Authors: Bernard Malamud

Idiots First (9 page)

BOOK: Idiots First

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It was already early December, still late autumn rather than winter. A few leaves clung to a few trees and a warmish mist hung in the air. For a while Cesare talked of the political situation but after an espresso in a bar on the via Venti Settembre, as they were walking back he brought up the subject she had hoped to avoid. Cesare seemed suddenly to have lost his calm, unable to restrain what he had been planning to say. His voice was intense, his gestures impatient, his dark eyes restless. Although his outburst frightened her she could do nothing to prevent it.

“Signora,” he said, “wherever your husband is you're not helping him by putting this penance on yourself. To help him, the best thing you can do is take up your normal life. Otherwise he will continue to suffer doubly, once for something he was guilty of, and the second time for the unfair burden your denial of life imposes on him.”

“I am repenting my sins, not punishing him.” She was too disturbed to say more, considered walking home wordless, then slamming the front door in his face; but she heard herself hastily saying, “If we became intimate it would be like adultery. We would both be betraying the dead.”

“Why is it you see everything in reverse?”

Cesare had stopped under a tree and almost jumped as he spoke. “Theyâ
they
betrayed us. If you'll pardon me, Signora, the truth is my wife was a pig. Your husband was a pig. We mourn because we hate them. Let's have the dignity to face the facts.”

“No more,” she moaned, hastily walking on. “Don't say anything else, I don't want to hear it.”

“Etta,” said Cesare passionately, walking after her, “this
is my last word and then I'll nail my tongue to my jaw. Just remember this. If Our Lord Himself this minute let Armando rise from the dead to take up his life on earth, tonightâhe would be lying in his cousin's bed.”

She began to cry, Etta walked on, crying, realizing the truth of his remark. Cesare seemed to have said all he had wanted to, gently held her arm, breathing heavily as he escorted her back to her apartment. At the outer door, as she was trying to think how to get rid of him, how to end this, without waiting a minute he tipped his hat and walked off.

For more than a week Etta went through many torments. She felt a passionate desire to sleep with Cesare. Overnight her body became a torch. Her dreams were erotic. She saw Armando naked in bed with Laura, and in the same bed she saw herself with Cesare, clasping his small body to hers. But she resistedâprayed, confessed her most lustful thoughts, and stayed for hours at Armando's grave to calm her mind.

Cesare knocked at her door one night, and because she was repelled when he suggested the marriage bed, went with him to his rooms. Though she felt guilty afterwards she continued to visit Armando's grave, though less frequently, and she didn't tell Cesare that she had been to the cemetery when she went to his flat afterwards. Nor did he ask her, nor talk about his wife or Armando.

At first her uneasiness was intense. Etta felt as though she had committed adultery against the memory of her husband, but when she told herself over and overâthere was no husband, he was dead; there was no husband, she was alone; she began to believe it. There was no husband, there
was only his memory. She was not committing adultery. She was a lonely woman and had a lover, a widower, a gentle and affectionate man.

One night as they were lying in bed she asked Cesare about the possibility of marriage and he said that love was more important. They both knew how marriage destroyed love.

And when two months later, she found she was pregnant and hurried that morning to Cesare's rooms to tell him, the journalist, in his pajamas, calmed her. “Let's not regret human life.”

“It's your child,” said Etta.

“I'll acknowledge it as mine,” Cesare said, and Etta went home happy.

The next day, when she returned at her usual hour, after having told Armando at his grave that she was at last going to have a baby, Cesare was gone.

“Moved,” the landlady said, with a poof of her hand, and she didn't know where.

Though Etta's heart hurt and she deeply mourned the loss of Cesare, try as she would she could not, even with the life in her belly, escape thinking of herself as an adulteress, and she never returned to the cemetery to stand again at Armando's grave.

THE JEWBIRD

The window was open so the skinny bird flew in. Flappity-flap with its frazzled black wings. That's how it goes. It's open, you're in. Closed, you're out and that's your fate. The bird wearily flapped through the open kitchen window of Harry Cohen's top-floor apartment on First Avenue near the lower East River. On a rod on the wall hung an escaped canary cage, its door wide open, but this black-type longbeaked birdâits ruffled head and small dull eyes, crossed a little, making it look like a dissipated crowâlanded if not smack on Cohen's thick lamb chop, at least on the table, close by. The frozen foods salesman was sitting at supper with his wife and young son on a hot August evening
a year ago. Cohen, a heavy man with hairy chest and beefy shorts; Edie, in skinny yellow shorts and red halter; and their ten-year-old Morris (after her father)âMaurie, they called him, a nice kid though not overly brightâwere all in the city after two weeks out, because Cohen's mother was dying. They had been enjoying Kingston, New York, but drove back when Mama got sick in her flat in the Bronx.

“Right on the table,” said Cohen, putting down his beer glass and swatting at the bird. “Son of a bitch.”

“Harry, take care with your language,” Edie said, looking at Maurie, who watched every move.

