Flesh and Blood (28 page)

The old man continued to stare at them, his eyes lingering on Farouk.

“You're Mr. Fischelson?” Frank asked.

The old man did not answer, but he opened the door.

“I was sitting on the terrace,” he said as they stepped into the room. “I like the view. Would you mind?”

“Not at all,” Frank assured him.

Fischelson led them through a living room whose walls were covered with framed photographs of Fischelson and a woman Frank assumed to be his wife, Naomi. For a moment he stopped and gazed at one of them.

Fischelson stared at him wonderingly. “Is there something wrong?” he asked tentatively.

“On, no, not at all,” Frank said. He pointed to the photograph. “Is this your wife?”

“Yes.”

Frank continued to look at the photograph. “It's just that I've heard her name so many times. It's nice to see her face.”

Fischelson nodded. “She was a fine woman.”

“Do you have a picture of Gilda?” Frank asked immediately.

Fischelson pointed to a second photograph, which hung just a few inches above the first. “There,” he said. “That's Gilda.”

The picture showed a woman in her late teens with dark eyes and dark hair.

“Gilda was quite a beauty,” Fischelson said, “but she didn't know it. That was what was so wonderful about her. She really never knew how beautiful she was.”

Frank nodded. “Yes.”

“Well,” Fischelson said after a moment, “shall we begin?”

He turned and led Frank and Farouk out onto a small enclosed terrace. A wrought-iron breakfast table sat in one corner, and a few lawn chairs were crowded into the other.

“The view,” Fischelson said as his arm swept toward the large windows. “Beautiful.”

“Yes, it is,” Frank said. Outside the window, the great gray expanse of New York harbor swept out for miles. To the north the towers of Manhattan loomed in such enormity that they dwarfed the Statue of Liberty and miniaturized the huge gray ramparts of the Brooklyn Bridge.

“It's why I stay here,” Fischelson said. “The view. The place is crawling with up-and-corners now. They're always redoing things, stripping paint, putting in saunas.” He smiled ironically. “Wall Street types. Not one of them has ever seen the Lower East Side.” He nodded toward the distant shore of Manhattan. “Not like Naomi and I did, when there was nothing between you and a billy club.” He smiled. “But then, I guess Harry told you all about that.”

“You mean the strike of 1935?” Frank asked. “You were involved in that?”

“Up to my neck,” Fischelson said. “So was Naomi.” He glanced down at the small glass-topped table. “Every night we had dinner here,” he added as he sat down behind it. “We weren't perfect together. Who is? But we were good enough for it to last.”

“I'm sorry about her death,” Frank told him.

“Part of life,” Fischelson said stoically. “Her life was good. No one expects it to go on forever.” He looked at Farouk. “Are you Jewish?”

“No,” Farouk said. “Arab.”

Fischelson smiled. “Then we are both Semites.”

Farouk nodded expressionlessly.

“Isn't that the way we should try to look at it?” Fischelson asked.

“Where one comes from,” Farouk said indifferently, “what does it matter?” His eyes drifted over to the flat gray bay. He waved his hand. “We all come from over there,” he said. His eyes shot over to Fischelson.”You are from Poland?”

“Maybe Russia. Maybe Poland,” Fischelson told him. “What it was depended on which day of the week you left.”

Farouk laughed.

“The borders were always changing,” Fischelson said. “I was nine years old. What did I know from any of it?”

“Your wife,” Frank began slowly, “she was from a village near Bialystok.”

“Yes.”

“Along with her two sisters.”

“Gilda and Hannah.”

Frank took out his notebook. “I presume you know about Hannah.”

“Mr. Silverman told me when he called.”

“You didn't know before then?”

“I had read about a woman being murdered,” Fischelson said. “But that was another name. When I knew Hannah, her last name was Kovatnik.” He shrugged. “There was no picture in the paper. What would I know from Karlsberg?”

“You hadn't seen her since she changed her name?” Frank asked.

“No.”

“When was the last time you spoke to Hannah?”

