Collected Stories, page 41
Not being one of these socially clairvoyant people, I would not feel extraordinarily at home in a Virginia Woolf novel. But I get a glimpse, for the most fragmentary moment, of an extreme complexity pressing in upon us. There is of course Ruth emanating silent disapproval of her husband’s big argumentative mouth, and there is Sue, radiant and resolute, smiling promises at Kaminski. There is Kaminski with his deer eyes wide and innocent, his mouth indifferently half smiling—a pure enigma to me, unidentifiable. And there are the critic, ruminating kindly and perhaps with friendly sorrow his own private doubts, and Ackerman incognito behind the heavy folds of his face, and Mrs. Ackerman, who looks as if she would like nothing better than to get off her aching feet and start home, and the music teacher bristling with excitement and stimulation, saying to Kaminski, “But imagine getting up on the stage at Carnegie Hall with Virgil Thomson and Olin Downes and everybody there. …” Also there is Bill Casement with his long creased face that looks as overworked as Gary Cooper trying to register an emotion. What emotion? Maybe he is kissing two thousand dollars good-bye and wondering if he is glad to see it go. Maybe he is proud of his wife, who has the initiative and the culture to do all this of this evening. Maybe he is contemplating the people in his cabaña and thinking what funny things can happen to a man’s home.
So only one thing is clear. Sue will stake Kaminski to a New York concert. I don’t know why that depresses me. It has been clear all along that that is exactly what she has wanted to do. My depression may come from Kaminski’s indifference. I would like to see the stinker get his chance and goof it good.
An improbable opening appears low down in the droops and folds of Mr. Ackerman’s face, and he yawns. “Darling,” his wife says at once, “we have a long drive back to the city.”
In a moment the circle has begun to melt and disintegrate. Sue is accosted with gratitude from three sides. The accompanist and the velvet-coated Mr. Budapest stay with Kaminski to say earnest friendly things: I want you to come up and meet … He will be interested that you have appeared with … of course they will have heard of you … I should think something of Hovhaness’ … yes … excellent. Why not?
Since the discussion took his career out of his hands, Kaminski has said nothing. He bows, he smiles, but his face has gone remote; the half-sneer of repose has come back into it. He is a Hyperborean, beyond everybody. All this nonsense about careers bores him. Why do the heathen rage furiously together? Beyond question, he is one of the greatest bargains I have ever seen bought.
Also, as he turns and shakes hands with Mr. Budapest and recalls himself for the tiresomeness of good nights, I observe that perhaps what I took for snootiness is paralysis. He does not believe in alcohol, which is drunk only by pigs, but I have seen him take four highballs in twenty minutes, and Bill Casement’s bartenders have been taught not to spare the Old Granddad.
VII
While the other ladies are absent getting their coats, Kaminski holds collapse off at arm’s length and plays games of solemn jocularity with the homely little music teacher. He leans carefully and whispers in her ear something that makes her flush and laugh and shake her head, protesting. “Eh?” he cries. “Isn’t it so?” With his feet crossed he leans close, rocking his ankles. Out of the corner of the music teacher’s eye goes an astonishingly cool flickering look, alert to see if anyone is watching her here, tête-à-tête with the maestro. All she sees is old Joe Allston, the commercial fellow. Her neck stiffens, her eyes are abruptly glazed, her face is carefree and without guile as she turns indifferently back. Old Allston is about as popular as limburger on the newlyweds’ exhaust manifold. He hates us Youth. The Anti-Christ.
“You can joke,” she says to Kaminski, “but I’m serious, really I am. We know we aren’t very wonderful, but we aren’t so bad, either, so there. We’ve got a very original name: The Chamber Society. And if you don’t watch out, I will sign you up to play with us sometime. So don’t say anything you don’t mean!”
“I never say anything I don’t mean,” Kaminski grins. “I’d love to play with you. All ladies, are you?”
“All except the cello. He’s a math teacher at the high school.”
“Repulsive,” Kaminski murmurs. The teacher giggles, swings sideways, sees me still there, nails me to the wall with a venomous look. Snoop! Why don’t I move? But I am much too interested to move.
“Three ladies and one gentleman,” Kaminski says, smiling broadly and leaning over her so far he overbalances and staggers. “A Mormon. Are the other ladies all like you?”
