The Bookman's Tale

by Berry Fleming

  “All right, all right! But did you—”

  —for some ten minutes more she careened under the squall and then, like a freight train slamming past you and gone, the squall blew by, the wind dropped into light airs and the sun came out. We secured the foresail boom, set hands at the pumps. Somebody said, “What’s that over there!” It was the black tower of a submarine, Akula Class, dripping white sea-water down the sides. “Hooray! Glory be! Give us a hand. We’re in trouble!” everybody waving, dancing around.

  We must have scared her. She submerged while we were yelling. Headed west—

  All of them turning as the bartender cried, “Ah, the Captain!” raising one hand in a high salute and reaching with the other into his basket of limes; going on to squeeze out a tall lime drink, mumbling, “Never touch a drop,” to the three or four on the bar stools who obviously did, the Captain crossing the room, sitting down with his back to the door and tapping up the visor of his cap in a gesture of dropping anchor. When the bartender brought his lime drink he acknowledged it with a nod, adding other nods in silent answer to “How’ve you been, Captain?” and such greetings, waved at the table with, “Shipmates of mine,” and seemed to feel that took care of everything, hoped it did, obviously thinking of something else.

  Which came out clear enough when after a minute he said, “That no-good out there,” stirring the lime drink with a disdainful first finger, “you saw him. Takes me back to Oslo. Father’s Oslo.”

  Ray had hardly noticed him, beyond thinking, “Another one.” Plenty of “no-goods” in harbor towns—a man close to forty, shirt and pants and broken shoes as run-down as paint on a tramp steamer. But he wondered if the man wasn’t more than just “another one” to the Captain to make him think of Oslo, Father’s Oslo. “Brought us all to the USA, the Promised Land, but couldn’t get Oslo out of his mind. Talk for hours about the Navigation School in his day. Four years as seaman to be eligible. Then ten months at school and you can take the Mate’s Examination,” stopping to hold out a crooked wet finger to the small gray bird that had landed on the table for cracker crumbs, offering the finger, not insisting, the bird ignoring him, busy with the crumbs.

  “If you pass you’re eligible for a third-mate’s berth. If you can find one. Two years as third mate and you go back and work a year to take the Master’s Examination. Pass it and you get your Master’s License, good as long as you stay out of trouble. Eight years from able seaman to Master. And more likely ten to twelve the way things work out, ships not just moored there waiting for you to come aboard. You can have a Master’s License and can’t find a ship to master. In that case if you’re smart you take what you can find and sail as mate,” ignoring the bird which, as if interested, had hopped up on the knuckle of his thumb. “Like Wagman, Master’s License and no ship, waiting for a break, a shift in the wind. You go with a big company if you can. In bad times they can find a place for a good man on another ship. Small company folds, sells out and you start over again. That man out there had a Master’s License” (moving his thumb and the bird hopping to the window-sill and flying away). “Shipped as third mate on the Marta S. deWaal, 5,000 tons, bound for Hamburg with iron ore from Cyprus. Gale in the North Sea. Engines old and weak, speed checked, lost steerageway, she wouldn’t answer. Breakers up ahead, first time I’d seen them from the deep-water side, jumping like white horses. Seven men lost with the ship, thought one was the mate until five minutes ago.…”

  The man walking in the door, standing a minute to look about, then coming over to the table and leaning on the back of a vacant chair as if he were tired and saying, “Captain, have you got a berth on the Lindvagen for an able seaman?” as though knowing the answer. Or the sort of answer it would be, because he didn’t seem surprised when the Captain pushed aside his lime drink, got up, walked over to the cashier, paid out some money and left the room.

  They found him at a corner of the Park talking through the din of motor horns with Mrs. Hardly (LaVerne) and the young women from Mobile, each with parcels of little favors and decorations for the Christmas party, Preacher Bickle snapping pictures of them from a bench in the shade—until the camera was snatched from his neck by three men in khaki jackets with badges inside the lapels and he was marched away between them toward the Harbor Master’s office, the Captain mumbling, “Soviet agent.” “Captain! It couldn’t be!” “They’re everywhere—”

  “Excuse me, sir,” from a short black man at the top of the porch steps, a taxi-driver’s cap on the back of his head with an oval “No. 17” pinned to the band. “The lady? Mr. Hugh Jim say take the lady where she want to go.” “And you can do that?” “Oh yes. Mr. Hugh Jim speak, we jump.”

