Crackpot, p.41
Crackpot, page 41
All right, so she couldn’t help what life did, but she could still stick by her own principles, couldn’t she? And she would, too, as long as she knew what her principles happened to be on any particular occasion. When it came to big Dick she knew all right what her principles were, Polack or Ukrainian or whatever he was, that much she knew, even though he personally maybe didn’t mean any harm, and even though no one else had ever proposed to her before and no one else would, probably, ever again. Still, she was so sure of her principles with him that she even lost her temper over it. Not that he wasn’t a nice enough guy, as guys went, as far as she knew him that is, and she knew one end of him pretty well, since he had been coming, as he himself reminded her, “long time.”
Long time or no, he sure didn’t know anything about what she was like if he thought he could come tromping in, through all the blood of all the Jews that all the Germans and Poles and Ukrainians and Rumanians and Hungarians and Lats and Lits and louts all over the world were spilling, and ask her, just like that, to marry him.
“What do you mean get married?” Coming, as it did, just prior to the consummation of a long-established ritual, Hoda, supine on her mattress, did not understand at first that she was finally receiving the proposal of marriage about which she had long since ceased to dream.
Kneeling in his socks beside her, not with any premeditated romantic intention, but because that was the point he happened to have reached before he could bring himself to express what was on his mind, the bashful Pole repeated his proposal. “We get married, I go war, you get allowance. After, we buy house, maybe; maybe you buy house,” he amended, with melancholy respect for fate.
“Married!” In spite of her feeling of outrage Hoda did not fail to notice that he wasn’t thinking sensibly of gaining a draft exemption, but, like the big dumb banana he was, only of that little bit of extra allowance that his wife would be warming while he was in the trenches. She didn’t like at all the idea of these nice healthy young boys and men going out into all that killing, and she couldn’t blame them even when they chose to be zombies. She certainly wasn’t one of those who refused to comfort the zombies who hesitated to sign on for overseas duty. And she could even understand those who panicked at the idea of the uniform altogether. At the same time she felt strongly that somebody had to fight this war; somebody had to stop the Hun and make him run, or we would all be lost utterly. It was just so complicated, a person didn’t know how to reconcile all her feelings. Perhaps that was why she was touched and exasperated by big Dick too, even at the same time as she was mad as hell.
“Is that what you’re going to fight for? So you can save enough money for a measly house? What are you, a mercenary or something? Is that all this war means to you?” she demanded truculently. “Is that why you want a wife?”
Big Dick explained as well as he knew how; “Is war. We marry. I go.”
“Is war you go. Is kill you go. Is slaughter Jews you go. This side, that side, whatever side you’re standing on, you go. Over there you’d be telling your whore of a wife to save your allowance while you go kill Jews and over here you think you can tell me to save your allowance too. It’s all one to you. Well let me tell you something, it’s not all one to me! What do you know about getting married? You think that just because we lie around here f-f-for crying out loud, that’s not married! First you have to be a human being, and some things you do and some you don’t do! And if you’re going to kill me off over there you’re sure as hell not going to marry me here!”
Dick could not quite make out what had sprung her ire. He knew that Hoda had sometimes rather a touchy temper, but they had always got on well, and he could not understand what he had said to start her yelling this way. “I don’t care you Jewish,” he assured her gallantly. “We like. I come many times.”
“You don’t care if I’m Jewish. You hear that? He doesn’t care I’m Jewish! What do I care if you care if I’m Jewish? I care, you hear? It’s whether I care that counts. Big favour he does me, he don’t care. Big deal we like each other. So what? So what’s that got to do with it? Like! Like! So you like, big thing, thank you very much! And what if I don’t give a damn if you like me or not? What if I don’t want to be your big favour, the one you like, your goody goody Jewgirl while you’re hating and killing all the others? And if not you,” Hoda swept aside his gesture of protest, “someone just like you. Don’t tell me no! If we were over there you’d be just like the rest, so if I can’t trust you there I’m not going to trust you here either, that’s for sure. Go marry him yet! Sure, marry him! No sirree mister, you can be sure of that! With me your relationship is going to be strictly platonic!” Hoda threw herself back on the mattress from which she had risen in the ardour of her rage, and flung her legs apart. Fiercely, she squinted upwards, her mouth set, silently daring him to reopen the subject.
