I turned to Diddio. “How’d you hear about me being there?”
“Mango told me.”
“Mango? Jimmy or Tommy?”
“Tommy the Cop. I saw him at the Delphi. He said you saved some woman. He pays attention to you, T.”
“I didn’t save her. She was hurt bad. Lost a foot.”
Mallard said, “You can’t trust nothing them Mangos say.”
Diddio disagreed. “It’s like the kid’s game, Telephone. By the time the message reaches the end, it’s all twisted up. That’s how it is with Jimmy, anyway. His information is always secondhand, and he’s crazier than Terry.” He looked at me, alarmed. “Not crazy in a bad way, Terry.” He rolled his index finger near his temple. “You know, the same kind of temper.”
I nodded wearily. It was nearly impossible to be angry with Diddio, who was 34 going on 18, whom I’d known forever, which is how long ago freshman year at St. John’s seemed.
“But Tommy’s usually pretty reliable,” he continued. “So I’d say Terry probably did save her in some way.”
“My hero,” Mallard crooned.
I stood and tossed a twenty on the bar. It was my turn to pay, and long ago I convinced Mallard he was going to have to take my money, friends or not.
“I’m gone,” I said.
“What’s she like, Terry, this woman you saved? She with somebody?” Diddio asked. Despite a sweet disposition, his minor celebrity and free tickets to every concert in town, Diddio could not hook up with a woman who’d stay with him for more than a few days, which was understandable. The ones he met wanted to live a fast life in rock, wanted to meet the kind of people he had access to, whereas Diddio wanted to come home to Florence Henderson, with an adjustment for his Lestat hours. He was always after his friends to set him up.
“D, she’s 55 years old and in critical condition.”
“Yeah? And?”
I said goodbye and undid the dead bolt. Music from Big Pink followed me onto Hudson.
I came home to find Mrs. Maoli out, and a pot of minestra di riso e zucchini burbling on the stove: The scent of basil followed me as I went to the back of the house and into my study.
I punched in Henderson’s phone number and he answered the call on the second ring.
When I identified myself, he said, “I was thinking about you. I’d just about decided you wouldn’t call.”
“I had to clear something first,” I replied. “Any—”
“I saw the boy you spoke of, the boy with the scar,” he said, as his customary reserve slipped away. “He came to the cemetery. I saw him as we were leaving. He had been hiding, I guess.”
On the wall above my computer, there was a drawing by Bella of, I think, turtles. Or cartoon dinosaurs. Davy, then about a year old, had scribbled on it. Marina framed it, calling it a collaboration.
Henderson paused. “They tell me his name is Montana, and that he used to go to Hurston Elementary. It may not mean much,” he added. “But now you know.”
I thanked him and cut the line.
I sat in the low light from the gooseneck lamp and made small geometric figures on the yellow paper. Suddenly—it is always suddenly—I was thinking about a boy with a scar on his face, an old man with scars on his back and shoulder, a little girl lost, a man trying to find hope.
Mei Carissima:
Bella’s in bed; too much homework, she said. Translation: tedium. Only history interests her, and stories. She’s reading two books a week. Books I read in high school, in college …
I’ve told you that already, haven’t I? Sorry.
It’s only 11:15. I’ve been to bed, and I’m back in the study with you, dear. Sadly, it was another nightmare that brought me to you. A nightmare caused by suppressing images as I bickered with Luther Addison, and by absently thumbing Bella’s copy of “Heart of Darkness.’’ And the rest of it all.
I was in Judy’s gallery, clearly; then there was dust and smoke and seared bone, and I couldn’t find Bella. Not again, my heart screamed; my God. Then: “Daddy? What’s wrong? I’m fine, Daddy. Over here. Look!” I see my hands: blood in the lines on my palms, whirling red lights above blue-and-white patrol cars. A woman on the fire escape, her slip redolent of her scent. A baby’s stroller shredded under rusted steel wheels. “Daddy!” Bella screams in terror.
