Prayers for the Living

by Alan Cheuse

  But from this crazy thought his mind immediately fell away, as if it had climbed too high—and as he delivered the rest of his speech, as he outlined the company’s holdings and its policies and its future projects, though he spoke with more conviction, now that he had convinced himself that there had been, working through it all, a reason why a former rabbi had taken over a company that grew and shipped and sold this exotic fruit, as he hypnotized himself and he hoped the audience with his explanations and projections, a boy with dark hair and tortoiseshell glasses took some steps that changed everything.

  This boy: now he might have been the one, like I said, who gave Sadie directions on that terrible afternoon as she was walking across the campus, or he might have been a stranger, another child, but he was not, finally, an unknown—he became, even in his awful doings, in a way like a member of the family—as I see it now, because, like some man who fires a gun that kills a president or king, out of his action grows something so intimate as to be so personal that it belongs more to you than most of your own actions, because it changes your life and the lives of others close around you—this boy: say that his name was Alan Kaplan or Mitchel Markovitz or James Bloom or Norman Fruchtman, and say that he was raised, like many good boys my Manny had known—and like the good boy he was himself—in some congregation, synagogue or temple, Orthodox, Conservative, Reformed, whatever the direction it doesn’t matter, and say that after a time he cleaved from the laws, and he discovered another way of living, say a way like my Manny’s, a way of living in the world without religion, but say that this boy, he belonged to a time when his soul ached from the lack of the laws, and he wanted something to set him on the straight and narrow, and he found friends with the same soul-ache, and they became boys who wanted some different kind of political situation, a change of government, but at the same time they fell back into the line of the laws that raised them, and they talked and they read and they met and they wrote, on campus that’s easy, and they formed a group called Jews for Justice, a catchy name, don’t you think? some catch for my Manny I’ll say, and they followed the progress of my son’s rise in the business world, my Manny was only one among many they followed, but he was the one on whom they took their aim, because he had risen so high, and lived so near, and when they heard that he was coming to speak at the university they organized a plan, and the plan was to make a demonstration that would point up the truth of what they believed he was doing—carrying out the work of imperialism, as they put it, instead of following the laws of the Torah—some cartoon world they lived in, and where are they now? all in business themselves I wouldn’t be surprised, or becoming dentists or shoe manufacturers, nice boys following their own fathers’ businesses, or going to law school, or teaching college, Jews for Justice!

  But whatever they were, whether right or wrong, touched by the finger of God Himself—or Herself—or Itself—whatever—or crazy in their devotion to the Torah of Maimonides or Marx—you didn’t think I knew such things but from talking to my Manny over the years, from listening to him, I hear these names, I hear these ideas, a mother doesn’t just teach, you know, sometimes, big miracle, she even learns!—here comes this Alan or Mitch or Norman or James, whatever his real name, and he’s got his gang with him, the group or cadre or circle or cell or club, whatever they call themselves, here they come, shuffling in from the back of the hall, and they’re wearing denim and scruffy beards and wearing yarmulkes—yarmulkes!—and they’re carrying signs and they’re chanting:

  RABBI GUATEMALA!

  OUT OF THE AMERICAS NOW!

  and

  JEWS FOR JUSTICE SAY

  OUT OF THE AMERICAS!

  So what is this? I should have stood up and shook a finger at them, so what is this that a Jewish person can’t behave like any other person? a Jewish person can’t make a business? can’t take over a company and try to make it better? because that was what my Manny had in mind—he got the confidence and shares and votes of the majority of holders exactly because this was what he pledged to do, and they didn’t want just anyone to take it over, they had a bad time with it for years, they knew how bad it was, they wanted someone to make it over by taking it over, they wanted someone with a vision, with a knowledge of the law, with a conscience, you see the business life isn’t all bad, they wanted my Manny because of what he promised to them by the way that he presented himself both in his looks and in his plans—but in this world things don’t move in straight lines, do they? Even a grandmother who can’t see no more knows this—this world makes for motion by collision, and here was the collision and the crash making a noise, and having an effect, as loud and as great as the smash and destruction of taxi and fire engine and milk truck and my poor Jacob’s wagon—everybody in a hurry, nobody in the wrong, and out of it everything is changed.

  Rab-eye Gwat-a-mal-a! they’re chanting.

  Rab-eye Gwat-a-mal-a! they’re shouting at the top of their lungs.

  And my Manny stops his speech—the air swells with the noise of those chants and the outcries from others in the audience, some of them shouting down, some shouting up—and he looks out upon the crowd like a man observing the rising waters of an ocean in a storm. He sees his wife clutching the arms of the chair, and he moves slightly forward toward the edge of the stage, around the lectern toward the edge, and some professors rush toward him, as if they expect him to fall forward right then and there—but he’s careful, he’s done this before, remember? It’s Maby who worries him, sitting there clutching the seat as if she might take off and fly up to the ceiling and hit her head against the roof and break through, against all laws of gravity, and fly out of this world—and he motions for Sadie to turn around, her back is turned, she’s observing the demonstrators who stand chanting at the back of the hall—and he calls to her, but who can hear amidst all this din?—but she does turn, she turns, and she doesn’t know he’s watching her, she doesn’t know that he catches sight of her for a second with her lips moving with that phrase, he sees her lips moving, and his heart turns over in his chest, like a fish it turns, a fish diving up out into the light and then diving down again into darker waters, he sees on her pink lips, the mouth of his daughter, only child, the lips moving to the chant:

  Rab-eye Gwat-a-mal-a!

