by Henry Roth
Hi … An evil day.…
And in the afternoon, Reb Schulim had come to his cheder, Reb Schulim, his townsman, to review learning. And had reviewed not learning but a long procession of numbskulls, stutterers, louts half blind with too much loitering in cellars. A black fate had let the best ones read first, and the best had scattered before Reb Schulim came and only the dullards were left to shame him. A good rabbi, Reb Yidel, he must have thought—Hmmmm-m-m! h-m-m—h-m-m-m! A good rabbi! Not one has he taught to utter three words one upon the other without fumbling. Not one could speak the tongue without a snffle or a snort—except this child, David, this bastard, God have pity on him, a goy’s spawn, a church organist’s. Hi! Hi! And it is strange that true Yiddish children of pious parents should prove such God-forsaken dolts and this one—only half-a-jew—perhaps not (I could have found out then and there, but—) circumcised—an iron wit. God’s ways. Hidden. A pitiful story and a triple curse befall the aunt, sister, slut, who revealed it. I say the gallows, Haman’s gibbet, high …
Hm-m-m-m! Evil day!…
Then why do you go? Reb Yidel, why do you go? Would it not be better on a day like this not to be the bearer of evil tidings? Accursed, calamitous day! Would it not to be safer to turn and stride back toward the synagogue. They may not understand. Should they accuse you of breeding hatred, call you augur-nosed, are you prepared? Should they mock at you and scorn you and say, Reb Yidel, your nose is in every wind like the spokes of a wheel, have you a remedy? Have you an answer? None. But I am an upright man, and someone must tell them. Shall the child know and they not know he knows. Is he truly a Jew, this David? Shall the foul sister go un-spared? Someone must warn them, advise. And I vowed. I vowed. Hi! Hi! Hi! Alas! Foreboding!…
Grimacing so violently his black beard twitched in several places simultaneously, twitched and caught the sunlight in a skein of drawn pitch, pin-point glints and iridescence, the dumpy, ageing Jew stopped at the corner of Avenue C and Ninth Street, looked west into the sun when he meant to go east, and opened the trigger-taut button on his dull alpaca coat. Relieved from strain, the cloth crumpled against his arms in flutings. The curtains drawn, the grease spots on his vest glistened in vitreous tableau. Beaked thumb and forefinger pecked among his pockets, drew out a torn bit of paper, unfolded it.
“Seven-forty-nine,” he muttered after scanning the Hebrew characters. “Fourth floor. Perhaps this corner of Avenue D. Perhaps the other. Pray God I put it down correctly.”
He replaced the scrap of paper, turned and strode east through the familiar street. Abreast of his cheder doorway, he felt the old bleak stir of recognition, glanced into the hallway and crossed the street. Head cocked, he scanned the house numbers increasing one after the other.
“Seven-forty-nine.” His lips formed the words silently. “Fourth floor.” He added mentally. And taking a deep, sighing breath against the stairs he had to climb, climbed the stoop, entered the hallway and mounted the shadowy stairs.
Winded, stertorous, perturbed, he reached the top and brightest landing, and with heaving paunch, eyed the Mizzuzahs, some still bright, some painted over, above the several doors. And knocked at the nearest one.
“Who is it?” The sharp female voice behind the panels inquired in Yiddish.
“Does the Mrs. Schearl live here?” He asked, knowing somehow that she didn’t.
“No.” A heavy busted, bar-armed woman opened the door. “She lives there. That door in the front. That door.”
His eyes swept from the coarse-grained red skin of her throat to the door her finger pointed at. He nodded, not surprised that she kept her own door opened, watching him inquisitively. And knocked again.
“Oh! David! David! Is it you?” A voice of immense eagerness called out to him. “Is it closed? I’ve been waiting—”
“This is I—Reb Yidel Pankower,” he said as the door opened.
XVII
WISH I had a potsee, a potsee. Could go slower. Go slower. Look around. See if to see. Look around. An exhaustion beyond anything he had ever felt; a weariness the vastest rest could never match. He was so tired his very thought seemed a function of his breathing, as though the mind were so spent it needed the impulse of breath to clear the word away, else it echoed in stagnance. He dragged tottering rebellious legs toward the car tracks of Tenth.
