But perhaps there was such a thing as the goddess Nemesis.
And could it be that one was punished not for having more, but for an awareness of it?
Was he meant to act, then, like a Christian disciple, and give all he had to the poor?
The Christians themselves didn’t act that way, and they were enjoined to. How much less appropriate, then, for a Jew? And, as he had not been so directed, why was he being punished?
For the voice said, “You have too much.”
And were there not many, many more prominent than he, richer than he? More rich? “Hell,” he thought, “more rich. I was not rich at all. Am I to be persecuted because I am not starving? I didn’t set the wages, nor the hours, and there are places within ten blocks of the factory where the girls are treated far, far worse. …”
“No, the day did not drag,” he wrote to his wife, and, “Yes, there is a satisfaction in the order of the day. I am sure that the Appeal will prevail, and I do not write that merely out of form, nor from false hope, nor out of belief in some eventual triumph of goodness or reason, or of balance in Human Affairs—though such might exist, in fact, and I don’t discount that possibility, neither embracing it, as I say, naively.
“No. I believe the Appeal will prevail, as I hold that there is a rhythm, if you will, in human intercourse, which one can see in politics, in business, or in any interaction. I see that one violent moment gives rise to its opposite, as a wave dashing on a rock, or as a sudden surge, out of all reason, in the price of a stock; or in the adoption of a style in dress.
“Violence must engender its opposite. And the rush to conclusion, absent any fact (in our case), must, given time, cause, if not an equal, a substantial outpouring of—I may say—equally unthought-out sympathy (of course I will be happy to enjoy it).
“I feel it as one feels a change in the barometer; absent all other signs. We sense the shift in human affairs with an animal sense; and I know it will be so here.
“Already I see it in the attitude of my jailers, and, more significantly, in that of my fellow inmates, who, little by little, but perceptibly, cease to look on me with that unconquerable loathing of prejudice, and commence to see me as a man.
“Perhaps I imagine it; but, no, I do not. Just yesterday a fellow told a joke, and, as I meant to move away—not to seem to wish, uninvited, to presume to be part of the group to which he intended speaking—he gestured (in the minutest way, but there was that communication nonetheless) that I was to stay.
“Which I did. Gratefully. For these are not small acts. They are, to the contrary, that by which our history is woven.
“Which brings me back to the issue of Jim; and an incident which transpired a year ago. Perhaps more. Say, a year ago, when he was leaving work, and I joked … (It was a Saturday: Is that ironic? No? Is it significant? No. Probably not, but how could I, at that point, fail to remark it? I could not, I don’t think.)
“I joked that he seemed in quite a hurry to be gone—as I would have joked with any employee, I think. For who would not be glad to be off? Anyone on Saturday. I accept it and avow their right. For why should they stay one moment longer than those for which they had contracted? And I have … I will not say ‘searched my soul,’ but ‘considered’ it, and do not feel at all that I implied anything in the least recriminatory, although it may have been the very license of financial authority which made my joking onerous.
“In any case, I joked that he must have had a full night planned; and I saw his eyes narrow, and perceived that he thought I had intended it in a suggestive way, which, before God, I did not, and I saw that he resented it ‘full sore’; as if my position permitted me pleasantry which, had he employed it, might result in penalty—perhaps in a severe penalty—to him. And I allow that, and would not, for the world, have offended him—but I saw that he was angered and that he’d remember it.
“A man wrote that we should be slow to hire and quick to fire—that if we saw an employee would be trouble at some point, we’d better discharge them then and there, paying whatever was necessary to the end of whatever contracted term, but get them removed from the premises before their attitude … (And, of course, our attitude toward them—for who could function with suspicion? Suspicion is the heaviest weight—that cumbersome anxiety, ‘Will they be obstreperous?’ and so on) … that we should remove them immediately, as the cheapest course. For if we see or suspect that they might cause trouble, that suspicion constitutes trouble in itself, which cannot be borne in a well-regulated business.
“When I saw his eyes, I felt, frankly, I had wronged him. Though I did not intend to; and although I regretted it. But one of us—well, no, I will not be facetious, I will not say, ‘One of us would have to leave.’
“He should have gone. I should have dismissed him. And I think, perhaps that I kept him on out of a feeling of obligation, as I had subjected him, as I saw that he felt, to ridicule.
“The Rabbi reminds me that we do not believe in false gods, nor in prophecy. And this comforts me, for I am disposed to wonder at the power of the ‘goddess Nemesis.’
“As I said. But sober reflection, in light of the Rabbi’s words, reminds me that she is nothing but an elaboration of my human feeling that if I had acted differently, all would be well.
“And I know that nothing I have done has brought on this occurrence—that I am not sufficiently powerful, nor is my happiness or lack of it of sufficient moment to the world, to engender this chain of events. To think so is to aggrandize my importance. I see that it is Idolatry.
“My disposition, in spite of that knowledge, to the idea of Nemesis is not magical; nor is it indication that she does, in fact, exist. It is, I know, a simple human urge to accept the attractive lie and call the power of its attraction Truth.”
He nodded to a Trusty shelving books on the far wall.
He laid the pen down on the wooden writing board. The board was scoured by years of use. “So smooth,” he thought. “And how could it become smooth other than through use? It could not.”
As he mused, the man to whom he’d nodded left the shelves and walked behind him, drew a knife from his shirt, grabbed Frank’s chin from behind, and cut his throat.