Ariel groaned and drained the glass of genever that he and Isaac shared during their weekly visits. “Papa, not again! Can’t we talk about something else?”
“If you don’t like the conversation, then leave.”
It’s always the same. Just shut up, get it over with, go home. “Never mind.”
Isaac pointed his index finger, an eagle’s claw. “You have to remember every detail. It is your heritage. I won’t be alive forever.”
Ariel rose, walked to the ijskast and opened the freezer. Shot glasses were lined up like frozen soldiers, a bottle of oude genever next to them, the silent general. Ariel poured two drinks, his hands burning from the cold. One wasn’t enough. Not if he had to listen to the whole goddamned story again. He handed Isaac his glass and sat down. The first sip almost knocked him on his ass. Well, he needed it. Why did Papa insist on buying oude instead of jonge? He knew why. Oude tasted like gasoline, but the brand Isaac bought had the highest alcohol content. Took less to get him drunk.
Isaac bent over the table, supported himself with his palms and put his lips to the frozen glass, in the old way. Somehow the gesture made Ariel sad. There were so many old men sitting on bar stools doing the same thing—downing gin, reliving their pasts, telling Ariel’s generation how they had it so easy. It was true, of course, but Ariel was sick of hearing it.
Isaac straightened, his cheeks flushed. “And then the Queen took her Cabinet and ran away to London. Everyone crowded around the radios, listening to her tell us to hang on. Ha! That stupid woman left without telling anyone to destroy the government records! The name and address of every Jew in Amsterdam at the Nazi’s fingertips. Sitting ducks!”
“Papa, shall I tell you what happened at Immigration today? There was an arrest—”
“I worked there for thirty years—who gives a damn?”
“Papa, please—”
Isaac slammed his glass down on the old wooden table. “Tell me the names!”
Ariel felt anger flame in his cheeks. “Stop it!”
“Rachel, Sara, David—”
“I won’t do this anymore!” He stood.
“You will sit! You will listen to your Papa!”
Ariel sat down and hated himself for it. Weak. Just as Papa had always told him.
“Continue!”
“Evan, Miriam, Levi,” he whispered.
Isaac reached for the table, picked up his bag of zware shag and rolled a cigarette. Ariel was grateful for a few moments of silence. His heart was still pounding. Isaac lit the cigarette, took a heavy puff and began coughing and sputtering.
“Papa. You know what the doctor said.”
Isaac shook his head and downed the last of his genever. “One heart attack. What do I have to live for, anyway?”
Me! thought Ariel. “Never mind.”
Isaac watched the smoke rise into the air, eyes hooded. Maybe he’s thinking about his family in the ovens, thought Ariel. Maybe about his own ashes when he dies. I should be more patient.
“Just five minutes. Is that too much to ask?”
Ariel now heard the slur in his father’s voice. How much had he had to drink before Ariel got there?
“The world thinks that the Anne Frank story is how it was. Ha! By the end of the war there were 100,000 filthy NSB-ers, helping the Nazis every step of the way.” He picked up his genever, staring into the liquid as if it were a window to the past. “Then they took us—even the babies—marched us to the Concertgebouw.” A harsh laugh escaped him. “Our marvelous concert hall—a jumping point to annihilation.”
His cigarette had burned down and out, but Papa didn’t notice. He still held it pinched between his nicotine-stained fingers. Ariel felt trapped. How could he get out of there? He had to wait for the end of the story. Like every time before.
Isaac droned on, his words slow, too deliberate. “At the end of the war, 120,000 dead—90,000 from Amsterdam—Auschwitz, Sobibor—” He looked at Ariel with tortured eyes, tears flowing freely down his craggy face. “Did I say that already?”
“Yes, Papa,” whispered Ariel. “It’s all right.”
“Cousins, nieces, parents—all dead.” His voice was a hoarse whisper. “Why me? Why did I survive? Or your Tante Amarisa?”
Ariel felt his heart wrench, as he did every time Papa told his hideous tale. Such a tragic waste of a life. He stood, sat next to Isaac and put his arm around him. The shoulders felt thin and pinched under his strong arm. “It’s all right, Papa. I’m here.”
