Herzog (6 page)

    Meanwhile, the locomotive cried and the iron-studded cars began to move. Sun and girders divided the soot geometrically. By the factory walls the grimy weeds grew. A smell of malt came from the breweries.

    The train crossed the St. Lawrence. Moses pressed the pedal and through the stained funnel of the toilet he saw the river frothing. Then he stood at the window. The water shone and curved on great slabs of rock, spinning into foam at the Lachine Rapids, where it sucked and rumbled. On the other shore was Caughnawaga, where the Indians lived in shacks raised on stilts. Then came the burnt summer fields. The windows were open. The echo of the train came back from the straw like a voice through a beard. The engine sowed cinders and soot over the fiery flowers and the hairy knobs of weed.

    But that was forty years behind him. Now the train was ribbed for speed, a segmented tube of brilliant steel.

    There were no pears, no Willie, no Shura, no Helen, no Mother. Leaving the cab, he thought how his mother would moisten her handkerchief at her mouth and rub his face clean. He had no business to recall this, he knew, and turned toward Grand Central in his straw hat. He was of the mature generation now, and life was his to do something with, if he could. But he had not forgotten the odor of his mother's saliva on the handkerchief that summer morning in the squat hollow Canadian station, the black iron and the sublime brass. All children have cheeks and all mothers spittle to wipe them tenderly. These things either matter or they do not matter. It depends upon the universe, what it is. These acute memories are probably symptoms of disorder. To him, perpetual thought of death was a sin. Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.

    In the crowds of Grand Central Station, Herzog in spite of all his efforts to do what was best could not remain rational. He felt it all slipping away from him in the subterranean roar of engines, voices, and feet and in the galleries with lights like drops of fat in yellow broth and the strong suffocating fragrance of underground New York. His collar grew wet and the sweat ran from his armpits down his ribs as he bought the ticket, and then he picked up a copy of the Times, and was about to get a bar of Cadbury's Caramello, but he denied himself that, thinking of the money he had spent on new clothes which would not fit if he ate carbohydrates. It would give the victory to the other side to let himself grow fat, jowly, sullen, with broad hips and a belly, and breathing hard.

    Ramona wouldn't like it either, and what Ramona liked mattered considerably. He seriously considered marrying her, notwithstanding that he seemed, just now, to be buying a ticket to escape from her. But this was in her best interests, too, if he was so confused-both visionary and muddy as he felt now, feverish, damaged, angry, quarrelsome, and shaky. He was going to phone her shop, but in his change there was only one nickel left, no dimes. He would have to break a bill, and he didn't want candy or gum. Then he thought of wiring her and saw that he would seem weak if he sent a telegram.

    On the sultry platform of Grand Central he opened the bulky Times with its cut shreds at the edges, having set the valise on his feet. The hushed electric trucks were rushing by with mail bags, and he stared at the news with a peculiar effort. It was a hostile broth of black print Moonraceberlin Khrushchwarn-committeegalacti c Xray Phouma.

    He saw twenty paces away the white soft face and independent look of a woman in a shining black straw hat which held her head in depth and eyes that even in the signal-dotted obscurity reached him with a force she could never be aware of. Those eyes might be blue, perhaps green, even gray-he would never know.

    But they were bitch eyes, that was certain. They expressed a sort of female arrogance which had an immediate sexual power over him; he experienced it again that very moment-a round face, the clear gaze of pale bitch eyes, a pair of proud legs.

    I must write to Aunt Zelda, he suddenly decided. They mustn't think they can get away with it-make such a fool of me, put me on. He folded the thick paper and hurried into the train. The bitch-eyed girl was on the other track, and good riddance. He went into a New Haven car, and the russet door closed behind him on pneumatic hinges, stiff and hissing. The air inside was chill, air-conditioned. He was the first passenger and had his choice of seats.

    He sat in a cramped position, pressing the valise to his chest, his traveling-desk, and writing rapidly in the spiral notebook.

    Dear Zelda, Of course you have to be loyal to your niece. I am just an outsider. You and Herman said I was one of the family. If I was patsy enough to be affected (at my age) by this sort of "heart-felt" family garbage, why I deserve what I got.

    I was flattered by Herman's affection, because of his former underworld acquaintances.

