A Brief Lunacy Page 16

  “When you’re finished with your dinner, you can have some ice cream,” I say.

  Charlie and Sam and Sylvie sat around the small table we had in the old cottage right on this spot, listened to the same words. That afternoon we made ice cream with peaches from our yard in Connecticut that we had packed carefully in a cooler for the long ride up. Carl was at a conference, so it was just the four of us. We bought cream from a farm down the road. Thick and yellow.

  They took turns cranking the ice cream machine, although Sylvie insisted on deciding whose turn it was. The machine sat dripping on the counter, packed with ice and salt, packed with the essence of summer. Charlie was only five. They all finished their dinner, even the broccoli, which Charlie hated. I scooped ice cream into their bowls and mine with a wooden spoon until there was barely a smudge left in the bottom of the metal canister, and we ate it without a word, the only sound the clicking of spoons against the sides of glass bowls. Sam was three and a half. Ice cream dripped down his chin and dotted his shorts and shirt. After we finished, I remember kissing all their faces, tasting the flavor of peaches and cream and children and a bit of broccoli. The next day I found chunks of broccoli in the pocket of every child, squished and smeared, in shoes, down socks, rolled in the hems of their shorts. Where was I? Why hadn’t I noticed?

  People don’t do that today. It isn’t de rigueur anymore to withhold dessert until plates are cleaned. I don’t know what to think about that. If I had small children today, would I let them eat what they wanted? But what about trying new foods? When we have grandchildren, we’ll have to decide what to do.

  “I’d like some.”

  “What?”

  “I’d like some ice cream. What kind is it?”

  “Oh,” I say. “Chocolate. Yes. Chocolate.”

  His head drops and bolts up, as if he is drowsing. A shock of streaked blond bangs flops as he moves. Does he dye his hair? What a strange thing. I remove his plate, push his almost-empty glass of schnapps toward him. He slumps in the chair and his weapon hand drops to his lap. There’s enough chocolate for one bowl. When I make the first scoop into the container, he focuses on me, on my hand, on my eyes; then he smiles, nods as if he approves, slumps back down into his chair.

  In my pocket, my fingers clutch at the keys to the car, Wait for the right moment. Then I scoop another blob of ice cream into the bowl, watch him, watch him succumb to too much alcohol. I leave the empty carton on the counter next to the bowl, place my hand back into my pocket, and wait.

  20

  CARL

  WHY DID JESSIE give him my orange sweatshirt? It’s mine. In one pocket there’s a chunk of dried bear scat and in the other, a brown pastel crayon and that dangly silver earring that I found by the seagull rock. Private things. Pockets are private. And it’s too big for him, even with the cuffs rolled up.

  I open my mouth for the fork that Jessie offers me, half expecting her to open hers, too, go Ah until I swallow, the way she did with the kids when they were tots. I chew the dry potato just because food is in my mouth, not because I’m hungry. I can’t eat any more. My mouth is sore and I feel as if I might not be able to keep the first forkful down in my stomach. A glass of water. That’s what I need. But I can’t ask her. It’s too selfish. I shake my head when she offers another bite. No. I can’t eat any more.

  She asks me to pay attention. She’s got a plan. I’m usually the one with the plans. I’m the plan guy. But I don’t have one. Nothing. I try to apologize for her violation but it falls flat. I can’t even say the word in my head, let alone aloud. When I kiss her I smell a faint trace of peppermint. We talk about Sylvie, wonder if she is going to have a baby. It’s impossible, n’est-ce pas?

  Jonah calls Jessie back into the kitchen. They sit like a married couple eating their dinner. My mouth is dry from the potato. My lips are cracking. I can taste the blood on my tongue. I should have asked for water.

  Underneath the truck the day I left the camp I remember the thirst. The truck was supposed to leave in the morning, but it stayed parked in the yard next to the Gypsy camp for hours. I was only a few inches off the ground, jammed up against the hot, jagged metal and tied in with that leather strap around my back, which cut into my already mangled flesh.

