The Old Reactor (15 page)

Moldenke took the first seat available, let his head sink down to his chest, and closed his eyes. He wanted to be in a light trance for the long ride back, if not asleep. The clanking of the car’s wheels on the steel tracks and the squeal of the rusty springs made any state but hyper-vigilance impossible.

He saw that the passenger sitting next to him was reading the last few pages of the
Treatise
and when his stop came, he got up, closed the
Treatise
, and held it out for Moldenke. “Here, you want this? It’s just a load of shit. It’ll put you to sleep.”

“I’ll take it, thank you.” The
Treatise
would be just the thing, Moldenke thought, for going to sleep on the car. After reading a few pages dealing with the effects of sympathy in the distresses of others he was drowsy, a few more and he was asleep until awakened by the conductor. “Mr. Peters, you’ve shit in your uniform. You’re getting off here. Do you know where the public bath is?”

Moldenke stirred awake. “I know.”

The passenger sitting next to him, with a free child on his knee, held his nose. The child repeated the act.

Moldenke got off at the stop nearest the Tunney and walked down Arden to the public bath. The weather was getting nippy—probably an ice storm on the way. Conditions had been benign for a few days. A change was overdue. He hoped that all the putrid water had been run through the system and that the bath would be open. It was, but with limited services.

“I can wash your uniform and your drawers and your socks, but I can’t dry them. The furnace is out of radio gas. And only one pool is open, the first one. The water is nasty. It might be better tomorrow.”

“Wash the uniform. I’ll wait in the boilery. I have a book.”

The bath aide gave Moldenke a towel to cover himself. “I know that book, the
Treatise
. Everybody’s reading it. I read it.”

Moldenke settled on a bench, lit a Julep, and read Part One, in which Burke claims that terror is not only the strongest of the emotions but the source of the sublime. Ideas of pain, he goes on to say, are more powerful and more memorable than ideas of pleasure.

The bath aide stirred Moldenke’s boiling clothes with a long wooden paddle. “Have you gotten to the part where he says that pain is what we remember, not pleasure?”

“I did see that. I can’t disagree.”

“So in the end, he comes down on the side of the sublime.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“What about the chapter on Beauty? Did you read that yet?

“A little of it, maybe.”

“He says
love
is the
beauty
of
sex
. Animals have sex without love. Jellyheads have sex, but they behead the ones they love most. We’ve got love, and that’s the beauty of it.” The aide lifted the wet, hot clothes with his paddle and flung them into a hydraulic press to squeeze them and return the water in a little wooden chute to the boiler. “Okay, your stuff’s ready. I would advise you not to waste time getting to your room. It’s cold out there. A big front coming through.”

It was warm and moist in the boilery, and Moldenke’s clothes, while wet, were still warm from the hot water. When he had them all on, and his boots laced, he tipped his cap to the aide and walked north on Arden into a stiff, icy wind. The Tunney was two and a half blocks away. In hopes of keeping his clothes from freezing before he got there, he walked briskly, afraid that if he ran he risked a slip and fall on the sidewalk’s sheeting ice. Better to have a frozen uniform than a fractured skull.

The concierge stood in the Tunney doorway with her arms folded, watching pedestrians go by. Some were fortunate enough to have heavy jackets. Others, like Moldenke, weren’t, and his wet uniform was beginning to freeze.

When the concierge saw him coming, she opened the entry door. “Come in before you turn blue. Don’t let that ear get frostbite. It looks much better, though.”

“It must have been the heavy water bath.” Moldenke touched the tip of his ear, and even with numb fingers, he felt a change. It was no longer as rough-skinned or as swollen.

The concierge opened her Dutch door. “Come inside. I have a mirror in the bathroom.”

A burst of warm air struck Moldenke’s face. He glanced into the small apartment’s interior, where a pellet stove burned brightly in the parlor, radiating warmth only as far as the Dutch door. The moment he stepped through the door and turned toward the bathroom, his uniform began to thaw. He was leaving wet boot prints.

“I’m getting the floor wet. I’m sorry.”

“Hurry, stand in the tub and take off your clothes.” He could hang them in the bathroom, she said. They would be dry in the morning. “For tonight, you can wear some things of my husband’s.” She went to get them.

