Take it easy, Tony. Calm down. Everything will work out—and such was the end of that bit of troublesome arrears. Settled.
Autumn leaves lay in damp clumps along the curbs. Some of them still struggling to be yellow and red as they fell from faraway trees and were somehow carried into the treeless streets. Thinking of autumn leaves brought Tony’s mind to the first vodka of the evening. It was time to step back through the door with its polished brass knocker in the shape of a lion’s head. Time for his little bar alcove and zinc sink encased in pine, his American Back Porch period; time to get ice from the Sub-Zero, High-Tech period. It was time to relax, watch the evening news and, after that, “Hard Copy” or “A Current Affair.” But the lovers didn’t know the wife was waiting! That sort of problem.
Poor Zona, he said. I’d give the old eyeteeth to help you out. I really would, believe me. I know what you folks are going through, but things are a little tight with me at this point in time. That is, right now.
Tony was from Memphis. It had long been understood by him and his world in New York that he had a special sort of down-home, churchgoing way with black people. Perhaps he did, with his loquacity, curiosity, good humor—when he wasn’t in a rage. There were, indeed, some occasions when he was more “Southern” than others.
The financial aspect of the transaction on the stoop in the East Seventies seemed to have blown away to rest elsewhere, like the leaves. This resolution, if you could call it that, left Tony free to ask: What’s your name, fella?
My name is Carlos.
Carlos, is it? A bit out of the way to my ear. But then I don’t know just where Zona got her name, either. And you might ask how I come to be Tony, like an Italian. Never laid eyes on one till I was your age.
That went by without interference, and Tony prepared for a retreat. Zona was a fine person, a special individual. Kind of a lady in her bearing. Of the old school, as they say. And how old was she? No time for that now. Time for the zinc-sink folly. He directed Carlos to another of Zona’s group when he saw the young man looking at what appeared to be a list.
Check out Joseph, he said. But don’t turn up before seven. He works. As a goodbye offering for Carlos, Tony went into his act, accent and all. Joseph’s a good ole boy. And, just between us, he’s got pigs at the trough, chickens scootin’ round the yard, hay in the barn, and preserves in the cellar. Definitely not hungry, if you get my drift.
Carlos bowed his head and made his way down the stoop. Now, Tony wondered, just what was I going on about? Carlos, not even Southern, for God’s sake. But, Southern or not, he called out to the disappearing tangerine back, God bless!
Inside, double-locked, vodka in hand, he rang up Joseph and gave a synopsis and foretold the boy’s visit.
What did Zona die of? Joseph wanted to know.
Don’t ask me. Just passed away.
AT SEVEN-FIFTEEN the elevator man called Joseph’s apartment and said that a young man named Zona wanted to be brought up, and Joseph said, Bring him up. It was an awful moment at the door, with the young man saying, Zona passed away.
Yes, I know. Tony rang me. It’s very sad news indeed. I’ve known Zona for fifteen years. A long time for New York, I guess.
Joseph worked in a distinguished print shop on Madison Avenue, a shop owned by a distinguished dealer, a Jewish refugee from Germany. Joseph himself was a second-generation Jewish refugee from Germany. He had been brought up in America by his parents, who left Germany in the mid-nineteen-thirties, went first to England and then to New York. They left with some of their family money, and in New York the father became a successful accountant and the mother trained with Karen Horney and went into practice as a therapist. The parents died and did not leave Joseph penniless, even if what had seemed a lot in the nineteen-seventies didn’t seem much at all now.
He had studied history and French at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, a happy place for him, which confirmed his parents’ notion that young persons of foreign birth should experience the country outside New York. Several years after graduation, he married a Michigan girl and they came to the city, where he learned the old-print business from the Master. It was not long before the Michigan girl found life too old-print—too German and all that. For Joseph the marriage seemed mysteriously to dissolve, but his bride used the word “disintegrate” with unflattering fervor. She took some of Joseph’s inheritance and left Joseph with his natural sentimentality and diffidence increased. She left him also in some way frightened, even though cheerfulness was his outward aspect and went handily with his stocky, plumpish figure.
