B002FB6BZK EBOK (52 page)

He went back home and when he passed by Rachel, he tried to pretend
she didn't exist. He went into his room, locked the door behind him, stood
silently shaking, and through the window he saw Lily's back.

Lily got up, her back disappeared from his view, the yard was suddenly
full of moss and greenery stuck to the old crusted stones. When they entered the apartment, the landlord said: Sherlock Holmes stayed here for
two whole days when he was in New York. He said that with an impenetrable face, and Lionel said: That's nice, did he also sit in the garden? And
the landlord said: There he solved the murder, and didn't expatiate on
what murder. A woman now stuck her head out one of the windows, gaped
open her mouth that swallowed wind, and Sam could see the firm teeth in
the distance, he thought about her thighs, about the juncture of her legs
with her thigh and felt warmth inside him. He didn't sit down and read the
books he should have read, but slipped through the yard and entered the
room. The voices of Rachel and Lionel were heard dully from the living
room. Lily lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. Sam went to her, undid the
button of her shirt, grasped her breast and looked into her eyes. Her look
was cold and distant. She put her hand on his erection and he squeezed
her breast, and said: Tamed eagle! And she was silent, and when her hand
touched him he smiled, moved away from her, and she didn't even bother
to button her shirt. He went to Lionel's desk and started burrowing among
the papers. Lily lay and watched him calmly. The drawer was neat. Sam
said: Secret Glory is with his stepmother and I'm with the ad for Ritesma
Cigarettes . . . Lipp is lip in English. I'll buy a Mercedes and Maubach and
Horick. Whores of public remorse, Lily.

She didn't answer him, shifted the embroidery she had been holding in
her other hand, and put it on the cabinet and buttoned her shirt. He took
a bundle of papers out of an envelope and glanced at them. What are you
looking for? she asked.

I've already found it, he said. Then he wrote something on a scrap of
paper, put the papers in the drawer, and said: Tell your man he shouldn't
have taken me, I'm not worth his beauty or your beauty. Look, he added,
I wandered around with a Jewish dog, I sold condoms and lampshades, I
had it good. Sam took his mother's strip of fabric out of his pocket and put
the fabric on Lily's face. She didn't budge and didn't move the fabric off her face. He waited, picked up the fabric, looked at it, shrugged and put
it back in his pocket. He waited but she didn't say anything. He noticed
her tears trying to tear the scrim of her eyes. But she didn't weep, and he
said: I saw an American funeral and venomous fish in an aquarium. They've
got a hard life here in America, give me money, I've got to go, I'll come
back later and don't let them try to be rebuilt with my money. She
stretched out her hand mechanically, opened a drawer, took out a bundle
of bills and coins and gave it to him. Sam picked up two coins that fell on
the ground, and examined the bills in the light of the lamp next to the bed,
and said: They must be counterfeit! He counted the money as bank tellers
count money. You sit here and sew corpses, he said, you sewed corpses for
women mourning in gigantic cars, you really think you can be my mother?

Self-pity doesn't suit you, Sam, said Lily and turned her face away.

That's right, said Sam. What do you know? You're just a filthy Jewess,
and he left.

On the way out, he yelled at Rachel: Stay well, Grandma! She tried to
see him in the opening of the corridor, but couldn't say a thing, her mouth
was dry, and when he went out she said: You made yourself an apartment
of rage, live like artists, stay well. Lionel served his trembling mother coffee as Sam's back was seen on the sidewalk, striding quickly.

