The Unpossessed (24 page)

“Of course, of course,” said Bruno. “But the intellectual belongs on the sidelines—where he was born.”

“That's stalling,” said Firman angrily. “That's sitting on the fence,” said Cornelia.

“But what's a better place to look on from? Doesn't the world need an umpire?”

“Consider the intellectual,” said Firman: “he toils not neither does he spin . . . to hell with that.” “Economic determinism,” said Cornelia, “has bitten the intellectual in the pants too.”

The Vambery cleared his throat for action. “My dear young people: economics most surely plays a part. But it is not, you cannot believe it is, a basic human motivation. Not a fundamental. Investigate your earliest memories: they are not, surely, either of too much or too little money.”

“My earliest memory,” said Cornelia dryly, “is my mother throwing a kettle at me.”

“What?” cried Merle. “How terrible, you poor child!—was she—‘nervous'?”

“Worse than that,” said Cornelia cheerfully; “she didn't have anything to give me to eat. I'd come home from school and said I was hungry. So she threw the kettle at me.” “But why, why,” wailed Merle. “Because she was angry at the kettle for being empty,” said Firman shortly.

“To get back to the subject,” said Bruno impatiently (these damn youngsters! they had such concrete illustrations of their simple point!) “Religions and civilizations, Firman—built if you will, on propaganda, and by those in the thick of the fight—have flourished and died; but the art depicting them has lasted. It seems to me quite right, quite just, inevitable in fact, that the intellectual stand on the sidelines, fiddling while Rome burns or what have you; our fiddling produces the records for posterity. . . .”

“Unless, professor,” said Firman, “the intellectual happens to fall in the flames himself; and his worthless record with him.” “Your position, Doctor Leonard,” said Cornelia, “is an anomalous one.” “Anomalous,” Bruno nodded approvingly; “I thought one word was missing; now they're all checked in.”

“I want it born, inaugurated,” cried Merle, “in a burst of glory, the Magazine!”

“What Magazine?” “
Is
there a Magazine?” “What is your mother talking about, Emmett?”

“Defeatist talk!” cried Jeffrey. “And what in hell else have you contributed,” cried Miles—but Norah stood between them.

“You'll have to take your coat off, dear.” She stood like a very stupid woman (which Bruno was sure she was not) until Jeffrey swallowed his rage and rose with a sigh—more like a spoiled child than a plagued husband—and slipped on the sweater she was knitting him. The room was calmed; Jeffrey emerged from his fitting with spirits soothed and temper cool. (Bruno thought of Elizabeth.) “Go on, tell them, Merle,” said Jeffrey—and gave Norah a little pat as if acknowledging his debt to her.

Merle faced them graciously. Bruno observed how Emmett writhed with filial embarrassment. “Jeffrey Blake and I,” she said, “have planned a party to inaugurate . . .”

The room broke into discords. “A party?” “What has a party to do with a Magazine?” “A combined party, we thought—proceeds to be divided between the Magazine and the Winter Hunger Marchers.” “Hunger Marchers!” Bruno heard Miles, sounding his stern worry through the dissonant fugue: “It's compromise, no good will come of it, a Magazine baptized in gin, will there ever be a Magazine?”
Listen darling, for God's sake, do you have to go back to the dormitory tonight? Dixon doesn't mind sleeping on the floor at our place. If this meeting ever ends, Cornelia whispered back; darling, I am so tired
. “A revolutionary Magazine,” said Miles, “inaugurated by a drunken party—I don't like it . . .”

“A Hunger March Party!” Al had come back and stood maliciously surveying them. “I'll donate the buffet—nobody will go hungry at
our
Hunger March Party, shall they, my pet? Caviar, lobster, nothing's too good . . .”
Sit tight, Cornelia, if this meeting ever ends we'll beat it over to Dixon's
. . . . “And how have you gotten along, my dear,” he said placing himself beside Norah; “did you turn the sleeve?”

“Baptized in gin—” said Miles unhappily.

“Hell, no, champagne,” Al interposed. “The refreshments are on me. I want 'em to cost more than the whole Hunger March expenses, otherwise I won't play.”

I want to go home Arnold, let's beat it now, to Dixon's, I feel as though I'd be sick any minute all over this carpet. Hang on kid, we can't let them run themselves into the ground like this, can you stick it out? All right darling, but break it up if you can, I feel damn funny
.

