“You know,” Tamkin said, “that blind old man Rappaport — he’s pretty close to totally blind — is one of the most interesting personalities around here. If you could only get him to tell his true story. It’s fascinating. This what he told me. You often hear about bigamists with a secret life. But this old man never hid anything from anybody. He’s a regular patriarch. Now, I’ll tell you what he did. He had two whole families, separate and apart, one in Williamsburg and the other in The Bronx. The two wives knew about each other. The wife in The Bronx was younger; she’s close to seventy now. When he got sore at one wife he went to live with the other one. Meanwhile he ran his chicken business in New Jersey. By one wife he had four kids, and by the other six. They’re all grown, but they never have met their half-brothers and sisters and don’t want to. The whole bunch of them are listed in the telephone book.”
“I can’t believe it,” said Wilhelm.
“He told me this himself. And do you know what else? When he had his eyesight he used to read a lot, but the only books he would read were by Theodore Roosevelt. He had a set in each of the places where he lived, and he brought his kids up on those books.”
“Please,” said Wilhelm, “don’t feed me any more of this stuff, will you? Kindly do not—”
“In telling you this,” said Tamkin with one of his hypnotic subtleties, “I do have a motive. I want you to see how some people free themselves from morbid guilt feelings and follow their instincts. Innately, the female knows how to cripple by sickening a man with guilt. It is a very special
“Now look here,” said Wilhelm, stamping his feet. “One thing! Don’t bring up my boys. Just lay off.”
“I was only going to say that they are better off than with conflicts in the home.”
“I’m deprived of my children.” Wilhelm bit his lip. It was too late to turn away. The anguish struck him. “I pay and pay. I never see them. They grow up without me. She makes them like herself. She’ll bring them up to be my enemies. Please let’s not talk about this.”
But Tamkin said, “Why do you let her make you suffer so? It defeats the original object in leaving her. Don’t play her game. Now, Wilhelm, I’m trying to do you some good. I want to tell you, don’t marry suffering. Some people do. They get married to it, and sleep and eat together, just as husband and wife. If they go with joy they think it’s adultery.”
When Wilhelm heard this he had, in spite of himself, to admit that there was a great deal in Tamkin’s words. Yes, thought Wilhelm, suffering is the only kind of life they are sure they can have, and if they quit suffering they’re afraid they’ll have nothing. He knows it. This time the faker knows what he’s talking about.
Looking at Tamkin he believed he saw all this confessed from his usually barren face. Yes, yes, he too. One hundred falsehoods, but at last one truth. Howling like a wolf from the city window. No one can bear it any more. Everyone is so full of it that at last everybody must proclaim it. It! It!
Then suddenly Wilhelm rose and said, “That’s enough of this. Tamkin, let’s go back to the market.”
“I haven’t finished my melon.”
“Never mind that. You’ve had enough to eat. I want to go back.”
Dr. Tamkin slid the two checks across the table. “Who paid yesterday? It’s your turn, I think.”
It was not until they were leaving the cafeteria that Wilhelm remembered definitely that he had paid yesterday too. But it wasn’t worth arguing about.
Tamkin kept repeating as they walked down the street that there were many who were dedicated to suffering. But he told Wilhelm, “I’m optimistic in your case, and I have seen a world of maladjustment. There’s hope for you. You don’t really want to destroy yourself. You’re trying hard to keep your feelings open, Wilhelm. I can see it. Seven per cent of this country is committing suicide by alcohol. Another three, maybe, narcotics. Another sixty just fading away into dust by boredom. Twenty more, who have sold their souls to the devil. Then there’s a small percentage of those who want to live. That’s the only significant thing in the whole world of today. Those are the only two classes of people there are. Some want to live, but the great majority don’t.” This fantastic Tamkin began to surpass himself. “They don’t. Or else why these wars? I’ll tell you more,” he said. “The love of the dying amounts to one thing; they want you to die with them. It’s because they love you. Make no mistake.”
