The History of Love (23 page)

But. It never happened. One day she marched around the side of the house and confronted me.
I’ve seen you out there every day for the past week, and everyone knows you stare at me all day in school, if you have something you want to say to me why don’t you just say it
to my face instead of sneaking around like a crook?
I considered my options. Either I could run away and never go back to school again, maybe even leave the country as a stowaway on a ship bound for Australia. Or I could risk everything and confess to her. The answer was obvious: I was going to Australia. I opened my mouth to say goodbye forever. And yet. What I said was:
I want to know if you’ll marry me
.

She was expressionless. But. Her eyes had the same gleam they got when she removed her violin from its case. A long moment passed. We were locked in a brutal stare.
I’ll think about it,
she said at last, and marched back around the corner of the house. I heard the door slam. A moment later, the opening notes of “Songs My Mother Taught Me,” by Dvoˇrák. And though she didn’t say yes, from then on I knew I had a chance.

That, in a nutshell, was the end of my preoccupation with death. Not that I stopped fearing it. I just stopped thinking about it. If I’d had any extra time on my hands that wasn’t spent thinking about Alma, I might have spent them worrying about death. But the truth was that I learned to put a wall up against such thoughts. Each new thing I learned about the world was a stone in that wall, until one day I understood I’d exiled myself from a place I could never go back to. And yet. The wall also protected me from the painful clarity of childhood. Even during the years when I hid in the forest, in trees, holes, and cellars, with death breathing down my neck, I still never thought about the truth: that I was going to die. Only after my heart attack, when the stones of the wall that separated me from childhood began to crumble at last, did the fear of death return to me. And it was just as frightening as it ever was.

I SAT HUNCHED over
The Incredible, Fantastic Adventures of Frankie, Toothless Girl Wonder
by a Leopold Gursky who wasn’t me. I didn’t open the cover. I listened to the rain running through the roof gutters.

I left the library. Crossing the street, I was hit head-on by a brutal loneliness. I felt dark and hollow. Abandoned, unnoticed, forgotten, I stood on the sidewalk, a nothing, a gatherer of dust. People hurried past me. And everyone who walked by was happier than I. I felt the old envy. I would have given anything to be one of them.

There was a woman I once knew. She was locked out and I helped her. She saw one of my cards, I used to scatter them behind me like bread crumbs. She called, and I got there as fast as I could. It was Thanksgiving, and no one had to say that neither of us had anyplace to go. The lock sprung open under my touch. Maybe she thought it was the sign of a different kind of talent. Inside, a lingering smell of fried onions, a poster of Matisse, or maybe Monet. No! Modigliani. I remember now because it was a naked woman, and to flatter her I said
: Is it you?
It had been a long time since I’d been with a woman. I could smell the grease on my hands, and the smell of my armpits. She invited me to sit down and cooked us a meal. I excused myself to comb my hair and try to wash myself in the bathroom. When I came out she was standing in her underwear in the dark. There was a neon sign across the street, and it cast a blue shadow on her legs. I wanted to tell her that it was OK if she didn’t want to look at my face.

A few months later, she called me again. She asked me to make a copy of her key. I was happy for her. That she wouldn’t be alone anymore. It’s not that I felt sorry for myself. But I wanted to say to her,
It would be easier if you just asked him, the one who the key is for, to take it to the hardware store
. And yet. I made two copies. One I gave to her, and one I kept. For a long time I carried it in my pocket, just to pretend.

One day it struck me that I could let myself in anywhere. I’d never thought about it before. I was an immigrant, it took a long time to get over the fear that they’d send me back. I lived in fear of making a mistake. Once I missed six trains because I couldn’t figure out how to ask for a ticket. Another man might have just got on board. But. Not a Jew from Poland who’s afraid that if he even so much as forgets to flush the toilet he’ll get deported. I tried to keep my head down. I locked and unlocked and that’s what I did. For picking a lock where I came from I was a thief, but here in America I was a professional.

With time I became more comfortable. Here and there I added a little flourish to my work. A half twist at the end that lacked purpose but added a certain sophistication. I stopped being nervous and became sly instead. On every lock I installed, I inscribed my initials. A signature, very small, above the keyway. It didn’t matter that no one would ever notice. It was enough that I knew. I kept track of all the locks I’d inscribed with a map of the city folded and refolded so many times that certain streets had rubbed off in the creases.

One evening I went to see a movie. Before the main picture they showed a reel about Houdini. This was a man who could slip out of a straitjacket while buried underground. They’d put him in a chest locked with chains, drop it in the water, and out he’d pop. They showed how he did exercises and timed himself. He would practice over and over until he got it down to a matter of seconds. From then on, I took an even greater pride in my work. I’d bring the most difficult locks home and time myself. Then I’d cut the time in half and practice until I got there. I’d keep at it until I couldn’t feel my fingers.

