The Assistant

by Bernard Malamud

  “Feel better,” he said sitting up, but she didn’t reply and at last left. He went quickly into the store, once he was sure she was upstairs. His wallet contained a five-dollar bill and a single, and he planned to put it all back in the register, which would leave him only with a few coins in his pocket but tomorrow was payday anyway. After ringing up the six bucks, to erase the evidence of an unlikely sale he rang up “no sale.” Frank then felt a surge of joy at what he had done and his eyes misted. In the back he drew off his shoe, got out the card, and subtracted six dollars from the total amount he owed. He figured he could pay it all up in a couple-three months, by taking out of the bank the money—about eighty bucks—that was left there, returning it bit by bit, and when that was all used up, giving back part of his weekly salary till he had the debt squared. The trick was to get the money back without arousing anybody’s suspicion he was putting in the drawer more than the business was earning.

  While he was still in a good mood over what he had done, Helen called up.

  “Frank,” she said, “are you alone? If not say wrong number and hang up.”

  “I am alone.”

  “Have you seen how nice it is today? I went for a walk at lunchtime and it feels like spring has arrived.”

  “It’s still in February. Don’t take your coat off too soon.”

  “After Washington’s Birthday winter loses its heart. Do you smell the wonderful air?”

  “Not right now.”

  “Get outside in the sun,” she said, “it’s warm and wonderful.”

  “Why did you call me for?” he asked.

  “Must I have an excuse to call?” she said softly.

  “You never do.”

  “I called because I wished I were seeing you tonight instead of Nat.”

  “You don’t have to go out with him if you don’t want to.”

  “I’d better, because of my mother.”

  “Change it to some other time.”

  She thought a minute then said she had better to get it over with.

  “Do it any way you like.”

  “Frank, do you think we could meet after I see Nat—maybe at half past eleven, or twelve at the latest? Would you like to meet me then?”

  “Sure, but what’s it all about?”

  “I’ll tell you when I see you,” she said with a little laugh. “Should we meet on the Parkway or our regular place in front of the lilac trees?”

  “Wherever you say. The park is okay.”

  “I really hate to go there since my mother followed us.”

  “Don’t worry about that, honey.” He said, “Have you got something nice to tell me?”

  “Very nice,” Helen said.

  He thought he knew what it was. He thought he would carry her like a bride up to his room, then when it was over carry her down so she could go up alone without fear her mother suspected where she had been.

  Just then Morris came into the store so he hung up. The grocer inspected the figure in the cash register and the satisfying sum there set him sighing. By Saturday they would surely have two-forty or fifty, but it wouldn’t be that high any more once the Norwegians opened up.

  Noticing Morris peering at the register under the yellow flame of his match, Frank remembered that all he had left on him was about seventy cents. He wished Helen had called him before he had put back the six bucks in the drawer. If it rained tonight they might need a cab to get home from the park, or maybe if they went up in his room she would be hungry after and want a pizza or something. Anyway, he could borrow a buck from her if he needed it. He also thought of asking Louis Karp for a little loan but didn’t like to.

  Morris went out for his Forward and spread it before him on the table, but he wasn’t reading. He was thinking how distracted he was about the future. While he was upstairs, he had lain in bed trying to think of ways to cut down his expenses. He had thought of the fifteen dollars weekly he paid Frank and had worried over how large the sum was. He had also thought of Helen being kissed by the clerk, and of Ida’s warnings, and all this had worked on his nerves. He seriously considered telling Frank to go but couldn’t make the decision to. He wished he had let him go long ago.

  Frank had decided he didn’t like to ask Helen for any money—it wasn’t a nice thing to do with a girl you liked. He thought it was better to take a buck out of the register drawer, out of the amount he had just put back. He wished he had paid back the five and kept himself the one-buck bill.

  Morris sneaked a glance at his clerk sitting on the couch. Recalling the time he had sat in the barber’s chair, watching the customers coming out of the grocery with big bags, he felt uneasy. I wonder if he steals from me, he thought. The question filled him with dread because he had asked it of himself many times yet had never answered it with certainty.

