It’s an absorbing pastime. There’s no carving or grinding, no major modifying. You simply take the fragments as they come, and glue and wire them into the desired form. Initially I had more than enough bones, but now I find I’m running low on the smaller ones. In fact, a pagoda I’ve been constructing remains unfinished for this precise reason.
So, nothing if not brash, I dissected the dead puppy. An arduous business it was, for flesh is strongly put together. Never would I have guessed that the muscles, cartilage and connective tissues of such a young animal could be so tough. Why, merely removing the skin was a terrible chore, though I worked with a pair of very sharp scissors. What I expected to be an hour’s labor eventually occupied most of the afternoon, and even then the little bones were still too messy for my purpose. I quit for the day, however. Discarding the scraps, I stuffed the skeleton into a plastic bag, and as the weather was hot, placed it in the refrigerator.
When I returned from the Turk’s the following morning, I tossed the grisly thing into an old cast-iron boiler filled with steaming water and cooked it for a couple of hours. The result was gratifying. Each bone came out of the pot as clean as polished ivory. Delighted, I gathered up the lot and stored it in the basement.
There you have the facts concerning Homer. In a macabre way it’s a rather amusing story, because the odor that Norbie detected in the kitchen, and which he found so savory, derived solely from the culinary activities I have just now described.
10
AT DINNER
Off we went to the Café Gubbio in the North End. A swart waiter with a cast in his eye ushered us to a trellised booth that was adorned with leafy vines, strings of garlic, bunches of grapes, clusters of variegated peppers, and garlands of flowers—all made of plastic. Reading from the Italian side of the menu and mutilating every word, Norbert Hess ordered for both of us.
The meal was colossal. It included a lavish fruit cup, an antipasto, a vellutina, ravioli, fish cooked in butter, and a grand casserole of capon, potatoes, onions and carrots. Halfway through my serving of chicken, I was forced to capitulate. I couldn’t swallow another morsel. Across from me, however, my dinner partner continued to eat with undiminished enthusiasm. Mounds of gravy-soaked potatoes vanished into his busy mouth and speedily plunged down his throat; collops of capon quivered momentarily on his thin lips and then traveled the same road; rolls and butter, olives, stalks of celery, roasted green peppers and forkfuls of escarole joined in this relentless katabasis, aided in their passage by frequent glasses of a white wine called Lacrima d’Arno.
I was mesmerized by this awesome performance. He was like one of his own powerful pieces of construction machinery—something designed to scoop up debris or to fill excavations. Though around us people were laughing and talking, though Neapolitan ballads sung to the mellifluous strains of an accordion were drifting into our bower, Norbie was patently unaware of all but the food before him. Huge as the casserole was, it disappeared. Just in time, the strabismic waiter arrived bearing a platter of cold lamb and mint sauce.
“Another basket of garlic bread, signor!” my friend commanded, not skipping a beat in his gulping. “And don’t forget that tufoli, will you? Bring a fresh jug of vino, too, and save yourself a trip.”
Down went the lamb and in came the tufoli—an oversized macaroni like lengths of white garden hose, each tube crammed with meat. Norbie smothered it in Romano cheese and disposed of it with a flurry of elbow and jaw movements. Really, it was frightening. I remembered the man as a hearty eater, but what I was now witnessing seemed pathological. He ate in a frenzy like a long-starved timber wolf, barely pausing to sink his teeth in the food before swallowing it.
More dishes were brought to the table, graced the air for a brief while with their spicy redolence, and then departed into his inexorable maw. At last, after a flan the size of a brick and a double scoop of lemon sherbet, he burped a couple of times, plucked the napkin from his shirt front, and in a manner grotesquely genteel patted his wet mouth.
“That wasn’t bad,” he conceded, speaking to me for only the second time in almost an hour.
“Yes, delicious,” I said, wondering how he could have possibly enjoyed it, bolting it the way he had.
With our coffee we had brandy and panetelas.
“Italians are great when it comes to chow,” he remarked, stroking his distended stomach with a dimpled hand. “Rico Cremona—remember what a cook he was? He even made that New Zealand mutton taste good.”
