Son of a Smaller Hero (2 page)

The heat first appeared in June when it was still too soon to send the family up north for the summer. But, just the same, things were not too bad. Not too bad until the weekends came along. The weekends were hell. All week long you could at least work but when the weekends came along there was nothing to do. You were on your own. You were free, so to speak.

So on Saturday afternoons the well-to-do Jews walked up and down Queen Mary Road, which was their street. A street of sumptuous supermarkets and banks built of granite, an aquarium in the lobby of the Snowdon Theatre, a synagogue with a soundproof auditorium and a rabbi as modern and quick as the Miss Snowdon restaurant, neon drugstores for all your needs, and delicatessens rich in chromium plating. Buick convertibles and Cadillacs parked on both sides: a street without a past. Almost as if these Jews, who had prospered, craved for many lights. Wishing away their past and the dark. Almost as if these Jews, who had prospered, regretted only the solemn sky, which was beyond their reach. Sunny by day, and by night – star-filled: a swirl of
asking eyes spying down on them. Watching. Poking fun at their ephemeral lights.

The neither rich nor poor Jews walked up and down Park Avenue – a few of the nervy ones attempting Queen Mary Road. The poor and the elderly kept to St. Lawrence Boulevard. Each street had its own technique of walking, a technique so finely developed that you could always tell a man off his own street.

The Queen Mary Road Jews walked like prosperity, grinning a flabby grin which said money in the bank. Notaries, lawyers, businessmen, doctors. They wore their wives like signposts of their success and dressed them accordingly. The children were big and little proofs, depending on the size of their achievements.

“Lou, meet the boy. Sheldon. He just won a scholarship to McGill.”

“Don’t say, eh? Mm. Hey, I hear talk you’re gonna expand the factory. That increases your risk, Jack. You come round first thing Monday morning and I’ll fix you like a friend. For your own good. You owe it to your family to protect yourself.”

The wives exchanged small flatteries.

“Jack’s going to buy a Cadillac.
You
try to stop him.”

“Me, I don’t live for show. Lou doubled his life insurance instead of buying a new car this year. He says you can never tell.…”

Park Avenue was different. It had once been to the prospering what Queen Mary Road was to them now. But the prospering had built a more affluent street for themselves to walk on, a bigger proof, where, twenty years hence, they would again feel the inadequacy of the neon, the need to push on and to flee the past and install brighter lights again. Meanwhile, the new ones, the intruding
greeners
, were beginning to move in around Park Avenue. Here, they mixed with the middling Jews. Knowing the right people was important. The aspiring walked without certainty, pompous and ingratiating by turns.

On St. Lawrence Boulevard the Jews, many of them bearded, walked with their heads bent and their hands clasped behind their
backs. They walked looking down at the pavement or up at the sky, seldom straight ahead.

On that Sunday morning in the summer of 1952, as under a stern sun the split asphalt of St. Dominique Street showed quivering hot in spots, Melech Adler, his mottled hands lying big on his lap, sat on the kitchen chair on his balcony considering the prospects before him. Later, after he had eaten his lunch of roast beef and fried potatoes, his children and grandchildren would begin to arrive. Mr. Adler had ten children, six boys and four girls. All but the two youngest – a girl, and a boy of nineteen – were married. The married came with their young every Sunday. This Sunday, however, was special. There was going to be a family meeting. Even Noah was expected to come. Noah was Melech Adler’s eldest grandson, Wolf’s boy. Wolf was Melech Adler’s first-born.

Melech Adler sat on his balcony wearing a worn skullcap, a
Jewish Star
folded under his arm and bits of egg clinging to his stiff short beard. He looked down at the weeds struggling up through fractures in the sidewalk and frowned. So the boy is coming, he thought.

Their argument was many years old.

