Saul Bellow - The Victim

They did not catch the woman’s next words, but they heard the driver, laconic and confident, and then the escort, crying out laughingly, “Don’t give me that… That’s for the visiting fat boys.”

The woman opened her purse and threw a bill to the driver.

Leventhal, when he heard the voice, was certain that the man was Allbee, and, with a rigid face and a look approaching horror in his eyes, he waited for him to appear.

Then Allbee stepped to the curb, saying, “You shouldn’t have done that.” The cab started away with its open door flapping; the driver, without slowing up, reached back and slammed it.

Leventhal had a close view of Allbee as the two walked into the theater. He was wearing a white dinner jacket. A flower, pinned erratically, swung from his lapel; he pressed his hat under his arm and strode forward, his large shoulders stiffly raised, swaggering and gallant. His cheeks were red and shining. He was laughing into his companion’s pretty but nervously severe face. He seemed to be pushing her playfully, and it was evident from the set of her arms that she did not wish to be pushed.

“I don’t recognize him,” said Mary. “But I’m sure she’s Yvonne Crane. I’ve seen her picture a hundred times. Don’t you remember her?”

Throughout the second act, Leventhal peered round at the boxes. He could see no more than the color of a face in the radiance thrown back from the stage, or, occasionally, the black shape of a head rising near the red ball of an exit light, or moving its shadow across the obscure shine of the rails. He thought that they must be sitting in a box. The woman might or might not be Yvonne Crane, though Mary was probably right. She was, in any case, a wealthy woman; and Allbee looked more than moderately prosperous in the dinner jacket and the silk-seamed formal trousers. To say nothing of the flower. The flower struck Leventhal in a very curious way as a mark of something extraordinary, barbaric, rich, even decadent. “Yes, he’s gone places,” Leventhal mused. “And that woman, whoever she is, he’s got that woman under his thumb.” None of the rumors had described him as so well off. “And here I had him dead and buried in Potter’s Field. Dead. But imagine!” He tugged a handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiped his neck and chin. The lights came to life in the arches, causing him to squint and frown. The curtain was swooping down. There was applause. He had not noticed that the act was ending. The orchestra began a march and, more hurriedly than the first time, he helped Mary rise.

He was lighting her cigarette, looking everywhere for Allbee, when, over her head, he caught sight of him on the stairs. He was alone, and, widening his eyes, he smiled at Leventhal and raised his hand with stiffly spread fingers in a gesture he did not understand. Mary spoke to him. Utterly confused, he answered something. She repeated what she had said. She was asking for her compact, which he had in his pocket. She was going to the ladies’ lounge. He hastily got it out and gave it to her. His expression seemed to puzzle her, and she glanced at him sharply before turning away.

As she passed Allbee on the stairs, he gave her pregnant figure an appraising look. Leventhal walked out of the lobby. He was aware that Allbee was coming up to him, but he did not raise his eyes until he heard him speak.

“Hello, Leventhal.”

The low, thick voice with its old tone of complicity, the big, obtrusive figure in the white jacket, disturbed him.

“Hello,” he answered nervously.

“I saw you when we were coming in.”

“I didn’t think you did.”

“I knew it would be all right with you if I acted like a total stranger, so it’s up to me, and I’d feel like a terrible fool if I didn’t speak to you… You saw me, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And who I was with?”

“The actress? My wife recognized her.”

“Oh, your wife,” he said politely. “Very handsome. Very fetching, even in her condition.” He began to smile broadly, displaying his teeth. With his hands on his hips, he bent forward slightly. “Congratulations. I see you’re following orders. ‘Increase and multiply.’ “

Leventhal answered him with a dull, short nod. It seemed to him that Allbee had no real desire to be malicious; he was merely obedient to habit. He might have been smiling at himself and making an appeal of a sort for understanding. On nearer sight, Allbee did not look good. His color was an unhealthy one. Leventhal had the feeling that it was the decay of something that had gone into his appearance of well-being, something intimate. There was very little play in the deepened wrinkles around his eyes. They had a fabric quality, crumpled and blank. A smell of whisky came from him.

“You haven’t changed much,” said Allbee.

“I wasn’t the one that was going to change so much.”

“Ah, that. Well, do I still look the same to you?”

“You still drink.”

“Ever since I saw you, I’ve been wondering whether you’d mention that. You’re true to form.” He grinned, but he was somewhat hurt. “No, I only take it socially because everybody else does.”

“You look successful.”

“Oh,” he said lightly. “Success is a big word. You ought to be careful how you use it.”

“What do you do?”

“Just now I’m squiring Miss Crane around. The columnists say we’re friends, when they bother to mention her. She’s not the drawing card she used to be. You probably know. Well, she doesn’t want much public attention now, or she’d be seen with someone more celebrated. But she doesn’t care. She’s glad all that professional business is over for her and she can live more quietly. She’s actually a very intelligent person. We’re both a little lost, out there on the Coast.”

Leventhal nodded again.

“Oh, yes. She’s real nobility. She’s really fine. Queenly, if you know what I mean. Some of those women become loathsome when their popularity dies down. They live like criminals. They want to make up for all those years under the public eye, I guess.”

“So… I congratulate you too,” Leventhal murmured.

“She’s not Flora, of course.. My wife.” His continued smile gave a touch of cynicism to the sensational, terrible look of pain that rose to his eyes. Leventhal saw that he could not help himself and pitied him. “She has qualities…”

His last words were lost in the braying of the taxis. Leventhal found nothing to say.

“I want you to know one thing,” said Allbee. “That night… I wanted to put an end to myself. I wasn’t thinking of hurting you. I suppose you would have been.. But I wasn’t thinking of you. You weren’t even in my mind.”

Leventhal laughed outright at this.

“You could have jumped in the river. That’s a funny lie. Why tell it? Did you have to use my kitchen?”

Allbee glanced around restlessly. The bays that rose into his loose blond hair became crimson. “No,” he said miserably. “Well, anyhow, I don’t remember how it was. I must have been demented. When you turn against yourself, nobody else means anything to you either.” Bitterly shame-faced and self-mocking, he took Leventhal’s hand and pressed it. “But I want to say that I owe you something. I was trying to get around it when I talked about trying to kill myself only.” He spoke with great difficulty. “I don’t want to exaggerate, but I don’t want to play it down either. I know I owe you something. I knew it that night when I was standing in your shower. .”

Leventhal pulled his hand away.

“What do you do out there, are you an actor?”

“An actor? No, I’m in radio. Advertising. It’s a middle-sized job. So you see? I’ve made my peace with things as they are. I’ve gotten off the pony — you remember, I said that to you once? I’m on the train.”