The Woman Aroused

Chapter 5

I DID TRY TO help Lee, find out if she had any family, only all my efforts ran into a series of stone walls. On Monday I asked Jake Webster, the company dick, who was also a big military and National Guard character, if he knew anybody “high up” in the army. Years before, when I had been a minor “planter,” I knew people who had an “army in”—sometimes the soldiers or the navy could be used for a publicity stunt; but by now I had lost most of my connections. After a lot of gassing Jake gave me the name of a captain—“a boon buddy of mine”—who worked down at Church Street, and who was in charge of personnel for the local military district, or so Jake said.

I dropped down to see him. As I suspected, he didn't remember Jake at all, but he was quite cordial And he was just what I was looking for. I told him about Hank dying and that I wanted to get, or see, a copy of whatever papers Hank had used to bring Lee over. The captain was a middle-aged man with an affected, clipped manner of speaking. He said, “It will be a lot of red tape but I imagine I may be able to secure the records, especially if the widow, Mrs. Conroy, needed them. Are you acting for her?”

“Well, not exactly,” I said. I couldn't tell him the truth: he would call Lee to the office, and once he saw and talked with her... “You see, as I explained, she's alone in the country, and I'm trying to help her find whatever relatives she may still have in Germany. Therefore I need to know her home town and...”

He stared at me suspiciously and I knew I had talked too much. “Surely the girl knows her own home town?”

“Of course,” I said quickly, “but she thought that... well, there might be something more in the records, for instance, information the army might have picked up from official Nazi records. Might possibly state that her father and mother were known to be dead, etc.”

“Major Conroy would have told her those facts,” the captain said.

“From what she says, he didn't,” I said, clipping my words as sharply as he did. “Another thing, her knowledge of English is rather slight, and she's a bit hazy on official papers. After all, she spent a number of years in a concentration camp.”

The captain drummed on the table with his polished nails for a moment. “All this is most irregular, and I don't know what help I can be. But if Mrs. Conroy will come here, speak to the general and secure his permission, I'll see what can be worked.”

“You're very kind, and thank you for your trouble,” I said, standing up. “At the moment Mrs. Conroy is visiting friends in California, but will probably return within a few months. I'll ask her to come down then.”

“Fine,” the captain said, shaking hands with me.

I went out and had a quick drink. I was far from being a clever liar, and my better sense told me to stop this before I became involved. If anybody ever talked to Lee, how could I explain why I was living with this backward kid?

I made one more attempt. With Lee's picture I went to one of the refugee agencies, told a tired-looking, efficient young woman, “I'd like to locate the relations, if any, of this girl, Lee Unbekant, said to be born in Hamburg. I have reason to believe she isn't Jewish, and that's all I know, except she spent some time in a concentration camp, as a slave laborer, was branded with a number. I don't know the number or the name of the camp.”

The woman lit a cigarette, added a butt to an ash tray filled with cigarettes she had chain-smoked, looked at the picture. “An interesting face, odd nose. Why do you want to find this girl, her parents?”

“For sentimental reasons. A... eh... brother of mine, a soldier, knew them in Venice. That is, he knew the girl. Later he was killed. He seemed to like them very much, that is the girl. I'd like to find them, help them, perhaps visit them.” I had thought this lie out carefully.

“My dear sir, we have a long list of people who are waiting for our help to locate their sons, husbands, daughters, parents, wives, and hardly for sentimental reasons. I'll place your case on the bottom of the list, but we go by the need involved in each case, so I can give you little hope. We're overworked and understaffed, you understand.”

“Then can you tell me how I'd go about finding out this information?”

“It's worse than hunting for the proverbial needle in the haystack. We play a great jigsaw puzzle game here every day, with human lives, and happiness as the missing piece,” the young lady said, enjoying her own dramatics. “You have very little information to go on, besides the picture. Hamburg was badly bombed, there are very few records to be found there now. You say her last name is Unbekant. Are you sure it isn't Unbekannt?”

“It might be the soldier—my brother—misspelled the name in his letters.”

She smiled. “My dear man, in that case the girl may have been... how shall I say... stringing the soldier along. Look at the picture, this girl is well fed, she was a long time removed from any DP camp, if she ever was in one, when this photo was taken. Also, Unbekannt means unknown in German, which is hardly a surname, although it isn't impossible.

