Authors: Saul Bellow
"It's plenty serious," said Elena. She spoke quietly, but Leventhal, watching her closely and paying particular attention to the expression of her eyes, felt a pang of his peculiar dread at their sudden widening. "Ah, ah, how do you know? Are you a doctor? Wait a while." "The man is right, I think, Elena," said Leventhal. "Sure I am. You got to have confidence in the doctor." An impassioned, sharp sound caught in his throat and he flung his arm out in a short, stiff, eloquent curve. "What's the matter! Sure! You listen to me. That boy is all right." The cigar glowed in his fingers. "She'll have confidence," Leventhal assured him. They started upstairs. On the fourth floor Elena stopped and with an excited escape of breath, "Phillie, what did you tell me--Grandma's here?" "She just came." "Oh my!" She turned with anxious abruptness to Leventhal. "What did she say to you, anything?" "Not a single word." "Oh, Asa, if she does... Oh, I hope to God she doesn't. Let her say what she wants. Just let it pass." "Oh, sure," he said. "She's a very peculiar type of person, my mother. She acted terrible when Max and I got married. She wanted to throw me out of the house because I was going with him. I couldn't bring him in. I had to meet him outside." "Max mentioned once or twice..." "She's an awfully strict Catholic. She said if I married anybody but a Catholic she wouldn't have any more to do with me. She would curse me. So when I left the house she did. I didn't even see her until Phillie was born. I still don't see her much, but since Mickey is sick she's here pretty often. If Max is home she won't even come in. She's very superstitious, my mother. She has all the old-country ways. She thinks she's still in Sicily." Elena spoke in a near-whisper, covering the side of her face with her hand. "Don't worry, I'll know how to take her." "She just is that way," Elena explained, smiling helplessly. "You can stop worrying." The old woman met them in the hallway and she began immediately to speak to her daughter, her eyes occasionally moving to Leventhal's face. Her voice had what to him was a characteristic Italian hoarseness. Her long head was drawn back rigidly on her black shoulders. He observed how she turned down her underlip, exposing her teeth as she lingered on a syllable. Elena, dejected, shook her head and answered in short phrases. Leventhal tried to seize a word here and there. He understood nothing. Suddenly Elena interrupted her mother, crying out, "Where? Why didn't you say so right away, Mamma? Where is he? The man is here!" she exclaimed to Leventhal. "The specialist!" She ran in. Leventhal, walking behind the grandmother in the hall leading to the bedroom, contorted his face in an unusual release of feeling. Ugly old witch! To make her daughter wait and listen to her complaints before telling her the doctor had arrived. "Parents!" he muttered. "Oh, yes, parents! My eye, parents!" He was tempted to jostle her. They entered the bedroom. The doctor had pulled up Mickey's shirt and was listening to his heart. The child seemed scarcely awake; he was dull and submitted to the examination, listless with the fever, lifting his eyes only to his mother, identifying rather than appealing to her. Philip leaned on the bedpost to see him. "Phil, don't shake, stay off it," Elena said. The doctor turned a glance over his shoulder. He was a young man with a long, rosy face and thin, gold-rimmed lenses over his close-set eyes. While he pressed the stethoscope on the child's chest and shoulders, he looked steadily at Leventhal, evidently taking him for the father. At first Leventhal was bothered by this error. Soon, however, he grasped the fact that the doctor was trying to tell him the illness was serious. Unobserved by Elena, who was folding back the counterpane, he gave him a gloomy nod to show that he understood. The doctor let the earpieces of the instrument fall around his neck and felt the boy's arms with his clean red fingers. In the yellowish, stiff web over the blackness of the window, the ferns and the immense moths were shot with holes and gaps. The kitchen air and the noises of the court entered the room. The boy was raised and his pillow turned over. "You should sponge him every few hours," said the doctor. "I did it this afternoon. I'll do it again soon," said Elena. She had been whispering to him from time to time and now she spoke up eagerly, almost joyfully. She seemed to feel there was nothing to fear any longer. "I trust him so much," she said to Leventhal, gazing at the doctor. Leventhal's hands were damp and chill. He was beginning to feel ill from the sudden doubling of his tension. He wiped his face, passing the handkerchief over the bristles on his cheek and leaving a piece of lint on them. He was sure he had interpreted the doctor's silent communication correctly. Elena's hopefulness stunned him. He turned, careworn, looking at her and at the children, and a few moments passed before it came to him that this burden after all belonged to his brother. At once he was furious with Max for being away. He had no right to go in the first place. Leventhal felt for his wallet; he had put Max's card in it. He would wire him tonight. Or no, a night letter was better, he could put more into it. He began to form the message in his mind. "Dear Max, if you can tear yourself away from what you're doing... if you can manage to get away for a while..." He would not spare him. The harsher the better. Just look at what he left behind him: this house, a tenement; Elena, who might herself need taking