“Edith.”
“For pity’s sake, lad, where on earth have you been?”
Muff, pneumatic muff, Eliot echo. “I don’t know where I’ve been. I don’t think I could tell you.” He leered cruelly at Stella. “Everything’s all right. I shoulda called you. What about that doctor?”
“Oh, I’ve taken care of that. I waited till the last minute. What on earth—”
“I got sidetracked. I’m sorry.”
“Is the girl all right? You sure?”
“Yeah, that’s what threw me. You were right.”
“You sound very strange just the same. Are you all right?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry I bothered you— Hell!”
“Where are you?”
“Fourteenth Street subway station.”
“Please, will you listen to me?”
“What?”
“I want to see you. As soon as possible. Ira, please.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m serious. Will you take the first taxi you can, and come here? I’m very worried. Ira, do you have enough money? I’ll wait in front of the house.”
“No.”
“You will.”
“Yes.”
“As soon as you can. Promise.”
“Eftsoons his hand dropped he.”
“What? You’re mumbling so.”
“I’ll tell you.”
“I’ll be waiting for you.”
“All right. I’m going upstairs. Give me a minute.”
“You be sure?”
“Yes. Sure. Goodbye.” He hung up.
“You going there? To that lady?” Stella asked.
“You heard me.” He shoved the folding doors open. “Fresh air. Go home, will you, Stella?”
She opened her purse. “Wait a minute. Which way?” He got a nickel out, strode. “That’s the BMT — Ira!”
“Oh, the other one.”
“Don’t you know yet?” Her acne stood out in surprise. “I can pay the carfare.”
“I know it. Come on.” He led the way to the IRT turnstiles, dropped a nickel in the slot. Her green coat pressed the revolving petal, banging admission.
“Bye-bye,” she smiled, juvenile, vapid. “Bye.” Utterly lost within himself, he climbed the stair, sole, single-file counter to the throngs descending. And up into the street, auto-exhaust-laden autumn air, slant sun artificially bright on the facades of tall east buildings, on the clock in the Edison tower — half past four — feigning light on the limp lusterless top leaves of trees in the park. A cab? He wheeled about, searching, gaze sweeping the corner, where the vendor had been. A Checker cab, but occupied. Maybe more as far as the Union Square Secretarial — raggle-taggle, coming out of the park, the women in both groups were wearing babushkas, the men caps; the larger group seemed to be hounding the smaller one; and the smaller though pursued was uncowed: they hurled back defiances at their adversaries, taunts in heavily accented English: “Splitters! Wreckers! Stalinist gengsters! Vot did Abramovitz tell us, hah?” A truly stentorian voice bawled out, “Lenin hugged him ven he vas dere. He came beck, and he said, ‘Clara, it’s not for us.’ No?” Cab? Oh, hell, at this hour. there went another — with a fare—“Not for you, reformist, scissor-bills vot de Vobblies call you. Sqvealers!”
“Wreckers!”
“Recketeers!”
“Go to hell!”
Hell was right. Where the hell was a taxi? He had worried her enough—“Singk, singk, everybody!” A very short woman in the pursuing group, as stocky as she was tall, broke into song, and her cohorts soon followed, inundating those ahead with scorn; above the counter chant of “Bendits! Moscow Bendits! Stalinite tools!” rose the derisive song: “Oh, de cluck-meckers union is no-good union, it’s a right-ving union by de boss. De stinkin’ ga’ment meckers un de doity labor woeckers give de voikers a doity double cross. Oh, de Kahns, de Hillquvits, un de Thomases, dey give de voikers all false promises. Dey pritch sotsialism, but dey prektice fatzism in de toid kepitalist pahty by de boss!”
“Hey, taxi, taxi!” Ira waved frantically. “Hey! Right here!”
PART THREE
I
As if he had been traveling for hours on end, Ira got out of the cab in a stupor, told the hackie to keep the change from the dollar he handed over, dazedly aware that the tip came to more than the fare, and walked unsteadily through the cold blanching of day’s end to Edith’s house door. He pressed the nacreous bell button below her name, leaned inward at the buzzer, laboriously entered the carpeted hallway. Reverberations of streets through which he had just been, of acts, Stella at a drinking fountain, knife blades, faces in subways, moving hordes on station platforms, places and grimaces, all seemed to have gotten into his nerves), seethed in his blood — stairs settled like a fire escape as he climbed — along with voices and cries, a reeling farrago of his libido, his lunacy, almost palpably filling the softly lit hallway, like a half-delirious transition to the new surroundings, new atmosphere of Edith’s apartment. Adjust — with heaving chest, recognize the scent of lemon oil at the nostrils at the same time as the rich gleam of piano and piano stool told him the cleaning woman must have been here today. Adjust, try to sequester the topsy-turvy memories that he had no time to dwell on, no time to abate.
His gaze held by the gold sunburst on her kimono, Ira followed Edith into the apartment. A profound breathlessness heaved within him as he entered, a breathlessness that seemed much greater than that due to physical exertion — of climbing up two flights of stairs — but like a panting of the spirit trying to recover from all that had assailed it. Dully, and always conscious of his lack of grace, as if his shambling were a safeguard against too much being expected of him, he shed his coat and hat, dropped them on a chair, his briefcase between, and stood swaying to his own pulse, looking about the apartment as if he weren’t familiar with the decor, the location of chairs, the gray Navajo rugs scattered about, the black maw of the fireplace under the sheen of marble mantelpiece, desk and manila files, bulldog bulk of typewriter, bookcases, telephone. He found his favorite wicker armchair, sank noisily into it. He felt utterly jaded; his tongue seemed twice as thick as normal, and he kept wanting to double it under his palate. He wished he could have refused her unyielding request that he come to her apartment. Still, it was almost a compensation for compliance, to sit there so blissfully relaxed, only a shade away from slumping, waiting for her to arrange herself on the black velvet couch, yellow pencil, blue NYU exam booklets beside her: Professor Edith Welles of the NYU English Department, dusky in the light of the end-table lamp, large-eyed, petite, shadow-brown hair in a bun at the back of her head, and pretty calves and ankles protuding.
“Did you take a taxi?” she demanded severely.
“Yeh.”
“You look completely done in.” She regarded him so intently and for so many seconds he felt like lolling his head. “You scared me out of a week’s growth,” she said. “I didn’t know what to imagine. Not hearing from you all afternoon.”
“I should have called up. I know.”
“Where on earth were you, child? You knew we had a doctor’s appointment.”
“Yeh. I was hoping you’d cancel it.”
“There wasn’t much else I could do — when nobody appeared after four.”
“I’m sorry. It’s been awful. Some afternoon. I mean it.” He slapped the wicker seat. “It’s been all my own doing, too.”
“It’s about what I expected when a girl is as young as she is.” Edith apparently misunderstood his reference. “I should think you’d be much relieved at the way things turned out.”
“I am. I am. I was.” He debated revelations. “What gets me is that she claims she tried to get in touch with me. She went to my house and all that. I was here Sunday, wasn’t I? I tried to think back when she told me.”