Authors: Bernard Malamud
The Tenants (3 page)
Lesser told him about six hours a day, sometimes more.
Willie uneasily said nothing.
Harry asked about his manuscript. “Wouldn’t you like to leave that too? Needless to say I’d respect its privacy.”
“No siree, man. That stays with papa. I have my briefcase for that.”
A bulky zippered briefcase was squeezed under his left arm.
Lesser understood how he felt. The safety of your manuscript was a constant worry. He kept a copy of his in a metal box in a nearby bank.
“About what time will you be coming for the machine?”
“Make it like eight or around that if it’s no skin off you. If I miss a day don’t fret on it.”
This man’s making me a daily chore. But on consideration Lesser said, “I’m up then except on Sundays.”
“Sundays I ball my sweet bitch.”
“Well, I envy you that.”
“No need to, man, there’s meat all around.”
“The women I meet generally want to get married.”
“Stay away from that type,” advised Willie.
He lugged his typewriter into Lesser’s flat and after surveying the living room laid it with a grunt under a small round table near the window, with a potted geranium in a saucer on it.
“It’ll be handy here.”
The writer offered no objection.
“Man, oh man.” Willie gazed around in envious pleasure at the shelves crammed with books, books on
their backs, magazines, some small objects of art. He inspected Lesser’s hi-fi, then slowly shuffled through a stack of records, reading aloud titles and artists, mocking some of the names he couldn’t pronounce. A Bessie Smith surprised him.
their backs, magazines, some small objects of art. He inspected Lesser’s hi-fi, then slowly shuffled through a stack of records, reading aloud titles and artists, mocking some of the names he couldn’t pronounce. A Bessie Smith surprised him.
“What’s this girl to you?”
“She’s real, she talks to me.”
“Talking ain’t telling.”
Lesser wouldn’t argue.
“Are you an expert of black experience?” Willie slyly asked.
“I am an expert of writing.”
“I hate all that shit when whites tell you about black.”
Willie roamed into Lesser’s study. He sat at his desk, fingered his typewriter, tested the daybed mattress, opened the closet, peered in, shut the door. He stood at the wall examining some small prints the writer had collected.
Lesser explained about his movie money. “I made forty thousand dollars on a film sale about eight years ago and took it all in deferred payments. Less my agent’s commission and living on roughly four thousand a year, I’ve done fine until now.”
“Man, if I had that amount of bread I’d be king of Shit Mountain. What are you going to do after it’s gone?”
“It’s almost gone. But I expect to finish my book by
summer, or maybe before if my luck holds out. The advance on it should carry me into the next book another two or three years. That’ll be a shorter one than this.”
summer, or maybe before if my luck holds out. The advance on it should carry me into the next book another two or three years. That’ll be a shorter one than this.”
“Takes you that long, I mean like three years?”
“Longer, I’m a slow writer.”
“Raise up your speed.”
Willie took a last look around. “This is a roomy pad. Why don’t we party here some night real soon? Not this week but maybe next. I’m full up this.”
Lesser was willing. Though he didn’t say so, he hoped Willie would bring along a lady friend or two. He had never slept with a black girl.
Willie Spearmint usually knocked on Harry Lesser’s door at a quarter to eight. The end-of-year weather was bad and now, as he wrote, the black kept his orange shoes on and wore a thick blood-red woolen hat against the cold. He pulled it down over his ears and kept his tunic on. Harry offered to have an old heater fixed he would then lend to him, but Willie. said that once he got going with the writing it warmed him to his toes.
Not so Lesser. Some days he typed with a scarf around his neck and his overcoat spread on his knees. His feet froze even with the heater going.
If it had been sleeting or heavily snowing, Willie’s goatee, when he appeared at the door in the early morning, was laced with ice or snow. He beat his wet hat against Lesser’s door to knock off the slush. Sometimes he looked unsettled, sullen to a degree the weather couldn’t account for. And except for picking up his machine and returning it at noon, he had little to say to Harry and requested not even a glass of water during the day although the faucets had been removed and sealed off in Holzheimer’s kitchen. Fortunately the toilet in Mr. Agnello’s flat diagonally across the hall flushed once in a while so he relieved himself there when he had to.
