Son of a Smaller Hero (30 page)

Jane MacEvoy cornered John Kennedy. “Neil’s psychiatrist says that he’s got strong homosexual tendencies because he says that he’d never wear suède shoes. He says that if Neil wasn’t afraid to wear suède …”

“I can understand everything about queers,” John said, “except their taste in men.”

Marg touched Theo’s arm. “Oh, don’t be such an old lady. It’s New Year’s Eve. So what if she kisses a man in the bedroom?”

“Things haven’t been the same ever since …”

“Believe me, Theo. She’s learnt her lesson. She could have a dozen affairs now and they’d all be silly. Noah taught her to stick to her husband. So stop being so possessive. You …” Marg kissed him and smiled. “I can always be your consolation prize, darling.”

Mrs. Hall looked at her watch again. Five minutes, she thought. Why doesn’t Theo …

“I like Canadians and human beings, too,” Howard said.

Jane MacEvoy perched on the arm of the sofa. “Of course there may be concentration camps, John, but now that Stalin’s dead …”

“Orwell would call that double-think,” John said.

Hortense pulled the curtains aside and smiled back at Edgar. “Think of all the parties and all the drinks being consumed in all those apartments. I hate parties.”

“I’m superior to being superior to parties,” Edgar said.

“Edgar, our marriage will be different – won’t it? Theo and Miriam are so dreadfully unhappy.”

“Oh, he’s all right. She’s man-crazy, that’s all.”

“It’s hopeless, Edgar. You
never
understand.”

Hortense moved away and Edgar stared after her dumbly.

Bill Goodman picked his nose absently. “Does that disgust you, Irene?”

Collin popped a balloon with a cigarette.

“That’s phallic,” Jane MacEvoy said.

“You want to see something phallic?” Collin said.

Marg noticed Mrs. Hall head for the bedroom door and, moving swiftly, managed to get there first. “Enjoying yourself, Mrs. Hall? I was just telling John that we must have you up for dinner.…”

Mrs. Hall glanced at her watch. A burst of laughter came from behind the bedroom door.

Edgar caught up with Hortense. “I always seem to be saying things,” he said.

“Theo’s impossible! I won’t have you blaming Miriam just because …”

“I’m not blaming Miriam. But if she had to get into the sack with Harold why did she have to do it right under everybody’s nose. Now she’s slipped out with Neil. Theo’s not a bad guy. Couldn’t she have a little dignity about it?”

“I know her, Edgar. Her heart’s broken. She …”

“Whose heart isn’t broken?”

“Shall we discuss something else –
please.”

Theo spoke to Marsha, watching the door over her shoulder. “I don’t want you to think that I turned down Neil’s stuff for personal reasons. But
Direction
has certain standards and …”

Marg seized Mrs. Hall’s arm and led her over to John. “I was just telling Mrs. Hall, John, that you’d be delighted to discuss Canadian writing with her. What were you saying about Lemelin, Mrs. Hall?”

Fifteen minutes, Mrs. Hall thought. She’s been in that bedroom fifteen minutes.

The record player clicked, and Fats Waller began again.

Collin turned to Bill. “I think we’re going to have a big third act any minute. Neil’s a bloody fool. I don’t care if he’s drunk, but this is Theo’s house.…”

“Don’t blame Neil, man. She was on to me once. That woman’s turned into a tiger.”

The bedroom door opened, and Marg whirled around to face Neil. His expression was bewildered. His shirt was soaked in whisky and his hair was wet.

“Wipe the lipstick off your face, you fool,” Marg whispered.

Neil pulled out his handkerchief desperately. “That girl’s mad. First she can’t get to you quick enough and then … Why should she spill a drink in my face?”

“You should have had more sense than to …”

Mrs. Hall approached quickly. “Is Miriam not feeling well?” she asked icily.

“As a matter of fact,” Neil began lamely, “she’s …”

Marg backed into the bedroom and shut the door behind her.

Miriam lay face down on the bed. Her dress unzippered, she whimpered softly. Marg sat down beside her and stroked her hair gently. “I brought you a drink,” she said.

Miriam gathered up bits of pillow into her fists tightly.

Mrs. Hall knocked on the door. “I’d like to get something out of my purse,” she said.

Marg began to search frantically among the mess of coats and shawls and hats and bags for a purse that might feasibly belong to Mrs. Hall. “What colour is it?”

“I could find it in a jiffy if you’d let me in,” Mrs. Hall called out.

