Manhattan Transfer by John Dos Passos
When Emile came out of the back door of the restaurant he found Congo waiting for him sitting on the doorstep. Congo’s skin had a green chilly look under the frayed turned up coatcollar.
‘This is my friend,’ Emile said to Marco. ‘Came over on the same boat.’
‘You havent a bottle of fine under your coat have you? Sapristi I’ve seen some chickens not half bad come out of this place.’
‘But what’s the matter?’
‘Lost my job that’s all… I wont have to take any more off that guy. Come over and drink a coffee.’
They ordered coffee and doughnuts in a lunchwagon on a vacant lot.
‘Eh bien you like it this sacred pig of a country?’ asked Marco.
‘Why not! I like it anywhere. It’s all the same, in France you are paid badly and live well; here you are paid well and live badly.’
‘Questo paese e completamente soto sopra.’
‘I think I’ll go to sea again…’
‘Say why de hell doan yous guys loin English?’ said the man with a cauliflower face who slapped the three mugs of coffee down on the counter.
‘If we talk Engleesh,’ snapped Marco ‘maybe you no lika what we say.’
‘Why did they fire you?’
‘Merde. I dont know. I had an argument with the old camel who runs the place… He lived next door to the stables; as well as washing the carriages he made me scrub the floors in his house… His wife, she had a face like this.’ Congo sucked in his lips and tried to look crosseyed.
Marco laughed. ‘Santissima Maria putana!’
‘How did you talk to them?’
‘They pointed to things; then I nodded my head and said Awright. I went there at eight and worked till six and they gave me every day more filthy things to do… Last night they tell me to clean out the toilet in the bathroom. I shook my head… That’s woman’s work… She got very angry and started screeching. Then I began to learn Angleesh… Go awright to ‘ell, I says to her… Then the old man comes and chases me out into a street with a carriage whip and says he wont pay me my week… While we were arguing he got a policeman, and when I try to explain to the policeman that the old man owed me ten dollars for the week, he says Beat it you lousy wop, and cracks me on the coco with his nightstick… Merde alors…’
Marco was red in the face. ‘He call you lousy wop?’
Congo nodded his mouth full of doughnut.
‘Notten but shanty Irish himself,’ muttered Marco in English. ‘I’m fed up with this rotten town…’
‘It’s the same all over the world, the police beating us up, rich people cheating us out of their starvation wages, and who’s fault?… Dio cane! Your fault, my fault, Emile’s fault…’
‘We didn’t make the world… They did or maybe God did.’
‘God’s on their side, like a policeman… When the day comes we’ll kill God… I am an anarchist.’
Congo hummed ‘les bourgeois à la lanterne nom de dieu.’
‘Are you one of us?’
Congo shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’m not a catholic or a protestant; I haven’t any money and I haven’t any work. Look at that.’ Congo pointed with a dirty finger to a long rip on his trouserknee. ‘That’s anarchist… Hell I’m going out to Senegal and get to be a nigger.’
‘You look like one already,’ laughed Emile.
‘That’s why they call me Congo.’
‘But that’s all silly,’ went on Emile. ‘People are all the same. It’s only that some people get ahead and others dont… That’s why I came to New York.’
‘Dio cane I think that too twentyfive years ago… When you’re old like me you know better. Doesnt the shame of it get you sometimes? Here’… he tapped with his knuckles on his stiff shirtfront… ‘I feel it hot and like choking me here… Then I say to myself Courage our day is coming, our day of blood.’
‘I say to myself,’ said Emile. ‘When you have some money old kid.’
‘Listen, before I leave Torino when I go last time to see the mama I got to a meetin of comrades… A fellow from Capua got up to speak… a very handsome man, tall and very thin… He said that there would be no more force when after the revolution nobody lived off another man’s work… Police, governments, armies, presidents, kings… all that is force. Force is not real; it is illusion. The working man makes all that himself because he believes it. The day that we stop believing in money and property it will be like a dream when we wake up. We will not need bombs or barricades… Religion, politics, democracy all that is to keep us asleep… Everybody must go round telling people: Wake up!’
‘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 rotton 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.
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 house-agent. ‘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 live up to our income… Your position demands it… And think how happy we’ll be.’
The house agent came back down the hall rubbing his hands. ‘Well, well, well… Ah I see that we’ve come to a favorable decision… You are very wise too, not a finer location in the city of New York and in a few months you wont be able to get anything out this way for love or money…’
‘Yes we’ll take it from the first of the month.’
‘Very good… You won’t regret your decision, Mr Olafson.’
‘I’ll send you a check for the amount in the morning.’
‘At your own convenience… And what is your present address please…’ The houseagent took out a notebook and moistened a stub of pencil with his tongue.
‘You had better put Hotel Astor.’ She stepped in front of her husband.
‘Our things are stored just at the moment.’
Mr Olafson turned red.
‘And… er… we’d like the names of two references please in the city of New York.’
‘I’m with Keating and Bradley, Sanitary Engineers, 43 Park Avenue…’
‘He’s just been made assistant general manager,’ added Mrs Olafson.
When they got out on the Drive walking downtown against a tussling wind she cried out: ‘Darling I’m so happy… It’s really going to be worth living now.’
‘But why did you tell him we lived at the Astor?’
‘I couldn’t tell him we lived in the Bronx could I? He’d have thought we were Jews and wouldnt have rented us the apartment.’
‘But you know I dont like that sort of thing.’
‘Well we’ll just move down to the Astor for the rest of the week, if you’re feeling so truthful… I’ve never in my life stopped in a big downtown hotel.’
‘Oh Bertha it’s the principle of the thing… I don’t like you to be like that.’
She turned and looked at him with twitching nostrils. ‘You’re so nambypamby, Billy… I wish to heavens I’d married a man for a husband.’
