by Henry Roth
“Crosses is holy.” Leo instructed him severely, “All of ’em. Christ, our Savior, died on one o’ dem.”
“Oh! (Savior! What?) I didn’t know.”
“Sure, even if yuh wears ’em, dey bring yuh luck. When me ol’ lady had her appendixitis cut out, she had one o ’dem under her piller ev’y night, an’ dat’s w’y she got better.”
“Gee!”
“Yea an’ ev’y’ time I goes swimmin’ in de Hudson I always cross meself t’ree times—like dat. Den yuh kin Johnny-high-dive all yuh wants an’ yuh’ll never hit bottom—didn’tcha know dat?” And when David looked blank. “Yuh see dis?” As if to clinch his argument, he undid a button on his shirt, reached in and drew out what looked like a square piece of leather on a string. “Know what dat is?”
He scrutinized it, shook his head. Something had been stamped on it in gold—a picture perhaps—but too faded now to make out. “Maybe a man an’ a liddle lady,” he ventured. “I can’t see so good.”
“A man and a lady!” Leo turned his head aside to crow. “Oh boy, wot Jews don’ know! Dat’s a scapiller, see? An’ dat’s a pitcher o’ de holy Mudder an’ Chil’. Cheez! Doncha know de Woigin Mary w’en yuh sees ’er?”
“No,” guiltily.
“Cheez!” incredulously, and then lifting the bit of leather to examine it more closely, “It’s gittin’ rubbed off, I guess.” He slipped it back under his shirt. “Dat’s cawz I goes swimmin’ in it all de time in de river.”
“An’ yuh ain’ ascared o’ nottin’ w’en yuh god dat on?”
“Naw! I tol’ ye!”
“Chee!” David sighed and gazed at Leo’s chest half in awe, half in envy.
—Not afraid! Leo wasn’t afraid!
“Hey, look out for dat kite!” Leo relieved him hastily of the string. “Yuh don’ wanna led it dive like dat, it’ll smack a roof!”
—Not afraid!
VIII
THE hour that had passed had been one of the most blissful in David’s life. He had never wanted to be anyone’s friend until this moment, and now he would have given anything to be Leo’s. The longer he heard him speak, the longer he watched him, the more he became convinced that Leo belonged to a rarer, bolder, carefree world. There was a glamour about him. He did what he pleased and when he pleased. He was not only free of parents, but he also wore something about his neck that made him almost god-like. Sitting next to him, David’s one concern had been how to ingratiate himself, how to keep Leo amused, keep him from remembering that time was passing. Whenever Leo had laughed, David had felt his own bosom swell up with joy; even when Leo had jeered at him he felt grateful. It was right that Leo should jeer at him. Leo was a superior being; his laugh was just. When Leo had asked him whether Jews wore amulets on their persons, David had described the “Tzitzos” that some Jewish boys wore under their shirts, and the “Tfilin”, the little leather boxes, he had seen men strap around their arms and brows in the synagogue—had described them, hoping that Leo would laugh. He did. And even when Leo had said of the “Mezuzeh”, the little metal-covered scroll that all Jews tacked on the door-posts above their thresholds—“Oh! Izzat wotchuh call em? Miss oozer? Me ol’ lady tore one o’ dem off de door w’en we moved in, and I busted it, an’ cheez! It wuz all full o’ Chinee on liddle terlit paper—all aroun’ an’ aroun’.” David had not been hurt. He had felt a slight qualm of guilt, yes, guilt because he was betraying all the Jews in his house who had Mezuzehs above their doors; but if Leo thought it was funny, then it was funny and it didn’t matter. He had even added lamely that the only thing Jews wore around their necks were camphor balls against measles, merely to hear the intoxicating sound of Leo’s derisive laugh. But at last, Time would have his way. The sun had risen to the zenith and Leo began drawing in the kite-cord. Resentfully, David eyed the approaching kite.
“Yuh ain’ gonna fly no maw?” he asked hoping against hope.
“Naw, I’m goin’ down.”
David hoped he would be invited. He wasn’t. “Wy’ntcha comm t’morreh again?” he urged.
“I’m goin’t’ elevent’, I tol’ yuh.”
His answer was like a pang. He was slipping away. He might never see him again! “Wish I had skates!” he said fervently. “Chee! I wish I had skates!” And suddenly a new thought struck him. “Wot time yuh commin’ home? Dont’cha comm home on twelve a’clock an’ eat?”
“Naw. I buys a couple o’ franks on a roll fer a jit.”
