Henry Roth - Call It Sleep

“Albert.” She smiled.

He made no answer, but breathing gustily, stripped off his coat — the jacket beneath always peeled with it — and removed his hat and handed them to her.

“I hope you haven’t prepared too much supper,” he began brusquely as he whipped his tie and collar off. “He wouldn’t come. Do you hear?” She had gone into David’s bedroom to hang up his coat.

“Yes.” Her voice preceded her. “I can use what’s left over. There’s no loss — especially in the winter — nothing spoils.”

“Hm!” He turned his back to her, rolled up his sleeves and bent over the sink. “And don’t prepare anything extra for him to-morrow. He’s not coming then either.” The squeezed soap slipped clacking into the sink. His teeth ground as he picked it up.

“No?” Her eyes, resting on his bent back opened in a worried flicker; her face sagged. But the next moment her voice was as barely surprised as a voice dared be and yet be non-committal. “What’s the matter?”

“Would I had known as little of him as I know his reasons!” He slapped his dripping palms angrily against his lean neck. “He wouldn’t say anything! He wouldn’t even ride home with me — had to go somewhere — some lame excuse! And that marriage-broker affair! Not a word! As though it had never been! As though he had never spoken about it! He took the keys from me in the morning, checked my overtime, and that was all!” He shut the water off with a wrathful jerk, snatched the towel. “God knows what he’s found or done or achieved! It’s too much for me! But why, tell me?” The towel paused in its swirling. “Do you think that if he found a woman who thought he was agreeable and had — she, I mean — a great deal of money, do you think that that might have given him a wry neck?”

A faint, troubled groan ushered in her answer. “I don’t know, Albert.”

“Now be honest!” He suddenly swung the towel into a ball, glared and thrust his lips out. “Answer me with a brunt!”

“What is it, Albert?” She lifted startled, fending hands. “What is it?”

Seeing her alarm, David squirmed back into his chair and watched them apprehensively under the rims of lowered eyes.

“I—” his father broke off, bit his lip. “Was anything said by — by me? Did I seem to be mocking him — when was it? — Friday night? When I told you he was going to a marriage broker?”

“Why, no, Albert!” Her body seemed to slacken. “No! Not at all! You said nothing that would offend any one! I thought he was amused!”

“You’re sure? You’re sure he didn’t leave so early because I — because of some jest I made?”

“No. You said nothing out of the way.”

“Unh! I thought I hadn’t! Well, what fiend is it that eggs him on then? He was like a man with a secret grudge. He wouldn’t speak! He wouldn’t look at me straight. A man I’ve known for months! A man who’s been here night after night!” He pulled a chair toward him, slumped into it. “At noon today, he ate his lunch with that Paul Zeeman. He knows I hate the man. He did that to hurt me. I know!”

“But — don’t — don’t let that upset you, Albert. I mean, don’t take offense at that! It’s — why—” She laughed nervously—“It’s too much like a school-girl’s device — this — this eating with another.”

“Is it?” he asked sarcastically. “Much you know about it! You haven’t seen him all day. It wasn’t only that! There were other things! I tell you there’s something seething in that skull of his! A hatred, for some mad reason! A vengeance biding its time! Do you know?” He suddenly drew back, looked up at her with narrowed, suspicious eyes. “You don’t seem dismayed — you don’t seem downcast enough!”

“Why, Albert!” She flinched before his harsh scrutiny. “I am dismayed! I am downcast. But what can I do? My only hope is that this — this hostility — or what one may call it — is — is only temporary! What can it be? For a time perhaps! Something worrying him that he won’t disclose! Why, it may be all over by to-morrow!”

“Yes. It may indeed! Something may! But my belief is that no man would become a stranger to me overnight unless he thought I had wronged him. Isn’t that so? And he — he’s worse than a stranger — he’s a foe! Avoiding me as if the sight of my face were a stab! Looking past me darkly! Ha! It’s more than something transient! It’s — what’s the matter?”

She was pale. With the glass pitcher in one hand, she strained vainly with the other to open the tap of the faucet. “I can’t open it, Albert! You must have shut it too tightly when you washed. I want some water for the table.”

“Are you weak suddenly?” He rose, strode sourly to the sink, twisted the tap open. “And as for him—” he stared ominously at the gushing water—“if he doesn’t change, he’d better be careful! He’ll find that I can change even more!”

There was a pause, a gathering of strain. Silently his mother set the pitcher on the table, went to the stove and began ladling out the steaming yellow pea-soup into the bowls. Stray drops that fell from the brown pancakes as she transferred them from the pot to the dishes hissed over the stove lids. The odor was savory. But David, glancing hurriedly at his father’s gloomy face, resolved to eat more carefully than he had ever eaten in his life. So far these sombre eyes had scarcely rested on him; now he felt himself trying to contract within himself to vanish from their ken. And failing, concentrated on the frosted moisture of the glass pitcher and how each drop awaited ripeness before it slid.

His father reached for the bread — it seemed to ease the strain. Relieved, David glanced up. His mother came near, her face strangely sorrowful and brooding, incongruous somehow, dissociated completely from her task of carrying a platter of soup. She set it down before his father, and straightening, touched his shoulder timidly.

“Albert!”

“Hm?” He stopped chewing, twirled the spoon he had just picked up.

“Perhaps I should ask you this after supper when your mind is easier, but—”

“What?”

“You — you won’t do anything rash? Please! I beg you!”

“I’ll know what to do when the hour falls,” he answered darkly. “Don’t let that trouble you.”

In spite of himself, David started. Against a sudden screen of darkness he had seen a dark roof, a hammer brandished over pale and staring cobbles.

“Pouh!” his father snorted, lowering his spoon. “Salt? Don’t you use that any more?”

“Not salted? I’m sorry Albert! Everything I’ve done today has gone awry — even the soup!” She laughed desperately. “I’m a good cook!”

“What should trouble you so much?” His sharp gaze rested on David. “Has he been lost again or up to some new madness?”

“No! No! Not him—! Begin eating, child! Not him! I don’t know! Nothing I did today had my eyes and my wits in the doing. Every hour brought some fresh confusion. It was one of those fateful days that make people superstitious. There’s a handkerchief in the yard this very moment. Who knows what made me drop it!”

His father shrugged. “At least you were alone. There was no one watching you! No one prodding you with his eyes into blunders.”

“You mean — him again?”

“Yes! Him! Twice I didn’t feed the sheet into the press just so. They wrinkled, crushed! The underpad was inked! I was ten minutes each time cleaning them! I tell you he gloated! I saw him!” He stopped eating, hammered the spoon on the table. “There’s evil brewing inside him! He’s waiting, waiting for something! I could feel his eyes on my back all day, but never there when I turned to face him! It took my mind off my work! I fed the press as though I were lame! I couldn’t have done worse the first day I began! Now too soon! Now too late! Now just missing! And then the mussed paper caught in the roller — in the gummy ink. I had to take the whole thing apart! And every minute the feeling that he was watching me. Ha!” He breathed harshly. His lips writhed back and his words battered against the barred teeth. “It’s more than I can bear! It’s more than I’ll stand! If he’s waiting for something, he’ll get it!”