The Assistant

by Bernard Malamud

  At three, when Ida departed for an hour or so to see if Morris needed something, and to rest, Frank felt relieved. Alone, he did a lot of casual eating, sometimes with unexpected pleasure. He sampled nuts, raisins, and small boxes of stale dates or dried figs, which he liked anyway; he also opened packages of crackers, macaroons, cupcakes and doughnuts, tearing up their wrappers into small pieces and flushing them down the toilet. Sometimes in the middle of eating sweets he would get very hungry for something more substantial, so he made a thick meat and Swiss cheese sandwich on a seeded hard roll spread with mustard, and swallowed it down with a bottle of ice-cold beer. Satisfied, he stopped roaming in the store.

  Now and then there were sudden unlooked-for flurries of customers, mostly women, whom he waited on attentively, talking to them about all kinds of things. The drivers, too, liked his sociability and cheery manner and stayed to chew the fat. Otto Vogel, once when he was weighing a ham, warned him in a low voice, “Don’t work for a Yid, kiddo. They will steal your ass while you are sitting on it.” Frank, though he said he didn’t expect to stay long, felt embarrassed for being there; then, to his surprise, he got another warning, from an apologetic Jew salesman of paper products, Al Marcus, a prosperous, yet very sick and solemn character who wouldn’t stop working. “This kind of a store is a death tomb, positive,” Al Marcus said. “Run out while you can. Take my word, if you stay six months, you’ll stay forever.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” answered Frank.

  Alone afterward, he stood at the window, thinking thoughts about his past, and wanting a new life. Would he ever get what he wanted? Sometimes he stared out of the back yard window at nothing at all, or at the clothesline above, moving idly in the wind, flying Morris’s scarecrow union suits, Ida’s hefty bloomers, modestly folded lengthwise, and her house-dresses guarding her daughter’s flower-like panties and restless brassières.

  In the evening, whether he wanted to or not, he was “off.” Ida insisted, fair was fair. She fed him a quick supper and allowed him, with apologies because she couldn’t afford more, fifty cents spending money. He occasionally passed the time upstairs with the Fusos or went with them to a picture at the local movie house. Sometimes he walked, in spite of the cold, and stopped off at a poolroom he knew, about a mile and a half from the grocery store. When he got back, always before closing, for Ida wouldn’t let him keep a key to the store in his pocket, she counted up the day’s receipts, put most of the cash into a small paper bag and took it with her, leaving Frank five dollars to open up with in the morning. After she had gone, he turned the key in the front door lock, hooked the side door through which she had left, put out the store lights and sat in his undershirt in the rear, reading tomorrow’s pink-sheeted paper that he had picked off Sam Pearl’s stand on his way home. Then he undressed and went restlessly to bed in a pair of Morris’s bulky, rarely used, flannel pajamas.

  The old dame, he thought with disgust, always hurried him out of the joint before her daughter came down for supper.

  The girl was in his mind a lot. He couldn’t help it, imagined seeing her in the things that were hanging on the line —he had always had a good imagination. He pictured her as she came down the stairs in the morning; also saw himself standing in the hall after she came home, watching her skirts go flying as she ran up the stairs. He rarely saw her around, had never spoken to her but twice, on the day her father had passed out. She had kept her distance—who could blame her, dressed as he was and what he looked like then? He had the feeling as he spoke to her, a few hurried words, that he knew more about her than anybody would give him credit for. He had got this thought the first time he had ever laid eyes on her, that night he saw her through the grocery window. When she had looked at him he was at once aware of something starved about her, a hunger in her eyes he couldn’t forget because it made him remember his own, so he knew how wide open she must be. But he wouldn’t try to push anything, for he had heard that these Jewish babes could be troublemakers and he was not looking for any of that now—at least no more than usual; besides, he didn’t want to spoil anything before it got started. There were some dames you had to wait for—for them to come to you.

  His desire grew to get to know her, he supposed because she had never once come into the store in all the time he was there except after he left at night. There was no way to see and talk to her to her face, and this increased his curiosity. He felt they were both lonely but her old lady kept her away from him as if he had a dirty disease; the result was he grew more impatient to find out what she was like, get to be friends with her for whatever it was worth. So, since she was never around, he listened and watched for her. When he heard her walking down the stairs he went to the front window and stood there waiting for her to come out; he tried to look casual, as if he weren’t watching, just in case she happened to glance back and see him; but she never did, as if she liked nothing about the place enough to look back on. She had a pretty face and a good figure, small-breasted, neat, as if she had meant herself to look that way. He liked to watch her brisk, awkward walk till she turned the corner. It was a sexy walk, with a wobble in it, a strange movement, as though she might dart sideways although she was walking forward. Her legs were just a bit bowed, and maybe that was the sexy part of it. She stayed in his mind after she had turned the corner; her legs and small breasts and the pink brassières that covered them. He would be reading something or lying on his back on the couch, smoking, and she would appear in his mind, walking to the corner. He did not have to shut his eyes to see her. Turn around, he said out loud, but in his thoughts she wouldn’t.

