Wonderful Town: New York Stories from The New Yorker

by David Remnick

  SAILOR OFF THE BREMEN

  THEY SAT IN THE SMALL white kitchen, Ernest and his brother Charlie and Preminger and Dr. Slater, all bunched around the porcelain-topped table, so that the kitchen seemed to be overflowing with men. Sally stood at the stove turning griddlecakes over thoughtfully, listening to what Preminger was saying.

  “So everything was excellent. The Comrades arrived, dressed in evening gowns and—what do you call them?”

  “Tuxedos,” Charlie said.

  “Tuxedos.” Preminger nodded. “Very handsome people,” he said, his English precise and educated, but with a definite German accent. “Mixing with all the other handsome people who came to say goodbye to their friends on the boat, everybody very gay, everybody with a little whiskey on the breath, nobody would suspect they were Party members, they were so clean and upper-class.” He laughed at his own joke. With his crew-cut hair and his straight nose and blue eyes, he looked like a young boy from a Middle-Western college. His laugh was a little high and short and he talked fast, as though he wanted to get a great many words out to beat a certain deadline, but otherwise being a Communist in Germany and a deck officer on the Bremen had not left any mark on him. “It is a wonderful thing,” he said, “how many pretty girls there are in the Party in the United States.”

  They all laughed, even Ernest, who put his hand up to cover the empty spaces in his front teeth. His hand covered his mouth and the fingers cupped around the neat black patch over his eye, and he smiled at his wife behind that concealment, getting his merriment over with swiftly so he could take his hand down and compose his face. Sally watched him from the stove. “Here,” she said, dumping three griddlecakes onto a plate and putting them before Preminger. “Better than Childs restaurant.”

  “Wonderful,” Preminger said, dousing the cakes with syrup. “Each time I come to America, I feast on these. There is nothing like it in the whole continent of Europe.”

  “All right,” Charlie said. He leaned across the kitchen table, practically covering it because he was so big. “Finish the story.”

  “So I gave the signal,” Preminger said, waving his fork, “when everything was nice and ready, everybody having a good time, stewards running this way, that way, with champagne, and we had a very nice little demonstration. Nice signs, good, loud yelling, the Nazi flag cut down one, two, three from the pole, the girls standing together singing like angels, everybody running there from all parts of the ship.” He smeared butter methodically on the top cake. “So then the rough business. Expected. Naturally. After all, we all know it is no cocktail party for Lady Astor.” He squinted at his plate. “A little pushing, expected. Maybe a little crack over the head here and there, expected. Justice comes with a headache these days, we all know that. But my people, the Germans, you must always expect the worst from them. They organize like lightning. Method. How to treat a riot on a ship. Every steward, every oiler, every sailor was there in a minute and a half. Two men would hold a Comrade, another would beat him. Nothing left to accident.”

  “What’s the sense in going over the whole thing again?” Ernest said. “It’s all over.”

  “Shut up,” Charlie said.

  “Two stewards got hold of Ernest,” Preminger said softly, “and another one did the beating. Stewards are worse than sailors. All day long they take orders, they hate the world. Ernest was unlucky. The steward who beat him up is a member of the Nazi party. He is an Austrian. He is not a normal man.”

  “Sally,” Ernest said, “give Mr. Preminger some more milk.”

  “He kept hitting Ernest,” Preminger said, tapping on the porcelain top with his fork. “And he kept laughing and laughing.”

  “You’re sure you know who he is?” Charlie asked.

  “I know who he is. He is twenty-five years old, very dark and good-looking, and he sleeps with at least two ladies a voyage.” Preminger slopped his milk around in the bottom of his glass. “His name is Lueger. He spies on the crew for the Nazis. He has sent two men already to concentration camps. He knew what he was doing when he kept hitting Ernest in the eye. I tried to get to him, but I was in the middle of a thousand people screaming and running. If something happens to that Lueger, it will be a very good thing.”

  “Have a cigar,” Ernest said, pulling two out of his pocket.

  “Something’ll happen to him,” Charlie said. He took a deep breath and leaned back from the table.

  “What do you prove if you beat up one stupid sailor?” Ernest said.

  “I don’t prove anything,” Charlie said. “I’m just going to have a good time with the boy that knocked my brother’s eye out. That’s all.”

  “It’s not a personal thing,” Ernest said in a tired voice. “It’s the movement of Fascism. You don’t stop Fascism with a personal crusade against one German. If I thought it would do some good, I’d say sure, go ahead.”

