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

— Wasn’t he?

Yes, of course. In the novel. But the reflection is a false one; it’s quite distorted.

— Perhaps. But let me ask you: why do you say that?

I say it because it is false to me, to the one I am, to the one I actually was.

— At the time of writing?

At the time of writing, yes. That’s exactly the point — I think of Joyce’s Dedalus here, and of Joyce himself — censoriously as usual: trying to formulate my chief objection, and to test it against the evidence: that what I found most objectionable in Joyce, most repelling, was that he had brought to an extreme the divorce between the artist and the man; not merely brought to an extreme; he had flaunted it, gloried in it: the icon of the artist detached from his autonomous work, disavowing moral responsibility for his creation, paring his nails with divine indifference. Joyce had amputated the artist from the man. What baloney.

But to my point, the writer I was imagined, given trifling variations of detail and time, that he was faithfully projecting, enacting, faithfully engrossing himself in his milieu, nay, faithfully representing himself in relation to his milieu. Do you follow me? The guy really believed he was purveying the truth, realizing actualities.

— Do you deny that the writer was victimized?

But not in that way! He was part of the process. And it is his part in the process he unconsciously suppressed, unconsciously omitted, and hence the picture is distorted. I can say the same thing another way: the writer was under the delusion that he was portraying truth, but in fact, he wasn’t.

— How do you know he is now?

I don’t — with any absolute certainty; only the relative certainty that I have at least taken into account, born witness to, hitherto ignored relevancy.

— Could it be at the expense of art? Could it? You are silent.

I don’t know.

The theft of the fountain pen led to the theft of another, and still another. Their acquisition conferred on Ira something akin to freedom, a new kind of freedom, unwonted freedom from concern; not only from that shudder of alarm over whether he had or hadn’t taken his fountain pen with him when he changed classes, and would now have to pay the penalty for his neglect (even if he did, there were more where those came from); but the freedom accorded by callousness, the license that sprang from callousness, callousness that dispersed the thought of the unhappiness he brought the one he had despoiled, callousness that bartered sympathy for power, that toyed with depravity.

And then came the inevitable, the inevitable in its devious way. Came the day when in the breast pocket of one of the jackets that he brushed against was clipped a magnificent fountain pen, the upper barrel glistening in silver filigree. Silver! Vine and arabesque! He clawed at it; it was his.

His!

For a long while he kept his superb trophy hidden in his favorite cache, the dusty floor underneath the lower drawer of the built-in wardrobe in Pop and Mom’s bedroom, kept it wrapped up in a piece of brown paper bag beside its run-of-the-mill mates. The round knobs on the dingy-white drawer, the dark maw within when the drawer was pulled all the way out, the accumulated dust on the floor whereon his fountain pens were secreted became accomplices of his stealth, abettors of his crime. The preciousness of his unique prize, the silver-filigreed Waterman, continually glided through his mind, continued to twine about it, like the silver filigree around the barrel of the pen.

On a sunny weekend toward the end of March, he and Farley lazed together in the sandy-carpeted mortuary — once again reinstated as the Hewin family parlor — lazed and chatted about the track meet Farley was scheduled to compete in next month. He felt sure he would place. Coaching and practice had greatly improved the two things in his running that most needed improving: his start and his stride. He had already been unofficially clocked in the 110-yard dash in the awe-inspiring time of 11.6 seconds.

Every now and then, Ira would wind up the phonograph, put on “Mavoureen” with John McCormack singing, and, paying only token attention to Farley, drift off into enchanted reverie under the spell of the Irish tenor and his mellifluous brogue. Clipped to the inner breast pocket of Ira’s jacket was the silver-filigreed fountain pen. He had brought it with him. Why? Because it was safe to sport it on weekends, with no school, and no owner to claim the beautiful object as his, not Ira’s. Because the pen tantalized Ira’s consciousness so continually, he had to wear it — even if he didn’t display it. He had to wear it concealed or he had to give it away, because what was the fun of wearing it concealed?

Farley was talking about Hardy, the black youth who always came in second to Farley at workouts. “You never saw anybody eat the stuff he does,” Farley laughed. “You know, Irey, he’ll eat a hot dog, mustard and sauerkraut — and an ice cream cone all together.” Farley stopped speaking when Ira drew the pen out of his pocket. “Hey, that’s nifty.”

“Here, have a good look at it.” Ira extended his arm and brought the pen within Farley’s reach.

Farley rotated the barrel, admiring the filigree. He admired it, frankly, just as Farley would, without envy, happy in his friend’s possession of something so handsome and so costly. “Hey, never saw anything so nifty, Irey!” he congratulated.

And with that suffusion of affection, of blood swamping the brain, Ira presented Farley with the pen. Oh, no. Farley tried to return it. He couldn’t accept it. It was too valuable, too beautiful, to be given away. But Ira insisted; he wanted Farley to have it. That was why he had brought the pen with him today. One of his rich uncles, a jeweler, Ira fabricated, had given him the pen, and he wanted Farley to have it. He himself had a satisfactory, plain Waterman — which he showed Farley. No need to have both. He wanted Farley to have this one. In the end, Ira persuaded him to accept it. For Farley, appreciation paled the hue of his blue eyes. In spoofing ritual of exchange, he tendered Ira a new yellow pencil from his father’s supply. For Ira, the moment was like a rush of vertigo: immense joy danced in his head — but it was immense joy suddenly bonded to a wraith of qualm; it was immense delight in Farley’s pleasure at receiving the gift — but coupled with a specter of foreboding.

Excused from participating in calisthenics, and the other activities of the triweekly gym program, Farley had been appointed “monitor” of the gym class. Each student occupied a preassigned spot on the gym floor, and Farley was accorded the privilege — or the honor — of checking off the attendance on a chart on which names corresponded to spots. Grimacing in broad, familiar wink at Ira, who grinned back in acknowledgment of his special status, Farley came through the columns of students as the short, burly gym instructor barked the tempo of the drill. Ira was checked off on the chart, and Farley went on. . A minute later, he was back, his features furrowed questioningly, his blue eyes darkened with seriousness.

“Hey, Irey,” he said in a subdued tone, “there’s a guy up front in the next row, says it’s his pen. It was yours, wasn’t it?”

“Sure it was mine. He’s crazy!” Ira blustered.

Farley left. In another minute he returned, even more serious this time. “He says he’s going to the office if he doesn’t get it back. Do I give it back to him?”

Ira’s world began to buckle, to crumple into a shapeless wad. He felt his very being wobble about and lurch, abandoned by any guidance, bereft of any center. Still he persisted, clung stoutly to the untruth, to the integrity of his lie bound in the integrity of his gesture of friendship to Farley.