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

But oh, Moishe, Moishe, Ira’s dear Uncle Moe, long since out of uniform and now confident of his ability to confront his world as a full-fledged businessman; and oh, Ira, his nephew, pubescent and only too rapturous at being bound in the fateful concatenation of consequences. For it was Moe’s opening of a restaurant, the Mt. Morris Restaurant, that year in partnership with his brother Saul, a partnership from which Pop, a waiter of six years’ experience, was excluded, not because he lacked funds that invested would entitle him to a voice in the running of the business and a satisfactory share in its hoped-for profits. No, Pop was excluded because his business acumen was held in slight regard, and his temperament was felt to be incompatible with that of his two brothers-in-law. They even had their reservations about hiring him as a waiter.

It was the opening of the Mt. Morris Restaurant that inaugurated the train of fateful consequences. The Mt. Morris Restaurant, which all agreed was an appropriate name, being so near to Mt. Morris Park less than a half-dozen blocks away, was located on Fifth Avenue and between 115th and 116th Streets. The name was also seen as appropriate because it paid tribute to its director and senior partner, Moe, whom people had of late begun to call Morris. Set in the midst of a decidedly Jewish neighborhood, lower-middle-class in composition, thriving and sanguine in the thriving and sanguine 1920s, and skillfully managed, the servings generous, the place immediately appealed to a wide clientele. The cuisine was rich and thoroughly in accord with Jewish tastes; and though by no means strictly kosher, no meat was served, which made the meals “half-kosher,” which provided further incentive to semi-assimilated Jews to patronize the place. Moe’s warm personality, his large and expansive presence, and the widespread knowledge in the neighborhood of his recent service in his country’s armed forces proved an additional attraction. The restaurant prospered.

Its immediate precincts became the locus of informal family gatherings. There, of a Sunday, as the weather waxed warm, Mom’s sisters, pregnant, or with firstborn, and Baba, and Mamie with her offspring, would bring along small folding chairs, or borrowing one or two from the restaurant, would gather in a homey conclave across the avenue, directly opposite the restaurant, and seat themselves in a group before the tarnished, brown-brass railing that fronted the local savings bank. They would sit and shmooz away the hours, admonish kids, comment on the changing scene of promenaders and autos, on the ebb and flow of the clientele that entered and left the prosperous restaurant. Often, when the rush of business became very great, Moe or Saul would appear in the restaurant doorway and call to Mamie, or to both Mamie and Ira’s other aunt, Ella, to come in and give the overburdened cook a hand. Mom they never called.

“Would that I too could work a shift in the kitchen to help the cook of a Sunday afternoon,” Mom confided to Ira sadly. “And thus I might earn a dollar or two.”

“So why don’t they call you?” Ira asked.

“Don’t you know? They rebuffed your father for a partner, so they’re uneasy with his wife. You understand? With their sister, with me. Saul, sweet Saul, gives me to understand that Ella is thin, and that one gross bottom like Mamie’s is enough in the kitchen. Beside that of the cook’s. Another would block the kitchen passage. That’s his reason, my fine brother. Noo . He knows how dearly I love mocha tarts; so to make amends, you’ve heard him invite me into the restaurant to have a piece of mocha tart and coffee. But I never go in, as you’ve seen.”

“You never go in. But gee, I love that pineapple cake.”

“It’s different with you. You’re a child. If they won’t give my husband a chance to better himself in life, I won’t accept their favors. I’m not a shnorrer . Take away your false blandishments, and take him in as a partner — But, ah, what am I saying?” Mom reversed herself. “It is my curse. I don’t know my Chaim’l? How long would he be a partner before he fell out with them? Before he would assault my brother Saul with the first weapon that came to hand. It’s a punishment. I’ve been condemned.”

Ah, the multimeshed events that impinged on Ira that year. How to deal with them? How to deal with them from a double perspective, and an impeded one?

It was during that same summer that Pop decided to embark on his own venture in food purveyance: He opened a small delicatessen on 116th Street between Lexington and Park Avenues. Both Moe and the expert Saul judged the choice of location unwise, pointing to the absence of “businesses” in the neighborhood, meaning other stores, and the relatively light pedestrian traffic passing through. But Pop counted on the 116th Street subway station of the new IRT line that had just been put into service to provide him with the necessary volume of passersby. He was wrong, alas. Temperamentally unsuited for running that kind of business, one that catered to the public; fitful, injudicious, vacillating, curt because of his misgivings, and often curt with customers, after the first flurry of the opening of the place, Pop saw his clientele soon fall away. He impressed Mom into service, preparing soups and kishka , stuffed derma , and other Jewish dainties that he thought might increase patronage, in addition to giving the place a homey atmosphere: She spent many hours of the day there, and weekend evenings, leaving Ira to shift for himself, which he did, in his way, avoiding the store, shunning the store for all he was worth.

Nothing new there; just more of the same to brood over.

— Grimly.

Yes, my golden opportunities.

— Not golden. Gilt.

Spell it any way you like.

The gesheft failed. Or rather, Pop through desperate connivance managed to unload it on another, a buyer from New Jersey, by having a string of Mom’s relatives from near and far come into the place at sufficient intervals to give an appearance of sufficient patronage. The very next morning, early, Ira was given the buyer’s check to certify it in Pop’s name: The mopey kid was sent out to a bank in a New Jersey town, to linger about the bank’s door until the place opened.

And did it open or didn’t it? Was it a weekend or holiday? And did he come back, his mission a failure, as usual? Who could remember now, who could retrieve the recollection of the actuality? Only the fair summer morning in the verdant square, like that of a commons of a small town, while he waited for the bank doors to open; only that afterward Pop exulted when the buyer had become kharuseh, when he thought better of the deal, and wished to withdraw, renege — but too late: Pop had cashed the check. “Khah! Khah! Khah!” Pop guffawed. Happy man, he hadn’t quite lost his shirt. But the link had yet to be forged, the link had yet to be closed, as one good turn deserved another. And irony of ironies, her name was Link (though the name meant lung in Yiddish).

XVIII

Ida Link. She lived in the same house at the foot of which Pop had his delicatessen. A peroxide blonde in her early thirties, with a ruby wen on her chin, thoroughly city-wise, street-wise, native-born, stylish saleswoman of ladies’ clothes on Delancey Street, Ida Link fawned on Pop. As soon as she learned he had unmarried brothers-in-law, she frequented the store and even lent a hand about the place. She dazzled Pop with her modish figure, her platinum hair, her glib, cheery address and Broadway spriteliness. It wasn’t long before Pop’s enthusiastic account of her charms brought Moe into her presence.

Poor Moe. The woman was as close to being a tart as it was possible to be without being an outright whore.