Shadows of Berlin полностью

“Of course. I know that,” she answers. “I’m well aware of that fact.”

“Are you?” he wonders doubtfully and gazes back at her. “You think, Mrs. Perlman,” he says, “you think your husband insulted me? He did. But that ain’t nothing. Nothing I’m not used to. I was born down south. And right now, if we were down there? You and me? Well…” He shrugs. “I guess you might have read in the newspapers what happens to a Negro if he so much as speaks to a white woman. That boy in Mississippi who was ripped to pieces? Fourteen years old. A child,” he says, swallowing. “His momma kept the coffin open at his funeral just so people could bear witness to the pure barbarity of his murder.”

“But we’re not in Mississippi,” she points out.

“No?” Tyrell frowns again. “Mrs. Perlman, this whole country’s Mississippi. Don’t you get that? North, south, makes no difference. This whole damn country’s Mississippi.”

“And do you think, Mr. Williams, that a Jew is welcome in Mississippi?”

He puffs his cheeks with a sigh. “I never said there wasn’t enough to go around. I know about your—­your past.”

“Oh, so you know that my mother was gassed to death? You know that I was hunted like an animal? Is that the past to which you refer, Mr. Williams?”

Tyrell looks back at her bluntly. “What do you want me to say? That you’ve suffered more than me? That I should be grateful that nobody ever stuck me in a concentration camp? Well, they did lynch my grandpa when I was a tyke, right in his own front yard.”

“I’m sorry,” Rachel says. “I didn’t mean to make this a competition.”

“No? I think maybe you did. But if not? Okay. Then you tell me, what is your intention here, Mrs. Perlman? What exactly did you expect to get for your five dollars?”

Suddenly Rachel feels her eyes heat with a sheen of tears. “I’m not sure. It’s only that I must always be so normal. Such a good American. Such a good American housewife and a good Jewish girl. I too am expected to be grateful to God for my life. For the fact that I am living, and not ashes in a pit in Poland. I’m sorry. I just felt the need,” she says and sniffs, “to talk to someone. Someone who was an outsider like me.” She is opening her bag for the Kleenexes that she keeps there, but then Tyrell is offering her an immaculate cotton handkerchief. She accepts it, tamping her eyes. “Thank you.”

He speaks not a word for a moment. Pigeons coo and flap their wings. And then he says, “So I’ve been curious about something.”

Rachel raises her reddened eyes.

“When we were having supper at Naomi’s place,” he says, “you turned that wineglass over on your husband intentionally.”

“Because he was making a fool of himself, you know?”

“Maybe he was, but that ain’t why you did it, is it? You wanted to grab that roll from the basket. Why was that, Mrs. Perlman?”

She feels a drag of panic pull all expression from her face. “Because,” she says but must start again. “Because I thought I could be hungry later.”

“You thought?” Tyrell asks.

“Because I was afraid I would be hungry later,” Rachel confesses. “Because I was desperately afraid I would be hungry later.” She stares blankly, then wipes the sting from one of her eyes.

Tyrell nods but does not relax his keen observation of her until a rather scruffy white beatnik kid appears with horn-­rim glasses, uncombed hair, and a wisp of a beard on his chin. “Hey, Williams,” the boy declares. “Yaakov’s asking for a game.”

“Excuse me, hot dog, but do you have eyes in your head? Can’t you see I’m in the middle of my own game right now?”

“Really?” the kid asks dubiously. “Doesn’t look like much.”

“Now, that’s an insult,” Tyrell replies, but without much conviction.

“It’s all right, Mr. Williams,” Rachel inserts quickly, reclaiming herself. “He’s right. I resign,” she says and topples over her queen with a tap.

The boy barely smothers a laugh.

“That’s your queen, Mrs. Perlman,” Tyrell informs her. “When you resign, you tip over your king.”

“Oops,” says Rachel flatly and topples the king as well.

“So I guess you’re open,” the boy points out.

“And who are you? The great man’s messenger boy?”

“Nah,” says the kid with a sniff. “I just came over to bum a cig.”

“Here,” says Rachel, standing. “Take one of mine.” She doesn’t know if it’s because he’s being gentlemanly, but when she stands, Tyrell stands too.

“Thanks,” says the boy enthusiastically as he accepts the cigarette. “Got a light?” he asks.

But Tyrell intervenes, shoving a book of matches into the boy’s hand. “Keep ’em,” he says in the same tone he might use to say beat it.

“Tell Mr. Yaakov that he should have a care playing Mr. Williams,” Rachel informs the kid and then explains in a conspiratorial stage whisper. “He knows how all the pieces move.”

“Sure,” the kid says, blinking at the crazy lady. “Thanks for the cig.”

“You’re an odd duck, Mrs. Perlman,” Tyrell observes, not without some appreciation.

“So, Mr. Williams. If you’re going to play the great man, may I observe?”