Humboldt's Gift (1976 Pulitzer Prize) - Saul Bellow [212]
“Well, kid,” he said, his voice still thin. “You’re glad, aren’t you?”
“That’s right, Ulick.”
“A heart can be fixed like a shoe. Resoled. Even new uppers. Like Novinson on Augusta Street .’. .”
I suppose that I was Ulick’s nostalgia-man. What he couldn’t himself remember, he loved to hear from me. Tribal chieftains in Africa had had official remembrancers about them; I was Ulick’s remembrancer. “Novinson in his window had trench souvenirs from 1917,” I said. “He had brass shell casings and a helmet with holes in it. Over his bench was a colored cartoon made by his son Izzie of a customer squirted in the face and leaping into the air yelling, ‘Hilp!’ The message was, Don’t Get Soaked for Shoe Repairs.”
Ulick said to Hortense, “All you have to do is turn him on.”
She smiled from her upholstered chair, her legs crossed. The color of her knitted suit was old rose, or young brick. She was as white-faced as a powdered Kabuki dancer, for despite her light eyes her face was Japanese—the cheekbones and the chub lips, painted crimson, did that.
“Well, Ulick, I’ll be going, now that you’re out of the woods.”
“Listen, Chuck, there’s something I’ve always wanted that you can buy for me in Europe. A beautiful seascape. I’ve always loved paintings of the sea. Nothing but the sea. I don’t want to see a rock, or a boat, or any human beings. Only mid-ocean on a terrific day. Water water everywhere: Get me that, Chuckie, and I’ll pay five grand, eight grand. Phone me if you come across the right thing and I’ll wire the money.”
It was implied that I was entitled to a commission—unofficial, of course. It would be unnatural for me not to chisel a little. This was the form his generosity sometimes took. I was touched.
“I’ll go to the galleries,” I said.
“Good. Now what about the fifty thousand—have you thought about my offer?”
“Oh, I’d certainly like to take you up on that. I need the income badly. I’ve already cabled a friend of mine—Thaxter. He’s on his way to Europe on the France. I told him that I was willing to go to Madrid to try my hand at a project he dreamed up. A cultural Baedeker ... So I’m going to Madrid now.”
“Fine. You need projects. Get back to work. I know you. When you stop work you’re in trouble. That broad in Chicago has brought your work to a standstill, with her lawyers. She knows what the stoppage does to you—Hortense, we have to look after Charlie a little, now.”
“I agree we should,” said Hortense. From moment to moment I more and more admired and loved Hortense. What a wonderful and sensitive woman she was, really, and what emotional versatility the Kabuki mask concealed. Her gruffness had put me off. But behind the gruffness, what goodness, what a rose garden. “Why not make more of an effort to settle with Denise?” she said.
“She doesn’t want to settle,” said Ulick. “She wants his gizzard in a glass on her mantelpiece. When he offers her more dough she raises the ante again. It’s no use. The guy is pissing against the wind in Chicago. He needs broads, but he picks women who cripple him. So get back to business, Chuck, and start turning the stuff out. If you don’t keep your name before the public people will assume you’re gone and they missed your obituary. How much can you get out of this culture-guide deal? Fifty? Hold out for a hundred. Don’t forget the taxes. Did you get caught in the stock market too? Of course you did. You’re an America expert. You have to experience what the whole country experiences. You know what I’d do? I’d buy old railroad bonds. Some of them are selling for forty cents on the dollar. Only railroads can move the coal, and the energy crisis