by Adam Pelzman
One boy wrote about being raised in a devout Presbyterian home, only to discover that his mother was born Jewish and that, either by design or lack of interest, she didn’t convert as planned upon her marriage. The boy described his surprise when he learned that under Judaic law he was indeed Jewish, that he was—at least in someone’s eyes—something different from what he thought.
At first, you’re shocked, questioning who you are. But then you realize it’s just other people making up the rules, the classifications. The mother’s side, the father’s side? What if the Jews say it’s a maternal lineage and some other religion say it’s paternal, then what happens? Or what if they both say it’s maternal? Or both paternal? Can you be both? Can you be neither? And once you realize that it’s someone you never met trying to tell you what you are and how you should view yourself, present yourself to the world, then what does it really matter? That’s when you realize how absurd it is. That’s when you realize that the disconnect isn’t being something different than what you thought you were; the disconnect is even thinking that you were something in the first place.
Bristol stood before the class and fanned herself with a piece of paper. “Here’s one that I’d like to read,” she said, moistening her lips. “It’s something Julian wrote.” And as the students awaited the rare chance to learn something about their guarded classmate, Julian braced himself.
I am ashamed—ashamed to admit that I am so unattractive that I have never kissed a girl. That’s not true. I did once, when I was eight, before the girls knew what ugly was. That was a bright-life moment. But soon the fist of hierarchy squeezed tight and rammed me to the underworld.
My great loves have been unilateral and unknown to all but me. That is why I write, to create voices, back and forth, with Her, where only a muffled soliloquy once existed—a maddening, tortured, silent scream.
Sometimes I dream about a blind girl, but fear that her sighted friend—the one she’s known since third grade—would tell her she’d made a terrible mistake. He’s hideous, she might whisper, just hideous. Or maybe the friend would have mercy on me. Do you think she would? Have mercy?
I once asked a man, my father, if mercy exists. Yes, he said, mercy abounds. And he gave me a tap on the top of my head, a loving yet hollow tap that foretold both the tragedy of a child and the powerlessness of a father, the awful soul-sickening impotence of Our Father. Yes, He repeated, mercy abounds.
But I’m not so sure. I was born in Mercy General, says it right here, right on this piece of paper. But that’s as close as I get.
When Bristol finished reading, a restless silence ensued, followed by secretive whispers, the rustling of paper, soles brushing the floor. And once the students had digested Julian’s words, had repeated a memorable phrase or two in their minds, their reaction was vocal, animated—and divided mostly along gender lines. The girls giggled, were drawn in by Julian’s sensitivity, an inner pain that for them was identifiable and that humanized him, made him more accessible to them. They appreciated the absurdity of this disconnect, how a man so beautiful could feel so unworthy—and they thus desired him even more. The boys, confused and even threatened, offended by what they perceived to be either an admission of weakness or a mocking, dishonest taunt, snickered and rolled their eyes.
His mind already on to other matters, it seemed, Julian merely shrugged his shoulders and doodled in his notebook. He appeared unconcerned with the attention thrust upon him, remaining distant and introverted. It was this distance that defined Julian, and it was as if his detachment fueled the mystery surrounding him, brought him increased and undesired attention.
Weeks after Bristol read Julian’s piece aloud, rumors circulated through the school: that Julian was an orphan, that his mother was a prostitute, that he was sexually abused in the orphanage, that he had savagely murdered a gentle, elderly man. Sophie heard the rumors and wondered who had started them, if they were true or false; she wondered what impact they would have on Julian. She was astonished that someone could have betrayed him in such a manner. It must have been a woman, Sophie thought, someone in whom he had confided and who, her heart wounded, had violated his trust. Sophie wondered if the rumors would diminish him, destroy him. Or would they embolden him? Would they intensify his strength, the fear that he evoked in men? Would the rumors make him even more mysterious, more complex, more attractive to women?
