Henry Roth - Call It Sleep

“Sit down over there,” said the rabbi curtly as soon as his mother had left. “And don’t forget,” he brought a crooked knuckle to his lips. “In a cheder one must be quiet.”

David sat down, and the rabbi walked back to his seat beside the window. Instead of sitting down however, he reached under his chair, and bringing out a short-thonged cat-o’-nine tails, struck the table loudly with the butt-end and pronounced in a menacing voice: “Let there be a hush among you!” And a scared silence instantly locking all mouths, he seated himself. He then picked up a little stick lying on the table and pointed to the book, whereupon a boy sitting next to him began droning out sounds in a strange and secret tongue.

For awhile, David listened intently to the sound of the words. It was Hebrew, he knew, the same mysterious language his mother used before the candles, the same his father used when he read from a book during the holidays — and that time before drinking wine. Not Yiddish, Hebrew. God’s tongue, the rabbi had said. If you knew it, then you could talk to God. Who was He? He would learn about Him now—

The boy sitting nearest David, slid along the bench to his side. “Yuh jost stottin’ cheder?”

“Yea.”

“Uhh!” he groaned, indicating the rabbi with his eyes. “He’s a louser! He hits!”

David regarded the rabbi with panicky eyes. He had seen boys slapped by teachers in school for disobedience, although he himself had never been struck. The thought of being flogged with that vicious scourge he had seen the rabbi produce sealed his lips. He even refused to answer when next the boy asked him whether he had any match-pictures to match, and hastily shook his head. With a shrug, the boy slid back along the bench to the place he had come from.

Presently, with the arrival of several late-comers, older boys, tongues once more began to wag and a hum of voices filled the room. When David saw that the rabbi brandished his scourge several times without wielding it, his fear abated somewhat. However, he did not venture to join in the conversation, but cautiously watched the rabbi.

The boy who had been reading when David had come in had finished, and his place was taken by a second who seemed less able to maintain the rapid drone of his predecessor. At first, when he faltered, the rabbi corrected him by uttering what was apparently the right sound, for the boy always repeated it. But gradually, as his pupil continued in his error, a harsh note of warning crept into the rabbi’s voice. After awhile he began to yank the boy by the arm whenever he corrected him, then to slap him smartly on the thigh, and finally, just before the boy had finished, the rabbi cuffed him on the ear.

As time went by, David saw this procedure repeated in part or whole in the case of almost every other boy who read. There were several exceptions, and these, as far as David could observe, gained their exemption from punishment because the drone that issued from their lips was as breathless and uninterrupted as the roll of a drum. He also noticed that whenever the rabbi administered one of these manual corrections, he first dropped from his hand the little stick with which he seemed to set the pace on the page, and an instant later reached out or struck out, as the case might demand. So that, whenever he dropped the stick, whether to scratch his beard or adjust his skull-cap or fish out a half-burned cigarette from a box, the pupil before him invariably jerked up an arm or ducked his head defensively. The dropping of that little stick, seemed to have become a warning to his pupils that a blow was on the way.

The light in the windows was waning to a blank pallor. The room was warm; the stagnant air had lulled even the most restive. Drowsily, David wondered when his turn would come.

“Aha!” he heard the rabbi sarcastically exclaim. “Is it you, Hershele, scholar from the land of scholars?”

This was addressed to the boy who had just slid into the vacant place before the book. David had observed him before, a fat boy with a dull face and an open mouth. By the cowed, sullen stoop of his shoulders, it was clear that he was not one in good standing with the rabbi.

“Herry is gonna loin,” giggled one of the boys at David’s side.

“Perhaps, today, you can glitter a little,” suggested the rabbi with a freezing smile. “Who knows, a puppet may yet be made who can fart. Come!” He picked up the stick and pointed to the page.

The boy began to read. Though a big boy, as big as any that preceded him, he read more slowly and faltered more often than any of the others. It was evident that the rabbi was restraining his impatience, for instead of actually striking his pupil, he grimaced violently when he corrected him, groaned frequently, stamped his foot under the table and gnawed his under-lip. The other students had grown quiet and were listening. From their strained silence — their faces were by now half obscured in shadow — David was sure they were expecting some catastrophe any instant. The boy fumbled on. As far as David could tell, he seemed to be making the same error over and over again, for the rabbi kept repeating the same sound. At last, the rabbi’s patience gave out. He dropped the pointer; the boy ducked, but not soon enough. The speeding plane of the rabbi’s palm rang against his ear like a clapper on a gong.

“You plaster dunce!” he roared, “when will you learn a byse is a byse and not a vyse. Head of filth, where are your eyes?” He shook a menacing hand at the cringing boy and picked up the pointer.

But a few moments later, again the same error and again the same correction.

“May a demon fly off with your father’s father! Won’t blows help you? A byse, Esau, pig! A byse! Remember, a byse, even though you die of convulsions!”

The boy whimpered and went on. He had not uttered more than a few sounds, when again he paused on the awful brink, and as if out of sheer malice, again repeated his error. The last stroke of the bastinado! The effect on the rabbi was terrific. A frightful bellow clove his beard. In a moment he had fastened the pincers of his fingers on the cheeks of his howling pupil, and wrenching the boy’s head from side to side roared out.—

“A byse! A byse! A byse! All buttocks have only one eye. A byse! May your brains boil over! A byse! Creator of earth and firmament, ten thousand cheders are in this land and me you single out for torment! A byse! Most abject of God’s fools! A byse!”

While he raved and dragged the boy’s head from side to side with one hand, with the other he hammered the pointer with such fury against the table that David expected at any moment to see the slender stick buried in the wood. It snapped instead!

“He busted it!” gleefully announced the boy sitting near.

“He busted it!” the suppressed giggle went round. Horrified himself by what he saw, David wondered what the rest could possibly be so amused about.

“I couldn’t see,” the boy at the table was blubbering. “I couldn’t see! It’s dark in here!”

“May your skull be dark!” the rabbi intoned in short frenzied yelps, “and your eyes be dark and your fate be of such dearth and darkness that you will call a poppy-seed the sun and a carroway the moon. Get up! Away! Or I’ll empty my bitter heart upon you!”

Tears streaming down his cheeks, and wailing loudly, the boy slid off the bench and slunk away.

“Stay here till I give you leave to go,” the rabbi called after him. “Wipe your muddy nose. Hurry, I say! If you could read as easily as your eyes can piss, you were a fine scholar indeed!”

The boy sat down, wiped his nose and eyes with his coat-sleeve and quieted to a suppressed snuffling.

Glancing at the window, the rabbi fished in his pockets, drew out a match and lit the low gas jet sticking out from the wall over head. While he watched the visibility of the open book on the table, he frugally shaved down the light to a haggard leaf. Then he seated himself again, unlocked a drawer in the table and drew out a fresh stick which looked exactly like the one he had just broken. David wondered whether the rabbi whittled a large supply of sticks for himself, knowing what would happen to them.