I had a sinking feeling she was right, I was getting no place: Unbekannt might have been the first German word that came to Hank's mind, and if it meant unknown...? I said, “How would you suggest I go about finding out the information, then?”

“Bravo, you don't give up easily,” she said.

“What?”

“Have you any money?” Her eyes swept over my clothes.

“A little. How much would you want?”

She grinned, showing nice teeth. “My dear sir, I do not want any money. If you can spend about a thousand dollars, I'd suggest you have copies of the picture made, place an ad in various German papers—abroad and here—offer a reward of about one hundred dollars. I'll warn you in advance, it will be difficult to do that from this end, I mean it will be better if you have somebody you can trust place the ads in Germany, the money exchange and the general unsettled conditions, you understand. And once the ads are placed you will receive many false answers, some from outright charlatans. It will require much correspondence and patience on your part, possibly even a trip to Germany. And after all that trouble, you may never find the people, or you could be very lucky and find the girl after the first ad. Also, you can never tell in what part of the world you'll find her.”

“Ill think it over. Where can I find a list of the various papers?” I asked.

“Advertising agencies in Yorkville will be glad to handle it for you, only pick one you can trust. I'd, use one that has started since the war. And demand to see copies of all the ads.”

I said thank you and as I was leaving she called after me, with a wise smile, “You soldiers are all alike. If you liked the girl that much, why didn't you bring her back with you instead of waiting all these years?”

“That's right,” I said, although it took me several minutes to figure out what she meant. Outside, I looked at myself in a store-window mirror, pleased she thought me young enough to have been a soldier.

You see I tried—maybe not as hard as I should have, but I tried to help Lee. My relations with her had changed—on my part. I no longer felt at all clever in having her around, although I told myself I hadn't done anything to hurt her. And of course in bed I could hardly touch her: I could picture all the soldiers, Nazi and American, who had made her so mechanically capable—and sexless.

Lee didn't change. She ate when I told her to, danced now and then, and sat around with that blank look on her face. It was the beginning of October and a little cool, so at least she didn't sit around in the nude much. I still dressed her smartly, took her out to dinner, to the night clubs and movies, and of course I still gave her the hundred every week, which she hid.

Now and then I went back to questioning her about her family, which usually ended up in my not getting any new information and Lee becoming hysterical. Mostly we walked and ate in silence. I had plenty of time to myself, did a lot of reading, and started dunking about doing some writing. I fooled around with the alcohol-has-turned-to-water idea, without getting anywhere. But I did a short story about a dancer who loses his legs in the war and his effort to get back to normal by learning to dance on his artificial legs. To my surprise I sold the yarn for a hundred bucks. I looked around for another subject to write about... and saw Lee. I started her story and it came slowly, but it came along.

For some strange reason, I wanted to see Flo. I suppose I wanted to tell somebody—anybody—about the mess I was in. (Not that I would have ever told Flo.) I tried calling her once or twice, but she hung up on me. When I sent her Henderson's October rent, I sent an orchid with the check, but I didn't hear from her.

However, I heard quite suddenly from her brother—Eddie. He called me one afternoon at the office, asked, “George, I need a hell of a favor. Can you bring me thirty dollars?”

“Sure. I'll send you a check....”

“I need it now, immediately. I'm in a doctor's office. I've been... stabbed,” he whispered quickly. He gave me the name of the doctor, and a Madison Avenue address. I cashed a check, took a cab up there.

The address turned out to be East Harlem, the doctor an elderly Porto Rican. Eddie was stripped to the waist, and the doctor was helping him dress. The kid's shirt was bloody. One shoulder was covered with neat bandages and there was white tape over one side of his jaw. Eddie looked very pale.

I paid the doctor who assured me Eddie was okay, the cuts had been cleanly stitched. He said that after a few days rest, Eddie would be as “good as new.”

We took a cab from his office and when I asked Eddie what had happened, he nodded toward the driver and didn't say a word. We changed cabs and it suddenly dawned on me Eddie had given the driver my address. I said, “We can't go there. I have a girl there. How about your place?”

“Sure,” he said, and gave the driver his address.

