“A husk,” Landsman says. “I see.”
He knows what a hard thing it can be to have fathered a heroin addict. He has seen this kind of coldness before. But something rankles him about these yids who tear their lapels and sit shiva for living children.
It seems to Landsman to make a mockery of both the living and the dead.
“Now, all right. From what I have heard,” Landsman continues, “and I certainly don’t claim to understand it, your son — as a boy — he showed certain, well, indications, or … that he might be … I’m not sure I have this right. The Tzaddik Ha-Dor, is that it? If the conditions were right, if the Jews of this generation were worthy, then he might reveal himself as, uh, as Messiah.”
“It’s ridiculous, nu, Detective Landsman,” the rebbe says. “The very idea makes you smile.”
“Not at all,” Landsman says. “But if your son was Messiah, then I guess we’re all in trouble. Because right now he’s lying in a drawer down in the basement of Sitka General.”
“Meyer,” Berko says.
“With all due respect,” Landsman puts in.
The rebbe doesn’t answer at first, and when he finally speaks, it is with evident care. “We are taught by the Baal Shem Tov, of blessed memory, that a man with the potential to be Messiah is born into every generation. This is the Tzaddik Ha-Dor. Now, Mendel. Mendele, Mendele.”
He closes his eyes. He might be remembering. He might be fighting back tears. He opens them. They’re dry, and he remembers.
“Mendel had a remarkable nature as a boy. I’m not talking about miracles. Miracles are a burden for tzaddik, not the proof of one. Miracles prove nothing except to those whose faith is bought very cheap, sir. There was something in Mendele. There was a fire. This is a cold, dark place, Detectives. A gray, wet place. Mendele gave off light and warmth. You wanted to stand close to him. To warm your hands, to melt the ice on your beard. To banish the darkness for a minute or two. But then when you left Mendele, you stayed warm, and it seemed like there was a little more light, maybe one candle’s worth, in the world. And that was when you realized the fire was inside of you all the time. And that was the miracle. Just that.” He strokes his beard, pulling on it, as if trying to think of something he might have missed. “Nothing else.”
“When was the last time you saw him?” Berko says.
“Twenty-three years ago,” the rebbe says without hesitation. “On the twentieth of Elul. No one in this house has spoken to or seen him since then.”
“Not even his mother?”
The question shocks them all, even Landsman, the yid who asked it.
“Do you suppose, Detective Landsman, that my wife would ever attempt to subvert my authority with respect to this or any other matter?”
“I suppose everything, Rabbi Shpilman,” Landsman says. “I don’t mean anything by it.”
“Have you come here with any notions,” Baronshteyn says, “about who might have killed Mendel?”
“Actually—” Landsman begins.
“Actually,” the Verbover rebbe says, cutting Landsman off. He plucks a sheet of paper from the chaos of his desk, tractates, promulgations, and bans, classified documents, adding machine tapes, surveillance reports on the habits of marked men. There’s a second or two of tromboning as he brings the paper within focusing range. The flesh of his right arm sloshes in the wine skin of his sleeve. “These particular homicide detectives are not supposed to be investigating this matter at all. Am I wrong?”
He sets down the paper, and Landsman has to wonder how he ever could have seen anything in the rebbe’s eyes but ten thousand miles of frozen sea. Landsman is shocked, knocked overboard into that cold water. To keep himself afloat, he clings to the ballast of his cynicism. Did the order to black-flag the Lasker case come straight from Verbov Island? Has Shpilman known all along that his son is dead, murdered in room 208 of the Hotel Zamenhof? Did he himself order the killing? Are the business and directives of the Homicide Section of Sitka Central routinely submitted for his inspection? These might make interesting questions if Landsman could get his heart out of his mouth and ask them.
“What did he do?” Landsman says at last. “Exactly why was he dead to you already? What did he know? What, while we’re on the subject, do you know, Rebbe? Rabbi Baronshteyn? I know you people have the fix in. I don’t know what kind of deal you’ve worked for yourselves. But looking around this fine island of yours, I can see, you should excuse the expression, that you are carrying a lot of serious weight.”
“Meyer,” Berko says, a warning in it.
“Don’t you come back here, Landsman,” the rebbe says. “Don’t ever bother anyone in this household, or any of the folk on this island. Stay away from Zimbalist. And stay away from me. If I hear that you have so much as asked one of my people to light your cigarette, will have you and your shield. Is that clear?”
“With all due respect—” Landsman begins.
“An empty formula in your case, surely.”
“Nevertheless,” Landsman says, recovering himself. “If I had a dollar for every time some shtarker with a glandular problem tried to scare me off a case, with all due respect, I wouldn’t have to sit here listening to threats from a man who can’t even manage to shed a tear for the son I’m sure he helped into an early grave. Whether he died twenty-three years ago or last night.”
“Please do not mistake me for some two-bit Hirshbeyn Avenue wiseguy,” the rebbe says. “I am not threatening you.”
“No? What are you, blessing me?”
“I’m looking at you, Detective Landsman. I understand that like my son, poor thing, you may not have been provided by the Holy Name with the most admirable of fathers.”
“Rav Heskel!” Baronshteyn cries.
But the rabbi ignores his gabay and moves on before Landsman can ask him what the hell he thinks he knows about poor old Isidor.
“I can see that at one time, again like Mendel, you may have been something very much more than you are today. You may have been a fine shammes. But I doubt that you have ever qualified as a great sage.”
“On the contrary,” Landsman says.
“So. Please believe me when I tell you that you need to find another use for the time that remains to you.”
Inside the Verbover Clock, an old system of hammers and chimes takes up a melody, older still, that welcomes to every Jewish home and house of prayer the bride of the end of the week.
“We’re out of time,” says Baronshteyn. “Gentlemen.”
The detectives stand, and the men wish one another the joy of the Sabbath. Then the detectives put on their hats and turn for the door.
“We’ll need someone to identify the body,” Berko says.
“Unless you want us to put him out by the curb,” Landsman says.
“We will send someone tomorrow,” the rebbe says. He turns in his chair, showing them his back. He bows his head, then reaches for a pair of canes hanging from hook on the wall behind him. The canes have silver heads, chased with gold. He stabs them into the carpet and then, with the wheeze of antique machinery, hoists himself to his feet. “After the Sabbath.”
Baronshteyn follows them back down the stairs to the Rudashevsky by the door. Over their heads, the floorboards of the study utter a grievous creak. They hear the sharp taps and rain-barrel slosh of the rebbe’s tread. The family will have gathered in the back part of the house, waiting for him to come and bless them all.
Baronshteyn opens the front door of the replica house.