Saul Bellow - The Victim

“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.

“You were wrong.”

“Maybe,” Leventhal said, drooping. “My nerves were shot. And I never was any good at rubbing people the right way. I don’t know how to please them.”

“You’re not long on tact, that’s perfectly true,” said Willis-ton. He seemed somewhat appeased.

“I never intended to hurt Allbee. That’s my word of honor.”

“I believe you.”

“Do you? Thanks. You’d do me a favor if you’d tell Allbee that.”

“I don’t see him. I told you before that I haven’t seen him for years.”

Allbee was ashamed to show himself to his old friends, Leventhal thought. Of course it was only natural.

“He thinks I’m his worst enemy.”

“Where did you run into him? What’s he doing? I didn’t even know he was still in New York. He sank out of sight.”

“He’s been following me around,” Leventhal said. And he told Williston about his three encounters with Allbee. Willis-ton listened with a gravely examining expression and a modified but noticeable disapproving tightness at the corners of his mouth. Leventhal concluded, “I don’t see what he’s after. I can’t find out what he wants.”