FICTION The Brass Ring Nicholas astation: that was the word in his head. He had 2 used it once before, when young, and his father?s friend complained. ?You mean devastation, don?t you? Why don?t you write what you mean?? ?But it?s a word.? ?Vastation?? ?Yes. It?s what Catholics say, I think, when they can?t locate God. When they can?t ?nd him anywhere. It?s the absolute absence of God.? ?Except you?re Jewish,? said Meyer Rosen. ?Jews have no right to that word.? ?It?s in the language, isn?t it? The dictionary.? Frederick Hasenclever raised his voice. ?You don?t have to be a Catholic to use a dictionary.? ?1 don?t use one when I?m reading.? Meyer Rosen nodded. ?Devastation?s what you mean. That?s why you don?t sell many copies of your books.? They were standing in the living room of the Rosen apartment, by the jade plant and the Kathe Kollwitz, across from the self-portrait by Kokoschka. Kokoschka?s gaze was baleful; his eyes appeared half-closed. It was hot. The party was in honor of Frederick?s father?s sixtieth birthday, and his relatives were eating shrimp and drinking Campari and soda and white wine and exclaiming at the View of the East River from this height?how traf?c on the Triboro was crawling, how the skyline changed each year, how well he, Fred, was looking without that awful beard he wore for his book jacket picture, and did he want to look like a rabbi, and how was he liking New Hampshire, what courses did he teach? There were aunts and cousins and business partners and his younger brother, Arnold; there was cold roast beef and turkey and beet salad and pate. ?The thing I?m proudest of,? his father said?when it came time to offer a toast?? is friendship. Is my family and friends. Is the memory of my beloved wife Lilo, and how won- derful you were to us last year.? Brie?y he faltered. ?Is how much a friend my sons remain to me, and matter Nicholas Delbanco directs the M. EA. program in writing at the University of Michigan at Arm Arbor. His newest boo/e, Running in Place: Scenes from the South of France, will be publisbed by the Atlantic Mont/sly Press in July 1989. 102 TIKKUN VOL. 4, N0. 4 to each other, and I don?t say I?ve deserved it but will try. Your friendship, Meyer and Ilse, who made this occa- sion. Everyone??he raised his glass??there?s nothing you could ask I wouldn?t give you. Gladly. The suit off my back.? ?That?s because it?s worn out,? Rosen called. He was the host; the guests laughed. He was an investment banker, with a collection of Nolde watercolors in the bedroom; he and Hans Hasenclever had been friends since their shared childhood in Berlin. He wore a blue monogrammed shirt and a dark blue foulard and was taking a proprietary interest in young Freddy?s progress; he wanted to know the marketing strategies for this new novel; just because you use the word ?vastation? doesn?t mean you shouldn?t sell. . .. thought you said,? said Frederick, ?that was the reason.? ?One of them. The other is the sales force, the way they choose to market.? ?It does my heart good,? said his father, nearing, ?to see the two of you like this. Conferring together, the businessman and the artist. It meant so much to your mother?-?he squeezed Frederick?s cheek??that we should stay in touch. That?s what they mean by present. A gift. To see you here this way.? have to leave, Dad. Soon. First thing in the morning, I mean.? ?You hear that?? Rosen chortled. ?All those shiksa horse-girls in the hills. Our Freddy is spreading the word. Our Freddy is ?lling their heads. Go with God,? he said. ?And then may God help you. ?Vastation.?? Northeastern and Amherst and ?nally Columbia. His father died. Arnold moved to the West Coast. Meyer Rosen, too, was dead?though Fred heard this only second-hand and somehow imagined the old man, a fatter, less placid Bernard Baruch dispensing strict opinion still from the park bench by the river. He smoked cigars, then a pipe. He married one of his students?an Episcopalian from St. Paul, whose paper on Fitzgerald had been suffused, he wrote her on the margin, with an insider?s insight. Sarah came to his office next morning. ?Why did you say that?? she asked. or twenty-?ve years he did teach, moving to ?What exactly did you mean?? She ?ngered the fringe of her skirt. Their marriage was childless; it lasted three years. She left him for a contractor from Minneapolis with whom she had gone sailing and played hockey as a girl. Colin had been waiting; he was her one true beau. Frederick, by contrast, with his ?Jewish bonanzas of mouth-love,? was simply not her scene. She had been reading ?The Time of Her Time.? If she left now, Sarah told him, she could go with no hard feelings or regrets. She read Werner Erhard, too. She knew it would be painful, but they could let bygones be bygones, and there?s no time like the present to start with the rest of your life. Two years later he married again?