The Children (4 page)

Now I close my eyes, so that I can think of the garden. If Shomake comes into the garden, and he plays, who knows what will happen?

But if there is no garden? If we go over the fence, and, there is nothing there at all? What then?

FIVE

S
HOMAKE
'
S MOTHER GIVES US EACH A HALF OF A ROLL
, spread thick with butter. The butter is warm and soft and dripping, good on the white Italian bread, and we go out to the store to eat it. We sit on the bench. Behind the counter, Shomake's father works.

He's a strange man. Maybe he's a little crazy; I don't know, but he's a strange man. You see, he never says anything. If he can speak English, nobody knows about it. Nobody even knows whether he can speak in his own tongue, and some say that he is deaf and dumb. But I don't know, and I never could ask Shomake about it.

He sits and mends shoes. He's a big man—even when he's hunched over his awl, you can see how big he is, and how large and powerful his hands are. What hands they are! I think, if one hand were to grasp me about the waist, and squeeze and squeeze, why I, little Ishky, would be broken in two just like that. Each finger is a claw of steel, and the black hairs on the backs of his hands twist and curl like wires. He has a lot of hair, and his body is big and strong, and round as a barrel. But on his head the hair is gray; his face is gray, and his large wondering eyes are gray. That's the sort of a man he is.

But I like to watch him as much as I like to watch animals at the zoo. He hammers and cuts. But doesn't he think? If his wife strokes him all over his body, the way she stroked me, doesn't he think? And what does he think of then?

We eat the bread, slowly, because it's so good, licking some of the butter from the top; and sometimes Shomake's father glances at us out of his big gray eyes. Yet he doesn't seem to see us. How is that?

Even more slowly than I do, Shomake eats his bread, and he doesn't seem to notice his father at all. When his bread is all gone, he stretches his arms, yawning, and with the same motion his father's body quivers.

“Whaddya wanna do, Ishky?”

Ishky looked at him. He might understand, or he might not. Well, nothing lost, anyway.

“Y'know, behin' my house, dun yard?”

“Yeah?”

“Y'know duh fence?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, dere's grass unner it.”

Ishky paused to let that sink in. This business of revealing the secret garden, the beauty and the power and the wonder of it, was becoming more than he had anticipated. How, exactly, could he put it to Shomake, so that Shomake would understand? He knew that behind the fence was the secret garden, but would Shomake believe him?

Ishky said, “Yuh know what a gaden is?”

“Yeah, wid flowers.”

“Yeah, like dat. It's behin' duh fence in my yard, oney dere ain' nobody knows.”

“Dat's funny. Howda you know?”

“I read in a book.”

“Whatcha read—about duh fence?”

“About duh gaden, an' I can' climb over duh fence.”

Rolling it over in his mind, Shomake nodded. That much was reasonable; for if the fence were high, nobody would know whether there was a garden behind it or not. And written in a book, it could not be anything but true. Shomake thought of the garden;—flowers, surely, and who knew what else? Fairies, perhaps, and any number of other things equally fascinating. He knew the fence, a high wooden fence. If it came to getting over the fence, no doubt they would find a way.

“Maybe,” he considered, “dey won' led us in.”

“Maybe.”

“Is duh gaden empty?”

“Maybe.”

Then they went out in the street together, blinking like two owls in the strong sunshine. Then Ishky saw Marie and Ollie.

Marie stood near him; Ollie stood on the other side of the street. Marie just stood, staring at the gutter, but Ollie swaggered back and forth, never looking in Marie's direction. Her long hair curled down to her shoulders, and Ishky wondered what they could find in the garden, when here, outside, Marie was so beautiful.

“C'mon,” Shomake urged.

“Awright.”

But he stood looking at Marie—and he knew, without seeing, that Ollie had stopped swaggering, and was looking at him. And Marie knew that he was looking at her; she glanced up to meet his eyes.

How beautiful her eyes were, softly blue, and liquid as water. Why did he want the secret garden, if not for beauty? Then, briefly, Ishky knew what he was to know on and off for many years, that beauty is the truth of the world. He felt that he became bigger and bigger as he looked at her. Inside of him, the words came with a rush, soft words and beautiful ones. “Marie, you are my heart and my desire. You see, I know. You are the world and the skies, too. I could go and die for you, bravely.”

“Whaddya lookin' at?” she wanted to know.

“Nuttin'.”

“C'mon, Ishky,” Shomake said. “Ollie's comin'.”

“Leddim come.”

Ishky knew that he was doomed. But if that's the truth, why then it pays to die for the truth; and life was not much after all, just bickering and fighting. He thought, “I love you, Marie, I love you, I love you. Don't you know that I love you, how I love you?”

“Lookit yer ass!”

Ollie came across the street. Aching inside of himself, he didn't want to fight with Ishky any more than he did with Marie. But he couldn't fight with Marie. Male and female do not strike one another. And Ishky wouldn't fight—

“Leava alone, yuh dirdy sheeney,” Ollie yelled.

Ollie was taken off balance. Like a small dog gone mad, Ishky sprang at him, clawing and biting and spitting and kicking; and for a moment his tactics succeeded. Ollie went down with Ishky on top of him, and Ishky fastened his teeth in Ollie's small freckled nose.

“Wow—yuh dirdy Jew basted!”

