“Joost will meet you at the station,” Georges said. “Call me after the lineup, okay?”
At three-thirty, through unremitting rain, Ras and Abe begin their descent on Coldwater Canyon into the San Fernando Valley.
Ras’s cell rings. The caller ID says, joost.
Ras answers and says, “Tell the sergeant, forty minutes tops.”
Joost says, “My car stalled. I’m at a gas station on Laurel and Ventura. I’ll take a cab.”
“Bummer,” Ras says. “You won’t get one in this weather. We’ll pick you up afterward.”
“He’s not there?” Abe says.
“Car broke down.”
“Pick him up.”
“Oh, Lord,” Ras says. “It’s in the other direction.”
“Let me out. Here,” Abe says.
Ordinarily, driving in the rain in Los Angeles is never promising. Now, like Laurel Canyon an hour earlier, Ventura Boulevard is as crowded as St. Peter’s Square during Easter Mass. It’s ten minutes after four o’clock when Ras and Abe pull into the service station on Laurel. Joost, standing four-foot-eight, a foot-and-a-half shorter than Ras, wears a tweed sport coat with patches on the elbows and looks professorial under his plaid umbrella.
When he gets into the Prius, he says, “You two talking yet?”
Ras says, No. Abe says, Yes.
“Never a dull moment in the Demeke family,” Joost says.
“You have dull moments in your family?” Ras says.
The Prius skids on wet pavement as Ras pulls out onto Laurel, heading north.
Joost says, “You talking or not?”
“Abe was playing a game,” Ras says, “if you want to call that talking.”
“What game?” Joost says.
“Genocide,” Ras says.
“Ras lost,” Abe says.
“Not true. I quit.”
“Because you didn’t know the answer.”
“Ask me,” Joost says. “I bet I know.”
“Oh, Lord,” Ras says. “Where do I turn?”
“Three more lights, then take a left,” Joost says.
Cracks of thunder punctuate a deluge that would have floated Noah’s ark.
“In this traffic,” Ras says, “that could take an hour.”
Abe says, “Ras doesn’t know about the Armenian genocide.”
The guy in the SUV behind them is leaning on his horn. The woman in the station wagon in front of them is screaming at raucous tots.
“Of course, I do,” Ras says.
“Okay then,” Abe says, “answer this. Is Canada guilty of ongoing genocide?”
“Nope,” Ras says. “No way."
“ZZZZTT!” Joost says.
It’s 4:15, a fifteen-minute drive to the police station in normal traffic. But in this rain-induced gridlock, they’re not going to make it.
Abe continues. “Fifty thousand aboriginal children were killed while living in Residential School complexes between 1895 and 1984—”
Abe’s cell rings. “It’s Detective Bellow,” he says, handing the phone to Joost.
Forks of lightning streak across the darkening sky.
Sirens sound in the distance.
Ras says, “Canada? Really?”
Police motorcycles, emergency lights flashing, pull into the intersection. Cops begin clearing it. One of the cops pulls his motorcycle in front of the Prius, blocking it. Others direct cars, trucks, and buses to the curb. An LAPD squad car – siren shrieking – speeds toward them down the cleared lanes on Laurel.
Detective Bellow, the collar of his raincoat turned up, taps on Ras’s window.
“Dr. Demeke,” the detective says, nodding to Ras, “we’ll see you at the station.”
Abe doesn’t move. “Aren’t you going to ask me what the point is?”
Ras says, “You have less than thirty minutes. Let’s talk about this later.”
“In the 1950s,” Abe says, “the Canadian government forcibly relocated twenty-three Ungava Inuit families from their home on the eastern shore of the Hudson Bay to Ellesmere Island in the east Arctic Archipelago, so Canada could claim sovereignty over that strategic area. The Inuits can’t survive there. They’re dying.”
“I get it,” Ras says. “You don’t think that what that hit-and-run driver who killed Father did compares to what happened to the Armenians and the Ungava Inuits. You’re right.”
“That’s not the point,” Abe says. “As a doctor, what could I do for the Inuits?”
Joost says to Abe, “C’mon, bro.”
