End of the Jews (38 page)

         

The other guests rose from their chairs and drifted toward the dining room. Tristan sat still, too affected to stand, and hoped everyone would leave him be, allow him the few minutes he needed to shake off this remarkable, unexpected fragility. Then he would rise and find his brother, and seek to determine whether Benjamin had been similarly touched. Tristan suspected so. Ben had seemed on the verge of tears as he stood up there next to his grandson, hands folded in front of him, mouthing the Hebrew prayers along with the mohel. Tristan had been amazed that Benjamin remembered, but not as amazed as he'd been a moment later when he realized that he, too, was whispering along.

“Dad? Don't you want some lunch?”

“No, no.” Tristan waved his daughter off. “I'm not hungry. Go ahead. I'll be with you in a minute.”

“I'll fix you a plate,” said Linda, and merged into the gregarious shuffle toward the buffet.

Tristan stared after her receding torso with unfocused eyes. Under his breath, almost against his will, he began to recite snippets of prayers he'd once memorized: great strange strings of syllables, faintly endowed with meaning, whose declamation required very little of his attention. The Sabbath blessing. The mourner's Kaddish. The Shema. They'd hidden themselves in the remotest caverns of his memory, and there they had remained for nearly seven decades. Now they ran toward the summons for which they'd always waited, and stood proudly at attention.

The sound of a body settling into the chair beside him brought the old man back.

“Pretty horrifying, huh?” his grandson said. He speared a length of asparagus, crammed half of it into his mouth.

Tristan bounced a glance off him. “I was quite moved. This is what millions have died for. The right to hold a simple ceremony.”

Tris set his fork down, chewed, and swallowed.

“The Jews are less than one percent of the world's people,” Tristan said. “Do you realize that?
Less than one percent.
Yet we've been blamed for everything, since the very beginning. Entire populations have been wiped out. There's never been anything like it in the history of the world. But here we are.”

“Here we are. In Great Neck, Long Island.”

“Yes.” His grandfather fixed him with a scythe of a stare. “And you're lucky I'm speaking to you at all.”

Tris frowned, hoping to evince innocence. His stomach took evasive action, curled into a ball. “Whoa—what?”

“That novel of yours, sonny. Why don't you tell me what it's about?”

Tris bit into his lower lip. “The struggles of a great man,” he said after a moment.

“And who is that great man, pray tell?” Tristan asked, the old urge to combat mounting, unbidden, in him. This same trickle of adrenaline had been coursing in and out of his bloodstream for eighty years now, he thought. Why hadn't it gone stagnant, like standing water in a fountain?

“What do you mean? He's Irving Gold.”

“Is he, for instance, your grandfather? Look at me, sonny. Is that loathsome, cowardly fool me?”

Guests were streaming past them now, en route to the tables set up in the next room. Abe and Amalia walked by, then Linda and Benjamin. Good, the old man thought. Keep your distance. He hoped his grandson noticed they were staying away, realized the family all knew what he had done.

Tris waited until they'd gone, then faced his grandfather. His tone was measured and cautious, like the footsteps of a man approaching a lion. “First of all,” he said, “Irving Gold is not a coward or a fool, and if you think he is, you missed the point. I love Irving Gold. And yes, there are similarities. Many. But no, he's not you—not
just
you. He's me, too. A version of me. And you and I, whether we like it or not, have a lot of ugly shit in common.”

Tristan narrowed his eyes to a wince. “You must have balls the size of watermelons. I mean, you must have to carry them around in a fucking wheelbarrow. Irving Gold is me with a raging hard-on, me in a funhouse mirror. He's my fucking age. He's married to my wife.”

“On whom he cheats. And who—”

“Don't hide behind your goddamn facts! How
dare
you bullshit me!”

Tristan blinked and sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, and for an instant Tris thought his grandfather would cry. But when the old man opened his eyes, they were dry.

“You're ambitious,” he said. “Cop to it. You knew what you wanted to do, so you did it, and everyone else be damned—that, I can understand. There, you and I are similar. So stop conning me. Be a man and cop to it.”

They stared at each other, oblivious of the noise and bustle all around. Finally, Tris bowed his head.

“You're right,” he said, low. “I took what I wanted from your life without regard. I made things up without regard. I found all kinds of darkness—in you, in me—and I used it all. If I've hurt you, I'm sorry. But you have to believe me, Grandpa. It was never malicious. It just was.”

Tristan looked sharply at him. “That's not a sentence. Just was
what
?”

Tris blinked. “True.”

Tristan slid his hands down his thighs, clutched vaguely at his knees. The fight was draining from him; he felt a grim kind of relief. “Let's cut bait,” he said. “I will forgive you for writing this character if you will forgive me for being this character.”

