What that aura was seemed to elude any precise definition, although Ferguson made numerous attempts over the years to understand what made it so distinctive, so unlike any other household he had entered before. A mixture of the posh and the humdrum, he sometimes thought, but one in which the poshness was never tainted by the humdrumness and the humdrum was never influenced by the posh. The elegant, beautifully controlled British manners of the parents flourishing side by side with the anarchic tendencies of the children, yet neither camp seemed to resent the other, and an air of peacefulness seemed to hover around the house at all times, even when the two youngest daughters were shouting at each other in the living room. One snapshot: the tall, slim, aristocratic Mrs. Rosenbloom in one of the Chanel and Dior suits she wore to her office at Saks Fifth Avenue patiently talking about birth control to her eldest daughter, Bella, who had gone beatnik since her arrival in America and was listening patiently to her mother as she adjusted her black turtleneck sweater and brushed on black eyeliner, which slowly transformed her into a raccoon. A second snapshot: the smallish, somewhat emaciated Mr. Rosenbloom with his silk ascot and gray goatee discoursing on the virtues of good penmanship to his youngest daughter, Leslie, a scrawny nine-year-old with scabs on her knees and a pet hamster named Rodolfo sleeping in a pocket of her dress. Such was the Rosenbloomian aura, or one or two of its transient emanations, and when Ferguson considered the turmoil those people had gone through together, when he thought about what it must have been like to lose everything and have to start all over again in another part of the world, and then have to start over again for a second time in yet another part of the world, he wondered if he had ever met a braver, more resilient family than this one. That was the aura, too: We’re alive, and from now on it’s live and let live, and may the gods turn their backs on us and butt out of our affairs for good.
There was much to learn from Mr. Rosenbloom, Ferguson decided, and because Dana’s sixty-six-year-old father no longer worked and spent most of his days at home reading books and smoking cigarettes, Ferguson began stopping in to see him from time to time, most often immediately after school when the late-afternoon light would flow into the living room and cast complex, crisscrossing shadows on the floor and furniture, and there they would sit, the young man and the old man in that half-dark, half-bright room, talking about nothing in particular, rambling around among politics and the peculiarities of American life, occasionally discussing a book or a film or a painting, but the bulk of it was Mr. Rosenbloom telling stories about the past, frivolous, charming anecdotes about storm-tossed voyages on steamship liners to Europe, the bons mots he had uttered as a young man, the shock of delight that coursed through him when he took the first sip of his first martini, references to gramophone records, the wireless, and rolled-up silk stockings sliding off women’s legs, nothing of any consequence, nothing of any depth, but fascinating to listen to, and how rarely he talked about his troubles in South Africa, Ferguson noticed, and when he did say something there was never any rancor in his voice, none of the anger or indignation that might have been expected from a man in exile, and that was why Ferguson was so drawn to Mr. Rosenbloom and took such pleasure in his company — not because he was a man who had suffered but because he was a man who had suffered and could still crack jokes.
Mr. Rosenbloom never read any of Ferguson’s stories, never even glanced at a single word Ferguson had written, but of all people he was the one who came up with the solution to a problem that had vexed Ferguson for many months and no doubt would have gone on plaguing him for years.
Archie, the old man said one afternoon. A nice name for everyday use, but not a very good name for a novelist, is it?
No, Ferguson said. It’s tragically inappropriate.
And Archibald isn’t much better, is it?
No, not any better at all. Worse.
So what are you going to do when you start publishing your work?
If I ever do start publishing, you mean.
Well, let’s assume that you will. Do you have any alternatives in mind?
Not really.
Not really, or not at all?
Not at all.
Hmmm, Mr. Rosenbloom said, as he lit up a cigarette and looked off into the shadows. After a long pause he asked: What about your middle name? Do you have one?
Isaac.
Mr. Rosenbloom exhaled a large plume of smoke and repeated the two syllables he had just heard: Isaac.
It was my grandfather’s name.
Isaac Ferguson.
Isaac Ferguson. As in Isaac Babel and Isaac Bashevis Singer.
A fine Jewish name, don’t you think?
Not so much the Ferguson part, but definitely the Isaac part.
Isaac Ferguson, novelist.
Archie Ferguson the man, Isaac Ferguson the writer.
Not bad, I’d say. What do you say?
Not bad at all.
Two people in one.
Or one person in two. Either way, it’s good. Either way, that’s the name I’ll use to sign my work: Isaac Ferguson. If I ever manage to get published, of course.
Don’t be so modest. When you manage to get published.
Six months after that conversation, as the two of them sat in the house discussing the differences between the light of South African afternoons and the light of New Jersey afternoons, Mr. Rosenbloom stood up from his chair, walked to the far end of the room, and came back with a book in his hand.
Maybe you should read this, he said, as he gently let the book fall from his hand into Ferguson’s hand.
It was Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country: A Story of Comfort in Desolation. Published by Jonathan Cape, Thirty Bedford Square, London.
Ferguson thanked Mr. Rosenbloom and promised to return the book within the next three or four days.
You don’t have to give it back, Mr. Rosenbloom said, as he sat down in his chair again. It’s for you, Archie. I don’t need it anymore.
Ferguson opened the book and saw that there was an inscription on the first page that read: 23 September 1948. Many Happy Birthdays, Maurice — Tillie and Ben. Under the two signatures, written out in thick block letters, there were two more words: HOLD FAST.
IF HE WASN’T going to take money from his father, then it was out of the question to spend another summer working in one of his stores. At the same time, if Ferguson wouldn’t take money from his father, then he would have to start earning money of his own, but two-month summer jobs were hard to come by in that part of the world, and he didn’t know where to look for one. Now that he was sixteen, he supposed he could go back to Camp Paradise and work as a waiter there, but he would earn nothing except for the tips the parents handed out on the last day of the summer, which would amount to a paltry two hundred dollars or so, and besides, Ferguson was finished with camp and never wanted to go back, the mere thought of setting foot on the ground where he had seen Artie Federman die was enough to make him see the death again, see it again and again until it was Ferguson himself who was emitting the faint little Oh that came from Artie’s mouth, Ferguson himself who was falling down on the grass, Ferguson himself who was dead, and it simply wouldn’t be possible to go there, not even if the salary for camp waiters was four hundred dollars a meal.