  Ray told him the lady would be back shortly, “Any minute now,” beginning to wonder if she would be—appearing out of nowhere two hours ago disappearing into another nowhere now—the driver sitting down on a top step with his cap on a knee as if used to waiting.

  And Ray returning through the silence, the hot silence laced with city sounds like bright threads, to the girls from Mobile under the Christmas lanterns and one of them (Becky, he thought, prompted by the other) saying, “Yes, well,” and after a glance at her fingernails as if checking her notes, “This friend of mine married an advertising man in New York.…”

  THE YOUNG WIFE’S TALE

  She met him at an office party. He wasn’t with her magazine but he sold ads for a record company the magazine did business with and somebody brought him. A black-haired man about thirty-five, not very tall, as I remember. Wore glasses—thin glass that needed a polishing—wore them in a friendly way as if he had worn them all his life. They gave him a serious look but he was really quite amusing. Stories about the advertising business. Said you could sell people anything if you wanted to spend the money, said he’d really like to live in Utah and raise honeybees.

  I stayed with them once for two or three days. In New York to buy some new clothes, expensive ones, forget my new divorce and the handsome wretch who asked me for it. Slept on their sofa. A small third-floor walkup on 11th Street. I don’t think I was much trouble and, for me, it was a joy to be with them, to be in the midst of a marriage that worked. Not demonstrative about it—oh, holding hands, yes, and really meaning the kisses when they met or separated, but comfortable with each other, considerate, watching for little ways to please. A smooth marriage. I saw her take off his glasses once, polish them and hook them back over his ears.

  No children though they had been married three or four years when I was there. Didn’t want children. She had a good job, liked the people, good pay, and he made as much or more. They talked about moving uptown. I went with her one lunch time to see a place on East 74th Street, larger, much more expensive but that didn’t bother her. “We can handle it,” she said. “We have a plan.” She knew a married woman in her office who said she and her husband had saved a great chunk of taxes by getting a divorce in December and getting married again in January. The taxes they paid as singles, with single deductions and all, came out to much less than being married and using a joint return.

  She said they had talked it over, my friend and her husband, figured it up and down, right and left, and decided they would do that too. With what they saved they could easily manage the uptown apartment, more convenient for both, closer to their offices, no subway, an easy walk.

  They had got a young lawyer whose firm did some work for the magazine to draw up the divorce papers, simple enough, uncontested, she and her husband signing in the lawyer’s office and going out hand-in-hand. A few days later she took a couple of hours off and met him and the lawyer at the courthouse, and by twelve o’clock everything was done and she and her ex-husband threw their arms about each other and kissed for so long the judge whacked his gavel and said, “Next case!” but smiled a little.

  They separated on the courthouse steps; he had an appointment on Vesey Street and she had already been away from her desk nearly half the morning. “Good-by, honey,” she said, “I’l
l pick up something special on the way home we can have for supper.” He said, “Fine, baby, I’ll get a bottle of champagne.” And they kissed again, a long kiss, she said, like the one five years before when they left the magistrate’s office as man-and-wife.

  She was a little late after the supermarket and wasn’t surprised the apartment was lighted up when she opened the door. Or surprised he didn’t answer her, “I’m home, honey-bun!”; probably in the bathroom—maybe polishing his glasses to celebrate. But when she went to the bedroom closet to hang up her coat his suits were gone, his country jacket, his extra shoes. His pair of hairbrushes were gone off the bureau, not a shirt in the drawers, not a handkerchief, not a pair of socks.

  She never saw or heard from him again.

  Pyt said, “Didn’t the bastard even leave a note?” and Becky said, “No, but he did leave the bottle of wine, and she drank the whole thing, took it out of the fridge, popped the cork and drank the whole thing.—Where’s Sarah-Wesley? Oh, there she is with Mr. Wagman.”

  Frank Hardly said, “Reminds me of the time I lost my wife. Remember, LaVerne?”

  “Do I!”

  THE PICKLE-MERCHANT’S TALE

  Married five or six years, left the kids with her mother, drove in to Denver from Greeley—sixty miles—to take her to an eye man, do some errands, one thing and another.

