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  “Poet Stolz,” he said, his arm sweeping the room and catching Stolz in the neck, “all these good people have contributed funds to help you continue your wonderful work.”

  He handed Stolz the envelope, which Stolz accepted while transforming his benefactor into as an organ grinder and himself an ingratiating monkey.

  Stolz had come away with twenty single-dollar bills. He rubbed at the roll in his pocket, accepting as just irony the possibility that he might never enjoy spending it since he was sentenced to freeze to death on the stoop for the recidivist crime of losing his key.

  Snow began to fall. To pump heat into his veins, he imagined the Jewish Daily Forward running a skimpy obituary on him. Enraged, he punched Schrage, the editor, bloodying his nose, and triumphantly shouting: “Ha, you thought dead was the end of me.”

  Harry, head down, his forlorn eyes fixed on his bike’s useless chain, did not see Aba.

  “Hey, boychik,” Aba shouted, “all the gold in the Goldeneh Medinah has been found. You can stop looking.”

  “Aba!” Harry dropped the bike and leapt into an embrace.

  “Hoo-hah, such a welcome. In Philadelphia, they were slightly more restrained. Anyway Heshele, you saved my life. I lost my key—don’t say what again—and was within an icicle of death, when you, my savior, arrived.”

  Harry ran up the steps to open the door.

  “Heshele, the bike. It seems to be a different one. Don’t come down. I’ll get it.”

  Inside they sat in the kitchen. Aba poured himself half a water glass of vodka and gulped the colorless liquid.

  Harry thought of Aba as a man on fire. His carrot-colored, uncombed hair stood up like licks of flame. The matching beard was a brush fire scorching albino-white skin and menacing a thin hooked nose. His green eyes were saved from incineration by their luminous wetness. Chapped lips, however, had been seared into permanent parting, revealing yellow teeth that rooted at any available angle like trees desperately clinging to a mountainside.

  “Nu, Heshele,” Aba asked, “what is new in this America of yours?”

  “And not yours?”

  “Good, Heshele. Answering a question with a question will never get you in trouble. Answers are dangerous. Once, in Warsaw, a pogromchik asked me the time. Foolishly, I told it to him. He slapped me for thinking that he did not know the time of day. I should have said: What time would your excellency wish it to be? For this he would have also slapped me but with the force of a question, not an answer.”

  “Is that true?”

  “Does it matter? If it is not true it will be. Everything will be true and false by turns.”

  “Did they like your poetry in Philadelphia?”

  “Poetry had nothing to do with it. They liked patting themselves on the back because they were supporting a Yiddish poet. If they could have done so without listening to his poetry, they would have been much happier.”

  Aba’s eyes did not dance now. They were elsewhere, collecting sadness. It was a harvest common to Harry’s father and his friends when they considered the rapidly shrinking number of Yiddish-speaking people on earth.

  Once Fred Krause had come by the house to pick him up. Ackerman, the playwright, and Aba were arguing, in Yiddish, as to whether it was in fact true that Tolstoy believed that Anna Karenina could see her own eyes glowing in the dark. As was normal for an important conversation, it provoked derisive finger pointing and fist shaking, while the decibel levels rose apace. Fred had been riveted, absolutely certain he was witnessing a prelude to mayhem. Ackerman, catching Fred’s intense interest, had asked him in English:

  “Do you understand Yiddish?”

  “No.”

  Ackerman had sighed: “Oy, I should be so lucky”

  “I should be in Palestine,” Aba said. “The Arabs are killing Jews, the Jews are killing Arabs and the British are killing everyone. It must be a land of poets. And furthermore, if Palestine becomes a Jewish homeland, it could save the Yiddish language.”

  “That would be great. You would be a great poet there.”

