“The workers and the Russians,” Lauren says.
“The Russian immigrants,” he says, “that’s a whole separate matter. Most of them, you know, not even Jews.”
“What does that mean?” I say.
“It means matrilineal descent, is what it means,” Mark says. “With the Ethiopians there were conversions.”
But Deb wants to keep us away from politics, and the way we’re arranged, me in between them and Deb opposite (it’s a round table, our kitchen table), she practically has to throw herself across to grab hold of my arm. “Fix me another,” she says.
And here she switches the subject to Mark’s parents. “How’s the visit been going?” she says, her face all somber. “How are your folks holding up?”
Deb is very interested in Mark’s parents. They’re Holocaust survivors. And Deb has what can only be called an unhealthy obsession with the idea of that generation being gone. Don’t get me wrong. It’s important to me too. All I’m saying is there’s healthy and unhealthy, and my wife, she gives the subject a lot of time.
“What can I say?” Mark says. “My mother’s a very sick woman. And my father, he tries to keep his spirits up. He’s a tough guy.”
“I’m sure,” I say. Then I look down at my drink, all serious, and give a shake of my head. “They really are amazing.”
“Who?” Mark says. “Fathers?”
I look back up and they’re all staring at me. “Survivors,” I say, realizing I jumped the gun.
“There’s good and bad,” Mark says. “Like anyone else.”
Lauren says, “The whole of Carmel Lake Village, it’s like a D.P. camp with a billiards room.”
“One tells the other, and they follow,” Mark says. “From Europe to New York, and now, for the end of their lives, again the same place.”
“Tell them that crazy story, Yuri,” Lauren says.
“Tell us,” Deb says.
“So you can picture my father,” Mark says. “In the old country, he went to heder, had the peyes and all that. But in America a classic galusmonger. He looks more like you than me. It’s not from him that I get this,” he says, pointing at his beard. “Shoshana and I—”
“We know,” I say.
“So my father. They’ve got a nice nine-hole course, a driving range, some greens for the practice putting. And my dad’s at the clubhouse. I go with him. He wants to work out in the gym, he says. Tells me I should come. Get some exercise. And he tells me”—and here Mark points at his feet, sliding a leg out from under the table so we can see his big black clodhoppers—“‘You can’t wear those Shabbos shoes on the treadmill. You need the sneakers. You know, sports shoes?’ And I tell him, ‘I know what sneakers are. I didn’t forget my English any more than your Yiddish is gone.’ So he says, ‘Ah shaynem dank dir in pupik.’ Just to show me who’s who.”
“Tell them the point,” Lauren says.
“He’s sitting in the locker room, trying to pull a sock on, which is, at that age, basically the whole workout in itself. It’s no quick business. And I see, while I’m waiting, and I can’t believe it — I nearly pass out. The guy next to him, the number on his arm, it’s three before my father’s number. You know, in sequence.”
“What do you mean?” Deb says.
“I mean the number tattooed. It’s the same as my father’s camp number, digit for digit, but my father’s ends in an eight. And this guy’s, it ends in a five. That’s the only difference. I mean, they’re separated by two people. So I say, ‘Excuse me, sir.’ And the guy just says, ‘You with the Chabad? I don’t want anything but to be left alone. I already got candles at home.’ I tell him, ‘No. I’m not. I’m here visiting my father.’ And to my father I say, ‘Do you know this gentleman? Have you two met? I’d really like to introduce you, if you haven’t.’ And they look each other over for what, I promise you, is minutes. Actual minutes. It is — with kavod I say this, with respect for my father — but it is like watching a pair of big beige manatees sitting on a bench, each with one sock on. They’re just looking each other up and down, everything slow. And then my father says, ‘I seen him. Seen him around.’ The other guy, he says, ‘Yes, I’ve seen.’ ‘You’re both survivors,’ I tell them. ‘Look. The numbers.’ And they look. ‘They’re the same,’ I say. And they both hold out their arms to look at the little ashen tattoos. To my father I say, ‘Do you get it? The same, except his — it’s right ahead of yours. Look! Compare.’ So they look. They compare.” Mark’s eyes are popping out of his head. “Think about it,” he says. “Around the world, surviving the unsurvivable, these two old guys end up with enough money to retire to Carmel Lake and play golf every day. So I say to my dad, ‘He’s right ahead of you. Look, a five,’ I say. ‘And yours is an eight.’ And my father says, ‘All that means is he cut ahead of me in line. There same as here. This guy’s a cutter. I just didn’t want to say.’ ‘Blow it out your ear,’ the other guy says. And that’s it. Then they get back to putting on socks.”
Deb looks crestfallen. She was expecting something empowering. Some story with which to educate Trevor, to reaffirm her belief in the humanity that, from inhumanity, forms.
But me, I love that kind of story. I’m starting to take a real shine to these two, and not just because I’m suddenly feeling sloshed.
“Good story, Yuri,” I say, copying his wife. “Yerucham, that one’s got zing.”
Yerucham hoists himself up from the table, looking proud. He checks the label of our white bread on the counter, making sure it’s kosher. He takes a slice, pulls off the crust, and rolls the white part against the countertop with the palm of his hand, making a little ball. He comes over and pours himself a shot and throws it back. Then he eats that crazy dough ball. Just tosses it in his mouth, as if it’s the bottom of his own personal punctuation mark — you know, to underline his story.
“Is that good?” I say.
“Try it,” he says. He goes to the counter and pitches me a slice of white bread, and says, “But first pour yourself a shot.”
I reach for the bottle and find that Deb’s got her hands around it, and her head’s bowed down, like the bottle is anchoring her, keeping her from tipping back.
“Are you okay, Deb?” Lauren says.
“It’s because it was funny,” I say.
“Honey!” Deb says.
“She won’t tell you, but she’s a little obsessed with the Holocaust. That story — no offense, Mark — it’s not what she had in mind.”
I should leave it be, I know. But it’s not like someone from Deb’s high school is around every day offering insights.
“It’s like she’s a survivor’s kid, my wife. It’s crazy, that education they give them. Her grandparents were all born in the Bronx, and here we are twenty minutes from downtown Miami but it’s like it’s 1937 and we live on the edge of Berlin.”
“That’s not it!” Deb says, openly defensive, her voice super high up in the register. “I’m not upset about that. It’s the alcohol. All this alcohol. It’s that and seeing Lauren. Seeing Shoshana, after all this time.”
“Oh, she was always like this in high school,” Shoshana says. “Sneak one drink, and she started to cry. You want to know what used to get her going, what would make her truly happy?” Shoshana says. “It was getting high. That’s what always did it. Smoking up. It would make her laugh for hours and hours.”