Shadows, page 12
“I assume it was a private house.”
“You assume correctly. Which is why we had to make the upstairs for the sanctuary. The way the house was built, the largest space was on the second floor.”
At the head of the stairs was a landing enclosed by a wrought-iron gate. “For safety. We didn’t want anyone dizzy from the exaltation of communing with God falling down a flight of stairs, God forbid. And suing us, besides.”
The stairs had led them to what was the back of the Temple. Alex had expected little and was surprised by what he saw. His first impression was of form and symmetry giving the room a serene presence. The walls were paneled in a pale oak with rows of benches, also made of light oak. Each bench seated four; there were two to a row divided by an aisle. There was a pulpit at the far end and behind it a cabinet made of the same pale wood, the front of which had doors inlaid with mother-of-pearl and further adorned with intricate carvings. From where he stood he could not discern the details of the carvings, but he was struck by the shafts of light that poured down on them from an enormous skylight in the roof. The brightness filled the room and gave it a mystical glow.
“There was a third floor to the house, which we took out in order to get the height. I call it a yiddishe ceiling. After all, it’s not a cathedral. Beautiful isn’t it?”
“Very beautiful.”
“It’s a small congregation, but faithful.” They stood there a few moments in silence, then the sexton said, “Okay? Seen what you came for?”
“Could you do me a favor? Could I stay here a few minutes?
The sexton once again shrugged. “I’ll be in my office. Just let me know when you’re done.” He started down the stairs.
“You’re not afraid to leave me here alone?”
The man turned and for the first time smiled, revealing a row of beautiful white teeth. “Bubbele, the only damage I think you might do up here is to yourself.” He continued down the stairs.
Alex walked down the aisle and stopped about halfway to the front. He moved sideways along one of the benches as if he were maneuvering past someone's legs, then sat down in the middle. In front of him was a receptacle with two books with blue covers. He took one and read its title in gold capitals: “The New Union Prayer Book”, and in smaller type, “Weekdays, Sabbaths, and Festivals.” On the front cover was another title, “Gates Of Prayer, and on the back cover were Hebrew letters which he guessed translated into “Gates of Prayer.” He opened the book and discovered that what he thought was the front was actually the back. Although there seemed to be as much English as Hebrew the pages ran from right to left. He turned pages, not reading anything but odd sentences out of context:
We are encompassed by questions to which we can only respond with awe.
Which is the right path to choose? One that is honorable in itself and also wins honor from others.
Was I honorable with Rudi and Francesca?
If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I?
He looked up once again at the skylight. How strange it felt to be here in this beautiful and holy place.
He read more:
Give meaning to my life and substance to my hopes; help me understand those about me and fill me with the desire to serve them. Let me not forget that I depend on others as they depend on me…
Miriam. Does she need me now? Does prayer help? People come here to pray. He had never prayed, so he had no idea what you could get from it.
⅏⅏
There had not been a service for his father. But the night before they had all gone to sit beside the coffin. His mother was dry-eyed. After a while, Alex went into the hall and lit his pipe. His hand shook enough to cause ashes to spill out of the pipe. He walked to the end of the corridor where a window looked out onto a lot filled with tires, a refrigerator with the door missing, black garbage bags, scraps of newspaper fluttering like flags.
He turned and saw his son Richard approaching. He walked with the ease and grace of a dancer.
Richard took a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket.
“I didn’t know you smoked,” Alex said.
“There’s lots of things you don’t know about me.”
“Why don’t you tell me some?”
“You don’t really want to know.”
“I do. Talk to me.”
Richard blew smoke at the ceiling. “It doesn’t seem very appropriate now. Maybe some other time.”
Alex reached out and touched his son’s face. He remembered Richard as an infant lying in his arms. “Yes. Maybe some other time.”
⅏⅏
He turned pages again, going forward and backward until one paragraph stopped him. And he read:
If God is not, then the existence of all that is beautiful and…good, is but the accidental…by-product of blindly swirling atoms…Atheism leads…only to an incurable sadness and loneliness.
He took a long deep breath. How could there be a God? How do you explain war and torture and genocide and mass rape and the killing of babies? The Holocaust? Where was God when the roof blew off a church in Alabama, killing the parishioners who were in the middle of praying to Him? Where was he when his father did what he did when Clarice decided to commit suicide? Could it be that old son of a bitch Devil is more powerful than that old son of a bitch Jehovah?
Back in college, he had had a crush on a girl who was a devout Catholic. He had presented his argument: People all over the world believed. Did it make their lives better? In the name of their God they killed. In their God’s name, they were killed. The holy books that were read for centuries contained the holy words for the believers to follow. But there were as many interpretations of those words as there were intermediaries to interpret them.
Her answer was simple. The Pope was God’s deputy. Whatever he said, she believed. “Faith,” she said. “I have faith. With that faith, I don’t need anything else.”
To his delighted surprise she went to bed with him, atheist Jew that he was. “The Pope doesn’t have to know everything,” she explained.
