Wonderful Town: New York Stories from The New Yorker

by David Remnick

  The bridegroom recently graduated from Harvard College. He spent his junior year at the Pentagon, a military concern in Washington, D.C. He will join his father on the board of directors of the Municipal Choate Assistance Corporation. His previous marriage ended in divorce.

  CABINET, DELOS NUPTIALS SET

  Ellen Frances Cabinet, a self-help student at Manifest Destiny Junior College, plans to be married in August to Wengdell Delos, a sculptor, of Tampa, Fla. The engagement was announced by the parents of the future bride, Mr. and Mrs. Crowe Cabinet of New York. Mr. Cabinet is a consultant to the New York Stock Exchange.

  Mr. Delos’s previous marriage ended in an undisclosed settlement. His sculpture is on exhibition at the New York Stock Exchange. He received a B.F.A. degree from the Wen-El-Del Company, a real-estate-development concern with headquarters in Tampa.

  MISS BURDETTE WED TO MAN

  Pews Chapel aboard the Concorde was the setting for the marriage of Bethpage Burdette to Jean-Claude LaGuardia Case, an account executive for the Junior Assemblies. Maspeth Burdette was maid of honor for her sister, who was also attended by Massapequa Burdette, Mrs. William O. Dose, and Mrs. Hodepohl Inks.

  The parents of the bride, Dr. and Mrs. Morris Plains Burdette of New York, are partners in Conspicuous Conception, an art gallery and maternity-wear cartel.

  The ceremony was performed by the Rev. Erasmus Tritt, a graduate of Skidmore Finishing and Divinity School and president of Our Lady of the Lake Commuter Airlines. The Rev. Tritt was attended by the flight crew. The previous marriages he has performed all ended in divorce.

  DAISY LAUDERDALE FEATURED AS BRIDE

  Daisy Ciba Lauderdale of Boston was married at the Presbyterian Church and Trust to Gens Cosnotti, a professor of agribusiness at the Massachusetts State Legislature. There was a reception at the First Court of Appeals Club.

  The bride, an alumna of the Royal Doulton School and Loot University, is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Cyrus Harvester Lauderdale. Her father is retired from the family consortium. She is also a descendant of Bergdorf Goodman of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Her previous marriage ended in pharmaceuticals.

  Professor Cosnotti’s previous marriage ended in a subsequent marriage. His father, the late Artaud Cosnotti, was a partner in the Vietnam War. The bridegroom is also related somehow to Mrs. Bethlehem de Steel of Newport, R.I., and Vichy, Costa Rica; Brenda Frazier, who was a senior partner with Delta, Kappa & Epsilon and later general manager of marketing for the U.S. Department of State; I. G. Farben, the former King of England; and Otto von Bismarck, vice-president of the Frigidaire Division of General Motors, now a division of The Hotchkiss School.

  AFFIANCEMENT FOR MISS CONVAIR

  Archbishop and Mrs. Marquis Convair of Citibank, N.Y., have made known the engagement of their daughter, Bulova East Hampton Convair, to the Joint Chiefs of Staff of Arlington County, Va. Miss Convair is a holding company in the Bahamas.

  All four grandparents of the bride-to-be were shepherds and shepherdesses.

  [1980]

  NICCOLO TUCCI

  THE EVOLUTION OF KNOWLEDGE

  THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG with the floors of our apartment in New York. Not even our superintendent can do anything about it, for the cause of the trouble lies beyond his reach; it may, in fact, be traced back to the incongruities of Progress and to the decay of Western Civilization. Also to my two children, especially my son Vieri, who is seven. Every bounce of Vieri’s ball on the floor evokes the spirit of Mr. Feinstein and sets into motion a long line of actions and reactions, which end in Mr. Feinstein’s pounding on the radiator pipe or on his ceiling right under our feet. The spirit of Mr. Feinstein grows bigger, bigger, bigger, until everything is Mr. Feinstein. Vieri, in fact, is the real Sorcerer’s Apprentice with that ball—turn ti, turn ti, tatata, turn ti, turn ti . . .