“Of course you realize,” Firman broke out of a huddle with Cornelia, “that we haven't settled on anything resembling a policy.”

“Nonsense,” said Bruno, “we've settled on no less than six.” “Oh we can have a meeting to decide that,” said Jeffrey easily. “I thought this was supposed to be a meeting.” “I know, but we can have another.” “A drunken party,” Miles said bitterly; “I don't like it.”

“Not a drunken party at all,” cried Merle, “it will be beautiful, dignified, we will have speeches and banners, music . . . Run up like an angel, Vammie dear, and see if the Dickie-bird's all right. . . .”

“It will be,” stated Jeffrey firmly, “a party on the surface, and concealed strategy underneath. . . .”

“Ah, spies in dinner jackets!” said Al Middleton with pleasure.

“Dinner jackets!” burst from Miles. “In R-r-russia,” Emmett began. “but tactics,” said Jeffrey “selling out” said Miles “what the devil does it matter, it's no costume party” said Bruno angrily “real democracy” said Merle ecstatically, “the perfect party” “when the R-r-russian ambassador attended the conference in Paris” “we will have posters, we will have speeches” “there'll be a party, but there'll be never be a Magazine” “dinner jackets and there'll never be a revolution”

“Anyway there'll be caviar, sceptics,” Al shouted into their midst. “I guess you'll have that sweater finished pretty soon,” he said to Norah. “Yes, I don't like to waste my time,” she said, “I mean,” she added blushing, “I like to keep my fingers busy, I'm not clever like the rest.”

O darling I do feel sick. O darling hold out a little longer
.

“And the R-r-russian ambassador was criticized” “what can it possibly matter” “because clothes are a symbol” “if you start to compromise you're lost” “so snobbish not to attend a charity ball dressed in your best,” said Bruno bitterly. “It will be a party no one will ever forget,” cried Merle.

“How do we know there will be a Hunger March this year,” said Al. “Maybe nobody is planning to be hungry enough to march. . . .”

But there was a small cry, a timid crash, and Cornelia lay in a heap on the floor. Norah, awakened miraculously, was as quick as Firman to reach her side. Deftly she and Firman unloosed the collar of her blouse. “My salts,” moaned Merle, “ring for spirits of ammonia, Emmett. Ring for March. Where is Vammie? oh I sent him to look at Dickie. . . . What could be the matter with Miss—Miss—”

“Over-eating,” said Firman briefly; and shook his girl with a fierce tenderness by her slender shoulders.

Al hurried with his whiskey bottle, Miles ran for water, Jeffrey flung the windows up—Merle was busy with her heart, her hands, her moans. But Bruno couldn't move.
The fight for full bellies . . . a property war . . . that can't mean anything to us . . . you're either in favor of them for everybody or you're not . . . they had reached, he and Elizabeth, for the world in which only the intangibles were goals
. . . Philosophic truth, artistic integrity, open forum . . . all the precious things that glimmered with a sudden cheapness, brought suddenly face to face with a vulgar staring empty belly.
B-b-bruno, Bruno!
Emmett shivered beside him, as helpless as himself. Bruno stood there paralyzed.

Cornelia's eyes were slowly opening. “Fainting,” she muttered angrily. “Pulling a Goddamn 1870. Sorry, everybody.” She grabbed her side. “Oh Jesus.”

“But what is it, what is the matter, Miss—Miss—” cried Merle, wringing her hands in anguish.

“Nothing at all, my pearl,” said Al; “the girl has no manners, she has had the bad taste to faint of hunger on the
petit point
.”

“Oh oh,” sobbed Merle, covering her eyes with her hands, “I'm going to faint myself. I never can bear the sight of someone suffering, I had to hide my eyes while Vammie bound Dickie's leg . . . perhaps she'd like some food, would you like some food, Miss, Miss . . .”

“No thanks,” said Firman. He was busy picking Cornelia up, putting her together tenderly. “She really fainted out of spite—just to end the meeting. A mean girl.” Her eyes had closed again. He shook her by the shoulders. “Cornelia!” He slapped her briskly. “Cornelia. Pull yourself together. We're going. You won. You broke up the party. Very effective strategy.” He laid her head against his shoulder and rose. “Come on darling, show them you're hungry enough to march.” No one spoke. Al fell back to let them pass. Miles stood with his head lowered as though he were taking part in a religious ceremony, as though the prostrate Cornelia were some Christ who had died for him. At Bruno's side stood Emmett, his shoulders shaking like a sobbing child's. Bruno couldn't move. Young Firman stepped proudly down the aisle they made for him, his girl's arms going weakly round his neck; Norah fell calmly in the rear of their procession, carrying Cornelia's fallen few belongings.

