Among the Living (17 page)

“And I just happened to be out on the porch and here we are,” said Pearl.

Jesler noticed the half-eaten piece of pie and several small cookies on a plate.

“Mrs. Jesler was very kind to offer me a glass of tea,” said Thomas. “I would never have thought to intrude at this hour.”

“Nonsense,” Pearl said, standing. “No intrusion at all. The newspaper wants to talk to my Abe, that deserves a glass of tea. I’ll leave you gentlemen to it.”

She moved across to Jesler with what could only be described as a bounce in her step. Jesler wondered which of
the two — the pie or this final flourish — was more disconcerting. Closing in on him, Pearl raised her eyebrows and leaned in: “Now everyone’s going to know about the expansion. Put everything back in line.”

Unable to look away, Jesler watched her to the stairs before turning back to Thomas. Jesler knew his head wasn’t clear enough for this.

“Have a seat, Mr. Thomas, please. I’ll take a glass myself?”

Thomas poured one out and handed it across. Jesler said, “You did an article on me when I opened the store. The paper did. Mrs. Jesler was very pleased with that.”

“Yes,” Thomas said, clearly uninterested. “I cover the docks.” He pulled out his pad and pencil and Jesler took a hasty sip of his tea.

Jesler said, “The docks. I didn’t know the paper had a man just for that.”

“Docks, treasury, city hall, that sort of thing.”

“Very interesting. And you’ve been at it long?”

“About eight months. I came down from Roanoke.”

“Into the swampland of the South.”

“Yes, it does get steamy here.”

Another sip — Jesler felt the awkwardness even as he drank — and he said, “So what is it you think I can help you with?”

Thomas scribbled something. “One of your employees was beaten recently. A Raymond Taylor.”

Like a constellation, the conversation now opened up in front of Jesler — point to point to point — and with no way to navigate around it. “That’s right.”

“He was making a delivery down to Jacksonville. Nothing was stolen.”

“Yes.”

“Would you care to comment?”

“Comment? Comment on what?”

“You don’t find it strange that an employee of yours was beaten for no apparent reason?”

There were any number of things Jesler was finding strange these days — his own sour reflection not the least of them — but he said, “I find it terrible, Mr. Thomas. Strange? Well … you’ve been in Roanoke. I’m sure you understand.”

“I’m looking into corruption at the docks, Mr. Jesler. So coming down from Roanoke — no, I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“Corruption.” Jesler repeated. “That’s a thick word, isn’t it?” He knew another sip would only come across as weakness but he took it all the same. “No — our Raymond was a war hero. Decorated. That’s unusual for a Negro. Some folks haven’t been all that kind about it.”

Thomas saw where this was going. He nodded indifferently. “I see.” He placed his glass on the table. “Your wife mentioned an expansion. That must be exciting.”

Jesler didn’t know if this was a coup from having just overheard or if Pearl had jumped the gun over pie. Either way, everything was coming to a head.

“Did she?” Jesler said casually. “Yes, very exciting, but as she knows we’re only
thinking
about an expansion. Not really on the front burner what with Raymond still recovering.” He set his glass down and stood. “But when we do, I hope it merits another article in your paper. Always good to have a little free advertising. Was there anything else?”

Thomas had been through the drill. He was cordial in his goodbyes as Jesler walked him to the door. The world was caving in around him and all Jesler could think of was the woman upstairs, patiently sitting and waiting for a celebration.

7

AS IT TURNED OUT
Goldah enjoyed driving a truck. He liked the weight of it on the highway and the height of the cab, and felt, even if it was only boxes of shoes, he was doing something of importance. His father had always disparaged truck drivers and menials — not in any direct or conscious way — but a lifetime of comments had been enough to let him distinguish between himself and those who got their hands dirty in order to survive.

“You wouldn’t want me digging a ditch, Yitzhak,” his father once said. “It would be a terrible ditch. An editor of a journal needs to know only how to
write
about the man who does the digging. You see?”

By then, Goldah had given up trying to lay bare the veiled condescension. It would only provoke a slightly less uncomfortable response: “But Yitzhak — I said I’d make a
terrible
ditch. Why have me do it?”

It was the more direct volleys, always posed innocently enough to Goldah but in clear earshot of his father’s victims, that Goldah learned to filter out entirely: For the mechanic, “Does the man think it takes a genius to change a tire?” For the washerwoman, “Wouldn’t she have been smarter to post a little sign ‘Wet Floor’ before starting to mop?” And his coup de grâce, for the cabbie, “Can you explain to me, Yitzhak, how an idiot of a driver can’t find the clutch …?”

It is Pasco, the little Italian, who asks the question.

He sits with Goldah in the back of a transport truck, both of them smelling of wet wool from the blankets the Russian soldiers have given them. Goldah knows that the man across from them is already dead even as the driver grinds away, and Pasco, indifferent, steals Goldah’s father’s favorite grumble: “Doesn’t he know I have no kidneys left?”

