“Can I?” Nelson said, but already he was. Her clothing unfurled, his face to her chest, and Naomi forgot herself in the slip of his skin over her skin. How thin he was for the weight he made, and how pale he was not, though he was light in that pristine, Aryan way—hairless men langlaufing through the Nordic forests, surfer blonds, ice-pick blue in the irises, men who were not Jewish—the unsnipped, as her friend Shura had once called them. The purr of a zipper, his or hers? She really ought to be more on top of this, she thought, but then it was so sweet to lie here and be touched this way, so gently and with such focused intent. His mouth closed over her navel and she heard, as if from some great distance, the sounds she made.
“Wait.” Naomi sat up. “Just wait.”
“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I should have—”
“No, it isn’t that,” she told him hurriedly. “I just, I don’t want Polly …”
“Of course.”
They both got up and walked away from their clothes. The light was on, four harsh bulbs. She brought him into her bedroom, where it was dark, and they fell over the bed, her mess of blankets. Nelson’s big hand where her legs met, without delay, opened and touched her. Was she a non-virgin? One finger, then two. She could barely remember what Daniel looked like suddenly, though she recalled the feline tautness of Ashley’s long thigh, the pucker of his little ass. And of Nelson, who in his way had really loved her; this was the only memory she had taken away: the top of his rosy head, with its skein of silver-gold hair, bobbing in concentration as he stroked her and kissed her, reverent and courteous at once. “Naomi,” he said now, “I did miss you.”
“Missed this,” she said, and what she meant as a tease came out smacking of accusation.
“No, you. And this.”
“But we’re too different,” she said, smiling. “At least that’s what you—”
“Shh.” He darted up to kiss her. Quite gently, he bit her lips. “Not now.”
Naomi took his hand away. She didn’t want his hand. She wanted to feel him push against her. She wanted to feel that again and see if she remembered how it felt.
“I didn’t bring anything,” he said suddenly. “I really didn’t think about it. I would have. But I didn’t think I would need—”
“I’m on the pill,” Naomi said, without thinking. Then she was shocked at the words, though they came in her own voice. She had never been on the pill. She had always had a superstitious notion that if she took a pill to keep from becoming pregnant it might work too well and she would never have children. Last summer she had used her diaphragm, but it had probably crumbled to dust by now, and anyway, she didn’t know where it was.
“Oh. Fine,” he said. He put his mouth to her breast. Her nipple rolled against his teeth. Had he done that last year? Did she forget that part?
Or this: Nelson’s arm in the small of her back, lifting her up hard against him, or the glancing of hipbone against hipbone, like somebody striking inefficiently a flint against a steel but somehow still managing to ignite sparks. She let her head fall back against the pillow. Let him lift me, is what she was thinking. Let him, since it feels good, and it felt good and she did not have to explain the right way to do it. Obviously I can’t take care of myself. Naomi’s arms flung up over her head, knuckles against the headboard. He said, “Oh, this is good. Oh, you are.” Each word had its own breath. It took a long time to make sentences. He said other things. She wanted his mouth to be over hers when he came, and it was. And she closed her legs around him—thigh slick on thigh—as if to trap him forever in this happy place, with this sweetness between them. How long could it last before he moved, and got up and walked away?
“Naomi.” A kiss for her ear: friendly, thick with affection. “I don’t want to mess up your life.”
“My unmessed-up life,” she said ruefully, feeling him fall out of her: the little sadness after the little death.
“No, I mean … since last time it didn’t work out.”
“Well,” Naomi sighed, “I’m not sure I know what it means anymore, to ‘work out’ with another person.”
“No, I don’t know either.”
He lay on his back beside her, one long leg bent so that the sole rested against her ankle.
“You didn’t just …” He turned to her. “It wasn’t because I went to Warren, is it? It wasn’t a reward.”
“No, of course not. Though I would give you a reward if I could. I think it’s great, what you did. But it’s not why this happened. I’m glad you stayed.”
“I should have come sooner.”
Yes, she thought, though she didn’t say it.
