The Sea Beach Line (3 page)

“Yes, yes. My life's work. You know, in Soviet Union, all I ever wanted was to be free to be an artist. I was dismissed from the academy in Leningrad for ‘abstractions indicative of a bourgeois nature.' And I always knew . . . if I would make it to the West, my creativity would flower. Such a scene I would make. I come here, I learn: they let you do whatever you want, because it's nobody that will care.” It seemed like he wanted me to feel sorry for him.

The timer on the kettle buzzed. Goldov stood up and placed tea bags in two glasses, which he then filled with water.

“Would you like jam for your tea? I'm sorry I have no lemon.” He pulled a half-full plastic tray from a box of orange cream cookies and placed it on the table. “I don't entertain so often.”

“No, thank you. It's fine like this.” He shrugged, then sat down and began to spoon jam into his own glass. “My father studied art as well,” I continued. Though Alojzy never talked very much about his life in Poland before he moved to Israel, he had said he was expelled from the art academy in Warsaw in 1968. He'd implied it was because he was Jewish, but I didn't know if there were other contributing factors. In a way, my getting kicked out of college placed me in my father's footsteps.

“Yes, your father studied art under communism also. We both possessed solid appreciation of art, despite having had solid socialist art education inflicted on us. We were both expelled. Though I must say, the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw is not as respected as the one in Leningrad. You know, that was a typical move on Al's part, to be born a Jew in Poland, after the war. A Russian Jew in New York, that's nothing special.
Kak sebak ni rieznih
. But to be a Jew from Poland, in modern times . . . typical Edel. Always had to do things the wiseass way.”

“What is your connection to Alojzy, exactly?” I asked. Presumably they had had some sort of friendly relationship before Alojzy allegedly robbed him.

“Business partners. We sold art books, on the street in Manhattan. He sold other books also—and other
things
besides books as well.” I didn't know what he was insinuating, other than that Alojzy was a hustler who would buy and sell stolen goods, which I already knew.
“But art books, there is money in that. Art books are not cheap. People in lower Manhattan are mostly not poor. There was plenty of business. It was a profitable endeavor, until he stole our money and left town.” Goldov's face contorted into something ugly.

“I'm very sorry that happened,” I said. Alojzy surely had his own side of the story, but I didn't want to anger the man. He didn't acknowledge my comment.

“I don't hear from him again for almost two years after that. The next thing I do hear, he's in jail in Las Vegas. Passing bad checks, I believe. He described it as just misunderstanding. He needed bail money.” The old painter sighed, then chased the sigh with a gulp of tea. “I sent it.”

“Why did you do that? If you say he'd already robbed you?”

“I wish I knew. I didn't want to, but he persuaded me. Thing is, your father was, to me, like a drug. A bad habit. I could never shake him. Besides, I thought maybe he'd still pay me back someday. He always made promises to pay my money. With interest.” I raised my tea to my lips, but it was still too hot to drink. “Well, he's shook now, apparently. They say he's gone for good.”

“But who says he's gone for good?” I demanded. “Was it reported somewhere?”

“I heard it only as a rumor. But these rumors are most often true.” It occurred to me that Alojzy could have started the rumor himself, if he believed someone was after him. If Goldov was in on it, he could be spreading the tale for Alojzy. If this was the case, I needed to press Goldov until he came across with the truth. On the other hand, considering this apparent bad blood between them, Alojzy might have specifically wanted Goldov to believe the story.

“I remembered your mother's name—lucky she didn't change it when she remarried—and the lady at the library helped me find her on the Internet. We found her crafts Internet page—the candles she makes look very nice, by the way, though I have also seen nicer—and I sent a postcard to the address listed on the page.” My mother actually had changed her last name, to Bernie's name, Fischer. But I guess she did business under her old name. “I felt I should let your family
know.” He looked up at me. “My condolences,” he added, without conviction.

“Thank you,” I said. “But I really don't know if they're necessary. Your letter is the only indication I've had that he's dead. And you don't know this for sure, do you? You haven't seen any evidence?”

“Only rumor. But I don't have a reason to doubt, either.” The man held up his arms in a gesture of helplessness. “You could have written in regard to settling matters. You did not need to come down here for so little.”

“But since I did, isn't there anything else you could maybe tell me about my father's life? What he may have been doing. Or be doing now? I haven't seen him since I was in high school.”

“He's doing nothing now,” Goldov said, setting his glass down on the table with a small thud. “Sleeping in the dirt.” I didn't move. Goldov sighed. “Fine. After our partnership dissolved, he ended up selling books again by himself. Not so much the fine art books, more the cheap paperbacks. More time was spent chasing women than working. He could charm any woman. I saw him one time chatting up a nun. She blushed, but she listened.” He seemed to be getting away from useful information, but I enjoyed hearing about my father and didn't interrupt. “People didn't walk away from Ally Edel. He carried himself fearsomely sometimes . . . he could be very intimidating. It was good to have a man like that with me on the street. He was not a guy who took any guff.” Yes, that was Alojzy. He was a truly tough man. I hoped to become tough too. “It really was a loss, his death.”

“If he
is
dead,” I said. “His body must be somewhere.” As long as there was no body, Alojzy was alive. The rabbis said that you should not mourn for someone when they were merely missing; you needed confirmation of their death from a witness.

“In potter's field on Hart Island, I imagine. That's where I'll be going. An unmarked grave, no words above it.”

“Yes, I guess so.” Who would hold a funeral for these men? “Do you know where he's been living?”

