A little old woman, her skin dark and wrinkled, her teeth as white and fake as kitchen Formica, opened the metal door of 3A. She immediately took Max’s enormous goose-down coat—removing it he felt small, as though he had shed a big man’s skin and emerged as a child—and explained that she was Carla’s mother. She said she would take him to the living room and then get Carla.
Max hardly answered; he was surprised by the condition of the apartment. He had expected the dented front door to squeal with age and open into a decrepit interior. But the door opened silently. Judging from the small foyer and the living room, the tenement apartment was maintained in extraordinary condition. The plaster and paint job was immaculate; Max couldn’t see a single bump or crack. The walls were as smooth and pure as if it were eighty years ago and New York was mobbed with meticulous immigrant craftsmen—a Babel of geniuses who worked for what New York’s WASPs considered nothing and the workers considered a fortune. The living room windows, framed by tacky red drapes, were brand-new single Thermopane; but they weren’t sloppily fitted with a slapped-together frame; they had been replastered and set with old-fashioned round-edged sills, each carefully painted so that only the absence of multiple panes made it obvious the windows weren’t original. Also, the wiring seemed to have been redone throughout the apartment, judging from the three-pronged plugs and the recessed lights in the replastered living room ceiling. Either these working-class Italians were secretly rich Mafiosi or the husband had many friends in the trades. Only love or guns could buy this quality of work.
Max was delighted to be in its presence.
“Here we go,” the old woman said, returning to the living room with Carla. The mother seemed half the size of her daughter, although that was partly because she had the beginnings of osteoporosis. The mother may have been small and bowed by age, but she was both guide and engine for her daughter.
“My God,” Max said on seeing Carla as she was steered onto the yellow and white sofa. He was in a matching love seat at its side. “What a tragic face.”
Carla’s mother looked at him, neither upset nor pleased by his comment, but certainly impressed. Carla had no reaction; she stared at him blankly. That surprised him. She had asked to see him and yet she behaved as if his presence were of no concern. She had an El Greco face, elegant and sad. Carla’s black hair twisted away from her in places and fell off in others. The mess was richly colored even though so black—hair with the tints and shine of youth. She reminded him, although her face was different in shape and texture, of his mother when young and widowed.
Here’s your chance to sleep with Mom, Max said to himself without irony.
Max didn’t bother to say hello. “My father died in front of my eyes when I was thirteen years old,” he said into her exquisite and heartbreaking face. Carla’s eyes flickered to life, as if Max had only just appeared in front of her. “I was walking with Mom and Dad and my little sister down a long hill on 174th Street in Washington Heights. I had a brand-new baseball glove, a special first baseman’s mitt that they had spent a fortune to buy me, and I was tossing the ball up and down in the air. I had just thrown it up and was watching it fall toward me when I heard my mother gasp and kind of scream and I didn’t see where the ball fell—somewhere, I guess, it’s still rolling down the street—and I turned and Dad was dead on the sidewalk. There was a little blood coming out of his nose, and his legs were sort of twisted beneath him. My father looked as if somebody, somebody with a big hand, had just reached down, given him one good squeeze and broken the life out of him.”
“That was God,” Carla said. She smiled a crooked smile.
Max nodded. “That’s what I thought. I thought, God killed my daddy.” Tears came up in his eyes. Carla’s black despairing eyes focused on him with an intensity that might be hatred. Her crooked smile smoothed to calm resignation. She nodded agreement. Max was fascinated by her long mouth and full lower lip, quite red even without lipstick. Her jaw was long and perfectly drawn by its creator. Her chin has great dignity, he decided, the dignity of a judge. “Scared the shit out of me,” Max admitted to her. He hadn’t explained it to anyone that simply. There had been such fancy talk about the effect of his father’s sudden death and what did it amount to? Was it as precise and truthful as that it scared the shit out of him?
“What did your father do to make God want to kill him?” Carla asked. It was clear from her erect posture and alert black eyes that she meant her question literally.
Her mother proved that by her reaction. “Carla!” she chided her.
“I couldn’t figure that out,” Max said. “He was a religious man. He was hardworking. He was kind to my mother and to me and to my little sister—” Max’s tears had returned, blurring his vision. He paused because they had also welled in his throat.
Carla leaned forward. She thrust her beautiful and sad face at him, studying his eyes, apparently checking on his tears. She nodded. “You loved him,” she said and leaned back, again with a judge’s dignity.
“Yes,” Max said. “I didn’t know why God had killed him. There was no reason to kill him and so I decided that meant there was no God.”
Carla’s mother made a noise, something in between a gasp and a groan of disapproval. “Mama!” Carla said. She almost whispered, but there was rage in the breathy wind: “Leave us alone!”
The little woman shut her eyes and sighed, standing still for a second. She scurried out a moment later, calling back, “I’m in the kitchen. Ask him if he wants coffee.”
“Do you want coffee?” Carla said, again with a crooked smile.
