by Lev Raphael
He had to get out, though. So he pushed it just enough to slip onto the porch; the creaking wasn’t too bad. Except for the tall dim street lamps, there were no lights on all up and down the street and no noise but a whiff of traffic from the Boulevard and the merged sound of waves, crickets and trees that spread everywhere like the dark.
He sat in one of the rockers, planting his bare feet solidly on the smooth planking of the porch. He’d come down to the hushed dark porch so there would be no pretense of sleep, no struggle to relax. He would just sit there and rock.
What if what he told Jenny wasn’t a lie? some voice in him asked. He stopped rocking. What if somehow the truth had forced itself from him on the beach?
Was it the truth? Was it? He demanded an answer from that same voice but it was gone, had thrown its bomb and fled. Had he tried going to bed with her to forget about Louie?
How did you know these things for sure?
From the depths of this whirl came an image of himself years ago waking in the middle of a nightmare and going to Sasha’s room, but Sasha didn’t wake up so he climbed under the covers and snuggled up feeling very safe.
“I just want someone to hold me,” Stefan said through tears now, head thrown back, eyes shut. That was what he wanted—that was what he could understand—that was the truth. What he’d told Jenny was a lie because she scared him.
He wanted her so much she scared him. He wanted something.
He should’ve stayed that night at her house to explain everything. Jenny would’ve listened and held him and he wouldn’t be alone now, wouldn’t torment himself with silence and lies, and more lies—they would choke him some day.
“You couldn’t sleep either.” Leo stepped onto the porch, trying to silence the door. He was barefoot, wrapped in a big green terry cloth robe. “I have trouble sleeping when I’m not home,” he said, leaning against one of the honeysuckle-wrapped pillars.
Stefan cleared his throat but said nothing. Leo irked him—his name, his face, the roughness of his manner and voice, his accent. It amazed Stefan that Leo had an accent even though he was American born. A Jewish accent. No wonder his parents and Sasha had worked so hard to make their English sound stripped and pure—it was this they wanted to avoid.
“It’s pretty here,” Leo said. “Quiet, must be good to get away. We’re going to France in August. Did your mother tell you? If you’d like to come with us, or if you want to go someplace else, by yourself, I’m sure it’d be okay.”
Stefan was still trying to control himself.
“I wish it was easier all around,” Leo said, and Stefan suddenly, and for the first time, saw Leo as separate, unconnected, not his mother’s husband, not his stepfather, just Leo. He didn’t know what to make of this new vision.
“Do you need anything?” Leo queried, hands in his pockets, one hairy long leg crossed in front of the other.
What could he say—what did he need? Too much.
“Are you sure you want to go straight to college? You could travel, work on a kibbutz, do lots of things.”
“I’ll go,” Stefan said; he had to be in school, he didn’t know anything else.
“If you change your mind.…” Leo shrugged and Stefan warmed to him, found himself far from tears now.
“Thanks,” he said.
Leo smiled, nodded as if to a good joke, said nothing more for a while. Going back inside, Leo hesitated with the door open; Stefan saw moths flutter past Leo’s shadowed head. Leo only said good night.
Stefan sat very loosely for a while, alive to the night, the sighing wood all around him. Had he and Leo ever shared such quiet relaxed moments, had he ever been able to just be with Leo and not hate or worry? Stefan didn’t think so, and at the back of all this was a thought taking on energy, pushing forward: he would tell Leo.
“What would you say?” something in the air seemed to ask, not condemning, not mocking, merely curious.
The glow disappeared and he felt chilled and isolated—there was too much to say.
“I’ll go to bed now,” he thought, and upstairs, he forced himself to sleep.
Still, in the morning, in the unusual crowding and jostling at breakfast—hardly any remark seemed to get answered or even finished—Stefan thought perhaps there was a chance he could open up to Leo, find peace of mind in that and even reach his mother, not all at once, but gradually. Maybe Stefan could even make Leo what he and his mother shared, since so much else between them had crumbled and most times they were together it was like stirring the ashes of a dead fire.