From a safe distance, Sophie watched Julian. She observed her classmates’ whispers and curious glances. She studied Julian’s reaction or, rather, his inaction. He remained chivalrous and polite with the girls: opening doors, guiding chairs, offering an umbrella in the rain. To the boys, he remained detached, neither polite nor rude, but enforcing a conscious separation with the implied threat of violence. Still, there were foolish souls who taunted Julian—anonymously, of course. Once, he sat down at his desk and found a copy of Oliver Twist. He lifted the book. He saw that Oliver had been crossed out with a marker, and Julian written in block letters above it. He flipped through a few pages of the book and grimaced, noting with simmering rage the intended reference.
Bristol assigned writing partners for a poetry project, and Julian found himself sitting next to Sophie. And although they had shared classes for years, Julian observed Sophie closely for the first time. He noticed her awkwardness, an unsteadiness in hand and in gaze for which she had become known. But Julian looked beyond the easily apparent, past her precocious height, past her poor posture, her blemished skin and eclectic style. When Julian looked into the mature distance, when he looked past the misleading present, he saw in Sophie the inevitability of spectacular beauty.
“What should we write about?” she asked, tapping a pencil on the desk in crisp couplets.
Julian leaned back in his seat to get a better look at Sophie. He noticed her ragged fingernails, her torn cuticles, a tiny flap of bloody skin on her left thumb. Sophie looked at Julian and, following his eyes, sensing that he had noticed her gnawed hands, dropped the pencil to the desk. Self-conscious, she made two tight fists—knuckles up and her thumbs inserted, so the markers of her distress were hidden.
Julian touched his fingertips to Sophie’s forearm. “You okay?” he asked.
The sensation of Julian’s skin on her own caused Sophie to blush. “I think so,” she said.
“You seem upset.” Julian nodded at Sophie’s hands, prompting her to tighten her fists.
“It’s just that, it’s just I heard the rumors, and I . . .”
Julian thought about the girl who had betrayed him—her face so earnest, her tickling toes, the exuded trust that had prompted his imprudent disclosure. “It’s nothing,” he said. “In the end, it’s really nothing at all.”
Sophie shifted in her seat. “It’s not nothing,” she responded. “It’s something. Fact is, the same thing happened to me. My uncle did it to me when I was little.” Sophie released her fists. She placed her palms flat on the desk and spread her fingers.
Julian’s jaw tightened. He looked around the room, then back to Sophie. He considered revealing to her the falsity of this particular rumor, how it was one of several about him that was untrue, but he feared that a denial at this moment would magnify Sophie’s shame and sense of isolation. “Your uncle?” he asked.
“Yes. When I was little, maybe around six, seven years old.”
“Did you tell anyone?”
“I told my mom, that’s her brother. But she wouldn’t hear of it, said I must be confused. And that was that.”
“What ever happened to him?” Julian asked. His thoughts turned to Petrov, how his friend had been violated by the cook who smelled of rancid oil, how, after the incident, Petrov had returned to their small room, his eyes cast downward, and fell mutely to the mattress. That night, Julian and Volokh slept on either side of Petrov and, with power that was more imagined than real, protected their friend from further harm. “Your uncle?” he asked, furious with him
self for not having avenged the harm done to Petrov. “What happened to him?”
Sophie paused, hesitant to reveal any more. But after Julian placed his hand on hers and nodded encouragingly, she continued. “Nothing happened. I just let it go. And he’s gone on with his life like nothing happened, not a care in the world. Wife, kids, a good job. He’s the fire chief at station eight, down by the church. He’s sort of a celebrity around these parts, a local celebrity.” Ashamed of the abuse, ashamed of her confession, Sophie paused again and examined her raw fingers.
As Bristol walked the aisles of the classroom, she noticed that Julian and Sophie were more engaged in their conversation than in the writing assignment, and she approached them. “How’s it going?” she asked, tapping the blank paper on the desk. “Making any progress?”