Dashed, not having quite comprehended her hail of words, but understanding, as he could not fail to do, that he had been emphatically rebuffed, her lover, humbled, risked only a sigh as he prepared to settle for that part of her which was not rejecting him. How did a man get a woman to like him well enough? Nor was his perplexity eased when Hoda, once her fit of temper had passed, aware that acceptable or no, for better or worse, she had actually at last received a proposal of marriage, and no one could now take away from her this technical victory in the history of her life, took pains, in spite of her unreasonable feeling of disappointment, to be exceptionally kind to him. Not that she intended her subsequent kindness to be taken as encouragement for him to try again, no, certainly not, nor did he misinterpret it so, which just went to show that it was a good thing she had rejected him so summarily in the first place, since obviously he didn’t like her well enough to try again. Whether he ever found a woman to share his allowance and buy his house before he went over, as Mr. Polonick used to say, “to feed the cannon,” Hoda was never to know, but though he had meant little enough to her, she was not soon to forget him, nor easily to shake off a certain melancholy of remembrance, over the high cost of principles, perhaps, or perhaps simply over the fragility of romance.
Later on, though, she was glad that she hadn’t made the terrible mistake that so many other girls had made, of rushing off impetuously and getting married to some unsuitable stranger. She could have ruined her life entirely. Yes, she was glad afterwards that she had waited and done her bit and kept her nose clean. Oh sure, she had had to wait a good long time, but in the end it was worth it, wasn’t it? And there was plenty to do during those years of waiting. Nor did she stint of herself. Sometimes she was tired, or wasn’t feeling too well, and really would rather have rested a few hours. “This old war horse is going to need either a new mattress or a new spine soon,” she joked with the boys. And the boys swore, each time, that court martial or no, the next time, the very next time, they would dare the danger of getting shot at dawn to snitch her a new mattress from stores. Oh the ride she promised them then! But though the question was often joked about in barracks, and some of her regulars actually had some half-arsed intentions, somehow they never got quite drunk enough, and the liberation for active duty of Hoda’s top priority mattress remained among the uncommitted heroic actions of the war at home. Still she carried on, and no matter how tired or out of sorts, when her old buddy Limpy Letz sent along a message, for instance, that he had organized a little party, just a small stag with modest stakes and a little bit of booze, she never failed to reply that she was ready to help the boys relax, no matter what time the game broke up, win or lose. And win or lose, Limpy’s treat, she sweetened the end of the evening for them.
It was this initially loose arrangement with Limpy, as a matter of fact, that grew finally into a relationship which, by the end of the war, had entirely changed the focus of her career. When he expanded his premises by taking over the storefront which had operated as a cover for his backroom operation, Limpy at long last began to approximate, in a small way, the prosperity of which he and Hymie the lucky bastard, and Hoda too, had dreamed in those early years. But it was not because of sentiment or nostalgia that Hoda, before long, was securely installed as the sweetheart of Limpy’s delicatessen and kibitzarnia. She was useful. Her great girth bedizened in spangles, her hearty laugh booming out, she nightly strutted and shook, now and then executing a dance step to take someone’s mind off a bad hand, here and there patting a head encouragingly, queening it over the tables, setting the right tone for easy spending and demonstrating capabilities altogether more complex than those which she had hitherto had the opportunity to exercise in the course of her career. More and more Limpy grew to rely on her. Almost without realizing it at first, she began, less and less, to rely on the old means of earning her income. On mornings when there were no funerals to go to she still rolled out of bed pretty late, but afternoons now found her generally in the delicatessen, and if she happened to have stayed late at the cemetery on funeral days, though he thought she was nuts, it never worried Limpy, because he knew that on those days, when she did come in, she’d make it up to him by relieving him a little later on at the cash, or by serving at the tables or behind the counter, if necessary, when the girl wanted to get off early, or even, by getting down on her hands and knees and giving the place a good scrub down.
