John Passos - Manhattan transfer

‘But at least you have a career… You like your work, you’re enormously successful,’ said Herf at the corner of Fourteenth Street, and caught her arm as they crossed.

‘Dont say that… You really dont believe it. I dont kid myself as much as you think I do.’

‘No but it’s so.’

‘It used to be before I met Stan, before I loved him… You see I was a crazy little stagestruck kid who got launched out in a lot of things I didnt understand before I had time to learn anything about life… Married at eighteen and divorced at twentytwo’s a pretty good record… But Stan was so wonderful…’

‘I know.’

‘Without ever saying anything he made me feel there were other things… unbelievable things…’

‘God I resent his craziness though… It’s such a waste.’

‘I cant talk about it.’

‘Let’s not.’

‘Jimmy you’re the only person left I can really talk to.’

‘Dont want to trust me. I might go berserk on you too some day.’

They laughed.

‘God I’m glad I’m not dead, arent you Ellie?’

‘I dont know. Look here’s my place. I dont want you to come up… I’m going right to bed. I feel miserably…’ Jimmy stood with his hat off looking at her. She was fumbling in her purse for her key. ‘Look Jimmy I might as well tell you…’ She went up to him and spoke fast with her face turned away pointing at him with the latchkey that caught the light of the streetlamp. The fog was like a tent round about them. ‘I’m going to have a baby… Stan’s baby. I’m going to give up all this silly life and raise it. I dont care what happens.’

‘O God that’s the bravest thing I ever heard of a woman doing… Oh Ellie you’re so wonderful. God if I could only tell you what I…’

‘Oh no.’ Her voice broke and her eyes filled with tears. ‘I’m a silly fool, that’s all.’ She screwed up her face like a little child and ran up the steps with the tears streaming down her face.

‘Oh Ellie I want to say something to you…’

The door closed behind her.

Jimmy Herf stood stockstill at the foot of the brownstone steps. His temples throbbed. He wanted to break the door down after her. He dropped on his knees and kissed the step where she had stood. The fog swirled and flickered with colors in confetti about him. Then the trumpet feeling ebbed and he was falling through a black manhole. He stood stockstill. A policeman’s ballbearing eyes searched his face as he passed, a stout blue column waving a nightstick. Then suddenly he clenched his fists and walked off. ‘O God everything is hellish,’ he said aloud. He wiped the grit off his lips with his coatsleeve.

She puts her hand in his to jump out of the roadster as the ferry starts, ‘Thanks Larry,’ and follows his tall ambling body out on the bow. A faint riverwind blows the dust and gasoline out of their nostrils. Through the pearly night the square frames of houses along the Drive opposite flicker like burnedout fireworks. The waves slap tinily against the shoving bow of the ferry. A hunchback with a violin is scratching Marianela.

‘Nothing succeeds like success,’ Larry is saying in a deep droning voice.

‘Of if you knew how little I cared about anything just now you wouldnt go on teasing me with all these words… You know, marriage, success, love, they’re just words.’

‘But they mean everything in the world to me… I think you’d like it in Lima Elaine… I waited until you were free, didnt I? And now here I am.’

‘We’re none of us that ever… But I’m just numb.’ The riverwind is brackish. Along the viaduct above 125th Street cars crawl like beetles. As the ferry enters the slip they hear the squudge and rumble of wheels on asphalt.

‘Well we’d better get back into the car, you wonderful creature Elaine.’

‘After all day it’s exciting isnt it Larry, getting back into the center of things.’

Beside the smudged white door are two pushbuttons marked NIGHT BELL and DAY BELL. She rings with a shaky finger. A short broad man with a face like a rat and sleek black hair brushed straight back opens. Short dollhands the color of the flesh of a mushroom hang at his sides. He hunches his shoulders in a bow.

‘Are you the lady? Come in.’

‘Is this Dr Abrahms?’

‘Yes… You are the lady my friend phoned me about. Sit down my dear lady.’ The office smells of something like arnica. Her heart joggles desperately between her ribs.

‘You understand…’ She hates the quaver in her voice; she’s going to faint. ‘You understand, Dr Abrahms that it is absolutely necessary. I am getting a divorce from my husband and have to make my own living.’

‘Very young, unhappily married… I am sorry.’ The doctor purrs softly as if to himself. He heaves a hissing sigh and suddenly looks in her eyes with black steel eyes like gimlets. ‘Do not be afraid, dear lady, it is a very simple operation… Are you ready now?’

‘Yes. It wont take very long will it? If I can pull myself together I have an engagement for tea at five.’

‘You are a brave young lady. In an hour it will be forgotten… I am sorry… It is very sad such a thing is necessary… Dear lady you should have a home and many children and a loving husband… Will you go in the operating room and prepare yourself… I work without an assistant.’

The bright searing bud of light swells in the center of the ceiling, sprays razorsharp nickel, enamel, a dazzling sharp glass case of sharp instruments. She takes off her hat and lets herself sink shuddering sick on a little enamel chair. Then she gets stiffly to her feet and undoes the band of her skirt.

The roar of the streets breaks like surf about a shell of throbbing agony. She watches the tilt of her leather hat, the powder, the rosed cheeks, the crimson lips that are a mask on her face. All the buttons of her gloves are buttoned. She raises her hand. ‘Taxi!’ A fire engine roars past, a hosewagon with sweatyfaced men pulling on rubber coats, a clanging hookandladder. All the feeling in her fades with the dizzy fade of the siren. A wooden Indian, painted, with a hand raised at the streetcorner.

‘Taxi!’

‘Yes ma’am.’

‘Drive to the Ritz.’

There are flags on all the flagpoles up Fifth Avenue. In the shrill wind of history the great flags flap and tug at their lashings on the creaking goldknobbed poles up Fifth Avenue. The stars jiggle sedately against the slate sky, the red and white stripes writhe against the clouds.

In the gale of brassbands and trampling horses and rumbling clatter of cannon, shadows like the shadows of claws grasp at the taut flags, the flags are hungry tongues licking twisting curling.

Oh it’s a long way to Tipperary… Over there! Over there!

The harbor is packed with zebrastriped skunkstriped piebald steamboats, the Narrows are choked with bullion, they’re piling gold sovereigns up to the ceilings in the Subtreasury. Dollars whine on the radio, all the cables tap out dollars.

There’s a long long trail awinding… Over there! Over there!

In the subway their eyes pop as they spell out APOCALYPSE, typhus, cholera, shrapnel, insurrection, death in fire, death in water, death in hunger, death in mud.

Oh it’s a long way to Madymosell from Armenteers, over there! The Yanks are coming, the Yanks are coming. Down Fifth Avenue the bands blare for the Liberty Loan drive, for the Red Cross drive. Hospital ships sneak up the harbor and unload furtively at night in old docks in Jersey. Up Fifth Avenue the flags of the seventeen nations are flaring curling in the shrill hungry wind.

O the oak and the ash and the weeping willow tree And green grows the grass in God’s country.