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

Well. . Today especially, though he regarded himself as largely inured to the pain, it seemed excessive. This morning he had felt as if he would break in half when M lifted him to a sitting position in bed.

“It’s all a dream, hain’t it?” the old farmer, senile psychotic committed to the Augusta State Hospital, had looked at Ira with innocent, faraway blue eyes, after Ira had humored the doddering geriatric away from his intention of getting his “overholts” on to do chores: “It’s all a dream, hain’t it?” Ira had dwelled on that word: “hain’t,” haint , old dialect for “haunt,” meaning the same thing: a dream haunted. If only mankind knew it. But one got nowhere, got nowhere with that; it was only at the end of life, it might seem that way: a dream haunted. Until then it was anything but dream, anything but haunted. It was Longfellow’s earnest reality. Even these twinges, pangs, aches, alas, were real. His eyes moved away from the keyboard to the daunting pile of mss. in separate manila envelopes. Not quite a foot high. Would he live long enough to retrieve all this prose from paper to disks? It was doubtful.

Ira did better the following month: C C C; his improvement noted in a comment to that effect on the back of the report card. It was the beginning of Easter Week, the beginning of the Easter holidays, overlapping with those of Pesach , the Passover. Sunny, warm weather had begun, the blithe days of the spring of 1918, two months after his twelfth year. Mom housecleaned for the Passover, laid bedding out of the window to sun, sprinkled corners under the sink with roach powder, doused bedsprings with arrant-rank kerosene, and who knew what else. She would soon be unwrapping the Passover dishes on the top shelf of the china closet; Pop would be polishing the engraved silver wine cups, the silver salt cellar on its three little feet — and the silverware too, all brought over from Europe, wedding gifts: with benchmarks in the handles whose dates could still be distinguished: 1898. Oh, there would be matzah soon, of course, kharoses soon, of course, horseradish on matzah chips and homemade red wine, maybe not too sour this time. And the Four Questions to ask, beginning, Mah nishtanoo haleila hazeh : Wherefore is this night different from all other nights? And hard-boiled eggs in salt water, of course; and the thing Ira was especially fond of, the pictures in the Haggadah : Moses smiting the Egyptian, bam! with a long staff. And the Red Sea opening — and closing again to engulf Egyptian horse and rider. That was fun. Gefilte fish, and chicken soup with matzah balls were delectable. But the chicken, well, all boiled out and no flavor. But that was the only indifferent part; afterwards, Mom always served compote made from dried fruit: pears and prunes and raisins.

— Yes?

Two big pots of water were simmering on the gas stove; they were meant to temper the cold water that came out of the bathtub faucets. The pair of brass faucets in sink and bathtub both ran cold water. Why have two faucets in sink and bathtub, and both running cold water? Ira never understood. But so they did. And to mitigate the keen chill still lingering in the water from winter, it had to be mixed with water heated on the gas stove. Oh, the water from the brass faucets made a good cold glass of water to drink, but not to bathe in. Br-r! And you had to let some cold water gush into the bathtub first, the long, tin bathtub in its wooden coffin-box of brown-stained matched boards. Because if you didn’t, the hot water softened the green paint on it — when that Irish, goyish anti-Semite of a landlord finally, after many pleas, consented to have the bathroom daubed: green paint that came off on your tochis , yeah, smeared green on your ass. He should live so, that landlord, as Mom said, with his green bile that he daubed the kitchen and the bathtub with: Such a long bathtub was never seen, long enough, and deep too, you could float full-length on your fingertips if there was enough water in it — in the summer, for sure, when you filled it up with lukewarm water from the tap.

But this time of the year, there would be just enough water in it to bathe in, to be clean for the Passover, Passover of 1918 during the Great War.

What else can I tell you?

— Mucho mas . You are the painter who painted himself into the corner of childhood.

It isn’t that, I still insist, though very likely it helped. Undoubtedly it helped. All right? Enough conceded? It was those awful thrashings, atrocious thrashings Pop perpetrated made all the difference—

— You were thrashed as heinously on the East Side. Oh, I know what you’re going to say: Would God you knew about — or there existed — institutions protective of abused children. Probably, had you taken the black-and-blue emblazonings on your back to any cop on the beat, you would have been given shelter, protection. But granted you knew nothing about such things, feared them more than the scourgings you received, screwball though your father was, how often were you the nasty, sneaky little scamp?

Yes, but I didn’t make my point.

— I already know it.

Then why accuse me? As long as I had, at least, an external milieu that was supportive, the homogeneous, the orthodox East Side, estrangement from an unstable and violent father might be borne. But here in Harlem, both home life and the street had an element of insecurity, were disparaging when not hostile (except for Mom, who out of her indulgence probably contributed most to the disastrous impairment of the psyche).

— I am well apprised of it. Verfallen is Yeroshulaim .

Indeed. The audacity! As Miss Ackley screamed at me that somnolent September afternoon, at the beginning of school, when I built a sail of a blotter pierced through by the inclined pencil; and zephyr billowed through the open window and wafted my boat along the desk.

— You can’t stay there.

No.

Mr. O’Reilly stopped Ira in the hall, singled him out from a file of pupils passing by during departmental change. “I want to see you in my office,” he said. Mr. O’Reilly was the principal of P.S. 24—His office was the principal’s office!

Quaking, Ira entered, sat down and waited. In a few minutes, Mr. O’Reilly came in. White-haired, clerical-looking, wearing a wing collar, his lean cheek twitched with a severe tic. “That grin on your face is going to get you into trouble, young man,” Mr. O’Reilly said.

“I didn’t know I was grinning, Mr. O’Reilly,” Ira faltered.

“I know it. You’re Jewish, aren’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I don’t have to tell you your people have a hard enough time in this world, without your making things worse for yourself.”

Worriedly, Ira tried to smooth his cheek.

“I happen to understand that you don’t mean anything by it,” Mr. O’Reilly continued, clipping his words. “You don’t mean anything bad or mean. But not everybody will understand that. They’ll think you’re sneering at them. Do you know what a sneer is? It’s making fun of people. Nobody likes that.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. O’Reilly.”

“Try to get the better of it,” Mr. O’Reilly’s face twitched. “Just make up your mind you will.”

“I’ll try, Mr. O’Reilly.”

“Before you get into trouble.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re excused. Just a minute, I’ll give you a note for your teacher.”

XII

Home and school, home and school, and the walk in all weather connecting the two. With textbooks strapped together, with varying gait, chance meetings with schoolmates, he passed and repassed the rocky hill and bell tower of Mt. Morris Park on the one hand, and on the other, across the trolley tracks of Madison Avenue, the deteriorating brownstones, a few carved out by a grubby store at the bottom, across the street the abandoned red-brick church that changed denominations (to Ira’s naive surprise: How could a church consecrated to one denomination unconsecrate itself, draw out the hallowness from its interior to make room for another faith?). A new and imposing Eye and Ear Hospital was built on Madison Avenue, along his route. And he passed and repassed 125th Street, shopping mart of show windows in low buildings a story or two high. How many times? Two years, and then a third. He made the trip at least 500 days, often as many as four times a day, going and coming, when he hurried home for lunch, unless Mom gave him a couple of bulkies with chopped tomato-herring or a Muenster-cheese filler, and a nickel to buy two slabs of gingerbread in the bakery at the corner of the school, which stuffed him but he didn’t like them; or a napoleon, that miracle of custard and flaky pastry.