The last shred of hope. Leo’s freedom was unattainable. David could feel himself drooping. “So I ain’ gonna see yuh?” he asked miserably.
“Hodda ya wan’ me to know.” Leo had begun climbing down the shed.
“I’ll ged yuh somm cake—” David followed him down. “Big hunks if yuh comm up hea tomorreh.”
“Naw!”
“Can’t I comm witchuh? I c’n walk.”
But his clinging to Leo only tended to make him more unfriendly. “G’wan! I don’ wancher hanging’ aroun’ me. Ye ain’t big enough.”
“Yes I am!”
“Betcha y’ain’t even ten.”
“Sure I am!” He lied eagerly. “I’m goin’ on eleb’n.”
“Well, I’m goin’ on twelve. Ye ain’t got skates anyway.” He opened the roof-door, impatiently. “Better go acrost now, ’cause I’m goin down.” And as he stepped down, “So long!” And abruptly shut the roof-door behind him.”
“So long!” he called through the metal-covered door. “So long, Leo!” And could have wept the next moment. A little while he stood staring at the door, and then mournfully crossed over the roofs and sat down on the box. Without Leo, the roof had suddenly become vacant, had lost its appeal. Nor was sitting on the box comfortable any longer—he could feel its hard edges now, biting into his thighs. But a kind of inertia engendered by loss kept him where he was, and he leaned back broodily against the skylight. Skates. That was the real reason why he had lost Leo—because he lacked them. He could almost see the gulf between himself and Leo widening with Leo’s flying skates. And he had liked Leo so much, even if he was a goy, had liked him better than anyone in the whole block. If only he had a pair of skates! There was very little chance though. A penny a day his mother gave him; that made two on Tuesday; three on Wednesday. It would take forever, and one needed dollars and dollars. If he had a pair of skates he could leave the hated boys on his block behind him; he could go to Leo’s block, to Central Park, as Leo said he did. That park with the trees, where he went with Aunt Bertha, that white museum—Aunt Bertha! Her candy store! She must have skates in her candy store! She might even have an old pair that she would give him for nothing! Why hadn’t he thought of that before? He’d go now. No, he couldn’t go now. There was luncheon and cheder. He’d go to-morrow. Oh, wait till Leo saw him with his skates! He hurried joyfully down the stairs.
IX
WITHOUT telling his mother where he was going he had started out early that morning for Aunt Bertha’s candy store. It had been a long walk, but high hopes had buoyed him up. And now he saw a few blocks away the gilded mortar and pestle above a certain drugstore window. That was Kane Street. His breast began pounding feverishly as he drew near.
What if she didn’t have any skates. No! She must have! He turned the corner, walked east. A few houses and there was the candy store. He’d look into the window first. Jumping up eagerly on the iron scrolls of the cellar railing beside the store window, he pressed his nose against the glass, scrutinized the display. A wild, garish clutter of Indian bonnets, notebooks, pencil boxes, pasteboard females, American flags, uncut strips of battleships and ball players—but no skates for his flitting eyes to light upon. Hope wavered. No, they must be inside. Aunt Bertha would be foolish to keep anything so valuable in the window.
He peered in through a crevice in the chaos. Seated behind the counter, one hand poising a dripping roll above a coffee cup, Aunt Bertha had turned her head toward the rear of the store and was bawling at someone inside. David could hear h
er voice coming through the doorway. He got down from the rail, sidled around the edge of the window and went in—
“Sluggards! Bedbugs foul!” she shrilled unaware of his entrance. “Esther! Polly! Will you get up! Or shall I spit my lungs out at you! Quick, stinking heifers, you hear me! No?”
Aunt Bertha had changed since David had seen her last. Uncorseted, she looked fatter now, frowsier. The last remnant of tidiness in her appearance had vanished. Her heavy breasts, sagging visibly against her blouse, stained by fruit juice and chocolate, flopped slovenly from side to side. Fibres of her raffia-coarse red hair twined her moist throat. But her face was strangely thin and taut as though a weight where her apron bulged were dragging the skin down. “Wait!” she continued. “Wait till your father comes. Hi! He’ll rend you with his teeth! Stinking sluts, it’s almost nine!” She turned. “Vell?” and recognizing him. “David!” The hectic light in her eyes melted into pleasure. “David! My little bon-bon! You?”
“Yea!”
“Come here!” she spread fat arms like branches. “Let me give you a kiss, my honey-comb! I haven’t seen you in—how long? And Mama, why doesn’t she come? And how is your father?” Her eyes opened fiercely. “Still mad?” She submerged him in a fat embrace that reeked of perspiration flavored with coffee.
