Entering the revolving door, Rachel inhales the aroma of stewed cabbage, chopped liver, and boiled kreplach floating in chicken stock. The Miltown had been doing its work. Crossing Orchard Street, she’d felt confident that she could tolerate the stress of sussing out her uncle’s ulterior motives. Even on the train, she’d been paging through the catalog of possibilities in her head. Another gambling debt to a bookie has caught him short? (“These are violent men, Ruchel.”) Or does he need to parade her as his daughter again? (“Only for an hour to convince the bureaucracy. You’ll fill in a few forms and put up a small fee. It’s nothing.”) Or will it be another investment. (“Really, it’s an opportunity for you, Rashka, as much as me. And for only a few dollars.”) She only hopes that whatever it is, she can keep her lies to Aaron about it to a minimum. In preparation, she’s already sketched out a lie or two in her head. (“It was nothing. He needed a few dollars for a doctor’s appointment. His anemia, you know.” Or “He was hoping to make a small donation to the Jewish Immigrant Fund. In repayment for what they did for us.”)
But when she spots her uncle seated in the corner, she feels her heart drop, and no dosage of Miltown can deter her grief. In the Berlin of decades past, his hubris had made him a charming rogue of the art world, sleek, well-barbered, and immaculately tailored, the king of every room he entered. A man who could reserve the best tables in restaurants from Kempinski’s in the Kurfürstendamm to the Adlon at the Pariser Platz. Now the vacuum left by the disappearance of the Old World has made him a caricature. A shmittshik! Now he is, at best, a charming charity case. At worst? An opnarer. A shifty operator, with the hunger of an alley cur and the cunning of a wounded fox.
He sits, smoking in his chair at the Orchard Café, his face guarded by a blank scowl. He is thin and bony. His clothes lend him the look of a scarecrow. His hair, once lush, dark, and pomaded, is brittle and shot through with streaks of white, and his jaw is carelessly shaven. Still, the moment he spots Rachel, the dybbuk of his past returns, animating Feter’s limbs and his character. He leaps to his feet, and his eyes ignite with a bright reflection of the old days when he treated his little niece to a plate of nussecken at Karl Kutschera’s Konditorei Wien under a grand, lead-crystal chandelier.
“Rokhl, my treasure,” he calls her, and in that instant, she fights the urge to flee, but her mother appears just long enough to scold her for her fears.
Whatever he’s up to, Rokhl, your feter is still your family, she reminds. Your blood.
Rachel says nothing. She sometimes finds him at his cribbage board, ready to double skunk all comers, but today he occupies his Stammtisch, back against the mural of the old Hester Street Market, alone with his coffee cup and the last bite of an egg cookie tucked into the saucer.
It was a miracle that they were reunited after the war, Feter and Rachel. For months, she had assumed that her uncle was farshtorbn. Mausetot zu sein. It was no secret that transport to the east meant death. But her D.P. camp was the largest in the American zone, and the Jewish population was swelling. Feter was thin as smoke, reading the camp newspaper printed in Yiddish when she found him. She had not shed a tear in so long. Not even when Eema was taken from her. Her tears had simply evaporated, but suddenly, at the sight of his emaciated face, tears surged from her like an ocean. It is said that believing that miracles occur is foolishness, but believing that miracles are not possible is blasphemy.
Feter Fritz is clasping her hands warmly and conducting her through the crowded room toward an empty chair, asking, “Are you hungry? No? Can I offer you a coffee? A deviled egg with paprika. No? Please, there must be something,” he insists.
“No,” she tells him. “No, nothing, Feter. Nothing, thank you.” She doesn’t want him spending a nickel on her, because how many nickels can he have? His fingernails are dirty, which makes Rachel sad. Her uncle was once immaculate in his grooming. But there is a fragility about him now. At home, she scrimps with her housekeeping money so she can slip him a few dollars when required. She buys her husband margarine at the store instead of butter. Instant coffee over ground. She defends her uncle against Aaron’s suspicions and even against her own. All this she does in support of his pretenses, even though this morning he seems bent on proving that his poverty, his feeble impact on the world, has reduced his once-superior instincts for art and business to a shady caricature. A man with a head full of grimy intrigues and a shoebox of crumpled dollars.
Silverware clinks, and conversations rumble about them. An ancient waiter has appeared tableside. Gray hair thinning, features broadening with age, earlobes elongating. “So, for the gentleman. You want the lentil and bean soup,” he says to Feter Fritz, not a question.
“Thank you, Alf. You always know.”
Turning to Rachel. “And the little missus? A blintz.”
“No. Thank you, Mr. Fishman, nothing.”
The old schlepper can’t credit this. In Yiddish, he asks her, “Nit afilu a moyl?” Not even a mouthful?
“Just a tea,” says Rachel.
“She’s artistic, Alfie,” her uncle explains.
“So I know. But even Rembrandt ate a bagel, didn’t he?” A fatalistic shrug. “Okay. One bowl of soup, one cup of tea. I’ll see what I can coax from the kitchen.”
Rachel breathes inwardly. Silently. The Miltown is doing its work. She is a candle flame balanced on the tip of a wick. “So, Feter,” she begins. “Let’s not beat about the bush, the two of us. Tell me, please. What is the reason you’ve asked me here?”
“The reason? Well, the reason is that you’re my family, Rashka. Is that so hard to accept, I wonder? An uncle likes to see his niece on occasion.”
“And so you see me, Feter,” she says. “Here I am. Now what is the other reason?” she asks, though doesn’t she already know? Moolah, bubala! Kies und Shotter! The old Berliner bywords: Ohne Moos, nix los! Without moss, nothing happens!
“Should I be stung by your tone, Rokhl?” her feter wonders with a careful smile. “Since when is my niece so cynical?”
A small shrug in reply. “You called me? I came.”
“Fine,” he says flatly, down to business. “I don’t want to say a big word,” the man confides with intimate restraint. “But I believe, Rashka,” he tells her. “I believe that I have discovered one of your mother’s lost masterpieces.”
Rachel feels herself grow cold. Her fingers go numb as she gazes back at her uncle’s face. She knows he is searching for some reaction. Perhaps he is hoping for even a small surge of surprise—or, dare it be imagined, a spark of joy. But this blunt dumbness that has struck her is all she can offer, forcing her uncle to ask the question directly. “Do you know what that will mean, Rokhl?”
“Mean?” Rachel repeats. Does it mean that there is some proof remaining of her eema’s brilliance? Does it mean that her eema’s reputation will be resurrected from the footnotes of art history texts? Does it mean that a part of Eema has survived beyond the quarrelsome specter that Rachel raises from the ashes? But all Feter’s shrunken perspective and empty pockets can permit him to whisper is “It could be worth a tidy fortune.”
“Which one is it?” This is really the only question that’s important to her. Which painting has survived? Her mind races through an inventory of possibilities. The unfinished portrait of Rathenau interrupted by his assassins? The portrait of Harry von Kessler, le célèbre comte libéral, holding his dachshund on his lap? The bespectacled impressionist Ernst Oppler, painted the year before his death? Or could it be the actress Brigette Helm, armored from the neck down in her costume as the Maschinenmensch in Metropolis?