Son of a Smaller Hero Page 5

  Miriam tried to help. She pampered him when he was depressed and when his enthusiasm was at its most feverish she tried to calm him down. She adored him for his angers and helped in all his exploits against bigotry without complaint or second thoughts, but she believed in him rather than in his causes. If someone, among their friends, remarked that marriage didn’t work the inevitable reply was: “But look at the Halls.”

  That afternoon, in the first week of November, Theo came home early from classes. He chucked his briefcase on the sofa and grinned boyishly. “I’ve got somebody coming for drinks.”

  “Oh-oh. Here we go again.”

  They kissed in a perfunctory way.

  “You look all in. Bad day?”

  “So-so.”

  She smiled helpfully. Theo slumped back on the sofa and shut his eyes. Sometimes, when she smiled at him like that, he felt hopelessly inept. In the past few months their intimate moments had been characterized by a poverty of sorts. She seemed bored, her enthusiasms were rehearsed. Perhaps we should have a child, he thought.

  Miriam served tea. “All right. Tell me about it,” she said.

  “He’s a taxi driver. Evening College student. Noah Adler. Jewish with accent. Living in a rented room on Dorchester Street, hangdog look.”

  “What time you expecting him?”

  “Four. In twenty minutes.”

  “Shall I ask him to stay for dinner?”

  “Only if you like him.”

  Theo sipped his tea quietly. Miriam got up, put Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony on the gramophone, and then sat down again. They were listening to the symphonies in order. After the symphonies they would turn to the concertos. Theo slumped back on the sofa with his eyes shut and reached out for her hand. She accepted it wordlessly, like the morning paper. She watched him. When he relaxed his long body went limp, dead, as if he was grateful for any kind of respite. Miriam, however, couldn’t sit still. She let go of his hand and walked over to the window. She felt as though she wanted to rip something apart. Herself, perhaps. She squashed her cigarette in the ashtray on the window-sill.

  When Noah arrived, about three-quarters of an hour later, Miriam opened the door for him: Theo had gone out to do a bit of shopping.

  “Is this Professor Hall’s apartment?”

  “You must be Adler. I’m Mrs. Hall. But Miriam will do.”

  Noah followed her into the living-room. The walls were grey and the furniture functional. One wall was papered pink. Two walls were lined with bookcases made up of bricks and unfinished pinewood boards. Other books spilled over onto the floor. Several prints by very modern painters hung on the walls. The room had a curious quality that made him expect to be led into another and more oppressive room as soon as his papers had been verified. Miriam frightened him. He wished that she would do something wrong, knock over a chair or rip her stockings. She was quite tall with warm brown eyes and black hair. Her skin was dark. But she seemed awfully clean, fresh, as if she had just stepped out of a bath. She was wearing a brown sweater and a green corduroy skirt and moccasins. Her glib poise seemed calculated to undermine him and he hung back sullenly. She was the first modern, sophisticated woman whom he had ever met. A woman entirely unlike his aunts, cousins, and former girlfriends. He found it difficult to believe in her. There seemed to be no flaw or error in her manner. He felt dazed, and couldn’t remember what to do with his hands, whether it was proper to sit down or pick up a magazine or what. In desperation he pointed at a Jackson Pollock. “Did you do that?”

  “Oh.”

  “What’s wrong – I’m sorry …”

  “Nothing. Here, let me take your jacket. Theo’s gone out to get some soda-water. Sit down, I won’t eat you. Here, have a cigarette.”

  He accepted the cigarette and put a match to it before he remembered that he was supposed to light hers first. He put out the match swiftly. Lit another one, and pushed it towards her.

  “Theo says that you drive a taxi.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Is it fun?”

  “It’s not bad.”

  She bit her lip. “Cold, isn’t it?” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “Would you like a drink?”

  “Yes.”

  She tossed a copy of the New Statesman & Nation at him. “Here, I won’t bother you.”

  Noah pretended to read. Panofsky had used to get the New Statesman & Nation, and he sometimes glanced through it in the library. He enjoyed the classified section most and he had once sent them an ad.: “Fascist meat-eater coming to settle in London will exchange fencing lessons for furnace-room with prejudiced family” – but he had had no reply.

