JAY MARTIN
613
grand , old-fas hi o ned Pa ri sian hot el apa rtment. At the Cli ch y pl ace the
look was fun cti o na l-modern , th e a rchitecture was undistin gui shed; the
interi o rs were pl a in and ang ul a r, unma rked by time o r human use.
Much as in some to ugh a reas o f New Yo rk , there was a spo t o n the way
to the apartment th a t was dangero us
to
cross a t ni ght: along the
junkyards between th e Po rte Cli ch y, with its troll ey termina ls and
ga rages, and th e beginnin g o f Cli chy itse lf. But the kitchen and
ba th room decided the issue: to Fred 's eyes these were glori ou s. The
fixtures were new , the fauce ts didn 't drip , the to il et sea t was intact, and
the bowl didn 't run a ll ni ght. In additi on , there were two bedrooms
sepa ra ted by a h a ll way, whi ch made it poss ibl e for Henry and Fred to
come and go quite sepa ra tely o r entertain fri ends priva tely. (Fred had a
youn g woman named Paul ette living with him. )
The French wo uld have sa id th at Henry had a t last establi shed a
dom ici le fixe.
But after yea rs of transience Henry could no t dare
to
ca ll
th e Cli ch y fl a t mo re than " pseudo-permanent. " Fo r Fred , so lon g
relega ted to th e sh abby and second-hand , the bourgeois modernity of
the p lace was ma rvell ous. For Henry it was a simple fin ancia l a rrange–
ment , based on the fact th a t the rent was fa r below ordin ary ho tel ra tes.
At 5, I00 francs pI us the tax at the end of the year, they cou Id a ffo rd
to
come to the agreement tha t if eith er on e lost his job the oth er wo uld
suppo rt him there.
Befo re the middl e of March 1932, they moved th eir few belong ings
into rue An ato le France. Henry, of course, promptly los t hi s job–
tho ugh no t as a direct result of any ca lcul a ti on of hi s own. As earl y as
the second o f Ma rch , th e accounting o ffi ce a t the
Tribun e
had as ked
him to put hi s Wo rk Permit on fil e. Since a rriving in Pari s he had
never regi stered fo r empl o yment. Now, when he did so, he was refused
a permit. Fo r thi s reason , before the middl e of Ma rch he received a
no ti ce o f termin a ti on from the
Tr ibune,
and two weeks later, o n the
twenty-fifth , hi s di smi ssa l came in a letter from Jul es Frantz, the
managing edito r. Tha t ni ght , durin g the break, when Henry corn ered
Jul es in Jo hnn y's Ba r and accused him of injusti ce-fo r there were a
number of Ameri cans wh o were workin g a t the
Tribune
without
permits-Frantz hun g hi s head and mutter ed some excu ses about
"economy" and promised to a ll ow Henry
to
go downsta irs as a
p roofreader aga in fo r the vaca ti on period . But though he excori a ted
Frantz, in truth Henry was secretl y g ra tifi ed . Aga in , he told himself, he
owed his sa lva tion to the French , had hi s applica ti on been g ranted , he
mi ght h ave been obli ged
to
drudge forever like Fred and Ba ld until a
