by Irwin Shaw
Through the murk came the sound of music, echoing and fading, suddenly growing stronger, with tricks of the wind. Noah walked toward it and as he got to the corner, he saw that the music came from a bar across the street. People were going in and out under a sign that said, “No Extra Charge for the Holiday. Bring the New Year in at O’Day’s.”
The tune changed on the jukebox inside and a woman’s low voice sang, “Night and day you are the one, Only you beneath the moon and under the sun,” her voice dominating the empty, damp night with powerful, well-modulated passion.
Noah crossed the street, opened the door and went in. Two sailors and a blonde were at the other end of the bar, looking down at a drunk with his head on the mahogany. The bartender glanced up when Noah came in.
“Have you got a telephone?” Noah asked.
“Back there.” The bartender motioned toward the rear of the room. Noah started toward the booth.
“Be polite, boys,” the blonde was saying to the sailors as Noah passed. “Rub his neck with ice.”
She smiled widely at Noah, her face green with the reflection from the jukebox. Noah nodded to her and stepped into the telephone booth. He took out a card that the doctor had given him. On it was the telephone number of a twenty-four-hour-a-day undertaker.
Noah dialed the number. He held the receiver to his ear, listening to the insistent buzzing in the earpiece, thinking of the phone on the dark, shiny desk, under a single shaded light in the mortuary office, ringing the New Year in. He was about to hang up when he heard a voice at the other end of the wire.
“Hello,” the voice said, somehow vague and remote. “Grady Mortuary.”
“I would like to inquire,” Noah said, “about a funeral. My father just died.”
“What is the name of the party?”
“What I wanted to know,” said Noah, “is the range of prices. I haven’t very much money and …”
“I will have to know the name of the party,” the voice said, very official.
“Ackerman.”
“Waterfield,” said the thick voice on the other end. “First name, please …” and then, in a whisper, “Gladys, stop it! Gladys!” Then back into the phone, with the hint of a smothered laugh, “First name, please.”
“Ackerman,” said Noah. “Ackerman.”
“Is that the first name?”
“No,” said Noah. “That’s the last name. The first name is Jacob.”
“I wish,” said the voice, with alcoholic dignity, “you would talk more clearly.”
“What I want to know,” said Noah loudly, “is what you charge for cremation.”
“Cremation. Yes,” the voice said, “we supply that service to those parties who wish it.”
“What is the price?” Noah asked.
“How many coaches?”
“What?”
“How many coaches to the services?” the voice asked,’ saying “shervishes.” “How many guests and relatives will there be?”
“One,” said Noah. “There will be one guest and relative.”
Night and Day came to an end with a crash and Noah couldn’t hear what the man on the other end of the wire said.
“I want it to be as reasonable as possible,” Noah said, desperately. “I don’t have much money.”
“I shee, I shee,” the man at the Mortuary said. “One question, if I may. Does the deceased have any insurance?”
“No,” said Noah.
“Then it will have to be cash, you understand. In advance, you understand.”
“How much?” Noah shouted.
“Do you wish the remains in a plain cardboard box or in a silver plated urn?”
“A plain cardboard box.”
“The cheapest price I can quote you, my dear friend …” The voice on the other end suddenly became large and coherent. “… is seventy six dollars and fifty cents.”
“That will be an additional five cents for five minutes,” the operator’s voice broke in.
“All right.” Noah put another nickel into the box and the operator said, “Thank you.” Noah said, “All right. Seventy-six dollars and fifty cents.” Somehow he would get it together. “The day after tomorrow. In the afternoon.” That would give him time to go downtown on January second and sell the camera and the other things. “The address is Sea View Hotel. Do you know where that is?”
“Yes,” the drunken voice said, “yes, indeedy. The Sea View Hotel. I will send a man around tomorrow and you can sign the contract …”
“Okay,” Noah said, sweating, preparing to hang up.
“One more thing, my dear man,” the voice went on. “One more thing. The last rites.”
“What about the last rites?”
“What religion does the deceased profess?”
