Part 28 (1/2)

”Yes,” Archer said to Vic. ”Yes, I'm going to the funeral.”

”You don't like to let yourself off anything, do you?” Vic said. Somehow he sounded cold and unfriendly and Archer wondered if he believed what was in the paper this morning, too. Vic stood up. ”I'm going to get my hair cut,” he said. ”See you at one. Do you want this?” He waved the newspaper a little.

”No, thanks.”

Vic nodded and tossed the paper onto a chair. Then he strolled out, a tall, youthful man in a fine tweed suit, heading for the barber who would clip his thick blond hair close around his well-shaped head, so that he would look like a gentleman who had been graduated not too long before from a good college, a man who was too lucky to have to attend funerals.

While the door was still open, Woodrow Burke came in. He saw Archer and waved and came over quickly. The ex-commentator was fatter than ever and his collar was too tight for him now, giving his face a pale, strangled look. In America, Archer thought, adversity adds weight. The highest standard of living in the world, operating to put double chins on the country's failures. Burke had a copy of the newspaper under his arm and Archer thought that he could tell from the expression on Burke's face that the commentator had read the column. But at least he wasn't drunk.

”Good morning, soldier,” Burke said. He didn't offer to shake hands. He just stood in front of Archer, fat, rumpled, pale, his hair thinning, pretending he wasn't a failure, pretending he didn't have a hangover, pretending his suit wasn't too tight for him. ”How're things?”

”Great,” Archer said. ”How'd they happen to let you in?”

”They told me there was going to be a break for a couple of hours and there're still one or two of the guards around here who remember when I was a big shot, so they pa.s.sed me in. Do you mind?”

Archer shook his head. ”Delighted,” he said. ”Always pleased to see old friends and debtors.”

”Oh.” Burke smiled fles.h.i.+ly. ”I guess I had that coming. I never wrote and thanked you for the check, did I?”

”I don't seem to recall that you did,” Archer said slowly. He wanted to get away from Burke. It made him nervous to talk to a man with that paper folded under his arm, with the name Clement Archer, Clement Archer, all over the inside page.

”Regrets,” Burke said. ”I must mend my manners. I meant to. I really did. I even wrote myself a memorandum.” He dug in his pocket and got out a crumpled piece of paper. He smoothed the paper out, his hands shaking minutely, and peered at it. ”Here,” he said, thrusting it at Archer. ”See for yourself. My intentions were of the best.”

Archer took the paper. ”Write Archer this week,” he read. ”Bread and b.u.t.ter note.” Archer rolled the slip into a ball and flipped it at a wastebasket ten feet away. It didn't go in. ”Thanks,” Archer said. ”I'll file it away to remind me of you.”

”Look,” Burke said, ”I didn't come up here to talk about that. I forgot and I'm sorry and I apologize and I don't want you to hold it against me. I'm working on something that's very important for you and just because I forget things these days and you're sore at me, I don't want you to ...”

”I'm not sore at you,” Archer said. ”Forget it. I haven't got much time now, Burke. This is burying day for radio musicians and I've got to go to the funeral. So if you'll call me some other time, I'll try to ...”

”Don't brush me off, Archer,” Burke said, his tone half-pleading, half-pugnacious. ”I've read this little hymn of hate this morning ...” He waved the newspaper. ”And I happen to know that worse is coming from the other side, and you'd better start to worry about building character. Fast. And I want to help you. You've got to believe me, Clem.”

”What do you mean-worse is coming from the other side?” Archer tried to smile. ”What're they going to do-say that I murdered my mother with an axe?”

”Something along those lines,” Burke said. ”I've got an advance copy here.” He dug in his inside pocket and brought forth a thick mess of papers, old envelopes, bills, newspaper clippings. He sorted through them with his thick, shaky hands. ”Friend of mine who's a press agent at a night club. Gets the dope early. They're going to hang you with a nice, thick rope ... G.o.d d.a.m.n it,” he muttered petulantly, ”I could have sworn I had it on me.” He went swiftly through the sheaf of papers again, not finding what he was looking for. ”Well, I don't have it,” he said, stuffing the papers back, making a big bulge in the front of his jacket. ”But they have you listed as belonging to everything but the Sicilian national guard. Listen to me, Clem ...” He stood close to Archer, holding onto his sleeve, peering earnestly at him, his eyes yellowed and opaque from ten years' drinking. ”Tomorrow it's going out that you're a Red, a Red sympathizer, a defender of Reds, and it'll be all over town, and unless you do something about it, you won't be able to get a job sweeping out the men's room on the 22nd floor.”

