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Authors: Bernard Malamud

BOOK: The Assistant
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A noise at the side door which led into the hall frightened him.
“Ida?”
The door opened slowly. Tessie Fuso came in in her housecoat, a homely Italian girl with a big face.
“Are you closed, Mr. Bober?” she asked embarrassedly.
“Come in,” said Morris.
“I'm sorry I came through the back way but I was undressed and didn't want to go out in the street.”
“Don't worry.”
“Please give me twenty cents' ham for Nick's lunch tomorrow.”
He understood. She was making amends for Nick's trip around the corner that morning. He cut her an extra slice of ham.
Tessie bought also a quart of milk, package of paper napkins and loaf of bread. When she had gone he lifted the register lid. Ten dollars. He thought he had long ago touched bottom but now knew there was none.
I slaved my whole life for nothing, he thought.
Then he heard Karp calling him from the rear. The grocer went inside, worn out.
Raising the window he called harshly, “What's the matter there?”
“Telephone the police,” cried Karp. “The car is parked across the street.”
“What car?”
“The holdupniks.”
“There is nobody in this car, I saw myself.”
“For God's sake, I tell you call the police. I will pay for the telephone.”
Morris shut the window. He looked up the phone number
and was about to dial the police when the store door opened and he hurried inside.
Two men were standing at the other side of the counter, with handkerchiefs over their faces. One wore a dirty yellow clotted one, the other's was white. The one with the white one began pulling out the store lights. It took the grocer a half-minute to comprehend that he, not Karp, was their victim.
 
Morris sat at the table, the dark light of the dusty bulb falling on his head, gazing dully at the few crumpled bills before him, including Helen's check, and the small pile of silver. The gunman with the dirty handkerchief, fleshy, wearing a fuzzy black hat, waved a pistol at the grocer's head. His pimply brow was thick with sweat; from time to time with furtive eyes he glanced into the darkened store. The other, a taller man in an old cap and torn sneakers, to control his trembling leaned against the sink, cleaning his fingernails with a matchstick. A cracked mirror hung behind him on the wall above the sink and every so often he turned to stare into it.
“I know damn well this ain't everything you took in,” said the heavy one to Morris, in a hoarse, unnatural voice. “Where've you got the rest hid?”
Morris, sick to his stomach, couldn't speak.
“Tell the goddam truth.” He aimed the gun at the grocer's mouth.
“Times are bad,” Morris muttered.
“You're a Jew liar.”
The man at the sink fluttered his hand, catching the other's attention. They met in the center of the room, the other with the cap hunched awkwardly over the one in the fuzzy hat, whispering into his ear.
“No,” snapped the heavy one sullenly.
His partner bent lower, whispering earnestly through his handkerchief.
“I say he hid it,” the heavy one snarled, “and I'm gonna get it if I have to crack his goddam head.”
At the table he whacked the grocer across the face.
Morris moaned.
The one at the sink hastily rinsed a cup and filled it with water. He brought it to the grocer, spilling some on his apron as he raised the cup to his lips.
Morris tried to swallow but managed only a dry sip. His frightened eyes sought the man's but he was looking elsewhere.
“Please,” murmured the grocer.
“Hurry up,” warned the one with the gun.
The tall one straightened up and gulped down the water. He rinsed the cup and placed it on a cupboard shelf.
He then began to hunt among the cups and dishes there and pulled out the pots on the bottom. Next, he went hurriedly through the drawers of an old bureau in the room, and on hands and knees searched under the couch. He ducked into the store, removed the empty cash drawer from the register and thrust his hand into the slot, but came up with nothing.
Returning to the kitchen he took the other by the arm and whispered to him urgently.
The heavy one elbowed him aside.
“We better scram out of here.”
“Are you gonna go chicken on me?”
“That's all the dough he has, let's beat it.”
“Business is bad,” Morris muttered.
“Your Jew ass is bad, you understand?”
“Don't hurt me.”