~this time a divorcee with three children of her own. Lavinia owned a fabric import firm and an apartment on Park Avenue into which he barely with his additional records and bulky red Selectric, and his books. She liked the fact that he worked at home and could answer the phone; she loved the way he got on with the kids. And he did enjoy the ritual of making lunch and helping with home- work and meeting them for ice cream and then coffee and then cocktails while Lavinia was traveling; he stayed while she made buying trips to Bangkok and Bombay. Once he joined her, and his gleaming lacquered wife seemed scarcely less foreign to Frederick than the sari- swathed hostess at the Ashoka Hotel. He was, he realized piercingly, alone and far from home; he had ?own across the world to join a woman in New Delhi of whose history he was as innocent as the woman handing him his key. When they divorced, in 1982, it was uncontested; he was ?fty and bearded again and issueless, the author of six books. His reputation, if small, felt nonetheless secure; he had twice been nominated for the American Book Award. He contributed to literary quarterlies and joined sym- posia and, having received grants himself, dispensed them for the National Endowment for the Arts or the Bush Foundation; it was a pleasure, he would say, to give other folks? money away. He lived on Claremont Avenue, in a Columbia-owned apartment, and watched with what he thought of as dispassion while his students grew famous and rich. Their pictures were in magazines, often?People, Newsweek, Esquire, Time?and he him- self would sometimes be mentioned as having put the seal of his approval on their prose. He went to movies based on their books, or for which they wrote the screenplays, and their publishers sent him the glossy promotional packets that heralded success. They stared at him?the girls, the gifted boys?from supermarket racks. His own work appeared without fanfare, and sometimes he remembered Rosen?s bluff conviction that the market could be rigged. As he settled more and more into middle age (his morning bagel in the toaster oven, his decaffeinated blend from Zabar?s, his baldness no longer a sorrow), Hasenclever asked himself if he had missed some turning, or failed to face some challenge; his most recent novel was titled The Brass Ring. The book was about a German- Jewish refugee who changes his last name in order to succeed. He does so, in the advertising business, but then discovers that his lack of honesty has barred him from promotion; the owner of the agency is an old Ger- man Jew. The two of them engage in discussion, wrote the reviewer for the Nation, ?bordering on the Talmudic. These authenticity mavens have a sideline in TV. What seems at stake in Hasenclever?s work is the quiddity of things, the suchness of gesture as act. And his elusive hero is not quite the protagonist, nor even the old mogul Lehrman. We sense a shadowy third ?gure?the one who grabs the ring, the carousel horseman with prayer shawl and peyes, the groping compassionate self. . . Was there mockery in this? What in heaven?s name, he asked himself, did the reviewer mean by ?quiddity of things?? What shadowy ?elusive hero? co?uld he have created, and what sort of ?devotional author??a tag from the review in Newsday?has no faith in God? That a writer is his own worst critic may be conventional wisdom, but it is nonetheless wrong. Hasenclever knew himself; he was fifty-six years old, farsighted, and there was nothing to see. with the It was January 3. He had flown in from Seattle and felt ?punk? all ?ight, as if the pressure in the cabin were calibrated wrongly; he went straight to the hotel. He took aspirin, drank scotch. When he tried to stand, his feet hurt so badly he could not stay on them. He tried to dominate the pain and distract himself by walking in the hall. Then he kept his feet above his head. He stood on his head; he took cold and scalding baths. His knees felt as though they were crushed. He took a taxi to the emergency room of the nearest hospital and was barely conscious by the time he arrived. They saved his life. He pieced all this together later, lying in intensive care unable to breathe, speak, or move. He had what was variously described as Acute Idiopathic Polyneuritis and Landry?s Ascending Paralysis and Guillain-Barr? He could move his eye- lids; that was all. He conveyed his needs by blinking while the nurse held up a chart. It could take him half an hour to spell, ?Right elbow,? for instance, or ?Rub foot.? The prognosis was uncertain; those who did not die at once had a chance of full recovery. The recuperation period could last up to two years. After three weeks of intensive care, he was transferred