Part 10 (1/2)
”Yes, mamma. Wait till I light the gas in your room for you--you'll stumble.”
”It's too hot for light; I can see by the Magintys' kitchen light across the air-shaft. What she does in her kitchen so late I don't know--such housekeeping! Yesterday with my own eyes I seen her shake a table-cloth out the window with a hole like my hand in it. She should know what I think of such ways.”
Mrs. Ginsburg moved through the gloom, steering carefully round the phantom furniture. From his place on the couch her son could hear her moving about her tiny room adjoining the kitchen. A shoe dropped and, after a satisfying interval, another; the padding of bare feet across a floor; the tink of a china pitcher against its bowl; the slam of a drawer; the rusty squeal of spiral bed-springs under pressure.
”Abie, I'm ready.”
When Mr. Ginsburg groped into his mother's room she lay in the casual att.i.tude of sleep, but the yellow patch of light from the shaft fell across her open eyes and gray wisps of hair that lay on her pillow like a sickly aura.
”Good night, Abie. You're a good boy, Abie.”
”Good night, mamma. A sheet ain't enough--you got to have the blue-and-white quilt on you, too.”
”Don't, Abie--do you want to suffocate me? I can't stand so much. Take off the quilt.”
”Your rheumatism, you know, mamma--you'll see how much cooler it will get in the night.”
”_Ach_, Abie, leave that window all the way up. So hot, and that boy closes me up like--”
”When the lace curtain blows in it means you're in a draught, mamma--half-way open you can have it, but not all. Without me to fuss you'd have a fine rheumatism--like it ain't dangerous for you to sleep where there's enough draught to blow the curtain in.”
”Abie, if you don't feel good, in two minutes I can get up and heat the broth if--”
”I'm grand, mamma. Here, I move this chair so the light from Magintys'
don't s.h.i.+ne in your eyes.”
”What she does in her kitchen so late I don't know. Good night, Abie. In the dark you look like poor papa. How he used to fuss round the room at night fixing me just like you--poor papa, Abie--not? Poor papa?”
”Good night, mamma.”
Mr. Ginsburg leaned over and kissed his mother lightly on the forehead.
”Double cream did you say I should write the milkman?”
”Yes--and, Abie, don't forget to cover the bird.”
”Yes. Here, I leave the door half-way open, mamma. Good night.”
”Abie! Abie!”
”Yes?”
”Oh, it ain't nothing at all, Abie--never mind.”
”I'm right here, mamma. Anything you want me to do?”
”Nothing. Good night, Abie.”
”Good night, mamma.”