Two

From where the boy sat, on the hill above the playing fields, the grass appeared to be black. There was, he knew, a physical explanation: the sun, setting in the west, was in his eyes so that he squinted, and the breeze, coming from behind him, was blowing the blades of grass away, in shadows, all down the slope of the hill. The soft blackness, coming after lush green, comforted him.

Beyond the playing fields, upon which boys were working out in football uniforms and girls were playing field hockey, the school itself seemed cold and beautiful to him. There were no turrets, no towers, no old stone, no shadowy recesses: it was all rectangular and shining, and this pleased him. He imagined that he was sitting just inside the rim of an enormous plastic dome, his back grazed by its hard smoothness; the frantic yelling of the girls and the chants of the boys, rising to him, were buffered by the enclosure so that, reaching his ears, the sharpness of each isolated cry was gone. The dome seemed to be protecting them all from harm.

He thought he could hear the panting and feel the warm breath of each individual girl. They wore blue skirts and white blouses; those who sat on the sidelines, or watched the boys practicing, wore blue blazers with red and silver emblems on the left breast pockets.

Some of the boys were pushing blocking tackles, grunting like cattle. Other boys stood along the sidelines, and on the edges of the fields, away from the games, he saw boys and girls with each other, lounging on the grass. He wondered if they would kiss in front of their teachers.

He heard a rustling and his heart thumped. He didn’t want to be caught or questioned before he had done things his way. He stood and lifted his green sack, shielding his eyes with his left hand. He saw her skirt first, and then her thigh—the knee was lifted and bent slightly. She had her back against a thick birch tree and the boy held on to the tree with both hands as he pressed into her. Their blazers were folded into one another like rich drapery, and he saw the boy’s hand move underneath her school emblem. Behind the calf her ankle gripped the boy’s leg. Their school-books were scattered around them among the ferns.

He watched them for a while, mesmerized by the rotating motion of their heads as they kissed one another. His heartbeats came more slowly, and he felt calm again. He didn’t, he realized, even feel jealous of them. They seemed to kiss so quietly that he actually felt that he wanted to be able to tell them how happy he was for them….

He moved to his left, along the ridge where he had been sitting; the sun, molten orange, was now below the tree line and he could see more easily. The shadows on the playing field were longer, the colors, in the afterlight of the bright sun, more intense. The green of the lawns was more profound, more lush, and the trees seemed larger. The glass windows of the school buildings, without any reflections, were black, and he could now see beyond the buildings themselves to what looked like formal gardens: hedgerows, mazes, clusters of color among the green rows, geometric shapes along borders. There were flashes of reds and yellows along trellises, and more delicate pinks and purples and blues within the rows. He realized that he knew nothing about trees and flowers, not even their names.

The students seemed to have such easy ways with one another! He watched them shout and wave, touch briefly, and then move off. He imagined this: that the girls were, as they ran across the field chasing one another, swimming in clear green water. Their motions were fluid. He was unaware of their shrieks. The sunlight, coming through the trees at a low slanting angle now, tempered the driving bull-like movements of the boys. Their drills were mechanical, yet graceful. The football spiraled through the air soundlessly. He had never, he felt, seen any scene that was so peaceful—as if, he thought, the boys and girls were about to do things. As if, really, they were not even there and what he was seeing was an empty field, and images that they were watching with him—images that they would, when they played on the field itself, imitate with perfection.

He thought of a story he knew about a king, Frederick II, who ruled Italy in the thirteenth century, and who had wanted to know what language was the true language of mankind. He had therefore placed a group of newborn infants in a room together in the remote part of his castle and raised them so that they were clothed, fed, and nurtured without ever hearing the sound of an adult voice. His philosophers observed them. In this way the king believed he would discover what the true universal language of man was.

There were women who fondled and kissed and played with and loved the children, and the children seemed normal in all ways: they ate, they crawled, they cried, they laughed, they walked, they played-all without ever hearing the sound of a human voice.

Then, one morning, when the servants opened the door they found that the children had, during the night, all died. The oldest child was not yet four and the youngest just past three. The king grieved, for he had loved the children.

It was a story, Danny thought, that would have appealed to Dr. Fogel.

He saw the girls running together, their hockey sticks in the air, toward the buildings. The boys lined up in rows and were racing in groups, as hard as they could, toward the far sideline. They ran with their helmets off and they swallowed air in giant gulps. Boys in blazers collected the balls and equipment.

Danny felt hungry. He had not eaten since nine that morning, when he had had two Hershey bars and a Coke. He felt his stomach flutter, and he hurried down the hill, digging his heels into the sod for balance. His palms were moist and his throat dry. His thighs quivered slightly, as if his pores were about to open and allow the sweat to rush out over his skin. Under his arms, the soft hairs were already drenched.

He breathed slowly and deeply and walked to the man with the megaphone and clipboard. In their uniforms, with shoulder pads and hip pads under the red jerseys and blue pants, the players seemed monstrous to him. Their faces, framed above the red and blue bulges of fabric, seemed absurdly young. Some of them were his own age, though most seemed older.

When he spoke, his voice was stronger than he had expected it to be. He had planned to recite the Home’s motto first, so that he would be able to see Charlie’s eyes sparkle with illumination, but now that he was in the midst of the actual situation he found that he felt so totally disconnected that he could recover only by speaking to the point.

“My name is Danny Ginsberg,” he said, “and I come from the Home. I came here to tell you that it’s going to close soon. You have to save it.”

“What?”

Charlie turned, the megaphone moving sideways in an are, and he looked down into the boy’s face. “Next—ready—go—!” he yelled to the last row of boys, and they sprinted across the field, helmets cradled under arms or swinging by their sides. “Move your fat sissy ass, Hills!” he called, and, winking at Danny, he started out across the field himself. He caught up to the players before they were halfway to the other side, and he whacked the clipboard against their rear ends, one after the other. Then he veered to the left and yelled for all the boys to follow him.

They ran around the field three times, and Danny, inside the circle, turned slowly to watch their progress. Charlie drifted among the runners, now taking the lead, now dropping back to force stragglers toward the front of the group. On their fourth time around he led them through the goalposts and yelled to them to sprint to the building. Danny felt cold, watching them.

