Rich Man, Poor Man

“I want you to say that you are sorry for the filthy thing that ignorant, scheming peasant has done to you,” Uncle Harold whispered. “I want you to promise you will never touch her again. In this house or anywhere else.”

“I’m not promising anything,” Thomas said.

“I’m being kind,” Uncle Harold said. “I am being delicate. I am speaking quietly, like a reasonable and forgiving man, Tommy. I do not want to make a scandal. I don’t want your Aunt Elsa to know her house has been dirtied, that her children have been exposed to … Ach, I can’t find the words, Tommy.”

“I’m not promising anything,” Thomas said.

“Okay. You are not promising anything,” Uncle Harold said. “You don’t have to promise anything. When I leave this room, I am going down to the room behind the kitchen. She will promise plenty, I assure you.”

“That’s what you think.” Even to his own ears, it sounded hollow, childish.

“That’s what I know, Tommy,” Uncle Harold whispered. “She will promise anything. She’s in trouble. If I fire her, where will she go? Back to her drunken husband in Canada who’s been looking for her for two years so he can beat her to death?”

“There’re plenty of jobs. She doesn’t have to go to Canada.”

“You think so. The authority on International Law,” Uncle Harold said. “You think it’s as easy as that. You think I won’t go to the police.”

“What’ve the police got to do with it?”

“You are a child, Tommy,” Uncle Harold said. “You put it up in between a married woman’s legs like a grown man, but you have the mind of a child. She has corrupted the morals of a minor, Tommy. You are the minor. Sixteen years old. That is a crime, Tommy. A serious crime. This is a civilized country. Children are protected in this country. Even if they didn’t put her in jail, they would deport her, an undesirable alien who corrupts the morals of minors. She is not a citizen. Back to Canada she would go. It would be in the papers. Her husband would be waiting for her. Oh, yes,” Uncle Harold said. “She will promise.” He stood up. “I am sorry for you, Tommy. It is not your fault. It is in your blood. Your father was a whoremaster. I was ashamed to say hello to him in the street. And your mother, for your information, was a bastard. She was raised by the nuns. Ask her some day who her father was. Or even her mother. Get some sleep, Tommy.” He patted him comfortingly on the shoulder. “I like you. I would like to see you grow up into a good man. A credit to the family. I am doing what is best for you. Go—get some sleep.”

Uncle Harold padded out of the room, barefooted, beery mastodon in the shapeless striped pajamas, all weapons on his side.

Thomas put out the light. He lay face down on the bed. He punched the pillow, once, with all his strength.

The next morning, he went down early, to try to talk to Clothilde before breakfast. But Uncle Harold was there, at the dining-room table, reading the newspaper.

“Good morning, Tommy,” he said, looking up briefly. His teeth were back in. He sipped noisily at his coffee.

Clothilde came in with Thomas’s orange juice. She didn’t look at him. Her face was dark and closed. Uncle Harold didn’t look at Clothilde. “It is terrible what is happening in Germany,” he said. “They are raping women in Berlin. The Russians. They have been waiting for this for a hundred years. People are living in cellars. If I hadn’t met your Tante Elsa and come to this country when I was a young man, God knows where I would be now.”

Clothilde came in with Thomas’s bacon and eggs. He searched her face for a sign. There was no sign.

When he finished breakfast, Thomas stood up. He would have to get back later in the day, when the house was empty. Uncle Harold looked up from his paper. “Tell Coyne, I’ll be in at nine-thirty,” Uncle Harold said. “I have to go to the bank. And tell him I promised Mr. Duncan’s car by noon, washed.”

Thomas nodded and went out of the room as the two daughters came down, fat and pale. “My angels,” he heard Uncle Harold say as they went into the dining room and kissed him good morning.

He had his chance at four o’clock that afternoon. It was the daughters’ dentist day for their braces and Tante Elsa always took them, in the second car. Uncle Harold, he knew, was down at the showroom. Clothilde should be alone.

“I’ll be back in a half-hour,” he told Coyne. “I got to see somebody.”

Coyne wasn’t pleased, but screw him.

Clothilde was watering the lawn when he pedaled up. It was a su

Clothilde looked at Thomas once as he got off his bicycle, then continued watering the lawn.

“Clothilde,” Thomas said, “come inside. I have to talk to you.”

“I’m watering the lawn.” She turned the nozzle and the spray concentrated down to a stream, with which she soaked a bed of petunias along the front of the house.

“Look at me,” he said.

“Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” She kept turned away from him.

“Did he come down to your room last night?” Thomas said. “My uncle?”

“So?”

“Did you let him in?”

“It’s his house,” Clothilde said. Her voice was sullen.

“Did you promise him anything?” He knew he sounded shrill, but he couldn’t help himself.

“What difference does it make? Go back to work. People will see us.”

“Did you promise him anything?”

“I said I wouldn’t see you alone anymore,” she said flatly.

“You didn’t mean it, though,” Thomas pleaded.

“I meant it.” She fiddled with the nozzle again. The wedding ring on her finger gleamed. “We are over.”

“No, we’re not!” He wanted to grab her and shake her. “Get the hell out of this house. Get another job. I’ll move away and …”

“Don’t talk nonsense,” she said sharply. “He told you about my crime.” She mocked the word. “He will have me deported. We are not Romeo and Juliet. We are a schoolboy and a cook. Go back to work.”

“Couldn’t you say anything to him?” Thomas was desperate. He was afraid he was going to break down and cry, right there on the lawn, right in front of Clothilde.

“There is nothing to say. He is a wild man,” Clothilde said. “He is jealous. When a man is jealous you might as well talk to a wall, a tree.”

“Jealous?” Thomas said. “What do you mean?”

“He has been trying to get into my bed for two years,” Clothilde said calmly. “He comes down at night when his wife is asleep and scratches on the door like a kitten.”

“That fat bastard,” Thomas said. “I’ll be there waiting for him the next time.”

“No you won’t,” Clothilde said. “He is going to come in the next time. You might as well know.”

“You’re going to let him?”

“I’m a servant,” she said. “I lead the life of a servant. I do not want to lose my job or go to jail or go back to Canada. Forget it,” she said. “Alles kaput. It was nice for two weeks. You’re a nice boy. I’m sorry I got you into trouble.”

“All right, all right,” he shouted. “I’m never going to touch another woman again as long as—”

He was too choked to say anything more and ran over to his bicycle and rode blindly away, leaving Clothilde watering the roses. He didn’t turn around. So he didn’t see the tears on the dark, despairing face.

St. Sebastian, well supplied with arrows, he headed for the garage. The rods would come later.

Chapter 9

I

When she came out of the Eighth Street subway station she stopped for six bottles of beer and then went into the cleaner’s for Willie’s suit. It was dusk, the early dusk of November, and the air was nippy. People were wearing coats and moving quickly. A girl in slacks and a trench coat slouched in front of her, her hair covered by a scarf. The girl looked as though she had just gotten out of bed, although it was after five o’clock in the afternoon. In Greenwich Village, people might get out of bed at any time of the day or night. It was one of the charms of the neighborhood, like the fact that most of the population was young. Sometimes, when she walked through the neighborhood, among the young, she thought, “I am in my native country.”