The Troubled Air Part 18

Levy turned suddenly and walked away. Archer watched the long, energetic figure crossing the bare floor, resentment and disappointment in every line of the body. As he reached the door, it opened and Shapiro came in, looking pale and unrefreshed. Shapiro held the door open and smiled tentatively at Levy. Levy didn't look at him, but strode past swiftly. Shapiro glanced unhappily around the room, deflated and embarra.s.sed, hoping that no one had noticed the snub. His eye caught Archer's and he dropped his head as he realized that Archer had been watching. He let the door swing shut and shambled uncertainly past the piano toward the control room. If he ever had a chance, Archer thought, gloomily watching Shapiro, it's gone now. He was sorry for the man and annoyed at him for not being more talented.

Thursday, Archer thought. He went into the control room and sat down next to Barbante and waited for the program to begin.

Thursday.

14.

THE HERRESES LIVED IN AN AUSTERE, OLD-FAs.h.i.+ONED BUILDING, FROM which you expected to see dowagers with pearl chokers emerge to get into 1912 Rolls-Royce limousines, and portly stockbrokers carrying newspapers that had ceased publication long ago, the pages neatly turned back to the financial section and the quotations for stocks that had long since vanished from the market. The doorman was a large, fierce-looking old man with a starched collar who always greeted Archer with quiet approval, probably because Archer was well over forty and wore a good hat. The hall had a hushed, marble atmosphere, as though kings were buried near the elevator shaft. The air in it seemed somehow to have remained intact from the day it was built, and when you breathed you got the odor of another century. If Herres is plotting revolution, Archer thought, as the elevator carried him upwards, he is putting up a clever disguise.

Herres opened the door himself. He wasn't wearing a jacket and his sleeves were rolled up and he looked very wide and young as he shook Archer's hand and helped him off with his coat.

"O excellent man," Herres said, "O st.u.r.dy friend. Enter and drink."

"I have something for the kid," Archer said, displaying the package. He had stopped at a toy store on the way uptown and bought a stereopticon viewer with colored slides of foreign scenes.

"If it makes a noise," said Herres, "throw it out of the window."

"I was thinking of getting a drum," Archer said as they went down the hall to the child's room, "but wiser heads prevailed."

"Oh." Herres put out his arm to stop Archer at the doorway. "How are you on the subject of impotence?"

"Never use the stuff," Archer said. "Why?"

"Nancy." Herres grinned. "Ever since the measles entered our life, she's become ferocious about it. She's a primitive woman. She goes to concerts and talks learnedly about foreign affairs, but when it comes to the sticking point, her interest is faithfully focused below the belt."

"Don't be vulgar about your wife."

"Consider yourself warned," Herres said. "The management cannot a.s.sume responsibility for any losses incurred on the premises."

"I am warned." Archer went through the doorway into the nursery. Young Clement was standing at the corner of his crib, methodically throwing toys from a diminis.h.i.+ng pile in the crib against the opposite wall. He threw a fire engine and a wooden dog on wheels with a strong overhand motion, listening critically to the noise they made against the plaster.

"h.e.l.lo, Clem," Archer said, going over to the crib. There were some red blotches on the boy's cheeks, but he looked robust and immortal.

"Uncle Clement," the boy said, smiling at him. "n.o.body is allowed to kiss me or they'll catch the spots. I shake hands now."

They shook hands. The boy looked craftily at the package Archer was carrying. "Did you bring me a surprise?" he asked.

"Don't be a gold-digger," Herres said.

"What's a gold-digger?" the boy said, keeping his eyes on the package as Archer unwrapped it.

"A gold-digger," Herres said, "is somebody with the measles who keeps asking people for surprises."

"I like surprises," the boy said. "When I grow up I'm going to have a surprise every day."

"I bet you will," Herres said. "Can I get you a surprise?" he asked Archer. "Say a Martini?"

"That would be most surprising," Archer said. "Thanks." He handed the bakelite viewer to the boy, after putting a cardboard circle of Aztec photographs into the slot. "Now, Clem," he said, as Herres went out to mix the drinks, "this takes a steady hand. Have you got a steady hand?"

"Yes." The boy peered suspiciously at the instrument. "Is this a gun?"

"No, Clem."

"I like surprises that are guns." The boy whirled in his crib, crouching over, shaking the viewer like a weapon, making a noise like a machine gun. "This is a shootgun," he said. "I shoot your mouth off with it."

"Let me have it for a second please, Clem," Archer said, thinking, I'd better remember how to handle kids again, I'll be going through this all over again soon. "I'll show you how to work it."

