Place in the City (19 page)

They went up step by step, holding tight to one another, both afraid of the dark walls that lined the staircase, both thinking that they would never let go of this hold.

Peter lit the gas.

“Turn it higher,” Sasha told him, shrinking back from the shadows that danced about the room. He was standing on a chair, reaching up for the jet, when his mother came into the room.

Mary White stopped and watched him; he didn't know, because she had come in without any noise. Sasha was watching him too. Mary thought, “When all is said, there is nothing in life but the love of a woman for a man.” Just standing there, looking at the two of them under the light, she was as happy as it would ever be possible for her to be.

“Peter,” she whispered.

The children started, and Peter leaped off his chair. He came toward her, and then he stopped. He stood looking at her, and Sasha, watching him, knew that he. was trying not to cry.

“Peter,” Mary said, afraid suddenly.

He turned around sullenly. “Lemme alone,” he muttered.

She went over to him, came down on her knees, and put her arms around him, shaking her head from side to side. “Pede, Pede,” she crooned. “Who hurt you?”

“Nobody—”

“Tell me, Pede.”

“Lemme alone.”

Then, turning his face to her, she saw his eyes. “He knows,” she thought. “My God, he's only a baby—but he knows already. Peter—what have I done to you?”

“Pede,” she said, very softly. “Won't you kiss me, Pede?”

Then he hugged her, leaving himself go on her broad and wonderful breast. He would forget; he knew that he had to forget. But all the rest of his life would be from now, not from before it.

T
HE WIND
blows—and night falls over the Place. The city pauses before the brief spurt that precedes sleep. And lights come, and a person on a tall roof sees glittering necklaces all over the city.

O'Lacy walks through the Place, a tall, bent figure, law in a place where the good and the bad mingle, yet hold apart eternally—good and bad to O'Lacy, for he knows.

Here is the pause—when only the aftermath of the legend is taking place. You know that the music master will die. He dies tonight. O'Lacy knows that, and he mulls over it as he walks along the street. Undoubtedly, such things are just. One takes a life, and in return one's life is taken. That law, O'Lacy considers, is as eternal and unchanging as the day and the night. It holds things together.

He stops by the plane tree. The plane tree is the one thing in Apple Place that gives O'Lacy real pleasure. Especially at night, when the leaves are only faintly lit by the light of the street lamp. All through the spring and all through the summer he will watch it bud and grow.

He stops there, sighing and swinging his club, trying to catch the scent of the buds. Then he sees Meyer walking down the street, slowly, the way Meyer always walks now. Well, sorrow does that. Everyone knows what happened to Meyer, with his children, and while he is only a Jew, it is a great deal, even for a Jew.

“Good evening,” O'Lacy said.

Meyer nodded, and passed on. As he approached his store, his steps became slower and shorter. He dreaded coming back to the store. As a matter of fact, he always dreaded that. Aside from other things, it brought him to his wife, and now they were alone it seemed to him that he never had anything to say to her. What was there to say anyway, outside of talking about the weather and the few murder cases that figured in the papers?

That was because outside of his store there had never been any interest in his life, outside of his children. But what was the use of thinking about his children, when he always ended with the same thought, that they were dead? Not all of them; Jessica remained.

Sometimes he considered what would happen if Jessica went the way the others had gone, like Alice and Marion. Then his heart would go, and it would be all over. Thinking of Jessica, he smiled. It was almost the only thing that could make him smile, thoughts of Jessica, of his youngest and most beloved, of the apple of his eye and the beloved of his heart…. Outside the store, he saw Shutzey, lounging against the brick with the easy grace of a panther, picking his teeth delicately and deliberately.

It was the first time in almost a week. Between his teeth, Meyer whispered: “Swine.”

“Evenin', Meyer,” Shutzey said graciously.

