The Winter of Our Discontent (7 page)

“Good morning, Mr. Baker,” Ethan said and held his stroke to save the banker’s neat serge pants from dust.

“Morning, Ethan. Fine morning.”

“Fine,” said Ethan. “Spring’s in, Mr. Baker. Groundhog was right again.”

“He was, he was.” Mr. Baker paused. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you, Ethan. That money your wife got by her brother’s will—over five thousand, isn’t it?”

“Sixty-five hundred after taxes,” Ethan said.

“Well, it’s just lying in the bank. Ought to be invested. Like to talk to you about that. Your money should be working.”

“Sixty-five hundred dollars can’t do much work, sir. It can only stand by for emergencies.”

“I’m not a believer in idle money, Ethan.”

“Well, this also serves—just standing and waiting.”

The banker’s voice became frosty. “I don’t understand.” His inflection said he did understand and found it stupid, and his tone twisted a bitterness in Ethan, and the bitterness spawned a lie.

The broom traced a delicate curve against the pavement. “It’s this way, sir. That money is Mary’s temporary security if anything should happen to me.”

“Then you should use part of it to insure your life.”

“But it’s only temporary, sir. That money was Mary’s brother’s estate. Her mother is still living. She may live many years.”

“I understand. Old people can be a burden.”

“They can also sit on their money.” Ethan glanced at Mr. Baker’s face as he said his lie, and he saw a trace of color rise out of the banker’s collar. “You see, sir, if I invested Mary’s money I might lose it, the way I lost my own, the way my father lost the pot.”

“Water under the bridge, Ethan—water under the bridge. I know you got burned. But times are changing, new opportunities opening up.”

“I had my opportunity, Mr. Baker, more opportunity than good sense. Don’t forget I owned this store right after the war. Had to sell half a block of real estate to stock it—the last of our business property.”

“I know, Ethan. I’m your banker. Know your business the way your doctor knows your pulse.”

“Sure you know. Took me less than two years to damn near go bankrupt. Had to sell everything but my house to pay my debts.”

“You can’t take all the blame for that. Fresh out of the Army— no business experience. And don’t forget you ran smack into a depression, only we called it recession. Some pretty seasoned businessmen went under.”

“I went under all right. It’s the first time in history a Hawley was ever a clerk in a guinea grocery.”

“Now that’s what I don’t understand, Ethan. Anybody can go broke. What I don’t see is why you stay broke, a man of your family and background and education. It doesn’t have to be permanent unless your blood has lost its guts. What knocked you out, Ethan? What kept you knocked out?”

Ethan started an angry retort—Course you don’t understand; you’ve never had it—and then he swept a small circle of gum wrappers and cigarette butts into a pyramid and moved the pyramid toward the gutter. “Men don’t get knocked out, or I mean they can fight back against big things. What kills them is erosion; they get nudged into failure. They get slowly scared. I’m scared. Long Island Lighting Company might turn off the lights. My wife needs clothes. My children—shoes and fun. And suppose they can’t get an education? And the monthly bills and the doctor and teeth and a tonsillectomy, and beyond that suppose I get sick and can’t sweep this goddam sidewalk? Course you don’t understand. It’s slow. It rots out your guts. I can’t think beyond next month’s payment on the refrigerator. I hate my job and I’m scared I’ll lose it. How could you understand that?”

“How about Mary’s mother?”

“I told you. She sits on it. She’ll die sitting on it.”

“I didn’t know. I thought Mary came from a poor family. But I know when you’re sick you need medicine or maybe an operationor maybe a shock. Our people were daring men. You know it. They didn’t let themselves get nibbled to death. And now times are changing. There are opportunities our ancestors never dreamed of. And they’re being picked up by foreigners. Foreigners are taking us over. Wake up, Ethan.”

“And how about the refrigerator?”

“Let it go if you have to.”

“And how about Mary and the children?”

“Forget them for a while. They’ll like you better if you climb out of the hole. You’re not helping them by worrying about them.”

“And Mary’s money?”

