The Complete Stories (55 page)
Read The Complete Stories Online
Authors: Bernard Malamud
“Drop dead,” said Esmeralda.
“The man’s sincere,” F said, irritated. “There’s no need to be so cruel.”
“Come to bed, Arturo.” She entered the gabinetto as Ludovico went on with his confession.
“To tell the truth, I am myself a failed artist, but at least I contribute to the creativity of others by offering fruitful suggestions, though you’re free to do as you please. Anyway, your painting is a marvel. Of course it’s Picassoid, but you’ve outdone him in some of his strategies.”
F expressed thanks and gratitude.
“At first glance I thought that since the bodies of the two figures are so much more thickly painted than their faces, especially the girl’s, this destroyed the unity of surface, but when I think of some of the impastos I’ve seen, and the more I study your painting, the more I feel that’s not important.”
“I don’t think it’ll bother anybody so long as it looks like a spontaneous act.”
“True, and therefore my only criticism is that maybe the painting suffers from an excess of darkness. It needs more light. I’d say a soupçon of lemon and a little red, not more than a trace. But I leave it to you.”
Esmeralda came out of the gabinetto in a red nightgown with a black lace bodice.
“Don’t touch it,” she warned. “You’ll never make it better.”
“How would you know?” F said.
“I have my eyes.”
“Maybe she’s right,” Ludovico said, with a yawn. “Who knows with art? Well, I’m on my way. If you want to sell your painting for a handsome price, my advice is take it to a reliable dealer. There are one or two in the city whose names and addresses I’ll bring you in the morning.”
“Don’t bother,” Esmeralda said. “We don’t need your assistance.”
“I want to keep it around for a few days to look at,” F confessed.
“As you please.” Ludovico tipped his hat good night and left limping. F and Esmeralda went to bed together. Later she returned to her cot in the kitchen, took off her red nightgown, and put on an old one of white muslin.
F for a while wondered what to paint next. Maybe sort of a portrait of Ludovico, his face reflected in a mirror, with two sets of aqueous sneaky eyes. He slept soundly but in the middle of the night awoke depressed. He went over his painting inch by inch and it seemed to him a disappointment. Where was Momma after all these years? He got up to look and, doing so, changed his mind; not bad at all, though Ludovico was right, the picture was dark and could stand a touch of light. He laid out his paints and brushes and began to work, almost at once achieving the effect he sought. And then he thought he would work a bit on the girl’s face, no more than a stroke or two around the eyes and mouth, to make her expression truer to life. More the prostitute, himself a little older. When the sun blazed through both windows, he realized he had been working for hours. F put down his brush, washed up, and returned for a look at the painting. Sickened to his gut, he saw what he felt: He had ruined it. It slowly drowned in his eyes.
Ludovico came in with a well-dressed paunchy friend, an art dealer. They looked at the picture and laughed.
Five long years down the drain. F squeezed a tube of black on the canvas and with a thick brush smeared it over both faces in all directions.
When Esmeralda pulled open the curtain and saw the mess, moaning, she came at him with the bread knife. “Murderer!”
F twisted it out of her grasp, and in anguish lifted the blade into his gut.
“This serves me right.”
“A moral act,” Ludovico agreed.
1968
A
soft shalom I thought I heard but considering the Slavic cast of the driver’s face it seemed unlikely. He had been eyeing me in his rearview mirror since I had stepped into the taxi and, to tell the truth, I had momentary apprehensions. I’m forty-seven and have recently lost weight but not, I confess, nervousness. It’s my American clothes, I thought at first. One is a recognizable stranger. Unless he had been tailing me to begin with, but how could that be if it was a passing cab I had hailed myself?
soft shalom I thought I heard but considering the Slavic cast of the driver’s face it seemed unlikely. He had been eyeing me in his rearview mirror since I had stepped into the taxi and, to tell the truth, I had momentary apprehensions. I’m forty-seven and have recently lost weight but not, I confess, nervousness. It’s my American clothes, I thought at first. One is a recognizable stranger. Unless he had been tailing me to begin with, but how could that be if it was a passing cab I had hailed myself?