Because I know that none of this will sound credible when I report it to Ruth, I strain for every word of this adolescent drooling. I see the music teacher, a little hesitant, vibrate a look at Kaminski’s face and then, just a little desperately, towards the group of men by the door. Kaminski is greatly amused by something. “I tell you what you should do,” he says. “You reorganize yourself into the Bed-chamber Society. Let the Mormon have the other two, and you and I will play together. Any time.”
He has enunciated this unkind crudity very plainly, so plainly that at fifteen feet I cannot possibly have misheard. The little teacher does not look up from her abstract or panicky study of certain chair legs. Her incomplete little face goes slowly scarlet, her pebbled chin is stiff. That little cold venomous glance whips up to me and is taken back again. If I were not there, she would probably run for her life. As it is, she is tempted into pretending that nothing has been said. She is like Harold Lloyd in one of those old comedies, making vivacious and desperate chatter to a girl, while behind the draperies or under the tablecloth his accidentally snagged pants unravel or his seams burst or his buttons one by one give up the ghost. Sooner or later the draperies will be thrown open by the butler, or someone’s belt buckle will catch the tablecloth and drag it to the floor, and there will be Harold in his hairy shanks, his Paris garters. Oh Lord. I am not quite able to take myself away from there.
Kaminski leans over her, catches himself by putting a hand on her shoulder, says something else close to her red-hot ear. That does it. She squirms sideways, shakes him off, and darts past the ladies just returning from the cloakroom. Kaminski, not so egg-eyed as I expect to see him, looks at me with a smile almost too wide for his mouth, and winks. He could not be more pleased if he had just pulled the legs off a live squirrel. But the music teacher, darting past me, has given me quite another sort of look. There is a dead-white spot in the center of each cheek, and her eyes burn into mine with pure hatred. That is what I get for being an innocent bystander and witnessing her humiliation.
For a few seconds Kaminski stands ironically smiling into thin air; he wears a tasting expression. Then he motions to one of the Japanese at the bar, and the Japanese scoops ice cubes into a glass.
It is time for us to get away from there. The elegant cabaña smells and looks like Ciro’s at nine o’clock of a Sunday morning. Outside, the pool lights are off, but the air swirls and swims, dizzy with moonlighted fog. The sliding doors are part way open for departing guests. Sue comes and catches Kaminski by the arm, holding his sleeve with both hands in a too friendly, too sisterly pose. They stand in the doorway with the mist blowing beyond them.
“Now please do come and see me,” Ackerman says. “One never knows. I would like to introduce you. Perhaps some evening, a little group at my home.”
“Good luck,” says the critic. “I shall hope before long to write pleasant comments after your name.”
“Ah, vunderful,” says Mr. Budapest, “you were vunderful! I have so enjoyed it. And if you should write to Signor Vitelli, my greetings. It has been many years.”
“Not at all, not at all,” says Bill Casement. “Happy to have you.”
“It was so good of you all to come,” Sue says. “You don’t know how … or rather, you do, all of you do. You’ve been generous to come and help. I’m sure it will work out for him somehow, he has such great talent. And when you’re as ignorant as I am … I hope when you’re down this way you won’t hesitate … Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye.”
The women pull June fur coats around them, their figures blur in the mist and are invisible beyond the Mondrian gate. But now comes the music teacher with a bone in her teeth, poor thing, grimly polite, breathless. She looks neither to left nor right past Sue’s face: Good night. A pleasant time. You have a very beautiful place. Thank you. And gone.
Her haste is startling to Sue, who likes to linger warmly on farewells, standing with arms hugged around herself in lighted doorways. Kaminski toasts the departing tweed with a silent glass. The figure hurries through the gate, one shoulder thrust ahead, the coat thrown cape-wise over her shoulders. Almost she scuttles. From beyond the gate she casts back one terrible glance, and is swallowed in the fog.
“Why, I wonder what’s the matter with her?” Sue says. “Didn’t she act odd?”
Bill motions us in and slides the glass door shut. With his back against the door Kaminski studies the ice cubes which remain from his fifth highball. All of a sudden he is as gloomy as a raincloud. “I’m the matter with her,” he says. “I insulted her.”
“You what?”
“Insulted her. I made indecent propositions.”
