The Complete Stories

by Bernard Malamud

  He remained motionless, so she enticed him otherwise: “Here are clean sheets on my arm, let me refresh your bed and air the room.”

  He groaned for her to go away.

  Mrs. Lutz groped a minute. “We have with us a new guest on your floor, girl by the name of Beatrice—a real beauty, Mitka, and a writer too.”

  He was silent but, she knew, listening.

  “I’d say a tender twenty-one or -two, pinched waist, firm breasts, pretty face, and you should see her little panties hanging on the line—like flowers all.”

  “What does she write?” he solemnly inquired.

  Mrs. Lutz found herself coughing.

  “Advertising copy, as I understand, but she would like to write verse.

  He turned away, wordless.

  She left a tray in the hall—a bowl of hot soup whose odor nearly drove him mad, two folded sheets, pillowcase, fresh towels, and a copy of that morning’s Globe.

  After he had ravished the soup and all but chewed the linen, he tore open the Globe to confirm that he was missing nothing. The headlines told him: correct. He was about to crumple the paper and pitch it out the window when he recalled “The Open Globe” on the editorial page, a column he hadn’t looked at in years. In the past he had reached for the paper with five cents and trembling fingers, for “The Open Globe,” come-one, come-all to the public, to every writer under a rock, inviting contributions in the form of stories at five bucks the thousand-word throw. Though he now hated the memory of it, it was his repeated acceptance here—a dozen stories in less than half a year (he had bought a blue suit and a two-pound jar of jam)—that had started him writing the novel (requiescat); from that to the second abortion, to the impotence and murderous self-hatred that had descended upon him afterwards. Open Globe, indeed. He gnashed his teeth but the holes in them hurt. Yet the not unsweet remembrance of past triumphs—the quarter of a million potential readers every time he appeared in print, all within a single city so that everybody knew when he was in (people reading him in buses, at cafeteria tables, park benches, as Mitka the Magician lurked around, watching for smiles and tears); also flattering letters from publishers’ editors, fan letters too, from the most unlikely people —fame is the purr, the yip the yay. Remembering, he cast a momentarily dewy eye upon the column and, having done so, devoured the print.

  The story socked in the belly. This girl, Madeleine Thorn, who wrote the piece as “I”—though she only traced herself here and there she came at once alive to him—he pictured her as maybe twenty-three, slim yet soft-bodied, the face whiplashed with understanding—that Thorn was not for nothing; anyway, there she was that day, running up and down the stairs in joy and terror. She too lived in a rooming house, at work on her novel, bit by bit, nights, after a depleting secretarial grind each day; page by page, each neatly typed and slipped into the carton under her bed. At the very end of the book a last chapter to go of the first draft, she had one night got out the carton and lay on the bed, rereading, to see if the book was any good. Page after page she dropped on the floor, at last falling asleep, worried she hadn’t got it right, wearied at how much rewriting (this sank in by degrees) she would have to do, when the light of the risen sun struck her eyes and she pounced up, realizing she had forgotten to set the alarm. With a sweep of the hand she shot the typewritten sheets under the bed, washed, slipped on a fresh dress, and ran a comb through her hair. Down the stairs she ran and out of the house.

  At work, strangely a good day. The novel again came together in the mind and she memo’d what she’d have to do—not very much really—to make it the decent book she had hoped to write. Home, happy, holding flowers, to be met on the first floor by the landlady, flouncing and all smiles: guess what I’ve gone and done for you today; describing new curtains, matching bedspread, a rug no less, to keep your tootsies warm, and surprise! the room spring-cleaned from top to bottom. Oh my God. The girl tore up the stairs. Falling on her hands and knees in her room she searched under the bed: an empty carton. Downstairs like dark light. Where, landlady, are the typewritten papers that were under my bed? She spoke with her hand to her throat. “Oh, those that I found on the floor, honey? I thought you meant for me to sweep the mess out and so I did.” Madeleine, controlling her voice: “Are they perhaps in the garbage? I—don’t believe they collect it till Thursday.” “No, love, I burned them in the barrel this morning. The smoke made my eyes smart for a whole hour.” Curtain. Groaning, Mitka collapsed on the bed.