One of Meyer's few pleasures, of late especially, was dreaming dreams about Shutzey. The dreams took many forms. In some of them, Meyer was a great powerful man, seven feet tall—that was to make things certain—who fought with Shutzey every day, and who beat him terribly every day. After the beating, Shutzey would cringe and grovel before Meyer, kiss his feet. In other dreams, Meyer saw Shutzey suffering dreadful diseases, alone and poverty-stricken, dying slowly and with great pain. And again Shutzey would be herded by policemen, herded to arrest that would end in a prison sentence of many years, Meyer looking on while the judge sentenced him. But these dreams always vanished before the reality of Shutzey, who took possession of the front of his store, displaying his girls just as if he, Shutzey, paid the rent.

Shutzey smiled at him and nodded, but Meyer would have noticed, had he observed keenly, that Shutzey appeared to be worried, that he was waiting for something.

Meyer went into the store. Jessica was behind the counter, and she too was thrilling with suppressed excitement; but for another reason. Marion was upstairs. After all the months, Marion had come back, and she was waiting for her father upstairs. To Jessica, that was drama—full, rich drama. Meyer would go up and he would see her. Then what would he do?

She could tell Meyer, but her sense of the nicety of these things prevented her from spoiling the situation. Yet if she told him, she would be in on some of it. She made her choice and kept silent.

Meyer smiled. “Jessie,” he said. It hurt him to see her behind the counter, but who else did he have? And she could be trusted. She wouldn't fail him.

“Hello, pop.”

“I brought something for you.” He took a case out of his pocket, opened it, and showed her a little wrist-watch. It was full of stones, and it gleamed and sparkled in the light. But she had seen it the week before in Gerber's pawn-shop window, marked down to four-fifty.

“It's awful nice,” she said. She tried to be excited, to make Meyer think that she was excited. She never felt very deeply about Meyer. Sometimes, she thought she hated him. Other times, she was simply apathetic. But she couldn't break away, not half so easily as the others had. Somehow, where her mother and father were concerned, she lacked the mental courage. There was security here for a person who was walking on ice, and she was.

Meyer's smile crinkled all over his face. “Put it on,” he urged.

She buckled it onto her wrist, considering that it was not so different in appearance from the one Shutzey had given her. She had gone to Tiffany's to price it, discovering that it had cost six hundred dollars.

“Thanks, darling.” She leaned over the counter and kissed him.

“Why should you thank me? Is it so much for a daughter like you?”

“It's beautiful.”

Then he turned around, went up the stairs. He was feeling good, better than he had felt for a long time.

When he had gone, Shutzey opened the door and came in. Jessica had seen him outside, but she knew he would not come in until Meyer was gone. She had warned him about that. He entered with the graceful ease of a man whose every movement is controlled by a practiced muscle. He draped himself over the counter and pointed to a twenty-five cent cigar.

“The ten cent size used to do for you,” Jessica said, bringing out the box.

“I'm learnin', honey.”

“Well, don't throw your money away.”

“Say listen—can't I smoke, what's that?”

“A watch. The old man got it.”

“Yeah? Where's mine?”

“I can't wear it here. Ain't you got no sense, Charley? I know what I'm doing.”

“Awright. But I don't see no sense in me spending a roll to buy things fur you, when you don't show 'em.”

“It's a good investment, ain't it?”

“Awright.”

“Now—how about tonight?”

Shutzey lit the cigar, then spread his hands wide on the counter, shaking his head. He puffed deeply, blowing clouds of smoke over her.

“I dunno.”

“You losing your nerve?”

“No—that ain't it. But Timy won't come in. He's losing his nerve. Anyway, he's mixed up in some political deal now, an' he's scared tu budge. I'm meeting Snookie at the house tonight. Timy won't come in, but he won't let us down if we get in a pinch. An' if we get that truck tonight—but it ain't no cinch.”

“Sure it ain't,” Jessica said. “But if it works, it'll mean a million dollars before the year's out, won't it?”

“Yeah—”

“You scared?”

“I don't work with a rod. It's a tough racket.”

“Snookie does.”

“Yeah.”

