The Troubled Air (38 page)

“What are you talking about?” Archer asked.

“It is true I need some money. I need two hundred dollars. This morning,” Pokorny’s voice began to rush and go into the upper registers again. “But not as a gift. No. Not as a loan. No. Value given for value received. You are my friend and I do not wish you to say in the future Manfred Pokorny is a man who imposes on friendship. I wish it to be strictly business, an up and up transaction.”

“What do you need two hundred dollars for this morning?”

“The lawyers.” Pokorny rocked on the edge of his chair and looked mournfully up at the ceiling. “Lawyers are a bottomless pit. Every paper they prepare is another fortune. Of course,” he said hastily, placating all lawyers, “I know they have their expenses, the offices, the clerks, the research, the education, the cost of living. I do not begrudge it to them. But they have swept me clean.”

“What’re you paying lawyers for?” Archer demanded.

“My action,” Pokorny said. “My investigation. The Immigration. Tomorrow morning at ten, I have to go there. The Government wishes to deport me. There are appeals to be filed, briefs, depositions from witnesses, character statements. There is a man in Chicago who knew me in the old days in Vienna and my lawyer says it would be useful if he could fly there today and get an affidavit from him. He knew me well, he knew I dropped out of the Communist Party in two months. He used to play the oboe, but he gave up the art. He is in the insurance business now, very respected. You and I together should have his bank account. My lawyer says his word will carry a lot of weight. For two hundred dollars, maybe, Mr. Archer …” Pokorny’s eyes blinked nervously behind the thick glasses and his chubby hands pulled at the lock of the brief case on his knees. “For two hundred dollars it is a good chance I stay in America …”

Pokorny sat up stiffly, facing exile at a cut-price. “I know,” he said, “two hundred dollars is a great deal of money. A man has to work hard these days for two hundred dollars. And I know you are a man with responsibilities, a family man, with a beautiful home to support. You can’t be expected to give two hundred dollars to every fellow who comes into the house. It would be unreasonable to suppose that …”

Two hundred dollars to him, Archer thought. Three hundred to Burke. One hundred, as of this date, to Alice Weller. The anti-Communist purge of non-Communists in the radio industry is going to break me finally.

“So,” Pokorny was saying, “I wish to put it on a fair business basis. An investment basis. Not to take advantage. I have a certain property and in return for the two hundred dollars, I give you a share in it. A large share. Whatever you think is right, Mr. Archer …” Pokorny was pleading now and the sweat was rolling down his cheeks into the collar of his dark-blue shirt.

“What is the property you’re talking about, Manfred?” Archer asked gravely.

Pokorny took out a key ring and fumbled with a small key. He put it into the lock of his brief case and wrestled clumsily to open it. “It is not the usual thing, of course,” he said, his head bent over the lock. “Naturally, I do not own large apartment houses or shares in an automobile company.” He laughed nervously at this and Archer tried to smile in reply. “I am a composer and my property is music.” Finally he got the brief case open. He reached in and brought out a sheaf of music paper and some typewritten sheets. “Here …” He waved the papers anxiously at Archer. “It is not quite finished, but you know how fast I can work when my mind is clear, when I am not troubled. In four weeks, two months, I guarantee it will be done, and Mr. Barbante has promised me he will be ready, too …”

“What is it?” Archer asked, puzzled. “What in the world have you got there?”

“A musical comedy. Mr. Barbante and I have been working for six months. About the West.” Pokorny patted the papers lovingly.

“Oh, yes,” Archer said. “Barbante told me.”

“He has written such clever things, Mr. Barbante. Witty lyrics. Love songs that are tender yet modern. And the music … I don’t wish to boast, Mr. Archer, but we have already played some of the songs to people, professional people, in the business, and they have been impressed. Hard, professional people, but they were crazy for it. They have told us it is very hopeful. That’s the word that was used, you can ask Mr. Barbante—hopeful.” Suddenly Pokorny sprang up and rushed over to the desk. He put the sheaf of papers in front of Archer. Archer could see that many of the sheets were stained, as though Pokorny made a practice of eating while he worked. “Here—look—” Pokorny said excitedly, standing very close to Archer’s chair. “Pick any sheet at random. Read it, sing it over to yourself. Get a conception of the quality. Of course it is rough, it needs polishing, but even so—try it …”

“Manfred,” Archer said, pushing his chair back a little. “I can’t read music. I don’t know the first thing about …”

