The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow [173]
"Easy now, let's start down easy," a man came up from the street and I nervously thought I saw something familiar about him. Mimi too was aware that someone was approaching and took several steps. So it happened that we were in the shadow, not in the main light of the corridor, when he came up. Nevertheless we recognized each other. It was Kelly Weintraub, the Magnuses' cousin by marriage who came from my neighborhood, the one who had threatened me about Georgie. By the slow increase of his smile when he saw me, and what there was in the flesh of his mouth more jubilant than mere smiling, also by the setting of his eyes, more clear to me than the eyes themselves in this obscurity, I realized that he had me. He knew. "Why, Mr. March, what a hell of a surprise this is! You been to see my cousin?" "Who's your cousin?" "The doctor is." "That makes sense." "What does?" "That you're his cousin." I could never run so far or plunge so deep that this man, this Weintraub, wouldn't have enough erotic line to pay out after me, so he was telling me with his full, handsome teameo's look, fleshy and brow-bent, while he swaggered a little at the knees. "I have other cousins also," he said. I felt like hitting him, since I probably would never be seeing him after he had blabbed, but I couldn't do it because I was supporting Mimi. It may have been the dilation of the senses by rage that made me think I smelled blood, raw, but the result in horror is what counted. I said to him, "Get out of the way!" To take Mimi home and get her into bed was all I cared about now. "He's not my boy friend," said Mimi to Kelly. "He's only going out of his way to help me out of trouble." "That makes sense too," he answered. "Oh, you dirty bastard!" she said. She was too weakened to put in all the power of savagery she felt. Shaking, I carried her to the car and drove off fast. "Kid, I'm sorry. I loused things up for you. Who is he?" "Just a guy--he doesn't amount to anything. Nobody ever listens to him. Never mind about that, Mimi. Was it all right?" "He was rough," she said. "First he took the money." "But it's over?" "It's all gone now, if that's what you mean." The drive was clear of snow, and I went fast over the endless varieties of black and smooth, along the tracks, through tunnels, lights streaming as if wind had gotten into a church and flown over the candles, sucking out breath, so much the speed fused things down. We arrived. I lifted her up the four flights, and while she was get'ting under the covers ran down to get an icebag from Miss Owens, who fussed with me about the ice. "What!" I yelled. "It's the middle of winter." "Go out and chop some then. Ours is made in the refrigerator and takes electricity." I stopped yelling, seeing that I had snagged a spinsterish trouble upsetting her by rushing in wildly, not thinking how I showed anguish. Calming down, I reasoned with her, turning on what charm I had on reserve. There can't have been much, the low charge in my trembling wires there was at this moment. I said, "Miss Villars has had a tooth pulled and it's very bad." A tooth! You young people get so excited." She gave me the ice tray and I scooted back with it. Ice, however, didn't help much. She bled very swift, and she tried to keep it secret, but presently she had to tell me, as she herself, aston271 ished, with open eyes, tried to keep track of it. She began to soak the bed. I was for taking her to the hospital at once, but she said, "It'll get better soon. I think it has to be like this at first." Going below, I phoned the doctor, who told me to watch and he'd tell me what to do if it didn't slacken. He'd stand by. There was fright in his tone. When I pulled off her sheets and made up her bed with my sheets her hands came up to oppose me, but I said, "Look, Mimi, this has to be done"; she shut her eyes and let me make the change, laying her cheek down to the hollow of her shoulder. There have great things been done to mitigate the worst human sights and teach you something different from revulsion at them. All the Golgothas have been painted