“All right. You'd better get out of here before the old man comes down.” She looked at him for a moment; then she took his hand and quickly pressed it to her lips. “See, Charley. Geesus Christ, take care of yourself. It's you and me together. I'll wait for you at your apartment tonight. Come back quick—I'll be worried sick about you.”

“It's awright.”

“Yeah—but now I'm afraid.”

“You just wait fur me. It's awright.”

Then, when he had gone, she stood at the counter, staring straight in front of her. He had walked out like the big, certain animal he was, and she was afraid. But she shouldn't have let him know.

“He's nothing to me,” she thought. “He doesn't mean a thing. He's just a step. There'll be a whole lot more steps before I'm through. A million dollars—”

W
HEN
Meyer came into the living-room and saw Marion, he stopped short, stared, and then put a hand to his head. He dropped it, fumbled with both his hands; then he took a deep breath.

“So you're back,” he said. It was the first time he had seen her since she had married the priest.

“Yes, I came back,” she nodded.

He took several more deep breaths. At first, he was too surprised to feel anger, and then he hardly knew whether he should be angry or not. But the breathing helped him. Each time he filled his lungs, he had more control over himself and less control over his temper.

“You back,” he said. “You come back—after him. What did he do? Maybe he threw you out like a dog? Then you come back to me—”

“Meyer!”

His wife was there behind him, and he whirled to face her, glad for someone to share part of his rage with. But Bessie went past him to Marion, bent over her, and put an arm around her shoulders. “Meyer,” she said, “Meyer—can't you see it's your daughter?”

“You too,” Meyer roared, “you too!”

“Meyer—it don't do no good to get excited like that. You're frightening the child. Let her talk.”

“It's all right, mother,” Marion assured her.

“It's not all right!” Meyer yelled.

“Meyer, stop yelling.”

“I should stop yelling! That's all that matters, that I should stop yelling. Nothing else matters. That my heart is bleeding—that don't matter.”

“I'm sorry,” Marion said. “I'm sorry.”

Several times, Meyer gulped air. Then he dropped into a chair and stared at them. He shook his head, wiped his face with his hands, and then felt curiously empty and lost. As suddenly as his anger had appeared, it had left him.

“A drink of water, maybe?” Bessie inquired.

“No—no.” He shook his head.

“I wrote to you twice,” Marion said. “I guess I was afraid to come. And after I wrote to you, I knew you didn't want me to come.”

Bessie shook her head, clutching her daughter's shoulder tighter.

“And now you come to us—after he's through with you.”

“No.”

“Let the child speak,” Bessie pleaded.

“Let her? Am I stopping her?”

“I came to say good-by,” Marion told them.

Bessie looked at her. Meyer sat still, still as if he had suddenly become paralyzed.

“What do you mean?”

“We're going away.”

“Yes—then what? With me you are dead. I say you are dead already.”

“Meyer!”

Marion shook her head. “I didn't know,” she said. “I didn't think you'd hate me. I wanted to see you and say good-by.”

“You see us,” Meyer told her.

“That's all?”

“All.”

Bessie shook her head, like a person in a dream. She stood up, went to the couch, sat down, shook her head again.

Marion rose. “I'll be going,” she said. She started to explain. “We'll be going west—but I could come and visit you. Only there's not much money now—”

“So that's it!”

“No—I don't want anything.”

Meyer stared at her sternly; he knew that he was staring at her sternly, and he attempted to make his gaze sterner than it was. So when Bessie looked at him, it wasn't Marion she pitied then, but Meyer—her Meyer, her poor small Meyer who was the smallest man in the world. How could he be stern, and why was he making himself be that way, when he wasn't? He wasn't; he was the little fearful man who curled up against her at night, who would wake her up and say, “Bessie, I'm afraid.” But why? “Bessie, I wake up and I begin to wonder. Now I can't sleep. Bessie—”

Bessie said: “You'll come and see us.”

Meyer glanced at her. “Oh—if I had a son,” he moaned.

Marion went over to him, but he said:

“Leave me alone.”

Then she went out. She went through the store, stopping a moment, and turning to Jessica who stood behind the counter reading a movie magazine.