Manhattan Transfer (11 page)

‘To be sure he is.’

Baldwin tried to keep from looking her in the eye. Spurts of jangling agitation were going through him, making his legs feel weak and trembly.

‘I’ll tell yez what let’s do,’ said Gus. ‘Sposin we all take a horsecab up to old McGillycuddy’s an have somethin to wet our whistles in the private bar… My treat. I need a bit of a drink to cheer me up. Come on Nellie.’

‘I wish I could,’ said Baldwin, ‘but I’m afraid I cant. I’m pretty busy these days. But just give me your signature before you go
and I’ll have the check for you tomorrow… Sign here… and here.’

McNiel had stumped over to the desk and was leaning over the papers. Baldwin felt that Nellie was trying to make a sign to him. He kept his eyes down. After they had left he noticed her purse, a little leather purse with pansies burned on the back, on the corner of the desk. There was a tap on the glass door. He opened.

‘Why wouldn’t you look at me?’ she said breathlessly low.

‘How could I with him here.’ He held the purse out to her.

She put her arms round his neck and kissed him hard on the mouth. ‘What are we goin to do? Shall I come in this afternoon? Gus’ll be liquorin up to get himself sick again now he’s out of the hospital.’

‘No I cant Nellie… Business… business… I’m busy every minute.’

‘Oh yes you are… All right have it your own way.’ She slammed the door.

Baldwin sat at his desk biting his knuckles without seeing the pile of papers he was staring at. ‘I’ve got to cut it out,’ he said aloud and got to his feet. He paced back and forth across the narrow office looking at the shelves of lawbooks and the Gibson girl calendar over the telephone and the dusty square of sunlight by the window. He looked at his watch. Lunchtime. He drew the palm of a hand over his forehead and went to the telephone.

‘Rector 1237… Mr Sandbourne there?… Say Phil suppose I come by for you for lunch? Do you want to go out right now?… Sure… Say Phil I clinched it, I got the milkman his damages. I’m pleased as the dickens. I’ll set you up to a regular lunch on the strength of it… So long…’

He came away from the telephone smiling, took his hat off its hook, fitted it carefully on his head in front of the little mirror over the hatrack, and hurried down the stairs.

On the last flight he met Mr Emery of Emery & Emery who had their offices on the first floor.

‘Well Mr Baldwin how’s things?’ Mr Emery of Emery & Emery was a flatfaced man with gray hair and eyebrows and a protruding wedgeshaped jaw. ‘Pretty well sir, pretty well.’

‘They tell me you are doing mighty well… Something about the New York Central Railroad.’

‘Oh Simsbury and I settled it out of court.’

‘Humph,’ said Mr Emery of Emery & Emery.

As they were about to part in the street Mr Emery said suddenly ‘Would you care to dine with me and my wife some time?’

‘Why… er… I’d be delighted.’

‘I like to see something of the younger fellows in the profession you understand… Well I’ll drop you a line… Some evening next week. It would give us a chance to have a chat.’

Baldwin shook a blueveined hand in a shinystarched cuff and went off down Maiden Lane hustling with a springy step through the noon crowd. On Pearl Street he climbed a steep flight of black stairs that smelt of roasting coffee and knocked on a groundglass door.

‘Come in,’ shouted a bass voice. A swarthy man lanky in his shirtsleeves strode forward to meet him. ‘Hello George, thought you were never comin’. I’m hongry as hell.’

‘Phil I’m going to set you up to the best lunch you ever ate in your life.’

‘Well I’m juss waitin’ to be set.’

Phil Sandbourne put on his coat, knocked the ashes out of his pipe on the corner of a draftingtable, and shouted into a dark inner office, ‘Goin out to eat, Mr Specker.’

‘All right go ahead,’ replied a goaty quavering from the inner office.

‘How’s the old man?’ asked Baldwin as they went out the door.

‘Ole Specker? Bout on his last legs… but he’s been thataway for years poa ole soul. Honest George I’d feel mighty mean if anythin happened to poa ole Specker… He’s the only honest man in the city of New York, an he’s got a head on his shoulders too.’

‘He’s never made anything much by it,’ said Baldwin.