Charlie trotted to him, smiling, then leaned over, hands on thighs, chest heaving, and he thought, if I make it to forty, I’ll make it to fifty. He pressed his hand against his chest, on his blue nylon windbreaker, and he felt his heart pumping hard and fast. The tones were strong. He touched his fingertips to his wrist and watched the second hand move on his watch. Seventeen months to go.

“Come on,” he said, impatiently. “Tell me again. Talk to me. Talk to me—”

Danny shivered. He watched the sweat pour off Charlie’s face, and he saw, where Charlie had been pressing his hand against his chest, a moist dark handprint. Danny stared.

“Come on,” Charlie said again, sucking in air and taking his pulse a second time. His rate was dropping fast. He noticed the boy’s hazel eyes. “Come on. Talk to me—”

“My name is Danny Ginsberg and I come from the Home. I came here to tell you that it’s going to close soon. You have to save it.”

“Haven’t we met somewhere before?” Charlie asked, and laughed at the line. He put his arm around the boy’s shoulders. “Listen, Danny—that’s what you said your name was, right?—you eat steak and drink lots of milk and work with the weights and then try us again next year, okay?”

“But I’m from the Home!” Danny cried, and he pulled away. “I saw you in the city—in Brooklyn—and I recognized you from your photos. I’ll prove it—I’ll give you facts.”

Charlie squatted, so that he was just below the boy’s eye level. The boy’s hair, with slanting rays of light filtering through from behind, seemed to float just above his head in golden puffs. In his head, Charlie was making lists of things to do for the evening and for the next day. “Listen,” he said, laughing at himself. “Do you know what I do some times?-If I finish something that wasn’t on a list I made, I write the thing down anyway just so I can cross it out.” He clapped Danny on the shoulder. “What do you make of that?”

“You’re not listening to me,” Danny said. “I saw you in the city. I come from there—from the Home—and I need a place to stay. Please. Would you let me stay with you for a while?”

Charlie brushed a picture of Sol from his head. “Let you what?”

“I can prove things,” Danny said. “Dr. Fogel was the coach. The laundry room used to be behind the boiler room in the West Wing. Dr. Fogel gave out nipples if you acted like—”

“Hold on, hold on—” Charlie bent down again, let his clipboard and megaphone drop, and took the boy’s hands in his own. “You mean you came from there today?”

He watched the boy nod, and he saw the tears in the boy’s eyes.

“And you told me that they’re going to close it and that you ran away to come stay with me, right?”

The boy nodded his head again, but did not speak.

“Christ!” Charlie said, and then Danny saw the light in Charlie’s eyes that he had dreamt of seeing.

Charlie shook his head, half laughing, half helpless. “What do you make of that?—I mean, what do you make of it?”

“I won’t be a bother,” Danny said. “I have some money. I could help you learn to read. I—”

“You know about that, huh?” Charlie ran his tongue along his lower gums, searching for something sweet. He let go of the boy’s hands and stood. He heard screaming and cursing from inside the building, and in his head he could see the boys snapping towels at one another and grabbing balls. “I mean, you have to see that this interferes with my life, right?”

“Yes,” Danny said, and he could see the sentence that he’d memorized, as if the words were hanging in front of him: “But this is what I figured out that made me come—if they close the Home, then when you die and I die there’ll be no living memory of what we were like when we were boys.”

Charlie blinked. “How old did you say you were?” he asked.

“I’ll be thirteen soon.” Danny showed Charlie his green sack. “I have my talis and tephillin with me. Dr. Fogel taught me how to put them on.”

“And what you’re looking for,” Charlie said, amused at the words that had occurred to him, “is a home away from the Home, right?”

Danny nodded, and, as Charlie smiled, he saw the slender white scar appear on Charlie’s lower lip. Charlie put his arm around the boy’s shoulders. “We’ll try to work something out, all right? Here—” He handed him the clipboard and used one of Sol’s lines: “Do something for your country. Carry this.”

They walked across the lawn, in silence. Charlie liked these autumn evenings, after a good workout. He needed the silence to fill up on. He held the door open, so that Danny passed inside, under his arm. “But listen,” he said, “why’d you pick me?”

Danny shrugged. “I liked the way you looked in the pictures on the walls there….” The lights were off in the corridor, and the change, from the daylight, made it seem black, with spots flickering in a funnel shape toward the far end. “And then when I saw you in the street last week I just…” Danny stopped. “I don’t know. It seemed right.”

“I want you to meet Murray—Murray Mendelsohn. I’ll shower first and then we’ll see if he’s still in his office. He’s from the Home too—you knew that, didn’t you? He got me the job here—he’s the headmaster.”

“I saw his pictures on the walls,” Danny said. “But I never looked him up. I didn’t know he was here.”

“He’ll be glad to meet you,” Charlie said. They walked down the hallway. The sound of Charlie’s cleats, metal on tile, was like rain; the only light came from the windows to classrooms. Charlie said that Murray took a great interest in the Home—in its history, in what happened to all the boys. He told Danny that Murray had once organized an alumni association.

Inside an enormous gymnasium Danny saw braided climbing ropes, with mats underneath. He thought of Dr. Fogel, and when he did he knew why—he could see coils of rope on the sea-blown deck of the ship Dr. Fogel’s father had come on. He followed Charlie into the locker room. All the players were gone.

Charlie started to undress, and Danny sat on a bench in front of the lockers, the clipboard on his lap, waiting. Danny looked down at the diagrams of football plays—circles and X’s and arrows and broken lines. “The truth is,” Charlie said, “you said the right things to get what you wanted from me and that’s something I like in people. It’s a quality I look for.”

As they drove up the driveway, the car lights illuminating two rows of rhododendrons that led to the garage, two small lights moved toward them, from the left. Danny thought he was hearing the sound of subway trains. The lights continued toward them, growing larger, up a slope, then onto a level even with the driveway.

