Broken Necks/Decay

Here in this street the half-dead begin to give forth an odor. The rows of sagging little houses are like the teeth in an old man’s mouth. From them arise the exhalations of stagnant wood, of putrescent stairways, of bodies from which the sweats of lust have never been washed, of ulcerous shadows and soft, bubbling alleys. The stench is like a grime that leadens the air. In this street live men and women whose hungers are not complicated by trifles. In this alley they are, as they move, thick faced and unsmiling in the musty flatulent light of the neighborhood, somewhat different from the little greedy half-dead who have civilized their odors and made ethics of their hungers.

The people who live in this street walk as if they were being pushed in and out of the sagging houses. Shrieking children appear and sprawl about. They roll over one another, their faces contorted with a miniature senility. They urinate in gutters, throw stones at each other in the soft alleys, run after each other cursing and gesturing with idiot violence. They bring an awkward fever into the street. Oblivious to them and to the debris about them, barrel-shaped women strut with protuberant bellies and great flapping shoes over the pavements. They move as if unaccustomed to walking in streets.

It grows dark and the men from the factories coming home begin to crowd the streets. They walk in silence, a broken string of shuffling hieroglyphs against the red of the sky. Their knees bend, their jaws thrust forward, their heads wag from side to side. They vanish into the sagging houses and the night comes, an unwavering gloom picked with little yellow glows from windows. The houses lie like bundles of carefully piled rags in the darkness. The shrieking of the children has died and with it the pale fever of the day has passed out of the air. There are left only the odors, the invisible banners of decay that float upon the night. The stench of fat kitchens, of soft bubbling alleys, of gleaming refuse and of the indefinable evaporations from the dark bundles of houses wherein the little half-dead have packed themselves away, come like a thrust into the nose.

Later, drunken men appear and lurch into the darkness with cursings and mutterings. The smoke of the factory chimneys is now visible, but the chimneys, like rows of cylindrical minarets, make darker streaks in the gloom, and in the distance blast furnaces gut the night with pink and orange flares. The figures of young women, not yet shaped like barrels, come out into the street and stand for long moments in the shadows. They move noiselessly into the depths of the soft bubbling alleys and vanish. As it grows darker the exhalations of these alleys and houses increase as if some great disintegration were stewing in the night.

It was in one of these houses that I once lived. At night I now sometimes recall things that used to happen in this house. When I grow weary with the interminable adjustment of adjectives these memories grimace in the blank spaces of my thought. And when I grow uncertain, moving in the streets where there are no odors, these memories surround me with the fugitive embrace of explanation.

There were eight children in Otto Muznik’s family. They lived with Otto Muznik and his wife in three rooms. In summer and in winter these rooms were filled with a pungent bitter smell. There was a great noise in them also. The eight children screamed at each other. Otto Muznik and his wife screamed at them and at each other. One of the rooms was a kitchen. The two other were bedrooms filled with cots. The screams and the stench in the three rooms, the littered floors and devastated furniture told of activities.

Willy Muznik had a poisoned foot. A cat he had brought home had bitten him. It was night and Mrs. Muznik sat in the kitchen. She was a woman with a spreading, phlegmatic body and a round red and shining face. Her eyes were little. She went about with an unwavering stare, staring at this and at that. She sat in the kitchen now and stared at the stove, on which a black pot full of meat and soup was boiling. Willy was eleven. He sat in a corner doubled up like a contortionist and sucking on his bared, grimy foot. Mrs. Muznik stared at him.

“What did the doctor say?” she asked. She spoke in her own language and in a sharp, husky voice. She had come home a few minutes ago from her day’s scrubbing. During the day she moved on her knees down the corridors of a large office building, miles from the street in which she lived. Willy removed the foot from his mouth, and began to wail. Mrs. Muznik stared at him and waited.

“The doctor says he’ll maybe have to cut my foot off,” Willy finally answered. His mother stared at the foot. Through the grime below the instep she saw a curious discoloration. She wiped her eyes and sighed.

“Your Pa’ll give it to you for bringing cats home,” she said. “He told you not to bring any more cats home.” Willy holding his foot in his hand rocked back and forth on the floor and wailed. Mrs. Muznik arose and looked into the black pot. She turned her eyes toward Willy crying on the floor and a bewilderment tightened her flat features.