“Mama is all right.” He squirmed free. “Papa too.”
“What are you doing here? Did you come alone? All this long way?”
“Yes, I—”
“Want some candy? Ha! Ha! I know you, sly one!” She reached into a case. “Hea, I giff you an pineepple vit’ emmend. Do I speak English better?”
“Yea.” He pocketed them.
“End a liddle suddeh vuddeh?”
“No, I don’t want it.” He answered in Yiddish. For some reason he found himself preferring his aunt’s native speech to English.
“And so early!” She rattled on admiringly. “Not like my two wenches, sluggish turds! And you’re younger than they. If only you were mine instead of— Cattle!” She broke off furiously. “Selfish, mouldering hussies! All they know is to snore and guzzle! I’ll husk them out of bed now, God help me!” But just as she started heavily for the doorway, a man stepped into the store.
“Hello! Hello!” He called loudly. “What are you scurrying off for? Because I came in?”
“No-o! God forbid!” she exclaimed with mock vehemence. “How fares a Jew?”
“How fares it with all Jews? A bare living. Can you spare me a thousand guilders?”
“Ha! Ha! What a jester! The only green-rinds I ever see are what I peel from cucumbers.” And turning to David. “Go in, sweet one! Tell them I’ll sacrifice them for the sake of heathens if they don’t get up! That’s my sister’s only one,” she explained.
“Comely,” admitted the other.
David hesitated, “You want me to go in?”
“Yes! Yes! Perhaps you’ll shame the sows into rising.”
“Your fledgelings are still in the nest?”
“And what else?” disgustedly. “Lazy as cats. Go right in, my bright.”
Reluctantly, David squeezed past her, and casting a last vain glance at the jumbled shelves, pushed the spring door forward and went in. Beyond the narrow passageway, cramped even closer by the stumpy mottled columns on pasteboard boxes carelessly piled, the kitchen opened up with a stale reek of unwashed frying pans. The wooden table in the center was bare except for a half-filled bottle of ketchup with a rakish cap. Pots, one in another, still squatted on the gas-stove. From a corner of the stove-tray under the burners, coffee dripped to a puddle on the floor. The sink was stacked with dishes, and beside it on the washtub a bagful of rolls lay spilled all over. Splayed newspapers, crumpled garments, shoes, stockings, hung from the chairs or littered the floor. There were three doors, all closed, one on either side and one with a broom against it opening on the yard.
—Gee! Dirty.… Which one?
A giggle at his left. He approached cautiously.
“Is she commin’?” A guarded voice inside.
“Sh!”
“Hey,” he called out in a non-committal voice, “Yuh momma wants you sh’d ged op!”
“Who’re you?” Challengingly from the other side.
“It’s me, Davy.”
“Davy who?”
“Davy Schearl, Tanta Boita’s nephew.”
“Oh! So open de daw.”
He pushed it back—The clinging stench of dried urine. Lit by a small window that gave upon the squalid grey bricks of an airshaft, the room was gloomy. Only after a few seconds had passed did the features of the two heads that pronged the grey, mussed coverlets separate from the murk.
“It’s him!” A voice from the pillow.
“So wodda yuh wan’?” He finally distinguished the voice as Esther’s.
“I tol’ yuh,” he repeated. “Yuh momma wants yuh sh’d get op. She tol’ me I shul tell yuh.” The message delivered, he began to retreat.
“Comm beck!” Imperiously. “Dope! Wodda yuh wan’ in duh staw I asked.”
“N-nott’n.”
“So waddaye comm hea fuh?” Polly demanded suspiciously. “Kendy?”
“No, I didn’. I jost comm to see Tanta Boita.”
“Aaa, he’s full of hoss-cops—C’mon, Polly!” Esther was the one nearest the wall. “Ged out!” She sat up.
Polly clung to the covers. “Ged oud yuhself foist.”
“Yuh bedder! Yuh hoid w’ad mama said.”
“So led ’er say.” Peevishly.
“I ain’ gonna clean de kitchen by myself,” Esther stood up on the bed. “You’ll ged!”
“Don’ cross over me. Id’s hard luck.”
“I will if yuh don’ ged out!”
“You jus’ try—go over by my feet—”
But even as she spoke, Esther jumped over her.
“Lousy bestia!” Polly screeched. And as her sister jounced with unsure footing on the bed, she clutched at the hem of her nightgown and yanked her back. Esther tumbled heavily against the wall.
