West Side Story

by Irving Shulman

  “Maria,” he whispered. “Maria…”

  He had to blink to believe his eyes, for there was a white figure in the window, and the figure was opening the window wider. He saw that it was Maria and took the six steps—three at a time—about to call her name, but paused because she had a finger to her lips. “Ssh,” she whispered. “Quick, tell me your name.”

  “It’s Tony.” He knelt at the sill. “Anton Wyzek. It’s Polish.”

  “It’s a nice name,” she whispered again. “Now you must go.”

  “Go? I just got here. Look, let’s go somewhere where we can talk.” He saw that she still wore the white dress but her hair was loose to frame her face in lovely waves. “We just gotta talk.”

  Maria shook her head. “You must go away.”

  “Do you want me to go away?”

  She sat on the sill, tense and silent. “You must be very quiet.”

  He reached out to take her hand and place it on his heart. “What do I do about this?”

  “Let it beat,” she said. Suddenly she turned and looked toward the interior of the flat. “You must go. If Bernardo…”

  “He’s at the dance,” Tony said, and felt guilty because he knew differently.

  Maria nodded. “Soon he will have to bring Anita home.”

  “Does he feel about Anita like I feel about you?” he asked boldly.

  “I think so,” she said.

  “Then he won’t be coming home.” Tony was proud of his logic. “Look, let’s go up on the roof, just for a little while. To talk,” he added, “just to talk, I swear.”

  “I believe you,” she said to reassure him. “But if Bernardo should come home… Why does he hate you?”

  “Because he’s got reason to.” Once again, as at the dance, he held both her hands. “That’s what I want to talk to you about. Please, it’s important. Unless you want me to go downstairs and come to your front door. I’ll do that if you say so.”

  Maria leaned back to look at the skeletal outline of the fire escape and the ladder to the roof. “You’ll hold me?” she asked.

  “With my life,” he swore.

  Hand in hand they moved quietly up the fire escape. Tony whispered that Maria was not to look down, only up, at the stars, and as she climbed, he was only a half step behind her and both his arms, as they held the sides of the ladder, were a protective semicircle around her.

  Step by step they climbed until Maria reached the parapet; and as she skipped over the roof covered with tar paper, she whirled again, for this was a moment to commemorate by dancing.

  How strong his arms had been, how confident she had felt, how soft his voice had been in her ear as he told her not to be afraid, not to look down, only up at the stars, for the stars were looking down at them.

  She ran toward him in her bare feet and grasped his hands. Silently they whirled in a circle and as her hair flew loose to brush across her face and mouth, she laughed, then paused to rest in his arms.

  “Only for a minute,” she said.

  “Only for a minute,” he repeated.

  She smiled into his eyes. “A minute is not enough.”

  “For an hour then,” he returned her smile, then was serious. “Before we make it forever.”

  Maria listened to the night as if it would tell her the hour. “I cannot,” she said, but made no effort to free herself from his arms.

  “I’m ready to stay here,” he continued, “until morning. Then you can invite me downstairs for breakfast and to meet your mother and father. Do you think they’ll like me?”

  He felt her sadness and was sorry, but they would have to face facts and things as they were, so they could plan for the things that should be. “I like your mother, because she’s your mother, your father because he’s your father…”

  “I have three younger sisters,” she interrupted.

  “Fine.” He was enthusiastic. “I like them too. I like all your friends and relatives, and all their friends and relatives, and all their…”

  “You did not mention ’Nardo.”

  Tony’s sigh was deep. “I like him too, because he’s your brother.”

  “And suppose my mother and father and my sisters and ’Nardo were not related to me? Then you would hate them?”

  “Maria, you’ve got to hold me. The thing you’ve asked me is what I’ve been trying to keep from thinking about. Help me, Maria.” He knelt to pillow his head against her slender thigh. “You’ve got to help me, because I’m not letting you go. I’m not,” he repeated fiercely as his arms tightened about her. “I don’t care who comes up here, who sees us, what anybody says or does. I’m not letting you go.”

