War & War (11 page)

14.

Rivington Street was where he was and down to the right and to the east was Chrystie Street, with a long windy park at the end, but if he went down and turned left it led to the Bowery, he noted after days of sleeping and nights of watching, uncertain how long he had been there, but on the day, whichever day it was, when he finally ventured out through the doors of the Suites Hotel, because, whatever day it was, he simply couldn’t stay in any longer, he couldn’t keep saying to himself
not today but tomorrow, or the day after,
but had to emerge and brave the streets if for no other reason than that he had eaten all the biscuits and his stomach ached from hunger, in other words because he had to eat something, and then, having done so, find a new place,
immediately
, Korin emphasized in the firmest of terms,
immediately
since paying forty dollars a day made it impossible for him to stay there more than a few days, and he had already stayed those few days as a consequence of which the amount he had permitted himself was exhausted, and while this liberality, he told himself, might have been excused in the light of his early shock, he could not imagine it being prolonged, for four times ten made four hundred dollars for ten days, and three times four hundred, that made one thousand two hundred dollars a month, which is a lot even to think about, said Korin, so definitely no, I don’t have an infinite amount of money, and so he went out but in order to be sure of knowing his way back he twice walked the distance between Chrystie Street and the Bowery, then stepping out into the desultory Bowery traffic and marking out the first useful-looking shop on the far side, nor was he wrong in marking it out, or rather there was nothing wrong with the marking-out, only with his nerve, for he lost his nerve as soon as he was about to enter the shop because it struck him that he had no idea what to say, that he didn’t even know the words for “I am hungry,” that he couldn’t say a single word of English because he had left the phrase book upstairs in the hotel, or so he discovered when he felt in his pocket, and this left him helpless, without the merest notion of what to say however he racked his brains, and so he walked up and down a while considering what to do, then made a snap decision, dashed into the shop, and in his despair picked up the first edible item he recognized among the boxes, which happened to be two big bunches of bananas, then, wearing the same desperate expression as that with which he had barged in, he paid the frightened shopkeeper and was out again in a flash, rushing off, cramming one banana after another into his mouth at which point he noticed something about two blocks up on the other side, a big red-brick building with an enormous sign on the front, and though he couldn’t in all honesty say that the sight of it solved everything, or so he explained later, it did at least make him realize that he should pull himself together, so he stopped there on the sidewalk, the bananas still in his hands, talking to himself, wondering whether this behavior was really worthy of him, for was he not a hopeless nincompoop, an utter fool, to be behaving like this, with such utter lack of dignity, he muttered, muttering “calm down,” standing in the Bowery, holding his head while clutching a bunch of bananas in his hands; was he not in danger of losing the last vestiges of his dignity, when the whole point was that everything would be all right, everything would be just fine, he repeated, if he succeeded in retaining it.

15.

The Sunshine Hotel lay approximately as far up as the point where Prince Street opens on to the Bowery, and where, a little further on, you come to Stanton Street, and there stands the great red-brick building with its huge sign bearing the single word SAVE, picked out in letters of burning scarlet, which is what struck Korin’s eye at that considerable distance, and was the sight that calmed him down, for having dashed out of the shop gobbling a banana, it seemed some benevolent hand had addressed the sign directly to him, he added, though by the time he got to it and read it properly he might easily have been disappointed, since the word written there was not SAVE but SALE, and the store below was simply some kind of car-showroom/auto-rental business—and disappointed he might indeed have been if he had not noticed something less likely to disappoint him, a smaller sign on the left of the building reading The Sunshine Hotel 25 dollars, that was all, no other information such as where The Sunshine Hotel was actually to be found; but the figure quoted and, as with SAVE, the attractiveness of the word, Sunshine, which he found easy enough to translate, exerted a further calming influence and roused his curiosity, since what was it he had decided to look for a little while ago if not some such thing, an immediate change of accommodation, and at a sum of twenty-five dollars, Korin calculated, well, twenty-five, that’s thirty times twenty, which makes six hundred, together with thirty times five, that adds up to seven hundred and fifty dollars a month, which was not bad at all, and certainly much better than paying one thousand two hundred for Rivington Street, and thinking this he immediately began looking for the entrance but the only building next to the big red-brick one was a filthy, decaying, six-story house without any signs or notices at all, only a brown door in the wall, where it was worth enquiring, he decided, for, surely, he could pronounce the words Sunshine Hotel, could he not, and he would, would he not, make some kind of sense of the answer, so he opened the door and found himself descending a steep set of stairs which led nowhere but to an iron-barred door, at which point, he explained, he might well have turned back with a bad feeling about the whole place, had he not heard the sound of human speech beyond the door, hearing which he decided to rattle the bars, and did so, and saw too late that there was in fact a bell available, and actually heard someone cursing the rattling of the bars, at least it sounded like cursing, said Korin, and indeed there, on the far side of the bars, was an enormous, rough-looking, shaven-headed man who took a good close look at Korin, then, without saying anything, returned whence he came, but already Korin heard a buzzing noise and there was no more time to think but he had to step through the opening barred door into a narrow hallway with more iron bars guarding a window and a small office behind it, and a small vent through which he had to speak when someone pointed at him, all he could do being to repeat the words “Sunshine Hotel” to which came the answer, “Yeah, Sunshine Hotel” indicating the other set of iron bars, at which Korin had hardly taken a glance than he started back, for he only saw the people there for the fraction of a second and did not dare catch their eyes again, they looked so terrifying, but the personage beyond the glass and metal grille somewhat suspiciously asked him, “Sunshine Hotel?” to which Korin had no idea what to answer, for should he say, Yes, that was what he was looking for, and add, yes but no thanks, and as he later recalled, he couldn’t remember what the hell he said then, not having the faintest idea what to answer to the question, but what was sure was that a few seconds later he was outside in the street again, putting as much distance between him and the place as he could, as quickly as he could, all the while thinking that he should immediately ask someone for help, a voice inside him urging him on, keeping step with his own pace, telling him to hurry back to Suites Hotel in Rivington Street, seeing only those shady figures and their grinning faces, until he reached the hotel doors, hearing nothing but that buzzing and the cold sharp snap of the lock over and over again, while being pursued all the way from The Sunshine Hotel to Suites Hotel by some terrible indefinable rank smell that had first assailed his nose in there, as if to ensure that there should be, at least, one thing that morning that, if he might so express it, he asked his fellow diners at the table of the Chinese restaurant, he would never forget regarding the moment he first entered the fearsome precincts of New York.