Max was amused. She was in blue jeans and a white T-shirt, her eyes were exhausted, her hair was chaotic, and there was no heat coming from her, no sexuality, but he wanted to take her out of the apartment and change all that. He looked at her left arm, pointing languidly at him as part of her question. The underside was smooth, its color a creamy white. One blue vein showed through, cutting across her arm until it ran into bone and disappeared. He declined her offer of coffee and she returned the arm to her side. He was impressed by the knob of her elbow, sharp, its tip pink from friction with the sofa. He wanted to kiss it. He couldn’t remember if he had ever kissed a woman’s elbow.
“I know it’s stupid to believe in God,” Carla said. “I can’t help myself. But you’re smart. You’ve been to college, right?”
Max chuckled. She was funny and not depressed at all, it seemed to him, in spite of what Perlman had said, and in spite of her enervated appearance and despairing voice. He didn’t think it was really sorrow; she was angry. He couldn’t express those thoughts so he merely chuckled. “Yes, I went to college.”
“And you’re Jewish, right?” She hardly waited for his nod before continuing, “Do Jewish people actually believe in God? I know Jews don’t believe in Jesus, but tell you the truth—and I’m sorry, I know I’m being rude—but I ask because it don’t really seem like most Jews believe in God the Father either. Except for the ones with all the hair, the Hassicks—I don’t know how to say it—”
“The Hassidim.” He leaned back and laughed. “You’re right. They’re like really devout Catholics. Jews like me—we’re more like Mario Cuomo.”
“You got it.” Carla snapped a finger at him to indicate he had won a point. “People who go to college don’t really believe in God. People who really know about things don’t believe in him. I’m too ignorant not to believe. But I’m not so stupid that I’m going to believe Monsignor O’Boyle when he tells me that my Leo is with God somewhere playing a harp.” She spoke in an annoyed tone but her face was in pain, as if she were about to cry.
Max didn’t want her to cry. He said, “Maybe he’s playing a trombone,” as though the subject were absurd.
Carla was surprised. She leaned back on the sofa and her deep brown, almost black eyes looked up at the ceiling. Her face smoothed while she looked. Finally, she said calmly, “You’re right. If he’s playing something it would make a lot of noise.”
“There’s no reason to love,” Carla said to the ceiling.
“People don’t so much believe in God as that they choose not to believe in nothing.” Max didn’t think this was much of a philosophy, but it was the best he could do.
Carla lowered the ancient and lovely form of her face to his level and looked straight at him. Her dark eyes were wide under her thick circular eyebrows. Max watched her pouting and tempting mouth. Being with her in the perfect little living room he felt serene. After a moment of consideration, Carla shook her head no. She said in the relaxed voice of honesty, “I’m sorry. I can’t do it. I believe in him. He may be a fucking bastard—He was a fucking bastard to me—” Max’s worst fear came true; her eyes filled with tears and she was crying.
“No.” Max took her hand. He stood up, pulling her hand at the same time. It was cold to the touch. That shocked him. The apartment was hot and she looked hot—in her dark hair and dark eyes and white T-shirt—but her hand was cold and unloved.
His touch stopped her tears. “What are you doing?”
“Let’s get out of here.”
“No!” She pulled to free her hand; it was not only as cold as ice but just as slippery. It slid out. She hid it under her leg. “I don’t go outside! Didn’t they tell you?”
“Yes. But you’re safe with me. Nothing bad can happen to you with me. Didn’t you read about me in the papers? Everyone with me lived. With me you’re safe.”
Carla frowned; then she smiled her crooked smile. “You must think I’m very stupid,” she said in good humor.
“No!” Max was appalled. He slid off the love seat, dropped to his knees and pleaded. “I’m not lying. You are safe with me. I can’t explain why. But I’m not lying.”
“You’re serious,” she said, more as an observation than a question. “What are you telling me? There’s no God but there’s you?”
Max leaned toward her on his knees and extended his hands in a plea. “Come with me, Carla. I promise you’ll be safe.”
Carla beamed at him, as if he had done something delightful. From behind he heard her mother make a noise.
“What are you doing!” the old woman said. He felt her hand on his shoulder, pulling at his sweater. “Get up. Get off your knees.” She abruptly let go of Max and added softly, “Carla…?”
Carla was laughing. She had opened her mouth—it turned out to open very wide—and was letting go of volleys of laughter, aimed at Max by her bright eyes.
Max took them with a smile. His hands were still out, offered to her. He whispered, “Come with me?”
Her mother didn’t make another move to interfere. She stared in dumb admiration at her merry daughter.
“Sure, I’ll go,” Carla said to Max and gave him her hand.
His car was comfortable. It was foreign, a name she didn’t recognize or know how to pronounce. Max told her it was pronounced sob.
“I don’t like that name,” she said and was nervous. The troubles she’d had since the crash whenever she went out had begun. Her hands were moist and her stomach hurt. Each breath stuck in her throat; there seemed to be only a little space left to fill up with air. “Is this a good car?” she said. Her voice was weak and her ears were stopped up with the noise of her own frightened blood. She could hardly hear herself ask the question.
