“I was trying to help. I was looking for you at the cigar store, and I talked to Mr. Michnik.”
“Michnik.” Feter repeats the name sourly. “A true racketeer if ever one was born. The markup on those loathsome cigars of his? He’s a swindler and a cheat, and I’m well out of his employ.”
“I didn’t mean to offend you, Feter. Please understand. I was trying to be helpful.”
“Yes, yes. Of course, Rokhl. Le vieil homme comprend, ma chère,” he says, still showing her his back. “I’m a broken old bum living in a trash dump.”
The kettle begins to gurgle on the hot plate; steam dances from its spout. But her uncle does not touch it. His shoulders square, and he does not move even as the gurgle becomes a shrill squeal. Finally, it’s Rachel who crosses the room and turns off the burner.
“I am not in possession of your mother’s painting. I wish I was hiding it under a bed I do not have. But I am not,” he tells her.
At this point, all she can do is wipe the tears from her eyes with the back of her wrist.
“I’m sorry that we could not protect her work from the hands of some anonymous philistine,” he says. “But if it is gone, it is gone. It pains me deeply, yes, but God has His plan, and who can argue? What is worse for me? What is truly painful? It’s seeing the effect of this on you, Rashka dear. How deeply it has disturbed you. You inherited your eema’s mistrustful nature, this much I know, but now? To doubt me to the point where you’ve concocted a fantasy? A fantasy that even your old uncle is deceiving you? Stealing your mother’s legacy from you? Honestly, Rokhl, I regret having involved you at all. It was thoughtless of me. In my excitement, I forgot how fragile you remain. It would have been better, perhaps, had your eema’s painting simply appeared and then disappeared in the same breath, without you ever having known. But now?” he says. “Now, all we can do is share the loss.”
6.
Doughnut Paradise
Rachel’s life with Aaron begins in January of 1950, when, still fairly fresh off the boat, she has some trouble with a desk attendant at the Seward Park Library. A young balding fellow with a brown mole on his cheek gets sharp with her. “Hey. Whattaya you think you’re doing?” this fellow demands to know, though the answer is really quite obvious. Air France Flight 009, flying from Paris to New York, has crashed into a mountain in the Azores, dispatching all aboard, and Rachel is busy tearing the article from the branch’s copy of the Daily News.
Stopping in midtear, she blinks blankly at the fellow with the mole. “I beg your pardon?” Her accent is on display.
“That is library property, hon. Know what that means? Other people get to read it too. You can’t just start ripping it apart.”
Her spine straightens. A beat of panic stabs her heart. It simply hadn’t occurred to her that she might be committing a library crime. She lets go of the paper and balls her fists as if she may be forced to defend herself, but before she speaks another word, her eyes attach to the man who will, within months, become her American husband, Aaron Samuel Perlman. A solid young mensch, dressed in a black wool jacket, with a soldierly haircut growing out into curls and hooded eyes of manganese blue. He’s come to the Seward Park branch, she will later discover, to return an overdue copy of a book called Battle Cry, but now he goes to battle for her.
“Hey, can we give the young lady a break?” he suggests with some force to the offended attendant, stepping into the scene in a helpfully assertive manner. “You can hear that she’s obviously new to our country, am I right? And who knows? Maybe this is how they do things back in Odessa. I mean, come on,” he insists. “Here’s a dime,” he says, slapping a coin on the desk. “Really. I’ll cover the cost of a new copy so none of your very important customers miss out on the news of the day. Or maybe they can just read the Post instead. Whattaya think?”
Of course, she isn’t from Odessa. She is from Berlin, that pulverized city on the Spree, which is what she tells him over the lunch he buys her at Katz’s Delicatessen. KATZ’S, THAT’S ALL! reads the ancient maroon sign on East Houston. How-sten Street, he teaches her to say. Entering the restaurant, Rachel is light-headed. She hears Yiddish ringing off the walls, yes, but she’s also dizzied by how expansively American the place is in its size, its veracious noisiness, and its overwhelming plenty. Not just the luxurious aromas of Jewish cooking but the towers of stacked pastrami and corned beef. The platters of plump, orangey-pink lox. The golden loaves of rye and challah crowding the racks. The bagels and bialys. The monstrous dills in monstrous jars. Abundance like this can make her nauseous.
“So. Why were you tearing up the newspaper?” this boy with the curls has to ask. But that’s when the harried, slightly surly waiter arrives at their table, and the boy orders for them. A Reuben with extra Russian for him, a sweet-potato knish for her. And two egg creams.
She avoids the question of newspapers. “And what,” she wonders, “what is this egg cream?”
“It’s a drink. Like a, uh, like a chocolate milk only with a spritz of seltzer. Very sweet, very fizzy.”
“Where is the egg?”
“There is no egg.”
“And the cream?”
“There is no cream, but don’t worry. You’ll love it.”
“There were no such drinks where I grew up,” she tells him. “When I was a child, we had only a ‘Schlammbowle’ at parties,” she says, producing a ten-cent packet of cigarettes. “In English, you would say, I think, a ‘Mud Bowl.’”
“Yes. I would say that. I would definitely say that,” the boy assures her, eyes bright.
“So. Into this bowl go the fruit juice, the tangerines, the peaches and, uh—die ananasscheiben. How is it called? The pineapple slices. From a tin. All with the ice cream,” she says, almost tasting its sweet flavor. She is not accustomed to the taste of happy memories. “Of course this was for the children. The adults? They must add schnapsen. Booze,” she translates with fervor and laughs.
The boy is producing a shiny Zippo lighter. “Sounds scrumptious,” he says earnestly, flicking open a tear of flame. She leans forward to accept the light, touching his hand. Just a small touch, but she can tell it has its effect because his pupils dilate.
“I collect the stories of the aeroplane crashes,” she confesses. “This is why I tore the paper.”
The Zippo snaps closed. “Hmm. Interesting,” Aaron decides. “Only airplanes?”
She exhales smoke. “Nur,” she tells him. Only.
“Not trains or cars or anything? Why is that?”
“Must I know? I hardly know why I do many things I do. Do you?”
He smiles, baffled. “Yeah, pretty much,” he says with a lightly comic note of lament. “I pretty much always know why I do the things I do.”
This boy lifts her heart. His name is Aaron. He is funny and lithe and interested in talk. Perhaps Rachel catches a glimpse of a destination in his eyes. He is teasing her over reading the dictionary, which she does in order to learn new words.
“I won’t give away the ending,” he tells her, “but it has something to do with zoos.”
She does not understand.
“Because Z is the last letter in the alphabet,” he must explain. “Never mind. Things just come outta my mouth. I dunno. You get used to it after a while.”
His smile is so unpretentious. So very down-to-earth American.