…” Mrs. Shapiro tried to make my mother understand that she didn’t expect it now, not for another week …
“We won’t have any more next Sunday than we have today. And we have eighty-five cents in the house right now, Mrs. Shapiro!” My mother stood up, went over to Mrs. Shapiro, where she was kneeling on the floor. Before my mother could touch her, Mrs. Shapiro keeled over onto the floor, hitting it heavily, like a packed handbag that’s been dropped.
It took us ten minutes to pull her out of her faint. My mother gave her tea, which she drank silently. She didn’t seem to recognize us as she drank her tea and made ready to go off. She told us that this was the fifth time in two months that she had fainted like that. She seemed ashamed of herself, somehow. My mother gave her the address of a doctor who would wait for his money and Mrs. Shapiro went out, her fat, shabby stockings shaking as she went down the steps. My mother and I watched her as she shambled down the street and disappeared around the corner, but my father went into the kitchen and the New York Times .
She was back the next Sunday and two Sundays after that, ringing the bell, but we didn’t open the door. She rang for almost a half-hour each time, but we all sat quietly in the kitchen, waiting for her to go away.
Sailor off the Bremen
T hey sat in the small white kitchen, Ernest and Charley and Preminger and Dr. Stryker, all bunched around the porcelain-topped table, so that the kitchen seemed to be overflowing with men. Sally stood at the stove turning griddle-cakes over thoughtfully, listening intently to what Preminger was saying.
“So,” Preminger said, carefully working his knife and fork, “everything was excellent. The comrades arrived, dressed like ladies and gentlemen at the opera, in evening gowns and what do you call them?”
“Tuxedoes,” Charley said. “Black ties.”
“Tuxedoes,” Preminger nodded, speaking with his precise educated German accent. “Very handsome people, mixing with all the other handsome people who came to say good-bye to their friends on the boat; everybody very gay, everybody with a little whisky on the breath; nobody would suspect they were Party members, they were so clean and upper class.” He laughed lightly at his own joke. He looked like a young boy from a nice Middle Western college, with crew-cut hair and a straight nose and blue eyes and an easy laugh. His laugh was a little high and short, and he talked fast, as though he wanted to get a great many words out to beat a certain deadline, but otherwise, being a Communist in Germany and a deck officer on the Bremen hadn’t made any obvious changes in him. “It is a wonderful thing,” he said, “how many pretty girls there are in the Party in the United States. Wonderful!”
They all laughed, even Ernest, who put his hand up to cover the empty spaces in the front row of his teeth every time he smiled. His hand covered his mouth and the fingers cupped around the neat black patch over his eye, and he smiled secretly and swiftly behind that concealment, getting his merriment over with swiftly, so he could take his hand down and compose his face into its usual unmoved, distant expression, cultivated from the time he got out of the hospital. Sally watched him from the stove, knowing each step: the grudging smile, the hand, the consciousness and memory of deformity, the wrench to composure, the lie of peace when he took his hand down.
She shook her head, dumped three brown cakes onto a plate.
“Here,” she said, putting them before Preminger. “Better than Childs restaurant.”
“Wonderful,” Preminger said, dousing them with syrup. “Each time I come to America I feast on these. There is nothing like it in the whole continent of Europe.”
“All right,” Charley said, leaning out across the kitchen table, practically covering it, because he was so big, “finish the story.”
“So I gave the signal,” Preminger said, waving his
“We won’t have any more next Sunday than we have today. And we have eighty-five cents in the house right now, Mrs. Shapiro!” My mother stood up, went over to Mrs. Shapiro, where she was kneeling on the floor. Before my mother could touch her, Mrs. Shapiro keeled over onto the floor, hitting it heavily, like a packed handbag that’s been dropped.
It took us ten minutes to pull her out of her faint. My mother gave her tea, which she drank silently. She didn’t seem to recognize us as she drank her tea and made ready to go off. She told us that this was the fifth time in two months that she had fainted like that. She seemed ashamed of herself, somehow. My mother gave her the address of a doctor who would wait for his money and Mrs. Shapiro went out, her fat, shabby stockings shaking as she went down the steps. My mother and I watched her as she shambled down the street and disappeared around the corner, but my father went into the kitchen and the New York Times .
She was back the next Sunday and two Sundays after that, ringing the bell, but we didn’t open the door. She rang for almost a half-hour each time, but we all sat quietly in the kitchen, waiting for her to go away.
Sailor off the Bremen
T hey sat in the small white kitchen, Ernest and Charley and Preminger and Dr. Stryker, all bunched around the porcelain-topped table, so that the kitchen seemed to be overflowing with men. Sally stood at the stove turning griddle-cakes over thoughtfully, listening intently to what Preminger was saying.
“So,” Preminger said, carefully working his knife and fork, “everything was excellent. The comrades arrived, dressed like ladies and gentlemen at the opera, in evening gowns and what do you call them?”
“Tuxedoes,” Charley said. “Black ties.”
“Tuxedoes,” Preminger nodded, speaking with his precise educated German accent. “Very handsome people, mixing with all the other handsome people who came to say good-bye to their friends on the boat; everybody very gay, everybody with a little whisky on the breath; nobody would suspect they were Party members, they were so clean and upper class.” He laughed lightly at his own joke. He looked like a young boy from a nice Middle Western college, with crew-cut hair and a straight nose and blue eyes and an easy laugh. His laugh was a little high and short, and he talked fast, as though he wanted to get a great many words out to beat a certain deadline, but otherwise, being a Communist in Germany and a deck officer on the Bremen hadn’t made any obvious changes in him. “It is a wonderful thing,” he said, “how many pretty girls there are in the Party in the United States. Wonderful!”
They all laughed, even Ernest, who put his hand up to cover the empty spaces in the front row of his teeth every time he smiled. His hand covered his mouth and the fingers cupped around the neat black patch over his eye, and he smiled secretly and swiftly behind that concealment, getting his merriment over with swiftly, so he could take his hand down and compose his face into its usual unmoved, distant expression, cultivated from the time he got out of the hospital. Sally watched him from the stove, knowing each step: the grudging smile, the hand, the consciousness and memory of deformity, the wrench to composure, the lie of peace when he took his hand down.
She shook her head, dumped three brown cakes onto a plate.
“Here,” she said, putting them before Preminger. “Better than Childs restaurant.”
“Wonderful,” Preminger said, dousing them with syrup. “Each time I come to America I feast on these. There is nothing like it in the whole continent of Europe.”
“All right,” Charley said, leaning out across the kitchen table, practically covering it, because he was so big, “finish the story.”
“So I gave the signal,” Preminger said, waving his
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