“Of course,” said Laiah. “Of course.” Laiah moved quickly and refilled his glass with tea.
“I don’t know why I say all this to you,” said Abraham vaguely.
“But I want to hear,” said Laiah. “You know I have always felt that you and I could – understand each other somehow.” She leaned forward, her moist brown eyes on his sympathetically.
“Everybody knows. Everybody thinks he understands. How can I talk to them? Wings? My arms are like lead weights. I can scarcely raise them. And my thoughts turn, like thorns, in my mind that tries to grasp them. Even then Isaac continued to probe. What did he learn? Did he learn why he had to die, or did he learn merely how to die, making his own peace with his own knowledge, his own loneliness?” Abraham remembered that he hadn’t helped him then, though Isaac had tried to ask help with his hand clinging to his father’s beard.
Laiah had opened her lips to speak, but he roused himself, without noticing. “What did he learn, then? Does he know why his father stands now like the tiller of the soil who worked only so the earth should bloom and finds instead that everywhere where he has passed the earth is seared, as though an invisible destroyer has followed, malignant, in his path?” Abraham stared through her accusingly. When he came at last to this thought there was nothing for him but to sink himself in prayer to escape the ideas that of their own accord began to jump and scrabble in his head. The facts of his life always waited at the back of his mind, and if he let them they would string themselves together in fantastic patterns to form a frightening cat’s-cradle of tensions inside him.
Laiah watched a little uncomfortably while his lips moved silently. “I would gladly die,” he whispered finally.
Laiah was genuinely shocked. “Oh, no,” she said. “Avrom, what are you saying? You mustn’t talk like that. You’re still a young man. Your life can start all over again. There will be time for dying.”
He stared at her, irritated that she had spoken, irritated that she had heard him. How did he come to be sitting here, telling her these things?
“Listen,” said Laiah. “Often I’ve felt the way you do. I’ve thought to myself, What’s the use? It would be better if I were through with all this. But then the very next day, or even the very next hour, something would happen that would make me laugh, an enjoyment would come my way, and I would be happy again, and I would know that this is what I lived for, this joke, that little bit of fun. You see?” Laiah smiled. “That’s what life is.”
He looked around him, trying to relate her words to reality. What did this joke, that little bit of fun have to do with what was inside of him? What were they, anyway? A joke, a little bit of fun, should come from inside when everything is right.
“I can understand,” Laiah was saying, “that you worry about your family. A small child is a burden for a man of your age.”
“Not a burden,” said Abraham.
“No, I know – a responsibility I meant. But I don’t think you have anything really to worry about. I’ve seen that daughter-in-law of yours. The first time I looked at her I knew she could take care of herself. She’s young; she’s attractive. She’ll find her feet.”
“She’s a good woman,” said Abraham.
“Of course. You can tell by looking at her.” Laiah’s large teeth bit decisively into a biscuit, and she did not speak for a moment, chewing reflectively. “And she’ll try to do what’s best. I think that everyone tries to be good in his own way, or at least thinks he is trying, don’t you agree?” Laiah paused to chew and swallow again, choosing her words. “But to be honest with yourself, that is the thing.” She leaned forward. “Don’t you agree?
“I mean she’s young,” Laiah continued. “She dresses well – neatly, anyway. She’s good-looking. Someday she’ll find she’s lonely. It’s hard to bring up a child without a father. Of course,” Laiah added, “the child has you, but it is so much to expect of you now, to carry so many burdens when you should be beginning to enjoy the rest that you deserve.”
Both Chaim and she talked of rest. But rest comes with completion, with fulfillment. Then you lean back and every muscle unclenches itself as a man unclenches his fist and relaxes his body. For him there could be no rest. “I’ll rest when I’m dead,” he said.
“Don’t talk of dying,” said Laiah earnestly. “We shall all taste death soon enough. Let us eat of life for a little while longer. I’m speaking to you now as a friend, Avrom. Perhaps she’ll find a fine young man. Whatever she does will be for the good of the child and the future. You too should think of your future, of what can come.”
