The Troubled Air (40 page)

“His name is Gordon,” Mrs. Pokorny said without opening her eyes. “You’ll find his number in that address book on the table in the hall.”

Archer went into the hall and got the address book. He found the number and entered the bathroom once more. He dialed the number and waited. While he listened to the long, steady ringing on the wire he looked down at Pokorny. The musician rested under water, the bow of his sash neatly and modestly tied, his eyeglasses shining like divers’ windows oil the wavery, resting, escaped face.

Kitty was still awake when Archer got home two hours later. She was sitting up in bed, her glasses on, giving her a studious look in her lacy nightgown that would have struck Archer as humorous and charming at any other time. The bed was covered with bills and slips of paper and canceled checks and Kitty had ink on her fingers from the envelopes she was addressing. Archer felt exhausted. The doctor had questioned him closely and then the police had been suspicious and asked him tricky questions as though they suspected that he had slipped into the house and held Pokorny’s head under water while his wife was away. Two reporters had appeared and Archer heard Mrs. Pokorny say clearly and loudly over and over again that they had killed her husband. Archer had been in the bedroom talking to a slow-moving detective who made little marks in a notebook while listening to Archer, so he didn’t hear exactly what Mrs. Pokorny had told the reporters, but he thought he heard his name mentioned once or twice and when he finally got out of the house one of the reporters, who smelled from gin and cocktail onions, had walked two blocks with him pretending to be solicitous and trying to pump him.

“I don’t know anything,” Archer had said again and again. “I don’t know why he did it. Ask Mrs. Pokorny.”

“Mrs. Pokorny has her own theory, Mr. Archer,” the reporter said. “She has her views of your place in the picture and I think our readers would like to have your side of it, too. We want to be fair to everybody involved,” the reporter said, trying to look fair, upholding the best interests of impartial journalism, trotting alongside Archer because he was walking so fast. “She has some very harsh things to say, Mr. Archer,” said the reporter mournfully, “some pretty strong accusations, and I think all parties involved ought to have a chance to speak for themselves before the story is printed.”

“I am not involved,” Archer said, wondering how far from the truth he was. “I knew him. He worked for me. We were friendly. I happened to drop in. That’s all. I am not interested in getting into a debate with Mrs. Pokorny.” He waved to a cruising taxi and jumped in, as the reporter leaned into the cab, making it smell like a crowded bar, saying, “Just one short statement of the other side of the case, Mr. Archer. Just one sentence …”

Archer started pulling the door shut, pressing it against the reporter, and the man fell back, shaking his head in regret at the uncooperativeness of the public in the search for front-page truth.

When he came heavily into the bedroom, Archer could tell from Kitty’s first glance that she was disturbed about something, too. He prayed that she would wait until morning. He took off his jacket, threw it down and slumped into a chair, overacting his weariness a little in an attempt to make Kitty hold whatever was bothering her for a better time.

But Kitty was not to be put off. Keeping her head bent and not looking at Archer as she scribbled on an envelope, she said, “I made out a lot of checks. If you’ll sign them and put them back in the envelopes, I’ll mail them tomorrow morning.”

“OK,” Archer said, rubbing the top of his head slowly.

“I’ve been looking through the stubs,” Kitty said. “There’re some very strange things in this checkbook.”

“Are there?”

“I thought you told me we ought to economize.”

“Well, so we should. Do you object to that?”

“I agree. I agree completely,” Kitty spoke very quickly, running the words together in little spasms. Archer recognized the signs. Kitty was suspicious and preparing to be angry. “I’ve cut down on a lot of things. I haven’t bought any clothes for myself or Jane in months. I changed markets because Cucitti’s is five cents more a pound on butter than anybody else.”

“That’s fine,” Archer said warily, not understanding what Kitty was doing. “That must be quite a saving each month. Probably three, four dollars.”

“Three, four dollars,” Kitty said flatly. “I’m glad to see you’re so concerned.”

“Please, Kitty …” Archer stood up and began to take off his tie. “Couldn’t we talk about this some other time? I’m awfully tired tonight.”

“I don’t want to talk about it some other time. I’m doing the bills tonight and I want to talk about this tonight.”

Archer went into the closet and hung up his coat and tie. The closet smelled of tobacco and cedarwood and Archer remembered the steamy, close smell of the Pokorny bathroom.

