The Unfortunates

by Laurie Graham

  This hadn’t occurred to me. But he hadn’t seemed married.

  I said, ‘Oh no. And he was most particular to find out whether I had another beau.’

  ‘That’s irrelevant,’ she interrupted. ‘It’s his situation I’d like to know about. Where does he live?’

  And there she had me, because in our haste Gil had forgotten to tell me his address.

  ‘Washington Square,’ I said. It seemed like the kind of place he might live.

  ‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘Well, when he turns up tomorrow, if he turns up tomorrow, you’re to tell him you expect dinner, and dancing at the Keynote, and flowers and new stockings, and his card, so we know what number Washington Square. And you mustn’t let him go all the way every time because men soon take these things for granted. And when you do, be sure to douche. You did douche?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ I said.

  Bernie finished the macaroons. I had lost my appetite, even though I had gone without lunch.

  ‘I wonder,’ she said, ‘if I went back to Regine’s now, whether they’d do my nails after all?’

  I went home and searched along my fifteen yards of books for something that might explain about douching, but I found nothing but dry old stories. So I took a scented bath, put on one of my new little skirts that swung as I walked, and went downstairs for grilled turbot and blueberry pie.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Gil was thirty-five minutes late for our appointment, but as soon as he walked in, raccoon collar coat slung round his shoulders, I felt he was worth the wait. His face was icy cold and smooth when I kissed it. He had no beard to speak of.

  Bernie had instructed me there was to be no more squeezing and carrying on until certain matters were clarified, such as when he would be taking me to dinner and where, but he would have his way and that second time I was left in little doubt that we had gone as far as it was possible to go. I even found it a little thrilling myself.

  ‘Poppy,’ he said afterwards, gazing at my bookshelves, ‘you’re not an intellectual, I hope. I’m something of one myself, but I don’t find it agreeable in a girl.’

  I was pretty sure I wasn’t an intellectual. I had lost my taste for looking at books the day I lost my Pa.

  I said, ‘No, I’m modern and fun-loving and rich.’

  He chuckled. ‘You’re a caution,’ he said. ‘Just how rich are you?’

  I mixed us a Gibson kind of cocktail, except that I had omitted to have ice sent up, or to buy glasses, so we had to drink it out of teacups, and then I settled down to tell him all about Grandpa Minkel, and the factories in Blue Grass, Iowa, churning out all that ballpark mustard and money.

  He said, ‘Is that right? And do you have to go out there, inspect your mustard fields, count your money once in a while?’

  I had not really thought much about the mustard fields. All I knew was, Minkel’s Mighty Fine got turned into money and then it was sent to banks and railroad companies and steel mills where it was turned into even more money. Finally it got sent to Uncle Israel, who had explained all this, and then he passed it along to me and Honey, and some to Ma too, I suppose, although she had her new husband paying for her gowns.

  I said, ‘No, I never was there. I haven’t started my traveling yet. And we were never allowed when we were children. My Aunt Fish reckoned it was best to stay away from Iowa if you wanted to go up in New York society.’

  ‘Ask me,’ he said, ‘you can’t have much higher to climb. If the dollar is king, you must be a princess at least.’

  Ever after that he called me Princess.

  I said, ‘Can we go dancing?’

  ‘We can do anything you choose,’ he said. So I chose for us to go to Sherry’s for supper and then onto the Keynote to see Bernie and learn how to do the chicken-flip.

  I said, ‘I want you to meet my friend Bernie. She’s Irish, but not the unfortunate kind.’

  I snuggled against him, reveling in the wonder and completeness of him. I’d known men were different to women, and now I really understood. With Gil I experienced the same pleasant shock as the first time I touched a frog.

  I said, ‘Tell me about your folks. Are you terribly rich, too?’

  ‘No,’ he said, sipping on his gin, ‘I’m just a poor struggling poet.’

  I remarked that he wore very good shoes, for a pauper. They were a gift, he said, from a kind widow woman whose husband had died leaving unworn shoes of the exact same size as Gil’s feet.

  ‘What luck,’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Once in a while fortune smiles on me.’

  I said, ‘Did you bring me a book of your poems? Did you write a poem about me yet?’

