Prayers for the Living

by Alan Cheuse

  Except for people like my Manny, who never notice anything around them because their eyes stare ahead into the future and down at the work on their desks. What do the seasons matter to a man whose life stopped and started again once when he was eight years old? He was like the rest of us, sure, he ate, slept, and suffered when his child spoke back to him, but he was also different, living in a different kind of time. But if he spent all of these years living his life—he’s my son, but I have to say this—indifferent, finally, to the business of being a rabbi, and indifferent, finally, to the pain and torture inside of his very own wife—if one day he looked up and saw clearly a few words of hatred rolling from his own daughter’s lips, Rab-eye Gwat-a-mal-a! Rab-eye Gwat-a-mal-a!, he shouldn’t have been all that surprised. But here is where he made his own trouble, I think, and if I could have been there, if I could have sneaked in like some ghost or thief in the night and lain next to his heart and alongside his brain and camped out in his nerves when the question came up of doing something about her, I would have urged him to leave well enough alone! Leave well enough alone! Or leave half-bad enough!

  But here was his problem, his fault, if you can call it a fault, I don’t know if I have even the right words for any of this, but call it now a fault, and here it is: that he couldn’t be either completely indifferent to the feelings and desires of these other people in his life, mainly the daughter now, and before that, before her feelings went underground like a stream in a dry season, the wife, my daughter-in-law, or that he couldn’t get enough of their love for him, because this was how they felt for a long time, before the feeling went sour, rotten, what’s the word? I’m telling you so I should know but sometimes the sensations go beyond the way to say it, that he couldn’t devote his life to those he supposedly loved himself! Here is where he lived a life divided, and if you live that way, eventually you discover that you have to give up something, because it takes two people to live two lives, or nine people nine, and my Manny was fast approaching the point where he was going to find this out.

  “SHE’S COMING WITH us,” he said to Mord in the office the next morning.

  “Why not bring your mother, too?”

  Oh, I never liked this man, but when he talks like this, could anybody in the world have any love for him?

  “I’m serious, Mord, I’m bringing Sarah.”

  “You’re aware of what we have to do down there?”

  “We have to fly in a helicopter and look at some banana groves. We have to walk through some warehouses and hospitals. We have to look at workers’ housing. This is what we’re saying we’re going to do in our press release. So I’m taking my daughter with me—it will be even better press than we’ll get already. I should take my mother. That would be better still.”

  “And my sister? Should we take my sister?”

  “No joking.”

  “No joking,” Mord said. “We’ll take them all. We’ll turn it into a family cavalcade. We’ll get complete TV coverage. What if we dress in native garb—picture this, you in a sombrero holding a machete, Rabbi Gwat . . .”

  “We’re taking her,” Manny said. “She wants to go.”

  And that was that.

  And oh how I wish the rotten hateful brother had been more forceful—for all of a bastard, excuse me, for all of the bastard he was, for all the damage he did, what if he had been twice as bad, perhaps then he might have blocked my Manny in his plan, and everything, everything, would have been different! But if he had been more that way from the beginning, then that too might have changed everything. Oh the puzzle, how everything fits and falls into place!

  “You remember what else we have to do?”

  “We have to meet a general.”

  “We have to meet the general.”

  “General Banana.”

  “You’re making a joke but it’s not funny, Manny.” The hawk nose cut through the air as the brother-in-law turned stiffly to one side. “Manny, we own the company but we control nothing until we can arrange for the ceiling of the export tariff on the fruit. The general controls the export tariff on the fruit.”

  “General Banana, I’d like you to meet Rabbi Guatemala. And this is how the world runs, two cartoon characters shaking hands. Rabbi, mucho gusto. General, I’m pleased to meet you. Shalom, shalom.”

  “Manny, will you . . .”

  “Will I what? My life, it’s a joke and a tragedy, a success so big I can’t describe it and a failure so abysmal I’m afraid to look at it. I want to bring my daughter, Mord, so we’re going to bring her. Look, it will add to the occasion. I read the file you gave me on our new general, and he has a daughter himself—she went to college in Massachusetts, so it will balance out, my daughter from her fancy school, and his from Wellesley. And what has to pass between us, it will pass.”

  They’re standing at the ceiling-high windows of their office, looking south toward the harbor, toward the states between them and the border to Mexico, and southward beyond to the countries that on the map give the picture—I saw them before I couldn’t see no more—of the country where my little boy now owns so much jungle and swamp that’s been cleared to grow the famous ancient sacred fruit of the wise, Gwat-a-mal-a! I can still feel the chant on my eyes, and the words, even though merely whispered by my granddaughter, they sound like the clanging of a thick metal door—the crash of a cart, the wagon smashed into smithereens, the glass—the little country next door, like a long thin neck of a bird whose breathing you could stop with the twist of a wrist.

  So how does my soul come to power so great? my son asked himself and asked, and talking tried to answer. Part of it I can understand, he answered himself, the part we all share, the drive ahead, the dreams and wishes for managing, for control. And part I don’t know, the invisible wind that pushes at the back of some people, and pushes back against the progress of others?

