End of the Jews

by Adam Mansbach

  “You can turn the volume off, you know,” said Tris. “Babe?”

  Nina didn’t look up. It was Marcus, calling from his reclaimed Brooklyn studio—on a day when there was no work to be done, and at an hour when he had no reason to believe she’d be alone. Probably thought he could convince her to come over, do some “developing.” It was the second time he’d called since she’d been back. Marcus really didn’t give a fuck.

  She pressed a button with her thumb and stopped the ringing. “My father again. God.”

  The phone buzzed to indicate new voice mail, and Nina tossed it in her purse. “He asked me for my mother’s number last time. Did I tell you that? What the fuck he thinks he’d say to her, I can’t imagine. I almost gave it to him, just so he could call and Vasek could answer. But it’s too mean. Plus, Mom would kill me.”

  “I wonder what his girlfriend has to say. You think she knows he calls you in the middle of the night?”

  “I’m sure he sneaks away. Talk about something else.”

  Amalia left the hospital and returned to a house partitioned along venerable lines of territory. Her daughter got her settled on the living room couch, brought her a glass of water and a pill: the latest addition to her daily pharmacopoeia. Mariko adjusted the pillows behind Amalia’s back, then declared her intention to fix some lunch and marched into the kitchen. Mari’s big black suitcase stood in the hallway like a tombstone, right where she’d parked it yesterday. She’d spent the night at the hospital.

  “You and Mariko seem to have patched things up,” said Linda.

  Amalia nodded, unable to remember what she’d told her daughter about the source of their conflict. It didn’t matter now. “I suppose we have.” Her voice remained not quite her own, and the journey up the walkway had taken her longer than ever. Halfway to the door, she’d paused to light a crumpled cigarette she’d found in her coat pocket. That seemed to help.

  “I’m sure she must be exhausted. I can drive her home after we eat.”

  “I don’t think she intends to leave. She’s very lonely without Albert, you know.”

  Linda’s jaw clenched and released, clenched and released. Amalia wondered if her daughter thought the tic invisible. “Don’t you think there’s enough going on around here without a houseguest, Mom?”

  “I can use the company.” She flicked her eyes at the ceiling. “I doubt your father will be ready to talk to me for a week, at the very least.”

  Mariko burst from the kitchen carrying a sandwich on a plate, banked right, and climbed the staircase. “Besides,” Amalia said as Mari’s legs vanished from sight, “this way, he won’t starve to death.”

  They heard her descend the back stairs, and a few minutes later Mariko reappeared in the living room and handed them their own mammoth turkey, relish, and stuffing sandwiches. Linda hefted hers in both hands. Amalia asked for a fork, removed the top piece of bread, and picked at the insides.

  “Sorry,” Mariko said, watching. “I used to Albert. He could eat two of these.”

  “What did my father say?” asked Linda.

  “He’s sleeping. At his desk.” Mari lit herself a cigarette. “Tristan love you very much, Ama. One look and I can see that he in pain.”

  “I thought he was sleeping,” said Linda, a little too sharply for her mother’s taste.

  “Don’t matter,” replied Mariko.

  They were quiet for a long time before Amalia spoke. “Alfred Kazin once wrote something about someone else that I always thought summed Tristan up perfectly. He described the fellow—Delmore Schwartz, it might have been—as having ‘the unmistakable look of the poet speaking from his own depths. He stood for something, and he knew it.’” Amalia’s eyes sparkled briefly with the particular delight that pure eloquence gave her, and then her gaze fell to her lap. “Alfred died not long ago.”

  “What was it that Dad stood for?” From the look on Linda’s face, it seemed she could not discern her father in Kazin’s bold, certain phrases.

  “I don’t know that he ever entirely figured that out,” Amalia said, feeling herself falter, the meaning of the words slipping away. “But he stood for something. And he knew it.”

  “That sounds like a problem.”

  “It is indeed.” Amalia brought a bite of turkey to her lips. “I don’t know what you did, Mari, but this sandwich is delicious.”

  “Some people born with the magic,” Mariko declared. Amalia shot her a quizzical look, then realized she wasn’t talking about sandwich preparation.

