by Philip Roth
Those upraised palms, the mocking tone—another accusation. It was a crime to keep carbons! Everybody had an edge on him—Eli could do no right.
“I offered a compromise, Mr. Tzuref. You refused.”
“Refused, Mr. Peck? What is, is.”
“The man could get a new suit.”
“That’s all he’s got.”
“So you told me,” Eli said.
“So I told you, so you know.”
“It’s not an insurmountable obstacle, Mr. Tzuref. We have stores.”
“For that too?”
“On Route 12, a Robert Hall—”
“To take away the one thing a man’s got?”
“Not take away, replace.”
“But I tell you he has nothing. Nothing. You have that word in English? Nicht? Gomisht?”
“Yes, Mr. Tzuref, we have the word.”
“A mother and a father?” Tzuref said. “No. A wife? No. A baby? A little ten-month-old baby? No! A village full of friends? A synagogue where you knew the feel of every seat under your pants? Where with your eyes closed you could smell the cloth of the Torah?” Tzuref pushed out of his chair, stirring a breeze that swept Eli’s letter to the floor. At the window he leaned out, and looked, beyond Woodenton. When he turned he was shaking a finger at Eli. “And a medical experiment they performed on him yet! That leaves nothing, Mr. Peck. Absolutely nothing!”
“I misunderstood.”
“No news reached Woodenton?”
“About the suit, Mr. Tzuref. I thought he couldn’t afford another.”
“He can’t.”
They were right where they’d begun. “Mr. Tzuref!” Eli demanded. “Here?” He smacked his hand to his billfold.
“Exactly!” Tzuref said, smacking his own breast.
“Then we’ll buy him one!” Eli crossed to the window and taking Tzuref by the shoulders, pronounced each word slowly. “We-will-pay-for-it. All right?”
“Pay? What, diamonds!”
Eli raised a hand to his inside pocket, then let it drop. Oh stupid! Tzuref, father to eighteen, had smacked not what lay under his coat, but deeper, under the ribs.
“Oh…” Eli said. He moved away along the wall. “The suit is all he’s got then.”
“You got my letter,” Tzuref said.
Eli stayed back in the shadow, and Tzuref turned to his chair. He swished Eli’s letter from the floor, and held it up. “You say too much … all this reasoning … all these conditions…”
“What can I do?”
“You have the word ‘suffer’ in English?”
“We have the word suffer. We have the word law too.”
“Stop with the law! You have the word suffer. Then try it. It’s a little thing.”
“They won’t,” Eli said. “But you, Mr. Peck, how about you?”
“I am them, they are me, Mr. Tzuref.”
“Aach! You are us, we are you!”
Eli shook and shook his head. In the dark he suddenly felt that Tzuref might put him under a spell. “Mr. Tzuref, a little light?”
Tzuref lit what tallow was left in the holders. Eli was afraid to ask if they couldn’t afford electricity. Maybe candles were all they had left.
“Mr. Peck, who made the law, may I ask you that?”
“The people.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Before the people.”
“No one. Before the people there was no law.” Eh didn’t care for the conversation, but with only candlelight, he was being lulled into it.
“Wrong,” Tzuref said.
“We make the law, Mr. Tzuref. It is our community. These are my neighbors. I am their attorney. They pay me. Without law there is chaos.”
“What you call law, I call shame. The heart, Mr. Peck, the heart is law! God!” he announced.
“Look, Mr. Tzuref, I didn’t come here to talk metaphysics. People use the law, it’s a flexible thing. They protect what they value, their property, their well-being, their happiness—”
“Happiness? They hide their shame. And you, Mr. Peck, you are shameless?”
“We do it,” Eli said, wearily, “for our children. This is the twentieth century…”
“For the goyim maybe. For me the Fifty-eighth.” He pointed at Eli. “That is too old for shame.”
Eli felt squashed. Everybody in the world had evil reasons for his actions. Everybody! With reasons so cheap, who buys bulbs. “Enough wisdom, Mr. Tzuref. Please. I’m exhausted.”
“Who isn’t?” Tzuref said.
He picked Eli’s papers from his desk and reached up with them. “What do you intend for us to do?”
“What you must,” Eli said. “I made the offer.”
“So he must give up his suit?”
“Tzuref, Tzuref, leave me be with that suit! I’m not the only lawyer in the world. I’ll drop the case, and you’ll get somebody who won’t talk compromise. Then you’ll have no home, no children, nothing. Only a lousy black suit! Sacrifice what you want. I know what I would do.”
To that Tzuref made no answer, but only handed Eli his letters.
“It’s not me, Mr. Tzuref, it’s them.”
“They are you.”
“No,” Eli intoned, “I am me. They are them. You are you.”
“You talk about leaves and branches. I’m dealing with under the dirt.”
“Mr. Tzuref, you’re driving me crazy with Talmudic wisdom. This is that, that is the other thing. Give me a straight answer.”
“Only for straight questions.”
“Oh, God!”
Eli returned to his chair and plunged his belongings into his case. “Then, that’s all,” he said angrily.
Tzuref gave him the shrug.
“Remember, Tzuref, you called this down on yourself.”
“I did?”
