Not Me (10 page)

It was late when I got myself ready to leave. We’d gone into dinner, and I’d sat with him. He didn’t speak much. Nobody else had come to visit him. I was exhausted. When they put him in the bed and he nodded off, I thought of examining his body for bullet wounds. I had never noticed any scars on him, but then again, when had I seen him naked? Even on the beach he wore one of those sleeveless undershirts—Italian tuxedos, we used to call them. Not that we went to the beach all that often. Most of our vacations were “educational.” Frequently that meant going to places like Washington, D.C., or Gettysburg. A lot of museums. Very little seashore. They did send us to camp, but it was Jewish camp, where we ate kosher and had to pray every morning, even though no one was religious, including the counselors. And when Mom and Dad came out for parents’ day, my father would never do any of the activities. Never take off his shirt and play volleyball, for instance. He preferred to sit and comment.

Tonight, the collar of his pajama top was buttoned as always. It was one of his idiosyncrasies that he had managed to impart to his loyal keepers. But on this evening, as the sun finally relented and sank behind the palm trees and into the swamps to the west, I reached out and loosened his collar, and opened the next button down, too. I didn’t see a thing. His skin was wrinkled and mottled and darkened in spots, but there were no scars.

I can’t say I was exactly relieved. But it was enough for me not to look further. I pulled the sheet over him and tiptoed out.

The vestibule was quiet. Most of the inmates of death row—that’s what it was, after all—were tucked in their beds, too. Televisions could be heard softly moaning behind closed doors, and a few last husbands and wives wandered about, delaying as long as possible the drive back to their empty homes. Nurse Clara was not on duty. I was hoping she would be there. I found a certain comfort in her strong will, the size of her bosom, and the strange prowess of her cross.

It was another nurse who stopped me.

“Oh, are you Mr. Rosenheim’s son?”

I told her I was.

“This came for your father.” She handed me a letter. It was addressed simply to “Rosenheim.”

“Thanks,” I said.

I casually stuffed the envelope in my pocket.

“Have a good night,” she said. “See you tomorrow.”

I calmly strolled through the door. But once outside, I ran to the car like a man who just robbed a convenience store.

I slammed the car door shut and without thinking revved the engine and pumped the air-conditioning onto my face and arms. Even though the sun was gone, the car seat still stuck to me like melted gummy bears. My heart was pounding. As I peeled out of the lot, bugs smashed onto the windshield, leaving disgusting globs of white mucus directly in my line of vision.

The letter in my pocket seemed to grow larger and heavier until it threatened to crush my chest. I couldn’t wait. I had to read it. I spotted the Starbucks and pulled into the parking lot.

I didn’t want coffee, but felt guilty not ordering anything. I paced back and forth until they made my cappuccino. It was about eight-thirty in the evening, and the place was already closing up. Without the bustle of people, it felt somehow squalid. What was I doing in an empty Starbucks anyway, with this letter in my pocket, watching the guys mop up? The stink of coffee reminded me of the smell of dirty feet. I found a table in the back next to the display of coffeemakers, and crouched down like a kid who didn’t want to get picked by the teacher.

I grabbed a couple of packets of Sweet’N Low and a wooden swizzle stick. Swizzle stick! Bitterly, I examined it. Starbucks’ customers didn’t even rate a spoon.

Hunched over like a criminal, I stealthily slipped the envelope out of my pocket and set it before me on the table.
Rosenheim.

I studied the name.

