by Irwin Shaw
He picked up the phone and asked for Gretchen’s number. He listened as the operator dialed. The busy signal, that snarling sound, came over the wire. He hung up and went over to the window and parted the curtains and looked out. The afternoon was cold and gray. Down below pedestrians leaned against the wind, hurrying for shelter, collars up. It was an ex-policeman’s kind of day.
He went back to the phone, asked for Gretchen’s number again. Once more, he heard the busy signal. He slammed down the instrument, annoyed. He wanted to get this miserable business over with as quickly as possible. He had spoken to a lawyer friend, without mentioning names, and the lawyer friend had advised him that the injured party should move out of the communal habitation with the child before bringing any action, unless there was some way of keeping the husband out of the apartment completely from that moment on. Under no conditions should the injured party sleep one night more under the same roof with the defendant-to-be.
Before he called Willie and confronted him with the detective’s report, he had to tell Gretchen this and tell her also that he intended to speak to Willie immediately.
But again the phone rang busy. The injured party was having a chatty afternoon. With whom was she talking—Johnny Heath, quiet, bland lover, constant guest, or one of the other ten men she had said she no longer wanted to sleep with? The easiest lay in New York. Sister mine.
He looked at his watch. Five minutes to four. Willie would undoubtedly be back in his office by now, happily dozing off the pre-lunch martinis.
Rudolph picked up the phone and called Willie’s number. Two secretaries in Willie’s office wafted him along, disembodied sweet voices, electric with public relations charm. “Hi, Merchant Prince,” Willie said, when he came on the line. “To what do I owe the honor?” It was a three-martini voice this afternoon.
“Willie,” Rudolph said, “you have to come over here to my hotel right away.”
“Listen, kid, I’m sort of tied up here and …”
“Willie, I warn you, you’d better come over here this minute.”
“Okay,” Willie said, his voice subdued. “Order me a drink.”
Drinkless, Willie sat in the chair the ex-policeman had used earlier, and carefully read the report. Rudolph stood at the window, looking out. He heard the rustle of paper as Willie put the report down.
“Well,” Willie said, “it seems I’ve been a very busy little boy. What are you going to do with this now?” He tapped the report.
Rudolph reached over and picked up the clipped-together sheets of paper and tore them into small pieces and dropped the pieces into the wastebasket.
“What does that mean?” Willie asked.
“It means that I can’t go through with it,” Rudolph said. “Nobody’s going to see it and nobody’s going to know about it. If your wife wants a divorce, she’ll have to figure out another way to get it.”
“Oh,” Willie said. “It was Gretchen’s idea?”
“Not exactly. She said she wanted to get away from you, but she wanted to keep the kid, and I offered to help.”
“Blood is thicker than marriage. Is that it?”
“Something like that. Only not my blood. This time.”
“You came awfully close to being a shit, Merchant Prince,” Willie said, “didn’t you?”
“So I did.”
“Does my beloved wife know you have this on me?”
“No. And she’s not going to.”
“In days to come,” Willie said, “I shall sing the praises of my shining brother-in-law. Look, I shall tell my son, look closely at your noble uncle and you will be able to discern the shimmer of his halo. Christ, there must be one drink somewhere in this hotel.”
Rudolph brought out the bottle. With all his jokes, if ever a man looked as though he needed a drink, it was Willie at this moment. He drank off half of the glass. “Who’s picking up the tab for the research?” he asked.
“I am.”
“What does it come to?”
“Five hundred and fifty dollars.”
“You should’ve come to me,” Willie said. “I’d’ve given you the information for half the price. Do you want me to pay you back?”
“Forget it,” Rudolph said. “I never gave you a wedding present. Consider this my wedding present.”
“Better than a silver platter. I thank you, brother-in-law. Is there more in that bottle?”
Rudolph poured. “You’d better keep sober,” he said. “You’re going to have some serious conversation ahead of you.”
