Gaslight Sonatas Part 49

"Good-night, Milt," said Mrs. Coblenz, a coating of husk over her own voice and sliding her hand out from beneath, to top his. "You--you're all right!"

Up-stairs, in a too tufted and too crowded room directly over the frontal half of the store, the window overlooking the remote sea of city was turning taupe, the dusk of early spring, which is faintly tinged with violet, invading. Beside the stove, a base-burner with faint fire showing through its mica, the ident.i.ty of her figure merged with the fat upholstery of the chair, except where the faint pink through the mica lighted up old flesh, Mrs. Miriam Horowitz, full of years and senile with them, wove with gra.s.ses, the ecru of her own skin, wreaths that had mounted to a great stack in a bedroom cupboard.

A clock, with a little wheeze and burring attached to each chime, rang six, and upon it Mrs. Coblenz, breathing from a climb, opened the door.

"Ma, why didn't you rap for Katie to come up and light the gas? You'll ruin your eyes, dearie."

She found out a match, immediately lighting two jets of a center-chandelier, turning them down from singing, drawing the shades of the two front and the southeast windows, stooping over the upholstered chair to imprint a light kiss.

"A fine day, mama. There'll be an entry this week. Thirty dollars and thirteen cents and another call for garden implements. I think I'll lay in a hardware line after we--we get back. I can use the lower shelf of the china-table, eh, ma?"

Mrs. Horowitz, whose face, the color of old linen in the yellowing, emerged rather startling from the still black hair strained back from it, lay back in her chair, turning her profile against the upholstered back, half a wreath and a trail of raffia sliding to the floor. Age had sapped from beneath the skin, so that every curve had collapsed to bagginess, the cheeks and the underchin sagging with too much skin. Even the hands were crinkled like too large gloves, a wide, curiously etched marriage band hanging loosely from the third finger.

Mrs. Goblenz stooped, recovering the wreath.

"Say, mama, this one is a beauty! That's a new weave, ain't it? Here, work some more, dearie--till Selene comes with your evening papers."

With her profile still to the chair-back, a tear oozed down the corrugated face of Mrs. Horowitz's cheek. Another.

"Now, mama! Now, mama!"

"I got a heaviness--here--inside. I got a heaviness--"

Mrs. Coblenz slid down to her knees beside the chair.

"Now, mama; shame on my little mama! Is that the way to act when s.h.i.+la comes up after a good day? 'Ain't we got just lots to be thankful for--the business growing and the bank-book growing, and our Selene on top? Shame on mama!"

"I got a heaviness--here--inside--here."

Mrs. Coblenz reached up for the old hand, patting it.

"It's nothing, mama--a little nervousness."

"I'm an old woman. I--"

"And just think, s.h.i.+la's mama, Mark Haas is going to get us letters and pa.s.sports and--"

"My son--my boy--his father before him--"

"Mama--mama, please don't let a spell come on! It's all right. s.h.i.+la's going to fix it. Any day now, maybe--"

"You'm a good girl. You'm a good girl, s.h.i.+la." Tears were coursing down to a mouth that was constantly wry with the taste of them.

"And you're a good mother, mama. n.o.body knows better than me how good."

"You'm a good girl, s.h.i.+la."

"I was thinking last night, mama, waiting up for Selene--just thinking how all the good you've done ought to keep your mind off the spells, dearie."

"My son--"

"Why, a woman with as much good to remember as you've got oughtn't to have time for spells. I got to thinking about Coblenz, mama, how--you never did want him, and when I--I went and did it, anyway, and made my mistake, you stood by me to--to the day he died. Never throwing anything up to me! Never nothing but my good little mother, working her hands to the bone after he got us out here to help meet the debts he left us. Ain't that a satisfaction for you to be able to sit and think, mama, how you helped--"

"His feet--blood from my heart in the snow--blood from my heart!"

"The past is gone, darling. What's the use tearing yourself to pieces with it? Them years in New York when it was a fight even for bread, and them years here trying to raise Selene and get the business on a footing, you didn't have time to brood then, mama. That's why, dearie, if only you'll keep yourself busy with something--the wreaths--the--"

"His feet--blood from my--"

"But I'm going to take you back, mama. To papa's grave. To Aylorff's. But don't eat your heart out until it comes, darling. I'm going to take you back, mama, with every wreath in the stack; only, you mustn't eat out your heart in spells. You mustn't, mama; you mustn't."

Sobs rumbled up through Mrs. Horowitz, which her hand to her mouth tried to constrict.

"For his people he died. The papers--I begged he should burn them--he couldn't--I begged he should keep in his hate--he couldn't--in the square he talked it--the soldiers--he died for his people--they got him--the soldiers--his feet in the snow when they took him--the blood in the snow--O my G.o.d!--my--G.o.d!"

"Mama darling, please don't go over it all again. What's the use making yourself sick? Please!"

She was well forward in her chair now, winding her dry hands one over the other with a small rotary motion.

"I was rocking--s.h.i.+la-baby in my lap--stirring on the fire black lentils for my boy--black lentils--he--"

"Mama!"

"My boy. Like his father before him. My--"

"Mama, please! Selene is coming any minute now. You know how she hates it.

Don't let yourself think back, mama. A little will-power, the doctor says, is all you need. Think of to-morrow, mama; maybe, if you want, you can come down and sit in the store awhile and--"

"I was rocking. O my G.o.d! I was rocking, and--"

"Don't get to it--mama, please! Don't rock yourself that way! You'll get yourself dizzy! Don't, ma; don't!"

"Outside--my boy--the holler--O G.o.d! in my ears all my life! My boy--the papers--the swords--Aylorff--Aylorff--"

"'Shh-h-h--mama--"

"It came through his heart out the back--a blade with two sides--out the back when I opened the door; the spur in his face when he fell, s.h.i.+la--the spur in his face--the beautiful face of my boy--my Aylorff--my husband before him--that died to make free!" And fell back, bathed in the sweat of the terrific hiccoughing of sobs.

"Mama, mama! My G.o.d! What shall we do? These spells! You'll kill yourself, darling. I'm going to take you back, dearie--ain't that enough? I promise.

I promise. You mustn't, mama! These spells--they ain't good for a young girl like Selene to hear. Mama, 'ain't you got your own s.h.i.+la--your own Selene? Ain't that something? Ain't it? Ain't it?"

Large drops of sweat had come out and a state of exhaustion that swept completely over, prostrating the huddled form in the chair.

"Bed--my bed!"

With her arms twined about the immediately supporting form of her daughter, her entire weight relaxed, and footsteps that dragged without lift, one after the other, Mrs. Horowitz groped out, one hand feeling in advance, into the gloom of a room adjoining.