CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Help me,” said Uncle Irving. He had driven his horse and wagon to the doorway of the boiler room.
Hershy sat on his heels beside his father, staring down at his glazed feverish eyes, and couldn’t move. Uncle Irving yanked him to his feet and shook him.
“Help me.”
He didn’t know what to do. He watched Uncle Irving prop his father against the back of the wagon.
“Now hold him while I get up.”
He held his father, feeling his helpless weight. Uncle Irving jumped up on the wagon and grabbed his father under the armpits, then lifted him up and dragged him onto a bed of bundles.
“Come on up and sit with me.”
Hershy climbed to the seat of the wagon. The horse strained in the harness and made the wagon creak as it moved off.
“What happened?” said Uncle Irving.
“I don’t know.”
“You were there. Why don’t you know?”
“It wasn’t my fault.”
“Who’s saying it was? But what happened?”
“I don’t know.”
He saw Uncle Irving’s lips move, asking more questions, but he didn’t hear him. He didn’t hear the clomp of the hooves on the street nor the clattering of the wheels, nor did he feel the rocking of the wagon. All the way home he sat rigid, packed with the image of the statue that stood on the first landing of his school building: of the Indian sitting on his horse with his head tilted back and his arms stretched out to the sky. A scream crumbled the statue to bits when his father was carried into the house, and he saw his mother’s face rip open. Her whole body shuddered and she reeled backward, as though the hands that crushed her breasts had a knife in them; but she hung on and recovered her balance and led the way to the bedroom and ordered Uncle Irving to call a doctor.
Again he was asked to help. But in his quivering eagerness he couldn’t even unlace his father’s shoes. She shoved him away and told him to get out of the bedroom; she’d undress his father herself. As he stepped backward he felt that he had been lifted high in the air, flung out of the room, and dashed to bits against the floor.
The doctor, after his examination, came into the kitchen and sat down at the table. Hershy stood stiffly by, watching the doctor search gravely behind the mysteries of his wrinkled forehead.
“Well?” said his mother. “Well?”
“Fortunately, the burns he suffered are only minor.”
“Yes,” said his mother eagerly, waiting.
“But he’s a sick man, a very sick man.”
“How sick?”
“Pneumonia.”
“No!”
“Why wasn’t he in bed days ago?”
“He wouldn’t stay in bed. He said he only had a little cold.”
“Didn’t you know he was sick? Couldn’t you make him stay home?”
“He wouldn’t listen to me. David, I said, stay home. You’re burning up with fever, I said. But he wouldn’t listen to me. I only have a little cold, he said.”
“Yes, that’s what they all say, all you people fighting against nature.” He took out a pad and began writing. “Let’s hope he passes out of the crisis and no complications develop.”
“Doctor, what does that mean?”
“If he passes out of the crisis, he’ll live.”
“But can’t you do anything?”
“I’ll do my best. He’s in his crisis now …” The doctor continued talking. Hershy caught a word here and there. “Delirium … Fever … Every four hours … Careful, Mrs. Melov … Oh, in a week? … Careful … The baby … Hope … Fight … Constitution … Hope …” For inwardly, his eyes dry, drained of tears, he cried: Don’t let him. God God God, O don’t let him. Make him strong, make him jump on his feet, make him fight, make him mad, make him fight like crazy, make him make him make him.
“Hershel,” his mother called. “Go to the drugstore with this prescription. Tell the druggist to make it in a hurry. Wait for it and bring it right back.”
The streets terrified him. Everybody was after him. Everything was trying to get him. The whole world was after him. Fence posts reared up, rushed at him, and clattered behind as he ran, dodged, and ducked by. A high screech bore down on him and the giant eyes of an automobile caught him in its glare. He lunged aside from the gaping mouth of the radiator and the big shoulder of the fender. The telegraph wires overhead became long, streaming, crackling hair, attached to the stony, yellow faces of lamplight which raced after him. A streetcar, like a one-eyed monster, bore down on him, gonging and roaring and snarling in its wild stampede. People were trying to grab him, stop him, their hands shooting out of the dark, their faces broken with yells. He escaped them all, banging the door of the drugstore shut behind him, and gave the prescription to the druggist. The man led him to a chair and told him to sit down. But even in sitting he felt himself running hard. Finally:
“Here you are, son.”
He grabbed the medicine.
“Wait a minute, kid. That’ll be a dollar.”
He dug into his pockets. He didn’t have any money.
“Hey, you! Come back here, you …”
He was out of the door, across the shiny tracks, past a rackety horn, over the sparks on the cement, rushing from yellow light to dark shadow, behind him heavy breathing and the hard driving sound of running and a million voices yelling: Get him get him get him.
