Kaaterskill Falls

by Allegra Goodman

  He thinks about Jackie, and about Heather. They wouldn’t believe the things Candy says about him. Jackie would never believe him to be the father of Candy Walker’s child. She would stand by him. But, of course, she did not know him then, and she never knew Candy. The people in town, the ones who hate him anyway, ready to believe the worst, would jump on her story and talk and talk about it. And his friends? What would they think? The Rubins, the Butlers. Being old-timers, part of the place, their reaction would be more complicated. They would stand by him in the end, though it might cool things between them for a while. The respect they have might dampen a little. In the end, of course, they would stand by him. They might be loyal more for Jackie’s sake than his. The place is too small. The people too close together, all alike at bottom, armed with the same prejudices, sharing and exchanging the same gossip, a public library of hearsay. Jackie would believe him, but she would be pelted on all sides. His enemies would mock her, but the worst might be, their friends would pity her. And as for Heather—on the bus, and at school—he can’t help thinking about it. Children being what they are, so cruel to one another.

  He doesn’t think about himself, only about them, his family. He himself would deny it ever happened. He would get a lawyer to show that Candy is a liar. But he worries he can’t stop the talk. The stories would circulate, despite what any lawyer could say or any judge could find. And poor Jackie, to have to live with that.

  “Michael, what’s wrong?” Jackie asks him that night at dinner. “You’re so quiet.”

  “Nothing’s wrong,” he tells her, and he looks at her across the table where she sits with her shining brown hair and big brown eyes, and he asks her about her day, and Heather about her homework.

  But at night he dreams. He dreams of the floodlit gym at the high school filled to capacity and strung with red, white, and blue bunting, the decorations bought by the selectmen for the Bicentennial. The three mayors are sitting there in chairs on the gym floor, official in their suits: the mayor of Bear Mountain, the mayor of Kendall Falls, and the mayor of Kaaterskill. The gym is packed up to the rafters far above the basketball hoops. Pink-cheeked kids in their quilted parkas, the parents chatting above their heads, the old gentlemen and ladies escorted to the front benches. Hamilton, Kendall, the old-timers of the town. Up top, the burly lift operators from Bear Mountain, and the slim young ski instructors.

  “One, two, three,” the mayor of Kaaterskill tests the microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the Kaaterskill High marching band.”

  The band plays, the anthem is sung. The mayor announces, “Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome a man prominent in the development of Kaaterskill, a man running for his second term as selectman. Michael King!”

  And he rises from his seat and stands before them all on the golden varnished floor. There are a thousand people under the basketball lights, the scoreboard shining. But when he opens his mouth he cannot be heard. The microphone is not working, and though he tries to raise his voice he cannot make a sound.

  It is Candy Walker whose words rise up and float over the public address system. Her melt-away voice fills the gymnasium. Standing in the center of the polished wood floor, she keeps one arm around Billy Walker, Jr., and she clutches her Bible in her other hand.

  And Candy says, “This man is not developing Kaaterskill. This man is ruining it, and he came here from the city to ruin us all. I know about it personally. He almost caused the breakup of my wedding to Bill Walker, my late husband, and no one knows, hardly, but Michael King—he is the father of my child, Billy!”

  “You don’t have a shred of evidence,” King shouts, but no one can hear him. No matter how he screams, no one hears a word he says. They are all against him, rising in the bleachers, hissing. They are starting up against him, pouring onto the gym floor, and in vain the three mayors try to keep them back. Everyone is rising. Stan Knowlton and Curtis. Hamilton, and old man Kendall, Candy’s father, with his long shotgun.

  “Michael,” Jackie says to him.

  “What? What is it?”

  “You’re mumbling in your sleep,” she says. “You’re very funny.”

  Jackie pulls up the blanket and closes her eyes, but Michael lies there, aggravated, too tense to fall asleep again.

  THE next morning in Victoria Schermerhorn’s office, Isaiah and Rachel review the terms of the purchase and sale. “The closing date,” Victoria says.

  “As soon as possible,” says Rachel.

