Shadows of Berlin полностью

“You gotta understand,” he says, “that what happened to our people? What happened to you? It shouldn’t have happened to a dog, much less a little girl like yourself. Entsetzlich! Utterly unspeakable. But nothing particularly new. The white man’s been trying to drive the Jew into firepits for thousands of years. The Nat-­zees?” he says, and he hangs the t onto the z. “They just did a better job of it than the rest. More efficient, like their accursed race. Four million, five million, six million? Who could survive it?

“So all I’m sayin’ is… What you went through? It ain’t nothing to be ashamed of,” he tells her. “It means you beat the bastards at their game. All these jokers come back from the war with geegaws on their chest, this medal, that medal. None of that’s important. It’s life that’s important. You’re alive, ketsl,” he says. “Don’t let those farshaltn Nat-­zees take that away from you. They tried to stamp you out, but you spit in their faces. Every breath you take, you spit in those evil butchers’ faces. You know? You sent them to the devil! You’re a Jew. You beat the white man’s odds. That, to me?” he says. “Is something to celebrate.”

Rachel gazes at him, gripping the snifter of brandy. Then Leo is suddenly turning to the aisle. “Hey, hey”—­he grins—­“it’s the boss man himself.” Rachel quickly wipes her eyes and collects herself back into one piece.

“Yeah, boss man of my ass,” says Aaron. “Leo, Chef Boy-­ar-­dee in there wants you to come taste the chowder.”

“What, I’m the cook now too?”

Aaron shrugs. “Whattaya want me to do? You made it into such a federal case about the Tabasco last week that he wants you to taste it before we start dishing it out.”

“Fine.” Leo surrenders with a frown. “Chief cook and bottle washer,” he tells Rachel with a wink, back to his old self. “Sit,” he tells Aaron. “Talk to your wife, why don’t you?”

Aaron slumps into the booth. “So thanks for coming up, honey,” he says confidentially. “You got it, right?”

“I got it.” She nods and opens her bag, dispensing the forgotten wallet to its owner.

“Thanks,” he whispers and shifts to stash it in his right rear trouser pocket. “So I see you got the French apple cake treatment,” he observes.

“With the Courvoisier.”

“Impressive. That’s two bucks a pop.”

“So I heard,” Rachel says. He looks exhausted already, and the place hasn’t even opened for dinner.

Dragging the plate of cake over to himself, Aaron picks up the fork and digs in blankly. “God, this thing is good,” he says, chewing, but without any particular enthusiasm. “I could eat this forever.”

And in that moment, she wants to seize him. She wants to give herself to him atop Table 27. To give him babies, to lose herself in him. But then she sees that schoolgirl with the burgundy beret has inserted herself into the booth beside him, the ragged little U-­boat girl, who looks up hungrily with hollow-­socketed eyes dark with death. No cake for me? those eyes ask.

24.

What’s Done Is Done

Her session with Dr. Solomon? It doesn’t go well. He keeps asking her questions that she does not wish to answer. Have you thought of painting? Yes, I’ve thought of it. And? And I keep thinking about it.

“Really? Because it seems you’re rather tangled up with other issues. Your husband. Your sister-­in-­law’s boyfriend. Racism in our nation,” he says.

“And racism isn’t an important issue?”

“Of course it is. But,” says the good doctor, “it’s not helpful if you’re using it as a distraction.”

“Distraction?” As if the word makes no sense.

“A distraction from other troubling issues that you’re facing.”

Rachel pulls a face that indicates just how silly, how very, very silly such an idea sounds to her. “Oh. So you think I have something to hide, Dr. Solomon?”

“What I’m saying? And forgive the bluntness. But racist remarks from your husband did not put you into a hospital straitjacket.”

“I think I’m not feeling very well, Doctor,” Rachel suddenly says, eyes steaming as she glares at the rug. “You’ll pardon me if we end early today.”

At home, Rachel is confronted by the empty canvas. But that night, she says, “I’ve been thinking about what you said. If he was a German.”

“Look, I overstepped.”

“If it had been a German with Naomi. You’re correct, I would have felt differently. But as far as that goes? Your comparison of my feelings about Germans to yours about Negroes?”

“I don’t have ‘feelings’ about Negroes, okay, honey?”

“Negro people,” she says, “did not send anyone to the gas chambers. In fact, they were once enslaved even as Jews were once enslaved.”

“So I apologized,” Aaron is telling her. “I’m sorry that they were slaves a hundred years ago, but it’s not like I had anything to do with that.”

“If I hate the Germans, it is only because Germans are murderers.”