The People

by Bernard Malamud

  That night, after closing his store, Morris disconnected the radio and carried it upstairs. In his bedroom, the door shut tightly so Leonard would not be awakened, he tuned in softly to the midnight broadcast and learned that the French had accepted Hitler’s terms and would sign the armistice tomorrow. Morris shut off the radio. An age-old weariness filled him. He wanted to sleep but he knew that he could not.

  Morris turned out the lights, removed his shirt and shoes in the dark, and sat smoking in the large bedroom that had once belonged to him and his wife.

  The door opened softly, and Leonard looked into the room. By the light of the street lamp which shone through the window, the boy could see his father in the chair. It made him think of the time when his mother was in the hospital and his father sat in the chair all night.

  Leonard entered the bedroom in his bare feet. “Pa,” he said, putting his arm around his father’s shoulders, “go to sleep.”

  “I can’t sleep, Leonard.”

  “Pa, you got to. You work sixteen hours.”

  “Oh, my son,” cried Morris, with sudden emotion, putting his arms around Leonard, “what will become of us?”

  The boy became afraid.

  “Pa,” he said, “go to sleep. Please, you got to.”

  “All right, I’ll go,” said Morris. He crushed his cigarette in the ashtray and got into bed. The boy watched him until he turned over on his right side, which was the side he slept on; then he returned to his room.

  Later Morris rose and sat by the window, looking into the street. The night was cool. The breeze swayed the street lamp, which creaked and moved the circle of light that fell upon the street.

  “What will become of us?” he muttered to himself. His mind went back to the days when he was a boy studying Jewish history. The Jews lived in an interminable exodus. Long lines trudged forever with their bundles on their shoulders.

  He dozed and dreamed that he had fled from Germany into France. The Nazis had found out where he lived in Paris. He sat in a chair in a dark room waiting for them to come. His hair had grown grayer. The moonlight fell on his sloping shoulders, then moved into the darkness. He rose and climbed out onto a ledge overlooking the lighted city of Paris. He fell. Something clumped to the sidewalk. Morris groaned and awoke. He heard the purring of a truck’s motor and he knew that the driver was dropping the bundles of morning newspapers in front of the stationery store on the corner.

  The dark was soft with gray. Morris crawled into bed and began to dream again. It was Sunday at suppertime. The store was crowded with customers. Suddenly Gus was there. He waved a copy of Social Justice and cried out, “The Protocols of Zion! The Protocols of Zion!” The customers began to leave. “Gus,” Morris pleaded, “the customers, the customers—”

  He awoke shivering and lay awake until the alarm rang.

  After he had dragged in the bread and milk boxes and had waited on the deaf man who always came early, Morris went to the corner for a paper. The armistice was signed. Morris looked around to see if the street had changed, but everything was the same, though he could hardly understand why. Leonard came down for his coffee and roll. He took fifty cents from the till and left for school.

  The day was warm and Morris was tired. He grew uneasy when he thought of Gus. He knew that today he would have difficulty controlling himself if Gus made some of his remarks.

  At three o’clock, when Morris was slicing small potatoes for potato salad, Gus strode into the store and swung his basket onto the table.

  “Well, Morris”—he laughed—“why don’t you turn the radio on? Let’s hear the news.”

  Morris tried to control himself, but his bitterness overcame him. “I see you’re happy today, Gus. What great cause has died?”

  The meat man laughed, but he did not like that remark.

  “Come on, Morris,” he said, “let’s do business before your skinny kid comes home and wants the bill signed by a certified public accountant.”

  “He looks out for my interests,” answered Morris. “He’s a good mathematics student,” he added.

  “That’s the sixth time I heard that,” said Gus.

  “You’ll never hear it about your children.”

  Gus lost his temper. “What the hell’s the matter with you Jews?” he asked. “Do you think you own all the brains in the world?”

  “Gus,” Morris cried, “you talk like a Nazi.”

  “I’m a hundred percent American. I fought in the war,” answered Gus.

  Leonard came into the store and heard the loud voices. He ran into the kitchen and saw the two men arguing. A feeling of shame and nausea overcame him.

  “Pa,” he begged, “don’t fight.”

  Morris was still angry. “If you’re not a Nazi,” he said to Gus, “why are you so glad the French lost?”

  “Who’s glad?” asked Gus. Suddenly he felt proud and he said, “They deserved to lose, the way they starved the German people. Why the hell do you want them to win?”

  “Pa,” said Leonard again.

  “I want them to win because they are fighting for democracy.”

  “Like hell,” said Gus. “You want them to win because they’re protecting the Jews—like that lousy Léon Blum.”

  “You Nazi, you,” Morris shouted angrily, coming from behind the table. “You Nazi! You don’t deserve to live in America!”

  “Papa,” cried Leonard, holding him, “don’t fight, please, please.”

  “Mind your own business, you little bastard,” said Gus, pushing Leonard away.

  A sob broke from Leonard’s throat. He began to cry.

  Gus paused, seeing that he had gone too far.

  Morris Lieberman’s face was white. He put his arm around the boy and kissed him again and again.

  “No, no. No more, Leonard. Don’t cry. I’m sorry. I give you my word. No more.”

