Melov's Legacy

by Sam Ross

  He dived into the coal shed and scrambled into a corner. Through a chink in the wood he saw his father rush into the room. He backed deeper into the corner, trying to stifle his breath, as he saw the wild bulge of his father’s eyes, the terrible twist of his face, and the tight cords of his neck pull his voice out high above the hissing steam: “Hershel! Hershel!” Then he saw him duck under the shooting cone of steam. It seemed, for a second, that it had blown his body away. Then he saw a hand rise up from the swirls of steam, turning a valve, another valve, another. Suddenly the hissing stopped. In the awful cloudy silence that followed, it was as though the steam had choked everything, even his father. He waited for a sound of his father. Nothing. Only the steam crawling up the coal heap, coming at him with a deadly silence. Then his voice came back to him: “Pa! Pa!” It shattered the rising cloud and he scrambled through it over the coals and came out in the blinding mist not knowing what to do. He called and called, turned and turned, not knowing which way to go. Then his voice and his agonized body broke suddenly as he saw an opening through the steam: at the open door that led out to the alley his father lay crumpled up, with a trickle of blood running over his chin, his mouth sucked in between his sunken cheeks, his eyes staring.

  Hershy fell to his knees and ran his hands over his father’s face and chest, beside himself with terror; then he clutched his shirt, begging for a response, and tried to pull him to himself. But his father’s dead weight was too much for him and he slowly slipped from his grasp. He stared at him a long while, a slow numbness creeping down his body, then something in him turned over as he saw the bone in his father’s throat slide up under his chin. He fell on him and smothered his face with kisses. Then his father turned his face slowly toward him. Weakly, very faintly, and as though amazed at the fact, his father said:

  “Hershel, I can’t get up.”

  A note of fear rose in his voice.

  “I can’t get up.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  1.

  “Help me,” said Uncle Irving. He had driven his horse and wagon to the doorway of the boiler room.

  Hershy sat on his heels beside his father, staring down at his glazed feverish eyes, and couldn’t move. Uncle Irving yanked him to his feet and shook him.

  “Help me.”

  He didn’t know what to do. He watched Uncle Irving prop his father against the back of the wagon.

  “Now hold him while I get up.”

  He held his father, feeling his helpless weight. Uncle Irving jumped up on the wagon and grabbed his father under the armpits, then lifted him up and dragged him onto a bed of bundles.

  “Come on up and sit with me.”

  Hershy climbed to the seat of the wagon. The horse strained in the harness and made the wagon creak as it moved off.

  “What happened?” said Uncle Irving.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You were there. Why don’t you know?”

  “It wasn’t my fault.”

  “Who’s saying it was? But what happened?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He saw Uncle Irving’s lips move, asking more questions, but he didn’t hear him. He didn’t hear the clomp of the hooves on the street nor the clattering of the wheels, nor did he feel the rocking of the wagon. All the way home he sat rigid, packed with the image of the statue that stood on the first landing of his school building: of the Indian sitting on his horse with his head tilted back and his arms stretched out to the sky. A scream crumbled the statue to bits when his father was carried into the house, and he saw his mother’s face rip open. Her whole body shuddered and she reeled backward, as though the hands that crushed her breasts had a knife in them; but she hung on and recovered her balance and led the way to the bedroom and ordered Uncle Irving to call a doctor.

  Again he was asked to help. But in his quivering eagerness he couldn’t even unlace his father’s shoes. She shoved him away and told him to get out of the bedroom; she’d undress his father herself. As he stepped backward he felt that he had been lifted high in the air, flung out of the room, and dashed to bits against the floor.

  2.

  The doctor, after his examination, came into the kitchen and sat down at the table. Hershy stood stiffly by, watching the doctor search gravely behind the mysteries of his wrinkled forehead.

  “Well?” said his mother. “Well?”

  “Fortunately, the burns he suffered are only minor.”

  “Yes,” said his mother eagerly, waiting.

  “But he’s a sick man, a very sick man.”

  “How sick?”

  “Pneumonia.”

  “No!”

  “Why wasn’t he in bed days ago?”

  “He wouldn’t stay in bed. He said he only had a little cold.”

