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

His breathlessness of a moment before strangely converted into long, momentous heaving of chest as he climbed the flight of stairs to Mamie’s floor, halted before the apartment’s dull red lead-painted, metal-sheathed door. Here goes. He reviewed his alibis — like loading a weapon. Wait! If Jonas had come, the door would be locked. For once he was smart. Why wasn’t he smart this way always? The door would be locked, and Jonas would be asking Stella why wasn’t it locked when he came home? But maybe she had already ducked into bed beside Hannah. She didn’t know from nothin’. Blame Ira when he left. But if the door wasn’t locked — let’s go.

The door wasn’t locked, the tongue still back, held by its catch. The hallway was dark — until where lit at the other end by the kitchen light. Who the hell knew: anybody there and who? He was in deep, deep danger now. Boy. Holding the bolt, he quietly raised the tongue. . into its catch. You’re in deep danger now, boy. No, he could still bluff it out with the forgotten term paper. Come in as if looking for it, grab it — he tiptoed past Zaida’s bedroom. And ah — still the momentum of the ruse, he snatched up the term paper, stowed it. . safely. . in breast pocket, all the while his eyes fixed on Stella seated at the table in green bathrobe, before her an open movie magazine. Her lips were parted, expectant, waiting. He pointed at the bedroom door, behind which Mamie lay; it was exactly, barely ajar as he remembered leaving it. Stella nodded, docile, expectant. Sound of Mamie’s breathing filled the kitchen — Ira leaned toward it a moment, listening with sharpened ears, heard the reassuring snore, stertorous, he thought, regular, impervious, rough with weariness. He beckoned, eyes and head. Boy. Stella arose softly, approached, shallow blue-green eyes in trance, and blond and still humid, entered his embrace, to his swift, imperious pawings, and ruthless signals of his will. He retracted the little tin, displayed it a fraction of a second: it would have to explain all, his going, his absence, his errand — and it did, for when he opened it, she tittered.

“Turn around.” He armed his piece. “Bend over,” he pressed compliant shoulders. “Wow.” He couldn’t restrain exultation altogether, at least vent that whisper of gratified vision: of orbital womanly spinnaker unfurled. Unfurled from the release of the green toweling of bathrobe wings, cupped, sleek, ballooning vans of fulfillment. The brain scintillated. Hoist. She weighed a wisp, she lost gravity to furor.

“O-o-oh, Ira!”

“Sh!”

“O-o-oh, Ira, o-o-oh, Ira!”

“Shut up!” Ram-pant. Ra-a-m. Ram, ram, rampant Lions of Judah, gold Lions of Judah on sapphire ground guarding the Torah. Ram-ram-ram, tikyoo, tikyoo . Sound the shofar. Tikeeyoo, matryoo .

“Ooooh, Ira, ooooh, Ira, ooooh!”

To that last lustful gasp. Breathless both, they separated. Green curtain fell on plump, adolescent rump, too soon, even as he took up cudgel for composure, buttoning up with all celerity. “All right?” he asked her as she turned around.

And received her assent in lambent, pale blue-green eyes.

“Boy, that was good,” he breathed in the wake of rapture. “You better get in bed. I’m going to sneak out.” For the first time he felt a truly tender impulse toward her, toward Stella. He kissed her — on not so sweetly exhaling lips. “G’bye.”

She smiled, girlishly, uncertainly appreciative. “Bye-bye.”

A last swift glance at the bedroom door reassured him: all unchanged. Mamie’s regular burr of breath rasping out of the dark. Safe. Safe all around. Get rid of his “safety” sticking to him, peel it off as soon as outdoors. Stella had already started toward the front room, and he in the opposite direction to the apartment door at the end of the hall. On the very point of raising the balls of his feet to tiptoe, when he heard it — he heard it: bedspring noise, bed creak, groan, and electric-switch button click all at once. And crack of light under Zaida’s door. Jesus Christ! Ira wavered. He’d never beat it out before the old man opened the door. Tell Zaida he’d dozed off? No! No! Ira retreated. Tiptoes, tip toe, Jesus, like a ballet dancer, back to kitchen-light. Pretend to read Yiddish still? Zaida’s door opened, and a terrifying slab of incandescence toppled sinisterly from the room across the narrow passage of hall. God Almighty! He bumped into Stella.

“It’s Zaida,” she whispered at his back.

“I know.”

“He’s going to the can.”

“Sh!” He agonized caution. Should he send her on her way — to the bedroom adjoining the front room she shared with Hannah, asleep too? Was that the safest thing to do? With time passing so? Maybe she’d wake Hannah — oh, Christ! — and Jonas home soon — oh, Jesus! Was he ever in a jam! The front-room window. Open it. The fire escape. Open it. But the noise — get back into the kitchen. Read Yiddish, no matter what — too late. He retreated into the deeper dark, into the recess of the front room, tugging Stella with him.

Grumbling, the old man emerged — in his long underwear — shuffling on his felt carpet slippers. With one hand he kept patting down the crumpled black yarmulke on his head; the other hand slid along the molding of the wall to guide and steady him: “ Oy, vey, oy, vey, Raboinish ha loilim . What joy have I known? At fifteen a bridegroom, at sixteen a father. Barely twenty-two, and a bankrupt with four daughters. What joy have I known? Care, always care, since youth. And pain, pain and sorrow without measure. Old and afflicted before my time, widowed and grown blind before old age. Raboinish ha loilim , how long until you are pleased to take me?”

He seemed to become aware of the stream of kitchen light ahead of him, peered anxiously at it a moment — paused, but then entered the bathroom. A third luminous bridge spanned the hallway when the bathroom light went on, and filtered by the frosted glass in the bathroom door, changed to softer texture when he shut the door.

“Jesus, here’s my chance. While he’s in there.” Ira moved forward.

“He’s got good ears,” Stella whispered. “He can’t see, but he can hear—”

“When he flushes the toilet. Maybe this—” Ira stooped to tear at his shoelaces. “I can make it.” Shoes in hand, he straightened up. “You go to bed as soon as I beat it.”

He advanced as far as the kitchen light, and bent as a sprinter poised for the starting signal, raised himself on tiptoe, waited with straining ears. . heard lifted toilet seat bat against pipe. . stream. . splash. . now. . now. . he crept forward a step. Now!. . Now!. . No! Nothing doing. . the old guy hadn’t flushed the toilet. Oh, Jesus H. Christ. Already the bathroom doorknob was turning. . bathroom door opening. Ira retreated back into the front room. Off clicked bathroom light. It couldn’t be! In this place, caught in this trap, in this fix? It couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be. Not Ira Stigman. He wasn’t — back. Back into deeper dark—

“Wait, he’ll get in bed,” Stella breathed in his ear.

“Yeah.” Soundlessly to make it happen.

But instead, the gray beard, yarmulke, and underwear paunch that was Zaida shuffled toward the kitchen, stood expectantly in the light: “Mamie?”

Sunk! If thought could bellow through cranium, the whole house would hear him. He was sunk.

“Sleeping, Mamie?” Zaida asked with drowsy grumpiness. Dread hiatus, while he looked up disapprovingly at the kitchen ceiling light.

Window. Fire escape. Roof. At least they wouldn’t know who it was. It would be a robber making his escape! Still he didn’t dare move: with the old man so near, he’d hear the window open, cry out. But if he awoke Mamie, then no help for it: dash for the window. And with — Jesus, oh, shoes in hand — it can’t be you!