THE NEXT MORNING TIMOTHY Conan Doyle sinks. The boy brings his wrists to his ankles, pretending he is chained. His blond hair rises as his body drops. The tiles at the base of the pool come close. Rolling, Timothy sees lights play on the surface, and in the distance of the shallow end his sister’s legs. Is that his sister? At its edges, the white world resolves into obscurity. A diver breaks the surface toward the middle of the pool. This is what it’s like, thinks Timothy. As the material is to the spiritual, so the underwater to the world above. The surface is the sky, the limit of our view, and we are all down below, believing that we must hold our breaths, that there is no more to the universe beyond than the surface’s fractured glow. To break through one need only defy the rules. If he would breathe right now, he might emerge not into poolside tiles and the mixed smell of chlorine and mildew, but to something livelier and lovelier, emerge not by swimming but through transmutation. Maybe that’s Houdini’s trick, just defy the rules, relax, breathe. Allow oneself to drown, to fade in and out of the higher world. At the bottom of the pool, he lies on his side. The diver races toward him. If he were to breath in, thinks Timothy, his father would appreciate the bravery, but on the other hand he doesn’t want to upset his mother. And so, before the lifeguard reaches him, he loses his imaginary cuffs and chains and swims upward. The lifeguard arches like a dolphin, and the two break the surface one after the other.
“Kid, don’t scare me like that, hey?”
A HEAVY KNOT of men at the door of Kortchmar’s, the steam and garlic and onions and frying fat. Hairy-knuckled hands and men barking, fat ties flapping on fatter bellies, laughter and argument, the cash register ringing, dirty plates into sinks, toasted bagels, eggs on a long, greased griddle with potatoes and onions. Molly edged her way through the Yiddish-English crowd at the door, not another woman in the place. Before she got to the counter with its displays of chubs and herring, tubs of cream cheese and pickled onions and sturgeons split and smoked, she was recognized. “Hey, hey!” said a fat man in an apron. But he got slapped by his partner, who brandished an enormous fish-slicing knife. “She’s mine you’re talking about, my darling—look at her!” Molly blew kisses, killing the countermen, and moved into the long dining room with its ceiling fans and Formica tabletops.
Abe Goodman ruled the big round table in the back, and he was up from his chair with big arms spread wide, expostulating. Michael Silver, also standing, waved two limp hands at Abe, miming rejection, wincing and looking away. Their breakfast companions were finishing coffee, slipping on jackets, yelling about checks. Some shirked and tried to pay less, some waved five-dollar bills, but even the ones who wanted to pay exactly what they owed came in for abuse.
Michael Silver, turning in disgust from Abe, was the first to spot her. “Mol!” He planted a wet kiss on her. “Now you’ve come, now, when I have to go down to Henry Street!”
“What is it?”
“Nothing. Settlement houses, women’s clubs, everybody wants a piece of me.”
“Look,” Abe thundered. “You wouldn’t get to talk to her even if you didn’t have to run.” He reached a big arm through the crowd, gripping Molly. “She’s all mine, Mike. I’m not going to let any of you near her.”
“Ah, she’s beautiful.” Michael Silver’s hand was on her shoulder, luxuriating. “Isn’t she beautiful?”
“Gorgeous,” chimed in a man whose name she could not place. His eyes were heavy-lidded, his nose protruded—these gatherings of her father’s always felt like bar mitzvahs or marriages, a dozen men indistinguishable from her father’s cousins.
“This is news, big shot?” Abe was jolly in his contempt. “That my daughter is beautiful?”
“Ah, but gorgeous,” said Michael Silver, and he moved his hands, showing her off.
Molly nudged him. “You’re pretty good-looking yourself.”
“I am taking her away from you.” Abe grabbed his jacket and coffee cup, whose contents sloshed over an empty cup of juice. “Maishe, I’m picking up and going to another table. Maishe! My daughter!”
But the dairy’s proprietor had already noticed, and wiping his hands on his stained apron came over to visit. “I never see this girl anymore, such a beautiful girl. Like a shiksa, Abe—”
“We’re moving!”
Maishe laughed. “I’ve been reading you,” he told Molly, while Abe impatiently stood by and jiggled a chair. “And I got a question. This Conan Doyle, he’s a smart man, no? These detective stories, he couldn’t be such a dummy. So what’s he doing with these pictures? This—I don’t know how to say. And you, you’re writing about it like it’s—”
“You don’t think she believes in that shit?” shouted Abe, voice carrying above the noisy room.