  Gus looked on without speaking. His face was still red with anger, but he was afraid that he would lose Morris’s business. He pulled two liverwursts and a bologna from his basket.

  “The meat’s on the table,” he said. “Pay me tomorrow.”

  Gus glanced contemptuously at the grocer comforting his son, who was quiet now, and he walked out of the store. He threw the basket into his truck, got in, and drove off.

  As he rode amid the cars on the avenue, he thought of the boy crying and his father holding him. It was always like that with the Jews. Tears and people holding each other. Why feel sorry for them?

  Gus sat up straight at the wheel, his face grim. He thought of the armistice and imagined that he was in Paris. His truck was a massive tank rumbling with the others through the wide boulevards. The French, on the sidewalks, were overpowered with fear.

  He drove tensely, his eyes unsmiling. He knew that if he relaxed the picture would fade.

  1940

  Spring Rain

  GEORGE FISHER was still lying awake, thinking of the accident which he had seen on 121st Street. A young man had been struck by an automobile, and they had carried him to the drugstore on Broadway. The druggist couldn’t do anything for him, so they waited for an ambulance. The man lay on the druggist’s table in the back of the store looking at the ceiling. He knew he was going to die.

  George felt deeply sorry for the man, who seemed to be in his late twenties. The stoical way in which he took the accident convinced George that he was a person of fine character. He knew that the man was not afraid of death, and he wanted to speak to him and tell him that he too was not afraid to die; but the words never formed themselves on his thin lips. George went home, choked with unspoken words.

  Lying in bed in his dark room, George heard his daughter, Florence, put the key in the lock. He heard her whisper to Paul, “Do you want to come in for a minute?”

  “No,” said Paul after a while, “I’ve got a nine o’clock class tomorrow.”

  “Then good night,” said Florence and she closed the door hard.

  George thought, This is the first decent boy Flore
nce has gone out with, and she can’t get anywhere with him. She’s like her mother. She doesn’t know how to handle decent people. He raised his head and looked at Beatie, half expecting her to wake up because his thoughts sounded so loud to him, but she didn’t move.

  This was one of George’s sleepless nights. They came just after he had finished reading an interesting novel, and he lay awake imagining that all those things were happening to him. In his sleepless nights George thought of the things that had happened to him during the day, and he said those words that people saw on his lips, but which they never heard him speak. He said to the dying young man, “I’m not afraid to die either.” He said to the heroine in the novel, “You understand my loneliness. I can tell you these things.” He told his wife and daughter what he thought of them.

  “Beatie,” he said, “you made me talk once, but it wasn’t you. It was the sea and the darkness and the sound of the water sucking the beams of the pier. Those poetical things I said about how lonely men are—I said them because you were pretty, with dark red hair, and I was afraid because I was a small man with thin lips, and I was afraid that I could not have you. You didn’t love me, but you said yes for Riverside Drive and your apartment and your two fur coats and the people who come here to play bridge and mah-jongg.”

  He said to Florence, “What a disappointment you are. I loved you when you were a child, but now you’re selfish and small. I lost my last bit of feeling for you when you didn’t want to go to college. The best thing you ever did was to bring an educated boy like Paul into the house, but you’ll never keep him.”

  George spoke these thoughts to himself until the first gray of the April dawn drifted into the bedroom and made the silhouette of Beatie in the other bed clearer. Then George turned over and slept for a while.

  In the morning, at breakfast, George said to Florence, “Did you have a good time?”

  “Oh, leave me alone,” answered Florence.

  “Leave her alone,” said Beatie. “You know she’s cranky in the morning.”

  “I’m not cranky,” said Florence, almost crying. “It’s Paul. He never takes me anyplace.”

  “What did you do last night?” asked Beatie.

  “What we always do,” answered Florence. “We went for a walk. I can’t even get him into a movie.”

  “Does he have money?” asked Beatie. “Maybe he’s working his way through college.”

  “No,” said Florence, “he’s got money. His father is a big buyer. Oh, what’s the use? I’ll never get him to take me out.”

  “Be patient,” Beatie told her. “Next time, either I or your father will suggest it to him.”

  “I won’t,” said George.

  “No, you won’t,” answered Beatie, “but I will.”

  George drank his coffee and left.

  When he came home for dinner, there was a note for George saying that Beatie and Florence had eaten early because Beatie was going to Forest Hills to play bridge and Florence had a date to go to the movies with her girl friend. The maid served George, and later he went into the living room to read the papers and listen to the war news.

  The bell rang. George rose, calling out to the maid, who was coming from her room, that he would answer the bell. It was Paul, wearing an old hat and a raincoat, wet on the shoulders.

  George was glad that Florence and Beatie were not there.

  “Come in, Paul. Is it raining?”

  “It’s drizzling.”

  Paul entered without taking off his raincoat. “Where’s Florence?” he asked.

  “She went to the pictures with a friend of hers. Her mother is playing bridge or mah-jongg somewhere. Did Florence know you were coming?”

  “No, she didn’t know.”

  Paul looked disappointed. He walked to the door.

  “Well, I’m sorry,” said George, hoping that the boy would stay.