I was lying in bed dreaming up more and more difficult challenges when it dawned on me: if I could pick the lock to a stranger’s apartment, why couldn’t I pick the lock to Kossar’s Bialys? Or the public library? Or Woolworth’s? Hypothetically speaking, what was stopping me from picking the lock to . . . Carnegie Hall?

My thoughts raced while my body tingled with excitement. All I would do is let myself in, and then let myself back out. Perhaps leave a small signature.

I planned for weeks. I staked out the premises. There was no stone I left unturned. Suffice to say: I did it. Through the backstage door on 56th Street in the early hours of the morning. It took me 103 seconds. At home the same lock only took me 48. But it was cold out and my fingers were heavy.

The great Arthur Rubinstein was scheduled to play that night. The piano was set up alone on the stage, a glossy black Steinway grand. I stepped out from behind the curtains. I could just make out the endless rows of seats in the glow of the exit signs. I sat down on the bench, and pushed down a pedal with the tip of my shoe. I didn’t dare lay a finger on the keys.

When I looked up, she was standing there. Plain as day, a girl of fifteen, her hair in a braid, not five feet from me. She lifted her violin, the one her brother had brought her from Vilna, and lowered her chin to meet it. I tried to say her name. But. It lodged in my throat. Besides, I knew she couldn’t hear me. She raised her bow. I heard the opening notes of the Dvoˇrák. Her eyes were closed. The music spilled from her fingers. She played it flawlessly, as she’d never played it in life.

When the last note faded, she was gone. My claps echoed in the empty auditorium. I stopped and the silence thundered in my ears. I took one last look out at the empty theater. Then I hurried out the way I came.

I never did it again. I’d proven it to myself, and that was enough. From time to time I’d find myself passing the entrance of a certain private club, I won’t name names, and I’d think to myself, Shalom, shitheads, here’s a Jew you can’t keep out. But after that night, I never pushed my luck again. If they threw me in jail, they’d find out the truth: I’m no Houdini. And yet. In my loneliness it comforts me to think that the world’s doors, however closed, are never truly locked to me.

Such was the comfort I groped for standing in the pouring rain outside the library while strangers hurried past. After all, wasn’t this the real reason my cousin had taught me the trade? He knew I couldn’t stay invisible forever.
Show me a Jew that survives,
he once said as I watched a lock give way in his hands,
and I’ll show you a magician.

I stood on the street and let the rain trickle down my neck. I squeezed my eyes shut. Door after door after door after door after door after door swung open.

AFTER THE LIBRARY, after the nothing of
The Incredible, Fantastic Adventures of Frankie, Toothless Girl Wonder,
I went home. I took off my coat and hung it to dry. Put the water on to boil. Behind me someone cleared his throat. I nearly jumped out of my skin. But it was only Bruno, sitting in the dark.
What are you trying to do, give me a conniption?
I yelped, turning on the light. The pages of the book I wrote when I was a boy were scattered on the floor.
Oh no,
I said.
It’s not what you—

He didn’t give me a chance.

Not bad,
he said.
Not how I would have chosen to describe her. But, what can I say, that’s your business
.

Look,
I said.

You don’t need to explain,
he said
. It’s a good book. I like the writing. Aside from the bits you stole—very inventive. If we’re talking in purely literary terms—

It took me a moment. And then I realized the difference. He was speaking to me in Yiddish.

—
in purely literary terms, what’s not to like? Anyway, I’d always wondered what you were working on. Now, after all these years, I know.

But I wondered what you were working on,
I said, remembering a lifetime ago when we were both twenty and wanted to be writers.

He shrugged, like only Bruno can.
The same as you.

The same?

Of course the same.

A book about her?

A book about her,
Bruno said. He looked away, out the window. Then I saw he was holding the photograph in his lap, the one of her and me in front of the tree on which she’d never known I’d carved our initials. A + L. You can barely see them. But. They’re there.

He said,
She was good at keeping secrets.

It came back to me then. That day, sixty years ago, when I’d left her house in tears and caught sight of him standing against a tree holding a notebook, waiting to go to her after I’d gone. A few months earlier, we’d been the closest of friends. We’d stay up half the night with a couple of other boys, smoking and arguing about books. And yet. By the time I caught sight of him that afternoon, we were no longer friends. We weren’t even talking. I walked right past him as if he weren’t there.

Just one question
, Bruno said now, sixty years later.
I always wanted to know.

What?

He coughed. Then he looked up at me.
Did she tell you you were a better writer than I?

No,
I lied.
And then I told him the truth.
No one had to tell me.

There was a long silence.

It’s strange. I always thought—
He broke off.

What?
I said.

I thought we were fighting for something more than her love,
he said
.

Now it was my turn to look out the window.

What is more than her love?
I asked.

We sat in silence.

I lied,
Bruno said.
I have another question
.

What is it?

Why are you still standing here like a fool?