  To see her coming toward him he stood at the lit grocery window at night, but often before he could catch sight of her she was on her way upstairs, or already changing her dress in her room, and his chance was over for the day. She came home about a quarter to six, sometimes a little earlier, so he tried to be at the window around then, which wasn’t so easy because that was the time for Morris’s few supper customers to come in. So he rarely saw her come home from work, though he always heard her on the stairs. One day things were slower than usual in the store, it was dead at five-thirty, and Frank said to himself, Today I will see her. He combed his hair in the toilet so that Ida wouldn’t notice, changed into a clean apron, lit a cigarette, and stood at the window, visible in its light. At twenty to six, just after he had practically shoved a woman out of the joint, a dame who had happened to walk in off the trolley, he saw Helen turn Sam Pearl’s corner. Her face was prettier than he had remembered and his throat tightened as she walked to within a couple of feet of him, her eyes blue, her hair, which she wore fairly long, brown, and she had an absent-minded way of smoothing it back off the side of her face. He thought she didn’t look Jewish, which was all to the good. But her expression was discontented, and her mouth a little drawn. She seemed to be thinking of something she had no hope of ever getting. This moved him, so that when she glanced up and saw his eyes on her, his face plainly showed his emotion. It must have bothered her because she quickly walked, without noticing him further, to the hall and disappeared inside.

  The next morning he didn’t see her—as if she had sneaked out on him—and at night he was waiting on somebody when she returned from work; regretfully he heard the door slam behind her. Afterward he felt downhearted; every sight lost to a guy who lived with his eyes was lost for all time. He thought up different ways to meet her and exchange a few words. What he had on his mind to say to her about himself was beginning to weigh on him, though he hadn’t clearly figured out the words. Once he thought of coming in on her unexpectedly while she was eating her supper, but then he would have Ida to deal with. He also had the idea of opening the door the next time he saw her and calling her into the store; he could say that some guy had telephoned her, and after that talk about something else, but nobody did call her. She was in her way a lone bird, which suited him fine, though why she should be with her looks he couldn’t figure out. He got the feeling that she wanted some
thing big out of life, and this scared him. Still, he tried to think of schemes of getting her inside the store, even planning to ask her something like did she know where her old man kept his saw; only she mightn’t like that, her mother being around all day to tell him. He had to watch out not to scare her any farther away than the old dame had done.

  For a couple of nights after work he stood in a hallway next door to the laundry across the street in the hope that she would come out to do some errand, then he would cross over, tip his hat and ask if he could keep her company to where she was going. But this did not pay off either, because she didn’t leave the house. The second night he waited fruitlessly until Ida put out the lights in the grocery window.

  One evening toward the end of the second week after Morris’s accident, Frank’s loneliness burdened him to the point of irritation. He was eating his supper a few minutes after Helen had returned from work, while Ida happened to be upstairs with Morris. He had seen Helen come round the corner and had nodded to her as she approached the house. Caught by surprise, she half-smiled, then entered the hall. It was then the lonely feeling gripped him. While he was eating, he felt he had to get her into the store before her old lady came down and it was time for him to leave. The only excuse he could think of was to call Helen to answer the phone and after he would say that the guy must’ve hung up. It was a trick but he had to do it. He warned himself not to, because it would be starting out the wrong way with her and he might someday regret it. He tried to think of a better way but time was pressing him and he couldn’t.

  Frank got up, went over to the bureau, and took the phone off its cradle. He then walked out into the hall, opened the vestibule door, and holding his breath, pressed the Bober bell.

  Ida looked over the banister. “What’s the matter?”

  “Telephone for Helen.”

  He could see her hesitate, so he returned quickly to the store. He sat down, pretending to be eating, his heart whamming so hard it hurt. All he wanted, he told himself, was to talk to her a minute so the next time would be easier.

  Helen eagerly entered the kitchen. On the stairs she had noticed the excitement that flowed through her. My God, it’s gotten to be that a phone call is an event.

  If it’s Nat, she thought, I might give him another chance. Frank half-rose as she entered, then sat down.

  “Thanks,” she said to him as she picked up the phone.

  “Hello.” While she waited he could hear the buzz in the receiver.

  “There’s nobody there,” she said, mystified.

  He laid down his fork. “This girl called you,” he said gently.

  But when he saw the disappointment in her eyes, how bad she felt, he felt bad.

  “You must’ve been cut off.”

  She gave him a long look. She was wearing a white blouse that showed the firmness of her small breasts. He wet his dry lips, trying to figure out some quick way to square himself, but his mind, usually crowded with all sorts of schemes, had gone blank. He felt very bad, as he had known he would, that he had done what he had. If he had it to do over he wouldn’t do it this way.

  “Did she leave you her name?” Helen asked.

  “No.”

  “It wasn’t Betty Pearl?”

  “No.”

  She absently brushed back her hair. “Did she say anything to you?”

  “Only to call you.” He paused. “Her voice was nice—like yours. Maybe she didn’t get me straight when I said you were upstairs but I would ring your doorbell, and that’s why she hung up.”

  “I don’t know why anybody would do that.”

  Neither did he. He wanted to step clear of his mess but saw no way other than to keep on lying. But lying made their talk useless. When he lied he was somebody else lying to somebody else. It wasn’t the two of them as they were. He should have kept that in his mind.