“Willy,” she asked, “does it hurt?” For answer Willy increased his wail and Mrs. Muznik looked at him, shaking her head. She moved into another room. The gas light from the kitchen threw a faint glare among the shadows of this room. She sat down in a chair crowded between two cots. The sounds of someone gasping came to her and she stared about in the dark.

“Is that you, Joey?” she asked. The door leading into the street opened and Jenny, a girl of fourteen with a round red and shining face and a pair of long, almost withered, legs, rushed in screaming. In the dim light that dropped into the room from the street Mrs. Muznik saw her son lying on the floor. She rushed over and shook him.

“Don’t have a fit,” she cried. “Joey... Joey. Wait till your Pa goes. He can’t stand it.” Joey stiffened and rolled over on his face. He was fourteen. His head was bent under as if he were trying to stand on it. A fine foam bubbled on his lips.

“Get the cold water,” Mrs. Muznik ordered. Jenny rushed out of the room, singing a song she had learned in the alleys. She returned with a pot of water and Mrs. Muznik threw it over Joey’s head and shoulders. The voices of the two babies, suddenly awakened, filled the room with screams. The two babies were Munch and Sam. One of them, Munch, was sick. His hoarse fever-cry rose above his brother’s complaint. Mrs. Muznik lighted a gas jet and the stench and disorder of the room came flickering out of the shadow. She leaned over one of the cots and picked up Munch. He was covered with a few heavy rags. Through the cloth the dry heat of his body burned against Mrs. Muznik’s hands and bosom. She held the infant and cried to Jenny who was pulling a grimy cloth over the table in the kitchen.

“Where’s Fanny?” The screaming of the infants almost drowned the shriek of Jenny’s laughing shrill answer. “Fanny’s in the alley. Fanny’s in the alley.” Mrs. Muznik laid the hot little body on the cot beside the other screamer and went to a window. She thrust it open and leaned out in the darkness. Her little eyes stared into the alley below.

“Fanny,” she cried, “you come in at once.” Her ears strained to catch sounds. She heard a boy’s voice whispering below and made out two figures moving about against the dark wall.

“Fanny, Fanny,” she screamed. “Come away. I’ll come after you with a whip.” There were more whisperings and then one of the figures detached itself from the gloom and floated into the depths of the alley.

“All right, ma,” a voice answered. Mrs. Muznik sat down on the cot and stared at the two little bundles that screamed on the other side of the room. The door opened and Fanny entered. She was fifteen and had a ribbon in her hair. Her face was round and shining and as red as her mother’s. The two little black eyes were lighted. Her dress was crumbled and covered with alley dirt. Mrs. Muznik stared. From the kitchen Willy’s wailing came to her.

“I can’t walk, ma, I can’t walk.” Willy came hopping into the room on one leg and fell across the floor. He lay screaming at Mrs. Muznik’s feet. Mrs. Muznik turned toward Joey who was sitting near her.

“How do you feel?” she asked. Joey’s thin compressed face smiled. He shook his head.

“All right, now,” he said. “Can I have some lemon drops?”

“Here, Jenny,” Mrs. Muznik ordered. “Go out and buy a penny’s worth.” Jenny’s thin legs flashed out of the room into the street. Fanny had gone into the kitchen to look at the black pot on the stove. Mrs. Muznik stared out of the window and after a silence, during which the babies continued to scream, called out, “Fanny, what you been doing?” A laugh from the kitchen answered. The mother dropped her head and rocked slightly in her seat. The uneven floor about her was littered with clothes from which a heavy musty odor came. The walls were broken and smeared. The windows in front of her made two little grey clouds. The stench of the room came into Mrs. Muznik’s head and made her sleepy. She drew a long breath and continued to rock her body gently back and forth. First the children would eat and then she would wake up Otto. Otto worked nights in a steel mill. He did not have to leave the house for two more hours. The stench and noise of the room drifted away from Mrs. Muznik as she sat and rocked. Idle little thoughts crept into her head. Her body was tired. The shoulders ached and burned and the small of her back throbbed.

