The Sea Beach Line (41 page)

The only citation given at the bottom of the page was an article by Joseph Jacobs from the 1906
Jewish Encyclopedia
. The article itself wasn't online, but there was a set of the encyclopedias down at the public library on Forty-Second Street.

The night before, Becca had strongly encouraged me to give my mom a call. I decided I would do that before I headed downtown. Bernie picked up the phone, and said Ruth wasn't home.

“But, Isaac. It's been a while. Your mother has been worried about you. Have you been all right?” I had never really talked to Bernie on the phone, but I guess he wanted something to tell my mother in case I didn't call back.

“Yeah, I've been okay.” I didn't want to tell my family about Rayna, and everything that had happened. The situation was hard enough to deal with, without feeling like I had to justify it too. It was easier to just say I was okay.

“And Becca? She's holding up all right?”

“I think so. It's hard to tell. She always has a tough front.”

“That's true.”

“But hey, Bernie, you're an accountant, can you explain this Andrew mess to me?”

“Well, I don't know all the details, of course.”

“But generally.”

“Generally: Andrew had quite a bit of success early on in his career—too early in his career—and was subsequently given a responsibility he could not handle. People entrusted him with funds, expecting him to continue to deliver large returns. What he delivered instead were losses. Rather than owning up to this, he put an astounding amount of time and energy into creating the illusion that the profits were continuing. This is known as fraud. Unfortunately, the longer Andrew continued with this fraud, the more people were motivated to entrust him with even larger sums of money.”

“And he lost those as well?”

“Yes.”

“So he's guilty.”

“It certainly looks that way. Of course, there could be factors we don't know.”

“In one of your books, that I read, they talk about Gershom Scholem.”

“Yes?”

“And the Hasidim called him ‘the accountant.' Like an accountant knows more about the rich man's wealth than he does, but can't spend any of it, so it's not worth much.”

“Yes. That was a metaphor. For his relationship to spiritual wealth.”

“I understand that. But still, it involves a description of the position of an accountant.”

“Well, yes, it does. Andrew isn't an accountant, strictly speaking. But I see the connection.”

“How come you became an accountant, Bernie?” Why did people like Bernie and Andrew think it was good for men to sit in offices and type numbers, while people like Al and me thought it was better to go out into the streets? Not that Al had ever had much of an opportunity to sit in an office.

“An accountant, specifically? Primarily, because I had a professor who encouraged me in that direction.”

“Okay. But generally.”

“Generally speaking, I wanted a good, clean job. My father, from the day he came to this country, he was scrapping and hustling, and he never got himself settled. He always had a scheme, and he never got ahead. I didn't want to have to lead that type of life.”

“Where did your father come from?”

“Poland.”

“Like my father.”

“Yes. I suppose you and I have that in common.”

“But he was older. He must have been a Holocaust survivor?”

“Yes. He was never in a camp, but he was in the ghetto in Lodz. He made it out somehow.” The word “somehow” landed heavily.

“How come you never mention him?”

“I don't have all that many good things to say about the man. And there's not much value in speaking ill of the dead.”

“Well . . . he was a survivor, though.”

“Yes. But you know, it wasn't necessarily the good ones that survived.”

“You think the survivors were the bad ones? That they were guilty of things?”

“Some of them. I think some of them survived by stealing bread from the others.”

“And you think Andrew is a bread stealer?”

“I don't know that I'd say ‘bread stealer.' None of us know how we'd act in that situation.”

“But you think he's guilty?”

“Yes, I do. But that doesn't mean I think anyone else is innocent.”

“What about the dead ones?”

“Maybe the dead ones. But I doubt that too.”

The phone rang a few minutes later. I thought it might be my mother calling back, but it was Andrew. Speak of the devil.

“Aren't you in jail?” I asked.

“No. You sound disappointed.”

“Of course not. I'm glad you're not in jail, I just thought . . .”