care of; the children they had brought into the world. Leventhal returned to the composition of the night letter. "You are needed here. Imperative." That it was he, almost a stranger to the family, who was sending the message, should show Max how serious the matter was. Ah, what a business! And the grandmother? If anything happened to the boy she would consider it in the nature of a judgment on the marriage. The marriage was impure to her. Yes, he understood how she felt about it. A Jew, a man of wrong blood, of bad blood, had given her daughter two children, and that was why this was happening. No one could have persuaded Leventhal that he was wrong. Hardly hearing what was being said in the room, he contemplated her grimly, her grizzled temples, the thin straight line of her nose, the severity of her head pressed back on her shoulders, the baring of her teeth as she opened her lips to make a remark to her daughter. No, he was not wrong. From her standpoint it was inevitable punishment--that was how she would see it, a punishment. Whatever else she might feel -and after all the boy was her grandson--she would feel this first. He just then observed great agitation in Elena and began to pay attention to the conversation. He heard the doctor speaking of the hospital and he thought, "She can't keep the kid here any more. She'll have to give in." "I told her yesterday she ought to send him to the hospital," he said. Elena still resisted. "But why isn't it just as good for him at home? Better. I can look after him better than a nurse." "He's got to go if you want me to take the case." "But what's the matter here?" she pleaded. "Has to be done," said the doctor knocking up the clips of his bag. "Should I go for a cab?" Philip softly asked his uncle. Leventhal nodded. Philip ran from the room.
6
THE doctor told Leventhal on the way back to Manhattan that he thought--though he needed more evidence to confirm the diagnosis--Mickey had a bronchial infection of a rare kind. He named it two or three times, and Leventhal tried to fix it in his mind but failed. Such cases were serious; not necessarily fatal, however. "You think you'll be able to help him, doctor?" he asked in great eagerness, and the doctor's word of hope raised his spirits. The boat moved out; the immense golden crowns of light above the sheds now had space to play on the water between the stern and the shore. "I was going to wire my brother to come," said Leventhal--he had already explained that he was not the father. The doctor answered that he didn't think it was necessary at present. It was enough to tell him to stand by. Leventhal accepted this as sensible advice. Why create a scare now? It wasn't so critical after all. He would send Max a night letter and let him decide for himself whether to come or wait. The ferry crawled in the heat and blackness of the harbor. The mass of passengers on the open deck was still, like a crowd of souls, each concentrating on its destination. The thin discs of the doctor's spectacles were turned to the sky, both illumined in the same degree by the bulb over his head. Leventhal wanted to ask him more about the disease. It was rare. Well, did medicine have any idea how a thing like that singled out a child in Staten Island rather than, say, St Louis or Denver? One child in thousands. How did they account for it? Did everyone have it dormant? Could it be hereditary? Or, on the other hand, was it even more strange that people, so different, no two with the same fingerprints, did not have more individual diseases? Freed from his depression by the doctor's encouragement, he had a great desire to talk. He would have liked to discuss this but he had already asked the name of the disease several times and failed to retain it, and so the doctor must have a poor opinion of him. And maybe he would be condescending to a layman. Accordingly, Leven-thal was silent and thought, "Well, let it ride." But he continued to wonder about it. They said that God was no respecter of persons, meaning that there were the same rules for everybody. Where was that? He tried to remember. They were in the middle of the harbor when the heat was suddenly lifted by a breeze. High and low between the shores, the lights of ships, signals, and bridges drifted and ran, curved, and stood riding on the swell, and the sonorous, rather desolate bells rang from the water when the buoys were stirred. The breeze blew a spray to the deck, and the boat now and then seemed to tremble to the pull of the ocean beyond the islands. As they neared the Manhattan side, people began to get up from the benches in the salon; there was a great press when the chains were dropped. Leventhal was separated from the doctor. He went home on the subway, pushing through the revolving steel gate at his station and breathing the cooler air of the street with deep relief. He was expecting a letter from Mary--one was about due--and he opened the mailbox swiftly while Nunez' dog sniffed at his legs. Instead of a letter, Mary had sent two post cards closely covered with writing. She and her mother were starting for Charleston on Friday. The house was sold. They were both well and she hoped he was, too, in spite of the heat. It was fine old Baltimore summer weather--it simply drugged you. The second card was different; there were intimate references on it. Only Mary could write such things on cards for everybody in the world to read. Amused, proud, pleased with her, pleased rather than embarrassed at the possibility that postal clerks had read the cards, he put them in his pocket. "Do I pass