Story: Looking for Mr. Green 2

 

Looking for Mr. Green 2

[ Story - Full text. ]

Saul Bellow

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He fell silent, and thought about how quickly Raynor had soaked it. He lacked time to put your suitcase on the table and unpack all your things. And then, on the street, he continued to reflect on how far he could have gone, and how much would Raynor have led him to count if he had not been interrupted by the great roar caused by Mrs. Staika. But just then a young woman, one of Raynor's employees, ran into the cubicle exclaiming:

— Can't you hear the scandal?

— We have not heard anything.

— It's Staika, putting together as much scandal as she can. Reporters are already arriving. He said he called the newspapers, and we are sure he has.

— But what happens? — Raynor said.

— You have brought the laundry and are ironing it here, with our electric current, because the charity does not pay the electricity bill. She has extended the ironing board next to the mission counter and brought her children to the six. They never go to school more than once a week. He's always dragging them around with her to maintain his reputation.

— I don't want to miss any of this — Raynor said, jumping.

Grebe, while following him with the secretary, asked:

— Who is that Staika?

— They call her the « mother of blood on Federal Street ». He is a professional donor in hospitals. It seems to me that they pay ten dollars for every half liter. Of course, it's no joke, but she organizes a scandal for it and the children are always in the newspapers.

A small group of people, staff, and customers divided by a plywood barrier, crowded into the narrow entrance space, as Staika screamed in a rough, masculine voice, while hitting the board with the iron and dropping it on the metal support.

— My father and mother came in third, and I was born in our house, in Robey, next to the Hudson. I am not a dirty immigrant. I am a citizen of the United States. My husband is a war veteran who was wounded in France. His lungs are weaker than paper, he can barely go to the bathroom alone. And to these six children of mine I have to buy the shoes with my own blood. Even a miserable white bow tie for communion means a couple of drops of blood to me; a piece of mosquito net veil so that my Vadja does not feel ashamed in the church with the other girls; At the clinic next to Goldblatt they take my blood in exchange for money. This is how I survive. We'd be fine if we had to depend on charity. And there are lots of people on the charts ... All fake! There is nothing they cannot get,They can go get their bacon wrapped in Swift and Armar at any time. They look for them next to the docks of the port. They never get out of work. What happens is that they prefer to stay in their lousy cots and eat the money from the public.

I was not afraid, in a black majority office, of screaming like that against blacks.

Grebe and Raynor tried to get closer to get a closer look at the woman. She was lit with rage and pleasure with herself, wide and huge, a woman with golden hair wearing a pink-edged cotton cap. She was not wearing stockings but she was wearing black gym shoes. The apron was open, and her large breasts, not very contained by a men's shirt, they prevented her from moving her arms while working on a girl's dress on the ironing board. And the children, silent and white, stood behind her. She had caught the attention of the entire office, and that filled her with enormous pleasure. But his complaints were authentic. I was telling the truth. However, she behaved like a liar. She avoided looking straight in her little eyes and, although she was furious, she also seemed to be up to something.

— They send me social workers in silk studios and pants to get rid of what awaits me. ¿Are they better than me? ¿Who has informed them? Get fired. Let them go and get married so they won't have to cut electricity from people's budget.

Mr. Ewing, chief supervisor, was unable to silence her and stood there idly in front of his employees, bare-headed, telling subordinates, like the former school principal who was:

— He will soon tire and leave.

— No, it won't tire — Raynor told Grebe —. You will get what you want. She knows even more than Ewing of charity. He's been on the charts for years, and he always gets what he wants because he puts on a awful show. Ewing knows that. It will yield soon. He's just saving his face. If he gets bad publicity, the commissioner will send him to the lowest offices, downtown. She has it up to her neck; in time it will have us all like this, and that includes nations and governments.

Grebe responded with his characteristic smile, completely at odds. ¿Who was going to obey Staika's orders, and what changes were her screams going to bring about?

No, what Grebe saw in her, the power that made people listen to her, was that her scream expressed the war between flesh and blood, perhaps a little crazy and certainly ugly, in that place and in those conditions. And at first, when he took to the streets, the spirit of Staika somehow presided over the entire district for him, and took color from her; he saw its color, in the uneven lights of the clubs and in the bonfires below Him, that straight path of darkness strewn with fire. Later, too, when he entered a tavern for a drink of rye, the sweat of beer, the association with the Polish streets of the West Side, all this made him think about her again.

He wiped the corners of his lips with the scarf, because he could not reach where he had the handkerchief, and he went out again to continue the distribution of the checks. The air was blowing cold and hard and a few snowflakes formed near it. A train passed him and left the structures trembling and a bristling icy whistle on the rails.

