The Victim

10

LEVENTHAL ran into Harkavy early Sunday afternoon in a cafeteria on Fourteenth Street.

He had come in as much to escape the hot wind as to eat. The glass door shut on the dusty rush behind him, and he advanced a few steps over the green tile floor and paused, opening his mouth a little to take in the coolness of the place. The trays were on a stand nearby, and he picked one up and started toward the counter. The cashier called him back. He had forgotten to pull a check from the machine. She smiled. “Sunday hangover, or what?” But Leventhal did not respond. He turned from the machine and found Harkavy standing in his path.

“Are you hard of hearing this morning? Man, I called you three, four times.”

“Hello. Oh, the cashier was yelling too. I can’t hear everything at once.”

“You’re not very alert today, are you? Anyway, come sit with us. I’m here with some people. My brother-in-law — you know Julia’s husband, Goldstone — and some of his friends.”

“Do I know them?”

“I think you do,” said Harkavy. “Shifcart’s one of them.”

“That musician? The trumpeter?”

“Not any longer. Give the woman your order or you’ll never get waited on. No, he’s not in that line any more. He’s with a big Hollywood outfit, Persevalli and Company, the impresarios and talent farmers, or whatever you call them. And you remember Schlossberg.”

“Do I?”

“Oh, sure you do. The journalist. He writes for the Jewish papers.”

“What does he write?”

“Whatever comes to hand, I think. Nowadays, theater reminiscences — he used to be a theatrical man. But science, too, I hear. You know, I can’t read Yiddish.”

“Let me have a Swiss on rye,” said Leventhal over the counter. “Elderly man, isn’t he? Didn’t I meet him at your house with someone else?”

“That’s right; his son, whom he still supports at thirty-five.”

“Is he sick?”

“No, just looking around; hasn’t made up his mind about a vocation. There are daughters, too. Worse yet.”

“Loose?”

“Here’s your sandwich,” said Harkavy. The woman sent the plate across the counter with a spin and a rattle, and Harkavy hurried Leventhal to his table. The three men shifted their chairs to make room.

“This is an old friend of mine, Leventhal.”

“I think I used to know Mr Shifcart,” said Leventhal. “—How are you? — When I roomed with Dan, we met.”

“In the bachelor days,” Harkavy said. “Goldstone — no introduction needed. And this is Mr Schlossberg.”

Shifcart was bald and high-colored, his neck was thick and his lips small but fleshy. He said amicably, “Yes, I think I place you,” and with a spanning hand pressed on the round gold rims of his glasses. Schlossberg repeated his name sonorously but obviously did not remember him. He spoke in deep tones, not always distinctly because of his heavy breathing. He was a large old man with a sturdy gray head, hulking shoulders, and a wide, worn face; his eyes were blue and disproportionately small, and even their gaze was rather worn. But he was vigorous and he must once have been (some of his remarks evoked him, for Leventhal, as a younger man) sensual, powerful, flashy, a dandy — as his double-breasted vest and pointed shoes attested. He wore a knitted tie which had lost its shape with pulling and was made up with a bold, broad knot. Leventhal felt himself strongly drawn to him.

“We were just talking about an actress Shifcart sent out West a few years ago,” said Goldstone bringing his long, bony, hairy hand to the back of his head. “Wanda Waters.”

“Persevalli is the one that makes them,” Shifcart said. “He’s a great showman.”

“But you picked the girl.”

“I didn’t know she was your discovery, Jack,” said Har-kavy.

“Yes, I saw her singing with a band one night.”

“You don’t say.”

“At the shore in New Jersey. I was on vacation.”

“She’s very appealing,” said Goldstone.

“You might not like her much, in person.”

“Why, she certainly looks like a gingery piece in the pictures,” said Harkavy.

“Yes, she has magnetic eyes. But you’d pass her on the street any day and not notice her.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Harkavy said. “You have a professional attitude in this, seeing so many beauties. I’m still unspoiled. I suppose you can do a lot with paint and cameras, but there has to be something to start with. You can’t fake those gorgeous sex machines, can you? Or is it the gullible public again? They look genuine to me.”

