Dark Stain

by Appel, Benjamin

  “What’s the idea anyway?”

  Darton roared. “The hell with you.”

  “You’re crazy.” Bill’s nerves stretched thinner with excitement. This was the reckless Darton whom he had talked to the night he had called for the valerian bombs. He blinked at the Negro waiter marching up to them.

  “What’ll it be?” the waiter asked.

  “Rye highball, ginger ale,” Darton said.

  “Same.” As the waiter left, Bill added, “Why did you come here? Don’t hand me any of our highbrow explanations either.”

  Darton poked his forefinger into Bill’s chest. “We must identify ourselves with the tempo of the times we live in.”

  Bill laughed. “I never heard rape called tempo before.”

  “We’ll go out to Long Island — ”

  “Leave me out.”

  The waiter returned with a tray. He was a tall Negro with a freckled yellowish skin. He fixed their drinks, eased away. Darton resumed the conversation. “I don’t like to drive alone. You’re coming! Why don’t you want to come?”

  “For what?”

  “Haven’t you seen her picture?”

  Bill nodded.

  Darton smiled. “You’ve got morals, my friend. A wife. That’s it.”

  “No.”

  “Did I ever tell you about my trip to Germany? I learned something. One must be careful. One can never be too careful. But once in awhile, blow the damn lid. In Germany I saw the most careful men, leaders, generals whirling like tops. Not always. But once in awhile. It’s necessary if one is to grow.” He clinked his highball glass against Bill’s.

  “What the hell do you mean, grow?”

  “What kind of society do we want?”

  “I don’t see the point of all this crap.”

  “After the war or wars, how are you going to fit into the new world order if you’re not prepared?”

  “Prepared by rape?”

  “You’re naïve. I told you you were a God damned American fool. I’m right. You’ve still got traces of American morality. That’s why you’re hanging back about coming with me. It’s your God damned American sportsmanship. As for morality, I’m for it but it should be directed to those above us. Never to those below. Waiter!” he bawled. “Two more highballs.”

  “I haven’t finished mine.” Bill glanced at Darton. He was almost choking with an unendurable tension. The trip to Long Island, the scheduled rape, the scheduled headlines, the scheduled riot — all seemed to be but a few footsteps away. If he strained his eyes, he would be able to see Monday, he felt; and even beyond Monday. Christ, what a day, what a crazy day.

  “Where was I?” Darton stared at the waiter walking away from their table. “Oh yes. We can learn one thing out of the past. The feudal knights honored their lords but to the serf hordes below, they were hell on wheels. They used their serfs as we use our machines. They used the serf bitches as casually as we breathe in air. If you take a deep breath would you call that raping the air? The air doesn’t matter.”

  Absorbed, Bill listened. Darton’s explosive words blasted through into the days ahead. What Darton was saying made sense. Strength always made sense. Darton was strong. Darton was right. A man had to be strong for the future. Even sitting here in this Negro bar, surrounded by Negroes was meaningful. And Darton, leaning on both elbows, spilled out his ideas. He declared to Bill that he was fastidious; the jackal races disgusted him; the Roumanian fascists, for example, who had hung Jews by their throats on hooks in the slaughterhouses were disgusting. The German High Command approached the problem of master race and lesser race scientifically. After all, Darton said, the masses of German soldiers were ordinary people, bakers, clerks, mechanics. They had to be taught like schoolboys that they were the master race. Hitler not only manufactured ersatz products. He manufactured ersatz men. That was where his genius was truly shown. He made new men. Murder, rape, pillage were the A.B.C.’s. Bill asked what was the difference then between the Roumanians and the Germans? Darton replied that there was all the difference in the world. The Roumanians didn’t plan; the Germans did. The German High Command pitted their ersatz men on one side, obedient vassals of the leaders, against the masses of serfs on the other side. The Germans were systematically taught contempt for all other peoples.

  “Don’t talk so loud,” Bill warned.

  “Why not? They’d only think I was drunk.” Darton pounded the table. “You need a year in jail — ”

  “Go to hell.”