He crossed the street and went down a stretch of wooden steps to reach a store that was in a basement, with which a small bell began to ring. It was a dark and elongated warehouse that caught you with its smells of smoked meat, soap, dried peaches and fish. There was a fire writhing and stirring in the small stove and behind the counter was the owner, an Italian with a long, sunken face and stubborn mustaches. He warmed his hands under the apron.

No, I didn't know Green. I knew people but not their names. The same man could have the same name twice. The police didn't know either because they largely didn't care. When someone was shot or shot to death, they took the body away and were not looking for the murderer. For starters, nobody was going to tell them anything. So they made up a name for the investigating judge and considered it a closed case. Also, second, they didn't give a damn about a cucumber anyway. They couldn't get to the bottom of an issue even if they wanted to. No one could know even a tenth of what was happening among these people. They stabbed and robbed, committed all kinds of crimes and abominations that could have been talked about, men with men, women with women, parents with children, worse than animals. They lived their way,horrors faded like smoke. There was never anything like this in the whole history of the world.

It was a long speech, with each word the man delved into his fantasy and passion and became increasingly meaningless and terrible: a swarm kneaded by suggestions and inventions, a huge noise, that enveloped you desperately, a human wheel of heads, legs, bellies, arms, that circled the store.

Grebe felt she should interrupt him. He said abruptly:

— What are you talking about? All I asked him is if he knew this man.

— That is not the dynamics of the problem. I have been here six years. You probably don't want to believe it, but suppose it was true.

— In any case — Grebe — said, there must be some way to find a person.

The Italian's eyes too close together had been strangely concentrated, like his muscles, as he leaned over the counter to try to convince Grebe. Now he gave up the effort and sat on his bench.

— I guess. Occasionally. But I already told you that even the cops don't get it.

— They always chase people. Is not the same.

— Well, keep trying if you want. I cannot help you.

But he didn't keep trying. He had no time left to waste it on Green. He slid Green's check toward the end of the notebook. The next name on the list was Field, Winston.

He found the little house without any problem; He shared a patio with another house, with some columns that separated them. Grebe knew about this type of arrangement. They had been built en masse in the day before the swamps were filled and the streets were raised, and they were all the same: a little path around the fence, well below street level, three or four posts with a ball on top to put clotheslines, greenish wood, muted colored stones and a long, long stretch, stairs to get to the back door.

A boy of about twelve passed him into the kitchen, and there was the old man, sitting by the table in his wheelchair.

— Ah, it's on behalf of the government — he told the boy when Grebe pulled out the checks.

— Dey, bring me the box of papers. — The old man cleared a space on the table.

— You don't have to go to so much trouble — Grebe told him. But Field took out the papers and spread them on the table: Social Security card, charity certificate, letters from the State Hospital in Maintain and a naval discharge dated in San Diego in 1920.

— That's more than enough — Grebe — said. Now you just have to sign.

— You have to know who I am — the old man said —. You are a government envoy. The check is not yours, it is from the government, and nobody sends you to deliver checks until everything is proven.

He loved the entire ceremony, and Grebe had no further objections. Field emptied the box and finished showing him all the cards and letters.

— Here is everything I have done and the places where I have been. Only the death certificate is missing so they can close my book. — He said this with a certain happy pride and magnificence. But it remained unsigned; he just held the little ballpoint pen up on top of the greenish golden corduroy on his pants. Grebe didn't rush him. I felt like talking about the old man —. I have to get a better carbon — continued —. I have to send my little granddaughter to the coal shop with my order and they fill her the garbage car. This stove cannot handle that. The grid falls off. On paper it says it has to be charcoal the size of a Franklin County egg.

— I will report on it and see what can be done.

— Nothing can be done, I think. You know it and so do I. There is no way to make things go better and the only thing big is money. That's the only valuable thing, money. Nothing is black where he shines and the only place where he looks black is where he doesn't shine. What people of color need is to have our own rich. There is no other way.

Grebe remained seated, the reddened forehead paired with her well-cut hair and cheeks tucked to the sides of the shirt collar. The hardened fire glowed brightly inside the fish and iron tail frames, but the room was not comfortable. He sat there listening to the old man as he told him of his plan. The plan was to create a black millionaire once a month by popular subscription. An intelligent and kind-hearted young man who was chosen every month would sign a contract in which he promised to use the money to start a business in which he employed blacks. This would be announced through chain letters that would summon all black employees, who would contribute one dollar a month. In five years there would be sixty millionaires.

