The Journey Prize Stories 21

by Various

  On the spot, Heshberg decided to change the title of the advice column from “With Love from Yentel” to “The Wisdom of Solomon,” though the former would remain as the signature. My father went back to his typewriter with his heart soaring.

  “The Wisdom of Solomon” was indeed what the column was titled when it appeared the following Monday and in days to come, always prominently displayed on the second page, above the obituaries, although within the offices of The World it continued to be referred to as “the Schmegge.”

  The letter from the woman in love with the Indian ran that Monday and others that my father had concocted in the days that followed, but the week was not even out before the first real letters began to arrive, by hand and then through the post, and, as Heshberg had predicted, by the following week a steady stream of letters was arriving and my father no longer had to concoct lives wracked with heartbreaking dilemmas. Instead, the time allotted to this task was more than taken up by reading through the letters, selecting a couple of good ones for each day, and writing the replies.

  The replies, he found, were considerably easier to write than the concocted letters, but, though he had felt ambivalent about writing those letters, when they were no longer necessary, he missed them.

  Many of the real letters were considerably more mundane, dealing with disputes with landlords, employers, and bureaucrats, like the man who wrote to complain about the barking of a dog in the night. My father’s replies were instructive (“What is more important, the good will of a neighbour or a few extra minutes of sleep?” he inquired rhetorically), and thus played an important role, as Heshberg frequently reminded him, but they took no imagination or creative powers. To the question from a woman about the proper handling of garbage being put out for collection, for example, he merely telephoned the appropriate clerk at City Hall and quickly had the answer, just as the letter writer herself could have done, except that, perhaps, her command of English was not up to it.

  “You are the reader’s agent.” Heshberg had instructed.

  There were also questions relating to child-rearing, education, career choices; immigration, housing, and a variety of other issues as well as, always, those of a romantic nature. There was never any telling what the day’s mail would bring, and my father was often hard pressed in producing answers that were both informative and entertaining, which was what his editor expected of him.

  Despite the ordinariness of the majority of the letters the column received, there were always some letters, “gems,” my father called them, that echoed those of his own creation during the first week.

  “Most worthy editor,” one man, who signed himself “Tormented and Torn,” wrote, “I have been unfaithful to my beloved wife. Should I kill myself? Confess all and suffer the consequences? Or keep my own counsel and let God deal with me as He will?”

  My father was delighted. “My dear Tormented, by all means, put thoughts of suicide far from your mind. But at the same time, mend your ways. Being unfaithful once does not give you licence to be unfaithful again,” he replied in a column that quickly became known and was often quoted. “Bad enough the unfaithfulness to your wife. Do not compound the sin by being unfaithful to God.”

  He wrote more, jabbing furiously at the typewriter keys with the index fingers of both hands, but, on consideration, crossed the rest out. He was learning that the best answers should be brief. To matter-of-fact questions, factual answers were required, of course. But to questions of the heart, my father was realizing, it was best to be a bit enigmatic.

  In matters of the heart, my father already had some experience of his own. He had been involved in a love affair or two, and his heart had been broken. He had observed envy and jealousies cause rifts within his own family. He himself had been the victim of betrayal by a friend. He was no Solomon, he knew, but he felt confident and stimulated. And he felt the first stirrings of what soon would become a new novel moving within him.

  The envelope immediately announced itself as different from most of the others that crossed my father’s desk. For one thing, it was neatly typed – whereas most he received were handwritten, often crudely so, and in a mixture of English and Yiddish – and addressed fully to Yentel Schmegge/The Wisdom of Solomon, The Jewish World, and the complete address. Of even more interest was the return address: Prof. M.E. Bell, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Ohio, Columbus, Ohio. Columbus, my father knew, was some 150 miles away. He examined the envelope front and back and slit it open with interest.

  The letter was addressed not to “esteemed editor” or “worthy Yentel Schmegge,” but to “My dear Mrs. Schmegge (or is it Miss?).” Now my father really was interested.

  Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Madelaine Bell. I’m an assistant professor of anthropology here at the University of Ohio, in Columbus. Some of your columns have been forwarded to me by a friend in Cleveland, with rough English translations.

  I’m particularly interested in the letter from the woman who was in love with the Indian man. Do you recall it? I believe it was one of the early letters, and your reply was indeed Solomonic. I’d very much like to know what course this woman followed. Do you know how I can get in touch with her? I’d very much appreciate any help you can give me.

  My father, flabbergasted, paused in his reading to rub his eyes. Then he continued:

  As it happens, I will be in Cleveland next week for several days. May I call you at The World? I realize “Schmegge” may be a pseudonym, but I will call and ask for you and hope for the best.

  Until then, my very best regards.

