The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz

by Mordecai Richler

“Jerry,” a woman said, approaching timidly. “Don’t be angry. They told me you’d be here, Jerry.”

  Dingleman’s smile shut like a purse. “Get me my coat, Duddy.”

  “Jerry, I’ve got to have some. Please.”

  An embarrassed man tried to lead the woman away but she wouldn’t be pushed. “Jerry,” she said. “I’ll go crazy. Please, Jerry.”

  “You’re a tramp,” he said so that nobody else could hear. And puffing, his face red and shiny, he started for the door where Duddy waited with his coat. From behind he heard her empty, foolish laughter. “It’s like a scissors,” he heard her tell somebody. “When he walks on those four legs it’s just like a scissors.”

  Duddy hailed a taxi.

  “We’re not going to the hotel,” Dingleman said. “Tell him to take us to Harry’s on Seventh Avenue.”

  Dingleman consumed one cup of coffee after another.

  “Shouldn’t we get back to the hotel? Aren’t you sleepy?”

  “Why are you so crazy to make money?”

  Duddy was startled. He stiffened. “I want to get me some land,” he said. “A man without land is nobody.”

  Dingleman grasped that the boy was repeating somebody else’s platitude, and he laughed in his face.

  “I wish you’d stop laughing at me. I’m not that stupid. And while we’re at it, why did you lug me all the way down to New York? For a joke?”

  “I know your uncle. Benjamin Kravitz. He’s a childish man. I don’t like him.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t like you either.”

  “Maybe. But you like me.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “There’s something wrong. A mistake somewhere when a boy your age is already pursuing money like he had a hot poker up his ass.”

  “Look, do I stick my nose into your business?”

  “Come. Let’s go for a walk.”

  “Wha’?”

  “I can walk further than most men. Don’t worry. Come on.”

  He could not only walk further but he walked faster. Duddy was half asleep. He yawned again and again. “How’s about a little rest?” he asked.

  “This bench here?”

  Duddy slumped on the bench, holding his head in his hands. “Couldn’t we go back to the hotel now?”

  “Quiet.”

  When Duddy looked up again he caught Dingleman unaware. Something had happened to him. His neck had contracted. The massive head had rolled uselessly to one side and the piercing eyes were shut. I don’t have to stay here with him, Duddy thought. There’s no law that says I can’t go back to the hotel.

  “Sit down.”

  “I wasn’t going anywhere,” Duddy said.

  “Come. We’re going to sleep.”

  But in the taxi Dingleman had some instructions for Duddy. “Remember that woman at the party? I want you to go into the lobby and see if she’s there.”

  She wasn’t there. Duddy also walked ahead to Dingleman’s room, but she wasn’t waiting outside there either.

  “Come in and have a drink with me.”

  “I’m tired.”

  “You can sleep in tomorrow.”

  Duddy accepted a straight Scotch. The phone rang. It rang and rang. “Aren’t you going to answer it?”

  “You’re right for once. If not I’ll never get any sleep.” He picked up the receiver and without waiting to hear who was on the other end said, “I’m sorry. I’m not giving you any more.” There was a pause. “That’s right. I brought him down from Montreal with me. I’ve picked up with boys now… No. Absolutely no more.” Dingleman turned to Duddy, intending to ask for his drink, but Duddy was already by his side with it. “My,” Dingleman said, “aren’t you ambitious?”

  Duddy retreated.

  “Look,” Dingleman said into the phone, “no more. And don’t try to phone me here again because I’m telling them not to put any more calls through. Good night.” He hung up. “O.K. You can go to sleep now.”

  By morning Dingleman’s mood had altered again. He was very businesslike. “Be packed and ready by eight. We’re leaving tonight.”

  “I thought we were staying three days?”

  “There’s been a change in plans. Look, I’m sorry, I thought I’d really need you down here, but things didn’t work out that way. I’m going to pay you for the trip anyway. Oh, one minute. There is you can do for me. I want you to take this suitcase with your luggage.”

