Place in the City (2 page)

Upstairs, Claus stood alone in the parlor. He always gave her the impression of terrible, terrible loneliness, his tall body with the long hard sagging forward, the way his thin lips drooped at the corners. What's inside of a man like that? How is anyone to know? Locked all the time—locked for God only knows how many years. You got to be afraid of him, and then you were only afraid, and nothing else mattered. All fear; your life fills up with it, until there's room for nothing else. If such a man is big, very big, then it doesn't matter; give him a country to rule. But when he's a small man—a music master.

His look, as she entered, was full of tenderness; he spread his hands apart to welcome her, smiling very slowly, as if to emphasize that he loved one thing.

“You're like one of the snowflakes,” he said, “cool and beautiful, my dear.”

Then she was only afraid. “You'll have your supper.”

He nodded, and he took her arm.

T
HE SNOW
falls, and evening comes; and in the quivering flakes there is more than a suggestion of peace. But there is peace nowhere in the city, hardly here. No peace in a street crowded full of lives. No moral even. Only a folk-tale of people who live in Manhattan. The poet was right. There is more in Manhattan than anywhere else in the world.

If you sat on the edge of a roof and watched—would you see more in many years than in a single night? Or what would you see? The priest walks slowly, as though he knows. But does he, any more than you would?

“ 'Evening,” Shutzey said to him.

The priest nodded. He was a young man, and what if Shutzey was a pimp? He walked on slowly, but he didn't think of the poet until he saw the light burning in his window. Then he opened the door and went in, shaking the snow from his coat.

“Hello, Edwards,” he called out.

Edwards smiled. He held out his hands to the priest, who sat down opposite him. “Geesus, I'm lonely,” he whispered. “I'm damn glad to see you.”

“Got you again?”

“Coughing my belly out. Jack, you'll shrive me in a week, and I'm not sorry. Now that's funny, isn't it?”

“You're a fool.”

“Am I? But I'm not sorry—except for one thing. Anna. Anna and you—all I have. Now look, nine months in this den, and I don't know a soul, only Anna and you. Christ, how I envy you! You know everything, and you can't write it. Let me confess.”

“Why don't you get a grip on yourself?” the priest said evenly.

“Do I need it? You know God damn well I'm going to die. If I had your health, do you think I'd talk like this? But I'm sick. I know—my mind is sick, too. But I can't take a grip on myself—it's too late. Just waiting now. Let me confess.”

“You're alone too much,” the priest told him. “Loneliness rots any man's soul. Why don't you get out of here, walk around, look at things. How long is it since you've been out of this room?”

“Weeks—”

“Then get out—walk in the snow—”

“Wait a minute. Let me talk—confess. That's what you're a priest for, isn't it? You know Anna?”

“Yes, but—”

“Wait a minute, I say. I love her. And I'm going to die. Now I'm not afraid, and I don't take too much stock in what comes after. I've thought myself out, and I'm not afraid any more. Only what about her? She goes on living with him, afraid of him, morning, noon and night. What about her? Puzzle it out for me. That's your job.”

“Is it?” the priest wondered.

B
E KING,”
Sasha said. She pulled a chair around, back to the stove, to make sure that Peter would be warm. A tablecloth, checked red and white, was thrown over the chair. Deftly, she made a pointed crown out of a paper napkin. Then she stretched onto the stove to mix the pea soup.

“Uv what?” Peter climbed into the chair.

“N'Yurk.”

“Me?”

“Mm—”

“Queen.” Peter waved a spoon; he kicked his legs, crowing with pride; then he began to sing at the top of his lungs, while Sasha gazed at him with adoring eyes. “Queen?” Peter demanded.

“No—” Then Sasha looked at him curiously. You could love a person in one way—and then you could love him in another. Or you could love him in every single way there was, like she loved Peter. If he were not king, surely some day he would be president of the United States, and she thought she liked that idea better than any other. She knelt down in front of him, took his hand, and kissed it.

“Waddayu doin'?”

