Old News

by Ed Ifkovic

  “He was never close to your father? Even as a little boy?”

  She spoke too loudly for the quiet room. “Lord, no. He hated Papa. Well, Papa never understood Jacob—mocked him, spanked him. Worse—looked through him. Too mean to him. Jacob was a little boy who kept bringing him gifts that were ignored. Worse—ridiculed. ‘Papa, Papa, look at me.’ Papa was a hard man to love, Edna. Very Old Country. When he got old, the worst stuff inside of him surfaced. He wouldn’t even go to shul. ‘Obey me, do you hear?’ We couldn’t talk at the supper table. Silence. No warmth, no weakness.”

  “Jacob had Ad, thank God.”

  Emma nodded. “Thank God. The defender of the fortress.”

  “What?”

  She laughed. “That makes no sense, I know. But one time, a couple years back, we all went to see the movie The Golem at the Apollo Theater. You know, the Jewish hero created from mud, the defender of Prague in the middle ages. A stupid melodrama but Jacob and Ad joked that they were our heroes—me, Ella, even Minna. One made from clay, the other from mud. But Jacob, for days, walked around saying, ‘I wish I was a real hero.’ There was something so sad about it.”

  “Everything about Jacob turned out sad,” I said.

  Emma’s lips trembled. “Poor Jacob.”

  I changed the subject. “Are you reconciled with Ella?”

  She started, resented the question. “I’m moving back here, I decided. We both are. But I want my own room now. We’re not little girls anymore. I have a job at Hull House, which I love, something vital, important, and maybe it’ll lead to something else, maybe a salary—but Ella fights me. She still works as a seamstress. I quit that. What she’s afraid of…she wanted to remain little girls, scared, the two of us together, feeding into each other’s loneliness. I won’t have it any longer. It used to be easier not to fight her.”

  “That can only last so long.”

  “Edna, she always told me I wasn’t too bright and I believed her.” She threw back her head. “That proves she was a little bit right, then. No? If I learned anything from what happened to Mama, it’s that silence covers a multitude of sinning. Strangely, what happened to Jacob lately…it sort of liberated me. I watched him sinking…lost, and I woke up and thought about my world. I may be an inconvenience to Ella—to others, though Herman grudgingly accepts me—but I don’t care. An inconvenient woman is just what a family sometimes needs to straighten itself out. Do you understand me, Edna?”

  I tapped her on the back of her wrist. “Of course, I do. Inconvenience may not be the word I would choose, but it’ll work. I like to put myself in the way of folks’ expectations. Women need to do that more. Sometimes they’ll notice you. Sometimes they’ll listen.”

  She giggled like a little girl. “Tell that to my sister. Look at her.”

  Ella was sitting across the room, watching us talking, unhappy. Uncle Ezra was chatting into her neck, but she was focused on us, not him. Absorbed, he didn’t seem to notice.

  Herman and Uncle Ezra kept their distance, except for exchanged hard and angry stares, the two weary soldiers separated after carnival fisticuffs no one won. At the services Ezra sat at the back, refusing to join the family. When the twins sobbed, he bowed his head, and from where I sat I could see his pale face. Surprisingly, he was dressed in a conservative suit, sans flashy and colorful handkerchief, though the kippah he withdrew from a pocket and placed on his head was a brilliant sky blue, inappropriate. He spoke to no one, though I noticed him nodding at Leah. I was surprised he’d come back to the house, but he remained at Ella’s side, protectively, assuming his new role as her confidante. At moments, she did her best to slide away from him, not even subtly, once rudely turning her back on him. He didn’t seem to care. No one else in the family acknowledged him.

  When I’d first arrived, he was one step ahead of me. He’d turned on the top step and watched me. My mother, at my side, squinted at him, disapproving, but he held his unyielding stare. A mixture, I’d concluded, of disdain, wonder, and, fantastically, humor.

  “What?” I’d said, perturbed.

  “Oh, nothing at all, Edna dear. It’s just that you are always one step behind someone, the barnacle on the underbelly of a hurting family.”

