The Hours Count (28 page)

Jake turned and looked at me. He ran his thumb across my cheek. “I’m not working
with
Ed,” he said.

“But I called the number you gave me. And Ed knew. Ed thought I’d called the number for him.”

“You must’ve told the operator your name, and she just assumed you were calling for Ed.”

I remembered how Jake had told me to ask for him and how I must’ve forgotten when I called. I’d somehow messed everything up. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t—”

He held up his hand. “Millie, you have nothing to be sorry about. Look, I should’ve . . . I tried to tell you as little as possible. I didn’t want you to know too much. It’s better that way . . . for you.” He looked me in the eye carefully. “Do you know how Ed came over to this country?”

I shrugged, confused we were starting all the way back there. “On a boat,” I said. “Just the way my grandparents did.”

“Yes . . . but those were different times. My grandparents came from Schedrin when my mother was a baby, when this country still
welcomed the Russian Jews.” In a different moment, I would have wanted to know more about Jake’s family right then. I wanted to see pictures of his grandparents and his parents, and the twin brother he lost, to understand who he was and where he came from, where Henry’s history began. “But that’s not what I mean,” Jake was saying now. “Did he ever tell you why he was able to come over in the forties, like that, during the war? When it was so much harder to emigrate.”

“No, I guess not.” I knew it had been a struggle, that Lena had called Ed’s residence in New York a blessing—a miracle, even—but I had never thought to question how or why it had happened. It simply had. And before I met him. Ed was in Russia and then he was here. And then he was married to me.

“The FBI recruited him,” Jake said. “He had some . . . ties in Russia that they were interested in getting closer to.”

“KGB?” I asked, thinking back to what Ethel had told me.

“Yes, KGB,” Jake said, his voice calm and even, the way it always was when he’d been helping David. “But a few years after the Bureau brought him here, they began to question which side he was really on. Who Ed was really working for.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, frustrated. “Until this morning, I thought Ed was an accountant.” I thought about the job he got fired from years ago before he went to work at Pitt—had there even been a job? The way Lena always complained that it was so hard for him here in America because he was Russian. The way Ethel had called him a liar . . .

“In 1947, the FBI began to suspect that Ed was a double agent.”

“A double agent?”

“That he was working for both the FBI and the KGB.” He
paused a moment to gauge my reaction, but I tilted my head, still confused. “Basically, we were unsure where and to whom his loyalties lie. And that’s why they first sent me to New York—to keep an eye on Ed.”

“And that’s why you offered David and me free therapy?” I said. “To keep an eye on Ed?”

“At first, yes.”

“And then?” I asked hesitantly.

“You know,” he said. But I stared at him. I wanted to hear him say it. “And then I got to know David. And you. You were so lonely, so isolated. And until we began talking, I didn’t even realize how much I was, too.” He kissed the side of my head gently and pulled me closer to him. “You’re so beautiful. So smart and kind and devoted to David. And from everything you’ve told me, I know Ed doesn’t love you and David the way you deserve to be loved. And it kills me.” His voice cracked a little, and I curled myself into him. I stayed there for a moment, just feeling the weight of his body against mine, imagining what it might be like if we actually were Dr. and Mrs. Zitlow, sleeping here for the night, on our way to somewhere else, somewhere new.

“So is Ed a double agent?” I asked quietly, resigned to know the truth now whatever it may be.

Jake leaned up and looked me in the eye. “Millie, I don’t want to upset you more than I already have, but I really do think Ed’s at the root of all of this. I think he orchestrated the whole thing with Gold and Greenglass and . . .” I swallowed hard, but I thought about what Ethel said, about Ed trying to get Julie involved with the KGB, and I nodded. “But I have no hard proof. And now there’s a problem.”

“What kind of problem?”

“David Greenglass,” Jake said. “He confessed. And he claims that Julius Rosenberg was the ringleader.”

“That can’t be right,” I said, thinking of everything Ethel told me earlier.

“Something doesn’t feel right to me here, but Greenglass is putting it all down in writing and I don’t have anything else to show them to the contrary.” He touched my cheek and leaned in a little closer. “I hate to ask you this, Millie, but can you tell me anything else about Ed? Anything that might suggest that Julius is innocent and that it’s Ed who’s behind all this?”

