Call It Sleep

by Henry Roth

  “Wadda yiz doin’ on ’at dock?” growled the runty one side-mouthed. The sunlight glanced along the sheet zinc sword as he pointed.

  “N—Nottin. I was’n’ doin’ nott’n. Dey was boats dere.”

  “How old ’re youse?”

  “I’m—I’m eight already.”

  “Well, w’y aintchjis in school?”

  “Cause id’d, cause—” But something warned him. “Cause I— cause my brudder’s god measles.”

  “Dot’s a lodda bullshit, Pedey.” This from the freckled one. “He’s onna hook.”

  “Yea. Tell ’at tuh Sweeney.”

  “We oughta take yiz tuh a cop,” added the second freckled one.

  “Betcha de cop’ll tell yuh,” urged David, hoping for no better fate.

  “Nah! We know,” Pedey scornfully rejected the idea. “W’ere d’yiz live?”

  “Dere.” He could see the very windows of his own floor. “Dat house on nint’ stritt. My mudders gonna look oud righd away.”

  Pedey squinted in the direction David pointed.

  “Dat’s a sheeney block, Pedey,” prompted the second freckled lieutenant with ominous eagerness.

  “Yea. Yer a Jew aintchiz?”

  “No I ain’!” he protested hotly. “I ain’ nod a Jew!”

  “Only sheenies live in dat block!” countered Pedey narrowly.

  “I’m a Hungarian. My mudder ’n’ fodder’s Hungarian. We’re de janitors.”

  “W’y wuz yuh lookin upstairs?”

  “Cause my mudder wuz washin’ de floors.”

  “Talk Hungarian,” challenged the first lieutenant.

  “Sure like dis. Abashishishabababyo tomama wawa. Like dot.”

  “Aa, yuh full o’ shit!” sneered the second lieutenant angrily. “C’mom, Pedey, let’s give ’im ’is lumps.”

  “Yea!” the other freckled one urged. “C’mon. He ain’ w’ite. Yi! Yi! Yi!” He wagged his palms under his chin.

  “Naa!” Pedey nudged his neighbor sharply. “He’s awri’. Led ’im alone.” And to David. “Got any dough? We’ll match yiz pennies.”

  “No, I ain’ god nodd’n. Id’s all in mine house.” He would have been glad to have the two pennies now if only they would let him go.

  “Let’s see yer pockets.”

  “Hea, I’ll show yuh,” he hastily turned them inside out. “Nod even in duh watch pocket.”

  “C’mon, Pedey,” urged first lieutenant, advancing.

  “Lemme go!” David whimpered, shrinking back.

  “Naa! Let ’im alone,” ordered Pedey. “He’s awright. Let’s show ’im de magic. Waddayah say?”

  “Yea! At’s right!” The other two seconded him. “C’mon! Yuh wanna see some magic?”

  “No-no. I don’ wanna.”

  “Yuh don’!” Pedey’s voice rose fiercely. The others strained at the leash.

  “W—wa’ kind o’ magic?”

  “C’mon, we’ll show yiz, won’ we, Weasel? Over dis way.” His sword pointed across the junk-heap toward Tenth Street. “Where de car tracks is.”

  “So wod yuh gonna do?” he held back.

  “C’mon we’ll show yiz.” They hemmed him in cutting off retreat. “Ah’ here’s my sword—G’wan take it, fore we—” He thrust it into David’s hands. He took it. They moved forward.

  At the foot of the junk-heap, the lieutenant named Weasel stopped. “Waid a minute,” he announced, “I godda take a piss.”

  “Me too,” said the others halting as well. They unbuttoned. David edged away.

  “Lager beer,” chanted Pedey as he tapped forehead, mouth, chest and navel, “comes from here—”

  “Ye see,” Weasel pointed triumphantly at the shrinking David. “I tol’ yuh he aín’ w’ite. W’y don’tchiz piss?”

  “Don’ wanna. I peed befaw.”

  “Aw, hosschit.” He lifted one leg.

  “Phuwee!”

  With a howl of glee, the other two pounced on him.

  “Eli, eli, a bundle of strawr,” they thumped his back. “Farting is against de lawr—”

  “Leggo!” Weasel shook them off viciously.

  “Well yiz farted—Hey!” Pedey swooped down on David. “Stay here, or yuh’ll get a bust on de bugle! C’mon! An’ don’t try to duck on us.”

