Mr. Sammler Planet Read online

  Nearly thirty years after which, in April days, sunshine, springtime, another season, the rush and intensity of New York City about to be designated as spring; leaning on a soft, leatherlike orange sofa; feet on an umber Finnish rug with a yellow core or nucleus-with mitotic spindles; looking down to a street; in that street, a tailor's window on which the spirit of the time through the unconscious agency of a boy's hand had scrawled its augury.

  Is our species crazy?

  Plenty of evidence.

  All of course seems man's invention. Including madness. Which may be one more creation of that agonizing inventiveness. At the present level of human evolution propositions were held (and Sammler was partly swayed by them) by which choices were narrowed down to sainthood and madness. We are mad unless we are saintly, saintly only as we soar above madness. The gravitational pull of madness drawing the saint crashwards. A few may comprehend that it is the strength to do one's duty daily and promptly that makes saints and heroes. Not many. Most have fantasies of vaulting into higher states, feeling just mad enough to qualify.

  Take someone like Wallace Gruner. The doctor was gone and Wallace, with his yellow papers, was standing gracefully, handsomely, with his long lashes. How much normalcy, what stability was Wallace prepared to sacrifice to obtain the grace of madness?

  "Uncle?"

  "Ah, yes, Wallace."

  Some were eccentric, some were histrionic. Probably Wallace was genuinely loony. For him it required a powerful effort to become interested in common events. This was possibly why sporting statistics cast him into such a fever, why so often he seemed to be in outer space. Dans la lune. Well, at least he didn't treat Sammler as a symbol, and he apparently had no use for priests, judges, or confessors. Wallace said that what he appreciated in Uncle Sammler was his wit. Sammler, especially when greatly irritated or provoked, when he felt galled, said witty things. In the old European style. Often these witticisms signaled the approach of a nervous fit.

  But Wallace, when he began a conversation with Sammler, was immediately smiling, and sometimes he repeated the punch lines of Sammler's witticisms.

  "Not a well-rounded person, Uncle?"

  Referring to himself, Sammler once had observed, "I am more stupid about some things than about others; not equally stupid in all directions; I am not a well-rounded person."

  Or else, a recent favorite with Wallace: "The billiard table, Uncle. The billiard table."

  This had to do with Angela's trip to Mexico. She and Horricker had had an unhappy Mexican holiday. In January she had had enough of New York and winter. She wanted to go to Mexico, to a hot place, she said, where she could see something green. Then abruptly, before he could check himself, Sammler had said, "Hot? Something green? A billiard table in hell would answer the description."

  "Oh, wow! That really cracked me up," said Wallace.

  Later he would ask Sammler if he had the exact words. Sammler smiled, his small cheeks began to flush, but he refused to repeat his sayings. Wallace was not witty. He had no such sayings. But he did have experiences, he invented curious projects. Several years ago he flew out to Tangiers with the purpose of buying a horse and visiting Morocco and Tunisia on horseback. Not taking his Honda, he said, because backward people should be seen from a horse. He had borrowed Jacob Burckhardt's Force and Freedom from Sammler, and it affected him strongly. He wanted to examine peoples in various stages of development. In Spanish Morocco he was robbed in his hotel. By a man with a gun, hidden in his closet. He then flew on to Turkey and tried again. Somehow he managed to enter Russia on his horse. In Soviet Armenia he was detained by the police. After Gruner had gone five or six times to see Senator Javits, Wallace was released from prison. Then, once again in New York, Wallace, taking a young lady to see the film The Birth of a Child, fainted away at the actual moment of birth, struck his head on the back of a seat, and was knocked unconscious. Reviving, he was on the floor. He found that his date had moved away from him in embarrassment, changed her seat. He had a row with her for abandoning him. Wallace, borrowing his father's Rolls, let it somehow get away from him; carelessly parked, it ended up at the bottom of a reservoir somewhere near Croton. He drove a city bus crosstown to pay off debts. The Mafia was after him. His bookie gave him two months to pay. The handicapping hadn't worked. He flew with a friend to Peru to climb in the Andes. Said to be quite a good pilot. He offered to take Sammler into the air ("No, I believe not. Thank you just the same, Wallace "). He volunteered for the domestic Peace Corps. He wanted to be of use to little black children, to be a basketball coach in playgrounds.

