Williston raised his eyes to him curiously. “Why,” he said with a certain reserve, “I can’t say for sure. That was something between them.”
Leventhal was quick to feel the rebuke in this and he changed his tone somewhat. “Yes, I guess a third party never really gets the true story. I thought maybe you knew.” He sensed that he ought to explain himself further. “I’m not trying to find out something that’s none of my business. I have a good reason. Maybe you have an idea what it is…?”
“Well, I think I do,” Williston replied.
Leventhal’s heart ran hot. “I understand that you take his side,” he said. “You know what about. You think I’m responsible for everything, just as he does.”
“Everything takes in a lot of territory,” said Williston. “What are you driving at? I’d be more specific about something I was going to land on a man for.” He was not quite so composed and genial, now; his voice was beginning to sound taut, and Leventhal thought, “Better, much better. Maybe we’ll get somewhere.” He bent his heavy, dark face forward.
“I didn’t come to accuse you of anything, Stan. I’m not landing on you. I came to ask why you said certain things about me without hearing my side of the case?”
“Unless you tell me exactly what you’re talking about, I can’t answer.”
“You want me to believe that you don’t know? You know…” he made an ill-defined pushing gesture. “I want you to tell me right out if you think it’s my fault that Allbee was fired from Dill’s Weekly.”
“You do? You want to?” Williston asked this grimly, as if offering him the opportunity to reconsider or withdraw the question.
“Yes.”
“Well, I think it is.”
A hard stroke of disappointment and anger went through Leventhal and drove the breath from his body. His limbs were empty; his thighs felt hollow and rigid as brass, and he could not stir his hands from them. He hardly knew what expressions were crossing his face.
“It is… It is?” he said, struggling. “I don’t see why.”
“For definite reasons.”
Leventhal, his glance bitter and uncertain, said stum-blingly, “I wanted to know…”
Williston did not treat this as needing an answer.
Leventhal continued more surely, “I asked you, so you were bound to give me your opinion. If it’s right, fair enough. But what if it’s wrong? It might be wrong.”
“I’m not infallible.”
“No. When you say it’s my fault, you’re as good as telling me that I set out to make trouble for Allbee because of the way he acted toward Harkavy that night at your house, here. It must mean that I wanted to get even with him because of what he said about Jews.” Williston’s frown told him that this was something he didn’t want to hear. Ah, but he would hear it, Leventhal said to himself fiercely. “That’s what Allbee claims, that I wasn’t going to let him get away with it and I made a plan to get him kicked out of his job. So, now, do you think that too?”
“I didn’t say so.”
“But if you blame me you must have the same idea. I don’t see any difference. And what if it is wrong? Isn’t it awful if you’re wrong? Doesn’t it make me out to be terrible without giving me a chance to tell my side of it? Is that fair? You may think you have a different slant on it than Allbee has, but it comes out the same. If you believe I did it on purpose, to get even, then it’s not only because I’m terrible personally but because I’m a Jew.”
Williston’s face had flamed up harshly. At either corner of his mouth there was a white spot of compression. He looked at Leventhal as though to warn him of the dangerous strain on his self-control. “I shouldn’t have to tell you, Asa, that that wouldn’t enter into it with me,” he said. “You misunderstand me. I hope Allbee didn’t tell you that I agree with him about that. I don’t.”
“That sounds fine, Stan. But it adds up to the same thing, as far as I’m concerned. You think that he burned me up and I wanted to get him in bad. Why? Because I’m a Jew; Jews are touchy, and if you hurt them they won’t forgive you. That’s the pound of flesh. Oh, I know you think there isn’t any room in you for that; it’s superstition. But you don’t change anything by calling it superstition. Every once in a while you’ll hear people say, ‘That’s from the Middle Ages.’ My God! We have a name for everything except what we really think and feel.”
“Looks like you’re pretty sure of what I feel and think,” Williston said stingingly, and then he shut his teeth and seemed to fight off his exasperation. “The Jewish part of it is your own invention. You take it for granted that I think you got Allbee in trouble purposely. I didn’t say that. Maybe you aimed to hurt him and maybe you didn’t. My opinion is that you didn’t. But the effect was the same. You lost him his job. He might have lost it anyway, eventually. He was shaky at Dill’s; they had him on probation.”
“How do you know?”
“I knew it then and I had a talk with Rudiger about it later. He told me so himself.”
Leventhal’s black eyes went vacant. “Go on!” he said.
“That’s the story. I would have told you right away but you wanted to jump all over me first. Rudiger claimed that Allbee brought you up to Dill’s on purpose and that he either gave you instructions or knew you would act as you did. They had it in for each other. I guess Rudiger isn’t an easy person to please. He was giving Allbee a last chance but he was more than likely hankering for him to make a false step so that he could land on him. He must have been on his tail all the time and he knew best whether Allbee had reasons for wanting to get a lick in at him.”
“The whole thing is crazy. You can’t answer for everybody you recommend. You know that… But that’s what Rudiger told you?”
Williston nodded.
“And didn’t Allbee’s boozing have anything to do with it?”
“He lost quite a few jobs because he drank. I won’t deny it. His reputation wasn’t good.”
“Was he on a black list?” Leventhal said, intensely curious.
Williston was not looking at him. His face was directed reflectively toward the flowers, rough and crumbling in the warm night air.
“Well, as I say, he was on probation at Dill’s. I asked Rudiger about the drinking. He had to admit Allbee had stayed on the wagon. He wasn’t fired because he drank.”
“So…” Leventhal said blankly. “In a way it really seems to be my fault, doesn’t it?” He paused and gazed abstractedly at Williston, his hands still motionless on his knees. “In one way. Of course I didn’t mean to get him in trouble. I didn’t know what this man Rudiger was like…”
“No, you didn’t.”
There was something more than agreement in this reply. Leventhal waited for Williston to make it explicit but he waited in vain.
“How was I supposed to know what I was walking into?” he said. “This Rudiger… I don’t see how anybody works for him. He’s vicious. He started right away to tear at me like a dog.”
“Rudiger said that never in all his experience had he had such an interview.”
“Nobody ever talked back to him. He’s used to doing whatever he likes. He…”
Williston whose color had deepened again to a hard red interrupted. “Don’t let yourself off so easily. You were fighting everybody, those days. You were worst with Rudiger, but I heard of others. You came to ask him for a job and he wouldn’t give you one. He didn’t have to, did he? You should have had better judgment than to blow up.”
“What, wipe the spit off my face and leave like a gentleman? I wouldn’t think much of myself if I did.”
“That’s just it.”
“What is? What I think of myself? Well…” He checked himself, sighed, and gave a slightly submissive shrug. “I don’t know. You go to see a man about work. It isn’t only the job but your right to live. Say it isn’t his lookout; he’s got his own interests. But you think you’ve got something he can use. You’re there to sell yourself to him. Well, he tells you you haven’t got a goddam thing. Not only what he wants, but nothing. Christ, nobody wants to be cut down like that.” He suddenly felt weak-headed and confused; his face was wet. He changed the position of his feet uneasily on the soft circle of the carpet.