“No, it's cool, Edel. I know it's a weird situation. I'm out on bail. But I'm pretty restricted. House arrest, with the ankle monitor and everything. They froze my bank accounts. I had to surrender my passport.”

“How did you post bail if they froze your account?”

“My mom bailed me out. She had to put her condo in Florida up as collateral. I didn't want her to do it. My stepdad didn't want her to do it either. But she did it.”

“I see.”

“Yeah. I guess your sister's not home?”

“She's at work. She went back today. You could try her cell phone.”

“I have. She's not taking my calls. She won't even send me to voice mail; she just clicks ‘answer' then clicks ‘end call' immediately. I tried to leave a message with the receptionist at her office, but I didn't get the feeling she was going to pass it along. So I thought maybe I'd leave a message on the voice mail at the house here.”

“Do you want to hang up and call back, and I'll let it go to the machine?”

“Nah. She doesn't want to hear my voice. Anyway, what're you up to today, Izzy?”

“I'm on my way to Midtown. I have to check something at the reference library.”

“Well, that's not too far from me. I'm on Forty-Sixth past Ninth. Maybe you could stop by?”

“I don't know, man.” Andrew and I weren't that close. I didn't know why he wanted to see me. Maybe he wasn't really close with anyone. He seemed tight with DC and the others, but my college buddies had disappeared pretty quickly when I got in trouble. Or maybe he just wanted to talk to Becca's brother, because he couldn't talk to Becca. She
had
wanted me to find out how he was doing. I hated to do anything that would distract me from trying to get to Rayna, but I owed it to Becca to help her if I could.

“Fine,” I said, “I'll come by after I finish at the library.”

After I got off the phone with Andrew, I caught the 6 train down to Grand Central, and walked down to the main library on Fifth Avenue. The stone lions reminded me of reading
Caravan of Cats
with Rayna. I'd spent months standing outside NYU's Bobst Library, never once being permitted entrance. Now, I walked up the marble steps of an even grander library, and entered with ease.

A reference librarian directed me to the
Jewish Encyclopedia
, which took up an entire long shelf. According to the Joseph Jacobs article, the founder of the Glupsker dynasty was indeed the enigmatic Rebbe Pyotr, who appeared in the Berdychiv region of Ukraine sometime around 1812, eventually settling in the shtetl of Glupsk. He had traveled up from the town of Uman, and appeared to have spent some amount of time in Salonica and other parts of the Ottoman Empire, though there was no evidence he ever made it to
Eretz Yisrael
. His enemies claimed he was a secret Frankist, but his followers maintained he was a disciple of Nachman of Breslov, who founded no lineage. No real evidence existed for either claim. Pyotr's beard was thin, and no one knew why he had a Christian name. Still, everyone agreed he
was a man of great piety, as well as a mesmerizing storyteller, and he attracted many followers. He was heralded as the author of one legendary book, though no copies remained in existence, and no one knew what the nature of its contents was. Stories and sayings of his were collected by his disciples after his death.

While I was at the library, I searched the electronic card catalogue for R. Galuth. Maybe there were some plates—or at least a mention—of his work in some forgotten art history textbook. The only thing that came up was a book called
My Loves and Losses in Greenwich Village
by Moses Bodenheimer, which lived across the street at the Mid-Manhattan Library, the smaller circulating branch.

I found the volume on the fifth floor of the circulating branch. It had been rebound in red library boards, and the thin pages had turned brown. No one had opened the book in a long time. The last circulation stamp was from 1972. Bodenheimer appeared to have been a bohemian poet who haunted Greenwich Village in the 1920s and '30s. According to the inside flap of his book, he was murdered on the Bowery in 1954, and the memoir was released slightly later that same year. In the beginning were a few of his poems, which were full of ecstatic bohemian lyricism, and personified concepts such as “Youth” and “Beauty.” Many of the book's short chapters were titled with the name of the cultural figures that they discussed. One of them was titled “R. Galuth”:

Galuth was that most curious of creatures, a Greenwich Village painter who painted more than he drank or bragged. What's more, he never chased after models or any other young women. Nor young men for that matter.

