He drove home, after giving the Geo an extra hard kick, cursing its miserable black exhaust.
His mother was half asleep on the couch and trying to speak through a haze of medications. She had lost more weight and her nightgown had slipped off her right shoulder. “Is Suzie here?” he asked her.
“Suz, yes, she’s outstanding,” his mother said. He guessed this meant she was upstairs. Her parts of speech were decaying as fast as her organs, leaving holes in her sentences, spots in her vision: words disappeared from the page like snatched coins. She lost track of her meds and became confused about the hospice people who visited, making flapping gestures of apology in the air.
He slid the sleeve of her nightgown back up on her shoulder. “I have to get up early,” Connor told her. His mother shook her head, laughed and squinted in pain, a sign that the morphine was wearing off. He’d have to give her another pill. Her cancer had spread to her brain, outwitting the latest round of chemo. The doctor had said she had only a one to four percent chance of surviving, calling it a “smart cancer.”
She pointed to her heart and the puckered scarred skin around it. “You love me.”
“Of course, Mom.”
“I want you being happiness.” This happened too, especially late at night—her words no longer stayed in orbit with one another and became free planets.
She started to cry; she always did whenever he sat with her long enough. Sometimes he just stroked her back because she seemed to like this. Her emotions came jumpily to the surface, and she would cry and laugh out of any sensible order. Earlier, when Giigee was fruitlessly trying to arouse and suck him into compliance, he had decided that the seer was the only other person he knew who truly comprehended that the coldest ice-blue temperature on earth, the absolute zero of loneliness, could be found in the gap between living and dying flesh.
Her hand was cooler than the seer’s and sought the heat of his own.
He saw the papers authorizing him to enlist on the coffee table where he’d left them for the last few days. He saw, too, that his mother had scratched her signature on them. I want you being happiness. Spittle dribbled out of her mouth, for she had fallen asleep holding his hand, and though her body had shut down and she would lapse in and out of fitful dreams, her fingers, as if unwilling to cooperate, clamped onto his without surrender.
In the morning, he drove to the recruiting station and waited for Sergeant Kenner and others to show up. Usually, there were about five of them, counting himself and the other poolees who did their calisthenics in the parking lot out front, and then headed off in the van to the dirt trails that snaked through the desert, where they tromped past barrel cacti, mesquite trees, and cholla, hoping a rattlesnake, out for a morning sauna on the rocks, wouldn’t slither across their paths.
But neither Sergeant Kenner nor Staff Sergeant Hernandez showed up. He stood around with two other poolees, until Wingard called and said he needed a ride to school.
Connor was relieved. He hadn’t looked forward to facing Sergeant Kenner after his abysmal experience with Giigee. For all he knew she was telling her father right now, out of some vindictive rage, that he’d raped her. At school, he tried to get her out of his mind and was glad to have the distraction of working with Wingard—who mercifully didn’t bring up the seer—on theater sets for the senior class’s production of Othello. Afterwards, he quickly left, before Wingard could catch him, and drove back to the recruiting station. He had the signed papers with him and while he still had the nerve he wanted to give them personally to Sergeant Kenner.
A note on the metal front door said the office was closed and would reopen tomorrow. It was handwritten and there was no other explanation.
Connor looked around. Trucks roared past in the undulating heat on their way toward the interstate. His dented Geo parked at the curb looked as if it had been the victim of a can-stomping melee. A woman and her toddler walked by on the sidewalk and glanced at him, the little boy continuing to turn his head and watch Connor until his mother yanked him ahead, as if not wanting her child to stare at the solitary young man waiting under the green-lettered sign that said Marine Corps Recruitment. She pitied him perhaps, or feared for her own child going off to war, or was afraid of Connor or just impatient. He didn’t know. He felt he had to deliver these papers to Sergeant Kenner, and if he didn’t he’d never do another decent thing with his life or anything that involved sacrifice. It wouldn’t have made any sense at all to her, but he was doing this for his mother.
