Angel in the Parlor (14 page)

Amyas's face was flushed, and he was breathing heavily; the walk from the taxi had exhausted him. Nicholas found himself admiring the man. Amyas was really beautiful, the way a brawling merchant in an old Dutch painting is beautiful. His face was vivid rather than gross, and his weight glorified rather than shamed him.

“Who else lives in this building?”

“Let me see.” Amyas closed his eyes for several minutes. “A lady welder just moved into the place below mine last week. On the other floors you find mostly private clubs and businesses of various sorts. I rarely meet anyone from those places. But on the fourth floor the Apple Town Players have their loft. Have you ever heard of the Apple Town Players?”

“No,” said Nicholas.

“We'll go to one of their plays some evening. Janet acts in them quite often. You'll recommend a good one, won't you Janet?”

But Janet was falling asleep on his arm. When the elevator jolted to a stop, she straightened up and unlocked a heavy bolt on the door in front of them. It sprang open with a sigh, and Nicholas stepped into a spacious room. Half the floor was carpeted in green, the other half was painted a dull gray, and the door marked the boundary between them. The green half looked by far the more comfortable. It had a window, curtained in yellow silk, which ran nearly the length of the wall. In front of it stood a wardrobe, a bookcase, and a huge bed. The bedposts and legs were carved to resemble hundreds of spools strung together, and on the top lay a bedspread solidly embroidered with tiny green and gold dragons.

In the gray half of the room he saw an icebox, painted bright blue, and a sink under which someone had stacked several fifty-pound bags of cracked corn. There were also a small stove, a cupboard, and a kitchen table, and against the wall to his left were a sofa and a vanity table. But what struck him most were two singular objects in the middle of the room. Placed so as to obstruct rather than save space was a large cupboard with two swinging doors. On an inside hook hung a nightgown; inside was a neatly made bed. Behind the cupboard a huge winged machine crouched as if about to devour the sleeper.

“That's a glider you're looking at,” said Amyas, taking the mandolin from Nicholas and leaning it against the wall. “Have you ever flown one?”

“No,” said Nicholas. In another moment he would be asleep on his feet. To his dismay, Amyas was growing lively. Janet dropped her coat on the floor and curled up on the sofa.

“It's one of the few flying machines that doesn't require a motor. It glides on air currents, the way a bird does. “You buy the parts in a kit. Janet!”

Janet raised her head.

“What?”

When she saw Amyas roll his eyes toward the ceiling and shrug helplessly, she blinked and curled herself up again, like a cat.

“I could teach her so many things, but she falls asleep,” said Amyas. “I hope you'll have some coffee with me, sir. I can't bear going straight to bed. That's her one great failing,” he went on, pointing to Janet. “She can't stay awake. I could teach her so much, yes, and all the players in her troupe. Nobody listens to me. Nobody cares about discipline any more.”

While he was talking he filled a saucepan with water, set it on the stove, and measured out coffee into two cups.

“That's what it takes to fly,” he said, and shook his finger at Nicholas. “Discipline. Do you ski?”

“No,” said Nicholas. And now it seemed to him that Amyas was flying with amazing grace, though pots, pans, and dishes rattled and the floor creaked when he walked.

“A pity. You've probably never known the freedom of flight. But you can't fly without discipline. I learned that when I was a dancer. Don't laugh! Would you guess that when I was your age, I was a superb acrobat? I was the director of the Blue Angels. We did a spectacular trampoline act on television and in nightclubs. I demanded absolute obedience of my performers and of my own body. Every night we flew into each other's arms. And we never fell.”

He handed Nicholas a cup of coffee and motioned him to sit at the table; then he disappeared behind the wardrobe at the other end of the loft. Presently he returned wearing a green silk caftan.

“It's from Morocco,” he said, holding it out for Nicholas to feel.

Nicholas felt it.

“Very nice,” he said. He could hardly keep his eyes open, but he did not want Amyas to accuse him of falling asleep on the threshold of instruction. Amyas pulled up a chair opposite him, brought out a small phial and a silver box, flicked the lid of the box open, and lifted from its velvet lining a hypodermic needle. He filled it from the phial, studied the inner side of his arm for a moment, then plunged the needle in.

