Marching to Zion (13 page)

Leaning back in his chair with his feet on the desk, a ribbon of sunlight glancing off his cheek and bow tie, he convinced himself that the change in his relations with Aurora Mae was a good thing, despite the responsibilities that commonly accompanied their new status. His first emotions toward her were anxious but deeply thankful. If she hadn’t come home when she did to offer him an escape from mortal melancholy, he might likely be dead. The insight made his head feel oddly light. It floated above his thoughts, remembering the gun and how close he’d come. He put his hands on the top of his scalp and pushed down, hard, as if stuffing realization back under his skull. Next, he acknowledged he’d been heading in the direction of intimacy with Aurora Mae all along. A man and a woman living together can’t help but come to it sooner or later. Still, he wondered who it was on her mind in the heat of the previous night, as it was obvious to him she was no more fully present than he was. That perception was probably the most comforting idea he had, one he’d repeat over and over to himself as time went by. She loves another, he thought, same as me. Like every deceiver, he sought justification for himself, and here is where he found it. To know that he was not the love of her life reconciled his conscience about his intent to leave her once he had enough money put by to rescue Minerva Fishbein.

Why, just as Minnie had rescued her! he realized suddenly. His feet swung off the desktop and hit the floor, raising a cloud of dust. Why, exactly like that! How could Aurora Mae blame him at the end of the day? The day she awoke to find him gone and knew with whom he fled, whenever that day came, would represent a balancing of the scales of justice. Now, wouldn’t it just? he thought. I will be merely the instrument of divine correction.

He convinced himself of all this in a single morning, in the hours after dawn and before the opening of the courtrooms he haunted daily, seeking caged men desperate to be free.

When he returned home that night, he found Aurora Mae had moved his belongings to her bedroom and set up a table on the side of the bed opposite hers for his convenience. Her efforts touched him. He praised her for taking the trouble to make him comfortable, to which she responded, I need the other room for family company, should any ever arrive.

Even with Aurora Mae’s seed money, the rebuilding of Magnus Bailey’s savings was slow. Times were hard and grew harder every day. People were broke all over. Rich white boys drank moonshine at home. Criminals took a short sentence in jail for the three squares. One season passed into another, and he crawled toward his purpose when all his heart longed to sprint. In despair, he suggested to Aurora Mae that if she blended alcohol into her medicines, alcohol he’d acquire from contacts in the backwoods, folk’d beat down the door, but she was having none of that. That’s the trouble, he realized, with a woman of independent means. They did things out of principle rather than need, which robbed a man like him of leverage. After a great deal of thought, he realized he too possessed a measure of integrity, one that would prevent him from soaking Aurora Mae any more than he already had. She was a good woman, they’d grown quite fond. He couldn’t rob her.

He needed to branch out. He determined he must go see Minerva’s father and propose they work on a new venture. First, he took up his post outside L’il Red’s in the dead of night to tell the door and the windows and the balcony above the first floor porch what he was going to do and why.

You see, darlin’ Minnie, he told the brick and glass and wrought iron, I can’t imagine your daddy’s fortunes been doin’ any better than mine these days. Last I walked by, the old house was lookin’ awful raggedy. We always worked well together. I can go places he can’t and vice versa, that’s part of it. Also, we both got the mind for business. Maybe what we require is each other. If he’s strapped these days, I can put what I got on the table. I don’t know how I’ll approach askin’ him about you. I might just leave it alone and see if he brings you up. I don’t want to hurt him like that. But if he does, I’m going to tell him my plan to get you outta there and someplace safe. With me. Whether Gay Paree or anywhere similar you please.

He walked back to The Lenaka breathing deeply the crisp night air, his head high, redemption so close he could taste it. Although the night was clear and not a drop of rain nor veil of smog prevented him from awareness of his surroundings, he failed to notice, as he had so many times before, the short round man with little feet behind him, hugging brick and tree trunk, all along the way.

