by Sam Ross
The pattering feet. The lumbering tread. The giggles. The excitement.
Hershy’s mother sighed. “The crazy Polacks,” she said.
Then it became quiet upstairs. The wind began to whistle through the passageway. The world seemed to be blowing away. A strange, drifty hush pervaded the house. Nobody was outside. Aside from the sound of the wind, only the lamppost light creaked as it swayed above the street. And then, like thunder crashed down the stairs and rumbled into the house, Mr. Pryztalski stamped into view in a red suit and a white beard, yelling in Polish, ho-ho-hoing, and calling himself Santa Claus. Hershy almost died of fright. It was not until he was lifted high in the air and had pulled away the beard that was attached to a rubber band that he came to and yelled: “See, it ain’t Santa Claus. See, it’s Mr. Pryztalski, the gypper.” He then let the beard slap back to Mr. Pryztalski’s face and, though everybody laughed, he got crying mad. As soon as he was dropped to the floor he tried to kick Mr. Pryztalski’s shins, but he was held off by his long arm, and suddenly he stopped. Almost blinding him was a pair of long gleaming blades, a pair of racing skates, which Mr. Pryztalski had brought out from under his red blouse.
“Look what Santa Claus brought you,” Mr. Pryztalski boomed. “Ho, ho, ho. And look what else he brought you.” Mr. Pryztalski opened the door and dragged in a sled, a real coaster.
Hershy took them awkardly and stared at them. Mr. Pryztalski brought a bottle out of his pocket.
“Drink,” he commanded.
Hershy’s father drank from the bottle. Then Mr. Pryztalski took a long gulp, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, lifted up Hershy’s mother, and kissed her with a loud smack full on the lips, which she wiped and spat away, and then he left with a roar of laughter.
Everybody stared at each other. The house had grown so quiet, like a sudden storm had struck it and passed away.
Finally his mother said: “What do you say, Hershel?”
He didn’t know what to say; he was too stunned.
“What do you say when you get a present?”
“I don’t know,” he stammered.
“Nothing, after Papa spent all that money on you?”
“You mean Pa bought them for me?”
“What do you think? You think the Polack did?”
“But …”
“Papa bought them, but he wanted to surprise you. Besides, go argue with a Polack; he had to come down like Santa Claus or he’d have torn off the roof from over our heads.”
“I knew it. I knew there was no Santa Claus.”
He flopped down on the sled and felt himself coast a mile. He saw himself go slish-slash, zip-zam across the icy lagoon in the park, a mile on every glide. His whole world tumbled back in place.
“Live, boychik, live,” his father said. “But know the truth when you see it.”
3.
New Year’s Eve was just another night. When the bells and whistles and horns sounded off at midnight, Hershy was sound asleep. His mother and father were drinking tea. They paused a moment and stared at each other and sighed.
“Last year I was asleep,” his mother said.
“This year I’m alive,” his father said.
“Next year we’ll celebrate.”
“Meanwhile, let there be peace.”
“It’s a crazy world.”
They rose and went to bed.
At that moment, in an expensive night club, Uncle Hymie was kissing a young girl, who later turned out to be his secretary; and Aunt Reva, cold sober and completely out of place, sat horrified. (Later, when Hershy heard of this, Aunt Reva cried: “What good is money, if you haven’t got love?” and Uncle Hymie said: “What good is money, if it can’t free you to make decisions?”) Uncle Irving was playing a cautious game of poker in the rear of a neighborhood restaurant, determined not to lose the ten dollars he was ahead, while his wife and two children slept at home. Uncle Ben was dreaming that he was in a world that had no automobiles and that he was a highly respected man with a flourishing harness business (a recurrent dream for him), while his wife groaned beside him. Rachel was at a house party. She had to fight off the man she was with; his breath revolted her. The following day, her comment about New Year’s Eve was: “It’s wonderful, if you got lots of money or if you’re in love.”
