Hope: A Tragedy (20 page)

24.

SATURDAY MORNING, Kugel returned to the hardware store for some additional latex gloves and a new brush. Upon arriving, though, he realized he had forgotten his wallet, and had to return home to get it.

Perhaps he was coming down with the same forgetting disease Mother had. Perhaps soon he’d forget it all.

She did it again, didn’t she? said Vince.

Who?

The cat. She peed in the vents.

Shat.

Shat?

Shat.

You have got to get rid of that cat.

Vince recommended an industrial cleaner this time—We got Miracle-Away, he said, and Forever-Gone, but I’d go with Erase; toxic as hell, but gets rid of ’most anything, he said—and a two-pack of disposable odor-valved respirators.

And get rid of that cat, he added.

It was the last weekend in June. Next weekend would be Independence Day, the Fourth of July, and as Kugel walked back to his car, he noticed that all of town—the cars, the stores, and the homes—was festooned with flags, streamers, and large signs. July Fourth had always been one of Kugel’s favorite holidays; it had never failed to stir within him, even when he was a child, a feeling beyond patriotism—a feeling rather of belonging, of oneness with a nation of strangers.

So what had changed? he wondered as he made his way back to his car. Why did these banners and flags today suddenly make him nervous, anxious? Was it something in the country, or something in him? It seemed now the basest form of patriotism; not pride, but fear; not celebratory, but suspicious, fearful. Was it the nation—a nation at war?—or was it him? Was it Anne Frank? The signs no longer seemed to express unity; they seemed like threats, dares, provocations, a grabbing of a stranger’s shirt collar instead of a straightening of one’s own spine:

United We Stand.

These Colors Don’t Run.

Love It or Leave It.

A black silhouette of the twin towers and the words Never Forget, in blood red.

Why not? wondered Kugel. Why not forget? Isn’t that what they would have wanted, the terrorists, that we never forget? That’s probably what they said to one another when they came up with the whole plan: Holy shit, said one, they are NEVER going to forget this. They are NEVER, said another, going to forget this.

So forget it.

Gone.

Over.

Were there lessons to be learned? What, then? Did we know anything the day after, some kernel of wisdom or truth or knowledge that we hadn’t known the day before? That life is short? Who knew? That men kill and are killed in return? What?

Nothing.

Not a goddamned thing.

I see floods, said Nostradamus, and fires and wars.

No shit, really?

So forget it.

Me and my friend Mohammed here are going to the Giants
game.

Mohammed? Don’t you remember
9/11?

No,
why?

What’s the harm in forgetting? What does remembering do? Kugel had read that the war in the Balkans was referred to as the War of the Grandmothers; that after fifty years of peace, it was the grandmothers who reminded their offspring to hate each other, the grandmothers who reminded them of past atrocities, of indignities long gone. Never forget! shouted the grandmothers. So their grandchildren remembered, and their grandchildren died. He had read that Darius the Great, so as not to forget the harm done to him by the Athenians, had a page whisper three times in his ear, every time he sat down to the table,
Remember the Athenians
.

Asshole.

If you don’t learn from the past, said someone, you are condemned to repeat it. But what if the only thing we learn from the past is that we are condemned to repeat it regardless? The scar, it seems, is often worse than the wound. If only there was a Miracle-Away for the past. A Forever-Gone for brutalities, atrocities, indignities great and small. A lemon-scented life, that was what he wanted; for Jonah, for Bree, for Mother, for Anne. A pine-scented, cleaned, polished, revitalized life. Leaves no residue. Resists fingerprints. Sixty-four ounces of New, price on Amazon—who cares. Click to add to cart. Rush delivery.

Forget the Alamo.

Fuck it.

It’s over.

This sort of patriotism worried Kugel, a worry he had inherited from Mother, who always told him it could happen here.

What?

It.

What it, Mother?

It it.

She seemed almost disappointed that it hadn’t.

Kugel put his bag in the backseat of his car, and as he stood and closed the door, spotted a small For Rent sign on a high window of a small white house.

He knocked on the front door but there was no answer. He peered into the windows, knocked again, and made his way around to the rear of the house, where he found the back door unlocked. He opened it slightly.

Hello? he called.

He stepped into what was the kitchen, and called again.

Hello? I’m here about the room.

The house was tidy and well kept, the dishes cleaned and standing upright in the rack beside the sink. He made his way into the living room and den, and out to the front foyer.

Hello, he called up the narrow stairway.

Hello?

He walked slowly up the stairs. There were three bedrooms upstairs, one cleared of all furniture and smelling of fresh paint. The For Rent sign hung in the window. It was a small room but well lit, with a large central window that overlooked the street.

Kugel sat on the floor. He lay down on his back and folded his hands across his chest. He stood. He closed the door and opened it. He went out into the hallway, looked up at the ceiling and spotted a pull-down attic door.

Hello, he called again.

Kugel pulled down the attic stairs and climbed up.

The attic was small, much smaller than his own, and yet so filled with the owner’s belongings that it was difficult to maneuver past the desks, chairs, rugs, bicycles, boxes, and old steamer trunks, all piled haphazardly, one atop the other. There were no windows, and the only light came from the meager rays of sunlight peeking through the gable vent.