  "What does this surgeon really think of Elya's chances, Wallace?"

  "He's going to take new X rays of his head."

  "Are they planning brain surgery now?"

  "It depends on whether they can get to the place. They may not be able to reach it. Of course if they can't reach it, they can't reach it."

  "To look at him you'd never think… He looks so well."

  "Oh, yes," said Wallace. "Why not?"

  Sammler sighed at this. He guessed how well pleased the late Mrs. Gruner must have been with her Wallace, his shapely head, long neck, crisp hair, and fine eyebrows, the short clean line of the nose, and the neat nakedness of his teeth, the work of skilled orthodontia.

  "It's hereditary, having an aneurysm. You happen to be born with a thin wall in an artery. I may have it. Angela may, too, though I'd be surprised if she had a thin place anywhere. But people, young people, too, perfect in every other respect sometimes, drop dead of it. Walking along strong, beautiful, full of beans, when it explodes inside. They die. There's a bubble first. Such as lizards blow from the throat, maybe. Then death. You've lived so long, you've probably come across this before."

  "Even for me, there's always something a little new."

  "I had a lot of trouble with last week's crossword puzzle, the Sunday one. Did you work on it?"

  "No."

  "You sometimes do."

  "Margotte didn't bring home the Times."

  "Amazing how you know words."

  For some months Wallace had actually practiced law. His father had rented the office; his mother had furnished it, calling in Croze the interior decorator. For six months Wallace rose punctually like any commuter and went to business. But at business it came out that he worked on nothing but crossword puzzles, locking the door, taking the phone off the hook, lying on the leather sofa. That was all. No, one thing more: he unbuttoned the stenographer's dress and examined her breasts. This information came from Angela, who had it from the girl, direct. Why did the girl permit it? Maybe she thought it would lead to marriage. Placing hopes in Wallace? No sane woman would. But his interest in the breasts had evidently been scientific. Something about nipples. Like Jean Jacques Rousseau, who became so engrossed in the breasts of a Venetian whore that she pushed him away and told him to go study mathematics. (More of Uncle Sammlers wide reading, his European culture.)

  "I don't like the people who make up the puzzles. They have low-grade minds," said Wallace. "Why should people know so much trash? It's Eastern-Seaboardeducated trash. Smart-ass Columbia University quiz-kid miscellaneous information. I actually telephoned you about an old English dance. Jig, reel, and hornpipe were all I could come up with. But this one began with an m."

  "An m? Might it have been morrice?"

  "Oh, damn! Of course it was morrice. Jesus, your mind is in good order. How do you happen to remember?"

  "Milton, Comus. A wavering morrice to the moon."

  "Oh, that's pretty. Oh, that's really lovely, a wavering morrice."

  "Now to the Moon in wavering Morrice move. It's the fishes, by the billions, I believe, and the seas themselves, performing the dance."

  "Why, that's splendid. You must be living right, to remember such pretty things. Your mind is not devoured by fool business. You're a good old guy, Uncle Artur. I don't like old people. I don't respect many individuals-a few physical scientists. But you-you're very austere in a way, b
ut you have a good sense of humor. The only jokes I tell are the ones I hear from you. By the way, let me make sure I have the de Gaulle joke right. He said he didn't want to be buried under the Arc de Triomphe next to an unknown. А cфtй d'un inconnu. Right?"

  "So far."

  "My father has it in for de Gaulle because he woos the Arabs. I'm fond of de Gaulle because he's a monument. And he wouldn't go into the Invalides with Napoleon, who was only a lousy corporal."

  "Yes."

  "But the Israelis wanted to charge him a hundred thousand bucks for space in the Holy Sepulcher."

  "That's the joke."