“Yeah.” Willie nodded. “It was a sorrowful day for everybody when I bought your sister a bottle of champagne at the Algonquin bar.” He smiled wanly. “I loved her that afternoon and I love her now and there I am in the trash basket.” He gestured to where the shreds of the detective’s report lay scattered in the tin bucket, decorated with a hunting print, riders with bright-red coats. “Do you know what love is?”
“No.”
“Neither do I.” Willie stood up. “Well, I’ll leave you. Thanks for an interesting half hour.”
He went out without offering to shake hands.
III
He was incredulous when he came to the house. He looked again at the piece of paper Rudolph had given him to make sure that he was at the right address. Still over a store. And in a neighborhood that was hardly any better than the old one in Port Philip. Seeing Rudolph in that fancy room at the Hotel Warwick and hearing him talk you’d think that he was just rolling in dough. Well, if he was, he wasn’t wasting any of it on rent.
Maybe he just kept the old lady in this joint and had a rich pad for himself in some other part of town. He wouldn’t put it past the bastard.
Thomas went into the dingy vestibule, saw the name Jordache printed next to a bell, rang. He waited, but the buzzer remained silent. He had called and told his mother he was coming to visit today, and she said she’d be home. He couldn’t make it on a Sunday, because when he suggested it to Teresa, she’d started to cry. Sunday was her day, she wept, and she wasn’t going to be done out of it by an old hag who hadn’t even bothered to send a card when her grandson was born. So they’d left the kid with a sister of Teresa’s up in the Bronx and they’d gone to a movie on Broadway and had dinner at Toots Shor’s, where a sportswriter recognized Thomas, which made Teresa’s day for her and maybe it was worth the twenty bucks the dinner had cost.
Thomas pushed the bell again. Still, there was no response. Probably, Thomas thought bitterly, at the last minute Rudolph called and said he wanted his mother to come down to New York and shine his shoes or something, and she’d rushed off, falling all over herself with joy.
He started to turn away, half relieved that he didn’t have to face her. It hadn’t been such a hot idea to begin with. Let sleeping mothers lie. He was just about out of the door when he heard the buzzer. He went back, opened the door and went up the steps.
The door opened at the first floor landing and there she was, looking a hundred years old. She took a couple of steps toward him and he understood why he had had to wait for the buzzer. The way she walked it must take her five minutes to cross the room. She was crying already and had her arms outstretched to embrace him.
“My son, my son,” she cried, as her arms, thin sticks, went around him. “I thought I’d never see your face again.”
There was a strong smell of toilet water. He kissed her wet cheek gently, wondering what he felt.
Clinging to his arm, she led him into the apartment. The living room was tiny and dark and he recognized the furniture from the apartment on Vanderhoff Street. It had been old and worn-out then. Now it was practically in ruins. Through an open door he could look into an adjoining room and see a desk, a single bed, books everywhere.
If he can afford to buy all those books, Thomas thought, he sure can afford to buy some new furniture.
“Sit down, sit down,” she said excitedly, guiding him to the one threadbare easy chair. “What a wonderful day.” Her voice was thin, mad
e reedy by years of complaint. Her legs were swollen, shapeless, and she wore wide, soft, invalid’s shoes, like a cripple. She moved as though she had been broken a long time ago in an accident. “You look splendid. Absolutely splendid.” He remembered those words she used, out of Gone With the Wind. “I was afraid my little boy’s face would be all battered, but you’ve turned out handsomely. You resemble my side of the family, that’s plain to see, Irish. Not like the other two.” She moved in a slow awkward flutter before him as he sat stiffly in the chair. She was wearing a flowered dress that blew loosely about her thin body. Her thick legs stuck out below her skirt like an error in engineering, another woman’s limbs. “That’s a lovely gray suit,” she said, touching his sleeve. “A gentleman’s suit. I was afraid you’d still be in a sweater.” She laughed gaily, his childhood already a romance. “Ah, I knew Fate couldn’t be so unkind,” she said, “not letting me see my child’s face before I die. Now let me see my grandson’s face. You must have a picture. I’m sure you carry one in your wallet, like all, proud fathers.”
