All daughters, yes — how many they have at the least?
At the least, he says, I wouldn’t remember, realizing he’s never seen or met the same kinder twice.
How many times: there’d been that once at the office when the older attractive and the second he thinks were around, don’t think about it how old she is with the breasts and the breath and he’d been here once before her, without her, dropping Israel off because he had a car and Israel didn’t, had left his but where, he couldn’t remember; and there they were, playing in the yard, in the front. Who knows what games. All had the same look around the mouth and how they appeared to swap clothes. He remembers to her one in particular: one outfit not red or yellow, the other fired halfway to blue if blue was like a grandfather’s, what do you call it, he means techeles, that purplish on one or twoish of them. Running around, a dash, don’t get your clothes dirty, your suit you just bought it new. Here, now, in the frontyard, he’s mimicking them at their fun, trying to reenact for her enjoyment: she’s unhappy being here with him and thinks him weak and fearful, acting differently around others, how he’s rushing for props to cheer her, clown around smiles; grabbing them up, balls for baskets and bases and for soccer, mitts, a ripped pinwheel, a fractured kite tailed with a jumprope, a holed pail, rusted spade, making her even more impatient and angry, I can’t believe, a tossing of hair, what I’m doing for you, her walking up the path then the six steps of the stoop toward the doormat — a message there, obscured, dirt laced into itself, Shalom’s script interwoven — then the automatic lights light on and she jumps, stares at him, startled.
Sorry, he says, throws down a weatherworn, handling splintery slugger, rushes up the steps, next to her on the stoop, to behold the light suspended, the candles framed in the window.
They knock, ring repeatedly as if to get in sooner, almost to make as if they’ve been waiting a while. A single unlock, and a stranger opens the door, a woman with real presence, which means impolitely fat as not pregnant, Hanna, can’t be: her hair colored too brightly and the makeup reddening errant over lids and lips, Wanda sloppy in a shiftlike kimono and hurried along. They kiss her anyway and hug her surprised at how forward they are, how intense and excited to please; not stopping to kiss the mezuzah, they step inside by stepping around her, each to a flank and further to what has to be Hanna now next to Israel, his boss and bread changed into casual slippers but into new pants and a shirt, too, just as formal as the suit he’d been wearing; they’re holding each other, these guests, her head on his shoulder as if she’s suddenly tired, and how he tries to shake her hand off to shake Israel’s then say sorry to Hanna; apologies — that’s what I’m good for.
Wanda had Shabbos off, ostensibly, their Sabbaths and not hers, if and only if during the week she’d somehow or other satisfied Hanna, which satisfaction was often as difficult as proving to the most redoubtable of doubters the existence of an omnipotent God: though this can be done, God’s history tells us, there’s nothing impossible; Hanna’s particular brand of cacoethes carpendi, otherwise known as obsessive/compulsive not a disorder, an order, and that’s the idea, a mania known Developmentwide — tempered by only her optimism, her famous can do, oftabused.
On Friday nights, Wanda had to serve, that was it: upon Shabbos eves rare in Hanna’s happiness, her having plucked no fruited fault from the tree whose boughs, pruned daily, would overnight, over eves, branch into all species of tasks, errands, resentment. It was Hanna’s elected responsibility to prepare their family dinner — duty, the Schedule, just doing her part, hauling her own pregnant weight — and then, how she’d sit in the shade of accomplishment, accepting compliments heaped into her cups, bowls and plates, blushing the rose of an apple and eating all the courses from the challah on down to dessert even and drinking her wine, too, and Israel’s as well, though not while with kinder while Wanda would serve. As for those cups, those bowls of fruit and plates — though it was always the responsibility of these kinder, rotating, to set the table, each week, they would groan to their mother, shouldn’t Wanda do this?
I mean, every Friday, what do you pay her for anyway?
As if, to decrease your inheritance.
