The 1st Deadly Sin (3 page)

They contradicted the folk saying, “Opposites attract.” Husband and wife, they were obverse and reverse of the same coin. Where did Samuel leave off and Florence begin? No one could determine. They were a bifocal image. No. They were a double image, both in focus simultaneously.

Physically they were so alike that strangers took them for brother and sister. Short, bony-thin, with helmets of black, oily hair, both had ferrety features, the quick, sharp movements of creatures assailed.

He, married, had been a converter of synthetic textiles. She, married, had been a fabric designer. They met on a picket line protesting a performance of “The Merchant of Venice,” and discovered they had the same psychoanalyst. A year later they were divorced, married to each other, and had agreed to have no children because of the population explosion. Both gladly, cheerfully, joyfully, submitted to operations.

Their marriage was two magnets clicking together. They had identical loves, fears, hopes, prejudices, ambitions, tastes, moods, dislikes, despairs. They were one person multiplied by two. They slept together in a king-sized bed, entwined.

They changed their life styles as often as their underwear. They were ahead of everyone. Before it was fashionable, they bought pop art, op-art, and then switched back to realism sooner than art critics. They went through marijuana, amphetamines, barbiturates, speed, and a single, shaking trial of heroin, before returning to dry vermouth on the rocks. They were first to try new restaurants, first to wear Mickey Mouse watches, first to discover new tenors, first to see new movies, plays, ballets, first to wear their sunglasses pushed atop their heads. They explored all New York and spread the word: “This incredible little restaurant in Chinatown…The best belly-dancer on the West Side…That crazy junk shop on Canal Street…”

Born Jews, they found their way to Catholicism via Uni-tarianism, Methodism, and Episcopalianism (with a brief dabble in Marxism). After converting and confessing once, they found this groovy Evangelical church in Harlem where everyone clapped hands and shouted. Nothing lasted. Everything started. They plunged into Yoga, Zen, and Hare Krishna. They turned to astrology, took high colonics, and had a whiskered guru to dinner.

They threw themselves in the anti-Vietnam War movement and went to Washington to carry placards, parade and shout slogans. Once Sam was hit on the head by a construction worker. Once Flo was spat upon by a Wall Street executive. Then they spent three weeks in a New Hampshire commune where 21 people slept in one room.

“They did nothing but verbalize!” said Sam.

“No depth, no significance!” said Flo.

“A bad scene!” they said together.

What drove them, what sparked their search for “relevance,” their hunger to “communicate,” to have a “meaningful dialogue,” to find the “cosmic flash,” to uncover “universal contact,” to, in fact, refashion the universe, was guilt.

Their great talent, the gift they denied because it was so vulgar, was simply this: both had a marvelous ability to make money. The psychedelic designs of Florence sold like, mad. Samuel was one of the first men on Seventh Avenue to foresee the potential of the “youth market.” They started their own factory. Money poured in.

Both, now in their middle 30’s, had been the first with the new. They leeched onto the social chaos of the 1960’s: the hippies, flower children, the crazy demand for denim jeans and fringed leather jackets and pioneer skirts and necklaces for men and Indian beads and granny glasses and all the other paraphernalia of the young, taken up so soon by their elders.

The Mortons profited mightily from their perspicacity, but it seemed to them a cheesy kind of talent. Without acknowledging it both knew they were growing wealthy from what had begun as a sincere and touching crusade. Hence their frantic rushing about from picket line to demonstration, from parade to confrontation. They wanted to pay their dues.

In further expiation, they sold the factory (at an enormous profit) and opened a boutique on Madison Avenue, an investment they were happily convinced would be a disaster. It was called “Erotica,” based on a unique concept for a store. The idea had come to them while attending religious services of a small Scandinavian sect in Brooklyn which worshipped Thor.

“I’m bored with idleness,” he murmured.

“So am I,” she murmured.

“A store?” he suggested. “Just to keep busy.”

“A shop?” she suggested. “A fun thing.”

“A boutique,” he said.

“Elegant and expensive,” she said. “We’ll lose a mint.”

“Something different,” he mused. “Not hotpants and paper dresses, miniskirts and skinny sweaters, army jackets and newsboy caps. Something really
different.
What do people want?”

“Love?” she mused.

“Oh yes,” he nodded. “That’s it.”

