The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (22 page)

“He’s callow. His manners are unbelievably gauche. Why, he hasn’t the first notion of how to treat a woman. What on earth do you see in him?”

“Plenty. Here he comes. Please be sweet, Peter. He’s so happy tonight.”

“Yvette,” Duddy said, “I’ve just made an important decision. I’ve decided to get an apartment of my own.”

“Earth-shaking.”

“What’s eating him?”

“He’s teasing. Sit down, Duddy.”

“Did I say anything wrong, Mr. Friar? Are you angry because I kidded you about that first night before? Jeez. You’re my best friend. You can have as much to drink as you want.”

“Merci mille fois.”

“Where would I be without him?”

“That’s enough, Duddy,” Yvette said.

Duddy gulped down another glass of champagne. “Know something, Yvette? We ought to find a dame for Mr. Friar. We’re supposed to be his friends like. I’m sure it’s no fun for him always tagging along like this.”

“I think we’d better order,” Yvette said.

At a time like this, Duddy thought, just when I need every minute I can spare for the business, I have to start chasing around after
Lennie. Jeez, he thought, what if he
is
in trouble? Maybe it’s something serious. Duddy was kept awake considering all the catastrophes that could have happened to his brother. Yvette will help me, he thought. We’ll find him all right.

Lennie was nervy, it was true – sensitive – even as a kid the smallest things used to upset him. He was only six years older than Duddy and there had been a time when they had been real pals. There had been that summer when Duddy had still been at the Talmud Torah and Max had taken a cottage with the Debrofskys. Shawbridge with that river like coffee that had been left standing was no paradise, but Duddy had had fun there. Together he and Lennie had built shacks on the mountain and made field telephones out of empty oil cans and yards of carefully waxed string. When the other guys complained about Duddy always coming with them, saying things like what do we need the kid with us for, Lennie always stuck up for him. “Duddy’s my kid brother,” he’d say. “Where I go he goes.”

It had changed, of course. When Lennie was in the tenth grade at F.F.H.S. the brothers no longer saw so much of each other. But Duddy still took pride in all of Lennie’s achievements.

“Rank one again,” he’d say. “You’re a genius, Lennie. Congrats.”

They still shared the same bedroom. Duddy’s side was thick with pennants and airplane models he had made and Lennie’s side was laden with gifts from Uncle Benjy, the Book of Knowledge and the Harvard Classics. Lennie used to tell him about his talks with Uncle Benjy. “He wants me to be the kind of doctor that’s a helper to the poor. He says I shouldn’t worry if I can’t get into Medical School at McGill because of the anti-Semitism there. Because he’ll send me to Queens or Switzerland. Anywhere. He’s becoming a boozer, you know. After he’d had a lot he held me so tight I got scared. You’re going to have to be my
kaddish
, he said. I don’t get it. Half the time he talks against religion and then when he’s drunk he goes and says a thing like that.”

Once Lennie entered McGill he was no longer amused when Duddy reported things like, “Boy, have I ever got a bone on tonight.”

He still told Duddy about Uncle Benjy, but his tone had changed. “You mustn’t tell him I’ve joined Hillel. He says it’s a reactionary organization with a ghetto mentality.”

“What did you say to that?”

“Nothing. You think I’m crazy?”

Occasionally Lennie would revert to the intimacy of their younger days together. “Boy,” he told Duddy once, “did I ever have a time at the Oneg Shabbat tonight! That Riva Kaplan. I mean I never thought a Jewish girl …”

“It’s going up,” Duddy said.

Lennie laughed. “Her house in Outremont has about six telephones. I’m taking her to the Arts Ball. Uncle Benjy is lending me his car.”

“Let’s stay up and talk all night. I’ll make us an omelet.”

Then when Duddy bragged about his brother one night it turned out that one of the girls at the dance was a cousin of Riva’s. She knew all about Lennie and he had never mentioned that he had a brother. He wasn’t a St. Urbain Street boy either. He lived on Côte St. Catherine Road. That was Uncle Benjy’s address. But there were still things that Lennie liked to share with him. There had been, for instance, a brief but burning conversion to socialism. A time when he had begun to see a lot of Uncle Benjy again and had tried to make a convert of Duddy.

“Are you aware that during the depression tons of oranges were being dumped into the Pacific to keep prices up while people in New York were starving?”

