Humboldt's Gift

by Saul Bellow

  But I have another thing to tell you. I was ashamed of us both. I had no business to look down on Szathmar. All this reading of mine has taught me a thing or two, after all. I understand a little the middle-class endeavor of two centuries to come out looking well, to preserve a certain darling innocence— the innocence of Clarissa defending herself against the lewdness of Lovelace. Hopeless! Even worse is the discovery that one has been living out certain greeting-card sentiments, with ribbons of middle-class virtue tied in a bow around one’s heart. This sort of abominable American innocence is rightly detested by the world, which scented it in Woodrow Wilson in 1919. As schoolchildren we were taught boy-scout honor and goodness and courtesy; strange ghosts of Victorian gentility still haunt the hearts of Chicago’s children, now in their fifties and sixties. This appeared in Szathmar’s belief in his own generosity and greatness of heart, and also in my thanking God that I would never be as gross as Alec Szathmar. To atone I let him go on denouncing me. But when I thought that he had ranted long enough, I said to him, “How’s your health?”

  He didn’t like this. He acknowledged no infirmities. “I’m fine,” he said. “Not that you ran from court to ask me that. I just have to lose some weight.”

  “Shave your sideburns, too, while you’re making improvements. They make you look like the bad guy in an old Western— one of those fellows who sold guns and firewater to the redskins.”

  “Okay, Charlie, I’m nothing but a would-be swinger. I’m a decaying squaw man, while you think only of higher things. You’re noble. I’m a creep. But did you or did you not come to ask about this broad!”

  “That’s true, I did,” I said.

  “Don’t knock yourself out for that. It’s at least a sign of life, and you haven’t got all that many. I just about gave up on you when you turned down that Felicia with the beautiful knockers. She’s a nice middle-aged woman and would have been grateful to you. Her husband plays around. She adored you. She would have blessed you to the end of her days for treating her right. This is a decent housewife and mother who would have taken care of you from top to bottom, and washed and cooked and baked and shopped, and even done your accounts, and nice in the sack. She would have kept her mouth shut because she’s married. Perfect. But to you it was only another of my vulgar ideas.” He stared angrily. Then he said, “Okay, I’ll fix it with this chick. Take her for a drink at the Palmer House tomorrow. I’ll arrange the details.”

  If I was susceptible to the West Side sex malaria, Szathmar could not resist the arranging fever. His one aim now was get Renata and me into bed, where he would be present in spirit. Maybe he hoped it would eventually develop into a threesome. He, like Cantabile, occasionally suggested fantasy combinations. “Now, listen,” he said. “During daylight hours you can get a hotel room at what they call Conference Rates. I’ll reserve one. I’m holding money for you in escrow and they can bill me.”

  “If we’re only having a drink, how do you know it’ll get as far as the room?”

  “That’s up to you. The bartender will be holding the room key. Slip him five bucks and he’ll hand over the envelope.”

  “In what name will the envelope be?”

  “Not the stainless name of Citrine, hey?”

  “What about Crawley as a name.”

  “Our old Latin teacher. Old Crawley! Est avis in dextra mclior quam quattuor extra.”

  So the next day Renata and I went to have a drink in the dark bar below street level. I promised myself that this would be absolutely my last idiocy. To myself I put it all as intelligently as possible: that we couldn’t evade History, and that this was what History was doing to everybody. History had decreed that men and women had to become acquainted in these embraces. I was going to find out whether or not Renata was really my Fate, whether the true Jungian anima was in her. She might turn out to be something far different. But one sexual touch would teach me that, for women had peculiar effects on me, and if they didn’t make me ecstatic they made me ill. There were no two ways about it.

