The Complete Stories (78 page)
Read The Complete Stories Online
Authors: Bernard Malamud
The doctor didn’t know whom he was more disgusted with, this fool or himself. In truth, himself. Slipping the sheet of paper into the envelope, he resealed it with a thin layer of paste he had rubbed carefully on the flap with his fingertip. Later in the day he tucked the letter into his inside pocket and pressed the elevator button for Silvio. The doctor left the building and afterwards returned with a copy of the Post he seemed to be involved with until Silvio had to take up two women who had come into the lobby; then the doctor slipped the letter into Evelyn Gordon’s box and went out for a breath of air.
He was sitting near the table in the lobby when the young woman
he had held the door open for came in shortly after 6 p.m. He was aware of her perfume almost at once. Silvio was not around at that moment; he had gone down to the basement to eat a sandwich. She inserted a small key into Evelyn Gordon’s mailbox and stood before the open box, smoking, as she read Bradley’s letter. She was wearing a light-blue pants suit with a brown knit sweater-coat. Her tail of black hair was tied with a brown silk scarf. Her face, though a little heavy, was pretty, her intense eyes blue, the lids lightly eye-shadowed. Her body, he thought, was finely proportioned. She had not noticed him but he was more than half in love with her.
he had held the door open for came in shortly after 6 p.m. He was aware of her perfume almost at once. Silvio was not around at that moment; he had gone down to the basement to eat a sandwich. She inserted a small key into Evelyn Gordon’s mailbox and stood before the open box, smoking, as she read Bradley’s letter. She was wearing a light-blue pants suit with a brown knit sweater-coat. Her tail of black hair was tied with a brown silk scarf. Her face, though a little heavy, was pretty, her intense eyes blue, the lids lightly eye-shadowed. Her body, he thought, was finely proportioned. She had not noticed him but he was more than half in love with her.
He observed her many mornings. He would come down later now, at nine, and spend some time going through the medical circulars he had got out of his box, sitting on a throne-like wooden chair near a tall unlit lamp in the rear of the lobby. He would watch people as they left for work or shopping in the morning. Evelyn appeared at about half past nine and stood smoking in front of her box, absorbed in the morning’s mail. When spring came she wore brightly colored skirts with pastel blouses, or light slim pants suits. Sometimes she wore minidresses. Her figure was exquisite. She received many letters and read most of them with apparent pleasure, some with what seemed suppressed excitement. A few she gave short shrift to, scanned these and stuffed them into her bag. He imagined they were from her father, or mother. He thought that most of her letters came from lovers, past and present, and he felt a sort of sadness that there was none from him in her mailbox. He would write to her.
He thought it through carefully. Some women needed an older man; it stabilized their lives. Sometimes a difference of as many as thirty or even thirty-five years offered no serious disadvantages. A younger woman inspired an older man to remain virile. And despite the heart incident his health was good, in some ways better than before. A woman like Evelyn, probably at odds with herself, could benefit from a steadying relationship with an older man, someone who would respect and love her and help her to respect and love herself; who would demand less from her in certain ways than some young men awash in their egoism; who would awake in her a stronger sense of well-being, and if things went quite well, perhaps even love for a particular man.
“I am a retired physician, a widower,” he wrote to Evelyn Gordon. “I write you with some hesitation and circumspection, although needless to say with high regard, because I am old enough to be your father. I have observed you often in this building and as we passed each other in nearby streets; I have grown to admire you. I wonder if you will permit
me to make your acquaintance? Would you care to have dinner with me and perhaps enjoy a film or performance of a play? I do not think my company will disappoint you. If you are so inclined—so kind, certainly—to consider this request tolerantly, I will be obliged if you place a note to that effect in my mailbox. I am respectfully yours, Simon Morris, M.D.”
me to make your acquaintance? Would you care to have dinner with me and perhaps enjoy a film or performance of a play? I do not think my company will disappoint you. If you are so inclined—so kind, certainly—to consider this request tolerantly, I will be obliged if you place a note to that effect in my mailbox. I am respectfully yours, Simon Morris, M.D.”