“It’s a very safe car,” he said as he pulled away from the curb. “Very safe and I’m an excellent driver. Never been in an accident—not while I was behind the wheel anyway. And you know what? It doesn’t mean we’re going to survive this ride. Because even if I do everything right, even with us strapped in, and with the marvelous technology of the Saab’s collapsing cage and its reinforced doors and roof, we could still be crushed to death or hurled to death. We’re not safe because of the car or because I drive defensively.”
“What?” she asked. She forgot about trying to absorb air from the small sac of it in her throat. She looked at Max. He smiled at her, at ease and friendly. How old was he? His graying kinky hairs didn’t tell her much, because it was the kind of white hair that can come early. His face was lined at the eyes and mouth, but only a little and he had the kind of fair skin that wrinkled easily. He could be as young as thirty or as old as fifty. “What did you say?” she asked, not really believing she had understood.
“We’re not safe. No matter how good this car is, no matter how carefully I drive. I’m not telling you anything you don’t know. You know we’re not safe—that’s why you’re scared.”
Carla laughed. “Everybody else keeps telling me things are safe. You’re just saying the opposite to fool me.”
“No. I’m not playing a mind game. It’s the truth. It’s not safe. In fact, you’re not safe sitting in your apartment. On Mulberry Street you’re hardly more than a mile away from one of the biggest faults in the United States. Someday, maybe in a few minutes, there’ll be seven plus, maybe even an eight earthquake. This city isn’t built for it. You’d be dead. My guess is more than a million people would die right away. And even if you survived you might eventually die. Since this is an island, with all the gas lines and the density—people could be trapped on Manhattan with an inferno around them and no way to escape or to fight it.”
Carla shifted a bit and took a good look at this man, a stranger really, with whom she was now stuck. He looked Jewish to her: very pale skin, a relatively short man with nervous hair who seemed never to have done any physical labor. His hands were smoother than hers; she’d bet they were softer too. But he had good features, a broad smart forehead, beautiful pale blue eyes, a reasonable nose and a wonderful mouth that seemed to curve twice at the ends, subtly down and subtly up so that he could look sad or happy with only a small change in their undulations. “You told me I was safe with you,” she said, feeling betrayed.
“You are. But not because the car is safe or New York is safe. We’re safe because we died already.”
That scared her. Sunlight glared on the cold streets. A beam flashed off a car’s fender, blinding her. She was terrified. Maybe she was actually dead; maybe this was purgatory, believing you were alive, but having no feelings except sad ones and hating the people you love. “I’m not dead!” she yelled.
“No, you’re not,” he said. He steered the car crosstown, heading west. He was calm. “I didn’t say that. I said you’ve died already. You’ve passed through death. You’re alive now. Both of us are. All of the survivors are. Don’t you see? Everybody else”—he gestured at the streets, at the people hurrying to their destinations, hunched against the cold, scurrying with the fear of hunted mice—“they don’t know what it is to die in their minds like we did.”
“That’s bullshit.” She turned even more in his direction. The seat belt pulled taut against her shoulder. His face looked smooth and very young from this angle. She couldn’t see any sign of a beard on those white cheeks. He could be twelve years old. “I didn’t die in my mind. My baby died and I got hurt but I didn’t die, I didn’t think about dying, I just thought about my—” She stopped.
“You just thought about what? How your baby died?”
He had steered onto the West Side Highway extension heading uptown. “Where are you going?” Carla demanded. She wasn’t scared or nervous. But she thought he was crazy and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to be alone with him in a car.<
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“The Sawmill.”
“The what? You mean out of the city?”
“Yes. The Sawmill is such a great winding road and so pretty. It was built to please the rich.” Irrationally he gestured at the river and the rotting dock structures. “Well, the middle class anyway. To be a pleasant road for a Sunday drive. The man who designed it—” Max chuckled, “his name was Moses—he imagined a world full of happy, prosperous self-satisfied people with good-natured servants and shiny cars that never broke down. And it didn’t bother him that his own brother died homeless. What an asshole. No, he wasn’t an asshole,” he seemed to be arguing with someone else, someone who wasn’t in the car. “He wanted to build his dreams and not just be a good man. A stupid, gullible good man whom everybody cheats and ignores.”
“You talking about yourself?” Carla asked. She had definitely decided he was crazy, but she no longer feared him.
“Yes.” He smiled at her. “You’re smart,” he said and he meant it. He looked sane enough: his pale eyes were friendly; his bush of gray and black hair was benign. “Is it all right if we take a drive and see some trees even if their leaves are dead?”
This was her chance to stop it. He was reasonable and he would let her go back. But she felt comfortable. She had forgotten her small throat and sweaty palms. The car was warm and quiet, her seat ample and soothing. Seeing the miserable, cold, and frightened world through the hard clear glass of the windows felt good. It gave her a kind of strength. He was crazy but he was right—she was safe with him.
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