The Mortgaged Heart (28 page)

"I haven't thought of that jingle in years," John Howards said.

"Jingle? It's as harrowing as Dostoevski."

"I remember we used to sing it in kindergarten. And when a child had a birthday there would be a blue or pink ribbon on the tiny chair and we would then sing
Happy Birthday.
"

John Howards was hunched on the edge of the seat next to Marian. It was hard to imagine this tall, lumbering editor in his huge galoshes singing in a kindergarten years ago.

Ken asked: "Where did you come from?"

"Kalamazoo," Howards said.

"I always wondered if there really was such a place or a—figure of speech."

"It was and is such a place." Howards said. "The family moved to Detroit when I was ten years old." Again Ken felt a sense of strangeness and thought that there are certain people who have preserved so little of childhood that the mention of kindergarten chairs and family moves seem somehow outlandish. He suddenly conceived a story written about such a man—he would call it
The Man in the Tweed Suit
—and he brooded silently as the story evolved in his mind with a brief flash of the old elation that came so seldom now.

"The weatherman says it's going down to zero tonight," Marian said.

"You can drop me here," Howards said to the driver as he opened his wallet and handed some money to Marian. "Thanks for letting me share the cab. And that's my part," he added with a smile. "It's so good to see you again. Let's have lunch one of these days and bring your husband if he would care to come." After he stumbled out of the taxi he called to Ken, "I'm looking forward to your next book, Harris."

"Idiot," Ken said after the cab started again. "I'll drop you home and then stop for a moment at Jim Johnson's."

"Who's he—why do you have to go?"

"He's a painter I know and I was invited."

"You take up with so many people these days. You go around with one crowd and then shift to another."

Ken knew that the observation was true, but he could not help it. In the past few years he would associate with one group—for a long time he and Marian had different circles of friends—until he would get drunk or make a scene so that the whole periphery was unpleasant to him and he felt angry and unwanted. Then he would change to another circle—and every change was to a group less stable than the one before, with shabbier apartments and cheaper drinks. Now he was glad to go wherever he was invited, to strangers where a voice might guide him and the flimsy sheaves of alcohol solace his jagged nerves.

"Ken, why don't you get help? I can't go on with this."

"Why, what's the matter?"

"You know," she said. He could feel her tense and stiff in the taxicab. "Are you really going on to another party? Can't you see you are destroying yourself? Why were you leaning against that terrace fence? Don't you realize you are—sick? Come home."

The words disturbed him, but he could not bear the thought of going home with Marian tonight. He had a presentiment that if they were alone in the apartment something dreadful might come about, and his nerves warned him of this undefined disaster.

In the old days after a cocktail party they would be glad to go home alone, talk over the party with a few quiet drinks, raid the icebox and go to bed, secure against the world outside. Then one evening after a party something had happened—he had a blackout and said or did something he could not remember and did not want to remember; afterward there was only the smashed typewriter and shafts of shameful recollection that he could not face and the memory of her fearful eyes. Marian stopped drinking and tried to talk him into joining AA. He went with her to a meeting and even stayed on the wagon with her for five days—until the horror of the unremembered night was a little distant. Afterward, when he had to drink alone, he resented her milk and her eternal coffee and she resented his drinking liquor. In this tense situation he felt the psychiatrist was somehow responsible and wondered if he had hypnotized Marian. Anyway now the evenings were spoiled and unnatural. Now he could feel her sitting upright in the taxi and he wanted to kiss her as in the old days when they were going home after a party. But her body was stiff in his embrace.

"Hon, let's be like we used to be. Let's go home and get a buzz on peacefully and hash over the evening. You used to love to do that. You used to enjoy a few drinks when we were quiet, alone. Drink with me and cozy like in the old days. I'll skip the other party if you will. Please, Hon. You're not one bit alcoholic. And it makes me feel like a lush your not drinking—I feel unnatural. And you're not a bit alcoholic, no more than I am."