But once he had entered medical school Lennie had no more time for politics. He studied continuously, his headaches worsened, and he became very short-tempered.

I’ve got to find him, Duddy thought. After all those years of study he can’t throw in the sponge just like that.

He woke when he heard Max drop the frying pan on the kitchen floor. “I thought you were getting up early this morning,” Max said, “to start looking for him.”

Duddy stretched. His eyes were puffed.

“Did I ever have a night,” Max said.

“Don’t worry. I’ll phone you at Eddy’s the minute I find out anything.”

D
UDDY PHONED YVETTE TO TELL HER ABOUT LENNIE
. “That means I won’t be in today,” he said.

Yvette said she’d like to go to Ste. Agathe for a couple of days. The notary wanted to see her and it was her brother’s birthday tomorrow.

“Sure thing. Just call the telephone answering service before you go. If you’re short there must be at least thirty bucks in the petty cash.”

“I can live on my salary,” Yvette said in that special cold voice.

Those dames, Duddy thought, there’s no need for them to tell you when they’ve got the curse. “Have a nice trip,” he said, and hanging up he added,
“Ver gerharget.”

College kids, Duddy discovered, do not get up too early. He loitered longer than an hour in Hillel House before he saw a familiar face. It was nice there, but he couldn’t relax: he was worried that he was sitting in somebody else’s chair or that his fly might be undone. Some girls in cashmere sweaters drifted in and there was a sweet-looking boy with a pipe. Duddy began to whistle and one of the girls raised an eyebrow. “It’s from
Carmen,”
Duddy said, clearing his throat. Then he saw Riva. She wore a McGill blazer. “Riva,” he said, “I’ve got to speak to you for a minute.”

Riva looked surprised.

“I’m Lennie Kravitz’s kid brother. Remember?” Duddy explained
that Lennie was home sick in bed. Nothing serious, mind you, but his father was worried, and Duddy wanted to know if she had noticed anything odd about him recently. “Bothering him like.”

“We move in different circles these days.”

Riva, he gathered, was going to Tel Aviv to teach school once she graduated from McGill. “That’s a fine ambition,” he said, “but what about Lennie?”

“He’s become an assimilationist.”

“Wha’?”

“You never see him at Hillel any more. Jewish boys and girls aren’t good enough for him. It’s a disgrace, honestly. Every time they take him into one of their frat houses he practically licks their boots.”

Riva was late for Eng. 1 and had to run. She couldn’t meet him later, either. She was busy.

“Duddy! Duddy Kravitz!”

“Bernie!”

“Boy, is it ever good to see you.”

“Yeah,” Duddy said. “No kidding?”

“You’re a big business success. I’ve heard all about you. Congratulations.”

“Aw.”

“Never mind. One day I’ll be saying I knew him when.”

“You’ll
be saying that? Gwan. You’re getting a real education. You’re going to be an architect.”

“What are you doing here?”

Duddy repeated the story he had told Riva. He said he was anxious to find out anything he could about Lennie’s life at McGill.

“Well,” Bernie said, “I knew I’d never get to that sociology class. Come around the corner with me. We’ll have a coffee.”

They joked for a while about the old days at the hotel before Bernie got serious. “Look,” he said, “I don’t want to interfere. Lennie minds his own business and he’s entitled to choose his own friends.”

“Give,” Duddy said.

Bernie told Duddy that Lennie had a rep for being a plugger. He had never been very popular but nobody had really disliked him either. He had hardly been noticed, in fact, until he began to take out Riva. She was a popular number, a bit flighty, and soon Lennie was seen at parties with her everywhere. “He was crazy about her,” Bernie said. “Unfortunately Riva liked to dance close with all the boys and she wasn’t beyond a little friendly necking, if you caught her in the right mood. Lennie didn’t go for that. He began to cut in on all of Riva’s dances. Once, at a party I was at, he caught her fooling around with one of the guys in the upstairs hall and later I found him sitting on the steps outside. He’d been crying. His nerves were all shot. I really think that guy studies too hard.”

“Anatomy’s the big killer,” Duddy said.

“Anyway things went from bad to worse and one night they had a fight at a party. He was hysterical. I think it was just after the midterms and he looked like he hadn’t slept for weeks … Well, he called her lots of ugly names. Everybody was there and he yelled things at her he shouldn’t have.”

“Like what?”

“Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you all this, Duddy … Well, you know …”

“He isn’t sick in bed. He’s run away from home.” Duddy told him about the note. “Like what?” he asked.

