20

FOLLOWING THE TRIAL, JAKE DIDN’T READ HIS MAIL. There was nobody he wanted to hear from. So Jenny’s letter lay unopened like the rest.

The day after Mr. Justice Beal pronounced, Nancy suggested they go to the country for a week, taking the baby, but leaving Sammy and Molly with Mrs. Hersh. Jake wouldn’t have it. “This will just about clean us out. I should look for work.”

But whenever his agent called, he asked Nancy to say he was out. He didn’t look at any of the scripts that were delivered by hand. Instead, he sat on the garden bench, under the horse chestnut tree, watching Sammy and Molly at play, doing the Times crossword in the morning and burning leaves in the afternoon. Prey for Mrs. Hersh.

“… then I feel this pain in the right armpit, so I rush to make an appointment with Dr. Bercovitch, you know, the one who did the biopsy on my breasts. He said not to rely on my feeling for lumps. There was a swelling in the glands of my right arm, but Dr. Bercovitch said it was there three years ago. You’re not listening, Jake.”

When Luke came, as he did almost every afternoon, Nancy sent Pilar out with a tray of drinks and drove Mrs. Hersh and the children out of the garden, so that the two old friends could be alone. But each afternoon, it seemed to Nancy, Luke did all the talking and Jake sat comatose. One afternoon, as soon as Luke had gone, Jake came into the kitchen and said: “Luke’s given me his new script. He wants me to do it.”

That night in bed Nancy was encouraged when he switched on his bedside lamp and actually read the script right through. “It’s not bad,” he allowed grudgingly.

“Your enthusiasm overwhelms me.”

“But I’ve been waiting for this moment for years, you know. I dream about it. Ever since he got another director to do his play, I said to myself one day he’s going to come to me, the bastard, he’s going to come script in hand, because he needs me, and I’m going to tell him to stuff it.”

“That settles it, then, does it?”

“No. It doesn’t. Because Luke can have his pick of directors. He doesn’t need me at all. He’s being kind.”

“You’re as talented as any of them,” she said by rote.

“Am I?”

“All right, then. Are you, Jake? Are you really? You’re arrogant, I’ll grant you that. But I don’t know if you’re a really fine director, because you’ve never had a proper chance.”

Startled, he protested, “I thought you liked my first film.”

“Yes. As a first film. A young man’s film. But you haven’t done anything better since.”

“I see.”

“You have a choice, Jake. I can be your wife or your nurse. You tell me which you want.”

“Wow.”

“I’ve put up with a lot, you know. It hasn’t been fun. I’m not going to spend the rest of my life in mourning for Harry. Or reading alone in bed while you commune with the Horseman in your aerie. Even the children are upset now. ‘Don’t bother Daddy, he’s depressed.’ ‘Don’t ask Daddy for anything now, he’s troubled.’ I’m not bringing them up like that.”

“What would you like me to do?”

“If the script’s good, do it. You owe it to all of us.”

“I haven’t noticed that any of you have gone without because of my self-indulgence. I haven’t been such a bad provider over the years.”

“I didn’t marry you because of what you could provide. There were infinitely better providers who wanted me. I married you because I loved you.”

Jake started to read the script again. He had only reached page ten when she began to sob brokenly. He tried to take her in his arms, but she drew away from him.

“Was it in this bed?”

“I did not make love to her.”

“You were naked together on a bed. I read the papers, you know. And if I didn’t there were enough friends to phone me. Did you know that Natalie was at the Old Bailey every day? And Ethel?”

“I didn’t notice. I had other things to worry about.”

“Were you with her on this bed?”

“I am not answering any more questions. I’m sick of answering questions.”

“Did she take you in her mouth?”

“Yes, your lordship. No, your lordship.”

“Don’t you dare.”

“Yes, she took me in her mouth, but I shoved her off.”

“She’s pretty.”

He laughed dryly.

“Did you feel her breasts?”

“Yes.”

“She hasn’t had any babies.”

“Oh, Nancy, my darling, please.”

“Did you touch her between the legs?”

