John Passos - Manhattan transfer

‘It’s some nickname… I thought you’d followed the sea.’

‘It’s a ‘ard life… I tell you Mr ’Erf, there’s someting about me unlucky. When I first remember on a peniche, you know what I mean… in canal, a big man not my fader beat me up every day. Then I run away and work on sailboats in and out of Bordeaux, you know?’

‘I was there when I was a kid I think…’

‘Sure… You understand them things Mr ’Erf. But a feller like you, good education, all ‘at, you dont know what life is. When I was seventeen I come to New York… no good. I tink of notten but raising Cain. Den I shipped out again and went everywhere to hell an gone. In Shanghai I learned spik American an tend bar. I come back to Frisco an got married. Now I want to be American. But unlucky again see? Before I marry zat girl her and me lived togedder a year sweet as pie, but when we get married no good. She make fun of me and call me Frenchy because I no spik American good and den she kick no out of the house an I tell her go to hell. Funny ting a man’s life.’

he started in his growling baritone.

There was a hand on Jimmy’s arm. He turned. ‘Why Ellie what’s the matter?’

‘I’m with a crazy man you’ve got to help me get away.’

‘Look this is Congo Jake… You ought to know him Ellie, he’s a fine man… This is une tres grande artiste, Congo.’

‘Wont the lady have a leetle anizette?’

‘Have a little drink with us… It’s awfully cozy in here now that everybody’s gone.’

‘No thanks I’m going home.’

‘But it’s just the neck of the evening.’

‘Well you’ll have to take the consequences of my crazy man… Look Herf, have you seen Stan today?’

‘No I haven’t.’

‘He didn’t turn up when I expected him.’

‘I wish you’d keep him from drinking so much, Ellie. I’m getting worried about him.’

‘I’m not his keeper.’

‘I know, but you know what I mean.’

‘What does our friend here think about all this wartalk?’

‘I wont go… A workingman has no country. I’m going to be American citizen… I was in the marine once but…’ He slapped his jerking bent forearm with one hand, and a deep laugh rattled in his throat… ‘Twentee tree. Moi je suis anarchiste vous comprennez monsieur.’

‘But then you cant be an American citizen.’

Congo shrugged his shoulders.

‘Oh I love him, he’s wonderful,’ whispered Ellen in Jimmy’s ear.

‘You know why they have this here war… So that workingmen all over wont make big revolution… Too busy fighting. So Guillaume and Viviani and l’Empereur d’Autriche and Krupp and Rothschild and Morgan they say let’s have a war… You know the first thing they do? They shoot Jaures, because he socialiste. The socialists are traitors to the International but all de samee…’

‘But how can they make people fight if they dont want to?’

‘In Europe people are slaves for thousands of years. Not like ’ere… But I ’ve seen war. Very funny. I tended bar in Port Arthur, nutten but a kid den. It was very funny.’

‘Gee I wish I could get a job as warcorrespondent.’

‘I might go as a Red Cross nurse.’

‘Correspondent very good ting… Always drunk in American bar very far from battlefield.’

They laughed.

‘But arent we rather far from the battlefield, Herf?’

‘All right let’s dance. You must forgive me if I dance very badly.’

‘I’ll kick you if you do anything wrong.’

His arm was like plaster when he put it round her to dance with her. High ashy walls broke and crackled within him. He was soaring like a fireballoon on the smell of her hair.

‘Get up on your toes and walk in time to the music… Move in straight lines that’s the whole trick.’ Her voice cut the quick coldly like a tiny flexible sharp metalsaw. Elbows joggling, faces set, gollywog eyes, fat men and thin women, thin women and fat men rotated densely about them. He was crumbling plaster with something that rattled achingly in his chest, she was an intricate machine of sawtooth steel whitebright bluebright copperbright in his arms. When they stopped her breast and the side of her body and her thigh came against him. He was suddenly full of blood steaming with sweat like a runaway horse. A breeze through an open door hustled the tobaccosmoke and the clotted pink air of the restaurant.

‘Herf I want to go down to see the murder cottage; please take me.’

‘As if I hadn’t seen enough of X’s marking the spot where the crime was committed.’

In the hall George Baldwin stepped in front of them. He was pale as chalk, his black tie was crooked, the nostrils of his thin nose were dilated and marked with little veins of red.

‘Hello George.’

His voice croaked tartly like a klaxon. ‘Elaine I’ve been looking for you. I must speak to you… Maybe you think I’m joking. I never joke.’

‘Herf excuse me a minute… Now what is the matter George? Come back to the table.’

‘George I was not joking either… Herf do you mind ordering me a taxi?’

Baldwin grabbed hold of her wrist. ‘You’ve been playing with me long enough, do you hear me? Some day some man’s going to take a gun and shoot you. You think you can play me like all the other little sniveling fools… You’re no better than a common prostitute.’

‘Herf I told you to go get me a taxi.’

Jimmy bit his lip and went out the front door.

‘Elaine what are you going to do?’

‘George I will not be bullied.’

Something nickel flashed in Baldwin’s hand. Gus McNiel stepped forward and gripped his wrist with a big red hand.

‘Gimme that George… For God’s sake man pull yourself together.’ He shoved the revolver into his pocket. Baldwin tottered to the wall in front of him. The trigger finger of his right hand was bleeding.

‘Here’s a taxi,’ said Herf looking from one to another of the taut white faces.

‘All right you take the girl home… No harm done, just a little nervous attack, see? No cause for alarm,’ McNiel was shouting in the voice of a man speaking from a soapbox. The headwaiter and the coatgirl were looking at each other uneasily. ‘Didn’t nutten happen… Gentleman’s a little nervous… overwork you understand,’ McNiel brought his voice down to a reassuring purr. ‘You just forget it.’

As they were getting into the taxi Ellen suddenly said in a little child’s voice: ‘I forgot we were going down to see the murder cottage… Let’s make him wait. I’d like to walk up and down in the air for a minute.’ There was a smell of saltmarshes. The night was marbled with clouds and moonlight. The toads in the ditches sounded like sleighbells.

‘Is it far?’ she asked.

‘No it’s right down at the corner.’

Their feet crackled on gravel then ground softly on macadam. A headlight blinded them, they stopped to let the car whir by; the exhaust filled their nostrils, faded into the smell of saltmarshes again.

It was a peaked gray house with a small porch facing the road screened with broken lattice. A big locust shaded it from behind. A policeman walked to and fro in front of it whistling gently to himself. A mildewed scrap of moon came out from behind the clouds for a minute, made tinfoil of a bit of broken glass in a gaping window, picked out the little rounded leaves of the locust and rolled like a lost dime into a crack in the clouds.

Neither of them said anything. They walked back towards the roadhouse.

‘Honestly Herf havent you seen Stan?’

‘No I havent an idea where he could be hiding himself.’

‘If you see him tell him I want him to call me up at once… Herf what were those women called who followed the armies in the French Revolution?’