The Road to Ruin, 1931–1933

That morning at an
hour verging on the impolite, a brisk knock on Fishbein’s back door stirred him from his daily recitation of remorse to the Divine. Still in his slippers and robe, he adjusted the
kipah
on his head and shuffled to the kitchen, muttering, Who could it be? Who could it be? When he saw his old friend Magnus Bailey standing on the stairs in a three-piece pinstripe suit and silk bow tie, he was so startled he forgot the man’s role in his daughter’s dissolution and remembered only the best of their history. Ushering him into the kitchen quickly before the neighbors noted his excitement at finding a black dandy at his door, Fishbein then embraced him and clapped his back with two hands. Mr. Bailey, Mr. Bailey, he said, to see you again is like the air of springtime pushing through the window after a long winter. My heart is full.

Such warm welcome was a surprise to the other man, who expected the opprobrium of harsh questions and had prepared against them. Disarmed, he returned Fishbein’s affection with his own, then pulled back and affected an air of ignorance about the fate of Minerva Fishbein.

I’ve been wonderin’ how you all fared since the flood, he said. I am returned to Memphis some time now, and you must forgive me for not callin’ earlier.

Forgive? There is nothing to forgive. Come to the parlor. We’ll have tea.

Bailey was relieved to find that the disrepair evident outside the home had not extended in full to its interior. Much that he remembered was as it used to be, from the dark paintings of mountain stags and waterfalls to the silver moldings of birds and forest creatures lining the mantel although there seemed to be fewer of them. He sat on a couch similar to the one from which Minnie had once poured him tea so appealingly he was provoked enough to warn her of the facts of life and, all unwitting, propelled their fates into darkness instead. Finding himself in these surrounds produced in him a sentimental vulnerability. Tears of regret pressed against the backs of his eyes and clogged the back of his throat. He coughed to get a hold of his emotions. Fishbein took his time preparing the tea. Bailey distracted himself by poking idly about his desk, looking for hints of what business he might be up to but found only correspondence in Hebrew letters he could not decipher. On the breakfront against the wall opposite the fireplace, there were framed photographs of men and women young in the last century. The men wore satin caftans and tall hats, the women were severely attired and did not smile, the children—small and barely of an age to stand—were in dresses regardless of gender. Bailey could not recall seeing such portraits in days gone, although perhaps they hadn’t interested him. There were no photographs of Minerva.

A rattling in the hallway announced the return of Fishbein. Bailey rushed to relieve him of the heavy tray he carried and set it on a table between two ancient Morris chairs that faced each other. They sat. Fishbein poured, and then sighed. With a sudden, sharp movement of the head, he lifted his mournful gaze from the cups to Bailey’s face. Bailey saw that the man’s eyes, melancholy on the happiest of occasions, were newly ringed in a deep crimson that made his eyes look yet sadder than before, if such a thing were possible.

Well, Magnus told himself, that’s what happens when a man’s precious child goes to be a whore. He lowered his own gaze, unable to meet that of Fishbein without repeated stabs of shame.

Why is it you are here, Magnus Bailey? his host asked as his flight of nostalgia had ended, and the man’s presence confounded him.

To be honest, I thought we might do some business together, Magnus said. Fishbein accepted the explanation, inquired of his ideas, and soon the two found themselves on territory so familiar their conversation flowed without reserve. Bailey mentioned a vacant storefront in Orange Mound, which had been a grocer’s for a hundred years before the flood, and a furniture store on one of Memphis’s swankest streets that had not been replaced after the same disaster drove its owners away.

The way I see it, Magnus said, even poor folk got to eat, and rich folk want their gewgaws and fancy cupboards in bad times as in good, maybe even more. We can reopen those joints with stock goin’ beggin’. If we price it right, Depression or no, folk will buy.

