Sexus, Page 6

  In the midst of it a Swedish friend of mine named Lundberg happened to walk in. He was another one I owed money to but he never pressed me to pay up. I invited him to join us and, taking Zabrowskie aside, I borrowed back a ten-spot in order to settle accounts with the new arrival. From him I learned that my old friend Larry Hunt was in town and eager to see me. “Get him here,” I urged Lundberg. “The more the merrier.”

  While the festivities were in full swing, after we had sung “Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland” and “Some of These Days,” I noticed two Italian boys at a nearby table who seemed eager to be in the fun. I went over to them and asked them if they would like to join us. One of them was a musician and the other was a prize fighter, it appeared. I introduced them and then made a place for them between Costigan and O’Mara. Lundberg had gone out to telephone Larry Hunt.

  How he had gotten on to such a subject on such an occasion I don’t know, but for some reason or other Ulric had gotten it into his head to make me an elaborate speech about Uccello. The Italian boy, the musician, pricked up his ears. MacGregor turned away disgustedly to talk to Kronski about impotency, a subject which the latter delighted to explore if he thought he could make his listener uncomfortable thereby. I noticed that the Italian was impressed by Ulric’s glib flow. He would have given his right arm to be able to speak English like that. He was also flattered to think that we were talking so enthusiastically about one of his own race. I drew him out a bit and, realizing that he was getting drunk on language, I got exalted and went off into a mad flight about the wonders of the English tongue. Curley and O’Mara turned to listen and then Zabrowskie came round to our end of the table and drew up a chair, followed by Lundberg, who informed me quickly that he hadn’t been able to get hold of Hunt. The Italian was in such a state of excitement that he ordered cognac for everybody. We stood up and clinked glasses. Arturo, that was his name, insisted on giving a toast—in Italian. He sat down and said with great fervor that he had lived in America ten years and had never heard the English language spoken like this. He said he would never be able to master it now. He wanted to know if we talked this way ordinarily. He went on like this, piling one compliment upon another, until we were all so infected with a love of the English language that we all wanted to make speeches. Finally I got so drunk on it that I stood up and, downing a stiff drink at one gulp, I launched into a frenzied speech which lasted for fifteen minutes or more. The Italian kept wagging his head from side to side, as if to signify that he couldn’t stand another word, that he would burst. I fastened my eye on him and drowned him with words. It must have been a mad and glorious speech because every now and then there was a salvo of applause from the surrounding tables. I heard Kronski murmuring to someone that I was in a fine state of euphoria, a word which touched me off anew. Euphoria! I paused the fraction of a second while someone filled my glass and then I was off, down the stretch, a gay mudlark flinging words in every direction. I had never in my life attempted to make a speech. If someone had interrupted me and told me I was making a wonderful speech I would have been dumbfounded. I was out on my feet, in the language of the ring. The only thing I had in mind was the Italian’s hunger for that marvelous English which he would never be able to master. I hadn’t the slightest idea what I was talking about. I didn’t have to use my brain—I simply stuck a long, snakelike tongue into a cornucopia and with a felicitous flip I spooled it off.

  The speech ended in an ovation. Some of the guests at the other tables came over and felicitated me. The Italian, Arturo, was in tears. I felt as if I had unwittingly let off a bomb. I was embarrassed and not a little frightened by this unexpected display of oratory. I wanted to get out of the place, get off by myself and feel what had happened. Presently I made an excuse and, taking the manager aside, I told him I had to leave. After footing the bill I found I had about three dollars left over. I decided to beat it without saying a word to anybody. They could sit there till Kingdom Come—I had had enough of it.

  I started walking uptown. Soon I was on Broadway. At Thirty-fourth Street I quickened my pace. It was decided—I would go to the dance hall. At Forty-second Street I had to elbow my way through the pack. The crowd excited me: there was always the danger of running into someone and getting diverted from one’s goal. Soon I was standing in front of the joint, a little out of breath and wondering if it were the right thing to do. At the Palace opposite, Thomas Burke of the Covent Garden Opera was being featured as the headliner. The name “Covent Garden” stuck in my crop as I turned to ascend the stairs. London—it would be swell to take her to London. I must ask her if she would like to hear Thomas Burke. . . .

  She was dancing with a young-looking old man as I entered. I watched her a few minutes before she espied me. Dragging her partner by the hand she came over to me with a radiant flush. “I want you to meet an old friend of mine,” she said, presenting me to the white-haired Mr. Carruthers. We greeted one another cordially and stood chatting for several minutes. Then Florrie came along and whisked Carruthers off.

  “He seems like a fine chap,” I said. “One of your admirers, I suppose?”

  “He’s been very good to me—he nursed me when I was ill. You mustn’t make him jealous. He likes to pretend that he’s in love with me.”

  “To pretend?” I said.

  “Let’s dance,” she said. “I’ll tell you about him some other time.”

  While we were dancing she took the rose she was wearing and stuck it in my buttonhole. “You must have been enjoying yourself tonight,” she said, getting a whiff of the booze. A birthday party, I explained, leading her towards the balcony to have a few words with her in private.

