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

“Yes. Did you ever try to conceal a state of mind, an emotion, say a disappointment? Mourning a loss? You moan, you groan, you sigh, you go around swearing.”

“Ah, now I get it. No. All right. You go to the opposite extreme. It’s true. I haven’t got your blue-nosed Pilgrim ancestry, but that little girl riding in the train beside her ma, when you were coming back from Oregon to Chicago, the little girl who dropped her dolly out of the open train window, and then sat there quietly, giving no sign of loss. Not a tear. You told me.”

“We weren’t allowed to cry.”

“Allowed to cry, my ass! Who the hell decides that you’re allowed to? I would have howled, why not?”

“Well, we did carry repressing feelings too far.” Her gentle eyes rested on him tenderly. “Oh, I’m sure we did.”

“Yeah, that’s probably why I love you,” he admitted grudgingly. “But you say I’m always praying. That makes us even.”

“No, that’s what makes me love you.”

“Oh, yeah? Unfortunate moral sentiment.”

She laughed.

“Ain’t it?”

“In me or Coleridge?”

“In both of you, I guess. It’s odd, you know. I recognized it as a kid,” Ira recalled, “I mean The Rime of the Ancient Mariner . Everything about the poem enchanted me, especially that first time I read it in the ninth grade. But then I could feel a kind of twinge of resentment about that ‘He prayeth best, who loveth best.’ I used to think, if you’ll pardon zee expression: oh, balls.”

She laughed, as she always did at his vulgarity.

“So that’s what I’m doing. Pop, pop, pop, apah!” he burlesqued. “Pop, pop, pop, apah! The man is always praying, praying, praying, praying, praying, braying, baying, baying, baying. Boom! Pop, pop, apah. How’s that for a chunk of the Fifth?”

“That sounds to me like a chunk of Stigman’s Fifth,” M replied. “It’s approximately in the right key, C minor, and three-quarter time, don’t you think?”

“You know, I just got an illumination about Beethoven. His greatest dramas were in his symphonies.”

“That’s a good observation. There’s your friend ob again.”

“Yeah, right. I’ll tell you why he couldn’t write an exciting opera: he had such Jovian storms going on inside him, he couldn’t adjust, he couldn’t empathize with the earthly conflicts of ordinary humans.” He paused—

She had stood up. “Just a moment, dear.”

“Yeah.”

She left the kitchen, returned shortly with her tobacco pouch. “You’re a little like that yourself.” She sat down.

“Oh, zank you, zank you. To be mentioned in the same breath with sublimity. Boy.”

“No, I simply mean,” she unzipped the tobacco pouch, “you don’t empathize with others very well either.”

“I don’t?”

“Do you?” She brought out her little pipe.

“No, it’s true. I get such Olympian ideas — hey, where you goin’ again?”

“To get the alcohol bottle.” She picked up the bottle of denatured alcohol from the kitchen shelf, stood searching for something else. “I don’t see the pipe cleaners.”

“ Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa . They’re on my desk — let me go get ’em.”

“Oh, no, by the time you get out of your chair—” She stepped out of the kitchen door. Gone for thirty seconds, she reentered.

He sat quietly for a minute watching her. “Hey, you know, you do the purtiest job of cleaning a pipe ever the eye did see? Look at that.” And as she withdrew the browned end of the pipe cleaner and inserted the other end, freshly soaked in alcohol, “Wish I could do that.”

“You can too do that. Of course you can.” She swabbed the stubby pipestem. “Anybody can. No, don’t pretend.”

“Yeah, but method, method, my beloved frau . When you do a job, it’s done. It doesn’t need redoing.”

“Actually, this pipe will need it very soon. I should ream out the bowl first. But the stem was beginning to taste bad.”

“Reminds me of Larry, the way you smoke a pipe. The char in his pipe closed to a cone downward. The way it should. He smoked the tobacco down to the last shred.”

“Don’t you?” She bent the pipe cleaner double, dropped it into the large, square glass ashtray on the table. “See how foul the ends have gotten?” She drew out a fresh pipe cleaner.

“Yeah.”

“Do you want me to clean yours?”

“Hell, no. Womern, leave that pipe in the ashtray.”

“Don’t you want to smoke?”

“Not right now. Orozco gave me a postprandial stogie. Anh.” Ira lapped his lips in distaste. “I’ll tell you: it’s not only empathizing. Some guys can imbue an idea with drama. Damned if I can. Damned if Beethoven could. But he could imbue drama with ideas. How the hell is that? Hey, where’d you get the Blue Boar tobacco?”

“Just before we left El Paso. I bought three packages.”

“Creeps’ sake. Ever providential.” He sighed admiringly: She was so impeccably methodical, filling her pipe a few flakes of tobacco at a time. “You’re so tidy.” He shook his head. “Jaiz. But Mozart could.”

“Could what?”

“Do what Beethoven couldn’t. Imbue ideas with drama.”

“I’m sure I’d rather see Don Giovanni than Fidelio , given the choice,” M commented.

“Well, there you are. I don’t even remember what Fidelio is about. About a faithful husband, wasn’t it — you got the funniest way of striking a book match. Why don’t you hold it nearer the head?”

“I’m afraid I’ll get burned.”

“Nonsense. More apt to the way you do it.”

“You do it for me next time.”

“Glad to.”

She blew out a fragrant stream of tobacco smoke. “Yes, a faithful hubby like mine.”

“Who cares about faithful hubbies?”

“I do.”

“Oh, you, tenderhearted. You’re even a madre de cucarachas .”

Frowning, M blew out another stream of smoke. “I am not a madre de cucarachas .”

“You’re not?”

“No, it’s very unkind of you to say that.”

“Well, I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“That’s the trouble with you. Your mean side comes out when you don’t mean it.”

“Pretty good.”

“No, I’m serious.”

“Well, maybe I’m smarting a little bit at being so bested in me own bailiwick. My metus. All right, I take it back. What are you a madre of?”

“I’m a madre of two sons. And mostly I’ve been a madre of you.” Her vehemence indicated something deeper than umbrage at his fatuous remark.

“Me?” He took cover. “What did I do?”

“It’s not what you did. It’s what I did.” She emphasized both pronouns. “It’s what I had to do. I spent all my time taking care of you in your moods, protecting you from your moods, your depressions, despairs. Heavens! Taking care of you, instead of spending the time doing my own work, instead of spending the time composing music.”

That he understood. “I guess I have to agree,” he said soberly.

“Do you? Are you sure?”

“Yeah, yeah. When it comes to art I understand. So what am I going to do about it?”

“Nothing. Be my beloved hubby. Just like Fidelio.”

“That’s not enough. Why in hell didn’t you, don’t you, heave me out of your life?”

“Now, don’t be silly. I chose to do it. It’s what I wanted to do.”

“Yeah? But how can anyone choose something like that?” Ira demanded. “How can anybody want something like that?” It seemed to him he caught a glimpse, an awe-inspiring glimpse, of a truly disciplined, truly resolute mind. Even that glimpse, that inkling, confused him. “I never wanted in that sense, never chose. I’m blind as a thread of water. Moving through dust.”