Ned Beauman - Boxer, Beetle

‘I don’t quite understand what you’re trying to imply, Rabbi,’ said Pearl. ‘I merely wish the best for the boy, and for all boys like him.’

‘In the world you seek, there would be no boys like him.’ Berg held up his hand to stop Pearl from interrupting. ‘Let me return to Darwin. Without mutation, as I understand it, there could be no evolution. We would all still be bacteria in the soup. In our cells there are clerks charged with preventing any error in the paperwork. But it is lucky that these clerks have never done their jobs with too much diligence. If they did not open us to a sort of sin. …’

‘So we are to rejoice when a child is born with no eyes, in case he is to found a blessed new tribe of the blind.’

‘No. For human beings, I think, Hashem’s work is done. But your clockwork towers, immaculately replicated one by one until they cover the earth and the bed of the sea, so that nothing at all is unplanned — how can anything ever change for the better?’

‘That is a change for the better.’

‘But I wonder if it is not a shortsighted one. The slums are not like a blind child. Nor, I admit, are they like a healthy child. They are like a child with a bent spine, a cleft lip and angels’ wings.’

‘Yes, I’m sure the slums look very romantic from up here in your brownstone.’

‘I grew up in a tenement a few streets from here, Balfour, as you well know. Even there, we could never have predicted young Seth. And people are happier to live in a place where not everything can be predicted. Things arise, beautiful things, things that would not be understood, and so would not be allowed, in your spotless paradise, where they fear the angels’ wings even more than they fear the bent spine and the cleft lip. You are right that a man needs light like he needs bread, but a man needs a little darkness, too, if only so that he can sleep, and dream.’

‘If you could hear yourself, Rabbi,’ said Pearl.

‘Yes, yes, I know I am behind the times,’ said Berg. Although his irony was clear, it brought the exchange to a close. No one wanted a raging argument. But from time to time, for the rest of the meal, Sinner and Pearl would still stare sullenly at one another.

The evening ended with sweet pastries that Berg bought from the local bakery because they were beyond the capabilities of his cook, and then cigars. Forgetting about Sinner, who sat blowing prodigious smoke rings, the Rabbi got up to get a bottle of cognac, and Frink had to call him back to the table on a pretext. Dinner parties on Cherry Street tended to linger on late into the night, but at half past ten Pearl made his apologies, saying he had on his desk a pile of bills from the state legislature. Leaving, he shook hands with all five men. Sinner’s handshake was particularly vigorous.

‘So tell me more about this clown that Sinner is fighting next week,’ said Berg as the maid cleared the table for a second time. ‘Aloysius Somebody.’

‘Aloysius Fielding,’ said Kölmel. ‘Won’t be any trouble. Long as our kid shows a little bit of discipline. Right, Seth?’

‘You’ll make your name, Sinner,’ said Frink. ‘Straight into the big leagues.’

‘How much are the tickets?’ said Berg.

‘Two dollars, if you can’t get an Annie Oakley,’ said Kölmel.

‘I think I can stretch to that.’

‘Whose is this?’ said Sinner. He was holding up a Bulova men’s wristwatch with a black strap. ‘It was on the floor.’

‘Oh, that’s Balfour’s,’ said Siedelman.

‘Why would he have taken off his watch?’ said Berg. ‘Oh dear. Can we catch him up?’

‘He’ll be on the subway by now.’

‘We’ll telephone. His wife may be at home.’

‘She’s at her mother’s house on Long Island.’

‘His maid, then,’ said Berg. He took down his huge leather-bound address book, which his friends sometimes referred to as The Book of Life (Lower East Side Edition) even though most of its hundreds of crinkled pages were long out of date. Sinner leaned over to watch as his finger slid down past Paliakov, Papirny, Pasternak, Patsuk and Pazy to Pearl.

But there was no one at home to answer Berg’s call. He shrugged. ‘I will try again tomorrow.’

They talked about boxing for a little longer, and then Sinner said, ‘’Scuse me,’ and got up. Kölmel looked at Frink. When Sinner had gone for a piss earlier on Kölmel had waited outside the door of the lavatory, having already checked that it had no window big enough to climb out of. But now both men were sated and sluggish, so it wasn’t until four or five minutes had passed that Frink got up to check on Sinner. And by that time, the boy was almost on East Broadway.

On his way out he’d snatched Kölmel’s wallet from his coat, which had been hung up in Berg’s hall. In the wallet was twelve dollars. And he still had the watch, although he didn’t think he had much chance of pawning it at this time of night.

Before long he found a liquor store. They had real imported London dry gin but it was too expensive, so he bought a bottle of bourbon and some boiled sweets. Outside, he saw three chaffinches pecking at some cigarette butts. Did American birds eat ash? He hailed a cab.

‘Where to?’ said the driver.

‘259 West 70 Street,’ said his passenger.

Sinner was not the sort of drunk who made a sighing, squinting, groaning, chuckling performance out of how much he enjoyed his first pint of beer after a long day, and he was certainly not the sort of drunk who got shakes or sweats if he went without — and he had a lot of contempt for either of those failings. But there was still half a smile on his face as he sipped his bourbon.

‘West 70th.’

‘Yeah. Is Times Square on the way?’

‘If you want.’

‘Go through Times Square.’

The light in Times Square seemed like the light that would bleed out of any solid object in this world if you could somehow scourge away its surface. Sinner was astonished by the light, and also by the number of men promenading around outside the bars and restaurants and theatres whose dress and gestures would have fitted in perfectly well at the Caravan. A gaunt old man was out walking his rabbit, which he picked up and held under his arm as he crossed the street, its leather leash over his wrist. Sinner had heard that now during the day they ran soup kitchens here out of the back of old army trucks, but even that temporary dreariness couldn’t dim this place. The taxi got caught in a clot of traffic, and spaced along the nearby pavement Sinner noticed three blokes in smart suits greeting everyone who walked past like an old friend.

‘What’s their game?’ said Sinner. ‘Pimps or something?’

‘Travel agents,’ the cab driver corrected him. ‘You want to go to Los Angeles, they find three other guys who want to go too, and then they find a guy who’s driving there anyway and they take a commission. Won’t cost you more than thirty dollars. Course, that’s if the guy driving don’t sneak off with everybody’s money and everybody’s baggage while you’re still eating lunch in a cafeteria in Newark. Or worse! I heard about one old lady—’

‘Los Angeles?’ Sinner interrupted.

‘Huh?’

‘Los Angeles for thirty dollars? Hollywood?’

‘Sure.’

‘Anywhere I can pawn a watch around here?’

‘Sure.’

‘Now?’

‘Sure.’

Sinner thought about that for a while.

‘What’s the matter?’ the cab driver eventually said. ‘You still want to go uptown or not?’

‘Yeah. Uptown.’ He could go to Los Angeles tomorrow.

They dodged between the trams at Columbus Circle and within ten minutes Sinner was paying the driver on West 70th Street. He smoked a cigarette, drank some more bourbon, and then knocked on Balfour Pearl’s door.