laughed louder. Henny was satisfied. If they had to laugh,
let them laugh at his comeback.
". . . And I dreamed," continued Claude, "that I gave the
shovel back to you, like this." Gently he put the shovel
back in Henny's hand. ". . . And I dreamed I said: 'Stick
it , you sadistic son-of-a-bitch!'"
Before Henny could recover, Claude was swaggering
down the street, hands in pocket, and whistling: "Hail to
the victors valiant. Hail . . ."
He went to a men's furnishing store and bought a cheap
suit, a shirt, a pair of shoes and a hat. While the pants
were being shortened, he went to a barbershop down the
street and had a haircut and a mustache trim. While
sitting in the chair, he read the want ads in the Brooklyn
Eagle. He picked out a job for himself and went back to
the store and got into his new outfit. The man asked
couldn't he interest him in an overcoat. He couldn't.
Claude had a
~ 3 ? 1
khaki wool pullover left over from Maggie-Now's days of
knitting for the Red Cross. That, pulled over his shirt, was
as good as an overcoat, he thought.
He got home at three that afternoon and Maggie-Now
threw her arms around him and told him he looked just
grand.
"Just grand! But where are your old clothes?"
"In the store, Miss Practical. I'll pick them up tomorrow.
Your grand husband feels grand because he has a grand
job."
"No!" she said ecstatically.
"Floorwalker. In one of Brooklyn's biggest department
stores. Basement," he added.
"Where, Claude? Where?"
"Downtown Brooklyn "
"Oh!" Her voice fell a Iittle. So he's not going to tell me,
she thought. "I see," she said inanely. She turned away
from him. He turned on his heel and went out the front
door. "Where are you going?" she asked, frightened. The
door closed.
It opened almost immediately and he came in with a
pasteboard box which he had left on the stoop. It said
Gage and Tollner on the cover and it held six pieces of
wonderful French pastry.
"For you," he said. "A surprise."
"Oh, Claude, I love you so much!" She was grateful. Her
gratitude was mixed with relief. For a second, she had
been afraid that he was going to leave her again.
I mustn't question him, she advised herself. Even though
a wif e has a right to know where her husband works. But l
must take him as he is and just be so glad that I have him
back.
"We'll have some right away," she said. "I'll make coffee."
"You will not! You will come to bed with me right away.
Last night, I fell asleep before I had a chance to kiss you
good night."
"But . . ."
"But what? Don't tell me . . ."
"No. Not that. But I jenny will be home from school any
minute."
"Let him play outside awhile. It won't hurt him." He
locked the door. "Oh, Margaret." He took her into his
arms. "It's been such a long time!"
"Such a long, long time," she sighed.
~ 308 ]
She heard Denny try the doorknob. She grew rigid in
her husband's embrace. "It's Denny," she whispered.
"Never mind," he said roughly. "He can look out for
himself. I come first."
Afterward, she unlocked the door and looked up and
down the street. "Nova, sweetheart," Claude said, "stop
fussing. You'll make a sissy out of him."
It was nearly six; supper was almost ready. She looked
at the clock for the tenth time in five minutes. "I can't
help it, Claude," she burst out. "I'm worried about Denny."
"I'll go out and find him, dear," he said.
He found him a couple of blocks away. He was with a
gang of boys. They were throb. ing icy snowballs at a
Jewish junkman. The man was in a rickety wagon pulled
by a starved-looking dirty white horse. He was having a
hard time getting the horse to pull the junk wagon
through the street as the poor beast skidded from time to
time on bits of ice left from the day's snow clearance. The
boys were laughing and yelling and calling the junkman
dirty names. Claude dispersed the boys, made Denny
apologise to the man and say he was sorry, and took his
hand and walked him home.
"Now, what devilment was he up to? " asked
Maggie-Now crossly. Denny's hand twitched in Claude's.
"He wasn't doing a thing," said Claude. "He was only
playing with some other boys."
Denny pressed his hand hard against Claude's hand.
MaggieNow saw the movement and she knew.
"Claude!" she said. It was a syllable of love.
"I have a very foolish name," said Claude to Denny,
"and some people make fun of it. But when your sister
says it, it sounds like a very fine name."
Denny smiled up at Claude.
1 ' 9 ]
~ CHAPTER FORTY-THREE ~
SHE was waiting on the stoop for him when he came
from his first day of work. She kissed him, not caring if
the neighbors saw, and pulled him into the house, where
she kissed him again, this time more lingeringly. Ele was
wearing a white carnation in his buttonhole. The flower
was only a little bit wilted. She put it on the table in a
wineglass full of water.
She had taken pains with this, the first supper the whole
family would eat together since her marriage. She had
boiled tongue with horseradish sauce and asparagus with
hollandaise sauce, and, with the hope of ingratiating
herself with her father, candied sweet potatoes, a plain
lettuce salad with oil and vinegar dressing, hardcrusted
rolls, airy light inside, sweet butter, the pastries from Gage
and Tollner, and of course coffee. (Only this time with
real cream instead of canned milk.)
