Under Radar

by Michael Tolkin

  Tom rushed through the children dancing at the edge of the floor and took Alma in his arms. She kicked him. “I want to dance!” she cried.

  “Honey, that’s enough.”

  “No!” She kicked him again, then punched him. Now everyone was laughing at Tom. He wanted to scream at them. Pagans! he wanted to say. This is child sacrifice, he wanted to say, burning a child’s dignity for laughs.

  The singer didn’t stop. Tom pulled Alma out of the circle and brought her to the rail at the edge of the deck. The sound of gravel rolled by the sea like wind in tall grass, calming both of them.

  “I want to dance,” she said, but the fury was gone. Tom thought that she was grateful for the rescue.

  “You danced enough.”

  “Why did you take me away?”

  “The band was loud, and I didn’t want the music to hurt your ears.”

  She accepted this. It was often easy for Tom and Rosalie to quiet the children with simple lies that addressed the issues in close consonance. It was a lie, but if his four-year-old had not been tricked into dancing like a whore, he might have taken her away anyway, just as he explained. She asked if she could dance where she was, and he said Yes. Now she danced like herself, a free ballerina or figure skater, en pointe, back arched and right leg lifted. She rolled her hips and belly in one sexual shudder, as she had on the floor, but Tom kept a blank face and, allowing no response to her lewd gesture, he began to sever the connection between the encouraged concupiscence and the approval of her audience. After this, the charming ballerina took over from Salomé.

  All of this happened quickly, and Rosalie joined them.

  “Did you see that?” Tom asked quietly, while Alma danced.

  “What was she doing?”

  “That fat fuck over there”—Tom almost said “Jane Austen’s husband,” but why give Rosalie a peek into the deeper vaults of the cave?—“told Alma to dance.”

  “Oh, Alma,” said Rosalie, giving her Terpsichore a big hug and picking her up. “You do like to dance, don’t you?”

  “I was dancing,” she said.

  “Yes you were.”

  Rosalie took Alma in her arms, the girl’s legs straddling her hips. Tom looked his daughter in the eye and saw confusion. She could not articulate what she was feeling, but Tom was certain that in her own way she knew that the performance had violated her. Alma had a sense of honor.

  “It’s over,” said Rosalie. “Come back to the table, Tom, the judge loved talking to you.”

  “In a minute.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I just want to say something to the guy who told Alma to dance.”

  “What?”

  “I want to tell him that I wish he hadn’t.”

  “Just don’t hit him.”

  “I won’t.” She was joking. Tom wasn’t.

  Rosalie carried Alma back to Judge Davis’s table. Tom stepped over the legs of some children who sat beside their parents on the deck. It was all so ordinary. Jane Austen’s husband drank a Red Stripe beer, and his head kept time with the music. Tom stood next to him.

  “Excuse me,” he said, “but did you tell my daughter to get up and dance?” All of this was only five minutes old.

  “Your daughter?” asked the man.

  “That little girl over there.” Tom pointed to Alma, sitting in Rosalie’s lap.

  “Oh. Yes. She was on the side of the dance floor jumping around, and there were some kids already there, and she seemed kind of shy about it. I thought she wanted to dance with them, so I told her to get out in front and have a good time, not to be shy.”

  “And you saw what happened.”

  “She danced. Is there a problem?”

  “That was a stupid thing to do. That was inappropriate and stupid. She’s four years old.”

  “I’m not quite sure what you’re so upset about, but if it’s your family custom not to dance, then I’m sorry, I really am.”

  “Do you think someone with a family custom against dancing would come to Jamaica?”

  “Anything is possible. People make mistakes.”

  “So who made the mistake here, you or me?”

  “Maybe both of us. Why was she alone?”

  “She was with her sister.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Tom. Tom Levy.”

  “Barry Seckler. Tom, whatever I did to offend you, or to offend your daughter, please let it be forgiven. And if you can’t, then please explain to me the nature of my crime.”

  What could Tom say? The man would deftly turn away every accusation, he had that skill, Tom saw, more than that, charm. Charm enough to have a pretty wife with short hair.

