Not Me (8 page)

He kneeled at the base of the tree, holding it up to his eyes.

Whose number is this?

Who died so he might live? Another Avigdor? A Mira? A Sophie? A Yitzhak?

What brought him to this place? Who did this to him?

He took out his pocketknife and began to jab at his arm, scraping at the tattoo like one would a piece of toast, to get off the burnt. Clean it up! Make it right again! Like a madman he drew the knife over his skin, chopping and scraping, peeling his flesh into a bloody pulp.

“Stop!”

He felt a hand grasp his wrist.

“No, no,” he tried to say.

But Moskovitz held him firmly, wrestled the knife from his fingers, and threw it to the ground. Then she put her arms around him, swaying, squeezing him so tightly he could barely breathe, as if she could suffocate the demon within him.

“None of that matters anymore!” she cried to him, her lips moving upon the nape of his neck. “It’s all in the past.”

She held his face between her two thick hands.

“This is what matters,” she said, and she kissed him upon his mouth, opening her own with hunger and praise. He was overwhelmed by this kiss, by the softness of her lips and the yearning of her tongue, and he fell back against the tree trunk and fainted.

Moskovitz had a first name. It was Fradl. When he spoke this name in the silence of the orange grove it melted upon his tongue. Fradl.

He had wanted her to reek, to stink of foreignness. He had wanted the touch of her flesh to burn him, to make his own skin crawl with revulsion. He had wanted her mouth to repulse him with the taste of vomit. He had wanted to have to run into the darkness, overcome with nausea, doubled over, puking at the very thought of her naked thighs.

But none of this had happened.

Instead, when he opened his eyes and saw her face glowing above him like a bright moon, he uttered her name. And when she kissed him again, she did not taste of offal or garlic or rot, or any of that
—
but of flowers and fruit, of wine in fact, seductive and slightly sweet, like the first bite of dark chocolate, at once familiar and exotic
—
and impossible to not want more. When she touched him, first on the face, and then sliding her heavy fingers beneath his shirt, it was with such delicacy and yearning it made him tremble. For the slightest instant, he recalled the touch of his mother
—
yet it was not a mother’s touch, not at all. And before he knew it, he was touching her in the same way, only harder, and more hungrily.

Comforted, aroused, terrified, he made love to her beneath the orange trees, and heard himself say her name over and over, and over again.

“Fradl,” he said again.

Their legs were entwined, and her head rested cozily upon his shoulder. He stroked her hair and watched the stars move lazily across the heavens. Her hand still caressed his chest beneath his opened shirt. She laughed and said she would have to sew the buttons back on. She remarked that she had never heard him say her name before.

“I’m glad you finally called me that,” she laughed, “because I’m changing it to Yael.”

“Really?” he said.

“Sure. And my family name, too. I’m going to be Yael Bat Tsedek.”

They all changed their European names to some made-up Hebrew concoction. But suddenly he didn’t want her to. She was part of that time, not this. This was the link between them, even though she could not possibly know of what that link truly consisted.

“You should get circumcised,” she said.

He had learned enough Hebrew to understand that Bat Tsedek meant “daughter of the righteous,” but he did not know about Yael.

“She’s in the Bible,” she told him, “a warrior. She murdered the enemy of Israel as he slept. He came to her for protection, but she killed him anyway. So be careful.” She found this highly amusing. Her laughter was quiet though, as if she did not wish to injure the serenity of the trees.

“Shall I call you Yael, then?” he asked.

“No. You must always call me Fradl,” she replied softly. “In that way some piece of my past will always give me joy.”

She reached for his arm. It was still bloody and raw where he had tried to obliterate the tattoo. She kissed his wound, and then closed her eyes.

“You should get rid of the ghetto name as well,” she said sleepily.

“They used to call me Heinrich.”

“You mean in school?”

“Yes.”

“Won’t do,” she said, and before he could reply, she fell asleep.

He lay there trying to make out the constellations he had learned as a boy. They looked a little different in this part of the world, but he was good at it, and he discerned Pegasus and then Aquarius and Pisces, and then got caught up in the Milky Way, and in the odd idea that he was looking at his own universe as it rotated around him, while he could do nothing but sit still and watch.

Why had he done this thing? Was the hollowness within him so vast he could stuff his belly with anything at all, like a beggar rooting through mountains of garbage for a morsel to eat, or the Jews of Bergen-Belsen, so parched with thirst, they greedily drank water polluted with human waste? Is that why he took this woman?

