“Then why didn’t you give it to him?”
“Don’t know. I told Farley it was mine. I gave it to him.”
“A fool,” said Pop. “You see? A fool ought never be born. A fool should be stomped on! You idiot! Why am I so cursed? With her for a mother, with him for a son.”
“Gey mir in der erd.”
Ira sobbed.
“Weep! Now you weep?” Mom said bitterly. “It would have been better had your eyes fallen out, your hands fallen off, before you stole the pen. And what do they want of you now? The pen was returned, no?”
“Yeah, but I told you already. I told the assistant principal I stole it. He wants Pop to come to school.”
“Ai, be torn to shreds!” Pop bared his teeth in a fresh outburst of tortured rage. “Only be torn into shreds! Ai, yi, yi, to shame me further! To tell me I have shit for a son. For this I have to take time off from work to learn what a wretched dolt I’ve raised?” He swept the saucer of compote away from him. “Here. Feed this to your next husband!”
“Why do you say that to me?” Mom’s throat mottled angrily. “I haven’t taught him the ways to righteousness a thousand times? How many times have I shown him how a good Jewish child behaves? If a demon possessed him, what do you want of me?”
“Go. Enough. Speak to the wall. He’s yours, and yours he remains. One thing he’ll soon learn: what it is to be a crude breadwinner. Every day, every day, to go to work, to a job, to a boss, to labor for a pittance. Let him fill his own craw. He doesn’t deserve anything better than that; he never has. You’ve fattened a gross sloth, and now you’ll both find it out. Who knows, with toil he may scratch up a seed of wisdom.”
Followed a long grievous silence, while Pop, grim-faced, taut, made an effort to peruse his Yiddish newspaper, sigh-groaned audibly, irregularly, again and again. .
“When did you eat last?” Mom asked.
“Me? I don’t know. Before I left for school. Ten o’clock. The bulkie you gave me.”
“I would feed him.” Pop flapped the newspaper. “Chopped sorrows.”
“What you would do I already know,” Mom retorted.
“I’m not hungry,” said Ira.
“No? I’m sure. Even your spectacles are stained. Go wash your unhappy countenance. I have pot roast and gravy on the stove. The noodles are already cold.” Tears came to her eyes. She snuffed, went to the sink and blew her nose. “Noo? What are you waiting for?”
“I have to go to the toilet.”
“Then go.”
He entered the shadowy bathroom, held the door open until he located the dangling light pull, and as he tugged it, heard Mom say before he shut the door, “So he’s a fool. But a child of indigence he is too. And of sorrow. Even if it were a golden pen, it doesn’t matter. He’s my child.”
In the green-painted bathroom, against one shiny, uneven wall, stood a small chest of a dozen tiny drawers that Biolov had been about to discard, and Ira had retrieved; against the other wall stretched the long green-painted bathtub in its casket of matchboards. Ira lifted the chipped toilet seat, and was surprised at how little he had to urinate; after all, he had been weeping — the odd notion occurred to him — all those hours of roaming. He yanked at the toilet chain, tugged the light pull, and returned to the kitchen.
“And where were you straggling all this while?” Mom held the loaf of heavy rye bread against the flame-flowered cotton cloth of the mussed housedress covering her deep bosom, while she applied the gray carving knife with its tarnished concave blade toward herself through the thick crust. “All this time. When did you leave school?”
“I don’t know. Gym is the first period. That’s all I went to.” He could feel appetite revive. “Maybe nearly one o’clock.”
“And all that time roaming. Go to the sink.”
“I didn’t want to come home.” Ira removed his glasses, smeared soap on his face, cupped hands under spouting cold water, wiped face on towel, wiped glasses. “I walked, that’s all.”
“And where?”
“Why are you asking stupid questions?” Pop interjected. “You’ll have to pay the cobbler for his shoes. Then you’ll know.”
“True. And his father is also a man of means.” Mom set the thick-hewn slice of bread before Ira, who began devouring it ravenously. “Wait, I’ll cut some meat.”
“I didn’t know where to go, that’s all.” Ira tore away a mouthful. “I walked by the river. On Riverside Drive.”
“And why Riverside Drive?”
“I don’t know. It was by the river.”
“Aha! I understent. You went by the water.”
“By the water,” Pop scoffed, brown eyes hard with animus. “Immediately he’s leaped in. How the woman submits to his contriving.”
“Chaim, let me be,” Mom said quietly. “I haven’t woe enough? And you haven’t fear? Whom are you deluding?” She met Pop’s set gaze with her own — until he looked away. And then she hacked at the meat in the pot, conveyed a chunk to the plate, tilted the pot to spoon gravy to cover the slab of meat, added noodles.
“Here. Eat.” She set the plate down before Ira — and again confronted Pop. “He’s my child. He may die for his golem’s brain, and the suffering he’s causing me. And you as well. He gets it from you, after all. Let’s tell the truth,” she challenged him, “how did you steal out of Galitzia the first time?”
Pop put down his newspaper, thrust forward a startled, tense countenance toward Ira. “Look what she scratches out of the dirt! What has the one thing to do with the other?”
“I’m asking you.”
“Gey mir in der erd!”
“You filched the passage money to America. True or not?”
“Kiss my ass.”
“From your father. From his wallet.”
“Go drop into your tomb.”
“There!”
“She throws that up to me — how I quit Galitzia. How else was I going to leave? I had no money. My brothers were in St. Louis. I wanted to go, too.”
“Well?”
“Whose money was it? You horse’s head! My father’s, no?”
“But you did steal it.”
“Gey mir vidder in der erd! How else was I to get it?”
“Oy, vey,” Mom sighed. “When you returned to Austria, were you hanged for your misdeed?”
Pop wagged his head at her irately. “Would God I had never returned! A demon sent me back to Galitzia. To her! To you! The devil sent me back. But what — if fortune fails you, what can you do?”
Mom seemed too spent for anger. “Believe me, if fortune failed you, it failed me.” She sat down, speaking calmly. “What would have been the harm if I hadn’t suited you? I would have been an old maid. Ben Zion would have married his other daughters under me. As if he had any other choice. Sooner or later the Lord would have sent me a fat, sleek Jew of a widower, with a fine beard and a great paunch and a houseful of children. What would I have lacked? Do you want some more noodles? My pitiful son.”
“I want some more bread.” Ira chomped.
Mom stood up. “And what time does your father have to be at the school tomorrow?”
“I think maybe ten o’clock. Mr. Osborne comes in. He’s the assistant principal.”
“I’ll have time to finish a breakfast serving,” said Pop. “I’ll slip away between breakfast and lunch.” He nodded, addressing Ira.
“Thank you for your thoughtfulness.”
And Mom, bringing Ira another slice of bread, added, “Throw yourself at his feet. Implore his forgiveness. Tell him you’re the poor son of impoverished parents. You saw the silver pen. You snatched it. You couldn’t help yourself. Never again will you be guilty of such foolishness. You can speak English. Then speak. Plead.”