  “But that will not be, my optimistic American friend. In fact, a Jewish homeland will deliver the last rites for Yiddish.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Of course you don’t. You see straight ahead, in your wonderful American way. The facts are these: If there is a Jewish homeland, the official language will be Hebrew, a biblical language about as relevant to the modern world as the Bible. Yet preferable to Yiddish.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Yiddish is the enemy of all nations. Actually, if Yiddish were proclaimed the language of a Jewish homeland, it would be the fulfillment of a millennial Jewish dream—the creation of a perfect paradox: a nation born and committing suicide simultaneously. Consider a country running on Yiddish. If you wish to call a man an idiot, you call him a soldier. If you wish to promote him to super idiot, you label him a prime minister. To identify vulgarians or worse, look to designations for men who drive trucks or till the soil … and so it goes. So what you have is a nation whose heroes, leaders and builders receive simultaneously medals and dunce caps. No state could survive that lingua franca.”

  “Will there be a Jewish homeland, Aba?”

  “I doubt it. The goyim need Jews to beat up and borrow money from. There doesn’t seem to be any replacement for these necessities of goyishe life.”

  The front door opened and closed. His mother, who despite dedication to lightness and delicacy retained a floor-shaking, flat-footed planting of one definite foot after another, entered the kitchen.

  Aba rose and embraced her.

  “So, how was Philadelphia?” she asked.

  “It was Philadelphia.”

  “Don’t I know it. The first three years of Harry’s life we lived there. Do you remember, Harry?”

  “No.”

  “Of course you do. I wheeled you everywhere. People looked into the carriage and said how beautiful you and I were. Don’t you remember that?”

  “No.”

  “Anything to be contrary. He begins everything with no and his father with we must Between them I have no luck.”

  “Where is Moishe?” Aba asked.

  “Who knows? Playing cards in that dive, or discussing something he knows nothing about, like making money. I didn’t feel well, so I came home.”

  She turned to Harry.

  “Did you eat?”

  Harry held up his quarter.

  “So what are you waiting for? I’m surely not cooking.”

  “I was talking to Aba. I saved his life.”

  “Absolutely …”

  His mother cut Aba short.

  “I have no doubt. Have you gone completely crazy, Aba? Now, you are riding a bike.”

  “Excuse me, but I don’t know how to ride a bike. Wherever did you get that idea?”

  “From the bike in the hall that I almost killed myself on. It looks like it’s been in an accident.”

  “As far as I know, it belongs to this American boy.”

  “Nonsense. He has a beautiful bike that cost a fortune.”

  The silence was Harry’s to fill. He looked at Aba, wishing magic: Couldn’t a poet, a man who knew the secret meanings of words, know to say simple words: It was a joke, Velia. It is my bike. Aba was silent.

  His mother, excited by the scent of catastrophe, pressed her lips together, draining the blood. Harry mumbled: “It’s my bike, sort of.”

  “Sort of!”

  He told the story, ending with a defense of the bike as a beauty worth much more than the other, but in need of a few repairs.

  “A beauty! Worth more! If it’s worth a nickel, it’s a lot.”

  “Oh, Mom …”

  “Don’t oh Mom me. Do you know how long I had to sit at a typewriter to earn enough money for your bike? Do you know!”

  Aba held up his hand.

  “Velia, easy, slowly. We must …”

  “Another we must country heard from. Harry, we are going to s
ee that thief.”

  “The store is closed.”

  She stomped toward the hall.

  “Closed, ha. We’ll see.”

  Harry’s eyes pleaded with Aba, who rose shakily and scratched Harry’s scalp.

  “Don’t worry, American boy, we’ll find a way. Velia,” he called, “I will come with you. In matters of commerce, I am a regular J.P. Morgan.”

  “Come if you want. But no jokes. It is not funny.”

  His mother’s pounding brought Soldier to the door. Harry wheeled in the bike, as she demanded:

  “Is that your bike?”

  Soldier, fulfilling an informational request, examined the bike.

  “Damn, yes, Ma’am, that’s one of mine all right.”

  “It’s a piece of junk.”

  “Damn, no Ma’am.”

  “It’s all crooked!”

  Soldier slid his palms over the handlebars.

  “Damn, you see, Ma’am, once something is broken you can never make it like it was. Even if you take a piece of wood and saw it perfectly into two pieces and then glue it together, it looks perfect, but it ain’t. There’s the sawdust you lost. Things never mend back to the way they was.”

  “What do I care for two pieces of wood!”

