Boogaloo On 2nd Avenue (28 page)

Nusan was not on the stoop, but in his apartment with his hat and scarf on. He seemed in a good mood. When Nusan was in a good mood, he did not smile or seem happy He was simply more energetic than when in a bad mood.

"So, ready for lunch?" Nusan asked.

Nathan, who had not counted on lunch, ignored the question and made his way over the papers and other rubble that filled Nusan's apartment, to the window, which he opened. Although Nusan had an air conditioner, it was on the floor by the window, covered with piles of papers and making it that much more difficult to open the window. Harry had bought the air conditioner for Nusan, thinking that even though Nusan refused anything that he perceived as a luxury, if Nathan delivered it, there was a chance that Nusan would use it. Nathan believed that he would be no more effective than a deliveryman, that Nusan would argue, "When you have experienced real cold, you don't mind a little heat."

But Nathan had been wrong. Actually what Nusan said was, "Who am I to be spared a heat wave? Millions of people all over New York are suffering. I hear it on the news. It is in the newspaper. But now Nusan Seltzer is so special, he stays cool. Too good to sweat. This is from your father. I know. Your father thinks he is too good to sweat. Because he is an American, because he is safe, he should not sweat like everybody else."

"It's really hot out," said Nathan.

"So, kreplach or pirogi?" Nusan answered.

Any of Nusan's places would be unbearable today. "Look, Nusan, how about ravioli?"

"Ravioli? Who are you with the ravioli?"

"It's okay to have ravioli, Nusan. In Italy the poorest people eat ravioli. Really miserable people eat ravioli in Italy."

"What's with Italy?"

"Come on. You'll like it. It's little pieces of dough with cheese inside."

Nusan shrugged. "So what's not to like?" It always surprised Nathan when Nusan was agreeable. He couldn't help suspecting that Nusan chose to be agreeable every now and then just to throw people off balance. The real clue to Nusan's moods was his sleeve, and on this hot day he was keeping his tattoo covered.

But on the way out he shoved up the sleeves of his jacket. Then he tapped the right doorpost. That tap always irritated Nathan. If he wanted a mezuzah, why didn't he put one up?

They went to DiFalco's, a dark little place with tile floors and autographed pictures on the wall. It was certain without looking that one of the signed pictures would be Vic Damone, another would be Frank Sinatra, and that several of the records in the jukebox would be versions of "My Way." Nathan ordered himself a salad and Nusan ravioli in butter. Nusan seemed happy He liked the way they kept filling the bread basket. Each time, Nusan would take a roll and shove it in his jacket.

"So, I have good news for you."

When Nusan said this, it was never good news. "The Mets have lost two in a row," Nathan argued.

"Dave Johnson," said Nusan, referring to the Mets manager, "said the team has an affliction. An
affliction."

"But they're still in first place."

"For now. Clark's not hitting. Strawberry's not hitting." Nusan pushed up his jacket sleeve, not to expose his tattooed number, not to cover up the little label that said "100% pure wool," but as his way of saying, "Now to business." He leaned forward so that he could be heard in a whisper. "There was never an SS Standartenfuhrer Bernhardt Moellen."

Nusan had surprised Nathan again. It actually was good news. "You are sure?"

"Absolutely." Then he smiled. When Nusan smiled ... "There was a Reinhardt Müller, as I told you."

Nusan clearly enjoyed the look of dismay on Nathan's face.

"But he was never a
Standartenführer,
either." He deliberately gave Nathan a moment of relief before adding, "He was only an
Obersturm-führer,
a lieutenant."

"In the SS?"

"Yes," said Nusan, feeding a breadstick into his mouth like a carrot into a juicer.

"Could be somebody different."

"Could be. Could be the camps were only a dream. I think that sometimes. I think that I am glad they tattooed me, because now I can look at my arm and say, 'Look at this number.' " He turned his arm over and looked at it. " 'Look at this. I wasn't dreaming. It really happened.' That's like the Germans. You know what I think? I think they did the tattoo so they could prove it. They want the documentary proof for everything. Germans understand that nothing exists without documentation. They preserve their facts even when they are things that anyone else would hide. I am one of their artifacts. But your pastry maker? He could just be an illusion. A mistake. Tell me, did he ever say anything about Argentina?"

