Call It Sleep

BOOK IV / The Rail

I

TRANQUILLY the months had passed. Summer had come and the advanced grade and the glowing, incalculable and unlimned vista of the school vacation — that had remained unlimned. But David felt little disappointment on that score. Let other boys boast of prolonged visits to the seashore or to the mountains or to camps. For him the mere passing of time was a joy. The body was aware of a lyric indolence, a golden lolling within itself. He felt secure at home and in the street — that was all the activity he asked.

It was a day in that season when the sun bolsters a fallen wing with a show of soaring, a day of heat and light. Light so massive stout brick walls could scarcely breast it when it leaned upon them; light that seemed to shiver windows with a single beam; that crashed against the careless eye like rivets. A day when clouds played advocates for pavements, stemming the glare on tenuous bucklers, growing stainless with what they staunched. A day so bright that streets would slacken when shaded momentarily, façade and wall would slump as if relaxing, gather new strength against new kindling. It was late July.

Walking home from the free baths on 6th Street, David, already flushed and perspiring, wished he were back again. It had been cool under the showers. One could slide on one’s belly down the chill, slippery marble aisle for almost a block — at least it looked that long. But the moment one came out into the hot streets, the coolness vanished. Only one’s hair remained damp — and that was the worst part of it — the man at the door always ran his fingers through one’s hair and chased the repeaters from the line.

He trudged on, breathing through his mouth from time to time because the air had grown so hot it seemed to sear the nostrils. Although he had not yet crossed Avenue C, the street was so deserted and the sun so bright, he could see the glint on the brass bannisters before his house. He glanced at the clock in the corner drug store — it pointed to a quarter past nine. Past nine? Where was his father’s milk wagon? Good! He was gone. Despite his feeling of greater security these days, that same sense of relief still cropped up. Good! He didn’t have to think about him now. He could go upstairs now and have his second breakfast — his first before going to the baths had been a glass of milk. After that the day was his. He quickened his step—

What were they doing?

Near the curb, diagonally across Avenue D, squatted a circle of four or five boys, their sharp, eager cries prodding the drugged quiet of the street. One or two he recognized — they lived somewhere on 9th Street. And there was Izzy who went to his cheder. What was it they were all stooping over so intently? As he drew near his house, he saw rise from their midst a languid spiral of smoke, and a moment after, heard exultant cries. He tip-toed to catch a glimpse over their heads. A black box? Red? No. What? Their heads were packed too close. It deserved a minute’s consideration. He crossed the Avenue, drew near.

“I told yuh!” their shrill voices clashed. “Look how id boins! Now pud id in! Gimme!”

Between bobbing heads, he saw a rusty toy stove and pale yellow flames creeping out of it. Smoke spouted from all the cracks. The small oven door, also full of smoke, was open. Between the feet of the boy tending the stove, lay a brown paper bag, once large, now rolled into a tight scroll. Their faces were red. They jabbered, rubbing smoke-filled eyes. One blew intently at the flame.

“Watcha doin?” David tugged Izzy’s shirt.

“We all gonna ead good righd away!” the reply rushed at him.

“W’a’? Watcha gonna ead?”

“Pop-cunn! See?” He pointed to the rolled-up bag. “Nickel a bag. Id’s chicken cunn, bod the wagon wuz busted, so it spilled oud on de dock.”

“Oh!”

“Yuh gid somm if you waid.”

“Yea?”

“Yea! See de nice stuv we god? Kushy fond id on de junk yod.”

Kushy had unfurled the bag and was pouring the yellow grains into the oven.

“Shake it up!” they advised. “Give id a spread oud wid a stick. Now cluz id. Mum! Yom! Yom! I’ll ead a hull beg.”

“Led’s gid somm sult.” Kushy suggested. “Hey Toik, you live on de foist fluh! G’wan!”

“Naa! We’ll ead like dis!”

“Yuh see?” Izzy concluded. “Yuh’ll gid somm if yuh waid.”

Fascinated by the prospect, David wedged in among the rest and squatted down. The stove smoked lustily, growing redder and redder as now one and now another stoked it. All faces sweated profusely.

“Id’s hod!” they finally decided. “Betcha id’s cooked. G’wan open id Kush! Gid a stick. Wooy! Pop-cunn!”

With the end of a stick, Kushy pried the oven door open. Heads drew closer. Inside, on the red-hot bottom of the oven, what had once been yellow grains were now charred and shriveled beads.

“Aaa, shit!” A groan of disgust burst from lifted throats. “Dey ain’ w’ite!”

“But mebbe we can ead anyway,” one of the invincibles comforted himself. “Ain’ id pop-cunn?”

“Sure, betcha dey taste good! I’ll try foist. Push id in my hand. Ooy! Id’s hod!”

“Da-a-a-vid! Da-a-avid!”

“Me?” He gazed about, startled.

“Da-a-avid!”

Up! Oh! It was his mother, leaning from a window.

“Wa-a-at?”

“Come u-up!”

“Ye-e-es!”

Her head disappeared inside.

That was strange. She almost never called him from the window. What did she — Gee! He stared. There, beside his house stood his father’s milk wagon. That was even stranger. What was he doing home at this hour? He never came back so late in the morning. Something must be wrong. Disquieted, he crossed the street, scrutinized the black horse resting his feed-bag on the curb. Perhaps it was some other milk man. No, it was Billy sure enough, the black, powerful animal they had recently given his father. Reluctantly he went into the hall-way, climbed the stairs and hung back a moment before he opened his door — familiar blue cap and black whip on the washtub. His father, already seated before the table, glanced at him as he entered and then turned to his mother who was standing before the ice-box:

“Have you any sour cream left?”

“Without end,” she answered, smiling at David as he entered. “And a few more scallions?”

“Let it be—” And to David. “Wash your hands and sit down.”

Completely at a loss now, David went over to the sink. When he returned to the table, his mother had set his combination lunch and breakfast before him — things he liked: Golden-skinned, smoked white-fish, cucumbers and tomatoes, pumpernickel, milk, purple plums. His mouth watered; in the twinges of awakening hunger apprehensions were momentarily forgotten. He had just opened the white-fish — a middle-piece, it opened like a golden volume — when his father, nodding curtly, said:

“After you’ve finished, I want you to stay near the wagon where I can find you.”

David sought his mother’s eyes.

“You’re going with father,” she explained.

“Me?”

“Yes!” his father interposed. “Don’t jump as though you saw the gloomy angel.”

“It will only be for a short time,” his mother reassured him. “An hour — no, Albert?”

“Perhaps longer,” was his curt reply.

“He has the cheder,” she reminded him. “It’s early during the summer.”

“I told you he’d be there in good time. Do you know, if you go on keeping him from seeing how I earn his bread, he’ll begin to believe I’m one of God’s playfellows.”

“I didn’t mean that,” she answered. “I—”

“Yes! Yes! Yes! Another child would have been with me long ago — would have begged to go. But enough of this — You stay near the wagon.” He scooped a dripping radish from the cream, slumped back, still chewing. There was silence for a few seconds.

“When is he coming,” ventured his mother, “the other I mean.”

“Tomorrow maybe. I can’t tell.”

“Poor man!”

“It happens … Lucky for me I brought an extra cake of ice along. I wouldn’t have had enough with this heat — But better the summer than the winter.”

“At least the ways aren’t so icy.”

“Yes. And you can see the stairs at four in the morning. And the handle of the tray isn’t so frozen it burns through your gloves like fire.”

“It’s all bitter, Albert.”

“Mm!” he grunted. “You hardly know. I sell my days for a little silver — a little paper — sixteen smirched leaves a week — I’ll never buy them back with gold. It’s enough sometimes to make one savage with man and beast.”

“But other men work as well.”

“You needn’t tell me that!”

There was silence again, while his father ate, staring with heavy eyes at the table.

“And you’d really want your days back?” She sat down, hands in her lap.

He snorted. “What a question!”

“I wouldn’t.”

“You mean days such as you’ve had? Like these?”

“Any kind.”

“Hmph!” he grunted. “Won’t you be a grandmother soon enough without posting?”

“No,” she smiled, her wide brown eyes lifted to the ceiling. “I want to be one tomorrow.”

“You’re a fool!”

“When I can say as mine did. It’s over. I stepped into the sun, I took one breath and suddenly I was a grandmother — Throw clocks away!”

“She grew wise as she grew old?” he asked with dry sarcasm.

“They measure nothing, she would say. Only the swing of cranes in the tides of their flight is worth reckoning. The rest is a rattle on Purim — deliverance from Haman long hanged.”

He chuckled once, sneered. “You and your grandmother!”

She laughed with him.

He pushed his plate away, breathing heavily, ran weathered powerful fingers through his thinning black hair, pressed down the ridge in the back of his head where the cap had bitten in.

“No more?” she asked.

“No.” He rose, tilted his head back, stretched. Drowsiness slowly cobwebbed the taut, impassive face. “No later than half-past ten.”

“I’ll wake you, Albert.”

He plodded into the bedroom, shut the door behind him. The bed creaked …

“Mama!” David whispered.

“Yes, child?”

“What does he want?”

“Oh—! There’s a milkman out. He cut his hand on a bottle — fearful thing!” she shuddered. “And they’ve divided his route among the rest.”

“Why does he want me?”

“He’s delivering to the gas houses there — the other man’s route. And he wants you to sit in the wagon while he’s gone.”

“Aaa! I don’t want to go.”

“I know. I’m worried too,” she confessed. “The other man always had a dog in his wagon — you’ll be the dog this time.” She smiled. “Just this once, won’t you? You’ll like it, riding on the wagon, seeing new streets. It will be cool when the horse is running.”

He shook his head resentfully. Her words aroused a foreboding in him.

“Come!” she coaxed, “just this once.”

Moodily, he pecked at his food. “How far are the gas houses?”

“Not at all far. Twentieth Street — I think that’s what your father said.”

“That is far!”

“Sh!” She looked uneasily at the bedroom door. “Do finish your lunch.”

“Only one side of the white fish,” he said sullenly.

“Don’t you like it any more?”

“No.”

“Why are you so frightened, child! You’re not leaving me! Drink the rest of your milk.”

But his appetite had vanished. It was only after a great deal of urging that she prevailed upon him to finish his lunch.

“Can I go now?” he asked, rising.

“Don’t you want to wait here? It’s cooler than the street.”

He hesitated a moment. “No, I’ll go down.”

“Very well,” she sighed. “I beg you stay near the wagon.” She bent down, let him kiss her brow. “Come straight home after cheder.”

II

HE WENT down the stairs, and reaching the street, looked eagerly toward Avenue D. He had meant to return to the pop-corn oven when he came down in order to forget his uneasiness and at the same time be near the wagon. But now they were gone. The pop-corn oven lay beside the curb, a shattered heap of iron. Evidently, they had repaid it for its recalcitrance. But where had they gone to? Eating perhaps. No, it wasn’t their lunch time yet. It was only ten o’clock.

Disconsolately he sat down, stretched out athwart the uppermost step of the stoop where the shady threshold of the hallway joined the burning stairs. Just outside the doorway, and under the fierce glare, the horse, black flanks rippling like water, lashed out viciously with hoof and tail at the glinting flies. His straw bonnet with much tossing was awry. Yellow oats, flung up from his feed-bag, lay strewn on the grey-bright gutter. Muted with heat, the city droned remotely. He wished he didn’t have to go.

He had been sitting there for only a few minutes, ferreting about in his mind for some subterfuge, some invulnerable excuse that would prevent his accompanying his father, when the sound of running feet reached him. He looked out on the street. With a shrill cry of “Here’s a wagon!” preceding them, Kushy and another boy ran past the doorway, came to a sudden halt before the milk-wagon.

“Hea’s a good w’eel, Maxey.” Kushy grasped the spokes and squatted down to examine the hub. David noticed that from his hand dangled something that looked like a flat piece of iron tied to a string.

“Yea, a lot!” Maxey, a short stick in his fist, hopped down eagerly beside him.

Prompted more by curiosity than possessiveness, David rose. “Hey, wodda yuh wan’? Dat’s my fodder’s wagon.”

“So wadda yuh hollerin’ about?” Kushy retorted, belligerent after a single glance over his shoulder.

“We ain’ takin’ nott’n.” Maxey explained. “Only grease from de axle.” Industriously he probed the black inside of the hub with the stick.

“Way in deep!” Kushy directed.

“Wotcha gonna do?” David came down the steps.

“We’re goin fishin’.” Maxey drew out a large black gob of grease. “On Tent’ Stritt. We’re potners. We seen id foist.”

“C’mon!” Kushy interrupted him. “Don’ led id flop!”

And with a “No akey! No akey!” flung over their shoulders, the two partners raced toward Avenue D and disappeared around the corner.

Mystified, longing desperately to follow, David stared after them. Half past ten, his father had said. That was a long ways off. He could watch them awhile and be back before his father came down. No one would know. Involuntarily, so it seemed to him, he gravitated toward the corner and went around it. They had said that they would be on Tenth Street, the next block. Should he go that far? At the last moment he decided that he had better not. It was too risky. He would only go as far as the new photography shop in the middle of the block and then return. He peered into the window. It was full of pictures, big and small, bridal pictures, the bride and groom standing stiffly apart despite their apparent closeness, their faces frozen in an impending smile; pictures of prize-fighters crouching in sash and tights; pictures of infants, the little girls seated, holding tiny muffs where the pudgy legs joined the small torso; the little boys always lay on their bellies. And horrible, enlarged pictures of old men and women, colored and acid-clear, the magnified expanse of their brown and sunken cheeks wrinkled the way the wind wrinkles sand. Pictures. Pictures. How did they stretch the big ones out of the little ones? And that bar of glass, that extended across the top of the show window, where did it get that strange green light that changed the color of everyone’s face when one passed it?

He’d better return now. But there was Tenth Street just a little ways off. He would only look once and then go back. Which way?

One glance toward Avenue C sufficed: As many as had been crouching about the pop-corn oven were now clustered before a building this side of the wood-turning shop. He broke into an eager trot, drew up. Most of them were the same boys he had seen a short time ago. Breathless, silent, absorbed, they kneeled on all fours on the iron grate over the cellar. All faces pointed downwards, all eyes riveted on something beneath. Not one looked up when David crawled in among them.

Kushy was doing the fishing. David peered down. Because of the depth of the cellar, it took some time for his eyes to become accustomed to the gloom. But squinting tightly, he at last discerned a something silver glimmering on the grimy cellar floor. Little by little, the gleam settled into the round, smudged surface of a coin. And above it, like a pendulum swinging slowly to and fro, the flat piece of iron hung from Kushy’s hand. His eyes at length completely accustomed to the shadows, David observed that the entire surface of the sinker was daubed with axle grease.

“Leggo now!” someone hissed between the grate. “Now! Id’s righd oveh!”

“Shod op!” Kushy shot back.

As the sinker swung it descended, its area of vibration slowly decreasing. For a moment it hovered directly over the glistening coin — then dropped as if on a prey!

“Easy Kushy!” their admonitions seethed. “Easy! Easy! ’At’s id! Id’ll stick, g’wan! Yuh god it! Betcha million! Slow! Slow!”

“No akey! No akey!” Maxey murmured exultantly.

Pop-eyed, taut with excitement, Kushy hauled in the slack with infinite deliberation. The grease-coated sinker stirred, rose — the coin, smeared now with grease, never budged, but lay where it had lain before. Barbed cackles of derision flew from all but the two partners’ lips.

“I’ll punch yuh innuh nose,” growled Kushy, crimson and bridling.

“Jost you waid!” Maxey spat out venomously. “Ask me fuh sompt’n youse guys. Bubbikiss you’ll ged! G’wan, Kush, you’ll ged it op yet! G’wan!”

The strain broken now, they jabbered turbulently. “See! I tol’ yuh de stuv-iron is hod luck! Yea, yuh shoulda taken somp’n else. Aaa! I coulda god id if yuh did’n holler.”

“You’ll never ged id.” Izzy announced smugly. “Betcha I could ged id.”

“Balls you’ll ged!”

“An I ain’ gonna tell yuh how,” he added spitefully.

“Balls you’ll ged,” repeated Kushy, “an’ a rusky-chooy!”

“Yea?”

“Yea, an’ a bust onna beezer!”

Opposition silenced, Kushy once more lowered the iron shard; once more it dropped only to rise without the coin. He tried again. As often as the grease touched the coin, the latter became a shade darker, a shade more like its surroundings, and by degrees more difficult to distinguish. The minutes passed. While Kushy fished the rest hitched their tongues in tow of their imaginations.

“If it wuz a nickel,” said one broody voice between the gratings, “I could buy fuh two cends cockamamies an’ pud em on mine hull arm. An’ den fuh t’ree cends I’ll go to duh movies.”

“Yuh c’n buy fuh t’ree cends cockamamies.” Izzy crisply revised the dream.

“W’y?”

“Cuz yuh c’n ged in duh movies lods o’ times fuh on’y two cends. Id’s two fuh a nickel ain’ id, fuh kids? Make de odder guy give t’ree cends.”

“Fot smeller,” sneered Kushy vainly lifting the sinker for the twentieth time. The rest brayed their approval.

“Yuh c’n ged in fuh nutt’n wise guy!” another voice affirmed. “Woddayuh tink o’ dat? Yuh jos’ make believe yuh lookin’ on duh pickchiss outside. An’ w’en dat ticket-chopper ain’ lookin’—zoo! Yuh go in — an’ id’s all dock inside.”

“Yea!” Izzy parried. “An’ zoo! If he catches yuh! Wadda roost innee ass he gives. Membuh w’en Hoish god caught? Wuz he cryin’?”

“Make believe w’at I had a nickel,” another rapt voice announced, “so I’ll go to Kaplan’s on Evenyuh C and I’ll buy a tousan’ rubbuh ben’s an’ make a bounceh — a real high bounceh—”

“A lod ain’ good.” Izzy interrupted with authority. “I know somebody, he made a bounceh — bigger’n dis.” His two palms slid through the gratings about a foot apart. “Mor’n’ a zillion rubbuh ben’s he had on id, and id wouldn’t even go high like dis cellah. So he made five liddle ones, an’ duh liddle ones bounced ten flaws w’en he ga’m a good shod.”

“Ten flaws?”

“Yea!”

“Buzjwa!” they chorused.

“Yea?”

A short space of silence followed while eyes again glued to the coin on the cellar floor. It was practically indistinguishable now, but still Kushy fished, declining all the offers of those who suggested spitting down at the coin to clean it. Oblivious of the passing time, David peered down with the rest.

“You’ll never ged id,” said Izzy at length. “An’ maybe id ain’ even a nickel,” he added waspishly.

“Maybe you ain’ gonna ged mobilized,” Kushy answered ominously. It was evident to all that long frustration had exhausted his patience.

“Aaa, don’ mobilize so fast!” muttered Izzy.

“Yuh wan’ me to show yuh?” The sinker jogged ominously across the cellar floor.

“Tough guy!”

“I’ll spid in yer eye in a minute!”

“You an’ who else?”

“Me an’ myself!” The sinker flew up. The next moment Kushy had sprung to his feet.

(From somewhere an obscure drum of hooves)

“Wan’ me to show yuh?” he blustered.

“Yea!” Izzy rose as well.

David shrank away. He hated fights. Why did they have to fight and spoil everything? But before the two pugilists had time to fly at each other, a loud, imperious rapping startled them all. They stared at the gutter. With a cry David recoiled. Poised on the side step of the milk wagon, sleeveless shirt dazzling in the light, his father was rapping the butt-end of the whip against the wagon—“Come here!” He bit off the Yiddish words.

David flung himself toward the curb. “I didn’ know, papa! I didn’ know! I thought you — you weren’t ready.”

“Get in!”

He could hear the amazed whispers of the other boys on the side-walk. With numb, aimless haste, he grasped the first thing that seemed to offer a way up, the spokes of the wagon wheel. His feet, cramped with kneeling, slipped toward the hub. His father’s jarring hand hooked under his armpit, yanked him roughly aboard.

“Witless block!” he ground out, “Lucky for you I found you. If I hadn’t I would have flayed you—!” He flicked the reins. “Giddap Billy!” The wagon rolled forward. “Why I don’t give a blow to crack your head I don’t know!”

Whimpering David cowered against the loose milk-boxes rattling behind him.

“If I had the time—!” he broke off significantly. “But disobey me again!” And with a furious sidelong glare, leaned out through the window-like opening in the front of the wagon and nipped the horse with the end of the whip. “C’mon Billy!”

The horse broke into a heavy gallop. At Avenue C, they turned and headed north. Letting the reins rest on the front bar a few seconds, his father reached behind him, pried loose an empty box and set it down beside David. “Sit down! But hold on to the side there, so you won’t fall off as only you are able.”

They drove on rapidly; Ninth Street dropped far behind — it seemed to him forever. Relieved by slight flurries in traffic from his father’s smouldering eye, David stared unhappily at the houses gliding past the doorway. He felt strange — feverish almost. Whether it was that he had been staring down into the cellar too long, or whether because his fear of his father clouded and distorted all the things he saw, he could not tell. But he felt as though his mind had slackened its grip on realities. The houses, pavements, teams, people on the street no longer had that singleness and certainty about them that they had had before. Solidities baffled him now, eluded him with a veiled shifting of contour. He could not wholly identify even the rhythm and the clap of hooves; something alien and malign had fused with all the familiar sounds and sights of the world. The sunlight that had been so dazzling before was mysteriously dulled now as though filtered by an invisible film. Something of its assertion had been drained from stone, something of inflexible precision from iron. Surfaces had hollowed a little, sagged, edges had blurred. The stable lineaments of the mask of the world had overlapped, shifted configuration as secretly and minutely as clock-hands, as sudden as the wink of an eye. It was strange. It had happened before. A vague, diffuse aching filled his breast. Again and again, he sighed, uncontrollable, shivery, stealthy sighs. Suddenly, he realized that he had not known how happy he had been — only a little while ago, unaccountably free and happy — July, June, May. It was gone now. He was haunted again.

He looked from the street to his father. Too tall for the wagon, he stooped forward, black reins loose in weathered hand. Nothing about him ever changed. Let worlds heave and freeze, he remained the same — always the thin inscrutable mouth, always the harsh pride of taut nostrils, heavy lidded eyes. Under the sheer, unswerving steep of his aloofness, there was shelter sometimes, but never foothold.

They turned east, left the pavements behind. On the cobbled streets, the horse’s hooves rang out now sharp now hollow. The wagon bounced and clattered. As the streets grew empty, the houses grew smaller and shoddier. There were no children to be seen, only cats sunning themselves before battered doorways. They turned a corner. Between the looming of enormous gas tanks, the river looked as if the shore beyond were only a blunt wedge sideways through the sky, so alike in azure were water and heaven. Here were no habitations. Beside the curb, a long, deep ditch through the pavement had been left uncovered. From the bottom of the trench as they neared it, rose the sweetish, festering stench of the city’s iron entrails. His father swung out wide, passed the embankment of rusty soil set with red lanterns, and drawing up to the curb, reined in his horse.

“Move!” he said.

David scrambled to one side. His father reached into the back of the wagon, dragged out two steel trays and set them on the ribbed wagon floor. From three boxes, all of which were filled with bottled milk and covered with ice, he loaded both trays, and when every square in the trays had been planted, shored bottles against leaning bottles in glistening white pyramids. In the last box only four bottles sprouted from between the cracked ice. These he left behind, and shoving both trays near the door-way, he climbed out into the sunlight. One after another he swung them down, grunting as he did so, the sinews of his throat leaping like bow-strings.

“This time don’t forget,” he said, glancing about. “Stay where you’re told, hear me?” His brief nod was full of meaning, and then he turned away and lunged forward and with stiff, jerky gait, hurried down a narrow lane between squat and dingy shacks. As he drew away, deeper and deeper shadows pitted the stretched thews of his long bare arms. Under his flat springless tread, the crushed stones on the ground slid and crunched. The path turned, curving round a gas tank. With a last clink of bottles he disappeared.

III

UNREAL quiet … Against the drowsy, dwindled hum of the city only the sound of the horse champing softly on his bit, pawing or rattling his traces could be heard. The arid cobbles, distinct close at hand and hemmed in by peeling bill boards, blackened hovels, vacant storage houses, contracted to scales in middle distance, slurred further on and slid up a narrow groove of houses into dusty blue sky. Rarely and even then too far for a sound to travel, a horse and wagon crossed the street. From the trench in the pavement, the rank, persistent damp mingled with the odor of rancid milk in the wagon. Time dragged.

Two men slanted past the corner. After the strange silence of the street and the strange disquiet in himself, David found the scrape of soles on sidewalk suddenly welcome. One of the men seemed about to cross the street, but his companion gave his arm a short tug, said something and both swerved from their course and shambled leisurely toward the wagon. Their coats were slung over their shoulders and as they walked they wiped their faces in the lining. A grey rope held up the pants of one, the other had safety pins in his suspenders. Both wore dirty, blurry, striped shirts, torn under the neck-bands and collarless. Their features, as they grew more distinct, were blunt and coarse, pocked and purplish as peach-stones. The leaner was the shaggier of the two, his hair, the blonde of a gunny sack, matted under his brown felt hat. The stockier, under his tilted cap, had a moon-shaped brow, good-humored, piggish eyes, and between puffy jowls a short mustache like oiled hemp, smoke-singed at the fat lips. There had been something significant about the way they had nudged each other and then changed their course, and now as they sauntered within a few feet of the wagon, David began to hope that they would pass without stopping.

“I told yuh it wuz a kid,” he heard the stocky one say. And then loudly. “Hullo dere, big boy!” Opposite the doorway of the wagon, he smiled affably, widely, yellow butts of his teeth circled on top like bitten grains of corn. “Waddaye say?”

“Hot ain’ id?” the other grinned beside him. “Whew!” Saliva on his protruding upper teeth glistened, gathered; leisurely he sucked it in as it fell.

Without answering, David stared at them irresolutely.

“Ol’ man’s wagon?” asked the first, his pudgy finger sliding from his mustache to worry a pimple on his chin. “Go in wid a big load, didn’t ’e?” His bright, amiable eyes fixed on the graveled lane, “Didn’t ’e?”

“Yea.”

“Long ago?”

“Yea.”

“Nice kid, ain’ ’e?”

The other winked, curled his tongue out for the sliding drop. “Maybe he wantzuh see de gas house? Woik fast!”

“Say! I’ll betcha shirt he does! Ever been in a gas house?’

“No!” apprehensively. He wished they would go away.

“No? Say, we’ll show yuh de whole woiks!”

“No!”

“Layin’ out?” He leaned inside the doorway.

“Yep,” the other grunted. He had shifted his position so that he partly faced the graveled lane.

“C’mon!” the stocky one urged pleasantly. “We c’n show yuh all de fires — biggest fires, biggest foinisses in Noo Yawk. Show yuh yer ol’ man.” Suddenly he leaned forward. Blacknailed, outstretched fingers gripped David’s buttocks. He wrenched free, sprang away.

“No!” Sudden fear made him cling to the opposite side of the wagon. “No! I don’t wanna go — no place! Lemme alone!”

“Gettin’ hot, Augie?”

The other cackled. “No go, Wally. We gotta get it an’ skin out o’ hea.”

“Yea,” drawled the other still smiling, and then briskly. “All right, kid, won’t show ’em to yuh dis time— I see yer ol’ man’s got a liddle milk left, ain’ he? Nice and cool, I bet. Well, we’ll buy a couple o’ bottles. He knows us, see—? Clear, Augie?”

“Shoot!”

“Jest a couple.” He swept away the ice, calmly uprooted two bottles of milk. “We gid it every day. Tell ’im Hennesy took it. Tree Star Hennesy — he’ll remember.” He passed a bottle to the other. “We pays him reggileh,” he added, slouching off in the direction he, had come. “So long, big boy! Show yuh de gas house sometime.”

His lips quivering in terror and too dazed even to breathe, David watched them wrap their coats about the bottles, quicken their pace as they neared the corner, wheel round it and vanish.

He gasped. They had stolen the bottles! He knew it! He knew the moment that man reached over he was going to steal them. What would his father say? You left the wagon! You left the wagon! And after I told you not to. Papa, no! I never left it! I thought you knew them! They said you did. You left the wagon! I didn’t! They came—! His mind seemed to have burst into myriads of razor-edged shards hurtling through his skull. Ow! When he comes! When he looks in! And two missing. Why didn’t you stop them? Why didn’t you tell them to wait till I came? Why didn’t you cry out? I did, papa! I did! I mean—! they said—! The whip — there. He’d take it. Ow!

His frantic nails dug under his cap, harrowed the scalp beneath, which stung and prickled as though a rash had broken out upon it. A cold sweat sprang out over his face and throat, and his writhing body grew suddenly hollow and agonized. Without desire or strength to still them, he listened to the sick chattering of his teeth. Already feeling the lash on his back, he cowered down and lifted his hands to his face.

— Ow! Ow! Papa! Papa! Ow! Don’t! I didn’t mean it. They tried to grab me. Push me out … (He tried to flee from himself as he had once done in the darkness behind his palms. Where could he flee to? Where?) Like that time then. In cellar was and ran. In up-and-out pictures ran. In street now, where—? Mama! Make her look. Make how she looks. Her face. Make! MAKE! I want her face. Mama! MAMA! Make her look. (He concentrated, culling dispersion with every force of his will — failed. Tried again, failed. The face would not fuse. His own mother’s face eluded him.) Can’t! I can’t! Oh, mama! Mama! Can’t … (He rocked back and forth). I’ll make believe I’ll go home first. Yes. Like that I’ll get it. All the streets. Rrrrp! Ninth Street. Now up stoop go. Hot is brass bannister. No touch, janitor says. Cold in winter. Hall inside — No! No! Not this one! Not this! Funny! Old hall from way then, Brownsville pushed right in. Old cellar hall. Got it, Ninth Street back. Now keep. Don’t let go. Baby carriages under the stair here. Milk-stink on ’em. Now go. First floor, see the steps, see the toilets. Bloop! Slipped, slipped down. Gee! Baby carriages. She’s waiting. Upstairs. Fourth floor, waiting. Now go! Bing! One, two, three, four— Aaa, shit — slipped! Baby carriages. Milk stink pulls, pulls me back. This time, jump! All the way up! One jump all the way! One, two, go—! Wrong! It’s wrong! Wrong hallway! No! No! No cellar door. Not in my house. Not open! Not open! Like — Like I just smelled. Street open. Street — open-stink, where they’re digging. Aaa! (He ground his teeth in sudden fury) I’m going up! I’m going up anyway! You won’t stop me! YOU WON’T! I’ll hold it! Now! (His fingers pinched his nose till it hurt) Now I’ll go! What—!

The crunch of heels upon the gravel. Terror! His eyes snapped open. Dwarfed between the huge gas tanks, his father rounded the path. Eyes downcast as always, he hurried, jangling the empty grey bottles in their trays. Louder, louder, nearer, they seemed to clank in David’s heart as well. With every step his father took, the breath in his own body became more labored, more suffocating. At the wagon he paused, lifted sombre eyes to heave the trays on board. Their gaze met. The first tray hung poised a split second before it came to rest.

“What’s the matter?”

David began to weep.

“What’s the matter?” His voice sharpened to a sudden edge. “Speak!”

“The — the bottles there—” he stammered—“They took them.”

“What?” He leaned in, swiftly swept the ice aside, looked up again in stormy surprise. “Who took them?”

He quailed. “T-Two men.”

“Who? Stop your slobbering!”

“Two men. A big one and a short one. And they — Hennesy they said. Hennesy.”

“Hennesy?” He cocked his head, his frown darkening. “Where did they say they worked?”

“They didn’t say!”

“Were you on the wagon?” His lips thinned, voice changed pitch in mid-word, the signs of gathering wrath.

“Yes! I was here! Papa, I was here!” The words gushed, being prepared. “They came and they said you knew them, and I thought you knew them. And they took—”

“And you let them? Cursed fool!” He slammed the last tray in the wagon, sprang after it. “Which way did they go?”

“That w-way! Around the corner!”

“Paid yourself again!” he snarled. “Giddap! Giddap, Billy!” He snatched the whip out of the socket, lashed the horse. Stung, the beast plunged forward. The wheels ground against the curb. “Giddap!” Again the whip. Hooves rang out in a pounding, powerful gallop. The wagon lurched, careened around the corner on creaking axle, empty bottles banging in their boxes. His father, jaws working in fury, eyes blazing, swept the street with one glance. It was empty, sunlit and empty. “Where are they?” he muttered through writhing lips. “Ah, to lay my hands on them!”

No sign of them anywhere, though he scoured every building and hallway. They were gone. The horse galloped on. But at the very next intersection, two men on the left strolled out of an alley — A glimpse of empty milk bottles in their hands!

“They?” he snapped eagerly.

“They!”

“Aah!” His suppressed cry rattled exultantly in his throat. “Giddap, Billy! Giddap!” He dragged savagely at the left rein. The horse mounted the sidewalk. The wagon heeled over, shifting its cargo with a roar.

“Cheesit, Augie!” the stocky one yelled out suddenly. “He’s after us!”

They broke into a clumsy run, the shorter one lagging. The wagon gained. With a hoarse cry of “Let ’im have it, Wally!” the lean one slowed down momentarily, drew back his arm. The heavy bottle arched toward them hung in the sun, shattered like a bomb before the horse. He reared, flung his head sideways, nostrils crimson, wild eyes rolling. A second later, another bottle flew in the air, fell short, smashed on the ground. Again the whip flashed down.

“Now I’ll get you!” His father gnashed his teeth. “Now I’ll get you!” And David knew they were doomed.

The charging horse bore down on them. At the corner, with only a few yards between them and the wagon, both men as if by a common impulse, shoved each other in opposite directions. His father turned after the stockier running on the sidewalk. A moment more, the horse was abreast. One yank at the reins and the reins were flung at David. “Hold, you!” Whip in hand, his father leaped from the rolling wagon into the street. The fugitive, trapped before a stable door that wouldn’t open, spun about, crouched savagely at bay.

“Waddayuh chasin’ me fuh?” His yellow teeth were bared, the round eyes now slits of fear and fury.

“Hanh!” His father’s snarl was almost like laughter, but the grinding of his teeth creaked like a strong cable stretching. “Yuhv’ll take my milk!”

“Me? Waddaye shittin’ about? I never seen it.”

“An’ de bottles you t’rew?” He seemed merely to be toying with the man. David knew the answers didn’t matter. He grew faint, waiting for the end.

“Yea! I t’rew ’em!” The other was blustering savagely. “An de nex’ time watch out who de fuck yer chas—”

Swish! The hiss of the whip cut off his words; the long, stiff thong curled over his shoulder, whacked!

“Owoo!” he howled with pain and fury. “Yuh Jew bastard! You hit me?” He flung himself at David’s father, arms thrashing.

“Hanh!” Again that mad cry of mirth. One long, rigid arm shot out, thrust his kicking, flailing adversary back like a ram — while the whip lashed out in the other. Again! Again it fell! It sickened David watching it. He screamed. Suddenly with a sharp crack the whip snapped. His father flung it aside. And as the other, howling with rage, charged in to tackle, he drew up his fist, clenched it like a sledge, and grunting with the effort, crashed it down on his neck.

“Uh!” A small, almost infantile groan broke from the man’s open mouth. Then he crumpled, slid down David’s father’s legs and fell sideways to the ground. Once more he stirred, the cap slipping from his head. The vague, sparse strands of his hair sank leisurely to one side as if on a hinge, revealing the splotched yellow scalp. He lay still.

For a moment longer, David’s father towered above him, rage billowing from him, shimmering in sunlight almost, like an aura; then with a last, fierce glance about the empty streets, scooped up the broken whip, stalked to the wagon, leaped in, and leaning out flogged the horse with the end of the rein. The beast bounded forward. Swiftly they left the street, turned south, mingled with the gathering traffic.

The minutes passed in horrible silence. Little by little, his father’s dark face grew grey, the fierce blaze in his eyes clouding. In his trembling hands, the reins began to shake out in tiny ripples. His hoarse breath grew louder, rushing through his burred throat in short violent gasps that set his jaw quivering each time as if on springs. In Brownsville was the last time David had seen him look that way. It recalled all the old horror.

“You!” He said at last, and his words were so harsh and guttural, they barely took form. “False son! You, the cause!”

His hand moved. Like the fangs of a snake the brass-buckled ends of the reins bit twice into David’s shoulder. He never winced. He hardly even felt them, so frozen with terror he was.

“Say anything to your mother,” the strangled voice went on, “and I’ll beat you to death! Hear me?”

“Yes, papa.”

Amid a crowd of trams and autos, they moved slowly toward Ninth Street.

IV

NOT another word had been spoken. The wagon rumbled over the cobbled car-tracks, wheeled around, drew up beside the curb.

“Get off, dunce!” His father’s voice had cleared, was sharp again; his color was beginning to return. “Now remember what I said — be silent!”

Mutely, David climbed down the wagon.

“And don’t get lost!” he flung down at him. “Straight to the cheder!”

“Yes, papa.” He could feel the stupidity of his own gaze.

“Unh!” he grunted disgustedly. “Hurry now!” Then he clucked to the horse and the wagon clattered north again.

With stunned, shuffling gait, David crossed the street, plodded toward the cheder.

— Mustn’t tell her! Mustn’t tell! Ow!

How could he contain it! He had but to prolong the wink of his eyes a moment longer and the horrible scenes of that hour flared across his eyelids as on a screen — The ghastly flickering of stolid gas-tanks, cobbles, trenches, distance, the malevolent streets, the black arc of the whip still lingering in air though the whip had landed, the vicious face contorted, and the hand, the hand uplifted. In the meaningless sounds of the street, he could still hear the scuffing of their feet, his father’s grunt, the thud of his fist, the howls of rage and pain. The fearful images would not be shaken, but clung to his mind as though soldered there. Something had happened! Something had happened! Even Ninth Street, his own familiar Ninth Street was warped, haunted by something he could feel; but perceive with no sense. Faces he had seen so many times he scarcely ever glanced at any more were twisted into secret shadows, smeared, flattened, whorled, grotesque grief and smirking never before revealed. The cheder corridor as he passed through it, scribble of chalk glimmering on the wall, linoleum battered into traps, seemed un-level, weird and endless. He caught himself fighting the old fear of hallways; his step suddenly quickened. Saw-toothed, bizarre with inlayed wedges of light and shadow, the cheder yard, grey wash-poles aslant in heavy light, fences leaning, chipped, red walls, walls sodden with sun, the hacked sky. Unreal. The cheder itself, whispers in sudden gloom, knotted figures, cracked benches, the long table, the inane, perpetual drone, fantastic forms, perspectives. Unreal.

Something, something had happened. He sat dumbly down, watched the others a moment, then turned away. Their bickering and their chatter had lost dimension; nothing was left but a grey and vacuous idiocy, a world bewitched and hollow. It was as though he heard all sounds through a yawn or with water in his ears, as though he saw all things through a tumbler. When would it burst, this globe about his senses?

If only he had run home first, if only he had told his mother.

Time dragged on. The cheder filled up. Fortunately for him he had come early — he would read soon, escape. Remotely he heard his name called as if through a wall. He rose, shuffled to the bench as though his will alone were dragging the whole clog of his body, sat down before the table.

“You look somewhat pale,” the rabbi said quizzically as he flattened out the book, “Do you feel squeamish today? Ha?”

“No.”

“Well, why weren’t you waiting your turn on the bench?”

“I didn’t know.”

“That’s news!” He lifted his brows sarcastically, “Well, begin! Haazinu ha shawmayim veadabairaw.”

“Haazinu ha shawmayim veadabairaw, vtishma haawretz emri fi.” Whirling among the heavy characters on the page, two bodies grappled and strove — He stumbled.

“What ails you? You’re somewhat blind today.”

Without answering, he went on, “Yaarof kamawtawr l-l-likhiy tizol k-k-katal imrawsi.” The letters crowded, parted, deployed — lamp-posts, cobbles, graveled lanes, lanterns on mounds of earth. Whips in air. Time after time he stuttered, halted, corrected himself, went on. The rabbi had begun tapping his pointer slightly as he moved it along.

“Some little deed you’ve done, today, ha?” He lowered his tilted, bushy face to David’s level, and stared with a suspicious grin into his eyes — Tobacco reek. Sweat. Matted nostrils under red, speck-stippled nose. The moist drab gums of false teeth. Revolting. David drew back.

“One deed but a good one, no? No?” His voice rose. “Answer! Are you dumb?”

“No,” sullenly. “Didn’t do anything.”

“Then why do you read like a plaster golem? Ha? Look at me! Lift the hasps of your eyes.”

He glanced up at the angry face for a fleeting second, glanced down.

“Fire strike you!” His thumb shot the leaf over viciously. “Read further!”

David waited till the page settled and then with all his powers, fixed on the letters. The effort seemed to drain him of every ounce of strength, and even despite his efforts, he halted and floundered frequently. His head sank lower and lower over the book. At last the rabbi slapped him.

“Go now!” He said acridly, “Enough balking for a day! Enough for a year! And when you leave here,” his thumb and forefinger curled expoundingly, “take yourself home, sit long in the privy and you’ll have a clearer brow.”

Hardly attending, David slid off the bench.

“And hear me!” he warned. “Tomorrow and you pray thus, I’ll begin currying.”

Voices jeered at him as he crossed the cheder. “Smod guy! Cholly ox! Goot fuh yuh, stingy! Strap onnee ass, yuh’ll ged! His fodder’ll give ’im wit’ de w’ip. I seen—”

He turned. Izzy’s voice sank to a whisper. He hurried through the door. New quoins of light in the cheder yard still patterned the old unreality. At the top of the wooden stairs, the long hallway was empty and full of murky shadows. (—Get on your mark! Get se-e-et! Go! — ) He raced through it, reached the streetlight with prickling scalp. — (Shittin’ fraid-cat, me! Scared now. Never was. And him — Hate him! Stinky mouth! Hate ’em all! Mama, now! Mama—)

Already in the shelter of her arms, he began running along the pavement towards his house. (—Hope he ain’t home! Hope, hope he ain’t!)

He had jogged to within a few yards of his doorway, when a loud confused cry overhead brought him to a halt. He glanced up. With a fat bosom flopping against the ledge of the second floor window a woman was screaming excitedly down at the street. “Beetrice! Beetrice! Horry op!” She craned dangerously out of the window as though she were trying to look into her own doorway. And presently a half-grown girl, pigtails and ribbons flying behind her, came running out. David stared at them in wonder.

