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

“ Azoy? ”

IV

The early spring evening was truly balmy. The streetlights shone softly from the dark interior of Mt. Morris Park, along whose perimeter the three walked, shone wistfully on the few lampposts climbing the hill to the summit. The night sky bent overhead benignly, accommodating Mt. Morris Park hill and its dark tower on top that thrust its belfry among the misty, wavering stars strewn to the west. Strollers passed at a tranquil pace. Autos too, and infrequent trolleys, seemed to roll by more quietly than usual. Madison Avenue had never seemed so calm and reassuring. Why didn’t Pop ever do this? Ira wondeed. He never did, never. Too nervous always, always on edge. He walked just to get there, to get there as soon as he could, to get there and get it over with — not the way Uncle Louis did, enjoying the walk itself, talking as he sauntered, lean and tall in his postman’s uniform. Gee. And talking about things Pop never brought up, interesting things, things full of promise, not about the relatives or the rent or the gas bill or Mom’s allowance—

“When I hear Debs speak,” Louis was telling Mom in Yiddish, “I feel as if my own heart were speaking.”

“So eloquent is he?” There was a trace of formality in Mom’s tone — and in her bearing too, as she walked along beside Louis, something guarded or self-consciously distant. “I’ve read about him in Der Tag . He’s not Jewish. But a truly fine person he appears to be.”

“He’s a socialist,” said Louis. “And among socialists, Jew or Gentile doesn’t matter. He has fought against oppression and persecution of all people. Not only Jews, the downtrodden, Southern colored man as well.”

“ Azoy? ”

“Show me another person, show me a Jew, who has done as much for the poor and the working man as Debs has. He’s spent time in prison for them.”

“I know.”

“It’s his dream that the workers should rule,” Louis continued enthusiastically. “The writer Jack London wrote about it — the Dream of Debs: The workers need only unite and hold firm. They could bring all the factories to a stop. They could bring the bloated capitalist to his knees. Nothing would move, not a train wheel, not a sewing machine in a sweatshop. All would have to go to the workers.”

“It’s a worthy dream,” Mom said, and then laughed shortly. “But indeed a dream. Does the common worker understand that? What common worker in America doesn’t seek to be a businessman? Why did he come here? Like my Chaim today: He yearns to own a restaurant, a cafeteria. Even I have learned that word ‘luncheonette.’ I say it right, don’t I? And so it is with most Jews. It’s America, the golden realm. In Europe the steamship companies showed us pictures of ordinary laborers carrying sacks of gold coins on their backs. What will the socialists do with the storekeeper, with the vegetable peddler, with the Galitzianer herring peddler on Park Avenue — he owns only two or three barrels of herring? Still, he’s a proprietor. Why else has my Chaim gone to St. Louis? To be a proprietor, a boss, as they say in English.”

“But some of us, and not a few, have ideals,” Louis countered earnestly. “Some see further than the Galitzianer herring peddler. He came here to get ahead, and why? Because he lived under a benign tyrant, Franz Josef. But those who lived under the Czar came here seeking freedom. Many were Bundists, Jewish socialists. And socialists seek freedom for all mankind, and first and foremost freedom from wage slavery.” Louis lifted his head. “If not for idealists, if not for those who strive for the good of all mankind, the whole human race would be lost. And I’ll tell you, Leah, with these small people, like that Galitzianer herring peddler, the socialist isn’t concerned. They hardly count. It’s the big industrialists that count, Mr. Schwab of the steel company, Mr. Ford, that anti-Semite, the railroad magnates, the shipping companies; in Massachusetts, the cloth manufacturers. They together with the banks and the Wall Streetniks, they’re the ones who count. But on whom do they depend? On whose backs have they built their fortunes? On the backs of the workers. In the steel mills, in the mines, in the factories. Without him where are they? Where is even the banker, where is J. P. Morgan? Once the toilers in their millions, the steel mill worker, the railroad worker, the miner, get together, the owner, the magnate, the capitalist is finished. Do you realize it was a Jew who thought of this first? Karl Marx.”

“I’ve read of his name in the Jewish newspaper,” said Mom. “His father converted, that I know, a rabbi’s son and an apostate. My father, Zaida, says he was a bitter enemy of the children of Israel, like all apostates. How terrible, a Jew himself.”

“And because of that, you don’t believe his words?”

“ Oy, gevald , Louis, what do I know? What shall I say? I admire your ideals, but to me it doesn’t seem practical. You’re a mailman. You’ve told us yourself how anti-Semitic the goyim are there. These are people with some education, no? And you expect them to unite? You don’t see how everyone tries to rip the skin off everyone else. Even I, from my Chaim, for my paltry allowance. What can I do? I must do as the rest.”

“Chaim will drag you down to his level. You deserve better than Chaim.”

“That’s something else.” Mom nodded sideways. “What I deserve depends on who is the judge. To Ben Zion Farb anyone willing to marry me was the husband I deserved — I was already a lumpish maid of twenty-two years. I don’t have to tell you that by eighteen in Galitzia a girl was already looked on as—”

“Don’t say that. I’m a free-thinker. And we’re not in Galitzia.”

“True, but I speak of what was. Attainments I had none. And with four sisters all pining for their turn to marry. Freg nisht . My father Ben Zion was frantic. And all of us stuck in forlorn little Veljish, with only a marriage broker to depend on for escape. And didn’t I weep when my father took me on a visit to my aunt Rebecca in Lemberg. ‘Let me be a servant girl here,’ I begged him. ‘Father, let me stay.’ He had to threaten me with his cane before I would leave.”

“I know. I know the whole story. It’s a tragedy.”

“ Noo .”

“You have such a fine nature.”

“It helps to have a fine nature,” Mom said dryly.

“Ah, Leah, you shouldn’t talk that way,” Louis shook his head. “Your heart, your goodness will never change. It is what draws me to you. Sarah,” he raised a finger to stress his words, “Sarah is truly the one without tenderness. Sarah is cold. Not you.”

“For me it’s too late, Louis, all this you say and wish. The way I live is the way I shall die.”

“You’re a young woman still, Leah. And believe me, an attractive woman.”

“Can one be affluent without means; so I’m young without youthful thoughts.”

They walked on awhile without speaking. “ Noo, Yingle .” Louis smiled his broad smile at Ira walking with springy step on the bare ground between the paved sidewalk and the palings about the park.

“I love to walk on the ground,” Ira declared.

Uncle Louis laughed. “You see, Leah, how much he loves natural life, the earth itself.”

“He longs to be a khunter ,” Mom said with peculiar emphasis, the kind Ira had long ago recognized was meant to conceal meaning from him. The word sounded almost like hunter, but not quite. He could guess he wasn’t supposed to understand more than that. Still, the word had a familiar sound in English. Could it be? Mom’s features looked mischievous in the lamplight, amused and prim at the same time.