Moldenke was happy to be out of the icy uniform and boots and in a warm room. He toweled off and looked into the mirror. There was no question, the heavy water was a curative. His ear was much improved. He wrapped himself with the towel when he saw the concierge returning with checkered pajamas, underwear, and a pair of fleece-lined slippers. “Here, these are cozy. Your room will be cold. All the roomers will be cold in their rooms.”

Moldenke suspected that these helpful gestures might possibly come with a return request attached.

“Where are
those
roomers? I hear them at all hours—coughing, crying, singing, being sick, tooting kazoos, twanging Jew’s harps—but I never see them. It goes against all odds. I should be running into them in the hallways all the time. I should see them in Saposcat’s or at the public, but I don’t. I wonder why.”

“They’re probably all tucked away for the night.”

“All right. I do appreciate the loan of the pajamas and the slippers.”

“Go ahead and put them on. I won’t look.” She turned toward the doorway.

Moldenke put on the drawers and the pajamas then sat on the edge of the tub to put on the slippers.

“Are you decent? I’m going to turn around.”

“I’m dressed.”

She turned back. “My husband was a bigger man. They’re loose on you.”

“That’s fine. The warmth’s the thing. Why didn’t he take these with him?”

“They only gave him a few minutes to pack.”

“Indeterminate sentence?”

“Yes, for selling a wormy apple to a blind man. When they decide you’ve served enough time, they want you out fast. Or they could forget about you and you’d be here forever,” she said. “You’ll be quiet going up the stairs, won’t you? We don’t want to wake the others up, do we?”

“We don’t. We definitely don’t. I’ll stop by in the morning to get my uniform and return your husband’s nightclothes. Should I plan to move my bowels for you?”

“No. The pipes’ll be frozen by morning. It would be a big mess.”

“All right then. Good night.”

The concierge put a finger to her pursed lips. “
Shhhh
. Quiet now.”

During the night, Moldenke experienced what he thought was a mild seizure. It began when he awakened with fever, chills, and a foggy, detached feeling, and ended about an hour later. He remembered nothing of that time but realized when he turned over to go back to sleep, that he had moved his bowels in the pajama bottoms and in his tossing and turnings had smeared it on the top as well. He sat up the rest of the night naked and cold, smoking Juleps and worrying about what the concierge would say when he brought the pajamas back. He faced the choice of either wearing them soiled or folding them and going downstairs with nothing on but slippers.

Fearing an end to his toilet privileges either way, he decided to fold the soiled pajamas, cover his privates with them, go down naked, and present them to the concierge and beg her to forgive him. He would promise to take them to the boilery as soon as it was back in business again.

Her Dutch door was open, but she wasn’t standing behind it at her regular station. He cupped his hand around his mouth for volume. “Good morning. Are you back there?” He heard no response. “I’ve had an accident with the nightclothes. I’m very sorry. As soon as the weather changes, I’ll take them down and have them boiled…Hello?”

He could feel the warm air coming from her apartment and ventured through the doorway to get his uniform and boots. He could see the glow of the pellet stove but no sight or sound of the concierge. After calling out once again and hearing nothing, he went into the bathroom. The toilet was dry and there was a note pinned to the wall above it: FROZEN PIPES. DO NOT USE! He changed into his dry uniform and placed the slippers and the pajamas in the tub.

On his way out, he saw a pair of bare, bruised-looking feet at the end of a bed in a dim rear bedroom. “Good morning. I didn’t mean to wake you.” He took a few steps toward the bedroom. “I got the slippers wet. I’m sorry.” When he reached the doorway he paused a moment and went in, already sensing that the concierge was dead.

He stood beside the body for a while, smoking a Julep, wondering what to do. He searched through a closet where her husband’s clothes still hung and found a warm wool jacket that fit him perfectly. It would keep him from freezing on his way to Saposcat’s. As for the concierge, she would keep until he had a chance to get some breakfast and consider the possibilities. He turned down the pellet stove to keep the room cool, closed the bedroom door, and left the Tunney.