16.

There was nothing else the interpreter could do, he being the way he was, which is to say someone who took certain things then gave them back, for that was what had happened, he had taken away something then given it back, which was not, of course, to say that this made everything all right, but at least he’d be receiving six hundred a month for a while, and this was still more than before, the utterly drenched interpreter told the wholly uncomprehending Mexican taxi driver, it was better than nothing, although if there was something he had not foreseen, he said, pointing to Korin who was sleeping in the backseat with his mouth wide open, it was him, indeed there were many things he could anticipate, added the interpreter vigorously shaking his head, but he would never have dreamt that this man would have the gall to ring him up, especially seeing that it was precisely because of him that he had been fired, dropped like a piece of shit, but this guy did not fuck around, no, he went and called him up thinking that because he had given him his damned card it meant that he could just call him up, which he did, begging him to see him and help him, because, the halfwit lummox was completely lost in New York, the interpreter went on, lost, you hear? he asked the Mexican driver, lost, would you believe it, he exclaimed and slapped his knee, as if that mattered to anyone in a town where everyone is utterly lost, and he would have slammed the phone down on him and let the stupid asshole go hang himself, when the guy blurts out that he has a bit of money and he needs accommodation and someone to help him out these first few days, the shithead, that kind of thing, in fact precisely that kind of thing, and something about standing by him, adding the detail that he could pay up to six hundred dollars a month but no more, he apologized on the phone, because he had to spread his money carefully, he said, because, Korin didn’t really know how to put it, Mr. Sárváry, but he was a little exhausted by the journey, and tried to explain how he was not an ordinary passenger, that he wasn’t simply visiting New York but had a mission to accomplish there, and that time was really pressing now and he had need of help, someone to assist him, which, of course, didn’t mean doing a lot, in fact practically nothing, only being a particular someone to whom he could turn in difficulties, that was all really, and if it was at all possible, Korin had asked him, could he come for him now, in person, because he still had no idea what was what, or, to put it another way, he had no idea even where to put himself, that he knew neither the how nor why of anything, though when asked where he actually was, he did at least know the name of the hotel, so what else could he do, for six hundred rotten dollars he dashed straight down to Little Italy, because it was there, by the Bowery, that the guy was hanging out, all for six hundred dollars, the interpreter exclaimed and gazed at the taxi driver in hope of comprehension or sympathy, that was why he got straight onto the subway, yes, he jumped to it for six hundred lousy dollars, not that that was how he had imagined it, no, he hadn’t the faintest inkling, that this was the way he would be spending his time when he arrived in America, that this was how he would end up, that all he could call his own would be an apartment on West 159th paid three years in advance, and that, of all impossible things, it would be this guy who’d get him out of trouble, though that was precisely what had happened, for the guy having asked him the question it came to him in a flash that he had a back room for which six hundred was laughable but every little bit helped, so he told him on the phone he’d be there in an hour and Korin had echoed him, crying out in delight, “An hour!” going on to assure him that he, Mr. Sárváry, had saved his life, then went down into the lobby and paid his bill, which was one hundred and sixty dollars, as he rather bitterly informed him some time later, going out into the street and sitting on the corner of a wooden fence by the wood-paneling store opposite the hotel, and blessed the moment when, after his disturbing encounter at The Sunshine Hotel, he finally realized that he had reached the limit, there was no point in hanging around, and if he wanted to avoid complete and utter failure he had to have immediate assistance, and there was in fact only one person on whom he could call, just one, whose number was somewhere on a business card in one of his pockets, and having found it and read the ornate typography with some care, it turned out to be Mr. Joseph Sárváry, at 212-611-1937.

