But the bag of weights was speeding from the other side, very wide but accurate. It struck more heavily than before and knocked the man down. He did not drop. He lowered himself as though he had decided to lie in the street. The blood ran in points on his cheek. The terrible metal had cut him through the baize.
Eisen now heaved his weapon back over his shoulder, prepared to slam it down on the man's skull. Sammler seized his arm and twisted him away. "You'll murder him. Do you want to beat out his brains?"
"You said, Father-in-law!"
They quarreled in Russian before the crowd.
"You said I had to do something. You said you had to go. I must do something. So I did."
I didn't say hit him with these damned irons. I didn't say to hit him at all. You're crazy, Eisen, crazy enough to murder him."
The pickpocket had tried to brace himself on his elbows. His body now rested on his doubled arms. He bled thickly on the asphalt.
"I am horrified!" Sammler said.
Eisen, still handsome, curly, still with the smile, though now panting, and the peculiar set of his toeless feet, seemed amused at Sammler's ludicrous inconsistency. He said, "You can't hit a man like that just once. When you hit him, you must really hit him. Otherwise he'll kill you. You know. We both fought in the war. You were a Partisan. You had a gun. So don't you know?" His laughter, his logic, laughing and reasoning at Sammler's absurdities, made him repeat until he stuttered. "If in--in. No? If out--out. Yes? No? So answer."
It was the reasoning that sank Sammler's heart completely. "Where is Feffer?" he said, and turned away.
Feffer, resting his forehead against the bus, was getting back his breath. Putting it on, no doubt. To Sammler this exaggeration was revolting.
Damn these--these occasions! he was thinking. Damn them, it was IIya who needed him. It was only IIya he wanted to see. To whom there was something to say. Here there was nothing to say.
Now he heard someone ask, "Where are the cops?"
"Busy. On the take. Writing tickets, someplace. Those shits. When you need 'em."
"There's plenty of blood. They better bring an ambulance."
The light upon the dull kinks, the porous carbon-cake of the man's head, still dropping blood, showed his eye shut. But he wished to get to his feet. He made efforts.
Eisen said to Sammler, "This is the man, isn't it? The man you told about who followed you? Who showed you his jinjik?"
"Get away from me, Eisen."
"What should I do?"
"Go away. Get away from here. You're in trouble," said Sammler. He spoke to Feffer, "What have you to say now?"
"I caught him in the act. Please wait awhile, he hurt my throat."
"Nonsense, don't put on agony with me. This is the man. He's badly hurt."
"I swear he was picking the purse, and I got two shots of him."
"Did you, now!"
"You seem angry, sir. Why are you so angry with me?"
Sammler now saw the squad car, the whirling roof light, and the policemen coming out at a saunter, pushing away the crowd. Emil drew Sammler away to the side of the bus and said, "You don't want any of this. We have to go."
"Yes, Emil, of course."
They crossed the street. Avoid getting mixed up with the police. They might detain him for hours. He should never have stopped at the fiat. He should have gone directly to the hospital.
"I think I would like to sit in the front with you, Emil."
"Why, sure. Are you all shook up?" He helped him In. Emirs own hand was shaking, and Sammler himself had trembling arms and legs. An extraordinary weakness came up the legs from beneath.
The great engine ignited. Coolness poured from the air conditioner. Then the Rolls entered traffic.
"What was all that about?"
"I wish I knew," said Sammler.
"Who was that black character?"
"Poor man, I can't really say who he is."
"He took two mean wallops, there."
"Eisen is brutal."
"What did he have in that bag?"
"Pieces of metal. I feel responsible, Emil, because I appealed to Eisen, because I wanted so badly to get to Dr. Gruner."
"Well, maybe the guy has a thick skull. I guess you never saw anybody hitting to kill. You want to lie down in back for ten minutes? I can stop."
