John Passos - Manhattan transfer

A nurse put her head in the door.

‘Get out of here,’ shouted Blackhead, ‘none of your starched virgins around me.’ He threw the pillow from under his head. The nurse disappeared. The pillow hit one of the posts and bounced back on the bed. Gladys began to cry.

‘Oh daddy I cant stand it… and everybody always respected you so… Do try to control yourself, daddy dear.’

‘And why should I for Christ’s sake… ? Show’s over, why dont you laugh? Curtain’s down. It’s all a joke, a smutty joke.’

He began to laugh deliriously, then he was choking, fighting for breath with clenched fists again. At length he said in a broken voice, ‘Don’t you see that it’s only the whiskey that was keeping me going? Go away and leave me Gladys and send that damned Hindu to me. I’ve always liked you better than anything in the world… You know that. Quick tell him to bring me what I ordered.’

Gladys went out crying. Outside her husband was pacing up and down the hall. ‘It’s those damned reporters… I dont know what to tell ’em. They say the creditors want to prosecute.’

‘Mrs Gaston,’ interrupted the nurse, ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to get male nurses… Really I cant do anything with him…’ On the lower floor a telephone was ringing ringing.

When the Hindu brought the bottle of whiskey Blackhead filled a highball glass and took a deep gulp of it.

‘Ah that makes you feel better, by the living Jingo it does. Achmet you’re a good fellow… Well I guess we’ll have to face the music and sell out… Thank God Gladys is settled. I’ll sell out every goddam thing I’ve got. I wish that precious son-in-law wasnt such a simp. Always my luck to be surrounded by a lot of capons… By gad I’d just as soon go to jail if it’ll do em any good; why not? it’s all in a lifetime. And afterwards when I come out I’ll get a job as a bargeman or watchman on a wharf. I’d like that. Why not take it easy after tearing things up all my life, eh Achmet?’

‘Yes Sahib,’ said the Hindu with a bow.

Blackhead mimicked him, ‘Yes Sahib… You always say yes, Achmet, isn’t that funny?’ He began to laugh with a choked rattling laugh. ‘I guess that’s the easiest way.’ He laughed and laughed, then suddenly he couldnt laugh any more. A perking spasm went through all his limbs. He twisted his mouth in an effort to speak. For a second his eyes looked about the room, the eyes of a little child that has been hurt before it begins to cry, until he fell back limp, his open mouth biting at his shoulder. Achmet looked at him coolly for a long time then he went up to him and spat in his face. Immediately he took a handkerchief out of the pocket of his linen jacket and wiped the spittle off the taut ivory skin. Then he closed the mouth and propped the body among the pillows and walked softly out of the room. In the hall Gladys sat in a big chair reading a magazine. ‘Sahib much better, he sleep a little bit maybe.’

‘Oh Achmet I’m so glad,’ she said and looked back to her magazine.

Ellen got off the bus at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Fiftythird Street. Rosy twilight was gushing out of the brilliant west, glittered in brass and nickel, on buttons, in people’s eyes. All the windows on the east side of the avenue were aflame. As she stood with set teeth on the curb waiting to cross, a frail tendril of fragrance brushed her face. A skinny lad with towhair stringy under a foreignlooking cap was offering her arbutus in a basket. She bought a bunch and pressed her nose in it. May woods melted like sugar against her palate.

The whistle blew, gears ground as cars started to pour out of the side streets, the crossing thronged with people. Ellen felt the lad brush against her as he crossed at her side. She shrank away. Through the smell of the arbutus she caught for a second the unwashed smell of his body, the smell of immigrants, of Ellis Island, of crowded tenements. Under all the nickelplated, goldplated streets enameled with May, uneasily she could feel the huddling smell, spreading in dark slow crouching masses like corruption oozing from broken sewers, like a mob. She walked briskly down the cross-street. She went in a door beside a small immaculately polished brass plate.

MADAME SOUBRINE

ROBES

She forgot everything in the catlike smile of Madame Soubrine herself, a stout blackhaired perhaps Russian woman who came out to her from behind a curtain with outstretched arms, while other customers waiting on sofas in a sort of Empress Josephine parlor, looked on enviously.

