Electric City: A Novel (12 page)

Henry had planned to run in the direction of the Stockade, but now it seemed he had to decide what to do about the cemetery. That’s where his mother was, alone with her bouquet of sorrow, just like every year on this date. Did she prefer it that way? His father would have been at work, and Gloria never asked either husband or son to accompany her for these visits. Henry had no idea if Arthur ever went to the graveside on his own, since he never mentioned it one way or the other. Henry himself hadn’t gone in all of these years, but the Vale Cemetery was only a few blocks away from where he was now, jogging in place while waiting for a light to turn green.

Then a truck pulled up beside him, and Henry couldn’t help reading it as a sign, pointing him in the same direction his dream had offered.
DUTCH ELM SERVICES
, it said. The opposite of a graveyard would be so much truer for honoring his brother’s memory. Not to keep an agonized focus on the nightmare of a branch cracking and a nine-year-old landing on unforgiving earth. He ran on. By the time he reached the edge of the vivid lawn and crossed its moist distance, he knew that the tree wasn’t to blame, nor was the boy. Placing one palm against the time-scarred trunk, Henry admitted with regret that the stubborn cast would make his own ascent of that elm impossible for now. But at least he could do this: instead of standing by
the underground storage of his brother’s bones, he could touch the place where Aaron had once been fully alive, climbing up into the generous air.

TWO

E
NTERING THE LIBRARY
, Sophie was surprised by two things: first, that Mrs. Richardson, who had habits like a metronome, was not at her desk or anywhere in the building; and second, that she found herself searching in all of the study corners for another glimpse of Martin Longboat. It occurred to her that he was the only Native American she’d ever seen in person, but then realized there was no way to be sure. Maybe the school bus driver was descended from Indians, or maybe the boy who delivered her family’s newspaper every morning before sunrise. Could Martin be unique in a town framed by the Mohawk River? Where so many of the schools and streets and apartment buildings had names like Mohegan and Iroquois and Algonquin?

Wandering toward the place where Martin sat yesterday, she reintroduced herself to the empty chair: Sophie Levine, born in America, the last day of the ’40s, when optimism was rising fast and nobody wanted to be caught looking backward. Normal life, here at last, and plenty of it. Her parents and all their immigrant friends claiming a safe place on the buoyant leading edge of the future, suitcases and pockets filled with salvaged memories. David Levine still insisted that America was the greatest country in the world, and winning the race to the moon was only one of its triumphs.

A local newspaper editorial had recently announced that Expo ’67 was going to feature entire pavilions dedicated to the future, displaying
visions dreamed up by the Company. “All that brainpower coming from right here,” it said. “Our very own city lighting up the world.” But underneath the bravado, Sophie knew the warning signs were all over downtown—broken contracts in the shape of too many closing storefronts, followed by empty windows and streets drained of life.

Maybe the Levines and the Longboats were accidentally similar, with long columns of spirits just beyond their shoulders, breathing into their backs, whispering them forward in spite of everything. She thought she understood about carrying fragments and threads of near-extinction. Electric City was full of place-names alternating Dutch and Indian, but for a Mohawk, this might feel like the reverse of remembering. More like proof of land lost, the dying of an entire race, a promise built on a graveyard.

When Martin appeared in the doorway of the library, wearing a white T-shirt and blue jeans, his black hair pulled back into a ponytail, Sophie felt as though they’d already been talking for hours. The conversations in her head felt as real as the television news.

“Martin Longboat,” she said.

“Sophie Levine,” he said.

They strolled toward his usual reading corner. When he asked her without warming up to it why Jews referred to their people as a tribe, Sophie started rambling about rituals and prayer shawls, dietary laws and holidays. But when she admitted that the rules often made her feel frustrated and confined, Martin frowned, seating himself in his wooden chair, tipping it back and forth. Sophie folded herself into position on the carpeted floor, half turned away.

“You’re luckier than you realize,” he said. “You don’t know how disappeared things can get.”

But I do know
, thought Sophie. “My grandmother was a doctor,” she said.

“Really?”

“Really. My grandmother was a doctor in Rotterdam. My mother still has a collection of her old prescription bottles.”

“The difference between medicine and poison is in the dose, did you know that?” Martin asked.

Sophie considered this for a long moment. “What about the skull and crossbones? Isn’t that just poison, pure and simple?”

“I’m not talking about the stuff that’s supposed to kill you,” he conceded. “I’m talking about cures.”

“It’s complicated,” she said. Her hands pressed on her knees, as though pushing against the idea of standing up.

Martin was quiet for a moment. “You can make up a new song,” he whispered, leaning toward her. “You can be the first of an original tribe.”

Sophie could have sworn Mrs. Richardson was creeping up, glaring admonishment at the back of Sophie’s head. But when she turned, the person standing there was Henry.

“Hi, Sophie,” he said.

Martin and Sophie jumped to their feet.

“I’m Martin,” said Martin.

“Henry,” said Henry.

Sophie thought,
I must be the only one who notices that they don’t say Van Curler or Longboat.
But she was wrong.