— That will get us respect — he said with a broken sound that came out as something said abroad —. You have to try to organize all the money that is thrown into the wheel of politics and horse racing. As long as they can take it from you, they will not respect you. Money, that's the sun of the human race!

Field was a mongrel black, perhaps a cherokee or a natchez because he had reddish skin. And just as he spoke of a golden sun in that dark room, and because of his — greyish appearance and his head crushed — with the blood mixed from his face and thick lips, and with the small pen still stiff in hand, he looked like one of the underground kings of mythology, the old judge Minos himself.

Now he did accept the check and signed. In order not to stain the receipt, he held it with his knuckles. The table swung and creaked, that dark and pagan center of the prehistoric remains of the kitchen, covered in bread, meat and cans and the mess of papers.

— Don't you think my plan would work?

— It's worth thinking about. It is true that something should be done, I agree with that.

— It will work if people do. That is all. That is the only thing always. When everyone understands it like that.

— That's true — Grebe said, getting up. His gaze met that of the old man.

— I know you have to go — he said —. Well, God bless you, boy. You haven't been mean to me. That is seen right away.

He came back through that buried yard. In a bunker someone was trying to make a candle not go out, where a man unloaded firewood from a pram with crooked wheels and two voices shouted a conversation. As he climbed the covered pass he heard a great blow of wind on the branches and against the facades of the houses, and then, when he reached the sidewalk, saw the red of the needle eye of the cable towers up there in the icy sky, hundreds of meters above the river and factories: those light spots.

From there they prevented his vision to the South Branch with its wooden banks and the guides by the water. This part of the city, which they had rebuilt after the Great Fire, fifty years later was once again in ruins, with factories closed with boards, abandoned or collapsed buildings and pieces of meadow between them. But what this made him feel was not sadness, but rather a lack of organization that released enormous energy, power without measure, without ties and without rules of that giant and wild place. Not only did people have to feel it, but at least it seemed to Grebe, they were forced to live up to it. In their own bodies. He no less than the others, he realized that. Let's say his parents had been servants in his day, while he was not supposed to be.He thought that they had never done a service like this, that it did not require anyone visible, and probably could not even be performed by someone of flesh and blood. Nor could anyone show why it should be done; nor see where it could lead. This did not mean that he wanted to be released from him, he thought with a thoughtful and serious face. On the contrary. I had something to do. The obligation to feel this energy and yet have nothing to do ... That was the terrible thing; that was suffering; and he knew what that was. Now was the time to quit. Six in the afternoon. He could go home if he wanted, that is, to his room, to wash himself with hot water, lie on top of the quilt, read the newspaper and eat some liver paste with crackers before going out to dinner.But in fact thinking about this made him a little sick, as if he had done something wrong. He had six checks left and was determined to hand over at least one of them: Mr. Green's check. So it started again. He had to examine four or five dark blocks, passing through open courtyards, closed houses, old foundations, closed schools, black churches, piles of earth, and he thought that there must be many living people who had once seen that newly built and new neighborhood. Now there was a second layer of ruins; centuries of history achieved thanks to human massification. The number of people had given that place the strength to grow; the same number of people had destroyed it. Objects that were once so new,so concrete that it would never have occurred to anyone who took the place of other things, they had collapsed. So Grebe thought, his secret was exposed. The secret was that they stood up by mutual agreement and were natural and not unnatural by agreement, and when things themselves collapsed that agreement became visible. If not, what made cities not seem strange? Rome, which was almost permanent, had not elicited communist ideas. ¿And was it really that enduring? But in Chicago, where the cycles happened so fast and the familiar faded, and re-emerged transformed, and died again at the age of thirty, you saw the common agreement or pact, and you felt compelled to think about appearances and realities. ( He remembered Raynor and smiled. Raynor was a smart boy.) Once one had understood this, many things became intelligible. For example, the reason why Mr. Field could come up with such a plan. Of course, if people agreed to create a millionaire, a real millionaire would emerge. And if one wanted to know what inspired Mr. Field to think this, of course, he had the scheme in sight of his kitchen window, the very skeleton of his success plan: E 1 with the blue and green confetti of his signals. People agreed to pay ten cents to get into those cars that were nothing more than crash boxes, and that's why it was a success. But how absurd everything seemed; what little reality was there to begin with. And yet Yerkes, the great financier who built it, had known that he could get people to agree to do it. By itself,it seemed like the plan among the plans, the closest thing to an appearance. So why miss Mr. Field's idea? What he had done was understand a principle. And Grebe also recalled that Mr. Yerkes had created the Yerkes Observatory and endowed it with millions. But how would the idea of giving astronomers money would have occurred to him in his New York palace, which looked like a museum, or on his yacht traveling to the Aegean? ¿Were you amazed at the success of your strange undertaking and were you therefore willing to spend money to find out where in the universe being and appearing were identical? Yes, I wanted to know what was permanent; and if the meat is the grass of the Bible; and offered money to burn in the fire of the suns. All right then, Grebe kept thinking,these things exist because people agree to exist with them — this far we have come — and also because there is a reality that does not depend on consent but within which consent is a game. But what about the need, the need that keeps so many thousands and thousands in their position? Answer me that, private gentleman and decent soul ( these words he used against himself with contempt ). ¿Why will consent be given to misery? ¿And why is she so painfully ugly? ¿Why is there something depressing and permanently ugly? Here he sighed and abandoned the idea, and thought that it was enough for the moment. Now he had a royal check for Mr. Green, which must also be real without a doubt. I wish his neighbors didn't believe they had to hide him. This time it stopped on the second floor.He lit a match and found a door. In the end a man answered his call and Grebe had the check ready and showed it even before he started talking.

