Pete Hamill - North River

The drummer added a rim shot and someone in the reed section yelled Hey! Then the singer lowered his voice, almost speaking the final lines of the anthem.

They all roared the final line, Delaney among them.

Then the young singer was gone, and Rose leaned into Delaney and held him tight, one hand pressed into the back of his neck. The band began to play “Stardust” in the packed intimacy of Roseland. He took her hand.

THE PIER WAS A LONG HIGH UGLY BARN MADE OF CORRUGATED iron and splintery timbers, rusting with time and the Depression. He walked its length, his footsteps echoing in the dim light, and remembered the piers of Europe before the war, with their crowded bars and restaurants, their glad sense of imminent arrival, and the din and bustle of the New York piers, loud with the moneyed celebrations of departure. How did Rose get here? Where did she make landfall in this great strange scary city, with nothing but guts to get her through? A few couples passed along the pier, pausing to look out at the river through the open doors, joined in solitude. The slip was still empty, awaiting the arrival of the Andalusia, but Delaney could see the gulls watching from the next pier. Orange peels were floating in the water. Small waves slapped against timber. An unseen whistler was offering the melody of a song, off in the rusting silence. “It Had to Be You.” And lyrics rose in Delaney.

He walked back to the stevedores’ office, where Knocko had promised a chair. One of the stevedores stood up, smiling. There were two others waiting to go to work, and a phone on a scarred table.

“Have some coffee, Doc,” he said. “And, oh, Knocko called. The Andalusia ? It’s out at quarantine, jus’ past da Narrows. Should be pretty soon now.”

“Thanks, Mr. McGinty,” Delaney said, and poured some coffee. It tasted like aluminum. The men started talking about the Giants and the goddamned Yankees. McGinty lit a thin Italian cigar. Delaney eased over to the door, trying to evade the smoke. The unseen whistler was now offering “Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries.” Was he at Roseland too? Did he also believe that even the strongest oak must fall? Oh, Rose… He couldn’t remember what he had written to Grace about Rose. He didn’t remember whether he had even told Grace her name. He did tell her that he had found a woman to help with Carlito. He did remember that. But in her own letters she was not very curious about the details. He remembered telling Molly when Grace was small: I will spoil her? All right, I will spoil her. And he had, and had paid a price. Grace had sent one final letter before leaving Spain, brief and elliptical, that arrived three days before the Andalusia was due. The big news was personal: it was over with Rafael, her husband, the boy’s father. In Moscow he fell in love with a Bulgarian woman! Can you believe it? When he told me I burst out laughing! A Bulgarian! And I thought he was in love with Lenin!!! So she would arrive with hopes of curing her own solitude. Almost certainly with Carlito. Who had cured the solitude of Rose. And mine too.

Knocko called in a bulletin. The Andalusia was being lashed to a tug and the pilot was on board, to guide her in to safety. A bookmaker called and McGinty mentioned Likely Lad in the sixth at Belmont. Then Knocko again. The ship was coming into the Narrows. How many times had this ship passed Molly’s bones, going and coming? How many other ships had done the same? Another bookmaker called. The whistling stopped.

Delaney filled with images of Rose and what she might be doing at this very moment. Each image drove into him a stab of impending loss. Rose, fixing a last lunch for the boy. Rose, packing her bags. Rose alone, lugging her bags down Horatio Street. Bending under their weight. Pausing to gather strength, her eyes wild. Looking for a taxi that would take her away from Horatio Street before Delaney arrived with his daughter.

He stepped back, staring down at the rough planks of the pier, silently addressing himself. And Rose. I wouldn’t blame you, Rose, if you went away forever. You don’t need any of this. My daughter, Molly’s ghost, the boy. Why should you want any of this? That’s why I’ve never mentioned anything permanent to you. Never said those big little words that come at the end of every movie romance. They make movies about getting married, but not about being married. That’s why I’ve never even whispered certain words to you, Rose. Maybe I just lack guts. Maybe I’m afraid that I’ll let myself believe again in permanence and then wake up one morning and find that you’re gone too. And, of course, maybe you fear the same about me. But I’m too old now for such fears. I just don’t want to hurt you, woman. Now, or ever. Or to see you hurt because of me. By uptown snobs or downtown shawlies. The world has taught me that not a goddamned thing is ever certain.

That morning, he had treated patients until eleven-thirty, his right shoulder aching from tension. The long night’s dancing had been joy. Waking was not. He wished he could relax into something like peace. When the last patient left, Rose came in to see him alone in the office.

“All my life,” she said in a husky voice, “I’m going to remember all those people singing about the guy that just needed a dime.” She paused. “All my life, I’m going to remember dancing with you too, Jim. All my life.” She touched his face fondly. She had never called him Jim before. “No matter what happens.”

He knew that she had pondered these words, had even privately rehearsed them. He felt himself tremble. But she didn’t wait for a reply. She hurried out, without collapsing into self-pity. She has pride, he thought, but no vanity, and the pride will keep her from saying anything that would sound like begging. She did not want a dime’s worth of Delaney.

She and the boy were out again when he left for the pier. Delaney wore a white sport shirt and decided to walk. The humidity was rising off the North River, and he felt as if he needed shears to pass through the dense air. And the sun was climbing. The heat would get worse. And now on the pier hours had passed, and he was drinking coffee with the stevedores as they argued the comparative merits of Bill Terry and John McGraw as a manager. The phone rang. This time it was for Delaney.

“It’ll be docked in twenty minutes,” Knocko said. “I’ll see you there.”

They were standing together about thirty feet from the gangplank when the first passengers began descending. Knocko had already sent three longshoremen into the ship for the luggage. He had talked to the customs people too. An old couple walked unsteadily down to the pier, where the man did a little jig. A refugee, for sure. From what was coming in Spain. Or Germany. Now they were both safe. They walked away holding hands, into America. Three young men followed, rich kids coming back from a time in Europe that they did not pay for themselves, laughing and grab-assing all the way. A man in a chauffeur’s uniform went to greet them with a bow. Two old women, dressed in clothes from the time before the war, moved down the gangplank, clutching the railing. They might never see the Prado again or the palaces of Venice or walk together along the Ringstrasse. None seemed surprised by the rusting, unpainted condition of the pier. The Andalusia was not a luxury liner.