The Victim

19

FROM the foyer he saw Mrs Nunez sitting cross-legged on the divan, putting up her freshly washed hair. She held her chin against her breast, and there were pins in her mouth and others strewn on the brown and white squares of her skirt. He rapped, and she drew her hair back from her eyes but did not change her position or cover her unsymmetrically gartered legs.

“I don’t want to disturb you,” he said, looking at them. “I was thinking — the flat’s pretty dirty. Could you give me a lead about a cleaning woman? Ours hasn’t been around.”

“Clean? I don’t know anybody. If it’s straighten, I’ll do it for you. I don’t do the heavy work.”

“Nothing heavy, I just want the place to look a little neater.”

“Sure, I’ll straighten it for you.”

“I’ll be much obliged. It’s getting to be too much for me.”

The look of his front room by lamplight disgusted him. It would have done Phoebe good to see it. He half regretted that he had not invited the Willistons home with him. He set to work gathering up the papers from the floor and spread clean sheets on his bed and laid out a pair of pajamas. In the bathroom he soaked and rinsed the robe and rubbed out the ink-stains with a brush and soap powder. Taking it to the roof he wrung it out and spread it on a line. There was a smell of approaching fall in the breeze. Leventhal walked over the pebbles and tar to the parapet. To the east the lights of the two shores joined in a long seam in midriver. Summer would end soon after the holiday and with the start of fall everything would change; Leventhal felt inexplicably convinced of this. The sky was overcast. He looked out awhile and then returned to the staircase, careful of lines and wires in the dark. He touched the robe in passing. It was drying rapidly in the breeze.

On the landing he heard someone coming and glanced below. It was Allbee. Regularly his hand clasped and released the banister as he made his way up. Catching sight of Leventhal at the last turn, he paused and raised his head and seemed to examine him. The low light crossed his face up to the brows and eyes and gave it an expression, most likely accidental, of naked malice. A stir of uneasiness went over Leventhal. He remembered immediately, however, that there were a few things Allbee had to answer to him for. And, to begin with, was he drunk? But he was already quite sure, he could sense that he was sober.

“Well?” he said.

Reaching the landing, Allbee gave him a restrained nod. His hair had been trimmed. Along the sides of his head and down his cheeks there was a conspicuous margin of shaven whiteness. His face shone. He had on a new shirt and a black tie and he carried a paper bag. When he saw Leventhal inspecting him he said, “I picked these up on Second Avenue, in a bargain store.”

“I didn’t ask you.”

“I owe you an accounting,” he said matter-of-factly. Leventhal listened for a provocative note in his answer; there was none. He looked at him suspiciously.

“I haven’t had a drink today,” said Allbee.

“Come in here. There’s something I want to find out.”

“What is it?”

“Not here; in the house.”

Allbee held back. “What’s the trouble?” he asked.

Leventhal seized his coat and pulled him forward. Allbee resisted, and he lay hold of him with both hands, and, with a sullen look of determination, his anger rekindled, dragged him into the house and flung the door shut with his foot. He twisted him around. Allbee tried to free himself anew, and Leventhal shouted, “What the hell do you think I’ll stand for!”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’ll answer me. You won’t duck out of it.”

He tore his coat out of Leventhal’s grasp and swung away. “What’s the idea?” he said with a trembling, short laugh, wonderingly. “Have you decided to beat me up?”

“How much do you think I’ll take from you!” Leventhal was panting. “Do you think you can get away with everything?”

“Don’t lose your head, now.” His laugh was gone and he looked at him gravely. “After all, I expect to be treated fairly. I’m in your house, and you have certain advantages over me… Anyway, you ought to tell me what this is all about.”

“This is what it’s about.” Leventhal snatched out the cards. “Going through my desk like a damned crook and blackmailer. That’s what it’s about.”

“Oh, is that it?” He swung his hand loosely toward them.

Leventhal’s voice broke as he cried, “That? Isn’t that anything? You followed me around and snooped, before. I let you in here and you get your dirty hands all over my things, my private business, my letters.”

“Well, now, that’s not true. I haven’t touched your letters. I’m not interested in your business.”

“Where did I find these!” Leventhal threw the cards down. “In my bathrobe that you were wearing.”

