by Philip Roth
Regardless of who was the source of the temptation, what was its end, not to mention its beginning, Eli, some moments later, stood draped in black, with a little white underneath, before the full-length mirror. He had to pull down on the trousers so they would not show the hollow of his ankle. The greenie, didn’t he wear socks? Or had he forgotten them? The mystery was solved when Eli mustered enough courage to investigate the trouser pockets. He had expected some damp awful thing to happen to his fingers should he slip them down and out of sight—but when at last he jammed bravely down he came up with a khaki army sock in each hand. As he slipped them over his toes, he invented a genesis: a G.I.’s present in 1945. Plus everything else lost between 1938 and 1945, he had also lost his socks. Not that he had lost the socks, but that he’d had to stoop to accepting these, made Eli almost cry. To calm himself he walked out the back door and stood looking at his lawn.
On the Knudson back lawn, Harriet Knudson was giving her stones a second coat of pink. She looked up just as Eli stepped out. Eli shot back in again and pressed himself against the back door. When he peeked between the curtain all he saw were paint bucket, brush, and rocks scattered on the Knudsons’ pink-spattered grass. The phone rang. Who was it—Harriet Knudson? Eli, there’s a Jew at your door. That’s me. Nonsense, Eli, I saw him with my own eyes. That’s me, I saw you too, painting your rocks pink. Eli, you’re having a nervous breakdown again. Jimmy, Eli’s having a nervous breakdown again. Eli, this is Jimmy, hear you’re having a little breakdown, anything I can do, boy? Eli, this is Ted, Shirley says you need help. Eli, this is Artie, you need help. Eli, Harry, you need help you need help … The phone rattled its last and died.
“God helps them who help themselves,” intoned Eli, and once again he stepped out the door. This time he walked to the center of his lawn and in full sight of the trees, the grass, the birds, and the sun, revealed that it was he, Eli, in the costume. But nature had nothing to say to him, and so stealthily he made his way to the hedge separating his property from the field beyond and he cut his way through, losing his hat twice in the underbrush. Then, clamping the hat to his head, he began to run, the threaded tassels jumping across his heart. He ran through the weeds and wild flowers, until on the old road that skirted the town he slowed up. He was walking when he approached the Gulf station from the back. He supported himself on a huge tireless truck rim, and among tubes, rusted engines, dozens of topless oil cans, he rested. With a kind of brainless cunning, he readied himself for the last mile of his journey.
“How are you, Pop?” It was the garage attendant, rubing his greasy hands on his overalls, and hunting among the cans.
Eli’s stomach lurched and he pulled the big black coat round his neck.
“Nice day,” the attendant said and started around to the front.
“Sholom,” Eli whispered and zoomed off towards the hill.
The sun was directly overhead when Eli reached the top. He had come by way of the woods, where it was cooler, but still he was perspiring beneath his new suit. The hat had no sweatband and the cloth clutched his head. The children were playing. The children were always playing, as if it was that alone that Tzuref had to teach them. In their shorts, they revealed such thin legs that beneath one could see the joints swiveling as they ran. Eli waited for them to disappear around a comer before he came into the open. But something would not let him wait—his green suit. It was on the porch, wrapped around the bearded fellow, who was painting the base of a pillar. His arm went up and down, up and down, and the pillar glowed like white fire. The very sight of him popped Eli out of the woods onto the lawn. He did not turn back, though his insides did. He walked up the lawn, but the children played on; tipping the black hat, he mumbled, “Shhh … shhhh,” and they hardly seemed to notice.
At last he smelled paint.
He waited for the man to turn to him. He only painted. Eli felt suddenly that if he could pull the black hat down over his eyes, over his chest and belly and legs, if he could shut out all light, then a moment later he would be home in bed. But the hat wouldn’t go past his forehead. He couldn’t kid himself—he was there. No one he could think of had forced him to do this.
