What’s this all about, B thinks with His face almost too knowingly…and then how the mensch suspects that this, too, might be a tactic, just another ruse, one of many — then why not, with eyes lit as if for effect and His mind going fiery…He’s a quick study, innocent but willing, preternaturally thorough, immediately expert, at ease. I don’t deal with thieves, He says to begin again, then commences with His walking away, the requisite display of disinterest. It’s so unexpected and yet so perfect, so right…wherefrom this instinctual guile, such inheritance heretofore subconscious, underknown, His respect for the deal, the old hand and its shake in its gloriously fallible humanity, its mouth sensuous and sad and yet humorous, too, below the pointiest and so most accusative of noses now put to the grind — and so with that dealhand, the stealhand, on the knob of the door and turning, He turns to the mensch to ask of him fifty, adding…more than fair — I’ll even sweep up around here, and throw in a shoeshine…or two.
I’ve underestimated, the pawnbroker says in a voice that says underneath in a muttering undertone (but that nothing’s ever tragic, or final), must be dealing with a real professional here…listen, tateleh, jokes I don’t pay for. Hahaha, a laugh won’t pay for the coffin, or my utilitybills. You have so much promise, don’t settle for less, I won’t stand for it, you hear me…let’s say five hundred, and meals for the week, a daughter of mine and a house out in Joysey (though only once you’re married — with kinder), three floors — tell you what, and another daughter, too, just to sweeten the pot: you have maybe a brother, an eligible cousin?
Ridiculous…B’s almost through the door, it’s insulting: eighteen’s my final offer, chai and chaver — I won’t go any lower, I can’t and you won’t…
Nothing doing, the pawnbroker interrupts, points a filthy forefingernail up to the ceiling that would, that should, begin storming with God as his witness…understand me, I’m a generous mensch, and this is as far as I’m willing to go — you’ll take it or leave it, no hard feelings…I would’ve loved to have done business, but time is money and yet both are short patience’s even shorter, I’m sure: one thousand I’ll pay you, my daughter in marriage, and I mean my second daughter, the prettiest that one oy the head on her and the light of her face; meals for the month, a fivefloor house in Joysey once you’re married with kinder (he’s unshakable on this point, though he’s ready to shake on it now), and my first daughter for any relation that might be available, even a friend on your own recommendation, an acquaintance, maybe, even a goy you’ve heard word of who’s sober and solvent — twothirds of my estate after my death, and the blessing that I shouldn’t outlive you, Baruch ata spit spit poo.
You have yourself a deal…He swindles over to the broker, shakes his hands almost shattering the mensch’s wrists through the bars of the cage. He gives a geshray, B loosens His grip, the mensch steps back from his counter, shakes out his hands, then gathers the spoon finally slid through the slot…think how trusting, how very exposed: this mensch with a family, with daughters, and his security so wonderfully, though perhaps foolishly, lax: a human cage with its ribbing bars, him the fragile heart inside beating enormously — how there’s no partition or otherwise divide to get skeptical about, to kibbosh, to quash any deal, no plastic or glass separating transactions: bulletproofed, everythingproofed, impervious, and what’s worse tackily scratched. Without this fussy worry about it — distancing, hard of hearing, strange to speak, glad there’s not — you could really talk to this mensch, you know, get to know him, is he hiring, too…leaving the spoon to the side of his counter, him unrolling notes excavated from a breast of his pajamas, then handing them over, which B refuses to count.
My second daughter’s named Rachel, the mensch says patting the emptied pocket, used to be Kristi; we eat at dusk; I’ll amend my will over strudel.
