3

Duddy was exhausted. I’ll sleep in tomorrow morning, he thought. I need the rest. But he woke with a scream at three A.M. from a dream that was to become a recurrent nightmare. Bulldozers, somebody else’s surveyors, carpenters and plumbers roared and hammered and shouted over the land round Lac St. Pierre. Irwin Shubert held an enormous plan in his hands. He smiled thinly.

“Waaa…”

Somebody shook him. “Duddy, wake up! Duddy! It’s me. Lennie.”

Max rushed into the room. “What’s going on here?”

“It’s Duddy. He had a nightmare.”

“You O.K.? You want a Coke or something? Tea?”

“Listen, Duddy. Listen closely. I want you to try to remember everything about your dream.” Lennie grabbed a pencil and paper. “Anything that comes into your head you tell me. I’ll analyze it for you.”

“Jeez.”

“Go ahead. Tell him.”

“I dreamt I was screwing this broad,” Duddy said.

“That’s my boy.”

“Were there any doors? Did you have to go through passages to get to her? What made you —”

“There was a bed like. Her cans were something out of this world…”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Lennie said, putting his pencil and paper away.

“What’sa matter?” Max asked. “Aren’t you interested in that kind of dream? Go ahead, Duddy. I’m listening.”

“Are you making tea?”

They couldn’t get to sleep again. Max and Lennie sat at the kitchen table and Duddy made one of his huge and intricate omelets.

“I don’t get it,” Max said, getting out his backscratcher. “If you were in bed with this broad why did you scream?”

“She bit my toe.”

“Even if you didn’t dream that,” Lennie said, “it’s a very significant remark.”

“Hey,” Max said, “what did you put in this omelet?”

“It’s great,” Lennie said. “Duddy makes the best omelet this side of the Rio Grande.”

Lennie said that yesterday in the operating theater he had seen a baby delivered for the first time. He described it for them and said that three students had fainted. Max made both his boys laugh with his story of the drunken American who had got into his taxi and asked to be taken to where the king lived. He wanted to see the palace. “Can you beat that?” Max asked.

Duddy’s imitation of Mr. Friar brought tears to Lennie’s eyes.

“You know what,” Max said, thumping the table. “I’m taking Sunday off. We’re going out for a drive and a first-class feed. The three of us.”

“Atta boy.”

“I’m sorry,” Lennie said, “but I’ve got a date.”

“Can’t you break it?”

“Not a chance.”

“Well,” Max said, “maybe next Sunday. We don’t see enough of each other. I’m your father. You’re supposed to come to me with your problems.”

Lennie frowned. “I’d better turn in,” he said. “I’ve got an early class tomorrow.”

“You go to bed too, Duddy. I’m going to sit up for a bit.”

“I’ll sit with you. ‘Night, Lennie.” Duddy made more tea.

“Do you know anything about Lennie that I should know?”

“No. Why?”

“There’s something funny going on.”

“Aw. It’s your imagination.” Duddy started to tell him about his adventures as an “indie,” but Max wasn’t interested. “Daddy, have you ever thought of getting married again?”

“What?”

“Jeez. Don’t get angry. I thought maybe you were lonely like.”

“Nobody could ever replace your mother for me,” Max said sternly. “You’re a funny kid. I can’t figure you. Out of left field you come running with the craziest questions.”

“I don’t remember her very well. I was only six when she…”

“You missed out on plenty, brother. Plenty. Minnie was some wife.”

There was a picture in the living room of Max and Minnie on their wedding day. He wore a top hat and her face was in the shadow of a white veil. But her smile was tender, forgiving. It looked to Duddy as if she had probably used to laugh a lot. He could remember her laugh, come to think of it. Something rolling, turning over dark and deep and endless, and with it hugs and gooey kisses and a whiff of onions. He remembered too that Max had held him pinned down to the bed once, saying over and over again, “Easy, kid. Easy,” while Minnie had applied Argyrol drops to his nose. Once more Duddy was tempted to ask his father if Minnie had liked him, but he couldn’t bring himself to risk it.

“Omelets weren’t coming out of our ears in those days,” Max said. “I used to come home after work and for a starter there’d usually be chopped liver and what gefilte fish she made! Ask Debrofsky. Ask your Uncle Benjy even. He was crazy about Minnie. You’d be surprised how often he used to come here in the old days. We used to sit around the dining room table after dinner on a Friday night cracking nuts and waiting for the eleven o’clock news. Your mother used to keep up with all the radio programs. On Monday night we’d sit together in the living room, me with my books on electrical studies and Minnie making cookies with one ear open in case you should start bawling your head off, and together we’d listen to the Lux Radio Theater. That’s still an excellent program, but without Minnie — We used to play parchesi a lot, too, and Chinese checkers, and if I had the boys round for a poker game they loved it. Minnie would make us latkas open up some herring she’d pickled herself and the boys were so happy that when she came round to collect for a raffle for the new synagogue or something nobody ever made a smart remark. The boys,” he said, his voice filled with marvel, “would even buy up a whole book just because it was Minnie, and a dollar was a dollar in those days.

“Montreal wasn’t what it is now, you know. For kids these days everything’s a breeze. I remember when the snow in winter was often piled higher than a man on the streets. There was a time back there when they had horses to pull the streetcars. (That’s why even today they say horsepower and measure an engine’s strength by it.) Hell, they tell me that new rabbi in Outremont, Goldstone I think his name is, runs a sort of marriage clinic where he gives sex talks. In my day all you had to do was mention the word sex to a rabbi and you’d get a clap on the ear that would last you a week. Look at you,” he said, his anger rising, “eighteen years old and driving a car of your own already. My father never even bought me a bicycle. O.K., I didn’t pay for your car, but I could have, you know.” Max paused, searching Duddy’s face for skepticism. But Duddy merely grinned. “Boy, if I got into half as much trouble at school as you did the zeyda have taken off his belt to me. Aw, kids these days. Softies.” Max replaced his backscratcher in the kitchen drawer and got up and yawned. “Why don’t we turn in?”

“Tell me more about Maw.”

“Some other night.”

“O.K., I’ll just do the dishes and then —”

“The noise’d wake Lennie. They’ll keep. C’mon to bed. Hey,” Max said, “I almost forgot. The Boy Wonder will see you at eleven-thirty tomorrow.”

“Jeez. No kidding.”

“A promise is a promise.”

Duddy embraced Max. He punched him softly on the shoulder.

“Just be punctual,” Max said, “and don’t make trouble,” and he started for his bedroom.

“One minute. That means I’m ready, doesn’t it, Daddy? That means you think I’m like O.K. now.”

“Don’t make trouble. That’s all I ask. This is a special favor the Wonder is doing me.”

“I won’t make trouble, Daddy. You’ll be proud.”