  “My brother, the Communist,” Charlie said bitterly. “He goes out and gets ruined and still he talks dialectics. The Red saint with the long view. The long view gives me a pain. I’m taking a very short view of Mr. Lueger.”

  “Speaking as a Party member,” Preminger said, “I approve of your brother’s attitude, Charlie. Speaking as a man, please put Lueger on his back for at least six months. Where is that cigar, Ernest?”

  Dr. Slater spoke up in his polite, dentist’s voice. “As you know,” he said, “I’m not the type for violence.” Dr. Slater weighed a hundred and thirty-three pounds and it was almost possible to see through his wrists, he was so frail. “But as Ernest’s friend, I think there’d be a definite satisfaction for all of us, including Ernest, if this Lueger was taken care of. You may count on me for anything within my powers.” His voice was even drier than usual, and he spoke as if he had reasoned the whole thing out slowly and carefully and had decided to disregard the fear, the worry, the possible great damage. “That’s my opinion,” he said.

  “Sally,” Ernest said, “talk to these damn fools.”

  “I think,” Sally said, looking at her husband’s face, which was stiffly composed now, like a corpse’s face, “I think they know what they’re talking about.”

  Ernest shrugged. “Emotionalism. A large, useless gesture. You’re all tainted by Charlie’s philosophy. He’s a football player, he has a football player’s philosophy. Somebody knocks you down, you knock him down, everything is fine.”

  “Please shut up, Ernest.” Charlie stood up and banged on the table. “I’ve got my stomach full of Communist tactics. I’m acting strictly in the capacity of your brother. If you’d had any brains, you’d have stayed away from that lousy boat. You’re a painter, an artist, you make water colors. What the hell is it your business if lunatics’re running Germany? But you go and get your eye beat out. O.K. Now I step in. Purely personal. None of your business. Please go and lie down in the bedroom. We have arrangements to make here.”

  Ernest stood up, hiding his mouth, which was twitching, and walked into the bedroom, closed the door, and lay down on the bed in the dark, with his eye open.

  THE next day, Charlie and Dr. Slater and Sally went down to the Bremen an hour before sailing time and boarded the ship on different gangplanks. They stood separately on the A deck, up forward, waiting for Preminger. Eventually he appeared, very boyish and crisp in his blue uniform. He walked past them, touched a steward on the arm—a dark, good-looking young steward—said something to him, and went aft. Charlie and Dr. Slater examined the steward closely, so that when the time came, on a dark street, there would be no mistake. Then they went home, leaving Sally there, smiling at Lueger.

  “YES,” Sally said two weeks later, “it is very clear. I’ll have dinner with him, and I’ll go to a movie with him and get him to take at least two drinks, and I’ll tell him I live on West Twelfth Street, near West Street. There’s a whole block of apartment houses there. I’ll get him down to West Twelfth Street between a quarter to one and one in the morning, and you’ll be waiting—you and Slater—on Greenwich Street, at the cor
ner, under the Ninth Avenue ‘L’. And you’ll say, ‘Pardon me, can you direct me to Sheridan Square?’ and I’ll start running.”

  “That’s right,” Charlie said. “That’s fine.” He blew reflectively on his huge hands. “That’s the whole story for Mr. Lueger. You’ll go through with it now, Sally? You’re sure you can manage it?”

  “I’ll go through with it,” Sally said. “I had a long talk with him today when the boat came in. He’s very—anxious. He likes small girls like me, he says, with black hair.”

  “What’s Ernest going to do tonight?” Dr. Slater asked. In the two weeks of waiting his throat had become so dry he had to swallow desperately every live or six words. “Somebody ought to take care of Ernest tonight.”

  “He’s going to Carnegie Hall,” Sally said. “They’re playing Brahms and Debussy.”

  “That’s a good way to spend an evening,” Charlie said. He opened his collar and pulled down his tie. “The only place I can go with Ernest these days is the movies. It’s dark, so I don’t have to look at him.”

  “He’ll pull through,” Dr. Slater said professionally. “I’m making him new teeth. He won’t be so self-conscious. He’ll adjust himself.”

  “He hardly paints anymore,” Sally said. “He just sits around the house and looks at his old pictures.”

  “He used to be a very merry man,” Slater said. “Always laughing. Always sure of what he was saying. Before he was married we used to go out together all the time and all the time the girls—my girl and his girl, no matter who they were—would give all their attention to him. All the time. I didn’t mind. I love your brother Ernest as if he was my younger brother. I could cry when I see him sitting now, covering his eye and his teeth, not saying anything, just listening to what other people have to say.”

  “Mr. Lueger,” Charlie said. “Our pal, Mr. Lueger.”