Safe!
In the house: quiet. He watched his mother give his father the medicine. He followed her out into the front room. Suddenly everything became as still as a winter day in the park, with a heavy snow on the trees and the ground. Everything seemed far far away.
From a great distance he saw his mother swaying back and forth on the rocker, her arms around her swollen belly and her back humped. He saw himself reach out to her. She seemed to back away slowly. His whole being reached for her, but she retreated from him slowly.
“Wait,” he thought he heard her say. “Not yet. We’ll see. Wait.”
Waiting, hanging in the balance of space and time, he saw himself alone on a great flat land with no horizons. He dropped to his knees and stretched his arms out; with his head raised upward he saw the blue sky turn hard and cold, and the sun began to move away as he asked for somebody to come to him. Then, in reality, he saw his mother move. He prayed for her to place her hand on his head. Even a glance would satisfy him. But she moved past him, her face tense with listening. His father was talking in the bedroom. He talked and talked, but Hershy couldn’t make out what he was saying. He was about to step into the bedroom, but his father’s voice froze him: he saw himself once again diving into the coal shed and scrambling into a corner and looking through the chink of wood.
“Hershel! Where are you, Hershel! Look out, you’ll get burned! Look out! Hershel, Hershel, Hershel …”
His father’s voice dwindled, muttered out. A gasp from his mother accented his father’s quick rasping breath. Then his mother came out slowly with her face drawn, saying: “Can it be? But it’s not time yet.”
“What’s the matter, Ma?”
“Nothing.” She sat down in the rocker and felt her belly. “Nothing.” She folded her arms across her belly and rocked back and forth.
“What’s the matter, Ma?”
“He’s delirious.”
“What’s that, Ma?”
“He’s out of his mind.”
No, he wanted to say. He’s not. He was looking for me. I was afraid. I was afraid he’d kill me. I made the machines break. I made the explosion. But it wasn’t my fault. I was tired. I couldn’t see. It wasn’t my fault. But he’s not crazy. He was looking for me. He was he was he was …
“He’s burning up with fever.”
He wished he could say something.
“How long will the night last?”
Mama Mama Mama, what’d I do?
“I wish Rachel was here.”
“Why?”
“I just wish.”
“Why?”
His mother didn’t answer. Instead her face twitched. Her arms tightened around her belly and she held her breath. Then she took a deep breath and sighed.
“I wish she was here,” she said.
“Why?” He had heard that whenever somebody died the whole family got together. Whenever somebody was dying you wanted the whole family around you. Mama, what’d I do?
“Better go to sleep, Hershele.”
“No.”
She had no strength to argue. She began to stare and mumble, as when she prayed over the Friday-night candles. “Gottenyu, Gottenyu, Gottenyu. Dearest, dearest God.” More mumbling. She stopped abruptly. His father was laughing. At first it sounded like crying, then it turned into laughter: wild, uncontrolled, gasping, a laugh he had never heard before: it ended in a violent fit of coughing, with his mother rushing into the bedroom. Then it became quiet again. He heard his father suffer through his breaths, a sign from his mother. Then the clock started ticking, faster faster, louder louder; it seemed to rock the whole house. He covered his ears but couldn’t escape the sound. When he took his hands off them his father was talking again: this time, it seemed, to his mother.
“Listen. Who you calling a failure?”
“Nobody,” his mother said softly. “Nobody.”
“Who is it calls me a failure?”
“Nobody, David.”
“My wife? Have I not always been a good husband, have I not always loved her? … My son? Wouldn’t I die for him? … My friends? Don’t they trust me, don’t they have respect for me? … Who is it calls me a failure?”
“Quiet, David. Rest. Shhhhh.”
“Oh, the world. All right, let the world call me a failure. What do I care about the world? Let the world go to hell.”
It dawned upon Hershy that his father wasn’t talking to his mother but to himself, perhaps to an accuser hovering over him. Who? Who could it be? God? Don’t Pa. Don’t make Him mad on you. Don’t.
“I don’t care for a world that measures a man by the money he has in his pocket. To hell with a world that kills a man like my brother. To hell with a world that makes whores out of people.”
“Shhhhh, David, shhhhh.”
“I don’t believe it. Measure a man by the work he does, the love he has for his family, his not hurting people, his respect for people, his being content with what he has, not by his ambitions, his cruelty, the rock in his heart. Can’t a man be a success without gaining an empire? What more is expected of a human being than just being a human being? What more?”
“Nothing, nothing, nothing.”
