The Sea Beach Line (32 page)

“So she escaped. She made a rope of the fine silk bedsheets, and climbed out the window of the castle. She made her way back to the Jewish neighborhood in Sushan, and went to live with her childhood sweetheart, a
sofer
named Shahin. They lived in the back room of his shop, in a room piled high with half-finished scrolls. He loved to write the lines of scripture, and she loved to watch him work.” I looked around the storage space. Not all stories were direct allegories, but she seemed to be describing us and our surroundings.

“Shahin was kind to Esther, whom he called by her old name, Hadassah. They ate yogurt with honey, and held each other close. But Esther could never be truly happy with Shahin, as much as she cared for him, because every night when they lay down she remembered being summoned by Ahasuerus to his bedchamber. Even if she never saw the king again, she would always be under the control of him and Hege.” Did Rayna suffer through such painful memories, every night? What tyrant had forced himself on her?

“What's worse,” Rayna said, gesturing with her arms, “Esther knew she
would
see the king again. She knew there was nowhere in all of Persia she could hide. Every night, she waited for the king's Immortals to storm the shop, burn the scrolls, and take her away.

“In the end, though, it wasn't the warriors who came for Esther, but her uncle Mordechai, who was an old
frum
Jew. Everyone in the community respected him. He was worse than the Immortals, because he came under the guise of kindness, not violence. He convinced her she had to return to the king's palace, to be an advocate for the Jews. Under Mordechai's direction, she had the king murder five hundred men in Sushan. She had him hang all of Haman's sons. She had him
kill people in other cities. She was covered in blood. But she still had no true power. She was still summoned by the king at his whim. That was her fate.” This seemed to be the end of it.

Rayna sat on the crate, staring at the floor.

“But maybe,” I said, wanting to find some hope hidden in the story, “Maybe Shahin—”

“No,” Rayna said, shaking her head. “Stop. There is no more to it. That's the whole story. Shahin is the one who wrote the
Megilat Esther
, at Mordechai's request. Maybe he believed that was what he had to do as a Jew. Or maybe he wanted the honor of composing a new scroll, instead of just copying as a
sofer
does. But if he had something else to say, something to add to the story, he could have written it into the story then. He didn't. He meant well, at least at first, and he loved Hadassah, but he was part of it all in his own way.” When her story was finished, her eyes dropped to the floor. I didn't try to speak again. Rayna was telling me about her life, and I needed to try to listen. I thought of the
Megilat Esther
. How could a person know which stories were real, and which stories were written to cover up other stories? I knew that what Rayna was telling me was real. She was filled with pain and fear. She looked up, and we sat with our eyes locked for a moment.

“You can hug me now, Isaac,” she said. “I want you to hug me, and hug me tight. But please don't kiss me. Not right now.” I held Rayna close, and felt her tears on my bare shoulder. I kept trying to make sense of her story. She was telling me that I hadn't done anything wrong. But she was also telling me that she would continue to suffer because of the wrongs that had been done to her in the past. I wished I could make it better somehow. But she had just told me I couldn't.

15

WHEN I FIRST MENTIONED
dinner with Becca and Andrew, Rayna said she'd be happy to go. Becca and I made plans to meet at a diner in Midtown, near her office. But when the time came to go on Monday night, Rayna refused to leave the storage space. She was apologetic, but said she couldn't bear to go to a restaurant and meet new people. I had to go without her.

I got to the diner before Becca and read
Knickerbocker Avenue
while I waited. When Don Niccolo refuses to change with the times, Arturo goes behind his back, importing his own heroin from Southeast Asia through his military contacts. Arturo's violation of mafia code and chain of command angers Don Niccolo and his counterparts in the other families. At the same time, the Sicilians are angry that Arturo is undercutting them in the local heroin market. After Niccolo attempts to censure Arturo for his activities, Arturo meets with the Sicilians, and convinces them to murder Niccolo, in exchange for a heroin supply deal. Once Don Niccolo is deposed, both the old-guard Italians and the Sicilians acknowledge Arturo as the new don of Bushwick. Little Arturo from the bakery shop is now king of Knickerbocker Avenue.

“Hey, Iz,” Becca said, sliding into the booth.

“Hey,” I said, “good to see you.”

“You too, Izzy. Sorry I'm a few minutes late.”

“No, it's cool. I'm sorry it's been a while. I've been working.”

“You don't have to tell me. That's how we are. We're hard workers. Work comes first. We learned that from Mom.” It was true—our mother always held down at least one job when we lived in the city, and she never missed a day of work. Even after we moved in with Bernie, who made plenty of money, she always worked.

“I guess so. Andrew couldn't make it?”

“No. It was kind of weird, actually. He said he'd be here when I talked to him Sunday. But then I called him when I was getting ready to leave the office this evening, and he'd completely forgotten about it. He sounded really hyper and stressed, and then said he couldn't come.” She opened her menu.

“That's too bad. He's having a rough time at work?” Even at the nightclub, he and Jason had argued about figures. And I'd read in the paper about his firm being under investigation.

“Yeah, it seems like it. Hard to say for sure, though, because he's pretty private about it. But I have my own work to worry about.”

“Well, tell him I say hi.”

“I will. He likes you. Anyway, I was hoping you'd bring this girl you mentioned?”

“Rayna couldn't make it tonight. You'll meet her though.”

“I hope so. What does she do?”

“She's working with me.” Becca closed her menu and dropped it on the table.

“And what exactly are
you
doing?”

“Selling books.”

The waitress came and took our orders. Our mom had worked as a waitress when Becca and I were kids and Alojzy still lived with us. We'd sit in a booth like this one and draw on paper place mats with crayons.

“So you're selling books?” Becca said. “At a bookstore downtown?”

“Yeah.”

