The Butcher's Theatre (36 page)

In the darkness the complex jutted skyward like a clutch of stalagmites; from below came the roar of traffic on Rehov Herzl. Daniel drove the Escort into one of the underground lots and parked near the entrance. Some of the spaces were occupied by American cars: huge Buicks, Chevrolets, Chryslers, an old white Cadillac Coupe de Ville sagging on under-inflated tires. Dinosaurs, too wide for Jerusalem streets and alleys. Why had the owners bothered to bring them over?

It took him a while to find his way around, and it was just past nine by the time he reached Malkovsky’s flat—a first-floor town-house unit on the west side of the complex, built around a small paved courtyard. The door was unmarked, armored with three locks. Daniel knocked, heard

heavy footsteps, the sliding of bolts, and found himself face to face with the man in the handbill.

“Yes?” said Malkovsky. He was huge, bearishly obese, the beard fanning over his chest like some hirsute bib, reaching almost to his waist. A thick reddish-brown pelt that masked his cheekbones and tapered raggedly just beneath the lower rims of his eyeglasses. His complexion was florid, lumpy, dominated by a nose squashed pita-flat and dotted with open pores. His forehead was skimpy, the hair above it dense and curly. He wore the same square skullcap as in the picture, but had pushed it back to the crown.

Swallowed up by hair, thought Daniel. Like Esau. So big, he blocked most of the doorway. Daniel looked past him, peering through slivers of space: a living room still redolent of a boiled chicken supper, the floor littered with toys, newspapers, an empty baby bottle. He saw a blur of motion—children chasing each other, laughing and screaming in Yiddish. A baby wailed, unseen. A kerchiefed woman passed quickly through the sliver and disappeared. Moments later the crying stopped.

“Police,” said Daniel, in English. He took out his identification and held it up to Malkovsky’s glasses.

Malkovsky ignored it, unimpressed. A wave of annoyance rumpled the knobby blanket of his face. He cleared his throat and drew himself up to his full height.

“A frummer?” he said, focusing on Daniel’s kipah.

“May I come in?”

Malkovsky wiped his brow. He was sweating—from exertion, not anxiety—eyeglasses fogged, perspiration stains browning the armpits of a tentlike V-neck undershirt. Over the undershirt he wore a black-striped woolen tallit katan, the

ritual fringed garment prescribed for daily use, a rectangle of

cloth with a hole cut out for the head, the fringes looped

through perforations on each corner. His pants were black

and baggy On his feet were black bubble-toed oxfords.

“What do you want?” he demanded, in Hebrew.

‘To talk to you.”

‘Who is it, Sender?” a female voice called out. ‘Gornisht.” Malkovsky stepped out into the hallway and closed the door behind him. When he moved he shook.

Like the cubes of jellied calfs leg in the display case at Pfefferberg’s.

“Everything’s been arranged,” he said. “I don’t need you.”

“Everything?”

“Everything. Just perfect. Tell your boss I’m perfect.”

When Daniel gave no evidence of moving, Malkovsky nibbled his mustache and asked, “Nu, what’s the problem? More papers?”

“I have no papers for you.”

“What is it, then?”

“I’m conducting a criminal investigation. Your criminal history came to my attention and I thought it best that we talk.”

Malkovsky flushed, sucked in his breath, and his eyes kindled with anger. He started to say something, stopped himself, and wiped his brow again. Turning his hands into fists the size of Shabbat roast, he began bouncing them against the convex surface of his thighs.

“Go away, policeman,” he said. “My papers are in order! Everything’s been arranged!”

“To what arrangement are you referring, Mr. … or is it Rabbi Malkovsky?”

Malkovsky folded his arms across his chest. The flush beneath the beard was tinged with purple and his breathing sounded labored.

“I don’t have to talk to you.”

“That’s your privilege,” said Daniel, “but I’ll be back in an hour with papers of my own, along with a minyan of police officers to help me deliver them. Your neighbors are sure to be intrigued.”

Malkovsky stared down at him, clenching and unclenching those massive fists.

“Why are you harassing me!” he demanded, but his resistance had started to fizzle, indignation giving way to naked fear.

“As I told you, Rabbi—”

“I’m not a rabbi!”

“—your history makes it necessary for me to speak with you concerning some crimes that have taken place since you’ve immigrated to Israel.”