The wind blew harder, workers were still hanging ornaments over the
windswept street. In twenty-six minutes and thirty-two seconds-on the
new watch Lionel bought him-he arrived. At the information window he
asked for the bus to Washington Depot. The woman said mechanically in
a very clear, hasty, nonhuman voice: Have to go to ... to arrive ... at ...
and from there ... from ... to ... and ... the price is ... And she was
already talking to somebody else. He went down the escalator to Platform
Fourteen. Not many people were in line, and those who were seemed to
know one another, even though they practically weren't talking. A little girl
with yellow hair asked him if he really was the Brooklyn Bridge. He whispered something to her in Polish, and she apologized and ran to her
mother, who was laughing aloud at the comics section she was reading and
chewing the end of a pencil that was crumbling between her teeth. Then
he got on the bus, waited until the doors were locked, and shut his eyes.
Calm enveloped him. He thought, these wouldn't get on the trains, at
most they'd work guarding and burying corpses. He issued precise orders of burial and opened his eyes. The tunnel was over and the light was strong
for a moment, they rode along a street whose houses seemed to be dying.
Then they entered another tunnel, a single policeman stood in an alcove
chewing gum. At the end of the tunnel, light was seen at last, then everything was gray, isolated houses and fields. Sam saw cows and a little church
and hills. The sun peeped out for a moment between the low rounded
clouds. The bus was overheated and Sam opened the window, but people
asked him to close it. The little girl was sitting at the back of the bus, her
mother was still laughing at the comics she was reading. Sam signaled to
them that he was deaf and couldn't hear. They said: Poor thing, but he's
got to close the window. A man in a yellow suit and one of Saul Blau's colorful shirts, smelling of cheap perfume, got up and tried to close the window.
Sam started struggling with him, the man was surprised and didn't know
what to do. The others were silent and indifferent, wrapped themselves in
their overcoats and looked as if they were freezing in the strong wind. The
man said: Must not be an American, doesn't understand English. He was
amazed to hear his own words, something wasn't right. He stood up, his
hands intertwined in Sam's, and said: What I meant was that he's deaf in
English. Sam kept the window open, but two men coming back from a deer
hunt, dressed in gigantic hunting jackets, got up, overcame him, and
locked the window. Then they laughed and passed a bottle of whiskey in
a brown paper bag from hand to hand. Sam burst out laughing. A woman
sitting in front of him turned to look at him and turned pale. The man next
to her was reading a newspaper, and said: They come here like flies, got to
know how to behave with those who come, got to show them who's boss
here. The woman slapped the man and he yelled: Whore! When she turned
her face again, she hadn't yet answered the man's yell and he went back to
reading the paper. Her face was full of amazement and then suddenly innocence. Sam smiled until she blushed. He pointed at her breasts and drew
enormous circles with his hands. Even though she stopped blushing the man
with her was afraid to look. The headlines of the evening paper looked
threatening through his eyeglasses.

Isolated farms were now seen, frost stuck to them, the trees were naked,
cars were seen driving on paths dwarfed by tall trees. About two hours
later, the houses increased, the farms gave way to more elegant houses, and
then an industrial area belching smoke and taverns, little signs, blinking at their doors, well-tended gardens attached to one another, another hill and
naked treetops, and then the bus stopped. Sam looked at a woman who
looked monstrous with her face stuck to the windowpane. She gaped her
mouth open and blew on the window, her nose was smashed against it.
Even in the strong cold, she looked despondent and forsaken. He waved
his hand at her and the bus started moving.

For a long time he walked in the forest in the stinging cold and then in
the fields, he saw houses with red roof tiles, haylofts, cowsheds, handsome
rustic churches in domesticated groves, in the distance a hill was seen and
on it a sweet, gray little town, with a gilded clock on its church steeple and
then, when he came to the house, he opened the gate and a gigantic dog
assaulted him. Sam climbed up on Ebenezer's tail and pulled hard, went
down on all fours, kissed the snout of the dog who gasped heavily, hit him,
petted him at the same time, and by the time the little woman hurried to
the gate at the sound of the barking, the dog was lying next to Sam and
wagging its tail, its mouth drooling and its face thrust in Sam's hand. Facing him was the old house surrounded by a big garden. The windows were
shrouded in shades, the entrance was like a Greek temple, the chimneys
belched thin smoke scattered in all directions by the wind. The dog didn't
move at the sound of its mistress's hasty steps. Sam noticed the woman's
antique beauty and looked at her calmly. She asked who he was and what he
wanted. He told her that first he had to pee and then he could talk with her.
She swallowed wind, her look passed angrily, maybe even more, offensively,
over the dog's swooning back, and she said: This is a private house, sir, not
a public lavatory. She used the professional terminology, and even that neutral name sounded coarse in her mouth. Her lips clamped righteously.

I come about Melissa, said Sam.