“No.”

“Liar.”

“Ben’s crying. You’d better get him.”

“We never go to a restaurant that you don’t devour the other women with your eyes.”

“I’m human. Big news.”

“Do you find me ogling other men’s crotches?”

“Ben’s crying.”

“Would it excite you if I wore a blond wig?”

“You’d better get Ben.”

“What gave Harry the idea you’d want her in the first place?”

“I sent him out every night to fetch me girls. I can’t find any myself. Now you’d better get Ben or next thing you know, ketzelle, we’ll have my mother in here.”

“You are dreadful to your mother. You don’t need her any more. What happens when you decide you don’t need me any more?”

“Would – you – get – Ben – please?”

“Here,” she shouted, pulling out her dressing table drawer so savagely that it was knocked to the floor. “Here. And here. And here.”

They were letters from Harry, describing in lascivious detail all the acts Jake was supposed to have performed with Ingrid. Saying how they had gone to C. Bernard Farber’s together, looking for cunt. When he was released from prison, Harry wrote, the three of them must go to bed together; he would lick her until she passed out, satiated, and then he would ram it up her ass. She would discover a real man in Harry and could taste him as far as the back of her throat. He would come with a riding crop. He would bring handcuffs. Anything she desired. If you beat a woman with wet towels, it left no marks. Ask Jake.

“Oh, my God, I’ll kill him. Somebody must have smuggled these out for him. He’s only allowed one letter a week.”

Nancy was rocking on the edge of the bed, whimpering softly as she nursed Ben. Even though it was dark, she sat with her back to him, so he could not look on her breasts. Her back was beautiful.

“It’s all lies, Nancy. He’s psychotic, you know that.”

“Yes. But you’d say it was lies anyway. Wouldn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“You’d have to.”

The next afternoon, Luke didn’t come, and, for the first time since the trial, Jake ventured out of the house, absently wandering as far as Swiss Cottage. When Ruthy rapped on the dress shop window, claiming him.

At the King’s Arms (their pub, he mused), Ruthy peeled the label off an Orange-Kool bottle and announced that she had met a wonderful, wonderful man, highly sensitive, keen on classical music and well versed in Jewish lore. There was only one problem, she added lugubriously. “He’s an inveterate masturbator. He can drive a woman bonkers until he satisfies himself and then she ends up in a frightful state. It’s diabolical.”

“Ruthy, I am no longer interested in your love life.”

“Oh, that’s nice. That’s ever so nice. After all we’ve been through together.”

“I don’t want to hear any more.”

“He says intercourse is not necessary, it’s only the preliminaries that count. It’s like climbing a mountain, he says, it’s not necessary to reach the top, it’s enough to look up and know that it’s there. What’s your frank opinion?”

“My frank opinion is you will survive, Ruthy. And now,” he said, rising abruptly, “goodbye.”

When he got home, Nancy said Luke had called to invite them both out to dinner.

“I’m too tired. You go.”

So she called back to say no. “Poor Luke. He’s not saying anything, but I’m sure he’s dying to know what you think of his script.”

Let him suffer, then.

“Couldn’t you phone him?”

“Tomorrow.”

But tomorrow Jake didn’t phone and Luke did not come in the afternoon.

“Couldn’t you at least call to say you’ve read it?”

Sammy and Molly began to fight upstairs. “Mommy, mommy,” she hollered.

“Coming, precious one,” Mrs. Hersh replied.

“Haven’t you ever behaved badly toward someone who trusted you?” Nancy asked just before she quit the living room.

Pouring himself a drink, Jake suddenly wondered if the Horseman, wherever he was, had read of his trial in a newspaper.

Stiff-collared, cherub-mouthed Ormsby-Fletcher came, lugging his black briefcase and looking severe. He and Jake conferred behind closed doors for more than an hour and then he strode out of the house, belted himself into his black Humber, and was off again.

“Guess what,” Jake said. “Hershel’s appealing.”

“On what grounds?”

