Henry Roth - Call It Sleep

— Peeuh! It stinks!

He edged away. Dull-eyed, droopy-lipped, Mendel glanced down at him and then turned to watch the rabbi. The latter drew a large blue book from a heap on the shelf and then settled himself on his pillowed chair.

“Strange darkness,” he said, squinting at the rain-chipped window. “A stormy Friday.”

David shivered. Beguiled by the mildness of noon, he had left the house wearing only his thin blue jersey. Now, without a fire in the round-bellied stove and without other bodies to lend their warmth to the damp room, he felt cold.

“Now,” said the rabbi stroking his beard, “this is the ‘Haftorah’ to Jethro — something you will read at your bar mitzvah, if you live that long.” He wet his thumb and forefinger and began pinching the top of each page in such a way that the whole leaf seemed to wince from his hand and flip over as if fleeing of its own accord. David noted with surprise that unlike the rabbi’s other books this one had as yet none of its corners lopped off. “It’s the ‘Sedrah’ for that week,” he continued, “and since you don’t know any chumish, I’ll tell you what it means after you’ve read it.” He picked up the pointer, but instead of pointing to the page suddenly lifted his hand.

In spite of himself, Mendel contracted.

“Ach!” came the rabbi’s impatient grunt. “Why do you spring like a goat? Can I hit you? ” And with the blunt end of the pointer, he probed his ear, his swarthy face painfully rippling about his bulbous nose into the margins of his beard and skull-cap. He scraped the brown clot of wax against the table leg and pointed to the page. “Begin, Beshnos mos.”

“Beshnos mos hamelech Uziyahu vaereh es adonoi,” Mendel swung into the drone.

For want of anything better to do, David looked on, vying silently with Mendel. But the pace soon proved too fast for him — Mendel’s swift sputter of gibberish tripped his own laggard lipping. He gave up the chase and gazed vacantly at the rain-chipped window. In a house across the darkened yard, lights had been lit and blurry figures moved before them. Rain strummed on the roof, and once or twice through the steady patter, a muffled rumble filtered down, as if a heavy object were being dragged across the floor above.

— Bed on wheels. Upstairs. (His thoughts rambled absently between the confines of the drone of the voice and the drone of the rain.) Gee how it’s raining. It won’t stop. Even if he finishes, I can’t go. If he read chumish, could race him, could beat him I bet. But that’s because he has to stop … Why do you have to read chumish? No fun … First you read, Adonoi elahenoo abababa, and then you say, And Moses said you mustn’t, and then you read some more abababa and then you say, mustn’t eat in the traife butcher store. Don’t like it any way. Big brown bags hang down from the hooks. Ham. And all kinds of grey wurst with like marbles in ’em. Peeuh! And chickens without feathers in boxes, and little bunnies in that store on First Avenue by the elevated. In a wooden cage with lettuce, and rocks, they eat too, on those stands. Rocks all colors. They bust ’em open with a knife and shake out ketchup on the snot inside. Yich! and long, black, skinny snakes. Peeuh! Goyim eat everything …

“Veeshma es kol adonoi omair es mi eshlach.” Mendel was reading swiftly this afternoon. The rabbi turned the page. Overhead that distant rumbling sound.

— Bed on wheels again … But how did Moses know? Who told him? God told him. Only eat kosher meat, that’s how. Mustn’t eat meat and then drink milk. Mama don’t care except when Bertha was looking! How she used to holler on her because she mixed up the meat-knives with the milk-knives. It’s a sin.… So God told him eat in your own meat markets … That time with mama in the chicken market when we went. Where all the chickens ran around — cuckacucka — when did I say? Cucka. Gee! Funny. Some place I said. And then the man with a knife went zing! Eee! Blood and wings. And threw him down. Even kosher meat when you see, you don’t want to eat—

“Enough!” The rabbi tapped his pointer on the table.

Mendel stopped reading and slumped back with a puff of relief.

“Now I’ll tell you a little of what you read, then what it means. Listen to me well that you may remember it. Beshnas mos hamelech.” The two nails of his thumb and forefinger met. “In the year that King Uzziah died, Isaiah saw God. And God was sitting on his throne, high in heaven and in his temple — Understand?” He pointed upward.

Mendel nodded, grimacing as he eased the bandage round his neck.

— Gee! And he saw Him. Wonder where? (David, his interest aroused, was listening intently. This was something new.)

“Now!” resumed the rabbi. “Around Him stood the angels, God’s blessed angels. How beautiful they were you yourself may imagine. And they cried: Kadosh! Kadosh! Kadosh — Holy! Holy! Holy! And the temple rang and quivered with the sound of their voices. So!” He paused, peering into Mendel’s face. “Understand?”

“Yeh,” said Mendel understandingly.

— And angels there were and he saw ’em. Wonder if—

“But when Isaiah saw the Almighty in His majesty and His terrible light — Woe me! he cried, What shall I do! I am lost!” The rabbi seized his skull-cap and crumpled it. “I, common man, have seen the Almighty, I, unclean one have seen him! Behold, my lips are unclean and I live in a land unclean — for the Jews at that time were sinful—”

— Clean? Light? Wonder if—? Wish I could ask him why the Jews were dirty. What did they do? Better not! Get mad. Where? (Furtively, while the rabbi still spoke David leaned over and stole a glance at the number of the page.) On sixty-eight. After, maybe, can ask. On page sixty-eight. That blue book — Gee! it’s God.

“But just when Isaiah let out this cry — I am unclean — one of the angels flew to the altar and with tongs drew out a fiery coal. Understand? With tongs. And with that coal, down he flew to Isaiah and with that coal touched his lips — Here!” The rabbi’s fingers stabbed the air. “You are clean! And the instant that coal touched Isaiah’s lips, then he heard God’s own voice say, Whom shall I send? Who will go for us? And Isaiah spoke and—”

But a sudden blast of voices out doors interrupted him. Running feet stamped across the yard. The door burst open. A squabbling tussling band stormed the doorway, jamming it. Scuffling, laughing boisterously, they shoved each other in, yanked each other out—

“Leggo!”

“Leggo me!”

“Yuh pushed me in id, yuh lousy stinkuh!”

“Next after Davy,” one flew toward the reading table.

“Moishe flopped inna puddle!”

“Hey! Don’ led ’im in!”

“Next after Sammy!” Another bolted after the first.

“I come—!”

“Shah!” grated the rabbi. “Be butchered, all of you! You hear me! Not one be spared!”

The babel sank to an undertone.

“And you there be maimed forever, shut that door.”

The milling about the doorway dissolved.

“Quick! May your life be closed with it.”

Someone pulled the door after him.

“And now, sweet Sammy,” his voice took on a venomous wheedling tone. “ Nex are you? I’ll give you nex. In your belly it will nex. Out of there! Wriggle!”

Sammy hastily scrambled back over the bench.

“And you too,” he waved David away. “Go sit down over there.” And when David hung back, “Quick! Or—!”

David sprang from the bench.

“And quiet!” he rasped. “As if your tongues had rotted.” And when complete silence had been established. “Now,” he said, rising. “I’ll give you something to do— Yitzchuck!”