He did not go down to mail his letter. He thought he would keep it to the last moment. Then he had a fright about it that woke him out of momentary sleep. He dreamed he had written and sealed the letter and then remembered he had appended another sentence: “Be wearing your white panties.” When he woke he wanted to tear open the envelope to see whether he had included Bradley’s remark. But when he was thoroughly waked up, he knew he had not. He bathed and shaved early and for a while observed the cloud formations out the window. At close to nine Dr. Morris descended to the lobby. He would wait till Flaherty answered a buzz and, when he was gone, drop his letter into her box; but Flaherty that morning seemed to have no calls to answer. The doctor had forgotten it was Saturday. He did not know it was till he got his Times and sat with it in the lobby, pretending to be waiting for the mail delivery. The mail sack arrived late on Saturdays. At last he heard a prolonged buzz, and Flaherty, who had been on his knees polishing the brass doorknob, got up on one foot, then rose on both legs and walked slowly to the elevator. His asymmetric face was gray. Shortly before ten o’clock the doctor slipped his letter into Evelyn Gordon’s mailbox. He decided to withdraw to his apartment, then thought he would rather wait where he usually waited while she collected her mail. She had never noticed him there.
The mail sack was dropped in the vestibule at ten-after, and Flaherty alphabetized the first bundle before he responded to another call. The doctor read his paper in the dark rear of the lobby, because he was really not reading it. He was anticipating Evelyn’s coming. He had on a new green suit, blue striped shirt, and a pink tie. He wore a new hat. He waited with anticipation and love.
When the elevator door opened, Evelyn walked out in an elegant slit black skirt, pretty sandals, her hair tied with a red scarf. A sharpfeatured man with puffed sideburns and carefully combed mediumlong hair, in a turn-of-the-century haircut, followed her out of the elevator. He was shorter than she by half a head. Flaherty handed her two letters, which she dropped into the black patent-leather pouch she was carrying. The doctor thought—hoped—she would walk past the mailboxes without stopping; but she saw the white of his letter through
the slot and stopped to remove it. She tore open the envelope, pulled out the single sheet of handwritten paper, read it with immediate intense concentration. The doctor raised his newspaper to his eyes, although he could still watch over the top of it. He watched in fear.
the slot and stopped to remove it. She tore open the envelope, pulled out the single sheet of handwritten paper, read it with immediate intense concentration. The doctor raised his newspaper to his eyes, although he could still watch over the top of it. He watched in fear.
How mad I was not to anticipate she might come down with a man.
When she had finished reading the letter, she handed it to her companion—possibly Bradley—who read it, grinned broadly, and said something inaudible as he handed it back to her.
Evelyn Gordon quietly ripped the letter into small bits and, turning, flung the pieces in the doctor’s direction. The fragments came at him like a blast of wind-driven snow. He thought he would sit forever on his wooden throne in the swirling snowstorm.
The old doctor sat in his chair, the floor around him littered with his torn-up letter.
Flaherty swept it up with his little broom into a metal container. He handed the doctor a thin envelope stamped with foreign stamps.
“Here’s a letter from your daughter that’s just come.”
The doctor pressed the bridge of his nose. He wiped his eyes with his fingers.
“There’s no setting aside old age,” he remarked after a while.
“No, sir,” said Flaherty.
“Or death.”
“They move up on you.”
The doctor tried to say something splendidly kind, but could not say it.
Flaherty took him up to the fifteenth floor in his elevator.
1973
R
ubin, in careless white cloth hat, or visorless soft round cap, however one described it, wandered with unexpressed or inexpressive thoughts up the stairs from his studio in the basement of the New York art school where he made his sculpture, to a workshop on the second floor, where he taught. Arkin, the art historian, a hypertensive bachelor of thirty-four—a man often swept by strong feeling, he thought—about a dozen years younger than the sculptor, observed him through his open office door, wearing his cap amid a crowd of art students and teachers in the hall during a change of classes. In his white hat he stands out and apart, the art historian thought. It illumines a lonely inexpressiveness arrived at after years of experience. Though it was not entirely apt he imagined a lean white animal—hind, stag, goat?—staring steadfastly but despondently through trees of a dense wood. Their gazes momentarily interlocked and parted. Rubin hurried to his workshop class.
ubin, in careless white cloth hat, or visorless soft round cap, however one described it, wandered with unexpressed or inexpressive thoughts up the stairs from his studio in the basement of the New York art school where he made his sculpture, to a workshop on the second floor, where he taught. Arkin, the art historian, a hypertensive bachelor of thirty-four—a man often swept by strong feeling, he thought—about a dozen years younger than the sculptor, observed him through his open office door, wearing his cap amid a crowd of art students and teachers in the hall during a change of classes. In his white hat he stands out and apart, the art historian thought. It illumines a lonely inexpressiveness arrived at after years of experience. Though it was not entirely apt he imagined a lean white animal—hind, stag, goat?—staring steadfastly but despondently through trees of a dense wood. Their gazes momentarily interlocked and parted. Rubin hurried to his workshop class.