  “Do you think you could get away tomorrow night—go to the theater with me?”

  She squeezed my arm by way of assent. “You look more beautiful than ever tonight,” I said, holding her close.

  “Be careful what you do,” she murmured, looking stealthily over her shoulder. “We mustn’t stay here long. I can’t explain it now but you see, Carruthers is very jealous and I can’t afford to make him angry. Here he comes now. . . . I’ll leave you.”

  I purposely refrained from looking round though I was dying to study Carruthers more closely. I hung over the flimsy iron rail of the balcony and became absorbed in the sea of faces below. Even from this low height the crowd took on that dehumanized appearance which comes with weight and number. If there were not this thing called language there would be little to differentiate this maelstrom of flesh from other forms of animal life. Even that, even the divine gift of speech, hardly served to make a distinction. What was their talk? Could one call it a language? Birds and dogs have a language too, probably just as adequate as that of the mob. Language only begins at the point where communication is endangered. Everything these people are saying to one another, everything they read, everything they regulate their lives by is meaningless. Between this hour and a thousand other hours in a thousand different pasts there is no fundamental difference. In the ebb and flow of planetary life this stream goes the way of all other streams past and future. A minute ago she was using the word “jealous.” A queer word, especially when you are looking at a mob, when you see the haphazard mating, when you realize that those who are now locked arm in arm will most likely be separated a little while hence. I didn’t give a fuck how many men were in love with her as long as I was included in the circle. I felt sorry for Carruthers, sorry that he should be a victim of jealousy. I had never been jealous in my life. Maybe I had never cared enough. The one woman I had desperately wanted I had relinquished of my own free will. To have a woman, to have anything, as a matter of fact, is nothing: it’s the living with a person that matters, or the living with possessions. Can you go on forever being in love with persons or things? She could just as well admit that Carruthers was madly in love with her—what difference would it make in my love? If a woman is capable of inspiring love in one man she must be capable of inspiring it in others. To love or be loved is no crime. The real
ly criminal thing is to make a person believe that he or she is the only one you could ever love.

  I went inside. She was dancing with someone else. Carruthers was standing alone in a corner. Impelled by a desire to give him a little consolation I went up to him and engaged him in conversation. If he were in the throes of jealousy he certainly didn’t show it. He treated me rather cavalierly, I thought. I wondered was he really jealous or was she only trying to make me think that in order to conceal something else. The illness she had spoken of—if it were so serious then it was strange that she hadn’t mentioned it before. The way she had alluded to it made me think it was a fairly recent event. He had nursed her. Where? Not at her home surely. Another little item came to mind: she had strongly urged me never to write to her at her home. Why? Maybe she had no home. That woman in the yard hanging up clothes—that was not her mother, she said. Who was it then? It might have been a neighbor, she tried to insinuate. She was touchy about the subject of her mother. It was her aunt who read my letter not her mother. And the young man who answered the do—was he her brother? She said he was, but he certainly didn resemble her. And where was her father all day, now that he was no longer breeding race horses or flying kites from the roof? She evidently didn’t like her mother very much. She had even let out a broad hint once that she wasn’t sure whether it was her mother.

  “Mara’s a strange girl, isn’t she?” I said to Carruthers after a lull in our rather brittle conversation.

  He gave a short shrill laugh and, as though to put me at ease about her, replied: “She’s just a child, you know. And of course you can’t believe a word she says.”

  “Yes, that’s just the impression she gives me,” said I.

  “She hasn’t a thing on her mind except having a good time,” said Carruthers.

  Just then Mara came along. Carruthers wanted to dance with her. “But I promised this one to him,” she said, taking my hand.

  “No, that’s all right, dance with him! I’ve got to go anyway. I’ll see you soon, I hope.” I sailed out before she had a chance to protest.

  The following evening I was at the theater ahead of time. I bought seats down front. There were several other favorites of mine on the program, among them Trixie Friganza, Joe Jackson, and Roy Barnes. It must have been an all-star bill.

  I waited half an hour beyond the appointed time and still no sign of her. I was so eager to see the show I decided not to wait any longer. Just as I was wondering what to do with the extra ticket a rather handsome Negro passed me to approach the box office. I intercepted him to inquire if he wouldn’t accept my ticket. He seemed surprised when I refused to accept money from him. “I thought you were a speculator,” he said.

  After the intermission Thomas Burke appeared before the footlights. He made a tremendous impression upon me, for reasons which I shall never be able to fathom. A number of curious coincidences are connected with his name and with the song which he sang that night—“Roses of Picardy.” Let me jump seven years from the moment the night before when I stood hesitantly at the foot of the steps leading to the dance hall. . . .