“Where is ’e, Mama?” The girl reached the sidewalk and was screaming up.

“Dere! Zeh! Look!” The woman shrilled down. “Sebm fawdy six in de red house!”

“Where? I can’ see!”

“Dort! Oy! Look! De toiteh fluh!”

In open mouthed fixity, the girl stared at the house across the street. “Yea!” She squealed. “I see ’im! I see ’im, Mama!”

“Noo! Catch ’im. Ron! Ron op!”

A small crowd had gathered, children and grownups. Kushy’s face was among them. “Hey, watsuh maddeh? Zug, vuss is?”

“He’s dere! He’s dere on dat house!” the girl babbled and pointed.

“Who?”

“The kinerry! My modder’s!” And urged by the shrill voice of her mother upstairs, she began running across the street. “He got out from the cage! I’ll give a rewuhd!”

She had no sooner gone inside when suddenly from a niche on the wall of the same house, a bright yellow bird dove down, fluttered uncertainly, then skimmed across the street and landed on the scroll-work of the house next to David’s. It perched there a moment while the street gaped up at it, and then it flew up to the roof.

“Whee! Yuh see ’im!” The crowd grew excited. “Oy a fegel! Kent fly so good! Ketch ’im! She’ll give a rewuhd!”

“My roof!” One of the boys plucked his cap off and dashed for the doorway. “I’ll gid ’im wid my hat!”

“A-key!” Kushy tore after him. “A rewuhd!”

“A-key!” A third followed.

“A-key!” A fourth disappeared inside.

A few seconds later, the girl with the pig-tails stuck her head out of the window.

“He flew away!” voices in the crowd bawled up at her. “On de roof across the street!”

“He flew away, Mama!” she screamed.

“I saw already,” the answer shot back. “He shull drop dead!”

Mother and daughter drew their heads in. On the sidewalk necks craned awhile searching the sky. No bird appeared.

“Dey’ll never get ’im. Naaa!”

“A nechtige tug!” The small crowd drifted slowly apart.

— Mama!

He woke from his revery.

— Dumb ox, me! Hurry up!

He ran up the stoop, but at the doorway hesitated, peered in. Again the roots of his hair prickled. He could not bring himself to enter the darkness. All the old fears lurked there again. Why had they returned? Angered to the point of tears at his own cowardice, he paced restlessly back and forth across the stoop, now listening for a sound in the hallway, now peering up and down the street for some familiar face. At last he heard a door slam dully inside as though from an upper floor. He leapt into the hallway, scrambled frantically up the stairs. Between the first and second floors he neared the bulky figure of a woman, squeezed past her and up — still listening to the other’s dwindling footsteps. On the fourth floor, he threw himself breathlessly at the door— It was locked!

“Mama!” he screamed.

“You, David?” Her startled voice.

The enormous relief! “Yes, mama, open it!” The foot he had drawn back to kick at the door in his fury and terror sank again to the floor.

“Wait!” Her voice had a hurried sound. “I’ll open it in a moment.”

What was she doing? And as if in answer, he heard a loud splash of water followed by a flurry of tinkling drops. She had been taking a bath in the washtub. She was getting out now. A chair creaked as though she had stepped on it, then the pad of her bare feet on the floor. “Just one little second more,” she implored.

“Awrigh’” he called to her.

Silence. Feet moving off, returning. The door opened. And as if the light that widened with it were a wedge, the foggy, tormenting globe about his senses split open and dissolved — hue and contour, sound and scent focused.

“Mama!”

“I didn’t mean to keep you waiting.” She was still barefooted. Her faded yellow bathrobe, darkened by water-stains clung to breast and thigh. “But I hurried as fast as I could.” From glistening brown hair, water still streamed down on the towel across her shoulder. The wonted pallor of smooth throat and face was flushed and beaded with water. “What are you staring at?” She smiled, pulled the bathrobe tighter and shut the door behind him.

“I didn’t care if I waited.” He smiled with her. He could almost feel his jarred spirit settle softly in its grooves again.

“But you did storm the door with all the old fury,” she laughed. And pressing her dripping hair against her bosom, she stooped down and kissed him. The warm, faintly soap-scented humidity of her body, ineffably sweet. “I’m so relieved to see you again.”

Where was his father? Behind her the bedroom door was open. No one lay on the bed. Not in. Beatitude flawless.

“You’re still wet!” he giggled suddenly. “Even the floor!”

“Yes. I must mop that dry.” She caught up the wet, dripping twist of her hair in the towel. “Half the tub is on the floor. I vaulted out in such haste. I don’t know why I get so frightened about you — especially if I think you are.” As she spoke, she bent sideways, dipped an arm in the tub to pull the stoppers out. The soapy water sucked and gurgled. Against the window-light, her body showed shadowy outlines, hip and knee lending pink to the yellow. “Did you see many sights on the wagon?”

He shook his head violently.

“No?” Her smile faded. “Why such drooping lips?”

“I hate it! I hate it!” It was all he could do to keep from bursting into tears.

“Why?” She looked at him in surprise. “What happened?”

“Nothing. (—Mustn’t tell. Mustn’t!) Didn’t like it, that’s all.”

“Timid little heart! I know. But tomorrow you won’t have to go — even if that other man doesn’t return, someone else will take that route.”

“Never?”

“Never, what? Go?”

“Yes.”

“No, never.” She sat down, towel a comical turban about her head. “Come here.”

He smiled diffidently and went to her. “You look funny.”

“Do I?” she chuckled and helped him to her knee. The comfort of being against her breast outstripped the farthest-flung pain. “You don’t like being a milkman?”

“No.”

“Nor a milkman’s helper?”

“No!”

“What would you like to be?”

“I don’t know.”

She laughed. How the ear teased for that rippling, sinuous sound. “This morning in the butcher-shop I heard a woman say that her son was going to be a great doctor. Hmm! I thought, how blessed your life is! And how old is your son, the butcher asked. Seven, she answered. The butcher nearly missed the bone he was chopping. And here you’re eight and still you haven’t told me. But you won’t have to go along with the wagon any more— Want some milk? The new yeast cookies you like?” She rubbed her moist brow against his lips. “With the raisins inside?”

“Awrigh’!” he yielded. “But not now.” The closeness of her body was too rare to be relinquished so soon.

“Awhrri’,” she repeated after him, and so drolly he laughed. “But let me get up.”

“No!”

“But I’ve got to get dressed,” she begged. “This shift is clammier than a well-stone. Yes?” She rose; reluctantly he slid from her knee. “I’ll get you the milk and cookies first.”

He watched her go to the bread-box, open it, draw out several honey-colored cookies, place them on a plate and then take a half-filled quart of milk from the ice-box—

— Wagon! They! Ow!

A shudder ran through him.

— Forget!

She filled a glass, set the cookies and milk on the table.

“You eat them while I dress,” she coaxed. “There are more of both if you want them.” And uncoiling the towel about her head went into the bedroom.

He sat down, munched the raisined crispness slowly, stared eagerly at the bedroom door waiting for her to come out.

“What time is it now, David?” Her voice rose above the rustling of the garments.

He stared up at the clock on the shelf. “It’s ten — eleven minutes after two.”

“After two?”

“Yes.”

“He’ll get no sleep this afternoon either.”

— He!

“That double collection keeps him — as if he didn’t work hard enough as it is. But he ought to be home soon.”

— Soon! Home!

The mashed lump of food lay inertly in his mouth.

“Do you remember the time you couldn’t tell time?” Her voice went on after a pause. “You told it by whistles. And once you saved calendar leaves — where are they now?”

— He! See him! No! No! Go down! Quick, before he comes!

He gulped down the half-chewed cud, shoved the remainder of the cooky in his pocket and drank the milk down in noisy haste.

— Take another. She’ll ask.

He dropped another cooky into his pocket. “I’m going down stairs, mama.”

“What!” Her voice was surprised.

“Can I?”

“Have you finished so soon?” She came out of the bedroom. Her dress, hovering between round upstretched arms, “How did you—” settled like a cloud about her head, “manage so soon?” sank below throat, armpits, square scalloped, petticoat. His face was radiant. Her eyes searched the table.

“I was hungry.”

“Well,” she lifted the long nape of hair from her neck. “That’s the quickest you’ve ever eaten. Were they good?”

“Yes.” He was already edging toward the door.

“You rush in and rush out as though the coachman wouldn’t wait. But don’t stay too long.”

“No.”

She smoothed down her dress, crouched, kissed him. “What a fitful one you are! Be up before supper?”

“Yes.”

“Take care of yourself in the street, won’t you?”

“Yes.” He opened the door, shut himself into the gloom of the hallway.

— Ain’t so afraid. Funny, forgot. But hurry …

V

IN THE street again, he fled across the gutter to the side shaded now by houses, and began walking west toward Avenue C. His eyes, peering in all directions to catch sight of his father before he himself was seen, spied Izzy dashing out of the cheder hallway. He didn’t want to talk to him. That taunt about the whip still rankled. He flattened against a store window as Izzy hurried east toward Avenue D, but their glances met; Izzy’s sharp eyes recognized him.

“Hey!” His voice had a novel, friendly note in it. “W’y’ntcha say sompt’n? W’ea’s de geng?”

“I didn’ see ’em.” He thawed cautiously.

“C’mon, let’s find ’em.” Izzy briskly took his arm. “Wonner w’ea Kushy is?”

“Dintcha fighd ’im?” He permitted himself to be led.

“Naa! He’s a lodda boloney! D’ja fodder gib yuh wid de w’ip?”

“No! Did he gid de nickel?”

“Naa! Id wuzn’a nickel — jus’ like I tol’ ’im— He wuz mad yaw fodder — oh boy!”

“No, he wuzn’t.” Why did Izzy persist in changing the subject? “W’a wuz id?”

“W’a’? De nickel? Iyin, like I said.”

“Oh!”

“N’ de rebbeh god mad on yuh good.”

“Yea.” Irritably.

“Yuh bedder gib’m poinduhs,” he advised. “He ga’ me a smack onna puss, lousy bassid! An’ he bussid one on Srooly — Bang! He’s dumb. Betcha million dollehs dey’re all on Evenyeh D.”

They rounded the corner— There they all were, sitting on the curb.

“See? I tol’ ye.” Izzy shot ahead, shaking David completely. “Hey, Geng!”

“Hey, Izzy!” they chorused.

“Led a reggiluh guy sid donn, will yuh?”

“Led ’im sid donn!” they ordered, and shoving against each other made room for him beside Kushy.

Stranded, David hesitantly approached and stood up behind them.

“So w’ea wuz yuh?” Kushy asked.

“I went wid my modder.” Izzy basked in their gaze. “An’ we bought shoes — best kind onnuh Eas’ Side. Waid’ll yuh see ’em. Wid buttons ’n’ flat toes — for kickin’ a food-ball. He wanned t’ree dollehs, bod my modder tol’ me I shull say, Peeuh! Wod lousy shoes! So we god ’em fuh two. An’ nen I went tuh cheder.”

“I like bedder poinds,” contention broke out from some point on the line. “Give a bedder kick inna hole!”

“Yea! Ha! Ha!” they chortled, acknowledging the wisdom of the choice.

“Can’t gid yuh foot oud,” countered Izzy calmly. “So wod’s de good?”

“I like bedder rubbehs,” another differed — a nonentity this time near the end of the rank. “Kin run beddeh.”

“Rubbehs! Yuh greenhunn!” Izzy staggered him with sarcasm first and then finished him off with precision, “Sneakiss, dope! Gid nails righd t’rough ’em — righd t’rough de boddem—’Member, Kushy,” he suddenly guffawed, “w’en I tol yuh he said blitz — inna cheder? Rubbehs guzz on shoes, greenhunn!”

“Aaa! Wiseguy!”

“W’ea wuz yiz?” Izzy ignored the slur.

“We?” Kushy paused importantly. “We seen a kinerry.” A select few snickered as if at a veiled jest.

“W’a kinerry?”

“G’wan tell ’im,” someone urged.

“I wuz dere too!” another put in.

“Waid!” Kushy hastily cautioned them. “My brudder!” And leaning out so he could view both wings, “Hey youz kids, gid odda hea. G’wan!”

“Naa!” The six year olds at either wing protested.

“G’wan!” The older ones blustered. “Skidoo!”

“Street ain’ yours!” stubbornly.

“Wanna ged a lam onnuh eye?”

“I’ll tell mama,” one of the juniors threatened.

“I’ll give yuh now!” Kushy half-rose.

Sulkily, they slid along the curb a few feet away from the rest.

“So w’ad kinerry?” from Izzy.

They drew closer.

“Yuh know Schloimee Salmonowitz wot lives in sebnfawdee-fi’?”

“Wad he had de mockee wid de bendij on his head?”

“Yea!”

“Yea, he wuz in my cheder. So wot?”

“So Sadie Salmonowitz came running downstairs ’n’ hollerin’, My modder’s kinerry, my modder’s kinerry flied away! I’ll give a rewuhd!”

“Yuh god de rewuhd?” Izzy asked eagerly. “How moch?”

“Waid a second. An’ den we seen ’im on sebn-fawdy-six, across de stritt an’ ziz! He gives a fly back an’ zip! op to duh roof—”

“My house!” another voice chimed in. “He flew—”

“Shod op!” Kushy snatched back the thread of his narrative. “Schmeelkee’s house he flew. So we all grabbed our hats an’ runned inna duh hall. Yuh catch ’em wid a hat — like dot!” Without warning he plucked his neighbor’s cap from his head and pitched it spinning into the gutter.

“Ha-a! Ha-a! He-e! He-e!” Clacking like nine-pins before a heavy bowl of mirth they tumbled about the sidewalk. “He-e! He-e! Ha-a! Ha-a! Ha-a!”

“Cud id oud, wise guy!” Grinning at the clever prank, the owner rose to retrieve it. Immediately all buttocks crammed together, squeezing him out of his seat. Returned, he flung himself between the packed usurpers and after much scuffing, cursing, butting and pushing, regained, if not his own place, at least one as desirable.

“So dot’s de joke?” inquired Izzy contemptuously when the new equilibrium was finally restored.

“Naa!” crowed Kushy and one or two more. “Dat ain’ de joke!”

“So w’od?”

“So we runned opstai’s to de roof. An’ Schmeelkee fell on his leg, duh dope—”

“Wanna see wea I cut?” Schmeelkee’s stocking went down, revealing a newly scabbed skin. “Righd on duh bone!”

“Den wod?”

“So wa-a-aid a minid,” drawled Kushy delighted at Izzy’s nettled tone. “So we wen’ op — quiet! We didn’ make no noise cause we didn’ wanna scare de kinerry. An’ we god on de roof, an’ we walked aroun’ an we looked — He musta flied away!”

“But we seen annudder kinerry!” Schmeelkee boiled over.

“Woddayuh mean?”

“Sh!” Kushy looked to see whether the juniors on either wing still kept their distance. “So we snuck ovuh by duh air-sheff — yuh know w’ea is between sebn-fifty-one an’ sebn-fawdy-nine?”

“Yea.”

Absorption stilled their fidgeting. All eyes converged on Kushy. David too leaned closer.

“An’ we all gave a look — An’ yuh know wod we seen? Hee! Hee! We seen a lady washin’ huhself inna washtub! Hee! Hee!”

— Washtub! (David grew rigid)

“Wod lady?” Izzy asked.

“Don’ know. Couldn’t see good huh face.”

“So wadjuh see?”

“Ev’yting! Oh, boy! Big tids stickin’ oud in frund!” His descriptive hands, molding the air, dragged other hands along with them as though all were tethered to the same excitement. “She was sittin’ in duh wawduh!”

— She! Mine! Aaa, mine!

The rush of shame set his cheeks and ears blazing like flame before a bellows, drove blood like a plunger against the roof of his skull. He stood with feet mortised to the spot, knees sagging, quivering.

“So den?” Izzy spurred.

“So den, she jomps up an nen we seen ev’yting—!”

“Big bush under duh belly!” The others jumbled voice with gestures. “Fat ass, we seen! Big — Wuh! Wadda kinerry! Wee! An’ duh hull knish! All de hairs!”

“Yea? No kiddin’?”

“Sure!”

“Didja watch?”

“No. She gave a look righd ad us.”

“She didn’ look, I tol’ yuh!”

“She did!”

“She didn’!”

“She did! Wod she jump oud for!”

“So?”

“So we run down-stairs — Wee! Wod a kinerry we seen!”

— Aaa! Lousy son of a bitch! Murder ’em! K-Kick ’em! Kill ’em! G-go ’way’—Yuh gonna cry!

“W’a fluh — Yee, wish I wuz dere. W’ea! Tell us — Led’s go—”

Like flying hail against his nakedness their sharp cries stunned and flayed him. Blind with loathing, he reeled away — unnoticed.

(—Ow! Ow! Don’t let ’em see! Don’t let ’em know. Ow!) The hot tears sprang to his eyes, the more scalding for resistance. He twisted about, yanked his head down, and began running to the corner.

— Aaa! Mama! Mine it was! Should have kicked ’em, kicked ’em and run. Go back! Kick em! Kick ’em in the belly. G’wan, you coward! Coward! Coward! Coward! Hate ’em! All! All! Everybody! Shouldn’t have gone over. Never go over again! Never talk to them even! Hate ’em! And she — Why did she let them look. Shades, why didn’t she pull them? Ain’t none! Ain’t none! And she let me look at her! Mad at her! Ow! Don’t let ’em see me crying! Cry baby! Cry baby!

He stumbled blindly across the street, flung himself into the hallway. The obscure stairs. At last he reached his own floor.

— Scared. Don’t care. Scared before. Scared all the time.

— Got to stop crying. She’ll ask why. What’ll I say? From the roof they saw you. No, no, don’t say anything — roof they. Roof … Roof? Never was … up there … I wonder?…

He stared in breathless irresolution from his own doorway to the roof-door overhead. The clean, untrodden flight of stairs that led up, beckoned even as they forbade; temptingly the light swarmed down through the glass of the roof-housing, silent, untenanted light; evoking in his mind and superimposing an image of the snow he had once vaulted into and an image of the light he had once climbed. Here was a better haven than either, a more durable purity. Why had he never thought of it before? He had only to conquer his cowardice, and that solitude and that radiance were his. But quickly, he must go quickly, before someone came out. He mounted the stairs that even underfoot felt differently, as though the unworn mica in them sparkled through the soles — and stopped at the door. Only a catch held it back; it could be lifted. He tugged it with crooked finger. It flew up suddenly — Panic stricken, he watched the heavy door swing away from his hand, squeak leisurely and on reluctant hinges into the sky. (—Down! Run down!) He threw a frightened glance over his shoulder. (—No! Coward! Stay right here! G’wan! G’wan out! It’s light! What’re you scared of?) He lifted a tentative unsteady foot over the high threshold. (—Ow!) The red-painted sheet-iron crackled under his soles with a terrifying report. (—Go back! Run! No! Won’t! G’wan, make a noise! Who cares? G’wan coward!) Breath bound in his lungs, he swung the snickering door back into place. It stayed closed.

— Gee!

He sighed tremulously, lifted his head, and with body pivoting on fixed feet, gazed about him.

The immense heavens of July, the burnished, the shining fathom upon fathom. Too pure the zenith was, too pure for the flawed and flinching eye; the eye sowed it with linty darkness, sowed it with spores and ripples of shadow drifting. (—Even up here dark follows, but only a little bit) And to the west, the blinding whorl of the sun, the disk and trumpet, triple-trumpet blaring light. He blinked, dropped his eyes and looked about him. Quiet. Odor of ashes, the cold subterranean breath of chimneys. (—Even up here cellar follows, but only a little bit) And about were roof-tops, tarred and red and sunlit and red, roof-tops to the scarred horizon. Flocks of pigeons wheeled. Where they flew in lower air, they hung like a poised and never-raveling smoke; nearer at hand and higher, they glittered like rippling water in the sun. Quiet. Sunlight on brow and far off plating the sides of spires and water-towers and chimney pots and the golden cliffs of the streets. To the east the bridges, fragile in powdery light.

— Gee! Alone … Ain’t so scared.

VI

WHEN he came down from the roof a little while later, he crept down a few steps toward the floor below his own. He would stamp up just before he entered his house, stamp toward his door. It would make his coming home seem more natural. He did so.

His mother looked strange when he entered — so strange that for a moment, he thought his ruse had failed, he thought himself discovered. But another glance reassured him, and yet while it reassured him on one score troubled him vaguely on another. It wasn’t awareness or alertness or suspicion that was the cause of that glow in her features, that calm, but something else, something he scarcely ever remembered seeing before — an obscure lassitude, a profound and incomprehensible contentment. What was it? What made the hand that had placed a finger across her lips, warning him that he had made too much noise, come down so slowly and with such peculiar, self-conscious grace as though her whole body found a relish in the very movement of her limbs, and relishing, lingered. It touched a chord of memory within himself, touched it with finger tips — Some thing he had done, felt? What? The wisp of a stir within his beign faded before the mind could fasten on it. It was baffling. He looked about the kitchen. The bedroom door was closed — his father was asleep. And on the wash-tub lay a bulky package, the strings cut, but the heavy brown paper still covering it; and beside it, crossing each other, a new white-handled whip and the butt of the old broken black one. He felt his legs stiffen, brace against the sudden undertow of terror. He turned away. His mother had lowered the finger from her lips and greeted him. (But where were the outstretched arms she always met him with?) And then she smiled. (But was that smile for him or for that inner languor that suffused and harmonized her spirit?) His eyes darted to the parcel and the whips on the washtub and then returned to her — questioningly. She seemed to avoid his query, and asked instead:

“Why is your nose so sunburned? Where have you been?”

The wonder that her singular appearance had produced within himself almost lowered his guard. He came within a breath of telling her the truth — but stopped himself in time. “On the sidewalk.” His eyes wavered between her waist and the linoleum. “We were all sitting. It was hot.”

“Your father’s bought a new whip,” she smiled. “Is that what you wanted to ask me?”

“N-no.”

“Oh, no? I thought you were just dying to ask me if you could have the broken one. Perhaps Albert will give—”

But he was already shaking his head. (It was hard not to be violent, not to be vehement all the time. Sometimes the hoops of caution almost snapped.)

“What’s that?” he pointed to the parcel. “Can I look?”

“Why, of course! But I warn you,” she laughed, as she went over to the wash-tub, “this time it’s really a big surprise!”

There was an old overtone in her words, but he was too experienced now to ask, “Is it for me?” Instead, he merely lifted the heavy wrapping-paper flaps — and stared and blinked and stared again! At his back he heard her expectant laughter. Before him on a shield-shaped wooden plaque, two magnificent horns curved out and up, pale yellow to the ebony tips. So wide was the span between them, he could almost have stretched his arms out on either side, before he could touch them. Though they lay there inertly, their bases solidly fastened to the dark wood, there pulsed from them still a suggestion of terrific power, a power that even while they lay motionless made the breast ache as though they were ever imminent, ever charging.

“And those?” her voice was bright with amusement. “Do you know what those are?”

He gaped at her. “A — a c-cow,” he stuttered. “In pictures I saw them. And — and when Aunt Bertha took me to the moving pitchers.”

“A cow, but a he-cow!” she laughed. “A bull. I don’t know whether you ever saw one even as an infant in Austria. They were monstrous — walls of flesh and strength.”

“Did he buy it?”

“Why yes, of course. When he bought the whip.”

“Oh! Is that why he got it?”

“Why yes, it reminded him of the time when he took care of cattle. You see,” she explained, “When your grandfather — his father — was overseer of the baron’s yeast factory, he put Albert in charge of the cattle. They fed them on mash — but you’ve already heard him speak of that.”

“What’s he going to do with them?” he asked after a pause.

“Hang them up of course. In the front-room.” Her eyes wandered to the picture of the corn flowers on the wall. “He couldn’t find a nail strong enough.”

He was silent. Somehow he couldn’t quite believe that it was for memory’s sake only that his father had bought this trophy. Somehow looking at the horns, guessing the enormous strength of the beast who must have owned them, there seemed to be another reason. He couldn’t quite fathom it though. But why was it that two things so remote from each other seemed to have become firmly coupled in his mind? It was as though the horns lying on the wash-tub had bridged them, as though one tip pierced one image and one tip the other — that man outstretched on the sidewalk, that mysterious look of repose in his mother’s face when he had come in. Why? Why did he think of them at one and the same time. He couldn’t tell. He sensed only that in the horns, in the poised power of them lay a threat, a challenge he must answer, he must meet. But he didn’t know how.

VII

WHEN David thought of the roof the next morning, he thought of it with so peculiarly selfish a joy that it kept him from thinking any further. The roof, that precinct in the sky, that silent balcony on the pinnacle of turmoil, demanded that what thoughts one had be had there. He culled them, sorted out what he would think when he got up there — he would allow them to blossom once he had climbed up the stairs. And a little while later he was there. What sounds from the street, what voices drifted up the air-shafts, only made his solitude more real, the detachment of his reveries more delightful.

He had found an old, weather-beaten box lying in the shady side of the roof-stair housing and he had been sitting there some time watching his thoughts uncurl when the creak of a door somewhere startled him. His first thought was that Izzy or Kushy were coming up again in order to see what they had seen before. And listening to the tread of feet on the squawking tin, he sat there rigidly, gritting his teeth in fury. What right had they to come up again, to torment him after he had found a little peace? Would they drive him out of every place he went, every retreat? He wouldn’t let them! He wouldn’t let them look down his air-shaft again. He’d fight, he’d scratch, he’d kick! Hidden behind the shed he listened a moment longer. Footsteps were followed by another sound — a hollow scuffing noise as of feet scraping up a fence. Then the tread again, but now no longer on the tin. Who was it? He heard a fluttering whirr. Faint taps. The slight, taut snapping of a stretched string. That couldn’t be them. What was it? Cautiously he peeped around the edge of the shed—

On the high lean-to that covered the stairway of the next roof but one, stood a boy, kite-string in hand, spindle rattling at his feet, and in the air a short distance from him, a rag-tailed, crimson kite ducked and soared. His blond hair, only a shade less fair than his brow, hung over his brow like a gold claw. He was snub-nosed; his cheeks had a faint flush and his eyes were blue. Teeth over lip, head lifted into light, he watched his kite intently, now paying out string, now jogging it to newer heights. It swayed slowly, tacking into upper air; there it steadied and drew away with sagging glint of string.

Watching him, David felt a bond of kinship growing up between them. They were both alone on the roof, both inhabitants of the same realm. That was a bond between them. But David could tell by looking at him, that the other had come up to the roof out of assurance — this was only another phase of his life. David himself had come up tentatively, timidly, because there was no other place to go. He suddenly began wishing he could know this carefree, confident stranger. But he had never seen his face before — that blond hair, those blue eyes didn’t belong to Ninth Street. How could he begin? Mentally he went over the various ways of striking up an acquaintance. He wished that he had something to offer him — the cookies he had thrown away yesterday or a bit of string. Longingly, he watched him.

With one hand poised as though the string’s steadiness depended on his balance, he felt behind him for the sloping floor under his feet and then sat down. He leaned back contentedly, whistling short fitful notes. David couldn’t make up his mind whether he ought to come out of hiding or content himself with merely watching the kite. He watched the kite. And suddenly stared—

It was hard to tell what street they were nearer to, Eleventh or Twelfth but he could see them clearly. There were two, perhaps three boys, and with bodies bent low, they were crawling over the roofs, now emerging now ducking behind chimney pots and skylights. Another few seconds and they were under the hanging arc of the kite-cord — although far below it. He glanced sharply at the owner of the kite. Unaware of any danger, he lay sprawled back, still whistling up at the sky. When David looked back to the distant ones, they had already risen from hands and knees and were vigorously twirling something in the air.

“Pssst!” He leaped out of hiding. “Pssst!” Not daring to speak, he made frantic motions of dragging in the kite-cord.

“W’at?” The other scrambled to his feet. “W’atsa matter?” And when David pointed vehemently in the direction of the distant marauders, “Cheesis! Dey’re sling-shootin’ it!” he shouted excitedly. “Cheesis!” And as fast as his hands could go, began yanking in the line.

The slings had been thrown. Both missed, fell, doubling back on the strings they trailed. They flung them up again. But as the kite came sailing home, it rose higher and higher — further from their range. At last the owner rested, babbling exultantly.

“Cheesis! See ’em! Dere dey go! Hidin’ back o’ dat! Bot’ of ’em! Didn’ get it dough. Lousy micks, nearly slung it! Waaa!” he screeched, thumbing his nose at the two distant figures. “Ya Irish mutts! Waid’ll I git ya, I’ll rap de piss odda ye!”

What abuse the others bawled back in reply was too faint to hear, but David could see them wagging their hands under their chins.

“Ha! Ha! Look at ’em!” the blond one yelled over to him. “See w’at dey’re doin’? Dey t’ink I’m a Jew! See ’em! Dopy mutts! Dopy mutts,” he yodeled again. “Dopy mutts!” And then glancing at his feet. “Chee! Looka my kite-cord — all twissed up! Hey, c’mon over, will ya? C’mon, give us a hand.”

David shook his head.

“Wottsa madder, can’tcha talk?” The other stared at him.

Nodding vigorously, David pointed down to the roof at his feet.

The other grinned, face lighting up as though he understood. “C’mon,” he whispered throatily, head hooking the air. “It’s easy!”

— Better not.

There was something hazardous about climbing over the wall on a roof, especially with the deep pit of the air-shaft near at hand. The thought made one dizzy.

“Go over dat way,” the other urged.

(—Ain’t scared. Ain’t gonna be!) He tiptoed breathlessly across the crackling tin, climbed over the low wall onto the second roof. Another wall and the blue eyes gazed curiously down at him over the edge of the shed.

“Who ye scared o’?”

“Nott’n. I live on de top-fluh. I did’n’ wan’ my modder sh’d hea’ me.”

“Oh. Wouldn’ she letcha stay hea?”

“No. She’ll make me comm donn.”

“C’mon up hea’ den. Nobody c’n see ye.”

“So hoddy yuh go?”

“Hop up on ’at liddle winder. Den dese big bolts. See ’em?”

David essayed them. The other, one eye on his kite, lent a helping hand. “Sit onna noospaper,” he invited when David had climbed up; “Hol’ me kite will ye an’ I’ll git me cord onna spool.”

“Yea.”

“Don’ leggo of it.” He gave the string into David’s keeping. “It’s got some pull.”

“Gee!” The tug on his hand was almost alive. “It flies!”

The other laughed. “Sure it flies. Yuh c’n sit down wid it.” He squatted down himself, began undoing the snarl of string at his feet. “De lousy micks! Look wat dey made me do! G’wan sit down!”

“Don’ your modder care if yuh come op hea?”

“She? Naw! She woiks!”

“Oh! W’ea’s yuh foddeh?”

“I ain’t got none. Me old man usetuh woik on de railro’. But he wuz squeezed between two trains when I wuz liddle an’ we lived in Paterson. Wot’s yuh name?”

“Davy. Davy Schearl.”

“My name’s Leo Dugovka. I’m a Polish-American. You’re a Jew, ain’tcha?”

“Y-Yea.”

“Say, wuz yew wit’ dem kids w’at wuz runnin’ on de roof yestiddy?”

“No I wuzn’t,” vehemently.

“I’ll knock dere block off if I ketch ’em nex’ time. Dey nearly made de plaster fall down.”

“Yea,” David’s heart warmed to Leo’s. “Y’oughta gib’m. Gib’m good!”

“Jist waid’ll I gid ’em.” Leo worked rapidly at the spindle. “I’ll bust ’em one.”

“I never seen yuh in dis block. Yuh livin’ hea long?”

“Naa, we usen’t to live hea, but me ol’ lady got a job in ’at big bank on sixt’ and Avenee C — yuh know wit dem swell w’ite stones an ’gold ledders — Foist National.”

“Yea,” said David wonderingly. “Wit’ iron bars in id ’n’ dat big clock. Does she woik wid all dat money?”

“Yea, she cleans all de desks an’ awffices ’n’ ev’yt’ing.”

“Oh? So who gives yuh to eat?”

“I takes it myself.”

“Gee!” David breathed in the enormous freedom. “Yuh gonna comm up hea alluh time?”

“Naw! I hangs out on wes’ elevent’. Dat’s w’ea we lived ’fore we moved. It’s a mick block, only some of de Hogan’s alley kids is in de All Saints Camp.”

“Oh!” disappointedly. “Gee, dat’s far, wes’ elebn’t.”

“Yeah, but I got skates.”

“Skates, gee!” There was no end to Leo’s blessings — no father, almost no mother, skates.

“Git dere in a minute wit’ ’em. You got a pair?”

“No.”

“Wyntcha git a pair an’ hang out wit’ me.”

“I can’t.”

“Aintcher ol’ man livin’?”

“Yea, but he wouldn’ buy.”

“Wyntcha ast yer ol’ lady.”

“She can’t.”

“Chees! Jews never buys nutt’n fer deyr kids.”

David searched the horizon for something to fill in the awkward pause. “Dey ain’ dere now, doze — doze micks,” he ventured.

“Don’ worry! Dere jis layin’ low, you watch!” He squinted at the distant roofs. “But I ain’ gonna let it out dough.”

“No.” He was relieved that the topic had changed. “How much cost a kite?”

“Dat one’s on’y two cents. Butcha gotta git a lodda cord wid it, er ye can’t fly it.”

“Kentcha fly wit’ cotton?”

“Naw! It busts. I had a big kite oncet — twicet as big as dis one — an’ wot a pull on it — an’ it busted wid even red cord. Wuz way out over St. Jame’s Parochial on Twelft’ an’ Avenee C — yuh c’n see de cross — See it?”

“Yea.”

“Wuz full o’ messages an’ den it went an’ busted. Lost nearly all me cord too — got twissed on de roofs.”

“Why yuh god id?” David gazed out at the distant spire outlined against the hazy western blue. “Dat funny cross ev’y place?”

“Funny?” Leo’s voice was nettled. “Wot’s funny about it?”

“Not funny — I didn’t mean!” He was quick to mollify. “I mean w’y yuh god id?”

“Crosses is holy.” Leo instructed him severely, “All of ’em. Christ, our Savior, died on one o’ dem.”

“Oh! (Savior! What?) I didn’t know.”

“Sure, even if yuh wears ’em, dey bring yuh luck. When me ol’ lady had her appendixitis cut out, she had one o ’dem under her piller ev’y night, an’ dat’s w’y she got better.”

“Gee!”

“Yea an’ ev’y’ time I goes swimmin’ in de Hudson I always cross meself t’ree times — like dat. Den yuh kin Johnny-high-dive all yuh wants an’ yuh’ll never hit bottom — didn’tcha know dat?” And when David looked blank. “Yuh see dis?” As if to clinch his argument, he undid a button on his shirt, reached in and drew out what looked like a square piece of leather on a string. “Know what dat is?”

He scrutinized it, shook his head. Something had been stamped on it in gold — a picture perhaps — but too faded now to make out. “Maybe a man an’ a liddle lady,” he ventured. “I can’t see so good.”

“A man and a lady!” Leo turned his head aside to crow. “Oh boy, wot Jews don’ know! Dat’s a scapiller, see? An’ dat’s a pitcher o’ de holy Mudder an’ Chil’. Cheez! Doncha know de Woigin Mary w’en yuh sees ’er?”

“No,” guiltily.

“Cheez!” incredulously, and then lifting the bit of leather to examine it more closely, “It’s gittin’ rubbed off, I guess.” He slipped it back under his shirt. “Dat’s cawz I goes swimmin’ in it all de time in de river.”

“An’ yuh ain’ ascared o’ nottin’ w’en yuh god dat on?”

“Naw! I tol’ ye!”

“Chee!” David sighed and gazed at Leo’s chest half in awe, half in envy.

— Not afraid! Leo wasn’t afraid!

“Hey, look out for dat kite!” Leo relieved him hastily of the string. “Yuh don’ wanna led it dive like dat, it’ll smack a roof!”

— Not afraid!

VIII

THE hour that had passed had been one of the most blissful in David’s life. He had never wanted to be anyone’s friend until this moment, and now he would have given anything to be Leo’s. The longer he heard him speak, the longer he watched him, the more he became convinced that Leo belonged to a rarer, bolder, carefree world. There was a glamour about him. He did what he pleased and when he pleased. He was not only free of parents, but he also wore something about his neck that made him almost god-like. Sitting next to him, David’s one concern had been how to ingratiate himself, how to keep Leo amused, keep him from remembering that time was passing. Whenever Leo had laughed, David had felt his own bosom swell up with joy; even when Leo had jeered at him he felt grateful. It was right that Leo should jeer at him. Leo was a superior being; his laugh was just. When Leo had asked him whether Jews wore amulets on their persons, David had described the “Tzitzos” that some Jewish boys wore under their shirts, and the “Tfilin”, the little leather boxes, he had seen men strap around their arms and brows in the synagogue — had described them, hoping that Leo would laugh. He did. And even when Leo had said of the “Mezuzeh”, the little metal-covered scroll that all Jews tacked on the door-posts above their thresholds—“Oh! Izzat wotchuh call em? Miss oozer? Me ol’ lady tore one o’ dem off de door w’en we moved in, and I busted it, an’ cheez! It wuz all full o’ Chinee on liddle terlit paper — all aroun’ an’ aroun’.” David had not been hurt. He had felt a slight qualm of guilt, yes, guilt because he was betraying all the Jews in his house who had Mezuzehs above their doors; but if Leo thought it was funny, then it was funny and it didn’t matter. He had even added lamely that the only thing Jews wore around their necks were camphor balls against measles, merely to hear the intoxicating sound of Leo’s derisive laugh. But at last, Time would have his way. The sun had risen to the zenith and Leo began drawing in the kite-cord. Resentfully, David eyed the approaching kite.

“Yuh ain’ gonna fly no maw?” he asked hoping against hope.

“Naw, I’m goin’ down.”

David hoped he would be invited. He wasn’t. “Wy’ntcha comm t’morreh again?” he urged.

“I’m goin’t’ elevent’, I tol’ yuh.”

His answer was like a pang. He was slipping away. He might never see him again! “Wish I had skates!” he said fervently. “Chee! I wish I had skates!” And suddenly a new thought struck him. “Wot time yuh commin’ home? Dont’cha comm home on twelve a’clock an’ eat?”

“Naw. I buys a couple o’ franks on a roll fer a jit.”

The last shred of hope. Leo’s freedom was unattainable. David could feel himself drooping. “So I ain’ gonna see yuh?” he asked miserably.

“Hodda ya wan’ me to know.” Leo had begun climbing down the shed.

“I’ll ged yuh somm cake—” David followed him down. “Big hunks if yuh comm up hea tomorreh.”

“Naw!”

“Can’t I comm witchuh? I c’n walk.”

But his clinging to Leo only tended to make him more unfriendly. “G’wan! I don’ wancher hanging’ aroun’ me. Ye ain’t big enough.”

“Yes I am!”

“Betcha y’ain’t even ten.”

“Sure I am!” He lied eagerly. “I’m goin’ on eleb’n.”

“Well, I’m goin’ on twelve. Ye ain’t got skates anyway.” He opened the roof-door, impatiently. “Better go acrost now, ’cause I’m goin down.” And as he stepped down, “So long!” And abruptly shut the roof-door behind him.”

“So long!” he called through the metal-covered door. “So long, Leo!” And could have wept the next moment. A little while he stood staring at the door, and then mournfully crossed over the roofs and sat down on the box. Without Leo, the roof had suddenly become vacant, had lost its appeal. Nor was sitting on the box comfortable any longer — he could feel its hard edges now, biting into his thighs. But a kind of inertia engendered by loss kept him where he was, and he leaned back broodily against the skylight. Skates. That was the real reason why he had lost Leo — because he lacked them. He could almost see the gulf between himself and Leo widening with Leo’s flying skates. And he had liked Leo so much, even if he was a goy, had liked him better than anyone in the whole block. If only he had a pair of skates! There was very little chance though. A penny a day his mother gave him; that made two on Tuesday; three on Wednesday. It would take forever, and one needed dollars and dollars. If he had a pair of skates he could leave the hated boys on his block behind him; he could go to Leo’s block, to Central Park, as Leo said he did. That park with the trees, where he went with Aunt Bertha, that white museum — Aunt Bertha! Her candy store! She must have skates in her candy store! She might even have an old pair that she would give him for nothing! Why hadn’t he thought of that before? He’d go now. No, he couldn’t go now. There was luncheon and cheder. He’d go to-morrow. Oh, wait till Leo saw him with his skates! He hurried joyfully down the stairs.

IX

WITHOUT telling his mother where he was going he had started out early that morning for Aunt Bertha’s candy store. It had been a long walk, but high hopes had buoyed him up. And now he saw a few blocks away the gilded mortar and pestle above a certain drugstore window. That was Kane Street. His breast began pounding feverishly as he drew near.

What if she didn’t have any skates. No! She must have! He turned the corner, walked east. A few houses and there was the candy store. He’d look into the window first. Jumping up eagerly on the iron scrolls of the cellar railing beside the store window, he pressed his nose against the glass, scrutinized the display. A wild, garish clutter of Indian bonnets, notebooks, pencil boxes, pasteboard females, American flags, uncut strips of battleships and ball players — but no skates for his flitting eyes to light upon. Hope wavered. No, they must be inside. Aunt Bertha would be foolish to keep anything so valuable in the window.

He peered in through a crevice in the chaos. Seated behind the counter, one hand poising a dripping roll above a coffee cup, Aunt Bertha had turned her head toward the rear of the store and was bawling at someone inside. David could hear her voice coming through the doorway. He got down from the rail, sidled around the edge of the window and went in—

“Sluggards! Bedbugs foul!” she shrilled unaware of his entrance. “Esther! Polly! Will you get up! Or shall I spit my lungs out at you! Quick, stinking heifers, you hear me! No?”

Aunt Bertha had changed since David had seen her last. Uncorseted, she looked fatter now, frowsier. The last remnant of tidiness in her appearance had vanished. Her heavy breasts, sagging visibly against her blouse, stained by fruit juice and chocolate, flopped slovenly from side to side. Fibres of her raffia-coarse red hair twined her moist throat. But her face was strangely thin and taut as though a weight where her apron bulged were dragging the skin down. “Wait!” she continued. “Wait till your father comes. Hi! He’ll rend you with his teeth! Stinking sluts, it’s almost nine!” She turned. “Vell?” and recognizing him. “David!” The hectic light in her eyes melted into pleasure. “David! My little bon-bon! You?”

