by Max Klement
The morning he was to be evicted from his own home, Reuben Abramowitz ate his usual dry toast in the all-white kitchen: cold and sterile like a hospital examination room, or an abattoir. He winced and pressed the soft side of his belly, picturing the sodden lumps of bread forming a gluey mass in his gut as waves of acid splashed against it. He ate alone, as always, not expecting to see any of his family that day or the next, and without any awareness of what was to happen later that day.
His mother and daughter, Esther and Dinah, ate silently in the other all-white kitchen, in the addition—really a wing—Reuben had built years before. The second house was identical to the first: it was attached to the original house at a right angle forming an “L,” an odd sight on any residential street. A single unlocked swinging door was all that separated one kitchen from the next; it was the only passage from one house—one side of the house—to the other. Although the kitchens were identical, the warmth that Esther and Dinah brought to theirs made the two rooms seem completely unrelated: chalk and cheese, both white, but as different as they could possibly be.
I explained to Esther that I was a distant relative and wanted to know more about their branch of the family. Between my personal knowledge of one small, and strange, part of the family tree, and leading questions, I managed a reasonable façade as a very distant cousin—distant enough for my purposes. I was deliberately vague about my own background and used a false name, and when questions were asked of me, I redirected the conversation to suit my own ends. I realized I was taking a chance—possibly a big one—but I couldn’t think of any other way to get them to talk to me, to open up the vault of their painful memories, to tell me what I wanted to know.
Though I lived in a nearby town there was little likelihood they would have seen me, and so, unrecognized by Reuben’s family I felt free to ask any question, to be entirely innocent of the facts. I wanted to understand the intimate history, their private lives, that led to life-changing events; to hear as many sides of the story as possible, to create something like a three-dimensional model of the past. I had nothing I was willing to add, nothing to contribute. I was curious about the odd addition to the house, but it was much more than simple curiosity that drove me to force these people to talk about things they’d rather leave behind, to dredge through all the unpleasant drama from years ago.
Esther and I spent some time talking about family in general before I got her around to the real subject of my investigation. My true motivation, nurtured over many years, was something they would never learn about, or so I hoped, even if the consequences did someday come to light. I’d considered the possibility that I might learn something that could change this path I’m on, but that was a risk I was willing to take, improbable as it was.
Family
“I heard him the night before,” Esther told me, recalling the events of three years ago. We sat in her cozy living room in the new addition: her house. She was sixty-eight, her gray hair pulled softly to the back, framing her long thin nose and full lips that she still colored. Esther sat in an overstuffed gold and blue armchair—small and delicate in her flowered house coat, her stockinged feet up on the coffee table. “It’s the arthritis,” she explained, “I would never sit like this otherwise.” The softly lit room had a calming effect on me: the air had an unidentifiable warm and pleasant odor of home. “He came home late, drunk as usual. I heard him cursing and crashing up and down the staircase on his side, and I wondered if he was all right.” She sighed. “The mother worries. Even when the seed turns bad.” Esther looked away for a moment; three years ago, she would never have spoken this way. I stood, giving her a moment of unobserved self-reflection, and walked around the room. Photos of her granddaughter, Dinah, other faces I didn’t know but which shared an unmistakable family resemblance. There was one small faded framed photo of Reuben as a child, stiffly posed holding a violin; it stood on the top shelf of a bookcase next to a wrought brass menorah, which looked unused—perhaps never used—a token gesture. “And then, to my shock, I heard him playing—playing the violin.” I sat back down on the little sofa facing her. “I hadn’t heard him play at all in a year, and that was the first time I heard him play in, I don’t know, at least ten years—maybe longer. He hadn’t played regularly, he hadn’t practiced, for decades.” She looked beyond me, her lips pressed tight with inner thoughts, forbidding her words from escaping unwanted, “and I was amazed to hear him. He’d never played before when he was drunk: it was a sacrilege. It scared me a little—like it was an omen.” She paused, then added emphatically, “I knew what was happening the next day.” She shifted in her seat uncomfortably. “He played very well as a boy,” she explained. “We thought that maybe he would become a musician, play in the orchestra. Instead, he drank. When I heard him that night it was as if he’d never stopped practicing—I was astonished by how well he played: he played with such energy and bravura.” She hesitated. “They used to say, when I was a girl, ‘Jews don’t drink. Jews don’t rob. Jews don’t kill.’ I suppose it was a fantasy we all clung to.”
Driving to work, Reuben always took his old pale green two-door Chevy Impala to the Shell Station to have his tank topped-off. He liked that particular gas station; it was the last in the city that wasn’t self-serve: the attendants pumped the gas, washed the windows, and checked the oil. And they were so polite to him as they briskly attended their tasks—he liked watching them work. It was only later that day that he noticed, after he heard the rustling, that there was a sheet of paper on the back seat.
I stopped by the same gas station before visiting Esther. I wasn’t intentionally retracing his footsteps, but it was on the way. The owner was suspicious at first, but eventually talked a little about Reuben. He’d been working on a car when I approached; its hood was still up as he walked away, rubbing his black greasy hands with a cloth that was already heavy with oil and dirt. I leaned against the side of my car and explained that I was buying Reuben’s car from him and was just confirming what he told me about its care and upkeep.
“That piece of shit? You’re buying that? What a fucking waste of money. It belongs on the garbage heap.” He shrugged. “Each to their own I suppose.” He examined me. “Are you a friend of his?” I shook my head. “And you’re not a lawyer or something, right?” He paused. “This guy was an asshole—a complete and utter asshole. Wish he’d never come into my station.” He paused. “You’re really not a friend of his, right?” I nodded and glanced away for a moment; I wasn’t a practiced liar—yet—and I didn’t want my eyes to betray me.
“He acted entitled—like he was the fucking King of Spain or something because we’re full service here—made us all feel like he looked down on us, like we’re servants or something. ’Course, he almost never said nothing, aside from ‘fill-er-up!’ What an asshole. And every fucking day—every fucking day—he took a Di-Gel or something and said he was getting gas in a gas station. That was the only other thing he said. What an asshole.”
I asked him to explain the impression Reuben gave of being entitled—that interested me.
He looked at me like he was confused and shook his head. “You don’t get it? The tank didn’t need filling—fill-’er-up,” he muttered mimicking Reuben’s voice, “you can’t even seriously call it topping-off. We’re talking here about like a buck of gas, maybe a buck-fifty. And for that he gets his windows washed and oil checked every single fucking day . . . what an asshole—fill-’er-up,” he muttered again, and walked away, grinding his filthy hands on his filthy cloth.
“I knew what was happening the next day,” Esther repeated softly. “I knew, and I didn’t stop it.” Her shame was palpable to me from across the room—I felt it pressing on my chest, a crushing dead weight. “The last time I heard him play—the last time he played at all till then, as far as I knew—was the night Miriam died. It was eerie. I heard the violin coming through the heating vents—it had a distant, sad quality to it. Then it seemed for a moment that someone was over there accompanying him—a thin voice, then a howling that grew louder. I realized that someone was wailing for the dead.” She paused. “You know, I never understood that expression, about hair standing on end, until that night, until I heard that sound.”
