A Blessing on the Moon (17 page)

Quickly, I reopen the book and turn again to the
K
’s to scour its pages for Ida’s name.

“CHAIM SKIBELSKI!”

I cringe to hear my own name sounded through the crackling static of the hotel’s antiquated amplification system.

“CHAIM SKIBELSKI! PLEASE MEET YOUR PARTY AT THE REGISTRATION DESK.”

Katz, Kalzki, Kilzinski, Kalinski, Koslowitz.
My fingers fly through the listings.

“CHAIM SKIBELSKI, YOUR PARTY IS WAITING FOR YOU AT THE REGISTRATION DESK.”

What an idiot I am! This entire enterprise is nothing but foolishness!
Kalmanski, Karliner, Koslowitz.
To have slipped away from Ester with an excuse so lame I’m embarrassed to even mention it here—I told her that I wanted to inquire after the ingredients of a rum toddy I supposedly drank earlier in the bar, raving about the concoction at such length that I’m sure she either suspected my sincerity or thought me a complete ignoramus—only to be standing now at the registration desk, publicly sneaking through a forbidden book, while my name is blasted all about me in the air!

But Ida always had this effect on me.

I was a fool for her. I longed to marry her, at any cost. Of course, she hardly noticed me the day we were introduced, but from that day on, I couldn’t get her from my mind. I was only seventeen, Ida fifteen. What was I doing, thinking about marriage? Still, I couldn’t help it. Her father did business with mine, and there were many opportunities for me to see her, opportunities to impress her, although nothing I did seemed to catch her attention in the least.

My sisters whispered to me that Ida was desperately in love with Oldak, a poet who also gave her violin lessons. If her father knew, or
even her mother, my sisters told me, they would certainly disapprove, and there was no hope for the match. Despite his reputation, to Ida’s prosperous parents, Oldak was a wastrel, a luftmensch. His passions were too fiery, his pocketbook too thin.

I myself wrote poems to her. Or at least I tried. Each morning I tore them to bits. There was nothing dashing or romantic about me. To her, I’m sure, I seemed less interesting than a clod of dirt, nothing more than the gawky brother of her friends.

Ida was seventeen when Oldak disappeared. It wasn’t clear whether he had been arrested or whether he had fled to avoid such an arrest. No one knew, although we all suspected he was guilty of treasonable activities against the Czar’s regime. Whatever the case, his disappearance had a disastrous effect on Ida. She ceased to eat. Her already pale face turned paler. Her high cheekbones became more prominent as her face grew thin. Her black eyes lost all their shining mischief.

Her parents were distraught and did not know what to do. Finally they decided that what their lovesick daughter needed was a husband. Surely it was time, none of us were getting any younger. A marriage would take her mind off politics and romance and the other useless pastimes with which they had unthinkingly indulged her.

Searching for a suitable groom, her father asked my father to inquire of me if I would consider marrying her. Taking me aside one day, on our way to a mill, my father explained to me about Ida’s hypersensitivity, her sadness, the difficulties of a poetic soul. A large dowry was being offered, he told me, so there would be at least some compensation.

“It’s as easy to love a rich girl as a poor one, nu?” my Papa said.

As for me, I couldn’t believe my luck and was beside myself with joy, although I managed to conceal it, asking my father blandly for details concerning where we would live, the two of us, and how we would manage. Even if Ida didn’t love me, I thought, she might grow to. And at least now, there was a chance.

Ida, Ida, Ida Kaminski.
Without my realizing it, my finger had stopped upon her name. How long I have left it there, absently tapping, I cannot say. Quickly, I jot down her room number, 519, on the back of an envelope with the Hotel Amfortas’ letterhead printed on it in a raised blue script.

According to the registrar, she is traveling with her daughter,
my
daughter, the child we had lost.

Although Ida was not one for sweets, or so I remember, I purchase a box of chocolates and a dozen pale roses from one of the shops in the hotel’s corridor of stores. For a moment, I consider buying a bottle of champagne, to celebrate, but perhaps it is too presumptuous a gesture. It’s been years since we’ve seen each other, not even taking into account the time that has passed since my death. I don’t want to appear too pushy, too familiar. Neither do I wish to play the suitor, only to be rebuffed. I have remarried, after all, and am on holiday here with my
family. Again, perhaps I didn’t hear right or was not paying close enough attention when our Rabbis spoke of it, but I believe they said a righteous woman would be the footstool for her husband in the World to Come, if he were also righteous. But what of two wives? In any case, Ester will not be pleased.

