The Gallery

by John Horne Burns

  (this V-mail is continued on another sheet — I hope they photograph the two together hope a hope a hope)

  #2 I have got it figured out this way — the Americans, including us taxidrivers (smile), have been living in a vacuum that they thought was paradise — but it wasn’t really anything except chromium plating and drunkenness and hunks of sex like a Thanksgiving dinner — it bored us even when we were in the middle of it — and that’s the reason millions of us have got to pay — through the nose — I think I’m going to be one of these millions — I feel it like you know you’re going to have a toothache — somebody has to pay the piper and if everybody takes the attitude “it won’t be me” it will end by being everybody — don’t get me wrong boy — I don’t think of Me as a burnt offering — but in the world there’s a surgical operation going on — a lot is going to be cut out — I wonder if the world will be a better place when it comes out of the ether — think about what our battalion executive officer said — a bad case of irrelevance — if we had to have this war, it kind of looks as though everything we stood for meant nothing — or maybe you can tell me why I can shoot a Jerry without feeling anything, but a dirty deal or a starving kid makes my stomach flop — it must be the vermouth — Irv, keep yours where it belongs and gib ein Kuss for me to Mamma, Sadie, Audrey, Rebecca, Elaine, Anna, and Lilian that works at Cantor’s — and tell Mr. Feingold that there’s no Ghetto here — the whole city is one —

  Be good — Moe

  Moe didn’t feel like drinking any more vermouth in the Galleria Umberto. He wasn’t much of a bibber anyhow. Alcohol mounted to his brain in a spiral of screams and complaints, like charwomen panting into an attic. Alcohol divided something in his head against the other half. After a few drinks he always felt as though he ought to rise to the defense of something. He didn’t quite know what. So he pulled at his belt and went out into Via Roma and the heavy sunlight of the Neapolitan afternoon. He strolled into the piazza by the San Carlo Opera House, crossed it, and walked along the palace where in the niches stood brown statues of Carlo d’Angiò and the kings of Naples and Sicily leaning on shields and looking like idealized politicians in armor. After the palazzo he came into a little railed park on an escarpment. He could see over the bay, golden in the sunset and thumping with LCI’s and hospital ships. He saw the sulphur on the sides of Vesuvius and the dotted stretch down to Amalfi and Sorrento. This afternoon he could see almost to Salerno, where he’d come ashore eleven months ago. Naples wasn’t so far from Salerno. So little progress in eleven months. Inching up this sunny sad peninsula. Tomorrow he’d be farther north, in Tuscany. Hearing that cracking and crunching and clumping and roaring, feeling that floating uncertainty, seeing the running dots of men who fired and ducked and sometimes didn’t get up again. And occasionally the arch of a church, with a Jerry rifle peeping like a periscope around the pastelled cornice. Himself running running running or looking back as he ran to see where his boys were. . . .

  Moe loved the city of Naples. It must be like Jerusalem, in contrast to Tel Aviv. Those corners that gave onto nowhere, the sunlight slanting on a pile of rubble, those faces looking out laughing or weeping at him — all reminded him that his heart was a hinge, not a valve. And most of all he loved the titter or hum or roar of Naples, saying to him things older than 1944, things that reached back into a time when men were more united in their chaos, willing to be put against a wall for something they believed. It seemed to Moe that in Naples there had somehow survived the passion and coherence of an old faith. All this he only felt, but the city of Naples comforted him. There was a poultice in its dirt, a natural humanity in its screaming.

  Holding onto the low balustrade, he walked along the path above the street. It was beyond the palm trees on the edge of the escarpment. There were shoeshine boys along his way. Sailors — British, American, French, and Italian — leaned on the balustrade and looked over at Vesuvius. Moe walked till the path turned back on itself round a statue of Pompey and the railing was ornate with low white pot-bellied pilasters. Here to his right Via Caracciolo began and went on for miles around the bend of the bay. And here Moe stopped, for an American officer of the field artillery was sitting on the railing, back to the bay, lighting one cigarette from the stump of another. Moe and he recognized each other with the must of minorities. This captain had a beaked nose, a heavy close-shaven beard, a narrow chest, and hairy slender wrists. He nodded rapaciously yet shyly and offered Moe a cigarette.