“I think she is doing great,” said Maishe.
“Thank you,” said Molly.
“But like your father said—”
“Did I say she wasn’t doing good?” Nearly apoplectic. “All I said is I wanted to have breakfast with my daughter. Over there, maybe. When she’s done taking questions from you fine gentlemen.”
Maishe shrugged and kissed Molly. Michael Silver wished her goodbye for the seventh time. Molly followed her father to a table by the window, saying, “Excuse me,” to the old man who cleared plates.
“Mike’s a pain in the ass, but his wife is dying, so go easy on him. Also he’d like you to marry his son.”
“What—who—” Molly had not yet taken off her cap. “Did you say—”
“Before I forget, he gave me a letter for you. From Lyden, he was here, he didn’t want to hand it over, but I made him—I said, Look, she’ll be here, I’ll give it to her, for what do you need the post office?”
“Pop!” She grabbed his hand but not the envelope. “Did you say that Clarissa is—”
“Heart palpitations.” Abe scooped sugar into his coffee. “Mike said she had some last night. Maybe it’s nothing. I think it’s nothing. But you know Mike, he worries. Asshole. So you’re still really working that crap, I see. Pictures of dead people or not-actually-dead people, or what is it now, dinosaurs?”
“Pop, just tell me about Clarissa. And why do you have a letter from Lyden, anyway?”
“He wanted to put it in the mailbox—”
“So put it in the mailbox, tell me about Clarissa, and for God’s sake lay off about my work.”
“I didn’t bring it up.” Hands in the air, Abe surrendered. “You were talking to Maishe about the article and I just had a thought. Anyway.” He reached out to grab a waiter by the pants leg. “She wants a bagel, whitefish, no, sturgeon for my daughter, a cup of coffee, let her put in the milk and sugar, she’s independent that way, grapefruit juice is good, and you have maybe fruit cup?” His Yiddish affectations grew stronger below Fourteenth Street. “Did I order right?”
“Pop!’ She tried to fix her eyes on him, but his kept darting away. “What is the story with Clarissa Silver?”
“You should write the Silvers a note.”
“What is this with her heart palpitations?”
“Heart palpitations,” echoed Abe with a shrug.
“Pop, you told me she was—”
“Who said anything about dying?” His hand reached across the table. “You get so upset. Why are you getting so upset? What did I say to upset you? Heart palpitations, big deal. You shouldn’t get so excited. No.” Opening his blue eyes wide, Abe about to discuss something delicate. “Your mother is concerned—”
“About Clarissa?”
“Fuck Clarissa.” A dismissive wave. “Heart palpitations. Everyone has heart palpitations. I have heart palpitations.” He downed his coffee. “Healthy as a horse.” And he laid Lyden’s note unconsciously by his plate. “No. You know how your mother gets.” And Abe did a little pantomime puppet show, dangling his fingers over his napkin. “Nyeh, nyeh, nyeh, nyeh.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“The truth is—I think—now don’t get upset. I didn’t say anything yet. At least until I tell the story, relax.” The old black waiter passed and again Abe grabbed him. “I’m going to need another bagel. Salt. Heavy on the butter.” The old man’s eyes blurred. “He heard me, right?”
“I’m not upset. I’m just confused now. Please tell me—”
“Clarissa is a little sick. That’s the truth, she has a little trouble—”
“She looks terrific.” Molly tucked her hair behind her ears.
“She does look terrific.” He relaxed back into his chair. “And I’m sure she’ll be fine, but Silver, he gets ideas, he gets worries. Write him a note, will you?”
“A get-well note?”
“No, no, no. About her heart you did not hear that from me. But the thing I’m trying to discuss with you is your mother—you promise you won’t get upset?”
“If it’s not a get-well note, what kind of note are you suggesting I write? And do I drop it in the mail, or do you want to deliver it by hand, like Lyden’s note? Are you in competition with the postmaster general?”
“You’ll take the letter?”
“Put it in the mail and I’ll get it.”
