Eric resumed his ride, pedaling slowly, walking himself through the intersections. His body was off: his calves ached and his hand movements came several seconds after he ordered them, as if his brain were making a transatlantic phone call. Nothing was right with him.
Nothing was right with Luke.
The thought that he, like Joe, was stuck with a lemon — yes, there was no other word for Sammy — haunted Eric. He thought of himself as loving and kind, very different from the pompous, selfish Joe. Eric assumed his character, his desire for a strong, healthy son, would guarantee him success as a father. He hadn’t considered it a speculation like the stock market — he had gone into the pregnancy confident of a certain minimum of control. He hadn’t believed in that control consciously; he realized the expectation only now, after it had been shattered. Now he could see how foolish he had been. Having children as something you could controclass="underline" obviously idiotic.
Absorbed, Eric overshot Ninth Street and had to turn off Sixth at Eleventh. A shopper darted out between two parked cars. Eric swerved away from the pedestrian, scraping his right leg against one of the cars. The shopper hurried on. “Look out next time!” Eric called after him.
A cabbie who was stopped at the light, snickered, saying through the open window, “You gotta be crazy to ride a bike in the city.”
“Yeah, and driving a cab makes sense, right?” Eric answered.
The cabbie’s thick face set, hardened into challenge. “Fuck you.”
Eric got off his bike. That put his huge frame beside the cab’s window. “What did you say?” he asked grimly. Eric felt his strength return with the flow of his anger. The rage filled his body, air inflating a float, and forced out the limp sensation of abstraction he had felt for weeks — powerful Eric back in contact with himself.
“Take it easy,” the cabbie mumbled, looking away from Eric’s body. The light changed and the cab hurried off.
For a moment, Eric was relieved, rid of the oppressive thoughts, that he was a failure as a broker, and a failure, genetically, as a father. He looked down at his pants. There was a tear on the right leg. He lifted it; a broad line, oozing crimson, made a stripe below his knee. He hadn’t felt the scrape at first. Now it hurt. He walked his bike onto the sidewalk, ignoring the curious glances of several people, and leaned it against a concrete wall.
Eric held his hand against the wound and studied the block while he waited for the sting to pass. Like the other streets between Eighth and Fourteenth, Eleventh was a row of red brick town houses, interrupted occasionally by a brownstone, a stunted white brick version of the typical postwar high rise, and, an exception to the other blocks, by the tacky glass and concrete structure of the New School.
Behind Eric was a curiosity, however: a small triangle of cleared land, protected by a concrete wall made forbidding by the addition of spiked iron bars. At the middle of the open space was a locked iron gate. Eric walked to it and glanced in; the triangle was a cemetery. There seemed to be about a dozen worn tombstones.
A cemetery in the middle of Manhattan? And so tiny!
The area inside the wall was no more than ten feet deep and thirty wide. Eric read the plaque on the wall next to the gate:
THE SECOND CEMETERY OF THE SPANISH
AND PORTUGUESE SYNAGOGUE
SHEARITH ISRAEL IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK
1805–1829
A stillness surrounded Eric. The line of cars honking at the corner, the noise of pedestrians seemed to diminish as he looked into this hallowed strip of land. Against the rear brick wall, covered by ivy, the letters of one of the washed-out and faded white tombstones could still be read: ISAAC HENRY. Beneath the name were Hebrew letters blurred by erosion, and below them, writ large in English:
SACRED.
This little plot of land had survived, had endured all this time, and even won out over the greed of New York land development.
Eric peered at the other stones. He could make out another name: PHILLIPS. He read the plaque again. A chill shivered down his spine. He didn’t know why.
A young woman’s voice startled him. “Look at this!”
“What is it?” a young man answered in a southern accent.
Eric looked at them. Probably NYU students. She was beautiful and tall. She pushed her long blond hair over her shoulder, it draped gracefully down her long, straight back, and she read the plaque out loud in a tone of wonder.
“My God,” the young man said when she finished. “There were Jews here even then.”
“Shhh,” she said, glancing at Eric. The young man followed her look.
“That’s what makes it a great city,” the southerner continued to her, although the apology was for Eric’s benefit.
“That’s right!” Eric said to him.
The couple smiled nervously and moved on. Eric watched them until they disappeared, turning the corner at Fifth Avenue. At one point the young southerner looked back, saw Eric, and turned away again. The couple quickened their pace after that. He thinks I’m gonna punch him out, Eric thought, amused. He thinks I’m a New York crazy.
When Eric got back on his bike, he was almost too tired to push the pedals. He prayed that Nina would be calmer than she had sounded on the phone, that the house would be clean, that there would be something home-cooked to eat.
But Eric wasn’t surprised when he found the opposite. Nina’s eyes were red, the beds were unmade, the sink filled with dishes, dirty ashtrays were everywhere, the apartment had a vague odor of baby shit, and Luke — Luke was crying.
“I can’t stand it anymore,” Nina said breathlessly. “I’m just letting him cry. The doctor said—”
Eric walked past her into Luke’s room. The cries were heartrending. Luke was arching his back, then falling forward, smashing his face into the mattress, trying to escape the weakness of his muscles and the torment of his loneliness. “How long has he been crying?” Eric yelled at Nina.
“Ten minutes,” she pleaded, tears filling her eyes. “He’s been like this all day—”
“Lie down!” Eric shouted. “Rest! I’ll take care of him.”
“Okay,” she said, leaving the room, hanging her head.
Eric picked up his son. Luke wheezed with gasping cries; his little body flailed in Eric’s arms, so frantic that it took awhile before Eric calmed enough to realize he had what he wanted — comforting warmth and steady motion.
Luke’s breathless panic slowed. His bobbing head stopped and he leaned back against Eric’s supporting hand to look at his savior. The curious blue circles stared into Eric’s eyes. Although the air conditioner was on, sweat poured off Eric’s brow; Eric’s body wept onto Luke’s clothes. Eric wanted to smile at Luke, but he couldn’t. He was worn out. His back ached sorely, as though he were a field laborer at the end of the season’s harvest. His leg stung from the scrape. His body felt hot and yet he shivered from the chills where the sweat had oozed.
Eric rocked Luke from side to side.
Calm down, my son. Feel my love. You are safe. You are safe. Rest with me. Rest with me.
Luke leaned his head against Eric’s shoulder and sighed. The plump baby legs stretched out; the small feet dangled.
You are with me. You are safe.
Eric reached into the crib and picked up Luke’s pacifier. He put it to Luke’s lips. They opened greedily. Luke chewed, rested his head against Eric, and sighed.
Eric sat in the rocker and began the movement that had become second nature, losing his self to the motion, his arms pressing Luke firmly, not tight, but close.