Always about the place hovers a tall ghostly shadow of the past, in winter and summer wearing a black Homburg, a brown pin-striped suit, and a blue serge overcoat. In winter and summer, Hermann, slowly and painfully, with quick little puffs, drags his long body shaped like a roller coaster into the restaurant and sits by the cash register fully clothed—except, maybe, for his hat. His body is soft yet rigid, his face fixed in an expression of suffering, the large beaten blue eyes staring horribly—as if he had just glimpsed something that froze him on the spot.

For three years now my only conversation with this numb and querulous man has been a polite Hello! on my part, in return for which I receive, invariably, a long Prussian-like salute of the right hand, chopping the air like a guillotine, murdering distance, approaching his eyebrow but just missing the face. In this way—I have come to understand—Hermann annihilates the long silences in which he lives. But only for a moment. Immediately, he relapses; his eyes float backwards, into the distances of the self. He is utterly useless to the busy but inefficient hive. Silently, he sits and stares out of the pale, cobwebbed china-blue eyes with the moths of old desires still fluttering helplessly in the irises. Distance and something unutterably lonely creeps in again, in spite of the salute. He is elsewhere.

In summer, they put a chair out for him, in front of the diner. There he sits for hours in the smoky sun, clad in suit and overcoat, his bald head, like a yellow agate, shining fiercely, the steamy death broiling in the skull. The resemblance to Bismarck is startling. Without the cruelty and the mustache.

Inside, the roar of the electric fan, dirty dishes clinking, orders shouted and bungled and confused. American efficiency is nowhere in sight. Like mobiles, idly turning, cards advertise 7-Up and Mission Orange, hanging from fluorescent-light strings above the counter. The walls are covered with ice cream and Coca-Cola signs. Behind the soda fountain, a streaked mirror tells of the zest and flavor of various floats and malted milk. Everywhere, in red and orange and yellow, women smile. Teeth and ice cream and Coca-Cola; but no efficiency. Flies, dust in corners, steam. The workers, during lunch hour, bawl their orders impatiently, swearing at the heat, the service. The proprietors have never caught on.

_____________

Fritz is standing before me at the counter, his metallic lank hair, close-cropped, falling in one chromium wisp over his right eye. He just stands, as Hermann sits. He looks at me, in his fatherly, dumb way, saying nothing. Then, for the sake of communication, he says: Vair iss your freynd? (rhyming with mind)—and communication, warmth is established. Sometimes, he stands there, looking at me with affection during the entire meal, until I get up and go to the register to pay my bill. I wave goodbye to him and then the whole chorus—Zinka, Fritz, and Onya—chimes, Goodbye! Goodbye, Mr. Treece! Hermann salutes.

It is difficult to understand how they do business. In all my ten years of eating out, I have never seen such slowness, such sheer incompetence. Not a morning goes by without somebody’s toast being burned or coffee spilled. The order is always misunderstood; you wait a half hour before you are served. Zinka is slow, bewildered, her mind and body protesting against age, against labor. Ahhh! I tought you said scrambled eggs! Ahhh! I’m sor-reee . . . vait a minute, Mr. . . . Don’t go avay! Here, I gif you. . . .

The only sensible one, the only one who distinguishes between past and present and has managed to come to terms with both, is Onya, a peppery, red-haired little woman-bustling and intelligent. She is the manager, the entrepreneur. Around her, the wheel turns. Even at its slowest, she sees that at least it goes. But for all her activity, she is neither hard nor pushing—for they are compassionate, gentle people. They suffer for all the bums and trollops who perpetually seek handouts on Third Avenue.

How did they get to this restaurant, to Third Avenue? What are they doing here, these mild, stunned, pastoral people? Obviously, they know nothing of American business. They go along, year after year, at their own pace, and the remarkable thing is, they survive. Half their profits go in handouts and change. By that I mean, if you give Fritz a five-dollar bill for a sixty-five-cent breakfast, you invariably get back five dollars and thirty-five cents. He stands there, puffing his cigar, erect and smiling in a bow tie, returning more than you gave. And, to my own discredit, I must admit that most of the time, when I am in sore need, I have not told him of his error.

