Philip Roth - Letting Go

When he pushed open the door, Korngold made an effort to rise from the edge of the bed, but gave in to his arteries and only sat there, half raising his cane. “You was open …” the old man said, pointing at the door. “The hallways gets chilly. I was getting a pain in the lungs.”

“Jesus, Korngold!” Paul said. “You frightened us.”

Korngold made a joke, which did not for a moment transform the skeletal look of his face. “Consider it an honor. First one in thirty years. How do you do?” he said, feebly, to Libby. “Oh, you’re pretty as Levy says. A yiddishe maydele.” For a moment the old man sat there loving her with his eyes.

Libby sat down at the table and looked kindly across at Korngold. “Thank you.”

“What is it, Mr. Korngold?” Paul asked. “We’re both very tired.”

“I only need a minute.”

“What is it?”

“I want to ask a little advice. You’re a young man. You know about modern times. I ain’t got all my perspectives. Please sit down too, would you? I get dizzy looking up.”

Paul took off his coat but held it in a bundle on his lap when he sat. He could not hate this feeble old man, but still there was a momentum in his life that Korngold’s presence was interrupting. He knew, of course, that this police business was only in his imagination. If he could just drive forward without stopping, without thinking, and get this done, then everything — he thought vaguely — would be all right.

“Does this seem like cheating to you?” Korngold was asking. “If my son gives me twenty a week, why do I need a Levy? This is a scheme — what do you think? Do you get the feeling Levy is a real friend? Or do you get another feeling? What does he care, a man was once a topnotch criminal lawyer, with little fish like me. First off I think he is strictly interested in my underwear. I got twenty-six cases, tops and bottoms, a nice close-knit cotton like you can’t get no more. Levy comes in my room, sees all this goods, and he’s my friend. So I tell him about that son of a bitch, my son, and all of a sudden Levy is a first-class chum, an old school-tie buddy. I’m asking you, Mr. Herz, as a young fellow, is this a genuine interest in my life, or is this a crook I got myself involved in?”

“Mr. Korngold, I can’t give you any advice. I’m going to type the letter tonight.”

“Yes?” Korngold paled, if such were possible. “So soon?”

“Look, why don’t I type it, and you and Levy can decide what to do with it. Does that sound reasonable?”

Korngold was forced to admit that it was not; he shook his head, making his mouth a round black hole. “You type, then next thing it’s in the U.S. mail, and I’m married to Levy. Somebody does you a favor, you can’t suddenly take a walk across the street.”

“What do you want me to do, then? I’ve had a very rough day. My wife and I are very tired.”

“Oh, excuse me,” the old man said; he bowed his head to the tired girl, then with his eyes drank her in again, unLevylike, fatherly.

“What is it you want, Mr. Korngold?” Libby asked. Her voice surprised Paul. She sounded confident that she could give whatever Korngold might want. She was probably so much stronger than her husband ever allowed her to be … Here again, hadn’t he bossed her into something? Hadn’t her silence in the doctor’s office been a negative vote, one he had not even bothered to count?

“A direct appeal,” Korngold said. “I’m not proud, believe me. A plea. Tell the boy for Christ sake to send money. I don’t need no Levy. I need a simple letter somebody should write for me. I can’t even tie my shoes with these shakes.”

“Then,” Libby said, “maybe Mr. Levy would be a help.”

“This is a crook, lebele , something tells me. He’ll tie the laces and steal the shoes. He’s got an eye already on an easy dollar via my underwear.”

“Why don’t you sell it?” Libby asked, coming over to him on the bed. “Is it all in your room?”

“You don’t sell to robbers. I drag a box of briefs all over Detroit, they wouldn’t give me enough to pay my bus fare. I don’t sell nothing when the market stinks. If you don’t speculate, you don’t accumulate — always my motto. Now is a buyer’s market. Let them come begging, that’s when Max Korngold does business!” he shouted.

“How did you come by all this underwear?” Paul asked.

“A three-way split with two partners, they should both go live in hell.”

“When was that?”

“Seven years already. That kind of underwear they don’t knit no more. Don’t think Levy don’t know that either …” But his mind suddenly was elsewhere. “Here,” he said. He took a wallet from his inside coat pocket; the photograph he finally coaxed out of one of the folds was of himself, from a Take Your Own Photo booth. There was Korngold, and there was his right hand, raised up beside his ear — and in it he was gripping his cane. He might have been shaking the cane at the camera; he might merely have been showing that he had one. At the bottom of the picture were written some words that Paul could just about decipher: Your Old Father, Feb. 3, 1951.

“You could enclose this with the letter?” he wanted to know.

Paul looked to Libby to speak for them both, but she seemed near tears. Korngold waited, then spoke again. “You see, just a few facts of my health I’m sure could make an impression. Here, take a look, please.” He pulled up his trouser legs to show a pair of knees that were not wholly unexpected but were nevertheless shocking. “Undernourishment. Bad ventilation. Improper rest. Worry. Aloneliness. Let me tell you about a wife, gets a spurt of energy one day, aged sixty-one years old, hides my cane, steals my checkbook, runs off to Florida with an eighty-year-old shmekele , can’t even pee straight cause he can’t see what’s doing under his belly. Excuse me. The facts are dirty and disgusting so I can’t talk clean if I want”—this last to Libby, with a tender plea in his lips and eyes. “I got myself a lawyer, a young fellow with short hair, and he takes me for a ride — three times he’s got to fly to Miami — and I got cleaned out. Now Levy keeps one eye on my underwear, another on my son, and what do you think I feel? Contented? Foolproof? Please, you write a simple note — here, I got the postage even.” He removed some crumpled three-cent stamps from his watch pocket and counted them into Libby’s hand. “One, two, three — go all-out. Don’t worry about weight. I’m a desperate man.” He patted Libby’s arm. She helped him off the bed. “And how are you?” he asked Paul. “The wrist’s improved?”

“Much better.”

“You two kiddies look tired.” He turned back once again, unable to keep his eyes from Libby’s face. “My son, my own son, why couldn’t he find a nice yiddishe maydele , a little dark darling. That girl — she poisoned his opinions of me!” He dragged his bad legs to the door.

“ Help him,” Libby whispered tearfully to Paul.

“Here,” Paul said, and he was up from his chair at last and reaching after the old man’s elbow. So immune had he been feeling to anyone’s suffering but his own, so lacking in tenderness and interest, that he wondered if he had left his heart for good in that doctor’s office. “Here.” He took hold of Korngold and led him out the door and up the stairs to the front entryway. As they emerged into the hall, the bathroom door slammed shut.

In bed, neither one touching the other, Libby said, “You decided. You said yes. You never so much as asked me.”

“We can change our minds.”