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“The More We Have to Learn”
November, 1963
I close my eyes and wait for silence. My head sinks into the thin pillow and then the images appear. I never know if they are dreams or fantasies. Or memories. Freud says that we should give our ego freedom to decide our pathological reactions one way or another. Sometimes I react calmly when I awaken. I put a kettle of water on my hotplate and wait for it to boil while I open the Talmud and stare. Often I don’t even read. I don’t need to. Just let the words flow through me, cleanse me like a bath, unclog my diseased mind. As I sip the sweet tea, whispering the Elohai Neshamah to the four walls, I feel whole again.
Except sometimes I do not.
Reuven wears a dark blue pullover and grey slacks. He is barefoot, although I cannot remember why. He sits on a green braided rug at the foot of his neatly-made bed. He hugs one knee to his chest, the hand dangling onto his thigh. His eyes are dark enough to feel lost in. Blue is the color of God’s glory. It is our holy color. But brown is the color of the earth that He gave us because he loved us. I have just kissed him. I am eighteen years old and it is the first time I have kissed anyone outside of my family. His lips, still moist with my own saliva, are opening. Words come out, but I cannot hear them. I have closed my mind to what they are.
*
It is Thanksgiving morning, a day that the goyom traditionally celebrate. Hasids, of course, do not. Even many Orthodox do not. But many Americans are not celebratory this year.
I walk outside into a briskly cold morning. The wind stabs at my eyes, making them weep. I wrap a scarf, a gift knitted by my mother years ago, tightly around my face. I place my fedora over my skullcap. The president supposedly made hats unfashionable for men in these last years, but I prefer having my head covered. But he is not the president any longer, I remember.
At the newsstand down the block from my apartment, I buy a copy of The Times. Although I have not lived in New York for nearly a decade, I still read that paper daily. Sorrow Tempers Nation’s Marking of Thanksgiving, I read. My eyes linger on the word ‘sorrow.’ I am sorrowful. For Mrs. Kennedy and her children. A tragedy.
“Anything else?” The young fellow running the stand asks. He looks uncomfortable, wrapped in a thin coat. Angry that he has to work on this holiday. A grimy Boston Red Sox cap is perched on his head. I shake my head in his direction and walk away, folding the paper and putting it under my arm. I wonder if he is old enough to remember Roosevelt’s death. I doubt he is.
I walk down Newbury Street for the next hour or so. The old brownstones remind me of home, of Reuven’s home, of my own home. The cold is relentless, freezing my toes and eyelashes. I am to catch a train at noon, but I already have a bag packed and waiting. I know that I should eat something as I don’t know when the opportunity may arise again. But my stomach is hard as ice.
At one brownstone in particular, I stop and lean against a thin metal fence that separates the lawn from the sidewalk. A large hydrangea bush grows flush by the first story window. This particular building is located just across from the Public Garden, a beautiful place for walking or sitting and thinking. George Washington atop his horse seems to be riding right at me from the entrance, though he is fifty feet tall, bronzed and on a pedestal no less. Still, it feels right to be near America’s commander and chief right now.
From my pocket, I pull out a worn telegram. It has been folded and re-folded so many times that the black letters have faded. Can you come immediately (stop) I need you (stop) Reuven.
I should have telephoned him. But I’ve not seen him since his wedding, almost two years ago. But it doesn’t really matter. Talking is not necessary in our relationship.
*
The train is mostly empty, a good day to travel. People have already reached their destinations yesterday or the day before and now they are huddled together with friends and families, mourning, talking, feeling the closeness of loved ones. The few souls aboard with me are dressed in dark, somber colors. Occasionally someone coughs. A baby several rows back cries; his mother hushes him softly. We look as though we are traveling to a funeral.