I had actually thought of changing it. Well, I had changed it, hadn’t I? My stage name was Mickey Rose. So for most of the world that’s who I was. A guy with a cartoon name. A Shecky Greene kind of name. Like I was a
tummler
in the Borscht Belt. I remember making up that name. I was eleven years old. I was in my bedroom. My life was in ruins. Everybody at school hated me. I was the fat kid. The spaz. I couldn’t play baseball, and I was afraid to play football. My father wouldn’t let me join the Boy Scouts because it was
goyisha
and it met in the Presbyterian church, never mind that half the kids in it were Jewish. When I walked past a bunch of girls, they always snickered. Other kids threw things at me. The bullies stole my homework, scrawled obscenities in my locker. I was one of those kids who saw those ads in the back of comic books—
Learn to play the piano and be the life of the party
—and took them seriously. At home I was a god, but at school I was an insect. I began to resent my parents for loving me. I began to see their adoration as a form of stupidity. I often stayed home sick. I watched TV a lot. I did magic. Card tricks. I put on shows with my little sister. One day I brought my magic tricks to school for talent day. I dreaded my turn, but finally I had to stand in front of the class. Looking out, I saw the faces of the enemy. Panicked, I started with my best trick, the interlocking rings. But something happened. In the middle of the trick, I forgot how to do it. I banged the two rings together and they wouldn’t join together. I banged and banged. The class burst into laughter. I said some elaborate hocus-pocus and tried squeezing them together. Nothing. The class howled. I twisted them right and left, but nothing worked. I just couldn’t remember how to do it. Finally, I looked up at them, almost in tears. But their faces had changed. They weren’t the faces of the enemy. They were wide-eyed and happy. They thought I was doing this on purpose! I said some more hocus-pocus, and stomped on the rings with my feet. They screamed with laughter, and the more I twisted and banged and stomped and couldn’t get the rings to interlock, the funnier they thought it was—no, the funnier they thought
I
was—
they loved me!

Finally I just put the rings on my head and took a bow. The class exploded with applause. Mrs. Schwartz nodded at me. There was a smile even on her face. Mrs. Schwartz. Smiling. In my entire fifth grade, I had never seen her teeth. It was as if God had reached down from the sky and touched my shoulder. I returned to my seat no longer the class outcast. I was now the class clown. I was flush with victory. I had wrestled with the angel—only in my case it was three aluminum rings—and my name was changed from Jacob to Israel.

Thus it was that evening, alone in my room, Mickey Rose was born.

And by now just about everyone called me Mickey. Mickey Rose. In Vegas, I was Mickey Rose. In Tahoe, I was Mickey Rose. When the babes wasted their time hitting on me in the comedy clubs, it was Mickey Rose. All my comedian friends called me Mickey Rose. Really, it was only Ella who called me Michael anymore. And my father, of course. And as for Rosenheim, well, Josh was a Rosenheim. And my driver’s license was a Rosenheim. And I got airplane tickets as a Rosenheim. But was
I
a Rosenheim? And now I was wondering, were any of us Rosenheims?

I picked up the envelope and sniffed it. Nothing. I don’t know what I was expecting, anyway.

I slid my finger under the flap, but hesitated to tear it open. I sensed someone close to me. Slight hint of perfume, or perhaps skin lotion. I looked up. It was the typing lady, the one I had seen here before. My first thought was that she was following me.

She also hesitated, and then smiled.

“I know you,” she said.

“You do?”

“Yes. You’re the comedian. I saw you at the Mirage. You were doing this thing with a puppet. The rabbit with the filthy mouth. It was hilarious.”

I was speechless. My finger was still hooked under the flap of the unopened envelope.

“It was you, wasn’t it? I can’t remember who you were opening for.”

“I wasn’t opening,” I finally said. “I was just the lounge act.”

“Right, right!” she said.

She stood there and looked at me for rather a long time.

“I don’t remember your name,” she then said.

Now it was my turn to stare at her in silence. It seemed I had to make a choice here.

“Mickey Rose,” I said.

“Right, right!” she agreed, as if I had passed a test. “Can I sit down?”

“Excuse me?”

“I was just wondering if I could sit down. You’re the only person under eighty I’ve seen around here. I’m visiting my mom. You, too?”

My finger was still embedded under the flap of the envelope. It seemed suspended in time, liminally poised at the gateway to my destiny, while above me loomed some sort of Fury or Circe sent by the Fates to impede my progress, only she was a middle-aged hippie woman who pounded out diatribes on her laptop. Why, I wondered, didn’t she just dye her hair? And the Japanese fabrics, the Native American jewelry, the purse that looked like an Afghan rug?

But what could I do? I nodded and she sat down, resting her chin upon her upturned hand and studying me as if I were a lab specimen. I put the envelope back in my pocket.

“My name is April,” she said. Her eyes were quite blue, I noticed. And her nails were, too, though the smile that she now offered radiated perfectly brilliant white teeth.

I tried to think of something to say. “I’ve seen you typing,” I offered.

“Oh, that, yes. It’s impossible to work at my mother’s. She’s always talking to me. But I’ve got deadlines.”

“Ah,” I said. I knew she wanted me to ask her what kind of deadlines.

“I’m editing an anthology,” she continued. “The introduction is already past due.”