to the Institute for I New York for an audition, Arnold came down FICTION 103 Rehabilitation Medicine, the ?Rusk.? He w0uld improve. Hasenclever learned all this from Arnold?s third wife, Ginger; her voice was reedy, high. Ginger was calling from Phoenix. She and Arnold had been separated for six months. She was living with a systems analyst for an engineering ?rm in Phoenix; he gave her a sense of security that Arnold never gave. ?He wants to see you,? Ginger said. ?He?s ready for company now? ?Company?? called. I was up there just last weekend.? ?I?m sorry. I was out of town.? ?Don?t worry. He?s insured.? ?Will he know me?? Hasenclever coiled the cord. ?Why didn?t I know this before?? ?He has trouble focusing. He didn?t want to worry you. He?s lost a lot of weight.? ?Is there something I can do for him? Bring, I mean?? ?Chocolate. You mustn?t be shocked.? He tried to imagine a catheter, a tracheostomy, a view dictated by the pillow?s placement at the neck. ?And now he?s being wonderful. He?s got his sweet tooth back.? Her voice changed pitch, increased. ?His eyes, Fred, it?s astonishing. They positively shine.? The cord was black. ?He wanted me to let you know. He didn?t want a visit when it was so terrible. He?s getting better now.? ?Yes.? was named as the person to contact, but you?re the next of kin.? He pressed his nose. He closed one and saw only the flat of his hand. They had played tennis together. They are and gesticulated and collected each other at airports with a shared assumption of mobility so common as to go unnoticed until gone. Room 304 had ?ve beds. A nurse was lifting Arnold?s leg. She lowered it and covered it with sheets. His face was bright. He needed a shave. The ?ush on his cheeks made it appear as if he had been exercising or out in the sun. He turned his head. He could do that. ?Well, well,? he said. ?Look who?s here. About time, schmuck.? His voice was a rough whisper. There was a tube in his throat; another tube curved down toWard his mouth. ?I?m Susan,? said the nurse. ?You?re his brother, right? We haven?t met.? ?Hello.? ?This is a good time,? she said. ?I'was just finishing.? ?Bye-bye,? said Arnold. He said it audibly. ?See you tomorrow.? ?Same time, same station. If you don?t stand me up.? wouldn?t do that.? ?One day you will,? Susan said. ?I?ll be coming here to work and you?ll be in the Bahamas.? ?I?d take you with me, darling.? 104 TIKKUN VOL. 4, No. 4 ?They all say that.? She took an armful of linen from the chair by the bed. She blew a kiss and moved away. Hasenclever sat. ?She?s wonderful,? said Arnold. ?Everyone?s been wonderful.? He loosened his tie. ?That?s impressive.? ?Wonderful. They had to turn me every six hours. Maybe more often?I lose track of time. But I never lost the knowledge of how wonderful they were.? His eyes glistened; he did seem grateful. ?Tell me everything,? he said. brought you chocolate. Ginger told me to fatten you up.? ?For the kill,? said Arnold. ?That must be what she means.? He slipped two Toblerone bars out of his jacket pocket. His brother, like their uncle, had blue eyes. ?That?s wonderful,? said Arnold. ?Perfect.? ?Would you like some?? ?No. Not now.? In?nitesimally, he shifted his head. ?Put it in the drawer over there.? Then there was silence between them. Hasenclever heard a television behind a curtain in the room. Someone muttered, sleeping; a wheelchair hummed past. Arnold demonstrated the workings of the tube beside his mouth. He sucked and spat at it, and the television turned on. He made sucking motions, and the channel switched. So did the volume and contrast control. Then he spat decisively and the machine went blank. ?Tell me when you?re tired. I don?t want to tire you out.? ?Five minutes.? ?As long as you want.? knew I wouldn?t get the part. There?s nothing for me in New York. I don?t even know why I came.? The blue intensity of Arnold?s gaze had slackened. His speech slurred. Hasenclever said, ?I?m going now,? and he did not object. ?Come back,? he said. ?You can watch me work my automatic reader. It turns the page. It does everything but tell me what to read.? ?Take care of yourself.? ?Yes.? ?Not to worry.? He patted the bed. ?You?ll be doing Errol remakes. You?ll be turning cartwheels. . . Arnold made no answer. Hasenclever left. Two women in wheelchairs had come face to face by the ?rst nurses? station; they could not negotiate the turn. They backed away from each other, then forward, like bumper cars at Playland or a county fair. A travel poster for Biarritz hung in the waiting room, as did a poster of Sesame Street?s Big Bird. He pressed the elevator button re- peatedly, waiting. By the gift shoppe he breathed freely and waved at the policeman. A one-armed violin player, his bow held in his mouth, took money in a hat. told the cab to let