Too Jewish (26 page)

He thought about it for a second. "Well, she'll think she's got another shot at you."

"At the beach?" I said. "She's going to make me wear gloves on the beach?"

I forgot I hadn't told them about the gloves. I'd buried them in my suitcase.

"You wore gloves?" my mother said.

I nodded. "To the opera. I survived a lot of stuff you don't know about." I made myself nervous with that, so I held out my hand. "Can you tell I had a manicure?" My mother shook her head, no.

"I don't see why you have to go to Mississippi," Daddy said.

"Because I promised Catherine," I said. "I can't take it back."

Daddy's face calmed down. Catherine would be interference, I guessed. I should have used her to begin with. "Two of us will drive Grammy crazy," I said. "We're a great weapon against her."

"I have nothing against your grandmother," Daddy said.

I didn't know how he could say that to me after I'd come back from Europe so much smarter. I gave him a loving smile. "I wasn't born yesterday," I said. "If you didn't have anything against her, I'd think there was something wrong with you."

"Oh, there's plenty wrong with me," Daddy said

"Bernie" my mother said.

"Please," I said. I was going to be embarrassed if I had to take it back with Catherine. She'd understand, but I didn't want to do it.

"I guess so," Daddy said. "Just don't be a good girl." He didn't sound angry, just sad.

I knew what he meant.

* * *

I hadn't been around my grandparents together for a while, and Catherine and I actually could make a game of watching my grandfather get drunk. "That's how you should've gotten through your trip," Catherine said. "You should've brought a bottle of vodka." Catherine knew all about liquor. She never tried it, but she went into her parents' bar and smelled it. She thought vodka smelled the least bad. Anyway, both days at the Gulf, my grandfather started in on the scotch as soon as it was past noon, and my grandmother didn't bother him at all. She didn't bother us much, either. We put on a lot of suntan lotion and went down to the beach. We weren't the sunbathing type, more the scavenging type who went into the water when we got too hot. We found a lot of amazing driftwood. Since my grandparents owned over a hundred feet of beachfront, people didn't walk the property too much, and we got more treasures than anyone would find on public beaches. Of course Grammy had a lady who cooked and cleaned, and we went in for late lunch that was too much. We put ten lemon slices in our iced tea and had real fried chicken, so real I couldn't explain it, and Grammy ate two wings, and my grandfather just drank and laughed at us from somewhere down so deep it was a little frightening, except that he couldn't stand up. Sunday afternoon leftovers were cold and comforting, and I was so peaceful with salt in my eyes from the Gulf water, and Grammy nattered on about how hopeless our hair was, and we thought that was terrifically funny. So did my grandfather, who kept saying he didn't have any particular desire to drive back to the city. But it was getting late, and he had no choice: Grammy had no intention of being anything but a passenger.

I didn't know about Catherine, but I was imagining the way we rode along in the back seat, rolling along the road in dusk, the car weaving just slightly: this was what being drunk felt like. I was in love with my grandfather's car, a white 1957 Lincoln Premiere, the only beautiful car ever made, with perfect geometric tailfins, and it had air conditioning, even in the backseat. Every now and then he'd bump into something and scratch it up, but he always got it into the shop and fixed it, so it was perfect ninety-nine percent of the time, and I felt like a little jewel there in the backseat, not because it was a rich man's car, but because it was a beautiful one.

I had eaten too much too late, and I was keeping my eyes on the road because looking inside made me nauseated, and I'm sure I saw the man before anyone else did. Grammy screamed, "Look out!" the brakes screeched, I expected the impact, I felt the impact, and the car rolled to a stop. I heard Grammy say, "Jesus Christ!" and then I put my fingers in my ears and closed my eyes.

I could only stay that way for less than a minute. It wasn't possible to escape what had happened. Catherine was shaking my arm. "Darby, Darby."

"No, no," I said. I was staring at the back of my grandfather's seat. "I think we killed somebody," Catherine whispered. It wasn't a usual Catherine whisper. This was not an adventure. This was a bad time.

