GEORGE FISHER was still lying awake, thinking of the accident which he had seen on 121st Street. A young man had been struck by an automobile, and they had carried him to the drugstore on Broadway. The druggist couldn’t do anything for him, so they waited for an ambulance. The man lay on the druggist’s table in the back of the store looking at the ceiling. He knew he was going to die.
George felt deeply sorry for the man, who seemed to be in his late twenties. The stoical way in which he took the accident convinced George that he was a person of fine character. He knew that the man was not afraid of death, and he wanted to speak to him and tell him that he too was not afraid to die; but the words never formed themselves on his thin lips. George went home, choked with unspoken words.
Lying in bed in his dark room, George heard his daughter, Florence, put the key in the lock. He heard her whisper to Paul, “Do you want to come in for a minute?”
“No,” said Paul after a while, “I’ve got a nine o’clock class tomorrow.”
“Then good night,” said Florence and she closed the door hard.
George thought, This is the first decent boy Florence has gone out with, and she can’t get anywhere with him. She’s like her mother. She doesn’t know how to handle decent people. He raised his head and looked at Beatie, half expecting her to wake up because
his thoughts sounded so loud to him, but she didn’t move.
This was one of George’s sleepless nights. They came just after he had finished reading an interesting novel, and he lay awake imagining that all those things were happening to him. In his sleepless nights George thought of the things that had happened to him during the day, and he said those words that people saw on his lips, but which they never heard him speak. He said to the dying young man, “I’m not afraid to die either.” He said to the heroine in the novel, “You understand my loneliness. I can tell you these things.” He told his wife and daughter what he thought of them.
“Beatie,” he said, “you made me talk once, but it wasn’t you. It was the sea and the darkness and the sound of the water sucking the beams of the pier. Those poetical things I said about how lonely men are—I said them because you were pretty, with dark red hair, and I was afraid because I was a small man with thin lips, and I was afraid that I could not have you. You didn’t love me, but you said yes for Riverside Drive and your apartment and your two fur coats and the people who come here to play bridge and mah-jongg.”
He said to Florence, “What a disappointment you are. I loved you when you were a child, but now you’re selfish and small. I lost my last bit of feeling for you when you didn’t want to go to college. The best thing you ever did was to bring an educated boy like Paul into the house, but you’ll never keep him.”
George spoke these thoughts to himself until the first gray of the April dawn drifted into the bedroom and made the silhouette of Beatie in the other bed clearer. Then George turned over and slept for a while.
In the morning, at breakfast, George said to Florence, “Did you have a good time?”
“Oh, leave me alone,” answered Florence.
“Leave her alone,” said Beatie. “You know she’s cranky in the morning.”
“I’m not cranky,” said Florence, almost crying. “It’s Paul. He never takes me anyplace.”
“What did you do last night?” asked Beatie.
“What we always do,” answered Florence. “We went for a walk. I can’t even get him into a movie.”
“Does he have money?” asked Beatie. “Maybe he’s working his way through college.”
“No,” said Florence, “he’s got money. His father is a big buyer. Oh, what’s the use? I’ll never get him to take me out.”
“Be patient,” Beatie told her. “Next time, either I or your father will suggest it to him.”
“I won’t,” said George.
“No, you won’t,” answered Beatie, “but I will.”
George drank his coffee and left.
When he came home for dinner, there was a note for George saying that Beatie and Florence had eaten early because Beatie was going to Forest Hills to play bridge and Florence had a date to go to the movies with her girl friend. The maid served George, and later he went into the living room to read the papers and listen to the war news.
The bell rang. George rose, calling out to the maid, who was coming from her room, that he would answer the bell. It was Paul, wearing an old hat and a raincoat, wet on the shoulders.
George was glad that Florence and Beatie were not there.
“Come in, Paul. Is it raining?”
“It’s drizzling.”
Paul entered without taking off his raincoat. “Where’s Florence?” he asked.
“She went to the pictures with a friend of hers. Her mother is playing bridge or mah-jongg somewhere. Did Florence know you were coming?”
