Blue Eyes

by Jerome Charyn

  She kept her eye on the Chinaman now. She wanted more of him than the whistles coming up the side of her bed. So she reached a leg down and scratched him on the arm with a painted toe. The Chinaman woke stiff as a knife. He acknowledged the foot hovering over him.

  “Missy, get them toes back upstairs and keep them there.”

  “No,” she said, trying hard to whisper. “Chino, are you sleepy? If you can’t come up, I’ll come down to you.”

  “Are you crazy?” he said. “What about the Polish boy under the other bed? That cop, he’s a scrupulous man. Don’t kid yourself. He’d know if we used the same toothbrush.”

  Caroline began to pout; the nightshirt Chino had given her to wear halted at her kneecaps, and she couldn’t get the hem to rise. “Oh, bother with him! He’s just a silly cop. I don’t care.”

  “Missy, I do.” The Chinaman crept way under the bed; he had Odile to reckon with; that girl had made him wet his own pocket. He should have followed César’s maxims; never fall for a prostituta. But his fingers itched from having climbed up the leg of somebody’s ski pants to touch silky hairs on a scarred knee. And with Caroline jostling over him, putting crinks in the mattress, the Chinaman was afraid he would be denied all the benefits of a snore.

  The chueta, Mordeckay Crisóbal da Silva Gabirol, had come to Mexico from Peru. His forebears were mostly Portuguese. Crypto-Jews who converted to Catholicism to preserve the wholeness of their skin, they became priests, sailors, and ministers to the kings of Portugal until the Inquisition struck and pushed them into Holland and the Americas. The da Silvas underwent five smaller Inquisitions before landing in Peru. Having already been reduced to penniless scratchers, they attended church (which they called El Synagoga), and mumbled secret prayers at home, cooking vast amounts of pork outside their doors to mislead their Christian neighbors and protect themselves from future Inquisitions. Thus Mordeckay inherited his role as a cooker and eater of pork. There was no longer an external need to fool the Christians (no da Silva had burned since 1721), but the chuetas couldn’t give up their secretiveness. Like his fathers, Mordeckay had a predisposition toward gloom. Never venturing outside his own colonia (or district), he knew nothing of Mexico City. He lived between walls, accepting the conduits and galerías inside Belisario Dominquez, and hating the noise and brutal light of the street.

  He performed a few specific services for his cousins from North America in the Bronx, for which he was adequately paid. He sought no other employments, spending his hours praying over his pots of boiling pork. Mordeckay had prayers for the da Silvas, living and dead, for his Bronx cousins and chuetas everywhere, for El Dia del Pardon (the Day of Atonement), for the pigs that were slaughtered so that the da Silvas could survive, for the darkness that protected the chuetas, for the Portuguese language that had succored them, for the Spanish they spoke in America, and for his own apostasy, his forced departure from the laws of Moses. He worshiped Crisóbal Colón (Christopher Columbus), whom he considered a chueta out of Portugal, and Queen Esther, who married a Persian king to save the Jews, becoming the first Marrano in history. The chuetas had holy obligations to Santa Esther; on her feast day they were forbidden to spit, urinate, or consume pork. Mordeckay would only eat spinach for Esther’s day. And no matter how hard his kidneys throbbed, he wouldn’t pass water until sundown.

  Mordeckay was uncircumcised. Centuries ago the chuetas couldn’t afford to have their glans removed for fear of the Inquisitors, who would have spotted them instantly as Jews; the current chuetas persisted in this habit with these old Inquisitors in mind. They couldn’t break a five-century bond. So they kept their foreskins and prayed to El Señor Adonai for forgiveness, crossing themselves and spitting in the direction of the devil. “Forgive me, Adonai,” Mordeckay would recite every morning in modern Portuguese, “forgive me for trampling on your laws, for ignoring the mandate of circumcision. I am unclean, Father Adonai. I am made of pestilence, and I have unpure seed. For this reason, Adonai, I have chosen never to marry. Last year, Adonai, a rabbi came from North America with a special man to circumcise the conversos of my district. I refused, Lord. I could not betray the trust of my family. At thirteen, Adonai, our fathers revealed to us the truth of our heritage, and swore that any one of us who submitted to the ritual wound could not remain a da Silva. So I closed my legs to the rabbi’s knife. What I did, Adonai, my ancestors have done. I could not exist otherwise. Forgive me, Adonai, and send me books about your laws in Spanish or Portuguese. It is my hope and prayer that the spies of the afternoon will not discover where I live, and that only your angels, Lord, the angels of Adonai, follow me into the safe, dark porches of my home.”