Henry Altgeld was known by Reuben’s family to be his only friend, if he could even be called that. The furniture in Hank’s rented room was like pasteurized wine: ageless, never changing, neither alive nor dead. It was just as ugly now as when his landlady picked it from the mail order catalog, objects that could have graced any cheap motel off an interstate highway. There was a small picture over the dresser. It was so faded and blurred that I couldn’t tell whether it was of his mother or Jesus. He sat crookedly in a large worn yellow chair; one leg crossed high over the other. The hand grenade that had torn away his left buttock had given him an honorable discharge and the unfortunate nickname “Half-Assed Hank.” Hank was tall and thin. If he’d been heavier, I imagined he might have looked like a lumberjack. His reddish-brown hair was unevenly combed—or maybe he had just passed his fingers through it: I pictured him looking in the mirror, roughly mussing his hair into some sort of shape, and then shrugging—like it was good enough. His cheeks were red and hollow. “Reuben drank too much,” he told me. “I mean, I guess, drinks too much. I should know,” he smiled, his crooked, discolored teeth showing, “so do I. Me and Reuben met years ago at a job. We both started workin’ the same time for the company—I mean the same day. He was in accountin’; I was in S-n-R—shippin’ ’n receivin’. Me and him happened to leave the same time that first day—in the same elevator, see? Did I say we worked the same hours? We didn’t say nothin’—we just went straight to a local bar and got drunk—like it was . . . like we decided before and didn’t need to say nothin’ more. He didn’t talk much—I mean, he wasn’t much of a talker, you know? But it just kinda became sort of a regular thing—we’d go out after work, like every day.” He paused, contemplating his words. “Yeah, it was a regular thing.” He shrugged. “Even after Reuben married her—what’s her name?—he still went to the bar. We both did.” Hank sat quietly for a minute or two. Then he shifted around on his chair again, finding a new spot to rest his weight. “You know, he liked her—Miriam, that’s it—he did like her. Maybe some people think he didn’t—like he drove her to her grave. I heard someone say somethin’ like that. I don’t know, maybe it’s true—I mean maybe he sent her to an early death, he wasn’t—I mean he isn’t an easy guy.” He stopped and seemed to reflect on the weight of his words. “Yeah. He liked her. I’d swear to it, but I couldn’t prove it—you know what I mean? He never talked about her—I mean even before they got married. I wasn’t sure he was datin’ someone, but I kinda guessed. Then one day we’re havin’ a few, and he says, ‘I’m gettin’ married.’ ‘Oh,’ I says. And that was pretty much that. You know, there wasn’t an invitation or nothin’ in a church,” he paused. “Do they have churches, these Jewish people? Well, they just went down to city hall. I’m not sure he loved her—no, I don’t think so, he didn’t seem like that kinda guy—I mean doesn’t seem.” He paused again. “See, the thing is, I ain’t seen him for a while, like a couple three years, I think . . . What was I sayin’? Oh yeah. So, I don’t know if he could love anything. But he didn’t kill her—no way no how. I mean, at least not the way people think about it, see? I’m sure he didn’t beat her or nothin’ like that—I’d bet my bottom dollar on that, you know. I think he just didn’t talk to her for like twenty years. I guess that could kill you, couldn’t it? He didn’t go in for the married life business, that’s for sure—like he didn’t say so, but it was pretty obvious. You know there are some guys—regular guys—and six months later you find them in the kitchen with an apron washin’ dishes. But not Reuben. Nope, not Reuben. He just went on like nothin’ happened.” Hank paused, and twisted around in his chair, struggling with a thought. His face became redder, somehow more gaunt. He looked briefly like an aging alcoholic—a derelict. “It’s like this. Some people spend their lives hungry, like they’re wantin’ somethin’ all the time. But I think Reuben spent his life overflowed, like he was tryin’ to get rid of somethin’.”
The day he was to be evicted began like any other morning for Reuben. He woke at six-thirty in a pool of cold sweat, stale with the smell of scotch. His mouth tasted sour and would have reminded him of the night before if it didn’t taste that way most every morning. On the way into his steaming, scalding shower he had a glass of Alka-Seltzer. He wore the same gray suit every day. It bagged at the knees, was threadbare at the elbows, had stains on the lapel, and had a new, mismatched collar sewn crookedly in place. His stomach bulged over the Ban-Roll waist of his trousers. He was always a bit damp, making his sleeveless undershirt visible through the yellowing white shirt he wore.
I talked to his manager at his old job. We sat at a wood veneer conference table; it wobbled slightly. I was glad I’d refused coffee.
“Abramowitz? I can’t talk to you about an employee, even a former employee. Why would you think that?”
I told him that I was his nephew, that there had been trouble, and we were trying to find out about his last days at work.
“Trouble? What kind of trouble?” he asked. I didn’t say anything, just kept looking at him. He glanced away from my gaze and shrugged. “There’s not a lot I can tell you. He was a hard worker, good at his job, didn’t seem to make friends with his coworkers . . . definitely didn’t talk much.” He paused, frowning. “Trouble? You know, I remember that his wife died—didn’t she?” I nodded. “I told him to take time off—we give that to our employees,” he added, proudly, “but he refused, just kept coming to work like nothing happened. I mean, I guess everyone grieves differently, but it did kind of surprise me . . . but you want to know about his last days. Well, everything seemed normal, he was exactly the same as always,” he paused. “I really did hope that one day he would get a new suit, his was pretty awful, but you know, I couldn’t say anything . . . but anyway, he was his usual self, always the same, and then one Friday—about three years ago, maybe?—he comes into my office with a letter of resignation and leaves. And that was that. We never heard from him again. Tried to send him his last paycheck, but the letter was returned; tried to call him to pick up his paycheck, but the phone was disconnected. It was all very strange.”
I asked if he knew whether Reuben had any interests outside of work.
“Outside? Not that I was aware of, you know, he didn’t talk. Wait. Now that I think of it, maybe he went to concerts sometimes. I saw tickets on his desk once. Longhair stuff: you know, Beethoven, Mozart, that kind of thing. Yeah, I think he had that going on. Strange guy.” He looked at me, then frowned. “You’re not here to try and collect that paycheck, are you? After all this time . . . I don’t know if that’s possible.”
I explained that I wasn’t there for the check and thanked him for his time.
Secrets
I managed to find two of Miriam’s friends from before she married Reuben and met them in a small coffee shop: Grace and Melanie. I explained that I was a private investigator hired by the family to look into the circumstances surrounding Miriam’s death. In hindsight, it would have been much better to interview them individually. It was near the college and had that kind of student ambiance: art on the walls; intense conversations over coffee—I knew our conversation might be awkward, but I wasn’t quite prepared for how difficult it would become. We sat at a round wooden table with less than comfortable wooden chairs. There was a word deeply scratched into the surface of the table. It began with the letter “F” but wasn’t the ubiquitous “FUCK.” I idly traced my finger over the remaining unreadable letters, in between a few vintage cigarette burns.
They had their coffees in to-go cups and mine was in a mug; I pondered that, the differing expectations—were they prepared to leave at any moment but not abandon their coffees? They were both pretty, but I couldn’t help but notice Grace’s deep blue eyes contrasting with nearly black long wavy hair—I made a conscious effort to ignore her appearance. Though also pretty, Melanie’s shoulder-length dirty blonde hair and pale blue eyes moved me less; and in either case, her cold and unfriendly gaze definitely prevented any possible attraction.
“A private investigator?” Mel looked at me suspiciously. “Do you have a business card or something?” I looked at her blankly and asked them to tell me what they knew about Miriam.
Grace started to speak, but Mel put a hand on her arm. “Wait a second. You won’t identify yourself, but you expect us to reveal personal things? I don’t think so.” She looked at Grace. “Come on, let’s go.”
I asked them to stay. I explained that this was a very delicate situation, and that there were family members who needed to be protected—and to best serve that purpose anonymity was imperative. They glanced at each other. “You mean Dinah?” Grace asked. I slightly inclined my head—not an actual nod, not a true agreement, barely even a wink. “I don’t like it,” said Mel, then sighed.
