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

At the hail of her joyful young lover, she smiled, tenderly, ruefully, resignedly, as if accepting her foolhardiness and folly, as if claiming her prerogative of enjoyment at her own deliberate act of imprudence. Pleased and unbeguiled, she descended the iron steps of the day coach to the wooden ones below, steadied in descent by the conductor, who solicitously relieved her of the suitcase she was carrying — in the one hand — and set it down on the planks below, while she held on to her black portable typewriter case in the other. And in the dusty train windows, faces of passengers, contemplative and discreet witnesses of a glowing reunion of a handsome youth bounding with a cry of unrestrained rapture to greet the new arrival, a woman of indeterminate age, not girlish, though girlish in figure, girlishly diverted by the brimming ardor of the youth who took her portable typewriter, her suitcase, and guided her to the single taxi already engaged and waiting. .

Eyed by the departing passengers in the train windows, the two would be left behind forever, it seemed to Ira, who trailed, conscious of his inveterate, twofold role of being part spectacle, part spectator — the two would be left behind in unresolved attitude, while the passengers themselves would be borne away to their obscure destinations.

A wave of the conductor’s arm. He stepped aboard the train, in his hand the stumpy auxiliary stairs. To the accompaniment of gleaming wheel and chuffing locomotive, the mystery of arrival and departure was accomplished.

The three got into the taxi. Not venturing to embrace, Larry and Edith sat hand in hand, gazing at each other. What transport of love Larry exuded, while Edith, indulgent recipient, patted his large hand with her tiny free one. And Ira, conscious of self as always, slum youth from a shabby tenement in East Harlem, privileged to assist at this wondrous, romantic encounter: so beautiful, beautiful, yes — and beyond him, as someone in limbo, or on the other side of a diaphanous, intangible partition of blissful, acceptable amorousness, of love, love, the state he was barred from. He had forfeited empathy, or ruined it. Yes, once again, who would understand? He had ruined it by knowing the end before knowing the beginning: knowing the shattering consummations, but torn out of the context of tenderness, the sanctity of tenderness and affection he witnessed here — that was it. By craving, or cravenness, stealth, or collusion, coupling having once united him with Minnie, now Stella, only to bar him from all else that love meant. “Don’t kiss me,” his sister had said. And Stella, except that once, who wanted to kiss her ? Watching you come in her astride, her shallow, wide-open blue eyes glazing in orgasm. So where was love? Love, shmuv, shove.

They had come there to spend the two weeks just before college opened, to tryst in the mellow old stone cottage on the outskirts of the town of Woodstock. Enchanting to Ira, unbelievable the freedom within unity, of its random, stony façade that seemed to draw its enduring strength from the rambling white veins of lacy mortar that bound rock to haphazard rock. The house gave him a sense of nestling in continual shade, whether of vines clinging to the walls, or the large trees overshadowing the front lawn, or the sunken front entrance in a corner, a sense of shade — and seclusion. Even the mowed backyard, a retreat rather than a yard, though open to the sky, was walled about with a high and stately, yet rustic wall. Green lawn, late flowers, flagstones embedded in turf, shaded by hemlocks above. Natural beauty everywhere floated on the surface of sensation — anchored unseen below by sights and scenes of East Harlem.

The house had been made available to them by John Vernon, Edith’s colleague in the English department. “My fairy godfather,” Larry quipped. Not that John owned the place. It belonged to his sister, who planned to join her husband, a corporation executive, at present in Scotland. With great aplomb, with worldly urbanity, Larry met the very finical, well-nigh askance scrutiny of the proper mistress of the estate, and won her over with a convincing display of responsibility, maturity, and appreciation of the antique charm of the appointments and decor. They conferred about kitchenware and facilities, the care of the grounds, the gardener, who would come in at least once during their stay, and his wife, who was the cleaning woman. Debonair, yet deferential, Larry listened with close attention to all the lady’s instructions. In the end, obviously satisfied the place would be well cared for, she named, as she said, a nominal sum, little more than would cover the utilities. Larry made out a check, a blank check, which Edith had already signed, and handed it over to the lady — who, after a glance at it through her lorgnette, stood for the briefest interval, contemplating Larry. Never had he looked so expressive, handsome, and worldly-wise. . All this while, to one side, scarcely taken note of, stood Ira, like a mute in a play, hat in hand, hearkening intently, feeling his face flicker with the wonderment within, but too bewildered with novelty to grasp more than merest snatches of what went on.

They were alone that night, Ira and Larry, after Larry telephoned Edith to confirm that he had successfully obtained occupancy, and the place was beautiful. She called him the next morning to tell him what train she was taking, and when it would arrive. It would reach Woodstock by late afternoon, and though Larry chafed with impatience, Ira secretly welcomed the interlude. It gave him time, time to orient himself, accustom himself to utterly new surroundings, isolate their elements, hedge them within memory. He was grateful for a chance to admire, humbly and slowly to appraise simple elegance, and to try and judge what made it elegant. Again and again he felt like shaking his head: he shouldn’t be there; he was learning too much, and hardly understanding what he learned, just feeling it. Yes, he wanted to learn. But he was too susceptible, impressionable, or something; he was being — he was being spoiled. That was funny. He didn’t really mean spoiled; he was being moved away, further away than ever before, from his customary round of existence, his established base, like being moved away from his center of gravity — and once moved, he couldn’t return. Elegance didn’t just grow, didn’t sprout out of having a lot of possessions, a lot of money, being wealthy, a pooritz, as Mom would say in Yiddish, a magnate. None of that by itself made for simple elegance. It went beyond that. How should he say it to himself? That’s what was spoiling him: taste. He could feel it right away — like that feeling he got inside the brownstone house into which he mistakenly delivered his first Park & Tilford steamer basket when he was twelve. He was vulnerable to it. It made his mouth water like something delectable: good taste. The rough gray flagstones before the sunken entrance to the cottage, the thick rich ivy draping the fieldstone walls. And the flowers and shrubs, he didn’t know what, between cottage and road. The spruce tree sentinels before the house. And inside, in the big living room, the fireplace wrought out of boulders, under the mottled marble mantelpiece, and the brass andirons, so appealing, Hessians in Revolutionary-time uniforms, in tall, imposing hats. And on the wall, paintings of early Americans, in the colorful vests and knee breeches, against a background of light blue, and women in high white bonnets. You could really study them, portraits of once living people, maybe the owner’s own ancestors, in their wrought-gilt frames posing so tranquilly in the azure atmosphere of another age. And those opulent and plain wooden chests, and the sideboards with deep mirrors, and those spindly high-backed rocking chairs, and settees and divans with striped cloth. And that lustrous piano — and even the round, rotating piano stool with wood that was warm and dense and rich.