Saul Bellow - The Victim

“Excuse me for asking,” put in Leventhal, “but was this marriage supposed to be a good thing from his wife’s point of view?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did her family like him?”

“They were suspicious. But I thought he was very promising. Intelligent and charming. So did lots of other people. I always believed he’d outdistance all our friends.”

Williston corroborated her. “Yes, he’s brainy and well read, too. He used to read an awful lot.”

“And suddenly the bottom falls out. I wonder whom you could blame for that.” Phoebe sighed and turned her long, handsome, pensive face with its marked, level brows to her husband first and then to Leventhal.

“Why, she wasn’t to blame, was she?” said Leventhal. “His wife?”

“No.. ” Phoebe appeared to be disconcerted. “Why should she be? She loved him.”

“Well, if she wasn’t to blame, who’s left?” asked Leventhal. “She left him, didn’t she?”

“Yes, she did. We never learned why. She didn’t take it up with me. We saw it from the outside, mostly. It was hard to understand because he was so charming.”

“Charming!” Leventhal scornfully repeated to himself. “—Brilliant start!” What could this woman actually have seen with those two eyes of hers? What did she allow herself to see? Could anything that started so well, so promisingly, have ended so badly? There must have been a flaw in the beginning, visible to anyone who wanted to see. But Phoebe did not want to see. And as for Allbee, no wonder he stayed away from the Willistons, they had such a high opinion of him.

He said reservedly, “They say that drinking people usually make a good impression. They’re supposed to be likeable.”

“Still drinking, eh?” Williston asked in an undertone.

“Still?” Leventhal shrugged, as if to say, “What’s the use of asking?”

“No, he was just what I say. Ask Stan. Even before he started drinking. But you haven’t told me how he’s making out and what he’s doing.”

“He’s doing nothing. And he hasn’t told me what he’s going to do, either.”

“Well, ask him to come over and see us, will you?” Her face was tremulous with hidden resentment.

“With pleasure.” Leventhal sounded rather sharp. Williston was turning over a spoon in his short fingers. He had spoken very little realizing, perhaps, that Phoebe was in the wrong, and was afraid to make matters worse by interfering. Leventhal hid his annoyance. They wanted to see Allbee — they could have him altogether, as far as he was concerned — but they didn’t say they wanted him to stay with them, only to visit. And why, Leventhal wanted to know, didn’t it occur to Phoebe to ask why Allbee was with him rather than with his friends? Logically, they were the ones for him to go to. But it struck him, in examining her white face, that there were certain logical questions she didn’t want to ask. She did not want the facts; she warded them off. In a general way she understood them well enough, he was sure. She only wanted to insist that Allbee be taken care of. And chances were that she no more wanted to see him in his present condition than he wanted to see her. She probably knew what he was like. Oh, of course she knew. But she wanted him changed back to what he had been. “My dear lady,” Leventhal protested in thought, “I don’t ask you to look at things my way, but just to look. That would be enough. Have a look!” However, and he always returned to this, the Willistons had been kind to him; he was indebted to them. — Although what Williston had done for him was nothing compared to what he was being told implicitly to do for Allbee.

Williston roused himself, or so it appeared to Leventhal. “I don’t think Kirby wants to see us now, dear,” he said. “He would have come before.”

“Too bad he hasn’t,” said Leventhal. He showed more feeling than he had intended, and Phoebe quickly took him up.

“I don’t think I understand that, Asa,” she said.

“You ought to see him. From the way you’re talking about him, I don’t think you’d recognize him. I know I don’t recognize the same man.”

“Well, that may not be my fault.” She stopped with a short release of breath. The red began to come out again under her eyes.

“I suppose he has changed,” said Williston slowly.

“Believe me, he’s not what Phoebe says. I’m telling you.” Leventhal tenaciously limited himself to this in order to control his mounting sense of wrong.

“You ought to be more charitable,” Phoebe said.

At this he almost lost his head, staring at her while the color spread to her cheeks. He pushed away his plate, muttering, “I can’t change myself over to suit you.”

“What?” said Williston.

“I said, if I’m not, I’m not!”

“I don’t think Phoebe meant what she said, exactly. Phoebe? I think Asa got the wrong impression.”

“I see that you misunderstood me,” she grudgingly said.

“Well, it doesn’t make any difference.”

“I didn’t mean anything except that Kirby was promising, and so on. I wasn’t saying anything but that.”

What did she know about him? Lcventhal thought bitterly. But he was silent.

“I phoned because I wanted to know if I could help out with a little money,” said Williston. “I haven’t been able to think of a job for him, but he must need things. I guess he can use a few dollars.”

“That’s right,” Leventhal said.

“I want to give you ten or so. You don’t have to tell him where it comes from. He might not want to accept money from me.”

“I’ll give it to him,” said Leventhal. “It’s very nice of you.”

The Willistons left. Leventhal watched them in the blue mirror of the bar above the massed forms of the bottles. Stan waited while Phoebe stopped to give a touch to her hat and they went up the stairs together, passing under the awning.

FROM the foyer he saw Mrs Nunez sitting cross-legged on the divan, putting up her freshly washed hair. She held her chin against her breast, and there were pins in her mouth and others strewn on the brown and white squares of her skirt. He rapped, and she drew her hair back from her eyes but did not change her position or cover her unsymmetrically gartered legs.

“I don’t want to disturb you,” he said, looking at them. “I was thinking — the flat’s pretty dirty. Could you give me a lead about a cleaning woman? Ours hasn’t been around.”

“Clean? I don’t know anybody. If it’s straighten, I’ll do it for you. I don’t do the heavy work.”

“Nothing heavy, I just want the place to look a little neater.”

“Sure, I’ll straighten it for you.”

“I’ll be much obliged. It’s getting to be too much for me.”

The look of his front room by lamplight disgusted him. It would have done Phoebe good to see it. He half regretted that he had not invited the Willistons home with him. He set to work gathering up the papers from the floor and spread clean sheets on his bed and laid out a pair of pajamas. In the bathroom he soaked and rinsed the robe and rubbed out the ink-stains with a brush and soap powder. Taking it to the roof he wrung it out and spread it on a line. There was a smell of approaching fall in the breeze. Leventhal walked over the pebbles and tar to the parapet. To the east the lights of the two shores joined in a long seam in midriver. Summer would end soon after the holiday and with the start of fall everything would change; Leventhal felt inexplicably convinced of this. The sky was overcast. He looked out awhile and then returned to the staircase, careful of lines and wires in the dark. He touched the robe in passing. It was drying rapidly in the breeze.