The Complete Stories (27 page)

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Authors: Bernard Malamud

BOOK: The Complete Stories
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Fidelman resumed his seat. “What can I do for you, Susskind?” He spoke grimly.
The refugee cleared his throat. “Professor, the days are warm but the nights are cold. You see how I go around naked.” He held forth bluish arms, goosefleshed. “I came to ask you to reconsider about giving away your old suit.”
“And who says it’s an old suit?” Despite himself, Fidelman’s voice thickened.
“One suit is new, so the other is old.”
“Not precisely. I am afraid I have no suit for you, Susskind. The one I presently have hanging in the closet is a little more than a year old and I can’t afford to give it away. Besides, it’s gabardine, more like a summer suit.”
“On me it will be for all seasons.”
After a moment’s reflection, Fidelman drew out his billfold and counted four single dollars. These he handed to Susskind.
“Buy yourself a warm sweater.”
Susskind also counted the money. “If four,” he said, “why not five?”
Fidelman flushed. The man’s warped nerve. “Because I happen to have four available,” he answered. “That’s twenty-five hundred lire. You should be able to buy a warm sweater and have something left over besides.”
“I need a suit,” Susskind said. “The days are warm but the nights are cold.” He rubbed his arms. “What else I need I won’t tell you.”
“At least roll down your sleeves if you’re so cold.”
“That won’t help me.”
“Listen, Susskind,” Fidelman said gently, “I would gladly give you the suit if I could afford to, but I can’t. I have barely enough money to squeeze out a year for myself here. I’ve already told you I am indebted to my sister. Why don’t you try to get yourself a job somewhere, no matter how menial? I’m sure that in a short while you’ll work yourself up into a decent position.”
“A job, he says,” Susskind muttered gloomily. “Do you know what it means to get a job in Italy? Who will give me a job?”
“Who gives anybody a job? They have to go out and look for it.”
“You don’t understand, professor. I am an Israeli citizen and this means I can only work for an Israeli company. How many Israeli companies are there here?—maybe two, El Al and Zim, and even if they had a job, they wouldn’t give it to me because I have lost my passport.
I would be better off now if I were stateless. A stateless person shows his laissez-passer and sometimes he can find a small job.”
“But if you lost your passport why didn’t you put in for a duplicate?”
“I did, but did they give it to me?”
“Why not?”
“Why not? They say I sold it.”
“Had they reason to think that?”
“I swear to you somebody stole it from me.”
“Under such circumstances,” Fidelman asked, “how do you live?”
“How do I live?” He chomped with his teeth. “I eat air.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously, on air. I also peddle,” he confessed, “but to peddle you need a license, and that the Italians won’t give me. When they caught me peddling I was interned for six months in a work camp.”
“Didn’t they attempt to deport you?”
“They did, but I sold my mother’s old wedding ring that I kept in my pocket so many years. The Italians are a humane people. They took the money and let me go, but they told me not to peddle anymore.”
“So what do you do now?”
“I peddle. What should I do, beg?—I peddle. But last spring I got sick and gave my little money away to the doctors. I still have a bad cough.” He coughed fruitily. “Now I have no capital to buy stock with. Listen, professor, maybe we can go in partnership together? Lend me twenty thousand lire and I will buy ladies’ nylon stockings. After I sell them I will return you your money.”
“I have no funds to invest, Susskind.”
“You will get it back, with interest.”
“I honestly am sorry for you,” Fidelman said, “but why don’t you at least do something practical? Why don’t you go to the Joint Distribution Committee, for instance, and ask them to assist you? That’s their business.”
“I already told you why. They wish me to go back, but I wish to stay here.”
“I still think going back would be the best thing for you.”
“No,” cried Susskind angrily.
“If that’s your decision, freely made, then why pick on me? Am I responsible for you then, Susskind?”
“Who else?” Susskind loudly replied.
“Lower your voice, please, people are sleeping around here,” said Fidelman, beginning to perspire. “Why should I be?”
“You know what responsibility means?”
“I think so.”
“Then you are responsible. Because you are a man. Because you are a Jew, aren’t you?”
“Yes, goddamn it, but I’m not the only one in the whole wide world. Without prejudice, I refuse the obligation. I am a single individual and can’t take on everybody’s personal burden. I have the weight of my own to contend with.”
He reached for his billfold and plucked out another dollar.
“This makes five. It’s more than I can afford, but take it and after this please leave me alone. I have made my contribution.”
Susskind stood there, oddly motionless, an impassioned statue, and for a moment Fidelman wondered if he would stay all night, but at last the refugee thrust forth a stiff arm, took the fifth dollar, and departed.
Early the next morning Fidelman moved out of the hotel into another, less convenient for him, but far away from Shimon Susskind and his endless demands.
 