him off on Thirty-fourth Street and Second Avenue. Then he walked. Weekend fathers stood in line for that day?s double feature or?as spring progressed?bought hot dogs and pretzels at a soubrette. Inside, the elevator might disgorge a bald Black legless woman laughing. ?The phone,? the woman told him. got to use the phone.? On the second ?oor a man with a walker would enter; he made a sound repeatedly, spraying. Por?rio in the bed beside Arnold was a double amputee. He cried out in Spanish, sleeping; he beat at the bed with his ?sts. A green cart made delivery of what looked like fruit. It had had, his brother told him, the ?avor of a dream. There was a night nurse whose right arm Arnold focused on: the puckering ?esh at the elbow, the bracelets and wrist. At ?rst he did not know the date or time or, absolutely, where he lay; he had seven doctors. They had announced their number as if there were safety in numbers and he would be reassured. They succeeded each other, conferring; they stood at the foot of his bed. Often there were students also?deferential, intense, wielding clipboards. They turned him cautiously. They could help him, he had been certain; they knew what was wrong and the procedures by which he could and would be cured. They raised his feet and rotated his arm and sponged him down and asked him, if he under- stood, -to signify by blinking. He blinked. This was an involuntary mechanism as well as voluntary, however, and sometimes when he blinked they asked him please to blink again while they consulted the chart. The danger of not blinking is that you go blind. Arnold gained weight. He covered his mouth while he ate. He could eat salami, but he had trouble with crackers. He learned to open jars and cans, and he cut out coupons and stirred jello in physical therapy; he drank from a wine glass because of the stem. He had periodic spasms of exhaustion, but his progress was surprising, week by month. He had focused purely on working his way back to health. Frederick admired this resolve. Still, there did seem something fretful about the way he exercised and ate, as if his comfort and well-being were of universal interest. He hoped to pass unnoticed in the street. But he also expected to be made much of, fussed over; he wanted to be left alone and also wanted pampering. He was happy hearing musichershwin, early Mozart, the Goldberg variations. Frederick pur- chased a Walkman, and brought tapes. His brother sat in the wheelchair leafing through books: the auto- biography of Alec Guinness, photographs of Burma or by Margaret Bourke-White. He studied faces intently but seemed unwilling to read. His eyes were weak, he said. The once animal exuberance about him had gone. rederick went often to the Rusk. Wanting air, he ?My artistic children,? their father liked to say. ?My writer and my actor. Thank heaven you won?t starve.? Arnold liked performing, even in high school, and studied jazz dancing and how to stage fights. He had been a gymnast?tight, springy-muscled, strong on the parallel bars. Frederick, the studious one, had not known what to make of this dervish?Arnold on the diving board or parapet?since he did not like diving and feared heights. Laurence Olivier, according to Arnold, said an actor requires physical strength; it is the ?rst tool of the trade. His parents? generation died in Bergen?Belsen 0r Dachau. His generation died of myocardial infarction or lung cancer; or they died hy their own hands. He went to Juilliard and LAMDA and joined repertory companies in Chicago, San Francisco, and Seattle; he never did play Romeo or Hamlet, and now he was missing Macbeth. That was how he measured age; he hadn?t given up quite yet on Prospero or Lear. Not that he played Shakespeare much, but Shakespeare wrote a part for every age of actor; you could measure your life by his parts. Meantime, Arnold worked. He did the odd commercial and the sidekick in a series that ran for eighteen episodes; Billy and the DA. had been the name of the show. Once Hasenclever, late at night, saw him on TV. His brother was being a drunk. He said ?Melancholy baby? often to the pianist; he rolled his eyes and tugged at his collar and slurred, ?Play me one for the road. One more time.? he maimed were everywhere about the Rusk, pitching themselves at the traf?c or bravely up on skateboards or sunning in wheelchairs in doorways. He saw his brother routinely; the policemen in the lobby knew Hasenclever?s name. Arnold improved. Visiting hours were late, and often there were others in the room?though not often there for him. Arnold?s roommates came from Puerto Rico and had large families. Their daughters played canasta every day. Por?rio, who had no legs, was excellent at cards; he had worked as a croupier. At times the men met in the hall. ?Are they crowding