The Assistant [antikvár]

TCe early November street was dark though night had ended, but the wini to the grocer's surprise, abready clawed. It flung his apron into his face as he bent for the two milk cases at the kerb. Morris Bober dragged the heavy boxes to the door, panting. A large brown bag of rolls stood in the doorway along with the sour-faced, grey-haired Poilisheh huddled there, who wanted one. 'What's the matter so late ?' Ten after six,' said the grocer, 'Is cold,' she complained. Turning the key in the lock he let her in. Usually he lugged in the milk and lit the gas radiators, but the Polish woman was impatient. Morris poured the bag of rolls into a wire basket on the counter and found an unseeded one for her. Slicing it in halves, he wrapped it in white store paper. She tucked the roll into her cord market bag and left three pennies on the counter. He rang up the sale on an old noisy cash register, smoothed and put away the bag the roUs had come in, finished pulling in the milk, and stored the bottles at the bottom of the refrigerator. He lit the gas radiator at the front of the store and went into the back to light the one there. He boiled up coffee in a blackened enamel pot and sipped it, chewing on a roll, not tasting what he was eating. After he had cleaned up he waited; he waited for Nick Fuso, the upstairs tenant, a young mechanic who worked in a garage in the neighbourhood. Nick came in every morning around seven for twenty cents' worth of ham and a loaf of bread. But the front door opened and a girl of ten entered, her face pinched and eyes excited. His heart held no welcome for her. 'My mother says,' she said quickly, 'can you trust her till