“Oh, Arnold!” Sue says with a laugh. “Come on!”
“It’s true,” Arnold says. “Ask the agent, there. I whispered four-letter words in her ear.”
She stares at him steadily. “And if you did,” she says, “in heaven’s name why did you?”
“Akh!” Kaminski says. “Such a dried-up little old maid as that, so full of ignorance and enthusiasm. How could I avoid insulting her? She is the sort of person who invites indecent exposure.” There is a moment of quiet in which we hear the sound of a car pulling out of the drive. “How could I help insulting her?” Kaminski shouts. “If I didn’t insult people like that I couldn’t keep my self-respect.” Nobody replies to this. “That is why nobody likes me,” he says, and looks around for a white coat but the white coats are all gone. Automatically Sue takes his empty glass from him.
Ruth says, quite loudly for her, “Sue, we must go. It was a lovely party. And Mr. Kaminski, I thought you played beautifully.”
His flat stare challenges her. “I was terrible,” he says. “Ackerman and those others will tell you. They are saying right now in their car how bad it was. The way I played, they will think I am fit for high school assemblies or Miss Spinster’s chamber society. I am all finished around here. Nothing will come of any of this. I have muffed it again.”
“Finished?” Sue cries. “Arnold, you’ve just begun.”
“Finished,” he says. “All done.”
“Oh, what if you did insult Miss What’s-her-name,” Sue says. “You can go and apologize tomorrow. It’s your playing that’s important, and you played so beautifully. …”
Bill Casement, by the door jamb, rubs one cheek, pulling his mouth down and then up again. He gives me a significant look; I half expect him to twirl a finger beside his head. “Well, good night,” I say. “I’m tired, and I imagine you all are.”
Bill slides the door open a couple of feet, but Sue pays no attention to me. She is staring angrily at Kaminski. “How can you talk that way? You did beautifully—ask anybody who heard you. This is only the first step, and you got by it just—just wonderfully! I told you I’d back you, and I will.”
I have never observed anyone chewing his tongue, but that is what Kaminski is doing now, munching away, and his purple cheeks working. His face has begun to degenerate above the black and white formality of jacket and pleated shirt and rigid black tie. “You’re incurably kind,” he says thickly—whether in irony or not I can’t tell. He spits out his tongue and says more plainly, “You like me, I know that. You’re the only one. Nobody else. Nobody ever did. This is the way it was in Hollywood too. Did you know I was in Hollywood a while? I had a job playing for the soundtrack of a Charles Boyer movie. So what did I do? I quarreled with the director and he got somebody else.”
With a resolute move, Ruth and I get out of the door. Pinpricks of fog are in our faces. From inside, Sue says efficiently, “Arnold, you’ve had one too many. It was a great success, really it was.”
“Every time, I fail,” wails Kaminski. His Mephisto airs have been melted and dissolved away; he is just a sloppy drunk with a crying jag on. His eyes beg pity and his mouth is slack and his hands paw at Sue. She holds him off by one thick wrist. “Every time,” he says, and his eyes are on her now with a sudden drunken alertness. “Every time. You know why? I want to fail. I work like a dog for twenty years so I’ll have the supreme pleasure of failing. Never knew anybody like that, did you? I’m very cunning. I plan it in advance. I fool myself right up to the last minute, and then the time comes and I know how cunningly I’ve been planning it all the time. I’ve been a failure all my life.”
I am inclined to agree with him, but I am old and tired and fed up. I would also bet that he is well on his way to being an alcoholic, this anti-food-and-drink Artist. He has the proper self-pity. If you don’t feel sorry for yourself in something like this you can’t justify the bottle that cures and damns you. This Kaminski is one of those who drink for the hangover; he sins for the sweet torture of self-blame and confession. A crying jag is as good a way of holding the stage as playing the piano or bad manners.
Now he is angry again. “Why should a man have to scramble and crawl for a chance to play the soundtrack in a Boyer picture? That is how the artist is appreciated in this country. He plays offstage while a ham actor fakes for the camera. Why should I put up with that? If I’m an artist, I’m an artist. I would rather play the organ in some neon cocktail bar than do this behind-the-scenes faking.”
