The People

by Bernard Malamud

  “Ah,” he sighed, as he walked along, “with my experience, what a book I could really write!”

  1943

  The Grocery Store

  THEY SAT in the kitchen in the rear of the grocery store, and Rosen, the salesman from G. and S., chewing a cigar stump in the corner of his mouth, quickly and monotonously read off the items from a mimeographed list that was clipped to the inside cover of his large pink-sheeted order book. Ida Kaplan, her small, fleshy chin raised, was listening attentively as Rosen read this week’s specials and their prices. She looked up, annoyed at her husband, whose eyes showed that he wasn’t listening.

  “Sam,” she called sharply, “listen please to Rosen.”

  “I’m listening,” said Sam absently. He was a heavy man with thick, sloping shoulders and graying hair which looked grayer still in the glare of the large, unshaded electric bulb. The sharp light bothered his eyes, and water constantly trickled over his reddened eyelids. He was tired and he yawned ceaselessly.

  Rosen stopped for a minute and smiled cynically at the grocer. The salesman shifted his large body into a more comfortable position on the backless chair and automatically continued to drone forth the list of grocery items: “G. and S. grape jam, $1.80 a dozen; G. and S. grape jelly, $1.60 a dozen; Gulden’s mustard, $2.76 a carton; G. and S. canned grapefruit juice Number 2, $1.00 a dozen; Heckers flour, 31/2 lbs., $2.52 a half barrel—”

  Rosen stopped abruptly, removed his cigar, and said, “Well, whaddayasay, Sam, you gonna order one item at least?”

  “Read,” said Sam, stirring a bit, “I’m listening.”

  “You listening, yes,” said Ida, “but you not thinking.”

  Rosen gripped the wet cigar butt between his teeth and went on reading: “Kippered herrings, $2.40 a dozen; Jell-O, 65¢ a dozen; junket, $1.00 a dozen.”

  Sam forced himself to listen for a moment, then his mind wandered. What was the use? True, the shelves were threadbare and the store needed goods, but how could he afford to place an order? Ever since the A&P supermarket had moved into the neighborhood, he had done less than half his original business. The store was down to $160 a week, just barely enough to pay for rent, gas, electricity, and a few other expenses. A dull feeling of misery gnawed at his heart. Eighteen hours a day, from 6:00 a.m. to midnight, sitting in the back of a grocery store waiting for a customer to come in for a bottle of milk and a loaf of bread and maybe—maybe a can of sardines. Nineteen impoverished years in the grocery business to this end. Nineteen years of standing on his feet for endless hours until the blue veins bulged out of his legs and grew hard and stiff so that every step he took was a step of pain. For what? For what, dear God? The feeling of misery crept to his stomach. Sam shivered. He felt sick.

  “Sam,” cried Ida, “listen, for godsake.”

  “I’m listening,” Sam said, in a loud, annoyed tone.

  Rosen looked up in surprise. “I read the whole list,” he declared.

  “I heard,” Sam said.

  “So what did you decide to order?” asked Ida.

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing!” she cried shrilly.

  In disgust, Rosen snapped his order book shut. He put on his woolen muffler and began to button his overcoat.

  “Jack Rosen takes the trouble to come out on a windy, snowy February night and he don’t even get an order for a lousy box of matches. That’s a nice how-d’ye-do,” he said sarcastically.

  “Sam, we need goods,” said Ida.

  “So how’ll we pay for the goods—with toothpicks?”

  Ida grew angry. “Please,” she said haughtily, “please, to me you will speak with respect. I wasn’t brought up in my father’s house a grocer should—you’ll excuse me—a grocer should spit on me every time he talks.”

  “She’s right,” said Rosen.

  “Who asked you?” Sam said, looking up at the salesman.

  “I’m talking for your own good,” said Rosen.

  “Please,” said Sam, “you’ll be quiet. You are a salesman of groceries, not a counselor of human relations.”

  “It happens that I am also a human being.”

  “This is not the point,” Sam declared. “I’m doing business with Rosen, the salesman, not the human being, if any.”

