Noah's Turn (6 page)

Noah stood with four or five others in front of the long glassed-in counter of food. Meats—pastrami, corned beef, smoked meat, pickled brisket; fish—white fish, salmon belly, lox, schmaltz herring, marinated herring, herring in sour cream, matjes herring; jars of soups; trays of salads—coleslaw, cucumber and onion, chopped eggplant; rows of knishes, kishka, farfel; pickles—cucumber, tomato, red pepper; chopped liver, chopped herring, chopped other stuff that was unrecognizable. Noah was mesmerized. He remembered the brothel scene in Fellini's
Roma
, the half-clothed prostitutes strutting their wares and yelling and pouting and jiggling up and down in front of the customers and the young protagonist who didn't know what to do but knew he wanted it all. Next to Noah was a tall guy, six foot two, maybe fifty-five, salt-and-pepper styled hair, gold-rimmed glasses, a blue Oxford-cloth button-down
shirt, ironed jeans belted above his waist, a gold ID bracelet and a Rolex. He wasn't slim. He scanned the food with a world-weary expression, even though his entire world most likely consisted of his office, his home and his club. He poked a toothpick into his mouth and emitted the slight heaving sigh of someone who had just eaten too much. He said to no one in particular, “It's a good idea to eat before you order this stuff or you go nuts.” There were no numbers and no discernable line. Communication with the counter guys was not unlike that between brokers on the floor of a commodity exchange. The Toothpick now started to talk. “Give me a pound of medium and a pound of fat. Give me four potato knishes and two kasha. Give me a large coleslaw and a medium potato salad. Is the potato salad today's?”

“Absolutely,” responded his counter guy, who was already preparing the order.

“Then make it a large potato salad. How long will it last in the fridge?”

“Two days.”

“Make it a medium potato salad. Give me a large rye with kimmel, sliced, and you better give me two jars of the barley soup.”

“You better give me two barley soup” was an interesting
threat, Noah thought. What would happen if he didn't get the soup? And Noah loved “Give me.” Where his mother used to take him shopping as a boy it was “May I have” or “I think I would like.”

The Toothpick had finished his order when something else caught his eye. “You better give me two sheets of lox and throw in a small cream cheese.” Another threat. “Is that all I need?” he asked of no one in particular. This was picked up by a small, round, middle-aged woman with a hairdo that looked like it had come out of a hat box.

“Their kishka's very good,” she said, standing with the index finger of her left hand pressed against the glass, pointing at nothing in particular and showing a wedding/engagement-ring set with a diamond the size of one of the knishes.

“Give me about that much kishka.” The Toothpick held his hands about a foot apart.

Now it was The Diamond's turn. “I don't see pickled tongue. Have you got tongue today?”

“Is the pope Polish?” her counter guy responded.

“Give me three-quarters of a pound. It's for my husband,” as if it was necessary for all present to know that
she
didn't eat tongue.

Even though the current pope was not Polish but German, and the exchange was illogical, Noah loved its efficiency—they had tongue. Had logic applied, “Is the pope Polish?” would have meant, “We have no tongue,” which they had, and this would have made no sense.

Noah could only think, Why wasn't I born a Jew? These are my people.

It was now his turn, and he could feel beads of sweat start to form under his arms and dribble down his sides. “The smoked meat, what's the difference between the medium and the fat?”

“The medium's medium and the fat's fat,” answered the counter guy without any sarcasm or malice. The Toothpick had heard this and came to the rescue.

“The fat's delicious but it'll kill you.”

On Noah's other side stood an extremely attractive blonde of about forty-two in tight designer jeans, a short leather jacket with a western fringe, and about $50,000 in jewellery. She smiled at him. “He's right. It's delicious but terrible for you.”

Noah smiled back and wondered how far he'd have to travel across the universe to end up in bed with her. She looked like the Jewish version of the horsewomen he had grown up with, but with a difference. The horse
set would rather have a horse between their legs than a man. He imagined that this one fucked like a banshee but you'd need a good orthodontist practice to get in the door.

“What's it gonna be?” asked his counter guy.

No one had actually answered the fat-medium question and Noah was on his own.

“Give me a pound of the fat.” He expected to hear cheers as if Evel Knievel had just landed a death-defying jump. But the fat was logical. It was delicious. No comment was necessary. “And I'd like a jar of soup.”

“Pea or barley?”

“Barley.”

“You want a bread?”

“Yes. The rye.”

“Is this just for you?”

“Yes.”

“I'll give you half a rye.”

“Done.”