you?? asked Frederick. His brother shook his head. ?The first thing you get rid of is the need for privacy. That goes so quickly you wouldn?t believe it.? ?What next?? ?Pride.? FICTION 105 ?You should be proud of yourself.? Arnold smiled. He used a wheelchair now that he could guide by buttons. ?It?s slow.? ??Slow but steady wins the race.? He ceased smiling. The play of attitude across his face seemed somehow volitional, as if he prepared him- self to frown, then frowned. The elevator opened. A woman on a hospital bed lifted her right hand. She did not move her head. The linoleum was marbled, mottled: red and black. ?You?re getting better.? ?Yes.? ?Remember what Dad used to say? ?LVezm Man ez'ne Operation durc/Jgemacbt bat, dann [creme/9t Man ez'n bz?cben Erbolung.? don?t remember, no.? ?After an operation, it takes time to recover.? ?Now tell me how much I?ve grown,? Arnold said. ?Since the last time you visited, tell me how grown-up I seem.? ?I?m sorry.? ?Don?t be.? ?Are you in pain?? He shook his head. When they ?rst brought him to his bed, he fell asleep; when he woke the pain was gone. He had felt nothing else, except in the ?procedures?? the nasogastric tube replacement, lumbar puncture, EMG. What he felt was shock, drugged puzzlement, a disembodied ?oating that was like relief. ?How long will they keep you?? ?Here?? ?Yes.? ?I?ve got to ?gure out,? said Arnold, ?where to go to next. And when I stop improving, that?s when I get sprung.? A Black orderly with an anchor on his forearm cuffed the wheelchair. ?Hey,? he said. ?How goes it?? ?It goes.? Hasenclever rolled his wrist so he could check his watch: six-sixteen. ?It?s boring,? Arnold said. ?You can?t imagine how boring this is. I can beat an egg by now. And I?m sanding wood. They change the sandpaper each week, so it takes more strength. I position checkers on a checkerboard.? ?Do you swim?? little. Mostly in the pool I practice how to walk. And then there?s the tilt table. They?ve got me at ninety degrees.? The note of pride and the exacting accuracy were familiar; he seemed truly on the mend. The Puerto Ricans laughed. They crowded to the elevator, bearing pineapples. ?I?ll take you,? Frederick said. ?If you 106 TIKKUN VOL. 4, No. 4 want a place to stay when you get out of here, you come with me.? Arnold turned his wheelchair. His room was the fourth on the right. ?It?s kind of you.? The writer stood. He adjusted his sleeve. Each gesture felt adroit to him, the coordination ?uent to the point of mockery. mean it. You can stay.? eracination, he told his students, is the com- monplace condition of contemporary man. It is the rule, not the exception, in our mobile time. How many of us live where our parents? parents did, and have no need to improvise an answer to the question, ?Where do you come from? Where?s home?? The executive and migrant worker are alike in this. Voluntary exile is a subtle, sapping thing. The tree dissevered from the root can take a transplant, possibly, but the root system must be handled with some care. By April, using crutches, Arnold managed stairs. There were none in the apartment. There were hallway runners, however, and the doorjamb to the bathroom was pronounced. Hasenclever studied the rooms closely to see how his brother might He prepared what used to be the maid?s room and was now a storage closet. The apartment faced a corner: south and east. Experts from the hospital arrived on May 15?in order to evaluate facilities, they said. A brother and sister, Koreans, they came from the outskirts of Seoul. ?This is a most nice apartment,? they chorused, shedding coats. He tried to examine the space with their eyes, to see what they, measuring, saw. They told him that the patient would be ambulatory but would require handle insets in the shower stall. Arnold could arrange his transfer from the wheelchair with a transfer board; he had practiced getting into and getting out of cars. They had a sample kitchen on the ?rst ?oor of the Institute, as well as a model living room and bedroom and dinette and bath. The rollaway bed was too low. It should be set on blocks. The passage to the kitchen would be dif?cult to manage, and Hasenclever should remember that the patient would have dif?culty lifting food from the refrig- erator shelf. This would not continue. His provisions should be stored?the juice half-poured, the cereal measured, the berries within easy reach?on the bottom shelf. ?The juice half-poured?? he questioned them, and they nodded, smiling: half a glass. Frederick agreed. His guests accepted tea. Only while they measured the kitchen table?s height did he start to say that such precision seemed excessive; Arnold had a life elsewhere, and would leave. But as they left him, bowing, nodding, it came clear to him the stay would be inde?nite. He would