Appointment in Samarra (21 page)

“No.”

“Sure you do. They have priests there, Catholics, and they beat you and make you go to church every morning at five o’clock. That’s what I hear.”

“From who did you hear that? Who from?” said Butch.

“From—oh, lots of fellows told me that. I know it for a fact. That came from somebody that knows all about it and I’m not allowed to tell you his name. So will you go? We can sell papers in Philly. I was there often and they have fellows the same age as us selling papers there, so so can we. Younger than us. I’ve
seen little kids I bet they weren’t more than about nine and a half years old, they were selling papers right in the Bellevue-Stratford.”

“Aw,” said Butch.

“They were so,” said Julian. “I bet you don’t even know what the Bellevue-Stratford is. Where is it?”

“In Philly. Anybody knows that.”

“But
what
is it?”

“Oh, I don’t know. You don’t know everything.”

“See? You don’t know. Well, it’s the hotel where we always stay—” Julian was brought up then to the fact that if he was going to Philadelphia, this time he was not going to stay at the Bellevue-Stratford. “Well, are you going with me?”

“I guess so.”

They waited until the train was beginning to move, and then they got on the front platform of the caboose. They had to get off a couple of times at way stations, and finally they were caught. They were turned over to the railroad police in Reading, and were brought back to Gibbsville on the “late train.” Butch Doerflinger the elder and Dr. English were standing on the platform of the Gibbsville station when the train pulled in. The elder Doerflinger had made many, too many, remarks about his son being a chip off the old block, and he was amused and a little proud of his son. “Only twelve years old yet and hopping freights already. By Jesus, you don’t know what kids are today, say, Doc?” His plans were made: a good beating for young Butch and make him work on the delivery wagon every day.

But William Dilworth English, M.D., was not thinking of the immediate punishment of his son; that was something which could be decided upon. He was not thinking of the glory of having a son who hopped freight trains. The thing that put him in the deep mood and gave him the heavy look that Julian saw on his face was that “chip off the old block” refrain of Butch Doerflinger’s. William Dilworth English was thinking of his own life, the scrupulous, notebook honesty; the penny-watching, bill-paying, self-sacrificing honesty that had been his religion after his own father’s suicide. And that
was his reward: a son who turned out to be like his grandfather, a thief.

Julian never stole anything else, but in his father’s eyes he was always a thief. In college Julian about once a year would be overdrawn at the bank, invariably because of checks he wrote while he was drunk. His father never spoke to him about it, but Julian knew from his mother what his father thought of his money habits: “…do try to be more careful (his mother wrote). Your father has so many worries and he is specially worried about you where money matters are concerned because he thinks it’s in the blood, because of Grandfather English.”

*   *   *

It was nine-thirty, the morning after the night at the Stage Coach. It couldn’t have been more on the dot of nine-thirty by the modern little clock on Caroline’s dressing-table. The little clock had no numerals but only squares of metal where the numerals were supposed to be. He lay there thinking about the pictures evoked by the sound of “nine-thirty”: people still hurrying to work, coming in to Gibbsville from Swedish Haven and Collieryville and all the other little towns nearby; people with worried faces, worried because they were late to work. And the early shoppers. But there would be no early shoppers today, Friday, the day after Christmas. It was too early to start to exchange Christmas gifts. Monday would be time enough for that. But the stores had to be open, and the banks, and the coal company offices, and the business men who made a business of being conscientious about getting to work, got to work. “Me, for instance,” he thought, and got out of bed.

He was wearing his underwear. His tailcoat and trousers were folded and hanging on a chair, and other things told him that Caroline had taken the studs out of his shirt, the garters from his socks, his tie, his waistcoat, and put the things in the laundry that belonged in the laundry. That meant she was up, because in the mood she must have been in when they came home last night she wouldn’t have bothered to take care of his things. He shaved, bathed, dressed, and went downstairs and poured himself a drink.

“Oh, you’re up,” said Mrs. Grady, the cook.

“Good morning, Mrs. Grady,” said Julian.

“Mrs. English came down for breakfast but she went back to bed,” said Mrs. Grady.

“Any mail?”

“I don’t think anything important. Christmas cards, by the look of them,” she said. “Do you want eggs for breakfast or what?”

