He knew what was going to happen. Then skim. But tough thing to do: to skim that stupendous confrontation. And worse than that. . because so close to home. Stupendous and inciting. Would always be now. . all incest would: because he knew the inseparable mingling of the terror and iniquity. That was it: pariah’s orgasm at its highest, the shattering of all taboo, ecstatic reprisal against everything, everybody, yeah, against Pop, even Mom for moving to Harlem, Zaida for coming here, Jew with the whiskers and his kosher bosher and tvillim and thallis among the goyim. The whole works. Jesus, if that time, that Sunday morning way back on 9th Street, when Morris, her own brother, showed Mom his looming blooming bascule, if she hadn’t run from the room broom in hand, when he said, “Look what I’ve got, Leah,” but, oh, boy, just sent Ira out, so maybe he could have sneaked back, peeked in. Pop was a mensheleh, she taunted her husband when they quarreled, but with Morris—
Come on, quit it—
Incensed with indignation, Satan stood
Unterrified, and like a comet burned,
That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge
In the arctic sky. .
If that wasn’t the mightiest metaphor any poet ever wrote. Ophiuchus huge. Jesus, if only he had to make only one telephone call tomorrow, not two. Just one, please: Hello, Stella, you all right? Wouldn’t he be happy? What did the other guys in Professor Mott’s class think when they read about Satan screwing his own daughter, and fighting his own son, after he knocked her up? What Jewish innocents abroad: only you, you stupid sonofabitch. . Each at the head/Leveled his deadly aim; their fatal hands/No second stroke intend. . Keep reading.
Keep breeding. “Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, echo, dying, dying, dying.” Nothing much for him to do, except to try and keep on. Spiritless, in the midst of a heavy bronchial infection, he might just as well slavishly follow his typescript. He wasn’t capable of much else. Several days in fact had passed since he had last applied himself to his narrative: the bronchitis was one of the reasons for the interruption. Keep breeding. Answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.
XI
In his dim little bedroom, Sunday morning dawned on sandy eyelids opening on the smudged, slotted wall across the gray airshaft. He listened a second — he scarcely ever could tell time in the dingy little coop. Kitchen door closed, and no sound beyond; so Mom and Pop were gone. And Minnie — still probably dozing — or if awake — who cared? He got out of bed, entered the kitchen. Almost nine-thirty. His volume of Milton and notebook on the table still. Nanh, it was all stupid, all his messages. Mom would have gone to Mamie’s anyway to find out the news, and learned of Mamie’s intended trip to Flushing. Nine-thirty. Just about the right time to call up Mamie’s, get Stella before she gadded off, find out the verdict. He headed for the toilet, came out, began dressing. Let’s see. He had a couple of nickels. Otherwise he’d have had to borrow from Minnie—and she would have misinterpreted his approach: Waddaye want? Sharp as a buzz saw: Get outa here. Or else waited until Mom came. Ah, the goddamn things he had gotten himself into — you really had to laugh. If you could: old man Chaos last night, giving the Devil his bearings: southeast by east. Ira rubbed his eyes. How the hell? Milton, you ought to have more goddamn sense. That ugly old glob of Sin with the mutts yelping inside her, opening up the gates of Hell that could never be closed again. Got it fixed all tricky. Well, that’s theology. Ira dug into his back pocket, found his folded handkerchief. All this guy asks is a break. Accursed, and in a cursèd hour, he hies. Oh, bullshit.
Into overcoat, and downstairs, he skipped down stoop, and crossed scuffy old 119th Street to Biolov’s drugstore, where he nodded at Joey tending the pharmacy before entering the phone booth, pulled the folding doors to — and then with doubled handkerchief at the ready gave the operator Mamie’s number, and as soon as he heard the call go through, carefully ascertaining himself free of witnesses, draped his handkerchief over the mouthpiece. He had seen Bert Lytell do the same in the movies. No reason to think the stratagem wouldn’t work. And with that bitter good fortune that so often mocked predicament, his meticulous precautions were unnecessary. It was Stella herself who answered the phone.
“Don’t say who it is.” Ira removed the handkerchief. “It’s me, Ira. Any luck?”
“No.”
“No.” Chance to tighten lips. “Your mother’s still going to Zaida’s, right?”
“Leah is here.”
“Okay. Never mind. Let me ask the questions.”
“Nobody is listening. They’re in the front room.”
“Doesn’t matter. They’re going to leave about one o’clock?”
“I think so. Is Minnie going?”
“Shut up, for Christ’s sake! I’ll be there about two o’clock. At your house. We gotta see what we can do. You understand?” He gesticulated, his voice tightened. “Just say yes.”
“All right.”
“You’ll wait there for me.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll see you later. Two o’clock. I’m — let’s see — I’m Esther, you get it?”
“I know what you mean.”
“So goodbye, Esther. You say it. Is Hannah there?”
“No. Just Mama and Leah.”
“Goodbye.”
“Goodbye.”
Never in his life had he felt so like a moron as he did when he hung up the receiver. But what was he going to do? He was trapped — and he had to get down to her level. He left the drugstore and recrossed the street, to the stoop of his tenement, and through long murky hall and up flight of stairs.
So Mom was still at Mamie’s. She certainly must be expecting he’d be asleep, as in the old days, when she came home with breakfast for him and Minnie. As in the old days. Jesus, what irony: to know Mom was still blocks and blocks away, that he had all the time he needed to tear off a piece, and even if he could, no longer give a damn. The dumb cluck didn’t know she might be pregnant, and he did all the worrying. Now try to think, he adjured himself, entering the kitchen.
Minnie waited warily for him to return to the kitchen before entering. Holding her purple bathrobe defensively about her, she skirted him cautiously when he went to the stove to look into the coffeepot, and then she crossed the kitchen to the bathroom.
Mom had made coffee, the blue-enameled coffeepot was on the stove, only the coffee had become lukewarm. He lit the gas flame under it, tried to become interested in the opening of Book III while the coffee heated, couldn’t, got up and stood beside the stove, waited until the first bubbles broke the surface, and poured himself a cup, just as Minnie came out of the bathroom.
“Mom isn’t back yet?” she asked.
“You see she isn’t.” He carried his cup to the table. His indifference, or curtness, apparently reassured her.
“No milk? It’s outside the window, in the box.”
“No.”
“Whatsa matter? You’re so worried about the exam?”
“No. I’m not worried about the exam.” He tested a sip of near-boiling coffee, dipped a spoon into the sugar bowl.
“Mom’ll be home right away with some bulkies. Cream cheese. What’re you in such a hurry for? You’re all dressed up. You can’t wait?”