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The Floating Press - Konrad Bercovici

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90 pages

English

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Though born in Romania, writer Konrad Bercovici first gained prominence as a journalist and essayist chronicling life in New York City. This charming collection of stories, observations, and vignettes blurs the lines between fact and fiction. Whether you're a New York native or someone who admires the Big Apple from afar, Bercovici's insights will hold your attention.

Sujets

Short story

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Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 février 2014
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781776531059
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0134€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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DUST OF NEW YORK
* * *
KONRAD BERCOVICI

*
Dust of New York First published in 1919 Epub ISBN 978-1-77653-105-9 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77653-106-6 © 2013 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
*
Theresa the Vamp The Troubles of a Perfect Type How the Ibanezes Love The Little Man of 28th Street The Newly-Rich Goldsteins All in One Wild Roumanian Song Expensive Poverty Why Her Name is Marguerite V. L. F. Clement Luleika, the Rich Widow Because Cohen Could Neither Read nor Write The Marriage Broker's Daughter The New Secretary of the Pretzel-Painters' Union The Gypsy Blood that Tells When Stark's Café was Closed Because of Bookkeeping The Strength of the Weak Socialists! Beware of Mrs. Rosenberg A Conflict of Ideals The Holy Healer from Omsk Hirsh Roth's Theory The Tragedy of Afghian's Living Rug Babeta's Dog The Professor The Pure Motive
*
To
JOHN O'HARA COSGRAVE
Theresa the Vamp
*
New York is an orchestra playing a symphony. If you hear the part ofonly one instrument—first violin or oboe, 'cello or French horn—it isincongruous. To understand the symphony you must hear all theinstruments playing together, each its own part, to the invisible batonof that great conductor, Father Time.
But the symphony is heard only very rarely. Most of the time New York istuning up. Each voice is practising its part of the score—the littlesolos for the violins to please the superficial sentimentalists, and thetwenty bars for the horn to satisfy the martial spirit in men.
But don't, oh sightseers, don't think you know New York because you havesauntered through a few streets and eaten hot tamales in a Mexicanrestaurant, or burnt your tongue with goulash in some "celebratedHungarian palace." Only to very few privileged ones is it given to hearthe symphony—and they have to pay dearly for it. But it is worth theprice.
*
They called her the Vampire, or Vamp for short. Her name was Theresa,and she was born somewhere on Hungarian soil in Tokai, where flows thedark blue water of the Tisza, not far from the Herpad Mountains on whichgrows the grape for the luxurious Tokai wine.
Now, when and why Theresa came to New York nobody knew. But all wereglad she was here ... here, at a little table in a corner of the"Imperial" on Second Avenue. When one met a friend on the street andasked: "Anybody at the 'Imperial?'" and the answer was "Nobody thereto-night," it simply meant that the Vamp was not there. The other twohundred or more guests did not count.
She spoke very little. She smoked all the time, and her fiery dark eyeshid behind the thin smoke curtain from her cigarette. Young men had nochance at her table. They seldom came near her at all. They were afraidof her. Only married men dared approach her, relying on their experienceto extricate themselves when in danger.
And yet there was no danger! At some hour after midnight Theresa brushedthe ashes off her waist from the "last" cigarette, arranged her hair abit, and announced to the company "I am going."
It always was irrevocable. A newcomer was known by the fact that heoffered to see her home. The habitués would then answer in chorus, "Ican find my way alone," and laugh and tease the unfortunate who did notknow that Theresa went home alone.
After Theresa's departure her friends would scatter to different tablesand take up cudgels for this or that or the other, always with theconscience that on the street the question would be: "Anybody there?"and the answer would be the inevitable "Nobody there." So most of themwould leave the place soon after Theresa—dispersing over the city, eachto his home, bringing there the secret emptiness that was in him.
*
"Ferenczy is here," a friend greeted me one day.
"Ferenczy who?" I asked.
"Ferenczy, the great painter, man!"
I did not know much about the great Hungarian artist, but my friendknew, and urged me to come and see him. I found him at the "Imperial."
Tall, thin, dark, passionate, the picture of the painter as portrayed innovels. He spoke about art like a true artist. Some of the ladies,usually placidly sipping their coffee, became very self-conscious as hedeclaimed a bit too loudly about beauty of line and harmony of color.Even the two fighting musical critics, old Newman and Dr. Feldys,forgot the nightly squabble over the merits of modern music, whenFerenczy talked.