Thomas took out a picture of his child.
“What’s his name?” his mother asked.
“Wesley,” Thomas said.
“Wesley Pease,” his mother said. “It’s a fine name.”
Thomas didn’t bother to remind her that the boy’s name was Wesley Jordache, nor did he tell her that he had fought Teresa for a week to try to get her to settle for a less fancy name. But Teresa had wept and carried on and he’d given in.
His mother stared at the photograph, her eyes dampening. She kissed the snapshot. “Dear little beautiful thing,” she said.
Thomas didn’t remember her ever kissing him as a child.
“You must take me to see him,” she said.
“Sure.”
“Soon.”
“When I come back from England,” he said.
“England! We’ve just found each other again and you’re leaving for the other side of the earth!”
“It’s only for a couple of weeks.”
“You must be doing very well,” she said, “to be able to afford vacations like that.”
“I have a job to do there,” he said. He was reluctant to use the word fight. “They pay my way.” He didn’t want her to get the idea that he was rich, which he wasn’t, by a long shot. In the Jordache family, it was safer to cry poverty. One woman grabbing at every cent that came into the house was enough for one family.
“I hope you’re saving your money,” she said. “In your profession …”
“Sure,” he said. “Don’t worry about me.” He looked around him. “It’s a cinch Rudy’s saving his money.”
“Oh,” she said. “The apartment. It’s not very grand, is it? But I can’t complain. Rudy pays for a woman to come in and clean every day and do the shopping for me the days I can’t make the stairs. And he says he’s looking for a bigger place. On the ground floor somewhere, so it’ll be easier for me, without steps. He doesn’t talk to me much about his work, but there was an article last month in the paper all about how he was one of the up-and-coming young businessmen in town, so I suppose he’s doing well enough. But he’s right to be thrifty. Money was the tragedy of the family. It made an old woman of me before my time.” She sighed, self-pitying. “Your father was demented on the subject. I couldn’t get ten dollars from him for the barest necessities of life without a pitched battle every time. When you’re in England you might make some confidential inquiries, find out if anyone has seen him there. He’s liable to be anyplace, that man. After all, he was European, and it would be the most natural thing in the world for him to go back there to hide out.”
Off her rocker, he thought. Poor old lady. Rudy hadn’t prepared him for this. But he said, “I’ll ask around when I get over there.”
“You’re a good boy,” she said. “I always knew deep down that you were essentially a good boy, but swayed by bad companions. If I had had the time to be a proper mother to my family, I could have saved you from so much trouble. You must be strict with your son. Loving, but strict. Is you wife a good mother to him?”
“She’s okay,” he said. He preferred not to talk about Teresa. He looked at his watch. The conversation and the dark apartment were depressing him. “Look,” he said, “it’s nearly one o’clock. Why don’t I take you out to lunch? I have a car downstairs.”
“Lunch? In a restaurant. Oh, wouldn’t that be lovely,” she said, girlishly. “My big strong son taking his old mother out to lunch.”
“We’ll go to the best place in town,” he said.
On his way home, driving Schultzy’s car down toward New York late in the afternoon, he thought about the day, wondering if he would ever make the trip again.
The image of his mother formed in adolescence, that of a scolding, perpetually disapproving hard woman, fanatically devoted to one son, to the detriment of another, was now replaced by that of a harmless and pitiful old lady, pathetically lonely, pleased by the slightest attention, and anxious to be loved.
At lunch he had offered her a cocktail and she had grown a little tipsy, had giggled and said, “Oh, I do feel naughty.” After lunch he had driven her around town and was surprised to see that most of it was entirely unknown to her. She had lived there for years, but had seen practically nothing of it, not even the university from which her son had been graduated. “I had no idea it was such a beautiful place,” she kept saying over and over again, as they passed through neighborhoods where comfortable, large houses were set among trees and wintry lawns. And when they passed Calderwood’s, she said, “I had no idea it was so big. You know, I’ve never been in there. And to think that Rudy practically runs it!”
