NOTES ON THE WORKING DAY
461
high windows where no faces broke the sheen of the glass, machine–
gun muzzles would appear and open fire like the threat of a child's
wooden stick. The crowd would unfold, grasp at the bullets that de–
fied all touch, shriek pagan rituals as they died.
But he knew there was no need for him to think of this on his
lunch hour. Death lay in wait for him every moment of the working
day, ticking away with each second, sending out its own music that
grew clearer and louder with every dull punch against the time-card.
He rose and walked over to the statue, where he stood on the outskirts
of the group, listening to the Jews as they made strange secret sounds.
Without finishing sentences they circled one another.
Two of them stood in the center, gesturing at each other, almost
holding the discussion tenderly in their cupped palms. He marveled
at one of them, the one nearest him, for he had thought that the
species had died with his father. This one was also bald, and he
watched the hanging flesh of the belly distort. the image of the power–
ful legs. He could never again know of these men with their bellies,
how they could work in the heat, take the subways home, and sit
after supper to read the Yiddish paper. These, he thought, these are
the true symbol of the United Nations. Age comes into their bellies as
it comes to an Irish laborer, baldness tears their hair as it does to the
good men of the Protestant staunchness, thoughts over the sewing and
the cutting and the packing machines press and bubble for release,
and at night they come out in the mighty scream of the universal
death-wish.
"Dreck you give me," the hanging belly screamed as he turned
to the crowd. "What do you tell me about this war? A bargain this
war!"
"Don't scream at me," the other replied, "and keep your mouth
clean. You're alive, no? You horse's ass what you are, maybe they
put you in a sealed train? Maybe they raped your wife and your
daughter and made you dig your own grave? Maybe they burned
vou into little ashes and made soap out of you?"
He waited for the other to reply, watching the man carefully,
seeing the face that was the face of his father. He must answer well,
this one, for he came from out the tunnels and the labyrinths of his–
tory. He was the collective voice and shifting eyes of those that move
from nation to nation in the night. Splitting into fragmentary particles
they lose their consciousness and crawl toward the cold bricks of the
city, searching for the lost temple. High over the city, he wanted to
say, far beyond your lost sight stands the giant form of King Kong,