  Paul turned at the door. “Mr. Fisher.”

  “Yes?” said George.

  “Are you busy now?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “How about going for a walk with me?”

  “Didn’t you say it was raining?”

  “It’s only spring rain,” said Paul. “Put on your raincoat and an old hat.”

  “Yes,” said George, “a walk will do me good.” He went into his room for a pair of rubbers. As he was putting them on, he could feel a sensation of excitement, but he didn’t think of it. He put on his black raincoat and last year’s hat.

  As soon as they came into the street and the cold mist fell on his face, George could feel the excitement flow through his body. They crossed the street, passed Grant’s Tomb, and walked toward the George Washington Bridge.

  The sky was filled with a floating white mist which clung to the street lamps. A wet wind blew across the dark Hudson from New Jersey and carried within it the smell of spring. Sometimes the wind blew the cold mist into George’s eyes, and it shocked him as if it were electricity. He took long steps to keep up with Paul, and he secretly rejoiced in what they were doing. He felt a little like crying, but he did not let Paul guess.

  Paul was talking. He told stories about his professors in Columbia at which George laughed. Then Paul surprised George by telling him that he was studying architecture. He pointed out the various details of the houses they were passing and told him what they were derived from. George was very much interested. He always liked to know where things came from.

  They slowed down, waited for traffic to stop, crossed Riverside Drive again, and walked over to Broadway to a tavern. Paul ordered a sandwich and a bottle of beer, and George did the same. They talked about the war; then George ordered two more bottles of beer for Paul and him, and they began to talk about people. George told the boy the story of the young man who had died in the drugstore. He felt a strange happiness to see how the story affected Paul.

  Somebody put a nickel into the electric phonograph, and it played a tango. The tango added to George’s pleasure, and he sat there thinking how fluently he had talked.

  Paul had grown quiet. He drank some beer, then he began to speak about Florence. George was uneasy and a little bit frightened. He was afraid that the boy was going to tell him something that he did not want to know and that his good time would be over.

  “Florence is beautiful with that red hair,” said Paul, as if he were talking to himself.

  George said nothing.

  “Mr. Fisher,” said Paul, lowering his glass and looking up, “there’s something I want you to know.”

  “Me?”

  “Mr. Fisher,” Paul told him earnestly, “Florence is in love with me. She told me that. I want to love her because I’m lonely, but I don’t know—I can’t love her. I can’t reach her. She’s not like you. We go for a walk along the Drive, and I can’t reach her. Then she says I’m moody, and she wants to go to the movies.”

  George could feel his heart beating strongly. He felt that he was listening to secrets, yet they were not secrets because he had known them all his life. He wanted to talk—to tell Paul that he was like him. He wanted to tell him how lonely he had been all his life and how he lay awake at night, dreaming and thinking until the gray morning drifted into the room. But he didn’t.

  “I know what you mean, Paul,” he said.

  They walked home in the rain, which was coming down hard now.

  When he got in, George saw that both Beatie and Florence had gone to bed. He removed his rubbers and hung his wet hat and raincoat in the bathroom. He stepped into his slippers, but he decided not to undress because he did not feel like sleeping. He was aware of a fullness of emotion within him.

  George went over to the radio and turned on some jazz softly. He lit a cigar and put out the lamps. For a while he stood in the dark, listening to the soft music. Then he went to the window and drew aside the curtain.

  The spring rain was falling everywhere. On the dark mass of the Jersey shore. On the flowing river. Across the street the rain was droning on the leaves of t
he tall maples, wet in the lamplight, and swaying in the wind. The wind blew the rain hard and sharp across the window, and George felt tears on his cheeks.

  A great hunger for words rose in him. He wanted to talk. He wanted to say things that he had never said before. He wanted to tell them that he had discovered himself and that never again would he be lost and silent. Once more he possessed the world and loved it. He loved Paul, and he loved Florence, and he loved the young man who had died.

  I must tell her, he thought. He opened the door of Florence’s room. She was sleeping. He could hear her quiet breathing.

  “Florence,” he called softly, “Florence.”

  She was instantly awake. “What’s the matter?” she whispered.

  The words rushed to his lips. “Paul, Paul was here.”

  She rose on her elbow, her long hair falling over her shoulder. “Paul? What did he say?”

  George tried to speak, but the words were suddenly immovable. He could never tell her what Paul had said. A feeling of sorrow for Florence stabbed him.

  “He didn’t say anything,” he stammered. “We walked—went for a walk.”

  Florence sighed and lay down again. The wind blew the spring rain against the windows and they listened to the sound it made falling in the street.

  1942

  The Literary Life of Laban Goodman

  COMING UPSTAIRS, Laban Goldman was rehearsing arguments against taking his wife to the movies so that he could attend his regular classes in night school, when he met Mrs. Campbell, his neighbor, who lived in the apartment next door.

  “Look, Mrs. Campbell,” said Laban, holding up a newspaper. “Again! This time in The Brooklyn Eagle.”

  “Another letter?” Mrs. Campbell said. “How do you do it?”

  “They like the way I express myself on the subject of divorce.” He pointed to his letter in the newspaper.