— Does Tulliver Green live here? I come from charity:

The man locked the door and spoke to someone behind him.

— Do you live here?

— Eeee ... no.

— Or somewhere in this building? He is a sick man and cannot come to collect his pasta.

He showed the check to the light, which was full of smoke — the air smelled of burnt bacon — and the man put the cap back to study it.

— Eeee ... I've never seen this name.

— Is there no one around here who uses crutches?

He seemed to reflect, but Grebe's impression was that he simply expected a decent interval to pass.

— No, he said. No one I see.

— I've been looking for this man all afternoon — suddenly Grebe spoke with sudden energy —, and I'm going to have to take this check back to the office. It seems strange to me not to be able to find a person to give him something when you are looking for him for a good reason. I guess if I brought bad news for him I'd find it pretty soon.

A reaction movement occurred on the other man's face.

— That's true, I guess.

— It's almost useless to have a name if you can't be found with it. It does not represent anything. For that it would still give him no name — he continued, smiling. It was the biggest concession he could make to his desire to laugh.

— Well, there is an old man and everything full of knot that I see from time to time. It could be the one you are looking for. Down.

— Where? ¿To the right or to the left? ¿Which of the doors?

— I don't know. A little boy with a skinny face, humpback and a bahton.

But no one answered at any of the doors on the first floor. He went to the end of the corridor, looking for the light of a match, and only found a stairless exit to the courtyard, a fall of about two meters. But there was a cabin near the path, an old house like Mr. Field's. Jumping was not safe. He ran from the front door, through the underground passage, and entered the courtyard. There was someone in that place. A light was seen through the curtains, upstairs. ¡And the name on the label under the broken and misshapen mailbox was Green! He rang the bell with joy and pushed open the closed door. The bolt snapped slightly and a long staircase opened before him. Someone was going down slowly ... a woman. In that dim light he had the impression that the woman was fixing her hair as she descended, making herself presentable,because he saw that his arms were raised. But it was in search of support that he raised them up; He was groping for the path, down the wall, stumbling. Then he thought of the pressure of the woman's feet on the steps; he didn't seem to be wearing shoes. And the staircase even danced. The doorbell had gotten her out of bed, perhaps, and she had forgotten to put them on. And then he saw that the woman not only did not wear shoes, but was also naked; she was completely naked and as she went down she spoke alone, a thick, naked and drunk woman. He fell on him stumbling. The contact of her breasts, although they only touched her coat, made her go back to the door with a blind impression. ¡Look what he had found in his game of finding houses!But it was in search of support that he raised them up; He was groping for the path, down the wall, stumbling. Then he thought about the pressure of the woman's feet on the steps; he didn't seem to be wearing shoes. And the staircase even danced. The doorbell had gotten her out of bed, perhaps, and she had forgotten to put them on. And then he saw that the woman not only did not wear shoes, but was also naked; she was completely naked and as she went down she spoke alone, a thick, naked and drunk woman. He fell on him stumbling. The contact of her breasts, although they only touched her coat, made her go back to the door with a blind impression. ¡Look what he had found in his game of finding houses!But it was in search of support that he raised them up; He was groping for the path, down the wall, stumbling. Then he thought of the pressure of the woman's feet on the steps; he didn't seem to be wearing shoes. And the staircase even danced. The doorbell had gotten her out of bed, perhaps, and she had forgotten to put them on. And then he saw that the woman not only did not wear shoes, but was also naked; she was completely naked and as she went down she spoke alone, a thick, naked and drunk woman. He fell on him stumbling. The contact of her breasts, although they only touched her coat, made her go back to the door with a blind impression. ¡Look what he had found in his game of finding houses!Then he thought about the pressure of the woman's feet on the steps; he didn't seem to be wearing shoes. And the staircase even danced. The doorbell had gotten her out of bed, perhaps, and she had forgotten to put them on. And then he saw that the woman not only did not wear shoes, but was also naked; she was completely naked and as she went down she spoke alone, a thick, naked and drunk woman. He fell on him stumbling. The contact of her breasts, although they only touched her coat, made her go back to the door with a blind impression. ¡Look what he had found in his game of finding houses!Then he thought about the pressure of the woman's feet on the steps; he didn't seem to be wearing shoes. And the staircase even danced. The doorbell had gotten her out of bed, perhaps, and she had forgotten to put them on. And then he saw that the woman not only did not wear shoes, but was also naked; she was completely naked and as she went down she spoke alone, a thick, naked and drunk woman. He fell on him stumbling. The contact of her breasts, although they only touched her coat, made her go back to the door with a blind impression. ¡Look what he had found in his game of finding houses!but she was also naked; she was completely naked and as she went down she spoke alone, a thick, naked and drunk woman. He fell on him stumbling. The contact of her breasts, although they only touched her coat, made her go back to the door with a blind impression. ¡Look what he had found in his game of finding houses!but she was also naked; she was completely naked and as she went down she spoke alone, a thick, naked and drunk woman. He fell on him stumbling. The contact of her breasts, although they only touched her coat, made her go back to the door with a blind impression. ¡Look what he had found in his game of finding houses!