  Harry’s dread was diverted by his mother playing Margaret Dumont to Soldier’s earnest Chico Marx.

  His mother was now demanding to see the owner, a bill of sale, which in any case would be invalid because Harry was a minor, and the establishment’s license to do business. Soldier, in the presence of a lady, sincerely apologized for the owner’s absence and his ignorance as to the answers to the other questions. He suggested two possible actions: return tomorrow during the day or walk over to the Half-Moon Hotel and look for Woody, who couldn’t be missed because he was a dwarf.

  “A dwarf!” his mother screamed. “Leave it to my genius to get me mixed up with an evil eye. How could you get mixed up with a dwarf!”

  “What’s wrong with …” Harry’s answer tailed off, as he spotted a black Packard stopping in front of the store. Woody and a chauffeur pushing a man a wheel chair entered.

  “Hi, kid,” Woody said.

  “Hi.”

  “What’s going on?” Woody asked.

  “Did you sell him this piece of junk!” his mother demanded.

  Before Woody could answer, Menter pointed his finger at Aba and said:

  “I know you. Weren’t you at Druckman’s house in Sea Gate?”

  “Yes. And I recall you too.”

  Menter smirked.

  “Out of the ten other cripples in wheelchairs who were there.”

  “I meant no offense.”

  Harry never had heard Aba speak so softly.

  “Ain’t you some kind of Jew poet?”

  “Yes.”

  “I can talk Jew.”

  He bent forward, stared as Harry’s mother’s backside and smacked his lips.

  “Tookas,” he said.

  His mother looked to Aba for defense. Aba smiled at Menter.

  “Your Yiddish pronunciation is very good.”

  “Yeah. Well tell me: how do you say ‘whore’ in Jew?”

  “How dare …” his mother began.

  Aba hooked his mother’s arm with his and crushed it against his body. He spoke over her.

  “Kurveh.”

  “Yeah. Well, you recite me a Jew poem.”

  Aba, in the cadence of a poem, intoned, in Yiddish:

  “Be very calm. Do not make a fuss. These are very bad, dangerous people.”

  Menter screwed a cigarette in his holder and lit it.

  “That was very good monkey talk. What does it mean?”

  “Oh, it speaks of the flowers and the birds, as do all poems.”

  “Hear that, Vince”—he poked the chauffeur—“birds and flowers. Sounds like a cemetery.”

  Vince nodded.

  “Now, Vince here deals with all complaints. You got a complaint lady?”

  Soldier spoke: “Damn, it’s this, Vic. I fixed this bike, but it can’t never be the way it was. Lady, I did my best.”

  Menter glanced at the bike.

  “Looks perfect to me. How about you, Vince?”

  Vince nodded.

  “What about you, poet?”

  “As you say. I think we should go now. Harry, take the bike.”

  Harry grasped the handlebars. Aba, pulling his mother, took small steps toward the door. Soldier rushed past them to hold it open.

  “Some tookas, huh Vince,” Menter said, outlining buttocks with his palms.

  His mother’s sobs were the only sound in the cold-afflicted streets. At home, she plunged facedown onto the living room couch. Between gulps of breath, she screamed:

  “A curse, that’s what that boy is, a curse.”

  “Now Velia,” Aba said, “you don’t mean that.”

  “Why is it,” she shouted, “why is it men always feel obliged to tell me what I mean?”

  Harry wanted to escape to his room, but couldn’t. He watched his mother, thinking: If I look at her with love, it will be better.

  “Why are you staring at me like an idiot?” she shouted at him. “Are you admiring the state you put me in!”

  The phone rang. Harry answered it.

  “Hello.”

  “Hey, kid.” It was Woody. Harry said nothing.

  “Hey, kid. I’m sorry. It was all a mistake. You took the wrong bike. There was a brand new racer, the same color, right next to it, and I didn’t see you take the other one. Hey, kid.”

  Harry looked at the receiver.

  “Listen, kid, come by tomorrow and pick up the new one. OK? Hey, kid, OK?”

  Harry hung up. He wished he could tell his mother how much she had done for him. But it would be of no use. Once born, disasters were eternal, immune to change.