  But there was a time when Mr. Feinstein didn’t allow his spirit to reach us through his ceiling. He kept his fuming downstairs. That is why I think the story should be told; it is a highly philosophical story, because it proves that knowledge is not static but instead is constantly in the process of evolution.

  Three years ago, when Mr. Feinstein pounded on the radiator, we did not care. Then, one day, I met him in the elevator. Though we had never happened to meet before, each of us knew instinctively who the other was, so, man to man, we had one of those bitter exchanges of words, just off the limits of politeness, that are usually accompanied by acceleration of the heartbeat and heavy breathing. Alas, in our case the exchange was also marked by an uncontrollable relapse into our foreign accents. Though this last hampered the free flow of profanity, it was how I learned that Mr. Feinstein came from Saxony, and how he, who has lived in my country, understood that I came from Tuscany. But what we chiefly managed to convey to each other was that “Man must sleep” (his theory) and “Children must jump” (mine). The next time we met, we realized that we were both haters of hate more than of each other, so we tried to solve the problem by means of diplomatic negotiation. “We exiles,” I said, “are always in a state of repressed emotion.” He nodded and then explained, with many apologies, that the floor squeaked terribly even when I walked on it barefoot, and I explained, with my own apologies, that I had intended for some time to buy carpets for all the rooms, “but you know . . .” And he said, “Don’t I know! You must not misunderstand me, please. It’s not your fault. The floors haven’t been repaired for the last two years, because of the war. So, you see, it’s definitely one of those things that cannot be helped.”

  I thanked him for the acquittal, and he had an even more encouraging observation for me. Children’s noise was also just one of those things that could not be helped, he said. I said, “You’re much too kind, and, to tell you the truth, my children should learn how to behave.” “Oh, no,” he said, and I knew that he was growing political in his thoughts, because his face became quite sombre. “We have all suffered too much because of this idea of restraint,” he said. “I, who was brought up in the strictest discipline, am now all in favor of the American system. Children here may do just as they please. They grow healthier, freer.”

  I nodded gratefully and, feeling that I must now repay him for his understanding, began to search my mind for something very bad to say against my children, something that would even make them appear to be unworthy of this blessed American freedom. But before I could formulate a reply, he made a demand. “All I ask you to do,” he said, “is to have the children wear slippers on Saturdays and Sundays until at least ten in the morning, for that’s the only time in the week that I can rest a little.”

  “This is indeed very little to ask,” I said, “and I assure you that it will be done.”

  When I entered my apartment and found my family gathered in plenary session in the kitchen, I announced that I had just had a pleasant talk with the man downstairs. To my wife, I said, by way of comment, “A very civilized, kind person, really,” and to the children, by way of injunction, “All he wants from you is that on Saturdays and Sundays, until after ten in the morning, you walk with your slippers on and don’t play ball. Can you imagine anything easier than that?” They immediately saw the adventure in a program of this kind; the idea of connecting their slippers with a given period of time seemed full of mystery and charm. Vieri told me that he would watch the clock and the very instant the hand touched the first tiny portion of the figure 10, he would throw his slippers against the ceiling. And Bimba, who is only five, immediately went to her room and came back to the kitchen, where we were sitting, with her slippers and Vieri’s, to rehearse the Feast of Liberation.

  “No, no!” I shouted, and my wife shouted, “No, no!” But since the slippers were already flying in all directions and landing in the sink, on the gas rings, behind the icebox, and on the breakfast table, I saw that the situation was desperate, and I commanded silence. Then I made an announcement.

  “First of all,” I said, “when he says ten o’clock, he doesn’t mean that at ten sharp we have
to start making a lot of noise. Ten o’clock means some time in the middle of the morning. We don’t want to impose on his kindness.”

  “Impose?” Vieri asked. “What does that mean?”

  “Now, look,” I said. “The idea is this: We don’t want to be unkind to this man.” And I went on to explain that on Saturday and Sunday mornings we would go to the park if the weather was fine or play quiet games at home if it rained.

