John Passos - Manhattan transfer

Ruth put down the sandwich she was nibbling at and reached for Ellen’s hand and patted it. ‘That’s the little trouper… Of course I knew you were coming all along.’

‘But Ruth you never told me what happened to that traveling repertory company last summer…’

‘O my God,’ burst out Ruth. ‘That was terrible. Of course it was a scream, a perfect scream. Well the first thing that happened was that Isabel Clyde’s husband Ralph Nolton who was managing the company was a dipsomaniac… and then the lovely Isabel wouldn’t let anybody on the stage who didn’t act like a dummy for fear the rubes wouldnt know who the star was… Oh I cant tell about it any more… It isnt funny to me any more, it’s just horrible… Oh Elaine I’m so discouraged. My dear I’m getting old.’ She suddenly burst out crying.

‘Oh Ruth please dont,’ said Ellen in a little rasping voice. She laughed. ‘After all we’re none of us getting any younger are we?’

‘Dear you dont understand… You never will understand.’

They sat a long while without saying anything, scraps of low-voiced conversation came to them from other corners of the dim tearoom. The palehaired waitress brought them two orders of fruit salad.

‘My it must be getting late,’ said Ruth eventually.

‘It’s only half past eight… We dont want to get to this party too soon.’

‘By the way… how’s Jimmy Herf. I havent seen him for ages.’

‘Jimps is fine… He’s terribly sick of newspaper work. I do wish he could get something he really enjoyed doing.’

‘He’ll always be a restless sort of person. Oh Elaine I was so happy when I heard about your being married… I acted like a damn fool. I cried and cried… And now with Martin and everything you must be terribly happy.’

‘Oh we get along all right… Martin’s picking up, New York seems to agree with him. He was so quiet and fat for a long while we were terribly afraid we’d produced an imbecile. Do you know Ruth I don’t think I’d ever have another baby… I was so horribly afraid he’d turn out deformed or something… It makes me sick to think of it.’

‘Oh but it must be wonderful though.’

They rang a bell under a small brass placque that read: Hester Voorhees INTERPRETATION OF THE DANCE. They went up three flights of creaky freshvarnished stairs. At the door open into a room full of people they met Cassandra Wilkins in a Greek tunic with a wreath of satin rosebuds round her head and a gilt wooden panpipe in her hand.

‘Oh you darlings,’ she cried and threw her arms round them both at once. ‘Hester said you wouldnt come but I just knew you would… Come wight in and take off your things, we’re beginning with a few classic wythms.’ They followed her through a long candlelit incensesmelling room full of men and women in dangly costumes.

‘But my dear you didn’t tell us it was going to be a costume party.’

‘Oh yes cant you see evewything’s Gweek, absolutely Gweek… Here’s Hester… Here they are darling… Hester you know Wuth… and this is Elaine Oglethorpe.’

‘I call myself Mrs Herf now, Cassie.’

‘Oh I beg your pardon, it’s so hard to keep twack… They’re just in time… Hester’s going to dance an owiental dance called Wythms from the Awabian Nights… Oh it’s too beautiful.’

When Ellen came out of the bedroom where she had left her wraps a tall figure in Egyptian headdress with crooked rusty eyebrows accosted her. ‘Allow me to salute Helena Herf, distinguished editress of Manners , the journal that brings the Ritz to the humblest fireside… isnt that true?’

‘Jojo you’re a horrible tease… I’m awfully glad to see you.’

‘Let’s go and sit in a corner and talk, oh only woman I have ever loved…’

‘Yes do let’s… I dont like it here much.’

‘And my dear, have you heard about Tony Hunter’s being straightened out by a psychoanalyst and now he’s all sublimated and has gone on the vaudeville stage with a woman named California Jones.’

‘You’d better watch out Jojo.’

They sat down on a couch in a recess between the dormer windows. Out of the corner of her eye she could see a girl dancing in green silk veils. The phonograph was playing the Cesar Frank symphony.

‘We mustnt miss Cassie’s daunce. The poor girl would be dreadfully offended.’

‘Jojo tell me about yourself, how have you been?’

He shook his head and made a broad gesture with his draped arm. ‘Ah let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the deaths of kings.’

‘Oh Jojo I’m sick of this sort of thing… It’s all so silly and dowdy… I wish I hadnt let them make me take my hat off.’

‘That was so that I should look upon the forbidden forests of your hair.’

‘Oh Jojo do be sensible.’

‘How’s your husband, Elaine or rathah Helenah?’

‘Oh he’s all right.’

‘You dont sound terribly enthusiastic.’

‘Martin’s fine though. He’s got black hair and brown eyes and his cheeks are getting to be pink. Really he’s awfully cute.’

‘My deah, spare me this exhibition of maternal bliss… You’ll be telling me next you walked in a baby parade.’

She laughed. ‘Jojo it’s lots of fun to see you again.’

‘I havent finished my catechism yet deah… I saw you in the oval diningroom the other day with a very distinguished looking man with sharp features and gray hair.’

‘That must have been George Baldwin. Why you knew him in the old days.’

‘Of course of course. How he has changed. A much more interesting looking man than he used to be I must say… A very strange place for the wife of a bolshevik pacifist and I. W. W. agitator to be seen taking lunch, I must say.

‘Jimps isnt exactly that. I kind of wish he were…’ She wrinkled up her nose. ‘I’m a little fed up too with all that sort of thing.’

‘I suspected it my dear.’ Cassie was flitting selfconsciously by.

‘Oh do come and help me… Jojo’s teasing me terribly.’

‘Well I’ll twy to sit down just for a second, I’m going to dance next… Mr Oglethorpe’s going to wead his twanslation of the songs of Bilitis for me to dance to.’

Ellen looked from one to the other; Oglethorpe crooked his eyebrows and nodded.

Then Ellen sat alone for a long while looking at the dancing and the chittering crowded room through a dim haze of boredom.

The record on the phonograph was Turkish. Hester Voorhees, a skinny woman with a mop of hennaed hair cut short at the level of her ears, came out holding a pot of drawling incense out in front of her preceded by two young men who unrolled a carpet as she came. She wore silk bloomers and a clinking metal girdle and brassières. Everybody was clapping and saying, ‘How wonderful, how marvelous,’ when from another room came three tearing shrieks of a woman. Everybody jumped to his feet. A stout man in a derby hat appeared in the doorway. ‘All right little goils, right through into the back room. Men stay here.’

‘Who are you anyway?’

‘Never mind who I am, you do as I say.’ The man’s face was red as a beet under the derby hat.

‘It’s a detective.’ ‘It’s outrageous. Let him show his badge.’

‘It’s a holdup.’

‘It’s a raid.’

The room had filled suddenly with detectives. They stood in front of the windows. A man in a checked cap with a face knobbed like a squash stood in front of the fireplace. They were pushing the women roughly into the back room. The men were herded in a little group near the door; detectives were taking their names. Ellen still sat on the couch. ‘… complaint phoned to headquarters,’ she heard somebody say. Then she noticed that there was a phone on the little table beside the couch where she sat. She picked it up and whispered softly for a number.