Ruth wasn’t there in the morning. I felt confident at first. The sun was out, there were Cheerios for nourishment, the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon hour for entertainment, and later, when I heard the noise of the weekly adult fast-pitch softball game across the street in my schoolyard, I got up my courage, dressed and went outside. I remember the day was clear, sunny and cool; and the game was thrilling, especially because I was able to get close, perched on the ledge behind the fence. I had been limited to watching from the more distant view of my bedroom window since I had been forbidden to go out on weekends for a year. Some of the men, flattered by my attention and applause, talked to me. I felt heartbroken when the game ended.
I was hungry. I returned to the apartment intending to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. That was when I discovered my error. I had no key to get back in. I guess I expected my mother to be home by late morning. She wasn’t. I rang and rang until a neighbor appeared. She asked if anything was wrong. No, no, I insisted, horrified at the thought that I might have revealed Ruth was away, information which could lead to her imprisonment and electrocution.
I ran off to the stairs, down a flight or two, sat on a step and wept. I had made a bad mistake. I couldn’t figure out how to correct it. A different neighbor appeared to see who was crying. I fled to another landing. That scare got me thinking long enough to make a decision.
I would ignore my hunger and wait outside until Ruth returned. I stood near the building entrance, trying to appear casual and not let on that I was expecting someone.
An eternity seemed to pass. Probably no more than a few hours, but while enduring them I felt more and more abandoned and helpless. I had vivid fantasies. I imagined my father dead in the rubble of Havana. I pictured a malicious laughing Cuban pilot as he landed at an airport in New York to celebrate his destruction of Fidel’s revolution. I saw Ruth step forward in her James Bond outfit, pull out a Walther PPK and shoot him.
One of my friends appeared with his father. They carried baseball gloves and a softball. My friend asked if I wanted to play catch in Fort Tryon Park. I answered that I didn’t, although I desperately wanted to. I couldn’t risk not being there when Ruth returned. I would be in enough trouble for having left the apartment. I had been trying without success to think up a noble reason for having gone out. I think my friend’s father was suspicious. He asked several times if I was okay.
I remember those three or four hours on the sidewalk vividly. I could write hundreds of pages on the compensating fantasies, the despair I saw in New York’s mottled sidewalks, the breathless anxiety when people I knew happened by and interrogated me, the heart-stopping fear when I noticed a police cruiser on the corner and I hid between parked cars. I lived a lifetime in a few hours. I felt as if my entire character had been changed. And yet nothing happened. In the real world, outside the terror and longing in my head, the afternoon was dull. But inside me World Communism struggled for its life and lost — and I was orphaned.
Joseph rescued me. He spied me from his window and called down to ask what I was doing. I didn’t tell him the truth but I made it clear that I was on my own. I was cold; my stomach hurt. He sensed my desperation and told me to come up. I hesitated for all the obvious reasons, namely his parents and my mother. “I’ll answer the door,” he said. Somehow that reassured me. Maybe he meant to sneak me in.
But no, Joseph had too much respect for his mother to do that. He greeted me at the door and asked in a whisper, “Where’s your Mom? What’s wrong?”
“I was supposed to stay inside. I got locked out. I don’t know where she is.”
Joseph nodded in his old man’s grave manner and said, “Follow me. Keep quiet and say you’re sorry when I tell you to.”
We walked, much to Mrs. Stein’s surprise, right into her kitchen.
“Mom, Rafe is here. He’s come to tell you that he’s sorry he lied. His mother has punished him by not letting him go out or see his friends for six months. He doesn’t tell any more lies and now she lets him go out. We’d like to play chess, just one game and then he’ll go.” Mrs. Stein stared open-mouthed throughout his speech and stayed in that pose when he was done. Joseph nodded to me.
“I’m sorry,” I said. I almost burst into tears. I had to fight to keep them to a trickle. “I’m really sorry. I won’t do it again.”
“That’s all right,” she said, trying to be stern-faced, but melting to me. “You did a bad thing, but if you’re sorry and you don’t do it no more, then it’s all right. Go ahead. Play.” We turned, ready to move fast. “You want something to eat?” she asked.
I was never so glad for bland food. I told Joseph a truth, namely that my mother had left me alone all night, but not why, and I explained that if he told anyone, he was putting me at risk of being grounded forever. Joseph said I shouldn’t worry about my mother finding out I was at his place — he had a plan. We moved the chess set so we could look up to see the windows of my apartment. If Ruth turned on a light we would notice. Since it was daytime, I had my doubts she would, but I might spot her moving around. Anyway, I didn’t care if this precaution was fallible. Out on the street my fear and hunger had overwhelmed me. I was too relieved by my rescue to care if I was punished for it.
The next obstacle loomed with nightfall. Joseph’s father and mother appeared and looked at me as if I should be leaving. I had tried to beat Joseph using the Sicilian Defense, gleaned from the little learning I had gotten out of his birthday present the previous day. But I was quickly trounced twice — Joseph didn’t tell me he owned a new book with more variations. I tried a different opening for the third game and seemed to be winning. I was about to attack him King’s side when I saw the mouse’s one-eyebrow face, squinting at me unhappily. “It’s late,” he said sourly.
I had an inspiration: “I’m sorry, Mr. Stein. I lied to you. I’m very sorry. I’ll never do it again.” This humbling of myself, this lie of an apology, an unthinkable abandonment of my pride only six months before, was a relief to me. I wanted to give myself up, to crush myself if I could, to be remade from top to bottom. I stood. “Thank you for inviting me,” I said to Joseph, who looked so astonished by my formal manner I thought the lenses in his glasses were going to pop out. I walked toward his parents, resigned that I had to go.
“Ma,” Joseph asked, a pleading note in his tone, “can Rafe sleep over?”
Mrs. Stein glanced at her husband. He blinked at her. The fierce man with steel fingers who dragged me to my mother’s had disappeared down a hole and come out a mouse again. “It’s a school night,” she said uncertainly.
“We’ll go to bed early,” Joseph said. “No talking after lights out.”
“Sure,” the mouse said in a faint squeak. “If it’s all right with his mother.”
Joseph opened his eyes wide and stared at me. He spoke these words with slow significance: “Why don’t you go upstairs and ask her?”
Bless him, he concealed his new chess books and pummeled me all night — I lost that third game and then two more — but he made sure I was cared for. I rang my bell a few times, without much hope. Mostly, I tried to think of a reason why I wouldn’t be returning to the Steins with pajamas or school clothes or schoolbooks.
I told Mrs. Stein all my pajamas were dirty — that shocked her and gave her a pleasant feeling of superiority. I said my mother wanted me to go home early in the morning to change for school.
I woke up in the middle of the night, worried and scared. I cried. I thought I was doing it silently. Joseph turned on the tensor lamp. He squinted at me myopically. “Are you crying?” he whispered.