  He was convinced it was every bit of it true. He saw the crazy dame dumping the manuscript into the barrel and stirring it until every blessed page was aflame. He groaned at the burning—years of precious work. The tale haunted him. He wanted to escape it—leave the room and abandon the dismal memory of misery, but where would he go and what do without a penny in his pocket? So he lay on the bed and whether awake or asleep dreamed the recurrent dream of the burning barrel (in it their books commingled), suffering her agony as well as his own. The barrel, a symbol he had not conceived before, belched flame, shot word-sparks, poured smoke as thick as oil. It turned red hot, a sickly yellow, black—loaded high with the ashes of human bones—guess whose. When his imagination calmed, a sorrow for her afflicted him. The last chapter—irony of it. He yearned all day to assuage her grief, express sympathy in some loving word or gesture, assure her she would write it again, only better. Around midnight he could bear his thoughts no longer. He thrust a sheet of paper into the portable, twirled the roller, and in the strange stillness of the house clacked out to her a note c/o Globe, expressing his sorrow—a writer himself—but don’t give up, write it again. Sincerely, Mitka. He found an envelope and sticky stamp in his desk drawer. Against his better judgment he sneaked out and mailed it.

  Immediately he regretted it. Was he in his right mind? All right, so he had written to her, but what if she wrote back? Who wanted, who needed a correspondence? He simply hadn’t the strength for it. Therefore he was glad there continued to be no mail—not since he had burned his book in November, and this was February. Yet on the way out to forage some food for himself when the house was sleeping, ridiculing himself, holding a lit match he peered into the mailbox. The next night he felt inside the slot with his fingers: empty, served him right. Silly business. He had all but forgotten her story; that is, thought of it less each day. Yet if the girl by some mischance should write, Mrs. Lutz usually opened the box and brought up whatever mail herself— any excuse to waste his time. The next morning he heard the courier carrying her bulk lightly up the stairs and knew the girl had answered. Steady, Mitka. Despite a warning to himself of the dream world he was in, his heart pounded as the old tease coyly knocked. He didn’t answer. Gurgling, “For you, Mitka darling,” she at last slipped it under the door—her favorite pastime. Waiting till she had moved on so as not to give her the satisfaction of hearing him go for it, he sprang off the bed and tore the envelope open. “Dear Mr. Mitka (a most feminine handwriting): Thank you for the expression of your kind sympathy, sincerely, M.T.” That was all, no return address, no nothing. Giving himself a horse bray he dropped the business into the basket. He brayed louder the next day: there was another epistle, the story wasn’t true—she had invented every word; but the truth was she was lonely and would he care to write again?

  Nothing comes easy for Mitka but eventually he wrote to her. He had plenty of time and nothing else to do. He told himself he had answered her letter because she was lonely—all right, because they both were. Ultimately he admitted that he wrote because he couldn’t do the other kind of writing, and this, though he was no escapist, solaced him a bit. Mitka sensed that although he had vowed never to go back to it, he hoped the correspondence would return him to his abandoned book. (Sterile writer seeking end of sterility through satisfying epistolary intercourse with lady writer.) Clearly then, he was trying with these letters to put an end to the hatred of self for not working, for having no ideas, for cutting himself off from them. Ah, Mitka. He sighed at this weakness, to dep
end on others. Yet though his letters were often harsh, provocative, even unkind, they drew from her warm responses, receptive, soft, willing; and so it was not long (who can resist it? he bitterly assailed himself) before he had brought up the subject of their meeting. He broached it first and she (with reluctance) gave in, for wasn’t it better, she had asked, not to intrude the person?

  The meeting was arranged for a Monday evening at the branch public library near where she worked—her bookish preference; himself, he would have chosen the freedom of a street corner. She would, she said, be wearing a sort of reddish babushka. Now Mitka found himself actively wondering what she looked like. Her letters showed her sensible, modest, honest, but what of the human body? Though he liked his women, among other things, to be lookers, he guessed she wasn’t. Partly from hints dropped by her, partly his intuition. He pictured her as comely yet hefty. But what of it as long as she was womanly, intelligent, brave? A man like him nowadays had need of something special.

