Paul’s mother was crying too, but at least — to her credit — she tried to change the subject. “A scholarship is an honor,” she sobbed, touching her husband’s wet face. “We should be proud—”
“It’s an honor for the son, not for me. Just once, once … Five years later and frozen foods was already a craze. This man Birdseye is coining it, and my son, my son … A Catholic the girl is, practically an invalid, nineteen years old and she ain’t had a healthy day in her life—”
“My baby,” his mother wept. “He could read the mileage off the speedometer before other kids could even talk. What’s happening to my baby?”
When Asher called to invite Paul for a walk, Paul saw no need to be rude to someone essentially an outsider in the whole affair. He went with Asher because he knew his parents had asked Asher to phone; he went to make it easier on Asher, who like himself must have felt obliged to comply with whatever sad maneuverings these two helpless people could devise; he went for the sake of everybody’s dignity. It happened also that he knew that Asher would be sympathetic, or at the least noncommittal. The values of a man who had studied art in New York, in Chicago, in Europe, who had composed music, who chose to live in a loft over a Third Avenue bar — these were not the values of a washed-out bourgeois and his wife. Asher was a free man; an eccentric perhaps, but free.
The day they met was windless and cold. They walked side by side, two scrawny bareheaded men, one bald, the other with kinky black ridges beginning only two fingers above his eyebrows. One rounded his shoulders to stay warm; the other had had round shoulders for years. Though this posture gave Asher a thoughtful mien, the drop that formed and reformed at the end of his spiritless nose was not nearly so pensive-looking; it had the air of an oversight, as had his clothes and his features. His misshapen lobes, for example, made his ears look like accidents; on top of that, hair grew out of them. Asher did not seem to believe that outside the skin there were things to be taken care of. A full day of barbers, tailors, shoemakers, cleaners, and opticians would just about begin to put him in order. His spectacles were a little storage bin of paper clips and Scotch tape.
None of this run-downness depressed Paul, however. He leaned closer to catch the soft, whispery words his uncle spoke, while overhead the El trains broke metallically through the cold steely air. He managed to hear “… oh … not … people … parents — yes?” Asher turned his head in the raised collar of his overcoat and peered questioningly at his nephew.
“I’m sorry,” Paul said. “I didn’t—”
“Not bad people, do you think?” Asher swung his head, freeing his nose of its burden.
“No. I know, Asher.”
“They have your interests in mind. That’s so, isn’t it?”
“Their interests.” What with the noise overhead, Asher must not have understood what he’d been saying. “It would be in my interest to make me happy. It would be in my interest to give me a blessing.”
“They’d love to give you a blessing. They’re dying to give you a blessing,” said Asher, raising his ungloved hands from his pockets.
“Let them go ahead then,” Paul said.
Asher was peeling paint from under his nails. “They’d like to give me a blessing, they’d like to give everybody a blessing. How old are you, Paulie?”
“Twenty-one.”
Asher made a face, as though he’d eaten something unpalatable. “So what’s your hurry?”
“What hurry? Hurry for what?”
“You have a nice sweet life ahead of you, isn’t that a fact?”
Where was this conversation drifting? “But I’m in love,” said Paul, shrugging.
“Let’s get out from this noise, and talk,” Asher said, taking Paul by the elbow. As they crossed the street, he pulled his nephew close to him and with a sleepy closing of his swollen lids back of the tortured glasses, said, “I’m in love myself.”
“Yes?”
“Absolutely.”
“I didn’t know that,” Paul said, trying to remain composed.
“Sure. She comes to my studio every Wednesday afternoon. Today, this afternoon. It gets dark and she goes home. A girl twenty-five.” He spoke as if each fact had to be remembered from the dim past. Though he did not want to, Paul suspected his uncle of lying.
“Is she married?” Paul asked.
“I know her four years, and every Wednesday … the most valuable thing in my life … She’s married, sure. She has a baby.” Asher took a frayed billfold from his coat and handed Paul a picture of a little girl. “A darling,” Asher said.
“She’s very nice.”
“A darling child,” Asher said. He stuffed the billfold back inside his coat. “Look, Paulie, I’ve loved a lot of women. Six years I lived with a Chinese woman, for example. Many different types and personalities. I’ve screwed all kinds, every imaginable variety of cunt, I’ve had it. I’m no amateur at this business.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“What? What didn’t you know?”
“For instance, the Chinese.”
“Oh sure — well, I didn’t make a point of it with your mother. I think she has a prejudice against non-Occidentals.”
“That’s giving her a break, but that’s true.”
“Is she pregnant?” Asher suddenly asked. “This girl? I’m trying to get to your motivation.”
“Are we talking about me now?”
“About your girl friends,” Asher said. “What’s the story, Paulie?”
“My father told you she must be pregnant, is that it? Don’t you think that shows how he doesn’t begin to understand?”
“Don’t worry about his understanding. Of course he’s a dope. You didn’t knock her up?”
He felt moved to deny even sleeping with Libby; the conversation had turned in a way he could not have imagined. But he had reasons stronger than pride for not wanting Asher to confuse himself about his experience. He had not come out on a below-freezing day for bad advice. “She’s not intact, but she’s not pregnant either.”
“She’s not intact by you or before you?”
“By me.”
“Oh it clears up. And for that you’re throwing out all your opportunities? For that small puncture you’ll tie yourself down? How will you support this girl you ruined?”
“Asher, what are you talking about?”
“Money. Life.”
“You sound like my old man.”
“You haven’t got good ears — I’m at the other end of the globe. I understand she’s a little sickly.”
“She gets colds, Asher. They met her twice and both times she had colds. It’s winter. She’s human—”
“Even nose drops cost money,” Asher was explaining. “Kleenex can run you into a fortune, I mean paupers like you and me. You want to tie a stone around your neck?” Asher asked. “You’ll fall in love all your life, in and out all your life. You can even find a lady with a wooden leg, I don’t care. It isn’t the colds, Paulie, it’s the principle. You’re twenty-one, you drew a little blood from her, so you think there’s only one girl in the world for you. But you’ve got no obligations according to the date of entry, you understand me? If it wasn’t you, it would be another smart fellow. Don’t bind yourself round for having a little fun. Is it you who wants to marry or is it this girl?”