Son of a Smaller Hero (12 page)

“A guy like Theo marries so that he can have someone to blame his failures on. I don’t understand. What if they do talk?”

“I don’t want to be talked about. Not again. I’ll have to do it my own way, Noah. I’ll tell him. But give me a couple of weeks.”

“And meanwhile?”

“Meanwhile you come back. I’ll need you.”

“I go back into that apartment and you’ve got all your memories and all your habits together. Like you said, you’ve been married five years.”

“Please, lover, let’s leave it for now. Today has been so good. I’ve never had such a day.”

Noah stood by the window sipping beer and watching the sky turn pale and then dark. Stars twinkled, first weakly and then with more assurance. Cars zoomed away into the night anonymously. Suddenly he felt her arms go around him and her head resting on his back. He did not feel any tensions in his body the way he had earlier in the afternoon. He embraced her tenderly.

“Why did you marry Theo? Did you love him?”

“No. I liked him. I still do. I wanted to be respectable, I guess. I was lonely.” She laughed her throaty laugh, but it sounded sad and forced to him. “I’m ten years older than you. Did you know that?”

“My left leg is longer than my right. If I were a pinball machine ‘tilt’ would be lit in red on my forehead.”

She laughed more gladly, and he grinned.

“Can you stay the night?” he asked.

“You know I can’t.”

“Then I’m not coming back with you. Not tonight.”

She kissed him. “Why don’t you ever visit your parents?”

“It’s too painful all around. But I will – soon.” He turned away from her. “The guys I used to go around with as a kid talk about irrigation problems in Israel now and make ideal son-in-laws.”

“And you, my love?”

“Christ. I used to march down St. Catherine Street with placards. Sing songs. Wave flags. But I’ve stopped reading comic books and going to Roy Rogers movies and …”

“I would have liked to have seen you in one of those parades. I would have laughed.”

He reached out for her and kissed her urgently. “Hey, just between the two of us, did the earth move?”

She giggled. “Noah.” She held on tight to him. “Noah. Oh, Noah.”

One evening a couple of weeks earlier Mr. Adler dropped into Panofsky’s for a lemon tea on his way home from the synagogue. Mr. Adler passed by Panofsky’s every evening, but previous to that visit he had not been inside the store for fifteen years. When Panofsky had seen him come in he had got up and sat down beside Mr. Adler.

“How is it by you, Melech?”

“I can’t complain.”

“You should drop in more often.”

So Melech Adler began to drink lemon tea at Panofsky’s every evening.

When Panofsky had gone into business for himself in 1919 he had named his store The People’s Tobacco & Soda, but the people had thwarted him. His store became known as “Panofskys.” The back room, which he had fixed up as a chess club, was used for pinochle and gin rummy games. Panofsky had two boys, Aaron and Karl. If not for Karl the business would have failed many years ago. Karl had invented the 49-cent luncheonette and the Panofsky Special, which was the favourite meat sandwich of the ghetto. He had also brought in the pinball machines and got the boys interested by paying off five dollars to the high score of the week.

Panofsky was a shaggy-faced man with big pleading eyes who liked to sit outside his store on Yom Kippur eating ham sandwiches and smoking his pipe because he wanted the others, like Melech Adler, to know that religion was bad and that Samuel Panofsky had
figured things out for himself and was not afraid of God or anything. When Aaron had been away fighting in Spain he had hung a sign over the cash:

The sign, like Spain, had been smudged by the years. Other signs, like the one which said
OPEN UP A SECOND FRONT
, had faded.

Aaron had been Panofsky’s favourite boy. But for several years now they had been avoiding each other, like lovers after the affair has ended. Karl wanted to sell the
Herald
in the store but Panofsky said he wouldn’t have a lying, capitalist paper on the premises. Karl said: “A guy buys the
Herald
for Palmer and the sports. He buys the
Herald
so he sits down and has a coffee. Does he have a coffee only? No. He has a sandwich with. Maybe cigs, too. If he can’t get the
Herald
here he goes to Levy’s. There he has his
Herald
and his coffee and his sandwich and his cigs.”

But Panofsky was adamant. No
Herald
.

They both suffered. But there was a fundamental disagreement between Melech Adler and Samuel Panofsky.