‘My dear Mrs Herf, where have you been? We’ve had your dress for a week,’ she exclaimed in too perfect English. ‘Ah my dear, you wait… it’s magnificent… And how is Mr Harrpsi-court?’

‘I’ve been very busy… You see I’m giving up my job.’

Madame Soubrine nodded and blinked knowingly and led the way through the tapestry curtains into the back of the shop.

‘Ah ça se voit… Il ne faut pas trravailler, on peut voir déjà des toutes petites rrides. Mais ils dispareaitront. Forgive me, dear.’ The thick arm round her waist squeezed her. Ellen edged off a little… ‘Vous la femme la plus belle de New Yorrk… Angelica Mrs Herf’s evening dress,’ she shouted in a shrill grating voice like a guineahen’s.

A hollowcheeked washedout blond girl came in with the dress on a hanger. Ellen slipped off her gray tailored walkingsuit. Madame Soubrine circled round her, purring. ‘Angelica look at those shoulders, the color of the hair… Ah c’est le rêve,’ edging a little too near like a cat that wants its back rubbed. The dress was pale green with a slash of scarlet and dark blue.

‘This is the last time I have a dress like this, I’m sick of always wearing blue and green…’ Madame Soubrine, her mouth full of pins, was at her feet, fussing with the hem.

‘Perfect Greek simplicity, wellgirdled like Diana… Spiritual with Spring… the ultimate restraint of an Annette Kellermann, holding up the lamp of liberty, the wise virgin,’ she was muttering through her lips.

She’s right, Ellen was thinking, I am getting a hard look. She was looking at herself in the tall pierglass. Then my figure’ll go, the menopause haunting beauty parlors, packed in boncilla, having your face raised.

‘Regardez-moi ça, cherrie;’ said the dressmaker getting to her feet and taking the pins out of her mouth ‘C’est le chef-d’œuvre de la maison Soubrine.’

Ellen suddenly felt hot, tangled in some prickly web, a horrible stuffiness of dyed silks and crêpes and muslins was making her head ache; she was anxious to be out on the street again.

‘I smell smoke, there’s something the matter,’ the blond girl suddenly cried out. ‘Sh-sh-sh,’ hissed Madame Soubrine. They both disappeared through a mirrorcovered door.

Under a skylight in the back room of Soubrine’s Anna Cohen sits sewing the trimming on a dress with swift tiny stitches. On the table in front of her a great pile of tulle rises full of light like beaten white of egg. Charley my boy, Oh Charley my boy, she hums, stitching the future with swift tiny stitches. If Elmer wants to marry me we might as well; poor Elmer, he’s a nice boy but so dreamy. Funny he’d fall for a girl like me. He’ll grow out of it, or maybe in the Revolution, he’ll be a great man… Have to cut out parties when I’m Elmer’s wife. But maybe we can save up money and open a little store on Avenue A in a good location, make better money there than uptown. La Parisienne, Modes.

I bet I could do as good as that old bitch. If you was your own boss there wouldn’t be this fightin about strikers and scabs… Equal Opportunity for All. Elmer says that’s all applesauce. No hope for the workers but in the Revolution. Oh I’m juss wild about Harree, And Harry’s juss wild about me… Elmer in a telephone central in a dinnercoat, with eartabs, tall as Valentino, strong as Doug. The Revolution is declared. The Red Guard is marching up Fifth Avenue. Anna in golden curls with a little kitten under her arm leans with him out of the tallest window. White tumbler pigeons flutter against the city below them. Fifth Avenue bleeding red flags, glittering with marching bands, hoarse voices singing Die Rote Fahne in Yiddish; far away, from the Woolworth a banner shakes into the wind. ‘Look Elmer darling’ ELMER DUSKIN FOR MAYOR. And they’re dancing the Charleston in all the officebuildings… Thump. Thump. That Charleston dance… Thump. Thump… Perhaps I do love him. Elmer take me. Elmer, loving as Valentino, crushing me to him with Dougstrong arms, hot as flame, Elmer.