Shadows of Berlin полностью

“Hey, can we give the young lady a break?” he suggests with some force to the offended attendant, stepping into the scene in a helpfully assertive manner. “You can hear that she’s obviously new to our country, am I right? And who knows? Maybe this is how they do things back in Odessa. I mean, come on,” he insists. “Here’s a dime,” he says, slapping a coin on the desk. “Really. I’ll cover the cost of a new copy so none of your very important customers miss out on the news of the day. Or maybe they can just read the Post instead. Whattaya think?”

Of course, she isn’t from Odessa. She is from Berlin, that pulverized city on the Spree, which is what she tells him over the lunch he buys her at Katz’s Delicatessen. KATZ’S, THAT’S ALL! reads the ancient maroon sign on East Houston. How-­sten Street, he teaches her to say. Entering the restaurant, Rachel is light-­headed. She hears Yiddish ringing off the walls, yes, but she’s also dizzied by how expansively American the place is in its size, its veracious noisiness, and its overwhelming plenty. Not just the luxurious aromas of Jewish cooking but the towers of stacked pastrami and corned beef. The platters of plump, orangey-­pink lox. The golden loaves of rye and challah crowding the racks. The bagels and bialys. The monstrous dills in monstrous jars. Abundance like this can make her nauseous.

“So. Why were you tearing up the newspaper?” this boy with the curls has to ask. But that’s when the harried, slightly surly waiter arrives at their table, and the boy orders for them. A Reuben with extra Russian for him, a sweet-­potato knish for her. And two egg creams.

She avoids the question of newspapers. “And what,” she wonders, “what is this egg cream?”

“It’s a drink. Like a, uh, like a chocolate milk only with a spritz of seltzer. Very sweet, very fizzy.”

“Where is the egg?”

“There is no egg.”

“And the cream?”

“There is no cream, but don’t worry. You’ll love it.”

“There were no such drinks where I grew up,” she tells him. “When I was a child, we had only a ‘Schlammbowle’ at parties,” she says, producing a ten-­cent packet of cigarettes. “In English, you would say, I think, a ‘Mud Bowl.’”

“Yes. I would say that. I would definitely say that,” the boy assures her, eyes bright.

“So. Into this bowl go the fruit juice, the tangerines, the peaches and, uh—­die ananasscheiben. How is it called? The pineapple slices. From a tin. All with the ice cream,” she says, almost tasting its sweet flavor. She is not accustomed to the taste of happy memories. “Of course this was for the children. The adults? They must add schnapsen. Booze,” she translates with fervor and laughs.

The boy is producing a shiny Zippo lighter. “Sounds scrumptious,” he says earnestly, flicking open a tear of flame. She leans forward to accept the light, touching his hand. Just a small touch, but she can tell it has its effect because his pupils dilate.

“I collect the stories of the aeroplane crashes,” she confesses. “This is why I tore the paper.”

The Zippo snaps closed. “Hmm. Interesting,” Aaron decides. “Only airplanes?”

She exhales smoke. “Nur,” she tells him. Only.

“Not trains or cars or anything? Why is that?”

“Must I know? I hardly know why I do many things I do. Do you?”

He smiles, baffled. “Yeah, pretty much,” he says with a lightly comic note of lament. “I pretty much always know why I do the things I do.”

This boy lifts her heart. His name is Aaron. He is funny and lithe and interested in talk. Perhaps Rachel catches a glimpse of a destination in his eyes. He is teasing her over reading the dictionary, which she does in order to learn new words.

“I won’t give away the ending,” he tells her, “but it has something to do with zoos.”

She does not understand.

“Because Z is the last letter in the alphabet,” he must explain. “Never mind. Things just come outta my mouth. I dunno. You get used to it after a while.”

His smile is so unpretentious. So very down-­to-­earth American.

“Okay, so—­dictionary or not, you speak pretty great English. How’d you learn?”

“Languages were important to my mother,” she says. “So she hired different tutors for my education. One for the English, one for the French, even the student from the Hildesheimer Akademie für das hebräisch. Though my Hebrew is very light.”

“Wow,” says the boy. “Wow. I hear this and I’m like… Holy mackerel.”

Rachel does not know what this means, of course, but can tell from his expression that she is drawing him in, just like the sweet taste of the egg cream from the straw.