He had parked the car and had walked slowly with her along the ground floor and insisted upon buying her a suede handbag for fifteen dollars. She had had the salesgirl wrap up her old bag and carried the new one proudly over her arm as they left the store.
She had talked a great deal in the course of the afternoon, telling him for the first time about her life in the orphanage (“I was the brightest girl in the class. They gave me a prize when I left.”), about working as a waitress, being ashamed of being illegitimate, about going to night school in Buffalo to improve herself, about not ever letting a man even kiss her until she married Axel Jordache, about only weighing ninety-two pounds on the day of her wedding, about how beautiful Port Philip was the day she and Axel came down to inspect the bakery, about the white excursion boat going by up the river, with the band playing waltzes on the deck, about how nice the neighborhood was when they first came there and her dream of starting a cosy little restaurant, about her hopes for her family.…
When he took her back to the apartment she asked him if she could have the photograph of his son to frame and put on the table in her bedroom and when he gave it to her, she hobbled into her room and came back with a photograph of herself, yellowed with age, taken when she was nineteen, in a long, white dress, slender, grave, beautiful. “Here,” she said, “I want you to have this.”
She watched silently as he put it carefully in his wallet in the same place that he had kept his son’s picture.
“You know,” she said, “I feel closer to you somehow than to anybody in the whole world. We’re the same kind of people. We’re simple. Not like your sister and your brother. I love Rudy, I suppose, and I should, but I don’t understand him. And sometimes I’m just afraid of him. While you …” She laughed. “Such a big, strong young man, a man who makes his living with his fists.… But I feel so at home with you, almost as though we were the same age, almost as though I had a brother. And today … today was so wonderful. I’m a prisoner who has just come out from behind the walls.”
He kissed her and held her and she clutched at him briefly.
“Do you know,” she said, “I haven’t smoked a single cigarette since you arrived.”
He drove down slowly through the dusk, thinking about the afternoon. He came to a roadhouse and went in and sat at the empty bar
and had a whiskey. He took out his wallet and stared at the young girl who had turned into his mother. He was glad he had come to see her. Perhaps her favor wasn’t worth much, but in the long race for that meager trophy he had finally won. Alone in the quiet bar he enjoyed an unaccustomed tranquillity. For an hour, at least, he was at peace. Today, there was one less person in the world that he had to hate.
PART THREE
Chapter 1
1960
The morning was a pleasant one, except for the smog that lay cupped, a thin, metallic soup, in the Los Angeles basin. Barefooted, in her nightgown, Gretchen went through the open French windows, sliding between the still curtains, out onto the terrace, and looked down from her mountain top at the stained but sunlit city and the distant flat sea below her. She breathed deeply of the September morning air, smelling of wet grass and opening flowers. No sound came from the city and the early silence was broken only by the calls of a covey of quail crossing the lawn.
Better than New York, she thought for the hundredth time, much better than New York.
She would have liked a cup of coffee, but it was too early for Doris, the maid, to be up, and if she went into the kitchen to make the coffee herself, Doris would be awakened by the sound of running water and clinking metal and would come fussing out, apologizing but aggrieved at being deprived of rightful sleep. It was too early to awake Billy, too, especially with the day he had ahead of him, and she knew better than to rouse Colin, whom she had left sleeping in the big bed, flat on his back, frowning, his arms crossed tightly, as though in his dreams he was watching a performance of which he could not possibly approve.
She smiled, thinking of Colin, sleeping, as she sometimes told him, in his important position. His other positions, and she had told him about them in detail, were amused, vulnerable, pornographic, and horrified. She had been awakened by a thin shaft of sunlight coming through a rift in the curtains and had been tempted to reach for him and unfold those clenched arms. But Colin never made love in the morning. Mornings were for murder, he said. Used to New York theatrical hours, he was, as he freely admitted, a savage before noon.