He drove to the Kenners’ house. He’d simply run up to the door and hand Sergeant Kenner the papers. If Mrs. Kenner answered, he’d give her the envelope to give to Sergeant Kenner. If Giigee answered…he didn’t know exactly what he’d do. He’d deal with that scenario when it happened.
But as he turned up the dirt road between the two saguaro cacti marking the entrance to the Kenners’ land, he saw smoke, and then he saw the astonishing sight of the Kenners’ home in smoldering rubble. A single fire truck stood by hosing down what had just last night been the converted garage where he had attempted to make love to Giigee. No part of the structure remained standing except the brick chimney.
A cop stopped him before he could drive any closer. Connor opened his window. “What’s your business up here?” he asked.
“What happened?”
“You can pretty much see what happened, my friend. Maybe you should turn around now. We’re not letting anyone up here.”
“Was anyone hurt?”
“Everybody got out all right.” The cop, whose radio crackled with urgency, studied Connor’s battered car. “You have some ID on you?”
Connor gave him his license, and the cop went to his cruiser to check it out. When he returned, he asked, “What’s your connection to these folks?” Connor realized the cop thought he might be involved. This is what arsonists did, right, or at least some of them—returned to the scene of their crime so they could admire the magnitude of their destruction.
“I know Sergeant Kenner. I’ve got some papers for him.” He was about to say he’d been here the previous night, but he suspected this would only cause more alarm. “They’re enlistment forms.” The cop seemed to soften at this.
“Well, you don’t want to bother him now. You better see about giving them to him later.”
Then Connor saw Sergeant Kenner himself, a forlorn, hunched-over figure at the back of what had been the master bedroom, poking through the charred ruins of his house with a metal rod. “Can I please just speak to him for a moment?”
The cop, who looked like he wanted to be anywhere but here reeking of smoke, glanced at the pad where he’d written down Connor’s name. “You got a phone number where you can be reached?”
Connor gave it to him. Again, he thought to say something else—that his mother was sick and they shouldn’t call because it might really upset her if they identified themselves as the police, but this would cause even more suspicion than admitting he was here last night. His brain was reeling though, and he knew he couldn’t hold out much longer without spitting out something that would get him in trouble. “Can I please just give Sergeant Kenner these papers?”
“I’ll hand them to him.”
“I want to give him my sympathies too.” And he did: he liked Sergeant Kenner and felt sad for him. He’d been good to Connor in a straightforward sort of way that uncomplicated his life. And unlike Mrs. Kenner and just about everyone else, Sergeant Kenner never treated him as an object of pity.
The cop relented. “Just don’t touch anything,” he said and waved Connor past. He could see the cop in his rearview mirror keeping an eye on his car.
He parked the lurching Geo at the end of the wide gravel semicircle and walked around the perimeter of the foundation to where Sergeant Kenner was examining the ground like a man in search of a contact lens. He didn’t hear Connor approach, and finally Connor cleared his throat and said, “Sergeant Kenner?” The sergeant glanced up in bewilderment, as if trying to pla
ce Connor, then gave him a small, tired wave and went back to searching the ground. “Sergeant Kenner, I’m very sorry about what happened.” Connor cleared his throat again. “I really hate to disturb you at this time, but I have my consent papers for you. They’re finally signed.”
“That’s good, Connor.”
“Do you want me to bring them by tomorrow? I was hoping to hand them over to you today. I know it’s a bad—”
“We have Jody in a safe place,” said Sergeant Kenner, his voice weak with exhaustion. “She’s going to get the help she needs.”
“Sir?”
“She’s under watch now. We should have done something before this.”
It dawned on him that Sergeant Kenner was telling him Giigee had started this fire, his crazy daughter who not fifteen feet away from where Connor was presently standing had moaned, with more fury than passion, Fuck me, fuck me. He pictured Giigee dousing Mrs. Kenner’s homemade peach curtains and pleated valences with arcs of gasoline and sloshing the very sofa with its highly flammable hunter green slipcover where she’d squirmed in frustration underneath Connor.
