Thirteen Ways of Looking

by Colum McCann

  In the hands of the detectives, the past never stops happening. They dive backward, with their spiral notepads, into the early verses of their work.

  X

  At the sight of blackbirds

  Flying in a green light,

  Even the bawds of euphony

  Would cry out sharply.

  One is too little, two is never enough. Another glass of Sancerre, please, my dear, then cut me off. Alexander the Great knew when and where to stop. It used to be, long ago long ago, that he could put away five, six glasses, but those days are gone, and his army has long since retreated.

  In his early years there was the curious practice of the three-martini lunch. The Queen on Court Street. Luger’s on Broadway. Marco Polo’s in Carroll Gardens. But it was Gage and Tollner on Fulton Street that was the best of them all. Sunlight through the window. Motes of dust in the slanted shaftways. The gimlet hour. A spot of lime and soda, please. How in the world did the system operate when so much of the world was liquored up and tongue-loosened? You never quite knew what way the afternoon would swing. But he saw some great performances in his courtroom back in the day, lawyers who could spin out the most elegant of phrases when gin-lit. Standing up in the courtroom in slightly rumpled suits and ties, slurring, too, but still able to sling the sentences against sentence. Dan Barry, the best of them all. And Dwyer. And Cohen. And Dowd. All lawyer’s lawyers. They were sharpest in the morning. Their arguments could cut through steel. Come noon the world would grow fidgety. It was said that the worst time to finish a case was late in the afternoon when the judges were irritable and ready to go home. It was even worse earlier in the week, when they weren’t yet draped in the promise of a weekend’s respite. But for him, the energy would pick up with the assurance of escape from the gun barrels, the knifeblades, the razors, the meat cleavers, the endless parade of nightsticks and broken bottles. All that misery. It was as if, all of a sudden, the day had church bells in it, ringing again around four thirty as he sat in chambers, poring over evidence, or writing a judgment, or signing off on the endless paperwork which was, in itself, another form of mindless violence. Wake up, wake up, your day’s almost done. No more rapists. No more conmen. No more arsonists. No more shoplifters. No more stalkers. No more illiterate cops. It was like his own little get-out-of-jail-free card. The sun was going down, but the light was coming up. He never hung around for the evenings’ tomfoolery when the rest of them disappeared into the watering holes of Brooklyn, P. J. Hanley’s, the Inn, Buzzy’s place down by the waterfront. He caught a bit of shrapnel from within the party apparatus for moving to the Upper East Side, but he didn’t mind so much, it wasn’t incumbent on him to live in Brooklyn. He was off home to Eileen, driving across the bridge, no subway for him. The reverse commute. A lovely thing to see the sun fully disappear, a fine red aspirin swallowed by the city. He parked the car in the garage off Park Avenue. She would be waiting for him, in the kitchen, in her apron, dusting off her hands before she kissed him. He poured a stiff Scotch and headed straight for the deep leather armchair. How odd to live two such separate lives. He dozed off in the chair and woke to Eileen boiling up a cup of warm milk, his nightly mugshot.

  Every now and then, Thanksgiving, Passover, Christmas, he’d stay out with the bigwigs in Brooklyn for a late night, or they’d drift their way to Manhattan, to the Lion’s Head, or McSorley’s, many of them Irish and paying the price for it. They thought of him as their Hibernian Jew: his accent still had a faint hint of the Dublin days and of course there was Eileen, reading aloud to him, putting what she called the rozziner in his language. The Irish war songs were merry, their love songs sad. They’d be there, in the courtrooms, the very next morning, after breakfast in Teresa’s on Montague, a little red around the eyelids, Janus-faced, but fully operational all the same. Keenan, Rhodes, Potter, McDonald, Jewell. Characters, all and sundry. Destined for heaven or hell, they didn’t really care that much. They were out and about, extracting life from life. What matter if half their clientele ended up on probation, or even worse, in jail? They had done their jobs. They had argued well. It was whiskey now, the water of life. Pour or be poured.

  And how is it that the deep past is littered with the characters, while the present is so housebroken and flat? Wasn’t it Faulkner who said that the past is not dead, it’s not even past? Funny thing, the present tense. Technically it cannot exist at all. Once we’re aware of it, it’s gone, no longer present. We dwell, then, in the constant past, even when we’re dreaming of the future. Surely that’s a theme of some Shakespearean sonnet or other, though I can hardly remember them, waves coming towards the shore, our hastening minutes, our secret toil.

  Oh, the head is spinning. Too much wine. The grapes of wrath. One is too little, and two is never enough. Words, it seems, that young Elliot has taken to heart, out there in the bathroom, or the restroom, or the john, or the jacks, or the vanetsimer, or the pishen hole, or whatever they call it nowadays. Gone ten, fifteen minutes. Take a good look in der shpigl, young man, and tell me what it is you see. He always was a boy vain for the mirror, especially in his college days, glancing at himself sideways every chance he got, that long blond hair on him.

