“It’s so hot,” he said. “Why is everything outside?”
“We tried. The museum didn’t like the prisoner trick. They wanted an association, yes, but they said outside only. Doing it on the lawn was the bargain. Off the record, okay?”
“You have to say that first,” Slava tried to joke.
“You’re the professional,” she shrugged.
“This was your idea, not his, wasn’t it?” Slava said.
She nodded.
“You’re good,” Slava said.
“Are you surprised?” she said. She pulled uncomfortably at her blouse. It was too coarse for the weather, but it outlined her chest handsomely; probably Settledecker had made her wear it. For ten minutes after the ceremony, the cameras interviewed Vera while Settledecker steamed beside the dais. Though he wanted the attention, he knew that he was getting what he wanted with her in front of the cameras.
“Slava, why are you doing what you are doing?” she said.
Slava looked away. “I don’t know anymore. Truthfully.”
“So maybe you don’t know everything,” she said. “Your head can be a watermelon sometimes. A lot of juice but a lot of water. You know, you could have asked me at the house what were the scrapbooks with the Halloween costumes. But you were not interested. You like to put us down. I don’t care, Slava, for your information. But them? They are old, Slava. They are in a place they don’t understand.”
“And what do you want?” he said.
“I want them to have comfort.”
“You, you,” he said irritably. “Not them.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
Slava looked away. The woman who had been calling for Sima earlier shouted to find out if Sima had found the cake. Sima replied that she had, Fanechka, thank you.
The wind had won a temporary reprieve from the heat and, added to the shade they had found, was actually pleasant. You could imagine the world cooling down.
“I earn half as much as you do,” he said. “And I want away from all this. Why would your parents want us to be together?”
“For someone who wants to go away, you spend a lot of time in the neighborhood.”
“It’s temporary.”
“You sure?” she said. She watched the camera crews folding up. “You used to be different. They think it’s a phase.”
“And you agree with them.”
“You’re still one of us, Slava. A strange you is still better than an American. They can understand you.”
“Do you know what I think?” he said. “You don’t want this. They want this.”
She lifted a palm to his cheek. “You talk and talk,” she said. “You make everything so complicated. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“What’s tomorrow?” he said.
“At your grandfather’s?” she said. “Everyone’s getting together. The applications are due the next day.”
“I know when the applications are due. No one told me.”
“They came up with it at our place last week. Your grandfather didn’t tell you? I think he’s a little afraid of calling you. But it’s not like you’re not invited. You are the author.”
“My grandfather invited people to his house?” Slava said. She had to have mixed something up.
“It’s a nice idea,” she said. “Really an excuse to spend time together. Our old people are lonely.”
His grandfather was going to have over the Katznelsons, the Kogans, the Rubinshteins? Whose grave inconsiderations he had borne with an unspeaking pride all these years? But six weeks ago, an evening hello from an investigator for the Claims Conference also would have seemed far-fetched.
Slava peered past Vera at Peter, skulking around the seniors, strands of Yiddo-English rising into the air. Slava wouldn’t bother trying to file a piece for Century. Peter would get only the cream of the story, but he would write about what had actually happened: the survivors’ agenda, their quotes. It was far better for these old people to have Peter Devicki file a piece. His was far likelier to see print.
He turned back to Vera. Of course he would be there.
16
Otto Barber had a professor’s wild, unkempt hair, its loose gray strands billowing mildly in the line of a fan thrumming from above the bar. All around Otto, young people were working through liter-size pitchers of lager, but the German had ordered in the European manner, 3 liters. Lifting the glass, he barely wet his lips. Watching from the doorway, Slava was reminded of a walk he had taken with his father in Italy. After many aimless turns, they stopped, Slava not sure why, at the window of a café like a hundred others. This one had only a single customer, sidled up to the copper-top bar. It was the lunch hour; he was in his postman’s uniform. He ordered a juice — Slava’s father, of lesser eyesight and lesser Italian, asked Slava what kind it was, and Slava proudly said, reading the label, pera, grusha, pear. The barman retrieved the potbellied bottle from a fridge, followed by a lowball from a rack. He deposited a small square napkin on the bar, on it the empty glass. Then he tipped the bottle of juice over the glass. The two men continued to talk while the barman poured. He poured for a minute. The final drops slid from the neck of the bottle with torturous slowness. Finally, the bottle was empty, the glass filled to its neck. The two men spoke for another minute before the post
man reached for the glass, as if his thirst were not pressing. Once he had taken a sip, the juice barely touching his lips, the barman vanished, the bar the postman’s alone. He unfolded a newspaper, and both Slava and his father thought they could hear the snap of its crease before it landed next to the juice. Slava’s father looked down at his son and smiled in a resigned, fatal way.
“Mr. Gelman!” Slava heard through the noise of the bar. Otto was barreling toward him like a castaway. “Well, it is you,” he said proudly on reaching Slava.
“You can call me Slava,” Slava said.
“My assistant says it’s a name with great meaning,” Otto said. He pumped Slava’s hand and even bowed slightly. “She’s also a Soviet émigré,” he hastened to explain. “Lyudmila. Please, Mr. Gelman — Slava, excuse me — let us not stand here like guests.” He extended his arm toward the back of the bar, where the bartender had placed a coaster over Otto’s glass.
“What is your poison?” Otto said as he lowered himself in his chair. “Did I say it correctly? As promised, I am buying.”
Slava looked up at the bartender, but he was experimenting with the foam on a Boddington and had no interest in their conversation. Not to prolong matters, Slava asked for the Boddington, but in his nervousness, he elbowed it onto the bar. When he looked up apologetically, the bartender only shrugged. “I’ll practice the perfect Boddie till kingdom come,” he said. “You’ll have to pay me again, though.”
“I will pay,” Otto shouted. The bartender, mopping up the spill with a dirty towel, looked up at the odd pair before him. Otto waved him away. “Mr. Gelman, I will tell you a story,” he said. “One time my father and I met for tea. I had just finished university — I was struggling to find a direction for my life. It is a problem for all men at twenty-two, but in our country, with a father like mine — you understand. He was a serious man, a strict man, but in the most positive sense, and he believed that the value of going around without a goal, well, it was nil. Better to file the same bolt over and over at the motor factory, not that he was a great admirer of such things, than wander the streets and drink coffee and think about — what?
“Anyway, we met for tea. I was wearing yellow running shoes! Oh, it was the 1970s, and I imagined myself an adventurous person, but how foolish to meet your father for a discussion about the direction of your life in yellow running shoes!” Otto slapped the bar, delighted at his callowness.