‘Within hours,’ I promised. ‘You are wise to trust me, Jacob Mix.’ And with that I accepted the exchange.
‘First, we get the ferry.’ He led me in a zig-zag course between stacks of cargo. ‘And then we find a pharmacy. We’ve got to clean you up, man, if you’re going to make a good impression on that girl.’
Suddenly I realised how I must look. ‘I shall get another pair of shoes,’ I said. ‘And some flowers. And perhaps another suit and a shirt.’
‘You got my only ten dollars,’ said Jacob Mix. ‘How you spend it, mister, is up to you. But there ain’t no more.’ By now we were creeping along the side of a dock, with the river, sluggish and filthy, directly below us. ‘Pick up that plank. The other end.’ Mix took hold of the nearest part of the plank which we shouldered as he led the way across a wide, unprotected stretch of dock, towards green iron railings, behind which a small, sturdy steamboat rode at her moorings in a choppy sea while her passengers filed aboard. As we approached the end of the queue we dropped the plank and joined the line of working people paying their three cents at the turnstile before boarding the ferry. I was a little nervous of producing my newly acquired ten-dollar bill and Mr Mix seemed to anticipate this, because he pushed ahead of me when our turn came and gave the man six cents. ‘Make sure you stick to the back of the boat,’ commanded the ticket seller as we moved towards the gangplank. He thought we were bums and did not want his respectable passengers bothered by us. It was no use arguing with him, said Jacob Mix quietly to me. It was easier to let him think what he liked. At least that way he wasn’t alarmed and wouldn’t become aggressive. I saw sense in this advice. After all, it was only what I had already learned during the Bolshevik War.
There was a clammy mist on the leaden water and the far bank was not clearly visible. I glimpsed a few bulky shapes rising from the fog like the Ice Giants of the Slavic epics. The sounds from the invisible ships were melancholy voices bewailing the defeat of their supernatural power. The high-pitched little ferry answered tremulously, baffled and a trifle afraid. Then, detail by detail, the buildings began to form familiar outlines, the elegant towers of Woolworth and International Telephone, legendary hotels like the slender Sherry-Netherlands or the exquisitely classical Savoy-Plaza! Living monuments to American enterprise, to Hecksher and Flatiron, the Straus, the Paramount and the Union Trust! That splendid blend of Gothic and Egyptianate styles which is so characteristically New York! That soaring, almost delicate beauty of her famous ‘sky-scrapers’ was revealed to me again as the sun burned away the last of the fog to display the city’s million blazing windows! The glinting granite and marble of her towers were soaring optimistic tributes to the very latest futuristic architectural ideas. Here was the consummate city in those wonderful days before the forces of Carthage flowed out of their sewers and occupied her streets, before she became the capital of polyglottal mongrelism. A melting-pot indeed! I call it a witches’ cauldron which the world allows to bubble and brew until it creates a poison strong enough to threaten the extermination of everything fine and noble and human. But this morning, blazing with the purity of silver, it was a New York which, I believed, could only grow more marvellous and more beautiful. Of course I was optimistic. The little steamer was bearing me steadily towards my darling. My adventures had indeed only served to give extra piquancy to our reunion. I felt, as it were, that I had earned the happiness I now anticipated.
With the morning sun warming my skin, I looked with admiration at the great liners alongside the piers to our right - so many self-contained cities, built to survive the enormous forces of nature which ruled the Atlantic, built to ensure that their passengers would hardly notice that they had left the parlours of Kensington and Fifth Avenue. They rose above us now, those monuments to civilisation and the engineers’ art. I said as much to Jacob Mix, but the darkie was in a dream of his own. ‘I always wanted to visit Africa.’ He was as oblivious of the monsters as they were of us. ‘Just to see what it was like, you know?’
‘You’ll have to go to Europe first,’ it was my duty to inform him of the realities, ‘and then perhaps in Marseilles you’ll find a ship for Tangier.’
‘Marseilles seems the best bet,’ he agreed. He had read a good many travel books and memoirs and was almost as familiar as I with places I had actually visited. In his profoundly alien mind he held ambitions as important to him as mine were to me. I recognised this, and the mutual recognition bound us together in a peculiar way. I think he had begun to see me as something of a spiritual guide, an intellectual mentor who could help him achieve the vague goals he so desperately desired. He knew, I suspect, that he did not have yet either the higher mental functions nor the social standing to fulfil himself on his own; thus by attaching himself to me he might see something of that world and of society which until now had been denied him. In turn I knew the stirrings of a powerful emotion I am forced to describe as paternal. Although probably a year or two younger than the negro I was dominated by an impulse to take care of him. Perhaps again it was recognition, this time of our common humanity, that made him attach himself to me. I shall never exactly know. As the ferry docked below the streamlined buildings and gleaming machinery of the Chelsea Piers I stared almost idly at the medium-sized twin-funnelled boat which lay, hissing and sighing from recent exertion, at anchor a couple of hundred yards below. It was only as the ferry turned a point or two to come alongside the wharf that I realised I was reading the name of the vessel in bold, black letters against the white paint - S.S. Icosium, Genoa. It was Esmé’s boat! I had only to descend the gangplank and walk along the dock to where the ship waited. But then the irony struck me. I could not present myself to my darling looking as I did. Beyond the ferry buildings was an elevated stretch of roadway and through the pillars I made out a series of grubby storefronts where I was bound to find some shoes and, if not flowers, at least some candy. Again I was in luck. As Jacob Mix and I reached the busy street, we saw a quilt of colour, a flower-seller’s stall. She had set up, of course, to take advantage of the likes of myself. To Mr Mix’s wonderment, I spent five dollars on a large bunch of mixed blooms and handed them to him to hold for me while I cast my eye across the street then led him towards a store advertising Quality Apparel, where black suits were hung up like so many punished felons. I was limping rather painfully, now that the cocaine had worn off, and it was not expedient to be seen taking more. Mr Mix followed behind me, clutching the flowers and telling me he was beginning to suspect that my vicissitudes had turned my brain. I would have been irritated by his presumption had I not realised that this was his way of displaying his solicitousness. My jacket and trousers were badly torn, but my shirt and waistcoat would serve until I could get to a telegraph office and have funds cabled to me. Esmé, I was sure, would be so delighted to see me that she would scarcely notice the condition of those garments. However, I could not bear to greet her smelling of a cattle-truck and the filth of the railroad. I entered the clothing store while Mr Mix waited for me outside, studying the boots and shoes on the racks which the overly suspicious old Jew who ran the shop had ensured were not in pairs.
The Jew asked, in curt Yiddish, what he could do for me. I refused to speak that decadent patois and demanded, in English, to see one of his best suits in my size.
‘They are nine ninety-nine, any one you like,’ he told me, looking me up and down to gauge my measurements. Then, with a long, hooked pole, he wandered down a great cavern of cloth to find the appropriate suit.