The Houseguest (30 page)

He arrived at what, according to the return address on the envelope in his pocket, was the building where Jacob Feinman lived. He buzzed the bell and waited. No one answered. He buzzed again. A few minutes later a man and woman stopped in front of the building, and Abe slipped in behind them.

He had an idea about waiting in the stairwell, but instead he climbed the four flights of stairs and ventured down the hallway in the direction of apartment 4D. He went to knock but found the door unlatched. Voices, male and female, mingled within. He pushed the open door a few inches wider and found himself entering a few feet into the hallway. It was the female voice that drew him. He thought it might be Ana.

They were speaking loudly, arguing. As he inched further inside, he saw a third figure, a man seated and mostly out of view, whose legs but not face he could make out. He seemed to be sitting there very still while the other man shouted at the woman, a young woman with curly hair who sat in a hard-backed chair and now began to cry.

“Enough, enough, enough. Vivienne, enough!”

The girl dropped her hands from her eyes, and Abe saw that there were no tears in them. “What is it this time?” she said.

“Why are you crying?” the man on the sofa asked.

“Why am I crying?” she repeated. “I don't know how to answer that.”

“It's a simple enough question, Vivienne.
Dlaczego placzesz? Pourquoi pleures-tu? Perche piangi?
Is there some other language you speak that I've neglected?”

“It says right here in the script . . . ?”

“I don't care what it says in the script. People don't go to see a play to find out what it says in the script.”

Abe knocked loudly then walked forward. “Excuse me, I'm sorry to interrupt. I'm looking for . . .”

“Wait,” said the man on the couch, hardly glancing up. “I'll be with you in a minute.”

“There's no need for personal insults,” said the other man. The woman, who now looked as though she might begin to cry in earnest, removed a cigarette case from her pocket and lit one with a trembling hand.

“Personal insults? How about professional insults? Artistic insults? Insults to my intelligence and my humanity, not to mention the audience.” He turned to the woman. “You say you cry because the script tells you to cry. But the script has no power over you, me, or anyone. The script is horseshit, a ridiculous melodrama. There is no artistry in this script. It was written by some hack who is probably in Hollywood by now, which is exactly where I'd like to be so as to not have to deal with these orgies of mediocrity. You do not cry because the script tells you to any more than you laugh because someone tells you to laugh. You cry because this . . .” He stood and walked toward the girl then turned her around to face the other actor, holding her tightly by the backs of her shoulders. “You cry because this man, this man here, looking at you now, is the only man you have ever loved. And now he tells you that despite this love, he's going to marry the daughter of his father's business partner, not because he loves her but because it is ‘the reasonable thing to do.' That is why you should be crying, Vivienne. That is why you, or more precisely, why Magda, cries. Not because the script says so.”

The girl's cigarette had burned to its end. She took a delicate puff, and the ashes fell. The man beside her fetched an ashtray on the windowsill, took the smoldering butt from her.

“Now get out and spend the evening contemplating what I've told, if you are actually capable of contemplation.”

The actress didn't move, just stood there trembling. “Screw you, Jacob,” she said, quite softly.

“I'm sorry? What was that?”

“I said, ‘screw you!'”

His eyebrows arched. The pen in his hand dropped. “Screw me? Truly? Did I truly hear correctly?”

“You heard all right.”

“Ah, well, I see. In that case: You're fired. You are completely and profoundly fired. Get the fuck out of my apartment.”

“Come on, Jacob,” said the other actor.

“You want to be next?”

After they'd left, the man returned to his place on the sofa and resumed reading, staring down onto a pad of paper, squinting and making notes.

“What?” he said at last without glancing up. “If Grossman sent you to collect the rent, you tell the bastard it's coming. If these actors I cast can stop putzing around long enough to learn their lines,
The Pharaoh's Son
is going to be a huge hit. It's the dumbest show I've ever directed, which is a sure indication of box office success, so you tell the bastard to get off my back.”

Abe cleared his throat, held up his hands. “I'm not from the theater. I'm not here for any rent.”

