sweet as hell, the way the women wear their prettiest everything, I mean the old
ones and the really poor ones too, they make the dearest effort to look nice and
smell nice too, and I love them for it. I love the kids too, especially the colored ones.
I mean the kids the wives bring. It should be sad, seeing the kids there, but it isn’t,
they have ribbons in their hair and lots of shine on their shoes, you’d think there was
going to be ice cream; and sometimes that’s what it’s like in the visitors’ room, a
party. Anyway it’s not like the movies: you know, grim whisperings through a grille.
There isn’t any grille, just a counter between you and them, and the kids can stand
on it to be hugged; all you have to do to kiss somebody is lean across. What I like
most, they’re so happy to see each other, they’ve saved up so much to talk about, it
isn’t possible to be dull, they keep laughing and holding hands. It’s different
afterwards,» she said. «I see them on the train. They sit so quiet watching the river
go by.» She stretched a strand of hair to the corner of her mouth and nibbled it
thoughtfully. «I’m keeping you awake. Go to sleep.»
«Please. I’m interested.»
«I know you are. That’s why I want you to go to sleep. Because if I keep on, I’ll
tell you about Sally. I’m not sure that would be quite cricket.» She chewed her hair
silently. «They never told me not to tell anyone. In so many words. And it is funny.
Maybe you could put it in a story with different names and whatnot. Listen, Fred,»
she said, reaching for another apple, «you’ve got to cross your heart and kiss your
elbow — «
Perhaps contortionists can kiss their elbow; she had to accept an approximation.
«Well,» she said, with a mouthful of apple, «you may have read about him in the
papers. His name is Sally Tomato, and I speak Yiddish better than he speaks English;
but he’s a darling old man, terribly pious. He’d look like a monk if it weren’t for the
gold teeth; he says he prays for me every night. Of course he was never my lover;
as far as that goes, I never knew him until he was already in jail. But I adore him
now, after all I’ve been going to see him every Thursday for seven months, and I
think I’d go even if he didn’t pay me. This one’s mushy,» she said, and aimed the
rest of the apple out the window. «By the way, I did know Sally by sight. He used to
come to Joe Bell’s bar, the one around the corner: never talked to anybody, just
stand there, like the kind of man who lives in hotel rooms. But it’s funny to
remember back and realize how closely he must have been watching me, because
right after they sent him up (Joe Bell showed me his picture in the paper. Blackhand.
Mafia. All that mumbo jumbo: but they gave him five years) along came this
telegram from a lawyer. It said to contact him immediately for information to my
advantage.»
«You thought somebody had left you a million?»
«Not at all. I figured Bergdorf was trying to collect. But I took the gamble and
went to see this lawyer (if he is a lawyer, which I doubt, since he doesn’t seem to
have an office, just an answering service, and he always wants to meet you in
Hamburg Heaven: that’s because he’s fat, he can eat ten hamburgers and two bowls
of relish and a whole lemon meringue pie). He asked me how I’d like to cheer up a
lonely old man, at the same time pick up a hundred a week. I told him look, darling,
you’ve got the wrong Miss Golightly, I’m not a nurse that does tricks on the side. I
wasn’t impressed by the honorarium either; you can do as well as that on trips to the
powder room: any gent with the slightest chic will give you fifty for the girl’s john,
and I always ask for cab fare too, that’s another fifty. But then he told me his client
was Sally Tomato. He said dear old Sally had long admired me à la distance, so
wouldn’t it be a good deed if I went to visit him once a week. Well, I couldn’t: it was
too romantic.»
«I don’t know. It doesn’t sound right.»
She smiled. «You think I’m lying?»
«For one thing, they can’t simply let anyone visit a prisoner.»
«Oh, they don’t. In fact they make quite a boring fuss. I’m supposed to be his
niece.»
«And it’s as simple as that? For an hour’s conversation he gives you a hundred
dollars?»
«He doesn’t, the lawyer does. Mr. O’Shaughnessy mails it to me in cash as soon as
I leave the weather report.»
«I think you could get into a lot of trouble,» I said, and switched off a lamp; there
was no need of it now, morning was in the room and pigeons were gargling on the
fire escape.
«How?» she said seriously.
«There must be something in the law books about false identity. After all, you’re
not his niece. And what about this weather report?»
