Broken Sleep (34 page)

He chuckled, baring his oversized carnivorous teeth.

“You get me some information about him. Like where he’s living. And I’ll do my best to help you with Nathaniel.”

“Let me see if there’s anything I can do. No promises.”

I asked if he wanted the photo of Teumer. He didn’t need it. He knew more than I did about my own past.

Lovers Cross

Jay shielded herself behind the electronic curtain, unresponsive to Moses’s plaintive e-mails and calls. She finally sent a one-line e-mail: “It’s best I spend the night at Geri’s.” He considered a drive-by spy mission but dismissed it as too insidious. Alchemy called near ten that evening. Moses didn’t pick up. He sat in his darkened room and listened to Alchemy’s clipped cadence play on the machine, “Call me. ASAP. We need to talk.”

Moses had no desire to hear whatever wisdom Alchemy wanted to impart. Anxious and restless, he called Sidonna Cherry, who answered in her typical playful fashion. “You becoming one of those PI junkies I need to put on retainer?”

“Gosh, I hope not. Just have some questions. When you researched my father, did you have an inkling of a sinister past? Is he dead yet?”

“I’ll answer the second question first. I don’t know. You want me to find out?”

“Yes.”

“See, you are going to pay me again. In answer to question one, identity refashioning is not exactly unique in my line of work.”

“Anything else you can find, and yes, I’ll pay. I want to meet him.”

“Oddsy bodsy, babe. I’ll check if your ghosty pop is still samba-ing down Rio way at the same address.”

Moses spent the night dominated by obsessive introspection and scrutiny, certifying all major “facts” of his heritage as fraudulent. He couldn’t help thinking that Jay’s fleeing implied even more portentous revelations. The next day, she finally e-mailed that she’d be coming by around eleven.

When her Honda pulled into the driveway, Moses feigned casualness. He loped out to hug her. Hair unkempt, wearing jeans and a tan blouse, sunglasses, and floppy straw hat covering her pallid complexion sans makeup, Jay shook her head as she brushed past him. “Inside.” He trudged into the living room. The sun rays from the skylight above bathed the room, giving it an aura of airiness when strangulation would be more apt. Jay edged into the right corner of the white leather couch. Moses sat opposite, an unbridgeable two feet of space and an immeasurable gulf of hurt separating them. After all those years of seeming dormancy, the silent spores of the fungus
Lovegonelousy
had released their lethal toxins.

“Jay, I’m so, so sorry. Please say you’re coming home to stay.”

“I can’t. Not yet.”

“I’m begging you. Please forgive my idiotic jealousy. Don’t you know how much I love you? I don’t understand. Why did you have to leave?”

“Saying what you said and asking me not to go with you to the museum … Moses,
you
left
me
. You’d really already left. That just sealed—”

“I hadn’t slept. I’d told you I’d taken too much Xanax. I was terrified. I apologized and begged you to forgive me, to come with me—”

“None of that undoes what you said, what you’ve been thinking. What you still think.”

“Jay—”

“Stop.” She had no intention of letting him reframe the events until she had her say. “Moses, I mean it, I feel like you left ‘us’ years ago. I’ve tried to bring you back.”

“You feel wrong.”

“No, I don’t. You’ve become more and more distant. Whenever I brought up wanting a child—”

“I agreed.”

“Agreed you weren’t ready. I was ready! And then after I stopped using birth control—”

“Jay—”

“Let me finish. Since we met, I never wanted to be with anyone else. Not when you were sick. Not when you drifted farther away after your mother died. Not when you glared at me so spitefully when you found about … I never betrayed you in reality or emotionally. I hurt for your hurt, over Salome and your father.”

“The nut and the Nazi.”

Jay didn’t acknowledge that she’d read his e-mail describing the scene at the Hammer. “Did you think I secretly pined for Alchemy? That I wanted to run away with him? That is so damn crazy.”

“I was crazy. I plead temporary insanity.”

“I had always wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. Not him. Not anyone else. You.”

“Had?”

“I don’t know. I can barely see beyond my next five minutes.”

“Jay, please don’t let this one misguided, monstrously large fuck-up destroy years of love and devotion. We, I, need … Come to see Butterworth with me. Or any therapist you choose.”

