Leventhal nodded inattentively. He could only brood over Williston. How could Williston believe that of him? Was it possible to know him and yet think him capable of deliberately injuring someone? For a reason like that? For any reason, even strict self-defense? He could not have imagined and carried out such a plan. Leventhal was deeply roused. He turned away from Harkavy, wrinkling up his eyes. Willis-ton had helped him. He was indebted to him. Would he deny it? Harkavy had in his way rebuked him for seeming to forget it. He had not forgotten. But it was only natural to ask how much he owed Williston and how far gratitude should be expected to stretch. He had used the word “evil” a while ago, and what had given rise to it was a feeling that Williston had made the accusation under an influence against which he could not help himself. If he was ready to believe that he was such and such a person — why avoid saying it? — that he would carry out a scheme like that because he was a Jew, then the turn he always feared had come and all good luck was canceled and all favors melted away. He looked hopelessly before him. Williston, like himself, like everybody else, was carried on currents, this way and that. The currents had taken a new twist, and he was being hurried, hurried. His heart shrank and he felt faint for a moment and shut his eyes.
“I’ll get it from him straight,” he muttered, recovering himself a little. “I won’t take somebody else’s word for it. That would be doing what he did.” He pulled out his handkerchief and mopped his face.
8
BUT the week passed and Leventhal made no move to get in touch with Williston, though he promised himself every day to clear up the whole business. Allbee did not appear, and Leventhal hoped that he had seen the last of him without really believing that he had. But at least matters in Staten Island were going better. Mickey was by no means out of danger; still he was improving, and Leventhal felt less worried about him. Max had wired back that he was ready to leave as soon as the doctor gave the word, and Leventhal wrote to say that while he thought Max ought to come home where he was needed, the decision was his own to make.
On Friday night Leventhal felt Mary’s absence keenly. Before going to bed, he was tempted to put in a call to Charleston. He even went to the telephone, lifted it, and turned it, untangling the cord, but he set it down and went on undressing. He put on a white cotton robe she had given him on his last birthday, smoothing the lapels lightly and glancing down. She would be sure to feel if he called her now, at the beginning of the week-end, that he found being alone unendurable and was appealing to her to come home. And that would be unfair, since she could not come as long as her mother needed her. Also, when he hung up and she was inaccessible again, he would miss her even more than he did now. And she him.
There were several glasses on the sink. He washed them and turned them upside down to dry. Then he went into the dining-room which had been shut since her departure. He left all the doors in the flat standing open; it made him feel easier.
He did not sleep well. Most of the night he could hear the motor of the refrigerator shuddering and rocking as it started and stopped. Several times he opened his eyes because of it. The light was burning in the bathroom. There was a short downpour and mist floated at the window. Toward morning he was aware that someone was speaking loudly in the street and he listened, breathing heavily. There was enough light to see by. He had gone to bed in the cotton robe and he lay, both pillows under his head, his hands joined on his chest; his feet and outspread legs were visible beside the deep shadow of the wall. The air was gray and soft in the long defile of the street.
A woman’s voice cried out, and he flung himself up, brushing aside the curtains with a clatter of rings. There was a commotion at the corner. He saw a man start a crazy rush at one of two women; another threw himself in his way, shrieking, and held him off. Across the street two soldiers stood watching. They had been with the women, it was clear enough, and then the man had caught them — perhaps a husband, a brother, probably the former — and they drew off. The man circled with short, sidling steps, and the woman hung back dumbly, with horrible attentiveness, ready to run. Her high heels knocked on the pavement. He had reached her once, her dress was ripped from neck to waist. She shook her head and pulled back her hair. He darted in again, grabbing at her, and the friend, uttering her begging, agonized cries, caught his arms and was swung round by him. The soldiers had an air of being present at an entertainment especially arranged for them, and seemed to laugh to themselves from time to time. The husband’s soles scraped on the pavement as he pushed toward his wife, and this time she ran away. She ran up the street awkwardly but swiftly, her soft figure shaking, and the soldiers started off at once in the same direction. The husband did not chase her; he stood still. The other woman with her hands on his arm spoke to him urgently, thrusting forward her face. The rain was rapidly, unevenly drying from the street. Leventhal growled under his breath and wound the robe around himself more tightly. There was a gleam, as if a naked copper cable was lifted from the water and rose quickly, passing over masonry and windows. The sun was forcing its way through a corner of the gray air. The woman was still speaking to the man, imploring, pulling him the other way. She wanted him to go with her. Leventhal drew the shade and dropped into bed.
He was up at ten o’clock with a free week-end before him. The day had changed its look since dawn; it was warm, singularly beautiful. The color of the sky was strong; the clouds were as white as leghorn feathers rolling before a breeze that blew into the curtains and hauled at the strings of Mrs Nunez’ flower boxes. Leventhal bathed, dressed, and went down for breakfast. In the restaurant he took a booth instead of sitting at the counter as he did on weekdays. He found a copy of the Tribune on the seat and read, propping the paper on the sugar shaker while he drank his coffee. Afterward he took a walk uptown, enjoying the weather and looking into shopwindows.
The scene on the corner remained with him, however, and he returned to it every now and then with the feeling that he really did not know what went on about him, what strange things, savage things. They hung near him all the time in trembling drops, invisible, usually, or seen from a distance. But that did not mean that there was always to be a distance, or that sooner or later one or two of the drops might not fall on him. As a matter of fact he was thinking of Allbee — he was not sure that he had stopped spying on him — and with the thought came a faint sick qualm. Once more he reminded himself that he had to call Williston. But gradually the qualm passed, and his intention slipped to the back of his mind. And later, when he took some nickels out of his pocket to pay for a drink and saw an empty phone booth at the rear of the store, he reconsidered and decided, for the time being, not to make the call. He had not seen Williston for three years or more, and to ask him, out of a clear sky, about something so difficult and obscure, perhaps forgotten, might appear strange. Besides, if Williston was capable of believing he had injured Allbee on purpose, he would be cold to him. And perhaps Harkavy was right. Perhaps he would be trying to get Willis-ton to assure him that he still liked him, to demand that assurance of him more than fairness. He pictured Williston sitting before him in a habitual pose, at ease in his chair, his fingers in the pockets of his vest, red-cheeked, his blue eyes seeming to say, “So much frankness and no more,” the exact amount remaining in doubt. In all likelihood Williston had made up his mind that he was responsible for what had happened to Allbee and while he would listen — if Leventhal knew him — with an appearance of courtesy and willingness to suspend judgment, he would already be convinced. To imagine himself pleading with him filled Leventhal with shame. Didn’t he know, he himself, that he had never consciously wanted to harm Allbee? Of course he did. It was for Williston, even if he was his benefactor, to explain why he was ready to believe such a thing. And when you said that someone was your benefactor, what did it actually mean? You might help a man because he was a bother to you and you wanted to get rid of him. You might do it because you disliked him unfairly and wanted to pay for your prejudice and then, feeling that you had paid, you were free and even entitled to detest him. He did not say that it was so in Willis-ton’s case, but in a question like this you couldn’t be blamed for examining every possibility, or accused of being coldblooded or heartless. It was better to think well of people — there was a kind of command that you should. And on the whole it was Leventhal’s opinion that he had an unsuspicious character and preferred to be taken advantage of rather than regard everyone with distrust. It was better to be genuinely unsuspicious; it was what they called Christian. But it was foolish and miserable to refuse to acknowledge the suspicions that came into your mind in an affair like this. Because if you had them you should not put on an innocent front with your-self and deny that you did.