Seventh Avenue (7 page)

Jay parked next to a noisy bar, overflowing onto the sidewalk with loud drunken men talking Polish and shoving each other to make more elbow room. Jay opened the car door, and she waited for Barney to get out. Like a general on an inspection tour, he moved through the pack of men with Rhoda and Jay trailing him. She could see from the smiles he got that he was well-known to them and that they approved of him. At the bar, they made room for him, and a woman wiped the chipped, scratched wooden surface in front of him with a sopping rag.

“Usual, Barney?”

“Er. Yeah, two rye boilermakers. Doubles. Rhoda, what would you like?”

She ignored him. The room was stiflingly hot, and the men, with their sleeves rolled up, collars open, revealing tattered, dirty undershirts, sweated and drank. She had never seen a bar so crowded and with so many drunken men pushing each other without breaking into open fights. A man with two beer mugs was propelled out of the mob, all fighting for service. He was dead drunk, and his head hit the top of the bar with a dull thud. The woman who had served them took the two mugs out of his hands, filled them with beer, then lifted his head up. He took some money out and was almost pushed to the ground as others fought to squeeze in his place.

“Sally here yet?” Barney said, all business.

“Upstairs, waiting for you.”

“Sure you won’t have a drink, Rhoda?”

“C’mon” - Jay put his arm around her shoulder – “have one. Good for the nerves.”

“My nerves are okay. But you have another drink.”

“Same again,” Jay said.

They had three more rounds of drinks before Barney made a move.

“She’s waiting . . . better go upstairs, or she’ll think it’s a stand-up.”

“One more,” Jay said. He turned angrily to a man behind him.

“Cut out the shoving, buddy. Can’t you see I’m waiting to be served.” The man threw out his arms helplessly, and indicated the men behind him who had shoved him into Jay. Jay swallowed his drink in one gulp, took a quick sip of beer and pushed after Barney and Rhoda, who were slowly making their way to a staircase at the back of the room.

On the first floor, Barney took a right turn, and she followed him down a long badly lit corridor.

“It’s a hotel. They got rooms here for people that want to stay the night.”

He opened a door, held it for her, and waited for Jay.

A woman sat knitting in an old red leather chair. She was about fifty, thick-set, with graying black hair and she studied a magazine pattern. She made a final stitch before putting down a shapeless slab of wool that was part of a sweater.

“For my nephew,” she said. “Can’t follow this goddamned pattern - everything you gotta do piecemeal. Back first, then the front.”

“Want a drink, Sal?” Barney asked.”

Afterwards. Don’t drink on the job.”

“Doesn’t that give you confidence?” Barney said, hoping to make Rhoda smile. He waved a hand and said: “My friends.”

“No names, okay, so long they’re friends of yours is enough.” She pointed to the door, and the men walked towards it.

Jay held Rhoda’s hand and kissed her softly on the mouth. His mouth tasted of beer and cigarettes.

“Nothing to be afraid of,” he said.

“We better get started,” Sally said.

When they had gone, she locked the door and motioned Rhoda into another room. It was a bare room, with bottle green drapes that had faded patches. In the center of the room was a long wooden scrub table with a thin mat placed down the middle, and just by the table was a black metal stand containing bottles, a hypodermic needle and instruments that Rhoda knew were the kind surgeons used. She had seen similar ones in a hospital showcase when Myrna had had her appendix removed.

“First time?” Sally asked. She waited for an answer. “Don’t want to talk? That it? I understand. There’s nothing to be frightened of. I’ve done this a couple hundred times and nothing’s ever happened.”

“I’m not afraid,” Rhoda said. She watched with interest as Sally screwed two metal clamps to the sides of the scrub table.

“Foot rests.” She sniggered. “You know those straps they got in the backs of cars for people to hold on to when they’re getting in or in case of short stops. Well, some people use those for foot rests too.” She finished tightening the clamps and sighed. “There we are, honey. Now you just undress, and it’ll be over before you know.”

Rhoda walked into the other room, opened her bag, and saw that she had four dollars. She closed her bag, and stared at the knitting, which was folded up neatly on the leather chair. Sally came into the room.

“It’s for my nephew’s birthday. Outgrows everything in a week.” She chuckled. “At least it seems like a week. Well, I’m all ready, so you better undress and I’ll give you a little massage that’ll relax you.”

