82
LEONARD MICHAELS
only looked, as
if
they were stairs in a dream. To be looked at,
nothing else. What can you do in a dream? She tugged. He fell
against a wall. She went up alone and came down with, "Doctor
Cracow says." Isaac must walk up and lay face down on the chiro–
practor table. Otherwise go away and shrivel. In a week his leg would
be a raisin. He could look forward to carrying it in his armpit.
Fagel screamed, Chaim punched. They walked up.
Cracow stood suddenly erect, as
if,
the instant before, he had
touched his toes. His fingers were stiff, quivering like the prongs
of a rake. He nodded to the table. Isaac dropped onto it as
if
into an abyss and Cracow pummeled him from neck to tail, hum–
ming:
({Muss es sein. Es muss rein,"
then said, "Get up." With
dreamlike speed they were at the brink of the stairs. A thing
whooshed by, cracked, clattered to the landing. "Get it," said Cracow.
Isaac shook his head.
"Isaac, get it," said Katya. Chaim said, "Get it." Yanke
I
said,
"Get it, get it."
The umbrella was a streak of wood and cloth in another world.
Isaac shook his head at the possibility of getting it. Beyond that,
not getting it. Shaking his head, he started down. Not with delicate
caution, like a man just crippled, but mechanical exactitude, like
a man long crippled. Even in the bones of former incarnations,
crippled, resigned to a thousand strictures. Cracow hummed, Isaac
descended. Every step an accident succeeding an accident in a
realm where perfection was grotesque. Cracow said, "No pain?"
Isaac stopped, gazed out; then, carefully, into his own center.
Pain? His whole being was a question. It trembled toward yes or
no and, like music, yes, very slightly, yes, he felt himself lift and
fly above the stairs. Then he settled like dust. Cracow's voice shot
through the air: "Six dollars, please." Isaac turned to fly up to
him. With four wings clapping he was struck by stairs, smacked by
walls, stopped by the ultimate, unyielding floor. He lay on his
back. His eyes fell shut. Thumps accumulated down the stairs.
Katya screamed. Yankel shrugged, Chaim whispered, "Dead?" Fagel
screamed, Cracow said, "Could be dead." Chaim said, "Dead?"
Fagel screamed, Katya screamed. "Dead? Dead?" said Yankel.
Chaim said, "Not alive," and Yankel said, "Dead." Fagel screamed,
screamed, screamed, screamed, screamed.
