Saul Bellow - Collected Stories

“Shana’s aunt was my grandmother. My paternal grandfather was one of a dozen men who had memorized the whole of the Babylonian Talmud (or was it the Jerusalem one? here I am ignorant). All my life I have asked, ‘Why do that?’ But it was done.

“Metzger’s father sold haberdashery in the Boston Store down in the Loop. In the Austro-Hungarian Empire he had been trained as a cutter and also as a designer of men’s clothing. A man of many skills, he was always nicely dressed, stocky, bald except for a lock at the front, combed to swerve to the right. Some men are mutely bald; his baldness was expressive; stressful lumps would form in his skin, which dissolved with the return of calm. He said little; he grinned and beamed instead, and if there is a celestial meridian of good nature, it intersected his face. He had guileless abbreviated teeth with considerable spaces between them. What else? He was a stickler for respect. Nobody was to take his amiability for granted. When his temper rose, failure to find words gave him a stifled look, while large lumps came up under his scalp. One seldom saw this, however. He suffered from a tic of the eyelids. Also, to show his fondness (to boys) he used harmless Yiddish obscenities—a sign that he took you into his confidence. You would be friends when you were old enough.

“Just one thing more, Your Honor, if you care about the defendant’s personal background. Cousin Metzger, his father, enjoyed stepping out in the evening, and he often came to play cards with my father and my stepmother. In winter they drank tea with raspberry preserves; in summer I was sent to the drugstore to buy a quart brick of three-layered ice cream—vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry. You asked for ‘Neapolitan.’ It was a penny-ante poker game and often went on past midnight.”

“I understand you’re a friend of Gerald Eiler,” said Tanky.

“Acquaintance….”

“Ever been to his house?”

“About twenty years ago. But the house is gone, and so is his wife. I also used to meet him at parties, but the host who gave them passed away. About half of that social circle is in the cemetery.”

As usual, I gave more information than my questioner had any use for, using every occasion to transmit my sense of life. My father before me also did this. Such a habit can be irritating. Tanky didn’t care who was in the cemetery. You knew Eiler before he was on the bench?” Oh, long before….” Then you might be just the guy to write to him about me.”

By sacrificing an hour at my desk I might spare Tanky a good many years of prison. Why shouldn’t I do it for old times’ sake, for the sake of his parents, whom I held in such affection. I had to do it if I wanted to continue these exercises of memory. My souvenirs would stink if I let Shana’s son down. I had no space to work out whether this was a moral or a sentimental decision.

I might also write to Eiler to show off the influence I so queerly had. Tanky’s interpretation of my motives would make a curious subject. Did I want to establish that, bubble brain though I seemed to him, there were sound reasons why a letter from me might carry weight with a veteran of the federal judiciary like Eiler? Or prove that I had lived right? He would never concede me that. Anyway, with a long sentence hanging over him, he was in no mood to study life’s mysteries. He was sick, deadly depressed.

“It’s pretty snazzy across the street over at First National.”

Below, in the plaza, is the large Chagall mosaic, costing millions, the theme of which is the Soul of Man in America. I often doubt that old Chagall had the strength necessary to take such a reading. He is too levitational. Too many fancies.

I explained: “The group I’m with advises bankers on foreign loans. We specialize in international law—political economy and so forth.”

Tanky said, “Eunice is very proud of you. She sends me clippings about how you’re speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations. Or you’re sitting in the same box with the governor at the opera. Or were the escort of Mrs. Anwar Sadat when she got an honorary degree. And you play tennis, indoors, with politicians.’”

How was it that Cousin Ijah’s esoteric interests gave him access to these prominent people—art patrons, politicians, society ladies, dictators’ widows? Tanky came down heavy on the politicians. About politicians he knew more than I ever would, knew the real guys; he had done business with the machine people, he had cash-flow relations with them. He could tell me who took from whom, which group owned what, who supplied the schools, hospitals, the county jail and other institutions, who milked public housing, handed out the franchises, made the sweetheart deals. Unless you were a longtime insider, you couldn’t find the dark crossings used by the mob and the machine. They were occasionally revealed. Very recently two hit men tried to kill a Japanese dope supplier in his car. Tokyo Joe Eto is his name. He was shot three times in the skull and ballistics experts are unable to explain why not a single bullet penetrated the brain. Having nothing more to lose, Tokyo Joe named the killers, one of whom proved to be a deputy on the county sheriff’s payroll. Were other city or county payrollers moonlighting for the Mafia? Nobody proposed to investigate. Cousin Tanky knew the answers to many such questions. Hence the gibing look he gave me in the booth. But even that look was diluted, much below full strength. Facing the shades of the prison house, he was not well. We had our share of wrongdoers in the family, but few who made it to the penitentiary. He didn’t mean to discuss this with me, however. All he wanted was that I should use such influence as I might have. It was worth a try. Another iron in the fire. As for my motive in agreeing to intercede, it was too obscure to be worth the labor of examination. Sentiment. Eccentric foolery. Vanity. “Okay, Raphael. I’ll try a letter to the judge.”

I did it for Cousin Metzger’s tic. For the three bands of Neapolitan ice cream. For the furious upright growth of Cousin Shana’s ruddy hair, and the avid veins of her temples and in the middle of her forehead. For the strength with which her bare feet advanced as she mopped the floor and spread the pages of the Tribune over it. It was also for Cousin Eunice’s stammer, and for the elocution lessons that cured it, for the James Whitcomb Riley recitations she gave to the captive family and the determination of the “a-a-a-a” with which she stood up to the challenge of “When the Frost Is on the Punkin.” I did it because I had been present at Cousin Tanky’s circumcision and heard his cry. And because his cumbersome body was now wrapped in defeat. The curl had gone out of his beard. He looked like Death’s sparring partner and his cheeks were battered under the eyes. And if he thought that /was the sentimentalist and he the nihilist, he was mistaken. I myself have some experience of evil and of the dissolution of the old bonds of existence; of the sores that have broken out on the body of mankind, which I, however, have the impulse to touch with my own hands.

I wrote the letter because the cousins are the elect of my memory.

“Raphael Metzger’s parents, Your Honor, were hardworking, law-abiding people, not so much as a traffic violation on their record. Over fifty years ago, when the Brodskys came to Chicago, the Metzgers sheltered them for weeks. We slept on the floor, as penniless immigrants did in those days. We children were clothed and bathed and fed by Mrs. Metzger. This was before the birth of the defendant. Admittedly, Raphael Metzger became a tough guy. Still, he has committed no violent crimes and it is possible, with such a family background, that he may yet become a useful citizen. In presentencing hearings, doctors have testified that he suffers from emphysema and also from high blood pressure. If he has to serve a sentence in one of the rougher prisons, his health may be irreparably damaged.”