  She stood at the bureau, holding the telephone in her hand as if still expecting the buzz to become a voice; so he waited for the same thing, a voice to speak and say he had been telling the truth, that he was a man of fine character. Only that didn’t happen either.

  He gazed at her with dignity as he considered saying the simple truth, starting from there, come what would, but the thought of confessing what he had done almost panicked him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said brokenly, but by then she was gone, and he was attempting to fix in his memory what she had looked like so close.

  Helen too was troubled. Not only could she not explain why she believed yet did not fully believe him, nor why she had lately become so conscious of his presence among them, though he never strayed from the store, but she was also disturbed by her mother’s efforts to keep her away from him. “Eat when he leaves,” Ida had said. “I am not used to goyim in my house.” This annoyed Helen because of the assump. tion that she would keel over for somebody just because he happened to be a gentile. It meant, obviously, her mother didn’t trust her. If she had been casual about him, Helen doubted she would have paid him any attention to speak of. He was interesting looking, true, but what except a poor grocery clerk? Out of nothing Ida was trying to make something.

  Though Ida was still concerned at having the young Italian around the place, she observed with pleased surprise how, practically from the day of his appearance, the store had improved. During the first week there were days when they had taken in from five to seven dollars more than they were averaging daily in the months since summer. And the same held for the second week. The store was of course still a poor store, but with this forty to fifty a week more they might at least limp along until a buyer appeared. She could at first not understand why more people were coming in, why more goods were being sold. True, the same thing had happened before. Without warning, after a long season of dearth, three or four customers, lost faces, straggled in one day, as if they had been let out of their poor rooms with a few pennies in their pockets. And others, who had skimped on food, began to buy more. A storekeeper could tell almost at once when times were getting better. People seemed less worried and irritable, less in competition for the little sunlight in the world. Yet the curious thing was that business, according to most of the drivers, had not very much improved anywhere. One of them said that Schmitz around the corner was having his troubles too; furthermore he wasn’t feeling so good. So the sudden pickup of business in the store, Ida thought, would not have happened without Frank Alpine. It took her a while to admit this to herself.

  The customers seemed to like him. He talked a lot as he waited on them, sometimes saying things that embarrassed Ida but made the customers, the gentile housewives, laugh. He somehow drew in people she had never before seen in the neighborhood, not only women, men too. Frank tried things that Morris and she could never do, such as attempting to sell people more than they asked for, and usually he succeeded. “What can you do with a quarter of a pound?” he would say. “A quarter is for the birds—not even a mouthful. Better make it a half.” So they would make it a half. Or he would say, “Here’s a new brand of mustard that we just got in today. It weighs two ounces more than the stuff they sell you in the supermarkets for the same price. Why don’t you give it a try? If you don’t like it, bring it back and I will gargle it.” And they laughed and bought it. This made Ida wonder if Morris and she were really suited to the grocery business. They had never been salesmen.

  One of the women customers called Frank a supersales-man, a word that brought a pleased smile to his lips. He was clever and worked hard. Ida’s respect for him reluctantly grew; gradually she became more relaxed in his presence. Morris was right in recognizing that he was not a bum but a boy who had gone through bad times. She pitied him for having lived in an orphan asylum. He did his work quickly, never complained, kept himself neat and clean now that he had soap and water around, and answered her politely. The one or two times, just lately, that he had briefly talked to Helen in her presence, he had spoken like a gentleman and didn’t try to stretch a word into a mouthful. Ida discussed the situa
tion with Morris and they raised his “spending money” from fifty cents a day to five dollars for the week. Despite her good will to him, this worried Ida, but, after all, he was bringing more money into the store, the place looked spic and span—let him keep five dollars of their poor profit. Bad as things still were, he willingly did so much extra around the store—how could they not pay him a little something? Besides, she thought, he would soon be leaving.

  Frank accepted the little raise with an embarrassed smile. “You don’t have to pay me anything more, Mrs, I said I would work for nothing to make up for past favors from your husband and also to learn the business. Besides that, you give me my bed and board, so you don’t owe me a thing.”

  “Take,” she said, handing him a crumpled five-dollar bill. He let the money lie on the counter till she urged him to put it into his pocket. Frank felt troubled about the raise because he was earning something for his labor that Ida knew nothing of, for business was a little better than she thought. During the day, while she was not around, he sold at least a buck’s worth, or a buck and a half, that he made no attempt to ring up on the register. Ida guessed nothing; the list of sold items he had supplied her with in the beginning they had discontinued as impractical. It wasn’t hard for him to scrape up here a bit of change, there a bit. At the end of the second week he had ten dollars in his pocket. With this and the five she gave him he bought a shaving kit, a pair of cheap brown suede shoes, a couple of shirts and a tie or two; he figured that if he stayed around two more weeks he would own an inexpensive suit. He had nothing to be ashamed of, he thought—it was practically his own dough he was taking. The grocer and his wife wouldn’t miss it because they didn’t know they had it, and they wouldn’t have it if it wasn’t for his hard work. If he weren’t working there, they would have less than they had with him taking what he took.