  “Tony, please, stand.” Her hand rested lightly on his head to stroke the short, stubby hair, which she knew would be soft and fine as silk if he let it grow. “I didn’t mean to ask that.”

  “I’m glad you asked it.” He did not want to stand but they had to look at each other, so there could be no doubt in her mind about anything he said. “I don’t care if they come up here and cut my heart out,” he continued. “Without you, I wouldn’t want it.”

  “Don’t say that.” Her finger crossed his lips. “Without you, I do not think I would want to live either.”

  “Don’t you know?”

  “I do!” she said as her hands framed his face and she stood on tiptoe to kiss his lips. Her kiss was gentle, but as magic as Tony knew it would be. “I do,” she whispered as she clung to him. “We must be together. But now you must go. Now I want to think about what we must do.”

  She was serious. Suddenly much older than he, feeling much wiser, she understood the primitive wilderness they inhabited. She had to return to her room and think. “It is very important that we think.”

  “I’ll help you down the ladder. But you still must look up.”

  “Even if I looked down I would only see the sky,” she said.

  “And the stars,” he added.

  “And the moon. And the sun,” she said.

  “How could you see the sun when it’s night?” His tone changed suddenly. “I’ll see you tomorrow? And we’ll tell each other what we thought about, and what we’re going to do? Where can I see you? What time?”

  “Do you know where Señora Mantanios has her bridal shop? I work there,” she continued after he nodded. “I sew.”

  Tony held her hand against his cheek. “You be careful of the needles,” he warned her. “I don’t want any accidents. What time will I see you?”

  “Six o’clock?”

  “Six o’clock,” he repeated. “What name do you like better? Tony or Anton?”

  “I like them both,” she said after a moment. “But Anton is more poetical. Te adoro, Anton,” she said. “That means I love you.”

  He rapped his forehead to awaken his dormant and rudimentary knowledge of Polish. “Maria, ja kocham cie. That’s Polish,” he said, “and it doesn’t sound as good. But it means the same thing.”

  “Kiss me,” she said. “It’s a new language for both of us. But we speak it so well.” Again she looked at the stars. “Even up there”—she pointed at a bright star—“if there are a boy and girl standing on a roof, and they are able to see us, and they hear us speak, they might not understand what we say. But if they see us kiss, they will know.”

  “That I love you,” he said, as he moved to cover her mouth with his lips.

  “And that I love you,” she murmured, before the wind whirled them into the sky toward the stars.

  * * *

  Although she had wanted to stay awake, to remember everything over and over again, sleep enveloped her in a matter of minutes, and she murmured drowsily that she was sleepy and whoever was bothering her, would they please go away?

  “Wake up, Maria. It’s Anita,” she heard the whispering in her ear. “Wake up!”

  She sat erect with a start, as a cold hand of fear fastened itself at her throat. “My God, what is the matter?”

  “Nothing,” Anita continued to whisper. “Berna
rdo wants you to come up on the roof. We are all there—Chino, Pepe, Indio. All the girls too. There is nothing the matter; we are having a party there. Suddenly you don’t like parties?”

  Maria yawned with relief, stretched, and ran fingers through her loose hair. “I was sleeping,” she complained because she longed to return to her dreams. “And I’m not dressed.”

  “Nowadays it doesn’t take a girl more than a minute to get dressed.” Anita giggled. “Hurry, and I’ll wait for you.”

  “Bernardo is angry?” Maria asked.

  Anita pursed her lips as she raised a shoulder. “When isn’t he angry? Maria, hurry, please. There are other girls who would like to be Bernardo’s. Don’t worry about shoes and stockings. An old pair of flats will be all right.”

  Chino had placed his small transistor radio on an empty egg crate and several of the boys and girls had removed their shoes to dance in their stocking feet. But Bernardo, his elbow on a parapet, puffed hard at a cigarette, and stared with cold, dead eyes at the city all around him.

  It was so large, so vast, but refused to make even a little place for him. What sort of life could he make for himself in this city? Nothing he cared for, nothing he was proud of. He would fail, but others, damn them, would suffer for his failure.

