by Lev Raphael
A small parrot-faced woman two seats down leaned toward him. “You are all right?” she asked, face wide with concern. He nodded, and she nodded, and if he didn’t sleep on the way home, he did something very like it.
Sasha called hello from the living room where he sat at the piano talking on the phone. Stefan somehow got to the bedroom, stripped off his clothes with loathing and plunged into the bathroom to shower. He could not touch himself but merely stood under the hot stream that wasn’t hot enough or strong enough to stifle the shame he could sense spreading in him.
If he could cry—he hadn’t cried since that night at his father’s house in Michigan.…
He was very near breaking through, but pulled back in terror, hid in the less dreadful pain of what had happened, of what he could bear.
He toweled his hair and eased into his bathrobe.
He sat on the toilet seat, exhausted, afraid, wanting to be alone; why did he have to go out there and face Sasha? If he could just go away for a while, lie in silence on a beach somewhere, stupid to anything more than heat, or sit by a tree-ringed pond to watch the water wrinkle and swell: days like that to wipe this one from his mind. It would only make the attack more frightening to tell Sasha, and more real.
Sasha knocked to tell him dinner was ready.
Stefan took some aspirin and emerged at last, glad he had no visible bruises. He tried to walk normally to the kitchen table.
“You’re all right?” Sasha asked, and Stefan’s eyes blurred—he was on the bus, on the floor.
“Stefan—” Sasha leaned over him. “Are you sick? What happened?”
In front of Stefan’s face was a screen of white locked hexagons.
“Stefan.” Sasha grabbed him, but he jerked away.
“Don’t touch me—don’t touch me!” It was all confused; his father had hit him, but not like that, he didn’t have a father. He heard a cabinet open and felt or saw Sasha bring a shot glass up to his mouth. The liquor burned him.
“I’m okay,” he coughed, motioning Sasha to sit. “I’m okay.” He breathed in to clear his thoughts. It was all very simple now. “I was beat up at school,” he said quietly, and then even more quietly, because Sasha stared and stared: “I don’t know who it was. After school, in a bathroom. I’m okay.”
Sasha looked wild, stunned.
“I’m okay,” Stefan repeated. “I wasn’t hurt bad.” After a moment he added, “They took my wallet.” But Sasha still said nothing, didn’t even move and Stefan almost wanted to strike him, make him talk so they could end this.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“You must know.”
“I don’t.” Stefan’s hands were tight.
“What were you—?”
“I was in the bathroom.” He had almost never been this angry at Sasha, who was white and old and pathetic. “I was pissing! Is there anything wrong with that?!”
Sasha shook his head.
“It’s over,” Stefan said. “I’m okay.”
“These things are never over,” Sasha dropped, beginning to come to himself; he rose to open the oven and serve dinner, leaving Stefan thankful for the silence.
“No one was around?”
Stefan shook his head.
“So you made no report? Good. Don’t tell anyone.” Sasha ate grimly, shoulders hunched, eyes fixed Stefan didn’t know where. “Did you get involved with those demonstrators?” Sasha eyed him steadily, without accusation.
“Sort of, but—”
“That’s what it is.”
“But how could—”
“You can’t expect to be safe when you do things like that.”
“I don’t believe it,” Stefan said from reflex; their little table suddenly seemed menaced by forces that had left their mark on Sasha, and had finally claimed him too.
Sasha didn’t finish dinner but went off to the living room where he sat in the dark, smoking the cigarettes he kept for guests. Stefan managed to eat—it made him a bit sick—but also it was part of a normal day, and the movement of knife and fork reassured him: it was good to be in control of something, even a plate of food.
Stefan went to his desk, turned on the radio and tried to do some work, but now he was unable to forget the big white-faced man out there lost in brooding, as if Sasha’s pain was greater than his own. Stefan was calm, but he could make no effort to be more than that. He sat straight in his chair, hands spread on a book, picturing Sasha lighting cigarettes, filling the room with unseen smoke.
He went out later, stood in the unlit hallway. All he could see was the tip of a cigarette; the radio murmur crept out after him, as thin here as the smoke.
“Are you okay?”
A glass was set down.
“Sasha?”
“Go to bed.”
“It’s late.”
“Go.”
Stefan obeyed, closed the door behind him, stood waiting for Sasha to play, but no music came from the living room. He fell asleep on the made-up bed.”
Sasha had left him a note on the kitchen table which Stefan almost did not want to read, though what could words do to him now?
“I will be late.” No signature. He guessed what that meant: out all day. Stefan stirred his coffee, a bit surprised by the clattering spoon: it sounded the same, everything was the same. The morning had come and here he was about to go to class. Things went on no matter what happened; he didn’t know if the thought imprisoned him today or was encouraging, maybe it just was, with no connection to what he said or did.
There were livid places on his body which he contemplated in the full-length mirror in the bedroom, trying to find out what they meant. Nothing came to him; the bruises, separate somehow from their pain, were complete, not to be understood. Here was something you really had.
He did not look around him as he dressed, found a way to hold himself that was less painful, and left. Outside, it occurred to him that the disasters he’d imagined hadn’t been like this—the crashes were impersonal, accidents in which his part was minor. This attack was too specific, too much his alone; he had not shared the pain, the cool white floor, the bus ride—it was all in him and on him, and this was too much, unfair, ugly.
