THALIA SELl
385
in the back, and stuffed him full of
dolmades
while he tried val–
iantly but without success then and for the rest of their friend–
ship, which lasted until one of them died, to teach Athos a new
catechism.
One Saturday evening shortly after Franklin Delano
Roosevelt had been elected President, Athos was sitting in his
usual chair back near the kitchen and loudly slurping up his
courtesy-of-the-house egg-lemon soup. He had no table manners
because his parents had never taken the time to teach him any; if
they had been asked why and had been able
to
articulate the rea–
son, they would have said that they were concentrating on more
important matters than the
manner
in which the boy ate; they
were trying to make sure that he had food to eat. Athos was eat–
ing with his usual sucking and smacking noises, rather like
those a very large baby would make, and trying to read the Greek
newspaper Moscow had saved for him when he gradually be–
came aware that something else was vying for his attention–
namely the loud voice of a man with thick black hair that hung
below his ears and a nose whose mild but definite arch reminded
Athos of pictures he had seen of the new George Washington
Bridge in New York City. The man was holding forth at a long
table, and he was making so much noise that Athos found it hard
to
concentrate on his newspaper. He had never got over his
fondness for libraries and his librarian habits, and shy though he
was, he almost got up
to
tell the fellow
to
be quiet so that other
people could read. And of course eat.
There was a pretty woman sitting beside the man. She wore
a felt hat with a brim, but when she turned Athos could see that
she had narrow hazel eyes and a high color in her cheeks, proba–
bly from the bitter north wind now sweeping down Halsted
Street bearing the first snows of winter. Athos shivered and
glanced up at his thin woolen coat hanging on a hook beside his
table. He wished he could find money for a new second-hand
winter coat in one of the shops over on Maxwell Street and a pair
of rubber galoshes, too. When he curled his toes inside his shoes
he could feel the rough edges of the cardboard soles he had cut to
the shape of his feet and slipped inside his shoes so he wouldn't
have
to
worry about where to find the money for resoling them
just yet. Tomorrow would be the first of the month, when the
rent on his furnished room was due. Where could he get that five