  With one on either side of him and one behind, David climbed up the junk heap and threaded his way cautiously over the savage iron morraine. Only one hope sustained him—that was to find a man on the other side to run to. Before him the soft, impartial April sunlight spilt over a hill of shattered stoves, splintered wheels, cracked drain pipes, potsherds, marine engines split along cruel and jagged edges. Eagerly, he looked beyond—only the suddenly alien, empty street and the glittering cartracks, branching off at the end.

  “Peugh! Wadda stink!” Pedey spat. “Who opened his hole?”

  From somewhere in the filth and ruin, the stench of mouldering flesh fouled the nostrils. A dead cat.

  “C’mon, hurry up!”

  As they neared the street, a rusty wire, tough root of a brutal soil, tripped David who had quickened his pace, and he fell against the sword bending it.

  “He pissed in his w’iskers,” guffawed the second lieutenant.

  Pedey grinned. Only Weasel kept his features immobile. He seemed to take pride in never laughing.

  “Hol’ it, yuh dumb bassid,” he barked, “yuh bent it!”

  “Waid a secon’,” Pedey warned them when they had reached the edge of the junk-heap. “Lemme lay putso.” He slid down, and after a furtive glance toward Avenue D, “Come on! Shake! Nobody’s aroun’.”

  They followed him.

  “Now we’re gonna show yiz de magic.”

  “Waid’ll ye sees it,” Weasel chimed in significantly.

  “Yea, better’n movin’ pitchiz!”

  “Wadda yuh wan’ I shul do?” Their growing excitement added to his terror.

  “Hurry up an’ take dat sword an’ go to dem tracks and t’row it in— See like dis. In de middle.”

  “I don’t wanna go.” He began to weep.

  “G’wan yuh blubber-mout’.” Weasel’s fist tightened.

  “G’wan!” The other lieutenant’s face screwed up. “’Fore we kick de piss ouda yiz.”

  “G’wan, an’ we’ll letchiz go,” promised Pedey. “G’wan! Shake!”

  “If I jost pud id in?”

  “Yea. Like I showed yuh.”

  “An’ den yuh’ll led me go?”

  “Sure. G’wan. Id ain’ gonna hoitcha. Ye’ll see all de movies in de woil! An’ vawderville too! G’wan before a car comes.”

  “Sure, an’ all de angels.”

  “G’wan!” Their fists were drawn back.

  Imploringly, his eyes darted to the west. The people on Avenue D seemed miles away. The saloon-door in the middle of the block was closed. East. No none! Not a soul! Beyond the tarry rocks of the river-shore, the wind had scattered the silver plain into rippling scales. He was trapped.

  “G’wan!” Their faces were cruel, their bodies stiff with expectancy.

  He turned toward the tracks. The long dark grooves between each pair looked as harmless as they had always looked. He had stepped over them hundreds of times without a thought. What was there about them now that made the others watch him so? Just drop it, they said, and they would let him go. Just drop it. He edged closer, stood tip-toe on the cobbles. The point of the sheet-zinc sword wavered before him, clicked on the stone as he fumbled, then finding the slot at last, rasped part way down the wide grinning lips like a tongue in an iron mouth. He stepped back. From open fingers, the blade plunged into darkness.

  Power!

  Like a paw ripping through all the stable fibres of the earth, power, gigantic, fetterless, thudded into day! And light, unleashed, terrific light bellowed out of iron lips. The street quaked and roared, and like a tortured thing, the sheet zinc sword, leapt writhing, fell back, consumed with radiance. Blinded, stunned by the brunt of brilliance, David stagger
ed back. A moment later, he was spurting madly toward Avenue D.

  IX

  WHEN he looked behind him again, the light was gone, the roaring stilled. Pedey and his mates had fled. At the crossing, several people had stopped and were staring toward the river. Eyes shifted to David as he neared Avenue D, but since no one tried to block his way, he twisted around the corner and fled toward Ninth Street. His father’s milk wagon was standing beside the curb. His father was home. He might guess that something had gone wrong. He’d better not go up. He slunk past his house, cut across the street and broke into a run. At the cheder entrance he turned, scurried through the sheltering doorway, and came out into the sunlit and empty yard. The cheder door was closed. He had come far too early. Trembling in every limb, weak with fright, he looked about for a place to rest. The wide wooden doors that covered a cellar sloped gently into the sun. A new, brass padlock gleamed at their seam—too many of the rabbi’s pupils had been banging them on their subterranean way into the cheder yard. He dragged himself over, dropped down on one of the wooden wings and shut his eyes. In the red sea of sun-lit eyelids his spirit sickeningly rolled and dipped. Though the planks were warm and the sun was warm, his teeth chattered and he shivered as if an icy gale were blowing. With a groan of anguish, he turned on his side hardly feeling the warm padlock under his cheek. Deep, shaking sobs caught on the snag of his throat. The hot tears crowded through his sealed eyelids, trickled unheeded across his cheek and nostril. He wept silently.