  She handed him a glass of sherry and he gulped it down quickly. Already too late he noticed that she had only sipped at hers. She refilled his glass and this time he drank more delicately. She watched him. He was dressed shabbily. Poor Theo, she thought. He doesn’t know what he’s let himself in for. He felt her eyes on him like a humiliation. He looked down at his hands and saw that his fingernails were dirty. He hid his hands in his pockets.

  “There’s an interesting article on the Jewish question in it,” she said. “I think Theo would like to discuss it with you.”

  Briefly, Noah was tempted to go into his they-used-to-beat-me-up-on-my-way-to-school routine, but instead, he said: “Which Jewish question?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Noah jumped up and began to walk up and down the room. “Why couldn’t he be here when I came? Why do you look at me as if I was a freak or something?”

  “You didn’t have to come.”

  “That’s right. I think I’ll go.”

  “Go ahead.”

  He hesitated.

  “Go on. Nobody’s stopping you.”

  “My manners are bad, eh?”

  “Atrocious.”

  He began to make excited circles with his hands, groping for words. “I’m nervous. I guess that’s it.”

  “Why?”

  “I dunno. Can … May I have another drink?”

  “Scotch?”

  “Yeah. Yes, I mean.”

  “Will you stay for dinner, Noah?”

  She did not invite him to stay because she liked him. But, immediately, she had recognized that he came from a poor family. She wanted to impress him. She, too, had come from a poor family.

  “Are you being polite or …”

  “Oh, stop being such an ass!”

  There was another pause. Their anger had embarrassed both of them. She must be very well-educated, he thought, rich. He wanted badly to say something that would fit. Finally, he asked for the toilet. She indicated the door.

  Safely in the toilet, Noah briefly considered an escape through the window, then he began to study his surroundings. The bathtub and toilet bowl were made of green enamel. There were many taps over the tub. The floors and walls were made of green tiles. Numerous huge pink bath-towels hung in racks. They were all initialled. He opened the medicine chest. Salts. Perfumes. Nylon brushes hung on hooks. The bathtub, he noticed, was sunk into the floor. Noah was amazed. He remembered that several years ago Hoppie Drazen had bragged that he had been in such a toilet at one of Claire Kinsburg’s parties in Outremont. But Noah hadn’t believed him. I must visit Uncle Max, he thought quickly. He’s just the kind of guy to have something like this. But he’d be joking. He saw, for the first time, the roll of toilet paper half-concealed in an opening in the wall near the toilet bowl. It was pink. Quickly, obeying an old school instinct, he ripped off a few sheets and shoved them into his pocket. He flushed the toilet before leaving just to keep up appearances.

  Theo had arrived.

  “H’lo Noah. Sorry. But I had a bastard of a time getting what I wanted.”

  On special occasions Theo tried to speak colloquially but the effect was usually embarrassing.

  “I’ve asked Noah to stay for dinner.”

  “Wonderful.”

  Gradually, Noah began to feel easier with them. Th
eo had meant to probe him about his background and ideas but Noah asked most of the questions. Theo told him about London, Paris, and Italy. He talked to him about books and music. Noah listened. Names stuck to him. Pound, Klee, Auden, Kafka. Names he did not know. Words also. Words like rococo, jejune, déjà vu, and avant-garde. Words he did not know the meaning of. He saw Theo as a kind of hero. His talk drugged him. Theo was happy too. The give-and-take talk of Oxford had had small rewards. Most fellowship students were beyond wonder. But Noah was different. Talking to him Theo suddenly got an acute notion of his own powers. I will mould this man, he thought. I will make him big. Knowing. (I will make him grateful.) His head flooded. He talked on and on ecstatically.

  Theo talked. Noah listened. Miriam watched.

  Noah felt her eyes on him. He felt her body as a living, yearning thing, and that embarrassed him. He did not dare to think of her in that way.

  Miriam, most of all, was conscious of the excitement. She felt vibrations in the room that had more meaning than only drink or only talk. Theo mustn’t be hurt, she thought. This thought alarmed her. Why should he be hurt?

