Among the Living (18 page)

Jacob stared out at the street; his face had aged in the last week. “Calvin’s got to get past it. Ain’t doing no one no good.”

Goldah said nothing. Another car drove past and Jacob sidestepped the spray before heading for the store. Goldah took a last pull on his cigarette and flicked it to the curb, intending to follow, when a car pulled up. The passenger window rolled down but there was no one there.

“Mr. Goldah?”

Goldah bent low and saw Art Weiss leaning across the seat.

Weiss said, “I thought it was you. Do have a few minutes to take a drive?”

Goldah looked back to the store and saw Jacob watching him from the door. The boy really had become something so much more than a boy in the last weeks. He nodded to Goldah and mouthed the word
Go.

Goldah turned back to Weiss. “I think I can manage a few minutes.”

“Good. Hop in.” Weiss pulled the car out. He offered Goldah a cigarette and they both lit up. “You like Americans? The cigarettes, I mean.”

“I do,” said Goldah. “They’re very nice.”

“Good.” Weiss took a pull and said easily, “A little strange pulling up like that, I know. I hope I didn’t alarm you.”

“Not at all.”

“Good. Then I think I’m going to get this out of the way right at the start. I don’t think I’m going to care how close you get to my daughter, Mr. Goldah. It’s not that whatever makes her happy makes me happy — that’s just never the case and, if you ever have children, you’ll understand — but I don’t think I’m going to care.”

Goldah felt an odd sense of déjà vu. From his first go-round with Mrs. Weiss, he knew to say nothing.

“What?” said Weiss. “You’ve got nothing to say at all?”

Goldah tried to mask his surprise. “I … didn’t think you were expecting me to answer.”

“I’m not my wife, Mr. Goldah.”

There was something refreshing in the way Weiss laid things out.

“No, of course. So … I make Eva happy?”

“Why don’t we just play this straight. We both know the girl’s in love with you. Has she introduced you to Julian?”

Goldah regretted having made light of things. “I haven’t met him, no.”

“Good. At least she’s being cautious there.” Weiss took a turn.

“Can I ask,” said Goldah, “why is it you’re not going to care?”

“Oh, I’m going to care, Mr. Goldah. I care right now. The grand history of Jews in Savannah has been all about that caring. And I know it probably doesn’t make much sense to you, given what you’ve been through. I can’t imagine the SS officer who put you on that train asked which synagogue you were affiliated with. I know that. And I know it must make us seem rather small in your eyes, and maybe I’m not so sure I wouldn’t agree with you.”

Goldah had never expected this kind of candor. “I’ve tried to understand.”

“I know you have. That’s what makes you a remarkably decent fellow. But I still have Mrs. Weiss at home and I won’t say there isn’t a part of me — a very
big
part of me — that doesn’t agree with her one hundred percent. So here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to write a column for me. I haven’t figured out what that might be, but you’re going to do it. You see, I’ve tried to be affable with my daughter about getting you to agree, but that doesn’t seem to have made an impact. And maybe I appreciate your reticence because of that decency, but it’s not going to work for any of us. So you’ll write for me, then something a bit more after that, and then — because you
do
make my daughter happy, and if you ever have children, you’ll realize that’s the
only
thing that truly matters — we’ll find a way to keep everyone in line. Maybe not happy the way the
two of you are, but well enough. So you see, Mr. Goldah, I can go on just like my wife. Must be why we’ve been so happy together for all these years.”

Somehow they were back at the store. Weiss put the car in park.

“It’s a damn good thing you’re such a fine writer, Mr. Goldah. Everyone would think me a fool not to use you. Otherwise I’m not sure how we would have squared this. You have yourself a pleasant day.”

At dinner Goldah mentioned he might be interested in doing some writing for the newspaper. Pearl was in a surprisingly festive mood, and not just for his appearance at the table. He hadn’t realized it was more than a week since his last dinner with them — a fact Pearl blithely let slip once or twice — but there wasn’t the usual silence after each dollop of guilt. These were simply the facts, and she seemed to be holding on to one of her own as if it might change the world entire with its arrival.

Jesler paused at the mention of the newspaper. “The sort of stuff you wrote in Prague?” He reached for the bread.

“I’m not sure,” said Goldah. “It’s all very tentative.”

“Well, that’s good, isn’t it? Get to meet some new folks. People who share your interests.”

Pearl said, “He said it was tentative, Abe. And speaking of the newspaper” — the moment had come, the heavens and the earth conceived — “what a coincidence, but you’ll never guess. They’re planning on doing an article on the store, Ike. Abe and you and the expansion. Isn’t that exciting?”

“The what?” Goldah said.

Pearl pressed on: “Now there’ll be no time for distractions for the two of you, will there? Maybe I’ll even come down and lend a hand. Get my picture in the paper. Isn’t that exciting?”

Goldah tried to gauge his own reaction by Jesler’s but it was impossible to discern a singular emotion in the man’s face. The best he could decipher was confusion and that seemed the wrong approach entirely.

“Congratulations,” he managed.

“To you, too, Ike. To you, too,” Pearl said. “You’re a part of this now. A big part. I know you’ve been finding your legs, but now there’s something bigger on the horizon. And we couldn’t be happier that you’re such an essential part of it, could we, Abe?”

Jesler continued to gaze blank-faced across at his wife. He then turned to Goldah. “So what kind of writing are you thinking about?”

“Abe,” Pearl said. “I just mentioned the big news. We can talk about that later.”

