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

“You know something funny?” Stella asked.

“No, what?”

“We made a big circle — from my school over there, through the theater, and back again.”

“Oh, yeah.” His wry voice ended by inhaling a squelched sigh. “What d’ye do? Take the shuttle?”

“I have to.” She led the way across the sidewalk to the kiosk. “I have to, but you don’t. You can go on the Lexington.”

“I know, but I’d better make my call first.”

“You can make it downstairs.”

“You mean the phone booths in the subway?”

“There’s three, four. Those big wooden ones — when you go from the IRT to the BMT.”

“I’m not sure,” he hedged. “Okay. Let’s go,” he said hastily. “Jesus, I’m late. Later than you’re going to be.” They both flowed down the steps with the cataract of commuters heading home. “Show me the booths, will you?”

“Around the platform. This way. I’ll wait for you.”

“You don’t have to.” His voice sharpened.

“We both gotta ride to 42nd. A minute more.”

“Holy Jesus!”

“Why? You’re not gonna tell her what happened?”

“Oh, no! Get in here. It’s too goddamn noisy. Or do you wanna stay out?” She was already in the way of the folding door, giggled as he dropped the nickel into the aperture.

“You know,” she whispered as he waited for the operator, “I wanted to meet her, but I didn’t wanna meet her. You know what I mean?”

“Sh!”

“Number please.” Oh, Christ, in the interval, preparing for apology. In the phone booth — that she had recommended. Oh, man, oh, man, the jibes of those boys still echoing. He felt as though he were losing his mind — heard the stimulated ring of the phone, hoped Edith wasn’t home. Whee-ooh, he whistled, windily audible, while Stella watched him. In a minute there is time, said Eliot. And Larry this afternoon. No, Jesus, she wasn’t home. Oh, Jesus, the teetering. He wedged his briefcase on the shelf in the angle of phone box and wall—

“You know, I forgot my steno book up there,” Stella whispered, waited a second. “She’s not home?”

“I don’t know. A coupla more rings.”

“The operator’ll tell you.”

Jesus, he was crazy enough he was ready to tell Edith it was all right. He was going to marry the little cunt. He couldn’t say “cunt.” No, she wasn’t pregnant; he was just crazy: Mishugeh auf toit , Mom would say. There she was pressed against him. Go ahead, give her a feel. Go home with her. He could just see himself escorting Stella through 112th Street, her native heath, and Mamie coming out of the neighboring apartment house, and simply transported with delight at the vision of Stella on Ira’s arm, and Ira suddenly a prospective khusin for her daughter. And then he could have all the latest she had learned right here in a phone booth. A slave. If that wasn’t crazy, if he wasn’t crazy. Two poles, he ought to have two poles. Yeah. His insufferable, imperious need, and hazy, imperious bidding of the future. If only it were one or the other, not jeering at himself as he jauntily advanced to greet his putative, rapturous mother-in-law. Oh, you’re off your pulley. So what? All right, Mamie, start furnishing that empty apartment. He reached down for the neighborhood of Stella’s muff, to her simper—

“Hello. Sorry, I was—”

“Edith.”

“For pity’s sake, lad, where on earth have you been?”

Muff, pneumatic muff, Eliot echo. “I don’t know where I’ve been. I don’t think I could tell you.” He leered cruelly at Stella. “Everything’s all right. I shoulda called you. What about that doctor?”

“Oh, I’ve taken care of that. I waited till the last minute. What on earth—”

“I got sidetracked. I’m sorry.”

“Is the girl all right? You sure?”

“Yeah, that’s what threw me. You were right.”

“You sound very strange just the same. Are you all right?”

“Yeah. I’m sorry I bothered you— Hell!”

“Where are you?”

“Fourteenth Street subway station.”

“Please, will you listen to me?”

“What?”

“I want to see you. As soon as possible. Ira, please.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m serious. Will you take the first taxi you can, and come here? I’m very worried. Ira, do you have enough money? I’ll wait in front of the house.”

