by Henry Miller
But in every other respect Dave was a rogue, a scalawag. Almost as unprepossessing as Prigozi, though infinitely more humorous, his one ambition was to parade as a Don Juan. There was never any telling on whom his fancy might fall. In his messenger days he had been known to consort with charwomen, burlesque stars, midwives—any woman, in fact, who was sufficiently déclassée and repulsive to attract him. On one occasion his appetite had led him right up to the Vice-President’s sanctuary. He had been on the trail of a big Senegambian whose bust bewildered him. Such temerity can only be faintly apprehended when one realizes with what trepidation Dave usually listened to the Vice-President’s voice.
But of this, later. Now he was about to close shop, as he expressed it, and in accordance with time-honored tradition had brought over the “slate” for Moloch to glance at.
“You know there’s a strike brewing, Dave?”
“I should worry,” he replied, grinning from ear to ear.
“But that means you won’t be able to take your wife to the hospital tomorrow morning, old man.”
“Just as you say, Mister Moloch. She can have it done next week.” He spoke as though it were a plumbing job and not an ovarian operation.
Prigozi’s professional ardor was aroused.
“What’s ailing your missus, Dave?”
Dave blushed, hemmed and hawed, looked confusedly at the two, and finally stuttered:
“You tell him, Mister Moloch. I can’t use those big words like you can. What did you call those tubes again?”
“You mean the Fallopian tubes?” snapped Prigozi.
“Yeah, that’s it. How do you spell that?”
“What do you want to know that for? You’d think your old woman was going to a spelling match instead of a hospital.”
“Aw, I know,” said Dave, grinning and blushing some more, “but I want to spring that word on Navarro.” He turned to Moloch. “You know how Navarro looks at you when you pull a jawbreaker on him?”
The three of them laughed heartily. The operation was a success in advance. . . .
“You’d better be running along,” Moloch advised. He looked up at the clock with sly humor.
“That’s right,” said Dave. “I’m working overtime.”
He laughed uproariously at this feeble crack.
“Look here, Dave,” said Prigozi, collaring him forcefully, and shaking him as though he were a dead rat, “you go straight home tonight, understand? No chippy chasing in the subway or I’ll break your neck. That wife of yours needs attention. Having your ovaries removed is no joke.”
Dave summoned a tragic air. “You said it!” he observed.
Dave was about to go.
“Oh, Dave ... before you go!” Moloch made a few mysterious passes. Dave sidled up to him with a sheepish expression.
“How many?” he said.
“Oh, five will do.”
“Here, take ten,” said Dave, hauling out a wad of filthy greenbacks.
“Don’t spoil the boss!” exclaimed Prigozi. “You’ll never get it back, you know.”
Concluding this ceremony, Dave paused and bowed his head. It was Dave’s way of registering profound thought. “I want to say something before I forget it,” he announced sententiously. “Between you and me, I think messenger 785 has an ‘effective’ mind.”
“What makes you think he’s defective,” said Moloch. He understood quite well that this was Dave’s method of showing his appreciation for the privilege of lending his boss a few dollars.
Dave never noticed the grammatical correction, but sailed on blithely; there was more than a hint of braggadocio in his comments.
“Why, I noticed he always carries a book under his arm. It’s written in Italian. He says it’s a classic.”
“Well, there’s nothing wrong in that, Dave.”
“Maybe not, but when I asked him if he understood Italian he said, ‘No, but I like to read it just the same—it makes me feel better.’ ”
“What was the name of the book?”
“I think he said Inferno ... is that right? Is there such a book?” He laughed apologetically, showing all the yellow stumps in his mouth.
Prigozi nabbed him by the sleeve and pointed to some red lettering on a narrow cardboard strip which Moloch had tacked on the railing for the applicants to study while they waited to be interviewed:
DO NOT ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE
“Do you know what that means?” he asked.
“No,” said Dave, “do you?”
“Well, read the Inferno and find out. Damn it, Dave, you want to get wised up. You can’t go on being an ignoramus all your life.”
