Free The Complete Stories by Bernard Malamud Page A

door.
    “Look, Mrs. Campbell,” said Laban, holding up a newspaper. “Again! This time in The Brooklyn Eagle .”
    “Another letter?” Mrs. Campbell said. “How do you do it?”
    “They like the way I express myself on the subject of divorce.” He pointed to his letter in the newspaper.
    “I’ll read it over later,” Mrs. Campbell said. “Joe brings home the Eagle. He cuts out your letters. You know, he showed everyone the one about tolerance. Everyone thought the sentiments were very excellent.”
    “You mean my New York Times letter?” Laban beamed.
    “Yes, it had excellent sentiments,” said Mrs. Campbell, continuing downstairs. “Maybe someday you ought to write a book.”
    A tremor of bittersweet joy shook Laban Goldman. “With all my heart, I concur with your hope,” he called down after her.
    “Nobody can tell,” Mrs. Campbell said.
    Laban opened the door of his apartment and stepped into the hallway. The meeting with Mrs. Campbell had given him confidence. He felt that his arguments would take on added eloquence. As he was hanging up his hat and coat on the clothes tree in the hall, he heard his wife talking on the telephone.
    “Laban?” she called.
    “Yes.” He tried to make it sound cold.
    Emma came into the hallway. She was a small woman, heavily built.
    “Sylvia is calling,” she said.
    He held up the paper. “The editor printed a letter,” he said quickly. “It means I will have to go to school tonight.”
    Emma clutched her hands and pressed them to her bosom. “Laban,” she cried, “you promised me.”
    “Tomorrow night.”
    “No, tonight!”
    “Tomorrow night.”
    “Laban!” she screamed.
    He held his ground. “Don’t make an issue,” he said. “Tomorrow is the same picture.”
    Emma bounded over to the telephone. “Sylvia,” she cried, “you see, now he doesn’t go.”
    Laban tried to duck into his room, but she was too quick for him.
    “Telephone,” she announced coldly. Wearily he walked over to the phone.
    “Poppa,” said Sylvia, “why have you broken your promise that you gave to Momma?”
    “Listen, Sylvia, for a minute, without talking. I didn’t break my promise. All I want to do is to delay or postpone it till tomorrow, and she jumps to conclusions.”
    “You promised me today,” cried Emma, who was standing there, listening.
    “Please,” he said, “have the common decency to refrain from talking when I’m talking to someone else.”
    “You are talking to my daughter,” she declared with dignity.
    “I am well aware and conscious that your daughter is your daughter.”
    “All the time big words,” she taunted.
    “Poppa, don’t fight,” said Sylvia over the telephone. “You promised you would take Momma to the movies tonight.”
    “It just so happens that my presence is required in school tonight. The Brooklyn Eagle printed a vital letter I wrote, and Mr. Taub, my English teacher, likes to discuss them in class.”
    “Can’t it wait till tomorrow?”
    “The issue is alive and pertinent today. Tomorrow, today’s paper will be yesterday’s.”
    “What is the letter about?”
    “It’s a sociological subject of import. You will read it.”
    “Poppa, this can’t go on,” said Sylvia sharply. “I have two young children to take care of. I can’t keep tearing myself away from my family every other night to take Momma to the movies. It’s your duty to take her out.”
    “I have no alternative.”
    “What do you mean, Poppa?”
    “My education comes first.”
    “You can get just as much education four nights a week as you can five.”
    “That will not hold water mathematically,” he said.
    “Poppa, you’re a pretty smart man. Couldn’t you stay home just one night a week, say on Wednesdays, and take Momma out?”
    “To me, the movies are not worth it.”
    “You mean your wife is not worth it,” broke in Emma again.
    “I wasn’t talking to you,” said Laban.
    “Don’t fight, please, ” said Sylvia. “Poppa, try to