  The March evening was zippy outside but cupped in it the breath of spring. Mitka opened both windows and allowed the free air to blow on him. About to go—there came a quick knock on the door. “Telephone,” a girl’s voice sang out. Probably the advertising Beatrice. He waited till she was gone, then unlocked the door and stepped into the hall for his first phone call of the year. As he picked up the receiver a crack of light showed in the corner. He stared and the door shut tight. The landlady’s fault, she built him up among the roomers as a sort of freak. “My writer upstairs.”

  “Mitka?” It was Madeleine.

  “Speaking.”

  “Mitka, do you know why I’m calling?”

  “How should I know?”

  “I’m half drunk on wine.”

  “Save it till later.”

  “Because I am afraid.”

  “Afraid of what?”

  “I do so love your letters and would hate to lose them. Do we have to meet?”

  “Yes,” he hissed.

  “Suppose I am not what you expect?”

  “Leave that to me.”

  She sighed. “All right then—”

  “You’ll be there?”

  No sound from her.

  “For godsake, don’t frustrate me now.”

  “Yes, Mitka.” She hung up.

  Sensitive kid. He plucked his very last buck out of the drawer and quickly left the room, to hurry to the library before she could change her mind and leave. But Mrs. Lutz, in flannel bathrobe, caught him at the bottom of the stairs. Her gray hair wild, her voice broken. “Mitka, why have you shunned me so long? I have waited months for a single word. How can you be so cruel?”

  “Please.” He shoved her aside and ran out of the house. Nutty dame. The balmy current in the air swept away the unpleasantness, carried a sob to his throat. He walked briskly, more alive than for many a season.

  The library was an old stone structure. He searched in circulation amid rows of books on sagging floors but found only the yawning librarian. The children’s room was dark. In reference, a lone middle-aged female sat at a long table, reading; on the table stood her bulky market bag. Mitka searched the room and was turning to look elsewhere when a monstrous insight tore at his scalp: this was she. He stared unbelievingly, his heart a dishrag. Rage possessed him. Hefty she was but yes, eyeglassed, and marvelously plain; Christ, didn’t know color even—the babushka a sickly running orange. Ah, colossal trickery—was ever man so cruelly defrauded? His impulse was to escape into breathable air but she held him there by serenely reading the printed page—(sly one, she knew the tiger in the room). Had she for a split second gazed up with wavering lids he’d have bolted sure; instead she buttoned her eyes to the book and let him duck if he so willed. This infuriated him further. Who wanted charity from the old girl? Mitka strode (in misery) toward her table.

  “Madeleine?” He mocked the name. (Writer maims bird in flight. Enough not enough.)

  She looked up with a shy and stricken smile. “Mitka?”

  “The same—” He cynically bowed.

  “Madeleine is my daughter’s name, which I borrowed for my story. Mine is Olga really.”

  A pox on her lies—yet he hopefully asked, “Did she send you?”

  She smiled sadly. “No, I am the one. Sit, Mitka.”

  He sat sullenly, harboring murderous thoughts: to hack her to pieces and incinerate the remains in Mrs. Lutz’s barrel.

  “They’ll be closing soon,” she said. “Where shall we go?”

  He was motionless, stunned.

  “I know a beer place around the corner where we can refresh ourselves,” Olga suggested.

  She buttoned a drab coat over a gray sweater. At length he rose. She got up too and followed him, hauling her market bag down the stone steps.

  In the street he took the bag—it felt full of rocks—and trailed her around the corner into the beer joint.

  Along the wall opposite the beat-up bar ran a row of dark booths. Olga sought one in the rear.

  “For peace and privacy.”

  He laid the bag on the table. “The place smells.”

  They sat facing each other. He grew increasingly depressed at the thought of spending the evening with her. The irony of it—immured for months in a rat hole, to come forth for this. He’d go back now and entomb himself forever.