  "And de Gaulle said, `For three days? It's too much money.' `Pour trois jours?' He was going to be resurrected, right? Now that, I think, is very funny." Wallace's grave judgment. "Poles love to tell jokes," he said. He had no sense of humor. Sometimes he had occasion to laugh.

  "Conquered people tend to be witty."

  "You don't like Poles very much, Uncle."

  "I think on the whole I like them better than they liked me. Besides, a Pan once saved my life."

  "And Shula in the convent."

  "Yes, that too. Nuns hid her."

  "I can remember Shula years ago in New Rochelle, coming downstairs in her nightgown, and she was no kid, she must have been twenty-seven or so, kneeling in front of everybody in the parlor and praying. Did she use Latin? Anyway that nightgown was damn flimsy. I thought she was trying to get your goat, with her Christian act. It was a put-down, wasn't it, in a Jewish house? Some Jews, anyhow! Is she still such a Christian?"

  "At Christmas and Easter, somewhat."

  "And she bugs you about H. G. Wells. But fathers are soft on daughters. Look how Dad favors Angela. He gave her ten times more. Because she reminded him of Mae West. He was always smiling at her boobs. He wasn't aware of it. Mother and I saw it."

  "What do you think will happen, Wallace?"

  "My dad? He won't make it. He's got about a two percent chance. What good is that screw?"

  "He's struggling."

  "Any fish will fight. A hook in the gill. It gets jerked into the wrong part of the universe. It must be like drowning in air."

  "Ah, that is terrifying," said Sammler.

  "Still, to some people death is very welcome. If they've spoiled their piece of goods, I'm sure many would rather be dead. What I'm finding out is that when the parents are living, they stand between you and death. They have to go first, so you feel pretty safe. But when they die, you're next, and there's nobody ahead of you in line. At the same time I see already that I'm taking the wrong slant emotionally, and I know I'll pay for it later. I'm part of the system, whether I like it or not." Another moment of silent aberrant reflection-Mr. Sammler felt the density and the unruliness of Wallace's thoughts. Then Wallace said, "I wonder why Dr. Cosbie is so keen on football pools."

  "Aren't you?"

  "Not the way I was. Dad told him how much I know about pro football. College football, too. That's all behind me now. But it was like Dad offering me to the surgeon, so I would do something for him, so that we would all be close and friendly."

  "But it's something else you're keen on now?"

  "Yes. Feffer and I have a business idea. It's practically all I can think about."

  "Ah, Feffer. He abandoned me at Columbia, and I haven't seen him since. I wondered even whether he was trying to make money on me."

  "He's a terribly imaginative businessman, He'd con anyone. But maybe not you. Here's what we've come up with, as an enterprise. Aerial photographs of country houses. Then the salesman arrives with the picture-not just contacts but the fully developed picture-and offers you a package deal. We will identify the trees and shrubs on the place and band them handsomely, in Latin and English. People feel ignorant about the plants on their property."

  "Does Feffer know trees?"

  "In every neighborhood we'd hire a graduate student in botany. In Dutchess County, for instance, we could get someone from Vassar."

  Mr. Sammler could not keep from smiling. "Feffer would seduce her, and also the lady of the house."

  "Oh, no. I'd see he didn't get out of hand. I can control that character. He's a top salesman. Spring is a good time to start. Right now. Before the leaves are too thick for aerial photography. In the summer we could work Montauk, Chilmark, Wellfleet, Nantucket from the sea. My father won't give me the money."

  "Is it a great deal?"

  "A plane and equipment? Yes, it's considerable."

  "You intend to buy a plane, not rent one?"

  "Rent doesn't make sense. If you buy you get the tax write-off-depreciation. The secret of business is to make the government cover your risk. In Dad's bracket we'd save seventy cents on the dollar. The IRS is murder. He doesn't file a joint return and isn't head of a family since Mother died. He doesn't want to give me another lump sum. It's set up for me in trust so I'll have to live on the income. When I had my chance I dropped fifty thousand in that boutique."