The greenie’s arm flailed up and down on the pillar. Eli breathed loudly, cleared his throat, but the greenie wouldn’t make life easier for him. At last, Eli had to say “Hello.”
The arm swished up and down; it stopped—two fingers went out after a brash hair stuck to the pillar.
“Good day,” Eli said.
The hair came away; the swishing resumed.
“Sholom,” Eli whispered and the fellow turned.
The recognition took some time. He looked at what Eli wore. Up close, Eli looked at what he wore. And then Eli had the strange notion that he was two people. Or that he was one person wearing two suits. The greenie looked to be suffering from a similar confusion. They stared long at one another. Eli’s heart shivered, and his brain was momentarily in such a mixed-up condition that his hands went out to button down the collar of his shirt that somebody else was wearing. What a mess! The greenie flung his arms over his face.
“What’s the matter…” Eli said. The fellow had picked up his bucket and brush and was running away. Eli ran after him.
“I wasn’t going to hit…” Eli called. “Stop…” Eli caught up and grabbed his sleeve. Once again, the greenie’s hands flew up to his face. This time, in the violence, white paint spattered both of them.
“I only want to…” But in that outfit Eli didn’t really know what he wanted. “To talk…” he said finally. “For you to look at me. Please, just look at me…”
The hands stayed put, as paint rolled off the brash onto the cuff of Eli’s green suit.
“Please … please,” Eli said, but he did not know what to do. “Say something, speak English,” he pleaded.
The fellow pulled back against the wall, back, back, as though some arm would finally reach out and yank him to safety. He refused to uncover his face.
“Look,” Eli said, pointing to himself. “It’s your suit. I’ll take care of it.”
No answer—only a little shaking under the hands, which led Eli to speak as gently as he knew how.
“We’ll … we’ll moth-proof it. There’s a button missing”—Eli pointed—”I’ll have it fixed. I’ll have a zipper put in … Please, please—just look at me…” He was talking to himself, and yet how could he stop? Nothing he said made any sense—that alone made his heart swell. Yet somehow babbling on, he might babble something that would make things easier between them. “Look…” He reached inside his shirt to pull the frills of underwear into the light. “I’m wearing the special underwear, even … Please,” he said, “please, please, please” he sang, as as if it were some sacred word. “Oh, please…”
Nothing twitched under the tweed suit—and if the eyes watered, or twinkled, or hated, he couldn’t tell. It was driving him crazy. He had dressed like a fool, and for what? For this? He reached up and yanked the hands away.
“There!” he said—and in that first instant all he saw of the greenie’s face were two white droplets stuck to each cheek.
“Tell me—” Eli clutched his hands down to his sides—”Tell me, what can I do for you, I’ll do it…”
Stiffly, the greenie stood there, sporting his two white tears.
“Whatever I can do … Look, look, what I’ve done already.” He grabbed his black hat and shook it in the man’s face.
And in exchange, the greenie gave him an answer. He raised one hand to his chest, and then jammed it, finger first, towards the horizon. And with what a pained look! As though the air were full of razors! Eli followed the finger and saw beyond the knuckle, out past the nail, Woodenton.
“What do you want?” Eli said. “I’ll bring it!”
Suddenly the greenie made a run for it. But then he stopped, wheeled, and jabbed that finger at the air again. It pointed the same way. Then he was gone.
And then, all alone, Eli had the revelation.
He did not question his understanding, the substance or the source. But with a strange, dreamy elation, he started away.
On Coach House Road, they were double-parked. The Mayor’s wife pushed a grocery cart full of dog food from Stop N’ Shop to her station wagon. The President of the Lions Club, a napkin around his neck, was jamming pennies into the meter in front of the Bit-in-Teeth Restaurant. Ted Heller caught the sun as it glazed off the new Byzantine mosaic entrance to his shoe shop. In pinkened jeans, Mrs. Jimmy Knudson was leaving Halloway’s Hardware, a paint bucket in each hand. Roger’s Beauty Shoppe had its doors open—women’s heads in silver bullets far as the eye could see. Over by the barbershop the pole spun, and Artie Berg’s youngest sat on a red horse, having his hair cut; his mother flipped through Look, smiling: the greenie had changed his clothes.
