by Sam Ross
But love, for his mother, was something sacred. Like God, it was something you couldn’t describe, it was something you couldn’t name. Like God, she knew what it wasn’t and evoked images of what it was. It wasn’t obedience or duty or bearing children or having worries or being responsible. It had to give one a sense of being transported to a new world, where the heavens lifted and a star was given to you for a jewel, and you had to feel that you were conquering and being conquered all at once. That was love. And for a moment of this she was willing to endure torture the rest of her life. For her, Rachel expressed all this, in the dreamy sway of her head, in the way she seemed to flow through the house, in the songs that vibrated from her.
“Rachel, where were you last night?”
“In a night club.”
“No!”
“Yah.”
“Imagine.”
“Yah, Ma. All the people there, dressed to kill. All the music. All the soft lights. All the fun. Ah, Ma, you should have been there.”
“Ay.”
“I could have danced all night long.”
“Is he a good dancer?”
“I get dizzy, he’s so good.”
“Ay, Rachel, Rachel. I never danced.”
“Everybody knows him. Everybody says hello to him. Even judges, big lawyers, people with diamonds on their fingers. He makes me feel like nothing can ever happen to me. I feel like a baby with him, so safe.”
“A strong man, hah?”
“A power. A real power.”
“Oh, to have a man of strength.”
“But he’s soft, too, Ma. I’m his soft spot.”
“Imagine, strong and soft.”
“He asks me what music I like to hear. ‘Angel music?’ he says. ‘Angel music,’ I say. He tells the orchestra to play. ‘Play for my doll,’ he says. ‘My baby likes angel music,’ he says. ‘Play,’ he says. And they play. For me, they play.”
“And then?”
“And then I come home.”
“Does he try to kiss you?”
“What a question!”
“I only ask, Rachel. But you want to be careful. A kiss can lead to tragedy.”
“Don’t worry. I’m careful.”
“Is he in love with you?”
“I hope so.”
“Are you with him?”
“What a question, Ma!”
“I only ask. What does it feel like?”
“Aw, Ma, the way you talk, like you never been in love. You know: you can’t even breathe.”
“But how does he express his love?”
“In the way he looks, in the way he can hardly talk, in the way he says: ‘Say the word, baby (that’s what he calls me: baby). I’ll make the world shove over. I’ll put rocks on your fingers. I’ll cover you with mink from head to toe. Say the word, baby.’”
“What kind of word do you have to say?”
“It’s just an expression, Ma.”
“So why don’t you marry him?”
“He didn’t ask me yet.”
“Oh.”
“Someday soon, he says, he’s going to get me on the stage. He’s working on a connection.”
“If he wants to marry you, why should he want you on the stage?”
“Because I want it.”
“Where do you think you are now, if not on a stage?”
“You got something there, Ma.”
“So when are we going to meet him?”
“Later, later.”
“What’s the matter? Are you afraid I’ll steal him from you?”
“No, Ma.”
“I’d like to meet him. It’s only right that he should meet your family.”
“Later, Ma. Later.”
She looked at Rachel, nodding slowly, and a great gap seemed to open in her, leaving a bleakness in her glazed eyes. But Hershy’s father reacted differently. “What a fool you are, Sonya,” he said, “throwing yourself into the world of a child. You should be grown up; but, really, you’re like a child.”
For he had met Joey Gans one day when walking down the street with Hershy. Joey was leaning against the building of his restaurant, his face tightening and relaxing as he worked on a pair of springs in his hands.
“There he is,” said Hershy.
“Who?”
“Joey Gans.”
“Hyah, kid,” said Joey. He spit through the side of his mouth, a gesture which Hershy had been practicing, and rumpled Hershy’s hair with his big thick hand.
“Okay,” said Hershy, looking up.
“That’s a kid, kid. And how’s Rae?”
“Okay, too.”
“That the old man?”
“Yah, that’s my pa.”
