THE PATRON
85
in the birthrate when his wife entered suddenly from the streets. Her
nostrils white, her voice broken. "All over the neighborhood already.
In the candy store they complain he comes in, he reads all the maga–
zines, he rips the covers, he blocks the door for the customers. By the
new grocery he goes at night when it closes and buys the cheapest
cans of sardines, big ones like moose."
Thus, in the evening, when dinner was finished, Mr. Fisher put
aside his second cutlet with the droplets of fat winking in the gravy
and bore it tenderly to Mordecai's room. "How does it go?" he
solemnly inquired, moving the plate away from the sheath of papers.
"I mean, the writing."
Mordecai's fork probed for a soft spot. "I have decided to junk
my novel of experience. Instead, my hero will be the mass-mind of
our age. A small work, one day perhaps in the life of a movie-pervert
who is forced to watch over and over again till supper hour, when
the row is cleared for masturbation. But by that time, it is already
too late. The one scene that tingles his groin is long since over, and
he must begin again in another theater."
"All right," his wife said, when Mr. Fisher returned with the
empty plate, "so what does he work on?"
"It's hard to say, exactly," he answered. "I think maybe it's like
a historical novel."
A few weeks later, seated on the rocker in the bedroom to pare
the bunions which had grown large and painful from the too-many
hours on her feet, Mrs. Fisher raised her head and hissed for silence
from her husband. Painfully taking the few steps, she jounced into
bed and doused the light. "Listen," she demanded.
"There's nothing."
"Not with your sinus. Breath through the mouth."
Together, they could hear and follow it, the barely muted ur–
gency of bedsprings rising unmistakably from Henrietta's room. Sag–
ging toward each other under the quilt they coughed in turn at a
sudden pause, but then it came again, like spite. A full half hour, at
least, till footfalls and the sound of running water. They broke apart
to their own piIlow-creases and suddenly Mr. Fisher giggled, and
reaching toward his wife to muffle the spasm in her solidity, he saw,
amazed, that she misunderstood his touch. Stretched out, they found
use for each other, and passed soon into fearful sleep.
