And these people thought Germany was a terrible country.
“I’d like to see a one-carat diamond, please,” Szell said to the tiny man who all but bounded around the counter.
The man surprised him with “Why?”
“Because ...” Szell began, but it came out German, “Bee-cuss,” and that was a mistake on this street, and he wondered if the little man had caught it.
“ ’Cause if you’re just a see-er, go window-shop, but if you’re genuinely interested, if you want the best gem quality rock on the block, I’m your man.”
“How much would it be?” Szell asked, nodding, because all his stones were gem quality, the highest.
“Before I tell you, we gotta go to this independent appraiser I know, and if he doesn’t tell you I’m practically giving the stone away free, I’ll get a new brother-in-law.” He laughed.
“Please,” Szell said, “cannot you tell me just the value of a one-carat stone?”
“Wait—wait—first you come traipsing in asking to see, now you wanna know how much? Money’s garbage, it’s value I sell, and when we’ve seen the appraiser—he’s just upstairs—you’ll know I’m your man and no high-pressure artist. Well?”
Szell worked to control himself; he had had his orders followed for thirty years and more, and the insolence of the kike was simply not to be tolerated: You asked a question, he would not give the answer.
He turned, wheeled, left, headed more toward Sixth.
Push.
Buzz.
Open.
The place was painted mostly blue. There were just two men, one with his back to Szell, a sweating fat one, but the one who came over to him was clearly a gentleman, pencil moustache, dressed to match the walls. “Yes sir.”
Szell went British. “I’m interested in the value of a one-carat diamond.”
The pencil moustache smiled. “That’s like asking me the price of a painting. It all depends.”
“My wife and I have been married twenty-five years, and I know that’s silver, but, you see, she adores diamonds and I’ve yet to purchase her one and I’d wait, but that’s not till our sixtieth and I don’t think the chances of being around for it are all that strong. So I thought, perhaps, a surprise, if you gather my gist.”
“I’ll tell you the range, sir. You can probably find a one-carat on this street for as low as three hundred fifty. I’ve got one that goes for four thousand. Now, where in between did you see yourself?”
“Four thousand,” Szell replied, thrilled, because he had never bothered with anything remotely that small.
The salesman leaned across the counter. “You’re being very smart, sir—always buy top. It’s the best investment you can make—diamonds always go up, the top ones, there’s never enough of them and the demand won’t stop growing. Just for example, a top three-carat would go today for eighteen thousand easy, and by next year it’ll be closer to twenty-five thou.”
Szell nodded, doing his best to get the numbers straight, but it wasn’t easy, because the fat man on the phone was getting loud. “Arnie, I understand,” the fat man was saying. “Arnie, my God, we know each other twenty years, Arnie, for Chrissakes I know she’s Jewish, of course she wants a big stone, just give me some idea what you’ll spring for. Twelve? Will you go twelve? Because I can get you something she’ll cream over if you’ll say twelve. Lemme know today, Arnie,” and as the fat man hung up and turned, Szell thought, “My God, my God, I know that Jew, I worked on him!”
The fat man stood, stretched, glanced at Szell.
He wasn’t so fat then, and he must have been strong or he would not have lived, he must have worked at Krupp’s or Farben’s because of his strength—Christ, how many are there on this street I have worked on?
The fat man was staring at Szell now.
Szell knew he should flee, but he could not, he simply could not. He had dreaded more than anything ever this moment—of someday in daylight meeting a victim.
“I think I know you,” the fat man said. “You look familiar.”
“I do hope so, I quite love surprises,” Szell said, going as British as he dared. He held out his right hand. “Hesse, how do you do.” He and the fat one shook. He extended his hand to the pencil moustache. “Hesse, how do you do. Christopher Hesse, perhaps you’ve been to our shop in London, the missus and mine.”
“It wasn’t London,” the fat one said.