“Really?” I said.

She laughed, revealing an unexpected girlish quality. “I see I’m fascinating you,” she said. “Are you from New York, too?”

She seemed genuinely disappointed that I was not, but then she picked up on the fact that I lived in San Francisco, and started dissing it in a fairly amusing way—in just the same tones she might use to kvetch about New York. It was her way of connecting, of trying to say she might actually consider going to bed with me if I could muster the slightest bit of manly intentionality. She was lonely, I was lonely, it all made sense. And so even though all I really wanted was for her to go away and let me read my letter, I did not send her away. I had at my fingertips a million strategies for sexual avoidance, and yet nothing escaped my lips except a bit of foam from my cappuccino.

I watched her flirt with me. It was like watching a fish in the tank at a Chinese restaurant.

This struck me as funny, and I laughed. She thought I was laughing at her jokes, so she redoubled her efforts. She said that the problem with San Francisco was that all the women looked like Donna Reed, and so did all the men.

This, by the way, was not a funny joke. It was so unfunny, in fact, that I felt I had to do something. I started in with my Florida shtick—Fountain of Youth, Two Old Jews Meet on Miami Beach—that sort of thing, got her going, and then transitioned into Little Old Lady jokes, Cuban Cigar jokes, and then the coup de grâce—something I had been working on—Hospice Humor!—the lighter side of death and dying. I was cracking her up. She was the perfect audience—like Ella used to be. By the time I was through with her, I’d say five words and she’d be on the floor. I’d mug and she’d spit up her coffee. And when I finally slowed it down—because, frankly, I was running out of steam—I looked at her. She looked nice, to tell you the truth, wiping the tears from her eyes. And we fell into that dumb silence that often occurs between the last joke and the first kiss.

“I guess writing comedy is kind of like writing poetry,” she said.

“Is it?”

“You look for the holes in things. Then you go for the kill.”

I smiled at that, because I knew what she meant, and it felt really good to know what someone meant for a change.

“Are you a poet?” I asked her.

“I am. But perhaps not as good a poet as you are a comic.” The way she leaned into me reminded me of a cat rubbing up against a table leg.

All around us they had put the chairs up on the tables, and the attendants were waiting with their mops.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” I said.

“I’d invite you to my place for a nightcap,” April laughed, “but my mother’s home.”

Well, there it was. Now was the moment to suavely suggest we go to my place. But I could feel that letter in my pocket, like acid, burning through to my skin.

And anyway, what about Ella?

I said good night and drove myself home to The Ponds at Lakeshore.

At home, I opened the letter, read it, and ran to the bathroom just in time to throw up.

Dear Mr. Rosenheim:

I hope this letter finds you well. I have enclosed the following photocopied document at the request of your agents in this matter, which I hope you find in good order. I shall have it delivered by messenger to your father’s current place of residence, as instructed.

Best regards,

Harold W. Kaufman

Librarian

Holocaust Archives

Los Angeles, CA

CHAPTER 3, MEMORIAL BOOK, THE TOWN OF DURNIK, LITHUANIA

In the fall of 1947, Heshel Rosenheim was twenty-seven years old. The world around him had suddenly changed yet again. A war of terror and small actions had begun in earnest in expectation of the departure of the British. Throughout the Arab world, Jews were being attacked, their neighborhoods pillaged. Beirut, Cairo, Alexandria, Aleppo. There was a massacre in Aden. It seemed the world was repeating itself, but for some reason this did not give solace to young Heshel Rosenheim. A bus was attacked on its way to Jerusalem. Jews were singled out and killed. In December, there were Arab riots in Jerusalem. In the same month, a group of Jewish settlements in the Negev called the Etzion Block were surrounded and cut off. On the other side, Jewish Irgunists threw bombs at a crowd of Arabs at the bus station at the Damascus Gate. About the same time, fifteen Haganah soldiers were ambushed and killed by the Arab Legion. The Stern Gang then broke into an Arab home and killed five people.

In the meantime, Heshel lay in his bed, motionless and silent. Everyone left him alone. Not all wounds, they told each other, are physical.

One afternoon though, Tuli, the local Haganah commander, came by.

“They’re forming a special Palmach unit,” he told him. “To protect the Negev and the Etzion Block.”

Heshel said nothing, just continued to stare out the window. Tuli looked out there, too. All he could see was the tractor shed.