He must be very careful, he thought as he lay there, not to fall in love. Not even to like her very much.

Still, when he felt her breast rise up against him as she inched even closer in the sweet embrace of sleep, he allowed himself to breathe in the scent of her hair, and place a kiss upon her tender Jewish nose.

When the phone rang that night, I let it ring. I knew it was Josh. I wanted to talk to him more than anything, to allow his sweet, green voice to heal me, just the sound of it—but how could I speak to him? What could I say? I felt like my entire life was pasted over with lies, and I could not lie to him, not anymore. I could not ask him about his homework. I could not joke with him about Frau Hellman. The little willpower I had left was just enough to protect him from me, even though I knew it must have hurt him.

An hour later, when he called again, I let it ring some more.

I showed up at Lake Gardens at eight the next morning. Somehow it was already sweltering. The sky was thick with dull gray clouds, but I knew it wouldn’t rain. The water would just hang in the air like shreds of hair, gluing itself to my skin and making me itch without any hope of scratching. Down on the lawn, a few women were pushing their husbands in wheelchairs along the asphalt path. They moved so slowly they seemed to be standing still. As I walked toward the entrance, a coconut fell onto the grass with a great and terrifying thud. Had I been a few steps to the right, it would have killed me.

I hated Florida.

I found Dad in a mostly comatose state, rocking his torso back and forth, and occasionally mumbling something I couldn’t make out.

“Hey, Dad,” I said. “It’s me.”

“Israel?” he said.

“No, Dad, me.”

Me. That was a word that was beginning to have no meaning either. Is it a name? Or a declaration of some sort? A complaint?

I sat down beside him. I waited a few minutes to see if he would come out of it, but he just slipped farther and farther into negative space. I took the moment to look at his chart. He was on Exelon—a cognitive drug—twice a day. There were a few other things I’d never heard of. I wrote them down on the little pad I used to sketch out my comedy routines. I fiddled with the Levolors—open, close, open, close—and absently drew the curtain round his bed. With the blinds closed as well, I got the strange, not unpleasant feeling I was deep under the sea, in a diving bell, for it was so quiet and cut off from the life around us. Then I pushed open the curtain and the bustle of the nursing home came pouring in, full of the usual misery and defeat.

He hadn’t noticed any of it.

After a while, I turned on the television, and, right on cue, Dad opened his eyes, and we both watched
Good Morning America
.

I had been up reading all the night before, so it’s not surprising I fell asleep sometime during
Regis and Kelly,
and when I opened my eyes the noon news was on. I wasn’t quite sure where I was. I never followed the news anymore, so I had a hard time understanding what they were talking about. I guess it happened after Ella moved out with Josh. As I sat there looking blankly at the TV screen, I remembered why.

Ella was running around packing things. Stuffing Josh’s toys into boxes. Putting school books into paper bags. I told her she could have the house, that I would go. But she didn’t want it. I thought it was because of all the memories, a house filled with sadness, that sort of thing.

“How could you ever think I would want to keep Josh in a dump like this?” she said.

But she said all kinds of crazy, unhinged things then. She was upset. I tried to make it easier for her. I told her, “Okay, okay, then take whatever you want. Anything. I don’t care.” But she didn’t want anything. Not even the kitchen stuff.

“It’s all crap,” she said.

I remember trying so hard not to take it personally. “But I thought you liked it here.”

“Michael, I did it for you,” she said, shaking her head. “Oh, what’s the use?”

“Well take the television at least,” I begged her.

“I don’t want your fucking television,” she said.

“But it’s a Sony!” I cried.

When they drove away in the Honda, I was standing in the doorway holding the TV in my arms. Suddenly I threw it as hard as I could, right at them, but it only landed a few feet away on the lawn. It didn’t even break. It just sort of bounced on the AstroTurf.

I watched them disappear over the crest of the hill. Our block had become so ugly. There were no trees and hardly any grass. Some people had asphalt painted green. Others had gravel or a combination of mulch and redwood chips. And I was the one with the AstroTurf. It used to make me laugh. But now I felt sick. I closed the door and went inside.

When I came out the next morning, the television was gone. There was a dent in the AstroTurf where it had landed. The dent never went away. It was still there when I left the house, and I included it in my note to the landlord, about the wear and tear I didn’t feel responsible to pay for.
Slight disfigurement in AstroTurf
is how I put it.