“No, she didn’t know.”
Paul looked disappointed. He walked to the door.
“Well, I’m sorry,” said George, hoping that the boy would stay.
Paul turned at the door. “Mr. Fisher.”
“Yes?” said George.
“Are you busy now?”
“No, I’m not.”
“How about going for a walk with me?”
“Didn’t you say it was raining?”
“It’s only spring rain,” said Paul. “Put on your raincoat and an old hat.”
“Yes,” said George, “a walk will do me good.” He went into his room for a pair of rubbers. As he was putting them on, he could feel a sensation of excitement, but he didn’t think of it. He put on his black raincoat and last year’s hat.
As soon as they came into the street and the cold mist fell on his face, George could feel the excitement flow through his body. They crossed the street, passed Grant’s Tomb, and walked toward the George Washington Bridge.
The sky was filled with a floating white mist which clung to the street lamps. A wet wind blew across the dark Hudson from New Jersey and carried within it the smell of spring. Sometimes the wind blew the cold mist into George’s eyes, and it shocked him as if it were electricity. He took long steps to keep up with Paul, and he secretly rejoiced in what they were doing. He felt a little like crying, but he did not let Paul guess.
Paul was talking. He told stories about his professors in Columbia at which George laughed. Then Paul surprised George by telling him that he was studying architecture. He pointed out the various details of the houses they were passing and told him what they were derived from. George was very much interested. He always liked to know where things came from.
They slowed down, waited for traffic to stop, crossed Riverside Drive again, and walked over to Broadway to a tavern. Paul ordered a sandwich and a bottle of beer, and George did the same. They talked about the war; then George ordered two more bottles of beer for Paul and him, and they began to talk about people. George told the boy the story of the young man who had died in the drugstore. He felt a strange happiness to see how the story affected Paul.
Somebody put a nickel into the electric phonograph, and it played a tango. The tango added to George’s pleasure, and he sat there thinking how fluently he had talked.
Paul had grown quiet. He drank some beer, then he began to speak about Florence. George was uneasy and a little bit frightened. He was afraid that the boy was going to tell him something
that he did not want to know and that his good time would be over.
“Florence is beautiful with that red hair,” said Paul, as if he were talking to himself.
George said nothing.
“Mr. Fisher,” said Paul, lowering his glass and looking up, “there’s something I want you to know.”
“Me?”
“Mr. Fisher,” Paul told him earnestly, “Florence is in love with me. She told me that. I want to love her because I’m lonely, but I don’t know—I can’t love her. I can’t reach her. She’s not like you. We go for a walk along the Drive, and I can’t reach her. Then she says I’m moody, and she wants to go to the movies.”
George could feel his heart beating strongly. He felt that he was listening to secrets, yet they were not secrets because he had known them all his life. He wanted to talk—to tell Paul that he was like him. He wanted to tell him how lonely he had been all his life and how he lay awake at night, dreaming and thinking until the gray morning drifted into the room. But he didn’t.
“I know what you mean, Paul,” he said.
They walked home in the rain, which was coming down hard now.
When he got in, George saw that both Beatie and Florence had gone to bed. He removed his rubbers and hung his wet hat and raincoat in the bathroom. He stepped into his slippers, but he decided not to undress because he did not feel like sleeping. He was aware of a fullness of emotion within him.
George went over to the radio and turned on some jazz softly. He lit a cigar and put out the lamps. For a while he stood in the dark, listening to the soft music. Then he went to the window and drew aside the curtain.
The spring rain was falling everywhere. On the dark mass of the Jersey shore. On the flowing river. Across the street the rain was droning on the leaves of the tall maples, wet in the lamplight, and swaying in the wind. The wind blew the rain hard and sharp across the window, and George felt tears on his cheeks.
A great hunger for words rose in him. He wanted to talk. He wanted to say things that he had never said before. He wanted to tell them that he had discovered himself and that never again would he be lost and silent. Once more he possessed the world and loved it. He loved Paul, and he loved Florence, and he loved the young man who had died.