“I hope this doesn't bother you, sir,” he said. “I've done it so often I hardly feel a thing.”

Nicholas tried to appear casual.

“I don't use the stuff myself.”

“No, of course not! Do you know what this is?”

Amyas leaned forward, as if imparting a great secret.

“
The urine of pregnant women.
”

“Ah,” said Nicholas.

“Don't try to pretend you aren't curious. How many people do you know who inject themselves with the urine of pregnant women? It's said to contain a hormone that controls excessive weight. Excessive bodily weight,” he repeated, as if distinguishing it from some other kind, “due to glandular imbalance.”

“Glandular imbalance,” nodded Nicholas.

“Be thankful you passed through adolescence without it.”

He wiped the needle on his sleeve and laid it tenderly into its case. A loud snore startled them both. Nicholas turned around. Janet was sleeping with her arm stretched out over the edge of the sofa.

“If only I could keep her awake! I'd teach her everything I know. And I know so much. Look at that body—light as silk. I could teach her to fly if only she didn't fall asleep. My little pigeon,” he cooed as he bustled over to her. Bending down he tried to lift her. Nicholas ran to help.

“Just set her down in bed. She gets very cross when she's wakened. But if you leave her alone she'll wake up of her own accord and put on her nightgown without a fuss.”

“Does she like the doors closed?” asked Nicholas.

“No. She likes to close them herself. It's a Dutch bed. I had a terrible time finding one for her. And now she wants a bedspread like mine embroidered with a thousand dragons. You can sleep on the sofa, sir. It unfolds into quite a comfortable bed. There's toothpaste by the sink. The toilet doesn't flush. Fill that yellow bucket by the door before you go in, or there'll be a great stink by morning.”

Amyas trotted down to his end of the loft, then stopped and called, “I've forgotten your name.”

“Nicholas Mardachek.” He did not remember having given it before.

“Shall I turn off the light, Nicholas? There's only one switch.”

“Yes,” said Nicholas, for he was too sleepy to take off anything but his shoes. No bed ever felt better. The blanket was very thin. He pulled Janet's coat over him, let his knapsack slide to the floor, and stretched himself out. In the darkness he could hear Janet moving around. The door slammed shut. Now she was singing in a high scratchy voice. A thin streak of light from outside touched the door, like someone listening to an old-fashioned radio. The last thing Nicholas saw was Amyas's belly, under the skins of one thousand dragons, silhouetted against the window like a hill, waiting for the crest of morning.

II

When Nicholas woke up, he heard Amyas singing over a commotion of cooing and a flutter of wings.

“My little pigeon! My honey dove!”

And then a snatch of song:

Who's gonna shoe your pretty little foot

with boots of Spanish leather?

Nicholas stumbled to his feet. His throat was raw and his head felt stuffed with cotton; had he drunk that much? The loft was so hot he felt cooked dry, and his own flesh weighed him down. Behind his bed sunlight streamed in through a door he had not noticed before. He padded out on the fire escape in his stocking feet and found Amyas, in a tweed hunting jacket, walking on the adjacent roof among cages and cages of pigeons. Out of the corner of his eye, Amyas saw him coming. One by one he opened the cages. With a beating of feathers and much clucking and crying, the birds soared out so eagerly that Nicholas ducked and covered his head.

“Watch,” said Amyas.

He drew up a chair and sat down. For several minutes the birds twittered about him at random, then settled into an enormous circle around his head. Wider and wider the circle grew, like the rings that flow out from a stone tossed into water, till Nicholas would not have known it as a circle if he had not seen it from the beginning. To see all of it, he had to tip back his head and stare up into a bright sky. And then a strange thing happened. A flock of unknown birds, flying north after the winter, cut through the circle and passed on. But Amyas's birds did not swerve; only gradually the circle grew smaller until they lighted on the tops of their cages. Amyas positively glowed as he opened the doors and lifted the birds in.