I left off wondering about Norbie’s dining prowess and recalled Rico. He’d had a red face, a thin nose, a high-pitched voice, and a wife and two children. At Mare Island he’d listened to soap operas every afternoon like a man in a coma.
Contemplating the cigar smoke as it wound sinuously through the fake leaves on the trellis, I said, “After the war I visited Cremona.”
Norbie gave me a sidelong glance. “How could you, Al? Cremona didn’t make it. He went down with the ship.”
“No, no, Norbie. Not Rico. I visited the city of Cremona in Italy. When I was in Milan I saw it on the map. It wasn’t far, so I went. A lovely place, Cremona—famous for its violin makers.”
We puffed in silence while the accordion played a saltarello.
At length I remarked, “Morison, the historian, considers the Battle of Savo Island to be the worst defeat the American Navy ever suffered.”
“It figures,” Norbie replied.
“Do you sometimes think about them?”
“Think about who, Al? All the guys, you mean?”
“Yes.”
Norbie belched. “No, not any more,” he said.
“I do. I have dreams, too. I see them floating in the green water—down the passageways, in the wardroom, in the engine room. They’re like balloon figures—Larry, Artie Dolan, Richie Otis and the rest—swollen and white.”
“Hey, come on! Don’t get weird on me, buddy.”
“Remember how hot it was, Norb? Everybody had a rash. When the flares exploded, where were you?”
“Aft. Natie Simons and me were standing under that hunk of canvas between the gun mounts, out of the rain.”
As vivid as reality the scene came back to me. A silver curtain of rain, lightning blinking in the distance, and suddenly the star shells burst. A mistake, I thought. Grabbing a poncho to throw over my head, I ran out onto the port wing of the bridge. The fragrance of flowers filled my nostrils—hibiscus, or night-smelling orchids, or maybe frangipani—wafted from the island by the storm’s wind. Like an aurora the flares danced in the sky. I could perceive two APD’s anchored offshore, and then, without the least translation of time, I found myself in the sea gagging on salt water, and my brain a brazen chime clanging in the belfry of my skull.
“That fish was meant for the Chicago. We got in the way,” Norbie said. “I went flying. By God, that ocean felt like concrete when I finally came down. Poor Natie! He wasn’t one of the survivors, the poor bastard.”
“I wouldn’t have been one of the survivors, either, if it hadn’t been for you,” I pointed out quietly.
“That’s a crock! I just gave you a little lift, is all. You’d have made it okay even if I hadn’t.”
“No, never. I was numb. I was helpless—frozen with fear. The reflection of the fire on the water made me think I was enveloped in flaming oil.”
“Well, you weren’t any more scared than I was. I kept thinking about the sharks we’d seen the day before. I was one happy guy when we got on that raft, let me tell you.”
“Yes,” I said, remembering how I’d sat weeping on the canvas bottom while Weaver beside me moaned and whimpered because his chest was caved in, and the Davoran—not a hundred yards away and still filled with people—capsized to starboard and slid into the sea in a mist of steam and smoke.
“What about another brandy, Al?”
“All right, Norbie.”
He signaled the waiter.
“I still have that buzzing in my head,” I declared.
<
br /> “Honest to Pete? After all these years?” My friend looked surprised, and then just a trifle cautious. “But the voices—you don’t hear them any more, do you?”
“Oh, no! The voices are gone,” I answered quickly. As I did I crossed my fingers—the middle over the index—to counteract the lie. Though this was a childish habit, I knew, it was one I’d never been able to discard. As for the lie itself, I thought it best not to get into so complex a matter with someone as mundane as Norbie.
“That’s good, buddy” he said, grinning broadly. “You were a wildman when I saw you that time in the sick bay on the Josephson. You told me you couldn’t sleep because the pillows were yelling in your ears. You made the pharmacist’s mates keep changing them. Bet you don’t remember that.”
He was wrong. I had no difficulty in remembering the ghastly, insinuating allegations of the pillows. However, I said nothing further.