The boy gave Archer the viewer. "You see," Archer said, "you put it up to your eyes like this, facing the light, and you look through it. And then, when you want to see another picture, you press this b.u.t.ton and the picture changes."

"It makes a noise," the boy said as the machine clicked. "That's good."

"Now you try it." Archer gave him the viewer and watched as the boy uncertainly put it to his face. "You have to look through both holes at once, Clem," Archer explained, "and face the light."

"I see a man!" the boy crowed. "I see a dead man."

"What?" Archer said. "You'd better let me take a look." He retrieved the machine and held it to the light. A golden stone image peered blindly back at him, wreathed in jungle creepers, dumbly reminding him of blood sacrifices and a sinister civilization before the coming of the Spaniards. "No, Clem," Archer said, "it's not a dead man. It's a statue. The statue of a G.o.d."

"Oh," the boy said. "What's a statue?"

"A statue," Archer said, grateful that he hadn't asked, "What's a G.o.d?", "is carved out of stone. Sometimes it looks like a man, sometimes it looks like an animal. Sometimes it looks like something people make up in their heads."

"I would like a statue of Mr. Curran," the boy said. Mr. Curran was the doorman.

"Why?"

"I would throw him out the window," the boy said briskly. "On his head."

Mr. Curran was an old-fas.h.i.+oned believer in discipline in lobbies and elevators and was not popular with the younger set.

Archer nodded gravely. "Sometimes," he said, "people used to make statues for just that reason. They would make wax figures of their enemies and stick pins into them to punish them."

"Have I got enemies?" the boy asked, peering into the viewer again and moving the card around swiftly.

"No, Clem."

"Have you got enemies?"

Archer considered this. "I'm not sure."

"Will I have enemies when I grow up?"

Well, Archer thought, he might as well know now as any other time. "Yes," he said, "you probably will."

"Why?"

"Because you'll be rich and handsome and lucky," Archer said, feeling that this would very likely turn out to be true, "and there will be people who will be jealous of you. Do you know what jealous means?"

"Yes," the boy said, putting in another card. "Momma told me. Jealous is when I want Johnny's bicycle."

"That's it, Clem."

"I see a man with a gun," the boy said. "Am I Johnny's enemy?"

That remains to be seen, Archer thought. "No, Clem," he said. "Of course not."

"Could I be his enemy if I practiced?" the boy insisted.

"No, Clem, you can't be the enemy of your brother."

"He hits me. He hits me on the head when Momma isn't looking."

"Hit him back."

"He's too big," young Clement said practically. "He's four years older than me."

Herres came into the room carefully holding a tray with three c.o.c.ktail gla.s.ses. "This will take away some of the pain," he said as he gave one of the gla.s.ses to Archer. Archer looked at the Martini. It was almost colorless. Herres' recipe for Martinis was one bottle of Vermouth to a case of gin and you had to be very careful about the way you approached them. He was proud of his ability as a bartender and his knowledge of wines and liquor and Archer always liked to have dinner at the Herreses' table because you drank so well there. "Gin and Burgundy," Herres would say, "carefully applied, are the answers to almost all the problems of modern living."

Herres went over to a small table and ceremonially poured some pineapple juice out of a pitcher into the third gla.s.s. He gave the gla.s.s to young Clement. "Will you join us?" he asked the boy formally.

Young Clement's eyes grew very grave and he watched his father closely, holding the gla.s.s in both hands.

"Cheers," Herres said.

"Chizz," said the boy, lifting his gla.s.s. They drank.

"Good drink?" Herres asked his son.

"Good drink," said the boy, mimicking his father's tone.

"How do you like Uncle Clement's surprise?" Herres asked.

"I said thank you," the boy lied quickly, suspecting a lesson in manners.

"That's good," Herres said.

"It's got a statue in it. A statue of Mr. Curran," said young Clement, deftly blending fact, fancy, conjecture and desire in one sentence. "He looks angry."

"Let me see," Herres said. He smiled at Archer and drained his drink as he waited for his son to find the slide and insert it into the machine.

"There." The boy handed the toy to Herres.

Herres peered into it critically. "Mr. Curran," he said. "To the life." He put the toy into the crib. "Clement," he said to Archer, "I wonder if you'd mind letting the young man entertain you for a few minutes. I have to go down to the drugstore to pick up a prescription. Nancy's out with Johnny. The nurse is off today. I'll be right back and you can mix yourself another drink when the well runs dry."

"Sure," Archer said. "Go ahead. We have a lot of things to talk about here."

"Tell Uncle Clement a story," Herres said to his son. "Grownups like to hear stories, too, you know."

