“Anyway,” said Abigail simultaneously, “it’s good you brought them and good Maxine has them now.” As she spoke, she heard what Teddy was saying, but pretended she hadn’t.
“I can’t accept this,” said Maxine. “Do you know my father left me nothing but those tefillin? And he left Oscar his prayer shawl. But Oscar took both. And my father left all his money to my cousin Fischel. Those bastards, it’s unbelievable.”
“And here you are, keeping Oscar’s secret for him,” said Teddy. “Makes you think twice, doesn’t it?”
Not looking at anyone, Maxine leaned back in her chair and shoved a hand into her breast pocket and brought out her pack of cigarettes. She shook one out, fired it up with a match, then shot a severe look at Teddy.
“How much do you know about Judaism?” she asked coolly, exhaling a diffuse cloud of smoke, inadvertently or not, in Teddy’s direction.
Teddy waved her hand to clear the smoke from her face. “Not much,” she said.
“Well,” said Maxine. “The signature I use on my paintings is the Hebrew for apikoros, a Greek word meaning ‘nonpracticing believer.’ We’re considered the worst of all the Jews. I don’t know about all those other apikoroses out there, but for my part, I don’t do the baruchas and obey the laws because they’re a big pain in the ass and I don’t have time for it. I do think Judaism is a good thing for the most part, except when it tips over into fundamentalism. And I am very disturbed that Oscar kept those tefillin from me.”
“Disturbed enough to tell the truth?” asked Abigail.
“Stop right now with the talk about Helena,” said Maxine. “One thing has nothing to do with the other.” She tipped some nonexistent ash from her cigarette into the beige glass ashtray that sat in front of her, which was bristling with butts. “I don’t need to punish him for this. There are things about Oscar the three of you don’t know that I do and which I will take with me to wherever my ashes end up. I’ll just say: I knew my brother was a schmuck before the trouble over the tefillin and I’m choosing to keep my promise to him anyway.”
“What things?” asked Teddy, smoothing the front of her white blouse with one hand, slowly, as if she were caressing or comforting herself.
“Ask his old best friend, Moe Treitler, for one thing; maybe he’ll tell you, but I won’t,” said Maxine. “Katerina,” she called. “Come here.”
“One minute,” came Katerina’s voice from the other end of the loft.
Suddenly restless, wondering what exactly she was doing here, Abigail stood and made her way over to one of the old factory windows and looked out through the enormous, grimy panes of glass, inlaid with what looked like chicken wire. The sky outside was white with heat. She heard Katerina come into the kitchen area and say, “Maxine, that was Michael Rubinstein on the phone, asking when he can come and see what you’re doing.”
“Take these,” said Maxine, handing Katerina the unopened package of tefillin, “and put them in my safe. Tell Michael to come anytime. I have nothing to hide.”
Katerina said something else, but Abigail didn’t hear what because someone spoke right behind her.
“I’m so sorry,” came a soft girlish voice. “I think maybe you’re more upset by all this than you’re letting on. I know I would be.”
Abigail turned. Lila stood there, eyes squinting a little, skin aglow with heat and empathic anxiousness. “No,” said Abigail. “I’m really not.”
“It’s my fault, in a way,” Lila went on as if she hadn’t heard. “I could have just ignored Maxine’s mark. But no, I had to ask Teddy. I never wanted this known; I loved Oscar.”
Abigail said, “I’m not at all upset. And everyone loved Oscar, Lila; he banked on being loved. Nothing wrong with that. But he did come to take it for granted. He had to prove no woman could resist him. I always wondered why he needed that so badly. I knew him from when we were kids, and he was always like that.”
“How hard, to be married to someone like that,” said Lila wistfully.
“Not so hard as you might think,” said Abigail. She glanced over at Ethan. He seemed calm enough. “We were strangely well suited to each other. I wouldn’t have married anyone else.”
She and Lila exchanged a complex look.
“What do you think of these biographers?” asked Lila.
“Henry’s all right. I’m having lunch with the other one tomorrow.”
“Ralph?”
“Have you talked to him yet?”
“Oh, me, no. Why would he want to talk to me? I was just Teddy’s friend, nothing more.”
“Oh, sweetheart, you loved Oscar, too, but trust me, you were better off with your own husband; I can tell just by looking at you.”
“What are you saying?” Lila asked with a faint air of sorrow.
“I have a suspicion that you’re a romantic. That’s a compliment. But no woman could be romantic and have the stomach for Oscar. To survive him, you had to be practical and a little bit detached from him. I wonder whether your friend Teddy was those things. To look at her, I would guess she was, and good for her.”
Lila sighed, obviously wishing she were more practical, more coldhearted, more whatever it would have taken to have been with Oscar. “I have a confession,” she whispered with a quick glance over at the table. “I’m in love.”
“You are?” Abigail said, surprised. “Who with?”
“A younger man I met on the street! At my age! We’re like teenagers.”
“Well,” said Abigail yearningly, imagining the thrill. She suspected that Lila had told her this to even the playing field, and she didn’t blame her. “Gosh.”
“I can’t tell Teddy.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want her to be upset. She seems so lonely these days….” Lila’s voice trailed off.
“You should tell her,” said Abigail. “I’m sure she’ll be happy for you.” Her antennae had begun to sense a restlessness at the table. She looked over at them all to make sure Ethan was all right.
“Hey,” called Maxine, “you two, get back here. There’s another item we have to discuss.”
As Abigail and Lila herded themselves back to the war table, Abigail felt renewed resentment toward Maxine but quashed it. Ethan was rocking silently, twiddling an ear with the opposite hand. Katerina was nowhere in sight. Abigail guessed she had gone back to her office, leaving Teddy and Maxine uncomfortably together in prickly silence, and this was the real reason the seconds had been summoned back to the table.
“What were you two getting up to over there?” Teddy asked.
“All sorts of mischief,” said Abigail.
When Lila smiled at her, Abigail was surprised to find herself near tears. Had she really become so lonely that a scrap of proffered friendship could make her weep? Things were dire indeed. She took her place again across from Lila and tried not to look dementedly needy.
“Now,” said Maxine. She poured herself another shot of whiskey and then, by way of hospitality, waved the bottle at the rest of them a little menacingly, Abigail thought, like a pirate offering his captives a last drink before they walked the plank.
“Please,” said Teddy, pushing her glass forward. “Pour some all around.”
Maxine gave Teddy a good-size shot, then poured markedly less into Abigail’s and Lila’s glasses. Ethan touched his nose a few times, fending off the sharp, caustic smell.
“These biographers,” said Maxine. “Oscar would have greatly cared about the things we all say about him to these men. I want him remembered properly, the way he would have wanted to be.”
“You’re a good sister,” Teddy burst out, half in anger and half something else — Abigail wasn’t sure what, maybe admiration.