“You don’t seem to be worried at all about money these days,” Kitty was saying, addressing the closet. “Large-handed would be a nice way of putting it. Debonair.”

Archer came out of the closet and looked at himself in the mirror over the bureau. His face looked exhausted, long lines falling away from his mouth, and his eyes looked as though he hadn’t slept well in weeks. Irritated with the way he looked, he turned back, leaning against the bureau and facing Kitty. “What’s the matter, darling?” he asked gently.

Kitty riffled through the checkbook. “Check number 35,” she read. “To Woodrow Burke. Three hundred dollars. Do you remember that?”

Archer sighed. He went over to the chair and sank into it, stretching his legs. “I remember it,” he said.

“Do you have to sigh like that?” Kitty asked, her voice high and tense.

“No,” Archer said. “Forgive me.”

“Why did you give Woodrow Burke three hundred dollars?”

“He asked me for it. He’s out of a job. He’s broke.”

“There’re a lot of people who are out of jobs,” Kitty said. “Do you plan to give them all three hundred dollars?”

“Oh, Kitty …”

“Check number 47,” Kitty read. “To Alice Weller. One hundred dollars. I suppose she’s out of a job, too.”

“As a matter of fact, she is.”

“As a matter of fact,” Kitty repeated. She has a very irritating way of arguing, Archer decided.

“That big, gushing slob of a woman,” Kitty said. “And I’ve been worrying about saving five cents a pound on butter.”

Archer stared coldly at Kitty, hating her lack of charity. From time to time, in arguments, this trait came out in Kitty, but only when she was angry, and she was always repentant later for the things she said and Archer made a point of forgetting those ugly disclosures as soon after as he could. “Kitty,” Archer said, “this is my business. I don’t want to talk about it tonight. I’ll tell you about it some other time.”

Kitty riffled the checkbook. “Two hundred dollars this morning,” she said. “To cash. Have you got the money now?”

“No.”

“I suppose you gave that away to somebody who was out of a job, too.”

“I did.”

“I suppose that’s your business, too?”

“Yes,” Archer said flatly, “it is.”

“Will it be your business when we haven’t got a cent to our names, the way it was when we first got to New York,” Kitty asked, “or will it be my business, too?”

“Kitty, darling,” Archer said wearily, “why don’t we go to sleep now? I’ve had a terrible day and I don’t feel like talking any more. Tomorrow …”

“I want to know what’s happening,” Kitty said. “You’re throwing our money away like a drunken sailor. I know I told you you didn’t have to tell me anything—but it’s getting unbearable. Every time I talk to you or ask you a question, I can see you figuring out how to avoid talking to me … I haven’t felt I was really married to you for a month. Don’t shake your head. It’s true,” Kitty wailed. “It’s true. Don’t try to deny it. It’s not a marriage any more. You’ve put me outside. I wish I wasn’t going to have this child! I didn’t want it! You wanted it, not me, and now look what’s happening …”

Archer got up and went over to the bed. He sat down and put his arms around Kitty. She wasn’t crying. She pulled away from him fiercely.

“Listen, Kitty,” he said softly, “I gave that two hundred dollars to Manfred Pokorny to try to save his life. Listen carefully, darling. When I went over to his house tonight, he was dead.”

Kitty sat absolutely still. Then she turned her head and stared, frozen, at Archer.

“What?” she whispered finally.

“He killed himself. While we were eating dinner. While I was walking across town to see him. I didn’t take a taxi because it was such a nice night.” Saying it hurt. He had avoided phrasing it for himself before this.

Kitty suddenly put her arms around him and held him, hard. “I’m sorry. Oh, dearest,” she whispered, “I’m so sorry.”

Archer kissed her cheek. “I don’t want to talk about it now,” he said. “If you don’t mind.”

“Of course not.” Kitty began to shiver violently. Gently, Archer took her arms down and said, “Get under the covers. You’re freezing. Try to sleep.”

Kitty nodded, her eyes wide, staring, frightened. She lay back and Archer wrapped the blankets around her. She didn’t stop shivering and the silk coverlet rippled over her body. Archer gathered together the scattered bills, the canceled checks, the envelopes with Kitty’s child-like scrawl on them, and put them on her desk. Then he went over and kissed her forehead.