Isaac’s head fell into his hands. “I am sorry, my son. You deserved a better father. And my precious Agathe, living her life with a dead man.” He looked up at Ariel with fresh pain in his eyes. “When she died, I begged her to forgive me.” His voice trailed off.
“Papa,” said Ariel softly. “You must rest. It’s all over now.”
Isaac gently removed Ariel’s arm and looked up at him. The agony in the black eyes tore at Ariel’s heart.
“No, my son,” he whispered. “It will never be over.”
* * *
Now another thought pierced him. Amarisa! What would she do when she found out that Isaac was dead? She had always terrified Ariel with her wild, black hair and deadly agate eyes, that hideous scar that sliced from mouth to ear. When angry, the twisted, ropy tissue turned a grotesque shade of purple.
Ariel felt cold sweat under his armpits. Isaac was everything to Amarisa, the only family he still claimed. She would go insane—wailing, furious, bereft. He imagined her charging across the room as fast as her crippled leg would let her, pummeling him with her fists, screaming at him for not saving Isaac, for being a coward.
He had felt her wrath all his life. She had had no use for Ariel, even as a child. She had never given him presents, even on his birthday or Hanukkah. He couldn’t remember a single time that she had kissed or hugged him. When he was older, Amarisa had waved him away whenever she and Isaac talked about the war, nursing their bitterness and rage. “You’re weak, just like everyone in your generation,” she had sneered. “Living the good life while we watched our loved ones being marched to the ovens. Go into the kitchen with your mother where you belong.” Ariel never understood how Isaac could let her speak that way to him, but he learned early that Isaac always let anything Amarisa said pass.
God, it wasn’t just having to tell her, a filthy rich diamond merchant, as cold and calculating in business as she was in life. She had grudgingly given him and Leah a good bit of money over the years. He sensed that it was her way to control them and make them grovel, but his job didn’t provide the money they needed to live comfortably in Amsterdam, even with Leah’s job as a nurse. And now Ariel was certain that Amarisa would cut them off as soon as she heard about Isaac’s death. Where would they be then?
Rose’s cry snapped Ariel out of his reverie. Her face was red as she wriggled unhappily. Oh, God, was she sick? He felt her tiny forehead. It seemed hot. What should he do? He picked her up gently, rocking her as he walked around the small, airless room. She stopped crying and snuggled deeper into her down nest. Relief coursed through him. Maybe she was all right. Exhausted, he looked at the infant he carried and tried to focus. What now? What had he done?
After he had sped away from Anneke’s house, he’d driven as fast as he could toward the airport. He’d had no plan, just desperation. He had driven around until he found a nondescript motel and checked in.
Rose wailed again. “Shh, it’s all right, little one.” He picked her up and then understood. Diapers. How could he be so stupid? He carried her to the elevator and went downstairs, cooing to her.
The woman at the desk smiled. Ariel couldn’t help staring at her flashy red lipstick, fake eyelashes and blond beehive hairdo.
“‘Ounds ’ike ’umbuddy ain’ heppi.” The drawl that dripped like honey from her lips strangled any h
ope Ariel had of understanding her.
“Excuse me?”
“You a furrener?”
“Ah—yes. German.”
She leaned across the desk, her enormous breasts straining to free themselves from the prison of her low-cut blouse. She wiggled her fingers at Rose, her long red nails clacking against one another like shucked oyster shells. She raised her voice, as if Ariel were deaf. “I said, it sounds like somebody ain’t happy.”
Ariel felt his cheeks burn as he tried to wrest his eyes from her obvious endowments. “Oh—no, no she isn’t. Can you tell me where the closest store might be? Where I can buy diapers and formula?”
The woman snapped her gum and pointed a cherry fingernail across the highway. “There’s a FedMart right over there. They’ll fix you up just fine.”
“Thank you,” he said.
“She all right?”
“She seems a little warm to me.”
“Give her to me. I’m a granny four times over.”