Marie danced about in excitement. No matter who won, it was for her. All the fury and wonder of the battle surged into her little head. She had beauty, and that could turn the world over. Would anything else make Ishky fight with Ollie? Let them fight, let them fight!

Let the world go round—men must fight for women. “Aye—lookit dem!” she yelled to Shomake.

If his violin had been broken, would it have felt what he was feeling? First there was terror inside of him, and he whispered to himself, “Shomake, run, run.” But he stood still, and then the terror was replaced with hot fury. What right—what right had Ollie, curse him for a little mick bastard, to do what he was doing to his friend Ishky? He wanted to fight; why didn't he fight? He wanted to pile on top of Ollie; the two of them together could surely whip him. But he didn't. He simply stood there, watching it. And then he began to sob. And then he could stand there no longer, and he ran down the block, sobbing as if the devil himself were behind him.

Marie screamed, “Run, run yuh dirdy wop! Killim, Ishky!” But she saw that Ishky would be beaten as he never was beaten before.

W
HAT MADE
me fight with Ollie? Did I think I would win? but I knew that I wouldn't win, and I didn't mind him calling me a dirty sheeney. My God, if I minded thinks like that, I would be fighting with Ollie all the time, and what would be the use of that?

Now I am sitting on the roof, all bruised and hurt. This is what happened.

I bit Ollie on the nose. When you are fighting with a king, you resort to anything, but I didn't think of biting him until I found my teeth fastened over his nose. Then I found it was a good thing, so long as I didn't let go. No matter how much Ollie hurt me, I had only to bite harder to hurt him as much, or more. I didn't even feel his blows, or think of them very much. I only bit and bit, holding on to Ollie all the while. They were good tactics, while they lasted.

It ended like this. Something took me by the shoulder, heaving me up. As soon as I felt that, I knew that I had to let go, I knew that the battle was over for the time.

Ollie came at me like a raging maniac, but he stopped short, and both of us looked at the thing that was holding me.

She said in Yiddish, “Go and bury your head in muck, little infidel swine!”

My mother was a big woman, a mountain of a woman, and all over as red as a beet. And with her rage, the scarlet color always increased. Now she looked like a beet, and her shape was the shape of a beet, too. She shook me and shook me, until my brains rattled and my eyes popped, and I whimpered from the pain of her shaking me and the hurt of Ollie's blows.

Ollie crouched just short of her, eying her warily. He wasn't afraid—still, he wasn't prepared to do battle with a creature of her size.

“Go,” she screamed, “go, heathen, and find yourself a pile of manure!”

“Aw, go take a hot crap,” Ollie muttered.

“Go and consort with the devil, son of Edom,” she raged, all the while continuing to shake me. “Go, you with the mind and purpose of a fiend! Go from my sight!”

“Dirdy sheeney!”

“Names to call me—filth of the gentile!”

“G'wan, yuh fat louse!”

Lost entirely, she broke into English. “Vat you call me, doity rotter?”

“Yuh stinkin' Jew!”

Free for a moment, I noticed Marie. Marie stood there, absorbed, her hands on her knees. Her yellow hair was all thrown about her head and shoulders, and her mouth was wide with wonder. But even then, in the few seconds, I noticed how beautiful she was. What was the use? I loved Marie. Nothing mattered; nothing could change that. I loved her, and I would never stop loving her, and that was the way it would be until the end of time. Then I ran.

I ran into the hall of our house, and I climbed up to the roof. It was a long way, but I had to be safe; I had to be where my mother would never think of looking for me. Where else could I go but up to the roof? If she found me, she would beat me, beat me long and unmercifully. I had to be safe.

In the hall, it was dark, with just the faint flares of gas to light the way. But out on the roof it was all sunshine with the delicious smell of hot, steaming tar. I blinked, swayed from side to side. How quiet and peaceful it wash I sit down in a corner, liking the way the soft tar takes hold of my pants, and I lean back against the wall. I am tired and hurt and bleeding in some places; I have just been fighting, and I wonder whether life will ever be anything but battles and fear from one day to another. But it will. Some day I'll grow up, and in that other world, none of these things happen. Somehow, I know that.

As much as I hurt, I don't think about it too long. Have I said before that hurt passes easily? Well, it does. The hot sun bites into my face, and soon I have stopped whimpering. I even smile a little. It was funny in a way, Ollie and my mother screaming at each other.

Now—now you hurt, but soon it's over. When I grow up, I will have lots of money and marry Marie. (I love you, Marie.) Then she'll love me.

And I begin to think of ways I can make Marie love me. There must be any number of ways for someone as clever as I. Maybe I doze a little in the hot sun, it's so good and quiet up on the roof.

And Shomake?' And the magic garden? I have forgotten them entirely.

SIX

N
OW, HOW IS IT THAT I, ISHKY, HAD NEVER THOUGHT OF
this before? Was there something about that morning, that day—that my dreams should all vanish then?

You see, I am on the roof, basking in the sun, healing the hurts I have just gathered in my fight with Ollie. What a fight that was! But I heal quickly, and curling in the sun like a big cat, I am all pleasure and happiness. That's how it is with one, first battle and struggle, and the next moment ease and pleasure. Sometimes at night, with the gas turned very low, my mother sobs bitterly, rocking back and forth. “Oh, such a life,” she moans in Yiddish. “Oh, what a life for one to be thrust into! Why and what for? From the pains of labor to the dusk of death there is nothing but pain and horror. What for? What for?”