True, true! thought Wilhelm, profoundly moved by these revelations. How does he know these things? How can he be such a jerk, and even perhaps an operator, a swindler, and understand so well what gives? I believe what he says. It simplifies much — everything. People are dropping like flies. I am trying to stay alive and work too hard at it. That’s what’s turning my brains. This working hard defeats its own end. At what point should I start over? Let me go back a ways and try once more.
Only a few hundred yards separated the cafeteria from the broker’s, and within that short space Wilhelm turned again, in measurable degrees, from these wide considerations to the problems of the moment. The closer he approached to the market, the more Wilhelm had to think about money.
They passed the newsreel theater where the ragged shoeshine kids called after them. The same old bearded man with his bandaged beggar face and his tiny ragged feet and the old press clipping on his fiddle case to prove he had once been a concert violinist, pointed his bow at Wilhelm, saying, “You!” Wilhelm went by with worried eyes, bent on crossing Seventy-second Street. In full tumult the great afternoon current raced for Columbus Circle, where the mouth of midtown stood open and the skyscrapers gave back the yellow fire of the sun.
As they approached the polished stone front of the new office building, Dr. Tamkin said, “Well, isn’t that old Rappaport by the door? I think he should carry a white cane, but he will never admit there’s a single thing the matter with his eyes.”
Mr. Rappaport did not stand well; his knees were sunk, while his pelvis only half filled his trousers. His suspenders held them, gaping.
He stopped Wilhelm with an extended hand, having somehow recognized him. In his deep voice he commanded him, “Take me to the cigar store.”
“You want me–? Tamkin!” Wilhelm whispered, “You take him.”
Tamkin shook his head. “He wants you. Don’t refuse the old gentleman.” Significantly he said in a lower voice, “This minute is another instance of the ‘here-and-now.’ You have to live in this very minute, and you don’t want to. A man asks you for help. Don’t think of the market. It won’t run away. Show your respect to the old boy. Go ahead. That may be more valuable.”
“Take me,” said the old chicken merchant again.
Greatly annoyed, Wilhelm wrinkled his face at Tamkin. He took the old man’s big but light elbow at the bone. “Well, let’s step on it,” he said. “Or wait — I want to have a look at the board first to see how we’re doing.”
But Tamkin had already started Mr. Rappaport forward. He was walking, and he scolded Wilhelm, saying, “Don’t leave me standing in the middle of the sidewalk. I’m afraid to get knocked over.”
“Let’s get a move on. Come.” Wilhelm urged him as Tamkin went into the broker’s.
The traffic seemed to come down Broadway out of the sky, where the hot spokes of the sun rolled from the south. Hot, stony odors rose from the subway grating in the street.
“These teen-age hoodlums worry me. I’m ascared of these Puerto Rican kids, and these young characters who take dope,” said Mr. Rappaport. “They go around all hopped up.”
“Hoodlums?” said Wilhelm. “I went to the cemetery and my mother’s stone bench was split. I could have broken somebody’s neck for that. Which store do you go to?”
“Across Broadway. That La Magnita sign next door to the Automat.”
“What’s the matter with this store here on this side?”
“They don’t carry my brand, that’s what’s the matter.”
Wilhelm cursed, but checked the words.
“What are you talking?”
“Those damn taxis,” said Wilhelm. “They want everybody down.”
They entered the cool, odorous shop. Mr. Rappaport put away his large cigars with great care in various pockets while Wilhelm muttered, “Come on, you old creeper. What a poky old character! The whole world waits on him.” Rappaport did not offer Wilhelm a cigar, but, holding one up, he asked, “What do you say at the size of these, huh? They’re Churchill-type cigars.”
He barely crawls along, thought Wilhelm. His pants are dropping off because he hasn’t got enough flesh for them to stick to. He’s almost blind, and covered with spots, but this old man still makes money in the market. Is
