<422
PARTISAN REVIEW
Again Wilhelm took the phone. "Can you locate Dr. Tamkin
in
the lobby for me?" he asked. And when the operator reported that
she could not, Wilhelm gave the number of his father's room, but Dr.
Adler was not in, either. "Well, please give me the masseur. I say the
massage room. Don't you understand me? The men's health club. Yes,
Max Schilper's-how am I supposed to know the name of it?"
There a strange voice said, "Toktor Adler?" It was the old Czech
prizefighter with the deformed nose and ears who was attendant down
there and gave out soap, sheets and sandals. He went away. A hollow
endless silence followed . Wilhelm flicked the receiver with his nails,
whistled into it, but could not summon either the attendant or the
operator.
The maid saw him examining the bottles of pills on Tamkin's
table and seemed suspicious of him. He was running low on Phenaphen
pills and was looking for something else. But he swallowed one of his
own tablets and went out and rang again for the elevator. He went
down to the health club. Through the steamy windows, when he
emerged, he saw the reflection of the swimming pool swirling green at
the bottom of the lowest stairway. He went through the locker room
curtains. Two men wrapped in towels were playing ping-pong. They were
awkward and the ball bounded high. The Negro in the toilet was
shining shoes. He did not know Dr. Adler by name and Wilhelm
descended to the massage room. On the tables naked men were lying.
It was not a brightly lighted place, and it was very hot, and under
the white faint moons of the ceiling shone pale skins. Calendar pictures
of pretty girls dressed in tiny fringes were pinned on the wall. On
the first table, eyes deeply shut in heavy silent luxury, lay a man with
a full square beard and short legs, stocky and black-haired. He might
have been an orthodox Russian. Wrapped in a sheet, waiting, the man
beside him was newly shaved and red from the steam bath. He had a big
happy face and was dreaming. And after him was an athlete, strikingly
muscled, powerful and young, with a strong white curve to his genital
and a half angry smile on his mouth. Dr. Adler was on the fourth table,
and Wilhelm stood over his father's pale, slight body. His ribs were
narrow and small, his belly round, white, and high. It had its own
being, like something separate. His thighs were weak, the muscles of his
arms had fallen, his throat was creased.
The masseur in his undershirt bent and whispered in his ear, "It's
your son," and Dr. Adler opened his eyes into Wilhelm's face. At once
he saw the trouble in it, and by an instantaneous reflex he removed
himself from the danger of contagion, and he said, serenely, "Well, have
you taken my advice, Wilky?"
"Oh, Dad," said Wilhelm.
"-to take a swim and get a massage?"
"Did you get my note?" said Wilhelm.
"Yes, but I'm afraid you'll have to ask somebody else, because I
can't. I had no idea you were so low on funds. How did you let it
happen? Didn't you lay anything aside?"
