Humboldt's Gift (32 page)

  “Oh Charlie Citrine, you surely have gone places,” said the old gentleman. His voice was still lyrical, high, and quite empty. He never had been able to make you feel that he was saying anything at all substantial. “Though I was a Coolidge and Hoover Republican myself, still when the Kennedys had you to the White House I was so proud.”

  “Is that young woman your speed?” said Naomi.

  “I can’t honestly say that I know. And what are you doing with yourself, Naomi?”

  “My marriage was no good at all and my husband went on the loose. I think you know that. I brought two kids up anyway. You didn’t happen to read some articles by my son in the
Southwest Township Herald
?”

  “No. I wouldn’t have known they were by your son.”

  “He wrote about kicking the drug habit, based on personal experience. I wish you would give me an opinion on his writing. My daughter is a doll but the boy is a problem.”

  “And you, Naomi, my dear?”

  “I don’t do much any more. I have a man friend. Part of the day I’m a crossing guard at the grammar school.”

  Old Doc Lutz seemed to hear none of this.

  “It’s a pity,” I said.

  “About you and me? No it’s not. You and your mental life would have been a strain on me. I’m into sports. My bag is football on TV. It’s a big outing when we get passes to Soldiers’ Field or to the hockey game. Early dinner at the Como Inn, we take the bus to the stadium, and I actually wait for fights on the ice and holler when they knock out their teeth. I’m afraid I’m just a common woman.”

  When Naomi said “common” and Doc Lutz said “Republican” they meant that they had joined the great American public and thus found contentment and fulfillment. To have been a foot doctor in the Loop during the Thirties gave the old fellow joy. His daughter delivered a similar message about herself. They were pleased with themselves and with each other and happy in their likeness. Only I, mysteriously a misfit, stood between them with my key. Obviously what ailed me was my unlikeness. I was an old friend, only I was not wholly American.

  “I’ve got to go,” I said.

  “Couldn’t we have a beer together sometime? I’d love to see you,” said Naomi. “You could advise me about Louie better than anybody. You haven’t got hippie kids yourself have you?” And as I took her number she said, “Oh, look Doc, what a neat little book he writes in. Everything about Charlie is so elegant. What a handsome old guy you’re turning into. But you’re not the type any woman could ever tie down.” As they watched I went back to the booth and raised up Renata. I put on my hat and coat and pretended that we were going outside. I felt the dishonor of everybody.

  The conference-rate room was just what lechers and adulterers deserved. Not much bigger than a broom closet it opened on the air shaft. Renata dropped into a chair and ordered two more martinis from room service. I pulled the shade, not for privacy— there were no windows opposite—and not as a seducer, but only because I hate to look into brick air shafts. Against the wall was a sofa bed covered in green chenille. As soon as I saw this object I knew it would defeat me. I was sure I would never be able to get it open. Once anticipated this challenge would not leave my head. I had to meet it at once. The trapezoid foam-rubber bolsters weighed nothing. I pushed them away and pulled off the fitted spread. The sheets under it were perfectly clean. Then I knelt and groped under the sofa frame for a lever. Renata watched silent as my face grew tight and reddened. I crouched and pulled, furious with manufacturers who made such junk, and with the management for taking money from afternoon conferees and crucifying them in spirit.

  “This thing is like an IQ test,” I said.

  “So?”

  “I’m flunking. I can’t get the thing to open.”

  “So? Leave it.”

  There was room for only one on this narrow bed. To tell the truth however I had no desire to lie down.

  Renata went into the bathroom. There were two chairs. I sat in the
fauteuil
. It had wings. Between my shoes was a square of colonial American hooked rug. The blood rustled circulating over my eardrums. Surly room service brought the martinis. A dollar tip was taken without thanks. Then Renata came out, the gleamy coat still fully buttoned. She sat on the sofa bed, sipped once or twice at her martini, and passed out. Through the plastic I tried to listen to her heart. She didn’t have a cardiac condition, did she? Suppose this were serious. Could one call an ambulance? I felt her pulse, stupidly studying my watch, losing count. For comparison I took my own pulse. I couldn’t coordinate the results. Her pulse seemed no worse than mine. Unconscious she had, if anything, the better of it. She was damp and felt cold. I wiped the chill from her with a corner of the sheet and tried to think what George Swiebel, my health counselor, would do in an emergency like this. I knew exactly what he’d do—straighten her legs remove her shoes and unbutton her coat to help the breathing. I did just that.