  “But this country never support the artist.” Mari pointed at the ceiling. “They don’t want him to stand for anything. Especially black artist. Jewish artist, too. America the culture of the cheeseburger.”

  Tris opened the door on this familiar refrain. Linda heard, rose, met him in the foyer.

  “The ‘culture of the cheeseburger’ routine, huh? Has she done ‘last of the Mohicans’ yet?”

  “Yup. In the car.” Linda shrugged on her coat. “I’m going for a walk. Do you think Mariko would like to come?”

  “The concept of taking a walk just to take a walk would be utterly inconceivable to her. But you could ask.”

  They passed into the living room. Mariko rose as they entered, whisked the plates off the coffee table—leaving it barren except for the Pound Foolish bound galley lying there, its spine intact, the book apparently unopened—then stooped to grab the wastebasket sitting by Amalia’s feet. Tris watched her spirit everything away, disquieted by the sight of Mariko acting on anyone’s behalf but Albert’s. I not manager for hire, she’d told Higgins, but how true was it?

  Tris and Nina arranged themselves on either side of his grandmother.

  “How are you feeling, Amalia?” Nina laid a hand on hers.

  “Fine. Appearances to the contrary. Picked up an awful cough at the hospital. But I’m feeling…What’s the word I want? Resolute.”

  “Hmm” was all Tris could muster.

  “Strong word,” said Nina almost to herself.

  “I don’t—” the old woman managed to say before she broke off, hacking. A pained expression crossed her face, as if she were choking down an overlarge pill. She winced and swallowed and her voice returned. “I don’t want to burden you kids. And I’m sure your grandfather is eager to see you, Tris. Nina, maybe you and I could have a cup of tea? Would you mind putting on some water?”

  “Not at all.” She headed for the kitchen, Tris for the stairs. He reached the threshold of his grandfather’s study and found the old man sprawled in his chair, asleep, a NYNEX White Pages from 1992 open before him. Not only did Tristan refuse to keep an address book, he didn’t even bother to replace one year’s directory with its successor. His cronies, the few who were left, tended to stay put until they died.

  “Grandpa?” Nothing. Tris strolled over, stood behind the old man. He realized he’d never viewed the room from this perspective. There was only one photograph on the huge cluttered desk: the two of them in that dark freight yard, eleven years ago, a writer and his protégé. A feeling of heaviness filled Tris, and he looked away from the picture, only to find the copy of Pound Foolish he’d left yesterday. It was open, splayed over the lip of the desk.

  Any thought of waking his grandfather vanished. Tris retreated to the high-backed purple velvet chair marooned in the room’s opposite corner, the location and hideousness of which suggested that visitors were rare and barely tolerated. Tristan snorted, twitched, resettled. Tris’s eyes roved up the stacks of fat manila folders that surrounded the desk, and set finally on the old man himself, alone in his kingdom, slumped forward on his throne, invisible crown slipping down his forehead.

  Tris crossed his legs and watched him slumber.

  Nina set the tray down on the coffee table and pulled up a chair. “So.”

  “So,” Amalia returned.

  “So should I just make conversation, or can we talk about your resoluteness? Is that a word, resoluteness?”

  “Resolve, I think you’
d say.” Amalia sipped her tea. “I knew I liked you for a reason.”

  “I just thought someone ought to take you seriously enough to ask.” Nina paused and swirled the murk of her tea. “This might sound awful, but hearing you say what you said moved me. I felt like I was watching you…I don’t know, become yourself again, and I have nothing against Tristan, but to me it’s, well, it’s beautiful. That you could—”

  She heard a moist snuffling sound, looked up, and found tears glittering on Amalia’s face, the water ensconcing itself in the wrinkles of her cheeks like tiny jewels. Nina lurched from her chair, stepped over the coffee table, and wrapped an arm around her.

  It had been years since she’d hugged an old person—really hugged one; the fingertips-to-shoulders greeting she usually gave Tris’s grandparents didn’t count. Not since she’d hugged her Deda, as a girl. The familiar thinness of the skin, hanging loosely from the bones. Its excruciating softness. Amalia’s body gave instantly to the slight pressure of Nina’s arm, and the old woman fell, shoulder to shoulder, against the young. Amalia weighed nothing, and the thought that people eased toward oblivion for years before they actually died crossed Nina’s mind. Pounds melted away from bodies. Flesh began the work of baring skeletons.