  “Well, now let me see, we have to allow for the bank’s appraisers and the mortgage approval and the … let’s see, six weeks from today would put us at May thirtieth, but it would be better to do it on a Monday…. Good morning,” she says, over their heads. “Judge Taylor, what an unexpected pleasure. I didn’t expect to see you, of all people, coming through these doors.”

  Isaiah and Rachel turn around and look at the judge. They take in his dark suit and neatly combed white hair.

  “Have you come to raise your bid?” Victoria Schermerhorn asks him.

  “Well, no, I’m afraid I haven’t,” says Taylor.

  Victoria knits her brow and waits a moment.

  “I’ve spoken to Michael King,” the judge says. “He has had some second thoughts.”

  “What do you mean, second thoughts?” Victoria asks sharply.

  “Just what I said,” says Taylor.

  “And what, I wonder, did you say to him?” Victoria asks. She is furious that he spoke to King behind her back.

  Taylor doesn’t answer.

  “Excuse me,” Victoria says to her clients. She ushers Taylor into her back office. Isaiah and Rachel are left with the purchase-and-sale agreement, its legal-sized pages flopping in their hands.

  “We’ll see,” Victoria mutters to Taylor at her desk as she dials King’s number. “We’ll see whether you can get away with this or not.”

  In the outer office, Isaiah and Rachel wait uncomfortably. They look at their watches. Long minutes pass, until at last Victoria reappears, looking rather flustered and angry. Taylor follows her, looking exactly as he did when he came in.

  “Cold feet,” Victoria Schermerhorn tells them. “He’ll do it. I know he’ll execute it, but he says that he needs time.”

  “We don’t have time,” Rachel says. “We really don’t.” Jeremy will be coming up in the afternoon with his movers to make estimates. He is planning to start the packing this week and move all the books to his apartment in the city. Rachel and Isaiah must finish this business. Not tomorrow, not the next day, but this morning. They need to sell the land and give the money from the sale to Jeremy. It doesn’t matter to them, five thousand here, five thousand there. They want somehow to preserve the Rav’s library, to prevent it from being sold and scattered.

  “He asked for a few days,” Victoria Schermerhorn says.

  “No, we don’t have the time,” says Isaiah.

  “I can see you’re in a hurry,” Judge Taylor tells them. “And I’m still willing to offer forty if you’ll take it.”

  “Forty.” Schermerhorn spits out the price contemptuously.

  “The offer stands,” says Taylor, “and I’m ready to sign now.”

  IN THEIR small cheap car, a Toyota, Isaiah and Rachel drive back to the Kaaterskill house. Jeremy will be arriving within the hour. Just after lunch, he’d warned them on the phone. Isaiah and Rachel do not speak. In their silence the car whirs along the road, faster and faster. Isaiah is driving recklessly, but Rachel doesn’t say anything. In his black suit and black wool fedora, Isaiah is speeding on the curving mountain road.

  Rachel is nervous. When they arrive at the house she unlocks the door with shaking fingers. But all is still. Jeremy has not yet arrived. In the living room and on the tables, in the library, the Rav’s books stand, all in their places, as yet untouched. Rachel and Isaiah sit in the cold living room and wait. Isaiah walks around through the dining room and the library. They wait for an hour, and then an hour more. They move out to the glass
ed-in porch and watch the road.

  “Should I call him?” Rachel asks.

  “No, no, he’s coming,” says Isaiah.

  “It’s two o’clock,” she says.

  “He’ll be here,” Isaiah tells her.

  AT LAST, at almost three Jeremy drives up and he sees them waiting for him on the porch. He takes out his house key, but Isaiah gets to the door first and holds it open for him.

  “Hello,” Jeremy says to his brother.

  “Jeremy,” Isaiah says, and he extends his hand with a kind of wistful formality. “Come in.”

  Awkwardly Isaiah and Rachel stand with Jeremy in the living room.

  “The moving company will be here in just a few minutes for the estimate,” says Jeremy.

  “Well, we were hoping—” Isaiah begins.

  “We want you to cancel the movers,” Rachel says.

