A New Life (11 page)
Authors: Bernard Malamud
As her affection for Sadek visibly bloomed, Levin, although irritated by the odd lovemaking, fought a growing jealousy of him, for the Syrian had developed a system that the new
instructor envied. When Sadek left the table to relieve himself in the back alley—the toilet facilities of the tavern horrified him and he preferred not to do a major Lysol job there—on these occasions Levin talked to the waitress and learned her name was Laverne. He had told her he was Levin but she showed no interest. He wished he had the nerve to move up close and attempt to deal directly with the consumer, but this flair, or means of incitement, was beyond his talent and timidity, although the torment of his unexpected desire for the girl was now something to contend with.
instructor envied. When Sadek left the table to relieve himself in the back alley—the toilet facilities of the tavern horrified him and he preferred not to do a major Lysol job there—on these occasions Levin talked to the waitress and learned her name was Laverne. He had told her he was Levin but she showed no interest. He wished he had the nerve to move up close and attempt to deal directly with the consumer, but this flair, or means of incitement, was beyond his talent and timidity, although the torment of his unexpected desire for the girl was now something to contend with.
It grew late—towards one. The college students had gone; only two silent drinkers stood at the bar, the bartender-boss on a stool near the cash register, glasses on, scanning a newspaper. The booths, except for Sadek and Levin, were empty. Laverne, dreamy-eyed, hugged the wall close to where the Syrian sat. He spoke to all of her now and she responded with smiles and laughter. At midnight Sadek had turned to Levin and asked him to leave, but Levin coldly replied he ran his own business. He sat in the pale beyond their acceptance, greedy for the girl and contemptuous of himself because of her indifference. Sadek got up and they moved away from the booth. The Syrian spoke quietly, she answered in low tones. Levin, straining to hear, grew tense with frustrated desire. He struggled to free himself from this degrading emotion but sat as if will-less. Sadek returned to his seat, not glancing at Levin, his dark face serene as he fondled his beer glass. Levin considered dashing out of the place to gulp fresh air but couldn’t move because something he had often wished might happen to him, had happened instead to this freak. He longed to know from Sadek if he had made a date with Laverne, thinking that if he had he would accept the inevitable and depart, but he could not bring himself to ask, because he knew the answer. Sadek impassively scraped his nails. At closing time the girl changed her shoes and put on her coat as the Syrian, having drained his beer glass, ducked through the back door into the alley for a quick one.
Ten minutes later, as the bartender was putting out the window lights and the girl was standing impatiently by a clothes tree near the phone booth, a young policeman entered the back door and seeing Levin, spoke to him.
“Say, are you a friend of Sadek A. Meheen?” He read the name from a small black notebook.
Levin cautiously admitted he had heard of him.
“If it’s all the same to you,” said the cop, “would you want to come around to the police station and talk to the assistant chief? We just caught this guy committing a nuisance in the alley behind here. He was pissing against the wall, and my buddy issued him a summons returnable in Municipal Court tomorrow morning, but then this guy, or whatever his name is, got sore and called us some pretty filthy names, so we drove him to the clink to cool his ass off. The assistant chief wanted to call the dean of men and tell him what happened, but he don’t like to be waked up past eleven, so when this guy said a friend of his was here and you were a professor at the college, the assistant chief sent me over because your friend might throw a fit if somebody don’t calm him down. I’m telling you because if he keeps on acting this way he might get himself bounced out of college. Also we are worried because he’s a foreigner and everybody is touchy on that subject nowadays.”
Excitement boiled up in Levin as he foresaw adventure, although he warned himself not to be tempted. The battle he fought was short, nor would he admit he had lost, for adventure was adventure and how much of it had he had in his life?
“I’ll drop in if I can,” he said.
The cop answered, “It’s no hair off us if you don’t. We wanted you to know where your buddy was, and what for.”
“I’m much obliged.”
The policeman left by the back door.