“Tell me yesterday morning was the first time you thought those horrible things about me.”

Moses bowed his head, thinking if she had told him of the affair the night they’d seen Alchemy’s damn band, or if he’d never shared his daymares with her, maybe they wouldn’t be in this position. But he knew that he was only scapegoating her for his neurotic behavior.

“You can’t.” She continued, “I don’t want to imagine what else you’ve dreamed up about me.”

“You know I think horrible things. Mostly about myself. Would it be better if I lied? Would you believe me? Would you stay?”

“That’s just it. I can’t trust what you say anymore. Maybe you only want me here because you’re afraid to be alone, if the cancer strikes again.”

“Absolutely false.” Moses refused to fully accept what her words implied. “Jay, tell me you don’t love me anymore.”

“Whoever declared ‘Love conquers all’ was an idiot.” Jay’s voice pulsed with contempt. “I won’t live with that kind of unspoken, lurking nastiness. Such pettiness! Moses, you always tried to protect me from the meanness, the disappointments in the world. Then you hurt me and disappointed me more than anyone. I wish you’d had an affair, or I’d fallen
in love with someone else. That would be easier than this. I don’t understand how we got here. I’ve never complained, at least out loud, that we hardly have sex. We had so much more sex when you were sick! I hoped when you went to Mexico last year that would change. We had sex two times in ten days. I couldn’t blame your illness anymore. And when we do, sometimes it’s like you don’t want to touch me—”

“You couldn’t be more off, please listen—”

“No, you listen. I’ve spent the last twenty-four hours crying my insides out. I dedicated my life to you these last years. After yesterday …” She sighed. “I’m empty.”

Moses surrendered. He had no one to blame but himself.

Jay looked up, sniffing, rubbing her eyes. “Moses, about your father, I, well—”

“I’ve decided to see him. I have to find out a different truth, not Salome’s version.”

“Hey! Guys …” They simultaneously shuddered as they recognized Alchemy’s voice. Neither had heard his car on the street or his footsteps walking up the front yard pathway.

Jay mouthed, “Did you know?”

Moses shook his head as he got up to open the door. Alchemy instantly saw the distress on Moses’s face and, behind him, the evident shock in Jay’s widening eyes. His almost breezy demeanor turned circumspect.

“Bad timing. But Mose, necessary after yesterday. It’s essential you read this.” He handed Moses a manila envelope that contained Malcolm’s letter and the medal. Alchemy shot a solicitous glance in Jay’s direction as she pushed herself off
the couch. Moses spotted it. He failed to decipher their unspoken communication.

Alchemy tried to explain his presence and the envelope. “Look, this defies simple explanation. I saw Teumer in Brazil when we were on tour. He gave me this … Said it was up to me to give it to you or not. I think you’ll see.”

“Jesus Christ, now you see fit to give it to me?”

“Yeah, we fucked up. We decided it was—”

“We?”

“Yes, Jay and I—”

Moses swiveled his hips, and Jay’s exasperated gape of horror met his look of confusion and disgust. “You’ve been seeing each other? Maybe I’m not so crazy after all.”

In a rush to stop any further false condemnations, Jay blurted out, “Twice. Both times for less than twenty minutes. To help you. Alchemy wanted my opinion about the letter.”

“And you told him no? And you knew about my father?” Jay nodded sheepishly. “Fuck, I can’t believe this.” Palms together, he squeezed the envelope between his hands. “So Teumer gave this to you for
me
?” Suddenly Moses’s mood shifted from shame to self-righteous fury. He tossed the envelope on the dining room table. “Alchemy, I think it’s best if you go.”

“You sure? I guess, yes. It’s all on me. Call me anytime. I had no inkling about yesterday. And Mose, I was better off without Bent. You were better off without Teumer. He’s a really twisted guy.”

“Yeah, great.” Moses flicked his head and looked Alchemy toward the door.

Alchemy acceded. “I hope you can understand. If you need … Okay. See you.”

Moses and Jay stood five feet from each other, stranded in their living room, drowning in a sea of incomprehension and despair. Jay ended the silence, her tone defensive. “Like I said, we met briefly, twice in the last, what, five years. Once when I found out about Salome’s exhibition and I told him he needed to tell you or I would. And after he came back with the letter.” She stiffened her posture. “And you are still so wrong to mistrust me. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.”