Henry pushed up a shirtsleeve to show off the missing cast. “Got it removed an hour ago,” he said. The paler skin looked a bit bruised, but Sophie could tell that Henry was just glad to have his arm back.

“Liberation!” she said. Then she pictured him scratching with a twig while they sat together on the picnic table, and the insistent memory of last night’s kissing brought back that wave of heat again.

Henry looked as if he might be reading her thoughts, but all he said was, “I wanted to let you know I’m taking off for a week or so. Heading up to Lake George. No parents.”

She couldn’t help noticing the way Martin’s eyes lit up. Did he see her crimson cheeks too? Or was it something else?

“That sounds fun,” she said.

“Yeah,” Henry said, shrugging. “It can be.” Sophie followed Henry’s gaze to the stack of books next to Martin’s chair. “Charles Proteus?” he asked.

Martin nodded. He knew all about the fox; he knew more than anyone.

That was when Mrs. Richardson approached the little group, standing with hands on her hips and looking exactly like a head librarian in full armor. Sophie felt a date being stamped on her forehead, as in, the Date of My Dismissal. But Mrs. Richardson actually managed to smile.

“I think your break is just about over,” she said, more gently than Sophie would have imagined.

Henry and Martin and Sophie all watched her walk back toward the reference desk, and Sophie exhaled as though she had just been granted a stay of execution.

“To be continued?” Martin said.

Henry looked at Sophie, and she looked helplessly at the two of them. “No kidding,” she said.

“Hungry?” Henry directed the question at Martin, who nodded.

“Most of the time,” he said.

Martin and Henry wandered over to Castle Diner on Erie Boulevard, the place whose jukebox was filled with a mix of Elvis and Duke Ellington and Frank Sinatra. The waitress wore macramé bracelets on each of her wrists, including one with beaded letters that spelled
PEACE
. She waved toward an empty booth by the window.

Martin reached into his canvas bag, releasing the scent of sweet tobacco; even the waitress seemed to sniff the air when he sat down, and then she smiled, both flirtatious and pragmatic.

“What’ll it be, guys?” she said, handing them menus and waiting two beats.

“Swiss cheese omelet with home fries and toast,” Henry said, not even looking through the options. “I missed breakfast today.”

Martin cracked part of a smile. “Burger, no cheese,” he said. “Medium rare and hold the onions.” As an afterthought, he added, “Thank you.”

The tobacco pouch in Martin’s hand looked so simple and ageless Henry couldn’t resist asking to see it. In his palm he could feel the warmth of the soft leather, the way it had been worn to perfection.

“First thing I ever learned how to sew,” Martin said. He didn’t describe cutting a perfect circle of tanned deer hide that Annie had saved since his birth, using an awl to make holes for the leather cord, massaging the hide with mineral oil until it took the curving shape of his loose fist.

Henry handed it back to him. “I don’t smoke,” he said, “but that almost makes me want to start.”

What Martin also didn’t say was that now the leather held some of Henry’s molecules too, along with those of the animal who had once
lived inside it, all blending into the years of being cupped in Martin’s hands. He rolled a cigarette for later, making sure to leave some flakes of tobacco inside the pouch, as if by mistake, yet specific as treasure. So that it never emptied.

They sat for a few moments without either one knowing where to look except out the window, which faced onto a parking lot; mirrored sunlight flashed every time a car pulled in or out. Martin ordered coffee while Henry excused himself to use the bathroom. The coffee was black and bitter but stimulating, reminding him of the way Midge liked to brew her own. By the time Henry came back to the table, their food was arriving.

“First time eating with an Indian?” Martin said with a straight face, letting Henry decide if it was a joke.

Imagining Sophie had to want it this way, Henry chose to keep it light. “My family showed up right before the Pilgrims,” he said. “Or so I’ve been told.”

“Okay,” Martin chewed and nodded, then allowed himself a quiet laugh. “We’re okay.”

H
IS GRANDMOTHER ALWAYS
said, “You can’t push the river.” It was a direct translation from Mohawk, and for once Martin liked the way it sounded in American too. Annie said that Martin was stubborn, that he got it from his father; she also said that Martin’s poetry came from her. “A good combination,” she claimed, although that still left him pondering the elusive inheritance from his long-gone mother. Every once in a while, Martin tried to aim a question sideways at Robert regarding the ghost of Martine, but the sounds ricocheted against a tightly sealed wall.

You’re both of them and neither one
, he told himself.
You’re you
.

Could that be true of everyone, he wondered, including people like Henry?

Of course they knew each other’s full names, Longboats and Van Curlers already sharing an uncomfortable history for so long. Martin could see Henry’s genetics as if spelled out in neon for all the town to see, and maybe Henry saw the same thing from his own side. Sitting across from each other in that booth at the diner, Martin had felt his skin turn a few shades darker by contrast, wondered whether white people paid as much attention to the variations on their own color. Sophie’s was probably what most people would call olive, he thought, while Henry’s was more like the inside of an apple. There were black men he worked alongside at the plant, and he’d heard them saying “brother” to him
sometimes, the young ones at least, the ones whose skin was even darker than his own.