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

“Hi, Pop.”

“Hi, hi. Noo? ” Pop lifted brown eyes behind their gold-rimmed glasses, in habitual acknowledgment of Ira’s presence: due and without affection. How differently they lighted up when Minnie appeared; they beamed. But with Ira they appraised.

And this time, apparently, they were none too pleased by what they saw, for Pop looked away more quickly than usual. Was it his imagination baiting him? Ira wondered as he removed hat and coat; he had a sense of being furtively scrutinized. Still, what could Pop guess about the fix his son was in?

He returned from the bedroom to the kitchen again — and to the tension he always felt when alone with Pop. The days had long passed when he needed Mom’s protection against his father, her amelioration of their antagonism. Still. . if there wasn’t the old fear, there was the same lack of affinity, and still the same need for token concealment of their estrangement. So what? He was twenty-one years old, and bigger than the little guy. And there was Edith. . There, that made him feel a little more secure, almost patronizing — like a shield against Madame Curie’s radioactive speck of guilt: “Well, how did the banquet go, Pop?”

Pop went through his elaborate evolution of deprecation. “May it please them that kind of death,” he said. “A fruit cup, a half chicken with vegetables, a devil’s food cake and coffee. Nothing fancy. One plate, und shoyn . No stairs.”

“Yeah?”

“May it never be worse.”

“Well.”

“I shared three tables with an Irishman. They say Yidlekh. Were the Jewish waiters half the man he was. Strong. And with his laugh. They make the jop a nothing. Shoulders. He could have served me on his tray. ‘Hey, Charley,’ he called me. ‘Hey, Charley.’”

“Oh, yeah?” Ira grinned appreciatively.

“Mazel, mazel .” Pop’s amiability increased, catalyzed by his son’s. “Sometimes one has a little luck. Even I.”

“Yeah?” Ira encouraged.

“With a yeet I would have rushed my kishkehs out. With him it was easy. Seven and a half dollars apiece. And then the Irish police lieutenant slipped us another five dollars between us — a countryman, you know? Would a Yiddle have told me? A goy is a goy . If he hadn’t such a hatred against Jews, we could live.”

“Yeah.”

“After, I stayed.”

“What do you mean?”

“They give you another dollar and a half if you stay after the banquet and fill up the ketchup and the vinegar bottles. And the salt and pepper and the sugar bowls.”

“I see.”

“Would God, next week it should be the same,” Pop prayed. “Do you want a cigarette?”

“I’m not crazy about Luckies. You?”

“He who wanted picked them up. To every diner they gave a package. So. . they were on the tables.” Pop paused. It was as though he were waiting before testing Ira with the gesture. “You want, take. You don’t, iz nisht .”

“Oh, no, thanks, Pop!” Ira was hearty in acceptance. “I gotta try one.” He shook out the single cigarette left in the mini-package, struck a match, and lit up. “Not bad.” He puffed. Could he safely cut off the old boy without offense? He still had three books of Paradise Lost to skim through. “I wonder where’s Mom, where’s Minnie?”

“Indeed, where’s Minnie?” Pop rejoined. “Mom will be there at the alter kocker’s until Mamie, the clever, decides it’s time to leave. And God alone knows when that will be. Let’s both — you know what?”

“No.”

“We’ll both have the kugel and sour cream she left. And a cup coffee, and a piece of that poppy-seed bread, yes?”

“Oh, sure. Good idea, Pop. That sounds swell.” And after that, what a fine transition to an end of currying cordiality, spinning a web of friendship across the void. Grab his Milton and shut up.

“Yeh? All right.” Pop locked palm in palm. “I had such a good-luck day, come with me to the movies.”

“What?”

“And when she comes home, there won’t be anybody here. Well, Min,” Pop conceded. “Let her wonder.”

“Mom, you mean?”

“Who else?”

“Yeah, but I’ve gotta do some studying.”

“Uh!” As abrupt as his exclamation was the change in Pop’s mien.

“But I do.”

“I already know.”

“I have a test tomorrow. I’d like to get a decent grade. It really counts.”

“Yeh, yeh, yeh. Do you know who’s playing in the Jewel Theater on Fifth Avenue? Duffy?”

“Duffy?” Ira repeated, puzzled.

“Tomorrow he won’t be there.”

“Who’s Duffy?”

“You don’t know? You saw him yourself, you said, in the last picture: Duff and dynamite.”

“Duff and dynamite?” Ira strained at memory. “I didn’t — you don’t mean — you mean Chaplin?”

“Duffy, yeh. You want to go?” Pop reverted to customary brusqueness. “Don’t do me no favors. You want to go, or you don’t want to go? Iz nisht . I’ll save a dollar.”

“But that isn’t the idea—” Ridiculous: his own confusions, Pop’s confoundings. Everything a welter of predicament, compassion, and irresolution. “No, I know you’re doing me a favor, Pop — I mean — I love Chaplin.”

“ Noo? ”

“I told you I have to study. There’s a test coming up.”

“Yeh, yeh, yeh. And all day? I come home. You’re not here. Now you have to study.”

“But Pop,” Ira pleaded. “You never asked me before.” It was beyond belief, Pop’s being so — importunate, demanding, in his generosity. Beyond belief. Unique. “I’d go. You know that.”

“I know. I know already from long ago. Everything you see through her eyes. She made you herself. And then she says, see what you are. I know. I know.” He mashed his cigarette in the dish. “Let it be that way. I’ll go alone. I need no companion. Only Minnie understands a little bit, a little bit.” He stood up, locked both ends of the neckband in the collar button, then went into the bedroom.

What the hell was he talking about? As if he didn’t have troubles enough, his head churned listening to Pop. Ira went irresolutely to the shelf under the china closet, where he had left his copy of Milton’s poems this morning. Maybe he was all wrong about the reason he thought Pop was scrutinizing him when he came in. See things through Mom’s eyes. Was the old guy going off his pulley? He didn’t seem that way. And Charlie Chaplin: Dough and Dynamite. Christ Almighty. Dark and hostile, his old self, Pop reentered the kitchen. He had his hat and overcoat on, was dressed to leave.

“You’re not going to eat?” Ira asked noncommittally, only too aware how quickly roles had been restored.

“I’m obliged to her.” Pop flapped his hand in customary dismissal. “As she is, so are you. If there’s no pity, nothing helps. As she made my life — and you made my life — then I’m the sinful one.”

Ira listened in silence. No use answering something he couldn’t make sense of.

“Tell her I’ll be back I don’t know when.”

“Enjoy yourself, Pop.”

His father barely nodded. The cold gloom of the hallway pried into the kitchen through the open door, which Pop closed again behind him.

They must have had a hell of a battle this morning, after he left to go to Edith’s. That was all the feasible conjecture Ira could reach. Minnie wouldn’t know what it was about either, since she had left when he had. He let the pages riffle through his fingers. The tight book had a way of returning to its own equilibrium, unless borne down upon and held open, and he had neglected to do so, talking to Pop. Did you ever hear of Pop offering to take you to a movie? What was wrong? Ira asked himself sarcastically. That cheapskate, what the hell had gotten into him? And that stuff about sinning. Pity. And Duffy. Remembering, Ira snorted: Duff and dynamite. Jesus, if that wasn’t — boy, pitiful. .