600
PARTISAN REVIEW
gazing, then, as if a black fog had blown up in the mind, he ex–
perienced fear of her and was aware that he had received an im–
pression, somehow, of filth. He shuddered, saying softly, it is thus
with us all. Leo brewed some tea in a small pot and sat sipping it,
without sugar, to calm himself. But before he had finished drinking,
again with excitement he examined the face and found it good:
good for him. Only such a one could truly understand Leo Finkle
and help him to seek whatever he was seeking. How she had come
to be among the discards in Salzman's barrel he could never guess,
but he knew he must urgently go find her.
Leo rushed downstairs, grabbed up the Bronx telephone book,
and searched for Salzman's home address. He was not listed, nor
was his office. Neither was he in the Manhattan book. But Leo re–
membered having written down the address on a slip of paper after
he had read Salzman's advertisement in the "personals" column of
the
Forward.
He ran up to his room and tore through his papers,
without luck. It was exasperating. Just when he needed the match–
maker he was nowhere to be found. Fortunately Leo remembered to
look in
his
wallet. There on a card he found his name written and
a Bronx address. No phone number was listed, which, Leo now re–
called, was the reason he had originally communicated with Salz–
man by letter. He got on his coat, put a hat on over his skull
cap and hurried to the subway station. All the way to the far end
of the Bronx he sat on the edge of his seat. He was more than once
tempted to take out the picture and see if the girl's face was as he
remembered it, but he refrained, allowing the snapshot to remain in
his inside coat pocket, content to have her so close. When the train
pulled into the station he was waiting at the door and bolted out. He
quickly located the street Salzman had advertised.
The building he sought was less than a block from the subway,
but it was not an office building, nor even a loft, nor a store in
which one could rent office space. It was an old and grimy tene–
ment. Leo found Salzman's name in pencil on a soiled tag under
the bell and climbed three dark flights to his apartment. When he
knocked, the door was opened by a thin, asthmatic, gray-haired
woman, in felt slippers.
"Yes?" she said, expecting nothing. She listened without listen–
ing. He could have sworn he had seen her somewhere before but
knew it was illusion.