She patted a yawn. «But it’s nothing. Just messages I leave with the answering
service so Mr. O’Shaughnessy will know for sure that I’ve been up there. Sally tells
me what to say, things like, oh, ‘there’s a hurricane in Cuba’ and ‘it’s snowing in
Palermo.’ Don’t worry, darling,» she said, moving to the bed, «I’ve taken care of
myself a long time.» The morning light seemed refracted through her: as she pulled
the bed covers up to my chin she gleamed like a transparent child; then she lay
down beside me. «Do you mind? I only want to rest a moment. So let’s don’t say
another word. Go to sleep.»
I pretended to, I made my breathing heavy and regular. Bells in the tower of the
next-door church rang the half-hour, the hour. It was six when she put her hand on
my arm, a fragile touch careful not to waken. «Poor Fred,» she whispered, and it
seemed she was speaking to me, but she was not. «Where are you, Fred? Because
it’s cold. There’s snow in the wind.» Her cheek came to rest against my shoulder, a
warm damp weight.
«Why are you crying?»
She sprang back, sat up. «Oh, for God’s sake,» she said, starting for the window
and the fire escape, «I hate snoops.»
The next day, Friday, I came home to find outside my door a grand-luxe Charles &
Co. basket with her card: Miss Holiday Golightly, Traveling: and scribbled on the
back in a freakishly awkward, kindergarten hand: Bless you darling Fred. Please
forgive the other night. You were an angel about the whole thing. Mille tendresse -Holly. P.S. I won’t bother you again. I replied, Please do, and left this note at her
door with what I could afford, a bunch of street-vendor violets. But apparently she’d
meant what she said; I neither saw nor heard from her, and I gathered she’d gone
so far as to obtain a downstairs key. At any rate she no longer rang my bell. I
missed that; and as the days merged I began to feel toward her certain far-fetched
resentments, as if I were being neglected by my closest friend. A disquieting
loneliness came into my life, but it induced no hunger for friends of longer
acquaintance: they seemed now like a salt-free, sugarless diet. By Wednesday
thoughts of Holly, of Sing Sing and Sally Tomato, of worlds where men forked over
fifty dollars for the powder room, were so constant that I couldn’t work. That night I
left a message in her mailbox: Tomorrow is Thursday. The next morning rewarded
me with a second note in the play-pen script: Bless you for reminding me. Can you
stop for a drink tonight 6-ish?
I waited until ten past six, then made myself delay five minutes more.
A creature answered the door. He smelled of cigars and Knize cologne. His shoes
sported elevated heels; without these added inches, one might have taken him for a
Little Person. His bald freckled head was dwarf-big: attached to it were a pair of
pointed, truly elfin ears. He had Pekingese eyes, unpitying and slightly bulged. Tufts
of hair sprouted from his ears, from his nose; his jowls were gray with afternoon
beard, and his handshake almost furry.
«Kid’s in the shower,» he said, motioning a cigar toward a sound of water hissing
in another room. The room in which we stood (we were standing because there was
nothing to sit on) seemed as though it were being just moved into; you expected to
smell wet paint. Suitcases and unpacked crates were the only furniture. The crates
served as tables. One supported the mixings of a martini; another a lamp, a
Libertyphone, Holly’s red cat and a bowl of yellow roses. Bookcases, covering one
wall, boasted a half-shelf of literature. I warmed to the room at once, I liked its flyby-night look.
The man cleared his throat. «You expected?»
He found my nod uncertain. His cold eyes operated on me, made neat,
exploratory incisions. «A lot of characters come here, they’re not expected. You know
the kid long?»
«Not very.»
«So you don’t know the kid long?»
«I live upstairs.»
The answer seemed to explain enough to relax him. «You got the same layout?»
«Much smaller.»
He tapped ash on the floor. «This is a dump. This is unbelievable. But the kid don’t
know how to live even when she’s got the dough.» His speech had a jerky metallic
rhythm, like a teletype. «So,» he said, «what do you think: is she or ain’t she?»
«Ain’t she what?»
«A phony.»
«I wouldn’t have thought so.»
«You’re wrong. She is a phony. But on the other hand you’re right. She isn’t a
phony because she’s a real phony. She believes all this crap she believes. You can’t
talk her out of it. I’ve tried with tears running down my cheeks. Benny Polan,
respected everywhere, Benny Polan tried. Benny
