“Thank you,” she chokes out. “Mr. Bauer.”
He blinks back at her. Uncertain.
“For your help with the crate,” she explains.
The German purses his lips flatly. Nods, then steps out, closing the door behind him. She wipes her eyes and turns her attention to the straw-packed rectangle, and then her mother is there, in her painting smock, excited. Eyes dazzling.
A painting rests against the wall, the nesting material torn away. The figure before her throbs off the canvas. A sensual inferno of red pigments. The long, willowy body. The sweeping red tresses, like a fire blowing through a forest, and the beatific face with the hungry leopard’s eyes. Rachel glares at it as if staring straight into a firepit.
A square envelope contains a card with a small explanation written by hand in German:
There’s a scrape of a key in a lock. The door pops open, and in comes Aaron carrying a paper sack. “Okay, I got you the sesame chicken with broccoli,” he announces happily. His voice is always a happy one these days. The overcrowded subway, the city, the dirty sidewalks, the price of fucking everything? Happy. The restaurant, the customers, the cook, and the bottle washers, all of it happy. Even complaining about Leo is a happy subject.
“Also, two egg rolls,” he says. “If you don’t want both, I’ll have the other. Oh, and I don’t know if I said? I promised Ezra we’d come up tonight after supper.” See! Even dessert with the Fucknik watching T.V. is a joy. Aaron is smiling. The father-to-be. He smiles with puzzlement at the mess of packing materials and the canvas leaned against the wall. “So what’s this?” he wonders.
“This,” she says, “is my mother’s painting.” She has tears standing in her eyes.
Aaron’s smile grows a bit more serious. “Really?” He stops, turns to stare at it. She can see the wheels turning in his head as he surveys the brutal desire in every brushstroke. The blood boiling through the paint. Maybe he’s finally starting to get it. Why his wife is the woman she is. “Wow,” he breathes. And then, “Where’d it come from? I mean, is this
“Yes.”
Aaron, poor man. It’s obvious he understands just enough about what’s going on here to
“Yes,” Rachel decides to tells him. “Feter Fritz.” She will burn the card. When she is alone, she will light it off the stove and let it burn away in the sink. Eingeäschert. Reduced to ash. “That’s what happened. The rabbit from the hat.” Which isn’t entirely a lie.
“Holy mackerel,
At night. Aaron is in the other room still gabbing on the phone with Naomi.
Her sister-in-law rejoiced over the news. “Oh my God, I’ll be Mume Naomi!” she cried, laughing through tears. She was on her way out when they appeared at her door. Her hair was out of its ponytail, a chestnut mane down past her shoulders. Kohl eyeliner, red lips, and fishnet stockings. Tyrell had called her. He’d passed his bar exam. They’d made a date to meet at a place on MacDougal called the Gaslight. A beatnik dive! Aaron was still smiling. “Well. Give ’im our regards,” he told her. Happy!
And on Webster Avenue in Flatbush? Her mother-in-law had REJOICED in capital letters, as if Rachel had just delivered the Messiah into her lap!
She hears Aaron telling Naomi over the phone, “Oh, who knows?” His voice is lazy with affection. “Boy? Girl? We’re just gonna pick a name off the labels of the spice rack over the stove. Yeah, Allspice Perlman, Nutmeg Perlman.
She bestows a kiss on his head. She is tired early, she finds, so she had made ready for bed, changing into her flannel pajamas.
“Hold on, the pregnant lady’s saying good night,” he says. Then, palm clamped over the phone, “who couldn’t guess,” he says. “She wants to have us over for dinner again with Mr. Now-I’m-a-Lawyer. I said my wife handles our social calendar. You wanna talk to her?”