The Cosmopolitans (7 page)

A young man, he was really a boy, burst out of Earl's apartment. He lunged for the staircase and ran right into Bette, almost knocking her over. She was pushed back against the hallway wall, and for one second they both froze. He was an amateur, and Bette had the nerves of a lion. She stared him down, memorizing that face, defiantly. He might have been twenty-two. White. Dark. Devilishly handsome. Eyes like a burning deck. Though still afraid and somewhat awed by his own violence, he was clearly on the way to abandoning conscience entirely. She could tell.

Being so young, he was the one who panicked, unsettled by seeing someone care so fearlessly as she did. Earl's door slammed suddenly behind them. Bette knew it was the broken hinge, but the boy looked back, looked forward.

“I am calling the police,” she said, as if she were the police.

Finally, he got ahold of himself and bolted. Scampered past her, vermin that he was, sliding down the
stairs. Earl's wallet clutched in his fist. Bette turned, regaining composure to move forward, not knowing what she would find in Earl's place. Was he dead? Or worse? Resolved to calm, she walked quietly toward his apartment and was met by his staggering appearance—confused, frightened, with a string of blood crawling down his face. But clearly and completely alive, having managed the humanizing decorum of pulling on a pair of pants. She put her arm around his bare shoulder and turned him into her open doorway, closing the door quietly behind them.

Only then, did she allow herself to feel.

“Oh my God, Earl.” She locked the door in case that monster ever tried to return.

“I was robbed.”

He looked down at the floor almost in shame. Or was it deep regret? Almost like a liar who doesn't know how to get out of it. His demeanor was so sunken, it belonged to someone else. Someone Bette might pass on the street and think,
Poor fellow, now there is a person ashamed of himself
. He had the torso of a workingman. Certain muscles, hugely developed, and the rest slack and tired. In that moment, Earl Coleman was the saddest, most alone man who ever lived on Tenth Street. And Bette realized, right then, that if he needed to feel alone, that's what he needed to feel. She would tell him the truth, that he was not alone. But she wouldn't insist on it. It didn't matter if he recognized her devotion right then. The important thing was to listen.

“Come on, honey, careful. That's it.” She guided him to his big armchair, where he always sat when they listened to records and talked. “Let me take care of you.”

She went back into the kitchen, put on some water for tea, and wet a clean dish towel. Kneeling before him, she wiped away the blood. He didn't notice. He was finished.

“You're all right now.”

Bette went to her sewing drawer where she kept emergency medicinals and cut a strip of gauze from a sterilized roll. Then she cut two pieces of adhesive tape.

“I'm boiling water for tea,” she said.

Still nothing.

“Then I'll phone the police.”

“No,” he whispered, barely able to make a sound. “Don't call the police.”

“He robbed you,” she said, placing the folded gauze over his wound. She stated the facts. “He hurt you.”

Earl gnashed his teeth. “Do not call them.”

Is that what he's worried about?
The police did not have to know what really went on. “I won't tell.”

“DON'T CALL THE POLICE!” He screamed at her. He was furious. Like she was the one who had done all of this.

Bette thought for a minute. He was not of his right mind. Something had gone wrong with Frank and then this scoundrel was the second punishment of the night. On top of Leon's cruelty earlier the very same day, which they had reviewed at supper. Here it was almost time for Earl to go back to his morning shift. He was exhausted by disappointment and not in a place to make good decisions. And yet he had to have some remnant of control. It had to be up to him. No matter what. Something had to be his choice.

“You do not deserve to be treated this way,” she said. This was how Bette showed compassion. Stating the obvious, simply. It showed the other person that she knew they were real. That things happened in their lives, unfixable things, just as had happened in her life. She made it clear that she realized this and would always take it into account.

Earl was not thinking about Bette, she could tell. He was barely thinking. Inside, his mind was whirling with pain before vision, and cloud before memory. He was trembling. The kettle whistled. She went to set up their cups and two tea bags, wondering about doctors and stitches. She brought out the steaming cups and placed one by his side, where he liked it, on the arm of his favorite chair. Bette touched his wrist. She brought him a shawl and wrapped it around his shoulders. She took his fingers in hers. He responded, gripped back.

“Something is wrong,” he said. He was weak. He looked up at her from a place she had never seen.

“How can I help you?”

“Something is wrong and it's really big. I'm missing . . . my life. My life . . . it's unbearable.”

“You're safe now. It's over.”

His face was contorted and he surprised her by being loud, insistent and rude. “I am
not
safe.”

Bette was surprised that Earl seemed so mad at her. What was she not understanding?

“My whole life is a sham,” he said. It was an accusation, as if it was her doing. The pain of his precious life.

“That's not true.” Bette was worried. She didn't understand. He was experiencing something whose dimensions she could not grasp. What should she do?
Something didn't make sense.

He looked at her through watery eyes. Like he just couldn't believe she would be so stupid. Like he was shocked. “What is true?” He blistered and then snarled. He bled and wondered.