The days and weeks after they left were pretty horrendous. One day I noticed that the
Chronicle
was piling up on the front steps. There were maybe five, six weeks of newspapers. I called and canceled my subscription, and then I loaded all the newspapers in paper bags and put them out for recycling. It was the first time I ever recycled. I always celebrated that event as “recycling day.” The day I started my life over as something else. If anyone could call what I did for the next three years living.

Anyway, that was it with the news. So when I awoke in my father’s room in the nursing home and heard them talking about taxes and politics and drilling for oil, it was like Greek to me—no, not Greek, because I knew Greek—like Armenian. Something like that. No, it was even worse than that. It was listening to words you were supposed to understand, but couldn’t. Like in a dream. And then I realized it was exactly what my father must be feeling—surrounded by meaninglessness in this all-too-familiar world. What could he make of it? I was suddenly overcome with this feeling—of empathy—what else could it have been? And so I turned to my father to take his hand.

But when I looked over, I saw that he was gone.

I ran out of the room and right into Nurse Clara. I bounced off her large bosom, like she was a trampoline. It felt good, I had to confess, and I felt a little aroused. But she looked at me with scorn.

“Where’s my father?” I said.

“Calm down,” she said. “He’s in the rec room.”

I was confused. Rec room?
My
father? Playing pinochle? Foosball? I didn’t even know there was a rec room.

Nurse Clara fingered her big black cross and smiled. “Follow me,” she said.

We emerged into a large, bright room with Ping-Pong tables and shuffleboard on one side, and a visiting area and card tables on the other. There were some chess boards set up, too, but no one was playing.

My father was on the couch, waving at me. He had a big happy smile on his face.

“Michael!” he called, “Michael!”

“He seems so alert,” I said to Nurse Clara.

“Oh,” she said, “he’s always this way when he’s had visitors.”

His hair was combed. His goatee was brushed. He was holding a cigar.

“Who came to see him?” I demanded.

Nurse Clara waved amiably at my dad. She obviously thought he was cute. “I don’t know,” she said. “The usual.”

“The usual? Who are these people?”

“You were asleep,” she said. “They didn’t want to wake you.”

“But who are they?”

“How would I know?” she said. “Ask your father.”

Her answers glowed with reasonableness. And then she heard herself being paged, patted me on the shoulder, and walked away.

I came up to my father. I had to admit he looked terrific. Not only were his teeth in, but no food particles adhered to his goatee, he had dressed in real clothes, and he was reading the
Miami Herald
. I couldn’t help feeling terrifically happy just then, as if nothing we had been going through mattered one bit. He looked great. He looked strong. Is this how he looked to Moskovitz? A name, by the way, I tried to blot from my mind. Of all the things I had read in those journals, this making love under the orange trees was perhaps the most troubling.

“Hey, Mikey!” he said.

“Hey, Dad, what’s up?”

“Fucking Republicans!” he said. “The rich get richer! Disgusting.” He jabbed at the article he had been reading with his well-trimmed index finger.

“Yeah, well, you donated to the Republicans, too,” I reminded him.

“Republican
Jews,
” he corrected me.

I could never follow the logic of that, but now was not the time to try. Dad was back!

“Nurse Clara tells me you had visitors,” I said.

“Oh yes!” he said. “And I got my nails done.”

He held out his hand, showing his neatly cut and polished nails. He had always liked to have his nails done—beautifully rounded, glazed in clear polish. Mark of a gentleman, he always said.

“You got a visit from a manicurist?”

“Don’t be silly,” he said. “Just friends.”

“What friends?”

“What difference does it make? Friends!”

I looked at him. He was beaming. He had color in his cheeks. His eyes were twinkling. He chomped down on his cigar.

Everything, everything was on my mind. The journals. The invisible friends. The whole history of our lives. But what could I do?

“It’s such a beautiful day,” I said. “Would you like to go for a walk when it cools down?”

“Sounds good,” he said.

“In the meantime,” I went on, “I could drive you to the mall.”

“Oh,” he said, “that would be excellent. I could pick up a few things.”

What he would need to pick up, only God knew. But I was so delighted with his sudden good health I didn’t care. And in a few minutes we were stuffed in the Caddy on our way to Boynton Beach Mall.