The woman was saying to herself, furious:

— So I don't know how to fuck, huh? I will teach that motherfucker what I know how to do.

¿What was he going to do now? Grebe wondered. He had to go. He had to turn around and leave. I couldn't speak to that woman. She couldn't let him stand there naked in that cold. But when he tried he found himself unable to turn around.

He said:

— Does Mr. Green live here?

But she kept talking to herself and didn't hear him.

— Is this Mr. Green's house?

She turned her furious and drunk gaze towards him.

— What do you want?

He looked away again; he had a point of blood in that rabid glow. He wondered why she did not feel cold.

— I am from charity.

— Very well, so what?

— I have a check for Tulliver Green. This time he heard it and reached out.

— No, no, for Mr. Green. You have to sign — he said. ¿How was I going to get Green's signature that night?

— I will take it. He can not.

Grebe shook his head desperately, thinking of the precautions Mr. Field had taken with identification.

— I can't give it to you. Is for him. ¿Are you Mrs. Green?

— Maybe yes, maybe not. ¿Who wants to know?

— Is he upstairs?

— Very well. Get it up, you idiot.

Of course he was an idiot. Of course he couldn't get on because Green would probably be naked and drunk too, and maybe he would show up on the landing soon. He looked anxiously up. Beneath the light was a tall, narrow brown wall. ¡Empty! ¡It remained empty!

— Well then go to hell — heard her scream. To deliver a check for food and clothing, he was leaving her there in the cold. She did not feel it, but her face burned with cold and ridicule. He turned away from her.

— I will be back tomorrow. Tell him.

— Ah, go to hell. ¿What are you doing here in the middle of the night? Don't come back — he screamed so much that he saw his tongue. She straddled there in the cold poyo of the entrance and grabbed onto the railing and the wall. The house itself had a box-like shape, a tall, clumsy box pointing to the frozen sky with its cold, winter lights.

— If you are Mrs. Green, I will give you the check — he said, changing his mind.

— Then give it to me. — She took the check, grabbed the pen that he held out with his left hand, and tried to sign the receipt on the wall. He looked around, almost as if to see if someone observed his madness, and he almost thought he believed someone was standing on a bunch of used tires at the car parts store next door.

— But are you Mrs. Green? — it occurred to you to ask now in vain. She was already climbing the stairs with the check, and if she had made a mistake, if she had gotten into trouble, it was too late to undo what she had done. But he wasn't going to worry about it. Although she may not have been Mrs. Green, he was convinced that Mr. Green was upstairs. Whoever it was, that woman represented Green, whom he was not going to see this time. Well, you fool, he said to himself, so you think you found him. ¿And that? You may have really found it ... so what? But it was important that there was a real Mr. Green whom they could not prevent from reaching because it seemed to them that he was the emissary of hostile appearances. And although the ridicule he felt disappeared very slowly,and his face was still red as a result, he felt, despite everything, a great joy.

— Because after all — was said —, I managed to find it!

*END*

With affection,

Ruben