“Who are you then?” He jotted another few notes then finally looked up. “Are you here to rob the place again? Well, go ahead. There's nothing left. A jar of pickles in the icebox. A couple mattresses and a miserable landlord on my ass every second of every day. Be my guest.”

“I'm not here to rob you.”

“What is it then?”

“You're Jacob Feinman?”

“Unfortunately.”

“I'm looking for your sister.”

He put down his pen, looked up. There was a moment when neither spoke, then he removed his glasses, began rubbing the lenses on his shirt. “My sister?” he repeated.

“Your sister.”

“I don't have any sister.”

“You're Jacob Feinman?”

“We seem to be going in circles.”

“Look, I'm not here to cause her any trouble, if that's what you think. I'm a friend. I care about her very much.”

“Mazel tov.”

“She told me all about you. I've seen your letters. She was writing to you in Utica.”

“Utica?”

“She was staying with my family there.”

An expression of both pain and comprehension spread across his face, then a slow, deep sigh. “I think I'm beginning to understand.”

“Listen. I'm sorry to show up like this. I wouldn't have done it if I wasn't desperate. But I have to find her. Can you help me? Do you know where she is?”

Jacob let the pad of paper he'd been holding fall to the floor. He removed his glasses again, this time rubbing his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. His mouth widened into a yawn but instead of air, out came something between a shout and a groan. “Ana Beidler,” he said. “I need her bullshit like a hole in the head. As though I don't have enough to worry about, I have to deal with her, too. This is what I need with everything else going on? The union hounding me every second. Apparently, a man can no longer direct a show in this town
without hiring every able-bodied Jew in New York. A low-budget art production and they want me to employ a minimum of nine stagehands, ten musicians, fifteen ushers, five doormen, the doormen's cousins, five cashiers, a benefit manager, a general manager, a Yiddish publicity agent, a security man to keep the hordes from raiding the box office (when was the last time that happened?), superintendents, bill posters, scene painters, someone to pick the scene painters' noses and scratch the bill posters' asses. And, of course, they all must be paid fair wages. They all must be treated with respect. Would they like to eat my organs, too, while they're at it? Thanks but no thanks. The Yiddish theater is a dying animal, and the unions are picking over its carcass. I've known for years I needed to get out. This is my last show. I have to get to California if I have to sell every ounce of dignity to get there.”

Abe shrugged. He was beginning to sense it would be easier to get what he wanted if he went along. “Why don't you then?”

“Good question. That's just the sort of question Ana would ask. I suppose it's a little thing called integrity. Sticking with a thing. Seeing a thing through even when times are tough. And now, on top of everything, I have to find a new actress for this schlock. Well, hey, if Ana's back in town, maybe I'll call her. Maybe she'll do it for me, if she's given up on her latest cause.” He paused again then added, “You really came all the way from Utica to find her? Why would you do that?”

Abe hesitated. “You want the truth?”

“Probably not, but go ahead.”

Abe took a deep breath, sat down on the chair where the actress had been crying, leaned forward.

The man stared at Abe. His own face was younger than his voice. His eyes, dark in hue to start with, were shadowed further by the overhang of his brow. Not the worst nose but not the best, either. It jutted like a knob in his knobby face. He was tall, thin all over, a prominent Adam's apple and an understated mouth, and yet taken together these features did not make him appear ridiculous but brooding and severe.
It was an intelligent face, a face that would have looked at home poring over mathematical equations or a symphony's score, a face not intended for work out of doors.

Abe pulled a loose thread from the sleeve of his shirt.

“You're unraveling,” said Jacob Feinman.

“Listen, I don't want to take up your whole day. I'll wait at my hotel and the next time you see her . . .”

He was waving it away. “Come on. Who am I to send away a friend of Ana's?”

“No, I can't impose.”

“I insist. Of course, you don't want to sit around here. There's a club just down the street.”

Abe stood there for a moment before answering. “Fine,” he said. “Where is this place?”

