Shadows of Berlin полностью

Rachel doesn’t care about that. She likes the commercials. The cartoon giraffe with the sailor’s cap selling the Sugar Frosted Flakes. You can eat ’em right out of the box! And she would like to be able to sit down while watching The Lone Ranger instead of standing outside a storefront. Or maybe watch an entire episode without Aaron nagging her about how his feet hurt after working the Thursday all-­you-­can-­eat shrimp cocktail special lunch shift at the restaurant or that his back is getting to him standing there like a schmuck for half an hour. Aaron says, “Who needs a picture tube?” He liked Jack Benny better on the radio, ’cause he likes to use his imagination. It’s cheaper.

“We could put it right there,” Rachel tells him.

“What?”

“A television set. We could put it right there, across from the sofa.”

“Hasn’t she been listening?” he wonders aloud.

“It would fit.”

“But there’s a chair there.”

“So we move the chair.”

“No room.”

“Then we give the chair to the Salvation Army.”

“Thank you, no. That chair belonged to my mother’s aunt Shirley and has great sentimental value.”

“It was here when we moved in.”

“And I’ve gotten very attached to it since. Besides, isn’t there some Jewish charity, by the way? Doesn’t the Joint run a thrift shop?”

“The Joint does not want our chair.”

“Maybe not, but my point is this: Why give a perfectly good chair to the goyim? Let them buy retail.”

“You’re not very funny.”

“No? Then go give your own family heirloom to the Salvation Army, why don’t you?”

Only she has no family heirlooms. Nothing left of the elegant Klimt chairs or Biedermeier dining set. The silver Shabbat candlesticks or the Italian gilt-­wood menorah. Nothing of her eema’s Turkish carpets or the Silesian porcelain coffee service. Not anything. Not anything at all. Not even a speck of schmutz has survived from under the rugs. Her uncle Fritz is the only family antique that comes close to qualifying.

In the bedroom, while the ambient fuss of street traffic drifts up from below, the bedside lamps are switched off. Rachel and Aaron climb under the blankets. But it’s immediately obvious that Aaron is interested in pursuing a little something other than the nightly routine of good-­night pecks. The smell of him as he pulls her closer can still intoxicate her, even after five years of marriage. The feel of his skin, the hair on his chest, that head of thick russet curls. It’s easy for her to lose herself. The small ceramic night-­light she bought for twenty cents at the hardware store is plugged into the electrical outlet under the window, and every night, she snaps it on because she cannot tolerate total darkness. In total darkness, she will drown. So the night-­light glows like a petite yellow star.

Aaron has opened her pajamas. The blue silk pajamas he bought in Chinatown for their fifth anniversary, though probably picked out by his sister Naomi. Still, they are so luxurious. She slides her fingers through his hair as his lips brush her skin. His hand moves slowly, gently, as he slips the Chinese silk from her hips. Exposed, on top of the blankets, she feels the vulnerability of her body deepen. His lips find the curve of her neck. She kisses his ear, her desire tightening.

“Aren’t we forgetting something?” she whispers softly. “Aren’t we forgetting something?” But he doesn’t answer. His hands are moving. His mouth. She can feel herself warming, her breath expanding. A void opening. But when she whispers his name, she is still repeating her drowsy question. “Aaron? Aaron? Aren’t we? Aren’t we forgetting something?”

Aaron’s answer is to shift her body under him, and she feels a liquid craving, but also an edge of fear. Doesn’t the Talmud teach that the obligation to be fruitful and multiply is on the man? So siring children is a mitzvah for the husband, which has contributed to Aaron’s disdain of condoms. And Rachel would rather be in control of the process anyway. Women have more leeway. So she whispers sensibly, intimately. “Aaron, I don’t have my shield.”

She means her diaphragm. A word she mispronounces enough to elicit an indulgent correction: Die-­a-­fram, says Aaron. Like die-­a-­thousand deaths. Not dee-­a-­fram. So instead of die-­a-­thousand-­deaths diaphragm, she calls it her shield, because that’s what it is, isn’t it? Her shield to keep her safe from her own body. She can slip through Eve’s loophole and escape her own biology. Her own history. “Aaron…”

“Would it be so terrible, honey?” her husband wants to know. “Would it be so terrible if we made love like man and wife? Think of Ezra Weinstock,” he tells her. “He has three little Weinstocks already, with a fourth in the hopper.”

“Aaron.”