“How’s the boy, kid?” Joey put the springs in his coat pocket and shook hands with Hershy’s father. Hershy watched his father wince with pain from the pressure. Then, released, Hershy sensed that his father wanted to say something, in the way his throat was strained and in the way he groped for his (Hershy’s) hand as he stared at Joey.
“Want to shoot a game of pool, a bite to eat?” Joey asked.
His father shook his head.
“Any time. It’ll be on the house. It’ll be on Joey Gans.”
His father began to move away.
“See you, Pops,” said Joey.
His father came into the house as though suffering from a blow. He had got it from a golem, a man with no soul, whose head was stuffed with a fist instead of a brain. What could a man like that know about love, about such a sensitive thing? What could Rachel, spawned from his own family, see in a man like that? Could it be that he didn’t know Rachel at all, that he had seen her grow up only to feel that she was a stranger? The thought was shattering. It shook him with great fears for Rachel. He wished he could do something. He wished he could have threatened the man. But as he had stood before him he knew that if he had opened his mouth the man would have pushed his fist into it; he was a frightening man. He wished he could say something to Rachel. If he could only threaten her. But he had nothing to threaten her with. Besides, he was a man who was incapable of doing such a thing. But he didn’t want Hershy’s mother to encourage Rachel any more; he didn’t want her to go into the silly dreams and emotions of a child. Meanwhile, he would talk to Rachel.
Hershy had seldom seen him so disturbed. Even his mother, sensing it, remained silent.
But when his father did talk to Rachel that night he only antagonized her.
“So what do you want me to do?” she said.
“Find someone else, an honest, upright man.”
“You mean a working stiff? You can have them kind a nickel a dozen. Remember, this ain’t the old country. Here, you don’t match people up before you ever see them and then wind up saying until death do us part. Here, a girl’s got a choice.”
“But make a good one, Rachel. This bum is no good. All he’ll ever give you is trouble.”
“That’s for me to decide.”
“Listen to me, Rachel,” he pleaded. “For your own good.”
“For my own good, leave me alone.”
His father, not knowing what else to say, grew tense. “If I could only pound some sense into your head,” he said.
“Don’t try it. Remember, you’re not my real pa.”
Hershy saw his father reel back. His eyes became glazed and he sat down limp. It was a blow, he said after Rachel left, he’d never recover from.
2.
The following day, Hershy’s father didn’t come home for supper. Waiting for him, Hershy had seen the men come home from work and the kids go into their houses to eat. He had seen the day die and the lights on the lampposts go on. The street was quiet and the houses seemed to have retreated in shadows. A terrible fit of loneliness came over him. Then his mother called him.
“All right,” she said. “We’ll eat without Pa.”
Rachel was sitting at the kitchen table in a kimono, her face glowing from a bath. His mother began to serve him and Rachel: a m
ilchidige (dairy) meal; pickled herring, boiled potatoes with sour cream, and spinach borsht.
“Maybe Pa’ll be mad if we eat without him,” Hershy said.
“Eat,” his mother said. “Let him be mad enough to burst when he comes home, but if he can’t come home on time I won’t feed him. I’ll teach him a lesson.”
He turned away from her, hardly able to recognize her, not only because she was getting bigger with the baby but also because she was so stirred up.
“Maybe Pa ain’t home because he’s mad on Rachel,” he said.
“Why should he be mad on me?” Rachel asked.
“You know why. You know plenty why. You made him hurt.”
“Who? Me?”
“Yah. You.”
Rachel looked at his mother.
“Did I, Ma?” she asked. “Did I?”
Hershy’s mother didn’t answer.
“Ah, Pa ain’t the kind of guy to stay mad,” Rachel said. “He’s too sweet a guy.”
“So why’d you make him look like he was punched in the nose?”
“Ah, shut up. I feel bad enough as it is.” Rachel turned to Hershy’s mother. “Pa ain’t mad, is he?”
His mother didn’t answer.
