The Troubled Air

by Irwin Shaw

  “I’ve got an hour show tomorrow night,” Vic said. “We start rehearsal at ten in the morning and that maniac Lewis is directing it. By the time I get through I won’t be fit to talk to anybody.” He glanced curiously at Archer. “Can’t it wait?”

  “Not too long,” said Archer.

  “There’s something funny going on,” Vic said. “Nobody around here seems happy with nobody. What’s been happening?”

  “I’ll tell you when we’re alone,” said Archer.

  “How about Saturday? Why don’t you come up to my place around one in the afternoon? I’ll give you a drink and we’ll launch the week-end.”

  Archer nodded. “Saturday. At one,” he said.

  Vic hit two notes on the piano. “You look bushed, kid,” he said. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’ll tell you Saturday,” Archer said.

  The door to the studio opened and Levy, the musical director, came in. He nodded to Vic and said, “Clem, I wonder if I could have a word with you.”

  “Go ahead,” Vic said, beginning to play again. “I have to practice. I only have twelve more years before my debut at Carnegie Hall.”

  Archer followed Levy over to a corner of the studio. Levy was a tall, intense-looking young man, with a nervous, handsome face. Archer had worked with him ever since his first days in radio and they had hit it off well from the beginning. There was no nonsense about Levy. He was intelligent and without vanity and there never was any need to pamper him or waste your energies being tactful when you were working with him.

  “Listen, Clem,” Levy said in a low voice, standing close to Archer in the corner, “I’d like to know what’s going on with Pokorny.”

  Archer sighed. Another man who deserved an explanation. “He’s out, Jack,” Archer said. “For the time being.”

  Levy shook his head gravely. “I guess you know what you’re doing,” he said, “but you can’t get anyone better. He’s a pest and I’m in one of my periods with him, I’ve forbidden him to talk to me. But I’ve got to admit—week in and week out, he does an awfully fine job.”

  Archer smiled wanly. It was a recurring drama between Pokorny and the musical director. Each year there would be a period of three or four weeks when Pokorny was reduced to sending notes into the music room by emissaries. Nobody but Pokorny ever took the situation seriously and each time there would be an emotional reconciliation, with Pokorny throwing his arms around Levy, and shouting, “I forgive you, my son. I forgive everything you have done to me.”

  “I know,” Archer said. “He was prostrated by the trumpets last week.”

  “Why is he out, Clem?” Levy asked.

  Archer hesitated. There had always been a brisk, time-saving candor in his relations with the music director. It would have been a relief to be able to tell him the truth now. “I can’t say,” Archer said softly. “Not tonight. I’m sorry.”

  Levy looked puzzled and Archer could tell that he was hurt. “You know, Clem,” he said, “the music’s supposed to be my department.”

  “I know. This has nothing to do with music. I can tell you that much.”

  “Oh.” Levy scratched his head. “A composer gets fired, but it has nothing to do with music.”

  “Yes.”

  “Complicated, isn’t it?”

  “A little,” Archer agreed. “Listen, Jack, will you go along with me for a while. On faith?”

  “Of course,” Levy said quickly.

  “I’ll tell you the whole story. But not now. In a week. Two weeks. I promise. Fair enough?”

  “Fair enough.” Levy nodded, although Archer could tell he was not quite satisfied.

  “Thanks, Jack,” Archer said.

  “Now,” said Levy, “about the new one …”

  “What about him?” Archer realized uncomfortably that his voice sounded defensive and pugnacious.

  “What’s the matter, Clem?” Levy asked softly. “What’s happening?”

  “Nothing’s happening. What about the new one?”

  “O’Neill called me on Monday,” Levy said, “and told me Pokorny was through and asked me to suggest another composer.”

  O’Neill and his Monday-morning telephone calls, passing trouble all around the city electrically. Momentarily, Archer felt a surge of sympathy for the agency man. Poor O’Neill, Archer thought, he certainly earns his money.

  “For this kind of work, you can’t get anybody who can touch Pokorny,” Levy said, “and I told O’Neill that.”

  “Yes,” Archer said impatiently. “Let’s not go into that again.”

