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

“But you would have to go to St. Louis.”

“I am to write him forthwith.”

“Are you going?”

“Never.”

“And if he stayed? If he insisted on staying in St. Louis?”

“Let him send me my stipend here.”

“Leah,” Louis began — Foreign words, Polish or Slavic, suddenly occluded the rest of what he said.

“I know,” Mom answered in Yiddish. She shook her head. “I’m considering writing him this very evening.”

“Leah, don’t torment me!”

“ S’ narrishkeit ,” Mom said. “It’s foolishness.”

Ira knew the word, knew for certain that his surmise was right: It was all about lyupka .

“You have a wife,” Mom continued, clearly, firmly in Yiddish: “A wife and three children. You’re asking for grief.”

“But if I’m consumed?”

Mom shrugged slightly. “You have a wife — if you’re consumed.”

“It’s not the same thing. You know it’s not the same thing. You have a husband.”

“Indeed. You’ve spoken truly.”

“You love him? Speak truly yourself.”

“It no longer matters. Years ago, on the East Side, I already knew: Love is denied me. Where Love should be, there is a hollow, a vacancy.” She lapsed into Polish, glanced at Ira — who anticipated her by a moment, and dropped his eyes to the book. “The yeled ,” she warned.

“Then tell Chaim to stay. Why not tell Chaim to stay?” Louis pleaded. “He craves success, a business of his own. He may find both, he may find himself in St. Louis among his brothers — in the place he first came to in his youth. You would give him happiness, respect, all the things he craves. And us, you would give us life. I don’t have a vacancy too in my life? You would fill the vacancy in my life. You would fill the vacancy in both our lives. You would give us both love! Leah, only think what happiness that would mean!”

“No, Louis, once it would have mattered: When I stood in the kitchen, on 9th Street, and the hollow thought would come over me: something, a folly: lyupka . But now — it’s truly a folly. I’ll tell you one thing more, and then let’s make an end—”

“No, Leah! I throw myself at your feet. Leah!”

“That would look seemly indeed. I beheld my brother Morris in his nakedness once, and I became consumed. I confess it. It’s shameful to—” Mom reverted to Polish or Slavic, and then into Yiddish again. “But the truth. Consumed. And so I am now—” the fingers of her two hands spread wide. “And so I am now: ausgebrendt . I made up my mind then and there—”

“Leah, what are you saying? I’m not your brother. I’m Louis S. Give me what I yearn for: Your love. Satisfy me!”

“In vain, Louis. I won’t submit.”

“You care for me not at all?”

“Louis, for the last time, I have no more to do with love. Ich bin gants ausgebrendt . Believe me.”

Louis sat still a few seconds, then stood up, dark, brooding, regarding Mom. “ Noo ,” he said with bitterly ironic intonation. “When does your neighbor come in to hear the latest installment of the roman , Leah?”

“Today the Sabbath is over,” Mom rejoined. “ Der Tag isn’t published on the Sabbath.”

“No. Naturally.” He sighed deeply, remained standing, bony hand against his lips. “You need not write Chaim about me. You won’t see me again — alone.”

“I’ll say nothing about you,” Mom replied. She looked in Ira’s direction. “Where do you go now?” she asked matter-of-factly.

“To Fannie and Will’s home. They always have an extra bed.”

“Greet them for me.”

He nodded almost curtly, grim, opening the kitchen door at the same time as he said, “Good night, Leah,” closing it behind him before Mom could answer.

And no gift of small change either. The print swam under Ira’s gaze: unseeing eyes followed Mom from sink to china closet, where she got out the wooden penholder with the steel pen in it, and the bottle of blue ink. Why couldn’t he have Uncle Louis for a father? Even though he had misbehaved in Stelton, at Uncle Louis’s farm, still he would rather live on a farm like Uncle Louis’s. But Mom, she was the one who hated farms; she hated dorfs , little hamlets, she said. She had seen all she wanted of them. But even if Uncle Louis didn’t live in a village, on a farm, she didn’t want him anyway. What a shame: He was lean and dried out, as Mom said, yes, and he had a “touch” on his lungs, which was why he became a soldier. But he knew all about the Wild West, he knew about America, he knew about Debs, he knew about socialism, about a better world where they wouldn’t always say, Jew, Jew-boy, mocky, sheeny-bastard.