After a moment he got up to go into the bathroom. He turned the water on so she wouldn’t hear him pee. Sweet, Naomi thought. Then the door opened. “Is this you?” Nelson said.
He was looking at the bathroom wall, over the toilet.
“Yes. My dad brought the dashikis home from Africa.”
“Dashikis.” He tested the word. He had evidently not heard it before. “Is that what they are?”
“Yes. Sort of African shirtdresses.”
“This your brother? And your mom?”
“Yes,” Naomi said. “In front of Grant’s Tomb. That’s in Manhattan.”
“You were pretty,” he observed. “What were you here, about eight?”
“Yes. Chubby.”
“Plump,” he corrected. “Pretty.”
She thought she looked, in the photograph, about as untidy as she always felt. Now, rather belatedly, she wondered if she didn’t always feel untidy because she saw this photograph every time she went into her bathroom.
“And that hair.”
Which was frizzy-brown and down to her ass, caught at midpoint by an orange band.
“Ashkenazi deluxe,” she said, more to herself,
He frowned, but didn’t ask. Another new word.
“Where’s your father?” Nelson said.
“Oh. He was seldom in the picture, if you know what I mean.”
She saw him look at her through the open door. He didn’t know.
“He took that photograph. That’s why he isn’t in it. But he ran off the next year, with one of his students.”
Nelson nodded. “Sorry.” He washed his hands, then flicked out the light and came back to bed. “They all still in Manhattan, your family?”
“My mom is,” Naomi said. “My dad lives in California, near San Francisco. My brother caught the tail end of the draft. He’s been in Canada for the last decade.”
He took this in. She waited for him to get angry, but he didn’t. “What does he do up there?”
“Teaches school. He married a Canadian woman and had Canadian kids. They’ve been down to visit a couple of times.” She shrugged. “We’re not that close, really.”
For a long minute Nelson looked at her, the arms still up over her head. Even in the half-dark she caught the warm tone of his skin. And she felt, rather than saw, the warmth in his looking.
“You are a very uncommon woman,” he said seriously.
“In oh so many ways,” she quipped, but he didn’t smile.
“I mean that. I haven’t met anyone else like you.”
“Well, Judith,” Naomi said. “Judith is like me.”
“I haven’t known Judith like this. And I don’t intend to know her like this.”
“All right, then. Assuming this is a compliment, I accept your compliment.”
He didn’t answer.
“Nelson? Did you change your mind about last year? Is that it?”
This will not hurt me, Naomi thought, chanting to herself. Whatever he says will not hurt me.
“Well, that’s just it.” He shook his sad head. “I didn’t change my mind. I still feel what I felt then. But I also feel this. And there have been times when I just wanted to be here in this house, and of course I couldn’t come here. Not only because of what I said to you when we stopped, but because of the babies, and Heather. I couldn’t just come and talk to
you, or do anything else.”
“No.” She nodded. “I see that.”
“But I wanted to. I woke up in the night sometimes, and I wanted. Even though I knew we would always wind up struggling against each other. There are just some lives that won’t blend. I said that, and I still think so. But I always thought of you with great …” He trailed off, unsure of what the next word ought to be.
“Yes. I know that.” Naomi sat up next to him, her breasts pendulous. He never took his eyes off her face. She thought, quite suddenly, of Mickey Schwerner and the mob, and how he really had understood just how they felt. “Nelson,” she said, “whatever it is, I know that very well.”
Chapter 41
The Chosen People
“NO WAIT,” JUDITH SAID. “WAIT, YOU’VE GOT TO hear this next bit.”
“Okay,” Naomi said, twisting her neck to pin the phone to her ear. She was trying to dress and watch Polly at the same time. Polly had, of late, developed an interest in steaming liquids.
