Tannenbaum had been given another small part. He drove me to the station. "Have you solved all your problems?" I asked him.
"Not yet. My authority isn't what it used to be since we finished shooting the Nazi picture."
"What's your new part?"
"An English cook on a ship that gets torpedoed by a German submarine."
"Is he drowned?" I asked hopefully.
"No. He's a comic figure. He's rescued, and they put him to work as cook on the submarine."
"Does he poison the crew?"
"Not at all. He cooks plum pudding for them on Christmas Day. They all fraternize on the high seas and start singing English and German folk songs. Then under a little Christmas tree they discover that the British national anthem and the former German national anthem have the same tune, 'God Save the King' and 'Heil dir im Siegeskranz.' That does it. They decide that when the war is over they'll never fight each other again. They have too much in common."
"Your future looks pretty dark to me," I said. "But maybe your own personality will supply a counterweight"
"I'm a fatalist," said Tannenbaum. "Ill just have to take things as they come. Maybe I've got the wrong twin."
"Can't you find out from Vesel? They say he knows them inside out."
"Even he always got their first names mixed up. Those girls are devils. It amused them to fool him. Within the limits of propriety, of course. As I say, I'm a fatalist. If my method turns me into a cook and this twin doesn't like it, there's always the other. At the moment she's gone to New York to be with Betty. Give them both my regards. Good-by, Robert. Funny how fond a man gets of people when they're going away. Even of you!"
I got into the train, with its Negro porters, its wide comfortable beds and built-in private toilets. Tannenbaum waved. For the first time in many years I had paid all my debts and had money in my pocket. My residence permit had been extended another three months.
XXVIII
"Robert," said Melikov, "I was beginning to think you'd never come back."
"You weren't the only one," I said.
Melikov nodded. He looked tired and gray. "Are you sick?" I asked.
"Why?" He laughed. "Oh, I get it. When you come in from the fresh air, everybody in New York looks as if he's just come out of the hospital Why did you come back?"
"Im a masocist"
"Natasha had given you up."
"Really?"
"She thought you'd get a job in the movies."
I didn't ask any more questions. It was a gloomy homecoming. The plush lobby looked dustier and shabbier than ever. Suddenly I, too, began to Wonder why I had come back. The streets were filthy and a cold rain was falling. "I've got to buy a coat," I said.
"Do you want to live here?" Melikov asked.
"Yes. I could use a bigger room. Have you got one?"
"Yes. Lisa Teruel died a Week ago. Overdose of sleeping pills. That's all we've got, Robert You should have written."
"All right, I'll take it."
"I thought you would. You don't look as if you'd be afraid of ghosts. Anyway, Lisa died peacefully. She looked ten years younger When we found her."
"How old was she?"
"Forty-two. Come, I'll show you the room. It's the cleanest one in the house. We had to fumigate it. Besides, it's sunny, and that's not to be sneezed at in the winter."
The room was on the second floor. You could go up without being seen from the lobby. I unpacked. I distributed some large sea shells I had bought in Los Angeles. They had lost their deep-sea magic and looked forlorn. "The place is more cheerful when it's not raining," said Melikov. "Care for some vodka to cheer you up?"
"No thanks. I'll just sleep a couple of hours." "Same here. We're not getting any younger. I've been on night duty. And my rheumatism comes on in the cold weather."
In the afternoon I reported to Silvers. He was much friendlier than I had expected. "Have you brought back some orders?" he asked.
"I've sold the little Renoir charcoal for five thousand."
Silvers nodded. "Not bad," he said, to my amazement.
"What's wrong?" I asked. "You usually burst into tears when we sell something."
"That's right The best way would be to keep everything. But the war will be over soon. Germany is washed up. Well, you know what that means."
"No," I said. I knew what it meant to me, not what it meant to him.
"It means people will be able to go to Europe pretty soon. And Europe is poor. Anybody with dollars will be able to buy pictures for a song, which means hard times for American dealers. We've got to be careful and cut down on our stock."
"Even I can understand that."
"It was the same after the first war. I was new in the trade and I made some bad mistakes. That mustn't happen again. So if you've got any deals pending and the customer seems to be in doubt, come down on the prices. Tell them we need cash because we're buying a big collection."
Somehow this frankly commercial approach, unclouded by moral considerations, cheered me up, especially the coldblooded way in which Silvers considered the world's disasters from the standpoint of profit and loss. "Of course we'll have to cut down on your commissions," he added.
I fully expected that. I'd have been disappointed if he hadn't said it. Those words were the salt in the stew. "Of course," I said cheerfully.