“Mrs. Kenner is fine. She’s shaken up, of course, but she’s fine. She’s staying at a hotel downtown near Jody.” Sergeant Kenner leaned a moment on the metal pole. He had been in Vietnam and the first Gulf War and had lost part of his shoulder in Iraq, all of which Connor learned from the other Marines who said the sergeant never laid shit on anybody. “You better bring the papers by tomorrow. Sergeant Hernandez will be there then, I’m sure.”
“Yes, sir.” Connor started to back away.
“Con…”
“Sir?”
“Did anything happen last night that I should know about?”
“I…I—”
“Was there anything Jody said or mentioned at all that might have led to this? We want to help her. We’re on her side. I’m sure you can see that. But she won’t talk right now. She won’t say a word. They have her on some medication that’s keeping her quiet, because, well, she was just screaming her head off and biting people. But I’m looking for a key. You understand that, Con, right? I’m talking to you as a father now. I’m talking to you man to man. I’m asking you as someone who doesn’t have a goddamn clue. Is there anything you can tell me about why she’s destroyed our lives like this?”
As he was about to answer, hoping to speak with a strength and wisdom beyond his years, he knew his mother had died. He felt it as a touch of her lips. Thrumming with blood, sweet with pleasure, and trembling with wonder—she brushed by.
To Leningrad in Winter
Peter Blum sat down at his desk in Financial Aid and looked over the appointments that ran through his lunch hour. The receptionist walked into his office.
“A Herbert Cohen is here to see you. He says he doesn’t have an appointment.”
Peter felt his head drop the first notch of the day. The receptionist, an impatient work-study student, tapped a pencil against her leg.
“Let me get some coffee before you send him back,” he told her.
He couldn’t deal with the man this early. Cohen had been pursuing him ever since they happened to sit down at the same cafeteria table four months ago. Cohen had introduced himself, then found out Peter’s name. He asked in a hushed voice filled with anticipation: “Would you mind please spelling the last name?”
Apparently, Cohen was able to deduce that this was indeed the “Jewish spelling” of the name, because within five minutes he had invited Peter to join a study group at the temple. “Last week we talked about the Jewish brain. Being a professor you would be interested.”
“I’m not a professor. I work in financial aid.”
Cohen shrugged as if there were no measurable difference. He wore a green Tyrolean hat that sat up high on his bald head, while he slurped at his lentil soup, his lips a neat inch over the bowl’s edge. “It was a very emotional discussion,” said Cohen, not letting the subject of the Jewish brain drop. “I know you would have enjoyed it. Some people believe that Jews do better on IQ tests because they are born smarter—genes. Myself, I think it all has to do with the upbringing.” He wiped the corners of his mouth. “What is your opinion, Mr. Blum?”
“I have none on that subject,” Peter said, excusing himself and getting up. He avoided the cafeteria whenever possible after that. He wasn’t interested in joining groups, especially ones that speculated on a superior Jewish brain. If he had any opinion, it was that the world’s difficulties had arisen from just such conceits. But one rainy day shortly afterward, Cohen had appeared at the office. “I would like very much for you to have supper with me,” he said. The felt on his Tyrolean hat was soaked dark green, despite the equally wet umbrella he dragged behind him. Even his cuffs were dripping. “I’ve just come from services. I was hoping to see you there.”
Peter looked at his calendar—it was Yom Kippur. Cohen had evidently become soggy by walking to the office rather than riding on the holiday. “Mr. Cohen, I am not a religious man by anybody’s definition. I don’t wish to get involved with the temple here or anywhere else.” He had been about to deny that he was Jewish but hated to degrade himself by lying.
Cohen’s smile was unflagging. “You would appreciate our discussion groups. I can tell you have a good,” he bowed as if to pardon the expression, “Jewish mind.”
“Not interested.”
“There are so few of us here in town.”
“So few of you, Mr. Cohen.”