Pat came home and, to everyone's astonishment, greeted
Claude heartily, Ilaggie-Now cheerfully and Denny with
fatherly affection. He was so full of good will and
kindliness and cheerfulness that he cast a pall over the
supper. All worried, thinking he was either sick or drunk.
Thought Claude: He's got something up his grubby sleeve.
Throwing up that good-will smokescreen. I'll wait and see.
This should be interesting.
Thought Maggie-Now: Papa knows I love Claude and
that he can't do a thing about it. So I guess he thinks he
might as well be nice about it. Only, she w orried, Papa
don't need to be so awfully friendly, I'd feel better if he was
just not unfriendly,
Pat's thoughts were along the same line as Claude's. I'll
treat him just like he was any other decent slob. He'll get so
mad that I'm not interested in who or what he is that he'll
spill the whole beans about himself, the bastid.
Denny: There's six cakes and four of us. Papa feels good
and ma
ybe he'll say to let the little boy get the two what's
left.
[ 37 1
After supper, Claude told Denny he'd help him with his
reading homework after the dishes were out of the way.
Claude and Pat went into the front room.
"Sit down, son," said pat benevolently.
"After you, sir," said Claude courteously.
Each sat at a window, their chairs facing each other. Pat
lit up his clay pipeful of tobacco and Claude lit up a
cigarette.
"I'm proud of you, me boy, and you getting the grand
job the first day you look. Maggie-Now told me."
"Thank you, sir."
"And how much do they be paying you?" he asked
mellowly.
"The usual salary." Pat was all ears. "A little more than
they think I'm w orth and a little less than I think I'm
worth."
The bastid, thought Pat bitterly. He pulled himself
together. I must watch meself and At ask him anything right
out. I got to go roundabout.
"I see you got a nice brown tan," said Pat.
Claude looked at one of his sun-tanned hands and said
in simulated astonishment: "Why, so I have!"
"People what stay in the South for a time always get sun-
burned," said Pat.
"I envy vou your room upstairs, sir," countered Claude.
"You can see the sky while you lie in bed."
"Funny thing," mused Pat. "You can always tell when a
man gets out that he's been in Sing Sing. Their skin is this
here dead white because they never get out in the air."
"And," said Claude, assuming an eager naivete, "their
hair is clipped close to the head."
"Now down South," said Pat, dreamily sucking on his
pipe, "you can't tell. When they put them in jail, they let
them out all day to work on the roads. Then they get a
good tan. So, when they come out, nobody knows they're
ex-convicts."
Now he'll kr~o~v I'm onto him, thought Pat.
"I read that in the paper," he added in a too offhand way.
"I read the newspapers, too," said Claude, dreamily
contemplating the smoke from his cigarette. "I read that
they put chains around their ankles when they work
outdoors. And you can see white circles on the suntan of
In an absent-minded way, Claude pulled up a trouser leg
and
[3~']
crossed that leg over his other leg. Pat's eyes, like a
true-thrown dart, went to the exposed ankle. It was
smoothly tanned all over; no white circles.
"Is there some other topic you would care to discuss,
sir? We have the whole evening ahead of us. My, it's good
to be home again," said Claude.
Claude brought home his first week's salary: fifty
dollars! Maggie-Now could hardly believe it. Even Pat was
impressed.
"That's good pay for a man what ain't got no steady
trade," was his compliment.
Claude mentioned the dressing table but Maggie-Now
said to wait until there was a sale. She put the money in
the bank, all but ten dollars of it.
Claude seemed to like his work. Each night when he got
home, he threw away the former day's carnation and put
a new one in the wineglass. Each Saturday night, he gave
her his pay intact. He asked nothing more than
seventy-five cents a day for carfare, a luncheon sandwich
and cigarettes. He seemed to want no material things for
himself.
He gave lavish Christmas gifts to them: a meerschaum
pipe in a satin-lined, carved-wood c ase for Pat, a pair of
ice skates for Denny with a promise he'd take him to
Highland Park to teach him ice skating, and a beautiful
small gold and white dressing table, with an oval mirror,
for Mag~rie-Now.
Pat pawned the pipe the day after Christmas and gave
the ticket to Flick Mack, who did not smoke. But the little
fellow considered the ticket itself, with Pat's name on it,
as a Christmas gift and he put it in his wallet and
treasured it for years.
The payday after Christmas, Claude brought no salary
home. He had charged the gifts at the store. He asked her
if she minded and, of course, she said she didn't.
In January, Father Paul, a missionary priest, came to
give instructions to non-Catholic s who wished to become
converts. He would serve all the parish s in that part of
Brooklyn and his headquarters were the principal's office
in the neighborhood parochial school. Instructions would
be given at night.
