Call It Sleep

by Henry Roth

  “Waltuh, Waltuh, Wiuhlflowuh,

  Growin’ up so high;

  So we are all young ladies,

  An’ we are ready to die.”

  Again and again, they repeated their burden. Their words obscure at first, emerged at last, gathered meaning. The song troubled David strangely. Walter Wildflower was a little boy. David knew him. He lived in Europe, far away, where David’s mother said he was born. He had seen him standing on a hill, far away. Filled with a warm, nostalgic mournfulness, he shut his eyes. Fragments of forgotten rivers floated under the lids, dusty roads, fathomless curve of trees, a branch in a window under flawless light. A world somewhere, somewhere else.

  “Waltuh, Waltuh, Wiuhlflowuh,

  Growin’ up so high,”

  His body relaxed, yielding to the rhythm of the song and to the golden June sunlight. He seemed to rise and fall on waves somewhere without him. Within him a voice spoke with no words but with the shift of slow flame.…

  “So we are all young ladies,

  An’ we are ready to die.”

  From the limp, uncurling fingers, the cog rolled to the ground, rang like a coin, fell over on its side. The sudden sound moored him again, fixed him to the quiet, suburban street, the curbstone. The inarticulate flame that had pulsed within him, wavered and went out. He sighed, bent over and picked up the wheel.

  When would the whistle blow he wondered. It took long to-day.…

  II

  AS FAR back as he could remember, this was the first time that he had ever gone anywhere alone with his father, and already he felt desolated, stirred with dismal forebodings, longing desperately for his mother. His father was so silent and so remote that he felt as though he were alone even at his side. What if his father should abandon him, leave him in some lonely street. The thought sent shudders of horror through his body. No! No! He couldn’t do that!

  At last they reached the trolley lines. The sight of people cheered him again, dispelling his fear for a while. They boarded a car, rode what seemed to him a long time and then got off in a crowded street under an elevated. Nervously gripping David’s arm, his father guided him across the street. They stopped before the stretched iron wicket of a closed theatre. Colored billboards on either side of them, the odor of stale perfume behind. People hurrying, trains roaring. David gazed about him frightened. To the right of the theatre, in the window of an ice cream parlor, gaudy, colored popcorn danced and drifted, blown by a fan. He looked up apprehensively at his father. He was pale, grim. The fine veins in his nose stood out like a pink cobweb.

  “Do you see that door?” Hé shook him into attention. “In the grey house. See? That man just came out of there.”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  “Now you go in there and go up the stairs and you’ll see another door. Go right in. And to the first man you see inside, say this: I’m Albert Schearl’s son. He wants you to give me the clothes in his locker and the money that’s coming to him. Do you understand? When they’ve given it to you bring it down here. I’ll be waiting for you. Now what will you say?” he demanded abruptly.

  David began to repeat his instructions in Yiddish.

  “Say it in English, you fool!”

  He rendered them in English. And when he had satisfied his father that he knew them, he was sent in.

  “And don’t tell them I’m out here,” he was warned as he left. “Remember you came alone!”

  Full of misgivings, unnerved at the ordeal of facing strangers alone, strangers of whom his own father seemed apprehensive, he entered the hallway, climbed the stairs. One flight up, he pushed open the door and entered a small room, an office. From somewhere back of this office, machinery clanked and rattled. A bald-headed man smoking a cigar looked up as he came in.

  “Well, my boy,” he asked smiling, “what do you want?”

  For a moment all of his instructions flew out of his head. “My—my fodder sent me hea.” He faltered.

  “Your father? Who’s he?”

  “I—I’m Albert Schearl’s son,” he blurted out. “He sent me I shuh ged his clo’s f’om de locker an’ his money you owing him.”

  “Oh, you’re Albert Schearl’s son,” said the man, his expression changing. “And he wants his money, eh?” He nodded with the short vibrating motion of a bell. “You’ve got some father, my boy. You can tell him that for me. I didn’t get a chance. He’s crazy. Anybody who— What does he do at home?”