“A girl’s got a life of her own, ain’t she?” said Rachel.
“Eat,” said Hershy’s mother. “The food will get cold.”
Hershy looked down to the food. What was she talking about? The food, except for the boiled potatoes, was served cold.
“What’d I do, stand up for my rights?” said Rachel. “What do I have to do: say excuse me for living? All right, excuse me for living.”
“Maybe,” said Hershy’s mother, placing a glass of milk and a plate of chocolate-covered cookies in front of him, “Papa’s working overtime.”
“Yah,” said Rachel eagerly. “Sometimes a rush job comes in. You have to stay until it’s finished. That’s a job for you.”
“Yes,” said Hershy’s mother. “A man’s time, unless he’s in business, is never his own. A workingman never belongs to his wife or his family, not even to himself: he belongs to a boss, a factory, a piece of machinery, a tool. Remember that, Hershel.”
Hershy nodded. All right, he’d remember. If he had to remember everything he’d have to have a head bigger than the moon.
Rachel pushed away from the table and stood up.
“I have to get a move on,” she said. “I got a date. But when Pa comes home tell him I’m sorry and tell him not to be mad. Okay?”
“Tell him yourself,” said Hershy’s mother.
“Tomorrow, I’ll tell him. Tonight, I’ve got to rush.”
“Can’t you ever stay home?”
“Aw, Ma.”
“Like a wild Indian you live. Night after night, rush, rush, rush, hoolya, hoolya, hoolya. You’ll go crazy living like that.”
“Aw, Ma.”
“But what do you do night after night?”
Rachel didn’t answer.
“Are you careful, at least? Papa’d go crazy if anything’d happen to you. That’s why he worries about you. It’d kill him if anything happened.”
“Yah,” said Hershy, as though for his father, “Whyn’t you stay home sometime?”
“You shut up, Hershy.”
“It’s not your business, Hershel,” his mother said.
“It is, too,” he said. “People talk.”
“Who?” his mother wanted to know.
“People.”
He didn’t know exactly who. The kids shut up when he was around. But he felt that they talked. His father’s fears disturbed him. If Rachel shamed him and his family he’d kill her. But he wanted her to go out with Joey, too. It made him important. It made him feel safe. But his father’s fears mixed him up. He wished everything was easy. He wished everything was like before.
“Let people talk,” said Rachel. “I know what I’m doing.”
“That’s the trouble,” said Hershy’s mother. “You know too much. These days, a girl knows too much.”
“Aw, relax, Ma. I wasn’t born yesterday.”
“That’s the trouble. Now you’re old enough. And with men now it’s tochas aufen tisch, you can’t hide behind long bloomers and a corset made of bone, they don’t stand for monkey business.”
Rachel looked steadily at her. “I thought you were on my side, Ma,” she said.
“I’m on Papa’s side, too. I’m on the side of respect. We have to live with our name.”
“A name, a name. You live and die and who remembers you?”
“But until you die people talk.”
“Talk is cheap. You can buy it for a nickel in any phone booth.”
Rachel’s eyes filled with tears. She seemed to fling herself out of the kitchen. She shut the door of her bedroom. When she came out, dressed in a red taffeta gown with a low hipline and a silver spangle shaped like a flower above her plump breast, Hershy watched his mother’s face soften, as though, after relenting, she had moved into Rachel’s position. Looking at her, Rachel’s set face relaxed and her eyes began to sparkle. Women, thought Hershy. Go understand them.
Just then an automobile horn began tooting and the sparkle in Rachel’s eyes seemed to fizz out like a roman candle.
“Be careful, Rachel. Be careful.”
“I will, Ma. I will.”
Rachel rushed out of the house. Hershy and his mother watched from the window as she got into the touring car. After it sped away, his mother said:
“She’ll freeze to death.”
3.
