The Assistant by Bernard Malamud Page A

him.
    â€œHow’s that for fit?”
    Ida flushed, and Morris ordered him to take it off and put it back on the hook.
    â€œNo bad feelings, I hope,” Frank said on his way out.
    Â 
    Helen Bober and Louis Karp walked, no hands touching, in the windy dark on the Coney Island boardwalk.
    Louis had, on his way home for supper that evening, stopped her in front of the liquor store, on her way in from work.
    â€œHow’s about a ride in the Mercury, Helen? I never see you much anymore. Things were better in the bygone days in high school.”
    Helen smiled. “Honestly, Louis, that’s so far away.” A sense of mourning at once oppressed her, which she fought to a practiced draw.
    â€œNear or far, it’s all the same for me.” He was built with broad back and narrow head, and despite prominent eyes was presentable. In high school, before he quit, he had worn his wet hair slicked straight back. One day, after studying a picture of a movie actor in the Daily News, he had run a part across his head. This was as much change as she had known in him. If Nat Pearl was ambitious, Louis made a relaxed living letting the fruit of his father’s investment fall into his lap.
    â€œAnyway,” he said, “why not a ride for old-times’ sake?”
    She thought a minute, a gloved finger pressed into her cheek; but it was a fake gesture because she was lonely.
    â€œFor old-times’ sake, where?”
    â€œName your scenery—continuous performance.”

    â€œThe Island?”
    He raised his coat collar. “Brr, it’s a cold, windy night You wanna freeze?”
    Seeing her hesitation, he said, “But I’ll die game. When’ll I pick you up?”
    â€œRing my bell after eight and I’ll come down.”
    â€œCheck,” Louis said. “Eight bells.”
    They walked to Seagate, where the boardwalk ended. She gazed with envy through a wire fence at the large lit houses fronting the ocean. The Island was deserted, except here and there an open hamburger joint or pinball machine concession. Gone from the sky was the umbrella of rosy light that glowed over the place in summertime. A few cold stars gleamed down. In the distance a dark Ferris wheel looked like a stopped clock. They stood at the rail of the boardwalk, watching the black, restless sea.
    All during their walk she had been thinking about her life, the difference between her aloneness now and the fun when she was young and spending every day of summer in a lively crowd of kids on the beach. But as her high school friends had got married, she had one by one given them up; and as others of them graduated from college, envious, ashamed of how little she was accomplishing, she stopped seeing them too. At first it hurt to drop people but after a time it became a not too difficult habit. Now she saw almost no one, occasionally Betty Pearl, who understood, but not enough to make much difference.
    Louis, his face reddened by the wind, sensed her mood.
    â€œWhat’s got in you, Helen?” he said, putting his arm around her.
    â€œI can’t really explain it. All night I’ve been thinking of the swell times we had on this beach when we were kids. And do you remember the parties? I suppose I’m blue that I’m no longer seventeen.”
    â€œWhat’s so wrong about twenty-three?”
    â€œIt’s old, Louis. Our lives change so quickly. You know what youth means?”

    â€œSure I know. You don’t catch me giving away nothing for nothing. I got my youth yet.”
    â€œWhen a person is young he’s privileged,” Helen said, “with all kinds of possibilities. Wonderful things might happen, and when you get up in the morning you feel they will. That’s what youth means, and that’s what I’ve lost. Nowadays I feel that every day is like the day before, and what’s worse, like the day after.”
    â€œSo now you’re a