    I was overcome with happy pride at being found "regular." It meant my muddled intellectual life, as a poor soldier of culture, hadn't ruined my human sympathies. What if I had written a book on the Romantics? A politician in the Cook County Democratic organization who knew the Syndicate, the Juice men, the Policy kings, Cosa Nostra, and all the hoods, still found me good company, heimisch, and took me along to the races, the hockey games.

    But Herman is even more marginal to the Syndicate than poor Herzog to the practical world and both are at home in a pleasant heimisch environment and love the Russian bath and tea and smoked fish and herrings afterward. With restless women conspiring at home.

    As long as I was Mady's good husband, I was a delightful person. Suddenly, because Madeleine decided that she wanted out - suddenly, I was a mad dog. The police were warned about me and there was talk of committing me to an institution. I know that my friend and Mady's lawyer, Sandor Himmelstein, called Dr. Edvig to ask whether I was crazy enough to be put in Manteno or Elgin. You took Madeleine's word as to my mental condition and so did others.

    But you knew what she was up to - knew why she left Ludeyville for Chicago, why I had to find a job there for Valentine Gersbach, knew that I went house-hunting for the Gersbachs and arranged the private school for little Ephraim Gersbach. It must be very deep and primitive, the feeling people - women - have against a deceived husband, and I know now that you helped your niece by having Herman take me away to the hockey game.

    Herzog was not angry at Herman-he didn't believe he was part of the conspiracy.

    The Blackhawks against the Maple-Leafs.

    Uncle Herman, mild, decent, clever, neat, in black loafers and belt-less slacks, his high fedora standing up at the front like a fire helmet, his shirt with a tiny gargoyle on the breast pocket. In the rink the players mixed like hornets- swift, padded, yellow, black, red, rushing, slashing, whirling over the ice. Above the rink the tobacco smoke lay like a cloud of flash powder, explosive. Over the p. a. system the management begged the spectators not to throw pennies to catch the blades of the skates. Herzog with circled eyes tried to relax in Herman's company. He even won a bet and took him to Fritzel's for cheesecake. All the big names of Chicago were there. And what must Uncle Herman have been thinking?

    Suppose that he also knew that Madeleine and Gersbach were together? In spite of the air-conditioned chill of the New Haven car, Herzog felt the sweat break out on his face.

    Last March when I came back from Europe, a case of nerves, and arrived in Chicago to see what could be done, if anything, to restore a little order, I was really in a goofy state. Partly it may have been the weather, and the time changes. It was spring in Italy. Palm trees in Turkey. In Galilee, the red anemones among stones. But in Chicago I ran into a blizzard in March. I was met by Gersbach, still my dearest friend as recently as that, looking at me with compassion. He wore a storm coat, black galoshes, a Kelly-green scarf, and had Junie in his arms. He hugged me. June kissed me on the face. We went to the waiting room and I unpacked the toys and little dresses I had bought, and a Florentine wallet for Valentine and Polish amber beads for Phoebe Gersbach. As it was past Junie's bedtime and the snowfall was getting heavy, Gersbach took me to the Surf Motel.

    He said he couldn't book me at the Windermere, closer to the house, a ten-minute walk. By morning a ten-inch snow had fallen. The lake was heaving and lit by white snow to a near horizon of storming gray. I phoned Madeleine but she hung up on me; Gersbach, but he was out of his office; Dr. Edvig, but he couldn't give me an appointment till next day. His own family, his sister, his stepmother, Herzog avoided. He went to see Aunt Zelda.

    There were no cabs that day. He rode the buses, freezing when he changed in his covert-cloth coat and thin-soled loafers. The Umschands lived in a new suburb, to hell and gone, beyond Palos Park, on the fringe of the Forest Preserves. The buzzard had stopped by the time he got there, but the wind was cutting, and lumps of snow fell from twigs. Frost sealed the shop windows. At the package store, Herzog, not much of a drinker, picked up a bottle of Guckenheimer's 86 proof. It was early in the day, but his blood was cold. Thus he spoke to Aunt Zelda with a whisky breath.

    "I'll heat the coffee up. You must be solid ice," she said.

    In the suburban kitchen of enamel and copper, the white molded female forms bulged from all sides.

    The refrigerator, as if it had a heart, and the range with gentian flames under the pot.