I must tell her, he thought. He opened the door of Florence’s room. She was sleeping. He could hear her quiet breathing.
“Florence,” he called softly, “Florence.”
She was instantly awake. “What’s the matter?” she whispered.
The words rushed to his lips. “Paul, Paul was here.”
She rose on her elbow, her long hair falling over her shoulder. “Paul? What did he say?”
George tried to speak, but the words were suddenly immovable. He could never tell her what Paul had said. A feeling of sorrow for Florence stabbed him.
“He didn’t say anything,” he stammered. “We walked—went for a walk.”
Florence sighed and lay down again. The wind blew the spring rain against the windows and they listened to the sound it made falling in the street.
1942
COMING UPSTAIRS, Laban Goldman was rehearsing arguments against taking his wife to the movies so that he could attend his regular classes in night school, when he met Mrs. Campbell, his neighbor, who lived in the apartment next door.
“Look, Mrs. Campbell,” said Laban, holding up a newspaper. “Again! This time in
The Brooklyn Eagle
.”
“Another letter?” Mrs. Campbell said. “How do you do it?”
“They like the way I express myself on the subject of divorce.” He pointed to his letter in the newspaper.
“I’ll read it over later,” Mrs. Campbell said. “Joe brings home the
Eagle
. He cuts out your letters. You know, he showed everyone the one about tolerance. Everyone thought the sentiments were very excellent.”
“You mean my
New York Times
letter?” Laban beamed.
“Yes, it had excellent sentiments,” said Mrs. Campbell, continuing downstairs. “Maybe someday you ought to write a book.”
A tremor of bittersweet joy shook Laban Goldman. “With all my heart, I concur with your hope,” he called down after her.
“Nobody can tell,” Mrs. Campbell said.
Laban opened the door of his apartment and stepped into the hallway. The meeting with Mrs. Campbell had given him confidence.
He felt that his arguments would take on added eloquence. As he was hanging up his hat and coat on the clothes tree in the hall, he heard his wife talking on the telephone.
“Laban?” she called.
“Yes.” He tried to make it sound cold.
Emma came into the hallway. She was a small woman, heavily built.
“Sylvia is calling,” she said.
He held up the paper. “The editor printed a letter,” he said quickly. “It means I will have to go to school tonight.”
Emma clutched her hands and pressed them to her bosom. “Laban,” she cried, “you promised me.”
“Tomorrow night.”
“No, tonight!”
“Tomorrow night.”
“Laban!” she screamed.
He held his ground. “Don’t make an issue,” he said. “Tomorrow is the same picture.”
Emma bounded over to the telephone. “Sylvia,” she cried, “you see, now he doesn’t go.”
Laban tried to duck into his room, but she was too quick for him.
“Telephone,” she announced coldly. Wearily he walked over to the phone.
“Poppa,” said Sylvia, “why have you broken your promise that you gave to Momma?”
“Listen, Sylvia, for a minute, without talking. I didn’t break my promise. All I want to do is to delay or postpone it till tomorrow, and she jumps to conclusions.”
“You promised me today,” cried Emma, who was standing there, listening.
“Please,” he said, “have the common decency to refrain from talking when I’m talking to someone else.”
“You are talking to my daughter,” she declared with dignity.
“I am well aware and conscious that your daughter is your daughter.”
“All the time big words,” she taunted.
“Poppa, don’t fight,” said Sylvia over the telephone. “You promised you would take Momma to the movies tonight.”
“It just so happens that my presence is required in school tonight.
The Brooklyn Eagle
printed a vital letter I wrote, and Mr. Taub, my English teacher, likes to discuss them in class.”
“Can’t it wait till tomorrow?”
“The issue is alive and pertinent today. Tomorrow, today’s paper will be yesterday’s.”
“What is the letter about?”
“It’s a sociological subject of import. You will read it.”