“I will give you your last chance. Where have you got it hid?”
“I am a poor man.” He spoke through cracked lips.
The one in the dirty handkerchief raised his gun. The other, staring into the mirror, waved frantically, his black eyes bulging, but Morris saw the blow descend and felt sick of himself, of soured expectations, endless frustration, the
years gone up in smoke, he could not begin to count how many. He had hoped for much in America and got little. And because of him Helen and Ida had less. He had defrauded them, he and the bloodsucking store.
He fell without a cry. The end fitted the day. It was his luck, others had better.
During the week that Morris lay in bed with a thickly bandaged head, Ida tended the store fitfully. She went up and down twenty times a day until her bones ached and her head hurt with all her worries. Helen stayed home Saturday, a half-day in her place, and Monday, to help her mother, but she could not risk longer than that, so Ida, who ate in snatches and had worked up a massive nervousness, had to shut the store for a full day, although Morris angrily protested. He needed no attention, he insisted, and urged her to keep open at least half the day or he would lose his remaining few customers; but Ida, short of breath, said she hadn't the strength, her legs hurt. The grocer attempted to get up and pull on his pants but was struck by a violent headache and had to drag himself back to bed.
On the Tuesday the store was closed a man appeared in the neighborhood, a stranger who spent much of his time standing on Sam Pearl's corner with a toothpick in his teeth, intently observing the people who passed by; or he would drift down the long block of stores, some empty, from Pearl's to the bar at the far end of the street. Beyond that was a freight yard, and in the distance, a bulky warehouse. After an occasional slow beer in the tavern, the stranger turned the corner and wandered past the high-fenced coal
yard; he would go around the block until he got back to Sam's candy store. Once in a while the man would walk over to Morris's closed grocery, and with both hands shading his brow, stare through the window; sighing, he went back to Sam's. When he had as much as he could take of the corner he walked around the block again, or elsewhere in the neighborhood.
Helen had pasted a paper on the window of the front door, that said her father wasn't well but the store would open on Wednesday. The man spent a good deal of time studying this paper. He was young, dark-bearded, wore an old brown rain-stained hat, cracked patent leather shoes and a long black overcoat that looked as if it had been lived in. He was tall and not bad looking, except for a nose that had been broken and badly set, unbalancing his face. His eyes were melancholy. Sometimes he sat at the fountain with Sam Pearl, lost in his thoughts, smoking from a crumpled pack of cigarettes he had bought with pennies. Sam, who was used to all kinds of people, and had in his time seen many strangers appear in the neighborhood and as quickly disappear, showed no special concern for the man, though Goldie, after a full day of his presence complained that too much was too much; he didn't pay rent. Sam did notice that the stranger sometimes seemed to be under stress, sighed much and muttered inaudibly to himself. However, he paid the man scant attention—everybody to their own troubles. Other times the stranger, as if he had somehow squared himself with himself, seemed relaxed, even satisfied with his existence. He read through Sam's magazines, strolled around in the neighborhood and when he returned, lit a fresh cigarette as he opened a paper-bound book from the rack in the store. Sam served him coffee when he asked for it, and the stranger, squinting from the smoke of the butt in his mouth, carefully counted out five pennies to pay. Though nobody had asked him he said his name was Frank Alpine and he had lately come from the West, looking for a better opportunity. Sam advised if he could qualify for a chauffeur's
license, to try for work as a hack driver. It wasn't a bad life. The man agreed but stayed around as if he was expecting something else to open up. Sam put him down as a moody gink.
The day Ida reopened the grocery the stranger disappeared but he returned to the candy store the next morning, and seating himself at the fountain, asked for coffee. He looked bleary, unhappy, his beard hard, dark, contrasting with the pallor of his face; his nostrils were inflamed and his voice was husky. He looks half in his grave, Sam thought. God knows what hole he slept in last night.