‘He may yet… He may yet… Man you ought to see his plans for allsteel buildins. He’s got an idea the skyscraper of the future’ll be built of steel and glass. We’ve been experimenting with vitrous tile recently… cristamighty some of his plans would knock yer eye out… He’s got a great sayin about some Roman emperor who found Rome of brick and left it of marble. Well he says he’s found New York of brick an that he’s goin to leave it of steel… steel an glass. I’ll have to show you his project for a rebuilt city. It’s some pipedream.’

They settled on a cushioned bench in the corner of the restaurant that smelled of steak and the grill. Sandbourne stretched his legs out under the table.

‘Wow this is luxury,’ he said.

‘Phil let’s have a cocktail,’ said Baldwin from behind the bill of fare. ‘I tell you Phil, it’s the first five years that’s the hardest.’

‘You needn’t worry George, you’re the hustlin kind… I’m the ole stick in the mud.’

‘I don’t see why, you can always get a job as a draftsman.’

‘That’s a fine future I muss say, to spend ma life with the corner of a draftintable stuck in ma bally… Christamighty man!’

‘Well Specker and Sandbourne may be a famous firm yet.’

‘People’ll be goin round in flyin machines by that time an you and me’ll be laid out with our toes to the daisies.’

‘Here’s luck anyway.’

‘Here’s lead in yer pencil, George.’

They drank down the Martinis and started eating their oysters.

‘I wonder if it’s true that oysters turn to leather in your stomach when you drink alcohol with em.’

‘Search me… Say by the way Phil how are you getting on with that little stenographer you were taking out?’

‘Man the food an drink an theaters I’ve wasted on that lil girl… She’s got me run to a standstill… Honest she has. You’re a sensible feller, George, to keep away from the women.’

‘Maybe,’ said Baldwin slowly and spat an olive stone into his clenched fist.

The first thing they heard was the quavering whistle that came from a little wagon at the curb opposite the entrance to the ferry. A small boy broke away from the group of immigrants that lingered in the ferryhouse and ran over to the little wagon.

‘Sure it’s like a steam engine an its fulla monkeynuts,’ he yelled running back.

‘Padraic you stay here.’

‘And this here’s the L station, South Ferry,’ went on Tim Halloran who had come down to meet them. ‘Up thataway’s Battery Park an Bowling Green an Wall Street an th’ financial district… Come along Padraic your Uncle Timothy’s goin to take ye on th’ Ninth Avenoo L.’

There were only three people left at the ferrylanding, an old woman with a blue handkerchief on her head and a young woman with a magenta shawl, standing at either end of a big corded trunk studded with brass tacks; and an old man with a greenish stub of a beard and a face lined and twisted like the root of a dead oak. The old woman was whimpering with wet eyes: ‘Dove andiamo Madonna mia, Madonna mia?’ The young woman was unfolding a letter blinking at the ornate writing. Suddenly she went over to the old man, ‘Non posso leggere,’ holding out the letter to him. He wrung his hands, letting his head roll back and forth, saying over and over again something she couldn’t understand. She shrugged her shoulders and smiled and went back to the trunk. A Sicilian with sideburns was talking to the old woman. He grabbed the trunk by its cord and pulled it over to a spring wagon with a white horse that stood across the street. The two women followed the trunk. The Sicilian held out his hand to the young woman. The old woman still muttering and whimpering hoisted herself painfully onto the back of the wagon. When the Sicilian leaned over to read the letter he nudged the young woman with his shoulder. She stiffened. ‘Awright,’ he said. Then as he shook the reins on the horse’s back he turned back towards the old woman and shouted, ‘Cinque le due… Awright.’

The rumpetybump rumpetybump spaced out, slackened; bumpers banged all down the train. The man dropped off the rods. He couldnt move for stiffness. It was pitchblack. Very slowly he crawled out, hoisted himself to his knees, to his feet until he leaned panting against the freightcar. His body was not his own; his muscles were smashed wood, his bones were twisted rods. A lantern burst his eyes.

‘Get outa here quick yous. Company detectives is beatin through de yards.’

‘Say feller, is this New York?’

‘You’re goddam right it is. Juss foller my lantern; you kin git out along de waterfront.’