  If a guard stooped down to tie his boot, he’d see me and I’d be shot right in the harness. I could see just enough to know what was happening. I saw father’s shame when the whip cracked on his body as he tried to get off Nonni. He called Mother’s name, touched her dirty foot with his fingertips before they dragged her to the dead cart. Nonni rolled onto her belly to hide herself and lay as if dead, even when the whip touched her legs. They propped my father up, pushed him back into line with the rest. They made them stand there for hours and shot anyone who fell out of line. My last view of the Gypsy camp was of more bodies on the ground than standing. Nonni? I don’t know. Father? I think he was one of the bodies on the ground.

  When the truck finally drove away from the camp, it was full of SS. Above me, almost touching, was the rusted bottom of the truck bed. A few small holes allowed me to see through into the truck bed, where I’d sat many times with my violin on the way to a party or a wedding at the home of a Nazi Party member.

  Through one of the holes I saw a man look directly into my eyes, blink, and look away. His eyes were blue. He was young. Not much older than I was.

  The heat was blistering, even for August in Poland. I closed my eyes against the hot metal above me and imagined I was at the Camargue sea, imagined the sand beach and cool Mediterranean water at its edge, the lunch can Grammy filled with fresh bread and berries and chicken and nettle soup in a jar.

  My mouth was dry. Worse than today. My tongue traced dust on blood-caked lips like sandpaper on painted metal. The truck jolted with each pothole, and once I almost fell to the ground. I could hear their talk even over the roar of the truck’s engine. I can’t remember now what they said but I remember them singing bar songs and talking about their girls, the pretty Polish chickies in town.

  The hump in the center of the road got higher and higher as the ruts made the previous spring became deeper. Thick tufts of grass swept over my back, and several times, protruding rocks gouged at the skin on my shoulders. I held myself up close to the underside of the bed to avoid being hit. I remember worrying about my violin every time we hit a large bump.

  Near town the ruts became more shallow, and the hump lower, but loose stones flew up from the road as the truck picked up speed. Not once did I regret leaving the camp. Not once.

  I heard a yell from above me, and the truck geared down until it came to a stop at the side of the road. I pulled myself by my arms up hard against the underside of the truck to keep out of sight, watching boots pile out of the truck. They were having a picnic. A goddamned picnic with baskets full of tinned meat and wine and frosted cake. They would see me if they looked under the truck for any reason. Fifteen of them sat around in the field, passing wine and petits fours. I didn’t move the entire time. My dirty body must have blended in with the dark rusted metal because no one noticed me. As the last SS leaped into the truck, my arms gave out and I settled back against the biting leather straps for the rest of the trip.

  The truck pulled up to a sidewalk in town and the men climbed out of the back. I hadn’t seen a sidewalk in years. I saw high-heeled shoes and dresses slapping pale calves and bottoms of shopping bags. A child peeked under the truck. She saw me. If she had been old enough to talk she would have said, Mommy, there’s an half-naked man underneath the truck. Dark came and there were no more shoes clicking on the cement. “Wait until the dark,” my friend had said. “Wait until there is no one in the street.” I hung on to the pipes with my last bit of strength. Where did it come from? Each time I considered dropping down and running into the darkness, I heard footsteps, waited for them to go by, planned again. After an hour of complete silence, I unhooked the leather strap, lowered my feet to the ground, and unwrapped my arms from the pipe. I lay und
erneath the truck for a while, dreaming about water and cake and a potato.

  My violin was there on the front seat of the truck, covered with a newspaper as Marcel had promised. I almost left it there but remembered my mother’s words, that my violin would save me. It had saved me before. Perhaps it would save me again. I took the newspaper, too, because I hadn’t seen one in years. In the days that followed I almost sold that violin for food over and over again.

  I ran through shadows made by a light here and there, pulled a sheet from a clothesline, killed a growling dog with a rock, placed my lips over a rotten apple and sucked the moisture into my dry mouth. I remember how it felt. Like God had spread a banquet before me.

  Now, while they eat their chicken and potato, I struggle against the tape around my ankles. Sometimes I carry a Swiss Army knife. I try to feel in my pocket with my elbow, although I know it isn’t there. It’s beside my bed with a bunch of change and a couple of pens.

