Jacob waved to get his attention. The man closed his magazine and lowered the window.
“Look, I don’t know what your shift schedule is, if it’s always going to be you out here, but I thought I’d introduce myself. I’m Jacob.”
“Nathaniel,” the man said.
“You want a drink or something?”
Nathaniel chuckled. “I’m all set, thanks.”
“Okay. You change your mind, just come by.”
Nathaniel smiled and saluted and buzzed the window up.
Marcia in traffic said, “How was Hawaii?”
Jacob pried open a box of Bics. “I wasn’t in Hawaii.”
“Vegas?” She leaned over his desk. “Cabo?”
Jacob shook his head and stood the pens in a mug.
“I know you’ve been somewhere,” she said. “You have that glow.”
He laughed.
“Fine,” she said, pouting. “Be that way.”
“Love to tell you, but there’s nothing to tell,” he said.
“Top secret,” she said.
“Smart woman.” He grinned.
She grinned back. “Well, I’m glad to have you back.”
“Thanks, hon.”
“Lev,” a man’s voice barked.
He looked up. Across the squad room, red as a fire hydrant with inflammatory bowel disease, stood his old boss, Captain Mendoza.
Marcia muttered, “Meet the new czar.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I need you in my office,” Mendoza called.
From R-H to Traffic was quite a fall. Jacob knew from personal experience. “Who’d he piss off?”
“We haven’t figured it out yet,” Marcia said. “Any guesses?”
“Lev. Did you hear me?”
“Right away, sir,” Jacob called. To Marcia: “I might have one or two.”
Mendoza had ducked back into his office and was sitting with his feet up, flipping through a four-inch binder. Jacob could see the work of stress: ten lost pounds, dark half-moons beneath the eyes, scattered pimples. The mustache, usually trimmed with precision, lay crooked.
“Hope you enjoyed your vacation, cause playtime’s over.” Mendoza’s voice sounded strained, higher-pitched, as if his vocal cords had been ratcheted tight.
He slapped the binder down. “Fifty years of information about car versus pedestrian accidents. Your magnum opus.”
“Yes, sir.”
Mendoza stroked his mustache thoughtfully. “Did you consider where bicycles fit in this equation?”
Jacob hefted the binder and took it back to his cubicle.
On the bright side, he was home by six-thirty most days, and weekends were light. He made the regular Monday and Wednesday evening AA meetings at the Anglican church on Olympic Boulevard, finding his regular place at the back. It wasn’t the first time he’d sat in a house of worship, mouthing words he didn’t believe in. Without alcohol, he had little reason to stay out at night; he was early to bed, early to rise, diligent and uncomplaining, chaste and humble. Eventually Mendoza grew bored of harassing him.
When he stopped in at 7-Eleven for diet cola, Henry would clutch his chest. “Was it something I did?”
Now that he knew what to look for, he easily picked out the people who had been sent to watch him. No regular rotation he could discern; sometimes every couple of weeks, other times monthly, a vehicle would show itself within a two-block radius. Caterer, roofer, furnace repair, a piano tuner, weatherproofing installation. Some of the lone occupants were cordial, others glum. None of them displayed anxiety or prolonged the conversation.
They didn’t worry Jacob, either. It wasn’t him they were after.
Returning home from his meeting one night, he was oddly pleased to spot Subach, his chicken-finger fingers drumming the dash of a plumber’s van.
“Hey, Jake.”
“Hey, Mel. Moonlighting?”
“You know. Same old.” Subach grinned. “Traffic treating you okay?”
“Very fucking funny.”
“Ah, relax.”
“Tell Mallick thanks a lot.”
“The Commander, I guess you could say he was a wee bit... vexed.”
Jacob smiled tiredly.
“Don’t worry. Won’t last forever.”
“Nothing does,” Jacob said. “Take it easy, Mel. No hard feelings?”
“None from me.”
Jacob paused. “But?”
Subach laughed. “Hey now. Be realistic. The world’s full of hard feelings. Without that, we’d both be out of a job.”
For their weekly study sessions, Sam selected a tractate discussing criminal justice, including the chapter on capital punishment.
“I think you’re finally old enough,” he said.
Jacob ran up a streak of fourteen straight Sunday mornings without an absence, the two of them sitting on the patio, eating pastry and drinking tea, batting around arguments. The melody of Talmudic study returned to his lips; he reintroduced himself to the luminous personalities that adorned the pages, and he found them far more sympathetic at second encounter. They were men, very much in the grip of their own uncertainties, trying to figure out how to be. The ritual structure they’d established was a noble attempt to infuse life with dignity and meaning. They strove for autonomy, for self-worth, for holiness. And when they failed, they sought new strategies. Jacob had missed that lesson the first time around. He did not intend to miss it again.
The Sunday before Rosh Hashana, Jacob arrived five minutes early. As usual, Sam was waiting out on the patio, his magnifying spectacles pushed back on his forehead. Instead of twin volumes of the Talmud, the table held a single sheet of paper: Jacob’s transcript of the Prague letter.
Sam gestured to the free chair.
Jacob sat.
Sam cleared his throat, lowered the spectacles, flapped the page to straighten it. Paused. “Something to drink?”
“No. Thanks.”
Sam nodded. He began to read, translating from the Hebrew.
“‘My dear son Isaac. And God blessed Isaac so may He bless you.’ You’re correct in identifying this as a term of endearment for Isaac Katz. He and the Maharal were close, not to mention that they were student and teacher, a relationship compared to that of son and father.”
He looked up. “Shall I continue?”
Jacob nodded.
“‘As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so may God rejoice over you. For the sounds of joy and gladness yet ring in the streets of Judah. Therefore this time I, Judah, will praise Him.’”
Sam righted his glasses. “Isaac Katz was married to two different daughters of the Maharal. First Leah, who died childless, then her younger sister, Feigel. The date here, Sivan 5342, corresponds to that second marriage. Isaac Katz is a newly married man, and that’s why the Maharal feels the need to give him an out by citing the priest’s speech to the troops. He’s saying, ‘Something’s happening, and I need your help, but only if you can set aside your personal concerns.’ The next paragraph discusses what the problem is.”
He offered the letter to Jacob.
“‘But now let us remember that our eyes have seen all the great deeds He has done,’” Jacob read. “‘For the vessel of clay we have made was spoiled in our hands, and the potter has gone to make another, more fit in her eyes. Shall the potter be the equal of the clay? Shall what is made say to its maker, you did not make me? Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, you know nothing?’” He put the letter down. “Sorry, Abba. I’m not getting anything.”
“The Maharal was concerned that his son-in-law wouldn’t understand, either. He put in a fail-safe. Here, in the last line. It’s not very subtle.”
For in truth we have desired grace; it is a disgrace to us from God.