The computer people were a special breed. They too rarely mixed with anyone, preferring to take their coffee when no one was around, though they weren’t in the least bit stuck up. They just had a special skill that set them apart. The computer
was enormous. It hummed and throbbed when they ran their perforated cards through it. It was all polished chrome and flashing lights like a sleek ocean liner. The operators sat boxed in at the center of operations and examined the cards before running them through. Sometimes they had a moment and read their newspapers. No one approached them during the day. Even Solly kept his distance. Hirsch had spoken to them once and could vouch for their general affability. One of them ate a lot of yogurt and liked classical music. He was apparently in charge. His assistant had a season ticket to New York Ranger hockey games. Naturally they had a special relationship with Payroll but most of their intercourse took place behind closed doors. The fat matron always looked especially pleased after these sessions and afterwards the cards virtually flew through the computer.
You never knew when resentments would flare up or get out of hand. Generally people kept them under wraps, and then, as the saying went, it all came out. This was true in offices as much as in families, though in the latter there tended to be less restraint. Walt resented Charlie and Charlie resented Walt but they somehow managed to present a solid front. Hirsch resented Harriet’s author and sometimes he resented Harriet as well. Harriet clearly resented him. He had an idea what was coming next.
Hirsch waited in the house for Harriet. She had not come back and it was late. Had she put on some weight in
recent months? Had she been more preoccupied than usual? She had solid flesh and a handsome face. In this shell she
resided inscrutably, sending signals to the world that Hirsch did not always understand. If she was like him in any way, things would not always have been clear in her mind either. Or was it that women were single-minded? He didn’t know. Perhaps Solly knew, apparently being experienced in these matters, not that he imagined that Solly was capable of reading a woman’s mind, even if he sometimes came close to reading Hirsch’s. Solly and Harriet had never met, which was a pity in a way, for then she might see him through someone else’s eyes, discover how highly he was esteemed in corporate circles, how his opinions carried a certain weight, how his presence could not be altogether ignored as was often the case in Harriet’s circles. He thought of himself as Solly’s
protégé, being groomed as his successor, and Solly as his mentor. Clearly there were a lot of things he could learn from Solly, how to talk to the women in the other room, how to talk to Walt and Charlie. He was still lacking a certain something that only time and seasoning would provide in the natural process of growth and maturation. Hirsch was not impatient. He had all the time in the world, even if Harriet did not.
Many books had now appeared “illustrated by Harriet Hirsch,” some with her imaginary animals. She and her author had a good laugh over that but she was not particularly proud of what she had done. She repeated all his arguments but was not entirely convinced by them. There must be some essential difference, she said, between what is and what is not. But no, her author said, what is not exists as surely as what is, though in a different way, potentially as the Greeks might say. That means in form if not in substance, buried in the unlived life.
To which Harriet had no reply.
Hirsch too did not have a head for ontological issues. He had enough problems of his own. He had paperwork piling up on his desk, deadlines to meet, Walt and Charlie breathing down his neck, Solly constantly prodding or testing him. It was like holding back a flood. He tried to explain all this to Harriet but she had other things on her mind. She too was under constant pressure. That was why she often had these meetings with her author. They met in the Library, in the house, even at his home. She was always carrying big portfolios full of drawings. She never let them out of her sight. In the Automat she even took them to the ladies’ room. Infusoria were her life. Hirsch could understand this passion and even admire it. He was something of an artist himself. Hadn’t he printed that book of poems in Paris all those years ago?
He had come back in the fall. He had gotten the Christmas job. He had seen Harriet. Then the Company had taken him on. Miss Malone had given him the standard test and he had passed it. She had sent him down to Solly. Solly was
impressed. He introduced him to the girls of Accounting and showed him to his desk. Then there’d been a meeting with Walt and Charlie to iron out modalities. Everyone seemed to know what he was doing. This was America. Things worked. There was a protocol for everything. Hirsch took his duties seriously, though there was clearly a lighter side to accountancy, best seen at the coffee dispenser or on Friday afternoons after their long, leisurely lunches. Everyone in the office had a sense of humor, except Mr. Kroll, who never stopped stamping papers. That was remarkable, Hirsch told Harriet. You’d expect bookkeepers to be a dour lot. But no, they were actually full of fun. The difference was, they knew when to stop. Solly would rein them in when their hijinks threatened to get out of hand. One stern look from Solly was enough to send them scurrying back to their desks. It was this finely balanced mix of solemnity and horseplay that was the hallmark of corporate success. Solly had it. Hirsch did not.
Hirsch envied Solly, envied his aplomb, envied the air of conviction with which he went about his business. Hirsch was less convincing in the conduct of company affairs. An astute observer might have cast doubts as to his commitment to the organization, what it stood for, what it aspired to. It wasn’t enough just to do your job. You had to live it, you had to take it home with you. Carrying around an empty briefcase was well and good when it came to bamboozling Walt and Charlie but it wasn’t good enough when it came to doing your homework and coming to the office fully prepared for whatever the day would bring. Solly did his homework, Mr. Kroll was never without his stamp, and the treasurer had big boxes carried down to his car every evening.
