Guy Vanderhaeghe - Homesick

The red-haired man took a step nearer, peered from one to the other, settled on Thomas. “Is that right?” he asked. “Were you following the lady? Did you chase her?”

“I only wanted to talk to her,” said Thomas sullenly. “Anyway, what business is it of yours?”

The storekeeper turned to Vera. “Do you know this man?”

“Does she know me,” interjected Thomas. “I’ll say she does. She’s my girlfriend.”

The red-haired man nodded his head reflectively. “So it’s like that,” he said. “A lover’s spat. But please, not on my window.” He flattened his palm against it. “It’s only glass. A really good spat could break it.”

“I want you to know,” said Vera, “that this man is an out and out maniac. I never was a girlfriend of his. He imagined it all. Mister, this man is crazy and I’m afraid of what he might do to me. Please tell him to go away.”

“You know that isn’t true, Vera. You were my girlfriend.”

“And there’s no lovers’ spat either. He just ran up and grabbed me here on the street. What it is is a pervert attack or something.”

The red-haired man was speaking to Thomas. “Please, maybe it would be better if you left the lady alone for the time being. Who knows? Maybe tomorrow she’ll want to talk. But now she’s upset and it’s clear she doesn’t want to discuss matters.”

Thomas glowered at the advice. “Why don’t you keep that big fucking nose of yours out of our business? Who asked you?”

“Oh, I think this is my business,” the man answered calmly, “because, you see, this window the two of you were trying to crash through is my business. And if it’s true that you’re bothering this young woman like she says you are – well then, in all decency, that has to be my business, too.”

“You’d better believe he’s bothering me,” chimed in Vera.

Thomas raked her with a brooding glare. “You better shut up, Vera,” he warned.

Suddenly she remembered the hat-pin. She drew it out of her sleeve and held it glinting in the light. “How’d you like this rammed up your ass, buster?” she said.

“That’s enough,” the store owner said sharply, pushing her arm down. “Maybe everybody should calm down and stop talking such nonsense, threatening each other like children. Maybe you should go home now, son, and give her time to think about it.”

“Yeah, with any more time to think about it I ought to really make myself sick to my stomach,” said Vera.

The man ignored her. He continued speaking to Thomas in a soft, persuasive tone. “There’s really no point, is there?” he reasoned. “This has all got out of hand. Leave her be. Sleep on it. The morning always makes a difference. Don’t make yourself any more trouble.”

It was the mention of trouble that seemed to agitate and incense Thomas. “There’s no trouble in me standing where I choose!” he said, flying into a rage. “You can’t order me off the street! You and your tribe may have bought everything on it but you don’t own the road yet!” Suddenly seized by suspicion he broke off, threw Vera a cunning, measuring look. “So this is it, is it? Some dirty old Jew waiting for you in his underwear.”

Vera flung her arms into the air in exasperation. “Didn’t I say he was crazier than a shit-house rat?” she appealed to the storekeeper.

“Don’t think I don’t know who the Sunday man is now. Only light on in the street and she goes for it. Pussy bought by a kike!” he shouted. “Pussy bought by a kike!”

“Lower your voice,” said the red-haired man. “There are old people who live on this street who shouldn’t have their sleep disturbed by such foolish and disgusting talk. It frightens them, loud voices and such talk.”

“Make me lower it,” taunted Thomas, mouth twisted, bitter. “What’s the old saying? Takes nine tailors to make a man. How many Jew tailors to make one? Show me. Make me lower it! But your type can’t, can they?”

What astounded Vera was the composure of the red-haired man. She could detect no sign of anger in his face, only some variety of resigned melancholy. “No,” he said quietly, “I suppose my type can’t ever make your type do much.”

“You’re fucking right you can’t!” crowed Thomas. “I’ll make just as fucking much noise as I please. I’ll, I’ll…” and, lost without a threat, Thomas looked wildly about him, reared back, and drove his heel into what confronted him in the glass of the store window, his own desperate, unhappy reflection.

The pane exploded in fissures like the break-up of a frozen river and then the shards began to drop about them in an icy, silvery-sounding rain as the store expelled a long sigh of warm air into their astonished faces. Vera and the shop owner were still gaping when Thomas whirled about and began a panicked get-away, coat billowing out behind him as he clattered up the street. Vera, turning, wondered why the red-haired man didn’t give chase. He hadn’t yet lifted his eyes from the glittering wreckage strewn at his feet. So it fell to Vera to express the anger and contempt she believed Thomas had earned. “Run, you coward, you!” she shouted after him. “Run, you gutless wonder!”

The sound of her voice brought Thomas up short, looking like a man who has forgotten something. He stood facing her, indistinct, blurred by a hundred yards of night. “So, Vera,” he called plaintively, “what’ll it be? Whose side are you on anyway? Mine or his?” A pitiable question that only Thomas could have framed in such circumstances.

Vera squeezed her eyes tightly shut and obliterated Thomas. “His!” she shouted, shaking with fury. In the release of bottled-up tension a kind of exaltation took hold of her. “His! His! His!” she cried, eyes and fists clenched tight. A hand took her by the shoulder. “That’s enough,” said the man. “Quiet. He’s gone now.” Vera opened her eyes to lights springing on above the shops and silhouettes sliding over drawn blinds. Her gaze fell to the road. He was right. Thomas was gone. There was no trace of him. Except for the broken glass.

Vera felt a twinge of responsibility for having led misfortune to the door of a stranger. “Christ,” she said, shoving a piece of glass with the toe of her shoe, “look at the mess he’s made. Look at what that poor excuse for a man did to your window. If you call the police I can give them his address. I know where he lives. I’d be glad to be a witness for you.”

The man shrugged, turned down the corners of his mouth expressively. “I don’t think police are what that unfortunate young man needs,” he said. He regarded the fragments of broken glass and the light which fell glittering upon them. “Kristallnacht,” he said to himself.

Vera had not understood the foreign-sounding word. “Pardon me?”

“Nothing. Don’t pay any attention to me. I was just reflecting upon the beauty of broken glass and electric light. Others have done it before me.”

“There’s nothing beautiful about broken glass. It only means work, sweeping it up, replacing it.”

“A practical woman,” he said.

“Well, maybe we should set about fixing it. If nothing else, we can tape some pieces of cardboard into the window. You must have boxes in the store.”

He dismissed the suggestion with a wave of the hand. “It’s much too big a hole for cardboard. Repairs can wait until morning.”

“I’m not saying it would keep anybody out but what if it snows? And a window without anything in it has got to be an invitation to help yourself.”

“If it snows it snows. There’s nothing really worth stealing except the cash register and I can carry that upstairs with me. Besides, if there are any prowlers I’ll hear them.”

“You sleep that light?”