The Complete Stories (36 page)

Authors: Bernard Malamud

BOOK: The Complete Stories

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Rosa sighed. “The truth of it is I could use a pair of shoes. Mine look as though they’ve been chewed by goats. I haven’t had a new pair in six years.”

But the professor had nothing more to add.

After Rosa had gone for the day, in thinking about her problem, he decided to buy her a pair of shoes. He was concerned that she
might be expecting something of the sort, had planned, so to speak, to have it work out this way. But since this was conjecture only, evidence entirely lacking, he would assume, until proof to the contrary became available, that she had no ulterior motive in asking his advice. He considered giving her five thousand lire to make the purchase of the shoes herself and relieve him of the trouble, but he was doubtful, for there was no guarantee she would use the money for the agreed purpose. Suppose she came in the next day, saying she had had a liver attack that had necessitated calling the doctor, who had charged three thousand lire for his visit; therefore would the professor, in view of these unhappy circumstances, supply an additional three thousand for the shoes? That would never do, so the next morning, when the maid was at the grocer’s, the professor slipped into her room and quickly traced on paper the outline of her miserable shoe—a task but he accomplished it quickly. That evening, in a store on the same piazza as the restaurant where he liked to eat, he bought Rosa a pair of brown shoes for fifty-five hundred lire, slightly more than he had planned to spend; but they were a solid pair of ties, walking shoes with a medium heel, a practical gift.

He gave them to Rosa the next day, a Wednesday. He felt embarrassed to be doing that, because he realized that despite his warnings to her, he had permitted himself to meddle in her affairs; but he considered giving her the shoes a psychologically proper move in more ways than one. In presenting her with them he said, “Rosa, I have perhaps a solution to suggest in the matter you discussed with me. Here is a pair of new shoes for you. Tell your friend you must refuse his. And when you do, perhaps it would be advisable also to inform him that you intend to see him a little less frequently from now on.”

Rosa was overjoyed at the professor’s kindness. She attempted to kiss his hand but he thrust it behind him and retired to his study. On Thursday, when he opened the apartment door to her ring, she was wearing his shoes. She carried a large paper bag from which she offered the professor three small oranges still on a branch with green leaves. He said she needn’t have brought them, but Rosa, smiling half-hiddenly in order not to show her teeth, said that she wanted him to see how grateful she was. Later she requested permission to leave at three so she could show Armando her new shoes.

He said dryly, “You may go at that hour if your work is done.”

She thanked him profusely. Hastening through her tasks, she left shortly after three, but not before the professor, in his hat, gloves,
and bathrobe, standing at his open study door as he was inspecting the corridor floor she had just mopped, saw her hurrying out of the apartment, wearing a pair of dressy black needle-point pumps. This angered him; and when Rosa appeared the next morning, though she begged him not to when he said she had made a fool of him and he was firing her to teach her a lesson, the professor did. She wept, pleading for another chance, but he would not change his mind. So she desolately wrapped up the odds and ends in her room in a newspaper and left, still crying. Afterwards he was upset and very nervous. He could not stand the cold that day and he could not work.

A week later, the morning the heat was turned on, Rosa appeared at the apartment door and begged to have her job back. She was distraught, said her son had hit her, and gently touched her puffed black-and-blue lip. With tears in her eyes, although she didn’t cry, Rosa explained it was no fault of hers that she had accepted both pairs of shoes. Armando had given her his pair first; had, out of jealousy of a possible rival, forced her to take them. Then when the professor had kindly offered his pair of shoes, she had wanted to refuse them but was afraid of angering him and losing her job. This was God’s truth, so help her St. Peter. She would, she promised, find Armando, whom she had not seen in a week, and return his shoes if the professor would take her back. If he didn’t, she would throw herself into the Tiber. He, though he didn’t care for talk of this kind, felt a certain sympathy for her. He was disappointed in himself at the way he had handled her. It would have been better to have said a few appropriate words on the subject of honesty and then philosophically dropped the matter. In firing her he had only made things difficult for them both, because, in the meantime, he had tried two other maids and found them unsuitable. One stole, the other was lazy. As a result the house was a mess, impossible for him to work in, although the portinaia came up for an hour each morning to clean. It was his good fortune that Rosa had appeared at the door just then. When she removed her coat, he noticed with satisfaction that the tear in her dress had finally been mended.

