Shadows of Berlin полностью

Feter only shrugs, then frowns at the envelope, still in her hands. “Your blintz. Eat. You don’t want to offend Alf, do you?” Which means don’t insult me. Put the money in your pocket. Yet she leaves the envelope in its place on the table and takes a bite of the blintz.

Her feter holds his frown, but then, as if he has plucked a thought from a passing cloud, he wonders aloud, “When was the last time you held a paintbrush in your hand, Ruchel?”

The sweet taste in her mouth turns to mud. She shakes her head. “Feter.”

“Think of the art you once produced, Rokhl. Only a year ago, you had the beginnings of a career. People were taking an interest in your art. You were starting to sell. Have you forgotten?”

And now she feels the darkness up close. “I haven’t forgotten my own life, Feter,” she answers.

“Then what is it? Why have you stopped?”

“You know why.”

“Because of what happened. Such a small thing.”

“A night in Bellevue was not a small thing, Feter.”

“No? So you think what? That’s you’re crazy now, Daughter? Ha!” he laughs. “Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but everyone is crazy. We have bombs that could burn continents into cinders. Who is not crazy?”

“That’s a different craziness.”

“Meshuga iz meshuga. How is it different?”

“It’s different,” she insists. “I shouldn’t have to explain.”

“You know, Rashka, sometimes I think,” her uncle tells her, “sometimes I think that you’d rather deny what happened. To us. To the Jews.”

Rachel glares, eyes like flint. “I don’t deny anything.”

“No?” he asks, raising the spoon to his mouth. “That’s good to hear. Because people should know. It’s important that people should know.”

“What people want to know is exactly nothing.”

“Then force them to know. Don’t be so courteous and give them the choice. Make them open their eyes. Teach the world with your paintbrush. All I’m telling you is this: You are gifted. But think how many gifted Jews,” he says, “are no longer with us.”

Rachel gazes back, her eyes gone wet.

“You think the world doesn’t care? Make it care. You think the world doesn’t remember? Make it remember. This what I’m telling you,” says Feter. “Put your gift to work.”

Rachel wipes at her eyes and retains her silence.

Feter leans farther forward, adding a confidential note to the urgency of his voice. “There’s a man. David Glass.”

The name casts her mind backward to Naomi’s photograph. Feter and the man Glass on the bench. The two conspirators at work in Tompkins Square Park. She has been waiting for her uncle to reveal himself. To reveal the fox’s scheme. And now that moment has come.

“You must know from him,” Feter tells her. “He a very influential art dealer.”

“Of course I know from him, Feter. Everyone knows from David Glass. Who doesn’t know?”

“Exactly. Who doesn’t?” her uncle agrees. Almost eagerly, he agrees, as if this is exactly what he wants to hear. “But what you may not know, Ruchel,” he is saying, “is that he is always on the hunt for talent. Like yours, my dear.”

Rachel frowns. Uncertain. “Oh, so you think so, do you, Feter?”

“After all,” he observes, “are you not the daughter of Lavinia Morgenstern-­Landau? So for the sake of her memory, I encourage you. Open up your paint box, set a canvas on an easel, and begin the great labor.”

Rachel does not smile. “Begin the labor. Open my paint box,” she says grimly. “I understand.” She nods darkly. “Eema is gone, so you want to take me to market as the calf of a prize cow.”

He is stung! “Rashka!”

“It’s true, isn’t it, Feter. S’iz ams!”

“No, it is untrue.” Her uncle is adamant. “Es iz nit ams. I’m thinking of you, Rokhl. Nor du!”

“Nor ich? Nor du, Feter! You’re thinking of yourself, as you always have. It makes me wonder what else you’re keeping hidden from view. Eema always said this too.”

At this, Feter becomes obviously angry. Not just at having his generosity rebuffed but now this insult from his sister. “Child, you have no idea what my bond with your mother was about. You knew her for no more than what? A few years past a decade? I, on the other hand, knew her since the day of my birth. We were often competitive, the two of us. That’s true. Highly so. We argued sometimes over means. But we always, always saw the world through the same eyes. So don’t you dare lecture me, Rokhl, about my sister. Everything I did was to protect her. To protect you. I can only grieve that she isn’t alive today to testify to this truth, but she is not.

“For her, in the end, I failed. But for you, Rokhl, the gem of her heart—­for you I have given everything I have. My sweat and blood and my soul. And this is how you respond to me? To so cruelly suspect my intentions? To spit on my sacrifices? I am struck. Cut to the bone, Ruchel.” His face is reddened, his eyes steaming darkly. He grinds his teeth and straightens his spine imperiously.