Nocturnes (2 page)

Isaac settled into his room, ordered the paper and a bottle of Sancerre, and made a few calls. He maintained business acquaintances across the country, and during his assignments he would place short courtesy calls to inquire of his associates’ health and families. It was strictly professional, a part of his travel habit that included a daily investigation of the obituaries to look for familiar
names.

The wine arrived and he poured himself a tall glass, declining the steward’s services. He tilted the bowl against the light and watched the facets leap across the tight surface of the straw-colored liquid. As the wine opened, he walked slowly around the room, inhaling the subtle notes of hay and grapefruit. He lowered himself into a chair, scanned the paper, and finished two glasses of the heady summer wine.

After a warm shower he walked out onto the balcony and gazed across the city’s horizon. He had mixed feelings about Atlanta. There were certainly more hospitable southern cities. Atlanta had become a transient town, pulling its population from around the country and across the globe. One of those places which few of the inhabitants were actually “from.” In an attempt to be a little of everything for everybody, she had lost some of what southern charm she had managed to resurrect from Sherman’s punitive arson.

It was Savannah that still retained the Georgian grace. But what Atlanta did have going for her was a kind of blunt-force tolerance that had been hard-won in the struggle for Civil Rights. Many a beating had been taken upon many courageous shoulders, and many of those heroes had come from the poorest quarters of Atlanta. Money and the working class didn’t mix much in class-conscious Atlanta even now, but no matter your color or sexual preference, you could walk with head high in Hotlanta today. And she did have one hell of a skyline.

He decided to take the last of the failing sun and stroll for a bit. It was now dusk, and the city was wrapped in that peculiar blue-gray garment that all southern cities wear at that time of evening. A Confederate twilight that would soon surrender to an early
moon.

He turned east onto a less-populated sidewalk and walked headlong into the leafy, emerald-dusk of Piedmont Park. It had been several years since he had visited the city, and this park had been a favorite spot in which to take his crowded thoughts for a stroll. But there was a difference now. Like so many urban parks around the country, there was an air of neglect, careless litter, and the aimless shuffling of the homeless. He was immediately overcome by a vagrant melancholy.

The homeless were scattered about like an encamped army awaiting some phantom order. There was a vast anonymity. The scene conjured sharp and immediate memories. As a former refugee who had shuffled through the camps after World War Two, Isaac knew the formless, faceless mob, and their detachment from the world even here, in the midst of a great city.

Where did these people come from? What had detoured them from the wide boulevard of what they had longed to be onto this dead-end street of what they had become? There was no evidence of will. He found it ironic that this state of non-attachment, this submersion of the will, was in fact the high-ground sought by mystics and sages the world over. But for these people it was only the slow-footed grind of life on the mean streets. There was nothing holy about it. This was not the land of the enlightened.

He was mesmerized and walked deeper into the gathering darkness of the park. Past a long row of benches, each now occupied by a supine figure, claiming territory in the simple act of lying down now that the play and the leisure of the living had vacated the lawns. He looked closely at each of them, wondering at the whisper-thin line between them and himself.

On the last bench in the row, removed from the others by a small group of trees, he saw an elderly woman lying on her back, wrapped in several layers of worn clothing and the fetid odors of urine and alcohol. She was clutching a ragged flop doll with mop-string hair to her breast. Isaac glanced down at her, then hastened to move past the wretched figure when he caught part of a phrase from the lullaby she was
singing.

He glanced around, then edged closer to the woman so that he might hear her words more clearly. She took no notice of him, lost as she was in the sweet escape of precious memories. Now he could discern her words all too clearly.

“Hush little baby, don’t say a
word.

Daddy’s gonna but you a
mockingbird.

And if that mockingbird don’t
sing…”

Isaac flinched away from her, her words too close to his own recurring dreams. It almost seemed a cruel hoax but for the undeniable poverty of this creature on the bench. He reached out a hand to touch her hair, lightly, not wishing to disturb her reverie, but acknowledging a sublime thread between them.