She went grimly to work, dusting, polishing, cleaning everything in sight. She unmade beds, then made them, swept under them, mopped, polished head- and footboards, adorned the beds with newly pressed spreads. Though she had just got her job back and worked with her usual efficiency, she worked, he observed, in sadness, frequently sighing, attempting a smile only when his eye was on her. This is their nature, he thought; they have hard lives. To spare her
further blows by her son he gave her permission to live in. He offered extra money to buy meat for her supper but she refused it, saying pasta would do. Pasta and green salad was all she ate at night. Occasionally she boiled an artichoke left over from lunch and ate it with oil and vinegar. He invited her to drink the white wine in the cupboard and take fruit. Once in a while she did, always telling what and how much, though he repeatedly asked her not to. The apartment was nicely in order. Though the phone rang, as usual, daily at three, only seldom did she leave the house after she had talked to Armando.

Then one dismal morning Rosa came to the professor and in her distraught way confessed she was pregnant. Her face was lit in despair; her white underwear shone through her black dress.

He felt annoyance, disgust, blaming himself for having reemployed her.

“You must leave at once,” he said, trying to keep his voice from trembling.

“I can’t,” she said. “My son will kill me. In God’s name, help me, professore.”

He was infuriated by her stupidity. “Your sexual adventures are none of my responsibility.

“Was it this Armando?” he asked almost savagely.

She nodded.

“Have you informed him?”

“He says he can’t believe it.” She tried to smile but couldn’t.

“I’ll convince him,” he said. “Do you have his telephone number?”

She told it to him. He called Armando at his office, identified himself, and asked the government clerk to come at once to the apartment. “You have a grave responsibility to Rosa.”

“I have a grave responsibility to my family,” Armando answered.

“You might have considered them before this.”

“All right, I’ll come over tomorrow after work. It’s impossible today. I have a carpentering contract to finish up.”

“She’ll expect you,” the professor said.

When he hung up he felt less angry, although still more emotional than he cared to feel. “Are you quite sure of your condition?” he asked her, “that you are pregnant?”

“Yes.” She was crying now. “Tomorrow is my son’s birthday. What a beautiful present it will be for him to find out his mother’s a whore. He’ll break my bones, if not with his hands, then with his teeth.”

“It hardly seems likely you can conceive, considering your age.”

“My mother gave birth at fifty.”

“Isn’t there a possibility you are mistaken?”

“I don’t know. It’s never been this way before. After all, I’ve been a widow—”

“Well, you’d better find out.”

“Yes, I want to,” Rosa said. “I want to see the midwife in my neighborhood but I haven’t got a single lira. I spent all I had left when I wasn’t working, and I had to borrow carfare to get here. Armando can’t help me just now. He has to pay for his wife’s teeth this week. She has very bad teeth, poor thing. That’s why I came to you. Could you advance me two thousand of my pay so I can be examined by the midwife?”

After a minute he counted two one-thousand-lire notes out of his wallet. “Go to her now,” he said. He was about to add that if she was pregnant, not to come back, but he was afraid she might do something desperate, or lie to him so she could go on working. He didn’t want her around anymore. When he thought of his wife and daughter arriving amid this mess, he felt sick with nervousness. He wanted to get rid of the maid as soon as possible.

The next day Rosa came in at twelve instead of nine. Her dark face was pale. “Excuse me for being late,” she murmured. “I was praying at my husband’s grave.”

“That’s all right,” the professor said. “But did you go to the midwife?”

“Not yet.”

“Why not?” Though angry he spoke calmly.

She stared at the floor.

“Please answer my question.”

“I was going to say I lost the two thousand lire on the bus, but after being at my husband’s grave I’ll tell you the truth. After all, it’s bound to come out.”

This is terrible, he thought, it’s unending. “What did you do with the money?”

“That’s what I mean,” Rosa sighed. “I bought my son a present. Not that he deserves it, but it was his birthday.” She burst into tears.

He stared at her a minute, then said, “Please come with me.”

The professor left the apartment in his bathrobe, and Rosa followed. Opening the elevator door he stepped inside, holding the door for her. She entered the elevator.

They stopped two floors below. He got out and nearsightedly scanned the names on the brass plates above the bells. Finding the one he wanted, he pressed the button. A maid opened the door and let them in. She seemed frightened by Rosa’s expression.

“Is the doctor in?” the professor asked the doctor’s maid.

“I will see.”

“Please ask him if he’ll see me for a minute. I live in the building, two flights up.”