And into this street, which seemed paved with chromium, came Eli Peck. It was not enough, he knew, to walk up one side of the street. That was not enough. Instead he walked ten paces up one side, then on an angle, crossed to the other side, where he walked ten more paces, and crossed back. Homs blew, traffic jerked, as Eli made his way up Coach House Road. He spun a moan high up in his nose as he walked. Outside no one could hear him, but he felt it vibrate the cartilage at the bridge of his nose.
Things slowed around him. The sun stopped rippling on spokes and hubcaps. It glowed steadily as everyone put on brakes to look at the man in black. They always paused and gaped, whenever he entered the town. Then in a minute, or two, or three, a light would change, a baby squawk, and the flow continue. Now, though lights changed, no one moved.
“He shaved his beard,” Eric the barber said.
“Who?” asked Linda Berg.
“The … the guy in the suit. From the place there.”
Linda looked out the window. “It’s Uncle Eli,” little Kevin Berg said, spitting hair. “Oh, God,” Linda said, “Eli’s having a nervous breakdown.”
“A nervous breakdown!” Ted Heller said, but not immediately. Immediately he had said “Hoooly…”
Shortly, everybody in Coach House Road was aware that Eli Peck, the nervous young attorney with the pretty wife, was having a breakdown. Everybody except Eli Peck. He knew what he did was not insane, though he felt every inch of its strangeness. He felt those black clothes as if they were the skin of his skin—the give and pull as they got used to where he bulged and buckled. And he felt eyes, every eye on Coach House Road. He saw headlights screech to within an inch of him, and stop. He saw mouths: first the bottom jaw slides forward, then the tongue hits the teeth, the lips explode, a little thunder in the throat, and they’ve said it: Eli Peck Eli Peck Eli Peck Eli Peck. He began to walk slowly, shifting his weight down and forward with each syllable: E-li-Peck-E-li-Peck-E-li-Peck. Heavily he trod, and as his neighbors uttered each syllable of his name, he felt each syllable shaking all his bones. He knew who he was down to his marrow—they were telling him. Eli Peck. He wanted them to say it a thousand times, a million times, he would walk forever in that black suit, as adults whispered of his strangeness and children made “Shame … shame” with their fingers.
“It’s going to be all right, pal…” Ted Heller was motioning to Eli from his doorway. “C’mon, pal, it’s going to be all right…”
Eli saw him, past the brim of his hat. Ted did not move from his doorway, but leaned forward and spoke with his hand over his mouth. Behind him, three customers peered through the doorway. “Eli, it’s Ted, remember Ted…”
Eli crossed the street and found he was heading directly towards Harriet Knudson. He lifted his neck so she could see his whole face.
He saw her forehead melt down to her lashes. “Good morning, Mr. Peck.”
“Sholom,” Eli said, and crossed the street where he saw the President of the Lions.
“Twice before…” he heard someone say, and then he crossed again, mounted the curb, and was before the bakery, where a delivery man charged past with a tray of powdered cakes twirling above him. “Pardon me, Father,” he said, and scooted into his truck. But he could not move it. Eli Peck had stopped traffic.
He passed the Rivoli Theater, Beekman Cleaners, Harris’ Westinghouse, the Unitarian Church, and soon he was passing only trees. At Ireland Road he turned right and started through Woodenton’s winding streets. Baby carriages stopped whizzing and creaked—”Isn’t that…” Gardeners held their clipping. Children stepped from the sidewalk and tried the curb. And Eli greeted no one, but raised his face to all. He wished passionately that he had white tears to show them … And not till he reached his own front lawn, saw his house, his shutters, his new jonquils, did he remember his wife. And the child that must have been born to him. And it was then and there he had the awful moment. He could go inside and put on his clothes and go to his wife in the hospital. It was not irrevocable, even the walk wasn’t. In Woodenton memories are long but fury short. Apathy works like forgiveness. Besides, when you’ve flipped, you’ve flipped—it’s Mother Nature.