Danny got out of the car and stood by Charlie’s side. He smelled wood smoke, sweet and pungent. In the open doorway of an enormous white house he saw faces of children, one above the other. The two lights, from the left, were almost upon them and they blinded him momentarily, so that he looked away, surprised to find himself frightened.

The machine—orange and black, with wide grooved wheels—stopped a few feet in front of them. The grinding and chugging noises were gone. Danny looked at the stars, through the leaves of the high trees that surrounded them, and he found himself wishing that the lawnmower were a tractor, the house a barracks, and the stars those looking down on a border settlement in Israel. There, he felt, sharing danger among Jewish boys and girls who had grown up with one another, away from their real parents, he would never need to have explanations ready for anybody.

Murray walked toward them, through an opening in the rhododendrons. He wore a blue blazer with the red and white school emblem on its left breast pocket, and he was smoking a pipe. Danny recognized the face from the photos—a series of circles, pinched together in the middle of a round, pockmarked face. Small rimless glasses magnified a pair of small round eyes. He was only an inch or two taller than Danny, if that, and despite the round lips and bulbous nose he was very thin.

Charlie was saying something about interrupting Murray in his oblivion and Murray was shaking Charlie’s hand and telling him how glad he was that he’d come by. He told Charlie that he had good news. Charlie said he would have time for one drink, and when he glanced at Danny, Danny put his hand forward, believing Murray wanted to shake it.

“My name is Danny Ginsberg and I come from the Home,” he said. “I recognize you from your pictures.”

Murray did not take Danny’s hand. He was touching the steering wheel of his mower and joking about it. He said his mower was the only thing his wife was jealous of. “It’s the free time, I suppose, that she’d like to have with me for doing nothing. Anita is gifted that way,” he said to Charlie. “She’s not like you and me. She can enjoy doing nothing.”

“Hey!” Charlie said, squeezing Murray’s arm above the elbow. “Shut up and listen to somebody else for a change. The kid told you he’s from the Home—from our Home.”

“They’re going to close it,” Danny said.

Murray looked toward the house, gesturing to his children to come forward and join him. “I’m very sorry,” he said. “We’ll have to talk about that, won’t we?”

Danny stepped back and he thought: Murray can call Mr. Gitelman and they’ll make me go back!

Three children ran up the walkway yelling Charlie’s name—calling him “Uncle Charlie”—and asking if he were going to stay for dinner. Charlie lifted the three of them at once, in a bear hug. Then he swung the youngest girl around and asked for a kiss. “Okay,” he said, setting her down. “Here’s the question of the day—are you ready?” They nodded, all eyes. “What’s the difference between a duck?”

“It’s a problem,” Murray was saying. “I keep in touch, you know. A Mr. Gitelman—I’ve had correspondence with him. I know things have been going downhill.”

“His left hind foot is both the same!” the children squealed. “His left hind foot is both the same!”

A woman emerged from the house, wiping her hands on an apron. Two older children, a boy and a girl, were with her. Danny wished he could laugh with the children. Why had they found Charlie’s riddle so funny? Why did he feel so incapable of laughing at silliness? It was something he had always been afraid of at the Home—his inability to enjoy nonsense or horsing around—and yet he did not want to change, he knew, not even for Charlie.

He watched Murray’s wife kiss Charlie, and this made him feel better—less fearful somehow that Charlie would want to return him. Danny took the woman’s hand when she offered it to him. “I’m Anita,” she said. “And these are our children.”

They were lined up in front of him, and when they each stepped forward and shook his hand, they gave him their names and ages: Ephraim—fifteen, Hannah—fourteen, Dov—eight, Rivka—six, and Eli—four.

Anita took Charlie’s arm and led him toward the house. “I’m sorry you didn’t get in touch with Sol in time,” she said. “Murray told me about your plan falling through.”

“Good lord,” Murray said. “Are you going to encourage him—?”

“Have you heard from him at all?” she asked.

Charlie said he hadn’t, but that it was probably just as well. Dov and Rivka grabbed Murray’s sleeves and yanked, asking him when Uncle Sol was coming to stay with them. “When your Uncle Charlie finally grows up,” Murray answered, and he walked into the house.

Charlie laughed. Danny followed him inside, into an enormous kitchen. In the center of the room a large oval table was already set for supper. White cloth napkins, beside each plate, were rolled inside silver rings. The table was made of oak, and Danny saw that its pedestal was carved in the shape of lions’ paws. The room reminded him of rooms he’d seen at the Brooklyn Museum, next to the library—of one of the reproductions of a genuine colonial home. There were wood beams in the ceiling, copper pots and saucepans hanging above the stove, and painted plates—with flowers and butterflies in swirling colors—hung on the walls. The floor was made of wide, smooth pine boards. Danny remembered how he had, at the museum, imagined that he was the guard, and how he saw himself, at night, when the museum was empty, taking out his lunch bag and entering one of the old dining rooms and eating there, at a table set with silver.

He wanted to tell Anita how beautiful her kitchen was, but when he spoke he said something else: “All your children have Hebrew names.”

“That’s right,” Murray said. “It’s interesting that you should have noticed that, isn’t it?”

“He’s a sharp kid,” Charlie said. “Dr. Fogel’s been teaching him things.”

“He’s from the Home,” Murray explained to Anita, “and he told Charlie that they’re going to close it.”

Anita looked up from the oven, where she was basting a roast with a syringe. “But you knew that already, didn’t you?”

“Not officially,” Murray said.

Charlie put his arm around Danny’s shoulders, and Danny found himself stiffening. The children moved quietly around the room, getting things ready, as if, Danny thought, by prearranged signals. He watched Ephraim set two new places and rearrange the place mats around the table. He didn‘t want Charlie to tell Murray anything else, but he had no way of saying so. “Danny’s the reason I can wait to get in touch with Sol,” Charlie said. “Danny’s going to be living with me for a while.”

Murray started to say something, but checked himself and sighed: “And what am I supposed to say to that?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Charlie said. “I didn’t go out and find the kid—he came to me.”

“Did I ask you for an explanation?”

