“That’s Rachmaninoff.... No, it isn’t.... I don’t know what it is.... I don’t know one piece from another.... Why don’t I?”
II
“You late again, Manny!”
That was his mother. He didn’t answer her. He looked at the room, at the table with its red tablecloth, now set for the evening meal, at the crayon enlargements of his grandfather and grandmother on the wall. At the ice box in the corner of the dining room. At the long-handled pot in which the soup had been cooked and brought to the table. His father ... long beard ... almost asleep.... Reba—was she dirty or was that just the way she put the rouge on her face? So much rouge! That was his sister.
“Where were you?”
He brushed past his mother. He went into the bedroom. Over his shoulder he told her:
“In school.”
“So late? You get out at five, no?”
“Well....”
He didn’t care to wash up. To hell with hygiene. That was for doctors. He wouldn’t be a doctor.