"You needn't tell me that it's a bad idea to smoke now. But it's even worse not to smoke," he said to Rosie, when he saw her hesitate.
Of course she understood, having taken every last course he offered. "So I went down to the vending machine and brought up six packs of Marlboros," she told me.
"If you hadn't done it, ten other messengers would have," I said.
"They sure enough would."
At the hospital his best students-the inner circle-came and went, gathered, chatted in the waiting room.
On the second day after release from intensive care, Ravelstein, who hadn't recovered the use of his legs, was once more on the telephone with friends in Paris, explaining why he would not be coming back just yet. The apartment had to be given up. His aristocratic landlords would have to be approached with tact to return the _dйpфt de garanti__. Ten thousand dollars. Maybe they'd cough it up, maybe not. He could understand their feelings, he said. Those were the most beautiful, the most distinguished rooms he had ever lived in, he said.
Ravelstein didn't count on recovering his deposit, though he was highly connected in French academic circles. He had lots of important connections in France-and in Italy as well. He knew perfectly well that there was no legal way to recover his earnest money. "Especially in this instance, because the tenant is a Jew, and there's a Gobineau in the landlord's family tree. Those Gobineaus were famous Jew-haters. And I'm no mere Jew but, even worse, an American one-all the more dangerous to civilization as they see it. Any way, they will let a Jew live on their street, but he _should__ pay for it."
In an off moment, weakened by the disease, eyes only half open and in a voice in which the words were unclear and the tones had to carry most of the meaning-several days when his speech was like his narrowed gaze-he kept trying to tell me something. What he was trying to say at last became clear-that he was even now arranging for a BMW to be sent over.
"From Germany?"
So it seemed, though he didn't actually say that it was being shipped. I had the impression that it was already on a freighter in mid-Atlantic. Maybe even unloaded and being trucked to the Midwest.
"It's for Nikki," Ravelstein said. "He feels he should have something outstanding and entirely his own. You can see that, can't you, Chick? In addition, he may have to drop out of his Swiss school."
This was not put to me as a question. I could see it well enough. For one thing, if you were dressed-as Nikki was-by Versace, Ultimo, and Gucci, you didn't want to use public transportation. But having satisfied my quirky need for humor with such an observation, I was now able to be real. The reality was that Ravelstein had barely squeaked by, that he was still on what doctors called "life supports," that his lower body was still paralyzed, his legs were not working, and that if and when paralysis was overcome there were still other infections waiting to be reckoned with.
"Now tell me, thee-ah Chick, how do I look to you?"
"The face?"
"Face, head. You have a peculiar eye, Chick. And don't hold back."
"You look like a ripe honeydew melon, on the pillow."
He laughed. His eyes narrowed and glinted; he took a peculiar satisfaction in my mental ways. He saw this kind of remark as a sign of higher faculties in operation. About the car he said, "The agency was trying to sell me on some wine-colored BMW. I prefer the chestnut one. Over there is a chart of the colors-" He pointed, and when I handed it to him he flipped it open. Bar after bar of enamel strips. Soberly studying the samples, I said that the wine color wouldn't do.
"You're never wrong in a matter of taste. Nikki thinks so, too."
"That's nice, but I never thought he was noticing."
"The clothes you wear may not be the latest, but you did have the makings of a dude, Chick-in a former phase, and in a limited way. I remember your Chicago tailor, the one who did a suit for me."
"You hardly wore it."
"I wore it home."
"But then it disappeared."
"Nikki and I laughed ourselves silly over the cut of it. Perfect for Las Vegas or on a politician for the annual Democratic machine gathering at the Bismarck Hotel-don't be hurt, Chick."
"I'm not. I don't invest much sensitivity in my suits."
"Nikki always says your taste in shirts and neckties is perfect. Kisser Asser."
"Of course, Kisser Asser."
"Yes!" said Ravelstein, and closed his eyes with satisfaction.
"I don't want to tire you," I said.
"No, no." Abe's eyes were still shut. "I'm still alive to bandy wise cracks. You do me more good than a dozen intravenous drips."
Yes, and he could rely on me. I was present, too, at the hospital window. _Ad sum__, as you would answer roll call at school-or _ab est__, as we said in unison when a seat was empty.
The city presented mile upon mile of late-autumn bareness-the cold hardening of the ground, the branching boulevards, the painted-desert look of the apartment houses, the paling green of the parks-the temperate zone and its seasons, cranking away. Winter coming.
When the telephone rang again I picked it up; I was going to screen him from callers. But the BMW woman was on the line and he wanted to talk to her. "Let's go through this checklist," he said to her. "You're sure we're going to get the stick-shift…? Automatic transmission won't do."
With extras, the car would cost eighty thousand bucks.
"Of course there'll be safety bags for the passenger's seat as well as the driver's?"
"… Now about the interior color-the kid-leather upholstery. The CD deck set in the trunk should be able to play six discs! Eight! Ten!
"And the door locking and unlocking with an electronic switch? We don't want to fuck around with keys. I can't give you a certified check, I'm in the hospital. I don't care if it is company policy. I have to have delivery no later than Thursday. Nikki-Mr. Tay Ling is arriving from Geneva Wednesday night. So all the paperwork has got to be done. No, as I thought I told you, I'm in my room at the hospital. Thee-ah thee-ah! one thing I can assure you is that it's not a mental hospital. You have my account number at Merrill Lynch. What? You certainly have done a fast credit check on me, Miss Sorabh-is it spelled _bh__ or _hb__?"
There may have been as many as a dozen consultations daily. "Nikki is such a stickler," he said. "And why shouldn't everything be perfect? I want him to be pleased one hundred percent-the engine, the body, all the electronic stuff. Everything in place. Stabilizers equilibrated. It used to be the Harmonious Blacksmith-now it's the harmonious computers. There won't be any baroque operas in the new car. Only Chinese jazz, or whatever."
Nikki, as I well knew, was exacting. This was evident even from his casual relations with people. And it must follow with objects as well.
"I don't want to look as if I were taken in by BMW owing to this illness. I must try to anticipate how Nikki will react. In his quiet way, he's extremely fussy," said Ravelstein. "It's only natural. He shares my prosperity, of course. But not long ago he said how much he'd like a sign from me-some big gesture. It's not just my prosperity, it's _our__ prosperity."
I didn't invite him to go into particulars. Since he and I were close friends, it was up to me to do my own thinking about Nikki's place in his life. I believed that I was alert enough to understand. Though maybe I wasn't. Ravelstein often made me doubt my abilities.
I said, "All the warranties you're getting, it would take a month to read them."
"You make it sound like the Stations of the Cross," Ravelstein said, smiling.