  On this wet gloomy day the Wabash El was dripping but Renata redeemed the weather. She wore a plastic raincoat divided into red, white, and black bands, a Rothko design. In this gleamy hard-surfaced coat she sat fully buttoned in the dark booth. A broad, bent-brim hat was part of the costume. The banana-fragrant lipstick of her beautiful mouth matched the Rothko red. Her remarks made little sense but then she spoke little. She laughed considerably and quickly turned extremely pale. A candle in a round-bottomed glass wrapped in a fishnet kind of thing gave a small quantity of light. Presently her face settled low on the hard buckling glamorous plastic of her coat and became very round. I couldn’t believe that the kind of broad described by Szathmar—so ready for action, so experienced, would down four martinis and that her face would grow so white, whiter than the moon when seen at 3 p.m. I wondered at first whether she might not be feigning timidity out of courtesy to a man of an older generation, but a cold gin moisture came out on her beautiful face and she appeared to be appealing to me to do something. In all this so far there was an element of déjà vu, for after all I had been through this more than once. What was different now was that I felt sympathetic and even protective toward this young woman in her unexpected weakness. I thought I understood simply enough why I was in the black and subcellar bar. Conditions were very tough. One couldn’t make it without love. Why not? I was unable to budge this belief. It had perhaps the great weight of stupidity in it. This need for love (in such a generalized state) was an awful drag. If it should ever become publicly known that I whispered “My Fate!” as elevator doors were opening the Legion of Honor might justifiably ask to have its medal back. And the most constructive interpretation I could find at the time was the Platonic one that Eros was using my desires to lead me from the awful spot I was in toward wisdom. That was nice, it had class, but I don’t think it was a bit true (for one thing there was not perhaps all that , much Eros left). The big name if I must have one, if any supernatural powers troubled themselves about me, was not Eros, it was probably Ahriman, the principal potentate of darkness. Be that as it might, it was time to get Renata out of this joint.

  I went to the bar and leaned over discreetly. I interposed myself among the drinkers. On any ordinary day I would have described these people as barflies and lushes but now their eyes all seemed to me as big as portholes and shed a moral light. The bartender came over. Between the knuckles of my left hand was folded a five-dollar bill. Szathmar had told me exactly how to do this. I asked the bartender whether there was an envelope in the name of Crawley. Immediately he took the five bucks. He had the kind of alertness you find only in a big town. “Now,” he said, “what’s this envelope?”

  “Left for Crawley.”

  “I got no Crawley.”

  “Crawley must be there. Look again, if you don’t mind.”

  He rattled through his envelopes again. Each contained a room key.

  “What’s your first name, buddy? Give me another clue.”

  Tormented, I said in a low voice, “Charles.”

  “That’s better. Could this be you—C-I-T-R-I-N-E?”

  “I know how to spell it, for Christ’s sake,” I said, faint but furious. I muttered, “Stupid fucking baboon Szathmar. Never did anything right in all his life. And me!—still depending on him to make my arrangements.” Then I became aware that someone was trying to get my attention from behind, and I turned. I saw a middle-aged person smiling. She obviously knew me and was bursting with gladness. This lady was stout and gentle, snub-nosed, high in the bust. She appealed for recognition but at the same time tacitly confessed that the years had changed her. But was she as changed as all that? I said, “Yes?”

  “You don’t know me, I see. But you’re still the same old Charlie.”

  “I can never understand why bars have to be dark as all this,” I said.

  “But Charlie, it’s Naomi—your school-days’ sweetheart.”

  “Naomi Lutz!”

  “How w
onderful to run into you, Charlie.”

  “How do you happen to be at the bar of this hotel?”

  A woman alone at a bar is, as a rule, a hooker. Naomi was too old for that trade. Besides, it was inconceivable that Naomi who had been my girl at fifteen should have turned into a bar broad.

  “Oh, no,” she said. “My Dad is here. He’ll be right back. I bring him downtown from the nursing home at least once a week for a drink. You remember how he always adored to be in the Loop.”

  “Old Doc Lutz—just think!”

  “Yes, alive. Very old. And he and I’ve been watching you with that lovely thing in the booth. Forgive me Charlie, but how you men keep going is unfair to females. How marvelous for you. Daddy was saying that he shouldn’t have interfered with us, child sweethearts.”

  “I was more than your childhood sweetheart,” I said. “I loved you with my soul, Naomi.” Saying this I was aware that I had brought one woman to the bar and was making a passionate declaration to another. However, this was the truth, involuntary spontaneous truth. “I’ve often thought, Naomi, that I lost my character altogether because I couldn’t spend my life with you. It distorted me all over, it made me ambitious cunning complex stupid vengeful. If I had been able to hold you in my arms nightly since the age of fifteen I would never have feared the grave.”

