Seed on the Wind

She liked Max Kadish. Often that autumn he came early in the afternoon to the apartment on Eleventh Street, helped her get the baby in the carriage and Roy ready for the street, and walked with her to Union Square or Washington Square and sat with her on a bench while Helen slept and Roy chased his ball or bruised pedestrians’ shins with his scooter. When she protested that he must be neglecting his business he explained that in his line hours didn’t matter, the point was contacts. Yesterday, he said, to give an illustration, he had bought for his employers, a big and highly respectable firm, for the sum of twelve hundred dollars, a ring which they had sold two weeks ago for four thousand. His commission, as usual in such transactions, had been twenty percent of the gross profit. This particular ring was an uncommonly fine one; his firm had sold it no less than four times in the past year. Contrary to the popular belief, he said, it wasn’t always millionaires who bought nor chorus girls who sold; one of his best contacts was a woman who lived with her husband in a quiet little apartment on Lexington Avenue and gave teas at the Mayfair.

“It’s ugly,” said Lora.

“Sure it is,” he agreed, “almost as ugly as living on coal miner’s lungs or factory women’s backs. Dear Lora, no taking in life is beautiful.”

“It is undignified”

“Only to those who borrow their standards.”

She shook her head vaguely; such things didn’t matter, you talked of them only to be saying something. When Roy was born, she remembered, she had decided that the most undignified process in the world was giving birth to a baby. What were you going to say for dignity after that?

As the weeks passed Max grew more and more insistent; Albert no longer loved her, he declared; obviously she did not love him; he, Max, could be and would be patient, but why not open the gate of his paradise? Lora, smiling and frowning by turns, kept him delicately suspended on the thread of her indecision. She liked him, but she mistrusted his smooth ready speech and more particularly his total lack of moral attitude. Steve had been brutally selfish; Albert, by his own admission, was constitutionally volatile; but neither, ignoring the moral verities, had deliberately insulted them. But no, she finally felt, that wasn’t it either, it was just something indefinable in the way Max talked...

One rainy day in December, after a long afternoon with her in the little flat, he gave up. He went to the closet and put on his coat and then returned and stood in front of her with his hat in his hand.

“I annoy you, dear Lora,” he said. “I am a nuisance to you and to myself. You were nearer to me that first day in the Square, when you let me hold your hand. You are more beautiful than ever — oh, so beautiful — but you are farther away. It is something I cannot conquer with my devotion and my desire — something I can’t help — my race perhaps, or my modest stature, something you’re not even aware of...”

“That’s it!” Lora suddenly exclaimed. She laughed.

He looked at her, his polite brows lifted.

“It’s because you’re a Jew. How funny! Isn’t it ridiculous? I’ve always been a little afraid of you, a little doubtful, and I didn’t know why. That’s it, because—”

She stopped; Max had gone to the door and opened it and was passing through without a word.

“Don’t go, Max!” she said, but the door closed behind him, and his rapid steps sounded from the hall.

She ran to the door and opened it. He was just starting down the stairs.

“You’re a fool,” she said. “Go if you want to, but you’re a fool.”

He stopped and looked back at her down the length of the dim hall. His tone was suave and emotionless.

“What’s the use, since it is, as I suggested, something I can’t help—”

“You know very well you’re a fool. We can’t talk out here — come—”

“What’s the use?”

“Come.”

He turned and walked slowly towards her; she preceded him into the room and after he had entered closed the door.

“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” she demanded.

“I’m ashamed that I came back.”

“Silly! Would I have said it if there had been any hurt in it? Knowing it took it away — at once — like that!” She waved her hand. “I know what it is, it’s the old peddler with a beard who used to come to our house long ago, many years ago, when I was a little girl — that’s why it’s funny. If you don’t see it’s funny!”

“It isn’t funny, dear Lora.”

“Oh, yes, it is! I can’t say I’m sorry I hurt you because I didn’t really — you had no right to be hurt — but you will forgive me—”

He still stood holding his hat, looking at her.

“I suppose it would be the same,” he observed, “if I loved a Lesbian and she told me she despised me because I’m a man. That wouldn’t be funny. I can’t help being a man.”

Lora shook her head.

“There’s something wrong with that; I know; what if she wasn’t really a Lesbian, and what if she didn’t despise you? Anyway — it’s late and I have to feed the baby and you must go. But before you go—”