Your obedient servant,
Artur Sammler
"Margotte," he said, leaving his desk.
She sat alone, eating in the dining room, under an imitation Tiffany shade of gay red-and-green paper. The tablecloth was an Indonesian print. All was really very dark, in the awkward room. She herself looked dark there, cutting the yellow-crusted veal on her dish. He should, more often, sit down to meals with her. A childless widow. He was sorry for her, the small face with its heavy black bangs. He took a chair. "Look here, Margotte, we have a problem with Shula."
"Let me set a place for you."
"No, thank you, I have no appetite. Please sit down. I'm afraid Shula stole something. Not a theft, really. That would be nonsense. She took something. A manuscript by a Hindu scientist at Columbia. It was, of course, done for me. That idiocy about H. G. Wells. You see, Margotte, this Indian book is about colonizing the moon and the planets. Shula took away the only copy."
"The moon. How fascinating, Uncle."
"Yes, industries on the moon. Manufacturing centers on the moon. How to build cities."
"I can see why Shula wanted it for you."
"But it must be returned. Why, it's stolen goods, Margotte, and detectives have been called in. And I can't find Shula. She knows she has done wrong."
"Oh, Uncle Sammler, would you call it a crime? Not by Shula. Poor creature."
"Yes, poor creature. To whom would this not apply, if you start to say poor creature?"
"I would never have said it about Ussher. I wouldn't say it about you, either."
"Really? Well, all right. I accept the correction. However, that Indian must be notified. Here I have a letter for him."
"Why not a telegram?"
"Useless. Telegrams are no longer delivered."
"That's what Ussher used to say. He said the messengers just threw them down the sewer."
"Mailing won't do. It might take three days for the letter to arrive. All these local communications are in decay," said Sammler. "Even Cracow in the days of Franz Josef was more efficient than the U. S. postal system. And Shula may be picked up by the police, that's what I'm afraid of. Could we send the doorman in a cab?"
"What's the matter with the telephone?"
"Yes, certainly, if I could be sure we would talk to Dr. Lal himself. A direct explanation. I hadn't thought of that. But how to get his number!"
"Couldn't you just take the manuscript to him?"
"Now that I know I have the only copy, I hesitate, Margotte, to go into the street with it, and especially at night, when people are being mugged. Suppose it were snatched out of my hands?"
"And the police?"
"They have given little satisfaction. I wish to avoid them. I did think perhaps of the security officers at Columbia, or even the Pinkerton people, but I would rather hand it over personally to Dr. Lal to make sure no charges will be brought against Shula. The Indian temperament is so excitable, you know. If he doesn't meet any of us, become personally acquainted, he will let the police advise him. Then we would need a lawyer. Don't suggest Wallace. In the past, Elya always had Mr. Widick take care of such matters."
"Well, perhaps handing him a letter is best. Better than the telephone. Maybe I should carry the letter to him, Uncle. Personally."
"Ah, yes, a woman. Coming from a woman, it might have a softening effect."
"Better than a doorman. It's still light. I can get a cab."
"I have a little money in my room. About ten dollars."
Then he heard Margotte on the telephone, making inquiries. He suspected that things were being done the least efficient way. But Margotte was prompt to help when difficulties were real. She didn't start discussions about Shula--the effects of the war or Antonina's death or puberty in a Polish convent or what terror could do to the psyche of a young girl. Elya was right. Ussher, too. Margotte was a good soul. Not persisting mechanically in her ways when the signal was given. As others did, jumping into their routines. Tumbling into their grooves. In the bathroom there was a great rush of water.
She was taking a shower, the usual sign that she was preparing to go out. If she had three occasions to leave the house, she took three showers in a day. He next heard her walking very rapidly in her bedroom, shoeless, but thumping quickly, opening closets and drawers. In about twenty minutes, dressed in her black basic and wearing a black straw hat, she was at his door and asking for the letter. She was a dear thing.
"You know where he is?" said Sammler. "Did you talk to him?"
"Not personally, he was out. But he's staying at Butler Hall, and the switchboard knew all about it."
Gloves, though the evening was warm. Perfume, quite a lot. Bare arms. Bruch might have liked those arms. They had a proper little heaviness of their own. She was at times a pretty woman. And Sammler saw that she was glad to have this errand. It saved her from an empty night at home. Ussher had been fond of late-late shows. Margotte rarely turned on the television set. It was often out of repair. Since Ussher's death, it had begun to look old-fashioned in its wood cabinet. Maybe it wasn't wood, but a woodlike wig of some dark and grained material.
"If I meet Dr. Lal--and should I wait for him at Butler Hall? Shall I bring him back with me?"
"I was planning to go again to the hospital," said Sammler.
"You know, it's very bad for Elya."
"Oh, poor Elya. I know it's one thing on top of another. But don't make yourself too tired. You just got in."
"I'll lie down for fifteen minutes. Yes, if Dr. Lal wants to come, by all means, yes. Let him come."
Before she went, Margotte wanted to kiss the old man. He did not move away, although he felt that people were seldom in a fit state for kissing and that mostly it was done, in defilement, as a reminder of beatitude. But this kiss of Margotte's, reaching upward, getting on her toes and swelling her plump strong legs, was an appropriate one. She seemed grateful that he chose to live with her rather than with Shula, that he liked her so much, and that he turned to her also in trouble. Through him, moreover, she was going to meet a distinguished gentleman, a Hindu scientist. She was perfumed, she was wearing eye make-up.
He said, "I should be home by about ten."
"Then, if he is there, dear Uncle, I'll bring him back and he can wait here with me. He'll be so eager for his manuscript."
He saw her soon in the street. Touching the frieze curtain, he watched her going toward West End Avenue, up the pale width of the sidewalk, alert for a taxi. She was small, she was strong, and had a sort of compact female pride. Somewhat shaking, as women do when they hurry. Gotten up strangely. And altogether odd. Females! The drafts must blow between their legs. Such observations originated mainly in kindly detachment, in farewell-detachment, in earth-departure-objectivity.
In daylight still, the white Spry sign across the Hudson began to flash against pale green and also down into the dark water, while in the sunset copper the asphalt belly of the street was softly disfigured, softly rank, with its manhole covers. And the cars always packed tightly into the street. Machines for going away.