“I think you’re overly suspicious—you didn’t used to be like that, you know.”
“Well, you might be right, but I think you’re bullheaded and naïve—a dangerous combination, if you ask me.”
They looked at each other and giggled.
Grace smiled at me sweetly—she really was very pretty—she had a kind of alluring softness, and I needed to remind myself again why I was there, but I couldn’t stop myself from thinking it would be nice to have dinner with her. “We’ve known each other since we were twelve,” she shrugged. “I guess we’re used to our own peculiar ways.”
Mel gazed at me. “It’s true. But I still don’t trust you.” She turned to Grace. “We need to be careful about what we tell him.” Grace nodded and again smiled prettily at me. I was already unhappy with how the interview was going. I felt my control over the situation was quickly slipping away—I didn’t like that. I asked them to tell me about Miriam.
“What do you want to know?”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Mel. Just ignore her. Mel and I met in seventh grade.”
“Sixth, you mean.”
“No, seventh—Mrs. Marx’s class—you remember.”
“That was our first class together, but not when we first met, right?”
Grace shrugged and smiled at me. “She’s always right, you know.”
I asked if that was when they met Miriam.
“Miriam? No, of course not.”
“Mel, will you stop that already?” Grace shook her head. “Mel and I were friends long before we met Miriam. She transferred senior year—to our high school, I mean.”
“She arrived the summer before.” Mel stood. “I’m getting a refill. Anyone?” Grace shook her head; I didn’t think the offer was actually meant to include me.
“I think you and I should have met alone,” Grace smiled at me again. I glanced away hoping to avoid her warm eyes. “Yes, it’s true that Miriam arrived the summer before our senior year, but we didn’t meet her until the school year began. We saw her around the neighborhood that summer, we just didn’t know her, you know what I mean?” Mel sat back down and looked from one of us to the other. “Don’t look so worried—I haven’t revealed the missile launch codes.” Mel rolled her eyes.
I suggested that they continue with their story and not be too concerned about the details, of when exactly events occurred; we would return to points of interest later. Mel raised her eyebrows—I felt like she could see through me.
“We had a couple of classes together but didn’t really get to know her right away.”
Mel nodded. “She was a bit shy—not terribly so, mind you—but it would be tough to transfer to a new school in your last year, you know? Being the ‘new girl’”? Grace nodded. They were mostly talking to each other while I observed.
“She was a nice girl.”
“But kind of lonely—I’m glad we made friends with her. Do you remember why she transferred?”
“Yes, well, no—not exactly.”
Grace glanced away. “Was her dad in the military?”
“No, don’t be silly, Grace. There’s no military base around here. He was at the college—a professor, or a lecturer; something like that. You remember.” She frowned. “But there was something strange that happened. Do you remember?” Grace shook her head. “Miriam never said much about it, but I guess her mom had been married before, then moved here.”
“What’s so strange about being divorced and remarried?” Grace sounded tense; I wondered if her parents had been divorced.
Mel shook her head. “There was more to it, something odd. Like I said, Miriam never said anything about it . . . but I had the feeling that her mom was getting away from a bad marriage.”
Grace looked down, shaking her head.
“Grace? What is it?”
She looked back at us. I was startled—she looked very upset—she was still shaking her head. “I promised her I would never tell . . .” she whispered.
“Grace—what?” Mel asked, the worry in her voice unmasked. “Never tell? What are you talking about?”
Grace took a deep breath. “She told me about it once,” she turned to Mel, “a little bit, you understand, just like a hint—maybe she didn’t know the details.” She paused. “I think her mom’s husband—her first husband, before Miriam—had more than one family.”
Mel just stared at her. I sat up in my chair—alert—this was heading in a bad direction. A long silence passed. Finally, Mel spoke: “Wait a second. Do you mean—you’ve got to be kidding. Is that why—do you mean her mom moved here because her husband—her first husband had . . . are you sure?”
Grace shrugged. “That’s what she said, or kind of hinted at. But yeah, I think that’s what happened.”
“I didn’t see him the morning he was evicted,” Esther told me, “but I knew how he looked every day, how he dressed, how he acted.” She shook her head. “You think you know things until you don’t. Dinah didn’t say anything to me while we ate our breakfast—she was terribly nervous, I knew—she didn’t really eat anything, she was that nervous. I suppose I didn’t eat much either. For a week she had the eviction notice before she finally decided how to give it to him. But even then, she was frightened. It’s awful to say, but my only granddaughter was afraid of her father, my only son.” She paused. “But Dinah told me about him, about what happened when he left. She said she hardly recognized him, that she was shocked—it was as if being evicted revived him, brought him back to life, or made him alive for the first time.” She looked away. “Yes,” she said, half to herself, “you think you know things until you don’t . . .”
I busied myself with my coffee. I didn’t want to meet either of their gazes, especially Grace’s. We sat silently, tensely, for what seemed a very long time. I needed to redirect them from this line of thought, to continue my interview with them. “I realize that’s very shocking news,” I began slowly, “but if we could return to our previous conversation . . .”
They both looked at me—it was as if they’d forgotten I was there.
“Oh,” said Mel. “I guess . . . what were we talking about?”
“I don’t know . . .” Grace said uncertainly, “I think—I think you said something about her dad, the college . . .”
Mel nodded. “Yes. He taught at the college.”
“But she didn’t go when we did. He worked there—why didn’t she go with us?” I had the feeling that Grace was confused following her revelation.
“Grace, you know why.” She looked at me. “That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”
“Oh.” Grace looked at me without smiling. “Yes, I see.” She shook her head—they looked deflated as they thought about what came next. “We both went to the college, but Miriam didn’t. She couldn’t afford it, right?” Mel nodded. “She took a year off to work—she said that she still wanted to go to college—but she never said it was about money. But I guess that’s what it was. She got a job as a switchboard operator at that company. And met him.”
“It was almost the whole year—before they met, I mean—not right away.”
Grace paused. “I feel bad talking about this . . . I guess I forgot how sad it was—how sad it still is. Miriam was never exactly the life of the party—she was shy, you know—not that she’d mope or stand in the corner, or something. She was shy . . . but she was good-natured, funny, up-beat. She was a nice girl. She was our friend. And then everything changed.”
“That’s what you’re investigating, isn’t it?” asked Mel. “You’re investigating him and what he did to her. Then it’s true, isn’t it? She was murdered.”
Grace gasped and involuntarily put her hand to her mouth. “Is that true?” she asked me, then turned to Mel, “I thought it was ruled a natural death.”
“Natural?” snapped Mel, “what’s natural about a healthy thirty-nine-year-old woman dying?”
“Wasn’t she forty?”
“No, thirty-nine. Remember? She was twenty when she had Dinah.”
“Right. Thirty-nine. It’s hard to remember the details now; that’s how memory is, isn’t it? But you really think she was murdered?”
I urged them again to continue with the story. I regretted interviewing them together all the more—though their interactions were revealing.
“It wasn’t so easy to socialize with her once she took the year off—I mean, even before she met him. We had our own social life in college, it was like a separate world, you know?” I nodded. “The biggest problem was when boys were involved. They acted like somehow she was less than we were, like she didn’t deserve respect.”
“I don’t remember that,” Mel said sharply.
“I’m not saying something happened to her—I mean, it was more subtle, a feeling I got. But there was awkwardness—surely you remember that—and that boy Derek ‘accidentally’ grabbed her ass? You’ve got to remember that.”