When the bill came he insisted on paying for everything. We got a taxi on Salem Street. Since Norbie expressed a wish to view some historical sights, I instructed the driver to take us past Paul Revere’s house, Faneuil Hall and King’s Chapel. My companion gazed out the window at these old structures and for a while showed interest, but his attention soon flagged. He elicited the name of “a good place to get a drink” from the hackie and we sped off to the Hotel Sussex.
By this time I was weary. Still, under the circumstances, I could hardly raise an objection. I was therefore obliged to sit with him from ten in the evening till one in the morning, drinking Scotch and making dull and desultory conversation in a rather garish lounge-bar. Toward midnight a couple of bleached blondes entered the place, one of whom threw me a seductive glance. I was all for inviting them over to our table, but Norbie wouldn’t hear of it.
“Hookers,” he said, scowling. “I can spot them a mile off. Strictly hotel hookers, buddy. That one with the long hair looks as tough as a boiled owl.”
Maybe he was right—I don’t know. His attitude seemed strange to me, however. That was my last attempt to redeem the evening. With each drink—and he had four or five times as many as I did—Norbie’s mood grew more somber. When at last we departed, he was almost morose.
Another cab returned us to the house. I saw Norbie to the guest room. He asked me if I would bring him a pitcher of ice water, which I did. Then I wished him a good night’s sleep, and foggy-headed went to bed myself.
11
HAGGLING WITH SULEYMAN THE MAGNIFICENT
To feed a guest like Norbie, I realized, would require an overflowing larder, and that, in turn, required money. In the morning while he was still sleeping, I packed a couple of knickknacks and went again to see the Turk.
“So soon? Only a single day since the last time, Al,” he greeted me from where he sat in a wicker wing chair, surrounded by moldy embroidered cushions. I had interrupted him as he was about to pour coffee from a brass jezbah into a miniature cup. “But a pleasure, always. Coffee, maybe?”
“No, thanks,” I replied, sitting on a camel saddle.
“You look tired,” Mahir remarked blandly.
“A friend is visiting me and we drank last night.”
“Ah, very nice. I too drank last night, but not a whole lot. I drank retsina with a Greek boy—Taki is his name. You know retsina? No? It is wine. It tastes like the juice from pine trees. Yes, that’s true. How do you say it—the juice from pine trees?”
“Resin,” I answered, opening my package.
“The very word—resin. Like retsina. Resin, retsina. Almost the exact thing. Taki comes from Salonika, where Mustapha Kemal was born. It belonged to Turkey in the old times,” he rattled on, filling his cup and then placing the jezbah on the counter. “What have you, Al?”
I handed him a ceramic box. “Faïence,” I said.
“How old?”
“Eighteenth Dynasty. Here’s the identification card. It’s from the tomb of Menna—whoever he might be.”
Lovingly, Suleyman ran his thumb over the crude blue-green papyrus design that embellished the lid and sides of the small casket, while appraising it with sharp brown eyes. He felt the edges and corners for chips, smelled the interior and finally tapped it twice with a finger to hear if the ring betrayed invisible cracks.
“A nice thing. It has merit,” he said. This was high praise for him. “It was used for what, do you think?”
Shrugging my shoulders, I said, “Cosmetics . . . trinkets . . . incense. Who knows now?”
After sampling the black coffee, he licked his lips with the tip of his tongue and asked, “Its price, Al?”
“Eighty dollars.”
“Aman! Why so much?” he demanded. “Do I have rich customers? No! Students are my customers—poor people without money. Eighty dollars? Half that is expensive.”
“It’s an unusual item, Mahir,” I said, determined not to get riled. I took out the second piece—a bronze cat. “So is this one. The eyes are semiprecious stones.”
“Ah! Ah! Bronze—good.” Deftly he set the faïence box on a shelf and seized the cat. “Nice, nice. Those Egyptians—how they liked pretty pussycats!” he declared, fondling the small figure. “Me, I like cats too. All animals I like. Most of the time Turkish people don’t like cats. Dogs, yes. Birds, yes. But cats, no. This one is nice. Almost alive, the eyes look.” Inverting it, he read aloud from the pasteboard Great-grampy had affixed to the bottom. “ ‘Late dynastic period. Sacred to Bastet, protectress of women.’ Sey—women don’t need no protection! What date is ‘late dynastic,’ Al?”
