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I look at what he draws, try to remember and can't. It seems his name was Yazhik. Where did they all go?
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Among the hundreds of women standing at the ropes stretched by the marines was Rachel Blau. When the ship anchored the sirens' wail sawed through the port and flags were raised and lowered at a dizzying pace and then the gangplank was lowered and the first off were the coffins. Then the wounded were carried on stretchers. On the dock stood tense young marines in polished uniforms, saluting. A band played marches. Lionel disembarked with the wounded officers who received a noisy welcome and women shrieked hysterically. Rachel discovered him between a young woman and a back turned to her with his eyes fixed on the ship. Only when he turned around did Rachel see Joseph Rayna and trembled. If she hadn't been pressed among the hysterical women, the wife of the Shirt King would have collapsed, but they pressed her and she didn't collapse. The young Joseph Rayna, gazing at the city, looked as if all the women waving their hands had come only for him. He smiled at them, and Rachel saw Lionel hold on to him and with the young woman they came down the gangplank.
When she looked at Joseph, Lionel said: Mother, meet Samuel, and he said: Sam, my name's Sam, and she smiled, and what once she couldn't do she now did in the arms of her son, she pitied herself, forced a smile, and shook Lily's hand.
Lily glanced at Rachel and saw how Samuel and Rachel looked at one another. Lily kissed Rachel's face.
The band went on playing and Lionel muttered something to a young officer who limped toward him and slipped away from there to the open arms of a young woman holding a baby. Lionel was the oldest officer of the group, his hair was gray, carrying the kitbag he looked like a military commander in propaganda movies. Genghis Khan he isn't, said Rachel doubtfully, like her husband, she too thought Lionel would never excel at selling shirts, but neither of them had expectations. Her husband maintained with a trace of envy that Lionel was meant to hover through life as an artist, and Rachel said: But he was a brave soldier, and her husband said: A good soldier is a luxury, I have to sell them shirts and our younger son will carry on my business, Lionel will be fine, I'll take care of him, let him just be healthy, in a family like ours we also need poets, he said with an understanding whose generosity evoked contempt in Rachel's eyes. She loved her husband with a quiet love full of regret for the life she had once cast away to gain what Rebecca had taught her not to want.
Sam saw the tall buildings, a train passed overhead, the ships wailed and an airplane was seen landing at LaGuardia Airport. The might he saw before his eyes terrified Sam, but he remained calm and tried to understand how much Rachel understood about who he was, and when he understood that she understood, he relaxed, that was a victory over Lionel, and he needed that victory.
Outside the fenced area the cars were parked, and in the distance Saul Blau appeared in a checked shirt waiting for his family and listening to a baseball game on the radio. Next to him stood three youngsters who waved at Lionel, who kissed each of them, shook hands warmly with Saul, and Saul shook everybody's hand and tried to hug Lily who was almost swooning and after they got into the station wagon, and started driving, Saul carried on a conversation all by himself. He asked about the war and answered his own questions. He explained where they were going and asked if they knew where they were going, Sam meditated and sank into a doze and thought about the flag that had been raised, and the trumpets, he saw a gray sky touching the sharp roofs, and Saul said: They fucked the Germans and the Japanese, now they'll have money to buy shirts. Sam looked at the street, Lily sat pressed against him, silent. The bustling streets changed to bridges winding into one another. He felt his erection secretly oppressing, wanted to rape a bridge or shirts, to rip the words from the mouth of the man who raised shirts and talked about how it would now be hot in his parents' grave.
In the house of the Shirt King, they consumed with exaggerated ardor the supper that Rachel had cooked. They drank Coca-Cola and sweet wine and the host wasn't compelled to try to talk for them all, nor did he know that his wife's first lover was sitting here. He told Lionel about his war experience. Lionel was silent, looked out the window, and ate slowly. Saul said: I transported machine gun shells for the howitzers. My father fought alongside the Ukrainians and I fought alongside the Austrians, we stood and shot, and then I saw Father, his memory for a blessing, shooting at me and we stopped together. We were in one city and in two different armies, that's how it was to be a Jew back then! Our synagogue was besieged. Always ready, what remained there, what remained? Nothing! But to shoot your father, you didn't have that in this war, Lionel. Lionel didn't answer and looked at Lily. At night she shook in his arms and the shaking went through the wall and touched Samuel. He forgot he was Sam, thought he was Samuel, and started shaking too. Rachel lay with her eyes wide open next to her husband and saw Joseph and didn't know if she yearned for him or if it was once again Rebecca who yearned inside her. The house was surrounded by a fine garden and Lionel explained to Sam that the garden was supposed to be like the garden of the Ford Motor King in his hometown in Connecticut. Samuel saw a moon that looked like a splendid coin and shone like cold metal, the trees moved in the wind, the house was overheated, and Samuel had to open the window and a cold wind penetrated the room. Samuel thought: I'll teach that Shirt King, and when the rage subsided a little, he whispered: Fuck her, Lionel, put your Jewish prick in!
They found a nice apartment on Morton Street in Greenwich Village. When they finished furnishing it, Rachel came to visit them. She looked uneasily at the apartment, which looked more like the apartment of a beggar than the apartment of an heir to a shirt kingdom. There were a few modern lamps and one cabinet that wasn't especially ancient, but the chairs, the easy chairs, the tables, and the cabinets looked strange to her, the paintings were full of some mold that depressed her. She looked painfully at the world she had fled, while Joseph walked around the house looking at her as if she were an old whore selling her wares in a display window.
Her thoughts about Joseph were confused and depressing. She simply didn't know how to think of Joseph, facing his son. Sam left the room, passed by Rachel, who was looking at Lionel. And in the small yard squeezed between gray walls, Lily sat on a wicker chair amid the old wet fallen leaves and thrust a needle into embroidery. Sam looked at the locked windows above the small gardens connected to one another, but no one was seen in the windows.