  “I’d like some,” the bastard sitting in my place at the table says. “I’d like some ice cream. What kind is it?”

  “Oh,” Jessie says. “Chocolate. Yes. Chocolate.”

  Is Hans alive? It’s cool, even for October. He’ll be freezing on the chilly ground. In the morning there’ll be frost on his clothes, frost on the ground around him. Does he really think I’m a Nazi? How could he? How could he have told Sylvie? I’m tired. I’m so tired. It’s not my fault that he was shot. Or is it? What if I hadn’t yelled out and told him to run? I try to think of possibilities but my mind is fuzzy. My eyes close. My chin drops to my chest. Marte. She could come looking for Hans. I won’t cry out then.

  Why didn’t I tell Jessie about the camp and the truck and my family? I answer my own question: I’m a coward. Like when the Red Cross asked me who I was. I had lived for months in the woods, stealing food when I could get it, pulling clothes from lines in the backyards of farmhouses. Once, I helped an old couple slaughter their pig in exchange for some of the meat. They let me stay with them in their attic for several weeks. The woman—I can’t even remember her name—brought me warm milk every evening and rubbed salve on my back. She let me touch her hair once because I told her she reminded me of my grammy. I played waltzes for them and they danced in their shabby kitchen in threadbare clothing, held each other close. When the SS came to her door to take food, she explained that I was her grandson visiting to help with the farm.

  I had been living on beechnuts from the woods and stolen bread and crows that I killed with a well-aimed stone, when I found out that the Germans had retreated. They asked who I was. Me? I am . . . I am French. That’s why I was in the camp. I saw the disgust in the eyes of the women taking names when a Sinti Gypsy begged her to help him find his family. I heard the words “dirty Gypsy” and decided I could no longer be a Gypsy.

  How would they know? They didn’t look at our genitals. They never knew that I was uncut, a Gitan, a Gypsy from the Camargue. Perhaps it was better to be French and a Jew.

  “Next, please,” the woman said.

  “Yes. I am next.”

  “Name?”

  “I am a French Jew. I am Carl Jensen. My father, Michel Jensen. My mother was Chantal Comeau. I am a French Jew. My grandparents were Jews. I was educated at the music conservatory.”

  And I pulled up my sleeve to reveal my number but not far enough to reveal the Z. There was no one in my family left to hear those words. All dead. All dead from the guns or the whips or the final gassing of the Gypsy camp. I would never again go to the Camargue. I would never again go to France. The next day I paid a tattoo man to stick me with needles until a fish covered the Z and all the numbers. I said I had family in America, and they put me on a boat to New York.

  From that day when they asked and I told lies, I denied my family. I thought in French and then in English. Occasionally I’d find myself singing in Gitan, singing my mother’s songs. Sometimes in the middle of a hip operation, thoughts of touching a woman not my wife, thoughts of marimé and our customs, would come to me, saying, Unclean, unclean. The resident would say, “Dr. Jensen, are you all right?” Once, I said, “Finish up,” and left the operating room, washing my hands over and over and over.

  And my family. The pictures of them in the camp came to me at night when I closed my eyes. That was my punishment, to see them violated, in pain, crying out. It was God’s retribution.

  But the sound was the worst. Veshi, Veshi, my mother’s voice, soothing, then the gunshot into her mouth. My violin playing waltzes for the Jews on the way to their death. And the SS barking orders, calling us “schmutziger Zigeuner,” filthy Gypsies, scum, dirt. We were dirty. There was no way to keep clean, although I tried to wash every day. Marimé was violated constantly. And some of the men who couldn’t stand it went to the fence, where their burnt bodies were found in the morning. Would my father have gone to the fence after lying on Nonni if he hadn’t dropped to the ground back in the line? I think so. Yes. He would have.

  But why did I feel no shame? Why didn’t I go to the fence? I didn’t slip from the truck, say, Yes, I am here. Veshi is here. Not escaped. Please don’t harm my mother, my sister, my father. Please. I am here. No, I didn’t. I became a French Jew and went to America and became a wealthy doctor who can’t fix my own daughter. I can’t fix Harry’s busted hip. I can’t fix this crazy fellow, Ralph or Jonah or whoever he is. I’m so tired, tired, and I can’t fix anything at all.

