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.