_____________

One of the oddest customers is Mrs. Healy, an old woman, fancy as a flapper. Her face is a powdered doughnut, dead-white. The lips are obscured behind an artificial, incongruous Cupid’s bow of brilliant orange lipstick; and the phony eyebrows over her powerful glasses give her the unreal appearance of a clown who has cunningly obscured his original features behind a grotesque artifice. At night she is startling to meet; you can see the false face glowing like phosphorus in the dark. Her hair is hennaed sheep’s-wool. After the other customers have gone, she enters and sits on a stool, drinking iced coffee or tea.

Ha! ha! She always comes in laughing.

Ho! ho! I just seen my husband. Quick, Zinky, gimme an ice coffee!

So? says Onya, with the musical inflection of cultured German. And how iss he?

Ha! explodes Mrs. Healy. He’s O.K. I get what I want! Anything you want! he says. Well, Onya, it took me a long time to win that battle. Men—ha!

She looks around scornfully at the men in the restaurant—at me and at Fritz, who is lumberingly making the motions of washing dishes, a greasy, wet apron around his waist and the bow tie shining above like a flag of gentility. Hermann disappears at night, gone with his fierce and silent suffering.

Mrs. Healy sips loudly at her iced coffee through a straw.

Forty years it took me to learn about men, she says. They’re no good! They used to chop my heart into a thousand pieces. Ha!—that’s all over now. . . .

She turns her vacant enormous eyes upon Onya.

Ain’t it tumble for us old buggers? We don’t really feel nuthin no more, she says rather placidly.

Onya and Zinka look up and wail like a couple of withered Rhine maidens: Ah . . . yes. . . .

It is all over now, says Onya, philosophically.

Mrs. Healy takes a fierce sip at the dregs of her iced coffee.

And how! she chortles. But, ya know, I’m a lot happier than I used to be. My heart ain’t broken no more. I can turn my fourth husband into a monkey. All he says is Yes, dear!

Yes, yes. . . . Onya remarks meditatively. It is harder when you are young. Now you do not have to worry about your figure any more. . . .

Mrs. Healy extracts some money from her purse.

Figure? Who worries! I gave that up long ago. I got plenty money now, too. Look, she says, her voice rising. I used to be awful dumb. My fourth husband and me takes a trip to Pennsylvania. Where I was born, on a farm. He says, You ain’t so dumb for a backwoods girl. You sure know how to play me for a sucker. Ha!—I’ll say! I learned from three of ’em—they almost killed me. It was him or me—I won! Ha ha ha ha. . . !

It’s like the cackle of an old hen who has survived the fiercest roosters and shrewdest foxes. A chill runs through my spine. In that cackle of victory, I envisage a lifetime of despair.

For the first time since I’ve known her, Onya looks sad. She steals a glance at the stolid, unmoved Fritz, washing dishes. Her intelligent face is wistful.

Yes, she says, I am glad it is all over. When we were young, would you believe it, we were very jealous of one another.

Of him? Mrs. Healy shrieks, incredulous. Who’d be jealous of him? He looks harmless to me.

Oh, no! Fritz, you were not so harmless—nicht wahr?

Fritz looks up, and into the old man’s face—I swear it—steals a roguish look, and he turns to me, breaking into a slow smile—and winks!

Mrs. Healy notices this.

You can never trust ’em! she snaps. They’ll rob your heart and break it. Men! I wouldn’t give ya two red cents for ’em!

Onya nods in agreement. But you’ve got to fix them, eh? she says sternly. Make them behave.

Her voice has taken on an unusual force and determination. Her eyes, for one brief moment, are stinging lances.

Immediately, I relinquish my long impression of their life as a placid, genteel couple. Instead of a stolid, even-tempered old man and a cultured old woman, whose musical voice and warm compassion make our tough little environment seem barbarous, I am aware that something hidden, confined, has floated up to the surface. I see a struggling, squirming knot of snakes, the tangle of biting mouths that eat the viscera of those you always greet conventionally.

Well, who cares now, anyways? I should worry! shouts Mrs. Healy, easing herself gradually off the stool and grunting. That’s all dead and buried. . . . Who’d look at that old bugger now, huh? Answer me that!

The old man bows his head and fumbles with a dish. The day is almost over for them. Onya is cheerful again. She tells her sister, Zinka, to take Mrs. Healy’s change. Mrs. Healy, on her way out, crows in a loud voice, I wouldn’t be young again for all the money in the world! I’m better off than my grandchildren. Yeah—I mean it! Ain’t you? Ha!

She disappears, her face like luminous paint in the dark.

