Blood Count

by Reggie Nadelson

  As if a dam had burst, Lily began to talk. About her childhood in Greenwich Village, her stiff-necked father who preferred his politics and his atheism to his kid—they never celebrated Christmas or anything else. Her mother had catered to him; he came first. Lily was an only child, left to fend for herself.

  Still, when she grew up, after college, after her parents had died, she went back to the family apartment on Tenth Street. Maybe it was all she had in the way of a past that she could love.

  Sitting in Simonova’s apartment now, she looked around her.

  “I have all this culture in my bones. My father with his Robeson records,” she said. “His politics, the Civil Rights Movement, all that, it formed me, the good part; at least, I hope it’s only the good part,” she added. “God, my father loved the workers, he loved the whole world, but his own kid, that was something else.” Lily picked up Marianna’s shawl and wrapped it around her shoulders.

  When she was little, Lily’s father had given her a copy of Das Kapital, but he had forbidden her the girls’ magazines she wanted; he had been horrified when he found her and her friends playing with their Barbies. On Sundays, he drove her around Harlem so she could see how poor people lived. Afterward, he would stop off at the Plaza Hotel.

  “He always drank exactly two Gibsons, never more, that was it, and he smoked two cigarettes, and that was our so-called quality time together. I was ten. He loved books, too, good books, and movies. He did that for me. We went to the movies together,” said Lily. “Sometimes he’d let me pick a movie, and even if it was something stupid with Doris Day, he would secretly enjoy it. He adored the movies, and I guess there was a little softness in him those times, a feel for just pure pleasure.” Lily smiled. “Not like my Uncle Lenny, my mother’s brother, my dad’s best friend; he was obsessed. He gave up his law practice to organize the Mohawk Indians who built the Verrazano bridge. Joe McCarthy’s ghouls hunted Lenny down—he really was a Communist—but he wouldn’t talk and he went to jail. My cousin Nancy was in love with a Russian boy for a while. They were really happy, but it didn’t last. She was a lot older than me. She was a real Red Diaper baby.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “I don’t know. She disappeared. I haven’t heard from Nancy for twenty years.”

  “Maybe that’s why Simonova trusted you, because you understood.”

  “Maybe. God, the stories. She told me she had slept with Che when he visited the Soviet Union, stuff like that,” said Lily. “Was it true? I don’t know. I didn’t care. The stories, the folk music, the endless talk about politics.” Lily got up. “You remember that time I got drunk and got up on the table and sang old Union songs?”

  “Do I ever. Something about, what was it, ‘the vaults are made of marble with a guard at every door,’ and then I forget.”

  “ ‘And the mines are stuffed with silver that the miners sweated for.’ ” Lily laughed. “You want me to sing some more?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Did you know my dad’s last wife was black? Fourth wife. Long after I left home. It validated him, and Virginia, that was her name, was very good to him, self-obsessed bastard that he was. We were raised to love and admire and understand what black people did and had endured. It was important. It was a cause, something to fight, to win.”

  “Obama gave you that back?”

  “In a way. Those days. Long time.” She looked at me. “Artie, I know you want to look around, so go ahead. I’ll wait here. I’ll sit on Marianna’s sofa one last time.”

  A few things were slightly out of place in the apartment, things I hadn’t noticed before. I had a sense that papers on the desk were not where they had been this morning. A drinking glass that had been on the table near the sofa was gone. Even the smell in the room was somehow different.

  “I noticed you left a present for her,” I said to Lily, gesturing to the Christmas tree I’d seen earlier. Alongside the gifts for Simonova, was a pile of stuff still unwrapped. “What’s all this?”

  “She bought stuff for everyone,” Lily crossed to the tree. “She was planning to wrap them today. She had already written the cards.”

  There were liqueur chocolates in a Russian lacquered box for Regina McGee; for Lionel Hutchison there were Russian cigarettes and a fancy lighter. A Russian box had a muscle man on the label and the words “Elixir of Life.” On the card, Simonova had written “To Lionel, who is the elixir of life.”

  For Carver Lennox there was a fancy silver samovar. Draped over a chair were green velour Christmas stockings full of Alenka chocolates, addressed to Allison and Thomas Lennox. In the stockings were also crisp hundred-dollar bills, one each.

  “Who are these people?”

  “Carver Lennox’s kids,” said Lily.

  “Simonova knew them? They were important enough to her to give them money?”

  “I don’t know,” Lily said.

  I picked up one of the chocolate bars.

  I’d grown up on Alenka chocolate, from the Red October factory; it never failed to take me back to my childhood, the chocolate bars with the picture of a little girl in a headscarf, a baby babushka, that too-sweet chocolate we thought the best thing on earth.

  “Where did she get all this Russian stuff? Brighton Beach?”

  “Shop in Washington Heights,” said Lily. “I went with her once.”

  “What about you?” I said to Lily. “What did she give you.”

  “A necklace her mother gave her,” she said. “And a biography of Robeson, and a nicely bound copy of Das Kapital, a really good edition.”

  I looked through the presents again. “There’s something else for you here.” I picked up a small red-foil envelope.

