“You behave now,” he joked to Sue before putting the car in reverse. “And you,” he said to Jack, “take care of her. I’ll see you both tomorrow at the docks.”
Jack sighed with relief as the beat-up automobile clattered into the distance. His friend had done a good job, and the marriage certificate that traveled with him in the glove compartment looked as genuine as the old pay stubs that he had given Walter as proof of his time at the Ford Motor Company. He closed the shutter and got back to work. As he organized the rest of his documents, Sue packed their clothes and wondered how many supplies they’d be able to buy with the thirty dollars they’d designated for food. However, as time went by and Jack said nothing, she set the suitcases aside and began painting her nails, humming a tune. Then she walked up to Jack and placed her hands between his face and the papers he was working on.
“What do you think?” She showed him her fingers tipped in bright red as if they were jewels. Though they were a handbreadth from his nose, Jack merely glanced at them.
“I preferred the sausages,” he mumbled.
“Oh!” Sue snatched her hands away, embarrassed, as if she’d just discovered they weren’t pretty. “What’re you doing?” she asked, trying to change the subject. She gave Jack a mock smile.
“I’m doing my accounts,” he said with sarcasm, and pushed the papers aside.
“Well, I’ve finished packing.” She stood and swiveled around in an improvised dance move, during which her smile regained its splendor. “Oh, Jack! Russia! This is all so exciting; I don’t know how I’m going to sleep! On the subject of sleeping, what’re we going to do?”
Jack continued to stare impassively at the table.
“I don’t know about you, but I reckon I’ll close my eyes and wait for dawn.”
Sue’s joy froze over.
“Why are you being so sharp? I’m only trying to be friendly.”
“I’m sorry. I’m just not in the mood for conversation.” He tensed up. “Going to Russia might be your dream, but it sure ain’t mine, so don’t expect me to get excited by the idea of rotting in a country where, no matter what I do, I’ll always be a nobody without a dime to my name.”
“Oh!” Sue’s expression hardened. “And what exactly are you in America, if you don’t mind my asking? A world-famous down-and-out?”
Jack looked at Sue as if she’d just slapped him.
“I said I’m sorry,” was all he could say in response.
“I don’t get you, Jack. There’s no future here. You were lucky and made some real money at Ford, but that time’s over. This awful depression’s never going to end. You should forget what you were and make do like the rest of us, rather than blind yourself with vain pretensions.”
Jack turned away to shut her out. He’d have liked to have told her just what he thought, but he had enough to worry about, without having to justify himself to some obnoxious brat who would never understand. What did she know about life? Who was Sue to tell him to forget about the good fortune he once had? Perhaps moving to another country was the solution to all of her problems because her only aspiration was to marry Walter and produce children. But if that was so, then it was Sue’s ambition, not his. And anyway, his success at Ford had nothing to do with luck. No. The comfortable life he’d lived in Detroit was the kind of existence he had striven to achieve for as long as he could remember. He had worked like a dog for that life; he had turned his back on his family for it; he had sweated and suffered for it. All to create a future for himself that was cruelly and unjustly snatched from him.
He finished spreading the blankets over the chairs and stopped to examine himself.
He, who had once worn cologne, now had to put up with the stench that his body gave off because he did not even own a bar of soap with which to wash. He yearned to wear tailored suits again, and not the rags that covered his body, and he longed to taste a tender steak, even if just once more, at a restaurant with linen tablecloths. And Sue reproached him for it? Why? What right did anyone have to fault him for dreaming that he might one day get back the little luxuries for which he’d fought so hard? Nobody had just handed them to him then, and no one would do so now. Delusions of grandeur . . . Maybe his dreams seemed frivolous compared to Sue’s, but was it so awful to want a good job again? To feel wanted and admired? What was so bad about that?
The wail of a siren in the distance pulled him from his thoughts. Jack ran to the shutter to look through the cracks, fearing it was a police car, but beyond the light from the nearby streetlamps, all he could see was darkness. As he pressed his eyelids against the shutter, the sound gradually faded. Turning around, he found Sue in front of him.
“Something worrying you?” she asked him.
“No. Just looking.”
“It’s not unusual to be woken by sirens in this neighborhood. There’re more backroom distilleries here than there are jobless folk.” She paused. “We should rest. We have a long day tomorrow.”
Jack nodded. There weren’t many places to choose from, so he curled up in a corner and covered himself with his raincoat. From there, he saw Sue take the candle and head to the row of chairs that he’d put out for her. Then she blew it out, and the darkness swallowed her.
Jack tried to sleep, but the night’s silence bellowed in his ears. He thought of his father. He remembered him when his hair was still dark; when he was still sober and enjoyed telling stories about the far-off country of his birth; when he hugged Jack as a boy and made toys for him from shoe scraps, or when they went together to synagogue. Deep sorrow washed over him as he reflected on his failure to help Solomon. When the memory faded away, he turned his thoughts to Walter and Sue. He was unsure why he found it so difficult to feel grateful toward them. After all, they were the only friends he had left. The only ones who’d helped him. They might not share his dreams, but theirs were pure and simple, whereas his were selfish. And though he knew it was wrong, he could not help envying his uncle, Gabriel Beilis, the only person who seemed immune to the Depression. He imagined him smoking a Havana cigar and laughing at the world from his Rockefeller Center office. Jack hated him for it, and hated that his uncle would never suffer hardship the way he and his father had. That was when he swore to himself that from that moment on, he would do everything within his power to pull himself up from the gutter.
5
Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea.
From the first light of morning, the North River docks had been abuzz with sailors and stevedores emptying the bellies of gigantic cargo ships. The yelling of foremen haranguing their workers intermingled with the cries of fish auctioneers, the sirens of the steamships leaving port, and the high-pitched squawks of seagulls as ravenous for food as the unemployed men who milled around the warehouses looking for work.