Henry Roth - Call It Sleep

“She did.” Her voice was wrung from her. “And she told me I ought not to marry you. But what difference—”

“She did! And the rest? The others? Who else!”

“Why are you so eager to hear?”

“Who else?”

“Father and mother. Bertha.” Her voice had become labored. “The others know. I never told you because I—”

“They knew!” he interrupted her with bitter triumph. “They knew all the time! Then why did they let you marry me? Why did you marry me?”

“Why? Because no one believed her. Who could?”

“Oh!” sarcastically. “Is that it? That was quickly thought of! It was easy to shut your minds. But she swore it was true, didn’t she? She must have, hating me afterwards as she did. Didn’t she tell you that my father and I had quarreled that morning, that he struck me, and I vowed I would repay him? There was a peasant watching us from afar. Didn’t she tell you that? He said I could have prevented it. I could have seized the stick when the bull wrenched it from my father’s hand. When he lay on the ground in the pen. But I never lifted a finger! I let him be gored! Didn’t she tell you that?”

“Yes! But, Albert, Albert! She was like a woman gone mad! I didn’t believe it then and I don’t believe it now! Let’s stop now, please! Can’t we talk about it later?”

“Now that it’s all become clear to me you want to stop, is that it?”

“And why is it suddenly so clear?” her tone held a sharp insistence. “What is so clear to you? What are you trying to prove?”

“You ask me?” ominously. “You dare ask me?”

“I do! What do you mean?”

“Oh, the gall of your kind! How long do you think you’ll hide it! Will I be lulled and gulled forever? Must I tell you? Must I blurt it out! My sin balances another? Is that enough for you?”

“Albert!” her stunned outcry.

“Don’t call to me!” he snarled. “I’ll say it again — they had to get rid of you!”

“Albert!”

“Albert!” He spat back at her. “Whose is he? The one you’re holding in your arms! Ha? How should he be named?”

“You’re mad! Dear God! What’s happened to you?”

“Mad, eh? Mad then, but not a cheat! Come! What are you waiting for? Unmask yourself! I’ve been unmasked to you for years. All these years you said nothing. You pretended to know nothing. Why? You knew why! I would have asked you what I’ve just asked you now! I would have said why did they let you marry me. There must have been something wrong. I would have known! I would have told you. But now, speak! Speak out with a great voice! Why fear? You know who I am! That red cow betrayed you, didn’t she? I’ll settle with her too. But don’t think there was no stir in this silence. All these years my blood told me! Whispered to me whenever I looked at him, nudged me, told me he wasn’t mine! From the very moment I saw him in your arms out of the ship, I guessed. I guessed!”

“And you believe a child’s fantasy?” She spoke with a fixed flat voice of one staggered by the incredible. “The babbling? The wandering of a child?”

“No! No!” he bit back with a fierce sarcasm. “Not a bit of it. Not a word. How could I? It’s muddled of course. But did you want a commentary. Let him speak again. It might be clearer.”

“I’ve thought you strange, Albert, and even mad, but that was pride and that made you pitiful. But now I see you’re quite, quite mad! Albert!” She suddenly cried out as if her cry would waken him. “Albert! Do you know what you’re saying!”

“A comedienne to the end.” He paused, drew in the sharp breath of one marveling—“Hmph! How you sustain it! Not a tremor! Not a sign of betrayal! But answer me this!” His voice thinned to a probe. “Here! Here’s a chance to show me my madness. Where is his birth certificate? Ha? Where is it? Why have they never sent it?”

“That? Was it because of that one single thing your blood warned you so much? Why, dear God, they wrote you — my own father did. They had looked for it everywhere and never found it — lost! The confusion of departure! What other reason could there be?”

“Yes! Yes! What else could it be? But we — we know why it stayed lost, don’t we? It was better unfound! After all, was I there to see him born? Was I even there to see you bearing him? No! I was in America — on their money, notice! The ticket they bought me. Why were they so eager to get rid of me? Why such haste, and I not married more than a month?”

“Why? Can’t you see for yourself? There were nine in my family. Servants, others, outsiders began to know. They had hoped I would follow you soon. There was no money at home. The store was failing. The sons weren’t grown yet. You couldn’t send for me—”

“Oh, stop! Stop! I know all that! Who is it they began to know of — you or me?”

“Do you still persist? Of you, of course! Your mother went around telling everyone.”

“And they were ashamed, eh? I see! But now I’ll tell you my version. Here I am in America sweating for your passport, starving myself. You see? Thousands of miles away. Alone. Never writing to anyone only to you. Now! He’s born a month or two too soon to be mine — perhaps more. You wait that time. That month or two, and then, why then exactly on the head of the hour you write me — I have a son! A joy! Fortune! I have a son. Ha! But when you came across, the doctors were too knowing. Fool your husband, they said. You were frightened. Seventeen months were too few for one so grown. Twenty-one then! Twenty-one they might believe, and twenty-one of course I thought he was. There you are! Wasn’t that it? I haven’t forgotten. My memory’s good. An organist, eh? A goy, God help you! Ah! It’s clear! But my blood! My blood I say warned me!”

“You’re mad! There’s no other word!”

“So? But good enough for your kind. That’s what they reasoned back home — the old, praying glutton and his wife — Did you know an organist? Well, why don’t you answer?”

“I — oh, Albert, let me alone!” She moved David about frantically under her arms. “Let me alone in God’s name! You’ve heaped enough shame on me for nothing. It’s more than I can bear. You’re distraught! Let’s not talk about it anymore! Later! Tomorrow! I’ve suffered twice for this now.”

“Twice! Ha!” He laughed. “You’ve a gift for blurting things out! Then you knew an organist?”

“You claim I did!” Her voice went suddenly stony.

“Did you? Say it.”

“I did then. But that was—”

“You did! You did!” His words rang out again. “It fits! It matches! Why look! Look up there! Look! The green corn — taller than a man! It struck your fancy, didn’t it? Why, of course it would! The dense corn high above your heads, eh? The summer trysts! But I–I married in November! Ha! Ha! — Sh! Don’t speak! Not a word! You’ll be ludicrous, you’re so confounded!”

“And you believe? And you believe? This that you’re saying! Can you believe it?”

“Anhr! Do I believe the sun? Why I’ve sensed it for years I tell you! I’ve stubbed my feet against it at every turn and tread. It’s been in my way, tangled me! And do you know how? Haven’t you ever seen it? Then why do weeks and weeks go by and I’m no man at all? No man as other men are? You know of what I speak! You ought to, having known others! I’ve been poisoned by a guess! Corruption has haunted me. I’ve sensed it! I’ve known it! Do you understand? And it’s been true!”

She rose. And David still in her arms, still clasping her neck, dared not breathe nor whimper in his terror, dared not lift his eyes from the shelter of her breast. And his father’s voice, nearer now, broke like a rod of stiff, metallic words across his back.