Mel shrugged. “Derek. Yeah, I remember. What a pig. But I thought she was awkward just because we were in school, and she wasn’t. You think it was something more than that?”
Grace nodded. “Maybe she felt—I don’t know, inferior? Left behind for sure, but not just because we’d gone on to college.” She paused. “Maybe if we’d been better friends . . .”
“No,” said Mel forcefully, “don’t say that. It isn’t true: we were very good friends. There’s nothing we could have done to stop that man—that, that Reuben,” she practically spat the name, “from pursuing her.”
“See, she became more and more distant,” Grace added me back into the conversation. “I remember she wanted to introduce us to him one day after work—after her work: she wanted us to meet him. We joined her on the street—on the street outside her office building. She seemed nervous—not excited, you know, but nervous—then he came out. She smiled and waved and started walking towards him. He looked at her, looked at his watch, and without a word or another glance headed down the street with another guy, a tall skinny guy. Poor Miriam . . . she took a few steps after him, looked back at us—she looked baffled and embarrassed—then she turned to follow him, but he’d already stepped into a bar. She looked—I don’t know how to describe it—like she was stuck on the pavement, like she didn’t know which way to go . . . and then she ran away, crying.” Grace looked at Mel. “We should’ve gone after her.”
“We called her that night, remember? And saw her the next week. What difference would it have made?”
“I think that’s when she decided—when she decided to marry him.”
“You’re kidding. You can’t possibly know that.”
“No, but I’ve thought about it for a while. I think she was humiliated—I think she decided to marry him, that marrying him would keep her from being humiliated again.”
“But that—what are you saying?”
“I know. I think if we’d followed her that night, she wouldn’t have married him.”
Mel looked at Grace in astonishment. “You’ve never said that before. Wait. I want to—am I getting this right? You think if we’d followed her that night, we wouldn’t be talking to him,” she gestured towards me. “That Miriam would still be alive?”
Grace nodded. They both turned and looked at me coldly, as if I was the cause of their friend’s death.
“We saw her less and less after that. It seemed like she was pulling away. I think she was depressed, or scared, or just doing what she thought he wanted. She pretty much disappeared after she married him.”
“Yeah, I guess Reuben’s mother was into this Jewish thing,” Hank said to me. “You know, she thought they were different from everyone else. I don’t know. I mean, maybe not better—I only met her the once, but she didn’t seem stuck-up or nothin’—just different. But I don’t think Reuben was still Jewish—can you say that? Are there fallen Jews?”
I asked if they ever saw her again after that. “Once,” Grace said. Mel nodded. “Mel and I met for coffee one morning.” She glanced down at her cup and Mel’s and shrugged. “We were walking along the park, catching-up—I’d been traveling—and there she was: Miriam, her baby, and that man. She was looking down at her baby, at Dinah, smiling so sweetly; he was some distance away, uninvolved. She saw us—we waved—she looked surprised, happy, I think . . . She started to walk towards us, and then he noticed us. He made a quick jerking gesture with his chin and walked away. She looked . . . she looked so sad. Eyes down, she followed him. Obediently.”
“He was odd,” Mel began slowly. “It’s hard to describe. He was kind of pudgy—soft—and very poorly dressed; he looked like he slept in his clothes. But there was something else. Like he was—what was the word you used?” she asked Grace.
Grace nodded. “Bristling.”
“Yes, that’s it. Bristling. I don’t mean his hair, you understand, it was like—I know this sounds weird—it was like energy. Like this pudgy soft unattractive man was filled with energy. Odd.”
There was an awkward silence.
“None of this can possibly help a private murder investigation,” Mel said to Grace. “Can it?” she asked, looking at me. I simply gazed back at her. “I don’t think he’s an investigator of any sort—who are you? Why are you doing this?” She stood up. “I’m out of here. Grace? You coming?”
Grace stood and smiled sadly. She leaned over and put a hand on my shoulder. “If you hadn’t lied,” she said just above a whisper, “we could have had dinner tonight.” She straightened up and followed Mel out onto the street.
Sorrow
I spoke to Dinah in the kitchen of her grandmother’s house—her side of the house. They had never remodeled the kitchen—it still had the original white enameled appliances and cabinets from when it had been built. We sat at the round laminate table with chrome sides where Dinah and Esther ate their breakfast. Dinah didn’t offer me anything; I didn’t ask. The white laminate top was cold to the touch; it felt lifeless, like the rest of the room. “I was terrified of him,” Dinah told me. Her long curly brown hair was tied back, but not entirely successfully—several strands had come loose. She’d been a pretty girl; I saw her once very briefly when she was in her teens—she looked older now, not so much in years, but in troubles. “He was horrible, and I had no idea how he’d respond to being evicted. Evicted by me.” She took a long breath. “I wanted to walk right up to him and serve notice, just to see the expression on his face, I wanted to shove the paper in his face.” Her eyes got a far-away look as she pictured the scene. “His jaw would’ve dropped, eyes staring in disbelief. But I don’t know what would’ve happened after that—he’s a murderer.” Her eyes flashed, as if daring me to disagree. “Reuben murdered my Mama. I know the truth—that he killed her—that’s the truth.” She looked toward the window above the sink; I wondered if she saw the little garden beyond or was just staring out into space. “I couldn’t trust him. He might’ve attacked me, who knows?” She paused. “But . . . I don’t want to give you a false impression. He never hit me or Mama. He never screamed, or threatened, or threw things—of course, he hardly ever spoke. But you could feel it, like there was something built up inside of him, like maybe someday he would blow.” She sighed. “So yeah . . . I left the paper on the back seat of his car, that stupid ugly old car. It may have been the coward’s way, but it was the only thing I could do, the only way I felt safe. I was even too scared to put it on the front seat.” She looked at me. “Why did he have that stupid ugly old car? I never understood . . .”
Before she married Reuben, Miriam lived with her cousin Rose; they shared an apartment in a pleasant working-class neighborhood. After Miriam died, Rose moved into a neat little brick townhouse in a row of identical neat little brick townhouses. I called her several times—I figured she might know more about what happened than anyone—but she hung up every time. I went to her house and rang the doorbell. She was furious, but finally let me in, and reluctantly showed me into her living room. It was small, like the house, and neat as a pin—there was nothing out of place. I sat across from her in an armchair; on the coffee table that separated us was a two-tier glass candy dish with round mints and candy raspberries: they looked fake; I was reluctant to try one. She was, like her house, small and neat: maybe five feet tall; her graying hair was cut in something like a pageboy—I briefly thought about the length of women’s hair throughout the phases of their lives.
“I don’t want to talk to you,” she said, her voice shaking with anger. “Why are you asking about this, why are you bringing these things up? Why won’t you let it be?”
I explained that there was an insurance policy, that I was required to get more information, and that I needed her help—anything she could tell me would be helpful. People like to believe they can be helpful; I suggested that she start with how Miriam and Reuben met.
“Insurance?” she seemed to crumple on the sofa facing me, like she couldn’t fight any longer. “I don’t know what I can tell you,” she said wearily, “but I’ll tell you what little I know.” She paused, her face red with anger. “But I tell you that he killed her. He might not have put a gun to her head, but he killed her—plain and simple—he killed my Mim.” She sighed. “I begged Mim—Miriam—not to marry him. Begged and pleaded with her. I didn’t meet him while they were dating—I thought that was very strange—I asked her why. She said he was awkward, and she didn’t want to make him feel uncomfortable, that he was uncomfortable around other people. I didn’t believe her. I told her I didn’t believe it and asked why she would date someone who refused to meet her family.” Rose paused, reflecting on the painful past.
