Read Online Ellis Island & Other Stories by Mark Helprin - Free Book Online Page A

herring, vegetables still fresh and spotted with earth from Hudson Valley farms. They went into a workmen’s cafe. It was the only time Martin had ever drunk coffee. The proprietor put so much extra milk in it that he had to charge Mr. Bayer another nickel, but Martin didn’t know, and, despite his size, tried to blend with the crowd by pretending that he was a grown man.
    They drove at 23 m.p.h. because their mechanic had told them that if they didn’t the engine would burn out. Martin liked the way the engine sounded, rolling over and around itself like a player piano. The sound of machines was like the rising of the sun on a winter morning, full of promise, relief, and lightheartedness. Martin liked so many things that he could not open his eyes without a pleasant inrush. And he was prone to fits of laughter. Once, they had dressed him up and taken him to a concert hall near the Park. Martin thought it was wonderful—the airy echoing ballroom, a view of dark-green citified trees, a mixture of expensive perfumes, and miles of silver trays with a thousand pounds of what Martin termed “complexly baked sculpture cookies.” After eating thirty or forty of these and quenching his thirst with four or five cups of champagne punch, Martin thought the world was a paradise. He took his seat while the musicians tuned their instruments. He was just beginning to fall asleep when an enormous fat woman suddenly appeared from behind a curtain and began to scream and squeak. Her teeth stuck way out of her mouth, and after the especially long and voluminous squeaks, she looked proud and delighted. At first, Martin was dumbfounded. Then he began to giggle, keeping it down until the muscles in his throat and abdomen felt as if they were sweating fire. The pain and tension were such that he started to get serious, when Lydia, afraid of being deathly embarrassed, decided to inflict a minor torture on him to stop the oncoming explosion. This she did by reaching from behind and driving her fingers into his ribs. Overflowing, caught by surprise, and got from behind, Martin shrieked with such force that people all around him jumped in their seats. A storm of laughter then issued from him. Unable to catch his breath, he rolled on the floor in such enviable enjoyment that the rest of the hall found it wonderfully amusing, even when Mr. Bayer swatted him and carried him, still doubled over, out the French doors into the greenery.
    Recognizing her role in the disaster, and that it had cost Martin his allowance and several outings, Lydia took him to the aquarium. Of course he was delighted, but, as they tiptoed through the slimy galleries, he thought she was crazy. “How do you know they’re looking at you?” he asked.
    “How do I know who’s looking?” replied Lydia.
    “I don’t care if people look at me,” said Martin, “but you think boys look at you all the time. That’s why you walk around like a statue.” He imitated her straight oblivious stare, which made her look as if she had a neck injury, and, not understanding her lovely self-consciousness, he was soon lost in consideration of green water, gliding sharks, giant sea turtles jetting along with glinting paddle fins, the humidity on the face of the jewel-like tanks, and the feeling of the water’s mass and weight behind the thick glass. He had worn a blue sailor suit, and he had dashed from place to place.
    On the Brooklyn side, once the Bayers had viewed Manhattan from the air and seen a landscape of chimneys and brown stone, they passed a faraway group of wan naked swimmers scattered at the foot of piers and embankments (as if they had been thrown there) and soaring from towers and walls into the swirling water. Martin stared at the swimmers with a near-pickled eye. The pleasure was beckoning and indefatigable, but he leaned back to watch the trees passing overhead on a river of blue. He remembered how in winter they went up on Riverside Drive to watch little steam ferries