  David shook his head guiltily, “Nuttin.”

  “No?” he chuckled. “Nothin’, hey? Well—” he broke off and went over to a small arched window in the rear. “Joe!” he called. “Oh Joe! Come here a minute, will you?”

  In a few seconds a grey-haired man in overalls came in.

  “Call me, Mr. Lobe?”

  “Yea, will you get Schearl’s things out of his locker and wrap ’em up for me. His kid’s here.”

  The other man’s face broke into a wide, brown-toothed grin. “Is zat his kid?” As if to keep from laughing his tongue worried the quid of tobacco in his cheek.

  “Yea.”

  “He don’ look crazy.” He burst into a laugh.

  “No.” Mr. Lobe subdued him with a wave of the hand. “He’s a nice kid.”

  “Your ol’ man near brained me wid a hammer,” said the man addressing David. “Don’ know wot happened, nobody said nuttin.” He grinned. “Never saw such a guy, Mr. Lobe. Holy Jesus, he looked like he wuz boinin’ up. Didja see de rail he twisted wid his hands? Maybe I oughta to give it to ’im fer a souvenir?”

  Mr. Lobe grinned. “Let the kid alone,” he said quietly. “Get his stuff.”

  “O.K.” Still chuckling, the grey-haired man went out.

  “Sit down, my boy,” said Mr. Lobe, pointing to a seat. “We’ll have your father’s things here in a few minutes.”

  David sat down. In a few minutes, a girl, bearing a paper in her hand, came into the office.

  “Say, Marge,” said Mr. Lobe, “find out what Schearl gets, will you.”

  “Yes, Mr. Lobe.” She regarded David, “What’s that, his boy?”

  “Mmm.”

  “Looks like him, don’t he?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I’d have him arrested,” said the girl opening up a large-ledger.

  “What good would that do?”

  “I don’t know, it might put some sense into his head.”

  Mr. Lobe shrugged. “I’m only too glad he didn’t kill anybody.”

  “He ought to be in a padded cell,” said the girl scribbling something on a paper.

  Mr. Lobe made no response.

  “He gets six sixty-two.” She put down her pencil. “Shall I get it?”

  “Mmm.”

  The girl went over to a large black safe in a corner, drew out a box, and when she had counted out some money, put it into a small envelope and gave it to Mr. Lobe.

  “Come here,” he said to David. “What’s your name?”

  “David.”

  “David and Goliath,” he smiled. “Well, David, have you got a good deep pocket? Let’s see.” He picked up the tails of David’s jacket. “There, that’s the one I want.” And fingering the small watch-pocket at the waist. “We’ll put it in there.” He folded the envelope and wedged it in. “Now don’t take it out. Don’t tell anybody you’ve got it till you get home, understand? The idea, sending a kid his age on an errand like this.”

  David, staring ahead of him, under Mr. Lobe’s arm, was aware of two faces, peering in at the little window in the back. The eyes of both were fastened on him, regarding him with a curious and amused scrutiny of men beholding for the first time some astonishing freak. They both grinned when the girl, happening to turn in their direction, saw them; one of the men winked and cranked his temple with his hand. As Mr. Lobe turned, both disappeared. A moment later, the grey-haired man returned with a paper-wrapped bundle.

  “Here’s all I c’n find, Mr. Lobe. His towel, and his shoit an’ a jacket.”

  “All right
, Joe,” Mr. Lobe took the package from him and turned to David. “Here you are, my boy. Put it under your arm and don’t lose it.” He tucked it under David’s arm. “Not heavy, is it? No? That’s good.” He opened the door to let David pass. “Good bye.” A dry smile whisked over his features. “Pretty tough for you.”

  Grasping the bundle firmly under his arm, David went slowly down the stairs. So that was how his father quit a place! He held a hammer in hand, he would have killed somebody. David could almost see him, the hammer raised over his head, his face contorted in terrific wrath, the rest cringing away. He shuddered at the image in his mind, stopped motionless on the stair, terrified at having to confront the reality. But he must go down; he must meet him; it would be worse for him if he remained on the stair any longer. He didn’t want to go, but he had to. If only the stairs were twice as high.