“Don’t talk stories, Sam. Comes the New Year a Jew, even the
cackers
, puts on a hat and goes into the synagogue to pray. What, tell me, do
Yoshke’s
children do on New Year’s? Drunk they get – like pigs. You listen, Sam. A Jew dies so all his sons pray. What happens when one of theirs dies? The family is happy yet because now they got de chance to sleep with the widow. So. So they got the nerve to call
us
dirty Jews. Why? We’re too smart for them, that’s why.”

“Look. Once and for all a Jew is no smarter and no dumber than a Goy. All right. We’re persecuted. Why? Because it is the interest of
the capitalists to divide the workers. And who, tell me, fights the anti-Semites?
Only
the communists. Adam and Eve you believe in? You just tell me how the Jews crossed de Red Sea.…”

“What are talking? You never heard de word Siberia? They got fridges? Fords? A Cossack is a Cossack. You mean to tell me there are no pogroms?”

“Who? All I ask. Who? Who was the other woman? Eve died and –”

“Who, who, who. What is written is written. We are de Chosen People. We …”

“Chosen. You tell me what for we were chosen? Soap? Furnaces?”

That evening, Thursday, Melech Adler left Panofsky’s at eight o’clock. He noticed Shloime and two other boys standing in a doorway across the street. But at the time he didn’t think anything of it.

That evening, Thursday, Shloime Adler, Mort Sacks, and Lou Weinstein loitered in a doorway across the street from Panofsky’s. When Shloime saw his father come out of the store he turned the other way quickly. The Hook was parked around the corner.

Miriam and Noah had had a difficult week. She had not spoken to Theo yet. But that evening, Thursday, Theo had gone out to an evening lecture and the two of them had decided to go out for a drive in Theo’s car. Noah had driven down to the ghetto and wandered in and out of the familiar streets between Park Avenue and St. Lawrence Boulevard.

“That was my old parochial school we just passed.”

She didn’t say anything.

“Wait. That’s Panofsky’s!”

“What …”

Noah parked the car and leaped out without a word. The store window had been smashed. A police siren wailed from away off. He
pushed through the crowd and into the store. Panofsky sat on the floor, his head propped up against the wall. His grey hair was damp with blood. Cigarette cartons, books, were strewn on the floor. Noah knelt down beside Panofsky. The old man, groaning, opened his eyes and stared dimly at Noah. “Noah. Noah, you’re a good boy. I …”

Hoppie Drazen tapped Noah on the shoulder. He looked at Miriam and then back at Noah and grinned. “Don’t worry. The doc’s on the way.”

“Noah … Noah … I saw … I … Your poor grandfather.”

Hoppie walked away towards a corner of the store and motioned to Noah.

“Miriam. You hold him, eh? Watch his head.” Noah turned to Panofsky. “You’ll be all right, Mr. Panofsky. The doctor’s on his way.”

Hoppie spoke in a whisper. “He’s hiding in the lane. I saw him. You …”

“Who? What are you talking about?”

“Sh!” He pressed Noah’s arm warmly. “Get out of here quick. Here come the cops. Turn down the lane and you’ll find him.”

“Miriam! Come on.” Noah turned back and smiled. “Thanks, Hoppie.”

They got into the car and drove slowly down the lane. Noah saw him standing stiff in a doorway, trying to avoid the headlights. Then on a mad impulse he broke out of the doorway and raced down the lane. A rock bounced off the bonnet of the car. You damn fool, Noah thought. He stepped on the gas.

When they caught up with him he was standing on a garbage pail, trying to get over the top of a fence.

Shloime leaped into the back seat. “Noah. I didn’t do it. Honest.”

They finally came out on St. Lawrence Boulevard and Noah turned towards the apartment.

“He saw you, Shloime.”

“I don’t care. You can all go to hell. I wasn’t in this alone. I can make trouble.” Shloime grinned. “Who’s the broad?”

“Never mind that now. Who hit him?”

“Hit him?
I
hit him? You crazy?”

Miriam lit a cigarette and passed it to Noah. “He can stay at our place tonight. I’ll fix it with Theo.”

Noah parked on Sherbrooke Street, his hands felt slimy on the wheel. He shivered. You’ve read books on sociology, he thought. “No,” he said. “I’ve got to do this myself. I don’t want Theo smirking. I …”

“Theo doesn’t smirk.”

“All right. But I’m driving you home and then we’ll go back to Dorchester Street. I’ll phone tomorrow morning. Oh, this is Shloime Adler. He’s my uncle. My father’s the oldest. He’s the youngest. Shloime, meet Miriam.”

They parked in front of the apartment.