“Well, we’ve been there since the middle thirties, Hitler, you see, we’re Jewish, you see, and we left when we could, our friends thought us genuine hysterics but we went nonetheless, and we’ve run kind of an odds-and-ends place, out near Islington, it’s quite trendy now, but not when we settled, it was all we could afford, let me tell you. I don’t want to seem the braggart but we’ve done quite well actually.” He pronounced it “ectually”—overdoing it, true, but he had earned the right, he was that proud of himself: The fat man was won over, the strange look of remembrance gone.
“I always wanted to visit London,” the pencil moustache said.
“Oh, do,” Szell said. “And please look us up. ‘Hesse of Islington.’ Remember now, promise.”
“Sure,” the pencil moustache said. “You interested in seeing anything?”
“I might be. Let me just sound out the missus, surreptitiously, of course, and gauge her reaction. Four thousand is a goodly amount.”
“Shall I hold it?”
“Oh, why not,” Szell said, and he smiled, picked up his packages, left the store. He moved by hatted men, aged scholars, hawkers; the street was jammed. And getting hot now. Szell looked at the time and found it well after eleven. Since he planned on returning to the bank as late as possible, that meant he had several hours left to wander, take in the sights, fix Manhattan as firmly as possible in his mind, because you had to give it to the Americans, it was an extraordinary place, everywhere height, the little narrow streets, the spired buildings, and at first, as he sauntered close to Sixth Avenue, he wasn’t sure where the word “Engel” was coming from, his mind or some record shop, but then as it repeated, he realized it wasn’t just “Engel,” it was “der Engel,” and Szell felt a slight pulse quickening, which he didn’t altogether relish, because now the voice—it was female, and building into a scream—was going “Der weisser Engel, der weisser Engel!” and Szell had not heard himself referred to as that, the White Angel, since his Auschwitz time, and then he saw her, directly across 47th Street from him, an ancient bent witch, and she was pointing one hand at him and clutching her heart with the other as she screamed, “DER WEISSER ENGEL—SZELL—SZELL,” and she couldn’t hold her witch fingers steady but still they were pointed at his heart, and Szell froze for just a moment, because the street was starting to react, and the Spanish walking along kept on walking, and the blacks too, because what did it matter, a crazy old woman shouting something, “sell” maybe, and the young Jews, they didn’t stop what they were doing either—
—but then an old man with a beard turned toward her sound and said, “Szell?—Szell is here?—”
—and then another old man said, “Where is Szell?—”
—and then a giant of a woman with a deep deep voice said, “He is dead—Szell is dead—everyone is dead—”
“Nein, Nein,” shouted the witch with the pointing fingers: “DER WEISSER ENGEL IST HIER!”
And now 47th Street was starting to explode.
Slowly, as slowly as he could force himself, Szell began walking again toward Sixth Avenue. If he ran it was over, if he ran they would know there was a reason for it and that reason was that he was who he was, the great Christian Szell, and there was no reason for panic, he had only Jews to outsmart, and they didn’t know what he looked like. Some of them did—the fat man in the second shop, he remembered, and the witch across the street, who was still screaming, she did too—but not enough of the others. The name, naturally, they knew. The face perhaps a number of them knew. But only a few would see beyond his baldness.
Unless he r
an.
Calm, calm, Szell commanded.
Sixth Avenue was up ahead now. Just up ahead. Behind him, though, the noises were getting frightening, his name being shouted along the length of the diamond center, all the Jews suddenly cold with fear but warmed by their numbers, all of them wondering could it be true, could Szell be alive, be here, in America, and what if they could be the one to catch him?
Slower, Szell ordered his body. You are a sightseer, you are safe, there is no reason for speed.
“He is getting away,” the old witch screamed, “See? See?”
All the store windows and doors were opening now; he could see them as he moved along, everyone wondering what the hollering was about.
Szell made a pleasant smile at a large lady who was standing in the doorway of her jewelry shop. “The day, it is très belle, yes?” Szell said, doing his best with the French accent, forcing himself to behave as if there were nothing going on behind.
“What’s all the fuss?” the large lady asked.
Szell made a very French shoulder shrug. “Crazy peoples,” he answered.
