The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (25 page)

“There you go again. You suspect everybody. Nobody’s decent in your book. They like me, Duddy. They’re my friends.”

“Don’t shout.”

“You don’t like Irwin because he used psychology to show you up for a money-crazy kid at the hotel. I know all about that.”

“I hope you didn’t take my side.”

“You deserved what you got. You’re greedy. I’m saying that to your face.”

“O.K. Skip it. Let’s get on with the story. The rest, please.”

“I phoned Irwin and said I would do it and the arrangements were made. Why he got so jumpy right in the middle of it I’ll never know. I could have handled it, I swear it, but Irwin saw the blood and went crazy. Sandra got hysterical. ‘Irwin wants to kill me,’ she said over and over again. ‘He wants to kill me.’ And the next thing I knew Irwin had dashed out to call Dr. Westcott.”

“I don’t get it.”

Lennie explained that the phone call had been made anonymously. The three boys had waited in the hall until Dr. Westcott had come and then they had slipped outside. Sandra had naturally refused to tell Dr. Westcott who had started the abortion.

“So what are you doing here?” Duddy asked. “What are you so scared of?”

“He’s sure to find out eventually. And when he does it’s the end of me. I’ll be thrown out of medical school.”

“You’re goddam right he’s sure to find out. Because from what I know about Irwin and from what I hear about this Andy bastard all he has to do is ask.”

“They’d never say a word.”

“Sure.” Duddy rose and cracked his knuckles. “It must be three o’clock,” he said. “How’s your headache?”

“Right now it’s not so bad. Look, Duddy, I’m sorry. I know Daddy will feel terrible. But what can I do?”

“Bernie Altman says you had an excellent chance of winning the medal.”

“Lay off. Please, Duddy.”

“Let’s go to sleep. I’ve got some business to do here tomorrow.” Duddy began to undress. “Look, I want you to think hard. I want you to think hard and tell me the truth. Do you still want to be a doctor?”

“What does it matter what I want?”

“Answer me. Jeez.”

“Yes.”

“O.K. Which side of the bed do you want? Good Lord! What lumps, old chap. How does that old
fershtunkene tuchus-head
rent these rooms?”

Duddy fell asleep instantly, but not Lennie. Lennie turned on his side and stared at the wall. Duddy huddled close to him, embracing Lennie’s waist. Twice Lennie moved away, embarrassed and uncomfortable, but each time Duddy pulled tighter to him again. Duddy snored. His body was seized by sudden jerks in his sleep.

“Lennie?”

It was five
A.M
. maybe.

“What is it?”

“Talk to me about Maw. Tell me about her.”

“In the morning.”

“Did she … well, like me?”

“You were her kid.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Tomorrow. O.K.? And will you stop hugging me, please.”

“I’m freezing, you jerk. What are you so scared of? I’m no homo.”

Duddy was gone before Lennie woke the next morning. There were several independent film companies in Toronto, outfits that made industrial films, and Duddy, pretending to be a Diamond T Trucks representative, checked them all on prices. He also visited Columbia and Paramount to inquire about the price of films for
semi-private distribution and to pick up catalogues. He was exhausted by the time he came round to pick up Lennie.

“Well,” he said, “I’ve got the train tickets. We leave at six.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to see Calder and tell him the whole story.”

“Are you crazy?”

“No. But I’m not a gentleman either.”

“I won’t let you do it.”

“I’m not asking your permission.”

“It would mean the loss of all my self-respect, Duddy. It’s not honorable.”

“How would you like to hold this for a while?”

“If you go and tell Calder I did it I’m sure to be kicked out. He could send me to prison.”

“We’ll have to take that chance. There’s no other way of being sure.”

“I’m not going there with you.”

“I didn’t expect you to.”

“Don’t do it to me, Duddy. Please don’t go there and tell them. Sandra would …”

“I’ll say you don’t know I’m doing it.”

“When Irwin finds out – Well, there goes my summer in Maine.”

“Wha’?”

“Irwin’s taking a cottage in Maine this summer with some of the crowd. I was invited.”