  “He carries a picture of Hitler,” Sally said. “In his watch. He showed me. He says he’s lonely.”

  “I have a theory,” Slater said. “My theory is that when Ernest finds out what happens to this Lueger, he’ll pick up. It’ll be a kind of springboard to him. It’s my private notion of the psychology of the situation.” He swallowed nervously. “How big is this Lueger?”

  “He’s a large, strong man,” Sally said.

  “I think you ought to have an instrument of some kind, Charlie,” Slater said. “Really I do.”

  Charlie laughed. He extended his two hands, palms up, the fingers curved a little, broad and muscular. “I want to take care of Mr. Lueger with my bare fists.”

  “There is no telling what—”

  “Don’t worry, Slater,” Charlie said. “Don’t worry one bit.”

  AT TWELVE that night, Sally and Lueger walked down Eighth Avenue from the Fourteenth Street subway station. Lueger held Sally’s arm as they walked, his fingers moving up and down, occasionally grasping the loose cloth of her coat.

  “I like you,” he said, walking very close to her. “You are a good girl. You are made excellent. I am happy to accompany you home. You are sure you live alone?”

  “Don’t worry,” Sally said. “I’d like a drink.”

  “Aaah,” Lueger said. “Waste time.”

  “I’ll pay for it,” Sally said. She had learned a lot about him in the evening. “My own money. Drinks for you and me.”

  “If you say so,” Lueger said, steering her into a bar. “One drink, because we have something to do tonight.” He pinched her playfully and laughed, looking obliquely into her eyes with a kind of technical suggestiveness.

  UNDER, the Ninth Avenue “L” at Twelfth Street, Charlie and Dr. Slater leaned against an Elevated pillar, in deep shadow.

  “I wonder if they’re coming,” Slater said finally, in a flat, high whisper. “They’ll come,” Charlie said, keeping his eyes on the little triangular park up Twelfth Street where it joins Eighth Avenue. “That Sally has guts. That Sally loves my dumb brother like he was the President of the United States. As if he was a combination of Lenin and Michelangelo. And he had to go and get his eye batted out.”

  “He’s a very fine man,” Slater said, “your brother Ernest. A man with true ideals. I am very sorry to see what has happened to his character since—is that them?”

  “No,” Charlie said. “It’s two girls from the Y.W.C.A. on the corner.”

  “He used to be a very happy man,” Slater said. “Always laughing.”

  “Yeah,” Charlie said. “Yeah. Why don’t you keep quiet, Slater?”

  “Excuse me,” Slater said. “I don’t like to bother you. But I must talk. Otherwise, if I just stand here keeping still, I will suddenly start running and I’ll run right up to Forty-second Street. I can’t keep quiet at the moment, excuse me.”

  “Go ahead and talk then,” Charlie said, patting him on the shoulder. “Shoot your mouth right off, all you want.”

  “I am only doing this because I think it will help Ernest,” Slater said, leaning hard against the pillar, in the shadow, to keep his knees straight. The Elevated was like a dark roof stretching all the way across from building line to building line. “We should have brought an instrument with us, though. A club, a knife, brass knuckles.” Slater put his hands in his pockets, holding them tight against the cloth to keep them from trembling. “It will be very bad if we mess this up. Won’t it be very bad, Charlie?”

  “Sh-h-h,” Charlie said.

  Slater looked up the street. “That’s them. That’s Sally, that’s her coat.”

  “Sh-h-h, Slater. Sh-h-h.”

  “I feel very cold, Charlie. Do you feel cold? It’s a warm night but I—”

  “For Christ’s sake, shut up!”

  “We’ll fix him,” Slater whispered. “Yes, Charlie, I’ll shut up. Sure, I’ll shut up, depend on me, Charlie.”

  SALLY and Lueger walked slowly down Twelfth Street. Lueger had his arm around Sally’s waist. “That was a very fine film tonight,” he was saying. “I enjoy Deanna Durbin. Very young, fresh, sweet. Like you.” He grinned at Sally in the dark and held tighter to her waist. “A small young maid. You are just the kind I like.” When he tried to kiss her, Sally turned her head away.

  “Let’s walk fast,” she said, watching Charlie and Slater move out from the “L” shadow. “Let’s not waste time.”

  Lueger laughed happily. “That’s it. That’s the way a girl should talk.”

  They walked swiftly toward the Elevated, Lueger laughing, his hand on her hip in certainty and possession.

  “Pardon me,” Slater said. “Could you direct me to Sheridan Square?”

