Irwin Shaw - Rich Man, Poor Man

Thomas put out the light. He lay face down on the bed. He punched the pillow, once, with all his strength.

The next morning, he went down early, to try to talk to Clothilde before breakfast. But Uncle Harold was there, at the dining-room table, reading the newspaper.

‘Good morning, Tommy,’ he said, looking up briefly. His teeth were back in. He sipped noisily at his coffee.

Clothilde came in with Thomas’s orange juice. She didn’t look at him. Her face was dark and closed. Uncle Harold didn’t look at Clothilde. ‘It is terrible what is happening in Germany,’ he said. ‘They are raping women in Berlin. The Russians. They have been waiting for this for a hundred years. People are living in cellars. If I hadn’t met your Tante Elsa and come to this country when I was a young man, God knows where I would be now.’

Clothilde came in with Thomas’s bacon and eggs. He searched her face for a sign. There was no sign.

When he finished breakfast, Thomas stood up. He would have to get back later in the day, when the house was empty. Uncle Harold looked up from his paper. ‘Tell Coyne, I’ll be in at nine-thirty,’ Uncle Harold said. ‘I have to go to the bank. And tell him I promised Mr Duncan’s car by noon, washed.’

Thomas nodded and went out of the room as the two daughters came down, fat and pale. ‘My angels,’ he heard Uncle Harold say as they went into the dining-room and kissed him good morning.

He had his chance at four o’clock that afternoon. It was the daughters’ dentist day for their braces and Tante Elsa always took them, in the second car. Uncle Harold, he knew, was down at the showroom. Clothilde should be alone.

‘I’ll be back in a half-hour,’ he told Coyne. ‘I got to see somebody.’

Coyne wasn’t pleased, but screw him.

Clothilde was watering the lawn when he pedalled up. It was a sunny day and rainbows shimmered in the spray from the hose. The lawn wasn’t a big one and was shadowed by a linden tree. Clothilde was in a white uniform. Tante Elsa liked her maids to look like nurses. It was an advertisement of cleanliness. You could eat off the floor in my house.

Clothilde looked at Thomas once as he got off his bicycle, then continued, watering the lawn.

‘Clothilde,’ Thomas said, ‘come inside. I have to talk to you.’

I’m watering the lawn.’ She turned the nozzle and the spray concentrated down to a stream, with which she soaked a bed of petunias along the front of the house.

‘Look at me,’ he said.

‘Aren’t you supposed to be at work?’ She kept turned away from him.

‘Did he come down to your room last night?’ Thomas said. ‘My uncle?’

‘So?’

‘Did you let him in?’

‘It’s his house,’ Clothilde said. Her voice was sullen.

‘Did you promise him anything?’ He knew he sounded shrill, but he couldn’t help himself.

‘What difference does it make? Go back to work. People will see us.’

‘Did you promise him anything?’

‘I said I wouldn’t see you alone anymore,’ she said flatly;

‘You didn’t mean it, though,’ Thomas pleaded.

‘I meant it,’ she fiddled with the nozzle again. The wedding ring on her finger gleamed. ‘We are over.’

‘No, we’re not!’ He wanted to grab her and shake her. ‘Get the hell out of this house. Get another job. I’ll move away and…. ‘

‘Don’t talk nonsense,’ she said sharply. ‘He told you about my crime.’ She mocked the word. ‘He will have me deported We are not Romeo and Juliet. We are a schoolboy and a cook. Go back to work.’

‘Couldn’t you say anything to him?’ Thomas was desperate. He was afraid he was going to break down and cry, right there on the lawn, right in front of Clothilde.

There is nothing to say. He is a wild man,’ Clothilde said. “He is jealous. When a man is jealous you might as well talk to a wall or a tree.’

‘Jealous?’ Thomas said. ‘What do you mean?’

‘He has been trying to get into my bed for two years,’ Clothilde said calmly. ‘He comes down at night when his wife is asleep and scratches on the door like a kitten.’

That fat bastard,’ Thomas said. ‘I’ll be there waiting for him the next time.’

‘No you won’t,’ Clothilde said. ‘He is going to come in the next time. You might as well know.’

‘You’re going to let him?’

‘I’m a servant,’ she said. ‘I lead the life of a servant. I do not want to lose my job or go to jail or go back to Canada. Forget it,’ she said. ‘Alles Kaput. It was nice for two weeks. You’re a nice boy. I’m sorry I got you into trouble.’

‘All right, all right,’ he shouted. ‘I’m never going to touch another woman again as long as -‘

He was too choked to say anything more and ran over to his bicycle and rode blindly away, leaving Clothilde watering the roses. He didn’t turn around. So he didn’t see the tears on the dark, despairing face.

Saint Sebastian, well supplied with arrows, be headed for the garage. The rods would come later.

When she came out of Eighth Street subway station, stopped for six bottles of beer and then went into the cleaner’s for Willie’s suit. It was dusk, the early dusk of November, and the air was nippy. People were wearing coats and moving quickly. A girl in slacks and a trench coat slouched in front of her, her hair covered by a scarf. The girl looked as though she had just gotten out of bed, although it was after five o’clock in the afternoon. In Greenwich Village, people might get out of bed at any time of the day or night. It was one of the charms of the neighbourhood, like the fact that most of the population was young. Sometimes, when she walked through the neighbourhood, among the young, she thought, ‘I am in my native country.’

The girl in the trench coat went into Corcoran’s Bar and Grill. Gretchen knew it well. She was known in a dozen bars of the neighbourhood. A good deal of her life was spent in bars now.

She hurried towards Eleventh Street, the beer bottles heavy in the big brown-paper sack and Willie’s suit carefully folded over her arm. She hoped Willie was home. You never could know when he’d be there. She had just come from an understudy rehearsal uptown and she had to go back for the eight o’clock call. Nichols and the director had her read for the understudy’s job and had told her that she had talent. The play was a moderate success. It would almost certainly last till June. She walked across the stage in a bathing suit three times a night. The audience laughed each time, but the laughter was nervous. The author had been furious the first time he had heard the laughter, at a preview, and had wanted to cut her out of the play, but Nichols and the director had persuaded him that the laughter was good for the play. She received some peculiar letters backstage and telegrams asking her if she wanted to go out to supper and twice there were roses. She never answered anybody. Willie was always there in her

dressing room after the show to watch her wash off the body make-up and get into her street clothes. When he wanted to tease her, he said, ‘Oh, God, why did I ever get married? I am quoting.’

His divorce was dragging along, he said.

She went into the hallway of the walk-up and looked to see if there was any mail in the box. Abbot-Jordache. She had printed the little card herself.

She opened the downstairs door with her key and ran up the three flights of stairs. She was in a hurry, once she got into the house. She opened the door of the apartment, a little breathless from the stairs. The door opened directly on the livingroom. ‘Willie …’ she was calling. There were only two small rooms, so there was no real reason to call out. She found excuses to say his name.