He rose and turned away, swallowing hard and already captured by the haunt of her. This casual encounter would never leave him. But he was going to leave this park. Right now.

Retracing his steps, and walking quickly now among the full bruise of the deepening shadow, it occurred to him that he had officially entered “the wrong place at the wrong time.”

What in the world was he doing? Hadn’t seven and a half decades of life taught him anything? Why not just hang a sign on his back, preferably in neon, “I am an old and desperately helpless fool with a rather large sum of money in my pocket. Which way to the
cleaners?”

There were only a hundred yards to the street; no need to panic. But he would have to remember to give himself a stern talking-to when he got back to the bright security of his room. And maybe a shot of
Drambuie.

He was just beginning to loosen up, smiling at the carelessness that had gotten him into this situation, when one of the shadows that crowded the path up ahead detached itself and began to move deliberately in his
direction.

Several varieties of bells and klaxons sounded in his head. He hadn’t felt such a keen awareness of danger in nearly fifty years. His feet came to a halt on their own, neither wanting to advance nor finding the will to turn and flee.

The figure approached, and Isaac’s apprehension grew. “Calm down,” he told himself. “It’s only a man out for a walk in the park. He is probably as uncomfortable as you are.”

But he knew without question that it wasn’t true. There was something supremely confident in the way the stranger strode the dark path. Something powerful, and sinister. Isaac was in
trouble.

As the stranger drew parallel to his paralyzed position, Isaac was suddenly engulfed by the conflicting energies of sympathy and great indifference. He turned to face the man, half expecting an introduction. And for one spiked and icy moment, Isaac saw his error. The dense veils of reality parted and something unnatural peered through. He felt as though he had taken a blow to the forehead and stepped backward to steady himself. Just as abruptly, the world regained its orbit as the man moved on, leaving a dozen questions lingering in the air behind him. Isaac glanced back just once, but the figure had already moved beyond the spectrum of light. Isaac hurried back to his
suite.

That night as he lay in bed, fingers laced behind his head, he allowed his thoughts to return to the incidents in the park. Oddly enough, it was easier for him to dismiss the bizarre encounter with the stranger than it was the memory of the old woman on the
bench.

The poor woman was caught in, and represented, the vein-like webs of a life that gathered in the gossamer corners of his dark memories. The shadowed places that he sought to avoid had been thrust once more before his eyes. There was nothing to be done now but close those eyes and allow her to come to
him.

Down and back, he floated through the misty sorrows of his years. It was so bittersweet to be back home, again…

He was a boy, running through the sparse woods on the outskirts of Warsaw. Twelve years old, free and sun-warmed as he darted between the trees. He was going to see his uncle, as he did every Saturday. It was his favorite part of the week. Aunt Ruth would have made hamentaschen or Rugelach cookies. And if Uncle Jonah wanted to ramble on about Theodor Herzl, as he often did, then the day would still be salvaged down at the creek, by the tug of a fish at the end of his line.

He veered from the path and dashed down the steep bank of the creek, running hard now, gathering speed for the final sprint to his uncle’s house. Suddenly he pulled up hard and stopped in his tracks. There was a voice coming through the woods, not far off…though it might as well have come from Heaven. It was sweeter than Aunt Ruth’s pastry, a completely new appreciation for him. The sound of a young girl
singing.

He followed the voice down through the foliage along the banks. There on a slab of rock jutting out into the stream, singing one of her own lullabies to a doll, was the 14-year-old poet, Lessa Frankle. He stood above her behind a tree, like a dumbstruck animal, as something in her voice punctured him like tender thorns.

“My sweet
child

You are lucky,
indeed.

Papa will take care

Of all your needs. My
husband

Keeps us both from
harm,

And holds back the
night

With two strong
arms…”

When she had finished her song, Isaac walked down to her and tried to introduce himself. But her voice had rendered his mute. So she talked to him until he finally found his voice. By that time he never wanted to hear any words but hers, ever again.

