Shadows of Berlin полностью

Rachel assumes that it’s Naomi’s excuse to escape for a moment too and nods. But when Rachel returns to the table, she can’t help but focus on the dinner rolls in a basket, and she thinks if she could only slip one into her sweater pocket, that might be enough. Just to know it’s there. Just to know she won’t starve. That she won’t ever be starved again. Just a dinner roll, that’s all. Then she eyes Aaron’s wine goblet. He’s just refilled it with the last of the Chianti. It’ll make a mess of his slacks, but he deserves an embarrassing ride on the subway, so Rachel reaches for the basket of dinner rolls.

“Shit!” Aaron yelps as he leaps up from the table, his lap drenched by the overturned goblet.

“Oh my God, I am so sorry, Husband.” Rachel is apologizing loudly, heatedly, but the deed is already done, the dinner roll has been expertly pocketed. And it would have been perfect, a flawless theft, if she had not been caught by a blink of Tyrell’s eyes.

Naomi is on the job with a dish towel. “It’s okay, it’s okay.” She clucks maternally at Aaron as if he’s obviously overdoing it. “For god’s sake, it’s not the end of the fucking world. Besides, you deserved it for being such a first-­class putz all night. Remember what Pop used to say? Ess, bench, sei a mensch.” Eat, pray, and be a man! Not a putz.

Aaron grabs the towel from her and starts roughly brushing at the wet spot. “Yeah? Thanks for the reminder, Sis,” he says acrimoniously. “Just tell me how this is going to look when I get on the fucking subway, huh? The man who’s pissed himself.”

“So take a taxi,” says Naomi.

“Right. Money to burn.” Aaron frowns, embarrassed at having to tamp dry the crotch of his slacks in front of another man. “Take a taxi,” he smirks, shaking his head.

“Oh, for… I’ll give you the goddamned two dollars, cheapskate!” Naomi detonates, her face bleached by the burst of anger. “Jesus Christ!”

The float of traffic noises from the street suddenly becomes very pronounced in the silence that follows. Aaron glares, jaw clenched. Then abruptly, he frowns and swipes at the stain on his trousers again. “Well, let’s not bring him into this,” he requests, then adds, “No offense meant, Mr. Williams.”

“None taken,” Tyrell assures him cleanly.

Aaron has had enough of mopping up and tosses down the dish towel with a huff, then sits, elbows on the table, fingers woven together. “I have a clumsy wife sometimes,” he tells Tyrell without rancor, simply explaining one of the small banes of his fucking existence. “And I’m sorry if I’ve been offensive,” he says as he refills his goblet from the bottle of white. “As my wife can testify, I’m sure, she married a jerk.” He shrugs and then tips back the wine.

There’s some problem with the I.R.T. at West Fourth, so they have to walk to Christopher Street and Sheridan Square to take the Broadway Local to 23rd. Not much is said. Aaron sits beside her on the subway with his coat closed over the wine stain. The local is slow and truculent. A rattling bucket of bolts, schlepping its sardined passengers from one stop to the next.

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” Rachel says finally.

But Aaron only looks at her as if he’s really a mile or two away. “What?”

“I didn’t spill the wine on you purposely,” she lies.

“Okay,” he shrugs. Willing to accept this.

The train lumbers into the 23rd Street station with a dull blast of thunder and starts to brake.

“This is us,” Aaron announces blankly.

It’s a ten-­minute walk to their apartment building. As they cross Ninth Avenue, Rachel pulls the dinner roll out of the pocket of her sweater and drops it in the gutter for the pigeons to fight over.

“So why do you think your husband acted in such a hostile manner?” her shrink wonders aloud.

Rachel draws in smoke from her cigarette. “I don’t know.”

“Do you,” the doctor asks, “believe he is bigoted? Racially speaking.”

“No,” she says. “Yes. I don’t know. It shocked me. I’ll admit this. I’ve never once heard him speak a single insulting word. How is it called? A slur,” she says. “But I have noticed that he keeps a certain distance in place with the Negro men working at the restaurant. The gentleman who plays the piano. The doorman. He’s often overtly chummy with them, like they’re friends, but still there’s a barrier he keeps up. It’s a fausse amitié,” she says. “According to his sister, their father was the same way.”

The doctor nods without expression. “So you think that your husband’s attitude may be inherited? Copying his father’s behavior?”