The taxi driver sat in his shirtsleeves on a cool June day, not more than 50° Fahrenheit. He was a man in his thirties who looked as if what he ate didn’t fully feed him—in afterthought a discontented type, his face on the tired side, not bad looking—now that I’d studied him a little, though the head seemed pressed a bit flat by somebody’s heavy hand even though protected by a mat of healthy hair. His face, as I said, veered toward Slavic: broad cheekbones, small firm chin, but he sported a longish nose and a distinctive larynx on a slender hairy neck; a mixed type, it appeared. At any rate, the shalom had seemed to alter his appearance, even the probing eyes. He was dissatisfied for certain this fine June day—his job, fate, appearance—whatever. And a sort of indigenous sadness hung on or around him, coming God knows from where; nor did he seem to mind if who he was, was immediately apparent; not everybody could do that or wanted to. This one showed himself as is. Not too prosperous, I would say, yet no underground man. He sat firm in his seat, all of
him driving, a touch frantically. I have an experienced eye for details.
him driving, a touch frantically. I have an experienced eye for details.
“Israeli?” he asked in a whisper.
“Amerikansky.” I know no Russian, just a few polite words.
He dug into his shirt pocket for a thin pack of cigarettes and swung his arm over the seat, the Volga swerving to avoid a truck making a turn.
“Take care!”
I was thrown sideways—no apologies. Extracting a Bulgarian cigarette I wasn’t eager to smoke—too strong—I handed him his pack. I was considering offering my prosperous American cigarettes in return but didn’t want to affront him.
“Feliks Levitansky,” he said. “How do you do? I am taxi driver.” His accent was strong, verging on fruity, but redeemed by fluency of tongue.
“Ah, you speak English? I sort of thought so.”
“My profession is translator—English, French.” He shrugged sideways.
“Howard Harvitz is my name. I’m here for a short vacation, about three weeks. My wife died not so long ago, and I’m traveling partly to relieve my mind.”
My voice caught, but then I went on to say that if I could manage to dig up some material for a magazine article or two, so much the better.
In sympathy Levitansky raised both hands from the wheel.
“Watch out, for God’s sake!”
“Horovitz?” he asked.
I spelled it for him. “Frankly, it was Harris after I entered college but I changed it back recently. My father had it legally done after I graduated from high school. He was a doctor, a practical sort.”
“You don’t look to me Jewish.”
“If not why did you say shalom?”
“Sometimes you say.” After a minute he asked, “For which reason?”
“For which reason what?”
“Why you changed back your name?”
“I had a crisis in my life.”
“Existential? Economic?”
“To tell the truth I changed it back after my wife died.”
“What is the significance?”
“The significance is I am closer to myself.”
The driver popped a match with his thumbnail and lit his cigarette.
“I am marginal Jew,” he said, “although my father—Avrahm Isaakovich Levitansky—was Jewish. Because my mother was gentile woman I was given choice, but she insisted me to register for internal passport with notation of Jewish nationality in respect for my father. I did so.”
“You don’t say!”
“My father died in my childhood. I was rised—raised?—to respect Jewish people and religion, but I went my own way. I am atheist. This is almost inevitable.”
“You mean Soviet life?”
Levitansky smoked without replying as I grew embarrassed by my question. I looked around to see if I knew where we were. In afterthought he asked, “To which destination?”
I said, still on the former subject, that I had been not much a Jew myself. “My mother and father were totally assimilated.”
“By their choice?”
“Of course by their choice.”
“Do you wish,” he then asked, “to visit Central Synagogue on Arkhipova Street? Very interesting experience.”
“Not just now,” I said, “but take me to the Chekhov Museum on Sadovaya Kudrinskaya.”
At that the driver, sighing, seemed to take heart.
Rose, I said to myself.
I blew my nose. After her death I had planned to visit the Soviet Union but couldn’t get myself to move. I’m a slow man after a blow, though I confess I’ve never been one for making his mind up in a hurry about important things. Eight months later, when I was more or less packing, I felt that some of the relief I was looking for derived, in addition to what was still on my mind, from the necessity of making an unexpected serious personal decision. Out of loneliness I had begun to see my former wife, Lillian, in the spring; and before long, since she had remained unmarried and attractive, to my surprise there was some hesitant talk of remarriage; these things slip from one sentence to another before you know it. If we did get married we could turn the Russian trip into a sort of honeymoon—I won’t say second because we hadn’t had much of a first. In the end, since our lives had been so frankly complicated—hard on each other—I found it hard to make up my
mind, though Lillian, I give her credit, seemed to be willing to take the chance. My feelings were so difficult to assess I decided to decide nothing for sure. Lillian, who is a forthright type with a mind like a lawyer’s, asked me if I was cooling to the idea, and I told her that since the death of my wife I had been examining my life and needed more time to see where I stood. “Still?” she said, meaning the self-searching, and implying forever. All I could answer was “Still,” and then in anger, “Forever.” I warned myself: Beware of further complicated entanglements.