  “It’s over, that’s what matters,” said Tom, lying. He backed away like an ambassador to royalty, then turned around. Aware that he was onstage now, he walked to the dining terrace.

  Tom’s world shattered into attributes of color, sound, meaning, memory, taste, touch, opinion, and disinterest. His disinterest in the very attributes he noticed equaled in its vigor the intensity of Judge Davis’s wife’s T-shirt, turquoise, with the words SANTA FE above an imitation gold-leaf primitive eagle. The shirt made Tom want to kill Jane Austen’s husband. What is this fucking bullshit? thought Tom. This fake bullshit notion of purity reserved for a fake bullshit version of Native American religion. The turquoise T-shirt brought to Tom the recognition that all impressions break on contact, that the blue of the shirt had no greater significance than the darkness of the ocean, or the black headwaiter with his shaved head and his white jacket with pink lapels.

  The band played “I Shot the Sheriff,” and the melody and the instruments drifted into separate universes, though Tom saw each one and stood between, the mediator of all the realities around him.

  No good will come of this murder. The thought washed through Tom as directly and with the same dull inevitability as the umpteenth wave chased by the children as it rolled under the deck. The children peered through the spaces between the boards, trying to gauge where on the meridians made by the boards the wave would disperse in a satisfaction for them and for itself. The drama of the wave kept them at the game, the contest of endurance. The children knew that the waves had feeling and intelligence, and when the last peak settled into the last trough, the children saw collapse and relief; the battle was over. The wave says, I can die now, my purpose is known. Or perhaps not, thought Tom, perhaps the wave at the last margin of the ocean hated all of this, the endless duty to the grinding away of the shore, exhaustion cheered by children.

  Tom withdrew from the deck and walked back to the dining room, where the waiters were clearing tables and the parents who had formed groups among themselves thought about the picture they made of themselves lingering, how contentment reigned on this Caribbean shore; good enough food and good enough wine consoled the almost rich and abraded them of their roughest feelings, the bad ideas anyone has about life and their place in it. Tom could hear, over the singer and the band, droplets of conversation carried like spume on the damp heavy air of the tropics, not real laughter at anyone’s wit so much as punctuation, a way to end a bad thought or rip the conch of conversation from the hands of whoever was telling whatever kind of story. All these people basically like each other, thought Tom. And why shouldn’t they? Tom saw all of them as something he could never be, a kind of happy because they all felt the same way; swallow your pride and have a table of new friends for life. And he joined his wife, with his own new friends, and had an answer ready if the judge should ask him about what had just happened.

  “What just happened?” asked the judge.

  “You see that man over there,” said Tom, pointing to Jane Austen’s husband.

  “Which one?” asked the judge.

  “The man in the blue shirt,” said Tom. But there were two men in blue shirts. Not prudent to call him fat, since the judge carried a few extra pounds and so did his wife.

  “The fat one sitting by the dance floor? Or the
other one standing by the light?” the judge asked.

  “The fat one.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He told my four-year-old daughter to dance like a stripper.”

  “He did not,” said the judge, but he meant, He did?

  “I told him that what he had done was really inappropriate. But I felt like killing him.”

  “If you’d told me that, I would have stopped you. I would have had to.”

  “Of course,” said Tom. Rosalie was half listening from her end of the table; he heard the woman from Israel talking about schools in Tel Aviv, the world has one problem, thought Tom, it’s so simple.

  “But I meant that only by Jewish law,” said the judge.

  “In what way?” asked Tom.

  “If you had told me that you were on your way to kill a man, well, you know the Talmudic rule, don’t you?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Tom, but he meant, No.

  “You should. You’re a lawyer and a Jew. Let me tell you a story,” said the judge.

  The band stopped playing. Silence impermissible, one of the bartenders punched a button on a cassette deck, for more Jamaican music. No one was going to listen to the judge but Tom.

  “This is all a long time ago.”

  ...