"I'll fix a bowl of soup and you can turn in." But her voice was hopeless and sounded smug to Ken. Then she said: "I've tried so hard to keep our marriage and to help you. But it's like struggling in quicksand. There's so much behind the drinking and I'm so tired."

"I'll be just a minute at the party—go on with me."

"I can't go on."

The cab stopped and Marian paid the fare. She asked as she left the cab, "Do you have enough money to go on?—if you must go on."

"Naturally."

Jim Johnson's apartment was way over on the West Side, in a Puerto Rican neighborhood. Open garbage cans stood out on the curb and wind blew papers on the snowy sidewalk. When the taxi stopped Ken was so inattentive that the driver had to call him. He looked at the meter and opened his billfold—he had not one single dollar bill, only fifty cents, which was not enough. "I've run out of money, except this fifty cents," Ken said, handing the driver the money. "What shall I do?"

The driver looked at him. "Nothing, just get out. There's nothing to be done."

Ken got out. "Fifteen cents over and no tip—sorry—"

"You should have taken the money from the lady."

This party was held on the walk-up top floor of a cold-water flat and layered smells of cooking were at each landing of the stairs. The room was crowded, cold, and the gas jets were burning blue on the stove, the oven open for warmth. Since there was little furniture except a studio couch, most of the guests sat on the floor. There were rows of canvases propped against the wall and on an easel a picture of a purple junk yard and two green suns. Ken sat down on the floor next to a pink-cheeked young man wearing a brown leather jacket.

"It's always somehow soothing to sit in a painter's studio. Painters don't have the problems writers have. Who ever heard of a painter getting stuck? They have something to work with—the canvas to be prepared, the brush and so on. Where is a blank page—-painters aren't neurotic as many writers are."

"I don't know," the young man said. "Didn't van Gogh cut off his ear?"

"Still the smell of paint, the colors and the activity is soothing. Not like a blank page and a silent room. Painters can whistle when they work or even talk to people."

"I know a painter once who killed his wife."

When Ken was offered rum punch or sherry, he took sherry and it tasted metallic as though coins had been soaked in it.

"You a painter?"

"No," said the young man. "A writer—that is, I write."

"What is your name?"

"It wouldn't mean anything to you. I haven't published my book yet." After a pause he added: "I had a short story in
Bolder Accent—
it's one of the little magazines—maybe you've heard of it."

"How long have you been writing?"

"Eight—ten years. Of course I have to do part-time jobs on the outside, enough to eat and pay the rent."

"What kind of jobs do you do?"

"All kinds. Once for a year I had a job in a morgue. It was wonderful pay and I could do my own work four or five hours every day. But after about a year I began to feel the job was not good for my work. All those cadavers—so I changed to a job frying hot dogs at Coney Island. Now I'm a night clerk in a real crummy hotel. But I can work at home all afternoon and at night I can think over my book—and there's lots of human interest on the job. Future stories, you know."

"What makes you think you are a writer?"

The eagerness faded from the young man's face and when he pressed his fingers to his flushed cheek they left white marks. "Just because I know. I have worked so hard and I have faith in my talent." He went on after a pause. "Of course one story in a little magazine after ten years is not such a brilliant beginning. But think of the struggles nearly every writer has—even the great geniuses. I have time and determination—and when this last novel finally breaks into print the world will recognize the talent."

The open earnestness of the young man was distasteful to Ken, for he felt in it something that he himself had long since lost. "Talent," he said bitterly. "A small, one-story talent—that is the most treacherous thing that God can give. To work on and on, hoping, believing until youth is wasted—I have seen this sort of thing so much. A small talent is God's greatest curse."

"But how do you know I have a small talent—how do you know it's not great? You don't know—you've never read a word I've written!" he said indignantly.

"I wasn't thinking about you in particular. I was just talking abstractly."

The smell of gas was strong in the room—smoke lay in drafty layers close to the low ceiling. The floor was cold and Ken reached for a pillow nearby and sat on it. "What kind of things do you write?"