“Well now, for openers, I got my doctor to drug him before he went into court each morning. Then Ruthy was my mistress, which explains why I deposited seven hundred pounds to his account. I also bribed Ormsby-Fletcher to misrepresent him in his brief. He wants Ormsby-Fletcher disbarred.” Jake laughed, he shook his head. “I phoned Luke. He’s coming tomorrow.”

Luke and Jake sat in the garden all afternoon. Nancy served them sandwiches and then slipped upstairs to nurse Ben. When she looked out of the kitchen window again, Luke was gone. He hadn’t even said goodbye.

“Did you quarrel?”

“No. I even told him I liked the script.”

“With reservations, though?”

“Yes,” he snapped back.

“Are you going to do it, then?”

“I don’t even know what I’m going to do tomorrow. I plan on waking up, that’s all.”

“Did you say no, then?”

“I said I wanted time to think about it. Don’t bug me, Nancy.”

In the morning they all piled into the car and drove Mrs. Hersh to the airport. She did not break down until she was alone with Jake at the passport barrier.

“When you were a child you needed my love and protection and now that I’m approaching old age, I’m going to need yours.”

“I’ll do everything I can for you, Maw.”

“Oh, I realize you would protect me against illness and old age, with all that money can buy, but it goes deeper than that with me. I am not stupid. I am a woman with pride and dignity and intelligence. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes, Maw.”

“So it goes deeper than money with me.”

“I understand.”

Her face erupting in tears, she grabbed him, pelting his face with kisses. He responded as lovingly as he could, but it was insufficient to the moment. Suddenly, Mrs. Hersh thrust her son from her, heaving, her eyes brimming with rage. “You have children too,” she declared fiercely. “You have children, Yankel,” and then she turned to pass through the barrier. He lingered, but she did not turn back. She didn’t wave.

Then Duddy, prospering Duddy Kravitz, rode into London. Before lunch, he and Jake strolled down the King’s Road together, the girls streaming past in their miniskirts and leather boots.

“Oy. Who could blame you? How can you stand it here?” Duddy asked. “All that quim out taking the air in those short skirts. Short? I tell you, Yankel, if one of those chicks had a Tampax inside, you’d see the string dangling. It’s enough to drive you crazy. Walking down the street here, if you swung your arm like a hook, the fingers extended, you could lick hot pussy off your hand for hours.”

They ate at Alvaro’s. Duddy, as was his habit now, ordered Beluga caviar for both of them, double portions, with a side order of chopped eggs and onions for himself. For the truth was Duddy didn’t care for caviar and only by mashing egg and onion into it could he make it taste almost like chopped liver.

“These skirts – Christ – when I think of the agonies we suffered in our day before you could get a girl to hike her skirt that high. When I remember the double features at the Rialto you had to sit through, the coaxing, the toasted tomato sandwiches you had to pay for, the sundaes, gaining an inch here, losing two there. Why, you could put in a month of blue-balls and lies, before you even got a peek at a stocking top, never mind some real stink-finger. But the kids today, shit, do they know what struggle is? They take out a chick and, for openers, her skirt is riding her crotch. All you have to do is flip it over and shove it in.”

Ordering another bottle of Veuve Clicquot, Duddy excoriated the new-style books and movies. “When you come down to it, I’m a traditional Jewish boy. For me to enjoy sex, I’ve got to feel, well, you know … a little bit guilty. The first time Marlene blew me I was actually ashamed for her. Never mind she wanted to kiss me on the mouth afterwards with all my come still dribbling down her chin. Feh,” he said, making a face. “What’s the matter. Am I embarrassing you?”

“Certainly not.”

“Well, the first time she sucked me off I thought, oh boy, lucky Duddy, you’re really marrying a hot one. This is something really special. Now you open a novel or go to a movie and they’re all going down on each other from the opening chapter or scene. The whole world going gobble, gobble, eat, eat. So what’s so special about my marriage any more? What makes my life such a rare item? It’s ruining sex for me, I tell you. All this new outspokenness in the arts is taking the kicks out of it for me. Gone are the guilty pleasures, the dirty secret joys.”

