The Assistant (14 page)

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Authors: Bernard Malamud

BOOK: The Assistant
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“And it should happen soon,” she said.
“Many thanks, Betty.”
After they had gone a few blocks, Betty said, “Helen, I don't like to butt in somebody else's private business but for a long time I wanted to ask you what happened between you and my brother Nat. I once asked him and he gave me double talk.”
“You know how such things go.”
“I thought you liked him?”
“I did.”
“Then why don't you see him any more? Did you have some kind of a fight?”
“No fights. We didn't have the same things in mind.” Betty asked no more. Later, she remarked, “Sometime give him another chance, Helen. Nat really has the makings of a good person. Shep, my boy friend, thinks so too. His worst fault is he thinks his brains entitle him to certain privileges. You'll see, in time he'll get over it.”
“I may,” Helen said. “We'll see sometime.”
They returned to the candy store, where Shep Hirsch, Betty's stout, eyeglassed, future husband was waiting to take her for a drive in his Pontiac.
“Come along, Helen,” said Betty.
“With pleasure.” Shep tipped his hat.
“Go, Helen,” advised Goldie Pearl.
“Thanks, all, from the bottom of my heart,” said Helen, “but I have some of my underthings to iron.”
Upstairs, she stood at the window, looking out at the back yards. The remnants of last week's dirty snow. No single blade of green, or flower to light the eye or lift the heart. She felt as if she were made of knots and in desperation got on her coat, tied a yellow kerchief around her head and left the house again, not knowing which way to go. She wandered toward the leafless park.
At the approach to the park's main entrance there was a small island in the street, a concrete triangle formed by intersecting avenues. Here people sat on benches during the day and tossed peanuts or pieces of bread to the noisy pigeons that haunted the place. Coming up the block, Helen saw a man squatting by one of the benches, feeding the birds. Otherwise, the island was deserted. When the man rose, the pigeons fluttered up with him, a few landing on his arms and shoulders, one perched on his fingers, pecking peanuts from his cupped palm. Another fat bird sat on his hat. The man clapped his hands when the peanuts were gone and the birds, beating their wings, scattered.
When she recognized Frank Alpine, Helen hesitated. She felt in no mood to see him, but remembering the package hidden in her bureau drawer, determined once and for all to get rid of it. Reaching the corner, she crossed over to the island.
Frank saw her coming and wasn't sure he cared one way or the other. The return of his presents had collapsed his hopes. He had thought that if she ever fell for him it would change his life in the way he wanted it to happen, although at times the very thought of another change, even in this sense of it, made him miserable. Yet what was the payoff, for instance, of marrying a dame like her and having to do with Jews the rest of his life? So he told himself he didn't care one way or the other.
“Hi,” Helen said.
He touched his hat. His face looked tired but his eyes were clear and his gaze steady, as if he had been through something and had beat it. She felt sorry if she had caused him any trouble.
“I had a cold,” Frank remarked.
“You should get more sun.”
Helen sat down on the edge of the bench, as if she were afraid, he thought, she would be asked to take a lease on it; and he sat a little apart from her. One of the pigeons began to chase another running in circles and landed on its back. Helen looked away but Frank idly watched the birds until they flew off.
“Frank,” she said, “I hate to sound like a pest on this subject, but if there's anything I can't stand it's waste. I know you're not Rockefeller, so would you mind giving me the names of the stores where you bought your kind presents so that I can return them? I think I can without the sales checks.”
Her eyes, he noticed, were a hard blue, and though he thought it ridiculous, he was a little scared of her, as if she were far too determined, too dead serious for him. At the same time he felt he still liked her. He had not thought so, but with them sitting together like this he thought again that he did. It was in a way a hopeless feeling, yet it was more than that because he did not exactly feel hopeless. He felt, as he sat next to her and saw her worn, unhappy face, that he still had a chance.
Frank cracked his knuckles one by one. He turned to her. “Look, Helen, maybe I try to work too fast. If so, I am sorry. I am the type of a person, who if he likes somebody, has to show it. I like to give her things, if you understand that, though I do know that not everybody likes to take. That's their business. My nature is to give and I couldn't change it even if I wanted. So okay. I am also sorry I got sore and dumped your presents in the can and you had to take them out. But what I want to say is this. Why don't you just go
ahead and keep one of those things that I got for you? Let it be a little memory of a guy you once knew that wants to thank you for the good books you told him to read. You don't have to worry that I expect anything for what I give you.”
“Frank …” she said, reddening.
“Just let me finish. How's this for a deal? If you keep one of those things, I will take the other back to the store and get what I paid for it. What do you say?”
She was not sure what to say, but since she wanted to be finished with it, nodded at his proposal.
“Fine,” Frank said. “Now what do you want the most?”
“Well, the scarf is awfully nice, but I'd rather keep the book.”
“So keep the book then,” he said. “You can give me the scarf anytime you want and I promise I will bring it back.”
He lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply.
She considered whether to say good-by, now that the matter had been settled, and go on with her walk.
“You busy now?” he asked.
She guessed a short stroll. “No.”
“How about a movie?”
It took her a minute to reply. Was he starting up once more? She felt she must quickly set limits to keep him from again creeping too close. Yet out of respect for his already hurt feelings, she thought it best that she think out exactly what to say and tactfully say it, later on.
“I'll have to be back early.”
“So let's go,” he said, getting up.
Helen slowly untied her kerchief, then knotted it, and they went off together.