Feinman led him toward the door, plucked his hat from a peg and put it on his head, slightly aslant. “On Second Avenue,” he said. “Where else?”

DAYLIGHT FADED AS
the two men walked north. Away from his apartment, Feinman seemed lighter and younger, infinitely at ease in his own skin. Abe, on the other hand, had never felt so out of place.

Only a few hundred miles from Utica, the air was entirely different, of a different season; it seemed warmer, heavier. A few pinpricks of stars shone palely in the gloaming sky, and the sky seemed broader, more expansive, than it did at home, even if much of it was blocked out by the tenement skyline. Feinman walked quickly. Abe was unsure whether to walk beside or slightly behind him. Either way, a trail of his cigarette smoke wafted toward his face.

It was still early evening when they arrived, but already a crowd was forming outside the cafe, or club, or playhouse, or whatever it was. Tall women and short men milled and smoked. The women wore elaborate dresses, ermine capelets, red satin turbans, full stage makeup,
and costume jewels. The men wore blue suits, cashmere overcoats, white hats. A few wore white spats. “What is this place?” he asked Feinman, who was already cutting though the crowd.

“The cafe,” he answered.

“What's it called?”

“I just told you. The cafe. That's all anyone calls it. It's not what it used to be, but it's still the center. Ten years ago, the maître d' here was considered the most powerful man on Second Avenue. He could get you a face-to-face with any producer in town. Now he just brings you to your table.”

“You think Ana will come here?”

“Could be.”

Inside, a small man, dressed in black, bowlegged, smelling of onions and hair grease, greeted Feinman with an embrace. “How goes it, my friend?”

“It goes.”

He pointed toward the left side of the establishment where other patrons sat drinking, scribbling on notepads, talking closely in twos or loudly in groups. “Your table's ready, you and Mr. . . .”

Feinman tried to answer but had already forgotten Abe's name.

“Auer,” he said himself.

“For you and Mr. Auer. An investor for your new play?” the man asked in Yiddish.

“I should be so lucky. But, no. A friend of Ana's.”

“How is Miss Beidler?” the waiter asked.

“I'm not the man to tell you,” said Feinman. “You should ask him,” he said, pointing to Abe.

“Trouble in paradise?”

“If she's in paradise, drive a horn into my head and send me to Hades.”

“I'll get you a scotch instead.”

“That'll do nicely.”

The maître d' placed a hand on Feinman's back and led them deeper into the club's interior. There were at least a hundred people milling around them.

Abe sat down slowly, tried to get his bearings. The cafe seemed to be divided into sections. The cluster of tables where Feinman and Abe were being led was peopled by other men and women conservatively dressed, drinking martinis and manhattans and speaking in quiet tones. Behind this section, the tables got smaller and the patrons sloppier. They slouched in their seats, cradled instruments in their laps, nursed highballs of whiskey and ice, and smiled as long-legged women in dresses no more than slips drank and joked with them and, in a few cases, sat on their laps. Still farther behind the musicians, Abe could make out another room where there seemed to be no women at all, a separate space where men played pinochle and smoked cigars. At the next table over sat a short man with a trumpet in his hand and a blonde on his lap. She had slipped out of her shoes and was talking about her new stockings, pointing her toes and lifting her legs to show them off.

“Make yourself at home,” Feinman said. “You drink scotch?”

The waiter brought them two. Abe took a sip, then another, wincing at the burn. A woman in a sequined gown and sequined headdress stepped onto a stage in the back and began a ballad. She was all starlight, a deep, honeyed light. Conversation softened for a moment and then resumed. He sank into his chair a little, took another sip. The scotch kept burning long after he swallowed. The smoke was dense and burned his eyes. Everything around him was cast in low lights and seemed to smolder. He scanned the space, hoping to see Ana, but she was nowhere. A waiter came over and set two plates of steaming beef and potatoes before them, and only when he smelled the steam did Abe realize he'd hardly eaten all day. Feinman looked at the food admiringly but didn't pick up his fork.