17.

It might be the first time this has happened in the USA but I haven’t come to start a new life,
Korin protested right at the beginning, and not being able to decide whether his companion, who, having consumed his beer, had slumped heavily across the table, had heard him at all or was fast asleep, he put down his glass, leaned over and put his hand on the man’s shoulder, carefully looking around him and adding rather more quietly:
I would rather like to finish the old one.

18.

He paid for everything: the hot meal at the Chinese, the vast amounts of beer they consumed, the cigarettes that followed, and even for the taxi that took them to the Upper West Side, absolutely everything, and, what’s more, with a joyful equanimity that was the sign of an inexpressible lightening of spirit, for, as he kept saying, he had seen no light at the end of the tunnel, the ground beneath his feet had begun remorselessly to shift, until the interpreter reappeared, and he could only thank him, and thank him again, for minutes on end, which made the whole thing even more intolerable, said the interpreter in the kitchen, for after that the words started pouring from his mouth and he told him everything in the smallest detail from A through to Z, from the point of leaving the airport, in such fine detail he practically described every step, the way he put one foot in front of the other, and the mind-blowing tedium! that was no exaggeration, he said, it really did take hours, because he started with the guy who allegedly knocked him flat before he had even reached the arrivals hall, then how he failed to find a bus that would have taken him downtown, but how he had found a taxi instead and who the driver was, and how his hand was on his groin all the way into Manhattan, and then some strange business about something he should have seen through the window on the journey but didn’t, and so they proceeded, no joking, yard by yard, missing nothing on the way, into Manhattan, and then what it was like at the hotel, seriously, going through each item of furniture and every little thing he did through the days he spent there, how he didn’t dare leave the room though he eventually did so in order to buy some bananas, and that’s no joke either, laughed the interpreter leaning on the kitchen table, though it sounds like a joke, but believe me, it wasn’t, that’s the kind of guy this guy really was, and he managed to find his way into some kind of prison too, telling me about iron bars, and how he escaped from there, in other words he is utterly screwed up, his head’s screwed up, you can see it in his eyes, he’s some kind of word nut, an absolute blabbermouth, and, what’s more, he has a constant theme, to which he keeps returning, that he has come here to die, and because of this, he says, though it’s an innocent enough matter, he has started to feel a bit uncomfortable with it, because though this spiel about dying is probably part shit, it is, in the end, not altogether to be ignored, because even though the guy looks innocent you have to take such things seriously, so that even she, he said pointing to his lover across the table, has to keep her eyes on him all the time, which is not to say there is any cause for anxiety for if there were he wouldn’t have allowed the guy in, no, there isn’t, for this guy was simply—and he would, said the interpreter, swear on it if he had to—talking out of his ass and you couldn’t take anything he said seriously, though one could never be too careful, there’s always that chance in a thousand, and what happens then, what if the guy happens to do it here at his place, the interpreter sucked his teeth, that wouldn’t be nice, but what the fuck else was he to do, for just this morning everything had looked hopeless, he couldn’t get a hundred together for the evening, and now, if you please, it’s not even three o’clock yet and here are six sweet hundred-dollar bills, a full Chinese meal, plus fifteen beers, a pack of Marlboros, not at all bad going given his black mood that morning, seeing that it had all dropped into his lap, just like that, this guy with his six hundred, this little moneybags, grinned the interpreter, that’s six hundred dollars a month, which is nothing to sneeze at, not a sum you can just say No to, because, after all, what’s the situation, the guy crashes here, said the interpreter, giving a wide yawn and leaning back in his chair, and it’ll be all right, he’ll survive, and this guy, Korin, is not going to get under his feet, since his needs seemed to be minimal, meaning a table to work at, a chair, a bed to sleep on, a sink, and a few common household items, that was all he wanted, no more, and he knows he has been provided with all these things, and he can’t thank him enough for them, or stop telling him how he has relieved him of a great burden, and you can have enough of this shit, he said, he had no wish to hear it all again, so he had left Korin in the back room, which is where he had stayed, alone, running his eyes over and over the place, this back room, his room, he had said aloud, but not too loud, not so that Mr. Sárváry and his partner should hear him, for, really, he didn’t want to be a nuisance to anyone, nor would he, he decided, be a nuisance, then sat down on the bed, got up again, went over to the window, then sat back down on the bed once more, before getting up again, and so it went on for several minutes, since the feeling of joy continued welling up in him, overwhelming him, so time and again he had to sit down or stand up and eventually achieved complete happiness by pulling the table ever so gently over to the window, turning it so the light should fall fully on it, drew up the chair, then sat on the bed and stared at the table, at the arrangement of it, stared and stared, gauging whether the light was falling on it in the best possible way, then turning the chair a little so that it was at a different angle to the table, so it should fit better, staring at that now, and it was plain that the happiness was almost too much for him, for he now had somewhere to live, a place with a table and a chair, because he was happy that Mr. Sárváry existed in the first place, and that he should have this apartment on the top floor of 547 West 159th Street, right next to the stairs to the attic, and without the resident’s name on the door.