An expression had come into Abraham’s face that made her uneasy suddenly. “Of course,” she said hastily, “it’s not likely. No, it can’t be. Your Isaac was such a – No, who could take his place? But think of yourself, Avrom.”
“What cannot be?” She was startled at the harshness of his tone. “Who can tell what cannot be? Are you one who can tell what will and will not be?” He glared challengingly into her eyes.
“I?” Laiah was somewhat nonplussed. “Why, no, I don’t know – I mean I don’t think so. But I know” – she was beginning to recover her initiative – “what I would like to happen sometimes.” Laiah laid her hand impulsively on his own and squeezed it gently, smiling.
“And it happens because you want it to, just like that?”
“Sometimes.” Laiah laughed and removed her hand as Abraham began to withdraw his. “I hope so.”
“And what of things you don’t want to happen?”
“I don’t know.” Bemused, Laiah shook her head, and, laughing a little: “I only concentrate on what I want to happen.”
Always there was something left unsaid. Always what was said left an apprehension in his mind, about himself, about his family. What did she know? Had she ever borne children? Had she ever reached beyond herself to the future she talked about? No. All her life from the time when he had first heard of her she had used the means and denied the end. She was like a great overripe fruit without seed, which hung now, long past its season, on the bough. How many generations had been denied in her womb? What festered there instead? She had denied creation, and to deny is to annihilate. How was it that he found himself, then, eating at her table, accepting her food? Was he any different from her? It was as though she had said to him, So you had sons, so they’re dead, and I have never had sons, never wanted children; they are dead in my womb. Where are we both now? Both empty, both interchangeable from the beginning. Who are you to say that your way is the real way and mine just an illusion of living?
But the difference is in the choosing, he argued. I chose life.
And here we are together, she seemed to say, and smiled her slow, heavy-lipped, enigmatic smile.
The question bothered him still even after he had left her. Her large, loose body with the low-cut bodice of her housecoat, from which he had persistently to avert his eyes, rustled indecently through the passages of his mind. Her lips formed words, ironical – Something will happen that will make Ruth laugh; an enjoyment will come our way. What did she know about them, about Ruth? “What do you want from me?” he muttered irritably aloud, so that a man who had passed him on the street turned back for a moment, startled, and, shaking his head, watched him pass on.
—
There were possibilities, Laiah mused; there might even be a future in it. She felt a certain stirring in her blood, a certain hostility rising in her against Abraham. He came and he sat – as though she were anyone, as though she were as attractive to him physically as his friend Chaim Knopp. At the thought of a comparison between herself and Chaim Knopp, Laiah had to laugh. What would Chaim think of such a comparison? Funny ideas he had. It would do to get his mind off them. Of course, with these religious ones who didn’t crawl all over you the first minute, you had to be shrewd; a lot of finger work with your eyes always on the Bible. But would that be enough? Why not aim higher? He was a widower, wasn’t he? It might be amusing to have him, but to hold him would b
e an accomplishment. To capture this kind of man would still be a conquest. Polsky’s eyes would pop. “Well done, little Laiahle,” he used to say when he heard of her latest admirer. But this would be better still; his eyes should not only pop but drop right out. She would emerge as the respectable wife of a respected member of the community. Wouldn’t there be a commotion when she took her place in the women’s section of the synagogue? She might even rejoin, in the company of her husband, one or two societies. A few people who would like to forget her would take another look. Laiah’s spirits soared.
Not too far ahead, she reminded herself. What about him? He was considerably older, but that didn’t mean anything. She had always sensed something in this man, a certain strength. It was the beard she thought about now, and her fingers in that beard, that other beard that had awakened in her the full sentience of her girlhood and had given an urgent purpose to the movement of her thick young blood. No. Laiah abruptly dismissed the whole thing. It was all nonsense. She would let it drop. There was no point; he was too odd. Maybe she would just tease him a little bit more, but as for the rest – Again she mused on the rest, and when Jenny came in a little while later and looked in a hurt and accusing way from her to the mess on the table that was still left over from her tea with Abraham, Laiah greeted her gaily and with a cordiality which, though it galled Jenny on the one hand, on the other raised her to a fever pitch of curiosity, which Laiah left unsatisfied.