They became the thickest of thieves and the finest of friends. In their innocence, they shared everything. School work, holidays, walks in the rain, and bathing in the creek on sultry summer days. By the time their families realized that they had grown older and ever closer, it was far too late to think of chaperones and traditional courtship. In any case, events were shaping that captured everyone’s attention in much more alarming ways.

The beds in this hotel had always been some of Isaac’s favorites when he traveled. But on this night they might as well have been made of car radiators and rusty springs. He crossed and uncrossed his feet, willing himself to relax. He didn’t want to pursue these memories any further. There was a deadline, and work to focus on. Memories of Lessa, indulged and embraced, would only be an unhealthy distraction.

He tossed on the sheets for another hour but sleep had no mercy for him. He staved off memories of Lessa in one context only to find her waiting for him in another. The image of the refugees returned to him and, sighing deeply, he surrendered once more to the sweeping current of his
thoughts.

It was late summer, 1945, and Isaac had been blown across the European continent like a ragged flag, seeking some word, some small sign of Lessa’s existence. He had traveled with great hardship to all the major refugee camps, and had witnessed the crowded squalor of the Jerusalem-dreamers. Hundreds and thousands waiting to become the flesh and bones of the new promised
land.

Eventually he made his way to London. The British were the administrators for the majority of the camps, and he had come to examine their records. It was there, as his hope broke in waves of despair over the vague and fruitless files, that he met the young priest, Evan Connor. And thus began his slow, halfhearted revival with the human race.

Father Connor heard the outline of Isaac’s story and took him into his home, where the tormented young Jew stayed for the next five months. The priest was patient and compassionate. Only Lessa could have salvaged Isaac’s wounded spirit. In her absence, Isaac turned gradually to what he saw as a possible redemption in the Catholic tradition. He would now attempt to reconnect with a faith that had fled from him during the horror that was
Auschwitz.

To Isaac, the God of Abraham had proven His cruel indifference by shrugging His shoulders as the swastikas danced around the pyre of Isaac’s race. Father Connor spoke of the same God, but with a powerful difference that appealed to the dreams of the young survivor. Resurrection. Eternal life. If this were true, then Lessa might well be waiting for him out there beyond the veil.

Resurrection became his ideal. If this Jesus really was the personification of eternal love, then there was at least a possibility that he would see his wife again. And a possibility was all that Isaac needed to subscribe.

It wasn’t as huge a leap as he might have imagined. When he approached Father Connor with the idea of Conversion, the priest seemed more concerned with the implications than Isaac did. He invited Isaac into the book-lined rectory and poured tea for them both. The silence balanced on a wire between
them.

“How long have you been considering this, Isaac?” The priest broke the silence after several tense
moments.

“For about two months now,
Evan.”

“And what, exactly, do you believe that Catholicism is going to mean in your life? Especially in light of all that you have been through these last few
years?”

Isaac broke the priest’s hard gaze and looked down at the floor. That was a very focused and somewhat unsettling question. How could he explain about Lessa? What could he possibly say that would make sense to a man who had never lain with a woman? Who had never experienced that peculiar fusion of body and soul? Even under these circumstances he knew that he couldn’t begin to unravel his truest feelings for the sake of the priest’s questions. The gravity of love’s loss was still too heavy upon his tongue. But a substantial part of it would
have
to be said. This wasn’t a new suit of clothes he was trying on. His love depended on it. And his hope commanded
it.

He raised his eyes again and met those of the priest with a steady
gaze.

“Let me ask
you
some questions, Evan. What is God? Is He supreme love, as the words of Christ suggest? Or is He brutally indifferent, as my people’s most recent history implies? Does He hold conjugal love in as high a regard as He holds the love of compassion…the love that you and your brothers and sisters in faith have taken vows of celibacy
for?”