see, we don't know ? where to go. This Ohio, maybe? I have fifty dollars here.' 'That would get you there,' I allowed. She shook her head. 'Oh, no. The fifty dollars is for you. I You know our name, Vardas? You know we are married? So I there is no question of morals, we are very high in morals, LQnly all we want is to do our work and live in private, Carl |?nd me, and we think--'
Having heard the clatter of Wolfe's elevator descending 'from the plant rooms on the roof, I had known an interrup|tion was coming but had let her proceed. Now she stopped its Wolfe's steps sounded and he appeared at the door. Carl gJUid Tina both bounced to their feet. Two paces in, after a lauick glance at them, Wolfe stopped short and glowered at tie.
'I didn't tell you we had callers,' I said cheerfully, 'besuse I knew you would be down soon. You know Carl, at the rber shop? And Tina, you've seen her there too. It's all ght, they're married. They just dropped in to buy fifty ticks' worth of--'
Without a word or even a nod, Wolfe turned all of his yenth of a ton and beat it out and toward the door to the len at the rear. The Vardas family stared at the doorway t moment and then turned to me.
'Sit down,' I invited them. 'As you said, he's a great man. Je's sore because I didn't notify him we had company, and was expecting to sit there behind his desk'--I waved a id--'and ring for beer and enjoy himself. He wouldn't gle a finger for fifty dollars. Maybe I won't either, but
59
let's see.' I looked at Tina, who was back on the edge of her chair. 'You were saying . . .'
'We don't want Mr. Wolfe mad at us,' she said in distress.
'Forget it. He's only mad at me, which is chronic. What do you want to go to Ohio for)'
'Maybe not Ohio.' She tried to smile again. 'It's what I said, we love this country and we want to go more into itfar in. We would like to be in the middle of it. We want you to tell us where to go, to help us?'
'No, no.' I was brusque. 'Start from here. Look at you, you're both scared stiff. What's the danger Carl mentioned?'
'I don't think,' she protested, 'it makes any difference?'
'That's no good,' Carl said harshly. His hands started trembling again, but he gripped the sides of his chair seat, and they stopped. His dark: eyes fastened on me. 'I met Tina,' he said in a low level voice, trying to keep feeling out of it, 'three years ago in a concentration camp in Russia. If you want me to I will tell you. why it was that they would never have let us get out of there alive, not in one hundred years, but I would rather not t^lk so much about it. It makes me start to tremble, and I am. trying to learn to act and talk of a manner so I can quit trembling.'
I concurred. 'Save it for some day after you stop trembling. But you did get out alive pounds '
'Plainly. We are here/' There was an edge of triumph to the level voice. 'I will not tell you about that either. But they think we are dead. Of covarse Vardas was not our name then, neither of us. We took that name later, when we got married in Istanbul. Then we so managed?'
'You shouldn't tell an_y places,' Tina scolded him. 'No places at all and no people at all.'
'You are most right,' Cjarl admitted. He informed me, 'It was not Istanbul.'
I nodded. 'Istanbul is out. You would have had to swim. You got married, that's th e point.'
'Yes. Then, later, we r*early got caught again. We did get caught, but?'
'No!' Tina said positively. 60
'Very well, Tina. You are most right. We went many , other places, and at a certain time in a certain way we crossed the ocean. We had tried very hard to come to this country according to your rules, but it was in no way possible. When we did get into New York it was more by an accident--no, ; I did not say that. I will not say that much. Only I will say we i>oot into New York. For a while it was so difficult, but it has been nearly a year now, since we got the jobs at the barber that life has been so fine and sweet that we are almost lliealthy again. What we eat! We have even got some money ||aved! We have got--'
'Fifty dollars,' Tina said hastily.
'Most right,' Carl agreed. 'Fifty American dollars. I can as a fact that we would be healthy and happy beyond our nost dreams three years ago, except for the danger. The ager is that we did not follow your rules. I will not deny jt they are good rules, but for us they were impossible. ; cannot expect ourselves to be happy when we don't know at minute someone may come and ask us how we got here. i?e minute that just went by, that was all right, no one i, but here is the next minute. Every day is full of those nutes, so many. We have found a way to learn what would and we know where we would be sent back to. We exactly what would happen to us. I would not be sur if you felt a deep contempt when you saw me tremag the way I do, but to understand a situation like this I we you have to be somewhat close to it. As I am. As is. I am not saying you would tremble like me--after rTina never does--but I think you might have your own
of showing that you were not really happy.' irYeah, I might,' I agreed. I glanced at Tina, but the exon on her face could have made me uncomfortable, so bked back at Carl. 'But if I tried to figure a way out I doubt ||Would pick on spilling it to a guy named Archie Goodwin 'because he came to the barber shop where I worked. He tttvbe crazy about the rules you couldn't follow, and any there are just as many minutes in Ohio as there are in 'York.'
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'There is that fifty dollars.' Carl extended his hands, not trembling, toward me.
Tina gestured impatiently. 'That's nothing to you,' she said, letting bitterness into it for the first time. 'We know that, it's nothing. But the danger has come, and we had to have someone tell us where to go. This morning a man came to the barber shop and asked us questions. An official! A policeman!'
'Oh.' I glanced from one to the other. 'That's different. A policeman in uniform?'
'No, in regular clothes, but he showed us a card in a case, New York Police Department. His name was on it, Jacob Wallen.'
'What time this morning?'
