Read Online The Assistant by Bernard Malamud - Free Book Online

sobbing surf. Louis said, “Let’s go get the hamburgers.”
    â€œGladly.” She took his arm but could tell from the stiff way he walked that he was hurt.
    As they drove home on the Parkway, Louis said, “If you can’t have everything you want, at least take something. Don’t be so goddam proud.”
    Touche. “What shall I take, Louis?”
    He paused. “Take less.”
    â€œLess I’ll never take.”
    â€œPeople got to compromise.”
    â€œI won’t with my ideals.”
    â€œSo what’ll you be then, a dried-up prune of an old maid? What’s the percentage of that?”
    â€œNone.”
    â€œSo what’ll you do?”
    â€œI’ll wait. I’ll dream. Something will happen.
    â€œNuts,” he said.
    He let her off in front of the grocery.
    â€œThanks for everything.”
    â€œYou’ll make me laugh.” Louis drove off.
    The store was closed, upstairs dark. She pictured her father
asleep after his long day, dreaming of Ephraim. What am I saving myself for? she asked herself. What unhappy Bober fate?
    Â 
    It snowed lightly the next day—too early in the year, complained Ida, and when the snow had melted it snowed again. The grocer remarked, as he was dressing in the dark, that he would shovel after he had opened the store. He enjoyed shoveling snow. It reminded him that he had practically lived in it in his boyhood; but Ida forbade him to exert himself because he still complained of dizziness. Later, when he tried to lug the milk cases through the snow, he found it all but impossible. And there was no Frank Alpine to help him, for he had disappeared after washing the window.
    Ida came down shortly after her husband, in a heavy cloth coat, a woolen scarf pinned around her head and wearing galoshes. She shoveled a path through the snow and together they pulled in the milk. Only then did Morris notice that a quart bottle was missing from one of the cases.
    â€œWho took it?” Ida cried.
    â€œHow do I know?”
    â€œDid you count yet the rolls?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œI told you always to count right away.”
    â€œThe baker will steal from me? I know him twenty years.”
    â€œCount what everybody delivers, I told you a thousand times.”
    He dumped the rolls out of the basket and counted them. Three were missing and he had sold only one to the Poilisheh. To appease Ida he said they were all there.
    The next morning another quart of milk and two rolls were gone. He was worried but didn’t tell Ida the truth when she asked him if anything else was missing. He often hid unpleasant news from her because she made it worse. He mentioned the missing bottle to the milkman, who answered, “Morris, I swear I left every bottle in that case. Am I responsible for this lousy neighborhood?”

    He promised to cart the milk cases into the vestibule for a few days. Maybe whoever was stealing the bottles would be afraid to go in there. Morris considered asking the milk company for a storage box. Years ago he had had one at the curb, a large wooden box in which the milk was padlocked; but he had given it up after developing a hernia lifting the heavy cases out, so he decided against a box.
    On the third day, when a quart of milk and two rolls had again been taken, the grocer, much disturbed, considered calling the police. It wasn’t the first time he had lost milk and rolls in this neighborhood. That had happened more than once—usually some poor person stealing a breakfast. For this reason Morris preferred not to call the police but to get rid of the thief by himself. To do it, he would usually wake up very early and wait at his bedroom window in the dark. Then when the man—sometimes it was a woman—showed up and was helping himself to the milk, Morris would quickly raise the window and shout down, “Get outa here, you thief you.” The thief, startled—sometimes it was a customer