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

“Don’t say who it is.” Ira removed the handkerchief. “It’s me, Ira. Any luck?”

“No.”

“No.” Chance to tighten lips. “Your mother’s still going to Zaida’s, right?”

“Leah is here.”

“Okay. Never mind. Let me ask the questions.”

“Nobody is listening. They’re in the front room.”

“Doesn’t matter. They’re going to leave about one o’clock?”

“I think so. Is Minnie going?”

“Shut up, for Christ’s sake! I’ll be there about two o’clock. At your house. We gotta see what we can do. You understand?” He gesticulated, his voice tightened. “Just say yes.”

“All right.”

“You’ll wait there for me.”

“Yes.”

“I’ll see you later. Two o’clock. I’m — let’s see — I’m Esther, you get it?”

“I know what you mean.”

“So goodbye, Esther. You say it. Is Hannah there?”

“No. Just Mama and Leah.”

“Goodbye.”

“Goodbye.”

Never in his life had he felt so like a moron as he did when he hung up the receiver. But what was he going to do? He was trapped — and he had to get down to her level. He left the drugstore and recrossed the street, to the stoop of his tenement, and through long murky hall and up flight of stairs.

So Mom was still at Mamie’s. She certainly must be expecting he’d be asleep, as in the old days, when she came home with breakfast for him and Minnie. As in the old days. Jesus, what irony: to know Mom was still blocks and blocks away, that he had all the time he needed to tear off a piece, and even if he could, no longer give a damn. The dumb cluck didn’t know she might be pregnant, and he did all the worrying. Now try to think, he adjured himself, entering the kitchen.

Minnie waited warily for him to return to the kitchen before entering. Holding her purple bathrobe defensively about her, she skirted him cautiously when he went to the stove to look into the coffeepot, and then she crossed the kitchen to the bathroom.

Mom had made coffee, the blue-enameled coffeepot was on the stove, only the coffee had become lukewarm. He lit the gas flame under it, tried to become interested in the opening of Book III while the coffee heated, couldn’t, got up and stood beside the stove, waited until the first bubbles broke the surface, and poured himself a cup, just as Minnie came out of the bathroom.

“Mom isn’t back yet?” she asked.

“You see she isn’t.” He carried his cup to the table. His indifference, or curtness, apparently reassured her.

“No milk? It’s outside the window, in the box.”

“No.”

“Whatsa matter? You’re so worried about the exam?”

“No. I’m not worried about the exam.” He tested a sip of near-boiling coffee, dipped a spoon into the sugar bowl.

“Mom’ll be home right away with some bulkies. Cream cheese. What’re you in such a hurry for? You’re all dressed up. You can’t wait?”

“Never mind — I mean, no.” A sudden idea had struck him, and he moderated his tone. “You wanna do me a favor?”

“Like what?”

“Lend me a quarter.”

“A quarter? What for? A quarter?”

“Lend me a quarter. Even fifteen cents. All right?”

“Whatsa matter with you? You’re so jumpy. You’re all upset. Like auf shpilkis , Mama says. Like on tacks.”

“Well, I am.”

Minnie studied him with unyielding gaze a full five seconds, as if trying to pry loose a hint of what was wrong, then gave up with one of her overly furrowed grimaces. “My poor brother. What gets into him. Right away he’s in a big panic.”

She was getting perilously close to those times when she was the cause, cause of fears that proved groundless.

“Look at you. Fifteen cents is gonna get you out of all the veitig you’re showing? You can’t even say what’s the trouble.”

He swallowed a mouthful of coffee. He had to keep a tight check on himself. And the effort seemed to carry him further than he had expected: into a subdued kind of reasonableness. “No, I can’t. I’m in trouble, that’s all.”

He put his cup down, clasped his fingers together. “I’m in trouble,” he repeated with new grim emphasis. “You know what I mean by trouble.”

And now she seemed to grasp his meaning, didn’t shrink away, but hollowed her length. She made a tutting sound, turned her face away, not in reproach, but pity.

“My poor brother.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

“So what’re you gonna do?”

“Lend me fifteen cents, will ya?”

“So with fifteen cents—?”

“That’s all I’m asking.”

“I knew it. I knew it would happen. That’s why I told you I didn’t want any more.”

“Supposing you got knocked up?” he demanded angrily. “Supposing somebody else knocked you up? One of your goyish friends, or that good-looking Cuban guy. I’m not trying to be funny. What would you do?”

He waited a moment for an answer. “All right, tell me. I know fifteen cents isn’t going to do it. But I—” He hacked at the air. “Right now I need fifteen cents. So you haven’t told me. What would you do? Give me an eytser , good counsel.”

She hesitated, profoundly serious. “I’d go to a friend, what could I do? Maybe I’d have to keep asking. Maybe one of the married women in the office—”

“And you’d let ’em know?”

“What could I do? I could say it’s for a friend. So even if they knew, it’s still better than having a baby. Do you want me to ask?”

He waved her away brusquely. “Let me have fifteen cents. I’ll take care of it.”

“You’ll have me more worried than myself.” Her eyes glistened as she tilted her head. “I’m glad it isn’t me. But oh, God, oh, God! You always get so mixed up in your troubles, Ira. I can’t stay out of it. I try to stay out of them. I try to stop it, so you won’t get in trouble. I stayed out of it. Now look.”

“Jesus Christ, will you stop throwing everything in my face? You know what arguing with you does to me? You’re as bad as Mom.” His hips lunged from side to side. “Goddamn it!” Ferocity turned desperate. “I wish I was never born!”

“Don’t say that!” Minnie pleaded.

“Never born! Dead! Dead as a goddamn mutt by the curb. I had to live in this goddamn 119th Street. Take baths in that goddamn vonneh !” He thumbed bitterly in the direction of the bathroom. “The sonofabitch place. Who knows what I’m in for!”

“Please, Ira, you make me so — I could — I don’t know what.” Her tone nasal with unshed tears, her mien wilting, hand outstretched. “Mom’ll be here soon.”

“Yeah, I know. So what? What?” He sneered, shook his hand wildly. “Give me the fifteen cents. So I can beat it before—” And reverting to sarcasm again: “C’mon, I don’t need—” He couldn’t finish. The madness latent in it all.

“I’ll give you a quarter.”

“Okay. Make it snappy, will ya?” She preceded him to Mom and Pop’s bedroom, while he got his coat and hat, and she was in the kitchen again with a quarter in her hand before he had wrestled into his overcoat.

“Here.”

“I’ll get some dough somewhere. Pay you back.”

“You don’t — doesn’t have to be tomorrow. I wish I was out of this dump.” She was again on the verge of tears. “Everything happens here. All kinds of rotten things already. We gotta move, that’s all.”

“We do?” He turned cruel. “I got all kinds of nice memories from it.”

“Oh, stop! Everything is from this lousy Harlem. Even my chance to be a teacher. Who knew when I played hopscotch and I went around the Maypole in Mt. Morris Park it was gonna be like this?”

“Bye-bye.” He was out the door. “Boy, I’d like to duck Mom.”