Fischelson leaned forward slightly. “You know about the hearing, or whatever you would call it?”

“Yes.”

“Everything?”

“I know that you spoke to a man named Stern, and that he brought the charges against Hannah.”

Fischelson sat back again. “Then you know everything,” he said. “As for Hannah, she never knew.”

“That you had talked to Stern?” Frank said.

“She never knew that,” Fischelson said. “She never had any idea that I even knew about it. And she never suspected Naomi. They were sisters, after all.”

“So you stayed on good terms with her even after the hearing?” Frank asked.

“For a while,” Fischelson said. “As long as it was possible.”

“What do you mean?”

“Until she went to work for Bornstein,” Fischelson said. He thought about it for a moment. “But even before that, it was different.”

“In what way?”

“She was different,” Fischelson said. “Cut off, you might say. She was cold.” He shook his head. “It was like the old Hannah had died, and this new one had taken over her body.” He smiled sadly. “She had such hopes, you know,” he added. “During the strike, I mean. And when this business with Feig happened, and then, later, with the hearing, Hannah sort of withdrew from the rest of us.” He raised his hand, fingers stretched out, then let them droop forward limply. “She went like that. She lost something. I don't know what you'd call it, whatever it was she lost. Spirit, maybe. She had a great spirit.” He smiled suddenly, his eyes brightening visibly, as if small lights were turning on inside his memory. “Did you read her speech? The one she made at Union Square?”

“Yes.”

“You see what I mean by spirit?” Fischelson asked. “That's what she had while she was in the fight. After it was over, that's what was missing.”

“And that's when she went to Bornstein?”

“She was cut off from something,” Fischelson said, “so she went to something else. Sometimes with people, it can be just that simple.”

“In Hannah's case, she went to Bornstein,” Frank said.

Fischelson nodded. “He was part of it. But not the whole thing.” He thought about it for a moment. “She was disconnected from what had mattered to her.” He looked at Farouk. “You could tell by her eyes, her voice. Something was dead.” He glanced back to Frank. “Bornstein had an eye out for her. He offered her a job. She needed one, so she took it. That's just the way it was.” His eyes turned back toward the bay. “It was a big thing for a while, her going to work for him. Nobody knew about the hearing. That had to be kept secret. So she couldn't tell anybody that she'd been kicked out. It had to look like she'd just left and joined the other side, gone from that speech in Union Square to being Bornstein's girl.”

Frank glanced down at his notes. “She left New York in March of 1936.”

“Coldest day you could imagine,” Fischelson said. “We went to the boat with her. Gilda was there too, of course, the two of them were just standing there in front of that boat, shivering. I'd never seen Hannah look so lost, so alone. Gilda would come over and put her arm around Hannah's shoulder, but she'd just brush it off with this look in her eye, this cold look.”

Frank wrote it down.

“But she had no choice but to go,” Fischelson said. “Hannah, I mean. She couldn't stay in New York. How could she stay here? I mean, with the way people thought of her, like she was a traitor.”

“So she went to South America,” Frank said. “To Colombia.”

“That's right,” Fischelson said. “We got a few letters from her.”

“Where did they come from then?”

“Some place called San Jorge,” Fischelson told him. “I'd never heard of it. But I got the idea it was some little village in the jungle. That's where she went.”

“What was she doing there?”

“Something for Bornstein.”

“She never told you?”

“Something in the garment trade, like here,” Fischelson said. “But I don't know what it was.” Again, he shrugged softly. “For a few years, maybe five, she wrote to us. But after that, there was nothing.”

“What about Gilda?” Frank asked immediately. “She went to Colombia with Hannah, didn't she?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because she worshipped Hannah,” Fischelson said. “Hannah was almost like a mother to her.”

“So she never thought of staying in New York?”

“No,” Fischelson said. “I don't think it ever crossed her mind to live without Hannah.”

“Did you hear from Gilda?”

“Often, yes,” Fischelson said with a sudden delight. “She wrote about the people there—in San Jorge—about what they were like.” He smiled quietly. “You got the feeling that she sort of fell in with them.”

