2023-11-13 16:40:34
BERNARD MALAMOND
The assistant
trans.: Katerina Schina
ed. Kastaniotis, p. 316
They all want another life, but all of them. Less stressed, less dry, less sad, less deprived. They recycle their heartache, they can’t take a single step towards where they dream, they seem to keep sliding down the trap door of despair. They count the cents, the few dollars, they count endlessly and only, bills and needs, liabilities and creditors, gas, food, clothing, the newspaper, nothing.
Morris Bomber, his wife Ida, his daughter Helen live in a Jewish neighborhood of New York, Jews themselves. They don’t exactly live, they thrive, they survive day by day, in the grocery store on the ground floor, in the house on the upper floor. Business goes from bad to worse, competition is deadly, Morris has no strength to face the condition, his wife nags, insults and belittles him mercilessly, his daughter has given up the prospect of education, life change, progress, happiness, she works and contributes her meager salary to their needs.
What does it take to raise one’s stature in the circumstances of his life, when they have impoverished him?
Frank Alpine: of Italian descent, alone, impoverished, a bandit out of necessity, enters their lives like a mechanical god, to help, to resurrect their shop and their souls, to change everyone’s life and certainly his own, as he acrobats between good and evil, made evil, determined to become good, considers goodness a great talent, blackmails himself into existence with conscience, guilt, internal criticism and atonement. He dislikes them for being Jews, he considers their fate tied to the persecution, but he does not know what the bond with them has in store for him.
Morris crushed by the circumstances of his life, by the cursed poverty, the sale of the store that never comes to relieve him of the grocer’s burden, defeated every day, every hour by those endless hours standing behind the counter his, waiting for the customer who does not prefer him, jealous of the surrounding full of shops, he simply turns on the gas one day, lying in his bed. That won’t work either. His wife, disappointed in her marriage, unhappy in misery and despair looks forward to a good marriage for her daughter, guides her without success, Helen despite the need resists, does not compromise, waits for the signal of her heart. It will be given, slowly and torturously, by the presence of Frank; this unpredictable, tender and at the same time wild man who will turn into a source of suffering, flatten faith and trust, embody betrayal and violence.
What does it take to raise one’s stature in the circumstances of his life, when they have impoverished him? What does inner freedom require to lead you to the real flight towards what you dream, desire, think you are entitled to? Cynicism, audacity, calculation and perhaps an easy penchant for crime? Patience and perseverance, maybe a little good luck and placing all hopes in tomorrow that will magically bring what you ask for? It takes brute force of will. It is unavailable. For all. They seem subject to a fate that cannot be changed, their nature is tied to the little, the minimal, their gaze does not reach beyond the shop window; that too dirty. And yet, while they believe they deserve a better life, they are haunted by the guilt of not getting it.
Malamud introduces us to his dramatic characters with absolute charm. They are made of the stuff of human contradiction, honest and liars, with secrets that torment them, truths that cannot be told, desires that go mad, the eternal struggle between words, thoughts, actions. His absolute realism that does not fall into the melodrama, the solidity of the writing, the deep and sympathetic look at people, the affection for their weakness, balances the cruelty, the despair, the nature and malice. Closing the grocer’s door behind us, echoes the confessional Frank: “I don’t act like I should, I mean.”
#Cowardly #fatalistic #inept #atama..