  He saw through the window in the wall that a woman had come into the store. Frank got up from the couch. “I’ll take this one, Morris.”

  Morris spoke to his newspaper. “I got anyway something to clean up in the cellar.”

  “What have you got there?”

  “Something.”

  When Frank walked behind the counter, Morris went down into the cellar but didn’t stay there. He stole up the stairs and stationed himself behind the hall door. Peering through a crack in the wood, he clearly saw the woman and heard her ordering. He added up the prices of the items as she ordered them.

  The bill came to $1.81. When Frank rang up the money, the grocer held his breath for a painful second, then stepped inside the store.

  The customer, hugging her bag of groceries, was on her way out of the front door. Frank had his hand under his apron, in his pants pocket. He gazed at the grocer with a startled expression. The amount rung up on the cash register was eighty-one cents.

  Morris groaned within himself.

  Frank, though tense with shame, pretended nothing was wrong. This enraged Morris. “The bill was a dollar more, why did you ring a dollar less?”

  The clerk, after a time of long agony, heard himself say, “It’s just a mistake, Morris.”

  “No,” thundered the grocer. “I heard behind the hall door how much you sold her. Don’t think I don’t know you did many times the same thing before.”

  Frank could say nothing.

  “Give it here the dollar,” Morris ordered, extending his trembling hand.

  Anguished, the clerk tried lying. “You’re making a mistake. The register owes me a buck. I ran short on nickels so I got twenty from Sam Pearl with my own dough. After, I accidentally rang up one buck instead of ‘no sale.’ That’s why I took it back this way. No harm done, I tell you.”

  “This is a lie,” cried Morris. “I left inside a roll nickels in case anybody needed.” He strode behind the counter, rang “no sale” and held up the roll of nickels. “Tell the truth.”

  Frank thought, This shouldn’t be happening to me, for I am a different person now.

  “I was short, Morris,” he admitted, “that’s the truth of it. I figured I would pay you back tomorrow after I got my pay.” He took the crumpled dollar out of his pants pocket and Morris snatched it from his hand.

  “Why didn’t you ask me to lend you a dollar instead to steal it?”

  The clerk realized it hadn’t occurred to him to borrow from the grocer. The reason was simple—he had never borrowed, he had always stolen.

  “I didn’t think about it. I made a mistake.”

  “Always mistakes,” the grocer said wrathfully.

  “All my life,” sighed Frank.

  “You stole from me since the day I saw you.”

  “I confess to it,” Frank said, “but for God’s sake, Morris, I swear I was paying it back to you. Even today I put back six bucks. That’s why you got so much in the drawer from the time you went up to snooze until now. Ask the Mrs if we took in more than two bucks while you were upstairs. The rest I put in.”

  He thought of taking off his shoe and showing Morris how carefully he had kept track of the m
oney he had taken, but he didn’t want to do that because the amount was so large it might anger the grocer more.

  “You put it in,” Morris cried, “but it belongs to me. I don’t want a thief here.” He counted fifteen dollars out of the register. “Here’s your week’s pay—the last. Please leave now the store.”

  His anger was gone. He spoke in sadness and fear of tomorrow.

  “Give me one last chance,” Frank begged, “Morris, please.” His face was gaunt, his eyes haunted, his beard like night.

  Morris, though moved by the man, thought of Helen.

  “No.”

  Frank stared at the gray and broken Jew and seeing, despite tears in his eyes, that he would not yield, hung up his apron on a hook and left.

  The night’s new beauty struck Helen with the anguish of loss as she hurried into the lamplit park a half-hour after midnight. That morning as she had stepped into the street, wearing a new dress under her old coat, the fragrant day had moved her to tears and she felt then she was truly in love with Frank. Whatever the future held it couldn’t deny her the sense of release and fulfillment she had felt then. Hours later, when she was with Nat Pearl, as they stopped off for a drink at a roadside tavern, then at his insistence drove into Long Island, her thoughts were still on Frank and she was impatient to be with him.

