Saul Bellow - The Victim

On the landing he heard someone coming and glanced below. It was Allbee. Regularly his hand clasped and released the banister as he made his way up. Catching sight of Leventhal at the last turn, he paused and raised his head and seemed to examine him. The low light crossed his face up to the brows and eyes and gave it an expression, most likely accidental, of naked malice. A stir of uneasiness went over Leventhal. He remembered immediately, however, that there were a few things Allbee had to answer to him for. And, to begin with, was he drunk? But he was already quite sure, he could sense that he was sober.

“Well?” he said.

Reaching the landing, Allbee gave him a restrained nod. His hair had been trimmed. Along the sides of his head and down his cheeks there was a conspicuous margin of shaven whiteness. His face shone. He had on a new shirt and a black tie and he carried a paper bag. When he saw Leventhal inspecting him he said, “I picked these up on Second Avenue, in a bargain store.”

“I didn’t ask you.”

“I owe you an accounting,” he said matter-of-factly. Leventhal listened for a provocative note in his answer; there was none. He looked at him suspiciously.

“I haven’t had a drink today,” said Allbee.

“Come in here. There’s something I want to find out.”

“What is it?”

“Not here; in the house.”

Allbee held back. “What’s the trouble?” he asked.

Leventhal seized his coat and pulled him forward. Allbee resisted, and he lay hold of him with both hands, and, with a sullen look of determination, his anger rekindled, dragged him into the house and flung the door shut with his foot. He twisted him around. Allbee tried to free himself anew, and Leventhal shouted, “What the hell do you think I’ll stand for!”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’ll answer me. You won’t duck out of it.”

He tore his coat out of Leventhal’s grasp and swung away. “What’s the idea?” he said with a trembling, short laugh, wonderingly. “Have you decided to beat me up?”

“How much do you think I’ll take from you!” Leventhal was panting. “Do you think you can get away with everything?”

“Don’t lose your head, now.” His laugh was gone and he looked at him gravely. “After all, I expect to be treated fairly. I’m in your house, and you have certain advantages over me… Anyway, you ought to tell me what this is all about.”

“This is what it’s about.” Leventhal snatched out the cards. “Going through my desk like a damned crook and blackmailer. That’s what it’s about.”

“Oh, is that it?” He swung his hand loosely toward them.

Leventhal’s voice broke as he cried, “ That ? Isn’t that anything? You followed me around and snooped, before. I let you in here and you get your dirty hands all over my things, my private business, my letters.”

“Well, now, that’s not true. I haven’t touched your letters. I’m not interested in your business.”

“Where did I find these!” Leventhal threw the cards down. “In my bathrobe that you were wearing.”

“That’s where I found them. I don’t like to defend myself against such accusations. They’re not fair. This is the kind of thing that gets people in trouble.”

“Isn’t this yours?” Leventhal picked up a clipping from the classified ads.

“Oh, I know what was in that pocket. But some of it was there when I put the robe on. Maybe you object to the fact that I used the robe. I’m sorry, I..”

Leventhal refused to be deflected. “You mean to say that you didn’t go through my desk?”

Allbee made a movement of sincere, straightforward denial.

“How about this. Where did you get this?” Leventhal pointed to Shifcart’s card.

“I found it on the floor. Now, there I’ll admit… if I did anything really wrong it was to take that card. It was on the floor near your bed. I had no right to keep it. Perhaps you needed it. I should have asked. But I didn’t think of that. I was interested in it. In fact, I was going to bring it up in connection with something I’ve been thinking about but kept forgetting.”

“You’re lying.”

Allbee was silent. He stood looking at him.

“I didn’t put the postcards in the bathrobe,” said Leventhal, “and this card of Shifcart’s was in the desk.”

Allbee answered simply, “If you didn’t put them there, then a third party must have. I know I didn’t.”

“But you read them!” He said this violently, but he wanted to sink away.

“Yes, I did,” Allbee dropped his eyes as if to spare him.

“Damn you to hell!” Leventhal shouted in anguish and outrage. “That’s not all you read. What else!”

“Nothing.”

“You did!”

“No, that was all. I couldn’t avoid looking them over. It wasn’t intentional. But I took them out of the pocket and so I had to see what they were. It’s mostly your wife’s fault. She should have put them in an envelope — things like that. I never would have pulled a letter out of an envelope. But I read this before I realized what it was. It’s not so serious, is it? What’s so special about your cards? Any wife might write like that to a husband, or a husband to a wife. And an old married man like me… it’s not the same as if a young person, say a young girl, got hold of them. And even then, I wonder if anybody is innocent. And last of all, I don’t think it would matter to your wife. This is not the kind of thing for postcards. If she cared, she’d have written it in a letter.”

“I still think you’re lying.”

“Well, if you do, I can’t change your mind. But I’m not. Why not keep your desk locked, as long as you don’t trust me?”

“It is now.”

“You should have locked it sooner. Nobody likes to be jumped on like this. Keep it locked. You have a right to lose your temper when there’s definite proof that somebody is monkeying with your private things. It’s not very nice. But neither are such accusations. Suppose I did look in your desk, and I absolutely deny it, why should I want to carry the cards around?”

“Why should you? Search me!”

“Like a mental case? Not me, you’ve got the wrong party.”

Leventhal did not know what more to say. Perhaps he was wrong. Except when Allbee spoke of young girls he made sense and even that, fully explained, might not be irrelevant. Besides, the haircut, the shirt and tie, and the fact that he was sober made a difference. It was the haircut mainly; it gave him a new aspect. His face appeared more solid. Leventhal all at once felt nothing very strongly; he only had a certain curiosity about Allbee. He sat down beside the desk. Allbee sank into the easy chair and stretched his legs out.

After a few minutes of silence he said, “Did you see this morning’s paper?”

“Why, what’s in the paper?”

“There was an item in it I thought you might have picked up. It’s about Rudiger. Really about Rudiger’s son, but he was mentioned too. The son’s in the army and he was promoted, yesterday. To the rank of major.”

“What about it?”

“I just happened to notice. I was in the barber shop looking at the paper and saw the boy’s picture. He worked in the office for a while. He’s a very ordinary boy. Nice… I can’t criticize him. Just a college boy; very ordinary, no special spark. It’s no business of mine; that is, it can’t do me any good or harm. But I’m always interested in the way things work themselves out. Now somebody without influence spends twenty years in the service, first in this hole of a garrison and then in that one, lives with native girls because he can’t afford to marry. Maybe he gets a little rank in the end, becomes a second lieutenant. You can’t tell me it isn’t a matter of influence.”