—
“You’ll think,” said Mrs. Plopler, wiping the corners of her mouth, “that I just came in because I smelled a glass of tea.”
“Of course not,” said Ruth, who nevertheless wished that she had not smelled a glass of tea on this particular afternoon.
“You shouldn’t have bothered. You’ll be eating your supper in a few minutes. I was just passing, so I thought I’d drop in. We see you so seldom. Avrom never comes around, even though I’ve told him over and over again that he should feel as free in my house as in his own.”
“When he comes home he’s usually too tired to want to go out again,” said Ruth. “He walks around a good deal in the afternoon. The fresh air makes him tired.”
“Is he always this late?” Mrs. Plopler glanced at the clock. “In the old days if he came home this late Sarah, bless her, would be out looking for him. But it doesn’t worry you much, eh?” Mrs. Plopler sniffed the air casually.
“He’s a grown man,” Ruth replied dryly. “And from what I can remember, my mother-in-law never spent much time searching the streets.”
“Polsky drives him, then, so much?” Mrs. Plopler tried another tack. “At his age?”
“He doesn’t get around as quickly as he used to,” Ruth explained patiently. “It takes time. Why should he rush? Sometimes maybe he stops to talk with some of his old customers; sometimes he even says he’s stopped for a glass of tea somewhere.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Plopler, probing the air delicately with her nose. “Most people are busy preparing supper at this time of day. Who would be making tea? Certainly not somebody with a family.”
“Can I fill your glass?” asked Ruth pointedly.
“Please,” said Mrs. Plopler. “He never tells you? Look how late it’s getting.” Mrs. Plopler stirred her tea thoughtfully. “Do you know,” she asked finally, “has it ever occurred to you” – she looked at Ruth with an air of searching mystery – “that he might think of remarrying?”
Ruth laughed outright. Mrs. Plopler leaned back in her chair. “Don’t be so certain. Don’t think you can trust them. What man waits till his wife has cooled in her grave? Sometimes I think my own is already picking and choosing. When you don’t feel so well and you start thinking about how he’ll go out right away when you’re gone, to look for someone else, you want to spit in his face and say, ‘No sirree, a faithful wife I’ve been to you all your life, and a faithful wife I’d be after you’re gone. About you I’m not so sure, so maybe you should go first.’ Of course,” Mrs. Plopler hastened to explain, “those are only joking thoughts. God should keep him well. I’d much rather go first.” Mrs. Plopler set down her tea glass and stared at it gloomily.
“Better you should stay well and not even think about such things,” said Ruth, glancing at the clock and wishing Mrs. Plopler would leave before Abraham came home.
“Ah.” Mrs. Plopler sighed. “How can you help think about such things when you’re under doctor’s care?” Oddly, she smiled a secret, pensive smile. “You can call them doctors,” she said, “but I call them men just the same. That’s why I say don’t be surprised, don’t be surprised at anything a man does.”
She’d wait until they were eating, Ruth decided. It would be a matter-of-fact statement, but firm enough so that it could not be brushed aside.
“Just a general checkup,” Mrs. Plopler was saying, “because I wasn’t feeling good.” Mrs. Plopler raised her eyebrows, expanding her nostrils.
…a million details, Ruth knew. One couldn’t rush into a thing like this without planning.
“So that’s why he made me take off my clothes!” Mrs. Plopler expressed shock. Ruth looked at her, puzzled. “Just like that, you can believe me,” Mrs. Plopler reiterated, “reaches his hand under the shirt and puts it on my breast.” Mrs. Plopler showed how, clutching her unspectacular bosom. “Squeezes one, squeezes the other, pats, feels, takes his time, and all the time he’s looking me right in the eye, and he says right out, not even ashamed to look at me” – Mrs. Plopler’s voice was incredulous – “ ‘Lumps?’ He calls them, just like that, ‘Lumps?’ I hardly knew where to look.” Mrs. Plopler frowned, and her voice rose indignantly. “I wanted to say to him, ‘I’ll show you lumps, Doctor, I’ll lump you one.’ But how can you do that?” Mrs. Plopler’s voice softened. “He’s after all a doctor, almost a specialist.”