  “There’s only one man I know,” Levy said, restraining his temper, “who’s in the same class and available and I gave his name to O’Neill. Freddie McCormick. When O’Neill hung up I was under the impression he was going to get McCormick. Then when I came into the studio this morning I saw that drip, Shapiro.”

  “I talked to O’Neill,” Archer said, “and I said I wanted Shapiro.”

  “Why?” Levy made an eloquent, disapproving face. “You’re going to get the dreariest collection of sounds you ever heard out of that fellow. I wouldn’t hire him to make the arrangements for a three-piece band for the annual dance of a deaf-and-dumb walking society.”

  “I’ve heard some of his stuff,” Archer said falsely, “and I don’t think it’s so bad.”

  “Clem …” Levy said reproachfully. “Don’t kid your old friends in the business.”

  “I’m not going to argue with you,” Archer said loudly. “Shapiro is hired.”

  “Why?” Levy persisted.

  Why? Archer thought, feeling cornered. Because his name is Shapiro and because McCormick’s name is McCormick. Because Archer had to prove to Manfred Pokorny that he was not being persecuted because he was a Jew. And how could you tell that to a man named Levy? Because Archer was ashamed of being moved by motives like that, ashamed of being caught in Pokorny’s sickness, ashamed of behaving in a manner that was essentially dishonest and false, ashamed that here, in yet another department of his life, in his relations with a man who had proved himself a good workman and a good friend, candor had been replaced by subterfuge.

  “I think Shapiro is going to be fine,” Archer said. “That’s all.”

  Levy bit his lip. Archer could tell that he was keeping himself from saying something ugly. “You want me to shut up, don’t you, Clem?”

  “Yes,” Archer said. “I’d like you to shut up.”

  Levy turned suddenly and walked away. Archer watched the long, energetic figure crossing the bare floor, resentment and disappointment in every line of the body. As he reached the door, it opened and Shapiro came in, looking pale and unrefreshed. Shapiro held the door open and smiled tentatively at Levy. Levy didn’t look at him, but strode past swiftly. Shapiro glanced unhappily around the room, deflated and embarrassed, hoping that no one had noticed the snub. His eye caught Archer’s and he dropped his head as he realized that Archer had been watching. He let the door swing shut and shambled uncertainly past the piano toward the control room. If he ever had a chance, Archer thought, gloomily watching Shapiro, it’s gone now. He was sorry for the man and annoyed at him for not being more talented.

  Thursday, Archer thought. He went into the control room and sat down next to Barbante and waited for the program to begin.

  Thursday.

  14

  THE HERRESES LIVED IN AN AUSTERE, OLD-FASHIONED BUILDING, FROM which you expected to see dowagers with pearl chokers emerge to get into 1912 Rolls-Royce limousines, and portly stockbrokers carrying newspapers that had ceased publication long ago, the pages neatly turned back to the financial section and the quotations for stocks that had long since vanished from the market. The doorman was a large, fierce-looking old man with a starched collar who always greeted Archer with quiet approval, probably because Archer was well over forty and wore a good hat. The hall had a hushed, marble atmosphere, as though kings were buried near the elevator shaft. The air in it seemed somehow to have remained intact from the day it
was built, and when you breathed you got the odor of another century. If Herres is plotting revolution, Archer thought, as the elevator carried him upwards, he is putting up a clever disguise.

  Herres opened the door himself. He wasn’t wearing a jacket and his sleeves were rolled up and he looked very wide and young as he shook Archer’s hand and helped him off with his coat.

  “O excellent man,” Herres said, “O sturdy friend. Enter and drink.”

  “I have something for the kid,” Archer said, displaying the package. He had stopped at a toy store on the way uptown and bought a stereopticon viewer with colored slides of foreign scenes.

  “If it makes a noise,” said Herres, “throw it out of the window.”

  “I was thinking of getting a drum,” Archer said as they went down the hall to the child’s room, “but wiser heads prevailed.”

  “Oh.” Herres put out his arm to stop Archer at the doorway. “How are you on the subject of impotence?”

  “Never use the stuff,” Archer said. “Why?”

  “Nancy.” Herres grinned. “Ever since the measles entered our life, she’s become ferocious about it. She’s a primitive woman. She goes to concerts and talks learnedly about foreign affairs, but when it comes to the sticking point, her interest is faithfully focused below the belt.”

