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

When a lowered window shade happened spontaneously to snap free and roll itself up, the way window shades sometimes did, as if on a hair trigger, Zaru had averred, “Great magic.”

Nothing else in the white man’s world impressed Zaru. But he was awed by the skittish window shade. “Great magic!” Dr. Wasserman had gained international fame by publishing an account of Zaru’s adjustment to twentieth-century civilization. Edith herself was so intrigued that she decided to take a course in anthropology with him. Then followed the most personal revelation of any she had made so far or as yet. One evening, during a field trip under the guidance of the same Professor Wasserman, she had been invited by him to stroll away from the campfire where the rest of his students were taking their ease, and as soon as they had walked beyond earshot of the others, he had virtually raped her. “I fought him off,” Edith said. “But he knew just what to do to make me surrender. . ” And poor Larry flinched at her explicitness.

Edith spoke with the two young men so intimately, with so little hesitation, it made Ira shrink. If he were to confess so about his family, what would be their reaction? But he listened, continuing to compose his portrait of her, of the life and its struggles this girlish Ph.D. had endured.

X

What a glorious silver ring Larry sported!

Edith had written her aunt in Silver City describing the kind of ring she wanted, and the finger size — large — and asked her aunt to buy the ring and send it to New York. Made by a Navajo craftsman from a silver dollar, an erstwhile “cartwheel” as silver dollars were called, it formed the setting for a chunk of glossy, mottled turquoise. Bold and solid, the ring just fit on the pinkie of Larry’s big hand, and because it was on his pinkie, the ring seemed even bolder and more solid. And boy, was it beautiful!

Ira had never before seen anything so distinguished, so rare. What was gold, what were diamonds in comparison? Even platinum seemed a platitude. Anybody who hoarded up enough money could buy items of that kind; every jewelry store sold them. But this — Ira was bewitched. Not envious, though full of longing. Ah, to be the object of such affection, to be worthy of such a gift! It spoke of New Mexico, that far-off place from which Edith came. It spoke of open spaces, amplitude, of leisurely stances, of solitudes, of generous feelings — it called for rare perceptions that appreciated silver fashioned by an Indian artisan, perceptions that prized the unique artisanship more than standardized gems of gold, that esteemed the modest, elusive color of turquoise more than glittering diamonds. You had to change, you had to change and try to come close to her — her values: to learn to recognize artistry cultivated in the most unlikely places, adapting to the humblest materials. You had to learn to feel the aura of the created artifact. What a beautiful ring!

But what a tummel , a tumult, it stirred up in Larry’s family when they saw the ring on his finger. They tried to dissemble their worry and disapproval when Ira was present, though he knew they were convinced he was in league. He could feel their dissatisfaction with him, their unhappy reproach. He secretly supported Larry, yes, but he was just a follower, an acolyte of sorts. He hadn’t connived with Larry; he hadn’t inveigled him to give up dentistry and enter upon a literary career. What did he have to do with Larry’s falling in love with Edith? He was just a bystander, at most a confidant, willing, yes, but hardly more than that.

Sure, he was secretly happy Larry had made up his mind to switch from NYU to CCNY in the fall of 1925—who wouldn’t want his pal to be in the same college? But Larry wasn’t going to CCNY so the two would be together; he was going to CCNY in order to become more independent of his parents. He no longer would need to turn to them to pay his tuition to college. CCNY required no tuition. All he asked of them, at present, so it seemed, was just to furnish him with room and board. He could get enough money for the year, spending money, and cash for incidental expenses, and supply himself with a few clothes too, by drawing on his small legacy, and by working during the summer vacation. Avoid working for his brother Irving as housedress salesman, avoid practically all dependency on his family. His best bet this coming summer, better than being a counselor at a boys’ camp, was to do something that paid a great deal more, and suited his temperament and talents to a tee: become an entertainer on the staff of a large borscht-circuit summer resort.

That would really be the most congenial job he could think of. He had a natural flair for acting, for thinking up skits, for the role of a stand-up raconteur — cracking jokes, hamming it up. Failing that, he might even earn as much in pay and tips as a singing waiter. The tips were good, and he had a good voice. He could hold a tune. He could read music. Not only would he come home with a tidy sum, but a singing waiter’s job would provide an excellent avenue to the summer resort entertainment world. Perhaps more than that. With a little experience, versatility garnered on the borscht circuit, he could make the next step — to the world of the stage, to the world of entertainment in general, the theater. No question: that was his best bet for loosening his ties with his family, for gaining the kind of freedom he needed for a new career. He had friends and connections in the resort business, in the entertainment business. All he needed to do was to cultivate a few whom he had more or less avoided in the past. He had already told Ira about them. They would welcome overtures, welcome his initiatives of cordial relations. They were bores, but what the hell. Exploit them. Spend a little time with them. He could stand it for the sake of achieving a larger goal, promoting his future. Make a few phone calls, accept a few dinner invitations, take the daughter of somebody he knew who owned a famous Jewish resort to a dance. And if all his finagling failed, then, as he said before, he could certainly get a singing waiter’s job. Not first choice, but a sure way of getting the next-best returns out of the summer. Anyway, he’d better begin action at once, make inquiries, follow up leads, land some kind of a well-paying job.

Ira approved. Although an entertainer’s job or a singing waiter’s job would not have been the kind he would have sought, that was only because he didn’t have Larry’s gifts. A more menial job, a shlepper’s job, was more in keeping with his aptitudes — and his inclinations too, for that matter. He had no talent. But the type of job or position that Larry secured wasn’t the important thing right now; the important thing was that Larry was going to use it to break his dependence on his family, break the mutually sentimental hold of family, widen the cleavage between them.

That was exactly how his family perceived his actions. When he announced his intention to get a job that would keep him away from home for most of the summer, the Gordons were deeply disturbed. Under other circumstances, without their son’s obvious infatuation with a woman ten or eleven years his senior, and a gentile at that, without his apparent determination to carry the love affair, the liaison, all the way to marriage, they would have reacted altogether differently. They were accustomed to Larry’s absence for long periods of time with his Bermuda uncle. But now they interpreted Larry’s effort as exactly what it was: a definite signal of his decision to sever connections with his family. Perhaps leave them, quit the household, when he returned. And horrors, perhaps marry Edith when he returned. Assure them to the contrary though he might, that he wasn’t planning anything so drastic at present, they were convinced that was his purpose, to enter on a preliminary stage of a road that would ultimately lead to his perdition. Such a handsome, gifted nineteen-year-old youth married to someone bound to become an old crone in a few years, bound to look like one in a few years: in her forties when he was still in his twenties. ( An alte klyafte , an old virago, Mom would have said, but the Gordons didn’t know any Yiddish.) He could have had young heiresses at his beck and call, a worldly, polished youth like Larry, exceedingly handsome, and with a bit of English accent to enhance his charm — so Larry reported them as saying — young heiresses, daughters of elite German Jewish families, millionaires, leading merchants and financiers. Even if they weren’t heiresses, no, even if they weren’t Jewish, at least someone near his own age; they didn’t have to be beauties. At least young. Madness, his father burst out, sheer madness, what Larry planned to do. And she, meaning Edith, was to blame too, his mother accused, and the sisters concurred.