There was a long pause: exhaustion. Then, the voice breaking:
“Don’t blame me, Sonya. I tried. God knows I tried. O how I tried … Yussel, Yussel, Yussel, what did you do to me? I was happy before. I had everything. I had respect, love, contentment, everything. Why did you tempt me? Why was I driven? Why did you shatter my world? Why did I hold on for dear life to a thing I didn’t believe in, a thing I was afraid of? Why? Why? Why?”
“Shhhhh, it’s over now, David. Get well, rest, it’s over. Shhhhh.”
“Rachel, come back. Nobody will ever know. My sister, my dead sister, your mother, will never forgive me. Come back. Come back …” The voice grew tender, trembling. “I know you’re tired, Hershele. You don’t know how my heart is breaking. But I’m a sick man. I can hardly move. We should go away, take a boat ride in the park, sit in the sun, you and me. But I can’t tear myself away. A monster is holding me. Help me, Hershele. Help me …” The voice rose in terror. “Look out! You’ll get burned! Hershel! Hershel! …” The voice broke, faded in exhaustion. “No. O Sonya, Sonya, Sonya …”
His mother came into the front room finally, her face bathed in sweat. She sat down in the rocker and swayed slowly back and forth. Another twinge on her face, baring her teeth, stopping her breath, and she held herself in studied readiness, waiting. Hershy moved to the couch and watched her. The slow rocking and her stare began to blur his eyes. They grew heavy, so heavy. But he was afraid to fall asleep. He began to fight against it. He tried to listen hard only to his father’s raspy gasps, but the deep swell of his mother’s breathing and the ceaseless motion of her rocking began to overwhelm him.
I don’t want to. Ma, don’t make me. What if Pa should …? But he can’t. He can’t. Ma, don’t make me. Wake up, Ma. Don’t make me to. I don’t want to. He can’t, if I didn’t mean it, if it wasn’t my fault. He can’t. I don’t want to. Let me stay. Let me up. Up. Up.
He struggled to get up, but a pair of strong hands were pinning him down. He couldn’t move. He was trying. Everybody could see he was trying. See, he was trying. Look, everybody could see he was trying. Look. He looked up himself, in his sleep, and cried out. The hands that held him down were claws, and directly above the thick, shaggy arms were a nameless jumble of heads. A scream peeled out, bursting him into wakefulness; and in the terrifying silence that followed it was as though his open eyes had nailed the sound deep into the ground.
It was morning. He was not on the front-room couch; he was in his underwear in his own bed. He heard a noise in the kitchen, bringing him back to life, to the memory of the day before. He crawled into his pants and ran into the kitchen. His mother wasn’t there. Aunt Mascha, (Uncle Irving’s wife) was there. He saw her and the clock at the same time. It was past noon.
“Where’s my ma?”
“In the hospital.”
The news stunned him.
“Reva took her there. She’s having the baby. It’s a week beforetime, but the shock of your father coming home the way he did brought the baby to life sooner. What does a baby know of time and tragedy?”
“But Pa?”
“And you—” Aunt Mascha paid no attention to him—“like a dead one you slept. Wild horses couldn’t even get you up. I had to carry you to bed and undress you. A ton you weighed. What were you yelling about in your sleep?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh, but you’re a devil.”
“Is my pa still here?”
“Yes.”
“How is he?”
She shrugged her shoulders. He ran to the bedroom. His father was asleep, still breathing fast and hard. There was a stubble of beard on his face, making it look hollower. He looked worse. Hershy was afraid to wake him. He was afraid to look at him. He walked back to the kitchen feeling numb.
“Aunt Mascha, will he get better?”
“Sure, he’ll get better.”
He wondered if she meant it. She didn’t look like she meant it. She looked like she hoped it.
“Will Ma get better?”
“Certainly.”
She meant that.
“When?”
“As soon as she has the baby.”
“When’ll that be?”
“Wait. It takes time.”
“Can I go there?”
“Tomorrow, maybe.”
“Why can’t I go now?”
“They won’t let you in. Even Reva can’t go in. She has to wait there. Tomorrow, maybe, you’ll go see her.”
A sudden sense of loneliness engulfed him, bigger than he had ever felt. He didn’t know what to do with himself.
“Here, I’ll make you some breakfast.”
“I don’t want none.”
“You have to eat.”
“I don’t want to.”
He sat down at the table and began to wait. He drank a glass of milk Aunt Mascha placed before him without knowing it. His father began mumbling, then he yelled: “No! Get out! Get out, you you you …”
Aunt Mascha walked into the bedroom and then came out sighing with her face crunched.
“A human being,” she said. She looked up at the ceiling, “Gottenyu, Gottenyu, Gottenyu.”