  She watched Noah, not liking what she saw, but feeling herself drawn to him all the same. He was a raw man with hurt eyes and a clumsy kind of vigour about him that she had not encountered before. She smoked and drank thoughtfully. Something which had stayed dim and uncomplaining within her for years was beginning to stir. She hoped to purge it with drink and memory. But drink sharpened the images and memory counted against her. She recalled the affairs with faceless men that they had all had in Oxford. Loving being highly recommended for ennui, like a glass of water in a gulp for the hiccups. But Noah, she thought, I don’t even know how to talk to him. He would find my sophistication hard. Poor Theo doesn’t realize what’s happening, she thought. Noah’s a ruthless man.

  Noah seemed to be absorbed in Theo’s talk. But she felt that he was in no way personally involved or friendly. He shrugged off Theo’s smiles, his generosity, in a superfluous way, as if he had guessed – or had known beforehand – that Theo’s kindness was the kindness of a baffled man. She hated Noah at that moment. He frightened her.

  Poetry had been denied Theo. Love also. But the long frugal years of study and scholarships, of frayed jackets and hand-rolled cigarettes were behind him. He had consumed the books. But who knows at what cost? What does he think of when he is alone in his study? Does he detest the books? Suddenly she saw the books that lined the walls as a great weight pressing down on him. Burn them, she thought. Burn them, Theo. She looked at him and despised him for his simplicity. He’s happy, she thought. He doesn’t know what’s happening. Theo had struggled, and this impudent boy will pick his brains for a few months and walk away with Theo in his pocket. He will read what he needs and turn instinctively away from the rest. But even he doesn’t realize what’s going on. Imagine, she thought, he looks up to Theo. He will come to hate him. “Hall? A plodder. Well-meaning, but no insights.” She turned to Noah, looking at him as if he had already said that.

  “How do you feel about it, darling?”

  “What? … I’m afraid I …”

  “I was just telling Noah that we could fix up the study for him. He’s paying ten dollars a week rent where he is. Here, he’d have books. The opportunity to meet people. He can’t get on with his studies driving a taxi eight hours a day. We could manage wonderfully. He could mark my papers. He – what do you say?”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Well?”

  “Would you mind sleeping on a cot, Noah?”

  He wasn’t aware of the irony in her manner. “No. Not at all. But I’d have to pay rent. I wouldn’t think of it otherwise …”

  No. You wouldn’t, she thought. You’re not that generous. “We’ll discuss that later.”

  “The sooner you move in the better, Noah,” Theo said warmly.

  Theo turned to Miriam in bed later that night. “I suppose I should have asked you first. About his moving in, I mean.”

  “Oh.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  “No. Tell me, darling.”

  “Nothing I could explain.”

  He put his hand on her arm. Her flesh was warm.

  “I hope that John doesn’t make an advertising man out of him,” Theo said.

  “John? Noah wouldn’t have anything to do with him.”

  “You say that with such certainty. How would you know?”

  “Let’s go to sleep,” she said.

  A half-hour later he felt for her in bed but she wasn’t there. Her body was a habit, a comfort, to him and he found it difficult to sleep without her. She was standing by the window and smoking.

  “What’s wrong, Miriam?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Coming to bed?”

  “Soon. You go to sleep.”

  He waited. There was that flicker of expectancy in her eyes. He knew what that meant. An ordeal – a pretence – for him; and for her – frustration. Afterwards neither of them would sleep. She would comfort her defeated man. A woman unsatisfied – but triumphant. He waited fifteen minutes, and then said: “I was just thinking. Remember that night before I went overseas, the night of my last leave … You were Chuck’s girl then, weren’t you? I mean …”

  “Chuck is dead.”

  “I didn’t mean that. I was just trying to … I’m not jealous, darling. Besides, that sort of thing doesn’t mean anything. I know that!”

  “Yes. I know you know.”

  “Marrying a woman doesn’t mean you own her.”

  “Theo. Are you happy with me? Seriously.”

  “Why, certainly. Of course, darling. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  “I’m happy, too. I am. I’m coming to bed.”