Archer chuckled. He didn't mean to, and it surprised him. ”Don't they read the newspapers?” he asked. ”Don't they read that I'm in the vanguard of Fascism and that I'm a tool of the big corporations?”

”They don't read anything but old letterheads and inscribed copies of Mein Kampf,” Burke said bitterly. ”Ask me. I'm the boy who knows. n.o.body would listen to me a year ago, when they pinched me out of the line. Maybe they'll listen now. People've been yellow and they're paying for it now. They didn't defend me or the others when we got the boot to the seat of the trousers. They just pretended it had nothing to do with them and prayed they wouldn't get it next if they kept their mouths shut. Well, they got it next, and you're getting it next, because those're the tactics, soldier, defeat the b.u.g.g.e.rs in detail, make them commit themselves piecemeal, never let them fight in ma.s.s.”

”Burke,” Archer said wearily, ”will you forget for a moment that you were once a military commentator and talk in something that sounds like English? What're you driving at?”

Burke looked offended. ”Sorry if my vocabulary doesn't please you,” he said stiffly. ”What I'm trying to say is that this is the time for everybody to get together and fight for everybody's life. Actors, writers, directors, commentators. And now is the time. Pokorny's suicide makes a perfect peg for it. Poor little jerk of a man lying in a pool of blood because those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds on Blueprint did a job on him. It'll give a focus to the whole thing and people who wouldn't lift a finger otherwise'll be shocked enough for a day or two to rally round. What I came here to say, Clement,” Burke said, ”is that there's going to be a meeting tomorrow night after the theatre, so that actors who're playing in shows can get to it. A protest meeting against the blacklist and everything it stands for. All shades of political opinion. Figure out some way of protecting artists and semi-artists like you and me-” Burke smiled bleakly ”-from being pushed over the cliff. And we want you to make a speech.”

”Wait a minute,” said Archer. ”Before you go on I want to make something clear to you. I'm absolutely opposed to the Communists. You still want me?”

”I have some interesting news for you,” Burke said. He was trying to smile, but his lips were trembling. ”I'm not a Communist. That's for your private information. And I hate the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. That's for anyone's information. And I don't know whether you believe me or not and I don't care. And you can say anything you want in your speech. Just be there. Present yourself. Just tell what happened to you. Tell what happened to the people on your program. If you don't want to say anything else, just tell the group how competent or incompetent Vic Herres and Stanley Atlas and Alice Weller are, and what sweet music that poor dead jerk used to write before he took the pills.”

”Hold it,” Archer said sharply. ”What's this about Herres and Weller? Who brought their names into this?”

”Tomorrow, son,” Burke said. ”In the same article in which they give you the low-level bombardment. It's all-out now, and the shelters're all full. Well?” Burke stepped back and c.o.c.ked his head, narrowing his eyes to look at Archer.

”Who else is speaking,” Archer said, ”from this program?”

”I asked O'Neill. He's going to let me know tonight. Don't worry,” Burke said. ”You'll have plenty of company. In the last year there've been two hundred people canned. Bank accounts're dropping fast enough all around town so that people're just about ready to open their mouths.”

”If I made a speech,” Archer said, ”who'd have to approve it?”

”n.o.body. You won't have to show it to anyone. Well?”

Archer hesitated. He looked around the room. O'Neill had just come back and was standing against the far wall, watching Burke and himself. O'Neill looked like a detective in his dark-blue suit and his black tie.

”Give me your number,” Archer said. ”I'll let you know tomorrow.”

Burke sighed. ”What do you expect?” he asked. ”Do you think you'll see a vision tonight?” But he wrote out his number on a sc.r.a.p of paper and gave it to Archer. He started to leave, then turned back, embarra.s.sedly. ”What I need,” he said, ”is a drink. And I happen to be a little strapped. Do you think ...”

”Sorry,” Archer said. ”Three hundred is a nice even number. Let's leave it at that.”

Burke smiled unhappily. ”I don't blame you,” he said. ”Don't think I blame you a bit. Don't believe anything you read in the newspapers.”