“Some really are. And if the rest take you in, that’s what they’re supposed to do.”

“It must be quite a knack to pick them,” Goldstone remarked.

“It isn’t all guesswork. You can’t go and run a screen test for every girl you see. But I myself, personally, don’t care for some of the best successes I sent into Hollywood.”

“Which do you like?” asked Goldstone.

“Oh,” he said slowly, thinking, “there’s Nola Hook.”

“You don’t mean it,” said Schlossberg. “A little cactus plant… skinny, dry…”

“I think she has a kind of charm. Or what’s the matter with Livia Hall?”

“Such a discovery!”

“She is. I’ll stand up for her.”

“Oh, a firebrand.” The old man’s countenance was too large for fine degrees of irony. Only Shifcart, his lips open to begin his reply, did not join in the laughter.

“What’s the matter; hasn’t she got anything?”

“She’s got!” Schlossberg waved him down. “God made her a woman, so who are we to say? But she isn’t an actress. I saw your firebrand last week in a picture. What is it? She poisons her husband.”

“In The Tigress.”

“What a lameness!”

“I don’t know what your standards are. A perfect piece of casting. Who else could have done it?”

“Wood, so help me. She poisons her husband and she watches him die. She wants the insurance money. He loses his voice and he tries to appeal to her she should help him. You don’t hear any words. What is she supposed to show in her face? Fear, hate, a hard heart, cruelness, fascination.” He shut his eyes tightly and proudly for a moment, and they saw the veins in his lids. Then he slowly raised them, turning his face away, and a tremor went through his cheeks as he posed.

“Oh, say, that’s fine!” Harkavy cried, smiling.

“That’s the old Russian style,” said Shifcart. “That doesn’t go any more.”

“No? Where’s the improvement? What does she do? She sucks in her cheeks and stares. A man is dying at her feet and all she can do is pop out her eyes.”

“I think she was marvelous in that show,” said Shifcart. “Nobody could have been better.”

“She is not an actress because she is not a woman, and she is not a woman because a man doesn’t mean anything to her. I don’t know what she is. Don’t ask me. I saw once Nazimova in The Three Sisters. She’s the one whose soldier gets killed in a duel over a nothing, foolishness. They tell her about it. She looks away from the audience and just with her head and neck — what a force! But this girl..!”

“Terrible, ah?” Shifcart said sardonically.

“No, isn’t it? And this is a success? This is your success, these days. You said you could pass this Waters on the street and not recognize her. Imagine!” the old man said, making them all feel his weighty astonishment. “Not to recognize an actress, or that a man shouldn’t notice a beautiful woman. It used to be an actress was a woman. She had a mouth, she had flesh on her, she carried herself. When she whispered tears came in your eyes, and when she said a word your legs melted. And it didn’t make any difference; on the stage or off the stage you knew she was an actress.”

He stopped. They considered his words gravely.

“Say,” began Harkavy. “My father used to tell a story about Lily Langtry, the English actress, when she was presented at court by Edward the Seventh. Old Victoria was still alive, and he was the Prince of Wales.”

“That’s the one they call the Jersey Lily, isn’t it?” said Shifcart.

“I’ve heard this.” Goldstone got up and took Leventhal’s tray. “Does anyone want coffee? I’m going to the counter.”

“Is it good, Monty?”

“My late father-in-law’s favorite.” He strode off to the steam table.

“Pop told me this one after I was old enough to vote. He saved up all his best stories till I was of age. Before that… But of course you pick up everything yourself and they know it. It’s only off the record. Well, you know that Edward was a sport. And when he fell in love with Langtry he wanted to present her at court. They say people in love want to be seen together in public. Proud to have it known. I suppose it has a dangerous outcome, sometimes. Well, he wanted to present her. Everybody was scandalized. What was Lily going to say to the old woman, and wouldn’t Victoria be angry at having her son’s mistress in St James or Windsor or wherever? All the reporters were waiting after the ceremony. She came out, and they asked her, ‘ Lily, what did you say to Her Majesty?’ ‘I was worried that I would say the wrong thing,’ said Lily. ‘But the last moment the right one came to me. I kissed the hem of her dress and said, “Ich dien”!’“

A smile went around the table. Goldstone, carrying the tray, pulled his chair aside with his foot.