  — And only dis mornink I vas sayink to Marcus dat a soitin frient of ours iss too bright to be a Christian. . . .

  Moe refused the cigarette but stood next to the artillery captain. He waited politely, looking at the huge nose and the resentful eyes.

  — Oh it’s silence then he’s eskin, the captain said, gesturing pathetically at the Bay of Naples. Zo maybe I should be shuttink the mouth? I got vound up in my garment business and the big mouth I haven’t shut since.

  — If you want to come out here and talk, Moe said, that’s all right too. It’s your privilege.

  — It’s a great country ve got, the captain said, dat both of us coicumcised persons should be officers in its army. If ve vas livink in Poland . . .

  — I know, I know, Moe said, and he leaned on his elbows and belly to watch the sunlight on Capri.

  Then the captain brandished a copy of the New Republic in Moe’s face. Even with his chain-smoking he couldn’t sit still on the wall. He blinked as he talked. There was an agony of the pursued about him.

  — And dis I’m readink, the captain said, to improve my English. Den my GI’s von’t be leffink at me. Dey are fine kids, but sometimes dey’re leffink ven I tuk.

  — You mean they make an issue of . . . ?

  — Dis I don’t say. But sometimes I see funny looks. Den dey’re sayink, He’s a Yid and he’s got two silver bars and he can’t tuk American. So who is this Yid to be commanding us? Let him go back to his pawnshop . . .

  — I don’t think that’s a general attitude, Moe said. I’ve never had any trouble with my boys . . .

  — Ah but you vouldn’t, you vouldn’t. You’re tukking a perfect American and in da dark, pardon, you could be pessink yourself off as a Yenkee.

  — It’s quite obvious that I’m not, Moe said.

  — Ah, but pardon, you vasn’t born in Vienna like I vas, the artillery captain said.

  — When did you leave Vienna? Moe asked softly, looking back to the bay.

  — In January, 1938.

  — Then you weren’t in on the worst of it, Moe said. You’ve got no cause to complain. The country took you in. As you said yourself, it even gave you a commission in its army. No other country in the world except the United States . . .

  — Lissen a vile. Pardon, but you’re tukkin almost as much as me or Marcus. . . . Only dis mornink I’m tellink Marcus dere’s no vun like us ven it comes to tukkink. Dot’s how ve sell. . . . Zo I’m come from Vienna in 1938. And me just a student. Ach, vat a time to learn American. And I’m not spikking it perfect. . . . But lissen. I arrive vid Reichsmarks in my pocket. I take a job as dishwasher. I go to Columbia. A kind Jewish lady takes an interest in me. She hears I have degrees from a gymnasium in Vienna. Zo translations from Rainer Maria Rilke I’m makink for her at three in da morning in place of sleepink. . . . Zo kind she vas to me. . . . But lissen. Dey kilt my fader before ve leafe Vienna . . .

  — I’m very sorry to hear that, Moe said.

  The artillery captain slid down from the wall. He took hold of Moe’s arm, forcing him to look him full in the face. His skinny figure towered upward; his eyes flashed; he shook his finger under the hot soft Neapolitan sky. A bloodstone leered on his index finger. His nasal voice peaked up into a scream:

  — He’s sorry! . . . Lissen a vile. . . . I’m goink back to Vienna. . . . Dis year or da next . . . ven falls the Stadt to our army . . . because I spik good Deutsch, I have a high position. . . . Lissen . . . I pay back those Viennese for everytink dey do to me and my fader. . .
. I cut them up in liddel pieces if I can. You hear me? . . . Dey pay. Vait and see. Dey pay. I pay back does doity bestards. I spit in deir faces, I’m mekking dem eat deir vord Jude . . .

  — That wouldn’t be wise, Moe said, offering the captain a stick of gum.

  — Vise? Vise! . . . Zo much he’s sayink wid a liddel vord. . . . Lissen to him tukkink.

  — Don’t you think, Moe asked, raising his voice a little, that there’s already enough hatred in the world without you settling a private grudge? . . . We must wipe the slate clean and start all over again.

  The artillery captain stopped buttonholing Moe long enough to light another cigarette from the stub of his latest. Then he screamed:

  — He’s tukkink! Da most dangerous man in da vorld! Everybody, everythink he’s sellink down da river . . . his own race. . . . Zo I’m goink avay before I’m losing da temper.