Abe gets out of the Prius.
Joost asks if they’ll make it on time. The detective shrugs.
Police motorcycles roar ahead as the squad car takes off up the cleared lanes, turns on Vanowen and, with the Doppler effect of the sound of the sirens fading, Abe’s police escort disappears.
At 5:30, Ras pulls the Prius up to the curb in front of the police station on Sylmar Avenue. He turns off the engine, leans back in his seat, and closes his eyes.
The wipers sweep back and forth. He hears his heartbeat over the pounding rain. If he went to Ellesmere Island to help the Inuits, who would help Mrs. Angelico? There’s a literary term for weather like this, but he can’t remember it. Abe would know. But he does remember the foreboding weather on the day he and Abe last spoke five months before.
Waiting for the Sun
Ras stood beside Teresa, his large, soft hand resting on her forearm: waxy skin, edematous fluid, and not much more, covering her ulna and radius. There was still life in her eyes, which moved from him to the table holding the vestiges of the extreme unction – pyx, burse, candles – to her priest, husband, and two young sons. It was a few hours after midnight, Saturday morning well before dawn. The Sabbath.
“Dominus Vobiscum,” the priest said. “Let us pray. Our Father . . .”
The voices of Teresa’s family joined in. “. . . who art in heaven . . .”
And then Ras added his voice to theirs. “. . . Hallowed be thy name.”
Teresa traced her bony fingers across the palm of his warm pudgy hand. Her fingertips cool, her neck mottled, her lips blue and in that moment between her life and her death he envisioned her brown face becoming his mother’s black face.
Later he would note on her death certificate: Saturday morning, 3 a.m. But it could have been two and it could have been four. It was that kind of night.
He was twelve when his mother died. She’d told him he belonged to the Tribe of Dan, the lost tribe of Israel, the tribe lost to Africa, the tribe lost to all other Jewish people for thousands of years. She’d also said, “Ras, your name means ‘prince’ in Amharic,” the Ethiopian language of his childhood dreams. When he was six, his brother, Abebe, was born, and his mother had said, “His name means ‘blooming like a flower’.” After she died, she often came back to Ras in his dreams saying, always in Amharic, “You will be doctors, caring for our people in the Promised Land.”
But what good could come of thinking of her now? He had too little time and a medical mystery to solve. Teresa had succumbed to the same disease that had killed his mother. Or had she? Dr. Percival, the hospital’s chief oncologist, was certain the autopsy would show cancer in Teresa’s brain, and before that report came in he wanted to know how they had failed to diagnose it. To put it mildly, Percival was impatient. His recommendation would be vital to Ras when he finished his residency. And Percival wanted answers by Monday morning.
Before first light, Ras took the stairs to his third-floor Silver Lake apartment. He made coffee and slipped a CD – Mozart’s Requiem – into the player. Even though music was strictly forbidden, and all other Judaic laws were followed – they remained at home for a week, mirrors were covered, they sat only on low stools – his father had played the Requiem when they sat shiva for his mother. And he and Abe had played the Requiem when sitting shiva for Father just one month before.
Ras listened to the music and examined radiology and lab reports while rolling a highlighter back and f
orth, over and under the fingers of one hand – his body, like his mind, always in motion.
He faced the sliding-glass doors in the living room and held up a CT scan of Teresa’s head taken just a week before. The sun was already disappearing behind gathering rain clouds, so the light of dawn was unusually dim. But it was bright enough to see the film, and there was no cancer to be seen. He put the film down, put his glasses on the table, and rubbed sleep from his eyes. If it had gotten into her brain, where was it?
A quartet sang Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini.
Why were the truly devout servants of the Lord, like Teresa, like his mother, taken from this world when their children were so young? He prayed for the faith of Job, but in anger, he threw the highlighter across the room, leaving a yellow mark on the wall near blue and white candles, a gold Kiddush cup, and a shofar arranged on a buffet like ornaments on an altar. A tattered briefcase embossed with the flag of the Republic of South Africa, belonging to Joost, lay near the buffet. Joost, his best friend, was visiting for a week while interviewing at UCLA for a tenure-track position in the sociology department.