I urged her to continue. “But at least we didn’t lose touch, not really. I was afraid she would disappear, that once they were married he would hide her, keep her away, and I would never see her again—I would never see my Mim again. And now I never will.” She sniffled and pressed a tissue to her nose. “But at least we still talked sometimes. She told me how our Dinah asked why she married Reuben. Mim was surprised,” she chuckled at the memory, “but it was when Dinah was first discovering an interest in boys, so it seemed pretty natural.” She smiled slightly, recalling her own teen crushes, then her smile faded. “You really want to hear all this? For insurance?” I nodded and reminded her that anything she could tell me would be helpful. “Mim said she was surprised at first . . . but told Dinah what she could. She didn’t have so much to tell her—not that she was hiding much from her—there just wasn’t much to say. Mim said she wasn’t sure how it happened—but didn’t believe that anyone ever did.” She frowned. “I don’t know, maybe that’s true—or true about love, I guess. You can see that I live alone . . .” She shrugged. “She was working as a switchboard operator for the same company where he worked. She told our Dinah how they met in the cafeteria—there was a cafeteria in the building back then—just by chance they met. Can you even call it meeting? I think it’s more like he saw her, chose her, and asked her out. She said he wasn’t bad looking then. I don’t think he asked her out because he liked her, or was attracted to her, or anything normal—no, it was more like she was standing there so he asked her: like she was just something else in the cafeteria—something to put on his tray. She showed me a photo once—she didn’t normally carry it with her, doesn’t that tell you something?—and I could see that he wasn’t too bad looking. Not great, mind you, but not too bad. Kind of dumpy . . .” she shifted in her seat uncomfortably. “They went out for a while—movies, a show or two—but he hardly said anything to her. Mim told me that she was alarmed at first, but he kept asking her out, so she turned his reticence into mystery, and her interest grew.” She shook her head sadly. “My Mim was nice-looking—maybe not drop-dead gorgeous, you know, but nice enough. She could have met a decent man. She just wanted to be loved—maybe needed to be loved. Is that asking for so much?” It seemed like a rhetorical question, so I didn’t answer. Rose looked down, embarrassed, then continued. “I was really worried about her. It wasn’t natural . . . I’ve known people who keep themselves to themselves; people who don’t talk much; people who won’t talk around strangers . . . but this man never talked. She told me when he asked her to marry him—I suppose he actually spoke then. I begged her to say no, begged her—but she believed that with intimacy he would open up more—start to speak more. It only got worse. And then the baby came—our Dinah—and it was even worse, if that’s possible.”
She paused and looked around the room, as if searching for something. “I really don’t see how this helps—what does this have to with insurance?” I explained that after so many years we needed a complete background and asked her to continue. I suggested that she tell me a bit about Esther. She frowned. “Esther, his mother?” she looked at me as if surprised by my presence. “Making her live in that strange addition to the house didn’t help. He stopped sleeping with my Mim, then stopped looking at her, and finally stopped speaking to her completely. She said that for a while she tried to win him back, and then finally asked him if he wanted a divorce. He never acknowledged the question, never even acknowledged her presence.”
“Dinah bought the house from me about a year after her mother died,” Esther explained. “She didn’t know I had the deed—it was something I never thought about, it didn’t mean anything to me. But we were talking about what to do with some of Miriam’s possessions—Reuben didn’t care, he was in some other world, his own world. And I just happened to mention it. Her face changed—she flushed red, her eyes looked feverish—and I knew what she wanted, and what she wanted to do with it, without saying a word. I sold the deed to her for a dollar.”
I asked why she had the deed—why it wasn’t in Reuben’s name. She shrugged.
“Why did he do anything? He transferred it to me when he built the second house and I moved in. Maybe he didn’t want Miriam to have it. Who knows?”
She seemed willing to talk, so I asked about the addition.
She shook her head. “It would be nice to say that he wanted me near him. But this is Reuben we’re talking about. I really don’t know. He brought me the keys and deed to the whole property one day; all he said was ‘I built a house. You’re moving.’ What a thing.”
“Yeah, Reuben told me about Miriam dyin’. Then gettin’ kicked outta his house the same way he said he was gettin’ married—you know, like it was no big deal,” Hank explained. “He talked about everythin’ that way, like he was talkin’ about the weather—I mean, when he talked at all, but it was never more than like a word or two. I think he just said ‘got evicted’ and went back to his drink. I never once saw him excited about nothin’.” He paused and looked like he was searching for a thought. “No, that ain’t true, once. A violin concert, some Russian guy. Can you believe it? I mean, who’d think he’d be interested in that kinda stuff?”
“She didn’t say anything, but I think Grandma was horrified when I bought the deed to the house from her,” Dinah told me. “She understood what I meant to do with it. She shook her head as she looked through her papers. I heard her say, ‘schande, schande,’ under her breath. I don’t know if she was crying; she might have been, but memory is like that, isn’t it?”
I asked if Esther had ever said anything to her about Reuben’s father—her ex-husband.
Dinah shook her head. “Not really. It’s not like she was secretive about it, you know, she just didn’t talk about him. I guess I was curious, maybe in my teens. Genealogy, roots, all that kind of stuff . . . I don’t remember, maybe a school assignment. It sounds like one, doesn’t it?” I nodded. “All Grandma told me was that he went away when Reuben was little. I also asked Mama about it—yes, I asked Mama. She said she didn’t really know, except that ‘he went away when Reuben was little.’ The exact same words. I never really thought about it before. It’s strange, isn’t it? Like something they rehearsed.” She paused, then looked at me, surprised. “I just realized—I don’t even know his name.”
I asked Rose if she knew anything about Esther’s ex-husband, Reuben’s father.
“His father?” she shook her head. “Not really. Miriam once said he wasn’t there—but what does that mean? Uninvolved? Gone away? Dead? I really don’t know anything; I think she didn’t want to talk about it. But there was something odd. She never said more, but I just had a feeling, you know?” She paused. “Insurance? This really has something to do with insurance?”
I didn’t want her to press me with questions, so asked if she knew anything about the addition, about why he’d made a second identical house attached to the original like a Siamese twin, why Esther lived there.
She shook her head. “No idea.” She looked at me hard, her eyes locked on mine. “Is he still alive? Why don’t you ask him?”
I held her gaze without blinking. Finally, she looked away. “Go now,” she said, turning her back to me. “Show yourself out. Don’t ever come back.”
Tragedy
It took a while, but I managed to track down Reuben’s violin teacher from his youth. He was quite elderly, living in a retirement community, but still seemed sharp. We sat in a communal room and talked. The large squared-off institutional chairs had inoffensive and yet unattractive cushions; they would have been at home in a hospital, a hotel room, pretty much anywhere other than a home.
“Abramowitz? No, I don’t think I remember that name. Wait, Reuben Abramowitz? Oh—do I remember him? How could I forget! Such a talent, such a talent.” He shook his head. “You wouldn’t believe it. He was born to play the violin—God gave that to him, you know—it was such a joy to teach him. If all my students had been like him—but they can’t be, can they? Not everyone should be a genius. If they were, how would you know? No, they shouldn’t all be Reubens . . . He could play anything, it was stunning—even as a boy—I was wondering if I was looking at the next Yehudi Menuhin. His playing was fearless—he didn’t care if he made mistakes—he never played timidly even if he didn’t know the piece. And he practiced! So often you have to schlep these kids along, cajoling, threatening, begging—but Reuben practiced, and worked hard.” He paused. “Do you know him? Have you heard him play?”