  “A refreshing image,” I’d quipped.

  He’d hurried inside, disappearing into the kitchen.

  Lagging behind me had been a resistant Molly. The old woman mourned Jacob—that dismissive epithet “poor Jacob” would be the way he’d be remembered forever, sadly—and said yes, indeed, she’d go to the services. She’d even give condolences to Leah, the woman she believed began the decline of the Brenner dynasty. It was only fitting and right, she lectured, the dictates of a loving God.

  “I’m an old lady,” she announced to us at supper. “I don’t need someone telling me how to behave.”

  Leah watched Molly and her family walk toward her. If she was surprised by Molly’s extended hand and murmured sorrow, she didn’t react. A simple wispy smile, a quiet thank you, and Leah added, “Jacob always loved living next door to your family. He was always at your home as a boy. You were his family, too.”

  The words touched Esther, already weak with grief, and she burst into sloppy sobbing. Immediately Sol draped one arm around her shoulder and used the other to touch her face. She smiled at him, a soft and loving look, and it was, I thought, a beautiful tableau of a long, cherished marriage. The man who spoke so little but always so aptly, Sol bent over Leah and took her hand, squeezed it. Again, the perfect gesture because Leah’s face relaxed, softened.

  Minna dragged Ad to Leah, though he resisted. He’d sobbed loudly through the service, the loudest keener, his shoulders shaking as he swayed back and forth, a mournful metronome. Disconsolate, he’d walked out, stood on the sidewalk smoking cigarette after cigarette. Minna tried to talk to him, but eventually gave up, herself crying softly. Nearby, his father watched him but didn’t approach. Sol kept nodding at Minna: Help him. Help him. Help the lad. Molly kept an eye on him as well, though she seemed embarrassed by his public histrionics.

  Jacob and Ad, a boyhood spent together. Grown men, the friendship now ended.

  Inside Leah’s home Herman sidled up to Ad and tapped him on the shoulder, muttered a soft “I’m sorry for…outside.” He flicked his head toward the street. Ad didn’t answer. Herman said something I missed, but Ad slowly nodded, his handkerchief dabbing his eyes. Finally he slumped into a chair, staring at the carpet, with Minna hovering over him, a twittering hummingbird, solicitous, anxious. “Ad,” she kept whispering at him. “Ad.”

  A dreamlike world, that gathering, a lazy stream of Jacob’s friends coming in, awkward, not knowing whom to talk to, and then, relieved, turning to leave. A heartfelt mitzvah. The rest of us sat or stood, mutely watching them, until finally the few of us lingered there. Molly kept nodding to Esther and Sol, an obvious nod accompanied by her redundant cane tapping, signaling a need to leave. But Esther and Sol were reluctant to leave Ad who was nestled into an armchair, his body heavy and immovable, as though he’d lost the will to stand.

  “Esther,” Sol said to his wife finally, “we gotta leave the family now. They gotta grieve by themselves.”

  Sitting shiva for a dead son. A hard-backed chair, low to the floor.

  Mirrors covered.

  Seven days.

  Seven nights.

  The door opened and Sarah cried out. Morrie Wolfsy and his wife, Selma, walked in, accompanied by a bent-over Levi Pinsky. No one expected Ivan’s old partner to visit the home, though all three had been at the services that morning. As expected. Morrie paused in the entrance, doubtful of his welcome, this old partner who’d battled the dead Ivan—and whose illicit moment with Leah had begun the sweep of trouble that ended in Ivan’s murder. Herman bristled at seeing him. The twins actually glanced at each other. Uncle Ezra, though, was smiling thinly, reveling in the happenstance juxtap
osition of old acquaintances who never should be in the same room together.

  No one moved.

  “Hello.” Old Levi yelled out in the silence.

  It was an unintentionally comical moment, the old man’s crackling voice breaking at the end. Uncle Ezra smirked.

  My mother nudged me. “Edna. Leave.”

  I had no intention of doing so.

  Levi waited for Leah to address him first, so he watched her closely.