  II

  Montreal is cleanly defined on cold autumn nights. Each building, each tree, seems to exist as a separate and shivering object, exposed to the winds again after a flabby summer. Downtown the neon trembles like fractures in the dark. Fuzziness, bugs, groups of idlers blurring cigar-store windows, have all retreated together. Whores no longer stroll up and down St. Lawrence Boulevard, but beckon from the shelter of doorways or linger longer at nightclub bars. The mountain, which all summer long had seemed a gentle green slope, looms up brutal against the night sky. Streets seem longer, noises more hard.

  Autumn is stingy, Noah thought unhappily.

  Walking back to his room, down St. Catherine Street, he stopped several times to blow on his hands. He peered into the window of Dinty Moore’s restaurant where sporty men sat around telling masculine jokes and cleaning their fingernails. Later, he thought, they will move on to various nightclubs where they’ll drink cool drinks with bored, anonymous women. But they won’t drink too much.

  A man yelled: “GZET! Layst noos! GZET! Payph! GZET! GZET!”

  Bums sprawled on the concrete seats on Phillips Square, and across the street in Morgan’s windows, cool mannequins like all our next-door neighbours prepared to pass this and every night on Beautyrest mattresses.

  The sign in Rand’s Clothing window said:

  SMILE AT PEOPLE

  It takes 72 muscles to frown – only 14 to smile

  When he got back to his room he began to feel that something was wrong. She doesn’t want me to move in, he thought. He got out his pad and wrote down, Pound, Eliot, Kafka, Auden. Then, remembering Theo’s library, he got up in disgust. There must be some other way, he thought. It would be crazy to read all those books. There isn’t enough time. Noah rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. She’s perfect, that woman. They’re Goyim.

  Noah’s first encounter with the Goyim had been in Prevost, long ago. Prevost is in the Laurentians, about ten miles past St. Jerome.…

  That bright, cloudless Friday morning in the summer of 1941, Noah, Gas, and Hoppie were to meet on the balcony of Old Annie’s candy store. They were going to climb the mountain behind the Nine Cottages to get to Lac Gandon, where the Goyim we
re.

  Hoppie turned up first.

  Old Annie, who was a tiny, grey-haired widow with black, mournful eyes, looked the boy up and down suspiciously. A first-aid kit and a scout knife were strapped to his belt. “What is?” she asked. “A revolution? A war?” Hoppie grimaced. “He who hears no evil, speaks no evil,” he said. Old Annie’s store was a yellow shack that was all but covered with red-and-green signs advertising Kik and Sweet Caporal cigarettes. She wasn’t called Old Annie because she was sixty-two. Long ago, in Lithuania, the first three children born to her parents had not survived their infancy. So the village wise man had suggested that if another child was born to them they should call her alte (old) immediately, and God would understand.

  Gas arrived next. He had a BB gun and a package of sandwiches.

  “Knock, knock,” he said.

  “Who’s there?” Hoppie asked.

  “Ago.”

  “Ago who?”

  “Aw, go tell your mother she wants you.”

  Behind Old Annie’s store was the yellow field that was used as the market. Early every Friday morning the French Canadian farmers arrived with poultry, vegetables, and fruit. They were a hard, sceptical bunch, but the Jewish wives were a pretty tough crowd themselves, and by late afternoon the farmers were worn out and grateful to get away. The women, who were ruthless bargainers, spoke a mixture of French, English, and Yiddish with the farmers. “So fiel, M’nsieur, for dis kleine chicken? Vous crazy?”

  Pinky’s Squealer saw the two boys sitting on the steps, waiting for Noah. He approached them diffidently. “Where you goin’?” he asked.

  “To China,” Gas said.

  When the Squealer’s mother wanted him to go to the toilet she would step out on her balcony and yell: “Dollink, dollink, time to water the teapot.” Pinky, who was the Squealer’s cousin, was seventeen years old. His proper name was Milton Fishman. He was rather pious, and conducted services at Camp Mahia. The Squealer was his informer.

  “I’ve got a quarter,” Pinky’s Squealer said.