Kugel found a box tied and held together with a long section of rope; he removed the rope, climbed down the stairs, and tied the rope, as he’d seen Anne Frank do, to the bottom rung. He climbed back up and pulled on the rope, and the attic door closed behind him with a satisfying thump. He made his way through the attic until he came to an old dining table standing against the back wall. He crawled underneath, lay down, closed his eyes, and fell asleep.

It was the deepest sleep he’d had in some time.

When he awoke sometime later, he heard voices below him. The owners. A man, a woman, their words muffled; Kugel pressed his ear against the floor, but beyond the occasional word or two, all he could make out were intonations, cadence, rhythm; he recognized the long pauses, the impassive delivery, the lackadaisical alternation of comfortable familiarity. They had been married for some time.

HIM:
Mmm mm mm mmm mm?

Long
pause.

HER:
Mmm mmm mm.

A door closing.

Walking.

HER:
Mmm mm mmm.

The television coming
on.

HIM:
Mmm. Mmm mmm mmm.

They were arguing about something. Bickering
.

HER:
Mmm mmm mmm?

A cabinet door slams
shut.

HIM:
Mmm! Mmm mmm mmm!

Kugel chuckled.

HER:
Mmm mmm. Mmm!

He held a hand over his mouth, trying not to laugh out loud, but it all seemed so comical, he was soon throwing back his head in silent uproarious laughter.

Someone slowly walking up the stairs, down the hall, below him now.

Silence.

Kugel composed himself.

A light coming on. And then, directly beneath him, groaning, farting.

Oh, God, he heard her grunt.

Kugel chuckled again.

She was in the bathroom.

More farting, more appeals to the Lord above.

Kugel tried desperately not to laugh out loud, but the flush of the toilet killed him; he lost it. He buried his face in a quilt and hoped the sound of the flushing toilet would cover the sounds of his laughter. Tears streamed down his face and his ribs ached. Then the creak of bedsprings, a groan. Then, for a while, nothing but the tinny sound of the television downstairs.

Minutes passed, ten, maybe fifteen.

Kugel pressed his ear to the attic floor.

He heard snoring.

Kugel crawled out from beneath the table and quietly pushed some boxes into the corner until he had built a small wall, and placed behind it a number of quilts and blankets. As quietly as he could, he made his way back to the attic door, slowly pressed it open, and descended from above.

He crept down the hallway to the bedroom; the old woman was on her side, fast asleep. Kugel smiled again, remembering it all; he tiptoed across the room and lightly, ever so lightly, kissed her on her head.

He thought that perhaps he loved her.

Downstairs, an old man sat sleeping in the brown recliner in front of the television. Kugel slowly moved back through the house, into the kitchen and out the back door.

The sun was beginning to set.

Kugel made his way around to the front of the house and knocked on the door.

Hang on, called the old man.

After a moment the door opened.

I’m here about the room for rent, said Kugel.

The old man shook his head.

Already taken, he said. Sorry.

Tall guy? asked Kugel. Beard?

The old man nodded.

Something like that, the old man said, suddenly wary.

Kugel looked over the house.

Well, he said, I’ll see you.

Reckon so, said the old man.

He closed the door and Kugel could hear the locks clicking shut behind him.

Kugel spent most of the following day cleaning the vents and registers. He dragged a bucket of water and cleaning supplies up to the attic, scrubbed the grilles first, then the sides of the ducts, and poured the leftover mixture down into the ducts to let it make its way through the house; still the smell lingered in the air, the smell of Anne Frank, much as it did on his fingers and hands, no matter how much he scoured them.

By the time he went to bed Sunday evening, Bree had already fallen asleep. We think of the obvious signs of love—tenderness, concern, care—and yet somehow, nothing said more about the health of a couple’s relationship than whether or not they went to bed at the same time.

Kugel lay down on the bed, fully clothed, and closed his eyes.

Maybe Mother was right, he thought. Maybe she shouldn’t die on a pile of rags.

Spinoza declared: I call him free he who is led solely by reason.

Spinoza also declared: True virtue is life under the direction of reason.

Kugel wondered if Spinoza declared those things before or after he dragged his mother’s deathbed across the Netherlands; Kugel had read that he took it with him wherever he went. He took it from Amsterdam to Rijnsburg, from Rijnsburg to Voorburg, from Voorburg to The Hague. That didn’t seem all that reasonable to Kugel; it seemed pretty unreasonable. This was not some inflatable bed. This was not some futon. This was a full-size wooden bed. There may have been a box spring, for all we know.

The story troubled Kugel. If she had died when Spinoza was a middle-aged man, perhaps you could say she meant the world to him, that the loss was of a mother who was more than simply a mother, but of a necessary, trusted, and wise guide who had passed on, and that Spinoza was having trouble saying good-bye. It would still be weird, frankly, damn weird, but you could cut him some slack. But Spinoza’s mother died when he was six years old. If even the High Priest of Reason could be so unreasonable about a deathbed, perhaps he should give it more thought himself. And so the following morning, on the way to work, Kugel stopped at the local mattress store.

Everything, shouted the sign in the window, Must Go.

You don’t know the half of it, said Kugel to the store.

He wasn’t comfortable with the idea of buying Anne Frank a marked-down deathbed—it didn’t seem like the kind of thing one should go bargain-hunting for. But he didn’t feel like spending a fortune, either.