Joseph was wearing a black suit, a shirt of blue stripes, and a black tie. Business wear, except that he was in his socks. The therapeutic walk of twenty blocks up Madison Avenue had taken its toll on his feet, as he explained to Carlos. He invited the young man into a study off the living room, where there was a large desk. Here Joseph planned to talk to Carlos and to write out a check in honor of Zona. Of course it was a difficult meeting, since Joseph lacked Tony’s chattering, dominating intimacy with every cat and dog and beggar (Sorry, man, out of change) on the street.
Please be at ease. Uh, Carlos, isn’t it? Be at ease, Joseph said. And he sent the young man to sink into an old leather chair. Here in this dark cubicle, with the desk taking up most of the space and books on the floor, Joseph switched on the lights dug into the ceiling. Under the not entirely friendly illumination, the face of Carlos was a warm, light brown, the color of certain packing envelopes. With his eyes a swim of black and his oily black curls, Carlos looked like a figure in a crowded painting of some vivid historical scene, a face peering over the gleaming shoulders of white bodies, a face whose presence would need to be interpreted by scholars. Joseph found himself lost in this for a moment or two but could not name the painting, if any, that he was trying to recall.
No, no, he said. This is going too fast. No hurry, no hurry. He led Carlos into the kitchen and brought forth a bottle of Pellegrino. They took their glasses and Joseph had the idea of showing Carlos around the flat. In a mournful voice, he said: Carlos, this was Zona’s place.
The apartment was on the overstuffed side, like Joseph himself. It had been done by Tony, and that was the cause of their meeting. Tony’s contributions were window drapery that rolled up in a scalloped pattern, a sofa in something that looked like tapestry and ended in a band of fringe around the bottom—those and the recessed ceiling lights. For the rest, there was a mahogany dining table, with six heavy high-backed chairs spread around the three rooms. The bedroom had a suite done in an ivory color with a lot of gilt on its various components, a dated bunch of pieces coldly reigning amidst the glossy white walls.
While the apartment was being renovated, Joseph had announced that he didn’t intend to buy any large pieces, because he had his mother’s things in storage. Tony rolled his eyes and said: A catastrophe lies ahead. And, not long after, he came face to face with the accumulation of objects as heavy and strong, and spread around as helplessly, as old, dull-eyed mammoths. Tony blew a smoke ring at Joseph and exclaimed: I wouldn’t believe it. It’s wonderful. Park Avenue Early Jewish!
He wanted everything sent off to Tepper’s auction house. Estate sale, Joseph. Estate sale. Joseph was taken with a fit of sentimental stubbornness, and most of the loot remained. Sometimes, when friends came around, he would smile, wave his arm about, and say, Here you have it. Early Jewish. Of course, he had his prints, his library, his silver, some old clocks. And he had Zona, whom he seldom saw, but whose presence in his life was treasured. Her hours, once a week, with a single gentleman out of the house, unlike the freelance Tony, were whatever suited her. Sometimes Joseph was at home in the late afternoon and they collided. Rapid, graceful, and courteous, she filled him with the most pleasurable emotions. The wastebaskets were emptied, the sheets on the ivory-and-gilt bed changed, a few shirts, not his best, ironed. There was that, but even more it was the years, the alliance, the black bird herself.
He directed Ca
rlos back to the room with the desk and, hesitating, uncertain of his ground, he said: Tell me what happened to Zona. That is, if you don’t mind.
Zona was shot, Carlos said, lowering his gaze to the wrinkled kilim on the floor.
Joseph drank from the water glass. Then he put it down and pressed his plump hands together. Shot. What a miserable ending for Zona. Such a—what shall I say about her? In truth, Joseph did not have words to describe Zona. He often felt: I love Zona. But that did not appear to be an appropriate expression somehow. For love, although fearful of the details, he asked: Who shot Zona?
Carlos said: Mister Joseph, they haven’t got him yet. The one who did it.
You mean on the street? Just like that?
It was with the driver. Her livery driver.
Livery driver?