  “It’s about time,” he replied to his sister’s greeting. “I’ll bet if it was that Polack, you’d have been here on the double.”

  “She was asleep, ’Nardo,” Anita said, defending his sister. “And it seems to me you like everything on the double.”

  Bernardo reached out as if to pinch Anita’s breast. “Since when are you complaining?” Suddenly confused, because his sister was present, Bernardo snapped his fingers. “I want to talk to you, Maria. Not like a brother, like an uncle.”

  Anita covered her breast by crossing her arms. “Some uncle! Lucky she has a father and a mother!”

  “Who don’t know this country any better than she does.”

  “Since when are you such an expert?” Anita challenged him.

  Pepe paused in his dancing with Consuelo. “You leave it to ’Nardo,” he said. “He knows the score.”

  “So why doesn’t he write a book about America?” Anita said. “None of you is so smart. In this country girls have as much right as boys to have fun. Girls can dance with anyone they please in America.”

  “Really?” Bernardo bowed. “You talk as if Puerto Rico isn’t part of America.”

  “Not for you it isn’t, you immigrant,” Anita flung at him. “And don’t start calling me all my names because in America, I’ve changed it to one, and if you don’t like it…”

  Bernardo snapped his cigarette aside and wound his right hand into Anita’s hair above the nape of her neck. Fingers spread, he held her so that she could not avoid his lips.

  “You like?” he asked her when he ended the kiss.

  Anita fluttered her eyelids. “I like.”

  “So behave yourself,” Bernardo said, as he pushed Anita aside and beckoned to Chino. “Chino, how was my sister when you brought her home?”

  Chino shuffled nervously. “All right. A little upset. But they were only dancing.”

  Outraged at Bernardo’s behavior, Anita pushed him with both hands. “How come you’re asking so many questions? As if you were a policeman or something? It’s all right for a boy to be worried about his sister, but how about doing a little worrying about your girl friend and her future? You leave Maria to Chino—and her father and mother. Maybe they didn’t do such a good job on their son.” She stared at Bernardo, and had to smile as she admired the narrow set of his eyes, which made him look darkly romantic. “But they did all right for Maria. Look at her! And tell me you are not ashamed for thinking and speaking so ugly!”

  “They don’t know any more than she does,” Bernardo said. “They’re just babies in America—all of them.”

  “But she was only dancing,” Anita said. “Everyone knows that.”

  “Only dancing,” Bernardo mimicked, “with an American, who’s really a Polack.”

  Anita pointed at Bernardo. “Look who’s talking,” she scoffed. “The spic…”

  “You’re not so cute,” Bernardo warned.

  “Since when?” Anita was not intimidated, because Bernardo’s eyes told her what he was really thinking. “Because you won’t ask me, I’ll tell you. I think Tony is cute. And he works,” she added.

  Chino raised his hand for attention. “As a delivery boy.” He looked at Maria, who was staring at the stars. “And you know what delivery boys become? Errand boys. And since you are going to ask me, Anita”—he bowed to her—“I’ll tell you. An assistant becomes an operator. A full member of the union.”

  “Oh, knock it off, Chino,” Bernardo interrupted angrily as he pulled a fresh cigarette from his pack and lighted it. “If that lousy Polack wants to join the union he can get in ahead of you and make more than you because he’s an American.”

  “That isn’t true,” Maria interrupted her brother. It was all right to be silent, she thought, and in silence to listen and learn. But she had heard enough to know that Bernardo hated Tony, and if he continued to think and talk this way he would only hate him more.

  There were many things she had to do, and one of the most important was to stop Bernardo from hating so much. Bernardo could only think of hatred and destruction and she remembered what her priest on the island had said—that those who lived by the sword would die by it.

  “If Tony was born in America, he is not a Polack,” she said. “Even if he were not born in America, because he wanted to come to America, he would not be a foreigner. He would be an American just like us.”

  Bernardo permitted the applause of Anita and the other girls to die down before he mocked his sister with a little bow. “My dear Maria, you might believe that, but he doesn’t. There is only one thing that he believes. That you are easy because you are Puerto Rican!”

