Barney stirred uneasily in his seat. If he could join these men for a drink, if he could share their jokes. No, always he was the outsider. So what! They were just a bunch of nogoods – he could buy and sell a dozen in an afternoon! Barney got up unsteadily, and pushing his way through the mob, he attempted to cross the street. He got mixed up in a parade and an enormous woman tried to dance with him. Barney swore under his breath, shoved the woman, and managed to break away.
The men were still yelling: GÓMEZ! Pepe!
Barney was sorry he had so much to drink and he was sorry he had been to the brothel. He felt cheap. Knocking against people, falling back again, bumping against others, he finally forced his way across the street. He rubbed the breast pocket of his jacket as if he was brushing away dust and only when he felt the reassuring bulge was he satisfied. Now, suddenly, he discovered that he was standing in front of the Mocambo Club.
The bar was empty. Apparently it was closed. But the bartender – a plump, stocky, grey-haired man, sipping muscatel himself – made no objection when Barney sat down on a stool.
“Cognac,” Barney said.
The bartender set a bottle and a glass down on the bar and moved away. He sat down in a chair that was tilted against the wall and began to read a book.
The dark and empty bar frightened Barney.
He poured himself a cognac. His hands were shaking. She’s in love with the Goy André. Among the crowds it had only been a whisper: now it was a shout. All the things that have happened to me, he thought. Always everybody against me. Maybe if I had had an education, maybe if I had studied law like Louis. But when was there money in the family? When could I have afforded it? And what about Louis? Look at him! Coming around begging for cases – an ambulance-chaser! Always studying, always pulling off those crazy marks in school, always talking his head off about books. Now look at him, earning less than a waiter. Scholarships! Married to that TB Abromovitch girl. Making a jerk out of himself for Wallace. (As if there are no pogroms in Russia; as if anybody, anybody at all – all!)
He remembered his happy jobbing days, his struggle. The one-horse towns and the half-assed Ford always breaking down on the road, the meals that were always waiting for him at home on the weekends – gefilte fish, latkas, roast chicken, kreplach. His mother smiling and crazy, his father always full of questions. (So they were bad to you, the Goyim? So they talked behind your back? A black year on them! Hitlers!) And the mad miscellany of goods he had carried – children’s toys, flashlights, washable playing cards, combination cigarette-lighter pens, household gadgets, luminous paint. Anything that would make those goddam hicks open up their eyes. The short-order joints in the Bronx. Then, the others, in Brooklyn, Manhattan, Jersey, Yonkers. Business expanding, everything good. Then, finally, the real restaurants. Miss Raymond of Garfield-Connelly had been hired to promote the first of the restaurants. (He had known few women. There had been the Delancy Street girls, who were always pulling off the marriage act; and the blondes in the hotels on the road, okay for horsing around with but how did it improve a guy?) Suddenly, here was Miss Raymond! Like the girls he had seen, and having seen, adored, going to church Sunday morning in Utica; like the girls in the Collier’s stories and Saturday Evening Post illustrations. Miss Jessica Raymond of the Jacksonville Raymonds. (Even now it was so clean and good to say. Listen: Jessica Raymond of the Jacksonville Raymonds.) He was going places, he was smart; he was going places where he could not drag a ghetto girl with her singsong and her red red lipstick.
The bartender got up. He poured himself a glass of muscatel, and then refilled Barney’s glass. “Nu? Vos macht a yid?” Chaim asked, smiling.
“Hey! You’re a Jew.”
“Yes.”
“And you speak English!”
“Why not?”
Chaim was drunk. He was celebrating the fallas, he was celebrating André and Toni’s romance, he was celebrating the loss of his club. “I’m celebrating today,” he said. “Are you celebrating?”
“No.”
Barney was embarrassed. Maybe he’s working up to a touch, he thought. “Hey, you’re a character all right,” he said.
“Are you from New York?”
“Yes.”