My grandfather was just sitting in his seat, staring straight ahead, not moving, like he'd pulled into a parking place and wasn't ready to get out at the store yet. "What," he said.

"You just hit a man, you idiot," Grammy said.

"Anybody see us?" my grandfather said. He sounded less drunk than he'd been all day.

Grammy lowered her voice. Like she didn't want me and Catherine to hear her or something. "We're not going to hit and run. Even though I think he's a Negro."

"Well, you better go out and take a look at him," my grandfather said.

"I'm not the one who got us into this mess," she said.

Catherine and I looked at each other in horror. I wasn't sure what was the worst part of it. Probably not the bleeding man.

My grandfather said, "Thanks a lot," and got out of the car. He didn't look too steady, but he didn't fall out. I didn't dare watch. He was back in no time. "He's lying like a dead dog in the road. I don't see any point in sticking around."

"There's a gas station about a mile back," my grandmother said. "Get out. I'll wait here. You're calling the police."

My grandfather acted like he didn't hear her. He put the car into gear and pulled out onto the highway without even looking. All of a sudden red flashing lights filled the inside of the car. "I hope you're satisfied," my grandfather said to my grandmother. "If we'd left when I said to, we wouldn't be here." He let the pursuing officer pull him over.

"You're not sounding very smart right now. Try not to say very much, all right?"

"You are always the better speaker, my dear," he said. He didn't sound very loving.

"And cash is always the best speaker of all," Grammy said. "How much do you have on you?"

* * *

We sat on the side of the highway for what seemed like a long time, though it was probably no more than an hour. There were no lights, and even though it was a country sky, it was too cloudy for the half moon to show through, so we couldn't see each other. That meant that it was easy to hear everything, and Catherine and I weren't about to whisper when Grammy was just sitting in the front seat waiting to eavesdrop. I hated having my visitor be bored, but then I realized that Catherine had seen two horses have sex and one time had skinny-dipped, but this was probably her first time killing a person, so she probably didn't mind. When my grandfather got into the car, all he said was, "All right," and we drove off.

Grammy didn't quite let it go. "That means it's all right?" she said.

"That's what I said," he said, and the car radio came on, and Catherine and I could whisper all the way back into the city.

My mother was standing in the front doorway when we pulled up to our house, and Grammy leapt from the car almost before it stopped rolling. It was like she'd been planning in her quiet head all the way down the road exactly what she'd do when we got there. She ran toward my mother, who didn't look too happy. We were terribly late. The radio said it was after eleven.

"Oh, it was an accident," Grammy said. She was out of breath, even though she'd only taken about ten steps. "So terrible. But the girls are fine."

Catherine and I had pulled our few things together when we started getting close to the house. We eased out of the car. My grandfather wasn't as fast as we were, but he was old and probably still a little drunk. He lumbered up the driveway, talking as he went. "A manBy the side of the roadBadly injuredWe weredetained by the police"

I figured him out right away, so I stepped in front of him. "I think he was dead," I said to my parents.

"Oh, my God, Mother, what on earth happened?" Mama said to Grammy.

"Darby, you and your friend go into the house," Grammy said.

Catherine caught up with me. We just stood where we were, between my grandparents and my parents. I wasn't staying out of this for anything. Catherine folded her arms. We exchanged glances, which I thought said,
Do we dare look to see if there's blood on the front of the car?
The looks decided that we didn't.

"It was just a colored guy. Not even wearing white," my grandfather said. "I couldn't see him."

"You killed a man?" my mother said. Her voice was close to screaming.

"It was an accident," my grandfather said. "Why do they walk on the road in pitch dark?"

"Daddy, you've been drinking," my mother said. She was furious.

"I drive better with a couple of drinks than the both of you drive cold sober." He was looking at my parents. I looked at my father. He was sheet-white in the street lights. It was then that he pulled a slip of paper out of his shirt pocket.

I recognized that slip of paper. I'd taken it out of my purse the day Grammy put it in there at Bergen-Belsen and put it in my suitcase. And I'd never unpacked my suitcase. I'd been lazy. I'd left it in the hallway, hoping all the terrible clothes in it that Grammy bought me would disappear. I'd forgotten about the slip of paper.