  We were already a little late for the eleven-o’clock appointment so I drove straight on into the middle of town and stopped in front of the doctor’s office in one of the tall buildings, horns behind me like a flock of crows, a cop’s whistle from somewhere. “Hotel! One o’clock!”—could hardly make her hear me for the racket (don’t get to the city once a year, not then if I can help it).

  First thing to do was park the car and I turned off the main street to find a garage, find one that wasn’t full. Plenty of garages but all of them bursting. One guy was decent enough to lean out of his office window and say try two blocks down, turn left, just opened up, maybe got a space. It worked. They took the car, gave me a ticket, Denver Auto Park, 80 Valmont St. I said I’d want the car about four o’clock. “No problem!” Nice fellow. Mike. Looked like a stable-hand.

  And a nice cool October day, sunny. I had some city errands to tend to, odds and ends, I don’t remember. Walked up to the center of town, saw a winter jacket in a window, plaid, went in and bought it, I’m a fool for plaid, feeling good and all that, didn’t need it. Wife waiting in the lobby, nice lunch. “What’s that you’ve got?” Showed her the jacket. She shook her head. “All right, I’ll return it.” I didn’t like it much myself on second look. She had to go back to the eye man and wind it up. “All right, meet me at the garage at 4:30 sharp. That’ll get us home by dark.” I showed her the ticket and she wrote down “Denver Auto Park, 80 Valmont St., 4:30.”

  We separated and I wandered about, drank a beer—maybe two—took the jacket to the store, Homestake Clothiers. They wanted to credit me and I wanted the cash. No smiles this afternoon, money headed the other way. They called the manager. He ended our back-and-forth talk by giving me the cash but it seemed to me later that this was where the fine fall day began to go wrong.

  I walked on along the main street until I recognized the cross street where the garage was, but the street sign didn’t say Valmont. It said Loretto Street. It made me a little dizzy; I said, “Hold everything now, Frank. Take a deep breath.” I stopped a man, asked him where Valmont Street was.

  “Valmont? Keep going, doc. It’s a good ten blocks farther on, straight on.”

  But this was the street I had walked out of three hours before. Was I ready for the bin! I wasn’t, though, because I couldn’t help walking a few steps down this “Loretto Street” and in a minute there was the Denver Auto Park. “Sorry,” the man said, Mike. “Planned to open up on Valmont, had my tickets all printed, couldn’t throw’m away. Marked out ‘Valmont’ on a pile of tickets last night, so many cars this morning used them all up. Forgot to mark the one you got. Sorry.” Young, nice guy, needed a haircut.

  “Okay, but I told my wife to meet me at 80 Valmont.”

  “No problem. Take the car, drive over there, pick her up.”

  “Maybe I can catch her at the doctor’s. Can I borrow your phone?”

  “Help yourself.”

  Then it was, No sir, Mrs. Hardly has just left.—Did she say where she was going?—No sir. Some shopping I believe.—I see. Well, if she comes back or calls in please tell her it’s Loretto Street where the car is, not Valmont.—Loretto Street, not Valmont. Yes sir, but we don’t expect her back.—All right, but for crying out loud tell her if you get a chance.—Yes sir. Have a nice day.—Thank you.

  And, “Thanks for the phone,” to Mike the garage man. “How do I get to Valmont Street? My wife’s going to Valmont, been there since 4:30.” My watch said five after five.

  “No problem. Drive up to the corner, take a left—if the cop ain’t looking—go on about ten blocks and you come to Valmont. Eighty’s to the left but you can’t left so go on another block and do a right and a right and a—”

  “Thanks. I’ll find it. What do I owe you?”

  “No charge. Sorry about the ticket, scratched out a lot of them, all printed up and everything, couldn’t—”

  “Okay. Thanks. Thanks, Mike.” Nice guy.

  Drove up to the main street, tried a left, cop whistled like a busted tire, “What’s a matter with you, cowhand! Can’t you read!” straight on, then left, left, right, eight blocks, nine blocks, Valmont! like a gold nugget. “NO TURN.” Okay, ten blocks, right, right, right on Valmont. Nobody walking on Valmont, a dingy street, nobody waiting.