“I luvyu, Pede.” She considered for a while; then she decided: “I wanna marry yu.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

They must have fallen asleep. The pea soup burnt, and that woke Sasha. Peter's crown was crumpled on the floor, and Peter sat with his head hanging forward. It was very late then. When Peter woke, he found Sasha still on the floor, sobbing over the burnt soup. Then they sat and waited for Peter's mother. But they couldn't remain awake, and when his mother came back, they were asleep again.

She came into the kitchen, stood there looking at them, her face pasty-white, and her eyes staring. She was a large woman, large as a man and well-formed, large breasts and large thighs. Shutzey could get more for Mary White than for any toothpick-limbed blond.

She moved over to the stove, then went back to the door; then she moved about the room aimlessly, wagging her head from side to side. She looked at her hands, first at the palms and then at the backs. Then she took off her ring, and looked at the inside, where it said, Mary Richard White. She put it back on again.

Something drew her over to the soup pot, and she peered into it, screwing up her nose at the burnt odor. Then she went away. In all her movements there was no purpose, no sense. At last, she fell into a chair.

“Geesus Christ,” she said.

B
EFORE
he reached the United States Senate, before Congress, even before the Assembly, Timy Dolan was a big man. He had the ward under his hand, under his finger, like a cockroach. If he wanted to, he could press down, and then the cockroach would spraddle out and die. Or he could watch the cockroach and smile at it. Timy wore a chesterfield and a black derby, and when he walked through the ward, where everyone knew him, you could see just by the way he walked that he was a big man. He had his finger in everything.

He knew all the pimps personally, and they heeled him personally. Then vice wasn't the organized racket it is now. But it was big enough just in the district to give Timy five or six hundred dollars a week. And when Timy wanted a woman he knew where to go.

He came to Shutzey this day, when the regular club held its monthly stag over Kraus' Saloon, just across and around the corner from Meyer's cigar store.

He went into Meyer's with Shutzey, and picked himself a twenty-five cent cigar. “Have one,” he said to Shutzey, who was only a pimp and smoked no better than a tencent brand.

“Hullo, Timy, and how is it?” Meyer said; but he didn't say anything to Shutzey, except to think that it was a dirty shame to waste a good brand on a bum. All his life, Meyer had been longing to say one thing to Shutzey, “Get out and stay out, you rotten bum!” But what was the use, when Shutzey was six feet and strong as an ox?

Shutzey sprawled over the counter, bit his cigar. “How's business, Meyer?” he smiled.

“Should it be good when you make my place into a whorehouse?”

“Now, Meyer,” Timy said gently, “there ain't no whorehouses in my district.”

“All right, Timy. With you I ain't got a grievance. But this one with his whores—is it a thing for my wife to see, for my daughters? When I got three daughters, should I have whores outside my door, day and night? Does he got to come to me? Ain't there nobody else, that I got to go to the synagogue and I can't look nobody in the face? Is it right?”

“G'wan, Meyer, I bring yu all yer business,” Shutzey said, still smiling.

“Such business I don't want.”

“Lay off,” Timy told them. “I got a stag to go on.”

“Whaddyu want?”

“Something new.”

“Well—take yu pick.”

“Listen, Shutzey, I want one broad for a stag party.”

“Geesus Christ,” Shutzey whispered. “You ain't serious. What d'yu want sumpen like that fur, when I can give yu a lineup? You got a crack on, Timy.”

“Yu got it or no? You heard me the first time.”

“Lemme think.” Shutzey looked at him, squinting and screwing up his broad, impassive face. “Suppose sumpen happens to her?”

“Ain't I big enough for yu? Maybe yu gotta kick coming, Shutzey? Maybe I don't treat yu right. Ain't there going tu be a judge there—an' a magistrate?”

“Awright.”

They went out. Meyer stared after them; he stared fascinated at the flakes of snow that swirled in and melted on the floor. Then he began to arrange the cigar boxes. What was the use of thinking? It went on. Nothing struck Shutzey dead; nothing struck Timy dead. They prospered; their wealth piled up. Where was justice then? He, who was an honest man—as honest as any man—slaved all his life, and in the end, what did he have? Then what was the use of anything at all, when he was an honest man?