mind, though Lillian, I give her credit, seemed to be willing to take the chance. My feelings were so difficult to assess I decided to decide nothing for sure. Lillian, who is a forthright type with a mind like a lawyer’s, asked me if I was cooling to the idea, and I told her that since the death of my wife I had been examining my life and needed more time to see where I stood. “Still?” she said, meaning the self-searching, and implying forever. All I could answer was “Still,” and then in anger, “Forever.” I warned myself: Beware of further complicated entanglements.
Well, that almost killed it. It wasn’t a particularly happy evening, though it had its moments. I had once been very much in love with Lillian. I figured then that a change of scene for me, maybe a month abroad, might be helpful. I had for a long time wanted to visit the U.S.S.R., and taking the time to be alone and, I hoped, at ease to think things through, might give the trip additional value.
So I was surprised, once my visa was granted—though not too surprised—that my anticipation was by now blunted and I was experiencing some uneasiness. I blamed it on a dread of traveling that sometimes hits me before I move. Will I get there? Will the plane be hijacked? Maybe a war breaks out and I’m surrounded by artillery. To be frank, though I’ve resisted the idea, I consider myself an anxious man, which, when I try to explain it to myself, means being this minute halfway into the next. I sit still in a hurry, worry uselessly about the future, and carry the burden of an overripe conscience.
I realized that what troubled me most about going into Soviet Russia were those stories in the papers of some tourist or casual traveler in this or that Soviet city who is, without warning, grabbed by the secret police on charges of “spying,” “illegal economic activity,” “hooliganism,” or whatnot. This poor guy, like somebody from Sudbury, Mass., is held incommunicado until he confesses, and is then sentenced to a prison camp in the wilds of Siberia. After I got my visa I sometimes had fantasies of a stranger shoving a fat envelope of papers into my hand, and then arresting me as I was stupidly reading them—of course for spying. What would I do in that case? I think I would pitch the envelope into the street, shouting, “Don’t pull that one on me, I can’t read Russian,” and walk away with whatever dignity I had, hoping that would freeze them in their tracks. A man in danger, if he’s walking away from it, seems indifferent, innocent. At least to himself; then in my mind I hear footsteps coming after me, and since my reveries tend to be rational, two husky KGB men grab me, shove my arms up my back, and make the arrest. Not for littering the streets, as I hope might
be the case, but for “attempting to dispose of certain incriminating documents,” a fact it’s hard to deny.
be the case, but for “attempting to dispose of certain incriminating documents,” a fact it’s hard to deny.
I see H. Harvitz yelling, squirming, kicking right and left, till his mouth is shut by somebody’s stinking palm and he is dragged by force —not to mention a blackjack whack on the skull—into the inevitable black Zis I’ve read about and see on movie screens.
The cold war is a frightening business. I’ve sometimes wished spying had reached such a pitch of perfection that both the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A. knew everything there is to know about the other and, having sensibly exchanged this information by trading computers that keep facts up to date, let each other alone thereafter. That ruins the spying business; there’s that much more sanity in the world, and for a man like me the thought of a trip to the Soviet Union is pure pleasure.
Right away at the Kiev airport I had a sort of scare, after flying in from Paris on a mid-June afternoon. A customs official confiscated from my suitcase five copies of
Visible Secrets
, a poetry anthology for high school students I had edited some years ago, which I had brought along to give away to Russians I met who might be interested in American poetry. I was asked to sign a document the official had written out in Cyrillic, except that
Visible Secrets
was printed in English, “secrets” underlined. The uniformed customs officer, a heavyset man with a layer of limp hair on a smallish head, red stars on his shoulders, said that the paper I was required to sign stated I understood it was not permitted to bring five copies of a foreign book into the Soviet Union; but I would get my property back at the Moscow airport when I left the country. I worried that I oughtn’t to sign but was urged to by my Intourist guide, a bleached blonde with wobbly heels whose looks and good humor kept me calm, though my clothes were frankly steaming. She said it was a matter of no great consequence and advised me to write my signature quickly, because it was delaying our departure to the Dniepro Hotel.
