The World Without You

by Joshua Henkin

Lily shakes her head.

  “Underage,” says Marilyn.

  “Five letters.” Lily knows the answer: she’s just quizzing them. It’s Tuesday, which means an easy crossword, and since no one has gone into town to buy the paper yet, she’s doing the Monday crossword, which is even easier.

  “Minor,” Clarissa says. She’s good at crosswords herself, though she doesn’t bring to them Lily’s competitive ebullience.

  “Who wants to take me on?” Lily means who wants to do the crossword next to her and try to finish first? It’s why she bought another copy of the paper: an extra dollar-fifty so she can kick someone’s butt. But Clarissa’s already getting her butt kicked at badminton, and Marilyn is too busy folding laundry, and no one else seems interested either. Lily considers coming off the porch, but she’s feeling sensitive to the heat. Last week, she fell asleep on the grass outside her apartment and got herself a sunburn. Now, with her red hair pinned to the top of her head, her nose peeling, a little lipstick smudged across her mouth, she has the hue of an overripe nectarine. “Surprisingly lively for one’s age.”

  “Sprightly,” says Marilyn.

  “Four letters.”

  “Spry,” Thisbe says.

  “Ninth-inning pitcher.”

  “Closer,” says Amram. When it comes to sports, nobody can touch him. Back in Jerusalem, a group of American olim have started a fantasy baseball league, and late at night when he’s not checking his stocks he’s charting the progress of his players. Last year, he won his league’s version of the World Series, which netted him the $1,500 first prize.

  “Old woman’s home in a nursery rhyme.”

  “Shoe,” Thisbe says.

  “What the love of money is, they say.”

  “The root of all evil,” says Marilyn.

  “One who mounts and dismounts a horse.”

  “Jockey,” says Nathaniel.

  “Seven letters,” Lily says. “Begins with a g, ends with a t.”

  “Gymnast.”

  “Iranian money.”

  “Rial,” Thisbe says.

  “Summit. Four letters. Begins with an a.”

  “Acme,” Clarissa says.

  “Man, this family’s fast,” Amram says. He’s going for joviality, Noelle can see, but it makes him breathless. The game reminds Noelle of speed chess, which Amram played once in Washington Square Park and lost in a dozen moves. He was terrible at speed chess, probably because he wasn’t much good at regular chess either. Apparently, he was the same way with skiing, insisting at nine, when he first skied, on going down the expert slopes, refusing so much as to consider the bunny hill, the very name of which repelled him. His skis fell off on the first try, skidding down the slope on their own, and he wasn’t far behind, on his rear end, spraying ice in all directions like a Zamboni.

  “Nitroglycerine or dynamite,” Lily says. “Nine letters. Starts with an e.”

  “Explosive,” says Marilyn.

  “I’m tired of this game,” Amram says.

  “Try this one, Amram,” Lily says. “It may hang out in a sports stadium.”

  Amram hesitates. Another sports question: he can’t help himself.

  “Fan,” he says.

  Lily shakes her head.

  “Vendor!”

  “Four letters,” she says.

  “Player! Umpire! Mascot!”

  “I said four letters.”

  “Scalper! Ball! Outfielder! Referee!” Amram jumps up as he guesses, sending his laptop spinning across the table. He tugs on his prayer fringes, which have come untied from their belt loops. He’s trying to convey enthusiasm, but there’s a belligerent, abrasive quality to his voice, a combativeness that makes Noelle anxious. “Easy does it,” she says, reaching out to him, but he slaps her hand away.

  Lily holds up the newspaper in front of her face. Amram is staring so hard at the pages it’s as if he’s trying to see through them.

  “Do you want a hint?”

  “Not a chance.”

  Twenty seconds pass, half a minute, a minute. Dov comes back from the basketball game with a point of dispute, but Amram shoos him off. “Okay,” he says. “I give up.”

  “It’s a four-letter word that begins with a t. The penultimate letter is e.”

  “The penultimate letter?”

  Lily looks at him wryly. “As in second-to-last?”

  “It may hang out in a sports stadium?” Amram says. “What kind of sport?”