But we are. Or rather, I have missed one. Sarah, Reuvan’s wife, a tiny, bird-like woman with a melodious laugh and eyes as large as the ocean, is dead. I knew of her dangerous pregnancy and her heart condition. I met her only twice, but both times I was struck but how comfortable they seemed. His long fingers intertwined in her tiny hand. His soft kiss on…
Reuven’s tongue is awkward in my mouth. The blood roaring in my ears vibrates against my brain. It is almost painful, this feeling. Lust. Love. Desire. My hand in plastered in sweat to his inner thigh. I want to move it. Move it closer, but I am afraid to. I am afraid of the swelling in my trousers, afraid of what it represents. Abomination. To lay with a man as with a woman is abomination. There are tears staining Reuven’s cheek. His breathing is sharp, his hand is shaking as he grips the collar of my shirt. But he makes no move to stop. The book, in German, that we had been discussing hangs over the side of his bed. Freud had said that neither pure masculinity nor pure femininity exist in human beings, in a psychological sense. Our minds are like a box of jigsaw pieces from a thousand different puzzles. They will not fit together no matter how hard one tries.
But God created that mind, and it should be more straight-forward. His law is straight-forward.
But the thought does not stop my hand from reaching for the button on Reuven’s trousers.
*
At Bridgeport, I am awakened by a burly man flopping down across to me. He wears a plaid woollen hat, a suit the color of dark butter and a cropped goatee. He looks very out of place and I blink a few times, remembering the stares I dealt with daily growing up.
“Mind if I smoke?” He asks, pulling out a silver cigarette case. He has quite a distinct accent—About thirty years of New Englander with a hint of Eastern European. Hungarian, perhaps. He does not wait for my answer to light up.
“Do I know you from somewhere?” I turn back from the window. The heavy clouds drop into a grey ocean, near enough that I can almost hear its roar in my ears. “It is only that you seem very familiar.” He was looking quite intently at me.
I smile and shake my head politely. The review of my last book made the Times, a minor excitement and a minor annoyance for me in that occasionally I am recognised. It should be noted—I had no aspiration to fame. I was more than satisfied with my career and it was a very successful one. I worked with Lacan at La Salpêtriére for more than a year, probably the most important and controversial analyst since Freud himself. I have been a visiting scholar at the Sorbonne, the University of Heidelberg and Harvard. I co-authored a paper with Maslow on the dissociative commonalities of exceptional youths. I have travelled extensively. At any given time, I may be speaking one of seven languages on my telephone. Using any criteria, my professional life has been very successful. And I am barely 34 years old.
My Hungarian friend shrugs his shoulders and gives up, turning his attention to his vice. Yes, occasionally I am recognized. But I am never known. I am treated with enormous respect and maybe a slight bit of resentment by my colleagues. But they are not friends. I have, and have had in my entire life, only one friend.
*
Reuven called me about six months ago. He was living in the same house, on the same corner of Lee Avenue. I could see him with his hand on the grey telephone on the little side table. A directory sits next to it. A blue fountain pen and a notepad from Temple Shalom. We could have been thrust back in time twenty years and there would not have been any difference, save that his father would have been typing in the background rather than his wife playing Tchaicovsky on the piano.
“I’m afraid,” he was telling me.
“I know.”
“She could die, Danny.” He lowered his voice so that I could barely hear it over the music. “The doctor says...but she wants to be a mother so badly…”
I knew he was thinking about his own mother. I wished I could think of something helpful. I looked out my window and saw a clean Austrian night. I could see the bright glow of snow on the black Alps. “Trust in God, Reuven,” I said softly into the receiver.
There was a pause so long that I thought he may have hung up. Then he said: “Yes. I will.”
*
I take a cab from the station. The cold seems to have seeped from one state to the next so that every unclothed hair on my body is instantly covered with frost. In a way, I’m glad for the weather. It gives me an excuse. I don’t have to remember the sound of metal-capped shoes on pavement. The ting-ting of trolley bells at every street corner. Deep Yiddish voices raised in discussion. Laughing. Singing coming from behind every doorway affixed with green metallic mezuzahs.
“Nasty holiday, eh, buddy?” My driver says. He has a thick black muffler wrapped several times around his neck and a knitted cap pulled down over his ears, as if he is trying to hide from life. I wonder if he is referring to the weather or the circumstances.
*
I’m so nervous with my hand on the brass knocker that I can feel the muscles in my arm twitch. I worry that I may be sick, but there is little in my stomach except snow and ice. He has always been there for me. And I am not such a good friend. My hand is raised into a fist, frozen over the door. Surely I look like a fool—waffling back and forth, afraid of what he will say, afraid of picking up a knocker that I have touched hundreds of times in nearly twenty years.
