Among the Living (33 page)

Jesler had been through the desk drawers, the filing cabinets, even the safe by the back wall. Nothing in any of them mentioned Hirsch by name, save for a page here and there that made vague reference to an import/export company out of Baltimore called Hoover and Son. It was Hirsch’s coy nod to the storefront operation in Atlanta. Hirsch had been very clear on its necessity: “If someone should ask, and God forbid, Abe, I’m not saying anyone would, but if someone should — someone with a badge or a cheap suit or smelling of Pinaud and Barbicide, you know the type — you need something … something official-looking to wave in a face. Baltimore? Please. Who’s schlepping all the way up to Baltimore? They look, you’re fine, end of story.” The pages were untouched; nothing had gone missing.

How, then, had Thomas mentioned Hirsch by name over the phone?

He moved back to the drawers — along with his third glass of whiskey — and anxiously started sifting through a stack of receipts when he saw Jacob standing the other side of the desk. Jesler didn’t know how long the boy had been there or what he might have overheard — Jesler had been mumbling to himself — but Jacob continued to stand there.

“Hey,” Jesler said, trying to sound offhand. “I’m in the middle of something here. You can see that, can’t you?” He moved down to the second drawer. “I told you yesterday, we’ll get to whatever it is once I sort this through. Okay? If it’s about the pay” — Jesler began to flip through the pages of last week’s Jacksonville run — “I said I can do a nickel, maybe a dime more an hour … we can talk about it, but right now … why don’t you go and grab yourself a Coke and I’ll see you later.” Jesler set the stack haphazardly on the desk. He started in on the central drawer and noticed the state the boy was in: hair mussed, T-shirt stained and dingy. Jesler said, “You get yourself in a fight or something?”

Jacob arched his slim shoulders. He meant to show defiance but the awkwardness of the gesture came across as the too-eager pose of a raw recruit awaiting orders. He said coldly, “When’d you start giving Raymond a percent?”

Venom, in the voice of one so young, carries less menace than histrionics. Had Jesler been a little more clearheaded he might have recalled the way genuine hatred manifests itself in a deeper, more resonant timbre. Instead, all he felt was his own frenzy melting away in the face of it. He said, “What are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about. Raymond’s in on some deal and I ain’t a part of it.”

Jesler stared across at the boy — at the pale skin and the probing eyes — and saw the pieces slowly fall into place: How they lined up was of no consequence; he knew Raymond would never have said anything. Neither would Ike. Who else could it be? Jesler thought: The boy — it’s been the boy all along who’s brought me to this. He expected his own voice to erupt in anger but his words came calmly when he spoke: “It’s not ‘ain’t,’ son. It’s ‘I’m
not
a part of it.’ We’ve got to get that right. You need to keep working on it.”

“I said I know Raymond’s getting a percent. I said I know that.”

“Yes, I heard you. We still need to work on the language. Who’d you tell, son?”

Jacob refused to buckle. “Tell about what?”

“Let’s not play it that way, okay? No reason to waste either of our time. About whatever it is you think you know … Raymond, the docks, Atlanta.” Jesler saw the shoulders inch ever so slightly downward; he knew this was well beyond the boy’s grasp. “You make a choice like that you’ve got to live with what comes from it. You talked to the newspaperman, didn’t you? You told him things you thought you knew. It’s all right. I just need to know what you said. You want a glass of water? You need to sit down?” The boy was angling his shoulders back but his chest had begun to shake. “When did you talk to him, son?”

Jacob stared straight ahead.

Jesler said, “That newspaperman’s got ideas of what’s going on here and he needs someone to tell him he’s got it right, even if that someone doesn’t know all of it. Which you don’t. But that was to protect you. It’s always been to protect you.”

Jacob had never looked quite so young as he did now. Whatever hardness he had crafted from a man’s expression faded into the gentle features of a boy — the eyebrows too delicate to sustain a glare, the jaw too smooth to express contempt.

Jesler said, “Your percent, son … that comes when you’re sixteen. It’s how I set it up last year when I worked it through with the lawyer, but that’s not something you needed to know about.” He saw the instant of shock and remorse register in the boy’s face, the tears beginning to form; to his credit, Jacob refused to break down. “I don’t have a son of my own
and … well … I’m not likely to have one unless Mrs. Jesler knows something I don’t. You see what I’m saying? As for Raymond, he’s a grown man and maybe I wasn’t always thinking about him and his future, but that’s not a concern of yours. It’s all right, son. My mind’s been elsewhere so I guess I didn’t see it. And maybe I’m a little relieved to find it’s been you.”

Jesler stood and moved around the desk. Jacob was trying so hard to keep himself upright. Maybe it would have been better, thought Jesler, to have railed away at him, raised a hand. Anger has a way of keeping up defenses, but comfort …

“I know what you know,” said Jesler, “and I know what you think you know, and there’s a difference. But son …” He let the boy lean into his chest. He held him there and let him weep. “You’re going to need to tell me what you told him.”

