The History of Love (37 page)

Dear
Leopold Gursky,
it said.
Please meet me at 4:00 on Saturday on the benches in front of the entrance to the Central Park zoo. I think you know who I am.

Overcome with feeling, I shouted out,
I do!

Sincerely yours,
it said.

Sincerely mine, I thought.

Alma.

And then and there I knew my time had come. My hands shook so hard that the paper rattled. I felt my legs giving way. My head got light. So this is how they send the angel. With the name of the girl you always loved.

I banged on the radiator for Bruno. There was no reply, nor was there one a minute later, or a minute after that, though I banged and banged, three taps means ARE YOU ALIVE?, two means YES, one means NO. I listened for the answer, but there wasn’t any. Perhaps I shouldn’t have called him a fool, because now when I needed him most there was nothing at all.

WOULD A LAMED VOVNIK DO THIS?

October 5

This morning I snuck into Alma’s room while she was in the shower and got How to Survive in the Wild Volume 3 out of her backpack. Then I got back into bed and hid it under the covers. When Mom came in I pretended to be sick. She put her hand on my forehead and said What do you feel? so I said I think I have swollen glands, so she said You must be coming down with something, so I said But I have to go to school, so she said Nothing will happen if you miss a day, so I said OK. She brought me some chamomile tea with honey and I drank it with my eyes closed to show how sick I was. I heard Alma leave for school, and Mom went upstairs to work. When I heard her chair creak I took How to Survive in the Wild Volume 3 out and started to read it to see if there were any clues about who Alma was searching for.

Most of the pages were filled with information like how to make a hot-rock bed, or a lean-to, or how to make water potable which I didn’t really understand because I’ve never seen any water that can’t be poured into a pot. (Except maybe ice.) I was starting to wonder if I would find anything about the mystery when I got to a page that said how to survive if your parachute fails to open. There were 10 steps but none of them made sense. For example if you are falling through the air and your parachute fails to open I don’t think it would help that much to have a gardener with a limp. Also it said search for a stone but why would there be stones unless someone was throwing them at you or you had one in your pocket which most normal people don’t? The last step was just a name which was Alma Mereminski.

One thought I had was that Alma was in love with someone named Mr. Mereminski and wanted to marry him. But then I turned the page and it said
ALMA MEREMINSKI = ALMA MORITZ
. So I thought maybe Alma was in love with Mr. Mereminski and Mr. Moritz. Then I turned the page and at the top it said
THINGS I MISS ABOUT M
and there was a list of 15 things, and the first was
THEY WAY HE HOLDS THINGS
. I did not understand how you can miss the way somebody holds things.

I tried to think but it was hard. If Alma was in love with Mr. Mereminski or Mr. Moritz, how come I’d never met either of them, and how come they never called her like Herman or Misha? And if she loved Mr. Mereminski or Mr. Moritz, why did she miss him?

The rest of the notebook was blank.

The only person I really miss is Dad. Sometimes I get jealous of Alma because she knew Dad more than I did and can remember so much about him. But the weird thing is that when I read Volume 2 of her notebook last year it said,
I FEEL SAD BECAUSE I NEVER REALLY KNEW DAD
.

I was thinking about why she wrote that when all of a sudden I had a very strange idea. What if Mom had been in love with someone else named Mr. Mereminski or Mr. Moritz, and he was Alma’s father? And what if he died, or went away, which is why Alma never knew him? And then after that Mom met David Singer and had me. And then he died, which was why Mom was so sad. That would explain why she wrote
ALMA MEREMINSKI
and
ALMA MORITZ
but not
ALMA SINGER
. Maybe she was trying to find her real dad!

I heard Mom get up from her chair so I did my best impression of someone sleeping which I’ve practiced in front of the mirror 100 times. Mom came in and sat on the edge of my bed and didn’t say anything for a long time. But all of a sudden I had to sneeze so I opened my eyes and sneezed and Mom said Poor thing. Then I did something extremely risky. Using my most sleepy voice I said Mom did you ever love someone else before Dad? I was almost 100 percent positive she was going to say no. But instead a funny look came over her face and she said I suppose so, yes! So I said Did he die? and she laughed and said No! Inside I was going crazy but I didn’t want to make her too suspicious so I pretended to fall asleep again.

Now I think I know who Alma is looking for. I also know that if I am a real lamed vovnik I will be able to help her.

October 6

I pretended to be sick for the second day in a row so I could stay home from school again and also so I don’t have to see Dr. Vishnubakat. When Mom went back upstairs I set the alarm on my watch and every 10 minutes I coughed for 5 seconds straight. After half an hour I snuck out of bed so I could look in Alma’s backpack for more clues. I didn’t see anything besides the things that are always in it like a first aid kit and her Swiss Army knife, but then I took out her sweater and wrapped inside were some pages. I only had to look at them for one second to know that they were from the book Mom is translating called The History of Love, because she is always throwing drafts away in the garbage and I know what they look like. I also know that Alma only keeps very important things in the backpack that she might need in case of an emergency so I tried to figure out why The History of Love was so important to her.

