Saul Bellow - The Victim

“It probably is,” said Leventhal idly.

“Yes. Not that I have anything against him because he happens to be his father’s son. Why shouldn’t he take advantage of the old man’s position? And what else can the old man do for him?” He suddenly changed the subject with a quick laugh. “Notice my haircut?”

“I see.”

“I didn’t drink, either. That’s not what you expected, is it?”

“Go ahead, surprise me.”

“No, you thought I’d get looped again.”

“Maybe.”

“I told you I wasn’t that far gone.”

“I’m glad to see it.”

“Are you?” There was a break of excitement in his hilarity.

“Sure,” said Leventhal. He felt a responsive laugh forming in his chest and he held it down. “What do you want, a basket of roses?”

“Why not?”

“A medal?” Leventhal began to smile.

“Yes, a medal.” He coughed thickly. “I ought to have one.”

“You ought to get one.”

“Well, I wasn’t even tempted, to be honest about it. I didn’t have to fight a yen; not a bit of trouble.”

Allbee bent forward and laid his hand on the arm of Leventhal’s chair, and for a short space the two men looked at each other and Leventhal felt himself singularly drawn with a kind of affection. It oppressed him, it was repellent. He did not know what to make of it. Still he welcomed it, too. He was remotely disturbed to see himself so changeable. However, it did not seem just then to be a serious fault.

“I had clippers on the sides.” Allbee brought the tips of his fingers to his head. “I got into the habit. It’s cleaner that way, I’ve learned. Because of nits. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

Leventhal shrugged.

“Oh, if you got them in your hair, hair like that. . Your hair amazes me. Whenever I see you, I have to study it. With some people you sometimes doubt if it’s real and you want to see if your man is wearing a wig. But your hair; I’ve often tried to imagine how it would be to have hair like that. Is it hard to comb?”

“What do you mean, is it hard?”

“I mean, does it tangle. It must break the teeth out of combs. Say, let me touch it once, will you?”

“Don’t be a fool. It’s hair. What’s hair?” he said.

“No, it’s not ordinary hair.”

“Ah, get out,” Leventhal said, drawing back.

Allbee stood up. “Just to satisfy my curiosity,” he said, smiling. He fingered Leventhal’s hair, and Leventhal found himself caught under his touch and felt incapable of doing anything. But then he pushed his hand away, crying, “Lay off!”

“It’s astonishing. It’s like an animal’s hair. You must have a terrific constitution.”

Leventhal jerked his chair away, wrinkling his forehead in confusion and incipient anger. Then he bawled, “Sit down, you lunatic!” and Allbee went back to his place. He sat forward, ungainly, his hands under his thighs, his jaw slipped to one side, exactly as on the night when he had first confronted Leventhal in the park. The white of his trimmed temples and his shaven face made the blue of his eyes conspicuous.

No further word was spoken for a while. Leventhal was trying to settle his feelings and to determine how to recover the ground he had lost through this last piece of insanity.

“It’s hard to have the right mixture of everything,” Allbee suddenly began.

“What are you driving at now?” said Leventhal.

“Oh, this about your calling me a lunatic when I give in to an impulse. Nobody can be sure he has the right mixture. Just to give you an example. Lately, a couple of weeks ago, there was a man in the subway, on the tracks. I don’t understand how he got there. But he was on the tracks and a train came along and pinned him against the wall. He was bleeding to death. A policeman came down and right away forbid anyone to touch this man until the ambulance arrived. That was because he had instructions about accidents. Now that’s too much of one thing — playing it safe. The impulse is to save the man, but the policy is to stick to rules. The ambulance came and the man was dragged out and died right away. I’m not a doctor and I can’t say whether he had a chance at any time. But suppose he could have been saved? That’s what I mean by the mixture.”

“Was he yelling for help? What line was that?” Leventhal said with a frown of pain.

“East-side line. Well, of course, when a man is spread-eagled like that. He was filling the tunnel with his noise. And the crowd! The trains were held up and the station was jammed. They kept coming down. People should have pushed the cop out of the way and taken the fellow down. But everybody stood and listened to him. Those are the real trimmers.”

“Trimmers?”

“They’re not for God and they’re not for the Old Scratch. They think they’re for themselves but they’re not that either.”

“What does he tell me this for?” thought Leventhal. “Does he want to work on my feelings? Maybe he doesn’t know why himself.”

Allbee began to smile. “You should have seen how surprised you looked when I showed up dead sober. You’re going to be even more surprised, you know.”

“By what?”

“You were joking with me this morning about a new start. You wouldn’t take me seriously.”

“Do you believe it yourself?”

“Don’t you worry,” he said confidently. “I know what really goes on inside me. I’ll let you in on something. There isn’t a man living who doesn’t. All this business, ‘Know thyself’! Everybody knows but nobody wants to admit. That’s the thing. Some swimmers can hold their breath a long time — those Greek sponge divers — and that’s interesting. But the way we keep our eyes shut is a stunt too, because they’re made to be open.”

“So. You’re off again. You can do it without whisky. I thought it was the whisky.”

“All right,” cried Allbee. “Now let me explain something to you. It’s a Christian idea but I don’t see why you shouldn’t be able to understand it. ‘Repent!’ That’s John the Baptist coming out of the desert. Change yourself, that’s what he’s saying, and be another man. You must be and the reason for that is that you can be, and when your time comes here you will be. There’s another thing behind that ‘repent’; it’s that we know what to repent. How?” His unsmiling face compelled Leventhal’s attention. “ I know. Everybody knows. But you’ve got to take away the fear of admitting by a still greater fear. I understand that doctors are beginning to give their patients electric shocks. They tear all hell out of them, and then they won’t trifle. You see, you have to get yourself so that you can’t stand to keep on in the old way. When you reach that stage — ” he knotted his hands and the sinews rose up on his wrists. “It takes a long time before you’re ready to quit dodging. Meanwhile, the pain is horrible.” He blinked blindly several times as if to clear his eyes of an obstruction. “We’re mulish; that’s why we have to take such a beating. When we can’t stand another lick without dying of it, then we change. And some people never do. They stand there until the last lick falls and die like animals. Others have the strength to change long before. But repent means now , this minute and forever, without wasting any more time.”

“And this minute has arrived for you already?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know whom you’re stringing, me or yourself.”

“Every word is sincere — sin-cere!” said Allbee inclining his head and gazing at him. He hesitated, his large lips remained parted, the upper, with its long groove, moving a little.

“Go on!” Leventhal abruptly laughed.

“Well, I thought I would try to explain it to you.” He turned slightly in his chair, resting one shoulder on the cushion, and slowly rubbed the side of his extended leg. “I’m not religious or anything like that, but I know that I don’t have to be next year what I was last year. I’ve been at one end and I can get to the other. There’s no limit to what I can be. And even if I should miss being so dazzling, I know the idea of it is genuine.”