Eli refused to be his victim again. Double-talk proved nothing.
“Goodbye,” he said.
But as he opened the door leading to the hall, he heard Tzuref.
“And your wife, how is she?”
“Fine, just fine.” Eli kept going.
“And the baby is due when, any day?”
Eli turned. “That’s right.”
“Well,” Tzuref said, rising. “Good luck.”
“You know?”
Tzuref pointed out the window—then, with his hands, he drew upon himself a beard, a hat, a long, long coat. When his fingers formed the hem they touched the floor. “He shops two, three times a week, he gets to know them.”
“He talks to them?”
“He sees them.”
“And he can tell which is my wife?”
“They shop at the same stores. He says she is beautiful. She has a kind face. A woman capable of love … though who can be sure.”
“He talks about us, to you?” demanded Eli.
“You talk about us, to her?”
“Goodbye, Mr. Tzuref.”
Tzuref said, “Sholom. And good luck—I know what it is to have children. Sholom,” Tzuref whispered, and with the whisper the candles went out. But the instant before, the flames leaped into Tzuref’s eyes, and Eli saw it was not luck Tzuref wished him at all.
Outside the door, Eli waited. Down the lawn the children were holding hands and whirling around in a circle. At first he did not move. But he could not hide in the shadows all night. Slowly he began to slip along the front of the house. Under his hands he felt where bricks were out. He moved in the shadows until he reached the side. And then, clutching his briefcase to his chest, he broke across the darkest spots of the lawn. He aimed for a distant glade of woods, and when he reached it he did not stop, but ran through until he was so dizzied that the trees seemed to be running beside him, fleeing not towards Woodenton but away. His lungs were nearly ripping their seams as he burst into the yellow glow of the Gulf station at the edge of town.
“Eli, I had pains today. Where were you?”
“I went to Tzuref.”
“Why didn�
��t you call? I was worried.”
He tossed his hat past the sofa and onto the floor. “Where are my winter suits?”
“In the hall closet. Eli, it’s May.”
“I need a strong suit.” He left the room, Miriam behind him.
“Eli, talk to me. Sit down. Have dinner. Eli, what are you doing? You’re going to get moth balls all over the carpet.”
He peered out from the hall closet. Then he peered in again—there was a zipping noise, and suddenly he swept a greenish tweed suit before his wife’s eyes.
“Eli, I love you in that suit. But not now. Have something to eat. I made dinner tonight—I’ll warm it.”
“You’ve got a box big enough for this suit?”
“I got a Bonwit’s box, the other day. Eli, why?”
“Miriam, you see me doing something, let me do it.”
“You haven’t eaten.”
“I’m doing something.” He started up the stairs to the bedroom.
“Eli, would you please tell me what it is you want, and why?”
He turned and looked down at her. “Suppose this time you give me the reasons before I tell you what I’m doing. It’ll probably work out the same anyway.”
“Eli, I want to help.”
“It doesn’t concern you.”
“But I want to help you,” Miriam said.
“Just be quiet, then.”
“But you’re upset,” she said, and she followed him up the stairs, heavily, breathing for two.
“Eli, what now?”
“A shirt.” He yanked open all the drawers of their new teak dresser. He extracted a shirt.
“Eli, batiste? With a tweed suit?” she inquired.
He was at the closet now, on his knees. “Where are my cordovans?”
“Eli, why are you doing this so compulsively? You look like you have to do something.”
“Oh, Miriam, you’re supersubtle.”
“Eli, stop this and talk to me. Stop it or I’ll call Dr. Eckman.”
Eli was kicking off the shoes he was wearing. “Where’s the Bonwit box?”
“Eli, do you want me to have the baby right here!”
Eli walked over and sat down on the bed. He was draped not only with his own clothing, but also with the greenish tweed suit, the batiste shirt, and under each arm a shoe. He raised his arms and let the shoes drop onto the bed. Then he undid his necktie with one hand and his teeth and added that to the booty.
“Underwear,” he said. “He’ll need underwear.”
“Who!”
He was slipping out of his socks.
Miriam kneeled down and helped him ease his left foot out of the sock. She sat with it on the floor. “Eli, just lie back. Please.”
“Plaza 9-3103.”
“What?”
“Eckman’s number,” he said. “It’ll save you the trouble.”
“Eli—”
“You’ve got that goddam tender ‘You need help’ look in your eyes, Miriam, don’t tell me you don’t.”
“I don’t.”
“I’m not flipping,” Eli said. “I know, Eli.”
“Last time I sat in the bottom of the closet and chewed on my bedroom slippers. That’s what I did.”
“I know.”
“And I’m not doing that. This is not a nervous breakdown, Miriam, let’s get that straight.”
“Okay,” Miriam said. She kissed the foot she held. Then, softly, she asked, “What are you doing?”
“Getting clothes for the guy in the hat. Don’t tell me why, Miriam. Just let me do it.”
“That’s all?” she asked.
“That’s all.”
“You’re not leaving?”
“No.”
“Sometimes I think it gets too much for you, and you’ll just leave.”
“What gets too much?”