  “You’re too yellow. ‘Don’t talk so loud.’ Don’t do this — ”

  “You lousy Red.”

  “One more drink and we’ll get out.”

  “You won’t be able to drive.”

  “Only time I can’t drive is when I’m asleep. One more drink. You and me, two stags. Two stags and one little bitch.”

  They picked up Darton’s car and drove across the Queensboro Bridge. Below, the East River was streaking with violet light. Tugs and coal barges slid on the twilight waters. Darton curved down the ramp into industrial Queens; factories like huge boxes were massed one next to the other. He stepped on the gas and they wheeled out to the highway. “Who’s the couple out with the girl?” Bill asked, belching. His stomach felt sour, his eyes hot.

  “Couple of Germans.”

  “Born in Germany?”

  “Born here.”

  “Bundists?”

  “Look at that God damned truck. He won’t get over.”

  They passed the truck. “You’ll get a ticket.”

  “No.”

  “Okay.”

  “We can learn from the Germans — ”

  “Heil,” Bill mocked.

  “Take the Hartmans — ”

  “Who are they?”

  “My Bundists. They were undercover even when the Bund had camps all over the country. The Gestapo kept people like the Hartmans in reserve.”

  “Reserve for what?”

  “In case of war between Germany and us. They didn’t expect war but they were prepared for it anyway.”

  They were driving on a flat land between lots and rows of two-story houses. “Who are your Hartmans loyal to? Hitler or the organization?”

  “Don’t be so stinkingly patriotic. Hitler’s cause is our cause.”

  “Mussolini’s?”

  “His, too.”

  “How about the Japs, you Comintern bastard?”

  “You bastard, quit red-baiting me! I was a Red once. So what.”

  “So was Mussolini.” Bill pressed his hand against his stomach. He dug his fingers into the layer of fat underneath his shirt and belched again. He became silent as the miles piled up on the meter. But Darton rambled on endlessly. They sped through the small towns of eastern Long Island and Darton switched on his headlights. White stars sharpened in the black sky. They entered a big town, slowed up on Main Street, crawling behind rows of cars towards a red beacon hanging over a cross-street. In front of the big chain stores, the haberdasheries, the Saturday night cars were parked between diagonal white lines.

  “Where are we?” Bill asked.

  “Patchogue.”

  “We getting close?”

  “Yeh.”

  Bill looked out on sidewalks of people in their light clothes. He thought that it was spring, the best time in the year, the time when a man wanted to be with a woman, with Isabelle…. Slowly, the car moved out of town. Bill breathed in the spring night as if he had just dropped down on earth out of a winter sky. They roared by a duck farm. Hitch-hiking soldiers from Camp Upton walked west towards the far away city of New York. Darton cut off the highway into streets of summer bungalows. The bungalows scattered out and they travelled through third growth woods on an asphalt road. The asphalt was gone and the road was sandy.

  “Here we are,” Darton said. The head lights shone on a two-story summer house. A door opened in the house; a long square of yellow light leaped across the ground. It was as if the house had switched on its own headlight. Bill blinked. “T
here’s Hartman,” Darton said to Bill. A man was coming through the door. “Don’t speak above a whisper or she’ll hear us.” Darton pointed to the second story. Hartman approached and Darton waved.

  They went inside. Bill rubbed his eyes. Hartman was a tall middle-aged man with a round face and he looked like a storekeeper except for his clothes. He was wearing a light green sport sweater and cream-colored slacks. He led them into the living room where a middle-aged woman was standing, standing and smiling like a butler welcoming the master back from a trip. “Hello, Mrs. Hartman,” Darton said to her.

  “How do you do?” Mrs. Hartman said respectfully.

  “How have you been, Mrs. Hartman?”

  “Very well, thank you Mr. Darton.”

  Bill smiled to himself. He thought, the master race had come home to roost.

  “Has Petrie gone?” Darton asked. They were all speaking in low voices.

  “About an hour ago, Mr. Darton,” Mrs. Hartman said. She was the voice of the pair, Bill realized. He glanced at her more closely. Her faded hair was marcelled; her thin lips seemed faded, too, even under their bright lipstick; she had been pretty but she seemed ugly because she looked as if she had made up her mind to hold onto the appearance of youth as long as she could.

