THE LAUGH

THE LAUGH⁠[6]

By BELLA COHEN

(From The Calendar of Modern Letters)

Meyer lay on the bed, the covers drawn up over his mouth. His thin, long nose projected over the quilt seemed very long and wax-like; and his eyes were closed. His feet stuck out beyond the edge of the bed, for Meyer was a tall man, and illness seemed to have stretched him out.

Hannah, his wife, stood near the bed, looking down upon him sorrowfully, her fingers patching her mouth.

“A man who has never been sick in his life to fall so sick. And he only fifty years old—the best years,” she thought.

She turned from the bed and silently began to clean the rooms she and Meyer had lived in for the last eight years. Every now and then she stopped to look at the man in the bed.

“It seems so strange for him to be in the house with me and yet not say a word to me.” Hannah spoke to herself. “I don’t like that white sheet over the quilt.”

Hannah carefully placed the broom in the corner near the stove and pattered over to the wooden trunk where she kept her red shawl. A close, layer-like smell of moth balls and unaired clothing lifted itself sluggishly and receded. The red shawl was near the top. It had white stripes and was made of sheep’s fleece. Hannah had knitted and dyed the shawl when she was still young and wore a black plait down her back.

She placed the red shawl over the sick man’s feet, but they persisted in sticking out—their long, misshapen toes digging into each other with soles as hard as leather. They stood up stiffly perpendicular.

Hannah looked at them and a strange terror gripped her. Her Meyer was sick. Her Meyer was very sick! Desperately, she thought of the House. Perhaps she had better call Mrs. Brandt. Some one....

A knock sounded.

Hannah hurried to the door and opening it softly, looked up into the ruddy, round face of her sister Brahne.

“You!” she cried delightedly. For a moment, the sadness left her eyes. She was no longer alone—all alone—for now, if only for a few moments, she had her sister with her. Some one of her own blood.

“Yes, here I am!” And Brahne stepped into the room. Everything in it became dwarfed, for Brahne was large, large of feet, hands, head, mouth, teeth, and voice. By lifting her hand she could have flattened its palm on the ceiling as easily as she carried her twins on each hip.

The two looked at each other, for they had not seen each other for a year. Brahne had moved her bakery, her husband and children into a suburb, and Hannah, who could not ride in cars because it made her dizzy, did not visit her.

“Meyer is sick, very sick,” Hannah finally said. Her hand went up to her mouth again.

Brahne turned to the bed and looked at the man.

“He doesn’t seem so bad,” she decided. “What is it, a cold?”

“No, it’s something more. The doctor wouldn’t tell me. I think it’s his heart.”

“Heart! That’s how much you know about men.”

Brahne seated herself and discoursed in bellows.

“Men are children. They don’t know how to bear even a scratch on the finger. They get a little cold and right away they want to go to Coloraydo and get consumption. They want to be petted and fondled like a month-old baby. The more attention you give them the more they want. Many times I think to myself, why do they send men to fight in the wars when they are such weaklings!”

Hannah listened meekly, her hand on her mouth.

“Maybe that’s true what you say, Brahne,” she offered timidly, “but Meyer is now laying like this the third week. And, you know, he’s never been sick since we’ve been married.”

The tears formed in her eyes and dropped down her cheeks.

Brahne’s large, limpid eyes wandered from the sick man’s face to his feet. The red shawl threw a new light into her eyes.

Hannah wiped the tears away as she mumbled:

“God should spare him for me. If he should die——”

“Die!” scoffed Brahne, with difficulty shifting her eyes from the shawl to the man’s face. “People don’t die so fast.”

The sick man stirred and the cover moved down from his mouth. He was smiling.

Brahne rose from her chair and walked heavily to the bed. She beckoned her sister.

“See!” she said. “He’s not sick. He’s smiling. A man who sees Death doesn’t smile, hah Meyer?”

The sick man did not open his eyes nor move at all at the sound of his name. But the smile was still there.

“I could make him laugh!” Brahne wagered.

“Laugh!” her sister repeated, sadly. “What wouldn’t I give to hear him laugh again!”

Brahne looked at the red shawl, lips drawn in, one eye half shut.

“Well,” she said finally, “would you give me the red shawl if I made him laugh?”

Again the hand went up to the mouth, and Hannah considered. Brahne had always wanted that red shawl she knew.

She nodded.

“Yes,” she finally assented. “But you must make him laugh.”

Brahne leaned over the bed and tickled the soles of those stiff feet. A broad smile already stretched across her face.

“Hah, Meyer,” she called out, “don’t think you can fool me!”

Again she trailed her large, square fingers over the calloused feet. A slight trembling took hold of the man. His toes began to wriggle stiffly—creakingly.

“Well, Meyer, how about a little laugh?” Brahne called cheerfully. Hannah stood over her husband, her hand almost hiding her mouth. Now and then she looked at her sister.

Brahne bent to her task with determined lips. She no longer smiled. She wanted that red shawl. This time she played on the soles as if she were playing the piano. Then she changed to a quick tattoo. A weak, little gurgle issued from the parted lips of the man, but his eyes did not open.

“Well, Meyer,” shouted Brahne. “You can do better than that!”

She tickled those stiff feet with the full vigour of her strong fingers. And, suddenly, the covers flew back and the red shawl dropped to the floor. A ringing laugh cut the silence of the room. The sick man laughed again and again like a hysterical girl, but his eyes never opened.

Brahne, her hands on her hips, joined in lustily, and even Hannah smiled tenderly and without sadness.

Suddenly the laugh broke into two and the man stiffened from head to toes. The lips drew themselves together slowly and painfully, and then they were still. The soul of Meyer had fled on the back of a laugh.

“Brahne!” Hannah screamed. “Brahne!”

“What’s the matter?”

But Hannah had already fallen on her knees beside the bed, moaning:

“He is dead! My husband is dead! My husband is dead!”

Brahne, big and powerful, looked down upon the dead man and the weeping woman with a puzzled look in her stupid eyes.

“But anyway I made him laugh,” she said. “The red shawl is mine.”

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