Philip Roth - Letting Go

In the room itself, the lights had to be turned on even during the day. The yellow from the bulbs penetrated their furniture and curtains so as to bring out every inch of ugliness. Only old people moved about in the other rooms of the three-story house, and when they hawked up mucus into the sinks, the sounds carried through the thin walls. Ancient men urinated in the bathroom down the hall, leaving the door open, leaning on their canes; often they were sick in the night, and those noises carried too. Surely if Paul had had a rich uncle and that uncle had died leaving him a fortune, he would have quit on the spot and moved the two of them back to Ann Arbor, where he had left two term papers half-written. But since no such uncle was alive even to expire, since even his possessionless father had dispossessed him, he accepted his fate, and seemed to derive from it a feeling of resiliency. If such lousy circumstances as these couldn’t humble him, what could? For all the beans they prepared on the hot plate, and for all the movies they decided they couldn’t afford to see, he felt his love for Libby flowering again. They did not argue as often as they had in Ann Arbor when they had begun to feel the financial squeeze. Perhaps they were only too exhausted now at night to sink their teeth in one another — but even the exhaustion proved something.

But when Paul called him back, the pharmacist assured him that positive meant only one thing: Libby was positively pregnant. Immediately Paul’s trunk-hinging stopped soothing him because it stopped engaging him. Cars fled past him as he added and subtracted in his head. The doctor plus the hospital plus the circumcision plus diapers, powders, formulas …

In how many months would she have to stop work?

How much are maternity clothes? Are they necessary?

How much would an apartment cost? Could they possibly stay on in the room? Instead of two years servitude in Detroit as planned, would they now be stuck here forever? A baby carriage plus a bassinet—

In the midst of his calculations, a passing auto frame nearly chopped off his left hand. He was spurting blood from the wrist when they rushed him to the infirmary. The doctor there, a curly-haired dark Italian, gave him the name of the abortionist.

He was home by noon. He had wanted to stay on for the afternoon, but the doctor said that considering everything (they had discussed everything for some fifteen minutes) he should go home, if only to pull himself together. With the light off he lay in bed and turned over and over in his hands the small slip of paper upon which the doctor had written a very few words. Paul studied the name: Dr. Thomas Smith. An alias? With his picture in the Post Office? He fell asleep finally, having first imagined various unsavory faces over Dr. Smith’s blood-stained white jacket.

Levy awakened him. Mr. Levy never smiled but was very friendly; it was only out of Libby’s softness for all those with canes and crutches that he had become an acquaintance of theirs. Paul had to admit that being able to say hello to somebody in the corridors did make the place less depressing. However, Levy — sunburned, bald, hawk-nosed — did not strike Paul as someone to particularly feel sorry for; he was too peppy, and furthermore they suspected that he tried to peek at Libby in the toilet.

Now Levy’s face was in the doorway. “How come you’re home? I thought something was up.”

“I cut my hand. They gave me the afternoon off.”

“Whew! What a cut!” said Levy, advancing. “You got a bandage like a mummy.”

“I’m all right.” He sat up, shaking the grogginess out of his head; the doctor had given him some numbing drug. “I’ll be fine.”

“Want me to make you a little Lipton’s tea?”

“No, thanks.”

“It don’t cost extra to boil water,” Levy said, spreading his fingers across the chest of his oversized, monogrammed shirt. “The tea-bag is a treat from me. You got a pretty wife.”

The remark irritated him. Levy was forever dropping his cane outside the bathroom keyhole in the morning, while Libby was brushing her teeth; sometimes it took him up to five minutes to retrieve it. So far they had been willing to believe the old man the victim of stiff knees and an arthritic back; if they did not jump to accuse him, it was because they felt sorely how unused they were to the inconveniences of rooming house living, of which Levy was only one. When Levy complimented him, Paul tried to smile — and the old man went off for the tea.

It seemed for a while that he would not return; when he did, carrying a tray with cups and kettle, he was accompanied by a pal.

“This is Korngold. Lives next door.”

Korngold shook his head as though he were not Korngold and lived in India. But his hands shook too; everything shook, poor man. Where he wasn’t brownish liver spots he was white as ashes. And his weight was not in keeping with his height; he was underfed, and leaning on his cane (not gold-headed like Levy’s) he looked stretched and dried. It was truly pathetic to hear him get out, “Don’t rise, please. It’s a pleasure, my deep pleasure,”

Paul moved off the bed, feeling invaded. There was a typewriter on the little oilcloth-covered table, and a pile of papers; recently he had begun to try writing stories. Levy lifted typewriter and papers and set them on the floor In their place he set down his afternoon tea.

“Let’s pull ourselves up here,” he said. “Korngold, take off your coat. No wonder you cough up phlegm left and right.”

“I cough up phlegm ’cause that Nazi hands out heat in a teaspoon. My chest kills me night and day.”

“Then move. This room is a gem, was empty a whole month. I told you, Move in, Korngold.”

“I was thinking. It’s a ten-dollar place. I don’t have to live fancy. Next door is seven fifty.”

“You was thinking, all right. Now these lovely people moved in and you still live by that son of a bitch.” Levy turned and almost bowed to Paul. “Sugar?”

Still groggy, with the feeling that he had mislaid something — that he was, in fact, the thing mislaid — Paul said yes, please.

“I take plain,” Korngold said.

Levy said, “I know how you take.”

“Lemon sticks in my heart,” explained Korngold.

They each pulled a chair up to the table. It was too late to remove a slip of Libby’s that was draped on the back of Levy’s chair; Levy sank heavily down onto the white silky cloth. Korngold in the meantime was lifting his cup to his mouth. Three sips, and his shirt front and chin were soaked.

Levy said, “Mr. Herz, Korngold would like a word with you.”

“It’s a long story,” Korngold said slowly. “It involves a lot of son of a bitches, a lot of crooks and bastards. Let me finish my tea.”

“He had a wife,” said Levy, “was nobody’s business.”

“Only half of it,” Korngold murmured. “A son, tell him about my son.”

“And a son to boot.” Levy caught a glimpse of the slip over his shoulder.

“And,” said Korngold, swallowing hard, “a daughter-in-law. A bastard like that you shouldn’t leave out.”

“Three such people picking at one man’s insides,” Levy said. “The son is on the inside with the Nike missile, coining it, we understand. Lives like a pagan, everything fancy. Korngold freezes by that Heinie son of a bitch, counting pennies, and the son has houses, we understand, all over Florida. Plus a daughter in Smith College.”

“Europe he’s been to twice. ”

“Europe twice,” Levy repeated. “I’m coming to Europe under waste.” He opened and closed his palms. “Korngold’s life has been ruined by the serpent’s tongue. Disappreciation from all sides. Seventy years in January.”