Plexus (3 page)

Snatching the book which I was carrying under my arm, he shouted: “What are you reading? Ah,
Hamsun
. Good! Beautiful writer.” He hadn't even said, “How are you” yet. “We must sit down somewhere and talk. Where are you going? Have you had dinner? I'm hungry.”

“Excuse me,” I said, “but I want to have a look at Dostoevski.”

I left him standing there talking excitedly to Mona with both hands (and feet). I plunked myself in front of Dostoevski's portrait, as I had done before many a time, to study his familiar physiognomy anew. I thought of my friend Lou Jacobs who used to doff his hat every time he passed a statue of Shakespeare. It was something more than a bow or salute I made to Dostoevski. It was more like a prayer, a prayer that he would unlock the secret of revelation. Such a plain, homely face, he had. So Slavic, so moujik-like. The face of a man who might pass unnoticed in a crowd. (Nahoum Yood looked much more the writer than did the great Dostoevski.) I stood there, as always, trying to penetrate the mystery of the being lurking behind the doughy mass of features. All I could read clearly was sorrow and obstinacy. A man who obviously preferred the
lowly life, a man fresh from prison. I lost myself in contemplation. Finally I saw only the artist, the tragic, unprecedented artist who had created a veritable pantheon of characters, figures such as had never been heard of before and never would be again, each one of them more real, more potent, more mysterious, more inscrutable than all the mad Czars and all the cruel, wicked Popes put together.

Suddenly I felt Nahoum Yood's heavy hand on my shoulder. His eyes were dancing, his mouth ringed with saliva. The battered derby which he wore indoors and out had come down over his eyes, giving him a comical and an almost maniacal look.

“Mysterium!”
he shouted.
“Mysterium! Mysterium!”

I looked at him blankly.

“You haven't read it?” he yelled. What looked like a crowd began to gather round us, one of those crowds which spring up from nowhere as soon as a hawker begins to advertise his wares.

“What are you talking about?” I asked blandly.

“About your Knut Hamsun. The greatest book he ever wrote—
Mysterium
it is called, in German.”

“He means
Mysteries,”
said Mona.

“Yes,
Mysteries,”
cried Nahoum Yood.

“He's just been telling me all about it,” said Mona. “It does sound wonderful.”

“More wonderful than
A Wanderer Plays on Muted Strings?”

Nahoum Yood burst in:
“That
, that is nothing. For
Growth of the Soil
they gave him the Nobel Prize. For
Mysterium
nobody even knows about it. Look, let me explain.…” He paused, turned halfway round and spat. “No, better not to explain. Go to your Carnegie chewing gum library and ask for it. How do you say it in English?
Mysteries?
Almost the same—but
Mysterium
is better. More
mysterischer, nicht?”
He gave one of his broad trolley track smiles and with that the brim of his hat fell over his eyes.

Suddenly he realized that he had collected an audience. “Go home!” he shouted, raising both arms to shoo the crowd away. “Are we selling shoelaces here? What is it with you? Must I rent a hall to speak a few words in private to a friend? This is not Russia. Go home…
shool!”
And again he brandished his arms.

No one budged. They simply smiled indulgently. Apparently they knew him well, this Nahoum Yood. One of them spoke up in Yiddish. Nahoum Yood gave a sad complacent sort of smile and looked at us helplessly.

“They want that I should recite to them something in Yiddish.”

“Fine,” I said, “why don't you?”

He smiled again, sheepishly this time. “They are like children,” he said. “Wait, I will tell them a fable. You know what is a fable, don't you? This is a fable about a green horse with three legs. I can only tell it in Yiddish… you will excuse me.”

The moment he began talking Yiddish his whole countenance changed. He put on such a serious, mournful look that I thought he would burst into tears any moment. But when I looked at his audience I saw that they were chuckling and giggling. The more serious and mournful his expression, the more jovial his listeners grew. Finally they were doubled up with laughter. Nahoum Yood never so much as cracked a smile. He finished with a dead-pan look in the midst of gales of laughter.

