Saul Bellow - Collected Stories

Liar! Wilhelm inwardly called him. Nasty lies. He invented a woman and killed her off and then called himself a healer, and made himself so earnest he looked like a bad-natured sheep. He’s a puffed-up little bogus and humbug with smelly feet. A doctor! A doctor would wash himself. He believes he’s making a terrific impression, and he practically invites you to take off your hat when he talks about himself; and he thinks he has an imagination, but he hasn’t; neither is he smart.

Then what am I doing with him here, and why did I give him the seven hundred dollars? thought Wilhelm.

Oh, this was a day of reckoning. It was a day, he thought, on which, willing or not, he would take a good close look at the truth. He breathed hard and his misshapen hat came low upon his congested dark blond face. A rude look. Tamkin was a charlatan, and furthermore he was desperate. And furthermore, Wilhelm had always known this about him. But he appeared to have worked it out at the back of his mind that Tamkin for thirty or forty years had gotten through many a tight place, that he would get through this crisis too and bring him, Wilhelm, to safety also. And Wilhelm realized that he was on Tamkin’s back. It made him feel that he had virtually left the ground and was riding upon the other man. He was in the air. It was for Tamkin to take the steps.

The doctor, if he was a doctor, did not look anxious. But then his face did not have much variety. Talking always about spontaneous emotion and open receptors and free impulses, he was about as expressive as a pincushion. When his hypnotic spell failed, his big underlip made him look weak-minded. Fear stared from his eyes, some times, so humble as to make you sorry for him. Once or twice Wilhelm had seen that look. Like a dog, he thought. Perhaps he didn’t look it now, but he was very nervous. Wilhelm knew, but he could not afford to recognize this too openly. The doctor needed a little room, a little time. He should not be pressed now. So Tamkin went on, telling his tales.

Wilhelm said to himself, I am on his back — his back. I gambled seven hundred bucks, so I must take this ride. I have to go along with him. It’s too late. I can’t get off.

“You know,” Tamkin said, “that blind old man Rappaport — he’s pretty close to totally blind — is one of the most interesting personalities around here. If you could only get him to tell his true story. It’s fascinating. This what he told me. You often hear about bigamists with a secret life. But this old man never hid anything from anybody. He’s a regular patriarch. Now, I’ll tell you what he did. He had two whole families, separate and apart, one in Williamsburg and the other in The Bronx. The two wives knew about each other. The wife in The Bronx was younger; she’s close to seventy now. When he got sore at one wife he went to live with the other one. Meanwhile he ran his chicken business in New Jersey. By one wife he had four kids, and by the other six. They’re all grown, but they never have met their half-brothers and sisters and don’t want to. The whole bunch of them are listed in the telephone book.”

“I can’t believe it,” said Wilhelm.

“He told me this himself. And do you know what else? When he had his eyesight he used to read a lot, but the only books he would read were by Theodore Roosevelt. He had a set in each of the places where he lived, and he brought his kids up on those books.”

“Please,” said Wilhelm, “don’t feed me any more of this stuff, will you? Kindly do not—”

“In telling you this,” said Tamkin with one of his hypnotic subtleties, “I do have a motive. I want you to see how some people free themselves from morbid guilt feelings and follow their instincts. Innately, the female knows how to cripple by sickening a man with guilt. It is a very special de struct, and she sends her curse to make a fellow impotent. As if she says, ‘Unless I allow it, you will never more be a man.’ But men like my old dad or Mr. Rappaport answer, ‘Woman, what art thou to me?’ You can’t do that yet. You’re a halfway case. You want to follow your instinct, but you’re too worried still. For instance, about your kids—”

“Now look here,” said Wilhelm, stamping his feet. “One thing! Don’t bring up my boys. Just lay off.”

“I was only going to say that they are better off than with conflicts in the home.”

“I’m deprived of my children.” Wilhelm bit his lip. It was too late to turn away. The anguish struck him. “I pay and pay. I never see them. They grow up without me. She makes them like herself. She’ll bring them up to be my enemies. Please let’s not talk about this.”

But Tamkin said, “Why do you let her make you suffer so? It defeats the original object in leaving her. Don’t play her game. Now, Wilhelm, I’m trying to do you some good. I want to tell you, don’t marry suffering. Some people do. They get married to it, and sleep and eat together, just as husband and wife. If they go with joy they think it’s adultery.”

When Wilhelm heard this he had, in spite of himself, to admit that there was a great deal in Tamkin’s words. Yes, thought Wilhelm, suffering is the only kind of life they are sure they can have, and if they quit suffering they’re afraid they’ll have nothing. He knows it. This time the faker knows what he’s talking about.

Looking at Tamkin he believed he saw all this confessed from his usually barren face. Yes, yes, he too. One hundred falsehoods, but at last one truth. Howling like a wolf from the city window. No one can bear it any more. Everyone is so full of it that at last everybody must proclaim it. It! It!

Then suddenly Wilhelm rose and said, “That’s enough of this. Tamkin, let’s go back to the market.”

“I haven’t finished my melon.”

“Never mind that. You’ve had enough to eat. I want to go back.”

Dr. Tamkin slid the two checks across the table. “Who paid yesterday? It’s your turn, I think.”

It was not until they were leaving the cafeteria that Wilhelm remembered definitely that he had paid yesterday too. But it wasn’t worth arguing about.

Tamkin kept repeating as they walked down the street that there were many who were dedicated to suffering. But he told Wilhelm, “I’m optimistic in your case, and I have seen a world of maladjustment. There’s hope for you. You don’t really want to destroy yourself. You’re trying hard to keep your feelings open, Wilhelm. I can see it. Seven per cent of this country is committing suicide by alcohol. Another three, maybe, narcotics. Another sixty just fading away into dust by boredom. Twenty more, who have sold their souls to the devil. Then there’s a small percentage of those who want to live. That’s the only significant thing in the whole world of today. Those are the only two classes of people there are. Some want to live, but the great majority don’t.” This fantastic Tamkin began to surpass himself. “They don’t. Or else why these wars? I’ll tell you more,” he said. “The love of the dying amounts to one thing; they want you to die with them. It’s because they love you. Make no mistake.”

True, true! thought Wilhelm, profoundly moved by these revelations. How does he know these things? How can he be such a jerk, and even perhaps an operator, a swindler, and understand so well what gives? I believe what he says. It simplifies much — everything. People are dropping like flies. I am trying to stay alive and work too hard at it. That’s what’s turning my brains. This working hard defeats its own end. At what point should I start over? Let me go back a ways and try once more.

Only a few hundred yards separated the cafeteria from the broker’s, and within that short space Wilhelm turned again, in measurable degrees, from these wide considerations to the problems of the moment. The closer he approached to the market, the more Wilhelm had to think about money.