What gave Eli the awful moment was that he turned away. He knew exactly what he could do but he chose not to. To go inside would be to go halfway. There was more … So he turned and walked towards the hospital and all the time he quaked an eighth of an inch beneath his skin to think that perhaps he’d chosen the crazy way. To think that he’d chosen to be crazy! But if you chose to be crazy, then you weren’t crazy. It’s when you didn’t choose. No, he wasn’t flipping. He had a child to see.
“Name?”
“Peck.”
“Fourth floor.” He was given a little blue card.
In the elevator everybody stared. Eli watched his black shoes rise four floors.
“Four.”
He tipped his hat, but knew he couldn’t take it off.
“Peck,” he said. He showed the card.
“Congratulations,” the nurse said, “…the grandfather?”
“The father. Which room?”
She led him to 412. “A joke on the Mrs?” she said, but he slipped in the door without her.
“Miriam?”
“Yes?”
“Eli.”
She rolled her white face towards her husband. “Oh, Eli … Oh, Eli.”
He raised his arms. “What could I do?”
“You have a son. They called all morning.”
“I came to see him.”
“Like that!” she whispered harshly. “Eli, you can’t go around like that.”
“I have a son. I want to see him.”
“Eli, why are you doing this to me!” Red seeped back into her lips. “He’s not your fault,” she explained. “Oh, Eli, sweetheart, why do you feel guilty about everything. Eli, change your clothes. I forgive you.”
“Stop forgiving me. Stop understanding me.”
“But I love you.”
“That’s something else.”
“But, sweetie, you don’t have to dress like that. You didn’t do anything. You don’t have to feel guilty because … because everything’s all right. Eli, can’t you see that?”
“Miriam, enough reasons. Where’s my son?”
“Oh, please, Eli, don’t flip now. I need you now. Is that why you’re flipping—because I need you?”
“In your selfish way, Miriam, you’re very generous. I want my son.”
“Don’t flip now. I’m afraid, now that he’s out.” She was beginning to whimper. “I don’t know if I love him, now that he’s out. When I look in the mirror, Eli, he won’t be there … Eli, Eli, you look like you’re going to your own funeral. Please, can’t you leave well enough done? Can’t we just have a family?”
“No.”
In the corridor he asked the nurse to lead him to his son. The nurse walked on one side of him, Ted Heller on the other.
“Eli, do you want some help? I thought you might want some help.”
“No.”
Ted whispered something to the nurse; then to Eli he whispered, “Should you be walking around like this?”
“Yes.”
&n
bsp; In his ear Ted said, “You’ll … you’ll frighten the kid…”
“There,” the nurse said. She pointed to a bassinet in the second row and looked, puzzled, to Ted. “Do I go in?” Eli said.
“No,” the nurse said. “She’ll roll him over.” She rapped on the enclosure full of babies. “Peck,” she mouthed to the nurse on the inside.
Ted tapped Eli’s arm. “You’re not thinking of doing something you’ll be sorry for … are you, Eli? Eli —I mean you know you’re still Eli, don’t you?”
In the enclosure, Eli saw a bassinet had been wheeled before the square window.
“Oh, Christ————” Ted said. “You don’t have this Bible stuff on the brain—” And suddenly he said, “You wait, pal.” He started down the corridor, his heels tapping rapidly.
Eli felt relieved—he leaned forward. In the basket was what he’d come to see. Well, now that he was here, what did he think he was going to say to it? I’m your father, Eli, the Flipper? I am wearing a black hat, suit, and fancy underwear, all borrowed from a friend? How could he admit to this reddened ball— his reddened ball—the worst of all: that Eckman would shortly convince him he wanted to take off the whole business. He couldn’t admit it! He wouldn’t do it!
