“Oh, yeah, Grandpa. Well, maybe we could all do it together?”
Eva said, “Are you hungry, Jules? I know Bessie’s got something down in the kitchen. Pie and lemonade. You can go if you want.”
“All of us?”
“In a minute.”
He put his hand out again. “Good to meet you, Mr. Goldah. Thanks for getting me. I almost gave my grandpa a heart attack.”
He was hurtling down the steps before Goldah could answer.
“Careful,” Eva shouted after him but it was Bessie’s “Don’t need no wild animals tearing through this house” that bellowed from downstairs and brought Julian into line.
Alone with Eva, Goldah said, “He’s a fine little boy. And very well behaved.”
“Today — yes.”
He reached out and took her hand.
She said easily, “I’m not sure I want you doing that.” He tried to let go but she held it all the same. Flipping the hand over, she began to examine it, rubbing her thumb across the black stains she now discovered between his second and third fingers. “You’ve been writing.”
“Yes.”
“They should get you a typewriter if they want your pieces. I’ll tell my father.”
“I prefer a pen. I always have.”
“Then they need to get you a better pen.”
He pulled her in close; he hadn’t thought to do it but his arm came around her back and held her there.
She said, “It’s not very fair, is it, a distant kind of hope? I’ve lived through that once. I’m afraid I can’t do it again.”
How was it, he wondered, that he could forget this part of her, even for a moment? How selfish of him to think she ever could. He thought: If only I had the power to erase the last two weeks. It wouldn’t change the past or the future — he knew that, of course — only the way he looked at them. That was the malleability of memories: They lived in pockets of the mind, vivid or dulled depending on the lens one chose to see them through. Happiness, as it turned out, had nothing to do with suppressing or relishing or even coming to terms with the unchangeable. Happiness had only to do with a shifting of that lens, something forever out of his control. Somehow, up until two weeks ago, he had learned to see so much through her. Now that was gone, and he felt a deep shame for having refocused hers once again through the death of her husband.
She pulled away and said, “I won’t ask if she makes things easier, or if you find some kind of comfort in … I don’t know.” He heard a hint of her mother and knew he deserved it. “I can’t really care about that.”
“Yes,” he said.
“I’m not sure I even know what that would mean. But I do know I make things easier for you in the only way that matters because that’s what you do for me … You see that, don’t you? And I’m sorry — but I can’t just let this happen.”
Had he said he loved her at this moment it would have meant nothing. They both knew how much he did. Why point up how small a role it played in all of this?
“You’re right, of course,” he said.
“Am I?”
“Yes.”
“But it doesn’t make a difference, does it?” She seemed so tired of talking about it. “She won’t stop being a part of what you were in all those terrible places. She can’t. And if you abandon her now you’ll never forgive yourself for doing it. Worse, I’ll be the one to have let you see it through. And what good is that?”
14
CALVIN SAT with his hands on the kitchen table, palms down, fingers flat and wide. He was gazing at the gaps between his knuckles as he listened. He knew the boy needed to get it out all at once. No reason to have him catch a look that might temper his excitement.
“Well?” Raymond said when he figured he had said enough. He set his backside against the edge of the counter and looked over at Mary Royal. She was standing quietly by the wall, hardly moving. Raymond waited for Calvin to look up, but Calvin kept his eyes fixed on the table.
“Well,” Calvin repeated, “there it is. Getting lawyers in on it, too.”
“Yes, suh.”
Calvin noticed the beginnings of a hangnail on one of his fingers; he tried to rub it away with his thumb. “How about you, Mary? What you thinking?”
“Me? Whatever Raymond wants to do, he should do.”
Calvin nodded to himself, still looking at the finger. “ ‘Whatever Raymond wants.’ I guess that makes sense.” He chewed at the nail and rubbed it again. “Even if you the one that got the ball rolling in the first place — no, I don’t mean nothing by it. Just seems to me the two a you need to be making a decision, not just Raymond here. Must’ve been some kind a courage to talk to him.”