"OK," young Clement said. "I'll tell him about the baby elephant."

"I'll just be a minute," Herres said, and went out of the room, b.u.t.toning his collar.

"Once upon a time," young Clement began promptly, "there was a baby elephant and a mother elephant in the jungle. That's woods," he explained helpfully, "in the country."

"Yes," Clement said, seating himself on the chair next to the crib and keeping his face grave. "I thought so."

"They ate gra.s.s and they drank rivers," the boy went on, squinting and fixing the picture firmly in his mind, the jungle in the country and the two animals leading a domestic existence well supplied with the necessities of life. "They slept in the trees at night and they talked to the monkeys when they weren't at the office. When they didn't like anybody they stepped on him. They sang through their trunks-like this ..." He made a low, wailing sound and looked anxiously at Archer to see if the music was convincing.

Archer nodded helpfully.

"Sometimes they ate celery and mashed potatoes," the boy went on, "and when they went to a restaurant they looked at the menu. For dessert they had rhubarb and they always paid the check. They had ice cream for dessert, too, and chocolate cake. He had no brothers or sisters," young Clement said, getting rid of that problem early in the game, "and he played in the park in the afternoon and pushed people. When the mother elephant didn't want him to know what she was saying she spelled out the words. C-A-N-D-Y. But he knew what she was saying but he didn't tell her." Young Clement chuckled at this delicious turn of events. "One day he got angry with his mother and he stopped eating. Once in awhile he ate a little plate of ice cream, but that's all. And only chocolate. Do you like this story?" he asked anxiously.

"I love it," Archer said.

"His mother got real angry," the boy went on, rea.s.sured. " 'Something bad is going to happen if you don't eat your gra.s.s,' the mother said. He said, 'I don't care,' because he wanted to show her. He kept on not eating for three Sundays. Then something bad began to happen. He began to grow downer and downer and downer. He got to be real close to the ground. Then one day his mother came and looked at him and his mother said, 'I told you to eat your gra.s.s. Look how little you are. Why, your trunk is so small it's like a necktie.' Then she took his trunk off and threw it into the closet and locked the door and he had no trunk. That's the story," young Clement said, in a final rush. He beamed at Archer, waiting for approval.

"That's a fine story," Archer said. "When I have a little boy I'm going to tell it to him."

There was a knock at the door and Clara, the maid, came in. She was a large Negro girl and Archer could tell from the expression around her mouth that she felt she was being overworked today. "Afternoon, Mr. Archer," she said. "I got to interrupt."

"h.e.l.lo, Clara," said Archer.

"Clem ..." Clara went over to the crib. "Don't you want to go to the bathroom?"

Young Clement lay down and put his feet up in the air and stared at the ceiling, pondering the question. "Maybe," he said, leaving lines of retreat open in all directions.

"It's time you went to the bathroom," Clara said, letting down the side of the crib. "Come on. I ain't got all day."

Young Clement bounded up, jumping on the mattress as Archer rose from his chair and moved off tactfully. "I have bathroom privileges, Dr. Lane said," the boy announced as he climbed out of the crib. "Do you want to watch me?"

Archer examined the expression on Clara's face. "Not this time," he said. "Another day."

"Don't you have to go to the bathroom?" young Clement asked, playing the host, as Clara laboriously put on his slippers.

"Not at the moment, Clem," Archer said, going to the door. "I have to make myself another drink."

"Chizz," the boy said, as Clara led him away.

Archer smiled, watching the small compact figure contentedly being escorted out of the room by Clara. It would be pleasant to have a son, he thought, and have him turn out as well as that. Then he went down the hall, holding his gla.s.s, to the small library off the living room where Herres kept a folding bar set up in a corner.

There was an air of luxury about the Herreses' apartment. The rooms were s.p.a.cious, with old-fas.h.i.+oned high ceilings, and Nancy had used daring colors, bright vermilion draperies s.h.i.+ning against dark walls, and severe and elegant furniture. Both she and Vic spent a considerable part of their time in galleries and at auctions and they bought carefully and with taste. "Live gracefully, friends," Herres had said, grinning, "for tomorrow the sponsor may die." He said it as a joke, but he privately took it quite seriously and used his ample income to make certain that he had a good address, that his wife was dressed by the best couturiers in town, as he was clothed by the best tailors, that his dinners were perfect, his home impressive, his servants orderly and well-trained. Especially since he had come home from the Army he had indulged his taste for luxury. "My motto," he had once said carelessly when Archer had warned him about his extravagance, "is-'Nothing left each year after taxes.' It makes the bookkeeping easier and keeps a man from being tempted by bad investments."