She started cleaning the house. He watched her, waiting, going deeper and deeper into his loneliness. Then he walked out of the back door with his aunt calling after him. He walked through the alley. He didn’t want to meet anybody. He walked into the park, over the walks and the heat-withered grass. Some kids stopped him. They started talking at him, but he didn’t hear. They started pushing him around, but he paid no attention. Finding no resistance, no fear, they swore at him and left after pushing him to the ground. He lay there a long while, then got up and started walking again. When the night came and the lights went on he wandered out of the park and stopped to look into the dark windows of a sporting goods store. Exhausted, he slumped down in a corner of the entrance about six feet in from the sidewalk. When he looked up a cop was tapping his shoe with a club.
“Get up, kid.”
He crawled against the corner of the entrance. The cop lifted him to his feet.
“I didn’t do nothing.”
“Who’s saying you did?”
“I didn’t do nothing.”
“What’s the matter, kid?”
“It wasn’t my fault.”
“Who’s fault was it?”
“I was tired.”
“What’d you do?”
“Nothing. I didn’t do nothing.”
“You’re making sense, kid. Where do you live?”
“There.”
“Where, there?”
“There.”
“What’s the matter? Your old man beat you up?”
“No!”
“Your ma?”
“No.”
“Then what’s the matter?”
“I don’t know.” He was finding it hard to remember.
“Come on. I’ll take you home.”
“No.”
“You know what time it is? After midnight.”
The time meant nothing. He was waiting. He didn’t want to be there when it happened. What? What was going to happen?
“All right, I’ll take you to the station. You want to be locked up in jail?”
“No.”
“Then go home.”
“Okay.”
“You sure you’re going home?”
“Yah.”
The cop let him go. Down the block, Hershy looked back. The cop was following him slowly, swinging his club. He broke into a run. When he turned the corner of the next block the cop was gone. He slowed down to a trot, then to a walk. He didn’t know where to go. He knew he didn’t want to go into the house. He was afraid. It might happen while he was there. What? What might happen while he was there? Something terrible. What? He was less afraid of the dark.
Mr. Pryztalski found him asleep the next morning in the front hallway on his way out to work. Hershy was lifted high in the air and he looked down at Mr. Pryztalski’s small eyes and big mustache.
“You little sonofabitch. You tiny little sonofabitch. Your aunt almost went crazy: I almost went crazy looking for you. You crazy little sonofabitch.”
Mr. Pryztalski lowered him to his feet. Gradually, Hershy’s senses came to him: with it full memory tightened his throat.
“Running off, with your mama in bed with a boy and your papa past the crisis. Oh, you little bastard.”
Mr. Pryztalski lifted him off his feet and carried him into the house.
“Don’t hit him,” he said to Aunt Mascha. “He was crazy. Besides, he’s a man. Never hit a man.”
Hershy found himself alone with Aunt Mascha.
“Yah?” he said. “Is it true?”
“It’s true, thank God.”
“O Jesus Jesus Jesus.”
“The fever went down. The doctor said Pa’s still very sick, but he’ll get well. Your pa, he said, has a will like iron. He wouldn’t let himself go. He’ll get better.”
“And Ma, too?”
“And Ma, too.”
He rushed into his father’s room. He felt his legs cave at the sight of his wasted, bristly face. But his father was better. He didn’t know what to do with himself. His father was better. He was strong like iron. And his mother was better. The whole world was better. He was better, too.
“Well, Hershele?” His father’s voice was weak.
“You all right, Pa?”
“Better. Don’t come too close. I don’t want you to catch my germs.”
“Ma’s better, too.”
“I know.”
“Pa.” He flung his arms around him. “It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t mean it.”
“No, baby.” His father soothed him. “It was my fault. I should have known. But a devil was in me. It wouldn’t even let me lay down when I was so sick. Now that nothing has happened to you, thank God, I’m glad the engine broke. I don’t have to worry about it any more. To hell with it: it’s only a piece of machinery.” He pushed him away gently. “Not too close, Hershel. You’ll catch my germs.”
“You’re not a failure, Pa.”
“No, dearest. How could I possibly be called a failure?”
“I don’t know.”
“Because a piece of machinery broke, because I have no money? With my family and my hands we’ll live again. That’s important. To live again.”
The following day, at the hospital, he saw it for a minute beside his mother. Its eyes were crushed shut, its face raw and red and puckered and old, its hand clenched. It was like a monkey, something primeval, defying all age.
His mother looked exhausted but calm. She was transformed, too. She no longer bulged under the blankets. She looked nice. She looked tender. It was like the baby had given her life back to her, and she could come back to him again.
He felt, looking at her, that he himself had died somewhere and had just been born, with a whole lifetime ahead of him.