inspection?" he demanded of Nunez' dog. "Blow now." Stooping he caught the dog's head and rubbed it. He started up stairs and the animal came after him. "Blow now, I say." He barred the way with his leg, then whirled inside and slammed the hall-door. "Go home!" he yelled, and laughed uproariously. "Go on home!" He pounded the glass, and the dog barked raucously and leaped at the pane. Leven-thal told one of the neighbors, whom he hardly knew, "The super's dog is having a fit. Hear him?" An elderly, guarded, pale face gave him an uncertain smile and seemed to listen in awe to the racket in the foyer. Leventhal hurried up with thumping steps, whipping his hat on the banister and entering his flat with a commotion. Dear Mary! If she were only here now to put his arms around and kiss. He flung away his hat and his jacket, pulled off his shoes, and went to open the windows and push aside the curtains. It had turned into a beautiful night. The air was trembling and splendid. The moon had come out; there were wide-spaced stars, and small clouds pausing and then spinning as the cool gusts broke through the heat. He lit the lamp on the secretary and began to write to his wife. Gnats fell and rose again from the illuminated green blotter. He gave her an account of himself, forgetting that he had felt nervous, restive, and unwell. He said nothing about what had happened at the office. It did not seem worth saying. He wrote swiftly and exuberantly; he discussed the weather, he mentioned that Wilma had drunk the beer, that the parks were terribly crowded. Then he found himself telling her about his nephew, writing with sudden emotion, the words beginning to sprawl as his hand raced. In a changed tone he described Elena. He had been afraid to look at her, he confessed, when she got into the cab and he laid the bundled-up child--she had him in two blankets although the temperature must have been over ninety-on her lap. All the impressions of the moment returned to him--the boy's eyes with the light of the meter on them, the leathery closeness of the back seat, the driver's undershot jaw and the long peak of his black cap, Philip's crying, Villani keeping back the children on the sidewalk. The beating of Leventhal's heart rose and his tongue became dry. As for his brother... But when he had written Max's name he stood up and leaned over the paper. He had meant to send the night letter before coming up. The pen was staining his fingers. He dropped it and began looking for his shoes outside the circle of lamplight. He had just found them and was forcing his feet into them without bothering about the laces when his bell rang, piercingly and long. Leventhal straightened up with a grunt of annoyance and surprise. "Now who in the name of hell would ring like that?" he said. But he already knew who it was. It was Allbee. It must be. He opened the door and listened to the regular sibilance and knocking of the footsteps in the hollow stair well. It occurred to him that he could escape Allbee by going to the roof. If he went out stealthily he could still get away. And if he were followed, the next rooftop was only a matter of six inches away, an easy step over. Then he could get into the street and good-by. He could go even now. Even now. Yet he stood firm and strangely enough he felt that he had proved something by doing so. "I won't give ground," he thought. "Let him. Why should I?" He promptly went back to his letter, leaving the door open. He finished it abruptly with a few perfunctory sentences and read it over. He wrote "All my love," signed his name, addressed the envelope, and by that time Allbee was in the room. He knew that he had come in; nevertheless he controlled his desire to turn. He stamped the envelope first, sealed it, momentarily guessed at its weight, and only then did he appear to take notice of his visitor, who smiled at him without parting his lips. To enter without a knock or invitation was an intrusion. Of course the door was open, but it was taking too much for granted all the same not to knock. Leventhal thought there was a trace of delight in the defiance of Allbee's look. "I owe him hospitality, that's how he behaves," passed through his mind. "Yes," he said tonelessly, indifferently polite. "You're well fixed up here," said Allbee taking in the room. He might have been comparing it with his own place. Leven-thal could imagine what that was like. "As long as you're here, sit down," Leventhal said. "What's the use of standing?" He would not get rid of him without hearing him out, and it might as well be now as another time. "Much obliged," said Allbee. His head came forward courteously and he seemed to read Leventhal's face. "It's a long pull up those stairs. I'm not used to these high walkups." He drew a chair close to the desk, crossed his legs, and clasped his knee with somewhat rigid fingers. His cuffs were frayed, the threads raveled on the blond hairs of his wrist. His hands were dirty. His fair hair, unevenly divided on his scalp, was damp. It was apparently true that the climb had been hard for him. "It's quite a height, this," he smiled. "And for me, well..." he caught his breath, "I'm used to low places." He pointed his finger at the floor and worked it as though pulling a trigger. "Are you here to give me the same song and dance as the last time? Because if you are let me tell you once and for all..." "Oh, hold on," said Allbee. "Let's be sensible and open. I didn't come to complain to you. Why should I? I only said what's obvious. Nothing to wrangle about. I'm on the bottom. You don't want to