Snow in August (15 page)

“And I see you study the Baltimore Catechism.”

“Yes.”

“So you know lyin’ is a sin, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“So why are you lyin’, Michael?”

The boy was quiet for a long moment.

“Maybe you should come back when my mother’s here,” he said in a low voice, looking away from them.

“You think your mother would tell you to lie? She’s a Catlick too. And a brutal crime has been committed. Your mother would
understand we can’t put this Frankie McCarthy away unless
we got witnesses. And you’re a witness, kid. According to our sources…. So why would you lie?”

“Maybe this explains it,” Abbott said. He was holding up a small Yiddish-English phrase book. Costello took it from him and
held it in his short, pudgy fingers.

“A
Yiddish
phrase book?” Costello said. “I see, said the blind man. I see. It comes clearer. Like maybe you was helpin’ yourself to
some stuff in Mister G’s when Frankie was beating him into a pulp?”

“No!” Michael said. He lunged for the phrase book, but Costello held it out of his reach.

“Where’d you get this, then?” the fat cop said.

“Rabbi Hirsch gave it to me,” Michael said.

“Who the hell is Rabbi Hirsch?”

“From the synagogue on Kelly Street,” Michael said. “I’m the Shabbos goy there.”

Costello turned to the gray-faced detective. “Well, whattaya know? An altar boy that speaks Hebe.”

Abbott chuckled.

“Maybe he can say in Hebe: You’re going to the fucking can.”

And then the fat cop slammed his hand against the icebox door.

“You love the fuckin’ Jews so much,” he shouted, “then help us catch the bum that beat one up!”

Michael wanted to cry, but he held back the tears. He felt himself trembling.

“Mister G is in Kings County Hospital,” the fat one said. “His head is broke. He could die. You know what that means? It means
a murder rap against Frankie McCarthy. You know what it means to
you
? It means you could be an accessory after the fact. You keep your mout’ shut, you’re guilty too. Of coverin’
up a
homicide!
You and your friends that were in the candy store that day. Alla yiz. And I’ll see that yiz get put away.”

“That would be some disgrace,” Abbott said, dragging on the cigar. “Break your mother’s heart.”

The fat one pointed at the framed photograph on the wall.

“That your father?”

“Yes.”

“He die in the war?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“The Battle of the Bulge.”

Costello sighed.

“The worst battle of the war.”

“Much worse than Pearl Harbor,” the gray-faced cop said.

“You think he died for nothin’?” Costello asked, poking a finger in Michael’s chest.

“
No!
He died for his country!”

“You think he died so a shithead like Frankie McCarthy could beat up a Jew?”

“No.”

“You think he’d be proud of you, you cover up for a bum like that?”

The door opened behind them, and Kate Devlin stood there, her face surprised. Michael went to her, trying very hard not to
cry.

“Jesus Mary and Joseph, what
is
this?” she said. “Who the hell are you two bozos?”

The fat cop reached into his back pocket for a wallet. Michael could see his gun, polished blue steel in a worn leather holster.

“Sorry, ma’am,” the fat one said. “We’re detectives.” He showed his badge and handed her a business card. She didn’t take
it, and he laid it on the table. “We’re investigating the beating
of Mr. Greenberg, from the candy store. He might die, y’ see. And—”

She glowered at them.

“Get out of my house,” she said.

“Listen, we think your son knows—”

“If you don’t get out,” she said, “I’ll throw you out.”

The two cops tipped their fedoras to her and eased around toward the door. Kate Devlin continued hugging her son.

“We’ll be back,” the gray-faced cop said.

“I’m sure you will,” she said sharply. “Good night.”

She locked the door behind them. Then she exhaled and separated from Michael and sat down hard at the table.

“What was
that
all about?”

He told her. When he was finished, she shook her head sadly. And then got up to run water into the teapot.

“You’re more Irish than I thought,” she said, almost proudly. “In the Old Country, there was nobody lower than an informer.
Scum of God’s sweet earth, informers. The bloody British used them against us for centuries. They corrupted weak men, they
destroyed families.” While the teapot simmered on the gas range, she started washing Michael’s plate. “It goes all the way
back to Judas, who took his money and informed on Jesus. Many’s a gutless man took the king’s shilling and left for Australia
or London, leaving a load of misery behind him. I’m proud of you, son.”

“But what about Frankie McCarthy?” Michael said. “He
did
it.”

“If the police don’t get him,” she said, “God will.”

She poured two cups of tea.

“Open that window, Michael, will you?” she said. “I can’t stand the smell of a cigar.”

T
hey called their meetings classes, and at the next few classes, Michael pressed Rabbi Hirsch to tell him about the mysterious
man whose statue stood so dramatically in the Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague. The sixteenth-century rabbi called Judah Loew.
The man who knew the secrets of the Kabbalah and gazed from the shadows like a wizard. Rabbi Hirsch put him off. He acted
as if there were more important matters to discuss: the rules of baseball or the words for work or the names of former presidents.
What was a base on balls and what did they mean by “blue collar” and how did you pronounce Coolidge? He made Michael feel
that the story of Rabbi Loew would require more energy than Rabbi Hirsch could summon. Or that the story needed a certain
kind of weather, or music, or mood.

And then one rainy afternoon, Rabbi Hirsch made some tea and, using some of the leather-bound books as references, began to
tell the story. Michael soon felt as if he were in some
drafty stone building in Ireland or Prague, with the rain pounding on the roof, and a fire in what the storybooks always called
the hearth. The words flowed. Michael was swept away.