  In Jerusalem, politics; in Jericho, the weather. Simeon and Reuven, in Jericho, were sitting in the shade of the ruined temple to Baal, and agreed that the day was hot, when their friend Naftali ran across the square, chased by a man with a short sword in his right hand. Naftali did not look at the two men as he passed them on the steps. The swordsman lost sight of Naftali and stopped.

  “He’s in there,” said the swordsman.

  “I don’t think so,” said Reuven.

  “Is he your friend?” asked the swordsman.

  “What did he do?” asked Simeon.

  The swordsman was about to answer when the silhouette of Naftali’s head appeared along the straight line of a column’s shadow and then he jumped through a breach in the temple’s rear wall. The swordsman followed him.

  There was a scream, and when Simeon and Reuven climbed through the wall, they saw the swordsman standing over Naftali’s body. The sword, dripping blood, was in his hand.

  Naftali’s brothers arrived with a crowd. The swordsman, Avigdor, had been in love with a girl named Timna, but Naftali was going to marry her and the wedding had just been announced.

  A court was called for the next day. Reuven and Simeon faced the three judges. The youngest spoke first. “What did you see?” he asked Reuven.

  “I saw Avigdor kill Naftali.”

  “What did you see?”

  “I saw Avigdor chase Naftali into the old shrine, I saw Naftali climb through a hole in the wall, and I saw Avigdor follow him. Then my friend and I followed them and saw Avigdor standing over the body.”

  The judges asked Simeon to tell the story and he told the same story. The case was then dismissed, since the witnesses had seen nothing. However, the judges warned Avigdor to leave immediately for a city of refuge, where Naftali’s family could not, for revenge, follow him.

  The next day, sitting again on the steps of the shrine, Simeon said to Reuven, “The courts are too strict about this.”

  Reuven said, “I don’t trust a judge who’s younger than I am.”

  He was about to say more when they saw Avigdor running across the square, chased by Naftali’s oldest brother, with a long sword in his hand. Avigdor tripped and fell on the steps. Naftali’s brother put the sword to his throat.

  “Stop!” said Simeon. “Don’t you know that if you kill Avigdor, you are liable for execution?”

  “I know that,” said Naftali’s brother.

  “What is your name?” asked Simeon.

  “Issachar.”

  “Issachar, do you know what we have to do if you kill him?”

  “Yes,” he said. Then Issachar put his sword into Avigdor’s heart.

  When the court met again, Reuven told the story. “We asked Issachar if he knew the law and knew the penalty. He said that he did, and then he killed Avigdor.”

  On the day of the execution, Simeon and Reuven followed Issachar, wearing a white tunic, his hands tied behind his back.

  At the place of execution, the roof of the tallest building in the city, the judges looked to the watchtower on the hill to the west of town, hoping for a signal from the high court in Jerusalem. The signal arrived to proceed with the execution.

  The guards led Issachar to the roof’s edge, and pulled his tunic away. The youngest judge put a hand on Reuven’s and Simeon’s shoulders. “I know you don’t want to do this,” he said.

  “Don’t apologize for the law,” said Reuven.

  Simeon waited a moment, and Reuven whispered to him, “Now.”

  Simeon said, “Issachar, I’m sorry,” and pushed hard, before Reuven. Issachar was already falling when Reuven made contact with his sweaty back. Perhaps this is why Issachar turned in the air and landed on his side.

  The oldest judge, on the ground, called the men down. Issachar was still alive.

  “I don’t want to do this,” said Simeon.

  “Draw lots,” said the judge.

  “No,” said Reuven, “let me finish this.”

  Issachar’s eyes were open, and Reuven saw in them a melting of the humiliation for being naked and broken. The reluctant executioner lifted the chosen rock and smashed it hard on the murderer’s chest. Blood seeped from Isaachar’s mouth, but he was dead, and the rusty taste of his punishment made no impression.

  ...

  Tom saw Jane Austen talking to the man in charge of island tours at a kiosk near the bar. She was signing her family up for a trip, and wherever she was going with her family, Tom wanted to be with her.

