by Henry Miller
Simple and commonplace as this remark was, Moloch was instantly flattered. To be included in such a mark of concern was a tribute. He was at a loss to know just how Prigozi took it. . . . “An old flame”? Huh! Impossible!
That Naomi was a Jewess was without question, but it was a type he had seldom encountered before; certainly never in this utter loveliness, never with quite such unique blandishments. She was Oriental rather than Jewish, Egyptian rather than Semitic. Quick to idealize her, he pictured her in his mind as an exotic offshoot from the ancient Alexandrian world, a raven-haired waif steeped in the wisdom of the cult of Aphrodite; nurtured in a foreign tongue pregnant with mystery and ardor.
The effect of her charms upon Prigozi was to alter his speech habits. He talked now with a mouthful of marbles. He thought it improved his diction. No one else gained this impression.
Voices were speaking to Prigozi. They had nothing to say about the Bible (which had formed a prominent part in the conversation), or Christian lunatics, or poets like Stanley, who could jabber endlessly about Ecclesiastes. The voices in him were tongues of flame. “It is better to marry than to burn,” they whimpered.
He stole shy glances at Naomi. Her mouth was cherry-ripe, her eyes dark as kohl. Her supple limbs were bursting with vigor. Tremors flew up and down his spine as he thought of Naomi lying beside him, comforting him, weeping for him. ... He had traveled such a distance, in his thoughts, he was disgusted with himself.
Naomi studied the other two as she carried on a tepid conversation with Dr. Elfenbein. The latter’s existence was scarcely noted anymore; he was like a vegetable which one knows is in the garden, but ignores until it is time to pull it up by the roots.
Men came over from time to time, intruding long enough to win her smile, or extract a faint promise. Naomi was like a doe which has fallen into a snare and lies waiting with beating heart for the cymbals to crash and the dogs to bark. The glances she received were so many spears aimed at her heart. She was at a loss how to appease her hungry admirers.
Presently Prigozi excused himself and hurried away from the table. Moloch followed him. They went down a flight of stairs to the lavatory. Moloch thought he detected Naomi staring at him. Her eyes were imploring him to hasten back—so he thought.
In the lavatory Prigozi turned and looked at his companion with sorrowful, sunken eyes.
He came to the point at once.
“You want her, don’t you?”
Moloch was somewhat taken back.
“Go ahead, take her, but... but don’t tell her in front of me how much you care for her.” His voice was unsteady. “Do you hear?” he repeated, advancing closer. “Don’t tell her in front of me. ... I couldn’t stand that.”
Moloch tried to feign disinterest. He spoke of Naomi’s charms as if he were criticizing a piece of marble.
Prigozi was sinister and preemptory.
“You can’t put that over on me, Dion. I don’t want her, understand? You’ve got a chance ... go and take her before I change my mind.”
“Change your mind?”
“Listen! I said you had a chance. So you have, but it’s a small one. Remember, in her eyes you’re a goy. Better strike while the iron’s hot.”
“What the hell is he insinuating?” thought Moloch, knowing that a goy is always five leagues behind when talking to a member of the chosen race.
“Damn it!” he blurted out. “I’ve a good mind to go back in there and take her off under your nose—just to prove to you that I can pull the trick.”
“That’s what I want you to do. You couldn’t find a better girl than Naomi.” Prigozi gave out a deep sigh.
“Look here, Sid, what’s the meaning of all this? What are you up to? There’s something queer about this.”
“Well, what do you make of it?” Prigozi answered readily. “You don’t think I want her, do you?”
“That’s the second time you’ve asked me that. What’s eating you? God damn it! Don’t stand there gaping at me!”
Prigozi hesitated. Was it worthwhile making things clear to this goy? In some ways Moloch was just like all the other goyim.
“I want you to get rid of that nigger you’re running around with. Does that satisfy you?” he announced.
“The nigger? God, is that all he has on his mind?” thought Moloch. He smiled benignantly. If that was all that bothered Prigozi, what made him so damned persistent about Naomi? What made him talk the way he did?