“No, I don’t think I want a massage,” Rhoda said. “I think we’d better forget about it.”

“Forget it? Why?”

“I’ve changed my mind.”

“It’s for your own good. I’ve had a lot of experience in this, and you may be sorry after that you missed the chance.”

“That’s my worry.”

“You know I’ve been paid already; twenty bucks and this isn’t a department store. I don’t give refunds.”

“Keep it.”

“I intend to. I’m taking a big chance, you know. I can get ten years for something like this. And your boyfriend isn’t going to like throwing twenty down the drain, with nothing to show for it.”

“Well, he’ll have to live with it. I’d like to go now.”

Sally unlocked the door.

“It’s your life you’re playing with.”

“I’d thought of that.”

“Better explain to your boyfriend, ‘cause I don’t want trouble.”

Rhoda walked quietly down the stairs. There was a group of men at the bottom, and she saw that Jay and Barney were not among them. As she descended she spotted them at the bar with two women all holding drinks and about to clink glasses. She pushed her way through the crowd of men, rank with beer and sweat. Outside, she took a deep breath and started to walk down the street, which was lined with women in doorways, under lampposts, and against the walls of buildings.

“Know how I get to the station?” she asked a woman.

The woman pointed a finger and said:

“Straight ahead . . . just follow your nose.”

“No, thenks, oh, maybe, all right, yes. A little, little, piece. No thet’s too big, I only got a small mouth.” The reluctant eater was Maurice Dobrinski, licensed matchmaker, Talmudic Sophist, and tort expert of the vagaries of premarital difficulties. Sidney Gold had decided to consult him. In Borough Park, men removed their hats when they passed Dobrinski on the street, and women performed a curtsey. A scholar, a savant, the pillar of the temple, a man whose eyes burned with an otherworldly fire and whose mustache was embalmed with the wax of a thousand days, so that it held a hypnotic fascination for all who peered at its sebaceous sheen. This paid meddler into the disputes of his betters supported his arguments with spurious precedents that he barely understood and, if this failed, could summon up a host of irrelevant, obscure logomachies that by their weight, total pointlessness, and the utterly confused manner in which they were delivered destroyed any attempt at sane communication.

“Sit by the window,” Mr. Gold said to Dobrinski. “You’ll get a better view.”

Dobrinski pointed to the top part of his skull and said:

“The view’s in here.”

“They should be here soon. I told them two o’clock.”

“They’re all coming?”

“I hope so.”

“The boy’s mother and father are very important. They’ll make him do the right thing by Rhoda.”

“After you’ve spoken to them.”

Dobrinski ruffled some papers in his briefcase.

“All the authority I need, I got in here.”

“And if thet doesn’t work?”

“You let me worry . . . I have never lost yet,” Dobrinski said with a smile.

Several minutes later they heard a dull thud, as though the door was being rammed, and the house’s delicate foundations seemed to sway. Mr. Gold stormed to the door.

“Missus Bleckman?” he asked.

“Mistah Gold?” Celia replied.

“Why don’t you dense?” Morris Blackman said furiously.

“Not funny. Where is . . . ?”

“The murderer? Hiding behind his mother,” Morris shouted.

“Come in and welcome to mine home.” He ushered them into the living room where Dobrinski had commandeered a table, stacked his papers neatly, and was giving the impression of meticulous officialdom at work. He was busily changing nibs on all of his pens, and he had set out two inkwells.

“Would you please sign?” he said to the Blackmans, pushing a ledger in front of Morris.

“Sign what? I didn’t come here to vote and thet’s the only time I sign. But I don’t vote. When they put up a Jewish president, I’ll vote.”

“It’s not to vote,” Dobrinski hastily explained, “but for mine records. Nine thousand signatures I got already.”

“Nu, so what you need mine for?” Morris replied contentiously. Dobrinski dealt him one of his seraphic smiles, opened his arms as though to embrace him, flicked a paper out, which Morris took, tried to read, and then in despair handed back.

“You see who has signed it?”

“I see it’s signed. But I don’t understand . . . ?”

“It is a document giving me certain powers . . . signed by the Chief Rabbi of Palestine.” Actually it was a receipt for clothes received that a Jewish orphanage had issued to the donor, namely Dobrinski, who had spent three months collecting them in order to peddle the best of them to a secondhand dealer with whom he had a working arrangement. When he was satisfied that Blackman was impressed, he went on to add: “So far in thirty years I have solved four thousand disputes, and this book is mine record.”