As they walked she kept wondering if she hadn't made a mistake in accepting the book. In spite of what he had said about expecting nothing she felt a gift was a claim, and she wanted none on her. Yet, when, almost without noticing, she once more asked herself if she liked him at all, she had to admit she did a little. But not enough to get worried about; she liked him but not with an eye to the possibility of
any deeper feeling. He was not the kind of man she wanted to be in love with. She made that very clear to herself, for among his other disadvantages there was something about him, evasive, hidden. He sometimes appeared to be more than he was, sometimes less. His aspirations, she sensed, were somehow apart from the self he presented normally when he wasn't trying, though he was always more or less trying; therefore when he was trying less. She could not quite explain this to herself, for if he could make himself seem better, broader, wiser when he tried, then he had these things in him because you couldn't make them out of nothing. There was more to him than his appearance. Still, he hid what he had and he hid what he hadn't. With one hand the magician showed his cards, with the other he turned them into smoke. At the very minute he was revealing himself, saying who he was, he made you wonder if it was true. You looked into mirrors and saw mirrors and didn't know what was right or real or important. She had gradually got the feeling that he only pretended to be frank about himself, that in telling so much about his experiences, his trick was to hide his true self. Maybe not purposely—maybe he had no idea he was doing it. She asked herself whether he might have been married already. He had once said he never was. And was there more to the story of the once-kissed, tragic carnival girl? He had said no. If not, what made her feel he had done something—committed himself in a way she couldn't guess?
As they were approaching the movie theater, a thought of her mother crossed her mind and she heard herself say, “Don't forget I'm Jewish.”
“So what?” Frank said.
Inside in the dark, recalling what he had answered her, he felt this elated feeling, as if he had crashed head on through a brick wall but hadn't bruised himself.
She had bitten her tongue but made no reply.
Anyway, by summer he'd be gone.
Ida was very unhappy that she had kept Frank on when she could have got rid of him so easily. She was to blame and she actively worried. Though she had no evidence, she suspected Helen was interested in the clerk.
Something
was going on between them. She did not ask her daughter what, because a denial would shame her. And though she had tried she felt she could not really trust Frank. Yes, he had helped the business, but how much would they have to pay for it? Sometimes when she came upon him alone in the store, his expression, she told herself, was sneaky. He sighed often, muttered to himself, and if he saw he was observed, pretended he hadn't. Whatever he did there was more in it than he was doing. He was like a man with two minds. With one he was here, with the other someplace else. Even while he read he was doing more than reading. And his silence spoke a language she couldn't understand. Something bothered him and Ida suspected it was her daughter. Only when Helen happened to come into the store or the back while he was there, did he seem to relax, become one person. Ida was troubled, although she could not discover in Helen any response to him. Helen was quiet in his presence, detached, almost cold to the clerk. She gave him for his restless eyes, nothing—her back. Yet for this reason, too, Ida worried.
One night, after Helen had left the house, when her mother heard the clerk's footsteps going down the stairs, she quickly got into a coat, wrapped a shawl around her head and trudged through a sprinkle of snow after him. He walked to the movie house several blocks away, paid his money, and passed in. Ida was almost certain that Helen was inside, waiting for him. She returned home with nails in her heart and found her daughter upstairs, ironing. Another night she followed Helen to the library. Ida waited across the street, shivering for almost an hour in the cold, until Helen emerged, then followed her home. She chided herself for her suspicions but they would not fly from her mind. Once, listening from the back, she heard her daughter and the clerk talking about a book. This annoyed her. And when
Helen later happened to mention that Frank had plans to begin college in the autumn, Ida felt he was saying that only to get her interested in him.
She spoke to Morris and cautiously asked if he had noticed anything developing between Helen and the clerk.
“Don't be foolish,” the grocer replied. He had thought about the possibility, at times felt concerned, but after pondering how different they were, had put the idea out of his head.
“Morris, I am afraid.”
“You are afraid of everything, even which it don't exist.”
“Tell him to leave now—business is better.”
“So is better,” he muttered, “but who knows how will be next week. We decided he will stay till summer.”
“Morris, he will make trouble.”
“What kind trouble will he make?”
“Wait,” she said, clasping her hands, “a tragedy will happen.”
Her remark at first annoyed, then worried him.
 
The next morning the grocer and his clerk were sitting at the table, peeling hot potatoes. The pot had been drained of water and dumped on its side; they sat close to the steaming pile of potatoes, hunched over, ripping off the salt-stained skins with small knives. Frank seemed ill at ease. He hadn't shaved and had dark blobs under his eyes. Morris wondered if he had been drinking but there was never any smell of liquor about him. They worked without speaking, each lost in his thoughts.
After a half-hour, Frank squirming restlessly in his chair, remarked, “Say, Morris, suppose somebody asked you what do the Jews believe in, what would you tell them?”
The grocer stopped peeling, unable at once to reply.
“What I like to know is what is a Jew anyway?”
Because he was ashamed of his meager education Morris was never comfortable with such questions, yet he felt he must answer.
“My father used to say to be a Jew all you need is a good heart.”
“What do you say?”
“The important thing is the Torah. This is the Law—a Jew must believe in the Law.”
“Let me ask you this,” Frank went on. “Do you consider yourself a real Jew?”

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