“Musical comedies can make millions of dollars. Look at the things on the boards today. Twenty, thirty dollars a seat, and they run for three years. Men are millionaires today who didn’t have the price of a cup of coffee at the Automat five years ago. A song can catch on and a man can retire for life. Juke boxes, radio, the movies …” Pokorny was almost incoherent now, rushing on through the wild dreams of grandeur and wealth he was conjuring up for himself. “As an investment—unequaled!” He was almost shouting by now, the sweat soaking his collar. “For two hundred dollars, I give you twenty-five percent of my share. Is that fair?” He peered anxiously into Archer’s face. “Not enough? You feel, I am not generous enough? Fifty percent. I write it down now. Black and white. We can go and have it notarized. Two copies for the files. Just read one song. Hum the melody.” He searched frantically among the papers. “Just this one.” He picked out three sheets of music paper, with words written under the notes. “The title,” he said, “is, ‘I Can’t Tell You.’ ”

“I’m sure it’s fine, Manfred,” Archer said. “But I told you I can’t read music. And anyway, I wouldn’t want to take your …”

“Sit back,” Pokorny said hurriedly, as though fearful to let Archer finish his sentence. “It is not necessary to read music. Merely sit back and listen. I’ll sing it for you.” He looked around him wildly. “Where’s the piano? I will accompany myself.”

“I’m afraid we don’t have a piano,” Archer said. “None of us knows how to play.”

“No matter,” Pokorny said. “Of no importance. I sing without the piano. You will get the idea, just the same. It is necessary to get the picture. It is a play about the West. You know that …”

“Yes,” Archer said, hoping to prevent Pokorny from singing. “Barbante told me. But …”

“It is a scene in a dance hall,” Pokorny went on. “The main character is a cowboy. He is bashful, and every Saturday night he comes into the dance hall, all dressed up, and he looks with moon eyes at one of the girls, a soprano. He is a big, rough man, but he is tongue-tied when he looks at Ellie. That’s her name. He wants to say that he loves her, but the words won’t come out.”

Pokorny stepped back and adjusted his glasses, and peered down at the music in his hand. He cleared his throat loudly.

“Manfred!” Archer began to feel a kind of panic. “There’s really no necessity. I take your word for it. I have no ear for music and besides I wouldn’t dream of taking a share from you for …”

Then Pokorny began to sing. He closed his eyes from time to time, to dig more deeply into his inward emotion. “
I can milk, I can ride,”
he sang,
“I can rope when I’m fried, But I can’t tell you—I can preach or palaver, I can shave without lather, But I can’t tell you—I can fight or frolic, Cure a calf with the colic, But I can’t tell you, Can’t Can’t Can’t tell you—”

Archer watched the fat little man, standing in the middle of the floor, waving his arms in time to the music, sweating in his bright, unpressed tweed suit, singing on key and with feeling, his accent making the words of the song seem incongruous and funny, singing in desperation, singing against exile, putting into the flat, unoriginal little song all his hopes of rescue from forces that long ago had doomed him. As he listened to the song, Archer knew that he was going to give Pokorny the money he had asked for.

Pokorny finished and there was silence in the room for a moment. He looked shyly at Archer. “Well,” he asked, almost in a whisper, “what did you think of it?”

“It sounds like a very nice song,” Archer said.

“Thank you.” Pokorny smiled briefly. “Of course, you understand, it should be sung by a young man, a tenor, a very handsome young man in front of scenery, and with a twenty-five-piece orchestra. There’s a very important passage for the clarinet indicated, too …”

Archer got out his checkbook. “Look, Manfred,” he said, “I’m going to give you the money. And I don’t want any share of your music …” He started to write out the check.

“Oh, no, Mr. Archer,” Pokorny said. “Please. I can’t take it as a loan. I insist …”

“When you can,” Archer said, finishing on the check and noting it on the stub as he ripped the check out and waved it to dry it, “you pay me back. That’s all.”

“You’re good,” Pokorny said quietly, folding the music sheets. “You’re too good.”

Archer looked down at the check. Pay to the order of Manfred Pokorny, two hundred dollars, signed Clement Archer. He didn’t hand it to the musician. Suddenly he tore it up. “Come on, Manfred,” he said, standing up and throwing the small bits of paper into the wastebasket. “I’ll give it to you in cash. I’ll walk down to the bank with you. It’s only around the corner. I’m sure the cash will be more useful to you.” But even as he said it, Archer knew that he wasn’t doing it for Pokorny’s sake. A deep feeling of shame overcame him as he looked at the scraps of paper on the bottom of the basket. But he put on his coat and went out with Pokorny, knowing that he had been afraid to have a record in his checkbook of a loan to a friend who was on his way to exile.

