And sure enough, the mensch mumbles what, it’s impossible to say…a For You Good Price pitch, st-stuttering now of fine material, of finer workmen-schship, a how it’s lasted him for years testimonial, rubbing now a pant leg between two fingers as if summoning a species of foreign dybbuk.
Nowhere! he oaths, because menschs like him have foresworn swearing, nowhere will you find gabardines like this, of worsted cloth the best, made of warm and wefty wool, or coddled cotton, of silk and rayon twill, he stretches out a leg — whichever you want, let them be. Much too long for myself, anyway, much too wide; wicks the leg out almost onto her pregnancy, proffering it to her as if a scarf for the winter outside, waving a cuff between two of her chins.
I’m sorry, Mister? What? A representative calling from the firm of Baggenhatz & Shirtzenpantz. Mister Farbenlint, here for a Mister Boxenbrief…Mister Lispstein, Fallenwallet, or Sloppenputz.
Matzahsock, or was it Latkerot?
Is here Nitz, he says, and what, please, is your name? reaching in to pinch Hanna’s bounty, one of infinite cheeks, oy his eyes.
I regret, Mister Witz…
Nitz, just Nitz, please and only…
I regret that my husband isn’t home, then nods at Israel standing behind her.
So another time I’ll call, he says.
Don’t, please. I can assure you my husband’s not interested in purchasing your pants.
This I can hear from him, he’s cupping his ear into a phonographs’s bloom. A cricket cacophony. Might I interest you, while we’re waiting, in the world’s smallest violin? A pity, you won’t be able to hear it, it’s Shabbos.
Israel has many pairs of pants, is how Hanna goes on, Israel shamed with his silence amid womanly worry — too many, more than he even knows himself, fine pants I can assure you, the top quality finest, though I’m sure yours are fine, too, in their own way…
As if to say, if God Himself can make one fine pair of pants, then why can’t He make many?
Israel’s wardrobe is virtually exploding with pants, we have closets both regular and walkin, I’d take you upstairs, but…of pants in every size skinny, lean, and not so much older, the widening of the thirties the age and its waist, the fall of the abdominal wall — and all of them the basement, the closets and drawers all stuffed fatter than I am, but with pants, I assure you. We’ve even given away so many pairs, charity, tzedakah, you wouldn’t be interested, would you (he’s shaking his head, not declining as much as in disbelief) — though, admittedly, Israel ends up always wearing the same two or three pairs, out of habit, you can understand, though I’m sure that…
So then you should tell me when’s maybe a good time.
Sorry, no thank you, and Hanna goes to shut the door even if it means mangling his foot then the lawsuit.
So maybe dinner’s not so great a time. A hint I can take, a hint even I can take. Shaking his head so much he’s nauseous.
Or it’s the food that’s doing it to him, asking, is that something paprikash I smell?
Please understand, Mister…
Nitz, Rubina says, her voice high and clear, it’s Nitz only.
Understand that we make these decisions, these decisions regarding pants, together, Israel and I, and so if you’d please…
Nu, I can’t see so well but I’m not also deaf. So no pants but what about dinner?
I don’t think…Hanna staring Israel down under the matching interior mat of the entry.
Or, hymn, some chicken for takeout? in a little box you could make up for me maybe? If it’s no trouble. I’ve got some string saved somewhere to tie it all up with, pats himself down.
No, no dinner, sorry, and no pants either, no maybes…Hanna turning away in sour withdrawal, nodding let’s wrap it up at Rubina, let’s not let the next course get cool.
We’re not interested, Mister Vitz or vatever, come back never, don’t let the door hit you on your, Shabbat Shalom.
Whispering to himself another prayer, underrecognized, underrated, another supernumerary blessing of curse and that while tonguing a tooth loose, Nitz steps his three steps retreat, minced, then bows at the knees before turning tush. Rubina shuts the door lightly, her hand feeling the seam, the scarred lining. All disperse, return to the table and guests, with what’s new to talk about with them, where should we begin, and who should. Josephine’s left alone at the door, her face flattened against the spectral stain of its glass. She presses herself to the cold, presses herself barelipped to kiss…the glare from the lights outside, the round belly lamps of the street, thinskinned, brilliant — the membrane of home keeping everything out, so very fragile.
Out front, mounted above the porch with three screws into shingle siding, the automatic light, equipped with a motion detecting, sensorial device type thing — Hanna says to Israel how after Shabbos he should replace it, the bulb — has burnt out. Nitz passes them as unknown as ever, I’ve never. Through the rest of his long, slow ailing walk — an attack of the heart once with the wind, his breath coming harder, was he always this old, without wings — his disappearance down the narrow, wooded slate path heading straight for the gate he forsakes for its intersection with the asphalt of the serpentine drive, from the two, maybe, difficult to tell in this light, three, four, five vehicle garage, then out into the open, just vacuumed street, the still air richly rarefied in its emptiness, and then through it, intruding, imposing and onto the next house, always the next, a mensch as much Elijah material as anyone going on to take in this entire tallhoused, widelawned hemisphere, a world itself in Development, new houses being put up by the day to the west, playgrounds and parks between them cleaved from the earth, lots amenitized with diamonds and turfs, making his way to the Koenigsburg’s, which is across the way though the daughters say always Nextdoor, their walk slated to face in on the looparound, the turnabout, Nitz faces down, shuffling his spindles through puddles of oil prismatic, in a funny, shuddering hunch. Josephine gives a laugh, as he wills himself again to the nerve of his spiel.
In their chairs still, they bench: quickly, murmuring thanks, gratitude formulaic; one part conversation to one part actual prayer, the grace after meals, the mealy, measly gratuity Blessed art Thou King of the belch, the flatulent lounge, each of them though — meaning the guests and, too, the daughters, though never their hosts, the parents, who are immovable, like the boxes, crates, and trunks here at home — seated in a chair other than the one in which they’d eaten and drank, placed now at settings over coffee and coffeecake and tea more appropriate to their talking and dealings, more polite and refined and less of this shouting and screaming diagonally, over heads, under table, all over the room; presently directly across from, or more intimately next to, those whom in the course of these courses their interests have chosen, nearer to those with whom they share the most common worries or the interests of business, with whom they’re most compatible culturally, or if it has to come down to hobbies, pastimes, or the sharing of peeves.
Slowly, gradually amassing but then all at once risen, as if invited, requested by clap, or another bell rung, no one wanting to be the last to leave, to be a nuisance, a pest or worse: to be needed at the sink for the doing of dishes, to be called there without notice or chance for escape; a seizure to fake, a doctor’s note written, a lawyer’s exemption — the guests gather themselves, holding their stomachs full, then shuffling their chairs back under the table; and then: in wary glances and whispers the discharge of last pleasantries, fulfilling the barest, the basest, the least expectations; them offering to help with whatever needs helping: the cleaning, the sweeping or mopping, the prodigious returning of chairs; all gesture no followthrough, and, just as ritually, their offers are refused, refuted: they wouldn’t have offered if there was even the most remote hope of anything otherwise — and so they leave as they’d wanted to leave, with every excuse in the world at the ready and yet, having done the right thing, with their reputations still intact and appreciated, slowly, gradually, too, these goodbyes, and then toward the door, with their coats returned to them by the daughters from the bed of any spareroom upon which they’d been wrinkled.