I sit up in bed. I drop my head into my hands. Five, six minutes later, I lie back down and I indulge my misery, I feed it like a coal stove on a runaway locomotive. I resist it, I resist it weakly: “The horror! The horror!” Kurtz cried, breathed, Welles bellowed, Brando moaned. A cliché now; all truth reduced to trivia now, by misuse, by media, by truth itself, even a vibrating note of revolt, a step over the threshold of the invisible. (Am I awake? Asleep?) A rat sniffing bamboo; black snakes slither through a puddle of viscera. A baby flung onto the train tracks; his mother, frantic; the relentless white light of the oncoming subway train. I turn the corner, hopeful for the last time; patrol cars at our door. Bella screaming; a cop named Addison from the Midtown Precinct explaining. I leave our bed and command myself: Use what you know to block what you feel. Conrad wrote in English, his fourth language; I bought that copy long ago, used, for 25 cents at the Strand. Facts: a pitiable defense against recognition, desolation. I may have drifted off. I may have watched it unfold on the ceiling.
I came downstairs and I stood in my bare feet by your paintings, where you mounted them, tesora, on brick between the kitchen and the living room.
I cut the lamp above the gilded frame and I put my hand on the ridges left by your brush strokes.
You are so good, Marina. These paintings: “crystalline interpretations of natural settings, superb in composition, in use of light.” “Colors burst from the canvas, yet manage to entice rather than overwhelm.” That is what they’ve said. But who but you and I know what you let me see? Your love of your homeland, your passion for your father’s house—the wellspring of your gift—this they may have guessed. The pure delight you felt when you worked:
This is what you shared with no one but me. And when I stare at these paintings, when I allow myself to feel, I am surrounded by the emotions you invested in the work, and, for the briefest of moments, the very briefest of moments, you are in the room with me and soon your scent and the warmth of your body will reach me as you take my hand.
My memories of you at work are among my most vivid; have I told you this before? Remember the day you finished “White Cliffs at Gargano”? Benedicto had given me a small bowl of figs, a bottle of a local red wine, and suggested I deliver them to you, his eldest daughter, and I drove to the green and golden field above the gulf where you were working. I approached you, but decided to hang back, because I could see you were concentrating, absorbing the scenery, interpreting it and creating it anew. I withdrew a book—a dog-eared paperback of Edmund Morris’s biography of TR; I remember that clearly as well—and I read. Forty-five minutes passed before you realized I was no more than 100 feet away. And when you turned I saw on your face a remarkable look of absolute satisfaction, of unadulterated bliss; the result of the convergence of passion, intellect and achievement. I was stunned by the power of your expression; and then you smiled at me, gently, affectionately, inviting me to share the moment. And I did, and it was magnificent.
Now I go from here to there, quietly, lost in memories. Lost.
These things I do, as I go from there to here, they are more than diversions now. They are lessons, practical, stark. (Forgive me if I repeat myself. When I speak with you, I speak to me. You know that.) They prepare me; they will prepare me. There is this thing I must do that only I can do. I will not imagine what lies beyond that.
Bella, of course. But more? Something like liberation? Liberated. To face the abyss.
Sorry.
Sorry. I don’t mean to put this on you. Scusa, carissima.
Let me tell you what happened today. That will be better for you, I think.
I saw Leo today. I remember when we ate at his old
place, Big Chief’s, when Bella was still in the stroller. When he hung purple beads around her neck.
I saw Diddio today. He mentioned my dorm room at St. John’s. Where we made love, where, when I asked you for a photograph, you sketched in charcoal your face on the wall next to my bed.
I saw Addison today. He said he’s going to bring in the Madman who took you from me.
The Madman who appeared, did what he did and vanished into the ether. The Madman who will reappear only when I am ready.
He did what he did.
Sometimes I think—and you know this; this I have told you before—he did not kill you and Davy. No, he killed me. You and Davy are alive in the world in which I once lived, where cool water laps the thin strand of sand far below white cliffs, where there is wine and bread, fragrant flowers, your smile as our baby coos.
I’ve been banished for my arrogance, self-satisfaction, venality, intemperance.
But I can’t understand why Bella is here with me.
Why would any god punish her?
It is nearly an hour since I wrote those last lines, my dear. It’s time to try to sleep. I’m off to the sofa, and the blue light of the TV.