She smiled at him.
Good, Szell thought. As long as you don’t panic, you cannot lose. So slowly. Slowly.
“I’ll stop him!” the old witch screamed, and without wanting to, Szell turned his bald head, because if they were going to chase him, well, that changed things, and now the witch had plunged across the street, shouting to the traffic, “Room, give me room,” and she was slow and very old so the cars should have been able to stop in time, and most of them did but one didn’t and one was enough, it braked, the screech was close to painful, but not before it skidded into the crone, and she held her footing for a moment, then fell, unhurt but down, because her voice was louder than ever as she shrieked, “FOOL—FOOL—WHO WILL STOP HIM NOW?” to the driver as he got out of his car and ran around to the front, starting to try to help the old woman to her feet, and Szell continued his stroll, finally making the safety of Sixth Avenue, turning pleasantly uptown, strolling along, the hysteria and shouting of 47th Street behind him now, hopefully a thing of the past, but perhaps not, perhaps the police would come, and if they did, they would hear the old crone’s story, and then perhaps they would or would not believe her, that was not for him to control.
All I can control is one thing: myself. And all I can do is one thing: the unexpected.
They would expect him to have guns, which was not now and never had been true. In the first place, he never wanted to train to become adept—he was to be a dentist, what use were guns? And when he did try to learn, he turned out to be a terrible shot. He hated the noise. The gun always bucked. He hit nothing. Not having a gun, of course, was not the same as saying he was unarmed.
He did, after all, have the Cutter.
His Cutter, really; not that he had invented anything—there had likely been knives in existence since we stopped being amphibians—no, his contribution was really just one of refinement. His Cutter was always strapped around his forearm, where, with a simple unobtrusive flick, it would slide, ready for use, into his right hand. The handle was thick, the blade buried deep in hardwood. The blade was pointed, sharp as a hypodermic needle, but only one edge was dangerous, the opposite one being unusually thick, so that all you had to do was swipe with your arm, or slash if you preferred, and the enemy’s stomach was wide open, or his throat, wherever you found it convenient to strike. He loved the silence of his Cutter when placed against the horrid sound of guns.
They would expect guns. And they would also expect him to flee.
And so, with a startling degree of calm taking over his body and mind, he decided to stay where he was, since they would know that he would, at the first possible opportunity, vacate the area, take a cab, the subway, a bus, anything to get as far from the sighting as possible, but Sixth Avenue wasn’t very pretty, the buildings all but blocked the sun, so he turned in after a little and crossed back toward Fifth, got halfway there when he saw a little plaza bathed in sunshine, and made his way toward it, and genuinely gasped in stunned surprise as he stared down on this warm day at the lovely ice skaters whirling around and around just below. Szell moved to a railing and watched.
Incredible.
The best thing yet about America. Here, in the middle of this jungle city, in the middle of an unnaturally hot day, people were actually behaving like winter. Children were smiling and falling down and old women were skating with old men, hand holding hand, and in the very center were the trick people, professionals perhaps, in any case very good, leaping and turning for themselves, the crowds, whatever, and Szell noticed that most of the really good ones had the same bodies, thick legs, ballet dancers’ legs, really, only thicker, and thin upper torsos, thin from the effort of beating their frames into something resembling obedience, not at all fat, like the fat man from the second jewelry shop, who suddenly put his hands on Szell’s shoulders, spinning him around, panting, “I knew you weren’t English, you murdering son of a bitch,” and Szell, as he felt his body turning, flicked his Cutter down, and by the time he faced the fat man, it was already moving, one quick, almost imperceptible gesture with his right hand and the fat man’s throat was suddenly and totally laid open, and as the fat man started to fall forward, grabbing for his jugular, Szell began shouting, “There’s a sick man here, there’s a man here needs help, a doctor, please a doctor,” and as the fat man fell over the railing, almost already dead, a crowd gathered, and by the time the fat man could no longer hold his hands around his throat and dropped them, by the time the blood began to faucet, he was surrounded by many people, most of them screaming and none of them Szell, who was half running toward an empty cab, because to hell with the unexpected, storm clouds were gathering over him, bad things came in threes, and the crone remembering him was one and the fat man catching him was two and Szell had no intention of waiting for three to tap him on the shoulder, it was the bank now, the bank and the diamonds, so he told the driver where to take him, and on the trip up he opened his suitcase, and behind the cover of the lid he handkerchiefed his Cutter clean, quickly strapped it back in place, put the handkerchief in the case, closed it, and at shortly before half-past eleven he approached the corner of 91st and Madison.
