The Blood Lie

by Shirley Reva Vernick

  Then Victor was opening his door and motioning him out of the car, telling the crowd to make way. Jack took the key from his pocket, and, with imaginary blinders on, unlocked the store and disappeared inside, Victor at his heels.

  Jack hit the light switch, and Victor started walking the perimeter of the store. He probed the racks of trousers and felt behind the cabinets. He stood on tiptoes to check the wall shelves. Then he poked his head into the fitting room and the tiny bathroom in the back.

  Jack stepped away from the door so the crowd outside couldn’t see him. My God, he thought, watching Victor open cupboards and drawers. He actually expects to find little body parts scattered around. He thinks he’s going to uncover fingers and kneecaps, teeth and organs, if he just looks hard enough.

  “Holy Jesus!” said Victor from the shoe closet.

  “Sir?”

  “Aw, hell,” Victor grumbled, “it’s just a mannequin on its side. There a basement here?”

  Jack pointed to the staircase between the men’s jackets and the women’s flannels. Victor headed down and started turning over shipping crates, shoving aside spare tables, and rifling through merchandise. He’s wrecking the place, Jack realized, and he’s going to leave the mess for me to pick up.

  Then an even worse thought gripped him: the Sabbath wine! Mr. Pool hid the wine bottles in the basement joists— in the fourth row from the left, to be precise, so he could always find with his hands what he couldn’t with his eyes. If the trooper found the illegal alcohol, what would he do? Fortunately, Victor never looked up.

  “All right,” said Victor, rounding the top of the stairs, “let’s get you home. I’ve got a long night ahead. Go on to the car.”

  Jack didn’t go on though. He was waiting for the trooper to finish his thought—to apologize, or at least to thank Jack for his cooperation. It didn’t happen. Finally, Jack did as he was told.

  The crowd rushed closer when the store door reopened. “Didja find her?” one shadow asked. Another called out, “Fools, go back in there!” And then they all started jabbering at once. Jack quickly locked the store door and ducked into the car, turning his back on all of them. If any of his baseball team was there, he didn’t want to know. If any of his neighbors, teachers, or so-called friends were out there, he didn’t want to know that, either. Better to let them be a faceless swarm of bugs.

  Victor, still standing on the sidewalk, cleared his throat. “Gentlemen. Gentlemen, please. We’re making progress, and now I advise you all to go home. We’ll keep you apprised. In the meantime, please clear the sidewalk and the road.”

  The gang grumbled, nodded, swore, spat and kicked the curb as Victor got into the car. He pulled out and made a U-turn that sent half the auto up on the opposite sidewalk. An egg arched through the air before smashing on a rear tire.

  One of Jack’s cello solos started playing in his head, one that began agitato—played in an agitated mood—and progressed to furioso—furious. Yes, that was exactly how he felt, agitato and furioso. Then his mind gave way to a different score, one that was pesante—heavy—and mèsto—mournful. Knotting his fingers together, he could feel the torn skin where the potato knife had sliced him, and he wondered how long it would take to heal. As long as it’s all right in time for Syracuse. As long as I can still play my music.

  The trip home felt much shorter than the trip to the store. It seemed like the egg was still smacking against the tire when the car jerked to a stop at the foot of the Pool’s driveway. Jack’s parents were planted like solemn statues on the front stoop. It was going to be a long night for everyone, and they all knew it.

  Emaline bolted upright in bed.

  “Em, what is it?” asked Lydie, who was lying next to her in the bed.

  “I had a crazy, awful dream, it was about Daisy, she was in a boat on the river—no, not exactly, more like a raft on a pond, she was calling to me, she was saying…God, I can’t remember what it was.”

  Emaline swung her feet onto the floor and covered her face with her hands. “It felt so real, what if it means something, what if it’s a clue?—if I could just bring it back.” It was no use, though. The dream had vanished.

  “I don’t believe in that stuff,” Lydie said firmly, putting her hand on Emaline’s back. “Dreams are dreams, and real life is real life, and that’s all.”

  “I guess so. Sorry I woke you.”

  “No need. Listen, I hear your mother in the kitchen. How about we go keep her company?”