  Under the coat Renata was naked. She had gone into the bathroom and taken off her clothes. After undoing the top button I might have stopped, but I didn’t. Of course I had appraised Renata and tried to guess how she might be. My generous guesses had been far behind the facts. I hadn’t expected everything to be so large and faultless. I had observed in the jury box that the first joint of her fingers was fleshy and began to swell slightly before it tapered. My conjecture was that her beautiful thighs must also swell toward each other in harmony with this. I found that to be the case, absolutely, and felt more like an art lover than a seducer. My quick impression, for I didn’t keep her uncovered very long, was that every tissue was perfect, every fiber of hair was shining. The deep female odor arose from her. When I saw how things were I buttoned her up from sheer respect. I got things back into place as well as I knew how. Next I raised the window. Unfortunately it drove off her wonderful odor but she had to have fresh air. I took her clothing from behind the bathroom door and stuffed it into her large handbag, checking to make sure that we didn’t lose her juror’s badge. Then in my overcoat, with hat and gloves in hand, I waited for her to come to.

  The same things are done by us, over and over, with terrible predictability. One may be forgiven, in view of this, for wishing at least to associate with beauty.

  twenty-one

  And now—with her fur coat and her wonderful, soft, versatile, flexible amethyst hat, with belly and thighs under an intermediate sheath of silk—Renata dropped me in front of the county building. And she and her client, the big potent-looking lady in the polka-dot poplin, said, “
Ciao
, so long.” And there was the handsome russet and glass skyscraper, and there was the insignificant Picasso sculpture with its struts and its sheet metal, no wings, no victory, only a token, a reminder, only the
idea
of a work of art. Very similar, I thought, to the other ideas or reminders by which we lived—no more apples but the idea, the pomologist’s reconstruction of what an apple once was, no more ice cream but the idea, the recollection of something delicious made of substitutes, of starch, glucose, and other chemicals, no more sex but the idea or reminiscence of that, and so with love, belief, thought, and so on. On this theme I rose in an elevator to see what the court, with its specters of equity and justice, wanted of me. When the door of the elevator opened, it merely opened, no voice said, “My Fate!” Either Renata really filled the bill, or the voice had become too discouraged to speak.

  I got out and saw my lawyer Forrest Tomchek and his junior associate Billy Srole waiting at the end of the wide open light gray corridor outside Judge Urbanovich’s courtroom—two honest-looking deceitful men. According to Szathmar (Szathmar who couldn’t even remember a simple name like Crawley), I was represented by Chicago’s finest legal talent.

  I said, “Then why don’t I feel safe with Tomchek?”

  “Because you’re hypercritical, nervous, and a damn fool,” said Szathmar. “In his branch of the law nobody has more respect and clout. Tomchek is one of the most powerful guys in the legal community. In Divorce and Post-Decree these guys form a club. They commute, they play golf, they fly to Acapulco together. Behind the scenes, he tells the other guys how it’s all going to be done. Understand? That includes the fees, the tax consequences. Everything.”

  “You mean,” I said, “they’ll study my tax returns and so forth and then decide how to cut me up.”

  “My God!” said Szathmar. “Keep your opinion of lawyers to yourself.” He was deeply offended, infuriated really, by my disrespect for his profession. Oh, I agreed with him that I must keep my feelings to myself. I made every effort to be pleasant and deferential to Tomchek, but I wasn’t very good at this. The harder I tried, murmuring at Tomchek’s pretensions, saying the right thing, the more he mistrusted and disliked me. He kept score. In the end I would pay a heavy price, an enormous fee, I knew that. So here was Tomchek. With him stood Billy Srole, the associate. Associate is a wonderful word, a wonderful category. Srole was chubby, pale, his attitude highly professional. He wore his hair long and kept it flowing by stroking it with a heavy white palm and looping it behind the ears. His fingers bent backward at the tips. He was a bully. These were bully refinements. I know bullies.

  “What’s up,” I said.

  Tomchek put his arm about my shoulder and we went into a brief huddle.

  “Nothing to worry about,” said Tomchek. “Urbanovich was suddenly free to meet with both parties.”

  “He wants to wrap the thing up. He’s proud of his record as a negotiator,” Srole told me.

  “Look, Charlie,” said Tomchek. “Here’s the technique Urbanovich uses. He’ll throw a scare into you. He’ll tell you how much harm he can do and stampede you into an agreement. Don’t panic. Legally we’ve put you in a good position.”

  I saw the healthy grim folds of Tomchek’s close-shaven face. His breath was sourly virile. He gave off an odor which I associated with old-fashioned streetcar brakes, and with metabolism, and with male hormones. “No, I won’t give any more ground,” I said. “It doesn’t work. If I meet her demands she makes brand-new ones. Since the Emancipation Proclamation there’s been a secret struggle in this country to restore slavery by other means.” This was the sort of statement that caused Tomchek and Srole to be suspicious of me.

  “Okay, draw the line and hold it,” said Srole. “And leave the rest to us. Denise makes things tough for her own lawyer. Pinsker doesn’t want a hassle. He only wants his dough. He doesn’t like this situation. She’s getting legal advice on the side from that fellow Schwirner. Completely unethical.”