“I don’t understand. But you promise, right? You promise you won’t get upset.” If it was a question, Abe didn’t wait for the answer. “We were all happy to see you. We were. But the feeling that your mother had—she just…. She thought you ignored the Silvers, that they might have been hurt, insulted, and also, you’ll forgive me for mentioning it, but she wasn’t so crazy about your choice of friend.”
Molly glowered.
“You promised you wouldn’t get angry.”
“Pop,” she said, her voice flat as her pale gray eyes. “I don’t give a crap what you think about my friends.”
“She was dressed like a streetwalker.”
“I’m leaving.” Molly stood.
“Don’t.” He reached across the table, grabbed her wrist. “Forgive me, okay? Please forgive me. I know. I was wrong. Whatever I said. I’m sorry. It’s the way I am, I can’t help it. Look, I’m your father. Forgive me, hey? Oh, Molly—what comes out of my mouth? Half the time, even I don’t know. Your mother gets upset and it’s difficult for everyone. Just relax, okay? Accept my apology.”
Molly shrugged. “I’ll stick around. I need more coffee. I need some food.” Her stomach was settling, earlier bicarbonate of soda taking effect against her late night out and her drinking. “But don’t get nasty about my friends.”
They sat in silence, spreading cream cheese, cutting tomatoes, sipping coffee, munching fish. The crowd thinned, empty tables appeared. Abe’s eyebrows beetled and spread, his jaw working a thick piece of bread. Molly took her sturgeon lightly and drank coffee as if it were medicine.
“Anyway,” Abe said while chewing, “you don’t want to work with your father, that’s it?”
“Pop—”
“I’m just asking, that’s all. No harm in asking. But are you happy, that’s what I want to know.”
“I’m happy, Pop.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“It’s a job, Pop. I understand you don’t approve of the stories I cover, but I’m on the front page. And I made that story mine—Doyle, Houdini—no one gave it to me, I fought for that.”
“Will you?” He put down his cutlery. “You’re going to lecture me on what’s a story? You’re going to tell me what’s page one? Okay, you say you want independence, but then you tell me you have to fight to get a story there. You want independence? I can give you independence—”
Molly laughed.
“I’m being serious here. A lot of people would listen to Abe Goodman, a lot of people starting out in the newspaper business would be interested in his advice. And I’ll tell you, it is possible for a reporter to move from the kind of paper you’re working on and the kinds of stories you’re writing to things that are more substantial, more gratifying, more serious. But I tell you, people get marked. People confuse the reporter with the story he writes. You could spend your whole life working on cheese, on filler, on crap. Which would be a shame. Listen, I admire your brains, Molly, really. Every one of those assholes”—he gestured at the empty round table—“thinks you’re beautiful, a real doll, but believe me, maybe one or two recognize your intelligence, let alone your talent. They love you. A sweet face—they think they know you. No idea you’re as tough as the goddamn pavement. They never pay attention to your brains. Believe me. Genuinely, even though I’m your father, I admire. Not just because I’m your father, I think you could make a hell of an editor. You could take over Progress one day—”
“Pop, for now—”
“Will you? I’m making an offer no one in town is going to make. Nobody is going to talk to a fucking schoolgirl about being an editor. You’re not going to get a better job, and I’m not doing it out of charity. I’m putting my heart on the table here.”
Molly couldn’t swallow.
“Look, the newspaper business is going to shit. The Hearsts, the Knights, they’re buying up papers all over the country. And good papers fall apart every year. I’m getting old—”
“Pop—”
“Look, it’s not only Clarissa Silver you should worry about—”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing critical, but I’m not going to be around forever. I made a paper. That’s something. I’m proud of that. But I’m also proud of my daughter. Other fathers, they would look at a girl like you and say, What’s the matter? Twenty-two, beautiful, how come she hasn’t got a husband? I won’t say your mother is ashamed, but we both wonder: Why can’t Molly live in our house? Is there something wrong with our apartment? Is it not big enough?”
Molly lit a cigarette.
“You’re smoking now?”
“I’m smoking.” A trick she had maybe unconsciously learned from Carl, something to occupy her hands and mouth, a way to maintain poise in the face of Abe’s onslaught. The hunching of his shoulders, the rocking of his head, his fists pressing on the table, all the motions echoed in her skull, in her hangover, as if his sentences were beating not just on her headache but on her psyche. “Maybe you should give this line a rest. Maybe you should go back to the note I should write to the Silvers.”