Ras tried again to focus on his work and again he was distracted, this time by the sight of Abe’s keys on the kitchen counter. Abe had been agitated when he’d called— what time had it been? Midnight? Ras had been too busy to talk and hadn’t called back as he’d promised. Perhaps Joost had taken Abe to task for dropping out of medical school. He’d have to wait until Abe woke up to find out.
He walked down the hall toward his bedroom. The door to Abe’s room was open and his bed was made. He phoned Abe. There was no answer.
Abe’s car was in the garage. He’d left his keys. It was too early to call any of his friends. If Ras could clear his mind of worry, maybe he’d be able to see the genesis of cancer in Teresa’s brain. But he couldn’t.
He opened the sliding-glass doors, stepped onto the balcony. Trompe l’oeil roses and violets bordered an Echo Park mural. Like a hearse, a truck lugubriously rolled by through the mist. Wind in the branches of nearby ficus and schefflera carried the susurrus of their leaves. The odor of mulch mixed with manure filled the air. He felt a drizzle but remained on the balcony, awaiting inspiration and his brother. Rain fell before either arrived.
Turning from his park view, he tripped over the track of the sliding-glass-door and grabbed the neck of a floor lamp. But his forward momentum jerked the plug from the socket, and he hit the floor, shattering the lamp’s stained-glass shade. Lying in the shards, he thought of his mother and listened to woodwinds.
Joost rushed into the room. “You all right?” His accent was Afrikaans, his curls were strawberry-blond, his T-shirt said Jesus for Jews.
Brushing glass off his scrubs, Ras ignored him and in concert with the sorrowful song he silently recited the Kaddish.
When he turned around, Joost—his tooth-white skin contrasting with Ras’s black-coffee complexion— was organizing the chaos on the table.
“Stop!” Ras said, and he rifled through the newly arranged files, recreating the appearance of disorder.
Brandishing one of the files, he said, “These are Teresa’s.” He shook his finger at the table as if the data were at fault. “She didn’t make it.”
Joost lowered his head. “It was G-d’s will,” he said.
Indeed, it was.
Ras vacuumed the fragmented glass and carried the broken lamp out to the trash. When he returned, he found Joost in the living room reading Up from Oppression. This was Father’s most important book.
On the back of the dust jacket an image of Auschwitz was superimposed over a picture of his father, pipe clenched in his mouth. Gaunt men wore tattered clothing with Stars of David sewn on their shirts. Wisps of smoke from his father’s pipe mingled with the smoke rising from the crematorium chimneys, giving the image the appearance of a painting by Magritte.
Joost said, “An extraordinary portrayal of the genocide of our people.”
Our people— their heritage portrayed in antique tapestries hanging on the wall. The ancient weavings were embroidered with biblical scenes and Hebrew words telling stories of King Solomon, the Queen of Sheba, the Tower of Babel, the Diaspora of the Jews, and a black baby Moses adrift in a straw basket on the Nile, discovered by an Egyptian princess and her servants.
Ras said. “When’s the last time you saw Abe?”
“Yesterday afternoon.” Joost marked a place in the book. “He took me to his writing workshop to hear his class discuss his play.”
“How’d it go?”
“The professor said it was confusing.”
“Was it?”
Joost poured himself a cup of coffee and sat cross-legged on the floor. “Not to me.”
“Did something happen between you two? A fight?”
“No,” Joost said, peering at Ras through steam rising from his coffee mug. “Why?”
He didn’t want to talk about what Abe had said, but now how could he avoid it? While he found comfort in the disorder of Teresa’s charts, there was too much disorder elsewhere. Now he’d involved himself in some difficulty between Abe and Joost. What he should have done was kept his mouth shut. But he hadn’t, and whose fault was that? Knowing Joost as he did, he knew he’d not be able to drop the subject. “He called me at work last night,” Ras said.
“And?”
“He wasn’t himself. He said, ‘Joost is a Judas.’ He said—” A crash of thunder rattled the sliding-glass doors, the panes pelted by relentless rain, a hard rain getting harder, the sky darkening like a bruise. And Abe was out there. “Something was wrong.”
