Shadows of Berlin полностью

“Well, it’s not like my opinion ever counted for much either.” He closes the magazine and tosses it wearily to the floor. It’s clear that his mind is grinding over some old family dynamic, but he doesn’t say more, and Rachel doesn’t ask. A quiet descends. The cat hops onto the bed and winds into a ball at Rachel’s feet, only to shoot away when the telephone rings. Rachel feels her heart jump. Aaron turns and looks in the direction of the noise, not with his normal annoyance at the intrusion of the phone at such a late hour but instead with quiet resignation.

“You want me to get it?” he actually asks.

They have dashed back into their clothes and met Naomi at the police precinct on Charles Street. She doesn’t sound as wildly frantic as she had over the telephone but is now fortified by her shock and seething. Her hair is out of its ponytail and twirled off her neck into a tight French twist, and not only is she wearing the same black pencil dress that she had leant Rachel, under a stylish wrap, but she’s wearing cosmetics. Lipstick. Eyebrows shaped by a pencil, but even with mascaraed lashes, her eyes are as dangerous as vats of acid. “Fucking racists,” she keeps muttering. “Fucking shithead racists. This isn’t Alabama, ya’ know!” she rails at a passing officer, who blandly ignores her. But Rachel physically tightens her grip on her sister-­in-­law’s arms. Naomi shouting at uniformed policemen unnerves her, even though summary execution by pistol is probably rare even in the Village.

Aaron, meanwhile, has separated himself, the head of the family taking charge, talking to the police on a man-­to-­man basis, and Rachel understands that it is her job to keep the lid on Naomi, to stop her from turning this bad-­enough shtunk into the shtunk of nightmares. “He’ll be out soon,” Rachel is trying to assure her, because what else can she say? “Aaron is writing the check for his bail, no problem. He’ll be out soon, I’m sure.”

“That’s not the point,” Naomi answers, though she doesn’t seem to be speaking to Rachel directly. “That’s not the fucking point. They had no right to arrest him. He was fucking defending himself, for Chrissake!”

Aaron returns to them, hands in the pockets of his overcoat. “Twenty-­five bucks,” he announces, as if it’s the cost of fixing a set of leaking pipes, anticipated, necessary, but still nothing to smile about. “We should go downstairs, I’m told. That’s where they release offenders.”

“Offenders?” Naomi takes issue with the word. “Is that what you’re really calling him? An offender?”

“Sorry.” Aaron surrenders quickly, showing his palms, as if addressing a ticking bomb. “That was their word. I just repeated it.”

Naomi frowns, her eyes heating up with tears, blurring her mascara. “Never mind. I’m sorry,” she admits. “You came all the way down here and paid his bail without arguing. Thank you,” she says.

A shrug with his hands hung back in his coat pockets. “Hey, what else am I gonna do, huh? So let’s get the hell outta here.”

Downstairs, a door clanks as it’s held open by a white officer, allowing Tyrell to exit. He looks bruised, not just in his face but in his soul maybe. As if he is threaded together by a tattered, burdensome rage suppressed by an equally burdensome weariness. His lip is split. His cheek has taken a punch. He’s dressed for an evening out, a suit under a Brooks Brothers overcoat, but his tie is missing, and his shirt collar is ripped. Naomi breaks away from Rachel and Aaron, rushing to Tyrell and seizing him in an embrace.

“Thank God,” she whispers aloud. “Thank God.”

Tyrell hushes her consolingly. “I’m fine. I am,” he keeps telling her. “Really.” But his reaction to her embrace, Rachel notes, is reticent. He gives her a squeeze in return but then deftly separates himself from her.

Naomi does not resist, though she is unwilling to release him completely and wraps her arm around his, walking him forward. “We should sue those bastards at the restaurant,” she’s insisting. “And that cop too. We should sue the whole fucking department for false arrest!”

Tyrell pats her arm as if to quiet her as much as console her. “We’ll talk about this later,” he instructs. “I’ve got to sign for my belongings,” he says. “I’ll just be a minute.” This gives him reason to peel away from her, leaving her drifting. Rachel steps up and hooks her with her arm, guiding her away from the heavy oak bureau manned by a middle-­aged sergeant with a chalky face.

“Bastards,” Naomi is whispering to the air, scowling. Rachel hands her a clean handkerchief. “Thanks.” Naomi sniffs. “But I’ll get mascara all over it.”

“So who cares about that?” Rachel asks.

Naomi purses her lips and wipes her eyes, smearing black over the white cotton. “I feel so fucking helpless. Furious but so fucking helpless.”

“Yes. I know that feeling. But for now, we concentrate on getting Tyrell away from this place. That’s all. More can come later,” Rachel says.