THE FIRST SEVEN YEARS
669
poverty-stricken, with a single window facing the street. It contained
a narrow cot, a table and several stacks of books piled haphazardly
around on the floor along the wall, which made him think how queer
Sobel was, to be uneducated and read so much. He had once asked
him, Sobel, why you read so much? and the assistant could not answer
him.
Did you ever study
in
a college somewhere? he asked, but
Sobel shook his head. He read, he said, to know. But to know what,
the shoemaker demanded, and to know, why? Sobel never explained,
which proved he read much because he was queer.
Feld sat down to recover his breath. The assistant was resting
on his bed with his heavy back to the wall. His shirt and trousers were
clean, and
his
stubby fingers, away from the shoemaker's bench, were
strangely pallid. His face was thin, indicating he had lost weight, and
pale, as if he had been shut in this room since the day he had bolted
from the store.
"So when you will come back to work?" Feld asked the assistant.
To the shoemaker's surprise, Sobel burst out, "Never."
Jumping up, he strode over to the window that looked out upon
the miserable street. "Why should I come back?" he cried.
"I will raise your wages."
"Who cares about wages!"
The shoemaker, knowing he did not care, was at a loss for
what to say.
"What do you want from me, Sobel?"
"Nothing."
"I always treated you like you was my own son."
Sobel vehemently denied
it.
"And why you look for strange boys
m the street they should go with Miriam? Why you never think
of me?"
The shoemaker felt his hands and feet go freezing cold. His
voice became so hoarse he couldn't speak. At last he cleared
it
and
croaked, "So what has my daughter to do with a shoemaker thirty-five
years old who works for me?"
"Why do you think I worked so long for you?" Sobel cried out.
"For the stingy wages I sacrificed five years of my life so you should
have to eat and drink and where to sleep?"
"Then for what?" shouted the shoemaker.
"For Miriam," he blurted-"for her."