A presto, Marina.
All my love,
T.
FOUR
I dropped Bella off at school at the customary time, and walked over to West Street and back to stretch before I ran. My legs were sore—five miles in loafers will do that to your calves—so I was careful to work out the kinks. Starting slowly, I headed east to Worth, passing delivery vans up on the rounded stone curbs, and I crossed Broadway and ran through long shadows cast by the Federal Office Building, where new immigrants and aspiring citizens were milling about in a casual queue. I pressed on through a break in a crowd shuffling south toward the Woolworth Building, toward Wall Street. Passing the art deco Department of Health Building, with its bas relief façade, I pushed on to the Tombs, then headed south along Park Row. I cut through Paine Park, past yelping dogs behind the fence that enclosed their tattered walking path. Their owners sipped coffee from paper cups and scanned tabloid headlines. I thought of nothing as I ran; I thought of everything. Images appeared; thoughts followed, then emotion: out of the darkness, the haunting cycle, more dependable than time.
I crossed busy Broadway, easing a little bit now; at Hudson, I drifted south past Duane, where I dodged Stricks, dented delivery vans, gas fumes and a surly malamute, until I found the sidewalks along the crowded blacktop of Chambers. I was done now; I felt it: I was limber, heated, sweating good, my pulse at 138.
To cool down, I walked along the shady side of Greenwich, kicking off a twinge in my right knee, wiping my face on the sleeve of my t-shirt. As I walked in shadows, I recalled what I’d learned about the man I was about to visit, a lifetime summarized during three phone calls and 35 minutes online.
Rosenzweig, it turned out, had served in Korea. His C unit landed in mid-1950, saw heavy fire. Men were captured, tortured; many were killed, more were injured. Chaim Rosenzweig was one of the wounded: shrapnel, in the left shoulder and upper back. He was evacuated from Hungnam in December 1950. I knew about that episode: After the Chinese entered the conflict, the UN forces had to pull back, but their path was cut off. They were forced to fight their way out, through the vicious Korean winter, against fresh troops, to reach Hungnam, a port of escape.
Rosenzweig had been in Korea for less than six months. After leaving a VA Hospital in Livermore, California, he recovered in New York City while the wretched battles were fought at Pork Chop Hill, T-Bone and Heartbreak Ridge, when the Sabre F-86 finally overcame the Soviet MiGs, when Operation Killer chased back the Chinese. But he had been through hell, landing with Walton Walker and the Eighth Army, working behind enemy lines, with razorlike winds whipping from snowcapped mountains across the godless tundra.
I’d reached the corner of Harrison and I decided to forgo the 15 minutes on the heavy bag I’d hung in the laundry room. After I’d showered, I’d go off to the West Village to see Chaim Rosenzweig.
He now lived on Grove Street, a quiet, well-kept thoroughfare that ran between Bleecker and Bedford, a short walk from Sheridan Square. The tree-lined block was typical of this part of the West Village, where upscale couples, gay and straight, lived alongside seniors in rent-controlled apartments, where an old woman still took a whisk broom to the gray sidewalks as young men, strolling hand-in-hand, stopped to visit with her, to offer to do her food shopping. Rosenzweig had lived on this block, in this broad four-story brownstone, since 1982.
I left the taxi, went behind the thigh-high, cast-iron gate and under the dark steps to Rosenzweig’s ground-floor apartment. A stack of newspapers wrapped tightly in cord was nestled next to a tall plastic can designated for recycling, and a black-and-white house cat licked its paws as it sat near an empty tin of salmon. Across the street, a stocky man in a blousy t-shirt and baggy slacks washed the sidewalk with water from a green hose. He was about Rosenzweig’s age. He wore a Walkman and was humming aimlessly as he concentrated on his task.
I rang the bell several times and was ready to knock on the door when I heard a voice behind me.
“Hey, you. Hey.”
I turned to find a short woman in a heavy cloth coat and slippers, her stockings crumpled around her ankles. Slumped and wrinkled, she had cloudy blue eyes, tight lips and looked like she’d spent a lifetime if not picking fights, at least doing little to avoid them. She seemed at least 75 years old, but could’ve been a tired 60. She had a gallon jug of red wine under her arm.
