‘It’ll take too long and it’ll be too risky.’ Jacob Mix dug his hand along the back of his trousers and removed something wrapped in the tail of his shirt. It proved to be a ten-dollar bill which he brandished at me as if he had discovered the Koh-i-Noor diamond. ‘I’ll take the watch as a pledge.’
I argued that I would get far more in a pawn shop. ‘Maybe, but you ain’t in a pawn shop and you ain’t got time to find one.’ Mr Mix added, ‘Besides, I’m sticking with you for a while. I’ll get my ten bucks back, I know.’
‘Within hours,’ I promised. ‘You are wise to trust me, Jacob Mix.’ And with that I accepted the exchange.
‘First, we get the ferry.’ He led me in a zig-zag course between stacks of cargo. ‘And then we find a pharmacy. We’ve got to clean you up, man, if you’re going to make a good impression on that girl.’
Suddenly I realised how I must look. ‘I shall get another pair of shoes,’ I said. ‘And some flowers. And perhaps another suit and a shirt.’
‘You got my only ten dollars,’ said Jacob Mix. ‘How you spend it, mister, is up to you. But there ain’t no more.’ By now we were creeping along the side of a dock, with the river, sluggish and filthy, directly below us. ‘Pick up that plank. The other end.’ Mix took hold of the nearest part of the plank which we shouldered as he led the way across a wide, unprotected stretch of dock, towards green iron railings, behind which a small, sturdy steamboat rode at her moorings in a choppy sea while her passengers filed aboard. As we approached the end of the queue we dropped the plank and joined the line of working people paying their three cents at the turnstile before boarding the ferry. I was a little nervous of producing my newly acquired ten-dollar bill and Mr Mix seemed to anticipate this, because he pushed ahead of me when our turn came and gave the man six cents. ‘Make sure you stick to the back of the boat,’ commanded the ticket seller as we moved towards the gangplank. He thought we were bums and did not want his respectable passengers bothered by us. It was no use arguing with him, said Jacob Mix quietly to me. It was easier to let him think what he liked. At least that way he wasn’t alarmed and wouldn’t become aggressive. I saw sense in this advice. After all, it was only what I had already learned during the Bolshevik War.
There was a clammy mist on the leaden water and the far bank was not clearly visible. I glimpsed a few bulky shapes rising from the fog like the Ice Giants of the Slavic epics. The sounds from the invisible ships were melancholy voices bewailing the defeat of their supernatural power. The high-pitched little ferry answered tremulously, baffled and a trifle afraid. Then, detail by detail, the buildings began to form familiar outlines, the elegant towers of Woolworth and International Telephone, legendary hotels like the slender Sherry-Netherlands or the exquisitely classical Savoy-Plaza! Living monuments to American enterprise, to Hecksher and Flatiron, the Straus, the Paramount and the Union Trust! That splendid blend of Gothic and Egyptianate styles which is so characteristically New York! That soaring, almost delicate beauty of her famous ‘sky-scrapers’ was revealed to me again as the sun burned away the last of the fog to display the city’s million blazing windows! The glinting granite and marble of her towers were soaring optimistic tributes to the very latest futuristic architectural ideas. Here was the consummate city in those wonderful days before the forces of Carthage flowed out of their sewers and occupied her streets, before she became the capital of polyglottal mongrelism. A melting-pot indeed! I call it a witches’ cauldron which the world allows to bubble and brew until it creates a poison strong enough to threaten the extermination of everything fine and noble and human. But this morning, blazing with the purity of silver, it was a New York which, I believed, could only grow more marvellous and more beautiful. Of course I was optimistic. The little steamer was bearing me steadily towards my darling. My adventures had indeed only served to give extra piquancy to our reunion. I felt, as it were, that I had earned the happiness I now anticipated.
With the morning sun warming my skin, I looked with admiration at the great liners alongside the piers to our right - so many self-contained cities, built to survive the enormous forces of nature which ruled the Atlantic, built to ensure that their passengers would hardly notice that they had left the parlours of Kensington and Fifth Avenue. They rose above us now, those monuments to civilisation and the engineers’ art. I said as much to Jacob Mix, but the darkie was in a dream of his own. ‘I always wanted to visit Africa.’ He was as oblivious of the monsters as they were of us. ‘Just to see what it was like, you know?’