"Argentina?"

"Yes. Reinhardt Müller was last seen in Argentina."

Was that why Moellen spoke that lilting Spanish? "No," said Nathan, "he has never said anything about Argentina. It's probably not him."

There was no more heat, no more temperature, that day. Nathan wandered the streets with Nusan lost in a world that ended before he was born. Yet it was a world he sometimes lived in. Nusan made him feel that they all wore blank spots on their arm where the tattoo was missing.

Why did the Nazis tattoo? Was it as proof, or was it just to mark them? Was it because they understood that tattoos were against Jewish law? Leviticus: "You shall not make gashes in your flesh or incise any marks on yourself." It was the same passage that forbade trimming sideburns. It also outlawed rings in your nipples. Tattoos were no more against the law than trimmed sideburns, than not wearing
payess.
There was a time when you could rebel by trimming your sideburns. Mordy thought
not
trimming his sideburns was rebellious. If he had lived back then, he would have shaved them off. Today, you had to wear tattoos and a ring in your nose or, better yet, three or half a dozen on your lip or one through the nipple just to do what you once could do by a little sideburn trim.

Nathan had found a forgotten law in Leviticus near the one about marking flesh: "Reprove your kinsman but incur no guilt because of him." Incur no guilt because of him. As though you could be commanded not to incur guilt. Even God cannot control guilt.

But as he wandered with Nusan and these thoughts, Nathan did find the time to buy a challah. He was even early enough to get one of the kosher ones. Tomorrow, he and Sonia would eat their
traif.
But it wouldn't be ribs. With Bob's Greasy Hands in prison, the neighborhood was getting a new French Asian fusion restaurant with—and this was the part that had everyone laughing—a "smoking room" upstairs. When the restaurant had first advertised the smoking room, some of the people in the neighborhood had thought it was a place for curing your own fish. But once they saw the restaurant, they knew they were wrong. A smoking room turned out to be a place for twenty-four-year-olds to smoke large, contraband Cuban cigars that had returned to fashion on the mistaken belief that they were less deadly than cigarettes.

Reluctantly, Nathan pointed out to Nusan that it was almost time for services, but Nusan did not want to hurry It was clear to Nathan that he wanted to maintain his tradition of arriving at the last minute. There in fact was no last minute. Services did not start at sunset, they started when the tenth man got there. When they arrived they were still a little early, being numbers eight and nine. They lacked one man, even with the two tourists from the Upper West Side who seemed both excited and uncomfortable in the circumstances in which they had found themselves. They had probably planned a different kind of evening in the East Village.

"Nusan, you could get your brother, Harry," said Chaim Litvak. "Or your brother, Nathan."

"My granddaughter's
shagetz
is converting. He's almost there. We could use him," said Yonah Kirchbaum.

"Who is doing the conversion?" Chaim Litvak wanted to know.

"It's an Orthodox rabbi in So Ho."

"In SoHo?" Chaim Litvak said suspiciously.

Yankel Fink said, "It will be havdalah before you settle this one. I'm going to the corner and taking the first Jew that comes by." And he did, returning only five minutes later with another young man whose evening in the East Village was deferred an hour.

During most of the service, while Nathan was reflecting on how he had to break off his relationship with Karoline, the others were engaged in the subject of Chaim Litvak and Yankel Fink's imminent trip to Israel. The men would chant in Hebrew with gravelly, off-key voices, nodding their heads vigorously, and then from time to time someone would say, "I'll take three minutes."

It was a moment of reckoning in the neighborhood. After years of joking about the unusual weight and density of Yankel Fink's knishes, Chaim and Yankel had decided to take with them the two heaviest, the kasha and the potato, and set them afloat in the Dead Sea, a body of water where humans and reportedly horses and camels would float indefinitely. They were taking bets on how long it would take the knishes to sink. Yonah Kirchbaum said they would never sink. Nusan said they would be out of sight in one minute. The other bets were in between.

"The kasha or the potato?"

Kirchbaum insisted this was a mistake—that the fastest-sinking knish would be the cheese—but he was the kid of the group, and they were not interested in the opinions of people only in their sixties. Jack Bialy also too young to know, drew patterns with his finger in the flour on the toe of his shoe and whispered to Kirchbaum, "I've been in dough all my life and I am telling you, you're right. But I'm not going to argue."

