‘Good stuff,’ says Eddie on his way out, clapping Daniel on the back with the genial encouragement of a Little League coach. ‘Keep it up.’
Daniel walks briskly to his car and departs with a lurch. He feels both wired and drained; he didn’t realize how disturbing it would be to revisit the story of the woman in such detail, or to hear the scope of her family’s transgressions. It’s so painful to contemplate the deaths of his siblings that Daniel has done it only in isolation: lying awake while Mira sleeps or driving home from work in winter, the road lit by headlights, the radio rattling in the background.
What he told Eddie is true: he doesn’t buy the fortune teller’s claims. He believes in bad choices; he believes in bad luck. And yet the memory of the woman on Hester Street is like a minuscule needle in his stomach, something he swallowed long ago and which floats, undetectable, except for moments when he moves a certain way and feels a prick.
He’s never told Mira. She grew up in Berkeley, the studious child of musicians – her father Christian, her mother Jewish – who produced interfaith songs for children. Mira loves her parents, but she can’t bear to listen to ‘Oy to the World’ or ‘Little Drummer Mensch,’ and she has little patience for New Age institutions. It’s no wonder she gravitated toward Judaism: she likes its intellectualism and morality, its lawfulness.
Before they married, Daniel thought she would find the story of the fortune teller childish. He didn’t want to drive her away. After Klara’s death, he longed to share it, but again, he did not. This time, he feared Mira’s brow would furrow with concern – a tiny, delicate v, like a goose sure of its direction. He feared she would see in him an alignment with Klara: her eccentricity, her lack of reason. Even her illness. And he was not aligned with Klara – this much Daniel knew. There was no reason to make Mira think so.
23.
Raj and Ruby are coming for Thanksgiving. On Friday, Raj e-mailed Daniel and agreed.
They’ll arrive on Tuesday, two days before the holiday, so Daniel and Mira spend the weekend preparing. They wash the linens in the guest room and set up the fold-out in Daniel’s study. They clean the house: Mira the kitchen and living room, Daniel the bedrooms and bathrooms, Gertie the dining room. They go to Rhinebeck to buy produce at Breezy Hill Orchard and cheeses at Grand Cru. Before they drive back across the river to Kingston, they stop at Bella Vita for a centerpiece with tulips and pomegranates and apricot-colored roses. Daniel carries it back to the car. Against the dim November sky, the flowers seem to glow.
The doorbell rings two hours early, while Mira is teaching and Gertie is taking a nap. Daniel scrambles downstairs, still in his Binghamton T-shirt and furry moccasins, cursing himself for not having changed. Through the peephole: a man and a girl, or not a girl – a teenager, nearly as tall as her father. Daniel pulls the door open. It’s drizzling outside; a stream of droplets rests on Ruby’s lustrous, copper-black mane.
‘Raj,’ Daniel says. ‘And Rubina.’
Instantly, he feels self-conscious for resorting to her full name, a name listed on her birth certificate and rarely, to his knowledge, used since. But she appears so changed, looking not like the child he remembers but like an adult he’s never met, that what came to him was the equally adult, never-met name: Rubina.
‘Hi,’ says Ruby. She wears a fuchsia velour sweat suit tucked into knee-high Ugg boots. When she smiles, she looks so much like Klara that Daniel nearly winces.
‘Daniel,’ says Raj, stepping forward to shake his hand. ‘It’s good to see you.’
When Daniel last saw Raj, he looked anemically handsome, like a street dog: sharp chin, sharp cheekbones, slant of nose. Now he is trim and healthy, his upper body toned beneath a hooded cashmere sweater. His hair is neatly clipped. There’s a comb of gray at his temples, but his face has fewer wrinkles than Daniel’s. He holds a juice of an unappealing, green-brown color.
‘And you,’ says Daniel. ‘Come on in. Gertie’s sleeping and Mira’s teaching, but they’ll both be here soon. Can I get you something to drink?’
‘I’d love a glass of water,’ Raj says.
He pulls a silver Tumi suitcase through the doorway. Ruby has a Louis Vuitton duffel bag. She turns to hitch it onto one shoulder. Across the back of her sweatpants are two words, encrusted in rhinestones: Juicy, in elaborate capitals, and in smaller, less-eye-catching capitals, Couture.
‘You sure?’ asks Daniel, closing the door. ‘I have a great Barolo in the garage.’
Why is he trying to impress Raj? To make up for his schlubby T-shirt and moccasins? He’s already thinking of what he’ll cook for breakfast tomorrow morning: a frittata, perhaps, with fontina and what’s left of the heirloom tomatoes.
‘Oh,’ says Raj. ‘No need. But thank you.’
‘It’s no hassle.’ Suddenly, Daniel is desperate for a drink. ‘It’s just languishing down there, waiting for a time like this.’
‘Really,’ says Raj. ‘I’m fine. But feel free.’
A pause as their eyes meet, and Daniel understands: Raj doesn’t drink. A large silver watch slides down on Raj’s wrist.
‘Of course,’ says Daniel. ‘Water, then. And let’s get you settled. The guest room has a queen bed, and there’s a fold-out in my office. We’ve set up both.’
Ruby has been typing something on a skinny, pink flip phone – that Motorola Razr all the teenagers have – but now she snaps it shut. ‘Dad’ll take the fold-out.’
‘Incorrect,’ says Raj.
‘And I’ll have a glass of the Barolo,’ she adds.
‘Wrong again,’ Raj says.
Ruby slits her eyes and smirks, but when Raj raises his eyebrows, Ruby’s smirk becomes a real smile.
‘Silly old Dad,’ she says, following Daniel to the office. ‘Spoilsport old Dad. Spoilsport Daddy longlegs.’
The next morning, a Wednesday, Daniel wakes at ten. He curses. He hears the shower in the master bathroom – Mira – and hopes Raj and Ruby have slept in, too. Shocking to Daniel, how late they were up, even more shocking how well it went – a leisurely, two-hour dinner with his mother, his wife, his brother-in-law, and his niece, as if such a thing were normal for them, followed by chocolates and tea in the living room. Daniel broke out the Barolo after all, and even Gertie trundled to bed after eleven.