He waved his hand and went out. Why is it, Archer thought, watching the door close, that so many people you feel you ought to help are so objectionable? Maybe, he thought, when I get to the point that Burke's at now, I'll be just as objectionable, too.

Brewer came in, putting on his overcoat, and they all went downstairs-Archer, Barbante, O'Neill, Levy and Brewer-and got into a cab after O'Neill gave the address of the undertaker on Second Avenue. The cab was crowded with the five men in their bulky coats and they talked desultorily about everything but Pokorny or the article about Archer in the newspaper. Archer felt that they looked like a group of men taking an afternoon off from the office to go to the races.

The undertaker's chapel was in a small store on the corner of a busy block on Second Avenue in the Twenties. There was an Italian grocery store beside it, with long cheeses hanging in the window. Three news photographers waited outside the entrance to the chapel and they took Archer's picture and O'Neill's picture as the two men got out of the cab and crossed the sidewalk.

Inside there were only about twenty or twenty-five people, sitting on folding chairs facing the casket. They were whispering quietly and they all hushed for a long moment and turned in their chairs as Archer came in with the others. There was no expression on their faces. Most of them seemed to be refugees, with clothes that looked as though they had been bought in second-hand shops in foreign countries and Archer got the impression that they were all huddling together as though they thought they could hide better in a group than singly. There were some flowers, looking sadly pure and springlike in the drab room, and sending a disturbing fragrance into the dank air, mixing with the strong smell of incense that the undertaker used to disguise the odor of previous deaths.

Archer and the other men from the program sat down as un.o.btrusively as possible in the rear row of seats. He didn't know what to do with his hat. Some of the mourners were wearing theirs, but others were bareheaded. There didn't seem to be a rabbi present, or if there were, he was not dressed in any ceremonial clothes. Archer didn't want to offend the religious sensibilities of the group, whatever they were, but he felt uncomfortable with his hat on when almost half the other men were bare-headed. With a sudden gesture, he took it off and put it on his knees. Brewer, sitting next to him, watched him, then carefully followed his example.

Mrs. Pokorny was standing with two men near the casket and she seemed to be arguing with them, although their voices were kept low and Archer couldn't hear what they were saying. Mrs. Pokorny had on a black dress but it was covered with a grayish cloth coat, obviously the only one she had. Her face, Archer decided, looked no better or worse than it ever had. It was not a face for grief and the lines of anger that were always present there were not intensified by the happenings of the last three days. She had not looked up when Archer entered.

Suddenly, as though exasperated with the arguments of the two men, who were smaller and slighter than she, and over whom she towered menacingly, Mrs. Pokorny strode down the side of the room, trying to shake them off. But they followed her and the little group came to an uneasy halt in the back of the room, close enough so that Archer could hear s.n.a.t.c.hes of what they were saying.

” ... I repeat,” Mrs. Pokorny was saying, ”he doesn't need any religious services.”

”But, Madam,” the shorter of the two men said, pleadingly, ”he was a Jew, a prayer must be said for him.” The man had a frail, wan, studious face, like a mathematics professor. He was about fifty years old and he had an accent. ”I don't think it's right, at a time like this, Madam,” the man said insistently, ”to deny the comforts of religion. I took the liberty of asking Rabbi Feldman here to officiate and he is ready and ...”

”My dear Mrs. Pokorny,” the rabbi said, ”out of a sense of respect, as a comfort to his friends, as an appeal to G.o.d for the soul of your husband ...” The rabbi was young and had a Boston accent, flat and almost Irish-sounding. ”A Jew should not be buried without the traditional prayers. For three thousand years ...”

”He wasn't a Jew,” Mrs. Pokorny said.

”Mrs. Pokorny ...” the little man said faintly, spreading his hands. ”I knew him ever since he was a schoolboy in Vienna.”

”I deny he was a Jew,” Mrs. Pokorny said, dwarfing the two men in their dark hats. ”He wasn't anything. He didn't believe in your G.o.d or anybody's G.o.d, and neither do I, and I don't want your mumbling and your superst.i.tion at a time like this.”

”I don't believe it, Mrs. Pokorny,” the frail little man said quietly. ”He believed in G.o.d. I know he did. We had many talks, before your marriage ...”