“But Grandpa, he's—”

The old man raised his hand. “Leave it alone. I know who I am better than you do. I'm going to accept your apology on good faith, the same way you're going to accept mine. You can tell the rest to my tomb.” He paused, shook his head the way he had outside Amalia's hospital door. “And if you really see yourself in Gold, you'd better make some changes, quick,” he added gravely.

Tris shut his mouth and mulled that over. Both of them tracked the progress of a grinning two-year-old, a cream cheese–coated spoon clutched in her hand. She'd almost made it to the foyer when her mother caught up, swooped down, took her in her arms, and carried her back to the party. The toddler's face fell as soon as she was lifted, and the shrieking began. Her mother shot them a harried, apologetic glance as she passed. It went unacknowledged.

Tris picked up his plastic fork and snapped off the middle tines. “If you want, I'll have your name stricken from all my press stuff. Nobody who doesn't already know we're related will find out.”

“I would say yes, but it's too late now. I've already had a message on my office telephone from some dame at the
Times
magazine. The word is out.”

A balloon of excitement swelled in Tris's chest. His publicist's biggest long shot had come off: to convince a freelancer she'd played field hockey against in high school to pitch a grandfather and grandson piece to the
New York Times Magazine,
a dual profile of the literary giant and the young writer who had grown up in his shadow. An article like that was priceless, sat on millions of coffee tables for months. It made you, whether you deserved it or not.

“When was this?”

“Sometime last week. I only checked the machine yesterday.” He eyed his grandson. “I don't imagine I'll call back.”

Tris had forgotten what it was like to feel as young as he did now—this hideous with ambition, this single-minded in desire, this frantic in pursuit. This dependent on a decision utterly beyond his control.

“Isn't there any way you can, Grandpa? We can use the interview to set the record straight. I'll tell them Irving Gold's not you. We'll take that off the table forever.”

“You can't control what they write. I learned that long ago. I'm sorry, I don't want anything to do with it.”

Tris ground his teeth, trying to summon the grace to accept the answer. Instead, one thought blinked on and off, on and off, like the sign outside a bar. His grandfather was fucking him over.

Tris glanced over his shoulder at the clot of women bunched around Melissa, cooing at the screeching, mutilated infant in her arms. He bent forward. “You know, Grandpa, I
could
tell them that Irving Gold
is
you. I could tell everybody that.”

The astonishment slapped across the old man's face was as vivid as a handprint. “That, I would never forgive.”

Tris made fists of his hands, dropped his chin to his chest. The treacly smell of noodle kugel wasn't what made him want to vomit, but it wasn't helping. “And I don't think I could forgive you if you didn't call the lady at the
Times
back.”

Tris's skin crawled under the old man's glare, but he couldn't dodge it any longer. Their eyes met, and Tristan pounced.

“I'm not to be intimidated,” he spat. “Not by the likes of you. I'm more important to them than you'll ever be. If I throw my weight around, they'll kill your story just like
that.
” He snapped his fingers weakly, producing no sound. “Hell, I could call Meredith Rabinowitz at Frontier and scare her into putting your book through a complete legal vetting. I could threaten a lawsuit and tie you up forever.” He leaned back, crossed his arms. “How
dare
you.”

The venom of the old man's words burned Tris's shame away. Fuck begging and apologizing and weak, vile threats. There was a truth they shared that superseded all of this, and he would hold his grandfather to it.

“No. How dare
you
? This is my fucking story.
Mine.
Your life is part of who
I
am.
Everything
is part of who I am. That's how this
works.
Novels don't bend for the world—
you
taught me that. Now you wanna talk about prayer and survival and the history of the Jews, but you're the guy who put them at the helms of slave ships before the camps went cold. That's the story you needed to tell, and that's why it was great. You did whatever you had to do to survive, claimed what you needed, made it all yours—that's the fucking story of the Jews, of hip-hop, of everything. So don't you tell me I can't do the same.” Tris could barely force himself to remain still; his body throbbed with the urge to punch something, kick something, throw a chair. He squeezed his hands into fists so tight they ached, and tried to breathe.

They sat and stared at each other. Tristan looked into his grandson's blazing, jittery eyes, took in his flushed, frightened face. If ever he was going to break with himself, the old man thought, now was the time. What did he owe Tris? What did they owe each other? Were old men supposed to immolate themselves so young might prosper? Was that the way of the world, the way of family, the way of redemption? How could redemption come on the heels of betrayal; how could it come at the hands of this self-righteous, calculating putz?

“I'll do the interview,” he said. “Not because I buy any of that bullshit. But because you're my grandson, you impudent little prick. And I owe you that much. For the good of this family. What's left of it.”

Tris unclenched his fists. “Thank you.”