  Leah struggled to her feet, disoriented, but she stepped forward, extending her hand to Morrie’s wife. The poor woman, obviously uncomfortable, was relieved and muttered condolences. And like that, as if Leah had sprinkled some midsummer night’s magic elixir on the room, everyone settled, eased into chairs, sipped cold water, gabbed, and smiled. Leah herself fell back into her seat, assumed her silence, though her eyes watched the room. It was a marvelous transformation, her magic trick, however she achieved it, and even Molly gave the grieving mother a look that had equal parts wonder and admiration in it.

  For some reason Levi began to share stories, recalling a young Jacob hanging out in the back room of the old meat market late at night, sitting by a small green-glass secretary’s lamp, fashioning his poetry. “Alone. By hissef. Everybody gone home. He said he liked the quiet, the feel of the old room.”

  “That back room.” Herman spoke up. “I never understood its attraction.” He nodded at Ad. “You, too. You and Jacob sitting there with the older men.”

  “A home for us,” Ad said.

  Levi glowered at him. “You was gonna be a rabbi.”

  Ad raised his eyebrows. “Ancient history.” But for the first time that day he smiled. “We felt so grownup there. Well, Papa and…Morrie.” He pointed a finger at Morrie, then stared at Levi.

  “I never liked it,” Herman said, “A couple times there and I stopped going.”

  “I never felt welcome there,” Ezra added. “But it didn’t stop me from going.”

  Ad watched both of them. “It was like a private club.”

  “No Jews allowed,” Ezra said, snidely.

  Ad faced him. “Maybe you weren’t Jewish enough.”

  “Being Jewish is not a…gradation,” Ezra said.

  “No,” Ad said, “but it can be a special beat of your heart. The bond that…”

  Ezra scoffed. “Yeah, that special haven. A filthy room packed with junk.” He purposely eyed Levi. “A ragpicker’s paradise.”

  “And yet someone broke in to steal,” I added, loudly.

  Old Levi furrowed his brow, squinted at me. “Yes, so strange, that. The long darkness of that day. On the very night that poor Ivan died. Like God telling us something.”

  Silence in the room: images of Ivan with a knife slicing into his neck. In this very house. On that sofa. A knife. Blood. All over. The paralyzed widow. The screaming Sarah…the murder…murder…

  Emma started weeping loudly, her face buried in her sleeve.

  “I’m sorry,” Levi blathered. “I talk too much.”

  “Or enough,” I said.

  “Edna, please.” My mother nudged me in the side.

  Everyone turned to look at me. “I always thought it strange—the coincidence—both events on the same day.”

  “No connection,” Morrie said hurriedly. “A few coins stolen. Those days a few robberies in the street, I remember.”

  “But the police never investigated.”

  “What’s to investigate?” Morrie shrugged. “They come out for a minute. A petty burglary. It’s nothing. A broken door. Pennies.”

  I stood up, raised my voice, the moment I’d wanted.

  “Edna.” My mother, warning.

  “What are you saying?” From Herman.

  A hissing sound from deep in Uncle Ezra.

  I heard gurgling from Leah, behind me. I ignored it.

  “I’ve wondered about that break-in. I’m sorry, but I want to say something here. Tasteless but necessary. Now.”

  “Edna.” My mother, thunderstruck.

  Esther tittered, reached for Sol’s arm. Molly gripped her cane. Tap tap tap on the floor.

  “This is not the time for…” Sarah’s voice broke.

  “Am I the only one to wonder about that? A knife never recovered. Perhaps bloodied clothing. After all, a stab to the neck. All evidence disappeared. When I saw that cluttered back room, walls of…of stuff, and then learned about the break-in, I thought, what a wonderful place to hide evidence.”

  “Stop!” Ella, furious.

  “The knife.”

  Two words, explosive in the room.

  Ad spoke up. “That makes no sense. Why there?”

  “The police would naturally search Ivan’s workplace. The back room. Such evidence would then cast suspicion on Morrie. A logical suspect. If the cops found it there—well…” I glanced at Morrie. “Or a place to hide it permanently…or to be removed later, at a safer time.”

