by Bruce Bauman
Finally finished, I collapsed on the cot in my studio. When my eyes opened, Somersby was kneeling beside me, his long eyelashes fluttering. “Nathaniel called. I raced over. He’s been trying to reach you for two days and—”
“He presumed I’d done something unhealthy.”
“Worried more than presumed. He’s just being cautious,” Somersby stroked my hair, knotted from dried sweat and paint, with his manicured fingernails.
“I need to wash up. I’m a mess.”
“An undeniably lovely mess.”
“Somersby, are you flirting with me?”
“I’d say more than flirting …”
Somersby turned out to be quite a bit more Scarlet Pimpernel than Scarlett O’Hara. We enjoyed a fun few days in my studio and his house, but never inside our house. Somersby assured Nathaniel that I was “doing just peachy,” and I avoided talking to him. Hours before Nathaniel’s return, we relaxed with an afternoon refreshment in the gazebo on Somersby’s back lawn. He asked, “So?”
“So nothing. Was fun. Over.”
He exhaled. Relieved. “I will talk to Nathaniel about my breach of honor,” his tone lugubrious.
“So noble of you. Men! You always act like triumphant cavemen when you ‘had’ another man’s woman. We fucked because I chose to do it. I decide if and when to tell Nathaniel.”
When Nathaniel arrived, exhausted from the seven-hour drive, I threw my arms around him with genuine affection.
He drank a beer while talking about how Alchemy had already started a band with Amanda, who later became Absurda Nightingale. He asked if Somersby had taken good care of me.
“Yes,” I said perfunctorily, although I could not look him in the eyes.
“How good?” He twitched and fidgeted as if he suspected something.
“Very good.”
“What does that mean? Exactly.” His right foot tapped uncontrollably against the floor.
“Polyamorously good.”
He slammed the bottle on the counter and his voice trembled. “You did this because you’re angry at me.”
“You think I planned it?”
“Not consciously. You’re too impulsive. But when you’re angry, sex is your weapon. You seduced him to hurt me.”
“No man gets seduced.”
“By you, any man or every man can be seduced.”
“Stop. I’m not going to see him again. Only I can’t live in this backwoods. I can’t. I have to move back to New York at least part time.”
“Do you want to leave me?”
“No! Do you want me to repent? To admit I feel guilty? You want me to say you have saved me? Ha. I saved you. But do I wish I could be monogamous for you? Maybe. If I could change that one thing in me—maybe—but then I wouldn’t be me. I’d be someone else and I don’t want to be anyone else and if I were, you wouldn’t have fallen in love with me.”
“Impeccable Salome logic.” To steady his trembling hands, he gripped the kitchen counter. Then he took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes with his palms and faced me again. I spoke first.
“You’ve hurt me, too.” I didn’t mean his Parisian fling—that didn’t hurt me deeply—but his belief that Somersby or anyone could replace him, that scalded to my core.
He reached for a tissue from the box on the counter and blew his nose.
“Nathaniel, do you hate me now?”
“Of course not.” He put on his glasses. “I don’t want you to be anyone but you. I want only you, and for you to have what you want.” He walked to my side and cupped my head in his hands and kissed my hair. “I’ll serve notice that we’re taking back the apartment after January first.”
47
THE MOSES CHRONICLES (2008)
Child Is Father of the Man
Moses deplaned in Rio and took a taxi to a hotel in the Leblon section of the city. He ate dinner by himself at a churrascaria recommended by the concierge and spent the evening rehearsing his questions and the possible paths of the meeting.
In the morning, a hired car drove him to Alphaville, the walled and segregated wealthy community about fifteen miles from Rio. One thousand guards patrolled the city itself with its own parks, shops, and restaurants. At the north gate, the driver handed one of the guards a piece of paper with words written in Portuguese. “Please tell Malcolm Teumer that Moses is here.” Addressing the driver, the guard, dressed in militarystyle uniform, appeared to say something akin to “only preapproved visitors.” Moses stuck his head out the window and made an insistent dialing motion. “Call him.” After a brief phone conversation, the guard pointed, indicating they needed to pull to the side and wait. Moses leaned back. Breathed deep. Closed his eyes. Tried to visualize floating on a tranquil lake. The lake became a typhoon.