She was afraid she was going to have another baby. Willy’s foot would have to be cut off. Joey was sick. Munch, little Munch was sick. His hoarse fever-cry was growing softer. He lay whimpering, his hands moving over his face, These things drifted through Mrs. Muznik’s thoughts, keeping her awake as she rocked back and forth. She thought of Otto going to work in the darkness. He stood in front of an open furnace that roared with fire and fed melted steel into it. She had seen him once. He was almost naked. The memory of his body, reddened by the glare which spread out of the open furnace, remained always with her. Otto’s muscles stood out, and in his loosely belted trousers he had seemed great and strong to her. The red light and the roar and the sputter of melted steel made him shine and changed him into a man with burning eyes and flaming skin. Whenever he left for work after that Mrs. Muznik remembered this, and a vague shiver passed through her.

Mrs. Muznik thought of the ache and throb of her back, as if they were memories. Willy hobbled past her into the kitchen. Jenny burst in through the door. She handed Joey lemon drops. “Give me a little bit,” said Mrs. Muznik.

“Ma,” Joey cried, “there’s a rat. It’s wiping its nose with its feet.” He looked eagerly into the dark alley. Mrs. Muznik ate lemon drops. A warmth spread over her, making her feet hum. This hour of the night was her leisure. She was used to sit like this and rock back and forth and let little idle dreary thoughts creep through her mind. Behind her eyes there was a darkness that came between her thought at these times and the things she saw and heard. But this night the hoarse fever-cry of the baby on the cot chirped in her ears. Joey went into the kitchen and ate. He came back. Fanny followed him, skipping from one foot to another.

“Going out, ma,” she cried. Mrs. Muznik raised an arm toward the girl.

“Wait ... wait,” she called.

Fanny appeared vague and dark in the alley below. Mrs. Muznik stared at her as she floated away into the gloom. She turned from the window and resumed her rocking. She heard, as from a distance, the voice of Willy wailing about his foot, and the voices of her two babies screaming again. Munch was sick. The doctor had said Munch might die. But Mrs. Muznik did not believe this. None of the others had died and they had all been sick. She sucked at the lemon drop in her mouth. The ache and burn in her shoulders were like hot voices bothering her brain. The hoarse fever-cry of the baby on the cot was another little hot voice in her brain.

“Oh, ma,” cried Joey from the window. “There’s Fanny with three boys in the alley.” Mrs. Muznik rocked. “Never mind,” she murmured. The hot voices made her feel swollen within. Her feet felt as if they were resting in flames. Joey came to her and looked at her face.

“Tired, ma?” he asked. Mrs. Muznik lifted him into her lap. He was a thin, fragile boy. She put her arms around him and clung to him. He felt cool and sweet to her flesh beneath the dress. He was better than Willy, than Munch and Sam, than Jenny and Fanny, than Heine. Heine was in jail. He had done something. And Mary, her oldest, had gone away. Mary was wild like Fanny. Willy’s foot would be cut off. Munch was crying so weakly. Mrs. Muznik kissed Joey and rocked. It was dark outside and in her head it was dark. The smell of the room was another darkness, and the burn of her body another. She sat hunched over Joey, clinging to him, and as she clung a sweetness came into her. Her aches melted.

In a few minutes she would have to go to bed. It was wrong for her to sit up and hold Joey. She needed the rest in bed. The scrubbing was hard. It lasted all day. She rocked and the darkness in and around her grew deeper. Her ears fell asleep. She no longer heard the noises in the room. Jenny was tugging at her shoulder and crying in a loud voice.

“Fanny can go out in the alley and play, why can’t I? I can play if Fanny can go in the alley and play.”

Mrs. Muznik couldn’t make out what Jenny was saying. She rocked. Jenny moved cautiously toward the door. She opened it softly.

“Ma,” cried Willy in a shrill voice from one of the cots, “Jenny’s going out in the alley.” A breath of night air, laden with less intimate odors, struck at the room through the opened door. Fanny appeared, thrusting her face in and whispering hoarsely.

“Come on. Ma’s asleep. I got some boys, three boys. Come on, don’t be afraid. We’re going over by the next alley. Ma’s asleep.”

Jenny trembled and her withered legs in their torn black stockings knocked together. A warmth trickled through her flat body. Fanny seized her cold hand. She dragged her out of the room. The laughter of the two girls sounded from the street, and the quick whispers of boys’ voices. The flurry and beat of many feet came into the room and died away.

“Ma, ma,” Willy repeated. “Jenny’s gone. Jenny’s gone.”

