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

His little, bare, and cheerless bedroom, the next room after the office, was vacant. Where was Zaida?

A few steps farther along the hall, and Ira could guess: Zaida was behind the frosted, wire-reinforced window of the bathroom, illuminated when occupied. Ahead of Ira in the front room, he caught sight of Hannah and Stella executing the latest dance step — to the muted band music of the family’s newly acquired Superheterodyne console radio. In the darkened bedroom at the rear of the lighted kitchen, he could hear a window close. Mamie came in, short, obese, broad almost as the bedroom doorway.

“Hollo, bhoy,” she said affectionately. “ Noo , have you prevailed?”

“Yeah, thanks, Tanta . I think so.”

“And the machinkeh served you well?”

“Better than I served it. The mistakes I made, gevald !”

“It’s the first time since I bought it secondhand from a shikker who came to the door — only the Founder of the universe knows where he plucked it — the first time that a collitch bhoy has used it for his collitch work. Who would have thought it would be so honored? Bills of fare were all that were written on it before. Goyish fare: puck chops, hem, such things. And now and then, something Jewish, but treife , you know, even if Jewish: shav , potato lotkehs , borscht.”

“Yeah?”

“And when needed, an eviction notice, you understand. Stella writes out on the machine an eviction notice that I have to hand a Portorickie sometimes. Ai ,” she groaned. “Rarely, rarely. I don’t like adding to a poor man’s woes. But often to repay your pity, they’ll play you a trick: they’ll steal off in the dead of night with their belongings. Noo , saves taking them to court.” She soaked a rag under the brass hot water faucet, wrung it out, and wiped the enamel front of the sink.

“Have you become acquainted with these Portorickies? Who ever heard of them before? A peculiar people.” She turned to face Ira. “Sit down.”

“Mamie, I just came to say goodbye, that’s all. It’s after eight. And thanks for the typewriter.”

“And Zaida? Won’t you bid him goodbye?”

“I meant to.”

“Sit, sit. Every minute you spend talking to him is another mitzvah .”

Ira sat down — reluctantly. “But he’s in the bathroom.”

“A minute, just a minute more.” She transferred the damp rag to the oilcloth-covered washtub lids, and bending her heavy, Slavic, sober face under mousy topknot, mopped the green-and-white-figured expanse. “What can you do for a man who no longer cares to live? His shoulders hurt. He can’t see. His haunches ache. His feet pain. Noo —mine do too. Still, I run for him twice a day every day save Shabbes , to fetch him fresh, crisp egg biscuits, and every morning fresh rolls, a half a quarter pound sweet butter. Nothing pleases. Nothing wins thanks. Neither my soup, my veal cutlets, my fricassee, my strudel. Neither dairy or parveh , nor flesh. What can you do?” She bunched the gray rag and left it at a corner of the washtub lid. Then she sat down, ponderously. “Ah!” she relished her relief with a loud sigh. “ Oy! I’ll tell you: his life soured too early. He was scarcely thirty when your mother, Leah, was already a child, Genya a girl too, I was an infant, and Ella was born — four daughters! Gevald , he foresaw a desperate future. Somehow he would have to make a fortune. The dowry alone, to defray that for so many daughters, oy , where does one find a panacea? It happened that he knew that they were going to hew down the count Tatevsky’s forests on the mountainside nearby, among the Carpathians, for lumber. Morris, your uncle, worked there awhile.”

“I know.” Beguiled, Ira encouraged: “He told me once he lost his crayon that he marked the ends of logs with. So he slit his finger, and marked the ends with that.”

“ Tockin , that’s Moishe.” Mamie folded thick hands on her wadded belly. “‘ Noo ,’ Zaida thought, ‘hah, the count will need huts for the woodcutters. And with what do you chink the cracks of a hut? With mortar made of lime.’ His little gesheft would be the purveyor. With all his money, and some borrowed, he ordered three great dray-loads of lime — three, and goyim to cart them. Didn’t the Almighty send down a deluge from the skies, that mired the wheels, a deluge that fell hour after hour after hour. And the lime, freg nisht , worth nought but a curse. He took to the Talmud after that. He would scarce tend the little store. ‘Minkey, this,’ he would call Baba, may she rest in peace to eternity, ‘Minkey, that. The goy wants kerosene. The shiksa wants half a loaf of sugar.’ And so it went. Do you know Baba once loved him dearly? But little by little his selfishness killed all her devotion.”

“Yeah?”

Mamie pushed her snub nose upward with the heel of her hand. “It is indeed so. He’ll be out in another minute.”

“Who’s there? Who’s talking? That’s not Zaida.” Hannah’s voice rose above the radio announcer’s. “We keep hearing somebody.” A moment later, she presented her carrot-topped lissome self in the kitchen doorway. “Oh, it’s you. Our college cousin. You finished?”

Stella wasn’t far behind. “Of course he’s finished. Can’t you see? Now he has to dance with Mama.”

“Always serious. Always his mind is somewhere else. On something important, something high and intellectual,” Hannah said with customary effrontery. “You typed and you typed and you typed. Now you can dance. Why don’t you dance?”

“I don’t dance.”

“You don’t wanna, or you can’t?”

“Both.”

“Come on, we’ll teach you.”

“I said both.”

“Oh.”

“You know what it is.” Stella slid by her sister through the doorway. “He doesn’t wanna, because he doesn’t know how.” She approached Ira, lifted a flirtatious shoulder. “And he doesn’t know how because he doesn’t wanna. He’s too intellectual, he’s a real college man.”

“At least waltz,” Hannah enticed. “It’s such an easy step. Come on. We need a partner.”

“That’s right, a male partner.” Stella leaned against him. “We always need a male partner because Zaida won’t let us have one in the house. To him men can only dance with men. And women can only do the chardash at weddings, when there’s a big crowd.” She tittered, leaned against him more flagrantly, bearing down on his shoulder with musky heft. “If he sees you dancing with us, he can’t say anything. We’re first cousins.” She straightened up brightly. “It’s in the family.”

“No!” Ira shied away.

“How can you be so selfish?” Hannah scolded. “Your own cousins. We’d be so thrilled. All you got to do is hold us in your arms.” She gauchely mimicked: “Ah, you hear it? Listen, it’s dreamy. Come on. Before Zaida comes out, one little glide around the front-room table.”

“It’s not fair.” Stella nudged again, bold in the patent innocuousness of her seductive teasing. “Men can do all the picking when they want. And we girls have to wait. If we were both boys, and you were our girl cousin, you’d have to wait and then you’d find out.” She bumped Ira again for good measure.

Greatly diverted, Mamie’s girth shook at her daughters’ antics. “Let him be, you’re nothing but hoydens. He has more on his mind than dancing. He didn’t come here to dance.”

“No, he came here to typewrite a term paper — a college term paper,” Hannah said with mocking asperity. “About quotas. A college man, no less.”

“I better leave.” Ira tilted away.