He took her by the arm. ‘Let’s go up here,’ he said gruffly with his face turned away.
They walked up a cross street between buildinglots. At a corner the rickety half of a weatherboarded farmhouse was still standing. There was half a room with a blueflowered paper eaten by brown stains on the walls, a smoked fireplace, a shattered builtin cupboard, and an iron bedstead bent double.
Plates slip endlessly through Bud’s greasy fingers. Smell of swill and hot soapsuds. Twice round with the little mop, dip, rinse and pile in the rack for the longnosed Jewish boy to wipe. Knees wet from spillings, grease creeping up his forearms, elbows cramped.
‘Hell this aint no job for a white man.’
‘I dont care so long as I eat,’ said the Jewish boy above the rattle of dishes and the clatter and seething of the range where three sweating cooks fried eggs and ham and hamburger steak and browned potatoes and cornedbeef hash.
‘Sure I et all right,’ said Bud and ran his tongue round his mouth dislodging a sliver of salt meat that he mashed against his palate with his tongue. Twice round with the little mop, dip, rinse and pile in the rack for the longnosed Jewish boy to wipe. There was a lull. The Jewish boy handed Bud a cigarette. They stood leaning against the sink.
‘Aint no way to make money dishwashing.’ The cigarette wabbled on the Jewish boy’s heavy lip as he spoke.
‘Aint no job for a white man nohow,’ said Bud. ‘Waitin’s better, they’s the tips.’
A man in a brown derby came in through the swinging door from the lunchroom. He was a bigjawed man with pigeyes and a long cigar sticking straight out of the middle of his mouth. Bud caught his eye and felt the cold glint twisting his bowels.
‘Whosat?’ he whispered.
‘Dunno… Customer I guess.’
‘Dont he look to you like one o them detectives?’
‘How de hell should I know? I aint never been in jail.’ The Jewish boy turned red and stuck out his jaw.
The busboy set down a new pile of dirty dishes. Twice round with the little mop, dip, rinse and pile in the rack. When the man in the brown derby passed back through the kitchen, Bud kept his eyes on his red greasy hands. What the hell even if he is a detective… When Bud had finished the batch, he strolled to the door wiping his hands, took his coat and hat from the hook and slipped out the side door past garbage cans out into the street. Fool to jump two hours pay. In an optician’s window the clock was twentyfive past two. He walked down Broadway, past Lincoln Square, across Columbus Circle, further downtown towards the center of things where it’d be more crowded.
*
She lay with her knees doubled up to her chin, the nightgown pulled tight under her toes.
‘Now straighten out and go to sleep dear… Promise mother you’ll go to sleep.’
‘Wont daddy come and kiss me good night?’
‘He will when he comes in; he’s gone back down to the office and mother’s going to Mrs Spingarn’s to play euchre.’
‘When’ll daddy be home?’
‘Ellie I said go to sleep… I’ll leave the light.’
‘Dont mummy, it makes shadows… When’ll daddy be home?’
‘When he gets good and ready.’ She was turning down the gaslight. Shadows out of the corners joined wings and rushed together. ‘Good night Ellen.’ The streak of light of the door narrowed behind mummy, slowly narrowed to a thread up and along the top. The knob clicked; the steps went away down the hall; the front door slammed. A clock ticked somewhere in the silent room; outside the apartment, outside the house, wheels and gallumping of hoofs, trailing voices; the roar grew. It was black except for the two strings of light that made an upside down L in the corner of the door.
Ellie wanted to stretch out her feet but she was afraid to. She didnt dare take her eyes from the upside down L in the corner of the door. If she closed her eyes the light would go out. Behind the bed, out of the windowcurtains, out of the closet, from under the table shadows nudged creakily towards her. She held on tight to her ankles, pressed her chin in between her knees. The pillow bulged with shadow, rummaging shadows were slipping into the bed. If she closed her eyes the light would go out.
Black spiraling roar outside was melting through the walls making the cuddled shadows throb. Her tongue clicked against her teeth like the ticking of the clock. Her arms and legs were stiff; her neck
*
The gaslamps tremble a while down the purplecold streets and then go out under the lurid dawn. Gus McNiel, the sleep still gumming his eyes, walks beside his wagon swinging a wire basket of milkbottles, stopping at doors, collecting the empties, climbing chilly stairs, remembering grades A and B and pints of cream and buttermilk, while the sky behind cornices, tanks, roofpeaks, chimneys becomes rosy and yellow. Hoarfrost glistens on doorsteps and curbs. The horse with dangling head lurches jerkily from door to door. There begin to be dark footprints on the frosty pavement. A heavy brewers’ dray rumbles down the street.
‘Howdy Moike, a little chilled are ye?’ shouts Gus McNiel at a cop threshing his arms on the corner of Eighth Avenue.
‘Howdy Gus. Cows still milkin’?’
It’s broad daylight when he finally slaps the reins down on the gelding’s threadbare rump and starts back to the dairy, empties bouncing and jiggling in the cart behind him. At Ninth Avenue a train shoots overhead clattering downtown behind a little green engine that emits blobs of smoke white and dense as cottonwool to melt in the raw air between the stiff blackwindowed houses. The first rays of the sun pick out the gilt lettering of DANIEL MC-GILLYCUDDY’S WINES AND LIQUORS at the corner of Tenth Avenue. Gus McNiel’s tongue is dry and the dawn has a salty taste in his mouth. A can o beer’d be the makin of a guy a cold mornin like this. He takes a turn with the reins round the whip and jumps over the wheel. His numb feet sting when they hit the pavement. Stamping to get the blood back into his toes he shoves through the swinging doors.
‘Well I’ll be damned if it aint the milkman bringin us a pint o cream for our coffee.’ Gus spits into the newly polished cuspidor beside the bar.