I explained that I was a friend of the family. I was helping them with a family tree, finding their roots, their genealogy. I was looking-up people who knew him from the past.
“For a family tree?” he shrugged. “It sounds more like an obituary. But why not, I suppose . . . it’s too bad you never heard him play. But do you listen? Do you appreciate music?” I nodded. “That’s good. You know, there’s nothing greater than music—that’s what I think—there’s nothing greater.” He lightly touched the left arm of his chair, his fingers curled and crooked with age, but still unconsciously moving on an invisible violin fingerboard. “But what happened to him? He stopped his lessons when he was still young. Maybe in his teens. You know how boys are—girls, parties, cars—who needs the violin?” He shook his head. “I never saw his name in the paper—but maybe he kept playing?”
I explained that he had worked as an accountant.
“An accountant?! You’re breaking my heart—it’s too much. Such a talent . . . thrown away on counting beans? It’s a scandal . . .” He looked at me for a long moment; I could see tears forming in his eyes. “I was glad at first to talk about Reuben, to remember that wonderful, talented, little boy. But now you’ve ruined it for me. It’s too sad,” he wiped a tear from his cheek. “Please go. I know you didn’t mean to hurt me, but you did. Please, go now.”
“What was he like when he was little?” Esther repeated my question, “the same only smaller.” Her face reddened. “I know what you’re asking. He didn’t pull the wings off flies, he didn’t hurt animals, he didn’t molest the little girl who lived next door. He was just as quiet then—he played the violin every day, maybe that was how he spoke. You know, it seems like a blessing when you’ve got a well-behaved quiet boy who doesn’t eat your liver—and then something like this happens. You don’t have kids, do you. I didn’t think so.” She paused. “I think he dated a few girls before Miriam, but I’m not sure—they were probably the kind of girls you don’t bring home to meet your mother.” She went silent for several minutes, chewing the skin on her lower lip. She touched a bunched-up tissue to her nose.
“You’re probably going to ask, so I’ll tell you. You want to know about his father, don’t you?” I nodded. “Are you any good in the kitchen? Please make some coffee—I’d get up and do it myself if it wasn’t for this damned arthritis.” She pointed at her feet as if they weren’t attached to her body.
There was a coffee maker in the all-white enameled kitchen and some ground coffee on the counter next to it. As the coffee brewed, I looked around the kitchen. The living room told a story about the family life, about the history of these people, but the kitchen seemed devoid of clues. I poked my head out the door and asked if she wanted anything in her coffee.
“A splash of half-and-half, if you don’t mind.” She paused. “Really, this is awkward for me—I would never ask a guest . . . I’ve always been a good host, but the arthritis is bad today.”
I looked inside the fridge. Nothing of interest—typical middle-class groceries: eggs, cheese, milk, some cold cuts, an old bottle of ketchup . . . I opened several cabinets looking for coffee cups—even though my first guess was correct—snooping, hoping for more clues. Again, nothing worth noticing. I decided on mugs, not coffee cups. She probably would have done the opposite, but I didn’t want to take her part as host away from her.
I sat facing her; she blew on her steaming cup before carefully tasting it. “Hmm. Not bad. Married? Girlfriend?”
I looked at her without response; I gave nothing away.
She sighed. “You can’t be a human being? I guess not—you’re asking questions, not talking. But maybe another time.” She pursed her lips sourly. I wondered if it was annoyance with me, the coffee, or thinking about what she was going to tell me. “It’s not much of a story. He left when Reuben was two—as it turned out, he had another family. Can you believe such a thing? Schmuck. Was he a bigamist? Who knows. Usually, you worry about if he’s running around with other women, but this one, this one had another family.” She shook her head. “He wasn’t silent like Reuben, you know, but he wasn’t much of a talker either. One morning he said, ‘I’m leaving.’ I thought he meant for work, but on a Saturday? No, he was leaving for good—and I mean good, the bastard, though I didn’t think so at the time. Who does that. Two families? It broke my heart—I couldn’t help it, could I? Sure, I was furious, but also so hurt.” She shook her head. “Reuben was too young to know what was going on, he was only two. The bastard only came around once after that. Reuben was seventeen, playing with a youth orchestra. He played a concerto—the Sibelius—quite beautifully. You know it? The glassy tones at the end? A beautiful piece. Anyway, his father came to that. He didn’t stay until the end, but left a note for Reuben:
The Sibelius? Really?
“That was it, nothing else, never saw him again, never heard from him. The shit.” She looked to the side, angry, then turned back and shrugged. “What can you do? I think Reuben was hurt, but you know, silence from him. At least the alimony and child support came regularly—we couldn’t have gotten by without it. Maybe that’s why Reuben quit the violin—or at least . . . well, I thought he stopped playing, but somehow I must have been wrong about that. I don’t know,” she paused. “He never said, but I think that’s why he built this second house, because of his father, to do something for me. It’s just a guess, since—well, I’m repeating myself,” she shifted uncomfortably on her chair, “but you know, he didn’t talk.”
I asked if the other part of the house, the original, was still used—if they went in there at all. She looked bewildered.
“Why on earth would we do that? Of course not. I haven’t been in there in three years.” She hesitated, then spoke softly as if repeating a secret. “I think Dinah goes in now and then. She’s never said so, I’ve never asked, but I think she goes in. Maybe to see where her mother died.”
“Since Mama died, four years ago, food hasn’t tasted right to me,” Dinah admitted to me. “For a while I was worried about it—I thought that maybe I was going crazy, or I was ill . . . Then one day I knew what was missing from the food—the tears that fell into everything that Mama made while she cooked at the stove.” I looked away—I was embarrassed for her for saying that.
Dinah sat awkwardly; it seemed like she was trying to avoid looking at me. “The old house?” she hesitated. “Maybe I’ve been in there once or twice. I don’t know. Does it matter?”
I told her I was just curious—that it was interesting to me to learn anything she could tell me. I reminded her that we were “family.” A long silence followed; I waited patiently, looking at her. She shrugged. “I guess it doesn’t make any difference . . . but if you don’t mind, please don’t tell Grandma. So yeah, I’ve been in there—a bunch of times, I don’t know how many. I told myself at first it was for security, to make sure that the doors and windows were locked. Afterall, there’s an unlocked door between the two houses.” She paused. “Maybe we should put a lock on it,” she mused, half to herself, looking at the ceiling. “I should talk to Grandma about that,” she continued, looking at me. I nodded. “Finally, my curiosity got the better of me. I wanted to see his room. You understand, I hadn’t been in his room since I was a girl. I was curious, okay?” she asked defensively, as if responding to an accusation. “I imagined it would be filthy, full of empty bottles of booze or beer cans, or I don’t know what. I figured it would be a pigsty, something awful, stinking—something awful. But I was really shocked. It was neat as a pin. Clean. Simple mind you, almost no furniture. A bed, a dresser, a wooden dining room chair, and a music stand . . . the music stand was in the middle of the room, like it was the centerpiece. It seemed unreal to me—I couldn’t help touching the thing. It was hard and cold, and that made me feel better—like it was him.
“It took a while longer, a lot longer, for me to dare to go into Mama’s room. The last time I’d been in there was when he killed her,” her eyes flashed angrily, again daring me to contradict her. “It was a terrible mess—the last people in there were the men from the ambulance, and then later . . .” she paused and swallowed heavily, “later the men from the funeral home.” She teared-up. “You see? Three years later?” She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue, then checked it for mascara smudges. “That house—that side of the house—feels like a trap, like a prison . . . maybe this house too . . . like there’s a fence around it . . . like—I don’t really know how to say it. It’s as if it traps my feelings, keeps them hemmed-in, corralled, like I’ll only feel grief forever. And that nothing else, no other feelings can come in. We’re fenced-in: there’s no escape from here, from it.” She paused and looked down—she looked as defeated as I’ve ever seen anyone. I wanted to comfort her, but of course I couldn’t.