  “Don’t be vulgar about your wife.”

  “Consider yourself warned,” Herres said. “The management cannot assume responsibility for any losses incurred on the premises.”

  “I am warned.” Archer went through the doorway into the nursery. Young Clement was standing at the corner of his crib, methodically throwing toys from a diminishing pile in the crib against the opposite wall. He threw a fire engine and a wooden dog on wheels with a strong overhand motion, listening critically to the noise they made against the plaster.

  “Hello, Clem,” Archer said, going over to the crib. There were some red blotches on the boy’s cheeks, but he looked robust and immortal.

  “Uncle Clement,” the boy said, smiling at him. “Nobody is allowed to kiss me or they’ll catch the spots. I shake hands now.”

  They shook hands. The boy looked craftily at the package Archer was carrying. “Did you bring me a surprise?” he asked.

  “Don’t be a gold-digger,” Herres said.

  “What’s a gold-digger?” the boy said, keeping his eyes on the package as Archer unwrapped it.

  “A gold-digger,” Herres said, “is somebody with the measles who keeps asking people for surprises.”

  “I like surprises,” the boy said. “When I grow up I’m going to have a surprise every day.”

  “I bet you will,” Herres said. “Can I get you a surprise?” he asked Archer. “Say a Martini?”

  “That would be most surprising,” Archer said. “Thanks.” He handed the bakelite viewer to the boy, after putting a cardboard circle of Aztec photographs into the slot. “Now, Clem,” he said, as Herres went out to mix the drinks, “this takes a steady hand. Have you got a steady hand?”

  “Yes.” The boy peered suspiciously at the instrument. “Is this a gun?”

  “No, Clem.”

  “I like surprises that are guns.” The boy whirled in his crib, crouching over, shaking the viewer like a weapon, making a noise like a machine gun. “This is a shootgun,” he said. “I shoot your mouth off with it.”

  “Let me have it for a second please, Clem,” Archer said, thinking, I’d better remember how to handle kids again, I’ll be going through this all over again soon. “I’ll show you how to work it.”

  The boy gave Archer the viewer. “You see,” Archer said, “you put it up to your eyes like this, facing the light, and you look through it. And then, when you want to see another picture, you press this button and the picture changes.”

  “It makes a noise,” the boy said as the machine clicked. “That’s good.”

  “Now you try it.” Archer gave him the viewer and watched as the boy uncertainly put it to his face. “You have to look through both holes at once, Clem,” Archer explained, “and face the light.”

  “I see a man!” the boy crowed. “I see a dead man.”

  “What?” Archer said. “You’d better let me take a look.” He retrieved the machine and held it to the light. A golden stone image peered blindly back at him, wreathed in jungle creepers, dumbly reminding him of blood sacrifices and a sinister civilization before the coming of the Spaniards. “No, Clem,” Archer said, “it’s not a dead man. It’s a statue. The statue of a god.”

  “Oh,” the boy said. “What’s a statue?”

  “A statue,” Archer said, grateful that he hadn’t asked, “What’s a god?”, “is carved out of stone. Sometimes it looks like a man, sometimes it looks like an animal. Sometimes it looks like something people make up in their heads.”

  “I would like a statue of Mr. Curran,” the boy said. Mr. Curran was the doorman.

  “Why?”

  “I would throw him out the window,” the boy said briskly. “On his head.”

  Mr. Curran was an old-fashioned believer in discipline in lobbies and elevators and was not popular with the younger set.

  Archer nodded gravely. “Sometimes,” he said, “people used to make statues for just that reason. They would make wax figures of their enemies and stick pins into them to punish them.”

  “Have I got enemies?” the boy asked, peering into the viewer again and moving the card around swiftly.

  “No, Clem.”

  “Have you got enemies?”

  Archer considered this. “I’m not sure.”

  “Will I have enemies when I grow up?”

  Well, Archer thought, he might as well know now as any other time. “Yes,” he said, “you probably will.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’ll be rich and handsome and lucky,” Archer said, feeling that this would very likely turn out to be true, “and there will be people who will be jealous of you. Do you know what jealous means?”

  “Yes,” the boy said, putting in another card. “Momma told me. Jealous is when I want Johnny’s bicycle.”