Back in the kitchen, waiting but averting the thought of Hershy’s father not being home, his mother began to question him about Joey Gans. She knew that he owned a restaurant with his brother and that it had a poolroom in the back, where gambling went on, and she warned Hershy that if she ever caught him in there she’d kill him. She knew also that Joey’s father was a melamed, a Hebrew teacher. That was in his favor. He had money, too. That was more in his favor. And he was respected, too. But was it true that the goyim stood in holy terror of him?
“Yah,” said Hershy.
“Like a king? Like a Samson?”
“Yah.”
“Then how could he be bad? He protects people, he doesn’t kill them.”
“Joey ain’t a bad guy. Only Pa’s afraid he is.”
“Papa doesn’t know everything. But if I could only see his face. If I saw him, I’d know. What does he look like?”
“Big. Strong. A giant. He got a fist like a sledgehammer. Muscles like a horse. A face so strong it always needs a shave.”
“You call that a description? What does he really look like?”
“I told you, for Cry Yike.”
“His eyes, for instance. What are they like?”
“I don’t know. Maybe like William S. Hart, the cowboy, or Tom Mix.”
“Like them, God forbid? It isn’t possible. What could Rachel see in a pair of stones like they have? Are you sure Joey hasn’t a pair of eyes like the moving-picture stars, Charles Ray or Wallace Reid?”
“Who? Them sissies?”
“Ach, go out and play and leave me alone. From you I’ll find out nothing, absolutely nothing.”
“Okay. So I don’t know. So I’ll go out and play.”
He didn’t have much fun playing. For the first time in his life he became conscious of not being wholly involved in a game. He couldn’t name what was bothering him; it was something; it made him feel very peculiar. Before, when he went into a game reluctantly because of some anger or irritation, the magic of the street, through the guys and the game itself, would lift him up and hurl him right into its spirit, completely absorbed. Now, he couldn’t feel it, he couldn’t get lost. What was happening to him? he wondered.
“Hey, what’s a matter, Hershy?”
“Nothing.”
“Ah, come on, it’s your turn.”
There was a ball. There were two guys. One was the catcher at home plate; the other was supposed to be the third baseman. He
was supposed to steal home but they had trapped him, were closing in on him as he shuttled between them, the ball that was to tag him being tossed back and forth, whirling in a yellow orbit of light under the swaying arc of the lamppost, its whacking sound accenting the excited voices surrounding him. For a moment, scuffing and scampering back and forth, his eyes as intense and wary as the hunted, the ball seemed to lift him away from himself and socked him right into the game. Suddenly he felt that he himself had become the ball, being tossed back and forth over a crazy crouched shadow, and he stopped and was tagged out.
“Hey, what’s a matter, Hershy?”
“Nothing.”
“Just when you was ready to slide into home plate, zippo, you stop and get tagged out.”
“I know.”
“Just when you was going to be safe, zingo.”
“Yah,” he said.
He left before the game was finished. His mother was looking at the clock in the kitchen.
“Pa home yet?” he asked.
“No. Where were you?”
“Playing.”
She had the bankbook in her hand and drummed it on the table. “Where could he be?” she asked.
“Maybe working overtime, you said.”
“God, I hope so.”
“Why? You think something happened?”
“Don’t say that.”
“Why? What’d I say?”
“Don’t even think it.”
“I didn’t think nothing.”
“Then shut up.”
He shut up. The clock ticked loud. The minute hand hardly moved. The hour hand was still, so still in the ticking sound. His mother had her eyes on the clock, but her eyes looked blurred. She shuddered each time the minute hand jerked a space.
“He never worked so late before,” she said.
Hershy didn’t know what to say. He hardly knew what to think. He had a superstition that if you thought about anything steadily it would become real. He didn’t want what was trying to get into his head to become real.
“Where could he be?” she asked. “What could have happened?”
“Don’t worry, Ma. He’ll be home.”
“Certainly, he’ll be home. Where could he go? But what if something happened?”
“What, Ma?” A hard lump suddenly formed in his throat. “What could happen?”