“Yea!”

“Come here!” she spread fat arms like branches. “Let me give you a kiss, my honey-comb! I haven’t seen you in — how long? And Mama, why doesn’t she come? And how is your father?” Her eyes opened fiercely. “Still mad?” She submerged him in a fat embrace that reeked of perspiration flavored with coffee.

“Mama is all right.” He squirmed free. “Papa too.”

“What are you doing here? Did you come alone? All this long way?”

“Yes, I—”

“Want some candy? Ha! Ha! I know you, sly one!” She reached into a case. “Hea, I giff you an pineepple vit’ emmend. Do I speak English better?”

“Yea.” He pocketed them.

“End a liddle suddeh vuddeh?”

“No, I don’t want it.” He answered in Yiddish. For some reason he found himself preferring his aunt’s native speech to English.

“And so early!” She rattled on admiringly. “Not like my two wenches, sluggish turds! And you’re younger than they. If only you were mine instead of— Cattle!” She broke off furiously. “Selfish, mouldering hussies! All they know is to snore and guzzle! I’ll husk them out of bed now, God help me!” But just as she started heavily for the doorway, a man stepped into the store.

“Hello! Hello!” He called loudly. “What are you scurrying off for? Because I came in?”

“No-o! God forbid!” she exclaimed with mock vehemence. “How fares a Jew?”

“How fares it with all Jews? A bare living. Can you spare me a thousand guilders?”

“Ha! Ha! What a jester! The only green-rinds I ever see are what I peel from cucumbers.” And turning to David. “Go in, sweet one! Tell them I’ll sacrifice them for the sake of heathens if they don’t get up! That’s my sister’s only one,” she explained.

“Comely,” admitted the other.

David hesitated, “You want me to go in?”

“Yes! Yes! Perhaps you’ll shame the sows into rising.”

“Your fledgelings are still in the nest?”

“And what else?” disgustedly. “Lazy as cats. Go right in, my bright.”

Reluctantly, David squeezed past her, and casting a last vain glance at the jumbled shelves, pushed the spring door forward and went in. Beyond the narrow passageway, cramped even closer by the stumpy mottled columns on pasteboard boxes carelessly piled, the kitchen opened up with a stale reek of unwashed frying pans. The wooden table in the center was bare except for a half-filled bottle of ketchup with a rakish cap. Pots, one in another, still squatted on the gas-stove. From a corner of the stove-tray under the burners, coffee dripped to a puddle on the floor. The sink was stacked with dishes, and beside it on the washtub a bagful of rolls lay spilled all over. Splayed newspapers, crumpled garments, shoes, stockings, hung from the chairs or littered the floor. There were three doors, all closed, one on either side and one with a broom against it opening on the yard.

— Gee! Dirty.… Which one?

A giggle at his left. He approached cautiously.

“Is she commin’?” A guarded voice inside.

“Sh!”

“Hey,” he called out in a non-committal voice, “Yuh momma wants you sh’d ged op!”

“Who’re you?” Challengingly from the other side.

“It’s me, Davy.”

“Davy who?”

“Davy Schearl, Tanta Boita’s nephew.”

“Oh! So open de daw.”

He pushed it back — The clinging stench of dried urine. Lit by a small window that gave upon the squalid grey bricks of an airshaft, the room was gloomy. Only after a few seconds had passed did the features of the two heads that pronged the grey, mussed coverlets separate from the murk.

“It’s him!” A voice from the pillow.

“So wodda yuh wan’?” He finally distinguished the voice as Esther’s.

“I tol’ yuh,” he repeated. “Yuh momma wants yuh sh’d get op. She tol’ me I shul tell yuh.” The message delivered, he began to retreat.

“Comm beck!” Imperiously. “Dope! Wodda yuh wan’ in duh staw I asked.”

“N-nott’n.”

“So waddaye comm hea fuh?” Polly demanded suspiciously. “Kendy?”

“No, I didn’. I jost comm to see Tanta Boita.”

“Aaa, he’s full of hoss-cops — C’mon, Polly!” Esther was the one nearest the wall. “Ged out!” She sat up.

Polly clung to the covers. “Ged oud yuhself foist.”

“Yuh bedder! Yuh hoid w’ad mama said.”

“So led ’er say.” Peevishly.

“I ain’ gonna clean de kitchen by myself,” Esther stood up on the bed. “You’ll ged!”

“Don’ cross over me. Id’s hard luck.”

“I will if yuh don’ ged out!”

“You jus’ try — go over by my feet—”

But even as she spoke, Esther jumped over her.

“Lousy bestia!” Polly screeched. And as her sister jounced with unsure footing on the bed, she clutched at the hem of her nightgown and yanked her back. Esther tumbled heavily against the wall.

“Ow! Rotten louse!” Esther screamed in return. “Yuh hoit my head.” And swooping down on the coverlets, flung them back. “Yeee!” she squawled as Polly, taken by surprise lay for an instant with nightgown above naked navel, “Yeee! Free show! Free show!”

“Free show, yuhself!” Furiously, Polly clawed at the other’s nightgown. “Yuh stinkin’ fraid cat! Shame! Shame! Free show!” Immediately four bare thighs kicked, squirmed and locked, and the two sisters rolled about in bed, slapping each other and shrieking. After a minute of this, the disheveled Esther, with a last vicious slap, at the other, broke loose, leapt from the bed and squealing rushed past David into the kitchen.

“I’ll moider you — yuh rotten stinker!” Polly screamed after her. “I’ll break yuh head!” she rolled out of bed as well.

“Yea, I double dare you!” Quivering with spite, Esther bent fingers into claws.

“I’ll tell mama on you! I’ll tell ’er watchuh done!”

“I ain’ gonna go down witchoo.” Her sister spat. “Just fer dat, you go yuhself.”

“So don’t. I’ll tell him too!”

“I’ll kill yuh!”

“Yea! Yuh know w’ot Polly does?” Esther wheeled on him. “She pees in bed every night! Dat’s w’at she does! My fodder has to give her a pee-pot twelve a’clock every night—”

“I don’t!”

“Yuh do! Dere!”

“Now I’ll never take yuh down, yuh lousy fraid-cat. Never! Never!”

“So don’t!”

“An’ I hope de biggest moider boogey man tears yuh ass out.”

“Piss-in-bed!” Esther taunted stubbornly. “Piss in bed!”

“An he’ll comm, Booh!” Polly pawed the air, eyes bulging in mimic fright. “Booh! Like de Mask-man in de serial! Wooh!”

“Aaa, shoddop!” Esther flinched. “Mama’ll take me down.”

“Yea!” her sister gloated. “Stinkin’ fraid-cat! Who’ll stay in de staw?”

“You!”

“Yuh should live so!”

“So I’ll pee in de sink.” Esther threatened.

“Wid de dishes in id! G’wan, I dare yuh! An’ yuh know w’ot Mama’ll give yuh w’en I tell ’er.”

“So I’ll waid! Aaa! He’ll go down!” she shrilled in sudden triumph. “Mbaa!” her tongue flicked out. “Mbaa! Davy’ll go down wit’ me!”

“Yea? Waid’ll I tell Sophie Seigel an’ Yeddie Katz you took a boy down in de toilet and let ’im look. Waid’ll I tell!”

“Sticks and stones c’n break my bones, but woids can nevuh hoit me-e!” Esther sang malevolently. “I ain’gonna led ’im look. C’mon, Davy! Waid’ll I ged my shoes on.”

“Don’ go!” Polly turned on him fiercely. “Or I’ll give yuh!”

“An’ I’ll give you!” Esther viciously hooked feet into shoes. “Such a bust, yuh’ll go flyin’! C’mon, Davey!”

“Waddayuh wan’?” He looked from one to the other with a stunned, incredulous stare.

“I’ll give yuh kendy,” Esther wheedled.

“Yuh will not!” Polly interposed.

“Who’s askin’ you, Piss-in-bed?” She seized David’s arm. “C’mon, I’ll show yuh w’ea tuh take me.”

“W’ea yuh goin’?” He held back.

“Downstairs inna terlit, dope! Only number one. Srooo!” She sucked in her breath sharply. “Hurry op! I’ll give yuh anyt’ing inna store.”

“Don’tcha do it!” Polly exhorted him. “She won’t give yuh nott’n! I’ll give yuh!”

“I will so!” Esther was already dragging him after her.

“Leggo!” He resisted her tug. “I don’t want—” But she had said anything! A vision of bright-wheeled skates rose before his eyes. “Awri’.” He followed her.

“Shame! Shame!” Polly yapped at their heels. “Ev’ybody knows yuh name. He’s goin’ in yuh terlit!”

Cringing with embarrassment, he hurried across the threshold to Esther’s side.

“Shoddop! Piss-in-bed! Mind yuh own beeswax!” She slammed the door in her sister’s face. “Over dis way.”

A short flight of wooden steps led down into the muggy yard, and a little to the side of them, another flight of stone dropped into the cellar. At the sight of the nether gloom, his heart began a dull, labored pounding.

“Didntcha know our terlit was inna cella’?” she preceded him down.

“Yea, but I fuhgod.” He shrank back a moment at the cellar door.

“Stay close!” she warned.

He followed warily. The corrupt damp of sunless earth. Her loose shoes scuffed before him into dissolving dark. On either side of him glimmered the dull-grey, once-white-washed cellar bins, smelling of wet coal, rotting wood, varnish, burlap. Only her footsteps guided him now; her body had vanished. The spiny comb of fear serried his cheek and neck and shoulders.

— It’s all right! All right! Somebody’s with you. But when is she — Ow!

His groping hands ran into her.

“Wait a secon’, will yuh?” she whispered irritably.

They had come mid-way.

“Stay hea.” A door-knob rattled. He saw a door swing open — A tiny, sickly-grey window, matted with cobwebs, themselves befouled with stringy grime, cast a wan gleam on a filth-streaked flush bowl. In the darkness overhead, the gurgle and suck of a water-box. The dull, flat dank of excrement, stagnant water, decay. “You stay righd hea in de daw!” she said. “An’ don’ go ’way or I’ll moider you — Srooo!” Her sharp breath whistled. She fumbled with the broken seat.

“Can I stay outside?”

“No!” Her cry was almost desperate as she plumped down. “Stay in de daw. You c’n look—” The hiss and splash. “Ooh!” Prolonged, relieved. “You ain’ god a sister?”

“No.” He straddled the threshold.

“You scared in de cella’?”

“Yea.”

“Toin aroun’!”

“Don’ wanna!”

“You’re crazy. Boys ain’t supposed t’ be scared.”

“You tol’ me y’d give anyt’ing?”

“So waddayuh wan’?” In the vault-like silence the water roared as she flushed the bowl.

“Yuh god skates?”

“Skates?” She brushed hastily past him toward the yard-light, “C’mon. We ain’t god no skates.”

“Yuh ain’? Old ones?”

“We ain’ god no kind.” They climbed into the new clarity of the yard. “Wadduh t’ink dis is?” her voice grew bolder. “A two-winder kendy staw? An’ if I had ’em I wouldn’ give yuh. Skates cost money.”

“So yuh ain’ god?” Like a last tug at the clogged pulley of hope. “Even busted ones?”

“Naaa!” Derisively.

Despair sapped the spring of his eager tread. Her smudged ankles flickered past him up the stairs.

“Hey, Polly!” He heard her squeal as she burst into the kitchen, “Hey, Polly—!”

“Giddaddihea, stinker!” The other’s voice snapped.

“Yuh know wot he wants?” Esther pointed a mocking finger at him as he entered.

“W’a?”

“Skates! Eee! Hee! Hee! Skates he wants!”

“Skates!” Mirth infected Polly. “Waddaa boob! We ain’ god skates.”

“An’ now I don’ have to give ’im nott’n!” Esther exulted. “If he wants wot we ain’ got, so—”

“Aha!” Aunt Bertha’s red head pried into the doorway. “God be praised! Blessed is His holy name!” She cast her eyes up with exaggerated fervor. “You’re both up! And at the same time? Ai, yi, yi! How comes it?”

The other two grimaced sullenly.

“And now the kitchen, the filthy botch you left last night! Coarse rumps! Do I have to do everything? When will I get my shopping done?”

“Aaa! Don’ holler!” Esther’s tart reply.

“Cholera in your belly!” Aunt Bertha punned promptly. “Hurry up, I say! Coffee’s on the stove.” She glanced behind her. “Come out, David, honey! Come out of that mire.” She pulled her head back hurriedly.

“Aaa, kiss my axle,” Polly glowered. “You ain’ my modduh!” And snappishly to David. “G’wan, yuh lummox! Gid odda hea!”

Chagrined, routed, he hurried through the corridor, finding a little relief in escaping from the kitchen.

“Skates!” Their jeers followed him. “Dopey Benny!”

He came out into the store. Aunt Bertha, her bulky rear blocking the aisle, her breasts flattened against the counter was stooping over, handing a stick of licorice to a child on the other side.

“Oy!” She groaned, straightening up as she collected the penny. “Oy!” And to David. “Come here, my light. You don’t know what a help you’ve been to me by getting them out of bed. Have you ever laid eyes on such bedraggled, shameless dawdlers? They’re too lazy to stick a hand in cold water, they are. And I must sweat and smile.” She took him in her arms. “Would you like what I gave that little boy just now — ligvitch? Ha? It’s as black as a harness.”

“No.” He freed himself. “You haven’t got any skates, have you Aunt Bertha?”

“Skates? What would I do with skates, child? And in this little dungheap? I can’t sell five-cent pistols or even horns with the red, white and blue, so how could I sell skates? Wouldn’t you rather have ice-cream? It is very good and cold.”

“No.”

“A little halvah? Crackers? Come, sit down awhile.”

“No, I’m going home.”

“But you just came.”

“I have to go.”

“Ach!” she cried impatiently. “Let me look at you awhile — No? Take this penny then,” she reached into her apron. “Buy what I haven’t got.”

“Thanks, Aunt Bertha.”

“Come see me again and you’ll have another. Sweet child!” She kissed him. “Greet your mother for me!”

“Yes.”

“Keep hale!”

X

SPIT someone?

He glanced up and backward overhead. To the north and south the cogged spindle of the sky was an even stone-grey.

— Dope! Ain’t spit. Hurry up!

Umbrellas appeared. The black shopping bags of hurrying housewives took on a dew-sprent glaze. Inside their box-like newstands, obscure dealers tilted up shelves above the papers. As the drizzle thickened the dull façades of houses grew even drabber, the contents of misty shop-windows indeterminate. A dense, soggy dreariness absorbed all things, drained all colors to darkness, melted singleness, muddied division — only the tracks of the horse-cars still glinted in the black gutter as whitely as before. He felt disgusted with himself.

— Wet on my shirt, hair, gee! Two blocks yet. Giddap!

Rain had coated sidewalk and gutter with a slimy film. On flattened tread, he jogged cautiously homeward, ducking under awnings when he could, skirting the jutting stoops. Not too drenched, he reached his corner.

“Run! Run! Sugar baby! Run! Run! Sugar baby!” Sheltered from the downpour, children in the dry covert of hallways relayed the cry — a mocking gauntlet for those who hurried in the rain. There were several such bantams snugly crowing in his own doorway. One or two of the faces belonged to those who had sat on the curb while Kushy had told about the canary. Resentfully, he fixed his eyes before him and ran up the iron stairs of the stoop. He wasn’t going to talk to them at all. But as he was about to enter the hallway one of them stepped in his path—

“Hey, you’re Davy aintcha?”

“Yea.” He looked up sullenly. “Waddayuh wan’?”

“Dey’s a kid lookin’ fuh yuh.”

“Yea,” another chimed in. “W’it’ skates he had.”

“Fuh me? A kid w’it’ skates?” His heart bounded with incredulous joy. Sudden warmth gushed through every vein. “Fuh me?”

“Yea.”

“Leo? Did he say he wuz Leo?”

“Leo, yea; futt flaw, sebm futty fi’. He’s a goy.”

“So wad he wan’?” eagerly.

“He says comm op righd away.”

“Me?”

“Yea, he wuz jost lookin’—”

But David had already leaped down the stairs and was sprinting through the rain toward Leo’s house. Up the stoop he went, proudly, as though Leo’s call had saturated the fabric of his spirit with a tingling, toughening glow, as though his being were pursed into a new shape of assurance. Here also children crowded the hallway, but he brushed by them without a word or a moment’s hesitation. He was Leo’s friend! And he climbed the obscure stairs without a wisp of fear. At the top floor, he stopped, looked about — all the shadowy doors were closed.

“Hey Leo!” he sang out, and the boldness of his own voice surprised him. “Hey Leo, w’ea d’yuh live?”

He heard an answering voice and almost immediately after, a door splayed out a fan of light.

“C’mon in.” Leo stepped out.

“Leo!” David would have hugged him if he dared. “Yuh called me?”

“Yea, it begun to rain, so I come back. Didn’ wanna get me skates all rusty.”

“Gee, I’m glad I comm home!” David followed him into the kitchen.

“I wuz just wipin’ ’em.” Leo sat down on a chair, picked up an oily rag at his feet and began vigorously polishing the various parts.

“Yuh all alone.” He found a seat against the wall.

“Sure.”

“Hoddy yuh ged in yuh house?”

“W’it’ a key, hodja t’ink?”

“Gee!” admiringly. “Yuh god a key of yuh own ’n’ ev’y t’ing?”

“‘Course. See dat shine?” He lifted the gleaming skate.

“Gee, you know how.”

“Yuh do dis ev’y day, dey never get rusty on ye.”

“No. But look w’ad I brung ye, Leo.” Heart leaping with delight he held out the two candies.

“Gee!” Leo hopped up with alacrity. “W’ot kind?”

“A emmend an’ pineapple.”

“Oh, boy! Bot’ of ’em fuh me?”

“Yea.” He found himself regretting he had not accepted the other tid-bits his aunt had offered him.

“Yer a nice guy!” Leo set the chocolates on the table. “W’edja git ’em?”

“Aintcha gonna ead ’em?” He asked eagerly.

“Naw, I’m savin’ ’em fuh later. I wanna eat sumpt’n else foist.”

“Oh! My a’nt ga’ me ’em — Gee! I fuhgod tuh tell yuh. She owns a kendy staw.”

“No kiddin’! W’ea does she live?”

“Wey down in Kane Stritt. But you c’n go easy — yuh god skates.”

“Sure let’s go dere sometimes — maybe we c’n cop a whole box of jelly beans. D’ja get any gum drops?”

“No,” self-reproachfully. “I coulda — Gee!”

“Dey’re good.” Leo had put down the skates and gone over to the bread box on a shelf beside the sink. “Me fuh sumpt’n t’ eat.” He drew out a loaf of bread. “Want some?”

“I ain’ so hungry.” He felt suddenly shy. “Id’s oily yed.”

“Wot of it?” He began undoing the printed waxed-paper about the bread. “I eats w’en I wants tuh.”

“Awri’.” Leo’s independence was contagious.

“Got sumpt’n good too,” he promised, going over to the ice-box. “Sumpt’n we don’ have ev’y day.”

While Leo ferreted among the dishes, David stole blissful glances about him. It gave him a snug, adventurous feeling to be alone in a whole house with someone so resourceful as Leo. There were no parents to interfere, no orders to obey — nothing. Only they two, living in a separate world of their own. Nor were goyish kitchens so different from Jewish ones. Like his own, this too was a cubical room with stove, sink and washtubs flush against the walls. And the walls were green, and the white curtains, hanging from taut strings across the window-frames, sere with too much washing, and the flowered linoleum, scuffed like his own. Both were equally scrubbed and tidy, but where David’s kitchen had a warm tang to its cleanliness, Leo’s had a chill, flat odor of soap. That was all the difference between them, except perhaps for a certain picture in the shadowy corner at the further end of the room — a picture that for all of David’s staring would not take on a reasonable shape because the light was too dim.

“Is she got a reggiler big canny staw?” Kneeling before the ice-box, Leo had been buttering bread. And now he pushed several objects from a large platter onto a small one. “Ice-cream poller too?” He arose.

“My aunt? Naa. She god just a—” He broke off, gaped at what Leo had placed on the table. In one of the plates was a stack of buttered bread, but on the other, a heap of strange pink creatures, all legs, claws, bodies—“Wod’s dat?”

“Dese?” Leo snickered at his surprise. “Don’tcha know wat dis is? Dem’s crabs.”

“Cre—? Oh, crebs! Dey wuz green-like, w’en I seen ’em in a box on Second Evenyeh—”

“Yea, but dey a’ways gits red w’en ye berl ’em. Dey’re real good! Gonna eat some?”

“Naa!” His stomach shrank.

“Didntcha ever eat ’em?”

“Naa! Jews can’t.”

“Cheez! Jew’s can’t eat nutt’n.” He picked up one of the monsters. “Lucky I ain’ a Jew.”

“No.” David agreed vaguely. But for the first time since he had met Leo, he rejoiced in his own tenets. “Hoddayuh ead?”

“Easy!” Leo snapped off a scarlet claw. “Jist bite into ’em, see?” He did.

“Gee!” David marveled.

“Here’s some bread an’ budder,” Leo offered him a slab. “Yuh c’n eat dat, cantchuh? It’s on’y American bread.”

“Yea.” David eyed it curiously on accepting it. Unlike his own bread, this slice was neither drab-grey nor brown, but dough-pale and soft as paste under the finger tips. Where the crust on the bread his mother bought was stiff and thick as card-board, this had a pliant yielding skin, thin as the thriftiest potato paring or the strip one unwound from a paper lead-pencil. And the butter — he tasted it — salt! He had never eaten salt butter before. However, pulpy and briny though the first mouthful was, there was nothing actually repulsive about it—

“We c’n eat anyt’ing we wants,” Leo informed him sucking at a crushed red pincer. “Anyt’ing wot’s good.”

“Yea?” While he rolled the soggy cud about in his cheek, his eyes had lighted on the picture again, and again were baffled with shadow.

— A man. What? Can’t be.

“An’ I et ev’y kind o’ bread dey is,” Leo continued proudly. “Aitalian bread-sticks, Dutch pummernickel, Jew rye — even watchuh call ’em, matziz — matches—” He snickered. “Dey’re nuttin but big crackers — D’ja ever eat real spigeddi?”

“No, wod’s dat?”

“De wops eat it just like pitaters. An’ boy ain’ it good!” He rubbed his belly. “Could eat a whole pailful by me-self. We usetuh live nex’ door to de Aglorini’s — dey was Aitalian—”

— Like my picture too — in my house — with the flowers. Is something else if you know. Have to know or you can’t see.—

“An’ Lily Aglorini usetuh bring in a big dishful fuh me and de ol’ lady. Dat wuz w’en me ol’ lady give ’em cakes when she woiked in a ressarran’. On’y wot cheese dey put in — Holy Chee! No wonner guineas c’n faht wit’ gollic bombs!”

— A man, for sure now. Has to be. Only his guts are stickin’ out. Burning. Gee what a crazy picture. Even mine ain’t so. But get mad if I ask—

“Wisht me ol’ lady could make real Aitalian spigeddi — Hey!” He demanded abruptly. “Wotcha lookin’ at?”

“N-nott’n!” David dropped guilty eyes. “W’ad’s-” (—Don’t, don’t ask him!) “Gee!” He felt the shooting warmth of his own flush and stopped confusedly. (—Dope! Next time listen!)

“Wot’s wot?” he demanded staring at him with a wide-mouthed, suspended grin.

“A — yea!” Again, as on the roof, he found a convenient switch. “But I don’ know hodda say. My modder, she says it— on’y id’s Jewish.” He grinned deprecatingly.

“Well, say it!” impatiently.

“W’ad’s a orr — a orrghaneest? Dat’s how she says id.”

“A awginis’, yuh mean! Awginis’—Sure! We got one in our choich. He plays a awgin.”

“Yea?”

“Dey looks like pianers, on’y dey w’istles — up on top, see? Got long pipes an’ t’ings. Didtcha know dat?”

“I didn’t know fuh sure — on’y in Jewish.”

“Yea, dat’s wot it is. Anyhow, who wuz talkin’ about choich?”

“Nobody!” With apologetic haste, “Spigeddeh yuh said.”

“Yea!” offendedly.

“D’yuh go skatin’ in de windertime, too?”

“Naw, wadda gink!” Leo struck at the lure. “How c’n yuh go skatin’ in de winter time wit’ snow on’ de groun’? Yuh skate on slyin’ ponds den. Dja ever make one a whole block long?” He expanded again. “We did — me and Patsy McCardy an’ Buster Tuttle — it went all de way from Elevent’ to Stevens Street.”

“Gee!” David relaxed again.

“An’ Lily Aglorini tries to slide on it an’ bang!” The crab shell cut a red arc. “Right on her can! Wow! She went a whole block wit’ her legs stickin’ up innee air.”

— Guts like a chicken, open. And he’s holding them. Whiskers he’s got, or no?

“An’ den de hawse falls on it and de cop trows ashes on it. But didn’ me and Patsy kid de shoit off her ’cause she wuz wearin’ red drawers.”

— Don’t look any more, that’s all!

But Leo had flicked his gaze over his shoulder. “Oh!” He asked in resentful surprise. “Is zat all yuh tryin’ to look at?”

“No I wuzn’ tryin’! Hones’!—”

“Yes, yuh wuz, don’ tell me,” disgustedly. “At’s twicet now yuh wuzn’ even listenin’!”

“I didn’t mean—” He hung his head.

“Well, go on!” The crab crunched under exasperated teeth. “Take a good look at it, will yuh!”

“Kin I?”

“Dat’s w’at its fuh! Course yuh c’n!”

He slid apologetically from the chair, walked over. “Oh, now I see.” He gazed up at it intently. “It ain’ w’at I t’ought.” The man was bearded, but instead of holding his bowels in his hand, he was pointing at his breast in which the red heart was exposed and luminous.

“Wadjuh t’ink it wuz?”

“Couldn’ see good,” evasively.

“Dintcha ever see dat befaw?”

“No.”

“’At’s Jesus an’ de Sacred Heart.”

“Oh! What makes it?”

“Makes wot?”

“He’s all light inside.”

“Well ’at’s ’cause he’s so holy.”

“Oh,” David suddenly understood. “Like him, too!” He stared in facination at the picture. “De man my rabbi told me about — he had it!”

“Had w’a’?” Leo drew abreast of him to look up.

“Dot light over dere!”

“Couldnda had dat,” Leo asserted dogmatically. “Dat’s Christchin light — it’s way bigger. Bigger den Jew light.”

David had turned around to face Leo, but now he stopped, stared at the opposite wall. Directly above his chair all this time the same bearded figure had been hanging. Only this time David recognized him. He was made of flesh-tinted porcelain, and with what looked like a baby’s diaper around his loins, hung from a glazed black cross. “Dat’s him?”

“Sure! Yuh seen him befaw, dintcha?”

“Some place, yea. But I didn’ know he wuz righd over me.” With a feeling of dread he eyed the crucifix. “Oncet I seen him in a ’Talian funeral store. He’s a’ways wit’ nails, ain’t he?”

“Yea.” Leo took another slice of bread.

“But I didn’ know dat wuz a — You ain’ gonna git mad, will yuh if I ast you?”

“Naw!” And a second crab. “Ast me!”

“W’y is dat dish on his head busted over dere?” He pointed to the crucifix. “An it ain’ busted over — hea.” He pointed now to the picture.

“Ha! Ha!” he guffawed through a mouthful of food. “Aintcha de sap, dough! Dat ain’ a dish; dat’s a halo! Dintcha ever see a halo? It’s made ouda light! An dat ain’ a dish, neider,” pointing to the figure on the cross, “dat’s his crown o’ t’orns — sharper’n pins wot de Jews stuck on him.”

“Jews?” David repeated, horrified and incredulous.

“Sure. Jews is de Chris’-killers. Dey put ’im up dere.”

“No?”

“Sure, youse!”

“Gee! W’en?”

“Long ago. T’ousan’s o’ years.”

“Oh!” There was a little comfort in remoteness. “I didn’ know.” A hundred other questions clamored at his tongue, but fearful of further revelations, he stifled them. “Gee! He’s light inside and out, ain’ he?” was all he dared offer.

Without bothering to answer, Leo licked his fingers and reached for the candy. “Ummm! Ammonds! Oh boy, bet I could put about ten o’ dese in me mout’ at oncet. D’ yuh ged ’em ev’ytime yuh go dere?”

“I don’ go dere.”

“Yuh don’? Cheez, I’d go dere ev’y day if me a’nt owned a canny staw!”

“It’s too far.” He was answering because he knew Leo expected an answer, but within him, something strange was happening, something that swelled against his sides and bosom, that made his palms damp and clinging, his speech muffled and reluctant as in drowsiness.

“Wot of it?” Leo sucked the fragments from his teeth. “Grab a hitch on a wagon w’y dontcha?”

“Didn’t see none.” He wondered how Leo had failed to hear the pounding of his heart.

“Didn’t see none!” he snorted incredulously. “On Avenue D — dat’s w’ea yuh went — dintcha?”

“Yea.” The strangeness was grown almost as palpable as phlegm to his breathing. Terrific desire seemed to sicken him. He must ask! He must ask!

“Well, wudja go dis time fuh?”

“Skates. I taught maybe—” his voice trailed off.

“Didn’ she have ’em?”

“No.” He found himself resenting the thorny brightness of Leo’s voice — a brightness that kept pricking him always out of a passionate yet monstrous lethargy.

“Make ’er buy ’em faw ye den. Dat’s wud I’d do. She’d gid ’em cheaper ’n’ you—”

“Leo!”

“W’a?”

“C-can you gibme—” A slow finger rose and pointed “G-gib me — one o’— one o’—” He couldn’t finish.

“One o’ wa-a-a?” Leo clapped hand to chest in sharp surprise.

“Yea.” He felt giddy.

“Me scappiler? Cheesis, yuh mus’ be nuts! W’at de hell d’ye wan’ ’at for?”

“I jos’ wan’ id.”

“Are you tryin’ to git funny er sumpt’n.” Suspiciously.

“No!” He shook his head vehemently. “No!”

“Well, yer a Jew, aintcha?”

“Yea, bud I—”

“Well, youse can’t wear ’em — dontcha know dat? Dey’re fer Cat’licks.”

“Oh!”

“Ain’t got one anyhow — nutt’n ’cep’ a busted rosary, me ol’ lady foun’ in a ressarint.”

“Wot’s dot — rosary—” eagerly. “Can I have?”

“G’wan, will yuh! Are yuh bugs or sumpt’n?”

“I c’n giv yuh a lodda cakes an’ canny — even my penny — See?” He displayed it.

“Naw! It ain’t mine an’ it costs way more’n dat. Cheez! If I’d aknown you wuz such a pain inna can I wouldna let yuh come up hea.”

“I didn’ know.” He could feel his lips quivering.

“Aw yuh never know!” There was a harsh silence.

“Yuh wan’ me tuh go donn?” His voice was desolate.

“Aw yuh c’n stay hea.” Leo growled. “But stop bein’ a pain inna prat, willyuh?”

“Awrigh’,” humbly, “I won’ ask no more.”

“Is yer a’nt stingy too?” Leo irritably ignored the apology.

“No.” He thrust desire and disappointment from him and gave all his attention to Leo. “She gi’s me anyt’ing.”

“Well why don’tchuh do like I said — ast her to buy a pair of skates and den sell ’em to ye on trust, or sumpt’n.”

“Maybe I’ll ask her nex’ time.”

“Sure. Go dere every day till she gizem tuh yuh, dat’s de trick.”

“I don’ like id.”

“Wot, astin’ her?”

“No. Her kids. Dey ain’ her real kids.”

“Step-kids yuh mean.”

“Yea.”

“Wotsa matter wid ’em? Snotty or sumpt’n? W’yncha gib’m a poke innie eye?”

“Dere bigger’n me. An’ dey holler on yuh an’ ev’yt’ing.”

“Yuh ain’ scared of ’em are yuh? Don’ let ’em bulldoze yuh!”

“I ain’ so scared, but dere doity an’ wants yuh tuh go donn in de cella’ wit’ ’em an’ ev’yt’ing.”

“Cellar?” Leo grew interested. “W’yntcha say dey wuz goils.”

“Yea, I don’ like ’em.”

“D’ja go down?” Grinning avidly he bent forward.

“Yea.”

“Yuh did? Wadja do — no shittin’ now!”

“Do?” David was becoming troubled. “Nutt’n.”

“Nutt’n!” Leo gasped incredulously.

“No. She ast me to stay inna terlit an’ she peed.”

“Yuh didn’ do nutt’n an’ dey ast yer to come down de cella’ wid ’em?”

“On’y one of ’em ast me.” Confusedly he fought off Leo’s insistence.

“Oh!” he crowed, “Wot a sap!”

“’Cause, she said she’d gib me anyt’ing.”

“Wee, an’ yuh didn’ ast ’er?”

“I wanned skates — a old pair,” he beat a lame retreat. “I t’ought maybe she had.”

“Oh, boy, wot a goof! Yuh said yuh wuz ten yea’s old. Oh, boy! She letcha see it?”

“W’a?” He refused even to himself that he guessed.

“Aw! don’ make believe yuh didn’ know—” his legs spread. “De crack!”

“Dey wuz fight’n in bed,” he confessed reluctantly, and then stopped, wishing he had never begun.

“Well, wot about it?” Leo exacted the last scruple.

“Nutt’n. Dey wuz just kickin’ wit — wit deir legs, and so — so I seen it.”

“Chee!” Leo sighed, “No drawz?”

“No.”

“How big ’re dey?”

“Bigger’n me — about so moch.”

“Bigger’n me?”

“No.”

“Jist me size — oh boy! Wa’ wuz ye scared of, yuh sap! Dey ain’t yuh real cousins. Oh boy, if me an’ Patsy was dere — oh boy! Wish he wuzn’ in de camp. Oncet we took Lily Aglorini up me house on elevent’, an’ we makes believe we wus takin’ de exercise up de playgroun’ in St. Joseph’s — bendin’, yuh know? An’ we bends ’er over a chair an’ takes ’er drawz down — oh boy! Hey! Le’s go dere, you’n’ me — waddaye say? I like Jew-goils!”

“Yuh mean yuh wanna do — yuh wanna play—” David shrank back.

“Sure, c’mon, le’s bot’ go now!”

“Naa!” His cry was startled, “I don’ wanna!”

“Watsa madder — ain’t dey dere now?”

“N-no. But I–I have to go home righd away.” He had slid off his chair. “Id’s dinner time.”

“Well, after den — after yuh eat!”

“I have tuh go t’ cheder after.”

“Wot’s dat?”

“W’ea yuh loin Hebrew — from a rabbi.”

“Cantcha duck it?”

“He’ll comm to my house.”

“C’mon anyways, ’fore yuh go t’dat place.”

Again that warping globe of unreality sphered his senses. Again the world sagged, shifted, Leo with it — a stranger. Why did he trust anything, anyone? “I don’ wanna,” he finally muttered.

“Waa! I fought yuh wuz me pal!” Leo sneered in ugly disgust. “Is zat de kind of a guy y’are?”

David stared sullenly at the floor.

“I’ll tell yuh wot,” the voice was eager again. “Yuh wanna loin t’ skate, dontcha! Dontcha?”

“Y-Yea.”

“Well, I’ll loin yuh — right away too. I’ll lenja mine w’en we goes over dere — one skate apiece.”

“Naa! I’m goin’ down.”

“Aw, yuh sheen — C’mon I’ll give yuh some o’ me checkers — got a whole bunch o’ crownies. Look, you don’ have t’ do nutt’n if yuh don’ wanna. Us’ll go togedder, but you kin stay outside. I ain’ gonna do nutt’n — jes’ give ’em a feel.”

“I don’ wanna.” David was at the door.

“Yuh stingy kike! Yuh wan’ it all yerself, dontchuh? Well, don’t hang aroun’ me no maw, ’er I’ll bust ye one! Hey!” As David opened the door. “Wait a secon’!” He grabbed his arm. “C’mon back!” He dragged David in. “C’mon! I’ll tell yuh wot I’ll give yuh—”

“I don’ wan’ nutt’n!”

“Jis’ wait! Jis’ wait!” Still calling to David, he dragged a chair across the kitchen to a dish-closet above the pantry, climbed up on the pantry ledge, and reaching over his head, drew down a dusty wooden box, which he dropped on the table as he climbed down. In shape it resembled the chalk boxes in school and even had the same kind of sliding cover. But it couldn’t be a chalk box, for David had just enough time to glimpse the word God printed in bold, black letters — though curiously enough the letters were printed right above a large, black fish. But before he could bend closer to spell out the smaller letters under the fish, Leo, with a “Hea’s wotchuh wanted,” had whipped the cover off. Inside lay a jumble of trinkets, rings, lockets, cameos. Leo fumbled among them. “Yea, yuh see dis?” He pulled out a broken string of two-sized black beads near one end of which a tiny cross dangled with a gold figure raised upon it like the one on the wall. “Dat’s de busted rosary me ol’ lady foun’, dere’s on’y a coupla beads missin’. I’ll give it tuh yuh. Come on it’s real holy.”

David stared at it fascinated, “C’n I touch id?”

“Sure yuh c’n, go on.”

“Does id do like de one around’ yer neck?”

“Course it does! An’ it’s way, way holier.”

“An’ yuh’ll gib me id?”

“Sure I will — fer keeps! If you take me over witchuh t’morrer it’s all yourn. Waddaye say, is it a go?”

Head swimming, he stared at the definite, unwinking beads. “It’s a-a go.” He wavered.

“Atta baby!” Leo whirled the beads enthusiastically. “Look! you don’ have t’do nutt’n’—jis’ lay putso like I tol’ yuh. Dey ain’ yer real cousins — wadda you care — oh boy! W’eadja say yuh took ’er?”

“I didn’ take her — she took me.” Now that he had consented dread gripped him in earnest.

“S’all de same — w’ea?”

“In de cella’—huh cella’—unner de staw w’ea dere’s a terlit.”

“We’ll take ’er dere too huh?”

“Butchuh have t’go troo de staw.”

“W’a? Cantchuh sneak in troo de outside?”

“De staw?”

“No de cella’.”

“I don’ know.”

“Sure ye c’n! Door’s open I bet— Wot time we goin?”

“W’ad time yuh wan’?”

“In de mawnin — oily — ten o’clock. How’s zat? I’ll meetcha front o’ yer stoop wit’ me skates. Awright?”

“Awri’,” he consented dully. “I’m goin’ donn now.”

“Wot’s yer hurry?”

“I have tuh. I have tuh go home.”

“Well, so long den! An’ don’ fergit — ten o’clock.”

“No — ten o’clock.”

He went out, the door closing on Leo’s final chuckle. And he groped toward the dim stairs and descended. Hope and fear and confusion had drained him of thought. His mind was numb and suspended now, as though he were drowsy with cold. Without word, without image, he sensed again the past and the future converging on the morrow. And either he found a solvent for his fears or he was lost. He walked into the dreary rain as into an omen.…

XI

HIGH morning.

His nervous gaze wandered from frosted window to clock and returned to the window—

“Turn, turn, turn, little mill-wheel,” her voice barely more articulate than a hum, sounded curiously distant now. “Work is no play, the hours steal away little mill-wheel.” With only her legs hanging in the kitchen — the slack soles of worn house-slippers curving down from bare heels — his mother sat on the sill wiping the outside of the pane. Under the vigorous strokes of the rag the snowy shores of cleaning powder parted rapidly from a channel to a gulf. And in the widening clarity first her throat appeared, straight between lifted chin and old blue dress, and then her face, pale and multiplaned and last her brown hair catching the sun in a thin haze of gold. “Turn, turn, turn, little mill-wheel.…”

— Wish she came in! Get scared when she sits like that. Fourth floor too — way, way, down! If she—! Ooh! Don’t! And that window it was. Can see the roof from here. Yes, there where they — Son-of-a-bitch! — there where they looked.

Irritably, he shifted his gaze to the other window, which was open and looked out on the street. The sky above the housetops, rinsed and cloudless after rain, mocked him with its serenity. In the street, too far below the window to be seen, the flood of turmoil had risen with the morning and a babel of noises and voices poured over the sill as over a dike. The air was exceptionally cool. Between the drawn curtains of an open window across the street, a woman was combing a little girl’s hair with a square black comb. The latter winced every time the comb sank, her thin squeals skimming above the intricate crests of the surging din of the street.

— Louse-comb. Hurts. Sticks in your head … wonder if — wonder if—! Late now, but dassent look out. If he’s waitin’—But can’t be there any more. Must have went. Sure! Now is—? Nearly ha’ past eleven. Ten, he said. Must have went. Ha’ past eleven and ha’ past eleven and all is well … Where? Watchman then, in book. Three A, yea. Clock. Someplace had. Hickory dickory, dock. Clock. Never had. But — wheel — what? Once … Once I … Say again and remember. Hickory, dickory — crazy! Why do they say? Hickory, dickory, wickory, chickory. In the coffee. In a white box for eight cents with yellow sides. In a box. Box. Yesterday. God it said and holier than Jew-light with the coal. So who cares? But that fish, why was that fish? Couldn’t read all the little letters. Wish I could. Bet it tells. The beads made you lucky, he said. Don’t have to be scared of nothing. Gee if I had! — but don’t want it, that’s all. Ain’t going. And that funny dream I had when he gave me it. How? Forgetting it already. Roof we were with a ladder. And he climbs up on the sun — zip one two three. Round ball. Round ball shining — Where did I say, see? Round ball and he busted it off with a cobble and puts it in the pail. And I ate it then. Better than sponge cake. Better than I ever ate. Wonder what it’s made of — Nothing, dope! Dreams. Just was dreaming—

The squealing window stalled his fitful revery.

“There!” His mother sighed with relief as she ducked under the sash. “Now all it lacks is another good rain to ruin it.”

His gaze followed hers. Spotless now, the panes betrayed no more of their presence than a jeweled breath — except where tiny flaws spiraled inexplicable hues into warping rarities.

“They’re all clean,” he said with emphatic reassurance. “You don’t have to sit outside any more.”

