The Last of the Wise Lovers (8 page)

*

   Like the books say, in the end it was
all up to fate.  It was toward the end of the day, the Catalog Room had
already emptied out, and Ms. Yardley had disappeared into the ladies' room for
her daily fifteen minutes of pre-exit preparation.  Mrs. Kahn was
struggling with some long and complex report that needed a signature, so I, of
course, volunteered.  I went upstairs with it and knocked on his door.
 This time he looked a little better.  The same dark bags the color
of worn leather were still under his eyes, but his eyes themselves shone.

   "Tomorrow I'll have the
answer," he said the minute he saw me.

   "It's no longer important,"
I rested the heavy report on his desk. As he was reading it I thought: how do I
get him to drop this agitator thing, now that I know it's something top secret
that's related to Dad's work?  "After all, it's only a washing
machine...” I ventured.

   "I'm not sure," he said.
 It was clear that the slide had awakened something stronger in him than
the desire to explain to me the diagram
on
it.  I felt I absolutely couldn't leave until I had discovered what that
`something stronger' was.  I sat on the edge of the chair opposite him.
 Not only did he not object, but he got up, came over to clear the chair
of papers and books, then went back around to his side of the desk.
 Getting up had caused him some pain, and he grimaced as he signed the
report.

 "As for this matter of the...” I began,
but he beat me to it and asked in Hebrew: "How long have you been
here?"

   "Six years," I answered in
English, "before that we were in Africa."

   "The Foreign Service?" he
insisted on asking in Hebrew.

   "Something like that," I
said uncomfortably (we've never talked about this, but Hebrew is my mother
tongue on paper only. I never learned it in any of the schools I went to, and I
certainly never learned it from Mom, who has full command of Rumanian, French,
and English, but who turns to Dad every time she has to fill out a form in
Hebrew) "and anyway, I have to go back next year...”

   For the first time the absent-minded
look was wiped off his face, replaced by one of concentration and interest.
"Go back?"

   "The army."

   He nodded in understanding.
"What will you do?"

   I shrugged my shoulders, embarrassed.

   "You'll survive," he said.

   "From what they show on TV it
looks horrible."

   "It doesn't necessarily have to
be.  You don't have to do that."

   "But the Israeli army is
different."

   "I know," he said with
surety, "I served in it."

   "Did you make aliya?" I
asked, barely concealing my surprise.

   "No, just volunteered for the
IDF.  I served as a clerk, though.  Something small and
insignificant."

   Suddenly I realized something, a
small but important truth.

 "I won't be able to be small and
insignificant.  I'll fit in so well I'll stand out, even if I hate what
I'm doing...”

   He opened the drawer and took out a
small tray full of blue pills.  "That has nothing to do with the
army.  The need to stand out is something unto itself."

   Something about his tone of voice
reminded me of the times Mom and Dad would leave me with you for the weekend,
and the two of us would sit in your work room and talk.  I thought back to
one talk in particular, when we discussed all the things I'd have to get over
besides my need to stand out: the tendency to stick to someone, for example, or
the need to be liked.  You'd explained that these were just different
permutations of the same problem.

   Mr. K. poured mineral water from a
bottle, placed a pill on his tongue, washed it down with some water and wiped
his mouth.  For a few minutes we sat opposite each other without speaking.
 I didn't want to go yet.  I tried to think of something to say to
steer the conversation back to the slide, so that I could ask for it back without
seeming overanxious.  I remembered the riddle, and I recited it.

   He covered his eyes with his very
thin fingers and thought.  After a minute or two he said, "Lemon is
fruit. Honey is food. Sour isn't sweet."

   "Are you sure?"

   He thought for another minute.
"That's the only solution," he said with certainty, and got up.

   Reluctantly, I got up, too.  He
opened the door for me.

  "I'll go with you, in case Ms. Yardley
starts up again." He walked ahead with uneven steps, and it wasn't clear
whether he was in pain or just impatient.  I'd barely caught up to him by
the time he'd reached the door to the Catalog Room.  Before he left, he
clasped my shoulder and said to Ms. Yardley, "He's all right, he was with
me."

