Shadows of Berlin полностью

Yet how can Rachel possibly ransom it? Fifteen dollars short. Fifteen dollars! And even if somehow dollars fall from heaven like manna and the painting drops into her lap, what then will she do with it? She can’t give it to Feter Fritz, because he’ll sell it to God knows who for either a minor fortune or a bag of subway tokens, depending upon the madness of his moment. But how can she herself dare keep it? Where will it go? In her closet? Under the bed? And then what? It stays there until the eyes slowly burn through the bedsprings and mattress and the bed goes up in flames? Rashka had been a dusky little five-­year-­old when it was painted. Dark-­eyed and dark-­haired. But even as a child, she had been captivated by those wavy red tresses and jealous of them. Jealous, too, of the intensity this maidel drew from her eema’s gaze. It’s easy to see the proof of that intensity in the painting, even after twenty-­some-­odd years. Maybe she can convince Aaron that she bought it from the Goodwill in the Village for twenty cents. Or better yet, found it abandoned on the sidewalk beside the trash.

Of course there is another solution. She can hear her own rage whisper from deep inside her, urging her to destroy it. It’s a whisper that wants to see it burnt. Reduced to ashes or torn to pieces. A whisper that presses her to slash it into ribbons with the butcher knife from the kitchen drawer. Wouldn’t that be justice? Though, for now, her guilt is stronger than this whisper. Her guilty devotion to her mother. Her guilty terror of the dead.

Aaron lathers his hands in the kitchen sink with the sliver of Ivory Soap while, for the umpteenth time, the radio is playing “The Ballad of Davy Crockett,” prompting Aaron to break into song. “‘Day-­vee—­Day-­vee Crockett—­Took a dump on the wild frontier.’ I’m sorry I gotta turn this off,” he says. Snapping off the volume, he wipes his hands on a dish towel. “Any mail?”

Rachel plops the cardboard takeout containers on the plates. “A bill from the electric company and a bill from the telephone company.”

“The two biggest crooks in town.”

Rachel opens the refrigerator. The old Kelvinator often emits a dull, mechanical drone like it’s thinking too hard. “Will you have a beer?”

By now, Aaron has collapsed into his chair at the table. “Sure, why not?”

She snatches two Ballantine Ales from the back of the fridge with a light clink of bottles and brings them to the table, where she sits and uses the wood-­handled opener to pop the caps. She tries to settle herself into the streamlined mood that Miltown offers, but even after another eight hundred milligrams, the painting has stirred her. She feels her blood churn too recklessly, so she tries to center herself using Aaron as a touchstone, as she so often does. The regular guy, her husband, a boychik from Brooklyn, steady as a heartbeat. His face has filled out since they married. He’s lost the boyish leanness of his cheeks he possessed in pictures while he was in the service. Sometimes she spies on him as he checks his hair for threads of silver in the bathroom sink. It makes him so human and so vulnerable.

But does she love him? Does she love her husband, ladies? Yes. Or at least she loves much about him. The quietly invested way he reads the newspaper. That thick disorder of his curls right after he wakes. Yes, she loves those curls. The strength of his hands opening the unopenable jar of Vlasic Kosher Dill Spears. And she depends on him too. She knows this. She depends on his eccentricities. His tastes for salty and sour write her shopping list. His restaurant hours underpin her nights and days. She depends on his punchy wit, their snappy to-­and-­fro, and even their ongoing arguments to give her structure that helps her breathe evenly on a daily basis. She can imagine herself continuing to depend on him for the rest of her life, though there are times when she suddenly goes dead to his touch. When darkness overtakes her, and she knows that they will always be separate, regardless of how long they are together. It makes her want to flee. To escape it all. Aaron, the apartment, their furniture, the impossibly slow drain in the kitchen sink. Herself.

Yes. If she can just keep running, perhaps she can escape herself as well. Is such a thing possible?

“So,” Aaron says, busying himself opening the mail, ripping open the envelopes with his fingers. “You got to your whatchamacallit today, right?”

Spooning out a large helping of rice for Aaron, Rachel raps the spoon against his plate. “I don’t know. What is the whatchamacallit?”

“You know. Your appointment,” he says and frowns at a bill. He doesn’t like to speak the word psychiatrist aloud.

Spooning out a small helping of rice for herself with only a light tap of the spoon against her plate, she says, “You mean my appointment with the shrink?”

“Do you have to call it that?”

“What do you want me to call it?”

“I dunno. Call it whatever. I’m just asking is all.”