The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze Page 16

  Each of the girls tried to laugh, but their laughter sounded fake and pathetic.

  Besides, said Max, if you girls are busy, you can run along. You don’t have to stay with us. We won’t mind sitting here without you.

  Now is that nice? said the third girl. She sat in his lap, and Max put his arms around her.

  Do you know, he said, you’re not at all bad. There’s something about you.

  Then he made a sour face, as if he was smelling something unclean.

  The fat girl stood in a corner, looking miserable. She was amazed. For Christ’s sake, she said suddenly, you fellows ain’t bulls, are you?

  Don’t excite yourself, said Max. Take it easy. My name is Max Kamm. I fight in the ring. Maybe you’ve heard of me. My friend’s name is Pat Ferraro. He doesn’t do anything. He plays the ponies and he cheats at poker. And it’s raining outside. We’re here to be out of the rain. Now if you want to run along, run along. If you want to stay and be sociable, stay.

  Oh, said the girls.

  Are you staying? said Max.

  None of the girls got up to go. They seemed a bit relieved, but disappointed.

  Fine, said Max. Now what shall we talk about?

  He began to laugh and talk with the girls, and Pat lit a cigarette for the small Jewish girl. She inhaled deeply, looking at him sadly, making him feel sorry for her. He could feel himself liking the girl a lot and wanting to mean something to her, not the way it happened in these dumps, but really liking her, the girl herself, not her body and the convenience of performing the act with her, not to lie with her a few minutes and then go away, but to know her, inwardly, to be a part of that in her which seemed so admirable to him. It was foolish, but he was afraid he even loved her, really cared for her because of the deep sadness she could not hide, a girl who had to please anybody who happened to come to the place, old men and monsters. He was a bit amazed at what was going on in him, but he knew that if he had ever really loved a girl, if he had ever really cared for one, this was the girl. He began to speak with her quietly, while Max shouted at the other two girls, laughing with them, slapping their rumps, the rain splashing against the windows, sometimes impulsively with a sudden rush, sometimes softly, like weeping.

  How do you really feel? he said.

  She exhaled smoke, looking into his serious face, wondering if she could take him seriously, or if he was only kidding, killing time.

  Oh, she said, expressing no specific emotion, I feel fine.

  No, said Pat. Don’t talk like a whore to me. Don’t be like one with me. I really want to know. Is it driving you nuts? You look as if you were about ready to jump in the river. Is it really that bad?

  She looked into his eyes again, and he could see that she thought he was simply talking, killing time like Max, waiting for the rain to stop.

  I want to know, he said.

  It’s not so bad, she replied.

  But you want to get out of it, don’t you?

  She looked toward the other girls to see if they were listening. Don’t talk so loud, she said. If they tell the old woman what I’ve been saying, I’ll lose my job.

  Well, lose it, he said. To hell with it.

  It isn’t so funny, she said, if you can’t get another job and you have no place to sleep and nothing to eat.

  How long you been here? he asked.

  Nine nights now, said the girl.

  This girl, he thought. I’ll get her out of here. I’ll get a job and rent a small apartment and make her eat and sleep decently, and exercise. I won’t touch her. I’ll just stay with her until she gets on her feet again. I’ve got enough money for a week, and the first thing in the morning I’ll go around to the employment agencies and look for a job. I’ve got to do this. I’d be a bastard not to try to help this girl.

  He went on talking quietly with her, thinking about having her away from this life that was driving her nuts. He could tell now that she would go with him, anywhere. He could tell that she wanted to go with him.

  He heard the doorbell ring, and someone coming up the stairs. Then he heard the maid opening and closing the door of a room, talking with a man. The maid came to the room, looking at the girls.

  Number Eight, Martha, she said, and the girl got up from his knees, moving automatically.