Reluctantly, Ariel complied. Rose quieted the moment the woman held her. She placed a confident hand against Rose’s forehead. “Hey, darlin’,” she crooned. “Got a little cold?” She handed the baby back to Ariel. “Baby aspirin. Fix her right up.”
Relief coursed through him. “Thank you so much. I don’t know very much about babies.”
She gave him an amused look. “Where’s her momma?”
Ariel jiggled Rose and summoned what he knew must have looked like a plastic smile. “In Idaho visiting her father. We’re flying out tomorrow.”
“You’re a good daddy,” she said. “Anybody can see that. Most men wouldn’t fly alone with such an itty-bitty. How old is she?”
The words came from his mouth before he could stop himself. “I don’t know.”
The woman’s dark, penciled-in eyebrows raised. “What?”
“I mean—” Ariel wiped the sweat from his brow.
She hooted. “Oh, you men! Never know nothin’ about kids, not even if they’re your own! We don’t expect you galoots to count by minutes, hours and days like we do.” She stroked Rose’s fat cheek. “We don’t need ’em, now do we, honey?” She spoke in the high, excited babble women always seemed to use when addressing babies. “Yes, ma’am! I’d say you’re no more’n six, seven months old.” She winked at Ariel. “Close?”
“Next month,” he said quickly. “Now, I’m afraid we really must be going.” He stepped back.
“If I was you, I’d be addin’ some of that baby cereal to her feed. Don’t want her keepin’ you up on that long plane ride.”
“I—I will.”
“Be good now, hear?” One last red-nailed wave and she disappeared through the office door.
Ariel mumbled his thanks and almost ran to the car, Rose bouncing in his arms. Dodging heavy traffic, he drove to the store. It was only when the cold air-conditioning blasted him and he got Rose settled into the cart that he drew an easy breath. God, I’ve got to be careful! It’s the simple things that will screw me. He vowed to write out an entire history about Rose so he would know everything a normal father would.
Rose looked up from the cart’s blue plastic seat and gurgled happily. Apparently the diaper wasn’t bothering her now. He walked down aisle after aisle. It slayed him, America. These huge stores selling everything anyone could imagine. As he wandered up and down the aisles, a friendly Hispanic woman took pity on him and helped him pick out diapers, formula, a pacifier, baby clothes, blankets, a collapsible stroller and God knows what else.
All he knew was that by the time he checked out, he had racked up almost a hundred dollars’ worth. Luckily, when he learned that Isaac had gone to Houston, he had raced to his bank and almost emptied his savings account to exchange guilders into dollars. He now had just over a thousand dollars in cash, not knowing how much he’d need to get Isaac back to Holland. There had been no time to get traveler’s checks. Now he was glad he had cash. If he had used traveler’s checks, he would have had to countersign them using his passport, putting him at further risk. Ariel wondered if any of it would be left when he got home.
Back at the motel, he put Rose on the bed, buffered by pillows, and hauled his purchases into the room, including a large suitcase he had bought. No way he could fit Rose’s new wardrobe and paraphernalia into his overnight bag.
The first order of business was that diaper. He made short work of changing it and won a smile of approval from Rose. He warmed some formula on the stove, put it into a bottle and let it cool until a splash on his wrist let him know it wasn’t too hot.
Thank God he did have some experience with kids. Leah had been heartsick when she found out that she couldn’t bear a child. In the past few years, many of their friends had had babies. So she and Ariel had become babysitters. A bittersweet chore.
A few minutes later, he sat in an armchair with Rose in his arms. She stopped crying the moment he put the nipple into her mouth. She sucked greedily, all the while fixing him with her big blue eyes.
“What a good girl!” He held her up and laughed. “You’re perfect, you know that?” When he lowered her into his arms, her sweet, milky cheek swept against his bristly one. He was shocked by the joy that filled him.
But guilt stabbed him as he thought of the grandmother—killed by his father’s hand. It all flashed before him again: Isaac’s humiliation of Anneke, her frantic denials, holding Rose to her breast, begging, begging for Rose’s life. The bloody hole in her forehead, the fearsome scarlet blood on the white carpet.