“Duddy, I realize you’re trying to make me feel better, but the truth is there’s nothing in it. There was no orgy at my place.”

“In that case, you’re a bigger prick than even I gave you credit for. You mean to say, after the trial, all you’ve been through, the whole tzimmis, you didn’t even get laid out of it?”

Jake nodded.

“I hope I’m the only one you’ve bothered to tell. Because I remember from way back. I know you’re a shmock. But nobody else would believe you.”

“Do you believe me?”

“Unfortunately, yes. But, you know, you give off a guilty smell. You look like shit warmed over, Jake.”

As Duddy leaned forward to light his cigar, Jake noticed the hair slicked back over the spreading widow’s peak. His sideburns were gray. There were deep, dark pouches under his eyes.

“Is Nancy raising hell?” Duddy asked.

“She is somewhat displeased.”

“Buy her a coat.”

“Oh, for Chrissake, Duddy, she’s not that kind of woman.”

“What’s to be done with you? Crap artist. You broke?”

“I’ll make out.”

“When I was up the creek in Toronto, you helped me out, remember? How much do you need?”

“What if I were to say ten thousand dollars?”

“In that case, I’ll only have to dip into the petty cash.”

Jake laughed, incredulous, as Duddy wrote out the check. “It’s good to see you again,” he said.

“Hoo haw. It’s good to see anyone who would lend you ten bills. Here,” he said, thrusting the check at him, “and now tell me what your so-called best friend Lucas Scott, Esq., has given you recently?”

Jake told him about Luke’s script and the conundrums it made for him.

“Do it, do it. If it’s good, do it. Then tell him to get fucked.”

Jake laughed and called for a round of brandies, but Duddy said no, not for him, he couldn’t take it any more. It kept him awake. He swallowed a pill with his coffee.

“Hey, Yankel, what if I held a class reunion? Could I count on you?”

“Sure. But why would you want to do that?”

“I had my secretary check out everybody who was in room forty-one with us. Of all the guys, I’m the only millionaire. Let them come to my place and choke on it, don’t you think?”

Duddy’s check stuffed into his jacket lapel pocket, Jake felt resuscitated, even lighthearted, for the first time since the trial had ended. Driving home, he realized he did not have his mother to contend with any more.

Or lawyers.

Or Harry.

Or Mr. Justice Beal, in the morning.

Now he was no longer obliged to do Luke’s script. If he wanted to say yes, O.K., but if he decided against it, he could cash Duddy’s check. The trial’s over, Yankel. You did not behave badly. Nancy won’t leave you. She can’t. He resolved to be good to Sammy when he came home from school. Molly wouldn’t irritate him today.

Jake found Nancy in the kitchen. “These are called flowers,” he said, “and they’re for you.”

“Oh,” she said, not displeased.

“If Duddy Kravitz believes me, why can’t you?”

“But I do, most of the time.”

Jake scooped up the carton with his backlog of mail and sat down at the kitchen table. Bills, magazines, his bank statement. Letters from actors, scripts, some invitations. He read aloud to her whenever he struck anything outlandish. Once, she laughed aloud.

“You said you married me because you loved me. Do you still?”

“I love you too.”

Then he ripped open Jenny’s letter, reading it impatiently, nodding, and, as she watched, he turned a page and all at once the color was sucked from his face. His hands began to tremble like an old man’s. He moaned. He looked up at her, shaking his head, his eyes imploring, but unable to speak.

“What is it, Jake, for heaven’s sake?”

“Joey’s dead.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“He’s been dead for more than two months. Oh, hell. Bloody hell.”

Nancy, coming up behind him to stroke his head, found him drenched in sweat.

“Better shut the kitchen door.”

“The children are in the garden,” she said. “It’s all right.” She poured him a brandy.

“He’s been dead for more than two months. Oh, Joey. Joey, Joey. There’s so much I wanted to ask him.”

“I know, darling.”

“It took all this time for the Canadian consul in Asunción to contact Hanna.”

Jake drifted over to the window to watch Molly in the sandbox. Sammy was crouching in the long grass with his action man, the one he called the Horseman, after Jake’s stories.