  How long he lay there he did not know. But little by little the anguish lifted, his blood thawed, the sobbing calmed. Empty and nerveless, he opened his eyes; the rough-walled familiar houses, the leaning fences, the motley washing, wash-poles, sunlight, the cramped and cluttered patch of blue above him were good. A mottled, yellow cat crept carefully out upon a fire-escape, leapt down behind a fence. Realities warm and palpable. From open windows, the sound of voices, rattling of pots, rush of water in a sink, laughter shearing away loud snatches of familiar speech. It was good. In the veering of the light wind, the odors of cooking, strong and savory, hung and drifted. From somewhere up above a steady chop-chopping began. Meat or fish or perhaps the bitter herbs of the Passover. The limp, vacant body expanded, filled with certainties.

  Chop. Chop. The sound was secure. His thoughts took the rhythm of the sound. Something within him chanted. Words flowed out of him of their own accord. Chop. Chop. Showed him, showed. In the river, showed him, showed. Chop. Chop. Showed him, showed. If He wants. Showed him, showed.

  —In the dark, chop, chop. In the river, showed him, showed. In the dark, in the river was there. Came out if He wanted, was there. Stayed in if He wanted, was there. Came out if He wanted, stayed in if He wanted, came out if He wanted, was there …

  —Could break it in his hands if He wanted. Could hold it in His hands if He wanted. Could break it, could hold it, could break it, could hold it, could break it, could hold it, was there.

  —In the dark, in the hallways, was there. In the dark, in the cellars was there. Where cellars is locked, where cellars is coal, where cellars is coal, is

  —Coal!

  —Coal!

  He sat bolt upright.

  “Rabbi!” his startled cry rang out over the yard. “Rabbi! Is coal under! White in cellars!” He sprang to his feet in exaltation, stared about him wildly. On all the multicolored walls that hemmed him in, one single vision was written. “Is coal under! White!” Dazedly, he lurched toward the door. “Rabbi!” He rattled it; it held. “Rabbi!” He had to get in. He had to. He raced around the corner of the cheder. The window! He clawed at it. Loose, unbolted, it squealed up easily. There was no hesitation. There could be none. An enormous hand was shoving him forward. He leapt up, abdomen landing on the sill, teetered half in, half out, sprawled into the cheder, hands forward.

  That closet! Where all of them were! He ran to it. It was just out of reach. He dragged the rabbi’s chair over, stood up, flung open the door. The blue one! The blue one! Feverishly he pried among them—found it. He leapt down, already turning the pages. Page sixty-eight it was—twenty-six—forty—seventy-two— sixty-nine—sixty-eight! On top! With all your might! He wriggled over the bench.

  “Beshnas mos hamelech Uziyahu vawere es adonoi yoshav al kesai rum venesaw, vshulav malaiim es hahahol. Serafim omdim memal lo shash kanowfayim, sash kanowfayim lawehhad, beshtayim yahase fanav uvishtayim yahase raglov uvishtayim yofaif.”

  All his senses dissolved into the sound. The lines, unknown, dimly surmised, thundered in his heart with limitless meaning, rolled out and flooded the last shores of his being. Unmoored in space, he saw one walking on impalpable pavements that rose with the rising trees. Or were they trees or telegraph-poles, each crossed and leafy, none could say, but forms stood there with footholds in unmitigated light. And their faces shone because the light in their midst was luminous laughter. He read on.

  The book returned. The table hardened … Behind him the sound of a key probing a keyhole screeked across infinite space. The lock snapped open—suddenly near at hand. Realization struck like an icy gust. With a start of dismay, he spun around over the bench, threw himself at the window. Too late! The rabbi, long black coat and derby, stepped into the light of the open door. He drew back with a groan of fright, but recognizing who it was, his eyes opened wrathfully and he came forward, head cocked sideways.

  “How did you get in?” he demanded fiercely, “Ha?” The open window caught his eye. He stared at it, disbelief wrangling with ire. “You crawled in?”

  “The book!” David stammered. “The book! I wanted it.”

