Chapter 27
THEN SHE GOT UP one morning in a terrific mood. She was ecstatic.
“I know,” she said. “I know just the thing. We’ll go to New York, the Empire State Building, and meet all over again. Do everything the same. Oh God, it was so wonderful that first moment! Let’s do it, Josh. Oh please don’t be practical or negative anymore. Let’s do it, Josh. Start all over again.
“What room was it, you know, where we had that stupid meeting? Oh I fell for you so hard. That feeling I had. We have to do it, Josh. The same room. Even the same room. What was the number of the room? What floor were we on?”
I said, “I don’t remember. But we can find out.”
“We’ll say the same things, all right?”
“I’m not sure we can get the same corpies back,” I said.
“You’re funny,” she said. “Did I ever tell you you’re funny? Isn’t this a good idea?”
“It’s an idea.”
“Then we’ll ride to the top, of course, and ride through New York to the Algonquin. Remember that? Remember how you got me up to the room? I had no intentions--well, I was really fighting you. But the way you smoothed in. Oh you were smooth. You said, ‘For this kind of money they should have thrown in a room.’ Was that planned, Mr. Smoothie?”
“No, it just happened. That may be a problem if we try it again.”
“There won’t be problems. Not if we don’t want there to be. Okay? Please.”
“Okay.”
“Remember what you said up there?”
“Up where?”
“On the top. You said, ‘I understand on a clear day you can see Camden. New Jersey.’ That was good, Josh. That was such a good line. How could everything have been so perfect? Everything was so perfect.”
The radiance was back. Remarkable how she changed. She went out, got her hair done, bought clothes, teased and flirted.
“What did you get?” I said.
“Clothes, silly.”
“Can’t I see them?”
“Of course not, silly. They’re for New York.”
In fact, everything was for New York.
I had no trouble locating the room in the Empire State Building, and as proof that things were going right again, the room was available and I rented it for an hour two weeks ahead and these were wonderful days, leading up.
At first I had been a reluctant partner in this scheme. You can’t go home again and all that, except that nobody said anything about the Empire State Building. Besides, who makes the rules? I resented people making rules. Joan now had me up there with her. You can’t relive the past. Can’t rekindle a love that has died. Those were also rules--and so what? Let them make their rules their way and we’ll live our lives our way.
We agreed to keep contact between us to a minimum so that nothing might spoil New York.
There was to be no bad talk, no sarcasm, no complaints, even about the weather.
“You’re not eating,” I said.
“I’ll be perfect by the time we get to New York.”
She proudly counted off the ounces she was losing.
“Getting down to striptease weight,” she said, beaming that smile.
Yes, I remembered the striptease that first day.
Her figure had never stopped being sensational and it brought back memories, memories that had died. Some of the old lust began to heat me up. I began to feel rushed about New York.
I remembered the new things we had done--the first day in and out of bed--her saying, shyly but willingly, “Like this?”
Erotic daydreams about her began to occupy me. I thought of even newer things we might do and her saying, “Like this?”
Joan’s fantasies, those she’d admit to, were on the opening scene, there in that meeting room in the Empire State Building. How we sat at the table with the others and flirted by not flirting, except for the occasional glance. How she read my thoughts and covered her knees. How we just happened to be in the same spot during the coffee break. How she had opened by saying, “I know what you’re thinking,” and then all the fun we had at the expense of the corpies.
These (maybe sex, too, she coyly allowed) were her fantasies. All of this, she warned, we’d have to get right, though there’d be no rehearsing. No, it had to be spontaneous.
It had to be fun and romantic and easy and most of all, it had to be the same.
I thought to caution her that this could be very difficult, making things the same--but I thought better. Hadn’t I already decided to hell with the rules? Maybe, damn it, things can be made the same.
I knew a guy in Natanya, after all, whose house had been struck by lightning twice.
I once hit back-to-back exactas at the racetrack, with the same two numbers, nine-two.
Again, yes, we were gambling, only this time there was nothing to lose. There was great risk, however. If we failed in New York, if it didn’t click, the loss would be final, perhaps in more ways than one. There was something of the morning-glory about her exuberance, this bustle and zeal, such frantic high spirits.
We both knew the risk and didn’t talk about it since there was to be no bad talk.
When I considered the odds I also had to factor in the element of streaks. The good run--when everything came up aces and jacks--was always a possibility, especially for a streak player like me. We had had a very good streak, then a very bad streak, and now maybe it was time for the good again.
I liked that thinking and I liked everything about us those two weeks leading up to New York. There was one thing still to be done beforehand, and I knew it would have to be approached with surgical precision.
I said, “I’m going to Atlantic City to withdraw our money. Do you have any objections?”
“No,” she said, and all discussion about this was over. We both understood that the money was never to be mentioned again.
