Wouldn't you like to take a walk with father?
It was my mother's voice which roused me from my reverie. How I had drifted to the arm-chair I couldn't remember. Maybe I had snoozed a bit without knowing it. Anyway, at the sound of her voice I jumped.
Rubbing my eyes, I observed that she was proffering me a cane. It was my grandfather's. Solid ebony with a silver handle in the form of a fox—or perhaps it was a marmoset.
In a jiffy I was on my feet and bundling into my overcoat. My father stood ready, flourishing his ivory-knobbed walking stick. The air will brace you up, he said.
Instinctively we headed for the cemetery. He liked to walk through the cemetery, not that he was so fond of the dead but because of the trees and flowers, the birds, and the memories which the peace of the dead always evoked. The paths were dotted with benches where one could sit and commune with Nature, or the god of the underworld, if one liked. I didn't have to strain myself to keep up conversation with my father; he was used to my evasive, laconic replies, my weak subterfuges. He never tried to pump me. That he had some one beside him was enough. On the way back we passed the school I had attended as a boy. Opposite the school was a row of mangy-looking flats, all fitted out with shop-fronts as alluring as a row of decayed teeth. Tony Marella had been reared in one of these flats. For some reason my father always expected me to become enthusiastic at the mention of Tony Marella's name. He never failed to inform me, when mentioning the name, of each new rise on the ladder of fame which this dago's son was making. Tony had a big job now in some branch of the Civil Service; he was also running for office, as a Congressman or something. Hadn't I read about it? It would be a good thing, he thought, if I were to look Tony up some time ... never could tell what it might lead to.
Still nearer home we passed the house belonging to the Gross family. The two Gross boys were also doing well, he said. One was a captain in the army, the other a commodore. Little did I dream, as I listened to him ramble on, that one of them would one day become a general. (The idea of a general born to that neighborhood, that street, was unthinkable.)
What ever became of the crazy guy who lived up the street? I asked. You know, where the stables were.
He had a hand bitten off by a horse and gangrene set in.
You mean he's dead?
A long time, said my father. In fact, they're all dead, all the brothers. One was struck by lightning, another slipped on the ice and broke his skull ... Oh yes, and the other had to be put in a strait-jacket ... died of a haemorrhage soon after. The father lived the longest. He was blind, you remember. Toward the end he became a bit dotty. Did nothing but make mouse-traps.
Why, I asked myself, had I never thought of going from house to house, up and down this street, and writing a chronicle of the lives of its denizens? What a book it would have made! The Book of Horrors. Such familiar horrors, too. Those everyday tragedies which never quite make the front page. De Maupassant would have been in his element here...
We arrived to find every one wide awake and chatting amiably. Mona and Stasia were sipping coffee. They had probably asked for it; my mother would never dream of serving coffee between meals. Coffee was only for breakfast, card parties and kaffee-klatches. However...
Did you have a good walk?
Yes, mother. We strolled through the cemetery.
That's nice. Were the graves in good condition?
She was referring to the family burial place. More particularly her father's grave.
There's a place for you too, she said. And for Lorette.
I stole a glance at Stasia to see if she were keeping a straight face. Mona now spoke up. A most inopportune remark it was too.
He'll never die, were her words.
My mother made a wry face, as if she had bitten into a tart plum. Then she smiled compassionately, first at Mona, then at me. Indeed she was almost at the point of laughter when she answered: Don't worry, he'll go like all of us. Look at him—he's already bald and he's only in his thirties. He doesn't take care of himself. Nor you either. Her look now changed to one of benevolent reproval.
Val's a genius, said Mona, putting her foot in still deeper. She was about to amplify but my mother stalled her.
Do you have to be a genius to write stories? she asked. There was an ominous challenge in her tone.
No, said Mona, but Val would be a genius even if he didn't write.
Tsch tsch! He certainly is no genius at making money.
He shouldn't think about money, came Mona's quick reply. That's for me to worry about.
While he stays home and scribbles, is that it? The venom had started to flow. And you, a handsome young woman like you, you have to go out and take a job. Times have changed. When I was a girl my father sat on the bench from morning till night. He earned the money. He didn't need inspiration ... nor genius. He was too busy keeping us children alive and happy. We had no mother ... she was in the insane asylum. But we had him—and we loved him dearly. He was father and mother to us. We never lacked for anything. She paused a moment, to take a good aim. But this fellow, and she nodded in my direction, this genius, as you call him, he's too lazy to take a job. He expects his wife to take care of him—and his other wife and child. If he earned anything from his writing I wouldn't mind. But to go on writing and never get anywhere, that I don't understand,
But mother ... Mona started to say.
Look here, said I, hadn't we better drop the subject? We've been all over this dozens of times. It's no use. I don't expect you to understand. But you should understand this ... Your father didn't become a first-class coat maker over night, did he? You told me yourself that he served a long, hard apprenticeship, that he traveled from town to town, all over Germany, and finally, to avoid the army, he went to London. It's the same with writing. It takes years to acquire mastery. And still more years to attain recognition. When your father made a coat there was some one ready to wear it; he didn't have to peddle it around until some one admired it and bought it...
You're just talking, said my mother. I've heard enough. She rose to go to the kitchen.
Don't go! begged Mona. Listen to me, please. I know Val's faults. But I also know what's in him. He's not an idle dreamer, he really works. He works harder at his writing than he possibly could at any job. That is his job, scribbling, as you call it. It's what he was born to do. I wish to God I had a vocation, something I could pursue with all my heart, something I believed in absolutely. Just to watch him at work gives me joy. He's another person when he's writing. Sometimes even I don't recognize him. He's so earnest, so full of thoughts, so wrapped up in himself ... Yes, I too had a good father, a father I loved dearly. He also wanted to be a writer. But his life was too difficult. We were a big family, immigrants, very poor. And my mother was very exacting. I was drawn to my father much more than to my mother. Perhaps just because he was a failure. He wasn't a failure to me, understand. I loved him. It didn't matter to me what he was or what he did. At times, just like Val here, he would make a clown of himself...