The bird cawed hoarsely and with a flap of its bedraggled wingsâfeathers tufted this way and thatârose heavily to the top of the open kitchen door, where it perched staring down.

“Gevalt, a pogrom!”

“It's a talking bird,” said Edie in astonishment.

“In Jewish,” said Maurie.

“Wise guy,” mutttered Cohen. He gnawed on his chop, then put down the bone. “So if you can talk, say what's your business. What do you want here?”

“If you can't spare a lamb chop,” said the bird, “I'll settle for a piece of herring with a crust of bread. You can't live on your nerve forever.”

“This ain't a restaurant,” Cohen replied. “All I'm asking is what brings you to this address?”

“The window was open,” the bird sighed; adding after a moment, “I'm running. I'm flying but I'm also running.”

“From whom?” asked Edie with interest.

“Anti-Semeets.”

“Anti-Semites?” they all said.

“That's from who.”

“What kind of anti-Semites bother a bird?” Edie asked.

“Any kind,” said the bird, “also including eagles, vultures, and hawks. And once in a while some crows will take your eyes out.”

“But aren't you a crow?”

“Me? I'm a Jewbird.”

Cohen laughed heartily. “What do you mean by that?”

The bird began dovening. He prayed without Book or tallith, but with passion. Edie bowed her head though not Cohen. And Maurie rocked back and forth with the prayer, looking up with one wide-open eye.

When the prayer was done Cohen remarked, “No hat, no phylacteries?”

“I'm an old radical.”

“You're sure you're not some kind of a ghost or dybbuk?”

“Not a dybbuk,” answered the bird, “though one of my relatives had such an experience once. It's all over now, thanks God. They freed her from a former lover, a crazy jealous man. She's now the mother of two wonderful children.”

“Birds?” Cohen asked slyly.

“Why not?”

“What kind of birds?”

“Like me. Jewbirds.”

Cohen tipped back in his chair and guffawed. “That's a big laugh. I've heard of a Jewfish but not a Jewbird.”

“We're once removed.” The bird rested on one skinny leg, then on the other. “Please, could you spare maybe a piece of herring with a small crust of bread?”

Edie got up from the table.

“What are you doing?” Cohen asked her.

“I'll clear the dishes.”

Cohen turned to the bird. “So what's your name, if you don't mind saying?”

“Call me Schwartz.”

“He might be an old Jew changed into a bird by somebody,” said Edie, removing a plate.

“Are you?” asked Harry, lighting a cigar.

“Who knows?” answered Schwartz. “Does God tell us everything?”

Maurie got up on his chair. “What kind of herring?” he asked the bird in excitement.

“Get down, Maurie, or you'll fall,” ordered Cohen.

“If you haven't got matjes, I'll take schmaltz,” said Schwartz.

“All we have is marinated, with slices of onionâin a jar,” said Edie.

“If you'll open for me the jar I'll eat marinated. Do you have also, if you don't mind, a piece of rye breadâthe spitz?”

Edie thought she had.

“Feed him out on the balcony,” Cohen said. He spoke to the bird. “After that take off.”

Schwartz closed both bird eyes. “I'm tired and it's a long way.”

“Which direction are you headed, north or south?”

Schwartz, barely lifting his wings, shrugged.

“You don't know where you're going?”

“Where there's charity I'll go.”

“Let him stay, papa,” said Maurie. “He's only a bird.”

“So stay the night,” Cohen said, “but no longer.”

In the morning Cohen ordered the bird out of the house but Maurie cried, so Schwartz stayed for a while. Maurie was still on vacation from school and his friends were away. He was lonely and Edie enjoyed the fun he had, playing with the bird.

“He's no trouble at all,” she told Cohen, “and besides his appetite is very small.”

“What'll you do when he makes dirty?”

“He flies across the street in a tree when he makes dirty, and if nobody passes below, who notices?”

“So all right,” said Cohen, “but I'm dead set against it. I warn you he ain't gonna stay here long.”

“What have you got against the poor bird?”

“Poor bird, my ass. He's a foxy bastard. He thinks he's a Jew.”

“What difference does it make what he thinks?”

“A Jewbird, what a chuzpah. One false move and he's out on his drumsticks.”

At Cohen's insistence Schwartz lived out on the balcony in a new wooden birdhouse Edie had bought him.

“With many thanks,” said Schwartz, “though I would rather have a human roof over my head. You know how it is at my age. I like the warm, the windows, the smell of cooking. I would also be glad to see once in a while the
Jewish Morning Journal
and have now and then a schnapps because it helps my breathing, thanks God. But whatever you give me, you won't hear complaints.”

However, when Cohen brought home a bird feeder full of dried corn, Schwartz said, “Impossible.”

Cohen was annoyed. “What's the matter, crosseyes, is
your life getting too good for you? Are you forgetting what it means to be migratory? I'll bet a helluva lot of crows you happen to be acquainted with, Jews or otherwise, would give their eyeteeth to eat this corn.”