  “That’s Jewish law for you,” said Judge Davis. “Don’t kill anyone.”

  “I won’t,” said Tom, lying.

  “It’s a different way of looking at things,” said Judge Davis’s wife.

  This banality gave Tom allowance to leave. He waved his fingers to Rosalie in a semaphore of marriage: have-to-do-something-be-right-back-don’t-ask-good-for-us-all-I-love-you.

  “Excuse me,” he said.

  “Pleasure talking,” said the judge. “I hope we have more time together.”

  “I’m sure we will.”

  Tom walked slowly towards the tour desk, waiting for Jane Austen to leave before he presented himself to the man with the name tag: ISAIAH.

  “Can I help you?” asked Isaiah.

  “I think so,” said Tom. “I’d love to take a trip.”

  “May I recommend the Dunn’s River Falls Tour, and then duty-free shopping in Ocho Rios? That’s our most popular trip. It’s half a day.”

  “Is that what the woman who was just here is doing?” Tom said this in a way that advertised nothing more than bewilderment at the choices, a mild desperation at his inability to select from too bountiful a buffet of possibilities, and his faith that in someone else’s endorsement of one choice he might rescue himself from a confusion too silly to belabor.

  “Mrs. Seckler and her family are taking the Scenic Inland Trip: Bob Marley’s birthplace and grave, then Dunn’s River and Ocho Rios. That’s a full day.”

  “Sounds great. I’d like four tickets, two adults, two kids, one under five.”

  “You can go the day after tomorrow.”

  “I’d like to go tomorrow. Why can’t I go on their bus?”

  “These are small vans, and they’ve booked a private tour. You can arrange it for the next day.”

  “What if the Secklers share the van? Would that lower their cost?”

  “Not really, sir. But they might share it anyway.”

  Jane Austen Seckler was in the gift shop, twenty feet away. “Perhaps you could ask her,” said Tom.

  “Perhaps you could,” said Isaiah. “It would be harder for her to turn you down than me.”

  “And you’d lose the sale.”

 
“I am a businessman, sir, like yourself.”

  “I’ll ask her.” Tom walked into the gift shop, the bells on the door announcing him. There she was, Mrs. Seckler, trying on a hat she wouldn’t buy.

  “Excuse me,” said Tom, “but Isaiah at the tour desk suggested I speak to you.”

  “Yes?” She looked at him politely, with a measure of caution. Had she seen him talking to her husband?

  “I understand you’re going on the trip to Bob Marley’s grave tomorrow morning. I wanted to take that trip, too, and tomorrow’s the best day for my family. If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, could you share the van?”

  “How many are you?”

  “There’s four of us. Two little girls, and my wife, of course.”

  “I think that’s a good idea. I have two children. They’ll fight less with company. I’m Debra Seckler.”

  “Tom Levy.”

  “Do I need to say something to the tour desk?”

  “I don’t think so. He’ll trust me.”

  Tom thanked her again. Isaiah explained that the trip could not be charged to the room, because the tour guides were independent of the hotel, a detail of no special interest to Tom, who paid for the day of murder with his credit card.

  Now Tom returned to the table. He kissed Rosalie on the cheek as he greeted Judge Davis. “We’re taking a trip tomorrow, the family, into the interior, up in the mountains. Bob Marley’s grave. The pictures looked really pretty.”

  “All day in a car? You should have asked me.” Tom wanted to slap her, but of course she was right, a day in the van would do nothing for the children.

  “It’s all very close. We’re only going up to Bob Marley’s grave, or, to be less morbid about it, Bob Marley’s birthplace, and then down to Dunn’s River for a climb in the falls, which the girls should just love, and then some duty-free shopping.”

  “Except it’s not duty-free,” said Avital Davis. “The prices are flexible, and if you don’t know the cost in New York, you’ll pay more.”

  “Thanks for the tip,” said Tom. He caught Rosalie’s doubtful eye. “This should be good. This is the kind of trip we like.”

  The judge weighed in. “I think it would be fascinating. We should go.”