“What kind of writing?”

“Abe,” she said, like a slap on the wrist. “Some little thing Ike might be writing — he might not even have time for it now, will you, Ike?”

Jesler continued, “Is it something you might want to think about as a regular thing?”

“Abe Jesler! I’m talking to you!”

Jesler looked across at his wife. He said calmly, “We’re done talking about that, Pearl. I think you know that. And I’m very interested in what Ike might be finding for himself.”

“ ‘What Ike —’ ” The words caught on her tongue. Her disbelief quickly gave way to something darker. Goldah had never seen a smile with such tightness and immediacy, as
if her every muscle from cheek to jowl had been pressed in starch. Sitting above it was something more familiar, rage, constrained in the narrow slits of her eyes and indiscriminate in its focus.

“I see,” she said with hollow pleasantness. “You’re interested in what he might be finding for himself. Tell me, Ike, are they wanting you to write about your experience in the camps? I’m sure Savannah readers would be most interested in that.”

“Watch yourself, Pearl,” Jesler said easily. “You don’t want to do this now.”

“Do what, Abe? Tell me, what is it that I’m doing? Or should I call Mrs. Eva De la Parra and ask her why her father is throwing a bone to Ike? How embarrassed that man must be, a little Czech Jew and his daughter, and here he is trying to wash it away. Would that be better, Abe? Would it?”

Goldah said, “Perhaps I should —”

“No, Ike,” said Pearl. “You and Abe obviously have a great deal to talk about that doesn’t concern me.”

Jesler said, “Pearl, you need to calm yourself down.”

“It must feel quite grand to have come into our home and feel so much more welcome elsewhere. It’s only a livelihood and an understanding that we wanted to give you. But I’m sure the chance to write again — that must fill
all
the holes that have been left. And so very fortunate to have it be the father of the girl you’ve taken up with.”

“I said careful, Pearl.”

“The girl and her little boy.” There was a meanness now in her voice. “What a
wonderful
little family they have there. Just perfect. She gets to have a little boy and Ike —” Pearl stopped herself. Tears now commingled with the rage. The whole face was shattering as she stood. “I’m afraid I don’t have much of
an appetite for dessert. Mary Royal stopped by today. A Key lime. She said she’d heard you enjoy that, Ike. I’m sure you do. I’ll leave you to it.”

Her eyes moved haphazardly along the table — to Jesler, to Ike, to Jesler again — until, with a sudden purpose, she stepped around the table. It looked as if she might move past Goldah but, in an act of desperate compassion, she leaned over, placed her arms around his shoulders, and kissed him on the top of his head.

“You’re a good man, Ike Goldah. A good man. I need you to know that. That’s all. I just love you so much.” She straightened herself up and spoke through the tears. “I’m feeling a bit tired, Abe, so I’ll say my good nights. You boys enjoy your talk.”

She moved through to the hall. Goldah waited until he heard her on the steps before saying, “Do you need to go after her?”

Jesler listened, waiting for the sound of their bedroom door to close. His eyes were distant when he turned back to the table. “She’ll be all right.” He looked at Goldah. “She’s not far wrong on Weiss, though. He’s not doing this for you. You do know that, don’t you?”

“I do. Yes.”

“Rare that a man does something for someone else just to do it.”

Goldah knew Jesler was wrong; he just happened to be right this time out. Goldah said, “I’ve been thinking —”

Jesler stopped him with a long breath in and turned to Goldah. “You’ve been thinking about getting a place on your own. I know. I’m afraid I haven’t done you much help with that tonight.”

For the second time in the last few hours, Goldah tried not to show his surprise. “Yes.”

“It’s not as if I haven’t been encouraging it. I think that might be the right choice.”

“I’m sorry for this.”

“For what? For getting on with things? I wish I had some of that myself.”

“You’ve been —”

“I know. We’ve been kind. Terribly, terribly kind. It starts to sound a little empty after a time, don’t you think?” Jesler smoothed out the tablecloth in front of him and said, “So here’s what we’ll do. I’ll help you with Pearl and you help me with a little something down at the newspaper. You think we can work that out?”

At just after eleven p.m. Goldah lifted the latch on the Weisses’ side-yard gate — as he had been instructed — and pushed through. The whole thing seemed slightly foolish, juvenile even, but Eva had sounded so wonderfully mysterious on the phone, what choice did he have? Even so, he kept close to the fence and checked to see whether the bedroom lights were on upstairs. The house was dark, the crucial parties asleep, he imagined. He had never been to the Weiss home, so coming at it for the first time in this flanking maneuver seemed to him somehow more audacious.

He inched along the grass — unable to see more than a few feet in either direction — when his shoe hit cement. It was a puzzling sensation. He tried to find his bearings but the tree cover was too dense: not even a bit of moonlight to help him along. He took another step, and he heard Eva say, “Careful.”

Goldah strained to see her through the darkness but it was no good. “You have me at a disadvantage.”

“I know.”

“So we just stand here?”

“I’m not standing.”

There were any number of things that passed through his mind — first and foremost the best route back to the gate — but Eva turned on a bright light, and the Weisses’ swimming pool suddenly appeared some twenty feet from him. She was sitting on a lounge chair in her swimsuit. She held up a pair of black trunks for him, and said, “You wanted American. It doesn’t get more American than this.”

Goldah’s instinct told him to look back at the house. He expected a light to turn on at any moment.

“They’re out at the cottage on Tybee,” Eva said. “With Julian. They give me a night to myself every so often.”