Now, when she looked at him again, she saw him through a thick cloud.
He saw the blood drain out of her face. Her anger at the treacherous dog
lying next to her young enemy increased, she banged her hand nervously
on her thigh, and said: Melissa? Melissa's dead. The fact that Melissa had
died so many years ago and suddenly she had to say that, embarrassed her
immeasurably. Maybe for the first time in years, Melissa's death was so
needless and yet painful. She dropped her eyes and saw the shoes that
had walked in the fields and forest and the spots and the flickering of the
trampled leaves, and she said pensively: Thirty years ago, and then she was scared and said in a voice almost shrieking at itself: What do you mean
about Melissa?

I have to pee, said Sam.

She shrugged and yelled furiously at the dog: Come here, Smoky! The
dog straightened up, looked at her, wagged its tail, and Sam hit his thigh
and the dog clung to him as if it feared for its life and started shaking. Sam
kicked it until it whined. She yelled: Why do you kick him? And Sam bent
down and kissed it. She hissed furiously: A dog is supposed to guard the
house from strangers! What are you here for?

To pee, said Sam.

Not you, him, she said, and she felt her position in the doorway of her
house turn into a farce she didn't want to take part in. Sam said: I'm not
a stranger and he understands, and then he noticed her sweet wickedness, an orphaned warmth, some old yearning on her face. Now he didn't
know if she was a guard in the camp or the NCOs' housekeeper, so
he could smile at her and say: Look lady, he won't bite me, he knows
who's the master and who's the bitch, where do you pee in this splendid
house?

The gentleman talks funny, said the woman. Her anger was more for the
dog than for him. Her mouth gaped a little, she had to pluck up a properly
shaped humility. Who are you? she asked again. Why ... But now she also
saw him more clearly, and a forgotten memory rose for a moment and extinguished in her, as if a forgotten picture was drawn and she didn't know
what the picture was. Now she also looked scared.

Sam said: You've got no choice, don't let me pee in your beautiful yard.
They walked inside. A maid in an apron who had just been shedding tears
over a bowl of slaughtered onions came running up with her eyes red and
dripping. You should have been here before, said the woman in a voice with
a threat aimed for later.

I tried, said the maid with extinguished awe.

Trying isn't enough, barked the woman.

Let the dog bark, said Sam, it doesn't suit you, you were born delicate
and only later comes life and makes us dogs. Believe me, I'm an expert.
When she raised her hand she looked surprised at herself for almost striking him. His charming smile spread over her face. That only increased his
dependence on her. Let me pee and then we'll talk about Melissa, he said. The maid genuflected at the name. He passed through the room, went
into the corridor, turned right, and found a toilet.

Afterward, he looked for a towel. The maid who ran after him stood next
to the door rubbing her hands on her apron. He went to her and wiped his
hands on her apron and went into the living room, whose walls were covered with mounted animal heads. The woman was sitting in a straightbacked chair and looking at him. He felt close to the iron that came from
her, all of her solid in a wonderfully shaped posture, he could feel the hatred in her eyes. A pleasant smell of spices crept into the room and was
swallowed by a fragrance of roses. The drapery looked more beautiful from
this side of the room. The woman could categorize corpses with model
precision, he wanted to tell Kramer.

The thoughts were messed up in his mind, his mother acting Ophelia in
a room closed with drapes, a smell of spices in a house they lived in for
many years.

The dog who was clinging to his leg all the time growled and the
mounted animals looked at him with flashing eyes.

Why did you come, she said.

I love her, said Sam. He smiled a smile of condolence and on the piano
he could see the faded picture of Melissa in a white dress, a bouquet of
flowers in her hand, and behind her a grown-up man holding a cigar in his
hand. When she got up the dog growled again.

He knows you?

Dogs know me, said Sam.

But he can't know you, she said and was immediately embarrassed because she knew she had asked the wrong question.

That's love, said Sam. You know how beautiful she was, Melissa?

Her body shook, she dropped her eyes, shook her head and muttered.
Why? Why? Why?

Don't know, he said. My name's Sam, I loved her, they took me to the
fences. She came to me and said: I'm yours, she didn't even know my name
is Sam, I came to ask for her hand and you said she's still dead.