Calvin’s calm was having a sobering effect, more so his strange inattention. Raymond seemed confused by it and looked over at Mary Royal again. She said nothing.
Raymond said, “Mr. Jesler done most a the talking.”
“That sounds about right,” said Calvin.
“He said he wanted to be a better man.”
“Did he? Those are fine words.” Calvin left it at that and Raymond said, “I do something wrong? I needed to be talking to you before I done it?”
“No, son.”
“Then why ain’t you happy about it?”
“I’m happy.”
“Don’t seem it.”
“I’m a little old to be doing a jig on the table, if that’s what you waiting on.”
Mary Royal said, “He don’t mean that, Pawpaw —”
“I know what he means.”
Raymond heard the edge in Calvin’s voice as if it were his own and said, “Ain’t no reason to get sharp on Mary.”
“I ain’t getting sharp.”
“Then why you acting like this? I’m sorry it ain’t you he talked to, but that’s just the way it is.”
Calvin placed his hands back on the table — flat and wide — and he breathed out with a quiet laugh. It took them all by surprise and he looked over at Raymond.
“You think I’m jealous on you, son? Is that it?”
“No, suh —”
“You a war hero — a man getting on with things when most would a just set out and given themselves up. You understand that?”
“Yes, suh, but then why ain’t you taking my hand and shaking it and telling me congratulations?”
“Because you ain’t seeing it all the way through, that’s why.” Calvin let the two of them share another glance. “I know what you done is strong, believe me. The way you tell it — down in Yamacraw — Mr. Jesler knows what kind a man he got with you. And I think more a him now than I ever done. But you forgetting one thing. You forgetting Jacob … That’s right. That boy’s one a his own, and Jacob’s too smart not to start seeing what’s going on here. I don’t care how good a man Mr. Jesler is. No man’s that good when it comes to protecting his own. And that’s just the way it is.”
Calvin hadn’t wanted to say it, bring a young man down like that. He expected to see the air go out of Raymond’s chest — a man had to know the truths he couldn’t escape — except Raymond didn’t let the air out.
“I guess you’re right,” Raymond said. He spoke in a voice Calvin had never heard from him before — quiet and certain and somehow faraway. “Mr. Jesler’s going to need to figure that out. Same way he figured this out. Ain’t that right, Mary?”
Calvin followed the boy’s gaze to the girl’s and saw in that moment how things had moved beyond him, even before he had sat down at the table.
Raymond wasn’t asking for his approval or his praise. He wasn’t even asking for his blessing. He was simply hoping that Calvin could trust Jesler at his word. Calvin felt his fingers like brittle bones on the wood and he thought: Now what’s the chance a me doing that?
Friday afternoon found Goldah reading through a stack of notes in Weiss’s office. Weiss sat the other side of the desk adjusting his lamp, while Bill Thomas stood by the window, finishing a cigarette and trying to catch what little air the fan had to of
fer. Goldah felt Thomas’s anticipation like a hand on his shoulder as he leaned forward and set the last of the notes on the desk.
“It’s nothing definitive,” Weiss said, “but I thought you should know. There’s very little to tie Jesler to it, if anything. Still, the implication will be there.”
Thomas said too quickly, “I’m after bigger fish with this. I’ve told you both that.”
“Yes,” said Weiss, “but Savannah’s a small place, Mr. Thomas. The big fish have a tendency to bring the little ones along with them.”
Goldah appreciated Weiss’s reasonableness, more so the glass of water he’d insisted on pouring. A glass of whiskey would have said so much more. Goldah said, “You wouldn’t print without proof?”
“Of course not, and right now there’s no link between Jesler and this fellow in Atlanta. But I do have to ask — you’ve never heard Jesler mention Meyer Hirsch, have you?”
Goldah knew Weiss was only doing his job. Still …
“And if I had?” asked Goldah. It was only a moment’s defiance. “No, I haven’t. I don’t have much to do with the store these days. There might have been something going on at the store. I’m not stupid. But the depth of it … I can’t imagine Abe would be tied in with these kinds of people.”