“Sure.”

“Well, I didn’t know,” she said. “I seen you was taking a drink of liquor so I didn’t know if you wanted the eggs. I’ll have them ready for you. The coffee’s ready. I was just having a little cup myself when I heard you in here.”

“Oh, one of those little cups,” said Julian.

“Hmm?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all. Three and a half minutes for the eggs, remember?”

“I ought to after four years. I ought to remember how long you want your eggs done.”

“Yes, you ought to, but you don’t always,” said Julian. He was annoyed with her contemptuous manner.

“Now listen here, Mister English—”

“Oh, go boil the eggs, will you, and for Christ’s sake shut up.” There it was again: servants, cops, waiters in restaurants, ushers in theaters—he could hate them more than persons who threatened him with real harm. He hated himself for his outbursts against them, but why in the name of God, when they had so little to do, couldn’t they do it right and move on out of his life?

There was no newspaper on the table, but he did not want to speak to Mrs. Grady, so he sat there without it, not knowing whether the damn paper had come, with nothing to read, no one to talk to, nothing to do but smoke a cigarette. Five minutes of ten, for God’s sake; there ought to be a paper here by this time, and that old cow probably had it out in the kitchen and was just keeping it out there to annoy him. By God, she ought to be—oh, nuts. She got along all right with Caroline. That was it; the old cow, she probably knew from Caroline’s
manner that there was something wrong about last night, and her sympathies were, of course, all with Caroline. Well, she wasn’t being paid to take sides in family quarrels, and she certainly wasn’t being paid to—he got up and walked noisily to the kitchen.

“Where’s the paper?” he said.

“Huh?”

“I said, where’s the
paper!
Don’t you understand English?”

“I understand one English,” she said.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Mrs. Grady, even you ought to know that’s old stuff. Where’s the paper?”

“Your wife took it upstairs with her. She wanted to read it.”

“How do you know? Maybe she wanted to build a fire with it,” he said, on his way out.

“There ain’t no fireplace upstairs, smartie.”

He had to laugh. He had to laugh, and pour himself a drink, and he was putting the top back on the bottle, which had a little chain holding a plate marked Scotch around the neck, when she brought in the large breakfast tray. He wanted to help her with it, but he would be damned if he would.

“Maybe she’s asleep now and I can get the paper,” said Mrs. Grady.

“No, thanks, don’t bother,” said Julian. He had a suspicion that Caroline not only was not asleep, but had heard every move he made from the time he got up. She was sleeping in the guest room again.

“Will you be coming home for lunch?”

“No,” said Julian, although he had not given it any thought.

“Well, then, about the stuff for the party tonight.”

“Oh, God. I forgot about it,” said Julian.

“Well, Mrs. English says to tell you to leave a check for the liquor and champagne wine. It’s to be delivered this afternoon.”

“How much, did she say?”

“She said to make it out to cash and she’d fill in the amount when Grecco brings it.”

Grecco. She would bring that up. And it was strange that Caroline wanted him to make out the check. She had her own
money; right now she had more than he had. She had her own money, and always when they gave parties she would pay for the liquor when it was delivered, if she happened to be home, and they would settle it up later. On a party like this, which was as much hers as his, he would buy the liquor and she would pay for everything else. He wished there was going to be no party.

He finished his breakfast and drove downtown to the John Gibb Hotel, where every morning he stopped to have his shoes shined. John, the Negro who had the shine concession, was not there. “He ain’t been in this morning yet,” said one of the barbers. “I guess he had too much Christmas cheer, like a lot of us.” Julian watched the man carefully, but he did not seem to mean anything by the remark; and Julian reflected that his conduct the night before was not something that would be talked about in barber shops. Friends meant something, and they did not talk about that sort of thing in barber shops. Still, on his way out to the car he remembered that last night was only the second of two big nights for him, and it was extremely likely that barbers and everyone else had heard about his performance with Harry Reilly. “Good God,” he said, remembering. This morning he had forgot all about Harry Reilly.

He changed his mind about driving out to the garage right away. Harry Reilly had an office in the bank building and he decided to call on Harry there. It was two blocks from the hotel, and he might get a ticket for parking, but if he couldn’t get the ticket fixed, it was worth the two-dollar fine to have things straightened out with Harry.