“The motto of the King of Bohemia in the Hundred Years War,” Harkavy explained, his round eyes shining at them. “They found it on his helmet after the Battle of Poitiers.”

“I doubt very much if she would kiss the queen’s dress,” said Leventhal. “Is that a part of the ceremony?”

“Curtsy,” Goldstone laughed, pulling his napkin open to demonstrate.”

“All right, I tell it as my father did. I haven’t changed a word.”

“The old woman being a German, she figured she’d understand her,” Schlossberg said.

“What? No, that’s the Hanoverian motto,” Goldstone said.

“That was a deal. A German queen, a British Empire, and an Italian Jew for prime minister.”

“Disraeli an Italian?” said Goldstone. “Wasn’t he English born?”

“But his father.”

“Not even his father. His grandfather. He was an authentic Englishman, if citizenship stands for anything.”

“He wasn’t an Englishman to the English,” Leventhal said,

“Why, they loved him,” said Goldstone.

“Then who said he was the monkey on John Bull’s chest?”

“He had enemies, naturally.”

“I understand they never took him in,” Leventhal declared.

“Wrong!” Harkavy cried. “He was a credit to them and to us.”

“I don’t see that,” Leventhal slowly shook his head. “It didn’t make any difference to them that Victoria was a German. But Disraeli…?”

“He showed Europe that a Jew could be a national leader,” said Goldstone.

“That’s Leventhal all over for you,” exclaimed Harkavy. “That shows you where he stands.”

“Jews and empires? Suez and India and so on? It never seemed right to me.”

“To teach the world a lesson with empty hands — I know that stuff by heart.” Harkavy stared at him with shocked, reprimanding eyes. “The Empire was certainly his business. He was an Englishman and a great one. Bismarck admired him. Der alter Jude, das ist der Mann!”

“Is there such a difference between an empire and a department store?” asked Shifcart. “You’re managing a business.”

“And he was managing the firm?” said Goldstone. “Bull and Company. The sun never sets on our stores. B. Disraeli, chief buyer.”

Leventhal at the outset had been a little reluctant to speak and had a fleeting feeling that it was a mistake to be drawn or lured out of his taciturnity. Nor had he thought, with his first remark, that he had much to say on this subject. But now, to his surprise, he was unable to hold back his opinions — they were his, of course, but he had never before expressed them, and they sounded queer to him.

“You bring up Bismarck,” he said. “Why did he say Jude instead of Englishman? Disraeli was a bargainer, so he was a Jew to him, naturally.”

“Don’t misrepresent Bismarck on the Jews,” warned Harkavy. “Be careful, boy. He lightened their load.”

“Yes, he had something to say about making a great race. What was it, now? ‘A German stallion and a Jewish mare.”‘

“A regular Kentucky Derby,” said Schlossberg. “Hay for everybody.”

“Don’t be down on a man for a figure of speech,” said Gold-stone. “He was an old cavalryman. That was just his way of talking about the best qualities of both.”

“Who needs his compliments?” Schlossberg said. “Who wants them?”

“Does it sound like flattery to you?” Leventhal raised his hand from the top of his head questioningly.

“I see what’s on your mind,” Goldstone answered. “You’re blaming him for the Germans of today.”

“I don’t,” cried Leventhal. “But why are you so glad to have one word of praise from Bismarck, and cockeyed praise too?”

“Why do you have it in for Disraeli?” demanded Harkavy.