  “Was Petrie surprised?” Darton sat down in one of the wickerwork chairs. There were three chairs and a couch on a red straw rug. The living room was square with windows on two sides. The shades were drawn and over the shades, there were print curtains patterned with yellow buttercups and canaries; the buttercups and canaries fluttered inside as the wind slapped against the shades. There was a smell of the sea and a faraway sound of waves splashing.

  “Not very much, Mr. Darton,” Mrs. Hartman said. “Mr. Hartman drove him to the station when he received the telegram.”

  Darton winked at Bill and turned to the husband. “Eddie, haven’t you anything to say or does the missus say it all?” Mrs. Hartman colored a little, her husband smiled.

  “That colored man didn’t say much,” he said. His wife was nodding at each word. “I said good-bye to him but he didn’t say good-bye to me.”

  “He didn’t show you the telegram?”

  “No.”

  “Did he say why he had to leave?”

  “No. He wasn’t very sociable, Mr. Darton.”

  Darton crossed his legs. “Eddie, you and the missus take in a movie.”

  “Yes, Mr. Darton.”

  “When shall we come back, Mr. Darton?” the woman asked.

  “Around twelve. No, make it one o’clock.”

  “Come,” Mrs. Hartman said to her husband. “Mr. Darton if you are hungry, there is food in the kitchen.”

  The pair left the living room. Bill shook his head. In this long day, the two Hartmans fitted in like apparitions, two faded and very clean ghosts. Darton winked, jerked one thumb at the ceiling, smiled. They sat there until they heard a car start up outside. Tires scrunched outside and the sound of the motor receded. Darton stood up, unknotted his necktie. He pulled off his coat and rolled up his shirt sleeves. “How about a drink, sleeping beauty?”

  “When you going up?”

  “I want it dark.”

  “It’s dark as it’ll get.” He stared at Darton’s arms. Darton was swinging them up and down at his sides. His arms like his hands were covered with thick brown hair.

  “The windows in her room are shuttered and boarded up,” Darton said. “Her room’s dark.”

  “Screw her and let’s get to hell out of here.”

  “Don’t rush me, sleeping beauty. You can sleep down here.”

  “I’m not rushing you. I don’t give a damn what you do. But I don’t want to hang around here all night.”

  “The wife?”

  “No.”

  “What then?” Darton smiled. “She’s a pretty little whore. Join the party.”

  “I don’t care if she’s the prettiest whore on this God damn island.”

  Darton laughed. “Has the Governor propositioned you?”

  “I thought you’re against joking about the Governor?”

  “You should have been a lawyer, a hebe lawyer.”

  “You bawled me out today when I just mentioned — ”

  “There’s a time and a place.”

  “I see. You’re blowing the lid so anything goes.”

  Darton grinned. “Right. Sure, you don’t want to — ”

  “No. How you going to work it?”

  “How does anybody work it?” Darton began to laugh, clapped his hand across his mouth.

  “I mean — about getting her back to town?”

  “That’s what’s worrying you,” Darton said in an intense whisper. “Damn you, there’s nothing to worry about. Over in that closet, there’s a sack Mrs. Hartman’s sewn. We’ll gag her, tie her up, put her in the sack. Toss her in the back of the car.” The white areas of his eyes widened. “She’ll look like a sack of Long Island potatoes.”

  “When do you think we’ll get back?”

  “Around two or so.”

  “Then what?”

  “Let’s have a drink. You need a drink.”

  “Then what?”

  “Go to hell. We’ll dump her out on some street. In Harlem. Give her a kick in the ass and beat it before she knows what happened. You need a drink, you yellow bastard.”

  Bill stared at him. “I don’t like your tone.”

  “You need a drink. You’ll spoil all the fun. Damn, quit worrying about that nigger Big Boy. Aden’ll keep him quiet.”

  “So you say.”

  “You need a damn big drink if you ask me.”