He realized he was being spoken to.
“What?”
“Will you go out there?” his mother said, eyes expressionless.
“Where?”
“Michigan. For the wedding,” Leo said, too casually.
Stefan hated him for butting in. Why were they bringing this up now? It was a year away!
“Your father will call if you don’t write soon,” Sasha reminded him, and Stefan felt harassed on all sides, wanted to hurl the table from him.
“You haven’t written?” His mother frowned; Leo’s hand slid over hers on the table.
“Yes, just to congratulate them,” Sasha lied, and Stefan didn’t care—what was the point of tackling the truth of anything?
His mother nodded, relieved.
“It’s hard to decide,” Leo offered, and Stefan shot him a grateful glance.
“Still, they have to know, eventually.” His mother’s eyes narrowed, as if picturing the arrangements his father would make.
“Do you want me to go there?” he asked. “For the summer?”
Sasha began clearing up, even though they weren’t finished.
“Do as you like,” his mother said stiffly.
“I don’t want to go,” he said, rising, not looking to see if she was relieved or upset. “For the wedding, for anything.”
He took up his latest 600-pager and went down to the porch swing.
Sasha, Leo and his mother soon came out chatting, hung about with chairs and towels and bags and baskets and set off with nods and smiles. He had never gotten over disliking the Sunday crowds on the beach.
Mrs. Mannion, back from a little shopping, joined him a while later to read the paper and watch the day grow hotter. She said very little, occasionally murmuring under her breath.
“They’re friends,” Mrs. Mannion remarked to him at one point, looking up over the tops of her glasses at he couldn’t tell what. “Your parents aren’t just in love,” she continued placidly. “They’re friends too.”
“Leo’s not my father,” he shot.
Mrs. Mannion clapped a pink hand to her mouth. “Oh,” she said through it, “I’d forgotten.”
Now and then he got mail from Fordham at Lincoln Center—announcements and instructions, most of which he couldn’t penetrate even on a second reading, so a pile formed on the bureau in his room, one he could ignore because it became so familiar. In August, though, he began to feel pushed; Sasha seemed to be looking at him more and asking questions less, as if waiting for him to bring it all up.
No one Stefan knew was going there; this was a relief, but also a burden: he would have to ride down alone on the bus, wander in search of offices alone, stand in lines and register alone.
But that was only because he’d chosen this college and not the one Jenny was going to, or the others her friends had spread to.
He went back by himself a week before the end of August but he wasn’t prepared for the city, even for his block—everything seemed dirty and greased, the air, the streets, cars and faces. The heat came and came with no breeze, no break: one incandescent day after another; how could he stand it when moving was out of the question and thinking impossible? He felt assaulted in the street, glared at and jeered by glass shards and pizza crusts. It was so dirty; just looking out the window made him hotter and riding a bus was like being sealed in a tunnel. He couldn’t imagine descending into the vile-smelling subway.
Air conditio
ning wasn’t enough, ice in everything wasn’t enough. He couldn’t play or read or eat, slept mostly, or just lay exhausted on the couch waiting until he had the strength to lurch into the shower.
Orientation in the morning and again in the afternoon was as grim and as confusing as he’d expected, but the one-building school was small, and not difficult to get around in. Otherwise it was a dreary bland tile-and-concrete box that seemed as inviting as a corridor in a train station. He had bits of conversation with people on lines or in chairs, mostly agreeing with their mutterings and confusion. After a while even the blazing air-conditioning was as irritating as the crowded elevators and proliferating brochures and sheets of paper. It all took five hours and he escaped, almost relieved to be blasted by heat, which was simple at least, thought-consuming. In a sweaty sort of daze he rode home, hardly noticing the green stretch of Riverside Drive with the gorgeous old brownstones and serenely ornate apartment buildings, or the turn onto Broadway later that as a child had always keyed him up because they were almost home and he’d soon get to pull the cord.