“I don’t have it in for him. But he wanted to lead England. In spite of the fact that he was a Jew, not because he cared about empires so much. People laughed at his nose, so he took up boxing; they laughed at his poetic silk clothes, so he put on black; and they laughed at his books, so he showed them. He got into politics and became the prime minister. He did it all on nerve.”

“Oh, come on,” Harkavy said.

“On nerve,” Leventhal insisted. “That’s great, I’ll give you that. But I don’t admire it. It’s all right to overcome a weakness, but it depends how and it depends what you call a weakness… Julius Caesar was sick with epilepsy. He learned to ride with his hands behind his back and slept on the bare ground like a common soldier. What was the reason? His disease. Why should we admire people like that? Things that are life and death to others are only a test to them. What’s the good of such greatness?”

“Why, you’re succumbing yourself to all the things that are said against us,” Harkavy began in an upbraiding tone.

“No, I don’t think I am,” said Leventhal. He declined to argue further. He had already said too much and he gave notice by the drop of his voice that he intended to say no more.

A Filipino busboy came to clear the table. He was an old man and frail looking, and his hands and forearms were whitened by immersions in hot water. The cart loaded, he bent his back low over it, receiving the handlebar in his chest, and pushed away slowly. Behind the steam tables, one set of white-lettered menu boards was hauled down and another sent up in the steel frame with a clash.

“I have seen only one actor do Disraeli,” said Goldstone. “That was George Arliss.”

“Made for the part, that man,” Shifcart asserted.

“Him I liked in that,” said Schlossberg. “You’re right, Jack, he was made for it. He had the right face to play it, with his thin lips and long nose.”

“Somehow I’ve passed up all the Victorias,” remarked Gold-stone. “I haven’t seen a single one.”

“So what have you missed?” said Schlossberg. “A successful Victoria I have yet to see.”

It was a slow hour in the restaurant. On all sides there were long perspectives of black-topped tables turned on an angle to appear diamond-shaped, each with its symmetrical cluster of sugar, salt, pepper, and napkin box. From end to end their symmetry put a kind of motion into the almost empty place. At the rear, under the scene of groves painted on the wall, some of the employees sat smoking, looking toward the sunlight and the street.

“I have seen good ones,” Shifcart contended. “Don’t you like any of them?”

“No. One thing is why there should be so many Victorias. Maybe it’s because she was so plain. An ordinary-looking queen has a lot of appeal these days. Everything has to be pulled down a little. Isn’t it so? Why is she so popular?” He held out his hands to them as though soliciting a better answer. “She loved Albert; she was stubborn; she was a good housekeeper. It goes over.”

“I thought Eunice Sherbarth was a good Victoria,” said Harkavy.

“She’s a healthy, beautiful lady; it’s a pleasure to look at her,” said Schlossberg.

“So what’s the matter?” asked Shifcart. “She can’t act? You only wish you had her contract, Schlossberg.”

“Why not?” Schlossberg admitted. “As long as I’m wishing, I’d like to be thirty years old today with death a little farther off than it is. Besides, my pants are shiny. And who can’t use money? She must make plenty, I can imagine. And partly she has it coming because she’s good to look at. But act? I could play a better Victoria myself.” And indeed he could, thought Leventhal with more respect than amusement, if his voice weren’t so deep.

“Yes, in skirts you could be a hit,” said Shifcart.

“Anybody could be a hit today,” Schlossberg replied. “With the public so crazy to be pleased. It’s a regular carnival. Everybody is on the same side with illusion. Tell me, Jack, do you think you have ever discovered a good actress?”

“You mean an artist, I suppose, not a little type like Waters.”

“I mean an actress.”

“Then I say Livia Hall.”

“You mean that?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Impossible,” said Shifcart. “A pair of chopsticks.”

Shifcart’s stout neck grew red in patches and he said, a shade away from anger, “She is not a cheap success. Not everybody is so hard to satisfy, Schlossberg. It looks like it’s a big job to entertain you and maybe nobody does.”

“You are a tough critic, Marcus,” Goldstone said.