“Fell in with them?” Frank asked.

“Started to live like they did,” Fischelson explained. “Like she was one of them, not a foreigner anymore.”

Frank wrote it down. “What did she write about?”

Fischelson thought for a moment. “She talked about the way they fished and bathed in the river. You got the feeling it was very primitive, but that Gilda had come to love it anyway, the place and the people. Everything.”

“Did she mention what Hannah was doing there?” Frank asked.

Fischelson shook his head. “Just something for Bornstein,” he said. “She never said what it was.” He smiled quietly. “Her letters were strange,” he added thoughtfully. “Very peaceful. Full of love, you might say. It was a short life, but from her letters, it sounded like a good one.”

Frank wrote it down in his notebook, then looked up. “What did Gilda die of?” he asked.

“Some sort of tropical thing,” Fischelson said. “I don't know what.”

“How did you find out about her death?”

“From Hannah,” Fischelson said. “Just a little telegram. It said something like: ‘Gilda dead. Sending body.' Just like that. Very … very … well, businesslike. You know, like she was shipping a crate of bananas.” He shifted slightly in his chair. “It really infuriated Naomi, the way Hannah acted.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, for one thing, there was no body,” Fischelson said. “Hannah had her cremated. All we got was a little box of ashes.”

“And that's what you buried?”

“We didn't know what else to do with it,” Fischelson said. “I know some people keep them. In a little vase, you know, on the mantle. But we just couldn't do that. So we ended up burying it just like a body.”

“So you had a funeral?”

“If you could call it that,” Fischelson said. “It was just Naomi and me.” His face grew strained. “Naomi was furious with Hannah. Not only for the cremation, but because she didn't even come home with the ashes. As a matter of fact, we never heard from Hannah again. That telegram about Gilda was the last thing we ever got from her.”

“So you didn't know that she got married?” Frank asked.

“Married?” Fischelson asked wonderingly. “Hannah got married?”

“Yes,” Frank told him. “Only a few days after Gilda died.”

An oddly pained expression rose into Fischelson's face. “No, I didn't know that,” he said. “I didn't know Hannah had gotten married.”

“Did you know that she'd come back to the United States?” Frank asked immediately.

“I suspected it,” Fischelson said. “But only recently.”

“When?”

“About two months ago.”

“Did she contact you?”

Fischelson laughed. “Well, not directly,” he said. “But maybe, in her own way, she was trying to do that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Naomi and Gilda are buried side by side,” Fischelson explained. “And every week I go out to visit the graves. About two months ago, flowers—fresh flowers—started showing up on Gilda's grave. Nothing fancy. Just a single rose. But I didn't put it there.”

“So you thought it was Hannah?” Frank asked.

“I couldn't think of anyone else who might do it,” Fischelson said. “Naomi was dead. Who else would do it?” He waved his hand. “I mean, she'd been out of this country since 1936. Nobody knew her, except maybe the people in that village. When Gilda left here, she had only Hannah. When she left that little village, she left everything else.” He shook his head determinedly. “It had to be Hannah. Maybe out of some sort of conscience.”

“So you never tried to trace the flowers back to her?” Frank asked. “Find out where she was, maybe get in touch?”

“No,” Fischelson replied emphatically. “Why should I have done anything like that? Naomi was dead. I hadn't even heard from Hannah in thirty years.” He glanced at Farouk helplessly. “And besides, what was I supposed to say? ‘You know, Hannah, I'm the one who betrayed you. I'm the one who sent you to Colombia, who sent Gilda to her death.' Not even Naomi knew that.” He laughed bitterly. “Sometimes, there's nothing left but silence.”

“Sometimes,” Frank said, as he closed his notebook and put it back into his jacket pocket. “Did Mr. Silverman tell you why I wanted to talk to you?” he asked.

“Just that Hannah had been killed, and that you were looking into her life.”

“That's partly it,” Frank said. “But there's also been a problem in getting her body released for burial.”