He picked up the New York
Times
, and turned to the stocks. He put on his glasses and read eagerly. Then he calculated with a pencil on the inside of an empty cigar box. And all the time he chewed nervously on his tongue.

I
T IS
hard to say what Meyer would have done if he had seen Jessica behind the curtain. He would not believe anyway that Jessica had been there all the time, shivering and listening. The Meyers lived above the store, four rooms, managing this way: the two older girls in a bedroom, Jessica in the living room, which they also used as a dining room, and Meyer and his wife in a room. Then the kitchen. It was not so big, but nevertheless, Meyer gave his girls the best. They had clothes and education, and a good many other things that most girls don't have. They were all of them handsome girls, and to Meyer they were like figures out of the Song of Songs.

From the apartment, a staircase led down to the store; a green plush curtain hid the staircase.

Jessica was going out, but when she heard Shutzey's voice, she stopped just behind the curtain. She stood there listening and trembling, and all the while caressing her breasts and thighs. But she wasn't frightened. A stag party—not all like Shutzey; but if they were all like Shutzey—Easily, he was the strongest man she had ever known; and she knew him. Didn't he always look at her when she left the store?

When they had left, she slipped back upstairs, into her sisters' bedroom, and stayed there. She looked into the dresser mirror, cocking her head to one side and taking good stock of herself.

She was very blond for a Jewess, with real yellow hair, and slim with narrow hips, but good up above anyway, the way a girl should be. She knew.

She walked back and forth, swinging her hips, and craning her head to see herself in the mirror. When she finished training school, she'd be a teacher. But hitch your wagon to a star, and you'd go up. Already Timy had the ward under his finger, like a cockroach—just like that. Timy would go places; everybody said that: and Shutzey would go places, too. But Dolan had a belly already. Undressed he would look like a kewpi doll, while Shutzey was straight as an arrow and strong as an ox.

Dropping to the bed, she chewed on knuckles, stared at the ceiling, and then she caressed her breasts again. She felt how her hair was drawn back in a tight bun. All over she was beautiful.

What kind of a woman would they get, and then what would happen to her? What did a night's work like that pay? The world was half men and half women. A woman had to know what to do with herself. Timy would look at her body and eat his heart out. Or maybe he liked fat. dark girls. She had to know.

A little later, she went down and out of the store. Shutzey wasn't outside, but she walked down the street hoping that she would meet him. But what she would do if she met him, she didn't know.

O
N THE
same street, across from Meyer's cigar store, and two houses from the corner, Shutzey had his place; in a brownstone three-story house, which he owned. That will give you an idea about Shutzey—thirty-five thousand dollars of real estate, clear. Top to bottom, he furnished it himself. And you wouldn't know it was a house, because on the outside it was just as quiet and respectable as any other place on the street.

Shutzey treated his whores right. Inside the front door, just as you entered, was the parlor, and behind that two sitting rooms, one in blue and one in yellow. Some of the girls lived upstairs, but not all of them; some had their own homes, and some had families, like Mary White. And some had husbands.

But Shutzey's place was always clean. The girls liked to sit in their kimonos in the parlor, smoke and talk; and they didn't have to walk the streets. Sometimes they stood on. the corner with Shutzey, but that wasn't street-walking. And he never sent them out to Coney Island, or up on the Drive when the ships came in, the way some of the pimps did.

There were four or five girls in the parlor; they were full of smiles for Timy.

“Lay off,” he commanded.

“It's on the house, Timy.”

“Sure.”

“Why don't yu give us a break, Timy?”

“It's Park Avenue or nothin' fur him.”

“Lay off!”

“Awright, girls—that's enough,” Shutzey told them. He looked them over carefully, as if he had never seen any of them before, flicked the ashes from his cigar, and squinted; he called one over.

“Minnie!”

Timy shook his head. He slapped her buttocks; then he shook his head again.

“Get Mary White,” Shutzey said, “an' the rest of yu clear out.”

When she walked in, she smiled, too. You had to, because Timy was a big man. He could make anyone, or break them too.