How on East Broadway two innocents like Rosala and Julius could walk and talk the clock around and no dreck adhere? wondered Rosala’s mother — not a sign from heaven? What an idle thought from a woman who when she was Rosala’s age — no before thirteen yet, dear God, how she danced and kissed and pinched and hugged in the corners, barns, on the stairs, in the fields, so all the time black-and-blue from foot to head “from being so nearsighted bumping into everything,” she swears to her father who smacked her and cracked her and what good did it do?
The day Rosala said, “Enough already!” Julius asked should he take her temperature? Rectal? From medical school Julius was graduated but, as the head nurse was so kind to point out to the new student nurse, intern he now has to and, being so keen with the knife, why shouldn’t he be a surgeon? If instantly Rosala doesn’t marry her doctor, then the other interns, doctors, horny patients wouldn’t stop feeling, pinching, even then. But if the sweet child that Rosala was wanted it, not only would the head nurse safeguard her from the vultures here, but likewise keep from sneaking inside her the dybbuk, even Lilith always so creepy-crawling into children like Rosala. Being there was something so creepy-crawly about the head nurse, Rosala said the head nurse was too kind but she wouldn’t take advantage. By living on eight bananas for a nickel and yesterday’s bread Rosala had saved up enough to quit Woolworth’s.
“Listen to me, foolish child,” said the head nurse, “you don’t find your Julius and marry him this very day some rich bitch just loves surgeons grabs him right out from on top of you. I seen it happen every time.”
“My Julius would never!” Big and round as honeydew melons were Rosala’s blue eyes. Yet could you argue with the voice of experience?
“Right this minute?” asked Julius inside whom never once raised lust its head yet, never once does he dream of possessing his Rosala who never once did he touch yet where good boys never; even when he examines ladies, young women, he could be a horse doctor for all the emotion he is feeling. For him it was enough just being with his Rosala, smelling her, making her laugh and laughing along, watching her listen, react to the jumble of words spouting from him like she turns on the hydrant on the street corner just by her presence, holding hands in the movies, laying on the beach alongside, in Central Park.
“The head nurse told me.”
“The head nurse?”
“Would I insist if not?”
Julius was dumbfounded. It would never have occurred to him that the head nurse knew they were alive; no more than Rosala would he contradict so august a personage. “We need two witnesses. Mama wouldn’t hear of us getting married at City Hall. We would have to wait for Aunt Celia who still waits in Minsk to save up the steerage money.”
“Perhaps your brother, Finkie, might lend us two of his friends if he could not come himself?”
“What an inspired thought!” Then Julius wasn’t so sure. “You wouldn’t mind gamblers, even worse, being God only knows what Finkie is running by this time.”
“What difference does that make? Do you want to get married or don’t you? There’s the Broadway streetcar, run, will you, dear? If he can’t come maybe who works for him.”
Finkie was fascinated. Last time he seen the kids Julius was still in short pants and Rosala’s braids she could wipe her asshole with.
“You really gonna marry... himmmm?”
Rosala’s yes was so hard to hear that Julius was upset. Finkie standing next to his big desk in his expensive suit was indeed something for Rosala to look at. It struck Julius that facing him now was not the same girl always her nose in a book when she was not riveted by him; something happened, if only he could put his finger on what. Rosala, who before being touched and pinched right and left in the hospital, other than Julius didn’t know another boy existed; not even in the subway where reading her book not even a fire would she have noticed, looked out the window, anyplace where wasn’t Julius, Finkie. She realized she was red all over: of the sweat between her breasts and thighs did she ever take any notice before? Loyalty! she thought, clutching it to her breast as she would have her sanity. Kipling’s Kim would never go back on his word, would he? Movies unreeled before her eyes: heroes shot because they would never give in, divulge the code, turn their coats; plays at the Yiddish Theatre on Second Avenue, everybody sticking together, defying the Cossacks no matter what.
Rosala’s flushed face and throat, sweat, smell excited Finkie almost more than persuading Shoeless Joe Jackson to take third strikes, great shineball pitcher Eddie Cicotte to lay it in there so baby fat that Finkie hisself with only one hand could knock it out of Comiskey Park. Listen, he said, trying unsuccessfully to unscrew his eyes from Rosala’s heaving teats. Couldn’t dopey Julius see she wants him, Finkie, bad as Finkie her, so why don’t the shmo blow?
“Sure, kids, Becky my secretary and her boyfriend glad to witness. At the same time you could do me a favor too.” From Finkie’s back pocket came a roll of bills could have choked five of Julius’s throats. “For waiting for you so long, Julius, shouldn’t your poor Rosala be rewarded with something better than a doctor on even Delancey Street? You do me this favor and you could open up on West End Avenue. To start you off right how does a honeymoon in Chi’ and Cincy strike you?”
“Who do you want us to shoot?”
“Ha ha, a sensayuma your right away quick husband has, Rosala.” Finkie spun about to open the wall safe over which hung a framed photograph of Jack Dempsey shaking Finkie’s hand. “Deliver these nice fat envelopes where I tell you, Julius, and I’ll give you five Cs, each game you could shoot the works. For now, Rosala, you take charge the envelopes, for arithmetic from working in Woolworth’s you got such a good head Mama tells me.” Down her teats should he put them? “Rosala!” The hand she tentatively put out he clasped with both of his, having first dropped the envelopes on the desk behind him. “Sweeter than Blanche Sweet you are, baby. Really, I ain’t kidding. Such a lucky dog, Julius, who could have figured?” Finkie stroked Rosala’s arm. Outside being Indian summer, today she could still wear a summer dress. “You seen a picture Mary Picklefeet loves a shlepper but the duke—”
“Droit de Seigneur!” burst from Rosala who likewise was reading Sir Walter Scott. Her tongue she should rip from her throat, at the very least bite off. God she begged to strike her dead like in the play The Dybbuk, could even her mother imagine how inside everything tummeling? Even Julius could realize that she was out of her mind; that much she saw out of the corner of her eye.
“Toit duh see her?” That was another good one, laughed Finkie. “Listen careful now, Julius. To City Hall where who don’t I know, I myself personally takes you down. After the cherrymoney, ha ha, we put you on the Century with the envelopes you will deliver in Chi’ and when the Series all done, Rosala — why do you look so worried, Julius? If she seen with you or wisewersa then you might just as well blab here and save me carfare. You ain’t got a worry in the world, on my word of honor. Every night Rosala telephones you at a special number so you should know each day who to bet on at what odds, you capish, Julius?”
Julius capished so good that if he don’t keep both hands pressed over his chest his heart would jump right out the open window down to where the kids ask the cops could they turn on the hydrant. Julius knew what he must do, what he must say, but for a while his Adam’s apple was an adagio dancer, his tongue cleaved, his jaw clamped and all he had in his legs were cramps. Happening to look at Rosala, how she scrutinized him, like under the microscope, spun him to the desk which he banged with his fist, even managed to gasp where Finkie could shove his filthy lucre; that when Papa dies of the consumption such a good son Finkie proved buying for Mama the newsstand from whose receipts she must buy sweaters enough not to freeze in winters worse than Moscow’s.