I hesitated to call Natasha. I put it off from hour to hour. In the last few weeks our relationship had become an abstraction; even the few postcards we exchanged had struck me as empty and false. When we weren't together, there was simply nothing to say. I had no idea what would happen if I called. I felt so shaky about it that I hadn't even informed her of my arrival, though I had meant to. As the weeks and months slipped by, Natasha had become strangely unreal in my thoughts, as though our relationship had been a mere accident and had dwindled painlessly away.
I went to see Betty and was horrified at the way she looked. She must have lost twenty pounds. Except for her great shining eyes, all life had gone out of her shrunken face.
"You're looking good, Betty."
"Not too thin?"
"Not in this day and age. It's the style."
"Betty will bury us all," said Ravic, emerging from the dark living room.
"Not Ross," said Betty with a spectral smile. "Look at him. A picture of health. So tan!"
"That will be gone in two weeks, Betty. It's winter in New York."
"I'd like to go to California myself," she said. "It must be good for the health, now in the wintertime. But it's so far from Europe."
I looked around. There was a smell of death in the room.
"It gets dark so early now," Betty complained. "It makes the nights so long."
"Leave the light on," said Ravic "Ignore the times of day."
"I do. I'm afraid of the darkness. In Berlin I was never afraid."
"That was a long time ago, Betty. We change. I've often been afraid to wake up in the dark."
She fixed her great shining eyes on me. "Even now?"
"Yes, here in New York. Not" so much in California."
"Why? What did you do? Maybe you weren't alone at night?"
"Oh yes. I forgot, Betty. I just forgot"
"That's the best way," said Ravic.
Betty threatened me with a bony finger and smiled a ghastly smile; the loose skin of her face moved as if invisible fists" were at work under it. "One look at him tells the story," she said, gazing at me out of her great round eyes. "He's happy."
"Who can claim to be happy, Betty?"
"That's something I've found out. Everyone who has his health. Except that nobody knows it until he gets sick. And when they get well, they forget it."
She propped herself up. Her breasts sagged like empty sacks under her flowered bed jacket. "Everything else is nonsense," she gasped. "Believe me! The rest is talk. All this stuff about unhappiness and love and loneliness—it all evaporates when you're sick. All these memories of ours are like a lot of colored balloons. We think th
ey're so pretty, and then someone comes along and sticks a pin in them."
"I can't believe that, Betty," I said. "You have such wonderful memories. All the people you've helped. All the friends you've made."
Betty was silent for a moment. Then she motioned me to come close. I approached reluctantly; she smelled of peppermint and decay. "I've stopped caring," she whispered. "Believe me. I just don't care any more."
The New York twin came in from the living room. "Betty is having one of her bad days," said Ravic, and stood up. "Cafard. Everybody gets it now and then. Sometimes mine lasts for weeks. I'll come again this afternoon."
He left. The twin spread out some photographs on the bed. "Olivaer Platz, Betty. In the days before the Nazis."
Suddenly Betty came to life. "Really? Where did you get them? Give me my glasses! My goodness! Is my house there?"
The twin brought her a magnifying glass. "My house isn't on it," said Betty. "It was taken from the wrong side. Here's Dr. Schlesinger's house. I can even read the name. Of course it's before the Nazis. Or the name plate wouldn't be there."
"Good-by, Betty," I said. "I've got to go."
"Can't you stay?"
"I've just arrived in New York. I've got to unpack."
"How's my sister?" the twin asked. "The poor thing. All alone in Hollywood."
"She's doing fine," I said.
"I hope so. We're both kind of lost without each other."
Betty had followed the conversation with visible alarm. "Oh, Lissy, you're not going awây?" she pleaded. "You can't leave me here all alone. What would I do?"
"I won't go away."
Lissy—this was the first time I had heard either twin called by her individual name—took me to the door. "She's driving me crazy," she whispered. "Day after day, dying and not dying. I'm getting sick myself. Ravic wants to put her into the hospital, but she won't go; she says she'd rather die. But she won't die."
I thought of going to see Kahn, but I had nothing pleasant to tell him and I didn't want to be a bearer of bad news. I kept putting off my call to Natasha. I hadn't thought about her very much in California; we had told each other, and tried to make ourselves believe, that there was nothing sentimental about this affair of ours, that neither of us would ever be unhappy over it, and this was the picture I carried with me to California. If that was the case, it should have been perfectly simple to phone Natasha and find out where we stood. Neither of us had any obligations or ground for reproach. Nevertheless, I dreaded the phone call. It seemed to me that' by my stupidity or negligence I had lost something that could never be recaptured. By the end of the day my vague forebodings had condensed into anguish: what if she were dead? I knew this absurd fear had something to do with my visit to Betty, but that did not relieve it.