Some places the sidewalk was all clean, some places there was only a narrow path cleared away, and the snow got down in his shoes when he stepped out of the way for women. Another minor annoyance. In front of J. J. Gray’s jewelry store he met Irma Fliegler. “Hello, Julian,” she said.

“Hello, Irma,” he said, and stopped.

She was wearing a raccoon coat and she had some packages under her arm. It was still so cold that from a short distance away women did not seem to have any distinctive features, but close up she became Irma Doane, or at least Irma Fliegler,
again; still pretty, a bit on the stout side, but stout in a way that did not make her unattractive. You knew that she was not going to get stouter, or definitely fat. She had very pretty legs and hands. You remembered how pretty her hands were when you saw them with gloves on.

“Well, you certainly were a fine example of the young mother last night,” said Julian. He knew it was the wrong thing to say, but some mention had to be made of last night. Better to make some mention of it than to be self-conscious about not bringing it up.

“Me? What did I do? Julian, you’re nuts.”

“Now, now, Irma, you don’t think I don’t remember. Didn’t you know you stole the trombone player’s hat?”

“Oh, you’re kidding. You’re a fine one to talk, you are. What a load you had. Did you get home all right?”

“I guess so,” he said. Then he thought quickly. “I felt a little sick, haven’t felt that way in years, and I was dancing, too, so I had to go out.”

“Oh,” she said. Maybe she believed him.

“I pulled a complete pass-out in the car. I think it was some girl from your party that I was dancing with,” he said. Maybe she might believe him.

“Oh, no it wasn’t. Not that they didn’t want to, but you went out with the singer.”

“What singer?”

“Helene Holman her name is, she sings at the Stage Coach.”

“Oh, it’s worse than I thought. I guess I have to send her flowers. I had some vague idea it was Frannie. I remember talking to her.”

“She was there, but you didn’t dance with her,” said Irma. “She was having her own troubles. Well.”

“See you soon,” said Julian.

“ ’Bye,” she said.

He walked on, a little afraid that he had made a fool of himself, that Irma had not believed a word of his too-ready story that he had gone out with Helene because he was sick. But he knew that whatever he did, Irma would stick up for him. He always had liked Irma; she was the prettiest girl in high school,
and a big girl, when he was a kid running around with Butch Doerflinger and Walt Davis and the rest of his kid friends. She had taught him in Sunday School, and did not report him on Sunday afternoons when he “bagged it” to go to a ball game. He wished he could tell her all his troubles, and he knew that if there was one person to whom he would tell them, it would be Irma. But she was Mrs. Lute Fliegler, the wife of one of his employees. He told himself that he must not forget that.

He went up in the elevator to Harry Reilly’s office. “Hello, Betty. Your boss in?” Betty Fenstermacher was a stenographer who also ran the switchboard in Harry’s office. Betty also had given her all to Julian and at least a dozen of his friends when they were all about nineteen or twenty.

“Hello, Ju,” she said. “Yes, he’s in all right. Can’t you hear him? He’s going away, and you’d think he was never away before in his life. Do I have to announce you?”

“I think you’d better. Where’s he going?”

“Oh, New York,” she said, and spoke into the telephone. “Mr. English is here to see Mr. Reilly. Shall I send him in?”

Just then Harry appeared, bag in hand, hat and coat on. “I’ll be back by Tuesday at the latest,” he was saying. “Phone Mrs. Gorman and tell her I made the train all right.” He turned his face, and for the first time Julian was able to see that Harry’s eye was decorated with a shiner, there was no other word for it. The ice apparently had smacked his cheekbone, and the pouch of flesh under the eye was blue and black and red and swollen. “Oh, it’s you,” said Harry.

“Yes, I thought I might as well come—”

“Listen, I can’t wait another minute. I’m catching the ten-twenty-five and I have about four minutes. I’ll be back next week.” He ran through the office. Julian thought of going along with him to the station, but rejected that plan. He couldn’t get anything said to a man who had four minutes to catch the train. On her own hook Betty Fenstermacher was calling the station and telling them to hold the train; Julian became conscious of this, and when she finished he said: