فصل 01

CHAPTER ONE

What Happened to Holly Golightly?

I sometimes visit places where I lived in the past - the houses and their neighborhoods. I like to see them again. There’s a brown stone house in the East Seventies where, during the early years of the war, I had my first New York apartment. It was one room, crowded with an old red sofa and red chairs. The walls were dark and dirty from old cigarette smoke. The single window looked out onto a fire escape, a stairway that went down to the street. It wasn’t a big place but it made me happy. It was my first home, and my books were there, and a box of pencils. Everything that a writer needed, I thought.

I didn’t write about Holly Golightly in those days. I’m only writing about her now because of a conversation that I had with Joe Bell.

Holly Golightly was another tenant in the old brown stone house, in the apartment below mine. Joe Bell had a bar around the corner; he’s still there. Both Holly and I went there six or seven times every day, not for a drink - not always - but to make telephone calls. During the war few people had a private telephone. Joe Bell took messages for us. Holly got a lot of messages.

Of course, this was a long time ago. I didn’t see Joe Bell for years, not until last week. We weren’t close friends but we were both friends of Holly Golightly.

It isn’t easy to like Joe. He isn’t married and he has a bad stomach. He’s hard to talk to, except about his own interests. Holly is one of his interests; the others are dogs, a radio program that he’s listened to every week for fifteen years, and musical theater.

Late last Tuesday afternoon, the telephone rang and I heard Joe Bell’s voice.

I knew he was calling about Holly. He just said, “Can you come over here? It’s important.” There was excitement in his voice.

I took a taxi through the October rain and on the way I thought about Holly. Was she there? Was she in Joe’s bar?

But there was no one in the bar except Joe. His place is very quiet. It doesn’t have bright lights or a television.

“I want your opinion about something,” he said. “Something very strange has happened.”

“Have you heard from Holly?”

Joe is a small man with a fine head of thick, white hair. His face is always a little red: now it went even redder. “I didn’t hear from her. Not exactly. That’s why I want your opinion. I’ll pour you a drink.”

As I was drinking, he said, “Do you remember Mr. I.Y. Yunioshi? A man from Japan?”

I remembered Mr. Yunioshi perfectly. He takes photos for one of the picture magazines. He lived in an apartment on the top floor of the old house at the same time as Holly and I.

“He came here last night. I haven’t seen him for more than two years. And where was he for those two years?”

“Africa.”

Joe looked at me, surprised. “How do you know?”

“I read it in a magazine.”

Joe gave me an envelope. In the envelope were three photos of a tall African man wearing a cotton skirt. There was a strange, wood carving of a girl’s head in his hands. Her hair was very short. Her smooth, wooden eyes were too large and her mouth was too big. Was it a carving of Holly Golightly?

“What do you think of that?” Joe asked.

“It looks like her.”

“Listen, boy, it is her. Mr. Yunioshi knew her immediately.”

“He saw her? In Africa?”

“No, just the carving. But it’s the same thing. Look.” Joe turned over one of the photos. On the back was written: Wood carving, Tococul, Christmas Day, 1956.

This was the story. On Christmas Day, Mr. Yunioshi walked through Tococul with his camera. It was a small place, just a few houses. He was leaving when he saw the African.

The African was sitting outside a house, carving a piece of wood. Mr. Yunioshi liked his work.

“Show me more of your carvings,” he said. Then he saw the girl’s head.

“I want to buy this,” Mr. Yunioshi said to the African.

“No,” the African replied.

Mr. Yunioshi offered him a pound of salt and ten dollars, then offered him a watch, two pounds of salt, and twenty dollars. The African refused to sell. But for the watch and the salt he agreed to talk about the carving.

“‘Three white people rode here on horses in the spring. A young woman and two men. The men were sick, and for many weeks they slept in a small house far from here. The girl liked me and she slept with me.’”

“I don’t believe that part of the story,” Joe Bell said. “I don’t think she slept with him.”

“And then?” I asked.

“Then nothing,” Joe said. “She rode away with the two men. Mr. Yunioshi asked about her up and down the country. But nobody saw her.”

I wasn’t happy with his story. “Mr. Yunioshi’s story doesn’t tell us anything,” I said.

“It’s the only real news that we’ve had about her for years,” Joe said. “I hope she’s rich. If she’s traveling in Africa, she’s OK.”

