The Sea Beach Line (47 page)

“We don't drink milk.”

“I know, but in an emergency we might want it.” She smiled. “Or you might want to make egg creams.”

“True. Becca, I need to tell you something. Do you want to sit down?”

“You're making me nervous, Izzy.” We sat down on the couch.

“What is it? Did you talk to Andrew?”

“I did, actually. I saw him yesterday. He's okay. He's under house arrest. He's going to plead guilty.”

“I'm glad he's home,” she said. “He looked all right?”

“He looked fine. But that's not what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“No?”

“It's something else: I found out, for sure, that Alojzy is dead. I've confirmed it from a witness. He's really gone.” Becca got up from the couch. She uncorked a half-full bottle of wine and poured herself a glass. She walked over to her huge window, and looked out toward the East River.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Yes. I'm fine. Thank you for telling me. It's good to know for sure, to not have the . . . question hanging over us.” She drank her wine.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No. It's okay. I don't have anything to say about it. He was already gone. I've told you what I remember about him. They aren't happy memories. Have you talked to Mom? Do I need to call her?”

“I told her this afternoon.”

“That's good. How did she take it?”

“She took it hard.” Becca nodded, unsurprised.

“Anyway, I still have to get some work done, even though I'm not at the office.” Becca took her laptop out of its bag. She set it up at the kitchen table, put her headphones on, and started typing.

After about twenty minutes, Becca pulled off her headphones and tossed them on the table. The jack snapped out of her computer, and music started playing from the speakers, the kind of radio rock my mom and dad used to dance to in the kitchen.

Becca got up and went over to the closet across from the bathroom. She rummaged around in the back, beneath the linens, pulling out a crushed pack of Marlboro Golds. I hadn't seen her smoke since high school, but apparently she still did, now and then, in secret. She
flopped down on the couch and lit a cigarette. I was surprised that she would allow cigarette smoke in her immaculate apartment. She saw me watching her.

“Do you want a cigarette, Izzy?”

“Sure.” I wasn't much of a smoker, but at college I often smoked spliffs that were half rolling tobacco. We sat on the couch and smoked in silence. The gray clouds gathered outside the window.

After a few hours, Becca asked if I wanted to order some Chinese food.

“We might as well get some delivery while we can,” she said, “and save the groceries for when we need them. We'll just make sure to give the poor delivery guy a good tip.”

“Actually,” I said, “I have to go out tonight.”

“Are you serious? Don't you hear the wind already? It's going to be dangerous out there.”

“I'll be careful.”

“This better not have to do with some scheme Alojzy left behind.”

“No. It has to do with the girl I told you about, Rayna.”

“I thought maybe you two broke up,” Becca said. “I thought that's why you came up here so suddenly the other day. I should have asked, but with the Andrew thing . . .”

“It's okay. It's not that we broke up; her family forced her to go back home. She's with them now. But her home life, it's not a good one. She's . . . a victim. I need to intervene.” I was already putting on my coat. Becca sighed.

“What's that you have with you?”
The Sea Beach Line
was under my arm. I unrolled the canvas and held it up under the overhead light.

“It's beautiful,” Becca said, after a minute. “Is that the girl—Rayna?”

“No,” I admitted. “I thought it was when I first saw it. It's actually her great-great-aunt. But they look very similar.”

“You're going to take it out in the storm?”

“I have to return it to Rayna's father. I'm going to get a couple garbage bags from the kitchen, to wrap it up. And I thought I could borrow one of your yoga mat bags to carry it in? I have to take care of this painting.”

“You have to be careful, Izzy,” she said.

“Rayna might be in trouble. I need to see her. I'll be fine.”

I got the 5 train at Eighty-Sixth, and transferred to the Q at Union Square. There weren't many people in the subway. Notices had been posted, listing the various service disruptions that would be going into effect over the next twelve hours. After eleven p.m., there would be no trains between Brooklyn and Manhattan. This didn't seem to matter. I couldn't picture my return to the city. I was just focused on getting to the Galuth Museum to see Rayna.

The wind whipped at my face as I walked from the Stillwell Avenue terminal to West Eighteenth Street. It howled like the tormented souls of the dead. I thought of Alojzy, lying beneath the water. Coney Island was always colder than the rest of the city, but this was ridiculous. It was May, but it felt like winter. I zipped up my raincoat so the collar covered my neck and pulled my knit cap down over my ears, but it didn't help much.

I got to the museum and knocked on the door. Roman let me in. In addition to Roman, I saw Timur and a couple tough-looking guys my age. The rebbe stood across the gallery, examining one of the smaller Galuth paintings. Rayna was nowhere in sight. My suppressed suspicion that this was a trap immediately resurfaced—what would stop them from beating or even killing me, and taking the painting?—but I didn't see why the rebbe would have bothered to come personally if that was the case.

“Isaac,” Timur said. “You have the rebbe's painting?”

“Yes,” I said, patting the yoga bag. “It's right here.”

“Hand the bag to Roman. Slowly. Dima here will then pat you down. We don't want you putting any little .22 caliber holes in us.”

“Wait,” I said. “How do I know I'll get to see Rayna? How do I know you all are keeping your side of the deal?”

“Enough of this nonsense,” the rebbe shouted. “Do as Timur tells you, and give me my painting. If I wanted to double-cross you, you would not be standing here. But unlike you, I am not a gonif. I am an honorable man. I would not go back on an oath. I said that you may
see my daughter one final time, and you shall see her. Under my supervision.” I let Roman take the bag. The kid, Dima, patted me down, and indicated that I was unarmed.