  Nat was Nat. He exerted himself tonight, giving out with charm. He talked with charm and was hurt with charm. Unchanged after all the months she hadn’t been with him, as they were parked on the dark shore overlooking the starlit Sound, after a few charming preliminaries he had put his arms around her. “Helen, how can we forget what pleasure we had in the past?”

  She pushed him away, angered. “It’s gone, I’ve forgotten. If you’re so much of a gentleman, Nat, you ought to forget it too. Was a couple of times in bed a mortgage on my future?”

  “Helen, don’t talk like a stranger. For Pete’s sake, be human.”

  “I am human, please remember.”

  “We were once good friends. My plea is for friendship again.”

  “Why don’t you admit by friendship you mean something different?”

  “Helen …”

  “No.”

  He sat back at the wheel. “Christ, you have become a suspicious character.”

  She said, “Things have changed—you must realize.”

  “Who have they changed for,” he asked sullenly, “that dago I hear you go with?”

  Her answer was ice.

  On the way home he tried to unsay what he had said, but Helen yielded him only a quick good-by. She left him with relief and a poignant sense of all she had wasted of the night.

  Worried that Frank had had to wait so long, she hurried across the lit plaza and along a gravel path bordered by tall lilac shrubs, toward their meeting place. As she approached their bench, although she was troubled by a foreboding he would not be there, she couldn’t believe it, then was painfully disappointed to find that though others were present—it was true, he wasn’t.

  Could he have been and gone already? It didn’t seem possible; he had always waited before, no matter how late she was. And since she had told him she had something important to say, nothing less than that she now knew she loved him, surely he would want to hear what. She sat down, fearing he had had an accident.

  Usually they were alone at this spot, but the almost warmish late-February night had brought out company. On a bench diagonally opposite Helen, in the dark under budding branches, sat two young lovers locked in a long kiss. The bench at her left was empty, but on the one beyond that a man was sleeping under a dim lamp. A cat nosed at his shadow and departed. The man woke with a grunt, squinted at Helen, yawned and went back to sleep. The lovers at last broke apart and left in silence, the boy awkwardly trailing the happy girl. Helen deeply envied her, an awful feeling to end the day with.

  Glancing at her watch she saw it was already past one. Shivering, she rose, then sat down to wait five last minutes. She felt the stars clustered like a distant weight above her head. Utterly lonely, she regretted the spring-like loveliness of the night; it had gone, in her hands, to waste. She was tired of anticipation, of waiting for nothing.

  A man was standing unsteadily before her, heavy, dirty, stinking of whiskey. Helen half-rose, struck with fright.

  He flipped off his hat and said huskily, “Don’t be afraid of me, Helen. I’m personally a fine guy—son of a cop. You remember me, don’t you—Ward Minogue that went to your school? My old man beat me up once in the girls’ yard.”

  Though it was years since she had seen him she recognized Ward, at once recalling the incident of his following a girl into a lavatory. Instinctively Helen raised her arm to protect herself. She kept herself from screaming, or he might grab her. How stupid, she thought, to wait for this.

  “I remember you, Ward.”

  “Could I sit down?”

  She hesitated. “All right.”

  Helen edged as far away from him as she could. He looked half-stupefied. If he made a move she would run, screaming.

  “How did you recognize me in the dark?” she asked, pretending to be casual as she glanced stealthily around to see how best to escape. If she could get past the trees, it was then another twenty feet along the shrub-lined path before she could be out in the open. Once on the plaza there would be people around she could appeal to.

  God only help me, she thought.

  “I saw you a couple of times lately,” Ward answered, rubbing his hand slowly across his chest.

  “Where?”

  “Around. Once I saw you come out of your old man’s grocery and I figured it was you. You have still kept your looks,” he grinned.

  “Thanks. Don’t you feel so well?”

  “I got gas pains in my chest and a goddam headache.”

  “In case you want one I have a box of aspirins in my purse.”

  “No, they make me puke.” She noticed that he was glancing toward the trees. She grew more anxious, thought of offering him her purse if he only wouldn’t touch her.