“All right, so then it goes, ‘Ironically, it is those movements and communities that view themselves as morally sanctioned who fail most strikingly to be moral. During the Crusades, for example, Christian soldiers paved a bloody road to Jerusalem, slaughtering men, women, and children as they traveled, all in defense of Christian values. And somewhat closer to home, in Salem, a society modeled on godliness behaved with savage paganism toward its weakest members: servant women, the old, and the friendless. The most distressing element of the Goddard Babies case is not that police authority was outrageously abused, or that a fiasco of Keystone Kops proportions was brought about, or even that an innocent woman has been wrongly accused of horrendous crimes, but that her neighbors have failed to register any complaint whatsoever about her treatment. Supporters from all over the Northeast have been flocking to Peytonville, where the trial is about to enter its second week, and thousands more have sent Pratt white roses, symbolizing resistance, but from her own acquaintances there has not been the smallest gesture of outreach. By distancing themselves from her, the upstanding citizens of Goddard, New Hampshire, apparently think they are showing us how much better than she they are. In fact, they are showing us precisely the opposite.’” Judith finished with a flourish of glee. “Isn’t that—”
“Yes,” said Naomi. “Of course it is. I hope Ann Chase read that.”
“Joel was at Tom and Whit’s yesterday. He said they were sold out of the Globe by nine o’clock. Same at Stop & Shop. I’m so glad, Naomi. I mean, they don’t care what we say, or those butch girls from Dartmouth. But you can bet they care that the Globe thinks they’re savages.”
“I would think so.” Naomi sighed. She reached for her coffee, narrowly edging out Polly, and took the mug into the kitchen. The low heels of her shoes made an unaccustomed clack on the floorboards as she walked.
“I’m dressing up,” she said. “I’m supposed to, right?”
“Well, a little. I want to make it special for Joel.”
“Okay.” She poured some Rice Krispies for Polly, pausing briefly to wonder if it was all right for an atheistic Jew to give leaven to a non-Jewish child before attending a Seder. Naomi sighed and added milk to the bowl.
“And my sister’s here. Did I say?”
“No!” she said eagerly. Judith’s sister, from the far, secret side of her life. “That’s great. And her children?”
“Her daughter. Hannah is here. Her husband and Simon are in Providence.”
“Oh,” Naomi said awkwardly. “Well, good.”
“And a friend from the city. Which is why I called you, actually. I mean, he reminded me. I forgot the horseradish, and I was wondering …”
“Oh sure. I think I have some, but I’ll stop on the way if I don’t.”
“Thanks.” Judith sounded distracted. “Now I have to go. I have a potentially serious gefilte-fish issue.”
“Oh, that sounds bad.” Naomi laughed. She said they would be there soon, hung up the phone, and went to the fridge. There, a dark back corner yielded one slender jar of horseradish, crusted at the rim but smelling reassuringly of horseradish inside. She gave Polly a few minutes longer to eat her cereal, wrapped her up in her coat, then ferried the baby and the fruit salad (her own contribution to the meal) up the driveway to her car.
It was a dark spring day, threatening rain. Polly, whom Naomi had buttoned into her best dress, sat in her car seat shaking a bottle of apple juice, sending the odd drop flying through the nipple. “Sweetie-pod,” she said brightly, “do you know where we’re going?”
Polly stuck the bottle in her mouth.
“We’re going to a Passover Seder. At the Seder we celebrate the exodus of the Jews.”
Polly stopped. She deliberately stopped sucking. “Juice?” she inquired.
Naomi burst out laughing. She drove into Judith’s driveway, parking beside a blue van with Rhode Island plates. Judith’s sister. The kitchen door opened as she was unsnapping the car seat.
“Hey,” said Judith, leaning out. “You won’t believe who just called.”
Naomi straightened. “Charter. He’s dropping the charges.”
“No. But it’s almost as good. Sarah Copley. She was so pissed about the editorial, she’ll be there on Wednesday. With a squadron, she told me.”
“A squadron of what?” Naomi said darkly.
“‘Heather’s neighbors,’ she said. Oh, this is great.”
But Naomi wasn’t sure whether she meant the squadron or the fruit salad, which Naomi handed her.
“What are these?” Judith peered, intrigued.
“Pomegranate seeds. In keeping with the Middle Eastern theme.”