“How did it happen?” Nancy asked.

“What?”

She repeated her question.

“An air crash. He was in cigarette smuggling, they say. That’s very big stuff in Paraguay, you know. There’s no duty on American cigarettes. They import millions and millions and fly them by night into Argentina, Brazil, and Bolivia. They land on makeshift fields. He was burned to a crisp.”

“Poor Hanna.”

“His body was beyond … Why did it have to be Joey? There are so many bastards in this world I could do without.”

She passed him a cup of coffee.

“There’s a small policy. Five thousand dollars for Hanna. They found his papers in an hotel room in Asunción.”

Briefly, Jake slumped forward, resting his head on the table. Nancy massaged his neck.

“He crashed in a clearing between the Mato Grosso and the Brazilian Highlands, not far from the Paraná River.”

Neighing, the stallion rears, obliging the Horseman to dig his stirrups in. Eventually, he slows to a jog. Still in the highlands, emerging from the dense forest to scan the scrub below, he strains to find the unmarked road that winds into the jungle, between Puerto San Vincente and the border fortress of Carlos Antonio López.

“You know,” Jake said, standing up, “according to Simon Weisenthal, who runs the Documentation Center on Nazis in Vienna, when Dr. Mengele fled Buenos Aires, going to Barloche, in the Andes, where so many of them live in opulent villas, it happened that an Israeli lady was visiting her mother there. Both of them had been in Auschwitz, Mengele having sterilized the Israeli lady. One evening, in the ballroom of the local hotel, she suddenly found herself face to face with Mengele. Naturally, he didn’t recognize her, after all he had sterilized thousands. But he did take in the number on her lower left arm. Not a word passed between them, according to eyewitnesses. A few days later however, the Israeli lady did not return from an excursion in the mountains. It was several weeks before her body was discovered near a crevasse. A mountain climbing accident, the police said.”

“Hold on, Jake. What if he was no more than they say? A cigarette smuggler.”

“I don’t know. I’ll never know now,” he cried, “don’t you see?”

“Yes,” she replied, alarmed.

“Weisenthal writes, I’ve got his book upstairs somewhere, he writes that the Jewish community in Asunción has been apprehensive for years. They’ve had many anonymous letters. If Mengele should be kidnapped, the letters threaten, not one Jew in Paraguay will survive … Oh, hell, who knows what the truth of the matter is. Some guys, you know, they don’t understand E = mc², it drives them crazy. I don’t understand anything. I’m going upstairs,” he said, picking up his carton of mail.

“Will you be all right?”

“Certainly.”

Opening the cupboard, he plucked the Horseman’s journal from the shelf and flipped it open.

On the first page, Jake found the entry that read, “The Horseman: Born Joseph Hersh in a miner’s shanty in Yellowknife, Yukon Territories. Exact date unknown.”, and added, “died, July 20, 1967, in an air crash, between the Mato Grosso and the Brazilian Highlands, not far from the Paraná River.”

What are you going to do about it, a voice demanded.

He wept, that’s what. The tears he couldn’t coax out of himself at his father’s graveside or summon up for Mr. Justice Beal’s verdict on Harry or his mother’s departure flowed freely now. Torn from his soul, the tears welled in his throat and ran down his cheeks. He whimpered, he moaned. He sank, trembling, to the sofa. He wept for his father, his penis curling out of his underwear like a spent worm. His penis, my maker. Rotting in an oversize pinewood casket. He wept for his mother, who deserved a more loving son. He wept for Harry, fulminating in his cell and assuredly planning vengeance. He wept for Nancy, whose stomach was seamed from childbearing. Who would no longer make love with the lights on. He wept because the Horseman, his conscience, his mentor, was no more.

Unless, he thought, pouring himself a brandy at his desk, I become the Horseman now. I seek out the villa with the barred windows off the unmarked road in the jungle, between Puerto San Vincente and the border fortress of Carlos Antonio López, on the Paraná River. I will be St. Urbain’s avenging Horseman. If, a more skeptical voice intruded, there ever was one.