Thomas said, “He probably doesn’t know what kind of people they really are.”
“So what is it you want from me?” Goldah asked.
The question caught Weiss by surprise. “Nothing,” he said. “I’m simply telling you this as a favor — as a man who writes for this newspaper — so you can let Jesler know.”
“Even though there’s nothing to tie him to this?”
“Not yet,” said Thomas.
“And you’re certain of that, seeing as this is such a favor you’re both doing for me.”
Goldah might have regretted his tone but it had Weiss backtracking.
“Look … the story isn’t Jesler. We understand that. Honestly, I’m not convinced we even have a story, however enthusiastic Mr. Thomas might be. We’re going to run it as a gradual build, an article or two per week starting next Friday. Nothing too explosive. Something along the lines of” — he thought a moment — “the role the unions play in Georgia, the links they have up north, how things work in the various professions … electricians, truckers, the port. All very general. That being said, we’ll have to see where it goes. You know as well as I do how these things work. There’s never any predicting what might come up.”
“So you’re anticipating it leading to Jesler?”
“I’m anticipating nothing,” Weiss said more emphatically. “Without proof of a connection there’ll be no need to go down that road.” He shot a look at Thomas. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Thomas? And my feeling, once we start mentioning Atlanta, the Constitution will jump in and lend the whole thing some speed.”
“So who’s your source?” Goldah had to ask even if he had no hope of getting an answer. Weiss and Thomas remained silent. “No, of course not … You ask about Hirsch but I go in blind when I talk with Jesler. This is quite a favor you’ve done me.”
Weiss said, “You know I can’t ask Mr. Thomas to reveal a source.”
Goldah had played that card himself so many times. It was unnerving to be on the other side. And then he said, “The redhead.” Goldah spoke without hesitation, as if a single word could clarify everything. “The boy at the store. Jacob. He’s the one who’s been feeding you the information, hasn’t he?”
Thomas didn’t say a word but Goldah knew. Could a fourteen-year-old boy truly understand an act of betrayal? Goldah said, “Why on earth would he do that?”
“I have no idea,” said Thomas. There was no reason to hide it now. “I think maybe at the start he thought if he exposed what was happening at the docks he’d be able to get Cohan off of Jesler’s back.”
“That makes no sense,” said Goldah. “He would have been taking Jesler down with him.”
“Agreed. I don’t think the kid saw things that far down the road. I think he thought he was helping Jesler.”
“And somehow you chose not to mention this to me the other night.”
“Would you have told me if the situation was reversed?”
Goldah knew it was a fair question. “And did you confirm any of this or did you just take the word of a fourteen-year-old?”
“He’s not like any fourteen-year-old I’ve ever met.”
“So no confirmation.” Goldah looked at Weiss. “I’m having trouble understanding how you allowed this.”
“I didn’t know about it at the time.”
“ ‘At the time.’ ” Goldah did nothing to hide his contempt. “But you have no trouble using the information now, do you?”
“There is no information,” said Weiss, “despite what Mr. Thomas thinks the boy knows. Whatever he’s said about Cohan — we already knew. It’s the possible connection to the man in Atlanta, this Hirsch, that changes things. But we don’t have that connection.” Again he looked at Thomas. “I’m right in saying that, Mr. Thomas, aren’t I?”
Goldah said, “So the boy didn’t give you Hirsch.”
Thomas hesitated. “No, he didn’t. There is no connection, yet.”
Weiss spoke to Goldah: “On the other hand, if the boy were to have any hard evidence —”
“Which he doesn’t,” said Goldah.
“Not at this time — no.”
“Which means at this time you have no reason to get in touch with the boy unless he comes to you. I’m right in thinking that, yes?”
“Yes,” said Weiss, eager to put this to bed. “Absolutely right.”
Goldah turned again to Thomas. He was suddenly struck by something Thomas had said earlier. “ ‘At the start,’ ” Goldah said. “What did you mean by that?”