“Don't you thank me.” Tristan labored to his feet. “I thought you were willing to fuck me over for the sake of a book, but I was wrong. You'll do it for much less. For a few pages of publicity. A little taste of success. So have it your way, Tristan Freedman. I'll do the piece, and that's the last thing I will ever do for you. Good luck. I hope you take the best-seller list by storm.”

And with that, the old man walked away.

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN

T
ris bounded up the stoop and swung open the tall wooden door.

“Babe? You home? Hello?”

“I'll call you back,” Nina said into the phone. “Was it gross?” she shouted from the bed, turning toward his voice.

Tris appeared in the doorway, suit jacket slung over his shoulder. He leaned against the wall, crossed his ankles, and sheathed his free hand in the pocket of his pants.

Nina propped her head against her fist. “Well?”

“Well what, my love?”

“Well, why are you acting all cool and grinning like a lunatic, for starters?”

Tris shook out the jacket, folded it lengthwise, and tossed it at the bed. It slid onto the floor.

“Because I'm going to be in the fucking
New York Times Magazine,
that's why.”

Nina threw her legs over the side of the bed. “No!”

“Yup.”

“Holy shit! They went for it?”

“They did. It's a whole new ball game.”

She jumped to her feet and pressed herself against him. “Tris, that's unbelievable. We have to celebrate.”

“Yeah.” He laid his palm against her cheek and Nina pulled back, beaming at him. “Absolutely.”

“What do you wanna do?”

“I'm thinking we jump in the car, drive over to Atlantic City, and get married. How's that strike you?”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. Right now. I mean, you should probably throw some pants on first. But after that.”

She stared at him, the water rising to her eyes. “You'd do that for me?”

“I need you,” Tris whispered.

“Do you?” She whispered, too, voice reverent and afraid.

“More than ever, Nina.” He touched a finger to her chin and raised her mouth to his. They kissed.

“I need you, too,” said Nina. “You're all I—all I want to need.”

The phrase that had been sounding in his mind all the way home returned to Tris now:
Consecrate the lie.
He didn't know quite what it meant, had only theories about the words' persistence. In some obscure and awful way, he knew he would not be standing here with Nina, ready to bind himself to her in a ceremony he had until now disdained, if not for the anticipation of his grand public vindication, or the ferocious shame of his betrayal and the victory he had wrung from it, or the massive loneliness that lurked behind it all.

Tris understood the enormity and viciousness of his own will as never before. It was intoxicating and repellent. He felt like a murderer and an innocent, shapeless and rigid, an initiate to sacred rites and a thief in the temple. Full of love and empty of everything, words even.

He didn't know what the fuck he felt like. Whatever he and Nina had together would have to define and redeem and sustain him. That was, after all, what marriage was about, wasn't it?

“Let's go to New Jersey,” he said.

Nina glanced at the Marcus Flanagan print hanging on the wall behind Tris, then took his hand in hers.

“Yeah,” she said. “Let's go.”

Tristan fit his worn key into the lock, opened the front door, and turned to wave at Linda. She waved back, shifted her vehicle, accelerated out of sight. Amalia had invited her in, but Linda had declined, explaining that she had to go home and tell everyone she knew that the
New York Times Magazine
was going to profile her son. It was all she'd talked about between Long Island and Connecticut, probably all she'd talk about for quite some time.

“What about a drink?” the old man said as he and his wife slung their jackets over the bannister.

For as long as Amalia had known him, the question had meant “what about fixing me one?” She would not play this moment the way she'd played so many others. She would not allow the public obligation to be civil to each other carry over into private, flattening a crisis by virtue of mere low-grade momentum.

“What
about
a drink, Tristan?”

He headed toward the bar. “I'm having scotch.”

Amalia seated herself on the couch and toyed with the fringe of a blanket. “The same for me, then.” Tristan handed it over, and Amalia studied the golden liquid through the beveled glass.

“I was proud of you today, with Tris.” She owed him that much.

Tristan placed his own drink on the coffee table and backed into the chair across from her, balancing his weight against the armrests as he bent at the knees. The process was controlled and gradual at first, and then the old man's elbows buckled and he fell the last third of the way into the seat. He'd been sitting down this way for years now, but it still unnerved Amalia terribly.

“Don't be proud of me. I only did what I had to.” A short sip, punctuated by a twitch of lips, as he recalled the way Tris had bounded over to the family table, not five minutes after Tristan had walked away from him and sat down at it, and asked,
Did Grandpa tell you the good news?
Smiling right at Tristan. Daring him to tell the truth. He hadn't.

The old man straightened in his chair. “Where's Mariko?”

“She went home for a bit.”

“She'll be back, then?”

“I believe she will.” Amalia thought about it, then added, “I hope so.”

Tristan jiggled his drink. “Would it be accurate to say that Mariko now lives here?”

Amalia held her scotch in both hands, the way a little girl might hold her apple juice. “It would not be inaccurate. Am I to understand that you object?”