It is the sound of a baby crying that takes my breath away.
And before I can recover, the door is open.
I still stand, like some Neanderthal with his hairy fist raised over his head, when a warm light pours over me from the Malter’s hallway. My best friend stares at me, confused. “Danny?” He asks. His voice is slightly husky, as if he has been ill.
I think I notice the beard first. I have never seen him with a beard. It is much darker than the one I wore in my early twenties, and sparser. But I find that it suits his face very nicely. It is the beard of a Rabbi, but with his thick, steel-rimmed glasses, it could be the beard of a mathematician as well.
“I thought I heard someone out here.” There is still crying, louder now, as the door does not buffer the sound. “Well, are you going to come in? Or stand there like an apikoros?”
He does not wait for my answer, merely turns, leaving the wide-open door to invite me in. He disappears into the house and in a few seconds the crying stops. It is replaced by a soft music, the metallic kind that comes from a toy or a music box. I swallow hard. But I step inside.
“Could you close the door, please? You’re letting in all that cold air.”
Quickly, I shut the door. A little too hard, I nearly slam it. From within the bowels of a bedroom, the baby starts to whimper loudly again.
“Danny!” Reuven shouts.
“Sorry,” I mumble. “The wind. I’m sorry, Reuven. I’m sorry. I really am sorry.” And I can’t stop saying this. Over and over. Because I really am. Sorry for everything.
He reappears, a mint colored blanket thrown over his shoulder. His face is blanched. He grabs my arm, hard. Hard enough that I flinch. Nails penetrate my skin. “Stop it. I know you are. Stop saying that. Go sit down. God in Heaven, Danny, are you sick or something? Stop mumbling and sit down before you wake him up again.”
I sit down on an ugly floral sofa. I cannot take my eyes off on him. This is all wrong. I am doing this all wrong. Sarah Malter is dead. Reuven is still in his shlosim, or thirty day mourning period. And I arrive, disturb the household, act like a fool, and scare my best friend. What kind of man am I?
Reuven does not sit. Instead he floats ghost-like through the house, bringing me a cup of tea, checking on the baby, putting some sort of dish into the oven. I want to offer to help. But I can’t stop watching him. He seems unable to stop. His slacks and shirt are neatly pressed, his shoes polished. His hair is combed, although a bit shaggy and over-long as men are not allowed to shave or cut their hair during their mourning period. Even his nails are trimmed. No one who saw him would know that he had lost his wife less than a month ago. He looks professional.
He looks a bit…unhinged.
“I should have come sooner.” I tell him as he sprints past me for the third time.
“Why didn’t you?” A fair question.
“Are you in a race or something?”
He stops, his hands in the middle of tying twine around a bundle of newspapers. I can see the headline on the top one from where I sit, the large black letters: Kennedy Killed By Sniper.
“What?”
“Do you think you could sit down for a minute? You’re making me nervous running around like that.”
“Danny, I have things to do.”
“You have nothing to do.” This time I grab his arm, albeit in a much friendlier manner. I lead him to a chair near the fireplace, where a small flame is gasping for life. “You’re acting just like my mother did when my father died. You think that if you don’t stop, you won’t have to think. It doesn’t work. Sit down.”
He sort of glares up at me, pushing his glasses up on his nose. They are dark eyes, but I can see the red-rims. The purple-black sleepless sockets they sit in. I can tell that he has not slept in days. “Don’t you have a nurse?” I ask, because I cannot form the questions I really want answers to.
He nods. “Some of the women in my temple have been coming to clean and help with the baby. Several of them have offered to take him until I am…until…I don’t know when. But I didn’t want that. My father took care of me on his own with only Manya for help and I can as well.”
I clear my throat. “Do you want to…tell me…”
His lips go a bit white. He grabs a log from a pile on the floor and places it carefully into the struggling flame. It almost instantly cracks and the room starts to grow warmer. “We thought she might make it. She…survived the birth. But about later, she was still very weak. She went to sleep. And…she just”
“I really am very sorry.” I try to touch his hand, but he moves it away at the last second.
