matters. You know. And he’s been telling me about his travels,” I say, breezy. “Can you take care of everything down here if we’re not finished by the time my first guest arrives?”
“I don’t like the sound of that, Hannah. You shouldn’t be going on for so long, and you know it. You’ll wear yourself out. You know how you forget things when that happens, how you start thinking things that are a little… Don’t make me get all worried about you, now, okay?”
Big-hearted thing. I’ve missed her. “I’ll be fine, Maia. I like the boy. I even thought we should invite him to the party. It might be exactly the right thing to do.” And maybe, I can admit it now, what I’ve been planning all along. So we can announce my true identity together. To the surprise and delight of my friends.
“Just don’t let him suck the life out of you, is all I’m saying. ABDs can do that.”
“Oh, I can keep going as long as I need to.”
“Mm-hmm. That’s like saying the tree can keep going while you chop some firewood.”
I turn my deaf ear to her.
*
CLIMBING UP THE POLISHED stairway is harder for me in the afternoons than it is in the mornings. I have to pull the banister toward me in a slow tug-of-war. Then have to wait for a minute on the first landing to catch my breath. From here I can look up and see half of him inside my study, not in silhouette, as when he first came, but sharply defined and slightly wrinkled at the back from already having sat so long with me. A handsome angel looking over my bookshelves. My diplomas. The various tributes for my charity work. When I sold the family properties I had, I gave most of the money away. I have always wanted to do good in this world.
I feel my heart thumping at the sudden change in level. I wait a moment at the top landing. Take another breath. All right. Ready to go.
“Finding anything good?” I smile and walk in.
“You’ve got some very fine history books here.” He turns to me. “About the war period and after.”
“Yes. Some of those were my father’s. The books in Yiddish were my mother’s.”
“But no copy of the—ah—diary?”
“Not here. I keep it beside my bed.” That’s where diaries belong. The sun is shining, the sky is deep blue, there is a lovely breeze and I’m longing—so longing—for everything…
I go behind my desk because that’s where I’m most comfortable in this room. I gesture. “Have a seat. I was obsessed with history and the law for a long time, as you can see. I wanted to understand the relationship between time and the law, between history and what is legal, what is allowed. Those are some of my books from my student days, over there. You have to treasure your student days. There’s nothing like them.” That infant time long before you know all you will ever know.
He slides his hips into the leather chair in front of me. Of course Maia wouldn’t like him; he’s not meaty enough for her. I move the birthday flowers, the wild lilies and delphiniums some of my old clients have sent me, so that they don’t block my view of him. The light from the curtained window behind me slants, hitting him on the chest.
He pushes his recording phone forward again.
“So we were up to where, you say, you left the Displaced Persons camp.”
“Yes. And I was making my way through Allied-occupied Germany. The summer of 1945. And there I joined the Berihah movement. Berihah . You might not be familiar with the word? It means ‘organized escape.’”
“I am familiar with it.”
“Oh.”
I wish I had a cigarette, suddenly, like in the old days. I really do wish, all at once, that he was Scottish, the way I’d thought he’d be. Bide a while with me. He might not like what I’m going to have to say. He might become offended again, or even hostile, and then he might not want to believe me and will try to class me with others, the Anastasias, or maybe the Shirley MacLaines. But it shouldn’t matter. Bardawil . Not
“I don’t like the sound of that, Hannah. You shouldn’t be going on for so long, and you know it. You’ll wear yourself out. You know how you forget things when that happens, how you start thinking things that are a little… Don’t make me get all worried about you, now, okay?”
Big-hearted thing. I’ve missed her. “I’ll be fine, Maia. I like the boy. I even thought we should invite him to the party. It might be exactly the right thing to do.” And maybe, I can admit it now, what I’ve been planning all along. So we can announce my true identity together. To the surprise and delight of my friends.
“Just don’t let him suck the life out of you, is all I’m saying. ABDs can do that.”
“Oh, I can keep going as long as I need to.”
“Mm-hmm. That’s like saying the tree can keep going while you chop some firewood.”
I turn my deaf ear to her.
*
CLIMBING UP THE POLISHED stairway is harder for me in the afternoons than it is in the mornings. I have to pull the banister toward me in a slow tug-of-war. Then have to wait for a minute on the first landing to catch my breath. From here I can look up and see half of him inside my study, not in silhouette, as when he first came, but sharply defined and slightly wrinkled at the back from already having sat so long with me. A handsome angel looking over my bookshelves. My diplomas. The various tributes for my charity work. When I sold the family properties I had, I gave most of the money away. I have always wanted to do good in this world.
I feel my heart thumping at the sudden change in level. I wait a moment at the top landing. Take another breath. All right. Ready to go.
“Finding anything good?” I smile and walk in.
“You’ve got some very fine history books here.” He turns to me. “About the war period and after.”
“Yes. Some of those were my father’s. The books in Yiddish were my mother’s.”
“But no copy of the—ah—diary?”
“Not here. I keep it beside my bed.” That’s where diaries belong. The sun is shining, the sky is deep blue, there is a lovely breeze and I’m longing—so longing—for everything…
I go behind my desk because that’s where I’m most comfortable in this room. I gesture. “Have a seat. I was obsessed with history and the law for a long time, as you can see. I wanted to understand the relationship between time and the law, between history and what is legal, what is allowed. Those are some of my books from my student days, over there. You have to treasure your student days. There’s nothing like them.” That infant time long before you know all you will ever know.
He slides his hips into the leather chair in front of me. Of course Maia wouldn’t like him; he’s not meaty enough for her. I move the birthday flowers, the wild lilies and delphiniums some of my old clients have sent me, so that they don’t block my view of him. The light from the curtained window behind me slants, hitting him on the chest.
He pushes his recording phone forward again.
“So we were up to where, you say, you left the Displaced Persons camp.”
“Yes. And I was making my way through Allied-occupied Germany. The summer of 1945. And there I joined the Berihah movement. Berihah . You might not be familiar with the word? It means ‘organized escape.’”
“I am familiar with it.”
“Oh.”
I wish I had a cigarette, suddenly, like in the old days. I really do wish, all at once, that he was Scottish, the way I’d thought he’d be. Bide a while with me. He might not like what I’m going to have to say. He might become offended again, or even hostile, and then he might not want to believe me and will try to class me with others, the Anastasias, or maybe the Shirley MacLaines. But it shouldn’t matter. Bardawil . Not
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