It was almost Passover, the time of year when Eddie made certain to avoid his past, yet whenever he took Mitts for a walk, he found himself drawn downtown. He made his way to the address Weiss had given him. The apartment was the sixth-floor railroad flat of a tenement building on Thompson Street. The stairs were steep and worn, and through the flimsy walls it was possible to hear half a dozen conversations in Yiddish and Russian and English, some in all three languages combined. Eddie was reminded of the room where he’d lived with his father, the lingering odor of cooked cabbage and of stews, the dim hallways, the damp clinging to the walls. All he’d wanted was to escape.
He knocked at the Weisses’ door, expecting to be greeted by the old man, but it was the sister, Ella, who appeared. Their first meeting had been unfortunate, and now the girl glared when she saw Eddie, instantly suspicious. Before she could turn him away, Mitts barked cheerfully and stepped forward. “Oh,” Ella said, delighted. “I didn’t expect you!”
Eddie grinned. More than once, the dog had been his best representative, more lovable and social than he was. Ella turned to him after greeting the dog, less than charmed by his master. “I’m not sure I should speak to someone who accosted me on the street.”
“Your father came to me for help. If you don’t believe me, ask him.”
“I told him there was a man inquiring about Hannah and he asked me for a description. I said tall and obnoxious. Right away he knew it was you.”
Eddie winced, and his discomfort lightened Ella’s expression for a moment. Still, she was wary.
“He told me you have a gift, a special knowledge that will allow you to find my sister. He sits here waiting to hear from you. He has faith in you. So tell me, Mr. Detective, did you find her with your special powers?”
“I’m not a detective. I’m a photographer. He came to look at the prints I’d taken on the day of the fire. I never told him that I had the power to find your sister.”
“What good are you then?” There were spots of color on Ella’s cheeks. “Why did you let him think you could? Do you mean to say you can’t close your eyes and see her in the great beyond?”
“Is that where you think she is?”
Ella looked away, but a sob escaped from her throat.
Eddie reached to pull her into the hallway. At last he was getting somewhere. “A sister is something special. Maybe she told you secrets she might have kept from your father. A boyfriend? A problem?”
“Hannah didn’t keep secrets. She was the kindest, most open person. I don’t think she ever told a lie in her life. You can’t imagine how good she was. If something had been wrong I would have known. We knew everything about each other.” Ella slipped a hand over her mouth, shocked by her own words, almost unable to take in any air. “I’m speaking of her in the past, as though she’s gone.”
“Let’s look at the facts,” Eddie suggested. “You worked together?”
“The supervisor thought we talked too much when we worked side by side, so he separated us. Hannah had me go upstairs because the room was supposed to be better, not as cold. That was the way she was. Never thinking of herself. When the fire began I tried to find her, but the stairwells were filled with smoke. The door to the ninth floor was locked. No one could budge it—several of the men tried. I was pulled along with the crowd, but I should have been beside her.”
“Be thankful you weren’t. It was luck that you were on the tenth floor.”
“It wasn’t luck! It was Hannah who saved me. She sent me to the room she should have gone to. The supervisor was looking at me when he said only one of us could stay on the ninth floor.” Ella fretfully plucked at her own skin. Eddie noticed a dozen self-inflicted marks on her arms. “I should have been in that fire. That’s the reason I can see the other side.”
Eddie wrinkled his brow, confused.
“I should be dead. That’s why I see her ghost.”
“That’s not the way it works,” Eddie assured her.
Ella managed a laugh despite her sorrow. “You know how it works? God discussed it with you?”
“Let’s discuss your sister, and leave God to other business. Did you see her that morning?”
They had walked to Greene Street arm in arm, as they did each day.
“And she seemed the same as always? No worries?”
“The same.”
“You went in the building together, and up the stairs?”
Ella’s expression darkened. “She told me to go on, she would follow. Some mornings she ran and bought an apple from a cart in Washington Square Park. She would sneak it in, even though we weren’t allowed to eat while we worked. She said otherwise her stomach would growl.”
“Did she buy an apple?”
“I don’t know. I went inside the doorway and never saw her again. Only her ghost.”
Eddie gazed at the girl, pity shining in his eyes.
“I can tell you think I’m foolish. But I know she’s gone. I dream of water, not of fire. She’s trying to tell me something.” Ella gazed straight at him, defiant. “Maybe you think I’m a lunatic.”
Eddie understood it was possible to dream so deeply you saw what you wished to believe. His own father had searched out his beloved wife in his dreams and had spoken to her on a nightly basis, conversations so intimate Eddie always turned to the wall so he wouldn’t overhear.
“I think you worry for your sister, as I’m sure she would have worried for you.”
“We both know what you’ll find. She’s gone. Please, don’t tell my father. The least we can do is let him dream awhile longer.”
