Читаем Fall and Rise полностью

She gets up, says “I knew you wouldn’t,” makes sure the four shopping bags at her feet are positioned against one another and the seat so they won’t fall, says “Excuse me if it’s no trouble” to the man, he moves over a couple of feet, and squeezes the levers at the top of the window but can’t get the window to move. “Mister,” she yells to Dan sitting at the other end of the car. “You’re my last hope here and not because you’re the only one left. Could you please help me close this window — it’s stuck.”

“If it’s stuck I don’t see what I could do to close it.”

“Give it a try. It might be my strength.”

“A try then.” He goes over to the window, says “Excuse me” to the man, who’s moved back under the window and now moves again to the side, presses the two sets of levers in, window won’t budge. “Seems really stuck.”

“Now you see what you did?” she says to the man.

“What I do? Fifty years of this train going down the drain and you’re blaming me? And you got heat — feel it,” and he puts his hand on the seat. “Heat, so you won’t freeze.”

“I’m an older person. My bones are brittle. I get frozen faster than you.”

“Then move to another car. There’s actually too much heat coming up, making me want to take off my sweater, so it’s nice mixed with a little fresh air.”

“But I like this car. It’s cleaner than most and who knows what’s in the other cars. And this one was the perfect temperature for me without the window opened, which is why I walked through the whole train before I came back to sit here. I have a long way to go.”

“What else can I say? I pulled a window down, now it won’t go up. Point of issue has to be finished, for if he, a big strapping man, can’t close it, there’s nothing more anyone but a train mechanic can do.”

“Maybe you have a special way with those window clickers.”

“I don’t. I put my fingers on them like you did and him.”

“Ask him to try to use his special touch again,” she says to Dan.

“I’m sure there isn’t any.”

“There isn’t,” the man says. “But what’s the difference? This train’s never leaving here, so we should all stop crying. It’ll be another one they’ll tell us to get off of and then it’ll roll out to wherever they go, probably to the next uptown station to pick up passengers, who’ll think ‘Hmm, why’s the train so empty?’” He stands, yells out the window “Hey there, we’ve been here fifteen minutes if you want to know the exact figure — either tell us to get off and you get another train here to take us, or get this one moving. Conductor there — I talked to you before about it…oh go to hell with yourselves, you’re all a pack of meat and never gave two craps for the next guy,” and he leaves the train.

“Maybe you can give it a last good try,” she says to Dan. “Sometimes the first times unloosen it.”

Dan shrugs, tries the window again, strains and gets it up two inches.

“That’ll help but not by much. That all it’ll do?”

“That’s it.” His fingers are black and sticky from some crust on the levers and underneath the top window frame. “Maybe this is the problem,” showing her his fingers. “A grime, like glue. Probably down the sides of it — where the window slides up — too.”

“I’m going to another car. I know of one almost as warm if no one there opened the windows. Want his paper? It’s Saturday’s.”

“He might come back for it.”

“With all he did we don’t deserve his paper?” She crams it into one of the shopping bags, picks up two in each hand and a long umbrella and plastic raincoat that had been behind them and goes into the next car. Odor about her. Lots of junk in the bags. Small pots, rolled-up clothing, wooden hangers, loose toggles, stacks of letters, tied-up twine and string.

Conductor rushes through the car holding a flashlight. “Anything wrong, sir?” Dan says.

“We’ll be moving in a minute,” and goes into the next car. Dan sits, shivers, tries the window, rubs what grime he can off his hands under the knee-part of his pants.

“Hold the door,” a man shouts, running down the stairs. He runs into the car, “What luck it was still waiting,” pats his chest, “This isn’t good, I shouldn’t be losing my breath like this,” sits.

“Someone, will someone please help me?” Man in the middle of the platform, turning around in one spot, tapping a white cane on the ground.

Dan looks at the man in the car. “Not me,” his face says, takes his wallet out of his side pants pocket and puts it into the back, puts his athletic bag against the window and leans his head back on it, curls in his feet, pulls the ends of his coat down over his knees and shuts his eyes. Dan gets up and stands by the door nearest the man on the platform. “Sir, what is it?”

“Good — someone. Thank you. First I want to make sure of one thing. Are we at the Seventy-second Street station?”

“Ninety-sixth and Broadway — the uptown platform.”

“What I thought. Were you here five minutes ago when the uptown express left?”

“Five minutes ago? If it did, it went completely by me.”