“Yes,” I said, and then I told Jake every suspicious thing I’d noticed about Ed. Once I started talking, I couldn’t stop. I told Jake about Ed’s phone call the night before the Catskills just before Russia exploded the bomb, about what Ethel had said about Ed talking to Julius about the KGB, about how Ed had been gone now for weeks—I didn’t know where—and even about that morning I followed Ed to what I thought was his new job on East Sixty-first Street.

“East Sixty-first Street?” Jake stopped me. “Seven East Sixty-first Street.”

“Yes,” I said, “I think that was it. Why? You know it?”

“The former Soviet consulate. We always suspected that was the KGB meeting place.”

“So Ed
is
guilty,” I murmured. “Are you going to arrest him?”

“No, what you’ve told me isn’t enough. I need proof. Something solid we could use in court. Greenglass is going to sign a confession and testify against Julius. And that’s something we can use.”

David Greenglass was going to sign a confession and testify
against his own brother-in-law in court? “Why would he do that?” I put my hand to my mouth as I thought of Ethel and her boys, and I wondered what would happen to them if Julie was arrested.

“I don’t know. Maybe Julius was the ringleader and Greenglass is telling the truth,” he said.

“No,” I said quickly, “I just don’t believe that.”

Jake nodded as if he didn’t believe it either. “Maybe Greenglass is just cutting a deal, trying to save himself.”

“But Jake.” I grabbed onto his arm, “you just can’t let them arrest Julie. What about Ethel and the kids?”

I suddenly felt so ill that I knew I was going to vomit. I stood and ran to the bathroom. I’d eaten nothing all day and yet I heaved into the toilet. All that came up was bile, leaving a sour taste in my mouth.

I lay on the cool marble bathroom floor and rested my head against the toilet. Then Jake came in and lifted me up. He helped me back to the bed, where I lay on my side, watching David sleep so peacefully on the settee. In his dreams, I thought he was there again, on the creek in a rowboat, all of us together, all of us happy.

Jake lay down behind me and wrapped his arms around me, his body so close to mine, so comforting, that I suddenly grew very tired. “I promise you,” he said, “everything is going to be okay. I’ll make sure of it.” I closed my eyes and leaned against him, feeling safe. I believed him. Nothing bad would happen if he said it was so. “Tell me about the baby.” Jake spoke into my hair, and I could feel the warmth of his words against my neck.

“He’s wonderful,” I said. “I named him Henry.”

“Henry . . . Oh, Millie.” Jake’s voice was thick with emotion. But
then he was quiet as if he needed a moment to reconcile the brother he lost with the baby—his son—who now shared his name. “What’s he like?” Jake finally asked.

“He’s calm and such a good sleeper. And beautiful. He has your eyes, just as I knew he would.”

“He looks like me?” Jake sounded startled as if it never occurred to him until right this moment that the baby might take after him.

“He looks so much like you. I think of you every time I look at him.” Jake pulled me tighter, and I could feel the weight of his body relaxing against mine.

“I can’t wait to meet him.” Jake rested his face against my curls, and his closeness made me feel whole in a way I hadn’t felt in so long, since that last night in the cabin. I could feel my body sliding into an easy sleep. I wanted to stay awake, but I was too tired now, too sore, I’d been through too much.

“You’ll help Julie, won’t you?” I murmured. “You’ll make sure nothing happens to him. We’ll find proof against Ed. And then we’ll be together.”

Jake didn’t answer, but he pulled me even tighter to him so our bodies felt like one—one person, one being.
This was the way it was supposed to feel,
I found myself thinking just as I was drifting off to sleep. And then I thought that when I awoke, Jake would be gone. He would already be off, on a train, and I wanted to tell him not to leave us again. But I was too tired to say another word.

I was right, of course. Jake was already gone the next morning when I woke up, sunlight filtering in through the window, David’s awake and silent face, staring, close to mine. There was a note on the pillow, which still held the slight impression of Jake’s head. I pulled David onto the bed with me, then ran my fingers across the pillow and picked up the note.

If you need me, call the number. Ask only for Dr. Zitlow, and say you’re Mrs. Zitlow.

All my love, Dr. Z.

