Fierce Pajamas: An Anthology of Humor Writing from The New Yorker (43 page)

A sense of being late for some appointment as odiously exact as school, dinner, or bedtime added the discomfort of awkward haste to the difficulties of a quest that was grading into delirium. The foliage and the flowers, with none of the intricacies of their warp disturbed, appeared to detach themselves in one undulating body from their pale-blue background, which, in its turn, lost its papery flatness and dilated in depth till the spectator’s heart almost burst in response to that expansion. He could still make out through the autonomous garlands certain parts of the nursery more tenacious of life than the rest, such as the lacquered screen, the gleam of a tumbler, the brass knobs of his bedstead, but these interfered even less with the oak leaves and rich blossoms than would the reflection of an inside object in a windowpane with the outside scenery perceived through the same glass. And although the witness and victim of these phantasms was tucked up in bed, he was, in accordance with the twofold nature of his surroundings, simultaneously seated on a bench in a green-and-purple park. During one melting moment, he had the sensation of holding at last the key he had sought, but, coming from very far, a rustling wind, its soft volume increasing as it ruffled the rhododendrons, confused whatever rational pattern Timofey Pnin’s surroundings had once had. He was alive and that was sufficient. The back of the bench against which he still sprawled felt as real as his clothes, or his wallet, or the date of the Great Moscow Fire—1812.

A gray squirrel sitting on comfortable haunches on the ground before him was sampling a peach stone. The wind paused, and presently stirred the foliage again.

The seizure had left him a little frightened and shaky, but he argued that had it been a real heart attack, he would have surely felt a good deal more unsettled and concerned, and this roundabout piece of reasoning completely dispelled his fear. It was now four-twenty. He blew his nose and trudged back to the station.

The initial employee was back. “Here’s your bag,” he said cheerfully. “Sorry you missed the Cremona bus.”

“At least”—and what dignified irony our unfortunate friend tried to inject into that “at least”—“I hope everything is good with your wife?”

“She’ll be all right. Have to wait till tomorrow, I guess.”

“And now,” said Pnin, “where is located the public telephone?”

The man pointed with his pencil as far out and sidewise as he could without leaving his lair. Pnin, bag in hand, started to go, but he was called back. The pencil was now directed streetward.

“Say, see those two guys loading that truck? They’re going to Cremona right now. Just tell them Bob Horn sent you. They’ll take you.”

SOME people—and I am one of them—hate happy endings. We feel cheated. Harm is the norm. Doom should not jam. The avalanche stopping in its tracks a few feet above the cowering village behaves not only unnaturally but unethically. Had I been reading about this mild old man, instead of writing about him, I would have preferred him to discover, upon his arrival at Cremona, that his lecture was not this Friday but the next. Actually, however, he not only arrived safely but was in time for dinner—a fruit cocktail to begin with, mint jelly with the anonymous meat course, chocolate syrup with the vanilla ice cream. And soon afterward, surfeited with sweets, wearing his black suit, and juggling three papers, all of which he had stuffed into his coat so as to have the one he wanted among the rest (thus thwarting mischance by mathematical necessity), he sat on a chair near the lectern while, at the lectern, Judith Clyde, an ageless blonde in aqua rayon, with large, flat cheeks stained a beautiful candy pink and two bright eyes basking in blue lunacy behind a rimless pince-nez, presented the speaker.

“Tonight,” she said, “the speaker of the evening— This, by the way, is our third Friday night; last time, as you all remember, we all enjoyed hearing what Professor Moore had to say about agriculture in China. Tonight we have here, I am proud to say, the Russian-born, and citizen of this country, Professor—now comes a difficult one, I am afraid—Professor Pun-neen. I hope I have it right. He hardly needs any introduction, of course, and we are all happy to have him. We have a long evening before us, a long and rewarding evening, and I am sure you would all like to have time to ask him questions afterward. Incidentally, I am told his father was Dostoevski’s family doctor, and he has travelled quite a bit on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Therefore I will not take up your precious time any longer and will only add a few words about our next Friday lecture in this program. I am sure you will all be delighted to know that there is a grand surprise in store for all of us. Our next lecturer is the distinguished poet and prose writer Miss Linda Lacefield. We all know she has written poetry, prose, and some short stories. Miss Lacefield was born in New York. Her ancestors on both sides fought on both sides in the Revolutionary War. She wrote her first poem before graduation. Many of her poems—three of them, at least—have been published in ‘Response,’ a collection of a hundred love lyrics by American women. In 1922, she published her first collection, ‘Remembered Music.’ In 1924, she received the cash prize offered by—”