  As part of his obligations to the Bronx, Mordeckay inherited Jerónimo. Meeting the baby at the airport (for the Guzmanns, and the Guzmanns alone, would Mordeckay leave his colonia, and only in a chauffeured car with shades on the windows), Mordeckay brought him to Belisario Dominquez. But the baby couldn’t sit still. So Mordeckay had to accompany him to the edges of the Zócalo and the clutch of librerías (bookshops) on the near side of the Alameda park. He couldn’t keep up with Jerónimo’s terrific pace, and he would be forced to occupy a bench in the Alameda and suck air between his ribs if he wanted to arrive at his piso (flat) with a workable lung. Still, Mordeckay maintained a closemouthed loyalness and a delicacy of feeling that were rare even for a chueta. He never asked his cousins why they had saddled him with a subnormal who couldn’t survive without a lump of caramel in his mouth. It didn’t matter that he also loved the boy. He would have surrounded him with an equally fierce devotion whether or not he despised those sticky caramel cheeks.

  Only once had he mixed into the affairs of his Marrano cousins. This was eighteen years ago, on a visit to the Bronx at Moisés Guzmann’s request. Mordeckay went by ship. His freighter took him through the Tropic of Cancer in the Gulf of Mexico, around the Florida Keys, up the bumpy Atlantic into the Port of New York. The Guzmanns greeted him at dockside in sweaters and earmuffs, icicles forming on their syrup-stained trousers. Mordeckay was wearing a madras shirt, appropriate for the Mexican winter. They bundled him in sweaters and earmuffs, and escorted him out of Manhattan, with a neighbor, Mr. Boris Telfin, at the wheel of the family car, a ’49 Chrysler sedan (no Guzmann would ever learn to drive). Mordeckay admired the roominess of this vehicle.

  “Moisés,” he shouted, in a mixture of Spanish and Portuguese, so that the Guzmann boys wouldn’t fully understand, “are we going to your judería?”

  Papa laughed. He told Mordeckay that the judería (Jewish quarter) of the Bronx lasted from one end of the borough to the other.

  Mordeckay was hit with a definite wonder. He had never heard of a judería so big that it could swallow whole boroughs; not even the great judería of Lisbon (before the expulsion of the Jews) could have rivaled the Bronx. He remained in a stupor until he was pushed from the Chrysler to the candy store with five swaying Guzmanns. They introduced him as “Primo Mordeckay,” their Mexican cousin. He had no bed of his own, migrating from bed to bed at the rear of the store, sleeping with Jerónimo one day, and with Topal the next. He was given sets of long underwear, a wormy toothbrush (formerly Alejandro’s), and a pot to defecate in should the toilet be stuffed (Jerónimo had his best dreams on the Guzmanns’ communal chair).

  The calendars of Mordeckay and Papa weren’t strictly the same, and when Mordeckay announced that he had to bake his pão santo (holy bread) in midwinter, Papa stormed. “Cousin, this isn’t the time for, Pascua. Wait for us. We bake bread in July.”

  Primo Mordeckay refused, and Papa had to relinquish his oven for the brittle sheets of pão santo (sheets that wouldn’t rise), which were bitter on his tongue and gave him heartburn. Nevertheless he forced his sons to digest Mordeckay’s bread. But he wouldn’t allow Mordeckay to bully him into observing Saint Esther Day.

  “Cousin, we don’t worship women here.”

  “Moisés,” the cousin said, his face flushed with heavy red marks of shame, �
��not even the limpios”—Christians of the purest blood—“would insult the virtues of Santa Esther. I cannot sit in your house.”

  And Papa, who could squash a man’s nose between any two of his knuckles, decided to be gentle with Primo Mordeckay. He didn’t want this cousin of his to disappear into the black dust of Belisario Dominquez without a taste of the Bronx. So he held his piss in on Esther’s day until the blood beat thick in his head and he suffered double vision (the Guzmanns usually peed every hour because of the number of sodas they swallowed). He denied pork to his boys and fed them spinach at Mordeckay’s command. This was how he honored his cousin, the primo who recited longish prayers to Adonai and trafficked with female saints (a horrific act in Papa’s eyes).