In the midst of all appeared Theresa. She went straight to her table.From different sections of the café men rose, and after making theirapologies to the other guests, walked up to where the Vamp was waitingfor some one to help her take off her coat.
Ferenczy turned about to see who caused such a stir. A few minutes laterhe was sitting opposite her, the two oblivious of everybody else. He washer fellow countryman, was born at the foot of the same mountains, theHerpads.
And we were all surprised when she did not say "I can find my wayalone," two hours after midnight, and allowed Ferenczy to see her home.
When Ferenczy entered the café the next evening there were two differentcamps. One hated him because he took the Vamp home, and one admired himbecause he had succeeded where everybody else had failed.
He went straight to Theresa's table, which was usually vacant until shecame, and ordered something from the astonished waiter. They had notrealized before how boisterous a mustache can be, and not one guest feltcomfortable in his workaday garb facing the immaculately black and whiteFerenczy.
The other guests broke precedent that evening and came to sit at theVamp's table before she had arrived. Every time the door opened all theheads turned in its direction, still maintaining or arguing aboutsomething. And thus guests, perfect strangers, felt the weight of wordshurled at them as from a cannon's mouth.
And the door was never still. The Imperial was the home of all thedisappointed, disabused men of the East Side; men and women from thefour corners of the earth. Former poets who studied dentistry to earn aliving, and who are now completely swallowed up by their profession,came nightly, to hear themselves mock the former music composer who isnow a physician, and over the ears in real estate transactions. Thisphysician once gave to a patient a prescription as follows: "60 poundsof nails, fourteen window panes, 3×4, 12 pounds of putty and 80 poundsof lime."
Former sculptors, former painters, former dancers, former men, formerwomen, all gather in the café of the might-have-beens, and all inviteevery newcomer to witness in them his own doom. Some go to concerts tohear music which they might have composed, others read poetry which theymight have written, criticise a play the thought of which had lingeredin their own minds for years without coming to utterance. Disabusedsocialists now owning factories, and great, great chemists now clerkingin some drug store of the vicinity, assemble there.
*
Theresa came that night. Ferenczy helped her with the coat, and lit hercigarette and ordered her coffee, and they talked earnestly in theirmother tongue the rest of the evening. One by one the other guests leftthe table until the two were alone. It was after 2 A. M. when they leftthe place. They were almost the last guests. He saw her home.
The following evening Theresa's former friends discussed Ferenczy. Hiswork, while having a certain charm which appealed to the uninitiated,was worthless as art, they decreed.
He never did anything worth while. He was just good enough for America;to make magazine covers. And Andrasky, the journalist, remembered thatan art critic in the Budapest Hirlap called Ferenczy "Muncaczy'sMonkey."
*
A few days later one of the Magyar papers had a derogatory article aboutFerenczy, in which the "Budapester" critic was cited.
The painter himself was not seen at the Imperial for a few evenings,neither was Theresa. Scouts went out to find them. It was inconceivablethat the Vamp should not be out every evening!
At the café they began to accuse one another with writing the article,which was anonymous. That vacant table near the wall stood like thealtar of a deserted shrine.
*
One day Fuller, the musician, met Andrasky around Tenth Street, going inthe opposite direction from the Imperial.
"Whereto, Andrasky?"
"Just for a walk."
And because he did not ask "Anybody there?" Fuller suspected that heknew. He followed the journalist at a distance and discovered them, thethree of them, in a little Russian restaurant on Tenth Street.
*
In a week all the Imperial guests had gone over to the Tenth Streetcafé. Neither service nor food was as good as in the old place, but theyall professed to like the new one. They did not know whether it wasbecause of Ferenczy or because of Theresa. She paid no attention at allto them.
In the following few months some of the might-have-beens tried toresurrect themselves. One of the former poets wrote a long poem. Anotherhad a play accepted. The composer tried his fingers again on thekeyboard.
The tables at the Imperial were vacant. The waiters were asleep on theirfeet. It lasted throughout the winter. In the spring the proprietor wentinto bankruptcy.
*
"Anybody there?" is still a question on Second Avenue after midnight.Only the "there" is somewhere else, and nobody knows who the "Anybody"is—not even Theresa, because in the new place her former admirers readtheir poetry and plays, try their songs and hang their pictures on thewalls. Even her table is not exclusive