“That’s where I found them. I don’t like to defend myself against such accusations. They’re not fair. This is the kind of thing that gets people in trouble.”

“Isn’t this yours?” Leventhal picked up a clipping from the classified ads.

“Oh, I know what was in that pocket. But some of it was there when I put the robe on. Maybe you object to the fact that I used the robe. I’m sorry, I..”

Leventhal refused to be deflected. “You mean to say that you didn’t go through my desk?”

Allbee made a movement of sincere, straightforward denial.

“How about this. Where did you get this?” Leventhal pointed to Shifcart’s card.

“I found it on the floor. Now, there I’ll admit… if I did anything really wrong it was to take that card. It was on the floor near your bed. I had no right to keep it. Perhaps you needed it. I should have asked. But I didn’t think of that. I was interested in it. In fact, I was going to bring it up in connection with something I’ve been thinking about but kept forgetting.”

“You’re lying.”

Allbee was silent. He stood looking at him.

“I didn’t put the postcards in the bathrobe,” said Leventhal, “and this card of Shifcart’s was in the desk.”

Allbee answered simply, “If you didn’t put them there, then a third party must have. I know I didn’t.”

“But you read them!” He said this violently, but he wanted to sink away.

“Yes, I did,” Allbee dropped his eyes as if to spare him.

“Damn you to hell!” Leventhal shouted in anguish and outrage. “That’s not all you read. What else!”

“Nothing.”

“You did!”

“No, that was all. I couldn’t avoid looking them over. It wasn’t intentional. But I took them out of the pocket and so I had to see what they were. It’s mostly your wife’s fault. She should have put them in an envelope — things like that. I never would have pulled a letter out of an envelope. But I read this before I realized what it was. It’s not so serious, is it? What’s so special about your cards? Any wife might write like that to a husband, or a husband to a wife. And an old married man like me… it’s not the same as if a young person, say a young girl, got hold of them. And even then, I wonder if anybody is innocent. And last of all, I don’t think it would matter to your wife. This is not the kind of thing for postcards. If she cared, she’d have written it in a letter.”

“I still think you’re lying.”

“Well, if you do, I can’t change your mind. But I’m not. Why not keep your desk locked, as long as you don’t trust me?”

“It is now.”

“You should have locked it sooner. Nobody likes to be jumped on like this. Keep it locked. You have a right to lose your temper when there’s definite proof that somebody is monkeying with your private things. It’s not very nice. But neither are such accusations. Suppose I did look in your desk, and I absolutely deny it, why should I want to carry the cards around?”

“Why should you? Search me!”

“Like a mental case? Not me, you’ve got the wrong party.”

Leventhal did not know what more to say. Perhaps he was wrong. Except when Allbee spoke of young girls he made sense and even that, fully explained, might not be irrelevant. Besides, the haircut, the shirt and tie, and the fact that he was sober made a difference. It was the haircut mainly; it gave him a new aspect. His face appeared more solid. Leventhal all at once felt nothing very strongly; he only had a certain curiosity about Allbee. He sat down beside the desk. Allbee sank into the easy chair and stretched his legs out.

After a few minutes of silence he said, “Did you see this morning’s paper?”

“Why, what’s in the paper?”

“There was an item in it I thought you might have picked up. It’s about Rudiger. Really about Rudiger’s son, but he was mentioned too. The son’s in the army and he was promoted, yesterday. To the rank of major.”

“What about it?”

“I just happened to notice. I was in the barber shop looking at the paper and saw the boy’s picture. He worked in the office for a while. He’s a very ordinary boy. Nice… I can’t criticize him. Just a college boy; very ordinary, no special spark. It’s no business of mine; that is, it can’t do me any good or harm. But I’m always interested in the way things work themselves out. Now somebody without influence spends twenty years in the service, first in this hole of a garrison and then in that one, lives with native girls because he can’t afford to marry. Maybe he gets a little rank in the end, becomes a second lieutenant. You can’t tell me it isn’t a matter of influence.”

“It probably is,” said Leventhal idly.

“Yes. Not that I have anything against him because he happens to be his father’s son. Why shouldn’t he take advantage of the old man’s position? And what else can the old man do for him?” He suddenly changed the subject with a quick laugh. “Notice my haircut?”

“I see.”