As Frank Alpine was stirring his coffee, with his free hand he opened a magazine lying on the counter, and his eye was caught by a picture in color of a monk. He lifted the coffee cup to drink but had to put it down, and he stared at the picture for five minutes.
Sam, out of curiosity, went behind him with a broom, to see what he was looking at. The picture was of a thin-faced, dark-bearded monk in a coarse brown garment, standing barefooted on a sunny country road. His skinny, hairy arms were raised to a flock of birds that dipped over his head. In the background was a grove of leafy trees; and in the far distance a church in sunlight.
“He looks like some kind of a priest,” Sam said cautiously.
“No, it's St. Francis of Assisi. You can tell from that brown robe he's wearing and all those birds in the air. That's the time he was preaching to them. When I was a kid, an old priest used to come to the orphans' home where I was raised, and every time he came he read us a different story about St. Francis. They are clear in my mind to this day.”
“Stories are stories,” Sam said.
“Don't ask me why I never forgot them.”
Sam took a closer squint at the picture. “Talking to the birds? What was he—crazy? I don't say this out of any harm.”
The stranger smiled at the Jew. “He was a great man. The way I look at it, it takes a certain kind of a nerve to preach to birds.”
“That makes him great, because he talked to birds?”
“Also for other things. For instance, he gave everything away that he owned, every cent, all his clothes off his back. He enjoyed to be poor. He said poverty was a queen and he loved her like she was a beautiful woman.”
Sam shook his head. “It ain't beautiful, kiddo. To be poor is dirty work.”
“He took a fresh view of things.”
The candy store owner glanced again at St. Francis, then poked his broom into a dirty corner. Frank, as he drank his coffee, continued to study the picture. He said to Sam, “Every time I read about somebody like him I get a feeling inside of me I have to fight to keep from crying. He was born good, which is a talent if you have it.”
He spoke with embarrassment, embarrassing Sam.
Frank drained his cup and left.
That night as he was wandering past Morris's store he glanced through the door and saw Helen inside, relieving her mother. She looked up and noticed him staring at her through the plate glass. His appearance startled her; his eyes were haunted, hungry, sad; she got the impression he would come in and ask for a handout and had made up her mind to give him a dime, but instead he disappeared.
 
On Friday Morris weakly descended the stairs at six A.M., and Ida, nagging, came after him. She had been opening at eight o'clock and had begged him to stay in bed until then, but he had refused, saying he had to give the Poilisheh her roll.
“Why does three cents for a lousy roll mean more to you than another hour sleep?” Ida complained.
“Who can sleep?”
“You need rest, the doctor said.”
“Rest I will take in my grave.”
She shuddered. Morris said, “For fifteen years she gets here her roll, so let her get.”
“All right, but let me open up. I will give her and you go back to bed.”
“I stayed in bed too long. Makes me feel weak.”
But the woman wasn't there and Morris feared he had lost her to the German. Ida insisted on dragging in the milk boxes, threatening to shout if he made a move for them. She packed the bottles into the refrigerator. After Nick Fuso they waited hours for another customer. Morris sat at the table, reading the paper, occasionally raising his hand gently to feel the bandage around his head. When he shut his eyes he still experienced moments of weakness. By noon he was glad to go upstairs and crawl into bed and he didn't get up until Helen came home.
The next morning he insisted on opening alone. The Poilisheh was there. He did not know her name. She worked somewhere in a laundry and had a little dog called Polaschaya. When she came home at night she took the little Polish dog for a walk around the block. He liked to run loose in the coal yard. She lived in one of the stucco houses nearby. Ida called her die antisemitke, but that part of her didn't bother Morris. She had come with it from the old country, a different kind of anti-Semitism from in America. Sometimes he suspected she needled him a little by asking for a “Jewish roll,” and once or twice, with an odd smile, she wanted a “Jewish pickle.” Generally she said nothing at all. This morning Morris handed her her roll and she said nothing. She didn't ask him about his bandaged head though her quick beady eyes stared at it, nor why he had not been there for a week; but she put six pennies on the counter instead of three. He figured she had taken a roll from the bag one of the days the store hadn't opened on time. He rang up the six-cent sale.
