Nathanael West - The Day of the Locust

There was so much authority in her voice and manner that she succeeded where Mary and Tod had failed. Faye looked up at her respectfully. “First, my dear,” Mrs. Johnson said, counting one with the thumb of her right hand on the index finger of her left, “first, I want you to understand that my sole desire in this matter is to help you.” She looked hard at Mary, then at Tod.

“I don’t get anything out of it, and it’s just a lot of trouble.”

“Yes,” Faye said.

“All right. There are several things I have to know, if I’m to help you.

Did the deceased leave any money or insurance?”

“No.”

“Have you any money?”

“No.”

“Can you borrow any?”

“I don’t think so.”

Mrs. Johnson sighed.

“Then the city will have to bury him.”

Faye didn’t comment.

“Don’t you understand, child, the city will have to bury him in a pauper’s grave?”

She put so much contempt into “city” and horror into “pauper” that Faye flushed and began to sob again.

Mrs. Johnson made as though to walk out, even took several steps in the direction of the door, then changed her mind and came back. “How much does a funeral cost?” Faye asked.

“Two hundred dollars. But you can pay on the installment plan-fifty dollars down and twenty-five a month.”

Mary and Tod both spoke together.

“I’ll get the money.”

“I’ve got some.”

“That’s fine,” Mrs. Johnson said. “You’ll need at least fifty more for incidental expenses. I’ll go ahead and take care of everything. Mr. Holsepp will bury your father. He’ll do it right.”

She shook hands with Faye, as though she were congratulating her, and hurried out of the room.

Mrs. Johnson’s little business talk had apparently done Faye some good. Her lips were set and her eyes dry. “Don’t worry,” Tod said. “I can raise the money.”

“No, thanks,” she said.

Mary opened her purse and took out a roll of bills. “Here’s some.”

“No,” she said, pushing it away.

She sat thinking for a while, then went to the dressing table and began to fix her tear-stained face. She wore a hard smile as she worked. Suddenly she turned, lipstick in air, and spoke to Mary.

“Can you get me into Mrs. Jenning’s?”

“What for?” Tod demanded. “I’ll get the money.” Both girls ignored him.

“Sure,” said Mary, “you ought to done that long ago. It’s a soft touch.”

Faye laughed.

“I was saving it.”

The change that had come over both of them startled Tod. They had suddenly become very tough.

“For a punkola like that Earle. Get smart, girlie, and lay off the cheapies. Let him ride a horse, he’s a cowboy, ain’t he?” They laughed shrilly and went into the bathroom with their arms around each other.

Tod thought he understood their sudden change to slang. It made them feel worldly and realistic, and so more able to cope with serious things. He knocked on the bathroom door.

“What do you want?” Faye called out.

“Listen, kid,” he said, trying to imitate them. “Why go on the turf? I can get the dough.”

“Oh, yeah! No, thanks,” Faye said.

“But listen…” he began again.

“Go peddle your tripe!” Mary shouted.

On the day of Harry’s funeral Tod was drunk: He hadn’t seen Faye since she went off with Mary Dove, but he knew that he was certain to find her at the undertaking parlor and he wanted to have the courage to quarrel with her. He started drinking at lunch. When he got to Holsepp’s in the late afternoon, he had passed the brave state and was well into the ugly one.

He found Harry in his box, waiting to be wheeled out for exhibition in the adjoining chapel. The casket was open and the old man looked quite snug. Drawn up to a little below his shoulders and folded back to show its fancy lining was an ivory satin coverlet. Under his head was a tiny lace cushion. He was wearing a Tuxedo, or at least had on a black bow-tie with his stiff shirt and wing collar. His face had been newly shaved, his eyebrows shaped and plucked and his lips and cheeks rouged. He looked like the interlocutor in a minstrel show.

Tod bowed his head as though in silent prayer when he heard someone come in. He recognized Mrs. Johnson’s voice and turned carefully to face her. He caught her eye and nodded, but she ignored him. She was busy with a man in a badly fitting frock coat.

“It’s the principle of the thing,” she scolded. “Your estimate said bronze. Those handles ain’t bronze and you know it.” “But I asked Miss Greener,” whined the man. “She okayed them.” “I don’t care. I’m surprised at you, trying to save a few dollars by fobbing off a set of cheap gun-metal handles on the poor child.” Tod didn’t wait for the undertaker to answer. He had seen Faye pass the door on the arm of one of the Lee sisters. When he caught up with her, he didn’t know what to say. She misunderstood his agitation and was touched. She sobbed a little for him.

She had never looked more beautiful. She was wearing a new, very tight black dress and her platinum hair was tucked up in a shining bun under a black straw sailor. Ever so often, she carried a tiny lace handkerchief to her eyes and made it flutter there for a moment. But all he could think of was that she had earned the money for her outfit on her back. She grew uneasy under his stare and started to edge away. He caught her arm.

“May I speak with you for a minute, alone?”

Miss Lee took the hint and left.

“What is it?” Faye asked.

“Not here,” he whispered, making mystery out of his uncertainty, He led her along the hall until he found an empty showroom. On the walls were framed photographs of important funerals and on little stands and tables were samples of coffin materials, and models of tombstones and mausoleums.

Not knowing what to say, he accented his awkwardness, playing the inoffensive fool.

She smiled and became almost friendly.

“Give out, you big dope.”

“A kiss…”

“Sure, baby,” she laughed, “only don’t muss me.” They pecked at each other.

She tried to get away, but he held her. She became annoyed and demanded an explanation. He searched his head for one. It wasn’t his head he should have searched, however.

She was leaning toward him, drooping slightly, but not from fatigue. He had seen young birches droop like that at midday when-they are over-heavy with sun.

“You’re drunk,” she said, pushing him away.

“Please,” he begged.

“Le’go, you bastard.”

Raging at him, she was still beautiful. That was because her beauty was structural like a tree’s, not a quality of her mind or heart. Perhaps even whoring couldn’t damage it for that reason, only age or accident or disease.

In a minute she would scream for help. He had to say something. She wouldn’t understand the aesthetic argument and with what values could he back up the moral one? The economic didn’t make sense either. Whoring certainly paid. Half of the customer’s thirty dollars. Say ten men a week.

She kicked at his shins, but he held on to her. Suddenly he began to talk. He had found an argument. Disease would destroy her beauty. He shouted at her like a Y.M.C.A. lecturer on sex hygiene. She stopped struggling and held her head down, sobbing fitfully. When he was through, he let go of her arms and she bolted from the room. He groped his way to a carved, marble coffin.

He was still sitting there when a young man in a black jacket and gray striped trousers came in.

“Are you here for the Greener funeral?”

Tod stood up and nodded vaguely.

“The services are beginning,” the man said, then opened a little casket covered with grosgrain satin and took out a dust cloth. Tod watched him go around the showroom wiping off the samples. “Services have probably started,” the man repeated with a wave at the door.