John Passos - Manhattan transfer

‘Ah ça… I have lived too much in my time… I have no more confidence… Men are a set of brutes, and women, Oh I dont get on with women a bit!’

‘History and literature…’ began Emile.

The bell on the top of the door jangled. A man and a woman stamped into the shop. She had yellow hair and a hat like a flowerbed.

‘Now Billy dont be extravagant,’ she was saying.

‘But Norah we got have sumpen te eat… An I’ll be all jake by Saturday.’

‘Nutten’ll be jake till you stop playin the ponies.’

‘Aw go long wud yer… Let’s have some liverwurst… My that cold breast of turkey looks good…’

‘Piggywiggy,’ cooed the yellowhaired girl.

‘Lay off me will ye, I’m doing this.’

‘Yes sir ze breast of turkee is veree goud… We ave ole cheekens too, steel ‘ot… Emile mong ami cherchez moi un de ces petits poulets dans la cuisin-e.’ Madame Rigaud spoke like an oracle without moving from her stool by the cashdesk. The man was fanning himself with a thickbrimmed straw hat that had a checked band.

‘Varm tonight,’ said Madame Rigaud.

‘It sure is… Norah we ought to have gone down to the Island instead of bummin round this town.’

‘Billy you know why we couldn’t go perfectly well.’

‘Don’t rub it in. Aint I tellin ye it’ll be all jake by Saturday.’

‘History and literature,’ continued Emile when the customers had gone off with the chicken, leaving Madame Rigaud a silver half dollar to lock up in the till… ‘history and literature teach us that there are friendships, that there sometimes comes love that is worthy of confidence…’

‘History and literature!’ Madame Rigaud growled with internal laughter. ‘A lot of good that’ll do us.’

‘But dont you ever feel lonely in a big foreign city like this… ? Everything is so hard. Women look in your pocket not in your heart… I cant stand it any more.’

Madame Rigaud’s broad shoulders and her big breasts shook with laughter. Her corsets creaked when she lifted herself still laughing off the stool. ‘Emile, you’re a goodlooking fellow and steady and you’ll get on in the world… But I’ll never put myself in a man’s power again… I’ve suffered too much… Not if you came to me with five thousand dollars.’

‘You’re a very cruel woman.’

Madame Rigaud laughed again. ‘Come along now, you can help me close up.’

Sunday weighed silent and sunny over downtown. Baldwin sat at his desk in his shirtsleeves reading a calf bound lawbook. Now and then he wrote down a note on a scratchpad in a wide regular hand. The phone rang loud in the hot stillness. He finished the paragraph he was reading and strode over to answer it.

‘Yes I’m here alone, come on over if you want to.’ He put down the receiver. ‘God damn it,’ he muttered through clenched teeth.

Nellie came in without knocking, found him pacing back and forth in front of the window.

‘Hello Nellie,’ he said without looking up; she stood still staring at him.

‘Look here Georgy this cant go on.’

‘Why cant it?’

‘I’m sick of always pretendin an deceivin.’

‘Nobody’s found out anything, have they?’

‘Oh of course not.’

She went up to him and straightened his necktie. He kissed her gently on the mouth. She wore a frilled muslin dress of a reddish lilac color and had a blue sunshade in her hand.

‘How’s things Georgy?’

‘Wonderful. D’you know, you people have brought me luck? I’ve got several good cases on hand now and I’ve made some very valuable connections.’

‘Little luck it’s brought me. I haven’t dared go to confession yet. The priest’ll be thinkin I’ve turned heathen.’

‘How’s Gus?’

‘Oh full of his plans… Might think he’d earned the money, he’s gettin that cocky about it.

‘Look Nellie how would it be if you left Gus and came and lived with me? You could get a divorce and we could get married… Everything would be all right then.’

‘Like fun it would… You don’t mean it anyhow.’

‘But it’s been worth it Nellie, honestly it has.’ He put his arms round her and kissed her hard still lips. She pushed him away.

‘Anyways I aint comin here again… Oh I was so happy comin up the stairs thinkin about seein you… You’re paid an the business is all finished.’

He noticed that the little curls round her forehead were loose. A wisp of hair hung over one eyebrow.

‘Nellie we mustn’t part bitterly like this.’

‘Why not will ye tell me?’

‘Because we’ve both loved one another.’

‘I’m not goin to cry.’ She patted her nose with a little rolledup handkerchief. ‘Georgy I’m goin to hate ye… Goodby.’ The door snapped sharply to behind her.

Baldwin sat at his desk and chewed the end of a pencil. A faint pungence of her hair lingered in his nostrils. His throat was stiff and lumpy. He coughed. The pencil fell out of his mouth. He wiped the saliva off with his handkerchief and settled himself in his chair. From bleary the crowded paragraphs of the lawbook became clear. He tore the written sheet off the scratchpad and clipped it to the top of a pile of documents. On the new sheet he began: Decision of the Supreme Court of the State of New York… Suddenly he sat up straight in his chair, and started biting the end of his pencil again. From outside came the endless sultry whistle of a peanut wagon. ‘Oh well, that’s that,’ he said aloud. He went on writing in a wide regular hand: Case of Patterson vs. The State of New York… Decision of the Supreme…

Bud sat by a window in the Seamen’s Union reading slowly and carefully through a newspaper. Next him two men with freshly shaved rawsteak cheeks cramped into white collars and blue serge storesuits were ponderously playing chess. One of them smoked a pipe that made a little clucking noise when he drew on it. Outside rain beat incessantly on a wide glimmering square.

Banzai, live a thousand years, cried the little gray men of the fourth platoon of Japanese sappers as they advanced to repair the bridge over the Yalu River… Special correspondent of the New York Herald…

‘Checkmate,’ said the man with the pipe. ‘Damn it all let’s go have a drink. This is no night to be sitting here sober.’

‘I promised the ole woman…’

‘None o that crap Jess, I know your kinda promises.’ A big crimson hand thickly furred with yellow hairs brushed the chessmen into their box. ‘Tell the ole woman you had to have a nip to keep the weather out.’

‘That’s no lie neither.’

Bud watched their shadows hunched into the rain pass the window.

‘What you name?’

Bud turned sharp from the window startled by a shrill squeaky voice in his ear. He was looking into the fireblue eyes of a little yellow man who had a face like a toad, large mouth, protruding eyes and thick closecropped black hair.

Bud’s jaw set. ‘My name’s Smith, what about it?’

The little man held out a square callouspalmed hand. ‘Plis to meet yez. Me Matty.’

Bud took the hand in spite of himself. It squeezed his until he winced. ‘Matty what?’ he asked. ‘Me juss Matty… Laplander Matty… Come have drink.’

‘I’m flat,’ said Bud. ‘Aint got a red cent.’

‘On me. Me too much money, take some…’ Matty shoved a hand into either pocket of his baggy checked suit and punched Bud in the chest with two fistfuls of greenbacks.

‘Aw keep yer money… I’ll take a drink with yous though.’

By the time they got to the saloon on the corner of Pearl Street Bud’s elbows and knees were soaked and a trickle of cold rain was running down his neck. When they went up to the bar Laplander Matty put down a five dollar bill.