nothing would happen. I’d be confidential with a beautiful woman. This was terribly pleasing to me, inasmuch as it followed, with self-appreciation, that such a woman would naturally turn for help to a man in her own class. I forgot that I had fallen from the horse on my face, and looked it. That’s the kind of thing you’re apt to forget. But it did occur to me that the last time I had been called aside like this for a discussion apart was with Sophie Geratis, when we had fallen into each other’s arms. And what did I think of that? But some involutional, busy, dippy horsefly in me made such a mad fuss of love over this treasure of crystal-sugar esteem I didn’t think much of that at all. Of course at the same time I was very serious; I knew she was in trouble. But that she chose me to consult with and to ask for help—for what else could she do but ask help?—was like a kindness she did me and I was under obligation to her before she spoke even a word.
She said, “Mr. March, I count on you to help me.”
Immediately I was overwhelmed. I said, “Oh, sure, certainly. I’ll do all I can.” Down me went a shiver of willingness. My thought was fuzzy, yet my blood excited. “What can I do though?”
“I’d better tell you what the situation is. Just let’s get out of this crowd first.”
“Yes,” I agreed, looking around. She assumed that I was watching out for Oliver and said, “He’s not here. I don’t expect him for half an hour yet.” It was Thea, however, of whom the thought burdened me, just as mu
ch. But when Stella took my hand and led me deeper into the trees I felt her touch leap through my arm and further, and as I went along with her my sense of consequences was never weaker, not even when I committed robbery. I was full of curiosity to hear the truth about Oliver, yet I knew he was as light a being as I had ever weighed in my judgment.
“You must know about the government man who’s here to get Oliver,” she said. “Everybody knows. But do you know why he’s here?”
“No, why?”
“Wilmot’s Weekly was bought by money that came from the Italian government. There was a fellow in New York who did it. His name is Malfitano. He bought the magazine and made Oliver editor. All the important things that were printed were planned in Rome. Now this Malfitano was arrested a couple of months ago; that’s why we didn’t go back. I don’t know what he was arrested for. Now they’ve sent this government man for Oliver.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know why. I know about the entertainment world. Ask me why something is in Variety and I can maybe explain it.”
“They probably want him to give evidence against this Italian. I believe the smartest thing would be for him to go back. Oliver is just one of those old-time journalists who don’t see any difference between one government and the next.”
She misunderstood me. “He’s not so terribly old.”
“He should make a deal and go back to testify.”
“That’s not what he aims to do,” she said.
“No? Don’t tell me he’s going to try to run away? Where to?”
“I can’t tell. It wouldn’t be fair.”
“To South America? He’s wacky if he thinks he can. And that will make the thing serious, if they have to chase him. Why, he’s small fry.”
“No, he thinks it was a very serious thing.”
“And what do you think?”
“I think I’ve had about enough,” she said. She looked with her wide swimming eye-surfaces in which the lanterns from the garden were changed entirely into the lights of her meaning. “He wants me to come with him.”
“No! Down to Guatemala, Venezuela. Where—?”
“That’s one thing I don’t want to say, even though I trust you.”
“But on what? Does he have money socked away? No, he wouldn’t have. You’d be on the beach with him somewhere. He probably hopes you love him that much. Do you?”
“Oh—not that much, no,” she said as if it was something she hoped to find the degree of. I suppose she had to say she loved him somewhat, to give herself character. Why, that poor, bony, dopey skull and romantic jumping-jack of an Oliver! I saw his imaginary luck of money and car and love collapsing, and was bitter for him in a kind of fleeting way. I caught a glimpse of her ingratitude too, but I couldn’t for long see anything to her discredit. Before her, hid in the trees from the crackling party, I felt something happen to me that drew upon my character in the most vital part, where I couldn’t prevent.
“The party is supposed to be just a cover-up,” she said. “He went out to take the car down the road and hide it, and then he’s coming back for me. He says the cops are ready to arrest us.”
“Oh, he is loony,” I said with fresh conviction. “How far does he expect to get in that red convertible?”
“In the morning he’s going to ditch it. He’s really serious. He’s carrying a gun. And he has gone a little crazy. He was pointing it at me this afternoon. He says I want to two-time him.”
“That poor fool! He thinks he’s a big-league fugitive. You’ll have to get away from him. How did you ever get into a fix like this?”