He thought he might have fallen asleep. He looked around. He was still alone. He stood up, sidled out into the aisle, and went back downstairs.
The door to the sexton’s office was open. He was seated at his desk, leaning back in his chair. “Nu?”
“Thank you very much.”
“And are you now converted?”
“Not quite. But maybe I’m on the way.”
The sexton waved a hand. “Maybe, perhaps.”
Alex raised his in reply and went out into the street.
Unwillingly he saw Francesca’s face, the tears running, heard her cry. He did not want to hurt anyone. Why couldn’t they see that? All he wanted was the right, the right he shouldn’t be denied, to know his own flesh and blood.
Chapter 26
He got on the train at Kings Highway and not long after, closed his eyes. When there was a stop he listened to the opening and closing of the doors and heard the movement of the passengers. His mind kept returning to the synagogue, to the sanctuary, the light streaming in, the mystical feel of the place. He’d felt at peace there, the real world far away.
Occasionally, he opened his eyes, sometimes meeting the stare of the person seated opposite, an unblinking stare that seemed to be judging him, demanding something of him that he wasn’t prepared to give.
He didn’t get off at the Prince Street stop near his office. There was no way he could go back to work. If Roth didn’t like it, tough shit. Instead, he went on to 34th Street for Penn Station and the Long Island Railroad. From there he could get a train home. The underground corridors were full of determined people, all in a big hurry. He felt no connection to them. He felt more like one of the creatures from the movie they’d seen, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Everyone around him seemed to be objects, rather than humans, all part of a strange landscape. He decided he didn’t want to go home either. Miriam was there with her own problems. She didn’t need him and she didn’t want him. The way he felt now he couldn’t do her any good. When he looked up and saw the exit sign for 34th Street, he took it.
He found himself in front of Madison Square Garden. As always, in that neighborhood, there was movement, color, and sound. Throngs hurried along the sidewalk in front of him passing each other briskly in their determined journeys, nobody making eye contact but managing to avoid crashing into each other by the use of inner-city radar. Taxis swarmed, horns blasted as pedestrians jumped in front of them and then out of their way while the lights changed from red to green to red again. Street people shoved flyers into his face. He put up his free hand and pushed through them as if they were cobwebs.
He turned off Seventh Avenue onto one of the numbered streets. He didn’t know or care which one it was. He stopped in front of a bar, the kind of old-fashioned neighborhood place that looked as if it had been there forever, the kind of bar he’d gone to once as a teenager, on St. Patrick’s Day, on a dare. It was in the Rockaways, an area called “Irishtown.” He’d heard that wild drinking and partying went on. He’d gone there with his friend, Robby Gold, to see what it was like. They’d been a bit disappointed because all they saw were guys waving beer bottles around, although there was a certain amount of excitement when they wondered if they’d get beaten up if the Irishers found out they were Jews.
The Old English lettering on the plate glass window spelled out, Delaney’s Bar & Grill. He went in and found it wasn’t dark and dreary, as he’d expected and neither the customers nor the bartender looked at him as if he were an invader of their space.
The bartender was a woman, in her twenties he guessed, with loose blonde hair and a quick smile. She wore a tight tee shirt with writing on it that he could not make out because she was in constant motion, wiping glasses, moving bottles, cleaning, getting ice. There were only three other customers, two men seated next to each other and a woman at the other end of the bar. He chose a stool between them. He put his attaché case on the floor and ordered a Dewar’s on the rocks, laying a $20 dollar bill on the counter. She poured his drink, took his money, returned with his change, and went back to doing her thing.
Alex sipped his Dewar’s, then reached into his pocket for his pipe and tobacco pouch. He held up the pipe for the bartender to see. “Okay if I smoke this in here?”
“Hey, guy, smoke whatever you want, long as it ain’t dope.”
One of the men sitting at his left said, “What’s the matter with dope? If you use it right, it’s fine.”
“That’s right,” the woman a few stools away on the other side of Alex said. “As a matter of fact, it’s therapeutic. They give it to people who have cancer.” She looked at Alex and smiled.
The bartender said, “I’m not arguing with you. I didn’t say I’m for it or against it. I just said, not in here. We don’t want any blue-jackets making unannounced visits.”
Alex filled the bowl and lit it. He took a few puffs and watched the smoke drift in front of him.
The woman said, “I always loved the smell of pipe tobacco. It’s a kid thing, I guess. I used to have a crush on this senior in high school. He smoked a pipe. He kept it in his mouth all the time. Not in school, I mean where he hung out in front of the school. He used to stand with his jaw stuck out and the pipe jutting out of it. He looked like John Wayne. And I’d walk past and smell his tobacco and think he was the greatest thing on two legs. He never noticed me, though.”
“Too bad,” Alex said.
“You have the same kind of jaw. Big. Strong. And I like that little scar at the side of your mouth.”
“I fell off a bike when I was a kid.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I beg your pardon?” Alex now looked more closely at her and what he saw was exotic, or an attempt to be—straight black hair with bangs, olive skin, a wide red mouth, long shimmering earrings. She wore a tight, black top over a short black skirt. She had to be Hispanic or Greek or Israeli, not as young as the bartender, but not much older.