Tristan's palm floated up from his knee, hung in midair. “I didn't know we were running a refugee camp is all.”

“It's Mariko who's running the camp, I'm afraid.”

Tristan fell silent. Amalia watched the furrows of his brow compress and expand like the bellows of an accordion. He was laboring at something. Trying to locate the words, or the courage to say them. Or perhaps he was backtracking, regressing an idea to its point of origin and examining its parentage, so that when he finally elucidated it, he could begin at the beginning, as a storyteller ought.

“I want to say this right,” he explained.

Amalia nodded, bemused and saddened at his need to account for himself. As if she didn't know him at all.

“I've been considering the notion of forgiveness,” the old man said at last, crossing his legs, and Amalia knew his rumination had not yielded the approach he'd sought. Instead, Tristan had decided to come at the subject from a great distance, begin with lofty abstractions and rely on her to do most of the work for him. She was not surprised. She was not even disappointed.

She waited, but nothing more was forthcoming. “What about it?” Amalia asked, resolving that she would not prompt him again.

“Well, first in terms of our grandson. It was very liberating for me to forgive him for his book….”

“I'm glad to hear it. Perhaps you're growing up.” The words were out of her mouth before Amalia could help it. This was new to her, to pick on him when he was trying.

“Yes.” The barb didn't seem to have registered. “I think that may be the single greatest mistake I've made in life, Amalia. Among thousands. To hold on to every insult, every offense, rather than forgive. Or ask forgiveness.” He paused. “I've been terribly unfair, and I'd like to apologize to you. For everything.”

He shut his mouth. Because he was finished? Amalia wondered. Or because he realized how much cowardice was packed into that word
everything,
how little content was contained in that stilted, swift apology, and how much presumption?

It was moving to see him struggle toward her, as overmatched as he was. But Tristan's words did not touch her. For the first time in Amalia's life, words seemed powerless, ignoble—mercenaries without honor, willing to serve any conceit.

“I appreciate that, Tristan. I never thought I'd hear it. But it's too late. It's just…too late.”

He hadn't been expecting that, and she could see that it hit Tristan hard. His face sagged, and suddenly Amalia didn't feel cold anymore; she felt horrible.

“How can it be too late? We're still alive. We can still forgive each other.” He pounded his fist against his bony knee. “Goddamn it, Amalia! If I can forgive Tris, you can forgive me!”

She reached forward and took his hand. It seemed like years since she'd last held it. “You have my forgiveness. As much of it as I can give.”

She squeezed his hand, but before Tristan could squeeze back, or decide not to, Amalia pulled hers away and brought it to rest in her lap. “And if I wanted your forgiveness, Tristan, I would have asked for it.”

Tristan slumped down in his seat, tried to formulate a reply and found that prayers filled his mind, blowing about like scraps of paper in the wind, hugely and ridiculously distracting. They had occupied him for the whole ride home and they were back now, pulsing quiet and insistent. The only way to shake free, he decided, was to say one aloud. Perhaps that was what the prayers wanted from him anyway: passage out into the world.

“Can you recall the Shema?” he asked his wife.

Amalia stopped herself from demanding to know what the hell this had to do with anything. It was the sort of question one just answered.

“Only the way my father sang it. The Broadway stage version.”

“Would you say it with me, please?”

“Tristan—”

“Please.”

Amalia tipped her face to the ceiling, straining in recall, then began to recite: uncertainly at first, but gaining resonance, fluidity, with every phrase. Tristan joined her, and with gazes locked on each other, the two of them made their way through the Hebrew prayer.

Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.

Blessed be the Name of His glorious kingdom for ever and ever.

And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

And these words that I command you today shall be in your heart.

And you shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shall speak of them when you sit at home, and when you walk along the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up.

And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be for frontlets between your eyes.

And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

They sat in silence. After a moment, the old man sighed, deflating as the breath left him. “It seems like such a failure, to give up now. You'll say we gave up years ago. That may be so.”

Amalia crossed her arms. “I have to reclaim something, Tristan. And you have to let me.”

“I can't stop you.”

“I want you to understand. I want you to agree. That's what I need.”

The ice in Tristan's drink had melted. He lifted the glass until it was upside down and let the scotch-tinged water trickle down his throat.

“I suppose I do,” he said at last. “I suppose you're right about it all, Amalia. I deserve this.”

She opened her mouth to speak.

“And you deserve this,” he added. She closed it.

The thermostat clicked. Heat hissed through the house. Amalia uttered her husband's name, and Tristan raised his eyebrows.

“Thank you,” she said. The old man nodded.

Both of them were still, and then Tristan lifted himself to his feet and made his way upstairs. Amalia watched him go, listened until she heard him sink into his office chair. The wheels slid over the floor as he pulled himself closer to his desk. Amalia picked up her drink, and walked into her study.