Father Paul was incredibly thin. His face looked like skin
[ 312 ]
stretched tight over a skeleton of bones with no flesh in
between. He had spent his years in jungles and swamps
and the brush and places not on any map. He had eaten
the strange foods of savage people and been subjected to
the strange ills of the jungle and had endured unheard-of
hardships. He was worn as fine as a knife that had been
honed too much. Every three or four years, he took a
"rest" by carrying on his missionary work in America for
a month or two.
Here, thought Claude, was no gentle, serene priest like
Father Flynn; no priest who took a glass of wine before a
meal or smoked a cigar or pipe for relaxation; who tapped
a foot to the rhythm of a passing tune. Father Paul wore
a long black cassock, and a sixinch crucifix, that looked
like flashing gold, hung on the left side of his breast. He
raised his hooded eyes to Claude and spoke in a strong,
ringing voice.
"Your name, my son."
"Claude Bassett, Father."
"Religion ? "
"I am a non-Catholic."
The hooded eyes flashed up and the cross trembled as
he took a deep breath to bring out the full volume of his
voice.
"Your religion!" he thundered. Religiously Religion!
came back the echo of his voice from the corners of the
room.
"Protestant," said Claude, awed in spite of himself.
"How long have you been married?"
"A year, Father."
"Is there a child?"
"We have not been fortunate enough . . ." began Claude.
"Has there been a child?" thundered the priest. The
cross moved like a live thing and Child! Child! echoed in
the room.
"No, Father."
"Is a child expected?"
"No, Father."
"Why?" Claude shrugged and smiled. "Why has your
wife not conceived?" continued the priest.
"I beg your pardon, Father?"
"Do you do anything to prevent conception?"
[ 3~3 ]
"Do you use contraceptives?" thundered the priest. The
word echoed back.
A dark color came into Claude's face. He got to his feet
and said: "With all due res
pect to you, Father, that's
hardly any of your business."
The priest rose, also. PI he cross flashed like fire and
the echoes of his thundering words made it seem as
though there were three voices in the room.
"It is my business! It is the business of the Church! It is
the holy duty of those who marry in the Catholic Church
to produce children children for the Church!"
"We might want them for our own pleasure," said
Claude a little flippantly.
"Your pleasure will be that you will be custodians of the
children for Holy Moth' r Church!"
"Good evening, sir," said Claude suddenly. He turned on
his heel and walked out of the room.
Maggie-Now greeted him eagerly. "Is it all settled?"
"As far as I'm concerned it is. For good!"
"Will you take instructions?"
"I had a heart-to-hea rt talk with Father Paul. He did
the talking."
"Oh, Claude, can't you give me a direct answer? Can't
you ever say a 'yes' or a 'no'?" She was nervous and tense.
His conversion meant so, so much to her.
"I'll give you a direct answer," he said coldly. "No! I can
never give a 'yes' or a 'no.' I don't believe everything in
life can be settled by a monosyllable "
"Don't talk to me that way, Claude," she pleaded.
"When you use words like that, I feel you are away from
me."
Without another word, he went into their bedroom.
When she got into bed later, he turned away from her and
slept with his back to her all night.
The next morning, as hi was leaving for work, he said:
"Let me have twenty dollars."
She choked back the automatic question: "What for?"
She thought she knew what for. He was leaving her again
and he
~ 3~4 ]
wanted twenty dollars to start off on. She gave him the
money. He pocketed! it and put an arm around her and
pulled her to him.
"It's time we celebrated our first wedding anniversary," he
said.
"That was last week, C laude. I didn't say anything
because I knew you'd forgotten."
"All men forget wedding anniversaries."
"But you're different, C laude."
"Not that different. Now here's what I want you to do:
Pack your little red bag, put my stuff in too, and n eet me
in the lobby of the St. George at six. Bring a clean shirt.
I'll go to work directly from the hotel."
She left two cold plates in the icebox for Pat's and
Denny's supper and told Denny not to leave the house;
his father would be home in an hour.
They had dinner at the same place. They didn't have the
same room at the hotel but one almost as nice. It was like
t'r eir marriage night except this time they undressed
together in the bedroom. He got into his pajamas, loom
d in the glass, put the jacket inside the pants, took it out
again, said, "The hell with it," and stripped off the pajamas
and went to bed naked.
She went into the bathroom to wash up and clean her
teeth and came out and stood before the dresser and
started to brush her hair.
"Never mind the brushing tonight," he said impatiently.
"Get into bed."
"All right, Claude." She picked up the pajamas from the
floor to hang them up.
"Stop fussing around so," he said crossly.
"All right." She dropped the pajamas back on the floor
and got into bed with him.
It was a night of wild, almost insatiable passion. When
morning came, she kissed him with great tenderness and
said: "I know I'll have a baby now!"
"If you do, I know who'll be deliriously happy."
"Who?" she asked teasingly, assuming he'd say, "Me."
"Your Church!" he said bitterly.
She sighed. She guessed what Father Paul had said to
him and she knew IOW that Claude would never come
into her Church and her Faith.
L3~51
They had breakfast in the hotel restaurant. "I'll walk you
to the store where you work," said.