The Jew's Wife & Other Stories by Thomas J. Hubschman Page B

his car problems, but was afraid that if he mentioned the
breakdown he would be drawn into telling everything that
followed—or worse, attempting to cover it up. There was time for
all that later. He asked about Charlie’s house.
       “ Bought
it last year. Got tired of wondering every year where to spend my
vacation,” he said, straight-arming the steering wheel. “We still
take a little trip out of state now and then. But I do enough
traveling for my job. When I get a couple weeks off, I like to know
there’s a place waiting where all I have to do is open the door and
step out on the beach.”
       “You’re an engineer, but I don’t
remember what kind.”
       “Civil,” he said, grinning
sheepishly. “Just like my daddy.”
        He
shifted to a lower gear, though the priest saw no crossroad to turn
onto. The car braked suddenly, locking the restraining belts across
their chests, then turned sharply onto a dirt—it looked more like
sand—road. Unlike the path Anne-Marie had turned down, this one was
free of any confining vegetation. It was sand and sand dune all
around. A few hundred yards further in—east, if his sense of
direction was working—stood a scattering of houses, not
single-level bungalows like those in Fords Pointe, but customized
structures the like of which he had seen only in magazines. The
road ended at a clearing behind one of them.
       “ Not
this one,” Charlie said, turning off the engine. “I wish. This
baby’s solar-heated, finished basement...the works.”
        They
climbed to the top of a big dune, then descended into a valley of
sand, keeping to an almost submerged boardwalk. Father Walther had
read somewhere that dunes “wandered,” sometimes covering entire
houses. He wondered if parked cars ever suffered the same
fate.
        At the
top of a second rise the sea came into view. The priest paused, his
black vinyl suitcase in hand. He had seen the ocean during a bus
outing just the previous Saturday. But that was Asbury Park, and he
had been too busy keeping an eye on his altar boys to admire it.
Besides, this was a different stretch of water entirely, almost a
different ocean—a free, untamed Atlantic, not just the backdrop to
a crowded boardwalk and badly littered beach. He stood admiring the
play of sunlight on waves and the darkening sky to the
east.
       “ This is
it,” Charlie said when Father Walther joined him on the next set of
dunes, his shoes now full of sand. To his eye the structure ahead
looked no less grand than the one Charlie had just coveted. It
stood three stories high if you counted the substructure anchoring
it to the sand, and the front had an unobstructed view of the
ocean. As he followed Charlie up a narrow wooden staircase, his
friend’s diffidence reminded him of the pose the Willets used to
strike, always insisting they were struggling just to get by, while
their neighbors were all rolling in money. Even in those days,
people assumed a moral pose in his presence, making him feel
already set apart.
        They
entered by way of a large kitchen outfitted with the latest model
stove, refrigerator, and—it was open and full of clean
china—dishwasher, all enameled in the same rust color. A young
woman (thirty had begun to look young) was removing plates from the
dishwasher. She did not turn to greet them, but because of the
energy with which she was working he suspected her lack of
hospitality was due not to bad manners but nerves.
       “ This is
Sylvia.”
        The woman dried
her hands hurriedly on the apron she was wearing over a pair of
shorts.
       “ Do I call you
Father...or what?”
       “ Richie will
do.”
        She blushed and
looked to Charlie as if hoping to catch a cue. But her husband was
already headed toward the other side of the house.
       “ I’d better
finish the tour,” Father Walther said.
        Sylvia
managed a smile, but her eyes were full.
       “ That’s
about it,” Charlie