Visible Secrets
, a poetry anthology for high school students I had edited some years ago, which I had brought along to give away to Russians I met who might be interested in American poetry. I was asked to sign a document the official had written out in Cyrillic, except that
Visible Secrets
was printed in English, “secrets” underlined. The uniformed customs officer, a heavyset man with a layer of limp hair on a smallish head, red stars on his shoulders, said that the paper I was required to sign stated I understood it was not permitted to bring five copies of a foreign book into the Soviet Union; but I would get my property back at the Moscow airport when I left the country. I worried that I oughtn’t to sign but was urged to by my Intourist guide, a bleached blonde with wobbly heels whose looks and good humor kept me calm, though my clothes were frankly steaming. She said it was a matter of no great consequence and advised me to write my signature quickly, because it was delaying our departure to the Dniepro Hotel.
At that point I asked what would happen if I parted with the books, no longer claimed them as my property. The Intouristka inquired of the customs man, who answered calmly, earnestly, and at great length.
“He says,” she said, “that the Soviet Union will not take away from a foreign visitor his legal property.”
Since I had only four days in the city and time was going faster than usual, I reluctantly signed the paper plus four carbons—one for each book—or five mysterious government departments?—and was given a copy, which I filed in my billfold.
Despite this incident—it had its comic quality—my stay in Kiev,
in spite of the loneliness I usually experience my first few days in a strange city, went quickly and interestingly. In the mornings I was driven around in a private car on guided tours of the hilly, broadavenued, green-leaved city, whose colors were reminiscent of a subdued Rome. But in the afternoons I wandered around alone. I would start by taking a bus or streetcar, riding a few kilometers, then getting off to walk in this or that neighborhood. Once I strayed into a peasants’ market where collective farmers and country folk in beards and boots out of a nineteenth-century Russian novel sold their produce to city people. I thought I must write about this to Rose—I meant of course Lillian. Another time, in a deserted street when I happened to think of the customs receipt in my billfold, I turned in my tracks to see if I was being followed. I wasn’t but enjoyed the adventure.
in spite of the loneliness I usually experience my first few days in a strange city, went quickly and interestingly. In the mornings I was driven around in a private car on guided tours of the hilly, broadavenued, green-leaved city, whose colors were reminiscent of a subdued Rome. But in the afternoons I wandered around alone. I would start by taking a bus or streetcar, riding a few kilometers, then getting off to walk in this or that neighborhood. Once I strayed into a peasants’ market where collective farmers and country folk in beards and boots out of a nineteenth-century Russian novel sold their produce to city people. I thought I must write about this to Rose—I meant of course Lillian. Another time, in a deserted street when I happened to think of the customs receipt in my billfold, I turned in my tracks to see if I was being followed. I wasn’t but enjoyed the adventure.
An experience I liked less was getting lost one late afternoon several kilometers above a boathouse on the Dnieper. I was walking along the riverbank liking the boats and island beaches and, before I knew it, had come a good distance from the hotel and was eager to get back because I was hungry. I didn’t feel like retracing my route on foot—much too much tourism in three days—so I thought of a cab and, since none was around, maybe an autobus that might be going in the general direction I had come from. I tried approaching a few passersby whom I addressed in English or pidgin-German, and occasionally trying “Pardonnez-moi”; but the effect was apparently to embarrass them. One young woman ran a few awkward steps from me before she began to walk again.
Though frustrated, irritated, I spoke to two men passing by, one of whom, the minute he heard my first few words, walked on quickly, his eyes aimed straight ahead, the other indicating by gestures he was deaf and dumb. On impulse I tried him in halting Yiddish that my grandfather had taught me when I was a child, and was then directed, in an undertone in the same language, to a nearby bus stop.
As I was unlocking the door to my room, thinking this was a story I would be telling friends all winter, my phone was ringing. It was a woman’s voice. I understood “Gospodin Garvitz” and one or two other words as she spoke at length in musical Russian. Her voice had the lilt of a singer’s. Though I couldn’t get the gist of her remarks, I had this sudden vivid reverie, you might call it, of me walking with a pretty Russian girl in a white birchwood near Yasnaya Polyana, and coming out of the trees, sincerely talking, into a meadow that sloped to the water; then rowing her around in a small lovely lake. It was a peaceful business. I even had thoughts: Wouldn’t it be something if I got myself engaged to a Russian girl? That was the general picture, but when the
caller was done talking, whatever I had to say I said in English and she slowly hung up.
caller was done talking, whatever I had to say I said in English and she slowly hung up.
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