“This is stupid talk. There is no history. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Malkovsky opened his hands, turned them palms-down, and passed one over the other in a gesture of closure. “G’nuk. Enough.”

“No, not g’nuk, not until we talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. I’m a permanent resident. My papers are in order.”

“Speaking of papers,” said Daniel. He removed a handbill from his pocket, unfolded it, and gave it to Malkovsky.

The immense man stared at it, lips formed into a silent O. With one hand he crumpled the paper; with the other he covered his face. “Lies.”

The hand opened and the paper ball dropped to the floor.

“There are others, Mr. Malkovsky, hundreds of others, plastered to walls, kiosks, all over town. It’s just a matter of time.”

“Lies,” said Malkovsky. “Sinful gossip.” He turned, half-faced the wall, pulling at his beard, ripping loose long, wiry strands of hair.

Daniel took Malkovsky’s arm, feeling his fingers sink into softness. A clay man, he thought. A golem.

“We need to talk,” he said.

Malkovsky said nothing, continued to shred his beard. But his posture had slackened and he allowed Daniel to lead him outside, to a quiet corner of the courtyard shaded by pepper trees in terra-cotta planters. The outdoor lighting was dim, weak orange spotlights casting electric blemishes upon the pint’s knurled countenance.

“Tell me everything,” said Daniel.

Malkovsky stared at him.

Daniel repeated: “Tell me.”

“I was a sick man,” said Malkovsky, as if by rote. “I had a sickness. a burden the yetzer horah cast upon my shoulders.”

Self-pitying hypocrite, thought Daniel. Speaking of the

Evil Impulse as if it were divorced from his free will. The sight of the man, with his beard and peyot and religious garments. dredgeo up feelings of revulsion that were almost overwhelming.

‘You’ve transferred that burden to the shoulders of others,” he said coldly. “Very small shoulders.”

Malkovsky trembled, then removed his glasses, as if clarity of perception were painful. Unshielded, his eyes were small, down-slanted, restlessly evasive.

“I’ve worked hard to repent,” he said. “True tshuva—last Yom Kippur, my rebbe praised my efforts. You’re afrummer mensh, you understand about tshuva.”

“A necessary part of tshuva is vidduy ” said Daniel. “Full confession. All I’ve heard from you is self-pity.”

Malkovsky was indignant. “I’ve done a proper vidduy. My rebbe says I’m making good progress. Now you forget about me—leave me alone!”

“Even if I would, others won’t.” Daniel pulled out another handbill, set it down on Malkovsky’s broad lap.

Malkovsky pounded his chest and began uttering the Yom Kippur confession in a high, constricted whisper. Stood there torturing his beard, spitting out a litany of transgressions.

“We have trespassed, we have dealt treacherously, we have stolen, we have spoken slander, we have committed iniquity

When he reached the last offense, he put a finger in his mouth and bit down upon it, eyes closed* kipah askew. Breathing rapidly and noisily.

“Did you ever,” asked Daniel, “do it with any of your own children, or did you limit yourself to the children of others?”

Malkovsky ignored the question, kept praying. Daniel waited, repeated his question. Let the big bastard know he wouldn’t be getting off with lip service.

A while later, Malkovsky answered.

The library was the best room in the house.

The living room was boring—all those couches and paintings and furniture, and stuff under glass bells that you weren’t

allowed to touch. When he’d been real little the maids wouldn’t let him go in there at all, and now that he was nine he didn’t even want to.

The kitchen was okay if you wanted food or something, but otherwise it was boring. The extra bedrooms in the Children’s Wing were always locked, and his bedroom smelled of pee and throw-up. The maids said it was his imagination, it smelled fine. They refused to scrub it anymore.

He’d been in Doctor’s room a couple of times, going through the drawers, squeezing the soft, striped underwear and the blue pajamas with white trim around the edges and Doctor’s initials on the front pocket. The rest of the stuff was socks, sweaters; suits and pants in the closet—all boring. The only interesting thing he’d ever come across was a thick black fountain pen with a gold tip, kind of stuck between two sweaters, hiding from him. He stole it, took it into his room, and tried to write with it, and when it didn’t work he snashed it with a hammer until it turned into black dust. He tasted it. It was bad and he spit it out, wiping his tongue to get the grit off, trails of grayish drool trickling down his chin.