  Jack watched his mother step cautiously to the phone stand in the hallway. After resting her hand on the receiver for several seconds, she picked it up and asked the operator to connect her to the rabbi’s house. There was no answer. Next, she asked for Sophie Popkin, but immediately remembered that the Popkins were out of town for the holy days. “Put me through to Anna Friedman instead, would you?” she said.

  “Hello, Anna, this is Eva Pool. Forgive me for calling so late—I know it’s after eleven…I am well, thank you. I just wanted to let you know that you might be getting a visitor tonight…No, not that. It’s in connection with the little girl who’s gone missing… Yes, it’s terrible, isn’t it? Do you know the family?…Anyway, there’s a search going on, and the police are making some stops, so don’t be surprised if you hear from them…You’re most welcome. Perhaps I’ll call again later tonight or in the morning then? Good-bye, dear.”

  “Mama, that’s never going to work,” Jack said. “You need to be more direct if you want anyone to understand that their store is about to get raided.”

  “I don’t trust those party lines one bit. There are too many gossips with nothing better to do than eavesdrop on other people’s conversations. I don’t want to accidentally spread this rumor any further than it’s already gotten.”

  “But—”

  “You let me handle this my own way,” she said and was about to pick up the receiver again when the phone rang.

  “Hello?…Oh, Dr. Levine, is everything all right? Be careful how you say it, now… You too? I knew the other storekeepers were in for it, but your medical office?… Yes, I know. Did he say where he was going next or…I see…Well, I was just about to call the Kauffmans and Kaplans. If you want to try reaching Dr. Grunbaum and, let’s see, maybe the Liptons, that would help…Yes, yes, I’ll stay in touch. You too.”

  “Jack,” she said when she hung up, “I want you to take Harry and Martha into my bedroom and lock yourselves in there. Carry Martha in and tell her everything’s all right.”

  “But Mama—”

  “No buts. I have calls to make, and that’s where I want the three of you.”

  “For how long?”

  “Until I say so.”

  “But I can help you.”

  The phone rang again. Mrs. Pool gave Jack her I-mean-it look. He left to find Martha and Harry.

  At 11:30, Martha was curled up under an Adirondack blanket, asleep on her parents’ bed, and Harry was stretched out on the floor, trying to lose himself in the latest issue of Life magazine. Jack sat in the rocking chair near the window, holding his shofar and studying a crack that zigzagged its way across the ceiling. He was thinking, thinking and wondering, and suddenly he was agonizing: What will they do to me if Daisy is found hurt? Or dead? Or if she’s never found—what then? An image of a bleak stinking prison cell seized his thoughts. And right behind that the body of Leo Frank—strung from a tree branch, his neck snapping against the rope, a crowd below him kicking and spitting on his dangling body.

  Outside somewhere, he could hear muffled voices, but all he could see through the window were a few lit houses and, thanks to its slightly elevated position at the top of Hill Street, the south side of the synagogue. He tried harder to focus on the ceiling fissure. When Martha rolled dreamily from her back to her side, he murmured, “Must be nice.”

  “What must be nice?” Harry asked.

  “To be able to sleep.”

  Downstairs, the phone sounded, as it had been doing every few minutes,
and someone picked up on the first ring. “Harry, open the door,” Jack said. “Just a little. I want to hear.”

  Harry got up and cracked the door, letting in dribs and drabs of Mrs. Pool’s voice. “Now, Hannah,” she was saying. “All Albert will have to do is let him in and…Yes, go inside the shop with him…Just him, just the one, I expect…Call me…”

  Outside, the voices abruptly turned into sharp bellows. Harry jumped back and Jack jumped up, the cold heat of panic sweeping up his insides and spilling down his skin. Are they coming to get me—to drag me to the lockup or the noose? What do they want me to do, or do they want to do something to me? Down to his very core, Jack was afraid, and he hated everyone responsible for his fear—the trooper, the crowds, the whole town. He even hated himself.

  “We should go to the cellar,” Harry said. He had his nightshirt on but hadn’t taken off his trousers yet, and he absent-mindedly tried to tuck the nightshirt into his pants. “C’mon.”