And so, he thought, the room stood still, lined with corpses as though a multitude of living people had taken up their lives and carried them away to some more fitting place. It seemed to him suddenly that he and his friends were ridiculous, doctors who had passed examinations in a correspondence course; that when suddenly they were faced with a suffering patient, the patient had more concrete knowledge than they, for all their learning. The uncomplicated physical had no reality for them; its unexpected presence had one chief effect—while their busy abstract minds worked to reconcile it with some preaccepted doctrine, some maxim of their own, their emotions were stricken in a harsh new way which argument would fail to solace; their bodies (his own was numb) were paralyzed by this sudden failure of their minds, this wretched cancelling of emotions they were unaccustomed to. What they had seen was hunger; deep as was his own tortuous unwilling scepticism, Bruno knew that before the last ten minutes he had been sceptical even of hunger. Nor was there any place for it (now that he perforce accepted it) in the academic scaling in his mind. It didn't fit. It was irrelevance. It was some other language than his own. But all the time through the numbness of his body, his own belly ached with a fierce imitation of Cornelia's.

They were turning aimlessly to go, afraid, because each one knew what his fellows were thinking, to look each other in the eye. Miles was white as though he had experienced some awful revelation. Jeffrey's hands were feverishly trying to weigh things, to balance things, to put this new idea into a decent resting-place; for once his fluent tongue was failing him. The whole thing, the meeting, the Magazine, this roomful of ghosts, his own whole life, seemed to Bruno farce. “B-b-bruno, Bruno, take me with you, don't leave me here,” sobbed Emmett; and his weakness was only putting into words the wretchedness that all of them were feeling. It took all of Bruno's strength to reach out and put an arm on Emmett's shoulder; it would have taken more than he possessed (despite a shrinking in himself) in order to refrain. “So perfectly awful,” sighed Merle; “I felt all evening—since the Dickie-bird's little accident—that something awful was going to happen, I'm a little psychic that way. . . .”

“Curtain,” said Al. “Shall I ring for March, my angel, and order up some sandwiches?”

HURRY, MILES wanted to shout at the man in the subway change-cage; and hurry, he wanted to scream down the empty curving tracks to the next train sliding so coyly into the station; hurry up, I've got to get home to my wife.

For the thing that had happened at the Middletons' had frightened him, startled him, like some canny premonition of his lurking guilt, the end of his illusion of joy. He knew he dared not travel far from Margaret, not and keep this strange new peace he had submitted to. Now he closed his mind to what had happened and pinned it ahead to Margaret. She would be asleep; he would gently waken her, thrust a lighted cigarette in her sleepy mouth; she would open her eyes wide, glad to be awake, glad of him, glad (eternally glad she was, grateful for such simple things) that they had “each other,” her consciousness returning like some joyous gift she had forgotten—and he would talk, endlessly perhaps, through the dawn, into the next morning if need be; he would never let go of her, sitting in her rumpled nightgown with her tipsy cigarette, until she had eased the terror in his vitals (that anyone was hungry, that anyone fainted in his sight from hunger, was a personal, a damnable reproachful fact), until they had given each other strength and more strength, separately, together, until they were the strongest two people in the world.

His own street frightened and reproached him, empty and baleful in the early morning light; one beggar drunk or sleeping on the curb, the lamps ironically glowing over his head; Mrs. Salvemini's window dark and gaping, the curtains blowing, shrinking, in. He took the stairs in a frightened leap, and his heart pounded until he stood quietly by the side of the bed where Margaret lay sleeping, her face gray and beautiful in the cold dawn, her hand curled on the empty pillow beside her own.

His peace, his warmth, his only chance for happiness lay waiting. But still he stood there looking down, his bones growing dry, his heart contracting. That was death! that was surrender! cried the part of himself that to this day held out against pillows. Save me! cried the little boy who turned from love as Uncle Daniel turned from drink; save me from plunging like a coward into that warm oblivion. Margaret lay waiting; his bed lay waiting. It was too easy. It brought back the Magazine to be baptized in champagne, the world struggle fought in dinner jackets. He drew back sternly.