He lived in a tiny room on the West Side, with a chest of drawers, a narrow bed, and one chair. There was a pile of books in one corner and a tiny radio perched on top of them. I propped him up in bed, said, “Soon as you rest, I'll take you to another doctor, be on the safe....”

“Why? Because this doc's skin is dark? No, I'm all right, just a little weak. And another doctor might report knife wounds to the police. I don't know what the law is on that. This one understands.”

“Understands what? What the devil happened?”

“What happened is that we're making our country an impossible place to live in. This atmosphere of suspicion and fear... we're all casualties of the cold war.”

“Eddie, without speeches, what happened to you?”

He stared at me, said softly, “That's a new way of dismissing things—everything is a speech. George, are you really cynical, or merely ignorant—if you'll excuse the word? I'll tell you what happened: I was wounded once fighting fascism in Europe, now I've been wounded fighting fascism again, here, right in New York.”

“Kid, stop soap-boxing me. We don't have fascism in New York, or in America. You've been reading the Daily Worker too much. I'll admit that some...”

“George, were you as naive as this before you started working for the oil company?”

“I suppose so. Let's both stop this. What happened to you?”

Eddie said, “I was canvassing for the ALP congressman up there, and some paid hoodlum stabbed me. Simple as that—the pattern of violence is always the simple one.”

“Look, Eddie, I never considered myself overbright, but neither am I an outright moron. What in God's name were you doing canvassing over in East Harlem? If you needed the money...”

“George, nobody was paying me. I knew that the candidate was one of the few men in Congress aware of the menace of fascism. That's why the papers have been attacking him so vehemently. For the last few weeks I've been working over there, as a volunteer, along with hundreds of other people from offices and unions.”

“But why get mixed up...?” I began.

“I've told you why over and over—I never want to see another concentration camp again. George, you sound as though I was doing something shady. Know what I was doing? Merely visiting voters, urging them to be sure to register, so they would be able to vote next month. Why even the Democrats and Republicans want a large registration. I was in a house on 107th Street when this fellow came up and attacked me, stabbed me twice before I knew what hit me.”

“By God, we'll get the police after the bastard!”

Eddie smiled at me. “Good old George, sometimes you act as simple as a country girl hitting Broadway. The police are probably looking for me.”

“You? Why?”

“I think I killed him,” Eddie said calmly. “If not dead, he's badly hurt, and there will be a trumped-up assault charge against me—if they find me. You can picture the headline holiday, stuff about, 'Red Vote-Getter Assaults Porto Rican...' And what can I tell them; that I'm only a poor slob looking for peace and decency in the world? They'd laugh in my face! Peace is a dirty word, a crazy word, these days.”

“Wait, stop all this jabbering and tell me what happened, exactly what happened, without any speeches as trimmings,” I said, beginning to think clearly again.

Eddie lit a cigarette, offered me one, as he said, “I knew he was following me, I'd seen him when canvassing another house, but didn't think anything about it. And I'd heard rumors that the old political machine, the tough ward-heelers, were supposed to have thugs out after us, but I really didn't believe that. Well, this tenement was a small one, about four stores, with one family to a floor. It was the middle of the afternoon, and all the doors I'd knocked on remained closed, the people were probably out working. He came up the stairs, passed me, as though going up the next floor, then turned and had his knife out—all in one movement. I saw the flash of the blade and turned sideways—that's why I got it in the shoulder instead of the back. We grappled and he cut my jaw and I kneed him, then slammed him against the wall; face forward, threw him down the stairs, ran down past him and out.”

“How do you know he's dead?”

“I don't, but I know he's badly hurt—real badly. George, when you've been in a lot of combat, seen many men laying around, you get a kind of special sight—you can look at a man and know he's dead or ready to die. I had that feeling about him.”

“Still, you're not certain, maybe he got up and walked away.”

“He never walked away, George.”

I asked, “Anybody see you leave?”

“I don't know. I held a handkerchief over the cut on my jaw, and the blood didn't come through my coat from the shoulder cut. I walked over to Lexington Avenue and there was a bus at the corner. I rode that a few blocks. I was getting weak and dizzy. I got off and called the cops from a candy-store phone booth, told them where the guy was. I was afraid he would die for sure if he laid there till the tenants came home—maybe hours later. Then I went to the doctor.”