  Amalia’s head rested on Nina’s clavicle. Her feathery white hair grazed Nina’s cheek. And then, with a sniff, the old woman righted herself, found Nina’s hand, and squeezed it hard.

  “Thank you.” Amalia dabbed at the hollow caves beneath her eyes; a tissue had somehow materialized in her hand. “I’m glad you understand.”

  The old woman coughed—a sudden, fearsome sound—inhaled a draft of air, then coughed again. She closed her eyes and drew a long, calm breath, shook her head and tore apart her tissue. “This house might seem empty to you, but it’s not.” Her eyes darted to the ceiling. “It’s full of his ambition, and the lies I told myself.” Amalia stared into the room and smiled. “I never really fooled myself at all.”

  She covered Nina’s hand with her own. “Thank God Tris has someone like you. You’re braver than I was. You’ll keep each other honest.”

  A dull shame rose in Nina, the sensation so familiar it dismayed and bored her. “I hope so,” she said. “But I’m not so honest. Or so brave.” She withdrew her hand, pulled her phone from the back pocket of her jeans and flipped it open, pretending she had a call. She didn’t even have reception. “I’m sorry, Amalia. It’s work. I should take this.”

  “Of course, dear.”

  Nina ducked into the old woman’s office, closed the door behind her, sank into the swivel chair until her eyes were level with the desk. The shame was like a morphine drip: she could press a button and feel it surging ruinously through her, or she could spare herself and simply walk through life with a needle in her arm, wheeling an IV bag beside her and pretending she was fine and it wasn’t there. She imagined Amalia sitting here just like this, her office a prison, searching for the courage to escape and finding it only now, with her life nearly gone.

  Nina reached across the desk, grabbed the heavy old phone, brought it to her lap, and lifted the receiver. Her fingers hovered for an instant, then darted across the keypad. She closed her eyes, said “Ahhh,” to ensure that her voice was in working order. The phone rang twice, three times, Nina’s breath bouncing back off the mouthpiece hot and stale, her grip on the molded plastic tightening.

  A pause in the rhythm of the tones told her she was getting voice mail. Nina couldn’t tell if adrenaline was rushing into or out of her bloodstream. Whichever it was, the surge made her hands shake.

  Marcus’s outgoing message was the same as ever. “Yeah, bruh.” Beep.

  “Marcus.” Her voice was an octave lower than usual. “It’s over. It’s really over. This isn’t who I am, and I’m sick of not being who I am. That’s all I’ve got to say. Don’t call me. If you do, I’ll tell your wife everything. I’m serious. Good-bye.”

  She placed the handset on its cradle and laced her fingers over it. For a moment, relief washed through her. Then Nina imagined Marcus listening to the message, chuckling, pressing whatever button on his phone erased it from the world. This was the same old bullshit. Everything she’d said, she’d said before. Only time could endow it with meaning, and that wasn’t enough. An X-Acto knife sitting in a mug full of pens caught her attention, and Nina toyed with the idea of cutting herself—some pain to mark the moment, a scar to serve as a reminder. You needed scars in life.

  Instead, her mind suddenly sharp and brutal, Nina dialed information, scribbled down the number to Hunter’s admissions office, called, endured three rings before an answering machine picked up. Her heart thundered beneath her ribs, as if through sheer fury it might dissuade her from the ill-considered and hugely self-destructive display of morality she was about to make.

  Beep.

  “Hello. This is Nina Hricek, and I’m calling about my scholarship, the Dawes Black Achievement in Photography. The truth is that I’m…I’m not really black. I lied.”

  There was a click. “Hello? Nina? This is Dean Teasdale.” A stern male voice. “Is this a joke?”

  Nina could barely speak. “No joke.”

  Dead air. She almost slammed the phone down, ran away. “This is a very serious matter,” Teasdale said at last. “I’m sure you know that.”

  “Yes.”

  “The disciplinary committee will have to discuss it. There will be consequences. You can be sure of that.”

