PULL DOWN VANITY!
each ear. Meanwhile, he scrutinized her gently with a humility I did
not understand, one stiff hand on either side of her thickish waist, and
his head bowed in self-abasement. "You need a shave," she said to
him, and to me, "Isn't he
cute?"
But I, baffled by the surge of jealousy my desire could no longer
justify, merely stared at them dumbly, thinking, "The glib Jews, oh,
those glib Jews!" It irked me that Hank should profit by the passion I
had stirred in his wife and for which I had no use.
"And he's a good poet, too," she added decisively, taking from
the top of a bookcase an untidy pile of papers. For an instant, I felt
as if Judith had tried to buy from me with tlle embrace of a moment
before my approval of her husband's verse, and I almost cried out, "I
never read the poetry of my friends!"
But Hank cut me off. "Oh, Christ, Judith, don't bother Mr.
An1-
sterdam with that stuff! It's all hogwash, you know-" Yet he seemed
all at once almost cold sober, and reached out to take the poems, which,
after a moment's urging, he began to read aloud in his flat, meaningless
voice. He would look up at the end of each piece, half proud, half
embarrassed, with an engaging grin I had not seen before; and I, glib
Jew, would force myself to say something in comment and praise.
Actually, I could not listen. The heat in that low-roofed basement
was like an intended torture; my handkerchief was too wet to dry my
face any longer; and I could feel the sweat on my forehead pearl drop
by drop, hang, and run slithering beside my nose into the corner of
my mouth. When I raised my right hand to my face, I could smell
on it the female smell of Judith.
She was sitting on the floor beside me, both of us looking up at
Hank, except when she would turn to me her melting face in an
abandon too naked and proud to hide. She would reach out compulsively
from time to time to grab my hand or stroke my thigh; once even
kissing my shoulder, with only the barest pretense of caution, her
breast pressed against my arm.
And with each caress she would cry aloud, "Isn't it wonderful. I
told you he was good. He won't believe how good he is!" as if the com–
ments atoned for her gestures, or the gestures for the comments, it
was hard to tell which.
If
Hank noticed what was going on (and how
could he have helped it), he said nothing; perhaps, he, too, felt that
something must be paid for my presence.
"It's hard to tell just from listening," I said. "I'll have to take
them home with me, go over them carefully."
At this, the baby awoke, screaming in a sudden start of anguish,
and Judith took her up into her arms to soothe her, cooing over her