  Whatever the reasons, get ready, because here he is, Florette, you knew him, from the gutters of Second Street to the forests of Middle America. It could be a book, his story, or a movie, even, imagine, in color, a famous star, a serious man in middle age of middle height with hair the color of glaciers, his eyes piercing dark points of power, the face lined now by events printed upon it, a father, lover, son, and husband, a man of family and a man of the world, a man of spirit and a man of business, my son the hero, maker of sermons, maker of speeches, counselor to the sorrowful, advisor to the worldly, he’s taking off now, he’s racing along the runway, picking up speed, prepare for takeoff, and he’s up . . . and away!

  SO LOOK DOWN at the islands from the window seat of the jet his company acquired in the takeover and see the rock ledges they rest upon leading into the ocean sea like stepping-stones toward the blue-green underwater kingdom. Could it be Atlantis? Jacob’s sunken Atlantis? I don’t know, should I know? Picture this—dolphins guiding the airplane south, sending signals silently up into the cockpit of the ship, a band of invisible beams steering us all. Or the restive mewing—dangerous to all but elephant and dinosaur—of the red-tinted jaguar caged within pyramids on the Yucatan peninsula. Here is the Jewish Italo-Hispanic explorer, watching his crew members shuck their clothes and dive naked into the bay boiling with Indian women, Tainos, Caribs, all lost tribes. Or the famous tribe itself, appearing one day on the eastern horizon, a people aboard reed boats, in exile, hungry, tired, sick. Was there a cousin tribe to greet them? Or were they the first? Did only the thick-coiled anaconda notice their arrival, and did he stir in his sleep in the undersea mud, an insignia of the danger and the charms of a region so untouched by human beings that hummingbirds hovered at the ears of the newcomers and deer the size of rabbits lapped water from cupped palms?

  He had read—she had read—father and daughter had both read histories in preparation for this trip, had read legends and mythology and reports, his supplied by his company researchers, hers supplied ever since the night of his Rutgers speech by the kids from Jews for Justice, and as they roared through the space above the lands in
question, facts and processions passed by the dozens in and out of their brains. As for their bloodstreams, their nervous systems, it was a different story. For him it was a feeling of racing toward reconciliation and new fame. For her, the tale was revenge, though the vehicle of her plot had yet to become revealed to her. His, of course, showed clearly below them, even as the plane banked and went into the first turn of its large, lazy spiraling descent. Both of them could see, as if they were observers at a display in some lower-grade classroom, a country like a relief map, its green ocean borders, the darker green of its forests, and here and there a volcano poking through the tree cover, like a smokestack in the factory chain of the gods.

  Oh, if I could have been there, if by then my sight had not vanished and prevented me from going anywhere I would have pointed a finger, I would have said in the best warning voice I produce, look, I would have said. Do you see how far from home you’ve strayed, my Manny? Can’t you notice that these volcanoes spit dangerous fire? You who once peddled bananas with your father, who now own fields of fruit as far as the eye can see, can you see as far as the jungle bleeds its green into the lighter green of the sea? Your vision has grown that much? Go back, go back, you’re still my baby, still a boy, and everything you’ve done since then has grown out of an accident. If you go further you’ll have a greater accident yet, and when it goes smash you’ll take a country with you, not just a cart. Please, my darling, tread lightly, tell the pilot, it’s your plane now, turn around, fly north, north, and take a chance on a crop in a colder country—buy a bakery, make paper again, cap bottles, sell boats. Spend time with your crazy wife, pick flowers for her, twine them around her throat and wrists, eat meals with your mother, take your daughter to the movies, on trips to Europe, to the Holy Land, buy a camel, a saddle, show her the old tricks. Kiss your mistress on her lips and kiss her brown puckered nipples, dive into the rapture of pleasure you never imagined when a child. Take your brother-in-law to the theater, buy him cigars, cravats, tuxedos, Arab boys dipped in oil, make a party, have a dance. Pour out the punch bowl at Purim time, buy and sell your old congregations. But turn around, my child, my Manny, my son, turn the airplane—the ship—around! Turn, turn, turn!

  I would have said.

  And to her I would have said:

  Honor thy father and mother.

  And she would have said:

  Fuck, Grandma, what are you talking about?

  And I would have said:

  Please, what kind of language is that?

  And she would have said:

  I still don’t know what you’re talking about.

  And I would have said:

  You honor your father and mother now and by doing so honor yourself. Because when you are older, when you are a mother, you will want your own children to treat you with respect. By respecting them you’re respecting the self you will become. That’s all.

  And she would have said:

  Children? Children, Gram? You got to be kidding!

  And I would have said:

  And why should I be kidding?

  And she would have said:

  The last thing I ever want is children.

  And I would have said:

  And what’s wrong with children? I had a child, you know, I had your father, he was my child, and if I never had him you never would have been here, sitting in this fancy airplane, landing in some little country your famous father just bought for a song.

  And she would have said:

  That’s a good reason.

  And I would have said:

  What are you saying?

  And she would have said:

  That’s the reason.

  And I would have said:

  Your grandmother can’t see so well, she can’t hear so well, so tell me what is it that you’re saying.