  “Sorry, Amram, no can do.” Lily fans the newspaper in front of her face. A smudge of lipstick has come off on the paper. She emits an exaggerated yawn. “Time’s up,” she says. “The correct answer is ‘tier.’ ”

  “Tear?” says Amram.

  She spells out the word for him. “Hang out,” she says, “as in jut out.”

  Amram slams shut his computer. “That’s ridiculous!”

  “Why?” she says. “Because you couldn’t get the answer right?” She folds the newspaper in half, and in half again, and places it beneath her chair. Soon, though, she reconsiders. She has her nose in the page once more and is scanning the crossword. “Okay, Amram, here’s an easy one for you: assassinated Israeli prime minister.”

  “Rabin,” Noelle says.

  But Amram just sits there stonily.

  “Try this one,” Amram says, rising from his chair. “A plane crashes and the debris lands on the border of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah. Where do you bury the survivors?”

  But Lily couldn’t be less interested. She has moved from the crossword to the rest of the arts section and is flipping through the book review, the movies. “I give up.”

  “Sorry, Lily, there’s no giving up.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Amram,” Noelle says, “leave her alone.” Noelle isn’t used to defending Lily, and that’s not her intention now; it’s Amram whom she wants to save from what she’s sure will be humiliation.

  “Survivors don’t get buried,” Amram says.

  “Ah, so they don’t,” Lily says, not even bothering to look up.

  “That’s it for me.” Amram grabs his bottle of mineral water and heads inside. He’s going to take a nap, he tells everyone.

  But not five minutes have passed before he reappears, holding a sand timer. “Who wants to play Celebrity?”

  Everyone is arrayed haphazardly across the garden, like croquet rings. Marilyn is back to weeding, crouched on her knees in the dirt. Thisbe is lying on a beach chair, reading a novel, and Lily is sprawled across a towel in her T-shirt and shorts, trying to get some sleep. The boys, indefatigable, have moved from one-on-two to HORSE and back again. Now Marilyn has come inside holding some weeds. Her knees are brown, she’s gotten her sundress muddy, but she looks like she’s achieved what she set out to do.

  “I’m tired of games,” Noelle says. She’s especially tired of Celebrity, where she’s always paired with Amram and where, invariably, things go wrong. Any game with a timer rattles Amram, the sand descending, the depletion of which occurs implacably and makes him quietly frenetic. It’s like standardized tests, all of which he aced when he was preparing for them—at least that’s what he told Noelle—but when it came time to take the actual test, sitting in the classroom, everyone silent, the sound of pencils filling in those bubbles and the tick-ticking of the clock on the wall, he panicked that time was going by too fast, and then it was going by too fast: the test was over and he hadn’t managed to answer even half the questions. In Celebrity, with the other players looming and that relentless minute glass, Amram jumps in too soon, his voice reverberating as if from a bullhorn, and Noelle, sitting mute beside him, becomes exquisitely embarrassed.

  The game is already familiar to the others, but Amram explains the rules to them anyway. Each player writes down the names of ten celebrities and places them in a bowl. They don’t have to be real celebrities, Amram says. They can be fictional characters, or simply people everyone knows. Noelle, for instance, would be a celebrity for these purposes. “We c
an play couples against couples,” Amram says. “You guys”—he points to Lily and Thisbe—“can be a couple, too.”

  Everyone starts to write down their clues, but David gets up and walks out onto the porch.

  Marilyn runs after him. “Aren’t you going to play?”

  “No, Marilyn, I’m not.” He’s in the garage now, and he grabs a hoe and heads over to the marigolds. He starts to dig some dirt.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Gardening.” He gets down on his knees and yanks a few weeds out, then tosses them over his shoulder in the direction of the compost. He’s wearing shorts, and when he stands up two pale patches of dirt are caked to his thighs, like blush. “Please don’t tell me to be a sport.”

  “I was simply going to ask you to play with us.”

  “You already asked me that.”

  “Well, I’m asking you again.”

  “I’m not going to play couples against couples.”

  “Fine,” she says. “Play with whoever you want to.”

