Time and the Riddle: Thirty-One Zen Stories (35 page)

“You like the kind with the prune filling. I mean, when they're crisp and have a lot of prune filling and they're not all that limp, squishy kind of dough.”

“You don't get them like that anymore.”

“Well, you remember when we drove down to Washington, and we stopped at that motel outside of Baltimore, and you remember how they told us they had their own chef who worked in one of the big hotels in Germany, only he wasn't a Nazi or anything like that, and he made the Danish himself and you remember how much you liked it. So you could just think about that kind of Danish, full of prune filling.”

Harvey thought about it. His hand was shaking as he reached out to a spot midway between himself and Suzie, and there it was be tween his thumb and his forefinger, a piece of Danish so impossibly full of sweet prune filling that it almost came to pieces in Harvey's fingers. He let it plop down on the cold eggs.

“Oh—you've spoiled the eggs,” Suzie said.

“Well, they were cold anyway.”

“Yes, I suppose so. I can make you some fresh eggs.”

Harvey put a finger into the prune filling and then licked it thoughtfully. He broke off a corner of the Danish, ignoring the cold egg yellow that adhered, and munched it.

“There's no use making fresh eggs,” Suzie observed, “because now that sweet stuff will ruin your appetite. Is it good?”

“Delicious.”

Then, in a squeak that was almost a scream, Suzie demanded to know where the Danish came from.

“You saw it. You told me to get a Danish.”

“Oh, my God, Harvey!”

“That's the way I feel about it. It's damn funny, isn't it?”

“You took that Danish right out of the air.”

“That's what I've been trying to tell you.”

“It wasn't a trick,” said Suzie. “I think I am going to be sick, Harvey. I think I am going to throw up.”

She rose and went to the bathroom, and Harvey listened unhappily to the sound of the toilet being flushed. Then she brushed her teeth. They were both of them very clean and neat people. When she returned to the breakfast table, she had gotten a grip on herself, and she told Harvey matter-of-factly that she had read an article in the magazine section of
The New York Times
to the effect that all so-called miracles and religious phenomena of the past were simply glossed-over scientific facts, totally comprehensible in the light of present-day knowledge.

“Would you repeat that please, darling?” Harvey asked her.

“I mean that the Danish must have come from somewhere.”

“Baltimore,” Harvey agreed.

“Do you want to try something else?” she asked tentatively.

“No. I don't think so.”

“Then I think we ought to call my brother, Dave.”

“Why.”

“Because,” Suzie said, “and I don't want to hurt your feelings, Harvey, but simply because Dave knows what to do.”

“About what?”

“I know you don't like Dave—”

Dave was heavy, overbearing, arrogant, insensitive, and contemptuous of Harvey.

“I don't like him very much,” Harvey admitted. Harvey disliked feelings of hostility toward anyone. “I can get along with him,” he added. “I mean, Suzie, you cannot imagine how much I try to like Dave because he is your brother, but whenever I approach him—”

“Harvey,” she interrupted, “I know.” Then she telephoned Dave.

Dave always had three eggs for breakfast. Harvey sat at the table and watched gloomily as Dave stuffed himself and Dave's wife, Ruthie, explained about Dave's digestion. Dave had never taken a laxative. “Dave has a motto,” Ruthie explained. “You are what you eat.”

“The brain needs food, the body needs food,” Dave agreed. “What kind of trouble are you in, Harvey? You're upset. You're down. When I see a man who's down, I know the whole story. Up and down, which is the secret of life, Harvey. It's as simple as that. Up. As simple as that. You got any more bacon, Suzie?”

Suzie brought the bacon to the table, sat down, and carefully explained what had happened that morning. Dave grinned but did not stop eating.

“I don't think you understand me,” Suzie said.

Dave cleared his mouth, chewed firmly, and congratulated the Kepplemens. “Ruthie,” he said, “how many times have I said to you, the trouble with Harvey and Suzie is they got no sense of humor? How many times?”

“Maybe fifty times,” Ruthie replied amiably.

“It's not the biggest shtick in the world,” Dave said charitably. “But it's cute. Harvey takes things out of the air. It's all right.”

“Not things. Water rolls and a piece of Danish.”