“Tons,” Julian responded with a wink—one that weakened Bristol and forced her to admit that she could not keep pace with the velocity of her own life. Fearful of authority, even compassionate authority, Sophie leaned over the desk—head down—and began to write. Julian, though, stood up. “I need a break,” he said to Bristol. And before she could ask why, Julian walked out of the room, purposeful in his stride. Bristol had seen so many men walk out of so many rooms that she knew when you could convince a man to stay and when you had to let him leave—and she thus returned to her students.
Julian marched out of the school and across the front lawn. He crossed the parking lot, taking a shortcut behind a row of parked buses, and made his way out to the main road. From there, it was a half-mile walk down to the station. Julian entered the firehouse and was met with the suspicious glances of a half-dozen idle firefighters. Next to one truck, he saw a man in a white uniform that was more formal and ceremonial than the blue work clothes worn by the others. He approached the chief.
“Can I help you?” the man asked, wiping the shiny truck with a chamois.
“I’m in class with your niece,” Julian said.
The man tossed the rag to the floor and approached Julian with menace in his step. “Sophie?” he asked.
“Sophie.”
“And?”
“And you know why I’m here.”
The chief squinted, attempting to read the intentions of the young man. “I have no idea why you’re here.”
“I think you do,” said Julian grimly as he moved closer to the man, so close that they were now separated by no more than two feet.
The chief took a short step forward and further closed the distance. “I think I don’t, and if you don’t get out of my station I’m going to throw you the fuck out.”
Julian released a sigh of predetermination. He imagined the gnarled oak, the wind whipping through the courtyard, Krepuchkin’s hand on his mother’s shoulder. He recalled the high of braining the old man, the euphoria of restoring a natural, harmonious order. And then there was Petrov’s anguish—so great, so negating, that the boy would forever reject even the possibility that a benevolent god might exist. Julian cocked his head. He drew it back and held it with the still force of a cobra. Then he drove his skull, his forehead, through the bridge of the chief’s nose, a thunderous crack that shattered the man’s face and propelled him backward into the truck’s wheel. The chief looked up, barely conscious, blood drenching his crisp white shirt.
“You know why I’m here?” Julian asked.
Yes, the man nodded.
“So we’re done?”
Yes, the man nodded again, waving off his approaching colleagues.
Julian returned to school later in the day, a red scuff on his brow. By that time, news of the attack had already spread through school, further magnifying Julian’s mystique. In the cafeteria, Julian encountered Sophie. He approached her, fearful that he might be rebuked, afraid that he had crossed a line that Sophie did not want crossed. Sophie blushed. From her pocket, she removed a piece of paper. “For you,” she said. Sophie watched as Julian unfolded the paper, as he looked around before reading, his lips mouthing her words, the weary smile, the moisture in his eye.
Today I wilt,
in the air-sucking heat
of my failure.
Or is it?
Mine,
or a failure.
A friend,
he surrounds me.
A cool, draping mist.
Picks an eyelash from my cheek,
lint from my sleeve,
a shard from within.
And it is no longer mine—this failure.
It is his too,
his to chew and swallow—and digest.
To the dogwood he points.
If the trees can do it,
so can you.
In deference, in gratitude, Julian nodded to Sophie. And then he bowed, dramatic and ceremonial—like Svetlanov after the final note.
HOLDOUT
At the age of twenty-six—yet another young man in New York City struggling to translate his considerable talents into commensurate results—Julian stood in his studio apartment: a small, barren room reminiscent of the one in the orphanage that he had shared with Petrov and Volokh. His apartment on the Lower East Side, too, had a broken window, courtesy of a real estate developer who owned the properties on either side of the decaying tenement. Julian placed his hand over the newly formed hole and cupped the harsh winter air. He peered through the open space, out to the street below, and then stuffed a ball of rags into the hole—a maneuver that only partially prevented the cold from entering.