  Covent Garden. It is to Covent Garden I go a few hours after landing in London, and to the girl I single out to dance with I offer a rose from the flower market. I had intended to go direct to Spain, but circumstances obliged me to go straight to London. A Jewish insurance agent from Bagdad, of all places, is the one to lead me to the Covent Garden Opera, which has been converted into a dance hall for the time being. The day before leaving London I pay a visit to an English astrologer who lives near the Crystal Palace. We have to pass through another man’s property in order to get to his house. As we are walking through the grounds he informs me casually that the place belongs to Thomas Burke, the author of Limehouse Nights. The next time I attempt to go to London, unsuccessfully, I return to Paris via Picardy and in traveling through that smiling land I stand up and weep with joy. Suddenly, recalling the disappointments, the frustrations, the hopes turned to despair, I realized for the first time the meaning of “voyage.” She had made the first journey possible and the second one inevitable. We were never to see each other again. I was free in a wholly new sense—free to become the endless voyager. If any one thing may be said to be accountable for the passion which seized me and held me in its grip for seven long years then it is Thomas Burke’s rendering of this sentimental ditty. Only the night before I had been commiserating Carruthers. Now, listening to the song, I was suddenly stricken with fear and jealousy. It was about the one rose that dies not, the rose that one keeps in one’s heart. As I listened to the words I had a premonition that I would lose her. I would lose her because I loved her too much, that was how the fear shaped itself. Carruthers, despite his nonchalance, had put a drop of poison in my veins. Carruthers had brought her roses; she had given me the rose he had pinned to her waist. The house is bursting with applause. They are throwing roses on the stage. He is going to give an encore. It is the same song—“Roses of Picardy.” It is the same phrase which he is coming to now, the words which stab me and leave me desolate—“but there is one rose that dies not in Picardy . . . ’tis the rose that I keep in my heart!” I can’t stand it any longer, I rush out. I rush across the street and bound up the steps to the dance hall.

  She’s on the floor, dancing with a dark-skinned fellow who is holding her close. As soon as the dance is out I rush over to her. “Where were you?” I ask. “What was the matter? Why didn’t you come?”

  She seemed surprised that I should be so upset over such a trivial thing. What had kept her? Oh, it was nothing at all. She had been out late, a rather wild party . . . not with Carruthers . . . he had left shortly after me. No, it was Florrie who had organized the party. Florrie and Hannah—did I remember them? (Did I remember them? Florrie the nymphomaniac and Hannah the drunken sot. How could I forget them?) Yes, there had been a lot to drink and somebody had asked her to do the split and she had tried . . . well, and she had hurt herself a bit. That was all. I should have realized that something had happened to her. She wasn’t the sort who made dates and broke them—just like that.

  “When did you get here?” I asked, remarking to myself that she seemed quite intact, unusually cool and collected, in fact.

  She had come just a few minutes ago. What difference did it make? Her friend Jerry, an ex-pugilist who was now studying law, had taken her to dinner. He had been at the party last night and had been kind enough to see her home. She would see me Saturday afternoon in the Village—at the Pagoda Tea Room. Dr. Tao, who ran the place, was a good friend of hers. She would like me to meet him. He was a poet.

  I said I would wait around for her and take her home, by subway this time if she didn’t mind. She begged me not to bother—I would get home so late and so on. I insisted. I could see that she wasn’t too pleased. In fact she was plainly annoyed. In a moment she excused herself to go to the dressing room. That meant a telephone call, I was certain. Again I wondered if she really lived at this place she called home.

  She reappeared with a good-natured smile, saying that the manager had offered to let her off early. We might go at once, if we liked. First we were to have a bite somewhere. On the way to the restaurant, and all through the meal, she kept up a rapid-fire talk about the manager and his little kindnesses. He was a Greek with a tender heart. It was extraordinary what he had done for some of the girls. How did she mean? Like what? Well, like Florrie, for instance. The time Florrie had had an abortion—that was before she met her doctor friend. Nick had paid for everything; he had even sent her to the country for a few weeks. And Hannah, who had had all her teeth extracted . . . well, Nick had presented her with a lovely set of false teeth.

  And Nick, what was he getting for all his trouble, I inquired blandly.

  “Nobody knows anything about Nick,” she continued. “He never makes any overtures to the girls. He’s too busy with his affairs. He runs a gambling joint uptown, he plays the stock market, he owns a bathhouse at Coney Island, he has an interest
in a restaurant somewhere . . . he’s too busy to think about such things.”

  “You seem to be one of the favored ones,” I said. “You come and go as you please.”

  “Nick thinks the world of me,” she said. “Perhaps because I attract a different type of man than the other girls.”

  “Wouldn’t you like to do something else for a living?” I asked abruptly. “You’re not meant for this sort of thing—that’s why you’re such a success, I guess. Isn’t there something else you’d rather do, tell me?”

  Her smile indicated how naive my question was. “You don’t think I do this because I like it, do you? I do it because I earn more money than I could elsewhere. I have a lot of responsibilities. It doesn’t matter what I do—I must earn a certain amount of money each week. But don’t let’s talk about that, it’s too painful. I know what you’re thinking about, but you’re wrong. Everybody treats me like a queen. The other girls are stupid. I use my intelligence. You notice that my admirers are mostly old men . . .”

  “Like Jerry, you mean?”

  “Oh Jerry, he’s an old friend. Jerry doesn’t count.”

  I dropped the subject. Better not to inquire too deeply. There was one little thing that bothered me however, and I broached it as gently as I could. Why did she waste time on such trollops as Florrie and Hannah?