“Yes,” he says softly. “Everyone is very sorry. I wish…”
“What?”
“I wish my father were still alive. So I could ask him how he coped. What he did.”
“Your father was a good man.”
“Yes,” he whispers. “He was.” He does say anything about my father. The man who raised me in silence. The man who desperately needed to prove that I was not a brain without a heart. That I possessed a soul. I still do not know if he did prove it or not.
A delicious smell is filling the house—chicken, onions, potatoes and perhaps a smidgen of garlic and rosemary. The ice in my stomach has melted enough that I can feel its cold empty walls. Reuven starts to stand, but I motion him down. “No,” I say. “I will take care of the food. You sit and rest.”
“What do you know about cooking?”
“I’ve learned a few things over the years.” He laughs. “Really? I’ve never seen you make so much as a piece of toast on your own.”
It is true, that in a Hasidic household the cooking duties are considered women’s work, but I have not had that luxury in years. I eat most of my meals at well-researched Kosher restaurants, but I still have to rely on my mediocre skills or starve to death on occasion. “A bachelor does what he must.” I pull the casserole dish out of the oven and dig around in the crisper, finding lettuce, tomato and cucumber.
“Why don’t you get married then?”
My knife freezes mid-slice. It is an honest question. A fair question. It is what a Jewish man is supposed to do. “I don’t think my wife would appreciate having to tramp all over the world, following me. And it is hardly fair to leave her at home when I am away at least six months of every year.”
There. A fair answer if not a completely honest one.
Reuven does not say anything, but does come to the table. I take out two plates, two forks, a second mug. I fill it with hot tea from the stove for my host. There is an intense need to keep my hands busy.
It is a silent meal. I remark on how good the food tastes, and Reuven tells me that the women at his temple have been bringing over enough food to feed a small country. He does not have much of an appetite, stabbing at his chicken and salad in a way that reminds me of my younger brother. Levi. The true tzaddick. He does not have the mind that I do, but he is desperately loyal and faithful. His people love him. He married fairly young and already has two beautiful young daughters. I received a card on my birthday wishing me well and telling me that his wife is with child again. They hope for a son.
I shovel the food into my mouth in huge forkfuls, trying to fill the hollow cave of ice in my middle. It does not work, but the dinner is very good anyway. Once Reuven gets up to check on the baby. It occurs to me that he must think it odd that I have not asked a single question about it. But I can’t. A child is so…permanent.
*
Reuven and I say virtually nothing to each other the rest of that night. Shortly after eating, he tells me that he is going to bed, that the baby will be up in a few hours to be fed. He brings a pillow and two thick blankets to that ugly floral sofa. He tells me the bathroom is all mine, but just to be as quiet as I can. He says there are extra towels in the airing closet. That I am free to use his toothpaste, shampoo, shaving cream, anything I need. He even has an entire case of extra toothbrushes under the sink.
“Sarah liked to stock up when there was a big sale. Anyone who saw my bathroom probably would think I robbed a dentist or something.” He laughs. I flinch. The realisation of his wife causes the color to drain from his cheeks. “Well, good-night, Danny.”
“Good-night, Reuven.”
He turns off the light. He does not say that he is glad I am here. Well, that went well.
*
Reuven pants warmly in my ear. His chest burns against my bare back. I am on fire. Liquid fire.
No one has ever touched me like this. And not just physically. Inwardly, I feel attached for the first time. As if my organs had been floating freely with no contact with each other. My heart is throbbing. I am so glad that it is there. That I can feel it beating.
My head is suddenly drenched with a red haze and I am erupting. I look back and see a nose, a chin with two or three hairs on it. Protruding eyes, half-closed. Lips that glisten with saliva, a loud grunt escaping. It is not his best look. But I am in love with it.
“Oh, God, Reuven!” It is the first time I have felt loved. And I know that I will not be capable of loving anyone else ever.
*
When I wake up, sunlight is pouring through the lace curtains. My head is sweaty and sore, the way it feels when I stay up too late reading or writing. The bottoms of my pajamas are caked in perspiration and semen. I sit up, alarmed.
“Danny?”