“You know Clinton Street?”
“Yeah.”
“The theatre where Rosenberg and his wife play?”
“No. I never had time for Yiddish theatre. My wife likes sophisticated stuff. Broadway.”
Barney lit a cigarette. Why does he frighten me? he thought. “Why is the bar so empty?” he asked.
“I’m closed. The bar is changing ownership. I’m out of a job.”
Another parade was passing. Barney could hear the drums. He winked at Chaim. “Got any women here, Jakey? You know, I can pay.”
“My name is Chaim.”
Barney began to fidget with his glass. “Well … Chaim?”
“No. I’m afraid not.”
Barney felt that Chaim held some sort of advantage over him. He pulled his wallet out. “Would you like to see some snaps of my kids?” he asked.
They’ll be ashamed of me, Barney thought.
He handed Chaim the photos. “That’s Sheldon here,” he said, “and that’s Mary Anne. Both bright as hell. And don’t ask me which is my favourite because I don’t believe in that kind of crap. It’s not right for the kids.”
“They look very sweet,” Chaim said, handing back the photos.
Suddenly Barney felt this is another Jew, and he wanted to reach out and grab him. There were so many things they could talk about – pogroms, wars, regimes, prospects, the others, how hard it was. But Barney thought: He would only laugh at me.
“I envy you. I wish I had children.”
Barney laughed a quivering laugh. “Never too late, pop. Not if you can still get it up, huh?” He refilled his glass. “Hey, you know my wife is waiting for me now. She always gets nervous if I’m out of her sight for five minutes. Scared I might make off with some other broad.” He snapped his fingers. “Phfft! The hell with it! A dime a dozen. The way to hold on to them is to play hard-to-get. Remember that, eh, pop? Say Barney Laz … Larkin told you so. But don’t go off thinking I don’t love the wifey. I’m nuts about her! But you only live once, pop. Isn’t that right, huh? Hey, look!” He emptied his wallet. “See all that money? Well, it means sweet nothing to me. Easy come, easy go. That’s the trouble with me. You know what’s the trouble with me? I’m just too goddam easy with money. Need money, eh? Go see Big Barney Larkin! Everybody says it. So what? So you only live once, huh?”
“Yes,” Chaim said, stuffing the bills back into the wallet.
“Hey! Watcha doin?” Barney tossed his head back and tried to take a glass of cognac in one shot. He began to cough.
“Wait,” Chaim said. “I’ll get some coffee. We’ll have a cup together.”
“Coffee? Do you think this is all I can handle?”
Chaim remembered Barney. He had seen him, and having seen him felt his heart go sad, a hundred thousand times. What’s going to happen, he thought? There are the books, the music, the ideas; but what’s to be done for Barney? The Guillermos hate him; the Andrés avoid him; I am too old. But Barney goes on, and on, and on. He hates the Cossacks; and one day he hopes to dine with their generals. Barney, Barney, Barney.
“No, of course not,” Chaim said. “But I’m not as young as you are. I’m feeling a bit …” Chaim reached out and placed his hand on Barney’s. “What is it?” he asked.
Barney snatched his hand away quickly. “Hey, look! Waddiya take me for?”
Chaim flushed. “Yes,” he said. “I’m getting old. This job doesn’t pay very much. It’s difficult to be a Jew in a foreign country. I imagine it must be the same in America. But you must be very successful and they wouldn’t dare bother you. I’m saving up to go to Israel. Our land! A place where a Jew can go if he’s in trouble and be sure to find friends. Love, too, if that’s what he needs. Especially if he feels he wants to begin his life o
ver again with new ideas. That’s the way I feel, you know. But I wish I had children to take with me! Or that I was a successful man with something to contribute. Do you think I’m right? I’d like your advice.”