The driver with the car who drove her around to her places, brought her into town in the morning and met her at their corner and drove her home. For a long time, it’s been. Some years, the arrangement. Martin was his name.
Joseph said: Martin shot Zona?
Carlos looked at him with a curious, long glance, a look of impatience, as if he could not believe Joseph did not comprehend what he knew so well himself. Carefully, he said: Martin didn’t shoot Zona. She always sat in front with him. They were both shot.
Joseph, near to a sob, said: You must mean a robbery or something like that.
That’s what it was. A fare that came in on the car radio. Got in the back seat and that was it.
There it was. It was time for Joseph to ask, What can I do for Zona? Carlos said they were having trouble with the arrangements, and when Joseph got his pen to write a check, Carlos said, Checks are hard. We don’t have any banks especially. Any that know us. So, in the end, Joseph found two hundred dollars and Carlos rose to leave. I’ll take it to her sister.
Whose sister?
Zona’s sister. My mother. And in the gloom he was escorted to the elevator and went down to the street, where now rain splashed and wind blew.
Joseph phoned Tony and said, Shot. And Tony said, Shot? Wouldn’t you just know it?
Joseph said, There’s a sister.
Whose sister?
Zona’s sister. That’s who we’re talking about, right? The sister is the mother of Carlos. It’s horrible to think of Zona gone like that. From the back seat.
Tony said, What back seat? But Joseph declined. Nothing, Tony, nothing. Just shot.
Tony said: History of this goddam city—at least a footnote to the history of these fucking times. The whole place is a firing range, up and down and across.
Joseph said: Zona’s not a footnote to me. I loved Zona.
Didn’t we all? came back over the wire.
THE next morning, Carlos arrived at a town house on East Ninety-first Street, the house of Cynthia, the flute player. The door was ajar and noise could be heard inside—voices, a phonograph, a telephone ringing and answered. Carlos pushed the bell button and waited next to a stone urn of faltering geraniums. After a time, a young girl, about his age, called out for Granny, and after a minute or two here came Cynthia in a smock. This time the opening line was: I’m Carlos. From Zona.
How nice. Come in, come in. You are welcome here.
There were boots and umbrellas in the hallway, coats hanging on pegs, newspapers stacked for recycling—quite a busy entrance, you’d have to say.
Carlos was led into the front parlor, where there was a piano, along with bookcases, two-seater sofas, and a big, lumpy armchair by the window, to which he was directed. Cynthia drew a chair very near to him, and her greenish, amiable eyes gazed into his liquid black ones and at last she said: I missed Zona this week. You know—Carlos, is it?—that I consider it very brave of Zona to set foot into my jungle. An army couldn’t handle it. You can see that, I’m sure. But Zona found things to do, and I am much in her debt.
Carlos looked aside. Zona passed away, he said.
Cynthia sat up straight as a rod in her chair and looked up at the ceiling for a long time. At last she said: I wasn’t prepared for this. Passed on from this life, Zona. Just like that.
Zona passed away, he repeated, and Cynthia seemed lost in contemplation, meditation of some kind. Oh, oh, passed away. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I hope it was an easy death. An easy passage after a hard, honorable life.
Carlos said: No, Ma’am. It wasn’t easy. Zona was shot.
Cynthia drew her chair nearer, brought her golden-gray head so close that Carlos tilted his black curls back a bit. Then Cynthia placed her long fingers on his hand and drew his other brown hand over her own so that they were in a clasp like that practiced in progressive churches. Shot, you say. More than the heart can bear.
Cynthia grew up in Baltimore, went to the Curtis Institute, in Philadelphia, had a three-week summer session in Paris with Rampal, and in her younger years had played for a time in the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Then she came with her husband and daughter to New York and bought the house on Ninety-first Street. Thirty-nine thousand it cost then, she would say. Only that. The money had come from the closing of her grandfather’s Baltimore business, a handsome store where well-to-do women could buy dresses, coats and satin lingerie, cologne and face powder. Three floors in a fine downtown brick building, clerks long in service, and seamstresses with pins in their mouths while making alterations. Ours was a select business, she would say with an ironical lilt and the special tone of Unitarian modesty. It was very well known and much respected in the community. To be that, you had to be somewhat cool to ordinary people. You didn’t want them to look at things and then go pale at the price. But the doors were welcoming to one and all on the Day After the Fourth of July Sale. A yearly excitement it was, people in line at seven in the morning.