“Now,” he said, turning his back on his audience and grasping us each by the arm, “now we will go somewhere and hear some music. I know a little place on Hester Street, in a cellar. Roumanian gypsies. We will have a little wine and some
Mysterium
, yes? You have money? I have only twenty-three cents.” He smiled again, this time like a huge cranberry pie. On the way he was constantly tipping his hat to this one and that. Sometimes he would stop and engage a friend in earnest conversation for a few minutes. “Excuse me,” he would say, running back to us breathless, “but I
thought maybe I could borrow a little money. That was the editor of a Yiddish paper—but he's even broker than I am. You have a little money, yes? Next time
I
will treat.”

At the Roumanian place I ran into one of my exmessengers, Dave Olinski. He used to work as a night messenger in the Grand Street office. I remembered him well because the night the office was robbed and the safe turned upside down, Olinski had been beaten to within an inch of his life. (As a matter of fact, I had taken it for granted that he was dead.) It was at his own request that I had put him in that office; because it was a foreign quarter, and because he could speak about eight languages, Olinski thought he would earn a lot in tips. Everybody detested him, including the men he worked with. Every time I ran into him he would chew my ear off about Tel Aviv. It was always Tel Aviv and Boulogne-sur-Mer. (He carried about with him post cards of all the ports the boats had stopped at. But most of the cards were of Tel Aviv.) Anyway, before the “accidents,” I once sent him to Canarsie, where there was a
“plage.”
I used the word
“plage”
because every time Olinski spoke of Boulogne-sur-Mer, he mentioned the bloody
“plage”
where he had gone bathing.

Since he left our employ, he was telling me, he had become an insurance salesman. In fact, he hadn't exchanged more than a few words when he began trying to sell me a policy. Much as I disliked the fellow, I made no move to shut him off. I thought it might do him good to practice on me. So, much to Nahoum Yood's disgust, I let him babble on, pretending that perhaps I would also want accident, health and fire insurance too. Meanwhile, Olinski had ordered drinks and pastry for us. Mona had left the table to engage the proprietress in conversation. In the midst of it a lawyer named Mannie Hirsch walked in—another friend of Arthur Raymond. He was passionate about music, and particularly passionate about Scriabin. It took Olinski, who had been drawn into the conversation against his will, quite a while to understand who it was we were talking
about. When he learned that it was only a composer he showed profound disgust. Shouldn't we go maybe to a quieter place, he wondered. I explained to him that that was impossible, that he should hurry up and explain everything to me quickly before we left. Mannie Hirsch hadn't stopped talking from the time he sat down. Presently Olinski launched into his routine talk, switching from one policy to another; he had to talk quite loudly in order to drown out Mannie Hirsch's voice. I listened to the two of them at the same time. Nahoum Yood was trying to listen with one ear cupped. Finally he broke into an hysterical fit of laughter. Without a word he began reciting one of his fables—in Yiddish. Still Olinski kept on talking, this time very low, but even faster than before, because every minute was precious. Even when the whole place began to roar with laughter Olinski kept on selling me one policy after another.

When I at last told him that I would have to think it over, he acted as if he had been mortally injured. “But I have explained everything clearly, Mr. Miller,” he whined.

“But I already have two insurance policies,” I lied.

“That's all right,” he retorted, “We will cash them in and get better ones.”

“That's what I want to think about,” I countered.

“But there is nothing to think about, Mr. Miller.”

“I'm not sure that I understood it all,” I said. “Maybe you'd better come to my home tomorrow night,” and therewith I wrote down a false address for him.

“You're sure you will be home, Mr. Miller?”

“If I'm not I will telephone.”

“But I have no telephone, Mr. Miller.”

“Then I will send you a telegram.”

“But I already made two appointments for tomorrow evening.”

“Then make it the next night,” I said, thoroughly unperturbed by all this palaver. “Or,” I added maliciously, “you could come to see me after midnight, if that's convenient. We're always up till two or three in the morning.”

“I'm afraid that would be too late,” said Olinski, looking more and more disconsolate.