“You keep the car,” she said. “I’ll phone in an hour, Noah. I’ll tell him I’m going out for a walk. I’ll phone from the corner.”

Noah turned back towards Dorchester Street. He had paid Mrs. Mahoney two weeks’ rent in advance, so – technically – the room was still his.

“Your car?”

“No,” Noah said.

“Your goods?”

“Sort of. Like her?”

“Liss’n. What should you expect – television?”

Inside, Shloime wandered around the room clacking his tongue appreciatively. He and Noah had gone to Baron Byng High School together. There were two regular high schools in the ghetto, Baron Byng and Strathcona Academy. Strathcona was a fine-looking school in Outremont, but Baron Byng was on St. Urbain Street, a shapeless brown brick building surrounded by tenements. Baron Byng, however, had a long tradition behind it. A previous generation, that of Aaron Panofsky, had produced a number of brilliant scholars and had gone out on strike when the Protestant School Board had raised school fees. Students during the depression, that generation had not
only rebelled against authority but had fought for what it had considered to be the political truth. Noah and Shloime had gone to school during the war, when their fathers first began to earn a decent living. They didn’t produce many scholars and never took any political or moral action. They resented authority, and reacted against it by aggressively doing everything forbidden. They smoked and gambled and drank. Aaron Panofsky’s Baron Byng apprenticeship had led to the loss of his legs; Shloime, a student of the same teachers, was a petty thief with still grander prospects before him. Noah was still doubtful of his directions.

“It’s the berries,” Shloime said. “The car belongs to a pal. The broad is hitched. We’ve got a lot in common, you know. I don’t care what Paw says. We should talk.”

“What do you mean, we’ve got a lot in common?”

“We’re both lone operators, eh? We both like
shiksas –
dames – and we both don’t give a damn about eating kosher and …”

“We’ve got nothing in common,” Noah said sharply.

“At least I admit what I am,” Shloime continued. “At least I don’t pretend to be a
Goy
or …” Suddenly, Shloime began to tremble. He choked. Tears ran down his cheeks. “The cops are after me, Noah. I’m … What if Paw finds out? I … They send you to a kind of reform school. They … I’m telling you, I …” Shloime collapsed on the bed and sobbed wildly. Noah turned away from him. He felt that his concern, his willingness to help, had been an affectation. I’m not free yet, he thought. I had to help him, in spite of everything. No, I’m not free yet. He turned around, and Shloime faced him contritely. “She’d hide me,” he said. “She offered to. I heard. She’d do anything for you. She …”

“I’m not going to help you. I don’t like you, and I don’t give a damn. I …”

“You’re scared of me,” Shloime said. “Ashamed.”

“I’m not scared of you,” Noah said quickly. “Now – if you don’t mind – you can clear out of here. You …”

“You know what,” Shloime said, getting off the bed. “You remind me of Paw.”

Noah stared at him, horrified.

“You remind me of Paw,” Shloime said, smiling confidently. His fear seemed to have passed. His long hair was greased back to his head and his dim eyes were darkly ringed underneath.

“You might have killed him, Shloime,” Noah said.

“Hey, hey. Liss’n,
ockshmay
. Don’t give
me
the business.”

“He saw you. So did the others. You’ll probably be arrested. I’m not worried about you. But it would be hard for
Zeyda.”

“Look what’s suddenly worried about
my
father. He threw you out of the house, didn’t he? Listen, big-boy. He’s more ashamed of you than he’ll ever be of me. Don’t give me no sermons, if you don’t mind. We’re not good enough for you. Your own mudder’s sick in bed you go to see her? A lot you give a damn.” Shloime grinned maliciously. He sensed, instinctively, that Noah had been defeated. He was not sure of how he had done it, though. “Besides, Max would never let me get pinched. He can’t afford it. Okay?”

“What makes you think that?” Noah asked weakly.

“Didn’t you know? Max is gonna run for alderman. That’s not all, either. He’ll go to Quebec yet. Member for Cartier. How would it look – I ask you – if his own brudder was pinched?”

“Not too good.” Noah sat down on the bed. “How’s my father?”

“Dumb as ever.”

Noah stiffened. His father was the oldest, Shloime was the youngest. It suddenly occurred to him that Shloime was his father turned inside out. “I guess it’s safe for you to go now,” he said. “But I’m going to see Panofsky tomorrow. If anything happens to him I’ll …” Noah stopped. He felt stupid.