Jacob had professed no religion, but Noah didn’t think he had to tell the man that. “He was a Jew.”
“Oh.” There was silence for a moment on the wire and then Noah heard the woman’s voice say, gayly and drunkenly, “Come on, George, les have another little drink.”
“I regret,” the man said, “that we are not equipped to perform funeral services on Hebrews.”
“What’s the difference?” Noah shouted. “He wasn’t religious. He doesn’t need any ceremonies.”
“Impossible,” the voice said thickly, but with dignity. “We do not cater to Hebrews. I’m sure you can find many others … many others who are equipped to cremate Hebrews.”
“But Dr. Fishbourne recommended you,” Noah shouted, insanely. He felt as though he couldn’t go through all this again with another undertaker, and he felt trapped and baffled. “You’re in the undertaking business, aren’t you?”
“My condolences to you, my dear man,” the voice said, “in your hour of grief, but we cannot see our way clear …”
Noah heard a scuffle at the other end of the wire and the woman’s voice say, “Let me talk to him, Georgie.” Then the woman got on the phone. “Listen,” she said loudly, her voice brassy and whiskey-rich, “why don’t you quit? We’re busy here. You heard what Georgie said. He don’t burn Kikes. Happy New Year.” And she hung up.
Noah’s hands were trembling and he felt the sweat coming out on his skin. He put the receiver back on the hook with difficulty. He opened the door of the booth and walked slowly toward the door, past the jukebox, which was playing a jazz version of Loch Lomond, past the group of blonde and drunk and sailors at the bar. The blonde smiled at him and said, “What’s the matter, Big Boy, wasn’t she home?”
Noah hardly heard her. He walked slowly, feeling weak and tired, toward the unoccupied end of the bar near the door and sat on a stool.
“Whiskey,” he said. When it came, he drank it straight and ordered another. The two drinks had an immediate, surging effect on him, blurring the outlines of the room, blurring the music and the other people in the bar into softer and more agreeable forms, and when the blonde, in her tight flowered yellow dress with red shoes and a little hat with a purple veil, came down the bar toward him, swaying her full hips exaggeratedly, he grinned at her.
“There,” the blonde said, touching his arm softly, “there, that’s better.”
“Happy New Year,” Noah said.
“Honey …” The blonde sat down on the stool next him, jiggling her tightly-girdled buttocks on the red leatherette seat, rubbing her knee against his. “Honey, I’m in trouble, and I looked around the bar and I decided you were the one man in the room I could depend on. Orange Blossom,” she said to the bartender who had padded up to where she was sitting. “In time of trouble,” she went on, holding Noah’s arm at the elbow, looking earnestly at him through her veil, her small, blue, mascara’d eyes inviting and serious, “in time of trouble I like Italian men. They have more character. They’re excitable, but they’re sympathetic. And, to tell you the truth, Honey, I like an excitable man. Show me a man who doesn’t get excited and I’ll show you a man who couldn’t make a woman happy for ten minutes a year. There are two things I loo
k for in a man. A sympathetic character and full lips.”
“What?” Noah asked, dazed.
“Full lips,” the blonde said earnestly. “My name is Georgia, Honey, what’s yours?”
“Ronald Beaverbrook,” Noah said. “And I have to tell you … I’m not an Italian.”
“Oh.” The woman looked disappointed and she drank half her Orange Blossom in one smooth gulp. “I could have sworn. What are you, Ronald?”
“An Indian,” Noah said. “A Sioux Indian.”
“Even so,” the woman said, “I bet you can make a woman very happy.”
“Have a drink,” Noah said.
“Honey,” the woman called to the bartender. “Two Orange Blossoms. Double, Honey.” She turned back to Noah. “I like Indians, too,” she said. “The one thing I don’t like is ordinary Americans. They don’t know how to use a woman properly On and off and bang, they’re out of bed and they’re putting on their pants and on their way home to their wives. Honey,” she said, finishing her first drink, “Honey, why don’t you go over to those two boys in blue and tell them you’re taking me home? Take a beer bottle with you, in case they give you an argument.”