“Would you come to dinner—once? Please. After sundown. Here, I have written out the address for you.” And he was gone before Peter could refuse again, walking back across campus in the blowing rain.
Later in the evening, finding nothing on TV, not able to play racquetball with his wife, Gail, who had come down with the flu, and mentally incapable of calculating anymore aid applications, Peter—who disapproved of standing anyone up—had driven over to Cohen’s, afraid the man would starve himself by not breaking his holiday fast unless Peter arrived.
Cohen’s house was a small brick one with a blanket of unraked leaves frozen in bas-relief on the ground and a mezuzah nailed to the doorpost. A boy opened the door and then walked away, leaving Peter stranded in the hall. Cohen came out from the kitchen, beaming over a silver tray piled high with hot, doughy food. “Terrific of you to come,” he grinned, and seemed genuinely touched by the visit.
He lived alone with his son, Stuart, a heavy-browed boy of twelve with braces on his teeth, who would shovel food fiercely into his mouth for a brief but intense period and then abruptly stop, letting his jaws lazily masticate the contents, while he squinted at Peter without speaking. The three of them ate together in considerable silence, Cohen giving explanations of the food and instructing Peter to add more salt, if he wanted, to the vegetable tzimmes. When Cohen went into the kitchen to put tea on for dessert, the boy turned on Peter. “What’s the story? You with us or against us?”
“What are you talking about?” Peter said, taken aback by the stinging hostility in the boy’s voice. It was the first time the sullen child had spoken a word all evening.
“Are you going to fight back or just let them murder us again?”
“Who? Who? ” Peter cried, his throat itching from the high-pitched excitement of his own voice.
Fortunately, Cohen reentered the room, mildly reproving his son for not letting their guest finish his food in peace. Afterward, Cohen said, there would be plenty of time to talk coconuts.
Peter was unable to take another bite of his strudel. “What talk? What coconuts?” He was becoming alarmed. “I told you I’m not a joiner. I’m only here because it’s rude to refuse a dinner invitation. Manners, good conduct, these I believe in—”
Stuart stabbed his pastry with a fork.
Cohen, always gracious, smiled and said, “Have you noticed the window decorations around town?” There had been a rash of anti-Semitic vandalism, defacement of property, Jewish property. No one knew why. The small college town hardly had an
y Jews to speak of. “We are planning to have a race, Mr. Blum. Perhaps you will join us. It’s to express our concern for a group of refuseniks who will be running at the same time in Russia. Of course, our other purpose is to show we are not frightened and we will not be driven from our neighborhood.”
Stuart stretched back his lips, baring his braces. “It’s not as easy as sitting in your office. But, then again, they could find out about you, too, Professor.”
“I’m not a professor!”
The boy took out a rumpled pad from his pocket and began making hasty notes, glancing up at Peter as he wrote.
“What are you writing there?”
“Just something so I can remember what you looked like. We might be asked to identify the body.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Peter burst out. “You’re completely overreacting—talking about being attacked!”
“They write filthy things!” Stuart said with sudden desperation. “I’ve seen it on the bathroom walls at school: ‘Jews eat yellow snow’!”
Cohen nodded solemnly at his son’s words.
“That’s it?” Peter laughed. “That’s what you’re so worked up over? A few punks scribbling dirty notes? Think how bad it would have been if they’d really been vile: Jews sell yellow snow. Wouldn’t that have been vicious!”
Stuart seemed on the verge of tears. “You think it’s funny, don’t you?”
He did think it was funny, and laughed to himself again, pleased to know that his suspicions about the situation were correct, that their fear was largely self-serving, a chance to affirm their status as members of a persecuted group. So long as the faintest trace of anti-Semitism existed, the Cohens of the world could be counted on to seek it out and make it bold.
“Let’s not emphasize our differences,” said Cohen, trying to end the meal on a harmonious note. Peter couldn’t have agreed more. He wanted no other opportunities to discover how much they differed and tried to make this clear to Cohen by curtly thanking him for the evening, without offering to reciprocate.
Madagascar Page 10