Henry Roth - Mercy of a Rude Stream - The Complete Novels

Go up the marble stairs then, Ira dreamed — ah, the way those marble stairs whisper under your shoe soles, s-s-s-sh. And the wide pale marble balustrades slide beneath your palms. Wonder, is that alabaster, what they call? Oh, Jesus, it wasn’t even so good that time; it wasn’t even so good. Shut up. What’s the first thing you see? That new Hercules, Herakles, they call him, over the marble railing on the first flight, with one foot against the boulder pulling back the bow? He might see that first. But if he didn’t, then on top of the stairs is that Madonna in blue with the little Jesus. That’s Mary. Goyish. Ira looked away at first, but then read the name on the fancy gold frame: Raphael. Oh, Raphael, Ira knew him. Then. . Then. . Then. . There’s that deep deep, first deep breath. .

During waking hours at home, plane geometry sustained him, majestic plane geometry, assuaging plane geometry, the only entire, pure world, only entire, pure world that offered him unquestioning sanctuary, benign, set before him a problem or a proposition, shared with him his rapture that the solution should be so inevitable, so wondrously spare and immaculate — and so ingenious, even dazzling sometimes. Who would have dreamed that the angle between two tangents or two secants drawn from a point outside the circle would equal half the difference of the intercepted arcs? How could it be? Why should it be? And yet it was. Such a beautiful world whose parts all fit together. Even if a proof stumped you, as long as you knew there was one, you could prove it finally, because for once you knew how a world, a system, went together. He exulted because he excelled in class, at recitations, at the blackboard. His grades in plane geometry were perfect — to the detriment of his other schoolwork, which he did perfunctorily, just to do it. No other subjects had the force to hold at bay the horrible fate, the horrible demon every hour closer to exacting its toll. His fear penetrated everything else, slipped through English or Spanish or history, as if the print were pores, a filter, a grille. She still didn’t get her period. She still didn’t get it.

Days. He couldn’t tell when, how late, how long after, maybe three after she first told him, there came a day when he knew he had reached his limit, the limit of his endurance. When she said no, he knew. He had entered the screaming phase, not a phase, a nightmare universe; he had entered the realm of the unendurable. When she said no, the modes of the world no longer held sway, the behavior, the accepted strands of common sense, the sensible aspect of things, their causes and acts no longer dictated, no longer ruled or applied, became flaccid. When she said no, he felt as if certain ligaments had given way within him, mind-ligaments, as if in a certain place within his brain they parted, like fibers, fraying under the strain. They would never come back, reverse to their original soundness, never wholly mend. He could feel their sickening twisting irrevocably writhing out of place. Or wilting? So what should he do? Kill her. If he killed her, that would be an end. Kill her. How? Choke. Hit. Stab. A big rock. Push her out of the window. Maybe best. But kill. That was the word, the name of the loathsome shape spawned out of the terrible, irreparable rending within him. He was a murderer. He could murder. He could plan: how, when to kill; but kill. She was killing him, kill her. . But wait, wait: one more assignment. Wait. No, it wouldn’t help, it couldn’t prevail over his anguish. But wait, wait. He’d do only the problems he pleased, the starred ones; the hell with the assignment, do only the starred ones, ill-starred, do just those, the hard ones—

Balefulness impeded the hand that reached for the textbook, Wentworth’s Plane Geometry ; ferocity strove with him as he drew the book toward him. They were the winners, the starred examples. What was the problem in that thin shrieking madness, what was given? Given. Given. The figure in the text, always so friendly, so laden with sly challenge within its wily frame; the figure lay dead. Mom stood with broad back toward him at the sink. Lethe. Last bliss. Straight lines intersecting on nepenthe.

He heard Minnie come in from the bedroom. He looked up, not in hope, in last despairing corroboration of despair. But no, something was different about her demeanor. Altogether. Unmistakable. An emanation, a ripple of promise, contrary to the expected negation. She smiled at him, and nodded. He gaped for confirmation: aimed his unremitting stare at her, mimed in silent entreaty behind Mom’s back. All right?

And received nods, several, unmistakable, emphatic. She made for the bathroom.

Glory. Oh! Oh! Oh! Beatitude! But he couldn’t rest. He had to know: certainly, positively, explicitly, absolutely. She had to tell him. Tell him, tell him. He waited for her to come out of the bathroom. What could he say or ask? Something that was neutral, something that Mom never could possibly suspect. What? “Okay? Your homework?”