And so, with the holidays over, the winter settled down heavily: wheezing and whistling, creaking and crunching, biting and burning, its hard back on the streets full of crusts, its body pocked with soot and stained with refuse. Only people gave it warmth.
In the morning, Hershy’s father got up first, grated the stoves, carried the ashes into the alley, came back with a couple of pails of coal, and got the stoves hot: this, his mother said, was a healthy blessing to her heart. He’d wake up Hershy’s mother: “The house is warm, my queen, get up.” He’d wake up Rachel: “Get up, princess.” And after they left for work Hershy would be awakened by his mother: “Wake up, prince.”
After school, Hershy would always have to go to the grocer or butcher to pick up something that his mother had forgotten to buy, with implicit instructions, like: “Tell him, my ma said you should give her a big bunch soup greens for two cents,” or, “Tell him, my ma said you should give her a big soup-bone with meat on it for a nickel.” After running the errand under protest, unless he was given a penny for candy or halvah, he’d go out to the park and ice skate, flopping all over until he learned how; or he’d go tobogganing down a two-story slide in the park; or he’d settle for belly-flopping on his sled down the street; or he’d slide on the runners of ice that were made on the sidewalk. Sometimes, when it was below zero weather, he and his pals would gather in a basement that had a furnace and they’d box with open hands or with gloves on, or they’d draw lines on the cement floor and lag for buttons and corks; sometimes they’d just talk, dreaming of someday, or trying to relate themselves to the world and its mysteries.
“How come it’s so dark so much in the winter and so light so much in the summer?”
“How come? Because the winter stinks on ice.”
“Where does the winter come from, the North Pole?”
“Nah, it’s the sun going away from us, teacher says.”
“Where’s it go?”
“What, do I know everything?”
“How come you can only see the stars on the nighttime?”
“The sun hides it from us, see.”
“You mean the stars are out in the daytime, too?”
“Sure, you dope. If it was nighttime in the daytime you could see the stars in the daytime.”
“Man, a shooting star could hit you, klunk, right in the eye then, and you wouldn’t even know it.”
“Ah, you dumbsock, a star shoots only in the nighttime.”
“You think it’s colder on the moon than here?”
“Colder.”
“Boy, that’s cold.”
“You think they’ll invent a rocket to go up there?”
“Sure.”
“How do you know?”
“How do I know! We got airplanes, ain’t we?”
“So?”
“So they can go to the moon if they want, only they don’t want to yet. My old man says they got a million inventions, but they’re a secret because they could either kill us or make us too happy. And who the hell wants to see us happy, my old man says.”
“Your old man.”
“Yah? My old man knows plenty. He reads the English paper, don’t he?”
“Your old man can pitch spitballs and fadeaways, too. But if they made a rocket to go to the moon, would you go?”
“Sure.”
“You?”
“And how.”
Everybody was positive he’d go. Zoom, they rocketed to the moon with sound effects, and explored it. Then they talked some more. And as they did, not being able to sit still, occasionally one would punch another on the muscle of his arm. “That’s for nothing, see.” Somebody would walk away swimming and yelling: “The American crawl,
the American crawl.” Somebody would pitch like Three-Finger Brown; catch an imaginary ball like Ted Collins; bat like Ty Cobb; punt like Frank Merriwell; shoot like William S. Hart; box like Jess Willard. But the talk went on.
“Hey, punk, where do you think you come from?”
“From the Boston store.”
“Who told you?”
“My ma.”
“You mean you asked her?”
“Sure, what do you think?”
“Boy, what a punk.”
“Yah?”
“Yah. Asking his ma. What a punk.”
“Yah? So who else am I going to ask? Who else am I going to know from?”
“From us, see. From us big guys.”
“So?”
So they told him.
“You bastards, I’ll tell my big bro on you for that.”
“Go on, tell your big bro.”
“He’ll kill you.”
“Ah, beat it, punk.”