“You said you had good news,” Charlie said, sharply, and he walked away from Danny. Danny saw Anita smiling, her cheeks flushed. “I’ve heard so much about Dr. Fogel,” she commented. “Except for Sol, I think you talk more about him than anyone else.”

Murray removed three glasses from a small three-shelf oak cabinet next to the pantry. On the top shelf, behind the glass door, Danny saw a silver spice box—a tsumin box-that was used for making Havdalah when Shabbos was over. There was a blue and white braided candle next to the box. Danny stepped toward the cabinet. He had never seen a real tsumin box before, except in photos. The box, about eight inches high, looked like a tiny minaret, and Danny wanted to touch it, to tinkle its bells, to open the door on the side and sniff the spices. He felt Charlie’s eyes on him, and he stopped. Why would a man like Charlie—the thought was in his head for the first time—want to let him stay?

Murray poured sherry into three glasses. “He’s an interesting man. I’ll admit that.” He held his pipe by its bowl, pointing the stem toward Charlie. “What I mean is—I’ve said it before—he’s the kind of man you remember. Like Sol. He stands out. Even now—and I haven’t seen him for at least ten years—I can hear his voice, his sayings.”

At the peak of the minaret was a silver flag. Danny forced himself to look away from the tsumin box, and he now noticed other things—a brass menorah, with lions of Judah on either side of a Star of David, above the fireplace; a mezuzah on the doorpost; a silver Kiddush cup and a stack of yamulkas on a table by the door; a United Jewish Appeal poster tacked up inside the pantry. These things should have made him more comfortable, he thought, yet they didn’t. They seemed out of place to him in the large house, and because he felt that they did, he also felt, to his surprise, ashamed somehow.

Ephraim spoke: “Was he the one who gave out the nipples?”

Murray laughed. “That’s right.” He handed Charlie a glass. “He knew what things make impressions on children. I think about him a lot at school, you know. Children remember people who say things that are different—and who keep repeating them.”

“It must be why they cling to you,” Anita said to Charlie. She filled a tray with pale yellow buns and put it in the oven.

“We really can’t stay for dinner,” Charlie said. “I want to get us set up at home.” He smiled at Anita, and spoke for Murray’s benefit: “And I want to start looking for another place, right?” He counted on his fingers. “If Danny stays there and then Sol comes too, that’s two deductions right off. Then you could set up an alumni room in the basement, we could have one room for an office—maybe Danny could bring in some more friends and before you knew it, with all the write-offs, I’d wind up with a profit.”

“I know when you’re teasing me,” Murray said, without smiling. “But I also know that in part of you you’re serious about a scheme like that, aren’t you?”

Charlie laughed easily. “Could be,” he said.

Danny felt faint. He backed to the door. The fragrance of the spices, he knew, was supposed to represent the sweetness of the Sabbath—a sweetness intended to linger all week long. “Please,” Anita said. “Murray needs to relax, to unwind—if you go away he’ll spend the evening in his study, finding work. When he finishes mowing, that is.” She sipped her sherry. “My husband mows by moonlight.”

“Mower power to him,” Charlie said, and Anita frowned, though her eyes smiled.

“Do you remember the saying Fogel had that used to get us all upset?” Murray asked. “That money can buy everything in life but a mother, father, and brains?”

“It never upset me,” Charlie said. “It’s true.”

Anita pretended to shiver. “I don’t like that saying,” she said.

The fragrance of the roast and the buns filled Danny’s nostrils. He wanted to touch the tsumin box, to press its cold silver against his cheek. Hannah poured water into glasses. The three younger children were gone. “Ephraim,” Anita said, “why don’t you show Danny your room?”

“No,” Charlie said. “Just give us your news and we’ll head out. Your husband’s workday may be over, but mine is just starting.” He smiled at Ephraim. “You know what Charlie always says—for everyone who drinks the wine, there’s one who stomps the grapes, right?”

“See what I mean?” Murray said. “I’ve heard countless students repeat those very words.”

Charlie shrugged, uninterested. “What’s your news?” he asked. Anita removed the buns from the oven and painted their tops with a brush. Charlie saw her look away, briefly, and then Danny saw the happiness appear in Charlie’s eyes. “Again?” Charlie asked.

Murray nodded and Charlie embraced him, then hugged and kissed Anita also. “How far along?”

“Third month,” Anita said. “At least that’s what Dr. Shapiro says—for all doctors ever know about these things.”

Danny heard somebody practicing scales on a piano. Then he heard the sound of a flute. Murray took Hannah to him and smoothed her blond hair as she leaned against him. Danny watched her breasts move underneath her white blouse. “Hannah has been studying ecology at school,” Murray stated, “and did a report on the world population explosion, so we had to have quite a discussion, didn’t we?”

Hannah nodded.

“I explained to her that, as Jews, while we do not of course have any special dispensation, we do have certain unique obligations, to our people and to our past. I put it this way—and only for people who already feel the way we do—” he paused for effect, “I say this: we’re not overpopulating, we’re replacing.”

Danny felt gooseflesh rise on his arms, and, at the same time, he realized that he was wishing Murray had not given Charlie the news. He didn’t want Charlie to be distracted.

“You breed good news,” Charlie said.

Murray sighed, as if relaxing, and, putting his arm around Charlie’s shoulders, he walked with him from the house. “Anita’s right, you know. We need more time together—we see each other at school, on weekends, but when do we sit and do nothing? How often do we drink things in and appreciate what’s become of our lives—our children, our friends, our careers, our home….”

Outside, in the darkness, Danny felt as if he could breathe again.

“You know what I’d like to see?” Charlie asked. “Most of all?”

“What?” Murray asked.

“I’d like to see you out here some beautiful spring day, mowing your lawn, with your kids grown up and a bunch of grandchildren all around. I’d be sitting under a tree with Anita and she’d be knitting, and there’d be a great big shit-eating grin on your face as you drove by, your grandchildren waving at you—and then suddenly Anita would jump up and yell, and—pipe and all—you’d ride right over the edge and into your pool—!”

Murray laughed and swung at Charlie’s shoulder with his fist, but Charlie caught his fist and squeezed until Murray cried out in pain.