  “Didn’t you know he was sick? Couldn’t you make him stay home?”

  “He wouldn’t listen to me. David, I said, stay home. You’re burning up with fever, I said. But he wouldn’t listen to me. I only have a little cold, he said.”

  “Yes, that’s what they all say, all you people fighting against nature.” He took out a pad and began writing. “Let’s hope he passes out of the crisis and no complications develop.”

  “Doctor, what does that mean?”

  “If he passes out of the crisis, he’ll live.”

  “But can’t you do anything?”

  “I’ll do my best. He’s in his crisis now …” The doctor continued talking. Hershy caught a word here and there. “Delirium … Fever … Every four hours … Careful, Mrs. Melov … Oh, in a week? … Careful … The baby … Hope … Fight … Constitution … Hope …” For inwardly, his eyes dry, drained of tears, he cried: Don’t let him. God God God, O don’t let him. Make him strong, make him jump on his feet, make him fight, make him mad, make him fight like crazy, make him make him make him.

  “Hershel,” his mother called. “Go to the drugstore with this prescription. Tell the druggist to make it in a hurry. Wait for it and bring it right back.”

  The streets terrified him. Everybody was after him. Everything was trying to get him. The whole world was after him. Fence posts reared up, rushed at him, and clattered behind as he ran, dodged, and ducked by. A high screech bore down on him and the giant eyes of an automobile caught him in its glare. He lunged aside from the gaping mouth of the radiator and the big shoulder of the fender. The telegraph wires overhead became long, streaming, crackling hair, attached to the stony, yellow faces of lamplight which raced after him. A streetcar, like a one-eyed monster, bore down on him, gonging and roaring and snarling in its wild stampede. People were trying to grab him, stop him, their hands shooting out of the dark, their faces broken with yells. He escaped them all, banging the door of the drugstore shut behind him, and gave the prescription to the druggist. The man led him to a chair and told him to sit down. But even in sitting he felt himself running hard. Finally:

  “Here you are, son.”

  He grabbed the medicine.

  “Wait a minute, kid. That’ll be a dollar.”

  He dug into his pockets. He didn’t have any money.

  “Hey, you! Come back here, you …”

  He was out of the door, across the shiny tracks, past a rackety horn, over the sparks on the cement, rushing from yellow light to dark shadow, behind him heavy breathing and the hard driving sound of running and a million voices yelling: Get him get him get him.

  Safe!

  In the house: quiet. He watched his mother give his father the medicine. He followed her out into the front room. Suddenly everything became as still as a winter day in the park, with a heavy snow on the trees and the ground. Everything seemed far far away.

  From a great distance he saw his mother swaying back and forth on the rocker, her arms around her swollen belly and her back humped. He saw himself reach out to her. She seemed to back away slowly. His whole being reached for her, but she retreated from him slowly.

  “Wait,” he thought he heard her say. “Not yet. We’ll see. Wa
it.”

  Waiting, hanging in the balance of space and time, he saw himself alone on a great flat land with no horizons. He dropped to his knees and stretched his arms out; with his head raised upward he saw the blue sky turn hard and cold, and the sun began to move away as he asked for somebody to come to him. Then, in reality, he saw his mother move. He prayed for her to place her hand on his head. Even a glance would satisfy him. But she moved past him, her face tense with listening. His father was talking in the bedroom. He talked and talked, but Hershy couldn’t make out what he was saying. He was about to step into the bedroom, but his father’s voice froze him: he saw himself once again diving into the coal shed and scrambling into a corner and looking through the chink of wood.

  “Hershel! Where are you, Hershel! Look out, you’ll get burned! Look out! Hershel, Hershel, Hershel …”

  His father’s voice dwindled, muttered out. A gasp from his mother accented his father’s quick rasping breath. Then his mother came out slowly with her face drawn, saying: “Can it be? But it’s not time yet.”

  “What’s the matter, Ma?”

  “Nothing.” She sat down in the rocker and felt her belly. “Nothing.” She folded her arms across her belly and rocked back and forth.

  “What’s the matter, Ma?”

  “He’s delirious.”

  “What’s that, Ma?”

  “He’s out of his mind.”