Prigozi read his thoughts. He was a block ahead of him, in fact. “Let him worry,” he thought. Then he said aloud:
“How on earth do you ever expect to amount to anything with that mulatto tied to your coattails? Do you know what I’ve been thinking about you? I believe you’re crazy enough to marry Valeska. Man, you’re tied up with a she-devil now—isn’t that bad enough? What will you do with a darky in your home? You’ll be ostracized, do you realize that? You won’t have any friends, you understand? Nobody . . . nobody.”
This speech struck Moloch as so amusing that he let out a sidesplitting guffaw.
“You’re getting worked up about a trifle, Sid. Who said I was going to run off with Valeska?”
Prigozi looked resolutely unconvinced.
“Why, look here,” Moloch flew on, “Valeska told me only the other day if ever I was stuck for a place to bring someone I could use her flat.… Do you get that? Does that look as if I were going to elope with her?”
It was Prigozi’s turn to laugh immoderately.
“You try that some night... just try it! Ho, ho, ho! Go ahead, try it! You’ll never bring a Jane out of her place alive. You’re going to get your throat cut as sure as I stand here. Jesus, you must be a simpleton to believe everything she tells you. Who ever heard of a thing like that?”
He laughed more heartily. Tears came to his eyes.
“Ah, shush!” said Moloch. “Let’s go back upstairs and take Naomi out of here. This joint’s full of bedbugs.”
About fifty years ago a French archaeologist discovered in the city of Jerusalem one of the very few relics of the first temple of the Lord. The relic which Clermont Ganneau discovered was an inscription on the post of the balustrade surrounding the second part of the sacred quadrangle. It read:
“No Gentile shall pass this gate on pain of death.”
This pile of magnificence which Solomon caused to be erected, and which, it has been alleged, has ever been of vast significance to the Masons, had a life, as we know, of about four hundred years. The Babylonian, Nebuchadnezzar, demolished it completely, taking the Jews with him into captivity. In relating this historical incident, H. G. Wells adds—“making of them a cultured and civilized people.”
Surrounded by spurious descendants of the Babylonian captivity, Naomi sat at the table enveloped in a golden silence which weighed on her fragile tympani like a purple hippogriff. Her figure bore a faint resemblance to the beautiful Byzantine moths in silk and fur who emerge unexpectedly from the foul hallways of Hester and Forsyth Streets.
Outside, a small car with a family of nine in it drew up to the curb. The mother, who was suckling an infant, hastily slung a discolored teat over her shoulder. It was a whale of a teat, full of pap. An enormous udder, like a sack of flour.
The entire family trooped inside. Madeira and Cluny laces jostled against pretzels and pieces of knockwurst. Alaskan seals, with a grandiloquent gesture, swept up clots of sawdust, matted with spittle and salami rind. Satin dresses, cut like an open barouche, made a hissing noise as they swished against tables and chairs. Pitiful old men, venders of shoelaces and pencils, moved like paralytics through the throng of chattering cormorants. It is this same crablike gait one observes on Friday evenings when, worn with toil and suffering, shaken with palsy, they join the procession that pours into the synagogue. On this day of the week, when the people of Israel give themselves up to lamentation, and dream in their beards of that Ark of the Covenant which has never been found, the whole East Side opens up like a festering wound, al
ive with the maggots of corruption.
“Truly,” thought Moloch, feasting his eyes on this guano field of sybarites, “if the Germans are the Chinese of Europe, these wretches are the lice and ticks of mankind.”
He asked himself what Naomi had in common with this offal that swirled about her like bloated cauliflower. What affinity existed between her and the evil-smelling crowds who were belched like sewer gas from the subways, who streamed back from the battlefields of toil like defeated army corps?
Naomi’s delicate touch, resting on Moloch’s arm like an apparition, caused him to take in the presence of an additional member of the party.
This personage had a sad Jewish face of a mystagogue. He was a writer, of dubious fame, who wrote fables in Yiddish for the newspapers. The slugs who frequented the Café Royal pretended, over a bottle of seltzer and a snack of pastrami, to enjoy his conundrums.