  Jack didn’t answer.

  “Come on,” Harry repeated.

  “Shhh, you’ll wake Martha up,” Jack whispered. “Listen, we’re not going anywhere. The basement’s no safer than here. It’s worse—the lock on that damned Bilco door is practically rusted out. Just hold your horses.”

  Harry untucked his half-tucked nightshirt, sat on the floor cross-legged, and sighed melodramatically. “Hey, doesn’t that sound like Scottie Logan’s father out there? He never liked us, you know.”

  “What makes you think that?” Jack asked, moving closer to the window. He thought he heard a girl’s voice, but the street was black, and he couldn’t see anyone.

  “Because. Because once I heard Mr. Logan tell Scottie that God made Jews ugly for the same reason He put rattles on snakes: to warn their prey.”

  “What? You never told me about that.”

  “Why should I? I bet you don’t tell me every dumb thing you hear.”

  “Yeah, well, who else do you hear out there?”

  Harry paused to listen. “Can’t tell. They aren’t so close anymore.”

  It was true. The shouts were moving down the street, and then they turned the corner and disappeared. The hush echoed in Jack’s ears. For a moment, one glimmering moment, he allowed himself to believe that the crowd had nothing to do with Daisy or him. Maybe it was just a bunch of partygoers, on their way home from an evening of dancing and laughing and eating finger cakes.

  But no. Those were Jew-haters out there. Of that, he hadn’t a shred of doubt.

  “What do we do now?” asked Harry.

  “Let’s forget about all that. They’re probably just some jerks full of giggle water, that’s all.”

  “You mean…?”

  “I bet they’re fried to the hat. Hey, look, how about you and me play a game? Twenty questions or something.”

  “A game? Why?”

  “No reason, just a change of pace. Maybe we could—” A strange sound downstairs cut him off.

  “Wh-what’s that?” Harry breathed.

  Jack was already at the door. “I’m going down.”

  “I’ll go with you,” said Harry, springing up.

  “No. You can’t.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing. You stay here with Martha.”

  Harry lowered his head and sank back onto the floor.

  “Look,” Jack said. “It’s your job to take care of Martha, all right? We can’t both go down there, and we both shouldn’t be up here. Lock the door behind me.”

  When Jack got to the living room, he found his father clutching a rock the size of a baseball and his mother picking up glass shards from the rug and dropping them into her apron pocket—the same pocket where she kept her story pad and pencil. Jack wondered what story she might write about this later tonight, when she couldn’t sleep. Would she tell the truth, or would she write herself into the saner world of her imagination?

  “Mama?” Jack said.

  Mrs. Pool straightened up. “Jack, get back in the bedroom, and keep everyone away from the window.”

  “But I can do this for you.”

  “No. I want you upstairs. With the door locked.”

  The fear on her face alarmed him. Part of him wanted to run back upstairs to his hiding place. Besides, he already had one sliced finger; what if the glass made more cuts? What if he couldn’t play his Vivaldi piece properly? But his mother shouldn’t have to do this alone. And yet…

  Jack stood there, the cool air sweeping over his face, when the phone rang. Mrs. Pool went to the hallway to answer it. “Hello?… Yes, Benny, I’m listening…”

  “This is a good rock,” Mr. Pool said to Jack. “Not like what you trip on in the street. More the kind you go looking for. Round, like fist. Good for throwing. Like throwing a fist.” He looked old and brittle in the yellow lamplight, like a worn cornhusk that might dissolve into a pile of dust at any second.

  “What about the rabbi?” Jack asked. “Has anyone told him?”

  The outside voices became audible again, although only as a distant whir. “I call the rabbi’s house a hundred times,” Mr. Pool said. “Must be he is at shul.”

  “Do you want me to go get him? I could—”

  “No! You are not to leave the house again.”

  “But—”

  “Jack,” Mr. Pool said, setting down the rock on the lamp stand. “What can the rabbi do tonight? Let him finish making ready for Yom Kippur. In the daylight, we talk to him.”