“Maybe” – Ruth couldn’t hide her smile – “he wanted to see if you had something in your breasts, heaven forbid.”
Mrs. Plopler looked knowing. “He saw all right, and he felt too, you can believe me. I know it’s hard to believe; I can scarcely believe it myself. ‘Lumps.’ ” She snorted. “But I told him. I told him straight out. ‘Ah, Doctor,’ I said.” Mrs. Plopler smiled a little, sadly, glanced sideways at Ruth, and sighed. “You’re right, Doctor. They’re not what they used to be.”
On her way out Mrs. Plopler encountered Abraham and stopped long enough to tell him that in the future he could drop in to her place too for a drink of tea, that if he could spend his afternoons drinking tea with people she was an old friend too.
How did she know where and with whom he had just had tea? Abraham had the feeling that the whole world was somehow trying to close in on him. Everybody knew things but himself. Everybody talked, hinted, made suggestions. The feeling grew even stronger that evening when Ruth announced that she had definitely decided to open a small goods shop of her own. Without even stopping to ask him how he felt about it, she outlined her plan. They were enthusiastic, she and the child. The boy was bubbling over with questions. Slower, he wanted to say – a little more slowly. But he did not seem to have the chance to bring out the words. They had already outstripped him, the two of them. Ruth was talking about the need to move quickly if she wanted to be put on the wholesalers’ quota list. It had to do with the war. What had not to do with the war? Wholesale death now, a wholesale quota of death. What were these quotas?
“…all the things I have to figure out,” Ruth was saying. “Before I go to sleep I want to write out all the things I want to ask him.”
“Ask whom?” said Abraham.
“Ask Harry, of course. Tomorrow I’m meeting him for lunch.”
“Who is Harry?”
“Pa! Where have you been for the last hour? I’ve been talking all evening, and you still ask who’s Harry. He’s the salesman – I told you, the one who’s going to help me.” Ruth explained how she had always thought that this Harry was nothing but a big talker. But now he was turning into something altogether different in her mind,
not only a keen businessman but a kindly person who was willing to help another along. For instance – and Ruth went on to detail some of Harry’s suggestions, repeating how he had offered to let her have goods on credit and to cover for her himself. And she went on to explain the whole idea yet again.
Who was this Harry? It seemed strange to him that she was calling someone he didn’t even know by his first name. If she called him Harry, then surely he called her Ruth already. It dawned on him again that she lived a life that was utterly unknown to him when she went off every morning to the heights to work. She dressed, she went away, she met other people. When Isaac had been alive there had been no need to think about the separate thoughts of each one of them. Except for the questions that he and Isaac argued about – and that was different – they had all been together as one whole, one unit, whose purpose was in all important respects the same. But now what did Ruth think about? Could it be true, what Laiah had said, that someday Ruth might start to think not of Isaac but of her own loneliness? Look at her now, all rosy and enthusiastic over some idea that a Harry had put into her head.
“Could I help?” the boy was asking eagerly. “Could I help you sometimes in the shop?”
“Of course.” Ruth was laughing. “I’ll need your help. I’ll need a big man in the place.”
Abraham looked from one to the other.
FIFTEEN
By early summer Ruth was ready to take a major step. At the supper table she announced her plan of action. Abraham was surprised. He had tried, it seemed to him, to find out what she had in mind, to take part. He had entered into discussions with her, made an occasional suggestion, sometimes even offered a bit of advice. But too often it appeared that what he suggested was not exactly the sort of thing she had in mind, or she was preoccupied and agreed readily with him while her mind was elsewhere. He hadn’t realized how far her plans had progressed without him. She and this Harry the salesman had even looked over a location for the dry-goods store, an almost ideal location, she said. During her lunch hour Harry had taken her down in his car, and they had gone through the premises with the landlord. The place was farther up the avenue where Polsky had his business, right close to where the avenue intersected the main street as it worked its way up toward the heights. There were rooms that could be used as living quarters in the back. That meant that she could take care of the shop and the house at the same time. The boy would have to transfer to another school, but he would be able to come home for his noon-hour meal. It would be more convenient for all of them.
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