The Archivist (22 page)

He lit a cigarette, handed it to me, and lit another for himself.

Not for long, he said, exhaling. This Kamal is dead meat.

It just goes to show you can never trust the Germans, said Carol.

Not only the Germans, I said.

They both looked at me. I picked up Carol’s bossa nova album.

Who is this man Getz, I asked. An American? Why is he playing with Brazilians? Who are these Brazilians? If the Argentines could hide a Nazi for fifteen years, why shouldn’t their neighbors do the same?

Carol shook her head. Her face puckered with consternation. Suddenly I could see her as a twenty-year-old, standing before the stranger who presented her with a body: mine: small, orphaned, needing her as no one did — as she did not need herself. I could hear her saying to the stranger,
yes of course we’ll take her
. And to herself,
no I won’t do away with her. But I’ll never tell Len how much I haven’t wanted a child. How relieved I’ve been that I haven’t yet had one. How much better it seems not to replicate your own confusion.

Carol spoke now, her voice feigning calm authority.

Judy, she said, Stan Getz is a New Yorker. I think he’s even Jewish. He plays with those Brazilians because they’re good musicians.

Try to keep things separate, said Len.

Have you been talking to Dr. Clay, I asked.

They didn’t answer.

Don’t worry, I said. Can you please go now?

1963

January 2

Matt showed up with roses. For you, for this new year, he said.

His eyes filmy with reluctance. He tries to be brave, but the only way he can do it is to tell us both lies.

New year, I said, what new year? Nothing’s changed.

He put the roses on my desk.

Things change, he said. Things never stand still.

I picked up a rose.

You brought me here, I said. Don’t worry, I won’t try to escape. I have nowhere to go.

He was watching each of my movements. What are you doing, he said softly.

The thorns of the rose as they dragged across the under-side of my forearm: proof that I’m still within the borders of something. Thin red welts of flesh like lines on a map, a kind of topography … At that moment I felt something so far beyond self-pity that I knew I was no longer even remotely the woman who’d married this man.

I haven’t got a crown of thorns like Jesus, I said. These are just the usual lacerations.

He flinched. Stop it, Judith, he said. Stop.

I swung as he was turning away from me. My blood-streaked arm caught him full on the side of his face, leaving red lines across his cheekbone, earlobe, jaw.

His hand went up, fingers probing the wetness in dis-belief.

It’s for the new year, I said.

March 12

I have given the roses to Powell. They’d turned a deep red-brown; each petal was dry and papery, almost translucent, and the stems and thorns were stiff as wood but very light. It was like handing him a bunch of insect wings impaled on sticks.

Here, I said. Don’t try to revive these. Just throw them into an unmarked grave.

He looked at me without sympathy or fear. You sure, he asked.

Oh yes, I’m sure.

May 19

Clay and I say the same things over and over. Theme and variations.

With Matt, I tell him, I move between two extremes. I’m either completely swallowed or completely separate. Either overwhelmed by the force of who he is, or absolutely isolated from him. There has never been a safe middle.

But you know he loves you, Clay says.

Yes. But that doesn’t make me safe. I’m either eclipsed or alone — there’s nothing in between.

A variation:

Are you saying, Clay asked me last week, that the love between you and Matt is dangerous?

No, I answered. But it isn’t a bridge.

What is it then?

A very sad and unavailing truth, I said.

And again today, more variations: Why did you and Matt decide not to have a child?

We didn’t decide. We just didn’t have one.

But you talked about it?

Now and then. Until after the war, and then we stopped talking about it. There was nothing more to say.

Clay, breaking the silence: The miscarriage — did that bring you and Matt closer together? What did he do when you actually lost the child? Was he with you when it happened?

Yes, I said. We’d just gone to bed. I started bleeding hard, and he wrapped me in a blanket and somehow carried me downstairs and put us in a cab and made the driver race to St. Vincent’s. And during the examination he held my hand. When the doctor asked us questions, I answered them, and Matt said nothing. He couldn’t talk. His face was the color of ash.

Then what?