  “How’s your boy friend, Frank Alpine?” Ward asked, with a wet wink.

  She said in surprise, “Do you know Frank?”

  “He’s an old friend of mine,” he answered. “He was here lookin’ for you.”

  “Is—he all right?”

  “Not so hot,” said Ward. “He had to go home.”

  She got up. “I have to leave now.”

  But he was standing.

  “Good night.” Helen walked away from him.

  “He told me to give you this paper.” Ward thrust his hand into his coat pocket.

  She didn’t believe him but paused long enough for him to move forward. He grabbed her with astonishing swiftness, smothering her scream with his smelly hand, as he dragged her toward the trees.

  “All I want is what you give that wop,” Ward grunted. She kicked, clawed, bit his hand, broke loose. He caught her by her coat collar, ripped it off. She screamed again and ran forward but he pounced upon her and got his arm over her mouth. Ward shoved her hard against a tree, knocking the breath out of her. He held her tightly by the throat as with his other hand he ripped open her coat and tore her dress off the shoulder, exposing her brassière.

  Struggling, kicking wildly, she caught him between the legs with her knee. He cried out and cracked her across the face. She felt the strength go out of her and fought not to faint. She screamed but heard no sound.

  Helen felt his body shuddering against her. I am disgraced, she thought, yet felt curiously freed of his stinking presence, as if he had dissolved into a can of filth and she had kicked it away. Her legs buckled and she slid to the ground. I’ve fainted, went through her mind, although she felt she was still fighting him.

  Dimly she realized that a struggle was going on near her. She heard the noise of a blow, and Ward Minogue cried out in great pain and staggered away.

  Frank, she thought with tremulous joy. Helen felt herself gently lifted and knew she was in his arms.
She sobbed in relief. He kissed her eyes and lips and he kissed her half-naked breast. She held him tightly with both arms, weeping, laughing, murmuring she had come to tell him she loved him.

  He put her down and they kissed under the dark trees. She tasted whiskey on his tongue and was momentarily afraid.

  “I love you, Helen,” he murmured, attempting clumsily to cover her breast with the torn dress as he drew her deeper into the dark, and from under the trees onto the star-dark field.

  They sank to their knees on the winter earth, Helen urgently whispering, “Please not now, darling,” but he spoke of his starved and passionate love, and all the endless heartbreaking waiting. Even as he spoke he thought of her as beyond his reach, forever in the bathroom as he spied, so he stopped her pleas with kisses … .

  Afterward, she cried, “Dog—uncircumcised dogl”

  While Morris was sitting alone in the back the next morning, a boy brought in a pink handbill and left it on the counter. When the grocer picked it up he saw it announced the change of management and reopening on Monday, by Taast and Pederson, of the grocery and fancy delicatessen around the corner. There followed, in large print, a list of specials they were offering during their first week, bargains Morris could never hope to match, because he couldn’t afford the loss the Norwegians were planning to take. The grocer felt he was standing in an icy draft blowing from some hidden hole in the store. In the kitchen, though he stood with his legs and buttocks pressed against the gas radiator, it took an age to diminish the chill that had penetrated his bones.

  All morning he scanned the crumpled handbill, muttering to himself; he sipped cold coffee, thinking of the future, and off and on, of Frank Alpine. The clerk had left last night without taking his fifteen dollars’ wages. Morris thought he would come in for it this morning but, as the hours passed, knew he wouldn’t, maybe having left it to make up some of the money he had stolen; yet maybe not. For the thousandth time the grocer wondered if he had done right in ordering Frank to go. True, he had stolen from him, but also true, he was paying it back. His story that he had put six dollars into the register and then found he had left himself without a penny in his pocket was probably the truth, because the sum in the register, when Morris counted it, was more than they usually took in during the dead part of the afternoon when he napped. The clerk was an unfortunate man; yet the grocer was alternately glad and sorry the incident had occurred. He was glad he had finally let him go. For Helen’s sake it had had to be done, and for Ida’s peace of mind, as well as his own. Still, he felt unhappy to lose his assistant and be by himself when the Norwegians opened up.