Chapter 28
I GOT UP EARLY in the morning. She was still sleeping when I got in the car and drove off. Nausea and loathing accompanied me when I turned onto the Atlantic City Expressway. I felt no better when I pulled up to the driveway of the casino. I had them park my jalopy. Inside, crowds surged in all four directions.
I walked straight to the cage.
“I’m here to cash in a marker,” I said.
I gave my name and three IDs.
The clerk’s name was Doris Whittingham, a pleasant, matronly type. She punched information into the computer and then vanished. I waited. It never occurred to me something might go wrong.
As I waited I had a nightmare of a flashback...We have survived mountains and oceans and here we are. I don’t know where we are but there’s a huge American flag above where we sit, in the waiting room. My sister sits neatly clutching her Shirley Temple doll. My father and mother have that depleted refugee look about them, even after some years in Montreal. Men and women--Americans!--stroll back and forth, so well dressed, so easy, so tall. We’re so short, I keep thinking. We are waiting for papers. Years earlier, on the other side of the mountains and the oceans, it had been papieren. Now it is papers. So we sit and we wait, and we wait. People are opening doors and closing doors, walking into this office, out of that office. There is one man my parents are waiting for. Where is he? Why is he taking so long? What does it mean?
What does it mean?
Finally he comes strolling toward us. My mother reaches for my father’s hand. He does not notice. He’s too busy watching the man come closer and closer. He keeps coming but it seems he will never arrive. He is not smiling. What does it mean?
“Mr. Kane?” he says.
My father rises.
“We’ll be glad to give you a permanent visa,” the man says, “except one thing. Are you aware that your son has an irregular heartbeat? He didn’t pass the physical.”
My father knew enough English to understand the words--but he still does not understand.
“He’s a healthy boy,” my father says. His eyes begin to fill. “This boy,” h
e says, “this boy walked up and down mountains! Isn’t that healthy enough?”
“Has your son ever had scarlet fever?”
They confer in Yiddish, Mother and Father.
“No,” says my father.
“Please wait,” says the man.
Again he leaves and again we wait.
My mother says, “They won’t let us in?”
Would even Canada take us back? By some error, Canada had already ripped up our citizenship papers.
“Shh,” says my father.
“They won’t let us in?”
“Shh.”
“We have to go back?”
“Shh.”
“Back where?”
Now here he comes again and he is smiling. He says, “It’s probably just the excitement.”
Then: “Welcome to the United States.”
What does it mean? I asked myself when this Doris left me waiting.
Can’t be, I thought. No, can’t be.
What a dirty rotten trick. But it would serve me right, I thought, and then I thought--why? Why would it serve me right? What had I done? Plenty. Okay, that was fact. I had committed this and that transgression. But had I done anything so terribly wrong--in wanting a better life? Sy was correct there, wasn’t he? This was everybody’s soft spot. This was the theme of every life. Every living thing pursued this.
So what if it wasn’t paradise when you caught this thing you pursued? This too was life.
I thought of the novelist James M. Cain. All of his books, he said, were about people whose dreams had come true.
And all of his books were tragedies.
“Mr. Kane,” Doris said. “This will require a joint signature.”
“You mean the money is here.”
“Oh yes. One million dollars, right?”
“That’s right. One million dollars.”
“It’s here and ready to go, except that your wife has to sign for it, too.”
“She’s not here.”
“Well, can she get here?”
“No. That’s impossible. Never.”
“I’ll have to talk to my supervisor. I don’t know what to do in a case like this. Is she sick?”
“Yes.”
“Can it wait till she gets better?”
“No.”
“The money will still be here.”
“Listen, can’t I sign for her?”
“It’s against regulations.”
“I’m her husband.”
This was a wild complication. I knew Joan would never consent to coming down here, not even for a million dollars.
Especially not for a million dollars.
“She’s very sick,” I said.
“I understand.”
“I’m afraid you don’t. She’s very sick.”
“Oh.” Then she handed me the papers and said, “Sign these.”
Forty minutes later she handed me a check.
“I hope everything is all right,” she said.
“Yes. May I have an envelope for this?”
“Certainly.”
I slipped the check into the envelope and tucked the envelope in my billfold and slid the billfold in the deep pocket on the right side of my jeans. I kept my right hand dug in as I marched out.
I waited for the car and when it came I heard a voice shout my name.
But I knew all about turning back and I was gone.
When I got home Joan was on the couch reading the latest Bellow.
“Why do all his characters come off the page like alte cackers?” I said.
“Whose?”
“Below.”
“Bellow,” she said. “And I wasn’t reading anyway.”
“Oh.”
“I was sitting here worrying.”
“About what?”
“About you.”
“I told you where I was going.”