Reuven is standing over the sofa, a glass of orange juice in his hand. He is wearing a dark suit without the jacket, a dark tie. His hair is sheened down, parted on the side and softly layered on top of his head. “Good-morning,” I say, though my voice is hollow and dry. I feel like I have rid myself of every inch of moisture in my body.
“I have to go to my synagogue for a little while. Some sort of emergency. I’ve called my housekeeper, but there was no answer. I can ask one of the women once I get there to come over, but could you stay with David for an hour or so?”
My head is foggy. “David?”
His eyes narrow. “My son.”
I am supposedly a mind born once a generation. I am also an idiot. “Of course I can. Is everything alright?”
“Fine. There is formula in the ice box. Diapers folded in the nursery. The number of the temple is”—
“On the side table, by the phone. I have been here before, you know. And I may not be a woman, but I’ve been told I have a pretty fair memory. I can manage quite well.”
Reuven hands me the juice. It is fresh squeezed and I down it in one long swallow. The burn in the back of my throat is gradually extinguished, and I look toward the window. The sun is out, melting the ice in long watery strings down the glass. A promising start. And when it sets tonight, it will be Shabbos.
“David and I will be fine,” I tell my friend. He stares at me, and then sighs deeply.
“Fine.” He grabs his coat from a peg and closes the door so silently that I hear nothing.
*
I take a hot shower and lather my body three times with soap, but I still feel dirty when I step out. When I’m through, I stand in front of the mirror with my razor and Reven’s shaving cream in my hands. My reflection is blurred with steam. I run my hand over its moist surface, and I can see my hair—blond and overgrown, it makes me look younger than I am. Then I can see my nose, mouth and chin. Almost fifteen years later I am still surprised to not see a beard. Now only my eyes are covered in fog.
I dress warmly, though it is clear from the bright light pouring in from the windows that the mercury is higher. Just as I am tying my boot laces, I hear crying.
I have not had time to fear being in charge of an infant, but as I stand over the crib, looking down at the baby within it, I feel…well, not afraid, exactly, but something. I swallow hard.
David Malter. Reuven’s son.
He is wrapped in a white blanket when I pick him up. His crying is not the loud squall that I occasionally hear from children on the streets, in stores, even sometimes at temple. His cheeks are pink and his chest gasps for air, but the minute I have him in my arms the fear leaves me.
“A kind’s treren reissen himlen .”
The words leave my mouth before I know why. Little David grunts, turns to me. There are still tears in his eyes, but the crying recedes to a series of gasps. He blinks a few times with his father’s dark brown eyes, studying my face. I smile.
“Hello, David,” I say softly.
*
As I settle into a chair and feed the baby a prepared bottle I warmed on the stove, I study his tiny pink face. Some believe that children are born a tabula rasa, a blank slate. That all their knowledge and behaviours are imprinted on them by their experiences. There has been research done on the cerebral cortex to see if information can be imprinted, and in behavioural genetics there has been decades of research into the nature verses nurture debate. How and why we learn to be the people we are will probably never be answered. My father would have said that my mind was a gift from the Master of the Universe. But psychologically speaking, it is fluke of genetics, neurobiology and luck.
David grunts a mouthful of milk and I wipe his chin. He looks up at me and coos. No one can tell whether I will imprint anything on him or not. He may become President of the United States one day. Or he may become a criminal. He may meet the girl of his dreams, have five children and live happily ever after. He may be a lonely, isolated phenomenon.
But just holding him makes the ice inside feel warmer. I can feel it dripping away.
“Tonight is Shabbos,” I tell him. “What do you say we go and buy some food and make a nice shabbat meal for your father?”
The baby sticks his tongue out.
*
I remember that there is a small market just down the street, on the other side of Lee Avenue. I want to do this for Reuven. I want him to have a good dinner, a quiet night where he can relax. I want to be able to talk to him.
I dress the baby warmly and wrap a blanket around him. It doesn’t occur to me until much later that there was a carriage, brand new and doubtlessly unused sitting in the nursery, so I simply carry him. Outside, the air is a bit chill, but the sun is shining brightly. All memory of the blistering cold of yesterday is gone. It has been one week since President Kennedy was assassinated. David blinks and stares up at me, his brow wrinkled. I smile reassuringly at him and tuck the blanket a bit tighter.