But he ignored her, was watching the smoke rise from her burnt match. “Right. Of course you’re smoking. Why shouldn’t a woman smoke? Get modern, this is what I tell your mother. I say, Our Molly is a modern girl. This is not to be ashamed of, this is to be proud.” Their coffee got refilled. Abe continued: “So to my modern girl I say, do I want somebody else, anybody else at my paper? Of course not. I am blessed—this is what I tell everyone—I am blessed with a modern daughter. What’s the matter with Molly, why isn’t she married, why does she work so hard, a beautiful girl, a nice girl like that living in Greenwich Village? I could give them a fistful of newspaper clippings, but what would they see? This Weiss business—Houdini, Shmoudini, his name is Weiss—this tomorrow’s news today. What the hell is that? Thank you very much, but I want today’s paper. It’s killing me, really it is.” He shook his big head, his pale face pink with busted capillaries. Blood and feeling ran close to the top. “Spirits. Spooks. Magicians. What do you need this—”
“We’ve been through this, Pop.” She didn’t want to make a scene. She retreated far into herself, staring at him with unforgiving, unwavering gray eyes.
“I’m not saying it’s a bad job. It’s a fine job for some palooka just in from Des Moines, but for you? With your college education—for my daughter, the future editor—”
“Pop.” And she laid down her words carefully against his sloppy aggression, conscious of his vulnerability, and desperate to preserve his dignity as well as her own. “Let’s talk about something else.”
“I could give you your own column. Whatever you want to write.” His guileless eyes came to a rest. “I’m the easiest man to work for. Do you ever even think of it? I mean, seriously? Is it an option with you?”
“We could talk about the theater. Mayor Hylan. Babe Ruth—”
“I don’t understand. Is it me? Is it personal? I mean, you could take a job somewhere else. As a matter of fact, I was just talking to Lapides, Irv Lapides—don’t look at me like that, you just talked to him, Molly, two minutes ago. Lapides at the Post—you’re never going to get anywhere if you don’t keep track of people. Anyway, he’s a creep but no idiot and he says he can get you on staff. An evening paper, Molly, and a respectable one—evening paper means not so many late nights—”
She grabbed his pointing hand.
“Dad,” she said, still holding his wrist in her fingers. “I’m not going to work for you.”
“Not this year? Or not ever? Am I that horrible?”
“Oh, Pop. You’re wonderful.” She let go. “But you’re impossible. Tell me about that letter from Lyden—”
“Oh, Lyden, what a schmuck. He dropped the letter, and you know what your Freudian mother would say: That couldn’t be an accident. He dropped the letter and I saw it addressed to you, I grabbed it. He tried to take it away, the schmuck, but I told him I was going to see you—Will you take it, Molly? Because I promised I’d give it to you, and if you don’t get it, well, then he’ll think I pocketed it or something like that.”
She took the letter, imagining Lyden Silver humiliated, enraged, and wanting to break Abe Goodman’s jaw. “You shouldn’t stick your fingers in other people’s business,” she said.
“That’s news,” said Abe, and he sighed, his large shoulders falling. “Do you remember,” he asked, “when I took you to see Houdini when you were kids? It was a terrible mistake. Carl, of course, Carl loved it, but you were three years old and it scared the pants off you.”
“We went to a theater?”
“No, no, he was doing one of those crazy promotions. He had a show going, and you know how he used to do it. A public stunt in a public place. Herald Square, I think. They hung him, I can’t remember, was it from a crane or a building? Carl and Lyden jumping up and down to see. They put him in a straitjacket and hung him, like from chains. People were pointing and gasping, and my little girl started to cry. Oy, she started bawling. I thought it was perfect for you. Such an idiot, I thought you would enjoy. But what did I know? Like usual, nothing. Houdini struggles, he kicks off the jacket—I’m a newspaperman, I’m supposed to be watching careful, but instead I’m on my knees on Broadway, saying to my little girl, It’s okay, it’s okay. The man is going to be okay. He does this for a living. God knows what I said. I was such an idiot to take you there. Your mother told me not to take you. Anyway, the magician gets free, the crowd applauds, but not my Molly. She is crying for the rest of the afternoon. All you did was cry. Clinging to your daddy. In those days, I used to be able to do something for you. I could put you on my knee. For weeks you had nightmares. And I used to sit by you, thinking what an asshole I had been.”