  Rosen quickly snatched his hat off the table. “What business?” he cried. “Who’s doing business? On a freezing February night in winter I leave my wife and child and my warm house and drive twelve miles through the snow and the ice to give you a chance to fill up your fly-specked shelves with some goods, and you act like you’re doing me a favor to say no. To hell with such business. It’s not for Jack Rosen.”

  “Rosen,” said Sam, looking at him calmly, “in my eyes you are common.”

  “Common?” spluttered the salesman. “I’m common?” he asked in astonishment. His manner changed. He slipped his book into the briefcase, snapped it shut, and gripped the handle with his gloved hand. “What’s the use,” he said philosophically. “Why should Jack Rosen waste his time talking to a two-bit grocer who don’t think enough of his place of business to wash the windows or to sweep the snow off the sidewalk so that a customer can come in? Such a person is a peasant in his heart. He belongs in czarist Russia. The advantages of the new world he don’t understand or appreciate.”

  “A philosopher,” sneered Sam, “a G. and S. wholesale groceries’ philosopher.”

  The salesman snatched up his bag and strode out of the store. He slammed the front door hard. Several cans in the window toppled and fell.

  Ida looked at her husband with loathing. Her small, stout body trembled with indignation.

  “His every word was like it come from God,” she said vehemently. “Who ever saw a man should sit in the back of the store all day long and never go inside, maybe to wipe off the shelves or clean out under the counter the boxes, or to think how to improve his store a customer should come in?”

  Sam said nothing.

  “Who ever heard there should be a grocer,” continued Ida, shaking her head scornfully, “who don’t think enough about his place of business and his wife, he should go outside and sweep off the snow from the sidewalk a customer should be able to come to the door. It’s a shame and a disgrace that a man with a place of business is so lazy he won’t get up from a chair. A shame and a disgrace.”

  “Enough,” said Sam quietly.

  “I deserve better,” she said, raising her voice.

  “Enough,” he said again.

  “Get up,” she cried. “Get up and clean the sidewalk.”

  He turned to her angrily. “Please,” he cried, “don’t give me orders.”

  Ida rose and stood near his chair. “Sam, clean of the sidewalk,” she shouted in her shrill voice.

  “Shut up!” he shouted.

  “Clean off the sidewalk!” Her voice was thick with rage.

  “Shut up,” he roared, rising angrily. “Shut up, you bastard, you.”

  Ida looked at him uncomprehendingly; then her lips twisted grotesquely, her cheeks bunched up like a gargoyle’s, and her body shook with sobs as the hot tears flowed. She sank down into her chair, lowered her head on her arms, and cried with a bitter squealing sound.

  Sam groaned inwardly. The words had leaped from his tongue, and now she was crying again. The miserable feeling ground itself into his bones. He cursed the store and his profitless life.

  “Where’s the shovel?” he asked, defeated.

  She did not look up.

  He searched for it in the store and found it in the hallway near the cellar door. Sam bounced the shovel against the floor to shake off the cobwebs and then went outside.

  The icy February wind wrapped him in a tight, cold jacket, and the frozen snow on the ground gripped his feet like a steel vise. His apron flapped, and the wind blew his thin hair into his eyes. A wave of desperation rolled over him, but he fought against it. Sam bent over, scooped up a pile of snow, and heaved it into the gutter, where it fell and broke. His face was whipped int
o an icy ruddiness, and cold water ran from his eyes.

  Mr. Fine, a retired policeman, one of Sam’s customers, trudged by, heavily bundled up.

  “For godsake, Sam,” he boomed in his loud voice, “put on something warm.”

  The tenants on the top floor, a young Italian couple, came out of the house on their way to the movies. “You’ll catch pneumonia, Mr. Kaplan,” said Mrs. Costa.

  “That’s what I told him,” Mr. Fine called back.

  “At least put a coat on, Sam,” advised Patsy Costa.

  “I’m almost through,” Sam grunted.

  “It’s your health,” said Patsy. He and his wife pushed their way through the wind and the snow, going to the movies. Sam continued to shovel up the snow and heave it into the gutter.

