Free Manhattan Transfer by John Dos Passos Page B

pickled, and dont you bring any friends or women or anything. I’m in right with the landlady and I dont want to spoil it… Tu comprends.’
    ‘But I wanted you to come on a swell party… Faut faire un peu la noce, nom de dieu!…’
    ‘I got to work in the morning.’
    ‘But I got eight months’ pay in my pocket…
    ‘Anyway come round tomorrow at about six. I’ll wait for you.’
    ‘Tu m’emmerdes tu sais avec tes manières;’ Congo aimed a jet of saliva at the spittoon in the corner of the bar and turned back frowning into the inside room.
    ‘Hay dere sit down Congo; Barney’s goin to sing de Bastard King of England.’
    Emile jumped on a streetcar and rode uptown. At Eighteenth Street he got off and walked west to Eighth Avenue. Two doors from the corner was a small store. Over one window was C ONFISERIE, over the other D ELICATESSEN. In the middle of the glass door white enamel letters read Emile Rigaud, High Class Table Dainties. Emile went in. The bell jangled on the door. A dark stout woman with black hairs over the corners of her mouth was drowsing behind the counter. Emile took off his hat. ‘Bonsoir Madame Rigaud.’ She looked up with a start, then showed two dimples in a profound smile.
    ‘Tieng c’est comma ça qu’ong oublie ses ami-es,’ she said in a booming Bordelais voice. ‘Here’s a week that I say to myself, Monsieur Loustec is forgetting his friends.’
    ‘I never have any time any more.’
    ‘Lots of work, lots of money, heing?’ When she laughed her shoulders shook and the big breasts under the tight blue bodice.
    Emile screwed up one eye. ‘Might be worse… But I’m sick of waiting… It’s so tiring; nobody regards a waiter.’
    ‘You are a man of ambition, Monsieur Loustec’.
    ‘Que voulez vous?’ He blushed, and said timidly ‘My name’s Emile.’
    Mme. Rigaud rolled her eyes towards the ceiling. ‘That was my dead husband’s name. I’m used to that name.’ She sighed heavily.
    ‘And how’s business?’
    ‘Comma ci comma ça… Ham’s gone up again.’
    ‘It’s the Chicago ring’s doing that… A corner in pork, that’s the way to make money.’
    Emile found Mme. Rigaud’s bulgy black eyes probing his. ‘I enjoyed your singing so last time… I’ve thought of it often…Music does one good dont it?’ Mme. Rigaud’s dimples stretched and stretched as she smiled. ‘My poor husband had no ear… That gave me a great deal of pain.’
    ‘Couldn’t you sing me something this evening?’
    ‘If you want me to, Emile?… But there is nobody to wait on customers.’
    ‘I’ll run in when we hear the bell, if you will permit me.’
    ‘Very well… I’ve learned a new American song… C’est chic vous savez.’
    Mme. Rigaud locked the till with a key from the bunch that hung at her belt and went through the glass door in the back of the shop. Emile followed with his hat in his hand.
    ‘Give me your hat Emile.’
    ‘Oh dont trouble yourself.’
    The room beyond was a little parlor with yellow flowered wallpaper, old salmon pink portières and, under the gas-bracket from which hung a bunch of crystals, a piano with photographs on it. The pianostool creaked when Mme. Rigaud sat down. She ran her fingers over the keys. Emile sat carefully on the very edge of the chair beside the piano with his hat on his knees and pushed his face forward so that as she played she could see it out of the corner of her eye tilted up towards hers. Madame Rigaud began to sing:
    Just a birrd in a geelded cage
A beauteeful sight to see
You’d tink se vas ’appee
And free from all care
Se’s not zo se seems to be…
    The bell on the door of the shop jangled loud.
    ‘Permettez,’ cried Emile running out.
    ‘Half a pound o bolony sausage sliced,’ said a little girl with pigtails. Emile passed the knife across the palm of his hand and sliced the sausage carefully. He tiptoed back into the parlor and put the money on the edge of the piano. Madame Rigaud was still