Tunes for Bears to Dance To Read Online Free PDF Page B

had run a long distance, the veteran muttered, “What’s the matter with you kids?” His voice filled with disgust. “Don’t we have enough fighting in the world?”
    “He attacked me,” Jackie whined, his voice stillroughedged. “I didn’t do anything. We were standing there talking and he started to choke me.”
    “My father is not crazy” Henry said, pronouncing each word distinctly, needing to impress the truth on Jackie Antonelli and the veteran and people who had begun to gather. ”He’s sad but not crazy….”
    “Get out of here, the two of you,” the veteran said. “Vamoose.”
    At home Henry’s father sat at the kitchen table shuffling cards with one hand, the cards slipping and sliding in and out of the deck.
    “It’s hot out,” Henry said, raising his voiced bit, speaking as if his father was deaf. Sometimes he seemed to be deaf and did not respond when someone spoke to him.
    Slowly gathering the cards into a neat pile, his father looked up at him.
    “I’m sorry, Henry,” he said.
    Sorry for what? The heat? This tenement? His long silences? His father spoke so seldom that Henry gave weight to everything he said.
    “Don’t be sorry, Pa.”
    “You’re a good boy,” his father said. He seemed about to say more, wetting his lips with his tongue, then fell into silence again and resumed shuffling the cards.
    Henry waited a few moments, glad to have heard his father’s voice, then went outside to the piazza. His mother was late, which meant she wasworking overtime again. He looked down at the deserted suppertime street. He thought of Frenchtown and how Leo Cartier used to call his name after supper on nights like this: “Henry, are you coming out?” I
will not let myself be lonesome,
he vowed silently.
    His mother arrived, bringing anger into the tenement. Not only had the tips been bad today but some customers had stiffed her, which meant they had left without paying the check. Two young guys in sharp suits. The manager, Mr. Owens, had taken it out of her pay. “I like you, Aggie,” he had said. “But I’ve got to set an example. Otherwise someone will play an angle on me.” All this Henry heard her report to his father. His father did not reply.
    She banged pots and pans and dishes around in the kitchen. Then silence fell. Henry slipped down the front stairs. He could not at this moment bear to be in that sad tenement.

“S ee the old man out there, tipping his hat to nobody,” Mr. Hairston said at the window. “Looks like an idiot.”
    The boy put down the feather duster and went to stand beside the store owner.
    “That’s Mr. Levine,” he said.
    Surprise on his face, Mr. Hairston asked, “And who’s Mr. Levine?” Brusquely. “I know he’s a Jew by his name, but who is he?” He scowled fiercely, as if angry at Henry for knowing a Jew.
    “He lives in the crazy house, but he’s not crazy,” Henry answered. “He was in a concentration camp during the war. His village was destroyed by the Nazis. His family was killed, his wife and children, all his relatives.”
    Mr. Hairston made no reply. Kept staring out the window. “Look, he’s tipping his hat again. I think he
does
belong in the crazy house.”
    “That’s reflex action,” he said, using George Graham’s words. “The guards made him tip his hat so much in the camp, and beat him up if he didn’t, that now he does it all the time.” Henry felt the explanation was inadequate. “He’s a nice old man.”
    “Watch out for Jews,” Mr. Hairston warned. “Even a nice old one.”
    Did Mr. Hairston hate everyone? Henry wondered.
    “He’s very talented,” Henry said.
    “Talented? What kind of talent does an old Jew from the crazy house have?”
    “He’s rebuilding his village that was taken by the Nazis, carving the houses and barns and shops. Carving small pieces of wood to look like the people he grew up with. The village is beautiful.”
    “Well, I hope it keeps him out of mischief,” Mr. Hairston said.