"My last book is about a man called Brown—I wanted it to be a common name, as a symbol of general humanity. He loves his wife and he has to kill her because—"

"Don't say anything more. A writer should never tell his work in advance. Besides, I've heard it all before."

"How could you? I never told you, finished telling—"

"It's the same thing in the end," Ken said. "I heard the whole thing seven years—eight years ago in this room."

The flushed face paled suddenly. "Mr. Harris, although you've written two published books, I think you're a mean man." His voice rose. "Don't pick on me!"

The young man stood up, zipped his leather jacket and stood sullenly in a corner of the room.

After some moments Ken began to wonder why he was there. He knew no one at the party except his host and the picture of the garbage dump and the two suns irritated him. In the room of strangers there was no voice to guide him and the sherry was sharp in his dry mouth. Without saying good-by to anyone Ken left the room and went downstairs.

He remembered he had no money and would have to walk home. It was still snowing, and the wind shrilled at the street corners and the temperature was nearing zero. He was many blocks away from home when he saw a drug store at a familiar corner and the thought of hot coffee came to him. If he could just drink some really hot coffee, holding his hands around the cup, then his brain would clear and he would have the strength to hurry home and face his wife and the thing that was going to happen when he was home. Then something occurred that in the beginning seemed ordinary, even natural. A man in a Homburg hat was about to pass him on the deserted street and when they were quite near Ken said: "Hello there, it's about zero, isn't it?"

The man hesitated for a moment.

"Wait," he went on. "I'm in something of a predicament. I've lost my money—never mind how—and I wonder if you would give me change for a cup of coffee."

When the words were spoken Ken realized suddenly that the situation was not ordinary and he and the stranger exchanged that look of mutual shame, distrust, between the beggar and the begged. Ken stood with his hands in his pockets—he had lost his gloves somewhere—and the stranger glanced a final time at him, then hurried away.

"Wait," Ken called. "You think I'm a mugger—I'm not! I'm a writer—I'm not a criminal."

The stranger hurried to the other side of the street, his brief case bouncing against his knees as he moved. Ken reached home after midnight.

Marian was in bed with a glass of milk on the bedside table. He made himself a highball and brought it in the bedroom, although usually these days he gulped liquor in secret and quickly.

"Where is the clock?"

"In the clothes hamper."

He found the clock and put it on the table by the milk. Marian gave him a strange stare.

"How was your party?"

"Awful." After a while he added, "This city is a desolate place. The parties, the people—the suspicious strangers."

"You are the one who always likes parties."

"No, I don't. Not any more." He sat on the twin bed beside Marian and suddenly the tears came to his eyes. "Hon, what happened to the apple farm?"

"Apple farm?"

"
Our
apple farm—don't you remember?"

"It was so many years ago and so much has happened."

But although the dream had long since been forgotten, its freshness was renewed again. He could see the apple blossoms in the spring rain, the gray old farmhouse. He was milking at dawn, then tending the vegetable garden with the green curled lettuce, the dusty summer corn, the eggplant and the purple cabbages iridescent in the dew. The country breakfast would be pancakes and the sausage of home-raised pork. When morning chores and breakfast were done, he would work at his novel for four hours, then in the afternoon there were fences to be mended, wood to be split. He saw the farm in all its weathers—the snowbound spells when he would finish a whole short novel at one stretch; the mild, sweet, luminous days of May; the green summer pond where he fished for their own trout; the blue October and the apples. The dream, unblemished by reality, was vivid, exact.

"And in the evening," he said, seeing the firelight and the rise and
fall of shadows on the farmhouse wall, "we would really study Shakespeare, and read the Bible all the way through."

For a moment Marian was caught in the dream. "That was the first year we were married," she said in a tone of injury or surprise. "And after the apple farm was started we were going to start a child."

"I remember," he said vaguely, although this was a part he had quite forgotten. He saw an indefinite little boy of six or so in denim jeans ... then the child vanished and he saw himself clearly, on the horse—or rather mule—carrying the finished manuscript of a great novel on the way to the nearest village to post it to the publisher.