“Which one? I know there are a lot of little ones in the Village still. Maybe I can come visit. I don't have time to get downtown too often, but if I have a chance . . .”

“It's actually a freelance sort of thing, not at a store.” Becca glared at me. I was being evasive, but I didn't want Becca to know I was working in the streets.

“Freelance. Right. You sound like Alojzy, always trying to explain away his little hustles. That's what you mean, a hustle.”

“It's honest work. But yes, actually, it's Alojzy's business. I'm just running it until he gets back. Or until I find him.”

“What do you mean, ‘gets back'?” Becca looked shocked. “You think he's alive?”

“You think he's dead?”

“That was my understanding. Mom thinks so. Someone told her he was.”

“Goldov. I met him. I think he's a liar.”

“Whatever. The real point is, I don't think about Aojzy at all.”

“He's our father.” The waitress placed two cups of coffee on our table.

“He was supposed to be. But he sucked at it. Then he fucked off. Mom raised us. Bernie helped a little at the end, he's a good guy, but Mom mostly did it herself. It was easier when Alojzy was gone, because he couldn't blow Mom's money on his schemes. If Alojzy's alive, and he shows up tomorrow, I won't talk to him, any more than I'll take the time to talk to any other random bum off the street.” Becca was wrong. Yes, what she was saying was true, from one perspective, but she didn't understand Al's side of the story.

“Becca, I want to show you something.” I reached into my backpack, and pulled out one of Alojzy's notebooks. I knew the order of the pages, and quickly found images of us uptown as kids. I looked down at a picture of Becca as a serious child, and looked up at the face of the serious woman she'd become. “I found this in a storage locker full of Alojzy's stuff.” I pushed the open book across the table to her.

She stared at the images for a moment before they registered and smiled involuntarily. Then she regained control and forced the smile off her face. She flipped the book closed and slid it back to me.

“There's more stuff in there,” I said.

“It's okay. I get the idea. Thank you for showing me this. But I have you, and I have Mom. Alojzy's not a part of our family. It's been that way for a long time. Mom has Bernie. Next year I'll get married, and we'll have Andrew in our family too. We don't need Alojzy, or his sentimental memories. I have my own memories.”

“Like what?” I didn't know what Becca remembered about Alojzy.

“Well, just to choose one, do you remember that day that he was supposed to watch us in the evening after school, but he got arrested?”

“No.” I had no idea what she was talking about.

“I was in maybe fourth grade, so you would be in what, first grade? Is that right? Anyway, Alojzy was supposed to come by the school in the afternoon to walk us home, because Mom was working. But our neighbor, old Mrs. Almanzar, was there instead. She said Alojzy had been arrested outside the building—she didn't know for what, but she had watched the whole thing from the stoop. As he was being cuffed, he asked her to come get us, I guess so the school wouldn't call Child Protective Services. No one could get ahold of Mom; this was before people had cell phones. So we had to go sit at Mrs. Almanzar's house all evening and listen to opera records and eat, like, bowl after bowl of flan until Mom came home from work.

“Mom was frantic when she came to pick us up, crying and hugging us tight. We stayed up all night on the couch together, watching TV. Mom cried half the night. She'd been working all day, and she didn't know what Alojzy had gotten into. Then he came in the door in the morning, with a box of donuts, like nothing had happened, and didn't understand why Mom was so mad. ‘Coppers took me to the Tombs,' he said. ‘Those guys always got it in for me. But a night in jail never hurt no one.' He didn't see that it had hurt Mom. Or us.”

Our food arrived. Becca had a Caesar salad, and I had an egg salad sandwich and some soup. We didn't talk much as we ate.

“Have you talked to Mom lately?” I asked, when I was done eating. “How is she doing?”

“You can call her and ask for yourself. Actually, no, you can't right now. She's at some sort of two-week-long retreat up in Taos. Some sort of meditation-creativity thing with no cell reception.”

“That's good. She'll enjoy that.”

“Yeah, I think so. I'd kill myself if I had to go on something like that, but she's doing what she wants to do. I think her free, younger life got cut pretty short, marrying Alojzy and getting pregnant with me. Having to take care of us and trying to provide a stable environment and all that. So it's her second chance now, to do all the art stuff she always wanted to. It's good for her.”

The waitress came with the bill.

“Take your time,” she said. The diner seemed to mainly function as a lunch spot for Midtown office workers, so it was pretty deserted in the evening.

“Izzy, I'm sorry,” Becca said. “I wish I could stay longer. But I have to get home and do some work.” I felt guilty about neglecting Becca for the street, and here she was apologizing for neglecting me for the office.

“You work too hard, Becca,” I said.

“I know. But I'll make money now, while I have the chance, and put something away. You don't know what's going to happen.” She reached for the check, but I grabbed it from her.

“My treat.” I pulled out my cash roll to pay.

“You don't use a debit card?” Becca asked, incredulous. She worked for a credit-card company, after all.

“No,” I said. “Cash is cleaner.” I made sure to leave the waitress a good tip.

Becca and I walked to the train together, going our different ways on the platform.

It was still early when I got home. Rayna was sitting in the storage space, cleaning some books. She came over and gave me a kiss.

“How is your sister?” she asked.

“She's fine.”

“I'm sorry I couldn't go.”

“It's okay. Her fiancé didn't come either, some sort of work troubles, so it was just Becca and me.”

We lay down to sleep. It wasn't very late, but the weather was supposed to be really nice the next day, and we wanted to get an early start. Rayna gave me another kiss when she lay down. We kissed for a few minutes, then Rayna rolled over and spooned back close to me. I rubbed her shoulders a bit, then slid my hand under her shirt. I went to sleep with my hand on her breast. Since Rayna told me the story about Queen Esther, some of the tension was gone, and we had become more physically affectionate.