Why did he return to Montreal? He came to fuck me, Jenny said. “If he is hunting this Nazi down and finds him,” Uncle Abe shouted, “he won’t kill him, he’ll blackmail him.” What if the Horseman was a distorting mirror and we each took the self-justifying image we required of him?

No, no, Jake argued, and he pulled the Horseman’s saddle out of the cupboard, heaving it onto the floor before him. It wobbled briefly and then fell on its side. With a distinct metallic clunk.

Jake lunged at the saddle, upending it, and probing its innards he found the pouch. “That’s where he keeps his gat.” There was indeed a revolver, and alarmed, his heart hammering, Jake took it in his hand. Feh, he thought, shrinking from it, setting it down gently on his desk, pointing it away from him. Jake poured himself another brandy and contemplated the weapon. He knew almost nothing of such things, but even to his untrained eye it seemed an archaic gun. Pick it up, chicken. So he took it in his wet palm again, raised it, and pointed it at the window.

Look sharp, Mengele. Die Juden kommen.

Then, demonstrating his courage to himself, Jake gritted his teeth and turned the revolver, pressing the barrel to his forehead.

Putz, you can hurt yourself.

I want to find out who I am, he had told Issy Hersh. It’s taken years, but now I know. Who am I? Well, I’m not Hedda Gabler. I’m Aaron maybe.

Now Jake pointed the revolver at that discolored square on the wall where “Sepp” Dietrich’s photograph used to hang. He pointed it, squeezed his eyes shut, and fired. There was a tremendous report, a kick, but, to his astonishment, no hole in the wall.

Nancy bounded up the stairs and charged into his office, “Jake! Jake!” the tears actually flying.

He seized her, holding her tight, and explained.

“Watch this,” he said, taking up the revolver again. With more confidence now.

He fired at the wall once more. Eyes open this time. A tremendous bang, but no hole.

“It only fires blanks. It’s an actor’s gun. A souvenir of his film days, probably.”

Jake poured himself another brandy and slumped on the sofa. “I’ll just finish this and try to get some sleep. I’m all right, Nancy, honestly.”

She woke him at six to say, “Luke phoned. He wants to take us to dinner.”

“Say yes.”

“Really?” she asked, startled.

“Yes, really.”

For sentimental reasons, they met at Chez Luba. Jake told Luke he would like to direct his script. Ostensibly, Luke was overjoyed. So was Nancy. So was Jake. But their shared gaiety was forced, a fragile cork bobbing on currents of doubt.

Even as Jake basked in their concern for his well-being, his belated return to the land of the living, his mind rode with the Horseman. He told them about the other letter he had found, Hanna’s letter. “She doesn’t believe Joey’s dead. She thinks he may be in trouble with the police again and staged the crash to evade arrest and because he needs the insurance money. She’s not touching the money. It’s being kept in a special account, until Joey sends for it.”

Luke set down his glass wearily. Nancy toyed gloomily with a fork.

“Of course, it’s absurd,” Jake said.

They parted, agreeing to meet for lunch tomorrow. To discuss the script. And then, for the first time since the trial’s end, Jake and Nancy made love, shy with each other.

In his nightmare, he was the Horseman now. It was Jake who was St. Urbain’s rider on the white stallion. Come to extract the gold fillings from the triangular cleft between Mengele’s upper front teeth with pliers. Slowly, he thought, coming abruptly awake in a sweat. “I’ve come,” Jake proclaimed aloud.

Beside him, Nancy stirred.

“It’s nothing,” he said softly. “Just a nightmare. Go back to sleep.”

Careful not to disturb her, Jake slid out of bed and into his dressing gown, sucking in his stomach to squeeze between the bed and the baby in the bassinet.

Once in his attic aerie, he retrieved the Horseman’s journal from the cupboard, found the page where he had written “died July 20, 1967, in an air crash,” crossed it out, and wrote in over it, “presumed dead.” Then he returned to bed, and fell into a deep sleep, holding Nancy to him.