“I’ve warned him,” Anita said. “I’ve told him not to mow at night. The pool is still full.”

“But he’s Murray the Mower,” Charlie said.

From the doorway the children chanted in singsong: “Mur-ray the Mow-er… Mur-ray the Mow-er…”

“There’s no point in draining it yet,” Murray argued. “Why did we pay to get a heated pool if we don’t use it at this time of year?”

Charlie sat in the car. Anita held Danny back slightly, by the arm, and whispered to him to take care of Charlie, to promise to see that he didn’t work so hard.

Charlie looked past Danny, out the car window, into the blackness, and, in his head, he saw the tables in the main dining room, set with white linen cloths and the Home’s special Passover plates and silverware. It was black outside the dining room windows also, and most of the boys were swaying from side to side and flopping into each other, to prove how much wine they’d had to drink.

Dr. Fogel sat at the head table, on two huge white pillows. Murray sat next to him on a single pillow, helping him run the Seder. The director, the counselors, and several guests-former orphans who had become successful doctors or lawyers or businessmen but who, like Sol, had no families of their own, sat with them.

Charlie wondered: am I still the simplest son? He remembered the story they had read, about the four sons—the wise son, the wicked son, the simple son, and the son-who-doesn’t-know-how-to-ask. The wise son asked for the meaning of the Passover laws. The wicked son asked, “What do you mean by this Seder?” and by using the word “you” he did not include himself. The simple son asked what it was all about. But the simplest son said nothing—and Charlie could see Murray calling upon him to read the part from the Passover Haggadah. Even now, more than twenty years later, Charlie felt, all over again, slightly nauseated with helplessness. He heard the silence as the three hundred boys waited for him to read and then, realizing that they made the connection—Murray had chosen him because everyone knew he had trouble reading—he heard their raucous laughter fill the room and he saw Murray smile at him triumphantly.

Charlie saw Dr. Fogel stand and point to the cup of wine that had been set out for the prophet Elijah. It was much later and the Seder was almost over. Some of the boys were sleeping with their heads on the tables. The dishes—all but the wineglasses—had been cleared.

Charlie heard Dr. Fogel say that the coming of Elijah would herald the coming of the Messiah. The Jewish People had been chosen to be a blessing unto all nations, and all nations would, in the time of the Messiah, know why. The joy and freedom of the Seder—the singing and drinking and being allowed to eat as one wished, sitting or reclining—was but a small taste of the Olam Habah—the world to come. They would open the door for Elijah, Dr. Fogel said, and they would pray to God and ask Him to pour out His wrath upon the heathen who did not know His name. They would ask Him to destroy those who had destroyed the House of Jacob….

The room was absolutely still. Charlie heard Dr. Fogel speak again. “We will now open the door so that Elijah may come in and join us. Let the stranger and the homeless—let all those who are hungry and poor—let the widowed and the orphaned—let them enter also!”

Charlie saw the back of his own head as he turned to face the doorway. A group of boys raced to it, fighting with each other for the honor, and when they had shoved it open, there was Sol, a big grin on his face. The boys all gasped—and then they cheered. Dr. Fogel began chanting the prayer, looked up, and stopped. Sol stepped into the room, laughing and waving. Charlie remembered how his own heart had leapt, how he had run from his chair and tried to get through the pack of boys surrounding Sol. “It’s Elijah! It’s Elijah!” they had all screamed, and Charlie had joined with them.

When Sol had reached the head table, and was shaking hands with the other men, Dr. Fogel was gone.

Charlie wondered what Dr. Fogel would do when the Home closed. He smiled to himself, thinking of telling Murray that he’d take him in also, and let Fogel and Sol fight it out for the leadership of his new Home! He heard Murray lecturing him about trying to turn everything into a joke, but he knew, at the same time, that he was really worried about Sol. Did Murray know that? Did Murray understand that taking Danny in was more than a crazy scheme? Charlie admitted that, like Sol, he liked being the center of attention, he liked thinking of people laughing and repeating stories of things he’d done. The story of Sol coming through the door had become a Home legend within days, and, at his own Seders, Murray would now tell the story to his children every year. But Charlie also believed in the things he did and the schemes he thought up.

He reached across the back of the front car seat with his right hand and patted Danny’s head. He answered the boy’s question and told him that it was true, Dr. Fogel had really been the coach, and he added that he had been the best coach because he’d never played himself and didn’t know how to. He told Danny that if he’d learned one thing in all his years at the Home it had been the thing Dr. Fogel had taught him—that desire is everything. Dr. Fogel had wanted to know how to do something he would never be able to do.

Danny shrugged and said that Charlie was a great athlete and now he was a coach too, and Charlie was surprised—pleased—by the boy’s sharpness. “Sure,” he said, “I was a natural—but it’s what made me work even harder, don’t you see? I can never know what it’s like to desire things I already have.”

Danny laughed. “Everything is upside down sometimes, isn’t it?”

They drove in silence on dark winding roads where the houses were set far back, behind walls or trees or hedges. Charlie was glad to see the boy more relaxed than he’d been in Murray’s house. He listened to the boy tell him that Dr. Fogel had given him a book, and that he tried to memorize something from the book every day. Danny recited something in Hebrew, but Charlie didn’t pay attention. “I can remember when it used to be romantic to be an orphan,” he said. “I got a lot of mileage with girls when I was younger, being an orphan.” He looked at Danny. “But who gives a shit about orphans anymore, right?”

Danny nodded. “We’re an endangered species,” he said.

“A what?” Charlie asked, but before Danny could repeat himself, Charlie was laughing and telling Danny that he’d have to remember the line for Murray.

Danny saw a sign in the front window, a red neon light: Mittleman Realty. “I think I’m very hungry,” he said. He looked down at his legs, at the cloth sack on his lap. “But—but I’m not sure I can get out of the car.”

Charlie was trying to make the boy understand. “Don’t get me wrong about what I said before,” he said. “Don’t think I’m one of those guys who’ll keep going forever, never satisfied. I have a plan, right? When I get to forty, I stop—whether I’ve made my bundle or not.”