“You know, when I was six, I asked the elementary school librarian for a book on flying. She took me over to the section on airplanes. ‘No,' I said, ‘I want to fly with wings.' Well, she was a resourceful woman, and she gave me a book about Icarus. I sat down and read it through twice, to make sure I hadn't missed a word of the instructions. But it didn't give many details. And even if I'd had the wax, I couldn't have gotten the feathers. My father was fastidious, a real Prussian. When the army rejected him, he turned to making uniforms. The only outrageous thing he ever did was to marry my mother.”

Inside the loft a door slammed. Both Amyas and Nicholas hurried inside. Janet was setting a bag of groceries on the table.

“I found everything except the pickled udders. You'll have to do without them.”

“But the recipe calls for udders,” exclaimed Amyas.

Janet gave a little shrug.

“Do you want me to try somewhere else?”

“No, no, I'll make do with pickled tripe.”

“Well, I've got to go back out again to get some white makeup for the play tonight.”

“Why didn't you get it just now?”

“I couldn't carry any more.”

“What is the play?” asked Nicholas.

“Tonight we're having a pantomime workshop. If you want to come with me now, I'll wait for you. Prince Street doesn't look like much at night.”

She and Amyas retreated to the far end of the loft. As Nicholas pulled on his shoes, he heard them talking in loud voices, pitched at the edge of anger.

“What's the good of cooking sea urchins if they taste bad?”

“My little dove, how do you know they taste bad? You've never eaten any. The Romans ate them.”

“That's because they didn't have anything else.”

“Of course they did. The average Roman citizen had a far more sensitive palate than you or I. No eat-and-run places in ancient Rome. No waiting at counters.”

“And I can't stand five courses of soup.”

“I wish you'd let me teach you about these matters. There are soups and there are soups. Joan of Arc ate nothing but soup five times a day.”

“I'm ready,” called Nicholas rather awkwardly. He stuffed his harmonica into his back pocket, closed the knapsack, and pushed it under the sofa.

“Good,” said Janet.

They rode the elevator down in silence. Nicholas stared at the ceiling, Janet looked down at her cane, at her white stockings and white gloves, and picked a spot off her navy blue coat.

“Nice coat,” said Nicholas.

“It's new. Amyas got it for me last week.”

She offered him her arm, and they stepped out onto the street. He had been right about the neighborhood. The doors and windows were inscribed with the neat gold lettering of an earlier time:
Doll Manufacturing Company; Bolts and Parts.
They walked to the end of the block in silence and came to a newspaper store. A small sign in the window advertised egg creams.

“You want one?” asked Janet.

“I don't have any money with me.”

“I have some. Amyas usually buys me one. We'll get one on the way back.”

In the handball court on the other side of the street, a pack of young boys was starting a game.

“Let's watch,” said Janet.

They crossed the street and stood with their faces pressed against the wire. If I were alone, thought Nicholas, I'd join them. But the heat in Amyas's loft had made him lethargic.

“How old is Amyas?” he asked.

“I don't know. About forty, wouldn't you think? Or maybe thirty-five.”

“Where is he from?”

“Why, I guess he's lived in lots of places,” said Janet vaguely. “His parents used to live in the city but they moved up the river a few years ago. I forget where.”

“How old are you?”

“Nineteen.”

“Nineteen!” Nicholas pretended to be greatly surprised. “I thought you were younger. Maybe sixteen. Or fifteen. It's the way you dress. And that headband you wear.”

“Amyas likes me to wear it.”

He wanted to ask her how she had met Amyas, but that seemed rude. Instead he asked, “Where are you from?”

“Buffalo.”

“And you left home and came to the city.”

“Yes,” answered Janet, and she fixed her eyes on the boys who were now shouting and scrambling all over the court. “I left home and came to the city. With friends. You'll meet some of them tonight.”

He very much wanted a cigarette. He felt for his harmonica and sucked out a blur of chords. It was a spring day and he was much younger, loitering around the playground after school. The sound wailed up and down; it was almost summer.

“Tell me,” said Janet. “What is your wife's name?”

“Norma. Norma Mardachek.” It sounded unreal to his ears.