Shadows of Berlin полностью

Inside, the place is its usual casual mess, and the smell of the developing fluids is stronger. Rachel lights a cigarette against it. She stares back at the faces assessing her from the walls. Naomi works for a commercial agency on East 70th to pay the rent, photographing Sara Lee’s all butter yellow cake for magazine advertisements, but her walls at home are papered with looming photographic prints of the quirky hardscrabble denizens of the Village. Battered, scarred, suspicious, or confrontational faces glaring in black-and-white. Close up. Intentionally ugly and beautiful at the same time. Camera equipment and paraphernalia are scattered everywhere. A Kodalite Midget Flash Holder sits beside a carton of GE Surefire flashbulbs, like a carton of eggs with several eggs missing. A yellow tin of Kodak Microdol-­X Developer is ready to roll off the top of the bookshelf with the next bump. All around, there’s an air of post-­explosion, as if a minor rupture of chaos in the cosmos has scattered everything everywhere.

Naomi is quick to uncork the half bottle she has in her humming fridge. Maybe it’s only noon, but this is the Village, so she sloshes Chianti into mismatched glasses from her shelf. The wine is overchilled and tastes like it’s about to turn, but what the heck? They drink it anyway, seated on the sofa where Naomi has cleared away errant bits of clothing and photo magazines.

“Your brother is taking me to a Broadway show,” Rachel announces.

“Oh, so the shtoomer finally stuck a crowbar in his wallet, did he?”

“A crow?”

“A crowbar. You know.” Naomi makes a prying motion. “For prying shit open.”

“Oh. Yes.” Incomprehensible. “He has a friend in the ticket business.”

“Of course. Always a friend somewhere. Always looking to squeeze out a few pennies.” Naomi drinks. “He gets that from Pop. The man who bought his coffin from Sherman Brothers ten years before he died so he could get the discount.”

There’s this goulash of family turmoil with the Perlmans of Flatbush, always roiling just under the surface, which all of them so nonchalantly stir. It confuses Rachel. She understands bitterness and envy, anger and resentment; God knows she understands all that. But it’s so casual here in America. In Berlin, accusations were formal and heavy as bludgeons. Here it’s all a sport of stinging anecdotes disguised as humor. It baffles her, and when she tries to imitate and play along, the words come out like cold poison. “Well, my mother, you know, was the worst kind of public egoist with a stone for a heart. She once abandoned me in the Karstadt department store because she had forgotten I was with her and had gone instead for supper at the Adlon. But I was forced to love her anyway.” Only a clumsy silence follows that.

“So I have no clothes to wear,” Rachel says. “Nothing glamorous. Aaron says I should buy something, but…” She lets that sentence finish itself.

“No worries. Naomi’s got you covered,” her sister-­in-­law assures her and begins to disgorge the clothes from her closet. And not just any old rags, but the stylish velvets, silks, satins, and gabardines. Where does such a closet come from? “Try the pencil dress,” Naomi tells her. “Black always does the trick.”

Rachel no longer retains a sense of modesty when it comes to undressing. That was driven from her in hiding. She strips off her blouse and pants and slips into the dress, completing it with black satin three-­quarter-­length opera gloves. The wine is working a happy magic through her. Posing in front of the closet mirror, she shares the dress’s reflection with Naomi.

“Perfect,” Naomi decides. “With a string of pearls? You’re Audrey Hepburn.”

Rachel is pleased with her reflection in this flattering mirror. She feels as buoyed by it as she does by the Chianti. “It’s not too much?” she asks just as a test.

“Nope.”

“Not too phony? Your brother doesn’t like phoniness,” she says, causing Naomi to pull a face.

“Oh, my brother,” she replies and blows a raspberry. Then picks up her Leica from the sofa and advances the film. “Screw him and his opinions. He has no opinions that he didn’t inherit. Mostly from the materfamilias, by the way, if you haven’t noticed by now. He may sound like Pop? But scratch an inch underneath and it’s the Iron Hausfrau of Webster Av’. Mind if I take a few shots?” she asks but doesn’t wait for an answer and starts snapping pictures. Winged by the wine, lightened by the Miltown, Rachel plays along for a bit, posing this way and that way. This sort of attention is rare for her.

Naomi gives a laugh and shakes her head in delectable admiration. “Christ, you’re a heartbreaker!” she declares. “The camera fuckin’ loves you.”

8.

The Big Tsimmis

The evening comes. The evening of the Big Tsimmis masquerading as a Small Tsimmis. In the bedroom, Aaron is gabbing away from the bathroom as he finishes his shave. “By the way. My mom called. ‘Mazel tov’ she says for your birthday.”