  "Gambling, I thought. Las Vegas."

  "No, no, it was a motel complex in Vegas, and we had the clothing shop, the men's boutique."

  A furious dresser and adorner of men's bodies, Wallace would have been.

  "Uncle Artur, I'd like to put you on our payroll. Feffer agrees. Feffer loves you, you know. If you don't want to do it, well put Shula on at fifty bucks a week."

  "And in return for this? You want me to talk to your father?"

  "Use your influence."

  "No, Wallace, I'm afraid I couldn't. Why, think what's going on. It's dreadful. I'm terrified."

  "You wouldn't upset him. He thinks the same thoughts whether you talk to him or not. Six of one, half a dozen of the other. He's brooding about this anyway."

  "No, no."

  "Well, that's your decision. There is something else, though. There's money at home, in New Rochelle. In the house."

  "Excuse me?" From curiosity, uncertainty, Sammler's voice went up.

  "Hidden cash. A large amount. Never declared."

  "It can't be, can it?"

  "Oh yes it can, Uncle. You're surprised. If the inside of a person were only as simple as a watermelon-red meat, black seeds. Now and then, as a favor to highly placed people, Papa performed operations. Dilatation and curettage. Only when there was a terrific crisis, when some young socialite heiress got knocked up. Top secret. Only out of pity. My dad pitied famous families, and got big gifts of cash."

  "Wallace, look. Let's talk straight. Elya is a good man. He stands close to the end. You're his son. You've been brought up to think that for your health you have to throw a father down. You've had a troubled life, I know. But this old-fashioned capitalistic-family-and-psychological struggle has to be given up, finally. I'm telling you this because you're basically intelligent. You've done a lot of peculiar things. No one can call you boring. But you may become boring if you don't stop. You could retire honorably now with plenty of interesting experience to point to. Enough. You should try something different."

  "Well, Uncle Sammler, you have good manners. I know it. In some ways, you're aloof too. Sort of distant from life. But you put up with people's shenanigans and shtick. It's just your old-fashioned Polish politeness. All the same, there is also a practical question here. Nothing but practical."

  "Practical?"

  "My father has X thousands of dollars in the house, and he won't tell where it is. He's sore at us. He's in the capitalistic-family-psychology struggle. You're perfectly right-why should a person burn himself out with neurotic fever? There are higher aims in life. I don't think those are shit. Far from it. But you see, Uncle, if I have that plane, I can make a nice income with a few hours of flying. I can spend the rest of my time reading philosophy. I can finish up my Ph. D. In mathematics. Now listen to this. People are like simple whole numbers. Do you see?"

  "No, of course not, Wallace."

  "Numbers also bear an important relation to people. The series of numbers is like the series of human beings-infinite numbers of individua
ls. The characteristics of numbers are like the characteristics of matter, otherwise mathematical expressions could not tell us what matter will or may do. Mathematical equations lead us to physical realities. Things not yet seen. Like the turbulence of heated gases. Do you see now?"

  "Only in the vaguest way."

  "The equations preceded the actual observations. So what we need is a similar system of signs for human beings. In this system, what is One? What is the human integer like? Now you see, you've made me talk seriously to you. But just for a minute or two, I want to go on with that other thing. There is money in the house. I think there are phony pipes through the attic in which he hid the bills. He borrowed a Mafia plumber once. I know it. You might just slip in a reference to pipes or to attics in your next conversation. See how he reacts. He may decide to tell you. I don't want to have to tear apart the house."

  "No, certainly not," said Sammler.

  What is One?

  III

  Homeward.

  On Second Avenue the springtime scraping of roller skates was heard on hollow, brittle sidewalks, a soothing harshness. Turning from the new New York of massed apartments into the older New York of brownstone and wrought-iron, Sammler saw through large black circles in a fence daffodils and tulips, the mouths of these flowers open and glowing, but on the pure yellow the fallout of soot already was sprinkled. You might in this city become a flower-washer. There was an additional business opportunity for Wallace and Feffer.