  “You open it, Artie. Or let’s take it with us. I want to get out of here.”

  “Sure.”

  “I want to go get dressed for the party,” Lily said. “I’ve had enough of the past. They’re all dead, my parents, their friends, their ideals. Marianna was my last connection to all that.” Lily pushed her hair back. “She remembered, she knew some of them, she had even heard of my Uncle Lenny. Another world. God. Now she’s dead. They’re all dead.” Lily looked around Simonova’s apartment. “I won’t come back here. I don’t want to be here again.”

  I knew I would come back. I knew there was something here that I had missed. I couldn’t stay away.

  CHAPTER 22

  The Hutchisons’ dog was barking. In the hallway, as we crossed to Lily’s place, Marie Louise was cowering against the wall.

  “What’s wrong?” Lily asked her.

  “It’s that dog. I was coming from the elevator, and the dog begins to bark. Lily, please, make the dog stay away.”

  “It’s OK,” said Lily. “He’s inside the apartment.”

  In basement light, I hadn’t really seen how beautiful Marie Louise was. She wasn’t more than thirty-five. She wore jeans and a white sweater, over one arm was a beige down coat, over her other shoulder a fake Vuitton purse. She was terrified. Again, the dog barked, and she moved in closer to Lily.

  “It’s just Ed, the Hutchisons’ old pooch,” said Lily. “He really won’t hurt you. Artie, this is Marie Louise Semake.” When I shook her hand, it was cold with fear. “She works for several people on this floor,” Lily added and asked if she was OK.

  “I think so,” she said. “But, Lily, please, tell me, what is the matter with Madame Simonova? I’ve been trying to phone to her for many hours. I was supposed to prepare supper for her today, but there is no answer, and I have no keys. I tried you earlier, but you did not respond.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Lily. “I probably missed your call.”

  “Something bad has happened? I feel this,” said the woman. “Is she worse?”

  “Yes,” said Lily, then, leaning forward, spoke very softly to Marie Louise, who put her hand over her mouth.

  Carver Lennox appeared in the hallway, suddenly, as if he had heard our voices. His horn-rim glasses were pushed up on top
of his head, and he seemed to be in a hurry.

  “Good, you’re here; I can use some help,” he said to her. “Marie, can you help me out?”

  The dog barked again. A look of sheer terror crossed Marie Louise’s face.

  “You tell me this is just an old dog, Lily, but this black dog that belongs to Mrs. Hutchison. In my country, this is how evil spirits reveal themselves, in this shape, as a black dog.”

  “Marie?” Lennox was impatient. “Are you coming? I can’t wait all night.” He held the door open to let her in. She hurried inside as if nothing could be worse than the sound of the dog.

  “Bastard,” said Lily when we got inside her apartment.

  “Lennox?”

  “Yeah,” said Lily when we were back in her apartment. “He treats Marie Louise like a servant. She was a doctor, Artie. In her country she’s a doctor. Here, she cleans up other people’s shit to support her kids—she has two little boys. She puts up with it, but Lennox is a real prick.”

  “Not your favorite guy?”

  “He’s on the make all the time.”

  “Women?”

  “Money.”

  “A bastard how?”

  “He already has a job downtown, but he develops real estate in his spare time.”

  “And the others?”

  “What others?”

  “In the building.”

  “They’re OK. And a lot of them are just old, old and wanting something to do, somebody to talk to. You want to meet them all?”

  “Yes.”

  “Come to the party tonight?”

  “The weather’s lousy.” I didn’t want to drive all the way home in the stinking weather. I had once skidded on the FDR and almost gone into the half-frozen river. I told Lily.

  “You don’t have to go all the way home,” she said. “You can stay.”

  I was pathetic, eager, desperate. I wondered what she’d do if I kissed her. I couldn’t make a bad move, not this time. “I’ll stay, if you’re sure that’s OK.”

  “Great. I’ll call Sugar Hill Inn—it’s a nice B&B—I’ll fix a room for you there. That way you won’t have to drive downtown later.”

  “Because Virgil will be staying with you?”

  “It’s not your business now. I’m not asking you to stay here with me because, yeah, I’m sort of involved with Virgil, OK? We’ve been through this. I can’t do this all over again,” said Lily. “I can only think about what’s happened here, Artie. Please. Just help me.”

  “I’ll help you.”

  “I don’t want you to feel I’m using you, but I’m scared, Artie, and there’s nobody I can tell except you, and it’s probably wrong of me, I know that. Virgil is a good person, and a nice guy, and I like him. But it’s different.”

  “Don’t.” I pushed a strand of hair out of her eyes, as gently as I could. “Don’t apologize.”

  “You’d help me even if it had been my fault, wouldn’t you? Even if I screwed up the meds, right? Even if I had killed her, you’d have covered for me, wouldn’t you? Artie?”

  “Yes.”

  She looked at me. “You would, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Right,” said Lily, a grin on her face now. “Anything?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you listen to Springsteen for me?” she said. “You never would before.”

  “I’d buy all his albums.”

  “Would you go to his concerts with me?”