  He sighed. ‘If only it were that simple, Princess,’ he said. ‘You don’t just sit down and write a poem. And as for bringing out books, that’s a costly business.’

  I said, ‘Well, when we’re married you’ll have enough money to bring out a hundred books. Recite me one of your poems. Recite me your best one.’

  ‘There you go again,’ he said, sliding off the bed and buttoning up his pants. ‘My poems are not really the kind for reciting. They’re more for reading quietly and thinking on and absorbing into your heart and soul.’

  I said, ‘And will you bring me some? When you come calling for me tonight?’

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘About this dinner. Are we talking about real fancy prices?’

  He looked so pained, I could have kicked myself for putting him in such a humiliating position.

  I said, ‘We don’t have to go to Sherry’s. Why don’t you take me to your favorite. I’d like that.’

  ‘No, no,’ he said. ‘I’m sure I’ll love Sherry’s. I’m just a little out of funds this week.’

  ‘Then it’s my treat,’ I said. ‘And I won’t hear another word about it. Where exactly is your house? Can I come and see it tomorrow?’

  My telephone rang. It was the doorman.

  He said, ‘Miss Minkel, I have a young gentleman down here, says he’s your brother.’

  I made him wait while I pulled down my camisole. Sometimes I understood why Ma had resisted the telephone for so long.

  I said, ‘I don’t have a brother.’

  ‘Madam,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry to insist but this young person is asking for you most particular and I should prefer not to have him thronging my lobby.’

  Then I heard Murray’s voice crying, ‘I am her brother. I am.’

  This was quite maddening. His visit was uninvited and ill-timed, and he had also placed me in the position of having to explain myself to a doorman.

  I gestured to Gil to pass me my bloomers.

  I said, ‘Perhaps you meant to announce my stepbrother, which is quite a different matter.’

  ‘Of course, Miss Minkel,’ he said. ‘It’ll be your stepbrother then. I’m sorry for any misunderstanding.’

  ‘You may send him up,’ I said, ‘but not immediately. In five minutes’ time. I’m momentarily unable to receive company.’

  Gil said, ‘I’ll slip away down the stairs.’

  He had his coat on already.

  I said, ‘But we haven’t made our plans for this evening. Shall you pick me up in your motor or shall we take a taxicab?’

  ‘A cab,’ he said. He was on the point of leaving without even giving me a farewell embrace. I straightened the coverlet on the bed and checked in the looking-glass that I wasn’t in disarray.

  I said, ‘Why the hurry? Murray’s just a silly boy, but you may as well meet him. Darling, I want us to know absolutely everything about each other.’

  I had been longing to try out the word ‘darling’, and when I did, I loved the sound of it.

  ‘Tonight,’ I said. ‘Shall we say seven o’clock? Darling, do you have a tuxedo?’

  He said he did have a tuxedo, given him by a kind friend who had given up the high life and who, most conveniently, was the same size.

  Then Murray commenced hammering on the door and wouldn’t stop until I opened it. He appeared not
to notice Gil. He walked right in, eyes red from crying, and handed me a small potted plant. It had dark, glossy leaves.

  ‘It’s a lemon tree,’ he said. ‘It’s for you.’

  I said, ‘You should have called ahead. You can’t just turn up and expect it to be convenient.’

  His face fell.

  ‘Don’t you like your lemon tree?’ he said.

  I said, ‘Now, Murray, please say how-de-do to Mr Gilbert Catchings.’

  ‘How-de-do,’ he said. ‘Poppy, that Dorabel says I have to go to the B’nai Brith program every day, but I don’t, do I? Auntsie never made me.’

  Murray was on school vacation and Ma was keen for him to be profitably occupied and not mooning around, being disagreeable and preventing her from playing canasta.

  I said, ‘You mustn’t call her That Dorabel. You have to call her Step-Ma. She’s your new mother so you’d better get along with her.’

  Gil was edging out of the room.

  ‘Seven, then,’ he said.

  ‘Seven,’ I said. ‘And don’t forget those poems.’

  I turned my attention to Murray. He was wiping his nose on his sleeve.