He had to lean forward at a striking angle to make any headway in the blasts of polar wind and the wild whirls of dry snow kiting down Arden Boulevard and piling up alongside Saposcat’s. Even through the iced-over window he could see Sorrel sitting alone in a booth without a veil. Her head was bowed. Still, he could see red welts on her face. She seemed troubled. There was a package on the floor at her feet, and at the end of the booth, a suitcase.

He tapped her on the shoulder. “May I sit with you?”

“I was hoping you would. I saw you coming. I knew your room was around here somewhere.”

“The Tunney, a few blocks down.”

“Your ear looks much better.”

“And your face. It’s almost back to the way it was. You even have some color. But what are those pocks, those red spots on your face?”

“It’s a miracle, that heavy water, and a curse, too.” She nervously moved the package from one side of her feet to the other. “I want to apologize for leaving you at the Old Reactor pond.”

“I took the streetcar. I got home.”

“My father wouldn’t wait, not for a minute. He was so impatient. Now he’s dead and the bakery’s closed. I don’t know what to do. He was making claws and he sat on the floor and he said he was tired and a minute later he was gone.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“He made a lot of claws in his time, thousands of dozens. Not too many can match that claim. He was generous with them, too. He gave hundreds away at public events.”

“I saw him doing that once. You may remember.”

She lifted her package to the tabletop. “This is him, his ashes. I had to send the body all the way to Bunkerville Charnel to get it done. They came back today in a nice little jar.”

“A memento,” Moldenke said. “A reminder. The flesh has commitments, they say.”

“What will I do? I’m afraid they’ll send me back to Bunkerville. I came with my father. I wasn’t sent here. They’ll make me go back. I grew up with all this freedom.”

“It would be a shock, wouldn’t it?” Moldenke ordered the breakfast kerd with a cup of tea.

Sorrel favored meal and green soda. “I’m determined to stay here. I’ll get a room somewhere.”

Moldenke saw his opportunity and reacted accordingly. “What about the Tunney? It turns out the concierge passed away and left me in charge of the place. I’ve got rooms available, too. They’re drafty and there’s only one flushing commode in the whole place. That one’s in my apartment. I’ll let you use it whenever the pipes thaw. The tub is off bounds, though. It doesn’t drain.”

“That’s very convenient. Thank you for offering. Running a rooming house, that’s a lot of responsibility isn’t it? All those tenants with their problems and complaints.”

“Actually there aren’t that many. I never see them anyway. They’re no trouble at all.”

“That’s odd. I stopped to check on rooms at the Heeney and the concierge said they were full. People were sleeping on the stairs and in the hallways.”

“Did you see them? Did you look in and see them, all these sleeping people?”

“I didn’t. I took her word.”

“These concierges are in cahoots. The fewer occupied rooms, the less work for them. They lie about occupancy. Give me a couple of hours to get a room ready for you, then come by and we’ll move you in.”

“That’s a relief to me, Moldenke. I’ll wait here, drink tea, and read. I brought my copy of the
Treatise
.”

“See you after a while, then.”

Moldenke needed the time not only to prepare a room but to do something with the concierge’s body. It wouldn’t be in good taste to invite Sorrel into his apartment with a corpse in plain view. She would raise questions and time would be wasted.

He began the process by going into the Tunney’s basement, where he’d never been, to see if it might be a good place to store the concierge until a better solution came along. Who would complain if he took over her duties and her apartment? The husband was gone, she was dead. No one would notice. Later, when he had time to kill, he would probably dig a hole in the basement floor and give her a decent burial. Meanwhile, he’d carry her down and lay her on a blanket. For now, getting Sorrel moved in was his chief concern.

He went down a long stairway into a brick-lined tunnel about twenty feet below the first floor and walked thirty or forty feet further through the tunnel until he came to a large, arch-roofed chamber with small, dingy ground-level windows letting in a faint light. A sign on the wall, stenciled in red, said:
Shelter Capacity 100
. It wasn’t clear to him what that meant, but the room was deep and cool, the perfect place to store a body.

He went back up the stairs to get her and found a line of grumbling men waiting at the Dutch door. One of them shouted to him, “Hey, who the hell’s in charge here? You?”

“Yes, that’s me.” He stood behind the door. The men smelled of pine tar and wood smoke. “We need rooms. The goddamn Heeney’s burning down.”