   But there was no need for it, since
the work day was over anyway and Ms. Yardley was already on her way out.

 "Closing time!" the security guard
called.  Along the corridors every third light winked off in warning.
 As I walked out I thought about the speed with which Mr. K. had solved
the riddle, and about the confidence with which he had said, `That's the only
solution'.  Suddenly I knew what I had to do.  I walked straight to
Port Authority, took out the brochure from The Society for Proper Nutrition and
Care of the Body, and went over to the information booth.  The address was
in Nyack, and a bus left Platform 11 every fifteen minutes.  An hour and a
half later I was there.

   I got off at the main street, not far
from the Helen Hayes Theater. I showed the brochure to a saleswoman in one of
the many souvenir shops there.  She pointed me down the street toward the
beach and the remains of a promenade which you undoubtedly remember from Woody
Allen's film,
Manhattan
.   A little bit further on was a
large, white, wooden house with all its lights on.  A sign in the garden
announced that here was The Society for Proper Nutrition and Care of the Body -
Offices and Warehouse.  When I pushed the gate open I again thought of Mr.
K.  I was no longer sure whether the fact that he had solved the riddle in
three minutes proved that his solution was the right one, or that both of us
were making the same mistake.

   No matter what, I said to myself,
fruit is not always sweet.

   The front door was open.  The
waiting room was bisected by an empty counter.  On the wall hung a black
plastic board covered with white plastic letters that read, "Winners of
the Vacation Cruise".  There were eight names listed underneath.
 I read the list twice.  Mom's name wasn't on it.

   That was enough.  Now I was sure
all my suspicions were right, and the only thing left for me to do was to get
home as fast as I could.  But just then someone behind me asked,
"Yes, can I help you?"

   I turned around.  A short man
wearing a suit like the ones TV car salesmen wear was smiling at me pleasantly.

  "I...” I stammered, "about the
riddle."

   His smile got even wider.
 "Yes, sir."

   "I'm the son of one of the
winners...”

   He studied the board, weighing which
of the names I might belong to.

   "Levin," I said,
"Naomi Levin."

   "Levin?"

   "You called... you said that she
won...”

   His smile became a snide sneer.
"There's another list, she's probably on that one...”

   I asked that he check and let me
know.  He mumbled something about the office being closed and the
secretaries all having gone home.  I asked why the names on the other list
weren't on the board.

   He went over to the wall and pressed
a switch.  All the lights went out except for one at the end of the hall.

  "Now, if you'll excuse me, I must
close up...”

   "She wrote that fruit is
sweet...”

   "Please...” he said.  In
the sudden dimness I got confused for a moment.  Instead of going toward
the main door I started walking down the dark corridor.

  "Hey," he shouted, "where do
you think you're. . ?"

   Light filtered from under the doors
along the corridor, and I could hear faint murmurings of conversation.
 One of the doors was open.  I peeked inside.  The room was
taken up by a large, ornate desk and a Persian carpet.  About ten golf
clubs were arrayed in a fancy stand, and there were trophies resting on the
mantel of a fireplace.  A cup lay on its side on the corner of the carpet.
 A golf ball was stuck inside it.  There were other golf balls
scattered around the room.  I remember wondering what about my mother's
life could possibly interest people who were rich enough to amuse themselves
playing golf on an expensive carpet.  The guy ran after me and caught me
by the sleeve.

  "Pleeeease," he pleaded,
"these are not reception hours."

   I could have shaken him off with
barely a shrug and continued to nose around the rooms until I'd found something
to satisfy my curiosity.  But I'm not like that - or maybe I just wasn't
desperate enough yet.  I let him lead me out.

  "Don't you think it's strange," I
tried to appeal to his logic, "... a woman who writes in that fruit is
sweet gets a notice that she's won and then doesn't even appear on your
list...”