Noah had been born in his grandfather’s forty-second year, and whereas Mr. Adler had ruled all his own children by authority he had approached Noah, the first of his grandchildren, with kindness. Noah had responded by attaching himself to his grandfather like a shadow, leaping dreamily before him down the street and allowing no other to carry his prayer shawl. Then, one summer day in his eleventh year, Mr. Adler had taken Noah with him to the coal yard. He had allowed Paquette to take him for a drive in the Ford, and on his return had treated him with oranges and a bottle of Mammy and Halvah. Towards twilight a man drove a cart heaped high with scrap through the gates of the coal yard. Mr. Moore, who was an old customer, waved cheerily to Mr. Adler. Mr. Adler escorted him into his
office, and rolling back his swivel-top desk pulled a bottle of rye out from behind a ledger. He placed the uncorked bottle and a clean glass on the desk. Mr. Moore poured himself a drink. Here’s to you, Melech, he said, and tossed it down quickly. Then he began to cough. Tears streamed down his cheeks and his broken, bony body quivered and turned wet from sweat. Noah, unnoticed, drew away into a corner. Mr. Moore had sharp prowling eyes and an insolent mouth. He poured himself another and bigger drink, and this time consumed it easily. Afterwards he laughed hard and slapped Mr. Adler on the back. Mr. Adler smiled. Several more drinks were consumed, and then Mr. Moore asked Mr. Adler when his scrap was going to be weighed. Mr. Adler said, you don’t worry your head Mr. Moore, the men are fixing. Mr. Adler was a coal merchant and only dealt in scrap and old tires as a side-line. Noah, afraid of the stranger and dubious of his grandfather, slipped out of the office. Paquette and his father were unloading the cart. He noticed them pile several of the sacks on the scales, hastily concealing others behind a stack of coal-bags. Two of the sacks were quickly emptied and their contents strewn about the yard. Finally Mr. Adler and Mr. Moore appeared in the yard and walked over to the scales to check the weights. Only after they had begun to haggle in a jocular way about prices did Noah realize what had happened. He whispered to his grandfather that his father and Paquette had hidden many of the sacks. His grandfather, his face darkening, told him to please wait for him in the office. Noah believed that his grandfather had failed to understand what he had said, so he began his story over again. Mr. Adler slapped him. Noah turned away from him swiftly and ran off across the yard, stumbling on a rock and falling down. Mr. Adler chased after him but Noah scrambled to his feet deftly and ran off into the dusk.

Things had never been very good between the old man and the boy ever since that day.

But – reflecting now, on a full stomach and on his own balcony under a stern sun – Mr. Adler remembered that Noah had not known
and had refused to understand that the
Goy
stole much of the scrap; that he mixed in cast iron with the brass and weighed down the sacks with earth; that he referred to him, Melech Adler, as a usurer when he made the rounds of the taverns.

The boy, he thought.

Melech Adler twisted in his chair, felt sweat like salt on his lips, knowing suddenly the fullness of all his sixty-two years. The brightest of the boys, Max, had left the coal yard to start out on his own in the clothing business. He had taken Nat and Itzik and Lou with him: the four of them were having a fine success. Faigel had married a
gurnisht
, a nothing, and Malka’s husband would never earn a living. If he died who would find a husband for Ida?
He could have been the brightness of my old years. We could have gone for walks. Talking. I would have left him money
.

The children, who began to arrive shortly after lunch, congregated in the living-room. Mr. Adler sat in his armchair rubbing little Jonah’s face up against his beard. The other grandchildren were grouped around him making raucous bids for his attention. Now and then he gripped one of them in a huge hand and, laughing gruffly, swung him into the air.

The women were seated around the table sipping lemon tea.

Goldie said that her Bernie, knock wood, had come rank-one again in school. But Sarah said that Bernie was a kind of sissy, that her Stanley was no rank-one boy all right but that she and Nat didn’t mind so much. Nat had said, she said, that Henry Ford,
the
Henry Ford mind you, had been a Grade A-1 dumb-bell in school. So rank-one, in plain talk, was strictly for the birds. Period, Goldie said. Period.

The men were gathered around Nat, who was doing an impromptu take-off on James Cagney. When Wolf and Leah entered the room Nat whirled around, crouched, and pointed his finger at Leah like a gun. “I got yuh covered, doll,” he said. “Covered, dreamboat – like a life-insurance policy. One move, and curtains.”

Nat didn’t like Leah. She was bringing up Noah to think he was a bigshot. She was always finding something wrong or looking at you as if you were a good-for-nothing.

Leah turned away from Nat coldly.

“She got me.” Nat doubled up, clutching his stomach. “I’m a goner. Send for the
D.A
. I’m gonna sing. I’m gonna sing a solo. I’m gonna sing so low you won’t hear me.”

He collapsed on the floor. The others laughed.

Sarah turned around in her chair. “Nat, don’t make yourself for such a fool in front of Paw. Get up, why don’t you? The floor is damp.”

“His Master’s Voice,” Nat said, crouching on all fours and barking.

