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

“I didn’t know it was literature. I mean, it was just plain books.”

She smiled, and yet her eyes remained solemn, never leaving his, studying him — unwavering. He wished he too could maintain so comprehensive and at the same time unoffending a gaze as hers. He had to steal glances at people — something like Pop.

“Have you tried writing anything?”

“Me? No, ma’am. I mean, only assignments.” Small, pert nose she had, dark hair, not black, in a bun back of her head. She was built like a girl still, yet she was an instructor in English. . in a university. . with a Ph.D. And as his eyes lowered before her frank survey: what tiny feet she had. In shiny black pumps. Trim ankles. Trim calves. . gave an inkling he wasn’t supposed to think about. How could Larry think about it? A girl, but a college teacher girl. Another world: such sheer daintiness, delicate refinement. Gee. .

Deep brown orbs peered into his, sympathetically. “I hope you’ll be able to accompany Larry when he calls on us — at our place, Iola Reid’s and mine. On St. Mark’s Place.”

“In the Bowery? I know. I couldn’t believe it.”

“Why?”

“In New York? In the Bowery? I mean, it’s a tough place.”

She dimpled. “We seem to be in some kind of haven there. I suppose you’d call it a respectable haven.”

“Yeah? Everyone behaves?”

She laughed, candidly, freely amused by his unintended witticism. “You’ve been very kind to undertake so much of the drudgery of getting off the notices. I hope Larry has made known my appreciation. It’s one of those unavoidable boring bits of drudgery.”

“Well, we — we gab a lot, ye know, when we do ’em. Makes the time go. Doesn’t feel so bad.”

“I’m happy you don’t mind—”

“Nah. I mean, no, ma’am.”

“Before I forget I’d like to invite you to a party of my modern poetry class. Larry will be there. Other undergraduates, too. I’m sure he’ll ask you to accompany him. I’d like to do it in person. You’d be very welcome.”

Ira swallowed. “Me? Thanks. That’s at night.” He wished his voice didn’t sound so rough.

“Yes. The first Friday in April. I hope you’re free that evening. Are you?”

He scratched his head. “Yes, ma’am. I think so. That far ahead I must be. Friday. Oh, sure.”

“I’m having my poetry class over for tea and cookies.” She smiled fetchingly. “I’d be delighted to have you attend.”

“Tea and cookies?” He giggled foolishly. “Yes, ma’am.” Did he dare try to be funny? “Cookies even without tea. Thanks. But I don’t know anything about poetry.”

She found fresh cause for merriment in what he said. “You’re not alone, by any means. A surprising number of people don’t.”

“They don’t? So who does?”

Again she was stirred to merriment. “They’re poets, or would-be poets. In large part.”

“Oh, now I know.”

“I find that hard to believe in your case.”

“Yeah? Mostly I know what Larry told me. I mean about the modern poets.”

Her solemn eyes that had been regarding him so fixedly swerved away. She let the fine gold necklace slip through her tiny fingers. “I’m so glad I finally met you, Ira. Will you excuse me? I’ve got to meet these people.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah.” He backed away.

She patted his arm.

He watched her move with gracious cordiality toward two people who had just come in, two women, whom Larry, lambent with the privilege, was escorting toward Edith. They both carried themselves with the polite air of inner distinction. The one was gray-haired, stately, slender, with a curiously veiled look, at the same time knowing and modest. The other was stockily built, decisive and public in manner, homely-bright, with restless, glittering eyeglasses on her snub nose, and mouth vigorously engaged in speech.

Ira sidled away, heard salutations exchanged, names and welcomes: “Marcia, Anne, so glad you could come.”

And the gray, taller woman: “We wouldn’t miss Léonie reading her poems for the world. Her voice is exactly suited to them.”

“Contrasting, don’t you think?”

“True,” Edith seconded. “A huskiness against such mellow syllables.”

“And yet so unaffected,” said the stocky woman. “There she is.”

And Larry, elated with office, a blooming, blushing Ganymede, “I’ve reserved the table in front. And guests.”

Pleased by the very perfection of his presence, the very essence of his youth — one could see — the woman named Marcia bustled, “Oh, that’s just fine! Thank you. . Léonie! How are you, dear? Anne, do sit down. So you plan to stay on in the Village? We get all the intellectual stimulation we need in the Columbia area. Don’t you think, Anne? Perhaps not the same kind of artistic ferment. .”

Boy, they were smart, smart, confident, quick, deft, so sure — Ira felt as if he were slinking away, seeking the chair in the far corner: smart, gee, and they were women too. Boyoboy. Made him feel like a — what? He didn’t know what. Like a grobyan , as they said in Yiddish: a boor, a dolt. And he was, wasn’t he? He knew he shouldn’t be here, didn’t belong here. They just seemed to drive him down with their, their manners, education, yeah, drive him down to street level, to the hoi polloi, to what he was. What the hell. Home was a slum, a bleary tenement, a railroad flat a flight up, with Mom and Pop in it, sometimes leaning out the window in balmy weather, as he did too watching the Pullman trains go by in summer. And. . what strange brutality coursed through him at the thought of it, yeah, and Minnie, too.

So what the hell was he doing here? He searched for a likely seat in the most obscure corner. It made less sense than his friendship with Farley. At least the guy was his speed — as far as his mind moved, he was — however fast his legs flew otherwise. And yet, there it was again: who here had his reckless imagination? Nothing but dreck to work with, nothing but smithereens to feed the fire, splinters he made out of an apple box he jumped on that he had swiped from in front of the grocery — and he kept the spud baking in the can, like Weasel that night. He didn’t know how to be polite, but he knew words; he was rich in words, a millionaire that way, a gentleman of great estate: words unbounded. That was indeed what crippled Mr. Sullivan discerned in class that day when he accused Ira of making a boob of himself for others’ entertainment. That’s what Ira felt Edith Welles was probing for when she looked into his eyes with her round, unwavering, solemn ones: words. Words, tameless and teeming, headlong. Apollo’s steeds that ran away — not Icarus, fathead.

He couldn’t deceive her, even in those few minutes they spoke together — the realization grew to conviction — he couldn’t hide his chaotic hoard from her — his fumbling, his disquiet, his crudities, traits that he himself recognized — and could do nothing about — his Jewishness that he was so conscious of, his ingratiating, silly grin, she saw it all, but not a reverberation of any of that returned, not a one; all that was mute as a bell ringing in a vacuum as it did way back in General Science — of only one thing did she make him aware, only one thing pulsed back to him: her appraisal of what she had found hidden in his mind, as if that above all was important to her. .

“There’s a coat rack behind you,” the young mustached undergraduate at the table suggested.

“Oh, yeah!” Ira stripped off his chesterfield hurriedly. “I’ll just hold it.” He draped the coat across his knees, and on top of it he rested his gray fedora. Now, exposed for all to see, conspicuous for this time of year, as Larry had said, because of its light color, Larry’s kasha tweed conferred unwanted prominence on its wearer. Ira tried to look nonchalant.