Their boutique, Erotica, sold only items related, however distantly, to love and sex. It sold satin sheets in 14 colors (including black), and a “buttock pillow” advertised merely “for added comfort and convenience.” It carried Valentines and books of love poetry; perfumes and incense; phonograph records that established a mood; scented creams and lotions; phallic candles; amorous prints, paintings, etchings and posters; unisex lingerie; lace pajamas for men, leather nightgowns for women; and whips for both. An armed guard had to be hired to eject certain obviously disturbed customers.

Erotica was an instant success. Florence and Samuel Morton became wealthier. Depressed, they turned to blackstrap molasses and acupuncture. Making money was their tragic talent. Their blessing was that they were without malice.

And the first thing Daniel Blank saw upon awaking Sunday morning was the note on his bedside table, the invitation to brunch from Flo and Sam. They would, he remembered fondly, serve things like hot Syrian bread, iced lumpfish, smoked carp, six kinds of herring. Champagne, even.

He padded naked to the front door, unlocked chains and bars, took in his New York
Times.
He went through the ritual of relocking, carried the newspaper to the kitchen, returned to the bedroom, began his 30 minutes of exercise in front of the mirror on the closet door.

It was the quiet Sunday routine he had grown to cherish since living alone. The day and its lazy possibilities stretched ahead in a golden glow. His extensions and sit-ups and bends brought him warm and tingling into a new world; anything was possible.

He showered quickly, gloating to see his dried skin had softened and smoothed. He stood before the medicine cabinet mirror to shave, and wondered once again if he should grow a mustache. Once again he decided against it. It would, he felt, make him look older, although a drooping Fu-Manchu mustache with his glabrous skull might be interesting. Exciting?

His face was coffin-shaped and elegant, small ears set close to the bone. The jaw was slightly aggressive, lips sculpted, freshly colored. The nose was long, somewhat pinched, with elliptic nostrils. His eyes were his best feature: large, widely spaced, with a brown iris. Brows were thick, sharply delineated.

Curiously, he appeared older full-face than in profile. From the front he seemed brooding. Lines were discernible from nose creases to the corners of his mouth. The halves of his face were identical; the effect was that of a religious mask. He rarely blinked and smiled infrequently.

But in profile he looked more alert. His face came alive. There was young expectation there: noble brow, clear eye, straight nose, carved and mildly pouting lips, strong chin. You could see the good bones of cheek and jaw.

He completed shaving, applied “Faun” after-shave lotion, powdered his jaw lightly, sprayed his armpits with a scented antiperspirant. He went back into the bedroom and considered how to dress.

The Mortons with their “…Thousands of fantastic pip-ple…” were sure to have a motley selection of the bizarre friends and acquaintances they collected: artists and designers; actors and writers; dancers and directors; with a spicy sprinkling of addicts, whores and arsonists. All, on a Sunday morning, would be informally and wildly costumed.

To be different—aloof from the mob, above the throng—he pulled on his conservative “Ivy League” wig, grey flannel slacks, Gucci loafers, a white cashmere turtleneck sweater, a jacket of suede in a reddish brown. He stuffed a yellow-patterned foulard kerchief in his breast pocket.

He went into the kitchen and brewed a small pot of coffee. He drank two cups black, sitting at the kitchen table and leafing through the magazine section of the Sunday
Times.
The ads proved that current male fashions had become more creative, colorful, and exciting than female.

At precisely 11:30, he locked his front door and took the elevator up to the Mortons’ penthouse apartment on the 34th floor.

He was alone in the elevator, there was no one waiting for entrance at the Mortons’ door and, when he listened, he could hear no sounds of revelry inside. Perplexed, he rang the bell, expecting the door to be answered by Blanche, the Mortons’ live-in maid, or perhaps by a butler hired for the occasion.

But Samuel Morton himself opened the door, stepped quickly out into the corridor, closed but did not latch the door behind him.

He was a vigorous, elfin man, clad in black leather shirt and jeans studded with steel nailheads. He twinkled when he moved. His eyes, shining with glee, were two more nailheads. He put a hand on Daniel Blank’s arm.

“Dan,” he pleaded, “don’t be sore.”

Blank groaned theatrically, “Sam, not again? You promised not to. What’s
with
you and Flo? Are you professional matchmakers? I told you I can find my own women.”

“Look, Dan, is it so terrible? We want you to be happy! Is that so terrible? Your happiness—that’s all! All right, blame us. But we’re so happy together we want everyone to be happy like us!”

“You promised,” Blank accused. “Sam, your cuffs are about a half-inch too long. After that disaster with the jewelry designer, you
promised.
Who’s this one?”

