Here goes. Brace for Mamie’s — or Joe’s — furious Yiddish tirade: Paskudnyack! Scoundrel! You dare show your vile face here? Ferbrent zollste veren! Heraus. Fershtinkeneh dreck! I’ll slap you forthwith. I’ll spit in your face! Grunk, grunk, grunk. He spun the brass key of the ratchety doorbell.
His grimness waxed with the passage of time, and time seemed unconscionable in duration. Finally, Hannah’s voice challenged: “Who?”
“It’s Ira.” His throat burred.
“Who?”
“Ira!” he called. Damn. Let the blow fall.
“Oh, it’s my collegiate cousin.” The tongue of the lock slid back; the door swung open. And there, jiggling in her antics, his stripling, saucy, redheaded cousin.
He stared searchingly at her countenance, waited for some sign. There was none. Only an effusive welcome.
“C’mon in. It’s cold in the hall. Oh, is my father gonna be surprised.”
“Is he home?” He had tumbled into fatuity, the absolute, boundless fatuity of his unfounded fears. He had ruined his chances for the weekend — but hell. . worth it. . for the next minute anyway. . until relief wore off. And then he’d kick himself in the pants.
“Is he home? My father?” Hannah led the way to the farther end of the hallway, brightened by the overlapping of light of front room ahead with that of the kitchen doorway to the side. Traditional Friday-night supper emanations became stronger as he advanced. “My father shouldn’t be home on Friday night? On Shabbes bay nakht? My father?”
“Of course.” Ira passed the open door of Zaida’s empty, darkened bedroom.
“You’ll be surprised too, you haven’t seen him in so long. He shaved off his mustache, did Minnie tell you? He says it makes him look taller. And will he ever be surprised to see you. When was it last? Did you go to Max’s wedding? Look who’s here,” she announced.
“Who is it?” Mamie bulked in the kitchen doorway.
“You’ll never guess,” Hannah promised.
“It’s Ira. A gitten Shabbes,” Mamie greeted. She turned her head to inform those in the kitchen. “Indeed a guest for you, Jonas. You haven’t seen each other since you’ve been working so late all the time.” And to Ira: “Come in, come in, let Jonas see you. Why so late?”
“I’m sorry.” Ira advanced into the kitchen with simpleton apology. “I started to take a walk, and just thought, I’m here, I’ll see Joe.” He extended his hand in greeting. “Noo, vus macht a yeet?” There was nothing, absolutely nothing, to have been alarmed about. What a dope. “How’s the gesheft?”
“Nisht kosher.” Joe stood up from the table. “You’re indeed a grown man, avert the evil eye. How long since I’ve seen you? It must be — God knows.”
“I really don’t remember.” Ira looked down at the face under the brim of Joe’s gray felt hat. It was a wholly unprepossessing countenance, blue-eyed and long-nosed. Joe was a very little man, scarcely five feet in height, shorter by inches even than Pop. Nor was he the kind of little man that Pop was, strong for his size, close-knit and quick, but trudging in his gait, weak-kneed and deliberate in movement. Temperament seemed to conform to outward appearance. He dragged out his words; he was patient in manner; he submitted docilely to interruption. And yet, there was about his lips, his small pointed jaw, something obstinate, canny, of which his very deliberation was part: one might expect him to ask endless questions, unabashed, about anything he was interested in — unlike Pop — and even then not feel bound to come to a decision, again unlike Pop, so impetuous, trusting in luck. One felt about Joe that it was futile to expect him to show pride or obligation where his interests were concerned.
Ira recalled seeing the apartment years later when Hannah gave him a tour. She supplied Ira with her own shrewd descriptions of her parent’s predilections. “Just as my father was short, shorter than your father, he liked everything big. And everywhere they gave you a prize, when you opened up a new bank account, there he would go and open up a new bank account: we had great big clocks, half-naked Venuses with a big round clock in their pipick; we had two of them with a clock in their bellies. We had table lamps that he got when he opened a new account; you could get a hernia when you tried to lift them. And the table itself — it was banquet-size. Of course, even when Zaida didn’t live with us anymore, he still came to the house for the Passover Seder. So with our family, and sometimes with the uncles and aunts — Ella’s husband was in the asylum, so she came with the three children; Morris and his wife didn’t have any children because she already had a hysterectomy before she was married, so they came — who else? You needed a table as big as a dance floor. When you pulled it out, and put in the spacers, it could seat twenty-four people. That was my father.”
“I think Harry’s wedding was the last time I saw you,” said Joe as he and Ira shook hands.
“I guess so. It’s funny, no matter how much time has passed, I still remember you shaving with a straight razor. It was on a Sunday.”
“Azoy. Gotinyoo! So long ago you remember me? I must have been working on ladies’ dresses yet.”
“It’s funny how some things stick. You were stropping your razor.”
“Azoy” Noo, come in, come in. Sit down. Sit down. Have a glazel tea,” Joe invited. “Let’s shmooze a little. I never see you.”
“He never comes Fridays. We see Minnie, but you only pop in when it pleases you,” Hannah accused.
“Well, Fraytik bay nakht,” Ira excused himself. “You know how it is. I came because I heard about Zaida.”
“Aha. Noo, what do you think?”
“I don’t know.”
“We know like you know,” said Mamie.
“Is that so? No reason?”
“No reason, no reason. He’s gone.”
“I’ll be darned. Where’s Stella?”
“She’s in the front room reading.”
“Oh. It’s really a mystery,” Ira said in English.
“If he wants to go because we turn the radio up, and we dance the Charleston, so—” Hannah shrugged saucily. “We’re girls, what does he expect? So Sadie’s got boys. They won’t dance the Charleston too? They won’t turn on the radio?”
“It’s not that alone,” Mamie interjected.
“No?” Ira listened intently.
“He dreams they have lovers, gevald. They let them into the house at night, let them out. Girls sixteen, fourteen, antics to play.”
“What goes on in his head,” said Hannah.
“He’ll soon talk fetus in their belly,” said Joe.
“Noo, we all get old. What can you do? Ah, what is there to say? Is your father working?”
“As far as I know.”
“What’s Minnie doing?” Hannah asked.