—Take longer if I had a potsee. Longer, lots longer. And kick it here, so it goes there. And there, and there, and kick it there, so it goes here. And here and follow it. And follow it where it went. And if it went away, go away. Go with it. And if it comes back, come back. Ow! Mama! Mama! Tired all out! Ow! Mama! Should have gone away. Anyway. Away. Forty-one Street, said. Big house. Forty-one street River was. And Thirty Street River was. And was and it followed. And train and it followed. And he said it goes. Goes where? Br-Bronx, Bronx Park, he said. Is animals, he said with the package. Lots and trees. Lots. Then it comes back. Five cents. Have to come back always. Go home. Never get lost no more. No more. Know number. Never. Slow. Go slower. Cartracks. Ow! Too near! Too near already. Ow! Ow!
With all the horror of one tottering over an abyss, he stared at the cobbles, the gleaming tracks.
—Stay here! Go back! Stay here! Ow! What’ll I do? Where’ll I go? Mama! Mama! Stay here till fifty wagons; take a step. Fifty autos; take a step. Fifty—Tired! Tired all out. Can’t wait! Can’t wait no more. Don’t let him hit me, Mama, I’m crossing! I’m crossing, Mama! Ow! Getting near! Getting near! Where’s a potsee? A potsee. Garbage cans look. Ain’t out yet. Flies he found. Cellar. Them! Ow! A potsee! A potsee! Something. Find! Find!
Nerveless fingers fumbled numbly in his pockets.
—Pencil. No good. Break off gold and rubber. Step on—No good! No good! What? Cord when I thought kite. What’d I go up for? Why! Why! Canary! Ow! Lousy! Lousy son-of-a-! Back pocket … Them! It’s them! No good shitten them! Kick! Throw away! Tear! Shitten, goy-beads! Tear! Kick for a potsee! Gwan! They’ll see, but they’ll see! Don’t care! Ow! Getting near! Getting near! My lamppost, Ninth! Oh, Mama, Mama, don’t let him hit me! I’m going round! I’m going round! Oooh, look every place! Look every place!
Only his own face met him, a pale oval, and dark, fear-struck, staring eyes, that slid low along the windows of stores, snapped from glass to glass, mingled with the enemas, ointment-jars, green globes of the drug-store—snapped off—mingled with the baby clothes, button-heaps, underwear of the drygoods store—snapped off—with the cans of paint, steel tools, frying pans, clothes-lines of the hardware store—snapped off. A variegated pallor, but pallor always, a motley fear, but fear. Or he was not.
—On the windows how I go. Can see and ain’t. Can see and ain’t. And when I ain’t, where? In between them if I stopped, where? Ain’t nobody. No place. Stand here then. BE nobody. Always. Nobody’d see. Nobody’d know. Always. Always No. Carry—yes—carry a looking glass. Teenchy weenchy one, like in pocket-book, Mama’s. Yea. Yea. Yea. Stay by house. Be nobody. Can’t see. Wait for her. Be nobody and she comes down. Take it! Take looking-glass out, Look! Mama! Mama! Here I am! Mama, I was hiding! Here I am! But if Papa came. Zip, take away! Ain’t! Ain’t no place! Ow! Crazy! Near! I’m near! Ow!
His eyes glazing with panic, he crept toward his house, and as he went, grasped at every rail and post within reach—not to steady himself, though he was faint, but to retard. And always he went forward, as though an ineluctable power tore him from the moorings he clutched.
A boy stood leaning against the brass bannister on the top step of the stoop. He held in his hands the torn tissue of a burst red balloon which he sucked and twisted into tiny crimson bubbles. As David, fainting with terror, dragged himself up the stone stairs, the other nipped at a moist, new-made sphere. It popped. He grinned blithely.
“Yuh see how I ead ’em? One bite!”
David stopped, stared at him unseeingly. In the trance that locked his mind only one sensation guttered with a bare significance. The chill of the tarnished railing under his palm, the chill an
d the memory of its lustre and the flat taint of its corruption.
“Now, I’ll make a real big one!” said the boy. “Watch me!” The stretched red rubber hollowed into a small antre in his mouth, was engulfed, twisted, revealed. “See dot! In one bite!”
Pop!
Despair.…
XVIII
“FAH a penny, ices, Mrs! Fah a penny, ices! Fah a penny, ices, Mrs!”