“And then?” Danny asked.

“Then—? Then I’ll become a rabbi.”

Danny felt his heart jerk. “Really?” he asked.

“Sure,” Charlie said, and he laughed in a way that made Danny feel uncomfortable. He got out of the car and walked around to Danny’s side. When he reached in for him, Danny shook his head sideways, leaned on the seat, pushed himself up, and stepped out. His legs were cold.

“I didn’t have to say it—that I felt as if I couldn’t move, did I?” Danny asked.

They walked up the front steps and into the house. A woman called and asked if it was Charlie and he called back that it was and that he had someone with him.

“Rabbi Akiba started out from home when he was forty,” Danny said. “And he didn’t even know how to read and write. When he returned to his village six years later he was already the most famous scholar in the land of Israel.”

Charlie patted Danny on the shoulder. “I had him in mind,” he said.

Charlie embraced Mrs. Mittleman. “How’s my sweetheart tonight?” he asked.

Danny watched the woman’s eyes, over Charlie’s shoulder. They were slate gray, and they stared at him coldly. “I’m Danny Ginsberg,” he said. “I telephoned you two days ago.”

“Of course,” Mrs. Mittleman said, stepping away from Charlie. “I would have thought you were older—on the telephone your voice was much older—but come. Max is already showing his movies. You’ll enjoy them. Are you hungry?” She smiled. “You must be.”

She left them. Charlie hung his jacket in the hall closet and spoke to Danny, softly. “It goes against what most people think, my living here, but it’s the very thing people resist too much. Just relax with her if she seems jealous. She likes to think of me as her only child, if you know what I mean. That’s desire too, right? They never had a son, I never had parents. We fill one another’s needs. It’s what lets things work out.”

Danny took his jacket off but held on to his sack. “How much will you tell her?” he asked.

He followed Charlie through a dark room where there were desks and file cabinets. The neon light flashed red on the inside walls. “Like with you,” Charlie went on. “I mean, my wanting you to stay with me. We know the reasons, right? So why fight them?”

“Sometimes you don’t answer my questions.”

“Come on now,” Charlie said, taking Danny and pressing him to his side. “What are you so scared of? Let’s put it this way—I always wanted a kid brother and you probably wanted an older one like me, right?”

They were in the living room and Mrs. Mittleman stood in front of them, blocking images on a movie screen, plates in her hands. “I don’t think so,” Danny said to Charlie. “Not really.”

“We’ll work on it then.”

Mrs. Mittleman led Danny to a metal folding chair and he sat. She set up a TV tray in front of him and put a sandwich and a glass of milk on it. “This will hold you while the chicken warms,” she said.

Mr. Mittleman, sitting on a three-legged stool next to a movie projector, grunted slightly, acknowledging Charlie’s presence. Charlie sat on the couch, his arm along the back, Mrs. Mittleman’s head resting on his arm. He balanced a plate on his lap. Danny bit into his sandwich and looked at Mr. Mittleman. He was a thin man with a large round head. He wore a jacket, a white shirt, and a tie, and he was smoking a cigar. Without looking at any of them, and without removing the cigar from his mouth, he spoke to Charlie. “Here’s a new one—what’s the difference between a Jew and a pizza?”

“I give up,” Charlie said. “What’s the difference between a Jew and a pizza?”

Mr. Mittleman’s voice was even and dry, and his lips did not seem to move when he spoke. “When you put a pizza in the oven, it doesn’t scream.”

Nobody laughed.

“Danny’s going to be staying here with me for a while,” Charlie said to Mrs. Mittleman. “If that’s okay with you—”

“Of course,” she said.

“It’s my house too,” Mr. Mittleman said. “I pay the bills and tell the jokes.”

On the screen, in black and white, a boy and girl were in a bathtub together, the boy spilling water on the girl’s head. “Max has home movies of his whole family,” Charlie explained to Danny. “It’s his hobby. He has films going way back—”

“To 1933, the year we were married,” Mr. Mittleman said.

The film fluttered. Mr. Mittleman rested his hand lightly on the reel, the sprockets caught, and a man was wrapping the boy in a towel. Then the boy was being tossed up and down toward the ceiling.

“Danny’s from the Home,” Charlie said. “Where I grew up.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Mittleman said. “I know.”

Mr. Mittleman looked toward Danny for the first time. “You know something?” he said. “He looks like an orphan.” Then his eyes were on the screen again. “But Shirley will fatten him up.”

Danny dug his fingers into the side of his sack and he could feel the ridges of the tephillin boxes. He tried to concentrate on a passage from the Pirkay Avos that he had memorized, about love. He was aware that Charlie was telling the Mittlemans about Murray’s news and that Mr. Mittleman was telling a story about a Jewish man who had tried every form of birth control and had ten hungry children. The doctor recommended orange juice. “‘Before or after?’ the husband asked. ‘Instead of,’ the doctor said.”

Charlie was saying that he was happy for Murray and Anita. He said that Murray seemed cold about things, because of his theories, but that it wasn’t so. Mr. Mittleman, on the screen, twenty pounds heavier and twenty or thirty years younger, puffed smoke into the camera. “I was once a young man,” Mr. Mittleman said.

“I like Murray and Anita,” Mrs. Mittleman said. “I think their family has a beautiful image.”

“My wife thought the Kennedy family had a beautiful image,” Mr. Mittleman said.

Charlie asked Mrs. Mittleman if he’d ever told her that even before he’d come to live with them, he’d often seen movies in his head. Danny smiled.

“If his brother had lived to become President I don’t think his image would have been as good as John’s, do you?” Mrs. Mittleman asked. “He was too emotional.”

Charlie looked at the film, in color now, of a boy jumping up and down in a wading pool. Mrs. Mittleman and her brother Oscar and Oscar’s wife sat in wicker chairs watching, and Charlie realized that he had, again, been seeing pictures of Sol. Sol was with Jerry the waiter, who worked in the Catskills in the summer and spent his winters in Florida, and Charlie saw them sitting in a box together at Hialeah racetrack. “They’re thinking of closing the Home,” Charlie said. “But we’ll see what we can do. Danny and I are going to work on it.”