At the store, five or six women with babies give me curious looks. One older lady freezes as I reach for a bunch of carrots and gawks openly. “Good-morning,” I tell her.
She pushes her glasses up on her nose, eyebrows raised. In my arms, David wrinkles up his nose. I add some ginger to my basket. I haven’t cooked for two in years. I haven’t been out alone with a baby ever. But I feel comfortable as I stroll over to the fish counter and pick out two nice trout fillets.
The butcher is an old man, smaller and more wizened than one would expect for such a demanding job. As he weighs my purchase, he glances at David. “Is your wife sick?” He asks me.
“Yes.”
“Too bad. I’m sorry.” He wraps the fish in butcher’s paper. “Hard on you, isn’t it?”
“A bit.”
“Well, shabbat shalom.” He wipes the scale with a paper towel. “Cute kid, too.”
I adjust the baby and my basket and move to the front to pay for my food. He has not made so much as a sound since I left. Any man would consider himself lucky to have such a well-behaved son.
*
The last time I saw my father was about a year before he died. I had just turned thirty and was busier than ever—guest lecturing in Germany and travelling back and forth between that country and Austria, where I was doing research in neurobiology and the subconscious. He would call me about once a week, ask me when I was coming home. It was still odd to talk to him. For the first twenty years of my life, there was nothing.
“And now you are too busy for your father,” he would say. I could not tell if he was sad or not.
So I went. He looked much frailer than last I saw him. His hair was whiter, his skin was creased heavily around the eyes. When we talked in his study, he had a thick blanket tucked around his lap. “Nu, Daniel, you are happy, yes?”
I was taken aback. We had been talking about his people, the changes that would come when Levi took his place. And then, out of nowhere, my father looked me directly in the eye and asked me this.
“Of course I am, Abba.”
“You are happy. You say that you are happy. Okay.” He tucks the blanket in a bit tighter and smiles at me. “Your mother, God bless her, she worries. Worries I will catch cold. But it is a wife’s job to worry about her husband.”
His expression changed then. His mouth dropped a bit and brought his hand to his beard, rubbing the side of his cheek. “Tell me, my Daniel. You are thirty years old now. That is young enough, I know. But it is old enough for a wife. I worry about you, being alone so much. Your brother has a wife now. Your sister has a husband. Why do you not find yourself a wife?”
I know my cheeks flooded with heat. I could feel it pouring out of my ears. There was no hiding it from my father. “I…I don’t have the time for a wife, Abba.”
“Time?” He raised his eyebrows. “Yes. Yes my son has very little time. He is always busy. Busy with his psychology. No, no, do not mis-understand. I am very proud of my son. I hear everywhere how important my son is. How I am lucky to have such a brilliant son.” He clears his throat. “But just remember, Daniel. It is very good to be an important man. A brilliant man. But if a man makes no time for a family, than he will never be remembered. He is just…” He shakes his head. “Dust.”
I could not respond. Eventually, after a few minutes, we talked about other things. A few days before I left, my father asked if I was going to see Reuven. “You are still friends, nu, Daniel?”
“Yes, Abba,” I said slowly. “We are still friends.”
“Good.” He nodded happily. “I am glad that my son still has a friend.”
*
David has fallen asleep by the time I get home. Quietly, I set the food in the kitchen and take him into the nursery. I attempt to change his diaper, but having never done it before I can’t be sure I get it right. His little mouth is making a sucking motion in sleep, his fists balled up against his chest. Over the crib is a mobile in the shape of Noah’s ark, various animals hanging down. I wind it up and the soft music I heard last night begins to play. The baby seems to sigh contentedly.
As I am leaving the room, I see that there is a photograph hanging on the pale blue wall. Reuven and Sarah, standing in front of some sort of garden, holding hands, smiling. Looking at it, I feel bad for that innocent boy. He will never know the sound of his own mother’s voice.
And then the front door slams.
“Danny! Where are you?!”
