Выбрать главу

— Doesn’t the home player get the advantage?

— Sir?

— I mean, I’m the local here, am I not?

A small amount of confusion hovering at the edges of her mouth.

— Besides, he says, I haven’t even ordered dessert.

Shifting her weight from foot to foot, she smiles down at Elliot, a thin regal smile.

— I guess your dad wins, she says.

— I guess he does, says Elliot.

And, just like that, he has tucked the credit card away in his shiny brown wallet, as if he had never intended to pay at all. He taps the wallet like the head of a friendly dog. You’re not really serious, are you, son? Just like that? Not an ounce of irony? One two three and then away? Like shit off a shovel? Aren’t we supposed to at least play a little bit of bob-and-weave? Isn’t that what the etiquette demands? You jab, I jab, you duck, I don’t. Who raised you anyway? What barn door opened up and tossed you out? Never touched the boy once in my life, but, ay, he deserves a good rap across the wrist now. Bring Katya along and have her produce peace at this table. The last time I fought with anyone was along the Royal Canal when I fell, ten pins down, after a single slap from some carrot-headed Gypsy boy. It rocked a tooth loose in the back of my jaw. The tongue went to it over and over again. A probe of pain. Like fatherhood. Trying to ease those little aches that spring up each and every day. The promise of consolation outlasting the punishment of living.

— So you’re off then?

— You know.

No, I don’t know, not really.

— Shit happens, Dad.

Indeed, it does. Just ask Sally James.

Oh, the morning seems so distant to me now. Gay gazinta hate. That fine doublespeak. Eileen adopted that phrase when she heard it, she loved to say it over and over, at the door, or at the end of a night, there was something pure Dublin about it for her. Go in good health and Get lost all at once.

— Sorry to hear about your trouble.

— Don’t worry, Dad, I’ll crush her.

Crush her? Really? There’s no doubt that Elliot has, and could, crush many a thing, though perhaps he shouldn’t wear it as a badge of honor. The big rich white man crushing the small brown girl? Hardly a moment of enlightenment. No rewriting of history. How many times has that happened, from Christopher Columbus all the way here, now, to Elliot Mendelssohn?

— Just look after yourself, son.

Which is not what he meant to say at all. Rather he should have said: Don’t be despicable, Elliot. Stop twisting women’s arms. Display some heart. Stop whining. Show some character. Grow up. Talk to me about our gone days. Give me something to kvell over.

Elliot leans down to sip the last of his wine, a trickle in the end of the glass.

And what is this but a hand coming across the table to shake his, as if they have just done a business deal, no stand-and-hug, no clap on the back, no manly peck on the cheek. Not quite sure, Elliot, if I’ve ever disliked you more than at this particular moment. Is that it? Is that all we get? No sweet words, no revelations, no human resolutions, just a new word added to the lexicon, and not even a good one.

Elliot swipes a napkin across his wine-colored mouth and throws the crumpled result down upon the table, a mountain of cloth.

— I’ll call you.

— You do that.

— We’ll get a proper lunch.

Gay gazinta hate indeed. Elliot, son, you could clear a room quicker than the Black Death.

There he goes, lumbering across the restaurant towards the coat check. Keying something again into his cursed phone. Stared at by Dandinho. He might burn a hole in his back. Go ahead, Dandinho, wrap him in aluminum and sling him out into the street.

— Rosita.

She turns immediately from the bar where she is leaning seductively against the counter.

— Yes, Mr. Mendelssohn?

— I think I’m finished here. Can you have Dandinho wrap them up? And I’d like to order a dessert.

— Yes, sir. What’ll you have?

He should ask her now about her paintings. What is your life really like, out there in Brooklyn, or the Bronx, and that blue on your wrist, is that from a painted sky, because all I can remember of a very blue sky was a day in September when it all came crashing down.

— The tiramisu, I suppose.

— Great choice, Mr. Mendelssohn.

Thank you, my dear. Lovely once and always, moonlight in your hair. Time was, once, when the world was full of the likes of you.

And there the silhouette of Elliot goes, along past the window, the dark shaping itself into the white of the storm.

Jilted, then. By my own son.

And look at that. Two little puddles of rainwater on the floor beneath the table. All that’s left of Elliot.

Which makes him think: time to tap a kidney.

He scoots the chair away from the table. And how is a man supposed to negotiate these other tables all sandwiched together? A slalom course. Hit the gates, zoom down the snowy mountain, watch out for patches of ice.

— How is everything, Mr. Mendelssohn?

Eagleton, the new manager. A long skinny drink. Awful complexion. Skin all rutted and scarred. It would hardly help to tell him the truth.

— Just fine, thank you. The salmon was delicious.

— Good.

— And the waitress.

A strange look on Eagleton’s face. Oh, no, no, no. Not that she was delicious. No, no. Or not that she wasn’t. Just a good waitress. Is what I meant. Not delicious.

— She’s very charming.

— I’m very glad to hear that, Mr. Mendelssohn. Can I help you there?

— I’m fine, thanks. A quick visit.

He nods in the direction of the bathroom. Just standing up, he can feel the necessity. God, oh, God, there are times indeed when the winter gear would help on the slippery slope.

Through the tables he goes, tapping his cane on the ground. He flicks a quick look towards the kitchen through the circular porthole on the swinging kitchen door. Like ships, these restaurants. He can just about make out Dandinho, ahoy there, in full and animate conversation with a small little aproned man. Not fisticuffs but certainly a little wave bouncing between them.

A flash of eyes from the aproned man. Over Dandinho’s shoulder. Hardly a hello either, what is the world coming to? Just jocular no doubt. Wonder if that’s the man who prepared my salmon? Though he doesn’t look like a chef. More like a porter.

Onwards, anyway. The smell of Clorox. Bathe me in it. Cleanse me.

No emporium of handles in this bathroom but at least it’s clean and tidy. Only a quick whizz anyway. Root around, find the equipment, extinguish, wash your hands, be on your way, two minutes flat, make the fire-hose company proud.

In the corridor, he glances towards the kitchen once more. No sign of Dandinho or the aproned man. Around the corner, through the tables. Candles in daytime. Snow still out the window.

Tiramisu on the table, yes. The world restored. Thank you, Rosita. What we all need, from time to time, is a little pick-me-up.

XI

He rode over Connecticut

In a glass coach.

Once, a fear pierced him,

In that he mistook

The shadow of his equipage

For blackbirds.

In nearly all interrogation rooms, the camera is set up high in a corner: the cobweb cam. It is preferable to have a glimpse of the doorway — the truth is so often worn in the shape of arrival. The innocent walk in and sit straight down, perplexed, their hands joined together as if eager to be in prayer, but the guilty often pause for a second to look at the room and gauge it, searching for a hiding place, ready to defy their own knowledge of what has happened.