  “Okay,” she whispered. He started to say something else, but Nina was already replacing the phone on the cradle. She stood up, walked across the hall, locked herself in the bathroom. Bent over the sink and splashed herself with a handful of water, shockingly cold. She had to get herself together before Tris came back downstairs.

  On her next turn, Amalia picked up the jack of spades, the very card she knew Mariko needed. She threw a seven, ran her free hand over the shawl covering her knees, and leaned back on the couch, pleased. She’d never been much of a game person—time to herself had been too rare to waste, except perhaps on chess—but in the past week, Mari had taught her how much fun a deck of cards could be. They sat in the living room for hours, drinking Mari’s homemade ginger tea and smoking cigarettes and playing hand after hand. The storm that was her husband was still brewing; anytime now, it would gather strength and rumble down the staircase. Amalia felt wonderfully tranquil all the same. These were days of convalescence. Days she’d earned and would enjoy.

  The house was warmer now than ever before. Tristan had always insisted that a chill kept the brain alert and warmth lulled it into fuzziness, so for almost fifty years the thermostat needle had never edged past sixty-two, even when snow blanketed the ground. On her second day of residence, Mariko had marched up to the small box and cranked it to a robust seventy, and Tristan had not done a thing. Perhaps he hadn’t noticed, or perhaps his mind was already too lethargic for the extra degrees to make a difference.

  On a normal week, Linda would have dropped in two or three times, but now she seemed to be keeping her distance. Perhaps she hoped the situation between her parents would settle on its own, but more likely she was deliberating like a judge in chambers, trying to decide whether her mother’s behavior violated statutes on cruel and unusual punishment. In the meantime, since Linda did nothing in silence, she maintained a running commentary on peripheral matters. Mariko’s presence baffled her. Why is she still here, Mom? Linda had asked yesterday, a note of restrained anger in her voice—a note that was almost always there, Amalia thought sadly, like a dog whistle that only Linda herself couldn’t hear.

  She’s here for me, and she’s a great comfort, Amalia had replied, book-marking her grandson’s galleys and staring at her daughter until Linda sighed and sucked her cheeks and went back to rearranging the contents of her parents’ refrigerator.

  There was nothing else to say. At first, Amalia had needed something to pass between herself and Mariko, wanted one of them to lay the past to rest, give it a eu
logy. But the desire for words waned. Here they were: two old women, playing cards and drinking tea, noticing the nice things each did for the other, the little thoughtful gestures. When Mariko brought her a blanket because the evening had grown chilly, or asked what her favorite soup was, and then made it, that was an act of love.

  They gave each other hand massages, cooked together, watched old movies. Amalia didn’t want to kiss Mariko anymore. She didn’t want to kiss anybody. Love wasn’t that now. It was sitting quietly and moving tenderly and knowing that there had existed between you a moment of recognition, as real now as it had ever been. Being able to slice through all the layers of pain and pull out the warm marble of joy at the center and hold it in your hand. She couldn’t do that with Tristan. Their pain didn’t wrap around their joy but extended from it like tracks leaving a railroad station.

  He could live upstairs forever. That was fine. Let the two of them shamble around and keep out of each other’s way and remain cordial and go to weddings and funerals and family dinners together. Let him do just what he’d done all along, with nothing cut away but the pretense that this was a marriage. She would sit right here and play cards and be happy, and if he could be happy, too, so much the better, and if he couldn’t, he could blame her for it. That, in itself, would probably be an improvement, since until now he’d had no one to blame but himself.

  Mariko picked up the seven and laid down the six of clubs, and then the stairs creaked and they looked up to see Tristan in the midst of his descent to the kitchen. To Amalia’s great surprise, he’d begun cooking for himself. Six straight meals prepared by his own hands had passed into his stomach. Three had been egg sandwiches, two hot dogs, and one oatmeal, but even Tristan’s ability to boil water was a revelation. Each time, Mariko had met him in the kitchen and offered to fix something, and each time he had waved her off: Don’t trouble yourself.

  Amalia turned back to the game and tried to decide whether to pick up the six. She had one already, and doing so would mean shifting her strategy away from straights. She looked up only when she assumed Tristan was gone, and instead found her husband coming toward her, his face strained with rage.