Well now.
The bank was on the right-hand uptown corner. There appeared to be nothing unusual, but that meant nothing, Szell put even less faith in “appeared” than he did in “seems.”
If they were waiting for his exit, if there was a plot, what were his alternatives? The money could stay here, true, but that would make him by Christmas an impoverished fugitive, not the best of positions.
Szell paid, got out, entered the bank.
He had the safe deposit key in his suit-coat pocket and the box number emblazoned in his heart. He moved quickly toward the sign that said “Safe Deposits” together with an arrow. He followed the arrow. Down some steps he went, and there, beyond, was the large locked gate. He could see the guard parading inside. Szell walked up to the woman at the desk on the near side of the gate. Middle-aged, fat, but pleasant-faced for a blackie.
“My box,” Szell said, and he brought out the key.
She looked up at him strangely. “I thought I knew ’em all,” she said, “but I guess there’s new folks every day. Name, please?”
Szell went German—if she was experienced, she must have known his father, who had no ear for languages, so his German accent must have lingered until death. “Christopher Hesse. I am deputy only. My father—” he said it “fasser”—“suh box iss inn hiss name.” He smiled at the black face.
“Old Mister Hessuh,” she said, pronouncing it that way. “So you’re his boy. Don’t think I’ve ever seen you. Not usual, sending a deputy after so many years.” She was still looking at him strangely.
Why was his heart beating? What could she know? “He died,” Szell explained.
“Oh my lordie, I’m sorry to hear that,” and she sat back in her chair.
“Yess, it iss a
sad business.”
“That’s not what I meant,” she said. “ ’Course, I’m sorry about him too, but see, we got a law, when there’s a death, the box gets sealed till after the lawyers is done examining.”
Szell just stood there, blinking.
“I can’t let you in’s what I’m trying to say.”
Bad things did come in threes; it was true.
“Maybe you better sit down, Mister Hessuh.”
“Pleess,” Szell managed, and then he started to cry, tears streaming down his face.
“I can’t do nothin’, Mister Hessuh—ask me, it’s a stupid law, but there it is, on the books, I got to obey it.”
“Pleess, you go too fast.” Szell sank wearily into a chair, buried his head in his hands. “Three weeks more only,” he began.
“I didn’t quite make you out, Mister Hessuh.”
Szell looked at her with his moist blue eyes. “My fasser is dead in three weeks more only. The doctors say this. Cancer, zey say. I beg. Pleess. Pleess. He iss all I haff left for family, make him liff longer, pleess, more zan chust three weeks.” He shook his head, turned away.
“Oh, that’s a whole different thing,” she said. “If he’s only sick, ’course you can go in,” and they quickly went through the rest of the admission procedure. “George,” the blackie said to the guard. “George, you take young Mister Hessuh to his box, please.” To Szell she said, “Give George your key, why don’t you, Mr. Hessuh.”
Szell stammered, “Sank you,” handed the key through the bars, waited through the clicks and turns until the gate swung open and he was into the box area, following the guard.
“Would you like a private room?” the guard asked.
“Pleess.”
The guard took the key, placed it in one lock, took another key, placed it in a second, turned them both, pulled out a very large box. Szell followed the guard to a room. The guard put the box down. Szell thanked him. The guard nodded, left.
Like a child at Christmas, Szell shook the box gently, expecting weight.
It was like a feather.
The Novels of William Goldman Page 116