The grimy six-year-old who had just come in, rapped on the marble counter with his copper.
“Fah a penny, ices, Mrs!”
But neither the slight, long-nosed owner of the store, gnawing bitterly at his sallow mustache, nor his slovenly, red-haired wife glaring at him, nor their pimpled, frightened daughter in the rear moved to do his bidding.
“Fah a penny, ices, Mrs! Hey!”
Another six-year-old came into the store.
“Yuh gonna gimme a suck, Mutkeh?”
“Dey dowanna gib me even!” Mutkeh turned to his friend with an injured look.
“Let’s go t’ Solly’s. Yea?”
“Noo!” muttered the owner in Yiddish. “Are you going to give it to him or will you let him clamor there all evening?”
“Boils and pepper, that’s what I’ll give him!” she crossed her arms defiantly. (The six-year-olds looked hurt.) “Can’t you do it? Are you dead?”
“I won’t!” His small peevish jaw shot as far forward as its teeth would allow. “Let the whole store be burnt to the ground! I won’t!”
“Then be burned with it!” She spat at him. “I need you and your penny business! A candy-store he saddled me with—good husband! Polly, go give it to him.”
Sullenly, red underlip curled out like a scarlet snail-shell, Polly left off pinching the sides of her dress and came out into the front. There she lifted the rusty lid of the can floating in the half-melted ice of the tub, ladled out the pale-yellow, smoking, crystalline mush into a paper cup and handed it to the boy. The two children went out. And as the girl retreated to the rear of the store, her mother nodded at her vindictively—
“And you had to tell him, ha? Foul-piss-in-bed! After I warned you not to!”
“You ain’ my moddeh,” Polly mumbled in English.
“I’ll give you something in a minute,” her stepmother unlocked her arms, “You think you’re safe because your father’s here?”
“Leave her alone!” her husband interfered resentfully, “Do you think she’s wrong maybe? Had it been your own flesh and blood, you would have been there in a wink, no? You’d have watched. You wouldn’t have sat in front on your fat hole, while that Esau scum handled my poor daughter—”
“Be a scape-goat for dogs!” her voice rose in a browbeating stormy scream. “And for rats! And for snakes! Can I watch everything? The store! The customers! The salesmen! The kitchen! And your stinking daughters as well! Isn’t it enough you’ve given me a candy-store to age me, and with a candy-store loaded my belly with one of yours—Here!” She lifted the chocolate-stained, mounded apron as though she meant to throw it at him. “And besides all this, you ask me to watch those filthy hussies! If they don’t even listen to me, how can I watch them? Aren’t they old enough? Don’t they know enough? And that one in the kitchen where she pretends to weep—a wench of twelve! Let her choke there! And you—you don’t deserve to have the earth cover you! Telling me to watch them! And if you want to know something else, you’ll make no more fuss about it, but you’ll go into the kitchen and eat your supper!” Gasping breathlessly, she stopped.
“Yes?” Though he groped for words, it wasn’t fury that halted his speech, but a kind of invincible stubbornness that kept laboriously intrenching itself deeper and deeper. “Supper—me—you ask—me—to eat? Your zest—and may your zest—for life—be as little all your life—as I—as mine is for food! Supper—after what’s happened! Woe to you! But this once—I—You won’t straddle me like a—a good horse! No! This—you—this once you won’t ride—”
“Kiss my arse!” She broke in on him again. “Riding you! I’m not ridden, ha? Oh what a fool you are—choking over it! As if it’s never happened before that two brats should be playing like animals. Is she maimed! Has he snatched it from her—the prize? Won’t it heal before she’s married?”
“How do you know? Do you know how big he was? What has he wrought? Did you even look to see?”
“Look? Yes!” she suddenly snorted mockingly. “I looked! Her drawers were dirty—as they always are! Why don’t you go inside and look at her yourself!”
“Go break a blood vessel!” he muttered.
“Brats at play and he’s worrying! About what, God knows—the future, marriage, suitors. They’ll explore her before they’ll marry her, is that it? Oh, idiot! Do you want a suitor for her? Blow your nose—she’ll have a tall one!”
His small frame stiffened. Blood flared in his sallow face.
