And then those two loaves. Period, Paragraph. Loreta, his wife’s called: read it back, he’d ask.
Where’s his coat? She would know. On a hanger hanging in the closet doublebreasted. On the coatrack hobbled in the corner. No. Draped over his chair right behind him. And his glasses? Lost atop his head.
His coat, which none of his kinder’ll ever fit into; the youngest of them could be cradled in one of its pockets, in which she’d find an empty matchbook on which’s been penned a reminder.
Buy challah, it says.
Rolled in a receipt from last week.
From the city, he thinks, because he didn’t take the train today, the drive out to the Developments, what with the delay — an hour, fortyfive if I’m lucky. Which you are, Hanna’d remind, and he’d be reminded, remember, if only he’d call. To stop, run an errand. Just a minute. And then to stop in at shul, too, there’s still that. He’ll park in the lot, walk home in ten. All is actionable, that’s what’s on the agenda. He sips at the fountain on his way out the door. Always the last to leave, despite any nature, no matter what darkness: he’s thinking, O to have an office high above the sun!
Having presented the Gatekeeper with all appropriate identifications, Friday’s permit obtained a moon in advance, and having successfully passed Security, all ten tests, seven days of them and more, the pair idling down the street in a luxury sedan of the latest model — driving, nu, so not everyone’s so occupied with the Law — slowgoing and quiet as they’re trying to find whatever particular arboreally named turnoff, which is particularly difficult, and so requires particular slowness and quiet, in a planned gridded neighborhood of approximately ninety equally leafy, differently treenamed streets, and not just Streets: in a Development of one Elm Avenue, one Elm Boulevard, one Elm Street, and one Elm Terrace — not to be confused with 1 Elm Terrace, home of the Ulms — in a Development named by a committee of hundreds One Thousand Cedars, and not just because the Name rang investmentworthy, which it surely still does. Right turn there then left here where everything’s just soooooooo spread like all the way out, she’s just noticing, he’s thinking morning’s smooth, schmeared like creamed cheese over warmed pumpernickel the last he had to eat as she’s reminded before work with its ten cups of diuretic coffee — out where it’s too far to walk anywhere, ever, no matter what kind of shapely health you’re in and so they drive, three minutes down the Parkway from their neighboring Development.
His window down, hers up, then his up and hers down now his down and hers up again, they’re debating over the passing airs — the unabashed excesses of the stereo, the soundtrack that came with the car.
Gray with white shutters.
What number?
I’ll know it when we’re there.
White with gray shutters.
What tree?
Apple or Fig.
Which water?
There are waters here, too.
Apple River? Apple Lake?
Lane or street or avenue.
Or boulevard or way.
What number?
33?
Why am I thinking 33? and she straightens herself
in the seat and her skirts.
Open a window, he says, in the midst of a pianissimo mistaken for silence, tries to find something else on the radio so that they don’t have to talk. Across her lap a bouqet of irises; in the backseat, a bottle of wine.
What’re their names?
Who?
Their daughters’.
I forget, there’re so many of them, they’re
like locusts.
How many?
I think so.
What?
You don’t listen.
You’re the one who works with him.
And so?
You tell me.
Anyway, I work for him.
And us? she says, looking to the seat where the
wine’s rested itself in a seam.
What? he’s distracted, peers over the wheel into the headlights’ saving arc.
Nothing, she sighs you’re not listening, never, then sinks down in her seat, water from the flowers soaking her sweater through the paper and plastic they’re wrapped in.
He glances from his watch to the time of the stereo display.
Or the frequency, there on the dash.
He leans over once to peep at her watch and she thinks he’s trying to kiss her.
His office is empty, and Israel, who’d hired him just last week, is still sitting in traffic. Why? What do you consider your greatest strengths? Your greatest weaknesses? Where do you want to be in the practice in five years? In ten? The chair had been comfortable and the knot of his tie was of the appropriate size. What judges have you appeared before? What kind of hours have you been used to working? Have you brought sample briefs? His underwear had been new and clean, his socks, too. There’d been too many questions, and he’s expecting even more of them tonight, and more personal. You are married, is that correct? Does she work? Do you mind? Why no kids?
Still, it couldn’t have gone better, then the invitation for Friday night dinner. He’d answered a resounding yes to it all.
And he shows his gratitude through lateness, just perfect. An apology’s required, but he’s feeling more: maybe he’ll offer to wash dishes, or take out the trash.
Why the fear, he already has the job. Never sure.
Hanna, she’d hired Israel for husband already knowing the faults.
Why all this waiting when he has no workwise reason to wait, when he has a home and a meal, hot, and guests, yes, probably guests already, them waiting, too, and a wife and kinder only waiting for him who they themselves have no waitwise excuse — courtesy not having any priority over the coming of Shabbos?
He’s waiting in fear, Israel, out of fear.
His guests and new junior partner, what’s his name and the girlfriend, the wife.
Fear because of cancers, because he thinks he has cancers, because he knows he has cancers, because he has cancers.
And why does Israel have cancers?
Because his mother had had cancers and his mother’s mother had had cancers, his mother’s father, too, then their own parents as well, and then their parent’s parents had all had their own cancers and yadda and blah unto the most rarefied generation; everyone he’s ever been related to all the way back probably forever since even Adam, he’s thinking — whose death at almost one thousand years old isn’t accounted for in the detail that would seem to befit the first death, naturally caused — had had cancers, and then died of them weakened and feeble at whatever unripe young age.
And then fear for his own kinder, too. As those of his wife’s family who didn’t die of cancers, who’d died of anything else, if they’d only lived longer, lived long enough, if the Germans and Russians, among others, didn’t do what the Germans and Russians have been known to do, always, then they, too, would’ve eventually died of cancers, he’s sure of it, has to’ve been — it’s in the family, a blackbox heirloom kept in the basement, locked in an attic’s suitcase, a trunk at the foot of the stairs.
Inherited, dust to dust.
Why? Because. Cancer is a waiting matter. A working matter, only of time.
Why, because you have to wait on your cancers, patience patience patience — having cancers like having guests, expecting husband to father himself home with the challah, in time for the motzi and wine.
Why, because you have to work at your cancers, slowly, patiently, nurturing them, allowing them the room to like you know grow. Like in any relationship, like with wife and kinder.