  She removed her coat. “You’d have liked me when I was young, Mitka. I had a sylphlike figure and glorious hair. I was much sought after by men. I was not what you would call sexy but they knew I had it.”

  Mitka looked away.

  “I had verve and a quality of wholeness. I loved life. In many ways I was too rich for my husband. He couldn’t understand my nature and this caused him to leave me—mind you, with two small children.”

  She saw he wasn’t listening. Olga sighed and burst into tears.

  The waiter came.

  “One beer. Bring the lady whiskey.”

  She used two handkerchiefs, one to blow her nose in, the other to dry her eyes.

  “You see, Mitka, I told you so.”

  Her humility touched him. “I see.” Why hadn’t he, fool, not listened?

  She gazed at him with sadly smiling eyes. Without glasses she looked better.

  “You’re exactly the way I pictured you, except for your thinness, which surprises me.”

  Olga reached into her market bag and brought out several packages. She unwrapped bread, sausage, herring, Italian cheese, soft salami, pickles, and a large turkey drumstick.

  “Sometimes I favor myself with these little treats. Eat, Mitka.”

  Another landlady. Set Mitka adrift and he enticed somebody’s mama. But he ate, grateful she had provided an occupation.

  The waiter brought the drinks. “What’s going on here, a picnic?”

  “We’re writers,” Olga explained.

  “The boss will be pleased.”

  “Never mind him, eat, Mitka.”

  He ate listlessly. A man had to live. Or did he? When had he felt this low? Probably never.

  Olga sipped her whiskey. “Eat, it’s self-expression.”

  He expressed himself by finishing off the salami, also half the loaf of bread, cheese, and herring. His appetite grew. Searching within the bag Olga brought out a package of sliced corned beef and a ripe pear. He made a sandwich of the meat. On top of that the cold beer was tasty.

  “How is the writing going now, Mitka?”

  He lowered the glass but changed his mind and gulped the rest.

  “Don’t speak of it.”

  “Be uphearted, not down. Work every day.”

  He gnawed the turkey drumstick.

  “That’s what I do. I’ve been writing for over twenty years and sometimes—for one reason or another—it gets so bad that I don’t feel like going on. But what I do then is relax for a short while and then change to another story. After my juices are flowing again I go back to the other and usually that starts off once more. Or sometimes I discover that it isn’t worth bothering ove
r. After you’ve been writing so long as I you’ll learn a system to keep yourself going. It depends on your view of life. If you’re mature you’ll find out how to work.”

  “My writing is a mess,” he sighed, “a fog, a blot.”

  “You’ll invent your way out,” said Olga, “if you only keep trying.”

  They sat awhile longer. Olga told him of her childhood and when she was a girl. She would have talked longer but Mitka was restless. He was wondering, what after this? Where would he drag that dead cat, his soul?

  Olga put what was left of the food into the market bag.

  In the street he asked where to.

  “The bus, I guess. I live on the other side of the river with my son, his vinegary wife, and their little daughter.”

  He took her bag—a lightened load—and walked with it in one hand, a cigarette in the other, toward the bus terminal.

  “I wish you’d known my daughter, Mitka.”

  “So why not?” he asked hopefully, surprised he hadn’t brought up this before, because she was all the time in the back of his mind.

  “She had flowing hair and a sweet hourglass figure. Her nature was beyond compare. You’d have loved her.”

  “What’s the matter, is she married?”

  “She died at twenty—at the fount of life. All my stories are actually about her. Someday I’ll collect the best and see if I can get them published.”

  He all but crumpled, then walked unsteadily on. For Madeleine he had this night come out of his burrow, to hold her against his lonely heart, but she had burst into fragments, a meteor in reverse, scattered in the far-flung sky, as he stood below, a man mourning.

  They came at last to the terminal and Mitka put Olga on the bus.

  “Will we meet again, Mitka?”

  “Better no,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “It makes me sad.”

  “Won’t you write either? You’ll never know what your letters meant to me. I was like a young girl waiting for the mailman.”