“Aw hell!” grunted Dave, with a deprecating air, and trundled off like Florizel the Fat.
With Dave’s departure the two were left alone. The rest of the staff had disappeared. Moloch had formed the habit of remaining in the office for an hour or two after closing time, waiting for something to happen. His adventures usually began after five o’clock. Generally, one of his cronies dropped in for a chat. Sometimes a gang appeared and swept him out of the office like a cyclone. Frequently this period was taken up by the eccentrics whom he put to work and watched over with a cruel interest. With these he held long consultations in which he dipped freely and morbidly into their private life, gave hygienic advice, regulated their marital conduct, interpreted their dreams, allayed their discontent, studied their phobias and obsessions. Occasionally he borrowed money of them, which he repaid with interest. Or, he might accept their invitation to dine, or go to a show. If he thought there was an opportunity of philandering, he made it his business to call on their wives. . . . Some of the messengers were females. These he subjected to a rigid scrutiny when they made application for work. The addresses of the good-looking ones he kept in a memorandum book. When things got dull, he looked through these addresses and began calling them up— those with a star after their names first. Usually he was rewarded for his thoroughness.
The results of these observations and experiences he recorded with elaborate, painstaking efforts in a loose-leaf journal which he kept at the office. This journal also contained typewritten excerpts from the works of those authors whom he admired with an almost idolatrous fervor. The job of transcribing this material he entrusted to his secretary. It could hardly be said that he was unaware of the effect which these disclosures produced upon the mind of the clever, prurient virgin who acted as his secretary. She accepted the task with the serenity of a censor. Moloch awarded her the interest that a breeder might spend on a prize heifer.
Anticipations arose of utilizing the notebook as a springboard from which to plunge into a sea of more satisfying vicissitudes.
Meanwhile the loose, heavy yoke of marriage chafed. This fever of activity which consumed him, and drove him from one escapade to another, offering him knowledge, excitement, sexual gratification—what was it but a partially recognized rebellion against the stagnating influences of wedlock? He was unhappy with the woman he had chosen. She too was unhappy. They lacked something (was it vigor or understanding?) to repair the prosaic damages of erosion.
Moloch got out the battered-looking journal and began to scribble in it. Prigozi amused himself by snooping about—examining applications, mulling over the office correspondence— maintaining, as he did so, a running fire of sardonic comments concerning the slipshod practices employed.
Moloch’s grim concentration disturbed him. It was an affront to his ego.
“Humpfh!” he grunted. “What’s the item tonight—Luther?”
“No!” said Moloch, hoping to thwart any further inquiries by the inflection of his voice.
“When are you going to write that book? You have sufficient notes there to write The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. . . . Hullo!” he chirped, looking up. “Here’s the reason for the decline now.”
Hari Das entered. He was in civilian clothes, and hatless. His glossy jet-black hair rested with luxuriant ease upon his slender shoulders. Th
ere was a serene, jubilant air about him. His manner verged on boldness, though it contained no vestige of the brash, aggressive qualities peculiar to Prigozi. Neither was it born of secret arrogance. A lofty indifference to the world—that more nearly approximated it.
This, then, was the “nigger” that Twilliger took exception to . . . old man Houghton’s “shine” ... the self-appointed Redeemer of Mankind in the twentieth century!
Hari Das was lighter in color than most of his Indian confreres, and by all odds the most attractive. Women, who are better judges in these matters than men, declared him to be astonishingly handsome. Almost unanimously their first exclamation of rapture proclaimed the charm of his perfect, gleaming white teeth. Perhaps that was why he laughed so frequently and so easily. It was a pity that he had ever condescended to don the hideous uniform of our Western garb. In his own regalia, as a member of the warrior caste, he presented a quite different front. One might easily visualize him in the role of member of Parliament, parrying suavely with the constipated intellects of the upper House—juggling them like so many billiard balls. ... In a cheap, ready-made suit a forlorn element creeps into this picture, for which he is not responsible, and which has as little to do with his personality as the frames one sometimes sees about a masterpiece.