  “Oh my God,” Ella cried out. “Have you no boundaries?”

  My voice trembled. “Why not there? Not in this house. Away from here. Maybe a place that lots of folks always gravitated to, comfortable, reassuring…”

  Ezra scoffed. “You’re saying one of us hid the evidence there? In the…rubble?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “Could be still there.”

  “Preposterous.”

  “Crazy,” said Sarah.

  Then the room exploded. Some yelled out, others cried, others damned me. Molly, bewildered at the cacophony of noise, banged her cane on the floor but no one listened to her. Ad was shaking his head, a quizzical grin on his face.

  In the din I said, loudly and purposely, though I didn’t believe a word I was saying, “If it’s still there—and I believe there’s a chance it is, all these years later, a knife and maybe incriminating clothing. Hidden in a convenient cubbyhole. If so, then there could be a way of identifying the true killer.”

  I didn’t believe a word of it.

  More pandemonium. My mother banged on a table, maddened, grabbing at her errant and improper daughter, whose disgrace had no limits. Thank God her bags were packed. After my inappropriate and unforgivable outburst in front of a grieving mother and her family, we’d have to make a hasty retreat out of Dodge.

  “The police need to be called,” I went on, gathering steam.

  Leah had folded her body into a ball, curled into the chair like a scared child, but her eyes locked with mine. Slowly, trembling, her lips formed a curious smile. A nod of her head. One hand lifted from her curled body, and it was, triumphantly, a benediction. We nodded at each other. Her blessing to me. Mine—to her. A mitzvah.

  Suddenly Ella was at my side, too close. Her hot breath covered me.

  “What?” I said into her wide-eyed face.

  “Edna Ferber, you’re a dangerous woman. You should not be in this house.”

  Chapter Twenty

  My mother had pushed her travel trunk into the middle of the hallway, purposely in my path, a bulky monument to the failure of her daughter to behave. It sat there as a reminder that we’d be moving to our apartment in Hyde Park early the following morning after a robust breakfast Esther insisted on making for us. I stared at the trunk with its plastered-on shipping and city labels my mother generously applied: Berlin, Budapest, Vienna, Paris, Rome, Florence—the grand tour of cities we’d visited just before the Great War, returning on a German boat as the 1914 war erupted. Now, after more than two weeks at Esther and Sol’s there’d be no labels stuck on, of course, unless there was one mimicking Hester Prynne’s inglorious “A”—in this case, perhaps a “D.” For Disgrace, Dismay, or Disdain. Disaster? Or, simply, Dunce.

  Because, emphatically, as we left Leah’s house earlier, no one spoke to me, except the occasional tut tut or tsk tsk that slipped fro
m Molly’s cranky mouth. Tight-lipped and stony-faced, my mother said she’d skip supper, though I didn’t. Esther had a savory roast in the oven, paprika-speckled potatoes, and a beef-barley soup simmering on the stove. Esther picked at the meal, Molly ate one potato and fussed about it, but Sol had an appetite and devoured two helpings. A man after my own heart. He who does not value good food, especially in moments of abject shame and humiliation, is a weak-kneed sap. As far as I was concerned.

  Finally, the women gone from the table, I sat alone with Sol as he drained the last of a frothy glass of root beer, homemade and kept in an oak barrel in the basement. A twinkle in his eye: “You done a good thing, Edna dear.”

  “You think so?”

  He shook his head vigorously. “You beat the bushes with a big stick, my dear, hoping a jack rabbit will scurry out.”

  I smiled at that. “A dangerous game.”

  “It had to be done.”

  “So you believe me, Sol?”

  “I always have.”

  “I figured that…” I stopped because, in fact, I knew exactly what I’d been doing.

  He was still shaking his head. “But the old back room. You think somebody stuffed a knife and bloody clothing in there? Broke into that place? Fifteen years ago? And still there?”

  “Not at all.”

  “But clever, what you said.” He raised his eyes to the ceiling and pointed upstairs. “You drive people crazy, Edna.”

  “So I’ve heard. I don’t do it on purpose.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  A sigh. “I guess I do.”