“Open this for me, willya?”
I reached over the low gate, took the bottle and snapped the frail cap without effort. When I returned the heavy bottle to her, she reacted with a blend of joy and relief.
“Thanks,” she beamed. “Them jackasses make these damned things too hard to open.”
“They forget who the customer is,” I replied.
“Yeah, and I’m loyal to them. I don’t know what I would’ve done if you wasn’t here.”
I nodded toward the man with the hose.
“McNaulty? A rat bastard.”
The man seemed perfectly reasonable to me, but I kept my opinion to myself. Instead, pointing to the jug, I said, “That stuff’ll kill you.”
“I ain’t got that kind of luck, mister,” she said. “I’ll be sober when I go.”
She put the jug on the sidewalk and stood astride it, as if ready to defend her prize.
“You looking for Chick?”
“Chick?”
“Rosenzweig. Chick Rosenzweig,” she said. “He’s at the Greeks. All day at the Greeks.”
She reacted quickly to my blank look.
“On Sixth, near the Waverly.”
I lifted the latch and came from behind the gate.
“Tell him Gertie sent you. Tell him Gertie’s got a new bottle.”
I told her I would as I went off toward Sixth.
I entered the All-American Diner to find barren the row of sea-green spinning stools at the counter; two young women in pastel turtlenecks and jeans dawdled over coffee in a sunny booth in front. A bored man with an uneven mustache leaned on his elbow near the cash register, the kind that most resembled a manual typewriter and threw up an orange flag that said “No Sale” whenever it was opened, the kind of secretive machine the IRS hated. On the side of the beige register was a crucifix made of dried palm and a faded photo of a soccer team clipped from a magazine. A near-empty canister asked for donations to prevent cruelty to animals.
“Chaim Rosenzweig,” I said.
The man sighed and pointed to the rear of the narrow restaurant. The scent of frying onions wafted overhead, brushing a stationary fan.
I walked to the back of the room, passing faded photos of the Acropolis, the Parthenon and marble busts of Socrates and Athena; more soccer, men with wild hair. In the kitchen, a lanky, teenage version of the man at the register hoisted a bag of frozen french fries onto his shoulder and carried them toward the gril
l and the hissing well of hot vegetable oil.
Two men sat at the booth in the back. They were of a kind: in their mid-60s with stubborn gray strands of hair that made it inaccurate to call them bald; round faces with Eastern European features pinched to the center; bifocals; dark sweater-vests over white shirts. The man to my right, with his back to the entrance, scanned the Post with a magnifying glass; the other man, back to the wall, read the Daily News.
“I’m looking for Chaim Rosenzweig,” I said. Behind me, a splash and sizzle as frozen potatoes hit boiling oil.
The man with the Post gave up his friend in a heartbeat. “Him,” he said, pointing.
I sat on the counter’s last stool and told Rosenzweig my name. “I need to talk to you.”
He stared at the newspaper, at a photo of a burning building and a headline charging arson.
“Chick,” his friend said. “A guy.”
“He hears me,” I said.
“Are you a cop, mister?” the friend asked.
“No.”
“A lawyer, maybe?”
I shook my head. “It’s about his son.”
Without taking his eyes off the newsprint, Rosenzweig said, “Sid, he thinks I tried to kill Solly.” He flipped the page. “Sid, if I wanted to kill Solly where would Solly be?”
“Chick, you wouldn’t want to kill Solly.”
I interrupted. “Mr. Rosenzweig, let’s get this done. Five, ten minutes.”
Rosenzweig finally looked at me. “Sid, excuse us for five, ten minutes. Maybe you should call Marion, see if she needs something from CVS.”
Sid stood. He nodded submissively at me as he grabbed his hat and left.
I remained on the stool.
Rosenzweig reached across the table and closed his friend’s newspaper, back-page sports to the faded ceiling. “They think I put the bomb in the place? For what?”
“I don’t know. For what?”
“To scare Solly?”
Closing Time Page 6