“I came to tell you,” he began, and lapsed therewith into an amusing and wholly spontaneous account of his trials in Chinatown. The spotty, errant emphases he employed, in conjunction with his simple gestures, imparted a peculiar and altogether charming note to his utterances.
It was noticeable that although he had been introduced to Prigozi two days previously, when he first stopped into the employment office (Prigozi having introduced himself), he seemed to be only slightly aware now of the other’s existence. He observed the amenities by a grandiloquent wave of the hand. Whereupon he proceeded to ignore Prigozi completely. Whether this was a sign of contempt, or in line with his royal indifference, it was difficult to tell. Prigozi, of course, was irritated by this jeweled disregard. His blatant self-assurance, his flamboyant insolence, all the muddy arrogance of the fellow was swept off the board, as it were. To his extreme surprise, he eventually found himself listening respectfully and, as the tale proceeded, growing more and more overawed.
Hari Das had dropped in, as he explained to Moloch, simply to pay his respects before going off. He had no apologies to make for his conduct. He saw nothing reprehensible in his tardiness.
Moloch said nothing about the color line. In his most affable manner he alluded to the importance that was attached to death messages.
His remarks made little or no impression upon his listener. “In India one takes his time, and when one is already dead, of what use is it to hurry?” said Hari Das. Brushing swiftly over “this Anglo-Saxon absurdity,” he gave free rein to his impressions of Western energy and futility. What, he asked, was the ultimate value of these extravagant sacrifices in the name of speed?
Prigozi, who had been roughly revising his concepts of the weak-kneed Hindus during the course of this disquisition, thought the moment opportune to introduce a little dynamite. He had been aching to observe the reaction which the word “nigger” would induce. He drew his bow and shot the arrow home.
The two men looked at Hari Das with that absurd air of vacuity which people display when viewing the fragments of a precious vase which has slipped between their fingers. Moloch was furious, but said nothing. Indeed, it was too late to say anything. Prigozi had said everything that was necessary—and a few things that were unnecessary.
A tiny throatful of laughter, that had the chink of broken glass, broke from the disdainful lips of Hari Das.
“In India,” he exclaimed, “I am a problem. In England I am an educated nuisance. If the Americans choose to make a nigger of me, very well—let them! I do not care a damn. My difficulty is an economic one, not an ethnologic one.”
“Bully!” cried Prigozi, throwing his restraint to the winds.
A twinkle of amusement, that was also a reproach, flashed in Hari Das’ eyes.
“Let’s get out of here,” suggested Moloch.
Prigozi and Hari had taken to behaving like two statesmen who flatter each other assiduously after a prolonged session of profanity and vituperation. There was nothing to be gained by permitting these two to continue. Besides, he was only too familiar with Prigozi’s views. He knew his opinions on everything— from theories of “magic and religion” to birth control and conditioned reflexes. What he wanted was an intellectual debauch with this Nietzschean Oriental.
“How about going to the Olympic?” said Prigozi. The fact that “Mister Moloch” had the price of a burlesque show in his pocket made him almost certain that this innocent suggestion would be adopted with alacrity.
“No, no burlesque for me tonight,” said Moloch impatiently. “Here—take this, if you need some coin,” and he thrust a five-spot toward Prigozi.
Prigozi refused the money, not from reticence, but because he was unwilling to be shunted off in this manner.
“Come along, then, damn you!” said Moloch, ushering Prigozi out.
Hari Das had gone ahead and was waiting for them in the street.
As they emerged from the office, Prigozi mumbled something in Moloch’s ear which caused the latter to voice a vigorous dissent.
“Well, then,” said Prigozi, unabashed and abandoning his furtive gestures, “how about that secretary of yours? Can’t we manage to seduce her? She looks as if she’s itching for it.”
Again Moloch shook his head. “You forget that I’m a married man,” he said facetiously.
Prigozi shrieked. “I always told you you were a god-damned hypocrite, Mister Moloch!”
