Saul Bellow - The Victim

“Can you suggest a place for me to go?”

“You’re just inviting yourself in. It’s after one, do you know that?”

Allbee did not answer.

“After the way you’ve acted I should throw you out. And if you really believe half the things you said to me, you shouldn’t want to stay under the same roof. You’re a lousy counterfeit.”

“Why, you have the whole place to yourself. You can put me up,” Allbee said quietly smiling. “I wouldn’t be inconveniencing you. But if you want me to do this in the right spirit… “ And to Leventhal’s astonishment — he was too confounded when it happened to utter a sound — Allbee sank out of his chair and went to his knees.

Then he shouted, “Get up!”

Allbee pulled himself to his feet.

“For Christ’s sake, stop this damned clowning! What do you think this is?”

With a look of amusement, his eyes appearing fixed and large, Allbee seemed to taste first one lip and then the other.

“I warn you,” said Leventhal, “I won’t stand for your monkeyshines. Your jokes!” His disgust was passionate. “You know they’re not jokes; they’re not supposed to be funny. You’re trying to work something on me. You think you’ll throw me off and I won’t know what’s happening.”

“You don’t understand. I only wanted to do what was appropriate.”

“That’s all right,” said Leventhal grimly, refusing to hear. “I want you to get this — as far as I’m concerned, I’m letting you sleep here tonight to return a favor, and that’s all. Do you hear me?”

“Oh, you do owe me something.”

“Am I the only one that does? Haven’t you ever done anybody else a favor? It looks as if I’m the only one. And what do I owe you? You’ve pestered enough out of me already. I could shove you out in the hall and shut the door in your face with a clear conscience.”

“In your position-if I were in it, and I don’t say that I could be — my conscience wouldn’t be clear.”

“All right, conscience! I don’t want to discuss my conscience with you,” said Leventhal. “It’s late.”

He took some bedding from the cupboard and, going into the dining-room, flung it onto the day bed.

“It’s soft,” Allbee remarked feeling the mattress.

“Now what else do you need-you want to wash? There’s the bathroom.”

“I’d like a shower,” said Allbee. “It’s been a long time since I had one.”

Leventhal gave him a towel and found an old bathrobe for him in the closet. He sat down on the bed in his crumpled pajamas and listened disquieted to the water pelting the shower curtain and streaming in the tub. Soon Allbee came out, carrying his clothes. Wet and combed, his yellow hair gave him quite a different look. Leventhal observed his feet with a queer feeling of aversion. The insteps were red, coarse, and swollen, his toes long and misshapen, with heavy nails.

“Amazing, what a shower can do for you,” said Allbee.

“I’m going to sleep,” Leventhal said. He switched off the bed lamp.

“Good night,” said Allbee. “I’m really grateful for this hospitality.”

“Okay. There’s milk in the refrigerator, if you want something.”

“Thanks, I may have a glass.” He went toward the dining-room. Leventhal covered himself and pulled the pillow into position. The door of the refrigerator clicked open and he thought, “He is taking some.” He was already falling asleep when he heard it shut.

HE slept but he did not rest. His heart beat swiftly and the emotions of the day still filled him. He had an unclear dream in which he held himself off like an unwilling spectator; yet it was he that did everything. He was in a railroad station, carrying a heavy suitcase, forcing his way with it through a crowd the sound of whose shuffling rose toward the flags hanging by the hundreds in the arches. He had missed his train, but the loud-speaker announced that a second section of it was leaving in three minutes. The gate was barely in sight; he could never reach it in time. There was a recoil of the crowd — the guards must have been pushing it back — and he found himself in a corridor which was freshly paved and plastered. It seemed to lead down to the tracks. “Maybe they’ve just opened this and I’m the first to find it,” he thought. He began to run and suddenly came to a barrier, a movable frame resembling a sawhorse. Holding the suitcase before him, he pushed it aside. Two men stopped him. “You can’t go through, I’ve got people working here,” one of them said. He wore a business suit and a fedora, and he looked like a contractor. The other man was in overalls. “I must, I’ve got to get to the tracks,” Leventhal said. “There’s a gate upstairs. This isn’t open to the public. Didn’t you see the sign on the door? What door did you come through?” “I didn’t come through any door,” said Leventhal angrily. “This is an emergency; the train’s leaving.” The second man appeared to be a thoughtful, sympathetic person, but he was an employee and couldn’t interfere. “You can’t go back the way you came, either,” the contractor told him. “There’s a sign up there. You’ll have to leave through here.” Leventhal turned and a push on the shoulder sent him into an alley. His face was covered with tears. A few people noticed this, but he did not care about them.

He found himself not awake, precisely, but so nearly awake as to be conscious that he lay in the dark. He had a sense of marvelous relief at the end of the dream. He was, it seemed to him, in a state of great lucidity, and he experienced a rare, pure feeling of happiness. He was convinced that he knew the truth, and he said to himself with satisfaction, “Yes, I do know it, positively. Will I know it in the morning? I do now.” For what he thought would have been very strange to his waking mind, difficult to accept if not downright foolish. But why was that? “Why?” he reflected. “Dear God, am I so lazy, so weak, is my soul fat like my body?” His heart was jolting painfully; nevertheless he felt confident and happy. What was it? What did he and others do? Admittedly, like others, he had been in the wrong. That was not so important, either. Everybody committed errors and offences. But it was supremely plain to him that everything, everything without exception, took place as if within a single soul or person. And still — here he was almost tempted to smile at himself — still he suspected, more than suspected, knew, that tomorrow this would be untenable. “I won’t be able to hold onto it,” he thought. Something would prevent it.

He had a particularly vivid recollection of the explicit recognition in Allbee’s eyes which he could not doubt was the double of something in his own. Where did it come from? “Speak of black and white,” he mused. Black and white were Mr Schlossberg’s words, to which he frequently returned. Either the truth was simple or we had to accept the fact that we could not know it, and if we could not know it there was nothing to go by. “There’s just so much that we can do. What’s the use of wearing yourself out for nothing?” Leventhal said to himself. No, the truth must be something we understand at once, without an introduction or explanation, but so common and familiar that we don’t always realize it’s around us.

Gripping the pillow, he turned over and shut his eyes. He was too stirred to sleep, however. He could hear Allbee’s breathing, and he got up and closed the connecting door.

He had forgotten to set the alarm and he woke up late. The day was gray and hot. Irritated at oversleeping, he dressed and shaved hastily. After he washed off the lather he still looked unshaven. He shook some powder onto a towel, rubbed it on his chin, and slipped a shirt over his head. He had no time to stop for breakfast. In the kitchen he picked up an orange to eat on the way to the subway.