Joe was rich enough now, to come out into the open. He had lately taken
two rooms high up in the newest building on lower Broadway. The marble
entrance hall with its uniformed attendants, and its ranks of
velvet-running elevators, was the most imposing in town. It gave Joe a
standing with the public to have his name listed in the telephone book;
moreover, it pleased him to have men twice his age coming to see him hat
in hand, and talking humble. They never got anything out of him; for Joe
dug up his own business in his own way. In the outer room were installed
a shiny-haired clerk, and a crisply-laundered stenographer; Joe’s own
room was furnished with waxed mahogany and a Bokhara rug. The windows
looked out over the Upper Bay.
One morning, shortly after Joe had arrived at his office, the
gentlemanly clerk (Joe would not have Jews about him; Jews around an
office were too suggestive of sharp business) came in to say that an old
woman wanted to see him.
“What have I got to do with old women?” asked Joe, with lifted eyebrows.
“What sort of old woman?”
“A real poor old woman, Mr. Kaplan. I couldn’t get anything out of her.
Just said she wanted to see you. She must have seen you come in. She was
here before, this morning.”
“Even so, do I have to see her?” asked Joe with a hard look. He enjoyed
putting the clerk out of countenance; a fair lad, prone to blush and to
turn pale; the two of them were the same age.
“No, sir. Certainly not, sir. I’ll send her away.”
“Wait a minute,” said Joe harshly. A slight uneasiness had made itself
felt. The old woman had seen him come in, the clerk said; that sounded
as if she knew him. “Let her come in,” said Joe carelessly. “A beggar, I
suppose.”
When his clerk opened the door a second time, Joe beheld his mother. Oh
well, he had always expected it to happen sooner or later. He saw in a
glance that the old woman was stupid with terror, and that he should
have no trouble with her. So it was all right. The clerk was disposed to
linger.
Joe helped himself to a cigarette from the silver box on his desk. To
the clerk he said carelessly: “Call up Mr. Mitchell, and tell him I will
see him here at eleven o’clock.”
The door closed; and mother and son were left looking at each other. Joe
had the advantage, because the windows were at his back. He experienced
no emotion at the sight of his mother. In eight years she had changed
very much. That vigorous, peasant’s frame was broken. Her face which had
once had the strength of apathy, looked sodden now. Her clothes . . .
Ugh! Joe hoped she would not sit down on one of his chairs. She seemed
incapable of speaking; and Joe felt no inclination to help her out. It
was a settled maxim with him, to make the other party speak first. He
lit his cigarette with the greatest deliberation, and holding the
lighted match high above the ash receiver, let it flicker down.
Finally she stammered: “I seen the name and the address in a
newspaper. . . . I come round to see if it was my Joe Kaplan. . . .”
“Did you tell anybody in this building your name?”
She shook her head. “I do’ want to make no trouble for you, Joe.”
“What _do_ you want?”
“Well, Joe. . . .” Speech failed her. With a falling hand, she indicated
herself—then him.
Joe regarded her thoughtfully; whistling between his teeth.
After a silence, she began again. “Well, Joe . . . your fat’er is sick.
He’s got the consumption. He’s like to die on me any day. . . .”
“Isn’t that old geezer dead yet?” said Joe.
“It takes all I kin earn to buy him his medicine, and a bit for the two
of us to eat. I can’t save the rent. The landlord has pasted a notice on
the door.”
“Where’s Lulu?” asked Joe.
“She left home when she was seventeen. I ain’t seen her since.”
“Well, you can’t blame her.”
“I ain’t blamin’ her.”
“Was she good-lookin’?”
“Yes. . . . God help her!” murmured the woman.
“Oh, fudge!” said Joe. “. . . Where’s the boys?”
“On the streets. They come home sometimes. I feeds them—if I has it.”
“What do you want of me?”
“Well, Joe . . . we’re your folks. . . .”
“Cut it out!” said Joe with a gesture. “I’ve been told often enough that
I’ve got no natural feelings. All right; I’m not going to make out to
have any now. Home Sweet Home never meant nothing to me but a place to
git away from. As for my father. . . . Gee! it made me sore even as a
young kid to think that I sprung from _that_! The dirty, whining Jew!
I’d do something handsome for you, if you could prove to me he wasn’t my
father!”
“You wouldn’t want him to be buried in Potters’ Field. . . .”