  “I’d learn all the words to all the songs, and we would drink beer from plastic cups at the Garden and dance around like all the other middle-aged white people there.” I got up, went to Lily’s CD player, shuffled through the discs, found Born in the U.S.A., put it on, turned it up loud. Then I got up off the sofa and sang:

  You can’t start a fire,

  you can’t start a fire without a spark.

  This gun’s for hire,

  even if we’re just dancing in the dark

  “How’s that?” I said, collapsing back onto the couch.

  “That’s lovely. Thank you. You sing just like Bruce.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “How come you know the words?”

  “I learned them all for you.”

  “How’d you do that?”

  “I got them off a record cover,” I said. “You feel a little better?”

  “I think so, yes. You cheered me up, you really did. You’re a good friend,” she said, and then, out of the blue, she reached over, and put her arms around me, and kissed me on the mouth. Kissed me for a while, her body against mine.

  Lily was in the bathroom. I got out the present Simonova had left for her under the Christmas tree. I opened it, found a letter inside. I read it quickly and put it back.

  “What’s that?” said Lily emerging from the bathroom, retrieving her glass, pouring herself more Scotch.

  “It’s a letter Simonova left for you. In the box under the tree.”

  “One of her games?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Read it to me.”

  “You sure?”

  “Of course.” She downed the Scotch.

  I put on my glasses and Lily laughed.

  “How come everybody laughs at my glasses?”

  “Who’s everybody?”

  “I saw Sonny this morning?”

  “How is he?”

  “Lonely.”

  “We’re old now, Artie. We’ll be old people soon.”

  “I plan to be old Russian guy, I drink borscht, I play chess on beach,” I said, putting off reading the letter that I knew would scare her.

  “Russia,” she said. “You still feel it, Artie? You still can’t let go.” She put her arms around me. “Go on with the letter,” Lily added. “You already read it, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then go on.”

  I read. “ ‘My dear Lily, You have been more kind to me than anyone I know in this country. You are a true comrade.’ You want me to read all the flourishes? All the ways you helped her and how you are a true revolutionary sister?”

  “Not right now,” Lily said.

  “So, let’s see, she just adds again that you understood her, you understood the cause.”

  “I know you’re holding back. Can we cut to the chase?”

  “OK. First of all, she left you a lot of stuff in the storage room, including the Christmas ornaments I found there.”

  “That’s nice,” said Lily. “I don’t think that’s why you look so weird, though, Artie.”

  “ ‘Comrade, Lily’—this is how she now addresses you,” I said. “ ‘I leave to you all my money, and my jewelry. I have not had the moment to make this legal, but so I write letter to you. There are jewelry of my mother in apartment, also money in bank box.’ Then there’s a lot more stuff about you, how grateful she was, stuff like that. There’s one more thing.”

  “What?”

  “She left you her apartment. Free and clear.” I took my glasses off and held out the letter. Lily backed away.

  “No.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t want her fucking stuff. What’s the date on the letter?”

  I looked at it. “There isn’t a date.”

  “Good, that’s good. It can’t be legal then.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Lily was shaking. Her mood had changed again. She was frightened.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t want the place where Marianna died. There’s a will anyway, you’ll see. It will be different. This is just some old woman trying to be nice. Or playing a trick on me.”

  “You think there’s a will?”

  “I know there is. I know it. She mentioned it.”

  “Did she have a safe-deposit box?”

  “She had an account at a bank on 125th Street. I went with her once.”

  “She gave you a key to the box?”

  “Yes. You can fix this, anyway, can’t you? You ca
n get in her box somehow. Tomorrow? Even if it’s Sunday? We can do it tomorrow, OK, Artie?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Just tear up the letter, OK?”

  “I’ll keep it for you.”

  “Right, keep it. Keep the money, the apartment, whatever.”

  “You can sell it,” I said. “You can give the money to something you care about. Sell it to Carver Lennox.”

  “I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction,” she said. “He nagged Marianna all the time. ‘Sell it to me, dear,’ he’d say to her, and it upset her; it was her home. Hers is one of the biggest apartments on the floor, and he’s been desperate to get it.”

  “How does he act with you?”

  “Who?”

  “Lennox?”

  “He’s fine with me; I’m the kind of yuppie, as he sees it, he wants here. You know—Vassar grad, good job, fancy friends. He once says to me in the elevator, ‘What a marvelous coat, Lily.’ Asshole. I mean, I played along because I live here for now. Also he gave a truckload of money to Obama.”

  “So he’s been harassing people?”

  “In his very cool way. I heard someone say it killed Mr. Washington back then.”

  “What did? You didn’t mention that.”

  “The idea of losing his apartment. I think he just gave up.”

  “Who owns it now?”

  “His estate. Some kind of probate problem was involved. Lennox is crazy to get it.”

  “Is that why you don’t want Simonova’s apartment? You’re worried about Lennox?”

  “Of course not. I just don’t want anything from her. Just wait,” said Lily, and disappeared into the bathroom. When she came back—it must have been at least five minutes—she was calmer. Maybe she had taken something.