Uncle Benjy, Duddy remembered, couldn’t get into the States. He was a communist. “Listen, Lennie, there’s no other way. Calder’s sure to find out sometime. I’ve got to see him first.”

“What’ll we tell Daddy?”

“You were studying too hard and you went on a fling. That’s the story.”

“Maybe if I just stayed here for a while Westcott wouldn’t find out anything. Maybe it would all blow over.”

“Have any other medical students who have been seen at parties with Sandra Calder taken it on the lam at Toronto recently?”

Duddy slept on the train. He didn’t wake until they reached the outskirts of the city. “Look,” he said as they pulled into Central Station, “snow. The first snow. Aw, come on, Lennie. Buck up.”

“Yeah.”

“There’s Daddy.”

“Taxi,” Max shouted. “Taxi, sir.” He embraced Lennie. “Oh, Duddy, your girl has been calling all day. She says to go right to the office.”

“Me and Frank Buck,” Duddy said, “we bring ’em back alive,” and he punched his father lightly on the shoulder. “See you later, old chap.” Duddy ran, he jumped, grabbing for the falling snow, opening his mouth to swallow some.

“Some kid,” Max said.

Duddy took a taxi, watching the snow and the rush of lights outside, searching for lookers among the window-shoppers, gazing at their legs and in his mind’s eye stripping the juicier ones down to black lace panties. Boy, he thought impatiently, am I ever in the mood.

Yvette was excited. “Duquette’s willing to sell,” she said.

Duddy unlocked the desk and got the map out and saw that Duquette owned a considerable amount of lake frontage on the side opposite Brault.

“The sister in the asylum died. So he’s got a clear tide now.”

“How much?”

“Seventy cents a square foot. Twenty-five hundred dollars.” There was no rush this time. The notary said there were no other potential buyers.

“Let’s try to knock him down to sixty-five. Tell the notary we’ll hand over the works in cash if he’ll take sixty.”

“Have you got twenty-five hundred dollars?”

“Not quite. But I can get it,” he said, picking up the phone. “Oh, I brought Lennie back. He was in Toronto.”

“Why did he run away?”

“Aw, he knocked up a
shiksa
. A girl, I mean. Whoops … Hello, Mr. Seigal? Kravitz here. Listen, I’m going to need another five hundred in advance on the film – What? Oh, I see. Sure, that’s O.K. Good. See you soon. No, don’t worry. It’ll make
Happy Bar-Mitzvah, Bernie!
look sick. I promise.” He hung up. “Seigal says he gave five hundred dollars on account to Mr. Friar this morning. Friar asked him for it. He gave him a receipt. Have you seen Friar today?”

“No.”

Duddy looked closely at Yvette. “We need a couch in here,” he said hoarsely. “We oughta have a couch.” He let Mr. Friar’s number ring and ring. There was no answer. “He’s probably asleep. Stop looking so worried, please. He needed money for film or something, that’s all.” Duddy hung up and told Yvette that he wanted her to find him an apartment downtown. “I also want you to get me subscriptions to
Fortune, Time, Life
and – There’s another one, but I forget. We also ought to get some stills to hang on the walls. The bigger the better … Come here a minute,” he said, taking her hand and guiding it. “Some flagpole, eh? A regular Rock of Gibraltar.”

Yvette wanted to wait, but Duddy insisted, and they made love on the carpet.

“I don’t get it,” Duddy said. “Imagine guys getting married and tying themselves down to one single broad for a whole lifetime when there’s just so much stuff around.”

“People fall in love,” Yvette said. “It happens.”

“Planes crash too,” Duddy said. “Listen, I’ve got an important letter to write. We’ll eat soon. O.K.?”

She didn’t answer and Duddy began to type.

Duddy handed Yvette the letter. “Check the spelling,” he said, “and first thing tomorrow send copies to Senator McCarthy, the
FBI
, and the principal of McGill. I also want you to take out subscriptions for Irwin to the
Tribune
and any other commie papers you can think of. Pay for them in cash. O.K., let’s go eat. I’m starved.”