Arkin was friendly with Rubin though they were not really friends. Not his fault, he felt; the sculptor was a very private person. When they talked, he listened, looking away, as though guarding his impressions. Attentive, apparently, he seemed to be thinking of something else—his sad life no doubt, if saddened eyes, a faded green mistakable for gray, necessarily denote sad life. Sometimes he uttered an opinion, usually a flat statement about the nature of life, or art, never much about himself; and he said absolutely nothing about his work.
“Are you working, Rubin?” Arkin was reduced to.
“Of course I’m working.”
“What are you doing if I may ask?”
“I have a thing going.”
There Arkin let it lie.
Once, in the faculty cafeteria, listening to the art historian discourse on the work of Jackson Pollock, the sculptor’s anger had flared.
“The world of art ain’t necessarily in your eyes.”
“I have to believe that what I see is there,” Arkin had politely responded.
“Have you ever painted?”
“Painting is my life.”
Rubin, with dignity, reverted to silence. That evening, leaving the building, they tipped hats to each other over small smiles.
In recent years, after his wife had left him and costume and headdress became a mode among students, Rubin had taken to wearing various odd hats from time to time, and this white one was the newest, resembling Nehru’s Congress Party cap, but rounded—a cross between a cantor’s hat and a bloated yarmulke; or perhaps like a French judge’s in Rouault, or working doctor’s in a Daumier print. Rubin wore it like a crown. Maybe it kept his head warm under the cold skylight of his large studio.
When the sculptor again passed along the crowded hall on his way down to his studio that day he had first appeared in his white cap, Arkin, who had been reading an article on Giacometti, put it down and went into the hall. He was in an ebullient mood he could not explain to himself, and told Rubin he very much admired his hat.
“I’ll tell you why I like it so much. It looks like Rembrandt’s hat that he wears in one of the middle-aged self-portraits, the really profound ones. May it bring you the best of luck.”
Rubin, who had for a moment looked as though he was struggling to say something extraordinary, fixed Arkin in a strong stare and hurried downstairs. That ended the incident, though it did not diminish the art historian’s pleasure in his observation.
Arkin later remembered that when he had come to the art school via an assistant curator’s job in a museum in St. Louis, seven years ago, Rubin had been working in wood; he now welded triangular pieces of scrap iron to construct his sculptures. Working at one time with a hatchet, later a modified small meat cleaver, he had reshaped driftwood pieces, out of which he had created some arresting forms. Dr. Levis, the director of the art school, had talked the sculptor into
giving an exhibition of his altered driftwood objects in one of the downtown galleries. Arkin, in his first term at the school, had gone on the subway to see the show one winter’s day. This man is an original, he thought, maybe his work will be, too. Rubin had refused a gallery vernissage, and on the opening day the place was nearly deserted. The sculptor, as though escaping his hacked forms, had retreated into a storage room at the rear of the gallery and stayed there looking at pictures. Arkin, after reflecting whether he ought to, sought him out to say hello, but seeing Rubin seated on a crate with his back to him, examining a folio of somebody’s prints, silently shut the door and departed. Although in time two notices of the show appeared, one bad, the other mildly favorable, the sculptor seemed unhappy about having exhibited his work, and after that didn’t for years. Nor had there been any sales. Recently, when Arkin had suggested it might be a good idea to show what he was doing with his welded iron triangles, Rubin, after a wildly inexpressive moment, had answered, “Don’t bother playing around with that idea.”
giving an exhibition of his altered driftwood objects in one of the downtown galleries. Arkin, in his first term at the school, had gone on the subway to see the show one winter’s day. This man is an original, he thought, maybe his work will be, too. Rubin had refused a gallery vernissage, and on the opening day the place was nearly deserted. The sculptor, as though escaping his hacked forms, had retreated into a storage room at the rear of the gallery and stayed there looking at pictures. Arkin, after reflecting whether he ought to, sought him out to say hello, but seeing Rubin seated on a crate with his back to him, examining a folio of somebody’s prints, silently shut the door and departed. Although in time two notices of the show appeared, one bad, the other mildly favorable, the sculptor seemed unhappy about having exhibited his work, and after that didn’t for years. Nor had there been any sales. Recently, when Arkin had suggested it might be a good idea to show what he was doing with his welded iron triangles, Rubin, after a wildly inexpressive moment, had answered, “Don’t bother playing around with that idea.”