  How quickly the bright child becomes the ruined man. One is too little, two is often enough.

  It was always Katya to whom he gravitated anyway. Quite the girl. A handful in her early years. An Upper East Side Marxist. At thirteen she sheared her hair. Then, a year later, got herself a nose ring. Wore a Che Guevara T-shirt on the few occasions that they went to temple together. She forged his signature on several checks that were made out to the Black Panthers. It started out in twenty-dollar installments, but ended up with one thousand. He learned about it through an article in the New York Post. He was not amused. He was the butt of jokes left, right, and center. They took, in the judicial corridors, to calling him Malcolm X. For her sixteenth birthday she sent her own check for five hundred dollars, but by then the novelty had worn off and she took, instead, to dropping the family’s china out the rear window of the apartment. Out with the footed cups and saucer plates! Out with the coupe soup bowls! Out with the tiered serving tray! Out with the immaculate gravy boat! ¡Viva la revolución! Who needs butter plates anyway? Let’s see how the sterling silver bounces! Hark, the serving platters sing! The courtyard was like an echo chamber. She loved how finely it splintered: apparently the sign of good china was how minutely it broke. They lived on the sixth floor, so there was time enough to hear the Waterford whistle. Several of the downstairs neighbors opened their windows and shouted at her to stop, but secretly they were surely interested in the sailing symphony. Stop, please stop, Katya, stop. Okay, if you must, just one more demitasse, please, my dear.

  She went through a few thousand dollars’ worth of china over the course of two nights. The best punishment was no punishment at all. He went and kissed her sleeping forehead. A judge didn’t judge, not his own daughter anyway. She was into her military industrial complex by then. Ranted and raved and roared. Said he was having an obvious love affair with Nixon. Made Calvin Coolidge look like a liberal. Was interested to know if he’d like to buy body bags for all the students in her classroom. A government garment, she said. No pockets in a shroud. Went out in the streets with a loudspeaker, all five foot two of her, screaming through the canyonlands. Occidental death, she called it. But they all turn around in the end, anyway. Or some of them do anyway. She went out west to Berkeley where they put some manners on her, much to his surprise. Oriental Studies. Did her thesis on Ptolemy the Second. The Book of Optics. Vision occurs in the brain rather than the eyes. And isn’t that the truth? Went on to the State Department then. Agitating for peace while the rest of them made war. The argument for war has an easy gravity, she told him, but the one for peace does not. A smart cookie, Katya, even if she went out there to Israel, the one place on earth where it was guaranteed not to happen, at least not in this lifetime. You might as well try to turn the wine back into water.

 
—Would you like me to keep your son’s plate warm, Mr. Mendelssohn?

  —That’s okay, Rosita.

  —How’s your salmon?

  —Oh, it’s good, very good.

  Though he has hardly tasted a bite, if truth be told. Not a nourishing way to get through the day. Should have just had lunch on my own rather than invite Elliot along. So much better to sit in an accepted silence than have it enforced. That was something that Katya has learned no doubt: the power of silence. Broke her heart not to see peace. Came so close and then got whiskered away. What was his name? Arafat. To which Eileen once whispered: Ara-fat-lot-of-good-he-is-anyway. Always a woman for the fine Gaelic twist. Don’t put all your begs in one ask-it.

  —Is it ever going to stop snowing?

  —Doesn’t seem like it, Mr. Mendelssohn.

  Oh, the way she rolls her m’s, I bet she’s great with p’s and q’s. Should tell her the story of how I became Quinner, though I can’t quite even remember it myself. Was it simply the sound of the word? Dublin was a good place. Always reminds me of hats.

  We leap from cliff edge to cliff edge. Falling occasionally to the ground, sometimes with a good smack, but that’s part of the bargain with age. The memories are still agile enough. Thank God above I never went the Alzheimer’s route. Couldn’t stand the thought of a nursing home. A dark little room at the end of the corridor, somewhere in Queens or the Bronx or Tobago. The heating on too high. The flowers wilting in a grimy little vase. The nurses with a penchant for a backhand smack. Imagine all life coming down to that. Though they say certain ones among them could be lively enough. All those younger widows still willing and able to disappear beneath the covers. He heard once that the incidence of disease is highest of all in nursing homes. One last hurrah. Any port in a storm. The welts and boils hardly matter at that stage. Odd to think that there could ever be another love affair. Wonder if Sally ever thought of it, alone there in her little room, her small TV set, her playing cards on her little table? Solitaire. The only game in town. Would make for a great Hollywood epic that, the Supreme Court justice and his housekeeping nurse, double duty, finally shacking up after all those years. Conflict, drama, resolution. Roll up, roll under. Get your tickets today. He could sign another portion of the will over to her. Her nephew would get a fine schooling then. Perhaps that’s what I should do? Go right home and take out the pages from the files and put that boy further in the will, to hell or high water with Elliot and everyone else. Wouldn’t really cost that much. What is it Sally gets a week? Five hundred with room and board? That’s twenty-five grand a year, most of which she probably sends back. Could save that boy’s life with an extra ten thousand dollars. A drop in the bucket really. A fine lot better than slinging it Elliot’s way, although Katya might bear some of the brunt, and those beautiful kids I seldom see. Still and all, she has enough, his Katya, and how in the world did I get here anyway? Alzheimer’s. That’s the thing. Don’t have it now, probably never will. Would forget about it if I did. Isn’t that right, Eileen? What an awful thing it would be to forget your own wife, though. Though, there are times when he opens a door, or wakes in the morning, and he’s sure she’s still there. Good morning, mo chroí. What am I doing out here on my own? Jilted by my own son.