 
This was Tuesday. On Wednesday, after a busy morning in the library, Fidelman entered a nearby trattoria and ordered a plate of spaghetti with tomato sauce. He was reading his
Messagero
, anticipating the coming of the food, for he was unusually hungry, when he sensed a presence at the table. He looked up, expecting the waiter, but beheld instead Susskind standing there, alas, unchanged.
Is there no escape from him? thought Fidelman, severely vexed. Is this why I came to Rome?
“Shalom, professor,” Susskind said, keeping his eyes off the table. “I was passing and saw you sitting here alone, so I came in to say shalom.”
“Susskind,” Fidelman said in anger, “have you been following me again?”
“How could I follow you?” asked the astonished Susskind. “Do I know where you live now?”
Though Fidelman blushed a little, he told himself he owed nobody an explanation. So he had found out he had moved—good.
“My feet are tired. Can I sit five minutes?”
“Sit.”
Susskind drew out a chair. The spaghetti arrived, steaming hot. Fidelman sprinkled it with cheese and wound his fork into several tender strands. One of the strings of spaghetti seemed to stretch for miles, so
he stopped at a certain point and swallowed the forkful. Having foolishly neglected to cut the long spaghetti string he was left sucking it, seemingly endlessly. This embarrassed him.
Susskind watched with rapt attention.
Fidelman at last reached the end of the long spaghetti, patted his mouth with a napkin, and paused in his eating.
“Would you care for a plateful?”
Susskind, eyes hungry, hesitated. “Thanks,” he said.
“Thanks yes or thanks no?”
“Thanks no.” The eyes looked away.
Fidelman resumed eating, carefully winding his fork; he had had not too much practice with this sort of thing and was soon involved in the same dilemma with the spaghetti. Seeing Susskind still watching him, he became tense.
“We are not Italians, professor,” the refugee said. “Cut it in small pieces with your knife. Then you will swallow it easier.”
“I’ll handle it as I please,” Fidelman responded testily. “This is my business. You attend to yours.”
“My business,” Susskind sighed, “don’t exist. This morning I had to let a wonderful chance get away from me. I had a chance to buy ladies’ stockings at three hundred lire if I had money to buy half a gross. I could easily sell them for five hundred a pair. We would have made a nice profit.”
“The news doesn’t interest me.”
“So if not ladies’ stockings, I can also get sweaters, scarves, men’s socks, also cheap leather goods, ceramics—whatever would interest you.”
“What interests me is what you did with the money I gave you for a sweater.”
“It’s getting cold, professor,” Susskind said worriedly. “Soon comes the November rains, and in winter the tramontana. I thought I ought to save your money to buy a couple of kilos of chestnuts and a bag of charcoal for my burner. If you sit all day on a busy street corner you can sometimes make a thousand lire. Italians like hot chestnuts. But if I do this I will need some warm clothes, maybe a suit.”
“A suit,” Fidelman remarked sarcastically, “why not an overcoat?”
“I have a coat, poor that it is, but now I need a suit. How can anybody come in company without a suit?”
Fidelman’s hand trembled as he laid down his fork. “To my mind you are utterly irresponsible and I won’t be saddled with you. I have the right to choose my own problems and the right to my privacy.”
“Don’t get excited, professor, it’s bad for your digestion. Eat in peace.” Susskind got up and left the trattoria.
Fidelman hadn’t the appetite to finish his spaghetti. He paid the bill, waited ten minutes, then departed, glancing around from time to time to see if he was being followed. He headed down the sloping street to a small piazza where he saw a couple of cabs. Not that he could afford one, but he wanted to make sure Susskind didn’t tail him back to his new hotel. He would warn the clerk at the desk never to allow anybody of the refugee’s name or description even to make inquiries about him.
Susskind, however, stepped out from behind a plashing fountain at the center of the little piazza. Modestly addressing the speechless Fidelman, he said, “I don’t wish to take only, professor. If I had something to give you, I would gladly give it to you.”
“Thanks,” snapped Fidelman, “just give me some peace of mind.”
“That you have to find yourself,” Susskind answered.
In the taxi Fidelman decided to leave for Florence the next day, rather than at the end of the week, and once and for all be done with the pest.
That night, after returning to his room from an unpleasurable walk in the Trastevere—he had a headache from too much wine at supper—Fidelman found his door ajar and at once recalled that he had forgotten to lock it, although he had as usual left the key with the desk clerk. He was at first frightened, but when he tried the armadio in which he kept his clothes and suitcase, it was shut tight. Hastily unlocking it, he was relieved to see his blue gabardine suit—a one-buttonjacket affair, the trousers a little frayed at the cuffs, but all in good shape and usable for years to come—hanging amid some shirts the maid had pressed for him; and when he examined the contents of the suitcase he found nothing missing, including, thank God, his passport and traveler’s checks. Gazing around the room, Fidelman saw all in place. Satisfied, he picked up a book and read ten pages before he thought of his briefcase. He jumped to his feet and began to search everywhere, remembering distinctly that it had been on the night table as he had lain on the bed that afternoon, rereading his chapter. He searched under the bed and behind the night table, then again throughout the room, even on top of and behind the armadio. Fidelman hopelessly opened every drawer, no matter how small, but found neither the briefcase nor, what was worse, the chapter in it.
With a groan he sank down on the bed, insulting himself for not having made a copy of the manuscript, because he had more than once warned himself that something like this might happen to it. But he
hadn’t because there were some revisions he had contemplated making, and he had planned to retype the entire chapter before beginning the next. He thought now of complaining to the owner of the hotel, who lived on the floor below, but it was already past midnight and he realized nothing could be done until morning. Who could have taken it? The maid or the hall porter? It seemed unlikely they would risk their jobs to steal a piece of leather goods that would bring them only a few thousand lire in a pawnshop. Possibly a sneak thief? He would ask tomorrow if other persons on the floor were missing something. He somehow doubted it. If a thief, he would then and there have ditched the chapter and stuffed the briefcase with Fidelman’s oxblood shoes, left by the bed, and the fifteen-dollar R. H. Macy sweater that lay in full view on the desk. But if not the maid or porter or a sneak thief, then who? Though Fidelman had not the slightest shred of evidence to support his suspicions, he could think of only one person—Susskind. This thought stung him. But if Susskind, why? Out of pique, perhaps, that he had not been given the suit he had coveted, nor was able to pry it out of the armadio? Try as he would, Fidelman could think of no one else and no other reason. Somehow the peddler had followed him home (he suspected their meeting at the fountain) and had got into his room while he was out to supper.

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