“You don’t think I want to be right, do you?”
“The main trouble I’m having with her is that I want to move the family down south. I was looking for a place in Galveston. That was what took so long. I found one and I have a deposit on it. I was going to bring them all down there.”
“That’s good. The best thing you could do. Take Philip out of New York. It’s no place to bring him up.”
“But I can’t talk Elena into it.”
“Why?”
“Maybe I started in too soon after the funeral. But she says she doesn’t want to go.”
“Tell me, is the old woman around much — her mother?”
“Oh, she’s in and out all the time.”
“For God’s sake, throw her out!”
His vehemence astonished Max.
“She doesn’t have anything to do with it.”
“Don’t let her get a hold. Protect yourself against her.”
Max for the first time began to smile.
“She won’t hurt me.”
“I’ll bet she’s telling Elena not to go. How do you know what she tells her? You don’t understand what they’re saying.”
Max’s look changed; he became grave again and his mouth sank at the corners. “I understand a little,” he said. “I guess you think I should have married a Jewish girl.”
“You never heard me say so,” Leventhal answered vigorously. Never.”
“No.”
“You never will. I’m talking about her mother, not Elena. You told me yourself that the old woman hated you, years ago. She’ll do you all the harm she can. Maybe you’re used to the old devil and don’t notice what she’s like any more. But I’ve watched her. It’s as clear as day to me that she thinks the baby’s death was God’s punishment because Elena married you.”
Max started and then his lips stiffened, and there was a submerged flaming of indignation beneath his natural darkness and the added darkness of care. “What kind of talk is that!” he said. “I never heard anything so peculiar in all my life. First you’ve got ideas about Elena and now the old woman.”
“You’ve been away,” said Leventhal. “You don’t know how she’s been acting. She’s poison.”
“Well, you’ve sure turned into a suspicious character.” Max’s face began to soften and he sighed.
“She’s full of hate,” Leventhal insisted.
“Go on, she’s a harmless old woman.”
If he were wrong about Elena, thought Leventhal, if he had overshot the mark and misinterpreted that last look of hers in the chapel, the mistake was a terrible and damaging one; the confusion in himself out of which it had risen was even more terrible. Eventually he had to have a reckoning with himself, when he was calmer and stronger. It was impossible now. But he was right about the old woman, he was sure. “You must get rid of your mother-in-law, Max!” he said with savage earnestness.
“Ah, what are you talking about?” he said rather wearily. “She’s just an old widow, old and cranky. Elena is her only daughter. I can’t tell her to stay away. This week she helped, she kept house and cooked for us. I know she doesn’t like me. So what? A worn-out old woman. I feel sad, sometimes, when I look at her. No, we’ll go to Galveston. Phil will start school there in the fall. He wants to go, and so does Elena. I can talk her into it. She wants to leave New York, only she’s still mixed up. But she’ll come. I’ve got to get back to my job, and we don’t want to be separated again. I don’t see why you’re so disturbed about the old woman. If she’s the worst I’m ever up against…” The large fold of his jacket reached kiltwise almost to his knees on which his hands were set. His unshapely fingers thickened where they should taper and the creases at the joints resembled the threads of flattened screws. “You don’t know Elena when there’s a tight spot,” he resumed. “She’s excitable all in pieces before something happens, but usually when it happens she’s stronger than I am. During the depression when I was laid up, she went out and peddled stuff from door to door.”
“I never heard that you were laid up.”
“Well, I was. And then when we were on relief, she has a brother who’s a hood and he wanted to take me into a kind of racket he had out in Astoria. I could’ve seen a little money, but she said no and went all the way out against it, so it was ‘No’ and we stayed on relief. Another woman would have said, ‘Go ahead.’“
“I see.”
“Afterwards things started to pick up and we thought we could add on to the family. Mickey wasn’t ever a healthy kid like Phil. And then we must have made mistakes, too. But what can you do? It’s not like with God, you know, in the Bible, where he blows his breath into Adam, or whoever. I think I told you that I asked a nurse what room he was in, when I got to the hospital. I went in there and he was lying covered up already. I pulled the sheet off and had a look at him.”
“Those fools!” Leventhal exclaimed. “Not to have somebody posted there.”
Max excused them with a downward wave of the hand. “All the nurses didn’t know. It’s a big place.” He added, consecutively, “I’m going south with the idea of a new start. I paid a deposit and so on. But to tell the truth, I don’t expect much. I feel half burned out already.”
Leventhal felt his heart shaken. “Half burned?” he said. “I’m older than you and I don’t say that.”
Max did not reply. His large trunk was ungainly in the double-breasted jacket.
“There have been times when I felt like that, too,” Leventhal went on. “That’s a feeling that comes and goes.” His brother turned his crude, dark face up to him and his voice died.
They sat together in silence and at last Max stirred and got up. Leventhal went with him to the subway. A heavy mist lay over the street. At the turnstile he dropped two nickels into the slot and Max said over his shoulder, “You don’t have to wait with me.”
But Leventhal pushed through. They stood at the edge of the platform till the grind of the approaching train reached them.
“If you need me for anything…” Leventhal said.
“Thanks.”
“I mean it.”
“Thank you.” He extended his hand. Leventhal clumsily spread his arms wide and clasped him. They felt the concussion of the train, and the streaked face of the lead car with its beam shot toward them in a smolder of dust; the windows ran by. Max returned his embrace. “Call me,” Leventhal said hoarsely in Max’s ear. The crowd swirled around them at the doors. When the train started, he saw Max gripping a strap and bending over the heads of passengers, peering out.
Pulling out a handkerchief, Leventhal wiped his sweat. He began to labor up the long, steel-striped concrete flights, opening his mouth to assist his breathing. Halfway up he stopped, squeezing against the wall to let others past, looking as if the lack of air maddened him. He felt faint with the expansion of his heart.
Then he continued. The mist had gathered to a light rain. At the top of the stairs he saw an umbrella flung open, like a bat in the chill current of air. The bars of the revolving door raced and clinked. Buttoning his coat, he raised the collar, and his eyes moved from the glare of the cars flowing up in the street to the towering lights that stood far ahead, not quite steady in the immense blackness.
21
IN the Saturday mail there was an invitation from Mrs Harkavy to a party that same evening in honor of her granddaughter’s seventh birthday. The postman whom Leventhal encountered in the fog on the outer stairs handed it to him. There was nothing from Mary and he was secretly glad of it, for the truth was that he felt he was stealing away and leaving Allbee in possession of the house. Ostensibly he was going out for coffee. He had risen to find the flat cold, and the windows dripping and gray as tin. Allbee was still asleep in the dining-room, his naked arms locked around the narrow mattress, sprawling, uncouth. His clothes lay on the floor and the air was stifling. Leventhal had gone into the kitchen and put on the coffee but, when he pictured himself sitting down in the cheerless front room to drink it, he made a face, shut off the gas, and went down to eat at the Greek’s. But he had no intention of coming back after breakfast.