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IN A CONVALESCENT HOEE
as told to
Arnold Manoff
The scene is a room in a large converted private house, situated on a rather
quiet street. Furnished cheaply with four beds two on either side with
the customary small night -tables in between, the room might be one in a small
mountain hotel that has not been re -painted or re -decorated for a long time.
There are three inmates present, the typical kind one would expect in a home
for the aged. Unprofessional -looking nurses come and go and a shirt -sleeved,
beer -smelling orderly drops in, altogether too often it seems, looks at one or
the other parts of the quarters, mad then disappears.
Our informant is a white-haired old lady of 83 years of age. She is blind,
was born in Smargon, a village in Russia near the Polish border. Has lived in
the United States for the past thirty years, fifteen on New York's East Side and
just as long in the Bronx around Prospect Avenue. She has a large head; her
face is still unwrinkled. Believes her time is up, perhaps another year to live;
appears untidy hair unkempt and shaggy.
It is lurch time. The two other old women are eating, one is being fed by a
nurse. Our informant is seated near her bed at a small table on which her lunch
is placed.
She recognizes the voice of her visitor, Who has known her for a number of years.
She suddenly smiles and rejects his assistance when he notices that she has to
grope for her food. The conversation is in Yiddish. Invited to say something
of her daily life, or anything else she cares to talk about, she appears more than
millings
You see. They give me to eat, chicken, all sorts of things. Aa but
it's not like at home. It has no taste. Today have they given me
chicken. Yesterday Ave they not given me chicken. Who knows. They
have everybody given chicken yesterday. Me had they left out. They
know I can't see. Let them catch the cholera. They are murderers.
(Then softly without venom) It is raining in the street. All day long.
I know. Yesterday too it rained. How is it outside now? Still rain-
ing. See that empty bed over there. She died Friday. One hundred
and fifty thousand dollars. She died. (laughing) A lot good it did
her, I feel not to talk much. There is enough trouble in the world.
What is the use to cry all the time? Nhathears from the outside? Are
they killing themselves yet? Mat is he doing now? I think Czechoslovakia
mill fight with him. It used to be good when I had my radio in the house.
I knew everything that was happening. I remember about Napoleon. They
put him on a little island somewhere. A soldier came to him and asked him
did he want poison. He was not through. That's how it is. He care back
but he rent to Russia End the whole army got frozen. They all died from
the cold. I think Hitler if he goes to war now will get the same thing.
Haw is it in Japan?
Don't tell this to anyone. Listen this is to laugh.
When I lived on Home Street all the women started to go
to school. Old ones, young ones, everybody. A new mad-
ness. Everybody wanted to learn to read the English
papers. This was two years ago. Yes. And me. I let
them talk it in to me. So one fine day I pick myself up.
I take my feet on my shoulders and I go to school. There
is a young teacher there and it is very funny. I squeeze
myself into the little seat and I sit. Inside I an dying
laughing. You know. I am a laughing one. I do this.
I do that. I am dying laughing. Do me something. The
young one she writes on the blackboard in English. It is
easy. I know What she is trying to do. She writes in Eng-
lish, goat. And then she says in Yiddish, goat. And then
she asks what is a goat in Yiddish and she wants they should
answer her in English. Listen good. There is a woman there,
an old little one, she understands not a word. Hardly does
she know what is going on. What is a goat, the young one
asks. A pretty one the young one. I felt for her. Such
dumb women to teach English. The old one picks herself up.
She looks this way. She looks that way. A goat she says is
maa maa, like that, maa maa. In me it explodes the laughing.
Maa maa makes the old one like a sheep. I can't hold myself
in. I let out the whole laughing and I can not bear it any-
more. I am ashamed. It is so comical. I pick myself up and
I go home. That's how I vent to school. What did I need
school. Everything I want I used to hear on the radio. There
was one, the limping philosopher he called himself. Now he has
a band and singers. Everything is on the radio. He called
himself the limping philosopher. What it means? Aa--
limping one. He limped. You think there will be war? What
does he say, the bolshevik, Stalin? And What is in Palestine?
England, England, she could stop it. They're all the same.
Well, I think I'll take myself a little sleep now. I sleep so
much here. (She sighed, her big shaggy head drooped tiredly;
I got up to go. She probably heard me getting up from the
chair, and muttered sleepily:) Go healthy. Go healthy.