Angel in the Parlor (15 page)

“Is she pretty?”

“Not as pretty as you are,” said Nicholas. The truth was, he suddenly couldn't remember what she looked like. Her features swirled away when he tried to pinpoint them: a nose. Take that first. What did it look like? Her eyes. What color were they?

“What does she look like?”

“Dark-haired, and a little on the fat side.”

Jostling each other and shouting, the boys ran off the court, past Janet and Nicholas, and headed up the street.

“Let's go,” sighed Janet.

They passed the courts and stopped at a dingy little shop that had a large piece of cardboard taped into the empty window. Glass lay scattered on the pavement below. On the cardboard someone had written in a huge black scrawl:

THEATRE MAKEUP. NO MINORS ALLOWED
.

Janet led the way inside. A large, frowsy woman in a housedress and cardigan rushed out from the back of the shop. She had painted her eyebrows and eyelids so that the outside corners turned up. Behind her hung a rack of gorilla and skull masks, hats, trumpets, paper snakes, spangled vests, and tambourines. On a shelf over her head were round tins of greasepaint and a few wigs and beards.

“What can I do for you?” she asked, and rested her arms on the counter. They were heavily bandaged to the elbow.

“A can of Max Factor white—why!” cried Janet, “what happened to you?”

The woman shook her head mournfully.

“Kids came by here and broke my window. They broke it so bad I cut myself when I tried to fix it. Can you reach that can up there, mister? I'm so clumsy I don't dare.”

Nicholas slid behind the counter after her.

“That one,” she said, pointing her arm up like a primitive wing. “Thank you, sweetheart. I ask myself, why do those kids want to come in and beat me up? Why me? So I put up a sign to keep them out. It don't help though. They come around just the same.”

One night in Amyas's loft had passed like a thousand years in the sight of God. Was this 1963? Not until he found himself beside this old woman, heavily rouged and lined as if for the drama of staying alive, did he feel again the terrible urgency of the streets.

When they returned, Amyas was stirring a large kettle at the stove.

“There's a little prune butter on the table and some Russian pumpernickel if you're famished,” he called out gaily.

“That's all right,” said Nicholas. “We had egg creams.”

“Did you! Don't spoil your appetite for dinner.”

“Are you cooking dinner?” exclaimed Nicholas, very much surprised. “Why, it's hardly noon.”

“There's more to a good dinner than meets the tongue. Come and look.”

He threw open the top door of the cupboard beside the stove. Neatly stacked on the top shelves were various hooks, pitchers, poachers, scoopers, pepper mills, racks, and broilers of every shape and description. There were more kinds of strainers, forks, parers, grinders, and graters than Nicholas had ever imagined existed; there were pressers and cheese bells and cruets, there were four coffee pots and a mortar and pestle and half a dozen sets of pots, pans, and casserole dishes.

“Very nice,'” said Nicholas.

“And over here—”

Amyas opened the bottom door to reveal stacks of tins, jars, and fancy little crocks. Nicholas bent down and examined the labels: lambs' tongues, mushroom nibbles, quiche Lorraine, tender young cactus, tripe à la mode de Caen.

“What are we having tonight?” he inquired.

“Smell it!” Amyas lifted the spoon. Nicholas bent over and sniffed. “Not bad. What is it?”

“An early Roman recipe: sow's udder stuffed with salted sea urchins. Janet couldn't lay her hands on an udder, so I've had to substitute tripe. Oh, I know you're a vegetarian, Nicholas. You may beg off from the main dish if you like, but I hope you're not allergic to dandelion wine. I made it myself with dandelion blossoms from—where did we get those blossoms, Janet?”

“From the Chinese grocery store,” said Janet. She was standing in the doorway, looking out at the dovecote.

“Janet shops and I cook,” said Amyas, stirring briskly. “I feel that taste and smell are neglected in our culture, Nicholas. Don't you think that each person has his own smell?”

“Why, I suppose so,” said Nicholas. The stirring of the spoon was beginning to hypnotize him; he turned away quickly and began to walk restlessly around the loft.

“I believe that when a man falls in love, he is attracted by some subtle scent of which he is hardly aware,” Amyas went on. “I don't mean perfume. I mean the scent of—of the soul.”