  No, he wanted to say. He’s not. He was looking for me. I was afraid. I was afraid he’d kill me. I made the machines break. I made the explosion. But it wasn’t my fault. I was tired. I couldn’t see. It wasn’t my fault. But he’s not crazy. He was looking for me. He was he was he was …

  “He’s burning up with fever.”

  He wished he could say something.

  “How long will the night last?”

  Mama Mama Mama, what’d I do?

  “I wish Rachel was here.”

  “Why?”

  “I just wish.”

  “Why?”

  His mother didn’t answer. Instead her face twitched. Her arms tightened around her belly and she held her breath. Then she took a deep breath and sighed.

  “I wish she was here,” she said.

  “Why?” He had heard that whenever somebody died the whole family got together. Whenever somebody was dying you wanted the whole family around you. Mama, what’d I do?

  “Better go to sleep, Hershele.”

  “No.”

  She had no strength to argue. She began to stare and mumble, as when she prayed over the Friday-night candles. “Gottenyu, Gottenyu, Gottenyu. Dearest, dearest God.” More mumbling. She stopped abruptly. His father was laughing. At first it sounded like crying, then it turned into laughter: wild, uncontrolled, gasping, a laugh he had never heard before: it ended in a violent fit of coughing, with his mother rushing into the bedroom. Then it became quiet again. He heard his father suffer through his breaths, a sign from his mother. Then the clock started ticking, faster faster, louder louder; it seemed to rock the whole house. He covered his ears but couldn’t escape the sound. When he took his hands off them his father was talking again: this time, it seemed, to his mother.

  “Listen. Who you calling a failure?”

  “Nobody,” his mother said softly. “Nobody.”

  “Who is it calls me a failure?”

  “Nobody, David.”

  “My wife? Have I not always been a good husband, have I not always loved her? … My son? Wouldn’t I die for him? … My friends? Don’t they trust me, don’t they have respect for me? … Who is it calls me a failure?”

  “Quiet, David. Rest. Shhhhh.”

  “Oh, the world. All right, let the world call me a failure. What do I care about the world? Let the world go to hell.”

  It dawned upon Hershy that his father wasn’t talking to his mother but to himself, perhaps to an accuser hovering over him. Who? Who could it be? God? Don’t Pa. Don’t make Him mad on you. Don’t.

  “I don’t care for a world that measures a man by the money he has in his pocket. To hell with a world that kills a man like my brother. To hell with a world that makes whores out of people.”

  “Shhhhh, David, shhhhh.”

  “I don’t believe it. Measure a man by the work he does, the love he has for his family, his not hurting people, his respect for people, his being content with what he has, not by his ambitions, his cruelty, the rock in his heart. Can’t a man be a success without gaining an empire? What more is expected of a human being than just being a human being? What more?”

  “Nothing, nothing, nothing.”

  There was a long pause: exhaustion. Then, the voice breaking:

  “Don’t blame me, Sonya. I tried. God knows I tried. O how I tried … Yussel, Yussel, Yussel, what did you do to me? I was happy before. I had everything. I had respect, love, contentment, everything. Why did you tempt me? Why was I driven? Why did you shatter my world? Why did I hold on for dear life to a thing I didn’t believe in, a thing I was afraid of? Why? Why? Why?”

  “Shhhhh, it’s over now, David. Get well, rest, it’s over. Shhhhh.”

  “Rachel, come back. Nobody will ever know. My sister, my dead sister, your mother, will never forgive me. Come back. Come back …” The voice grew tender, trembling. “I know you’re tired, Hershele. You don’t know how my heart is breaking. But I’m a sick man. I can hardly move. We should go away, take a boat ride in the park, sit in the sun, you and me. But I can’t tear myself away. A monster is holding me. Help me, Hershele. Help me …” The voice rose in terror. “Look out! You’ll get burned! Hershel! Hershel! …” The voice broke, faded in exhaustion. “No. O Sonya, Sonya, Sonya …”

  His mother came into the front room finally, her face bathed in sweat. She sat down in the rocker and swayed slowly back and forth. Another twinge on her face, baring her teeth, stopping her breath, and she held herself in studied readiness, waiting. Hershy moved to the couch and watched her. The slow rocking and her stare began to blur his eyes. They grew heavy, so heavy. But he was afraid to fall asleep. He began to fight against it. He tried to listen hard only to his father’s raspy gasps, but the deep swell of his mother’s breathing and the ceaseless motion of her rocking began to overwhelm him.