  IN BACK of our apartment building, above the parkway and the Hudson, there is a wild cliff covered with rocks and trees. This is where all the children of the apartment house play, and in summer or on mild winter days many of the grownups sit there in deck chairs and hate the children while enjoying the view of the boats on the river. My wife sometimes goes to the cliff with the children in the afternoon, and it was there, a few days after our family session, that she first met Mrs. Feinstein. From her, she learned that Mr. Feinstein had been a writer in Germany and that he was now again trying to write, in a new language. He had a quiet office downtown where he worked five days a week, but the shattering experiences of the past in Germany and the difficulty of mastering English had so discouraged him that after a day of writing he could hardly sleep at night, which was why he had to have his rest on Saturdays and Sundays. Mrs. Feinstein also expressed the hope that we would see more of each other and become friends. “You see,” said my wife to me later, after recounting all this, “it’s really a matter of honor for us to make up for our past sins and show that we are able to bring up our children to be civilized human beings.”

  “Yes, indeed,” I said, “especially as the Feinsteins have asked little enough of us. We won’t even try to become real friends with them until after we’ve given them reason to respect us.”

  Thus began our ordeal.

  The first Saturday morning, both children put on their slippers and climbed on the table in their bedroom to reach for the picture books on the top shelf. I was in my room looking at the paper when I heard the most frightful noise. I rushed into the children’s room and saw that all the big books and a box filled with wooden blocks, plus three or four wooden cows, had fallen on the floor. The children were blaming each other for the disaster, and they at once began a battle of shoes, books, and marbles. Needless to say, the reaction from downstairs was none too kind, and we learned later that even though we had gone out for the entire afternoon, Mr. Feinstein had found it impossible to repair the damage done to his sleep that day.

  I was lucky enough not to see Mr. Feinstein for a whole week after the incident, but one day my wife met his wife when they were both waiting their turns at the washing machine in the basement. My wife renewed our pledge to keep to the ten-o’clock limit on weekends. This happened on a Friday, so very early the next morning, before the children could wake up, I went into their room and put their slippers in a place where they would be sure to see them. Next to the slippers, I put colored pencils, toys, and other accepted items of pre-breakfast entertainment. Everything went splendidly that one day—so splendidly, in fact, that we often recalled the occasion later and said among ourselves, “Why can’t we have another December 17th?” But the fact is that we just didn’t; in our family, at least, history does not repeat itself.

  A couple of months later, rumors began to reach us from reliable sources, as they say in the papers, to the effect that Mr. Feinstein always spoke of us as “the parents of the two noisy children.” Not a friendly word about us. This struck my wife and me painfully, and what disturbed us even more was to learn from one of our neighbors that Mr. Feinstein had received bad news from his family in Europe and was quite depressed.

  My wife and I then held a secret meeting to plan a new strategy. It was a Monday morning and we had just got the children off to school.

  “I am more worried about ourselves than about Mr. Feinstein,” said my wife. “What will become of us in the future when, instead of trying to teach the children not to make noise, we will want to teach them not to wage aggressive wars on their neighbors?”

  “The future is not yet,” I said, “so don’t worry.”

  The next morning, I stopped in at my children’s school and consulted the school psychologist, whom I had come to know and like. He said, “Very simple, my friend. If you want to impress upon your children the notion that Mr. Feinstein is asleep, you must first believe it yourself. It’s like the psychology of selling—you can never sell a thing in which you yourself have no faith. And furthermore,” he said, “your methods are dictatorial. You can’t ask children for exceptional behavior on Saturdays without any previous training. Try to approach Saturday by degrees. Accumulate a capital of habit, act artificially by minor doses, until Saturday comes to them naturally, without a shock.”

  I thanked him very much for his advice and began that same day to think in terms of Saturday. Mr. Feinstein was away in his office downtown, but I was beginning to prepare a nice silence for him upstairs. It was a wonderful feeling. I almost saw myself as a young bride preparing the first meal for her husband, hours before he comes back from the office. I walked cautiously, even typed cautiously (for I work at home), and when the children returned from school, I said to them, “Let’s all work together for a better Saturday.”

  “Hurrah!” they shouted. “Let’s work right away! May we use our shovels?”

  “Children!” I whispered in my new velveted, tired voice. “Please, my dear, good, gentle children! Come, let’s sit peacefully together and have silent fun!” And while saying this, I caressed their heads and closed my eyes to suggest peace.