My grandfather had just insulted my parents. I had to answer back. "The police chased you," I said to my grandfather. Catherine grabbed my arm, but very slowly so no one would see her. She was backing me up.

"We pulled off, and they came behind us," Grammy said. "Darby, I'm asking you again to please go inside."

We didn't move. And Daddy came down a few steps. Now the paper in his hand was waving in front of him so no one could miss it. I'm sure Grammy saw it, but I don't know that she recognized it. His coming down was probably enough. She backed up a little. So did my grandfather. "Let me get this straight," my father said. "You killed a man. You were drinking. You tried to leave the scene of the accident."

My grandparents didn't say anything. Catherine and I sure weren't going to say anything.

"I'll take that as a yes," Daddy said.

"Please, Bernie," my mother said.

He made a little gesture toward her. It was an accepting sort of gesture, like he knew she had a point, but he couldn't do it, and he trusted her to understand. "You're very late," he said. "But you've come back. Which means"

His voice got louder. "You're not in jail! And there's only one way you're not in jail!"

My mother asked him to stop, please. But probably everybody could tell that she was just saying that so she wouldn't be in terrible trouble afterward. She didn't sound a whole lot like she wanted him to stop. So instead Daddy took another step down toward my grandparents. This time they were took shocked to even move.

"You bought off a policeman! You used your money to save yourself!" he said to my grandfather. "Where was your money when you could have saved my mother? For probably less money than you used to keep yourself out of a Mississippi jail you could have saved my mother's life! And you know you'd have gotten away with murder in Mississippi."

He turned and moved toward my grandmother. He pulled the paper from the concentration camp taut in front of her face. "And you knowYou know my mother was murdered in Auschwitz. I didn't want to know. I didn't want my wife to know. I certainly didn't want my child to know. But you found out. And you told us all."

He put the paper in front of my grandfather, moved it around in the street light so he could see it, though my grandfather would have been unable to make sense out of it cold sober.

Then he turned to me. "I don't know why you never put away the things in that suitcase." He turned to my mother. "Don't start with psychology," he said to her, and then he turned back to me. "Well, today was the day your mother decided to unpack for you, since it was clear you never were going to do it yourself." This time he looked at my grandmother. "No, she never took out one thing from her trip. Not even this." He waved the slip of paper from Bergen-Belsen at her and my grandfather.

Now he was talking to both of them. "Tonight you can say your death toll is up to two. How does it feel? Just an observant Jew and a country Negro, no big deal? I guess not, if you have a lot of money."

My mother moved up toward my father and put her arm around him. I couldn't tell if she was trying to stop him while he was ahead or showing support. It was probably both. I'd never loved my parents more than at that moment. Catherine and I followed them into the house. I looked at the retreating backs of my grandparents as they walked to their car. My grandfather was shuffling, like a man who would remember very little in the morning. My grandmother's arms were folded, but she wasn't avoiding bumping into him. She was furious at the world, it seemed to me, but not at my grandfather. "We're going to be sorry we didn't say thank you," I said out loud when we got into the living room.

Catherine was waiting by my locker on Wednesday morning, and she looked shy of me. She said she had to talk to me, but she wasn't looking me in the eye, more looking past me, into my locker, where there was nothing interesting at all.

"Look, you might find out about this," she said. I looked around. Everybody passing by was someone who wouldn't tell me if I was on fire, so I didn't think that would happen in school.

"But you might not, too," she said.

"Hey," I said. "Now you've got to tell me."

"But what if you hate me?"

I thought about that. She sure was picking the right place to tell me. We'd pretty much taken a long time to find a best friend, and I wasn't in the mood to go looking around our class for another friend because as far as I could tell there was nobody as smart and full of the world as Catherine.

"Just tell it to me the right way," I said.

We had ten minutes to get to homeroom. There were two girls' homerooms, divided by the alphabet, A-M and N-Z. We were always together, Cooper and Martin, such boring last names as far as anybody looking at a list might think.