“Poppa, this can’t go on,” said Sylvia sharply. “I have two young children to take care of. I can’t keep tearing myself away from my family every other night to take Momma to the movies. It’s your duty to take her out.”
“I have no alternative.”
“What do you mean, Poppa?”
“My education comes first.”
“You can get just as much education four nights a week as you can five.”
“That will not hold water mathematically,” he said.
“Poppa, you’re a pretty smart man. Couldn’t you stay home just one night a week, say on Wednesdays, and take Momma out?”
“To me, the movies are not worth it.”
“You mean your wife is not worth it,” broke in Emma again.
“I wasn’t talking to you,” said Laban.
“Don’t fight,
please
,” said Sylvia. “Poppa, try to be considerate.”
“I’m
too
considerate,” Laban said. “That’s why I didn’t advance in my whole life up to now. It’s about time I showed some consideration for myself.”
“I’m not going to argue with you about that anymore, but I warn you, Poppa, you will have to take more responsibility about Momma. It isn’t fair to let her stay home all alone at night.”
“That’s her problem.”
“It’s yours,” broke in Emma.
Laban lost his temper. “It’s yours,” he shouted.
“Goodbye, Poppa,” said Sylvia hastily. “Tell Momma I’ll come over at eight o’clock.”
Laban hung up the receiver. His wife’s face was red. Her whole body was heaving with indignation.
“To who you married,” she asked bitterly, “to the night school?”
“Twenty-seven years I have been married to you in a life which I got nothing from it,” he said.
“You got to eat,” she said, “you got to sleep, and you got a nice house. From your wife who brought up your child, I will say nothing.”
“This is ancient history,” sneered Laban. “Tell me, please, have I got understanding? Did I get encouragement to study to take civil-service examinations so I am now a government clerk who is making twenty-six hundred dollars a year and always well provided for his family? Did I get encouragement to study subjects in high school? Did I get praise when I wrote letters to the editor which the best papers in New York saw fit to print them? Answer me this.”
“Hear thou me, Laban—” began Emma in Yiddish.
“Talk English, please,” Laban shouted. “When in Rome, do what the Romans do.”
“I don’t express myself so good in English.”
“So go to school and learn.”
Emma completely lost her temper. “Big words I need to clean the house? School I need to cook for you?” she shouted.
“You don’t have to cook for me!”
“I don’t have to cook?” she asked sarcastically. “So good!” Emma drew herself up. “So tonight, cook your own supper!” She stomped angrily into the hall and turned at the door of her room. “And when you’ll get an ulcer from your cooking,” she said, “so write a letter to the editor.” She banged the door of her room shut.
Laban went into his room and stuffed his books and newspaper into his briefcase. “She makes my whole life disagreeable,” he muttered. He put on his hat and coat and went downstairs. His
first impulse had been to go to the restaurant, but his appetite was gone, so he went to the cafeteria on the corner of the avenue near the school. The quarrel had depressed him because he had counted on avoiding it. He ate half a sandwich, drank his coffee, and hurried off to school.
He went through his biology and geometry classes without paying much attention to the discussions, but his interest picked up in his Spanish class when Miss Moscowitz, who was also in his English class, came into the room. Laban nodded to her. She was a tall, thin young woman in her early thirties. Except for her glasses and a few pockmarks on her cheek, almost entirely hidden by the careful use of rouge, she wasn’t bad-looking. She and Laban were the shining lights of their English class, and it thrilled him to think how he would impress her with his letter. He debated with himself on the procedure of introducing the letter into the discussion. Should he ask Mr. Taub for permission to read the letter to the class, or should he wait for a favorable moment and surprise the class by reading the letter then? He decided to wait. When he thought how dramatic the scene would be, Laban’s excitement grew. The bell rang. He gathered up his books and, without waiting for Miss Moscowitz, walked toward his English room.
