“Looks pretty dead,” notices the second detective, squeezing he old man’s hand.
“The doctor just got to the tenth,” the starter announces. The old man unexpectedly wheezes.
“Look – he’s alive!” exclaims the second detective.
“Not for long. I’ve seen a lot of these deaths,” explains his friend.
The elevator arrives with a whir and within seconds the three passengers disappear.
“Mister! Mister! Your nuts! You forgot your nuts!” the woman shouts desperately, even though the elevator lights already indicate the sixth floor.
“You’re free to eat them. Or give them to your kids,” suggests Stanley. And the two of them get into an elevator headed for the basement.
Ten minutes later Garšva and Stanley are holding trays in the hotel staff cafeteria. The toothless Puerto Rican is clanging plates. Cauldrons steam with yesterday’s food the hotel guests didn’t finish.
“Leftover turkey?”
“Sure.”
“And a glass of milk?” “Sure.”
“Rice?”
“Sure.”
“You’re really chatty today, Tony. The old man with the nuts?”
“Maybe.”
“Oh, I see.”
The cafeteria is on the second floor. It is long and narrow, with wide windows looking on to 34th. Red, white, green and blue neon lights illuminate the faces of the seated – to economise the cafeteria is lit with weak bulbs. The same red paint as in the rest of the hotel, only here it’s dirtier and sadder. The walls once had paintings, reproductions of vague landscapes, but then they were suddenly taken down. The new assistant manager decided that the reproductions were outdated. The assistant had visited the Museum of Modern Art, and promised to find some more modern ones. But he lasted only a month. The hotel administration fired the modern assistant when they discovered that he was an exhibitionist who liked to show off in subway stations. And so new reproductions were never hung in the cafeteria. Faded squares remain on the walls, like the imaginary clothes in the story of the naked king.
Garšva and Stanley sit down by a window. They stare at the street as they eat. Their heads are spinning. There’s an empty bottle of Seagram’s in Stanley’s locker. Other lunchers chatter away at the surrounding tables. Bellboys in unbuttoned red jackets, kitchen staff with stained aprons, office clerks getting their caffeine fixes and a woman photographer with a face painted so heavily that even she isn’t sure of her age.
A foursome of black kitchen maids sits nearby, each sentence followed by shrieks of laughter from a recent joke.
says Garšva, chewing his turkey leftovers.
“Negro songs?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re still a fan,” Stanley notes, drinking his milk. Garšva stops chewing.
“Why?”
“I felt the same way when I first heard Mozart.
“And now?”
Stanley’s eyes are almost swollen shut.
“Now all that remains is the knowledge that such music exists.”
“You don’t listen to Mozart any more?” The eyes are revealed, a film of red. Stanley’s face is painted red by the neon lights.
“Yeah. Concerto in B-flat Major. Fantastic larghetto. Italian opera arias can kill you with their painful beauty. Concerto in D Major for violin. The rondo is graceful, like my mother dancing the mazurka. Did you know that my mother still dances the mazurka at Polish parties? And well, they say. Yeah. The Haffner Symphony. Allegro con spirito, I think. A devil in a wig is about to bow, an invitation to a minuet. Yeah. I don’t even listen to the Requiem any more. Because, like Mozart, I’m at death’s door. I listen to what the Seagram’s tells me. Seven Crown, I think.”
The black women are still cackling after every sentence. When de golden trumpets sound. Around, around, around, around. The woman photographer chews slowly. Her facial features don’t move. A stocky bellhop laughs loudly.
“Just imagine! Four suitcases, like they were filled with rocks, and just a quarter. And I even explained the subway system to the guy. How to find Halsey Street. And that Eisenhower had lunch in the hotel next door yesterday. And some other stuff. A quarter! The guy had a camel-hair coat!”
Golden around. On the wall, one of the faded squares is painted by the flash of a faded advertising star. A Renoir is reborn and dies. The trumpet of art. Two Puerto Ricans enter the cafeteria. They chatter away in Spanish, waving their hands. The glasses of orange juice they carry don’t spill. A laughing black woman’s belly jiggles. “They’re fast!” she shrieks. And the chorus agrees. A black Greek chorus on a smaller scale. Aroun’ aroun’ aroun’. The “ahs” and “ohs” echo, muffled, like in a steamy jungle after heavy rain. Cars drive down the street, a jaundiced clerk stares at his empty coffee cup, the boss’s muted calls echo from the main-floor lobby, but it’s impossible to know who he’s calling and why. Aroun’ aroun’ aroun’ aroun’.
“What are you muttering?” asks Stanley.
“Around,” replies Garšva.
“You’re done for.”
“I’ve known that for twenty years.”
“I meant that one day, you’ll be done for.”
“Everyone’s done for one day. Night. Morning. Evening.”
“Wise words. You look like you’re trying to decide something.”
“And you?”
“The Socratic method?”
Garšva observes Stanley. A Mozart fan, and he’s even heard of Socrates. A long drunken šlėkltelė’s face. And shaking hands.
“Listen, Stanley. Why do you…”
“You want to know why I work here? It’s temporary. I’m going to kill myself. Zasvistali – pojechali.”{67}
Garšva doesn’t dare ask why. He drinks his milk and watches the Renoir appear and disappear. The black women have stopped laughing. They lean their heads together, whispering like conspirators. They’re planning to murder a rich widow. When she falls asleep, two of them will stand watch in the hallway while the other two smother the widow with pillows. Then they’ll grab her jewels and all four will hide out in Harlem. They’ll repent in a black prophet’s apartment as the horns scream and the drums roll. What nonsense! The black women are probably gossiping about their girlfriends or complaining about guests.
“Thomas Wolfe spends several pages describing a man who landed on the street from some floors up,” says Garšva.
“Literature makes everything beautiful. Even ugly things. Suicide is ugly. But I need to do it.”
“Why?”
“I can’t give you a good reason. I went to high school. Studied piano. And started to drink. Why? Maybe you can tell me. You’re a European, you have all the traditional answers.”
“You’re not being completely frank,” Garšva concludes.
Stanley looks at him as though he were a student trying to explain why he hasn’t done his homework.
“I am being frank. I really want to kill myself. Dziękuję.”{68}
“Then what are you waiting for?” asks Garšva, now somewhat alarmed because Stanley’s face becomes grave. There is something intangibly fine about his features. It could be a past pride, a nobleman’s sword, an ambitious narrowing of the lips, a multicoloured garment, an embroidered sash and konfederatka.{69}
“Idz srač,” says Stanley, and he gets up and leaves.{70} Garšva cringes. I didn’t want to upset him, all I did was ask. Maybe I’m like the old lady who offered a dying man some nuts? Could the faded squares from the reproductions hold the answer? Stanley’s soul is a faded square, and Mozart will fade away when the snack bar’s neon lights go out. And the black women won’t whisper as they clean rooms. And the jaundiced clerk is already counting on the other side of the partition. And I still have twenty-eight minutes. Truly I didn’t want to insult Stanley. There’s no answer to my question. The answer will be articulated by theologians, psychologists, sociologists, moralists, authors of theses. One must act this way. It had to be this way, so it wouldn’t be that way. Or that way, this way.