But when Minnie was absent now from the house, a dull cheerlessness took over — except during those times Ira had a job, in the summer, and more rarely, after school; and then a modicum of amiability, even joviality, tempered Pop’s manner, relaxed domestic interchange. Otherwise, an air of brooding prevailed. Ira thought he could guess why. But always his surmise was tainted, the clarity of the surmise was sullied.
Sure — Ira studied the candle flames wavering gently a couple of inches above their brass sockets — if the cause of their antagonism were only a matter of Pop’s supporting his son these many years through high school and college, when Ira could have been bringing in his earnings instead, helping sustain the household, as the other Jewish youth on 119th Street did, as Minnie was doing. If only it were. Had Minnie succeeded in getting into normal school, miserly though Pop was, Ira was sure Pop would have been willing to contribute to Minnie’s support, contribute because Minnie always exerted herself to find part-time work, while Ira was too lacking in initiative, and just plain spunk, to get a job after classes. Mom would have hired out to scrub floors before she would see him give up “his career,” as she called it.
Still — still what? The way his mind bobbled a nub of thought. Yes: even if Pop resented supporting his son through college, that would have been comparatively easier to deal with. It would have been a simple case of economics — almost. Or even if Mom’s favoring him, coddling him, as Pop said, caused dissension, he, Ira, could have made a show of disapproval, as if he agreed with Pop. All kinds of ways of smoothing things out. But ah, there was one thing you couldn’t smooth out. It was the groundswell that he himself roiled up, a secret tension he charged the household with, as if home were some kind of Leyden jar. .
Incest, incestuous longings. Jesus Christ, name it for what it was. It didn’t matter that Minnie wouldn’t give in anymore. She had, once upon a time. He knew it, she did too. She had, right in that cold little bedroom next to the kitchen, with the same blistered kitchen walls, all but capered, and regularly Sunday. You couldn’t forget it, that was all. And had come so close to getting it again once or twice. It was the same old goddamn reason: the shock he’d gotten watching that rusty bastard jack off against a tree in Fort Tryon Park. His dark, sullen telepathy ionized the joint. He hated it, he fought it. Lucky there was Stella, fat little piece of ass. Could that be the reason there were no decent conversations in the Stigman household? The kind of homespun discussions everyone else reported as a staple of home life — that he witnessed at Larry’s in the years of close friendship — the taking up of a topic of mutual interest and debating about it, differing about it, warmly defending pros and cons, but in a civil way. They discussed ideas — ah, there it was: ideas. Even Minnie developed her own ideas, reached conclusions, on her level. Her ideas didn’t interest him, neither did her conclusions, usually, but what did? Nevertheless, he recognized, he had to admit to himself that she could think independently, generate ideas: she could reason. He couldn’t reciprocate.
With Minnie no longer available, Stella continued to be the kid he pratted down in the glaring cellar in Flushing, from when she was fourteen. But it had been that — sex — that had ruined, rendered turbid, ideological exchange in the household, a monstrous intrusion that had mangled his own intellectual development. What else could it be? Stunted his analytical abilities, judiciousness, appraisals. Shabbes bay nakht.
Jesus Christ, what a sinister cyst of guilt that was within the self, denigrating the yuntiff, denigrating everything within reach, exuding ambiguity, anomaly, beyond redemption now. Yeah, but maybe the fault wasn’t all his own, maybe a lot of the trouble was with Pop. Not because he was of immigrant birth. Pop didn’t seem able to consider an idea, to weigh, to test it against some sort of evidence, to hold it steadily in view. Pop uttered pronouncements instead, diktats, commands, expressed likes and dislikes, dismissed, reminisced, yes, told stories, told stories of old times. God, you could wander all over the place looking for the cause, for the blame, like Goosy Gander, all over hell and gone. The blame was with himself, the blame was with Pop, the blame was with Mom too. But how could he ever get free of it? Could he get free of it? Ever? Ever?
That was the crux of the matter. To hell with the blame. Too late to find fault. Get out of it, whatever the goddamn cause. Or causes. But how? That was the worst of it. He was an addict. The minute he saw Stella — just the right moves: an iota of precarious privacy — prickarious privacy. .
Mom had finished doing the dishes. She put them away in the china closet. Because it was built against the wall opposite the sink, she passed by the table several times.
“Tea I don’t care for, but tonight it looks appetizing. I’ll have a glass.” And addressing Pop: “Chaim? Anything?” Unperturbed by his brusque shrug, as if discounted in advance, she addressed Ira: “A morsel more of hunik-lekekh?”
“No thanks, Mom,” he said cheerlessly. “Don’t you think Minnie ought to be home by now?”
“On Friday night? Another hour.” Mom sat down with her glass of tea. “My poor daughter, how she strives, strives—”
Ira could sense rather than see Pop lift his eyes from the newspaper. Mom sucked her tea, steaming hot, her lips squealing in osculation against the rim of the glass. It was like a scene in a Russian play, Ira thought. He averted his face.
“How can you stand it so hot?”
“The tea? I like it when it scalds my gullet.” Her lips squealed against the glass again. She laughed guiltily, cut a piece of the dark cake. “How is it you remember nothing of what Minnie does, and she remembers everything you do?”
“Does she? I’m an important brother.”
“How?” Pop interjected. “His head’s on the roof. How?”
“I don’t pay any attention to Minnie,” Ira defended himself with asperity. “A lot of times I’m not home on Fridays.”
“You weren’t home on Friday,” Mom corrected. “Once indeed that was true. But not now. You don’t see your friend Larry very often.”
“Well, I do in college,” Ira said shortly. Mom deliberated, raised her eyebrows eloquent of resignation.
“To tell you the truth, Friday nights, now that it’s almost winter, I’m sure my poor daughter has an ample meal at Mamie’s It’s the only time. I’ll be happy when the end of her attendance comes this year. I’ll forgive her the rest.”
“Yeah? What do you mean, Mom?”
“You know how it is,” said Mom. “You think Mamie feeds her the same meal the rest of the family eats? Even though Minnie pays her two dollars every week? A bygone day. Mamie gives her eggs, herring in tomato sauce, a bowl of falsheh-zup, such things.”
Falsheh-zup. Ira’s mind wandered to the words themselves: false soup, by which Mom meant meatless soup. How would John Synge have translated the words out of the speech of Aran Islanders? Pseudosoup.
“Mamie does?”
“Believe me. It’s only now, when night falls early, erev Shabbes comes early, and Zaida davens to an end before dark, they all eat Friday-night supper together. Then she runs off to the college. And Jonas is there too — of course.”