‘But Cassie I dont see what fun you get out of it all?’
‘Oh you dont understand. You’re too young. I was like you at first except that I wasnt mawied and didnt wun awound with men. But now I want spiwitual beauty. I want to get it through my dancing and my life, I want beauty everywhere and I thought Morris wanted it.’
‘But Morris evidently did.’
‘Oh Elaine you’re howid, and I love you so much.’
Ellen got to her feet. ‘I’m going to run downstairs so that the taximan wont ring the bell.’
‘But you cant go like this.’
‘You just watch me.’ Ellen gathered up the bundle of books in one hand and in the other carried the black leather dressingcase. ‘Look Cassie will you be a dear and show him the trunk when he comes up to get it… And one other thing, when Stan Emery calls up tell him to call me at the Brevoort or at the Lafayette. Thank goodness I didn’t deposit my money last week… And Cassie if you find any little odds and ends of mine around you just keep em… Goodby.’ She lifted her veil and kissed Cassie quickly on the cheeks.
‘Oh how can you be so bwave as to go away all alone like this… You’ll let Wuth and me come down to see you wont you? We’re so fond of you. Oh Elaine you’re going to have a wonderful career, I know you are.’
‘And promise not to tell Jojo where I am… He’ll find out soon enough anyway… I’ll call him up in a week.’
She found the taxidriver in the hall looking at the names above the pushbuttons. He went up to fetch her trunk. She settled herself happily on the dusty buff seat of the taxi, taking deep breaths of the riversmelling morning air. The taxidriver smiled roundly at her when he had let the trunk slide off his back onto the dashboard.
‘Pretty heavy, miss.’
‘It’s a shame you had to carry it all alone.’
‘Oh I kin carry heavier’n ’at.’
‘I want to go to the Hotel Brevoort, Fifth Avenue at about Eighth Street.’
When he leaned to crank the car the man pushed his hat back on his head letting ruddy curly hair out over his eyes. ‘All right I’ll take you anywhere you like,’ he said as he hopped into his seat in the jiggling car. When they turned down into the very empty sunlight of Broadway a feeling of happiness began to sizzle and soar like rockets inside her. The air beat fresh, thrilling in her face. The taxidriver talked back at her through the open window.
‘I thought yous was catchin a train to go away somewhere, miss.’
‘Well I am going away somewhere.’
‘It’d be a foine day to be goin away somewhere.’
‘I’m going away from my husband.’ The words popped out of her mouth before she could stop them.
‘Did he trow you out?’
‘No I can’t say he did that,’ she said laughing.
‘My wife trun me out tree weeks ago.’
‘How was that?’
‘Locked de door when I came home one night an wouldnt let me in. She’d had the lock changed when I was out workin.’
‘That’s a funny thing to do.’
‘She says I git slopped too often. I aint goin back to her an I aint going to support her no more… She can put me in jail if she likes. I’m troo. I’m gettin an apartment on Twentysecond Avenoo wid another feller an we’re goin to git a pianer an live quiet an lay offen the skoits.’
‘Matrimony isnt much is it?’
‘You said it. What leads up to it’s all right, but gettin married is loike de mornin after.’
Fifth Avenue was white and empty and swept by a sparkling wind. The trees in Madison Square were unexpectedly bright green like ferns in a dun room. At the Brevoort a sleepy French night-porter carried her baggage. In the low whitepainted room the sunlight drowsed on a faded crimson armchair. Ellen ran about the room like a small child kicking her heels and clapping her hands. With pursed lips and tilted head she arranged her toilet things on the bureau. Then she hung her yellow nightgown on a chair and undressed, caught sight of herself in the mirror, stood naked looking at herself with her hands on her tiny firm appleshaped breasts.
She pulled on her nightgown and went to the phone. ‘Please send up a pot of chocolate and rolls to 108… as soon as you can please.’ Then she got into bed. She lay laughing with her legs stretched wide in the cool slippery sheets.
Hairpins were sticking into her head. She sat up and pulled them all out and shook the heavy coil of her hair down about her shoulders. She drew her knees up to her chin and sat thinking. From the street she could hear the occasional rumble of a truck. In the kitchens below her room a sound of clattering had begun. From all around came a growing rumble of traffic beginning. She felt hungry and alone. The bed was a raft on which she was marooned alone, always alone, afloat on a growling ocean. A shudder went down her spine. She drew her knees up closer to her chin.
3 Nine Days’ Wonder
The sun’s moved to Jersey, the sun’s behind Hoboken.
Covers are clicking on typewriters, rolltop desks are closing; elevators go up empty, come down jammed. It’s ebbtide in the downtown district, flood in Flatbush, Woodlawn, Dyckman Street, Sheepshead Bay, New Lots Avenue, Canarsie.
Pink sheets, green sheets, gray sheets, FULL MARKET REPORTS, FINALS ON HAVRE DE GRACE. Print squirms among the shopworn officeworn sagging faces, sore fingertips, aching insteps, strongarm men cram into subway expresses. SENATORS 8, GIANTS 2, DIVA RECOVERS PEARLS, $800,000 ROBBERY.
It’s ebbtide on Wall Street, floodtide in the Bronx.
The sun’s gone down in Jersey.
‘Godamighty,’ shouted Phil Sandbourne and pounded with his fist on the desk, ‘I don’t think so… A man’s morals arent anybody’s business. It’s his work that counts.’
‘Well?’
‘Well I think Stanford White has done more for the city of New York than any other man living. Nobody knew there was such a thing as architecture before he came… And to have this Thaw shoot him down in cold blood and then get away with it… By gad if the people of this town had the spirit of guineapigs they’d –’
‘Phil you’re getting all excited over nothing.’ The other man took his cigar out of his mouth and leaned back in his swivel chair and yawned.
‘Oh hell I want a vacation. Golly it’ll be good to get out in those old Maine woods again.’
‘What with Jew lawyers and Irish judges…’ spluttered Phil.
‘Aw pull the chain, old man.’
‘A fine specimen of a public-spirited citizen you are Hartly.’
Hartly laughed and rubbed the palm of his hand over his bald head. ‘Oh that stuff’s all right in winter, but I cant go it in summer… Hell all I live for is three weeks’ vacation anyway. What do I care if all the architects in New York get bumped off as long as it dont raise the price of commutation to New Rochelle… Let’s go eat.’ As they went down in the elevator Phil went on talking: ‘The only other man I ever knew who was really a born in the bone architect was ole Specker, the feller I worked for when I first came north, a fine old Dane he was too. Poor devil died o cancer two years ago. Man, he was an architect. I got a set of plans and specifications home for what he called a communal building… Seventyfive stories high stepped back in terraces with a sort of hanging garden on every floor, hotels, theaters, Turkish baths, swimming pools, department stores, heating plant, refrigerating and market space all in the same buildin.’
‘Did he eat coke?’
‘No siree he didnt.’
They were walking east along Thirtyfourth Street, sparse of people in the sultry midday. ‘Gad,’ burst out Phil Sandbourne, suddenly. ‘The girls in this town get prettier every year. ‘Like these new fashions, do you?’