Laverne, who had been standing near the bar with the boss, both curiously looking on, approached Levin.
“What happened to your boy friend?” she asked.
Levin reached for his hat. “Let’s talk outside.” His throat was tight.
The girl followed him into the quiet street as her boss put out the last light and locked the door. Under a dim street lamp in front of the tavern Levin told Laverne that Sadek had got into trouble and was now in the police jail.
“What’d he do?” she asked sullenly, as if he were to blame
“He committed a public nuisance.”
“What’s that?”
“Frankly, he urinated in the alley.”
“What would he want to do that for? We have a gent’s room.”
“You know these foreigners.” Levin shrugged.
“Are you American?”
“American citizen, born and bred in the U.S.A.”
“How come you have that big beard?”
“Out of respect for the dead.”
“Oh.”
“Look, Laverne,” he said thickly, “I like you a lot. It would give me great pleasure to be with you tonight. You’re very attractive:”
“I bet you say that to make me like you.”
He admitted every man had his own language.
“I’ve never done it before with a guy with a beard.”
“It won’t bother you.”
She tittered. “We were going to my brother-in-law’s barn, three miles out on Route 5 by the river. Have you got your car?”
“No, but why don’t we go to a hotel?”
“Have you got six bucks for a double?”
“Frankly no, now that I think of it. All I have on me is four dollars and change.”
“They won’t give you a room for that. Your friend was planning on a cab out to the barn.”
“In that case let’s do the same—but how will we get back?”
“I don’t know for sure. We didn’t talk about that.”
“Could you call a cab from your brother-in-law’s house?”
“No. He don’t know I use his barn or he’d tell my sister. Anyway, they don’t run cabs after half-past two. Have you got a friend of yours who could pick us up?”
“No.” Levin looked at his watch. It was one-twenty. “What we could do is walk home,” he suggested. “It shouldn’t take us too long to walk three miles if you know the way.”
“All right,” Laverne said. She linked her arm with his and they went through the deserted streets. He tipped his hat as they passed the police station.
The taxi took them out to the country, to Levin the pitch-black middle of nowhere. Somewhere along a road with a wire fence on one side and bushes on the other, Laverne told the driver to stop. Levin paid the fare and the cab disappeared in the dark.
“Duck under this wire,” she whispered, “and you better be quiet.”
“Are there any dogs around?”
“Just one in the house but that’s down a ways.”
“Which is the barn?”
“Straight ahead. You’ll see it when your eyes get used to the dark.”
“I see it now.”
He followed her over harvested ground. Laverne rolled open the barn door. She snapped on the overhead light, found an oil lamp, lit it and set it on the ground in an empty stall. She then switched off the overhead light. At the far side of the barn several cows were sleeping on straw. The warm, fecund odor of the animals and the sweet smell of the hay and grain stored in the barn, filled Levin with a sense of well-being. It was overwhelming how his life had changed in a month. You gave up the Metropolitan Museum of Art and got love in a haystack.
“My first barn,” Levin murmured.
“I’ll get the blanket and then we can lay down,” Laverne said.
“In front of the cows?”
“They won’t wake up.”
“Why not in the hayloft? Nice and soft.”
“The hay prickles my skin and makes me laugh in the wrong places. I’ll be right back with Buster’s blanket. You better be getting your pants off.”
“Is Buster your brother-in-law?”
“No, his horse.”
“There’s no chance of anyone coming in on us?” Levin asked. “Farmers get up early.”
“At four he gets up. We’ll be home long before that.” She found the blanket and returned. Levin was still waiting.
“Why don’t you take your pants off?”
“It’s cold here. Have you got a blanket to cover us?”
“No, just this one to lay on.”
“In that case I’ll keep my jacket on.”
“But take your pants off or they’ll get crinkled.”
“Why can’t we take one of the blankets off a cow?” Levin asked. “We’ll put it back later.”
“If you look good you’ll see the cows don’t sleep with blankets on them. They’d get sick if they did.”