Then, as if inspired, he took to dancing. Moloch wheeled slowly as Prigozi gyrated about him, observing the way the other’s fingers drooped and quivered, ever so delicately. He wondered if Prigozi had ever seen Toscanini, or performed a surgical operation.
A few pedestrians stopped to stare. Hari Das meanwhile leaned against a lamppost and studied the headlines of the Evening Journal. He got a great kick out of the headlines. ... He never read what was printed below.
4
IN THE SUBWAY HARI DAS RECEIVED AS MUCH ATTENtion as if he were Genghis Khan suddenly come to life. Moloch was as far removed from the usual cares of an employment manager as an igloo from the equator.
They were not intoxicated. In the first place, neither Hari nor Prigozi had touched a drop when they entered the café after closing the office. Moloch had taken only a few glasses of gin, but those “few thimblesful” had produced the illusion of a rutilant Bakst curtain closing slowly over a drab backstage scene whose realism was not of the theater but of life, life as it is known to a Pirandello.
On this warm Crimean screen of velvet a cutback, translated from memory, bathed in vivid stews of color, and aching with promises that had never been fulfilled, projected itself. He became insensible of the clownish behavior of the man Prigozi standing beside him at the bar.
Indeed, Prigozi himself, the brass rails, the rubicund figure in the white apron whose back was revealed in the fantastically soaped mirrors—the entire imminent reality had melted into a snug, superheated bedroom. There was about this room the same befouling disarray, the same vile odors which we associate with the bottom of a birdcage. He saw again the woman called Blanche, before she had gone through the mock solemnities of the conjugal rite; she was lying on a crazy quilt in a crumpled silk dressing sack, green as the troubled Atlantic. Her lips exuded a flavor of burnt coffee and buttered cinammon toast. Her armpits were dark, darker than the deep olive of her neck and shoulders. He buried his head in one of the fragrant hollows with a long, deep kiss that left her quivering under the slow-curving caress of his body. Her long chestnut hair, electric with ardor, perfumed with vitality, enveloped him and tantalized him. He found himself climbing under the counterpane, his tongue sputtering with entreaties.
“I feel so ashamed,” whispers Blanche, as she
lies languidly among the heaving pillows, pop-eyed with fright and expectancy. The word “marriage” is on her lips. He erases it with swollen affirmatives, almost stifling under the thick blankets. The distorted red patterns of the wallpaper are swimming in endless vibrations of heat.
In the midst of this reverie Prigozi nudges him. “What’s come over you?” He nods toward the bartender.
Moloch pays, gives Prigozi the change of a five-dollar bill, and dismisses him. He manages it so easily now. Not the slightest embarrassment.
“We’re going home,” he says, grasping Hari’s arm.
In the subway Moloch feels called upon to explain his behavior. “I had to get rid of him, Hari. He gets on my nerves sometimes. He’s like a bad breath. One can stand so much and then. . . .” He made a moue and looked around as if he wanted to expectorate.
Hari Das thought this frankness commendable. It was so un-Oriental. Moreover, he was beginning to perceive great possibilities in this friendship.
“I must tell you something about Blanche before we arrive,” said Moloch, apropos of nothing. “She may seem like a nightmare at first. . . somewhat inhospitable, understand? However, you mustn’t let that disturb you. It’s just her way. She’s really a fine woman. A little nervous, perhaps . . . has a worried look. Probably some glandular disturbance. A splendid musician, though.”
Hari Das tittered. Then he took a broken comb from his pocket and ran it through his greasy black hair.
“You know you’d make a wonderful Messiah, Hari? A veritable strap-hanging Savior, by George!”
Hari threw back his head and yawped.
“Our women adore Saviors, Hari,” Moloch continued. “Particularly when they’re handsome. By the way, you don’t suffer from delusions, do you? You don’t hear voices ... or anything like that, you know what I mean?”
Hari accepted this as another one of Moloch’s little jokes. He enjoyed these sallies hugely.