This man was a bundle of animation. His hands were continually busy mopping the perspiration from his nose and brow. He was always in a sweat. His mind, too, was in a state of continual eruption. Moloch could not but notice his fingers. They were not the soft, tuberous growths of a tailor (such as Dr. Elfenbein displayed) that reminded him unpleasantly of white lard. On the contrary, they were firm, spatulate extensions that promised to grasp hold of life and wring its filthy neck.
This conundrum, whose fables were as pointless as his fingertips and mocking as his grinning skull, had the articulated sprightliness of a skeleton dangling in a dime museum. He laughed when there was no reason to laugh, and when he recited an anecdote, or one of his countless fables, the gloom of Egypt settled on his brow.
This sidesplitting cadaver, who went to bed each night with one of the Classics (Don Quixote or Huckleberry Finn), was in the toils of a devastating passion. Between the hours of five and seven in the evening he wrote love lyrics. They were not written for the daily press, nor yet for book publishers, but to console himself for the folly of his passion. He waited regularly every night until Naomi had retired to her room, which was but a stone’s throw from the Royal. Then he would tiptoe to her landing and slip a poem under her door. Sometimes he left a flower, which would wither during the night, and dissipate its fragrance. No word about these gifts was ever exchanged. Naomi read them wistfully, touched by the psalmody of his Hebrew heart, yet unable to fathom the mystery of his ugliness.
This Gorgon, whose love was like the sigh at sunrise of the Colossus at Memnon, excited Moloch by reason of his eclecticism. Who would surmise, when he buried his terrible fist in the bowels of the Talmud, or clung like a convert to the sacred skirts of Mahomet, that he intended thereby to caress the face of his beloved with the tips of his rigid wings?
His enthusiasm was like the growl of a cataract. He could gush with equal fervor about the architecture of the Alhambra, the nature of idolatry, the topography of ancient Thebes, or Communism among the Incas. At the mention of Moses Maimonides he fell into a rhapsody concerning the achievements of the twelfth century. He enumerated the titles of certain original treatises by that great sage, such as “On the Bites of Venomous Animals,” “On Asthma,” “On Natural History,” “On Hemorrhoids,” and so on.
His imagination was like the intestinal procession of the scarab, which, while gorging itself for days and nights uninterruptedly, continues at the same time to unwind its unbroken tape of excreta as a reminder of the abdominal prodigies performed in its temple of dung. His rabbinical metaphors were invested with the cloudiness of the pearl. When he touched the real of epistemology everything trembled and glittered. Sinister and hideous to the perceiver, his soul fluttered like an elongated spirit lost in a mirage.
Meanwhile Prigozi had suddenly become interested in a newspaper which someone had left on a chair beside him. This is what he read beneath a flamboyant illustration on page fifteen:
“Since the beginning of the world it has been the recognized duty of man to reverence his dead—to give appropriate expression of his sincere affection and fidelity, by providing a suitable resting place for them, according to the custom of the times.
“It is a comforting thought, as far as consolation is possible, to know that one has done all he can to make the last abode of those who have gone before beautiful and soothing to the eye of the living who come there to reverence their memory.
“Just as nations honor their illustrious dead by providing an enduring monument, so that their names may be perpetuated for all time, it is now possible to do as much for your own beloved dead, and it is in keeping with the progress of the times; other methods belong to bygone ages.
“The directors of this humanitarian movement personally request you to clip the coupon from this notice and send it to the address below, and you will receive a beautifully illustrated book describing this magnificent and imposing edifice that will enable you to get a full, comprehensive idea of its scope.
“Do not confuse mausoleum with cremation. The body of your loved one is not consumed by fire-heat, but is sealed up in a snow-white compartment, same as is done in the finest tombs or private vaults, at no greater cost than ordinary ground burial. Mausoleum entombment is in keeping with the progress of the times, and it is as sanitary as cremation and as sentimental as a churchyard. A mausoleum provides a beautiful resting place and a permanent memorial for the dead, and is a sane and practical mode of burial.