  Rab-eye Gwat-a-mal-a!

  Or maybe he didn’t see her chant it? There was suddenly chaos here, a lot of noise and motion and confusion. He could have been imagining things, my Manny. As you know he’s good at that upon occasion, but not on an occasion like this. This was business. He was always very alert when it was business. But there she was, or so he thought. And don’t think he didn’t say something to her right away after the rest of the speech, after the reporters came with their flashing bulbs, and the campus police arrived to carry off the boys with the yarmulkes and shouts and signs.

  “You’re coming with us?” he asked her as the police led them out to the car. “You’ll come home with us?”

  “Us?” she said, bearing down on him with a stare, something she hadn’t done in years, for years it was always look off to the side, stare at the sun, moon, anything but look her father in the eye.

  “Your mother will stay at the apartment tonight. And I’d like you to come back with us.”

  “I have to drive back up to school.”

  “Come in the car with us. I’ll drive. And Daniel can drive your car back to the city.”

  “I’ll drive.”

  “I said . . .”

  “I’ll drive the big car,” she said.

  He felt unexpected heat in his chest, and he smiled, in the middle of all the noise, the police holding back some reporters, and some bulbs still flashing on and off.

  “It’s a deal.”

  “Be careful,” her mother said as Sadie climbed in behind the wheel of the long black car.

  “Mother, that’s the first nice thing you’ve said to me in such a long time I can hardly believe it.” She was steering the long car away from the curb. Some students ran
alongside it, waving, chanting, you could see their lips moving, though the words became a blur . . .

  Rab-eye Gwat-a-mal-a!

  “Don’t speak to your mother that way,” my Manny said, sorry as soon as he said it.

  “I’ll shut up, sure,” Sadie said, pretending to concentrate on her driving. “Anyway, she couldn’t hear me. But I’ll shut up.”

  “I didn’t ask you to do that,” my Manny said. He sat in the front passenger seat—he had decided that he would sit there instead of with Maby so that he could speak to Sadie once they got rolling. Now as he glanced back into the rear of the car, behind the glass partition, he noticed Maby looking so alone and forlorn, that he was sorry that he had isolated her—New Jersey rolling past her window, lights of the city and then highway, refineries, rest stops, the darkness of the turnpike on her face. She said not a word, not the entire trip. Or if she did the space between front and rear stopped the sound from reaching to his ears.

  “Sarah?” He was, in any case, more interested in conversing with the daughter than with the wife.

  “This car drives neat,” she said. “I like the overdrive.”

  “Don’t speed, please,” he said. “I don’t need any more bad publicity than we already received today.”

  “Oh, they’re just crazies, Dad,” she said.

  “Is that all they are?”

  “Just crazies. Nobody pays attention to crazies.”

  “And you think they’re crazy?”

  “Why are you asking me?”

  “But do you believe that they are correct? Or that they’re crazy?”

  “Uh-oh,” she said.

  “Answer me, please.”

  “How can I answer you? There’s always a little bit of truth in what people like that say. And a lot of fantasy.”

  “So mature of you,” my Manny said. “Is that what the college has done for you? Then I’m glad, after all, that you went there.”

  “After all?”

  “I don’t want to argue with you, darling. I was just asking your opinion.”

  My Manny was remembering the sight of her lips moving, remembering her mouthing the chant. For him all the rest of it—the escapade with the art teacher, stealing Maby away, the police, the agents—all of that was a closed book. He wanted only to know whether or not she was part of it, part of the demonstration, part of the outside world, part of all of that against which he had to work in order to make his way, make his mark. For him, my Manny—I suddenly understand it now that I’m telling you—it was him and the cart and his father, and the rest was rushing car and rearing horse and yowling siren, the crash of the truck and the smash of glass. Can you imagine? Can you imagine what it was like to live this way? With the past creeping up on you always no matter how far you move into the present, let alone the future? Always the past leaning over his shoulder, the sound of the car, the cab, the rearing horse, the siren? I’ve been trying to show you, and I hope that I have shown you, I’ve been trying to make you feel what he felt, and I hope that I’ve made you feel what he felt—this endless sliding back, no matter where he stood, no matter what, back and back and back and back to the crossroads of the crash and glass. It was like a scar he wore with the rough ridges of the wound turned inside rather than out. Except for his beautiful hair that everybody noticed, he showed no outward sign of his difference. But different, as you long ago knew, he was, and would be, while he lived. This difference, of course, the children never know. But if you could look into the hearts of others, if you could see a field, or a forest of hearts, my Manny’s you would notice for its rough and strangely overbearing growth.