    Zelda had made up her face and wore gold slacks and plastic-heeled slippers-transparent.

    They sat down. Looking through the glass-topped table, Herzog could see that her hands were pressed between her knees. When he began to talk, she lowered her eyes. She had a blond complexion, but her eyelids were darker, warmer, more brown, discolored but with a thick blue line drawn on each by a cosmetic pencil. Her downcast look, Moses at first took as agreement or sympathy; but he realized how wrong he was when he observed her nose. It was full of mistrust. By the way it moved he realized that she rejected everything he was saying. But he knew he was immoderate-worse than that, temporarily deranged. He tried to get a grip on himself. Half buttoned, red-eyed, unshaved, he looked disgraceful. Indecent. He was telling Zelda his side of the case. "I know she's turned you against me-poisoned your mind, Zelda."

    "No, she respects you. She fell out of love with you, that's all. Women fall out of love."

    "Love? Madeleine loved me? You know that's just middle-class bunk."

    "She was crazy about you. I know she adored you once, Moses."

    "No, no! Don't work on me like that. You know it isn't true. She's sick. She's a diseased woman-I took care of her."

    "I'll admit you did," said Zelda. "What's true is true. But what disease..."

    "Ah!" said Herzog harshly. "So you love the truth!"

    He saw Madeleine's influence in this; she was forever talking about the truth. She could not bear lying. Nothing could throw Madeleine into a rage so quickly as a lie. And now she had Zelda on the same standard-Zelda, with dyed hair as dry as excelsior and the purplish lines on her lids, these caterpillar forms-Oh! thought Herzog in the train, the things women apply to their own flesh. And we must go along, must look, listen, heed, breathe in. And now Zelda, her face a little lined, her soft, powerful nostrils dilated with suspicion, and fascinated at his state (there was reality in Herzog now, not seen when he was affable), was giving him the business about truth.

    "Haven't I always leveled with you?" she said. "I am not just another suburban hausfrau."

    "You mean because Herman says he knows Luigi Boscolla, the hoodlum?"

    "Don't pretend you can't understand me...."

    Herzog did not want to offend her. It suddenly was plain what made her talk like this. Madeleine had convinced Zelda that she too was exceptional.

    Everyone close to Madeleine, everyone drawn into the drama of her life became exceptional, deeply gifted, brilliant. It had happened also to him.

    By his dismissal from Madeleine's life, sent back into the darkness, he became again a spectator.

    But he saw Aunt Zelda was inspired by a new sense of herself. Herzog envied her even this closeness to Madeleine.

    "Well, I know you aren't like the other wives out here*"

    Your kitchen is different, your Italian lamps, your carpets, your French provincial furniture, your Westinghouse, your mink, your country club, your cerebral palsy canisters are all different.

    I am sure you were sincere. Not insincere. True insincerity is hard to find.

    "Madeleine and I have always been more like sisters," said Zelda. "I'd love her no matter how she acted. But I'm glad to say she's been terrific, a serious person."

    "Junk!"

    "Just as serious as you are."

    "Returning a husband like a cake dish or a bath towel to Field's."

    "It didn't work out. You have your faults too.

    I'm sure you won't deny that."

    "How could I?"

    "Overbearing, gloomy. You brood a lot."

    "That's true enough."

    "Very demanding. Have to have your own way. She says you wore her out, asking for help, support."

    "It's all correct. And more. I'm hasty, irascible, spoiled. And what else?"

    "You've been reckless about women."

    "Since Madeleine threw me out, maybe. Trying to get back my self-respect."

    "No, while you still were married." Zelda's mouth tightened.

    Herzog felt himself redden. A thick, hot, sick pressure filled his chest. His heart felt ill and his forehead instantly wet.

    He muttered, "She made it tough for me, too.

    Sexually."

    "Well, being older... But that's bygones," said Zelda. "Your big mistake was to bury yourself in the country so you could finish that project of yours- that study of whatchamajig. You never did wind it up, did you?"

    "No," Herzog said.

    "Then what was that all about."

    Herzog tried to explain what it was about-that his study was supposed to have ended with a new angle on the modern condition, showing how life could be lived by renewing universal connections; overturning the last of the Romantic errors about the uniqueness of the Self; revising the old Western, Faustian ideology; investigating the social meaning of Nothingness. And more.