Herzog (14 page)

    "Facts!" said Herzog, faint, groping, outraged.

    "I know," said Sandor. "I'm ten years older.

    But after forty it's all the same. If you can get it up once a week, you should be grateful."

    Beatrice tried to restrain Sandor, but he said, "Shut up." He then turned to Moses again, shaking his head so that it gradually sank toward his disfigured breast, and his shoulder blades jutted behind, coracoid through the white-on-white shirt. "What the fuck does he know what it is to face facts. All he wants is everybody should love him. If not, he's going to scream and holler. All right! After D-D ay, I lay smashed up in that effing Limey hospital- a cripple. Why, Christ! I had to walk out under my own power. And what about his pal Valentine Gersbach?

    There's a man for you! That gimpy redhead knows what real suffering is. But he lives it up- three men with six legs couldn't get around like that effing peg-leg.

    It's okay, Bea-Moses can take it.

    Otherwise, he'd be just another Professor Jerk. I wouldn't even bother with the sonofabitch."

    Herzog was incoherent with anger. "What do you mean?

    Should I die because of my hair? What about the child?"

    "Now, don't stand there rubbing your hands like a goddamn fool-Christ, I hate a fool,"

    Sandor shouted. His green eyes were violently clear, his lips were continually tensing. He must have been convinced that he was cutting the dead weight of deception from Herzog's soul, and his long white fingers, thumbs and forefingers worked nervously.

    "What! Die? Hair? What the hell are you babbling! I only said they'd give the kid to a young mother."

    "Madeleine put you up to that. She planted this, too. To keep me from suing."

    "She nothing!

    I'm trying to tell you for your own good. This time, she calls the shots. She wins, and you lose. Maybe she wants somebody else."

    "Does she? Did she tell you that?"

    "She told me nothing. I said maybe.

    Now calm down. Pour him a drink, Bea. Out of his own bottle. He doesn't like Scotch."

    Beatrice went to fetch Herzog's own bottle of Guckenheimer's 86 proof.

    "Now," said Sandor, "stop this baloney. Don't be a clown, man." His look changed, and he let some kindness flow toward Herzog. "Well, when you suffer, you really suffer. You're a real, genuine old Jewish type that digs the emotions. I'll give you that. I understand it. I grew up on Sangamon Street, remember, when a Jew was still a Jew. I know about suffering-we're on the same identical network."

    Herzog the passenger noted, For the life of me, I couldn't understand. I often thought I was going to have apoplexy, to burst. The more comfort you gave me, the closer I came to death's door. But what was I doing? Why was I in your house?

    It must have been funny how I grieved. Looking from my room at the leafless weeds in back. Brown, delicate frames of ragweed. Milkweed with the discharged pods gaping. Or else gazing at the dark gray face of the television.

    On Sunday morning, early, Sandor called Herzog into the living room. "Man," he said, "I found one hell of an insurance policy for you."

    Moses, tying his robe about him as he came from his bed by the bar, didn't understand.

    "What?"

    "We can get you a terrific policy to cover the kid."

    "What's this about?"

    "I told you last week but you must've been thinking of other things. If you get sick, have an accident, lose an eye, even if you go nuts, Junie will be protected."

    "But I'm going to Europe, and I have travel insurance."

    "That's if you die. But here, even if you have a mental breakdown and have to go to an institution the kid still gets her monthly support."

    "Who says I'm breaking down?"

    "Listen, you think I'm doing this for myself?

    I'm in the middle here," said Sandor, stamping a bare foot on the thick pile of the carpet.

    Sunday, with gray fog from the lake and the ore boats lowing like waterborne cattle. You could hear the emptiness of the hulls. Herzog would have given anything to be a deckhand bound for Duluth.

    "Either you want my legal advice or you don't," said Sandor. "I want to do the best for all of you.

    True?"

    "Well, here I am to prove it. You've taken me into your house."

    "Okay, so let's talk sense. With Madeleine you're not going to have trouble. She gets no alimony.

    She'll be married soon. I took her to lunch at Fritzel's, and guys who haven't given Sandor H. the time of day for years came running with a hard-on, tripping over themselves. That includes the rabbi of my temple. She's some dish."

    "You're a lunatic. And I know what she is."

    "What do you mean-she's less of a whore than most.

    We're all whores in this world, and don't you forget it. I know damn well I'm a whore. And you're an outstanding shnook, I realize. At least the eggheads tell me so.

    But I bet you a suit of clothes you're a whore, too."

    "Do you know what a mass man is, Himmelstein?"

    Sandor scowled. "How's that?"

    "A mass man. A man of the crowd. The soul of the mob. Cutting everybody down to size."

    "What soul of the mob! Don't get highfalutin.

    I'm talking facts, not shit."

    "And you think a fact is what's nasty."

    "Facts are nasty."

    "You think they're true because they're nasty."

    "And you-it's all too much for you. Who told you you were such a prince? Your mother did her own wash; you took boarders; your old man was a two-bit moonshiner.

    I know you Herzogs and your Yiches.

    Don't give me that hoity-toity. I'm a Kike myself and got my diploma in a stinking night school. Okay? Now let's both knock off this crap, dreamy boy."

    Herzog, subdued, much shaken, had no answer.

    What had he come here for? Help? A forum for his anger? Indignation for his injustices? But it was Sandor's forum, not his. This fierce dwarf with protruding teeth and deep lines in his face. His lopsided breast protruded from his green pajama top. But this was Sandor's bad, angry state, thought Herzog. He could be attractive, too, generous, convivial, even witty. The lava of that heart may have pushed those ribs out of shape, and the force of that hellish tongue made his teeth protrude. Very well, Moshe Herzog-if you must be pitiable, sue for aid and succor, you will put yourself always, inevitably, in the hands of these angry spirits. Blasting you with their "truth." This is what your masochism means, mein zisse n'shamele.

