The History of Love (36 page)

Today something terrible happened. Mr. Goldstein got very sick and fainted and nobody found him for three hours and now he’s in the hospital. When Mom told me I went to the bathroom and locked the door and asked G-d to please make sure Mr. Goldstein was going to be OK. When I was almost 100 percent positive that I was a lamed vovnik I used to think G-d could hear me. But I’m not sure anymore. Then I had a very horrible thought which was that maybe Mr. Goldstein got sick because I’d disappointed him. Suddenly I felt very, very sad. I squeezed my eyes shut so that no tears could leak out, and I tried to think of what to do. Then I had an idea. If I could do one good thing to help someone and not tell anyone about it, maybe Mr. Goldstein would get better again, and I would be a real lamed vovnik!

Sometimes if I need to know something I ask G-d. For example I will say If you want me to steal 50 more dollars out of Mom’s wallet so I can buy a ticket to Israel even though stealing is bad then let me find 3 blue punch-buggies in a row tomorrow, and if I find 3 blue punch-buggies in a row the answer is yes. But I knew this time I couldn’t ask G-d for help because I had to figure it out by myself. So I tried to think of someone who needed help and all of a sudden I knew the answer.

THE LAST TIME I SAW YOU

I
was in bed, dreaming a dream that took place in the former Yugoslavia, or maybe it was Bratislava, for all I know it could have been Belarus. The more I think about it, the harder it is to say.
Wake up!
Bruno shouted. Or so I have to assume he shouted, before he resorted to the mug of cold water he emptied onto my face. Perhaps he was getting me back for the time I saved his life. He stripped back the sheets. I regret whatever he may have found there. And yet. Talk about an argument. Every morning it stands at attention, like the lead counsel for the defense.

Look!
shouted Bruno.
They wrote about you in a magazine.

I was in no mood for his practical jokes. Left to my own devices, I’m content to wake myself with a fart. So I tossed my wet pillow on the floor and burrowed headfirst into the sheets. Bruno slapped me upside the head with the magazine.
Get up and look
, he said. I played the part of the deaf-mute, which I’ve perfected over the years. I heard Bruno’s footsteps retreat. A crash from the direction of the hall closet. I braced myself. There was a loud noise, and the screech of feedback. THEY WROTE ABOUT YOU IN A MAGAZINE, Bruno said through the bullhorn he’d managed to dig out of my things. Despite my being under the sheets, he managed to locate the precise placement of my ear. I REPEAT, the bullhorn shrieked. YOU: IN A MAGAZINE. I threw off the sheets and ripped the bullhorn from his lips.

When did you become such a fool?
I said.

When did you?
said Bruno.

Listen, Gimpel,
I said.
I’m going to close my eyes and count to ten.
When I open them, I want you to be gone.

Bruno looked hurt.
You don’t mean that
, he said.

Yes, I do
, I said, and closed my eyes.
One, two.

Say you didn’t mean it,
he said.

With my eyes closed I remembered the first time I ever met Bruno. He was kicking a ball in the dust, a skinny, red-haired boy whose family had just moved to Slonim. I walked up to him. He lifted his eyes and took me in. Without a word, he kicked me the ball. I kicked it back.

Three, four, five,
I said
.
I felt the magazine drop open in my lap and heard Bruno’s footsteps moving away down the hall. For a moment they paused. I tried to imagine my life without him. It seemed impossible. And yet. SEVEN! I shouted
.
EIGHT!! On nine, I heard the front door slam.
Ten,
I said, to no one in particular. I opened my eyes and looked down.

There, on the page of the only magazine I subscribe to, was my name.

I thought: What a coincidence, another Leo Gursky! Obviously it gave me a thrill, even though it had to be someone else. It’s not an unusual name. And yet. It isn’t common, either.

