He meant the warden. It was amazing. They knew everything about him. Feldman was the trade they’d learned. Some warden. Some penologist. Some Fisher of bad men. Remote control. Brothers’ keepers. Con against con. King Con.
He remembered how the warden had by-passed certain cells. Bad men were in them. How many were there? What was up? He had to talk to them. He had to get to the men in the street clothes.
Who was he kidding? What am I, a hero? Spartacus? They had him. They had him covered.
He grieved for the year. In a strange way, to lose freedom meant to become visible — to ignore inspiration, always to have second thoughts. It was to live with the passions down, to move through the world like someone sick whom the first cigar, binge, fuck could kill. Finally — oh God, this was astonishing, terrifying — it was to be good. They had surfaced him, materialized him — Feldman flushers. He was their man in the blue fool suit. Under surveillance. Under. And before, who was he? A cat burglar, a man in carpet slippers, Boston Blackie, Jimmy Valentine. In what did happiness subsist? In darkness.
All at once Feldman missed his home. He remembered the wine-dark carpets and thought of the master bedroom with its silken bed. He remembered the mahogany apparatus on which he hung his clothes when he took them off, the built-in trays for cuff links, studs. He sighed for the master toilet, the glassed shower, the cunning lights. He thought of the long curves of pale blue sofas, of Thermopane picture windows wide as walls, of the clean white margins of his Ping-pong table, its crisp green net. He thought of his color television set, his air conditioning, his stereo, of the clipped turf that was his lawn. He wept for lost comfort and missed his wife.
Oh, Lilly, Lilly, Lilly. He wondered if he would ever see her again. Oh, Lilly, he thought, almost praying, I swear, never again will I betray you. He tried to remember her face, and got a sudden fix on a beautiful girl. It was Barbara, in his wife’s car pool. He strained and brought up Marlene. He saw Joyce in Curtains, Olive in Cosmetics, Harriet in Ladies’ Leather. He saw his models, his buyers, one or two of the high school girls who worked part-time in Sporting Goods because he liked to watch them stretch the bows. He saw Miss Lane. But where was Lilly? All right, he thought fiercely—Lilly. Come on. Come on, Lilly! Lilly was tough, but maybe piece by piece he could do it.
Her glasses came to him first — gold-rimmed. Then he could see doctors’ bills, organs she’d had removed, surgical bandages, the cream-color crisscross of hernia tape. Now he had her — the wide lap, the thick thighs she couldn’t remember to close, the monstrous tits. It was Lilly! It was Lilly, goddamnit! But where was Miss Lane?
5
For the first twelve years they fled the minion. They hid from it in Maine, in Vermont, in Pennsylvania, in Ohio, in Indiana. Once his father had seen a film of ranchers in Montana, but they never got that far. At last they came to southern Illinois’ Little Egypt.
His father rebuilt his peddler’s wagon for a fifth time, nailing the old lumber with the old nails. “Test it, test it,” his father said, and Feldman climbed inside, stretching out on his back in the gentile sun, the goyish heat. His father stepped inside the long handles. “Old clothes,” he called, “rags, first-born Jews.” A woman stood on her porch and stared at them. “Go inside, lady,” Feldman’s father said, “it’s only a rehearsal. Out, kid.”
Feldman sprang from the wagon. “What a leap, what a jump,” his father said. “Soon I ride in the wagon, you get a good offer and you sell me.” He stooped and picked up the paintbrush and threw it to his son. “Paint for the hicks a sign. In English make a legend: ISIDORE FELDMAN AND SON.” His father watched him make the letters. “It’s very strange,” he said, “I have forgotten how to write English. But I can still read it, so no tricks.” When Feldman had finished, his father took the brush saying, “And now I will do the same in Hebrew on the other side. For the Talmudic scholars of southern Illinois.” His son climbed into the wagon and lay back against the planks with their faded, flaking legends, the thick Hebrew letters like the tips of ancient, heavy keys. “This afternoon it dries, and tomorrow it is opening day in America.”
His father was insane. For five years Feldman had been old enough to recognize this; for three years he had been old enough to toy with the idea of escaping; for two weeks he had been brave enough to try. But he had hesitated, and for a week he had realized with despair that he loved his father.
They had rented a house. It was like all the houses they had ever lived in. “Look at it,” his father said, climbing up on the porch. “White frame.” He touched the wood. “Steps. A railing. A swing. Here, when you’re old enough, you’ll court Americans in that swing. And screen doors. Look, look, Leo, at the screen doors. A far cry from the East Side. No screen doors on the East Side. Smell the flowers. I wish I knew their names. Get the American girls in the swing to tell you their names. That way, if they die, we will know what seeds to ask for. Good. Then it’s settled.”
While the paint was drying they walked in the town. His father showed him the feed store, the courthouse, the tavern. They went inside and Feldman’s father drank a beer and spoke with the bartender. “Neighbor,” his father said, “a Jew is a luxury that God affords Himself. He is not serious when He makes a Jew. He is only playing. Look, you got a wife?”
“Sure,” the man said uneasily.
“Tell her today you met Feldman and Son.” He leaned across the bar and winked. “If a Jew wants to get ahead,” he whispered, “he must get ahead of the other Jews. He must go where there are no Jews. A Jew is a novelty.” He turned to his son. “Tell the neighbor our word,” he said.
“Please, Papa,” Feldman said, embarrassed.
“In the first place, papa me no papas, pop me no pops. This is America. Dad me a dad. Father me a father. Now — the word.”
“Diaspora,” Feldman said.
“Louder, please.”
“Diaspora,” he said again.
“Diaspora, delicious.”
The bartender stared at them.
“Explain. Tell the fellow.”
“It means dispersion,” Feldman said.
“It says dispersion, and it means dispersion,” his father said. “I tell you, ours is a destiny of emergency. How do you like that? You see me sitting here fulfilling God’s will. I bring God’s will to the Midwest. I don’t lift a finger. I have dispersed. Soon the kid is older, he disperses. Scatter, He said.” He looked around the tavern significantly, and going to the front window, made an oval in the Venetian blinds for his face and peered out. “To the ends of the earth. Yes, Lord.” He rushed back to the bar. “Who owns the big store here?” he asked suddenly.
“That would be Peterson,” the bartender said.
“Peterson, perfect.”
The bartender started to move away, but Feldman’s father reached across the bar and held his elbow. “The jewelry store? Quickly.”
“Mr. Stitt.”
“Stitt, stupendous.”
“Come, Father,” Feldman said.
“There’s no shul, no Jew?” his father said.