  “What do you want me to say?” Sadie asked.

  “I want to know.”

  “You care about my opinion? You really care?”

  “Of course I do, darling. Of course I do.”

  “Bull. Shit.”

  “Don’t use—no, not bullshit. What I said wasn’t bullshit.”

  He could feel the car picking up speed, as though she drove a team of horses and not this long sleek vehicle of steel and rubber and glass, horses that she whipped and whipped until they roared forward, slobbering froth, with thundering hooves. He wanted to say, slow down, slow down. But he bit his lip, fingered the shard, waited for her to say something, anything. Could he tell that this was his last chance to hold on to her? He must have understood, he must have known somehow that it was now—on this turnpike, rolling past the lights of oil refineries, factories, moon cities of gridwork, tanks, wires, even within the car the air flavored with the stench of chemicals unholy and disgusting—or never.

  “I want to know,” he asked her, “what do you think of my latest venture?”

  “Your latest venture?”

  “Am I speaking too quietly? My new holdings. The big company. General Banana.”

  She laughed, and said that it was such a silly name. And the label, the long yellow fruit with the officer’s cap and epaulets, that was sillier still. It was a comic book, she said, her father was turning her life into part of a comic book.

  “Should I change it then?” he asked. “Should I call it Middle American Bananas? Republic Bananas? United Bananas? What about maybe Bananas United? Bananas Away? Bananas Awave? or People’s Bananas? Major Bananas? Bananas Ahoy?”

  “Why do you ask me? You’re not going to change it if I say you should. You’ll change if you think you want to. Why fool around and ask me?”

  “I’m asking you. Because I’m asking you. I want to know your opinion.”

  “Bull. Shit.”

  “Please, Sarah. We said we weren’t going to do that, say that.”

  This is how close they came. He came. How close! Oi!

  “You don’t want my opinion. You’re just buttering me up because you’re afraid I’m going to do something terrible again.”

  “I don’t think I’m buttering you up, as you say. I want to hear what you think.”

  This is how close!

  Silence, nothing but the hum of the tires, the purr of the engine.

  “Sarah?”

  “Are we going to take her back to Owl Valley? Or is she coming back to the city?”

  She turned and tilted her head toward the rear where her mother sat silently, eyes wide open, staring at the lights ahead.

  “Sarah, you didn’t answer my question.”

  “What question?”

  “Should I change the name, the label? Should I make them get a new brand name?”

  “Oh! Is that what you wanted to know? Sure, let them do it.”

  “Get a new one?”

  “Keep the old one. It’s funny, it’s a gas.”

  “So you like it?”

  “Sure, I like it.”

  “So I’ll keep it. Because you want me to.”

  “I’m flattered.”

  “I respect your opinion,” he said.

  “Is this the exit?”

  “Can’t you see? If you can’t see you shouldn’t drive.”

  “I can see. I’m just asking.”

  “Yes, this is it coming up. And Sarah?”

  “What?”

  “I want to ask you something else.”

  “Ask.”

  “Would you . . . ? Uh . . . I’m making a trip down to the new holdings. I’m setting up an inspection tour. I want to see for myself what’s going on down there, what we’ve got. I mean, thousands of people work for us now, and I think that I should go and see for myself exactly what the story is, what the picture is. And . . . I would like you to come with me. I would like that very much.”

  “Take that trip? All the way down there?”

  “I would like that.”

  Silence—hum of tires, whirring of engine. And then from the rear of the car, a faint-at-first wailing, like an infant lost, separated from its mother at feeding, the whimpering of a child. And then the louder noise, something like a scream or the outcry of an animal tortured by some larger child. Both daughter and father turned around to see, and passed the
exit, missed the turn.

  “Pull over,” my Manny ordered her.

  “Here?”

  “Right here,” he said. And Sadie slowed the car down, and they rolled to a stop on the shoulder, in the dark, swampy ground to their right, cars rushing past on the left.

  “Ride with her,” he said. “I’ll drive the rest of the way.”

  “She needs you,” Sadie said.

  “She needs, she needs,” he said. “You go on. Get back there.”

  Something in his voice—his life erupted through it. She didn’t understand that—all Sadie felt was the way it pierced her, like a splinter, a shard of glass.

  “All right,” she said. And she said to herself, all right. And she got out of the car and felt the cold on her face and neck. It was snowing.

  SOMEBODY ONCE SAID that hate stories go well in winter. Ice and dislike, they’re alike. So here’s snow, and Manny planning his trip. And the snow came down for a while, as it seems to do only in New York and Jersey, like a beautiful gift that breaks after just a little while, before you can really use it. For a few days, a week maybe, everything lay covered in white, and then everybody mixed in the dirt and the soot and dogs added their part—I was still walking on the street now and then at this time, and so I can remember what that was like—and so did the garbage men, who scattered as they collected, and pretty soon the snow was bordered in black, like a funeral notice for the lovely stuff it was when it first fell, and it melted a little and turned into dark lumpy chunks, a bad memory of its old self, and many citizens noticed that when it came to nature this part of Jersey left something to be desired.