He waited for the light to change out of pure habit; what would it have mattered if he’d stepped off the curb, been struck and sent flying onto another car, a parked one? He was not afraid of that, he thought, beginning to feel a grim warmth. He was not afraid; he had been attacked, he knew what could be done to him, knew that he was helpless.
This was something he hadn’t expected.
So, reckless, confident he could be hit by a real car on a real street, Stefan crossed before the light changed, registering that the DONT WALK sign had no apostrophe.
The buses were slow that morning and he waited longer than usual, alone. Cars hurtled down the quiet street as if daring someone to run out between them. For some reason Stefan noticed how cracked and uneven the pavement was, and where the asphalt wore thin over the cobblestones.
He saw Jenny crossing the street to him, her stride unusually tight and held in. She glared at him before saying a word.
“I was stupid to think you’d come,” Jenny announced. He met her hostile glance without a ripple of trouble. What was her annoyance to him? Yesterday’s attack drained the effect of anything Jenny could say.
“You don’t care about anyone, nothing gets to you,” Jenny began, and he saw how rigidly she held her head, saw where her neck was tense and flushed. Their bus heaved up to the stop; Stefan wondered if Jenny would sit by him. She did.
Jenny turned sideways to face him.
“This is really important. It’s more than just us, it’s our country.” She went on like that for a while, but the words which had never stirred him now seemed empty and unimportant. What did Jenny know about anything?
“You’re not listening.”
“I heard you,” Stefan was obliged to say, though not exactly in self-defense.
Jenny said “Seeya” when they stepped off the bus, dismissing him; she moved quickly away up the block to school. Would she drop him altogether? He could ponder that without being upset; it didn’t threaten him as it might’ve yesterday, before.
Later in the day, moving in a crowd towards the cafeteria doors he thought he heard someone hiss “That’s him,” but when he turned, there was no one behind him. He looked up and down the empty hall.
It was bad when his mother came over with Leo for dinner or drinks, even though this wasn’t often. Stefan sat quietly, the rage he felt stiffening his hands, his neck, shooting through him like a pain. He drank no wine with them because he was afraid of relaxing.
“She’s your mother,” Sasha always said beforehand, as if that was enough reason to smile and say nothing that was the truth or even close to it. “I know it is hard for you,” Sasha would also say.
And this angered Stefan: Sasha’s understanding, because Sasha understood and yet saw his mother and Leo often, understood and called them, sent birthday and anniversary cards with “love, Sasha and Stefan” at the bottom.
Stefan wanted his mother as far away as his father was in Michigan—out of the city, out of his mind; he wanted to tear her name, her face from his thoughts, to be free forever of his past where it tangled with hers. But this was impossible when they both lived in New York, when now and then he had to sit down in the same room with her for a few hours, and even play for her, impossible when she and Leo insisted on sending him beautiful birthday presents: books he never read, clothes he never wore.
He felt like a pouty little kid when he was with them, and hated the feeling as much as he hated them for causing it.
It was always a shock to see his mother; she seemed softer and lovelier each year—only now could he appreciate that, see her not as his mother but a woman: graceful, well-dressed, with confidence scenting her smiles.
“You seem pale,” she said, smoothing the folds of a coral silk dress. “Are you working too hard?”
Stefan could feel Sasha’s warning him not to mention the attack. Stefan stirred in his chair, shrugged.
“Don’t overdo it,” Leo spoke up. “Enjoy being young, it sure doesn’t last long.” Leo laughed and toasted Stefan with his drink while seeking his wife’s hand. Leo punctuated most of what he said by touching Stefan’s mother, looking at her, for reassurance, approval—Stefan didn’t know what—but he couldn’t stand it or stand the way his mother brightened at these little contacts.
“I’ll play something,” Sasha announced, setting down his drink. He chose a loud showy piece Stefan didn’t like or dislike.
He watched Leo listen to the Romantic clatter; Leo’s long serious face disturbed Stefan. It wasn’t handsome—that he might have stood—but very Jewish, fierce-eyed, maned with silver-streaked red hair too thick and wavy for a man. Leo was too theatrical looking, too attentive to his mother, and too nice to him. Leo always spoke to him as if they were old friends.
When Sasha finished, Leo clapped his hands together. “That was good,” he said, like it’d been a hearty meal.
“Very nice,” Stefan’s mother smiled.
Sasha bowed his head to them.
“We should go soon,” Leo said and Stefan sat up straighter. “I heard your school’s going to strike tomorrow.” Leo was addressing him; Stefan had to speak, but before he could get anything out, Leo barreled on: “I don’t agree with them but I sure think it’s good they’re expressing what they believe. People should demonstrate.” Leo nodded firmly at the room, and suddenly Stefan felt strangely that Leo—an American—was outside, was not quite part of the world he and his mother and Sasha knew: the simple optimism seemed childish, uninformed. Stefan almost thought Sasha was smiling.