“Oh, fabulous. So isn’t it great?”
Naomi tried to look happy for Judith’s sake. “Good for Sarah. Of course, she might have done it last week. She might have done it six months ago.”
“Better now than never,” Judith said, leading Naomi up the stairs to the kitchen door. “Oh, this is David. Our guest.”
David, standing in the doorway, was bearded and dark, a tall and thick man with hair that was bushy except, oddly, on the top of his head. He reached eagerly for Naomi’s hand and shook it. The absence of something made her look down, and this was when she noted that the tip of his thumb was missing. “The famous Naomi Roth, I guess.”
“The very famous,” she confirmed, smiling. “So famous I didn’t even know I was famous.”
“Ah, but you are. Judith has been keeping me up to speed on the Goddard Babies case since last fall.”
She looked at Judith, who was moving things around in the refrigerator to find room for the fruit salad.
“David’s our expert,” said Judith, offhand. “He’s going to testify about superfecundation on Wednesday.”
“And this is the little girl? The one whose mother is on trial?” David said.
“Yes. Polly. She’s been with me for about five months.”
“Wow. Hard on her. And you.”
“No. I’ve enjoyed it.”
“Well, it should be over soon,” said David, looking rather longingly at the wine.
“I hope so.”
“No, it’s absurd. Superfecundation is far too fantastical to hang a case like this on. I told my colleagues at the lab and they all wanted to testify. They think I’m not going to be able to keep a straight face on the stand.”
“You’d better,” Judith said, from the stove. She was lifting a hard-boiled egg onto the Seder plate: one egg, one bunch of parsley, one roasted lamb shank, one small bowl of salt water, one little mound of something that looked like wet granola: haroseth.
The kitchen was bright and full, and she seemed elated in it, lifting the lids of pots and sheeting something in the oven with foil. Her husband, passing behind her to the sink, trailed an affectionate hand across her shoulders, and Naomi thought, without warning, of the morning on the park bench, those shoulders shaking with mysterious tears. “I think we’re nearly there,” Judith said, picking up the Seder pl
ate. “David, would you put this on the table?”
He took it in his incomplete hand and carried it through Ashley Deacon’s French doors, into the dining room beyond. “Hannah, sweetie.” Naomi heard a woman’s voice. “Hannah? Turn it off, it’s time now.”
“My niece,” Judith said. And then, as a woman walked into the kitchen, she stated the obvious. “And my sister. This is Rachel.”
“Naomi,” Rachel said. She looked so like Judith, the tiniest variation on one genetic theme, and here again was that jolt of recognition, like in the supermarket that day when she had first seen Judith glowering at the iceberg lettuce and waxed orange tomatoes. Though her hair was cut to the nape of her neck and she seemed slighter, with narrower shoulders and hips, they were otherwise nearly interchangeable.
“You look exactly alike,” Naomi said wonderingly, as if there might be something surprising in that.
“I know,” Rachel said, her voice warm. “Tell me about it.”
“I am one inch taller,” said Judith with mock ferocity. “And she has an extra toe.”
“Judith!” Her sister reached across the table to punch her. “Don’t be disgusting.”
“They say it’s good luck,” said Judith slyly.
Rachel turned to Naomi. “Don’t pay any attention to her. And I’m perfectly willing to show you my feet.”
“Not necessary.” Naomi laughed. “That woman couldn’t tell the truth if her life depended on it.” She smiled at Rachel. “I’m really glad to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you.”
But when she said that, she felt right away that it was wrong. Because she had heard so little, really, and what she had heard she did not, somehow, feel free to talk about. She hoped Rachel would not ask what Naomi had heard, but Rachel did not. Instead, she merely returned the conventional response.
“Me too. About you. I’m really happy Judith’s found somebody up here who’ll put up with her.”
“Oh, I’m happy to put up with her,” Naomi said. “She’s the only one who gets my jokes.”
“Let’s start,” Joel called from the dining room. “Are we ready?”
The Sabbathday River Page 49