Eva ducked into Pinkussohn’s pharmacy to pick up a prescription for her mother. She had given herself an endless list of these little tasks, anything to keep her mind from ticking through the permutations that seemed always to leave her drifting and alone. Not alone, of course — she would always have Jules — but the waiting for her husband, Charles, had carried something noble with it, an idea of sacrifice or the will of God or whatever other comforts people had thrown her way. But here … this was simply a slow grinding down of hope until, with a little sputter, she knew Ike would come to her and say how sorry he was, but …

Eva was so focused on not running into anyone she might know that she nearly missed Mrs. Jesler and the Posner woman sitting at a table by the window. They were having coffee, and a few cookies were on a plate between them. They looked happy. Eva knew she could slip by unnoticed, but she
thought: Why not put an end to it now, save herself that miserable goodbye from Ike? How much easier on everyone.

She stepped over and said, “Hello there, Mrs. Jesler. Miss Posner. Do you mind if I sit for a few moments?”

Pearl had no choice but to be gracious. Malke’s face made it more difficult to gauge her expression.

Eva said in German, “I’m so sorry we haven’t had a chance to meet before this, Miss Posner.” She turned to Pearl. “Is it all right if I speak to Miss Posner in her native tongue? I don’t mean to be rude.”

Pearl was only too glad to be kept at a distance. “Of course … I didn’t know you spoke … yes of course. I’ll order us some more coffees.” Pearl called over the waitress and Eva said to Malke, “I see you’re feeling much better. That’s good.”

“You speak German,” Malke said without a hint of appreciation.

“I studied it at college. I wanted to help with the war effort if I could.”

“How very ambitious of you. Do you speak German with Yitzi, then … with Ike?”

“No. We haven’t done that. I think he enjoys working on his English.”

“Yes.”

“You’ll forgive me, Miss Posner, if I speak plainly. I don’t imagine either of us has much small talk for the other.”

“No. I don’t think we do.”

The coffees arrived. Pearl quickly moved to the bowl of sugar, the cream, another cookie.

Eva said, “I wasn’t aware of your connection to Ike before you arrived. I don’t mean to say that he kept it from me —”

“He thought I was dead,” said Malke. “Yes, I understand that.”

Eva hadn’t expected this bluntness; somehow it made things easier. “I also don’t want you to think that what happened between Ike and myself was in any way frivolous. A number of people were quite against it when it began.”

“Yes, I’ve heard that.”

“We’re very different communities here.”

“I suppose you might see it that way, yes.”

“It goes back a good deal of time.”

“Does it? Do you want me to say then that you were both very brave to pursue it? How very brave of you.”

Candor had quickly moved to something quite different. Only Eva’s decency kept her seated. “Not at all,” she said with quiet restraint. “It was hardly brave compared to what the two of you have been through.”

“Please … please don’t do that, miss. You think what you’re saying is compassionate but it’s really pity or worse. I don’t mind at all … truly, I don’t. Pity has never been a problem for me. Perhaps Yitzi finds it comforting. I don’t. But I wouldn’t want you to convince yourself later that pity was the reason things went as they did.”

Eva found herself fighting off a moment’s dizziness. She had come over only to make things easier for Ike — how, she hadn’t thought through — but now that instinct had passed. When she spoke, it was for herself alone.

“I don’t pity you, Miss Posner, I admire you, although I’m sure you’ll tell me how that offends you as well. But it’s not you I care about. I simply need to know that what you’re doing is for him and not to convince yourself that his choices make yours seem like the right ones. That would be truly pitiful. No, let me finish. To love him as I do is to be willing to lose him as long as I know there’s something inside you that I will never be able to give him. Something he himself can’t understand
now, but that you, because of your love for him, know to be true and will show him one day.
That,
and that alone, is the reason things will go as they go.”

If Eva saw a crack in Miss Posner’s otherwise flawless stare she chose to ignore it. She felt a first flush in her own cheeks but refused to give in. Instead she turned to Pearl with an airy smile and said, “How kind of you to let us introduce ourselves, Mrs. Jesler.” And, placing her hand atop Pearl’s, she added, “And how kind of you to have shared your Ike with me, even for so small a time as we had. I’ve always wanted to thank you for that.”

She saw Pearl’s eyes begin to well up and Eva stood, her own now burning even as she blinked away the pain.

“A pleasure to meet you, Miss Posner. Mrs. Jesler.”

Outside, it was everything she could do not to collapse to the pavement. Eva thought: What a heartless, heartless woman. And how heartless of me to think it.

Thomas was at his desk when Goldah pushed through the swinging doors. It was late: He knew he’d find him alone.

Thomas didn’t look up; instead he continued to scan the sheet in his typewriter. “Hey, Ike. Look, I’m sorry about the way this whole thing has worked out.”

“You have a minute?”

Thomas marked something on the page, sat back, and tossed his pencil onto the desk. “It’s not what I wanted, you have to know that, but Weiss is giving it the green light. And what do you care? The
Post
wants you up in Washington next week for an interview. You’re on your way.”

Goldah stepped over and placed a large envelope on the desk. “I brought you this.”