I read a sentence. And that was all I needed to read to know it could be no one other than me. I knew this because I was the one who’d written the sentence. In my book, the novel of my life. The one I’d started to write after my heart attack and sent, the morning after the art class, to Isaac. Whose name, I saw now, was printed in block letters across the top of the magazine’s page. WORDS FOR EVERYTHING, it said, the title I’d finally chosen, and underneath:
ISAAC MORITZ.

I looked up at the ceiling.

I looked down. Like I said, there are parts I know by heart. And the sentence I knew by heart was still there. As were a hundred or so others I knew, also by heart, only edited a little here and there, in a way that felt ever-so-slightly sickening. When I turned to read the contributors’ notes, it said that Isaac had died that month, and the piece they’d published was part of his last manuscript.

I got out of bed and took the phone book out from under
Famous Quotations
and
The History of Science,
with which Bruno likes to boost himself when sitting at my kitchen table. I found the number for the magazine.
Hello
, I said, when the switchboard answered.
Fiction, please.

It rang three times.

Fiction Department,
said a man. He sounded young.

Where did you get this story?
I asked.

Excuse me?

Where did you get this story?

Which story, sir?

Words for Everything.

It’s from a novel by the late Isaac Moritz,
he said.

Ha, ha
, I said.

Pardon me?

No, it’s not
, I said.

Yes, it is,
he said.

No, it’s not.

I assure you it is.

I assure you it isn’t.

Yes, sir. It
is
.

OK, I said.
It is.

May I ask whom I’m speaking with?
he said.

Leo Gursky,
I said.

There was an awkward pause. When he spoke again his voice was less sure.

Is this some sort of joke?

Nope,
I said.

But that’s the name of the character in the story.

My point exactly
, I said.

I’ll have to check with the Fact-Checking Department
, he said.
Normally they inform us if there’s an existing person with the same name.

Surprise
! I shouted.

Please hold,
he said.

I hung up the phone.

At most a person has two, three good ideas in a lifetime. And on those magazine pages was one of mine. I read it over again. Here and there, I chuckled aloud and marveled at my own brilliance. And yet. More often, I winced.

I dialed the magazine again and asked for the fiction department.

Guess who?
I said.

Leo Gursky?
said the man. I could hear the fear in his voice.

Bingo
, I said, and then I said:
This so-called book.

Yes?

When’s it coming out?

Please hold,
he said.

I held.

In January,
he said when he returned.

January!
I cried.
So soon!
The calendar on my wall said October 17th. I couldn’t help myself, I asked,
Is it any good?

Some people think it’s one of his best.

One of his best!
My voice rose an octave and cracked.

Yes, sir.

I’d like an early copy,
I said.
I may not live until January to read about myself.

There was silence on the other end.

Well,
he finally said.
I’ll see if I can dig one up. What’s your address?

Same as the address of the Leo Gursky in the story,
I said, and hung up. Poor kid. He could spend years trying to unravel that mystery.

But I had my own to unravel. Namely, if my manuscript had been found at Isaac’s house and mistaken for his, didn’t that mean he had read it, or at the very least begun to read it before he died? Because if he had, that would change everything. It would mean—

And yet.

I paced the apartment, at least as much as it was possible to pace, what with a badminton racket here and a stack of
National Geographic
s there, and a set of
boules
, a game about which I know nothing, at large on the living room floor.

It was simple: If he’d read my book, he knew the truth.

I was his father.

He was my son.

And now it dawned on me that it was possible there had been a brief window of time in which Isaac and I both lived, each aware of the other’s existence.

I went to the bathroom, washed my face with cold water, and went downstairs to check the mail. I thought there was still a chance a letter might arrive from my son, posted before he died. I slipped the key in the box and turned.

And yet. A pile of junk, that was all. The
TV Guide
, a magazine from Bloomingdale’s, a letter from the World Wildlife Federation who’ve remained my loyal companions since I sent them ten dollars in 1979. I took it upstairs to throw it all away. I had my foot on the pedal of the trash bin when I saw it, a little envelope with my name typed across the front. The seventy-five percent of my heart that was still alive started to thunder. I ripped it open.