  I don’t want to. Ma, don’t make me. What if Pa should …? But he can’t. He can’t. Ma, don’t make me. Wake up, Ma. Don’t make me to. I don’t want to. He can’t, if I didn’t mean it, if it wasn’t my fault. He can’t. I don’t want to. Let me stay. Let me up. Up. Up.

  He struggled to get up, but a pair of strong hands were pinning him down. He couldn’t move. He was trying. Everybody could see he was trying. See, he was trying. Look, everybody could see he was trying. Look. He looked up himself, in his sleep, and cried out. The hands that held him down were claws, and directly above the thick, shaggy arms were a nameless jumble of heads. A scream peeled out, bursting him into wakefulness; and in the terrifying silence that followed it was as though his open eyes had nailed the sound deep into the ground.

  3.

  It was morning. He was not on the front-room couch; he was in his underwear in his own bed. He heard a noise in the kitchen, bringing him back to life, to the memory of the day before. He crawled into his pants and ran into the kitchen. His mother wasn’t there. Aunt Mascha, (Uncle Irving’s wife) was there. He saw her and the clock at the same time. It was past noon.

  “Where’s my ma?”

  “In the hospital.”

  The news stunned him.

  “Reva took her there. She’s having the baby. It’s a week beforetime, but the shock of your father coming home the way he did brought the baby to life sooner. What does a baby know of time and tragedy?”

  “But Pa?”

  “And you—” Aunt Mascha paid no attention to him—“like a dead one you slept. Wild horses couldn’t even get you up. I had to carry you to bed and undress you. A ton you weighed. What were you yelling about in your sleep?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Oh, but yo
u’re a devil.”

  “Is my pa still here?”

  “Yes.”

  “How is he?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. He ran to the bedroom. His father was asleep, still breathing fast and hard. There was a stubble of beard on his face, making it look hollower. He looked worse. Hershy was afraid to wake him. He was afraid to look at him. He walked back to the kitchen feeling numb.

  “Aunt Mascha, will he get better?”

  “Sure, he’ll get better.”

  He wondered if she meant it. She didn’t look like she meant it. She looked like she hoped it.

  “Will Ma get better?”

  “Certainly.”

  She meant that.

  “When?”

  “As soon as she has the baby.”

  “When’ll that be?”

  “Wait. It takes time.”

  “Can I go there?”

  “Tomorrow, maybe.”

  “Why can’t I go now?”

  “They won’t let you in. Even Reva can’t go in. She has to wait there. Tomorrow, maybe, you’ll go see her.”

  A sudden sense of loneliness engulfed him, bigger than he had ever felt. He didn’t know what to do with himself.

  “Here, I’ll make you some breakfast.”

  “I don’t want none.”

  “You have to eat.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  He sat down at the table and began to wait. He drank a glass of milk Aunt Mascha placed before him without knowing it. His father began mumbling, then he yelled: “No! Get out! Get out, you you you …”

  Aunt Mascha walked into the bedroom and then came out sighing with her face crunched.

  “A human being,” she said. She looked up at the ceiling, “Gottenyu, Gottenyu, Gottenyu.”

  She started cleaning the house. He watched her, waiting, going deeper and deeper into his loneliness. Then he walked out of the back door with his aunt calling after him. He walked through the alley. He didn’t want to meet anybody. He walked into the park, over the walks and the heat-withered grass. Some kids stopped him. They started talking at him, but he didn’t hear. They started pushing him around, but he paid no attention. Finding no resistance, no fear, they swore at him and left after pushing him to the ground. He lay there a long while, then got up and started walking again. When the night came and the lights went on he wandered out of the park and stopped to look into the dark windows of a sporting goods store. Exhausted, he slumped down in a corner of the entrance about six feet in from the sidewalk. When he looked up a cop was tapping his shoe with a club.