Corky's Brother (10 page)

“Ah, Professor,” he said, stopping Perlman. “I was hoping I would catch you this morning. As you see, I am alone. Sasha is not feeling well—he spent a restless night. Very restless.”

“I really must be going,” Professor Perlman said, walking away. “I have a class.”

Finkel caught up with him at the door. “Please. It will only be a minute—and quite useful to you, you will see. Quite useful.” Finkel stopped and looked back into the lobby, to be sure they were not overheard. Professor Perlman found him particularly repulsive; he noticed the yellow teeth, long hairs protruding from the nostrils, a mole. Finkel wiped some mucus away with the back of his hand and spoke. “I meant to ask you this yesterday, when we were talking about your wife, but for some reason it slipped my mind. A slip of the mind—that is significant, no?” He laughed and came closer. “I am very curious about something, if it is not too personal, Professor. Tell me—your wife, how was she disposed of?”

Perlman pushed him away and jerked the door open. Finkel clasped his hand on the back of Perlman's and pushed on it, closing the door. “Of course, if this is very personal to you, I will respect your privacy. Let me be direct, Professor. What I am after is this—was she buried or was she cremated?”

“Buried.”

“Ts, ts, ts,” Finkel said. “Very bad. But,” he added, shrugging, “that may have been her wish. What I am most interested in, really—what I can be of service to you for, is this—here is why I stopped you: what are your plans for yourself?”

“Mr. Finkel, if you don't mind, I must hurry to class.” The professor tried to get away but Finkel barred the door with his body.

“I ask only this of an important thinker like yourself, Professor Perlman. That you give the idea of cremation your serious consideration. I have some literature in my apartment which I will leave for you in your mailbox—but is there really need for it? Bah! Did not Freud himself specify his own cremation? And do not his ashes now he collected in one of his favorite Grecian urns?” Finkel opened the door and the professor welcomed the fresh air. “Go to your class, Professor. But I beg of you—give the matter your consideration. Death is no insignificant thing. It is something to think about.”

When Professor Perlman returned from class that afternoon the literature was, as Finkel had promised, in his mailbox. He tore it to shreds without looking at it, and tried to figure out what to do. It was a convenience, living near the campus, true, near Barbara—and he did not relish returning to the empty house Naomi and he had spent the last twenty years in. Even if he did, the agent said he already had a buyer.

He had, though, to avoid Finkel. For the next few days he was successful. If, when he left the building, Finkel was in the lobby, he would go down to the basement and exit through the cellar; if he saw Finkel in front of the building when he returned home, he would go back to his office and work there. Such games made him feel ludicrous but he felt he had no choice. For perhaps a week he evaded Finkel, and Finkel, for his part, did not seem to pursue him. He felt better. One afternoon, however, he returned home to discover that he had locked himself out and forgotten the key. Such forgetfulness, he knew, was no mere accident. He sighed, went into the basement, and roused Finkel from his apartment. “Ah, Professor,” Finkel said as they rode up in the elevator, Sasha nuzzling against Perl-man's leg. “Have you considered the literature I gave to you?
I
have been so busy since the last time we spoke that I did not have a chance to get back to our discussions—first the oil burner went crazy, then there was a fire in Mrs. Gottbaum's gas range. When things begin, they do not stop, I'll tell you that.” When Finkel had opened the door, he walked into the apartment and sat down. “So,” he said. “What is your decision?” Perlman told him that he hadn't given the matter much thought. “All right, all right,” Finkel said, wagging his finger at Perlman, “but don't say I didn't give you a chance! Time is time, Professor. It goes.” Then suddenly he was on his feet, inspecting the bookcases. “A fine library,” he said. “Let me ask you something—what is your opinion of the relation of art to death?”

“Of what—?”

“Forgive me. I do not always put these things well, but
I
have been thinking. I read your new book on Freud last week—very, very fine, Professor—and it led me to some thoughts of my own. Vague, of course. But here: the relations of pleasure and pain, love and hate, and even, as you point out so magnificently, of pleasure and death—does this not lead one to contemplate the alliance of death with art? Does—”

Perlman cut him off. “If you'll excuse me, Mr. Finkel—
I
have a great deal of work to do.”