I’m frozen. I have never heard that turn of voice from Reuven before. Even the sound of my own name is brittle, vicious.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, stepping into the living room. He is there, his face drained, coat hanging off his arms. “Why are you yelling?”
He glares at me for a long time, so long that I feel the breath being driven from my lungs. “Where were you?”
“What?”
“I just had Mrs. Stern come running into the synagogue, terrified, because the house was unlocked, the baby was gone and there was no one home. She was convinced David had been kidnapped.”
I nearly laugh. Only the mask of anger my friend wears keeps me from doing so. “But you knew the baby was with me. We just went outside, to that little store down the st”—
“How much more can I take, Danny! How much?” He throws his hands in the air. “I can’t handle this all on my own! Sarah has not even been gone a month yet. And I have a baby, a whole flock of people, every time I turn my head it’s something else! I can’t do this! You’re supposed to be my friend! Where the Hell have you been?!”
He is screaming. I can only remember a handful of times when he has even raised his voice. For some reason, the first thing that comes to my mind is my father exploding. He is slamming his fist on the table, demanding that I never see that Malter goy again, never! It is 1947 again, and I am eighteen years old, a freshman at Hersch College. And I have just been told I am not allowed to go within four feet of my best friend.
“You’re right,” I tell him, my voice barely audible. “I have not been here for you. I got your telegram weeks ago, but I couldn’t come. And when we were in college and you needed me, I wasn’t there. I have been a very poor friend, Reuven. I’m sorry.”
The baby is crying. When he makes no move to go to him, I do myself. The poor thing is terrified of all the shouting, twisting and shaking in his crib. I pick him up, shushing him, rocking him up and down. Just last night I was afraid to admit this baby existed. And now. Now it feels natural holding him. I once told another David Malter that if I had a son I didn’t know what to do with, I would raise him in silence. I know that I will never have a son. But I am glad that this little boy will not be raised in silence.
When he stops crying, I set him back in his crib, kiss my hand and press it to his forehead. “Ad meah v’esrim shanah.” I whisper.
I go back into the living room and pick up my case. “I’ll go now, my friend. You need to be”—
Reuven is crying. Tears are pouring from his eyes. He stands there, glasses in one hand, coat dangling off the other, face buried in his hands. My suitcase is already in my hand, but I am too shocked to move. I should leave, I know. I should rid him of my presence forever. He would probably be better off. But I can’t. I am too weak to choose this option.
I set my bag back down and go to him. My chest is tight, but I will not allow my brain to think. I simply act. I walk him to the chair by the fireplace and sit him down. I want to do more, to have him in my arms, but I think better of it. Squatting next to him, I grip his arm while his soul screams in agony. Perhaps this is the first break-down he has allowed himself since his wife’s death. I can tell by its intensity that it is. He cries for a very long time. There is no feeling in my legs when he begins to calm himself. If only the rest of my body could be as numb.
“I’m sorry,” his says after quite awhile. His voice is heavy, husky with emotion. “I’m sorry you had to see that, Danny.”
When I can walk again, I stumble into the kitchen and bring him a tissue and a glass of water. He takes both gratefully. I watch as he polishes the tears off his glasses and drinks all the water. When he seems composed again, I say, “That is what happens when you do not allow yourself time to grieve.”
For several minutes, he says nothing. His mouth opens, but he closes it again before anything comes out. I wait. I am very good at waiting for people to tell me what they need me to hear. “I want to tell you something,” he says at last. “I hadn’t intended to. But I think you should know. Or at least, I think I need to say it. I loved my wife. And I am very, very sorry she is dead. But…” He pauses, and takes many long, deep breaths.
“But I am not…these tears. They are not for her. The reason I’m sad. Is that I’m not as sad as I should be. I did love her. Really, I did.”
He will not call her by her name. I wait, arms folded, for him to continue. At times like this, it is better to blend into the background.
“Danny…we are friends, aren’t we?”
“Yes.” I must choose my words carefully.
“But I’ve always thought…” He wants me to say it. The room is silent. His question hangs in the air, so tangible I feel as though I can reach out and grab it. I have never said it. Not to anyone. And though I know what his reaction will be, I have to say it. It is like a fire burning up the back of my throat, to my tongue, through the roof in my mouth. I have to extinguish it. I swallow hard.