  When he finished cleaning the sidewalk, Sam was half frozen. His nose was running and his eyes were bleary. He went inside quickly. The warmth of the store struck him so hard that the back of his head began to ache, and he knew at once that he had made a mistake in not putting on an overcoat and gloves. He reeled and suddenly felt weak, as if his bones had dissolved and were no longer holding up his body. Sam leaned against the counter to keep himself from falling. When the dizziness went away, he dragged the wet shovel across the floor and put it back in the hall.

  Ida was no longer crying. Her eyes were red and she looked away from him as he came into the kitchen. Sam still felt cold. He moved his chair close to the stove and picked up the Jewish paper, but his eyes were so tired that he could not make out the words. He closed them and let the paper slip to the floor. The overpowering warmth of the stove thawed out his chilled body, and he grew sleepy. As he was dozing off, he heard the front door open. With a start, Sam opened his eyes to see if Ida had gone inside. No, she sat at the table in frigid silence. His eyelids shut and opened again. Sam rose with an effort and shuffled into the store. The customer wanted a loaf of bread and ten cents’ worth of store cheese. Sam waited on her and returned to his place by the stove. He closed his eyes again and sneezed violently. His nose was running. As he was searching for his handkerchief, the store door opened again.

  “Go inside,” he said to Ida, “I must take a aspirin.”

  She did not move.

  “I have a cold,” he said.

  She gave no sign that she had heard.

  With a look of disgust, he walked into the store and waited on the customer. In the kitchen, he began to sneeze again. Sam shook two aspirins out of the bottle and lifted them to his mouth with his palm, then he drank some water. As he sat down by the stove, he felt the cold grip him inside and he shivered.

  “I’m sick,” he said to his wife, but Ida paid no attention to him.

  “I’m sick,” he repeated miserably. “I’m going upstairs to sleep. Maybe tomorrow I’ll feel a little better.”

  “If you go upstairs now,” Ida said, with her back turned toward him, “I will not go in the store.”

  “So don’t go,” he said angrily.

  “I will not come downstairs tomorrow,” she threatened coldly.

  “So don’t come down,” he said brokenly. “The way I feel, I hope the store drops dead. Nineteen years is enough. I can’t stand any more. My heart feels dried up. I suffered too much in my life.”

  He went into the hall. She could hear his slow, heavy footsteps on the stairs and the door closing upstairs.

  Ida looked at the clock. It was ten-thirty. For a moment she was tempted to close the store, but she decided not to. The A&P was closed. It was the only time they could hope to make a few cents. She thought about her life and grew despondent. After twenty-two years of married life, a cold flat and an impoverished grocery store. She looked out at the store, hating every inch of it, the dirty window, the empty shelves, showing old brown wallpaper where there were no cans, the old-fashioned wooden icebox, the soiled marble counters, the hard floor, the meagerness, the poverty, and the hard years of toil—for what?—to be insulted by a man without understanding or appreciation of her sacrifices, and to be left alone while he went upstairs to sleep. She could hear the wind blowing outside and she felt cold. The stove needed to be shaken and filled with coal, but she was too tired. Ida decided to close the store. It wasn’t worth keeping open. Better for her to go to sleep and come down as late as she chose tomorrow. Let him have to prepare his own breakfast and dinner. Let him wash the kitchen floor and scrub out the icebox. Let him do all the things she did, then he would learn how to speak to her. She locked the front door, put out the window lights, and pulled the cord of each ceiling lamp, extinguishing the light, as she made her way toward the hall door.

  Suddenly she heard a sharp tapping against the store window. Ida looked out and saw the dark form of a man who was rapping a coin against the glass.

  A bottle of milk, thought Ida.

  “Tomorrow,” she called out. “The store is now closed.”

  The man stopped for a second, and she thought with relief that he was going away, but once again he began to rap the coin sharply and insistently. He waved his hands and shouted at her. A woman joined him.

  “Mrs. Kaplan!” she called, “Mrs. Kaplan!”

  Ida recognized Mrs. Costa. A great fright tore at her heart, and she rushed over to the door.

  “What’s the matter?” she cried when she opened it.

  “Gas,” said Patsy. “Gas in the hall. Where’s Sam?”

  “Oh, my God,” cried Ida, pressing her hands against her bosom. “Oh, my God,” she cried, “Sam is upstairs.”