Barney felt his hand sting where Chaim had touched him. He laughed, and slapped the bar. “Sure, pop,” he said. “Told dozens of people the same thing. Go somewhere where you belong. Build up the country. Sometimes when I think of the possibilities I wouldn’t mind getting in on new territory myself, but it would mean giving up so much. I’m all for it, though. Give them loads of cash every year. Hey, it’s ten o’clock. Gotta run, pop. The wifey! Sure glad to have met you. Here, take this fiver. Have another one. Sure, go ahead. It’ll keep you in cigarettes on the boat. So long. And look, don’t worry. You’ll make out swell.”
Chaim watched him go, stumbling up the steps leading to the street. He felt sad, guilty also. He stared down at the two five-dollar bills. He thought: I was wrong to fool with him that way. But there is no idea or cause that will save us all. Salvation is personal.
Yes, Barney knew, drinking was their way. But if that’s how she wanted him, he would show her. A nogood like André wasn’t going to ruin their marriage. He paused in front of the hotel, rocking to and fro on his legs. Old Carlos watched from his shop window, a silky grin on his face. Goddam jerk, Barney thought. Serve him right if I popped into his joint and smacked him one on the jaw. He visualised the scene as if it was happening in a movie. Old Carlos the fence, knocked down and bleeding among the smashed flowerpots, and he, good old Barney Bogart, telling the amazed cops that it was really nothing, just nothing at all boys.
With difficulty Barney read the sign on the window.
On parle Français
Sprechen Duetsch
English spoke
Carlos smiled enticingly at him. He was short and dark and he stank of eau de cologne and cognac. His dyed black hair was greased down to his oblong skull like a shining plate of metal.
Barney entered the shop.
“Oui, Monsieur?”
“Not French,” Barney said gruffly, emphasising his masculinity. “American.”
Old Carlos rubbed his long elegant fingers together. “Ah, American! A democrat. You have such beautiful handsome sailors. They were only here last month, such brave …”
“I want a hundred pesetas worth of flowers!”
“Si, si, si.” Carlos bowed, dipping forward from the waist. “But what kind of flowers?”
“What do I know about flowers? Gimme a hundred pesetas worth of the best!”
“Oui, Monsieur.”
“And – em – hold on a second! All kinds of colours, huh?”
Carlos bowed again. “Oh, Monsieur, you do not know what a pleasure it is to serve someone from your great country. We Spaniards you know suffer greatly under Franco. Oooh, it is terrible. Very, most, terrible. We had such a bloody revolution and so many beautiful young men were killed. Brother against brother, boys with guns on the street.”
“Are you a Red?”
Carlos gathered up an assortment of roses and geraniums and daffodils. “Monsieur, s’il vous plaît!” He paused, a dapper fencer holding a shield of flowers before him. “I am a Monarchist. My mother was presented to Don Alfonso the …”
“Okay, fine.” Barney wiped the sweat off his forehead. “But royalty don’t impress us Americans. You might as well learn that. We like people to be free.”
“One hundred and fifty pesetas.”
“I only wanted to spend …”
“But Monsieur asked for flowers of the best quality!”
Barney handed him a five-hundred peseta note. “I’m in a hurry,” he said.
Old Carlos drifted over to a pot of red roses and rearranged them in a perfunctory manner. He handed Barney his change. “And if Monsieur has any American dollairs he would like to have changed?”
Vividly Barney recalled all the gory tales of homosexual passion he had read in The Sunday News. I wonder if I should report him, he thought. “No,” he said. “No money to change.”
Carlos bowed.
Tottering, just a bit unsure of himself, Barney pushed open the door to their room. Jessie was not in.
II
“Do you know what I want now?” he asked.
“What, my lover?”
“Breakfast in bed.”
His arm still embracing her naked shoulder, his hand soft on her, their legs tangling underneath the blankets. They lay calm. Her head, round and small and black, firm against his chest. Her hand caressing lazily – now upwards from his belly, passing, learning every bump and fall in his body; then, downwards from his eyes, pressing against his throat, sliding downwards on his chest, stopping now for a pinch or to commit to memory.