I reach into the pocket of my nice new coat before realizing I have no money. The shopkeeper’s eyes are tired, his face drawn. An old man in a velvet skullcap, he had been on the point of closing shop when I entered, but has patiently waited behind his stand while I shillyshallied over what to buy and what not, trying to recall Ida’s tastes and the things that might please or displease her.

She was so careful about everything, the clothes she wore, the food she ate. No sweets or cakes but only wholesome foods. She wore a handmade dress to our wedding, one she had sewn for herself. And I was touched to see the care she took with it. After all, I was not entirely certain this was as happy a day for her as it was for me. She could have come in rags, for all I knew, carrying weeds.

“Is it possible to put this on my bill?” I ask the shopkeeper, abashed to find myself penniless.

“I didn’t mean to rush you,” he says deferentially.

“I’m new here,” I apologize, “and I’m afraid I have no local currency.”

“It’s just tonight, you see, I have my appointment for the steam.” This he says with an air of amused embarrassment, as though treating himself to the pampering steam were somehow shameful or unmanly.

“Of course,” I say, “of course.”

“It doesn’t come too often.”

“Forgive me for keeping you.”

“But you needn’t hurry,” he says, rolling down his sleeves and removing and folding his apron. “We can put the amount on your bill, of course, Reb Skibelski.” And he records my name and my room number into a small accounting pad he keeps next to his cash box, totaling my purchases and recording them there.

Through the meshed cage door of the lift, I see him turning out his shop lights. He has traded his velvet slippers for hard leather shoes and, holding his jacket over his arm, searches in his pants for the keys to lock his door.

The lift begins to rise.

The thought occurs to me that, since arriving here, I may actually have seen my daughter. And a thrilling, slightly disturbing thought it is. I have no idea if she is still an infant, she was only hours old when she died. Or has she grown up since her death? I haven’t been dead long enough to know how these things work. In any case, there are many infants here, as well as many girls and young women, any one of whom could possibly be my daughter. Have we already spoken? Or even caught each other’s eye, never knowing whose face we were looking into? Probably not. Even if she is a young woman, nearly grown, would her mother really let her wander the hotel by herself, unchaperoned? Certainly not! At Ida’s side or, if an infant, in her arms, it’s likely it would be Ida I would have noticed first. After all, I recognized
her in the hall, and even then, I saw her only fleetingly, not really for more than a glance. Still, I knew her immediately. If it was actually she. But why else would she be listed in the hotel register? Of course, it doesn’t make sense that she registered under her maiden name. I can’t say now whether she held a baby in her arms when I spied her from the lift. Funny the details one takes in, the things one doesn’t. I’ll invite them to breakfast for tomorrow and, there, introduce them to the others, Ida to Ester, Ester to Ida, my daughter to her half-sisters and half-brother. Marek will certainly have to swallow his words then, the rascal! With Ida’s presence, who can doubt this is the World to Come, that we have, indeed, fallen into Paradise?

The lift attains the fifth floor. I’m perspiring so, I’m afraid I may have melted the chocolates. I should never have gripped them so tightly against my arm, and now I hold them away from the heat of my body. The lift doesn’t stop evenly with the floor of the hall and I trip with my first step out. I struggle to regain my balance, feeling ridiculous, holding my chocolate box and the flowers for balance, like an acrobat falling from his rope. Behind me, I imagine I hear the liftboy smirk, although perhaps he merely coughed.

The hall is empty and, as I reach room 519, it occurs to me that I am a fool to have come this late. Surely, they are sleeping. There is no light beneath the door. Ida hated being woken in the middle of the night. Or was that Ester? Of course, who doesn’t hate being woken in the middle of the night? I myself am not particularly fond of the experience.

Still, despite my misgivings, I rap softly, with a crooked knuckle, against the wood.

