"Uncle Artur, can you tell me anything about my grandmother 's brother in the old country?"
"Who?"
"Hessid was the man's name."
"Hessid? Hessid? Yes, there was a Hessid family."
"He had a mill for cornmeal, and a shop near the Castle. Just a small place with a few barrels."
"You must be mistaken. I remember no one in the family who ground anything. However, you have an excellent memory. Better than mine."
"Hessid. A fine-looking old man with a broad white beard. He wore a derby, and a very fancy vest with watch and chain. Called up often to read from the Torah, though he couldn't have been a heavy contributor to the synagogue."
"Ah, the synagogue. Well, you see, Elya, I didn't have much to do with the synagogue. We were almost freethinkers. Especially my mother. She had a Polish education. She gave me an emancipated name: Artur."
Sammler regretted that he was so poor at family reminiscences. Contemporary contacts being somewhat unsatisfactory, he would gladly have helped Gruner to build up the past.
"I loved old Hessid. You know, I was a very affectionate child."
"I'm sure you were," said Sammler. He could hardly remember Gruner as a boy. Standing, he said, "I won't tire you with a long visit."
"Oh, you aren't tiring me. But you probably have things to do. At the public library. One thing, before you go, Uncle--you're in pretty good shape still. You took that last trip to Israel very well, and that was a tough one. Do you still like to run in Riverside Park, as you used to do?"
"Not lately. I feel too stiff for it."
"I was going to say, it's not safe to run down there. I don't want you mugged. When you're winded from running, some crazy sonofabitch jumps out and cuts your throat! Anyway, if you are too stiff to run you're far from feeble. I know you're not a sickly type, apart from your nervous trouble. You still get that small payment from the West Germans? And the Social Security? Yes, I'm glad we had the lawyer set that up, about the Germans. And I don't want you to worry, Uncle Artur."
"About what?"
"About anything at all. Security in old age. Being in a home. You stay with Margotte. She's a good woman. Shell look after you. I realize Shula is a little too nutty for you. She amuses other people but not her own father. I know how that can be."
"Yes, Margotte is decent. You couldn't ask for better."
"So, remember, Uncle, no worries."
"Thank you, Elya."
A confusing, frowning moment, and, getting into the breast, the head, and even down into the bowels and about the heart, and behind the eyes--something gripping, aching, smarting. The woman was buffing Gruner's nails, and he sat straight in the fully buttoned pajama coat; above it, the bandage hiding the throat with its screw. His large ruddy face was mainly unhandsome, his baldness, his big-eared plainness, the large tip of the nose; Gruner belonged to the common branch of the family. It was, however, a virile face, and, when superficial objections were removed, a kindly face. Sammler knew the defects of his man. Saw them as dust and pebbles, as rubble on a mosaic which might be swept away. Underneath, a fine, noble expression. A dependable man--a man who took thought for others.
"You've been good to Shula and me, Elya."
Gruner neither acknowledged nor denied this. Perhaps by the rigidity of his posture he fended off gratitude he did not deserve in full.
In short, if the earth deserves to be abandoned, if we are now to be driven streaming into other worlds, starting with the moon, it is not because of the likes of you, Sammler would have said. He put it more briefly, "I'm grateful."
"you're a gentleman, Uncle Artur."
"I'll be in touch."
"Yes, come back. It does me good."
Sammler, outside the rubber-silenced door, put on his Augustus John hat. A hat from the Soho that was. He went down the corridor in his usual quick way, favoring the sightful side slightly, putting forward the right leg and the right shoulder. When he came to the anteroom, a sunny bay with soft plastic orange furniture, he found Wallace Gruner there with a doctor in a white coat. This was Elya's surgeon.
"My dad's uncle--Dr. Cosbie."
"How do you do, Dr. Cosbie." The conceivably wasted fragrance of Mr. Sammler's manners. Who was there now to be aware of such Old World stuff! Here and there perhaps a woman might appreciate his style of greeting. But not a Doctor Cosbie. The ex-football star, famous in Georgia, struck Sammler as a sort of human wall. High and flat. His face was mysteriously silent, and very white. The upper lip was steep and prominent. The mouth itself thin and straight. Somewhat unapproachable, he kept his hands behind his back. He had the air of a general whose mind is on battalions in a bloody struggle, just out of sight over a hill. To a civilian pest who came up to him at that moment he had nothing to say.
"How is Dr. Gruner?"
"Makin' good progress, suh. A very fine patient."
Dr. Gruner was being seen as he wished to be seen. Every occasion had its propaganda. Democracy was propaganda. From government, propaganda entered every aspect of life. You had a desire, a view, a line, and you disseminated it. It took, everyone spoke of the event in the appropriate way, under your influence. In this case Elya, a doctor, a patient, made it known that he was the patient of patients. An allowable foible; boyish, but what of it? It had a certain interest.
Faced with a doctor, Sammler had his own foible, for he often wanted to ask about his symptoms. This was repressed of course. But the impulse was there. He wanted to mention that he woke up with a noise inside his head, that his good eye built up a speck at the corner which he couldn't scratch out, it stuck in the fold, that his feet burned intolerably at night, that he suffered from pruritis ani. Doctors loathed laymen with medical phrases. All, naturally, was censored The tachycardia last of all. Nothing was shown to Cosbie but a certain cool, elderly cosiness. A winter apple. A busy-minded old man. Colored specs. A wide wrinkled hat brim. An umbrella on a sunny day--inconsequent. Long narrow shoes, cracked but highly polished.
Was he cold-hearted about Elya? No, he was grieving. But what could he do? He went on thinking, and seeing.
As usual, even in the midst of conversation, Wallace with round black eyes was dreaming away. Profoundly dreaming. He also had a very white color. In his late twenties he was still little brother with the curls, the lips of a small boy. A bit careless perhaps in his toilet habits, also like a small boy, he often transmitted to Sammler in warm weather (perhaps Sammler's nose was hypersensitive) a slightly unclean odor from the rear. The merest hint of fecal carelessness. This did not offend his great-uncle. It was simply observed, by a peculiarly delicate recording system. Actually, Sammler rather sympathized with the young man. Wallace fell into the Shula category. There was even a family resemblance, especially in the eyes- round, dark, wide, filling the big bony orbits, capable of seeing all, but adream, dreamy, as if drugged. He was a kinky cat, said Angela. With Dr. Cosbie he was discussing sports. Wallace took no common interest in any subject. With him all interests were uncommon. He caught a tearing fever. Horses, football, hockey, baseball. He knew averages, performance records, statistics. You could test him by the almanac. Dr. Gruner said that he would be up at four a. m. memorizing tables and jotting away left-handed at top speed across the body. With this, the intellectual if slightly pedomorphic forehead, the refinement of the nose, somewhat too small, and the middle of the face, somewhat too concave, and a look of mental power, virility, nobility, all slightly spoiled. Wallace nearly became a physicist, he nearly became a mathematician, nearly a lawyer (he had even passed the bar and opened an office, once), nearly an engineer, nearly a Ph. D. in behavioral science. He was a licensed pilot. Nearly an alcoholic, nearly a homosexual. At present he seemed to be a handicapper. He had yellow pages of legal foolscap covered with team names and ciphers, and he and Dr. Cosbie, who seemed to be a gambler, too, were going over these intricate, many-factored calculations, and plainly the doctor was fascinated, not simply humoring Wallace. Slender Wallace in the dark suit was very handsome. A young man with stunning gifts. It was puzzling.