Mrs. Muznik nodded her head and rocked. She dreamed Joey was falling out of her arms and awoke, startled. Joey was asleep. She whispered to him, kissing his ears. Lifting him to the cot she laid him down and knelt beside him, taking off his torn shoes.

“Jenny,” she whispered.

“Jenny went in the alley,” Willy cried, and resumed his moaning. “My foot hurts me worse, ma.”

Mrs. Muznik straightened to her feet and walked, with her little eyes staring, to the open door. Her voice sailed into the night.

“Jenny, Jenny, come here,” she screamed. The darkness held the sound of her voice for an instant and then grew silent. She closed the door and stood staring at the babies on the cot. Something impelled her toward Munch, and she lifted him. The dry heat of his body struck through her dress at her heavy bosom and at the hard skin of her arms. It was whimpering and moving its hands slowly and aimlessly over its face. Mrs. Muznik stood and rocked it in her arms... The baby stopped crying and lay quiet. She placed it next to Sam, who had also fallen asleep for the moment. It was time to wake up Otto, and she moved into the kitchen.

She leaned over the black pot on the stove, thinking. Yet there were no words to her thoughts. They came, like little burns, into her brain, and she nodded her head slowly and aimlessly as they appeared. This and that, Fanny and Jenny, Munch and Willy, Heine, and the long corridors over which she crawled all day mingled with the stench of the room and the ache of her body, and she remained staring into the black pot that was boiling, and feeling the heat of the stove pass in waves over her face. A voice called to her from another room. She turned and saw the door of the other bedroom had opened. A stale bitter smell drifted into the kitchen. The figure of her husband, dressed in a suit of long dirty underwear and a pair of thick, hard socks, appeared in the doorway. His face was smeared with sleep. A growth of hair hid his chin and cheeks.

“Ma,” he called to her, stretching his arms, “come here a minute.”

Mrs. Muznik stared at him. “What for?” she asked. The familiar figure in the doorway was clouded in a darkness that burned behind her eyes. A grin overspread her husband’s face. His jaws thrust forward and his eyes began to shine. The grin passed and he remained glowering at Mrs. Muznik. Then he came, with his shoulders swaying, into the kitchen and seized her by the arm. Mrs. Muznik stared into the black pot on the stove. As Otto shoved her before him her mouth opened and her eyes turned to him.

“No, no,” she whispered. “No, Otto. You go to work. Willy’s having trouble with his foot.”

Otto continued to drag the heavy figure of his wife toward the bedroom. A glowering playfulness was in his face and gestures.

“No, Otto, not now. Let me be,” Mrs. Muznik cried. “You go eat.”

Otto laughed and struck her on the shoulders. Stepping behind her he cursed, and with a guffaw pushed her violently into the dark bitter smelling bedroom. She staggered toward one of the beds and dropped into it. Through the open door she watched her husband with round little staring eyes. He walked back to the sink and drew some water in a glass, and drank it. He was a short stocky figure in his dark tattered underwear. She remembered him before the furnace door in the steel mill, shining.

“Come on, Otto,” she called. Her voice was hoarse and thin. She sat on the edge of the bed and waited, staring now into the darkest part of the room. The darkness brought a sweetness into the burn of her body. She rocked gently back and forth. The room floated before her eyes as if the darkness were moving. The little burns came again into her brain, and the stench creeping from the walls and the beds confused her. Through the window she became aware slowly of a great pink and orange glow that hung and wavered in the distant night. It was from the factories. She eyed it as the darkness around her swayed back and forth. Her body leaned forward and she fumbled thickly with her shoe, her mouth open and her eyes intent upon this glow in the distance. The little burns had gone out of her brain. There was left nothing in her except a darkness in which rested a pink and orange glow. Her lips mumbled sounds and she sat repeating the name of her husband, “Otto, Otto.” Then her body tumbled to one side and she lay across the bed as if she had been flung there.

Otto her husband came at last into the bedroom. He was gnawing on a bone and a piece of meat. He glowered down at the heavy figure on the bed that mumbled, “Otto, Otto.”

“Move over there,” he called in a thick voice. Mrs. Muznik stirred and in the gloom her white teeth suddenly flashed in a grin. From the front part of the house Willy’s voice, shrill and frightened, was calling, “Ma, ma. Something’s the matter with Munch. He’s dead. Ma ... ma.”