“What are water rolls?” Ruthie wanted to know.

“They're a kind of roll,” Harvey explained uncomfortably. “They used to make them when I was a kid. Crisp outside and soft inside.”

“Here is half of the second one,” Suzie said, handing it to Ruthie. Ruthie examined it and nibbled tentatively. “You remember the way Pop used to dip his water rolls into the coffee,” Suzie said to Dave.

“You got to butter it first,” Dave told Ruthie. “Go ahead, try it.”

“You don't believe one word I have said.” Suzie turned to her husband. “Go ahead, Harvey. Show them.”

Harvey shook his head.

“Come on, Harvey—come on,” Dave said. “One lousy roll. What have you got to lose?”

For the first time that morning, Harvey felt good, really good. He reached across the table and from the airspace directly in front of his brother-in-law's nose he extracted a warm, crisp brown roll, held it for a long moment, and then placed it on Dave's plate.

“Oh, my God!” Ruthie cried.

Suzie grinned with delight, and Dave, his mouth open, stared at the roll and said nothing. He just stared and said nothing.

“It's still warm. Eat it,” Harvey said with authority. It was possibly the first thing he had ever said to Dave with any kind of authority.

Dave shook his head.

Harvey broke open the roll and buttered it, the butter melting on the hot white bread. He handed it to Dave, and Dave nibbled at it tentatively. “Not bad, not bad.” Dave took two large bites. He was beginning to be himself again. “You're not crapping around, are you, Harvey?” he asked. “No—no, it's impossible. You're the clumsiest jerk that ever tried to shuffle a deck of cards, so how could it be sleight of hand? Then what is it, Harvey?”

Harvey shook his head hopelessly.

“It's a gift,” Suzie said.

“Did you feel it coming on, Harvey?” Dave wanted to know. “I mean, did it grow on you—or what?”

“Is it only rolls?” Ruthie asked.

“Also Danish,” Suzie said.

“What's Danish?”

“Danish pastry with prune filling.”

“I got to see that,” Dave said, and then Harvey took a Danish out of the air. Dave stared and nodded, and he took a bite of the Danish. “Just rolls and Danish?”

“That's all I tried.”

A slow, crafty grin spread over Dave's face as he reached into his pocket and took out a roll of bills. He peeled off a ten-dollar bill and pressed it flat on the table. “You know what this is, Harvey?”

Harvey stared at it without comment.

“How about it?”

“It could get us into a lot of trouble,” Harvey said thoughtfully.

“How?”

“Counterfeit.”

“Come off it, Harvey. What's counterfeit? Are you counterfeiting rolls? Danish?”

“Rolls are different. This is larceny, Dave.”

The two ladies listened and watched, their eyes wide, but said nothing. Morality had reared its ugly head, and suddenly what had been very simple was becoming most complicated.

“There never was an accountant who didn't have larceny in him. Come on, Harvey.”

Harvey shook his head.

“It's a gift,” Suzie explained. “It's spooky. I don't think you should talk Harvey into doing anything that he doesn't want to do. You don't want to do this, do you, Harvey?” she asked her husband. “I mean, unless you really want to.”

“Listen, Harvey, level with me,” Dave said. “Did you ever do anything like this before? Have you been working up to this?”

“How do you work up to it?”

“That's what I'm asking you. Because this is big—big, Harvey. If it's just a gift, you know, all of a sudden, then you got no obligations to anyone. You can take Danish out of the air, you can take a ten-dollar bill out of the air. What's the difference?”

“Counterfeit,” said Harvey.

“Balls. Are the rolls counterfeit, or are they the real thing?”

“It's still counterfeiting.”

“Harvey, you are out of your ever-loving mind. Look, you're sitting here in the bosom of- your family—those closest to you, your own loved ones. You're protected. Suzie is your wife. I'm her brother. Ruthie is my wife. Flesh and blood. Who's going to turn you in? Myself—would I kill the goose that laid the golden egg? Ruthie—I'd break every bone in her body.”

“That's right, he would,” Ruthie said eagerly. “I can promise you that, Harvey. He would break every bone in my body.”

“Suzie? Suzie, would you turn Harvey in? Like hell you would. A wife can't testify against her husband. That's what I have been telling you, Harvey. Flesh and blood.”