“I know you,” she told him. “And you are loved for the real you.” That was her truth.

Earl looked at the floor in disgust, made no effort to hide his disappointment. She had not said the right thing. What was the right thing?

“Tell me what you need,” she said.

“First I was a little boy in my mother's house,” he began. “Imitating the voices on the radio. Then one day I didn't have any mother. I didn't have any cousins. Because one day
they
caught me doing whatever with whomever's son. And from that second on, I did not have any people. I did not belong to anyone. I could not run home because there was no home. You know . . . you know. Somehow I lived. Somehow I got on some bus. Somehow I met Anthony, and he saved me and I moved into this place. And I got a second dream, of being on the stage. My first dream had come true. I had my man. I was set. Then I was waiting for the second dream to happen. But somehow Anthony was gone and then he was married and then he was dead. Why did he have to do that? From then on I have loved this one and that one. Waiting, waiting, any second now there would be this new world. And somehow now I'm old. And I am still in that same apartment. And somehow they won't let me on their stage. And somehow the world did not change.”

“I see,” she said. “What can we do?”

Earl paid no attention. As if her voice was just traffic.

“I want the truth to not be true,” he whimpered.

Her heart broke. Who has the power to grant that wish?

Chapter 7

B
ette dreamed she was lying on the beach. The sand, cool and smooth beneath her, lovingly covered her shoulders. The sun was cool. The birds sang beyond. There was Frederick. He was the sand. He was the sun. She looked up and she was lying in his arms. He was peaceful, smiling. He told her he understood. He knew why he had lied. He was wrong, and he regretted it.

“Why did you lie?” she asked.

“I did it because I lacked integrity,” he told her. “I was so overwhelmed by the potential approval of my father, his money, that I did not recognize the corruption of his approval, that it was dependent on treating you dishonorably. I did not realize one equaled the other. I was so tiny. I barely existed. I had no soul. And yet, despite that, you have always loved me, because you could imagine me becoming myself and I never could.”

Bette was so overwhelmed with joy she forgot to say, “I forgive you.” But it wasn't necessary, was it? He was grateful that they had both lived to see this moment
of reunion. This was why they had lived and how they had lived. She snuggled into his chest and closed her eyes again. The water came to her feet, retreated.

“I love you, Bette,” he said. “Now, everything will be right.”

She opened her eyes and heard the birds outside her window. Living in the weedy tree. They were talking, discussing, their voices were deep, sonant, they listened and they responded. Sing, sing, now it's spring. The breeze, delicious through the window. Inside and outside were the same temperature, she turned between the sheets. They were clean because she had washed them. The bed made because she had made it. The pillows were plumped, the floor was swept, the milk was delivered in its shiny glass bottle. She had taken care of herself one more day. Frederick would come.

Pulling on her robe and slippers, Bette stepped out into the hallway and knocked on Earl's door. No answer.
Good
. He had gone to work. If ever the sun rose and Earl could not work, she would help him, that was certain. But thankfully today was not to be that day.

In fact, for the next week, their routine appeared to be unchanged. Bette made the decision not to pry and simply carried on loving, friending, caring, and listening. Earl was tense but then seemed to calm down. Like he had figured something out. She wasn't sure if he'd decided to keep this news in his pocket, or if he'd really found a way to get back to routine. But she let that be his secret. After two weeks had passed, he got an audition. So there was toasting and dreaming at the dinner table, but then no callback and life moved on.

At Tibbs Incorporated, Hector was perpetually in turmoil.

“A dynasty,” he kept saying. “Build a dynasty.”

Bette kept her head down and took care of her petty responsibilities. Hector ran around the office in a panic, wanting this strange thing and having no idea of how to get it. It was becoming a distraction, his grasping. Bette tried to understand what “a dynasty” meant in terms of television advertising. She ate her egg salad sandwich brought from home and organized the paper clips. As long as she didn't care what happened at the office, everything would be fine.

After three weeks, Bette suspected that the crisis with Earl was in the past. He seemed calm and able to continue. As a result, she worried less, and spent more time thinking about the books she was reading, the lives of the people in her neighborhood, the beauty of the city, and the faces on the street. One day, at ten after five to be precise, Bette walked the three blocks from her office and stood at the bus stop on Fifth Avenue at the corner of Forty-Second. The steps of the public library were full of young people romancing, and the lonely ones with books, leaning up against the stone lions.
Couldn't two people in love read together
? Bette thought.
Now that would be perfection
. The lions were distinctly American. They appeared to be young, as all Americans seemed to be, and were neither religious nor overly ornamented.