Sasha was back, in his chair, looking very dark and big, looking very tired.
“It was terrible even at the ocean.”
Stefan shrugged, pulling at the damp back of his shirt. He found a pitcher of ice water in the fridge, poured a glass and went out to the living room, sank onto the couch clasping the glass to his face; it was so cold merely holding it, thinking of it made him feel a bit better.
Sasha nodded. “I’m afraid it doesn’t help much,” he said, pointing to the air conditioner which whined in defeat. “How was everything?”
Stefan shrugged, picturing the handful of cards and booklets he’d dropped on the kitchen table as “everything.” He made an effort to tell Sasha what courses he hoped to take and when he’d be in school.
“There are cards from France.” Stefan glanced at the coffee table, saw pictures of some castles. “They love it there.”
Stefan sipped from the amazing cold glass unwilling to move.
“Water can be so good when you’ve had none,” Sasha brought out heavily, his face suddenly clouded. Stefan tensed—would Sasha talk about the War? God, he hoped not, not now, not today. But all Sasha went on to say was: “I’ll make something very light for dinner, light and cold.”
“Who can eat?”
“Later,” Sasha sighed, and closed his eyes.
“You know,” Sasha began when they’d washed the dinner dishes and sat with glasses of iced tea in the living room. “I saw Jenny’s mother today, just as I got to the corner. Jenny is taking a semester off to stay with cousins in Virginia.”
“So?”
Sasha said nothing more, was soon at the piano playing something very stately and baroque.
“Is that Couperin?”
Sasha nodded.
Stefan went to the bathroom and began pouring tepid water; he got right in before there was even an inch of water, the way he did when he was little and had pretended he was an island and the rising water a flood. His body was startling against the white porcelain, very dark, very thin.
“Why did I snap at him?” he wondered aloud—it was so rude and childish, and Sasha seemed more easily hurt these days than ever. Sasha was older, and instead of being kind, Stefan felt edgy with him, annoyed and frustrated. Something had to change, something had to, soon. He stretched out in the tub, head back against the cool tile wall, eyes shut, trying to hear only the water.
Leo and Stefan’s mother returned a week later with piles of cards, pamphlets, and books to show them “what it was like.” They had spent two weeks in Paris, and two visiting chateaux in the Loire Valley.
“I’m not good with cameras,” Leo confessed, smiling, tolerant, it seemed, of anyone who was.
His mother had brought him a beret and a Sulka silk tie, both of which he knew he’d never wear, a Limoges vase, and chocolates. “The chocolate store on Boulevard St. Germain, oh that store! There was a fountain pouring chocolate—incredible! And the aroma.…” She sighed. “Everything was exquisite.”
“Tell him about the bread,” Leo said.
“The bread! My God, the bread has taste in France. I forgot what good bread was like.”
“Your mother knocked people out—she opens her mouth and starts talking French and they just stare. Every place. The Louvre, restaurants, Chambord—you name it.”
She was blushing.
“Tell them,” Leo said. “Tell them what people said to you.”
“I can’t.” Then, eyes down, she said softly, “Mais vous parlez bien, madame.”
“You speak well,” Stefan translated, impressed. He knew how fussy the French were about accents and how they sneered at Americans.
“In the Loire Valley,” Leo raved, “we stayed in this small chateau—in a tower room—with doves outside. And the restaurant—! I must have gained ten pounds. But it was worth it.”
His mother grinned, eyes alight, back very straight, hands clasped like a schoolgirl’s.
The rest of the evening was one story after another, a blur of chateaux, meals, conversations with total strangers, avoiding American tourists. Leo and his mother were so happy, teasing each other like children all evening, it made Stefan breathless and when they packed away their show-and-tell and exited, the apartment still seemed full and loud.
“The vase is beautiful.” Sasha looked around the living room. “Where—?”
“On my desk,” Stefan decided, taking it inside.
