A Curable Romantic (91 page)

“See what?”

“The way she looked at you! How she seemed to recognize you!”

“Oh, nonsense!”

“What’s nonsensical about it?” he said.

“What
isn’t
nonsensical about it? Must I elaborate? To begin with, and I hate to keep harping on this, but there’s no way for me to know whether you two are even real!”

“As we,”
attempted to keep an even tone, masking his exasperation with me, his dullest student, “have, in all fairness, admitted to you.”

“Why he must keep throwing it in our faces, brother! That’s what I’d like to know. And why must he lump us in together? After all, perhaps you’re a hallucination but I’m not.”

seemed appalled by the idea. “Right, right! I suppose if only one of us were real, it would have to be you.”

pointed his chin at me. “What even makes him think
he’s
real? Perhaps we’re hallucinating you, Dr. Sammelsohn, or did you never think of that?”

“Even if you weren’t hallucinations,” I persisted, nearly shouting at them, “you could simply pick out any woman from a crowd and tell me she was Ita.”

“And what possible motive would we have for doing that?”
said.

“No, the way she studied you, Dr. Sammelsohn! You saw it. I know you saw it. That flare of recognition!”

“He’s right,”
said. “Why
would
she recognize him? It makes no sense at all.”

“Oh, you two are completely incorrigible!” I threw up my hands. “I don’t know what I saw. I only know what you’re trying to convince me I saw. And in any case” — I looked at my watch — “I’m late for an appointment.”

“With the rebbe?”

“Yes, with the rebbe! And whatever you do, please
do not
follow me there.”

CHAPTER 6

But of course they did. They followed me everywhere. Despite my doubts concerning their materiality, I ran into them at every turn, especially
who, with his band of punitive angels, descended upon the ghetto periodically, dressed in their black leathers, with their truncheons and their pistols and their whips. Their violence revolted me. However, far worse was the fact that whenever
finished whatever grim task he was overseeing — pistol-whipping an old man; shooting a child he’d caught smuggling — he’d call out to me from across the square with a wave of his broad arm. “Hoi, Dr. Sammelsohn! A good afternoon to you, sir!”

It was all I could do to pull my collars up and pretend I didn’t know him.

“Despite everything, I love this job,” he said one day after a particularly unpleasant episode, joining us at the Café Leszno. “There’s nothing quite like a little murder and mayhem to stir a soul to repentance.”

Picking up my knife, he used it to clean away the blood from under his fingernails.

“Brother,”
said, “can’t we talk about something other than your work for a change?”

“Like what? Yours? Don’t make me yawn! But no, I suppose you’re right.” He lowered his jowly cheek into his palm and looked at me. “I keep forgetting I’m not among specialists here, as I am with my gang.”

“Must be nice having an army,”
said wistfully.

“To tell you the truth,”
said, “I don’t think you could handle the responsibility.”

As opposed to
specialized in the miraculous rescue. More than once, I’d seen him pulling some poor soul out of harm’s way, pushing him from a building moments before the Jewish police arrived,
or routing him away from a trap. Once I even saw him unloading a line of soldiers’ guns right behind their backs. He made certain ammunition found its way to the underground, and he performed all these tasks with such a light and gentle hand that many of the recipients of his charities had no idea he’d come to their aid.