“Did you come with them?” Noah asked. He was feeling very light-headed now, remote and amused, and he caressed the woman’s hand lightly and smiled into her eyes as he talked. Her hands were calloused and worn and she was ashamed of them.
“It comes from working in the laundry,” she said sadly. “Don’t ever work in a laundry, Honey.”
“Okay,” said Noah.
“I came with that one.” With a gesture of her head, the veil fluttering in the green and purple light of the jukebox, she indicated the drunk with his head on the bar. “Knocked out of the box in the first inning. I’ll tell you something.” She leaned close to Noah and whispered to him, and he got a strong impression of gin and onions and violet perfume, “The sailors are plotting against him. In the uniform of their country. They are going to roll him and they’re planning to follow me and purse-snatch my purse in a dark alley. Take a beer bottle, Ronald, and go talk to them.”
The bartender put down their drinks and the woman took out a ten-dollar bill and gave it to him. “This is on me,” she said. “This is a poor lonely boy on New Year’s Eve.”
“You don’t have to pay for me,” Noah said.
“To us, Honey.” She raised the glass three inches from his face, and looked over it, through her veil, melting and coquettish. “What’s money for, Honey, if it isn’t for the use of your friends?”
They drank and the woman put her hand on his leg and caressed his knee. “You’re terribly stingy, Honey,” she said. “We’ll have to do something about that. Let’s get out of here. I don’t like this place any more. Let’s go up to my little apartment. I got a bottle of Four Roses, just for you and me, and we can have our own private little celebration. Kiss me once, Honey.” She leaned over again and closed her eyes determinedly. Noah kissed her. Her lips were soft and there was a taste of raspberry from her lipstick, along with the onion and gin. “I can’t wait, Honey.” She got down off the stool, quite steadily, and took his arm, and they walked, carrying their drinks to the rear of the bar.
The two sailors watched them coming. They were very young and there was a puzzled, disappointed look on their faces.
“Be careful of my friend,” the woman warned them. “He’s a Sioux Indian.” She kissed Noah’s neck behind the ear. “I’ll be right out, Honey,” she said. “I’m going to freshen up, so you’ll love me.” She giggled and squeezed his hand moistly, still holding her glass, walked, with her exaggerated, mincing gait, the flowers dancing over her girdled rear, into the ladies’ room.
“What’s she been giving you?” the younger of the two sailors asked. He didn’t have his hat on and he had his hair cut so short that it looked like the first outcropping of fuzz on a baby’s skull.
“She says,” Noah said, feeling powerful and alert, “she says you want to rob her.”
The sailor with the hat on snorted. “We rob her? That’s hot. It’s just the other way around, Brother.”
“Twenty-five bucks,” the young sailor said. “Twenty-five apiece, she asked. She said she never did it before and she’s married and she ought to get paid for the risks she’s taking.”
“Who does she think she is?” the one with the hat on demanded. “How much did she ask you?”
“Nothing,” Noah said, and he felt an absurd sense of pride. “And she wants to throw in a bottle of Four Roses.”
“How do you like that?” The older sailor turned bitterly to his partner.
“You going with her?” the younger one asked, avidly.
Noah shook his head. “No.”
“Why not?” the young one asked.
Noah shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Boy,” the young one said, “you must be well serviced.”
“Ah,” said the sailor with the hat on, “let’s get out of here. Santa Monica!” He stared accusingly at the other sailor. “We might just as well have stayed on the Base.”
“Where’s the Base?” Noah asked.
“San Diego. But he …” The older sailor gestured bitterly and derisively at the fuzz-topped one.…“he had us all fixed up in Santa Monica. Two widows with a private house. That’s the last time I’ll leave any arrangements to you.”
“It’s not my fault,” the young one said doggedly. “How was I supposed to know they were kidding me? How was I supposed to know the address was a phony?”
“We walked around in this damn fog for three hours,” the older sailor said, “looking for that fake address. New Year’s Eve! I’ve had better New Years when I was seven years old on a farm in Oklahoma. Come on … I’m getting out of here.”
