394
PHILIP ROTH
way he advised. Plunge the wrists in first, then splash under the arms,
then a handful on the face and back of the neck; ah, but slowly,
slowly. This way you get to refresh yourself, meanwhile avoiding a
shock to the system. Refreshed, unshocked, he turns to face me,
comically waves farewell up toward where he thinks I'm standing,
and drops backwards to float with his arms outstretched in a little
circle of dark velvety sea. Oh he floats so still-he works, he works so
hard, and for whom if not for me?-and then at last, after turning
on his belly and making with a few choppy strokes that carry
him
nowhere, he comes wading back into the shore, his streaming compact
torso glowing from the last pure spokes of light driving in, over my
shoulder, out of stifling inland New Jersey, from which I am being
spared.
And there are a lot more memories like this one, Doctor. A lot
more. This is my mother and father I'm talking about.
But-but-but-let me pull myself together-there is also this
vision of him coming from the bathroom, savagely kneading the
back of his neck and sourly swallowing a belch. "Ail right, what
is
it that was so urgent you couldn't wait
till
I came out to tell me?"
"Nothing," says my mother. "It's settled."
He looks at me with disappointment. I'm what he lives for,
and I know it. "What did he do?"
"What he did is over and done with, God willing. You, did
you move your bowels?" she asks him.
"Of course I didn't move my bowels."
"Jack, what is it going to be with you, with those bowels?"
"They're turning into concrete, that's what it's going to be."
"Because you eat too fast."
"I don't eat too fast."
"How then, slow?"
"I eat regular."
"You eat like a pig, and somebody should tell you."
"Oh, you got a wonderful way of expressing yourself sometimes,
do you know that?"
"I'm only speaking the truth," she says. "I
patchkeh
and
patchkeh
in this kitchen, and you eat like there's a fire somewhere, bolting
everything down before I even have a chance to sit, and this one-
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