“Where’d you meet with him?”

“The first time at Kasbah. The second at a private opening at Gagosian Gallery.”

“Did you tell him how to find Teumer?”

“No, Sidonna Cherry—”

“Did you tell him about her, too?”

“She worked for him and for Kasbah before she ever worked for us. Remember?”

“Now, I do.”

“You should read the letter before judging me.”

Moses stood at the dining room table and pulled out the pages. He shook out the envelope and the medal dropped on the table. “Jesus, what the hell?”

Jay frowned. “Never seen that.”

Moses sat down. Jay put a cup of water for tea in the microwave. She didn’t even bother to take it out when it buzzed. A saturnine heaviness settled in her chest as she leaned against the kitchen sink and waited.

The Purloined Letter

Moses
,

Since you have found me and your half brother, I assume by now you have met or will meet your mother. I want you to know me from my words, not from a distorted portrait painted by your mother’s delusional accusations or Hannah’s bitter renderings. I began this missive when Laban informed me of your intrusion. When it became obvious that you were no longer pursuing a confrontation, I decided to withhold it. Upon being notified of your brother’s intent to meet me, this became the propitious time and manner to deliver it
.

Inside every human, without exception, resides the essence of what moralists call evil. Herbert Spencer, in classic English linguistic perfidy, declared this drive to be the “survival of the fittest.” I witnessed this exhibition of spirit by the delighted participation of women and children in acts of murder and debauchery. This empowering drive to vanquish and control is encoded in our blood and far outweighs courage or human generosity, or, for Christ’s sake, loving thy enemy
.

I hope (but doubt) that someday you will understand that the most profound gift I gave you was unlove. I revile the parsing of logic and language that is necessary to justify suffering as a corollary to
unconditional love from God and for God. The supreme human drives are self-preservation and selfishness. Greed, lust, envy, and desire for control are all forms of feeding the self. Love of a mate is only a manifestation of base needs to fornicate and control. Altruism is the lie of the self-deceiving
.

Moses, life is cruel. Failure is not acceptable, but it is also inevitable. It is your kneeling to failure that I find repulsive
.

If your half brother’s reconnaissance mission was only a prelude to your own visit, you must know who you are before you come: Moses, you are 100% Christian. Not a drop of Jewish blood flows within you
.

I will tell you who I am and why you were left behind. I participated in the elimination of Jews and other putrid and inferior species. I served with honor as an aide to Hauptsturmführer Alois Brunner. After the war he and I worked in Major General Reinhard Gehlen’s OSS/CIA–sponsored anti-Communist network. During Operations Paperclip and Applepie, I seized the opportunity to salvage the dreams of the falling Reich. I supplied Lively and Bickley Sr. with identities of SS officers who were Communist sympathizers (as well as a cache of Jewish gold and jewelry) in exchange for “bleaching” my war record, my entire history. I assumed the identity of a once baggy-eyed sad sack Jew who evolved into an unfeeling and unforgiving “victim.” How clever, yes! I endured a defiling of my purity with a circumcision and tattooing. I traveled to America on a Red Cross passport. I strategically maintained my distance from Jews until my involvement with Hannah. Her childless predicament was fortuitous and left her susceptible to what I offered and the cover I needed. I always intended to leave her. It became necessary to expedite my plans when I was recognized. I resisted surrendering you until Laban and Bickley Sr.
forced me to make that choice—only if I left you would they continue to assist me in evading those who wished to put me on trial
.

I see now it was the only choice—the right choice. I have followed your life as I have followed the career of your mother
.

Hannah reared you in such a manner that makes you unfit to bear my name. You did not inherit Salome’s beauty or tempestuous vigor. You are diseased of body and weak in spirit
.

I heard you speak at the Skirball Center on a panel about the children of those who survived internment and their attitudes toward God. I asked you a question after the talk, “Where was your God then? Where is he now?” You could not formulate a cogent response. You circled around the question—as you must, because their God is not. He never was. These Jewish children have committed suicide or broken down because they are weak. Their parents were the strong ones. They survived without their God
.