Ten minutes or so later, a scooter pulled up and parked beside the taxi. A muscle-bound young man in white pants and white short-sleeve shirt got off the scooter and motioned for Moses to step out of the car. He spoke to the driver in Portuguese. In broken English, the driver tried to explain something. Moses got the drift and allowed the man to pat him down and search the back of the car. He repressed a laugh at this ridiculousness—instead of enervating him, it relieved his tension.
Following the scooter, they passed garbage-free streets manicured lawns, immaculate parks, graffiti-free walls—practically a Hollywood movie set. They were a universe away from the simmering despair of the sunken shoulders of young women, the anger-clenched fists of street urchins, the stench of silent disease of the favelas, and equally distant from the multicolored explosions and the bikini-clad revelers of Ipanema dancing to the samba beat.
They pulled up to an off-yellow two-story stucco house. A woman in her early forties with neck-length wavy blond hair, hazel eyes, complexion as pale as his, stocky body dressed in jeans and flowery blouse greeted him at the doorway. She spoke in English with an accent lilted with the soft cadences of Brazilian Portuguese. “My father says you are the child of an old friend. I am sorry for the wait but João needed to come and show you the way.”
“Not a problem.”
“My father wanted to be properly prepared. He keeps to his Old World manners.”
Sure, Moses thought, Old World manners where you check your visitors for weapons.
“I wish you had given us prior notice so I could have prepared some food or drink.”
“It’s a business trip, so I didn’t know if I’d have time. Maybe if I come back again.”
“That would be lovely.”
He had imagined meeting his half siblings, but seeing his sister in the flesh still unnerved him. Sweat dampened the armpits and collar of his powder blue short-sleeve shirt. Born Jew or not, he still schvitzed.
“Please come in out of the heat.”
“Thanks.” He grimaced—she’d noticed. It wasn’t all that hot.
“My father suffers from emphysema. So the visit may be short. He’ll see you in his study.”
She led Moses down a hallway. Art hung on all the walls. In one room, he spotted a Salome diptych, a 48″ × 30″ Savant Red and Savant Blue painting. They arrived in a sparsely furnished, dimly lit study. A desk sat in front of a window covered by red silk curtains, and bookshelves lined every wall; no art in here. Two red upholstered chairs, along with a folded walker and an oxygen tank, were arranged around a circular wooden table. A half-smoked cigar dangled off the lip of a ceramic ashtray. Moses and his half sister stood beside one of the chairs as Malcolm moved unsteadily into the room, followed by João, who eased him into a chair and then left. Moses remained fixed in place, assessing his father. Not a Mephistophelean grin or strikingly sinister eyes, but a face fleshy with mottled skin, bald head, a roundish body covered by a nondescript black suit, white shirt, and black tie. The plainness of the man almost stunned Moses. Then he heard his father’s voice, a hiss that scalded like a white-hot branding iron meeting flesh. “Pleased to meet you. You bear little resemblance to your father or mother as I remember them.” Neither one made a
move to shake the other’s hand. “Sit.”
Teumer addressed Moses’s half sister in Portuguese. She bent over and pecked their father on his cheek. She reached out her hand to shake Moses’s. He could not resist; he felt her touch, held it too long, hoping—for what? Finally, he released it. “Have a nice chat. João will be outside if you need anything.”
Father and son waited until they were alone.
“You received my letter?”
“Yes.”
“Although it took some time, I am gratified you found the courage to disobey my wishes, to face me.”
Barely able to form words, Moses asked, “She doesn’t know about me?”
“Speak up. Talk like a man.”
Moses repeated the question.
“Why should she?”
“So you assumed I wouldn’t say anything?”