Then we took another cab home and he still wasn’t talking, and when we walked into the bedroom and he saw the blood on the sheets, he began crying. I’d never seen him do that before. He cried and cried like children do, easily, hard. And so I held his hand.

When he stopped crying, did you talk?

No. We changed the sheets. We had a drink. We smoked. It was very late. We had another drink, another cigarette. We slept. No — he slept. I stayed awake for the rest of the night because I was afraid.

Of your loss?

I couldn’t feel it, I said.

Did Matt try to help you feel it? Later, maybe in a few weeks?

I don’t know, I said. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. All I know is it happened. Somewhere among all the other losses.

I leaned forward, looked directly into Clay’s eyes.

I know how many children were murdered in Auschwitz. Do you?

What else do you know, Judith?

I know I lost a child I didn’t even realize I was carrying. What is there to feel in that?

Matt felt a great deal. How did that affect you?

Matt feels everything, I said. But he does nothing. It’s all in Christ’s hands.

Have you always been at odds with Matt over this?

Over what?

Religion.

Please, I said, don’t change the subject. We’re not talking about religion.

What are we talking about?

About being either engulfed or isolated. Remember?

No, said Clay. We’re talking about your resentment of Matt’s faith as his way of coping with loss. We should explore this further.

Faith? I repeated.

He nodded.

I could feel something like a swarm of bees in my head.

Listen to me, you fucking moron, I said. Matt doesn’t know the meaning of the word. All he knows is that he’s been promised redemption, and if that means he has to take his suffering and his desire in silence, then so be it. That’s not faith, but I’m powerless against it.

We’re talking in circles, said Clay. (This, I have learned, is as close to retaliating as he allows himself to get.)

You know what? You exhaust me, Clay.

My words are rocks bouncing off rock. Noisy, pointless variations.

Death, I said, we’re talking about death.

July 31

We’re on our way to a weekend in the Poconos, said Carol. Thank God! The city’s like an oven. I couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there.

A year’s worth of Sunday Times. It took Len three trips to the car to get all the papers inside. He used the blue bag for each load. By the time he brought in the final stack, he was sweating hard.

Hope nobody’s watching me going in and out like this, or they’ll think I’m crazy, he said.

He bent over to slide the papers under my bed. The back of his shirt was soaked.

Don’t worry, Lenny, said Carol. Nobody’s watching — I’m keeping a lookout here at this window, and I don’t see a soul.

They know who’s crazy here, Len, I said. You don’t qualify.

Len stood up. His face was shiny, flushed, scared.

Christ! he yelped (as if I had struck him, as if he were ashamed of defending himself). Sorry kiddo, really, wrong choice of words, don’t take it the wrong way —

— oh I don’t, I said. I don’t take it any way at all.

That’s the spirit, Carol said.

Her hand grazing my forearm for a second. Her fingers warm, sticky; her touch messy and unfocused.

We gotta go, she said. Sorry to make it short, but we want to get there before dark, you know. Len can’t drive worth beans at night.

She’s right, Len said. I’m hopeless.

He lit up two cigarettes at once and handed one to me.

Give me a cig too, Carol said.

And the three of us smoked. And they left, to go live happily ever after again.

I read in last Sunday’s paper that Johnny Griffin has taken himself and his tenor sax to France. I know he’ll see Bud Powell there. They’ll get together, swap stories, drink, play
Now’s the Time.

They’ll take care of each other, stay out of trouble. Stay away from this place. This America, safe haven; this lie.

November 27

First Powell, then Clay told me about the assassination; but I knew Matt would visit within a few days to make sure I’d heard. This much I can still predict about him. He can hardly bear to be near me, but he wouldn’t want me not to know.

He arrived this morning, early; he must’ve gotten up at dawn to be here before seven. He came with a flask of coffee and a bag of rolls and a newspaper. He stood in the doorway, his breath steaming and the collar of his grey overcoat turned up at his pale throat. His eyes bloodshot.

I don’t know what you know, he began, whether they’ve told you about what happened.

Yes, I said. They did.