It was getting late. Hirsch waited for the girls of Accounting to punch out. They all crowded around the time clock waiting for the hour to strike. It made a good impression to remain nonchalantly at one’s desk as though not begrudging the Company its minute or two of unpaid time. Solly of course didn’t have to clock out. That was a privilege that told you you’d arrived. On the other hand, he didn’t get overtime pay either and sometimes stayed very late. Sometimes the only two people in the building would be Solly and the treasurer’s secretary, though God knew what business she had there in the evening hours. Once Hirsch had stayed late, after the inventory count, totaling up the various slips with Walt and Charlie looking on. Afterward they had all gone out for a late supper and had a beer. On the few occasions when he had had to come into the office on Saturday, such as during the inventory counts, Hirsch had permitted himself to dress casually. That was the norm. Solly came in wearing a checkered shirt and a windbreaker. Old Mr. Kroll came in wearing a motorcycle jacket and some kind of military headgear. It was said that he had been a major or captain in the army. Solly too had been in the war. He had been over in France and had apparently seen some fighting and it was rumored that he had had an affair with a French girl, but that was before he was married, or so people believed. In any case he knew a little French and Hirsch was tempted to tell him about his own adventures on the Continent, but thought better of it, fearful lest Solly ask him probing questions. Solly belonged to a different generation but was au courant. People like Solly ruled the roost. This was their time. Charlie wore his hunting outfit. Most of the women of Accounting wore slacks. Those were heady times.
You did your job and had your beer and walked the streets on a fine spring evening. Hirsch thought about Harriet, wanting her. She drifted in and out of his thoughts, her image evoked in little bursts or flashes of memory and desire originating in the hidden recesses of the mind, as they are called, down beneath the surface, deep inside. He walked toward the Library, imagining she w
ould be there. He crossed and recrossed the street. He tried to light his pipe. The lights of the city shimmered in the liquescent evening air. All around him people were hastening home, as was always the case in the holiday season. Sometimes couples met on a corner, loaded down with packages. He crossed and recrossed the street. What had she worn? Where had she gone? In the distance he could see the Library and all the women there. Then he crossed the street and went up the steps.
V
It was not entirely clear to Zupan what the Horns were getting at when they came down to tell him about the new play that was going into production. Had they received a part, or was there one available for him? William Horn kept slapping him on the back and squeezing his shoulder while Elizabeth looked on fondly, striking various poses as she moved through the room with them. The plot, at any rate, sounded vaguely familiar and apparently rehearsals were due to begin the following week. They were also throwing a party for the cast.
“You will come, won’t you?” Elizabeth said.
“Of course he will,” Horn said, virtually forcing Zupan to circle the room with him in his great excitement. Then he fell back on the sofa with a big sigh, his short legs thrown into the air to reveal a pair of silk stockings held up by garters.
Elizabeth sat down too, crossing her legs and pulling her skirt modestly down below her knees. “Everyone’s dying to meet you,” she said.
“It’s a golden opportunity, my boy,” Horn added. “You’ll never have a chance like this again.”
“I can’t tell you how thrilled we are,” Elizabeth said, patting the place beside her while Horn shifted his weight slightly to leave just enough room for Zupan to squeeze in between them. “This is really grand,” she then said with a broad gesture, perhaps meaning to indicate the room, as though it were the first time she was seeing it, or perhaps referring to the occasion—the play, the party, their good fortune. Again she pulled her skirt over her knees, glancing at Zupan in a seemingly embarrassed way. Horn loosened his tie, rotating his neck in his stiff collar and blowing out some air to reinforce the impression of relief.
“You sure got a lot of books,” Elizabeth said. “Got any with pitchers?”
“I used to read a lot too,” Horn said. “Then my eyes began to go.”
“He can’t even read his own handwriting,” Elizabeth said. “And he writes so big.”
“Liz writes tiny,” Horn said. “You should see her u’s and t’s.”
“I try to make them round and curly but it isn’t me. Would you mind if I looked around?”
Her face was very close to his so that he could see the pores of her skin and smell her very strong perfume, which made him think of candy, as did her very red lips. She stood up and Horn stood up too, catching Zupan’s eye with an indulgent wink. Elizabeth found the bedroom quickly enough. Horn brought up the rear, tiptoeing behind her and signaling to Zupan to come along but putting his finger to his lips to caution him against giving the game away. They came into the bedroom right after her but apparently she knew they were there without even turning around. “So this is where you sleep,” Elizabeth said, straightening the blanket on the bed. “It looks so cozy.”
She found the bathroom next, going directly to the medicine cabinet and reading the labels on the little jars with apparent interest. Then she washed her hands, drying them on the big white towel draped across the curtain rod above the bathtub. A rusty razor blade lay in the soapdish. A few of the small, hexagonal floor tiles were chipped or missing. The frosted-glass window above the toilet seat was slightly open. When she was finished inspecting the bathroom, Horn made as if to hold the door open for her, flattening himself against the wall to let her pass. Then she looked into a closet and went into the kitchen. “It’s just like ours,” she said.