“They want you,” said the commander.

He would be sent to a secret camp and trained as Palmach
—
the elite strike force. He was strong, he was brave, he was smart, he had proved himself good with a weapon, and he had the clear head of a leader. Everyone knew this. Everyone looked up to him. This would be no time to shirk his duty or fall prey to dark thoughts.

“Enough with doing the books,” Tuli said.

A week or so later, Heshel packed his few things in his small cotton duffel, and waited by the roadside for the lorry to take him away. Soon enough, he saw a small convoy approaching, casting up dust into the gray sky. The rain that had threatened so long was finally on its way. A new season was upon him in this strange land without seasons. He turned to look back at the kibbutz. He was surprised to see Moskovitz standing at the gate, the wind blowing her hair wildly, her skirt fluttering and flapping around the poles of her legs. But it was not Moskovitz, was it? Yael was her name now
—
Bat Tsedek
—
yes, she was a stranger to him! The wind raised her skirts and tore at her hair, but it didn’t fool him: she was too solid to let any force of nature carry her away. He found his hand rising, unwilled, in a gesture of farewell. Oh! he yearned to run to her, he did! He wished to throw down the duffel and take her in his arms and kiss her wildly on the mouth, as wildly as the wind that now pelted her lips with dust. But his feet, of course, did not move. All he was allowed was the small movement of his arm, good-bye. Just then the lorry pulled up and a soldier leaned out the window
—
Rosenheim? Heshel hoisted his duffel onto the truck bed, unshouldered his rifle and threw that in as well, and finally lifted himself over the gate and jumped in. He turned, leaned out, and waved at her again. At last she waved back. Even before he was settled in, the caravan turned around and took off down the road. Looking back toward the kibbutz, he saw that she was still standing there, braving the wind and the first few drops of rain that would soon, he knew, become a torrent. All too quickly she became small, just a dot on the landscape, until at last she dropped her hand and ran back into the compound and out of all sight. He took a deep breath and settled onto the wood plank that served as a bench in the back of the truck. He nodded to the men and said hello. Then he turned his head outward once again, and the last thing he saw before they closed the flap to keep out the rain was the smoke rising from the little Arab village where his little hope of escape had evaporated in a burst of gunfire, and where now the women were preparing dinners of lamb and vegetables for their frightened families.

He spent three weeks in camp, and emerged an officer. The man called Heshel Rosenheim was once again a lieutenant. Only this time his dream would come true. He would be on the front line, defending the homeland.

The thought made him laugh, especially when he took stock of himself in his new uniform. Gone were the elegant black tunic, the dazzling double
S
’s, the smart cap with its intimidating death’s-head insignia, the dashing epaulets, the elegant dagger. In their place worn-out khakis, open collars, a pair of baggy trousers, and a pair of short pants. As for boots, there were none, or none worth calling boots
—
just heavy brown shoes. He looked more like a factory worker than a soldier. But they did give him a little short-waisted jacket
—
the kind the American general Eisenhower wore
—
and he liked that. There was also a helmet that looked very much like what the British wore in World War I, and he had a suspicion that that’s exactly what it was.

Frequently he thought of taking his own life. But why bother? The end would come soon enough. It was perhaps not a coincidence that this training camp was just north of Megiddo, on the site of the biblical Armageddon.

And more and more he thought of Moskovitz.

By now the land was turning green with new growth, but nobody noticed. In January, Kfar Szold, on the Syrian border, was attacked by the Arab Liberation Army. A huge explosion rocked Jerusalem, destroying the Jewish
Palestinian Post
building. In the Negev, several kibbutzim were cut off. In the Etzion Block, a pitched battle was already under way. Lieutenant Rosenheim was given his orders. His company was loaded into open trucks in spite of the rain, and they headed south.

They were to bring desperately needed supplies to the remote outpost of Revivim, and then break off the main convoy and swing toward the coast to engage any hostile forces in defense of Jewish settlements. They were strictly forbidden to launch any offensive measures. And any reprisals or countermeasures were to be aimed solely at combatants. These orders, Lieutenant Rosenheim thought, were so naïve they must have been issued by children. He had been placed in command of a unit of ten soldiers, all new Palmachniks like himself. They sang songs and ate halvah as they rode along. He shook his head. He had seen such esprit de corps before. He sat there, trying to memorize their names, knowing that by the time he did, most of them would already be dead.