  I HAVE come to the point at which my critics (among them my wife) accuse me of having brought violence into my advocacy of peace. They may be right; perhaps I am too passionate a character anyway. Well, it was Thursday afternoon and the children were playing in their room while I was writing in the living room. Needless to say, Mr. Feinstein was not at home. Suddenly I heard the sound of hammering. I emerged from the nineteenth century in Rome, in which my work had submerged me, to ask my wife with anguish, “What time is it?” Saturday morning was in my subconscious, so much so that I began to plead with my son to stop hammering. My wife took his side against me; she said he had every right to play with his tool kit. I tried everything, even literature. I said, “If Thursday is here, can Saturday be far behind? Think of that poor man downstairs, who will be asleep in less than two days from now!” Neither Vieri nor my wife was impressed.

  That night, I committed my greatest mistake. I went downstairs and asked Mr. Feinstein to help me, and although he said again that those two mornings on the weekend were all he cared for, I insisted so earnestly that he made two more demands: a 1-to-3 P.M. silence on Sundays and a nightly silence after nine. It was a little too much, I felt, but after all I’d asked for it. In fairness to Mr. Feinstein, I must say that he did what he could to help me, pounding his disapproval on the radiator pipe each time we played the victrola or I typed after nine. Since his approval was not shown by any applause but was simply left to our guess, our hopeful guessing, plus those occasional ghostlike rappings on the radiator, seemed to summon up Mr. Feinstein’s spirit. The whole family began to flee from it. We withdrew to the kitchen and lived there like fugitives; we talked to our guests in whispers and always told them not to walk too confidently, lest the spirit wake up.

  One evening, while we were having guests—Mr. Feinstein was, of course, present in spirit—my wife observed that our lot had not improved much with exile; in Italy the tyrant had been constantly awake over us, here he was asleep under our feet. The joke was such a success that one of our guests, laughing convulsively, drummed on the floor with his heels, and at once—bang, bang—the spirit replied. Before long, the phrase “Mr. Feinstein is asleep” was no longer a phrase; it was a dogma. It was, in fact, the Law. I vaguely recall that this was the period when I could no longer work on my historical research, and while my actions were all devoted to the defense of Mr. Feinstein’s sleep, my thoughts centered on hating him. Finally, a frie
nd gave me a key to his apartment, so that I could go there to work in peace. But the fact was that I went there only to be able to hate Mr. Feinstein without interruptions. In the meantime, the children went on making a lot of noise, and they even began taking liberties with Mr. Feinstein such as I would never have dared. One day, my son met him in the elevator. It was the eve of the long Easter holidays, the thought of which was already filling me with dread. Mr. Feinstein said to Vieri, “You are lucky to have such a long vacation.” “Yes, I am,” answered Vieri with a smile, “but you’re not.”

  At this point, I went to see the school psychologist again. He suggested that I now try the progressive method; namely, teach while playing, in the manner of the modern school. I thanked him for the idea, and the same day I began to make many jokes to the children about Mr. Feinstein, the monster downstairs. I taught them to call him Sleepyhead, and whenever his name was mentioned, we made snoring noises. Then the expression was coined: “As lazy as Mr. Feinstein.” This worked pretty well until Mr. Feinstein fell sick and actually had to stay in bed all the time. Vieri had taken up bouncing his ball again, so, to save the day, I at once established a Feinstein Prize for silence.

  Unfortunately, one Sunday afternoon not long after, while I was walking through the park with my children, we met a group of friends who were on their way to pay us a visit with their own children, six in all. As it was a beautiful day, we decided to stay outdoors and not go back to our apartment until teatime. When we started on our way home, I noticed that each of my friends’ children was armed with a ball and that one of them had iron cleats on his shoes, and I began to warn them of the “monster” that lived under our feet. My children helped me, volunteering the usual epithets and noises, and suddenly, whom did we see passing us but Mr. Feinstein, his face pale and stern. He must have been returning from a Sunday walk in the park and certainly had come up behind us and heard everything. He stared at me and said in a dignified tone that stabbed my heart, “Good afternoon.”