“So they are,” she washed her hands under the tap. “I’ll hang my curtains up now.” And reaching for the towel. “You don’t intend to go down today, do you?” Her smile was perplexed.

“Yes, I do!” he protested warily. “But later, maybe.”

“Do you know,” she unfurled the curtain, “you’ve been acting of late almost the way you did in Brownsville when you clung to my side like pitch. And how you feared that short flight of stairs! That can’t be troubling you now?”

“No.” He suddenly felt cross with her for cornering him. “There’s nothing to do down stairs. I told you.”

“What’s happened to all your friends.” Her rapid hand wound the curtain string about a nail. “Have they all moved?”

“I don’t know — don’t like them anyway.”

“Ach!” Despairingly. “The skein the cat’s played with is easier to unravel than my son. Yesterday it rained from noon till nightfall — you flew up and down those stairs like a butter-churn. And after supper, between Albert’s bed-time and yours you sat there beside that window as fidgety as a bird — only more silent. I saw you!” She lifted a mildly admonishing finger. “Now what’s the trouble? What is it?”

“Nothing!” He pouted moodily. “Nothing’s the matter.” But his brain was already at work martialing the excuse.

“I know there is,” she insisted gravely. “This morning you woke when I did — seven — and yesterday too. But yesterday you would have spurned your breakfast if I had let you in your eagerness to go down. To-day — Now what is it?” A faint impatience colored her tone.

“Nothing.” He shook her off.

“Won’t you tell your mother?”

“It’s just a boy.” He had to answer now. “He — he wants to hit me. He said he would if he caught me. That’s all.”

“A boy? Who?”

“A big boy — Kushy — his name is. Yesterday, they said there was a nickel in the cellar on Tenth Street. And they all ran over and tried to get it up. And Kushy said he didn’t get it up because I pushed him.”

“Well?”

“So he and his partner want to hit me.”

“Oh, is that all? Well, that’s easily remedied.”

“Why?” The momentary satisfaction with himself changed into uneasiness. “What are you going to do?”

“I’ll go downstairs with you.”

“No!”

“Why, of course I will. I’m not going to let anyone coop you up here all day. You just point them out to me and I’ll—”

“No, you can’t do that,” he interrupted her desperately. “If you come down and you talk to them, they’ll call me ‘fraid-cat’!”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s a cat that’s afraid.”

“Well, aren’t you?” she laughed. “Aren’t you just a little afraid?”

“I wouldn’t be if they weren’t so big.” He tried to deepen the channel of digression. “You ought to see how big they are. And there’s two of them.”

“That’s all the more reason I ought to go down with you.”

“But I don’t want to go down!” Emphatically. “I want to stay here.”

“You’re just pretending.”

“No, I’m not! I’m hungry.”

“I offered you cake and an apple,” she reminded him—“Only a little while ago when I began cleaning.”

“I wasn’t hungry then.”

“Ach!” she scoffed, glancing at the clock. “You’re like those large bright flies in Austria that can fly backwards and forwards or hover in the air as though pinned there. And what will you do after you’re fed — stay here till the Messiah comes?”

“No. I’ll run to the cheder then, and play in the yard and wait for the rabbi.”

“I wonder if you’re telling the truth?”

“I am too.” His injured gaze held steady.

“Well.” She sighed. “What would you like — a jelly omelette?”

“Yum! Yum!”

“Very well then.” She smiled fondly. “As long as I can get you to eat, I feel safe — That’s our only sign.” Her breasts heaved, nostrils dilating suddenly. “But why do I sigh?” And going to the china closet drew out several dishes. “I think washing windows makes me do that. It always reminds me of Brownsville and that window with the scrawls and faces on it. I wonder if they’ve cleaned it yet?” She went to the ice-box. “Is it only a year and a half now since we moved out? It seems further away than five cents will take one.” And she fell silent, cracking the eggs against the edge of the bowl.

— Gee lucky for me I thought. Can fool her any time. She don’t know. So I won’t get that black thing in the box. So who cares!

The gas-stove popped softly under the match. Lifting a frying pan from its hook on the wall, she set it on the grate — but a moment later pushed it to one side as though she had changed her mind, and walked to the street-window.

— Hope he ain’t! Hope he ain’t yet. (His startled thought overtook hers)

“Good!” she exclaimed triumphantly and pulled her head in. “I struck it just right. Sometimes I do believe in premonitions.”

— Aaa! Wish his horse fell or something!

“Now I can feed all both my men,” she laughed. “This is a rare pleasure!” And she hurried back to the ice-box.

He stiffened, ears straining above the rapid beating of eggs. Presently, he heard it, deliberate, hollow, near at hand. The knob turned — The harsh, weather-darkened face.

“I’m prepared for you!” she said cheerfully. “To the second.”

Cheeks distended in a short customary puff, he dropped his cap on the wash-tub, leaned his new whip against it. David glanced toward the stove. His mother had dropped the old broken one between the stove and the wall. His father went to the sink and began washing his hands.

“Tired?” She asked as she poured the golden foam into the hissing skillet.

“No.”

“Jelly omelette and dried peas, will that please you?”

He nodded.

“Is he still out?”

“That’s why I’m late again.” He wiped his hands. “Till tomorrow.”

“Ach! I’ll be so glad when he returns.”

He met her gaze with dark impassive eyes, slumped down into a chair. “How is it the heir is home?” His thin lips twitched, warping the flat cheek.

— Don’t! Don’t tell him! Ow! (But he dared not even look at her imploringly)

“Oh!” she said lightly. “There’s someone after him. One of the bigger boys in the street.”

— Aaa! She went and told him. Hate her!

His father’s incurious gaze turned from her face to David’s like a slow spoke. “Why?”

“Something about money in a cellar. They were all trying to get it up — how I don’t know. But the other — what did you call him?”

“Kushy,” sullenly.

“Yes. This Kushy claimed he pushed him just when he lifted it — the money. Isn’t that the way it goes? Wouldn’t you know the usual childish quarrel?” She bent over the stove. “Only if it’s over money, it’s not so childish, I guess.”

“A cellar?” The hardening of his voice was barely perceptible. “When?”

— Ow! He thinks I told!

“Yesterday, you said, didn’t you, David?” Her back was turned. “You don’t mind if we have the coffee I brewed this morning?”

“Yes,” David’s scared eyes rose to the gloomy pressure of his father’s. “I–I just said yesterday.”

His lean jaw had tightened. Drooping eye-lashes banked his smouldering anger. “What else?”

And though David knew the question was directed at himself—

“Why that’s all!” His mother laughed, as though surprised at her husband’s interest. “Except that I offered to go down into the street with him, since the other had threatened to strike him.” She brought the omelette and coffee pot to the table. “But he refused — said they’d call him — what? — frait-katz.” And surveying the spread. “Have I got everything here I want? Water, yes. Dear God!” She exclaimed as she went to the sink. “Isn’t it time I learned to speak English?”

— Knows it wasn’t! (David steeled himself) Knows it wasn’t yesterday! Knows I lied!

But, “Hmph!” his father grunted, relaxing. “He’s big enough to take care of himself.” There was a strange, veiled look of satisfaction on his face.

“What if they’re bigger than he is, Albert?” Protesting mildly, she set the dewy, glass pitcher on the table. “You know, they—”

“Still,” his father interrupted her, “if they’re too much for you, tell them I’ll take the horsewhip to them if they touch you.” And glancing up at her, began slicing the bread. “Just to scare them.” He added.

“Yes.” She sat down uncertainly. “But there’s no use kindling a feud out of a threat — especially an urchin’s threat.”

He made no reply. And during the interval while food was being passed—

— Took my part. Gee! (Mechanically, David lifted his fork) She told him and he knows I lied and he took my part. What did I — fooled him maybe? Naaa! How he looked at me—

“You know,” his mother tilted her smile meditatively, “it’s almost seven years since I came off that ship, and I’ve never quarreled with anyone yet. I wouldn’t like to start now.”

“It would be miraculous if you did.” His voice was level. “Your life has been as sealed as a nun’s.”

“Not quite so sheltered, Albert.” She looked faintly piqued. “Compared to yours, yes. But pushcart peddlers when I do my marketing — ach! — they deal out words as sharp as mustard-plasters — more than they do onions or carrots.… There’s nothing like a pushcart peddler.”

— Sure he knows. Bet a million. In the wagon he was then. Just when Kushy got up. And she told him it was yesterday. And he wouldn’t say—

“But what I mean is how shall I answer one of these native shrews if she shakes the clapper of her tongue at me in English? Cheh! Cheh! Cheh! They chatter and hiss like a sieve full of ashes.”

Thin as a shadow or a breath on water, a rare smile slackened his father’s face. “Merely cheh, cheh back at her in Yiddish.”

“But I’d feel so humiliated,” she laughed.

“Then don’t answer her at all. Grow red and march off with your head in the air.”

“Ach!” She looked at him curiously. “That’s too easy. But if I had worked in a shop the way Bertha had, I could have known by now — What a smoke comes out of her mouth.”

“Smoke indeed! It blinds you.” His lips barely curled.

“Does it? To me, especially since she has the candy store, she sounds like running water—”

“A muddy spatter.”

“Or sand. I was going to—”

“In one’s teeth.”

“You’re witty to-day.” Her curiosity seemed permanently fixed in her face.

His jaw tightened again and he reached for his coffee.

— Is he my friend? No. Can’t be. ’Course he ain’t. But why if— Oh! He knows I lied. That’s— Dope! Eat! They’ll see!

“And you speak so well, because you learned among goyim?”

“In part. But when I ate in beer-saloons to save money for your passage, I used to listen to the others — In beer saloons they speak loudly. And one day I grew bold enough to answer one who was drunk. And he thought I was too. Then I knew I had made a beginning.”

“Good kosher food they gave you.” Her look had changed to quiet sympathy.

“When you spend fifteen cents a day to keep the breath in your body, you get over asking if the rabbi’s blessed your meat.”

“I’m glad you had a stronger stomach than him who ate the duck-dinner so cheaply. And wrote home about it — and died of it.”

“Humph!”

“Will you have time for a nap to-day?” Reaching over she patted his hand — as rare a gesture as his smile.

His face darkened. He cleared his throat. “I still have an hour.”

David slid from his chair. “Can I go down now, mama?”

“Wait, I still have a pear to give you.”

“Can’t I eat it when I go down?”

“And you feel safe now?” She went to the ice-box.

“Yes.” He glanced hurriedly at his father.

“And you’re sure you don’t want me to watch awhile at the window?” She slipped the chilled, glossy fruit into his hand. “Until you’ve found out whether this Kushy is there or not?”

“No. I’ll just run to the cheder.” And as his mother bent down to kiss him—

“Keep out of mischief,” the barest overtone hardened his father’s voice. “Hear me?”

“Yes, papa.” Once more their glances grazed. He reached out for the knob.

“And don’t forget to eat your pear,” she reminded him. “It’s as sweet as—” her voice blurred with the closing door.

He hurried down the stairs, and reaching the street glanced about hastily. No sign of Leo anywhere. Good, that was a relief! He would go to the cheder now and stay in the cheder yard till the rabbi came. He swerved around his father’s milk wagon, crossed the gutter obliquely and turned west—

The sudden whirr of wheels behind him — now louder on the side-walk now roaring momentarily over the hollow buckle of a coal chute—

“Hey you!”

There was no need to turn.

Leo, cap in hand, angry mouth open in flushed face, hooked about him, braked his course with a grinding skate, eagle-spread to a stop. Standing on his skates, he looked almost full grown, his bright blonde head towering above David’s.

“Yuh runnin’ away aintcha?” His snub nose crinkled into an angry sneer. “W’yntcha tell me yuh didn’ wanna go—’stid o’ makin’ me hang aroun’ here all day!”

“I didn’t say I didn’ wanna go.” David looked up, smiling placatingly.

“Well, w’yntcha come down? Wotcha waitin’ fuh? Yuh noo we said ten o’clock.”

“I had to stay upstehs till my fodder came — Yuh see? Dot’s his wagon.” He pointed to it, hoping Leo would supply the connection he knew didn’t exist.

“Well, wot of it?” After a glance.

“Nott’n. But my modder wuz sick, so I had to stay—”

“Aw, bullshit! Yuh know yuh lyin’!”

“No, I ain’!”

“Awri’! c’mon if yuh comin’. Be’faw yuh have to go to dat udder joint — w’utever yuh calls it.”

“I can’t. I have to go dere now. Wonna pear?”

“Wot!” Leo ignored the proffered fruit. “After ye sez yuh wuz goin’? Don’ try t’ back out on me or I’ll take me skates off and beltchuh one. Listen! I ain’ gonna do nutt’n! I tol’ yuh I wuzn’—wotcha scared of?”

“My a’nt’s dere too,” he countered feebly. “In de kendy staw. She’ll know.”

“How’z she gonna git wise, yuh sap? We’ll duck ’er, dontcha see? Git ’er down de cella’ w’en nobuddy’s lookin’. We won’t try it if she’s watchin’! C’mon! I’m gonna give yuh one o’ me skates.” And drawing out his skate-key, he slipped down to the curb. “Sit down, will ye? Yuh know wot I got fer ye, dontcha? Sit down!” And as David crouched down beside him. “Iz zat fer me?” He reached for the pear.

“Yea.”

“Looks like a good one.” He licked his lips.

“Yuh god id witchuh?”

“W’a’?” Between mouthfuls. “Yuh mean de ros’ry? Sure, w’eadja tink it was, up de house?” Leaning sidewise he drew a few beads from his pocket. “See ’em? Dere yours, don’t fergit.” And thrusting them back, busied himself with the left skate — kicked it free. “G’wan, now, put dis on. I’ll loin yuh how to go — don’t git scared. Give us yer hoof. Like dat, see?” The strap tightened below David’s ankles, next the clamps gripped his sole. “Shove with yer udder foot — watch me. Now slide! ’At’s it! Atta baby. Let’s go! ’At’s it!” He flung the fruit-core into the gutter, headed toward Avenue D. “We’ll git dere in a minute wit’ a good hitch — wait’ll yuh see.”

“Gee!” The new freedom of motion was exhilarating. “Gee, id’s fun!”

“W’at’d I tell ye!” he urged jubilantly, “Go on, I tell ye, it’s easy as pie — Hey, you’ll loin real fast!”

They rounded the corner, Leo still barking encouragement.

XII

LAUGHING, jabbering breathlessly, they had been hauled within two blocks of Kane Street when the wagon turned from their route. They let go. The gilded mortar and pestle loomed up — so near! Sobered in an instant, David lagged behind.

“Dontcha wann jos’ skate back now?”

“Naw!” Leo exploded eagerly. “Wotcha t’ink we came hea fuh? Nex’ block, ain’ it?”

“No,” listlessly. “It’s de one after, but I—”

“C’mon den.” Leo forged ahead. “C’mon, will ye!”

There was nothing to do but follow. His blood, which a moment before had been chiming in bright abandon, deepened its stress, weighted its rhythm to an ominous tolling. They reached the corner they were to turn—

“Hey, Leo,” David plucked at his sleeve, “w’en yuh gonna gimme it?”

“W’a’?” impatiently.

“Dat ros’ry, watchuh called it, in yuh pocket?”

“Aw, w’en we gits dere!” Leo waved him off vehemently. “Wadda-yuh worryin’ about? Show us de joint foist, will ye?”

“On dis side.” He led the way cautiously. “See w’ea de ices barrels is — by de daw?”

“Yea,” Leo scrutinized the terrain, “It’s jist a liddle dump, ain’ it? W’ea did ye — Wow!” His voice dropped in suppressed elation. “Didn’ I tell ye? Dere’s de steps under de staw right like I t’ought!” He nudged David abruptly. “Foller me, will ye.”

Heart-beat rising to a panicky thumping, David trailed him across the street. It seemed odd to him that those standing on the stoop or passing by were not aware of his growing terror.

“Take de strap off.” Leo kneeled to undo his own.

“Watchuh gonna do?” Crouching beside him, David undid the buckle with clammy fingers.

“Nutt’n! Don’ git scared.” His whisper sounded strange against the loud background of the street. “Let’s gitcher clamp.” He unloosened it, arose with both skates in his hand. “C’n ye see anybody in de staw?”

“Can’t see good f’om hea.”

“Well, sneak over dis way. Jeez! don’ be dumb. Keep goin’.”

From his momentary vantage, David squinted hurriedly into the shady doorway across the sunlit gutter. “My a’nt’s dere!” He whispered, quickening his step. “An I t’ink it’s Polly.”

“Dey’s two goils dere!” Leo countered sharply as they passed. “I seen ’em meself stannin’ in front.”

“Yea, but I don’ know de odder one.”

“An she wuzn’t dere, wot’s ’er name? De one dat went down witcha? No? Well, let’s walk back.” They retraced their steps.

“No. Couldn’t see ’er anyhow. We better go back.”

“Aw hol’ yer hosses, will ye! Can’t chuh wait here a minute till she shows up?” Disgruntled, he flung himself back at the railing beside a stoop. “You’ll have lots o’ time, wotcha worryin’ about — Hey, duck! Duck, will ye!” He pushed the startled David behind him. “Dey’re comin’ out! Stay dere or dey’ll see ye!” And after a few seconds, “Cheez, dat wuz close, but dey’re goin’ de udder way now. Awright.” He stepped to one side, giving David room to view them. “W’ich one is her sister?”

“De skinny one,” David stared furtively after the two girls. “Dat’s Polly in de yeller dress wit’ dat black ma’ket bag.”

“Wot about dem, huh?” Leo’s blue eyes widened significantly. “W’en dey come back.”

“Naa!” He drew away. “I don’t know ’em — de odder one.”

“Aw, balls!” Leo see-sawed between anger and ardor. “You ain’ game fer nutt’n, dat’s wot! C’mon, Le’s take anudder look. Maybe dat Est’er goil is in dere now.” He dragged David past the store again. No sign of her. There was only Aunt Bertha sitting behind the counter reading a newspaper. “Aw, Jesus, wot luck!”

“Yuh see, Est’er ain’ dere.” David felt that he could argue more boldly now. “An’ if we stay hea, de kids an’ ev’rybody’ll be watchin’ us.”

“Aw, de hell wit’ ’em! De street’s free, ain’ it? Who’s gonna stop me from walkin’ here, I’d like t’ know.” Nevertheless his lower lip drooped disappointedly. “She lives in de back, don’ she?”

“Yea,” he offered the information eagerly. “In de back o’ de staw. Yuh have t’ go troo w’ea my a’nt is sittin’, an’ yuh can’t do dat.”

But his advice, instead of convincing Leo of the futility of all further effort merely spurred him on. “I can’t, huh?” was his defiant answer. “Well, watch me! C’mon!” He stepped off the curb.

“Wotchuh gonna do?” He hung back in consternation.

“Jist don’t let dat fat dame see ye,” Leo took his arm confidingly, “An do wot I say, get me?” They stopped before the stoop of the next house west of the candy store. “Now w’en nobody’s lookin’, sneak over to dat cella’ and duck down. I’ll lay out, see?”

“Naaa!”

“G’wan! Be a nice guy.” He became even more confiding, “Yuh want dat ros’ry, dontcha? Well, you giz down — I comes after yuh. I’ll give it t’ye right dere.”

“Den wotcha gonna do?”

“Den we giz inta de yard.” His candor was painstaking. “An’ if she’s dere, all right, an’ if she ain’ dere all right — I gives it t’ye anyway. An’ we goes home.”

“An dat’s de last?”

“Honest t’ Gawd! Now g’wan, sneak over.”

With a scared glance about, David sidled to the cellar stairs beneath the store window.

“Duck!” Leo’s side-mouthed signal.

He slipped down the steps. A moment later, Leo followed, brushed past him toward the closed door.

“Hope t’ shit it opens.” He leaned against it. “Yea!” in subdued triumph as the door swung back.

The sudden draft through the cellar bore with it the familiar dank. At the opposite end of the corridor of the dark, the oblong of light was narrow — the door slightly ajar. “C’mon,” Leo whispered stealthily. “Don’ make no noise.”

“Yuh gonna gimme id now?” He wavered at the threshold.

“Sure! Soon as we gits in de yard.” He shut the door again as David stepped into the clinging dark. “Don’ make no noise, will ye? Wea’s de shit-house?”

“Over by dere.” The seamless dark swallowed the pointing hand. “Dere’s a daw. Waddayuh—”

“Sh! Folly me. Maybe she’s in it.”

“She don’ never comm down by huhself.”

“Let’s look anyways.”

He groped after … A bar of murk in a wall of gloom.

“Iz zat it?”

“Yea.”

A pause. “No one’s dere.”

“No.”

“Hey, hoddy ye say it again?” Leo’s breath was warm on his cheek. “Dem Jewish woids I ast yuh on de hitch?

“Wa?”

“Yuh know! Shine — shine?”

“Shine maidel,” grudgingly.

“Yea! Shine maidel! Shine maidel. An’ de udder. Took — tookis, ain’ it?”

“Yea.”

“Le’s go.”

They moved forward. Where the wedge of brightness pried the narrowly-opened door, Leo stopped, peered out into the yard. “She live up dere w’ea dem steps is?”

“Yea.”

“Hea take dis, will yuh—’faw we giz out.” A skate clicked faintly as he thrust the strap into David’s hands.

“W — waddayuh wan’ I shuh do?” David held it off as if it had become dangerous.

“Nutt’n. Don’ do nutt’n.” Leo urged reassuringly, “Jis’ come out wit me and make believe you takin’ it off — make a noise, see? If she’s in de back, jis’ say I’m yuh frien’ an I lets yuh use me skates an’ ev’yting. An’ nen I’ll talk to ’er.”

“An’ nen yuh’ll gimme it?”

“Didn’ I say I would? C’mon.” He glanced boldly around at the gaping windows. “Nobody’s watchin’.” And both climbed up into the brilliant yard.

“Now!” He whispered, dropping to one knee and dragging David down beside him. “Like yuh jis’ come — a lotta noise. G’wan!” He clashed his skate on the ground. “Yea! Gee!” His voice rose in loud, pretended bluster. “Can I beatchoo? Wow! Anytime! Two blocks? Wut’s two blocks. I’ll race yuh ten — Say sumpt’n fer Chris’ sake!”

“Yea! Yea!” David contributed quaveringly. “Ten blocks, yuh can’t. Yea! Yea!”

“G’wan I c’n too!” His bragging grew even louder. “Waddayuh wanna bet! A dolla’? Le’s see yer dough—” The click of the latch in the door. “Sure I c’n. Run ye ragged—”

Midway up in the widening groove of the doorway, two eyes peered out. A loose pigtail swung into sun. Esther, picture-magazine in hand, looked out startled and angry.

“You!” To David. “Waddayuh doin’ in my yod.”

“N-nutt’n, I—”

“Hello, Kid!” Leo pleasant and unfeazed.

“Shott op!” Indignantly. “I’ll tell my modder on — Ma—!”

“Hey!” Leo’s quick cry cut her short. “Wait a secon’ will ye?” And when she paused to pout. “Dis guy’s yuh cousin ain’ he?”

“So wadda you wan’?”

“Well,” in grieved surprise. “Can’t he come into yaw yard?”

“No, he can’t”. She thrust her head out emphatically. “W’y didn’t he come troo de front? Mama!”

“I’ll tell yuh.” Leo strove desperately to engage her. “Give us a chanct, will ye?”

“W’a’?” in contemptuous disbelief.

“It’s like dis,” Leo drew near the steps, lowered his voice confidentially. “He’s too bashful.”

“Wot’s he bashful about?”

“Yuh see,” he grinned up at her, winked. “He had to do sumpt’n, dat’s all — you know wot!”

“I don’ know wot.” Appeased somewhat, she was still emphatic.

“Dintcha Davy? Yuh had to go t’ de terlit.”

“Yea I had tuh.” David followed the lead. “I had tuh go.”

“Ye see?” Leo rested his case soberly. “Dat’s why.”

“So wyntcha comm beck to duh frond?” Suspicion still lingered in her face.

“Aw!” Leo flipped an admiring grin up at her. “He says he had a real good-looker fer a cousin. So I says I don’ believe it. So he says I’ll show ’er t’ye. Boy!” His confirmation was intense. “Oh boy!”

“Pooh!” Shut eyes and tossed pig-tails. “Smott alick.”

“Sure he did, dintcha, Davy?”

“Yea,” He grinned uneasily at the ground.

“See? So I says if she’s a real good-looker like you says I’ll let ’er use me skates.”

“So who wants yuh skates.”

“Yuh don’?” He swung an injured look at David, “Wadja say she did fer?”

“I—”

“He says to me,” his crestfallen voice blocked David’s. “He says she wants t’loin, so I says, awright — if she’s a real good-looker I’ll loin ’er. Cheez! Wot a guy! I t’oughtcha wuz me frien’.”

“Aaaa! Yuh a lodda hoss-cops!” Esther’s disbelief wavered — She smiled. “Yuh bedder ged oud, ’faw I tell my modder on ye.”

“Now I know w’y y’ast me t’come hea.” Leo still clung fast to his resentment at David. “Yuh jis’ wanned t’ lend me skates so’s yuh could come up hea easier, dat’s all. Yer a fine guy! I’m goin’!” He moved in no particular direction.

“Whose skates are dey?” She took a step down the wooden stairs. “Yaw’s?”

“Sure dey’re mine. Ball-bearin’s’ n’ ev’yting. Go like lightnin’. Yuh wanna loin?”

“Wat’s yuh name?”

“Leo — uh — Leo Ginzboig.”

“You ain’ a Jew!”

“Who ain’!” In his vehemence he still had time to dart a triumphant glance at David, “Cantcha tell by me name?”

“Aaa, yuh a lia’,” she giggled.

“W’at d’ye wanna bet? Dontcha believe a guy?”

“Yea, g’wan!”

“I can’t talk so good ’cause we alw’ys lived over on de Wes’ side. But I c’n say sumpt’n. Wanna hea’ me?”

“Yea!” derisively.

“Shine maidel, dere! Dat’s wutchoo are. see? Tookis! Mm! Oh boy! Ain’ dat good.”

“Oooh! W’otchoo said!”

“Tookis. Wud of it?”

“Eee!” Her shrill squeal was more delighted than shocked.

“Hey, woddy yuh say.” Leo became earnest. “W’y d’ntcha come down into de yard an’ skate?”

“Naa, I can’t.”

“Dontcha wanna loin?”

“Naa!”

“Sure yuh do! I’ll loin yuh in one lesson. C’mon!”

“Naa, can’t skate hea.” She threw a glance over her shoulder. “My modder’ll call me.”

“Well, you c’n go up if she wants yuh,” Leo suggested generously. “Nobody’s gonna stop ye.”

“Yea,” her eyes sought the windows overhead. “Bot ev’ybody c’n look.”

“Oh, I see! Yea. Well w’y dontcha come outside, see? We’ll wait fer ye in de street — nobody’ll watch yuh.” And when he saw that she was wavering, he indicated David and himself arrogantly. “Us two is goin’ outside, see? We’ll wait fer ye acrosst de street. Waddayuh say?”

“Mmm!”

“Den we skates yuh aroun’ de block — w’ea nobody knows us. Wotchuh scared of? C’mon, ’faw he has t’ go t’ dat place.”

“W’a’ place?”

“You know — wadduh yuh call it, Davy?”

“Yuh mean cheder?”

“Yea.”

“Bot you don’ go dere!” she jeered.

“Well, he does.” Leo grinned. “So yuh better shoot! C’mon Davy!” Linking his arm into David’s, “We’ll be waitin’ fuh yuh outside across de street, don’ fergit!”

A coy giggle was the only response they got.

XIII

“CHEEZIS, kid!” Leo whispered excitedly as they plunged into the gloom. “We got’ er goin’—W’y’d’ntcha tell us she had tits on ’er?”

“Yuh gonna gimme it now?” In the reeling of his mind, only one thing held out hope of steadfastness.

“Aw take yer time, will ye!” Leo rebuffed him impetuously. “You’ll git it, watchuh worryin’ about? I don’ wanchuh backin’ out on me soon as yuh grabs it — Cheeziz!” he marveled. “You’re nuts, ye know? Dont’cha wanna give ’er a feel ’er nutt’n?”

“No!” The darkness hid the revulsion of his features if not of his voice.

“Oh, boy, watch me den!” He pulled the door back cautiously. “Wait’ll we gets ’er down — oh boy! Give us it now, will ye.” As they stepped out he snatched the skate from David’s slackening fingers. “And stay hea a secon’, see! — I’ll lay chickee.” He crept warily up the stairs. ‘,C’mon!” A peremptory hand curved upward.

David ran up the stairs, joined him as he sneaked away from the store. Together, they crossed the street.

“Wait fer ’er here.” He stepped under the shadow of an awning. “See ’er yet?” His head bobbed from side to side in his eagerness. “Jesus, if she don’ come out I’m gonna beat de piss outa— W’eas me skate key? Le’s walk past — Naw! Wonder w’en dat udder liddle — dat sister o’ hers ’ll come back? Better go dat way w’en she comes out — so’s we don’ run into— Hey!” His hand’s quick thrust jarred the inert David. “Dat’s her! She sees us! C’mon!”

Esther stood in the doorway. With a single sly wag of his head, Leo made for the west corner, went a short distance, turned abruptly and hurried across the street. David trailed him.

She approached with a casual, leisurely air.

“C’mon, kid!” He went to meet her. “Let’s git dese on.”

“I don’t think I wanna.” She tilted her nose indifferently.

“Sure yuh do.” He swamped her with enthusiasm, “Waid’ll yuh feel dat wind blowin’ aroun’ ye w’en’ yuh goin’ fas’—right up yer drawz.”

“Aaa, hee, hee!” she snickered, shaking off his ardor. “Shot up, you!”

“Sit down on dat stoop, will ye?” he drawled masterfully, at the same time pushing her against the steps behind her. “So’s a guy c’n put ’em on fer ye!”

“I don’ wanna!” she squealed, kicking her legs out in gratified protest. “Yuh gonna lemme fall — I know!”

“G’wan, who’s gonna letcha fall!” He throttled the coy jerking of her foot, rested it on his knee. “Hol’ still, will yuh! I gotta pull ’at skate in a liddle.” The skate-key dropped beside him to the pavement. “Wait a secon’!” Head cocked, facing Esther, he bent sideways almost to the ground, picked it up, dropped it again—

“Oooh!” she squealed reproachfully. “Stop dot!” Both hands snatched the curtain of her dress tight below her knees. “Yuh doidy!”

“Who me?” Leo straightened innocently. “I wuz jis’ lookin’ fer me skate-key.”

“Yuh wuz not — you!”

“Aw, hey! Cantcha b’lieve a guy—? Give us yer udder leg, will yuh, yer seein’ t’ings.” And as he tightened the clamps of the other skate. “Gonna lemme put me key in yer lock?”

“Wadje say?” She leaned forward.

“I says, d’ye care if I put me key in yer lock?”

Her eyes bulged. “Aw!” she shrieked, flinging herself back. “Watchoo said!” And giggled behind her palms and yanked her dress down again. “Shott up!”

“Wat’d I say?” unflinchingly.

“You know!” Her two pigtails rayed out from her vigorously wagging head. “Shame on you!”

“Aw! Hey, Davy,” he smirked significantly. “Wot’d I say?”

“I don’ know.” David returned his gaze apathetically.

“Dere y’are! I wuz jis’ talkin’ about me skate-key — Come on!” He scrambled to his feet. “Give us yer hands.”

“Eee!”

“Co-om o-on!” He lifted her to her feet, and—“Whoo!” as the skates slid under her. “Gotchuh w’ea I wantchuh.” He grabbed her below buttock and breast, steadying her. “Oh boy!”

“Leggo!” She thrust him back, lost balance and, “Eee!” held on to him. “Dey’ll see!”

“Awri’, don’ git leary!” Leo became the grave instructor. “Jis’ take Davy and me’s shoulder, see?” He pushed the unwilling David to the other side. “Dat’s it! Hol’ onna us!”

“Slow now!” she warned, “Or I won’t—”

“Yea! Yea! We’ll take it easy! C’mon, wake up, Davy! Giddap!” And as both began trotting. “Dat’s it! Atta baby! I’ll hol’ yuh if yer goin’ on yer — you know — oh boy! Gid otta de way, kid.” He brushed a boy from the path. “Liddle bassid can’t stop us, kin he! Atta kid! Aintchoo goin’ dough. Gittin’ any wind up der yet. Atta kid!” He plied her with short yelps of flattery and encouragement.

As they neared the corner, Esther’s shrieks grew shriller and shriller, Leo’s cries more ardent, his supporting arm lower and more lingering. To the left of them, David, aware she was hardly holding him, jogged on in silence, listening with dull apprehension to their jangled excited cries. At the corner, Leo halted them breathlessly—

“Ain’ dat fun?”

“Yea, ooh!”

“Yuh wanna go faster?”

“No-o!” provocatively.

“Sure ye do— Hey, Davy!” with sudden solicitude. “Yer all plugged out, aintcha?”

“Me? Uh—”

“Sure y’are!”

“He ain’ so big like you.” Esther seconded him. “I can’t hold so good.”

“Yea.” Leo agreed, and solemnly, “Yuh better stay right hea, Davy, an’ wait fer us. I’ll pull her meself.”

“Awri’,” sullenly.

“Naa, let ’im comm too,” Esther repented her rashness.

“G’wan!” He grabbed her hand. “He don’ wanna! Whe-e-e!” He sirened like a fire-engine, pawed the ground. “Hol’ fast!” And before she could tear from his grasp he was off — Esther squalling rapturously after.

XIV

DAZED with a kind of listless desolation, he watched them speed toward the opposite corner, saw Esther whirled round and grabbed, and then both spin screeching out of sight. He slumped as though his own gathering foreboding dragged him down, slouched aimlessly to the curb and sat down.

— I know … I know … I know … (Like a heavy stone pried half out of its clinging socket of earth, sluggish thought stirred and settled again) I know … I know … They’re going to. So … Don’t care. I know.

Incurious eyes glided over the shallow glare of the street, caught on slight snags of significance, dwelled, returned, dwelled, shuttle-like. There were several boys across the street, playing for steel marbles which they rolled beside the curb. They played with the large ones, the twentiers, and paid each other off with small ones, as big as steel beads. He watched them awhile, and then his mind returned to its own misery.

— Getting scared …

— Wonder where they are? Could have gone all around the block already. Twice. Two blocks, even. Went away, maybe? Naa staying there. I know. Hope they never come— Will though …

— Getting scared …

— Shut up! I ain’t! So if he gets her — down there — what? What’ll I do? I’ll ask. Just ask, that’s all. I’ll say, give it to me, them lucky beads, c’mon! You said you would before. And now he’ll give it to me. Has to. Then what? Go someplace else. So I’ll go. And I’ll take them, yea. And I’ll look in and I’ll let them down slow, slow, that’s right— Gee! And if I get it so it’ll be all right. I’l do it all the time, so it will be all right.

— A twentier I’ll try to get — a twentier-light. It was bigger the first time, a quarter-big-light. But even if it’s a twentier, I’ll be glad. Even if it’s only a tenner-light, I’ll be glad. Could get it light. He said like his. In and out. Wonder how big his is. Didn’t ask. But never have to be scared even if it’s only a tenner-light. And have to watch out too — don’t lose them. Where’ll I put? Lots of places. Could hide them on roof. Top of chimney where no one looks. Yea — but! Fall in, maybe. Gee! And hee! Lady finds them in the stove. Look! Ooh! What! A cross! Oy! Gevalt, like my aunt says. Naa. Better in the house. Under the bed — no. Mama cleans. Then where then … behind looking — yea! Big looking glass on the floor. Every time I looked, yea, could remember—

“Talk like I said!” The sharp undertone meshed with no cog in the humming street.

He started, turned around.

“Hullo, Davy!” Leo, boldly impassive, now carried the skates. Esther beside him lifted guilty eyes from the ground, squirmed, scratched painstakingly under a pigtail. “I tolju he wuz sleepin’. He’s a’ways sleepin’, aintcha Davy?”

She giggled.

David rose, watched them uneasily.

“We had some skate, didn’ we Esther?” Leo prompted her.

“Yea.” And as if by rote. “Yurra good ronner.”

“Sure I am.” Exuberantly. “But y’oughta see me w’en I’m goin’ real good! An’ c’n she skate, Davy! Wait’ll you see ’er do a spread eagle — way out, dat way!”

“Shottop!” She blushed, shuffled.

There was a pause.

“Uh — I gotta go, Esther.” Abruptly he took David’s arm.

“Aintcha—? Aintcha—?” David was startled. “Wea yuh goin’?” Automatically, he fell into step as though he had been braced against a body charging at him and been missed. “Home, yuh goin’?”

“Naw!” Leo led him two or three paces off, and with elaborate modesty whispered loudly in his ear. “I gotta take a piss.”

“Oh!”

“See I tol’ ’er dat!” Leo hissed the last words, nudged him. “See!” And called back noncommittally. “Yuh goin’ in de staw, aintcha Esther.”

“I don’ know,” she shrugged in huffy indifference.

“C’mo-on,” he drawled at her and smirked when he saw her melting, winked. “Le’s go, Davy!” His urgent hand hurried David toward the store again. “Here she comes after us!”

Out of the corner of his eye when he turned, David glimpsed her leisurely trailing behind them. Reaching the cellar steps, they halted, Leo glancing around under the guise of fumbling with his skates. A few houses away Esther too had stopped and was watching them with a queer, mixed simper — as though she were flaunting her vacancy.

“Don’ watch ’er!” Leo snapped. “Hop down!”

Frightened now to the very core, sure of the approaching crisis, David stumbled down the steps. Before he reached the bottom, Leo’s feet came pattering after, and Leo with a “Hurry up!” threw back the door. Together, they entered. The door swung to. In the rank gloom nothing had changed but the notch of light bitten from the further dark, which was wider.

“Cheezis!” Leo’s clashing skates heightened the exultation of his voice. “Tol’ yuh I’d git ’er goin’! Didn’ I? Didn’ I? Oh, boy! Wut we didn’ do aroun’ at corner’! Did I feel ’er! Oh, boy! Looka—” hastily. “You don’ know nutt’n about it, see? Don’ fergit now — I’m jis’ takin’ a piss!”

“Y-yea.”

“Oh, boy! oh, boy!” His restless feet patted the earthen floor. “Wait’ll she gits down here.”

(Ask him now!) “Yuh — are yuh—?”

But as though the dark were a medium for his thought—“Yea! Yea!” Leo interrupted him irritably. “Cantcha wait’ll she gits down! Cheez, I fergot!” He hurried past the toilet. “Lemme try some of dese daws faw she comes — see if dey—” And yanked at one after another of the grey doors of the storage-bins. “Oh, boy!” As one swung open. “Lot’s o’ room in hea. See dat?” He motioned for David to draw closer. “Lot’s o’ room ain’ it?” There was a small, clear space between the doorway and the shapeless black masses of furniture piled high in the rear.

“Now one fer you!” He clawed the doors across the murky alley, found another that opened. “Now if some-buddy comes, see, you gits in hea — her ol’ lady er sumpt’n. Soon as ye hear ’em you go psst! an’ duck! See? But stay near dat daw so’s yuh c’n see ’em faw dey sees you — den duck an’ psst! Catch on? An’ nen we’re safe — all of us!” He glanced at the open doorway. “W’ea de hell is she? An’ looka, w’en she comes down wotever I says, jis say yea, see? An’ look dumb, dat’s all, jis’ look dumb! An’ I’ll give it t’ye like I said — jus w’en she comes. Now don’ fergit.” He motioned to the cellar bin, “Dat’s w’ea you runs, if — Sh!”

Both had heard it — the scrape of feet outside.

“Lay low!” Leo shoved him before him into the bin, shut the door, “Sh!” He peeped out through a crack in the doorway. “Who de hell is it?”

Strumming silence. Only the sound of their breath in the blackness. Behind him the hard edges, knobs, of piled furniture, and higher something yielding, sack or mattress. Confused and formless memories. Again the scrape of feet, cautious and approaching.

“Wonner if — cheezis, must be her! Hol’ me skates!” He pushed the door open a few inches wider, knifed through and ran on tip-toe toward the yard-light.

Watching him through the bin-door, David froze in terror.

“Hey, c’mon!” Leo had flattened himself into the shadow behind the door-jamb. “C’mon down, will ye. We’re hea.” A pause. “C’mon kid.” Again the persuasive drawl. “You know me-e.”

Feet scuffed outside, descended slowly into the oblong of light. A short dress. Esther.

“No, I ain’ gonna!” She balked on the last step.

“Awri’ listen den! I wanna tell yuh sumpt’n.”

“So tell me hea!” She peered into the dark.

“Look, yuh-don’ wan’ me t’yell or nutt’n, do ye? Or go outside w’ea ev’ybuddy c’n see us?”

“Hea den. I’ll stay righd hea.” She stepped down, toed the plank of the sill. “Now tell me.”

“Aw, I can’t tell ye hea!” Leo sounded both hurt and despairing. “Give us a chanst, will ye? Listen!” He took her arm. “We don’ want dat sap back dere t’ hea’ wut I say — Hey, Davy!” Peremptorily. “Come out o’ dere, will ye!”

David sneaked from the bin, edged closer.

“W’ea wuz he?” Esther eyed him furtively.

“Jis’ inna back. Jis’ inna back!” Leo pulled her toward him. “Now you stay hea.” He turned to David severely. “I wanna talk t’ Esther — Jis’, a secon’ Esther, dat’s all!”

She followed Leo in. They brushed past David on the way, and floating by him, their faces in the murky air were staring and pale. Where the deeper gloom near the toilet half-dissolved them—

“No maw!” sharply from Esther.

“Ye ain’ scared, are ye?” Himself wavering in the dark, Leo’s husky voice was distinct. “Wit’ me witchuh?”

“Aw!” irresolutely.

“Well, listen … now I wuz gonna … Whee! Oh, boy!”

“Stop!” Her loud hiss. “Tell me, or I’m goin’ out!”

“Listen den. See dat bin? Waid’ll I show ye.” The door creaked faintly.

“Yea,” suspiciously.

“Well, I sez t’ him, yuh know who dat bin b’longs tuh? It b’longs t’ Esther’s ol’ lady. She tol’ me, I sez, see?

“So?”

“Den he sez, wot’s inside? So I sez, wodjuh t’ink — candy!”

She tittered.