He smiled. She covered his smile with her hand, holding it and then feeling it disappear. “I had to cover you up three times last night,” she said. “When you fell asleep I was lonely.”
“I’m sorry.”
She was leaning over him, her breasts dipping and full. He yanked at her black hair. “Stop frowning!” he said.
Still, her eyes were full of concern.
“I love you so much.” And she added to herself, sorrowfully: But you will never love me, never. I am a project for you.
He laughed.
Sleep-smell filled the room with warmth.
“I want breakfast in bed every morning!”
“Oh!” she gasped, faking fright.
“Well?”
“Starting tomorrow.”
“Starting today!”
She rolled over on to his belly, and bit his neck. He caught her in his arms, pushing her away gently. He forced her back on the bed, then leaning over her he rolled his head on her breasts, showering hot quick kisses on her. Then they both lay back again, she against his shoulder, black hair falling on him.
“Did you fight Colonel Kraus because he kissed me?” she asked.
I am in bed with a woman, he thought. Her sweat is drying on my body.
“I’ve done many bad things. Sometimes I hit people to make up for it.”
“Sometimes when you’re jealous you frighten me.”
“Toni, promise me you won’t see him again.”
“It’s difficult. If he comes into the club …”
“Then that you won’t dance with him. Or talk to him.”
She kissed his swollen cheek. “I promise,” she said. “Do you know what I want?”
“What?”
“Guess.”
“A bucket of sun to wash your hair in?”
“No.”
“A purple tree for our bedroom?”
“No.”
“Two golden stars to paste on your breasts?”
“No, no, no.”
“I give up.”
“I give up, darling!”
“I give up, darling, darling.”
She shouted in his ear. “I want a cigarette!”
“But darling,” he said, “that’s the way it all starts. With the first cigarette. And you are so young.”
Underneath the blankets, she slapped him.
“Oh, you bitch!”
“Do I get my cigarette?”
He sat up in bed. Lanky, nervously thin. Sharp sunlight poured into the room and chiselled out yellowed patterns on the blankets. The roar and rush of a world that was no longer theirs rattled on the window. He passed his hand through a shaft of sunlight and began to turn it over thoughtfully. He wiggled his slender fingers; then, turning his hand, palm upwards, he tried to cup the light in his hand. We don’t ask much, he thought. Just some time, some love, and a room.
“I want a cigarette.”
“Where did I go wrong, Toni?”
“Wrong?”
“I am a coward.”
Inside St. Peter’s, standing underneath the dome, he had slowly begun to look upwards. Searching for the top of the dome, he had suddenly realised that his neck was craned backwards as far as it would go, and he lost his balance
. Guillermo left him with the same feeling. “I don’t think I really like Guillermo,” he said.
“Oh, but I do want a cigarette, darling!”
He picked up the package from where he had left it on the floor and lit two cigarettes. Then he held the match to her lips and she blew it out. He lay back on the pillow and sighed effortlessly. She turned on her side, leaning over him. Her black hair fell on his shoulders.
“I love your eyes most of all.”
“I’m afraid you are not very handsome.”
“I have character.”
“Only old men have character.”
They kissed.
“Tell me about the olive trees.”
“Oh, darling!”
“I love when you tell me about the olive trees. Or the island.”
Toni laughed, but her voice was solemn. “The olive trees are more than a thousand years old. My father said they were planted by the Phoenicians. The trees are all in agony, none of them stand erect. They are all knees and knuckles: each trunk is gnarled like a corkscrew. The legend says Holy Men passed by five hundred years ago and twisted each deformed trunk until the sap refused to drip any longer. But when there is a death on the island the trees drip again. If one has not sinned one can find drops of blood around the trunks. The trees are human, and their shrug is the posture of the old. They will go on reaching heavenwards with mangled hands until He comes down to us again.”
The Acrobats Page 11