  He hurried down, came out into the street. His father, his back pressed close to the iron wicket, was waiting for him, and when he saw him come out, motioned to him to hurry and began walking away. David ran after him, caught up to him finally, and his father, without slackening his pace, relieved him of the bundle.

  “They took long enough,” he said, casting a malevolent glance over his shoulder. It was evident from his face that he had worked himself into a rage during the interval that David had left him. “They gave you the money?”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  “How much?”

  “Six—six dollars, the girl—”

  “Did they say anything to you?” His teeth clenched grimly, “About me?”

  “No, Papa,” he answered hurriedly. “Nothing, Papa. They just gave me the—the money and I went down.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Over here,” he pointed to the pocket.

  “Well, give it to me!”

  With difficulty, David uprooted the envelope from his pocket. His father snatched it from him, counted the money.

  “And so they said nothing, eh?” He seemed to demand a final confirmation. “None of the men spoke to you, did they? Only that bald-headed pig with the glasses?” He was watching him narrowly.

  “No, Papa. Only that man. He just gave me the money.” He knew that while his father’s eyes rested on him he must look frank, he must look wide-eyed, simple.

  “Very well!” His lips stretched for a brief instant in fleeting satisfaction. “Good!”

  They stopped at the corner and waited for the trolley …

  * * *

  David never said anything to anyone of what he had discovered, not even to his mother—it was all too terrifying, too unreal to share with someone else. He brooded about it till it entered his sleep, till he no longer could tell where his father was flesh and where dream. Who would believe him if he said, I saw my father lift a hammer; he was standing on a high roof of darkness, and below him were faces uplifted, so many, they stretched like white cobbles to the end of the world; who would believe him? He dared not.

  III

  THE table had been set with the best dishes. There was a chicken roasting in the oven. His mother was pouring the last of the Passover’s lustrous red wine from the wicker-covered bottle into the fat flagon. She had been quiet till now, but as she set the bottle down in the center of the table, she turned to David who was watching her. “I feel something I don’t know what,” she said. “Troubled.” She looked at the floor a moment, gazing mournfully at nothing; then turned up her palm as if asking herself, “why,” and sighing let her hands fall again, as if unanswered. “Perhaps it is because I think my work is fated to be lost.”

  David wondered a moment why she had said that, and then he remembered. That man was coming, that man whose name had been on his father’s lips for the last week—ever since he had gotten his new job. That man was a foreman. His father said that they came from the same region in far-off Austria. How strange it was that they should come from far away and find each other in the same shop, and find each other living in the same neighborhood in Brownsville. His father had said that he had found a true friend now, but his mother had sighed. And now she sighed again and said that her work was fated to be lost. David hoped that she would be wrong. He wanted to be like the other boys in the street. He wanted to be able to say where his father worked.

  Soon he heard his father’s voice on the stairs. His mother rose, looked about her hastily to see whether all was prepared and then went to the door and opened it. The two men came in, his father first and the other man after him.

  “Well, here we are,” said his father with nervous heartiness. “This is my wife. This is Joe Luter, my countryman. And that over there,” he pointed to David, “is what will pray for me after my death. Make yourself at home.”

  “A fine home you have here,” said the other smiling at David’s mother. “Very, very fine,” he beamed.

  “It’s livable,” answered David’s mother.

  “A fine boy too.” He eyed David approvingly.

  “Well!” said his father abruptly, “Let’s have some dinner soon, eh?”

  While his father was urging Luter to drink some wine, David examined the newcomer. In height he was not as tall as his father, but was much broader, fleshier, and unlike his father had a fair paunch. His face was somehow difficult to get accustomed to. It was not because it was particularly ugly or because it was scarred, but because one felt one’s own features trying to imitate it while one looked at it. His mouth so very short and the bow of his lips so very thick and arched that David actually felt himself waiting for it to relax. And the way his nostrils swelled up and out almost fatigued one and one hoped the deep dimples in his cheek would soon fill out. His speech was very slow and level, his whole attitude tolerant and attentive, and because of this and because of the permanent wreathing of his features, he gave one the impression of great affability and good nature. In fact, as it soon turned out, he was not only affable, but very appreciative and very polite and commended in very warm tones the wine and the cake that was served with it, the neatness of the house as compared to his landlady’s and finally congratulated David’s father on having so excellent a wife.