And so, the kid in tears and kicked out of the basement, the education of a younger boy was dispensed. Then, strengthened by the younger boy’s smallness, his tears, and lack of knowledge, they’d grow alive with dreams of being older. They were vague about what they’d become, there were so many things to choose from, but somehow none of them dreamed of being like their fathers. For in them was the capacity to rocket to the moon, hitch their wagons to the comets, play tag among the clouds. Even their fathers, who couldn’t catch a ball or read the jokes or tell the score, believed this, or liked to believe it.
At night, now that his father was home, Hershy seldom had to read to his mother. Instead, his father read to her out of the Yiddish paper, and his mother would gasp and make tsking sounds over the news of the civil war in Germany, the perils of Bolshevism, the revolution in Hungary, the conflicts in Poland. The war was over but wars were still going on; it was hard for her to understand. But the part of the paper that absorbed her most was the problem and lovelorn letters that were published and answered. Then she would settle back with the full knowledge of the world’s troubles, listen to the soft falling of ashes in the stove, and, feeling secure in her peaceful flat, would say: “People. How hard it is for them to live.”
His father’s being home gave Hershy greater freedom, released him for a more active life on the streets. He seldom had to go to the movies with his mother, finding much more fun there with the guys. But sometimes, when his father worked overtime, he’d have to go with her: never to a cowboy or funny picture, always to a romance. There, every time the titles were flashed on the screen, an immediate buzz of translation would rise, with Hershy’s voice part of it. Sometimes, conversations would continue between parents and children over the meaning of what was happening, until those that had caught on quickly would yell: “Shut up.” In some language or another the answer was always: “Shut up yourself. I paid my nickel, didn’t I? I got a right.” Sometimes, fights would arise between parents and children when the children would become too absorbed in the movie to translate.
“Noo, noo, what are they saying? What’s happening?”
“For Christ sake, Ma, let me see the picture, don’t bother me.”
“Stinker, what’s happening? I’ll kill you if you don’t tell me.”
And the kid would shout out the subtitles. And, with peace attained, once again the buzz of translation would sweep the illiterate into a magic world they had never known but had always dreamed about.
Sometimes, Hershy’s mother cried there, and it was hard for him to understand.
“Cut it out, Ma.”
“Shut up, you devil.”
“What’s to cry about?”
“Everything. Everything.”
Her sniffles and sobs would spoil the picture for him and he’d stop translating. Then she’d poke him hard and whisper tensely: “Read. Read it.”
“It says: Don’t ever darken my door again.”
“No!”
“Yah.”
“You mean he’s throwing her out?”
“I guess so.”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk.” And a throbbing sob.
Afterward, she’d come out in the cold, red-faced and sniffling.
“Oy, what a wonderful picture.”
“Ah, it was all right, Ma.”
“So full of life.”
“Ah, it was a sissy picture.”
He was glad that he didn’t have to go with her too often. She spoiled the movies for him. When he and the guys went they saw the pictures differently; there was more fun.
4.
During this time, something was added to the house that revealed their lives more completely than any words or gestures they could express: it was the phonograph that Hershy’s father had built for Rachel. In its carved walnut splendor it stood in the parlor as a tribute to his father’s skill.
When it was first brought up from the basement, there was a proud light in his father’s eyes, his mother ah-ed, Rachel oh-ed, and Hershy posed beside it on his hands and knees, and, with his head cocked, began to bark. Soon afterward, Hershy discovered the remarkable charm of the instrument.
He was the only one who didn’t need a record to make the machine talk and express himself. His pal Cyclops was able to make the most beautiful horses in the world: so beautiful that the sight of his Shetlands, pintos, Arabian steeds, and thoroughbreds brought a quiver to Hershy’s throat. Immediately, Hershy got Cyclops to draw them on cardboard, with cowboys and Indians and jockeys to ride them; then they cut the forms out, mounted them on the green felt turntable, started the motor, and wham, a whole new world came alive for them. At the sight of the cowboys and Indians and jockeys racing on their horses, the hoofbeats of their stomping feet and the slapping of their rumps and the sound of the whirring motor was like the rhythm section of a great orchestra; and their excited shouts, grunts, screams, whistles, and cheers were the melodies and solo flights which sent them fully into the vast spaces of their imaginations.
