Free The assistant by Bernard Malamud Page B

corner and had nodded to her as she approached the house. Caught by surprise, she half-smiled, then entered the hall. It was then the lonely feeling gripped him. While he was eating, he felt he had to get her into the store before her old lady came down and it was time for him to leave. The only excuse he could think of was to call Helen to answer the phone and after he would say that the guy must've hung up. It was a trick but he had to do it. He warned himself not to, because it would be starting out the wrong way with her and he might someday regret it. He tried to think of a better way but time was pressing him and he couldn't. Frank got up, went over to the bureau, and took the phone off its cradle. He then walked out into the hall, opened the vestibule door, and holding his breath, pressed the Bober bell. Ida looked over the banister. "What's the matter?" "Telephone for Helen." He could see her hesitate, so he returned quickly to the store. He sat down, pretending to be eating, his heart whamming so hard it hurt. All he wanted, he told himself, was to talk to her a minute so the next time would be easier. Helen eagerly entered the kitchen. On the stairs she had noticed the excitement that flowed through her. My God, it's gotten to be that a phone call is an event. If it's Nat, she thought, I might give him another chance. Frank half-rose as she entered, then sat down. "Thanks," she said to him as she picked up the phone. "Hello." While she waited he could hear the buzz in the receiver. "There's nobody there," she said, mystified. He laid down his fork. "This girl called you," he said gently. But when he saw the disappointment in her eyes, how bad she felt, he felt bad. "You must've been cut off." She gave him a long look. She was wearing a white blouse that showed the firmness of her small breasts. He wet his dry lips, trying to figure out some quick way to square himself, but his mind, usually crowded with all sorts of schemes, had gone blank. He felt very bad, as he had known he would, that he had done what he had. If he had it to do over he wouldn't do it this way. "Did she leave you her name?" Helen asked. "No." "It wasn't Betty Pearl?" "No." She absently brushed back her hair. "Did she say anything to you?" "Only to call you." He paused. "Her voice was nice-like yours. Maybe she didn't get me straight when I said you were upstairs but I would ring your doorbell, and that's why she hung up." "I don't know why anybody would do that." Neither did he. He wanted to step clear of his mess but saw no way other than to keep on lying. But lying made their talk useless. When he lied he was somebody else lying to somebody else. It wasn't the two of them as they were. He should have kept that in his mind. She stood at the bureau, holding the telephone in her hand as if still expecting the buzz to become a voice; so he waited for the same thing, a voice to speak and say he had been telling the truth, that he was a man of fine character. Only that didn't happen either. He gazed at her with dignity as he considered saying the simple truth, starting from there, come what would, but the thought of confessing what he had done almost panicked him. "I'm sorry," he said brokenly, but by then she was gone, and he was attempting to fix in his memory what she had looked like so close. Helen too was troubled. Not only could she not explain why she believed yet did not fully believe him, nor why she had lately become so conscious of his presence among them, though he never strayed from the store, but she was also disturbed by her mother's efforts to keep her away from him. "Eat when he leaves," Ida had said. "I am not used to goyim in my house." This annoyed Helen because of the assumption that she would keel over for somebody just because he happened to be a gentile. It meant, obviously, her mother didn't trust her. If she had been casual about him, Helen doubted she would have paid him any attention to speak of. He was interesting looking,