It was late. It was dark. He had risked. Who else had risked like that? Not Larry, in his nice comfortable room in the West 110th Street apartment. But it wouldn’t be Larry walking Edith back from the ship next Sunday. It was Ira she trusted, Ira she invited. It was Ira who knew. It wasn’t big blond Ivan, the physics whiz, saying to the classmate he was helping in the ’28 alcove: Now all we got to do is find the right integral. Not Sol, whose father sold trusses on Delancey Street, not redheaded Sol spouting all that Professor Cohen said in class. Not the Columbia students who knew all about Hutchins. No. Nobody. Only he had risked, crazy-risked. And he was going home now.
And here were the four-corners where he lived, where he lived and grew up, with the New York Central viaduct steel millipede nearby always.
He had risked, and he was going home. With half a buck of Mamie’s left in his pocket and a half-full condom tin, and five bucks of Edith’s. Was there a barucha for that? A prayer? Zaida, old hypochondriac, old boy? Jews had a prayer for everything? Was there a shekheyooni? A prayer for deliverance for having screwed the ass of Zaida’s granddaughter, and not being caught? He had risked. And he had gotten away with it. Who had helped him do that and get away? He had pacified her, and Pasiphaë’d her. Who had helped him do that, Zaida, old boy? Was it the imp that jumped out of the shofar? That was a good one.
He heard his own snicker, short and mirthless. Here was where he lived, for now, 108 East 119th Street.
IV
With maybe an hour to spare, Ira made his way along Sunday-darkened 116th Street toward the Lenox Avenue subway kiosk. No more IRT pass now; he had surrendered it when he had quit the summer job, just after Labor Day. He dropped his jitney in the slot and swung the jarring turnstile ahead of him. He had already determined he would be a chevalier tonight, a chivalrous chevalier, so unlike his behavior with Stella the Monday before, two days after Edith’s request. And once again, he had reminded Mom he would be home “way, way late,” so that she wouldn’t worry.
He stayed on the local to kill time, but still he got to Christopher Street too early. So he sauntered. . along dull Seventh Avenue with its miscellaneous high and low buildings. The September night air had a touch of chill mixed with the darkness. He looked at the moon-faced clock in the gas station window at the foot of Morton Street: twenty minutes to ten. Slow. Slow. O lente, lente, currite noctis equi. Slow down. How could you make a house that was only a little more than a half block away seem as far as a house five blocks away? So if he got there a few minutes early, they wouldn’t mind; they’d be secure in knowing he had arrived. He crossed Morton to the south side, walked past Edith’s house, and as far as Hudson Street to the west, Sunday-silent, Sunday-dark, darker than Seventh Avenue. Tag-end. It was called a street, but it ran north and south, like the avenue it really was — Hudson Street by name. If that pitchy-black Ninth Avenue El a short distance away didn’t cut across the view, you could see the Hudson River. They’d be crossing to the other side soon. Underneath. Adventure, wasn’t it? Dark, Sunday-dark, the darkness that inevitably came when everyone was at home at the end of a weekend in the fall. Escort the lady home. But the minute you began to anticipate, you contemplated, and the minute you contemplated, memory floated up out of the ooze in repulsive patches. Better be on your best behavior, he cautioned himself: behave, for once, like a gentleman, and don’t forget it. Be like Lewlyn, like Larry. Jesus, wouldn’t that be a joke: like Larry. Ira turned back, passed the stoops of the two adjacent unrenovated tenements where the Italians still lived. . and on to Edith’s house, on Morton Street, number 64. He rang the bell. At the speedy buzz in reply, he lunged quickly against the door, barged in—
There she was, outside her apartment, two flights up. She called his name as he climbed the carpeted steps, waiting for him at the banister, under the hem of her dark dress a glimpse of sheer silk calves he couldn’t help looking up at.
“Ira, so glad you’re early.”
Still on the floor below, he replied with a matter-of-fact “Figured maybe I better.”
How fondly, fingering jet bead necklace, she greeted him when he climbed up to the apartment floor. She must like him, he thought: smiling so affectionately. But why? He hung his head shyly, even virginally, bashfully at least, and entered. Navajo rugs, burlap-covered couch. Mantelpiece. Blue wagon painting. Piano. And next to one of its mahogany legs, prominent, significant, bulgy, hefty leather valise, tautly strapped and buckled — standing ineluctably ready. Lewlyn advanced, tall and manly in his greenish tweeds, to shake hands: his dry, cordial chuckle: “I see you believe in getting to appointments early.”
“Yeah, well,” Ira answered with uncertain matching good humor. “Later than this, it’d be a hard job to get here. You know what I mean? I don’t know when I had an appointment at ten at night.”
“No, I agree, it’s not a usual hour to call. But this is a question of time and tide, as you know. The Cunard Line determined that.”
“We’re both very appreciative that you didn’t wait any longer. Trains, steamships, always put my mind on edge, even when I know I have plenty of time. Does anyone ever get over it? I wonder.” Edith sighed. She shut the door — and brought into view the tapa tacked to it, Marcia’s present, Marcia’s presence, with the dim flowers on the brown tree bark. An instant was all you had to think about certain things: the tapa on the door, and next to the piano leg, the bulgy leather valise, tautly strapped and buckled. Edith was already picking up her heather coat from the couch, and Lewlyn his ministerial black topcoat from the wicker armchair. And a new perception crowded out the old: they were leaving right away.
“It’s getting to the point where it’s fashionable to be late,” Edith said as she got into the garment Lewlyn held for her in his own courtly way. “You probably haven’t learned that bad habit yet,” she smiled at Ira. “I’m glad you haven’t, especially now. But Ira, you didn’t bring anything extra to wear?”
“No. I didn’t think I needed to.”
“The open river allows for quite a sweep of wind,” Lewlyn interjected as he got his own topcoat.
“It is late September,” Edith added. “I’d love to lend you something of mine.” She smiled.
“No, thanks, I got a vest. I’ll be all right.” Ira couldn’t quite adjust to the tension they seemed to be under. There was plenty of time. They weren’t hurrying. It wasn’t that, but he felt a strain, an unsettling pall, that seemed to suspend time in Edith’s living room. He felt they welcomed him more than was his due, the way people might welcome a gamboling child, the way some might stroke a cat, arching cat, as a diversion from their own stress or disquiet, welcoming a shift of the center of preoccupation. Or was the tension just naturaclass="underline" because of the long voyage ahead for Lewlyn — and getting to that ship on time. But they had hours yet to go. He could feel himself take a deep breath against ambient nervousness. Or maybe because they were separating, yes, just as Mom had predicted when he had told her and Minnie, over a breakfast of fresh bulkies and lox, about Edith and Lewlyn’s awkward arrangement.
“Azoy? Oy, vey, oy, vey,” Mom had sighed gustily when she learned that Lewlyn would be leaving Edith to return to England. “It’s a terrible thing to toy with a woman’s heart. Poor Edith, my heart tears for her,” Mom had commented. “Had I had a revolver once, my betrayer would have paid for it.”