  When supper was served, he refused to begin eating until David’s mother had sat down—which embarrassed her since she always served the others first—and then during the meal was very considerate of everyone, passing meat and bread and salt before it was asked for. When he spoke, he included everyone in the conversation, sometimes by asking questions, sometimes by fixing his eyes upon one. All of which disconcerted David not a little. Accustomed as he was to almost silent meals, to being either ignored or taken for granted, he resented this forcing of self-awareness upon him, this intruding of questions like a false weave into the fabric and pattern of his thought. But chiefly he found himself resenting Mr. Luter’s eyes. They seemed to be independent of his speech, far outstripping it in fact; for instead of glancing at one, they fixed one and then held on until the voice caught up. It became a kind of uneasy game with David, a kind of secret tag, to beat Luter’s gaze before it caught him, to look down at the tablecloth or at his mother the very moment he felt these eyes veering toward him.

  Conversation touched on many subjects, drifting from the problems of the printing trade and the possibilities of a union among the printers to the problems and possibilities (and blessings, said Luter with a smile) of marriage. And then from this land to the old land and back again to this. And whether David’s mother kept a kosher house—at which she smiled—and whether David’s father still had time to don phylacteries in the morning and what synagogue he attended—at which his father snorted, amused. Most of what they said interested David only vaguely. What did fascinate him, however, was the curious effect that Luter had on his father. For once that brusque, cold manner of his had thawed a little. A faint though guarded deference mitigated somewhat the irrevocable quality with which his voice always bound his words. He would ask at the end of a statement he had just made, “Don’t you think so?” Sometimes he would begin by saying, “It see
ms to me.” It was strange. It disturbed David. He didn’t know whether to be grateful to Luter for softening the harsh, inflexible edge of his father’s temperament, or to be uneasy. Somehow it was a little unreal to see his father expand this way, uncoil warily like a tense spring slowly released. And urged on by only a sympathetic look from Luter, to hear him speak of his youth, he, who was so taciturn and thin-lipped, whom David never could think of as having a youth, speaking of his youth, of the black and white bulls he had tended for his father (and try to hide a frown at the word, father, he, who never hid displeasure), how they had fed them mash from his father’s yeast mill, how he had won a prize with them from the hand of Franz Josef, the King. Why did Luter need to look that way to make his father speak? Why did Luter only need to say, “I don’t like the earth. It’s for peasants,” to make his father laugh, to make his father answer, “I think I do. I think when you come out of a house and step on the bare earth among the fields you’re the same man you were when you were inside the house. But when you step out on pavements, you’re someone else. You can feel your face change. Hasn’t that happened to you?” And all that Luter needed to say was, “Yes. You’re right, Albert,” and his father would take a deep breath of satisfaction. It was strange. Why had no one else ever succeeded in doing that? Why not his mother? Why not himself? No one except Luter.

  His questions went unanswered. He only knew that when supper was over he wanted very much to like Luter. He wanted to like any man who praised his mother and guided his father into untrodden paths of amiability. He wanted to like him, but he couldn’t. But that would pass, he assured himself. As soon as Luter came again he would like him. Yes, the very next time. He was sure of it. He wanted to. As soon as he got used to his eyes. Yes.

  A little while after dinner, Luter got up to go. His father protested that he had just come, that he ought to stay at least another hour.

  “I also have to work in the morning,” Luter reminded him. “Otherwise I would stay. It’s heaven compared to my landlady’s.” And then he turned to David’s mother, and in his slow way, smiling, extended his hand. “I want to thank you a thousand times, Mrs. Schearl, I haven’t had so good a dinner or so much to eat since my last uncle was married.”