He hadn’t. And now, he never would.
‘Three books are opened in heaven on Rosh Hashanah,’ Rabbi Chaim said, on the first night of the High Holy Days. ‘One for the wicked, one for the virtuous, and one for those in-between. The wicked are inscribed in the book of death, the virtuous in the book of life, but the fate of the in-between is suspended until Yom Kippur – and let’s be honest,’ he added, to smiles from the audience, ‘that’s most of us.’
Gertie could not smile. She knew she was wicked. All the prayer in the world would make no difference. But she must try, said Rabbi Chaim, when she went to see him privately. His eyes were kindly through his spectacles, his beard bobbing peaceably. She thought of his family – his dutiful wife, who rarely spoke, and his three healthy boys – and for seconds, she had hated him.
Another sin.
Rabbi Chaim put a hand on her shoulder. ‘None of us is free from sin, Gertie. But God turns no one away.’
Then where was He? Since Saul’s death, Gertie had committed anew to the temple and its promises, she had thrown herself at it like a lover – she had even enrolled in Hebrew lessons. And though she had cried enough tears to fill the Hudson, she felt no forgiveness, no change. God remained as distant as the sun.
On Yom Kippur, Gertie dreamed of visiting Greece. It was no place she’d ever been, though she had seen photos of it in a magazine at the dentist’s office. In the dream, she stood on a cliff and clutched two ceramic pots, each of which held one set of ashes: those of her husband, and those of her son. From the cliff, Gertie could see the blue-capped churches and white houses that withdrew into the mountain, like a rescinded offer. When she tipped the pots toward the water, she felt dreadful freedom – an unbounded aloneness so dizzying she felt the pull of the water herself.
When she woke, she was nauseated that she had not buried Simon and Saul according to Jewish custom. Just as bad was the pull of the water, that dark slope of pity.
Her nightgown was heavy with sweat. She pulled on her pink bathrobe and knelt on the wood floor at the foot of the bed.
‘Oh, Simon. Forgive me,’ she whispered. Her knees shook. Outside the window, the sun was just beginning to rise, and she wept for it, for all the suns that Simon, her bright one, would never see. ‘Forgive me, Simon. It’s my fault, my fault, I know it. Forgive me, my son.’
There was no relief. There would never be any relief. But the sun, slanting through the bedroom window, was warm on her back. She could hear the taxis honking on Rivington and the bodegas rustling to life.
She walked unsteadily to the living room, where the children – she would always call them that – had fallen asleep. Klara curled against Varya on the couch. Daniel’s long legs hung over the arm of Saul’s favorite chair. When she returned to the bedroom, she made the bed and whacked Saul’s pillow until it fluffed. She dressed in a dark wool shift and flesh-colored stockings, fit her feet into the black heels she wore to work. She powdered her face and put hot rollers in her hair. By the time she came out again, Varya was making coffee.
She looked up in surprise. ‘Mama.’
‘It’s Tuesday,’ said Gertie. Her voice was scratchy from disuse. ‘I need to go to work.’
The office: clacking of keys, central air. By 1982, Gertie had her own computer, a magical gray behemoth sent to do her bidding.
‘Okay,’ said Varya, swallowing. ‘Good. Let’s get you to work.’
Four months later, in January of 1983, Klara noticed Eddie O’Donoghue in the audience at a club in the Haight. As she was being lifted for the Jaws of Life, his upturned face grew smaller and smaller, and his badge caught the glare of the spotlight. It took a moment for Klara to recognize him as the cop who had once harassed Simon; then her body grew hot. She stumbled when she landed, bowed gracelessly and exited the stage. She was thinking of all the times she’d slipped a hand into a man’s back pocket and grabbed a twenty or two, more if she needed it. Was he tracking her? A vendetta, maybe, after she cursed at him on the station steps?
No. It didn’t make sense. She was careful when she picked pockets, she had sharp eyes that took everything in. One month later, those eyes spotted Eddie again at a show in North Beach. This time, he wasn’t wearing his uniform, just a white crew neck and Dockers jeans. It took all of Klara’s focus to stay on script during her cup-and-ball routine, to ignore his crossed arms and closed smile, which she saw next at a Valencia Street nightclub. This time, she nearly dropped her steel rings. After the show, she strode toward Eddie, who sat on a round leather stool at the bar.
‘What’s wrong with you?’
‘Wrong?’ asked the cop, blinking.
‘Yes, wrong.’ Klara sat down on the stool beside him, which wheezed. ‘This is the third show you’ve come to. So what’s your problem?’
Eddie frowned. ‘I saw your brother’s picture in the paper.’
‘Fuck you,’ she said, and it felt so good, like alcohol burning out a virus, that she said it again. ‘Fuck you. You know nothing about my brother.’
Eddie flinched. He’d aged since she saw him outside the Mission Street police station. There were creases below his eyes and a fuzz of orange hair around his chin. His strawberry blond hair was mussed, as though he’d just woken up.
‘Your brother was young. I was hard on him.’ Eddie met her eyes. ‘I’d like to apologize.’
Klara stiffened. She wasn’t expecting this. Still, she couldn’t pardon him. She grabbed her duster and her duffel bag and walked out of the bar as quickly as she could without attracting the attention of the manager, a sleaze who never missed the opportunity to pressure her into a nightcap. Outside, it was shockingly cold, and hard-core punk streamed from the doorway of Valencia Tool & Die. Klara’s eyes smarted. It seemed unfathomable that Eddie was alive while Simon was not, and yet he was – alive and presently jogging after her, his eyes sharp with new determination.
‘Klara,’ he said. ‘I have to tell you something.’
‘You’re sorry, I know. Thank you. You’re absolved.’
‘No. Something else. About your show,’ said Eddie. ‘It’s changed me.’
‘It’s changed you.’ Klara chortled. ‘That’s sweet. You like the dress I wear? You like the way my ass looks when I spin?’
He grimaced. ‘That’s crass.’
‘It’s honest. Do you really think I don’t know why men come to my shows? You think I don’t know what you get out of it?’
‘No. I don’t think you know.’ He was wounded but held her gaze with a stubbornness that surprised her.