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

Quinn kept talking: “I had a buddy — his name was Schein, Abe Schein. Like Klein. Tallest Jew I ever seen, taller than I am, lots. Jesus, he was lanky. We called him Shnitzel for the hell of it. Shnitz. He was always talkin’ Torah, Torah. You remember Christmas Eve, remember? I told you somethin’ about him.” he addressed Ira. “It’s in the Torah. Sometimes I’d kid him: Hey Shnitz, does the Torah tell you how to fade the dice?”

“You told me that already.”

“I did, didn’t I?” Once again, Quinn assumed the same strange posture he had taken when he waited for Ira to scramble off the rear end of the big White: He locked the fingers of both hands together, knuckles upward, his gray eyes fixed on remoteness: With locked hands so low in front of him, there was no telling whether he was praying or despairing.

“ Shoyn shikker ,” Mr. Klein muttered under his breath. “All right,” he rustled the yellow sheaf aggressively. “We got first: lobster. Small ken. Jar, cheddar in wine, the one closed with the wire—”

“Wouldn’t go to a whore. ‘Why don’t you git frenched,’ I sez. ‘You say it’s against yer religion to lay ’em. Try that. That ain’t layin ’em.’ ‘Go away,’ he sez. ‘Fer Christ sake, the Heinies might pick you off t’morrow. A guy tall as you. You stand out woise’n a second-louie in his Sam Brown belt — Git yer piece some way.’ Nope. Torah. Torah. Jumpin’ Jesus.”

“Mint jelly, a gless.” Mr. Klein kept his voice raised. “Coffee, a beg. Sugar. Cubes beef consommé—Where is it?”

“It’s that tin box.”

“You see? You’re really smart already. I thought it was crystallized ginger. Shikker auf toit ,” he directed a subdued aside at the stooping Ira.

Quinn pressed his locked hands further down. “You know how you go up to the front. Klein, you an’ your buddy, side by side — Yer in a long file. You oughta know.”

“I know. I know already,” Mr. Klein said abruptly.

“It pays to be a short guy like you,” said Quinn. “You ain’t no runt. But Shnitzel, he’d make anybody—”

“I know what you’re goin’ to tell me! All right?” Mr. Klein interrupted, all but snappish.

“Yeah, but he didn’t make a sound, Klein,” Quinn’s voice burred harshly. “Not a fuckin’ sound.” Quinn suddenly sucked in his breath. “I never knew where he went. I never knew when he went. We wuz talkin’ about different things. Not a goddamn tree in sight, blown to hell. What a pity he sez. Like they wuz innocent. An’ me about the thirteen-, fourteen-year-old kids here gittin’ free lays in gay Paree from married women with hot pants whose hubbies were at the front—”

“All right!” Mr. Klein said with explosive emphasis. “I gotta get these orders out. What’s the use talkin’ about it? We’ve been through it. We lived it. The mortar shells, the machine guns. So who needs more? Quinn, it’s a big Saturday tomorrow. Like Thenksgiving nearly, and with no help. Some other time.”

“Okay. But I been talkin’ to Shnitzel ever since. A harp an’ a Jew. But he was my buddy an’ the way he went, it was like he was gone an’ never left me. Been different if I’d seen him get his. But this way—”

“Okay. So what’re you gonna do? It happened to everybody nearly.”

“Not this way.”

“All right, not this way. So a sniper got him. You tell yourself once and for all a sniper got him.” Mr. Klein’s vehemence turned on Ira. “Where were we on the orders?”

“Yeah, hey, Shnitz! Hey!” Quinn unclasped his hands. “Tell me about them thirty-six holy men that has to be here. Ah, Jesus.” He made for the outside stairs.

Mr. Klein turned to Ira. “Where were we on the orders?”

“Nonpareils, you gave me a box of nonpareils.”

“Nonpareils,” Mr. Klein began, consulted the invoice, and looked up — looked up, and kept his eyes fixed in pained wonder. Above the noise of the rolling handtruck, while Murphy pushed the load of steel-strapped boxes, he and the stalwart agent escorting him were engaged in loud dispute.

“ Oy, gevald ,” Mr. Klein growled, all but inaudibly. “ Sit zan du khoisakh . C’mon. Take! Here is a bottle maple syrup, Oregon prunes, two pounds—”

XXVI

It seemed that Murphy and the agent accompanying him behind the rolling handtruck were furious with each other. They weren’t at all. Their loud voices were raised, but not in wrath — in uncompromising disagreement. “I’m tellin’ youz, youz wuz.” Murphy pressed the elevator button.

“How the hell could you tell it was me. It was night and a dark one, too,” contended the Prohibition agent. “It was pitch dark. Only light we had was a starshell. We didn’t light a match. We bummed lights off each other’s smokes.”

“That’s right. Cigarette end, only light we had. That’s why it took me so long to figure out it was you: your voice. An’ your build, maybe. You wuz a captain, wuzn’t you?”

“Maybe. I was a major at the end. What the hell’s that got to do with it?”

“I’m tryin’ to tell ye.” Murphy watched the elevator platform descend. “All right, fergit it. You wuzn’t there.”

“Yes, but the whole goddamned Argonne. You know how many American troops were in that battle?”

“All right, I’m wrong.” As the elevator platform settled at floor level, Murphy hunched to shove the handtruck aboard, stopped. “You wuz in the Boer War, right? You wuz a soldier o’ fortune you said. You wuz a private. Remember tellin’ us that big kick you got givin’ the compliments o’ General Kitchener to majors an’ colonels, an’ havin’ ’em salutin’ you?”

The stalwart Prohibition agent seemed to become rigid, motionless, his eyes never leaving Murphy’s face. “Well, I’ll be goddamned!”

“You fought that big Jew. When you were with the Rough Riders in Cuba.” Murphy pressed on. “You said all the romance is gone out a’ war. Wasn’t that what you said?”

“Were you in that same big shellhole?” the stalwart man’s face seemed gray under the cellar’s unshaded incandescents, as if the burden of the coincidence taxed all his credulity. “There must have been a hundred of us pinned down that night.”

“I’m tellin’ ye.” Murphy thrust the handtruck forward.

“Wait a minute. Get that box too,” said the Prohibition agent.

“Yeah. Quinn, you comin’?”

Quinn left the side of the table, walked over, picked up the box Tommy had just brought, and joined the others on the elevator platform. Murphy tapped the elevator button on the side of the wall, and all three ascended out of sight. They left behind a strange kind of atmosphere in the cellar, something Ira had never felt before: an intrusion of danger, a peculiar imminence of past peril.

“Come on!” Mr. Klein cried angrily. “Wake up. Tonight is Shabbes b’nakcht . All right, so you don’t have to be ehrlikh . But the candles your mother lights, no? — Listen, Tommy, do me a favor: go beck to strepping the rest of the boxes.”

“All right. Don’t git huffy,” Tommy answered.

“Go beck! I wanna finish here by closing time. The whole day is one big headache already.” Acrimony held Mr. Klein in its grip. “ Oy, a shvartz yur! To get something done with these Irish shikkerim ,” he lamented as soon as Tommy turned his back. “Come! Two cans French-cut string beans. Grenadine syrup, a bottle. Van Camp’s. Chicken à la king, three cans. Sugar. Move.” Mr. Klein kept passing groceries. “Look what you’re doin’!” he chided.

“Yeh, yeh, I am.” Ira retorted, but he couldn’t get the ominous feeling out of his mind.

“If they don’t find them items in the beskets when they deliver tomorrow, you know who they’ll blame?” Mr. Klein thrust his head forward in harassment. “Me, not you. So—”