They walked swiftly to the bank. Pokorny spoke very little and waited on the other side of the room while Archer cashed the check. Archer crossed over and gave the ten crisp new bills to Pokorny, who carefully put them into a tattered wallet. The musician looked very tired now, as though his performance had exhausted him. “Thank you, thank you,” he said, in a low voice, avoiding looking at Archer. They shook hands outside the bank and Archer said, “I hope this does it for you, Manfred.”

“Oh, yes,” Pokorny said. “The lawyer was confident. Very confident.” He looked up at the austere gray stone front of the bank and the large clock that was hanging there. It was nearly ten o’clock. “I suppose I have to hurry,” he said. “The lawyer has to travel two thousand miles today.” He laughed a little. “That’s a queer profession,” he said. “The law. How does anyone decide to enter it?” He looked around him at the quiet street in the heavy winter light. “This is a nice neighborhood. A good place to live.” Finally he met Archer’s eyes. There was a strange, tremulous expression behind the thick glasses. “Ah, don’t worry about me, Mr. Archer,” Pokorny said. “It hasn’t been so, bad here. Many happy years. Even if they send me away …” He shrugged. “In Germany or Russia I would be dead a long time already …” He smiled, surprisingly. “The piece I gave you the other day,” he said. “The recording. My quartet. Do you like it?”

Archer blinked. He had forgotten to play it. “Yes,” he said. “I thought it was very good. I liked it a lot.”

Pokorny nodded. “I’m glad,” he said. “Of course—the recording is not first class—the second violin is weak—but …” He shrugged again. “I must go to my lawyer,” he said. He turned and walked slowly away, an improbable pink figure topped by a lustrous black hat with the brim turned down all the way around.

Archer watched him for a moment, then went back to his house and tore the check stub out of his book. He ripped it into little pieces and dropped it into the bottom of the basket along with the other scraps of paper.

P
OKORNY CALLED AGAIN THAT NIGHT, AT SEVEN-THIRTY, JUST AS ARCHER
and Kitty were sitting down to dinner. Gloria came into the dining room and said, “It’s for you, Mr. Archer. It’s a Mr. Pokorny.”

Kitty made a face. “Tell him to call later, Gloria. Tell him we’re at dinner.”

Archer half-stood up, then sat down again as Kitty waved her hand at him imperiously. “One hour out of the day,” Kitty said, “they can leave you alone.”

“OK, Gloria,” Archer said. “Tell him to call in an hour.”

Gloria went out of the room and Kitty said, “We have steak tonight. Steak can’t wait. That Mr. Pokorny is getting to be a real pest, isn’t he?”

“A little,” Archer said absently, trying to listen to Gloria’s voice on the phone in the hall. A moment later, Gloria came in, shaking her head.

“The man says he can’t call you later, Mr. Archer,” she said. “He told me please try you one more time.”

Archer stood up. “I’ll be right back,” he said to Kitty.

“Steak costs a dollar a pound,” Kitty said sourly. “Tell Mr. Pokorny that.”

Archer smiled at her and went into the hall. “Yes, Manfred,” he said into the phone.

“If it was possible to call you in an hour,” Pokorny said, “I would do it. You believe that, Mr. Archer, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Archer said patiently. “Of course. What’s happening now?”

“But it is not possible,” Pokorny said. His voice was down to a strange whisper and seemed faraway, rising and falling in strength as though he was moving his head back and forth from the mouthpiece. “It will not be possible. I just wanted you to understand that.”

“Manfred,” Archer said. “Please speak more loudly. I can hardly hear you.”

“Of course,” Pokorny said. But his voice still was remote and he spoke very slowly. “I have some information. I thought you might be interested, but I shouldn’t have called during dinner, but later on it would not be possible …”

“Are you all right, Manfred?” Archer demanded.

“I am fine. I have had a quiet, peaceful day. I have been all alone. I played the piano all afternoon and no one complained …”

“Manfred,” Archer said, “you will have to speak more clearly.”

“The telephone rang,” Pokorny whispered. “Long distance. From Chicago. My lawyer. His flight was excellent, only three hours. Thank you again for the money. You are most generous. I wanted to tell you I thought you were most generous. I wanted to tell you, of all the people I have met in this country, you have treated me with the most consideration. Consideration …” His voice trailed off.