“No.”

“You will.”

“Yes.”

“As soon as you can. Promise.”

“Eftsoons his hand dropped he.”

“What? You’re mumbling so.”

“I’ll tell you.”

“I’ll be waiting for you.”

“All right. I’m going upstairs. Give me a minute.”

“You be sure?”

“Yes. Sure. Goodbye.” He hung up.

“You going there? To that lady?” Stella asked.

“You heard me.” He shoved the folding doors open. “Fresh air. Go home, will you, Stella?”

She opened her purse. “Wait a minute. Which way?” He got a nickel out, strode. “That’s the BMT — Ira!”

“Oh, the other one.”

“Don’t you know yet?” Her acne stood out in surprise. “I can pay the carfare.”

“I know it. Come on.” He led the way to the IRT turnstiles, dropped a nickel in the slot. Her green coat pressed the revolving petal, banging admission.

“Bye-bye,” she smiled, juvenile, vapid. “Bye.” Utterly lost within himself, he climbed the stair, sole, single-file counter to the throngs descending. And up into the street, auto-exhaust-laden autumn air, slant sun artificially bright on the facades of tall east buildings, on the clock in the Edison tower — half past four — feigning light on the limp lusterless top leaves of trees in the park. A cab? He wheeled about, searching, gaze sweeping the corner, where the vendor had been. A Checker cab, but occupied. Maybe more as far as the Union Square Secretarial — raggle-taggle, coming out of the park, the women in both groups were wearing babushkas, the men caps; the larger group seemed to be hounding the smaller one; and the smaller though pursued was uncowed: they hurled back defiances at their adversaries, taunts in heavily accented English: “Splitters! Wreckers! Stalinist gengsters! Vot did Abramovitz tell us, hah?” A truly stentorian voice bawled out, “Lenin hugged him ven he vas dere. He came beck, and he said, ‘Clara, it’s not for us.’ No?” Cab? Oh, hell, at this hour. there went another — with a fare—“Not for you, reformist, scissor-bills vot de Vobblies call you. Sqvealers!”

“Wreckers!”

“Recketeers!”

“Go to hell!”

Hell was right. Where the hell was a taxi? He had worried her enough—“Singk, singk, everybody!” A very short woman in the pursuing group, as stocky as she was tall, broke into song, and her cohorts soon followed, inundating those ahead with scorn; above the counter chant of “Bendits! Moscow Bendits! Stalinite tools!” rose the derisive song: “Oh, de cluck-meckers union is no-good union, it’s a right-ving union by de boss. De stinkin’ ga’ment meckers un de doity labor woeckers give de voikers a doity double cross. Oh, de Kahns, de Hillquvits, un de Thomases, dey give de voikers all false promises. Dey pritch sotsialism, but dey prektice fatzism in de toid kepitalist pahty by de boss!”

“Hey, taxi, taxi!” Ira waved frantically. “Hey! Right here!”

I

As if he had been traveling for hours on end, Ira got out of the cab in a stupor, told the hackie to keep the change from the dollar he handed over, dazedly aware that the tip came to more than the fare, and walked unsteadily through the cold blanching of day’s end to Edith’s house door. He pressed the nacreous bell button below her name, leaned inward at the buzzer, laboriously entered the carpeted hallway. Reverberations of streets through which he had just been, of acts, Stella at a drinking fountain, knife blades, faces in subways, moving hordes on station platforms, places and grimaces, all seemed to have gotten into his nerves), seethed in his blood — stairs settled like a fire escape as he climbed — along with voices and cries, a reeling farrago of his libido, his lunacy, almost palpably filling the softly lit hallway, like a half-delirious transition to the new surroundings, new atmosphere of Edith’s apartment. Adjust — with heaving chest, recognize the scent of lemon oil at the nostrils at the same time as the rich gleam of piano and piano stool told him the cleaning woman must have been here today. Adjust, try to sequester the topsy-turvy memories that he had no time to dwell on, no time to abate.