  Duddy wandered in and out of Broadway restaurants all afternoon and shortly after four he made a business contact. He met a young man who had been in the pinball machine business. Recently, however, the mayor had come down hard on machines — they were illegal, in fact — and he was stuck with ten of them in his basement. They cost three-fifty each new, he said. Duddy was in a giddy mood. He’d wasted two days on a crazy trip. Probably Dingleman would give him fifty bucks for his trouble. No more. “I’ll tell you what,” Duddy told the young man, “if you can get those machines across the border, I don’t care how and I don’t care when, I’ll give you a hundred bucks apiece for them.” The smiling young man’s name was Virgil. Duddy left him his card.

  Dingleman was waiting for him at the station. “I’m not going to sit with you on the train, Duddy. As a matter of fact when I leave you here you don’t know me until we get to Montreal. I may have to get off at the border on some business. If that’s the case don’t worry. You don’t even know me. Understand?” Dingleman dug into his pocket. “Here’s five hundred and fifty dollars. The fifty is for all the little things you did for me here and the five is a loan. I wish it could be more, but… Oh, I almost forgot. Here are the keys to the suitcase and a list of what’s in it. Just in case they ask you to open it at Customs. If I’m not on the train when we get to Montreal, Mr. Shub will be waiting for you at the station. You can give him the case.”

  Duddy counted the money, put it away, and read the list for the suitcase. “Two shirts, two boxes of chocolate, a tin of imported cookies, and a pound of coffee. There are no other items to declare.”

  Jeez, Duddy thought. What in the hell’s going on here?

  He was scared, but it was too late. He couldn’t return the suitcase to Dingleman now. I could throw it out of the window, he thought as the train started. I can pretend it’s not mine. Aw, he thought, there’s probably nothing in it. He’s a funny guy and this is his idea of a joke. Duddy closed his eyes and tried to think about his land. He’d saved fifty of the first hundred Dingleman had given him and so that made six altogether for two days’ work. Another fourteen and he’d own Brault’s land. Another fourteen, Jeez. There was less than three weeks left. Maybe he could squeeze two-fifty out of Cohen? A fat chance.

  “Anything to declare, son?”

  “A couple of shirts, that’s all. Oh, and a tin of imported cookies for my Auntie Ida and a carton of cigarettes.”

  The inspector didn’t even bother to look inside the suitcase. Duddy, relieved, looked outside and saw Dingleman standing on the platform. Two men were talking to him. One of them wore a policeman’s uniform. The train started up again, but Duddy didn’t wave. He waited another ten minutes and locked himself in the toilet with the suitcase. But Dingleman had told the truth. Aside from the items mentioned on the list there was nothing in the suitcase but soiled laundry. Duddy felt in all the side pockets, he tried the case for a false bottom, he slipped his hand between all the shirts and shook out each soiled sock carefully. Jeez, he thought, and he went through the suitcase again. This time he noticed that although the cookie and chocolate boxes were all secured with gift wrappings the coffee tin was not sealed. He opened it. But what he was looking for —”hot” gems — he didn’t find. There was no coffee in the tin, but the white sweet-smelling dust inside meant nothing to him. He salted away some of it in an envelope, though, just in case. Probably, he thought, the jewels or diamonds are individually wrapped inside each chocolate. Boy, he thought, that would be something. But he didn’t dare open either of the boxes for fear he’d ne
ver get the wrappings on right again.

  Shub met him at the station.

  “Jerry got off at the border. He told me to give you this suitcase.”

  “Thanks. You’re a good kid.”

  When Dingleman got into town that night Shub was waiting for him in his apartment. “The coffee tin was open,” he said.

  “It’s O.K. I opened it.”

  “I thought you weren’t going to let her have any more?”

  “Get me Kennedy on the phone, please. I want to speak to him right away.”

  6

  The Cohen boy’s bar-mitzvah was a big affair in a modern synagogue. The synagogue in fact was so modern that it was not called a synagogue any more. It was called a temple. Duddy had never seen anything like it in his life. There were a choir and an organ and a parking lot next door. The men not only did not wear hats but they sat together with the women. All these things were forbidden by traditional Jewish law, but those who attended the temple were so-called Reform Jews and they had modernized the law to suit life in America. The temple prayer services were conducted in English by Rabbi Harvey Goldstone, M.A., and Cantor “Sonny” Brown. Aside from his weekly sermon, the marriage clinic, the Sunday school, and so on, the rabbi, a most energetic man, was very active in the community at large. He was a fervent supporter of Jewish and Gentile Brotherhood, and a man who unfailingly offered his time to radio stations as a spokesman for the Jewish point of view on subjects that ranged from “Does Israel Mean Divided Loyalties?” to “The Jewish Attitude to Household Pets.” He also wrote articles for magazines and a weekly column of religious comfort for the Tely. was a big demand for Rabbi Goldstone as a public speaker and he always made sure to send copies of his speeches to all the newspapers and radio stations.