“Of course, of course. Why you even bother with an old fool like me, I don't know—a man like yourself!” He went to the door and opened it. “But we are old men and we are Jews. We know. We know, don't we?” Then he winked and smiled broadly. “Beyond the pleasure principle, eh, Professor Perlman? Beyond the pleasure principle!”

For about a week after that, Perlman managed to avoid Finkel; then, in the apartment, things suddenly began going wrong—the lock jammed, a fuse blew, a fire started in an electrical outlet. Every day something required Finkel's service, and Perlman was certain that, while he was teaching, Finkel was going through the apartment, arranging the accidents. Perhaps, he thought, if he could prove that Finkel was plotting, if he could embarrass him with the evidence…Every morning he left a matchstick standing inconspicuously against the door. When he returned home, however, the matchstick was still standing and, invariably, something was awry in the apartment—no hot water, a broken window, a jammed buzzer, another fuse blown, the toilet overflowing. Perlman remembered a movie he'd seen; he plucked a hair from his head and, with saliva, pressed it across the crack separating the door from its jamb. It remained intact. He continued to need Finkel's service.

At night he hardly slept, and when he did he dreamed and woke, one dream after the other. He kept a pad on the nighttable and wrote some of the dreams down, hoping, by analyzing them, to obtain the objectivity which would make them cease, but it was useless, and he soon gave it up. In the bathroom, between dreams, he listened to the young lovers, and each day he grew more tired, more tense, more run down. Naomi was with him more and more. He dreamt of her almost every night; in the dreams they were always young and they would kiss endlessly, sweetly, warmly.

Then, during finals week—he had been living in the apartment for almost two months—he woke up in the middle of the night, unable to breathe, terrified. He was lying on his side and behind him, he was certain, in the bed, was Naomi. He could hear her breathing. Something heavy lay on his chest; pains worked their way up his right arm. Had he been dreaming about her again? He couldn't remember. Things were confused. He only knew that he felt her in the room with him and that he would not turn to see if she was, in fact, really in the bed. He gagged on something, coughed. A hundred years from now they would be able to freeze him, he thought, to preserve his quarter inch of cortex. He felt that he was falling swiftly into a moonless black, deep in the brain, far back. The rhyme stirred him to a vague consciousness. He concentrated and after a moment placed it—from “Night Crow” by Theodore Roethke—and this seemed to help. He rose and stumbled into the bathroom, drinking hungrily from the faucet. Then he sat on the edge of the bathtub. What time was it? His young lovers were busy. “I really have to go,” she said. “I mean it…oh, stop that…” Laughter, coaxing from the boy. Perlman inhaled deeply. “Naomi, Naomi,” he said. “Oh, Naomi…”

From the grating the girl moaned, then yelped. “Don't bite…damn it, I told you I didn't like that…Oh, come on, baby…I'm not your baby…Come on, baby…” Was it the same boy, or a new one? He wanted to return to bed but he was desperately afraid he would find Naomi there. The laughter and moaning had been replaced by what sounded like a struggle. “Stop—you'll tear it…Oh, damn! See!…C'mon, baby, it won't hurt…I told you to stop…Oh, please don't, don't…” Perlman exhaled, put the plastic drinking cup down above the sink, and rubbed his arm. The pain was still there. The girl's voice was louder. “Don't…I don't want to. I mean it!” They thudded against a wall, the floor, the girl was crying. “Please…oh, my Godl Stop!…I mean it…I can't…Oh, oh…” Perlman lifted himself, stepping onto the toilet seat to get closer to the grating. The girl was crying hysterically. Then she was screaming. “You're hurting me…stop…please, for God's sake, please…” He heard something that sounded like slapping, then heavy breathing, then the girl's tears, and a sudden scream which tore through his skull. He had to do something, but which apartment was the sound coming from—above? below? next door? Finkel would know. “Please…please, please…Oh, God, stop…Stop!” He walked back to the bedroom and, looking at the bed, he felt his heart jump—the cluttered blankets, he realized, looked like the shape of a woman. He switched on the light. The room was empty. He put on his robe and slippers and raced from the room into the hallway. He heard his heart galloping. The elevator was waiting for him and he took it to the basement. He rushed down the corridor, pushing against the wall to support himself. His legs were terribly weak and he realized that he could not see well. He had forgotten his glasses. The floor and walls seemed to pulsate forward and back, forward and back. He turned the corner. Finkel's apartment was at the end of the corridor, near the garbage cans. He heard a low sound, a growling. He stopped, then continued. A shape rose up from behind the garbage cans. It was Sasha, but he seemed neither old nor friendly nor feeble. Did he think Perlman was a prowler? He snarled viciously—then he streaked toward the professor and, his eyes blazing with fire, leapt for the throat.