Thomas tried to dismiss it. “It doesn’t change anything.”
“What did you mean?”
Thomas tapped a cigarette from his pack. “The kid’s been talking about the young Negro … the one who got hurt. He thinks he’s involved with Cohan.” Thomas lit up.
Goldah couldn’t quite believe what he had just heard. “That’s not possible,” he said.
“I know that,” said Thomas. “But the kid’s convinced everything out at the docks started when you arrived.”
It was now Weiss’s moment to stare incredulously. “What in the world are you saying, Mr. Thomas?”
Goldah saved him the trouble of answering. “He’s saying Jacob feels threatened. The boy thinks he’s getting squeezed out of his future in the business, so he’s casting Mr. Thomas’s net a bit wider to Raymond and me.” Goldah looked over at Thomas. “And that doesn’t have you questioning everything else the boy has said?”
“Everything?” said Thomas. “What kind of journalist would I be if it did? This latest stuff — it’s ridiculous, of course, a Negro and a camp survivor in bed with Harry Cohan or this Hirsch in Atlanta. But the rest? The kid’s gotten that right at every turn. And if he gives me the link to Hirsch, why should I care why he’s doing it? On a story like this, I can guarantee you no one at the Prague desk of the Herald Tribune would have cared one way or the other, would they?”
Hirsch and Cohan — faceless names — lay on Goldah’s mind hours later as he stood atop the ladder among the shelves at the store. He had been finding this the quietest time to come in, the place empty and cool and with nothing more to think about than the mindless repetition of restocking boxes. Tonight, though, that was different. This time he had come to think. There had to be a way.
He was so preoccupied that he failed to hear the back door opening or the footsteps along the cement floor, and he certainly wasn’t prepared for the “Hey there, Mr. Ike,” which cut through the quiet air of his concentration. Had Goldah been cupping more than a single box under his arm, the whole stack might have fallen on Raymond’s head, but as it was, Goldah was holding just the one and now juggled it to his chest before reining it in.
“Guess you didn’t hear
me,” Raymond said. “If you need a minute, you go on and take it.”
“That’s very kind of you.”
“Looks like some kind a monkey tricks you got yourself going there, swinging back and forth, slipping them boxes in. Nice and smooth. You got to teach me that sometime.”
“I’ve still got one box up here. My aim is pretty good.”
Raymond laughed and said, “What you doing here, Mr. Ike? No reason to be taking on extra work.”
Goldah slid the last one in and started down. “You’ve been thinking all the boxes have magically found their way up onto the shelves over the last few weeks — is that it?”
“Ain’t been thinking about it at all. If the boxes get up, they get up. Just thought Jacob was doing it.”
“Sorry to disappoint.” Goldah stepped off the ladder. “So what brings you down?” He reached for the glass of water he’d set on the ground and realized his sleeve was still rolled up. Quietly, Goldah let it down and chose not to see Raymond staring at his forearm. Goldah said, “I thought Friday night was shrimp and ribs out at the place in Pooler for you and Mary Royal?” Goldah drank.
“You been paying attention, Mr. Ike. No, we’ll head out in a little bit. Just thought I’d come down, take a look. Quiet here with no one around this time a night.”
“It is.”
One of the bulbs overhead flickered and Raymond said, “I can take that glass for you, Mr. Ike. Wash it out.”
“That’s all right. I still have a few more stacks to go.”
“I can help with them boxes, too, if you want.”
“No — no reason to get your shirt damp. Anyway, I like doing it on my own.”
“Okay … Oh, and Mary’ll probably want to know — Miss Posner doing better? She had quite a scare.”
Goldah always appreciated Raymond’s sense of things, more so the way he showed it. “She’s fine.”
“And I guess Miss Eva thanking her lucky stars for you.”
Goldah waited before answering. “I should probably get back to this.”
“Yes, suh.”
Raymond looked to go and Goldah said, “Why’d you really come down tonight?”
Among the Living Page 22