“Yes. And if you did? Would she care? I don’t think so. Now that you are here, what do you want?”
Moses needn’t ask about the letter or medal. He accepted them as mean-spirited, truthful, almost childish—yet effective—ploys to cause emotional turmoil. “Did you really think I might come here to hurt you?”
“One can never be too cautious. I don’t know the depth of your hate or desire for revenge. After all, I was prepared to let you die.”
“From the looks of it, you’ll be dead soon enough. And I’m still here.”
Teumer nodded his head, as if he approved of his son’s combativeness.
“Who told Salome I was stillborn?”
“Not I. Laban and Bickley oversaw the mechanics of the birth and your delivery to Hannah and me.”
“Did you rape Salome?”
Teumer laughed so hard he began to cough. João rushed in and handed Teumer a glass of water. Teumer waved off the need for his inhaler and spoke to João in Portuguese before returning to Moses. A minute later João returned and handed Moses a sealed plastic bag. “Open it. Look closely.”
Moses delicately removed a piece of tissue paper that concealed a brittle black-and-white photograph—the teenage Salome, hair dancing in the Long Island breeze, head turned slightly to the right so her gaze denied the viewer eye contact, white shorts and a half-unbuttoned blouse, her breasts partially exposed. A man in a T-shirt, jeans, sunglasses, and a classic Borsalino hat, self-satisfied grin—Malcolm—beside her, right arm draped over her shoulder, hand cupping her right breast through the open blouse. “If anything, she seduced me. Your mother was voracious in her appetites.”
Moses gripped the photo. He began to sweat again. He closed his eyes, waiting for rage or nausea or the lust for vengeance both he and Teumer expected to well in him. No, those virulent emotions remained almost inexplicably quiescent. He slipped the photo carefully back in the bag and held it out to Teumer, who refused it.
“I no longer have need for it. You keep it.”
Moses placed it on the table and pressed on with his prepared questions. “Why did you behave so terribly to my mom … Hannah?”
“Circumstance and self-preservation. At first, I needed her. But you misinterpret my effect on her life. For almost three years I made her feel more special than she ever had or ever would again. I rescued her from a wretched ghetto life and introduced her to a cosmopolitan world she had only imagined, and where she remained even after I left. I had hoped to take you with me when I departed. Unfortunately, sooner than anticipated, let’s say an old acquaintance recognized me in a Waldbaum’s and caused a scene. So I immediately put into effect a contingency plan.”
“Your Nazi name wasn’t Malcolm Teumer?”
“No.”
“You adopted it from a murdered Jew as your identity along with the story about leaving Temisvar for Germany?”
“Yes, something like that.”
“What was your name?”
“Oh, I can’t seem to remember.”
Moses leaned closer into him. “What? You’re afraid to tell me?”
“There is a fine line between courage and stupidity.”
“And a finer line between semantics and a cowardly lie.”
“Good. Good.” They locked stares. “You are thinking you are not me, not like me—that you are better than me. You’re clever but also a fool. You cannot escape being of my blood, just as I can disown but not dismiss you. I tried when you got sick. I chose not to save you.”
This time, Moses could not resist reacting. “You didn’t care if I died?”
“You were already dead to me.”
“Not so dead that you didn’t track my life. My whereabouts.”
“When I lived in America, a Negro baseball player was famous for saying, ‘Don’t look back, something may be gaining on you.’ His proposition is correct, but his conclusion indicated inferior thinking. Something is gaining on you, and you must look back to make sure it doesn’t catch you. If it does, you must be ready.”
“I’ve caught you now. Do your other children know about your past?’
“They know me as a good father and a provider. You saw her affection for me.”
Indeed, he had. “You’re so sure I won’t expose your lies to them.”
“You’d consider it ignoble.”
Teumer had calculated correctly. Moses knew that the momentary thrill of causing his father embarrassment, if that were even possible, would solve nothing.
“What if I tell some Nazi hunters or official organizations?”