‘You’ll have to go to Europe first,’ it was my duty to inform him of the realities, ‘and then perhaps in Marseilles you’ll find a ship for Tangier.’
‘Marseilles seems the best bet,’ he agreed. He had read a good many travel books and memoirs and was almost as familiar as I with places I had actually visited. In his profoundly alien mind he held ambitions as important to him as mine were to me. I recognised this, and the mutual recognition bound us together in a peculiar way. I think he had begun to see me as something of a spiritual guide, an intellectual mentor who could help him achieve the vague goals he so desperately desired. He knew, I suspect, that he did not have yet either the higher mental functions nor the social standing to fulfil himself on his own; thus by attaching himself to me he might see something of that world and of society which until now had been denied him. In turn I knew the stirrings of a powerful emotion I am forced to describe as paternal. Although probably a year or two younger than the negro I was dominated by an impulse to take care of him. Perhaps again it was recognition, this time of our common humanity, that made him attach himself to me. I shall never exactly know. As the ferry docked below the streamlined buildings and gleaming machinery of the Chelsea Piers I stared almost idly at the medium-sized twin-funnelled boat which lay, hissing and sighing from recent exertion, at anchor a couple of hundred yards below. It was only as the ferry turned a point or two to come alongside the wharf that I realised I was reading the name of the vessel in bold, black letters against the white paint - S.S. Icosium, Genoa. It was Esmé’s boat! I had only to descend the gangplank and walk along the dock to where the ship waited. But then the irony struck me. I could not present myself to my darling looking as I did. Beyond the ferry buildings was an elevated stretch of roadway and through the pillars I made out a series of grubby storefronts where I was bound to find some shoes and, if not flowers, at least some candy. Again I was in luck. As Jacob Mix and I reached the busy street, we saw a quilt of colour, a flower-seller’s stall. She had set up, of course, to take advantage of the likes of myself. To Mr Mix’s wonderment, I spent five dollars on a large bunch of mixed blooms and handed them to him to hold for me while I cast my eye across the street then led him towards a store advertising Quality Apparel, where black suits were hung up like so many punished felons. I was limping rather painfully, now that the cocaine had worn off, and it was not expedient to be seen taking more. Mr Mix followed behind me, clutching the flowers and telling me he was beginning to suspect that my vicissitudes had turned my brain. I would have been irritated by his presumption had I not realised that this was his way of displaying his solicitousness. My jacket and trousers were badly torn, but my shirt and waistcoat would serve until I could get to a telegraph office and have funds cabled to me. Esmé, I was sure, would be so delighted to see me that she would scarcely notice the condition of those garments. However, I could not bear to greet her smelling of a cattle-truck and the filth of the railroad. I entered the clothing store while Mr Mix waited for me outside, studying the boots and shoes on the racks which the overly suspicious old Jew who ran the shop had ensured were not in pairs.
The Jew asked, in curt Yiddish, what he could do for me. I refused to speak that decadent patois and demanded, in English, to see one of his best suits in my size.
‘They are nine ninety-nine, any one you like,’ he told me, looking me up and down to gauge my measurements. Then, with a long, hooked pole, he wandered down a great cavern of cloth to find the
appropriate suit.
‘Presumably,’ I said, ‘you are interested in part exchange.’
‘These suits are all bran-new, my friend.’ He scratched himself under his yarmulke as he stared up at the ranks of trousers and jackets. ‘You want second-hand, you go down the street. Here it’s cash, strictly. What have you got to exchange?’ And he hooked down a suit with a swift flick of his hand and arm. ‘That’s you, mister. Do you want to try it on?’
‘My jacket and trousers are of finer quality,’ I said. ‘It must be obvious to any judge of cloth.’
‘Once,’ he agreed, ‘that was a good suit. Whoever had it made was a man of taste. But now - look at it! It would have to be repaired. It can’t be saved.’