Mom sat down, and began scratching away with her pen on a sheet of lined paper of the pad Pop had bought. So what would a father like Uncle Louis have meant? It would have meant speakers on platforms under the electric lights in Stelton at night. Drowsy, humid night and mosquitoes. His name was Cornell, Ira still remembered. It would have meant warm sunshine and open country, and gardens where vegetables grew, and cows and chickens, and long dirt roads he could explore.

He shouldn’t have teased Rosy when she practiced on the cardboard piano. He was supposed to marry Rosy — because long ago, when they all lived in East New York where goats were tied in empty lots and snow was deep in the winter, long ago she had shown him her red crack, and he had shown her his petzel , and he had told everyone afterward that he was going to marry her. Oh, how different it would be if you loved your father: The Irish kids ran to meet theirs when they came home from work, still daylight in the summer, and hung on to their fathers’ hands: “Hey, Dad, how about a nickel? What d’ye say, Dad?” And their fathers smiling, trying not to, but fishing a coin out of their pockets. If he tried that, he’d get such a cuff alongside the head, he’d go reeling.

Mom paused in her writing. “You won’t say anything.”

“What?” Ira asked.

“That Louis was here— Once. He was here once. That much you can say.”

“He was here once?” Ira repeated dutifully. “Did we go to the park?”

“Very well. We promenaded.” And then on the impulse of afterthought: “I’ll tell him myself. I’ll let him know. At least something.” She resumed writing.

So that was how it went: from the little red crack and the petzel , it grew up to be lyupka : Louis pleading with Mom, “Satisfy me.” And how would it be done? The way he dreamt with that strange welling up when he rubbed against Mom. That was how it went. That rusty, lanky bum didn’t need ladies — and then he did it himself against a tree. And if Mom had said, yes, instead of “I won’t submit.” If Mom had said, yes, would Louis have become his father? Pretend you were sleepy, then what would they do? “Look what I have, Leah,” said Morris. Oh, if she would only go to St. Louis—

“I’ll have to go into Biolov’s tomorrow and buy a two-cent stamp,” Mom said. “I wrote him in Yiddish. You think you can write on the envelope in English?”

“I think so. What do I write?”

“The address he left on this slip of paper.”

“I can write that.” Ira studied Pop’s handwriting. “The first is Hyman Stigman.”

“Then write.” Mom moved the envelope toward him. “Put aside the book a minute.”

“You’re not going?”

“Who listens to him?” she transferred pen and ink. “Here. Be careful.”

VI

He had no choice, Ira thought. He recalled nothing of the momentous declarations that Woodrow Wilson made as the United States was drawn ever closer to entering the Great War. The declarations, charges, countercharges. 1917 was almost seventy years ago. (He sat gazing at years so jammed together they seemed opaque.) What could be said, said that was genuinely remembered? Surely he must have heard mention over and over again of how vast was the slaughter in Europe, of the growing crisis in U.S.-German relations, of the sinking of the Lusitania , the death of Franz Josef of Austria-Hungary—“Franz Yussel,” the Jews humorously dubbed him. Once again Ira felt course through him that pang of lost opportunity: Ah, in 1934, when he had finished his first novel, when he was only twenty-eight years old, when he was a full half-century closer in memory to those events and still could turn to people who remembered them, who could refresh his own memory of those critical days leading up to America’s entry into the Great War. Alas, a kid’s memory, that was all he had, the battle of Verdun reenacted on a vaudeville stage, a spectacle that perhaps his Uncle Max had taken him to: Sparks flew from gutted buildings, burning walls toppled, distant artillery thudded. .