Then I thought of something. Mom always says that Dad was the one who gave her The History of Love. But what if this whole time she meant Alma’s dad and not mine? And what if the book held the secret of who he was?

Mom came downstairs and I had to run into the bathroom and pretend I was constipated for 18 minutes so she wouldn’t get suspicious. When I came out she gave me the number for Mr. Goldstein at the hospital and said if I felt like calling him I could. His voice sounded very tired, and when I asked him how he felt he said At night all cows are black. I wanted to tell him about the good thing I was going to do, but I knew I couldn’t tell anyone, not even him.

I got back into bed and talked to myself to figure out why the identity of Alma’s real father had to be a secret. The only reason I could think of was that he was a spy like the blond lady in Alma’s favorite movie, the one who was working for the F.B.I. and couldn’t reveal her true identity to Roger Thornhill even though she was in love with him. Maybe Alma’s real father couldn’t reveal his true identity either, not even to Mom. Maybe that’s why he had two names! Or even more than two! I felt jealous that my dad wasn’t a spy too but then I didn’t feel jealous anymore because I remembered that I might be a lamed vovnik which is even better than a spy.

Mom came downstairs to check on me. She said she was going out for an hour, and asked me if I would be OK by myself. After I heard the door close and the key turn in the lock I went to the bathroom to talk to G-d. Then I went to the kitchen to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. That’s when the telephone rang. I didn’t think it was anything special but when I answered it the person on the other end said Hello this is Bernard Moritz, may I please speak with Alma Singer?

That’s how I found out G-d can hear me.

My heart was beating like crazy. I had to think very fast. I said She’s not here right now but I can take a message. He said Well it’s a long story. So I said I can give her a long message.

He said Well I found a note she left on my brother’s door. It must have been at least a week ago, he was in the hospital. It said that she knew who he was and that she needed to talk to him about The History of Love. She left this number.

I did not say I knew it! or Did you know he was a spy? I just stayed silent so I wouldn’t say the wrong thing.

But then the man said Anyway my brother passed away, he’d been ill for a long time and I wouldn’t have called except that before he died he told me that he’d found some letters in our mother’s drawer.

I didn’t say anything, so the man kept talking.

He said He read the letters and got it into his head that the man who was his real father was the author of a book called The History of Love. I didn’t really believe it until I saw Alma’s note. She mentioned the book, and you see my mother’s name was also Alma. I thought I should talk to her, or at least tell her that Isaac passed away so she wouldn’t wonder.

Now I was confused all over again because I thought this Mr. Moritz was Alma’s father. The only thing I could think of was that Alma’s father had a lot of children who didn’t know him. Maybe this man’s brother was one and Alma was another, and they were both looking for their father at the same time.

I said Did you say he thought his real father was the author of The History of Love?

The man on the phone said Yes.

So I said Well did he think his father’s name was Zvi Litvinoff?

Now the man on the phone sounded confused. He said No he thought it was Leopold Gursky.

I made my voice very calm and said Can you spell that? And he said
G-U-R-S-K-Y
. I said Why did he think his father’s name was Leopold Gursky? And the man said Because that’s who sent our mother the letters with parts from the book he was writing called The History of Love.

Inside I was going crazy because even though I didn’t understand everything I was sure I was very close to solving the mystery about Alma’s father, and that if I could solve it I would be doing something helpful, and if I did something helpful in a secret way I might still be a lamed vovnik, and everything would be OK.

Then the man said Look I think it would be better if I spoke to Ms. Singer myself. I didn’t want to make him suspicious, so I said I’ll give her the message and hung up the phone.

I sat at the kitchen table trying to think about everything. Now I knew that when Mom said Dad gave her The History of Love what she meant was that Alma’s dad gave it to her because he was the one who wrote it.

I squeezed my eyes shut and said to myself If I am a lamed vovnik how do I find Alma’s father whose name was Leopold Gursky and also Zvi Litvinoff and also Mr. Mereminski and also Mr. Moritz?

I opened my eyes. I stared at the pad where I’d written
G-U-R-S-K-Y
. Then I looked up at the phone book on top of the refrigerator. I got the step ladder and climbed up. There was a lot of dust on the cover so I wiped it off and opened it up to G. I didn’t really think I was going to find him. I saw
GURLAND
John. I brought my finger down the page,
GUROL
,
GUROV, GUROVICH
,
GURRERA
,
GURRIN
,
GURSHON
, and after
GURSHUMOV
I saw his name.
GURSKY
Leopold. It had been right there the whole time. I wrote down his telephone number and his address, 504 Grand Street, closed the phone book, and put the step ladder away.