The Collected Stories

you won’t help me, I’m ruined. Liebkind Bendel is a goner. You can say Kaddish for me.”
    “What happened?”
    “Dr. Walden is arriving by plane. Frau Schuldiener got a telegram for Eleanor from London. He sent her a thousand kisses!”
    It took a few seconds for me to realize what was happening. “What do you want me to do?” I asked. “Disguise myself as an heiress?”
    “Oy! Have I made a mess of things! If I weren’t afraid that war would break out any day, I would run away to Europe. What shall I do? I am crazy. I should be shut up in a madhouse. Somebody has to meet him.”
    “Eleanor could be in California.”
    “But she has just assured him she was staying in the city this summer. Anyway, her address is a furnished room in the West Eighties. He will know immediately that this is not the apartment of a millionairess. He has her telephone number, and Frau Schuldiener will answer and all hell will break loose. She is a
Jaecki
and has no sense of humor.”
    “I doubt if even God could help you.”
    “What shall I do—kill myself with suicide? Until now he has been afraid to fly. Suddenly the old idiot got courage. I am ready to donate a million dollars to Rabbi Meir, the miracle worker, that his plane should fall into the ocean. But God and I are not pals. The two of us have until eight this evening.”
    “Please don’t make me a partner in your adventures.”
    “You are the only one of my friends who knows about it. Last night Friedel was so angry she threatened me with divorce. That schlemiel Dov Ben Zev is in the hospital. I telephoned the Hebraists, but Dr. Walden slighted them so long they have become his bloody enemies. He didn’t even make hotel reservations. He most probably expects Eleanor to lead him to the wedding canopy straight from the airport.”
    “Really, I cannot help you.”
    “At least let’s have breakfast together—if I can’t talk to someone, I’ll lose my mind. What time do you want to eat?”
    “I want to sleep, not to eat.”
    “Me, too. I took three pills last night. I hear that Dan Kniaster left Germany without a pfennig. He’s an old has-been of eighty-five. His sons are real Prussians, assimilationists, half converted. If war breaks out, this Dr. Walden will become a burden on my neck. And how can I explain things to him? He may get a stroke.”
    We left it that we would meet at eleven o’clock in a restaurant on Broadway. I returned to bed but not to sleep. I half dozed, half laughed to myself, playing with a solution—not because of any loyalty to Liebkind Bendel but in the same way that I sometimes tried to solve a puzzle in a newspaper.
    II

    At the restaurant, I hardly recognized Liebkind Bendel. Even though he wore a yellow jacket, a red shirt, and a tie with golden dots, his face looked as pale as after an illness. He was twisting a long cigar between his lips and he had already ordered cognac. He sat on the edge of his chair. Before I managed to sit down, he called to me. “I’ve found a way out, but you must help me. Eleanor has just perished in an airplane crash. I spoke to Frau Schuldiener and she will back me up. All you have to do is wait for that old skirt chaser at the airport and get him into a hotel. Tell him you are Eleanor’s friend or nephew. I will take a room for him and pay the bill for a month in advance. After that I am not responsible. Let him go back to London to find himself a daughter of a lord.”
    “You could pose as Eleanor’s friend as well as I.”
    “I can’t do it. He’d cling to me like a leech. What can he get from you—your manuscripts? You will spend a few hours with him and he won’t bother you any more. If worst comes to worse, I’ll pay his fare back to England. You will be saving my life and I will never forget it. Don’t give him your address. Tell him you live in Chicago or Miami. There was a time when I would have given a fortune to be in his company half an hour, but I have lost the appetite. I am afraid of him. I’m sure that the minute I see him and he utters the name Eleanor I’ll burst out laughing. As a matter of fact, I have been sitting here laughing to myself. The waiter thought I had gone out of my mind.”
    “Bendel, I cannot do it.”
    “Is this your last word?”
    “I cannot play such a farce.”
    “Well, no is no. I will have to do it, then—I’ll tell him that I am a distant cousin, a poor relation. She even supported me. What name should I take? Lipman Geiger. I had a