“I didn’t drink, either. That’s not what you expected, is it?”

“Go ahead, surprise me.”

“No, you thought I’d get looped again.”

“Maybe.”

“I told you I wasn’t that far gone.”

“I’m glad to see it.”

“Are you?” There was a break of excitement in his hilarity.

“Sure,” said Leventhal. He felt a responsive laugh forming in his chest and he held it down. “What do you want, a basket of roses?”

“Why not?”

“A medal?” Leventhal began to smile.

“Yes, a medal.” He coughed thickly. “I ought to have one.”

“You ought to get one.”

“Well, I wasn’t even tempted, to be honest about it. I didn’t have to fight a yen; not a bit of trouble.”

Allbee bent forward and laid his hand on the arm of Leventhal’s chair, and for a short space the two men looked at each other and Leventhal felt himself singularly drawn with a kind of affection. It oppressed him, it was repellent. He did not know what to make of it. Still he welcomed it, too. He was remotely disturbed to see himself so changeable. However, it did not seem just then to be a serious fault.

“I had clippers on the sides.” Allbee brought the tips of his fingers to his head. “I got into the habit. It’s cleaner that way, I’ve learned. Because of nits. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

Leventhal shrugged.

“Oh, if you got them in your hair, hair like that. . Your hair amazes me. Whenever I see you, I have to study it. With some people you sometimes doubt if it’s real and you want to see if your man is wearing a wig. But your hair; I’ve often tried to imagine how it would be to have hair like that. Is it hard to comb?”

“What do you mean, is it hard?”

“I mean, does it tangle. It must break the teeth out of combs. Say, let me touch it once, will you?”

“Don’t be a fool. It’s hair. What’s hair?” he said.

“No, it’s not ordinary hair.”

“Ah, get out,” Leventhal said, drawing back.

Allbee stood up. “Just to satisfy my curiosity,” he said, smiling. He fingered Leventhal’s hair, and Leventhal found himself caught under his touch and felt incapable of doing anything. But then he pushed his hand away, crying, “Lay off!”

“It’s astonishing. It’s like an animal’s hair. You must have a terrific constitution.”

Leventhal jerked his chair away, wrinkling his forehead in confusion and incipient anger. Then he bawled, “Sit down, you lunatic!” and Allbee went back to his place. He sat forward, ungainly, his hands under his thighs, his jaw slipped to one side, exactly as on the night when he had first confronted Leventhal in the park. The white of his trimmed temples and his shaven face made the blue of his eyes conspicuous.

No further word was spoken for a while. Leventhal was trying to settle his feelings and to determine how to recover the ground he had lost through this last piece of insanity.

“It’s hard to have the right mixture of everything,” Allbee suddenly began.

“What are you driving at now?” said Leventhal.

“Oh, this about your calling me a lunatic when I give in to an impulse. Nobody can be sure he has the right mixture. Just to give you an example. Lately, a couple of weeks ago, there was a man in the subway, on the tracks. I don’t understand how he got there. But he was on the tracks and a train came along and pinned him against the wall. He was bleeding to death. A policeman came down and right away forbid anyone to touch this man until the ambulance arrived. That was because he had instructions about accidents. Now that’s too much of one thing — playing it safe. The impulse is to save the man, but the policy is to stick to rules. The ambulance came and the man was dragged out and died right away. I’m not a doctor and I can’t say whether he had a chance at any time. But suppose he could have been saved? That’s what I mean by the mixture.”

“Was he yelling for help? What line was that?” Leventhal said with a frown of pain.

“East-side line. Well, of course, when a man is spread-eagled like that. He was filling the tunnel with his noise. And the crowd! The trains were held up and the station was jammed. They kept coming down. People should have pushed the cop out of the way and taken the fellow down. But everybody stood and listened to him. Those are the real trimmers.”

“Trimmers?”

“They’re not for God and they’re not for the Old Scratch. They think they’re for themselves but they’re not that either.”

“What does he tell me this for?” thought Leventhal. “Does he want to work on my feelings? Maybe he doesn’t know why himself.”

Allbee began to smile. “You should have seen how surprised you looked when I showed up dead sober. You’re going to be even more surprised, you know.”

“By what?”

“You were joking with me this morning about a new start. You wouldn’t take me seriously.”

