Nemesis by Philip Roth Read Free Book Online Page A

do with hot dogs."
    Mr. Cantor offered no response and, while listening to the end of the familiar song playing on the jukebox—and suddenly missing Marcia—finished up eating.
I'll be seeing you,
In every lovely summer's day,
In every thing that's light and gay,
I'll always think of you that way...
    "Suppose the kid had had an ice cream sundae at Halem's," Yushy said. "Would nobody eat ice cream sundaes at Halem's? Suppose he had chow mein up at the chinks'—would nobody go up to the chinks for chow mein?"
    "Probably," Mr. Cantor said.
    "And what about the other kid that died?" Yushy asked.
    "What other kid?"
    "The kid that died this morning."
    "What kid died? Herbie Steinmark died?"
    "Yeah. He didn't eat no hot dogs here."
    "Are you sure he died? Who told you Herbie Steinmark died?"
    "Somebody. Somebody came in just before and told me. A couple of guys told me."
    Mr. Cantor paid Yushy for the food and then, despite the tremendous heat—and unafraid of the heat—ran from Syd's across Chancellor and back to the playground, where he raced down the stairs to the basement door, unlocked it, and headed for his office. There he picked up the telephone and dialed the number of Beth Israel Hospital, one of a list of emergency numbers on a card that was thumbtacked to the notice board over his phone. Directly above it was another card, bearing a quotation he had written out in pen from Joseph Lee, the father of the playground movement, whom he'd read about at Panzer; it had been up there since the first day he arrived on the job. "Play for the adult is recreation, the renewal of life; play for the child is growth, the gaining of life." Tacked up beside that was a notice that had arrived in the mail just the day
before from the head of the recreation department to all playground directors:
In view of the danger to Newark children in the present outbreak of polio, please give very strict attention to the following. If you have not sufficient washroom supplies on hand, order them at once. Go over wash bowls, toilet bowls, floors and walls daily with disinfectant, and see that everything is immaculately clean. Toilet facilities must be thoroughly scrubbed throughout the premises under your supervision. Give the above your personal and unremitting attention as long as the present outbreak menaces the community.
    When he got through to the hospital, he asked the operator for patient information and then asked for the condition of Herbert Steinmark. He was told that the patient was no longer in the hospital. "But he's in an iron lung," Mr. Cantor protested. "The patient is deceased," said the operator.
    Deceased? What could that word have to do with plump, round, smiling Herbie? He was the least coordinated of all the boys at the playground, and the most ingratiating. He was always among the boys who helped him put out the equipment first thing in the morning. In gym class at Chancellor, he was
hopeless on the pommel horse and the parallel bars and with the rings and the climbing rope, but because he tried hard and was persistently good-natured, Mr. Cantor had never given him lower than a B. Alan the natural athlete and Herbie the hopeless athlete, completely lacking physical agility—both had been playing on the field the day the Italians tried to invade the playground, and both were dead, polio fatalities at the age of twelve.
    Mr. Cantor rushed down the basement hall to the washroom that was used by the playground boys and, at the mercy of his grief, with no idea what to do with his misery, he grabbed the janitor's mop, a bucket of water, and a gallon can of disinfectant and swabbed the entire tile floor, profusely sweating while he worked. Next he went into the girls' washroom, and vigorously, in a mad rage, he cleaned the floor there. Then, with his clothes and his hands reeking of disinfectant, he took the bus home.

    T HE NEXT MORNING, after shaving, showering, and eating breakfast, he repolished his good shoes, put on his