be his brother?s keeper, he told the Koreans. They laughed. He was working on a book about a country of the mind called ?Brasil.? It was a nation ruled by a provisional junta, but the junta did want unity, so there was perfect union?if provisional, if ?eeting?in city and in country, for the elderly and youthful, male and female, rich and poor. Such distinctions fell away. The artisan?the man in a wine shop, fresh from his potter?s wheel or lathe, come to dispute at noon?might also be a senator or scholar or priest. Here ?ourished just such a union of the political, artistic, and religious life as Yeats dreamed in A Vision might have occurred in Byzantium. Yet you can?t go back to Constantinople?so Hasenclever?s hero sang. We?ve changed its name. We call it, now, Brasil. I thought they call it Istanbul, said his antagonist; on my map that?s how it?s spelled. The traveler ?ourished his atlas, explaining. Here?s the White Sea, Vastation, and here the Despond Slough. Leander swam the Helles- pont, using something like a to gain his promised land. 0 ye of little faith, said Hasenclever?s hero, though you close your eyes it is not night; that you fail to hear a waterfall does not render the waterfall silent. The citizens of our republic listen for a music that is not a marching band?s. I admire such a passion, said the girl. Indeed, it feels exciting?here she squeezed his hand?but I don?t know how to swim yet and don?t trust the vasty deep. She ran her ?ngertips lingeringly down the skin graft on his forearm where the numbers had been burned. Trust it, says the artisan, and pours unwatered wine. brought balloons and streamers. He fes- tooned the entrance foyer, as if for a child?s birthday, crisscrossing crepe paper at the center. It formed a canopy. The colors were pastel: yellow, orange, white, and green. He cut the letters WELCOME out of colored paper, draping the sign from the crepe. He bought noisemakers and leis and conical paper hats and Taittinger champagne. He bought more cheese and salami than they could possibly eat. Hasenclever worked in what he recognized as a frenzy of avoidance, rolling back the rugs. He diced onions and hard-boiled eggs for caviar; he put two bottles of the Taittinger on ice. He cut lemon into wedges, placed the caviar and sour cream in bowls, unwrapped the melba toast. When Arnold arrived he was waiting. The buzzer announced him. He went to the door. An attendant stood behind the wheelchair. They both were wearing raincoats, and Arnold had a lap robe also. Its pattern was tartan, its colors green and black. His cheeks were red. He had been recently shaved. There were indentations at his temples; his lower lip slanted, his eyes seemed half shut. ?We made it,? the attendant said. ?I?m Bob.? ?You made it,? the writer repeated, and Arnold said, ?Hello.? The balloons were an embarrassment. The crepe was in the way He wheeled toward the WELCOME sign and stopped before it, staring. Bob said he was heading out and Arnie was a trooper and ought to take it slow. You ought to seen him leaving? all those nurses kissing him, that candy he left at the desk. Hasenclever gave him twenty dollars, and Bob straightened his cap and withdrew. The chandelier was on a rheostat. He increased the light. ?You know what Susan asked me? ?How many assholes have you met?twenty, twenty-?ve?? Arnold?s voice was low. said I used to meet that many every morning; I must have known ten thousand in my life. And she said, ?Guess what, every one of those assholes can walk.? He shook himself out of his coat. Frederick retrieved it. ?Are you hungry?? ?Let?s go into the living room,? he said. The carpet that he thought of as too thin was an encumbrance. He steered his brother to the coffee table, angling widely past the couch. Then Arnold transferred to the couch. He rearranged his feet. Arnold was crying, he saw, had been crying since arrival, making sounds in his throat as if a bone were caught there. Hasenclever bent above him, but he shook his head. He ?ed to get the caviar, the salami and champagne. In the kitchen, too, time telescoped. He saw his parents everywhere, as if they were alive. His mother and his father washed their hands. Lilo stood in the kitchen, complaining about the fashion in which her husband cracked eggs; he was spilling the egg yolk over the rim of the bowl and was careless of the shell. ?It?s good for the digestion,? Hans proclaimed. ?You don?t want too much egg yolk. You use too much salt.? Repeatedly the writer asked himself if he had failed them, how he failed; what was Arnold doing somewhere else and therefore unprotected? Could he have protected him? Could it have been helped? A baby passes by a stove and reaches'for the kettle and is scarred for life; a second?s hesitation at the crossroads and the train keeps