“Like Outremont whore. Daughter of a war profiteer. Well, you know. The works. Up to that point everyone was on his side. But you know it wasn’t Riva’s fault that he was so serious about her. She’s flighty. I told you that. But she’s got a good sense of humor and everybody likes her. You want the gory details?”

“Yeah.”

“She slapped his face. Then Lennie began to call everyone in the room dirty names. Well, you know. We weren’t such big shots just because we had cars and he was as good as any of us … He tried to pick a fight with Shelby Horne and then he took a poke at me.
Christ, he’s even skinnier than you are. I could have laid him flat with one whack. Anyway we got him home – What are you going to do, Duddy? Have you any idea where he’s gone to?”

“Not yet.”

“Only three Jewish kids got into med in his year. A lot of people are expecting him to get the medal. Christ.”

“Tell me the rest, Bernie. I’m sure there’s more.”

“Well, you know, he dropped out of sight for a while. Then the next thing I’d heard he’d picked up with the Joe College bunch. The football crowd. Well, you know, drink chug-a-lug and all that. Listen, everyone’s entitled to enjoy themselves the way they want. It’s not for me, that’s all. They’re mostly rich kids, Duddy.
Goys
. Some of them live in Westmount but most come from out of town and have rooms in the frat houses. They run sports cars and get the prettiest girls. Well, you know, the campus beauty queens. I don’t know how Lennie ever got mixed up with them. I can understand about Irwin Shubert, but –”

“Irwin! That bastard.”

“He’s the only other Jew in their crowd. It costs plenty to keep up with them and I don’t know where Lennie got the money.”

“There was a broad, wasn’t there? A blonde.”

“Sandra Calder? That’s something else that used to puzzle me. I’ve seen her around a lot with Lennie recently, but she’s really Andy Simpson’s girl. Everybody knows that. Andy’s made the Olympic hockey team.”

Duddy got up.

“What are you going to do?” Bernie asked.

“First I’m going to see the girl. She’s sick at home. What I want to find out is if she’s sick like I said Lennie was sick. Maybe they eloped?”

Bernie whistled. “If they eloped you can stop worrying. Old Man Calder is a millionaire. He’s on the Board of Governors at McGill.”

Westmount was where the truly rich lived in stone mansions driven like stakes into the shoulder of the mountain. The higher you
climbed up splendid tree-lined streets the thicker the ivy, the more massive the mansion, and the more important the man inside. Mr. Calder’s place was almost at the top. “Jeez,” Duddy said aloud, getting out of his car. He had been in Westmount before in the taxi but usually at night and never this high up. Below, the city and the river hummed obligingly under a still cloud of factory fumes. What a site for a restaurant, Duddy thought. Looking up at the Calder house again, he wondered what the bastard did with all those rooms. Maybe he’s got eighteen kids, he thought. A Catholic like.

“Yes.”

The butler was a British movie sprung to life.

“I’d like to see Sandra.”

The butler told him that she was indisposed.

“It’s important. I’m one of her best friends.”

“I’m so sorry, but the doctor’s with her right now. If you’d like to leave a message …”

Duddy thought of slipping the butler a fin. That, he thought, is what the Falcon would have done.

“Is there any message?” the butler asked sharply.

Duddy retreated a step. “Naw. Thanks anyway. I’ll call again.”

As the door closed gently on him Duddy began to curse himself. What’s the matter with me, he thought. I should have insisted. There was a Bentley parked in the driveway. An Austin Healey too. The third car had a doctor’s license plate on it. Well, that proves something anyway, Duddy thought, and he drove off.

The office was lonely without Yvette. Duddy locked the door and got out the map of Lac St. Pierre. Twice already he had filled in with red crayon the land that used to belong to Brault. His land. He started to go over it with crayon again when the phone rang.

“I thought you were out looking for Lennie?”

“I just got in this minute, Daddy. There’s no news yet. I’m seeing more people tonight but.”

Seigal phoned. “About the movie,” he said, “the
goy
was here again
today to look over the house. Not only did he drink up all my Johnnie Walker, but he tried to get my Selma to sit on his lap. She’s only seventeen.”

“Artists are like children,” Duddy said.

“It was Black Label. The best. He wrote a dirty poem to her too. It’s called, quote, Advice to Virgins to Make Much of Time, unquote. It –”