  He was stunned, and he got up with her, wanting to tell the maid to get the hell away from them, and leave them alone. He loved this girl. He didn’t want her to be putting herself naked in front of some dirty punk with a stinking body and a putrid mind, and he would knock hell out of any bastard who tried to touch her. He would kill any man who tried to lay his dirty hands on her and drive her nuts, destroying the decency that was in her, that he alone could see in spite of the paint and in spite of the way she tried to talk, trying to be like a whore. He would break the whole God damn hotel to pieces and take this girl away with him, the bastards, making her want to die, scaring hell out of her.

  He stood in front of the girl, staring at the maid.

  Who wants to see her? he asked.

  She’s got to go, said the maid. There’s a man out there who wants her. He was here last night.

  Take me to the bastard, he said quietly. I’ll kill him.

  Max pushed aside the girl in his lap and grabbed Pat by the shoulders.

  What the hell you talking about? he said, laughing. Let the girl go. What the hell’s come over you, anyway? I never did see you talk this way before, and I know you’re not drunk.

  I’ll kick hell out of anyone who tries to lay hands on her, he said. Nobody’s going to touch this girl.

  Jesus, said Max. You’re nuts. He began to laugh at his friend. This is funny, he said. This is a gag.

  Well, said the maid, if you want to go to a room with Martha first, you can go. I’ll ask the other man to wait a little.

  I don’t want to go to a room with anybody, he said, and I don’t want anybody to fool with this girl again.

  Don’t talk like an idiot, said Max.

  I’ll go get the landlady, said the maid.

  Then he saw the girl, looking at him pathetically, run through the open door and down the hall. The maid left the room, closing the door, and he sat down.

  Max was still laughing at him. For a minute, said Max, I thought you were serious.

  The girls could think of nothing to say. Pat lit a cigarette. Well, he thought, that was funny, me acting that way over one of these girls. He began to laugh, inhaling and exhaling smoke. He went to the window and saw that the rain had stopped.

  Let’s scram, he said. Here, he said to the girls, buy yourselves a couple of drinks; and he handed each of the girls a silver dollar. Give them something, he said to Max.

  Sure, said Max. Here’s something for your girl. He placed a dollar on the table, and they left the room.

  Walking down the hall, Pat saw room Number Eight, and he could feel the girl in the room, holding her job. He hurried down the stairs, thinking of the girl, feeling that he had been a coward not to have done what he had wanted to do, not to have busted the joint to pieces and taken the girl away; and at the same time he felt a little amused with himself, wondering how it had happened.

  For a minute, Max said, I thought you were serious. I was ready to hit you on the chin and drag you out.

  It was nothing, Pat said. These joints always depress me.

  But he knew that he was lying, that it had been something, that if ever he had loved a girl, if ever he had really wanted to mean something to another person, it was the little Jewish girl, in the room, lying naked beside the man he should have knocked hell out of.

  War

  Karl the Prussian is five, a splendid Teuton with a military manner of walking over the sidewalk in front of his house, and a natural discipline of speech that is both admirable and refreshing, as if the child understood the essential dignity of mortal articulation and could not bear to misuse the gift, opening his mouth only rarely and then only to utter a phrase of no more than three or four words, wh
olly to the point and amazingly pertinent. He lives in a house across the street and is the pride of his grandfather, an erect man of fifty with a good German moustache whose picture appeared in a newspaper several years ago in connection with a political campaign. This man began teaching Karl to walk as soon as the boy was able to stand on his legs, and he could be seen with the small blond boy in blue overalls, moving up and down a half block of sidewalk, holding the child’s hands and showing him how to step forward precisely and a bit pompously, in the German royalist manner, knees stiff, each step resembling an arrested kick.

  Every morning for several months the old man and the little boy practised walking, and it was a very pleasant routine to watch. Karl’s progress was rapid but hardly hurried, and he seemed to understand the quiet sternness of his grandfather, and even from across the street it was easy to see that he believed in the importance of being able to walk in a dignified manner, and wished to learn to do it the way his grandfather was teaching him to do it. Fundamentally, the little boy and the old man were the same, the only difference being the inevitable difference of age and experience, and Karl showed no signs of wishing to rebel against the discipline imposed upon him by the old man.