  ‘I don’t want a new mother,’ he sobbed. ‘What will Momma say when she comes back?’

  I said, ‘Now stop that! You know she’s not coming back. She’s been dead even longer than my Pa.’

  He punched me, hard as he could, which wasn’t very hard at all.

  ‘You’re a liar,’ he said. ‘A rotten liar. She’s coming back just as soon as her pains get better.’

  Poor Murray. When she died, he had been too young for the facts, and by the time he was old enough, everyone else had picked themselves up and ceased talking about it.

  I said, ‘Was your Momma beautiful?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘Very beautiful.’

  I said, ‘Can I see her picture?’

  But he didn’t have one. Not next to his heart, nor even on his night table at home.

  I said, ‘You should have a picture. Ask your daddy to give you one. I have a picture of my dead Pa. Would you care to see it?’

  He quieted down while I brought out the silver gelatin print. It had been a portrait of Ma and Pa, but I had cut Ma off in a fit of pique one time.

  ‘See?’ I said. ‘That was my Pa. But he died, so now I just have his picture to look at.’

  He said, ‘But how do you know he died? Did you see him with his eyes closed?’

  So I told him about the sinking of the Titanic, and then I told him what I had heard about the death of his mother.

  I said, ‘A person doesn’t stay away all those years. Not if they love you. Not if there’s any way for them to come back. I know it’s hard, but there it is. We’re in the same fix, Murray, except I have a picture to look at.’

  He listened to me intently and I stopped feeling mad at him for interrupting my afternoon of love. He had been waiting ten years for his Momma to appear and no one had done him the kindness of taking him to her graveside or showing him a portrait.

  I said, ‘Now why don’t you want to go to the B’nai Brith vacation program? I’m sure they do exciting things.’

  He said he didn’t like the other boys. He said he didn’t like folk dancing.

  I said, ‘There must be other activities. What about learning Hebrew? I wish I could have learned Hebrew.’

  ‘You’re a girl,’ he said. ‘And anyway, I already know Hebrew. We have to visit a matzo factory.’

  I said, ‘And if you stay at home what will you do all day?’ I suspected this was the kind of thing a mother might say. And although Ma had previously been a great believer in staying aimlessly at home, avoiding the stimulation of novelties, she appeared to have revised her opinion since gaining a son.

  Murray shrugged. He was looking a good deal less tragic than when he arrived.

  I said, ‘Would you care to come out driving?’

  It had occurred to me I could take him with me on my first visit to Washington Square. If Bernie was right about a beau needing to be kept in a state of anticipation, I had to find a way of reining in Gil’s ardor, and arriving with Murray at my side seemed as good a way as any.

  ‘Where shall we go?’ he asked.

  I said, ‘To visit Gilbert Catchings. We’ll go tomorrow.’

  He said, ‘Is Gilbert Catchings a reprobate?’

  He had heard Ma expressing the opinion that the Belleclaire attracted deviationists, reprobates and showgirls.

  I said, ‘No. As a matter of fact he’s my fiancé, but we haven’t yet made our announcement, so you must be sure not to breathe a word of this to your Step-Ma.’

  I rather relished the idea of Murray hurrying home to ruin Ma’s evening with his loose lips.

  I said, ‘What made you think this is a lemon tree?’

  ‘I know it is,’ he said. ‘I grew it. From a pip.’

  That boy had been allowed to get away with way too many untruths.

  TWENTY-THREE

  The Keynote dance hall was the greatest lark. You could dance as close as you liked and until midnight. I remarked to Gil that I wouldn’t mind applying for a position there myself, like Bernie, but he made it clear he didn’t care for the idea of his sweetheart dancing with other men and I found the pleasure of being so fiercely protected outweighed the irritation of being overruled. It was just what I had hoped for from Oscar Jacoby, before he had had to go away to the country for fresh air and basket weaving.

  After the Keynote closed we went onto the Hootsy Tootsy Club for drinks with maraschino cherries. Bernie came along, too, with her last fare of the evening, a captain recently discharged from the 339th, one of our Polar Bear Boys who had risked his life in the fight for Russia. He had a fresh, friendly face. His name was George and he was from Kalamazoo, Michigan, and I don’t believe he ever had drunk Manhattan cocktails before.