  The signature intrigued my father. It was just the name, “Madelaine Bell,” with no title, neither “Professor” nor “Miss” nor “Mrs.” Bell, he knew, could be an English name, or it could be a shortened, Anglicized version of a Jewish name like Belzburg or Belowitz. In New York, he knew a number of Jewish men who called themselves Bell. He looked closer at the signature. The hand was feminine, yet clear and somehow bold, he thought. He imagined it was the signature of a woman who was independent – a professor! – who would yield to no man on matters of principle yet might happily yield to the pressure of arms and lips. This was exactly the sort of woman he himself was seeking. He read the letter again and a third time, and studied the signature further. He imagined the author of this letter was an attractive woman – but not wildly attractive – with long brown hair and intelligent eyes that could hold and return a gaze. Assistant professor meant that she could not be too old, and he imagined she would be no more than thirty, perhaps younger.

  Of course, what would such a woman see in a man who had dropped out of school after the fifth grade, whose education was mostly self-acquired? A man who fabricated letters for a newspaper column of dubious value? A man who she thought was a woman!

  My father shook his head and chided himself for his vanity, laughed at himself. Then he took a look at the date on the letter: it had been written on a Thursday. His eyes flicked to the calendar on the wall above the city desk: it was Tuesday, next week already. He went to the front office and told them he might be receiving a call, and if so to put it through immediately. Should he be unavailable for any reason, ask the caller to come down to the paper and ask for him.

  Madelaine Bell turned out to be very close to my father’s ideal. She was attractive – but not wildly so – with long brown hair that was done up neatly in what my father thought was called a French roll. She had an aquiline nose and dark, intelligent eyes, but her thick eyeglasses masked the intent of her look. She was shorter than my father liked, but well built, and very well dressed in a brown tweed suit, something my father had never seen on a woman. She was, he guessed, about thirty-five, just a few years older than my father. She wore no makeup or jewellery, including no wedding or engagement ring, but her fingernails, he noticed, were long and well cared for, and covered with a purplish-red polish. She didn’t look or sound even remotely Jewish.

  They sat across from each other in a delicat
essen a block away from The World’s offices, cups of tea in front of them.

  “You really thought I was a woman,” my father repeated, still amazed.

  “You’re very convincing,” Professor Bell said.

  “So convincing as to fool even someone as learned as you, a professor of anthropology! I’m pleased to know that.”

  The professor explained her interest in the correspondent in love with the Indian. She was involved in a study of the integration of immigrant Jews into American society. Inter-marriage between races and faiths of course played a large part. “This woman is exactly the sort of person I’m most interested in. I don’t have to tell you the symbolic value of her predicament. In love with an Indian, an original inhabitant of this land. Then there’s the lost tribe element, the possibility that, in terms of both faith and ethnicity, there is no actual intermarriage. This is invaluable. It could be emblematic for my entire study.” After a moment, when my father didn’t immediately reply, she added: “And the man’s desire to study Judaism, to return to roots he didn’t even know he had …”

  My father had thought hard about what to tell this woman. Much as he hated to lie, it was unthinkable to admit the fabrication. “I’m sorry to say I can’t really help you,” he began reluctantly. “The woman wrote no more than what we printed. There was no name on the letter, no return address on the envelope.”

  “And she hasn’t been in touch again?” Madelaine Bell asked hopefully.

  “No.” After a moment, my father added: “It’s been almost four months now, so it’s doubtful she will be. Who knows what may have become of her.”

  “Ah,” Professor Bell said. “I would dearly love to interview her.” She took off her eyeglasses and gently rubbed the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger, a gesture my father found endearing. When she removed her hand, her eyes, a lighter shade of brown than he had first thought, were warm and inviting. “I wonder if I could impose upon you for a favour?”

  “If I can be of service, of course.”

  “Perhaps you could insert a sentence or two in your column inquiring as to this woman’s whereabouts, ‘will the woman who wrote the letter on,’ I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten the date, ‘will the woman who wrote about her love affair with the Indian man please be in contact …’ Something along those lines. Would that be possible?”

  “Ah,” my father said. Professor Bell had not yet put her glasses back on and he found himself gazing into those warm brown eyes. He felt a moment of panic, as if he were being drawn into those pools of liquid, chocolatey brown, where he would surely drown, but it quickly passed. What harm could such a subterfuge do – other than, of course, to compound the original fabrication? Heshberg, if he even noticed, would find it amusing.

  In matters of the heart, my father found, each situation was different. His experience was useless for the situation he soon found himself in.

  After some weeks had passed, he was able to imagine writing this letter:

  Esteemed Yentel Schmegge –

  I find myself unexpectedly in need of your sage advice. I’m enmeshed in an impossible love affair. In fact, I have inextricably entangled myself in a web of deception for which I have less and less stomach every day. The Americans have a phrase for it: “painting oneself into a corner.”

  I am a young man from a good Jewish home. Our family was not religious – I would characterize myself as an agnostic – but Jewishness, if not Judaism, is important to me. Yet I am involved with a Gentile woman, a shiksa, for whom ethnicity and faith are merely subjects of interest, to be examined and studied rather than adhered to.

  She is a professional woman, a woman of learning, for whom education is of the highest importance. I have very little formal education, though I have done much to improve myself. She is part of a profession that follows a strict code of ethical conduct, that draws a sharp distinction between theory and data. I follow a trade that has high ideals but is essentially amoral.