She sighed and continued. “But Mama’s room—I wanted to clean it up, make it nice and neat, just the way Mama would want it. It wasn’t actually hard work, but it took a lot out of me.” She paused again, then looked at me, and pleaded: “please, I beg of you, don’t tell Grandma . . .”
Death
I tried to find the EMTs who went to the house when Miriam died. I went to the local hospital. I was lucky to have picked a quiet time, there was only one patient in the waiting room. The nurse on-duty in the emergency room seemed friendly enough at first, but once she understood that I wasn’t there for urgent medical care, she asked me to leave. I didn’t argue.
“When I heard that wailing, the night Miriam died, it made my hair stand on end. It was so primitive—like a dog howling for its dead master. And I knew it was Dinah. I rushed through the door that connected my house with the other—I guess I said that already, about the kitchen doors—I knew what had happened, but I couldn’t believe it. When I came into the living room, Dinah was staggering down the stairs, holding both sides of her head and screaming, ‘oh my God, no!’ over and over again. I thought she was covering her ears because she couldn’t bear the sound of her own screaming. I tried to comfort her, but I don’t think she knew who I was. Suddenly, she stopped screaming and shouted that she had to go out and mow the lawn. I tried to stop her—it was the middle of the night—but she was strong.” Esther pulled a bunched-up tissue from one of her sleeves and pressed it against her nose. “Through it all I heard Reuben playing the Bach—the Chaconne—on his violin upstairs. That’s why she was covering her ears.” She looked straight at me. “Don’t misunderstand, it’s not that he was playing badly, quite to the contrary. He was playing it . . . how can I describe it? It was sensitive, but strong. Sensitive vigor. Soaring and terrifying—but not quite going over the edge into madness . . . Yes, that’s it. But it’s not a piece you can sight-read—how did he learn it? When did he learn it? No, it wasn’t the piece or his playing—it was simply a sound from him, any sound, like he was finally speaking, and at that time . . . such a horror! His wife is dead and he’s playing the Bach . . .”
The bartender crossed his arms over his chest and looked at me sourly. “Yeah. I don’t talk about people. Let’s call it a policy.” The bar was dimly lit; the mirror behind the bar doubling itself gave the impression that the room was more than a narrow hallway. Like so many such places, it reeked of bourbon, a smell that’s always disgusted me.
I put a twenty on the bar. He pursed his lips and started to step away. I asked for a scotch, neat.
He looked at the twenty, peered at me in the gloom, and nodded. “Yeah, that’s the old shit,” he said, tapping the bill, “they don’t do that no more . . . it’s all credit cards. I kinda miss it, you know?” He poured a glass of scotch from a nameless bottle. He tapped the bill again. “Yeah, I think I know who you’re talkin’ about.” He shrugged. “I guess it don’t make a fuckin’ bit of difference, does it?” I swallowed the tasteless nondescript scotch and slid the glass forward. He nodded and refilled it. “Reuben, you said? Didn’t know that’s his name. Whatever. Yeah, he used to come in here like clockwork. Must’ve worked nearby—no one lives around here.” He shrugged, then looked at the clock: it read five-twenty. He looked at me and scratched the back of his head. “Well, that’s—I guess it’s none of my business. Reuben, huh? Didn’t know. Well, so he came in here every day—every workin’ day that is—like clockwork. Five-twenty on the nose. Most of the time he came in with that friend of his—you know him, too? Tall skinny guy. That one, he talked. Your Reuben guy almost never said nothin’. His pal probably talked too much. I don’t think there’s nothin’ else I can tell you.”
I asked if Reuben ever met anyone else here—if, for example, there was a woman. He refilled my glass.
“A woman? Puttin’ up with the kinda shit?” he snorted. “I ain’t never met a woman who tolerated that kinda shit—I mean the guy didn’t speak, except for ‘scotch, neat’ . . .” He stopped in mid-sentence and looked at me again. “Five-twenty—scotch, neat,” he murmured. “What the fuck? Are you his brother or somethin’?” He leaned across the bar; I could smell his sour breath. “I don’t want no fuckin’ trouble here in my joint, got it?” he whispered harshly, his voice cutting hard. “I don’t know what your game is pal, but I don’t want none of it. You’ve had your talk, now get the fuck out—I don’t wanna ever see you in here again.” He pushed back from the bar and stood straight as an arrow—he was taller than I’d realized. I shrugged, swallowed my third generic scotch, and left the bar.
“Yes,” said Esther, “that friend of his did come to the house once—Hank, was it? I’m not sure he really could have friends. I mean, what kind of friend could Reuben possibly be? I guess they were drinking buddies. Reuben’s horrible car was in the shop, so this Hank guy picked him up for work one day. He could actually speak,” Esther snorted with derision, “but I’m not sure there was much going on upstairs.” She pointed at her head and then blushed. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t know him, he just seemed—I don’t know, not very . . .” she sighed. “I don’t know what to say. How about he just didn’t impress me, okay?” She looked at me and frowned. “But you? Where do you fit into this? You do look kind of related, I guess . . . did you say you grew up around here? It’s strange, I could swear I know you from someplace. But I guess it’s just that you’re—what is it? A cousin, something or other?” Her examining gaze made me uncomfortable. “Were you—are you—a friend, do you know him?” Her voice had a pleading tone to it; it felt like the mother still hoping that something good has come of her son, no matter what he’d done in the past. I looked at her, unblinking; I wasn’t there to soothe her, to make her feel better. She shook her head. “That’s how it is?” she looked sad. “That’s how it is,” she repeated. She seemed to have gotten smaller in her chair. I felt bad about this, about all of it, but hardened my heart.
The director at Perkins and Sons Funeral Home was soft-spoken, solicitous, and obsequious; but beneath that I sensed an authoritative core—the combination made me uncomfortable and alert. I privately wondered if the large vases of flowers were there to mask the smell of rotting flesh; if the soft bittersweet music in the background covered-up the sound of saws on bones in my imaginary basement of horrors.
I explained that I was representing the family—a friend of the family—and they were considering a memorial service. I admitted my ignorance of such arrangements, and so thought it best to start with Mr. Perkins himself—an expert.
He shook his head. “I’m afraid I can’t be of much help to you there, sir; those are usually done at the loved-ones’ house of worship—or sometimes their own home.” He paused, considering me. “Of course, everyone has their own way of doing things, sir.”
I told him that I was a recent friend of the family—I hadn’t known the deceased—and wondered if he remembered who had made the arrangements for the funeral: was it her bereaved husband? He looked at me oddly. “Well . . . as I said, sir, everyone has their own way, their own way of grieving. It was the deceased’s mother and daughter who made the arrangements. I was told she had a surviving husband, but never met him.” He paused. “No doubt he was overcome with grief—his daughter certainly was.”
I was surprised by his willingness to talk to me, though his softly spoken words, uttered while standing too close, were disturbing—almost as if he was telling me dirty secrets. I knew where I really wanted to take this conversation but feared I would go too far. I reminded him that of course I hadn’t been at the funeral—I wondered if it had been an open casket service.
“No sir . . .” I could sense from the tone of his voice that he was becoming more wary. “It was closed casket.” I apologized profusely for the question and explained that I had yet to have a loved-one pass on, and my ideas about funerals and funeral homes were formed entirely by television and the movies. He smiled and seemed to relax a bit. “Many of our clients come to us that way—we try our best to take the burden of what must be done from the bereaved family and friends.”