  “That’s it, Clem.”

  “I see a man with a gun,” the boy said. “Am I Johnny’s enemy?”

  That remains to be seen, Archer thought. “No, Clem,” he said. “Of course not.”

  “Could I be his enemy if I practiced?” the boy insisted.

  “No, Clem, you can’t be the enemy of your brother.”

  “He hits me. He hits me on the head when Momma isn’t looking.”

  “Hit him back.”

  “He’s too big,” young Clement said practically. “He’s four years older than me.”

  Herres came into the room carefully holding a tray with three cocktail glasses. “This will take away some of the pain,” he said as he gave one of the glasses to Archer. Archer looked at the Martini. It was almost colorless. Herres’ recipe for Martinis was one bottle of Vermouth to a case of gin and you had to be very careful about the way you approached them. He was proud of his ability as a bartender and his knowledge of wines and liquor and Archer always liked to have dinner at the Herreses’ table because you drank so well there. “Gin and Burgundy,” Herres would say, “carefully applied, are the answers to almost all the problems of modern living.”

  Herres went over to a small table and ceremonially poured some pineapple juice out of a pitcher into the third glass. He gave the glass to young Clement. “Will you join us?” he asked the boy formally.

  Young Clement’s eyes grew very grave and he watched his father closely, holding the glass in both hands.

  “Cheers,” Herres said.

  “Chizz,” said the boy, lifting his glass. They drank.

  “Good drink?” Herres asked his son.

  “Good drink,” said the boy, mimicking his father’s tone.

  “How do you like Uncle Clement’s surprise?” Herres asked.

  “I said thank you,” the boy lied quickly, suspecting a lesson in manners.

  �
�That’s good,” Herres said.

  “It’s got a statue in it. A statue of Mr. Curran,” said young Clement, deftly blending fact, fancy, conjecture and desire in one sentence. “He looks angry.”

  “Let me see,” Herres said. He smiled at Archer and drained his drink as he waited for his son to find the slide and insert it into the machine.

  “There.” The boy handed the toy to Herres.

  Herres peered into it critically. “Mr. Curran,” he said. “To the life.” He put the toy into the crib. “Clement,” he said to Archer, “I wonder if you’d mind letting the young man entertain you for a few minutes. I have to go down to the drugstore to pick up a prescription. Nancy’s out with Johnny. The nurse is off today. I’ll be right back and you can mix yourself another drink when the well runs dry.”

  “Sure,” Archer said. “Go ahead. We have a lot of things to talk about here.”

  “Tell Uncle Clement a story,” Herres said to his son. “Grownups like to hear stories, too, you know.”

  “OK,” young Clement said. “I’ll tell him about the baby elephant.”

  “I’ll just be a minute,” Herres said, and went out of the room, buttoning his collar.

  “Once upon a time,” young Clement began promptly, “there was a baby elephant and a mother elephant in the jungle. That’s woods,” he explained helpfully, “in the country.”

  “Yes,” Clement said, seating himself on the chair next to the crib and keeping his face grave. “I thought so.”

  “They ate grass and they drank rivers,” the boy went on, squinting and fixing the picture firmly in his mind, the jungle in the country and the two animals leading a domestic existence well supplied with the necessities of life. “They slept in the trees at night and they talked to the monkeys when they weren’t at the office. When they didn’t like anybody they stepped on him. They sang through their trunks—like this …” He made a low, wailing sound and looked anxiously at Archer to see if the music was convincing.

  Archer nodded helpfully.

  “Sometimes they ate celery and mashed potatoes,” the boy went on, “and when they went to a restaurant they looked at the menu. For dessert they had rhubarb and they always paid the check. They had ice cream for dessert, too, and chocolate cake. He had no brothers or sisters,” young Clement said, getting rid of that problem early in the game, “and he played in the park in the afternoon and pushed people. When the mother elephant didn’t want him to know what she was saying she spelled out the words. C-A-N-D-Y. But he knew what she was saying but he didn’t tell her.” Young Clement chuckled at this delicious turn of events. “One day he got angry with his mother and he stopped eating. Once in awhile he ate a little plate of ice cream, but that’s all. And only chocolate. Do you like this story?” he asked anxiously.