H
UGH THOMAS CALDER HAD NOT MADE THE FAMILY
fortune, his father had done that, but he administered it with conservative good sense. His financial operations lacked panache, he avoided the big gamble, but steadily, unobtrusively, he made money with his father’s money.
Time
had called him “bland, brilliant Hugh Thomas Calder,” but that, he supposed, was because he said very little, and so people, being what they were, put him down for a thinker. That wasn’t the case. Most things he had to say were, he felt, rather asinine, usually he was bored, and so he seldom spoke unless he was asked a direct question. Mr. Calder was a widower, and grateful for it. He enjoyed living alone. Well, not quite alone. For there was Sandra. When Sandra had been fourteen he had looked at her and realized that she would grow up to be the true rich bitch, but he didn’t care. Why not, he had thought. There’s certainly money enough for it, and it’s time somebody enjoyed it.

Hugh Thomas Calder did not pine for power, he had had his father’s fortune thrust on him. He abhorred the stale atmosphere of board rooms and committees and clubs, but there was nothing else he really wanted to do. He was not a frustrated artist or farmer. Neither did he see himself as a political candidate. A mere fifty and still mildly handsome, Calder was not altogether without enthusiasms.
They were short-lived, however. He had collected pictures by young Canadian artists for a time, the non-figurative kind of stuff, and then one day he looked at them all together, gave them away, and never bought another one. He had tried an analyst once, a little German refugee with sour breath, and he had invented the most extravagant dreams for his sake, but the German had been more interested in his opinions on the market and Calder had dropped him. He had once been intrigued with a girl who sang in a night club under the name of Carole – she complained endlessly about the conditions of her work – and one evening he asked her, “I wonder what you would do if you were suddenly given five thousand dollars out of nowhere.”

“Oh,” was all she said, and he made out a check right there.

Carole had seemed such a spirited girl that he had hoped she would do something wild. What she did was quit her job and bring her sister and mother in from the country and open up a hat shop.

There had been other and, when he reflected on it, more shameful little experiments with money. Once, at the Chantecler in Ste. Adele, a hundred-dollar bill had accidentally dropped to the bottom of a urinal when he had hurriedly reached for his handkerchief. Calder hadn’t retrieved the soaking note. He had returned to the bar and sat there staring at the toilet door for some time. After four other men, with all of whom he had a nodding acquaintance, had been inside Calder went to the toilet again. The hundred-dollar bill was gone. Back in the bar again, Calder examined each of the four men severely, trying to guess who had stooped for the note. He thought of announcing his loss, he wanted badly to humiliate whoever had done it, and that depressed him. But the shocking part of it – for him anyway – was that following the first accidental loss he had, while staying at smart resorts, two or three times purposely repeated the procedure and then sat where he could keep an eye on the toilet door. Each time he would try to guess the man who had stooped, and shortly afterwards he paid his first visit to the little German analyst.

Hugh Thomas Calder disliked Dr. Westcott intensely, he knew Sandra was not suffering from a mere nervous upset and that Westcott knew more than he was saying and – what’s more – was aching to be asked about it. Calder was going to deny him that pleasure. Sandra was, to his mind, a shallow little bitch and unless it was absolutely necessary for him to know he’d much rather not get involved in what was bound to be sordid. So he was displeased and in a most unreceptive mood when Edgar came to tell him that there was a young gentleman who insisted on seeing him alone.

“What does he look like?”

Edgar described him as a thin, shifty boy. He wore pointed patent-leather shoes. “He was here once before, sir. To see Miss Calder.”

“I see. Send him in, please.”

When Duddy entered the living room, Hugh Thomas Calder rose with studied weariness from his armchair and put on his glasses to have a better look.

“It’s about Sandra,” Duddy said quickly. “She hasn’t got a cold. She was knocked up.”

Calder removed his glasses. He stared. “Are you an abortionist?” he asked.

“Me! Are you crazy? Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Let me guess, then. You’re a blackmailer.”

“Hey, one minute. I’m a respectable businessman.” He handed Mr. Calder his card. “I’m in the motion picture business.”