“Ain’ he a sap!” Leo’s amused snort joined her eagerly. “An’ den I sez yuh know wut me an’ Esther’s gonna do? We’re gonna sneak in an’ find some — yuh know, chawklits, gum drops. He sez, yuh gonna gimme some? Sure I sez if we finds some— Weew! Esther!”

“Don’!” half-heartedly. “Yuh didn’!”

“Yes, I did! I did so! An’ I sez lay chickee fer us — Mm! will ye— Eww!”

A silence.

“No!” protestingly. “So w’at?”

“So I sez … lay chickee fer us … an!.. an!.. so he sez…”

“Ooh!”

“He’ll lay chick … Weew … Kid! Waddayuh say?”

A mumbling, A rustling …

“He’ll watch. It’s better in dere den hea’. Can’t see us!”

“Uh!”

“Wait a secon’! I wanna git me skates. Hey Davy!” Quick-footed, breathless he loomed from dark to half-light. “Gonna git de candy like I tol’ yuh. Hea!” As he grabbed the skates from David’s fist, his other hand flew to his side. “Take it! Now lay putso!”

The slight rattle of a small heap suddenly grown in his palm. Them! A shudder ran through him.

“Don’ fergit!” Leo’s voice sped off. “Till we comes!”

Stealthy gurgles, hissings, mutterings.

“C’mo-on!”

The bin-door creaked. Feet shuffled. Faint whines. And the door creaked again, clicked. Only the barest of whispers now, stirrings blending with the dark’s hum.

— Mine! It’s mine! (The jerky throbbing of his blood reiterated) Mine! I got it. Big-little-big-little-little-little-big-busted. Gee! Him hanging— What!

A thin squeal seeped through door and dark. Esther’s.

— Aaa! (Disgust filled him. He stumbled toward the yard-light) By light go, can’t hear! Right ones? (A sudden qualm of doubt. He scrutinized them) Yes, right ones! Same! Didn’t fool me. Out of the box with God. Mine! (Convulsive fingers crushed them) Don’t care! Ain’t scared! If I can make it! Ooh, if I can make it! Never be scared! Never! Go on! No, wait! No, now! Where?

Darting eyes fastened on the snug niche behind the open door. He squeezed in, pulled the door back as far as it would go, and enclosed as in a cell, he squatted first, then stretched his legs out altogether and leaned his cheek against the slim airy bar of light cut twice by the hinges.

— Hurry up! Look where it’s dark, real dark … Look.… No … No good. See too much yet, stops it. Then shut then. Same thing. Like he said. It’s inside and it’s out. Like him with the light-guts. Now keep. How big did I—? Twentier I said. But not now. First you have to get it. After it’s a twentier. Like the light in the hall, when I seen it. Gee, how I peed— Hurry up! So now you’re standing on them — only alone. Nobody else is akey now. It’s going to be all mine. Quarter I thought then — bigger it was. But it’s round, so better twentier. So shut up! You’re standing on them — you said that already. On your knees. Feel how they were? How — burn — like. Began to hurt just before Kushy wanted to fight and papa came. Hurry up! Down, look down! Can you see? Maybe. Nearly can’t. But — Look! G’wan now! G’wan! ’Fore it goes! Let it down! One is — is a little bead. Real easy! Two is little bead. Faster! This — little. This — little This — faster. And that — him now — right over it. Long enough? Gee. Hope so! Right over!

Past drifting bubbles of grey and icy needles of grey, below a mousetrap, a cogwheel, below a step and a dwarf with a sack upon his back, past trampled snow and glass doors shutting, below the gleam on a turning knob and bird upon a lawn, sank the beads, gold figure on the cross swinging slowly, revolving, sank into massive gloom. At the floor of the vast pit of silence glimmered the round light, pulsed and glimmered like a coin.

— Touch it! Touch it! Drop!

And was gone!

— Aaa! Where? Where? Look harder! Bend closer! Get it again! Again!

And would not reappear.

“I’m gonna get it,” almost audibly. “I am!”

His teeth gritted, head quivering in such desperate rage, the blood whirred in his ears. Like a tightened knot, his body hardened, hands clenched, breath dammed and stifled within him. He fished.

“I am!”

Now saliva drooled unheeded from his lips. Pent breath pressed veins in anguished bulges against his throat. His nostrils flickered scooping vainly at the air. And still he sought the depths, strangling. Then darkness, swirling and savage, caught him up like a wind of stone, pitched him spinning among palpable drum-beats, engulfed him in a brawling welter of ruined shapes — that parted — and he plunged down a wailing fathomless shaft. A streak of flame — and screaming nothingness.

The tortured breast rebelled, sucked up air in a squealing gasp. He collapsed against the bin behind him, leaned there with whirling senses … Slowly the roaring shadows quieted. Cloudy air displaced the giddy dark like a fixed despair.

— Lost it … (Leaden-slow his thought) Lost it … Covered up all.… Cellar-floor dirty … Like the nickel then … Gone. Gone.…

A sound in the yard outside. Inertia’s thick buffer about the mind muffled it. Again. He listened. The hiss of shoes, stealthily on the stone outside the door approaching. He sat bolt upright, staring at the crack between door and jamb.

— Who? Can’t call!

Pricked ears sifted the depths of the shadowy corridor where Esther and Leo were— All was hushed.

— Hope they hear! Hope! Hope! Gee! Ow! Be still!

The steps drew nearer — Unblinking eyes glued against the bar of light, he stuffed the beads in his pocket, crowded back against the corner, dropped his jaw to breathe in silence. The careful steps drew nearer. For the briefest instant like a figure in a cramped panel, Polly, lips thrust out in scared curiosity, paused in the crack of light and vanished. Soft footfalls behind the door, she appeared again in the murky frame between him and the door-edge. He saw her advance into the cellar, lift herself on tip-toe and cock her head from side to side, listening—

Murmurs beyond. A muffled giggle.

— Aaa (He clenched his teeth against the inner fury) Why didn’t they keep still! Polly had heard them!

“No! No maw!” Louder, “Leggo!” The unseen door banged open.

“Aw, hey!”

“No! Lemme oud!” A scuffling. “Lemmeee — Unh!” As though someone had butted her, Esther’s cry ended in a terrified grunt. “Polly!”

“Eee!” her sister squealed. “You!”

For a moment all three seemed to have lost their tongues.

“Aw, it’s only yer sister, ain’ it?” Leo bolstered up a shaky voice with a clash of skates.

“Yuh wuz wit’ him in dere!” Polly’s voice was a mixture of gloating and disbelief.

“I wuzn’!” Esther’s shrill cry rose furiously. “I’ll give yuh in a minute!”

“I seen yuh! I seen yuh! I knew yuh wouldn’ comm donn by yuhself. Waid’ll I tell!”

“Hey, wait a secon’,” Leo hastily took control. “Wea’s Davy? He’ll tell yuh wot we wuz doin’? Hey Davy! We wuz playin’ a trick on him, see? He’s in dere! Betcha million!” A bin-door creaked. “Hey Davy!” A pause. “W’ea de hell—”

“Aaa, Davy!” Polly sneered venomously. “Yuh cowid! Don’t blame it on sommbody else, ’cause yuh can’t fool me!”

“Who’s tryin’ t’ blame it on somebody else!” Leo was nettled. “He’s hea I tell yuh — someplace. Hey Davy!”

“He is!” Esther maintained stormily. “He wuz wit’ us!”

“Hey, Davy! C’m out wea’ver y’are! C’mon.” His voice rang through the cellar. “I’ll bust ye one! Come on out!”

Shrunken with guilt and terror, David crammed himself deeper into the corner.

“He musta run away, de liddle bastid— Hey Davy!” He bellowed. “Ooo, waid’ll I gitchoo!”

“Aaa, shod op!” Contemptuously from Polly. “Stop makin’ believe!”

“Waddayuh lookin’ at me faw?” Esther stormily.

“You know w’at!” Her sister answered significantly. “You know w’at.”

“W’at!”

“Snot! Yuh wuz playin’ bad in dat place wit’ him! Dat’s watchoo wuz doin’! Wit’ dat bum! Yuh t’ink I don’ know?”

“I wuz not!” Esther screamed.

“Yuh wuz!”

“Who’s a bum?” Leo’s voice bullying.

“Who else? You! You took her in dere, yuh rotten bum!”

“Don’ call me a bum!”

“I will so — yuh rotten bum!”

“I’ll slap yuh one, yuh stinkin’ sheeny!”

“Me! Wotta you? Ooo!” Her voice trailed off into horrified comprehension. “Oooh, w’en I tell — He’s a goy too! Yuh doity Crischin, ged oud f’om my cella’—faw I call my modder. Ged oud!”

“Yuh mudder’s ass! Call ’er, I dare ye! I’ll rap de two o’ yiz!”

“You leave her alone!” Esther turned on him fiercely. “Ged odda you! Go on! Ged oud!”

“Aw, shet up!” He was stung. “Ye wuz in dere yeself — w’ut’re ye takin’ her side fer?”

“Ooo! Hooo!” Esther burst into a loud betrayed wail. “Ged oud! Waaa!”

“Ged oud, yuh doity Crischin!” Polly’s screech swelled above her sister’s bawling. “Doity bum, ged oud!”

“Aw righ’—” mockingly. “Keep yer drawz on! G’wan fight it out yerself.” His voice retreated.

“Doity bum!”

“Sswt!” He whistled jeeringly from a distance. “Tell ’er wut I wuz doin’, kid. Yuh jew hewhs! We wuz hidin’ de balonee! Yaaa! Sheenies! Brrt!” He trumpeted. “Sheenies!” Skates clashed. The door slammed.

“Oooh! Hooo!” Esther’s sobbing filled the cellar.

“Yuh oughta cry, yuh doity t’ing!” Polly lashed at her. “Good fuh yuh! Comm down wit’ dat goyish bum in de cella’!”

“Y-y’ ain’ gonna t-tell.” Esther whined brokenly. “He made me! I didn’ wanna go!”

“Made yuh!” scornfully. “Mama said yuh wuz in de back o’ de staw. Yuh didn’t have t’ comm down — if yuh didn’ wanna! I’m gonna tell!”

“No!” Her sister lifted a frantic wail. “Didn’ I stop him f’om hittin’ yuh? Didn’ I? Poppa’ll kill me if yuh tell ’im! You know!”

“So led ’im!” Stonily. “Den yuh won’ go wit’ goys no maw. Yuh always callin’ me piss-in-bed, anyway! So dere!”

“I’ll never call yuh again, Polly! Never! Never in all my life!”

“Yea, pooh! I b’lieve yuh!”

“I won’t! I won’t!”

“Lemme go!”

“Don’t tell! Ow!”

“Lemme go!”

David, petrified in his niche of darkness saw her drag the screaming Esther after her toward the cellar door.

“Don’t tell! Don’t tell!”

“Lemme go! Yuh hea?” Polly seized the door-knob for support, wrenched her other hand free. “I am gonna—”

“Eee!” Esther screamed. “Look! Look!”

“Wa?” In spite of herself.

“It’s him! Him! Davy!”

He had scrambled to his feet, cowering—

“He made me! He brung him!”

Cornered, he tensed for an opening.

“You!” Esther screamed. “Now I’m gonna give yuh — rotten liddle bestitt! It’s your fault!” And suddenly she struck out with both hands, caught him flush on the cheeks, clawed.

With a gasp of pain, he ducked under her arms, butted past her. She pursued, squalling with rage, collared him again, pounded his back and head. As if in a nightmare, he struggled, silently in the dark to tear himself free.

“Mama!” Polly’s scream at the other end. “Mama!”

“Polly!” Esther’s hold loosened. “Polly! Wait, Polly!” She flew after her sister. “Wait! Don’t tell! Don’t tell! Polly! Polly!”

Her frenzied cry ringing in his ears, he flung himself at the street door, raced up the cellar stairs. Without caring whether any one marked him or not, he leaped out into the street and fled in horror toward Avenue D.

XV

HE HAD run and run, and now his own breath stabbed his lungs like a knife and his legs grew so heavy, they seemed to lift the sidewalk with them. Tottering with exhaustion, he dropped into a panicky, stumbling walk, clawed at his stockings, gasping so hoarsely, people turned to stare. Only one thought in the screaming chaos of terror and revulsion his mind had fallen into remained unbroken: To reach the cheder — to lose himself among the rest.

— Like I never came! Like I never came!

Now he ran, now he walked, now he ran again. And always the single goal before him — the cheder yard, the carefree din of the cheder. And always the single burden:

— Like I never camel Like I never came!

Fourth Street. In the flat smear of houses, he descried, or thought he did, the edge of his own on Ninth. It quickened his flagging legs, quelled somewhat the tumult and the fierce yapping pack within him and behind.

— Near house; Don’t go. Go round. But tired, all tired out. No! Go round! Go round!

At Seventh, he cut west, entered Avenue C, and at Ninth, turned East again, dragging his faltering legs cheder-ward. He must hold gnashing memory at bay, He must! He must! He’d scream if he didn’t forget! A furtive glance at his house as he reached the cheder entrance. He slipped into the hallway, hurried through.

The cheder yard. Haven! Haven at last! Several of the rabbi’s pupils were there. Loiterers, late-comers, elfin and voluble, they squatted or sprawled in the dazzling sun, or propped idle, wagging heads against the blank wall of the strict cube which was the cheder. His heart sprang out to them; tears of deliverance lifted so brimming high in his eyes a breath would have spilled them. He had always been one of them, always been there, never been away. Silently, fears relaxing in the steeping tide of gratitude, he came down the wooden steps, approached. They looked up—

“Yaw last!”, said Izzy, languid and scrupulous.

He grinned ingratiatingly. “Yea.”

“Aftuh me!” Solly severely.

“Aftuh me!” Schloimee.

“Aftuh me!” Zuck, Lefty, Benny, Simkee decreed.

“Awri!” He was only too glad to be lorded over — the token of their accepting him, the token of their letting him share their precious aimlessness, innocence, laughter. “Yea, I’m last. I’m last.” And finding a place against the cheder wall, he squatted down. He focused his whole being upon them. He would not think now. He would only listen, only forget.

Solly was speaking — in his voice an immense and mournful yearning. “Wisht I had a chair like dat!”

“Me too! Yea! Wisht I had t’ree chairs, like dat.”

Their amens were also mournful as if little hope inspired them.

“So yuh don’t have to gib’m all, do yuh?” Izzy fought back despair. “If yuh don’ wanna play fuh ’em, waddayuh wanna give ’im all, if yuh god so moch?”

“Cauthye I wanthyloo, dayuth w’y’.” Benny was obdurate. Benny was also afflicted with a lateral emission — no word he uttered ever succeeded in reaching his lips, but instead splashed out through his missing teeth. But David was only too glad that Benny spoke so thickly. It meant that he had to concentrate all his faculties on what he said. In trying to divine Benny’s meaning, one could forget all else. “If I blyibm duh ywully ylyod, den he wonthye hilyt me so moyuch, myaytlybe.”

“Yea, he geds a lodda hits,” sober Simkee reminded the rest. “De rebbeh never knows w’at he’s tuckin’ aboud.”

“Dat’s righ’!” Izzy tacked into sympathy. “We know yuh gid hit a lot, Benny, bot one poinder ain’ gonna make no differ’nce, is id? How moch yuh god?”

“A ylod.”

“How moch?”

“Thwenny thlyeb’m.”

“Twennyy seb’m!” they echoed marveling. “He’s god ’nuff fuh a mont’!”

“So if yuh gib’m twenny-six?” Izzy persisted. “Won’ he drop dead anyways? Nobody ever gab’m twenny-six! Only Hoish w’en he won ’em aftuh Wildy swiped ’em. Let’s see ’em!”

After a moment of hesitation, Benny opened several buttons on his shirt, drew out a bundle of sticks neatly tied with a string, and displayed them fondly. They were sharpened at one end and were of the same length and color as pointers — though not quite so straight.

Necks were craning. Some sighed. Some gasped. Within David surge after surge of gratitude beat about his heart. Oh, he was glad to be among them! To forget!

“Like real poinde’s!”

“C’n yuh bend ’em?”

“’N yuh cut ’em all outchuh self?”

“Gee, I wish I had dot kin’ o’ chair!”

And as Benny was about to stow them away in his bosom again—

“Aintcha gonna give us one?” Izzy pleaded, “Look, I god de match! Led’s smoke one — jos’ one — will yuh, Benny.”

“Nyo!”

“Aaa, don’t be a stingy louse!” they clamored.

Benny hesitated. “Lyuh gonniyl yuledth mhe sthmhoke tdew?”

“Sure! We’ll letcha smoke all yuh want!”

“Wadyuh t’ink!”

“Dlyust one.” He relented and drew a single reed out of the bound sheaf.

Izzy seized it jubilantly. “Now watch!” he admonished them. “Like a steamboat it’s gonna give.” And striking the match on the stone between his legs, applied it to one end of the reed, meanwhile sucking at the other. The former glowed, the latter yielded a sere, aromatic smoke.

“Gee!” they saucer-eyed. “Give a look, he’s real smokin’!”

“Wad’d I tell yuh!” Izzy’s features spread out in triumph. “I know dem chairs. Dey makes a noise w’en yuh sid on ’em. Crrk! Crrrk! Don’ dey Benny?”

“Lyea. Dlyon’ flyegedl, I’m fylyoist t’ stlmook.”

“Next aftuh Benny!”

“Next aftuh Simkee!”

“Me! I’m nex’ aftuh—!”

“You! Hoddy huh gid like—!”

“G’wan!”

“Wadda noif! Hooz nex’, Izzy?”

After much wrangling, turns were assigned.

Being near them, hearing the erratic spatter of their voices, yielding to their flickering moods was like basking in a hectic familiar oblivion. Their squabbling, their stridence drowned memory; that tireless tossing of their bodies, their whirring gestures, jerky antics stitched a fluctuant, tough, ever-renewing veil between himself and terror. David forgot. He was one of them.

Someone — it was Srooly — came out of the cheder, and once outside the door, squinted at them in surprise. “De cop’ll getchoo!”

“Yea!” they sneered. “He ain’t a’scared o’ us! Ha! Ha! Haw! Haw!”

Still squinting, Srooly approached. “Watcha smokin’?”

“Cantchuh see, cock-eye Mulligan? A cigah!”

He bent closer. “It’s a stick, liar!”

“Sure! It’s a smoke-stick an’ id could be fuh a poinder. Bud we didn’ wanna.”

“Uh! So hoddy yuh go?”

“Like dot.” Lefty, whose turn it was, enlightened him with a billow of smoke. “Dere’s liddle holes in id, all de way t’roo!”

“Give us a puff,” Srooly asked.

“Id’s mine,” Izzy announced. And no one contesting his claim, “I’m gonna dinch it an’ smook somm maw lader — aftuh Lefty finishes.”

“Give us a puff befaw.”

“Fuh somm o’ yuh flies I will.”

“Wise-guy! Yuh givin’ Lefty a smook fuh nutt’n.”

“So wot? Don’ smook den!”

“Aaa! Kipp it!”

“Puh! Who wants yuh flies!”

“Awri!” said Srooly. “I’ll give yuh one.”

“Give!”

Srooly brought out a smallish, square vial, squinted thoughtfully at the flies inside. “Most o’ ’em I jos’ caught in de gobbidj by Seven-twenty. On’y de big ones I take.”

“Hurry op, Lefty!”

“Aaa, waid a secon’, I jos’ god id!” Lefty puffed vigorously.

“Hey! I fuhgod!” Srooly suddenly remembered. “Huz nex’? Yuh bedder go in, de rebbeh says. Cause on’y Moishe is dere.”

“Me!” Schloimee rose. “Waid fer us, will ye, geng. Don’ forged!” He went off.

Srooly held the vial up to the light. Grey horseflies, glittering blue-bottles crawled and fell on the glassy sides. “Dey’s a old geezer in de cheder, yuh know?”

“Wit’ whiskers like de rebbeh!” The rest informed him. “We theleen ’im faw lyow dyihl. He’s loinin’ de guys.”

“Naa, he ain’ loinin’ de guys,” said Srooly. “He’s jost sittin’ an’ lookin.”

“So watz’e want?”

“Cow shid I know?” Srooly shrugged. “De Rebbeh wanzuh show off, dat’s all. An’ now — Hch! Hch! Hch! Moish is readin’ an’ he’s dumb like anyt’ing. Hch! Hch! De rebbeh’s gonna be med on him.”

“Aw’ yaw dumb too,” said Izzy cuttingly.

“So he sh’d worry,” the rest consoled themselves. “De rebbeh never hits w’en sommbody’s lookin!”

“Yea—? He stuck me in de ass wid de poinder — under de table! So de udder old geezer shouldn’t see!”

“Ppprr!” Lefty surrendered the inch-long reed to Izzy. “Hea! Id’s gedden hod!”

“Give us de fly now if yuh want id.”

“Wad kind d’yuh want? De shiny or de hawsfly?”

“De haws! Dey fighd bedder.”

Tilting the vial up, Srooly spilled two or three flies into his palm, stuffed back into the neck all but one and this he gave to Izzy. In return, the stumpy reed was handed over. The horse-fly, wing-stripped, crawled impotently about on Izzy’s hand.

“Now I’ll show yuh hoddeh smook!” Srooly put the bit of reed to his mouth. “Watch a real, reggilieh smooker — like I loined f’om my fodder! Watch!” and sucked with such abandon the ember at the other end sparkled—“M’lya!” Sudden pain contorted his face. “Luddle luddle! Ow! Id boins like fiah! Ow!” He threw the stub down. “Mplyaw!”

“Yeee! Look o’ him dance!” Glee filled them. They howled with mirth.

“Oooo! My dung! Ow!” Frantically he licked the sides of the glass bottle—“Ooo, id’s hod!”

“Lummox!” they jeered.

“Dot’s watchuh ged fuh bein’ a hog!”

“Wadyl pulyly stho hodth!”

“Aa, shod up!” Srooly was almost in tears. “I’ll feel you off, see if I don’. All o’ yuh! Waid’ll I ged my big brudder aftuh yuh — lousy bestitts!” He walked off, tongue in the wind.

“Big smooker!” They howled after him. “Fot brains! Yaaa! Good fer yuh! Yaaa!”

When their hoots, cat-calls, capers had subsided—“Who yuh gonna give id?” Lefty asked.

“T’ Choloimis on de foist step.” Izzy waved farewell to the fly in his palm. “Bye! Bye! Buzzicoo!”

“Naa, don’ give id t’ him — he’s fat a’reddy. Give id t’ Baby Moider by de fence!”

“Naa!” Zucky urged, “Schreck-dreck by de daw — he’s de best spider in de woild.”

“No, I ain’!” Izzy would not be overruled. “Choloimis ’z’ de biggest so Choloimis geds id.”

He rose. They followed him noisily across the yard.

— No! No! No! (Without stirring, he stared fixedly after them) No! No! You forgot! You forgot!

“Don’t scare ’im! Don’ shake his house! Sh! Stholop yuh plyushin!” They trooped down the cellar steps. From below the level of the yard, as from underground, their stealthy voices rose. “C’n yuh see ’im? Yea! See ’im in his hole dere? See? He’ thyl waitlyn!”

— Ow! (Like a stopper blown or a plug, the terrific jar of awakened terror) The cellar! The cellar! The cellar! Told her now! She, Polly! Aunt Bertha, she told! Knows! Long ago! Long ago! She knows! What? What’s she going to do? What? No! No! Don’t tell, Aunt Bertha! Don’t tell! Don’t! No! No! No! Ow, Mama! Mama!

Shrill from the cellar, their voices rose:

“Dere! Look! Look! T’row it now! Easy don’ bust id! Look o’ him! He’s walkin’ roun’. Whee! Dere he comes! Dere he comes! Lyow! He glyabth ’im! Fight! Fight! Gib’m, haws-fly! In de kishkis — nudder one! C’mon, Choloimis! Yowee! Tie ’im op! He’s god ’im! Wid de legs! Waddye big wungl! Pullin’ him! Pullin’ him! Hully Muzziz! Look! In de hole! Bye! Bye! Buzzicoo! Yea! Yea!” Excited voices fused into a treble dirge. “Bye! Bye! Buzzicoo! Yea Spider! Yea!”

The cheder door swung open. With a hunted expression on their faces, Schloimee and Moish came hurrying out, and a moment later, the rabbi, red lips visible in the glossy black beard, corners down-curved into a threatening frown.

“Where are they?” He crimped blunt brows at David. “There? Below? In that black chaos?”

Grafted to terror, the mind, wrested away, tore terror with it. He couldn’t speak.

“What ails you? Are you gagging? Speak!”

“Th-they’re down there!” He stammered.

“So!” He intoned viciously. “When I’m through with them, even death will spurn them!” And lifting his head, he bellowed across the yard. “Clods! Bleak and eternal! Come out of that pit, you hear me? Come out before a rain of stripes drowns you there!”

Hasty, startled cries below, scufflings, scuffings. They pellmelled up the cellar-steps, halted in a cluster, shamefaced and cowed. He surveyed them. “Mice!” His voice was withering. “Mice! Who gnaws at the Torah next?”

“Me.” Zuck shuffled forward warily.

“You?” Disgustedly. “What is this? Have all the plaster golems in the cheder connived to read in relays? Hanh? Will you torture me like the heathen god? Or what?” His sour gaze swept them, alighted on David. “You! Come in!”

“Me?” He started.

“On whom does my gaze end? Get up!” And once more to the others. “Let the rest of you sit here in an agony! But sit!” He shook a violent finger, and then crooked it at David.

He had scrambled to his feet and hurried to the rabbi’s side. For the first time since he had entered the cheder, the perilous task of reading when the rabbi was angry suddenly became welcome to him. Any anxiety, any disquiet was inviting if it could stem or shunt the fierce rush of this terror.

“Only one more!” As he entered, the rabbi addressed someone inside. “Be patient, Reb Schulim! Would you leave me in disgrace, nor hear at least one limber tongue? Hanh? Surely, you wouldn’t.”

Trailing behind, David peered past him toward the light. In the swirling sepia that always seemed to fill the cheder after the glare of the yard, he could distinguish no one. But when he waded to the window, risen like a square, variegated rock above the sifting dusk, the wavering outlines of a man drifted out of the dim corner beside the rabbi’s chair. The figure was seated, hunched over a cane. The wan gleam on his grey beard was like a whisper from light to shadow.

The rabbi chuckled, apologetically, drew up his chair: “When I can pierce stiff brass with a hair of my head, then I’ll pierce their skulls with wisdom. American Esaus, all of them! But this, Reb Schulim, this is a true Yiddish child.”

Reb Schulim’s only reply was to clear his throat.

David slid over the bench, and while the rabbi pinched the pages, the dusk lifted, and he peeped shyly up at the stranger. He was old, Reb Schulim, hawk-beaked. Although his lipless mouth in the grey beard looked stretched and grim, his eyes, his dark eyes in their intricate pouches were liquid, strangely sorrowful and attentive. Unlike the rabbi, he was neat, wore a black coat of thin, rusty cloth, and instead of an oily brown straw, a wide black hat crumpled the skull cap at the back of his pink and silver-grizzled pate. He hawked incessantly which made David glance up again and again only to be caught in the mournful quietude of those eyes. They affected him strangely.

“He’s a curious child.” Reb Schulim’s voice was husky and deliberate. “His look is hungry and unquiet.”

“You’ve struck it, Reb Schulim!” The rabbi spread hairy fingers on the page — kept them spread. “Sometimes he prays like lightning, sometimes an imp flies into his head and he can’t see a word. Today I know he’ll pray. Here’s something to make him.” As though it were hinged to the book, he lifted his hand, but only enough for Reb Schulim to read — not David. “Do you remember I told you once—?”

Reb Schulim puckered his lips, cleared his throat, lifted grave, benign eyes to David’s face, but made no answer.

“I’d start him in chumish,” the rabbi wheeled the book around. “But I see his mother so rarely. I’ve never asked her — Listen!” He took his hand away from the page. “Begin, my David!”

The type was small. The thrill of apprehension that ran through him seemed to flutter the characters before him. He focused on them, condensing their blur. “Bishnas mos ha melech Uzuyahu—!” And stopped and stared. The number on top of the page was sixty-eight. The edge of the book was blue.

“What’s the matter?” Rare tolerance softened the rabbi’s voice. “Why do you wait?”

“It’s — It’s him!” Past radiance threw a last parting beam into the depths of his mind. “That one!”

“Which one? Who?”

“That man! Th-that man you said! Isaiah! He said — he said he saw God and it — and it was light!” Excitement clogged his tongue.

“Well, Reb Schulim!” The rabbi’s swarthy brow canted in triumph. “One glance was all he needed, and that was months and months ago! This!” His blunt finger drummed on David’s brow. “This has an iron wit! No?” His black beard seemed to shake out sparks of satisfaction.

Reb Schulim tapped his cane against the bench. “A cherished seedling of Judah. Indeed!”

“Now all of it!” The rabbi settled down to business. “Begin once more.”

“Beshnas mos hamelech Uzuyahu vaereh es adonoi yoshaiv al kesai rom venesaw veshulav melayim es hahayhel Serafim omdim memal lo.” Not as a drone this time, like syllables pulled from a drab and tedious reel, but again as it was at first, a chant, a hymn, as though a soaring presence behind the words pulsed and stressed a meaning. A cadence like a flock of pigeons, vast, heaven-filling, swept and wheeled, glittered, darkened, kindled again, like wind over prairies. “Shaish kenawfayim shash kenawfayim leahod. Beshtyim yehase fanav uveshtayim.” The words, forms of immense grandeur behind a cloudy screen, overwhelmed him—“Yehase raglov uveshtayim yeofaif—”

“As though, he knew what he read,” Reb Schulim’s husky speech. “That young voice pipes to my heart!”

“If I weren’t sure — indeed, if I didn’t know him, I’d think he understood!”

David had paused. The rabbi sat back, hands locked on his belly.

“Vekaraw se el se vamar—”

The head of the cane clicked against the table; a shadow glided over the page. Leaning forward with outstretched arm, Reb Schulim patted David’s cheek with chill fingers.

“Blessed is your mother, my son!”

(-Mother!) “Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh adonoi tsevawos.” The words blurred. A howl of terror beat down all majesty. (-Mother!) “Mlo hol haeretz h-vo-do—” He stumbled. (-Mother!)

“What is it?” The rabbi’s fingers unbraided upon his paunch and stretched out as if to seize.

“Va-va- yaw-yaw noo-noo-” (-Mother!) Without answering, he suddenly burst into tears.

“Hold! What is it?” His hasty hand clicked David’s chin up. “What makes you weep?”

Reb Schulim’s large compassionate eyes were also on him: “Reb Yidel, I tell you he does understand.”

David sobbed brokenly.

“Come, answer!” Perplexity made the rabbi urgent. “One word only!”

“My-my mother!” he wept.

“Your mother — well?” Sudden alarm quickened his speech. “What of her? Speak! What’s happened!”

“She — she’s!—”

“Yes! Well!”

He did not know what it was that compelled him to say it, but it was compulsion greater than he could withstand. “She’s dead!” He burst into a loud wail.

“Dead? Dead? When? What are you saying!”

“Yes! Ooh!”

“Shah! Wait!” The rabbi stemmed his own confusion. “I saw her here. Why! Only—! What—! When did she die, I ask you?”

“Long ago! Long ago!” His head rocked in the abandon of his misery.

“Hanh? Long? Speak again!”

“Long ago!”

“But how could that be? How? I’ve seen her. She brought you here! She paid me! Tell me, what is long ago?”

“That — that’s my aunt!”

“Your—!” The breath jarred audibly against his throat. “But — but you called her mother! I heard you! She told me she was.”

“She just says she is! Owooh! Just says! Just says! To everyone! Wants me to call her too—” A gust of grief blew his voice from him.

“Aha!” In suspicious sarcasm. “What kind of a yarn are you telling? How do you know? Who told you?”

“My aunt — my aunt told me!”

“Which aunt? How many are there?”

“Yesterday!” He wept. “No. Not — not yesterday. When you wanted to — to hit me. Then. That — that day, when I c-couldn’t read. She owns a candy st-store. She told me.”

“On that day — Monday?”

“Y-yes!”

“And she told you? The other one?”

“Yes! Owooh! She owns a c-candy-store.”

“Ai, evil!”

“Foolish woman!” Reb Schulim chided sadly. “To reveal this to a child.”

“Pheh, foolish!” The rabbi spat disgustedly. “Sweet sister, the hussy! What business of hers was it? Squirming tongue! The gallows is due her! No?”

Reb Schulim sighed, shook David gently: “Come, my child! Dry your tears! If it was long ago — then long ago already was too late for your weeping. Come! She no longer has ears where she lies there. God commanded it.”

“Well, where’s your nose-rag?” The rabbi patted irritably among David’s pockets. “The gallows! Here!” He drew it out. “Blow!” And as he pinched David’s nose clean. “You don’t remember her then, do you? When did she die?”

“No! I don’t — I don’t know. She didn’t tell me.”

His brow knit in fresh perplexity. “Well, why aren’t you with your father? Where’s he?”

“I–I don’t know!”

“Hmpph! Did she say anything about him?”

“She s-said he was a- a-”

“What?”

“I forgot! I forgot how to say it.” He wept.

“Then think! Think. What was he, a tailor, a butcher, a peddler, what?”

“No. He was— He was— He played—”

“Played? A musician? Played what?”

“A— A— Like a piano. A — A organ!” He blurted out.

“An organ? An organ! Reb Schulim, do you see land?”

“I think I see what is seen first, Reb Yidel. The spire.”

“Mmm! Why aren’t you with him?” His voice was cautious.

“Because — because he’s in Eu — Europe.”

“And?”

“And he plays in — in a— She says he plays in a ch-church. A church!”

“Woe me!” He slumped back against his chair. “I foresaw it! You hear, Reb Schulim? When he said an organ-player, I–I knew! Oh!” his face lighted up. “Is that what you meant when you said spire — a church?”

“Only that.”

“Ha, Reb Schulim, would God I had your wisdom! And what do you think now?”

Reb Schulim gravely flattened his grey beard against his coat. “There’s truth in an old jest.”

“That a bastard is wise?”

Reb Schulim hawked, hawked again more violently, spat under the table. For a second or two, the only sound in the room was the smeary scrape of his foot on the floor. “Let us hope they saw to it he was made a Jew.”

“I’ll do more than hope.” With a righteous scowl, the rabbi scratched the blunt end of the pointer among the sparse hairs of his underlip. “I’ll do more!” He regarded David fixedly. “Er — David, mine, tell me this one thing more. Did she, that everlasting slut, that candy store muckraker, your aunt, did she tell you where — in what land your mother met the-er-the organ-player?”

“She-she — yes— She said.”

“Where?”

“In where there was— there was c-corn.”

“Where?” His brows drew together in ragged ridges.

“Where corn was grow-growing. She said. Where corn was. They went there. She told me like — like that they went.”

“Oy!” The rabbi sounded as though he were strangling. “Enough! Enough! Thank God you’re here, Reb Schulim! Else who would have believed me! Ai! Yi! Yi! Yi! Can you picture so foul, so degraded a she who would tell this to a child so young!”

“A vile, unbridled tongue!”

“Ach! Pheh!” the rabbi spat over the edge of the table. “The gallows I say! A black, uncanny death! But you—” he turned abruptly to David. “Go now! Weep no more! And hear me: Say nothing — nothing to anyone! Understand? Not a word.”

“Yes.” He hung his head in misery.

“Go!” Hasty fingers fluttered before him. David slid from the bench, turned, feeling their eyes pursuing him, and stumbled toward the door.

The yard. They were still lolling against the cheder wall.

“Hooray! Hully Muzzis!” Izzy’s aggrieved voice greeted him. “He’s oud a’ready! Hooray!”

David hurried toward the wooden stairs.

“Hey, look, Iz, he’s cryin’!”

“An’ jos’ my nex’ too!”

“Waddee hitchuh fuh? Hey!”

“Hey watsa madder!”

The corridor muffled their cries. He fled through to the street. One wild glance at his house and he scurried west. A strange chaotic sensation was taking hold of him — a tumultuous, giddy freedom, a cruel caprice that made him want to caper, to skip, to claw at his hands, to pinch himself until he screamed. A secret wanton laughter kept arising to his lips, but never issued, gurgled in his throat instead with a gurgle of pain. He wanted to smirk at the people whom he neared, wanted to jeer, bray, whistle, double-thumb his nose — but dared not until they had passed. He rattled the loose spheres on the stanchions of stoops, struck the tassels of the awnings, set the chains before the cellars swinging, kicked the ash-cans.

“Fugimbestit! Fugimbestit!” The pressure of his frenzy, too great to be contained seethed from his lips. “You! You! Watchuh lookin’! Yoop! Don’ step on de black line! Bing! Don’ step on de black line. Ain’t I ain’t! Ain’t I! Pooh fuh you too ’lilulibuh! Don’ step on de black line! I’m sommbody else. I’m somebody else—else—ELSE! Dot’s who I am. Hoo! Hoo! Johnny Cake! Blt! Dat’s fuh you! Blyoh! Stinker! Look out fuh de fox. Fox; fix fux, look out! Don’ step on de black line. Yoop! Take a skip! In de box! Yoop! Yoop! Two yoops! Yoop! Hi! Hop, skip an’ a yoop! Hi! Funny! Ow! Owoo!”

At Avenue C, he ran blindly north.

“Yoop! All busted lines. Here all busted. Watch oud! Watch oud! Hey, busted sidewalk, lousy, busted sidewalk, w’y yuh busted? Makes double jumps! Triple jumps! Fawple jumps. Fipple jumps. Yoop! Yoop! Triple! Fipple! Fipple! Kipple! Is a cake! Johnny cake! Why yuh busted? Touch a crack, touch a cella’, touch a cella’, touch a devil. He, black buggerunner! Busts it! Hee, yee! Va y’hee! V y’hee, wee, wee. Wee. Wee. Pee, pee! Pee, pee, tee tee! Yoop! sh! So watchuh lookin’? Make me step on it. Don’ count, devil, ’cause— Pee, pee, dere! Blya! Pee, pee, yea, gotta. Sommtime gotta. Gonna now! Naa! Yea! Gonna now. Take id oud! See! Look! Look! All de goils. Sh! Shattop! Wot I care. See! Hea id comes. Double dare yuh stop me. Double—”

He stepped to the curb.

“Izz wit! Zzz! Lager beeuh comms f’om — He said, Goy, sonn’va bitch! Goy sonn’vabitch! Leo sonn’vabitch! He said! Zzz! Ha! Piss higher! Look o’ my bow! Who cares! Ooh bedder! One bott’n, two bott’n! C’n jump now! Higher. Yoop! Yoop! Hi—”

Tenth Street. The car-tracks. To the east the panel of the river, shore and hazy sky.

“It follows! Run to elebent’. Run, run, Johnny cake! Yoop! Look o’ me ev’ybody! Watch me! No, no! Not me! Him! Him — me! Me — Him. Watchuh lookin’? Fuhgimbestit, it’s him! He fooled him! Ol’ smoke-mout’-stink! He fooled him, ol’ geezer. Wuz’n me. Him! He did it! I ain’t! I ain’ even! So tell. Can’t tell on me. I ain’. So tell! Tell her! Tell Tanta Berta! Tell my modder! I ain’! Yoop! Look o’ me-no-him-go! Look o’ him! Him! Him! Weewuth! Weeewuth! Ain’ even tiad! Ain’ even me! Elebent, a’reddy! Follers me it, water. Follers no me-him! Watchuh foller’n fuh? Lousy, bestitt, copycat river! Skidoo! Mind yuh own lousy biz! Beat it den, beat it, lousy! Beat, Beat it! Beat it! Yoop, Yowooh!”

He ran screaming northward.…

XVI

THREADING his way among the hordes of children, hurdles of baby carriages, darting tricycles and skate-wheel skooters that cluttered the sidewalks of Avenue B, the squat, untidy Jew waddled northward on weak and flabby hams. He stooped slightly as he walked. Seen from the front, a glossy black beard hung suspended from a brown straw hat; the arms that were locked behind his buttocks furled both sides of his dull alpaca coat revealing a greasy insufficient vest that lapsed before reaching his belt; upon the spotted broad expanse of vest a broad watchchain stretched across the wide paunch, barely spanning the gap from pocket to pocket; between the vest and the belt, soiled, wrinkled shirt tails cropped out in a foliated ledge of linen. Seen from the side, baggy pants of indeterminate somberness swept upward and outward in a soft curve, bracket-wise to the overhanging shirt. Slant sun-light on his rear, alternate upon the worn-smooth, almost-lacquered cheeks and cylinders of his pants teetered with his teetering limbs and ricocheted. And he walked northward threading his way.

Arrived at the corner of Sixth Street and Avenue B, he stopped to let an automobile pass, and made good the few seconds he whiled away by drawing out his watch. Under the pressure of thick and oily thumb, the case snapped open like a gold, obedient bivalve. He glanced at the face. Ten minutes to six. Hi! (He sighed mentally) Over an hour before sunset. There was time. There was time. None would gather in the synagogue before seven. There was time to spare. And he squeezed the gold lips clicking over the glint of white. But as he brought the watch near his vest pocket, his head snapped back, jarring his brown straw hat over his eye-brows and he sneezed. Shaken fingers missed the slit in the cloth. The time-piece bounced off his paunch and swung out on its gold chain like a pendulum. He cursed in Yiddish, clutched at it, hauled it in and thrust it rudely back into its place. And then retreating a step from the curb, bowed himself, and pinching his nostrils trumpeted their contents into the gutter. The mucus spattered into the dust like livid fleurs-delis. He reached for his grey handkerchief, buttoned his coat, (it was cool for July) and stepped forward again.