The ice palace was always locked. Of course. She only let him in there when she was really drunk and needed him to get her an aspirin from the bathroom. Or when Sarah came to visit, which was only two or three times a year but always got her upset.

On Sarah days, she was always calling for him in a high, wiggly voice that was kind of scary—“Darling! Come he-ere! Daarling”—telling him to get into bed, drawing him in under the slimy-satin covers and putting a soft, bare arm around his shoulder. He could feel her hand squeezing him, soft and weet and sticky, her mouth breathing all that gin-breath on him. hot and sweet, but a disgusting sweet, like she’d been throwing up candy.

On Sarah days, she’d get really disgusting, lean over him

so that her titties were pushing into his chest, the tops all

white and shaky. Sometimes she’d lean real low so that he

could look down and see the nipples, like big pink gumdrops.

Slurping his cheek and saying, “Come on, baby, tell Mama. Is

that nasty little bitch high-hatting you? Is she lording it over

you, is she?” While she’d be slobbering all over him, the cat would stare at him, all jealous, sneak a scratch in, then pull back so you couldn’t accuse it of anything.

He didn’t understand what she was talking about—high-hatting, lording—so he just shrugged and looked away from her, which got her going again, waving her empty glass and talking all wiggly.

“Little snot, thinks she’s so much better than you and me, thinks she’s so goddamned smart—they always do. Too smart for their own damned good, the chosen people, yeah. Chosen to ruin the world, right? Answer me!”

Shrug.

“Cat got your tongue, eh? Or maybe she spooked you— the chosen people hex. Ha. Chosen for big noses, if you ask me. Don’t you think her nose is big? She’s horrid and ugly, don’t you think? Don’t you?”

He actually thought Sarah was okay. She was seven years older, which made her sixteen, almost a grown-up, and kind of pretty, with thick dark hair, soft brown eyes, and a wide, pretty mouth. Her nose looked okay to him, too, but he didn’t say so, just shrugged.

“Horrid little bitch”

Even though she stayed in the room next to his, they didn’t see each other much. Sarah was either swimming or reading or calling her mother at her hotel, or going out at night with Doctor. But when they passed each other in the hall she always smiled at him, said hi. One time she brought a tin of sugared fruits all the way from the city where she lived and shared it with him, didn’t even mind when he ate all the cherries.

“Don’t you think she’s terrible—a horrid little hooknosed nothing? Answer me, damn you!”

He felt his arm being pinched hard, twisted between cold, wet fingers. Bit his lip to keep from crying out.

“Isn’t she!”

“Sure, Mom.”

“She really is a little bitch, you know. If you were older you’d understand. Ten years it’s been and she still won’t give me the time of day, the conceited little kike—kikette! Isn’t that a fun way to say it, darling?”

“Sure, Mom.”

A hot, ginny sigh and a wet-hand hug, the fingers digging in as if for another pinch, then opening and rubbing him. Down his arm to his wrist, dropping onto his leg. Rubbing.

“We’re all we’ve got, darling. I’m so glad we can confide in each other this way.”

Sarah’s mother always brought her. A taxi would drop them off in front of the house; Sarah would get out first, then her mother. Her mother would kiss her goodbye, walk her to the door, but never come inside. She was a short, dark woman named Lillian, kind of pretty—Sarah looked a lot like her. She wore fancy clothes—shiny dresses, shoes with really high heels, long coats with fur collars, sometimes a hat with a veil—and she smiled a lot. One time she caught him looking at her through the living room window, smiled and waved before she got in the taxi and rode off. He thought it was a pretty nice smile.

If Doctor was home, he’d go outside and talk to Lillian,

shake her hand, and pick up Sarah’s suitcases. They seemed

to like each other, talking all friendly, as if they had lots to

talk about, and he couldn’t figure out why, if they got along so

good, they’d gotten divorced. He wondered if his mother and

Doctor had ever been friendly like that. As long as he could

remember, it had always been fighting, the night-wars.

Twice during each visit Doctor and Sarah went out together. Once for dinner, once for ice cream. He knew about it

because he heard them talking, planning what they were going

to eat. Rack of lamb. Prime rib. Baked Alaska. Rice pudding.

His mother heard it, too, called him in and whispered in his

“They’re a pair of little piggies, absolutely disgusting.

They go to nice places and eat like pigs and people stare