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

“I didn’t say khunter ,” Ira explained to Uncle Louie. “I said hunter . Sometimes I like to read that kind of a book, a book about a hunter.”

They both laughed, Mom’s laughter high-pitched.

“Your socialism believes in free love, no? As I’ve heard others say in English.”

“Many of us believe it. Yes.”

“And to me that’s something to laugh at. Freia lokh .”

She was punning on the sound of the English word love in Yiddish, and Ira understood the pun: Lokh in Yiddish meant hole .

“Leah, no.” Louie took a deep breath. “ S’ gants andrish . It means the woman has the same right as the man if she loves another—”

“Even if she’s already married?”

“Even if she’s already married.”

“Azoy?”

They had walked a single length of the park, to 124th Street and now, walking back, they reached 120th Street again. In silence, they turned east to Park Avenue, Uncle Louie holding Mom’s arm across the street. Back at the house once more, he lingered tentatively before the empty stoop. Mom too hesitated.

“Do you want to come upstairs?” she asked.

“Do you want me to?”

“It’s immaterial to me. My neighbor calls on me every evening since Chaim is gone. If you don’t mind, she’ll probably join us.”

“Oh, your neighbor may call on you?” Louie asked.

“I read her the roman in Der Tag every evening,” Mom replied, and went on to explain that she read the romance in the paper for Mrs. Shapiro because she was illiterate.

“I see. And her husband, doesn’t he read it to her? Or is it only in Der Tag? ”

“He treats her like dirt,” said Mom. “A gross, ugly little cap maker. And skimps at everything, even more than Chaim. A dog. Compared to her spouse, my Chaim is a paragon.”

“Aha,” said Louie. “Well, then I won’t come upstairs. Stay in the best of health, Leah.”

“And you also, go in the best of health,” said Mom.

“Good night. Good night, yingle .” Louie smiled his broad gold-dentured smile, slipped his hand into his pocket—

“He doesn’t need it,” Mom tried to dissuade but couldn’t. Despite her protest, a jingle of small change passed from Uncle Louis’s hand to Ira’s.

“Thanks, Uncle. Thanks!”

Even in the dim light of street lamp and hall, Ira could see Uncle Louis’s expression under the visor of his postman’s cap change from a smile to something intent as he looked at Mom. Then he turned away, strode off, lean and tall, his postman’s uniform growing a lighter blue with every step he took toward the corner streetlight.

Alone again with Mom, Ira counted his riches as the two climbed up the stoop. “He gave me twenty-two cents, Mama.”

“You shouldn’t have taken it. Shnorrer ,” Mom chided.

Ira mumbled in demurral. “He wanted to give it to me. I didn’t ask.”

“The only thing you failed to do was to ask.” Mom said ironically over her shoulder, as they climbed the murky gas-lit stairs. “I don’t need him, and I don’t need his gifts.”

“Huh?”

“You’re a poor man’s child indeed. Why should I scold you? It’s a pity.” They turned at the first flight landing and entered the gloomy hall. “Don’t leave the house if he comes to visit again. You hear? You stay with me while your father is gone.”

“Yeh?”

“How soon he came calling. How soon.” Mom unlocked the door. “It’s a good thing I thought of Mrs. Shapiro. It shows that sometimes kindness has its rewards.” She turned up the gas mantle-light, which had been left barely on, and as her uplifted features grew more luminous, “ Lyupka ,” she grimaced wryly, and uttered a peculiarly mocking sigh.

It was a Polish word, or a Russian word, or a Slavic word from Galitzia, but anybody could guess: lyupka . She didn’t like it, she didn’t approve. What was lyupka ? Like the movies? Kissing and hugging. Why did she twist her lip that way? It made him so avid to understand. Why had her face turned so red and scornful? Lyupka . That must be what the big kids meant when they said those words in the street: fucking, screwing, laying, all those words: piece of hide, piece of ass, pussy, cunt— khunter , the word Mom had made fun of; was that it? And what those rubbers were for that Biolov threw in the garbage can, and the kids fished out? Scumbags, the big kids called them. You shoot into them when you come. Shoot what? Come what? That lousy bum that wanted him to take his pants down in the way-far-away park, and squirted like egg-white against the tree. . Oh! Then was that lyupka? When that Irish couple came down just in time, all excited, was that a different kind, or what? Was Uncle Louis’s like that kind of lyupka . .?

He got under the featherbed, too warm with the advent of spring; he slid to the outer edge of the ticking, slid close to the wall, as he had been doing since Pop left. He never slept close to Mom. Wasn’t supposed to. Why? That had something to do with lyupka . Even as his hearing distinguished the sounds of Mom undressing in the kitchen, behind his shut eyelids appeared Mom’s image when he had come rushing into the house that time — when was it? — when they didn’t want to have anything to do with Baba and her family, “ Oy, gevald , I didn’t lock the door!” Mom had cried. She was standing in the round iron washtub, feet in the water, bathing, her great big everythings naked. She grabbed a towel, and shielded herself with it. “Shut the door. Go in the front room!” she bade. He did as he was told. You weren’t allowed to see. That was lyupka . That was why Pop had given him that awful licking with the butt of the horsewhip because he and the other kids had played bad with the little girls on Henry Street where they lived, because their mother complained they played bad. “ Genuk! Shoyn genuk! ” Enough! Like Mrs. Shapiro, Mom wouldn’t let Pop push her away. But what blue stripes Ira had on his back afterward. So. . that was it, lyupka . He could see Mom still on the screen of closed eyelids, but he was falling asleep. .

And awoke — to his horror! He was playing bad against Mom’s naked legs, lying on his side and pushing, rubbing, squeezing his stiff peg between Mom’s thighs. She woke up.

“I didn’t mean it!” Ira wailed in his shame. “I was dreaming—”

She laughed indulgently. “Go back to sleep.”

He rolled quickly away, and still panting, lay with his back to her as far away as he could. What was that bliss that seemed about to well over? That drove him, made him do that to Mom in a dream. . just a little more it would have, it wanted to: lyupka .

He slept in his own bed thereafter.

— I foresaw you’d have difficulties.

It wasn’t difficult to foresee.

— Shall I waft you into the future a quarter century hence aboard a freight train bound east?

I cry you mercy, Ecclesias.

— What will you do?

Do without.

— Chugga. Chugga. Chugga. Whe-e-e! The whistle at the crossing. Dark is the night over Texas. And cold. And stars thick as traprock come tumbling out of the moonless heaven.

Yeah. But Procul O, procul este, por favor .

V

It was a Saturday evening when Uncle Louis called again, this time out of uniform. He looked even leaner, sinewy and tall, flat-chested. Something about the way he watched Mom, with unwavering eyes behind his gold-rimmed spectacles, something about his voice made Ira try to keep his gaze fixed on his book, Boys’ Book of King Arthur . But something, that same something, charged the air of the kitchen, and despite himself, impelled Ira to raise his eyes from the page and steal a greedy glance at the two, while they sat about the green oilcloth-covered table, conversing. He could sense their matter-of-fact tones were dissembled; he was almost sure of it, though he wasn’t sure why. They were talking about the War, a capitalist’s war, Uncle Louis described it; working men fought and bled for the advantage of capitalists. Thank God their children were still young, and were spared that charnel house, said Mom. Would Pop be exempt from the draft? “My stalwart,” Mom laughed. “He wrote me that Gabe had a new proposal: a concession for a cafeteria in City Hall. A businessman, owner of a business, married and a father, he would be safe from the military service, no?”