“Oh Stan you precious idiot.”
He put down the chair and came towards her brown and male and lean in the silly dressinggown. The phonograph came to the end of the tune and the record went on rasping round and round.
V
Went to the Animals’ Fair
Red light. Bell.
A block deep four ranks of cars wait at the grade crossing, fenders in taillights, mudguards scraping mudguards, motors purring hot, exhausts reeking, cars from Babylon and Jamaica, cars from Montauk, Port Jefferson, Patchogue, limousines from Long Beach, Far Rockaway, roadsters from Great Neck … cars full of asters and wet bathingsuits, sunsinged necks, mouths sticky from sodas and hotdawgs … cars dusted with pollen of ragweed and goldenrod.
Green light. Motors race, gears screech into first. The cars space out, flow in a long ribbon along the ghostly cement road, between blackwindowed blocks of concrete factories, between bright slabbed colors of signboards towards the glow over the city that stands up incredibly into the night sky like the glow of a great lit tent, like the yellow tall bulk of a tentshow.
Sarajevo, the word stuck in her throat when she tried to say it. …
“It’s terrible to think of, terrible,” George Baldwin was groaning. “The Street’ll go plumb to hell. … They’ll close the Stock Exchange, only thing to do.”
“And I’ve never been to Europe either. … A war must be an extraordinary thing to see.” Ellen in her blue velvet dress with a buff cloak over it leaned back against the cushions of the taxi that whirred smoothly under them. “I always think of history as lithographs in a schoolbook, generals making proclamations, little tiny figures running across fields with their arms spread out, facsimiles of signatures.” Cones of light cutting into cones of light along the hot humming roadside, headlights splashing trees, houses, billboards, telegraph poles with broad brushes of whitewash. The taxi made a half turn and stopped in front of a roadhouse that oozed pink light and ragtime through every chink.
“Big crowd tonight,” said the taximan to Baldwin when he paid him.
“I wonder why,” asked Ellen.
“De Canarsie moider has sumpen to do wid it I guess.”
“What’s that?”
“Sumpen terrible. I seen it.”
“You saw the murder?”
“I didn’t see him do it. I seen de bodies laid out stiff before dey took em to de morgue. Us kids used to call de guy Santa Claus cause he had white whiskers. … Knowed him since I was a little feller.” The cars behind were honking and rasping their klaxons. “I better git a move on. … Good night lady.”
The red hallway smelt of lobster and steamed clams and cocktails.
“Why hello Gus! … Elaine let me introduce Mr. and Mrs. McNiel. … This is Miss Oglethorpe.” Ellen shook the big hand of a rednecked snubnosed man and the small precisely gloved hand of his wife. “Gus I’ll see you before we go. …”
Ellen was following the headwaiter’s swallowtails along the edge of the dancefloor. They sat at a table beside the wall. The music was playing “Everybody’s Doing It.” Baldwin hummed it as he hung over her a second arranging the wrap on the back of her chair.
“Elaine you are the loveliest person …” he began as he sat down opposite her. “It seems so horrible. I dont see how it’s possible.”
“What?”
“This war. I cant think of anything else.”
“I can …” She kept her eyes on the menu. “Did you notice those two people I introduced to you?”
“Yes. Is that the McNiel whose name is in the paper all the time? Some row about a builders’ strike and the Interborough bond issue.”
“It’s all politics. I bet he’s glad of the war, poor old Gus. It’ll do one thing, it’ll keep that row off the front page. … I’ll tell you about him in a minute. … I dont suppose you like steamed clams do you? They are very good here.”
“George I adore steamed clams.”
“Then we’ll have a regular old fashioned Long Island shore dinner. What do you think of that?” Laying her gloves away on the edge of the table her hand brushed against the vase of rusty red and yellow roses. A shower of faded petals fluttered onto her hand, her gloves, the table. She shook them off her hands.
“And do have him take these wretched roses away George. … I hate faded flowers.”
Steam from the plated bowl of clams uncoiled in the rosy glow from the lampshade. Baldwin watched her fingers, pink and limber, pulling the clams by their long necks out of their shells, dipping them in melted butter, and popping them dripping in her mouth. She was deep in eating clams. He sighed. “Elaine … I’m a very unhappy man. … Seeing Gus McNiel’s wife. It’s the first time in years. Think of it I was crazy in love with her and now I cant remember what her first name was … Funny isn’t it? Things had been extremely slow ever since I had set up in practice for myself. It was a rash thing to do, as I was only two years out of lawschool and had no money to run on. I was rash in those days. I’d decided that if I didn’t get a case that day I’d chuck everything and go back to a clerkship. I went out for a walk to clear my head and saw a freightcar shunting down Eleventh Avenue run into a milkwagon. It was a horrid mess and when we’d picked the fellow up I said to myself I’d get him his rightful damages or bankrupt myself in the attempt. I won his case and that brought me to the notice of various people downtown, and that started him on his career and me on mine.”
“So he drove a milkwagon did he? I think milkmen are the nicest people in the world. Mine’s the
