I cannot look at my father when his eyes are wet like a woman's. My hands are clasped white until he speaks again.
"That is sex," says my father at last, "All the Turks — may they rot in hell — have sex with Shushan, who a week before was a virgin. Should I not have risen from my knees and with my bare hands raged at them with their swords? Am I a coward to have stayed in the cellar?"
Papa now looks toward me to forgive him. My mouth is dry, as if I am choked with sesame seeds.
"You couldn't do anything," I say.
He continues, "That is not the end. The leader goes to the door to call other infidels. My pearl, Shushan, struggles to her knees, begging 'No more, no more,' the Turk who was first draws his scimitar and with a cry curves it over his head then down with the yell of a beast, beheading her."
My father, the horseman with infinite strength, now cried from the depths of his chest an agony that had been carried within him for more than half a century, from the world of Ararat to America. I was then three years younger than he was as a bridegroom. In his place, I would have wanted to fight, not to lose but to win! It was at that moment I have since felt that I swallowed the seed of a Maccabee.
"Those who fled to the church lived?" I asked.
"For an hour. They died in the flames. I was the only one left."
I got up and put my arms around Papa's hunched shoulders, and we cried together for his lost love, for the confession of his cowardice, and for the absence of justice in the world, and for the new burden of the vocation I had found.
"Men don't understand rape," Francine was saying. "They never have."
I was silent for a moment, but she wanted a response from me, so I said, "They never have. Look, can you come back tomorrow at the same time?"
When she left, I sat in the near-darkened office, knowing it would be a half hour before my date would arrive. Geraldine would expect dinner, which we would have, and bed, which we would not have this evening, for with my father's memories thundering in my head, I was not seducible.
Ten
Koslak
I ain't seen the girl around. She must be keeping to herself. Fuck her, I got Mary.
Mary's out, dropping the kids off at her mother's. She likes partyin' better when the kids aren't in the house.
Wonder what's taking Jason so fucking long, he must have a single-pole switch down in the basement somewhere.
I get awful restless just waiting so I called the station. When the kid answers, I said, "Jim, you handle things, I won't be back today. Just remember the pumps show the number of gallons pumped since I left. Don't take the money home with you, ha, ha. Just stash it you know where. Yeah, I hear them honkin'. See ya tomorrow."
The doorbell rings and it's Jason, holding a switch in that left claw and a screwdriver and tape in his right.
"Hi," he says. "Which room?"
"Bathroom," I says.
I really had to get used to him bein' superintendent, you know. It used to be old guys was superintendents, but Jason had to be no more than thirty or so, like a grown-up hippie sort of, a good-looking guy, beard, wears jeans instead of coveralls, and that clamp is really somethin'. I tried to get him to talk about it once or twice. All I learned is that the government paid for it and he works the mechanical arm off straps around his shoulders.
He was taking the old switch out of the wall and I says, "Don't you turn the fuse first?" and he says, "If you do it right, you don't get no shock."
I'm sittin' on the edge of the tub — I mean I'm not going to sit on the pot watching him, am I? — and I say, "Hey, Jason, how come you sometimes wear the arm and sometimes not?"
"That's a very personal question," he says. Then he laughs. Every time that guy laughs I think he must be on somethin', just when he laughs I mean. "My turf," he says, "is two more buildings sides this one. You know how many women in this old parking lot got husbands go to work?"
"Plenty."
"Well, they get put off some, some of them do, by the mechanical thing, it just takes too much of their attention, so when I'm sniffing round the lot for today's pussy, I take it off. You know something?" And he says this like he's telling me the world's number one super-secret. "When I'm naked, they find that stump real attractive. I mean it's healed perfect, and the skin around the end is real smooth and sensitive like the end of a big cock. Some of them ask to feel it, you know. Most people don't understand women, they're much more freaky than people think. And something else. Women want it a lot more than their propaganda lets on. All you got to do is let 'em get past the propaganda, and you're home."
While he was wrapping black plastic tape around the wire where the old cord was frayed, I was sure he was gonna get a shock, but he didn't.
"You get a lot of pussy in these buildings?" I ask.
"You know how many times I get called for the sink's stopped up and it's nothing, or the light won't work when it's just the bulb, and there she is in a housecoat saying thank-you-very-much-don't-you-want-a-cold-drink and I know I've got a new pussy on the block. The old ones don't bother with the jazz, they just call up and say do I got a minute. That minute sometimes takes half an hour. It's a goddamn good thing I don't have a boss looking over my shoulder on this job. He'd wonder where I was sometimes. There."
The plate was back on the box. He flicked the switch. "All set," he says.
I reach in for four bits to tip him and say, "You ever get to the one downstairs?"
"Widmer?"
"Right below."
"That's Widmer. She's not home daytimes. She works."
"You don't play your parking lot on Saturdays and Sundays?"
"It could get tricky. I rest on weekends, except for emergencies like stopped-up toilets and the like."
I went to the fridge and got two beers. "Have a Bud."
"Sure."
"Sit down."
"Don't mind." He plops down on the sofa.
"You ever tried my wife?" I look him in the eye.
"With those little kids around? Sides, she wouldn't give me the time of day, would she?"
I just smile at him. Then I say, "How come you never get any of those women pregnant?"
"Christ, man, where you been? All you needs to do what I do is a vasectomy. It's easier'n pulling a tooth."
"Didn't bother you none?"
"I had to pay for it. I mean I couldn't talk the VA into paying for a vasectomy!" and he laughs that strung-out laugh.
"I'm disappointed," I said.
"About what?"
"That you didn't have a go at Widmer. She's terrific."
"You don't say."
I couldn't tell if he was believing me. If he had a go at Widmer, if she was that available, she couldn't complain about me. I like the way she fought back, just enough, not too much. The next time it'd be easier and quicker.
Jason was just finishing the Bud when the key turns in the door and Mary comes in. Jason starts to get up. I say, "You know Jason, Mary," and she says, "Sure," and I say, "What do you mean sure?" and she says, "He's the super, ain't he?"
Mary vanishes into the kitchen and Jason says, "I got to go."
"Hey, Mary," I yell, "kids gonna be at Grandma's rest of the afternoon?"
She comes in, drying her hands, and says, "Till six. Wasn't that what you…"
"Yeah," I says quickly. "Hey, want to see what Jason did?"
I take her by the arm into the John and say, "Jason put that wall switch in without the fuse being off."
"Really?" she says, not knowing what is going on.
"Hey Jason," I yell into the living room, "Mary said she was gonna take a shower soon's she got home. Want another Bud? Help yourself in the fridge." That's when I'm just behind Mary and butt her from behind. She has got a very sensitive ass, let me tell you. If I come up behind her and just squiggle a little…