  I love this woman and we are involved in a passionate affair that has gone beyond my wildest dreams. But, in order to advance this affair, I resorted to a number of falsehoods; now, to preserve the affair, I must pile falsehood upon falsehood. There is, I fear, a void at the centre. It is only a matter of time, I’m certain, until this woman, who is no fool, will see through the facade I’ve erected.

  So, I implore and beseech you, tell me, dear, wise Yentel Schmegge, what am I to do?

  My father had not really written the letter, but the situation and the question were real enough.

  He considered the question, and the one contained in a letter that had come that day, a real question, in a real letter, from a real reader: “My husband beats me and the children.

  What should I do?”

  He had been sitting at his desk in The World newsroom for an hour or more thinking of how to answer this question. It was late, and the newsroom was deserted. There was a bottle of whisky in the bottom drawer of his desk. He opened the drawer, took out the bottle and a small glass, and poured himself a drink.

  The only answer my father could think of for either dilemma – his own and that of his distressed correspondent – was the one he had written so often in the newspaper: “Follow your heart.” In the dim light of the empty newsroom, the inadequacy of the answer – and its falsity – loomed enormous.

  ALEXANDER MACLEOD

  MIRACLE MILE

  This was the day after Mike Tyson bit off Evander Holyfield’s ear. You remember that. It was a moment in history – not like Kennedy or the planes flying into the World Trade Center – not up at that level. This was something lower, more like Ben Johnson, back when his eyes were that thick, yellow colour and he tested positive in Seoul after breaking the world record in the hundred. You might not know exactly where you were standing or exactly what you were doing when you first heard about Tyson or about Ben, but when the news came down, I bet it stuck with you. When Tyson bit off Holyfield’s ear, that cut right through the everyday clutter. All the papers and the television news shows ran the exact same pictures of Tyson standing there in his black trunks with the blood in his mouth. It seemed like everything else that happened that day had to be related back to this moment, back to Mike and what he had done. You have to remember, this was before Tyson got the tattoo on his face, and the rematch with Holyfield was supposed to be his big comeback, a chance to go straight and be legitimate again. Nobody thinks about that now. Now, the only thing you see when you look back is Mike moving in for the kill, the way his cheek brushes up almost intimately against Evander’s face just before he breaks all the way through and gives in to his rawest impulse. Then the tendons in his neck bulge out and his eyes pop wide open and his teeth come grinding down.

  Burner and I were stuck in another hotel room, watching the sports highlights churn it around and around, the same thirty-second clip of the fight. It was like watching the dryer roll clothes. Cameras showed it from different angles and at different speeds and there were lots of close-ups of Evander’s mangled head and the chunk of flesh lying there in the middle of the ring. Commentators took turns explaining what was happening and what it all meant.

  The cleaning lady had already come and gone and now we had two perfectly made double beds, a fresh set of towels, and seven empty hours before it would be time for us to go. We just sat there, side by side, beds three feet apart, perched on top of our tight blankets like a pair of castaways on matching rafts drifting in the same current. Mike kept coming at us through the screen. You know how it gets. If you look at the same pictures long enough even the worst things start to feel too familiar, even boring. I turned the TV off but the leftover buzz hanging in the air still hurt my eyes.

  “Enough?” I asked, though I knew there’d be no response.

  Burner didn’t say anything. His eyes were kind of glossed over and he just sat there staring straight into the same dark place where the picture used to be. He’d been fading in and out for the last few hours.

  If I
have learned one thing through all this, it’s that you have to let people do what they’re going to do. Everybody gets ready in his own way. Some guys play their music loud, some say their prayers, and some can’t keep anything down and they’re always running to the toilet. Burner wasn’t like that. He liked to keep it quiet in the morning, to just sit around and watch mindless TV so he could wander off in his mind and come back any time he liked. One minute, he could be sitting there, running his mouth off about nothing, and then for no reason he’d zone out and go way down into himself and stay there perfectly silent for long stretches, staring off to the side like he was trying to remember the name of someone he should really know.

  It didn’t bother me. Over the years, Burner and I had been in plenty of hotel rooms together, and by now we had our act down. I didn’t mind the way he folded his clothes into perfect squares and put them into the hotel dresser drawers even when we were staying a single night, and I don’t think he cared about the way I dumped my bag into a pile in the corner and pulled out the things I needed. You have to let people do what they do. When you get right down to it, even the craziest ritual and the wildest superstition are based on somebody’s version of real solid logic.

  After fifteen minutes of nothing, Burner said, “I’m not going to wear underwear.”

  He was all bright and edgy now, and his eyes started jumping around the room. He licked his top lip every few seconds with just the tip of his tongue darting out.

  “No, not going to wear underwear.”

  He nodded his head this second time, as if, at last, some big decision had finally been made and he was satisfied with the result.

  I didn’t say anything. When he was this far down, Burner didn’t need anybody to keep up the other end of the conversation.

  “You feel faster without underwear, you know. But I only do it once or twice a year. Only for the big ones.”