  After a while the little boy was walking up and down the stretch of sidewalk in front of his house, unassisted by the old man, who watched him quietly from the steps of his house, smoking a pipe and looking upon the boy with an expression of severity which was at the same time an expression of pride, and the little boy kicked himself forward very nicely. The walk was certainly old-fashioned and certainly a little undemocratic, but everyone in this neighborhood liked Karl and regarded him as a very fine little man. There was something about a small boy walking that way that was satisfying. True Teutons appreciate the importance of such relatively automatic functions as breathing, walking and talking, and they are able to bother about these simple actions in a manner that is both reasonable and dignified. To them, apparently, breathing and walking and talking are related closely to living in general, and the fuss they make about these actions isn’t therefore the least ridiculous.

  People living in the houses of this block have been breeding well during the past six or seven years, and the street has a fair population of children, all of them healthy and interesting, to me extremely interesting. Karl is only one of the group, and he is mentioned first because he is perhaps the only one who has been taught a conscious racial technique of living. The other children belong to a number of races, and while the basic traits of each race is apparent in each child, these traits have not been emphasized and strengthened as they have been emphasized and strengthened in Karl. In other words, each child is of his race naturally and instinctively, and it is likely that except for the instruction of his grandfather, Karl himself would now be more like the other children, more artless and unrepressed. He would not have the military manner of walking which is the chief difference between him and the other children, and the mannerism which sometimes gets on the nerves of Josef, the Slovenian boy who lives in the flat downstairs.

  Josef is almost a year older than Karl, and he is a lively boy whose every action suggests inward laughter. He has the bright and impish face of his father who is by trade a baker, and he is the sort of boy who talks a lot, who is interested in everything and everyone around him, and who is always asking questions. He wants to know the names of people, and his favorite question is where have you been? He asks this question in a way that suggests he is hoping you have just returned from some very strange and wonderful place, not like anything he has ever seen, and perhaps not like any place on earth, and I myself have always been embarrassed because I have had to tell him that I have come from a place no more wonderful than town, which he himself has seen at least a half dozen times.

  Karl hardly ever runs, while Josef hardly ever walks, and is almost always running or skipping or leaping, as if going from one place to another was a good deal more important to him than leaving one place and reaching another place, as if, I mean, the mere going was what pleased him, rather than any specific object in going. Josef plays, while Karl performs. The Slav is himself first and his race afterwards, while the Teuton is his race first and himself afterwards. I have been studying the children who live in this block for a number of years, and I hope no one will imagine that I am making up things about them in order to be able to write a little story, for I am not making up anything. The little episode of yesterday evening would be trivial and pointless if I had not watched the growth of these boys, and I only regret that I do not know more about Irving, the Jewish boy who cried so bitterly while Karl and Josef struck each other.

  Irving came with his mother and father to this block last November, not quite four months ago, but I did not begin to see much of him until a month later when he began to appear in the street. He is a melancholy-looking boy, about Josef’s age, and of the sort described generally as introspective, seeming to feel safer within himself. I suppose his parents are having him educated musically, for he has the appearance of someone who ought to develop into a pretty fine violinist or pianist, the large serious head, the slight body, and a delicate nervous system.

  One evening, on the way to the grocer’s, I saw Irving sitting on the steps of his house, apparently dreaming the unspeakably beautiful dream of a child bewildered by the strangeness of being, and I hoped to speak to him quietly and try to find out, if possible, what was going on in his mind, but when he saw me coming toward him, he got up swiftly and scrambled up the steps and into the house, looking startled and very much afraid. I would give my phonograph to know what Irving had been dreaming that evening, for I believe it would somehow make explicable his weeping last night.