Often Hoda brought Daddy along, and Danile enjoyed himself, sitting and chatting to the old men who played chess in the back room during the afternoons, or else simply drinking tea and waiting in one of the rear booths till she came to join him when things were slack. Limpy didn’t mind having Danile around. “With your pa here I don’t need a little bell on the door up front,” he used to say in his wisecracking way. That was because Danile’s hearing was still so acute. When the street door opened Danile always raised his head hopefully and called out “hello,” just as he used to do when Hoda’s clients came to the house, and woe to them if they didn’t reply politely. Even now, in the delicatessen or the kibitzarnia, when somebody walked in and Daddy said “hello” in his bright way, and the person didn’t answer, if Hoda was around she would call out, “My father said hello.” She seldom had to repeat “My father said hello,” more than twice, before even the least friendly disposed stranger felt somehow compelled to grunt an “hello” in reply.
On the whole, however, in these days of the common cause and everyone all pulling together, there were few unfriendly people around the place, especially not with Hoda there to cheer everyone up. And she was pretty nearly always there. Sometimes she didn’t even go home for supper, but would fix a snack for herself and Daddy in the delicatessen, and carry right on getting things ready during the slack period after supper. But usually she’d take Daddy home and give him real food, and then return to work again later in the evening when things were already beginning to get going in the kibitzarnia. Originally she had presided only on weekend nights, but as business boomed, pretty soon she and Limpy were wrangling, in a good-natured way, about when she was going to have at least one night off in the week, because she didn’t want, not at first anyway, to give up her freelance business entirely. Eventually, however, it was Hoda who persuaded Limpy that it would pay them to keep those two young chippies on call on a commission basis, because her own time was really becoming more and more valuable at the management end.
Even the simple gestures of living seemed to flow more smoothly now that she had moved up into administration. True, everybody complained of rationing and of shortages, and Hoda complained patriotically, like everybody else, though most of the things that were short she was getting more of than she’d ever been able to afford in her whole life before, thanks to Limpy’s connections. She complained more out of sympathy than out of need, because it was good for morale to let people complain a bit, and even to complain with them, because you were all pulling together, until you remembered how little you really had to complain about, any of you, compared to those poor people overseas, and felt ashamed, and re-dedicated yourselves together to the greater cause. Complaining cleared all kinds of impurities out of your system and left you fresh, and all the better disposed to work your arse off in your particular branch of the war effort, especially if Limpy’s connections in the black market could dress you suitably for the job.
“That’s show biz,” as Hoda got into the habit of saying to the two young chippies when she reminisced with them and gave them pointers on how to get ahead in the entertainment world as she had done. She reasoned, not entirely inaccurately, that they could not help but be impressed. With the blessing of Limpy, who hoped thereby to counteract what he called her morbid streak, which threatened sometimes to spread out beyond those peculiar practices to which she had thus far kept it confined, she allowed herself to indulge a late-blossoming urge to elegance. Though new clothing materials were almost non-existent nowadays, she was nevertheless able to blaze forth in dresses which for sheer yardage and swoopage and colour once moved Limpy to leap from his chair and cry out as she swept, all adazzle, into the back room, “Gentlemen, here come the Northern Lights! All of them!” And the whole room burst into a spontaneous ovation, like fans did for movie stars or radio comedians or royalty. Hoda, good sport that she was, acknowledged their greetings with a deep flourishing curtsy, which set her bracelets and bangles a-tinkling, and brought Limpy hobbling hastily forward lest she should be unable to heave herself aright again, and all the stars of the northern lights come tumbling and crashing down right here in the otherwise dimlit room and hold up the game. But Hoda, for all her clumsy-looking weight, had remained agile, and the upward sweep of her right hand as she completed her elaborate respect caught Limpy a fair friendly chop in the kisser, and sent him staggering back to a fresh gust of applause from the assembled guests. That Hoda!