Schwartz did not answer. What can you say to a grubber yung?

“Not for my digestion,” he later explained to Edie. “Cramps. Herring is better even if it makes you thirsty. At least rainwater don't cost anything.” He laughed sadly in breathy caws.

And herring, thanks to Edie, who knew where to shop, was what Schwartz got, with an occasional piece of potato pancake, and even a bit of soupmeat when Cohen wasn't looking.

When school began in September, before Cohen would once again suggest giving the bird the boot, Edie prevailed on him to wait a little while until Maurie adjusted.

“To deprive him right now might hurt his school work, and you know what trouble we had last year.”

“So okay, but sooner or later the bird goes. That I promise you.”

Schwartz, though nobody had asked him, took on full responsibility for Maurie's performance in school. In return for favors granted, when he was let in for an hour or two at night, he spent most of his time overseeing the boy's lessons. He sat on top of the dresser near Maurie's desk as he laboriously wrote out his homework. Maurie was a restless type and Schwartz gently kept him to his studies. He also listened to him practice his screechy violin, taking a few minutes off now and then to rest his ears in the bathroom. And they afterwards played dominoes. The boy was an indifferent
checker player and it was impossible to teach him chess. When he was sick, Schwartz read him comic books though he personally disliked them. But Maurie's work improved in school and even his violin teacher admitted his playing was better. Edie gave Schwartz credit for these improvements though the bird pooh-poohed them.

Yet he was proud there was nothing lower then C minuses on Maurie's report card, and on Edie's insistence celebrated with a little schnapps.

“If he keeps up like this,” Cohen said, “I'll get him in an Ivy League college for sure.”

“Oh I hope so,” sighed Edie.

But Schwartz shook his head. “He's a good boyâyou don't have to worry. He won't be a shicker or a wifebeater, God forbid, but a scholar he'll never be, if you know what I mean, although maybe a good mechanic. It's no disgrace in these times.”

“If I were you,” Cohen said, angered, “I'd keep my big snoot out of other people's private business.”

“Harry, please,” said Edie.

“My goddamn patience is wearing out. That crosseyes butts into everything.”

Though he wasn't exactly a welcome guest in the house, Schwartz gained a few ounces although he did not improve in appearance. He looked bedraggled as ever, his feathers unkempt, as though he had just flown out of a snowstorm. He spent, he admitted, little time taking care of himself. Too much to think about. “Also outside plumbing,” he told Edie. Still there was more glow to his eyes so that though Cohen went on calling him crosseyes he said it less emphatically.

Liking his situation, Schwartz tried tactfully to stay out of Cohen's way, but one night when Edie was at the movies and Maurie was taking a hot shower, the frozen foods salesman began a quarrel with the bird.

“For Christ sake, why don't you wash yourself sometimes? Why must you always stink like a dead fish?”

“Mr. Cohen, if you'll pardon me, if somebody eats garlic he will smell from garlic. I eat herring three times a day. Feed me flowers and I will smell like flowers.”

“Who's obligated to feed you anything at all? You're lucky to get herring.”

“Excuse me, I'm not complaining,” said the bird. “You're complaining.”

“What's more,” said Cohen, “even from out on the balcony I can hear you snoring away like a pig. It keeps me awake at night.”

“Snoring,” said Schwartz, “isn't a crime, thanks God.”

“All in all you are a goddamn pest and free loader. Next thing you'll want to sleep in bed next to my wife.”

“Mr. Cohen,” said Schwartz, “on this rest assured. A bird is a bird.”

“So you say, but how do I know you're a bird and not some kind of a goddamn devil?”

“If I was a devil you would know already. And I don't mean because your son's good marks.”

“Shut up, you bastard bird,” shouted Cohen.

“Grubber yung,” cawed Schwartz, rising to the tips of his talons, his long wings outstretched.

Cohen was about to lunge for the bird's scrawny neck but Maurie came out of the bathroom, and for the rest of
the evening until Schwartz's bedtime on the balcony, there was pretended peace.

But the quarrel had deeply disturbed Schwartz and he slept badly. His snoring woke him, and awake, he was fearful of what would become of him. Wanting to stay out of Cohen's way, he kept to the birdhouse as much as possible. Cramped by it, he paced back and forth on the balcony ledge, or sat on the birdhouse roof, staring into space. In the evenings, while overseeing Maurie's lessons, he often fell asleep. Awakening, he nervously hopped around exploring the four corners of the room. He spent much time in Maurie's closet, and carefully examined his bureau drawers when they were left open. And once when he found a large paper bag on the floor, Schwartz poked his way into it to investigate what possibilities were. The boy was amused to see the bird in the paper bag.

“He wants to build a nest,” he said to his mother.

Edie, sensing Schwartz's unhappiness, spoke to him quietly.

“Maybe if you did some of the things my husband wants you, you would get along better with him.”

BOOK: Idiots First

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