  “Carl,” Jessie says. She crouches in front of me, touches the top of my head, pushes it back to see my face. “Carl, don’t. Things will work out. Don’t.”

  “Sylvie,” I say. “I’m worried about Sylvie.”

  “He’s drunk,” she says. “He’s had a lot of alcohol. Just sit quietly.”

  “Any more ice cream?” Jonah asks.

  “No,” Jessie says.

  “What ya doing there?”

  “Nothing,” she says. She leaves me, turns toward him, and walks like an angel, her braid swaying across her narrow back.

  “Sit down,” he says. “Do you have any more of that peppermint stuff? No. You don’t. I know that. Don’t you think I know that?”

  “I have something else,” she says. “I’ll open it.” It must be the amaretto. She opens the bottle, pours some in his glass.

  “My mother. She’s dead, isn’t she?” He slurs his words. “I think I shot her.”

  “No,” she says. “No, you didn’t.”

  “She’s not dead? How wonderful.”

  “Drink your amaretto. Isn’t it good?” she says.

  “What’s that? Who’s that?”

  “I don’t hear anything,” she says.

  But I hear something. It’s Hans calling from the driveway. The voice comes, faint, through the autumn air, through the closed door. “Hilfe. Helfen Sie mir. Bitte.” Help. Help me. Please. I heard those words once after I escaped, uttered by a young SS officer when I kicked his head with my bare feet before I stole his boots. His eyes were pale blue. I killed him with a metal plow blade from the field. The boots were black leather, perfect condition, hardly worn. They were a little big the first time I tried them, until I pulled his heavy wool socks over my own.

  I stare at the backs of my hands. What did Jessie see yester-day on my hands? Did she see blood? Or did she see the healing hands of a surgeon? She touched the backs of my hands as if she saw something there she hadn’t seen before. My fingers are thick. The other doctors were amazed that I could operate as deftly as I did with such heavy hands. My fingers were smaller then, when I was seventeen. Ripped fingernails, dirt so ground in that the skin turned gray, sores and cracks in dry skin. Perhaps it was truly a different man, someone else, who did those things. Yes. Of course. It was a different man. With different hands. These hands are soft; my wedding ring is too tight now, so that my flesh puffs out around it, and my fingernails are perfectly cut straight across. Yes. With different hands. Someone with a different name. Another man entirely. Yes. That’s right.

  21

&
nbsp; JESSIE

  “MY MOTHER,” JONAH SAYS. “She’s dead, isn’t she? I think I shot her.”

  “No,” I say. “No, you didn’t.”

  “She’s not dead? How wonderful.”

  When I encourage him to drink the amaretto, he lifts the glass and sips, dribbles some down his chin, slurps from the edge of the glass. I watch the gun constantly from the corner of my eye, waiting for my chance to take it. What will I do with it when I have it in my hand? Stick ’em up? Hardly. I’ve never held a gun before. Carl wanted me to try it just in case I had to use it someday. “Why in God’s name would I want to use a gun?” I’d said.

  Shooting someone is a bit more indirect than bashing them with a chunk of granite or cutting into them with a sharp cleaver. There’s that distance from the gun to the victim that only the bullet connects. It’s easier, no? Just pull the trigger, and whoosh, the bullet leaves the gun and goes somewhere else, sometimes into the floor, sometimes into a tree, sometimes into someone’s flesh. I could do that. I’m not sure I could hit someone with a weapon held in my hand. A cleaver gripped by its handle? A chunk of rock held fast to my palm by my fingers? No. I don’t think so.

  Then I see those same hands on Harry’s back, hands grasping at his shoulders at the top of the stairs. His shirt was blue with white stripes. I hardly remember anything about that day except for my hands struggling to hold on to his shirt, and then his body in a heap on the floor below. Sometimes I think I pushed him, but then I see my hands pulling him back. And I feel that blue and white shirt sliding through my fingers.

  “Drink your amaretto,” I say. “Isn’t it good?”

  “What’s that? Who’s that?”