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

“Oh, my poor mother,” Hannah fretted. “Everything she has to do. Give instructions on how to be a handyman.”

“They’re your Spanish friends,” said Stella. “So why don’t you go help her? That’s why Mrs. Gomez came here. She could’ve gone next door.”

“You’re so shallow! I’m not even dressed!”

“You’ll wake up Zaida,” Ira arbitrated.

“He’s used to it already,” said Stella. “As long as we’re in the kitchen, and the radio isn’t playing.”

The apartment door was heard opening, was closed quietly, and quickly locked. Mamie’s heavy, careful tread brought her into the kitchen again. “Oy, aza shver leben! ” Her voluminous bosom heaved as she made for a chair — and thudded into it.

“Did you tell her what to do, Mama?”

“Oy! She was frightened.” Mamie panted. “Nothing more. A mother, don’t you know. But three flights of stairs I would have had to climb.”

“You didn’t!”

“Am I crazy? In a minute she understood. An old scrooldriver she had. And pointig knives she had — from Horn and Hardot, borrowed, no doubt. Up she ran, with the little one after her.”

“You took so long, Mama,” Hannah chided solicitously.

“Your friend, the other bridesmaid, and her older sister, the bride, they came just’n a just,” Mamie drew on her stock of English. “Just’n a just, I tell you. So I had to explain to them also. But she know herself now what to do, Mrs. Gomez.”

“Poor Mama.” Hannah kissed her mother’s cheek.

“Indeed. Noo , to bed. Tomorrow is school. Oy , cry havoc, it’s late. Noo , Stella, the bathtub?”

“Good night.” Studied annoyance marked Stella’s departure.

“Good night, Mama. I’m sorry,” said Hannah.

“Good night, my child. Sleep well.”

“Draw a long line down the middle of the bed, I’ll sleep better,” Hannah said after her sister.

“Uh. Do you want a cot?”

“No, I don’t like cot. I’ve told you that, Mama. Good night, Ira.”

“Good night, Hannah.” Ira waited until his red-polled cousin disappeared past the doorway toward the front room. “I thought I might help if I stayed another minute, Mamie,” he explained his presence.

“ Noo , a handsome thanks. It wasn’t necessary, I already know this business,” Mamie remarked. “ O-oy, gevald , would I had the strength for it as I know it. I’m exhausted. Today was wearisome without measure.” Her head bobbed from side to side. “No help for it. I have to lie down.”

“It would do you good, Tanta . It’s too much,” Ira encouraged. “I don’t see how you stand it.” And moving toward the doorway, “Good night, Tanta, ” he said partly over his shoulder. “Get some rest.”

“Wait.” Laboriously, Mamie groaned to her feet. “Wait.” She seemed almost as if talking in her sleep, somnolently plodded toward the bedroom in the back of the kitchen, and got her handbag from the other side of the doorknob. Soughing aloud with fatigue, she turned, opening the handbag.

“Mamie,” Ira reproved. “I didn’t come here for that.”

“I know, I know. Poor boy.” She brought out her small leather purse, snapped open the brass prongs, and from a roll of greenbacks peeled off a dollar bill. “Indigent student, don’t say a dollar doesn’t come in handy?”

“Mamie, no!” Ira retreated.

“Take. Take. Don’t protest. You waited so long.”

“I didn’t wait for that.”

“Take,” she insisted. “As one gives, take. After you amass a fortune, you’ll repay me.”

“Thanks, Tanta .”

“ Noo , give me a kiss.”

Ira kissed her soft, flabby cheek. “Thanks.”

“I’ll have to leave the door open.” She plodded back to the small bedroom. “I won’t hear him come home otherwise. Ai , these Portorickies.” She hung up her handbag. “They wear me out so. Only one thing they care about.”

Ira paused obediently.

“ Nur dem fuck,” said Mamie.

“ Tanta Mamie!” Ira was genuinely shocked.

“Truth is truth. Nothing means more with them.”

“Well,” Ira deprecated. He had used up his last shred of temporizing. He fixed on the Yiddish print of Der Tag on the washtub as he moved toward the hall door, lingered.

“You can still read Yiddish?” With one hand on the bedroom doorknob, Mamie watched him drowsily from the darkness of the bedroom.

“I just wanted to see if I can.” Another step, and Ira advanced to the hallway threshold.

He heard the bedstead creak, then Mamie’s moan of relief. He couldn’t stall any longer. Ferfallen , goddamn it. There she was, behind the oyster-gray glazed light of the window in the bathroom door, as he stepped into the hall. If only he had half a chance—

“Child,” Mamie’s voice followed him.

“Me, Tanta ?” Ira retraced a step or two.

“You’re still here?”

“I was going.” Oh, Jesus, had his loitering alerted her?

“Do me a favor.”

“Sure. What?” He reentered the kitchen.

“Can you pull the door.”

“So it’s closed, you mean? Oh, sure.”

“No, keep it open a bit so the light is in my eyes.”

“How much?” A polymorphous surf began pounding within him.

“A little open, so I can hear Jonas come home.”

“This much?” He pulled the bedroom door slowly toward him, inches ajar.

“ Azoy, azoy .” Sleep furred her voice. “Indeed so. A slit. Blessed. .”

He stood irresolute, listening: heard his aunt’s breath thicken, snag into a snore. Do what? Improvise. Safeguard. Rearguard. No, he didn’t have any stratagems. Flurry of pink flesh, que ce cor a de longue haleine, que ce cor, que ce cor , pale safeties. He drew his term paper out of his breast pocket, tiptoed over to the washtub, laid the term paper conspicuously on the Yiddish print of Der Tag , scowled at the typed sheets as if to fix them there, and stepped into the hallway. In three strides he was at the bathroom door, opened it onto full banana-light on her smooth, wide, droplet-glistening back above the waterline. She pivoted small-titted, soapy torso. She smiled guiltily.

“Listen, Stella. I’ll be right back. Get out, will you? Soon as you can.”

“Now?”

“No, I’ll be right back!” It was all he could do to keep impatience from raising his voice instead of intensifying its harshness. “Five minutes. You hear me?”

“So where’s Mama?”

“She’s asleep. Yeah. I left my term paper here by mistake-on-purpose, in case she wakes up. Get it? That’s why I came back.” He overrode her look of bewilderment. “Just make it snappy, will ya? Get out as soon as you can.” He was already shutting the door.

At utmost speed that stealth allowed, tiptoeing, he passed Zaida’s closed bedroom door, quickened gait past the little office doorway framing the dark, to the apartment door — retracted the tongue of the lock, slipped the little brass nipple up to hold it. And out. Shut door. Raced down the flight of marble stairs, to the lit foyer. Out the open double doors to the night street, deserted, row of roofs cleated on night sky, planet-star a smear east. Cool and late and eleven the hour. Maybe later. Get going. By ebon-windowed storefronts, from stride to brisk pace, he broke into trot. Faster. Soles of shoes smacking the pavement. Oh, so many memories: Farley’s trained legs driving over the armory boards. Ira quit running at Fifth Avenue, slowed to a walk, at his best clip. Walk a block, in breezy September air, to 113th Street, he counseled himself. You can’t go into that goddamn drugstore all out of breath. He’d think you’re crazy, the druggist would.