Laverne spread the horse blanket on the ground, and standing on it began to undress. She was neat with her clothes, folding each thing and putting it down on a hay bale nearby. Levin placed his hat, trousers, and shoes stuffed with socks and garters, next to her things. He kept his shorts on.
Watching the girl undress in the shadowy light of the lamp in the stall, Levin felt for her an irresistible desire. Ah, the miraculous beauty of women. He considered falling in love with her but gave up the idea. He embraced Laverne and they kissed passionately.
“Your breasts,” he murmured, “smell like hay.”
“I always wash well,” she said.
“I mean it as a compliment.”
“It ain’t so bad here, is it now?” she said softly. “The cows make it warm.”
She knelt on the blanket and Levin got down beside her.
“Blow out the light,” she said.
He did and crawled back to the blanket.
In front of cows, he thought. Now I belong to the ages. “Do you love me any?” Laverne whispered, lying beside him. “Your friend said he did.”
“I love your body. I love your breasts and am grateful to be near them.”
She laughed, seeking him with her hand.
“Now,” she said languidly. Levin rose to his knees and was about to be in her when a noise stiffened him. The barn door rolled open and a light flashed on them. Laverne screamed. Levin rose in panic.
Someone entered the barn, snatched their clothes off the hay bale and ran out.
“Sadek,” Levin called. “Come back, you bastard.” He chased after him but the Syrian was faster. He popped through the wire fence, dropping something but escaping with most of the clothes. A taxi was waiting in the road. The door slammed and the car drove off. Levin furiously shook his fist.
At the fence he found one of Laverne’s shoes and her brassiere. He found nothing else there but near the barn he stepped on cloth and was overjoyed, to pick up his pants.
Laverne had the lamp lit and the horse blanket around her.
“Sadek,” Levin said. “They let him go and he probably got the same cab we had to bring him out here. He grabbed everything except this couple of things of yours I found and my pants. Would there be something around to wear?”
“Not that I know,” she said, “but let’s finish what we were doing and maybe by then he’ll bring our clothes back.”
But Levin, afraid he had waked someone with his shout, wanted to leave. He worried how to get Laverne home with only a blanket around her, and himself without socks or shoes. If they escaped freezing to death, suppose a cop stopped them in town? He could then kiss goodbye to his unbegun college teaching career. The thought gripped him by the hair.
“He won’t bring anything back,” Levin said. “Couldn’t you
possibly borrow some clothes from your sister? We’ll surely get picked up if a cop spots you in that horse blanket.”
possibly borrow some clothes from your sister? We’ll surely get picked up if a cop spots you in that horse blanket.”
“No,” she said sullenly.
“Look Laverne, I’m sorry about the way this has turned out. I didn’t plan it this way, I assure you, but we’d better do something sensible or we’ll both land in trouble. We’d better start out for town right now, before the moon comes up, if it’s going to, or dawn begins to show. In the dark we have a chance.”
“You sure are some fine flop,” she said acidly. “It’s what I get for picking you instead of waiting for the one with guts.”
He felt bad but answered nothing. Levin got his pants on, and she fastened her brassiere and slipped on her shoe. When she had the blanket wrapped around her they left the barn and got through the fence. They followed a rutted road, then a graveled one that butchered Levin’s feet. He picked his way along the road, each step painful. Laverne limped along on one shoe but after a while took it off and flung it into the bushes. Barefoot, she walked without trouble.
“How far to the highway?” he asked.
“About a mile.”
In ten minutes her teeth began to chatter.
“Cold?”
“My ass is
frozen
.”
frozen
.”
Levin, after a minute, stopped and removed his trousers. He handed them to Laverne. She stepped into them without a word, knotted the belt around her waist and rolled up the cuffs. They trudged along the dirt road till they came to an asphalt highway. Laverne wanted to thumb a ride but Levin asked her not to. When a car or truck approached they hid behind trees or lay down in the open fields. Then they went on again, neither speaking.
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