Everybody in the house had to cover their ears to this music. When they begged for mercy, Hershy answered: “Ah, for Cry Yike, a guy can never have no fun around here.” He was sure that he was putting the phonograph to much better use than they. At least he had fun. But they … well, look at the records they played. Rachel’s were black-labeled with gold trimmings, his mother’s were red-seal, and his father’s had green labels printed in Yiddish.
When his father played the phonograph, he’d sit down in the rocking chair and close his eyes; through the quivering, soulful chants his throat would work along with the cantor’s singing and he’d seem to go far, far away. At the end of the record he’d say: “Ay, Yussele, Yussele.” Then he’d turn to Hershy and say: “You know who that is? Yussel Rosenblatt, the greatest singer in the world.”
“Ah, he ain’t so good as Al Jolson, Pa.”
“Al Jolson? He grunts like a pig. In America there is no great singing. There is no feeling for it. There is only noise.”
“Yah? Rachel says Al Jolson makes more’n a thousand dollars a week when he sings.”
“What has money to do with feeling and singing?”
“I don’t know, Pa. That’s what Rachel says.”
“Never mind what Rachel says. Just listen to a man with a great voice and learn. Listen to a man with a soul and feel the way he can make every nerve in your body tremble. Listen to him.”
Hershy would listen but it sounded like Yom Kippur, a holiday he neither understood nor had any feeling for, since his brief experience in Hebrew school (which he quit as soon as his father went away) was marked by an unintelligible language and an old snuff-smelling teacher with a beard who used a stick to beat him. He’d listen and stare at his father, wondering at the way he’d rock in the chair with his sunken eyes closed and his bony face lax, watching the chanting of the cantor work in his throat, and feeling him go far, far away, deep into a life he had never known.
His mother’s records were different. During the war, while his father was away, a neighbor had
taken her to the opera a few times. Each time, she had come home gasping and sighing, straining to express the emotional impact of the music. Now, through the phonograph, she was able to take her part in the great tragic dramas of the opera. Caruso could make the veins at her temple throb, could make her hands clutch over her breasts, could make her face look like she was having the heart torn out of her. After playing one of his records, she’d turn to Hershy and say: “That was Caruso, the greatest singer in the world. If only you could sing like him.”
“Ah, he ain’t so good as Tony the bananaman.”
“Don’t talk nonsense. Tony barks like a dog. With his voice all he can sell is a banana.”
“And Caruso?”
“When you get older, my son, you’ll understand what he sells.”
Sometimes she’d play a waltz. And though she didn’t move, he could feel her go far away, dancing lightly through the distant mansions of her mind.
Rachel’s music was less confusing, much closer, more familiar to his ear, though what she felt about it, in her adolescent dreams of becoming a great dancer, was beyond him. Her music was more a part of the way he walked and ran and jumped and played, closer to the tissue paper and comb he’d learned to play, more akin to the plunk of a baseball in a glove, the clanking washtubs, the sticks clattering against a fence, the sharp whistles, the rhythmic train sounds, the cries on the street, and the explosive automobile noises. Instead of making one sit down and, with eyes closed, drift into another world, Rachel’s music was full of motion; it made you get up on your feet and move.
Sometimes the music was close to the cantor’s singing in his father’s records. Blues, Rachel called them; they made her sway and twist, look hot and melty. Sometimes they were close to his mother’s records. Waltzes, Rachel called them, but they did not have the sweep of his mother’s records; instead, they were tight and cramped, as though laced in a corset; they made Rachel go into dizzy whirls. But most always her records were filled with plunking banjos, pounding drums, skittering pianos, thumping tubas, with a clarinet winding in and out of a growling trombone, or with a piercing trumpet shooting out fiercely from the rest of the band. Rachel called them ragtime and foxtrot numbers. His mother called them crazy. And Rachel, swaying, shuffling, whirling, would say: “Listen to it, just listen to it.”