“Well, we’re one above the other,” Horn said. “That’s the plan.”
“Who’s across the hall from you? Not that horrible Mr. Spinelli?”
“Now now, Liz.”
“The way he talks.”
“I rather like him,” Horn said. “He’ll go places in this world.”
The Horns sat down again. Zupan made them tea. They kept looking around the room, as though to note the location of various objects, or even looking for something they were expecting to find. Zupan stood by the window, glancing out from time to time. The windows in the building across the yard were shut, the shades were drawn, the balconies were bare. It was winter now, the Christmas season. Zupan stared at the blank facade for a long while, through the trees. He could sense the cold outside, he felt it pushing up against the frozen window, though in the apartment it was warm, as their little janitor never failed to stoke the furnace. Zupan thought about the janitor’s black, silent wife.
The Horns were chatting on the sofa as though alone, the tea cups tinkling as they sipped the tea, laughing quietly from time to time. From the other window in the room he saw the street. It was empty now. He remembered other rooms and other streets. It seemed to him that this moment had been lived before, or perhaps was always there and he was again passing through it. Certainly these streets had always been there, these buildings, these women, in certain configurations, imprinted forever in his mind, triggering certain ideas at certain times. The street was empty. He felt the cold when he pressed his nose against the windowpane. The cold evoked another flood of memories. These had lain dormant in him all these years, waiting for this moment. Had the moment not come the memories might have been lost, or belonged to someone else, someone who was not him standing at a window on a winter day while the Horns sat on the sofa chatting quietly as they drank their tea.
When he had first moved into the building, Elizabeth had brought down a plate of food and introduced herself. And he went to Jones Beach and came back with sand in his shoes and the smell of the sea in his skin. And he went to the movies and once he saw a show but mostly he walked the streets, following fixed routes, from Union Square to Washington Square, from Washington Square to Times Square, and from the Library to the Automat. In that time and in that place, he had been alone. She had not been there. She had come, and then she had gone. And around her image were gathered a thousand little sparks or shards of memory that were at the center of his life.
Zupan remembered her face. Zupan remembered her dreamy walk, and the lights of the city shimmering in the evening air. In the train she had laid her head against his shoulder and her hair had brushed his cheek.
Zupan remembered the knit wool suit she wore that brought out the color of her skin and hair and eyes. Zupan remembered her dreamy look. Zupan remembered the sound of her heels on the pavement on the night she came to him unexpectedly and they were together. They had parted, he had thought forever, and she had taken the train and had changed her mind and had come back. It must have been after two in the morning when he heard the report of her heels against the pavement underneath his window, hurried, as though in fright, and then the knock on the door.
In that time and in that place he had been alone, and then she had come and they had been together. Often he did not sleep at night. He read till dawn and slept till noon. He walked to the Library and ate in the Automat. His head was full of voices. No one heard these voices. They were his alone. While they spoke to him he went about his business, walking quickly in the street, as though pursued but in fact inspired. He sensed something in him that he could almost touch that held the secret of his life.
He must have seen her in the university. Perhaps he had seen her when he sat on the lawn taking in the sun. In those days he had been full of plans. He had been a student of philosophy.
She had worn her hair short. She had a slender neck and slender arms and legs and that dreamy look as though her mind was always occupied by dreamy thoughts. She held her books against her chest. He could not remember if she had worn glasses, but it would not have made a difference, she would have looked the same. He waited for her the next day and t
he day after that, but she never came.
He read most of the night and slept during the day. In the afternoon he went to the Library and then the Automat. In the Automat he brought his tray to an unoccupied table and waited for the girl in the short white smock to clear it off and wipe it clean. The smock rode up her thigh when she leaned across the table. He ate out of the little dishes and then had coffee. Sometimes someone sat down at his table and then he left.
Usually it was already dark when he left. Sometimes he took the train home. Sometimes he rode it all night. It lurched and swerved in the winding tunnels and sometimes stopped in the dimly lit stations taking on people like himself. The movement of the train occupied him for a time and the voices stopped. He stared into the dark tunnels with nothing in his mind. He saw his face reflected wraithlike in the glass and the lights shining through it as though he wasn’t there. His reflection had no substance, just like his thoughts, occupying an enclosed yet boundless space.
One day he saw someone he knew in the subway, in a crowded car. Their eyes met and they signaled to one another but neither moved. He had dark eyes and a weasel’s face.
That was in another time and another place. Zupan had been a student of philosophy, always deep in thought, somewhat nondescript, wearing an old suede jacket zippered to the throat. He kept his hands in his pockets and in the winter he sometimes wore a scarf. The winter cold chilled him to the bone. The heat of summer brought him back to life. Then he luxuriated in the hot, still air, listening to the lazy drone of distant planes in the cloudless sky on peaceful days when children’s voices called to him. And he heard the music too.
Basic Forms Page 8