The assistant by Bernard Malamud Read Free Book Online Page B

what I thought." He gazed blankly at the ocean. "I never guessed you were at all remotely interested. You go with girls who are so different from me." "Please, when I go with them you can't see my thoughts." "No," she admitted. "I can give you a whole lot better than you got." "I know you can, but I want a different life from mine now, or yours. I don't want a storekeeper for a husband." "Wines and liquors ain't exactly pisher groceries." "I know." "It ain't because your old man don't like mine?" "No." She listened to the wind-driven, sobbing surf. Louis said, "Let's go get the hamburgers." "Gladly." She took his arm but could tell from the stiff way he walked that he was hurt. As they drove home on the Parkway, Louis said, "If you can't have everything you want, at least take something. Don't be so goddam proud." Touché. "What shall I take, Louis?" He paused. "Take less." "Less I'll never take." "People got to compromise." "I won't with my ideals." "So what'll you be then, a dried-up prune of an old maid? What's the percentage of that?" "None." "So what'll you do?" "I'll wait. I'll dream. Something will happen.' "Nuts," he said. He let her off in front of the grocery. "Thanks for everything." "You'll make me laugh." Louis drove off. The store was closed, upstairs dark. She pictured her father asleep after his long day, dreaming of Ephraim. What am I saving myself for? she asked herself. What unhappy Bober fate? It snowed lightly the next day-too early in the year, complained Ida, and when the snow had melted it snowed again. The grocer remarked, as he was dressing in the dark, that he would shovel after he had opened the store. He enjoyed shoveling snow. It reminded him that he had practically lived in it in his boyhood; but Ida forbade him to exert himself because he still complained of dizziness. Later, when he tried to lug the milk cases through the snow, he found it all but impossible. And there was no Frank Alpine to help him, for he had disappeared after washing the window. Ida came down shortly after her husband, in a heavy cloth coat, a woolen scarf pinned around her head and wearing galoshes. She shoveled a path through the snow and together they pulled in the milk. Only then did Morris notice that a quart bottle was missing from one of the cases. "Who took it?" Ida cried. "How do I know?" "Did you count yet the rolls?" "No." "I told you always to count right away." "The baker will steal from me? I know him twenty years." "Count what everybody delivers, I told you a thousand times." He dumped the rolls out of the basket and counted them. Three were missing and he had sold only one to the Poilisheh. To appease Ida he said they were all there. The next morning another quart of milk and two rolls were gone. He was worried but didn't tell Ida the truth when she asked him if anything else was missing. He often hid unpleasant news from her because she made it worse. He mentioned the missing bottle to the milkman, who answered, "Morris, I swear I left every bottle in that case. Am I responsible for this lousy neighborhood?" He promised to cart the milk cases into the vestibule for a few days. Maybe whoever was stealing the bottles would be afraid to go in there. Morris considered asking the milk company for a storage box. Years ago he had had one at the curb, a large wooden box in which the milk was padlocked; but he had given it up after developing a hernia lifting the heavy cases out, so he decided against a box. On the third day, when a quart of milk and two rolls had again been taken, the grocer, much disturbed, considered calling the police. It wasn't the first time he had lost milk and rolls in this neighborhood. That had happened more than once-usually some poor person stealing a breakfast. For this reason Morris preferred not to call the police but to get rid of the thief by himself. To do it, he would usually wake up very early and wait at his bedroom window in the dark. Then when the man-sometimes it was a