The Complete Stories (67 page)
Read The Complete Stories Online
Authors: Bernard Malamud
“That’s right,” said Fogel. “To be honest, I would have to say that, all in all, this story seems an improvement over your last two. It’s a compelling narrative.”
“Well, that’s a lot better, Mr. Fogel.”
“As for the recommendation, I want to think about it. I’m not sure.”
Gary rose, waving both arms. “Jesus, Mr. Fogel, give me a break. What am I going to live on for the next year? I have no father who left me a trust fund of five thousand bucks a year as you told me your father did for you.”
“You have me there,” said Fogel, rising from the rocker. “I’ve got to have a drink. I was on my way to the liquor store when you drove up.”
Gary offered to go for the bottle but Fogel wouldn’t hear of it.
The writer limped down the stairs in his slippers. At the curb stood the green bus. The sight of it nauseated him.
He’s no friend of mine.
He went to the corner and on an impulse returned to the bus to try the door handle. The door was open. The back seats had been removed and on the floor lay a battered pink-and-gray thin-striped mattress.
In the liquor store Fogel bought a fifth of bourbon. Stepping into Gary’s bus he pulled the door shut. The curtains were drawn. He did not flick on the light.
As he opened the whiskey bottle, Fogel, as though surprised by what he was about to do, told himself, “I have the better imagination.”
On his knees, using a small silver penknife he kept to sharpen pencils, the writer thoroughly slashed the mattress and sloshed whiskey over it. He lit the soaked cotton batting with several matches. The mattress stank as it burned with a blue flame.
Fogel then went upstairs and told Gary he had entered his story to give it a more judicious ending.
After the firemen had extinguished the blaze and the youth had driven off in his smoky bus, the writer took his letters out of the folder in his files and tore them up.
He got one last communication from Gary, enclosing a magazine with the published “Three Go Down” much as he had written it in the first draft. Amid the pages he had inserted some leaves of poison ivy.
1968
V
enice, floating city of green and golden canals. Fidelman floated too, from stern to stern. When the sirocco relentlessly blew in late autumn the island dipped on ancient creaking piles toward the outer isles, then gently tipped to the mainland against the backwash of oily waters. The ex-painter, often seasick in the municipal garbage boat, fished with a net out of the smelly canals, dead rats and lettuce leaves. He had come for the Biennale and stayed on.
enice, floating city of green and golden canals. Fidelman floated too, from stern to stern. When the sirocco relentlessly blew in late autumn the island dipped on ancient creaking piles toward the outer isles, then gently tipped to the mainland against the backwash of oily waters. The ex-painter, often seasick in the municipal garbage boat, fished with a net out of the smelly canals, dead rats and lettuce leaves. He had come for the Biennale and stayed on.
November fog settled on the webbed-canaled and narrowstreeted city, obscuring campanile, church steeples, and the red-tiled roofs of houses tilted together from opposite sides of streets. Oars splashing, he skirted the mist-moving vaporetti, his shouts and curses opposing their horns and the tolling bell buoys in the lagoon. For Fidelman no buoy bells tolled, no church bells either; he kept no track of tide or time. On All Souls’ Day, unable to resist, he rowed after a black-and-silver funeral barge and cortege of draped mourning gondolas moving like silent arrows across the water to San Michele, gloomy cypressed isle of the dead; the corpse of a young girl in white laid stiff in a casket covered with wreaths of hothouse flowers guarded by wooden angels. She waits, whatever she waited for, or sought, or hungered for, no longer. Ah, i poveri morti, though that depends on how you look at it. He had looked too long.