  The next morning Harry was drinking a glass of milk when Aba appeared clad in his poetry-reading outfit: a gray ascot, brocaded formal shirt and black trousers. A gray blazer and black beret would complete the ensemble. Harry could not remember Aba in uniform in the morning. The poet yawned the odor of liquor.

  “Good morning American boy, drinking American milk, in this healthiest of all medinahs.”

  “Good morning.”

  Last night hung over them. Harry studied the white latticework film coating the empty half of his glass, wondering why some things disappeared without leaving a clue as to their former presence, while others were reluctant to entrust themselves only to memory. Aba cleared his throat.

  “You see,” he said, as if summing up a lengthy discourse, “there are situations where there is physical danger just below the surface that must be avoided, almost at any cost.”

  “Even in wonderful, free America.”

  “Unfortunately this is so. Beasts are in the majority everywhere. In Germany their claws are the law. In America the law is on your side, but you may not be in a position to enjoy the privilege.”

  “Were you afraid, Aba?”

  “Heshele, American boy, fear is always my first reaction. No, more than that. Fear is an essential part of my personality, as integral as laughter. You, American boy, cannot understand that because your free land has freed you of this Jewish sickness.”

  It was not true. But Harry was ashamed to tell even Aba.

  “Have you ever hit anyone, Aba?”

  Aba’s head twitched, as if suddenly afflicted with a tic. He closed his eyes and nodded.

  “Tell me about it,” Harry asked.

  Aba faced the window, hands locked behind him. He rocked back and forth, bending at the knees and pushing his pelvis forward, like in the newsreel he had seen of Jews praying at the Wailing Wall.

  “It was a long time ago. And perhaps one day I will tell you how it came about … how it came about.” His voice slid softly inward..

  “Well, I have to go to school.”

  Aba draped his arm around Harry’s shoulder and walked him to the door.

  “Stud
y hard,” he said. “I expect you to be the first Jewish president.”

  As Harry walked down 36th Street to the Norton’s Point trolley, on which he would sneak a ride to school by flattening himself against the rear end, he was surprised to see Aba at the entrance to Sea Gate, the private community that bordered the southern end of Coney. It was not uncommon for Aba to give poetry readings there, but these recitations had always taken place at night or on Sunday afternoons. He would ask Aba if he had inaugurated a cheap early morning show, like the one for a quarter at the Paramount on Broadway.

  CHAPTER

  7

  A BROAD, WHITE WOODEN SLAT BARRED UNAUTHORIZED VEHICLES AND pedestrians from entering Sea Gate, which held off Coney with a twelve-foot-high chain-link fence. Aba informed a private guard that he was visiting Ben Druckman. After confirmation by phone, he was admitted.

  The borderlike separation was appropriate. A different country unfolded. Coney’s shacks and bungalows disappeared, replaced by rows of neat two-family houses, set back from the sidewalk by generous lawns. Neatly clipped hedges and enormous hydrangeas marked property boundaries.

  No littered, concession-smothered boardwalk blocked the wide, immaculate beach, accessible only to holders of resident cards and their guests.

  Sea Gate was America’s Land’s End. The ocean curled around its tip to a bay which led into the Narrows, a seventeen-mile stretch past the Statue of Liberty to the piers of New York Harbor. In summer its crowded marina boasted oceangoing yachts and majestic three-masters. Once a commuter ferry had run year-round between the marina and the Battery, the southern end of Manhattan Island. Three-year-old Harry had established, in his father’s eyes, credentials as a poet by saying of the ferry: “The Belle Island is coming back from going away.”

  Private police, rarely hesitant to mark interlopers with a memento of a billy club, cruised day and night, stopping any unfamiliar face.

  Aba rang the bell of a two-family red brick house. A Negro wearing a white cloth jacket and black trousers opened the door, took Aba’s coat and led him to a large living room that forcefully proclaimed the decorator’s preference for white objects. Ben Druckman rose from a white couch. He wore a white silk bathrobe over a white turtleneck sweater and green plaid trousers. Argyle socks breached open-toed bedroom slippers.