I folded the note and sat up to put it in the pocket of my dress. As I moved, I grimaced in pain. But my head felt clearer after an uninterrupted night’s sleep, the first in many nights in which Henry hadn’t awoken me. Henry! How had I fallen asleep like that and forgotten all about Henry?

I left the hotel and rushed to my mother’s with David in tow. He
didn’t fight me today as we got on the subway. His body felt limp, deflated, as if he understood now that Jake could come back, and then he could leave us, again and again. Or maybe he was just hungry. I realized he hadn’t eaten dinner last night or breakfast this morning and on the way I stopped at Waterman’s and bought him a bagel. The counter was empty this morning as if Jake had never even been here at all.

I ran into my mother’s apartment, out of breath, and inside it was quiet and still. “Mother!” I called out, frantic. David sat down on the couch, where Bubbe Kasha had sat knitting yesterday, and he chewed his bagel carefully with a surprising calm.

“Shhh.” My mother walked out of the back bedroom and shut the door behind her gently. “The baby is asleep, and so is Bubbe Kasha.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to leave you like that last night.”

She raised her eyebrows. “The FBI man called me and told me you weren’t feeling well. He said you’d gone back to your apartment to sleep, that you’d be back here in the morning.”
Jake.
I wanted to close my eyes and remember the way it had felt to sleep so close to him last night. But my mother put her hand on my cheek. “Mildred, whatever trouble have you gotten yourself into?”

I thought about telling her the truth, all of it. That I wasn’t in love with Ed and that I never had been, that living with him was a quiet kind of hell. That I was going to leave him very soon and begin a new life with Jake and the boys in the Catskills. That Ed was not just a bad husband but, it seemed now, a bad man, that he could be responsible for getting us all killed. If the Russians were to send a bomb across the ocean right now, it might be Ed’s fault. But instead I told her, “I’m not in any trouble, Mother. I promise.”

“Then what would the FBI want with you?”

“They wanted to talk to Ed,” I said, reasoning that that wasn’t entirely a lie.

“So he’s the one in trouble?” She frowned at me. “Lena told me it has been very difficult for him, that he is hiding now because there are so many problems with him being Russian.” She paused. “And Lena said they are looking into Ed’s boss—your neighbor—the one whose wife watched David when you were in the hospital.”

I wondered if Ed told Lena more than he’d told me. Or maybe he’d told her the same thing, that Julie was going to fry. Had Jake answered me last night when I’d asked him to help Julie? Now I couldn’t remember.

“Maybe you should stay here with us,” my mother said, “until all of this is straightened out. The tenant upstairs moved out a few weeks ago. You could even have your old room back. And I’ll be just downstairs, to help out with the baby.”

Though I appreciated her kindness, I was eager to get back to Knickerbocker Village to make sure Ethel was all right. “I’ll be okay, I promise.” I wondered how she would feel about me after I left the city, after I left Ed. I wondered if she would hate me then. I wanted to tell her not to, to tell her the whole story, as much of it as I knew, but I began to speak and then couldn’t finish.

“What?” my mother asked.

“Nothing.” I put my hand on hers and patted it gently. “Thank you for taking care of Henry last night.”

WHEN I GOT BACK
to Knickerbocker Village, I paused before getting off the elevator on the eleventh floor. I glanced down the
hallway at Ethel’s apartment, wanting to go there and talk to her, to warn her that everything was much more serious than she thought yesterday. That her brother seemed to have taken his anger over their recent business feud and had done something incomprehensible with it. But two unfamiliar men were waiting in our hallway, milling about as if they were looking for something they’d lost, and I remembered what Ethel had said about staying away, about the FBI watching them.

So, instead, I walked to my own apartment, went inside and got the children settled, and then I picked up the telephone and dialed Ethel’s number.

“Hello,” she answered curtly.

“Ethel, it’s me, Millie.” I spoke softly, though I wasn’t sure why. “I’ve heard—”

“You shouldn’t have called,” she said quite brusquely, cutting me off.

“I know, but, look, I need to talk to you. I’m worried for you and Julie. Can you come over? Or can we meet somewhere later?”

She didn’t say anything for a moment, and then she said, “Millie, I told you I can’t. Julie and I will be just fine.” The words were short, clipped, devoid of emotion. “Please don’t call back again.”

Then I heard the click as she hung up the phone.