“I’m going downstairs for awhile,” he said. “Don’t worry.”

Kitty didn’t say anything.

He put out the lights and went out. He descended the steps slowly and went into his study. The whole house seemed sentimentally neat and cosy after the Pokornys’ apartment. Chintz, shining brass student lamps, flowers in bowls, gay, striped draperies, polished wood, none of the garish disorder of the composer’s home. If anything tragic happened here, Archer thought, looking around him, it would seem out of place.

On his desk there was the album of records of Pokorny’s quartet. After Archer had come back from the bank that morning, he had taken it off the shelf, intending to play it, to make up for the sense of guilt he had had when Pokorny had asked him how he liked the piece and he had lied and said that he liked it very much. But the telephone had begun to ring before he could put it on the machine and he hadn’t had time to listen to it.

Archer picked up the album. The one piece of music of Pokorny’s that had been recorded in this country, he remembered. Pokorny’s contribution to the culture of America. Three records, on both sides, from a man who was dead at the age of fifty.
Suburban Themes,
the album said. Probably some clever young man at the recording company had suggested the title. It didn’t sound like Pokorny.

Archer went over to the phonograph and put the records on. He turned the dials down low, so that the sound wouldn’t disturb Kitty upstairs. Then he sat down in an easy-chair, facing the machine.

The music was gay, small, clever, full of charming, unpretentious passages. You could imagine children dancing to it and grownups smiling a little as they heard it. There was no trouble in the music. It was pure and bubbling, even rather elegant, and the last movement was serene and evening-like, nothing big, no grand sunsets, no clouds in the sky, no fear of the night, just people meeting each other at suburban stations, after the day’s work was over, kissing each other placidly, turning on the car headlights and carefully going up small hillside roads to comfortable houses and family dinners. Somewhere in Pokorny there had hidden a lyrical householder who worked in a small garden and went sleepily to bed at ten-thirty, surrounded by children.

The music came to an end. Archer sat for a moment in the silence, broken only by the minute swishing of the circling turntable. Then he got up and put the records on once more and listened again to the dead man’s music.

Y
OU COULD LOOK AROUND THE STUDIO AND SEE WHO WAS GOING TO THE
funeral by picking out the dark suits and black ties. Pokorny had, as a last awkward and troublesome gesture, chosen to be buried on a Thursday, in the middle of rehearsal. There was only time for one preliminary reading of the script in the morning, with everyone sitting in a semicircle on collapsible chairs, and the grave color made a wintry pattern among the dresses of the women and the slacks and corduroy jackets of the younger actors. Barbante, Archer noted, Levy, O’Neill, and, surprisingly, Brewer, the engineer, were dressed in honor of the corpse. None of the women was going, Archer saw from their costumes, but, then, none of them had had anything to do with the composer. Vic had on a gray flannel suit with a red tie. Vic hadn’t known Pokorny well, but he had spoken to him more often than Brewer, and had frequently told Archer how much he liked Pokorny’s music. Archer had taken it for granted that Vic would go to the funeral and he found himself staring at Vic’s colorful tie during the reading and concentrating on it to the point of missing a half page of dialogue at a time. At least, Archer thought unreasonably, taking his eyes away from Vic, he might have worn a plain tie today.

When the reading was over, Archer stood up. “There’ll be a break now,” he said, “until one o’clock, so that anybody who wishes can attend the funeral of Manfred Pokorny, who used to do the music for this show.”

The cast stood up soberly, without the customary joking and conversation that ordinarily came at a recess in rehearsal. Everyone looked solemn and reserved, giving Pokorny a polite farewell by speaking in near whispers for a minute or so as they filed out of the studio.

“Clement,” Brewer said, “could you wait for me for five minutes? I have to go upstairs. Then I’d like to ride down with you.”

Archer nodded. “I’ll wait for you here.” Brewer went out, looking like a lumberjack dressed for church in his blue suit.

Archer drifted over toward Vic, who was reading a newspaper. “Vic,” Archer said, “aren’t you coming with us?”

Vic looked up from the paper. “I don’t think so,” he said. “Funerals lost their charm for me during the war. I don’t get any message from cadavers any more.” He grinned crookedly up at Archer. “Too much of a good thing, I guess. Make my apologies to the survivors for me.”