“Yuh,” said Carmody.
“Nor do I expect any gratitude.”
“I’m grateful, I’m grateful!” Carmody said.
“No, you’re not,” Bellwether said.
“So okay maybe I’m not. What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t want you to say anything,” the city said. “Let us consider the incident closed.”
“Had enough?” the city said, after dinner.
“Plenty,” Carmody said.
“You didn’t eat much.”
“I ate all I wanted. It was very good.”
“If it was so good, why didn’t you eat more?”
“Because I couldn’t hold any more.”
“If you hadn’t spoiled your appetite with that candy bar…”
“Goddamn it, the candy bar didn’t spoil my appetite! I just—”
“You’re lighting a cigarette,” the city said.
“Yeah,” Carmody said.
“Couldn’t you wait a little longer?”
“Now look,” Carmody said. “Just what in hell do you—”
“But we have something more important to talk about,” the city said quickly. “Have you thought about what you’re going to do for a living?”
“I haven’t really had much time to think about it.”
“Well, I have been thinking about it. It would be nice if you became a doctor.”
“Me? I’d have to take special college courses, then get into medical school, and so forth.”
“I can arrange all that,” the city said.
“Not interested.”
“Well… What about law?”
“Never.”
“Engineering is an excellent line.”
“Not for me.”
“What about accounting?”
“Not on your life.”
“What do you want to be?”
“A jet pilot,” Carmody said impulsively.
“Oh, come now!”
“I’m quite serious.”
“I don’t even have an air field here.”
“Then I’ll pilot somewhere else.”
“You’re only saying that to spite me!”
“Not at all,” Carmody said. “I want to be a pilot, I really do. I’ve always wanted to be a pilot! Honest I have!”
There was a long silence. Then the city said, “The choice is entirely up to you.” This was said in a voice like death.
“Where are you going now?”
“Out for a walk,” Carmody said.
“At nine-thirty in the evening?”
”Sure. Why not?”
“I thought you were tired.”
“That was quite some time ago.”
“I see. And I also thought that you could sit here and we could have a nice chat.”
“How about if we talk after I get back?” Carmody asked.
“No, it doesn’t matter,” the city said.
“The walk doesn’t matter,” Carmody said, sitting down. “Come on, we’ll talk.”
“I no longer care to talk,” the city said. “Please go for your walk.”
“Well, good night,” Carmody said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I said, ‘good night.’”
“You’re going to sleep?”
“Sure. It’s late, I’m tired.”
“You’re going to sleep now?”
“Well, why not?”
“No reason at all,” the city said, “except that you have forgotten to wash.”
“Oh…. I guess I did forget: I’ll wash in the morning.”
“How long is it since you’ve had a bath?”
“Too long. I’ll take one in the morning.”
“Wouldn’t you feel better if you took one right now?”
“No.”
“Even if I drew the bath for you?”
“No! Goddamn it, no! I’m going to sleep!”
“Do exactly as you please,” the city said. “Don’t wash, don’t study, don’t eat a balanced diet. But also, don’t blame me.”
“Blame you? For what?”
“For anything,” the city said.
“Yes. But what did you have in mind, specifically?”
“It isn’t important.”
“Then why did you bring it up in the first place?”
“I was only thinking of you,” the city said.
“I realize that.”
“You must know that it can’t benefit me if you wash or not.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“When one cares,” the city went on, “when one feels one’s responsibilities, it is not nice to hear oneself sworn at.”
“I didn’t swear at you.”
“Not this time. But earlier today you did.”
“Well… I was nervous.”
“That’s because of the smoking.”
“Don’t start that again!”
“I won’t,” the city said. “Smoke like a furnace. What does it matter to me?”
“Damned right,” Carmody said, lighting a cigarette.
“But my failure,” the city said.
“No, no,” Carmody said. “Don’t say it, please don’t!”
“Forget I said it,” the city said.
“All right.”
“Sometimes I get overzealous.”
“Sure.”
“And it’s especially difficult because I’m right. I am right, you know.”
“I know,” Carmody said. “You’re right, you’re right, you’re always right. Right right right right right—”
“Don’t overexcite yourself bedtime,” the city said. “Would you care for a glass of milk?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
Carmody put his hands over his eyes. He felt very strange. He also felt extremely guilty, fragile, dirty, unhealthy and sloppy. He felt generally and irrevocably bad, and it would always be this way unless he changed, adjusted, adapted….
But instead of attempting anything of the sort he rose to his feet, squared his shoulders, and marched away past the Roman piazza and the Venetian bridge.
“Where are you going?” the city asked. “What’s the matter?”
Silent, tight-lipped, Carmody continued past the children’s park and the American Express building.
“What did I do wrong?” the city cried. “What, just tell me what?”
Carmody made no reply but strode past the Rochambeau Cafe and the Portuguese synagogue, coming at last to the pleasant green plain that surrounded Bellwether.
“Ingrate!” the city screamed after him. “You’re just like all the others. All of you humans are disagreeable animals, and you’re never really satisfied with anything.”
Carmody got into his car and started the engine.
“But of course,” the city said, in a more thoughtful voice, “you’re never really dissatisfied with anything either. The moral, I suppose, is that a city must learn patience.”
Carmody turned the car onto King’s Highbridge Gate Road and started east, toward New York.
“Have a nice trip!” Bellwether called after him. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll be waiting up for you.”
Carmody stepped down hard on the accelerator. He really wished he hadn’t heard that last remark.
ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER
Jachid and Jechidah
Hell’s bells tinkle in urban glades where love is an infirmity leading to death, where green fields and blue skies are the manifold blessings of corruption and the vulgarity of death is nothing but a short episode in the eternity of life. Isaac Bashevis Singer, a recognized master of Jewish fiction, pours black paint over modern man’s favorite philosophical toys with a cheerful vengeance. With the blind, mocking eyes of an omniscient skeptic he examines acceptable reality, throws stones at it, and pushes past its cardboard parameters. The result is a happy exercise in Jewish iconoclasm.
IN A PRISON where souls bound for Sheol—Earth they call it there—await destruction, there hovered the female soul Jechidah. Souls forget their origin. Purah, the Angel of Forgetfulness, he who dissipates God’s light and conceals His face, holds dominion everywhere beyond the Godhead. Jechidah, unmindful of her descent from the Throne of Glory, had sinned. Her jealousy had caused much trouble in the world where she dwelled. She had suspected all female angels of having affairs with her lover Jachid, had not only blasphemed God but even denied him. Souls, she said, were not created but had evolved out of nothing: they had neither mission nor purpose. Although the authorities were extremely patient and forgiving, Jechidah was finally sentenced to death. The judge fixed the moment of her descent to that cemetery called Earth.