  Rosita, my dear, I lied to you. The salmon is rubbery. The dill sauce is too milky. I feel like I’m back in the Waldorf Astoria. And really I just want to go home to Eileen. Wrap it up there in two white cloths, Dandinho, let me go.

  —Sorry, Dad.

  Surprise, surprise. Kill the fatted calf. Elliot parks his large carcass in the seat opposite, his face engine-red. Just short of steam coming out of his ears. Tie a blood-pressure cuff around his arm and the needle might break the glass. He’s a certain candidate for a heart attack if he keeps this up. And why in the world would he be fooling around with his assistant anyway? Would he not go the way of that other Elliot, the Spitzer boy, with one l, destined for h-e-l—but he was bright enough at least to cough up a few shekels for a bit of companionship?

  Elliot pushes his plate forward on the table top.

  —Listen, I’m going to have to take care of a few things….

  —Okay.

  —At the office.

  —You haven’t even touched your food.

  —Just get it wrapped, Dad. Take it home. Give it to—whatshername?

  —Sally.

  —That’s right.

  Elliot flicks another look at his phone.

  —Is everything okay, El?

  He hasn’t called him by the diminutive in years. The elevated track. Is everything okay? If that’s not the stupidest question I ever asked, I don’t know what is. But it doesn’t seem to register with Elliot at all, neither the question nor the name. The boy seems distracted beyond language. He turns in the seat and clicks his fingers, then rubs them together like he’s divining money. Dandinho stands over in the corner, looking straight ahead. Most certainly something on that man’s mind. And what was it about Ptolemy? The truth of sight. He darkened his room and set up a camera obscura on the balcony. The first man to successfully project an entire image from outside onto a screen indoors. That’s what Katya said. A ray of light could not proceed from the eyes. Rather, light was the thing that proceeded towards the eye. The outside world giving to the world inside. He’s never seen Dandinho be anything but polite, but here he is now, fuming in the corner, a light from his eyes looking like it could scorch a path through the restaurant.

  —Tell me this, Elliot.

  Clicking his fingers again, over his shoulder, like some Arab prince. No friend of Aristotle’s. He feigned madness to keep himself out of prison.

  —Did you have words with Dandinho?

  —Davido?

  —It’s Dandinho. He’s Brazilian. The busboy.

  —Never saw him before in my life.

  —He looks a bit upset.

  —Wouldn’t you be? A busboy at his age?

  On a roll now. The anger all sharp-angled. Slapping his credit card down on the table.

  —Where’s our waitress?

  Was Ptolemy happy to know what he knew? Is Katya happy to keep on struggling? Is Sally happy to wake up in the morning? Not much happiness here in Elliot, that’s for sure. He has the wife, the car, the garage, the job, the kids, but there’s no joy there at all. Used to have it, long ago. A dark magician. Lost it up his sleeve.

  —It’s on me, Elliot.

  His son still clicking his fingers in Dandinho’s direction.

  —Good place, this, to open a restaurant.

  —My treat, I insist.

  —Where the hell is she?

  —Rosita.

  —What?

  —Rosita’s her name.

  —I don’t need her name, Dad, I just need the bill. Sorry. I know, I know. I just, I have some stuff I really have to take care of. An hour ago. I called you. I should have—

  Ah, the tremble in my pocket on the street. So the ringer is off after all.

  —I told you, son, it’s my pleasure.

  He watches as Dandinho passes along the back of the restaurant, carrying the water jug.

  —Jesus, says Elliot.

  Without the H. Or the A. No joy at all.

  None and sweet fuck-all.

  —Next week, Dad, I promise.

  Finally she comes around the corner, her long blond locks bouncing. Thirty-two perfect shining white teeth. A pair of sharp blue eyes. A girl destined for the big screen, surely, but didn’t she tell him earlier that she was an artist? Or did he just surmise that? There was a touch of blue on the inside of her wrist, wasn’t there?

  —Rosita, my dear, this is my bill.

  —No way, Dad.

  —Look, you haven’t even had a bite. Rosita and I have an understanding, isn’t that right, Rosita?

  Smiling her great big Rhodesian Zimbabwean smile.

  —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.