Crackpot, page 8
Uncle didn’t laugh right in Danile’s face; it would have surprised Rahel to discover that he was not quite so coarse as that; but, as he told his wife, he almost did. “It’s good to be blind, I can see!” said Uncle. “He actually thinks that couple of dollars of his is enough to pay the expenses! He says she was saving it for her operation. A tooth she could get pulled, maybe, by a butcher-dentist, for that coupla bucks.”
“Did you take the money?” asked his wife who had little sense of humour, which was one of the many things he disliked about her, though what he disliked most was the fact that she had accepted him when three more attractive girls had turned him down, and proved thereby that she had a far shrewder business sense not only than those three others, but than he had himself. If he had had more sense he would have waited till he could afford one of the others. Well, at least she had appreciated his worth. And about money, anyway, you could talk to her, though she always wanted to know too much.
“What do I need his pennies for?” he snarled. “I told him to keep them. He’ll need them. He’s my nephew, after all. His mother saved to send me here, before she married that rag-and-paper tailor scholar of hers; a fine, strong woman like her has to go meddling with the Torah and Talmud types to bring cripples into the world.” Uncle had actually been rather proud of his sister for marrying a learned man, until the scholarly Benyamin first gave hint of some basic inadequacy by dying young and leaving Malka a widow with a son to raise. But it was not until he’d had the shock of meeting Danile that Uncle realized what thinning of the blood by coupling with a word-niggler can do.
His wife knew better than to argue when he began to rant about in one of his moods. “You know best,” she said, with enough lack of conviction to infuriate him.
“That’s right!” he stormed. “I know best! Who else knows best? Somebody else around here knows best, maybe?”
She was silent.
“About my headaches I know best,” he muttered gloomily.
“I wish my children had eaten as well,” she remarked tangentially, applying the needle with skill. “We were too poor to provide banquets for them all day long.”
But Uncle was not in the mood to be pushed. If he allowed her to antagonize him he might do something to spite her that would be against his best interests. “Listen here, you,” he said, “you open your yip once more and try to tell me that I haven’t been a good provider, plenty, over your head when others didn’t even have the taste of saliva in their mouths, and I’ll hand you a reminder you won’t forget. Are you trying to call me a poor man because all your life you’d rather feed the bank than your own kids? You think I don’t know you? You and your whole damn skinny stingy family. Just let me hear you open your mouth once more about my family, go ahead, and I’ll put such a rose in it you won’t be able to chew around the thorns for a week!” Uncle was not really a physically brutal man; he didn’t have to be; he had discovered long ago that all he had to do was threaten, and she would retreat with gratifying haste. He enjoyed threatening, was rather vain about his skillful turn of phrase as a threat maker. That shut her up good! What he never realized was that once she had pushed him to the point where he was making threats, she felt no need to continue, for she knew she had planted the right feelings to counteract any foolish impulse of his that might incline him to make a generous or otherwise unbusinesslike gesture. Some prickly plants grow best on very little water, and she knew that she didn’t have to, even had she dared, remind her Nate too often that she had advised him against bringing over his nephew and his family in the first place. Nate was not a man you had to remind of his mistakes. Just put him in the right mood and he would remind himself how he had been taken advantage of all his life. And it was not hard to put him in the right mood. She knew her husband. Oh yes, as she often told herself, I know my woes.
Uncle’s problem now was pressing but really very simple. Some money would have to be spent; he was reconciled to that. The question was how to get the most out of that money. His wife maybe thought he was a damn fool, even after all these years of watching him perform his magic trick of sacking grain and ransacking gold. No, you couldn’t talk to a woman like her after all. She didn’t understand that there are other kinds of profits a man can look for in the community, once he has his dollar in his pocket. Uncle Nate was a man who measured his own felicity by what he imagined happened to be the state of mind of the great segment of the community whom he felt were his enemies. For his enemies to know that he could match anyone dollar for dollar, that was sweet; whatever else they said about him, he knew they had respect. But he was capable of a bolder ambition that promised even sweeter rewards. What would the world think of a man who could buy songs of praise for himself on earth and in heaven by giving more money away than his enemies could afford?
If Uncle had a dream that was still precious to him it was to reach that point of security in his wealth someday, when he would be sitting at a banquet in the company of the wealthiest men in the community. It would be a big welfare drive say, or maybe a building drive for a new synagogue, like the one they had a couple of years ago, that had raised from the crumbs and spots on the tablecloths enough money to buy and to renovate the big old house that was now the only Jewish orphanage for nearly a thousand miles in any direction. Speeches would be made by all the recognized leaders, all the big talkers, some of whom could hardly jingle two pennies together in their pockets. He himself was no big talker. He’d sit quietly. Then the pledges would begin. The chairman would read off a few prior pledges to start things off, a lot of little fives and tens from people who couldn’t even afford to come to the dinner, and then a twenty-five or two, and then the real giving would begin. So-and-so pledges fifty, so-and-so a hundred, so-and-so two hundred and fifty and he’s sorry he can’t be here to take part. Well, so are we, so let’s give him and his missis a big hand so they should hear us all the way to Philadelphia where they’re probably playing with their brand new grandson now. Applause would break out in tribute to the absent beautiful ones, their generosity and the new proof of the continued vitality of their line. Everyone would be in a good mood now for the pledging from the floor. Someone would call out a pledge from one of the tables and would promptly be matched by someone else across the hall. Yet a third voice would match the pledge and alert the company to the fact that the business behind the voice was doing better than had previously been imagined.