    The good are attracted by men's perceptions and think not for themselves. You must cleanse the gates of vision by self-knowledge, by experience. Besides which, opposition is true friendship. So they tell me.

    "You want to take care of your own kid, don't you?" said Sandor.

    "Sure I do. But you told me the other day that I might as well forget about her, that she'd grow up a stranger to me."

    "That's right. She won't even know you next time you see her."

    Sandor was thinking of his own kids, those hamsters; not my daughter, made of finer clay.

    She won't forget me. "I don't believe it," said Herzog.

    "As the lawyer, I have a social obligation to the child.

    I've got to protect her."

    "You?

    I'm her father."

    "You may crack up. Or else die."

    "Mady is just as liable to die. Why don't we write the insurance on her?"

    "She'd never let you. That's not part of the woman's deal. It's the man's deal."

    "Not this man's. Madeleine swings her weight like a male. She made all these decisions to take the kid and throw me in the street. She thinks she can be both mother and father. I'll pay the premiums on her life."

    Sandor suddenly began to yell. "I don't give a shit about her. I don't give a shit about you.

    I'm looking after that child."

    "What makes you so sure I'll die first?"

    "And is this the woman you love?" Sandor said in a lower tone. Apparently, he had remembered his dangerously high blood pressure. An elaborate effort occurred which involved his pale eyes, and his lips, and which pitted his chin. He said more evenly, "I'd take that policy myself if I could pass the physical. It would give me pleasure to croak and leave my Bea a rich widow. I'd like that."

    "Then she could go to Miami, and dye her hair."

    "That's right. While I turn green like an old penny, in my box, and she screws around. I don't grudge her."

    "All right, Sandor-was said Herzog. He wanted to end this talk. "Just now I don't feel like making arrangements for my death."

    "What's so great about your effing death?" Sandor cried. His figure straightened. He stood very close to Herzog, who was somewhat frightened by his shrillness and stared down, wide-eyed, at the face of his host. It was strong-cut and coarsely handsome. The small mustache bristled, a fierce green, milky poison rose to his eyes; Ms mouth twisted.

    "I'm getting out of this case!"

    Himmelstein began to scream.

    "What's the matter with you!" Herzog said. "Where's Beatrice! Beatrice!"

    But Mrs. Himmelstein only shut her bedroom door.

    "She'll go to a shyster firm!"

    "For God's sake, stop screaming."

    "They'll kill you."

    "Sandor, quit this."

    "Put you over a barrel. Tear your hide off."

    Herzog held his ears. "I can't stand it."

    "Tie your guts in knots. Sonofabitch.

    They'll put a meter on your nose, and charge you for breathing. You'll be locked up back and front.

    Then you'll think about death. You'll pray for it. A coffin will look better to you than a sports car."

    "But I didn't leave Madeleine."

    "I've done this to guys myself."

    "What harm did I do her."

    "The court doesn't care. You signed papers-did you read them?"

    "No, I took your word."

    "They'll throw the book at you in court. She's the mother-the female. She's got the tits. They'll crush you."

    "But I'm not guilty of anything."

    "She hates you."

    Sandor no longer screamed. He had resumed his normal loudness. "Jesus! You don't know anything," he said. "You an educated man? Thank God my old pa didn't have the dough to send me to the U. of C. I worked in the Davis Store and went to John Marshall. Education? It's a laugh! You don't know what goes on."

    Moses was shaken. He began to reconsider.

    "All right*" he said.

    "What's all right? his "I'll take a policy on my life."

    "Not as a favor to me!"

    "Not as a favor *"

    "It's a big bite-four hundred and eighteen bucks."

    "I'll find the money."

    Sandor said, "All right, my boy. Finally you make some sense. Now what about some breakfast-I'll cook porridge." In his green paisley pajamas he set off for the kitchen on his long, slipper-less feet. Following in the corridor, Herzog heard a cry from Sandor at the kitchen sink. "Look at this crap! Not a pot-not a dish-there isn't a spoon that's clean. It stinks of garbage. It's just a sewer here!" The old dog, obese and bald, escaped in fear, claws rapping on the tiles-clickclick, clickclick.

    "Spendthrift bitches!" he shouted at the women of his house. "Frigging lice! All they're good for is to wag their asses at the dress shops and play gidgy in the bushes. Then they come home, and gorge cake and leave plates smeared with chocolate in the sink. That's what gives them the pimples."

    "Easy, Sandor."

    "Do I ask for much? The old veteran cripple runs up and down City Hall, from courtroom to courtroom-out to Twenty-sixth and California. For them! Do they care if I have to suck up to all kinds of pricks to get a little business?" Sandor began to rake out the sink. He threw eggshells and orange rinds into the corner beside the garbage pail-coffee grounds. He worked himself into a rage and began to smash dishes and glassware. His long fingers, like those of a hunchback, gripped the plates soiled with icing.

    Without losing beauty of gesture-amazing!- he shattered them on the wall. He knocked over the dish drainer and the soap powder, and then he wept with anger. And also at himself, that he should have such emotions. His open mouth and jutting teeth! The long hairs streamed from his disfigured breast.

    "Moses-they're killing me! Killing their father!"

    The daughters lay listening in their rooms. Young Sheldon was in Jackson Park with his scout troop. Beatrice did not appear.

    "We don't have to have porridge," said Herzog.

    "No, I'll wash a pot." He was still shedding tears. Under the torrential tap his manicured fingers scrubbed the aluminum with steel wool.

    When he grew calmer, he said, "You know, Moses, I've been to a psychiatrist about these effing dishes. They cost me twenty bucks an hour. Moses, what am I going to do with my kids.