Shadows of Berlin полностью

“How many years in the restaurant business?” She can hear the shrug in his voice. “You think I’ve never picked up after somebody makes a mess?”

“I’m sorry,” she offers, concentrating on shaking the pillow from its case. “I’m sorry you had to sleep on the sofa.”

“It wasn’t too bad. Better than the army.”

Rachel stops. Hugs the pillow against herself. Gazes back at her husband with large eyes. “I know I’m a terrible wife.”

“Oh. You’re not so bad,” Aaron tells her, exhaling a breath. Then he checks his wristwatch. Stubs out his cigarette. Standing, he leaves his coffee cup behind. “I gotta go.”

“You’re opening today?”

He sighs, slipping on his suit jacket. “Opening and closing. So God knows, as usual, when I’ll be home.” He crosses the room, stopping to give his wife a soft kiss on the cheek, which she absorbs in silence. “Look, I get it. Being artistic? Not so easy. I shoulda been more—­I dunno—­more something when I saw you’d brought this thing home,” he says, measuring the immensity of the canvas by wagging his hand up and down like an elevator gone crazy. He crosses behind her, removes his hat and coat from the hall tree. “So paint, why don’t you?” he suggests. “Who knows? It could be fun.”

Rachel lifts her eyes to the canvas still on the chair in front of the sofa. In another minute, the door to the hallway opens and shuts, leaving Rachel staring at the blank expanse of unpainted universe. The fear is so crippling. If she dares to pick up a brush and touch it to her palette, is she willing to risk her sanity? Her soul? Is there another straitjacket waiting for her the moment she releases the madness in her onto the canvas?

In Washington Square, people are strolling under the arch, milling about pavement under the bright-­white sun. It’s breezy, hold-­on-to-­your-­hat weather. The fountain’s been shut down since the end of summer, but there’s a klatch of beatnik kids perched around the basin, one curly-­headed boy strumming on his guitar, though his singing is caught by the wind and blown away.

“Are you sure we won’t get arrested?” Rachel asks.

Naomi is beside her on one of the green park benches, lighting up a juju. “For what? This is the Village. Everything’s legal.” She draws in a hit and hands it over to Rachel. Was it really so very long ago in her life when a Jew sitting on a public bench was committing a criminal offense? Yellow benches only for Jews in Berlin! Nur für Juden! And now here she is on a regular bench, breaking the law by choice! C’est étonnant! Carefully she draws in the smoke, but then coughs it back up harshly. Her face goes flush.

“Sorry.” Naomi half grins. “I should have warned you it’s strong as fuck.” Naomi retrieves the juju for another drag. Holding it in, she speaks in a stifled voice. “It grows freely.” She releases the breath with only a light waft of smoke. “Freely as weeds. Right here in the city in vacant lots and shit. You can pick it like dandelions if you know what to look for.”

“Is that what you did?”

Naomi laughs. “Nah. This I bought,” she says. “This stuff is Mexican. Much more heavy duty that what you had last time. There’s a guy who’s good for it in my building. But really, these days? You can buy it pretty much anywhere around here. There’s probably half a dozen guys selling it right here in the Square.” She offers to share again, and Rachel accepts. Draws in smoke and holds it until she can’t any longer. But this time, the cough is easier to manage.

“So. You had a row again?” Naomi asks. “You and the shtoomer?”

Rachel is wiping her eyes. “It wasn’t really”—­she huffs out a breath—­“really a row.” Shakes her head and hands back the juju. “I don’t know what it was,” she confesses.

“Not a row, but he’s sleeping on the couch.”

“He was last night. Tonight, I’m not sure. He usually does his double shift on Wednesday, so I’m already asleep by the time he gets home.”

“Just like Pop, the poor dope,” Naomi laments, but without much sympathy. “Slaving away for the sake of a buck.”

Almost in a whisper, Rachel asks the question. “Do you think I’m wrong?”

“Wrong?”

“Is it so unreasonable for a man to want children from his wife?”

Naomi pulls a face over that one. “Is that what this is about?”

Rachel shrugs like a child.

“Well. Who the fuck knows what’s ‘reasonable’?” Naomi decides. “It means shit. Nothing’s ‘reasonable.’”

“But isn’t it,” Rachel says, “isn’t it part of the deal? When people marry. Isn’t it part of the contract?”

Naomi shakes this off. Contract schmontract. “It’s not like you signed an agreement to pump out a bunch of brats by a certain date,” Naomi tells her. She takes another draw, holds it, then releases it. “And it’s not like he’s gonna carry a kid in his belly for nine months. It’s your body, not his. You should decide.” And then she asks, “So you want another toke?”

“Toke?”

“Another drag?” says Naomi.