At first Limpy’s wife had complained when she heard he’d taken the notorious whore into the business. “All right,” he’d said. “I’ll kick her out. You don’t want my business to embarrass you in front of your friends, fair enough. So you want to come and be my hostess instead? Sure, come and we’ll put a bangle on your business and let you shake it for the boys so your business can embarrass me in front of my friends for a change. Come on, I’ll pay you just like I pay her. I told you, to run a classy game I need a hostess who knows the ropes. The money I bring home, that doesn’t embarrass you before your friends, does it? No, sure not! If you think you can bring the guys in and keep them coming like Hoda, you’re welcome any time you like to come and try.”
It was a genuine fact. That Hoda had the makings of a first-rate business woman. Too bad she was also a little nuts in the head, but that was all right. If you knew how, and Limpy had long years of experience, you could handle her. Mind you, you couldn’t tell her anything, not that one. Just you watch out, for instance, if she got the idea you were trying to interfere in her life! So you just had to let it go, whatever she did, just turn a blind eye, like her old man. If she wanted to come by the store early in the morning, sometimes two, three mornings a week, all soberly dressed, like a potato sack just rolled in off the farm, to tell him she might be a little late in to work that afternoon, all right, let her go, let her be late. Who knew what possessed her that she couldn’t let a funeral go by without running to take part? The same Hoda who would later on be laughing and kibitzing the night away, to get hold of her in the morning, first you had to find out who died lately, and where was the funeral being held. Like the time he’d lost his keys and couldn’t open up the business, so he chased all the way down to her place and she was gone already! Where to? Old Danile didn’t know, only that she’d be gone for a good couple of hours. In that case Limpy could take an educated guess. If she didn’t tell her old man, it was something unpleasant. When an old acquaintance or crony of Danile’s grew ill or died nowadays, Hoda tried to keep it from his as long as possible, answering with soothing evasions when Danile chanced to ask. Limpy thought she was being stupid to try to hide these things from the old man. In the first place he was bound to hear sometime. In the synagogue or at the grocery or wherever, people did mention the dead sometimes; they didn’t just disappear like stones in water, did they? And anyway, it was the facts of life. Sure, maybe it would upset him, because it happened so often to people he knew; he was an old guy already, naturally people he knew were dying off. But you couldn’t fool him it wasn’t happening, could you? At least if he knew, he knew. What does a guy feel like, especially an old blind guy like that, when people keep on disappearing, voices he knows just fade out, and no one wants to tell him what’s happening to them, only the world gets emptier and emptier of people he can name. What did Hoda think, he didn’t feel creepy about it sometimes? But go talk to Hoda, like talking to the wall, only with her you had to be careful. The wall could fall on you.
Sure enough, he’d been right in his guess about where she was that time. He had had to ride all the way out to hell and gone where the graveyard was, at the end of the streetcar line, and to drag his feet through the gumbo field, weaving between gravestones to try to get some protection against the miserable wind, sinking ankle-deep every step, with mud suck sucking under him, and finally there she was, turning damp, reproachful eyes on him because he was cursing at an internment. Not that anyone else could hear, but you get Hoda at a funeral and you’d think she was the rabbi’s other wife. Why the hell shouldn’t he curse blue? She didn’t even have the bloody key with her. Said she never brought her bag when she knew she’d be going to the eulogy in the synagogue; she just took her carfare and her handkerchiefs in her pocket. Her bag was at home, keys and all! That Hoda! She was irritated with him too yet, for taking her away from the funeral before it was time to throw her handful of earth. What a character!
Time was when she had danced at every wedding. Limpy could still remember those days. Now she followed the funerals. What gets into a person? It was true they didn’t have weddings nowadays like they used to have, but there had been no spectacular improvement in funerals as far as he could see, and for Limpy’s money, a second-class wedding was still better than a first-class funeral, even in these decadent days. But Hoda went her own way. Somehow, wherever and whenever a funeral was to be held, she got wind of it, and came and hung around in the yard, or sometimes even came right into the house and mingled with the other mourners, and marched with them after the coffin, and boldly asked from car to car for a lift out to the graveyard, and usually got one, eventually, from someone who still knew it was a sin to refuse.