Now a new number would vault, inspired, across the tables. “Three hundred!” the chairman would repeat admiringly, while a ripple of appreciation would run through the hall. “A pledge from Mr. Jerry Loshn over there for three hundred dollars!”
“That’s mamma-loshn!” a wit would quip, and Jerry Loshn would sit back, grinning modestly, with one hand held up as though to brush aside praise as the assembled company applauded and those lucky enough to share the table with him all grinned at him and shared the warmth, and everyone agreed, except maybe one or two of the speechmakers with golden mouths but nothing but wind in their pockets, that that certainly was mother-tongue talking.
Then the pledging would be taken up in earnest, while the beautiful few for whom the whole hall waited one by one paid for a brief moment of glory on earth and improved their accounts with the everlasting above. After Jerry Loshn, all the men who could show that they were as rich and generous as he would make their pledges, each after his own fashion. Some, like the aforesaid Jerry, would call out their pledges, either boldly, with the gesture of a poker player flinging down a golden hand, and eyes flashing challenges to those about them, or casually, as casual as it is possible to be while yet making yourself heard in a large roomful of excited people. Some would call loudly, under the pressure of an impulse still struggling to free itself from a counter-impulse to shut up and think it over. Some, more restrained, would pass up their bids by way of mouth-to-mouth whispers all the way to the chair. This was a generous, gratifying method, by which the giver was able to share the sweet words with a dozen pairs of lips eager to have the joy of being able to repeat a pledge which their owners would never be asked to make good. It was a method, however, which had lost some of its charm since the time when, either through an accidental mishearing, or through waggish malice on the part of someone in the chain of whisperers, a pledge which had left its owner’s lips as five hundred dollars, surely a generous enough amount, reached the chairman and was carolled forth in an ecstasy of gratitude as fifteen hundred dollars, the shock of hearing which, it was rumoured, had brought on the next day the first of a series of heart attacks which had seriously undermined the health of the donor, who could not, nevertheless, renege on a public pledge on the flimsy grounds of having been misheard.
Some of the older wealthy, who considered themselves the apostles of good breeding and manners in the community, disdained to call out their pledges or pass them by word of mouth at all, but sent them up instead, in modestly folded little notes, and one or two, with tantalizing insolence, did not even deign to identify themselves publicly, writing down simply that one or three or even four thousand was pledged by a friend. Auntie Gusia pointedly doubted the good intentions of these anonymous donors, but Uncle Nate knew that the pledges would be made good, that those who counted knew who had made them, as indeed, by a rapid process of elimination, anyone could guess.
It was as the last and largest of these donors that Uncle Nate dreamed that he would one day stand. Even as he shouted out, in the early stages of the pledging, his fifty-dollar promise, carried away by the excitement of it all to the point where he could ignore his wife’s continuous complaint about them charging twenty dollars a plate and expecting more donations yet; even as he allowed himself to make this premature pledge in order to forestall, as his wife knew very well, any later impulse to pledge some really preposterous sum, he dreamed that someday he would bring himself to wait, to wait past the hundreds and the five hundreds, to gasp but not cry out among the early thousands, to wait without fear or regret for the cries of admiration that would follow those last two anonymous notes, to wait, even, until the wealthiest of the wealthy, man and wife, made their preeminent way past the chairman and paused briefly, riveted by every eye in the room, to whisper, as though in afterthought, a few words which would electrify the hall as the chairman repeated them incredulously after their casually retreating backs. Then, at this signal that the banquet was over, in the brief instant before the backs of the most superior had quite disappeared through the door, Nate would make his move, big Nate with the warty hands and neck which had long ago been treated surgically though the memory still remained with those who had known him in his youth. Then Nate would indeed make his pledge, and a new head would be crowned in the community. Someday, someday. And he wouldn’t shout it out either, if he could help it, though he loved the idea of his voice bellowing out a hair-raising sum. No, he’d do it the dignified way, on a slip of paper to pass up, or maybe he’d come pounding past the tables before the big breaking-up, to climax the climax. Someday, someday, his time would come.
Meanwhile it would not hurt for him to begin to be known about the town as a benefactor of causes to which he had hitherto paid only token attention. “Never mind;” Uncle remarked kindly to his wife, mollified by the rehearsal of his dream; “you’ll find your old man’s not such a fool in the long run after all.”
His wife knew better than to press him for explanations at this point. And it was a good thing, perhaps, for her peace of mind, for it might have troubled her to hear that her husband was planning to become a philanthropist, and she might have earned herself some stormy scenes by warning him in advance that he would get no thanks.