  Jeremy smiles wryly and shakes his head.

  “I have something for you,” says Isaiah, and he gives Jeremy an envelope.

  Jeremy opens it and takes out a piece of blank paper folded around a check. It is a check for ten thousand dollars.

  “This is for the books,” Isaiah says.

  “We’re getting the other forty from the sale of the lake property,” says Rachel.

  Jeremy flushes. He looks for a moment as though he doesn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.

  “But I don’t want this,” he says at last. He returns the check to his brother. “No, I really don’t want it.”

  “You said you would sell us the library,” Isaiah tells him.

  “I was—I never meant it,” Jeremy says.

  “But we have the money and we want to buy it,” says Rachel.

  “No,” Jeremy says. “I can’t do that.”

  “You led us to believe—” she starts.

  “If I led you to believe something, then I’m sorry,” Jeremy says. “I’m not selling the books.”

  “I don’t understand,” says Isaiah.

  “Why do you want to keep them?” Rachel bursts out.

  “I want to keep them,” Jeremy says, “because they are mine.”

  4

  EARLY morning, while it’s still dark outside, Elizabeth wakes up in her bedroom in the city. Her eyes open easily. Her thoughts are clear. When she looks at the lighted numbers on the clock, she sees why. It is five in the morning, and the baby has slept all night. Isaac is awake too. They look at each other in disbelief. This is a miracle. They have never had a baby sleep through the night this early. They lie still, afraid at first to speak. As quietly as she can, Elizabeth leans over the side of the bed and looks into the battered wicker bassinet. There she is, not even a month, and fast asleep on her stomach, her head pillowed on one arm. The apartment is perfectly quiet. Not a sound from the girls’ bedrooms.

  “They’re all asleep,” whispers Isaac.

  “It’s like the alignment of the planets,” Elizabeth whispers back.

  Isaac begins laughing.

  “Sh.”

  They want to lie there silent. They don’t want to make a sound. Any minute the spell will be broken. The baby will wake up. Brocha will start calling, “Mommy! Mommy!” from her bed. But they can’t keep themselves from talking. It is so rare to have time for conversation at the beginning of the day when they are both awake and fresh.

  “How did the pantry go?” Isaac asks Elizabeth. She has been cleaning out the pantry for Passover.

  “I’ll finish today, I think,” she tells him. “Then you can bring up the things from the basement.”

  “I didn’t realize you’d done so much,” he says. “She must be a real sleeper.”

  “She watches me,” Elizabeth says. “I put her in the carrier and she looks around.”

  “Like Sorah,” he says.

  “She’s quieter.”

  “Oh, I was meaning to tell you.” Isaac turns to Elizabeth on his pillow. “When I went down to Grimaldi’s for the onions he had a sign up.”

  “What kind of sign?”

  “Help wanted.”

  “Oh, no,” she says. “Isaac.”

  “I thought you might be interested,” he says.

  “And what about the baby?”

  “You know my sister would watch her if you wanted to try it.”

  “I don’t want to run a cash register in a grocery store! And he—”

  “He’s a little grumpy,” Isaac admits. “Still, I thought—”

  “That’s not what I’m interested in,” she says again.

  “I know,” Isaac says. “It wouldn’t be the same as your own business. I was just thinking that you could start there, and then, you know, you would get to know the old man. Eventually—we’d save—we’d be rich. You’d buy him out and have the store for yourself.”

  “And then a chain, and then an empire of Grimaldis,” she says.

  “Or Shulmans,” he tells her, lightheartedly.

  “Oh, please,” she says.

  Elizabeth watches from the bed as Isaac gets up and puts on his slippers. He has to go to the synagogue for morning minyan. He will put on his tefillin there, wrapping his arms with leather straps. He will wrap the straps so tightly that they will leave their red impression on his arms. He will bind himself with the words of the Sh’ma: Hear O Israel, the Lord our God; the Lord is one. And I will love the Lord with all my heart and all my soul and all my might. Elizabeth will pray in the house as soon as she can, in the time she finds. She will not put on tefillin, but, like Isaac, she will bind herself with the command merits. She will not fold herself in a tallis, but like him, she will fold herself in prayer.

