Strange recollection. Followed immediately by another, equally baroque. Now it’s my father’s sister, the one who married my Uncle Dave. Aunt Millie is lying on a couch in the middle of the room, their parlor. I am sitting on the piano stool, only a foot or two away from her, with a fat music roll on my lap. (My mother has sent me to New York to play for my Aunt Millie who is dying of cancer.) Like all my father’s sisters, Aunt Millie has a sweet, beautiful nature. I ask her what she would like me to play for her. She says—Anything. I pick out a sheaf of music—The Orange Blossom Waltz—and I play it for her. When I turn around she is gazing up at me with a beatific smile. That was lovely, Henry, she says. Won’t you play another? I pick out The Midnight Fire Alarm, and I rattle that off. Again the same warm look of appreciation, the same plea to continue. I go through my whole repertoire—The Chariot Race, Poet and Peasant, The Burning of Rome, and so on. What drivel to be hammering out to someone dying of cancer! But Aunt Millie is in raptures. She thinks I am a genius. You will be a great musician some day, she whispers when I am leaving.
It’s at this point that the cab stops and I unload the ice. The genius! (II est l’affection et Favenir.) Eight P.M. and the genius is just about to begin the day’s work—serving drinks and sandwiches. In a good mood, however. Somehow, the recollection of these odd incidents from the warm past awakens the thought that I am still a writer. I may not have time to set them down on paper now, but I will one day.
(It’s now a good twenty years later. The genius never forgets. Il est Famour et Feternite.)
I am obliged to make two trips through the rooms with a block of ice on my shoulder. To the customers—there are eight or ten on hand—it seems amusing. One of them offers to help me. It’s Baronyi, the promoter. Says he must have a long talk with me soon. Buys me a drink to cement the deal. We stand there in the kitchen chatting, my eyes riveted to a spot just above his head where I have pasted a snapshot of my daughter, her head set off by a little bonnet trimmed with fur. Baronyi drones away. I nod my head and throw him a smile now and then. What is she doing at this moment, I wonder? Has she been tucked to bed already? And Maude, still practising like a madwoman, I suppose. Liszt, always Liszt, to warm her fingers up … Someone asks for a pastrami sandwich on rye bread. Baronyi immediately dives into the ice-box and gets out the pastrami. Then he slices the bread. I’m still riveted to the spot.
From far away I hear him telling me that he’d like to play me a game of chess some night. I nod and absent-mindedly make myself a sandwich which I begin to munch between sips of Dubonnet.
Now Mona sticks her head in. Wants to tell me that George Inness would like a few words with me—when I can spare the time. He’s sitting in the bedroom with his friend Roberto, the Chilean.
What’s on his mind? I ask. Why does everyone want to talk to me?
Because you’re a writer, I guess. (What an answer!)
In a corner, near the front window, Trevelyan and Caccicacci are huddled. They are having a furious argument. Trevelyan has the features of a vulture. The other is like a clown out of the Italian opera. A strange pair to be hobnobbing together.
In another corner sit Manuel Siegfried and Cedric Ross, two discarded lovers. They stare at each other gloomily. Now Marjorie comes bouncing in, her arms loaded with packages. Immediately things brighten up. In a few minutes, like trains pulling in, Ned arrives, then O’Mara, then Ulric himself. The old club spirit, what! Fratres Semper!
Everyone has now become acquainted with his neighbor. All talking at once. And drinking! That’s my job, to see that no one is without a fresh glass. Now and then I sit down to have a little chat with someone. But what I enjoy most is waiting on the customers, running to and fro, lighting their cigars, making up short orders, uncorking the bottles, emptying the ash trays, passing the time of the day with them and that sort of thing. The constant activity enables me to enjoy my own private thoughts. Seems I’m due to write another big book in my head. I study eyebrows, the curve of a lip, gestures, intonations. It’s as though I’m rehearsing a play and the customers ad-libbing. Catching a little phrase on my way to the kitchen, I round it out into a sentence, a paragraph, a page. If someone asks a question of his neighbor I answer it for him—in my head. Droll effects. Really exciting. Now and then I have a little drink or another sandwich on the q.t.
The kitchen is my realm. In there I dream away whole passages of destiny and causality.
Well, Henry, says Ulric, cornering me at the sink, how goes it? This is to your success! He raises his glass and downs it. Good stuff! You must give me the address of your bootlegger later. We have a little drink together while I fill a couple of orders. Golly, he says, it sure does look funny to see you with that carving knife in your hand.
Not a bad way to pass the time, I remark. Gives me a chance to think of what I will write some day.
You don’t mean it!
Of course I do. It’s not me making these sandwiches—it’s someone else. This is like sleepwalking … How about a nice piece of salami? You can have the Jewish kind or the Italian. Here, try these olives—Greek olives, what! You know, if I were simply a bartender I’d be miserable.
Henry, he says, you couldn’t be miserable no matter what you were doing. You’ll always find life interesting, even when you’re at the bottom. You know, you’re like those mountain climbers who, when they fall into a deep crevasse, see the stars twinkling overhead … in broad daylight. You see stars where others see only warts of blackheads.
He gave me one of those knowing, tender smiles, then suddenly assumed a serious mien. I thought I ought to tell you something, he began. It’s about Ned. I don’t know if he’s told you, but he lost his job recently. Drink. He can’t take it. I tell you this so that you’ll keep an eye on him. He thinks the world of you, as you know, and he’ll probably be here frequently. Try to keep him in hand, won’t you? Alcohol is poison to him…
By the way, he continued, do you suppose I might bring my chess set down some evening? I mean, when things quiet down a bit. There’ll be nights when nobody will turn up. Just give me a ring. By the way, I’ve been reading that book you lent me—on the history of the game. An astonishing book. ‘We must go one day to the Museum and have a look at those medieval chess boards, eh?
Sure, I said, if we ever manage to get up by noon!
One by one my friends filed into the kitchen to chat with me. Often they served the customers for me. Sometimes the customers came to the kitchen themselves to ask for a drink, or just to see what was going on.
O’Mara, of course, anchored himself in the kitchen. He talked incessantly about his adventures in the sunny South. Thought it might be a good idea to go back there, all three of us, and make a new start. Too bad you haven’t got an extra bed here, he said. He scratched his head thoughtfully. Maybe we could put a couple of tables together and spread a mattress over them?
Later, maybe.
Sure, sure, said O’Mara. Any time. It was just a thought. Anyway, it’s good to see you again. You’ll like it down South. Good clean air there, for one thing … This is some dump! What