   He said, "I don't know.
 That's not my department."  He shoved me past the door and
locked it securely behind me.

*

When I got home to East Neck I didn't call Mom up
and ask her to come pick me up in the car, like I usually did; I preferred
walking home, so I could think.  My worst fears had been confirmed: the
events in the Lincoln Tunnel had not been an accident or a mistake, and she
hadn't won the cruise by chance.  Somebody really was trying to harm her.
 I went over all the ways I could prevent her from going on the cruise,
but I couldn't think of anything that would work.  In order to calm myself
I started to run, but then I found myself thinking, in rhythm with my pace …
last
wise lover, last wise lover
… exactly as she had written.

   I entered the house through the
garage, as usual.  I lingered by the door that led to the basement.
 Now that the threat to Mom had become quite real, something else began to
bother me about that night in the Lincoln Tunnel:  why had Mom been
cleaning the basement?

   Think about it: it's night,
practically morning.  Your son comes home after being in an accident and
tells you strange things, and you go down to the basement and turn on the dryer
(and it's not laundry day).  And of all the things you could possibly do
you start collecting trash that had never been there before, and start grinding
it in the kitchen garbage disposal.

   I went down the steps to the
basement.  The floor had been washed clean.  I didn't know exactly
what I was looking for.  I looked under the cabinets, behind the furnace,
in the tool chest, and in the few suitcases that were lying around.  I didn't
find anything except for tools, old clothes, a few of Dad's old canvases, and
some odds and ends. There was only one place left to look: the crate where Mom
kept her childhood books, old letters, documents, family photos, and notebooks
from the Graphic Arts Institute where she had studied as a girl, in Bucharest.
 This crate had always been considered her territory, off limits to the
rest of us.  But I had to check, even if only to peek. The top was
fastened with a combination lock.  I tried Dad's birthday, Mom and Dad's anniversary,
and Mom's birthday, without success. Finally I twisted the lock according to my
birth date.  The lock opened. I lifted the lid.  The books were clean
and well-preserved, as if they had just been purchased.  The letters were
packed in closed plastic bags.  I gingerly felt down among them,
discovering layer after layer.  After about three layers, exactly in the
center of the crate, I found it.

   There was a Polaroid camera with an
attachment that turned the pictures into slides, a flash, two rolls of film,
and a telephoto lens.  I set the camera up, except for the film, and
pressed the button.  The flash washed the basement in white light.
 More confused than ever, I carefully replaced everything.  As I was
putting the last layer of books back in place, someone brushed against the
window.  I jumped in alarm - but it was only Debbie.  She pressed her
face against the glass until her nose and mouth were like buttons.  That
was one of our games.  This time, I didn't find it amusing.  I opened
the window and she jumped inside with open arms.

  "Hi," she said, hugging me,
"I saw the light on and I knew I'd find you here."

   I hugged her back as hard as I could,
which wasn't very hard since I was preoccupied wondering what to say to her,
how much I could and should tell her.  And really, there was nothing I
could tell her.  It would be best if no one knew about the guy in the
Lincoln Tunnel; I absolutely couldn't say anything about the other guy, the one
who'd brought Mom in the car; and I'd already said far too much about the
slide.  What was left, Aunt Ida's 'bubba meisas' tales?

   She sensed that I was uncomfortable.

  "What's the matter, Ronny?
 Didn't you miss me?"

   "I missed you."

   "How was the party?"

   "Ok."

   "I heard you weren't
there."

   "I was there and left."

   "I also heard you haven't been
around much lately... none of the gang has seen you...” She rested her hand on
the back of my neck, "Maybe you didn't feel like seeing anyone while I was
gone?"

   The pressure of her hand annoyed me.
 I gently moved aside.  She turned toward the crate and asked,
straining to sound natural, "What are these books?"

   "They belong to my Mom."

   She picked up one of the books and
tried to decipher the title.  I grabbed it away from her and slammed down
the lid of the crate.  She sat down beside the furnace.  "You
don't seem so happy to see me...”