While the bets were being placed, Nathan, wrapped in a prayer shawl but thinking about Karoline and her father, was overtaken by a feeling that if he did not leave the dark synagogue, he would suffocate and die. He tried to look casual as he sauntered toward the door. When he was almost there, his body throbbing, his shirt soaked through with sweat, his nostrils flared wide looking for air, his eyes met the stern glance of Rabbi Litvak, who was slowly shaking his head from left to right. Nathan could not leave. Without him, there was no minyan. He signaled to Litvak that he was going out for only a minute, but Litvak walked over and, with his arm around him, led Nathan back in. Dark blotches of sweat were appearing on the vanilla-colored cloth of his prayer shawl. Nathan marveled that no one could see what was happening to him.

By the time the service was over and the other men were wishing him a "good
Shabbas,"
Nathan was back in control. The three outsiders escaped before the
mofongo
and herring, but Nathan could not because Nusan wanted to eat. Nathan made the argument he always made, that dinner was waiting for them, but Nusan pulled back his head to pour down a shot of vodka, then took a slow breath, ate another herring, and once again pointed out, "It is foolish to starve yourself because you might have food later."

Chaim Litvak also poured down a shot of vodka, shaking his head so vigorously that it gave his hat a jaunty tilt—almost like Charles Boyer as Pepe Le Moko, who could not escape. He handed a small plate with
mofongo
and herring to Nathan and confirmed that even Hillel agreed that "it is an insult to good fortune to walk away from food."

Nathan found it hard to believe that Hillel had really said that. The men ate more herring and, with breath like harp seals, pondered ancient teachings, the meaning of life, and the specific gravity of Yankel Fink's potato and kasha knishes.

Nathan realized that he had to do something. His condition was getting worse. He now felt that at any moment, anywhere, without warning, he could have an attack. One day he would die from it. And he had to stay away from Karoline and her SS father. Why was that so hard to do? The SS daughter. The ultimate
traif.
Better than Saturday night ribs.

During the part of the Seltzers' Friday night known as "waiting for Nusan," Nathan slipped down to his own apartment and called Dr. Kucher to tell her it was getting worse and something had to be done quickly. She might still be in her office.

"Hello, is Dr. Kucher there?"

"I'm sorry, she is gone for the day."

"This is Nathan Seltzer. I am a patient and I am having an emergency. Couldn't you find her for one minute?"

"As a matter of fact, she is walking out now. Let me see if I can grab her. Oh, Dr. Kucher! Dr. Kucher?"

"Njaw, njaw, njaw, njaw, njaw..." she shouted with her hands over her ears.

When Nathan returned upstairs, Nusan had arrived. Nathan noted with pleasure that they had made a minyan without him. Mordy was there with a woman named Priscilla, who was the oldest woman Nathan had ever seen his brother with. She seemed to be in her late thirties, a lean, athletically built woman. Everything about her seemed utilitarian. Her straight blond hair was cut short so that it wouldn't be in the way, but not so short as to be self-consciously fashionable. She wore khaki pants and a cotton-knit, pale blue blouse—all drip-dry, perma-everything. A duck in flight on her shirt was the closest thing to ornament she had. Her brown shoes had leather ties and rubber soles. She looked as though she were dressed for sailing.

Ruth had already said the blessing and lit the candles, Harry did the wine, passing the goblet around the room in order of age, and Nathan did the bread, cutting two extra pieces for Nusan to slip in his pocket when no one was looking.

"I think that's the most beautiful grace I have ever heard," Priscilla said with great sincerity.

Oboy Ruth thought. She is really trying to be nice. I should try to be nice back. Later, I am going to kill Mordy

"So," Ruth began, serving the herring. "How did you two meet?"

"He was protesting for squatters' rights," said Priscilla. "And I noticed that his shoes were untied. So I told him, and do you know what he said?"

They all nodded their heads and droned, "Yes...."

"Unbelievable," said Harry. "I have a son who meets girls by walking around with his shoes untied."

"You should rethink your whole footwear," said Mordy.

"Are you from the neighborhood?" asked Sonia, who knew that she was not.