“I don’t like demonstrations,” his mother said quietly. “I remember being in gymnasium and anti-Semitic marches, shouting.…” She paused. “Some of us were hurt.” She breathed in.
“But that’s different,” Leo insisted. “This is America.”
“Perhaps you remember McCarthy?” Sasha cut in, voice steely. Leo was silenced, but Stefan could feel how he didn’t believe what Sasha said proved anything. How could his mother live with someone who didn’t know what life was really like?
“Friends should stay away from politics,” his mother brought out gently, and even Stefan smiled.
When they were leaving, Leo shook his hand and said “See you soon” as if the words meant something, and with an arm around his wife’s shoulder walked to the elevator.
“He’s very good to her,” Sasha observed, contented. Sasha always liked to talk about them when they left, as if to keep them near. Stefan couldn’t stand to; when they were gone he felt trapped, the apartment smothered him, but he knew opening every window would make no difference, none.
There was no one he could tell all this. When his mother and Leo left he usually went to lie down in the dark, though it would’ve been best to run somewhere hard and fast till he couldn’t think or breathe. Lying on his bed in the dark all he could do was think. There was no one who could listen and help him just by listening. He had tried often the last year to keep a diary of some kind, one in which he could loose all the feelings he didn’t know what to do with, the feelings that scared and crippled him. He wouldn’t need to journalize his days—he told Sasha that stuff—he needed to be able to write away the pain for just a few hours, but he could never start. Between him and the smooth white first page there was always something that kept his hand stiff and tight, refused it movement. So all he had was the darkness.
Once he’d half-thought to himself: “I’ll tell Jenny,” the words blurring themselves as they came to him. He could tell Jenny about himself—and a vision had formed: Jenny sitting opposite, nodding as if nothing shocked her, perhaps saying “You too?” about some things and perhaps she would take him into her arms, stroke the back of his neck, never once saying anything crude like “I understand” or “It’ll be all right.” Her silence was what he wanted, and for her to hold him after she knew who he was.
He’d almost told her once, something, he didn’t know what, but had felt himself on the verge of truth. They were in the large half-panelled rec room of her building at a dark party that had turned darker and quieter as more couples stopped dancing, and worked themselves into corners. He and Jenny had kissed and snuggled and kissed some more, the rustling and whispering around them making Stefan feel he was in stereo.
“You’re so quiet,” she said, lying back in his arms; she spoke up to the side of his head; their hands were twined at her waist.
“I am.” He had been thinking of Louie, whose father had sold his store and decided to move when Louie went off to UCLA.
When Jenny said nothing more, he wanted to ask her what she was thinking or say something himself that would break through the reserve he felt in her stiffened shoulders. It was strange how they could hold each other and yet be no closer—would sex be like that too, more isolation?
He could start with Sasha, say that Sasha was only his uncle, that would be a beginning. The words didn’t come, and it was almost as if Jenny sensed some of this; silent, she moved up, waiting perhaps, but he said nothing, just held her. Then someone turned on the lights as a joke.
Now, because of the demonstration business and missing the meeting, Jenny didn’t want to talk to him at all. He considered calling her to explain, but Stef
an never got as far as the phone; it had become so tangled up in him that the words to cut through seemed nonexistent. Telling Sasha about the beating had been bad enough; Jenny would want to know everything, how it happened, what he thought and did. He couldn’t share it with her, go through it again.
“She doesn’t know,” he thought grimly. For all her protests and hard-edged assurance she didn’t know anything as simple as that beating; she knew petitions to be drafted and waved on every corner, meetings and rallies and slogans and cries, but she was still safe and untouched.
He had tried reading about the concentration camps, books he hid from Sasha. But it was all too horrifying and sick, a different more bestial war than the one fought with planes and tanks. And he couldn’t imagine it was a movie with him as a wisecracking gunner. No, he saw instead the battered filthy bodies of Sasha and his parents, zombies on the way to becoming animals and then corpses. He gave up, he had to. He had also been sickened by reading about a Poland different from the one he had fantasized about. Seen through the eyes of historians, it was a country whose independence in 1918 had precipitated a whole new cycle of Jew-hatred. His childhood land of castles was a wasteland of ghettoes and concentration camps, and the menace wasn’t just the murderous Germans, it was the ruthless Poles. As a little boy, written Polish had looked like a secret code to him, with mysterious combinations of letters like “gdz” and “czy”—but now any Polish word he saw was as horrifying as “Achtung!” How could his parents have ever let him imagine himself to be Polish, after all the Poles who had betrayed Jews during the War or cheered their slavery and death?
He was not going to be the one to tell Jenny about the brutality she had missed. Let her believe whatever gave her strength—let her dream of making a difference.
The afternoon of the demonstration Sasha was out, luckily. Stefan wouldn’t have wanted to discuss it. Alone, he could sit at the piano in the still, warm room, playing not very carefully, just to be busy. It wasn’t enough, though; his hands knew everything he played too well for his mind to get clear of the phantom crowds outside his high school gate, sprouting signs and peace flags, chanting, moving, circling the loudspeakered kid who today would embody what they believed; perhaps even Jenny would take a turn shouting encouragement, standing frizzed and wide-eyed at the center of a long oval, voice strained and believing.