“What is all this about?” Morris turned to Gold, who was smiling and rubbing his hands together. Dobrinski was costing him ten dollars, and he wanted his money’s worth. “A telegram you sent me. I never got before a telegram.”

“I never sent one before,” Gold said. “I gave good directions?”

“I’m here, no?”

“We’re here,” Celia said. She turned to Jay and squeezed his hand reassuringly. “A mother’s love you’ve got.” He held her tightly and looked morosely at the ceiling. They needed a paint job.

Gold felt it was time to get down to business.

“May I present mine adviser, Mistah Maurice Dobrinski.”

“At your service.” Dobrinski extended a hand to Blackman. He loved him already.

“What for adviser?” Morris growled.

“Your boy didn’t explain you?”

Jay received three sets of surprised glances, which he carefully avoided. Rhoda would pay for this, he’d make her pay!

“Nothing about mine Rhoda?”

“No, not a word.” Celia shook Jay’s arm.

“Per-epps, I should explain,” Dobrinski interceded.

“They been goink together for now” - Gold counted on his fingers – “seven months . . . kippink company.”

“Never a word to me,” Morris said. “Who knows where he goes? He’s a bum.”

“Thet we know,” Gold said, shooting a dagger look at Jay.

Dobrinski flapped a quire of foolscap paper at Gold, indicating that he was prepared to commence.”

His cousin, he beat up, and he had to go into hospital,” Morris said. Dobrinski made a quick note of this and shook his head sagaciously at Jay, then wagged a finger. “But he brings home money now. How’s thet possible? His momma and me is afraid to ask, because we think he goes with a gun.”

“Not a word about mine Rhoda?”

“Where’s your wife, Mr. Gold?” Celia asked.

“Nine years an invalid. It would kill her if she knew.”

“Tch, tch, tch,” Celia pursed her lips.

“And she’s a good girl, Rhoda. But when she brought
him
home, I became worried.”

“In Poland they know how to treat boys like him,” Morris said.

“And in Russia, too. You give a cossack fifty kopecks . . .”

“Please, please” - Dobrinski got to his feet – “nothing can be settled in this way.”

“His uncle sent over the police looking for him.”

“Genug, Moishe,” Celia said.

Dobrinski, his notes set on a music stand, his dental plate revolving at fifty r.p.m., launched into the fray. He began with a short history of Judaism. The travails of its people under Pharaoh, the glories of Joseph, Abraham, the hairy brother, and the unhairy brother, David and Goliath, all were recounted in his most confidential raconteur style occasionally livened by fist-waving to enforce his points. After this, there followed a request for old clothes for the starving children of Palestine and an injunction to donate generously to Borough Park’s Synagogue. He collected twenty-nine cents from Morris Blackman under protest. It was when he suggested that they should adjourn for tea that Morris rose to his feet and in a thunderous voice demanded to know why the conclave had been assembled in the first place.

“Two hours’ traveling for a murderer and I’m here an hour, and I don’t even know why I’ve come,” he protested. “Now we’re drinking tea? I could have stayed home and drank tea there.”

“Not a thing am I mentioning,” Gold countered, his face the color of horseradish. “Rhoda . . . Rhoda . . . in here,” he shrieked. Rhoda appeared, her eyes bloodshot and circled with black lines. She stood to Dobrinski’s right, averting her eyes, and he patted her affectionately on the behind. “Not a thing am I mentioning . . .” Gold continued. “But look at that girl, a beautiful girl, a wonderful sister and daughter. You see her?” Morris shook his head in some confusion. “Thet’s not a gas belly she’s got. From chopped liver, she didn’t get such a belly. She’s not a big eater at home. So I ask you, from who did she get such a belly?”

At this Dobrinski approached the Blackmans with his papers.

“Statements by people who know what
he
did and have sworn to God to me personal that he’s the one.” He handed the documents to Morris who examined them carefully.

“That’s truth,” Gold averred.

“Please explain me what this means?” Morris said. “You are cordially invited on the 6th of August 1936 to attend the Bar Mitzvah of Mordecai Bernstein at the Menorah Temple, 3 p.m. How does he know to invite me?”