“Lose it if you have to but risk it. With care and good advice you don’t have to lose it. Risk isn’t loss. Our people have always been calculated-risk people and they didn’t lose. I’m going to shock you, Ethan. You’re letting down the memory of old Cap’n Hawley. You owe his memory something. Why, he and my daddy owned the
Belle-Adair
together, one of the last built and finest of all whaling bottoms. Get off your ass, Ethan. You owe the
Belle-Adair
something you haven’t paid in guts. The hell with the finance company.”

Ethan coaxed a reluctant piece of cellophane over the gutter’s edge with his broom tip. He said softly, “The
Belle-Adair
burned to the waterline, sir.”

“I know she did, but did that stop us? It did not.”

“She was insured.”

“Of course she was.”

“Well, I wasn’t. I saved my house and nothing else.”

“You’ll have to forget that. You’re brooding on something past. You’ve got to scrape up some courage, some daring. That’s why I said you should invest Mary’s money. I’m trying to help you, Ethan.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“We’ll get that apron off you. You owe that to old Cap’n Hawley. He wouldn’t believe it.”

“I guess he wouldn’t.”

“That’s the way to talk. We’ll get that apron off.”

“If it wasn’t for Mary and the children—”

“Forget them, I tell you—for their own good. There’s some interesting things going to happen here in New Baytown. You can be part of it.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Just let me think about it.”

“Mr. Morphy says he’s going to work when you close at noon. I’m making him some sandwiches. Want me to make you some?”

“No thanks. I’m letting Joey do the work. He’s a good man. There’s some property I want to look up. In the County Clerk’s office, that is. Nice and private there from twelve till three. Might be something in that for you. We’ll talk soon. So long.” He took a long first step to miss a crack and crossed the alley entrance to the front door of the First National Bank, and Ethan smiled at his retreating back.

He finished his sweeping quickly, for people were trickling and fresheting to work now. He set the stands of fresh fruit at the entrance of the store. Then, making sure no one was passing, he removed three stacked cans of dog food and, reaching behind, brought out the grim little bag of currency, replaced the dog food, and, ringing “no sale” on the cash register, distributed the twenties, tens, fives, and one-dollar bills in their places under the small retaining wheels. And in the oaken cups at the front of the cash drawer he segregated the halves, quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies, and slammed the drawer shut. Only a few customers showed up, children sent for a loaf of bread or a carton of milk or a pound of forgotten coffee, little girls with sleep-messy hair.

Margie Young-Hunt came in, pert-breasted in a salmon sweater. Her tweed skirt clung lovingly in against her thighs and tucked up under her proud fanny, but it was in her eyes, her brown myopic eyes, that Ethan saw what his wife could never see because it wasn’t there when wives were about. This was a predator, a huntress, Artemis for pants. Old Cap’n Hawley called it a “roving eye.” It was in her voice too, a velvet growl that changed to a thin, mellow confidence for wives.

“Morning, Eth,” Margie said. “What a day for a picnic!”

“Morning. Want to take a bet you ran out of coffee?”

“If you guess I ran out of Alka-Seltzer, I’m going to avoid you.”

“Big night?”

“In a small way. Traveling-salesman story. A divorced woman’s safe. Brief case of free samples. Guess you’d call him a drummer. Maybe you know him. Name of Bigger or Bogger, travels for B. B. D. and D. Reason I mention it is he said he was coming in to see you.”

“We buy from Waylands mostly.”

“Well, maybe Mr. Bugger’s just drumming up business, if he feels better than I do this morning. Say, could you give me a glass of water? I’ll take a couple of fizzers now.”

Ethan went to the storeroom and brought back a Dixie cup of water from the tap. She dropped three of the flat tablets in and let them fizz. Then, “Mud in your eye,” she said and tossed it back. “Get to work, you devils,” she said.

“I hear you’re going to read Mary’s fortune today.”

“Oh, Lord! I nearly forgot. I should go in the business. I could made my own fortune.”

“Mary loves it. Are you good at it?”

“Nothing to be good at. You let people—women, that is— talk about themselves and then tell it back to them and they think you’ve got second sight.”

“And tall dark strangers?”

“There’s that, sure. If I could read men, I wouldn’t have pulled the bellywhoppers I have. Brother! did I misread a couple of characters.”

“Didn’t your first husband die?”

“No, my second, peace be to his ashes, the son of a— No, let it ride. Peace be to his ashes.”