I knew this was a foolish question to put to her. She couldn’t tell me. About some paths of life either you guess or you never know, because you can’t be told. Yes, it was very foolish; but then I was aware of many wrong things said and done which I nevertheless couldn’t stop.
“Well, I’ve known him for quite a while. He was likable, and he had lots of money.”
“Oh, all right, you don’t have to tell me.”
She said, “Didn’t you come to Mexico in something like the way I did?”
So that was what she thought we had in common. “I came because I was in love.”
“Well, she is so lovely that of course that’s a difference. But all the same,” she said with a sudden shrewdness and frankness—and I might have known it was there—“it’s her house, isn’t it, and all the things are hers? What have you got of your own?”
“What have I got?”
“You don’t have anything, do you?”
Of course I wasn’t going to be such a hypocrite as to argue with her and put on a face, as though I had never in all the world given a momentary thought, not even a one, to the matter of money. For what was that stuff in my pockets, that assorted dough, my winnings, the rainbow foreign currencies I had raked in at the Chinaman’s? Even czarist rubles had been thrown in the pot, for which I blamed those Cossack singers. Don’t worry, I had been mindful of money, all right, so I knew what she was talking about.
“I do have something,” I said. “I can lend you enough to get away on. Don’t you have any money at all?” At this moment of our conversation we were very close together in understanding.
“I have a bank account in New York. But what good does that do me now? I can give you a check for the pesos you lend me. There’s no money I can lay my hands on right away. I’d have to go to Mexico City and wire from Wells Fargo to the bank.”
“No, I don’t want a check.”
“It won’t bounce—you don’t have to worry about that!”
“No, no. I’ll just take your word for it. I meant that you don’t have to give me any check at all.”
“What I thought of asking was whether you’d take me to Mexico City,” she said.
This I had been expecting, though I don’t think I ever intended to do anything about it. Now, when it came, it did something to me. I shivered, as if my fate had brushed me. Admitted that I always tried to elicit what I hoped for; how did people, however, seldom fail to supply it so mysteriously?
“Why—why, where does that suddenly fit?” I said, treating it not merely as a plan for her safety but as a proposal involving me. The holleration and screeches of the party were loud and the narrow grove of oranges where we were seemed like the last strip of field the harvesters are cutting. Any minute I awaited some drunk interrupter or a blazing couple crashing in. I knew I had to get out and start looking for Thea. But first this had to be attended to. “You don’t have to put it to me that way,” I said. “I’ll help you anyway.”
“You’re getting ahead of yourself. I don’t blame you, but you are. Maybe I’d even feel bad if you didn’t, but … I can’t be as vain as to think I deserve the very best way of escaping from my trouble. You don’t even know me. And all I should think about now is getting away from this poor guy who’s lost his mind.”
“I’m very sorry. I apologize. I talked out of turn.”
“Oh, you don’t have to apologize. We know what the score is here, pretty much. I admit I was often looking, and I have thought of you. But one of the things I thought is that you and I are the kind of people other people are always trying to fit into their schemes. So suppose we didn’t play along, then what? But we don’t have the time to go into it now.”
To these words that she spoke I responded tremendously, I melted toward her. I was grateful for her plain way of naming a truth that had been hanging around me anonymously for many long years. I did fit into people’s schemes. It was an emotion of truth that I had, hearing this. Mainly of truth. For I will admit that among other things I considered that here was a woman who wouldn’t put me on trial for my shortcomings or judge me. Because I was tired of being socked on the head and banged by judgments. But that was all.
However, we had no time to go into this further. Oliver would be coming back right away. He had packed her things and taken them away, all but a few articles she had hidden from him.
“Listen,”
said I, “I can’t take you to Mexico, but what I can do is take you a good way out of town, where you’ll be safe. Meet me by the station wagon in the zócalo. Which way was he going? You can trust me. I don’t especially want to see him get caught. I have no reason to.”
“He was going toward Acapulco.”
“Okay, that’s fine. We’ll go the other way.”
So he wanted to catch a ship at Acapulco, did he, the poor jerk! Or was he plotting to escape through the jungle into Guatemala, as brain-softened as that? Why, if the Indians didn’t murder him for his black and white sport shoes he’d die of exhaustion.
I hurried to find Thea. She had gone, Iggy told me, leaving Moulton in the middle of the floor. “She was quite in a mood,” said Iggy. “We looked for you. Then she said for me to tell you she was pulling out for Chilpanzingo first thing in the morning. She was all nervous and shaking, Bolingbroke. Where did you disappear?”