He further outlined his ideas about pricing and profit margin, including a plan to grab real estate fallen to historic lows in value. He became more and more animated, encouraged by the way Fishbein listened, pursing his lips, nodding his head, signaling interest and agreement at every turn. He felt they were that close to a deal when Fishbein suddenly slapped his knees.

Oy!
I forgot the cookies. Goldele, will you brings in the cookies please?

A small voice answered him, as if the person to whom it belonged had been just out of sight, waiting all along for this cue. Yes, Zaydee, it said.

Had Bailey known as much about Jews as he thought he did, he would have known by that word what or who was coming around the corner bearing a glass dish of powdered pastries. Instead, he suffered a shock unlike any he’d suffered before. A bolt of ice shot through his veins, his scalp shivered, his hands jumped, and tea spilled from cup to saucer as he watched a slight young colored girl set down the plate of dainties next to the silver tray, then stand with her little hand on Fishbein’s shoulder as she leaned against his wiry thighs, looking at Bailey quizzically, wondering what was wrong with the man or why her zaydee found him so important. She was perhaps nine years of age, with butterscotch skin, green eyes, kinky black hair, and every facial feature shaped as if in determined imitation of Minerva Fishbein’s. Bailey put down his cup and flailed his hands about in startled confusion. He stumbled over his words, in disbelief of the sight before him. Who? What? When? rumbled through his brain like cannon fire but issued from his mouth in a whisper.

Fishbein introduced the two.

This is Golde. Golde, this is an old friend of mine from before you was born.

The girl curtsied. Bailey acknowledged her pretty gesture with a stiff nod. He noticed Fishbein had not told the child his name. He realized the omission was for discretion’s sake, the need for which alarmed him on many counts.

Now, let us speak alone,
mine shepsele,
Fishbein said, and she was gone again, as swiftly as a waking dream. Fishbein stood. He paced in circles about the room with his head lowered and his hands clasped behind his back.

I am sorry to surprise you, Magnus Bailey, he said, but I had to be certain if you were knowing already of Golde’s existence.
Nu.
I see you were not.

He continued to pace while he spoke.

But you are knowing what my Minerva is doing nowadays? Of course you are. Everyone knows. And Golde. She is not yours, then? I always wondered.

He snapped his head in Bailey’s direction and just as suddenly, extended his arm, its hand with forefinger pointed at him as if in angry accusation. The gesture was an imbalanced accent to his words, which were pronounced softly, thoughtfully as if he talked to himself alone, a discordance that added to Bailey’s sense of being drunk or otherwise launched into a world where nothing made sense.

The eyes, yes, the eyes are like yours,
nu
? But still she is not yours. Even to me, it seemed impossible. You were gone a year, maybe two, before she carried her. Of course, I knew what hell she had fallen into by then. Did you know that the men she chooses to debase herself with are all like you in some way? This I know already, because she tells me one day that she lives in a lake of pain and her only relief is from a hand that is like yours touching her, lips that are like yours kissing her, no matter to whom they belong or where she finds them.

He snapped his head and pointed at Bailey again.

If you knew how it tears my heart to hear these confessions from her! I wants to kill myself, but for Ha-Shem and the honor of my dead, I do not. Then Golde comes to my life, and she is so sweet, so smart, so much my little Minerva the way I always dream she would be if her family had not beens slaughtered before her young eyes, and by Gott! I resolve this child will not suffer as my Minerva did when she was
a
kleine meydl.
This takes some work. Yes, yes, it does. First Golde is sick with the tuberculosis. Three years she spends in and out of the sanatorium. Poor child, poor child. She is not strong still. I take care of her when possible, but I am sure you are knowing what is for a child with a white mother and a black father in this world. A Jewish girl, no less, and a mother, alas, who is infamous. Golde can only be here in secret. I grow around the house a wall for her, a wall of weeds and broken steps, that no one sees her here. When she is not here, she is in the country in the home of a good woman Minerva finds. Her world, poor Golde, is tiny, like a shoebox. But she is safe in there, I thinks, and so far she knows little about her mother’s life. O dear Gott, on this I pray I am right.