“Around five hundred B.C.”
“It’s not so old as the box.”
“No.”
“And it’s cheaper then, eh?”
“Ha, ha!” I laughed politely.
“How much for him, this cat?”
“A hundred and twenty-five.”
“Ne? Where do you get these numbers?” he asked, his expression that of a man who has been stabbed in the heart. “Mr. Pendleton, please! Am I Christie’s in London, England? Such a price! You have the wrong Suleyman, my friend. I am not that one who was the sultan. No, I am not Suleyman the Magnificent. I am Suleyman the secondhand seller of old-fashioned things—of junks. I am the Suleyman who has a crazy high rent and terrible taxes and electric-light bills—and shoplifters.”
After more lamentations of this sort, he offered me a hundred dollars for both articles, swearing a fancy Levantine oath that it was the best he could do.
As I was fatigued from the night before, I had small desire for a round of hard bargaining, yet I couldn’t let him swindle me. I reduced my price by about fifteen percent. He was outraged, but added ten percent onto his. I reached for the cat. He clutched it to his bosom and told me how he was trying to save money to buy an old station wagon so he could deal in used furniture. Down to a hundred and fifty I came, inwardly cursing the slippery rascal.
The Turk lapsed into a deep depression, pitifully drank some of his syrupy coffee and then countered with a hundred and twenty. I remarked on the niggardliness of Moslems; he made a few reflections on the cold-heartedness of Christians. One hundred and fifty, I stated firmly, rising from the saddle and walking toward the glazed box on the shelf. He would pay a hundred and twenty-five, he squealed, but only because he was a rotten businessman with brains like a sheep.
Not until I began to repack the piece of faïence did we at last come to terms. He wrote out a check for a hundred and forty dollars, exhibiting all the enthusiasm of a man signing his own death warrant. As he did, I glanced around the shop looking for the ushabti I’d brought the previous day. I didn’t see it.
“You’ve already sold the ushabti!” I muttered, sorry now that I’d lowered my price. “You sold it the same day.”
“Yes, yes—but for no profit, Al,” he said, hastily handing me the check. “Only five dollars I made. A woman got it from me. I am so much afraid to lose the sale, I let her beat me down to pieces. A woman is worse to do business with than two devils. They are not reasonable. This
one asked me where I bought the statue. Imagine such a question! It is an insult. Where I get my merchandise is nobody’s business except my business.”
I studied the fellow’s pushed-in features. “You’ve got a collector somewhere, haven’t you, Mahir? You have a collector who buys the stuff an hour after I’m gone, and probably pays five times what you give me. Isn’t that right?”
“Oh, sure! Oh, yes!” he said derisively. “That would be nice. Ha! It is what I dream when I am sleeping. But does it happen like that, Al? You think so? Never! Not one time! Not to Mahir Suleyman! Every time I sell something it’s like making a war—a fight, a battle. My customers are cheap. They would steal all the grass from a beggarman’s grave. That one yesterday—I think she was an Armenian. I’m not lying, Al. She spoke Turkish. She spoke it bad, but she spoke it. And she was not nice—that one. Very—how do you say it? Like a big shot. Nasty. A rich collector? Ha!”
It was impossible to tell whether or not he was lying. For a minute or two longer he complained, and then adroitly shifted the conversation back to the subject of cats, giving me a description of the many he’d kept in Istanbul.
Finally I left. As I mounted the steps to the sidewalk, I met Mr. Vodena on his way down. We exchanged greetings.
I cashed the check at Mahir’s bank and rode home on the streetcar.
12
A STRANGE PERFORMANCE
No sooner had I closed the front door than I noticed the sound. It resembled the wheezing of a giant bellows, a resonant roomph-roomph-roomph, repeated with metronomic regularity, and it came from the second floor.
The Secret Life of Algernon Pendleton Page 4