South Florida is Mall Country. Huge ships of commerce floating on landfill, shimmering turquoise and coral like the insides of swimming pools, and equally inviting. Everyone goes to the mall. The only other option in Palm Beach is Worth Avenue, which is way too expensive for anyone on a fixed income, although I knew my parents used to go there, stroll down the avenue and gaze at the windows of Cartier and Chopard, or feel the fine leather at Myers Luggage, or admire the hats at Peter Beaton. My mother would make Dad try on stuff, but he’d never buy anything, though I know for sure he bought
her
something once at Georgio’s of Palm Beach—a cashmere sweater that she cherished as much as any piece of jewelry she owned. But mostly they went to the mall. And they didn’t feel one bit denied, either. The mall was like a treasure chest for them, a huge, walk-in closet of endless possibility. And they’d always run into friends there, too. Frequently the women would do the actual shopping, while the men would perambulate the long arcades, smoking cigars (before that was outlawed) and arguing condo politics, or divvying up responsibilities for whatever fund-raising drive was on that month. Other times they’d all go walking together, men and women, no one buying much of anything, just passing the time pleasantly, enjoying the air-conditioning.

But in the car I was trying to put together my picture of the Nazi from Bergen-Belsen with the cigar-smoking
landsman
strolling the mall and waxing poetic about his last trip to Israel. I found myself gripping the steering wheel, because otherwise I thought I might scream. I glanced down. My knuckles were white.

“You got a match, maybe?” he asked as we made our way down Congress Avenue.

I looked over at him. The last thing he needed was to smoke. But I said, “Use the lighter. I think it still works.”

“Of course it works, it’s a Cadillac!”

He winked and pushed the lighter in. In a moment he was happily sucking smoke into his lungs, filling the car with its masculine perfume. I admit I liked the smell. How could I not? Every room in our house in New Jersey had been filled with it. Our cars were like traveling ashtrays. His clothes, his skin, his hair, all reeked of cigar.

“Want one?” he said, pulling a dark stogie from his shirt pocket.

I don’t know why, but I accepted it, tore the cellophane with my teeth and bit off the tip. He held the red-hot lighter towards me. I was amazed at how steady his hand was, not to mention the look in his eye. Was I dreaming? Had I flown back in time and found him young again?

I pressed the end of the cigar onto the hot coils and puffed.

“Turn it,” he instructed me.

I did as he told me, lighting it evenly.

“I don’t know, Mikey,” he said after a minute. “I really want to go home.”

“I know you do,” I said.

“I don’t want to die there.”

“I know,” I said.

We turned into the parking lot, and I drove around looking for a handicapped spot. As usual they were mostly taken, but finally I found one. I helped him out of the car, and then watched as he stood there in the burning sun, staring at the huge pastel edifice as if it were Mount Rushmore.

“Been a while since you’ve been out,” I said.

He laughed.

“When you’re my age,” he replied, flicking his cigar, “it really doesn’t matter where you are.”

We were passing The Sock Shop when I tossed this one off: “So, you were in Palestine after the war, right?”

He didn’t answer me right away, and then he said, “Let’s go to the cigar store. It’s down here somewhere.”

“In ’47 or ’48. Before the State.”

Still he said nothing.

“You were there, right?”

He saw the Mr. Humidor up ahead, and quickened his pace. We were now speeding along just above a crawl.

“That wasn’t me,” he said.

“I’m sorry?”

“You’re mistaken,” he said. “That wasn’t me.”

“But I was reading that you were in Palestine.”

“No,” he said, entering the store, “I wasn’t. That was someone else.”

I watched him descend upon the rows of cigars like Attila at the gates of Chalon, but unlike Attila, Dad emerged victorious, cradling an armful of dark brown smokes. He would probably die before he could consume even half of them. He laid them on the counter like an offering to the gods.

“Do you have money?” he said to me.

I gave the man my Visa card. I asked my father if he really needed so many cigars.

“When again am I going to come here?” he said.

“What are you talking about. We can come here whenever.”

“Mikey!” He smiled, grabbing a bunch of my cheek between his fingers. “Don’t kid a kidder.”

I still had his journal in my jacket pocket. I could have, I should have, taken it out then and confronted him. But the salesman gave me the credit card slip to sign, and I let the moment pass. Anyway I was in a state of shock. The bill came to two hundred and twenty-two dollars and sixty-seven cents.