Fishbein took a handkerchief from the sleeve of his caftan and wiped his face, then sunk back into his chair and spread the cloth over his features like a towel in a barbershop. He raised a hand and wiggled his fingers, as if he had one more thing to tell, and then he told it.

Kosher, yes, we are raising her kosher. How could we not?

The room fell to such silence that the sound of Fishbein catching his breath and Magnus Bailey expelling his were as loud as competing bellows at an ironmongers’ factory. Tears streamed down Bailey’s face. Breaking the tortured quiet, he said, What can I do about this? What?

Slowly, Fishbein pulled the cloth from his face.

You can do as I do. Bear the weight of your sins. Blame no one. Beg Gott’s forgiveness every day of your life, morning, noon, and night. Do no harm and help where you can help wherever you see the needs of it.

He raised his shoulders and spread his arms, palms up. Despite the misery of his eyes, a smile fell upon his lips.

What else can a man do?

But Bailey had taken his own counsel. A fire was born in his gut at the sight of those green eyes set in the middle of Minnie’s face. He, too, stood and paced the room, only there was purpose in his stride the old man lacked, determination and faith in his ability to create justice where God had not. His arms spread wide to embrace the world.

I have a plan to redeem myself and Minnie, too, he announced. I need more money, that is true, now that I see I must take not only Minnie and you under my wing, but also this child, this blessed Golde. You’ll see. It will heal us all.

Fishbein sat forward, wondering what in the world he could mean.

Bailey told him what he had in mind, the idea he had refined and embellished in secret. Fishbein was astounded beyond measure. He murmured gratitude to the heavens, considering Bailey’s sudden appearance and stratagem a certain message from Ha-Shem,
although what that message might mean was a mystery, given the outlandish impossibilities the man described.

I’ve been putting away money wherever I can find it, Bailey continued. Oh, I’ve worked hard. Then everything was taken from me at the crash or otherwise Minnie would already be free and you and Golde, too, I swear it! But I’ll get it all back, and when I do, this is what I intend.

I’ll go to Minnie and tell her how wrong I was to run away from her, first to my sainted mama’s, and then to the river. I’ll tell her it’s all my fault that she has suffered and degraded herself while on that—what was it?—that lake of pain. Believe me, I’ve been adrift on a sea of my own. Then I’ll tell her she must put herself in my hands that I might cleanse us both and renew her and protect her for the rest of her life.

Bailey leaned forward seeking Fishbein’s eyes, holding them fast with his own to see what his true reaction would be when he announced the details of his intentions.

From that day on, he said in the gravest possible tone, only my hands will touch her, only my lips kiss her, and no others. I’ll take her away to where a man and a woman like us can walk in the sun together and be happy.

Warmth flooded Bailey’s soul. His beloved’s father showed not the slightest objection to what amounted to a capital crime in their little corner of the earth, despite the underworld where Minnie earned her daily bread. Then something else crossed the man’s features, and Bailey pounced on it.

Ha! I see it in your face. You doubt there is such a place? Well, I have a list. A list of places in the world where no one will give us mind.

Fishbein’s head moved side to side while his shoulders raised again and his eyes filled with tears. What are you even talking about, my friend? Where are these places?

Paree, for one! the other man pronounced emphatically, in triumph. Did you know that? Since the end of the last war, Paree is crawlin’ with the likes of me! Magnus laughed and thumped his chest. Like me! And there’s islands off Africa, Mozambique and Macau. There’d be Brazil, did you know that? They don’t care who loves who in Brazil. I’m still lookin’ into how things might be in the Caribbean. I know how to get us where we need to go, too. That took some study, but I got it figured. I’ll let her pick the spot. I don’t much care where we go as long as Minnie and I can live without fear of torture and death for the great sin of love.