In the end I rushed to the phone as though my life were at stake. I heard the ring at the other end and I knew at once that the room was empty. I tried the number every ten minutes. I knew that she often worked in the evening, that she could have gone out for any number of reasons, but that was no help. I thought of Kahn and Carmen, of Silvers and his unfortunate adventure; I thought of Betty, and how all our grandiose visions of happiness pale in the presence of sickness. I tried to remember the little Mexican girl in Hollywood and to comfort myself with the thought that the world was full of women more beautiful than Natasha. These mental exercises were small consolation, but at least they gave me the courage to call again. Finally I resorted to the old numbers game: I'd try twice more and then give up. But two turned to three and four.
Suddenly she was there. I hadn't even put the receiver to my ear, but left it lying in my lap. "Robert," she said, "where are you calling from?"
"New York. I arrived today."
After a moment's silence she asked: "Is that all?"
"No, Natasha. When can I see you? I've called twenty times and I'm desperate. Your phone has the emptiest sound I ever heard when you're not there."
She laughed softly. "I've just come in."
"Come out and eat with me," I said. "I can take you to the Pavilion. Don't say no. Or we can have a hamburger in a drugstore. We can do anything you like."
I was afraid of what she might say; I was afraid of a long discussion about why we hadn't written in so long, of all the unnecessary but understandable reproaches that can poison a meeting in advance.
"Okay," she said. "Call for me in an hour."
"I worship you, Natasha. Those are the most beautiful words I've heard since I left New York."
The moment I had said that, I foresaw her answer. I had led with my chin. But she said nothing at all. I could hear the click as she hung up. I was relieved and disappointed. I would almost have preferred a fight. There was something suspicious about her calm.
I went back to Lisa Teruel's room to dress. The room smelted more strongly of sulphur and Lysol in the evening than in the morning; this was hardly the. atmosphere to prepare me for the battle I anticipated. What I needed was perfect composure. For a moment I even thought of finding someone to make love to first; then perhaps I would be able to face Natasha without trembling.
"Are you going to a funeral?" Melikov asked. "How about some vodka?"
"No, thanks," I said. "This is too serious. Well, actually, it's not serious at all, only I mustn't.make any mistakes. How does Natasha look?"
"Better than ever. I can't help it. That's the way it is."
"Are you on duty tonight?"
"Until 7:00 a.m."
"Thank God. So long, Vladimir. What an idiot I am! Why didn't I write more often? Or phone? I was actually proud of it."
"The dogs bark, but the caravan passes by."
"What's that?"
"An old Arab saying. Don't bark too much."
"Or too little."
I went out into the cold night, armed with fear, hope, good resolutions, repentance, and a new ready-to-wear overcoat
On the way I thought up an assortment of lies and tactical plans.
The light outside the elevator went on, and I heard the hum of the engine. "Natasha," I blurted out. "I was full of confusion, repentance, hope, lies, and tactical plans. The second you stepped out of the elevator I forgot them all. The one thing left in my mind is a question: how in God's name could I ever have left you?"
I took her in my arms and kissed her. I felt that she was resisting me and held her tighter. She gave in, but the moment I relaxed my hold she freed herself. "You look about as confused as a stone," she said. "And you're thinner.''
"I've been living on grass and health food."
"I've been taken out to gala dinners at 21 and the Pavilion. Am I too fat?"
"I wish you were. Then there'd be more of you."
I ignored the gala dinners. Now I was really confused, torn between joy and apprehension and, now that I held her in my arms, unable to control my trembling. She never wore very much under her dress and always seemed naked, warm, and exciting to the touch. I had stopped thinking of all that; now I could think of nothing else.
"Aren't you cold?" I asked idiotically.
"In this cape? Where are we going?"
I was careful not to suggest 21 or the Pavilion. I didn't want to be told again that she had been to those places night after night and was bored with them. "How about the Bistro?"
"The Bistro is closed," she said. "The owner sold it. He's gone back to France. He wants to be there when De Gaulle marches in."
"Really? They let him go?"
"So it seems. The French refugees have all got the itch to go back. They're afraid of being treated as deserters if they get there too late. Let's go to the Coq d'Or. It's pretty much like the Bistro."
"Fine. I hope the patron is still there. He's French, too, isn't he?"
"Maybe he's decided to stay here."
The patron was a man in his forties, with a red face and a thick black mustache. I would have liked to ask him about his plans, but those were things one didn't mention.
"I can recommend the rosé d'Anjo
u," he said.
"Fine."
I looked at him with envy. He was a refugee, too, but not my kind. He could go back. His country had been occupied and was being liberated. Not mine.
"You're brown," said Natasha. "What have you been doing?"
She knew I had been working for Holt, but not much more. I gave her a succinct account of myself, so as to get the tedious question period over with as quickly as possible.
"Do you have to go back?" she asked.