  “Well,” said Sally, stopping, “it’s—”

  Charlie swung, and Sally started running as soon as she heard the wooden little noise a fist makes on a man’s face. Charlie held Lueger up with one hand and chopped the lolling head with the other. Then he carried Lueger back into the shadows against a high iron fence. He hung Lueger by his overcoat against one of the iron points, so he could use both hands on him. Slater watched for a moment, then turned and looked up at Eighth Avenue.

  Charlie worked very methodically, getting his two hundred pounds behind short, accurate, smashing blows that made Lueger’s head jump and loll and roll against the iron pikes. Charlie hit him in the nose three times, squarely, using his fist the way a carpenter uses a hammer. Each time Slater heard the sound of bone breaking, cartilage tearing. When Charlie got through with the nose, he went after the mouth, hooking along the side of the jaws with both hands until teeth fell out and the jaw hung open, smashed, loose with the queer looseness of flesh that is no longer moored to solid bone. Charlie started crying, the tears running down into his mouth, the sobs shaking him as he swung his fists. Even then Slater didn’t turn around. He just put his hands to his ears and looked steadfastly at Eighth Avenue.

  Charlie was talking. “You bastard!” he was saying. “Oh you dumb, mean, skirt-chasing, sonofabitch bastard!” And he kept hitting with fury and deliberation at the shattered face.

  A car c
ame up Twelfth Street from the waterfront and slowed down at the corner. Slater jumped on the running board. “Keep moving,” he said, very tough, “if you know what’s good for you.” Then he jumped off the running board and watched the car speed away.

  Charlie, still sobbing, pounded Lueger in the chest and belly. With each blow, Lueger slammed against the iron fence with a noise like a carpet being beaten until his coat ripped off the pike and he slid to the sidewalk. Charlie stood back then, his fists swaying, the sweat running down his face inside his collar, his clothes stained with blood. “O.K.,” he said. “O.K., you bastard.” He walked swiftly uptown under the “L” in the shadows, and Slater hurried after him.

  MUCH later, in the hospital, Preminger stood over the bed in which Lueger lay unconscious, in splints and bandages.

  “Yes,” he said to the detective and the doctor, “that’s our man. Lueger. A steward. The papers on him are correct.”

  “Who do you think done it?” the detective asked in a routine voice. “Did he have any enemies?”

  “Not that I know of,” Preminger said. “He was a very popular boy. Especially with the ladies.”

  The detective started out of the ward. “Well,” he said, “he won’t be a very popular boy when he gets out of here.”

  Preminger shook his head. “You must be very careful in a strange city,” he said to the intern, and went back to his ship.

  [1939]

  TAMA JANOWITZ

  PHYSICS

  AFTER I GOT MY HAIR CUT at High Style 2000 on Lexington Avenue, I was hit by a car. It wasn’t even a very nice vehicle, just a blue-and-white Pinto. I was trying to cross the street in the middle of the block, and the car backed up and hit me in the legs at knee level. I didn’t realize that I’d been struck by a car; it felt more as if someone came along and punched me in the legs. Then it pulled forward. I was stunned. I kept staring at the license plate: it said 867-UHH. I tried to memorize it. The car wasn’t going anywhere—I guess the driver was waiting to see if I was seriously damaged. I was angry, even if it was my fault. I glared at the car and tried to give the driver the evil eye. He leaned out the window and yelled at me, “You stupid, or what? Didn’t you see how far away from you I was?” Now, I am a word person and have never been good with mathematical problems—how many miles a train can travel in five hours if its speed is forty miles per hour, and so forth. I always think, What if a cow gets in the way? Probably because of this, I almost flunked high-school physics. Every night my mother made me memorize phrases from the textbook, but it didn’t do any good. The teacher tried to help me after school, but I still got a D. Faced with the driver’s hard question on Lexington Avenue, I wanted to do something—go scream at him, for instance—but I was afraid. I remembered my mother telling me how, at age two, she was taken on a trip from Atlanta to Manhattan and when her mother took her outside to play in the courtyard of the building they were staying in someone opened a window and poured a pail of water onto my mother’s head. Whoever it was didn’t like the fact that my mother was singing under that window at nine o’clock on a Sunday morning. Of course, my grandmother dried her off (or the water evaporated quickly or slowly, depending on the coefficient of diffusion) and called the police and the newspapers. My mother still had the clipping with the photo from the Herald Tribune, captioned “A MINUTE MYSTERY.” It showed her in Shirley Temple ringlets, with chubby legs, and the article described how little Sonia Silverman, up from Georgia on a visit, had been the victim of a nasty prank.