SEIZE THE DAY
401
Tamkin did as he asked, and they rose. They were passing the
bookkeeper's desk when he took out a substantial bundle of onion-skin
papers and said, "These are receipts of the transactions. Duplicates.
You'd better keep them as the account is in your name and you'll need
them for income taxes. And here is a copy of a poem I wrote yesterday."
"I have to leave something at the desk for my father," Wilhelm
said, and he put his hotel bill in an envelope with a note.
Dear Dad,
Please carry me this month, Yours, W.
He watched the clerk, with his
sullen pug's profile and stiff-necked look, push the envelope into his
father's box.
"May I ask you really why you and your dad had words?" said
Dr. T amkin, who had hung back, waiting.
"It was about my future," said Wilhelm. He hurried down the
stairs with swift steps, like a tower in motion, his hands in his trousers
pockets. He was ashamed to discuss the matter. "He says there's a reason
why I can't go back to myoid territory, and there is. I told everybody I
was going to be an officer of the corporation. And I was supposed to.
It was promised. But then they welshed because of the son-in-law. I
bragged and made myself look big."
"If
you were humble enough, you could go back. But it doesn't
make much difference. We'll make you a good living on the market."
They came into the sunshine of upper Broadway, not clear but
throbbing through the dust and fumes, a false air of gas visible at eye–
level as it spurted from the bursting busses. From old habit, Wilhelm
turned up the collar of his jacket.
"Just a technical question," Wilhelm said. "What happens if your
losses are bigger than your deposit?"
"Don't worry. They have ultra-modern electronic bookkeeping
machinery, and it won't let you get in debt.
It
puts you out automati–
cally. But I want you to read this poem. You haven't read it yet."
Light as a locust, a helicopter bringing mail from Newark Airport
to La Guardia sprang over the city
in
a long leap.
The paper Wilhelm unfolded had ruled borders in red ink. He
read:
MECHANISM VS FUNCTIONALISM
ISM VS HISM
If thee thyself couldst only see
Thy greatness that is and yet to be,
Th ou would feel joy-beauty-what ecstasy
They are at thy fe et, earth-moon-sea, the trinity.
Why forth then dost thou tarry
And partake thee only of the crust
And skim the earth's surface narry
W hen all creations art thy just?