  — You’ve already lost more than the temper, Moe said, and firmly he turned away from the captain to look on the Bay of Naples. The Captain took one more frenzied puff on his cigarette and tore away up the promenade. He shook his head and muttered to himself. Once he turned back and looked at Moe and shook his head. Even from the distance his eyes glittered like a vulture’s.

  Moe paced slowly back in the direction he’d come. Near the palace were stairs going down to a urinal. At the entrance to this subway an Italian boy of eighteen in dark blue shorts and a monk’s-cloth shirt open at the neck was lounging. For a swift instant he looked steadfastly at Moe, then dropped his eyes. His face had the removed contemplative beauty of women beyond the moment of their spasm of love.

  — Let us not waste any time, the Italian boy said, looking past Moe out into the bay. Will you give me a cigarette or will you not?

  — I don’t care for your salesmanship, Moe said, unbuttoning his breast pocket. But you can have this whole pack. I don’t smoke myself.

  He put another toothpick between his lips and watched how the boy took the pack into his fingers and stroked the cellophane. The boy’s lips moved but nothing came out. Then his eyes veered from the bay over Moe’s shoulder to Moe’s face. They were black Italian eyes, calm yet full of a passion of ink when it falls into words.

  — You know of course, the boy said, that Neapolitan boys would do anything for this pack of cigarettes. I would or I would not, depending on how I felt toward you. I am a Lucchese, you see.

  — If you think that cuts any ice with me, Moe began. Then he saw no point in heightening the wall between the boy and himself. It had been flung up by the boy himself, a hasty reflex masonry of sorrow and pride and fear. Who taught you to speak such perfect English?

  — You Americans. . . . You Americans taught me everything I know of evil and hate. Last month you shelled our house at Viareggio. And you killed my mother, who would not leave the house because she loved it. . . . And you Americans have taught me things I never dreamed of. . . . Best of all, you taught me that hate is stronger and lasts longer than love. For all the things you Americans have done to me and wish to do to me and with me are hateful. Every time I see you or touch you, I hate you more . . .

  — And you hate yourself too, Moe said. We didn’t teach you that . . .

  — I don’t care any longer, the boy said, accepting the flame from Moe’s lighter. None of us Italians does. We’ve been bent this way and that. . . . So all we want to do now is live, just exist, however shamefully and ambiguously. We will live off you Americans. Off your food. Off your drunken spending. And we will yield to your desires, no matter how beastly they may be . . . for a price, you understand. . . . But you should hear how we talk about you among ourselves. We sear you and we scald you. Because we hate you. To hear Italians talk about you when they are together, you would think we were discussing a pen of pigs and vipers. Because we hate you. And no matter how you degrade or possess or kill us, there is always our laughter at your vileness. Laughter so scathing your cheeks would burn up and your bowels explode to hear. . . . There is nothing in the world sweeter than Italian love. And nothing fiercer than Italian hate. . . . Don’t you sense it everywhere about you? . . . But I make no pretenses. I am a Lucchese from Viareggio. I do not smile and fawn on you like the Neapolitans. I tell you frankly that I hate all Americans, and Americans desire me even in my hate. That’s the depth to which you all have sunk. . . . Razza di porci, di finocchi e di mostri . . .

  — Your mother should hear you now, Moe said, turning away. And I guess she must have been a very beautiful lady.

  — Wait, please, the boy called, crushing out his cigarette and running after Moe. I have some photos of her. When may I show them to you . . . signor . . . mister . . . lieutenant?

  — After the war, Moe said, increasing his pace.

  — But may I see you tonight? the boy begged, the coolness of his voice breaking into a whimper.

  — I’m afraid not, Moe said. But enjoy the cigarettes. . . . Tomorrow night I may be near Viareggio. I’ll think of you and your mother. . . . For I’m sorry, very very sorry . . . believe me. . . .

  Turning back at the San Carlo, he saw that the beautiful Italian boy of eighteen was standing with his face in his fingers, weeping like no one who hates.