“Obviously,” Joost said.
“Then I got a text telling me Teresa had had a stroke. Abe said it was a long story and could wait. Afterward, work got even more hectic. It was a nightmare shift. Before I knew it four hours had passed, and I was pronouncing Teresa dead.” Ras paused. “He didn’t come home last night.”
“I’ll call him.” Joost punched numbers into his cell. “Voice mail,” he said. “Hey, Abe, what’s goin’ on, bro? Call me.” He turned his palms upward as if to say, what now?
“Did you tell him to go back to med school?”
“Of course not,” Joost said.
Ras watched a couple huddled under an umbrella, walking together, fighting the wind.
Eventually he said, “Well, what happened?”
“We had lunch. We went to his class. On the way home, we talked about your father.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Still no leads on the hit-and-run driver.” Joost said quietly. “Are you sure you heard him right?”
Ras didn’t answer, remembering the morning when he’d been awakened by a call from Abe, who was in an ambulance with Father. He felt lightheaded and had to hold on to the back of the sofa to steady himself while he eased his bulk into the welcoming recess of its seat.
“We’ll have to wait for Abe to sort this out,” he said.
An hour later, Joost was writing. Against the gray light his face glowed like a harvest moon. Heavenly Eyes, a book, lay on the table next to a stack of notes.
Ras picked it up. “What are you working on?”
“A lecture,” Joost said.
“But this isn’t sociology. It’s about The Great Gatsby.”
“I’m using novels to show how the perspectives of different social strata in their time preserve the status quo by disenfranchising women and minorities—”
“Novels?”
“Right. You see, Fitzgerald’s character, Tom Buchanan—”
There was a pop and the power went out. “Where are the flashlights?” Joost said.
“I’ll get them,” Ras said. But he didn’t move. In the dark, he saw himself by his mother’s deathbed. She smiled but was too weak to move. He put his face close to hers and as he inhaled, she exhaled, her last breath cool on his lips and nostrils, her eyes, open but unmoving, unseeing.
He remembered her teaching him to tumble. “Tuck in your chin,” she said. His ch
in dropped to his chest, his arms relaxed.
“Hey, bro,” Joost said.
Ras opened his eyes. The lights were back on. He stood and stretched, running one hand over the other as if removing an invisible pair of gloves. A lightning flash filled the sky, illuminating the mural in the park. On the left side of the mural an urban landscape of office buildings, factories, and crowded neighborhoods nestled in a web of freeways. On the right side, farmers planted terraces on the outskirts of a Maya village. In the center, a procession of people of all races ascended a glittering spiral staircase. They were led by a tall, regal woman with ebony skin. She wore brightly striped Ethiopian robes and the headdress of a queen – the Queen of Sheba. She held the hand of an African boy – her son, a prince, he imagined, no older than twelve. He felt her other hand reaching out to him. Then, as if summoned, he opened the sliding-glass door, stepped onto the balcony and into a torrent of rain.
“Are you nuts?” Joost yelled. Ras, soaked, floundered back into the living room, and Joost laughed as he pushed the door closed behind him. “You look like a drowned panda.”
“I’ll change,” Ras said. He lumbered down a long hallway to his bedroom, stripped off his wet scrubs and lay on his bed. He fell asleep dreaming of children climbing over corpses, searching for their parents, unable to find them.
A few hours later he awoke to the sound of staccato pings on his bedroom windows, raindrops scrolling down the panes, refracting prisms of light. He showered, pulled on sweats, got coffee, then wandered into the living room, where Joost was reading Heavenly Eyes.
“Look,” Joost said, holding the book open to a picture of the original Gatsby dust jacket: the outline of a woman’s face – drawn against the deep-blue background of a bay reflecting stars at night – floated above an enormous fireworks display. Her face, aside from her pursed red lips and penetrating yellow eyes, was invisible. An isolated green teardrop trickled from her right eye down a transparent cheek, rippling across the water like light at the end of illusion. “See the reclining nudes in her irises?”
The Speed of Life Page 18