“Do you believe it yourself?”

“Don’t you worry,” he said confidently. “I know what really goes on inside me. I’ll let you in on something. There isn’t a man living who doesn’t. All this business, ‘Know thyself’! Everybody knows but nobody wants to admit. That’s the thing. Some swimmers can hold their breath a long time — those Greek sponge divers — and that’s interesting. But the way we keep our eyes shut is a stunt too, because they’re made to be open.”

“So. You’re off again. You can do it without whisky. I thought it was the whisky.”

“All right,” cried Allbee. “Now let me explain something to you. It’s a Christian idea but I don’t see why you shouldn’t be able to understand it. ‘Repent!’ That’s John the Baptist coming out of the desert. Change yourself, that’s what he’s saying, and be another man. You must be and the reason for that is that you can be, and when your time comes here you will be. There’s another thing behind that ‘repent’; it’s that we know what to repent. How?” His unsmiling face compelled Leventhal’s attention. “I know. Everybody knows. But you’ve got to take away the fear of admitting by a still greater fear. I understand that doctors are beginning to give their patients electric shocks. They tear all hell out of them, and then they won’t trifle. You see, you have to get yourself so that you can’t stand to keep on in the old way. When you reach that stage — ” he knotted his hands and the sinews rose up on his wrists. “It takes a long time before you’re ready to quit dodging. Meanwhile, the pain is horrible.” He blinked blindly several times as if to clear his eyes of an obstruction. “We’re mulish; that’s why we have to take such a beating. When we can’t stand another lick without dying of it, then we change. And some people never do. They stand there until the last lick falls and die like animals. Others have the strength to change long before. But repent means now, this minute and forever, without wasting any more time.”

“And this minute has arrived for you already?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know whom you’re stringing, me or yourself.”

“Every word is sincere — sin-cere!” said Allbee inclining his head and gazing at him. He hesitated, his large lips remained parted, the upper, with its long groove, moving a little.

“Go on!” Leventhal abruptly laughed.

“Well, I thought I would try to explain it to you.” He turned slightly in his chair, resting one shoulder on the cushion, and slowly rubbed the side of his extended leg. “I’m not religious or anything like that, but I know that I don’t have to be next year what I was last year. I’ve been at one end and I can get to the other. There’s no limit to what I can be. And even if I should miss being so dazzling, I know the idea of it is genuine.”

“We’ll see what you are next year.”

“You’ll be the same, I know. You people…” He shook his head and his cheek brushed his collar.

“If you start that again, you’ll be on the steps in a minute.” Leventhal began menacingly to rise.

“All right, all right, let’s drop it. Only when a man says something serious about himself he likes to be believed,” said Allbee. “It makes sense to me that a man can be born again. — I’ll take a rain check on the kingdom of heaven, but if I’m tired of being this way I can become a new man. That’s all I’m saying.” Straightening himself in his chair he was silent and lightly held his big hands together. By the curve of his mouth Leventhal saw that he was very pleased with himself. Indeed the position of his hands spoke of applause rather than rest. The hump of shadow behind him was occasionally extended by the slight stirring of his head. The lamp in its green, watered-silk shade made a second, softer center of brightness in the polish of the desk. A rush of low sounds came up from the street, and a gust of air swelled and separated the curtains; they drifted together again.

At this moment Leventhal felt Allbee’s presence, all that concerned him, like a great tiring weight, and looked at him with dead fatigue, his fingers motionless on his thighs. Something would have to happen, something that he could not foresee. Whatever it was, he would be too muddled and fatigued to deal with it. He was played out. His old weakness, his nerves, had never been so bad; he could not concentrate long enough to settle any of his difficulties, and had to wait for the occasion to bring this or that to his attention, and was slow and fitful in his thinking. He ought to have thought of what was going on in Staten Island, if only for Philip’s sake, and he should have phoned Max at least once. Max had hung on to him in the chapel; he had no one else to hang on to. And by now he must have decided that he had no one at all. But the reason Leventhal shrank from calling was that he was unable to clarify his thoughts or bring them into focus, and he lacked the energy to continue the effort. And anyway the sparks, the clear spark of Mickey’s life, the spark of Elena’s sanity, the sparks of thought and courage, even courage as confident as Mary”s — how such sparks were chased and overtaken, drowned, put out. Then what good was thinking? His dark, poring face with its full cheeks and high-rising dull hair was hung toward his chest. He drew a deep, irregular breath and raised his hands from his lap in a gesture of exorcism against the spell of confusion and despair. “God will help me out,” passed through his mind, and he did not stop to ask himself exactly what he meant by this.