  Bernie said, ‘George here was in a place called Archangel. Did you ever hear such a pretty name for a town?’

  ‘Nothing pretty about it,’ he said. ‘We had thirty degrees below. What are the arrangements for paying for these refreshments?’

  Gil said, ‘Consider them paid for.’

  Bernie was wearing her soldier boy like he was an Oak-leaf Cluster, angling the conversation around to battalions and regiments and such, asking Gil which bit of the fray he had gotten into, even though I had told her about his asthma.

  ‘Couldn’t persuade them to take me,’ he said. ‘My state of health obliged me to stay behind and take charge of a factory. We supplied uniforms to the military.’

  Bernie said, ‘Your state of health looks pretty fine to me.’ She said it in a light, flirtatious manner, but it could have been differently received. I noticed her friend George kept adjusting his cuffs. I dare say he was hoping Gil wasn’t going to take offense. I dare say he’d had his fill of fighting.

  He needn’t have worried. Gil did no more than turn round Bernie’s implication and return it as a compliment to George.

  ‘Not as fine as your friend’s here,’ he said. ‘And thank God for men like George, or we’d all be living under the Prussian heel.’

  ‘Yes, well,’ George said, still fussing with his cuffs, ‘it made a man of me.’

  Bernie had her arm around his shoulder. ‘George is thinking to stay on in New York,’ she said. ‘He’s thinking to set up as a mortician. Isn’t that wild?’

  Gil said, ‘Never be out of work there, George! Morticians! Always the last people to let you down!’

  He made us all laugh. Over the months we often went out drinking after Bernie finished at the Keynote. Most times she was with some new face, and whoever it was, Gil could get along with him.

  It turned out Gil didn’t live on Washington Square exactly. He was in Minetta Lane, which was off Macdougal Street, which was off Washington Square. He shared a low redbrick with a number of other poets and pamphleteers. I discovered this when I kept my promise to my stepbrother Murray to take him out driving and spare him from having
to go to B’nai Brith and dance with scarves and other boys. I collected him from East 69th Street and was disappointed to find Ma in a good humor with me. Murray had omitted to tell her about my drinking gin and being engaged to be married.

  ‘How considerate of you, Poppy,’ she said, and then she whispered, loud enough for Murray to hear, ‘Boys are so difficult.’

  I quizzed him as we drove downtown. ‘Where did you tell Ma we were going?’

  ‘To visit your nice friend,’ he fawned, ‘and not be underfoot at home and an encumbrance.’

  Gil’s house smelled of sourness and he seemed not to have completed his toilette although it was quite two o’clock in the afternoon. Poets, of course, can become so abstracted that they forget to shave. He already had company when we arrived, sitting in all the mess and confusion. An artist called Casella who had paint under his nails, and an anarchist called Frederick who had brought a gift of bourbon whiskey.

  I said, ‘What a muddle. Didn’t the help come?’

  They all laughed. They seemed quite as fascinated by me as I was by them.

  I said, ‘Now Gil, you really have no reason not to show me some of your verses.’

  I could see a quantity of notebooks and loose leaves of paper covered with scribbling. Mr Casella was all for a poetry reading, too, and Murray, who was in a most obliging mood. Only Frederick appeared bored by the prospect of being entertained. I have often found this to be the case with anarchists.

  Gil began.

  ‘Here’s one I wrote yesterday,’ he said.

  Winter Poppy Blooms

  You cut the mustard for me

  My Westside Princess

  I waited for more but that was all it amounted to. He said it was an ancient Japanese style of poetry called haiku and quite the rage with those in the know. ‘Seventeen syllables,’ he explained. ‘Five in the first line, seven in the second line, five in the third line. Here’s another one.’

  Homecoming doughboys

  Purple hearts on Fifth Avenue

  Soot blackened branches

  Mr Casella nodded solemnly and I did, too, because Gil did recite most affectingly, but as I pointed out, if people paid for verses by the line, a haiku was never going to pay the rent. This caused the anarchist to stop being bored and roar with laughter.