  And she would have said:

  That’s the reason. That’s why. Because if nobody had children I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t be feeling this way. I wouldn’t know this pain.

  And I would have said, a little shocked but I would have said anyway:

  Pain? What pain do you feel, poor darling?

  And she would have said:

  Imagine a razor blade slicing across your wrists every minute of your waking life. And at night, dreams of puncture wounds, rusty nails through your breasts. And . . .

  And I would have said:

  Enough. Enough is enough. Here, the plane is landing. Look at the scenery—beautiful trees, did you ever see such a jungle in your life? Such beautiful greens and oranges and yellows and reds and blues—there’s a parrot, blue as the sky, a flowering tree like something out of a picture in a museum. Except here—as the wheels touch down, the bumpitity-bump, remember when I rocked you, bounced you on my knee? The slowing to a halt, the hatch opening, and the heat rushing in, like someone opened a door to a room on fire. All right, since you’re here, get on with it, I would have said. Get on with your trip, with your life. Help your father after all, be a good girl, listen to him, watch him. After all, blood is thicker than water, blood is blood is blood. Did I say he bought this country for a song? I was only kidding. He’s got a piece of paper in his pocket that’s worth a million dollars. Can you imagine that much money? And he’s going to hand it over personally to the man who sets the export tariff—this much I learned—on the fruit he grows and ships up to the north, fruit of the wise, ancient bananas, full of wisdom, potassium, the works. You go with him. I want you to see this, I would have said. I want you to notice how your father moves through the world, and I want you to admire him, my little Manny grown big, into a man. Help him out, the general’s got a college graduate for a daughter, break the ice, talk to the girl you’ll meet in a little while after a trip into the plantation country. This is a help to your father. You’re going anyway, so be a help, not a hindrance.

  INTO THE JUNGLE. A place of verdure—of windy places, of wind—a place of moist and fertile soil, yellow soil. A place with peaked places and grassy places, a place of trees, thick trees, a place of jungle, of stumps, underbrush, dense underbrush.

  A place of crests and covers and crags and hollows, a disturbing place, fearful, frightful, dwelling place of the rabbit, the deer, the monkey, the ocelot, the bobcat, the serpent, a place from which nothing departs, nothing leaves, nothing emerges, nothing changes.

  A green place, of green light and green wind, green heat, green water, green air, green fire. A place of thick green trees, with thick green leaves. A fearful disturbing place of green.

  A verdant place of green swellings, green entrances, green hollows, green crests, green changes, green chances, green prospects, green ends.

  And if you don’t like the color green, too bad. That’s all you get here, deep deep in the jungle where my Manny owned his land. The green things he read about in some poetry written by the general, the very man he was to meet at the main plantation for the bananas. This general had written these things about green many many years before, when he was still a young boy in a military school in South Carolina. In English he wrote them and then translated them into his native language—and as you can hear they are all about the famous jungle that my Manny was traveling through. He read them on the airplane because the brother-in-law, very worried about the meeting with the general, wanted my Manny to have some things with him he could talk about if he needed to. Oi, he’s such an arranger, that brother-in-law, such a manipulator, but then I suppose he helped my Manny with a lot of information about people he met during the various little takeovers they made over the years, and especially during this big one.

  Still, reading about something is one thing and living it is another. As far as the jungle went, my Manny was very surprised. On paper, he could clutch his holdings in one hand, and in his mind imagine the miles after miles of trees bearing the fruit of the wise, the workers’ housing, the port facilities, the shape, even, of the country on the map. But once that airplane hatch opened and he stepped out into the special atmosphere of
this country he spent a lot of time adjusting between the figures and knowledge in his head and the smell and feel of the land and, in particular, the jungle around him.

  What did my Manny know, after all, about jungles? He was a city boy—and in these countries that Americans buy even the people they hire to run things for them, the local people, they’re city boys, mostly, themselves. City is city, jungle is jungle. And if sometimes you hear that our city, as people say, that it’s a jungle, let me tell you that they don’t know what they’re talking about. The jungle, my Manny discovered, is very hot and very wet and very noisy and very smelly and very stuffy and very strange—and if it’s dangerous it’s not the kind of worry that you have in the city at all. In the city do you worry about the bite of the snake called the pit viper? Do you look at the trees as you travel along in a Land Rover, worried that a snake will slip from an overhanging branch and strike at your face? Do you, in the city, turn around at the scowl of a cat as big as yourself and wonder if it’s stalking midget deer or fat ratlike creatures who grow to the size of ponies or yourself? In the city do you notice that by day the light turns greenish dark, as if you’re staring at the sun from miles underwater? All of this you may do, in a way, but none of it you do really—it’s a dream of a jungle, and the jungle a nightmare of a city, and for my Manny, and my granddaughter, and I suppose for the others in their group, the brother-in-law, some managers in shirtsleeves who met them at the airport, and the several officers and boyish little soldiers who accompanied them as well, the jungle was, is, a thing apart from any other kind of life. A desert might have its own pains and pleasures—and life too beneath the city or on a mountaintop. But to call a city a jungle, I don’t after hearing all what my Manny told me believe it for a minute. A jungle is a jungle is a jungle.