As Julian watched a taxi spin its wheels in a hump of dirty snow, his thoughts turned to the speed with which four years had passed since his graduation from college—and how little he had accomplished. He thought about his time at Columbia, how, near the end of his freshman year, his adoptive parents had died within six months of each other. Oleg had hoped that his wife would pass first—not because he wished to have time alone at the end of his life or because he wanted Irina to suffer a punishment for some imaginary sin, but because he understood how fragile Irina had become in her old age, how terrified she was of solitude.
So, when Oleg imagined the sequencing of their deaths—who went first, who carried on—he pictured Irina alone at their home: gloveless, pricking her finger on the pointed thorn of his prized floribunda bush, scalding her hand in the hot steam of the espresso machine, the maniacal rubbing of the beads. And with those troubling images in mind, he concluded that he, not Irina, was better suited to outlive, and that it would be a blessing if Irina died first. But as he lay in the hospice, Irina pacing at the foot of the bed, he conceded that God had other plans.
Oleg and Irina left Julian with just enough money to complete his undergraduate studies, and he did so with a major in economics and a minor in English literature. After graduation, he joined a think tank that conducted what was described vaguely as “non-partisan research on international economic issues for the betterment of the global community.” There, he joined a team of intellectuals from various disciplines: economics, law, public policy, international relations. Julian’s love for business had been instilled in him at a young age by Frankmann and cultivated in college by his professors. So, when he first entered the institute’s Beaux-Arts mansion on the Upper East Side, he thought he had discovered an exciting entry point into the world of commerce.
But Julian’s excitement was short-lived. He soon realized that the institute’s work was too academic, too abstract for his liking, and that what he craved was the buzz of Frankmann’s horse trading, the quick-twitch negotiations with colorful characters like the barmaid Garlova and the dimwitted Mongolian with the fermented horse milk. Julian dreamed of being in the middle of the fray. When he concluded that he had erred, that he was far too spirited for policy work, he resigned apologetically and took a job at a downtown brokerage house that he hoped would better suit his personality. There, in the boisterous, electric setting of the trading floor, he would buy and sell
arcane financial derivatives. He loved the bustle of the floor, the frequency and speed of the transactions, the ability—like Frankmann—to quantify the profit and loss at the end of every day.
Yet, as the most junior broker on the desk, he was subjected to a ritual hazing that had been ingrained in this culture for decades. At first, the senior brokers required Julian to fetch coffee, cigarettes, sandwiches: tasks that were irritating but tolerable. But then his supervisor named him board boy—a demeaning role that required him to stand before two hundred brokers and update the latest prices on a towering white board. When the prices on the top row needed to be changed, Julian would climb a ladder—a wooden, wheeled type that might be found in an old English library—and glide from one end of the board to the other with marker in hand.
And it was here, atop this ladder, that an exhausted Julian mistakenly transposed two numbers—and a broker who drank too early and too much, with a map of magenta veins on his sprawling nose, noticed the error. At the age of fifty-two, ancient in this field, the broker screamed at Julian. Hey, board boy, you fucking suck! And then he grabbed an orange from his desk and threw it across the room, striking Julian in the back of the head. To the great delight of many, Julian lost his balance, fell off the top step of the ladder and crashed to the floor.
But rather than accept this humiliation as a necessary rite of passage—for every young broker took at least one demeaning turn as board boy—Julian rose from the floor and, orange in hand, walked over to the broker. He stood over the man and considered a backhand slap across the offender’s face, an antiquated battery designed to debase rather than to injure. Julian looked at him: the gin blossom in full bloom, the shaking of the hands, the gray hair dyed a sad orange-black, his sandwich cut in quarters, his full name written on the side of a brown paper bag.
There was an uneasy feeling in Julian’s chest, as if his heart itched. He looked at the rows of brokers lined up in front of their monitors—many laughing, some heckling, a small number unaware of this incipient conflict and focused on more important things. He squeezed the orange, crushed it so that the juice drenched his hand and dripped onto his polished shoe. Wondering if his inability to submit to another man was a blessing or a curse, he dropped the ruptured orange in the man’s lap, glanced around the office for the final time and walked out.