“It’s the new abortion laws,” Danny stated. “They can’t find enough orphans anymore—especially Jewish orphans.”

“There must be an angle for us there, Max, don’t you think?” Charlie said. “I mean, in getting into the adoption business. If there’s a shortage of something there’s money to be made, right?”

“We knew people who were in the business,” Mrs. Mittleman said. “As a matter of fact, we were once offered a good black-market baby but—”

“Shush,” Mr. Mittleman said.

“Jewish parents want Jewish kids, right?” Charlie said. “So if we—”

“It’s not funny,” Mr. Mittleman said. “We shouldn’t make jokes with the boy sitting here.”

Charlie looked at the screen more intently, trying to see himself as a boy. He remembered Adoption Day, when they’d all act as crazy as they could, so nobody would take them. He had always appeared with different color socks, his pants inside out, his fly open. Murray would stuff food in his mouth at breakfast and save it there until it was time—and then let it drool out. Charlie laughed, seeing Irving, slowly unbuckling his belt in front of some of the “buyers,” as they’d called them, to show he was a genuine Jewish boy.

“We used to act nuts on Adoption Day,” he said aloud. “We didn’t want to leave one another. Nobody ever took any of us home, from our group.”

“There are only twelve boys left, without me,” Danny said. “We haven’t had a new boy for over two years.”

Mr. Mittleman turned to Danny. “Tell me,” he said. “Just from looking at me, how much money would you say I’m worth?”

“The very young kids got taken fast,” Charlie went on, “but once you got past five or six you were safe.”

“Poor boys,” Mrs. Mittleman said.

Charlie shook his head and smiled at Danny. “No,” he said. “That’s where you’re wrong. We loved it there. You know what Murray always says—the Home ruined all of us for life in the world. We had everything we needed back there, is his theory—all the things families don’t give to people anymore.”

“I’m not worth anything,” Mr. Mittleman said to Danny.

A small girl ran across the screen, chasing bubbles. “Don’t believe everything Max tells you,” Charlie said to Danny.

Danny smiled. I wish Charlie was the father of Murray’s children, he thought.

On the screen the camera zoomed in on Oscar’s father. He was sitting on a wooden chair, sideways, showing no interest in his grandson. Danny recognized him as having the face of the young man who had thrown the boy toward the ceiling. He was very old and he wore round silver sunglasses and a khaki windbreaker. The collar was turned up and buttoned across his throat. On one side of his neck there was a bulge of skin—a goiter like a hand grenade—and Danny gagged on his milk, felt some of it come through his nose.

“He looks like death,” Mrs. Mittleman said. “I asked you not to take his picture.” She handed Danny another napkin and left the room.

“Here’s your answer,” Mr. Mittleman said. “I’m not worth anything until I sell.”

Charlie imagined a movie about the Home, with Sol going around the country to see all his old boys. The movie could tell the story of his last trip. Charlie saw Sol calling each of his boys, but they all gave excuses. There would be flashbacks to the boys when they’d been kids at the Home, and when they’d been starting out in life with their families and jobs and Sol had helped them.

Charlie imagined the film playing in theaters, with the proceeds going to save the Home. There could be a kid in the movie with a camera who turned out to be the guy who decided to make the movie about the Home in order to raise the funds to save it. But Jerry the waiter would be the only one who would agree to see Sol. The flashbacks and cross-country scenes and scenes of the Home could alternate with the nine races at Hialeah, and at the end of the ninth race—Charlie leaned forward—when Sol and Jerry were laughing at what a good time they’d had, and in the middle of a big crowd pressing to the payoff windows, Sol would be struck down with a heart attack.

“What?” Charlie said, aloud, and he stood. The camera was moving up and away and Charlie couldn’t find Sol’s face in the crowd. He stood next to Danny and touched the boy’s hair, lightly.

“The boy thinks you’re special,” Mr. Mittleman said. “You shouldn’t disappoint him.”

The lights were on and Danny felt dizzy. He remembered how good he had felt on the hill a few hours before, when things were beginning. “I told you to come have your chicken,” Mrs. Mittleman said. “It’s warm.” Mr. Mittleman unhooked the screen, then put the projector away in a closet and told Charlie he was going back to work. When he was gone Mrs. Mittleman sighed and said he’d be up all night. She asked Charlie what she should do about him.

When Danny opened his eyes he heard ringing and smelled smoke. He thought of Larry and the other boys puffing cigarettes in their secret hideout. The inside of his mouth was dry from the chicken. Mr. Mittleman sat at a desk across the room, looking directly at him.

“Good morning,” Mr. Mittleman said.

Charlie was on the telephone, telling a man that he knew what a big step it was to buy a house. “But let me put it this way,” he said. “If I came up to you in the street and handed you a five-thousand-dollar bill, would you tell me you needed time to think it over?”

Danny rested in a corner of the easy chair. His back was damp from perspiration. The last thing he remembered hearing was a discussion between Mr. Mittleman and Charlie about a piece of property. Charlie had asked Danny to pay attention—to memorize Mittleman’s words.

Mr. Mittleman picked up the phone on his desk. “Abe, this is Max. Listen to my boy Charlie. He’s giving you the deal of a lifetime.”

Mr. Mittleman hung up. Danny stared at a wall of photos—houses, with prices, tacked to corkboard. He went over the things Mr. Mittleman had explained.

Charlie was listening, then smiling. He told the man to come in the next day and settle the details with Mr. Mittleman.

“I don’t know why we bother with the houses,” Mr. Mittleman said when Charlie had hung up. “They take up so much time, and for what? It’s all cats and dogs.”

Charlie looked at Danny. “You feel okay?” he asked.

“I’m all right,” Danny said, and found that he was saying something he’d been half thinking when he awoke. “I wish you were still married.”

“Me too,” Charlie said.

“Wonderful,” Mr. Mittleman said to Danny. “Tell me, when you grow up, what do you want to be—a Jewish mother?”

“Lay off,” Charlie said. “He’s had a long day, coming all the way from the city to find me.”