The first week at Fordham passed in pantomime because Stefan quickly realized he didn’t want to be there; it wasn’t college, or even this college he objected to, but being in the same place, in New York still, at Sasha’s. He kept thinking of the day his mother had come over to tell him about his father getting engaged, and he’d felt he had to get away. He saw now that he’d actually decided then to go, somewhere. Why couldn’t his father just do what his mother and Leo had done—gone off to City Hall and not made any fuss about it?
Staying at this college was just marking time, so he kept himself withdrawn and aloof, became almost a spectator of his presence there. He wanted nothing to claim him, deflect him from his determination to leave.
But where would he go?
Jenny was in Virginia, he remembered, wondering if he couldn’t think about her now more easily since she was far away. He dimly imagined calling her, or showing up at night in Arlington, making some small joke about just passing by, but he distrusted those images; somehow Jenny didn’t have much to do with them: it was the idea, the drama of appearing that he sensed was strongest. And that was sad, because it meant already that he didn’t need her so much, did not feel all he had if Jenny was merely a mental audience.
Where? Getting a job was pointless since he’d still be in the city and he couldn’t make enough to live alone.
If his father could get remarried so late, he could do something dramatic too.
He didn’t tell anyone what he was planning, or trying to plan, but each successive week of classes, with lectures and readings he only paid surface attention to, made him more sure he had to leave. When Sasha asked him how his classes were going, Stefan felt awkward having to say one thing and mean another—it wasn’t exactly lying but close enough to be disturbing, especially since his mother and Leo wanted details, wanted to know what his professors were like, if he’d met anyone “nice.”
The answer came quickly, simply. One afternoon in the teeming cafeteria he heard someone at the table behind him talking about transferring to another school. He listened to as many details of the process as he could and spent the next hour checking them in various offices in the building, winding up in front of a bookcase slumped with catalogues which he glanced at state by state, at last poring over the most obvious choice: one of the state university branches far enough from New York to be really away, but still in the state.
That evening, while Sasha was out at a neighbor’s, Stefan made a list of what had to be sent when and where, and t
he next two weeks he lived from one phone call to the next; it was much easier applying upstate now that he actually was in a college—or it felt that way.
He was even more detached than before, picturing himself in a dorm, on the campus that was only a map and some photographs to him. This seemed the first time he’d ever moved so quickly in any direction, and with such excitement.
“Your classes are better?” Sasha asked.
“I feel better,” was all Stefan could say and not let it out. The wait to hear about his application counterpointed the featureless days at school where he hardly ever felt present anymore, sat at the back of each class thinking it didn’t matter, that he wasn’t a part of it. He did his assignments in a sort of haze; the comments on his work began to read: “Too vague” and “Be specific” and “Needs detail.”
His letter of acceptance for the Spring semester came a Saturday in December when his mother and Leo had dropped by on the way to visit friends in Connecticut.
“What is it?” Sasha wondered from his chair as Stefan came back upstairs with the open letter. Standing at the steps, Stefan tried to explain, but couldn’t; he stepped down to hand the letter, and then stopped. Who should he give it to? Stefan sat at the end of the couch and passed the letter to his mother who held it so Leo could see. Sasha reached for it before Leo finished.
“Are you sure you’ve given it a chance here?” his mother asked, plucking at the cowl neck of her sweater.
“Why so soon?” Sasha asked.
“He’s only going upstate,” Leo announced, and they all turned to him. Leo shrugged. “If you don’t like a school—and I guess Stefan doesn’t—it’s good to get out, and early too. No sense in staying someplace when you want to leave.”
It was so simple and straightforward Stefan flushed—to be supported and understood by Leo was strange.
His mother said something to Sasha in Russian.
“None of that,” Leo joked. “It’s not fair to Stefan and me.” Leo went on to ask him how far away his new college was, when he had to check in to the dorm, all easily, casually, as if Sasha and Stefan’s mother were not sitting stiff and surprised.