One drizzly morning, Harry, stuck for a transition between scenes, was standing at the window trying to draw up an idea out of the street, the city, the human race, when he saw Levenspiel drive up in front of the pockmarked gray house across the street and park his Oldsmobile at the curb. The landlord gazed up at the window just as the writer was drawing down the shade. Lesser went at once to Willie’s place and knocked on the door. No response, so he turned the knob and, calling out his own name, entered.
Willie was sucking the point of a yellow pencil stub over a difficult spot in his manuscript. He gazed at Lesser in anger at the interruption.
Lesser said the landlord was on his way up.
The black glared at him in haughty coldness.
“Fuck his ass.”
“Fine,” Lesser said uncomfortably, “but I thought I’d let you know.” He apologized for barging in. “I wasn’t sure you’d heard my knock.”
Willie’s expression as he contemplated the page he was working on slowly altered. He seemed uncertain, concerned if not worried.
“How will that dude know I’m here if I sit still and don’t move the air? He don’t go around peeking in every apartment, does he?”
Lesser didn’t think so. “Usually he comes up to nudgy me while I’m writing, but he might just walk into your place when you weren’t expecting it. That’s his type. My advice is you ought to duck down to the floor below and wait till he’s gone. Take your manuscript with you and I’ll hide the typewriter. I’ll let you know the minute he leaves.”
They quickly carried out the operation, Willie going down to the fifth floor with his briefcase, hastily stuffed, and Lesser hid the L. C. Smith in his bathtub. Not that Levenspiel would get his intrusive foot in the door, but one never knew. Every six months, just to be a nuisance, he insisted on his prerogative to inspect the flat.
The landlord several minutes later pressed Lesser’s bell, then knocked sternly on the door. The writer pictured
him coming up the stairs, breathing noisily, holding the banister all the way. Levenspiel rolled a little as he walked. Better he saved himself the long trek; he looked like a heart attack type.
him coming up the stairs, breathing noisily, holding the banister all the way. Levenspiel rolled a little as he walked. Better he saved himself the long trek; he looked like a heart attack type.
“Open up a minute, why the hell don’t you?” Levenspiel called, “so I can talk to you man to man.”
“I’m hard at work,” Lesser answered from the living room, scanning a newspaper as he waited for the landlord to go. “Nothing new to report. The writing moves, there’s progress.”
A moment of listening silence. When he spoke, Levenspiel’s rumble was throaty, low, closer to the self, as though he had gone for a walk in the park, thought things over, and was trying for better effect.
“You remember,” he said, “I told you about my daughter, Lesser?”
Lesser remembered. “The knocked-up girl?”
“That’s right. So she took her pennies out of the savings account that she started at age six and bought herself an abortion according to the new law. God knows what kind of a doctor she got, I’ve heard stories. Anyway, she didn’t consult me for advice. The upshot was they penetrated the uterus with a curette and a hemorrhage started. My wife is frantic about blood poisoning. I’m on my way to the hospital to see my baby in intensive care.”
“I’m sorry, Levenspiel.”
“I just thought I’d tell you. You can’t tell everybody
such things, but I thought maybe to a writer.”
such things, but I thought maybe to a writer.”
“Accept my sympathy.”
“I accept,” said the landlord, “so much as you can spare.”
“So what else is new?” he said after an unused minute.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing at all?”
“Nothing.”
“No change in your attitude to the human race?”
“It still salutes.”
Levenspiel left in silence.
Lesser tried to wrestle the incident out of his mind. Clever bastard, he knows I feel guilt. Another dollop on my head and I’ll go through the floor down to the cellar. That’s his plan, I bet.
Willie, watching from a window below, had seen the landlord leave the house and had hastened up. He tapped on Lesser’s door and lifted the typewriter out of the tub.
“Fartn Jew slumlord.”
“Willie,” said Lesser, “if it’s news to you I’m Jewish myself.”
“All I’m saying is an economic fact.”
“I’m telling you a personal one.”
“Thanks anyway for swinging with me, baby. Lots of appreciation.”
“My pleasure.”
The black smiled, beautiful teeth, a rare gesture.
“Let’s have that party we were planning on, this Friday night. I’ll bring my bitch and tell a few friends.”