“Ow! Rotten louse!” Esther screamed in return. “Yuh hoit my head.” And swooping down on the coverlets, flung them back. “Yeee!” she squawled as Polly, taken by surprise lay for an instant with nightgown above naked navel, “Yeee! Free show! Free show!”
“Free show, yuhself!” Furiously, Polly clawed at the other’s nightgown. “Yuh stinkin’ fraid cat! Shame! Shame! Free show!” Immediately four bare thighs kicked, squirmed and locked, and the two sisters rolled about in bed, slapping each other and shrieking. After a minute of this, the disheveled Esther, with a last vicious slap, at the other, broke loose, leapt from the bed and squealing rushed past David into the kitchen.
“I’ll moider you—yuh rotten stinker!” Polly screamed after her. “I’ll break yuh head!” she rolled out of bed as well.
“Yea, I double dare you!” Quivering with spite, Esther bent fingers into claws.
“I’ll tell mama on you! I’ll tell ’er watchuh done!”
“I ain’ gonna go down witchoo.” Her sister spat. “Just fer dat, you go yuhself.”
“So don’t. I’ll tell him too!”
“I’ll kill yuh!”
“Yea! Yuh know w’ot Polly does?” Esther wheeled on him. “She pees in bed every night! Dat’s w’at she does! My fodder has to give her a pee-pot twelve a’clock every night—”
“I don’t!”
“Yuh do! Dere!”
“Now I’ll never take yuh down, yuh lousy fraid-cat. Never! Never!”
“So don’t!”
“An’ I hope de biggest moider boogey man tears yuh ass out.”
“Piss-in-bed!” Esther taunted stubbornly. “Piss in bed!”
“An he’ll comm, Booh!” Polly pawed the air, eyes bulging in mimic fright. “Booh! Like de Mask-man in de serial! Wooh!”
“Aaa, shoddop!” Esther flinched. “Mama’ll take me down.”
“Yea!” her sister gloated. “Stinkin’ fraid-cat! Who’ll stay in de staw?”
“You!”
“Yuh should live so!”
“So I’ll pee in de sink.” Esther threatened.
“Wid de dishes in id! G’wan, I dare yuh! An’ yuh know w’ot Mama’ll give yuh w’en I tell ’er.”
“So I’ll waid! Aaa! He’ll go down!” she shrilled in sudden triumph. “Mbaa!” her tongue flicked out. “Mbaa! Davy’ll go down wit’ me!”
“Yea? Waid’ll I tell Sophie Seigel an’ Yeddie Katz you took a boy down in de toilet and let ’im look. Waid’ll I tell!”
“Sticks and stones c’n break my bones, but woids can nevuh hoit me-e!” Esther sang malevolently. “I ain’gonna led ’im look. C’mon, Davy! Waid’ll I ged my shoes on.”
“Don’ go!” Polly turned on him fiercely. “Or I’ll give yuh!”
“An’ I’ll give you!” Esther viciously hooked feet into shoes. “Such a bust, yuh’ll go flyin’! C’mon, Davey!”
“Waddayuh wan’?” He looked from one to the other with a stunned, incredulous stare.
“I’ll give yuh kendy,” Esther wheedled.
“Yuh will not!” Polly interposed.
“Who’s askin’ you, Piss-in-bed?” She seized David’s arm. “C’mon, I’ll show yuh w’ea tuh take me.”
“W’ea yuh goin’?” He held back.
“Downstairs inna terlit, dope! Only number one. Srooo!” She sucked in her breath sharply. “Hurry op! I’ll give yuh anyt’ing inna store.”
“Don’tcha do it!” Polly exhorted him. “She won’t give yuh nott’n! I’ll give yuh!”
“I will so!” Esther was already dragging him after her.
“Leggo!” He resisted her tug. “I don’t want—” But she had said anything! A vision of bright-wheeled skates rose before his eyes. “Awri’.” He followed her.
“Shame! Shame!” Polly yapped at their heels. “Ev’ybody knows yuh name. He’s goin’ in yuh terlit!”
Cringing with embarrassment, he hurried across the threshold to Esther’s side.
“Shoddop! Piss-in-bed! Mind yuh own beeswax!” She slammed the door in her sister’s face. “Over dis way.”
A short flight of wooden steps led down into the muggy yard, and a little to the side of them, another flight of stone dropped into the cellar. At the sight of the nether gloom, his heart began a dull, labored pounding.
