John Passos - Manhattan transfer

And he lay on his back looking up at the rusty stains on the ceiling, shuddering every time an elevated train shook the room. Sacred name of God I must save up my money. When he turned over the knob on the bedstead rattled and he remembered Marco’s hissing husky voice: I never see the dawn that I dont say to myself perhaps.

‘If you’ll excuse me just a moment Mr Olafson,’ said the house-agent. ‘While you and the madam are deciding about the apartment…’ They stood side by side in the empty room, looking out the window at the slatecolored Hudson and the warships at anchor and a schooner tacking upstream.

Suddenly she turned to him with glistening eyes; ‘O Billy, just think of it.’

He took hold of her shoulders and drew her to him slowly. ‘You can smell the sea, almost.’

‘Just think Billy that we are going to live here, on Riverside Drive. I’ll have to have a day at home… Mrs William C. Olafson, 218 Riverside Drive… I wonder if it is all right to put the address on our visiting cards.’ She took his hand and led him through the empty cleanswept rooms that no one had ever lived in. He was a big shambling man with eyes of a washed out blue deepset in a white infantile head.

‘It’s a lot of money Bertha.’

‘We can afford it now, of course we can. We must live up to our income… Your position demands it… And think how happy we’ll be.’

The house agent came back down the hall rubbing his hands. ‘Well, well, well… Ah I see that we’ve come to a favorable decision… You are very wise too, not a finer location in the city of New York and in a few months you wont be able to get anything out this way for love or money…’

‘Yes we’ll take it from the first of the month.’

‘Very good… You won’t regret your decision, Mr Olafson.’

‘I’ll send you a check for the amount in the morning.’

‘At your own convenience… And what is your present address please…’ The houseagent took out a notebook and moistened a stub of pencil with his tongue.

‘You had better put Hotel Astor.’ She stepped in front of her husband.

‘Our things are stored just at the moment.’

Mr Olafson turned red.

‘And… er… we’d like the names of two references please in the city of New York.’

‘I’m with Keating and Bradley, Sanitary Engineers, 43 Park Avenue…’

‘He’s just been made assistant general manager,’ added Mrs Olafson.

When they got out on the Drive walking downtown against a tussling wind she cried out: ‘Darling I’m so happy… It’s really going to be worth living now.’

‘But why did you tell him we lived at the Astor?’

‘I couldn’t tell him we lived in the Bronx could I? He’d have thought we were Jews and wouldnt have rented us the apartment.’

‘But you know I dont like that sort of thing.’

‘Well we’ll just move down to the Astor for the rest of the week, if you’re feeling so truthful… I’ve never in my life stopped in a big downtown hotel.’

‘Oh Bertha it’s the principle of the thing… I don’t like you to be like that.’

She turned and looked at him with twitching nostrils. ‘You’re so nambypamby, Billy… I wish to heavens I’d married a man for a husband.’

He took her by the arm. ‘Let’s go up here,’ he said gruffly with his face turned away.

They walked up a cross street between buildinglots. At a corner the rickety half of a weatherboarded farmhouse was still standing. There was half a room with a blueflowered paper eaten by brown stains on the walls, a smoked fireplace, a shattered builtin cupboard, and an iron bedstead bent double.

Plates slip endlessly through Bud’s greasy fingers. Smell of swill and hot soapsuds. Twice round with the little mop, dip, rinse and pile in the rack for the longnosed Jewish boy to wipe. Knees wet from spillings, grease creeping up his forearms, elbows cramped.

‘Hell this aint no job for a white man.’

‘I dont care so long as I eat,’ said the Jewish boy above the rattle of dishes and the clatter and seething of the range where three sweating cooks fried eggs and ham and hamburger steak and browned potatoes and cornedbeef hash.

‘Sure I et all right,’ said Bud and ran his tongue round his mouth dislodging a sliver of salt meat that he mashed against his palate with his tongue. Twice round with the little mop, dip, rinse and pile in the rack for the longnosed Jewish boy to wipe. There was a lull. The Jewish boy handed Bud a cigarette. They stood leaning against the sink.

‘Aint no way to make money dishwashing.’ The cigarette wabbled on the Jewish boy’s heavy lip as he spoke.

‘Aint no job for a white man nohow,’ said Bud. ‘Waitin’s better, they’s the tips.’

A man in a brown derby came in through the swinging door from the lunchroom. He was a bigjawed man with pigeyes and a long cigar sticking straight out of the middle of his mouth. Bud caught his eye and felt the cold glint twisting his bowels.

‘Whosat?’ he whispered.

‘Dunno… Customer I guess.’

‘Dont he look to you like one o them detectives?’

‘How de hell should I know? I aint never been in jail.’ The Jewish boy turned red and stuck out his jaw.

The busboy set down a new pile of dirty dishes. Twice round with the little mop, dip, rinse and pile in the rack. When the man in the brown derby passed back through the kitchen, Bud kept his eyes on his red greasy hands. What the hell even if he is a detective… When Bud had finished the batch, he strolled to the door wiping his hands, took his coat and hat from the hook and slipped out the side door past garbage cans out into the street. Fool to jump two hours pay. In an optician’s window the clock was twentyfive past two. He walked down Broadway, past Lincoln Square, across Columbus Circle, further downtown towards the center of things where it’d be more crowded.

She lay with her knees doubled up to her chin, the nightgown pulled tight under her toes.

‘Now straighten out and go to sleep dear… Promise mother you’ll go to sleep.’

‘Wont daddy come and kiss me good night?’

‘He will when he comes in; he’s gone back down to the office and mother’s going to Mrs Spingarn’s to play euchre.’

‘When’ll daddy be home?’

‘Ellie I said go to sleep… I’ll leave the light.’

‘Dont mummy, it makes shadows… When’ll daddy be home?’

‘When he gets good and ready.’ She was turning down the gaslight. Shadows out of the corners joined wings and rushed together. ‘Good night Ellen.’ The streak of light of the door narrowed behind mummy, slowly narrowed to a thread up and along the top. The knob clicked; the steps went away down the hall; the front door slammed. A clock ticked somewhere in the silent room; outside the apartment, outside the house, wheels and gallumping of hoofs, trailing voices; the roar grew. It was black except for the two strings of light that made an upside down L in the corner of the door.

Ellie wanted to stretch out her feet but she was afraid to. She didnt dare take her eyes from the upside down L in the corner of the door. If she closed her eyes the light would go out. Behind the bed, out of the windowcurtains, out of the closet, from under the table shadows nudged creakily towards her. She held on tight to her ankles, pressed her chin in between her knees. The pillow bulged with shadow, rummaging shadows were slipping into the bed. If she closed her eyes the light would go out.

Black spiraling roar outside was melting through the walls making the cuddled shadows throb. Her tongue clicked against her teeth like the ticking of the clock. Her arms and legs were stiff; her neck was stiff; she was going to yell. Yell above the roaring and the rattat outside, yell to make daddy hear, daddy come home. She drew in her breath and shrieked again. Make daddy come home. The roaring shadows staggered and danced, the shadows lurched round and round. Then she was crying, her eyes were full of safe warm tears, they were running over her cheeks and into her ears. She turned over and lay crying with her face in the pillow.