The Empire of the Senses (60 page)

Either way, he would find something out tonight. Walking in this unfamiliar part of town, he mused over his situation and smiled sardonically. How many men, he wondered, glancing down the street, carried the burden of an icy wife, a long-lost son, an old lover in a foreign land, children who were choosing to leave him behind, each in their own particularly painful way?

He sighed, readjusting the bundle of lilies he carried, careful not to crush them. In his other hand, he held a bottle of champagne, relishing its coolness through the paper wrapping. Where was Zev Dubinsky’s apartment anyway? He hadn’t been around here in years, having become insulated by the streets connecting his house to his office and to the park. He frequented the same cafés and bars along Unter den Linden and on occasion made a foray into the city center when he was feeling restless. But Treptow: Red, working-class, the streets darker and dirtier than the verdant light-filled parks of Charlottenburg. It made him depressed. He trudged along, checking the street addresses. Judging from the sidewalk littered with pamphlets and a torn KPD banner, there must have been a recent rally. He stepped over the banner, strewn with leaves. Was he in the right place? He was about to ask the news vendor outside a tobacco shop when a young couple walked up to a building, smiling shyly at him before climbing the steps. She carried a bundle of tulips wrapped in newspaper and his hand floated over the small of her back. A woman opened the door and welcomed them in Hebrew. This must be the place, Lev thought, straining to see through the linen curtains into the front room where people milled about. He suddenly felt apprehensive and stood there watching the hostess, who smiled at him in a fitted lavender dress, a dress he faintly recalled Vicki wearing. She beckoned him inside, and with her shiny hair and dark lipstick, she looked too cosmopolitan for this group of earnest pioneers.

“Welcome, welcome,” she said to him, taking his coat and his hat. “You must be Vicki’s father,” she added, flashing another smile.

“Yes,” Lev said, wondering if he really looked so old. Or was it a certain paternalistic air he gave off, both anxious and judgmental, as he surveyed the room?

“Who else would bring such a nice bottle of champagne, and these stunning lilies?”

Lev smiled politely and the young woman, now cradling the flowers against her breast, introduced herself as Maya—Maya Dubinsky. The name echoed in Lev’s head—she was one of Vicki’s new friends, also immigrating to Palestine. On the same ship, he believed. She took his arm and offered him some kvass. Noticing his hesitation, she asked,
“Or wine?” He nodded and she melted into the crowded living room, heading toward the kitchen. He admired Maya’s Levantine eyes, her long back, the way that dress clung to her body.

Lev hovered on the threshold, wondering where Vicki was and wishing he had a drink to hold in his hand. The place, packed with young people, was decorated in the Bauhaus style, but on the cheap, so instead of appearing linear and Spartan it looked as if they could only afford one glass table, one iron lamp, one plush cube-shaped chair, and against the wall, one long metal bookcase crammed with used books. Jazz blasted from the radio balanced on top of the radiator. Hors d’oeuvres had been hastily assembled and put out on the coffee table without much thought to their presentation. A mixture of Yiddish, Hebrew, Russian, German, and Polish whizzed around the room. An aggressive-looking type hooked his arm around Maya’s waist and gave her a kiss. That must be her husband—Zvi, or Zev? He looked like a Polish Jew with that fiery mustache and stocky build. And he seemed quite proud of his prize: Maya’s French accent and slanted eyes, a sexy pioneer for sure. Lev grinned. But at least this Zev didn’t carry around the same look of blank fear the other young men here did—it was strange, such strong youthful men with prominent jaws and broad chests and muscled forearms, they wandered around the room in a trance, as if they didn’t know how they’d arrived at this point, about to cross the great ocean, the future a murky promise. Maybe the strong
halutzim
weren’t so strong, Lev thought. But the women were right at home. They chatted comfortably with one another, alight with laughter, their eyes flitting around the room. They refilled drinks and rearranged the platters of pickled vegetables. Without women, Lev mused, taking in the blank white walls and the oblong glass vases devoid of flowers, there would be nothing. Against the far back wall, he was surprised to see his mother chatting with the rabbi’s wife, who wore an expensive-looking hat, peacock feathers plastered to the side of it. His mother caught his eye and waved him over impatiently. She probably wanted him to talk with the rabbi’s wife, to fall in love with her, and leave Josephine. He overheard a young man discussing the kinds of trees that grew in the Holy Land. “Olive and fig and orange,” the man said. “Maybe lemon too.”