“I don’t know, Eli. Something gets too much. Whenever everything’s peaceful for a long time, and things are nice and pleasant, and we’re expecting to be even happier. Like now. It’s as if you don’t think we deserve to be happy.”
“Damn it, Miriam! I’m giving this guy a new suit, is that all right? From now on he comes into Woodenton like everybody else, is that all right with you?”
“And Tzuref moves?”
“I don’t even know if he’ll take the suit, Miriam! What do you have to bring up moving!”
“Eli, I didn’t bring up moving. Everybody did. That’s what everybody wants. Why make everybody unhappy. It’s even a law, Eli.”
“Don’t tell me what’s the law.”
“All right, sweetie. I’ll get the box.”
“I’ll get the box. Where is it?”
“In the basement.”
When he came up from the basement, he found all the clothes neatly folded and squared away on the sofa: shirt, tie, shoes, socks, underwear, belt, and an old gray flannel suit. His wife sat on the end of the sofa, looking like an anchored balloon.
“Where’s the green suit?” he said.
“Eli, it’s your loveliest suit. It’s my favorite suit. Whenever I think of you, Eli, it’s in that suit.”
“Get it out.”
“Eli, it’s a Brooks Brothers suit. You say yourself how much you love it.”
“Get it out.”
“But the gray flannel’s more practical. For shopping.”
“Get it out.”
“You go overboard, Eli. That’s your trouble. You won’t do anything in moderation. That’s how people destroy themselves.”
“I do everything in moderation. That’s my trouble. The suit’s in the closet again?”
She nodded, and began to fill up with tears. “Why does it have to be your suit? Who are you even to decide to give a suit? What about the others?” She was crying openly, and holding her belly. “Eli, I’m going to have a baby. Do we need all this?” and she swept the clothes off the sofa to the floor.
At the closet Eli removed the green suit. “It’s a J. Press,” he said, looking at the lining.
“I hope to hell he’s happy with it!” Miriam said, sobbing.
A half hour later the box was packed. The cord he’d found in the kitchen cabinet couldn’t keep the outfit from popping through. The trouble was there was too much: the gray suit and the green suit, an oxford shirt as well as the batiste. But let him have two suits! Let him have three, four, if only this damn silliness would stop! And a hat—of course! God, he’d almost forgotten the hat. He took the stairs two at a time and in Miriam’s closet yanked a hatbox from the top shelf. Scattering hat and tissue paper to the floor, he returned downstairs, where he packed away the hat he’d worn that day. Then he looked at his wife, who lay outstretched on the floor before the fireplace. For the third time in as many minutes she was saying, “Eli, this is the real thing.”
“Where?”
“Right under the baby’s head, like somebody’s squeezing oranges.”
Now that he’d stopped to listen he was stupefied. He said, “But you have two more weeks…” Somehow he’d really been expecting it was to go on not just another two weeks, but another nine months. This led him to suspect, suddenly, that his wife was feigning pain so as to get his mind off delivering the suit. And just as suddenly he resented himself for having such a thought. God, what had he become! He’d been an unending bastard towards her since this Tzuref business had come up—Just when her pregnancy must have been most burdensome. He’d allowed her no access to him, but still, he was sure, for good reasons: she might tempt him out of his confusion with her easy answers. He could be tempted all right, it was why he fought so hard. But now a sweep of love came over him at the thought of her contracting womb, and his child. And yet he would not indicate it to her. Under such splendid marital conditions, who knows but she might extract some promise from him about his concern with the school on the hill.
Having packed his second bag of the evening, Eli sped his wife to Woodenton Memorial. There she proceeded not to have her baby, but to lie hour after hour thr
ough the night having at first oranges, then bowling balls, then basketballs, squeezed back of her pelvis. Eli sat in the waiting room, under the shattering African glare of a dozen rows of fluorescent bulbs, composing a letter to Tzuref.
Dear Mr. Tzuref:
The clothes in this box are for the gentleman in the hat. In a life of sacrifice what is one more? But in a life of no sacrifices even one is impossible. Do you see what I’m saying, Mr. Tzuref? I am not a Nazi who would drive eighteen children, who are probably frightened at the sight of a firefly, into homelessness. But if you want a home here, you must accept what we have to offer. The world is the world, Mr. Tzuref. As you would say, what is, is. All we say to this man is change your clothes. Enclosed are two suits and two shirts, and everything else he’ll need, including a new hat. When he needs new clothes let me know.
We await his appearance in Woodenton, as we await friendly relations with the Yeshivah of Woodenton.
He signed his name and slid the note under a bursting flap and into the box. Then he went to the phone at the end of the room and dialed Ted Heller’s number.
“Hello.”
“Shirley, it’s Eli.”
“Eli, we’ve been calling all night. The lights are on in your place, but nobody answers. We thought it was burglars.”
“Miriam’s having the baby.”
“At home?” Shirley said. “Oh, Eli, what a fun-idea!”
“Shirley, let me speak to Ted.”
After the ear-shaking clatter of the phone whacking the floor, Eli heard footsteps, breathing, throat-clearing, then Ted. “A boy or a girl?”
“Nothing yet.”
“You’ve given Shirley the bug, Eli. Now she’s going to have our next one at home.”