The Bend of the World: A Novel

by Jacob Bacharach

  33

  They told me, the mother said, to be short, but Helen was my daughter, so I’ll say just as much as I want to. Her voice had slight tremor. It appeared to me that she might be slightly drunk. She had her daughter’s overage of control; her performance had the sound of being sight-read. Helen, she said again, was my daughter. Helen, she said, was my daughter. More movement among the mourners, a shifting in the chairs. None of you, she said, none of you really knew her. She was looking at Mark now. I was surprised to find that he was avoiding her gaze. You saw that she was beautiful, you saw that she was talented, you saw all of those things on the outside. But what did you know? A mother knows. She was never really happy. Even as a little girl. There was something unhappy about her. There was something that saw what a lot of shit it all is. What a lot of shit. She was cynical. We’re not supposed to be cynical. Women aren’t supposed to be cynical. We’re supposed to be, I don’t know. We’re supposed to be optimists. We’re supposed to see the bright side. We’re not supposed to see the shit. She was an artist because she saw the shit. She made such beautiful things, but she was never happy. What I wanted for her more than anything was to live long enough to be happy. It takes your whole life to be happy. I never figured it out, but I wanted for her to figure it out. You all, she said, but she was only talking to Mark, you all didn’t care about her soul. You wondered why she even had a soul. You looked at her and thought, Why would you put a soul in one of those? But she had a soul, and it was better than your soul.

  34

  Then the mother sat down. The rabbi looked like a dog-walker who finds he forgot the plastic bags as his dog squats at the edge of the neighbor’s yard. He was halfway between his seat by the ark and the podium. He looked toward Mark, and he looked toward the family. I thought, and felt badly for thinking, that the biggest tragedy was that I couldn’t text Johnny. I eased my phone from my pocket. I texted Lauren Sara: funeral is fucked. She replied right away: where’s tom? up front, I replied. LOL, she said: figurz.

  35

  David Hoffman tried to save it. Tried to apply the brake. Tried to step into the breach. I didn’t imagine he was scheduled to speak, but he rose before anyone else could and made his broad-shouldered way to the microphone. He looked like an architect with that buzzed gray hair and those little glasses. He said, I did not know Helen Witold well, but I knew her work. She was that rare artist whose work remained personal even as it became more widely known and admired. Personal is a word that often damns with faint praise in our art world. I say our art world because it belonged to Helen as much as any of us. Personal is a word we use, often when describing a woman’s work, to imply that it lacks some essential ambition. Ambition is a word we use, often when describing a man’s work, that suggests we should forgive its weak grasp because of its broad reach. Don’t look too closely at the trees; we propose a forest. There is nothing wrong, perhaps, with ambition, but our art has become so intently focused on saying something that it has largely stopped being something. I found Helen’s work expressed a purity of being that is largely absent these days. I remember the first time I saw one of her paintings at Daniel’s gallery—he gestured toward a man who must have been the other Arnovich, who, Jesus Christ, raised his hand in reciprocation as if being introduced on a panel of speakers at some convention somewhere—and I said, Daniel, what is that? And Daniel replied, That, he said, is Helen Witold. And I said, Is it any good? (Relieved laughter in the audience. The first joke.) Because I couldn’t tell. It was like seeing poetry in a language you don’t understand. (Oh, come the fuck on, I heard someone mutter a row or two behind me.) And Daniel said, I don’t know, either, but she’s going to be a hit at the parties. (Laughter again, this time less comfortable.) That’s a joke. If there is a human soul—he gestured with an offhanded, patrician magnanimity in the general direction of Helen’s mother—then we need more poets who speak its untranslatable language. (For real? The same mutterer as before.) Yes. Poets of that ineffable dialect. (Throats clearing.) We have lost a poet of the soul, he said.

  36

  This all struck me as the purest horseshit, but as it was more within the tradition of an overchoreographed memorial service, it took a little edge off. I texted Lauren Sara: we have lost a poet of the soul. Haha, she said.

  37

  And yet it made me sad, the whole thing; it made me wish I could stand up and spout some horseshit myself, find a well of extemporaneous platitude to toss like a beach ball to the expectant, anxious crowd. Her poor, drunk mother had been right, mostly, if a bit, well, infelicitous in her expression of it.

  38

  Then Mark went up and recited the Ninety-first Psalm. He was wearing the same suit as the first day I’d met him and Helen, the same gray tie. No disaster will befall you; no calamity will come near your tent, he said. He was holding a copy of the psalm in his hands. His hands were shaking. I construed it as guilt. You will tread down lions and snakes, he said. Young lions and serpents, you will trample them underfoot. His voice was flat. He saw me. I saw him see me. I saw the corners of his mouth move. I tried to stare back at him, but, as had always been the case, I had to look away first. Because he loves me, I will rescue him, he said to me. Because he knows my name, I will protect him. He will call on me, and I will answer him. I will be with him when he is in trouble. I will extricate him and bring him honor. I will satisfy him with long life and show him my salvation.