“She’s probably not in Africa,” I said. But I could imagine her there. It was a place that she would like. I looked at the photos again.

“If you know so much, where is she?” Joe asked.

“Dead. Or in a hospital for crazy people. Or married. I think she’s married. She’s living quietly, here in New York.”

Joe thought for a minute. “No,” he said. “I like to walk. I’ve walked these streets for ten or twelve years. I look for her all the time and I never see her… Do you think I’m crazy?”

“No. But I didn’t know you loved her.”

My words hurt Joe and I felt bad. He picked up the photos and put them back into the envelope. I looked at my watch. I wanted to leave.

“Wait,” Joe said. “Of course I loved her. But I didn’t want to touch her. I’m almost sixty-seven and I still think about sex. But I didn’t want to sleep with Holly. You can love someone but not want them in that way. You stay strangers, strangers who are friends.”

Two men came into the bar. It was time to leave. Joe followed me to the door. “Do you believe it?” he asked.

“That you didn’t want to touch her?”

“About Africa.”

For a minute I couldn’t remember the story, just the thought of her on the horse. “She’s gone,” I said.

“Yes,” he said, opening the door. “She’s gone.”

Outside, the rain stopped, so I walked around the corner and along the street. I went past the old apartment building. The building stands next to a church in the middle of the block. It’s smarter now, with a black painted door and new windows.

I went up the steps and looked at the mailboxes. I knew none of the names, except Mrs. Sapphia Spanella’s. She still lived there.

One of these mailboxes first introduced me to Holly Golightly.

A week after I moved into the apartment, I noticed a card next to the mailbox for Apartment 2. It was smartly printed, but there was a strange message on it. It said: Miss Holiday Golightly, and, below that, in the corner, Traveling. I thought about it a lot: Miss Holiday Golightly, Traveling.

One night, long after midnight, I woke up. Mr. Yunioshi was calling down the stairs. He lived on the top floor, and his voice sounded through the house.

“Miss Golightly!” he shouted, angrily.

I heard a voice from the bottom of the stairs. It was young, amused, and silly. “Oh, darling, I am sorry. I lost my key.”

“You cannot ring my bell every night. Please get another key.”

“But I lose them all.”

“I work. I have to sleep,” Mr. Yunioshi shouted. “But you are always ringing my bell…”

“Oh, don’t be angry, you dear little man. I won’t do it again.” Her voice was coming nearer because she was climbing the stairs. “Promise you won’t be angry. Then you can take those photos that we talked about.”

I left my bed and opened the door a little.

“When?” Mr. Yunioshi asked. His voice was excited now.

The girl laughed. “One day,” she answered. The words were unclear. She was drunk.

“Any time,” Mr. Yunioshi said, and closed his door.

I went out into the hall and looked down. She was on the stairs. I could see her but she couldn’t see me. Her short hair shone in the light, yellow and brown. It was a warm evening, almost summer, and she wore a light black dress and black shoes. She was thin but healthy-looking. Her mouth was large and a pair of dark glasses covered her eyes. She wasn’t a child - but she wasn’t a woman, either. I learned later that it was two months before her nineteenth birthday.

She wasn’t alone. There was a man behind her. He was short and fat, wearing a suit. His hand was on her back, holding her with his fat fingers. That made me uncomfortable - it just looked strange.

When they reached her door, she looked in her purse for her key. Now he was kissing the back of her neck. She found the key, opened the door, and turned to him.

“Thank you for bringing me home, darling. That was kind.”

“Hey, baby!” he said. She was closing the door in his face.

“Yes, Harry?”

“Harry was the other guy. I’m Sid. Sid Arbuck. You like me.”

“I love you, Mr. Arbuck. But good night, Mr Arbuck.” She shut the door.

“Hey, baby, let me in. You like me. I paid the check for five people, your friends! So you like me, right? You like me, baby.”

He knocked on the door quietly, then more loudly. Then he stepped back. Did he plan to break down the door? But he ran down the stairs, hitting the wall angrily with his hand. When he reached the bottom, the girl opened her apartment door.

“Oh, Mr. Arbuck…”

He turned back to her, a happy smile on his face.

“The next time a girl asks for some money for the bathroom, darling, don’t give her twenty-five cents!” She wasn’t joking.