“Everything’s okay,” she replied shortly.

And still not satisfied, he glanced at Mom, and dared, his eyes intransigent, sounding Minnie’s face, her features, his own lips like grapnels importunate to engage her in reconfirmation formed noiseless words, “Got your period?”

Impatiently and with vehement nod, “Yes!”

Oh, boy, oh, boy, oh, boy! Every nerve in him sang hallelujah! He couldn’t stay in the house. He had to get out, get out and prance, tear through the streets, hug himself and rejoice, yell crazy anthems without meaning. Jesus Christ, what a break! He stood up, fairly sprang toward the bedroom, announcing, “I’m going down.” He grabbed his jacket from the bedroom coat tree.

“Where are you going?” What could Mom guess?

“Down. Around the block. No place.”

“And the coat. It’s cold — soon as it’s dark.”

“Nah. I’ll be right back.”

“You want to do me a favor, since you’re coming back soon?”

“Sure. Sure.” Ira was all heartiness, all willingness. “I’ll buy a kosher elephant. What d’you want?”

“Go, ninny.” She smiled. “I’ll give you the money. He knows me, the dairy storekeeper around the corner. If he has cracked eggs, no matter how many he has, let it be a dozen. Tell him I was in his store this morning, and he didn’t have them.”

“Okay. Cracked eggs, a dutsin, a dutsin, a wild, woolly mutsin. Hutsin, clyutsin, shmutsin, abutsin.” He shifted weight from foot to foot in impromptu jig. “Let’s go, Mom. It’s nearly a half dutsin o’clocko— makh shnel! ”

“What’s got into you? The boy is mad,” Mom said with tentative amusement.

He cocked an eye, postured zanily. “I just made a wonderful discovery. Wunderbar .”

“He’s crazy,” Minnie censured with unfeigned disapproval.

“ Nar .” Mom tendered him a quarter. “Don’t forget. He knows me, Mrs. Stigman, tell him: the lady from 119th Street, he always saves the cracked eggs for— oy, gevald, bist takeh meshigeh! ”

In one motion, Ira snatched the quarter from her hand and threw open the kitchen door. “Adee-ee — you.” An instant later he was out in the hall.

Though he strode, strode as rapidly as he could through the darkening street, in spirit, he leaped, he capered — no wonder they said “high spirits.” “Ta-ra, ta-ra”—he broke his silence from time to time with low outcry. But he wished he could bellow, trumpet, blare out his relief. No, never again, not e’er again, no ne’er again. He’d throw the goddamn condoms away. Blow ’em up into big balloons till they burst. Pretty bubbles in the air. No, sir, he wouldn’t throw them away either. He’d go to Theodora again. He knew the way. The price. Yes, yes, yes. Or somebody else. Maybe better-looking. Oh yeah, yeah, forgot. You goddamn liar. Oh, boy, oh, boy, was he ever made of — iridescence was the word: efflorescence, concupiscence. Hah, ha, ha. Effervescence. Boyoboy! What other essences were there? He was it, he was all of ’em. Gossamer. Downy little flames overlapped into plumed vanes beating in splendor. Gee whiz, the way the words spouted up inside you! Was it gossamer from Coleridge? Jeez, it was a Life-in-Death before, though, wasn’t it? Jeez, only two people knew about it, he and Minnie. Not like some guy laid some bimbo, all a-blabber: hey, you ought to see that broad I laid last night, and maybe he was a lotta bull. And maybe he wasn’t. But for him, Ira, silence. Silence. There was no brag, no parading, nothing but shame. Genie in a vase. Pandora’s box. His sister’s box! Can you imagine bragging about that? Jesus, it almost made him shut his eyes in the enormous twinge the very thought caused him. Hey, fellers, I thought I knocked up my sister! Was I scared. Boyoboy. Holy Jesus Christ, of all the things he had ever heard those guys say: pratt and blow and lap and go down on it, back scuttle, and every other goddamn thing he once believed was just make-believe, but even if it was true, nobody ever said I laid my sister. Yeah, the Italian kids said, aw, yer mudder’s ass, yer sister’s cunt — but what was that compared to: my sister’s cunt?