  “I hate Schwirner! That son of a bitch,” said Tomchek, violent. “If I could prove that he was banging the plaintiff and interfering in my case I’d fix his clock for him. I’d have him before the Ethics Committee.”

  “Is Gumballs Schwirner still carrying on with Charlie’s wife?” said Srole, “I thought he just got married.”

  “So what if he got married? He still hasn’t stopped meeting this crazy broad in motels. She gets strategy ideas from him in the sack, then she bugs Pinsker with them. They’re confusing the hell out of Pinsker. How I’d love to get that Schwirner.”

  I offered no comment and scarcely seemed to hear what they were saying. Tomchek wanted me to suggest that we hire a private investigator to get the goods on Schwirner. I recalled Von Humboldt Fleisher and Scaccia, the private eye. I was having no part of this. “I expect you guys to restrain Pinsker,” I said. “Don’t let him tear at my guts.”

  “What, in chambers? He’ll behave himself. He rags you on the witness stand but in conference it’s different.”

  “He’s an animal,” I said.

  They answered nothing.

  “He’s a beast, a cannibal.”

  This made an unpleasant impression. Tomchek and Srole, like Szathmar, were touchy about the profession. Tomchek remained silent. It was for Srole, the associate and stooge, to deal with captious Citrine. Mild, distant, Srole said, “Pinsker is a very tough man. Tough opponent. A gut fighter.”

  Okay, they weren’t going to let me knock lawyers. Pinsker belonged to the club. Who, after all, was I? A filmy transient figure, eccentric and snooty. They disliked my style entirely. They hated it. But then why should they like it? Suddenly I saw the thing from their viewpoint. And I was extremely pleased. In fact I was illuminated. Maybe these sudden illuminations of mine were an effect of the metaphysical changes I was undergoing. Under the recent influence of Steiner I seldom thought of death in the horrendous old way. I wasn’t experiencing the suffocating grave or dreading an eternity of boredom, nowadays. Instead I often felt unusually light and swift-paced, as if I were on a weightless bicycle and sprinting through the star world. Occasionally I saw myself with exhilarating objectivity, literally as an object among objects in the physical universe. One day that object would cease to move and when the body collapsed the soul would simply remove itself. So, to speak again of the lawyers, I stood between them, and there we were, three naked egos, three creatures belonging to the lower grade of modern rationality and calculation. In the past the self had had garments, the garments of station, of nobility or inferiority, and each self had its carriage, its looks, wore the sheath appropriate to it. Now there were no sheaths and it was naked self with naked self burning intolerably and causing terror. I saw this now, in a fit of objectivity. It felt ecstatic.

  What was I to these fellows anyway? An oddball and a curiosity. To build himself up Szathmar bragged about me, he oversold me, and people became horribly annoyed because he told them to look me up in reference books and read about my prizes and my medals and Zig-Zag awards. He hammered them with this, he said they should be proud to have a client like me so of course they detested me sight unseen. The quintessence of their prejudice was once expressed by Szathmar himself when he lost his temper and shouted, “You’re nothing but a prick with a pen!” He was so sore that he surpassed himself and yelled even louder, “With or without a pen you’re a prick!” But I wasn’t offended. I thought this was a whopping epithet and I laughed. If you only put it right you could say what you liked to me. However, I knew exactly how I made Tomchek and Srole feel. From their side they inspired me with an unusual thought. This was that History had created something new in the USA, namely crookedness with self-respect or duplicity with honor. America had always been very upright and moral, a model to the entire world, so it had put to death the very idea of hypocrisy and was forcing itself to live with this new imperative of sincerity, and it was doing an impressive job. Just consider Tomchek and Srole: they belonged to a prestigious honorable profession; that profession had its own high standards and everything was hotsy-totsy until some impossible exotic like me who couldn’t even keep a wife in line, an idiot with a knack for stringing sentences together, came and disseminated a sense of wrongdoing. I carried an old accusing smell. It was, if you see what I mean, totally unhistorical of me. Owing to this I got a filmy side glance from Billy Srole, as if he were bemused by all the things he could do to me, under law or near the law, if I should ever step out of line. Watch out! He’d hack me up, he’d chop me into bits with his legal cleaver. Tom-chek’s eyes, unlike Srole’s, needed no film, for his deeper opinions never reached his gaze. And I was completely dependent upon this fearful pair. In fact this was part of my ecstasy. It was terrific. Tomchek and Srole were just what I deserved. It was only right that I should pay a price for coming on so innocent and expecting the protection of those less pure, of people completely at home in the fallen world. Where did I get off, laying the fallen world on everyone else! Humboldt had used his credit as a poet when he was a poet no longer, but only crazy with schemes. And I was doing much the same thing, for I was really far too canny to claim such unworldliness. I believe the word is disingenuous. But Tomchek and Srole would set me straight. They had the assistance of Denise, Pinsker, Urbanovich, and a cast of thousands.