“Si, signore.” She glanced again at Rosa, then went inside.

The Italian doctor came out, a short middle-aged man with a beard. The professor had once or twice passed him in the cortile of the apartment house. The doctor was buttoning his shirt cuff.

“I am sorry to trouble you, sir,” said the professor. “This is my maid, who has been having some difficulty. She would like to determine whether she is pregnant. Can you assist her?”

The doctor looked at him, then at the maid, who had a handkerchief to her eyes.

“Let her come into my office.”

“Thank you,” said the professor. The doctor nodded.

The professor went up to his apartment. In a half hour the phone rang.

“Pronto.”

It was the doctor. “She is not pregnant,” he said. “She is frightened. She also has trouble with her liver.”

“Can you be certain, doctor?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you,” said the professor. “If you write her a prescription, please have it charged to me, and also send me your bill.”

“I will,” said the doctor, and hung up.

Rosa came into the apartment. “The doctor told you?” the professor said. “You aren’t pregnant.”

“It’s the Virgin’s blessing,” said Rosa.

Speaking quietly, he then told her she would have to go. “I’m sorry, Rosa, but I simply cannot be constantly caught up in this sort of thing. It upsets me and I can’t work.”

She turned her head away.

The doorbell rang. It was Armando, a small thin man in a long gray overcoat. He was wearing a rakish black Borsalino and a slight mustache. He had dark, worried eyes. He tipped his hat to them.

Rosa told him she was leaving the apartment.

“Then let me help you get your things,” Armando said. He followed her to the maid’s room and they wrapped Rosa’s things in newspaper.

When they came out of the room, Armando carrying a shopping bag, Rosa holding a shoe box wrapped in a newspaper, the professor handed Rosa the remainder of her month’s wages.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but I have my wife and daughter to think of. They’ll be here in a few days.”

She answered nothing. Armando, smoking a cigarette butt, gently opened the door for her and they left together.

Later the professor inspected the maid’s room and saw that Rosa had taken all her belongings but the shoes he had given her. When his wife arrived in the apartment, shortly before Thanksgiving, she gave the shoes to the portinaia, who wore them a week, then gave them to her daughter-in-law.

1959

Idiots First

T
he thick ticking of the tin clock stopped. Mendel, dozing in the dark, awoke in fright. The pain returned as he listened. He drew on his cold embittered clothing, and wasted minutes sitting at the edge of the bed.

“Isaac,” he ultimately sighed.

In the kitchen, Isaac, his astonished mouth open, held six peanuts in his palm. He placed each on the table. “One … two … nine.”

He gathered each peanut and appeared in the doorway. Mendel, in loose hat and long overcoat, still sat on the bed. Isaac watched with small eyes and ears, thick hair graying the sides of his head.

“Schlaf,” he nasally said.

“No,” muttered Mendel. As if stifling he rose. “Come, Isaac.”

He wound his old watch though the sight of the stopped clock nauseated him.

Isaac wanted to hold it to his ear.

“No, it’s late.” Mendel put the watch carefully away. In the drawer he found the little paper bag of crumpled ones and fives and slipped it into his overcoat pocket. He helped Isaac on with his coat.

Isaac looked at one dark window, then at the other. Mendel stared at both blank windows.

They went slowly down the darkly lit stairs, Mendel first, Isaac watching the moving shadows on the wall. To one long shadow he offered a peanut.

“Hungrig.”

In the vestibule the old man gazed through the thin glass. The November night was cold and bleak. Opening the door he cautiously thrust his head out. Though he saw nothing he quickly shut the door.

“Ginzburg, that he came to see me yesterday,” he whispered in Isaac’s ear.

Isaac sucked air.

“You know who I mean?”

Isaac combed his chin with his fingers.

“That’s the one, with the black whiskers. Don’t talk to him or go with him if he asks you.”

Isaac moaned.

“Young people he don’t bother so much,” Mendel said in afterthought.

It was suppertime and the street was empty but the store windows dimly lit their way to the corner. They crossed the deserted street and went on. Isaac, with a happy cry, pointed to the three golden balls. Mendel smiled but was exhausted when they got to the pawnshop.

The pawnbroker, a red-bearded man with black horn-rimmed glasses, was eating a whitefish at the rear of the store. He craned his head, saw them, and settled back to sip his tea.

In five minutes he came forward, patting his shapeless lips with a large white handkerchief.