“This doc, who is he?” I asked, feeling sorry for the kid. Nothing seemed to go right for him, and I couldn't even understand what was troubling him.

“I took a chance. I'd canvassed him a few days before. We had quite a long talk—seemed like a right-thinking guy. I simply told him I had been in a fight and I think he understood. He didn't ask questions, just sewed me up. Then I told him I was going to call my brother and called you. It was stupid involving you, but I had to have money to pay him. He told me I could return later, but I can't return. Anyway, he didn't see me dial and there's little chance of the number ever being traced to Sky Oil. Maybe I made a big mistake, maybe I should have gone back to election headquarters. I don't know, I didn't want to involve them. George, I have to get out of town.”

“Take it easy, kid. Way I see it, even if they find you, you have a perfect case of self-defense. I'd go to the cops and...”

“Talk sense,” Eddie said, his voice suddenly hard. “Justice has nothing to do with this. I'd be smeared and convicted by the papers before the case ever started. I'd be railroaded. That's what the papers and the ward-heelers want—a smoke-screen of scare headlines from now till election day. No, I have to run. I want to run; to be jailed for this would drive me nuts.”

“You talk some sense. Running is a sure sign of guilt. If what you say is true, wouldn't a chase be up their alley? The big hunt?” I asked, thinking how Eddie had messed up his life. A smart kid, with his pension money and a chance to finish college under the G.I. Bill, live a normal, easy life, yet here he was, possibly involved in murder.

“No, George, the whole thing boils down to this: the headlines and all that, can't be written unless they find me. I don't think anybody saw us, unless they find me, they can't prove it wasn't merely another fight. I believe they're counting on me to make charges, through the ALP, and then when they know who I am, that I was there, then the papers and the powers that be will reverse the whole deal, cry political terrorism and the rest of the phony stories, but making me the thug. Understand”?”

“A little, although I can't understand why you persist in ruining your life with this fanatical...”

Eddie said wearily, “George, don't start that.”

“I won't. Now what happens?”

“I think it's best I leave town. Happily, I didn't give my real name when I signed up as a volunteer worker. Sign of the fear of our time—we're afraid to give our right name for anything political. Sounds fantastic, but never tell when they'll have one of their so-called 'loyalty checks' for wounded vets and...”

“That's ridiculous,” I cut in. “Good Lord, there's nothing wrong about electioneering.”

Eddie smiled at me and lit another cigarette. “Let's not argue the point. If they want to press the frame-up they'll have to find the goat—me. I've been seen around the neighborhood for the last few weeks, but I'm certainly not well known. However, to be on the safe side I'd like to leave town. I was thinking of southern California—the cold weather bothers my wound a little. I could have my pension sent there, live on that. Might take a little time, the delay, but perhaps Flo would lend me enough to get by on till then.” He paused, added in a whisper, “Know what I'd like to do? Go to Italy.”

“Why Italy?”

“America, my homeland, frightens me, makes me restless... I can't seem to settle down here.”

“And you could in Italy, of all places?” I asked.

Eddie looked at me, his thin face thoughtful. “George, I'm going to tell you a secret, something that sounds wonderful and horrible at the same time. There's a little village below Naples, a smelly, backward, little place. When my outfit was there, back on a lonely country farm there was a... young girl... and... Oh, hell, I went with her for a couple bars of candy. I know you can't understand how I could do that, or the hunger that made her do it. Anyway, it started on that basis. She was young, about fifteen, probably can't even read or write. I spent several nights with her, and it turned into something beautiful, very pure—for both of us. I guess in the years since, it has been magnified in my mind. I'm not sure. But I look back on that as the only serenity, true happiness, I've ever known.”

“Forget it, you're chasing a dream,” I said, thinking of Lee, wondering with a great deal of envy about the experiences men like Eddie and Hank had gone through that tied them with Europe, with the women... even the backward ones.

“I can't forget her,” Eddie said. “I even send her food and CARE packages now and then. Of course she promised to wait for me and all that, but...”

“She's probably whoring now.”

“So what!” he said fiercely. “If she is, I'm responsible for that. She's still young, that can be changed too. But I don't think she is, not out on that lonely farm. No, but she may be married. You know it was only after Germany, since I've been home, that I realized how much I care for her, what those nights meant. Life moves slowly there, like stepping backward into time. But Italy is on the move, I could be a part of that too, help.”