The day after the art historian’s remarks in the hall about Rubin’s white cap, it disappeared from sight—gone totally; for a while he wore on his head nothing but his heavy reddish hair. And a week or two later, though he could momentarily not believe it, it seemed to Arkin that the sculptor was avoiding him. He guessed the man was no longer using the staircase to the right of his office but was coming up from the basement on the other side of the building, where his corner workshop room was anyway, so he wouldn’t have to pass Arkin’s open door. When he was certain of this Arkin felt uneasy, then experienced moments of anger.
Have I offended him in some way? he asked himself. If so, what did I say that’s so offensive? All I did was remark on the hat in one of Rembrandt’s self-portraits and say it looked like the cap he was wearing. How can that be offensive?
He then thought: No offense where none’s intended. All I have is good will to him. He’s shy and may have been embarrassed in some way—maybe my exuberant voice in the presence of students—if that’s so it’s no fault of mine. And if that’s not it, I don’t know what’s the matter except his own nature. Maybe he hasn’t been feeling well, or it’s some momentary mishigas—nowadays there are more ways of insults without meaning to than ever before—so why raise up a sweat over it? I’ll wait it out.
But as weeks, then months went by and Rubin continued to shun the art historian—he saw the sculptor only at faculty meetings when
Rubin attended them; and once in a while glimpsed him going up or down the left staircase; or sitting in the Fine Arts secretary’s office poring over inventory lists of supplies for sculpture—Arkin thought: Maybe the man is having a breakdown. He did not believe it. One day they met in the men’s room and Rubin strode out without a word. Arkin felt for the sculptor surges of hatred. He didn’t like people who didn’t like him. Here I make a sociable, innocent remark to the son of a bitch—at worst it might be called innocuous—and to him it’s an insult. I’ll give him tit for tat. Two can play.
Rubin attended them; and once in a while glimpsed him going up or down the left staircase; or sitting in the Fine Arts secretary’s office poring over inventory lists of supplies for sculpture—Arkin thought: Maybe the man is having a breakdown. He did not believe it. One day they met in the men’s room and Rubin strode out without a word. Arkin felt for the sculptor surges of hatred. He didn’t like people who didn’t like him. Here I make a sociable, innocent remark to the son of a bitch—at worst it might be called innocuous—and to him it’s an insult. I’ll give him tit for tat. Two can play.
But when he had calmed down, Arkin continued to wonder and worry over what might have gone wrong. I’ve always thought I was fairly good in human relationships. Yet he had a worrisome nature and wore a thought ragged if in it lurked a fear the fault was his own. Arkin searched the past. He had always liked the sculptor, even though Rubin offered only his fingertip in friendship; yet Arkin had been friendly, courteous, interested in his work, and respectful of his dignity, almost visibly weighted with unspoken thoughts. Had it, he often wondered, something to do with his mentioning—suggesting—not long ago, the possibility of a new exhibition of his sculpture, to which Rubin had reacted as though his life was threatened?
It was then he recalled he had never told Rubin how he had felt about his hacked-driftwood show—never once commented on it, although he had signed the guest book. Arkin hadn’t liked the show, yet he wanted to seek Rubin out to name one or two interesting pieces. But when he had located him in the storage room, intently involved with a folio of prints, lost in hangdog introspection so deeply he had been unwilling, or unable, to greet whoever was standing at his back—Arkin had said to himself, Better let it be. He had ducked out of the gallery. Nor had he mentioned the driftwood exhibition thereafter. Was this kindness cruel?
Still it’s not very likely he’s been avoiding me so long for that alone, Arkin reflected. If he was disappointed, or irritated, by my not mentioning his driftwood show, he would then and there have stopped talking to me, if he was going to stop. But he didn’t. He seemed as friendly as ever, according to his measure, and he isn’t a dissembler. And when I afterwards suggested the possibility of a new show he obviously wasn’t eager to have—which touched him to torment on the spot—he wasn’t at all impatient with me but only started staying out of my sight after the business of his white cap, whatever that meant to him. Maybe it wasn’t my mention of the cap itself that’s annoyed him. Maybe it’s a cumulative thing—three minuses for me?