‘Take it and five dollars,’ I offered. Whereupon the man’s mood changed and he reverted to type, shouting at me and telling me to get out of his shop and not to waste his time. Furious, I left with dignity, calling to Mr Mix to follow.
I made my way towards a sign advertising Pledges. Here, I thought, I might get what I needed. But before I went in, Mr Mix grasped my arm.
‘Put this on,’ he said softly. ‘It’ll help balance you up at any rate.’
He had taken a brogue from the rack. It was a near-match to my own and, astonishingly, an exact fit. ‘I thought it looked about right,’ he said. He steadied me on the kerb while I tied the laces. ‘You’d hardly know it weren’t a pair. Now that was lucky, wasn’t it?’
I murmured that it was more a tribute to his skill as a thief than to the intercession of any Guardian Angel and this made him chuckle. Somewhat heartened, I entered an even darker cavern than the last. This one reeked of mouldy leather and damp paper, of mildew and old dust. The clothes hung on racks on one side of the shop while the other was crowded with a miscellany of household goods, of bicycles and washtubs, of mechanical kitchen utensils, and all the gadgets bought to appease wives who had waited with growing fury while their housekeeping was poured down the throats of the feckless immigrants crowding these disease-ridden slums. Such shops were set up to exploit the likes of myself and, I supposed, sailors needing to enter the civilian world. My five dollars, I was told, was good for a jacket but ‘pants is another two-fifty’. Time was running out. I could not waste it in bargaining. At length I settled for a jacket which, although a little small for me, was a reasonable match to my trousers and at least, though stinking of camphor, was clean. I jammed the money into the Jew’s hand and ran from his premises. It would not be more than half-an-hour before I was reunited with my soulmate!
The great liner in all the glory of her scintillating brass and chrome, her white, jet and scarlet livery, still quivering from her journey, now dwarfed even the three-storey embarkation sheds to which her gangplanks stood ready to carry the first flood of passengers. There was a general rattle and clatter, great thumps and clangs. Sailors and dockhands shouted to one another, hawsers and chains were flung in expert loops, the securing blocks slammed into place: the stink of oil and smoke mingled with the sharp ozone from the sea, and I knew that I was not too late. The passengers were only now coming off the ship. A line of customs and naval officers strolled down the main gangplank casually giving the signal for the ropes to be clipped back. The first passengers, hastily refreshed, peering down into the sheds for sight of their friends, began to emerge. With Jacob Mix in pursuit I ran to a door in the fence facing the main street and banged on it for some while until it was opened by a uniformed guard whose angry questions were couched as unpleasant rhetorical oaths. ‘What motherfucking son of a bitch bastard of a camel’s whore is making all that noise?’ I told him I was late and needed to go straight through to the ship. He laughed in my face. ‘Even the VIPs can’t do that without my say-so.’ He seemed to have spent the worst of his rage already. With some dignity I informed him that I was a man of considerable substance; my appearance was entirely due to unfortunate circumstances. He laughed again and asked in that case who Jacob Mix was.
I put a defensive arm around the negro and told the arrogant official that Mr Mix was my valet. At which point, no doubt shamed by his misreading of my status, the fool slammed the door rather than apologise. I accepted a pull from the bottle the negro handed me. ‘I ain’t your valet, Max,’ Mr Mix pointed out as I ran alongside the fence, turning the corner to the main entrance of the sheds where a large sign proclaimed arriving passengers. But this entrance was also guarded by another corpulent individual in the company uniform who, below a purple nose, sported a moustache like a hunter’s trophy. He stepped forward as we made to enter. ‘And what would the likes of you gentlemen be wanting with the First-Class passengers?’
‘One of those passengers, my good man,’ I told the beefy mick, ‘is my future bride. It was my money which paid for her ticket. Do not be deceived by my appearance.’
‘It ain’t so much your appearance as your smell.’ Theatrically the cretin waved his hand in front of his nose. ‘On your way, boys. You won’t pick up a hand-out here. And there’s regular porters to carry people’s bags as wants them carried.’