Throwing caution to the wind, I observed that in the movies they showed the deceased being made-up and dressed and wondered if that was the case with Miriam.
He cut me off before I finished. “You would need to ask the family about that,” he said tersely, all the friendly soothing veneer gone. “Your questions are inappropriate, and I must ask you to leave.”
Though unsatisfied and ultimately disappointed—I wanted to know much more about Miriam’s death—I was glad to get out of there, glad to be free of his oppressive manner. Esther had told me that it was Miriam’s heart—I wanted to imagine that she meant her metaphoric heart. Heartbreak seems to be fatal only in fiction, but I felt I’d exhausted my likely avenues of exploration. But death by either heart failure or heartbreak were acceptable explanations for me, despite my wish to know more.
I decided to take a chance and call Grace. I knew it was a bad idea, but I figured that the worst thing that could happen was that she’d be angry and hang-up on me.
“You again? I didn’t expect to hear from you.” I heard her sigh across the line. I knew I was on shaky ground but continued. I explained that I wanted to know if Miriam had ever said anything to her about Reuben’s father.
“His father? You’ve got to be kidding me. The man didn’t speak.” She paused. “You didn’t really call to ask about that, did you? You thought maybe you could ask me out. You’ve got some nerve.” She hung up.
I’d told myself that I was calling to ask about Reuben’s father, even though it was a longshot, but I knew she was right: I wanted to ask her out, even after that meeting at the coffee shop with Mel. I was irritated with myself: this was exactly the kind of thing I wanted to avoid—emotional entanglement with any of these people I was interviewing. Especially becoming interested in one of them. And I’d been wrong: the worst thing that could happen wasn’t that she might be angry, but that she might reject me—and it hurt. I was disgusted with myself.
The tinny voice on the intercom outside the tailor’s shop asked for my name—I explained I hadn’t been to the shop before. There was a pause, and then the metallic voice asked who referred me. “Reuben Abramowitz” got me buzzed-in. I found myself in a small room stacked from floor to ceiling with bolts of cloth—it smelled a bit like an old library. The shop was something out of another era, another world; I felt as if having crossed the threshold of the mechanical doorman I’d traveled back in time, back to another century. I wondered how many people still had clothing tailor-made for them—maybe more than I realized.
The tailor, an older but not old, balding man shook his head in negation. He leaned on his ledger book as if to make sure it didn’t reveal anything independently. I looked down, blinked a few times, and managed to get a tear in the corner of one eye. I explained that Reuben loved the suit the tailor had made for him so much. I looked at him sadly and touched my cheek where it had gotten moist.
“He died?” I nodded and explained that his widow had shown me the suit—she kept it as a remembrance—and that I was interested in getting fitted for one: he must be a wonderful tailor.
“Widow?” He picked-up his measuring tape. “Didn’t his wife die? I think he told me that.” I nodded. “Some families are like that, aren’t they.” He stretched the tape across my shoulders and wrote on a card with the stub of a pencil. “Just one tragedy after another.” He paused and looked at me in the face. “It’s odd—you look just a little bit like him . . .” I looked back without responding. He shrugged and continued taking my measurements, making more notes on his card. I asked if he knew when Reuben’s suit had been made. He hesitated, then flipped through the ledger. “Just about four years ago.” He looked at me again—I began to feel uncomfortable under his gaze. “I’ve got a good eye for faces—you really do look related.”
I asked to see some bolts of suiting cloth, hoping to divert his gaze. He pulled a few down. I told him that I’d admired the color of Reuben’s. He seemed surprised, as if it was ghoulish, then pulled down the bolt of cloth. “It’s a premium fabric,” he observed; I thought he might have phrased it that way to avoid the indelicacy of questioning my financial resources. I felt the heft of the cloth in my hand—light weight, smooth, dark blue with a subtle gray stripe; it draped luxuriously over my hand. “Beautiful, isn’t it? Imported wool and silk blend.”
I asked if Reuben had said anything about his wife’s death. The tailor shook his head. “No sir, he said little enough—not very communicative. I got the impression that buying the suit was in some way related to his wife’s death. Not what one would wear in mourning of course.” He shrugged. “But he didn’t say anything else.” He paused, looked at me again, and frowned. “I think he might have played the violin—do you know?”
I interrupted him and asked when the suit would be ready, gave him a deposit, and quickly left the shop—explaining that I was late for an appointment. I felt his eyes following me. I berated myself; I hadn’t been careful enough—I was getting sloppy.
“Reuben left one week to the day after I evicted him. I really wanted him to move out immediately but knew that wasn’t right—I thought I needed to give him that at least—though I hardly slept at all that week knowing he was next door, that a murderer was next door.” Dinah had a far-away look as she reminisced. “He came down into the kitchen—our kitchen—wearing a dark blue suit I’d never seen before; it fit well, and he looked rather smart in it. His shirt was clean and white, his shoes immaculately polished . . . the suit, everything looked new. He looked so different, almost unrecognizable. He seemed—vibrant. Energized. He had two suitcases and his violin case. He looked at me—like I was a wall, without a trace of feeling—and said, ‘I take only what is mine.’ Then he opened the suitcases and the violin case. The violin struck me the way the blue suit and the shoes had—it seemed shiny and well taken care of, the varnish had a seductive depth to my eye. In one suitcase was his clothing, clean, new, well-cared for. The other was filled with music. I never knew he had so much music.” She looked down for a moment. When she raised her head again, the sorrow on her face was almost more than I could bear. “Isn’t it awful? I evicted him because he killed my Mama, and he got reborn, while I’m trapped here—trapped in this house, in this life.”
Family Secrets, Sorrow, Tragedy, and Death
My brief foray into these people’s damaged lives was complete; I’ll almost certainly never see any of them again. Given the twisted and complicated family relationships—family secrets, secret families—I decided from the beginning to interview these people, rather than have conversations. It also saved me from having to talk about myself, which was crucial.
I discovered that I was not only willing to lie—to say anything at all—to get what I wanted, but that I had greater facility in doing so than I’d imagined. It’s an ugly word, “manipulation,” but I can’t deny that I went far beyond lying, manipulating these poor people in my quest. Perhaps in the future I’ll look back on this time and reach a better understanding about why I decided to conduct my exploration like this, and what it says about my participation in resuscitating the painful past—what it says about me as a person.
I never had any real doubts about the facts, and the agonizing intimate details that I culled unwillingly from them, though surprising at times, did little more than satisfy my curiosity. But my conscience is clear: it was absolutely essential that I have all the facts right and was glad to have them confirmed with certainty. My task was complete, my curiosity was mostly satisfied, and despite the pain I brought these people I can leave them and move on—remembered as little more than a shadow. Will they talk about my visits? I suspect that before too long I’ll be forgotten—an odd relative who appeared, asked questions, and disappeared.
As for poor Miriam, my half-sister, aside from a faded photo of her that my father kept hidden—and which I discovered—I never met her, and yet I still think of her as my real sister. The smudged blue ink words on the photo’s back started my journey: “My daughter, Miriam. Please don’t contact me again.” I was worried at first when I started visiting her grave that someone would notice me—a stranger at her graveside—but since then became bolder about my visits, cleaning her grave and leaving flowers. Reuben doesn’t know about this—about any of it—yet. But someday . . . someday there will be a reckoning.
In the meantime, I must remember to call Reuben tonight to remind him that our string quartet rehearsal has been changed this week to Thursday.
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