  And no 80. The Rocky Mountain Pawn Shop at 76, then a brick wall, then a closed-up warehouse that might have been Mike’s abandoned Auto Park, and 88. I tried to figure what she would do, walking ten blocks (or taking a taxi) and finding the address didn’t exist. Alone in the city, knowing nobody. The sky clouding up over the mountains like rain. Or early snow. Home sixty miles away. I would have sat down on the curb and bawled.

  But not, I figured, LaVerne. A strong woman. She would have gone in the pawn shop, looked in their telephone book, got the real address of the Denver Auto Park on Loretto and called a taxi. She was probably there already.

  But when I went in the pawn shop and looked in the telephone book there was no “Denver Auto Park.” All right, just moved, new phone. She would call Information and get the new address. I asked the pawn-shop man if I could use his phone. “Local call?” says he. “I want to call Information.” “Make it fast.”

  I told Information I wanted the phone number of the Denver Auto Park on Loretto Street, thinking then I would also call Mike to watch out for her and tell her I would be there in five minutes. “We have no phone listed under that name, sir,” says Information.

  Now look here! (to myself). How do we do this? If your shoelaces get crossed up you don’t pull the strings into a hard knot. You slack off a little bit, you keep them loose. Okay, but they were already in a hard knot. And a cop outside the door was getting off his motorcycle. “Don’t you see that yellow line!” “I’ve lost my wife, officer, and it’s time we started home, past time, I was just borrowing a phone.” “Get this car out of here!”

  I drove up to the main street, did a right, drove past the doctor’s building, thought she might be standing on the sidewalk. Drove on past the hotel. Saw a clock on a church, nearly six o’clock. Heavy traffic now. Lights green, lights red, wiped the sweat off my face at a red light. No left, did a right. Saw a sign, “Loretto Street,” pulled up at the Denver Auto Park, Mike making change for somebody.

  “Didn’t find her?”

  “Can I use your phone?”

  “Help yourself.”

  I phoned the doctor’s office, got a recording. Phoned the hotel. “Is my wife waiting there in the lobby?” “What’s she look like?” I hung up. Who can say what his wife looks like? I walked up to the corner, no idea why, just to keep moving. Cop by a lamp post watching the tr
affic like it was a TV movie. I said, “Excuse me, officer, but I can’t find my wife” (nutty thing to say but I was going nutty). Before he could say anything something caught his eye and he walked off, and I leaned against the lamp post and said aloud but just for myself, Now look here! slack off a little bit. Don’t press the emergency button. She may be standing there by the pawn shop now, or sitting in a taxi (a long walk from the doctor’s office).

  I got the car from Mike and halfway to Valmont Street, on a main street in the midst of home-going traffic I thought I had better phone the pawn-shop man to watch out for her on the sidewalk and tell her to wait there, I was on the way. Plenty of space in front of a corner drug store and a phone booth and I pulled over and stopped. Before I could open the car door a motorcycle cop zipped up beside me, boiling. “Get this car out of here!” “My wife—” “Can’t you read. NO PARKING ANY TIME.” “I’ve lost my wife—” “Get it out!”

  Pyt said, “Quite a pickle, Mr. Pickle!” and Ray said, “Let him finish,” (seeking his wife, as the Doctor was seeking Meg, Ray seeking Claudia, Pyt himself seeking the rest of his sunken doubloons—and nobody, according to the Doctor, going to find just what he sought?).

  I drove on. NO LEFT. NO TURN. busses, crowds waiting. Red light. Green light. Where was I going? Valmont? Loretto? Couldn’t say. Car ahead made a right, I made a right. Green light, squawking horns behind me. And there she was! On a corner. She hadn’t seen me. I slammed the horn, slammed it again. “Hey! Hey! You! You!”—I couldn’t remember her name—

  “But Edward, even if your company doesn’t publish fiction you know people that do,” the taxi slowing at a road fork, turning off into a dirt road slanted up the mountainside, hardly more than a trail. He said, Oh there were plenty of people who published fiction—sensing the old familiar situation taking shape again: eager writer, wary publisher, out-of-breath swimmer and just-in-time lifeguard (or seeming so to her, Janet Somebody, accounting for her troubling herself with someone her father’s age), he lifting a hand at a far-off sound like faint thunder out of cotton-boll clouds that flashed him an uneasy picture of a road like this in a tropical cloudburst.