He was in Prague again, this time in the fearsome years of the sixteenth century, when Jews were in peril throughout Europe.
Rabbi Loew was presiding over the Old-New Synagogue in the Jewish ghetto, then called the Fifth Quarter. Rabbi Loew was lean,
serious, careful, kind to his wife and daughter, generous to the poor, living in a modest house with a small walled garden.
Next door was the synagogue, where Rabbi Loew spent most of his time; if he wasn’t in the house of God he was in his study,
surrounded by books. Everybody knew that Rabbi Loew had no interest in the riches of the world; if he needed some new volume
to add to his knowledge, he would give up eating for a week to pay for it. And he was so respected in Prague that he was not
restricted to the streets of the ghetto.

He was most respected, perhaps even feared, by Emperor Rudolf himself. Michael saw Rudolf in Hrad
any Castle, tall and wild-eyed like the actor John Carradine, moving among his strange collections of art, animals, and rare
objects. Look: in the private zoo, a two-headed alligator, snakes with legs, a cow with tits on its back. And look: two nails
from Noah’s Ark! And dirt from a place called Hebron where God made Adam in His own image! And the horn of a unicorn!

And there was Emperor Rudolf, his face covered with a white mask from Japan, clopping over cobblestones in a stagecoach through
the foggy midnight streets of Prague. Going to see Rabbi Loew. To enter the book-lined study, where the rabbi closed the drapes
and lit candles, and listened to the Emperor’s tales of woe: treacherous alchemists, spies sent by the greedy English, fighting
on the borders with the Turks. The
Emperor himself, listening to advice, nodding, embracing the wise rabbi, hurrying back to the fog-shrouded Castle.

But it wasn’t just Rabbi Loew’s wisdom that drew the Emperor to him. The rabbi possessed something else that the Emperor could
not buy, could not collect, something that he wanted and feared.

Magic.

The magic of the Kabbalah.

Michael saw Rabbi Loew in his big green chair in the study, a fire burning low in the hearth, a sheet of paper on a book in
his lap, a hand to his temple, his eyes closed, and knew that he was communicating with rabbis all over Europe. His hand held
a feathery pen and began to move, and words appeared on the paper in a language nobody knew. The words told of planned campaigns
against Jews, the kidnapping of Jewish women, of forced conversions and burnings at the stake. Rabbi Loew’s advice was sent
out to Russia and Italy and Belgium, without a word being spoken, without Rabbi Loew even once opening his eyes. Magic.

And as if he were at a movie, Michael saw him displaying his other powers. There was, for example, the first time that the
Emperor came to the rabbi’s house. A jealous associate of the rabbi, short, fat, greedy, sweating heavily on a winter day,
forged an elaborate letter to the Emperor, inviting him to a formal banquet at the rabbi’s house. The clear intention was
to embarrass Rabbi Loew, whose cramped and book-strewn quarters were fine for his family but obviously could not accommodate
a formal dinner for a goddamned emperor. The Emperor sent word that he accepted. And Rabbi Loew understood that it could be
very bad for the Jews if he canceled the invitation. So he turned to the Kabbalah.

Michael could see him in the study, consulting the magic alphabets,
his face deep in concentration, murmuring words in a private language. And then on the evening of the so-called banquet, as
Emperor Rudolf prepared to leave his castle in disguise, so that nobody in Prague would know where he was going, Rabbi Loew
stepped outside and scanned the skies. There, visible only to him, a great flock of angels appeared, carrying an entire marble
palace, lifted from a distant kingdom.

Angels. Hovering in the air. Wings beating. Muscles like cords and cables.

The angels set the palace upon an empty lot in the Jewish Quarter, and suddenly it could be seen by all.

Michael wandered through the banquet room of this palace, a vast space illuminated by ten thousand candles, and gazed at Rudolf’s
intense face as he whispered with Rabbi Loew. Servants glided past Michael, carrying great platters of stuffed birds and thick
steaks and soups in silver bowls, the air filled with the aroma of the feast. Michael listened to musicians play sad and melancholy
music. He watched as jugglers and acrobats made the Emperor laugh. He saw the greedy assistant slink away into the night,
surely never to return. The banquet was an astonishing success, and the Emperor returned to Hrad
any Castle in the early hours of the morning full of amazement and respect.

“Before the Emperor reaches his own castle,” Rabbi Hirsch said, “the angels, they carry the palace back to its original spot.
Later, Rabbi Loew tells the Emperor about the angels and the tricky assistant that caused the problem and the Emperor says,
‘Rabbi, next time I come to your real house.’ And that’s what he did. But ever after, nobody can ever question this miracle.
If they do, they are calling the Emperor a fool.”

Then, for the first time, the great villain named Brother Thaddeus appeared in the story. A big hulking man with no
hair on his head and no beard and no eyebrows. As bald as Dr. Sivana in
Captain Marvel
or Lex Luthor in
Superman
. He was the greatest enemy of Rabbi Loew and the king of the Jewhaters. A lot of times, he told lies to stir up his followers.
He was at his worst around Passover, spreading rumors that Jews killed Christian babies and mixed their blood with the unleavened
bread called matzoh. Why? To start riots called pogroms, inciting mobs to kill or drive out the Jews, and take over their
homes and shops. Rabbi Loew had to use all of his powers to foil him.

Michael was suddenly huddled in a doorway, as a mob marched on the Jewish Quarter, hurling stones at old men and young ladies,
smashing windows, waving sharpened poles called pikes. Up the street, Brother Thaddeus smiled from a balcony. Then—
Shazam!
—the stones were changed in mid-flight into roses. Big, fat, white roses! Their petals dropping away like snowflakes! Brother
Thaddeus frowned. His jaw dropped. He barked orders. The crazy people in the mob threw more rocks and stones, but they kept
turning into roses, piling around Michael in the street as high as his waist. A group of young Jews appeared to face the mob.
They bowed to the crazy people and thanked them for the flowers, while Rabbi Loew watched from the shadows of his study. Rabbi
Loew did not smile.