Henry Roth - Call It Sleep

“That’s news!” He lifted his brows sarcastically, “Well, begin! Haazinu ha shawmayim veadabairaw.”

“Haazinu ha shawmayim veadabairaw, vtishma haawretz emri fi.” Whirling among the heavy characters on the page, two bodies grappled and strove — He stumbled.

“What ails you? You’re somewhat blind today.”

Without answering, he went on, “Yaarof kamawtawr l-l-likhiy tizol k-k-katal imrawsi.” The letters crowded, parted, deployed — lamp-posts, cobbles, graveled lanes, lanterns on mounds of earth. Whips in air. Time after time he stuttered, halted, corrected himself, went on. The rabbi had begun tapping his pointer slightly as he moved it along.

“Some little deed you’ve done, today, ha?” He lowered his tilted, bushy face to David’s level, and stared with a suspicious grin into his eyes — Tobacco reek. Sweat. Matted nostrils under red, speck-stippled nose. The moist drab gums of false teeth. Revolting. David drew back.

“One deed but a good one, no? No?” His voice rose. “Answer! Are you dumb?”

“No,” sullenly. “Didn’t do anything.”

“Then why do you read like a plaster golem? Ha? Look at me! Lift the hasps of your eyes.”

He glanced up at the angry face for a fleeting second, glanced down.

“Fire strike you!” His thumb shot the leaf over viciously. “Read further!”

David waited till the page settled and then with all his powers, fixed on the letters. The effort seemed to drain him of every ounce of strength, and even despite his efforts, he halted and floundered frequently. His head sank lower and lower over the book. At last the rabbi slapped him.

“Go now!” He said acridly, “Enough balking for a day! Enough for a year! And when you leave here,” his thumb and forefinger curled expoundingly, “take yourself home, sit long in the privy and you’ll have a clearer brow.”

Hardly attending, David slid off the bench.

“And hear me!” he warned. “Tomorrow and you pray thus, I’ll begin currying.”

Voices jeered at him as he crossed the cheder. “Smod guy! Cholly ox! Goot fuh yuh, stingy! Strap onnee ass, yuh’ll ged! His fodder’ll give ’im wit’ de w’ip. I seen—”

He turned. Izzy’s voice sank to a whisper. He hurried through the door. New quoins of light in the cheder yard still patterned the old unreality. At the top of the wooden stairs, the long hallway was empty and full of murky shadows. (—Get on your mark! Get se-e-et! Go! — ) He raced through it, reached the streetlight with prickling scalp. — (Shittin’ fraid-cat, me! Scared now. Never was. And him — Hate him! Stinky mouth! Hate ’em all! Mama, now! Mama—)

Already in the shelter of her arms, he began running along the pavement towards his house. (—Hope he ain’t home! Hope, hope he ain’t!)

He had jogged to within a few yards of his doorway, when a loud confused cry overhead brought him to a halt. He glanced up. With a fat bosom flopping against the ledge of the second floor window a woman was screaming excitedly down at the street. “Beetrice! Beetrice! Horry op!” She craned dangerously out of the window as though she were trying to look into her own doorway. And presently a half-grown girl, pigtails and ribbons flying behind her, came running out. David stared at them in wonder.

“Where is ’e, Mama?” The girl reached the sidewalk and was screaming up.

“Dere! Zeh! Look!” The woman shrilled down. “Sebm fawdy six in de red house!”

“Where? I can’ see!”

“Dort! Oy! Look! De toiteh fluh!”

In open mouthed fixity, the girl stared at the house across the street. “Yea!” She squealed. “I see ’im! I see ’im, Mama!”

“Noo! Catch ’im. Ron! Ron op!”

A small crowd had gathered, children and grownups. Kushy’s face was among them. “Hey, watsuh maddeh? Zug, vuss is?”

“He’s dere! He’s dere on dat house!” the girl babbled and pointed.

“Who?”

“The kinerry! My modder’s!” And urged by the shrill voice of her mother upstairs, she began running across the street. “He got out from the cage! I’ll give a rewuhd!”

She had no sooner gone inside when suddenly from a niche on the wall of the same house, a bright yellow bird dove down, fluttered uncertainly, then skimmed across the street and landed on the scroll-work of the house next to David’s. It perched there a moment while the street gaped up at it, and then it flew up to the roof.

“Whee! Yuh see ’im!” The crowd grew excited. “Oy a fegel! Kent fly so good! Ketch ’im! She’ll give a rewuhd!”

“My roof!” One of the boys plucked his cap off and dashed for the doorway. “I’ll gid ’im wid my hat!”

“A-key!” Kushy tore after him. “A rewuhd!”

“A-key!” A third followed.

“A-key!” A fourth disappeared inside.

A few seconds later, the girl with the pig-tails stuck her head out of the window.

“He flew away!” voices in the crowd bawled up at her. “On de roof across the street!”

“He flew away, Mama!” she screamed.

“I saw already,” the answer shot back. “He shull drop dead!”

Mother and daughter drew their heads in. On the sidewalk necks craned awhile searching the sky. No bird appeared.

“Dey’ll never get ’im. Naaa!”

“A nechtige tug!” The small crowd drifted slowly apart.

— Mama!

He woke from his revery.

— Dumb ox, me! Hurry up!

He ran up the stoop, but at the doorway hesitated, peered in. Again the roots of his hair prickled. He could not bring himself to enter the darkness. All the old fears lurked there again. Why had they returned? Angered to the point of tears at his own cowardice, he paced restlessly back and forth across the stoop, now listening for a sound in the hallway, now peering up and down the street for some familiar face. At last he heard a door slam dully inside as though from an upper floor. He leapt into the hallway, scrambled frantically up the stairs. Between the first and second floors he neared the bulky figure of a woman, squeezed past her and up — still listening to the other’s dwindling footsteps. On the fourth floor, he threw himself breathlessly at the door— It was locked!

“Mama!” he screamed.

“You, David?” Her startled voice.

The enormous relief! “Yes, mama, open it!” The foot he had drawn back to kick at the door in his fury and terror sank again to the floor.

“Wait!” Her voice had a hurried sound. “I’ll open it in a moment.”

What was she doing? And as if in answer, he heard a loud splash of water followed by a flurry of tinkling drops. She had been taking a bath in the washtub. She was getting out now. A chair creaked as though she had stepped on it, then the pad of her bare feet on the floor. “Just one little second more,” she implored.

“Awrigh’” he called to her.

Silence. Feet moving off, returning. The door opened. And as if the light that widened with it were a wedge, the foggy, tormenting globe about his senses split open and dissolved — hue and contour, sound and scent focused.

“Mama!”

“I didn’t mean to keep you waiting.” She was still barefooted. Her faded yellow bathrobe, darkened by water-stains clung to breast and thigh. “But I hurried as fast as I could.” From glistening brown hair, water still streamed down on the towel across her shoulder. The wonted pallor of smooth throat and face was flushed and beaded with water. “What are you staring at?” She smiled, pulled the bathrobe tighter and shut the door behind him.

“I didn’t care if I waited.” He smiled with her. He could almost feel his jarred spirit settle softly in its grooves again.

“But you did storm the door with all the old fury,” she laughed. And pressing her dripping hair against her bosom, she stooped down and kissed him. The warm, faintly soap-scented humidity of her body, ineffably sweet. “I’m so relieved to see you again.”