“That farm life would bore hell out of you.”

“Would it? George, what's happening to us here. Nobody can live without rooking the next person. Take this Porto Rican, a poor man—you've never seen the slums of Spanish Harlem—but think what we've done to this man. His ancestors lived in a tropical island paradise, but to make a fast buck, we made that a hell-hole, a slum so bad they flee to the slums of Harlem. And this man, he's become so perverted that for a miserable few bucks he's ready to kill, sell out something that would help his people—all people. Sell out such basic things as decent houses and wages, schools for his kids. The fast buck perverts us all, makes us animals stepping on each other's back, as if we lived in a jungle.”

“It's not that bad, kid. Don't forget, most of us lead rather decent, normal lives,” I said, trying to think: it was so important Eddie find himself—but quickly.

He shook his head. “No, it's only that some of the perversion is smoothed over with a veneer of high living. We merely shut our eyes. Those concentration camps I saw—certainly the height of human perversion—yet there were many Germans living what you call the 'decent' life of good living, of comfortable apartments, books, and shows. I can't say this as clearly as I feel it, George, put it in the right words.”

“Eddie, you've been through a lot and...”

“And I'm still not 'readjusted' to civilian life?” he asked harshly. “Crap!”

“Listen to me, Eddie. You said before I was naive. Suppose it turns out you're the naive one? Wait—I understand a little of what you're trying to say. I don't agree with it all, but then I haven't been through the things you have. But I agree you ought to leave here, perhaps after thinking things over, you'll settle down, see things differently. After all, nothing is perfect. The point is, can you live in Italy, receive your pension there?”

“Yes. I could live very well on the money. But the expense of getting there, waiting till my checks come through, that makes it out of the question.”

“Suppose you find this girl has changed or married? I mean could you stand the shock, the disillusionment, if there should be any?” I asked.

“Let's not talk fairy tales,” Eddie said. “I'd need about six hundred dollars. Flo, or my folks, wouldn't lend me that in a million years.”

“How long would it take you to leave?”

“Passport should take a few weeks. But why talk about it? Why if I could have done it, I would have gone back a long....”

As I've said, I really liked Eddie and now I couldn't help but make the grand gesture. While he talked I wrote a check for one thousand dollars. True, I was giving away Lee's money, but in some way I didn't try to figure out, it was all the same thing. Eddie, Lee, even the money for that matter, were in a sense all the result of the war.

He stared at the check, looked up at me with astonishment—all of which I enjoyed to the hilt. “George... this...?”

“Call it a loan and don't worry about ever paying me back,” I said. “I've been... lucky with the ponies lately. I can afford k. Only best you keep it quiet, you know your folks, and Flo.”

“But a thousand....”

I stood up. “You want to get out of town, you want to see this girl, well, do it in style and that check is your magic carpet. Rest up and tomorrow start working on your passport and passage. Trip will do you good, even if you come back within a few months. And if your shoulder bothers you, see a doctor tomorrow, and no excuses.”

He went through the routine of thanking me from the bottom of his heart and all that.

Seventeen days later on a cold windy afternoon, Eddie sailed—with only Flo and myself to see him off. I'd watched the papers carefully but didn't see any report of a murder on East 107th Street. But at the boat, as Flo was making a point of ignoring me and Eddie was trying to smooth things over, he whispered in my ear, “I heard the fellow died.”

“How did you hear?”

“Never mind how, it wasn't directly. Could be gossip, grossly distorted, but that's what I heard.”

“Well, don't let it upset you,” I said, quite upset myself.

“I won't. I wasn't upset when I killed Nazi soldiers, either,” Eddie whispered.

Flo, who was sitting on his bunk in a stunning outfit and drinking the champagne I'd brought for the occasion, said, “Stop whispering like a couple of ham movie characters. What are you two, conspirators?”

“Yes!” I said, although she couldn't know how clever I thought my answer was.

When the ship sailed I said I'd take Flo home in a cab and she said she'd get her own. I stepped into her cab before she could push out. There had been some sort of farewell party at her folks' house, but Eddie had insisted that only Flo go down to the boat with him. I don't know if he did this in an effort to get us together, or it was all an accident. His family didn't like the idea of Eddie going off to Italy.