Willie’s friends who climbed up the six frozen flights to Lesser’s flat during a blizzard on the first Friday of the new year, a dusting of snow on their heads, included his “bitch,” Irene Bell, to Lesser’s somewhat surprise—that she was Willie’s taste, he had expected a less striking type—a white girl verging on beautiful. She hadn’t quite made it; he couldn’t guess why, as though beauty were more of an obligation than she cared to assume. She had glanced at Lesser’s small mirror on the wall—her eyes wavered—and turned away in annoyance as she removed her voluminous cape. She wore on her face a depleted smile, sour at the edges, and troubled eyes. Some sadness. Lesser stared at her. Willie, when he got around to introducing her to him, said she was his white chick, not giving her name. At that she walked away. The writer figured they had quarreled on their way over.
The other two people were a black couple: Mary Kettlesmith, a hardassed attractive girl with an animated open face and fine figure. She wore a natural of small silken ringlets, and a plain white mini with
purple tights. She talked easily, touching Lesser’s arm with ten fingers when Willie introduced them. He touched hers and felt various hungers. Sam Clemence, her eyeglassed Afro’d boyfriend, was a quiet type on his way to stoned. Harry had not much impression of him one way or another. He himself was not in rare shape. He had expected fourteen people but because of the weather there were only five; he felt forlorn, a fool for not having invited a woman for himself.
purple tights. She talked easily, touching Lesser’s arm with ten fingers when Willie introduced them. He touched hers and felt various hungers. Sam Clemence, her eyeglassed Afro’d boyfriend, was a quiet type on his way to stoned. Harry had not much impression of him one way or another. He himself was not in rare shape. He had expected fourteen people but because of the weather there were only five; he felt forlorn, a fool for not having invited a woman for himself.
Willie, as though unable to bear parting with it, wore his writing sweater, decorated with a string of Arabian glass beads as large as walnuts. Otherwise he was dolled up in hip-hugging yellow pants and two-tone brown-and-black shoes, wet from the snow. His goatee and hair had been combed and creamed, and he seemed to be engaged in enjoying himself. He moved lightly, strutting, finger-popping. Though he pretended no great wit, what he said made them laugh and his gestures were witty. Now and then he glanced at Irene sitting by the window, sometimes blankly, as if trying to remember something he had forgotten. Or heard voices? Here was something new of the stranger levitated out of the street up to the floor where Lesser for months had lived alone, housemate now, fellow writer, maybe future friend. His lonely girl, possibly waiting for a good word, looked on from a detached distance. If Willie noticed he seemed not much affected;
he kidded with those close by. Lesser thought how easily he shucks off the writing self, whereas he, in his active mind, rarely stopped writing. He determined tonight to take pleasure.
he kidded with those close by. Lesser thought how easily he shucks off the writing self, whereas he, in his active mind, rarely stopped writing. He determined tonight to take pleasure.
Though pretending not to, Lesser looked Willie’s Off-Broadway actress over carefully. He pretended, not she; Irene sat as though to say she was no more than he saw, had no statement to make about herself. She was about twenty-five, her long dyed blond hair drawn thickly over her left shoulder, where it lay across her bosom like an emblem—the mystery why it all but wounded the host. Two women walk into my house and in a minute flat I’m standing on my hands. He greeted an old self.
Come out of momentary seclusion and whatever mood, the actress pulled off damp boots and, drink in hand, explored the apartment, slightly pigeon-toed in large narrow feet suiting a tallish girl. Where she had been Lesser breathed in gardenia scent. He was partial to flowers. She wore a buttoned short skirt and a flushed pink blouse, her milkwhite breasts visible when she bent to rub away a cigarette ash stain on her knee. She sat on his hassock with legs parted. Lesser looked all the way up. Irene rose as though she had sat on an egg; she said something to Mary, who laughed into cupped hands.
Lesser escaped to his study.
My God, why are all my desires visible?
After a while he returned to music going on; his guests were dancing, Mary, gorgeously, with Sam; Irene with Willie; Lesser suspected she had sought him out, not vice versa. They danced to some rock records Willie had brought along in a paper bag, a boogaloo of rolling shoulders and butts. And though they danced as if in truth conjoined, Willie’s mocking heavy eyes concentrating, Irene gyrating around him with muted smile set on pale face, as if the face weren’t dancing, and with nobody but each other, the writer sensed they moved partly as though to hold off contact although talking intently all the time. Trying to assess degree of mutual discontent—or was he kidding himself, was this apparent resistance to the other a mode of attachment, an emotion ambivalently stronger than pure anything else? Lesser twice attempted to slip in between them but neither of the dancers would have it. Yet at one point Irene slapped Willie; he slapped her harder; she wept for a minute and they went on dancing.
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