“It provides a place where families and friends may lie side by side in a snow-white compartment, high and dry above the ground, where neither water, damp, nor mold can enter. THE MAUSOLEUM ELIMINATES THE HORRORS OF THE GRAVE, MAKING THE ULTIMATE END ONE OF CONSOLATION AND BEAUTY.
“This edifice, so sacred in its memories, will never be desecrated, as is often the case in abandoned cemeteries. This mausoleum is nonsectarian, and is open to all creeds and religions. For those preferring cremation we will have a few very fine niches for urns.
“The mausoleum will be beautiful and rich in architecture; constructed of granite, marble, and bronze, making it as secure and time-resisting as the pyramids of Egypt.
“You must admit that death is the final victor over all, and you would not bury your family in the ground unprotected by casket or box, but even though you do use a casket or a box it means not much more than leaving them entirely unprotected.
“WHEN YOU PLACE THE LOVED FORM IN THE MAUSOLEUM YOU KNOW THAT IT WILL BE IN THE DRY.
“You have the choice of just two things. The one typifying death in darkness; death in the depths; looking down, always down, into the wet grave. The other typifying death in light; death in sunshine and brightness; death in the hope of the resurrection.”
Prigozi folded the newspaper and shoved it into his coat pocket. A hideous peal of laughter burst from his lips.
Naomi and Moloch exchanged meaningful glances. The poet excused himself to take a walk.
Prigozi was easily persuaded to leave. On the way home they loitered before a number of dim-lit windows. A sign in a drugstore window, reading “Headquarters for drugs, trusses, and crutches,” attracted Prigozi’s attention. He was enthralled by it.
“I want a facsimile of that,” he shouted, dancing in front of the window and clapping his hands like a child clamoring for a bauble.
Arrived at his door, he turned to Moloch.
“You take Naomi home, but mind you, don’t take her in the subway. It snows chloride of lime there. Psst!” (He put a finger to his lips.) “That keeps the galoots and buzzards away! Psst!”
Moloch escorted Naomi along Second Avenue in silence. It was only a few minutes’ walk from Prigozi’s place to hers. He intended to rush back to Prigozi immediately.
They passed once more the little Russian bookshop with a picture of Dostoevsky in the window. It was a veritable Christ reincarnated in the body of a moujik. Tears dropped languidly from the sockets of his eyes. Moloch tipped his hat, a gesture which, rapid and unobtrusive though it was, did not fail to catch Naomi’s eye.
The furnished room which Naomi called her home
was situated on the third floor of an old brick house, above the “European” restaurant. The odor of the kitchen saturated the halls.
He said good night to her at the vestibule and pressed her hand warmly. She permitted her hand to remain in his. As they stood there John Dos Passos’ gong of a moon came up over Wee-hawken.
Naomi had extracted a promise from him to call on her soon.
“When you come,” she said, “knock softly.”
Moloch now strode with rapid steps in the direction whence they had come. “Knock softly,” he repeated to himself, his shadow already visualized athwart her threshold. He wondered if Prigozi had slashed his throat in the meantime. This speculation did not prevent him from making a mental note to purchase a collar in the morning so that he might make himself presentable. Presently he stepped into a telephone booth. He always telephoned Blanche when he had a good excuse.
Blanche sounded sleepy and annoyed.
“I’ve got to stick by him,” he reiterated. “Sorry I had to disturb you.”
“You didn’t need to telephone,” came Blanche’s voice. “We’ll get along without you,” and she hung up.
“There you go,” he mumbled to himself, as if he were the most righteous individual on two legs, “that’s just another cock-and-bull story to her! The devil take her! Let her think as she likes.”
As he approached the corner, the Colossus of Memnon passed him. His chin was resting on his shirtfront. His two blackjacking fists were hidden in his coat pockets, the one strangling the bull Apis, the other hurling imprecations at the god Osiris. His mustache was moist with cologne water.
Moloch stopped resolutely and turned about. His eyes traveled after the mysterious one. He waited and watched. The figure moved unswervingly toward its destination. It was swallowed up by a vestibule above the “European” restaurant.
Moloch retraced his steps with the utmost deliberation, and took up a post a few feet from the stoop, in the obscurity of a deep shadow.