Now I looked at Flo sitting as far from me as possible on the wide cab seat. She looked very clean, cool, sleek, and yes—chic. Or maybe it was all in contrast to Lee's sloppy languor. For several minutes we didn't talk, then she asked, “Is Eddie in any trouble? I don't believe that corny story he was hurt falling down a flight of steps.”

“Not that I know of,” I lied. “This fling will be good for him. Living abroad for a while will help him settle down, which is also pretty corny. But leave the kid straighten himself out.”

“But this sudden rush to Italy. I don't know where he got the money from,” Flo said.

“Probably saved it, you know how simply he lives. Besides, over there his pension will go farther.”

There was another pause, then looking out of the window she asked, “Is that... that creature still living with you?”

“Yes.”

“You goddamned bastard!” Flo said and began to cry. I moved over and took her in my arms. There was a small struggle. I kissed her and she kissed me back with such vigor my lips hurt. We hadn't kissed like that since before we were married. She kissed me again and again, her thin body trembling. She began talking in my ear, rapidly, almost hysterically. “George! Oh, George, I need you! I want you. I've been so miserable... nervous. Why did you do this to me? Why! Oh George, hold me tighter... I'm so ashamed... for the first time in my life I feel brazen... like a slut. Oh, you don't know what I've been through. I tried going out with other men but... somehow... I don't know... I just couldn't bring myself to... George, you're the only man I ever had. I suppose we've both been to blame, I know I haven't been as understanding... I even went to a doctor, I couldn't sleep. He was so frank, told me point blank I needed a man... George!”

I kissed her, held her tightly, tried to tell her it was all one of these things, that I really wasn't happy with Lee, and stuff like that. Of course I couldn't tell her too much about Lee.

“Why don't you get rid of her?” Flo asked.

“I wish I could.”

Flo pulled out of my embrace. She had stopped crying by the time the cab reached her place. Outside the cab, I said I'd see her to her door and said that wasn't necessary, and outside her door I asked her to ask me in. She said no, started to cry again, and I whispered, “Don't make a scene in the hallway.” I took her keys and unlocked the door and once inside I held her in my arms and she kept sobbing, “I'm so ashamed... ashamed...”

“Of what?” I asked, running my hands over her body as if we were a couple of kids. I wanted her as I hadn't wanted her in years.

I fooled with her dress and she whispered, “The zipper is on the other side.”

We lay in bed and she jabbered as in the old days, telling me all the petty things that had happened in her office, the gossip of her friends... and it was good to be with a girl who could jabber, make small talk, who was alive and full of nerves and tension.

As I was leaving, Flo was her old caustic self, and she said, “You know this was all an accident, doesn't change anything between us. I still hate you. Now run home to that overgrown bag.”

“Darling,” I told her, “we have our little heights, but the rest of our life seems to run on a low level. If we made a graph of...”

“Stop it. She can't be giving you any paradise, I never saw you so...”

“Sweetheart, I never denied loving you... in my own way, to be trite,” I said. “In fact we both love each other madly—in our own little ways. I enjoyed this afternoon... and I think you did too.”

We were standing by the door and she drew her robe around her tighter, said, “I feel like a... whore.”

“You're a lovely whore.”

“Don't get any ideas—this doesn't mean you can come here anytime you like and...”

I pinched her cheek, opened her robe and fondled her breast, said, “I know dear,” and as I unlocked the door, added, “I'll only come when the good doctor prescribes me.”

I walked out in fine spirits—the battling Jacksons sparring again. But as I took a cab uptown I felt very tired, tired of people. I longed for the pleasures of living alone, not worrying about anybody's troubles but my own. I wanted to go when and where I felt like, do whatever I was in the mood for. I wanted to read my Times over a cocktail, enjoy the peace and quiet of having my apartment to myself. I suddenly knew I was sick and tired of Lee, wished I could get rid of her as simply as I had left Flo. Actually Lee was n6 more trouble around the house than a big cat, only not as clean, but I was fed up, bored with her simplicity. But getting rid of her wasn't going to be simple. Where could she go?

By the time I reached my place I was very sorry for poor Lee, and even more sorry for poor me.