  39

  Helen’s father said, When she was about ten, Helen decided that she was going to be a famous artist, and since most of you know me, you know I told her never take less than 60 percent on a painting. The New Yorkers laughed. Tom laughed loudly enough for them to notice him laughing. Well, my Helen was just getting started. She had a future. A real future. A real future. But it isn’t so real anymore. I wonder, if I could go back in time, would I have made that joke? Or would I have said, Honey, don’t be an artist. Artists die young. The good ones anyway. Oh, hell, I don’t know, he said. He shook his head. I just don’t know. He was short and fat and his hair exploded in every direction. I just don’t know, he said.

  40

  Then the rabbi said, O Lord, what is man that You recognize him, the son of a human that You think of him? Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow. In the morning it blossoms and grows, in the evening it fades and withers. Teach us to count our days, and we shall acquire a heart of wisdom. Guard the innocent and watch the upright, for the destiny of man is peace. But God will ransom my soul from the grave, for He will surely take me. My flesh and my heart yearn—rock of my heart and my portion is God, forever. The dust returns to the dust as it was, but the spirit returns to God who gave it. Then he said, El male rachamim. Then we all filed out gratefully to the cool evening to wait for the family, whom we would follow to the cemetery.

  41

  I waited with Tom and Julian. Well, I said. Well, Julian said. I thought that David Hoffman was amazing, said Tom. Tom, I said, you are one crass motherfucker. Whatever, said Tom. You didn’t even know her. Come on, Tom, said Julian. No, I said. That’s true. Are you going to the cemetery? asked Tom. I think so, I said. You? Yeah, he said. It’s impolite not to go. Really? I said. According to whom? It just is, said Tom. Well, I said, I’ll need a ride. You can ride with me, said Ben David, who was walking past. Come on. Catch you dudes later, I said, and I followed Ben David. So, he said, you never found your car. We were sitting in his, waiting for the procession. It was stolen, I said. How about all that shit? he said, meaning the funeral. Not precisely what I was expecting, I said. I thought the poor husband, or fiancé or whatever, was going to have a goddamn aneurism, said Ben David. Yeah, I said. Mark. He’s a little, uh, he can be controlling. Well, that sort of freak show will do it. So you knew her pretty well? he asked, and I could sense that he was asking something else, so I answered with a question: What are you doing here, anyway? Technically, he said, I’m part of the chevra kaddisha. Her relatives were all from out of town, and she wasn
’t exactly active in the Jewish community. Rabbi Blum called and said, be a good boy, so here I am. As an attorney, I try to do whatever service to HaShem and the congregation that I can fit in around the billable hours. Hedging my bets, and so forth. Anyway, you feel bad for the poor thing. Look at that family! And that goon of a boyfriend. Yeah, I said. He probably killed her. Ben David arched an eyebrow. Oh yeah? he said. Not, like, literally, I said. I actually think she probably killed herself. But it was his fault. Say no more, said Ben David. I know the type. Nifter-shmifter, a leben macht er? my mother, may the Lord keep her away from the telephone, would say, but I never trust these squirrely corporate lawyer types. Hm, I said. How’d you know he’s a lawyer? Oh, hell, just look at him. Spot them a mile away. Corporations only hire lawyers when they want to do something illegal. Well—I smiled—like criminals. No, no, said Ben David. Criminals are charmingly naïve about the whole thing. They hire lawyers after they do something illegal. The corporate guys are the ones who use legal prophylaxis in the whorehouse. Assholes. Anyway, I’m sure that poor little rich girl got hooked up with him and thought he was just great, some young buck on the make. No old-money, fratboy simp; no probably-a-homosexual backslapping Whiffenpoof; a real, honest-to-God Fordham type. Made a bunch of money together, partied all through their twenties, then found herself in her thirties married or close enough to a soulless hatchet man who kept her around for social cred. Am I close here? Shockingly, I said. You can tell that just by looking? I can tell that just by looking, he said. So, what? he said. You took her up to that little shindig. You were fucking her, right? Don’t answer. I don’t need to know. He figures out she’s stepping out on him. It’s a goddamn inconvenience to him in some way or other. He says a bunch of nasty shit. She’s drunk enough or depressed enough to toss herself in the drink. Jesus, I said. Sorry, he said. I tend to look at these things with a clinical eye. Personally, it seems like a goddamn shame. Oh, okay, here we go. We pulled out into the procession of black cars. Anyway, he said, look, I don’t want to get into the sex part, but you’ve got to put her out of your mind. Listen, this is legal advice. Take a moment at the cemetery. Put some dirt on the coffin. Say whatever prayers you pagan Catholics say. Then forget about her. You’ve got a better, closer friend who’s going to go to jail, and you’re sure as rain in Pittsburgh going to get called to testify or at least get deposed at some point or other, and I do not need you showing up with a dead mistress around your neck—and neither does your pal Johnny. Capiche? Yes, I said. I understand.

  42

  Speaking of your pal Johnny, Ben David said, any chance you can get him to ease up on the weirdo quotient just for the time being? I’m happy that he’s committed to sobriety or whatever, but he seriously pissed off the wrong people with that idiot blog he was running, and they’re leaning on that faggot prosecutor to drive a hard deal. I’ll do what I can, I said, but I can’t promise anything. Fucking Pittsburgh Democrats, he said. The worst. Yeah, I said. You don’t strike me as a GOP type, though. Ben David snorted. Republican? he said. Not likely. I’m a libertarian. Since before there were Libertarians. I voted for Hospers and Nathan in ’72. Tonie Nathan, he said. Now, that was a woman with balls.