  “Oh Charlie, tell it to the Marines. It always was wonderful the way you talked. But off-putting too. You’ve had lots and lots of women. I can see by your behavior in that booth.”

  “Ah, yes—to the Marines!” I was grateful for this antique slang. First of all it checked my effusion, which would have led to nothing. Secondly it relieved me of the weight of another impression that had been gathering in the dark bar. I traced this to the idea that soon after death, when the lifeless body fell into decay and became a lot of minerals again, the soul awoke to its new existence, and an instant after death I expected to find myself in a dark place similar to this bar. Where all who had ever loved each other might meet again, etcetera. And this was my impression here in the bar. With the “Conference Room” key in my hand, the links clinking, I knew I must get back to Renata. If she was still drinking her martini she would be too bombed to rise to her feet and get out of the booth. But I had to wait now for Dr. Lutz. And here he came from the men’s room, very weak and bald, and snub-nosed like his daughter. His Twenties Babbittry had faded into old-fashioned courtliness. He had demanded a strange courtesy from us, for though he had never been a real doctor, only a foot-doctor (he had kept offices downtown and at home too), he insisted on being called Doctor and flew into a rage if anyone said Mr. Lutz. Fascinated by being a doctor he treated diseases of many kinds, up to the knee. If feet, why not legs? I recalled that he asked me in to assist him when he was laying a purple jelly of his own mixture on horrible sores that punctured the legs of a lady who worked at the National Biscuit factory. I held the jar and the applicators for him and as he filled these holes he made confident quack conversation. I valued this woman for she always brought the doctor a shoe box filled with chocolate-marshmallow puffs and devil’s-food bars. As I remembered this, pulsations of chocolate sweetness came into the roof of my mouth. And then I saw myself sitting ecstatic in Dr. Lutz’s treatment chair while a snowstorm blackened the tiny offices painted clinical white and I read Hero-dias. Moved by the decapitation of John the Baptist I went into Naomi’s room. We were alone during the blizzard. I took off her warm terrycloth blue pajamas and saw her naked. These were the recollections that closed in on my heart. Naomi was no foreign body to me. That was just it. There was nothing alien in Naomi. My feeling for her went into her cells, into the very molecules that, being hers, all had her properties. Because I had conceived of Naomi without otherness, because of this passion, I was trapped by old Doc Lutz in a Jacob-Laban relationship. I had to help him wash his Auburn, a celestial blue car with white-wall tires. I poured from the hose and rubbed with the shammy while the Doctor in white linen golf knickers stood smoking a Cremo cigar.

  “Oh Charlie Citrine, you surely have gone places,” said the old gentleman. His voice was still lyrical, high, and quite empty. He never had been able to make you feel that he was saying anything at all substantial. “Though I was a Coolidge and Hoover Republican myself, still when the Kennedys had you to the White House I was so proud.”

  “Is that young woman your speed?” said Naomi.

  “I can’t honestly say that I know. And what are you doing with yourself, Naomi?”

  “My marriage was no good at all and my husband went on the loose. I think you know that. I brought two kids up anyway. You didn’t happen to read some articles by my son in the Southwest Township Herald?”

  “No. I wouldn’t have known they were by your son.”

  “He wrote about kicking the drug habit, based on personal experience. I wish you would give me an opinion on his writing. My daughter is a doll but the boy is a problem.”

  “And you, Naomi, my dear?”

  “I don’t do much any more. I have a man friend. Part of the day I’m a crossing guard at the grammar school.”

  Old Doc Lutz seemed to hear none of this.

  “It’s a pity,” I said.

  “About you and me? No it’s not. You and your mental life would have been a strain on me. I’m into sports. My bag is football on TV. It’s a big outing when we get passes to Soldiers’ Field or to the hockey game. Early dinner at the Como Inn, we take the bus to the stadium, and I actually wait for fights on the ice and holler when they knock out their teeth. I’m afraid I’m just a common woman.”