And then suddenly, out of nowhere:

“I've arranged a job for you.”

Nicholas thought he had misheard. He stopped walking.

“What kind of a job?”

“In Akton's darkroom on the second floor. Have you ever worked in a darkroom?”

“I worked in a camera shop for five months. But never in a darkroom.”

“You'll learn. And it's so terribly convenient. You won't have to go out of the building at all.”

“I don't mind going out of the building,” said Nicholas.

“In the winter, the wind is excruciating.”

“But it's only April! We've the whole summer before us.”

“Oh, dear!” Amyas dropped the spoon in the kettle, and seized both of Nicholas's hands in his own. “I just thought you'd be happier if you had something to do.”

“It's all right,” said Nicholas. “I've always wanted to work in a darkroom.”

“Have you really? You can start any time.”

He hurried back to fish out his spoon. Nicholas edged his way over to the elevator.

“Are you going to sing with the dwarf tonight?” he asked.

“No. I promised the players I'd sing for them. My dear fellow, where are you going?”

“Outside,” said Nicholas, “if I can get the door open.”

“We're boring you,” cried Amyas. “How dreadful.”

“No. I need—I need exercise.”

Amyas sighed deeply.

“Janet, unlock the door for him. Or would you prefer to try the stairs? The other door is by the wardrobe. One thing before you leave—please be back in plenty of time for dinner. It's going to be an occasion you don't want to miss.”

Outside on the landing Nicholas felt blissfully alone. He hurried down the stairs past a precipitous landing and arguing voices behind a closed door. Across the next landing someone had set up a picket fence to prevent accidents. Nicholas quickened his pace but paused at the third landing to read messages scrawled on the doors that seemed to challenge each other from opposite ends of the corridor:
CHINESE MEN'S CLUB—PRIVATE. KEEP OUT! LEATHER AND FURS
. Presently the corridor grew light, and he plunged out into the street.

It was a spring day.

He pulled out his harmonica and tried to recapture the feeling: it was a spring day and he was much younger. He walked slowly up Prince Street, sucking at a tune. Twenty blocks away his wife was eating her lunch alone, or washing her hair, or sleeping. Would she call the police to find him? Would she call up her old lovers? The first week of their marriage all sorts of strange people had shown up at all hours of the day and night, and he had thrown them downstairs. Like a test of strength in a carnival booth. Pizza makers, salesmen, even a piano teacher.

Who's gonna shoe your pretty little foot?

He came to the end of the block. A group of older boys were playing handball on the court. If this were yesterday he would have gone over and joined them, but today he could not make himself do it. He was not tired but shy. Blowing a tune to himself, he turned and walked slowly back to the loft.

All afternoon he hung around on the roof and listened to the murmur and crying of the doves, still calling to themselves in the forest that years of breeding had not dislodged from their memory. Janet had gone off to rehearse and Amyas was napping. Nicholas settled himself so close to the cages that he could see the brown rings on the throats of the white birds and the irridescent sheen on the breasts of the slate-colored ones and the pale rings around the eyes of all the birds, as black and blind-looking as shoe buttons. He watched until he heard Amyas moving about, then he stumbled inside.

Dinner was a slow and elaborate affair, punctuated by shouts and crashes from the loft below. On a silver platter in the middle of the table sat the stuffed tripe, like a baked volley ball. The sink held a tower of dirty pots, dishes, strainers, and knives. The five soups, variously made of chicken and crayfish and snails, left Nicholas feeling bloated. He sat solemnly opposite Janet while Amyas served them and kept up a running chatter.

“I hope you won't let our neighbors downstairs spoil a good meal. They have the most dreadful arguments. She's a welder. I don't know what he does. But I assure you, it's far worse to be out on the street. Sometimes they throw all their furniture out of the window. Once Janet caught a bottle of olives. We ate them in a salad the next day. Didn't we, Janet?”

Janet was sawing a sea urchin with her knife and making terrible faces. Amyas watched her as he beat whipped cream.

“The meal would have been much tastier if we could have found an udder, I assure you. A meal fit for Caesar, if I hadn't had to substitute tripe and if Janet hadn't insisted on serving string beans. Caesar had an aversion to string beans. He said eating string beans was like eating hairs. And we ought to have worn togas. Meals taste better when you dress for them.”