Nor did Nate find it necessary to clarify his remark any further. Once he had formulated a scheme of action it was not his habit to make unnecessary consultations. Only, in fact, when he was not completely sure of his way did he take the trouble to test it by initiating one of those discussions with his wife which he found so infuriating but which, though he was incapable of admitting or perhaps even realizing it, helped him to make up his mind. It would have occurred to him even less, in this instance, since he felt the responsibility was completely his own, to consult those most nearly concerned with his plans.
While Uncle waited, or whatever it was he was doing which prevented him from coming, Hoda waited too, with active impatience. She had listened to the speculations and assertions of the old people during the mourning period, and knew that Uncle should come to their assistance soon. Every day when she came home from school she asked her father, first thing, “Did Uncle come? Was Uncle here?” She hesitated to elaborate her query because she remembered that her mother had never even wanted to think of help from that source. Nevertheless Uncle ought to help them. Everybody said so. He could afford it. When she grew up she would pay him back, every cent, so it would be only a loan anyway.
She spent much time privately guessing how much money he would bring, what the bag would look like that he would bring it in, and where she would hide it in the house so no one would be able to find it and steal it away from them. He would no doubt bring it in a bag because that’s why rich people were called moneybags, unless he brought it in a pot, because Miss Flake said that some people had pots of money. But pots were something like in the fairy stories, that she used to read when she was a kid, that you found in caves and were filled with gold and jewels. Her expectations from Uncle were somehow more modest. Bags were more of a natural graduation from where the money she knew came from, tied in the corners of handkerchiefs. And anyway, she’d heard the old women say that he had “sacks” of money, which were more like bags, really. The sacks came from him being a grain merchant, and exchanging grain for money, a transaction which the old people viewed, on the whole, with mistrust, as it was too successful to be honest.
But Miss Flake knew better about things like that. That was another reason why Hoda was anxious to see Uncle again. She hadn’t known before how important he was, until Miss Flake explained about the grain exchange, how it was one of those key institutions, like the stock market, which kept our country alive. Miss Flake had drawn a seed of grain on the board and spent a whole lesson explaining that the economy of our country was firmly balanced on this sand of grain. On such sands of grain our country stood tall and firm like a prairie elevator, and fought bravely in the world overseas. The children couldn’t help but be moved when Miss Flake uttered beautiful phrases through her earnest teeth and every now and then flashed her radiant, luminous smile at the class, which made them all feel like standing tall and proud like prairie elevators. Miss Flake had a gift for the hectic metaphor, and when she was really moved to throw herself into her teaching, so the children would never forget what she had to say, she used it extravagantly. It was this very gift for passionately conceived and stirringly delivered litters of metaphor which fascinated the children and helped to earn her the reputation of being one of the best teachers in the school.
No wonder, then, that Miss Flake’s lesson on the grain exchange was a revelation to Hoda. She was surprised that no one had given her to understand the significance of Uncle’s profession before. She had not known that being a grain man meant being in the grain exchange and so important, and she surged to her feet eagerly in class to testify that her uncle, her daddy’s very own Uncle Nathan, who had come to her house every day during the mourning, was himself one of those same men who kept our country alive, and for a moment she felt as though she had restored some of her family’s lustre, which she feared had been somewhat dimmed in her teacher’s eyes of late.
Not that Miss Flake hadn’t been nice to her when her mother died like that. She had really been very nice and kind. She had even, once, put an arm around her and rubbed her bristles against Hoda’s forehead, and Hoda would have liked to respond with a distinguished display of grief, but all she could feel was a momentary gratitude, and an itch in her forehead which she couldn’t twitch for fear of offending her teacher, so she sucked her lip instead, and Miss Flake gave her another squeeze around the shoulders and said tenderly, “That’s it! Stiff upper lip!” And she could see the other kids were looking at her in a particular way when she went to her seat, and they really were nice to her and talked in special soft voices to her all during recess.
If they only knew! Well, they ought to know. They were nice to her now. Maybe they would be nice from now on. But if they really knew they would never be mean to her, ever again. And Hoda began to wonder whether she shouldn’t perhaps tell Miss Flake and the rest of the class how much more there was to it than they could possibly imagine. She would have liked to let them know somehow, especially now, since the Russian people had let the team down and Russia was doing so badly in the world picture. The Russian army had turned against our noble ally, the Czar, and was even trying to desert the family alliance against the vile Kaiser. Hoda had never been so confused in her whole political career. Not that Miss Flake had ever said anything to indicate that she blamed Hoda or her family in any way, but Hoda felt that her stock had fallen, somehow, by implication. One part of her was not really very surprised, however, because in one part of her she had known all along how people felt about the Czar. Her mother had always said he was no good, and even her father, while he was inclined to agree that the Czar’s family feeling in his relationship to his cousins the King and Kaiser might be unexceptionable, felt nonetheless that when it came to Jews and ordinary people the Czar somehow did not have the right attitude. But then, of course, he was surrounded by all sorts of evil advisers and you really never could tell how much he even knew of what was going on. But now he was gone altogether, and nobody knew where he was or the princes or anybody, and Miss Flake prayed for them and talked bitterly of going it alone without the Russians, and Hoda was no longer at all sure of her own position in the world of Miss Flake’s values.