“Well, let's see,” I said, looking meditative and scratching my head. “Supposing we meet right here a week from today? Say half-past nine sharp.”

“Not here, Mr. Miller, please.”

“O.K. then, wherever you like. Send me a post card in a day or so. And bring all the policies with you, yes?”

During this last chitchat Olinski had risen from the table and was holding my hand in parting. When he turned round to gather up his papers he discovered that Mannie Hirsch was drawing animals on them. Nahoum Yood was writing a poem—in Yiddish—on another. He was so disturbed by this unexpected turn of events that he began shouting at them in several languages at once. He was getting purple with rage. In a moment the bouncer, who was a Greek and ex-wrestler, had Olinski by the seat of the pants and was giving him the bum's rush. The proprietress shook her fist in his face as he went through the doorway headfirst. In the street the Greek went through his pockets, extracted a few bills, brought them to the proprietress who made change for him and threw the remaining coins at Olinski who was now on his hands and knees, behaving as if he had the cramps.

“That's a terrible way to treat a person,” said Mona.

“It is, but he seems to invite it,” I replied.

“You shouldn't have egged him on—it was cruel.”

“I admit it, but he's a pest. It would have happened anyway.” Thereupon I began to narrate my experience with Olinski. I explained how I had humored him by transferring him from one office to another. Everywhere it was the same story. He was always being abused and mistreated—“for no reason at all,” as he always put it. “They don't like me there,” he would say.

“You don't seem to be liked anywhere,” I finally told him one day. “Just what is it that's eating you up?” I remember well the look he gave me when I fired that at him.
“Come on,” I said, “tell me, because this is your last chance.”

To my amazement, here is what he said: “Mr. Miller, I have too much ambition to make a good messenger. I should have a more responsible position. With my education I would make a good manager. I could save the company money. I could bring in more business, make things more efficient.”

“Wait a minute,” I interrupted. “Don't you know that you haven't a chance in the world to become a manager of a branch office? You're crazy. You don't even know how to speak English, let alone those eight other languages you're always talking about. You don't know how to get along with your neighbor. You're a nuisance, don't you understand that? Don't tell me about your grand ideas for the future… tell me just one thing… how did you happen to become what you are…
such a damned unholy pest
, I mean.”

Olinski blinked like an owl at this… “Mr. Miller,” he began, “you must know that I am a good person, that I try hard to…”

“Horseshit!” I exclaimed. “Now tell me honestly, why did you ever leave Tel Aviv?”

“Because I wanted to make something of myself, that's the truth.”

“And you couldn't do that in Tel Aviv—or Boulognesur-Mer?”

He gave a wry smile. Before he could put in a word I continued: “Did you get along with your parents? Did you have any close friends there? Wait a minute”—I held up my hand to head off his answer—“did anybody in the whole world ever tell you that he liked you?
Answer me that!”

He was silent. Not crushed, just baffled.

“You know what you should be?” I went on. “A stool pigeon.”

He didn't know what the word meant. “Look,” I explained,
“a stool pigeon makes his money by spying on other people, by informing on them—do you understand that?”

“And I should be a stool pigeon?” he shrieked, drawing himself up and trying to look dignified.

“Exactly,” I said, not batting an eyelash. “And if not that, then a hangman. You know”—and I made a grim circular motion with my hand—“the man who strings them up.”

Olinski put on his hat and made a few steps towards the door. Suddenly he wheeled around, walked calmly back to my desk. He took off his hat and held it with his two hands. “Excuse me,” he said, “but could I have another chance—in Harlem?” This in a tone of voice as if nothing untoward had occurred.

“Why certainly,” I replied briskly, “of course I'll give you another chance, but it's the last one, remember that. I'm beginning to like you, do you know that?”

This baffled him more than anything I had said before. I was surprised that he didn't ask me why.

“Listen, Dave,” I said, leaning towards him as if I had something very confidential to propose, “I'm putting you in the worst office we have. If you can get along up there you will be able to get along anywhere. There's one thing I have to warn you about… don't start any trouble in that office or else”—and here I drew my hand across my throat—
“you understand?”