Pasco refuses to be silent with the rest. He refuses to see redemption as a solemn thing. He says as much: “He’s dead, you know. They’ll discover it the next stop and look at us with even greater incomprehension. ‘They ride with the dead and say nothing? Who are these ghouls of men?’ But who else would we ride with? You know I’m right.”

Goldah sits and feels the unimaginable cold — imaginable as he has known far worse — but finds the sight of his own breath mesmerizing because it is there in front of him and he can touch it if he chooses. Even now he has trouble remembering the
Lager
as it was, the same trouble with the liberation camp, where they were free to dig out the snow for their Russian saviors. They dug, of course, not because they were still prisoners — although what else could they have been? — but because none of them, when placed face-to-face with it, felt worthy of real freedom.

Goldah admits to Pasco that he has already begun to forget the look and the smell of certain places in the
Lager,
places he saw every day. Goldah says it is like the face of a family member or a friend who has died — blurred and distant — and Pasco tells him this is a lie. Heat and anger fill Pasco’s voice, not because he doesn’t believe Goldah but because he knows it is an impossibility.

“The laws of nature,” Pasco says. “Gravity and the planets. Memory plays no role with these things. There is the shape of the world and the draw of the moon and the tides. It is the same with the
Lager.
You think somehow memory will let us see ourselves otherwise? You think we will find a way to enter the world beyond the
Lager
? I understand that, but you must know that
this
is the lie because the real world for us lives only in the past. This is why we ride …”

A Packard raced by — a quick press of its horn — and Goldah sat alone with the memory.

The guards had made his father dig his own grave. They had told him to fill it with water, to stand in the freezing pit, drenched and shaking, before shooting him. This, they said, was for Goldah to stand and watch. It was nothing his father had done or said. It was simply to show it could be done.

A second car passed and Goldah thought, Yes, this is why we ride with the dead.

Calvin crouched next to the bottom shelf and counted out the boxes of size sevens. No matter the style, the sevens were always the first to go. It would have made more sense, he thought, to set them up on a middle shelf, but his knees always took him down on instinct, so maybe it was better to leave them where they were. He heard a glass fall to the cement floor the other side of the stockroom and moved out from the shelves thinking, What in the world is that boy doing back here now?

It was Jesler standing by the desk. He was leafing through a stack of papers and hadn’t noticed Calvin or the shattered glass. It looked as if he hadn’t been sleeping. His face was pale and he had a shine on him from too much liquor.

Calvin said, “You want me to sweep that up, Mr. Jesler?”

Jesler turned, his eyes wide as if he had been caught at something: What it was didn’t matter.

“Calvin,” Jesler said. “I didn’t see the truck in the back. I thought you were doing the Jacksonville run.”

“No, suh. Too much for me these days. Mr. Ike’s been doing it since Raymond. He’ll be back soon enough if you need him.”

“No … no. That’s all right. Jacob’s out front?”

“Yes, suh.”

“Good … good. You doing okay?”

“We haven’t been seeing you.”

“What? Oh — yes — things have been picking up. Lots on the plate. Store looks good.”

“Yes, suh.” Calvin took the broom and dustpan and stepped over. He said, “We getting through it, me and Jacob.”

Jesler looked as if he might answer but they both knew there was nothing for him to say.

Calvin began to sweep up the glass. “I ain’t blaming you, Mr. Jesler.” It was the starkness of the statement that let it pass untouched. “Not my place, whatever it is that got that boy all tore up. And I’m reaching the end a my anger, which you can understand is natural enough. But that’s not for me to have you thinking about anyway. I know that.” Calvin knelt down and swept what he had collected into the pan, every grain, back and forth. He didn’t care to see Jesler’s face. “Maybe it ain’t my place neither to be talking about it now but I know you long enough and thought you
should know.” He brought the pan over to the trash can and dumped it out.

Jesler nodded again; his face had grown paler. “Yes … Of course … That’s right.”

“Always talk right about you and your people, Mr. Jesler. Always have. How you do things, take care a things. Ain’t something I ever want to regret. You understand, don’t you?” Calvin stood for a moment before he placed the broom and pan against the wall. “I’ll get back to the shelving now. Mr. Ike be back soon enough.”

Calvin moved off and Jesler felt an overwhelming need to sit. His hands began to shake, not from the booze but from this strange and weighted absolution that made even shame feel like a kind of relief.

8

THE FIRST PINK
of evening settled on the puddles along the street and Jacob, standing at the curb, gazed after a car that was splashing up a thick stream of water.

“It’ll be a ghost town down here come
yontif,
” he said.

Goldah stood with him: He hadn’t given a thought to the holidays. “Not every store, surely.”

“You come down a couple of weeks from now and see for yourself. Goyim gone, too. Not enough to make it worth their while.”

Goldah hadn’t thought of that, either.

Calvin poked his head out the front door and said, “We got boxes to be shelved. I’m done waiting on you two. Ain’t no time to be taking the air.” He was gone before either of them could answer.