  Mordeckay, in turn, paid his respect to los negocios de Moisés (Papa’s occupations). He became part of the Guzmann machine, a conspiracy of runners, collectors, and bankmen who handled small denominations. Mordeckay didn’t see North American paper money larger than cinco dolares (five) in his time with Papa; chuetas from Bogotá, Lima, and Palestine, mental deficients, disgraced policemen, and homeless portorriqueños ran for Papa, dropping and picking up silver pieces, scratching words on toilet paper, in a game Mordeckay couldn’t quite understand. He fell into companionship with one of Papa’s runners, a cousin from Palestine. (The chuetas, who passed their lives in various stages of dispersal, who could only breathe in an alien culture, who were as much Muslim and Christian as Jew, wouldn’t accept the sovereignty of a temporal Jewish state, and thus they avoided the mention of modern Israel, their “Israel” being a condition of the head, a drowsy place with no fixed boundaries, a place Santa Esther might have concocted in the bed of her Persian king.) This palestino had gone from Bogotá to Tel Aviv because he wanted a short vacation from the rigors of dispersal and was curious to know a city governed by Jews, but he fled La Palestina to avoid a chief rabbi who hoped to have him circumcised and bring him into the synagogues. The chuetas couldn’t enter a synagogue; they prayed at home or in a proper church.

  Mordeckay made a shawl for the palestino from the linen of a barber on Boston Road; they crept under the striped shawl around noontime and wouldn’t come out until after six, when they finished celebrating Santa Esther, Santa Teresa of Spain, the Christian and Marrano martyrs, the Turks who once loved the Jews, each of Moisés’ sons, and the angels of Adonai. In addition to his holiness, the palestino was a thief. Papa might have overlooked slow, dwindling revenues, but the palestino (his name was Raphael) robbed Papa with both fists. Before planning the palestino’s gravesite, Papa consulted Mordeckay.

  “Cousin, this Raphael injures me. If I don’t fight back, others will learn from him. Mordeckay, he’ll have to go. I could bury him in Queens with the católicos, or on my farm. You make the choice. Don’t worry, I’ll put crosses on his stone.”

  Mordeckay shivered for the palestino, and his cheeks mottled blue and red at Moisés’ barbarism. “Reprimand him, yes. Moisés, I don’t ask kindnesses for a thief … but take blood from your own family? He’s your cousin, Moisés. God forbid.” In the teeth of Papa’s stubbornness, Mordeckay turned to prayer. He crossed himself, kneeled under Moisés’ leg, and summoned his favorite saint. “Queen Esther, intercede. Protect your sons, the chuetas. Show my cousin the harm he will do if he hurts one of your own.”

  The fates were on Papa’s side. The palestino, who had been seducing the wives of Papa’s runners, was murdered by an angry husband. Papa had the body shipped to a Puerto Rican funeral parlor at his own expense. Then he summoned Mordeckay and his five boys.

  “Children, the norteamericanos will mock us if I don’t move fast. Moisés Guzmann does not allow cuckolds to do his work. If I couldn’t slap Raphael while he was alive, we’ll slap him dead.”

  Mordeckay mumbled something about the differences between holy and unholy revenge, but he had to go along; to resist the family that was housing him would have been an unconscionable act. At any rate he was swept up to the doors of the funeral parlor by the strength of Jorge and Alejandro’s shoulders. Mordeckay removed his earmuffs and his hat. Guzmanns poked everywhere; finding the correct chapel, they interrupted services for Raphael. There was only a smattering of people in this particular room; a chueta here and there, the wife of the angry husband, the janitor of the chapel, and a priestlike man in cassock and wool sweater. Papa approached the coffin. He raised the palestino’s head (it had been painted and waxed by a shrewd undertaker so that Raphael could hold half of a smile), kissed the eyes, mourned the loss of a cousin with two ear-splitting wails, and slapped both cheeks. Jorge, Alejandro, Topal, César, and Jerónimo followed the same procedure, their wails as loud as Papa’s. Mordeckay was crying when he reached the bier; the palestino’s face was discolored from all the slaps, and one cheek had already dropped. “Adonai, forgive me for desecrating one of your angels. I promise to learn your laws. I will pray harder and longer at the next Queen Esther.”