Mr. Taub began the lesson with a discussion on the element of fate in
Romeo and Juliet,
the play the class had just read. The class, adults and young people, both American and foreign-born, gave their opinions on the subject as Laban nervously sought for an opening. He was usually very active in this type of discussion, but he decided not to participate too much tonight in order to give his full attention to discovering a subject relevant to the letter. Miss Moscowitz was particularly effective in her answers. She analyzed the various elements of the plot with such impressive clarity that the class held its breath as she talked. Laban squirmed uncomfortably in his seat as the period grew shorter. He knew that he would feel miserable if he had not read his letter, especially since he had not even participated in the discussion. Mr. Taub brought up another question: “How did the lovers themselves contribute to their tragedy?”
Again Miss Moscowitz’s hand shot up. The teacher looked around, but no hands were raised so he nodded to her.
“Their passion was the cause of the tragedy,” said Miss Moscowitz, rising from her seat; but before she could go on, Laban Goldman’s hand was waving in the air.
“Ah, Mr. Goldman,” said the teacher, “we haven’t heard from you tonight. Suppose we let him go on, Miss Moscowitz?”
“Gladly,” she said, resuming her seat.
Laban rose and nodded to Miss Moscowitz. He tried to appear at ease, but his whole body was throbbing with excitement. He stepped into the aisle, thrust his right hand into his trouser pocket, and cleared his throat.
“A young woman like Miss Moscowitz should be complimented on her very clear and visionary answers. There was once a poet who quoted ‘Passions spin the plot,’ and Miss Moscowitz saw that this quotation is also true in this play. The youthful lovers, Romeo and Juliet, both of them were so overwhelmed and disturbed by their youthful ardor for each other that they could not discern or see clearly what their problems would be. This is not true only of these Shakespeare lovers, but also of all people in particular. When a man is young, he is carried away by his ardor and passion for a woman with the obvious and apparent result that he don’t take into consideration his wife’s real characteristics—whether she is suited to be his mate in mind as well as in the body. The result of this incongruence is very frequently tragedy or, nowadays, divorce. On this subject I would like to quote you some words of mine which were printed in a newspaper, The Brooklyn Eagle, today.”
He paused and looked at the teacher.
“Please do,” said Mr. Taub. The class buzzed with interest.
Laban’s hands trembled as he took the paper from his briefcase. He cleared his throat again.
To the Editor of
The Brooklyn Eagle:
I would like to point out to your attention that there are many important problems that we are forgetting on account of the war. It is not my purpose or intention to disavow the war, but it is my purpose to say a few words on the subject of divorce.
New York State is back in the dark ages where this problem is concerned. Many a man of unstained reputation has his life filled with the darkness of tragedy because he will not allow his reputation to be defiled or soiled. I refer to adultery, which, outside of desertion, which takes too long, is the only practicable means of securing a divorce in this state. When will we become enlightened enough to learn that incompatibility “breeds contempt,” and that such a condition festers in the mind the way adultery festers in the body?
In view of this fact, there is only one conclusion—that we ought to have a law here to provide us with divorce on the grounds of incompatibility. I consider this to be
Quod Erat Demonstrandum.
Laban Goldman
Brooklyn, January 28, 1942
Laban lowered his paper, and in the pause that ensued he said, “I don’t have to explain to the people in this class who are taking Geometry 1 or 2 what this Latin quotation means.”
The class was deeply impressed. They applauded as Laban sat down. His legs trembled, but he was filled with the great happiness of triumph.
“Thank you, Mr. Goldman,” said Mr. Taub. “It pleases me to see that you are continuing your literary pursuits, and I should like the class to note that there was a definite Introduction, Body, and Conclusion in Mr. Goldman’s composition—that is to say—his letter. Without having seen the paper, I feel sure that there are three paragraphs in the letter he read to us. Isn’t that so, Mr. Goldman?”
“Absolutely!” said Laban. “I invite all to inspect the evidence.”
Miss Moscowitz’s hand shot up. The teacher nodded.
“I don’t know how the class feels, but I for one am honored to be in a class with a man of Mr. Goldman’s obvious experience and literary talent. I thought that the gist of the letter was definitely very excellent.”