Arkin felt it was probably cumulative; still it seemed that the cap remark had mysteriously wounded Rubin most, because nothing that had happened before had threatened their relationship, such as it was, and it was then at least amicable. Having thought it through to this point, Arkin had to admit he did not know why Rubin acted as strangely as he was now acting.
Arkin felt it was probably cumulative; still it seemed that the cap remark had mysteriously wounded Rubin most, because nothing that had happened before had threatened their relationship, such as it was, and it was then at least amicable. Having thought it through to this point, Arkin had to admit he did not know why Rubin acted as strangely as he was now acting.
Off and on, the art historian considered going down to the sculptor’s studio and there apologizing to him if he had said something inept, which he certainly hadn’t meant to do. He would ask Rubin if he’d mind telling him what bothered him; if it was something else he had inadvertently said or done, he would apologize and clear things up. It would be mutually beneficial.
One early spring day he made up his mind to visit Rubin after his seminar that afternoon, but one of his students, a bearded printmaker, had found out it was Arkin’s thirty-fifth birthday and presented the art historian with a white ten-gallon Stetson that the student’s father, a traveling salesman, had brought back from Waco, Texas.
“Wear it in good health, Mr. Arkin,” said the student. “Now you’re one of the good guys.”
Arkin was wearing the hat, going up the stairs to his office accompanied by the student who had given it to him, when they encountered the sculptor, who grimaced in disgust.
Arkin was upset, though he felt at once that the force of this uncalled-for reaction indicated that, indeed, the hat remark had been taken by Rubin as an insult. After the bearded student left Arkin he placed the Stetson on his worktable—it had seemed to him—before going to the men’s room; and when he returned the cowboy hat was gone. The art historian searched for it in his office and even hurried back to his seminar room to see whether it could possibly have landed up there, someone having snatched it as a joke. It was not in the seminar room. Arkin thought of rushing down and confronting Rubin nose to nose in his studio, but could not bear the thought. What if he hadn’t taken it?
Now both evaded each other. But after a period of rarely meeting they began, ironically, Arkin thought, to encounter one another everywhere—even in the streets, especially near galleries on Madison, or Fifty-seventh, or in SoHo; or on entering or leaving movie houses. Each then hastily crossed the street to skirt the other. In the art school both refused to serve together on committees. One, if he entered the lavatory and saw the other, stepped outside and remained a distance
away till he had left. Each hurried to be first into the basement cafeteria at lunchtime because when one followed the other in and observed him standing on line, or already eating at a table, alone or in the company of colleagues, invariably he left and had his meal elsewhere.
away till he had left. Each hurried to be first into the basement cafeteria at lunchtime because when one followed the other in and observed him standing on line, or already eating at a table, alone or in the company of colleagues, invariably he left and had his meal elsewhere.
Once, when they came in together they hurriedly departed together. After often losing out to Rubin, who could get to the cafeteria easily from his studio, Arkin began to eat sandwiches in his office. Each had become a greater burden to the other, Arkin felt, than he would have been if only one was doing the shunning. Each was in the other’s mind to a degree and extent that bored him. When they met unexpectedly in the building after turning a corner or opening a door, or had come face-to-face on the stairs, one glanced at the other’s head to see what, if anything, adorned it; they then hurried away in opposite directions. Arkin as a rule wore no hat unless he had a cold; and Rubin lately affected a railroad engineer’s cap. The art historian hated Rubin for hating him and beheld repugnance in Rubin’s eyes.
“It’s your doing,” he heard himself mutter. “You brought me to this, it’s on your head.”
After that came coldness. Each froze the other out of his life; or froze him in.
One early morning, neither looking where he was going as he rushed into the building to his first class, they bumped into each other in front of the arched art school entrance. Both started shouting. Rubin, his face flushed, called Arkin “murderer,” and the art historian retaliated by calling the sculptor “hat thief.” Rubin smiled in scorn, Arkin in pity; they then fled.
Afterwards Arkin felt faint and had to cancel his class. His weakness became nausea, so he went home and lay in bed, nursing a severe occipital headache. For a week he slept badly, felt tremors in his sleep, ate next to nothing. “What has this bastard done to me?” Later he asked, “What have I done to myself?” I’m in this against my will, he thought. It had occurred to him that he found it easier to judge paintings than to judge people. A woman had said this to him once but he denied it indignantly. Arkin answered neither question and fought off remorse. Then it went through him again that he ought to apologize, if only because if the other couldn’t he could. Yet he feared an apology would cripple his craw.
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