The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow [96]
into production. Ruber himself was going to go out and sell it, for there was a lot of money in it. Therefore, he said, they would need a man to replace him in the shop. And since I had experience with rich customers, a ritzy clientele, I was just the man for the substitution. "I don't want any more f---- relatives around; they get in my hair. So if you're interested come out and have a look at the setup. If you like it we can talk terms." Seeing that I could not stay with the Renlings unless I became their adopted son, which by now I knew would suffocate me, no other arrangement possible after I had turned them down, I closed a deal with Ruber. I made up a story to tell Renling about a marvelous busi156 ness opportunity of a lifetime with a school chum, and I pulled out nf Evanston in a cold air--Mrs. Renling iron with anger toward me, and Renling himself on the cool side of well-wishing, but saying any- way that I was to come to him if ever I needed help. I took a room on the South Side, in a house on Blackstone Avenue, four flights up, three of mingy red carpet and one of thready wood, up in the clumsy dust, next door to the can. Here I wasn't far from the Nelson Home, and as it was a Sunday morning when I set myself up, and I had time, I went to visit Grandma Lausch. By now she was almost like everyone else in the joint, to my eyes, having lost her distinguishing independence, weakened, mole-ish, needing to look around for her old-time qualities when she greeted me, as if she had laid them down, forgetting where. She didn't seem to recall what grievances she had against me either, and when we sat down together on a bench in the parlor, between some silent old people, asked me, "And how is--is jener, the idiot?" She had forgotten Georgie's name, and it horrified me; yes, it sent me for a loop until I remembered to think how small a part of her life compared with the whole span she had spent with us, and how many bayous and deadwaters there must be to the sides of an old varicose channel. And as there is a strength or stubbornness about people that doesn't want the first fact about them spoken, also there is a time when that fact or truth can't any more be helpful--what can it do for the ruin of an old woman?-- but it appears as a blot in the eyes over old expressions. What good can this fact be so near death? Except as a benefit to its witnesses, since we human creatures have many reasons to believe there's advantage and profit for someone in everything, even in the worst muds, wastes, and poison by-products; and a charm of chemical medicine or industry is how there are endless uses in cinders, slag, bone, and manure. But in reality we're a long way from being able to profit from everything. Yes, and besides even a truth can get cold from solitude and solitary confinement, and doesn't live long outside the Bastille; if the rescuing republican crowd is the power of death it doesn't live at all. This was how it was with Grandma Lausch, who had only a few months left of life. Whose Odessa black dress was greasy and whitening; who gave me an old cat's gape; who maybe didn't too well place me; who had this blob of original fact, of what had primarily counted with her, like a cast in the eye; weakly, even infant and lunatic. Her we always thought so powerful and shockproof! It really threw me. Yet I also thought she did remember who I was and that old consciousness was not lost but in a phase of a turntable that turned too slowly. I even thought that she appreciated the visit and said I was her neighbor now and would come again. But I couldn't make it, and the same winter she died of pneumonia. In my new job I had a downgrade from the start. Ruber's cousin's widow was a dissatisfied woman; she didn't trust me very much. This lady--she wore her fur coat in the style of a cloak in the store, with a hat of the same creature like a prickly crown, and a face always aware of its imperfections and suffering from them, wretched skin and meager lips--she had stomach troubles and a stiff clamp on bad temper. She cramped my style, the