_____________

What shall I do? asks Zinka, leaning across the counter beside the cash register. Mr. Treece, you are an educated man.

She is telling me the story of her son, Johnny. He goes to the movies every day and won’t study. He listens to the cheapest radio programs and has no ambitions, not even to pursue pharmacy.

When we were young, croons Zinka, we read Heine and Schiller.

Du bist wie eine Blume, I recite.

Ah, you know, you know. . . . Zinka’s ugly features, the thick lips and incredibly large buck-teeth, break into a warm, homely smile, and the Rhine and the Alps glitter. Ah, Mr. Treece, we went to concerts, read novels. . . . What shall I do with Johnny, please? Tell me. . . .

I don’t know. It’s a different world. You can’t do anything.

That is true. I feel I make somewhere a mistake, but I do not know. Well, Mr. Treece, sixty-five cents. No—for you, fifty cents. No . . . no. . . . A good customer like you. . . .

_____________

Where in the world did you ever find her? I inquire, leaning over to whisper to Onya.

Ach, is it not terrible? Onya whispers back. I felt so sor-reeee. . . .

A madwoman is silently washing dishes. I have never seen her before. It is late in the evening, but no one, not even Mrs. Healy, is in sight. I fully expect the madwoman to turn suddenly, brandish a knife, and kill the old ladies. Her hair is yellow, but at the top there is a torn patch where dirt or rags or God knows what is held together with a pin. Over her real eyebrows, which are thick, not plucked, are painted, in what seems like crayon, bright blue eyebrows leading up to the temples demoniacally, like huge insect feelers. They must be two fingers thick. She seems made up for some weird ballet. Her eyes are innocent. Her mouth is thin. She hums to herself.

She came this afternoon, asking for work, Onya continues in a whisper. I could not turn her away. She said she was hungry. Maybe she escaped from a crazy house . . . or a prison. . . .

The old women fear nothing. They take in cats, bums, whores. They can turn no one away. The madwoman seems happy to be working. She looks up at Onya, every now and then, with a completely dependent helplessness and love.

_____________

It is a sunny day. The heat is intense and the El, clattering by, seems louder than ever. Great, hairy flies buzz about the scraps on the counter, circling wildly in the air. Moths rush at the windowpanes and tremble, flattened against the glass glaring in the sun. From the rear, a huge electric fan keeps up a steady whirring sound that paralyzes the ears. Hermann is sitting outside, in his coat.

A man I have never seen before is at the counter. We are the only customers. He is eating lustily, with great swallows. He leans back and pats his stomach and belches.

And how is your father? asks Onya, with her usual civility.

My old man? Great! Eighty-one years today.

Eighty-one years? Does he have someone with him?

Him? Naw. He lives alone. Don’t want no help. Washes his own clothes, cooks. Strong as a horse.

The laconic man belches again. He has a rude, hearty, pocked face. He must be in his fifties. His hair is reddish gray. He is lean and strong, with no excess weight.

Ach, wails Zinka. Hermann. He’s sixty-three and he goes tomorrow to hospital.

Hospital? Him? The old faker! What’s his trouble? growls the man, unsympathetically.

Ah, his heart. . . . mourns Zinka.

His heart! The man grimaces with disgust. Listen—if you open my heart, you’ll find it busted into about eighteen hundred pieces. Am I complaining?

Well. . . . says Zinka, noncommittally.

Aw, tell him to go out and work. He pays too much attention to himself. You got to forget yourself. His heart! he snorts.

He attacks a chocolate sundae with whipped cream and ground nuts.

We both leave, by accident, together. He stops outside, looking down at Hermann as if he were some sort of curious insect he had stopped to examine by his shoe. Hermann is about to offer me his usual salute. He sits, gray and panting.

Listen, says the man curdy to Hermann. What’s this crap about your heart?

Hermann looks up and nods slightly, without a word.

_____________

Listen, says the man. You know what you need? You need to work. Stop pampering yourself! Get inside there, and clean the dishes! Mop up the floor! That’ll cure your heart. . . .

Hermann turns red. Then he pales. He looks at me.

No . . . no. . . . he says in a weak voice, quivering all over.

Whaddaya mean, no? Listen, says the man. I worked all my life. I don’t care what I do, so long as I’m busy and don’t think about nuthin. I’ve shoveled snow and swept the streets. I’m worth plenty today.

