TEXTE 2 CALL IT SLEEP

As far back as he could remember, this was the first time that he had ever gone anywhere alone with his father, and already he felt desolated, stirred with dismal forebodings, longing desperately for his mother. His father was so silent and so remote that he felt as though he were alone even at his side. What if his father should abandon him, leave him in some lonely street. The thought sent shudders of horror through his body. No! No! He couldn’t do that!

At last they reached the trolley lines. The sight of people cheered him again, dispelling his fear for a while. They boarded a car, rode what seemed to him for a long time and then got off in a crowded street. Nervously gripping David’s arm, his father guided him across the street. They stopped before the stretched iron wicket of a closed theatre. Colored billboards on either side of them, the odour of stale perfume behind. People hurrying. Trains roaring. David gazed about him frightened. To the right of the theatre, in the window of an ice-cream parlour, gaudy, colored popcorn danced and drifted, blown by a fan . He looked up apprehensively at his father. He was pale, grim. The fine veins in his nose stood out like a pink cobweb. 

“Do you see that door?” he shook him into attention. “In the grey house. See? That man just came out of there.”

“Yes Papa.”

“Now you go in there and go up the stairs and you’ll see another door. Go right in. And to the first man you see inside, say this: I’m Albert Schearl’s son. He wants you to give me the clothes in his locker and the money that’s coming to him. Do you understand? When they’ve given it to you, bring it down here. I’ll be waiting for you. Now what will you say?” he demanded abruptly.

David began to repeat his instructions in Yiddish.

“Say it in English, you fool!”

He rendered them in English. And when he had satisfied his father that he knew them, he was sent in.

“And don’t tell them I’m out here,” he was warned as he left. “Remember you came alone!”

Henry Roth, Call it Sleep