Saul Bellow - The Victim

Julia put the cake with its seven candles on the table. Libbie stood staring into the flames. Her eyes were much like her grandmother’s and her uncle’s.

“Blow, kiddie,” said Harkavy. “Once, that’s luckiest.”

But Libbie reached out and tried to capture a drop of the melting wax.

“Libbie, dear…” her father urged.

“People are waiting,” Julia cried impatiently. “Would you rather be hanging upside down in the closet?”

The child lowered her face to the clear ring of candles. Leventhal saw the liquid image of them in her eyes and on her white forehead. She blew, and the whitish, odorous wax smoke drifted over the table. The guests clapped and cried out.

“Sweet little kid,” said Harkavy to Leventhal, who nodded and still gazed heavy eyed at the candles. Julia and her grandmother kissed the girl.

The supper began. Leventhal’s clothing, especially his shirt, bound and chafed him, and he opened his collar, grumbling to Harkavy, “It’s cutting my neck.” But Harkavy had resumed an argument begun earlier in the evening with a Mr Benjamin who sat between Goldstone and Julia. Leventhal had noticed him in the hall before, clumping on a specially built shoe. He had the complexion of a Hindu, a head of grizzled short curls, and scornful brown-freckled lips; there was a drop of yellow in his wide-set black eyes. Benjamin sold life insurance, and Harkavy had assailed the insurance companies. “It’s all in the Cardozo investigation. Does any more have to be said? The same money that’s taken from the customers is used against them.” “I don’t see, Harkavy,” said Mr Benjamin, “why one business has to be run down more than another. You ought to be against them all. And against government. You’re an amateur, Harkavy, an amateur. I’ve heard your argument from experts. You have to pay for regulation and for order. It’s one kind of harness or another. Men need a harness. This is light harness compared to some.” “Oh, my dear man, you’re as reactionary as they come,” said Harkavy. “Are you against all banks and business?” asked Benjamin. “Damn it, certainly I am.” Harkavy’s voice rose. “ Let’s hear what kind of a system you’re thinking about?” Mr Benjamin’s acerbity almost wiped out his smile.

“Stop the wrangling, Dan, for God’s sake,” said Goldstone.

“I’ll make it easier for you,” said Benjamin. “Don’t you want to provide for the people you love? Let’s not argue about the best system. This one is standing yet.”

“It may not be for long. You never know when everything will be swept away overnight.” “But meantime…” Mrs Harkavy interrupted. “Daniel, you’re just being sensational. I don’t like to hear such talk from you.” “Mamma, what I say is perfectly true. There have been big organizations before and people who thought they would last forever.” “You mean Insull?” said the man on his left. “I mean Rome, Persia, the great Chinese empires!”

Mr Benjamin shrugged his shoulders. “We have to live today,” he said. “If you had a son, Harkavy, you’d want him to have a college education. Who’s going to wait for the Messiah? They tell a story about a little town in the old country. It was out of the way, in a valley, so the Jews were afraid the Messiah would come and miss them, and they built a high tower and hired one of the town beggars to sit in it all day long. A friend of his meets this beggar and he says, ‘How do you like your job, Baruch?’ So he says, ‘It doesn’t pay much, but I think it’s steady work.’“ There was an uproar at the table. “There’s a moral, for you!” cried Benjamin in a suddenly strengthened voice. Leventhal felt himself beginning to smile. “It is!” shouted Mr Kaplan, laying his hand on Benjamin’s shoulder. Mrs Harkavy, flushing, raised her delighted brows and covered her mouth with her handkerchief.

“Anyway, I don’t think it’s right,” said Harkavy, “to go frightening people the way you do.” “Oh? What now?” Harkavy knitted his brows. “I know how you insurance gentlemen work,” he said. “You go in to see a prospect. There he is, behind his desk or his counter, still in pretty fair shape, you may say. He has his aches and his troubles, but in general everything is satisfactory. Suddenly you’re there to say, ‘Have you considered your family’s future?’ Well and good, every man dies, but you’re playing it unfair and hitting where you know it hurts. He thinks about these things alone at night. Most of us do. But now you’re undermining him in the daytime. When you’ve frightened him good he says, ‘What’ll I do?’ And you’re ready with the contract and the fountain pen.” “Now, Dan,” said Goldstone restrainingly. Benjamin glanced at him with his yellow and black eyes as though to say that he needed no defender. “So what,” he said. “I do them a favor. Shouldn’t they be prepared?”

“Oh, Death!” someone quoted at the far end of the table. “Thou comest when I had thee least in mind.” “Yes, that’s the thing,” Benjamin said lifting himself with a scuff of his heel and pointing. “That’s it.” “My heavens,” said Mrs Harkavy. “What a morbid thing for a birthday party. With all this food on the table. Can’t we find something lighter to talk about?” “The funeral baked meats did furnish forth the marriage feast.” “Where the blazes is this poetry coming from?” said Goldstone. “It’s Brimberg. His father died and he was able to go to college.” Goldstone smiled. “Be serious, down there,” he said. “Cousins of mine,” he explained to Leventhal, happening to catch his glance. “My mother sewed her own shroud,” said Kaplan, raising his distorted shining blue eyes to them. “That’s right, it was the custom,” said Benjamin. “All the old people used to do it. And a good custom, too, don’t you think so, Mr Schlossberg?” “There’s a lot to say for it,” Schlossberg replied. “At least they knew where they stood and who they were, in those days. Now they don’t know who they are but they don’t want to give themselves up. The last funeral I went to, they had paper grass in the grave to cover up the dirt.” “So you’re on Benjamin’s side?” said Harkavy. “No, not exactly,” said the old man. “Sure, Benjamin’s business is to scare people.” “So you’re on my side, then?” Mr Schlossberg looked impatient. “It’s not a question of people’s feelings,” he said. “You don’t have to remind them of anything. They don’t forget. But they’re too busy and too smart to die. It’s easy to understand. Here I’m sitting here, and my mind can go around the world. Is there any limit to what I can think? But in another minute I can be dead, on this spot. There’s a limit to me. But I have to be myself in full. Which is somebody who dies, isn’t it? That’s what I was from the beginning. I’m not three people, four people. I was born once and I will die once. You want to be two people? More than human? Maybe it’s because you don’t know how to be one. Everybody is busy. Every man turns himself into a whole corporation to handle the business. So one stockholder is riding in the elevator, and another one is on the roof looking through a telescope, one is eating candy, and one is in the movies looking at a pretty face. Who is left? And how can a corporation die? One stockholder dies. The corporation lives and goes on eating and riding in the elevator and looking at the pretty face. But it stands to reason, paper grass in the grave makes all the grass paper…” “There’s always something new with Schlossberg,” said Kaplan. He strangely altered his squint by raising his brows. “What’s on his lung is on his tongue.”

“Really,” Julia broke in. “Mamma is right. What kind of talk is this for a birthday?”