  When Naomi said “common” and Doc Lutz said “Republican” they meant that they had joined the great American public and thus found contentment and fulfillment. To have been a foot doctor in the Loop during the Thirties gave the old fellow joy. His daughter delivered a similar message about herself. They were pleased with themselves and with each other and happy in their likeness. Only I, mysteriously a misfit, stood between them with my key. Obviously what ailed me was my unlikeness. I was an old friend, only I was not wholly American.

  “I’ve got to go,” I said.

  “Couldn’t we have a beer together sometime? I’d love to see you,” said Naomi. “You could advise me about Louie better than anybody. You haven’t got hippie kids yourself have you?” And as I took her number she said, “Oh, look Doc, what a neat little book he writes in. Everything about Charlie is so elegant. What a handsome old guy you’re turning into. But you’re not the type any woman could ever tie down.” As they watched I went back to the booth and raised up Renata. I put on my hat and coat and pretended that we were going outside. I felt the dishonor of everybody.

  The conference-rate room was just what lechers and adulterers deserved. Not much bigger than a broom closet it opened on the air shaft. Renata dropped into a chair and ordered two more martinis from room service. I pulled the shade, not for privacy— there were no windows opposite—and not as a seducer, but only because I hate to look into brick air shafts. Against the wall was a sofa bed covered in green chenille. As soon as I saw this object I knew it would defeat me. I was sure I would never be able to get it open. Once anticipated this challenge would not leave my head. I had to meet it at once. The trapezoid foam-rubber bolsters weighed nothing. I pushed them away and pulled off the fitted spread. The sheets under it were perfectly clean. Then I knelt and groped under the sofa frame for a lever. Renata watched silent as my face grew tight and reddened. I crouched and pulled, furious with manufacturers who made such junk, and with the management for taking money from afternoon conferees and crucifying them in spirit.

  “This thing is like an IQ test,” I said.

  “So?”

  “I’m flunking. I can’t get the thing to open.”

  “So? Leave it.”

  There was room for only one on this narrow bed. To tell the truth however I had no desire to lie down.

  Renata went into the bathroom. There were two chairs. I sat in the fauteuil. It had wings. Betw
een my shoes was a square of colonial American hooked rug. The blood rustled circulating over my eardrums. Surly room service brought the martinis. A dollar tip was taken without thanks. Then Renata came out, the gleamy coat still fully buttoned. She sat on the sofa bed, sipped once or twice at her martini, and passed out. Through the plastic I tried to listen to her heart. She didn’t have a cardiac condition, did she? Suppose this were serious. Could one call an ambulance? I felt her pulse, stupidly studying my watch, losing count. For comparison I took my own pulse. I couldn’t coordinate the results. Her pulse seemed no worse than mine. Unconscious she had, if anything, the better of it. She was damp and felt cold. I wiped the chill from her with a corner of the sheet and tried to think what George Swiebel, my health counselor, would do in an emergency like this. I knew exactly what he’d do—straighten her legs remove her shoes and unbutton her coat to help the breathing. I did just that.

  Under the coat Renata was naked. She had gone into the bathroom and taken off her clothes. After undoing the top button I might have stopped, but I didn’t. Of course I had appraised Renata and tried to guess how she might be. My generous guesses had been far behind the facts. I hadn’t expected everything to be so large and faultless. I had observed in the jury box that the first joint of her fingers was fleshy and began to swell slightly before it tapered. My conjecture was that her beautiful thighs must also swell toward each other in harmony with this. I found that to be the case, absolutely, and felt more like an art lover than a seducer. My quick impression, for I didn’t keep her uncovered very long, was that every tissue was perfect, every fiber of hair was shining. The deep female odor arose from her. When I saw how things were I buttoned her up from sheer respect. I got things back into place as well as I knew how. Next I raised the window. Unfortunately it drove off her wonderful odor but she had to have fresh air. I took her clothing from behind the bathroom door and stuffed it into her large handbag, checking to make sure that we didn’t lose her juror’s badge. Then in my overcoat, with hat and gloves in hand, I waited for her to come to.