Yi! Yi! Yi! He mused bitterly as his rambling fingers investigated the dryness of his beard. Nothing had gone right with him this day. Nothing. Uufortunate Jew! Was he not an unfortunate Jew? Dear God! Dear God! To sneeze when he holds a watch in his hand. Hi! Hi! Hi! True, it was chained to his person. But what if it was? Does the heart know that? The foolish heart! How it leaps with fright like a colt! And then finds out. A curse on it! On what, the heart? No, not the heart, the watch! No, not the watch either. Hi! Hi! Hi! He was getting stupid with his years. Not the watch, the event. A curse on the event! By all means! Hi-i! An evil day! And this morning when he crossed the gutter, engrossed in bad news (truly, the cause of it all, he reassured himself) engrossed him! Where was his brain that moment? Engrossed, he had caught his walking stick in the eye of a sewer-cover. May it be ground to a powder! Caught and broken it above the ferrule. And a dollar and thirty cents he had paid for it not so long ago, a dollar and thirty cents. From Labele Rifka’s, his cousin, and would it not be meet in the eyes of the Almighty that death befell Labele for selling him a broom-straw for a dollar and thirty cents? For that price, God would surely nod in assent. Broken it above the ferrule. And the brats had stood about him and laughed.…

A curse on them! He glared about him at the children and half grown boys and girls who crowded the stoops and overflowed into the sidewalks and gutter. The devil take them! What was going to become of Yiddish youth? What would become of this new breed? These Americans? This sidewalk-and-gutter generation? He knew them all and they were all alike — brazen, selfish, unbridled. Where was piety and observance? Where was learning, veneration of parents, deference to the old? In the earth! Deep in the earth! On ball playing their minds dwelt, on skates, on kites, on marbles, on gambling for the cardboard pictures, and the older ones, on dancing, and the ferocious jangle of horns and strings and jigging with their feet. And God? Forgotten, forgotten wholly. Ask one who Mendel Beiliss is? Ask one, did he shed goyish blood for the Passover? Would they know? Could they answer? Vagabonds! Snipes! Jiggers with their feet! Corrupt generation! Schmielike, his own grandchild, lifting a nickel from his purse. (Ah, but he fetched him a few sterling whacks when he caught him. A few, but good ones.) And his wooden pointers stolen from his cheder. And those brats in the street laughing when he broke his walking stick. An ageing man and they had jeered at him. And that lout especially, may he break his bones before the rest; asking him if he had lost a ball, in the foul water below. He, a rabbi, an ageing man. Hi! Hi! May a tumor in his belly and a tumor in his head grow to be as big as that ball. Mocking an ageing man. Yiddish youth! Turdworth. Exactly so was his own boyhood in Vilna, in Russ-Poland. Ex-a-actly so-o! Others went sliding on sleds. Not he. Others slid on the ice with the goyim. Not he. They stuck pins into each other in the cheder. Not he. Hi! He had scarcely ever laughed even in his youth. Pogroms. Poverty. What was there to laugh at? Reb R’fuhl was his rabbi then. That was a rabbi! No random cuff did you get from him when he was vexed. No mild pinch on the jowl. Ha, no! When he was angered, he flogged, and when he flogged he took their pants down and spread the flap of their drawers — and all so slowly and with what sweet words. Hi! Ha! Ha! That was a sight to behold! They remembered it those young ones. Not the watery discipline that he enforced. That’s what was ruining this generation, watery discipline. Hi! And he, himself a rabbi now, he had held the culprit’s legs while the straps sank into the white buttocks. There was a kind of pleasure then in hearing another howl, in watching another beaten, seeing the naked flesh squirm and writhe and the crack of the buttocks tighten under the biting thongs. A kind of pleasure, but it had passed now, dulled with over-use he supposed. Hi! Hi!..

An evil day.…

And at noon, he had quarreled with Ruchel, his daughter, over the chicanery of her husband, Avrum, the butcher. Cold-storage liver he was selling and palming it off for fresh. A snide generation. Why should the children be better than their fathers? No sanctity anywhere, no faith. It’s kosher, she said. Ruchel his daughter, his thorn. It tastes just as good. In food there should be some trust, he had answered. If you were selling walking sticks sell the flawed, the warped, the brittle. Say nothing, tell nothing. But what enters the mouth, there you must betray no trust. If you’re selling “treifes” say it is “treife” and men will hold you a man. If you’re selling cold-storage for fresh — But it’s kosher, she had said. Of course it’s kosher, he had answered. Liver is kosher till it rots. It needs no washing before the third day. No salting. Even a goy knows that. Hi! Hi! My daughter, my daughter! It’s good. It tastes good you say. There was a Jew traveling toward Odessa and he ate in an inn without knowing what he ate. Good beef he called it. Savory gravy. And they told him — what? They told him it was horsemeat. And hi-hi-hi my daughter — it tastes good. And how far is the step from cold storage meat to meat not kosher and how far is the step from meat not kosher to pig’s flesh? Hi! Hi! Hi! My daughter! You’ll drive me into the deep earth with a weight of shame. May your head drop off from your shoulders, and your husband’s head beside it. My daughter …

Hi … An evil day.…

And in the afternoon, Reb Schulim had come to his cheder, Reb Schulim, his townsman, to review learning. And had reviewed not learning but a long procession of numbskulls, stutterers, louts half blind with too much loitering in cellars. A black fate had let the best ones read first, and the best had scattered before Reb Schulim came and only the dullards were left to shame him. A good rabbi, Reb Yidel, he must have thought — Hmmmm-m-m! h-m-m — h-m-m-m! A good rabbi! Not one has he taught to utter three words one upon the other without fumbling. Not one could speak the tongue without a snffle or a snort — except this child, David, this bastard, God have pity on him, a goy’s spawn, a church organist’s. Hi! Hi! And it is strange that true Yiddish children of pious parents should prove such God-forsaken dolts and this one — only half-a-jew — perhaps not (I could have found out then and there, but—) circumcised — an iron wit. God’s ways. Hidden. A pitiful story and a triple curse befall the aunt, sister, slut, who revealed it. I say the gallows, Haman’s gibbet, high …

Hm-m-m-m! Evil day!..

Then why do you go? Reb Yidel, why do you go? Would it not be better on a day like this not to be the bearer of evil tidings? Accursed, calamitous day! Would it not to be safer to turn and stride back toward the synagogue. They may not understand. Should they accuse you of breeding hatred, call you augur-nosed, are you prepared? Should they mock at you and scorn you and say, Reb Yidel, your nose is in every wind like the spokes of a wheel, have you a remedy? Have you an answer? None. But I am an upright man, and someone must tell them. Shall the child know and they not know he knows. Is he truly a Jew, this David? Shall the foul sister go un-spared? Someone must warn them, advise. And I vowed. I vowed. Hi! Hi! Hi! Alas! Foreboding!..

Grimacing so violently his black beard twitched in several places simultaneously, twitched and caught the sunlight in a skein of drawn pitch, pin-point glints and iridescence, the dumpy, ageing Jew stopped at the corner of Avenue C and Ninth Street, looked west into the sun when he meant to go east, and opened the trigger-taut button on his dull alpaca coat. Relieved from strain, the cloth crumpled against his arms in flutings. The curtains drawn, the grease spots on his vest glistened in vitreous tableau. Beaked thumb and forefinger pecked among his pockets, drew out a torn bit of paper, unfolded it.

“Seven-forty-nine,” he muttered after scanning the Hebrew characters. “Fourth floor. Perhaps this corner of Avenue D. Perhaps the other. Pray God I put it down correctly.”

He replaced the scrap of paper, turned and strode east through the familiar street. Abreast of his cheder doorway, he felt the old bleak stir of recognition, glanced into the hallway and crossed the street. Head cocked, he scanned the house numbers increasing one after the other.

“Seven-forty-nine.” His lips formed the words silently. “Fourth floor.” He added mentally. And taking a deep, sighing breath against the stairs he had to climb, climbed the stoop, entered the hallway and mounted the shadowy stairs.

Winded, stertorous, perturbed, he reached the top and brightest landing, and with heaving paunch, eyed the Mizzuzahs, some still bright, some painted over, above the several doors. And knocked at the nearest one.

“Who is it?” The sharp female voice behind the panels inquired in Yiddish.

“Does the Mrs. Schearl live here?” He asked, knowing somehow that she didn’t.

“No.” A heavy busted, bar-armed woman opened the door. “She lives there. That door in the front. That door.”

His eyes swept from the coarse-grained red skin of her throat to the door her finger pointed at. He nodded, not surprised that she kept her own door opened, watching him inquisitively. And knocked again.

“Oh! David! David! Is it you?” A voice of immense eagerness called out to him. “Is it closed? I’ve been waiting—”

“This is I — Reb Yidel Pankower,” he said as the door opened.

XVII

WISH I had a potsee, a potsee. Could go slower. Go slower. Look around. See if to see. Look around. An exhaustion beyond anything he had ever felt; a weariness the vastest rest could never match. He was so tired his very thought seemed a function of his breathing, as though the mind were so spent it needed the impulse of breath to clear the word away, else it echoed in stagnance. He dragged tottering rebellious legs toward the car tracks of Tenth.

— Take longer if I had a potsee. Longer, lots longer. And kick it here, so it goes there. And there, and there, and kick it there, so it goes here. And here and follow it. And follow it where it went. And if it went away, go away. Go with it. And if it comes back, come back. Ow! Mama! Mama! Tired all out! Ow! Mama! Should have gone away. Anyway. Away. Forty-one Street, said. Big house. Forty-one street River was. And Thirty Street River was. And was and it followed. And train and it followed. And he said it goes. Goes where? Br-Bronx, Bronx Park, he said. Is animals, he said with the package. Lots and trees. Lots. Then it comes back. Five cents. Have to come back always. Go home. Never get lost no more. No more. Know number. Never. Slow. Go slower. Cartracks. Ow! Too near! Too near already. Ow! Ow!

With all the horror of one tottering over an abyss, he stared at the cobbles, the gleaming tracks.

— Stay here! Go back! Stay here! Ow! What’ll I do? Where’ll I go? Mama! Mama! Stay here till fifty wagons; take a step. Fifty autos; take a step. Fifty — Tired! Tired all out. Can’t wait! Can’t wait no more. Don’t let him hit me, Mama, I’m crossing! I’m crossing, Mama! Ow! Getting near! Getting near! Where’s a potsee? A potsee. Garbage cans look. Ain’t out yet. Flies he found. Cellar. Them! Ow! A potsee! A potsee! Something. Find! Find!

Nerveless fingers fumbled numbly in his pockets.

— Pencil. No good. Break off gold and rubber. Step on — No good! No good! What? Cord when I thought kite. What’d I go up for? Why! Why! Canary! Ow! Lousy! Lousy son-of-a-! Back pocket … Them! It’s them! No good shitten them! Kick! Throw away! Tear! Shitten, goy-beads! Tear! Kick for a potsee! Gwan! They’ll see, but they’ll see! Don’t care! Ow! Getting near! Getting near! My lamppost, Ninth! Oh, Mama, Mama, don’t let him hit me! I’m going round! I’m going round! Oooh, look every place! Look every place!

Only his own face met him, a pale oval, and dark, fear-struck, staring eyes, that slid low along the windows of stores, snapped from glass to glass, mingled with the enemas, ointment-jars, green globes of the drug-store — snapped off — mingled with the baby clothes, button-heaps, underwear of the drygoods store — snapped off — with the cans of paint, steel tools, frying pans, clothes-lines of the hardware store — snapped off. A variegated pallor, but pallor always, a motley fear, but fear. Or he was not.

— On the windows how I go. Can see and ain’t. Can see and ain’t. And when I ain’t, where? In between them if I stopped, where? Ain’t nobody. No place. Stand here then. BE nobody. Always. Nobody’d see. Nobody’d know. Always. Always No. Carry — yes — carry a looking glass. Teenchy weenchy one, like in pocket-book, Mama’s. Yea. Yea. Yea. Stay by house. Be nobody. Can’t see. Wait for her. Be nobody and she comes down. Take it! Take looking-glass out, Look! Mama! Mama! Here I am! Mama, I was hiding! Here I am! But if Papa came. Zip, take away! Ain’t! Ain’t no place! Ow! Crazy! Near! I’m near! Ow!

His eyes glazing with panic, he crept toward his house, and as he went, grasped at every rail and post within reach — not to steady himself, though he was faint, but to retard. And always he went forward, as though an ineluctable power tore him from the moorings he clutched.

A boy stood leaning against the brass bannister on the top step of the stoop. He held in his hands the torn tissue of a burst red balloon which he sucked and twisted into tiny crimson bubbles. As David, fainting with terror, dragged himself up the stone stairs, the other nipped at a moist, new-made sphere. It popped. He grinned blithely.

“Yuh see how I ead ’em? One bite!”

David stopped, stared at him unseeingly. In the trance that locked his mind only one sensation guttered with a bare significance. The chill of the tarnished railing under his palm, the chill and the memory of its lustre and the flat taint of its corruption.

“Now, I’ll make a real big one!” said the boy. “Watch me!” The stretched red rubber hollowed into a small antre in his mouth, was engulfed, twisted, revealed. “See dot! In one bite!”

Pop!

Despair.…

XVIII

“FAH a penny, ices, Mrs! Fah a penny, ices! Fah a penny, ices, Mrs!”

The grimy six-year-old who had just come in, rapped on the marble counter with his copper.

“Fah a penny, ices, Mrs!”

But neither the slight, long-nosed owner of the store, gnawing bitterly at his sallow mustache, nor his slovenly, red-haired wife glaring at him, nor their pimpled, frightened daughter in the rear moved to do his bidding.

“Fah a penny, ices, Mrs! Hey!”

Another six-year-old came into the store.

“Yuh gonna gimme a suck, Mutkeh?”

“Dey dowanna gib me even!” Mutkeh turned to his friend with an injured look.

“Let’s go t’ Solly’s. Yea?”

“Noo!” muttered the owner in Yiddish. “Are you going to give it to him or will you let him clamor there all evening?”

“Boils and pepper, that’s what I’ll give him!” she crossed her arms defiantly. (The six-year-olds looked hurt.) “Can’t you do it? Are you dead?”

“I won’t!” His small peevish jaw shot as far forward as its teeth would allow. “Let the whole store be burnt to the ground! I won’t!”

“Then be burned with it!” She spat at him. “I need you and your penny business! A candy-store he saddled me with — good husband! Polly, go give it to him.”

Sullenly, red underlip curled out like a scarlet snail-shell, Polly left off pinching the sides of her dress and came out into the front. There she lifted the rusty lid of the can floating in the half-melted ice of the tub, ladled out the pale-yellow, smoking, crystalline mush into a paper cup and handed it to the boy. The two children went out. And as the girl retreated to the rear of the store, her mother nodded at her vindictively—

“And you had to tell him, ha? Foul-piss-in-bed! After I warned you not to!”

“You ain’ my moddeh,” Polly mumbled in English.

“I’ll give you something in a minute,” her stepmother unlocked her arms, “You think you’re safe because your father’s here?”

“Leave her alone!” her husband interfered resentfully, “Do you think she’s wrong maybe? Had it been your own flesh and blood, you would have been there in a wink, no? You’d have watched. You wouldn’t have sat in front on your fat hole, while that Esau scum handled my poor daughter—”

“Be a scape-goat for dogs!” her voice rose in a browbeating stormy scream. “And for rats! And for snakes! Can I watch everything? The store! The customers! The salesmen! The kitchen! And your stinking daughters as well! Isn’t it enough you’ve given me a candy-store to age me, and with a candy-store loaded my belly with one of yours — Here!” She lifted the chocolate-stained, mounded apron as though she meant to throw it at him. “And besides all this, you ask me to watch those filthy hussies! If they don’t even listen to me, how can I watch them? Aren’t they old enough? Don’t they know enough? And that one in the kitchen where she pretends to weep — a wench of twelve! Let her choke there! And you — you don’t deserve to have the earth cover you! Telling me to watch them! And if you want to know something else, you’ll make no more fuss about it, but you’ll go into the kitchen and eat your supper!” Gasping breathlessly, she stopped.

“Yes?” Though he groped for words, it wasn’t fury that halted his speech, but a kind of invincible stubbornness that kept laboriously intrenching itself deeper and deeper. “Supper — me — you ask — me — to eat? Your zest — and may your zest — for life — be as little all your life — as I — as mine is for food! Supper — after what’s happened! Woe to you! But this once — I—You won’t straddle me like a — a good horse! No! This — you — this once you won’t ride—”

“Kiss my arse!” She broke in on him again. “Riding you! I’m not ridden, ha? Oh what a fool you are — choking over it! As if it’s never happened before that two brats should be playing like animals. Is she maimed! Has he snatched it from her — the prize? Won’t it heal before she’s married?”

“How do you know? Do you know how big he was? What has he wrought? Did you even look to see?”

“Look? Yes!” she suddenly snorted mockingly. “I looked! Her drawers were dirty — as they always are! Why don’t you go inside and look at her yourself!”

“Go break a blood vessel!” he muttered.

“Brats at play and he’s worrying! About what, God knows — the future, marriage, suitors. They’ll explore her before they’ll marry her, is that it? Oh, idiot! Do you want a suitor for her? Blow your nose — she’ll have a tall one!”

His small frame stiffened. Blood flared in his sallow face.

“That’s how your mother answered your father, ha? Over your sister, Genya, ha? And exactly the same way — a goy! It’s a family trait by now! To you it’s nothing!” The spurt of anger that had driven his words failed him suddenly. He retreated.

“Burn like a candle!” She advanced upon him furiously. “Will you vomit up past shame! A secret I told you, you dare mock me with? I’ll give you something to make your world keel over!”

His back against the glass doors of the toy closet, he had lifted his arms defensively. “Go away! Let me alone! If you’ll swill refreshments at my funeral, I’ll swill them at yours!”

“Be slaughtered by a chinaman!” She turned her back on him contemptuously. “Manikin! I don’t hear you any more! Go talk to my buttocks!”

“All right! All right!” He swayed impotently. “Let it be as you say. My just one! My righteous! Let it be as you say. But him, that little rogue with the big eyes, he goes scot-free, ha? That’s dealing justly, ha? A nephew is dearer to you than the daughters I brought you. But remember there’s a God in heaven — He’ll judge you for this!”

“Did I say he ought to go unpunished?” She wheeled around again. “Did I? I told you I’d tell Genya in the morning. With the first light of day I’ll tell her. What more do you want? Would you like Albert to know? Would nothing else suit you but that? How many times have I told you what a maniac he is? Haven’t you even seen it for yourself? He’d tear that child limb from limb! Is that what you want? Well you won’t get it! And now go inside and eat! Go inside as I tell you and stop hammering the samovar — daughter! daughter! Or God help me you’ll have pangs and hemorrhoids for an appetizer!”

Completely cowed and yet too stubborn to move, he stood there muttering while she glared at him. “Genya.… Good! Good! She with her light hand and soft voice. Yeh! Yeh!” He nodded bitterly. “She’ll never lift either against him. She’ll talk to him, that’s what she’ll do — fondle him. And with that he’ll be punished — words. With words after what he’s done to my Esther. All right! All right! If that’s the kind of treatment I get — good … Good! Good! But I’m not satisfied — know that! I’m not satisfied.”

“Will you go in?”

He turned to go. But as he turned, a woman entered the store.

“Hello, Mrs. Sternowitz!”

“Hello!”

“And Mr. Sternowitz! I didn’t see you. How fares it?”

“Fair.”

“Only fair? Tt! Tt! Well, give me for two cents hairpins. You sell three packages for two cents, no?”

“Yes.”

Mrs. Sternowitz turned and waddled heavily toward the rear of the store; Polly, her mouth still hanging, stepped sullenly to one side. As she fumbled among the boxes stacked on the shelves, fumbled and sighed laboriously, and muttered about the dark, her husband watched her, flexing and unflexing nervous hands. Suddenly he clenched his fist, and while his wife’s back was still turned to him, sidled toward the front of the store, brushed by the puzzled woman at the counter and slunk out. Polly gaped after him. Her step-mother, all unaware, lifted haphazardly now one lid of a box, now another. The customer laughed.

“What’s the matter with your husband?” she asked.

“Ach!” Mrs. Sternowitz threw casually over her shoulder. “God alone knows what’s ailing him. His nose has fallen to the ground and he won’t pick it up.”

“That’s the way with men,” the woman chuckled. “You’ll be lying in soon, no?”

“Too soon. Oh! Here it is! A new box?” She dragged it out. “These have something between their legs, these hairpins, cha! cha! Another new variety.” She broke off abruptly, her questioning glance flicking from daughter to customer. “Where is he? Nathan!”

“That’s why I asked you.” The woman still smiled. “It looked to me as though he fled.”

“Fled?” She stood stock-still. “Where?”

“There. Toward Alden Avenue I think. What is it?”

But Mrs. Sternowitz had already flung back the counter lid, and with a frightened yet furious expression was hurrying toward the door. She ran out on the sidewalk, stared eastward frantically, ran a few steps, came rushing back.

“I don’t see him! I don’t see him!” she spluttered, pinching frantically at her neck and dragging at the flesh. “He’s tricked me! He’s off — to Genya’s!” She turned furiously on her daughter. “Why didn’t you tell me he was sneaking off, you little snake!” She lifted her hand to strike, but thought better of it. “Ai!” She threw the box of hairpins down on the counter, and began fumbling desperately with her apron strings. And while the other woman stared at her in alarm, shouted garbled, flurried injunctions at Polly.

“Go call Esther!” She threw the apron from her at last and stooped down to button her shoes. “Hurry! Hurry! Call her out! Quick! Oh, if I get my hands on him! Oh, God help him. Quick! Oh, if I get him! Quick! Call her! You two mind the store. Call Mrs. Zimmerman if I don’t get back soon! Watch the cash drawers! Hurry, do you hear? He can’t have gone far! I’ll get him! I’ll make a scene in the middle of the street. I’ll drag him back by the hair! Hurry! Watch! The two-faced—” She rushed out of the store.

The other woman looked after her in amazement and then turned to Polly. “What’s the matter with your mother?”

“I don’t know,” was the morose answer. And then she went to the back of the store, threw open the kitchen door and screamed at someone inside.

“C’mon out, Esther! Poppa wen’ away! Momma wen’ away! Comm out! Comm on! Yuh hev t’ watch!”

XIX

AT THE second landing of the unlit hallway, the harsh stench of disinfectants rasped the grain of his nostrils. Behind that doorway where the voices of children filtered through, Mrs. Glantz’s brood had the measles. Upward and beyond it, wearily, wearily. And at the turn of the stairs, the narrow, crusted, wire-embedded window was open. He loitered again, stared down. In the greying yard below, a lean, grey cat leaped at the fence, missed the top and clawed its way up with intent and silent power. And he upward also, wearily.

— Her fault. Hers. Ain’t mine. No it ain’t. It ain’t. Ask anybody. Take a step and ask. Is it mine? Bannister-sticks, is it mine? Mine is … Mine ain’t … Mine is … Mine ain’t. Mine is … Mine ain’t … There! See! Chinky shows! Her fault. She said about him. Didn’t she? She told it to Aunt Bertha. Her fault. If she liked a goy, so I liked. There! She made me. How did I know? It’s all her fault and I’m going to tell too. Blame it on her. Yours Mama! Yours! Go on! Go on! Next! Next floor! Mama! Mama! Owoo!

And leaving the third landing where the stale reek of cabbage and sour cream filled the uncertain light, a low whimper forced its way through his lips and echoed with an alien treble in the hollow silence. And upward, clammy palms clinging to the bannisters and squealing in thin reluctance as they slid. And again the turn of the stairs and the open window framing a soft clarity with the new height. Across the alley, a face between curtains grimaced, tilted back; crooking fingers plucked the collar off.

— Stop hollerin’! Stop! You, inside, stop! Don’t know. They don’t know. Who told them? Tell me, who could’ve? Well, tell me? There! See! Polly didn’t tell — Esther wouldn’t let her. She ran after her. But maybe she didn’t catch. She did! She didn’t. She did! But even if — so what? Aunt Bertha wouldn’t tell. Aunt Bertha likes me. See? Aunt Bertha wouldn’t tell on me for a million, zillion dollars. Don’t she hate Papa? Didn’t she want me ’stead of them? Didn’t she? So she wouldn’t tell. Gee, ooh, God! ’Course she wouldn’t tell. So what? What am I scared of? (He leaned against the bannister in an ecstasy of hope) Nobody knows! Oooh, God, make nobody know! Go on then! Make believe nothing happened. Gee, nothing-but — but him. Rabbi? Aaa, he forgets. Sure he does! All the time. What’s he got to remember for? Go on, gee, God! Go on! But — but where were you? It’s way late. Me? Where was I? Got lost, that’s what. Way in the other side of Avenue A. Why? Thought it was the other side. That’s where I was. Go on! Oooh, God! Wish I broke a leg. Ow! Don’t! Yea! Sh!

The pale blue light of the transom obliquely overhead.

— Nobody — in?

He crept to his doorway, stiff ankle-joints cracking like gun-shots. A blur of voices behind the door.

— Sh! Who? Who’s there?

Pent breath trembling in his bosom, he leaned nearer, leaned nearer and poised for flight.

Someone laughed.

— Who? She? Mama? Yes! Yes!

Again, out of a mumble of voices, again the laugh — strained, nervous, but a laugh. Hope clutched at it.

— She! Laugh is hers! She don’t know! Don’t know nothing! Wouldn’t laugh if she knew. No! No! Don’t know! Can go!

His brain flew open as though a light were swung into it—

— Nobody knows! Can go!

Yet his whole being shied in terror when he reached out his hand for the door knob—

The door that clicked open, clicked shut upon their voices. And—

“David! David, child! Where have you been?”

“Mama! Mama!” But not soon enough could he fling himself into her bosom, not deep enough nest his eyes there before he saw in a blur of vision the bearded figure before the table.

“Mama! Mama! Mama!”

Only the sheltering valley between her breasts muffled his scream of fear to her heart. Convulsive, unerring hands flew up to her neck, sought and clasped the one upright pillar of this ruin.

“Hush! Hush! Hush child! Have no fear!” Her body rocked him.

And at his back, his father’s voice, morose, sardonic, “Yes, hush him! Comfort him! Comfort him!”

“Poor frightened one!” Her words came to him from her bosom and lips. “His heart is beating like a thief’s. Where have you been, life? I’m dead with anxiety! Why didn’t you come home?”

“Lost!” he moaned. “I was lost on Avenue A.”

“Ach!” She clasped him to her again. “Because you told a strange tale?”

“I was just making believe! I was just making believe!”

“Were you?” Behind him his father’s cryptic voice. “Were you indeed!”

He could feel his mother start. The heart beneath his ear begun to pound heavily.

“Hi! Yi! Yi! Yi! Yi!” From another corner of the room, the rabbi’s dolorous groan broke up into a train of sighs. “I see I have wrought badly coming here. No?” He paused, but none answered his question. Instead,

“Stop your whining, you!” his father snapped.

“But what was I to do?” The rabbi launched himself again. His voice, so uncommonly unctuous and placating, sounded strange to David’s ears despite his misery. “Had he been a dullard, a plaster golem, such as only the King of the Universe with his holy and bounteous hand knows how to bestow on me, would I have believed him? Psh! I would have said — Bah! Ox-brained idiot, away with this drool! And then and there would I have fetched him such a cuff on the jowls, his children’s children would have cried aloud! Hear me, friend Schearl, he would have flown from me like a toe-nail from a shear! But no!” His voice heightened, deepened, grew rich with huskiness. “In my cheder he was as a crown in among rubbish, as a seraph among Esau’s goyim! How could I help but believe him? A yarn so incredible had to be true. No? His father a goy, an organ-grinder — an organ player in a church! His mother dead! She met him among the corn—”

“What!” Both voices, but with what different tones!

“I said among the corn. You, Mrs. Schearl, his aunt! What! The like will not be heard again till the Messiah is a bride-groom. Speak! No?”

Again that silence and then as though the silence were creaking with its own strain, the ominous grating sound of a stretched cable, his father’s grinding teeth. Under his ear, the heavy beat of the heart tripped, fluttered, hammered raggedly. The stricken catch of the quick breath in her throat was like the audible sublimate of his own terror.

“But uh — uh — now it’s a jest, no? Uh — ah, what! A jest!” His hurried nails could be heard harrying his beard. “Not-eh-ah-poo! Not a doubt!” Stumbling at first, his speech began to tumble, growing more flustered as it grew heartier. “It’s your child now. No! It’s your child! Always! What’s there to be disturbed about? Ha? A jest! A tale of a — of a hunter and a wild bear! Understand? Something to laugh at! Ha! Ha — hey, scamp, there! You won’t gull me again! What these imps can’t invent! Ha! Ha! A jest, no?”

“Yes! Yes!” Her alarmed voice.

“Hmph!” Savagely from her husband. “You agree readily! Where did he get this story? Let him speak! Where did he? Was it Bertha, that red cow? Who?”

David moaned, grasped his mother closer.

“Let him alone, Albert!”

“You say so, do you? We’ll find out!”

“But uh — you won’t hold it against me — uh — I mean that I told you. May God requite me if I came here trying to meddle, to stir up rancor. Yes! May I wither where I sit! Hear me! Not a jot did I care to pry! Let the feet grow where they list, I cared not! Not I! But I thought here am I his rabbi, and I thought it’s my duty to tell you — at least that you might know that he knew — and in what way he was made aware.”

“It’s all right!” She unclasped one arm. “I beg you don’t be disturbed.”

“Well then, good! Good! Ha! I must go! The Synagogue! It grows late.” The creak of his chair and scrape of his feet filled the pause as he rose. “Then you’re not angered with me?”

“No! No! Not at all!”

“Good-night then, good-night.” Hastily. “May God bestow you an appetite for supper. I shan’t trouble you again. If you wish I’ll start him on Chumish soon — a rare thing for one who has spent so little time in a cheder. Good-night to you all.”

“Good-night!”

“Hi-yi-yi-yi-yi-! Life is a blind cast. A blind caper in the dark. Good-night! Hi-i! Yi! Yi! Evil day!”

The latch ground. The door opened, creaked, closed on his hi-yi-ing footsteps. And of the silence that followed the beating of her heart condensed the anguish into intervals. And then his father’s voice, vibrant with contempt—

“The old fool! The blind old nag! But this once he wrought better than he knew!”

He felt his mother’s thighs and shoulders stiffen. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“I’ll tell you in a moment,” he answered ominously. “No, on second thought I won’t need to tell you at all. It will tell itself. Answer me this: Where was my father when I married you?”

“Do you need ask me? You know that yourself — he was dead.”

“Yes, I know it,” was his significant retort. And his voice tightening suspiciously. “You saw my mother?”

“Of course! What’s come over you, Albert?”

“Of course!” he repeated in slow contempt. “Why do you smirk at me with that blank, befuddled look? I mean did you see her before I brought her to you myself?”

“What is it you want, Albert?”

“An answer without guile,” he snapped. “You know what I’m talking about! I know you too well. Did she come to you alone? In secret? Well? I’m waiting!”

As though her body were compelled to follow the waverings of an immense irresolution, she swayed back and forth, and David with her. And at last quietly: “If you must know — she did.”

“Ha!” The table slid suddenly along the floor. “I knew it! Oh, I know her nature! And she told you, didn’t she? And she warned you! Of me! Of what I had done?”

“There was nothing said of that—!”

“Nothing? Nothing of what? How can you be so simple?”

“Nothing!” she repeated desperately. “Stop tormenting me, Albert!”

“You wouldn’t have said nothing.” He pursued her relentlessly. “You would have asked me, what? What I had done? She told you!”

His mother was silent.

“She told you! Is your tongue trapped in silence? Speak!”

“Ach—!” and stopped. Only David heard the wild beating of her heart. “Not now! Not with him here!”

“Now!” he snarled.

“She did.” Her voice was wrung from her. “And she told me I ought not to marry you. But what difference—”

“She did! And the rest? The others? Who else!”

“Why are you so eager to hear?”

“Who else?”

“Father and mother. Bertha.” Her voice had become labored. “The others know. I never told you because I—”

“They knew!” he interrupted her with bitter triumph. “They knew all the time! Then why did they let you marry me? Why did you marry me?”

“Why? Because no one believed her. Who could?”

“Oh!” sarcastically. “Is that it? That was quickly thought of! It was easy to shut your minds. But she swore it was true, didn’t she? She must have, hating me afterwards as she did. Didn’t she tell you that my father and I had quarreled that morning, that he struck me, and I vowed I would repay him? There was a peasant watching us from afar. Didn’t she tell you that? He said I could have prevented it. I could have seized the stick when the bull wrenched it from my father’s hand. When he lay on the ground in the pen. But I never lifted a finger! I let him be gored! Didn’t she tell you that?”

“Yes! But, Albert, Albert! She was like a woman gone mad! I didn’t believe it then and I don’t believe it now! Let’s stop now, please! Can’t we talk about it later?”

“Now that it’s all become clear to me you want to stop, is that it?”

“And why is it suddenly so clear?” her tone held a sharp insistence. “What is so clear to you? What are you trying to prove?”

“You ask me?” ominously. “You dare ask me?”

“I do! What do you mean?”

“Oh, the gall of your kind! How long do you think you’ll hide it! Will I be lulled and gulled forever? Must I tell you? Must I blurt it out! My sin balances another? Is that enough for you?”

“Albert!” her stunned outcry.

“Don’t call to me!” he snarled. “I’ll say it again — they had to get rid of you!”

“Albert!”

“Albert!” He spat back at her. “Whose is he? The one you’re holding in your arms! Ha? How should he be named?”

“You’re mad! Dear God! What’s happened to you?”

“Mad, eh? Mad then, but not a cheat! Come! What are you waiting for? Unmask yourself! I’ve been unmasked to you for years. All these years you said nothing. You pretended to know nothing. Why? You knew why! I would have asked you what I’ve just asked you now! I would have said why did they let you marry me. There must have been something wrong. I would have known! I would have told you. But now, speak! Speak out with a great voice! Why fear? You know who I am! That red cow betrayed you, didn’t she? I’ll settle with her too. But don’t think there was no stir in this silence. All these years my blood told me! Whispered to me whenever I looked at him, nudged me, told me he wasn’t mine! From the very moment I saw him in your arms out of the ship, I guessed. I guessed!”

“And you believe a child’s fantasy?” She spoke with a fixed flat voice of one staggered by the incredible. “The babbling? The wandering of a child?”

“No! No!” he bit back with a fierce sarcasm. “Not a bit of it. Not a word. How could I? It’s muddled of course. But did you want a commentary. Let him speak again. It might be clearer.”

“I’ve thought you strange, Albert, and even mad, but that was pride and that made you pitiful. But now I see you’re quite, quite mad! Albert!” She suddenly cried out as if her cry would waken him. “Albert! Do you know what you’re saying!”

“A comedienne to the end.” He paused, drew in the sharp breath of one marveling—“Hmph! How you sustain it! Not a tremor! Not a sign of betrayal! But answer me this!” His voice thinned to a probe. “Here! Here’s a chance to show me my madness. Where is his birth certificate? Ha? Where is it? Why have they never sent it?”

“That? Was it because of that one single thing your blood warned you so much? Why, dear God, they wrote you — my own father did. They had looked for it everywhere and never found it — lost! The confusion of departure! What other reason could there be?”

“Yes! Yes! What else could it be? But we — we know why it stayed lost, don’t we? It was better unfound! After all, was I there to see him born? Was I even there to see you bearing him? No! I was in America — on their money, notice! The ticket they bought me. Why were they so eager to get rid of me? Why such haste, and I not married more than a month?”

“Why? Can’t you see for yourself? There were nine in my family. Servants, others, outsiders began to know. They had hoped I would follow you soon. There was no money at home. The store was failing. The sons weren’t grown yet. You couldn’t send for me—”

“Oh, stop! Stop! I know all that! Who is it they began to know of — you or me?”

“Do you still persist? Of you, of course! Your mother went around telling everyone.”

“And they were ashamed, eh? I see! But now I’ll tell you my version. Here I am in America sweating for your passport, starving myself. You see? Thousands of miles away. Alone. Never writing to anyone only to you. Now! He’s born a month or two too soon to be mine — perhaps more. You wait that time. That month or two, and then, why then exactly on the head of the hour you write me — I have a son! A joy! Fortune! I have a son. Ha! But when you came across, the doctors were too knowing. Fool your husband, they said. You were frightened. Seventeen months were too few for one so grown. Twenty-one then! Twenty-one they might believe, and twenty-one of course I thought he was. There you are! Wasn’t that it? I haven’t forgotten. My memory’s good. An organist, eh? A goy, God help you! Ah! It’s clear! But my blood! My blood I say warned me!”

“You’re mad! There’s no other word!”

“So? But good enough for your kind. That’s what they reasoned back home — the old, praying glutton and his wife — Did you know an organist? Well, why don’t you answer?”

“I — oh, Albert, let me alone!” She moved David about frantically under her arms. “Let me alone in God’s name! You’ve heaped enough shame on me for nothing. It’s more than I can bear. You’re distraught! Let’s not talk about it anymore! Later! Tomorrow! I’ve suffered twice for this now.”

“Twice! Ha!” He laughed. “You’ve a gift for blurting things out! Then you knew an organist?”

“You claim I did!” Her voice went suddenly stony.

“Did you? Say it.”

“I did then. But that was—”

“You did! You did!” His words rang out again. “It fits! It matches! Why look! Look up there! Look! The green corn — taller than a man! It struck your fancy, didn’t it? Why, of course it would! The dense corn high above your heads, eh? The summer trysts! But I–I married in November! Ha! Ha! — Sh! Don’t speak! Not a word! You’ll be ludicrous, you’re so confounded!”

“And you believe? And you believe? This that you’re saying! Can you believe it?”

“Anhr! Do I believe the sun? Why I’ve sensed it for years I tell you! I’ve stubbed my feet against it at every turn and tread. It’s been in my way, tangled me! And do you know how? Haven’t you ever seen it? Then why do weeks and weeks go by and I’m no man at all? No man as other men are? You know of what I speak! You ought to, having known others! I’ve been poisoned by a guess! Corruption has haunted me. I’ve sensed it! I’ve known it! Do you understand? And it’s been true!”

She rose. And David still in her arms, still clasping her neck, dared not breathe nor whimper in his terror, dared not lift his eyes from the shelter of her breast. And his father’s voice, nearer now, broke like a rod of stiff, metallic words across his back.

“Hold him tightly! He’s yours!”

She answered, a kind of cold deliberate pity in her voice. “And now, now that you know what you think you know, the corruption’s drained. Is that how you are? The fog is split. Why didn’t you tell me sooner what clouded you? I would have freed you sooner.”

“And now like any discovered cheat you’ll mock me, eh?”

“I’m not mocking you, Albert. I’m just asking you to tell me exactly what it is you want.”

“I want,” his teeth ground into his words. “Never to see that brat again.”

She sucked in her breath as if making a last attempt. “You’re driving me mad, Albert! He’s your son. Your son! Oh, God! He’s yours. What if I knew another man long before I met you—! It was long ago, I swear to you! Can he, must he be his? He’s yours!”

“I’ll never believe you! Never! Never!”

“Why then I’ll go!”

“Go. I’ll caper! I’ll dance on the roofs! I’ll be rid of it! Be rid of it, I tell you! The nights in the milk wagon! The thoughts! The torment! The stables — hitching the horse. The other men! The torment! I’ll be rid of it! His—”

But as though answering his suppressed scream of exultation, noises in the hallway, wrangling, angry, confused, battered like turbulent waves against the door. He stopped as though stuck. About David’s legs the clasp of his mother’s arms tightened protectingly. Again the cries threatening, reproachful and a stamp and shuffling of feet. A sharp crack at the door — flung open, it banged against a chair.

“Now let me go! I’m here! I’m going to speak!”

He knew the voice! One wild glance he threw over his shoulder — Aunt Bertha grappling with her husband seemed less strange to him now that the light of the kitchen had grown so grey. With a whimper of despair, he clutched at his mother’s neck, buried his face frenziedly into the crook of her throat. And she, bewildered—

“Nathan! You? Bertha! What is it? You look so frantic!”

“I–I am angry!” Uncle Nathan gasped tormentedly. “I have much—!”

“It’s nothing!” Aunt Bertha beat his words down. “My man is a fool! Look at him! He’s gone crazy!”

“Let me speak! Will you let me speak!”

“Be strangled first!” She flew at him venomously. “He wants — do you know what he wants? Can’t you guess? What does a Jew want? Money. He’s come to borrow money! And why does he want money? To make a bigger store. Nothing else! He’s out of his head! I’ll tell you what happened to him. He dreamt last night the police came and stripped off his boots, the way they did his bankrupt grandfather in Vilna. It’s gone to his head. He’s frightened. His wits are in a foam. Ask him where he is now. He couldn’t answer you. I’m sure he couldn’t. And how are you, Albert! It’s a fair brace of months since I have seen you! You ought to visit us sometimes, see our little store, and vast variety of bon-bons. Cheh! Cheh! Und heva suddeh-wawdeh!”

David’s father made no answer.

And lightly as though she expected none. “And why are you holding him in your arms, Genya?”

“Just to — just to feel his weight,” his mother replied unsteadily. “And he is heavy!” She bent over to put him down.

“No, Mama!” he whispered, clinging to her. “No, Mama!”

“Only a moment, beloved! I can’t hold you in my arms so long. You’re too heavy!” She set him on his feet. “There! Once he gets up, he won’t come down.” And still keeping her trembling hand on his shoulder, she turned to Nathan. “Money? Why—?” She laughed confusedly. “I think the world’s gone mad! What makes you come to us of all people? Are you in your right senses, Nathan?”

Fixing his glowering, harassed eyes on David, Nathan opened his mouth to speak—

“Of course!” Aunt Bertha outstripped him. “Of course, you haven’t any money.” She dug her elbow viciously into her husband’s ribs. “That’s what I told him. To the very words! Didn’t I?”

Almost giddy with terror and guilt, David had dodged behind his mother. At her side stood his father, arms folded across his chest, aloof, nostrils still slowly flaring in the ebb and flow of passion. In the greying light, his face looked like stone, only the nostrils and the crooked vein on his brow alive. Then he uncrossed his arms. His dense, smoldering eyes traveled from face to face, brushed David’s who jerked his head away in panic, traveled on and returned, cleaving there. Without turning to look, David knew himself regarded, so palpable was that gaze, so like a pressure. Enveloping him, it seemed to sap him from without. He grew dizzy, reached out numb hands for his mother’s dress, hung there faintly. His father shifted his gaze. And as though he had been struggling under water until this moment, David gulped down breath, heard sounds again, voices.

“And you won’t sit down?” His mother was asking solicitously. “You’re tired, both of you. I can see it. Why, supper for two more would take no longer. Please stay!”

“No! No! Thanks, sister!” Aunt Bertha was positive. “But if he would go hunting for rusty horseshoes before he’s had his supper, why he can wait a little longer — I’m as tired as he is. And I warned him!”