  “Gimme the key, quick,” said Patsy.

  “Give him the key, Mrs. Kaplan,” said Mrs. Costa excitedly.

  Ida grew faint. “Oh, my God,” she cried.

  “Gimme the key,” Patsy repeated urgently.

  Ida found it in the pocket of her sweater and handed it to Patsy. He ran upstairs, two steps at a time, his wife running after him. Ida closed the store and followed them upstairs. The odor of gas was heavy.

  “Oh, my God,” she cried over and over again.

  Patsy was opening all the windows, and his wife was shaking Sam in his bed. The sharp heavy stink of the gas tore at Ida’s nostils as she came into the room.

  “Sam!” she shrieked, “Sam!”

  He woke from his sleep with a shock. “What’s the matter?” he cried, his voice filled with fear.

  “Oh, why did you do it?” cried Mrs. Costa in the dark. “Why did you do it?”

  “I thank God he’s alive,” said Patsy.

  Ida moaned and squeezed her hands against her bosom.

  “What’s the matter?” cried Sam. Then he smelled the gas, and for a moment he was paralyzed with fright.

  Patsy put on the light. Sam’s face was a dark red. He was perspiring from every pore. He pulled up the quilt to cover his shoulders.

  “Why did you do it for, Sam?” asked Patsy.

  “What? What?” Sam said excitedly, “what did I do?”

  “The gas. You turned on the gas radiator without making the light.”

  “It wasn’t lit?” cried Sam in astonishment.

  “No,” said Mrs. Costa.

  Sam grew quieter. He lay back. “I made a mistake,” he said. “This is the first time I made such a mistake.”

  “Didn’t you do it on purpose?” asked Mrs. Costa.

  “What on purpose? Why on purpose?” Sam asked.

  “We thought—”

  “No,” said Sam, “no, I made a mistake. Maybe the match was no good.”

  “Then you shoulda smelled the gas,” said Patsy.

  “No, I got a cold.”

  “The only thing that saved you was you got a lot of air. You’re lucky this flat ain’t windproof.”

  “Yes, I’m lucky,” Sam agreed.

  “I told you to put on a coat,” said Mrs. Costa. “He was standing out in the snow without a coat,” she said to Ida.

  Ida was pale and silent.

  “Well, come on,” said Patsy, taking his wife by the arm, “everybody wants to go to sleep.”


  “Good night,” said Mrs. Costa.

  “Leave the windows open for a coupla minutes more, and don’t light no matches,” advised Patsy.

  “I’m much obliged to you for your trouble you took,” said Sam.

  “Don’t mention it at all,” said Patsy, “but next time take more care.”

  “It was a mistake,” said Sam. “Nothing more, I assure you.”

  The Costas left. Ida saw them to the door and turned the lock. Sam covered himself more securely with the quilt. The house was freezing with the windows open. He was afraid he would begin to sneeze again. Ida said nothing. Sam fell asleep very soon.

  Ida waited until the house was free of the smell of gas. Then she closed the windows. Before undressing, she looked at the radiator and saw that the stopcock was closed. She got into bed, utterly fatigued, and fell asleep immediately.

  It seemed to Ida that she had slept only a short time when she awoke suddenly. Frightened, she looked at Sam, but he was bulked up beside her with the covers over his head. She listened to his deep, heavy breathing, and the momentary fear left her. Ida was fully awake now, and the events of the day tumbled quickly through her brain. She thought of the episode of the gas, and a sharp streak of pain ripped through every nerve in her body. Had Sam really tried to take his life? Had he? She wanted to wake him and ask him, but she was afraid. She turned over and tried to sleep again, but she couldn’t.

  Ida reached over to the night table and looked at the luminous face of the clock. It was four-twenty-five. The alarm would ring at six. Sam would get up and she would ask him, then maybe she could sleep. She closed her eyes, but still no sleep came. She opened them and kept them open.

  A faint tinkling on the window caused her to look out. By the light of the street lamp she could see that it was snowing again. The flakes drifted down slowly and silently. They seemed to hang in the air, then the wind rose and blew them against the windows. The windows rattled softly; then everything became quiet again, except for the ticking of the clock.