“Citrus? I doubt that,” a woman rejoined. “But definitely almond trees, the ones with the white blossoms. So lovely.”

“Lev!” Geza yelled, weaving through the crowd with two glasses of beer. He hugged him with one arm, and Lev felt relieved that at least Geza was not wearing
peyes
and a yarmulke, as some of the young men here did, but had cropped his hair short and was clean-shaven. His dark eyes sparkled when he gestured to Vicki, explaining how Maya had taken Vicki under her wing, helped her along in the process, which was important and would be even more so once they arrived there. Then, as an afterthought, he asked about Josephine, and Lev explained she was home in bed with a migraine. Really, though, he wasn’t sure where she was.

Lev squinted through the crowd at Wolf, who leaned against the mantel, smoking. He was overdressed in a three-piece suit and shiny spats, and although he tried to appear casual, the way he smoked his cigarette and declined the offer of a drink all seemed oddly choreographed.

Geza waved to some men, both rugged and of towering height. They ate herring smeared on black bread and waved back, their mouths full and chewing. They have no manners, Lev thought, trying not to linger on the idea that in Palestine, Vicki would be surrounded by these types, that she might come to think, within a few years, that it was acceptable to eat while standing, to greet a guest while munching on a hunk of bread, and forgo the use of a napkin because it was a bourgeois pleasantry.
Barbarians!

Geza took Lev’s arm. “Can we speak?”

They sat outside on the steps. Geza began in Yiddish, “First, I want to thank you. For helping us with the passage fare.”

Lev answered in German, “This way, at least, you won’t have to travel between decks in steerage. It will be more comfortable.”

“Yes, more comfortable.” Geza paused. “I have the information you asked for.” He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a scrap of paper.

Lev took it. The paper, the words, burned through his palm:
11 Rivington Street, Apartment 3B, New York, New York
. He stared at the
address. “Well,” his voice softened, “she’s in New York,” he added in Yiddish.

“What are you going to do?”

Lev folded his hand over the paper. “I’m going to New York.”

Geza sighed. “I understand, but …”

Lev took his arm. “What is it? Is there something else you’re not telling me?”

“No, no. Nothing else. Her cousin in Riga sent this address after I requested it.”

“Yes, but what if she’s met someone? What if her circumstances have changed?”

Geza smoked with a stoic expression on his face. Lev felt a flash of irritation—how easily Geza sat here, witnessing the uneasy mixture of excitement, panic, and fear flooding through him.

Lev stubbed out his cigarette on the step and took a deep breath. “Thank you. For the address.” He patted Geza’s knee, giving his next words added weight. “And thank you for keeping this between us.”

Geza jutted his chin forward. “We give and we take.”

“There you are!” Vicki called from the open doorway. “Having secret conversations without me.”

They both twisted around, jarred by her voice.

She stepped away from the bright warm room and walked out onto the landing, hands on her hips. Her eyes, luminous in the lamplight, chastised them. She wore the earrings Lev had given her last year, the lapis lazuli ones from Wertheim’s. He wondered if she would wear them in Palestine, or if such items would be deemed culturally unnecessary, distracting baubles.

Lev stood up, touched her face.

“You came,” she whispered, looking as if she might cry.

“Of course!” Lev said, slipping the piece of paper into his trouser pocket. “Now where’s that excellent bottle of champagne I brought? Or have the barbarians already devoured that as well?”

They went back inside, Geza’s arm linked around Vicki’s waist, and Lev’s arm draped over Vicki’s shoulders. Glancing over at her smiling
face, the way she kissed Geza on the cheek and he pulled her close, Lev knew, as much as he resisted it, this was whom she had chosen. And this choice would dictate the way she was going to live, raise her children. All this future reverberated between them as they walked hand in hand back into the party.

The number of people in the room had multiplied. Maya wanted to introduce Vicki to a woman in a headscarf, who held a small child to her chest. Geza said he wanted to make sure no one’s glass stood empty.

Before she could disappear into the crowded room, Lev took Vicki’s arm. Her skin still felt as warm and milky as it did when she used to throw her small arms around his neck, begging to be carried.