Morris went outside to pull in the two milk cases. He
gripped the boxes but they were like rocks, so he let one go and tugged at the other. A storm cloud formed in his head and blew up to the size of a house. Morris reeled and almost fell into the gutter, but he was caught by Frank Alpine, in his long coat, steadied and led back into the store. Frank then hauled in the milk cases and refrigerated the bottles. He quickly swept up behind the counter and went into the back. Morris, recovered, warmly thanked him.
Frank said huskily, his eyes on his scarred and heavy hands, that he was new to the neighborhood but living here now with a married sister. He had lately come from the West and was looking for a better job.
The grocer offered him a cup of coffee, which he at once accepted. As he sat down Frank placed his hat on the floor at his feet, and he drank the coffee with three heaping spoonfuls of sugar, to get warm quick, he said. When Morris offered him a seeded hard roll, he bit into it hungrily. “Jesus, this is good bread.” After he had finished he wiped his mouth with his handkerchief, then swept the crumbs off the table with one hand into the other, and though Morris protested, he rinsed the cup and saucer at the sink, dried them and set them on top of the gas range, where the grocer had got them.
“Much obliged for everything.” He had picked up his hat but made no move to leave.
“Once in San Francisco I worked in a grocery for a couple of months,” he remarked after a minute, “only it was one of those supermarket chain store deals.”
“The chain store kills the small man.”
“Personally I like a small store myself. I might someday have one.”
“A store is a prison. Look for something better.”
“At least you're your own boss.”
“To be a boss of nothing is nothing.”
“Still and all, the idea of it appeals to me. The only thing is I would need experience on what goods to order. I mean
about brand names, and et cetera. I guess I ought to look for a job in a store and get more experience.”
“Try the A&P,” advised the grocer.
“I might.”
Morris dropped the subject. The man put on his hat.
“What's the matter,” he said, staring at the grocer's bandage, “did you have some kind of an accident to your head?”
Morris nodded. He didn't care to talk about it, so the stranger, somehow disappointed, left.
He happened to be in the street very early on Monday when Morris was again struggling with the milk cases. The stranger tipped his hat and said he was off to the city to find a job but he had time to help him pull in the milk. This he did and quickly left. However, the grocer thought he saw him pass by in the other direction about an hour later. That afternoon when he went for his
Forward
he noticed him sitting at the fountain with Sam Pearl. The next morning, just after six, Frank was there to help him haul in the milk bottles and he willingly accepted when Morris, who knew a poor man when he saw one, invited him for coffee.
“How is going now the job?” Morris asked as they were eating.
“So-so,” said Frank, his glance shifting. He seemed preoccupied, nervous. Every few minutes he would set down his cup and uneasily look around. His lips parted as if to speak, his eyes took on a tormented expression, but then he shut his jaw as if he had decided it was better never to say what he intended. He seemed to need to talk, broke into sweat—his brow gleamed with it—his pupils widening as he struggled. He looked to Morris like someone who had to retch—no matter where; but after a brutal interval his eyes grew dull. He sighed heavily and gulped down the last of his coffee. After, he brought up a belch. This for a moment satisfied him.
Whatever he wants to say, Morris thought, let him say
it to somebody else. I am only a grocer. He shifted in his chair, fearing to catch some illness.
Again the tall man leaned forward, drew a breath and once more was at the point of speaking, but now a shudder passed through him, followed by a fit of shivering.
The grocer hastened to the stove and poured out a cup of steaming coffee. Frank swallowed it in two terrible gulps. He soon stopped shaking, but looked defeated, humiliated, like somebody, the grocer felt, who had lost out on something he had wanted badly.
“You caught a cold?” he asked sympathetically.
The stranger nodded, scratched up a match on the sole of his cracked shoe, lit a cigarette and sat there, listless.

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