Our president has been murdered. John Kennedy is dead
.

I thought you might like to know how it happened. I brought you a paper, said Matt.

Come in, I said. It’s cold.

He took off his coat. I put on my robe. We drank the coffee and ate the rolls while he told me details. Dallas, the open car, the shots. Ruby, Oswald.

It’d been several years since I’d heard Matt speak so many words.

I don’t know what to think, he finished. I don’t know
how
to think about this. It’s too large, too unbelievable.

Since 1945 nothing’s unbelievable, I said.

My mind goes blank each time I try to focus on this, he said. The only thing in my head is disbelief. Kennedy murdered. His alleged murderer assassinated. Everything over in a few seconds.

Nothing’s over, I said. This is just the beginning.

He turned and looked at me, his red eyes scanning my face.

The beginning of what, he said.

Of all kinds of endings, I said. We’re talking about death, aren’t we?

He didn’t respond; he can no longer respond to me. We sat without speaking for I don’t know how long, and then Powell knocked.

Matt handed me the paper.

Keep it, he said. It’s got the whole story of the assassination. They told me you’re not supposed to have any news, but take this. I know it’ll be easier for you if you can read the whole thing yourself.

Powell opened the door. Let’s go, he crooned.

You’re too late, I said to Matt. You think you’ll make it up to me now? As if telling me now is compensation for throwing out my files? For destroying the evidence? For what I already know?

Powell stepped over to me. You’re yelling, he murmured. You need to be quiet.

No, I said, no, don’t make me be quiet (and I knew I was screaming but I couldn’t stop), Jesus please, no please don’t make me —

Matt’s face, a retreating blur. Powell’s body solid behind me, his hands locked around my elbows, pinning them at the small of my back. His words soft and clear as blues:
Don’t move, you’ll just hurt yourself. Don’t even try. Just go on, cry now, go on, cry
.

December 23

They’ve put up a small tree again, in the lobby. The usual decorations: angels and horns.

My fifth Christmas here. This time I have no desire to burn the tree. Though I’m bothered by the star at its top, that presumption of light where there’s none.

1964

February 20

What I exist for: my daily walks, reading, a bath each evening. Small oblivions.

I can’t bear listening to vocalists anymore. The lyrics, those harmless-sounding agonies.

The way you haunt my dreams!

No no, they can’t take that away from me

It’s no longer possible for me to absorb such words. They throw me into darkness. I’ve given several records to Powell, who will get rid of them for me. He stays silent. He knows the futility of speech.

June 27

It’s been almost a year but Len and Carol look exactly the same, as if nothing’s happened to them. Carol in an orange checked shirt, brown skirt, sandals; Len with the blue bag, the sweat glinting on his forehead as he unloads it. The veins raised on the backs of his big hands.

That may be their secret: nothing happens to them.

I brought them glasses of water while Carol talked.

The daily grind, she said. Work’s busy as hell for both of us. Seems like everybody’s buying music. There’s even a new piano store in the Village, for Christ’s sake! Lenny’s got his hands full.

Yep, things are swinging, said Len. Here, read this.

A short column in the Times: Earl Ruby claims his brother Jack shot Lee Harvey Oswald because Oswald had assassinated the first American president to actively support the Jewish people.

Till I saw this, said Len, I had no idea Ruby was Jewish. His brother said he was crazy about Kennedy. Went nuts when the president was shot. Had to get revenge.

Wait’ll word gets round, Carol said. Kennedy’s killer offed by a Jew. Won’t do much for the rest of us, will it?

Len lit a cigarette and dropped the box of matches onto the stack of newspapers.

It wasn’t a great move on Ruby’s part, he said. He should’ve stayed out of it. Let the system do its thing. Let Oswald be brought to trial. This way we’ll never really know why he did it. Or if he did it alone.

He didn’t, I said. You don’t kill the president of the United States by yourself.

Carol’s fingers played with her limp curls, pushing them into shape.

Jack Ruby should’ve thought twice before popping Lee Harvey Oswald, she said. Now we’ll never know the whole story.