  The hoe is beside him in the flower bed, and he leans against it like a staff. “You want me to act like things are normal, but things aren’t normal, Marilyn. I didn’t bag out of this holiday, though I might have liked to. I came up to the country with you, and at dinner last night I sat there civilly while you said your piece, and then I retired to my quarters. I’ve been more than a sport if you ask me.”

  “I know you have.”

  “But I’m not going to play parlor games with you. I don’t care if it’s couples against couples or boys against girls or lefties against righties or tall people against short people.”

  “Okay,” she says. “You’ve made your point.”

  He jams the hoe into the ground and walks around the side of the house, to where their car is parked.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To the hardware store.”

  “For what?”

  “Hardware.” He has his keys out, and he stops for a moment before he opens the trunk. “We need to sell this house.”

  “I know we do.”

  “Unless you’re planning to turn it into a timeshare—a week for you, a week for me?”

  “I’m not.”

  “Then we should fix the place up, don’t you think? It would be nice if it looked good for potential buyers.”

  “I don’t care how it looks.”

  “Well, I do.”

  “Fine,” she says. “Go make your purchases.”

  She comes back inside, where the rest of her family is seated on the floor, waiting for her to resume playing.

  “Where’s Dad?” Clarissa asks.

  “He’s run off.” And then, because this is not how she wants to leave things, she says he needed to run some errands, which, she supposes, is true.

  Across from her, Amram has finished writing down his clues. He’s looking at Lily, his arms folded across his chest, seeming uncommonly, uncharacteristically cheerful.

  “Amram,” Noelle says. “I think we should be on different teams.”

  But Amram, running his hand through a day’s growth of stubble, will have none of it. “Those who play together, stay together. You live with me, you play with me.” He blinks and grins. He’s a collection of tics, all nervous energy.

  Marilyn joins Lily and Thisbe, and they all move clockwise, from team to team. Winston Churchill. Elvis Costello. Wilt Chamberlain. Robert Downey Jr. Maury Povich. Billy Baldwin. Babe Ruth. George Eliot. Slobodan Milošević. Someone has in fact written down Noelle. After the first round, Amram and Noelle are losing, but Amram gives off an air of confidence that borders on haughtiness; he’d have everyone believe he’s simply biding his time.

  Lily opens up a clue. “I’ve never heard of this person.”

  “That’s part of the game,” Amram says. “Sometimes you know things and sometimes you don’t.”

  “Try to guess,” says Thisbe.

  “You try to guess,” Lily says. “I can’t even sound out the words.”

  “Time’s up,” Amram says.

  The same thing happens with Clarissa and Nathaniel. They get a couple of clues right, but then they’re stumped. “These are supposed to be celebrities,” Clarissa says.

  “This is ridiculous.” Marilyn shows everyone the name she’s holding. “It’s in Hebrew.”

  “It’s not in Hebrew,” Amram says. “It’s the Roman alphabet.” He spells out the words.

  “Yisrael Salanter?” Marilyn says.

  “That’s right,” says Amram, though not before correcting his mother-in-law’s pronunciation.

  When it’s his and Noelle’s turn, it’s as if Amram knows which pieces of paper to choose. He gives the hints with assurance, and Noelle guesses them correctly. Rav Kook, Yossi Beilin, Yerovam ben Nevat, Abaye, Arik Einstein, Naomi Shemer. They get six answers right in the course of a minute.

  “Eldad?” Lily says when it’s her turn again.

  “Sorry,” Amram says. “You said the name. You lose a point.”

  “Eldad?” Lily repeats.

  “Eldod,” Amram corrects her. “The word rhymes with rod, not dad.”

  “And who, may I ask, is this famous person you’ve concocted?”

  “I haven’t concocted him,” Amram says. He quotes to Lily. “Eldad u’Meidad mitnabim ba’machaneh …”

  “In English, please.”

  “Eldad and Meidad were false prophets,” Amram says. “They’re in the Torah. Or the Bible, if you prefer. The Old Testament? The Pentateuch? I take it you’ve heard of those books?”

  Lily doesn’t so much as move an eyebrow.

  “But have you read them? Did Leviticus make it into the syllabus at Princeton? Or did you only read the Bhagavad Gita?”

  Lily holds up the clue in front of Amram and tears it in half. “That’s very clever of you, Amram, quoting some obscure biblical figure. Do you think that makes you smart?”