Fidelman, December ferryman, ferried standing passengers, their heads in mist, to the opposite rainy shore of the Grand Canal. Whichever shore. The wet winter rain drummed on the crooked roofs of the
facade-eroded palazzi standing in undulating slime-green algae; and upon moving clusters of black bobbing umbrellas in the dark streets and marketplaces. The ex-painter wandered wet-hatted, seeking in shop windows who knows what treat the tourists hadn’t coveted and bought. Venice was full of goods he hungered for and detested. Yet he sought an object of art nobody would recognize but Fidelman.
facade-eroded palazzi standing in undulating slime-green algae; and upon moving clusters of black bobbing umbrellas in the dark streets and marketplaces. The ex-painter wandered wet-hatted, seeking in shop windows who knows what treat the tourists hadn’t coveted and bought. Venice was full of goods he hungered for and detested. Yet he sought an object of art nobody would recognize but Fidelman.
In January the cold swollen tides of the Adriatic rose again over the Mole, swirling a meter deep on the Piazza and flooding the pavimento of San Marco. If you had to, you could swim to the altar. Gondolas stealthily glided over the Stones of Venice, wet Bride of the Sea, drowning greenly an inch or two annually as Fidelman, a cold fish in his thin pants, inch by inch also drowned, envisioning Tintoretto: “Venice Overwhelmed by Tidal Wave.”
The rain blew away before the sunlit cold but not the pools and ponds, more than one campo alongside open water or canal, flooded. Fidelman staked a claim, having been fired from cross-canal transportation on the complaint of two patriotic gondoliers, and now did his ferrying piggyback for one hundred lire per person, skinny old men half price if they didn’t grip him too tightly around the neck. He had once read of a fiendish beggar who had strangled and drowned a good samaritan carrying him across a flooded brook. Fat people he served last, after he had ferried across the others on line, though they roundly berated him for prejudice, or offered twice the going rate. One aristocratic huge old dame with a voice that rose out of a tuba belabored him with her slender silk umbrella.
Fidelman waded in hip boots through high water glinting like shards of broken mirror in the freezing winter sunlight, and deposited his customers on dry ground, whence they proceeded hurriedly along narrow streets and alleys. Occasionally while transporting a female he gave her a modified feel along the leg, which roused no response through winter clothing; still it was good for the morale. One attractive, long-nosed, almost Oriental-eyed young Venetian woman who mounted his back began at once to giggle, and laughed, unable to control it, mirthfully as he slowly sloshed across the pond. She sat on Fidelman, enjoying the ride, her rump bumping his, cheek pressed to his frozen ear, hugging him casually, a pair of shapely black-stocking legs clasped in the crooks of his arms; and when he tenderly set her down, his penis erect, athrob, she kissed him affectionately and hastily went her way. As Fidelman watched she turned back, smiling sadly, as though they had once been lovers and the affair was ended. Then she waved goodbye and walked on. He wished she hadn’t, for he was after a while in love with her.
When the water receded as the bora roared, drying the city, uncovering here and there a drowned cat, the winter light sprang up crystal clear as Fidelman, once more jobless, holding on to his hat—you can’t chase them on the canals—sought his lady, to no avail. He searched from the Public Gardens to the Slaughter House and on both sides of the humpbacked Grand Canal. And he haunted the little square of blessed memory where he had once carried her across the wet water, chain-smoking used butts from a pocketful in his overcoat as he watched a steam-breathed sweeper sweeping at the mud with a twig broom; but she never appeared. A few of his former clients passed by, all ignoring him but the large aristocratic lady, who called him a son-of-a-dog-in-heat. You can’t win them all.
Afterwards, wandering along the Mercerie in the early evening, through a shop window hung with wires dripping strings of glass beads and trinkets, he had the sudden sense he had glimpsed her, saw himself reflected in her large dark eyes. If he was truly conscious she was standing behind a counter, this slim-bodied, slant-eyed, long-nosed, handsome Venetian, staring at him as though contemplating the mark of fate in the face of a stranger. Then taking another swift look and this time recognizing who he was, she lifted a frightened hand to her bosom and turned abruptly away. He ducked close to the glass under the beads, pawing the window as though to see her better, but she was no longer there; the shop was empty. Fidelman flung away a good butt and entered. The shop was crowded, its shelves laden with glass knickknacks, baubles, Madonnas, medallions, crap for tourists, which proved nothing, although he wondered if she had disappeared for reasons of taste.