Roman slid the painting out of the yoga bag, and carefully unwrapped and unrolled it. He and Timur laid
The Sea Beach Line
out on a worktable that had been placed in front of the painting's empty frame. I hoped I wasn't behaving like the people in the crowd, watching Rayna fall to her death at the mercy of these goons, and not being able to do anything about it.

It occurred to me that Goldov was nowhere in sight. Understandable, considering how our last interaction ended. The rebbe pulled a pair of eyeglasses from his jacket pocket and leaned in close to the canvas. I sat down on the viewing bench in the middle of the gallery. Did the rebbe see the beauty in the painting, I wondered, or did he only want it back because he believed it belonged to his family? After a couple minutes of inspection, he was satisfied.

“This is indeed the original painting,” the rebbe pronounced. It hadn't occurred to me to forge it, but forgery was likely a common practice in these men's world. “It is unfortunate that the canvas was cut out of the frame, but other than that the painting is undamaged. I am sure Goldov will find a way to satisfactorily mat and display it.” He went over to the stairwell that led up to Goldov's apartment, and shouted something in Yiddish.

Rayna came down the staircase, followed by two young Hasidim. I wondered if they were the same brothers who had invaded our storage space. It was hard to imagine that these men in knickers, white blouses, black vests, and velvet kippot could have inspired fear in me, but it stood to reason that they were the same guys.

I wanted to run to Rayna, but making sudden movements wasn't a good idea. She came over to the bench.

“Hey, Rayna,” I said.

“Hello, Isaac.” I stepped forward to hug her, but she shrank back, gesturing to her brothers and father with her eyes. We sat down on the bench, with our backs to the rebbe and the others, so we could have at least a semblance of privacy.

Her hair looked different. It had been trimmed more evenly, and instead of being wild and witchy, it was combed straight, and pulled back with a thick headband. Over her black blouse was a gray cardigan, and beneath her black skirt were matching gray stockings. She had a large and slightly shiny handbag, which she clutched tightly on her lap. I watched her for a long moment. Her eyes didn't dart and dance anymore; they remained fixed. We had been separated for less than a week, but it felt like there were months between us.

“Rayna,” I said. “I thought you were gone from me forever.”

“I am gone from you. Now is just to say good-bye.” We both spoke quietly, so the others couldn't hear what we were saying. I glanced over my shoulder. The men stood across the long gallery, smoking cigarettes and watching us.

“No. You don't have to be. I've gotten stronger. I can protect you now.”

“So now you are a hero?”

“Yes. For you.”

“Isaac. That is the thing. You are talking about a storybook hero. Always. We were playing as characters in a story.” I barely recognized this voice as Rayna's. The nervousness was gone, but so was the sweetness. And when had I ever heard her speak the word “story” with derision? “You were playing your father. I was playing a free woman. We pretended a closet was a castle. It was a nice story, but stories end. Books are shut, and put back on the shelf.”

“My father is dead,” I said.

“I know. He was dead the whole time. I didn't understand why you pretended he wasn't.”

“I couldn't give up until I knew for sure. You seem different.”

“I am healthier. I am back on medication. You liked me better when I was a mess?”

“No. I like you regardless. But you don't seem healthier. You just seem . . . drugged up. Do you feel healthier?”

“I don't feel anything. It's better that way.”

“But they hurt you.” She glanced up at the men waiting for her by the door. “Someone did something very bad to you.”

“Yes,” she said, looking down at the floor. “Someone did bad things to me, for a long time. My father and the others didn't believe me. But they believe me now. It's being dealt with . . . there will be punishment.” Rayna had run away because no one would listen to her story. I had listened to her. But I had never asked for details. Never pressed her for the whole story. I should have. “What happened won't affect me anymore,” she said. “I am going to go far away from where that happened. I am going to live in Israel. As a married woman. With my own life, and my own home. I'll never have to go back to my father's house. Most important, I'll never have to go back to the Bais Glupsk School, or walk by it.” So the demon had been a schoolteacher. Rayna looked back up at me.

“Rayna,” I said. “I'm sorry I didn't ask who had hurt you . . . I was scared to know.”

“It doesn't matter what was said or wasn't said. I won't think of New York at all once I'm gone. I won't think of you. And you shouldn't think of me.”

“Think of me. Think of me always.” I could accept Rayna leaving, if it was what she wanted, but I could not accept being blotted from her memory. I could not accept that there was no place for me in her heart. It meant there was no place for me anywhere in the universe. Rayna was still seated next to me, but I felt lonely, lonelier than I'd ever felt before.

“That is a cruel demand, Isaac.”

“I don't care. I demand it. Israel is never the happy ending to a story, Rayna. It's not an escape from the world. My father thought it would be, when he was young, and then he was forced to become a killer. He was ruined forever.” I was angry. Not at Rayna, maybe, but at everyone else. Well, at Rayna too. I wanted her to want to run away with me. I wanted another chance to fight her brothers. I knew it was hopeless, but I wished she would at least give me a sign that I should try. “All the rules your
haredim
follow are from the Babylonian Talmud, anyway. You might as well go to Iraq, if it's about living a religious life. The whole idea of Israel as a holy land is nonsense. New York City is a holy land.”

“What does any of that have to do with anything in my life, Isaac? People don't do things because of ideas.”

“Then why do they do them?”

“Because this is real life, and we have to do certain things to get through it.” She looked at me, sadly. “Don't dwell on our story, Isaac. Just find a way to live your life. I'm not trying to be cruel. You were kind to me, and I want to be kind to you. And the kindest thing I can say is forget all this nonsense. Forget all these pictures and tales. Forget me. Go live a real life.”