  Karl is solid and very sure of his stance, extremely certain of himself because of the fact that discipline prohibits undue speculation regarding circumstances unrelated to himself, while Josef, on the other hand, though no less certain of himself, is a good deal less solid because of the fact that a lively curiosity about all things impels him to keep in motion, and to do things without thinking. The presence of Irving on this street is solid enough, but there is something about his presence that is both amusing and saddening, as if he himself cannot figure it out and as if, for all he knows, he were somewhere else. Irving is not at all certain of himself. He is neither disciplined nor undisciplined, he is simply melancholy. Eventually I suppose, he will come to have the fullest understanding of himself and his relation to all things, but at the moment he is much too bewildered to have any definite viewpoint on the matter.

  Not long ago there were riots in Paris, and shortly afterwards a civil war developed in Austria. It is a well-known fact that Russia is preparing to defend herself against Japan, and everyone is aware of the fidgetiness which has come over all of Europe because of the nationalistic program of the present dictator of Germany.

  I mention these facts because they have a bearing on the story I am telling. As Joyce would say, the earth haveth childers everywhere, and the little episode of last night is to me as significant as the larger episodes in Europe must be to the men who have grown up and become no longer children. At least, seemingly.

  The day began yesterday with thick fog, followed by a brief shower. By three in the afternoon the sun was shining and the sky was clear except for a number of white clouds, the kind of clouds that indicate good weather, a clear moment, clean air, and so on. The weather changes this way in San Francisco. In the morning the weather is apt to be winter weather, and in the afternoon the winter weather is apt to change suddenly to spring weather, any season of the year. Hardly anyone is aware of seasons out here. We have all seasons all the year round.

  When I left my room in the morning, none of the children of this street was outdoors, but when I returned in the evening, I saw Josef and Irving standing together on my side of the street, in front of Irving’s house, talking. Karl was across the street, in front of his house, walking in the military manner I have described, looking pompous in an amusing so
rt of way and seeming to be very proud of himself. Farther down the street were five little girls, playing a hopping game on the sidewalk: Josef’s big sister, two Irish girls who were sisters, and two Italian girls who were sisters.

  After rain the air clears up and it is very pleasant to be abroad, and these children were playing in the street, in the sunlight. It was a very fine moment to be alive and to have love for all others alive in one’s time, and I mention this to show that the occasional ugliness of the human heart is not necessarily the consequence of some similar ugliness in nature. And we know that when the European countryside was loveliest this had no effect on the progress of the last war, and that the rate of killing remained just as high as it had been during the bad weather, and that the only thing that happened as a consequence of the lovely weather was some touching poetry by young soldiers who wanted to create, who wanted wives and homes, and who did not want to be killed.

  Walking past Josef and Irving, I heard Josef say, speaking of Karl: Look at him. Look at the way he’s walking. Why does he walk that way?

  I had known for some time that Josef resented the pompous certainty of Karl’s manner of walking, and therefore his remarks did not surprise me. Besides, I have already said that he was naturally curious about all things that came within the range of his consciousness, and that he was always asking questions. It seemed to me that his interest in Karl’s way of walking was largely aesthetic, and I didn’t seem to detect any malice in his speech. I did not hear Irving make a reply, and I came directly to my room. I had a letter to write and I went to work on it, and when it was finished I stood at the window of my room, studying the street. The small girls had disappeared, but Karl was still across the street, and Josef and Irving were still together. It was beginning to be dusk, and the street was very quiet.

  I do not know how it happened, but when Josef and Irving began crossing the street, going to Karl, I saw a whole nation moving the line of its army to the borders of another nation, and the little boys seemed so very innocent and likable, and whole nations seemed so much like the little boys that I could not avoid laughing to myself. Oh, I thought, there will probably be another war before long, and the children will make a great fuss in the world, but it will probably be very much like what is going to happen now. For I was certain that Josef and Karl were going to express their hatred for each other, the hatred that was stupid and wasteful and the result of ignorance and immaturity, by striking one another, as whole nations, through stupid hatred, seek to dominate or destroy one another.