Where the woman had been now stood a nearsighted man past sixty, in a gray suit, with puffy brows and potbelly, who gazed at the former ferryman in surprise, if not distaste—as though he knew he was there for no good cause—yet courteously inquired if he could assist him. Fidelman, secretly shivering, modestly priced a vase or two, politely listened to the verdict, nodded, bowed, casting a wild look through the open door into the rear room, where a corpulent glass blower sat at a table working with a small torch, in the process of creating a green glass snake; but no one else. After desperately trying to think what else to do, pretending to be thoughtfully counting the change in his pocket though they both knew he had none, then asking if he could use the gabinetto and being refused, Fidelman thanked the shopkeeper and left. He had visions of her disappearing in a mist. The next day, and every day for two weeks thereafter, he passed the shop seven or eight times daily. The shopkeeper once in
exasperation thrust his arm at him in an obscene gesture but otherwise paid no attention. Fidelman never saw his dream girl in the shop. He had doubts he ever had: trompe l’oeil, mirage, déjà vu, or something of the sort.
exasperation thrust his arm at him in an obscene gesture but otherwise paid no attention. Fidelman never saw his dream girl in the shop. He had doubts he ever had: trompe l’oeil, mirage, déjà vu, or something of the sort.
He then gave her up, no easy trick if you had nothing. Like blowing kisses or kissing blows. Eh, Fidelman, you old cocker, there was a time you would have held on longer. On to what? I had nothing, I gave up nothing. Nothing from nothing equals nothing. Say more and it’s confronting death. On the other hand spring came early that year: to his surprise flowers looking out of house windows. Young jewel-like leaves of myrtles and laurels rose above ancient brick walls in back alleys. Subtle pinks, apricots, lavenders streaked an underwater architecture of floating Gothic and Moorish palazzi. Mosaics glittered, golden and black, on the faces of churches. Sandali sailed under bridges, heaped high with eggplants, green peppers, mounds of string beans. The canals widened, golden light on green water, pure Canaletto all the way to the Rialto. A sense of sea enlivened the air, lagoon, and Adriatic under high blue sky above the outer islands. Fantasticando: Eastern galleons, huge battletubs approaching with cannons booming, star and crescent billowing on red sails, from Byzantium of mosaic saints and dancing dolphins. Boom, tara, War! History, the Most Serene Venetian Republic, Othello singing Verdi as Desdemona tussles in the hay with Iago under a weeping-willow tree. Fidelman, golden-robed Doge of Venice, though maybe better not since they garroted, stabbed, poisoned half the poor bastards. The Doge is dead, long live the dog that did him in! Boom, tara, yay! Fidelman III, Crusader on horse, hacking at Saladin and a thousand infidels! Fidelman in the Accademia! Ah Bellini, Giorgione, Tiziano, carissimi! The ex-painter wiped a wet eyelid, felt better, and decided he hadn’t given her up after all. She is still present, lives in the mind. He kept an eye cocked for the sight of her and with surprise, though not astonishment, spied her in the glass trinket shop, which he now passed only once in a longing while. There she wasn’t but if you looked again, she was.
Church bells.
Cannon scattering pigeons in San Marco.
Gondolas lit with Japanese lanterns.
Holy Mother, you have sent your Blessed Daughter. His heart, if he had a bit left, missed six beats and flapped like a mass of furled banners. He tapped on the window and out she came.
