Philip Roth - Letting Go

“So,” said Levy, with a flourish of his cane, “you’ll have it typed up this afternoon, righto?”

“I’ve got to work all day.”

“So tonight?”

“Tonight I’m busy.”

“More doctors?”

“What?”

“I didn’t say nothing.”

“What is it, Mr. Levy? What are you following me around this morning for?”

“My boy, my boy, don’t be paranoyal. I got kid gloves I’m moving for a friend.”

But when Paul rose to leave, Levy followed. The bus pulled away and the two of them were alone on the corner, within sight of the gate to the plant. “What is it, Levy? What do you want to tell me?”

Levy only sniffed in some of the bracing air. “We’re going the same way,” he said. “Smells like pine trees in the vicinity.”

“What are you getting at? What’s on your mind?”

“That question I’m saving for you.” With Paul on his heels, Levy started to cross the street. A car came roaring down on them, and Paul couldn’t believe his impulse: he wanted to push the old bastard in front of it.

“Look,” he began, helping the elderly man up the opposite curb, “Korngold—”

“Korngold is senile. Korngold shouldn’t go in the dark streets at night. He’ll lose his footing and crack a hip. Then death. Korngold shouldn’t be encouraged along foolish lines.”

Paul was no longer helping Levy up the curb; nevertheless, he kept his fingers wrapped around the stringy arm. “Korngold asked me to write to his son for him,” Paul said, spinning the old man around. “All right? So he came in our room. He spilled his old sick heart out. I listened, my wife listened. I don’t have to hide anything from you, Mr. Levy. What the hell is going on here? Korngold has some rights in this thing.”

“For rights,” said Levy, shaking free his coat and smoothing out the cloth, “a legal mind is called for. Which I got, not you.”

“Mr. Levy, this whole thing,” said Paul, calming himself as best he could, “is very foolish. None of it is my business.”

Levy suddenly took a strangle hold on that admission; in anger he said, “Leave it to the parties of the first and second part to judge the wisdom of Mr. Korngold’s family problem. You just type neat the letter I gave you. Or”—he shook his cane—“give it back and go your way. Understand? Clear? This is in the shape of a warning, my young Mr. Herz. Keep your nose poked out of my professional life—”

But Paul could not bear for another moment to be in the company of meanness, his own or anybody else’s. “Look, I don’t care about your professional life, Levy. I don’t care about your letter—” And then, because Levy had the nerve to give him a menacing glance, he added, “you presumptuous little bastard!” It felt so good to say it — he had taken too much already, from everybody. “What kind of Senate investigation! What kind of petty thief are you, screwing poor Korngold!”

Levy’s eyes became tiny coin slots, big enough for dimes. “You want to pay for the label bastard , or you want to pay for that disgusting word screw? Which?”

“Don’t threaten me.”

“Dr. Thomas Smith. BA three dash three three four nine.” For the first time Paul could remember, Levy proceeded to smile. He walked on then, Paul grabbing after his coat.

“What business is that of yours!”

“Don’t hit an old man on the streets. Let go.”

In absolute confusion, Paul dropped his hands to his sides.

“I’m interested in the law,” said Levy. “When it gets busted, I feel a pain.”

“You little thief! You eavesdropping little son of a bitch! You sneak looks at my wife in the john, you disgusting old fart!”

“Libel is a crime, Mr. Herz, even if only the other party is a witness. It’s a crime against my feelings. Also illegal medical proceeding is a crime in a great state like Michigan, Watch your step!” With that, Levy turned back the way they had come, smashing at the pavement with his cane.

Late in the afternoon Paul complained to the foreman that his left wrist was throbbing, and managed to see the doctor. In the infirmary Dr. Esposito undid the bandage. “You called and took care of your business?”

“Everything is all right,” Paul said.

The doctor smeared a cool ointment onto the wrist. “Well. Good. It’s your business.”

“You see, it worked out. She menstruated this morning.”

“Is that so?” Esposito asked, smiling.

“No,” Paul said. “No — look, is he all right, this Smith? Is he a quack?”

“Topnotch for what he does,” Esposito said softly.

“I didn’t like the looks of the nurse.”

“You’re overnervous. Who does the scraping, the nurse or Smitty?”

“Look, I appreciate everything. Please, call the foreman, will you? Tell him I’m sick. I’ve got to get home.”

Esposito continued to be the most decent person around. He made the call, adding that Herz might not be able to come in for work the next day either.

From the bus Paul raced past his own house, flung open the little iron gate next door, and two at a time took the stairs of Korngold’s red-sided rooming house. A rotund man was eating potato chips out of a bag and listening to the radio in the sitting room, a dark place where everything, floor, tables, chairs, seemed knee-deep in rugs and coverlets. “What!” the man boomed, before anything was said.

“Korngold.”

“Next to the sink,” said the man in a heavy accent. “Upstairs. What are you to him?” As Paul moved away, he shouted after him, “He owes his rent!”

Paul mounted the stairs. He knocked at the door to which a business card was thumbtacked:

MAX KORNGOLD

Haberdashery Kiddies Wear

Waiting for some word from the other side, he looked in the sink. There was a Bab-o can on the ledge and he shook it and shook it over the filth; nothing, unfortunately, sprinkled forth.

“Who?” Korngold moaned.

“Paul Herz. From next door. Open up, please.”

Minutes passed before Korngold — long underwear beneath his robe, his stained fedora back on his head — appeared in the doorway. “All right. Come in.”

The tiny room was squeezed into an angle of the house, and so had five cracking walls. Around three of the walls cartons were piled; beside the bed, under whose covers Korngold had been laid out, was an end table with a flashlight, a glass, a paper-covered book, and a milk bottle half full of urine. In the grip of sadness and disgust, Paul looked away from Korngold’s possessions. The old man, with some oow-ing and ahh-ing, had taken his place back in the bed.

“I got the shivers,” Korngold explained. “Sit, why don’t you.”

“I’m in a hurry. I want to say to you that I had a talk with your friend Mr. Levy this morning. I think he has your interests at heart. What good would money be to you without a helper, somebody to give you a hand going up and down stairs, to sit across from you at meals? He has your interests at heart.” He had gotten through it on just one breath.

“This,” Korngold asked, “is something he told you?”

“I observed him. I listened to him, yes. Why don’t you let him go through with his plan? See what happens.”

Korngold stretched his neck up on his pillows, crossing his arms for protection. “You told him I came talking to you?”

“He knew it. He heard you.”

“Oy, he’s got six ears that guy! I thought he was asleep by eight. He says that, see, for propaganda. See how he tricks you out on things?” He seemed ready for tears.

“No, no. It’s all right. I said you just wanted to give me your son’s address.”