Mr. Mittleman shrugged. Danny stared at the photo of John and Jacqueline Kennedy on the desk. “In all our years of marriage,” Mr. Mittleman said, “the most important thing that ever happened to us was John F. Kennedy’s death.”

“Come on,” Charlie said, starting to pull Danny from the chair. “We’ll get you to sleep.”

Danny pushed Charlie away. “I’m okay. Leave me alone.”

“It was an experience we could share,” Mr. Mittleman said. “We made a scrapbook together.”

“You look so tired,” Charlie said to Danny.

Danny glared at Mr. Mittleman. “High borrowing reduces cash flow,” he recited. “Depreciation not only develops a cash flow which is not taxable but it helps develop losses to offset other income. The important thing is to enhance proceeds and postpone taxes. Rabbi Akiba said, ‘The more flesh, the more worms. The more possessions, the more worry….”’

“Hey!” Charlie shouted, the tip of his nose in Danny’s face. “Hey!”

“I’m sorry,” Danny said, blinking.

Mr. Mittleman seemed puzzled. “Tell me-how old did you say you were?”

“I’ll be thirteen soon.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I told you to lay off,” Charlie said.

“We should go over this before you sleep,” Mr. Mittleman said, opening a book. “We have a good profit on the property, but if we sell, we want to avoid tax, right? What to do—we mortgage the property and sell it subject to the mortgage, taking back a second mortgage for you for the remainder of the purchase price. You don’t mind, do you? You’ll have the cash from the first mortgage in your pocket and you can take installment reporting to avoid having cash this year.”

“Whatever you say,” Charlie said.

Mr. Mittleman closed the book, put it aside, and picked up a folder. “You shouldn’t worry, young man. It’s very Jewish to be a landlord. It’s a tradition.”

Then Charlie and Mr. Mittleman talked about the project Danny remembered hearing them talk about earlier—buying land for a shopping center, near the George Washington Bridge. Mr. Mittleman said the property was zoned residential now, but that he had assurances, and that it would cost Charlie eight thousand to pay for the assurances. Mr. Mittleman looked at Danny and spoke for his benefit. “Where land is bought at residential prices and rezoned for commercial purposes,” he said, “the benefits are extraordinary. Your friend is into a good thing. The land costs are low in relation to the cost of improvements, so that we have wonderful depreciation built right in—” He turned a loose-leaf book around, for Charlie to look at. “Here are the figures.”

Charlie waved him away and spoke to Danny. “Come on.”

“You should look at them,” Mr. Mittleman said.

Charlie winked at Danny. “What for? I told you a hundred times—I’m a counter, not an accountant.”

“So?”

“I believe in money, not figures. You know that.” He went to the door, and Danny followed him. “I keep all my money tied up in cash.”

“It’s one way to do business,” Mr. Mittleman conceded.

Charlie switched on the light at the top of the stairs and entered the room. From the other side of a large double bed Danny heard a metallic sound, then saw a head rise up. “It’s only me, darling,” Mrs. Mittleman said. She wore a pink flannel nightgown. “I heard you coming and I remembered that I forgot to see if the cot was underneath your bed. It must be in the cellar.”

“Forget it,” Charlie said. “We’ll sleep together-like old times at the Home, right?”

“But wouldn’t you both be more comfortable—? I can get it myself. It won’t be a bother….”

The room impressed Danny as having been decorated not for a son but for a daughter. The bedspread was robin’s-egg blue, and the curtains, at the far end of the room, were white with blue trim. The furniture was made of shiny blond wood, and the only item that seemed meant especially for Charlie was a modern black leather easy chair. Charlie opened a closet and took out a bridge chair, unfolding it and setting it beside the bed. “Danny can use this for his clothes tonight. We’ll get him some new ones soon. I’ll make room.” He went to his desk, marked the item on a list.

“But it won’t be any trouble.”

“Just leave us be, all right?” Charlie said sharply, and Mrs. Mittleman backed toward the door. “I told you before that I didn’t like you nosing around in here. I take care of things.”

“I didn’t mean to interfere,” she said. “Wouldn’t I do the same if my son brought a friend home?”

“You don’t have a son.”

“I just wanted you and—” she hesitated, then spoke coldly “—your friend to be comfortable.”

“You meant well,” Charlie said. “You always do.”

Mrs. Mittleman left, and Charlie cursed. “Shit,” he said, “why does she get to me? Why do I let her—?”

Danny sat on the chair, unlacing his shoes. “What’s depreciation?” he asked.

“I’ll explain tomorrow—it’ll be easier when we can look at real buildings.” He sat at his desk. “I have some things to do first, so you get to sleep now.”

Danny slipped out of his shirt and climbed into bed. The sheets were cold and smooth. He pulled the cover to his chin. He dozed, then woke, and he watched Charlie at his desk, writing. He was glad he hadn’t fallen asleep completely; he remembered now to say the Shema to himself: Hear O Israel the Lord Our God the Lord is One…. Then he reviewed the things he’d learned. He wanted to be able to keep all the sayings he’d memorized in his head at once, but he wondered if there would, after a while, be enough room. He thought of getting out of bed and writing in his notebook, but he decided that it might scare Charlie if he did.

When the lights were out and Charlie was in bed, Danny spoke. “I’m glad I was right—that you do buy and sell land. I think I can help you.”

“I’ll bet you can,” Charlie said, but he was drifting off to sleep.

“I think I know how you can get a lot of money.”

“You impressed Max with what you memorized—that’s something.”

“I mean it. But you have to swear to me first that you won’t send me back.” Danny laughed.

Charlie smiled. “Sure,” he said. “No deposit, no return, right?”

Danny propped himself up on an elbow. Charlie’s half of the bed sloped downward, from his weight. Charlie was turned away from him, on his side. “I mean it,” Danny said. “Swear it to me.”

“Let me sleep, okay?”

“Swear it. Please.”

“Okay, okay. I swear.”

“All right,” Danny said, and he lay back down, smiling. “I know something and it’s this: Dr. Fogel has over three thousand acres of land.”