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

“Well, what’re you gonna do? They squawk over two bucks. You’d think it was two thousand.” He leaned back.

“It’s not funny, you know. You should feel real sorry,” Minnie scolded. “Over a nothing from money. Why didn’t you try to keep it from happening — say something to them?” She was scolding him, speaking entirely in English.

“Me? Ho-ho.”

“It makes me feel so bad. And over money. Mom, why do you have to do that? It’s Friday. There’s still a little light from a candle.”

“Tell him,” Mom said bluntly, pointing at Pop.

“Tell me? A nag of nags—”

“All right, that’s enough!” Minnie said sharply.

“Indeed, enough,” Mom agreed. “What’s doing at Mamie’s? Let’s better talk of that.”

“Oh, do I have news for you!”

“ Azoy? Wait, wait,” Mom said eagerly. “I’ll hang your coat and hat. Noo, zug ,” Mom urged. “What?” She couldn’t refrain from a terminal “ Oy, veh! ”

Released from self-consciousness, Pop’s eyes became browner and glossier, especially when he listened to Minnie.

“Zaida wasn’t there tonight,” she said.

“What? My father wasn’t there?” Mom exclaimed — between shock and disbelief. “What happened?”

“Nothing. He wasn’t there. He’s not living there anymore. He’s not living at Mamie’s.” Minnie raised her voice.

“Oh, I swoon!”

“I nearly did too when they told me. When I came in and Zaida wasn’t there, I was s-o-o surprised.”

“ Oy, gevald! What for? Why? Oy! ”

“He’s living with Sadie.”

“Sadie, you mean Moe’s Sadie?” Mom’s confusion was utter. “What happened there at Mamie’s? What? They told you?”

“Of course they told me — and is Mamie angry! I never saw her so upset — and angry. You know what he did?”

“ Noo? ” Mom demanded peremptorily.

“He sneaked away. He didn’t say anything. He just plain sneaked out of the house. He took his clothes, his siddurs , his tvillim —you know, all those Jewish things — his thallis . Even his yashikish , his big pillows. And away he went.”

“I don’t believe it! My father?”

“Well, don’t believe it,” Minnie retorted. “Your father! Mamie didn’t believe it either.”

“Who would take him? Vie zoy ? How could he—”

“Morris took him. He asked Mrs. Schwartz next door to call Moe on Mamie’s telephone to come for him — because Mamie was in court with a dispossess. Moe should come right away with the car from his house in Flushing, so Zaida could get to Sadie’s before Shabbes . Oh, I tell you. Was there a something. Morris scribbled he was taking Zaida to Sadie’s. Then he called Mamie on the telephone: the old man is at Sadie’s. I’m glad I got there after all the excitement. Oh, was Mamie mad. ‘He’ll never come back to live here again,’ Mamie said.”

“ Azoy? ” Mom slumped in her chair.

“The old kocker ,” Pop jeered. “And Jonas, stunted Jonas, what did he say?”

“You know Joe. Mir nisht, dir nisht . If he doesn’t want to live here, he doesn’t want to live here.”

“Ah, khah khah!” Pop reveled. “Sadie will give him a lively time. She’s blind as a cadaver. When she begins mixing up the meat utensils, the cutlery and the dishes, with the dairy dishes, oy , will he feel a nausea.”

“But why did he leave?” Grave and intense in perplexity, Mom sought an answer. “Didn’t I go there Sundays, after Baba died, often early in the morning before shopping? I helped Mamie tidy his room, fluff his pillows, change sheets. And kosher. Mamie is faultless. In every shred of food. In every dish, in every spoon. No one could ever be more so. In everything!”

“And the Passover dishes too,” Minnie concurred. “Everything wrapped up, separate. And packed up, no khumitz shouldn’t touch it. Touch it? Shouldn’t even come near it. I don’t know why,” she said abruptly. “Moe said over the telephone that Zaida said his grandchildren were too much for him.”

“Oh, the two young hussies,” Mom interpreted with rising emphasis. “That’s it. The springing and the dancing and the racket of the radio. But then”—she mustered argument to the contrary—“that’s nothing new. No, something, something has happened. For my father to bolt away without a word of farewell, without a word of notice. No. Something has deeply disturbed him. Deep. Deep.”

“Go,” Pop opined, “he’s grown fearful of the Portorickies. A Jew with a beard in a neighborhood full of Spanyookies. And the blacks too are already there. Ella whispered to me that Hannah was to be a bridesman at a Portorickie wedding. Goyish , Catolickehs. He may have gotten wind of it. He’s fleeing. With Sadie he’ll be spared that grief. Sadie has only boys, three boys.”

“Still, he could have said something,” Mom countered. “Ben Zion Farb, my father, was never one afraid to speak his mind.”

“No, you’re right, Mom. It’s something else,” Minnie agreed. “But still, he wouldn’t say what.” She grimaced expressively. “Only he fumfit about things going on late at night with his grandchildren. He must have been dreaming. He says Stella is carrying on with somebody — something shameful. She lets somebody in and out after he goes to bed. Can you imagine, sixteen years old, and she’s letting a geliebter in and out of the house at night?

“What?” Ira cast off listlessness. “What does he mean by that?”

“You ask me?” Minnie shot back. “If Mamie herself doesn’t know. Who believes him? She asked Stella, Hannah — they looked at her like she was crazy.”

“No. I mean in and out of where?”

“I told you: in and out of the house, that’s where.” Minnie was close to ridicule. “One night he could swear there was somebody with her. Then he started to think about it, and it kept him awake. He started to think who and how and where and when.” She shrugged. “Maybe he told Moe more. Maybe Moe told Mamie more. They didn’t tell me.” Her manner was fraught with finality; she yawned. “Oh, I had such a hard day today. That new office manager. He’s like a nervous string bean. And then the two classes at CCNY. I tell you, Mom.”

“Boy, that’s a new one, a new complaint about his grandchildren,” Ira persisted obliquely.

“Of course it’s a new one. He yelled about the radio, he yelled about the jazz bands, the Charleston they did. And of course, the trombenyiks that came into the house. But never this.”

“I wonder why?”

“I told you all he said.” Minnie spoke through a yawn. “‘My grandchildren, my grandchildren. I don’t wannna live here.’ You wanna know more, go over there yourself. Go to Mamie’s. Go to Zaida in Flushing.”

“Yeah.”

“ Tockin yeah,” Mom echoed her son; and then tutted in dissatisfaction. “Who’ll guide me now, if I want to visit him? It’s an interminable journey to Flushing, to Sadie and Moe. I’ll have to ask Mamie when she goes. Maybe Moe would drive us out there in his car. Ai , what to make of it? One grows old.” She worried a crumb of kholleh on the tablecloth.

“I’ll take you next Sunday, Ma, in the subway,” Minnie offered.

“Good. Take her,” Pop approved — scornfully — in Yinglish. “But fahr a fahr sure I’ll tell you. Me he won’t see. The old leech won’t see me, and the blind ignoramus in Flushing won’t see me either.”

“No need to enlighten us,” said Mom. “We’re well informed.”

“It won’t harm you to visit him less frequently too,” Pop retaliated.He’ll have less chance to smear me with his dung.”