Mr. Adler swept the grandchildren away from around his chair and glared darkly at Wolf. Wolf squeezed out a weak, frightened smile. He averted his eyes. He passed his hand through his black curly hair, and then stared at his hand.

“Where is the boy? Why have you come without Noah?”

All talk stopped.

Wolf fidgeted with his jacket. He turned to Leah, but Leah stared back at him firmly, without encouragement. Her eyes were red and swollen.

“Am I asking you a question?”

“He isn’t coming, Paw.”

One of the grandchildren, Bernie, giggled nervously, and Goldie yanked his arm. She held a finger to her mouth and made a hissing sound.

Melech Adler stood immediately before his eldest son, his eyes black with anger. “Why?”

“Paw, I … Paw, it’s not my fault, eh?”

Why should
I
be blamed for what he does wrong, Wolf thought. Haven’t I got troubles enough? And look at her. Some help she is.

“He’s moved,” Leah said. She was proud. But her eyes were heated and her voice quivered. “He’s rented a room on Dorchester Street.”

Mr. Adler did not say anything. He stared hard at Wolf, and then turned to the others. They were quiet. Only Max stared back.

All but the two youngest – Ida and Shloime – were married.

Ida knew why there was going to be a meeting. Mr. Adler had at last discovered that the boys hung around Panofsky’s on Saturday afternoons, drinking cokes and eating chocolate biscuits, watching the pinochle games in the back room. They had found a way of getting around the sabbath. Panofsky marked down all their purchases and collected his money on Sunday. She knew what the boys would say. They would say that they hadn’t actually violated any law. But Mr. Adler would reply that buying on credit was only one step away from buying, and if a Jew bought things on the sabbath he might as well go without a hat, and if a Jew went without a hat he might as well miss the evening prayer, and if a Jew missed the evening prayer …

Lolling on her bed, nibbling peppermints, Ida read the
Silver Screen
magazine. The afternoon heat was stifling and all she was wearing was her soiled black slip. She was twenty-eight. Mrs. Adler made broad hints and Mr. Adler produced a progression of suitors, all pink-faced rabbinical students. Ida saw all the double-features which played at the Rialto. In her dreams there were many young men and she was no longer fat.

Suddenly Shloime stood dull and shapeless in the doorway.

“I’m going downstairs to the meeting. You coming?” he asked.

“No.”

“Should I say you’ll be down later?”

Ida made a show of throwing the bedspread over her slip.

“So what should I say?” Shloime asked.

“Don’t say.”

“Ha. ha, ha. I’m laughing.”

“Don’t be such a sissy, Shloime. Noah isn’t afraid. Tell him if you want to go to Panofsky’s on
shabus
, on the sabbath, that it’s your own affair.”

“I’m laughing. Look, I’m laughing.”

Shloime was the youngest in the family. He was big for his nineteen years and walked with a hulking gait. Embedded in his big head like beads, and half-concealed beneath drooping eyelids, were two sullen, malicious eyes. His oily, shaggy hair fell sloppily over his forehead and stuck out around his lopping ears. He was forever trying to remember Nat’s stories so that he could tell them to the boys in the poolroom but the punch lines always eluded him. Sometimes Ida let him see her, pretending that she didn’t know he stood in the doorway, but that was only teaser stuff. Okay for kids. The boys called him Kid Lightning, and it was Shloime’s ambition to own a blazer with the name
KID LIGHTNING
printed on the back of it. His other ambition was to stop being a cherry. But both ambitions required money.

Ida reached for a peppermint and saw that Shloime was still watching her. “You want to take my picture,” she said.

Shloime grinned lasciviously. He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and rocked to and fro on his heels. “Lend me a fiver and I won’t tell Paw that I saw you doing you-know-what with you-know-who on a bench in Outremont Park last night.”

Ida flushed.

“I tailed you,” Shloime said.

“Beat it, mister.”

“One fiver if you don’t mind.”

Ida got up and walked towards him. Shloime saluted, bowed, and said: “We’ll do business later.” Then he fled down the stairs.

The meeting had gone as Ida had expected. Only Max had stood up to Mr. Adler, but none of the boys had supported him. Melech Adler had been unusually stern with his family and when Noah’s name had come up he had turned harder still. Max got up to defend Noah and Leah had quickly backed him up, but there had been
more passion than reason to her argument, and the others – glad of an opportunity to show their good faith – had, following Itzik’s example, rallied to their father’s side. Brother outdoing brother in abusing their nephew.