  “That is a rotten thing to say!” Anita shouted as she put her arm around Maria. “You must apologize. Not only to Maria, but to every girl here.”

  “What for?” Pepe asked.

  “For nothing,” Anita replied flatly. “Maybe you don’t know it yet, but all of us girls have learned something tonight.”

  “Meaning what?” Bernardo asked her.

  Anita placed the heels of both palms over Maria’s ears. “That because we girls came here—to America—with our hearts open, you nothings think we also came with our legs open!”

  “Didn’t you?” Pepe asked her.

  “Pig!” Anita managed to slap him across the side of the face. “You’ll be sent back to Puerto Rico. Soon, I hope, and wearing handcuffs.”

  Pepe laughed, as he flicked at Anita’s nose with his forefinger, and dodged her flailing hands. Bernardo moved Maria to one side, as the Sharks and their girls formed around Pepe and Anita, who was screaming at Pepe in Spanish.

  Suddenly, the roof door opened, and Bernardo heard his name called. It was his father.

  “Bernardo?” his father called again, as he tightened the belt of his bathrobe. “Maria? You were asleep.”

  “Didn’t you hear me come in, father?” Bernardo said as he signaled for Anita and Pepe to cut it. “We were having some fun up here and I thought Maria would like to see Chino again.”

  “Yes, Mr. Nunez,” Chino continued, “I asked Bernardo to invite Maria here. I hope you do not mind. We were just listening to the radio and talking.”

  “Listening and talking,” Maria repeated. “Were we making too much noise, father?”

  “Enough to wake me up.” Mr. Nunez yawned. “But it is a nice night. Cooler. How much longer are you going to be up here, Bernardo?”

  “We’re leaving right now,” Bernardo said. “Chino will see Maria to our door. We will take our ladies home and then all the boys will meet me at the Coffee Pot. Want to come along, father?”

  “It is too late, but thank you,” Mr. Nunez yawned again. “Good night.” He turned to his daughter. “Maria
, the door will be open.”

  “I will lock it, father.” she said.

  Again she turned to look at her brother, but his back was toward her, as he stared again into the darkness over the city.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The Coffee Pot was a small luncheonette with a single window, filled with bright light that gave much more illumination than was needed. But the light enabled the patroling prowl cars to see the interior, because the proprietor of the Coffee Pot was fed up with being a training establishment for cheap stick-up artists.

  The menu cards on the white enameled walls were stained with a thick accumulation of grease, that obscured the identity of some of the Mexican, Puerto Rican and American dishes.

  The long counter was fronted by a row of worn leathertop stools, through which some of the dirty cotton filling was visible. A tired counterman washed coffee mugs with the movements of a sleepwalker, and a sharply dressed Negro and his girl sat at the counter listening to the loud, blaring juke. When Riff turned the handle and kicked the door open, the counterman and his two customers looked up quickly. With an easy movement, the Negro slid some change across the counter, took his girl by the arm, and guided her into the street and away from trouble.

  “Relax,” Riff said to the frightened counterman as he held up a dollar bill. “Coffee all around. Anybody been here looking for us?”

  The counterman shuffled toward the tall urn which had not been polished in years. “Nobody, Riff,” he replied. “Look, fellows, just stayin’ alive gives me all the trouble I can stand. So don’t give me any more.”

  Riff snapped his fingers impatiently. “We want coffee—no cream, no sugar, no gas.”

  “I want sugar,” Baby-John said. “I like sugar.”

  Ice elbowed Baby-John into the counter and the youngest member of the Jets rubbed his upper arm and slid onto a stool. Then he removed a comic book from his pocket, opened it and began to read with interest. As a junior member he had to learn to be patient and keep his mouth shut; and what he was doing now would prove to Ice that he wasn’t too stupid to have got his message.

  “Where the hell are they?” Ice asked as he pointed to a clock over the cash register. “If we’re havin’ a war council tonight they oughta be here by now.”