  
I had admired some of his canvases at a local gallery, and we became friendly. Always, though, Galuth kept me—and everyone else—at an arm's length. Rumors abounded about him (the Village was a village indeed, in those days!).

  
He simply appeared in New York one day, saying little more than that he had come from Europe. He made references, occasionally, to Paris. Some said that he was the son of a Hasidic rabbi from the
Pale, and had rejected tradition for art. Others said that he was a deserted officer from the kaiser's army.

  
He spoke gently, wore fine suits, and showed no signs of being able to grow a beard (which, for a rabbi's son, would certainly be most strange!). Some said he was a homosexual, others that he was a hermaphrodite. He would lock himself away in solitude for days at a time, painting, and this only added to his mystery.

  
One evening, by chance, I found myself on the fire escape outside his fourth-floor studio. I had been enjoying an evening of wine and romance with a young lady when her “husband”—a bull-dyke cab driver built like a dockworker—came home earlier than expected. I managed to escape out onto the fire escape and across the roof, wearing just my trousers.

  
I realized that I had come down the side of Galuth's building. An unprecedented chance to observe the mysterious painter—how fortuitous!

  
What I observed was more complex and more beautiful than anything that could be contained in rumor.

  
Galuth lay naked, posing on the couch. I could see that she was indeed a woman, and a comely woman at that. Truly, a muse any artist would be blessed to have! Then she stood, and as she walked her body tightened, contracted, and, while her parts did not change, she assumed the masculine gait of the Galuth I met in the street. He stood at his easel, painting the ghost of his female self that lingered in front of his eyes. After a time, she returned to the couch. Then he, in turn, returned to the easel.

  
This mesmerizing dance went on and on throughout the night, the masculine and the feminine, the
Adonai
and the
Shekhinah
, coming together only on the canvas.

I read through the passage three times. It was intriguing, though clearly fanciful. The idea of Galuth being female, as well as a Hasidic rabbi's child, was interesting. There was that reference online to a Glupsker Rebbe's defiant daughter. Was Galuth that daughter? Had she passed as a man, to make her way into the secular world
and across the ocean? If so, was this a survival mechanism, or had Galuth truly identified as male? Assuming Galuth really was born as a Glupsker Rebbe's daughter, then there was a tangible connection between Galuth and Rayna.

Bodenheimer's account of the male painter's intertwinement with his female muse was clearly based in his own sentimental eroticism. Still, maybe the idea of the rebbe's daughter being the subject of some of Galuth's paintings held some truth. If this was the case, the woman falling from the train could be a self-portrait. It made sense, then, that I could see a strong family resemblance between the woman and Rayna. It also made sense that Rayna had said the woman resembled her sisters and aunt.

I looked up at the clock. I'd lost track of the time, and was late to go see Andrew.

When I left the library, I walked across town to what used to be, and was once again, called “Hell's Kitchen.” This route took me through Times Square. Times Square had supposedly been completely sanitized in the '90s, but the street vendors never went away. Up here, I wasn't a vendor, only a passerby or potential customer. The hawkers' spiels filled my ears. Men with Arabic accents offered all-beef hot dogs for two dollars each. Looking for something sweet? That same two dollars will get you a bag of honey-roasted peanuts. New York's finest gourmet nuts. Hot hot hot. Get them now. Okay, friend, you got it. Cashews, three dollars. You look street-smart. What's your name? Street-smart guy like you could dig my mix CD. Five dollars, I'll even sign it for you. Well come on, son, I already wrote your name. Take a photograph with the Naked Cowboy. Take a photograph with the Naked Cowgirl. Take a photograph with Elmo, for the kids. You look so handsome, with New York City as your backdrop. A photo not enough. You need portrait drawing. Ten dollar. Your brother wants one too? Sure he do. Tell you what, two for fifteen. These are not caricatures, these are portraits. This woman is a true artist. She went to the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing.