The Lion Seeker (54 page)

Mame twists around in her seat and he looks down at her. Mame with her sunken eyes and her scar, her hair held down with some clips and her plump arm over the back of the chair.

—Isaacluh! she says. And he wants to cry, the bulge of a sob lifts like a wave to the base of his throat. He tries to say the word
Mame
but not even the sob comes out. The problem of not being able to breathe again seems to teeter in his chest.

—Ver you been? Voz kookst du? Vot iz?

He shakes his head and moves to the table, Mame telling him to sit down. He blows his nose with a serviette, a way to close his eyes. Seated, he manages to croak: —Fine. I'm ukay, Ma. Rively meanwhile keeps asking him what's wrong, saying he looks like hell.

—Speak for yourself, Isaac tells her. And it's true they have a strange air, a kind of pale tension in their faces that he senses has nothing to do with him and everything with what they've been talking about.

—We were both at a meeting, Yankel Bernstein tells Isaac.

—We were just telling Ma, says Rively.

Now Mame scrapes her chair around towards his, he feels her hand on his thigh, patting. She says his name twice and he looks at her with his eyes unfocused and makes himself smile, his face wooden, then he looks away. Take off your funny hat, why you wearing a hat, take off your coat, sit nicely. What is it Isaac? What's the matter?

He grunts, slips off his jacket and hangs it on the back of the seat.

—This was a Hashomer meeting, says Yankel. They had an important speaker, why we went.

The good white tablecloth that would have been laid out the night before is not here now, Mame has put down the cheap one that is soft and knitted like a thin blanket, squares of yellow. Mame is rubbing his arm. He feels sick, sick. Mame says, He works so hard, my boy. Sit and relax and I'll warm you some nice chicken. Something to drink? What do you want?

He shakes his head. He can feel her wanting him to look at her, into her brown and weary eyes. What happened to your neck here? Her fingertips brush scratches someone put on him in the yard at Gold Reef.

—Nothing, Ma. From work.

What is this you're wearing on your head? He ducks his head from her reaching hand.

—We were just telling Mame about it, says Rively.

—You should hear this, says Yankel. About this speaker. Everyone should.

Isaac attends to him, not because he wants to but to avoid facing Mame. What a mistake to have sat. —Who was he? he asks.

—Her, says Rively. She's a Jew from Poland. Who got out.

Polackers, says Mame, they talk Jewish so funny. Everything is
oi
instead of
uy
. Like straw is stuck up their noses. They say
shuh
instead of
suh
.

—We understood her, says Rively. Beser nit.

Beser nit: words that mean too bad that we did. We wish that we hadn't. Words with a weight that Isaac doesn't want to feel. No, he thinks. It's enough. I can't. It's enough. Don't.

—Yuh yuh yuh, says Mame. She puts her plump elbows on the table and covers her mouth with both hands. Rively moves her chair around and leans over and rubs Mame's back.

—What is this? says Isaac.

Rively keeps rubbing her back and Mame says: —Me used to have a Polacker in Dusat. Mishus Turnikov. She was. She.

—What the hell? says Isaac. What's going on?

Rively says: —This woman who spoke, she got out of Warsaw. She's married to an American, that's how she managed a visa. But she told us what the Germans are doing to Jews over there. Isaac, their army is shooting Jews like stray dogs.

—She is still in absolute shock, you could see, says Yankel. She left so many people behind. She doesn't reckon she'll ever see them again.

—Ja but she will, Isaac hears himself say. After this war. Of course she will.

—She doesn't think so, says Yankel. And she should know.

Mame's face is entirely covered by her hands now. Rively keeps rubbing her back.

Isaac hears his voice: —You said yourself she's in shock. Not thinking proper. People say things.

—No, Isaac, says Rively. It's really bad, like we have no conception. She told how any Jew under the Germans feels what they're like, and it's worse than hate, it's determination. That's what she said. Their determination is worse than hate. She saw them burning shuls. In front of her eyes they were beating Jews to death in the street. People hanging from lampposts. She says it's just starting, that's what she kept saying. Just starting.

Mame gives off a sound, muffled in her hands.

Isaac's heart goes wild in his chest. —But Dusat's not even under Germans!

Rively rocks back, blinking. His voice had boomed of its own.

—Not yet, says Yankel. But they've already taken part of Lithuania right, and who's going to stop them getting the rest? Not Stalin. The Soviets betrayed us all, signing that deal with the Nazis. Shame on them, shame on
me
for believing in Russia. No. It's a matter of time, I reckon. Matter of luck.

—Matter matter matter. You sound like a bladey stuck record, man!

—Isaac, says Rively.

—I'm just being real, says Yankel. You the one stuck like a ostrich head.

—What did you say?

Yankel shakes his head. —Nothing.

Isaac jerks up out of his seat. His legs bang the table hard enough to make tea slop everywhere.

—Isaac! says Rively. S'matter with you? She moves against Mame, curling her arm around her and pulling her close.

Isaac's hand is stabbing his finger over the table like a piston. He shouts, spraying spit: —You're a bladey troublemaker Bernstein! I knew it from day one! Look what you doing to my ma, making her cry! You and your stuffing politics. I had enough!

—Isaac! says Rively. What's wrong with you? She cradles Mame closer.

Yankel's mouth opens and shuts and he leans back, blinking behind his spectacles. Isaac is roaring: —You come with your shit to my house and take my sister away from shul where she should be and you bring in this effing politics and make my mother cry, make everyone all scared, what the hell's a matter with you, what's wrong with your stuffing brain you idiot, can't you see what you
doing?

Yankel gets up, stumbling a little. He looks at Rively and Mame huddled and he stutters apologies.

Isaac mimics. —He's so-so-sorry. After you the one made her cry!

He goes around the table fast, and Rively shouts something, just a sound, an avian squawk. He wants to grab gangly Yankel, take chunks of his shirt in both fists the way Labuschagne grabbed him, haul him around and send him through the back door sprawling into the yard. But Yankel moves the other way, backing through the door to the workshop with his long arms outstretched.

When Isaac grabs at him a finger snags in the balaclava and he feels sudden air on his scalp. He shoves Yankel as hard as he can and Yankel sits down. Behind him there is a shriek. He turns: Mame's face behind her pointing hand has become a twisted lumpen thing, all the flesh cratering away from the teeth and the eyes, the scar bright as fresh blood. She's pointing at Isaac's face, straight at it, his head. And then she goes soft and Rively holds her as she lolls.

Isaac takes a step towards them but Rively screams at him to get away.
—Get out, you animal
.

He turns back on Yankel, sees him scooting to his feet, his hand out. —I'm sorry hey, calm down. Jesus, what happened to you?

Yet still the stupid shmock refuses to leave at once. —Lemme just talk to your sister. Isaac now at last has his fists full of Yankel's clothes and lifts and rams him into the front door. —Can I just say goodbye to Rively?

—Mate, I'll put you through the fucken window. Open that door.

—What happened to you, your hair?

Isaac gets the door open. —I'mna kill you any second.

—You joining the army hey, says Yankel. That it? They shaved you by the army didn't they? Good for you. We ganna try to get into Palestine otherwise I would be signing up also, I—

Isaac butts him in his chest. Yankel grunts, his arms windmilling as he falls out. Isaac slams the door, locks it.

When he gets back to the kitchen it's empty. The door of his parents' room opens and Rively runs out, one hand covering her mouth. —I hate you, you animal, is what she says, and then she is past, going on to the front.

—That's right, he shouts after. You go too. The both a you! Just leave Ma all alone, doesn't matter.

At the door Rively shouts back: —You did it to her! You! You mad! I'm ganna get Dr. Allan.

The door opens and he gets a look at Yankel's shocked idiot face before it slams. He goes to Ma's room and knocks softly. Then he remembers his bare head. He goes back to the kitchen, finds the balaclava, puts it on and adjusts himself in the window reflection.

 

Mame is lying on her back, this bedroom with rose-coloured curtains holding the daylight at bay, the bed with big dark wood headboard and a bedspread covering it all like a shroud, only a narrow gap between the bed and the sideboard with the mirror, Mame's legs packed like thick sausages in the flesh-coloured stockings below the skirt hem. She's lying on her back with a scarf over her face. He stands beside her and takes her hand, squeezes it.

—Yitzchok?

—I'm here Mame. How you feeling?

I caught a fright, she says.

Yes Mame.

I looked at you and I saw a terror thing. My mind, Yitzchok. My mind is full of terror things. Dreams.

No Mame, it's not your mind.

She doesn't speak.

Mame? I had an accident at work.

She stirs. He tries to relax her, to settle her back down, but her other hand takes the scarf off her face. She squirms her shoulders and comes up a little higher on the bed to look at him. What happened, are you hurt?

No. Yes. A little bit.

She touches his face where the cheekbone is bruised. —Duyner oremer kepillah. Your poor little head.

Yes, something fell on me. I was under the car.

Oh God.

I'm all right. But the—from the battery, you know, what we call acid. It burned my hair.

Your hair?

Yes Mame.

That's why you have the funny hat.

Yes Mame.

Let me see.

They had to cut it off Mame. I don't have any more hair.

Oh your beautiful red hair. Messiah hair.

Here it is Mame. He dips his head and she pulls off the balaclava.

Ai Isaac, no, Isaac.

He starts to cry. It's all right Mame, it will grow back.

My Isaac, she says. My champion Isaac. He feels her warm palm spreading over his crown. For you Isaac my love, I will kill any bull, you know that. You are my precious one, my rainbow.

He leans down and kisses her head and feels that his tears have wet her forehead. Mame, we'll have a house for our own.

Don't talk it, Isaac.

Why not, Mame, it's true.

No, Isaac. I can't think this way anymore. It hurts me too much. Let me see you. Oh my God. Seeing you like this, it was like a fall from a height. My heart.

It's fine, Rively's gone to get Dr. Allan.

Listen to me. I saw it like this before, such a head with no hair, and the cuts. In a dream. And this on your arm.

I burned it. With a soldering iron, by accident.

My dream.

Only a dream, Ma.

It wasn't you. It was so many of them. And with them it was Friedke and Orli and Dvora and Rochel-Dor. It was Trudel-Sora. The husbands, Pinchus and Yossel. All my sisters and even the children. In the dream they were walking in smoke and none of them had any hair. I spoke to them but they couldn't see me. They were just walking walking with eyes that couldn't see. All of their beautiful hair was gone, they didn't look like people anymore. And now it happens to you in life.

An accident, Mame.

What can it mean, Isaac? What does it mean?

It doesn't mean anything Mame, it's just a dream.

Isaac, I want you to do something for me.

Yes Mame.

Go and get the pictures.

He tugs at a loose thread on his knee. Mame, I don't think we should look right now.

You're right.

Mame?

Get them and I want you to put them away somewhere I can't find them.

He presses a hand to his face.

I have to stop looking, Isaac, all the time. Put them away. It's eating me up alive. Let me try to think of other things. There is nothing we can do. I went to see Avrom. You saw what I did, everything I could.

Yes Mame. I saw.

Everything, she says. Now it must be Avrom. Please God, Avrom. Let God whisper in his heart, like Tutte says He does. Let him decide . . . 

Her eyes close again and her breath gradually slows.

It's all right, Mame, Isaac whispers. All right.

THERE ARE MANY PEOPLE
standing outside the synagogue, people in their Shabbos best—crowds come now in these Days of Awe and war. They go quiet as he walks up and past, wearing a work shirt, no jacket, a satchel on his back and balaclava rolled up over a bloodless and haggard face. When he pushes in the David-Star'd double doors he sees the back of the singing chuzen on the bimah and the yellow light streaming down from above the ladies' gallery. The Ten Commandments affixed to a post behind the bimah stare at him. Kibud av v'em: Honour father and mother. He watches for his father in the usual place and the heads of the men pivot, one to the other, nudging down the word. Above him the ladies' hats dip and rotate like vast birds, sensing the feed of his commotion, a scraplet of gossip for the quick lipstick beaks. His father has seen him now, and risen, taking his cane off the pew. Isaac backs out to wait.

 

In the corner of the lobby by the women's staircase, Abel grips his shoulders. What is it? What's happened?

Mame, she's not feeling well. Rively's gone to get the doctor.