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.She says, “Remember how she wore her socks, one of each, and that doll, she loved that dolly—what was her name?”“Tseidele,” Lillian says and she lies back squeezing her eyes shut, to keep the image of Sophie, like the end of a dream.Raisele, who is usually the last to sleep and the last to rise, pulls one of Meyer’s soft green blankets over her cousin, glad that nothing holds her hostage in this wide, abundant world.Lillian packs and Raisele paces.Raisele’s found twelve dollars in Meyer’s underwear drawer and also two pairs of wool socks and also a large cotton handkerchief, which could be useful.She would take more things for Lillian if he had them.She goes through the whole dresser, Meyer’s shirts and Lillian’s clothes, and she picks up and puts back and then pockets a pair of Meyer’s silver cuff links.“Maybe trousers,” Raisele says.“If I had.”Raisele shakes her head in mild disbelief at the weakness of other people and pulls open the closet door.They look at three pairs of men’s trousers, black worsted, Harris tweed, and green gabardine.Raisele takes the tweed trousers, which look as if they are not only Away89for the outdoors but made from the outdoors, and drops the wood hanger on the floor.She tosses the pants on the bed.“Now you have.”Lillian folds the pants.This is the help she gets.She gets a woman who would steal the pennies off a dead man’s eyes (and Lillian can hear Raisele: The man is dead, so who needs the pennies more, me or him?) and a crazy man who so loves death he is sending Lillian on ahead in hopes of a big reunion in the afterlife, a heavenly Café Royale, where the cakes are free, the tea is strong, and all is not only forgiven, it is undone.She folds a sweater and Meyer’s wool overcoat, rolls a wide leather belt on top of two camisoles, and tucks her winter knickers and Meyer’s socks and handkerchief into the bottom of her satchel.She’d rather bring stockings—it would make her feel better to imagine a trip involving silk stockings and her pretty navy-blue pumps with the diamanté buckles, but she knows better.She holds the stockings and the shoes out to Raisele, who takes them instantly.“These are.nifty,” Raisele says as the stockings and the shoes vanish into her own small bag.“Yes,” Lillian says.“Ducky, nifty, swell.”“Yes.They are swell.”Lillian’s bag is almost full and there is still a dress hanging in her closet, and a drawer of blouses and jerseys.Lillian sees Raisele looking intently at the dress, and she smiles.Raisele is a wolf, the way other people are lambs, or saints, or sparrows.“All yours.Whatever fits.Zay gezunt.” Raisele has already made plans.She has found two plain girls from Odessa, and they both have jobs, and they have a big couch and no other boarders and no prospects, as such.They are lonely now with just each other and evenings at home, and Raisele has talked them up, alone and together.She has told them every interesting thing she knows about the Bursteins, she has brought them 90Amy Bloomchocolate-dipped fruit from Stricoff ’s Candy Shoppe, and she has allowed them to take her to the Thursday-night Odessa Mutual Aid Association Theatre and Ballet with Grand Buffet Following.Raisele is more fun than anyone, the sisters say—she should move in already, they could not love her more.Raisele plans to walk Lillian to the corner, kiss her three times like the theater people do, and come back to the apartment for a final inventory.She believes that you can do things that may appear bad and still be a good person.She believes that if you do not actively wish people harm, you have done no harm.She will leave Meyer his furniture (except the maroon silk cushion, which she has admired since the first night) and his clothes (except a blue cash-mere muffler), and she will take the green chiffon peignoir set since Lillian doesn’t want it, and she will take all of the food in the icebox that she can carry.Raisele looks through the icebox one more time and holds up a salami for Lillian.“No.Take what you want.Meyer says out by tomorrow, absolutely.”Raisele, who has been hoping that Meyer would come to see what a perfect companion she could be, more pliant than Lillian, more agreeable (which wouldn’t be so hard, Raisele thinks; Lillian seems to have decided that in this country, of all places, men want to know how you feel), is disappointed but doesn’t say so.Raisele never tells anyone how she feels, and even when she becomes the Vilna Art Theatre’s next ingenue, even when she replaces Ida Liptzin as the Juliet and creates such a sensation with her new naturalistic style that Broadway actresses sneak in to see her, even when the man from Samuel Goldwyn presses his card on her after dinner at El Morocco and suggests that if her screen test is what he thinks it will be, she’ll be changing her name very soon, Raisele Perlmutter is never inclined to tell anyone how she feels.Her screen test, like her movies, shows an alabaster face with pale eyes and pale lips playing against Away91the image of the vamp, sleek rather than beaded or flounced.She is genuinely ironic, genuinely indifferent, genuinely modern.The bar is near black, and Lillian jingles her pennies and the set of stainless-steel safety pins Yaakov has attached to the inside of her overcoat (You never know, he said).She’s glad that no one can see her sweating through her loose serge dress and cotton stockings.She can see Yaakov’s face only because she’s standing right beside him.The other men look like shadows, and there are no women at all.Men sit in twos and threes at small round tables and stand pressed against the long, dark counter.It is a serious bar, she can see.It’s a place men come to drink, and it smells the way such places smell, of wet wool and sweat and urine and smoke, and the floor has been splashed with beer so often the grain gives up hops and malt every time you walk across it.“You’ve been here before?” Lillian asks.It’s hard to imagine Yaakov sipping tea at one of the tables.“Oh, yes,” he says.“Before.”“With Reuben?” she asks, and she would like this to be the last time she says his name.She won’t be able to see where she’s going if his face is in front of her all the time.“Our Reuben?” Yaakov lowers his voice.“In this shithole?” A man with thin red hair and white sideburns taps Yaakov on the shoulder.“Shimmelman,” he says, and the two men face each other.They shake hands quickly, and the red-haired man looks at Lillian.Lillian feels that she’s smiling politely, but the man is frowning and squint-ing, so it may be that her smile is not right or that she’s not smiling at all.“All the way to Chicago, Mr.O’Brien,” Yaakov says.“And a meal.”92Amy Bloom“Sure,” the man says.“Didn’t I say so? And is this your daughter?” he asks, one eyelid lowering slightly.“Yes,” Yaakov says as if it will protect Lillian, and she brushes her hair back and links her arm with his.O’Brien shakes his head as if he’s never heard such a bald-faced lie, as if Yaakov is making use of the sacred bonds of family for his own wicked sheeny purposes.He puts his hands in his pockets in the manner of a man watching a horse race on which he has sensibly placed only a small bet.Yaakov takes out his wallet, and the red-haired porter looks away, toward the door, ignoring the movement of Yaakov’s hand entirely.“One dollar yesterday, and this makes five,” Yaakov says, and puts the bills in the porter’s hand.“Let’s have a drink,” O’Brien says.The two men drink beer, and Yaakov pays, as he must [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]