  “You broke into my cheder!” The rabbi seemed not to have heard a single syllable. “You opened the window? You climbed in? You dared do this?”

  “No! No!”

  “Hush!” He paid no heed to his outcry. “I understand.” And before David could budge, the rabbi’s heavy hands had fallen on his neck and he was being dragged toward the cat-o-nine on the floor. “Fearful bastard!” he roared. “You crawled in to steal my pointers!”

  “I didn’t! I didn’t touch them!”

  “You it was took them before!” the rabbi drowned him out. “Sly one! You! Different I thought you were! Hi! Will you scoop!” He reached down for the scourge.

  “I didn’t! I came for the book! The blue book with the coal in it! The man and the coal!”

  His iron grip still unrelenting, the rabbi lowered the cat-o-nine. “The man! The coal! You try to gull me!” But uncertainty had crept into his voice. “Stop your screeching!” And haling David after him, he yanked out the drawer of the reading table in which he kept his pointers. One glance was enough. Savagely, he thrust it back. “What man? And what coal?”

  “Here in the book! The man the angel touched—Mendel read it! Isaiah!” The name suddenly returned to him. “Isaiah!”

  The rabbi glared at the book as if he meant to burn it with his eyes, then his gaze rose slowly to David’s face. In the silence, his clogged, apoplectic breathing was as loud as snoring. “Tell me, did you climb in only to read this book.” His fingers uncurled from David’s shoulder.

  “Y-es! About th-that Isaiah.”

  “But what do you want of it?” His open palms barely sustained the weight of his question. “Can you read a word of chumish?”

  “No, but I remembered, and I—I wanted to read it.”

  “Why?” From under his derby, pushed back by aimless fingers, his black skull-cap peeped out. “Are you mad or what? Couldn’t you wait until I came? I would have let you read a belly-full.”

  “I didn’t know when you—you were coming.”

  “But why did you want to read it? And why with such black haste?”

  “Because I went and I saw a coal like—like Isaiah.”

  “What kind of a coal? Where?”

  “Where the car-tracks run I saw it. On Tenth Street.”

  “Car tracks? You saw a coal?” He shut his eyes like one completely befuddled.

  “Yes. It gav
e a big light in the middle, between the crack!”

  “A what—! A—! Between a crack? You saw a light between a crack? A black year befall you!” Suddenly he stopped. His brow darkened. His beard rose. His head rolled back. “Chah! Chah! Chah! Chah!” Splitting salvoes of laughter suddenly burst from the cavern behind the whiskers. “Chah! Chah! Chah! Oy! Chah! Chah! Chah! This must be told.” A hasty hand plugged back his slipping derby. “He saw a light! Oy! Chah! Chah! In the crack! Oy! Chah! Chah! Chah! I’ll split like a herring! Yesterday, he heard a bed in the thunder! Today he sees a vision in a crack. Oy! Chah! Chah! Chah!” Minutes seemed to pass before he sobered. “Fool!” he gasped at length. “Go beat your head on a wall! God’s light is not between car-tracks.”

  Ashamed, yet immensely relieved, David stood mute, eyes staring at the floor. The rabbi didn’t know as he knew what the light was, what it meant, what it had done to him. But he would reveal no more. It was enough that the light had saved him from being whipped.

  Uttering a short, hopeless snort, the rabbi moved off and hung his coat and derby on a nail. Returned, he pinched David’s ear. “Come and read, simpleton,” he ordered with amused contempt. “And if you ever crawl into my cheder again when I’m gone, nothing will help you. Not even a light.”

  David slid over the bench. The rabbi dragged out the tattered book, picked up his pointer.

  “Begin!” he said. “Ma tovu”.

  “Ma tovu oholeha yaakov meshkanoseha Yisroel.” He poured the sounds out in a breathless, chaotic stream. “Va ani berov hasdeha awvo baseha eshtahave el hahol kodshehe beyeerosehaw.” They were growing funny! “Adonoi awhavti maon baseha umkom mishcan knovdhaw.” It was hard for him now to keep his face straight. “Shalom alachem malachi homlac him malchai elyon, me melech malchai homlachim hakadosh boruch hu.” Ripples of laughter were trembling in his belly. He read faster to escape them. “Boachem lesholom malachai ha sholom malachai elyon me melech molachai haomlachim ha kodash boruch hu.” The ripples had swelled to breakers. Immense hilarity battered against his throat and sides. Faster!

  “Noo!” The rabbi grabbed his arm. “Is the devil after you, or what? You fly like a felon.”