On that first Sunday of the winter of 1954, as under a stern sun the snows of St. Dominique Street showed glittering white in spots, Melech Adler, his mottled hands lying shrivelled on his lap, sat in the armchair in his living-room considering his past. Later, after he had taken his pills and eaten his lunch of boiled beef and potatoes, he would lie down to rest for an hour or so. Mr. Adler had ten children, six boys and four girls. One of them had died in a fire, and another was with the army in Germany. His youngest daughter, Ida, was sort of engaged. This Sunday was special. Later Max would send Moore around with the Cadillac to pick up Mr. and Mrs. Adler. The Adlers were to join their children in Max’s home in Outremont for a family meeting.

Old Melech Adler sat in his chair and unfolded his newspaper and turned to the obituary column. He frowned. He recalled how long ago and during another season, Moore, the drunkard, had tried to cheat him by mixing in cast iron with the brass and weighing down sacks with earth.
After they had begun to haggle in a jocular way about prices Noah whispered to his grandfather that his father and Paquette had
hidden many of the sacks. Melech, his face darkening, had asked Noah to please wait for him in the office. Melech had known that Moore’s scrap was stolen. That some of it had been stolen from his own yard. But Noah hadn’t obeyed him. He had begun his story over again. Melech had slapped his grandchild. But he had done that only because he wanted to protect him from the drunkard
.

He could have been the brightness of my old years. But he ran away with a
shiksa
. He’s no good.

Most of the family arrived shortly after lunch.

Mr. Adler sat in a corner. Max sat in his armchair discussing school with Jonah. The other grandchildren were grouped around him, all of them making raucous bids for his attention. Now and then he gripped one of them in a huge hand, and laughing gruffly, pressed a dollar bill into his pocket.

The women sat around the table gossiping and waiting for the maid to serve tea.

Ida knew why there was going to be a meeting. She had told Max how things were between Stanley and herself, and Max had grinned boyishly and pinched her cheek and said, you’ll have to get married, that’s all. I want to marry him, anyway, she had said. Still better, Max had said. You don’t worry about a thing. Tomorrow … em – Mort? Stanley, she had said. Then he had pressed one of the many buzzers on his big desk and a tall blonde woman had come in unsmilingly and had waited for his word. Miss Holmes honey, he had said, send Moore around with the Caddy for my sister, eh? After she had gone Max had turned to Ida, smiling boyishly again, and had said: Some looker, eh?

There were many things to discuss at the meeting. Noah was leaving and they would have to decide things about Leah.

Ida lolled on the bed nibbling peppermints and reading the
Good Housekeeping
magazine. She was glad that Max had given Stanley a
job because that had made him less scared about getting married: besides, Max was his hero.

The meeting had not gone as Ida had expected. Max, for one thing, had been called to Toronto on business at the last minute. So his wife, Debrofsky’s only daughter, had conducted the meeting. Ida didn’t like her. She was a small, bony woman with a pinched face. Her dog, which she called Babykins, was a pedigree French poodle that had cost a good deal of money. Debrofsky’s only daughter had a hard, unjoking way of speaking, and addressed the Adlers with resentment, as if they, unlike Babykins, did not have a pedigree. Her father sat behind her in an armchair. He was a yellowing man with shrivelled eyes who was in the habit of saying: “I came to Canada with fifty cents in my pocket” – and taking off his glasses and pointing at a picture of his factory – “and I worked hard.” He wanted a grandson before he died. Stanley had also come to the meeting. He had sat on the piano stool twisting his fedora in his hands, avoiding Ida’s searching, sympathetic looks. When Debrofsky’s only daughter had announced the engagement, Melech Adler had looked darkly at Ida, but had said nothing. Ida had smiled hopefully at Stanley when Debrofsky’s only daughter had announced that Max would give the young couple one thousand dollars with which to start housekeeping. Stanley had nodded. He had been watching Melech, the truly orthodox member of the Adler family. Stanley thought that the old man was quite a character.

Melech Adler, who was the son of a scribe, was full of sorrow after the meeting. He watched his wife bake raisin buns.

“Jenny … 
Nu
, Jenny, you – you are happy?”

“Happy?”

“Maybe you would like a movie sometimes.… Or a talk?”

“You are not well, Melech?”

Between Melech and the grandchildren Jenny didn’t get much rest.

“This is my house, Jenny. I came here fifty years ago and I knew from nothink. Scrap I collected in the lanes. I drove a horse and buggy through Griffintown and the
Goyishe
hoodlums threw stones at me.…” He cleared his throat, and began again. “Look at them, all over the street, new ones,
greeners
. They come around for
naduvas
. Did I beg when I came to Canada? They have it easy, the new ones. Not like we did. But their sons will be ashamed for de beards. The sons will grow up
Goyim
, like Noah. It’s a bad world. You wait.”