  “He used his gun to get in?” Mrs. Pool was saying from the other room. “But—now watch what you say over the phone, Benny…And then what? He just left?”

  “Son of a bitch!” Jack kicked the baseboard.

  “Easy,” said his father. “A broken window, that is bad enough. We don’t need any broken walls.”

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Pool, “it would be good of you to do that… Good night, Benny.” She replaced the receiver and walked briskly back into the living room, looking ashen.

  “What was that about?” Mr. Pool asked.

  “Simon Slavin’s dress shop. Si’s in Albany for the holy days, and when he wasn’t there to let the trooper in, the trooper let himself in. Used the butt of his gun to smash the shop window and climbed right in. Went through the place—must have taken him all of one minute, it’s so tiny—and then just left the store wide open.” She picked up another piece of glass and rolled it over in her hands. “And what are you still doing down here, Jack? Martha and Harry are up there alone.”

  “Jack, get yourself some rest,” Mr. Pool added. “It will be all right.”

  “All right?” Jack half-laughed. “How can things be all right? Nothing will ever be all right.” He turned toward the stairs in anticipation of a cold, sleepless night.

  “Thank God that’s over,” Gus said. He piled the last case of whiskey into the cab of the truck which Roy Royman had parked twenty yards from the river at the edge of Paradise Woods.

  The two men climbed in and slammed their doors shut. “It’s not one in the morning yet,” Royman said. “That wasn’t as bad as I expected.”

  “Thanks to me.” Gus bit off the end of a fresh cigar and held it between his teeth, unlit. “Dimwit trooper!”

  “Well, we both know you’re the brains behind the operation. I’m just the muscles and good looks.”

  “Never mind that. Just let’s move this load to the shed so we can be done with it. I’m telling you, if this stuff wasn’t liquid gold, it wouldn’t be worth half the trouble.”

  As Royman started the engine, Gus looked out into the blackness of the woods, wondering if Daisy Durham was still out there somewhere, wondering if his wife was still in the Durhams’ kitchen finding chores for herself, wondering what had really happened to the kid and when she would surface. Then he dug a matchbook out of his pocket, lit the cigar, and sat back to enjoy the ride. He and Royman were going to make sixty bucks off this stash, enough for each of them to buy a fishing boat or put a down payment on a new car. Sixty bucks off the slobs
and the drunks and even the Jews, he thought with a smile.

  On Danforth Street, Victor sat in his parked car, crumbling Gus’ list of Jewish businesses. Besides Pool’s Dry Goods, he’d searched the tailor’s place, a dental office, a men’s suit shop, a doctor’s office, a dress boutique, a stationer’s, and a fruit and vegetable shop. The accused all cooperated, except for the dentist, Dr. Grunbaum, who submitted only after Victor threatened to arrest him. By the end of it all, Victor hadn’t gained a scrap of evidence and had lost several precious hours—it was the middle of the night already. He considered Gus’ idea of searching the Jews’ homes, but no, that would take too long. Then he decided that maybe their preacher could provide some answers.

  If Victor tried the rabbi’s house, he wouldn’t have found him there. Rabbi Abrams had been at the temple since midafternoon, sitting in the sanctuary, worshipping and writing his Yom Kippur sermon. He knew nothing about what was happening, and so he worked undistracted under the perpetual light over the Torah ark.

  When the clock on the dresser said 2:30, Jack turned out the light and lay down on his parents’ bed. He stared into the blackness, listening to Martha’s breathing and Harry’s tossing. He never expected to fall asleep, but somewhere along the line, with Martha curled up next to him and Harry in a nest of blankets on the floor, he slipped beneath the surface of wakefulness.

  Jack might have stayed in that light slumber, but all at once his mother’s chickens squawked. He jerked to attention. The birds always fussed like this whenever the neighbor dog Agatha came scratching around the coop, and it didn’t usually faze him. But tonight was different. Tonight it might not be Agatha. Someone might be creeping around. Should I go take a look? What time is it, anyway?

  Fortunately, the birds quieted themselves after a few seconds, and all was silent again—no voices, no footsteps, just a faint yap from Agatha and the rustling of Harry’s blankets.