“Keep me company for a while—I don’t know anyone here,” Lev whispered.

Vicki giggled. “But you’ve always been so good at mingling, Papa.”

Lev shook his head. “No, that’s your mother.”

Vicki gave him a long look, her large eyes watering. “Is there something—” She paused.

Lev motioned to the makeshift bar in the corner. “Let’s have some champagne!”

She started again. “Papa—is there something you’re keeping from me?”

He smiled immediately, trying to mask the panic spreading through him. Did Geza say something to her? Make some sort of allusion? He could tell Vicki didn’t know everything, but she knew something.

Someone turned up the music. A few couples started dancing the Charleston in the middle of the room, their feet pounding on the wooden floor.

“Because we’ve always told each other everything,” she added, glancing down. Her face turned blotchy and flushed, the way she looked when she cried.

He stroked her cheek. “So astute.” Breaking into his most winning smile, he added, his voice sounding overly loud and false to him, “Go dance—don’t worry about your old papa. Everything’s as it should be.” Then he took a step back, bending slightly at the hip. He wanted Vicki
to dance with the others, to revel in the freedom of youth and new love, to revel in all the things he felt he had lost.

“But Papa,” she said, reaching for him. Lev could see she wasn’t willing to forfeit so easily. What had Geza told her?

He grinned again, trying to suppress the mounting anxiety that everything would soon crack open. “Where’s Geza? You two should be dancing!”

Vicki shook her head, exasperated.

Out of the corner of his eye, Lev saw Franz making his way toward Geza. A stern concentration clouded his face. He went swiftly, economizing each movement. Wolf followed Franz closely, as if tracking him. A sharp unpleasantness pricked Lev’s tongue. Both boys were tense, their eyes bright and jumping. Lev wondered if they were leaving because of some heated argument. He recalled how Wolf had once fancied Vicki. Perhaps Wolf had said something nasty to one of the
halutzim
. Inside his pocket, Lev clenched Leah’s address.

Franz reached under his jacket into his vest, his elbow jutting out, which accidentally jabbed Zev’s shoulder. Geza was pouring a drink for a man wearing a panama hat. The stream of brown liquid tunneled from the bottle into a long glass. Zev swung around and punched Franz in the neck, missing his face, but Franz kept moving, and the short jerky way Franz’s arm had reached into his vest sent Lev into motion. He pulled Vicki down to the ground and then leapt up, pushing a man in wire-rim glasses aside, reaching for Geza. At the deafening sound of gunfire, Lev embraced him, the two of them hurtling to the floor. The woman in the headscarf screamed. Lev clutched Geza’s chest and saw blood. A smarting pain seared through his shoulder and forearm. His whole body throbbed. Some of the women were crying. Overturned chairs blocked the doorway.

Zev cursed at the top of his voice, “Where did that bastard run to?”

Franz and Wolf were gone.

Zev, Geza, and a pack of men ran out into the night. The front door swung open. Vicki clutched Lev’s good arm and yelled for help. Maya was comforting the woman with the headscarf, who was still screaming.
Her baby crawled the perimeter of the room, playing with a wooden spoon. Someone had knocked over the radio and it now lay on its side, emitting static. Whiteness started pressing down around his eyes, and Lev faintly asked someone to call an ambulance. Vicki nodded and said something he didn’t understand.

“Wait,” Lev whispered, gripping Vicki’s wrist. “Is Geza all right?”

She nodded, tears streaming down her face. Then she faded out of his field of vision, replaced by the rabbi’s wife, who bent over him and took his face in her cool hands. “It’s mainly your shoulder. The ambulance will be here soon. Can you feel your right arm?”

“I think,” he said, his mouth as dry as cotton.

The woman moved his head onto her lap and elevated his arm above his chest. “Hold it up?”

He nodded, staring at the chandelier, which was missing two lightbulbs.

She ripped off the arm of her blouse and tightly wrapped the silken sleeve around his wound. “What is your level of pain, on a scale of one to ten?” she demanded.

“Ridiculous questions,” Lev sputtered. He noticed his mother peering over them. She looked anxious and shook her head. “No matter what the circumstances, he always has to argue.”

The rabbi’s wife smiled, and again Lev noticed her crowded bottom teeth—he wondered why some people had good teeth and others didn’t.