“I know.”
“You sat here all day worrying?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Something might happen.”
“What might happen?”
“I don’t know. Something.”
“Like what?”
“They’re shooting at each other on the highways.”
“That’s California,” I said. “This is the rest of America.”
“They’re all over, these people.”
“Well, nothing happened.”
“I don’t want anything to happen.”
“You’re afraid something might happen.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.”
“You’re afraid something might happen before New York.”
“Maybe.”
“Superstitious? My Joan?”
“It’s not superstition. It’s--maybe it’s premonition.”
“It’s superstition.”
“You think everything will be all right?”
“Of course. We’re going to New York, aren’t we?”
“Not soon enough.”
“Ta da!” I said and I brought out the cane.
“Oh God, I forgot! How could I forget? The cane! Of course! The cane!”
Chapter 29
THE DAY BEFORE New York not a word passed between us. We had it planned that way, at least she had. We were to become strangers. Everything had to be coiled for the next day’s explosion.
The meeting was set for eleven. There’d be just the two of us since, naturally, we were not about to hire a supporting cast of corpies. I had no idea how she was getting to New York--also planned. We were strangers, after all.
I assumed, however, she’d be taking the bus from Moorestown, so I decided on the train.
When I got up at six she was already in the basement between the washer and dryer. I showered and dressed hurriedly and sped out. I caught the bus to Holmesburg and took the train to the Thirtieth Street Station and there I got a Metroliner and in less than two hours was in the Empire State Building--to me, the symbol of America.
I unlocked the door with the pass key they had sent me and it was all there as before, the big table, thick leather chairs all around, and the memory flashed of her sitting there, that first time, so blonde, so beautiful. Suddenly, I wanted that back. I had not been a big supporter of this plan, but now I was, for any minute now she’d be walking in, and we’d have it all back.
Only we had it turned around. She was supposed to be here first. I made the entrance.
But it was only a few minutes past eleven, too early to be late.
I stepped outside and paced the hallway and eyed the elevators. Just as earth consisted mostly of ocean, so life, I realized, consisted mostly of waiting. Only two or three times in life was anything realized. The rest was waiting.
Then I walked back in the room and listened for footsteps.
Funny how it is when you’re waiting. Every emotion takes a turn.
I wondered, did she remember the floor, the room? Did she remember the building? Did she have the right day? I picked up the phone and called her at home and there was no answer.
Elation. She left the house. She’s on her way. She’ll be here any minute. Bus must have got caught in traffic.
Weren’t they doing work on the turnpike?
So the bus was late and she’s in a cab right now on her way over, probably paying the fare right now.
I checked my watch--11:25.
The cab, I figured, was probably stuck in traffic. New York.
My God! I thought. New York! She could be anywhere.
Where do you start searching for someone in New York! You don’t. You sit. Like this. Like this. Relax. She’ll be here. There is no other place for her to be.
But this room was starting to get very empty. That was all I could think of now, the hollowness of things.
Not for nothing, I thought, did it say, “A man without a woman is half a man.”
Surely, I thought, she did not go out and do something stupid to herself. No, not when we were this
close. Not when we had everything so arranged for the perfect comeback. This was supposed to be the beginning, not the end.
I remembered what she had said the other day. She had been worried something might happen. That had never been like her. Now--yes, since Atlantic City--she had become so afraid of things. She saw signs and portents. All of a sudden she believed in revenge bugs, those creatures that fly overhead and laugh at your dreams.
Now I heard footsteps, but too many. An army of corpies marched to the door.
“We’re scheduled in here for noon,” said the head corpie.
“It’s all yours,” I said, since it was noon.
* * *
She was in bed, the shades drawn.
“Hi,” I said.
Her lifeless eyes were aimed an inch above my head.
“Hi,” she said.
“You’ve been here all day?”
“Where should I be?” she said.
“Maybe New York.”
“Oh.”
“I was there,” I said.
“Good for you.”
“Did I do something wrong?”
“Not at all,” she said. “You’re a very good boy.”
“Did you do something wrong?”
“Me? I’m an angel.”
“Why weren’t you in New York?”
“Me?”
“Joan. Come on.”
“Come on, what?”
“Why weren’t you there?”
“Because I was here,” she said.
“I see.”
“Yes, you see.”
“No, I don’t see.”
“I’m here.”
“I know. But why?”
“Oh Josh, what’s the use? It’s no use.”
“You were so excited about this.”
“Was I?”
“Weren’t you?”
“I guess,” she said.
“What happened?”
“I got up this morning. That’s what happened.”
“You got up.”
“That’s what happened,” she said. “It’s a very bad thing to happen.”
“Getting up.”
“It’s the worst thing that can happen.”
“Getting up.”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s a terrible way to start the day.”
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