“Why not? The main thing is to get him buried. A dead man rests just as
comfortable in Potters’ Field as in Woodlawn!”
“But the disgrace of it. . . .”
“Aah! talk sense to me!” cried Joe, screwing up his face in irritation.
“I’m a realist! Do you know what that means? You used to be one
yourself. What’s come over you?”
“I do’ know what’s come over me,” she muttered, wiping a hand over her
face. “I don’t think about nothing no more. Don’t see no use in
it. . . . I just go along. . . .”
“Well, I’ve climbed out of that pigsty!” said Joe. “All by myself, I
climbed out. I don’t owe nothing to you!”
Without another word she turned to go.
“Wait a minute!” cried Joe, exasperated. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t do
nottin’ for you. I just wanted to have it well understood you hadn’t no
claim on me!”
She waited.
“I always been willing to help you out,” grumbled Joe. Something about
the dirty, broken-spirited old woman seemed to make him so sore he
couldn’t see straight. “Soon as I got money I went to Sussex street
first-off, but you had moved away. One of the neighbors give me a number
in Forsyth street, and I went there, but you had moved again, leaving no
address. What more could I do?”
“We had to move often,” she murmured.
“Listen; I’m willing to keep you in comfort, on condition that you
change your name, and keep away from me, see? Call yourself Cohen or
Levy, or any common Jewish name. Go hire some nice clean rooms, and put
in some new furniture. Get everything new, and just walk out of the mess
you’re in and get a fresh start, see? Don’t tell anybody who knows you
as Kaplan where you’re going. And if you want any comfort in your new
life, you’d better not tell the boys.”
“Oh!” she stammered. “I couldn’t shake the boys, Joe! That wouldn’t be
right, like.”
“Well, that’s up to you. As long as you have a dollar, they’ll bleed
yeh!”
“I know . . . but when the old man goes, I’d be alone. . . .”
“All right. If the boys ever tried to make trouble for me, I’d know how
to handle them. They can’t get money out of me by threatening to expose
my past, because I brag about it, see? . . . As soon as you’re settled
in your new rooms—Aw, take a regular nice flat with a kitchen and a
bathroom and all; write to me under your new name, see? and send the
address. I’ll fix it so’s a bank will send you forty dollars a week as
long as either of you live. . . . I’ll give you the money now for the
furniture and the first month’s rent.”
Over his desk he passed her a handful of crackling bills. The old woman
drew back from them with a look of horror that made Joe laugh. “Here,
take them,” he said. “They won’t burn yeh!”
“It’s . . . it’s too much!” she stammered. His harshness she had taken
as a matter of course; his beneficence terrified her.
Joe laid the bills down on the edge of his desk. After a while she
picked them up in tremulous hands. The old face began to work in an
extraordinary manner. “Oh Joe . . .” she stammered. “Oh, Joe . . . !”
Joe ran a hand through his sleek hair. “For God’s sake, don’t turn on
the waterworks here!” he said. “You never did that!”
“I’m broke, Joe!” she wailed. “I got no resistance no more!”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” cried Joe, striding up and down. “. . . For God’s
sake when you get in your new place keep yourself clean! I suppose
you’re too old to change your ways much, but you can keep clean! . . .
Your face is dirty! . . .”
“Yes, Joe. . . . I gotta thank you, Joe.”
“Don’t make me laugh!” said Joe. “I’m no philanthropist! I want things
fixed in a certain way between you and me, and I’m willing to pay for
it. If you ever come around me again, the deal is off, see? Beat it
now.”
But she lingered. She plucked up a little courage. “If you was to see
the youngest, Joe. . . . He’s a smart kid. Something could be made of
him. . . .”
“Then make it,” said Joe. “You’re his mutter. You’ve got money, now.”
“I t’ink he’s like you, Joe.”
“Useless!” said Joe, grinning. “You can’t touch my heart. . . . I
couldn’t do nothing with a boy off the streets.”
“That’s what you was.”
“Exactly! And nobody couldn’t do nothing with me. I did it for meself!”
“Don’t you want to see the old man before he goes?”
“What for? When he was well the sight of him used to make _me_ sick!”
“Well . . . good-bye, Joe. . . .”
“Easy with the Joes when you open the door!”
“I’ll be careful. When I write I’ll put Mr. Kaplan. . . .”