coming and the driver dies. Lavinia?s children were grown. They sent him birthday cards. Between them, the brothers had married five times. He made his way back to the living room, balancing the tray. Arnold had recovered. A blue balloon by the window inched past the sill, then fell. Yet Hasenclever had been spared; his life was a con- stant such sparing. Others died. They crossed the street or crossed a supermarket?s second aisle or a line they had been warned against by someone with a cross?hatched scope who lay in a duck blind or tower. They were blown up while waiting for tickets or buying magazines. FICTION 107 His parents? generation died in Bergen-Belsen or Dachau. They died in Auschwitz and Sachsenhausen and Munich and Berlin. His generation died of myocardial infarction or lung cancer or on New Year?s Eve in Saugatuck and Valentine?s Day in Nashville, skidding; they died behind the wheels of Corvairs, Rivieras, Datsuns, convertibles, jeeps. They died by their own hands. They placed their heads in ovens or jumped at onrushing subways or from the Golden Gate Bridge. They died by misadventure with the toaster; they crashed in airplanes and buses and Boston Whalers at the jetty at low tide. They used cyanide carelessly, attempting to fumigate bees. They misused the shotgun or leaf mulcher or linseed oil or heroin or ladder or the station wagon on ice. Meyer Rosen joined the party in his mind. He ap- proved of the champagne. Hasenclever opened the champagne, not popping the cork but releasing it. Then he poured. ?Go with God,? said Rosen. ?Didn?t I tell you to travel? You need a dictionary, though. Sic, Mein Herr, wie kommt Man zum Post?? ?Excuse me, sir, where is the post Ginger was doing the rhumba, or perhaps the tango; he could not be certain. She was going to Brazil, she said, or maybe Argentina; she practiced in the hall. Their mother brought a dish of mussels with a separate bowl for broth. The broth had parsley ?oating in it, and a ?eck of parsley appeared on her thumbnail. He re- membered how she diced the scallions and the garlic and the parsley, the feel of her cutting board afterward sluiced down with lemon, the buttery brine in their cups. He could taste and see and feel and smell and even hear them; they were a tactile presence, a part of him inalienably, the marrow of his bone and pith of his eyebrow and muscle and ligature and teeth. El RECOLLECTION Wherein Is Related My Encounter With a Swabian Windmill Iosep/J Edelman fter what happened I began to ask myself: ?How could an inanimate object be spiteful and malicious? How was that possible? A person, yes, but a physical object? Something made of sheet metal and steel?? But that was literally what I was up against. Here was I, a veritable Don Quixote taking my stance in a con?ict with lifeless matter. I became so pos- sessed with anger that no soft answer could turn away my wrath. I can iden- tify the source of the provocative events that put me on the ?ring line, as it were: Tyrone Carlton Gainsburgh! That was the name on the card he handed me when he moved into the French Provincial house next door. He was about ?fty, of undistinguished physi- ognomy, an engineer or, as he more ]osepb Edelman, lawyer (retired), bar bad articles, short stories, and poetry appearing in various periodicals. 108 TIKKUN VOLmissile expert.? He was also, despite the quaintness of his moniker, a Jew. Our contacts, in the main, took place across a high fence separating our respective gardens. Saturdays and Sundays he devoted to his begonias. He was a nut about begonias. One ?ne day he gave me the bene?t of his pragmatic philosophy. ?You?re retired, I heard, and you?re not yet ?fty. That?s wrong! A man should do constructive work.? ?Like missiles?? I muttered under my breath. ?Yes, indeed, a man must work,? he went on. ?And what?s more, everything about him must re?ect his character: his home, his garden, his car.? I began to shrink at the mention of the last object. He was striking home. see you drive a Chevy. That?s no car for a man like you.? ?What kind of car should a man like me drive?? I asked meekly. Mercedes, of course!? ?But it?s German.? ?Don?t be absurd. One mustn?t carry prejudices forever.? ?Unto the tenth generation,? I mur- mured, remembering the biblical im- precations. ?What did you say?? I shook my head, staring at him open-mouthed. ?We must forget the past. I married a German woman. Didn?t Israel accept almost a billion in reparations? What about Werner von Braun? Look what he?s done for our country.? His logic was irrefutable. My preju- dices vanished into the stratosphere; my resistance broke. That was the beginning of my encounter with that legendary windmill from Stuttgart, my precious Mercedes. In a matter of weeks my wife and I ?ew to that staid and sober city. Soon