Mendel, breathing heavily, handed him the worn gold watch. The pawnbroker, raising his glasses, screwed in his eyepiece. He turned the watch over once. “Eight dollars.”

The dying man wet his cracked lips. “I must have thirty-five.”

“So go to Rothschild.”

“Cost me myself sixty.”

“In 1905.” The pawnbroker handed back the watch. It had stopped ticking. Mendel wound it slowly. It ticked hollowly.

“Isaac must go to my uncle that he lives in California.”

“It’s a free country,” said the pawnbroker.

Isaac, watching a banjo, snickered.

“What’s the matter with him?” the pawnbroker asked.

“So let be eight dollars,” muttered Mendel, “but where will I get the rest till tonight?

“How much for my hat and coat?” he asked.

“No sale.” The pawnbroker went behind the cage and wrote out a ticket. He locked the watch in a small drawer but Mendel still heard it ticking.

In the street he slipped the eight dollars into the paper bag, then searched in his pockets for a scrap of writing. Finding it, he strained to read the address by the light of the street lamp.

As they trudged to the subway, Mendel pointed to the sprinkled sky.

“Isaac, look how many stars are tonight.”

“Eggs,” said Isaac.

“First we will go to Mr. Fishbein, after we will eat.”

They got off the train in upper Manhattan and had to walk several blocks before they located Fishbein’s house.

“A regular palace,” Mendel murmured, looking forward to a moment’s warmth.

Isaac stared uneasily at the heavy door of the house.

Mendel rang. The servant, a man with long sideburns, came to the door and said Mr. and Mrs. Fishbein were dining and could see no one.

“He should eat in peace but we will wait till he finishes.”

“Come back tomorrow morning. Tomorrow morning Mr. Fishbein will talk to you. He don’t do business or charity at this time of the night.”

“Charity I am not interested—”

“Come back tomorrow.”

“Tell him it’s life or death—”

“Whose life or death?”

“So if not his, then mine.”

“Don’t be such a big smart aleck.”

“Look me in my face,” said Mendel, “and tell me if I got time till tomorrow morning?”

The servant stared at him, then at Isaac, and reluctantly let them in.

The foyer was a vast high-ceilinged room with many oil paintings on the walls, voluminous silken draperies, a thick flowered rug at foot, and a marble staircase.

Mr. Fishbein, a paunchy bald-headed man with hairy nostrils and small patent-leather feet, ran lightly down the stairs, a large napkin tucked under a tuxedo coat button. He stopped on the fifth step from the bottom and examined his visitors.

“Who comes on Friday night to a man that he has guests, to spoil him his supper?”

“Excuse me that I bother you, Mr. Fishbein,” Mendel said. “If I didn’t come now I couldn’t come tomorrow.”

“Without more preliminaries, please state your business. I’m a hungry man.”

“Hungrig,” wailed Isaac.

Fishbein adjusted his pince-nez. “What’s the matter with him?”

“This is my son Isaac. He is like this all his life.”

Isaac mewled.

“I am sending him to California.”

“Mr. Fishbein don’t contribute to personal pleasure trips.”

“I am a sick man and he must go tonight on the train to my Uncle Leo.”

“I never give to unorganized charity,” Fishbein said, “but if you are hungry I will invite you downstairs in my kitchen. We having tonight chicken with stuffed derma.”

“All I ask is thirty-five dollars for the train ticket to my uncle in California. I have already the rest.”

“Who is your uncle? How old a man?”

“Eighty-one years, a long life to him.”

Fishbein burst into laughter. “Eighty-one years and you are sending him this halfwit.”

Mendel, flailing both arms, cried, “Please, without names.”

Fishbein politely conceded.

“Where is open the door there we go in the house,” the sick man said. “If you will kindly give me thirty-five dollars, God will bless you. What is thirty-five dollars to Mr. Fishbein? Nothing. To me, for my boy, is everything.”

Fishbein drew himself up to his tallest height.

“Private contributions I don’t make—only to institutions. This is my fixed policy.”

Mendel sank to his creaking knees on the rug.

“Please, Mr. Fishbein, if not thirty-five, give maybe twenty.”

“Levinson!” Fishbein angrily called.

The servant with the long sideburns appeared at the top of the stairs.

“Show this party where is the door—unless he wishes tc partake food before leaving the premises.”

“For what I got chicken won’t cure it,” Mendel said.

“This way if you please,” said Levinson, descending.

Isaac assisted his father up.