Noah was getting the rhythm. “Give me one potato knish and one kasha and give me that jar of pickled tomatoes and a medium potato salad.” Noah was on a roll and could feel it. Measuring with his hands, “Give me that much kish …” Trouble. “Kish what, kish what?”
he muttered to himself. The sweat was now rolling down his sides in small streams. He realized he had gotten too cute by half. But the counter guy was on to him from the start.

“A nice piece of kishka and I'll throw in a little gravy with that. You heat it up and you stick it in.”

“Thank you.”

“You got it.”

“I got it,” Noah thought. “These are my people and I got it.”

But these weren't his people and as they drove home and got farther away from the deli, his connection to them also stretched out. In the back seat he thought about why he had admired The Toothpick. It was because The Toothpick was head-to-toe, take him or leave him, The Toothpick. He could be nothing else but The Toothpick wherever he went or whomever he talked to. “It's a good idea to eat before you order this stuff or you go nuts.” The Toothpick would have said this to the Queen of England as readily as he said it to the customers at the counter. And this is what
Noah admired. He hated himself for being a different person to different people, constantly inventing and reinventing himself depending on the circumstances.

Once home and in the safety of the dead zone, Noah ate almost everything then listened to his messages. One was from a woman with a husky voice who worked at the same publishing house as McEwen. She had read Noah's novel outline and “found parts of it very interesting.” She wondered if he had time “in his schedule” for a drink.

After two glasses of wine at a bar in a high-end hotel, it came out that she wasn't at the editorial level but at the secretarial level. She was tall, about thirty-three with a strong jaw and large hands and feet and a pretty good body. He could tell she smoked. When she went to the ladies' room between drinks, Noah watched her cross the floor with long, aggressive strides and thought she was to femininity what Albert Speer was
to architecture, and this held interesting possibilities. However, there is always a distance to go before the final destination in bed, and she had strong opinions on issues on which Noah felt one should not expend too much energy.

“I hate the red carpet on Oscar night!” she said with genuine disdain. She didn't hate the Oscars as a whole. This would have been fine with Noah, given its cultural implications. But she hated the red carpet
only
and with a vengeance. He didn't challenge this because he knew that the road to bed can be not only long but rocky. She also “hated the North American way of tipping.” She preferred the French way of “service included.” She was militant on “service included” and pronounced it with a Parisian accent. She also “love, love, loved” France. Noah didn't feel any need to hate or love it. He was okay with letting France be what it was without getting involved: good food, structuralism and Nazi collaborators. It wasn't that he had no opinion on these subjects, he just didn't have the energy to gang up on tipping. None of it was Hiroshima or poverty in America or AIDS in Africa or Proust or Mahler, on which he might have something to say. So he kept his distance and made no serious errors and
she accepted his invitation to go back to his place for another drink.

Noah prepared two large vodka martinis in his tiny kitchen and returned to the living room but she wasn't there. He saw her boots on the floor next to the bathroom. The door was open. He looked in—nothing. He moved carefully to the bedroom, balancing the drinks, and there she was sprawled on his bed stark naked. “Don't touch me!” she screamed loud enough to bring the police. Noah realized it was now time to return to earth.

As he moved her out and down the stairs of his building, Don't Touch Me told him that two editors at the publishing house had read his novel outline and there was a split decision on whether to go forward with a small advance. To break the tie, they had given it over to McEwen, since he had brought it in. He had passed and killed the project. She said McEwen told her the story in the copy room with his hand under her skirt and between her legs. This little kiss-and-tell seemed to give her a sadistic pick-me-up, and by the time they hit the street she was playfully grabbing at Noah's crotch. But Noah had limits that sometimes surprised even him, and he stuffed her into a taxi as if he was putting out the week's trash. He had no idea
how far away she lived but gave her a twenty for the fare without a goodbye. As he closed the car door, she shrieked at him with her throaty smoker's rattle, “I hated it too, fucker!” He stood on the curb and watched the cab drive into the night.

N
oah returned to his apartment, hoping that Don't Touch Me had returned to Mars. He opened his email as he worked his way through the untouched martinis. A note from the TV show that had dropped him asked if he could return two DVDs he had rented for research on their account.
Terminator 2
and
Casino
were two months late. The next was from his cousin James. “Dear Noah, We've taken care of the will and Mom mentioned in it that there was a picture in the house you liked—a photo of Salvador Dali taken by her cousin Simon Barber in Malaga in the 1940s. Evidently Simon was pretty famous in his day and Mom wanted you to have it. Distributions to family are being handled by Louise O'Hagan. Her number is below. Call and she'll arrange to have the
Dali sent to your place. Your condolences and help at the funeral were greatly appreciated. Cheers, James.”