“Do I make up the specifications?” said Schlossberg. “Narischer mensch! I’m speaking for you, too. This is not the public. Between ourselves we can tell the truth, can’t we? What’s the matter with the truth? Everything comes in packages. If it’s in a package, you can bring the devil in the house. People rely on packages. If you will wrap it up, they will take it.”

“I didn’t claim the woman was Ellen Terry. I only said she was a good actress. You have to admit, Schlossberg, she’s got some ability.”

“For some things, maybe. Not too much.”

“But some?”

“Yes, some,” Schlossberg carelessly granted.

“Something at last pleases him, thank God!” Shifcart said.

“I try to give everybody credit,” declared the old man. “I am not a knocker. I am not too good for this world.”

No one contradicted him.

“Well,” he said. “And what am I kicking for?” He checked their smiles, holding them all with his serious, worn, blue gaze. “I’ll tell you. It’s bad to be less than human and it’s bad to be more than human. What’s more than human? Our friend-” he meant Leventhal, “was talking about it before. Caesar, if you remember, in the play wanted to be like a god. Can a god have diseases? So this is a sick man’s idea of God. Does a statue have wax in its ears? Naturally not. It doesn’t sweat, either, except maybe blood on holidays. If I can talk myself into it that I never sweat and make everybody else act as if it was true, maybe I can fix it up about dying, too. We only know what it is to die because some people die and, if we make ourselves different from them, maybe we don’t have to? Less than human is the other side of it. I’ll come to it. So here is the whole thing, then. Good acting is what is exactly human. And if you say I am a tough critic, you mean I have a high opinion of what is human. This is my whole idea. More than human, can you have any use for life? Less than human, you don’t either.”

He made a pause — it was not one that invited interruption — and went on.

“This girl Livia in The Tigress. What’s the matter with her? She commits a murder. What are her feelings? No love, no hate, no fear, no lungs, no heart. I’m ashamed to mention what else is missing. Nothing! The poor husband. Nothing is killing him, less than human. A blank. And it should be so awful the whole audience should be afraid positively to look in her face. But I don’t know if she’s too pretty or what to have feelings. You see right away she has no idea what is human because her husband’s death doesn’t mean to her a thing. It’s all in packages, and first the package is breathing and then it isn’t breathing, and you insured the package so you can marry another package and go to Florida for the winter. Now maybe somebody will answer me, ‘This sounds very interesting. You say less than human, more than human. Tell me, please, what is human?’ And really we study people so much now that after we look and look at human nature — I write science articles myself — after you look at it and weigh it and turn it over and put it under a microscope, you might say, ‘What is all the shouting about? A man is nothing, his life is nothing. Or it is even lousy and cheap. But this your royal highness doesn’t like, so he hokes it up. With what? With greatness and beauty. Beauty and greatness? Black and white I know; I didn’t make it up. But greatness and beauty?’ But I say, ‘What do you know? No, tell me, what do you know? You shut one eye and look at a thing, and it is one way to you. You shut the other one and it is different. I am as sure about greatness and beauty as you are about black and white. If a human life is a great thing to me, it is a great thing. Do you know better? I’m entitled as much as you. And why be measly? Do you have to be? Is somebody holding you by the neck? Have dignity, you understand me? Choose dignity. Nobody knows enough to turn it down.’ Now to whom should this mean something if not to an actor? If he isn’t for dignity, then I tell you there is a great mistake somewhere.”

“Bravo!” said Harkavy.

“Amen and amen!” Shifcart laughed. He drew a card out of his wallet and threw it toward him. “Come and see me; I’ll fix you up with a test.”

The card fell near Leventhal, who seemed to be the only one to disapprove of the joke. Even Schlossberg himself smiled. The sunlight fell through the large window over their heads. It seemed to Leventhal that Shifcart, though he was laughing, looked at him with peculiar disfavor. Still he did not join in. He picked up the card. The others were rising.

“Don’t forget your hats, gentlemen,” called Harkavy.

The musical crash of the check machine filled their ears as they waited their turn at the cashier’s dazzling cage.