“We’re getting all mixed up,” Ira said irritably. “I didn’t mean what for, when I said it. I meant stay around to say goodbye. I’m not going a thousand miles. I told you that.” He beckoned for the string impatiently. “I don’t want to get into a big quarrel with him.”
“I understend.” She handed him the knot-fringed ball. “It’s stout enough?”
“I’ll go around each way a few times.” He was beginning to feel uneasy: there it was again: something impending. He rolled the carton from side to side, binding it. Get out as soon as he could.
“Do you love her?” Mom asked.
“Boy, what a question. I guess so.”
“Sinful mother that I am, I seek to live in my son’s life. How did you make known your passion?”
“I didn’t. I wept. I think I said once when we were in bed that I wanted to be reborn.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t like what I’d become. Is that enough?”
“My own son.”
“Well.” He strained at the knot. “I’m going to need a knife.”
“I’ll fetch it.” She plodded to the cutlery drawer, next to the one in which he kept his texts and notebooks, brought out the heavy carving knife that Pop had sharpened and resharpened so often against the rim of the cast-iron sink, until the stained blade had become concave in the center. “Do you want it now?” She offered him the worn handle.
“No, I better go around once or twice more. Some of this string — just put it down.”
She laid the knife on the table. “Ai, my ears have begun to roar.”
“Your catarrh bothering you again? It’s clear outside, Mom. It’s cold, but it’s clear.”
“I can tell a day before when the weather changes. But it’s not always the weather. Woe can also wreak havoc. Ira, the roaring gets stronger.”
“I’m sorry.” Ira let the string go slack. “What do you want me to do, Mom? I can’t stay here. I absolutely can’t stay. And I’m not going to,” he added vehemently.
“But an educated man you are. You’ve studied such things. I can speak to you now.”
“Speak to me about what?” From slack to motionless, the string, and motionless the silly ball festooned with knots. He set the carton down on the table. “What are you talking about, Mom?”
“Stella was here last Sunday.”
As though he were deprived of independent speech, Ira kept looking at the carton. “Stella was here,” he repeated.
“You left early.”
“I left early.”
“You remember?”
“Oh, sure. I went sleepwalking that morning.”
“Ira, I’m serious.”
“So am I. Go ahead.”
“I left soon after you did — minutes. He was packing up his little satchel to go to that Catolisher benket in Cunyilant.”
“Yeah? I had not thought death had undone so many.”
“What? I don’t understand such deep English.”
“Don’t mind me.”
“I buy roach powder always from the same old Jew who has a small niche of a store on Park Avenue, smaller than even Zaida had in Veljish. And he reads the Talmud too, just like Zaida. And he sells other such items. Cleaning fluid. Camphor balls. Candles. Bon Ami for the windows. He gives me a few pennies off — he does it of his own accord. ‘You never haggle with me,’ he says. ‘You’re a fine woman.’”
“Yes, my mother.”
“I had already gone — what? — three blocks: to the top of the 116th Street hill — when—Gotinyoo! — I remembered: the keys! I didn’t have the keys to the house. How would I get in?”
“Where was Minnie?”
“She went to her friend to have her hair primped. Oh, where one’s mind strays sometimes! It’s unbelievable!” Mom became visibly incensed at herself. “To set out on an errand with one’s brain underground!”
“Oh, yeah.”
“I hurried. I ran. I flew. Gott sei dank, from 116th Street the way is downhill. I hastened and I sped. I rushed — to 119th Street at last, with might and main. And to the house. And up the stairs. Breathless. I burst into the kitchen—” Her lips closed, her broad countenance slackened with despondency, became forbidding in its quietus: “Isn’t he standing there with his member in his hand, fondling her?”
“Her?”
“Stella. Who else?” Mom said.
“Yeah?” Heartbeat flagged. “Pop?”
“‘Why did you come back?’ He ground his teeth at me — with such wrath, with such fury. As if I were the culprit. ‘Why did you come back?’”
Ira nodded, in the very depth of loss, loss of self, a very rubble of being. “He didn’t have much else to say.”
“But such fury! At me!”
“And now you have to tell me.”
“So you’ll know what kind of a father you have.”
“Goddamn it, I know what kind of a father I have!”
“Then you’ll know what you’re leaving me with.”
“You’ve got Minnie, goddamn it.” Ira struck the carton. It leaped away from him, pulling the ball of string out of his hand. The nubby sphere rolled no farther than his feet. He kicked it in a sudden onset of rage. “What do you want me to do? Stay? Christ’s sake, you’ll be worse off if I stay. I’ll kill someone!”
“I’m afraid he’ll kill me.” She moved the knife toward him along the green oilcloth of the table.
“Kill you!” Ira jeered. “Kill you! You’re dead already, for Christ’s sake. You’ve been martyred. I’ll kill that sonofabitch.” He grabbed the knife. “You gave me just the right thing. He’ll be home right away. I’ve had dreams of picking this thing up, again and again, and it always stuck to the table. Here it is. Free! Loose.”
“Oy veh, oy veh.” Mom kept nodding as if in prayer, davening. “Alas and woe is me. Ira, child.” She clasped her hands. “I spoke. Forget I spoke. Spare me! Spare me! Child, I beg you! Only this I lack! I beg you. A foolish thing I spoke. Ira, Ira. On my knees!” She made to seize the hand that held the knife.
“Go away! What the hell did you tell me for? I should’ve freed you from this bastard ten years ago — when all the other kids went to work. It’s been in my mind all these years. I had to go to high school, I had to go to college. Because of you. What do you want me to do? Pay off the debt?”
“No, no, no! It’s my fault—”
“You said it’s your fault — more than you know!”
“Forgive, forgive. Out of my anguish I had to tell you. Come, child. Remember this, this Professora, this Yeeda named. You’re going to another woman, another life.” She stooped, snatched up the ball of twine from the floor. “Child, let’s tie up your carton and be gone. Let’s not delay.”
“Anh, what the hell’s the use?” Ira threw the knife down on the table, took the ball of twine from her hands. “I’m through, Mom. I’m finished here. Do you understand? Don’t get me—” He gesticulated with gyrating hands. “Don’t get me tied up again. I can’t bear any more.”
“I understend. I understend. I can live with him. I’ve lived with him all these years. I’ll last till the end. I have Minnie. Go your way. It’s tight enough now, no? The string.”
“Yeah.” He found a clear length of string, free of knots, viciously yanked motley strands tight, pulled the knot he made as hard as he could. “You hold that here. Right here. Give me the knife. I’ll cut it. There. I’ll make a couple more knots.”