  After his chow Moe circled around the Galleria Umberto in the growing dusk. It was still hot, but a sly change had crept over the city of Naples. The roar had dropped to a whispering, but it was still asking subtly for the same thing it had been growling for all day long under the sun. Moe had eaten Spam for supper. He’d taken a slice of it from his plate and laid it between two pieces of bread. With this sandwich in his hand he walked down Via Santa Brigida. The flies of Naples followed the arc of his sandwich. He couldn’t bear to hand this food out to a whole crowd of children, to see them dismember it and one another. He was seeking a lonely soul and a lonely stomach. He walked toward the gates of the port till he saw a little girl standing with her hands behind her back, regarding the MP at the gate. Moe called out to her till she came slowly. Her admiration had already been fixed on the MP. Moe held his sandwich behind his back.

  — Tu come chiamare? Moe asked her.

  — Perchè? the little girl said, backing off. Vuoi mettermi in galera, come tutti gli altri americani?

  Gently he spread his boots apart, leaned back a little, and extended the Spamwich to the little girl. She had black matted hair and a pink stuck coyly in her ear. Her feet were nude, scuffed and stained with the dung and the fruit juices of the pavements.

  — Mi chiamo Adalgisa, she said in a voice tinier than herself, putting out her hand to the bread and meat and drawing it back again.

  — Adalgisa’s always hangin around here, the MP said. We stuck her mother in jail at the questura. An her pop got his in Eritrea. That’s her story anyway, lieutenant . . . she’s always around here.

  — She’ll continue to hang around, Moe said, as long as she’s alive. Of course we’ll do our best to get rid of her. It would be more convenient for us if Adalgisa had never been born.

  — Well, I got enough to worry about, lieutenant, the MP said, unslinging his carbine. I got a wife and kid in Sacramento. I figure it don’t pay ya to look too deep into all this crap that’s goin on in the world.

  — No, Moe said, you’re right . . . it don’t pay . . . not one cent.

  He took Adalgisa by the hand and walked along with her while she tore at her Spamwich. Her left hand lay in his like a warm robin while her right fed the food to her mouth inexorably as a machine-gun belt.

  — I didn’t know I was going to meet you, Adalgisa, I’d have brought two.

  — Uno, due, tre, quattro, she said with her mouth full.

  They sat down on a bench in Piazza Municipio. The courtyard arch of the City Hall palace yawned in the rising moon. Behind them were the laurel trees. The urinals sent out their shrill acid. In and out of these men moved, plucking at their buttons as they emerged from or entered the iron screens. And Adalgisa, after she’d finished eating, licked her teeth and her lips and sat placidly besid
e him, looking at the moon. Sometimes he felt her eyes tickling his face like a cat’s whisker. They were round and unblinking, as though she wondered what he would do next. Finally she climbed into his lap and began to explore the colored divisional bandanna about his neck, the buttons of his opened collar. Her small skinny body smelled like a new olive.

  — Sei triste stasera, she said, looking up into his eyes.

  — Sad? Moe said. I’m always sad. . . . I was sad when I was pushing up the lever on my meter so it wouldn’t register during waits. I was sad when I saw fat old ladies in furs going into the Astor. I was sad when I saw the snow in Brooklyn, smutted over in the alleys. . . . You’re sad too, Adalgisa . . . but you don’t know there can be anything else.

  She was a tiny child for one who, he guessed, must be about eleven. He didn’t know whether it was because she was undernourished or Mediterranean. She got off his lap and walked once around the bench where he was sitting. Her feet whispered in the grass behind him. Her ragged dress crinkled as she walked. Then she seated herself beside him again.

  — What are you thinking about, Adalgisa? . . . Cosa pensare?

  — Ehhh, she said, un bel piatto di pasta asciutta . . . che bellezza!

  — Sure, sure, he said, taking her hand. Your world would be full if only you weren’t hungry. . . . Me, I want to live. . . . I’d like to have some kids of my own . . . three or four maybe. . . . I wonder if I could teach them anything . . . how not to hurt others . . . how to understand them. . . . I’ve been wondering if there’s some method of hurting kids when they’re a couple of months old, so that their meannesses would be burnt out of them early in life. . . . I guess not though. . . .

  — Ho ancora fame, sai, Adalgisa said, pressing his hand more tightly.

  — I know, I know.

  Without taking his eyes off the climbing moon, he undid his breast pocket and gave her his two remaining sticks of gum. Then he stood slowly up from the bench and pulled the bottoms of his pants down over the saddles and buckles of his boots.