When Perlman opened his eyes, Barbara was sitting on the bed next to him, rubbing her hand gently across his forehead. Finkel stood behind her, his brow wrinkled with worry. Perlman was in his own room. “Naomi was here with me,” he said to Barbara. She told him to lie quietly, to rest. “Not really, of course, but I felt her here, in the room with me—”

“And who is to say she wasn't here?” Finkel said. “Why not? Who is—”

Perlman sat up. “Get out,” he said. “Get out—”

“But, Daddy, it was Mr. Finkel who found you lying in the basement and telephoned me.”

“Not me—Sasha. He came for me,” Finkel said. “He is old—but he is a good dog. Who knows how long he licked your face and watched over you?”

“Get out—!” Perlman repeated.

“But, Daddy—”

“Shah!” Finkel said to her. “I will go. He is not himself, but he will be all right. It is nothing. Why, the great Freud himself was subject to periodic fainting spells.”

“Get out!” Perlman was screaming. “Get out! Get out!”

Finkel stood at the door, Sasha with him, looking old, mournful. “Still, we must make plans, Professor. We—”

Perlman started from the bed, but he was weak and Barbara held him back. “Out!” he screamed. “Out, out, out…”

The door closed. “If not for Mr. Finkel, you might be dead by now,” Barbara said. “Sometimes I don't understand you, Daddy. Honestly.” She paused. “And the man admires you so much, the least you could do—”

“All right, all right,” Perlman said, closing his eyes. “Peace, Barbara. Some peace.”

He stayed in bed the next day. Barbara made his meals and insisted on being with him. She slept in the living room and studied for her examinations. The following day Perlman resumed his activities and, strangely enough, he felt better than he had at any time since Naomi's illness had begun the year before. He did not try to avoid Finkel, but he did not see him either. Was Finkel avoiding him? Once, when he met him at the mailbox at noon, Finkel merely said hello and asked how he was feeling. He was quiet. He told Perlman that Sasha was very ill. “The end is in sight, Professor.”

Two afternoons later, returning from a committee meeting, Perlman saw a truck in front of the building. Two men in white carried a stretcher into it. Finkel leaned against the gray concrete. He wore no hat. Perlman watched him from across the street. The men closed the door of the truck and drove away. Finkel did not move. Then Perlman saw the children approaching. They seemed to come from everywhere—from up and down the street, from the building, the cellar—there must have been twenty to thirty of them, and they came cautiously. Finkel's chin was at his chest. He looked at the children and smiled. They moved closer. An instant later, following the lead of the older ones, they had formed a ring around him, and as they skipped in the circle, holding hands, they sang:

Perlman watched for a few minutes, unable to move. Then he crossed the street, pushed the children aside, and entered the circle. “Mr. Finkel,” he began. “Let—”

“Ah, Professor—what are words at times like these? Bah! Death is death. They will return the ashes to me tomorrow.”

Perlman felt his stomach turn, but he did not move away. The children continued around the two men, chanting.
“FirikeTs dog is dead…FirikeTs dog is dead
…” A crowd was gathering—students, mothers with baby carriages, people from the building.

“Now that school is over,” Perlman said, “I'll be leaving for the summer. To Italy—Florence, Venice…Barbara is coming with me.” Finkel nodded. The voices of the children grew louder, entering Perlman's brain and resting there. Perlman considered, but it did not matter. Finkel was right. “I'll send the rent checks by mail.” Finkel looked at him from his old face, puzzled. “And I'll see you again in the fall, I hope.”