‘My fiancée is on the ship,’ I said levelly.
‘And his, too?’ The guard indicated Jacob Mix. ‘This ship sailed out of Italy, not Cape Town. Go on away now, boys, and don’t give me a hard time, or I’ll have to get tough with you.’
‘You are uttering nonsense.’ I controlled my mounting hysteria. So little sleep and food, so much pain, so much ill fortune, had begun to affect my mind. ‘I warn you again - you’ll lose your job if you don’t let me through.’
‘More likely lose it if I do.’ He dismissed us. ‘I’ll take my chances.’
I could see the women in their brilliant silks and furs, the men in their beautifully cut Continental suits, laughing and calling as they descended to where the customs people gave respectful attention to the occasional valise. I sought my Esmé, but she was doubtless shyly hanging back, hoping to catch sight of me from the rail. My mind was filled with the image of a frightened, bewildered little girl, so desperate for one reassuring glimpse of her beloved. I pushed through the gate, towards the barrier where others awaited their arriving friends. Suddenly I was grabbed by my hair and coat, hauled backwards while Jacob Mix pleaded with the man to release me. ‘You can see the poor bastard’s had a hard time.’
But there was no pity in that officious oafs unchristian heart. By now the first passengers were coming through, stepping into waiting private limousines. Others hailed eager taxis. My Esmé must certainly come through to the street. We should eventually at least be together, but until then I could imagine the anxiety, the uncertainty she might already be feeling.
I shall never cease to curse that fat commissar and his appalling arrogance. Had I known how his actions would change the whole course of my life, I think I might have risked arrest and murdered him. Ferbissener? Can I blame myself? Surely not. I was no schnorrer. I was a mere pisher. Come with me now, Esmé, there is still time.
I tried once more. ‘Please, sir, will you listen! I am a man of substance. Do not be deceived by outside appearances. I can explain how I came to this. The story begins in Hollywood, California - ‘
‘You said it, Jerusalem!’ sneered the swaggering kocheleffel. And produced a monstrously phallic club from within his costume.
Then I saw her! O, Esmé, meyn naches. I am coming! The vision in my heart was suddenly a reality. She glowed with an unreal radiance like some ambassadress from the Land of Dreams. Her hair, short against her head in the latest fashion, shone like black fire. And she moved naturally with exquisite lively grace.
I had not deceived myself. She was everything I had imagined, everything I remembered. ‘Esmé’ She was passing through the barrier to where the cars were drawn up. ‘Esmé. My darling. Here!’ She was going the wrong way. Jacob Mix made some ridiculous suggestion - that perhaps this was not the goddess I had described! I ignored him. ‘Esmé! I am here!’
She turned at last and I was sure she recognised me. Then her attention was ta
ken by the crowd and I was shouting once more. ‘Here, my beloved!’
A shadow passed between myself and my wife-to-be (a great camel-hair overcoat, a wide panama, a cigar and a cane) and she was gone, spirited into a massive yellow and black Rolls Royce.
‘Esmé!’
‘I guess she’s found herself a new beau.’ Mr Mix tugged at my coat. I informed him coolly that white girls were not so promiscuous with their favours. In a sudden change of mood he left me. I saw him speak in a placatory tone to the guard. I was not interested in what he was saying. As the Rolls Royce turned into the main street, I began to run after it. My weariness caught up with me. I stumbled, fell forward, and lay soaking in an oily puddle as I watched the car bear my darling up towards the elevated road.
She must think herself deserted! She had turned to a stranger for help. What kind of stranger? A whoremaster? A gangster? Some unscrupulous Levantine ‘theatrical agent’? There were a thousand possibilities. My stomach churned and bile rose in my throat as I got to my feet to discover that Mr Mix, at any rate, had not deserted me. I apologised for my remarks. It is bad form for a white man to use his superior social position to insult a negro. I have always held to this. Yet that Cornelius girl still laughs at me and calls me a bigot. What must I do to convince her? Put on the boot polish and sing ‘Mammy’?