But Pnin was not listening. A faint ripple stemming from his recent seizure was holding his fascinated attention. It lasted only a few heartbeats, with an additional systole here and there—last, harmless echoes—and was resolved in demure reality as his distinguished hostess invited him to the lectern. But while it lasted, how limpid the vision was! In the middle of the front row of seats he saw one of his Baltic aunts, wearing the pearls and the lace and the blond wig she had worn at all the performances given by the great ham actor Khodotov, whom she had adored from afar before drifting into insanity. Next to her, shyly smiling, sleek dark head inclined, gentle brown gaze shining up at Pnin from under velvet eyebrows, sat a dead sweetheart of his, fanning herself with her program. Murdered, forgotten, unrevenged, incorrupt, immortal, many old friends were scattered throughout the dim hall among more recent people, such as Miss Clyde, who had modestly regained a front seat. Vanya Bedniashkin, shot by the Reds in 1919, in Odessa, because his father had been a liberal, was gaily signalling to his former schoolmate from the back of the hall. And in an inconspicuous situation Dr. Pavel Pnin and his anxious wife, both a little blurred but on the whole wonderfully recovered from their obscure dissolution, looked at their son with the same life-consuming passion and pride that they had looked at him with that night in 1912 when, at a school festival commemorating Napoleon’s defeat, he had recited (a bespectacled lad all alone on the stage) a poem by Pushkin.

The brief vision was gone. Old Miss Herring, retired professor of history, author of “Russia Awakes” (1922), was bending across one or two intermediate members of the audience to compliment Miss Clyde on her speech, while from behind that lady another twinkling old party was thrusting into her field of vision a pair of withered, soundlessly clapping hands.

1953

GEORGE S. KAUFMAN

ANNOY KAUFMAN, INC.

F
OR
some time now, I have suspected the existence of an organization whose scope and energies are so enormous that they stagger the imagination. I am not prepared to say with certainty that such an organization exists, but there are various recurrent phenomena in my life that can be explained only by the theory that a major plan is in operation— plan so vast and expensive that it is almost impossible to envision it.

The organization that carries out this plan must spend millions of dollars annually to achieve its object. It has—it must have—great suites of offices, and thousands upon thousands of employees. On a guess, I would put its running cost at ten million dollars a year; if anything, the figure may be higher. With some presumption, I have christened it Annoy Kaufman, Inc., though I will admit that I cannot find that title in any lists of corporations.

But the facts are incontrovertible:

First, there is the matter of going to the bank. Let us say that I have run out of money and am required to cash a small check. Now, no one knows that I am going to the bank on that particular morning. There is nothing about it in the papers. I am not immodest, and I know that, at best, such an announcement would get only a few lines on a back page: “George S. Kaufman is going to the bank this morning to cash a check. We wish him all success”—something like that.

But not a word is printed. No one knows about it. As a matter of fact, I have probably not made up my mind to go until about eleven o’clock. Yet the organization is prepared. It immediately arranges that half a dozen big companies should be drawing their payroll money that morning, and that each of them should send a clerk to the bank with a list of payroll requirements—so many five-dollar bills, so many dollar bills, so many quarters, dimes, nickels, pennies. Next, it is arranged that all these people should get to the tellers’ windows just a few seconds ahead of me.

Now, this takes doing. Remember, the organization has not known just which morning I was planning to go to the bank, so for weeks and weeks these clerks have been held in readiness somewhere. And suppose I stop to talk to a friend and arrive five minutes later than expected. Obviously, several relays of clerks must be kept in reserve in a corner of the bank, awaiting a signal.

