Shadows of Berlin полностью

As the basin is passed for the Urchatz on Webster Avenue, Rachel notes that her eema has slipped into Elijah’s chair in her camp rags and is dunking her filthy fingers into the water, leaving it oily with death. But the daughter says nothing, keeping her mother’s secret. The truth is she’s happy to see her. The truth is she’s envious of all the cranks and colorful oddballs of Aaron’s family. The quarreling and long-­standing bickering, chiseling away at everybody’s nerves. The despair that the people you love will never understand you. The bitter root, the sacrifice and mourning, the bondage of family. The hard edges and soft tugs, the ugly bigotries, and the sudden flares of laughter. She envies all this. The shared history of family blood. The unspoken knowledge of the family heart. A togetherness that is more than a simple congregation around a table. It walks you home. It tangles your dreams as you sleep. It glues you into one piece.

She knows that they are doing their best, their very best to treat the little refugee from cindered Europa like a member of the clan. Bubbe Perlman worries over her, clucking tearfully through the agenda of tragedy that tags along with Rachel as she hugs Rachel’s shoulder to her old bony body. Zaydi Perlman offers her the nice chair, bowing to the sheyne kleyne khlh. The lovely little bride. Even Uncle Lou, who can only grouse over those goddamned Puerto Rican kids soaping his windshield and how the Internal Revenue Service is robbing him goddamned blind—­even he wants to know how married life is treating her. But her sense of family has been shattered. She can only press her nose against the glass and peer through. She is a specimen from a blackened planet. Alone at this table, except for the shadows that cling to her.

After it’s over, after the candles have been extinguished and the plates cleared, Rachel is in the kitchen with her mother-­in-­law, helping with the dishes. Miriam washes, Rachel dries as in comes Aaron searching for a bottle of Ballantine in the fridge. “Scusi, scusi,” he announces with a fake Italian accent.

“So who’s that one for?” his mother wants to know, keeping track.

“Uncle Meyer,” he answers, popping off the cap with the opener hanging from a hook.

“I see,” says Miriam. “So if it’s for Uncle Meyer, why is it my son who’s drinking it?”

Aaron belches casually after swallowing the slug of beer and leans against the refrigerator door. “’Cause I’m his beer taster, Ma. You know how upset he gets if his beer’s too hoppy. So did she tell you?”

A glance. “Tell me what, smart aleck?”

“There’s this woman who sold a painting.”

Rachel feels a furious burn rise in her cheeks. “Aaron.”

“What? Nobody should know?” Aaron shrugs. “Somebody buys your painting? It’s good news, isn’t it? She had like an exhibition at this gallery,” he announces. “It was even in the newspaper.”

“The newspaper?” Miriam echoes.

“Yeah. Didn’t you send Ma the clipping?” he’s asking Rachel but then turns back to his mother. “I told her to send you the clipping.”

“I must have forgotten,” Rachel decides. “Besides, it was only the Post.”

“Hey. A newspaper’s a newspaper,” Aaron assures her, but all Rachel can hear him say is, Look what my wife can do! Such tricks she can perform!

“It wasn’t even much of a gallery,” she says. “Just a place on Tenth Street where for five dollars, you can pay for a little space on a wall.”

“Hey. It was a good enough gallery to sell a painting, okay?”

Miriam slants a glance at her son, not Rachel. “So what’s the painting, dear?” her mother-­in-­law asks her.

Aaron answers for her, helpfully. “Well, it’s a kind of—­you know.” Another shrug, turning to his wife. “I don’t know, honey. How would you describe it?”

“How?”

“Yeah, uh. It’s kinda like. I don’t know. Kinda spooky looking.”

“I painted a ghost,” Rachel admits.

“Really? A ghost? Of whom?” Miriam wonders. “Like a special ghost? What’s the name of that ghost in the story for Christmas?”

“Just a ghost,” Rachel lies.

“A hundred bucks she’s made so far,” Aaron injects eagerly. “And that just for the first one. The guy from the gallery’s interested in more.”

“A hundred dollars?” Miriam says. Impressed or skeptical? “For a picture of a ghost.”

“People pay money for art, Ma. That how the art business works,” Aaron says as if he needs to explain it so his mother will understand. “The buyer’s making an investment. He pays a hundred bucks now, but in ten years or whatever, who knows what it’ll be worth.”

“I get it,” his mother tells him.

“Like when Pop bought those Liberty Head silver dollars.”

“I said I get it, Aaron,” his mother informs him with quiet menace.

Aaron blanches slightly and must steal another swig of his uncle’s beer. “Okay. So now you know. Great. I was just saying.”

“Well,” the woman says to Rachel, “that must be some kind of thing, sweetheart.”