They talked quickly, intensely, searching one another with six
eyes. She spoke her name: Margherita Fassoli, that made it real, an immediate commitment. She was herself real at last, no longer wildgoose shade he chased in a maze of dead-end canals, under low arches, and in alleyways. Breathless, she had only a moment; her uncle out for an espresso forbade her to be friendly with strangers. She had been ill for weeks—niente, a persistent virus—was better now, had hoped he would come by. He did not say how often he had, fruitlessly.
eyes. She spoke her name: Margherita Fassoli, that made it real, an immediate commitment. She was herself real at last, no longer wildgoose shade he chased in a maze of dead-end canals, under low arches, and in alleyways. Breathless, she had only a moment; her uncle out for an espresso forbade her to be friendly with strangers. She had been ill for weeks—niente, a persistent virus—was better now, had hoped he would come by. He did not say how often he had, fruitlessly.
“Fidelman,” he told her. “Where can we go, I have no money?”
She seemed momentarily stunned, hadn’t given it a thought; then confessed she was a married woman—he knew—her husband a glass blower who worked in Murano, Beppo Fassoli. If nothing else he treated her kindly. “He gets annoyed about the kids sometimes but otherwise he’s considerate. I’m sure you’ll like him, he’s wise about life.”
“I can’t invite you to my dump, Margherita,” Fidelman said. “All it is is a lousy rathole with a bed that would collapse with two in it. And nothing else but a wine bottle to piss in. Should you open the window you have no idea of the stench of the canal.”
She was desolated, squeezed her hands white but could not offer her place. They had four rooms and two boys, Riccardo and Rodolfo, eight and ten, little terrors. That made her around thirty or so, not a bad age for a woman. She was simple, spontaneous, direct—had already taken his hard hand and pressed it to her bosom. Her nose and eyes, pure Venetian. Her glossy hair, parted in the center, was rolled in braided circles over the ears. Her eyes were beyond him: the depth, light in dark, quiet enduring sadness—who knows where or from what. Whoever she was she knew who.
Margherita was urging him to go before her uncle returned.
“I will if you say when I can see you.”
She gazed at him hungrily, eating with mouth, eyes. “Do you really want to, caro? There are so many better-looking women around.”
“Passionately. But it’s now or never, I’m frankly famished. Another day of dreaming and I’m a dead man. The ghost gives up.”
“Oh my God, what do you mean?”
“I mean living on dreams. Sleeping with them. I can’t anymore though I’ve accomplished nothing.”
“Mio caro,” she all but wept.
“Couldn’t we go someplace you know? I haven’t a lousy lira to rent a room. Do you happen to have a friend with an apartment we could borrow?”
She reflected hopelessly. Though her eyes lit she shrugged her shoulders.
“Maybe. I’ll have to ask. But stop shivering as though you were in heat and take your hand out of your pocket. It doesn’t look nice.”
“I won’t apologize for my passion. I’m hard up, it’s now or never.”
She finally agreed, asked him to meet her at the campanile after work. She would beg off around three.
“The boys come home from school at six and I’ve got to be there or they’ll wreck the furniture. Beppo doesn’t control them well enough. Usually he’s not home before eight.”
“All we need is a good hour.”
“There’s no need to rush, caro.”
They kissed in the street. A passing tourist snapped a picture. The uncle hurried toward them, nearsightedly seeing nothing. Margherita disappeared into the shop as Fidelman walked quickly away.
This time is different, this one loves me.
They met at the bell tower, a dozen clucking pigeons at their feet. Margherita was tired around the eyes, a smudge of darkness, but worked up a listless smile; he blamed it on her recent illness. On the walk across the neck of the city she became animated again, showed him where Tintoretto had lived, in a Moorish section with turbaned figures and kneeling camels sculptured on stone plaques on house walls. Her matchstick street, take a few steps you were out of it, led into Fondamenta Nuove. In fact from her door he could see the island cemetery, thick with graves, across the water. They entered an old building, scabby masonry showing thin orange bricks, four stories high, terrazzi at the top floor loaded with potted plants—this house separated from the one it leaned toward across the narrow way by two or three buttresses at rooftop. She walked up the stairs, Fidelman at her direction trailing by two flights. He heard her open three locks with a bunch of keys. She left the door ajar for him.
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