Ethan greeted the entering elderly Mrs. Ezyzinski solicitously and lingered over the transference of a quarter of a pound of butter, even passed a complimentary word or two about the weather, but Margie Young-Hunt, relaxed and smiling, inspected the gold-sealed cans of
pâté de foie gras
and the minuscule jewel-cases of caviar in back of the counter by the cash register.

“Now,” said Margie when the old lady tottered out, muttering to herself in Polish.

“Now—what?”

“I was just thinking—if I knew as much about men as I do about women, I’d put out my shingle. Why don’t you teach me about men, Ethan?”

“You know enough. Maybe too much.”

“Oh, come on! Don’t you have a silly bone in your body?”

“Want to start now?”

“Maybe some evening.”

“Good,” he said. “A group. Mary and you and the two kids. Subject: men—their weakness and stupidity and how to use them.”

Margie ignored his tone. “Don’t you ever work late— accounts first of the month, that stuff?”

“Sure. I take the work home.”

She raised her arms over her head and her fingers moused in her hair.

“Why?” she asked.

“Cat’s why to make kittens’ britches.”

“See what you could teach me if you would?”

Ethan said, “ ‘And after that they had mocked Him, they took the robe off from Him and put His own raiment on Him and led Him away to crucify Him. And as they came out they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name. Him they compelled to bear His cross. And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha—that is to say, a place of a skull—’ ”

“Oh, for God’s sake!”

“Yes—yes—that is correct. . . .”

“Do you know what a son of a bitch you are?”

“Yes, O Daughter of Jerusalem.”

Suddenly she smiled. “Know what I’m going to do? I’m going to read one hell of a fortune this morning. You’re going to be a big shot, did you know? Everything you touch will turn to gold—a leader of men.” She walked quickly to the door and then turned back, grinning. “I dare you to live up to it and I dare you not to. So long, Savior!” How strange the sound of heeltaps on pavement, striking in anger.

At ten o’clock everything changed. The big glass doors of the bank folded open and a river of people dipped in for money and brought the money to Marullo’s and took away the fancy foods Easter calls for. Ethan was busy as a water skater until the sixth hour struck.

The angry firebell from its cupola on the town hall clanged the sixth hour. The customers drifted away with their bags of baked meats. Ethan brought in the fruit stands and closed the front doors, and then for no reason except that a darkness fell on the world and on him, he pulled down the thick green shades and the darkness fell on the store. Only the neon in the cold counter glared a ghostly blue.

Behind the counter he cut four fat slices of rye bread and buttered them liberally. He slid open the cold doors and picked out two slices of processed Swiss cheese and three slices of ham. “Lettuce and cheese,” he said, “lettuce and cheese. When a man marries he lives in the trees.” He mortared the top slices of bread with mayonnaise from a jar, pressed the lids down on the sandwiches, and trimmed the bits of lettuce and ham fat from the edges. Now a carton of milk and a square of waxed paper for wrapping. He was folding the ends of the paper neatly when a key rattled in the front door and Marullo came in, wide as a bear and sack-chested so that his arms seemed short and stood out from his body. His hat was on the back of his head so that his stiff iron-gray bangs showed like a cap. Marullo’s eyes were wet and sly and sleepy, but the gold caps on his front teeth shone in the light from the cold counter. Two top buttons of his pants were open, showing his heavy gray underwear. He hooked little fat thumbs in the roll of his pants under his stomach and blinked in the half-darkness.

“Morning, Mr. Marullo. I guess it’s afternoon.”

“Hi, kid. You shut up good and quick.”

“Whole town’s shut. I thought you’d be at mass.”

“No mass today. Only day in the year with no mass.”

“That so? I didn’t know that. Anything I can do for you?”

The short fat arms stretched and rocked back and forth on the elbows. “My arms hurt, kid. Arthritis. . . . Gets worse.”

“Nothing you can do?”

“I do everything—hot pads, shark oil, pills—still hurts. All nice and shut up. Maybe we can have a talk, eh, kid?” His teeth flashed.

“Anything wrong?”

“Wrong? What’s wrong?”

“Well, if you’ll wait a minute, I’ll just take these sandwiches to the bank. Mr. Morphy asked for them.”