“About the card I picked up,” said Allbee. “The business card: is that man a moving-picture agent of some kind? I want to explain why I picked it up. I suppose you know him.”

“A little.”

“What does he do? What’s his line?”

“I think he looks for talent.”

“Is he influential? I mean, is he…” But Allbee canceled this question as if it were a mark of his persistent innocence or unworldliness.

“Is he what?”

“Oh… on the inside.” His lip began to curl; his eyes were distended and humorlessly direct. “I’ve come to the conclusion that if you want to get along nowadays you have to go along with the powers. It’s no use trying to buck them.”

“Who told you Shifcart was a power?”

Allbee declined to answer. He lifted his shoulders and looked away disdainfully.

“Who?” Leventhal repeated.

“Let’s say he can help me, then, and leave out other considerations.”

“Do you want to become an actor?”

“Wouldn’t I make a good one?”

“You?”

“Is that so funny?”

A faint smile crossed Leventhal’s shadowed face. “I understand your mother thought she was a singer,” he said. “And you think you are an actor.”

“Oh, you’ve heard about my mother. Who told you about her, Phoebe?”

“Yes. She sang at your wedding, didn’t she?”

“Sensationally,” said Allbee in an indeterminate tone; and, after a pause, “No, of course I don’t want to act. But I thought with all my experience on magazines that I might be able to get into movie work. I once heard about somebody — an acquaintance of an acquaintance — who was doing some preliminary scenario job, looking up stories, and making digests of them, and if I could get into that.. Well, maybe your friend can tell me how to do it.”

“He’s no special friend of mine. How long ago did you hear about this?”

“I don’t remember, now. A few years ago.”

“Then how do you know you can still get such a job? Why don’t you find out from this acquaintance of yours? What have you got to go on? Ask him about it.”

Allbee answered quickly, “I couldn’t. I wouldn’t know where to find him or how to start looking. Besides, he doesn’t owe me anything, Leventhal. Why should I go to him?”

“Why? Well, why to me? It makes just as much sense.”

His reply tremendously aroused Allbee.

“Why? For good reasons; the best in the world!” He shocked Leventhal by clenching his fists before his breast as if passionately threatening to tear loose from all restraint. “I’m giving you a chance to be fair, Leventhal, and to do what’s right. And I want what’s right from you. Don’t drag anybody else in. This is just between the two of us.”

“Don’t be crazy.”

“Just you and I. Just the two of us.”

“I never… I never….” Leventhal stammered.

“I can’t afford to fool around. The fooling has been kicked out of me. I’ve been put straight the hard way, the way you pay for with years of your life.” He lowered his head and stared at him before continuing. There was a noticeable pulsation in the sides of his face beside his eyes, and in his eyes there was a glint that astounded Leventhal; it resembled nothing in his experience. “ Look,” said Allbee firmly in a lower voice. “You know that when I say I want an introduction to this man Shifcart it means I am ready to play ball. I’m offering a settlement. I’m offering to haul down my flag. If he helps me. Do you understand?”

“No, I don’t understand,” Leventhal said. “I don’t even begin to get it. And as long as you keep on talking about settling, I won’t lift a finger for you.”

“Listen,” said Allbee. “I know you want to settle. And so do I. And I know what I’m talking about when I say I’ll play ball. The world’s changed hands. I’m like the Indian who sees a train running over the prairie where the buffalo used to roam. Well, now that the buffalo have disappeared, I want to get off the pony and be a conductor on that train. I’m not asking to be a stockholder in the company. I know that’s impossible. Lots of things are impossible that didn’t use to be. When I was younger I had my whole life laid out in my mind. I planned what it was going to be like on the assumption that I came out of the lords of the earth. I had all kinds of expectations. But God disposes. There’s no use kidding.”

Leventhal, his eyes raised to the ceiling, seemed to ask, “You follow? I don’t.”

There was a knock at the door.