  She will never cast the life away. But when, she wonders, will she view the pattern of her days as brightly, or say her prayers as gratefully? When will she observe the holidays with the pleasure of past years? When will she cook again with such joy?

  Isaac leans down and kisses her. “You should go in,” he says, “and look around.”

  “Into Grimaldi’s?”

  “Why not? You can say you have experience—” he begins.

  Then the baby starts to cry. The girls wake up all at once and start calling. In a moment Elizabeth is out of bed and looking for hairbrushes and schoolbooks, and trying to tape up Sorah’s broken diorama of the crossing of the Red Sea. Sorah is wailing that it’s no good, and Elizabeth is telling her, “But you did a wonderful job. It’s a very hard thing to show in a diorama.” And it’s true, it is hard to depict Moses leading the children of Israel across the sea, the waves parting, and the pillar of fire before them—this was what had fallen off—with only cardboard, markers, and construction paper.

  ALL week Elizabeth is home with the baby. She is cleaning for Pesach, turning the house upside down. In the newly scoured kitchen the Pesach pots and pans and dishes fill the cabinets. All the regular utensils, dishes, glasses—are packed away in boxes. The oven racks lean against the wall ready to go down to the basement. Elizabeth has put away the toaster and the knife rack, emptied and scrubbed the inside of the refrigerator and freezer. Now she is vacuuming the couch. She’s taken off all the cushions and she is collecting puzzle pieces, a stray sock, barrettes, and pennies. She vacuums the crumbs, directing the long extension hose with both hands, and the crumbs crackle as the hose sucks them up. On the armchair the baby sleeps, bundled in her blanket. She looks like a small pile of clean laundry, except that she is breathing softly, up and down. They have named her Chaya.

  She is a good baby, easy like Brocha was. Elizabeth holds her, rocks her, walks with her. She weighs nothing, and she dozes off quickly. When she is awake, Elizabeth carries her around the room and shows her the house. She props her in the baby carrier and puts her on the dining-room table, so that she can see out the window. It is mild today, and the sunlight shines in pale yellow. She should take Chaya out. She needs to buy wine, meat, matzo, gefilte fish, farfel for stuffing, eggs. Her mind is filled with lists, all the things she has to clean, and all the things she has to buy. It is a buzzing of deta
ils, noisy and somehow reassuring, like the roar of the vacuum cleaner. And yet beneath this roar of details, somewhere underneath, she feels her imagination pacing, wounded, restless. She feels the questions muffled under the litany of errands. Where will I go? What will I do?

  After lunch Elizabeth pushes the stroller to Auerbach’s, where she buys meat and receives compliments on the baby.

  “How old?” the saleslady asks.

  “Three weeks,” says Elizabeth.

  “Aren’t you brave taking her out at three weeks. I never would have dared.”

  “So this is number six,” one of Elizabeth’s neighbors says, as Elizabeth makes her way up the street with her bags hanging from the stroller.

  “Yes, this is Chaya,” says Elizabeth.

  “Oh, very nice. For Isaac’s father?”

  Elizabeth nods. She makes a little joke. “If we have a seventh we’ll have to name her Batsheva.” The name means “seventh daughter.”

  The air is cold, but it feels good on her face. The dirty snow is melting in the bright afternoon sun. Rather than take the groceries all the way up to the apartment and then come down again, Elizabeth puts the bags and the baby in the old yellow Mercury, the poor car spattered with mud and stained with salt. She drives to the car wash at the very edge of the neighborhood, where some of the buildings are derelict and some abandoned, the sidewalks Uttered, the kids on the street rough. The block is almost, but not quite, too dangerous to visit even during the day. The car wash, however, is the best in the city. It is like a mikveh for cars.

  Isaac always laughs when Elizabeth says they should wash the car. Of course, for Pesach, they must get it cleaned. Elizabeth enjoys the luxury, the water sheeting over the windshield, the long flannel strips like jungle vines that slap and slide over the station wagon.