“Of course,” Sue says. “And tomorrow we can talk about how you’re going to go ahead and be the artist you want to be. You can have the career you want, if you’re willing to work hard—oh, so hard! But you have to have faith in yourself, Arnold! You have to have confidence that nothing on earth can stop you, and then it can’t.”
“Faith,” says Kaminski. “Confidence!” He weaves on his feet, and his head rolls, and for a second I hope he has passed out so we can tote him off to bed. But he gets himself straightened up and under control again, showing a degree of co-ordination that makes me wonder all anew whether he is really as drunk as he seems or if he is putting on some fantastic act.
And then I find him looking out of the open door with his mouth set in a mean little line. “You don’t like me,” he says. “You disliked me the minute you met me, and you’ve been watching me all night. You want to know why?”
“Not particularly,” I say. “You’d better get to bed, and in the morning we can all be friends again.”
“You’re no friend of mine,” says Kaminski, and Sue exclaims, “Arnold!” but Kaminski wags his head and repeats, “No frien’ of mine, and I’ll tell you why. You saw I was a fake. Looked right through me, didn’ you? Smart man, can’t be fooled just because somebody can play the piano. When did you decide I wasn’t a Pole, eh? Tell me tha’.”
I lift my shoulders. But it is true, now that I have had my attention called to it, that the slight unplaceable accent that was present earlier in the evening is gone. Now, even drunk and chewing his tongue, he talks a good deal like …
“Well, what is the accent?” I ask. “South Boston?”
“See, wha’ I tell you?” he cries, and swings on Sue so that she has to turn with him and brace herself to hold him up. Her face puckers with effort, or possibly disgust, and now for the first time she is looking at Bill as a wife looks towards her husband when she needs to be got out of trouble. “See?” Kaminski shouts. “Wasn’t fooled. You all were, but he wasn’. Regnize Blue Hill Avenue in a minute.”
Again he drags himself up straight, holding his meaty hand close below his nose and studying it. “I’m a Pole from Egypt,” he says. “Suffered a lot, been through Hell, made me diff’cult and queer. Eh?” He swings his eye around us, this preposterous scene-stealer; he holds us with his glittering eye. “Le’ me tell you. Never been near Egypt, don’t even know where Poland is on the map. My mother was not made into soap; she runs a copper and brass shop down by the North Station. So you wonner why people detes’ me. Know why? I’m a fake, isn’t an hones’ thing about me. You jus’ le’ me go to Hell my own way, I’m good at it. I can lie my way in, and if I want I can lie my way out again. And what do you think of that?”
Bill Casement is the most good-natured of men, soft with his wife and over-generous with his friends and more tolerant of all sorts of difference, even Kaminski’s sort, than you would expect. But I watch him now, while Kaminski is falling all over Sue, and Sue is making half-disgusted efforts to prop him up, and I realize that Bill did not make his money scuffing his feet and pulling his cheek in embarrassment at soirées. Underneath the good-natured husband is a man of force, and in about one more minute he is due to light on Kaminski like the hammer of God.
Even while I think it, Bill reaches over and yanks him up and holds him by one arm. “All right,” he says. “Now you’ve spilled it all. Let’s go to bed.”
“You too,” Kaminski says. “You all hate me. You’ll all wash your hands of me now. Well, why not? That Carnegie Hall promise, that won’t hold when you know what kin’ of person I am, eh? You’ll all turn into enemies now.”
“Is that what you want, Arnold?” Sue says bitterly. She looks ready to burst into tears.
“Tol’ you I wanted to fail,” he says—and even now, so help me, even out of his sodden and doughy wreckage, there looks that bright, mean, calculating little gleam of intelligence.
Bill says, “The only enemy you’ve got around here is your own mouth.”
“My God!” Kaminski cries loudly. Either the fog has condensed on his face or he is sweating. I remember the bright drop from his nose while he struggled with the Piano Pieces. “My God,” he says again, almost wearily. He hangs, surprisingly frail, from Bill’s clutch; it is easy to forget, looking at his too-big head and his meaty hands, that he is really scrawny. “I’ll tell you something else,” he says. “You don’t know right now whether what I’ve tol’ you is true or if it isn’. Not even the smart one there. You don’t know but what I’ve been telling you all this for some crazy reason of my own. Why would I? Does it make sense?” He drops his voice and peers around, grinning. “Maybe he’s crazy. C’est dérangé.”