“I’m sorry we can’t help you, Nathan. You know we would if we had it! Oh! It’s all so mixed! I’m confused! Why!” She laughed ruefully. “If it weren’t so absurd, Nathan, it would be flattering that you should think we had any money.”

Biting his lips, Uncle Nathan stared at the floor, swayed as if he might fall. “I have nothing to say.” he answered dully. “She’s said it all.”

“You see?” There was a note of triumph in Aunt Bertha’s voice. “He’s ashamed of himself now. But now I like him!” She began nudging him toward the door. “Now he’s my man and as good a man as ever ate prunes with his meat. Come, good heart! Mrs. Zimmerman is waiting— My customers will think I’m burying you.”

“You’ve a cunning way!” He answered, shaking her off sullenly. “You’ve clogged my chimney well! But you wait! You’ll laugh in convulsion yet!”

“Come! Come!” She gave him a push toward the door. “Hoist up your nose! That venture you want money for can wait!”

Uncle Nathan wrested his arm away, shook a desperate, baffled finger at his wife. “A curse on you and your money and your whole story! I’ll stay! I’ll speak!”

Aunt Bertha ignored him, opened the door. “Good night, sister! Forgive him! He’s always been a good husband, but to-night— You know how men are! When they’re a little unstrung, they revel in it. Come, you!”

Cowering behind his mother, David watched Aunt Bertha drag her stubborn husband toward the door. Their going would be no deliverance — one doom postponed, another waiting. There could be no less terror if they stayed, or if they went. Whatever way the mind turned it faced only fear. This he had escaped. Aunt Bertha had saved him. But his father! His father again! Their going abandoned him to that fury! But—

“Wait!”

For the first time since they had come, his father spoke. And now he uncrossed his arms and stalked suddenly to the door.

“Wait!” He gripped Uncle Nathan’s shoulder, towered above him. “Come back!”

“What do you want of my man!” Aunt Bertha snapped in angry surprise. “You let him alone. He’s distraught enough without you troubling him. Come, Nathan!” She redoubled her tugging at the other shoulder.

“It’s you who should let him alone!” her brother-in-law growled dangerously. “You and your cursed deceit! Come in, Nathan!”

Staring amazed from face to face, Uncle Nathan could muster no more than a bewildered grunt.

“I say let him go!” Aunt Bertha shrieked furiously. “Wild beast, take your paws off!”

“When I’m done!”

“Albert! Albert!” his mother’s frightened voice. “What are you doing! Let him alone!”

“No! No! Not till he’s spoken!”

For a moment, half in the thickening light of the kitchen, half in the gloom of the corridor, they wrestled for him, Uncle Nathan’s pale, alarmed face, bobbing back and forth between them, and all three struggling figures, shadowy, unreal as nightmare. A moment longer, and with one vicious yank, David’s father pulled them back into the room, and with such force, the other man pitched forward, his hat flying to the floor. He slammed the door.

“Listen to me, Nathan!” He drummed his stiff hand against the other man’s chest. “You came here to say something, now say it. Stifle that she-ass and her guile! Say it! It isn’t money!”

“N-nothing! Nothing! So help me, G-God!” Before the thrust of the other’s hand, Uncle Nathan fell back against his wife. “Bertha told you everything! May evil befall me if she didn’t! A store! I wanted! I saw! That was all! No, Bertha?”

“You fool!” She spat at her husband. “Didn’t I warn you not to come here! Didn’t I tell you you’d groan and remember? I’ve a good mind to — What do you want of him?” She wheeled furiously on her brother-in-law. “You let him alone, ungovernable beast! Do you hear? He’s come for money and nothing else! How many times do you want to be told? I don’t have to endure any more of your rages! Remember that!”

“Hold your tongue!” His father was beginning to quiver. “You treacherous cow! I know you of old. I know what you’ve already done. Speak, Nathan!” He smashed his fist down on the wash tub. “Don’t let her trick you! Speak! Whatever it is! Have no fear of me! Only the truth! I have reasons! It may do me good to hear!”

“What’s he saying?” Aunt Bertha’s eyes bulged. “What new insanity gripes him!”

“Albert, I beg of you!” his mother had seized her husband’s arm. “If you’ve any quarrel, it’s with me. Let the man alone. He’s told you all.”

“Has he? So you think! Or pretend, maybe! But I know better! I have eyes! I have seen! Will you speak?” Wrath stretched him to his full height. Teeth bared, he advanced, dwarfing the other man who cowered.

“I–I’ve already s-said everything,” his lips trembling, Uncle Nathan reached behind him for the door. “I must leave! Bertha! Come!”

But David’s father had rammed his palm against the door.

“You’ll wait! You hear me? You’ll wait till you answer me one thing! And you’ll answer it!”

“W-what do you want?”

“Why, when you opened your mouth to speak — Before that she-ass brayed you out of words and will — Why did you stare at him?” He hammered the air in David’s direction. “Why that look? What was it you were trying to say about him?”

“I–I have nothing to say. I didn’t look at him. Let me alone in God’s will. Genya! Bertha! Don’t let him quarrel with me.”

“Albert! Albert! Stop torturing the man!”

“A curse on you! You fiend!” Aunt Bertha tried to squeeze in between them “You madman! Let him alone!”

He flung her viciously aside. “And you, will you tell me what he did? Or do you want my fury to burst—!”

“Oh! Oh! Woe me! Woe me!” Aunt Bertha filled the room with a loud gasping and lament. “Woe me! Did you see what he did? He threw me? And me with a child in my belly. Monster! Mad dog! It’s not drawers you’ve ripped this time. It’s a child you’ve destroyed! On your head my miscarriage. Oh you’ll pay for this! May they hang you. May you—”

“Not if you had twins would it trouble me. Your breed is well destroyed. But I will find out what he did. That brat there! I’m waiting!” His voice became strangled. “I tell you I’m at the end of my patience!”

Uncle Nathan began to sag as though about to faint.

“He — uh — uh— oy! oy! He—!”

“Not a word!” Aunt Bertha screamed. “Open that door or I’ll shriek for help! Let us out!”

They faced each other in a silence so awful it seemed as if the very room would burst with the tension of it.

Blind with terror, unnoticed by any, David had already reeled toward the stove. (—It’s there! It’s there!) A tortured, anguished voice babbled within him. (—It’s there! She put it there! It’s there!) Groping, tottering hands reached into the dark niche between the stove and the wall—

“Speak!” In the shrunken, shadowy room, his father had become all voice, and his voice struck with the brunt of thunder.

“Bertha!” Uncle Nathan wailed. “Save me! Save me, Bertha! He’s going to strike! Bertha! Bertha!”

“Help!” she screamed. “Let go the door! Help! Help! Call! Genya, throw up the window! Help!”

“Albert! Albert! Have mercy!”

“Speak!” Above their screaming, the horrible gritting of his teeth.

“I–I— uh — he— it was he— uh. Oh, Bertha! Noth—”

“Anh!” That insensate snarl. The shadowy arm drew back. “You—!”

“Papa!”

The bent arm hung in air, hung motionless. The writhing face above it turned.

“Papa!” In the swirling, crumbling, darkened mind, that one compulsion rallied the body and the brain like a standard. A dream? No, not a dream. Not a dream nor the memory of a dream. An act, ordained, foreseen, inevitable as this very moment, a channel of expertness, imbued for ages, reiterated for ages, familiar as breath.

He approached. The rest stood spellbound.

“I–It was me, papa—”

“David! Child!” His mother sprang toward him. “What have you got in your hand!”

But before she could reach him, he had lifted the broken whip into his father’s curling fingers.

“David!” She seized him, drew him out of danger. “A whip! Near him! What are you doing!”

“This?” The lids dropped over his father’s consuming eyes. “Why do you—? Why is this given? You know what happened to this? Is it your fate you’re begging for?”

“I–I— Please, papa!”

“You shan’t touch him! You hear me, Albert! I won’t endure it!” All entreaty, all timidity had vanished, in its stead a fierce resolve. She bowed over David like a ledge of rock. “Whatever he’s done or anyone thinks he’s done, you shan’t touch him!”

“Band against the alien, the stranger!” His father’s voice was hollow and perilous, “But let me hear him!”

“Say nothing, child!” Aunt Bertha’s warning cry.

But he was already speaking. And the words he spoke were like staggering burdens he bore up a great steep where his own sighs battered him, where he floundered in his own tears.

“I was — I was on — the roof. Papa! I was on the roof! And there was a b-boy. A big one — and — and he had a kite — k-kite, they called it. Kite — goes h-higher than r-roofs — it goes—”

“What are you talking about!” His father ground. “Stop your candle-gutter! Hurry!”

“I’m — I’m—” He gasped for breath.

“God’s fool!” Aunt Bertha rasped under her breath. “My man! My man! May earth gape for you this very hour! You see what you’ve wrought!”

“Me?” Uncle Nathan groaned. “My fault? How did I—”

“So — s-somebody — wanted to take it. The k-kite. And I called. And I said — look out! Look out! So I–I was his friend. Leo. He had skates and then — Ow! Papa! Papa! And we went to Aunt Bertha’s. And we got Esther on the other side — in the yard. He got her — And he gave her the skates. And then, ow! Ow! He took her in — in the cellar. And he — he—”

“He what!” The implacable voice was like a goad.

“I don’t know! Ow! He p-played — he played — bad!”

“Anh!”

“Don’t you come near him!” his mother screamed. “Don’t you dare! That’s enough, child! Hush! That’s enough!”

“H-he did! Not me, Papa! Papa, not me! I didn’t! Ow! Papa! Papa!” He clung frenziedly to his mother.

“That’s hers! Her spawn! Mark me! Hers!” He seemed to be stifling in a wild insane joy. “Not mine! Not a jot of me! Bertha, cow! Not mine! You, Nathan! Rouse your sheep-wits! Your mate’s betrayed my wife! Do you know it? Blabbed her secret! Told him whose he was. An organist somewhere. How I harbored a goy’s get! A rake! A rogue’s! His and hers! But not mine! I knew it! I knew it all the time! And now I’m driving her out! Her and him, the brat! Let him beat her in time to come. But I’m free! He’s no part of me! I’m free!”

“He’s mad!” The other two whispered hoarsely and shrank away.

“Hear me!” He was slavering at the mouth. “I nurtured him! Three years I throttled surmise, I was the beast of burden! Good fortune I never met! Happiness never! Joy never! And — and that was right! Why should I meet anything but misfortune! That was right! I was tainted. I was bridled with another’s sin. But for that — for all that suffering I have one privilege! Who will deny me? Who? One privilege! To wreak! To quench! Once!”

And before anyone could move, he had lunged forward at David’s mother.

“Ow! Papa! Papa! Don’t!”

Those steel fingers closed like a crunching trap on David’s shoulders — yanked him out of her hands. And the whip! The whip in air! And—

“Ow! Ow! Papa! Ow!”

Bit like a brand across his back. Again! Again! And he fell howling to the floor.

His mother screamed. He felt himself grabbed, pulled to his feet, dragged away. And now his aunt was screaming, Uncle Nathan’s hoarse outcry swelling the tumult. In the shadows, figures swayed, grappled — And suddenly his father’s voice, exultant, possessed, hypnotic—

“What’s that? That! Look! Look at the floor! There! Who disbelieves me now? Look what’s lying there! There where he fell! A sign! A sign I tell you! Who doubts? A sign!”

“Unh!” Uncle Nathan grunted as though in sudden pain.

“Woe me!” Aunt Bertha gasped in horror. “It’s—! What! No!”

Terror impinging on terror, David squirmed about in his mother’s arms — looked down—

There, stretched from the green square to the white square of the checkered linoleum lay the black beads — the gold cross framed in the glimmering, wan glaze. Horror magnified the figure on it. He screamed.

“Papa! Papa! Leo — he gave them! That boy! It fell out! Papa!” His words were lost in the uproar.

“God’s own hand! A sign! A witness!” his father was raving, whirling the whip in his flying arms. “A proof of my word! The truth! Another’s! A goy’s! A cross! A sign of filth! Let me strangle him! Let me rid the world of a sin!”

“Put him out! Genya! Put him out! David! David! Him! Hurry! Let him run!” Aunt Bertha and Uncle Nathan were grappling with his father. “Hurry! Out!”

“No! No!” his mother’s frenzied cry.

“Hurry! I say! Hurry! Help! We can’t hold him!” Uncle Nathan had been shaken off. With knees bent, Aunt Bertha was hanging like a dead weight from his father’s whip-hand. “He’ll slay him,” she shrieked. “He’ll trample on him as he let his father be trampled on. Hurry, Genya!”

Screaming, his mother sprang toward the door — threw it open— “Run! Run down! Run! Run!”

She thrust him from her, slammed the door after him. He could hear the thud her body flung against it. With a wild shriek he plunged toward the stairs—

On the whole floor and even on the one below it, doors had been opened. Spears of gas-lamps crisscrossed in the unlit hallway. Gaping, craning faces peered out, listening, exclaiming, reporting to others behind them—

“Hey, boychick! Vus is? A fight! Hey vot’s de maddeh? Hooz hollerin’? Leibeleh! Dun’ go op! You hea’ vot I say. Dun go op! Oy! Cull a cop! Tek keh! Quick! Vehzee runnin’? Hey, boychick!”

A reeling smear of words, twitching gestures, fractured lights, features, a flickering gauntlet of tumult and dismay. He never answered, but plunged down. None stopped him. Only a miracle saved him from crashing down the dark steps. And now the voices were above him, and he heard feet trampling on the stairs, and now all noises merged to a flurried humming and now almost unheard — his down-drumming feet had reached the hallway—

Blue light in the door-frame.

Arms up and gasping like a runner to the tape—

The street.

The street. He dared to breathe. And stumbled to the sidewalk and stood there, stood there.

XX

DUSK. Storelight and lamplight condensed — too early for assertion. The casual, canceled stir and snarling of distance. And on the sidewalks, men and women striding with too certain a gait, and in the gutter, children crossing, calling, not yet conceding the dark’s dominion. The world dim-featured in mouldering light, floating, faceted and without dimension. For a moment the wild threshing of voices, bodies, the screams, the fury in the pent and shrunken kitchen split their bands in the brain, flew out to the darkened east, the flagging west beyond the elevated, the steep immensity of twilight that dyed the air above the housetops. For a moment, the rare coolness of a July evening dissolved all agony in a wind as light as with the passing of a wand. And suddenly there was space even between the hedges of stone and suddenly there was quiet even in the fret of cities. And there was time, inviolable even to terror, time to watch the smudged and cluttered russet in the west beckon to the night to cover it. A moment, but a moment only, then he whimpered and ran.

— Can’t! Ow! Can’t! Can’t run! Can’t! Hurts! Hurts! Ow! Mama! Legs! Mama!

He had no more than reached the corner when every racked fibre in his body screamed out in exhaustion. Each time his foot fell was like a plunger through his skull. On buckling legs, he crossed Avenue D, stopped, wobbling with faintness, rubbed his thighs.

— Can’t go! Can’t! Hurt! Ow! Mama! Mama!

Fearfully, he peered over his shoulder, eyes traveling upward. From the first to the third floor of his house, the lighted kitchens behind bedrooms cast their dull stain on the windows — one dusky brass, one fawn, one murky grey. A column of drab yet reassuring light — except his own on the fourth floor, still sullen, aloof and dark. He caught his breath in a new onslaught of terror. Waves of fear serried his breast and back—

— Ain’t not yet! Ow! Fighting yet! Him! What’s he doing! Mama! Mama! He’s hitting! Ow! Can’t run! Some place! Stay here! Find! Watch! Wait till— Wait! Wait! Scared! Hide! Some place … Where?

A short distance to his left, the closed dairy store between Ninth and Tenth was unlit. He stumbled toward it. Behind the barricade of milk cans chained to the cellar-railing, he crouched down on the store-step, fixed lifted, imploring eyes to his windows. Dark, still dark. Baleful, unrelenting, they hid yet betrayed the fury and disaster behind them. He moaned, bit his fingers in agony, stared about him with a wild, tortured gaze.

Across the street the bar of green light in the photography shop blazed out. People passed, leisurely, self-absorbed, and as they entered the radius of the light, it fixed them momentarily in caustic, carrion-green. None marked him there, but drifted by with too buoyant and too aimless a gait for his own misery, drifted by with bloated corroded faces, as if heaved in the swell of a weedy glare, as if lolling undersea. Too sick to endure it, he looked away, looked up.

— Dark yet up. Dark … First, second, third is light. Mine Dark. Dark mine only. Papa stop. Stop! Stop, papa. Light it now. Ain’t mad no more. Light it, mama. Now! One, two, three, now! One, two, three, now! Now! Aaa! Ain’t! Ain’t! Ow! Run away, mama! Don’t let him! Run away! Here! Here I am! Run! Mama! Mama! Mama!

He whimpered.

A man, paunched, slow-footed, his bulky body rolling on baggy unbending knees drew near. Opposite David, he turned a slow head toward the light, palmed a strange, corrupt-purple splotch on his jowls, pinched his under lip and lumbered on.

— With the whip. The busted one. Here he hit too. Him like from wagon. And I gave it. Won’t bust no more. If he — Don’t let him! Don’t let him! Run in! Bedroom! Hold door. Tight! Don’t let go! Aunt Bertha! Uncle! You too! Hold it! Fast! Don’t let him hit her! Hold it! Ow! Mama! Stop! Stop, papa! Please! Ow! Look! Is — dark — dark yet. Dark.

Beside him on the ground floor of the same house where he sat concealed, a window squawked, whirred open. And a man’s voice in sing-song harangue:

“Aaa, dawn be a wise-guy! Hooz tuckin’ f’om vinnin’! A dollar ’n’ sexty fife gestern! A thuler ’n’ sompt’n’ —ova hadee cends — Sonday! An’ Monday night in back f’om Hymen’s taileh-shop, rummy, tuh sevendy. Oy, yuh sh’d die. An’ I sez if yuh ken give a good dill, Abe, yuh sheoll dill in jail auraddy! An’ if I luz again, a fire sol dich bald urtreffen!” The voice retreated.

— If it lights, so what? What’ll I do? He’ll ask me. What’ll I do? What? What? Papa, nothing. I wanted … I wanted. What? The — The — on the floor. Beads. Fell out — pocket. What for you—? Ow! Papa, I don’t know What? Why? He’ll look. He’ll say. Ball. Ball I wanted Ball? He’ll say — ball? Yes. Ball. In my head. Ow! I can’t tell. Must! In my head seen. Was. In the corner. By milk-stink baby carriages. White. Wasn’t scared. What? What? What? Yes. Wasn’t scared. How I seen one once, when — When? Sword in the fire. Tenth Street. Ask the rabbi. Sword. In the crack light and he laughed. When I read that he — Fire. Light. When I read. Always scared till then — and they made me. Goyim by river. And They — So had. So lost. Wanted back, Papa! Papa! Wanted back. And he said yes. Leo. Like inside-outside guts burning. And he said would. Come out of box. Said God on — Wait, Papa! Papa! Don’t hit! Don’t! Ow! Didn’t want a big one, only twentier. Littler even. Only nickel-big. Down under fished — like when — Ow! That’s why, Papa! That’s why! Didn’t — Ow! Ain’t! Ain’t! Ain’t lit yet! What’ll I do? Ain’t lit yet!

They had gathered across the street before the house beside the barber shop on the corner, boys, nimble, nervous and shrill. And one stood threateningly on the stoop while the rest crouched tensely on the curb—

“Wolf, are yuh ready?”

“I’m geddin’ ouda bed!”

“Wolf, are yuh ready?”

“I’m goin’ t’ de sink!”

“Wolf, are yuh ready?”

“I’m washin’ op mine face—”

With precious, mincing gait, two women approached, scanning with dead caressing flutter the dead faces of the men who passed them. Their cheeks in the vitriolic glare of the photography-shop window were flinty yet sagging; green light glazed the velvet powder, scummed the hectic rouge, livid over lurid. One, the nearest, swelling her bosom to the figment strand she lifted from it, sent a glancing beam at David from casual polished, putrescent eyes. They sauntered on trailing a languid wake of flesh and perfume, redolent for all the ten foot gap between them, emphasizing by denying their corruption.

— Milk — stink here too. Where? Cans, because. Milk — stink big cans. What’s that — there by — cellar? What? Sword it — No! Don’t care! Don’t care! Mama! Mama!

“Wolf are yuh ready?”

“I’m putt’n’ on my shoes—”

— If she runs, runs away. Don’t look for me. Can’t see. If she — like she said. Never see her again. Take me, mama! Don’t run away! Mama! Here I am, Mama! By cans I’m hiding! By store! Dark yet — is dark. Dark always! She went already. Didn’t look! Don’t want to find me! Never! Never! She went! She went! Ow! Look someplace else! Look! Look someplace! Sword by cans! No, ain’t. Forgot! He forgot. Store-spoon, milk-spoon. Why! Ow! Mama! Mama! Ain’t light! Never! Never!

“Wolf, are yuh ready?”

“I’m pudd’n on my drawz—”

“No fair! Hey, yuh pud on de drawz a’reddy!”

“Awri’! So I’m pudd’n’ on my shoit!”

“Wolf, are—”

The clatter of a horse-car drowned them out. And from the window beside him loud and sudden laughter—

“A bluff, ha? Nisht by Mudjkih! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ven ’Erry says a full-house is a full—”

— If it was—! If it was a sword. So what? You’re scared. Ain’t not! You’re scared! I ain’t! I ain’t! I ain’t! Yes, you know because it ain’t. Double dare me? Double dare me? You know it ain’t? Could! Even if it ain’t a sword, could go in the crack. Where it splashes, hold cup like where you held sword. You’re scared. Triple dare me? Somebody’ll see. Let ’em! Don’t care! Can’t get it out. Anyway. Cans too heavy — Can too. Empty. I triple dare you? Wait! Aaaa, knew you was scared. Wait! Three waits! No more! No more! Only three waits. No more! (He was muttering aloud now) “Yuh gonna lighd winder? Winder! Winder! Yuh gonna lighd winder?”

“Wolf, are yuh ready?”

“I’m tieingk op mine shoe-laces!”

— Winder, secon’ chance! Yuh gonna lighd winder? I’ll go! I’ll go! Winder! Mama! Mama! I’ll go!

He had risen to his feet. Once more his anguished eyes beseeched the window, and then a fit of horrible rage convulsed him and he writhed and beat the wall beside him. Seconds passed. The fit left him and he tasted the salt blood on his bitten lip and peered with a new, strange feeling of craftiness up and down the greenish street.

Humanity. On feet, on crutches, in carts and cars. The ice-vendor. The waffle-wagon. Human voices, motion, seething, throbbing, bawling, honking horns and whistling. Troubling the far clusters of street lamps, setting store-lights guttering with their passing bodies like a wind. He shuddered, looked near at hand. Across the street, the wolf was crouching, ready to spring; the boys that baited him, twitched warily, giggled nervously at each cry. In the photography-shop, the enlarged pictures of age gazed out at him, mummified and horrible. From wall and sidewalk, lamplight and mercury vapor had crowded the gloaming into night; above the streets the hollow cobalt air dissolved heaven’s difference with the roof tops. No one was watching him.

In hatred this time, in challenge, his eyes stabbed the window. Dark. He defied it.

Stealthily, he sidled to the nearest milk-can, took hold of the cover and handle. Under his palms, the metal was cold, the heavy can unwieldy, a shifting steely glimmer under his eyes. He leaned against it — harder. It budged, sounded hollow. Again he braced himself, thrust—

Clank!

Wedged between the shoulder of the can and the cellar grill, the long, grey, milk-dipper clattered to the ground. He stooped to pick it up—

“Tadam, padam, pam! Thew! Thew! He had to get under, get out and get under—” With a jaunty, swaggering stride and nasal hum and toothy whistle, a tall, square-shouldered man drew abreast. “To fix up his little machine!” Between cap and black shirt, frosty green-blue eyes winked down at David, turned away, and passing, left their chill fire lingering in the air. “Pam! Pam! Prra! To fix up his little machine!”

The coast was clear now. Across the street, the children were shrieking with excitement. David picked up the dipper, crept out of the store entrance, and with the scoop of the dipper under his armpit, long, flat handle in his hand, he slunk quickly toward Tenth Street—

“Wolf are yuh ready!” their voices pursued him.

“I’m co-o-o-o-omin’—down — duh — st-o-o-op!”

— Goin’! I’m goin’, winder! Winder! Winder! I’m goin’!

Uphill, the faint slope, steep to aching legs, he ran, avoiding the careless glance of the few who noticed. Tenth Street. A street car crossed the Avenue, going west. The river wind blew straight and salt between a flume of houses. He swung sharply into it, entered the river-block, dimlit, vacant. Ahead of him, like a barrier, the one beer-saloon, swinging door clamped in a vise of light, the mottled stained-glass window bulging with a shoddy glow.

— Somebody’ll see.

He skulked in the shadows against the rough wall of the iron-works, crept forward. In the ebb of river-wind, the faint bitter flat beer spread round him. Gone in the quick neaping of wind — A man knuckles to mustache, flung back the swing-door — whirred reiteration of bar and mirror, bottles, figures, aprons — David slunk past him into deeper shadow.

And now the old wagon-yard, the lifted thicket of tongues; the empty stables, splintered runways, chalked doors, the broken windows holding still their glass like fangs in the sash, exhaling manure-damp, rank. The last street lamp droning in a cyst of light. The gloomy, massive warehouse, and beyond it, the strewn chaos of the dump heap stretching to the river. He stopped. And where a shadowy cove sank between warehouse wall and dump heap, retreated.

— Yuh dared me … Yuh double-dared me … Now I gotta.

The tracks lay before him — not in double rows now but in a single yoke. For where he stood was just beyond the fork of the switch, and the last glitter on the tines lapsed into rust and rust into cobbles and cobbles merged with the shadowy dock and the river.

— Scared! Scared! Scared! Don’t look!

He plucked his gaze away, tossed frenzied eyes about him. To the left, the chipped brick wall of the warehouse shut off the west and humanity, to the right and behind him, the ledge of the dump heap rose; before him land’s end and the glitter on the rails.

— Yuh dared me … Yuh double-dared me … Now I gotta. I gotta make it come out.

The small sputter of words in his brain seemed no longer his own, no longer cramped by skull, but detached from him, the core of his surroundings. And he heard them again as though all space had compelled them and were shattered in the framing, and they boomed in his ears, vast, delayed and alien.

— Double-dared me! Now I gotta! Double-dared me! Now I gotta make it come out.

XXI

INSIDE the Royal Warehouse, located on the East River and Tenth Street, Bill Whitney, an old man with a massive body, short-wind and stiff, rheumatic legs, toiled up the stairway to the first floor. In his left hand, he held a lantern, which in his absent-mindedness, he jogged from time to time to hear the gurgle of its fuel. In his right hand, clacking on the bannister at each upward reach of his arm, he held a key — the key he turned the clocks with on every floor of the building — the proof of his watch and wakefulness. As he climbed the swart stairs, stained with every upward step by shallow, rocking lantern-light, he muttered, and this he did not so much to populate the silence with ephemeral, figment selves, but to follow the links of his own slow thinking, which when he failed to hear, he lost:

“And wut? Haw! Ye looked down — and — sss! By Gawd if there waren’t the dirt-rud under ye. And. Ha! Ha! Haw! No wheels. Them pedals were there — now waren’t they? Saw ’em as clear — as clear — but the wheels gone — nowhere. By Gawd, thinks I— Now by Gawst, ain’t it queer? Old Ruf Gilman a’standin’ there, a’standin’ and a’gappin’. Jest a’standin’ and a’gappin’ as plain— And the whiskers he growed afore the winter … By the well with the white housing. A’savin’ his terbaccer juice till he had nigh a cupful … Whawmmmmm! Went plumb through the snaw in the winter…”

Resounded, surged and resounded, like

ever swelling breakers:

— Double! Double! Double dared me!

Where there’s light in the crack,

yuh dared me. Now I gotta.

In the blue, smoky light of Callahan’s beer-saloon, Callahan, the pale fattish bar-keep jammed the dripping beer-tap closed and leaned over the bar and snickered. Husky O’Toole — he, the broad-shouldered one with the sky-blue eyes — dominated those before the bar (among them, a hunchback on crutches with a surly crimp to his mouth, and a weazened coal-heaver with a sooty face and bright eye-balls) and dwarfed them. While he spoke they had listened, grinning avidly. Now he threw down the last finger of whiskey, nodded to the bar-tender, thinned his thin lips and looked about.

“Priddy wise mug!” Callahan prompted filling his glass.

“Well.” O’Toole puffed out his chest. “He comes up fer air, see? He’s troo. Now, I says, now I’ll tell yuh sompt’n about cunt— He’s still stannin’ be de fawge, see, wit’ his wrench in his han’. An I says, yuh like udder t’ings, dontcha? Waddayuh mean, he says. Well, I says, yuh got religion, aintcha? Yea, he says. An’ I says, yuh play de ponies, dontcha? Yea, he says. An’ yuh like yer booze, dontcha? Sure, he says. Well I says, none o’ dem fer me! Waddayuh mean, he says. Well, I says, yuh c’n keep yer religion, I says. Shit on de pope, I says— I wuz jis’ makin’ it hot — an’ t’hell witcher ponies I says— I bets on a good one sometimes, but I wuzn’ tellin’ him — an’ w’en it comes t’ booze I says, shove it up yer ass! Cunt fer me, ev’ytime I says. See, ev’ytime!”

They guffawed. “Yer a card!” said the coal heaver. “Yer a good lad!—”

As though he had struck the enormous bell

of the very heart of silence, he

stared round in horror.

“Gaw blimy, mate!” Jim Haig, oiler on the British tramp Eastern Greyhound, (now opposite the Cherry Street pier) leaned over the port rail to spit. “I ain’t ’ed any fish ’n’ chips since the day I left ’ome. W’y ain’t a critter thought of openin’ a ’omely place in New York — Coney Island fer instance. Loads o’ prawfit. Taik a big cod now—”

Now! Now I gotta. In the crack,

remember. In the crack be born.

“Harrh! There’s nights I’d take my bible-oath, these stairs uz higher.” On the first floor, Bill Whitney stopped, gazed out of the window that faced the East River. “Stinkin’ heap out there!” And lifting eyes above the stove-in enameled pots, cracked washtubs, urinals that glimmered in the black snarl, stared at the dark river striped by the gliding lights of a boat, shifted his gaze to the farther shore where scattered, lighted windows in factories, mills were caught like sparks in blocks of soot, and moved his eyes again to the south-east, to the beaded bridge. Over momentary, purple blossoms, down the soft incline, the far train slid like a trickle of gold. Behind and before, sparse auto headlights, belated or heralding dew on the bough of the night. “And George a’gappin’ and me a’hollerin’ and a’techin the ground with the toe of my boot and no wheels under me. Ha! Ha! Mmm! Wut cain’t a man dream of in his sleep … A wheel … A bike…” He turned away seeking the clock. “And I ain’t been on one … not sence … more’n thirty-five … forty years. Not since I uz a little shaver…”

Clammy fingers traced the sharp edge of

the dipper’s scoop. Before his eyes

the glitter on the car tracks whisked …

reversed … whisked …

“Say, listen O’Toole dere’s a couple o’ coozies in de back.” The bar-keep pointed with the beer knife. “Jist yer speed!”

“Balls!” Terse O’Toole retorted. “Wudjah tink I jist took de bull-durham sack off me pecker fer — nuttin’? I twisted all de pipes I wanna w’en I’m pissin’!”

“No splinters in dese boxes, dough. Honest, O’Toole! Real clean—”

“Let ’im finish, will ye!” the hunchback interrupted sourly. “O’Toole don’ have to buy his gash.”

“Well, he says, yea. An’ I says yea. An’ all de time dere wuz Steve an’ Kelly unner de goiders belly-achin’—Hey trow us a rivet. An’ I sez—”

— Nobody’s commin’!

Klang! Klang! Klang! Klang! Klang!

The flat buniony foot of Dan Maclntyre the motorman pounded the bell. Directly in front of the clamorous car and in the tracks, the vendor of halvah, candied-peanuts, leechee nuts, jellied fruits, dawdled, pushing his pushcart leisurely. Dan Maclntyre was enraged. Wasn’t he blocks and blocks behind his leader? Hadn’t his conductor been slow as shit on the bell? Wouldn’t he get a hell of a bawling out from Jerry, the starter on Avenue A? And here was this lousy dago blocking traffic. He’d like to smack the piss out of him, he would. He pounded the bell instead.

Leisurely, leisurely, the Armenian pedlar steered his cart out of the way. But before he cleared the tracks, he lifted up his clenched fist, high and pleasantly. In the tight crotch of his forefingers, a dirty thumb peeped out. A fig for you, O MacIntyre.

“God damn yuh!” He roared as he passed. “God blast yuh!”

— So go! So go! So go!

But he stood as still and rigid as

if frozen to the wall, frozen fingers

clutching the dipper.

“An’ hawnest t’Gawd, Mimi, darlin’.” The Family Entrance to Callahan’s lay through a wide alley way lit by a red lamp in the rear. Within, under the branching, tendriled chandelier of alum-bronze, alone before a table beside a pink wall with roach-brown mouldings, Mary, the crockery-cheeked, humid-eyed swayed and spoke, her voice being maudlin, soused and reedy. Mimi, the crockery-cheeked, crockery-eyed, a smudged blonde with straw-colored hair like a subway seat, slumped and listened. “I was that young an’ innercent, an’ hawnest t’ Gawd, that straight, I brought it t’ the cashier, I did. And, Eeee! she screams and ducks under the register, Eeee! Throw it away, yuh boob! But what wuz I t’know — I wuz on’y fifteen w’en I wuz a bus-goil. They left it on a plate — waa, the mugs there is in de woild — an’ I thought it wuz one o’ them things yuh put on yer finger w’en ye git a cut—”

“A cut, didja say, Mary, dea’?” The crockery cheeks cracked into lines.

“Yea a cut— a cu— Wee! Hee! Hee! Hee! Hee! Mimi, darlin’ you’re comical! Wee! Hee! Hee! He! But I wuz that young an’ innercent till he come along. Wee! Hee! Hee! Hawnes’ t’ Gawd I wuz. I could piss troo a beer-bottle then—”

Out of the shadows now, out on the dimlit, vacant

street, he stepped down from the broken

curb-stone to the cobbles. For all

his peering, listening, starting, he

was blind as a sleep-walker, he was

deaf. Only the steely glitter on the

tracks was in his eyes, fixed there like

a brand, drawing him with cables as

tough as steel. A few steps more and

he was there, standing between the

tracks, straddling the sunken rail.

He braced his legs to spring, held

his breath. And now the wavering point

of the dipper’s handle found the long,

dark, grinning lips, scraped, and

like a sword in a scabbard—

“Oy, Schmaihe, goy! Vot luck! Vot luck! You should only croak!”

“Cha! Cha! Cha! Dot’s how I play mit cods!”

“Bitt him vit a flush! Ai, yi, yi!”

“I bet he vuz mit a niggerteh last night!”

“He rode a dock t’ luzno maw jock — jeck I shidda said. Cha! Cha!”

“He’s a poet, dis guy!”

“A putz!”

“Vus dere a hura mezda, Morr’s?”

“Sharrop, bummer! Mine Clara is insite!”

Plunged! And he was running! Running!

“Nutt’n’? No, I says, nutt’n’. But every time I sees a pretty cunt come walkin’ up de street, I says, wit’ a mean shaft an’ a sweet pair o’ knockers, Jesus, O’Toole, I says, dere’s a mare I’d radder lay den lay on. See wot I mean? Git a bed under den a bet on. Git me?”

“Haw! Haw! Haw! Bejeeziz!”

“Ya! Ha! He tella him, you know? He lika de fica stretta!”

They looked down at the lime-streaked, overalled wop condescendingly, and—

“Aw, bulloney,” he says, “Yeah, I says. An’ booze, I says, my booze is wut I c’n suck out of a nice tit, I says. Lallal’mmm, I says. An’ w’en it comes t’ prayin’, I says, c’n yuh tell me anyt’ing bedder t’ pray over den over dat one!” O’Toole hastily topped the laugh with a wave of his hand. “Yer an at’eist, yuh fuck, he hollers. A fuckin’ at’eist I says— An’ all de time dere wuz Steve and Kelly unner de goiders hollerin’, hey trow us a riv—”

Running! But no light overtook him,

no blaze of intolerable flame. Only

in his ears, the hollow click of iron

lingered. Hollow, vain. Almost within

the saloon-light, he slowed down, sobbed

aloud, looked behind him—

“But who’d a thunk it?” Bill Whitney mounted the stairs again. “By Gawd, who’d a thunk it? The weeks I’d held that spike for ’im … Weeks … And he druv and never a miss … Drunk? Naw, he warn’t drunk that mornin’. Sober as a parson. Sober. A’swingin’ of the twelve pound like a clock. Mebbe it was me that nudged it, mebbe it war me … By Gawd, I knowed it. A feelin’ I had seein’ that black sledge in the air. Afore it come down, I knowed it. A hull damned country-side it might of slid into. And it had to be me … Wut? It wuz to be? That cast around my leg? A pig’s tit! It wuz to—”

Like a dipped metal flag or a gro-

tesque armored head scrutinizing the

cobbles, the dull-gleaming dipper’s

scoop stuck out from between the rail,

leaning sideways.

— Didn’t. Didn’t go in. Ain’t lit. Go back.

He turned — slowly.

— No — body’s — look—

“Bawl? Say, did I bawl? Wot else’d a kid’ve done w’en her mont’ly don’ show up — Say! But I’ll get even with you, I said, I’ll make a prick out of you too, like you done t’ me. You wait! You can’t get away with that. G’wan, he said, ye little free-hole, he called me. Wott’re ye after? Some dough? Well, I ain’t got it. That’s all! Now quit hangin’ aroun’ me or I’ll s-smack ye one! He said.”

“Where d’ja get it?”

“I borreed it — it wuzn’t much. She called herself a m-mid-wife. I went by m-meself. My old-huhu — my old l-lady n-never — O Jesus!” Tears rilled the glaze.

“Say — toin off de tap, Mary, f’Gawd’s sake!”

“Aw! Sh-hu-hu-shut up! Can’t I b-bawl if I–I—uh-hu-uh — G-go p-peddle yer h-hump, h-he says—”

“But not hea’, Mary, f’r the lova Pete. We all gets knocked up sometimes—”

— Horry op! Horry op back!

“They’ll betray us!” Into the Tenth Street Crosstown car, slowing down at Avenue A, the voice of the pale, gilt-spectacled, fanatic face rang out above all other sounds: above the oozy and yearning “Open the door to Jesus” of the Salvation Army singing in the park; above the words of the fat woman swaying in the car as she said, “So the doctor said cut out all meat if you don’t want gall-stones. So I cut out all meat, but once in a while I fried a little boloney with eggs — how I love it!” Above the muttering of the old grey-bearded Jewish pedlar (he rocked his baby carriage on which pretzels lay stacked like quoits on the upright sticks) “Founder of the universe, why have you tethered me to this machine? Founder of the universe, will I ever earn more than water for my buckwheat? Founder of the universe!” Above the even enthusiasm of the kindly faced American woman: “And do you know, you can go all the way up inside her for twenty-five cents. For only twenty-five cents, mind you! Every American man, woman and child ought to go up inside her, it’s a thrilling experience. The Statue of Liberty is—”

— He stole up to the dipper warily,

on tip—

“Shet up, down ’ere, yuh bull-faced harps, I says, wait’ll I’m troo! Cunt, I says, hot er snotty ’zuh same t’ me. Dis gets ’em’ hot. Dis gets em hot I sez. One look at me, I says, an yuh c’n put dat rivet in yer ice-box — t’ings ’ll keep! Yuh reams ’em out with dat he says — kinda snotty like. Shit no, I says I boins ’em out. W’y dontcha trow it t’dem, he ays, dey’re yellin’ fer a rivet. Aaa, I don’ wanna bust de fuckin’ goider I says. Yer pretty good, he says. Good, I says, didja ever see dat new tawch boinin’ troo a goider er a flange er any fuck’n’ hunka iron — de spa’ks wot goes shootin’ down—? Didja? Well dat’s de way ’I comes. Dey tol’ me so. An’ all de time dere wuz Steve and Kelly unner de goiders havin’ a shit-hemorrage an’ yellin’ hey, t’row—”

toe, warily, glancing over his

shoulders, on tip-toe, over serried

cobbles, cautious—

“Wuz t’ be. And by Gawd it might hev gone out when I went to bed a’ suckin’ of it. By Gawd it hed no call t’ be burnin’.… Wuz to be — Meerschaum, genuwine. Thankee I said. Thankee Miz Taylor. And I stood on the backstairs with the ice-tongs. Thankee and thank the Doctor … Boston, the year I — Haw, by Gawd. And the hull damn sheet afire. And Kate ascreamin’ beside me … Gawd damn it! It hadn’t ought to ’a’ done it … A’lookin’ at me still now … A’stretchin’ of her neck in the white room … in the hospital—”

As though his own tread might shake the

slanting handle loose from its perch

beneath the ground. And now, and—

“Why not? She asks me. Pullin’ loaded dice on Lefty. The rat! He can’t get away with that y’know. I know, Mag, I said. It’d do my heart good to see a knife in his lousy guts — only I gotta better idee. What? She asks me. Spill it. Spill it is right, I says t’ her. I know a druggist-felleh, I said, good friend o’ mine. O yea, she looks at me kinda funny. Croak him with a dose o’—No! I said. No poison. Listen Mag. Throw a racket up at your joint, will ye? Give him an invite. He’ll come. And then let me fix him a drink. And I winks at her. Dintcha ever hear o’ the Spanish Fly—”

over it now, he crouched,

stretched out a hand to

“They’ll betray us!” Above all these voices, the speaker’s voice rose. “In 1789, in 1848, in 1871, in 1905, he who has anything to save will enslave us anew! Or if not enslave will desert us when the red cock crows! Only the laboring poor, only the masses embittered, bewildered, betrayed, in the day when the red cock crows, can free us!”

lift the dipper free. A sense almost

palpable, as of a leashed and imminent

and awful force.

