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

“No. Some bosom companion you turned out to be.”

“What are you two talking about?”

Larry smiled at Ira’s discomfiture. “It has to do with the baseball park, the Polo Grounds it’s called. I told you I worked there too for a day. It was awful.”

“Oh, yes.”

“The concession owner’s wife, or daughter—”

“Daughter-in-law.”

“All right?” Larry pressed for permission.

Ira remained silent: his tacit consent and curiosity about Edith’s reaction. . complex curiosity, like that about the cat.

“What was her name?”

“What’s the difference? Mrs. Stevens,” Ira conceded.

“Oh, yes. She gave Ira a ten-dollar roll of quarters by mistake when he asked for a two-dollar roll of nickels for change.”

“Yes?”

Larry broke into a delighted chuckle: “Oh, you don’t get the point at all, darling. You don’t get the point at all!”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t return it, Ira?”

“He’s a traitor, a low-down traitor. Wait till I get even.”

“You really didn’t keep it, Ira?” Edith was manifestly shocked. “I don’t believe it.”

“It felt so nice and round,” Ira began — stopped, and sensed a blush rising to his cheeks at Larry’s guffaw, and Edith’s sudden high-pitched laugh. “Well, it’s a difference in upbringing.” He scowled, gesticulated. “Poverty has a — a different set of rules from affluence — maybe. I don’t know.”

“I never would have dreamed of taking anything that didn’t belong to me.”

“Well, you get funny ideas of impersonality,” Ira tried to justify. “If it’s from a company, or a corporation, it isn’t so bad as from a person.”

“I don’t think it makes any difference.”

“No? Well.”

“Would you do it again?”

“You want me to be honest?” And meeting her large-eyed gaze: “Hey, that’s a funny question a guy like me should be asking himself.”

“I’m sorry I brought it up,” Larry apologized. “I didn’t know we would get into a debate on morality.”

“I warned you,” Ira accused. “What was the point, anyway?”

“I just thought I’d give Edith an idea of what we talked about. The demon didn’t possess you altogether.”

“I’m sure she knows by now.” Ira could feel Edith’s large brown eyes still searching, searching candidly, as if to penetrate the surface of the identity he presented. Seconds passed before he could meet her gaze, and then he did, and for the first time since they had known each other, though he could feel his lips trembling, he was aware of the steady harshness with which his eyes met hers. “Well, I’ll tell you, the lady with the orange hair is smoking a cigarette in a long silver cigarette holder. And she comes up to the till with a big bosom, and condescends to swap your money for a roll of coins. You don’t think of 119th Street, the cold-water flat you live in, and maybe,” he hesitated a moment, “what it did to you, what it’s doing to you. It takes over, a dynamic mass, you might say. Now that doesn’t make the act any more honest, you know, doesn’t justify dishonesty. Condones maybe.” He fought against the grimness permeating him. “I’ve paid for it, over and over, for that lousy roll of quarters.”

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Ira dear.”

“What a tempest I’ve managed to stir up,” Larry interjected. “Never again, I promise on a stack of Bibles. Let’s forget it.”

“Do you still want to know whether I’d do it again?”

“Oh, no, please, Ira.”

“You know, it’s funny. Now that you’ve asked, maybe I wouldn’t. Maybe I never would again. Two worlds get into collision.” He could sense the trace of a faint smile easing the grimness of his visage. “I’m sorry, Edith. I’m just getting to know yours.”

“Oh, no. I’m the one who should apologize,” Edith said, compassionate in her contrition. “I keep being surprised all the time by the values other people have. I think everyone’s values are like mine. I should know by now they’re not. Especially in New York. In fact, I know they’re not, but I still keep being surprised. The impersonality of the big city, of cosmopolitan New York, the very height of the skyscrapers, instead of the piñons and ponderosas of New Mexico. Instead of the desert and the cactus of all kinds, there’s the noise and the crowds of the streets. I suppose they breed an altogether different outlook from my Western one. I’m just getting over my belated Western romanticism. We’re about twenty years behind someone like you in the East.”

Values. Values. Ira took a deep breath, studied the black-and-gray design of the Navajo rug on the floor. He seemed on the margin of some kind of idea that he couldn’t quite compel into definition — as usual. He saw values as an agglomerate of tiny bits of experience, or tiny conditions of life, hers in Silver City, in the Southwest, sun-drenched, open, mountainous, and clean, a land he never knew — and his ghetto and slum values, like minute bits of shells and silt, held together into a mass. Where had he seen it? A mass, abrasive and crude, agglomerated by his inescapable East Side Jewishness.

“Where are you two going from here this evening?” Edith asked.

“To the apartment, I hope.” Larry turned his head toward Ira. “Real Hungarian goulash. I heard Mama say this morning she hadn’t made it in a long time.” He adjusted his tie. “What d’you say?”

“What?”

“Have dinner at the apartment.”

“I don’t think so. I’ve got a bunch o’ work to do.”

“So have I. You’ve got your briefcase. We can practically have the whole house to ourselves after supper.”

“I know.”

“Okay?”

“No.”

“Why not? You’re not peeved about my bringing up that roll of quarters, I hope. I apologized.”

“Oh, no.”

“Then what?”

Ira burst into sudden strained laughter. “I don’t like Hungarian goulash.”

“Oh, come on. I know you do. And nobody makes it better than my mother.”

“Well, the fact is I ought to visit my grandfather. My mother’s been after me for weeks.”

“Do you still have a grandfather?” Edith asked.

“Yes. On my mother’s side. On my father’s side they’re both gone, both grandparents. It’s one of those freaks. Mom was the oldest child of her parents, and Pop was the youngest of his. And I’m the firstborn grandson. It’s the only night off I have,” he addressed Larry. “Thanks just the same.”

“Well. . big galoot.” Larry approached with grudging manner. “Dr. Pickens fired him out of the class for whispering. Both of us were at fault, but Ira was the big galoot. I can just see Dr. Pickens in his stage-acting days touring the country with a traveling company, and playing out West before an audience of big galoots. Back in 1890, I bet. You know, Edith, we used to have to learn gestures.” Larry extended a long arm gracefully: “Left hand, middle front supine. Like this.”

“Really?” Edith smiled appreciatively. “And he called you a big galoot?”

“Oh, I deserved it, I guess.”

“Elocution 7,” Larry added. “That’s how we met.”

“You know. .” Ira looked up, embarrassed by the memory. “The funny thing is that galoot in Hebrew means ‘in exile.’”

“Galoot in exile!” Larry bent over Ira’s armchair. “Oh, my God, not again!” He looked down at the book in Ira’s hands, inclined his head further to make sure. “Hebrew in exile. Edith, do you know what this raven never flitting has been reading again?” Larry wailed in mock despair. “He’s been reading The Waste Land .”

“Why not?”

“That’s an obsession. An idée fixe.”