“Ida? Ida? Ida?” I whisper. “It’s your Chaim.”

It’s impertinent, I know, but how long must I wait before seeing her?

I press my ear against the door. I cannot hear anyone stirring.

I rap again. The light tapping cracks like thunder inside the quiet hallway. God forbid I have gotten the wrong room! Or even another Ida Kaminski! Nothing about this enterprise is certain. I’m suddenly afraid of disturbing her neighbors. How humiliating to be caught here at her door and have to explain myself to them. What was I thinking?

Creeping back down the hallway, quickly, quickly, my flowers wilting and with my melted sweets, I reach the lift and summon it hurriedly, pressing the button on the wall.

Tomorrow is another day. In the light of morning, everything will be clearer.

I’ll send a note to Ida first thing, a discreet inquiry as to her situation, announcing my presence here. Was I really so boorish as to think I could burst in on her without even so much as a warning! It might have sent her into shock, seeing me. No, instead, I’ll arrange to meet with her, accompanied by my family. That way, no one will be compromised, not Ida, not Ester or myself.

The liftboy rises out of nowhere, like an actor through a trapdoor on a stage.

What a sight I must be. Seeing this haggard fool before him, he
hides his smirk behind his hand and conceals it with an artificial cough. So he did smirk! And he did cough! And why not? Who wouldn’t laugh at me, a corpse courting his long-dead bride? Ridiculous!

I step in and stand beside him. He shifts his levers and, together, we ascend, side by side, to my proper floor.

Ester opens the door, barring my way. Her white and grey hair has fallen from its bun, framing her fleshy face with its thin wisps. Her robe has come open and her belly is big and white beneath her slip, with great swells of dimpled fat. With coarse, reddened hands, she pulls the folds of her robe across her granny’s breast.

She turns her broad back on me without a word. But anything is better than looking into these angered eyes. Not knowing what to do with them, I had leaned the flowers and the candy at a door across the hall with a note, “From a distant admirer,” so at least I did not have to explain to Ester.

Moving past her, through the suite, I unbutton my vest and shirt, exposing my own large belly to the air. In the bedroom, I allow my pants to drop to my ankles, keys jangling in my pockets. Sitting on the bed, I remove my socks. For no reason at all, I place them on my hands. They look like puppets in a children’s play about two monks. I take them off and throw them at the corner.

I dress in the nightgown and the tasseled cap the chambermaids left for me, when they turned down our bed. There’s a fresh pair of undergarments inside the chest of drawers. I crawl under the covers and sit up, against the headboard, waiting for Ester. When she doesn’t come, I call to her.

“Esterle?”

“A minute, a minute!”

I get out of bed and, in slippers, pad into the sitting room, where I find her, ironing out our wrinkled clothes.

My suit now hangs on a hanger without its recently acquired creases.

“Ester,” I say. “What are you doing?”

“What am I doing?” she says. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

She throws her thick body into the work, moving the hot iron across a board that folds out from the wall.

“Leave it for the maids,” I say.

“Go to bed, Chaim.”

“But Esterle—”

“Now, Chaim, don’t argue with me! Go to bed!”

She turns her dress over on the board and begins ironing its back.

I return to the cold bed and stare up at the ceiling. I’m more than half asleep when I feel the mattress tilt and sink beneath her weight. Without disturbing my covers, she pulls the blankets over herself and rolls her substantial body into mine. Brief kisses are clumsily exchanged between us in the dark. She pats my chest paternally and I am again asleep, baking in her heat.

I wake up, uncertain of the time. I reach for Ester but she isn’t there. “Esterle,” I call, sitting up. My first thought is she must be ironing again, or cleaning the silverware, but no light shines in from the other room. Running my hand across her sheets, I find that they are cold. I switch on the electric lamp and stare at my pocketwatch, which I have left on the small stand beside my bed, until my sleep-filled eyes will themselves to focus.

Four o’clock in the morning. Insane! Where could she be at such a time?

On the stand near her side of the bed I see the small blue appointment card. Handwritten on it in an elaborate cursive script are her names
Ester Blumenfeld Skibelski,
and the time of her appointment,
2:00
AM
.

Certainly, she should have returned by now.