Bette had long been aware that her city was punctuated with monuments and each one had a different place in its heart. For example, Grant's Tomb was something most people overlooked and felt indifferent
toward. No one had an opinion about it, or about Grant for that matter. The Empire State Building, on the other hand, reflected the collective greatness that this family of neighbors could only experience in association with one other. It defined the power of their unity. The Statue of Liberty stood in for the poignant, recent past and ever-looming future of refugees begging for a chance. And the arch at Washington Square Park reminded those old enough of the Great War, cheering the soldiers back from France. For the younger set, the arch was a place to arrange to meet a friend and then wander among the bongo players and folk singers, understanding the real possibility of a better world ahead. These library lions, though, were personal. New Yorkers climbed on them, scratched their ears, and leaned against their mighty trunks. Only a city dweller could eat a sandwich nonchalantly at the feet of the king of the jungle, while preparing for battle, sometimes by reading books.

The diesel fuel from the bus awakened Bette from her reverie. She climbed the steps and threw her nickel in the basket. She smiled at the driver, hanging on to the leather straps, moving along until she twirled into an empty rattan-weave seat. She loved their scratchy exterior and soft stuffing, the unique feel of shellacked straw under her fingers. Sailing down the avenue, passing through the Garment Center, she watched others come off work, go on to their second shifts shepherding racks of new clothing back and forth from factory to store. Some were made in sweatshops, others by the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union. “Look for the Union Label” was their motto, and she did. But
there were always enough new immigrants to man the sweats. They were visible from the subway in Chinatown at night, rows of women bent over machines or hand sewing, surrounded by scraps.

By the time the bus hit the Twenties, there was a quiet stretch. Not much defining those blocks besides some townhouses belonging to old New York families, like the Roosevelts, yet looking a bit dingy and alone. The side streets were for manufacturing and tended to be deserted after five. Some mornings she would walk to work and thereby pass through the bustling Flower Market, stepping on a carpet of stems, leaves, and petals lining her path. Flowers had no second shift, so by this time of day, it was all swept up and only the old Cubans, hand-rolling cigars, were still busy at work.

The bus passed Madison Park, surrounded by insurance buildings, and headed straight onto the Flatiron, sitting on Twenty-Third and dividing Fifth Avenue from Broadway. This is where Broadway changed from West Side to East, having been an old Indian footpath that traversed the island, already in place when Manhattan was divided into a grid. Every evening, on the way home from work, Bette took an admiring look at the Flatiron. It showed audacity, certainly. Daring, with a singular penchant to stand out. But was it really beautiful? Did it sit right on its lot, or did that slight misplacement convey an eerie knowledge? Strangely, the building expressed more character in the rain than in the sun. Its gray-brown, three-sided facade shone slick when wet, but could not animate and command in the sun's glare. Each of these constructions was like its people: stringent, bland, grand, original, repetitive,
one of a kind. Outlandish, overbearing, inspiring, useless, devoted. They each lived in public, in front of each other, and brought their people into relationships of passion both ecstatic and crushing. A building displays itself, after all. That's what it's for: to serve and be considered. To be used. Publicly. To be useful and still mysterious. Tamed and wild. An outdoor museum, with no guard. No admission.

Normally, Bette descended at the Tenth Street stop, but this day she felt freed by her engagement and so rode all the way through the Washington Square Arch, to the bus turnaround that circled the park's central fountain. There was Salvatore playing with a gang of kids, his pants rolled and his air triumphant. The bus then paused, and she could see the Good Humor man, venturing out in the brisk spring air. Mothers rocked their baby carriages in the playground, and kids slid down, seesawed up, filled empty Martinson's cans with sand, and climbed the concrete stepping blocks to grab a drink of water. The bus started again, on the reapproach to the uptown lane of the avenue, so she rode one stop, and got off at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Tenth.

The block was filled with the early evening duties of her neighbors. Handball, stoop and chair sitters, reading the sports page, having a smoke, catching their breath. Radios could be heard outside through windows. They had each once been a stranger and now they all belonged.

Much later, Bette would barely recall a wispy image of a young woman, in a dress from a faraway place, suitcase in hand, staring at a crumpled piece of paper.
A newcomer, looking at the buildings and then back at the paper. But at the time, Bette, overwhelmed with the enjoyment of her ride, proceeded to Teddy's Butcher Shop to buy four lamb chops and then new potatoes and onions and peppers from the greengrocery down the street. It was only on the way back, shopping in hand, that Bette consciously focused on this out-of-place young lady, waiting for something or someone to set her straight. Late with supper, having wasted so much of the early evening daydreaming, Bette bypassed the stranger, barely registering her even a second time, and hurried into her building, up the stairs, to get ready for Earl.

Turning on the radio, taking off her coat, putting her hat neatly on the shelf, her handbag by its side, Bette changed out of her office clothes into a light cotton dress and then added a soft wool sweater. She began chopping the vegetables and listening to the six o'clock news. Bette felt happy. Her life was right. Earl was feeling better, and she had not let the office dominate her soul. She enjoyed her city, her block, her habits and rhythms. She could honestly say that her life suited her and that everything would be all right.

And then, only then, did she become aware of the timid knocking at her door.