The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow [283]
still dragged somewhat. Douglas Park in a cold sunlight, mossy, benches not well kept up in wartime, with elderly folks on them, newspapers, furs, stucco walls--paper sailing wild over (he lagoon. Mama was beginning to have the aging stiffness and was somewhat bowlegged; she enjoyed the cold air though, and still had her calm smooth color of health. I was taking her back to the Home when Simon's car drew up beside us. A woman, not Charlotte, was with him. I saw the fur stole and golden hair. Right away Simon, with smiles, wigwagged that Mama wasn't to be aware of her. Then he came out on the sidewalk and it seemed just plain not good enough for him, this West Side concrete so powerfully cracked and with grocers' and butchers' sawdust. He looked very good. From the shell cordovans to the ruby points of his cufflinks, the shirt white on white, most likely a Sulka tie, a Strook coat, everything handstitched and not intended just for cover like a Crusoe goatskin. I have to confess that, arriving like this, he was enviable to see. Was he here to visit Mama? Or to point her out to the girl? To identify me for her he said, with pleasure, "Well, my brother! Isn't this a swell surprise! Why don't I ever see you? And, Mama, how are you?" An arm around each of us, he turned us to face the car, where the girl acknowledged us, friendly. "It's great the family's together," he said. I wondered whether Mama felt him acting toward someone; maybe she did. But how would she in her innocence have known what to think about these two specially treated or gardened, enveloped in finery, pampered bodies that traveled on the Cadillac chassis and high cushions like a pair of carnival Romans cruising the Corso, this highbreasted girl and Simon? He was making real dough now. A company he had invested in was manufacturing a gimmick for the Army. When he told me how the money poured in he always laughed, as if astonished himself, and said he hoped to catch up with my millionaire, Robey, and write a book himself. Then I'd be his helper. A crack I didn't like. Robey, by the way, was getting ready to go to Washington. He didn't seem able to explain why but just had to go. Simon said, "I just stopped to find out if you were all right, Ma. I can't stay. And I'm taking Augie with me." "Go, boys," she said. She wanted us to have business together. We took her up the stone stairs and let her into the Home. When we were alone Simon said, and meant every word of it, "Before you start to think any different, I love this girl." "You do? Since when?" "Quite a while now." "But who is she? Where does she come from?" Smiling, he told me, "She left her husband the same night we met. It was at a night club in Detroit. I was there just two days on business. I danced with her and she said she'd never stay another day with this guy. I said, 'Come'along,' and she's been with me ever since." "Here, in Chicago?" "Of course here--where do you think! Augie, I want you to know ,, her. It's time you knew each other. She's alone a lot because--you can ^understand why. She knows all about you. Don't worry, I told her' nothing but good things. All right!" he said, standing up straight over me with his advantage in height of an inch or two; the red was in his cheeks like a polish, or the color of effrontery. He answered my thought about Charlotte by saying, "I didn't think it would be so hard for you to understand how this is." "No, it's not so hard." "This has nothing to do with Charlotte. I don't tell Charlotte what to do. Let her go and do the same." "Would she? Can she?" "That's her problem if she can't. My problem--my problem is Renee here. And myself." For a second, as he said "myself," he looked grim and somehow in thought followed his soul past lots of dangers, downward. I couldn't see what there could be of such danger. I didn't yet understand. However, I was fascinated by him, by them both. "Renee, this is Augie," he said, turning me down the steps. It was a hard thing for me to get through my head, after I came to know her, that she could be so important to him. Though slight,