  He slapped.

  Mordeckay’s fingers came up powdered blue; the cheek (the undropped one) wobbled from the force of his hand. He ran out of the chapel.

  “Papa,” Alejandro whispered, “should I bring him back?”

  “Leave him alone,” Papa growled.

  By the time Papa and the boys returned to the candy store, Mordeckay was in his madras shirt.“ He begged Papa to release him from his obligations to the Bronx. Papa couldn’t force a cousin to stay; such a prayerful man was unsuited for Boston Road. He kissed Mordeckay on the forehead. Mordeckay thanked the boys for tolerating him in their beds, and he got on a Mexican freighter with earmuffs in his pocket.

  Part 2

  9 The occasionals, the once-a-weekers at Schiller’s ping-pong club were amused by the cop who wore his badge and his gun to play. They enjoyed the sight of a holster on blue shorts. And they took bets among themselves, gentlemen’s bets, nothing over a penny or half a cigarette, that the cop couldn’t smash the ball in his artillery. Schiller disapproved of these bets. He didn’t want his club to deteriorate into a circus. So he kept the once-a-weekers away from Coen. But be wasn’t a hypocrite. Not even Schiller could ignore the peculiar bite to Coen’s uniform: the yellow headband, the wriststraps, the Police Special, the blue jersey and shorts, the gold shield, and the Moroccan sneakers gave Coen the aura of a man with formidable concentration, a craziness for ping-pong.

  It was Chino who forced the gun on Coen. With the Chinaman on the loose, marauding taxicabs, abusing Coen’s name in the Second Detective District, shadowing him later in a red wig, he couldn’t afford to walk into Schiller’s without a gun. First Schiller himself or Spanish Arnold held the holster, and Coen played at the end table, where he commanded a view of all the exits. But it upset him to have Schiller and Arnold become his watchdogs. Why should they be burdened with sticking his gun in the Chinaman’s face? So Coen put the holster on. And because he was self-conscious in gym shorts, and he wanted to be sure no newcomer mistook him for a Columbus Avenue hood, he also wore the shield. Schiller seemed to have two minds about the whole thing. Although he hated the idea of firearms in his club (he was a pacifist vegetarian Austrian Jew), he felt much safer with Coen inside. None of the punks from middle Broadway would dare come down and disturb his benches, his tables, and his coffee pot.

  After Mexico Coen stopped worrying about Chino Reyes but he forgot to change his uniform. The gun became a habit. He needed the weight at his hip to make his best shots. And he would rub the badge whenever he missed an easy return or couldn’t cross over to his forehand fast enough. He was playing regularly again, six times a week. He had imposed a vacation on himself. He delivered the girl to Pimloe’s chauffeur instead of Child (Isaac taught him years ago how to stroke the egos of his superiors), but Coen hadn’t reported to his division yet. He was tired of poking around in the field. So he washed his headband periodically and hit the balls at Schiller’s with his Mark V.

  Coen had played ping-pong in Loch Sheldrake with the Guzmann boys at ten, eleven, and twelv
e. He was lord of the country tables, beating farmers, bread deliverers, bungalow colony men, Jorge, César, and Jerónimo with a borrowed sandpaper racket or César’s fancier pimple rubber bat. Nobody could cope with his bullet serves and his awkward but deadly scrape shots off the sandpaper. An outdoor player he could push the ball into the breeze and make it the on your side of the net. The Guzmanns would grit their teeth and swear that Manfred was fucking with the wind. Jerónimo only played with him on the sunnier days. César learned to cash in. He taunted the farmers and bungalow men and offered them five to twelve points with Coen, depending on their ability and Coen’s moods. Before Coen was thirteen his father stopped sending Sheb, his mother, and him to the Guzmanns’ summer farm. He forgot ping-pong and concentrated on a portfolio for Music and Art, sketching Jerónimo in charcoal and also his father’s eggs. During the following summer he minded the store with Sheb and thought about the Loch Sheldrake scarecrow. He was eight weeks into Music and Art when César came home from the farm. Estranged from the Guzmanns for half the year (Papa pulled César out of school in May and didn’t return him until October), Coen walked Boston Road with an M&A decal (maroon and blue) on his shirt and stayed clear of Papa’s store.