deny that, do you?" He extended his arms as if to offer himself for examination, and although he did it wryly Leventhal saw that he was really in earnest. "Whereas you..." He indicated the flat. Leventhal said, "Oh, please," and shook his head. "Don't give me that stuff." "It's a fact, a hard fact," said Allbee. "I'm the best judge of the facts. I know them intimately. This isn't just theoretical with me. The distance between you and me is greater than between you and the greatest millionaire in America. When I compare myself with you, why you're in the empyrean, as they used to say at school, and I'm in the pit. And I have been in your position but you have never been in mine." "What do you mean? I've been down and out." Allbee gave him a tolerant smile. "Stony broke, without a nickel for the automat," Leventhal said. "Ah, go on. You don't know anything about it, I can tell by your talk. You've never been in my place. Nickels for the automat... temporary embarrassment. That..." and he ended with his head to one side nearly touching his shoulder, and with his outstretched arm and open hand he made a gesture of passing the comparison away. There rose immediately to Leventhal's mind the most horrible images of men wearily sitting on mission benches waiting for their coffee in a smeared and bleary winter sun; of flophouse sheets and filthy pillows; hideous cardboard cubicles painted to resemble wood, even the tungsten in the bulb like little burning worms that seemed to eat up rather than give light. Better to be in the dark. He had seen such places. He could still smell the carbolic disinfectant. And if it were his flesh on those sheets, his lips drinking that coffee, his back and thighs in that winter sun, his eyes looking at the boards of the floor...? Allbee was right to smile at him; he had never been in such a plight. "So I'm mistaken," he reflected. "Why do I have to match him in that? Is it necessary? Anyway, what does he want?" For a time he forgot about the night letter. He waited for Allbee to reveal what he had come for. He did not know just what to expect, but he considered it very likely that he would repeat his charge despite his saying that he was not here to complain. "Well," he said, prefacing his remark with a short laugh. "It's a peculiar statement to begin a visit with." "Why, no. What could be better. It's the height of politeness to admire your host's house. And the contrast between us should please you very much. It should give you a lot of satisfaction to have done it all yourself." "Done what myself?" said Leventhal suspiciously. "Raised yourself up, I mean," said Allbee quickly. "You were just telling me you were once broke, which is to say that you're a self-made man. There's a lot of satisfaction in that, isn't there? And when you see somebody that hasn't made out so well it adds something to your satisfaction. It's only human. Even if you know better." "I didn't say I was a self-made man or any such thing. That's a lot of nonsense." "I'm glad to be corrected then," Allbee replied. "I must have had the wrong impression. Because, you know, the more I think about it the more I feel it's bunk, this self-made business. The day of succeeding by your own efforts is past. Now it's all blind movement, vast movement, and the individual is shuttled back and forth. He only thinks he's the works. But that isn't the way it is. Groups, organizations succeed or fail, but not individuals any longer. Don't you agree?" "Oh, it's not that way, exactly," Leventhal said. "No, I don't." "You don't agree that people have a destiny forced on them? Well, that's ridiculous, because they do. And that's all the destiny they get, so they'd better not assume they're running their own show. That's the kind of mistake I wouldn't care to make. There's nothing worse than being confused, too, in addition to being unlucky. But you find people who have their luck and take the credit for it, too--all brains and personality, when all that happened was that they were handed a bucket when it rained." "Let's have this cleared up right now, if you please," said Leventhal coldly. "We might as well be open and above-board. What does all this lead up to?" "Oh, it doesn't lead to anything. It's just discussion, talk. Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk!" he exclaimed grinning, flinging up his hands. His eyes began to shine. Leventhal impassively looked at him. "And what's that for?" he asked. Allbee now appeared to be very depressed, perhaps at his own unsteadiness, and Leventhal was a little sorry for him. His alternation of moods, however, affected him unpleasantly. It was clear that the man was no fool. But what was the use of not being a fool if you acted like this? For instance, there was his language, did he have to speak like that, make himself sound so grand? Because he needed something to brace himself on? Oh, there was a smashup somewhere, certainly, a smashup and a tragic one, you could be sure of that. Something crushing, a real smash. But the question that remained uppermost with Leventhal was, "What does he want?" And notwithstanding his insistence on being above-board, he was unable to ask it. "Is that your wife?" Allbee looked over Leventhal's head at a framed photograph on the secretary. "Yes, that's Mary." "Oh, say, she's charming. Ah, you're lucky, you know?" He stood up and bent over him, turning the photograph to the light. "She is charming." "It's a good picture of her," said Leventhal, not liking his enthusiasm. "She has that proud look that's proud without being hard. You know what I mean.