The assistant by Bernard Malamud Read Free Book Online Page A

in a lively crowd of kids on the beach. But as her high school friends had got married, she had one by one given them up; and as others of them graduated from college, envious, ashamed of how little she was accomplishing, she stopped seeing them too. At first it hurt to drop people but after a time it became a not too difficult habit. Now she saw almost no one, occasionally Betty Pearl, who understood, but not enough to make much difference. Louis, his face reddened by the wind, sensed her mood. "What's got in you, Helen?" he said, putting his arm around her. "I can't really explain it. All night I've been thinking of the swell times we had on this beach when we were kids. And do you remember the parties? I suppose I'm blue that I'm no longer seventeen." "What's so wrong about twenty-three?" "It's old, Louis. Our lives change so quickly. You know what youth means?" "Sure I know. You don't catch me giving away nothing for nothing. I got my youth yet." "When a person is young he's privileged," Helen said, "with all kinds of possibilities. Wonderful things might happen, and when you get up in the morning you feel they will. That's what youth means, and that's what I've lost. Nowadays I feel that every day is like the day before, and what's worse, like the day after." "So now you're a grandmother?" "The world has shrunk for me." "What do you wanna be-Miss Rheingold?" "I want a larger and better life. I want the return of my possibilities." "Such as which ones?" She clutched the rail, cold through her gloves. "Education," she said, "prospects. Things I've wanted but never had." "Also a man?" "Also a man." His arm tightened around her waist. "Talk is too cold, baby, how's about a kiss?" She brushed his cold lips, then averted her head. He did not press her. "Louis," she said, watching a far-off light on the water, "what do you want out of your life?" He kept his arm around her. "The same thing I got- plus." "Plus what?" "Plus more, so my wife and family can have also." "What if she wanted something different than you do?" "Whatever she wanted I would gladly give her." "But what if she wanted to make herself a better person, have bigger ideas, live a more worthwhile life? We die so quickly, so helplessly. Life has to have some meaning." "I ain't gonna stop anybody from being better," Louis said, "That's up to them." "I suppose," she said. "Say, baby, let's drop this deep philosophy and go trap a hamburger. My stomach complains." "Just a little longer. It's been ages since I came here this late in the year." He pumped his arms. "Jesus, this wind, it flies up my pants. At least gimme another kiss." He unbuttoned his overcoat. She let him kiss her. He felt her breast. Helen stepped back out of his embrace. "Don't, Louis." "Why not?" He stood there awkwardly, annoyed. "It gives me no pleasure." "I suppose I'm the first guy that ever gave it a nip?" "Are you collecting statistics?" "Okay," he said, "I'm sorry. You know I ain't a bad guy, Helen." "I know you're not, but please don't do what I don't like." "There was a time you treated me a whole lot better." "That was the past, we were kids." It's funny, she remembered, how necking made glorious dreams. "We were older than that, up till the time Nat Pearl started in college, then you got interested in him. I suppose you got him in mind for the future?" "If I do, I don't know it." "But he's the one you want, ain't he? I like to know what that stuck up has got beside a college education? I work for my living." "No, I don't want him, Louis." But she thought, Suppose Nat said I love you? For magic words a girl might do magic tricks. "So if that's so, what's wrong with me?" "Nothing. We're friends." "Friends I got all I need." "What do you need, Louis?" "Cut out the wisecracks, Helen. Would it interest you that I would honestly like to marry you?" He paled at his nerve. She was surprised, touched. "Thank you," she murmured. "Thank you ain't good enough. Give me yes or no." "No, Louis." "That's