‘Where is he?’ he insisted. ‘I’ve got to see your husband.’
At length she answered, ‘So who knows where he is? Every time he thinks a new thought he runs to a different place. Go home, he will find you.’
‘Tell him Leo Finkle.’
She gave no sign she had heard.
He walked downstairs, depressed.
But Salzman, breathless, stood waiting at his door.
Leo was astounded and overjoyed. ‘How did you get here before me?’
‘I rushed.’
‘Come inside.’
They entered. Leo fixed tea, and a sardine sandwich for Salzman. As they were drinking he reached behind him for the packet of pictures and handed them to the marriage broker.
Salzman put down his glass and said expectantly, ‘You found somebody you like?’
‘Not among these.’
The marriage broker turned away.
‘Here is the one I want.’ Leo held forth the snapshot.
Salzman slipped on his glasses and took the picture into his trembling hand. He turned ghastly and let out a groan.
‘What’s the matter?’ cried Leo.
‘Excuse me. Was an accident this picture. She isn’t for you.’
Salzman frantically shoved the manila packet into his portfolio. He thrust the snapshot into his pocket and fled down the stairs.
Leo, after momentary paralysis, gave chase and cornered the marriage broker in the vestibule. The landlady made hysterical outcries but neither of them listened.
‘Give me back the picture, Salzman.’
‘No.’ The pain in his eyes was terrible.
‘Tell me who she is then.’
‘This I can’t tell you. Excuse me.’
He made to depart, but Leo, forgetting himself, seized the matchmaker by his tight coat and shook him frenziedly.
‘Please,’ sighed Salzman. ‘Please.’
Leo ashamedly let him go. ‘Tell me who she is,’ he begged. ‘It’s very important for me to know.’
‘She is not for you. She is a wild one – wild, without shame. This is not a bride for a rabbi.’
‘What do you mean wild?’
‘Like an animal. Like a dog. For her to be poor was a sin. This is why to me she is dead now.’
‘In God’s name, what do you mean?’
‘Her I can’t introduce to you,’ Salzman cried.
‘Why are you so excited?’
‘Why, he asks,’ Salzman said, bursting into tears. ‘This is my baby, my Stella, she should burn in hell.’
Leo hurried up to bed and hid under the covers. Under the covers he thought his life through. Although he soon fell asleep he could not sleep her out of his mind. He woke, beating his breast. Though he prayed to be rid of her, his prayers went unanswered. Through days of torment he endlessly struggled not to love her; fearing success, he escaped it. He then concluded to convert her to goodness, himself to God. The idea alternately nauseated and exalted him.
He perhaps did not know that he had come to a final decision until he encountered Salzman in a Broadway cafeteria. He was sitting alone at a rear table, sucking the bony remains of a fish. The marriage broker appeared haggard, and transparent to the point of vanishing.
Salzman looked up at first without recognizing him. Leo had grown a pointed beard and his eyes were weighted with wisdom.
‘Salzman,’ he said, ‘love has at last come to my heart.’
‘Who can love from a picture?’ mocked the marriage broker.
‘It is not impossible.’
‘If you can love her, then you can love anybody. Let me show you some new clients that they just sent me their photographs. One is a little doll.’
‘Just her I want,’ Leo murmured.
‘Don’t be a fool, doctor. Don’t bother with her.’
‘Put me in touch with her, Salzman,’ Leo said humbly. ‘Perhaps I can be of service.’
Salzman had stopped eating and Leo understood with emotion that it was now arranged.
Leaving the cafeteria, he was, however, afflicted by a tormenting suspicion that Salzman had planned it all to happen this way.
Leo was informed by letter that she would meet him on a certain corner, and she was there one spring night, waiting under a street lamp. He appeared, carrying a small bouquet of violets and rosebuds. Stella stood by the lamp post, smoking. She wore white with red shoes, which fitted his expectations, although in a troubled moment he had imagined the dress red, and only the shoes white. She waited uneasily and shyly. From afar he saw that her eyes – clearly her father’s – were filled with desperate innocence. He pictured, in her, his own redemption. Violins and lit candles revolved in the sky. Leo ran forward with flowers outthrust.
Around the corner, Salzman, leaning against a wall, chanted prayers for the dead.
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Copyright © Bernard Malamud 1950
Bernard Malamud has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
First published in Great Britain by
Eyre & Spottiswoode 1960
Published by Vintage 2002
penguin.co.uk/vintage
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
The Magic Barrel Page 19