Morton stepped closer, whispering…

“You won’t believe. An original! I swear to God…Here he held up his right hand. “…an
original
! She comes into the store last week. She’s wearing a sable coat down to her ankles! It’s a warm day, but she’s wearing an ankle-length fur. And sable! Not mink. Dan—
sable
! And she’s-beautiful in an offbeat, kinky way. Marilyn Monroe she’s not, but she’s got this thing. She scares you! Yes. Maybe not beautiful. But something else. Something better! So in she comes wearing this long sable coat. Fifty thousand that coat—at least! And with her is this kid, a boy, maybe eleven, twelve, around there. And he
is
beautiful! The most beautiful boy I’ve ever seen—and you know I don’t swing that way! But she’s not married. The kid’s her brother. Anyhow, we get to talking, and Flo admires her coat, and it turns out she bought it in Russia. Russia! And she lives in a townhouse on East End Avenue. Can you imagine? East End Avenue! A townhouse! She’s got to be loaded. So one thing leads to another, and we invited her up for brunch. So what’s so terrible?”

“Did you also tell her you were inviting a friend—male and divorced—who is living in lonely anguish and seeking the companionship of a good woman?”

“No. I swear!”

“Sam, I don’t believe you.”

“Dan, would I lie to you?”

“Of course. Like your ‘thousands of fantastic pipple’.”

“Well…Flo may have casually mentioned a few neighbors might stop by.”

Daniel laughed. Sam grabbed his arm, pulled him close. “Just take a look, a quick look. Like no woman you’ve ever met! I swear to you, Dan—an
original.
You have simply got to meet this woman! Even if nothing comes of it—naturally Flo and I are hoping—but even if nothing happens, believe me it will be an experience for you. Here is a new human being! You’ll see. You’ll see. Her name is Celia Montfort. My name is Sam and her name is Celia. Right away that tells a lot—no?”

The Mortons’ apartment was a shambles, thrift shop, rats’ nest, charity bazaar, gypsy camp: as incoherent as their lives. They redecorated at least twice a year, and these upheavals had left a squabble of detritus: chairs in Swedish modern, a Victorian love seat, a Sheraton lowboy, a wooden Indian, Chinese vases, chromium lamps, Persian rugs, a barber pole, a Plexiglas table, ormolu ashtrays, Tiffany glass, and paintings in a dozen trendy styles, framed and unframed, hung and propped against the wall.

And everywhere, books, magazines, prints, photographs, newspapers, posters, swatches of cloth, smoking incense, boxes of chocolates, fresh flowers, fashion sketches, broken cigarettes, a bronze screw propeller and a blue bedpan: all mixed, helter-skelter, as if giant salad forks had dug into the furnishings of the apartment, tossed them to the ceiling, allowed them to flutter down as they would, pile up, tilt, overlap, and create a setting of frenzied disorder that stunned visitors but proved marvelously comfortable and relaxing.

Sam Morton led Daniel to the entrance of the living room, tugging him along by the arm, fearful of his escaping. Blank waved a hand at Blanche, working in the kitchen, as he passed.

In the living room, Flo Morton smiled and blew a kiss to Dan. He turned from her to look at the woman who had been speaking when they entered, and who would not stop to acknowledge their presence.

“It is bad logic and worse semantics,” she was saying in a voice curiously devoid of tone and inflection. “‘Black is beautiful’? It’s like saying, ‘Down is up.’ I know they mean to affirm their existence and assert their pride. But they have chosen a battlecry no one, not even themselves, can believe. Because words have more than meaning, you see. The meaning of words is merely the skeleton, almost as basic as the spelling. But words also have emotional weight. The simplest, most innocent words—as far as definition is concerned—can be an absolute horror emotionally. A word that looks plain and unassuming when written or printed can stir us to murder or delight. ‘Black is beautiful’? To the human race, to whites, blacks, yellows, reds, black can
never
be beautiful. Black is evil and will always seem so. For black is darkness, and that is where fears lie and nightmares are born. Blackhearted. Black sheep of the family. Black art: the magic practised by witches. Black mass. These are not racial slurs. They spring from man’s primitive fear of the dark. Black is the time or place without light, where dangers lurk, and death. Children are naturally afraid of the dark. It is not taught them; they are born with it. And even some adults sleep with a nightlight. ‘Behave yourself or the boogie man will get you.’ I imagine even Negro children are told that. The ‘boogie’—a black monster who comes out of the dark, the perilous dark. Black is the unknowable. Black is danger. Black is evil. Black is death. But ‘Black is beautiful’? Never. They’ll never get anyone to believe that. We are all animals. I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”