On his way up toward Cooper Square in the falling dusk, Eddie realized he was being followed. It was Mitts who alerted him, for the dog seemed uneasy, glancing behind them, a worried expression crossing his usually easygoing countenance. Eddie took a moment to pause in a doorway. There he feigned gazing at his watch, all the while scanning the street with a sidelong glance. Indeed there was a large man dressed in a heavy black overcoat stopping nearby so that he might study Eddie from beneath the brim of his bowler hat. Eddie set his watch back into his pocket and moved on, but so did the burly stranger, lumbering after him. This was why Hochman preferred to hire boys who were light on their feet and could easily go unnoticed in a crowd. Eddie looked over his shoulder to steal another look. For an instant his eyes locked with his pursuer’s. He observed something dark peering back at him, the sort of malevolent spark he often captured on film when recording criminal subjects.
Eddie whistled for Mitts to stay close, then headed off briskly. The stranger continued to gain on them, his strut more focused now. He carried a roughly made club Eddie didn’t like the looks of. The hair on the back of Eddie’s neck rose in pinpricks, and he noticed that the hair on Mitts’s back bristled as well.
Eddie turned down Seventh Street, hoping to lose his shadow, but the street was nearly deserted in the dusk, and it appeared he’d chosen a perfect place for an assault. Without thinking, he slipped into the first doorway he came upon, McSorley’s Ale House, an establishment that had opened nearly sixty years earlier. This Irish tavern, where only men were allowed, was known for its workingman clientele. Mitts followed Eddie inside, treading softly over the sawdust scattered on the floor to mop up spilled drinks. The pit bull made for a good companion in taverns, for his breed was known for rat fighting, a form of amusement that often took place in the cellars below the alehouses and sporting houses throughout the city. In dogfights, pit bulls were champions, so ferocious many were unwilling to let go of an opponent they were pitted against. Their jaws occasionally had to be pried open with a metal bar before they would release the loser, if the other dog were still alive. Due to Mitts, space was made at the bar when Eddie approached. He asked for dark ale, keeping his eye on the door. He waited for his fare, but the fellow tending bar continued to clean glasses with a rag rather than see to his order.
<
br /> “Is there a problem?” Eddie wished to know.
“No dogs,” he was told.
Two tabby cats lay beside a table in the back room where several men played cards.
“He won’t bother a cat. He’s well behaved.” In fact, Mitts had curled up on the floor at Eddie’s feet, his nose in the sawdust.
“But how do I know you are?” was the response. “Maybe you’re looking for trouble.” The barkeep was broadly built and heavily muscled, his strength put to use if there were unruly customers. His pale eyes were difficult to read, but he pointed out a sign that declared
BE GOOD OR BE GONE. Eddie realized that his ragged appearance and dark expression might have led this fellow to believe he had criminal intentions.
“I’m here to have a drink,” Eddie assured him. “Whiskey is fine. I prefer to avoid trouble. My dog’s the same as me.”
“Are you saying I should serve him as well?” the barkeep inquired drily, but Eddie’s attentions had already shifted. The man in the black coat had entered the alehouse, situating himself near the window. Eddie reached for a dime, which he tossed on the counter. He moved off the barstool and whistled low, between his teeth. Mitts rose to follow. As they headed for the double door, Eddie could sense his stalker behind him. The stranger’s shadow fell forward, blurring the edges between them. As soon as they were on the street, the stalker leaned forward to grab Eddie.
Eddie turned, quick to push him away. “I’ve got nothing for you! Back off, man!”
His stalker said nothing in response, but a grim smile crossed his face. It was a bad moment that promised to worsen. No words were said, but the tension grew. The dog planted himself in front of his master, as though he’d been trained in the art of protection. In response the stranger lifted up his club. Eddie grabbed Mitts by the collar and drew him away.
“If you follow me again, I’ll let my dog on you. Understand?”
There was no reply, just that menacing smile. When the stranger came no closer, Eddie took the opportunity to walk away, though a chill ran down his spine. He was suspicious, and rightfully so. After only a few steps, his pursuer came at him again, this time with a sudden and vicious attack. He struck at the back of Eddie’s head with his club. Stunned, Eddie fell to the gutter. As the world went black, he thought himself a fool for not being more watchful. Hadn’t that been one of Hochman’s first lessons? Never take your eyes off a man you can’t trust. He could feel the thief going through his pockets and heard him muttering while he grabbed what little Eddie carried with him.
Though Eddie was rising from the blackness, he could barely gather his thoughts. He heard Mitts barking like mad and imagined he would be hit again before he could rise. He gritted his teeth, but there wasn’t a second attack. He heard shouts. Dazed, he forced himself to his feet. He could feel the heat of his own blood as it matted in his hair and dripped into his collar. His vision was blurry, but when he squinted he could make out the figures of two men fighting. The barman from McSorley’s had sensed trouble and followed them. He wrestled with Eddie’s attacker while Mitts lunged at the man, latching on to his leg. The thief went at the dog with his club but was unable to drive him off.
Eddie ran and took hold of Mitts. “Enough,” he said, but the tendencies of the dog’s fierce breed had risen, and Mitts refused to let go of his quarry. Eddie shook him, then drew his jaws apart. The stranger scrambled to his feet, a stream of blood sopping through his torn pants leg. He grabbed his bully stick and took off toward Second Avenue, though he did so with a limp. Eddie and the barman watched the attacker vanish into the crowd.