  Mr. Cohen, who was on the temple executive, was one of the rabbi’s most enthusiastic supporters, but there were some who did not approve. He was, as one magazine writer had put it, a controversial figure.

  “The few times I stepped inside there,” Dingleman once said, “I felt like a Jesuit in a whorehouse.”

  But Mr. Cohen, Farber, and other leaders of the community all took seats at the temple for the High Holidays on, as Mr. Cohen said, the forty-yard line. The rabbi was extremely popular with the young-marrieds and that, their parents felt, was important. Otherwise, some said with justice, the children would never learn about their Jewish heritage.

  Another dissenter was Uncle Benjy. “There used to be,” he said, “some dignity in being against the synagogue. With a severe Orthodox rabbi there were things to quarrel about. There was some pleasure. But this cream puff of a synagogue, this religious drugstore, you might as well spend your life being against the Reader’s Digest. taken all the mystery out of religion.”

  At the bar-mitzvah Mr. Cohen had trouble with his father. The old rag peddler was, he feared, stumbling on the edge of senility. He still clung to his cold-water flat on St. Dominique Street and was a fierce follower of a Chassidic rabbi there. He had never been to the temple before. Naturally he would not drive on the Sabbath and so that morning he had got up at six and walked more than five miles to make sure to be on time for the first prayers. As Mr. Friar stood by with his camera to get the three generations together, Mr. Cohen and his son came down the outside steps to greet the old man. The old man stumbled. “Where’s the synagogue?” he asked.

  “This is it, Paw. This is the temple.”

  The old man looked up at the oak doors and the magnificent stained glass windows. “It’s a church,” he said, retreating.

  “It’s the temple, Paw. This is where Bernie is going to be bar-mitzvah.”

  “Would the old chap lead him up the steps by the hand?” Mr. Friar asked.

  “Shettup,” Duddy said.

  The old man retreated down another step.

  “This is the shul, Come on.”

  “It’s a church.”

  Mr. Cohen laughed nervously. “Paw, for Christ’s sake!” And he led the old man forcefully up the steps. “Stop sniffling. This isn’t a funeral.”

  Inside, the service began. “Turn to page forty-one in your prayerbooks, please,” Rabbi Goldstone said. “Blessed is the Lord, Our Father… “

  The elder Cohen began to sniffle again.

  “Isn’t he sweet,” somebody said.

  “Bernie’s the only grandchild.”

  Following the bar-mitzvah ceremony Rabbi Goldstone began his sermon. “This,” he said, “is National Sports Week.” He spoke on “Jewish Athletes — From Bar Kochva to Hank Greenberg.” Afterwards he had some announcements to make. He reminded the congregation that if they took a look at the racehorse chart displayed in the hall they would see that “Jewish History” was trailing “Dramatics Night” by five lengths. He hoped that more people would attend the next lecture. The concealed organ began to play and the rabbi, his voice quivering, read off an anniversary list of members of the congregation who over the years had departed for the great beyond. He began to read the Mourner’s Prayer as Mr. Friar, his camera held to his eye, tiptoed closer for a medium close shot.

  The elder Cohen had begun to weep again when the first chord had been struck on the organ and Mr. Cohen had had to take him outside. “You lied to me,” he said to his son. “It is a church.”

  Duddy approached with a glass of water. “You go inside,” he said to Mr. Cohen. Mr. Cohen hesitated. “Go ahead,” Duddy said. “I’ll stay with him.”

  “Thanks.”

  Duddy spoke Yiddish to the old man. “I’m Simcha Kravitz’s grandson,” he said.

  “Simcha’s grandson and you come here?”

  “Some circus, isn’t it? Come,” he said, “we’ll go and sit in the sun for a bit.”

