Louis was eighty-two years old, and Sidney could not remember a time when the old man had not been a burden, even when his mother was still alive. Dimly, only dimly, he perceived in this shell of a man someone who had once punched a Bowery wino, who was strong, who had black hair and dark shining eyes. That person was a stranger to Sidney, as was the old man he helped down the hallway and into the kitchen.
"I'm making borscht," Louis said.
"That's good."
"You like borscht, don't you?"
"Mmm."
"Your mother, may she rest in peace, made the best borscht."
"Mmm."
"Look what's on the table, Sidney," he said.
"Sit down, Pop."
"I can stand, I'm not a cripple, thank God. Look what I found for you."
There were three pacakages on the kitchen table, each wrapped in brown paper and tied with white string. "Well, sit down, Pop," Sidney said, and looked wearily at the packages and thought, Here we go again. His father took a seat at the table, and then put his hands before him on the table top, palms down, and smiled and looked at the packages. Sidney nodded and looked at the packages too.
"Your cousin Marvin called this morning," Louis said. "Don't you want to open the packages, Sidney?"
"Sure, Pop. What'd he want?"
"Who? Oh, Marvin. Nothing, nothing, he was complaining about his wife again, who knows?" Louis waved the problem aside with his bony hand and again looked at the packages. Sidney lifted one of them, shook it, and said, "This isn't a time bomb, is it, Pop?"
"Sure, sure, a time bomb. Open it."
"It won't blow up the whole apartment, will it?' '
"Sure, blow up the apartment," Louis said, watching as Sidney fumbled with the knots on the package. Sidney loosened the string, and then pulled back the folds of wrapping paper. He recognized the bank at once, a small wooden box made of bamboo, with sliding panels that were pushed back one at a time and in sequence to reveal the keyhole. His father had given it to him as a present when he was ten years old. He had never kept more than a few dollars in coins in it at any time, but the knowledge that he was the only one who knew the secret of the sliding panels was a source of comfort and security at a time when he needed assurance most.
"Do you remember it?" his father asked.
"Yes, I do. Where'd you find it?"
"Oh, with the stuff in the closet. There's lots of stuff in the closet."
"Mmm," Sidney said. Automatically, his fingers moved to the first sliding panel, and then the second. He could not remember the sequence after that. He put the bamboo box down on the table, a faint pained smile on his face.
"Will you take it with you?" his father asked.
"Sure." He would take it with him and then throw it in the garbage when he got home, the same as he did with almost everything his father gave him.
"Open the others," Louis said, pleased.
The second package was long and flat. Sidney knew it was a book even before he loosened the string. He nodded as he pulled back the brown wrapping paper.
"From "Harvard," his father said.
"Yes, I see."
It was a notebook he had kept for an Ethics class at Harvard when he was still an undergraduate. He had no interest whatever in it, but his father was watching him, so he leafed through some of the pages and pretended amazement at what he had written.
"I thought you could use it," Louis said.
"Yes," Sidney said, and nodded.
"Can you use it?"
"I'll find some use for it," Sidney said.
"I found it in the closet," his father said, and seemed to want to say more, but let the sentence trail instead.
"All this stuff," Sidney said, and let his sentence trail as well. He broke the string on the third package. The brown wrapping paper rattled open to reveal a wooden inkstand he had made in a shop class in elementary school. There were two holes for ink bottles, drilled into a solid block of wood that was affixed to a larger, flatter piece of wood. A scalloped bar in front of the inkwells was designed to hold pens. The inkstand was stained walnut. Sidney turned it upside down to its raw, unstained bottom where he had gouged out his name with a knife, S. BRACKMAN, and then filled in the letters with black ink. The date beneath his name was 2/7/25. February 7, 1925. He tried to remember the boy who had made this inkstand, but the image was vague. He turned the stand over in his hands again. Something else to throw in the garbage he thought.
"You brought that.home to your mother," Louis said.
"Yes, I remember."
"It was in the closet."
"I'll take it home with me."
"Sure, I have no use for it," Louis said. "I thought you might like it."
"Sure, I'll take it home."
"Well, how is the trial going?" Louis asked.
"Fine."
"I told all my friends you're in a new trial."
"That's good."
"Is it a murder case?"
"No. Plagiarism."
"What's that?"
"When somebody steals from something that's copyrighted."
"Books?"
"Yes. Or plays. Pop, do you have anything to drink in the house?"
"In the living room, there's something," Louis said. "Don't drink too much."
"No, I won't," Sidney said, and went out of the kitchen and into the darkness of the living room. He snapped on the light and searched in the low cabinet for his father's whiskey supply. There was a partially filled bottle of scotch, and a bottle of banana cordial someone had brought to Louis from Puerto Rico. Eventually, Louis would wrap the cordial in brown paper and present it to Sidney, who would throw it in the garbage the moment he got home. He poured two fingers of scotch into one of the glasses, and then turned off the light and went back into the kitchen.
"You ought to get some bourbon," he said, and went to the refrigerator.
"Isn't there bourbon?"
"No, you've only got a little scotch."
"Well," Louis said, and tilted his head.
Sidney put two ice cubes into his glass, sat at the table with his father, and sipped at the whiskey.
"So what's new?" Louis said.
"I'm getting married," Sidney said. "I think I'm getting married."
"Oh?"
"It's about time, huh?" Sidney said, and smiled at his father, and then took another sip of his scotch. "Forty-eight years old, that's a long time to be single."
"Sure, it's about time," his father said. "Who is the girl?"
"Her name is Charlotte Brown."
"Is she Jewish?"
"No."
His father was silent for a moment. Sidney sipped his drink.
"What is she, then?" his father asked.
"Irish, I think. Or English."
"You don't know?"
"I think she's Irish."
"Charlotte Brown?" his father said. "This doesn't sound Irish to me."
"I think it is."
"She's a nice girl?"
"Yes."
"An older woman?"
"Well, she's twenty-seven."
"That's very young, Sidney."
"I know."
"She's pretty?"
"Yes."
"Well," Louis said, and again tilted his head skeptically.
"I'll bring her around someday."
"Yes," his father said, and nodded.
The men were silent. On the stove, the beets were boiling. Sidney finished his drink and went back into the living room for a refill. His father said, "Don't drink too much, Sidney."