His feet could barely stumble through the long gleaming v’s and crisscrossed lines of tracks, he tripped and fell over a bundle of signal rods. At last he was sitting on the edge of a wharf with his head in his hands. The water made a soothing noise against the piles like the lapping of a dog. He took a newspaper out of his pocket and unwrapped a hunk of bread and a slice of gristly meat. He ate them dry, chewing and chewing before he could get any moisture in his mouth. Then he got unsteadily to his feet, brushed the crumbs off his knees, and looked about him. Southward beyond the tracks the murky sky was drenched with orange glow.

‘The Gay White Way,’ he said aloud in a croaking voice. ‘The Gay White Way.’

Through the rainstriped window Jimmy Herf was watching the umbrellas bob in the slowly swirling traffic that flowed up Broadway. There was a knock at the door; ‘Come in,’ said Jimmy and turned back to the window when he saw that the waiter wasn’t Pat. The waiter switched on the light. Jimmy saw him reflected in the windowpane, a lean spikyhaired man holding aloft in one hand the dinnertray on which the silver covers were grouped like domes. Breathing hard the waiter advanced into the room dragging a folding stand after him with his free hand. He jerked open the stand, set the tray on it and laid a cloth on the round table. A
greasy pantry smell came from him. Jimmy waited till he’d gone to turn round. Then he walked about the table tipping up the silver covers; soup with little green things in it, roast lamb, mashed potatoes, mashed turnips, spinach, no desert either.

‘Muddy.’ ‘Yes deary,’ the voice wailed frailly through the folding doors.

‘Dinner’s ready mother dear.’

‘You begin darling boy, I’ll be right in…’

‘But I dont want to begin without you mother.’

He walked round the table straightening knives and forks. He put a napkin over his arm. The head waiter at Delmonico’s was arranging the table for Graustark and the Blind King of Bohemia and Prince Henry the Navigator and…

‘Mother who d’you want to be Mary Queen of Scots or Lady Jane Grey?’

‘But they both had their heads chopped off honey… I dont want to have my head chopped off.’ Mother had on her salmon-colored teagown. When she opened the folding doors a wilted smell of cologne and medicines seeped out of the bedroom, trailed after her long lacefringed sleeves. She had put a little too much powder on her face, but her hair, her lovely brown hair was done beautifully. They sat down opposite one another; she set a plate of soup in front of him, lifting it between two long blueveined hands.

He ate the soup that was watery and not hot enough. ‘Oh I forgot the croûtons, honey.’

‘Muddy… mother why arent you eating your soup?’

‘I dont seem to like it much this evening. I couldn’t think what to order tonight my head ached so. It doesn’t matter.’

‘Would you rather be Cleopatra? She had a wonderful appetite and ate everything that was put before her like a good little girl.’

‘Even pearls… She put a pearl in a glass of vinegar and drank it down…’ Her voice trembled. She stretched out her hand to him across the table; he patted her hand manfully and smiled. ‘Only you and me Jimmy boy… Honey you’ll always love your mother wont you?’

‘What’s the matter muddy dear?’

‘Oh nothing; I feel strange this evening… Oh I’m so tired of never really feeling well.’

‘But after you’ve had your operation…’

‘Oh yes after I’ve had my operation… Deary there’s a paper of fresh butter on the windowledge in the bathroom… I’ll put some on these turnips if you fetch it for me… I’m afraid I’ll have to complain about the food again. This lamb’s not all it should be; I hope it wont make us sick.’

Jimmy ran through the folding doors and his mother’s room into the little passage that smelled of mothballs and silky bits of clothing littered on a chair; the red rubber tubing of a douche swung in his face as he opened the bathroom door; the whiff of medicines made his ribs contract with misery. He pushed up the window at the end of the tub. The ledge was gritty and feathery specks of soot covered the plate turned up over the butter. He stood a moment staring down the airshaft, breathing through his mouth to keep from smelling the coalgas that rose from the furnaces. Below him a maid in a white cap leaned out of a window and talked to one of the furnacemen who stood looking up at her with his bare grimy arms crossed over his chest. Jimmy strained his ears to hear what they were saying; to be dirty and handle coal all day and have grease in your hair and up to your armpits.