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

It was a humiliating reception, after so much anticipation, not in the slightest approaching the welcome Ira felt he had led his chum to expect. Crestfallen, he tried to explain how much his uncle had changed; he stressed his own mystification, his inability to account for the change. Was it because of Mom’s rejection of Uncle Louis’s passionate appeal? But how could that be? That was years ago. Ira apologized for misleading his friend, expressed his confusion at the change that had taken place in his uncle.

“Jesus, he’s miles away from the man I knew as a kid, the mail carrier in his blue uniform, so fond of me, so liberal with his small change. I don’t know what happened. I’m sorry.”

“Quit apologizing. His wife fed us some supper. We’ve got a place to sleep.” Larry made light of it all. “They may not have room in the hotel. Beside, look at us. What we’d look like to his guests: a couple of tramps. What we’d do to the towels, the sheets.”

“Yeah, but his attitude. Jesus, I wish I — we hadn’t come. I’d remember him the way he was. The American. My idol.”

“Well, he’s busy. You could tell the man’s tired.”

“You don’t mind?”

“Mind? This is a relief to me. You have no idea how bad things are at home since Dad died. This is a real adventure.”

Ira could not believe it had already been three weeks since Larry had stood in the light of the kitchen window, the kitchen window next to the iron sink, Larry in the Stigman kitchen, his handsome face framed together with the backyard fixtures of washpole and washlines, against the background of the rear of Jake’s dreary pile of a tenement. There he had stood, prosperous Larry, his cherished friend!

It was the first time he had ever visited that lowly flat on 119th Street. The homely kitchen became luminous with his presence. Ira could have embraced him out of pure joy at seeing him, but whooped delightedly instead, and the two shook hands. What was he doing here? Why had he come back to New York? He had written Ira in his most recent letter that he intended to work until Labor Day.

Larry snuffed sharply at Ira’s joyous inquiry. He snuffed sharply, as he always did when he was deeply moved, and he blinked, and with an effort held his eyelids wide open. His father had suffered a heart attack, and died before help reached the house. He had breathed his last by the time the ambulance arrived. The young intern who had accompanied the vehicle pronounced him dead.

There was nothing Ira could say at this abrupt shearing of his glee by mourning, nothing other than an earnestly attempted expression of condolence. “Gee, I’m sorry, Larry.”

And Mom, attuned to sorrow as she was, despite the narrow range of her smattering of English, readily grasped the gist of Larry’s message. If not his words, his sad mien and the tone of voice were sufficient signs of his bereavement. She stroked his arm. “Mein orrim kindt. Sit down. Sit down, pleease.” And when he seated himself, his eyes stricken, lips pinched with grief, “ Alles mus’ go sleep, mein kindt, tsi rich, tsi poor,” she said. “So is it shoyn millt alle fon us, vee menshen . You should excuse me mine English.”

“It’s all right, Mrs. Stigman. I understand. Thanks.”

“Come, sit closer by the table,” Mom invited, indicating with a movement of heavy arm toward the green oilcloth-covered round table. “A cup of coffee? A keekhle . I have fresh keekhle .”

“It’s a kind of cake, Larry,” Ira translated. “It’s dry. It’s good for dunkin’,” he diffused his embarrassment.

“No, thanks, Mrs. Stigman.” Larry smiled up at Mom. “I had all kinds of things to eat before I came here.”

“A little bit, no? And coffee? Something like this should make the heart a little heppier. No?” She shook her head in sympathy with Larry’s polite, mute refusal. “ Azoy shein und azoy troyrick ,” she said.

“Talk English, Mom,” Ira rebuked, and for Larry’s benefit: “She says you look sad.” And to Mom again, “ Noo, vus den? ”

“I don’t mind your mother speaking Yiddish,” Larry assured Ira earnestly. “You seem to think I do. I really don’t. I can’t tell you why.”

“It’s atavistic,” Ira quipped uneasily.

“No, there’s something warm about it. Honestly. Please don’t stop her. Don’t be embarrassed, Ira. Some of it I think I can understand. Your mother is very eloquent, do you know? She’s really comforting. I mean it.”

“Yeah? I’m glad.” Ira still begrudged. “I don’t like it, that’s the trouble. I become kind of — I don’t know. I’m afraid she’ll get sentimental.”

“Sentlemental.” Mom had heard Ira accuse her of being that so many times, she recognized the word. “Then I’m sentlemental. What better way to ease an orphan’s grief?” She ignored his ban on her speaking Yiddish. “A great deal you would have sorrowed for your father. How loudly you would have lamented.”

“As loudly as you would,” Ira retorted in kind.

Larry looked from one to the other in candid wonderment.

“Just mother and son,” Ira explained, and added resentfully, “I’m glad you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind, not at all. What I do regret is that I don’t understand.”

“Oh. It’s about as far from the way you and your — your family get along as I don’t know what. You can see.”

“Is that it? You know there isn’t much harmony between myself and my folks right now, and you know why. Besides, it isn’t as if we always got along. We don’t, of course.”

“I feel almost outta kilter. You come here to tell me about losing your father, and we’re all sidetracked onto something else. What about going for a walk?”

“Oh, no. This is doing me a lot of good. Don’t rush, Ira. Please.”

“Anything you say.”

“He died, your father, in the house?” Mom persisted in asking.

“Yes. He was still eating lunch. He said he didn’t feel well. He wanted to lie down.”

“Aha. On the bed he died?”

“Yes. My mother had no idea he was having a heart attack.”

“ Sie hut nisht gevissen? ” Mom addressed Ira.

“Yes, sie hut nisht gevissen ,” he corroborated sullenly.

“So venn she know?”

“My mother went into the bedroom when Papa didn’t come back. He was just resting, she thought. But when she spoke to him, and he didn’t answer—” Larry relied on gesture. “You know what I mean?”

“ Ikh farshtey, ikh farshtey. Mein son he don’t believe I farshtey. Auf eibig he laying there.”

“ Ewig ?” Larry caught the word. “That’s right. Auf ewig . You say eibig ?”

“ Tockin. Aza gitteh kupf. Aza gitteh kharacter ,” she commended Larry to her son. “You a goot kharacter,” she repeated for Larry’s benefit.

“Thanks, Mrs. Stigman.”

“ Noo , he had a good life, no?” She clasped thick fingers.

“I think so. He was always — busy. Busy in his dry-goods store — it was in Yorkville, Ira may have told you. Downtown, in the eighties. We lived there, too. He liked trading, buying and selling, bargaining.”

“Aha. Business.”

“Yes.”

“ Noo, a yeet oon business,” she addressed a scowling Ira. “Only mein sohn ,” she informed Larry. “And a quviet man he vas too? In the house vit his vife and children?”

“Oh, yes. He was mostly quiet. He was happiest with the family. He liked being with the family. He was happy with all the kids around him, his grandchildren especially. He liked buying them presents.”

“Okay,” Ira interjected. “What d’ye say we go, Larry?”