"Do I look sick? No, Emil. But I think I will shut my eyes. " Sammler was sick with rage at Eisen. The black man? The black man was a megalomaniac. But there was a certain--a certain princeliness. The clothing, the shades, the sumptuous colors, the barbarous-majestical manner. He was probably a mad spirit. But mad with an idea of noblesse. And how much Sammler sympathized with him--how much he would have done to prevent such atrocious blows! How red the blood was, and how thick--and how terrible those crusted, spiny lumps of metal were! And Eisen? He counted as a war victim, even though he might anyhow have been mad. But he belonged in the mental hospital. A homicidal maniac. If only, thought Sammler, Shula and Eisen had been a little less crazy. Just a little less. They would have gone on playing casino in Haifa, those two cuckoos, in their whitewashed Mediterranean cage. For they used to get the cards out when they weren't scandalizing the neighborhood with their screams and slaps. But no. Such individuals had the right to be considered normal. They had liberty of movement, on top of it.. They had passports, tickets. So then, poor Eisen flew across with his works. Poor soul, poor dog-laughing Eisen.
They all had such fun! Wallace, Feffer, Eisen, Bruch, too, and Angela. They laughed so much. Dear brethren, let us all be human together. Let us all be in the great fun fair, and do this droll mortality with one another. Be entertainers of your near and dear. Treasure hunts, flying circuses, comical thefts, medallions, wigs and saris, beards. Charity, all of it, sheer charity, when you consider the state of things, the blindness of the living. It is fearful! Not to be borne! Intolerable! Let us divert each other while we live!
"I'll park here and go up with you," said Emil. "They can give me a ticket if they like."
"The doctor is not back?" said Emil.
Obviously not. Angela sat alone in the hospital room.
"Then O. K. I'll be standing by if you want me."
"I seem to be smoking three packs a day. I'm out of cigarettes, Emil. I can't even concentrate on a newspaper."
"Benson and Hedges, right?"
When he left she said, "I don't like to send an elderly elderly person on errands."
Sammler made no reply. The Augustus John hat was in his hand. He didn't lay it on the clean newmade bed.
"Emil is part of Daddy's gang. They're very attached."
"What's happening?"
"I wish I knew. He was taken down for tests, but two hours is a long time. I assume Dr. Cosbie knows his stuff. I don't like the man. I don't go for the magnolia charm. He acts as if he ran a military academy in the South. But I'm not one of the boys. Drill is not my dish. He's cross, cold, and repulsive. One of those good-looking men who don't realize that women dislike them. Take the straight chair, Uncle. You like those better. I have to talk to you."
Sammler drew the seat under him, and out of the light--he couldn't bear to face windows through which nothing but blue sky was visible. He saw trouble. Himself aroused, he was sensitive to all the signs. Another woman would have had a hectic color; Angela was candle-white. The amusing husky voice, copying Tallulah's perhaps, fell short of amusement. Her throat was prominent, it looked swollen, and the light brown brows, penciled out like wings, kept rising. She tried at times to give a look of appeal. She was angry, too. It was heavy going. Even wrinkling her forehead seemed difficult. Something was obstructed. With a low necked satin blouse she wore a miniskirt. No, Sammler changed that, it was a microskirt, a band of green across the things. The frosted hair was pulled back tightly; the skin was full of female qualities (the hormones). On her cheeks large gold earrings lay. A big, shapely woman childishly dressed, erotically playing the kid, she was not likely to be taken for a boy. Sitting near her, Sammler could not smell the usual Arabian musk. Instead her female effluence was very strong, a salt odor, similar to tears or tidewater, something from within the woman. Elya's words had taken effect strongly--his "Too much sex." Even the white lipstick suggested perversion. But this was curiously without prejudice. Sammler felt no prejudice about perversion, about sexual matters. Nothing. It was too late in the day for that. Too much heat was on. Much larger powers of distortion were at work. The smash of Eisen's medallions on the pickpocket's face was still with Sammler. His own nerves, in the elementary way of nerves connected this with the crushing of his eye under the rifle butt thirty years ago. The sensations of choking and falling--one could live through that again. If it was worth living through. He waited for the rubber bump of Elya's wheeled stretcher against the door.