“When you think about it,” Suzie said, “it's just like a parlor game, Harvey. I mean, suppose we were playing Monopoly or something like that. I mean, if you just did it for laughs. Dave says, take a ten-dollar bill out of the air. You do it. So what?” “Maybe a dollar bill,” Harvey said, for the arguments were very convincing.

“Right on,” said Dave, taking a dollar bill out of his pocket. “I should have thought of that myself, Harv. Today a dollar is worth nothing. Nothing. It's like a gag.” He spread the dollar on the table. “You know, when I was a kid, this could buy something. Not today. No, sir.”

Harvey nodded, took a deep breath, reached for a spot two feet in front of his nose, and plucked a dollar bill out of the air. Suzie squealed with pleasure and Ruthie clapped her hands with delight. Dave grinned and took the dollar bill from Harvey, laid it on the table next to the one he had produced from his pocket, and scrutinized it carefully. Then he shook his head.

“You missed, Harvey.”

“What do you mean, I missed?”

“Well, it's sort of a dollar bill. You got Washington's face all right, and it says ‘one dollar,' but the color's not exactly right, it's too green—”

“You left out the little print,” Ruthie exclaimed. “Here where it says that it's legal tender for all debts, public and private—you left that out.”

Harvey could see the difference. The curlicues were different, and the bright green stamp of the Department of the Treasury was the same color as the rest of it. The serial numbers had been left out, and as for the reverse side, it bore only a general resemblance to a real dollar bill.

“OK, OK—don't get nervous,” Dave told him. “You couldn't be expected to hit it the first time. What you have to do is to take a real good look at the genuine article and then try it again.”

“I'd rather not.”

“Come on, Harv—come on. Don't chicken out now. You want to try a ten?”

“No, I'll try the one again.”

He reached into the air and returned with another dollar bill between his fingers. They all examined it eagerly.

“Good, good,” Dave said. “Not perfect, Harvey—you missed on the seal, and the paper's not right. But it's better. I'll bet I could pass this one.”

“No!” Harvey grabbed both spurious bills and stuffed them into his pocket.

“All right, all right—don't blow your cool, Harv. We try it again now.”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no?”

“No. I'm tired. Anyway, I got to think about this. I'm half out of my mind the way it is. Suppose this happened to you?”

“Man oh man, I'd buy General Motors before the week was out.”

“Well, I'm not sure that I want to buy General Motors or anything else. I got to think about this.”

“Harvey's right,” Suzie put in. “You always come on too strong, Dave. Harvey's got a right to think about this.”

“And while he thinks, the gift goes.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, it came on sudden. Suppose it goes the same way?”

“I don't care if it does,” Suzie said loyally. “Harvey's got a right to think about it.”

“OK. I'm not going to be unreasonable. Only one thing—when he thinks his way out of this, I want you to call me. I'm going to get some twenties and some fifties. I don't think we should go in for anything bigger than that right now.”

“I'll call you.”

“OK. Just remember that.”

When Dave and Ruthie had departed, Harvey asked his wife why she had agreed to call. “I don't need Dave,” he said. “You and Dave treat me like an imbecile.”

“I just agreed to get rid of him.”

“I'd just like to think once that you were on my side and not on his.”

“That's not fair. I'm always on your side. You know that.”

“I don't know it.”

“All right, make a big federal case out of it. They're gone, so if you want to think about it, why don't you think about it?” And she stalked into the bedroom, slammed the door, and turned on the television.

Harvey sat in the living room and brooded. He took out the dollar bills, studied them for a while, and then tore them up and made a trip to the bathroom to flush them down the drain. Then he returned to the couch and brooded again. It had been late afternoon by the time Dave and Ruthie left, and now it was early in the evening and darkening, and he was beginning to be hungry. He went into the kitchen and found beer and bread and ham, but his inner yearning was for a hamburger sandwich, not the way Suzie made hamburgers, dry, tasteless, leathery, but tender and juicy and pink in the middle. Reflecting on the fact that he was married to a rotten cook, he took a hamburger sandwich out of the air. It was perfect. Suzie entered as he took his first bite.