Crash! Something fell over in the room below and the table gave a violent twitch. Nicholas filled his mouth with rubbery pieces of tripe and washed them down with great gulps of wine.

“Tomorrow I want to try carp à la Napoleon. Only think how you would feel having to eat with a peruke on your head. Once Monsieur de Souze, the Portuguese ambassador to Paris, was dining at the house of Talleyrand, prince of Benevento, and as the servant placed the soup before him, he caught the gentleman's wig in his cuff button. Whisk! The ambassador was completely bald. Do you know that story?”

He turned his eager eyes on Janet, who was staring off into space and chewing as if to a secret tune.

“I could teach you so much, but you fall asleep,” he whispered into her ear, pinching her lightly. “What an actress I could make of you, my little dove!”

“Amyas, sit down with us,” exclaimed Nicholas. “You've cooked a big dinner and you don't sit down to help us eat it.”

“I eat as I go,” said Amyas, and he began to clear the plates. “You may well imagine, Nicholas, when I sit down, I don't do it lightly. It involves making a sort of commitment to the chair.”

Raucous singing came up from the corridor below, then died away.

“What time is the play?” asked Nicholas.

“Eight o'clock,” said Janet. “It's seven now.”

“Seven! That leaves us barely an hour to dress and get there,” cried Amyas. With a grand sweep of his hand he pushed all the dishes into the sink. “We'll do them tomorrow morning. I hope you'll excuse me. We haven't the advantage of an elevator when we visit others in this building.”

And he hurried back to his end of the loft. Janet followed him in silence, leaving Nicholas alone at the table. His stomach sighed loudly. He got up and lay down on the sofa to wait for the others.

“The only inconvenience of this loft is not having bathing facilities,” called Amyas's voice from the wardrobe. The words sounded curiously muffled, as if he had clothed them in one of his tweeds or caftans. “It's a nuisance having to bathe at the houses of friends or drawing tubs of water. I should like to get something installed.”

When he finally appeared he was wearing the white shirt and flowered vest he had worn in the restaurant the evening before. But now he had added a kelly green ascot and red suspenders. For a few moments he studied Nicholas appraisingly.

“Have you nothing else to put on?”

“No,” said Nicholas. His old chinos and sweat shirt and his ragged windbreaker suddenly embarrassed him.

“We must buy you some clothes. The man who runs the fur and leather shop downstairs sells suits. I've asked him to stop by tomorrow.”

Janet emerged from behind her bed looking very demure in a high-waisted print dress with full sleeves and a high collar. Amyas beamed approval.

“My little dove,” he whispered, and stroked her hair. “Go and fetch my mandolin.”

They set out down the stairs. It was certainly easier for so large a man to go down rather than up, thought Nicholas. But two flights in any direction were too much for Amyas. He huffed and groaned and leaned first on Nicholas and then on Janet, not because he couldn't manage the stairs but because he was afraid of losing his balance. He trembled and gasped but never broke off his shrill chatter.

“One can't be too careful—there's no light and nothing to take hold of,” he panted. “This is where the lady welder lives. A club for Lithuanian refugees used to meet there. And do you know, whenever a Lithuanian met a Chinese from the club downstairs, they passed without speaking. Ah, if I could only fly!”

A sense of deep injustice filled his voice, as if he alone of all men had been born with the defect of gravity. Breathing heavily, he held Janet's arm and clutched at Nicholas's shoulder, and soon they heard voices and saw a light that fell on the railing of the fourth floor landing. A man was leaning over and looking up at them.

“Amyas!”

As they reached the bottom of the stairs they heard singing:

You and I and Amyas

Amyas and you and I,

To the greenwood must we go, alas!

You and I, my life and Amyas.

Puffing and limping, Amyas entered the loft with his two faithful servants. Several dozen people were sprawled on both sides of the doorway, leaving a center aisle free. Down the aisle walked Amyas, so joyfully he might have been walking in his own wedding. Nicholas felt a brief surge of pleasure that he was part of this procession, though even before he could name it as pleasure, it turned to quiet anger.