“You said you don’t like trouble,” the barman remarked. “But is it possible it likes you?”
Whatever the thief had stolen had been flung to the ground in his attempt to make his getaway. Eddie collected his change and his watch. He held it up to find that the glass face had cracked. When he listened he discovered it was still keeping time.
The barman from McSorley’s came to inspect the damage. “That was what he was after. Without a doubt. That’s what you get for owning a rich man’s watch.”
That night Eddie slept upright in a chair, still in his clothes, his head throbbing. He dreamed a woman was making her way down Twenty-third Street, soaking wet. She was naked and beautiful. He had yearned for certain women, but the way he wanted this one was something more. He began to follow her. The entire street was awash in water, as if the river had flooded Tenth Avenue. Just as he was about to rush over to the woman he so desired, someone came up behind him and stopped him. You can’t have what doesn’t belong to you, a voice said.
Mitts put his head on his master’s knee. Eddie rubbed the dog’s skull, discovering that the dog had a lump similar to the one that had risen on his own head.
“He got you as well,” he murmured to Mitts.
It was early, and the light in the room was dim. The building hadn’t been wired for electricity. No one in city government thought this address was worth the bother, so Eddie lit a candle. He took his watch from his jacket to study it. He’d have to return to the watchmaker’s and have the cracked glass replaced. He thought of Harry Block, and the expression of outrage on his face when he saw what had once belonged to him in another man’s possession. Eddie then had a strange sensation, a bit of memory floating up like a firefly. He had seen the man who had attacked him before. Quickly, he sifted through the pile of photographs from the library gala until he found the one he wanted. There he was, the man in the black coat, a faithful employee who stood behind Harry Block only minutes before Eddie had revealed the stolen watch to his old enemy. The man in the heavy coat gazed away from the camera, as criminals often did, for none wished to divulge too much about themselves, or to have their features caught and recorded, so that they might later be identified. This man, however, was not a common thief at all but one of Block’s trusted employees, clearly sent to the Lower East Side for the watch.
Eddie felt himself flush with anger. How dare Block come after him, and think himself above the law? He had half a mind to go down to the Chelsea police station and report the incident, and he might have done exactly that, but he thought of the watchmaker’s suspicions that the watch was not his. He had allowed his outrage to obscure the truth. All at once, it struck Eddie that he himself was the thief. He was the one in possession of stolen property.
He wondered if every criminal saw himself as the hero of his own story, and if every thankless son was convinced he’d been mistreated by his father. Nothing was constant, he understood that now. Even Moses Levy’s photographs of the trees in the forest were shifting, fading from the very light that had created them. And in that hour of dim morning light, Eddie admitted that he no longer understood who he was, a hero, a nobody, a thief, a son who’d been mistreated, or one who had wronged his father so profoundly he might never be forgiven.
FIVE
* * *
THE ORIGINAL LIAR
**********
I BEGAN to defy my father the year I turned fifteen. They were minor infractions to begin with, secret transgressions no one would notice. But each time I broke the smallest rule, I felt I had committed a crime. In truth, nothing much had changed except the way I felt, but in time I have come to wonder if that isn’t everything after all. Perhaps my conversion from dutiful daughter had begun on the night I went into my father’s workroom and read the first few pages of his handbook. Often I wished I had continued reading, but I’d been too frightened to go on. Was it because I feared being caught red-handed? Or was it that I dreaded what I might find in those pages? At those times when I worked up the courage to go down the cellar steps, the locks were always bolted. I put my ear to the heavy wooden door but heard nothing, only the beating of my own pulse at the base of my throat.
I passed a locksmith’s shop on my route to the fish market, and one day I veered from my usual path and stepped inside. I said I had lost a key to a cel
lar storeroom where jars of jams and jellies were kept cool. I thought I must certainly look like a liar—my cheeks were flushed and hot, and I stammered over my words. I wondered if the sheriff’s office would be called and I would be arrested on the spot, but the locksmith treated me as if I were any other customer. When I said I could not afford to have him come to change the bolts, he assured me he had a skeleton key that would work on any lock. He took my money, but as it turned out what he gave me was a worthless loop of metal. When I reached home I slipped the skeleton key into the first lock, where it twisted and stuck fast. For a few panicky moments I feared I wouldn’t be able to remove it, and would be found out when my father returned to his workroom. At last I managed to retrieve the key, pulling it out with all my might. I then ran to toss it into the heap at the rear of our yard, where we burned our trash once a week.
That experience didn’t stop me from puzzling over my father’s past. My curiosity became a stone in my shoe. Whenever I had the house to myself I examined the volumes in my father’s library as if they might reveal his secrets. I read all manner of medical texts and books about the natural world. I went through the cabinet where he stored whiskey and aperitifs, and tasted a green liquid that reminded me of the mint that grew in our garden. I took a spade so I might dig in the earth beside the back door, where the liveryman dragged specimens through the weeds. There I searched for bones or pieces of gold but discovered nothing more than a hill of stinging ants. And then, one evening, I found the keys. My father had gone out and forgotten his waistcoat jacket. I randomly searched the pockets. There were some coins and hard candy in one pocket. In the other, the keys.
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