“When you go down into the street I’ll be with you,” said Congo.
“You know that man I tell about? … That man Errico Malatesta, in Italy greatest man after Garibaldi. … He give his whole life in jail and exile, in Egypt, in England, in South America, everywhere. … If I could be a man like that, I dont care what they do; they can string me up, shoot me … I dont care … I am very happy.”
“But he must be crazy a feller like that,” said Emile slowly. “He must be crazy.”
Marco gulped down the last of his coffee. “Wait a minute. You are too young. You will understand. … One by one they make us understand. … And remember what I say. … Maybe I’m too old, maybe I’m dead, but it will come when the working people awake from slavery. … You will walk out in the street and the police will run away, you will go into a bank and there will be money poured out on the floor and you wont stoop to pick it up, no more good. … All over the world we are preparing. There are comrades even in China. … Your Commune in France was the beginning … socialism failed. It’s for the anarchists to strike the next blow. … If we fail there will be others. …”
Congo yawned, “I am sleepy as a dog.”
Outside the lemoncolored dawn was drenching the empty streets, dripping from cornices, from the rails of fire escapes, from the rims of ashcans, shattering the blocks of shadow between buildings. The streetlights were out. At a corner they looked up Broadway that was narrow and scorched as if a fire had gutted it.
“I never see the dawn,” said Marco, his voice rattling in his throat, “that I dont say to myself perhaps … perhaps today.” He cleared his throat and spat against the base of a lamppost; then he moved away from them with his waddling step, taking hard short sniffs of the cool air.
“Is that true, Congo, about shipping again?”
“Why not? Got to see the world a bit …”
“I’ll miss you. … I’ll have to find another room.”
“You’ll find another friend to bunk with.”
“But if you do that you’ll stay a sailor all your life.”
“What does it matter? When you are rich and married I’ll come and visit you.”
They were walking down Sixth Avenue. An L train roared above their heads leaving a humming rattle to fade among the girders after it had passed.
“Why dont you get another job and stay on a while?”
Congo produced two bent cigarettes out of the breast pocket of his coat, handed one to Emile, struck a match on the seat of his trousers, and let the smoke out slowly through his nose. “I’m fed up with it here I tell you. …” He brought his flat hand up across his Adam’s apple, “up to here. … Maybe I’ll go home an visit the little girls of Bordeaux. … At least they are not all made of whalebone. … I’ll engage myself as a volunteer in the navy and wear a red pompom. … The girls like that. That’s the only life. … Get drunk and raise cain payday and see the extreme orient.”
“And die of the syph in a hospital at thirty. …”
“What’s it matter? … Your body renews itself every seven years.”
The steps of their rooming house smelled of cabbage and stale beer. They stumbled up yawning.
“Waiting’s a rotten tiring job. … Makes the soles of your feet ache. … Look it’s going to be a fine day; I can see the sun on the watertank opposite.”
Congo pulled off his shoes and socks and trousers and curled up in bed like a cat.
“Those dirty shades let in all the light,” muttered Emile as he stretched himself on the outer edge of the bed. He lay tossing uneasily on the rumpled sheets. Congo’s breathing beside him was low and regular. If I was only like that, thought Emile, never worrying about a thing. … But it’s not that way you get along in the world. My God it’s stupid. … Marco’s gaga the old fool.
And he lay on his back looking up at the rusty stains on the ceiling, shuddering every time an elevated train shook the room. Sacred name of God I must save up my money. When he turned over the knob on the bedstead rattled and he remembered Marco’s hissing husky voice: I never see the dawn that I dont say to myself perhaps.
“If you’ll excuse me just a moment Mr. Olafson,” said the houseagent. “While you and the madam are deciding about the apartment …” They stood side by side in the empty room, looking out the window at the slatecolored Hudson and the warships at anchor and a schooner tacking upstream.
Suddenly she turned to him with glistening eyes; “O Billy, just think of it.”
He took hold of her shoulders and drew her to him slowly. “You can smell the sea, almost.”
“Just think Billy that we are going to live here, on Riverside Drive. I’ll have to have a day at home … Mrs. William C. Olafson, 218 Riverside Drive. … I wonder if it is all right to put the address on our visiting cards.” She took his hand and led him through the empty cleanswept rooms that no one had ever lived in. He was a big shambling man with eyes of a washed out blue deepset in a white infantile head.
“It’s a lot of money Bertha.”
“We can afford it now, of course we can. We must