Hermann’s jaws and lips begin to work in agitation and I am afraid he is going to have a stroke right here.

I shall tell you, he begins in a small, quivering, hesitant voice, I shall tell you—I worked all my life—I shall tell you—I was banker—in Czechoslovakia—I worked—very hard-

Banker! snorts the man, growing more excited. So that’s it! You’re living in the past. You’re eating your heart out because you were once a banker.

No, says Hermann, as strongly as he can. I have done everything—I have worked in this country—I had export business—Hermann, too, is growing excited, trembling all over.

Banker, export business! Why, growls his pursuer, you ought to be ashamed of yourself! You’ve got a little woman in there worried sick about you! Why don’t you get up and help her? That’ll fix your heart!

His tone is like that of a head scoutmaster, vainly trying to shame a small boy out of a fear of snakes on a scouting trip. Nothing is serious if you have manly courage, if you get up and take the bull by the horns, etc. The manly code—I am growing vastly irritated myself, yet I nod my head as if in agreement, trying to be conciliatory, to help Hermann see that, perhaps, his trouble is psychosomatic.

I shall tell you, says Hermann. Doctor—six years ago—he say to me—Mr. Berg—you stop working now—you heart iss—bad—I cannot work—it iss not pleasure—I am vairy sick—

Listen, snarls the man, by now thoroughly disgusted with the admission of weakness, the loss of the manly code. Listen, it’s all up here, everything.

He indicates his temple with his index finger.

You’re as strong as I am, he says sourly. The trouble with you is you’re proud. You worry about not being a banker again. Why, I don’t care if I shovel crap in the gutter. You got to live. Quit complaining!

_____________

By this time, Hermann is tremendously agitated. I am sure he is going to have a stroke or a fit or something. He looks away from the man, working his face terribly. His body quivers. The moths, still pressed against the burning glass, shudder. The El roars by and drowns out the man’s words,

which are all about how he picks up drunks off the street and buys them a meal. By now, the conversation has grown purely autobiographical, and the man is going on, irrationally, about his own life. He seems affronted by Hermann’s having been a banker.

Hermann looks at him again.

You don’t know—he says, waving a hand with a gesture of curt dismissal. How should you know? You are not—Jewish. . . . We had to run—from Czechoslovakia—from Hitler—how shall I tell you—?

Hitler! the man shouts, furious. Hitler’s dead. Forget all that! Did he bother you? You’re alive and he’s dead, that’s all. You’re living in the past. This is Third Avenue, not Germany!

But Hermann refuses to continue and stares intently down the street, ignoring his tormenter who, thoroughly annoyed, makes an impatient gesture and disappears. Immediately, Hermann seizes my bare arm, where the sleeve is rolled up, in his trembling hand.

Who—iss—this—man? he demands, hoarsely.

I don’t know, Mr. Berg.

I never see this man—before. What right—has he—?

He pauses, unable to go on. A weight of suffering seems even heavier than I have noticed before in his face. He looks like a dying man about to confess.

Mr. Treece, he says in his slow, invalid way, you are—freynd—I can tell you—I cannot talk—to strangers—it is not my habit-how shall they understand—?

I am thoroughly frightened and sure he is about to die, and I hesitate between going into the restaurant for help and staying here and listening to his confession.

I shall tell you—that we had—very much money—in Germany—in Czechoslovakia—we were lawyers and—bankers—I had biggest bank in Prague—I lost everything—everything—

I shift my feet.

But you must live in the present, not the past, I say helpfully. He doesn’t listen.

All my life—I work hard—I have good business—this man does not—know—how shall he tell me? Now I cannot work—doctor—he say—Mr. Berg—you are sick—you must stop—work—

The old man is repetitious. He goes on and on, telling me about the bank, the export business, the doctor, the operation he is going to have tomorrow. It is all painful to hear and the drops of sweat are rolling down my face and finally I want to leave, but he clutches my arm in a grip strong enough for a man in his condition and I have to stay and hear him out. Over and over. His smothered anger and terrible fear have no outlet. There is no end to it He is, indeed, washed up.

_____________

What is that you are humming, Mr. Treece? Die Dreigroschenoper, it sounds.

Right, Onya. Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral.

Oh, that’s right. You speak beautifully German. We saw it in Vienna. Ah, Lotte Lenya was so wonderful!

Wunderbar!

Erst kommt das Fressen. . . . Also, what will you have tonight?

_____________