“That’s how your mother answered your father, ha? Over your sister, Genya, ha? And exactly the same way—a goy! It’s a family trait by now! To you it’s nothing!” The spurt of anger that had driven his words failed him suddenly. He retreated.
“Burn like a candle!” She advanced upon him furiously. “Will you vomit up past shame! A secret I told you, you dare mock me with? I’ll give you something to make your world keel over!”
His back against the glass doors of the toy closet, he had lifted his arms defensively. “Go away! Let me alone! If you’ll swill refreshments at my funeral, I’ll swill them at yours!”
“Be slaughtered by a chinaman!” She turned her back on him contemptuously. “Manikin! I don’t hear you any more! Go talk to my buttocks!”
“All right! All right!” He swayed impotently. “Let it be as you say. My just one! My righteous! Let it be as you say. But him, that little rogue with the big eyes, he goes scot-free, ha? That’s dealing justly, ha? A nephew is dearer to you than the daughters I brought you. But remember there’s a God in heaven—He’ll judge you for this!”
“Did I say he ought to go unpunished?” She wheeled around again. “Did I? I told you I’d tell Genya in the morning. With the first light of day I’ll tell her. What more do you want? Would you like Albert to know? Would nothing else suit you but that? How many times have I told you what a maniac he is? Haven’t you even seen it for yourself? He’d tear that child limb from limb! Is that what you want? Well you won’t get it! And now go inside and eat! Go inside as I tell you and stop hammering the samovar—daughter! daughter! Or God help me you’ll have pangs and hemorrhoids for an appetizer!”
Completely cowed and yet too stubborn to move, he stood there muttering while she glared at him. “Genya.… Good! Good! She with her light hand and soft voice. Yeh! Yeh!” He nodded bitterly. “She’ll never lift either against him. She’ll talk to him, that’s what she’ll do—fondle him. And with that he’ll be punished—words. With words after what he’s done to my Esther. All right! All right! If that’s the kind of treatment I get—good … Good! Good! But I’m not satisfied—know that! I’m not satisfied.”
“Will you go in?”
He turned to go. But as he turned, a woman entered the store.
“Hello, Mrs. Sternowitz!”
“Hello!”
“And Mr. Sternowitz! I didn’t see you. How fares it?”
“Fair.”
“Only fair? Tt! Tt! Well, give me for two cents hairpins. You sell three packages for two cents, no?”
“Yes.”
Mrs. Sternowitz turned and waddled heavily toward the rear of the store; Polly, her mouth still hanging, stepped sullenly to one side. As she fumbled among the boxes stacked on the shelves, fumbled and sighed laboriously, and muttered about the dark, her husband watched her, flexing and unflexing nervous hands. Suddenly he clenched his fist, and while his wife’s back was still turned to him, sidled toward the front of the store, brushed by the puzzled woman at the counter and slunk out. Polly gaped after him. Her step-mother, all unaware, lifted haphazardly now one lid of a box, now another. The cust
omer laughed.
“What’s the matter with your husband?” she asked.
“Ach!” Mrs. Sternowitz threw casually over her shoulder. “God alone knows what’s ailing him. His nose has fallen to the ground and he won’t pick it up.”
“That’s the way with men,” the woman chuckled. “You’ll be lying in soon, no?”
“Too soon. Oh! Here it is! A new box?” She dragged it out. “These have something between their legs, these hairpins, cha! cha! Another new variety.” She broke off abruptly, her questioning glance flicking from daughter to customer. “Where is he? Nathan!”
“That’s why I asked you.” The woman still smiled. “It looked to me as though he fled.”
“Fled?” She stood stock-still. “Where?”
“There. Toward Alden Avenue I think. What is it?”
But Mrs. Sternowitz had already flung back the counter lid, and with a frightened yet furious expression was hurrying toward the door. She ran out on the sidewalk, stared eastward frantically, ran a few steps, came rushing back.
“I don’t see him! I don’t see him!” she spluttered, pinching frantically at her neck and dragging at the flesh. “He’s tricked me! He’s off—to Genya’s!” She turned furiously on her daughter. “Why didn’t you tell me he was sneaking off, you little snake!” She lifted her hand to strike, but thought better of it. “Ai!” She threw the box of hairpins down on the counter, and began fumbling desperately with her apron strings. And while the other woman stared at her in alarm, shouted garbled, flurried injunctions at Polly.