“What about him?” Noah touched the drunk sleeping peacefully on the mahogany.
“That’s the lady’s problem.”
The young sailor put on his little white hat with an air of severe purpose and the two boys went out. “Twenty-five bucks!” Noah heard the older one say as he slammed the door.
Noah waited a moment, then patted the sleeping drunk in a comradely fashion, and followed the sailors. He stood outside the door, breathing the soft wet air, feeling it chill his flushed face. Under a wavering, uncertain lamppost down the street he saw the two blue figures, forlornly disappearing into the fog. He turned and went in the other direction, the whiskey he had drunk hammering musically and pleasantly at his temples.
Noah opened the door with careful deliberation, silently, and stepped into the dark room. The smell was there. He had forgotten the smell. Alcohol, medicine, something sweet and heavy … He fumbled for the light. He felt the nerves in his hand twitching and he stumbled against a chair before he found the lamp.
His father lay rigid and frail on the bed, his mouth open as if to speak in the bare light. Noah swayed a little as he looked down at him. Foolish, tricky old man, with the fancy beard and the bleached hair and the leatherbound Bible.
Make haste, make haste. O God. to deliver me … What religion does the deceased profess? Noah felt a little dizzy. His mind didn’t seem to be able to fix on any one thing, and one thought slid in on top of another, independent and absurd. Full lips. Twenty-five dollars for the sailors and nothing for him. He had never had particular luck with women, certainly nothing like that. Trouble probably made a man attractive, and the woman had sensed it. Of course she had been terribly drunk … Ronald Beaverbrook. The way the flowers had waved on her skirt as she rolled toward the ladies’ room. If he had stayed he’d probably be snug in bed with her now, under the warm covers. the soft, fat, white flesh, onion, gin, raspberry. He had a piercing, sharp moment of regret that he was standing here in the naked room with the dead old man … If the positions had been reversed, he thought, if it was he lying there and the old man up and around, and the old man had got the offer, he was damned sure Jacob would be in that bed now, with the blonde and the Four Roses. What a thing to think of. Noah shook his h
ead. His father, from whose seed he sprang. God, was he going to get to talk like him as he grew older?
Noah made himself look for a whole minute at his father’s dead face. He tried to cry. Somehow, deserted this way, at the end of a year, on this winter night, a man, any man, had the right to expect a tear from his only son.
Noah had never really thought very much about his father, once he had got old enough to think about him at all. He had been bitter about him, but that was all. Looking at the pale, lined head, looming from the pillow like a stone statue, noble and proud as Jacob had always known he would look in death, Noah made a conscious effort to think of his father. How far Jacob had come searching for this narrow room on the shore of the Pacific. Out of the grimy streets of Odessa, across Russia and the Baltic Sea, across the ocean, into the sweat and clangor of New York. Noah closed his eyes and thought of Jacob, quick and lithe, as a young man, with that handsome brow and that fierce nose, taking to English with a quick, natural, overblown rhetorical instinct, striding down the crowded streets, his eyes lively and searching, with a ready bold smile for girls and partners and customers and travel … Jacob, unafraid, and dishonest, wandering through the South, through Atlanta and Tuscaloosa, quick-fingered, never really interested in money, but cheating for it, and finally letting it slip away, up the continent to Minnesota and Montana, laughing, smoking black cigars, known in saloons and gambling halls, making dirty jokes and quoting Isaiah in the same breath, marrying Noah’s mother in Chicago, grave-eyed and responsible for a day, tender and delicate and perhaps even resolved to settle down and be an honorable citizen, with middle age looming over him, and his hair touched at the ends with gray. And Jacob singing to Noah in his rich, affected baritone, in the plush-furnished parlor after dinner, singing, “I was walking through the park one day, In the merry, merry month of May …”
Noah shook his head. Somewhere in the back of his mind, echoing and faraway, the voice, singing, young and strong, resounded, “In the merry, merry month of May,” and refused to be stilled.