“A strange question?” She smiled. “Well, I know you’re not a regular. I’ve never seen you before. Also, you’ve got a look about you, like you’re distracted like you don’t really know what you’re doing.”
Her voice did not match her looks. It was high-pitched and a bit muted. He would have expected something more musical. “Well, at least I know what you do for a living,” Alex said.
“You do?”
“Sure. You’re a Gypsy fortune teller. You read the past and the future out of the bottom of bar glasses.”
She held up a hand, long fingernails painted silver. “I’m sorry. That was very insensitive of me. I didn’t mean to poke into your privacy.”
“That’s okay. I’m a little jumpy. I didn’t mean to be so sarcastic, either. Just a lot of things going on. You know how it is.”
“Oh yes. I think everyone knows how it is.” She raised her glass, which was filled with some kind of orange-colored liquid, and drained it down. “Toni.”
The blonde bartender took her empty glass away and came back with a full one. “Take it out of mine,” Alex said. And I’ll have another, too. When he had his fresh drink, he raised the glass in the direction of the woman. “Cheers.”
“Thanks,” she said, raising her glass, “A vos amours.”
“Why don’t we just stick to Cheers? Love is too complicated.”
Her smile seemed genuine. “Okay, Cheers.”
One of the other customers put coins into a jukebox and a song began playing that Alex didn’t recognize. His companion swayed and hummed. “I love this kid Michael Jackson. I love the music, the energy.”
“Yeah. Sounds pretty good.”
“You want to dance?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
“You’re shy.”
“That’s right.”
“I’m a great dancer. I could teach you.”
“Thanks, but no thanks.” He emptied his glass and held it up again, for the bartender to refill. He put another bill on the counter.
“You don’t want to go too fast with those,” his neighbor said. “They have a way of sneaking up on you.”
He took a deep breath. “Look, Miss…” He didn’t know her name.
“Honey. Honey Bunch.” Then quickly added, “That’s my stage name. I’m an actress.”
“Miss…Bunch…I think, if you take a good look at me, you will see that I have long since passed the age where I need someone to advise me when or how or why I should or should not have a drink.”
“Hey! Excusez-moi. I’m not trying to interfere with your life. I was just being neighborly.” She turned away from him.
He sipped more Scotch. It was beginning to have no taste. A new song was now playing. This one sounded more familiar. He tried to listen to it to see if he actually might know some music that wasn’t a hundred years old, but in spite of his concentration, he could not place it.
“I’m sorry,” he heard whispered into his ear.
She had moved. She was now on the stool next to his. Her drink was side by side with his on the bar along with her pocketbook, a large one made of what looked like a tapestry. “I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I was out of line. Certainly it’s not my business what you drink or how much you drink. We all have our own scores to settle.”
He didn’t say anything.
She nudged him. “Okay? Am I forgiven? We’re friends again?”
“Sure.”
“So what’s your name? Since we’re friends I ought to know your name.”
“JimBob,” he said, surprising himself, and put on what he hoped was a southwestern accent. “JimBob McCafferty at your service.”
“That’s a southern name, right?”
“Right as rain. Right outta the glorious state of Texas.” He heard himself drawl the words. He watched as she shook her head and light gleamed in her sleek black hair. “I grew up on a five-thousand-acre ranch. It was named Faith, Hope, and Charity after my three aunts who my grandfather loved more than anything in the world, except for my grandmother who they say was the prettiest thang in the whole state.” He smiled, trying to remember where he had read a story like that once, and also at how easily the hokum came out of his mouth.
“I never would’ve guessed,” she said.
“Is that right?”
“Never. I figured you for a native New Yorker.”
“I hear tell there ain’t no such thing as a native New Yorker. That everyone comes from someplace else.”
“That’s right,” she said. “You see them on TV all the time when they do those stupid interviews. `I come from Keeokuk, Iowa. I’ve been in New York two months and it’s like home to me now.’ And there’s always a famous model who’s so gorgeous you could plotz from the way she looks, and she speaks in this voice like liquid Sweet n’ Low, ‘N'Orlins, that's wheah om from, but I luvvv, New Yolk.’ Me? I’m from Queens and everyone I know is from Brooklyn.”
He laughed. “Miss Bunch, I see your glass is empty. Let me buy you another of whatever that strange thing is you’re drinking.”
“It’s a Harvey Wallbanger. I love them. And call me Honey, okay? We’re friends now, right?” She called out, “Toni.”
The blonde bartender came over to where they were and put both hands flat on the bar. He could see the writing on her shirt clearly now. It read, “Life Sucks and Then You Die.”
“I hope you don’t believe that,” he said.
“What?”
“What you’re wearing.”
“You don’t like it?”
“It’s awfully pessimistic.”
“But true. That’s what it all boils down to.”
“Come on now,” Honey said. “What’s with all this gloom and doom? I want you to meet my friend here. JimBob. From Texas.”