“The U.S. government does not want me or others like me exposed. You know that. You’re a historian.”
Moses nodded. He was well aware that the Reagan administration had put a stop to all pursuits of former Nazis living in the United States, and the policy remained in force.
“And I have been and will remain well protected here.”
“Protected from others, perhaps. I’ve always wondered how cold-blooded murderers like you live with yourselves.”
“What some call murder, others call natural selection. Don’t scoff. Nature is a slow process of weeding out the weak. We sped up the process by selecting, in a most humane manner, those who over time nature would have eliminated. The weak must not inherit the earth or humanity will face extinction. We came close but were thwarted … for now. History is still on our side. As for my decision with you, modern medicine should only be used upon the sacred few. For the rest … let nature decide.”
Moses shook his head. This man exulted in evils large and small, in the fastidiousness of the crematoriums and the personal cruelties perpetrated against himself and his mom. Moses had heard and seen enough. He stood up. “Even before I got your letter and found out about your monstrous life, I swore to myself not to behave like the emotional coward that you are.” He winced ever so slightly at the thought of Jay and how he had behaved like a graceless coward. No, he couldn’t punish himself right then. “I am so glad we finally met.”
Moses moved closer. Teumer stared up at him, wetting his bloodless aged lips with his tongue. Moses picked up the envelope and took out the photo of his parents. He stared at it once more and placed it between his fingers as if he were going to rip it in half. “I don’t have any need for this.” He hesitated and dropped it on the table. “I’ll let myself out.”
Moses’s invisible angel of torment had been transformed—not into a smiling seraph of lightness but a declawed demon. The ever-changing past once again became new, a future filled with possibilities of forgiveness or bitterness, compassion or heartlessness. The choice would not be easy, but it would be his.
BOOK III
The only consolation would be:
it happens whether you like or no.
And what you like is of infinitesimally little help.
More than consolation is: You too have weapons.
—Franz Kafka
48
THE SONGS OF SALOME
Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy
I’ve made an effort to tell my story in a linear fashion. Now this fallacious narrative of time has been undone by Mr. Parnell Pa
lmer, government lackey, investigator for the Committee on Anti-American Activities. He showed up yesterday to “inquire” about the night of Alchemy’s death. He claimed he wanted to issue a report stating once and for all his death was an accident and to squash all the “vicious rumors.”
We met in Bellows’s office. Palmer’s unmowed-lawn eyebrows, tiny nose, lizardy neck, and bald head intrigued me. I sketched him while we talked. He eyed Dr. Bellows, who shook her head as if to say, “Let her do it.” Until now, I refused to meet with any “official.” What can they do? Lock me up? Ha. Palmer enticed me with the possibility of a visit from Persephone.
With more than a hint of incredulity, Palmer began by asking why my nurse had been off that night. I told him I had no authority to dismiss anyone, so I assumed Alchemy or Laluna gave her the night off because of the Super Bowl party. No denying that Alchemy and I argued earlier that day over Laluna’s refusal to allow me to care for Persephone when they went on vacation. From the first, my relationship with Laluna had waned and waned farther. I wanted a grandchild, but I’d correctly sniffed her lack of enthusiasm for motherhood.
Palmer kept pushing me to defend my absence from the party. Reason seemed to bounce off his bald head. He couldn’t understand why I always refused to attend that celebration of modern slavery and violence. I told him that I didn’t leave my cottage or studio until later that night, when it was already too late. That was true in all meanings of truth.
“At times you have said that you and Mindswallow were both at your cottage when you heard Moses, Laluna, and Alchemy arguing. At other times you claimed you weren’t sure where Mindswallow was. Which is it?”
“The answer is both. I heard bursts of their yelling when he banged on my door, while he was there. I’d taken some pills and was lost in drowsyland when Ambitious showed up. I’m sure he told you what happened. Why do you need me to confirm it? For all of his inverted thinking, he is not a liar. Nor, as he fancies himself, is he a killer.”