Gables Court
Page 28
Lovely didn’t take the papers.
“It’s a satisfaction of mortgage and recorded deed transferring the condo back into your names.”
The woman kept blinking.
“I don’t understand.”
“You can go home.” Samuel put the documents and a key in her hand.
At the Coral Castle, the night cold and still, Samuel stood among the stones, his breath forming ghosts in the wind.
Before leaving Miami he stopped at a mailbox and mailed to Richard O’Malley, U.S. Attorney, Kyrlo Gleba’s identification card, no return address on the envelope, just the name, Samuel Baas.
16
After six hours driving north, the stars dabs of swirling light, Florida still held him. Blurry-eyed, he turned the radio louder, drove another few miles, snapped awake just in time to swerve his car back into its lane.
He pulled into a diner and parked between a station wagon and old Pinto, a tractor-trailer at the far end of the lot.
“Hello,” the waitress behind the counter greeted Samuel cheerfully, poured more coffee for the bearded man in front of her.
“Thanks, Lubby. I’ve got a long haul.”
“I know, Henry. You stay safe,” and she smiled.
Samuel thought about sitting at the counter then saw the small boxes of crayons and pages for coloring the restaurant offered children. He glanced around. Busy getting ready to leave, the couple with a sleeping baby wasn’t looking at him; the trucker continued talking to the waitress. Samuel grabbed the crayons and picture of a poodle and hurried to a back table.
He slowly opened the box, gazed at the colors, carefully touched each crayon.
“Is there a child with you?” the waitress asked, Samuel quickly drawing his hand back. “I didn’t see one come in.”
“I…” What? Tell her I have a son at home and this is for him? Or that after all these years I want to color but I’m afraid I won’t know how? “I’m alone,” he said.
“You’ll have your food before you finish that, I promise! What would you like?”
Before, she had been just a face in a diner. Now he really saw the young woman. Most of her wavy, golden brown hair pulled back from her forehead, a few strands falling carefree and stylish framed gold flecked eyes, her blonde eyelashes long and natural. The waitresses shape and the graceful way she carried herself made her simple, pale blue uniform look not just sexy but fashionable.
“Do you need more time?” she asked him.
“A hot dog and cottage cheese,” Samuel blurted out, not wanting either, not knowing why he picked the two, but glad he could say something instead of continuing to stare at her precisely colored, deep red lips.
“I’ll tell the cook.”
Titillated by her slight accent, its sound touched his heart.
She’s so beautiful…Must be French…
“See you next trip, Lubby,” the trucker called out when leaving.
The cook, this woman, and me. I could talk to her…
Samuel didn’t want to think about love. He picked up a purple crayon and colored the dog’s nose. Waited. Added to it green, pink, orange and brown, increasing the layers of wax. After making the eye black, he repeatedly scratched its surface, using his fingernail to thin the color to the gray of smoke and ash.
Samuel peered down into the eye’s center and, continuing to look deeper, thought about what he had done and become…
The number of Jews he read murdered at Treblinka, 900,000, was a statistic in a column with data from the other death camps, the sums neatly totaled at the bottom of the page. Numbers were fleshless; they didn’t suffer and bleed, have dreams or love. They existed in print—just that. No lives ended by poison gas.
He knew if he had stopped there, not read on in preparing for Gleba’s case, he would have kept his lawyer’s oath, Gleba’s domestic violence not enough reason to break it. Caught by the Germans, Gleba obeyed them. Was he any different than the Sonderkommondos? But there was a little girl found in a book. Separated at Treblinka from her parents she sat on the ground and cried. An SS man picked her up and threw her head first against the inside of a truck carrying Jews. She stopped crying.
A number. 1. With her story.
When he remembered her there had been only one choice.
Maybe there is a God and Jesus is His son but I know this, I am a Jew and that little girl was me. I have a people.
A bell rang. The waitress picked up his order. Samuel watched her walking toward him.
I haven’t wisdom or courage. I ran away.
But what about love and hope?
“Looks good,” Samuel said when she put the plate in front of him.
“I like your drawing. It reminds me of van Gogh.” The waitress leaned closer.
He couldn’t speak.
“I’m glad you still have your ears!” and she laughed.
“Thank you,” Samuel managed to say.
“Anything else?”
There was, but how could he tell her?
“Lubby’s a nice name.”
“Actually, it’s Lubov. I’m Russian.”
“You were born there?”
“In Moscow. I studied art at the university.”
“Do you paint?”
“I try. Abstract. Lots of color.”
Samuel took a drink of water.
“I hope you don’t mind if I ask. Why did you come to the U.S.?”
“Fate. I left a movie late, missed my bus by two minutes. A man offered me a ride. I would never have accepted, but I was cold, so I took a chance. We fell in love. He immigrated here, I followed, it didn’t work out. Excuse me.” Another trucker had sat down at the counter.
Samuel touched her arm.
“I used to visit an art gallery in Boston. Can we talk some more?”
Lubov looked at him, her eyes showing intelligence and mystery.
“Maybe,” she answered, and left.
Fate or chance?
He decided chance. With it came the possibility of a miracle.
Samuel continued coloring.
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