“You’re de woist fuckin’ liar I ever seen he sez an’ ducks over de goiders.”

focused on his hand across the hair-

breadth

“Yuh god mor’n a pair o’ sem’ns?”

gap between his fingers and the

scoop. He drew

“It’s the snug ones who’ll preach it wuz to be.”

back, straightened. Carefully bal—

“So I dropped it in when he was dancin’—O hee! Hee! Mimi! A healthy dose I—”

anced on his left, advance—

“Yeah. I sez, take your pants off.”

ed his right foot—

Crritlkt!

— What?

He stared at the river, sprang away

from the rail and dove into the shad-

ows.

“Didja hear ’im, Mack? De goggle-eyed yid an’ his red cock?”

The river? That sound! That sound

had come from there. All his senses

stretched toward the dock, grappled with

the hush and the shadow. Empty…?

“Swell it out well with batter. Mate, it’s a bloomin’ goldmine! It’s a cert! Christ knows how many chaps can be fed off of one bloody cod—”

Yes … empty. Only his hollow nos-

trils sifted out the stir in the

quiet; The wandering river-wind seamed

with thin scent of salt

“An’ he near went crazy! Mimi I tell ye, we near bust, watchin—”

decay, flecked with clinging coal-tar—

Crrritlkt!

“Can’t, he sez, I got a tin-belly.”

— It’s— Oh— It’s — it’s! Papa. Nearly

like. It’s — nearly like his teeth.

Nothing … A barge on a slack hawser or

a gunwale against the dock chirping

because a

“I’ll raise it.”

boat was passing.

— Papa like nearly.

Or a door tittering to and fro in the wind.

“Heaz a can-opener fer ye I sez.”

Nothing. He crept back.

“Hemm. These last durn stairs.”

And was there, over the rail. The

splendor shrouded in the earth, the

titan, dormant in his lair, disdain-

ful. And his eyes

“Runnin’ hee! hee! hee! Across the lots hee! hee! jerkin’ off.”

lifted

“An’ I picks up a rivet in de tongs an’ I sez—”

and there was the last crossing of

Tenth Street, the last cross—

“Heazuh flowuh fer yea, yeller-belly, shove it up yer ass!”

ing, and beyond, beyond the elevateds,

“How many times’ll your red cock crow, Pete, befaw y’ gives up? T’ree?”

as in the pit of the west, the last

“Yee! hee! Mary, joikin’—”

smudge of rose, staining the stem of

“Nawthin’ t’ do but climb—”

the trembling, jagged

“Show culluh if yuh god beddeh!”

chalice of the night-taut stone with

“An’ I t’rows de fuck’n’ rivet.”

the lees of day. And his toe crooked into

the dipper as into a stirrup. It

grated, stirred, slid, and—

“Dere’s a star fer yeh! Watch it! Tree Kings I god. Dey came on huzzbeck! Yee! Hee Hee! Mary! Nawthin’ to do but wait fer day light and go home. To a red cock crowin’. Over a statue of. A jerkin’. Cod. Clang! Clang! Oy! Machine! Liberty! Revolt! Redeem!”

Power

Power! Power like a paw, titanic power,

ripped through the earth and slammed

against his body and shackled him

where he stood. Power! Incredible,

barbaric power! A blast, a siren of light

within him, rending, quaking, fusing his

brain and blood to a fountain of flame,

vast rockets in a searing spray! Power!

The hawk of radiance raking him with

talons of fire, battering his skull with

a beak of fire, braying his body with

pinions of intolerable light. And he

writhed without motion in the clutch of

a fatal glory, and his brain swelled

and dilated till it dwarfed the galaxies

in a bubble of refulgence — Recoiled, the

last screaming nerve clawing for survival.

He kicked — once. Terrific rams of dark-

ness collided; out of their shock space

toppled into havoc. A thin scream wobbled

through the spirals of oblivion, fell like

a brand on water, his-s-s-s-s-ed—

“W’at?

“W’ut?

“Va-at?

“Gaw blimey!

“W’atsa da ma’?”

The street paused. Eyes, a myriad of eyes, gay or sunken, rheumy, yellow or clear, slant, blood-shot, hard, boozy or bright swerved from their tasks, their play, from faces, newspapers, dishes, cards, seidels, valves, sewing machines, swerved and converged. While at the foot of Tenth Street, a quaking splendor dissolved the cobbles, the grimy structures, bleary stables, the dump-heap, river and sky into a single cymbal-clash of light. Between the livid jaws of the rail, the dipper twisted and bounced, consumed in roaring radiance, candescent—

“Hey!”

“Jesus!”

“Give a look! Id’s rain—

“Shawt soicit, Mack—”

“Mary, w’at’s goin’—”

“Schloimee, a blitz like—”

“Hey mate!”

On Avenue D, a long burst of flame spurted from underground, growled as if the veil of earth were splitting. People were hurrying now, children scooting past them, screeching. On Avenue C, the lights of the trolley-car waned and wavered. The motorman cursed, feeling the power drain. In the Royal Warehouse, the blinking watchman tugged at the jammed and stubborn window. The shriveled coal-heaver leaned unsteadily from between the swinging door — blinked, squinted in pain, and—

“Holy Mother O’ God! Look! Will yiz!”

“Wot?”

“There’s a guy layin’ there! Burrhnin’!”

“Naw! Where!”

“Gawd damn the winder!”

“It’s on Tent’ Street! Look!”

“O’Toole!”

The street was filled with running men, faces carved and ghostly in the fierce light. They shouted hoarsely. The trolley-car crawled forward. Up above a window slammed open.

“Christ, it’s a kid!”

“Yea!”

“Don’t touch ’im!”

“Who’s got a stick!”

“A stick!”

“A stick, fer Jesus sake!”

“Mike! The shovel! Where’s yer fuck’n’ shov—”

“Back in Call—”

“Oy sis a kind—”

“Get Pete’s crutch! Hey Pete!”

“Aaa! Who touched yer hump, yuh gimpty fu—”

“Do sompt’n! Meester! Meester!”

“Yuh crummy bastard, I saw yuh sneakin’—” The hunchback whirled, swung away on his crutches. “Fuck yiz!”

“Oy! Oy vai! Oy vai! Oy vai!”

“Git a cop!”

“An embillance — go cull-oy!”

“Don’t touch ’im!”

“Bambino! Madre mia!”

“Mary. It’s jus’ a kid!”

“Helftz! Helftz! Helftz Yeedin! Rotivit!”

A throng ever thickening had gathered, confused, paralyzed, babbling. They squinted at the light, at the outstretched figure in the heart of the light, tossed their arms, pointed, clawed at their cheeks, shoved, shouted, moaned—

“Hi! Hi down there! Hi!” A voice bawled down from the height. “Look out below! Look out!”

The crowd shrank back from the warehouse.

W-w-whack!

“It’s a—”

“You take it!”

Grab it!”

“Gimme dat fuck’n’ broom!”

“Watch yerself, O’Toole!”

“Oy, a good men! Got should—”

“Oooo! De pore little kid, Mimi!”

“He’s gonna do it!”

“Look oud!

“Dunt touch!”

The man in the black shirt, tip-toed guardedly to the rails. His eyes, screwed tight against the awful glare, he squinted over his raised shoulder.

“Shove ’im away!”

“Go easy!”

“Look odda!”

“Atta boy!”

“Oy Gottinyoo!”

The worn, blackened broom straws wedged between the child’s shoulder and the cobbles. A twist of the handle. The child rolled over on his face.

“Give ’im anudder shove!”

“At’s it! Git ’im away!”

“Quick! Quick!”

Once more the broom straws rammed the outstretched figure. He slid along the cobbles, cleared the tracks. Someone on the other side grabbed his arm, lifted him, carried him to the curb. The crowd swirled about in a dense, tight eddy.

“Oy! Givalt!”

“Gib’m air!”

“Is ’e boined?”

“Bennee stay by me!”

“Is ’e boined! Look at his shoe!”

“Oy, de pooh mama! De pooh mama!”

“Who’s kid?”

“Don’ know, Mack!”

“Huz pushin’?”

“Jesus! Take ’im to a drug-store.”

“Naa, woik on ’im right here. I woiked in a power house!”

“Do sompt’n! Do sompt’n!”

The writhing dipper was now almost consumed. Before the flaring light, the weird white-lipped, staring faces of the milling throng wheeled from chalk to soot and soot to chalk again — like masks of flame that charred and were rekindled; and all their frantic, gnarling bodies cut a darting splay of huge, impinging shadow, on dump-heap, warehouse, river and street—

Klang! The trolley drew up.

“Oyeee! Ers toit! Ers to-i-t! Oye-e-e-e!” A woman screamed, gagged, fainted.

“Hey! Ketch ’er!”

“Schleps aveck!”

“Wat d’ hell’d she do dat fer—”

“Vawdeh!”

They dragged her away on scuffing heels to one side.

“Shit!” The motorman had jumped down from the car and seized the broom—

“Fan ’er vid de het!”

“Git off me feet, you!”

“At’s it! Lean on ’im O’Toole! Push ’im down! At’s it! At’s it! I woiked in a power house—”

And with the broom straws the motorman flipped the mangled metal from the rail. A quake! As if leviathan leaped for the hook and fell back threshing. And darkness.

Darkness!

They grunted, the masses, stood suddenly mute a moment, for a moment silent, stricken, huddled, crushed by the pounce of ten-fold night. And a voice spoke, strained, shrunken, groping—

“Ey, paizon! She ’sa whita yet — lika you looka da slacka lime alla time! You know?”

Someone shrieked. The fainting woman moaned. The crowd muttered, whispered, seething uneasily in the dark, welcomed the loud newcomers who pierced the dense periphery—

“One side! One side!” Croaking with authority, the stone-grim uniformed one shouldered his way through. “One side!”

“De cops!”

“Dun’t step on ’im!”

“Back up youz! Back up! Didja hea’ me, Moses? Back up! Beat it! G’wan!” They fell back before the perilous arc of the club. “G’wan before I fan yiz! Back up! Let’s see sompt’n’ in hea’! Move! Move, I say!” Artificial ire flung the spittle on his lips. “Hey George!” He flung at a burly one. “Give us a hand hea, will yiz!”

“Sure! Git back you! Pete! Git that other side!”

The policeman wheeled round, squatted down beside the black-shirted one. “Don’ look boined.”

“Jist his shoe.”

“How long wuz he on?”

“Christ! I don’t know. I came ouda Callahan’s an’ de foist t’ing I know somebody lams a broom out of a winder, an’ I grabs it an’ shoves ’im off de fuck’n t’ing—”

“Sh! Must a done it himself— Naa! Dat ain’t de way! Lemme have ’im.” He pushed the other aside, turned the child over on his face. “Foist aid yuh gits ’em hea.” His bulky hands all but encompassed the narrow waist. “Like drownin’, see?” He squeezed,

Khir-r-r-r-f! S-s-s-s-.

“I hoid ’im!”

“Yeah!”

“He’s meckin’ him t’ breed!”

“See? Gits de air in ’im.”

Khir-r-r-r-f! S-s-s-s.

“Looks like he’s gone, do. W’ere de hell’s dat ambillance?”

“Vee culled id a’reddy, Ufficeh!”

“Arh!”

“Rap ’im on de feet arficer, I woiked

in a power—”

Khir-r-r-r-f! S-s-s-s

“Anybody know ’im? Any o’ youz know dis kid?”

The inner and the craning semi-circle muttered blankly. The policeman rested his ear against the child’s back.

“Looks like he’s done fer, butchuh can’t tell—”

Khir-r-r-r-f! S-s-s-s.

“He sez he’s dead, Mary.”

“Dead!”

“Oy! Toit!”

“Gott sei donk, id’s nod mine Elix—”

Khir-r-r-r-f. S-s-s-s.

“Sit im helfin vie a toitin bankis.” The squat shirt-sleeved Jew whose tight belt cut his round belly into the letter B turned to the lime-streaked wop — squinted, saw that communication had failed. “It’ll help him like cups on a cawps,” he translated — and tapped his chest with an ace of spades.

Khi-r-r-r-f. S-s-s-s.

(E-e-e-e. E-e-e-e-.

One ember fanned … dulling … uncertain)

“Here’s the damned thing he threw in, Cap.” The motorman shook off the crowd, held up the thinned and twisted metal.

“Yea! Wot is it?”

“Be damned if I know. Hot! Jesus!”

Khir-r-r-f. S-s-s.

(E-e-e-e-e.

Like the red pupil of the eye of darkness, the ember

dilated, spun like a pinwheel, expanding, expanding,

till at the very core, a white flaw rent the scarlet

tissue and spread, engulfed the margin like a stain—)

“Five hundred an’ fifty volts. What a wallop!”

“He’s cooked, yuh t’ink?”

“Yea. Jesus! What else!”

“Unh!” The policeman was grunting now with his efforts.

Kh-i-r-r-r-f! S-s-s-s.

“Hey, Meester, maybe he fell on id—

De iron—”

“Sure, dot’s righd!”

“Id’s f’om de compeny de fault!”

“Ass, how could he fall on it, fer the love O Jesus!”

The motor-man turned on them savagely.

“He could! Id’s easy!”

“Id vuz stink — stick — sticken oud!”

“He’ll sue, dun’ vorry!”

“Back up, youz!”

Khi-r-r-r-f! S-s-s.

(Eee-e-e-e

And in the white, frosty light within

the red iris, a small figure slanted

through a desolate street, crack-paved,

rut-guttered, slanted and passed, and

overhead the taut, wintry wires whined

on their crosses—

E-e-e-e-e.

They whined, spanning the earth and sky.

— Go-d-d-b! Go-o-o-ob! G-o-o-b! G’bye!..)

“Makin’ a case fer a shyster. C’n yuh beat it!”

“Ha-a-ha! Hunh!”

“I’m late. Dere it is.” The motorman dropped the gnarled and blackened dipper beside the curb.

“An Irisher chuchim!”

“Ain’t it a dirty shame—”

“Noo vud den!”

“Wat’s happened, chief?”

“Dere give a look!”

“Let’s git troo dere!”

“Unh!”

Kh-i-r-r-r-f! S-s-s-s.

(—G’by-e-e. Mis-s-s-l-e. M-s-ter. Hi-i-i-i.

Wo-o-o-d.

And a man in a tugboat, hair under

arm-pits, hung from a pole among the

wires, his white undershirt glittering.

He grinned and whistled and with every

note yellow birds flew to the roof.)

“T’ink a shot o’ sompt’n’ ’ll do ’im any good?”

“Nuh! Choke ’im if he’s alive.”

“Yeh! If hiz alife!”

“W’ea’s ’e boined?”

“Dey say id’s de feet wid de hen’s wid eveytingk.”

“Unh!”

Khi-r-r-r-f! S-s-s-s.

(We-e-e-e-

The man in the wires stirred. The

Wires twanged brightly. The blithe

and golden cloud of birds filled the

sky.)

“Unh!”

(Klang!

The milk tray jangled. Leaping he

neared. From roof-top to roof-top,

over streets, over alley ways, over

areas and lots, his father soared with

a feathery ease. He set the trays

down, stooped as if searching, paused—)

“Unh!”

(A hammer! A hammer! He snarled,

brandished it, it snapped like a whip.

The birds vanished. Horror thickened

the air.)

“Unh!”

“He’s woikin’ hard!”

“Oy! Soll im Gott helfin!”

“He no waka.”

(Around him now, the cobbles stretched

away. Stretched away in the swirling

dark like the faces of a multitude aghast

and frozen)

“Unh!”

(W-e-e-e-e-e-p! Weep! Overhead the

brandished hammer whirred and whistled.

The doors of a hallway slowly opened.

Buoyed up by the dark, a coffin drifted

out, floated down the stoop, and while

confetti rained upon it, bulged and

billowed—)

“Unh!”

Khi-r-r-r-rf! S-s-s-s-

(—Zwank! Zwank! Zwank!

The man in the wires writhed and

groaned, his slimy, purple chicken-

guts slipped through his fingers.

David touched his lips. The soot

came off on his hand. Unclean.

Screaming, he turned to flee, seized

a wagon wheel to climb upon it. There

were no spokes — only cogs like a

clock-wheel. He screamed again, beat

the yellow disk with his fists.)

“Unh!”

Kh-i-r-r-rf! S-s-s-s.

“Didja see it?”

“See it? Way up on twelft’!”

“I could ivin see id in de houz — on de cods.”

“Me? I vas stand in basement — fok t’ing mack blind!”

“Five hundred an’ fifty volts.”

(As if on hinges, blank, enormous

mirrors arose, swung slowly upward

face to face. Within the facing

glass, vast panels deployed, lifted a

steady wink of opaque pages until

an endless corridor dwindled into

night.)

“Unh! Looks Jewish t’ me.”

“Yeah, map o’ Jerusalem, all right.”

“Poor bastard! Unh!”

“Couldn’t see him at foist!”

“Unh!”

Kh-ir-r-rf! S-s-s-s.

(“You!” Above the whine of the

whirling hammer, his father’s voice

thundered. “You!”

David wept, approached the glass,

peered in. Not himself was there,

not even in the last and least of

the infinite mirrors, but the cheder

wall, the cheder)

“Junheezis!”

Kh-i-r-r-rf! S-s-s-s.

(Wall sunlit, white-washed. “Chadgodya!”

moaned the man in the wires. “One

kid one only kid.” And the wall dwindled

and was a square of pavement with a foot-

print in it — half green, half black,

“I too have trodden there.” And

shrank within the mirror, and the

cake of ice melted in the panel be-

yond. “Eternal years,” the voice

wailed, “Not even he.”)

“Unh!”

“Gittin’ winded? Want me to try it?”

“Nunh!”

“Look at ’im sweat!”

“Vy not? Soch a coat he’s god on!”

“Wot happened, brother?”

“Cheh! He esks yet!”

“Back up, you!”

“Unh!”

Kh-i-r-r-r-f! S-s-s-s.

(And faded, revealing a shoe box full

of calendar leaves, “the red day must

come.”)

“Unh! Did he move or sumpt’n?”

“Couldn’t see.”

(which lapsed into a wooden box with

a sliding cover like the chalk-boxes

in school, whereon a fiery figure

sat astride a fish. “G-e-e-e o-o-o d-e-e-e-!”

The voice spelled out. And shrank and was

a cube of sugar gripped be-)

“Unh!”

Kh-i-r-r-r-f! S-s-s-s.

“Shah! Y’hea id?”

“W’a?”

“Yea! It’s commin!”

“Id’s commin’!”

“I sees it!”

“Meester Politsman de—”

“Back up, youz!”

A faint jangle seeped through the roar of the crowd.

“Unh!”

(tween the softly glowing tongs. “So

wide we stretch no further—” But when

he sought to peer beyond, suddenly the

mirrors shifted, and—

“Go down!” his father’s voice thun-

dered, “Go down!” The mirrors lay

beneath him now; what were the groins

now jutted out in stairs, concentric

ogives, bottomless steps. “Go down!

Go down!” The inexorable voice beat

like a hand upon his back. He

screamed, de—)

Jangle! Angle! Angle! Angle!

“Dere! It’s comin’!”

“Look! Look hod dere!”

“Orficer!”

Angle! Jang!

“Christ’s about time!”

The crowd split like water before a prow, reformed in the wake, surged round the ambulance, babbling, squall—

(scended. Down! Down into darkness,

darkness that tunneled the heart of

darkness, darkness fathomless. Each

step he took, he shrank, grew smaller

with the unseen panels, the graduate

vise descending, passed from stage

to dwindling stage, dwindling. At

each step shed the husks of being,

and himself tapering always downward

in the funnel of the night. And now

a chip — a step-a flake-a step-a shred.

A mote. A pinpoint. And now the seed

of nothing, and nebulous nothing, and

nothing, And he was not.…)

ing, stabbing the dark with hands. “Ppprrr!” Lips flickered audibly as the blue-coat rose. With one motion, palm wiped brow, dug under sweat-stained collar. Softly bald, the bareheaded, white garbed interne hopped spryly from the ambulance step, black bag swinging in hand, wedged whitely through the milling crowd. Conch-like the mob surrounded, contracted, trailed him within the circle, umbiliform—

“Lectric shot; Doc!”

“De hospital!”

“Knocked him cold!”

“Shock?”

“’Zee dead?”

“Yea, foolin’ aroun’ wid de—”

“Shawt soicited it, Doc!”

“Yea, boined!”

“Vee sin id Docteh!”

“Git back, youz!” The officer crouched, snarled, but never sprang. “I’ll spit right in yer puss!”

“Mmm!” The interne pinched the crease of his trousers, pulled them up, and kneel—

“Guess yuh better take ’im witchuh, Doc. Couldn’t do a goddam t’ing wit—”

“He’s gonna hea’ de heart! See?”

(But—)

ing beside the beveled curbstone, applied his ear to the narrow breast.

“Shoe’s boined. See it, Doc?”

(the voice still lashed the nothingness

that was, denying it oblivion. “Now find!

Now find! Now find!” And nothingness

whimpered being dislodged from night,

and would have hidden again. But out

of the darkness, one ember)

“Take it off, will you, let’s have a look at it.”

(flowered, one ember in a mirr—)

“Sure!” Blunt, willing fingers ripped the

(or, swimming without motion in the

motion of its light.)

buttons open,

“Hiz gonna look.”

(In a cellar is)

dragged the shoes off,

(Coal! In a cellar is)

tore the stocking down, re—

(Coal! And it was brighter than the

pith of lightning and milder than pearl,)

vealing a white puffy ring about the ankle, at

(And made the darkness dark because

the dark had culled its radiance for

that jewel. Zwank!)

“Is it boined?”

“Can’t see, c’n you?”

which the interne glanced while he drew

“Waddayuh say, Doc?”

a squat blue vial from his bag, grimaced, un-

(Zwank! Zwank! Nothingness beati-

fied reached out its hands. Not cold

the ember was. Not scorching. But as

if all eternity’s caress were fused and

granted in one instant. Silence)

corked it, expertly tilted it before

(struck that terrible voice upon the

height, stilled the whirling hammer.

Horror and the night fell away. Ex-

alted, he lifted his head and screamed

to him among the wires— “Whistle,

mister! Whistle!)

the quiet nostrils. The crowd fell silent, tensely watching.

“Amonya.”

“Smells strong!”

“Stinks like in de shool on Yom Kippur.”

(Mister! Whistle! Whistle! Whistle!

Whistle, Mister! Yellow birds!)

On the dark and broken sidewalk, the limp body gasped, quivered. The interne lifted him, said sharply to the officer. “Hold his arms! He’ll fight!”

“Hey look! Hey look!”

“He’s kickin’!”

(Whistle, mister! WHISTLE!”)

“W’at’s he sayin’?”

“There! Hold him now!”

(A spiked star of pain of consciousness burst within him)

“Mimi! He’s awright! He’s awright!”

“Yeh?”

“Yea!”

“No kiddin’! No kiddin’!”

“Yeh!”

“Yuh!”

“Yeh!”

“Oi, Gott sei dank!”

XXII

“THERE you are, sonny! There you are!” The interne’s reassuring drawl, reached him through a swirl of broken images. “You’re not hurt. There’s nothing to be scared about.”

“Sure!” the policeman was saying beside him.

David opened his eyes. Behind, between them and around them, like a solid wall, the ever-encroaching bodies, voices, faces at all heights, gestures at all heights, all converging upon him, craning, peering, haranguing, pointing him out, discussing him. A nightmare! Deliverance was in the thought. He shut his eyes trying to remember how to wake.

“How does that foot feel, sonny?” The routine, solicitous voice again inquired. “Not bad, eh?”

He was aware for the first time of the cool air on his naked leg, and below it a vague throbbing at the ankle. And once aware, he couldn’t shake off the reality of it. Then it wasn’t a dream. Where had he been? What done? The light. No light in the windows upstairs … His father. His mother. The quarrel. The whip. Aunt Bertha, Nathan, the rabbi, the cellar, Leo, the beads — all swooped upon him, warred for preeminence in his brain. No. It wasn’t a dream. He opened his eyes again, hoping reality would refute conviction. No it wasn’t a dream. The same two faces leaned over him, the same hedge of humanity focused eyes on his face.

“Looks like he’s still too weak,” said the interne.

“Yuh goin’ t’take him wid ye?”

“No!” Grimacing emphatically, the interne shut the black bag. “Why, he’ll be able to walk in less than five minutes. Just as soon as he gets his breath. Where does he live?”

“I don’ know. None o’ dese guys know— Say, w’ere d’yuh live? Huh? Yuh wanna go home, dontchuh?”

“N-nint’ street.” He quavered. “S-sebm fawdynine.”

“Nint’ Street.” The crowd reechoed. “Say ufficeh,” a coatless man came forward. “Det’s on de cunner Evenyuh D.”

“I know! I know!” The policeman waved him back with surly hand. “Say, Doc, will ye give us a lift.”

“Sure. Just pick him up.”

“Yea, ooops! Dere ye go!” Burly arms went under his knees and back, lifted him easily, carried him through the gaping crowd to the ambulance. His head swam again with the motion. He lay slack on a long leather cot between greenish walls, aware of faces whisking by the open doorway, peering in. The interne seated himself at the back, called to the driver. The bell clanged, and as the wagon jolted forward, the policeman mounted the low step in the rear. Behind the ambulance, rolling on rubber-tired wheels on the cobbles, he could hear the voices calling the way. “Nint’ Street! Nint’ Street!” The throb in his ankle was growing in depth, in dullness of pain, permeating upward like an aching tide within the marrow. What had he done? What had he done? What would they say when they brought him upstairs. His father, what—? He moaned.

“That doesn’t hurt you that much, does it?” asked the interne cheerily. “You’ll be running around to-morrow.”

“Yer better off den I tawt ye’d be, said the policeman behind him. “Cheezis, Doc, I sure figgered he wuz cooked.”

“No. The shock went through the lower part. That’s what saved him. I don’t see why he was out so long anyway. Weak, I guess.”

Behind beating hooves and jangling bell, he felt the ambulance round the corner at Avenue D. The policeman turned to look behind him and then squinted sideways at David’s foot.

“His shoes wuz boined in front. An’ he’s got it up on de ankle.”

“Narrowest part.”

“I see. Dat’ll loin yuh a lesson, kid.” He disengaged one hand from the ambulance wall to wave a severe finger at David. “Next time I’ll lock yiz up. Wot flaw d’yuh live on?”

“T-top flaw.”

“Would have t’be,” he growled disgustedly. “Next time I will lock yiz up — making me woik, an’ takin’ de Doc away from a nice pinocle game. Wot dese goddam kids can’t t’ink of. Geez!”

The ambulance had rounded the second corner and came to a stop. Grinning, the interne leaped down. Stooping over and grunting as he stooped, the policeman lifted him in his arms again and bore him quickly through the new throng that came streaming around the corner. On the stoop, several children recognized him and bawled excitedly, “It’s Davy! It’s Davy!” A woman in the gaslit corridor cradled cheek in palm in terror and backed away. They mounted the stairs, the interne behind them and behind him remnants of the crowd, children of the house, following eagerly at a wary distance, jabbering, calling to him, “Watsa maddeh? Watsa maddeh, Davy?” Doors opened on the landings. Familiar heads poked out. Familiar voices shrilled at others across the hallway. “It’s him! F’om opstehs. Veh de fighd voz!” As they neared the top the policeman had begun breathing heavily, shedding thick hot breath on David’s cheek, grunting, the lines on his scowling, tough, red face deep with exertion.

The top floor. David’s eyes flashed to the transom. It was lit. They were in. What would they say? He moaned again in terror.

“Where is it?” the red face before him puffed.

“Over — over dere!” he quavered weakly.

The door. The arm under his knees slid forward. Beefy knuckles rapped, sought the knob. Before an answer came, the door, nudged forward by his own thighs, swung open.

Before him stood his mother, looking tense and startled, her hand resting on his father’s shoulders, and below, seated, his father, cheek on fist, eyes lifted, sourly glowering, affronted, questioning with taut and whiplike stare. The others were gone. It seemed to David that whole ages passed in the instant they regarded each other frozen in their attitudes. And then just as the policeman began to speak, his mother’s hand flew to her breast, she gasped in horror, her face went agonizingly white, contorted, and she screamed. His father threw his chair back, sprang to his feet. His eyes bulged, his jaw dropped, he blanched.

For the briefest moment David felt a shrill, wild surge of triumph whip within him, triumph that his father stood slack-mouthed, finger-clawing, stooped, and then the room suddenly darkened and revolved. He crumpled inertly against the cradling arms.

“David! David!” His mother’s screams pierced the reeling blur. “David! David! Beloved! What is it? What’s happened?”

“Take it easy, missiz! Take it easy!” He could feel the policeman’s elbow thrust out warding her off. “Give us a chanst, will yuh! He ain’t hoit! He ain’t a bit hoit! Hey Doc!”

The interne had stepped between them and David, staring weakly through the sickening murk before his eyes, saw him pushing her resolutely away. “Now! Now! Don’t get him excited, lady! It’s bad! It’s bad for him! You’re frightening him! Understand? Nicht ver — Schlect! Verstehen sie?”

“David! My child!” Unhearing, she still moaned, frantically, hysterically, one hand reached out to him, the other clutching her hair. “Your foot! What is it, child! What is it darling?”

“Put him down on the bed!” The interne motioned impatiently to the bed-room. “And listen, Mister, will you ask her to stop screaming. There’s nothing to worry about! The child is in no danger! Just weak!”

“Genya!” his father started as if he were jarred. “Genya!” He exclaimed in Yiddish. “Stop it! Stop it! He says nothing’s wrong. Stop it!”

From outside the door, the bolder ones in the crowd of neighbors that jammed the hallway had overflowed into the kitchen and were stationing themselves silently or volubly along the walls. Some as they jabbered pointed accusingly at David’s father and wagged their heads significantly. And as David was borne into the bedroom, he heard one whisper in Yiddish, “A quarrel! They were quarreling to death!” In the utterly welcome half-darkness of the bed-room he was stretched out on the bed. His mother, still moaning, had followed, and behind her his restraining hand upon her shoulder came the interne. Behind them the upright, squirming bodies, pale, contorted faces of neighbors clogged the doorway. A gust of fury made him clench his hands convulsively. Why didn’t they go away? All of them! Why didn’t they stop pointing at him?

“I was just this minute going down!” his mother was wringing her hands and weeping, “Just this minute I was going down to find you! What is it darling? Does it hurt you? Tell me—”

“Aw, Missiz!” the policeman flapped his hands in disgust. “He’s all right. Be reasonable, will yiz! Just a liddle boined, dat’s all. Just a liddle boined. Cantchuh see dere’s nutt’n’ wrong wid ’im!”

She stared at him uncomprehendingly.

“Schreckts ach nisht! Schreckts ach nisht!” The chorus of women in the doorway translated raggedly. “Sis im goor nisht geshehen! S’ goor nisht geferlich!”

“Dat’s it, you tell her!” The policeman shouldered his way through the door.

The interne had undressed him, pulled the covers down and tucked him in. The smooth sheets felt cool on his throbbing foot.

“Now!” He straightened, turned decisively to David’s mother. “You can’t help him by crying, lady. If you want to help him go make him some tea. A lot of it.”

“Kein gefahr?” she asked dully, disbelievingly.

“Yes! Yes! That’s right!” he answered impatiently. “Kein gefahr! Now make him some tea.”

“Teh, Mrs. Schearl,” a woman in the doorway came forward. “Geh macht eem teh!”

“Teh?”

“Yes! Teh!” the interne repeated. “Quick! Schnell! Yes?”

She turned numbly. The woman offered to help her. They went out.

“Well, how’s the kid?” the interne grinned down at him. “Feel good?”

“Y-yeh.”

“That’s the boy! You’ll be all right in a little while.”

He turned to leave. A fattish, bare-armed woman stood at his shoulder. David recognized her. She lived on the same floor.

“Ducktuh!” she whispered hurriedly. “Yuh shoulda seen vod a fighd dere vus heyuh!” She contracted, rocked. “Oyyoy! Yoy-u-yoy! Him, dat man, his faddeh, he vus hittin’ eem! Terrible! A terrhible men! En’ dere vus heyuh his cozzins — oder huh cozzins — I don’ know! En’ dey vus fighdingk. Oy-yoy-yoy! Vid scrimms! Vid holleringk! Pwwweeyoy! En’ den dey chessed de boy all oud f’om de house. En den dey chessed de odder two pipples! En’ vee vus listeningk, en’ dis man vos crying. Ah’m khrezzy! Ah’m khrezzy! I dun know vod I do! I dun’ know vod I said! He ses. Ah’m khrezzy! En’ he vus cryingk! Oy!”

“Is that so?” the interne said indifferently.

“Id vus terrhible! Terrhible! En’ Ducktuh,” she patted his arm. “Maybe you could tell me fah vy my liddle Elix dun eat? I give him eggks vid milk vid kulleh gedillehs. En he don’t vonna eat nottingk. Vod sh’d I do?”

“I don’t know.” He brushed by her. “You’d better see a doctor.”

“Oy bist du a chuchim!” she spat after him in Yiddish. “Does the breath of your mouth cost you something?”

His mother returned. Her hair was disheveled. Tears still stained her cheek though she had stopped crying. “You’ll have some tea in a minute, darling.” A tremulous gasp of after-weeping shook her. “Does your foot hurt very much?”

“N-no,” he lied.

“They told me you were at the car-tracks,” she shuddered. “How did you come there? You might have been— Oh! God forbid! What made you go? What made you do it?”

“I don’t — I don’t know,” he answered. And the answer was true. He couldn’t tell now why he had gone, except that something had forced him, something that was clear then and inevitable, but that every passing minute made more inarticulate. “I don’t know, mama.”

She groaned softly, sat down on the bed. The fat woman with the bare arms touched her shoulders and leaned over her.

“Poor Mrs. Schearl!” she said with grating, provocative pity. “Poor Mrs. Schearl! Why ask him? Don’t you know? Our bleeding, faithful mother’s heart they think nothing of wringing. Nothing! Woe you! Woe me! Before we see them grown, how many tears we shed! Oy-yoy-yoy! Measureless. So our children bring us suffering. So our men. Alas, our bitter lot! No?” Her see-saw sigh heaved gustily, pitched audibly. She folded her hands on her loose flabby belly and rocked sorrowfully.

His mother made no answer, but gazed fixedly into his eyes.

In the kitchen, he could hear the policeman interrogating his father, and his father answering in a dazed, unsteady voice. That sense of triumph that David had felt on first being brought in, welled up within him again as he listened to him falter and knew him shaken.

“Yes. Yes,” he was saying. “My sawn. Mine. Yes. Awld eight. Eight en’—en’ vun mawnt’. He vas bawn in—”

“Wait a minute!” The policeman’s voice interrupted him. “Say, Doc, befaw yuh go, tell us, did I do it good. You know — dat foist-aid business. Waddayer say? In case dere’s a commendation er sompt’n.”

“Sure! Fine! Couldn’t have done it better myself.”

“Tanks, Doc. An’ say, gimme de medical repawt, will yuh? Shock? Foolin’ aroun’ wit’ de car-tracks wit — Heh! Heh! — merlicious intent.”

“Oh — er — just say, shock … caused by … short circuiting … trolley power — what d’you call it — rail.”

“Yea.”

“Then — electrical burn … on ankle … right foot … second degree. Got it?”

“Secon’ degree, yea.”

“Applied artificial respir—”

“Aw Doc, have a heart, will yuh!”

“You want a commendation, don’t you?” the interne laughed. “Well anything — first aid. Child revived— I’ve left a slip for you, Mister. On the table. Carron oil. Smear it around the ankle tonight and tomorrow. The blib ought to be gone in a day or two.”

“Yes.”

“And if he doesn’t feel well tomorrow, take him to the Holy Name Hospital — it’s on the slip. But he’ll be all right. Well, Lieutenant, I’ll see you again.”

“Yea. So long, Doc.”

The woman who had gone out with David’s mother came in balancing a cup of tea. Silently his mother propped him up on the pillows and began feeding him out of the spoon. The hot, sugared tea quickened his blood. He sighed, feeling vitality return, but only enough to know his body’s weariness. There were no more cool places between the sheets for his throbbing foot. The women in the doorway had turned their backs to him and were listening to the policeman who was holding forth in the kitchen.

“An’ say,” his reassuring voice boomed out. “I woiked over ’im, Mister, an’ no foolin’! Yuh hoid wot de Doc sez, didntcha? If it wuzn’ fer me, dat kid wouldn’ be hea. Yessir! People don’t appreciate a cop aroun dis neighborhood. But w’en dere in dutch— Say, I seen ’em boined, Mister! I’m tellin’ yuh. I seen a switchman was so boined — say! He musta fell on de rail. An’ nobody knew a t’ing about it. Out dere in de car-barns on a hunner’n fifty-fift’ an’ Eight’ Avenoo. Must a been on dere fer hours. An’ de foist t’ing yuh know, his bones was troo de elevated — right down t’ de ground — black as zat stove, Mister! Y’had-da gadder ’im up in a sheet. Yessir! So he wuz gettin’ off easy, dat kid o’ yours. But even so if it hadn’ta been fer me— Say, d’yuh wan’ all o’ dese people in hea?”

“I–I don’—” His father sounded stunned. “I–I—you—”

“Sure. C’mon goils. De kid’s gotta get some quiet now. Waddayuh say? All right, gents.”

“Vee know dem,” voices objected. “Vee liff heyuh.”

“Not hea’,” indulgently. “Not all o’ yiz. C’mon. Come in later — one at a time—”

There was a general shuffling of feet, murmured protests.

“Er fumfit shoin far a bissel geld,” sneered the woman with the bare arms as she went out. “Gitzeem a krenk!”

“I god Davy’s shoes and stockin’, Mister,” a boy’s voice piped. “He goes to my cheder.”

“Atta boy. Just leave ’em hea. C’mon de rest o’ yiz. Dat goes fer you too, Solomon.”

Feet went through the doorway, voices dwindled. The door was shut.

“Well, I got de place quiet for yuh,” said the policeman. “Funny all de trouble dese kids o’ ours gives us, huh? You said it. Geeziz I’m a cop an’ I can’t keep mine in line, bringin’ home repawt co’ds dat’d make yer hair toin grey. Well, my beat’s aroun’ hea’ in case yuh wanna see me sometime. Walsh is de name.” He loomed up in the doorway. “How’re yuh feelin’ now, kid? He’ll be all right. Sure. He’s full o’ de devil a’reddy. I’ll fan yuh wit’ me stick if I catch yuh foolin’ aroun’ dem tracks again. See? ’Night.” He flicked an open palm, turned and went out.

He had finished his tea. The sudden, flushing surge of heat that filled the hollows of his tired body drove stipple of perspiration to his brow and lips. His underwear clung to him cutting at the crotch. The trough of the bedding where he lay had become humidly warm and uncomfortable. He wriggled closer to the cooler edge of the bed where his mother was seated and lay back limply.

“More?” She asked putting the cup down on the window sill.

“No, mama.”

“You’ve had nothing to eat since the morning, beloved. You’re hungry, aren’t you?”

He shook his head. And to ease the throbbing in his right foot, slid it furtively from under the covers at her back to cool it.

His father stood in the doorway, features dissolved in the dark. Only the glitter in his eyes was sharply visible, fixed on the puffy grey ankle. His mother turned at his tread, spied the swollen foot also. Her sucked breath hissed between pain-puckered lips.

“Poor darling! Poor child!”

His father’s hand fell heavily against the door-frame. “He’s written down the name of some medicine for us to get,” he said abruptly. “To smear on his foot.”

“Yes?” She half rose. “I’ll go get it.”

“Sit there!” His peremptory tone lacked force as though he spoke out of custom, not conviction. “It will be quicker for me to get it. Your neighbors outside won’t delay me with their tongues.” But instead of going he stood where he was. “He said he’d be better in a day or two.”

She was silent.

“I said he’d be better in a day or two,” he repeated.

“Yes. Of course.”

“Well?”

“Nothing.”

There was a pause. His father cleared his throat. When he spoke his voice had a peculiar harshness as though he were at the same time provoking and steeling himself against a blow.

“It— it’s my fault you’d say. Is that it?”

She shook her head wearily. “What use is there to talk about faults, Albert? None foresaw this. No one alone brought it on. And if it’s faults we must talk about it’s mine as well. I never told you. I let him listen to me months and months ago. I even drove him downstairs to — to—”

“To protect him — from me?”

“Yes.”

His teeth clicked. His chest rose. The expulsion of his breath seemed to rock him slightly. “I’ll go get it.” He turned heavily out of the doorway.

David listened to his father’s dull, unresilient footfall cross the kitchen floor. The door was opened, closed. A vague, remote pity stirred within his breast like a wreathing, raveling smoke, tenuously dispersed within his being, a kind of torpid heart-break he had felt sometimes in winter awakened deep in the night and hearing that dull tread descend the stairs.

“Perhaps you’ll be hungry in a little while,” his mother said persuasively. “After you’ve rested a bit and we’ve put the medicine on your foot. And then some milk and a boiled egg. You’d like that?” Her question was sufficiently shored by statement to require no answer. “And then you’ll go to sleep and forget it all.” She paused. Her dark, unswerving eyes sought his. “Sleepy, beloved?”

“Yes, Mama.”

He might as well call it sleep. It was only toward sleep that every wink of the eyelids could strike a spark into the cloudy tinder of the dark, kindle out of shadowy corners of the bedroom such myriad and such vivid jets of images — of the glint on tilted beards, of the uneven shine on roller skates, of the dry light on grey stone stoops, of the tapering glitter of rails, of the oily sheen on the night-smooth rivers, of the glow on thin blonde hair, red faces, of the glow on the outstretched, open palms of legions upon legions of hands hurtling toward him. He might as well call it sleep. It was only toward sleep that ears had power to cull again and reassemble the shrill cry, the hoarse voice, the scream of fear, the bells, the thick-breathing, the roar of crowds and all sounds that lay fermenting in the vats of silence and the past. It was only toward sleep one knew himself still lying on the cobbles, felt the cobbles under him, and over him and scudding ever toward him like a black foam, the perpetual blur of shod and running feet, the broken shoes, new shoes, stubby, pointed, caked, polished, buniony, pavement-beveled, lumpish, under skirts, under trousers, shoes, over one and through one, and feel them all and feel, not pain, not terror, but strangest triumph, strangest acquiescence. One might as well call it sleep. He shut his eyes.