  “He’s not obscure,” Amram says. “My eight-year-old knows him. Hell, my three-year-old knows him.”

  “I don’t care what your eight-year-old knows or what your three-year-old knows. My dog knows as much as they do, and he’d have been happy to demonstrate were it not for the fact that your three-year-old is allergic to dogs. Or is it your four-year-old?”

  “We don’t have a four-year-old,” Noelle says.

  “You say the name of this false prophet is Eldad?”

  This time it’s Noelle who corrects Lily’s pronunciation.

  “Well, there’s no end to your false prophets, starting with Moses and Joshua and continuing on down to Sharon and Netanyahu. You and Amram, too, living in your warmongering country, practicing your delusional religion.”

  “It’s your religion, too,” Noelle says.

  “It most certainly isn’t.”

  “Amram’s and my country,” Noelle says, “we’ll welcome you whether or not you deserve it. Have you heard of the Law of Return? Every Jew gets automatic citizenship, no questions asked? If the Holocaust comes to America, what will you do then?”

  “The Holocaust!” Lily says. “Always the Holocaust! The world’s greatest conversation stopper!”

  “You don’t think it’s possible?” Noelle says.

  “Anything’s possible. Right now, the world has more pressing concerns, and so do I.”

  “Like what?” Amram says. “Your little bleeding-heart job? Your boyfriend’s new restaurant—that pipe dream of his?”

  “It’s not a pipe dream. And let me remind you, in case you forgot, that when Malcolm first had the idea to open his own restaurant it was you, Amram, who wanted in.”

  “Holocaust or no Holocaust,” Amram says, “Israel will welcome you, because you’re a Jew and it’s your homeland.”

  “Oh, spare me the Moonie-in-the-airport talk.”

  “Why?” Noelle says. “So you can continue to live your soulless life?”

  “What makes my life soulless? Because I don’t believe in God?”

  “Because you’re a
single woman in your thirties,” Noelle says. “Because you’re essentially alone.”

  “I’m not alone. And before you tell me I’m living in sin, let me say this as clearly as I can. I would take my relationship with Malcolm over your relationship with Amram any day of the week.”

  “Lily!” their mother says.

  “Listen to the two of them, Mom, with their self-righteousness and false prophets. All these Orthodox Jewish couples with their marriage certificates framed on the wall. Have you read about spousal abuse in the Hasidic community?”

  “We’re not Hasids,” Noelle says, “and you know nothing about Amram’s and my relationship.”

  “And you know nothing about my relationship. But I’ll say it again, in case you didn’t hear me the first time. If I were a betting woman, I’d bet on Malcolm and me over the two of you.”

  “In that case,” Noelle says, “why isn’t he here?”

  “Come again?”

  “Leo died a year ago, it’s his memorial, for God’s sake, and your boyfriend can’t make it because he’s too busy? Amram’s busy, too, but he flew six thousand miles so he could be here.”

  “Malcolm wanted to be here,” Lily says. “He practically insisted on coming.”

  “Then why isn’t he here?”

  “Because I wouldn’t let him come.”

  “Why in the world?”

  “Because that’s just what I’m like, Noelle. So would you get off your fucking high horse for once and stop blaming Malcolm?”

  Now Thisbe starts to cry. Still in her running shorts, a couple of clues gripped in her hand, she’s hunched over on the floor, sobbing. Marilyn touches her arm, her hair, says, “What’s wrong, sweetie?” Lily’s hand is resting on her, too, and Thisbe just wants everyone to stop touching her. Soon the boys come inside, Calder among them, in front of whom Thisbe has resolved not to cry on this trip, and now she’s breaking her promise. “What’s wrong?” Calder asks, but she can’t get the words out, doesn’t even know what she would say if she could. She just wants to be left alone, but all she can do is sit there, the bowl of clues at her feet, being attended to by everyone, her former family, as she cries and cries, unable to stop.

  “You were brilliant,” Amram says.

  “Brilliant?” says Noelle.

  “We won,” he reminds her. It was twenty-two to nineteen to sixteen, in favor of him and Noelle. “And what you said to Lily? You were absolutely amazing.”