  43

  We went through the iron gates and past the gothic gatehouse and through the row of gingkoes that were turning golden already and past the mausoleums of millionaires’ row, the alternatingly reserved and gaudy tombs of all those Fricks and Browns and Benedums and Wilkinses and Morrisons and so on and over the rolling hills and lawns between the sycamores and beeches and horse chestnuts and buckeyes and the few big cedars and the fields of ordinary graves through the several hundred acres until we came to the Jewish section on the far eastern edge where the cemetery turns over a slow hillside into the thick trees of Frick Park. And we all got out of our cars. But there were so many of us that it took quite a while for all the cars to pull up and park and for all the guests and mourners to make their way to the graveside. The sun was getting low in the sky. It really was almost the fall. It was cool. A breeze lifted men’s ties and women’s shawls. I didn’t get too near to the grave. I didn’t want to get too near to Mark. I didn’t want to be there, really. I wanted to go home and pour myself one glass of red wine, to stand in the kitchen at the window and let the night come, to drink that one glass of wine and go to sleep. I wanted to feel the cool night coming through the screens while I fell asleep. I wanted to wrap myself in a blanket against the breeze again. I wanted to dream about Winston Pringle one more time and tell his fat ass to fuck off. I wanted to wake up with nothing to do but determine what it was that I ought to do next. One of the New Yorkers was saying quietly to another, Definitely going to drive up the value, and there’s not that much work to begin with. There was the sound of a distant lawn mower. Tom was whispering something in Julian’s ear. Both Arnoviches were playing indiscreetly with their cell phones on opposite ends of the casket. Beyond the crowd, along the road where the cars were parked, I could have sworn I saw Lauren Sara with a couple of prominent-looking older people beside a long dark Mercedes, but then some people got in the way, and when they moved again, the car was driving off, and she was gone. The rabbi was saying again, O God, full of mercy, Who dwells on high, grant proper rest on the wings of the Divine Presence, in the lofty levels of the holy and the pure ones, who shine like the glow of the firmament, for the soul of Helen Witold, daughter of Joel and Marion Witold, stepdaughter of Barbara Witold, who has gone on to His world. May her resting place be in the Garden of Eden; therefore may the Master of Mercy shelter her in the shelter of His wings for Eternity, and may He bind her soul in the Bond of Life. Adonai is her heritage, and may she repose in peace on her resting place. Now let us say: Amen. Then everyone was pushing forward, a gang of the criminally well dressed, even falling in some cases like fools to their knees in order to get their own handful of turned earth, as if it were in limited supply, as if there weren’t enough dirt to cover every one of us.

  44

  I wandered off. I sat in the grass at the edge of the cemetery. The sun was going down behind me. I could hear a few evening birds calling in the woods in the park. I thought, I’d been wrong. We would not end as a ruin. Well, in a thousand years we might. In ten thousand, there wouldn’t be any ruins. There would be trees and birds and insects. A brief heartbeat of the world. Long enough to heal itself of all of us. Let the aliens arrive then, and see how little the sparrows and the earthworms and the squirrels and the field mice care. Then I saw that Mark was standing next to me. You are one sneaky fucker, I said. You said it, he said. Well, I said, condolences and so forth. Yeah, he said. Thanks and back at ya. So, I said. So, he said. He sat in the grass beside me. So what’s so interesting in there? he asked, looking toward the trees. I was just thinking about global solutions, I answered. Oh yeah? he said. Yeah, I said. Long-term, strategic solutions. Your next career, he said. Another life, I said. There is no other life, he said. So I’m told, I told him. How about that funeral? he asked. I let myself look at him. He seemed smaller, softer, as if he’d just shed his skin and hadn’t quite firmed up yet. Can I ask you something? I asked. Other than that? he answered. What did you say to her? I said. When? he said. Over the phone, I said. That night, I said. Nothing she hadn’t heard before, he said. You know, I told him, I’ve come to the conclusion that you’re a real asshole. He stood up. He brushed some grass from his pants. You’ve come to that conclusion? he said. You’ve examined the evidence, arrayed the facts, done the regression analysis. Fuck off, I said. You know, Peter, he said. It was, I think, the first time he’d ever called me Peter. What? I said. Actually, he said. Nothing. Nothing. Yeah, I said. Me, too.

  Then he put his hands into his pockets. He whistled tunelessly, a few high notes that seemed intended to answer the whistling birds. It was almost dark. He didn’t look at me. He walked in a straight line through the grass toward the tree line. He paused there briefly, and I thought he might turn around, but he didn’t. He walked right into the wo
ods, right into the shadows between the trees. I stared after him for a while. And then I thought I saw a light in the woods. Something glowing. Something that moved. Maybe I saw it rise toward the treetops. Maybe I saw it fade as it reached the last daylight above them. But you know, if there was something there, then it was not so bright, nor was I so sure that I’d seen it as I’d been six months ago.