“No. Now and then, I did see him, but there was the money problem between us, always, so that kept a distance between us. The last time I
saw him, he called me up, said he wanted to talk about the money he owed me, maybe paying some of it back.” Goldov had far more information about Alojzy owing him money than about Alojzy dying. He could be using the rumor of Alojzy's death to try to squeeze me. Or he could have made up the story himself, as a plan to scam money from our family. “When we met up, well, of course he didn't have the money. All he had was excuses. I don't know what it was he wanted from that meeting. He didn't have to call me in first place. I left him there on the bench.” He shook his head. “No, I'm sorry. I got nothing else for you.”

“Fine,” I said. “Can you think of anyone who might know more? Anyone who can verify his death, or trace the rumor? Or at least provide details about his life before that? Maybe I should check with the police or hospitals or something, see if they have records about him.” I wasn't going to accept Goldov's account alone.

“No, I would not recommend going to authorities. Go if you want. But Edel lived . . . under radar. If he ever went to the hospital, it would be under fake name.”

“Please. You have to give me something. I've come all this way. I can't leave without something. I really can't.” Goldov looked at me with annoyance and disdain. He slurped up the rest of his tea, then finally spoke.

“
Ladno
. There is another bookseller, Mendy, who maybe knows something more about where he was living, or his business. He could be the one I first heard the rumor from. Maybe there are still some assets you can sell off, to settle the estate. Go harass him.”

“Thank you. Is there a telephone number where I could reach him, this Mendy? Or an address maybe?”

“No.” Goldov shook his head. “No telephone. And I'm not knowing his address. But he sells on West Fourth Street in Manhattan, by the southeast corner of the park there. He's out on the street most days, providing it doesn't rain.

“Thank you.” He waved me off.

“Come back to me if you learn anything about Alojzy's finances.”

2

MY NEXT DESTINATION AFTER
Coney Island was Sheepshead Bay, Alojzy's old neighborhood. For the past few years, I had done my best to avoid thinking about Alojzy too much. He was out there somewhere, and he was my father. I was safer because he was in the world. But he wasn't around, and it was easier to push him to the back of my mind. Now, since receiving his postcard, he had been pulled back to the surface. Images of him filled my mind as I left the museum, but I couldn't be sure how much of those were my own memories, and how much were me assimilating Goldov's memories. I didn't want to mix up my own image of Alojzy with one painted by the failed artist. My own memories were so fragile, I didn't know how much cross-contamination they could withstand. Visiting the neighborhood where so many of my happy memories of Alojzy were situated would help me ground them.

As I walked back up the boardwalk, two freighters passed by. I pulled out Alojzy's postcard, which I kept in the same envelope as Goldov's note, and held the picture up against the ocean. The view didn't line up. Alojzy hadn't drawn the picture in Coney Island. I
stayed on the boardwalk until it ended. Passing up through Brighton, I bought two pirozhki stuffed with
kapusta
off a folding table outside a grocery store. The smell of cabbage and grease reminded me of days spent with Alojzy. I followed below the train tracks at first, but as I got closer to the bay, my memory of the local geography began to return. Walking up West End Avenue, I noticed strange bits of steel and brick sticking out of the trees down past the flat end of the bay. I couldn't figure out what they could be. Brooklyn was full of things that did not make sense and were not explained; this was part of the reason it had been such a source of wonder to me as a kid.

When I got close to the trees, I realized I was looking at the Holocaust Memorial Park. The monument had not been completed when my father lived down here. The local Jews were still arguing then about the details of its construction. My father had agreed with a popular sentiment in the neighborhood: it was wrong for the city to try to include the Roma in the monument's lengthy text. Why should the Jews be disgraced by having to share their history with some damn Gypsies? All in all, though, Alojzy was not impressed with the whole idea of the monument. He found the American Jewish obsession with the Holocaust sentimental and indulgent.

I walked through a row of trees and entered the park. Dozens of rough-hewn gravestones were scattered through the park's center, each one bearing the story of some atrocity or death camp or partisan leader, in whichever language—English, Hebrew, Russian, or Yiddish—the donor had felt most comfortable. Little round stones rested on some of the gravestones. Around the top of the column, the word “remember” was written in all four languages. In the center, oversized strands of fake razor wire threaded around a spiraled column. The column was made to look like the bombed-out ruins of something old and brick, but was clearly one molded, red cement piece. Alojzy had seen real bombed ruins as an Israeli soldier during the War of Attrition. And though he never spoke of it, Warsaw must have still been full of rubble from World War II when he was a child. It was no surprise he had so little patience for such a fabrication, which contained the narrative but not the pain.

Two old men sat on a park bench arguing in Russian. These were the types of men Alojzy sat and chatted with. They spoke slowly, considering their positions, and I was able to make out the gist of the discussion, a debate about the likelihood of the city filling the bay in with cement. Their paranoid fantasy was completely real to them.

Emmons Avenue led me along the bay. The bay was connected to the ocean, and the whole wide world of adventure and chaos, but as it was squared off against the avenue, it still held the safety and domestic comfort of a residential block. It seemed as if the bay was once just another street, but on a whim a miracle worker had turned it into a body of water. Moses had turned the Nile to blood. Surely some lesser prophet could turn pavement to brackish water. Boats sailed in from the ocean, and anchored parallel to the cars double-parked on Emmons. Once they got out past Breezy Point, nothing stood between the sailboats and the coasts of Morocco and Andalusia. A wooden footbridge curved over the bay. On the far side were the mafia castles of Manhattan Beach, with their columns and towers.

Beside and below me, ducks and swans swam together. There was plenty of food for all, even though most of the food was just garbage. A fisherman sat in a low beach chair, drinking from a carton of orange juice. He had three fishing rods—two big ocean rods and a little five-foot freshwater rod—propped against the railing, their lines stretched taut out into the water.