“I’m in love with you.” My voice is loud and clear. It does not shake. I am thankful for that, at least.
*
I once had a conversation with another psychologist that has stuck with me. He was a German, a small man with slicked back white hair and tired eyes. He would always cast suspicious looks at me whenever we happened to be in the same room. At first, I thought he was uncomfortable working with a Jew, but I soon saw that he was equally uncomfortable with anyone else. He did not carry papers on clipboards with him, pens behind his ears, notes stuffed in shirt pockets like most men at our facility did. Instead, he was rather like me. Relying on his memory. Or perhaps he just didn’t care.
We had been studying a young woman who came in hearing voices, having violent outbursts and convinced that ‘angels were following her.’ The German and I had been writing up her case for publication, although schizophrenia and other mental disorders were not my specialty. One day, as we walked down the hallway, the German said to me, “In a way, I am jealous of Fraulein Helle’s family.”
I turned to him, surprised. Not just for his strange words, but because he had actually spoken to me. “Why? It must be distressful to have someone you love be so ill.”
“But they have the answer they were looking for. All of her actions, they can relate to her disorder. What does one do when they have no answers?”
I glanced at him curiously. “What do you mean?”
He did not answer for a long while. We walked silently, listening to our rubber-soled shoes squeak on the sterile tiled floor. Just as we were about to reach the closet we were sharing as an office, the German said, “During the war, my wife and I were loyal to the Reich. This may be hard for you to understand. Outwardly, we were loyal. I wore the swastika on my arm, my wife walked with my daughter to Bund Deutscher Mädel meetings. I was not a true believer, but I did what I had to in order to survive. It was nothing I gave much thought to, really. One day, I came home. My wife was hanging from a pipe in our fruit cellar. My daughter, who was thirteen years old, had her throat cut with a kitchen knife. There was a letter, in my wife’s hand, saying that she was sorry.” He paused, folding his arms behind his back.
I was too stunned to speak. “That was all the letter said, Saunders. That she was sorry. No other explanation whatsoever.” He looked up at me with those suspicious eyes. “It is something I have learned. The more we know someone, the longer they have been in our lives, the more we have to learn.” He frowned slightly. “The more we do not know them.”
*
October, 1968
My little boy, yarmulke crooked atop a large head of dark curls, comes running toward me. All I can see are two scabby knees and a wide smile, as well as a box wrapped in blue paper with an oversized red bow. He is wearing a tie, but still he looks like a little heathen in his outgrown plaid shorts and suspenders. There is a dirt smear on his cheek. No doubt he was climbing trees earlier in the day.
“Look, Abba,” he says, holding out the present. “Do you think Kvater will like it?”
I take his hand. “How can I say? I don’t know what it is.”
“It’s a yo-yo.”
“A yo-yo?”
“I asked him what to get him for his birthday. He said something fun would be good. I thought he could have fun with a yo-yo.”
“I think he can relate to that very nicely.” I kiss the top of his head and my mouth tastes salty. “You need a bath, Davie.”
“Yuck.” He is categorically averse to all forms of cleanliness. But I suppose almost all five-year olds are. That is why it is said they are made of snips and snails and dog tails and the like.
David disappears into the house. Danny, who is working part-time at Columbia and helping me full-time with my son, is due home shortly. Today is his thirty-ninth birthday. Although I know that he would just assume let the day past, I refuse to let him. I picked him up an almond cake, his favorite. I have a roast cooking in the oven. And my son insisted that we buy a big bunch of balloons, which is tied to his chair in the dining room. He will have a yo-yo to play with.
I didn’t buy him a gift, though. Neither of us is really into buying presents, particularly for each other. Besides, what would I buy him? A sweater? A book? He devours those in a few hours. A watch? He doesn’t even use one. What sort of present do you buy the person you love most in the world? The person who picks up your only son every day from preschool, feeds him, teaches him to hit a baseball, and makes you dinner? The man who memorizes and edits my sermons every week, and spends hours discussing them with me over tea late into the night? The man who thought he knew me. The man who soon came to realize, that the more you are certain you know a person, the more you have to learn.