Ariel tried to wipe away those images and held Rose even closer to his chest, as if to protect her from further harm. But she’d finished the bottle and fallen asleep. He rose and burped her. The sweet weight of her in his arms made him want to weep. Ariel buried his face into Rose’s neck before he laid her back on his jacket.
But the promise! Papa’s dying wish!
How could he fulfill it? His father had been crazed, in agony, near death. It didn’t matter. He remembered Isaac’s fierce eyes and his cold fingers clutching his wrist, the agony receding only when he had agreed to take Rose back with him.
“No!” he cried out loud. He must take this child and return her immediately. He couldn’t imagine the terror her mother must feel—his cousin, he now knew. He was not a criminal, someone who would steal a child and deprive it of its mother’s love. He lay Rose back upon the sofa cushions.
So how in hell should he do this? Drop her off at a hospital with her name pinned to the pink blanket he had bought her? Or leave her here, call the woman at the desk from a pay phone and tell her who Rose belonged to? But now she could identify him and the police would think he was involved in the murder.
And Leah? How could he ever explain any of this to her? He looked at the phone by the bed. Should he call her? All she knew was that he had chased after Isaac. He thought back to what he’d told her. When he hadn’t been able to reach Isaac all day, he’d let himself into his father’s apartment, where he’d found the Houston address, Isaac’s flight details and his passport. There was a hole where Isaac’s photo should have been. Because of Ariel’s job in Immigration, he knew instantly that Isaac had procured a black-market passport to travel to the U.S.
Leah had begged Ariel not to go. But he’d had to try to stop his goddamned father. Ariel remembered telling her he feared the worst. Who knew what Isaac would do to satisfy a lifetime of obsessive hatred? The last thing he remembered was the outpouring of love in Leah’s embrace at the airport and the faint lavender of her perfume that stayed with him down the runway. No, he couldn’t call her now. She would be frantic, even more worried when he told her what had happened. And what he had done.
A hunger pang returned him to the present. Shit. He’d forgotten to buy food for himself. But not now. He had to think this through.
Even if he gave Rose back, he’d still
be arrested, charged, put away in prison for years. All he knew about American prisons was that they were terrifying. And who would believe he hadn’t taken part in the murder? Or that he’d never dreamed of taking Rose? Damn it. He was trapped, as he always had been, in his father’s life.
He rubbed his eyes and looked hard at Rose again. Beautiful, heavenly child. Maybe there was a way. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. But this baby could be the answer to his and Leah’s prayers. Could he possibly take her back to Amsterdam, make sure she was raised as a Jew, as Isaac had begged him to? After all, little Rose was family, Abram’s granddaughter. There was a bizarre symmetry to it, despite the Nazi horror and tragedy that had spawned it. This sweet, precious girl could be brought back into the family. She had not only been denied Abram, but Isaac, as well. If he had lived, Rose could have eased Isaac’s bitterness, seeing part of Abram live on, despite what her grandmother did.
His rationalizations rang hollow even as he thought of them. But he was scared. They couldn’t stay in this country. Who knew what clues he may have left? Any minute the police could be at his door.
He bent over, kissed Rose lightly on her soft forehead and then stood. He crossed to his suitcase and pulled his passport from its side pocket. Sitting at the small desk, he opened it and scanned the lines on the page across from his photo.
He knew what to do. Under Dutch law, children under eight were not required to have a passport but could travel under a parent’s. He ran his finger down to the appropriate box, then hesitated. He stared at the pen on the desk. No, he had absolutely no choice. He picked it up and filled in the space. Jacoba Rosen.
He sat back and breathed heavily. The die was cast. He was now traveling with his daughter. But they couldn’t fly back to the Netherlands from Houston. Isaac probably had the false passport on him, which meant the police would be looking for a Dutchman flying from here to Amsterdam with a tiny baby. But what if the fake passport wasn’t Dutch? They could be looking for a Romanian, a Russian—who knew?
He shoved everything he had brought with him into his carry-on, and then packed the things he had bought for Rose into his suitcase. He glanced at the collapsible stroller, satisfied with his purchase. He couldn’t carry Rose everywhere he went.
The Tulip Eaters Page 8