“About the
greeners
you are right. Mrs. Myerson said to me yesterday dat only de worst ones get away.”

Melech stood up suddenly. He was shaking. “You heard, you heard the meeting? You think I care they don’t ask me anything no more? Bah! Let them do, let them. I should worry. But when I die – probably before my time – it’ll be them that put de nails in my coffin.
Them
. You hear? Some life I had.” He walked around the table and grabbed Jenny’s arm forcefully. “There is no justice in this world. God don’t listen always. Not like He should, anyway.…”

“Melech, Melech.…”

She held her hand to her lips surreptitiously, as though to caution him against God, who was watching and listening. For the first time in his life he came close to striking her. He stared at her fiercely, his eyes burning darker, and then he retreated from the room.

“Melech, Melech, what is …”

“Boyeler?”

“I didn’t hear you come in, Maw.”

“When are you leaving?”

“Tomorrow afternoon.”

“Tomorrow afternoon, he says.”

“Yes. How do you feel?”

“How would
you
feel?”

Noah knelt down before her and kissed her hands. “Maw, I tried to explain. I’ll only be gone for a year. I haven’t enough money to stay away longer. I …”

“Money. Wouldn’t I give you money?”

“Yes. You would.”

“When I think of how my father struggled to get us out of Europe. How all of us struggled.… Max says Europe is scum. He says they’re finished. What’ll you do there among all those anti-Semites?”

“I’ll look around.”

“Look. What for?”

“I would like to understand things better.”

Leah withdrew her hands from him. “You are going to get away from me, aren’t you?”

“Maw, that’s not …”

“Are you going to begin to lie to me after all these years?”

Noah stood up. “No,” he said. “But what you’re thinking is only partly right. Will you listen without interrupting?”

“Who’s interrupting?”

“If I stay here we’ll learn to hate each other. Even now, I – I’ve always wanted … I’ve always loved you, Maw, but I’m beginning to … I can’t stay. It would kill both of us. But I’ve always wanted to go to Europe. I’d like to …”

“So you couldn’t wait six months? I’m sure I won’t live longer than that.”

“Maw, please, that’s exactly what I mean. Would you like me to wait around hoping for your death?” He turned to her again. “Please stop thinking that you’re going to die. I’ll be back in a year’s time. I’ll stay with you for a while then. Meanwhile, Harry will gladly …”

“They don’t want me.”

“They want you, Maw. And many, many people with your heart condition live for ten and twenty years.”

“If you decided to stay I wouldn’t bother you about your drinking.”

“Drinking.”

“You could have as much as you want.”

“Where in the hell do people get the idea that I’m a drunkard?”

“You think I’m faking, don’t you? You think I only make the attacks so that I can keep you with me?”

“No, not quite. But I think that you do tend to use your condition unfairly at times.”

“Why are they no longer going to call the new school the Wolf Adler Memorial School? Why did they change the name?”

“Ask Max.”

“Max said I should ask you.”

“Oh, I see.”

“He sees. That’s the sum of all my insurance policies speaking. What’ll you do when you get back? Drive a taxi again?”

“Maw, I’m not your husb … I don’t know. But I don’t think so.”

Leah got up. “My son has turned out a bum after all my struggles. I’m going to sleep. I don’t care any longer, Noah. You’re yes a taxi driver, no a taxi driver. My life is over. Finished.…”

Noah followed her into the hall.

“I’ll write you every week, Maw.”

“Write, don’t write. To put a knife into my back would have been kinder. Now go. Go. Be happy.”

Upstairs Melech Adler wandered absently through empty bedrooms that had used to belong to his children. The rooms were draughty and chill and smelled badly. Melech shivered. He tried hard to possess again, if only for a moment, the laughter and the ailments
and the play that had used to fill these rooms. Bedsprings had rusted under dust-sheets. There were fading marks on the walls where graduation pictures and pennants had used to hang. In Max’s old room, opening the cupboard, he stumbled on a pair of boxing-gloves and several back issues of sporting magazines. The gloves were mouldy, the pages had yellowed. Melech dropped his find to the floor and stared at his yellowed, shaking hands. He collapsed into a frayed armchair which had been covered by sheets, and stared at the walls. When Ornstein had died his children, according to the orthodox custom, had covered the mirrors with towels. They had said, according to the modern custom, that their father was better off that way. “He died quickly, Mr. Adler. No suffering.” Melech Adler held his head in his hands, and sorrowed over what had become of him. He would have rested that way for hours but finally, inevitably, he noticed the white sheet he sat on. He saw the other white sheets that covered the armchair opposite him and the bureau to the right. He backed out of the room, horrified. Suddenly, he heard the radio turned on in Ida’s room.