  Linda Rubin came to the bar-mitzvah. So did Irwin. “Well,” he said, “look who’s here. Sammy Glick.”

  “All right,” Linda said sharply.

  Duddy introduced Cuckoo Kaplan to Mr. Friar and Cuckoo did some clowning for the camera. “You’ve got a natural talent,” Mr. Friar said.

  Duddy apologized to Cuckoo because he couldn’t pay him for being in the movie.

  “That’s show biz,” Cuckoo said.

  At the reception that night Duddy danced with Linda once. “If Yvette knew she’d be jealous,” Linda said.

  “Aw.”

  “Am I going to be invited to see your movie?”

  “Sure.”

  But in the days that followed, Duddy began to doubt that there ever would be a movie. Mr. Friar was depressed. His best roll of film had been overexposed. It was useless. The light in the temple was, he said, a disaster. “I say, old chap, couldn’t we restage the haftorah he asked.

  “You’re crazy,” Duddy said.

  Mr. Friar went to Ottawa to develop the film at the National Film Board, and when Duddy met him at the station three days later Mr. Friar was very happy indeed. “John thinks this is my greatest film,” he said. “You ought to see the rushes, Kravitz. Splendid!” But Duddy was not allowed to see the rushes. Night and day Mr. Friar worked in secret on the cutting and editing. Duddy pleaded with him. “Can’t I see something? One reel. A half of a reel, even.” But Mr. Friar was adamant. “If I were Eisenstein you wouldn’t talk to me like that. You’d have confidence. You must be fair to me, Kravitz. Wait for the finished product.”

  Meanwhile Mr. Cohen phoned every morning. “Well?” he asked.

  “Soon, Mr. Cohen. Very soon.”

  Duddy, still trying to meet the Brault property deadline, was out early every day pushing liquid soap and toilet supplies. He began to drive his father’s taxi during off hours again. Then he had a stroke of luck. Brault accepted a further payment of a thousand dollars and agreed to wait one more month for the final payment. “Everything,” Duddy told Yvette, “depends on Mr. Friar. If the movie’s O.K. we’re in. If not…”

  “Duddy, you look terrible. Look at the circles under your eyes. You’ve got to stop driving that taxi and get some sleep at night.”

  Three weeks af
ter the bar-mitzvah Mr. Friar was ready. He arranged a private screening for Duddy and Yvette. “I’m beginning to think we’d be making a grave error if we sold this film to Mr. Cohen. It’s a prize winner, Kravitz. I’m sure we could get distribution for it.”

  “Will you turn out the goddam lights and let me see it, please?”

  Duddy didn’t say a word all through the screening, but afterwards he was sick to his stomach.

  “It’s not that bad,” Yvette said. “Things could be done to it.”

  “You think we’d be making a mistake?” Duddy said. “Jeez. I could sell Mr. Cohen a dead horse easier than this pile of —”

  “If you so much as cut it by one single frame,” Mr. Friar said, “then my name goes off the film.”

  Duddy began to laugh. So did Yvette.

  “Timothy suggested we try it at Cannes.”

  “Jeez,” Duddy said. “Everyone’s going to be there. But everyone. The invitations are all out.”

  Duddy took to his bed for two days. He refused to see anyone.

  “I’m so worried,” Yvette said.

  Mr. Friar kissed her hand. “You have a Renaissance profile,” he said.

  “He won’t even answer the phone. Oh, Mr. Friar, please!” she said, removing his hand.

  “If there were only world enough and time, my love…”

  “I’m going to try his number once more,” Yvette said.

  But Duddy was out. On the third day he had decided that he could no longer put off seeing Mr. Cohen. He went to his house this time. “Ah,” Mr. Cohen said, “the producer is here.”

  “Have you got the movie with you?” Bernie asked.

  Mrs. Cohen poured him a glass of plum brandy. “If you don’t mind,” she said, “there are a few more names I’d like to add to the guest list.”

  “I’ve got some bad news for you. I’m canceling the screening. Tomorrow morning my secretary will call everyone to tell them the show’s off.”

  “Aw, gee whiz.”

  “Is it that bad?” Mr. Cohen asked.

  “It’s great. We’re going to enter it in the Cannes Festival.”

  “I don’t understand,” Mrs. Cohen said.