Releasing the hand of Carlos, Cynthia said: Tell me what you and your family have been going through. She passed him a damp cookie and a cat entered the room and settled on his lap. Carlos ate the cookie and stroked the cat. Looking hard at Cynthia, he said in a tone of apology: You see, I never met any of the people Zona worked for before this happened. I don’t know just what they might want to hear.
I want to hear what you can bear to tell, Cynthia said.
In a breathless rush, Carlos told about the livery car that had taken Zona back and forth to her work, about the passenger who got in from the radio call and hadn’t been caught yet. And he added that his mother, Zona’s sister, would have come round to the people but she was home crying herself crazy.
I will attend Zona’s funeral, Cynthia said. I want to be there. For me, it would be an honor. And it occurs to me that if you wish I might play a little music. Something suitable, of course.
Carlos raised his hand to interrupt. It was time to complete his errand: We haven’t been able to make the arrangements for Zona.
Cynthia said at this point: Funeral arrangements cost much more than they need to. I read a book about that—although I didn’t need to be informed about the ways of such institutions.
Carlos, a diver at the tip of the board, fixed his glance on Cynthia’s bright head of white hair, with the brown streaks turning golden. He said: She’s been there a week while we couldn’t make the arrangements. They put them in the ground, like in a field, they say.
Been where?
With the city down where they keep them. If you can’t make the arrangements to transfer, they put them—
Oh, Cynthia said. You mean Potter’s Field?
Carlos said: That sounds like it.
The granddaughter who had opened the door came into the room and introductions were made. As she was going out, she said to Carlos: You’re cute.
This young person is in a state of bereavement, Cynthia called to the girl. And she added: Neither of my grandchildren is musical. They can’t sing “Adeste Fideles” in tune. A deprivation.
Pigeons rested on the sills of the long, handsome, smeary windows still divided into the original panes and now interrupted only by a rusty air-conditioner. I can’t tak
e it all in, Cynthia said. I would like to know what Zona’s family needs.
What we want, Ma’am, he said, what we want is a coffin on a train, and a few of us family will go down and have her buried in Opelika.
Opelika? Where is that?
Alabama. Zona’s town.
Opelika, Alabama. What a pretty name.
The ground down there’s paid for, Carlos explained.
Cynthia drew a pencil from the pocket of her smock, found a pad, and began to write on it. I have probably waited too long to sell this house, she said. The prices are falling fast—the darkness deepening, as the hymn goes.
Cynthia and her chamber-music group occasionally held concerts in this house, and at one of those Joseph had brought Tony along. Tony, when the invitation came, said: I might have guessed you’d go for that, Joseph. German.
During the wine and cheese, inferior quality indeed, Tony approached Cynthia and in an excited mode informed her: You are sitting on a million bucks here—if not exactly in mint condition. He noted the paneling, the high ceilings, and the matching fireplaces of decorated marble on the first floor. Assets you have here. A million for sure, at the bottom.
Tony was floating like a sturdy little boat on the waters of the house market. A million for the property and another mil at least to do it up. They’re terrorists, these buyers. They like to gut the place, break down walls, even move the staircase so they can put a powder room under it. Space, dear lady, that’s the ticket. Space is what you have to sell.
Of course, Cynthia stayed on. The house, the space, was all she had to leave her daughter, the way things looked. She rented rooms to students, gave lessons, while lamenting that the lesson-takers were mostly girls and few strong enough for the instrument. In these rooms now she was contemplating life and death with Carlos. It was calculated that a thousand dollars was needed to rescue Zona. And there was the problem with cashing checks, and just two days before they would, down there at the city, before they would—
Wonderful Town: New York Stories from The New Yorker Page 61