  Bill watched Darton stride across the straw rug and out into the kitchen. He shut his eyes for a second, then opened them. On the table in the middle of the room, there were flowers in a green bowl. Against the wall, there was a bridge table and a deck of cards. The walls were bare except for a local calendar. Bill squinted and tried to read the month. The month was … The letters blurred. The month was … November. He smiled to himself. “Now now Mrs. Hartman,” he muttered.

  “God damn you all.” Yes, God damn them all, every one of them. His head ached, his eyes seemed full of smoke, his whole body seemed heavier than sleep and he thought of Dent. Poor Dent. He and Dent had been slated to be the suckers; every good plan had its fall guys prepared for in advance. Christ, suppose Big Boy talked? Suppose, he went to jail? Suppose, he died? Went crazy? Who’d care? Nobody. Not even Isabelle. She’d go right on living and she’d marry a Catholic.

  He heard Darton whistling in the kitchen. Oh, that bastard Darton! he cursed to himself; the superman, the flash marvel, the wonder fuehrer; they were all wonder fuehrers as long as they didn’t have to take the rap. He heaved out of his chair and walked into the kitchen. Darton was mixing two highballs in a white kitchen on an enameled table and in one hand he had a big meat sandwich.

  “I was just coming out,” Darton said cheerfully.

  “Didn’t think of making me a sandwich, did you?”

  “Go to hell.”

  Bill took his drink, and they both returned to the living room. “The girl never saw your stooges?” Bill asked.

  “Who? The Hartmans? No, she’s never seen them.”

  “How was it done?”

  “Petrie brought her to a flat. Told her it was Ellis’ place — ”

  “Who’s Ellis?”

  “The nigger friend of Miller.”

  “Miller? I could kill that kike!”

  “Anyway, Petrie and another nigger, the nigger in the flat, chloroformed the bitch, stuck her in that Heydrich sack — ”

  “I thought the woman sewed it?”

  “Yes, but a Nazi called Heydrich invented it. This Heydrich was no relation to the Heydrich killed in Prague — ”

  “What the hell did he invent? A sack?” Bill sipped slowly. His insides were trembling.

  “Don’t sneer at it. The Gestapo used the Heydrich sack to smuggle out anti-Nazis escaped to Paris back into Germa
ny.

  This was before the war. It’s not an ordinary sack. It’s lightweight. It’s modeled to hold a man snug. Want to see it?”

  “No.”

  “Isn’t it quiet here? Too quiet for me.” He licked his lips.

  “Where did Petrie sleep?”

  “Outside the kitchen. He gave her her meals.”

  “She’s seen him then?”

  “Only the first day.”

  “She’s heard his voice.”

  “God damn you, quit croaking! There isn’t a newspaper in the damn house.”

  “What do you want with a newspaper?”

  “None in the kitchen either. None in the Hartman room.”

  “What do you want with a paper?”

  “To read about my girl friend. It’d be a real thrill. I wish I had a photograph.” He was rubbing his knee with his hand. “One of the newspapers dug up a photo of her in a bathing suit.” Darton’s eyes were moist. His lips were moist. “I wish I had it here. A real thrill — To see how she’s built — That bathing suit showed her tits — Her thighs. She has slim thighs. Must do a lot of dancing — ” His wet eyes gleamed. “Say what you want — there’s a true beauty in force. In direct naked force.”

  Bill was silent. Silent, he sat hypnotized by Darton’s restless hands.

  “I should have brought a newspaper,” Darton was saying. “They cross their legs together — ” It was so still in the house, Bill heard the night birds. Darton’s hands pushed out to either side. “Pull their legs apart. I wish I had that picture.” He jumped up from his chair, rushed into the kitchen, returning with the bottle of rye.

  “Why don’t you go up?” Bill asked, holding out his glass for Darton to pour the rye in. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “The kick’s in approaching a woman by degrees.” Darton took a big drink, spluttered, sat down. “She’s up there. Young. Waiting. She must’ve heard us down here. Her heart’s beating. Her tits rising up and down. Her glands working. Her skin’s covered with sweat.”