Moreover, these are not people who are just pretending to be cashing payrolls; the bank would never stand for that. No, they are people from real companies—companies founded by the organization and kept in business for years and years, probably at an enormous loss, just so that their representatives can get to the bank windows ahead of me. And it is not always the same people who stand in front of me; it is different ones. This, in turn, means a large number of separate companies to maintain. These companies run factories, keep books, pay income taxes, hold board meetings, advertise on television, pension their employees. Surely this side of the enterprise alone must run to a pretty figure.

MY next example may sound like a simple and inexpensive thing to manage, but it isn’t. It has to do with the engineer’s little boy, Danny. Danny is six years old. In fact, he has been six years old for the thirty-five years that I have been making overnight train journeys. (I suppose that, actually, they keep on having an engineer’s little boy born every year, but even that takes planning.) Anyhow, for years and years Danny has been begging his father to let him run the locomotive some night. For years and years, his father has been saying no. Then, finally, the night comes. “Can I run the engine tonight, Daddy?” asks Danny, who is too young to know about “can” and “may.” And his father says, “Yes, Danny, boy. We have just got word that Kaufman will be on the train tonight, and he is very tired and needs a good night’s sleep, so you can run the engine.” So Danny runs the engine, the result being the neck-breaking stops and starts that keep me awake all night.

The organization has, of course, the incidental expense of maintaining Danny in Chicago or Pittsburgh or Cleveland, as the case may be, until I am ready to make the return trip. (Danny’s father obviously cannot wait over to take care of him; he must go back to running the engine properly on the nights when I am not travelling.) So the organization must keep branch offices in Chicago and Pittsburgh and Cleveland (and wherever else I may go), and provide someone to take care of Danny, and schools for him to go to, and somebody to make sure that he doesn’t practice, and so learn how to run the engine better, before I make my return trip. This seemingly small part of the business can run to fantastic sums over the years.

BUT the bank and Danny are, after all, relatively minor matters. Once done with, they are over till the next time. I come now to the major opus—the basic activity for which Annoy Kaufman, Inc., was founded.

Years ago, when I moved to New York, I noticed that a little man in a gray overcoat was watching me closely as I took the ferry from Jersey City to Twenty-third Street. I don’t know why, but I think his name was Mr. Moffat. At all events, Mr. Moffat was the first person off the ferryboat when it docked. Hurriedly joining his pals in a midtown office, Mr. Moffat reported as follows: “Boys, he’s here. We can take out incorporation papers in Albany tomorrow and go to work. In a day or two, I’ll have all the dope for you.”

Now, you may think it arrogant of me to claim that the entire rebuilding of New York City, at present in full bloom, came about solely as a result of my arrival here, but I can only cite the facts. No sooner did I move to a given neighborhood than the wreckers were at work on the adjoining building, generally at eight o’clock in the morning. The pneumatic asphalt-ripper, with which we are all now familiar, was first used early one morning as a weapon against the slumber of none other than myself. The first automatic rivet came into existence to be the destroyer of my sleep. (All dates and names of streets are on file in the office of my attorney.) Naturally, I kept moving to new neighborhoods in quest of peace, but the boys were always ready and waiting. Can you blame me for feeling that it was I, and I alone, who unwittingly charted the course of the city’s onward sweep?

Only once, in all these years, did they slip up. Acting without sufficient research, they put up Lever House just to the south of me, unaware that my bedroom was on the other side of my apartment. Discovering their error, they, of course, bought the property to the north and went quickly to work. Well, sir, heads rolled in the office that morning, I can tell you. Mr. Moffat, I like to think, shot himself, but I suspect he was immediately succeeded by his son, and since then the organization has functioned so efficiently that I am now exactly thirty-seven years behind on sleep, with only an outside chance of making it up.

WITH all that on their hands, you wouldn’t think they’d have time for Congressional lobbying, too, would you? This ultimate move came to light during a visit of mine to Washington a few weeks ago. Having been made suspicious, over the years, by my dealings with the Internal Revenue people, I went to the trouble of looking up the original text of the income-tax law, as filed in the Library of Congress. Sure enough, there it was—Paragraph D, Clause 18—just as I had suspected: “The taxpayer, in computing the amount of tax due to the Government, may deduct from his taxable income all legitimate expenses incurred in the course of conducting his business or profession—except,” it added, “in the case of George S. Kaufman.”