“Take him to an institution,” Fishbein advised over the marble balustrade. He ran quickly up the stairs and they were at once outside, buffeted by winds.

The walk to the subway was tedious. The wind blew mournfully. Mendel, breathless, glanced furtively at shadows. Isaac, clutching his peanuts in his frozen fist, clung to his father’s side. They entered a small park to rest for a minute on a stone bench under a leafless twobranched tree. The thick right branch was raised, the thin left one hung down. A very pale moon rose slowly. So did a stranger as they approached the bench.

“Gut yuntif,” he said hoarsely.

Mendel, drained of blood, waved his wasted arms. Isaac yowled sickly. Then a bell chimed and it was only ten. Mendel let out a piercing anguished cry as the bearded stranger disappeared into the bushes. A policeman came running and, though he beat the bushes with his nightstick, could turn up nothing. Mendel and Isaac hurried out of the little park. When Mendel glanced back the dead tree had its thin arm raised, the thick one down. He moaned.

They boarded a trolley, stopping at the home of a former friend, but he had died years ago. On the same block they went into a cafeteria and ordered two fried eggs for Isaac. The tables were crowded except where a heavyset man sat eating soup with kasha. After one look at him they left in haste, although Isaac wept.

Mendel had another address on a slip of paper but the house was too far away, in Queens, so they stood in a doorway shivering.

What can I do, he frantically thought, in one short hour?

He remembered the furniture in the house. It was junk but might bring a few dollars. “Come, Isaac.” They went once more to the pawnbroker’s to talk to him, but the shop was dark and an iron gate—rings and gold watches glinting through it—was drawn tight across his place of business.

They huddled behind a telephone pole, both freezing. Isaac whimpered.

“See the big moon, Isaac. The whole sky is white.”

He pointed but Isaac wouldn’t look.

Mendel dreamed for a minute of the sky lit up, long sheets of light in all directions. Under the sky, in California, sat Uncle Leo drinking tea with lemon. Mendel felt warm but woke up cold.

Across the street stood an ancient brick synagogue.

He pounded on the huge door but no one appeared. He waited till he had breath and desperately knocked again. At last there were footsteps within, and the synagogue door creaked open on its massive brass hinges.

A darkly dressed sexton, holding a dripping candle, glared at them.

“Who knocks this time of night with so much noise on the synagogue door?”

Mendel told the sexton his troubles. “Please, I would like to speak to the rabbi.”

“The rabbi is an old man. He sleeps now. His wife won’t let you see him. Go home and come back tomorrow.”

“To tomorrow I said goodbye already. I am a dying man.”

Though the sexton seemed doubtful he pointed to an old wooden house next door. “In there he lives.” He disappeared into the synagogue with his lit candle casting shadows around him.

Mendel, with Isaac clutching his sleeve, went up the wooden steps and rang the bell. After five minutes a big-faced, gray-haired bulky woman came out on the porch with a torn robe thrown over her nightdress. She emphatically said the rabbi was sleeping and could not be waked.

But as she was insisting, the rabbi himself tottered to the door. He listened a minute and said, “Who wants to see me let them come in.”

They entered a cluttered room. The rabbi was an old skinny man with bent shoulders and a wisp of white beard. He wore a flannel nightgown and black skullcap; his feet were bare.

“Vey is mir,” his wife muttered. “Put on shoes or tomorrow comes sure pneumonia.” She was a woman with a big belly, years younger than her husband. Staring at Isaac, she turned away.

Mendel apologetically related his errand. “All I need more is thirty-five dollars.”

“Thirty-five?” said the rabbi’s wife. “Why not thirty-five thousand? Who has so much money? My husband is a poor rabbi. The doctors take away every penny.”

“Dear friend,” said the rabbi, “if I had I would give you.”

“I got already seventy,” Mendel said, heavy-hearted. “All I need more is thirty-five.”

“God will give you,” said the rabbi.

“In the grave,” said Mendel. “I need tonight. Come, Isaac.”

“Wait,” called the rabbi.

He hurried inside, came out with a fur-lined caftan, and handed it to Mendel.

“Yascha,” shrieked his wife, “not your new coat!”

“I got my old one. Who needs two coats for one body?”

“Yascha, I am screaming—”

“Who can go among poor people, tell me, in a new coat?”

“Yascha,” she cried, “what can this man do with your coat? He needs tonight the money. The pawnbrokers are asleep.”

“So let him wake them up.”